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What Space in North Carolina would draw people and would be significant to Black Community? 

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What Space in North Carolina would draw people and would be significant to Black Community? 

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What should be the funding structure and sources should we consider? 

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What should be the funding structure and sources should we consider? 

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What is a structure you think would support intimacy, vulnerability and practice radical love? 

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What is a structure you think would support intimacy, vulnerability and practice radical love? 

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What are themes you would like to see addressed at Black Love Convergence?  

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What are themes you would like to see addressed at Black Love Convergence?  

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What are potential blocks we should anticipate? 

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What are potential blocks we should anticipate? 

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Who are potential folks we should reach out to, to continue to build the vision? 

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Who are potential folks we should reach out to, to continue to build the vision? 

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How do we make the space accessible to various genders, relationship styles, sexual orientations, and beliefs about love, sex, family and intimacy? (With the hopes of people coming at different levels of "wokeness" and politicization) 

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How do we make the space accessible to various genders, relationship styles, sexual orientations, and beliefs about love, sex, family and intimacy? (With the hopes of people coming at different levels of "wokeness" and politicization) 

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Session 1 Recording

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Black: Black Love Convergence is for ALL Black people. With an intention on creating space that is affirming of Trans, GNC, Queer, Asexual, Poly, Kink, and non-heteronormative identities- we are also space for those who fall within the paradigm of heteronormativity, engage in religious spaces, come from various political backgrounds and any Black person who values openness, learning, and connection. Black is also being used as an identity marker that includes all of those of African descent despite culture, geography, or language. To ensure the inclusiveness of the term Black attention is being given to reach out and include in the shaping of this space: Mixed Race Black Folks, Afro-Latinx/o/a folks, Caribbean Black Folks, those from various countries in Africa, and other arrays of Blackness. The issue of "Black Love" is impacting us all and we have so much to learn from each other across cultural lines of how to (re)define and live Black Love as an act of resistance and freedom.

Love: For the purposes of Black Love Convergence, the definition of "love" is- all the relationships that sustain us to continue to live into freedom. These are our self-defined family connections, communities, romantic, sexual, relationships with nature, spiritual relationships,  and all intimate relationships that we cherish. For the purposes of Black Love Convergence  "Black Love" is defined as the experience of being Black and Loving. Black Love Convergence does not define "black love" as merely "Black people loving other Black people" as it would alienate large chunks of our community including some asexual folks, our mixed race siblings, those who form romantic and sexual relationships with non-black people, those who exist in chosen families with non-black people, and more.

Convergence: Often associated with permaculture communities, a convergence involves rooting itself to land, bringing resources, learning and sharing skills, and collectively working towards sustainable transformation. This is Black Love Convergence. North Carolina was chosen because of it's history of Indigenous removal and resistance, slave rebellions, Black sovereignty movements like Black Wall Street, it’s birthing of the Civil Rights Movement, Afro-Indigenous solidarity, and the current work in Black Queer Liberation, Black land ownership, anti-gentrification, and so much more. The resource of people, money, and process feel core to the "How?" of Black Love Convergence. Learning and sharing skills is the "What?" of the convergence, and co-creation of Black Love Practices is the "Why?". Black Love Convergence is also a movement building strategy- where we center love, intimacy, and vulnerability- in our resistance, liberation and freedom work. Most importantly, Black Love Convergence is a space where we all get to experience falling in love with Blackness as the greatest tool to undermine the lie of white supremacy.

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Facilitators - Eb and Monet
Agenda
Welcome and Breath
Introductions - Who are people you look to about how to do intimacy, vulnerability and love well?
Why Black Love Convergence
What is your definition of Black Love
Arts Engagement

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I love , love everyone should experience love
Nutrition - healthy living and we show our love for ourselves and one another
Black love makes me hyperventilation - arts engagement
Getting in deep with love. grounding in nutrition and music. What does mean to express my Black Love to my black people.
Black sensuality and sexuality is the most powerful force in the universe.

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The oldest form of resistance and freedom
Frankie beverly and Maze - The bottom might drop out and I am going to trust we are going to hold it down. Reminder of what's inside of me and what capitalism couldn't steal
Feeling the earth under my feet. We continue to be resilient - we continue to persist. I can breathe easy, even amidst all of what's going on we love through the cracks.
Donny Hathway - In a place space where there is no space and time. Boundless and deep, and ritch, wise, healthy, intense, it is God, it is earth
My daughter repeating every word that say. My daughter not hating where she come from. Loving being absence, wild, controlled, visceral, and systemic and what keeps us multi-tasking
Complex - as mixed race black women were the people looking out for me when my mother didn't know what to do. It's there even when it is hard to grasp. Once you get in there - you are in. But it can be challenging to get

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What are some questions would be most interested in exploring through art?

- How do we explore loving touch as an expression of Black Love (non-sexual touch, erotic touch)?
- Simultanaety - How often do we come together about pain and devastation, how often do we come together around love? How can we be with both love and struggle?
- What is the power in choosing pleasure in the face of?
- Externalizing of shame through art - shame is hidden, bringing it to life through an external process
- Shame- What happens when shame is externalized in movement? (Hurrying through places of shame on the body)

When you think about Black love what arts moments have to happen?
Food - chocolate and fruit need to be in the space, sharing of food; opportunity to cook together
Music - constant, live, add to playlist throughout the weekend (Spotify),
Dancing - line dancing,
Radical Hospitality- care having things that people need,
Drumming - Live drumming
Anonymous way to ask questions about Black Erotic/Sensuality/Sexuality Sensory Deprivation activities to help build trust and increase sensory awareness
(Contact Improv)

What are creative resources that people can take home with them?

Something that would help people re-ground (buddy, video call (dance together) in a week)
Playlists
Recipes - vegan new dishes
Zine that people filled out the entire time- Art Journals

What are images, colors, shapes?
Sunsets, Mountains, purple flowers, grills gold teeth (shiny), psychedelic yoni
butterflies, lions,
red, purple ( rich and deep), orange, white , black (absorbs all things good and not good, the embodiment of everything)
Circles
Ginger, coconut