Dear generative somatics (gs) community,
All of our lives are full to the brim. Relentless conditions locally and globally and the sustained fight back impacts some of us directly, and has consequences for everyone. Through it, we continue to bring love, leadership, and community to our families, organizations, and movements.
In that context, we are grateful that in the last six months since we sent out these reflections, gs’ leadership has gotten wider. We have expanded from approximately ten people leading gs, to now about thirty (majority BIPOC and queer) gs teachers and practitioners visioning and leading our programmatic and organizational change work.
|
|
gs practitioners and teachers are the lifeforce bringing our methodology to movements. This year, teachers and practitioners formed a committee (B Stepp, Che Johnson Long, Donaji Lona, Erika Lyla, Nazbah Tom, and Sue Kuyper) to organize themselves within the organization to bring about what they need for their skills development and leadership. We are working collaboratively, sharing power, and ensuring gs is leaderful.
|
|
In November, 35 members of gs’ Teacher Training body and Practitioners Network convened online (collectively for the first time) for a full day of fundamental gs and innovative practices, skills-sharing, and space to reflect on the past and future of gs. A hybrid (online & in-person) gathering is planned for Spring 2023 to continue visioning, planning, and development. |
|
A Daily Practice Space has been offered online free-of-charge every weekday since February and will continue into 2023, providing a critical and accessible resource to alumni.
|
|
Beginning this winter, gs Movement Partnerships launched with Women on the Rise, led by gs’ first all-Black teaching team, and relaunched with Asian Pacific Environmental Network. |
|
Starting in March gs began developing a cohort of new BIPOC somatic practitioner supervisors through monthly trainings and mentorship with established supervisors. |
|
In 2022, we did a lot of challenging and important learning about what needs to evolve about how we develop facilitators and offer somatics online in this historical moment. |
|
gs celebrates the somatic offers to movements that teachers and practitioners are making independent of gs. These programs are diverse in format (organizational work, healing groups, etc), participants (trans and non-binary, BIPOC sick and disabled, white anti-racist organizers, etc), and topics (pleasure & despair, cultivating resilience, embodied boundaries, etc). Follow gs social media to find out more.
|
|
Organizational culture change is making all of gs’ work more powerful. We continue to center BIPOC, build shared power, fully value labor, move at an organic pace, and practice transparency. We are also practicing toward our commitments to build pro-Black spaces and address anti-Black racism in gs, and create a culture of collective accountability. We have widened leadership for this work including Organizational Development Advisors who collaborate with a broader group of practitioners and teachers. We are taking leadership from the energy and vision of this group, in conversation with consultants including those from Conflict Transformation Fund.
Saima and Usa Lee will remain in leadership. Saima and Usa Lee have been leading gs in a Co-Directorship model since the summer of 2021 with the titles “Interim” Co-Executive Directors. In 2023, they will continue leading gs with steadiness and care, now with more permanent titles of Co-Executive Directors.
As 2022 comes to an end, we feel gratitude and hope for this new evolution of gs. In these years of challenge and transition, gs has been notably financially stable thanks to prior commitments and continued support from long-standing donors and funders, as well as past foresight and planning that provided a substantial reserve fund that continues to be a temporary buoy. Heading into 2023, we remain committed to fully compensating all labor while continuing to keep gs programming free or low cost for poor and working class movement leaders. In that context, we are working to identify a significant amount of new funding to continue to build, evolve, and transform sustainably into the future.
In community,
Aja, Danielle, Saima, and Usa Lee
--
gs staff team
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
