Center for Whole Communities

12/31/2024

As this year draws to a close, may we all find peace and connection. As we do our best to prepare to re-enter the chaos of the incoming administration, we are feeling so much... Sadness and anger mixed with fear of the known and unknown.

And still, we are actively cultivating hope. A hope we derive from the undeniable truth that we, all of us, are powerful, and we are here. And we are asking for your support as we move into this new year so we may continue to uphold our commitment to returning to our practices of love and connection, to each other, and to you.

Thank you for continuing to turn toward us. Thank you for continuing to trust us. Thank you for your donation today.

12/20/2024

In October, our collective gathered in a cabin in the woods of Vermont, to vision, to reflect, and to create together as the glowing crimson hazel and amber leaves spun from the trees with a passion, grace, and abandon one can only yearn to embody. Two weeks to the day before this country’s election, as genocide continued to laugh at our helplessness, we boiled water for tea and took breaks to stretch our legs and gaze with our rage and grief and love and yearning at the breathtaking reminder that nature will do what she does, no matter what. That we, in fact, are small. And yet, our stories matter. Among us, we are grieving the loss of our parents. We are nursing our daughters. We are raising mixed race children. We have no children. We are caring for our mothers who are sick. We are estranged from our fathers. We are healing from a double mastectomy. We just had an abortion. We are Black. We are Jewish. We are q***r. We are sober. We are survivors. And writing is an anchor. Our new blog is a weaving together of our six voices, gathered from each of our individual freewrites, inspired by Mary Oliver’s From the Book of Time. As we continue to stretch into this new configuration and move towards a more circular form, experimenting with what happens when we allow ourselves to truly collectivize, is an enticing challenge. Stretch your legs, boil some water, and behold the tapestry of our recollections.

Link in bio!

12/19/2024

As we approach the winter solstice, we reflect on the importance of creativity and community. Our latest offering, "How Darkness Can Dance," invites you to explore memory and vision in these challenging times. Join us in nurturing our collective energies for the year ahead. Read and listen to the piece here: [How Darkness Can Dance](https://wholecommunities.org/how-darkness-can-dance/).

https://conta.cc/4giGKJ0

12/16/2024

We are reaching…to expand our partnerships and our work. We are in the early stages of collaborating on a CWC collective book to capture the stories, learning, and wisdom that comes from decades of practice. We are committed to creating spaces that ignite our imaginations and offer possibilities for a future that is waiting for us all.

Please help support our work to cultivate transformative leadership that weaves together and strengthens movements for justice and the environment. Trust, reimagine, transform, dream into, begin again with us.

Exquisite artistry by
Heart stirring music by

12/12/2024

“Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change no change matters.”

angel Kyodo williams, Sensei

12/05/2024

NEW BLOG!

After the election, we turned to Delma to ask for his take on America and our movement in the wake of the election - Love and Hip Hop and Trumpism is his response. It is an example of what we have come to expect from Delma, an unflinching exploration of race, culture and power. So much about what Delma brings to our collective - and to all of our extended family of learners and collaborators - is the courage and strength to be real, and say the hard things. To challenge the dominant cultural norms, while acknowledging they live in him too.

"I’m picking on hip hop because I feel like a jilted lover. I had expectations on the genre that were never going to be fulfilled. Even as it was saving me, it was harming me. I was too often being inundated with materialism, misogyny, and machismo. Hip hop was our Bob Dylan and our John Wayne. Hip hop was our Gloria Steinam and our Hugh Hefner. It was our Americana."

Link in bio to read the full blog, and for ways to support our non profit collective!

07/20/2024

Consider this one y’all
🌀🙏🏼🌀

gs practitioner Zoë .somatics has this online offer starting next month!

Reposted from .somatics

A 6-week somatic group to unlearn and unravel embodied patterns of white supremacy and individualism.

A mix of theory, practice, and play to help us unravel the myths of separation that permeate our bodies and beliefs.

We will move differently, listen differently, and practice different ways of being together so that we can liberate our imaginations from the stranglehold of despair, reactiveness, and mistrust.

In this 6-week group you will be introduced to a series of foundational somatic practices, mostly from the lineages of .somatics, , and Theatre of the Oppressed ()

Participants are designed to move us beyond the embodied patterns that keep us constricted and towards more life, more connection, and more possibility.

Our bodies and (subconscious) beliefs are shaped by the worlds we inhabit. Somatics allows us to become more conscious of the stories that shape our lives so that we can live in deeper alignment with our values and commitments.

It's about creating new muscle memories and embodied possibilities through practice. We build an awareness of our default ways of being in the world and then work towards a deeper sense of alignment with our values instead of always reacting from our protective patterns.

Shifting cycles, creating new possibilities. Unraveling old stories. Strengthening the muscle of our political imagination.

Who are you joining us?

6 Thursdays at noon EST
beginning August 1
on Zoom

Sliding scale
Link in bio to register!

05/30/2024

"Creator, please give us the strength to believe in our collective power. Give us the strength and wisdom and audacity to change the conditions of this planet. Give us the strength to let our love be as on full display as the exposure of their egregious violence. May our collective love continue to be as piercing in its display, in its exposure, in its vulnerability."

~brontë velez

🇵🇸

03/08/2024

I fall asleep every night and wake up every morning to this image, painted by my partner's father. My daughters' grandpa. A mother holding close her infant, pressed to her heart, eyes closed. "Protection in The Middle Passage". Her steadfast, peaceful grounded mama bear energy unwavering in a sea of fierce movement and color. Her locks becoming the sea and the sky. On the other side of our window is a portrait of my beloved, in his own mother's arms, when he is as young as my infant is now. We hung it while I was in labor at home, 10 months ago, somewhere between growls and arched backs, all fours, and slow rocks. I needed her. Grounded, focused, and graceful in her unapologetic strength and resiliency. An artist. A visionary. A seeker. An ancestor watching. I co sleep with my nursing baby. By sunrise, I often have two daughters tangled in and out of slumber with me. I was 8 when Winston painted this woman. I know that with each brushstroke, he prayed no mother would ever again have to know the horrors of protecting their babies from violence and genocide. Grandson of sharecroppers in South Carolina. So many mothers today are desperately holding their babies as close as possible, while the earth becomes rubble, the sky becomes smoke. I pray today that we come back to our women. That we honor our mothers. That we remember where we came from, and bow.
~ Samara Gaev

02/23/2024

Always appreciate the work of IISC - take advantage of these offerings !

🌻 Registration is now live for our Spring workshop offerings, with more new and exciting opportunities coming soon! Check out our website for more information and join us for one or all three workshops: https://interactioninstitute.org/trainings/

02/08/2024

So excited to be launching the 2nd cohort of Vermont Conservation Leaders in Solidarty! May we start where we are, to invest in equitable relationships that prioritize justice, leaning in, and slowing down with rigor and grace.

02/06/2024

As we embrace collectivity and honor the call that beckons us towards one another, we walk courageously towards liberation, solidarity, and hope. Cole Arthur Riley has offered us “an artifact of both grief and beauty” in Black Liturgies. So grateful for this invitation to “hold space, return home, and rediscover joy” as Amena Brown so poignantly acknowledges of Riley’s work. Join us.



.mcginn