Tending The Roots Festival

Join us as we ritually open the Tending the Roots gathering with heart and intention for our time together. Seed intention with us.

Resmaa Menakem, New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, is a visionary Justice Leadership coach, organizational strategist and master trainer. Resmaa is a leading voice in today’s conversation on racialized trauma. As described by On Being with Krista Tippett, Resmaa “activates the wisdom of ancestors and a very new science, about how all of us carry the history and traumas behind everything we collapse into the word “race” in our bodies. He illuminates why all of the best laws and diversity training have not gotten us anywhere near healing.” Resmaa created Cultural Somatics, which utilizes the body and resilience as mechanisms for growth. As a therapist, trauma specialist, and the founder of Justice Leadership Solutions, a leadership consultancy firm, Resmaa Menakem dedicates his expertise to coaching leaders through civil unrest, organizational change, and community building. He helps “Justice Leaders realize their potential in the areas of Equity and Race.” Resmaa’s embodied approach which he calls Somatic Abolitionism is a living, embodied philosophy that requires endurance, stamina, and discernment. These can be built, day by day, through reps. These reps will temper and condition your body, your mind, and your soul.www.resmaa.com

This interactive workshop will cover traditional Maori practices including the warrior energy of haka (traditional power dance), the hongi (sharing the breath of life), story, the art of introduction, song, and more. This workshop also covers several simple yet extremely powerful masculine/feminine practices that are profoundly honoring, healing, connecting and empowering. The impact from this is currently sending waves around the planet. We will deal with light and shadow. This workshop is suitable for anyone up for real growth. Participants will leave with ancient yet practical tools to support them in the way they stand, speak, listen, connect and move powerfully through this life. So, would you like to feel grounded, strongly connected to spirit, the ancestors and all people present when speaking in a group? Do you want to step into your power as a leader? Are you ready for people to really tune in and hear your words of acknowledgement and honour? Feel more confident in your own skin? Find your warrior and embrace your internal bad ass? These are some of the things we’ll be diving into together in this workshop. Matiu's approach is welcoming, inspiring, fun and empowering.Matiu has over 20 years experience as a Maori language and performance teacher, he is an engaging facilitator, dynamic international musician, playwrite, storyteller and a leader amongst his own communities.Matiu on Facebookwww.rainbowwarrior.nzOn Instagram - @matiu_te_huki

When the European colonists arrived to the “New World” of the Americas, they destroyed people’s cultures, ways, traditions and killed more than 56 million original indigenous people. Many lost their connection to their original knowledge and the Earth and the genocide created a trauma we are still recovering from today. The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor, is an ancient Indigenous prophecy from the “Americas”, that speaks of the agreement many indigenous communities had 500 years ago, after the arrival of the European conquerers in 1492, the original people of the Americas would reunite once again with their original knowledge, strength, diversity and connection to the Earth.They spoke of a time, 500 years in the future, when the Eagle, representing the indigenous people of the North, and the Condor, representing the indigenous people of the South, would reunite. The Eagle and the Condor, flying together again, throughout the mountain ranges of the Americas, would signal a new “Pachakuti”, a time of reconciliation, reunification, and healing of the land and its peoples.We are currently living the realization of this prophecy. Humanity faces many unprecedented challenges, as old political, social, economic and energy systems break down. The recognition that, the colonialist, patriarchal and consumer driven systems have led us to climate change, the destruction of our environment, and the Covid 19 pandemic reality, is undeniable.The ancient knowledge of our indigenous communities is needed, to continue existing upon this planet in a healthy and sustainable way. Not only for the people of the Americas, but for all beings, all species, and the earth, air and waters of our beloved planet.Co-leaders Erika Gagnon (Canada) and Claudia Cuentas (Peru) will discuss traditional Indigenous wisdom, plant medicines, and self healing practices of the Americas. They will share how these practices directly connect with our resiliency to overcome trauma and the needed decolonization of our modern healing approaches. Join us to re-member together ~ Our liberation is bound to one another.

SWIM GOOD will open with a meditation to help activate energy centers in the body and allow for a time to set intentions, followed by an experience in which the body is literally ‘bathed in sound’, created by a variety of sound healing instruments such as the Himalayan Singing Bowls, Chimes, and Crystal Quartz bowls to support you through this sound journey. This accessible restorative practice uses the power of sound, intention, and silence to tap into your parasympathetic nervous system and support a lush layer of rejuvenation. The sound bath creates a safe space for empowered rest and self-inquiry. The experience ends with time for an intuitive discussion and space for questions. For the most immersive experience, please connect audio to headphone or external speaker.www.shawnjmoore.com

What do we really mean when we seek out "trauma informed" approaches to public service and community organizing? How can we build radical mental health and wellness approaches into the work of service and social justice when that work inevitably brings up conflict and stressful change? What is the difference between centering trauma and centering resilience? Somatic coach, consultant, and conflict resolution practitioner Kai Cheng Thom explores these fundamental questions in her keynote address. Grounded in the neuroscience of trauma as well as over a decade of experience in mental health and community organizing practice, Kai Cheng will provide participants with a nuanced lens for understanding trauma as well as several practical frameworks and strategies for promoting community resilience and collective liberation in the context of service provision. Kai Cheng will also provide a brief introduction to her Loving Justice model, a spiritual and somatic lens on conflict resolution and trauma.Instagram: @kaichenthom; Twitter: @razorfemme

In this talk, Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.) suggests that being well, a function of good health, is intricately connected to the Anthropocene and the environmental troubles and losses we are experiencing. By thinking through the disciplinary practices of governing regimes and how bodies are created, how limitations are enacted, how status is assigned, how wellbeing is designated, Bayo weaves a disorienting cartography in an invitation to fall apart, to leave the conveniences of stable designations for something-yet-to-come. This is an exploration in decolonial wellbeing, an adventure into the vast reaches of the human body, into the promises of becoming fugitive.

Half of North American adults suffer from chronic illness - a fact Western medicine views largely in terms of individual predispositions and habits. This talk will show how a society dedicated to material pursuits rather than genuine human needs and spiritual values stresses its members, undermines healthy child development and dooms many to chronic illness, from diabetes to heart disease, from autoimmune conditions to cancer.www.drgabormate.com

In this presentation, Dr. Yellow Bird discusses his work in neurodecolonization and its importance to Indigenous social work practice. The talk will share how findings from neuroscientific, genetic, movement, circadian, and microbiome research, and mindfulness and traditional Indigenous contemplative approaches, can be implemented to address the pernicious consequences of colonization. He discusses how culture, traumatic colonization experiences, and perceptions shape our brain’s plasticity; affect our DNA, our microbiome, the expression of our genes; change brain waves and shape specialized brain cells such as mirror neurons; and alter our neurotransmitters and modulators. He will share how specific traditional practices of Indigenous Peoples can decolonize and heal.https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/3715-perspectives-defunding-mindfulness-while-we-sit-on-our-cushions-systemic-racism-runs-rampantFind Michael on Facebook

“African arts are to enhance the everyday life of the people, not primarily to change their conditions but to enable the people to see and hear and feel beauty. As long as the people enjoy beauty, they do not succumb to the tragic elements in their midst. Their spirits are uplifted, and in that way the arts preserve and promote the well-being of the community.”— Peter Paris, The Spirituality of African PeoplesMy name is Cliff Berrien and I’ve been drumming for over 45 years. Last year was tough, because we had to pause in our gatherings to create beauty and uplift with other drummers. For Tending the Roots, I’d like to offer an opportunity for us to gather to enjoy a collective experience of rhythm and drumming.ZOOM offers us a possibility that, while not the same as a drum circle, can still be very satisfying. So, you’re invited to bring your drum, hand percussion instrument, or dancing body to a session that will include a brief rhythm lesson and 20 minutes of collective drumming. Let’s discover together how we might surprise ourselves with what we can drum up to contribute to the goodness, truth and beauty that is required in this, and each moment.

Join us for the closing event of the day with Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, hosted by Amber McZeal. Follow Amber on InstagramRev Angel Kyodo Williams: Meet Rev. Angel - Not that a Black, mixed-race woman Zen priest is ordinary to begin with, but Rev. Angle Kyodo Williams defies and transcends any title, descriptor or category you can imagine. Freed from ordinary ways of naming, she captures imaginations, expands visions, and gets straight to the heart of the work of liberation. Follow angel Kyodo Williams on Instagram

The languages of regeneration are encoded within Earth cultures, which have already shifted according to non-anthropocentric Indigenous peoples. We all began in a non-anthropocentric manner of knowing that it isn’t all about the human, but the Being in all life… even fire. Even water. Even winds. Even Earth.https://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/

Darcia Narvaez, Professor Emerita of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, researches moral development and human flourishing from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating anthropology, neuroscience, clinical, developmental and educational sciences. Her earlier careers include professional musician, business owner, classroom music teacher, classroom Spanish teacher and seminarian, among other things. She grew up as a bilingual/bicultural Puerto Rican but calls the earth her home. Dr. Narvaez’s current research explores how early life experience influences wellbeing and moral character in children and adults, specifically the effects of humanity’s evolved nest on child, adult and cultural wellbeing. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Educational Research Association and former editor of the Journal of Moral Education.

She has numerous publications, including more than 20 books such as Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: First Nation Know-how for Global Flourishing; Basic Needs, Wellbeing and Morality: Fulfilling Human Potential and Embodied Morality: Protectionism, Engagement and Imagination.

A recent book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom won the 2015 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award.

She blogs for Psychology Today (“Moral Landscapes”), hosts the webpage EvolvedNest.org and is president of KindredWorld.org.

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One of the main ways we come to know ourselves and each other is through stories of our origin. We will explore narrative approaches to spontaneity and engagement. Through gesture, movement, sound, and enactment we will explore moments of high resilience and post-traumatic growth. We will work to foster demonstrated capacity, cultural humility, deep listening, and authentic voice. We will focus on identifying patterns of belonging, separation, and integration. This work is based on the Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment models, described in Dr. Nieto’s book. These are tools for analysis of the dynamics of oppression and supremacy and offer ways to develop skills to promote social justice.

Ancestors and ancestral healing are trendy.

This is good; may the dead exert their claims on the living and may we be responsive. And merely thinking about the ancestors is a world apart from coming into direct, sustained dialogue with our lineage kin. Ancestral relationships are just as fraught as those with the living and often bring additional demands for unlearning and humility.Although most come to ancestral healing practices with a focus on personal and family wellness, in this shared hour, we’ll focus on ways that practices of ancestral reconnection can support efforts for cultural and systemic healing. This includes exploring ways to partner with our ancestors to in turn serve as more effective and resilient change-makers. Our time will also include consideration of the risks of ancestral reconnection. This will include: sober assessment of risk in the unseen/spirit layers of reality, ancestral support for unraveling unhelpful binaries, decolonization sensibilities as applied to ritual arts, metabolizing cultural trauma with ancestral support, and the truly terrifying process of actually trusting in imperfect elders enough to grieve, heal, and learn. Expect time for brief Q&A and an experiential

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practice.ancestralmedicine.org.

What does it mean to Dwell in a Place? How do we know when we have been claimed by a Place? How does this knowing change our daily habits of seeing, being, thinking, doing? What is the Story that has claimed us and led us to Dwell in a Place? This workshop is inspired by Keith Basso's Wisdom Sits in Places, my indigenous mentors, and the framework of Ethnoautobiography.

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Leny Mendoza Strobel is Kapampangan from the Philippines and is currently a settler on Pomo and Coast Miwok lands (Sonoma County, Ca). Her work has focused on the process of decolonization and re-indigenization. Most recently, she facilitates a local place-based cohort with the vision of "repair and reparations" with local indigenous communities. She is a founding Elder at the Center for Babaylan Studies and is Professor Emeritus of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University. She tends a garden and chickens with Cal.

Join Rooted co-dreamer and collaborators, Amber McZeal. We'll weave in opportunities to integrate the day's wisdom and learnings through writing and the introduction of practices like dream-tending.

Societal Structure Built from Collective TraumaIn this conversation, Karine and Thomas connect about the beauty, resilience, and strength in finding our way through trauma. Initially touching on the importance of mindfulness and contemplative practices to experience interconnectedness, their discussion also acknowledges how trauma creates a distortion in time and space. In line with the larger intention of this Summit, they touch the many different ways of tending roots - including climate activism as an expression of healing our ancestral roots and restoring our home. Inspired to be a responsible citizen by taking care of our legacy, Thomas shares how important it is to recognize numbness as a feeling, and to feel into what’s needed to restore life that has been hurt.Karine and Thomas also explore:

- The 3 dimensions that compose human rights

- The importance of slowing down, despite the discomfort

- The human super powers that heal trauma: presence, awareness, relation, attuned and appropriate relation, and resilient community buildingThomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions with the discoveries of science. He teaches courses and trainings to participants from around the world

- ranging from members of the public to faculty and staff at Harvard Medical School. Based in Tel Aviv and Germany, he is the author of the book entitled "Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds", which outlines his methodology called the “Collective Trauma Integration Process” as a safe framework for guiding groups through collective trauma.

https://thomashuebl.com

“My practice in Authentic Movement (AM) has shifted and deepened over the last 8 years, and the roots of this exploration of ‘impulse’ are finding more nourishment in more places: an undeniably enriching process. During this time I found my way to the therapeutic approach of Somatic Experiencing (SE).

Through my study and practice of SE, I have found a biophysiological language for the intelligence of impulse I had been practicing with in AM, and a deeper understanding of this impulse’s strategies to keep us alive. It was like bringing a microscope into my body. My curiosity about impulse and its relationship to survival responses has become a guiding factor in my somatic therapeutic work with clients and classes, in my creative processes with other dancers, in my parenting and life-partnership, and in my personal growth.

I am now exploring how these two modalities work together and where they are distinct from each other. My intention with SEAM is to offer an accessible frame to practice body-centered curiosity about how impulse shows itself in our physicality, and how we can use impulse to cultivate more wholeness in ourselves and in others.”

The intention behind healing trauma with food  has two levels:

1) The individual body: how food affects the actual body and adds to the healing or creating of more trauma charge.

2) How this new relationship to our food & our bodies begin transforming our relationship to the Earth as food moves into the position of a relative instead of a resource. Both of these factors are necessary for healing individual, collective, and land traumas & food is that way in.

Centering Two-Spirit and Indigenous experiences and ways is critical for more respectful, reciprocal, relevant, and responsible health research. Two-Spirit is often equated to an LGBTQ Indigenous participant; thereby, rendering this community’s unique experience and history invisible and erasing important distinctions. This type of scholarship becomes a site of colonization. The challenge is how to collect Two-Spirit data that in culturally safe and affirming ways, so health research(ers) are given the opportunity to do rigorous sex- and gender-based analysis that promotes science that considers biological sex and accounts for all genders in an effort to expand our collective understanding(s) within a diversity framework. This presentation examines some decolonizing practices to better formulate health research, policies and programs that are relevant, respectful and mindful to Two-Spirit people and communities or in other words be a site of reconcilia(c)tion in research.

"The art of the clown consists of freeing ourselves from all roles except one: Our one."  

A. Simon

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In this 90-minute celebration we will:

- Explore deep contact with ourselves and others through breathing, attention and reaction

- Open to the big pleasure to be in the moment, seeing and being seen

- Enjoy our fallible and imperfect body as the main gateway for spontaneity, authenticity and meaningReveal and follow body impulses and emotions allowing for their role in tension release, self-expression and presence

- Confirm the importance of having a clear frame/setting of trust as a pre-condition for both vulnerability and joy

- Reflect about the role and position of the clown in learning, healing and play - the need to reconnect to the flow

The Clown is a role present in human groups since pre-historic times. Its functions have always been those of reconnecting the tribe to the present moment, offering new perspectives by breaking the norm, allowing new perspectives to emerge, readapting to change, accepting risk and exploration, releasing tension and strengthening bonds between tribe members.We are in deep need of this role right now.

The clown activates our ability to be simple, truthful and more invested in real relationships rather than in narcissistic images. It also guides into a state of playful experimentation where change and transformation are not only possible but necessary. In short, in reminds of our humanity.

The organism is ostracized. We are forced now to avoid one another and to stay away which means to counteract what’s going on we need connection, and movement, and play more than ever.

The Movement Creative is an organization that typically works in-person, all-weather outdoors to move and explore around New York City. In our sessions we prefer diverse ages, abilities, and backgrounds in our sessions because we feel that the deepest lessons we learn are from one another in a supportive group.

It’s thrilling to see how each person adapts, adjusts or beautifully outthinks a challenge and surrounding ourselves with people of different ages, and experience means we may have the most to gain and learn. Revel in each other’s wisdom.

This is a session from the Rooted Global Village in December, 2020. As Angaangaq was unable to join us for the fest, we all agreed to share this gathering. “A shaman is no superman, but a real person: a person who lives with great awareness; who has explored the three worlds inside himself and therefore is capable to accompany you on your inner path; who can help you to recognize your own beauty, to find your inner balance and to love yourself.”What’s the benefit of sitting together with an elder from another tribe, culture? How can the peaceful ones come together with those willing to come to peace ? Could you imagine yourself becoming an elder — carrying a whole tribe of ancestors within yourself, sitting peaceful and in silence together in a circle.

Our closing ceremony where we'll weave together some of the threads of our learning over the 4 days and ritually close this time together.