Dear generative somatics (gs ) community, 

As long days of summer turn a corner into shorter days of fall, we hope this finds you safe and able to access moments of joy, nourishment, and respite.

We are excited to share a celebratory update about our BIPOC Embodied Leadership course that launched in September. 

BIPOC Embodied Leadership reflects gs’ core commitments, mission, and strategies by specifically engaging Black, Indigenous, and all People of Color who work in social and climate justice movements. We received over 170 fantastic applications for 42 spots. BIPOC Embodied Leadership participants are caregivers, dreamers, facilitators, fighters, healers, and organizers who are intentionally choosing to deepen, heal, trust their voice, and transform in order to make the contribution they want to make, in their lives, communities, and our movements. 

We are thrilled about and grateful to the all BIPOC teaching team that is holding participants’ learning and transformation. The team - Adaku Utah, Donaji Lona, Fayza Bundalli, Erika Lyla, and Sam Jung (photo below) - represents our next generation of gs teachers. You can read more about them here. We are also grateful that Paola Laird, a longtime advanced gs teacher, is playing a support and mentor role to the amazing teaching team.

These gs teachers have put the time in on their own transformation, have trained for years in holding collective somatic spaces, and bring wide and deep understanding of movements and the conditions facing BIPOC communities. The teaching team is working collaboratively, valuing each other’s depth and experience, and drawing on the wisdom that comes through BIPOC bodies leading politicized somatics.
Photo of teaching team with quotes from Adaku and Sam.

Grounded in experiments by gs practitioners, teachers, and gs in this past year of global pandemic, we are offering this course online over nine weeks with six sessions and three coaching groups. BIPOC Embodied Leadership is a collaboration with our teachers and relies on their wisdom and creativity. BIPOC Embodied Leadership welcomes the grief, isolation, overwhelm, confusion, heartbreak, and rage that so many have been feeling, invites the choice to declare what matters to us and carve out a future, and to embody new behaviors that align with vision, values, and longings.

We are honored to support this BIPOC-only multi-racial space as a generative environment for practice and transformation! 

In gratitude, 
Saima, on behalf of the gs staff
--
Saima Husain, Interim Co-Executive Director (Programs)

PS. If you have questions about this course or about gs as an organization, please reach out to gs staff, not to the teachers of BIPOC Embodied Leadership who are focusing their attention on holding the somatic transformation of participants.
generative somatics | www.generativesomatics.org