The Undergrowth Sanctuary: Practicing Freedom as Strategy
This course is offered as a collective reflection, imagination and practice sanctuary – for leaders who need to remember that you are already free. You will be held with embodiment practices, peer reflection, visionary storytelling, and create your own Strategic Compass to navigate systems collapse and create futures of collective thriving.
Course Overview
The idea that freedom is an individual endeavor, and must be won from those with power over us is deeply ingrained in our somas, our cultures, our institutions. If we want freedom for ourselves and our descendants, knowing that we are already free is part of (re)claiming our humanity - as much as it is a strategy for resistance and (r)evolution.
In this course, we will take as our point of departure that freedom is a relational, embodied practice guided by a love ethic. This is a collective reflection, imagination and practice sanctuary – for leaders to reflect, imagine and practice together, even as you hold together a team, a community, a strategy, or an organization.
We will get grounded together and make space to engage with freedom not as a distant idea - but as a present reality we can embrace together, and move towards exploring themes of:
Freedom as an embodiment practice
Belonging to ourselves, each other and nature
Confronting the colonial matrixes of power
Grieving what we have loved and lost
Imagining horizons of mutual freedom
Celebrating our dreams in solidarity
Committing to futures of mutual freedom
Here, we will explore embodied practice and imagination as a portal rather than an escape– – and freedom as relational not individualistic. We engage questions like: As systems change and collapse, how might we move with a stronger love ethic and commitment to collective liberation? What do I/we actually want for ourselves and our communities? What identities and ideas is it time to put down? Who are we ready to become? What are the horizons we are ready to move towards? Who will we move with along the way?
The course will root in the wisdom of your spirit, mind, and body; in Black, Indigenous, Global South intersectional and decolonial feminist perspectives on collective care, wellbeing and love; and embodiment practices from politisized somatics and Eco-Dharma. The container will be trauma-informed and orient towards resilience, as we celebrate our similarities and our differences.
Each week includes:
individual and relational reflection on themes of freedom, including related values, how you and your community are practicing them and what is getting in the way.
nature based somatic and creative practices to support grounding, connection, resilience, release, transition, grief tending and loving courage; and,
short readings and inspirations by Black, Indigenous, Global South and embodiment writers and imaginaries on feminism, freedom, love, courage and new world building.
Learners will create a Compost and Seed notebook to hold your creative responses to such questions throughout the 8-weeks – gathering images, phrases, dreams, songs, and real-world examples that will seed your final Strategic Compass.
Final project: A Strategic Compass — with a set of principles, north star, horizon, core people to move with, and embodiment practices — that supports your visionary and pragmatic movement into your life and work.
Who Is This Course For?
This course is for emerging, mid-career and seasoned leaders who may be:
- In transition, burned out or disillusioned - by ongoing crises, systems collapse and institutional spaces that keep you separate and constricted, trapped in roles you have outgrown.
- Ready - to compost heroism, false urgency and perfectionism, and soulless models of leadership.
- Longing - to embody more joy and wholeness in the work and to experience the wellbeing you wish for others.
- Hold - a marginalized identity yourself, while holding a team, a community, a strategy, or an organization together.
- Curious - about how intersectional feminist, somatic, earth-based, and creative practices might help you imagine beyond what you have been fighting against.
What You'll Learn
- Create a strategic compass to help you move from stagnancy, fear or urgency about the future to a north star, weaving social justice and movement praxis, spirit and embodiment practices into your life and work for collective liberation.
- Increased ability to confront uncertainty, complexity and not-knowing with more ease – by understanding the practices of freedom that give you more space and nourishment.
- Awareness of your tendencies under pressure that no longer serve you - and how you can navigate and embody new ways of being and make difficult choices with less reactivity;
- Feeling less isolated as you navigate systems collapse and its symptoms - by experiencing examples of interconnected freedom in line with your vision, purpose and practice; and
- Embodied knowledge of earth- and body-based practices that support you in grounding, resilience, centered transitions, imagination, pleasure, grief tending and courage.
What's Included
Live Sessions
Interactive classes with your instructor
Session Recordings
Lifetime access to all recordings
Community Access
Connect with fellow learners
Certificate
Proof of course completion
Real-World Project
Students will create a Strategic Compass for their lives or work with a north star, horizon, people, and practices to support the embodiment of their visions. This may take multiple forms (e.g. a map, artwork, a poem, a song) and you are encouraged to be creative. You will share these with the group for mutual celebration of our individual and collective practices of freedom.
Session Schedule
About the Instructor
Social justice and embodiment facilitator, strategist and guide
Shawna is a social justice and embodiment facilitator, strategist and guide with a commitment to joyful, trusting relationships that build loving power with. She helps social justice leaders and organizations bring liberatory visions to life with healing centered mindfulness, somatic, creative and nature-based practices. She coaches especially feminist and women of color leaders, offers strategic navigation support for movement building organizations, and facilitations culture change processes. She is Co-Director of Root. Rise. Pollinate! which is soon to realize its anthology, Reports from a (r)Evolution of Being sharing wisdom and practices from healers, beauty and movement makers from around the world. She shares writing, collages and songs on her Substack, Practices of Freedom as Things Fall Apart. For over thirty years, she has worked at the intersections of gender and racial justice, collective care, and transformative leadership, supporting people and movements as they navigate complexity, conflict, and change. She has worked with a range of movement building, international development, philanthropic and community based groups. She formerly taught master’s level courses and workshops on race, power, and international development at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. An avid adult learner, she is currently deepening her studies through Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy, politisized somatics apprenticeship and improvisational singing for community building.
$800
Stay informed about this course and future offerings.
Having issues or questions? Contact us
October 15
20 students max
8 sessions
