A Sanctuary for Black Survival, Study, and Spirit
join us in the study of survival is a promise by Alexis Pauline gumbs
april — December, 2025
you can join us at anytime.
This year in the Diasporic Hush Harbor, we gather in study and presence around Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde—Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ luminous meditation on the life, work, and legacy of the Black feminist and scholar-activist. We will learn to ride these fierce eco- socio-political winds of war/change that are howling around the Earth currently with a true Oya devotee, Audre Lorde.
This is an invitation to pause, breathe, and be held inside a sacred lineage of survival, transformation, and joy.
In this collaborative monthly journey facilitated by Oceana Sawyer and Erin Trent Johnson, exclusively for people of African-descent, we will be guided by the principles of DHH practice—deep listening, slowness, reverence, and the cultivation of deep presence—we’ll explore what it means to power in darkness, and clear vision in a field of illusion through a praxis of trust in our embodied knowing.
Each of the ten parts of the book will be explored successively, and each session will include:
- Introduction of the relevant part of the book
- A somatic practice
- A call & response presentation of a black feminist
- Plenty of small and large group
The main theme will focus on the myriad ways Lorde enacted survival as guideposts for our own survival in these extraordinary times in which we find ourselves.
- Radical self-love & self-care, optional poetry & language
- Black feminism & social justice, optional intersectionality & identity
- Intergenerational wisdom, optional mentorship
- Love, desire, relationships
Together, we’ll enter into a sanctuary space to:
- Read and digest the text in community, moving at a reverent and deliberate pace
- Engage in somatic, creative, and ritual-based practices that echo and respond to the book’s themes
- Reflect on survival not just as a reactive act but a radical promise to the future
- Center tenderness, anger, softness, power, and the erotic as sacred knowledge
This group is for those who long for deeper integration of thought and flesh, who want to move beyond analysis into felt connection, and who believe that reading Audre Lorde’s words—especially through Gumbs’ poetic channel—is an invitation to transform the way we live and love.
Whether you’re new to Lorde’s work or have carried her words for decades, this is an invitation to join a circle of deep listening—to yourself, to each other, and to the ancestors whose words pulse through these pages.
What is the DHH?
To take part in this journey, please visit the Village page here. Enrollment in the book study happens by joining the Rooted Village, which also grants access to our other activities throughout the month.
The Diasporic Hush Harbor is a space for kin of the African diaspora. A space of marronage where we can grieve what wants to be grieved and cultivate access to parts of ourselves longing to be re-assembled.
Perhaps from such vantage, we can start to see what new worlds want to be created for ourselves and the generations. This is a long journey, but let us begin and/or continue together.
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rooted sponsor
$45/month
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rooted supporter
$35/month
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Rooted Friend
$25/month
membership options
Please choose the option below that best meets your financial & situational needs. If you are in a position of relative economic advantage, please pay what you can, as your contribution goes to support our ability to offer these activities.
how to Join us
This book study takes place within the Diasporic Hush Harbor (DHH), a space within the broader Rooted Village. By joining us for this study, you're stepping into a specific container within this broader ecology.
While you're welcome to participate solely in the book study if that’s what calls to you, your membership also includes access to the wider offerings of the Rooted Village. From somatic and relational practices to creative gatherings, you're invited to explore as much—or as little—as feels right for you.
You're joining the DHH, but you're also arriving in a village.
You are welcome here.
MEET YOUR FACILITATORS
Oceana Sawyer
In addition to being a co-facilitator of the Diasporic Hush Harbor within the Rooted Global Village, Oceana Sawyer is a community organizer in a semi-rural region of the Pacific Northwest. Utilizing her experience in the realms of prose & poetry, embodied grieving, black feminist and womanist theory, and liberatory praxis her passion is weaving community both virtually and in-place. Trained as a facilitator, sensuality educator, and in integral counseling, rooted in earth-based spirituality and an intensive study in the expressive arts, she brings a compassionate presence to her work with groups, and to her first book, Life, Death, Grief and the Possibility of Pleasure.
You can follow her on Substack.
Erin Trent-Johnson
Erin Trent Johnson is a transformational leadership coach, oral historian, collective memory worker, and ecowomanist wisdom keeper working at the intersection of storytelling, transgenerational healing, and spirit.
As a quantum storyteller, Erin is inspired by ancestral intelligence including Black speculative futures and history to imagine worlds and transgenerational ecosystems of care. Through ecowomanist praxis, Erin studies how Black women’s bodies are bound with earth; called to speak prophetic truth and transform death forces with spiritual activism. Through her work, Erin offers us provocations to encourage our collective freedom rooted in the lineages of Black feminist scholarship, healing justice, womanist ethics, and disability justice. She always wonders what would happen if we imagined Black women in the center of our visions of care?
Cliff Berrien
Cliff has 35-years experience as a percussion student and teacher of several music traditions, including drumming styles from Brazil, the Caribbean, Africa and India. He has combined his music studies, degree in psychology and years of experience as a professional DJ to develop practices that promote collective joy, cultural dexterity, and global healing. Cliff has had the honor of using these practices for the past 5 years co-facilitating workshops with his mentor, Dr. Barbara Holmes, author of Race and the Cosmos and Joy Unspeakable.
With almost twenty years experience in community organizing and leadership development, Erin has designed and facilitated transformational learning experiences for educators, coaches, therapists and social movement leaders globally.
Erin is trained as a trauma-informed practitioner including cultural somatics and group action methods. She is also the founder of BlackMamaBody, a communal care and healing space for Black women. As a disabled Black woman with ADHD, Erin is reclaiming the myths of the productive body supporting neuroexpansive leaders in reclaiming their intuition, authority, authenticity in service of our collective liberation.
A fourth-generation Philadelphian, Erin holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Hampton University and a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. Erin is currently studying at the intersection of embodiment, astrology, mythology, and ecowomanist love ethics.