Transcript:#1: Moving From Theory to Praxis with Mariella Saba, Sandra de la Loza, and Walela Nahenda
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Because our programming for ASSEMBLIES will happen digitally, a lot of us are calling in from different geographical locations. Just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that our digital infrastructures are also part of our physical infrastructures, right? Many of our infrastructures do carry the legacies of colonization and stolen labor and genocide that is sadly very, you know – very much a part of all of our current structures. So we want to take a moment to acknowledge that and invite you all to consider our roles and repair the colonization and action towards our collective liberation. That is exactly what we will be diving into today through ASSEMBLIES and through the next three months and beyond as we kind of explore the role of, you know, art cultural work for our collective liberation and putting that into practice together. Awesome. So welcome, everybody. With all of the logistics my name is Cesia. Pronouns are she/they. And I wanted to do a visual description before moving us on with today's agenda. So I am a brown skinned Mexicana woman, CIS woman. I have curly black hair that is pulled half up. I'm wearing glasses with long dangly earrings by Native Soll and a black long sleeve shirt. And, again, thank you all so much for being here! This is the launch of our interaction programming for the next three months. You're joining us today as part of a public – of aurora main track, our Plática, where we will be talking about the role of arts and cultural work for building the creative caring worlds that we want to see. We also have pods that we will be launching next week. So this week the public programs launch. Next week the pods launch. As we're talking about creating caring worlds, right, there's a lot of things that we need. We know we need access to housing and shelter, right? So how do we get access to dignified housing living conditions while also dismantling the practice of seeing land dispropert? If we know we don't like the extractive economies, if we don't – we know we don't like our relationship to work, we have an extractive relationship to work. What would it look like to have divvy economies for us to govern – to govern ourselves and govern our relationships with resources and the elements of the land around us in different ways? So one of our pods will be exploring regenerative economies. One of our long-standing statements at NAVEL is we're a test site for kinship, so how do we build relationships and caring cultures and different ways of being with each other when we know we don't want this current setup? So our Cultivating Kinship pod will be looking at: what does it mean to be in relationship with each other and caring relationship with each other even if it is at times messy and uncomfortable and difficult? We're also thinking of designs. A lot of us here are artists, designers, creators and are actively building the world that we want to see. How do we think about care when we're designing the things that we want to see, the projects, the solutions, the businesses, whatever infrastructures that we need. How are we making sure to think about care? Our current setup is really well practiced in extraction and domination. How can we get rigorous in our care practices and show our love for each other? And I think that's it. We will have five pods that will be, you know, exploring these complex aspects of what it means to be in relationship with each other and our non-human kin and these caring worlds that we're trying to create and that are also already here, right. So I wanted to uplift that folks are already building and seeing – building and creating these caring systems, infrastructures that we all want to see. How do we amplify that and make that more of our – of the norm, right, is what we're here to talk about. And with that, I will pass it to Purple. I'll let you introduce yourself. And we're going to open with a practice to kind of set up the space. We're talking about creating. We're talking about being in practice with each other. And, you know, that is sacred and we want to honor that time. So I'll pass it over to Purple.
Alex Purple Liera: Thank you, Cesia. My name is Purple. She/her/ella. And I'm a Brown indigenous woman. Mexican. Long black hair. I am wearing some beautiful beaded earrings from Mexico. A turquoise with brown and orange necklace, a traditional dress from Michoacan with butterflies. A little about me, I'm a community activist healer. I'm happy to be here and hold space. I think before we open up and before we get to discussing, I just want to support all of us just kind of aligning and settling into our bodies as we begin these discussions that are going to be, you know, deep and beautiful and in the process of healing not only ourselves but healing the land. So I invite you to join me to settle in your chair. You can keep your eyes open or closed. Take a deep breath in, breathing through your nose and exhale. And when you exhale, you can let go, you can sigh, you can grunt, you can release anything that you've been holding this week, this month, this weekend, this day. Taking a deep breath in. Exhale. Allowing our nervous system to relax. Letting go of anything that we've been holding. Letting go of that to do list. Letting go of anything that we needed to take of before being here today so we can be fully present. So that we can unite our minds, our hearts in the solution. So that we can have an open mind and an open heart. Giving thanks for this beautiful land, all of the land that we're on. Asking for permission from the original stewards and caretakers of these lands. Where I'm at, the Tongva, and all of the indigenous people in the L.A. Basin. Thank you for allowing us to be visitors on these lands. For some of us displaced from our own lands. Giving thanks for this beautiful land that is allowing us to provide, that allows us to walk, that is allowing us to heal. Giving thanks to all the four-legged, the winged. All of the plant ancestors that walk in spaces with us and exit spaces with us. As we prepare to heal and unite our minds and hearts. Putting one hand on our heart and one hand on our stomach, our heart. Our fire. Our purpose. Our stomach, our intuition. Our higher guidance. feeling our ancestors within our bodies. We carry resilience. We carry wisdom in our DNA. Giving our bodies permission to settle in. Giving our heart permission to settle into our body. Giving our breath permission to settle in. Giving our minds permission to receive, to slow down. Tuning in to the rhythm of this earth. We are not machines. We are people. We are not made to produce and extract. We move to the rhythm of this earth. And as earth people, we know to take care of these lands, we know how to take care of these resources. And as we tap back into this wisdom, as we tap back into this wisdom so that we can heal, so that we can move forward collectively, finding the solutions within us, remembering that we are worthy, remembering that we are sacred, remembering that we carry that medicine within us. Not only to find a solution, but to unite our collective powers, to unite our collective minds. To heal our community. To heal ourselves. To walk in beauty. To speak truth to justice. To speak our truth with love, kindness, and confidence. In all the work that we do. To be that embodiment every day.. As we heal ourselves, we heal the land. We have all the answers within us. We have all the answers within us. With our hand on our heart and our hand on our stomach, tapping into that wisdom, tapping into that resilience, tapping into that power, we are sacred. We are medicine. We are love. We are worthy. We are powerful. We are powerful. We are powerful. Take a deep breath in. Exhale. Giving thanks for everyone showing up. All of those who are here are present to receive. All those who are present to share. Remembering that everyone has a story. Everyone has medicine. Do not leave this world without sharing your medicine. Do not leave this world without sharing your light. And this is how we continue to heal collectively. You can put your hands down. And when you're ready at your own time, you can open your eyes. Thank you for allowing me to hold space. Thank you for being here.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Thank you so much, Purple, for that beautiful opening and grounding us on why we're here today. So today's panel is called moving from theory to Praxis. While there is a lot going on around in this world, like Purple said, we all have medicine to share and we all have stories to tell and medicines to share and ways to contribute to this caring world that we want to see. So today's speakers are folks who share their medicine, who share their gifts through their organizing, through their cultural work, through their art practices. And we're here because we want to explore how we shift from, you know, thinking about these things, from experiencing and seeing the Ming around us in this world that maybe, you know, harm us, hurt us, that we don't want to see. And how do we move into action to – like medicine – like Purple was saying, to share our medicines, to share our gifts, to share our love and care for each other, regardless of – if that is not welcome in our current world setup, right. So I'm super excited to invite our panelists here. I learn from them and am inspired from them and I'm super excited to share space and talk about how culture and arts show up in our work. So rather than taking up more space, I'll pass it to our panelists to introduce themselves. They will tell us a little bit about themselves, who their people are and what worlds they're coming from. And note to also include your visual description when you introduce yourself. So if any – I didn't decide on an order. Whoever wants to jump in. Whoever feels called can go for it.
Mariella Saba: Hello, fellow panelists. Hello Sandra Walela, and Cesia. Thank you Purple for bringing us all here and everybody making this possible. Language Justice Team, everyone tuning in. My name is Mariella Saba. As far as I know, right now I'm wearing a flowery transparent top. With some knit mushrooms. My hair is pretty curly today. I have it in my usual half down half up and behind me are my baby's blueprint hands, art. And other – other pieces behind me of their artwork. A little bit of a kid's kitchen in the corner. That's my left bottom corner. Thank you for that reminder and practice. And who are my people, my worlds? Thank you for the question. My people, who am I right now. There's a baby inside me growing. They're about six months. So I am – that's part of who my people are. They're inside me growing. And about to come out in July. And they come from my lineages as well as my partner's lineages. My lineage goes to Mexico. These lands and places in between. And on my father's side, my grandparents come from Palestine. And as far as I know, everybody before them and I'm trying to know before that too. Nazareth, they're Palestine. My papa was born in Cairo, Egypt. And our family were displaced refugees, surviving, thriving, missing homelands in various lands from Australia to Spain to Hawaii. I was born in Los Angeles. Tongva Land and all of the other indigenous people that Purple brought in and reminded us are here with us. And these are part of many worlds. And it is a big part of what I share today and the work and my walk and my story. Because I was – I come from displacement. My spirit was curious, wandering and enraged about how I got here. And that led and birthed my life's work. I think I could pause there. I don't remember the rest of the question right now. But I think it is our world, where we come from. So I just wanted to bring all that to us. And I pass it to Sandra or Walela–– whoever would like to go next. Nice to meet you.
Walela Nehanda: Nice to meet you too. Visual description: I'm wearing a tan sweatshirt with blue writing, blue and black writing. I'm wearing green really rectangular thick glasses. I don't know what is going on with my hair. It is wavy and in a tiny afro phrase. I have my apartment in the background. That is a clear bookcase and that's my kitchen cabinets. The question was Who are your people and who are the worlds that you're in? I would say I come from multiple generations in Los Angeles. Obviously being Black there is a history of displacement where it is extremely hard to trace past your great grandparent. And so I have spent a decent amount of my 20s trying to trace that further and have been able to see the various places in which my family was held as chattel enslavement. My father is European. I moved through the world as a Black person. I'm treated as Black. So I always have Black. And yes I guess I'm disabled, demisexual, non-binary. I think the world that I – I wrote in my journal, is still being built. I don't think I can really answer that super well. And I also think even who my people are, I think there's – there's lineage of course and then it's who I want to build that world with. And I think the pandemic has started me questioning that a lot more. So unfortunately I don't think I have as poignant of an answer. I'm just trying to figure it out. And I guess that's the answer in and of itself. And that's all I have to say.
Sandra de la Loza: I'll jump in. So thank you so much for inviting me, Cesia. And thank you for that beautiful visionary framing to open this space. Thank you Purple for that deep prayer and offering that's bringing us all together. And it is an honor to be on a panel with Walela and Mariella. My name is Sandra de la Loza. I go by she/they. Visual description: I'm a middle age woman. Lighter shade of brown. I identify with multiple lineages. I have long straight dark brown/black hair below my shoulders. That reaches below my shoulders. Today I'm wearing silver frames, silver specks and a black T-shirt and a black thermal with a pink skull silk screen graphic on it. And my background is blurred out. And the blur is of my home. Light colored walls. And yeah with respect to me, my people and my worlds, I consider myself an urban Chicano of diaspora whose lineage goes to the lands of New Mexico and northern Mexico. And also unknown indigenous roots. I do have a great, great grandmother who is indigenous and is buried in the San Gabriel mission. And I – you know, I'm a child of multiple displacements. And with those displacements, that means that I cannot name the specific names of my ancestors. All I have is descriptions – general knowledge of the lands in which they came from. In terms of my people, my other worlds, I was born and raised in Los Angeles. My family goes back here multiple generations. My parents grew up in a working class barrio in east L.A. near Echo park. My other worlds and peoples are folks from mostly northeast Los Angeles. I also want to acknowledge these unceded territories of the Tongva because these worlds in northeast Los Angeles include working class BIPOC folk who have been active. Their art, culture, and activism are working to create deep relationships to their own ancestral lineages if they know them but also the lands that we live on themselves. And I guess I'll stop there. Thank you.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Thank you all for sharing. And yeah and naming the contradictions that also come up as we – as we think about what worlds we're navigating, right. What world we inhabit. All three of you spoke about your displacement and your lineage. And all of us have been impacted by colonial cultures. And live in – and sometimes don't even live in our ancestral lands, right. So going back and creating these stories and claiming the worlds that we want to step in is definitely part of, you know – it will be part of the conversation today. And all three of you use memory making practices in your work. Again sometimes that happens by haunting the archives, right. Sometimes that happens through imagining new worlds. And sometimes it happens through providing spaces for the folks that we are in a relationship that maybe also have been disconnected to their stories to be able to name that and claim them for themselves, right. So can you tell us a little bit about how storytelling shows up in your work, what mediums you use? You know, for Mariella, I know you started your organizing journey through (name?) and you work a lot with folk who are impacted by borders – that is national borders or whether it is through, right. And folks have a lot to share and I see the power that comes in – that comes from being able to share your story and be witnessed and held in that process, right. So can you talk – share a little bit about how – what practices, what cultural practices you use in your organizing and why is it important for you to center creativity in your work?
Mariella Saba: Thank you. Wow. Thank you again for the space. An opportunity for me to tell a story as well. I did begin healing and organizing very consciously through finding storytelling in the community. I'm going to shout out theatro east of the river. I was 15 amongst other young folks, mostly in the heights and different parts of L.A. that met and were gifted two facilitators and a man who facilitated the game and body and movement and helped us tell our stories with our bodies and through each other. Wendy helped us write and offer all of these prompts that were just pulling stories from us. And then bringing that all together. It was just – it was powerful. And I remember feeling empowered in a really good, healthy and just in a spiritual way. I felt like I was going to do this for the rest of my life. And I felt that clarity. And I just felt a gift. I got to tell some of my stories. And the ones that just felt like they wanted to come out, they were ready to come out. And I experienced a form of liberation. I felt freer in doing that. And I felt more free doing that with other folks. And I felt even more free when folks were receiving our stories and relating to us as young folks. I was seen. I was loved. I was re-seen and respected. All of that was just powerful. And we continued from there. We just couldn't – this was it. We actually formed a theater troupe at that time, it was based on theater home base co-created by Josephina Lopez. That was it. It was on! I take that everywhere I go. And I took that to UC Santa Cruz where we formed with my fellow undocumented peers. And that was important work for me too. Because I was born out here, like I mentioned. My languages come from somewhere else. And then there was a wall, a war, a separation that was made up but real, really impacted folks. Between myself and my homies, my loved ones, my comrades, my friends, my family. So telling our stories was a way of first – one of the ways to break some of my oppression. It was – it was coming up me in preparation for today a lot of my oppression comes in the shape of silence. I can feel it in my jaw and on the left side of my body. It comes from experiencing unwanted sexual harm or sexual violence as a younger child too and how that created silence in my body. A forced silence. And so there's some real lived stories that make me, that need to come out for me to get free. And I know it is not my issue, but it is all of ours together, our stories are intertwined. And my stories are intertwined with my ancestors and the baby in me and the lineages. And a lot of our stories are in our lineages are not – are not happy, fun stories and fairytales. So something felt really wrong to me since I was born. So I needed to tell truths. I saw that they were being silenced. I saw that they were being mistold. And I'm in L.A. I noticed there was Hollywood planted here and that a lot of the stories that were shaping the world were being generated from a – from a white supremacist police state, major storytelling function in the world. And so, oh, wow, I was born here in a battleground and I have some tools I picked up young to do something about it. And I know how to use them collectively. The story goes on. And I'm going to pause – pause there for now to share with our friends and family here, fellow panelists, I would love to learn about your storytelling powers too.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: I was going to say thank you for reminding us that even though sometimes we can't put names to stories and words to stories our bodies do remember and hold stories. I know that body based work and bodied healing and embodied practice is definitely part of the work that we bring to your organizing and through – also gives us a space to really be embodied and really be in movement in practice as we're sharing our stories. Thank you for that reminder. Shared about being here in [Indiscernible] a lot of our dominant stories. Necessarily name what is happening in that Black indigenous and working class communities. So Sandra, you talk about your – she is.
Sandra de la Loza: Cesia, I think you froze. But I think I will jump in. I think what Cesia… oh, there you are.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Here I am! Welcome to the first of our technical difficulties with Zoom. I'm not sure what was heard. So maybe I'll just repeat what I was saying. Sorry if it is double for you all. But yeah. Thank you, like I said, Mariella, for sharing how our bodies do carry these stories and carry these memories even if sometimes we can't put a name to it. And you mentioned being in L.A. where, you know, Hollywood – Hollywood is here. And there's a lot of story making that does happen, right, in order to uphold our current world design. And not only uphold it, but make it seem as it is the norm. It is normal. It is the way that things are supposed to be. So Sandra, can you talk about your work as a performative archivist. A lot of the work you that do reminds us how – what stories get told. Always includes – there is always power dynamics at play, right. Stories – some stories get told, some stories don't get told. And who decides which stories get archived and get passed down, right. Oftentimes has – is decided by the dominant society or the dominant story teller, right. So through your work, you work with archives and work with directly impacted folks to talk about – to create these new stories, right. And I'm also curious how this collective process of story making in community using cultural organizing practices within the archives also kind of disrupts the personalization of the capital “A” artist, right? The story of the artist who – the archivist or the artist who is the expert and is digging through the archives to, you know, reveal some truths. However, you do that within community spaces and collective practice. So can you share about why doing it in community is important to you and with what communities you center?
Sandra de la Loza: Yeah. I'm kind of jumping off of what Mariella was sharing. A lot of my work comes out of the context in which I grew up in. And, yeah, I came of age in the late '80s, early '90s. So I'm of the generation that experienced the crack epidemic and also, you know, the generation that was slapped with three strikes you're out. And in the late '80s and '90s, that also coincided with this whole genre of films called – I call them gang exploitation films. So entire geographies were criminalized. And Black and Brown people, especially youth, were animalized and criminalized through the media. So I witnessed how dehumanization, criminalization, and animalization was used to create the propaganda machine to legitimize what we now call the prison industrial complex. My generation was highly impacted by that. Either we were represented in that way or we were just completely erased from the media. So a lot of my work – my work really began to encounter that much erasure and the stereotypes being produced by dominant media, I began through writing and then through photography. B Then through my activist work I met lots of radical activist artists from around the world, around the country, from different generations, and was introduced to different approaches, different strategies of creating art and also rupturing the hegemony of our everyday life. I was inspired by gorilla practices. So my efforts to kind of disrupt that erasure and insert other stories that – that spoke – spoke other truths, especially the truths of like working class communities of color in particular in Los Angeles, I was inspired to create other forms. And so one of the forms, you know, when I was in the early 2000s, I was part of a space called arts in action L.A.. We formed to create protests and street actions during protest of the democratic national convention H it was here in Los Angeles. So there are a lot of – there's a lot of experimentation with finding provocative, creative new forms of claiming space and disrupting space. And so that kind of inspired this idea of erased invisible history. And I began to look at the city and what stories were normalized in terms of the historic monument. And of course there are narratives of the colonizer, they are militaristic. There are white dominant narratives. So I created my own historic society and created my own historic Blacks that countered the hegemonic histories and working communities and radical histories and I began installing Black Gorilla styles in public space. Also, I have participated in activist spaces since my early 20s. So part of those collectives that I've been a part of, we have always – always found ways to occupy space and began to disrupt everyday through creative actions like processions and bike rides, tell our stories that way and redefine how we live in the city. Redefine how we move in the city and redefine how we know the city, you know, through sharing our own testimonials. To doing research about the land and honoring and sharing and visiting sites that speak of other histories, activist movement histories. Histories of underground culture, queer culture. Yeah, the stories of indigenous Los Angeles. I've always been interested in finding and creating new forms of disrupting the dominant narrative. That has led me to grow as an artist and actually took me back to – back to school where I did get an MFA as an artist. The combination of education and some of that early work, I got invitations into museums and have done more intensive research based installations where I've had more time to actually enter archives and do research and contemplate what is not in the archive. What was never documented and honor those absences, honor those erasures and find radical histories and make them visible in public. So yeah. That's a little bit about what I have been doing. And I will pause there and pass the mic to Walela.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that and reminding us that the land does tell stories and our infrastructures also tell stories. Thank you for that work. Walela, I know you use poetry as part of your storytelling. I was wondering if you could share a little more about your journey kind of from going from being a poet and artist into a cultural worker. And what was the motivation? Like they were sharing their story, what moved new action into doing, you know, collective work for our liberation.?
Walela Nehanda: Yeah. Thank you. I started writing as a means of creating a world. So the irony of the first question. A way to not be here. I think it can be painful to be here as a colonized person. And as a child I questioned things a lot down to telling my mother she didn't know how to raise kids because I was their first kid. There was a point made there. So my parents really didn't want me to be questioning things like that. So it did take me some time to be given the space to ask questions. And I think a lot of us, one of my friends says this, he says, a lot goes into writing, the question we're hoping to get the answer at some point and whether that is through writing it out, performing it, putting it to music, through hearing someone else's feedback of your work back to yourself. I didn't start taking writing seriously until I was 19. I was part of the poetry lounge and part of the slam team in 2019. I took it seriously. I was really competitive. This is the era of button poetry and all of that. So it was a lot of sociopolitical poems. And I was doing them and trying to process what was happening around me as a young person in a way that did feel somewhat rebellious in the sense that I grew up in a restricted environment down to the high school that I went to was an all girls Catholic school. Enough said right there. So I wound up being in a band. And I did a commercial. And it was kind of – the band was gaining traction in ways that – like within the industry that was pretty cool to me at the time. And I thought I was hitting everything that I wanted. And then I started incorporating of course my political lens into the band's work, my personal work where I was performing. It was a dichotomy of getting a group of money and not only have my conditions haven't changed because I was staying with somebody but my community's conditions weren't changing. Here I am speaking on things but there is no tangible change happening. That is the disconnect from artist to community that winds up happening, either if you're from the community or not or whatever. So I wound up taking organizing really seriously. And actually quit poetry for a little while and thought there was no use in art for some reason. And I was really entrenched in the theoretical. And it wasn't until I got diagnosed with advanced stage leukemia, sitting there thinking like what do I want to leave behind in the world. And it became less about that and more about what kind of community do I want to see or I feel is missing. So a lot of my critique of Los Angeles and I just exited out of BLM for various reasons that had to do with ideological reasons. And so instead of just sitting and hyper critiquing it where it bums critical and not useful. I sat people together and I said why don't we create something and obviously talk to the community. It is important to talk to the community if they want that. So spit justice was born. Spit justice is a direct descendant of Leila Steinberg and Tupac's mic sessions up in Oakland. You would get a topic and do whatever you wanted with that topic, my type of art form and get feedback from your peers. And that type of – that naturally can cause tension when you're getting feedback about your own art. I'm a pisces so I take it very personal and then take it in. But we decided to incorporate political elements so the topic would be police brutality and we started asking people what the artistic expression of that was but also what do these words mean? Can we get clarity about this? What does it look like in our community? A lot of community members said we want to work with you all and whoever. We were just a bunch of kids. We were like sure. We started doing food distribution, surveying the kind of people we were giving food to. There were things that I never would have thought of. We were doing healing circles for young adults and teens. And unfortunately there was a burnout that happened. And I honestly didn't start identifying as a cultural worker until post burnout. But I got to sit with things and see what went wrong with organizing, which is always an important thing to do if you have something that is great but plummets. Like what can be learned. I came across Springer's piece about how it is a moral positioning embedded into an inherent accountability not only to one self but your community but also to the politic that you have. So I found a lot of my frustration with art were people kind of bar entering their politics for a platform. And I find myself turning a lot of things down and struggling. I was like what the hell is this? Why is it like that? It is obvious when your message is radical and, you know, you're naming things for what they are, people tend to not want those to be amplified as we know. And I think that's why we're all gathered here too. There is an obligation I feel then as an artist that there is a level of revolutionary culture that needs to be upheld in which I challenge society and narratives and whatever space I'm in. So if I'm not organizing at the moment, then perhaps right now I'm writing a book. So through that process, then what can I do? And so I think with the pandemic, it has been really difficult, especially as I'm immune suppressed. Just had a transplant. My community does not look the same. I'm ten shades paler over the past two years. Like a lot of people – I'm learning about disposability and art and militarism and care and how do all of these things intertwine where I can leave something meaningful and do something meaningful. In the past two years I've been trying to figure that out while being away from organizing. So that was a long winded answer but yeah.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Yeah. No. Thanks. Thanks for sharing all of that. And yeah. I think, you know, we're here gathering culture workers, organizers, and artists. And depending on what world you're in, sometimes, you know, those – those identities might shift and might show up as a cultural worker in one space, or might show up as an artist in another space. But what I think is really inspiring for – from you all and the work that you all do is you really, you know, embodying this – these revolutionary cultures, right, that we're trying to build through our communities and daily lives. Your families and your personal lived experiences as well as in your collective practices. I was wondering if you could share Walela, more about what those revolutionary cultures look like? What is – who are some of the cultural workers that inspire you and remind you to hold these politics? There's a lot of responsibility that comes in, you know, doing this work. So how – yeah. What are the questions that we – you ask yourself, what are the ways that you stay rooted in your responsibility and yeah and accountable, I guess, to yourself and to these lineages?
Walela Nehanda: Yeah. I think – geez. That's a lot. I guess – I think about [Amilcar] Cabral a lot. [Amilcar] Cabral has a great piece on national liberation and culture. He talks about colonialism. The first thing that is done is [to] find a way to sink the teeth into the native's culture and wipe it away and make it into something that is very dominating. So a revolutionary culture is obviously something that swims underneath that and kind of ruptures it. Historically we could look at [Amilcar] Cabral. Pretty successful revolutionary movement. Great person to look into reading-wise. Impacted me a lot. We can also think about the Black Arts Movement. At the time I don't think maria (name?) were calling themselves cultural workers. With my cancer diagnosis, I was looking around for Black people with scan certificate not hitting. So that tells me that we're not supposed to survive. The first person I found was Audre Lorde. Most it was from the '80s. That was really concerning to me. And I also thought about Lorraine Handsberry, [who] came from [a] family who was in politics and committed class suicide in the sense of rejecting the values that that class holds, which is really to become part of the ruling class and really was like I'm going to use my work to progress Black thought. And one of the things that I love most about Lorraine Hansberry is [that] she influenced Nina Simone. So the politics are influenced by this person that we don't know much about this disabled Black woman. But Nina Simone everybody knows. That is the cool aspect about cultural work, you don't see it happen until you're gone. And I think with revolution, I don't deem anything that I do revolutionary. That is for history to determine and who comes behind me to say. I believe youth are far more important than me at this point. And I think to have that responsibility to myself is often rooted in having a sound analysis or an understanding of the world that we're living in. And from there, it helps inform who I work with, what I want to do, what I seek to do, how much am I willing to compromise. We have to be honest, we all have to compromise because bills are due at the end of the day. In a perfect world obviously. But things happen. And I think it is really important to realize that this is a settler colonial state. This is stolen land. This state relies on capitalism and imperialism. We are essentially in the belly of the beast of an empire that extends outwards and has destabilized many places. So the work that I do is to not only bring humanity to Black people, but for people to realize to be angry at a system is probably one of the most human things that you could do. And to have an anger towards oppression is having actually just a real sense of dignity and actualization of self which [Frantz] Fanon talks about a lot. So those things and I also think just checking in with other artists and other people in my community. Am I doing this right? Somebody thinks they're a messiah because they're an artist. No h I like to think there is feedback. What can I do better? Yeah. I think that is like the quickest answer that is the most succinct.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that for sure. And yeah. I think a lot of us here also come from a practice of our community naming us and name the gifts that we offer rather than naming it ourselves. So yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. Like appreciate just naming how – sorry. There's the things going on on the back end over here. Sorry. But I was just saying, yeah, I appreciate the humbleness and the constant reflection and being in dialogue. Not assuming that the actions were taken in isolation, thinking through our solutions, but that, again, all of us have stories and medicines and ideas to share. And if our stories are connected, our experiences are connected, our liberation is also connected. So being in constant dialogue for what that looks like is definitely important to the work. You also talked about having, you know, being – being in conversation and also understanding that we're in the middle, in the belly of the beast; right, with an empire that is far reaching. I'm going to shift it over to Mariella. Mariella is celebrating a couple's ten-year anniversary this year. So shout out to the coalition who held their ten-year fundraiser mission a couple weeks ago. Check out their work. And you're also celebrating an international transnational mural celebration – ten years – ten years of a mural being untouched and still present in the community, right? Which in and of itself is amazing and shows the respect and the role that that mural has in that community. So can you share a little bit about what you're hoping – what you're celebrating this year and any shoutouts to what might be coming up later this year?
Mariella Saba: Thank you for those reminders. I just saw a friend. It was ten years ago that Agatha co-created with third and fourth graders and their families a peace mural near McCarthy park in an Allie in solidarity with the true peace between 18th street and MS13 that happened in August 2012. I felt some responsibility. We're talking about responsibility. In saying or doing – and doing something about peace. Continued peace work. But in particular at that time that felt really important to me. My brother also being gang affiliated. Family affected by my brother's incarceration and all of the many of our relatives here and folks who are present inside cages right now. And police state violence. Just the violence that – all of the violence – Walela thank you for naming and describing the context that you were born into. Intergenerationally. So a mural felt like a great community process and project to print on a wall [to] give some more transstory of how violence between us and in our communities and make sure that children have a platform, a space and a say in the – in their lived realities. They're often excluded from the conversation and actions. So that is a mural that I'm happy about. It was the first one that I co-created. And it's – yeah. And we want to keep it alive. Because that's the – what art can do too. It can – we can keep it alive as long as the message is needed and the actions are needed. So if you want to visit it, invite folks, touch it up and talk about peace, talk about war. The many wars that we're experiencing still. And what we can keep doing about it. And that's what I love about art and storytelling. Because we reimagine and retell what we want. And that mural has been very untouched and protected for it feels like it is really respected by the community too because it was the community who created it too. So it's our people. It is the people's mural. And yeah. That's what I'm celebrating. Thank you for naming celebration and ongoing action and celebration. There's more to share. And I'm wondering what I wanted to share around this responsibility piece that we were touching on. It comes from just responding, having a response to our existence. Choosing to. And it is a love for life. It is my way of saying – it is my way of showing gratitude for being alive and my deep desire that it would be even more joyous for all of us. And that we're fighting for joy honoring Audrey Lord who named that demand. Yeah. I don't have the luxury to draw any kind of pictures. There's important ones to put on walls. To shake – shake the – all of the things that Walela was naming. With the prayer, like Purple named, the prayer, the vibration, those actions, they have a ripple effect. And they – they help us – they help us shift, change, transform, what we're experiencing. The many wars on our bodies and stories and communities. So I'm just doing what I can while I'm out here and will continue to in my – in spirit as an ancestor as well too. It is my way of loving and responding to where I'm at. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Yeah. And just wanted to, you know, shoutout Mariella in the sense of Mariella has definitely taught me a lot around how to embody our love and embody, you know, even if – even if our current world setup doesn't venture the care and the love that we want to see, how can we still practice that today every day. And I definitely – yeah. I'm grateful that I get to witness Mariella in that process. We collaborate a lot together in different spaces as well as, showing love for each other as folks who are directly impacted by these things. And sometimes we don't have, like you said, the luxury to draw or process some of these things for ourselves as caretakers to other folks. And yeah, appreciate the reminder to slow down and make the time to be able to process and create and play as well. And Sandra, I wanted to bring it back to you and to kind of talk a little bit about slowing down and the different ways of seeing and different ways of relating that, you know, can exist even within this current dominant world setup that, yeah, does not want us to have relationships with the land. There's the – in L.A. here we have a lot of love for the L.A. river but it is also cemented, right. So folks were showing how the land and the infrastructure also tells stories. And that is one story of incarceration for our water and our land bodies. But there's still a lot of life and resilience and relationships and possibilities and all of that shows up. So can you talk a little bit about your work around listening to the willow tree and, yeah, taking the time to rebuild – to rebuild these relationships that were lost because of the colonial structures that we have to live in today.
Sandra de la Loza: Yeah. Thank you for that question, Cesia. So I would say that my art practice compliments my more community-based work in that it allows me to spend more time and dig a little deeper with – with some of the requesters that come up in activism and organizing work. And to better understand power and how capital colonialist power operations and manifests. And so that – that can often – that has evolved into like a practice where, you know, I do research and excavate histories. To, one, better understand this land that we live on and to better understand colonial processes and how those – those processes manifest in the building of the city. And the power dynamics that have been embedded in the building of this city. And so initially those questions, like the question to – wanting to better understand infrastructure and how it impacts our social relationships, how inequities are built in, designed into the urban grid. You know, the city built as – class lines were intentionally built in the city. And it definitely has an impact and shapes like how we interact with each other. How we move through. But those questions, those expirations turned me towards the land itself. And wanting to understand the infrastructure and the geography, native topographies of this land and get beneath the layers of concrete in the urban grid to then, you know – because I do think that in excavating histories, we can find stories of liberation, stories of resistance. And also stories of resiliency. So that turned me to the investigation of water on this land. We go through the channels of life on Tongva Land. Its streams and its rivers. Most recently I [created] an augmented reality monument. And it is called What The Willow Whispers. And I wanted to honor the ecosystems that existed on – alongside the Compton creek in south L.A. In south L.A. near watts. There was a creek called the Compton creek that went through Willowbrook. The community of Willowbrook, its name was named after the willows that once grew there. And I wanted to build a relationship [with] the willows. So I have been trying to cultivate that relationship with native landscapes and also to learn about native plants through amazing work from various maestrexs. So I began to do research on the willow and just observe it through its seasons. And I'm also interested in – in former space – carceral spaces. I recently did a project on the Lincoln Heights Jail which is on the confluence of the Arroyo Secco and the L.A. river. And, you know, I thought of the architecture of the jail, these concrete cells and realized wow in another way the river itself is incarcerated. It is locked between concrete walls, you know, but when you go down into those concrete – the river is so alive and, you know, I think in doing those walks and research and really spending time in the river, documenting it, it helped me shift my understanding of like temporalities and remind myself that that river existed long before concrete was placed on her and it will also exist when that concrete – concrete is gone. And despite being locked in between these concrete channels, it is alive, it is flowing, you feel that energy. And it is still supporting ecosystems. So those teachings and spending that kind of time with those ecosystems, looking for those instances in which native flora is basically breaking through concrete or replanting itself in the concrete creek which is the case of the willow also has been a very powerful teaching on – on the temporalities of this system, you know, settler colonialist capitalism. And like by shifting our gaze, yeah, we can – we can realign ourselves with – with this – these ancient ancestral life forms and there's lots of teachings there. So yeah. That project is called What The Willow Whispers. And it will actually be launched next week. And we will have a beautiful concert. I was able to commission some musicians Carlos Niño and – I forget his name. He grew up on Alice Coltrane and they will be playing a concert over Irvin magic Johnson park on the 21st for the willow that once flourished alongside the Compton creek. So I'll stop there. Thank you.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Yeah. Congratulations on that. You will have to send us the info so we can share it with folks as well. And thank you for – yeah. I think though none of us have lived outside of colonization or outside of these current world structures, right, these old stories we're operating with, it is also a good reminder that, you know, the land and the timelines – the timelines that are also present are much longer and far reaching behind the dominant whiteness and culture – domination, right, that we see today. And I think the folks here when we do the work that we're doing, it is also for thinking about future generations, right? Our future bodies, and sometimes doing some of that, reclaiming ancestral work as well. So looking back as well as looking forward and knowing that, yeah, time is cyclical and there will be a sunset to this dominant culture and [I’m] excited for the worlds – the caring worlds that we're building instead. I think we are getting close to time. So before opening it up – opening it up to participants, to our audience members for other questions, I did want to ask, why – yeah. What inspires you, what nourishes you. We're talking about a lot of heavy shit. We're talking about, you know, whiteness and colonial structures that don't want us to be alive and don't want our community members to be alive. And we don't have to get, you know, romantic about the role of art in sustaining us, but I guess, yeah, I'm curious what does sustain you, what nourishes you, what is inspiring you right now? What do you want to leave folks with, behind with? And whoever feels called can jump in.
Mariella Saba: I definitely want to name my babies. That has been my main line of work for the last four plus years or so. I chose to – chose to and have been able to birth three or two – one is still inside. But yeah. I'm leaving some babies behind here that are growing into full people too. And that definitely is – it nurtures me. I took a bath with them right before this. And they both really wanted to pour water on me in different ways. And Yoalli who is about to be two next week was collecting water in his mouth and putting it on my head. And it just felt like this powerful blessing. And Yoalli wanted to wash my hair. And there was just this very mutual love that we were sharing. And they're up against a lot. And so I have been motivated since I've been actively trying to contribute to shifting things out here. I've been motivated by children and future generations. We're all passing through here. And they're going to keep carrying forward. That is – when I was in Palestine I remember learning being a part of our existence as well is birthing. And existing and continuing to be alive. In the face of being killed from different angles. So the babies definitely nurture me, challenge me, motivate me., inspire me. So I definitely want to settle them as they're growing and I really want to reshift my focus on my work to be about how we are supporting them collectively. And we leave things better than we found them. And that goes to – that definitely nurtures me. Food. Food and water and a lot of my basic needs. It is also why I fight for justice because all of those things are on the line for us on a daily basis. The resources are badly distributed. I am motivated. I love to eat. I love a lot of basic joys in life and I know a lot of us don't have access to that. So that nurtures me and we access it so we're in a better harmonious, natural place. Thank you.
Sandra de la Loza: I can jump in. I will keep it short because I would love to take some questions to see what folks in this room are interested in taking this conversation. But I will just say what inspires me and motivates me is just like – just the everyday creative generous actions of joy and love. Like shared from one human many to another, you know. Just despite the brutality of this system, you know. And so this kind of refusal to be dehumanized, this refusal to be alienated or this refusal to be locked in fear and that reaching out and stepping out and efforts to just connect and – collect and be generous and loving towards others.
Walela Nehanda: I'm going to keep it short for questions. But I think, you know, frankly to be brutally honest, I think a lot of people struggle with chronic suicidality and things like that. When you're aware of the world as it exists as is, the phrase ignorance is bliss is truly just a true statement because – I'm sorry. My dog is running around in the background. So ignore her. So I think for me it is the simple things as well and I think we live in a world that tells us that it is wrong to simply take care of our bare necessities and we feel bad for doing it. And I – like when we're not productive, which is why I appreciated Purple's prayer. We are more than our productivity essentially. If I'm going to be blatantly honest, I think at this point in my life I'm transitioning out of being an organizer, trying to figure out if I want to go back to organizing, if I want to do this or that. I came out of a very abusive relationship [and] I think there's a lot of things that I'm questioning at this moment of what briefly nurtured me that I thought did versus what actually does for me versus what has been taught to me. So I think I find a lot of home in the writings of Black people, just in general. Like online or just in a book. Black tarot card readers for some reason, go to the slate that. It is random things and meaningful things – I'm so sorry about my dog. But yeah. I think the meaningful relationships that I'm able to build in which that collective care and communal care is very much understood. The politics are very much – they don't have to be exact but we're on the same vibe. I think those relationships are really restorative in finding our friendships and being nourishing. I'm kind of the last of my blood line essentially. So what does it mean to leave something behind is something that has always loomed behind me. And I agree with the youth. And so I just hope that – a lot the time I find that is nourishing as well. Working with kids. They really do come up with the best stuff. That is my answer.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Great. Thank you. This is some – it can be some heavy ass shit. Depressing setup at times, right. So folks here are all motivated and asking these questions for ourselves and for the – our care networks, the folks we care about. At the end of the day, it is ridiculous that, you know, we live in a setup where we don't have access to basic needs. And that is what will be – what we will be exploring through our pods and our programming, right, is how do we get access to housing? Why is it – why is there so many empty buildings available but folks don't have their basic needs like shelter, food. And, you know, education. The ability to be creative, to just take the time to draw and think about what you need and want for yourself, right. Many of us don't get asked those questions or don't get the time to really ask that for ourselves and for our loved ones. So yeah. Helping – here is to hoping we all get more of that time and I know that, you know, I am very obsessed with building infrastructures of care within my own life and looking for creative ways to do that. So we will be sharing more of that and, yeah, ways that we can just get our needs – our basic needs met. One question in the chat is asking what is something that you're working on that you would like to uplift. If folks want to share what is going on in their life right now. Projects to uplift.
Walela Nehanda: I will go first. I can't announce anything so I'm just here. But I am working on stuff. And it is that weird thing of saying I'm working on stuff and that's it. So that is my short answer.
Sandra de la Loza: Well, I'll share the project I mentioned, The Willows Whisper August manied reality project with LACMA. Monumental perspectives will be launched next week at Irvin magic Johnson park. I'm really excited about the beautiful programming that is going to coincide with that project, including a walk around the lake with newly landscaped native wetlands and Sagebrush grounds with Dr. Elena Esparza and also the concert on May 21st. So yeah. That's what's going on with me right now.
Mariella Saba: I have three months before I birth this baby. That's definitely what I'm mostly working on. Impart of Familia Trans Queer Liberation movement. We're preparing for actions. Hopefully, you know, reaching lots of folks, fighting anti-trans bills, getting trans folks out of detention, getting everyone free abolishing prisons and borders. So there will be contributions towards that, especially in the month of June of Pride Month. Naming what we're not proud of and what we are proud of. You know, taking a look out for what we will be moving around there. With Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, we meet every Tuesday and there are countless fights and campaigns there that you can also jump into that you're welcome to join us, especially here in L.A. or anywhere. We're at – I mentioned the mural. Yeah. I definitely will be doing something in August around the piece [with] Justice work, Anti-war work. That is ongoing. That will be in the alley off 7th St. Yes. Hopefully you can catch that. And there is an inauguration of another mural on the walls of IDEPSCA. That's the organization that I was working with when we did the piecemeal through a children's program. And our friend artist, other folks just pointed to a workers mural honoring workers. And that will be inaugurated April 30th. And I'll be – I was invited to bless the space with some poetry. And there will be another event the day before April 29th. So have a conversation similar like this – like this one around suicide. That we were touching on here, Walela, the complexities around suicide and just holding space for all of that. And that will also be a virtual event. But mostly turning the focus on birthing and raising two babies and inviting community to cocreate our learning spaces. Just keeping on jumping into the school systems with my babies and bringing back some of the work that I was doing around our own – creating our own systems of learning with each other. So that is what I'm mostly calling into my life right now and asking for support from each other and how we can raise babies, give land back, [and] do it together responsibly. Liberation for our babies and everybody. That's where I'm at. I'll pass this on to anyone else who wants to share any further questions.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: We have a question for Walela in the chat. So I'll read it out loud so our interpreters can interpret it. Walela, how would you describe how you approached your health journey as a culture worker? Myself as a registered nurse, much of our social media testimony – much of your social media testimony has helped me not only be more accountable as an RN but seriously reflect on white supremacy that is deeply embedded within the medical system and find ways to eradicate it.
Walela Nehanda: Oh, shit, that is meaningful to hear. Thank you. It's been a tough day over here. I think that is the thing is I am realizing that for me and a lot of people like me, I'm very much susceptible to the pandemic. For people who don't have the context, I received a stem cell transplant which is essentially being blasted with radiation and high doses of chemotherapy for a donor to essentially give you their immune system and stem cells that make up the immune system. When you get out you're basically a baby. I have to do my childhood shots and everything. So it is imperative that I stay inside as much as I possibly can. Naturally that does affect the type of work that I like to do. I really love organizing. And that does get limited. And I did find in the beginning of the pandemic I was doing a lot of kind of online organizing and realizing there's a lot of validity to that and a lot of disabled people get kind of brushed away when this comes to that that is the most that we can contribute at the moment. As far as how I approach it now, I think it is how I engage online. I do have the privilege of having a platform in which when I say something, it can get shared a decent amount. So I'm very cognizant of what I share. And it being – there are some like more subliminal messages mixed with memes and swipes through like my tips navigating the debt collective liberation complex. What is colognism, what is environmental racist. What I once did out there I do here and I try to do it as often as I can. Obviously my health takes about two years to recover. So I'm still in that process. But that is the best way that I could approach it. And really essentially shining – what everyone else has spoken on. Shining a light that other people don't realize. Those disabled are left behind in the pandemic. No masks. As if people don't have to come home to me and as if I don't have to go places for my own care. So it has been very depressing to kind of feel disposed of during this. And so then trying to figure out an angle. And I've been working on that. And I think part of it is support groups and support networks online and writing groups that I facilitate online. But will is definitely a lot more. And the goal of bringing spit justice back but it being an online space because so many of us do feel really isolated, whether we're here or across the country. So yeah. I hope that answered your question. I kind of babbled.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: We are a bit at time. But there was one question for Mariella and, you know, I think all of you can speak to this as folk who have been in organizing spaces for a long time. Mariella, you know, celebrating ten-year anniversaries. In one sentence or two, can you all share, you know, any advice that you have for baby organizers, baby culture workers, folks who are starting this journey. And then we will transition over to our closing spell.
Sandra de la Loza: Wanted me to start here. A word. Yeah. I remember being 17 and just looking in the mirror and having to root for myself and believe in myself. And when I – when I – you know, when I believe in myself and all that means to me, which means everybody too, all of my relations, yeah, I feel – I flow well. So I just hope that it's helpful to believe in yourself, your existence, your right to choose here, your right to choose how to be. Your right to be. I just invite us to be invited to be and not be alone in it.
Sandra de la Loza: I'll just share that just recommend going to where it feels good for you and that whatever – whatever organizing effort that you – you feel good there. That it fits you. And I would also say that like just encourage folks on one level, yeah, let's fight against what – what needs to be dismantled. We don't need to sacrifice simultaneously, like creating what we want to live in at the same time. And I would also say the outer practice and, you know, kind of putting yourself out there is important. But also our inner practice. And tend to ourselves and listen to ourselves. And root – build our own inter foundations and tap into our – it is important to lib dairy change as well. We can inhabit spectrums.
Walela Nehanda: I would just say, I mean, if I'm thinking about [how] a younger me, 28, came into organizing when I was 22. I was houseless at the time. So I'm just trying to think about that kid. I think to be honest, no matter what, usually what you're most afraid to speak on is very important to say. And the further you get away from kind of – I don't know if the word is distancing yourself from yourself. It is very easy to lose yourself. And I think there are times in which we are called upon to be too understanding and too compassionate and whatever to explain away harmful behavior that happens. So being honest keeps us present with ourselves and present with our community and accountable to ourselves and our community. So yeah, don't be afraid to be that.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Thank you all for sharing there. Are ways to take this conversation a lot deeper and there's a lot of strategy and organizing-type questions that were coming up in the chat. And also wanting to hear more about your creative practices, right. But this is the first of many conversations around cultural work, shifting power, creating the worlds that we want to see. So invite folks to keep coming back. We will go deeper into some of these questions when we're talking [about] culture, when we're talking about an organizing strategy, right. So there will be time throughout the series to go deeper. So invite folks to keep posted and come back and, yeah, just want to shout out that all three of you are getting lots of love and appreciation and stories about how your work has impacted people who are here. So hope you feel some of that love through the screen. And I'm going to pass it over to Melanie. Melanie Griffin is one of our pod facilitators. They will be facilitating our cultivating kinship pod. So I wanted to hand it over to them and like I said this was the opening of our three months of learning together, bringing together artists and cultural workers to be in dialogue with each other. So Melanie is going to lead us through a blessing for the next three months of this kind of work. So I'll hand it over to you.
Melanie Griffin: Okay. Hello, everybody. Thank you so much, Sandra, Walela, Mariella, that was beautiful. I feel energized and motivated and inspired to be in this learning process with folks. Like Cesia said, my name is Melanie. I'm a queer nonbinary chronically ill person. I have dark brown skin. I'm wearing a leopard print fleece with orange accents. I have glasses and septum piercing. I have pretty lighting going on here. Plants behind me and burning some to give us dream energy. And I'm going to, yeah, share a spell ritual that I created for launching these ASSEMBLIES. Okay. I'm so grateful and honored to begin this exploratory, manifesting, learning experience with everyone here. I want to humbly lead us through a short ritual or spell if you will, to bless this journey we're on together. Magic is in large part about setting intention. Putting energy, focus, and faith into intentions is a powerful way to create transformation. Our world needs so much transformation and all the help we can access to make social change is valuable. So let's do some magic together. First I want to create a container for this ritual. I will begin with some prayers that I say just about every day and also when I do rituals with myself. It is with deep love and gratitude that we give praise and thanks to the power, gifts, magic, generosity and wisdom, to the nourishment and intellect, the circles and cycles, lessons and blessings, the interconnected matrixed everything-ness, to the divine order, the vastness and smallness, fierceness and sweetness, to the mystery, to the awe inspiring beauty of Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Ether. I pray that we change the way we live drastically and radically from one of consumption rooted in greed and convenience to one of stewardship, sustainability, worship and respect. I pray that we come to know ourselves as not just our individual selves, but an inextricably interconnected whole, a whole that is this entire planet. And that we work to love ourselves and take care of ourselves. It is with deep love and gratitude that we give praise and thanks to our Ancestors and Spirits for their presence, protection, guidance and love, for all that we are, were, and will be. We give thanks for our existence, survival, resistance, resilience and our thriving. We give thanks for our connection to each other, connection to spirit and to our magic, for our connection to this earth. We give praise and thanks for our vision, fortitude, faith and our practice. We send deep love and gratitude and healing and rest and peace to all our benevolent ancestors. We humbly ask you to join us and help us create a powerful container for learning and growing together. Ancestors, please help us to hear you, listen to you, talk to you and honor you. We love you. It is with deep love and gratitude that we give praise and thanks for the interconnected web of life, circles and cycles of life, to the Goddess, to the Universe. May we put forth, seek and receive love,magic and healing, empathy and compassion. May we put forth seek and receive courageous conversation, radical honesty and good listening. May we put forth seek and receive integrity and accountability, respect, advocacy and solidarity. May we put forth seek and receive care and support, patience and forgiveness, generosity and healthy boundaries and curiosity. May we put forth and receive laughter, joy, pleasure, play and fun. May we put forth seek and receive sacred erotic life flow, juicy energy generating sexuality and abundant creativity.As I say this next part, I want everyone to imagine a sparkly shiny colored translucent bubble around you. Whatever color speaks to you. This bubble radiates out from you and includes what is around you to whatever degree you want it to. This bubble is connected by golden chains of energy to everyone present at this launch and their bubbles. Together we create an intricate networked web, buzzing with life, ideas, inspiration, potential, dedication and fulfill many. Do you see it? Can you feel it? So we have our bubbles. We call on the Elements, our Ancestors and Spirit guides, we call on our connection to the Universe and to spirit to support us in creating a sacred container where we can set magical intentions.so I want us to start by taking three deep long breaths together. We're going to breathe slowly in for three counts and then slowly out for six to the best of our ability. I'll lead us on the first round and then we can do two more rounds on our own. So we're breathing in for one, two, three. And out six, five, four, three, two, one. I'm going to lead us in a short visualization exercise. Close your eyes if you're comfortable doing so. Feel your feet on the floor. Feel where the surface of what you're sitting on meets your body. Feel your chest and belly rise and fall with your breath. I invite you to do some time traveling with me. We're in the future, 5 years from now. You are surrounded by loved ones on a warm night. You're outdoors and you can hear crickets chirping and smell jasmine wafting in the air. You're celebrating with your nearest and dearest, drinking cold beverages and eating delicious food. People are laughing and some are dancing. There is rejoicing, exuberance, excitement and hope circulating through the gathering. You have accomplished something that makes you feel connected, fulfilled, grounded, purposeful. That is what the celebration is for. You've been doing work and living and just being in a way that allows you to feel in alignment with your values, desires and dreams. You know you have done the best job you can to show up for yourself and others. Everyone has what they need in this moment. In this future moment, you look back and think about this ASSEMBLIES gathering. You remember that our north star question was: How might we transition artists and cultural workers from an extractive economy to a caring cultural economy? You smile, feeling all through your body, all the ways that this transition has been happening, is happening. You feel warm and content knowing that the work, love and care you've committed yourself to these past 5 years has played a vital role in the fruition of this transition from an extractive culture, to a caring cultural economy where artists and cultural workers are empowered to make change and support their communities. What happened that led up to this evening? What have you been working on? With others and on your own? What are the ways you've taken care of yourself and others, how have you let other people take care of you? What do you feel in your body right now and where in your body do you feel it? Who and what do you see around you? Sit in these thoughts and feelings for a couple seconds. Luxuriate in them.When you feel ready, open your eyes. And if you feel open to it, I would love to – for folks to share some feelings, thoughts words or images that came up in the chat. While we're reflecting on the images and visions and feelings that came up, I'm going to lead us to the next part which is to plant some seeds. So I have here the plants and seeds to grow the visions and feelings that we just explored. I have here in my hand this mystery seed that I found on the Riverside in the east river in New York, over a decade ago..net know what it is. If anyone can recognize it and tell me, I would love to know. It's got lots of points. It is a black gray and it's got ridges and points. It feels sort of Sci-Fi-ish to me. For this ritual, this is going to represent growing something beautiful, powerful, dynamic, mysterious. We don't know exactly where we're headed with this learning journey. We don't know what fruit it will bear. Or what exactly it will look like. But we know that this seed is powerful. We know that we can give it love and attention and focus and guide it to grow into something life giving. I also have with me some marigold seeds. They're very small little curlies with pickled ridges on their backs. The marigold are going to lend protection, life giving sun energy, Ancestor connection, and positivity to our spell. As I hold these seeds, I want you all to imagine you are holding them too. See them in your hands, feel their slight weight. We're going to whisper some hopes, prayers, encouragement, some programming into these seeds. If you feel up to it, take your energy seeds in your hands and whisper – whisper some guidance to them for their journey and for this growth, this learning that we're doing. I'm thinking about how we can make wherever these seeds grow, how can we make that receiving energy rich, fertile. So we've blessed our seeds. I want you to hold them to your heart now. And repeat after me. Every time we come together, we grow our ability to envision and manifest a world where all life is respected where autonomy, community, dignity, respect and love are prioritized over profit. Every time we come together we grow our ability to envision and manifest a world where all life is respected. Where autonomy, community, dignity, respect, and love are prioritized over profit. Every time we come together we grow our ability to envision and manifest a world where all life is respected. Where autonomy, community, dignity, respect and love are prioritized over profit. Okay. We're pressing these seeds into our heart, into our bodies. They're taking root. Our hands are empty because it is in us now. I can feel it. I can feel the energy regenerated. Buzzing. I can feel it coming up from the ground into my feet. Over the next couple of months, maybe after each session you attend, take a moment to think about these energy seeds we planted. Imagine how they are growing and supporting our collective path forward to a liberated equitable sustainable world. Thank you NAVEL for organizing this assembly series and asking me to share this spell with you. Now we're going to close out this sacred space. Thank you to the he willems, earth, fire, water, air, and ether. Thank you to our ancestors and spirit guides. Thank you to the universe of which we are a part of. To the spirit, to the goddess for this generative manifesting space. Thank you for blessing this Assemblies experiment. Thank you to everyone who showed up today and participated and has contributed your energy and vision to this project and all that can come from it. With deep love and gratitude we close out this sacred space. Our magic energy bubbles we created at the beginning of this ritual are fading away And with that, our ritual is closed. Thank you so much.
Cesia Dominguez Lopez: Thank you, Melanie. That was beautiful and [I’m] feeling all the seeds, feeling all the energy. I know we're a bit at time. So we will let you all go. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us. Our next session will be in two weeks from now, April 26th. So keep posted. Come back for the conversation. Join us in the pods. I hope everyone has a lovely restful rest of their day, rest of their night. See you all soon.