Breath Circle for Collective Capacity

ONLINE ONLY

Wednesday 15th and Wednesday 29th April, 7 - 7:45pm

Online via Zoom

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We’re excited to announce the re-launch of our Breathe Circles, a gathering space for small acts of world-building through the intentional act of breath. As we respond to intensifying polycrisis, the Breathe Circle is changing shape to support us to mobilise and resource our movements further.

It’s a space that scaffolds and staggers levels of participation, so that you can opt in to what supports you and your body to feel safer.

What?

This April, we are collaborating with Covid Conscious Resilience facilitators, misha, from Ritual As and Harriet, from Tender Being with Harriet, to offer two introductory Covid-conscious resourcing sessions. Trained in The Resilience Toolkit, misha and Harriet will be guiding us through themes of grief, denial and tension through stabilisation practices and gentle bodywork.

These sessions are offered alongside the launch of our new report, Breathing Spaces: Crisis, Denial, and Collective Care in the Age of Pandemics, to support our movements in thinking about mutual aid, respiratory care and who we need to be for these times and for each other.

Why?

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected us - BIPOC, disabled folks, working class folks, queer and trans folks - disproportionately and it will continue to do so. It showed us that oppression leads to disproportionate death and that the State will always be the first to abandon us.

We will use these spaces to begin a journey of developing preemptive protocols of mutual aid during the Age of Pandemics, so that we are prepared, organised and in difficult conversation and practice together when crisis hits, so that no one is left behind or forgotten.

About the sessions:

Session 1: The embodied experience of still-Coviding and collective resourcing

Naming and noticing the embodied experience of still-Coviding, navigating social power dynamics and denial, and exploring collective resourcing practices.

Session 2: What does stabilisation look like in the ongoing pandemic?

De-shaming stress responses, debunking myths around “releasing” stress, exploring collective resourcing practices.

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Essential guidelines and HJL community principles:

• Sit or lie down in comfortable clothing that is loose and warm, as body temp drops. If you are someone who practices Wadhu or spiritual cleansing, please do so before coming to practice.
• Please let the facilitator know privately if there’s anything you want to disclose re: access or support.
• Physical: regarding your own mobility & physical limits, honor your range. Do what is available to you, go to your own personal edge. All movements are gentle. You can use the intention of each practice to guide what feels right for you.
• Emotional: If you’re in a space of agitation, distressed, hypervigilance, this is completely legitimate and real. Please participate in the ways that help you feel safe which can include just listening, opting in or out for part or all of the session, pacing and slowing down your capacity.
• You are welcome to be on or off camera. Please keep your microphone muted unless you are speaking.
• Breathwork and Bodywork can sometimes surface feelings or make us more aware. You may decide this type of grounding today is not appropriate for your current state or your stress response, please listen to what you need and pay attention to what makes your body feel safe. We honour practice over perfection.
• Please eat about 1hr/1hr 30mins before practice.
• Hydrate afterwards, gently resume your evening.
• This space is a space that holds, sees and safeguards people of colour, disabled people, working class people, QTIPOC, non-binary & two spirited people, people of many faiths. It is a priority space for those marginalised. If you are white or sit in a privileged identity/ties, please know that the healing work we do together will always work with how each one of us must unlearn oppression and work towards internalised liberation showing itself out. That we do the work of healing and justice together.
• We deepen practice, not seek perfection. Come as you are.

Next steps: We have many offerings ongoing at HJL as continued support, email info@healingjusticeldn.org for any questions, sign up to our newsletter, follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter to see information about all our sessions and programmes.

This is a free space and we would like it to be so, if you feel called to balance energies of giving and receiving you can donate to us here.

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Glossary:

Age of Pandemics: This acknowledges the ongoingness of the Covid-19 pandemic and the likelihood of further pandemics amidst polycrisis and climate change.

Polycrisis: A term to describe multiple, intersecting crises and disasters that impact on one another

Still-Coviding: Folks who are continuing to practice Covid-prevention strategies like masking, testing, and air filtration

What we mean by ‘covid-conscious’ workshops/spaces (Words borrowed from Harriet Hamid-Collett):

“The 'covid conscious' part of this programme is not educational but more community-based.

We will not be teaching about covid safety and do not have expertise in this area.

Instead, the 'covid conscious' element provides context for understanding how the stress of navigating the ongoing pandemic (and facing covid denialism) might be showing up, and how we might support ourselves and our communities through this. We also hope it can offer you a small sense of relief knowing that you will be coming into a space where you know that everyone there recognises and acknowledges the ongoing pandemic.”