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"We don't need another Guru. We need each other."
- Rohini Ross
Are you interested in taking our
Spiritual Communities to the next level?
When Black Lives Matter Protests broke out globally after George Floyd was murdered by police, it seemed a massive shift took place within our collective consciousness. It brought realities that have been true for so long for so many to the surface of global awareness.
One of the things I noticed was that some spiritual communities, that are mostly white, were having a similar experience to society. It became obvious how difficult it has been for people of color to talk about racism and be met with deep listening and understanding in these communities.
We have a historic opportunity to listen to and to understand one another better, and to bring more love, wisdom and insight to conversations around race, social justice, equity and equality for all of humanity.
If not us, then who?
This conversation series is an opportunity to listen deeply, to look in the same direction together, and to create space for our spiritual understanding to bring us all closer together. Imagine the impact that can have.
It is the intention that this series will be the first of many to center, amplify and honor all voices. Our hope is for all people to feel welcome here!
We hope you'll join us.
With Loving,
Julie
Conversation Topics
Conversation #1: Listening to Understand
Conversation #2: Why are some Spiritual Communities so White?
Conversation #3: What I Felt I Couldn't Share
Conversation #4: The Richness and Power of Centering Black Voices
Conversation #5: Love and Wisdom in Action
Conversation #6: Full Panel Q&A
Series Speakers
This series took place over 6 weeks to create space to
deepen and ground what we see together over time.
Conversation #1
Listening to Understand
Julieanne Chazotte
Julie is a co-founder of SimpleSHIFT, a forthcoming platform based on the "Three Principles" understanding, whose mission it is to help people create more health, well-being, and ease across all areas of life and the way we do business.
Additionally, Julie is a transformational coach who guides and supports individuals and businesses in navigating life with greater ease. She points people away from the habits that create stress, pressure and sometimes burnout, and points them toward what naturally allows them to access better quality thinking, creativity and momentum.
With masters degrees in education and in spiritual psychology, Julie brings over 18 years of experience in the field of education and coaching to each person, project and company she works with.
Rohini Ross
Rohini Ross is co-founder of the Rewilders where she offers The Rewilding Guide Training, The 29-Day Rewilding Experience, and the on-going Rewilding Community. Her work focuses on rewilding people and their relationships back to their natural state of love, peace, and harmony. She sees this as a time of awakening from unconscious biases, of opening up to a deeper experience of impersonal love, and of actively expressing that understanding in the world.
She is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential as a guide along the way. Rohini is a regular contributor to Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage.
Rohini lives with her husband and business partner Angus Ross, her two young adult daughters Akasha and Ashana, and her four-legged friends Niko and Twilight in Topanga, CA.
Conversation #2
Why are some Spiritual Communities so White?:
A Look at what’s White Under our Nose ;)
Nyarkoa Mensah-Jordan
Nyarkoa Mensah-Jordan MSW is a licensed clinical social worker who was introduced to the Three Principles by her beloved mother-in-law Barbara Jordan 28 years ago. Having an inside out understanding about the way that reality is created has improved her relationships, increased her ability to dwell comfortably within her own mind and in the ever changing world. For the past 8 years she shared the principles in summer camps, community health and transitional housing organizations, homeless shelters and is currently working with teens in alternative high schools.
She deeply loves and respects the human beings she gets to work with and considers it an honor to walk the road with them a while. Nyarkoa is also singer-songwriter and lover of music and movement. She uses music as a way of reaching past the intellect in order to connect with the precious heart of another human being. She lives in Vermont with her beloved husband Gregg, beautiful son Zaiah and their dear-hearted dog Bella Luna
She is interested in being a part of intentional conversations which bring to light the way in which racism and white privilege shape and create the very cultural norms and values of white spiritual communities. Change cannot happen until the unconscious has been made conscious, and the darkness has been brought to light. She lives in Vermont with her beloved husband Gregg, beautiful son Zaiah and their dear-hearted dog Bella Luna
Todd Thomas Brown
Born in Vermont, and based in Fontecchio, Italy, Todd Thomas Brown is a multidisciplinary artist who develops “spaces of encounter” as a means of community cross-cultural engagement. Previously, he spent 19 years in San Francisco where he founded International performance space called Red Poppy Art House, and The Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP), a bi-monthly intercultural neighborhood arts festival.
Todd was first introduced to the teachings of Sydney Banks in 1990 by Barbara Jordan and Dicken Bettinger, and continued throughout the 90's to attend trainings and conferences hosted by leading teachers in the 3P community as well as with Syd. He has facilitated 3P workshops in recovery centers for women and domestic violence prevention for men, as well as in county jails.
Since his undergraduate studies introduction to the history of African American literature, the Youth uprisings against the apartheid South Africa’s system of apartheid, and the broader legacy of European colonialism, Todd has remained committed to social justice through creative engagement. Drawing from this background and the ongoing discourse on race in the cultural/arts sector, in 2017, Todd wrote an informal paper that raised questions about the racial bias present within the 3P community, reflected in the cultural homogeneity of the majority of its teachers and trainers.
Conversation #3
What I Felt I Couldn't Share
Alvin Dawkins
With a passion for music since childhood, Alvin Dawkins is a jazz bassist, composer-songwriter and recording artist. He is also a writer and author of the forthcoming book, "From Prison To Purpose," a"hero's journey" memoir, which chronicles his birth in prison, being adopted and growing up in the ugliness of Alabama's Jim Crow segregation and apartheid, living in the heart and center of the 1960's Civil Rights movement for voting, civil and human rights, as well as struggling with severe, and at times debilitating, depression. His journey culminated in a series of powerful spiritual experiences and awakenings, which led to a complete reorientation, relationship to and better understanding of depression!
Inspired and informed by these life experiences, in addition to a Master's degree in Spiritual Psychology, Alvin is drawn towards enlightening and honest conversations around unconscious bias, white privilege, and racism, and how these often shape and inform many white spiritual communities.
Alvin is also passionate about helping others who struggle with anxiety and depression, sharing his insights and experiences through his writing, speaking, coaching, as well as his music.
Conversation #4
The Richness and Power of Centering Black Voices
Dr. Sherrie Allen
Dr. Sherrie Allen is a depth psychologist who focuses her work on
exploring the cultural wounds of racism, sexism, feelings of invisibility, and
women and rage, which she re-visions as a socially valuable expression in her dissertation, Transforming Rage: Revisioning the Myth of the Angry Black Woman. Dr. Allen has made presentations at both the Society of Humanistic Psychology and the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies conferences. Dr. Allen is a practitioner of the Myers Briggs Topology Instrument (MBTI), which she and her husband, Dr. Melvin Allen, utilize in their nationally presented relationship seminars and workshops for couples and singles. Her approach affirms that when relationships work, families work; when families work, communities work, and when communities work, the world works. The Drs. Allen are co- authors of the forthcoming book, The Allen Method: Exploring a Depth Psychological Approach to Relationships Through the Lens of Myers Briggs.Sherrie's work is also published in, Seeing in the Dark: Wisdom Works by Black Women in Depth Psychology. This would be a powerful piece to read prior to attending Sherrie's session.
Conversation #5
Love and Wisdom in Action
Ami Chen Mills-Naim
Ami Chen Mills-Naim is a global speaker, coach, trainer, editor and author of State of Mind in the Classroom: Thought, Consciousness and the Essential Curriculum for Healthy Learning, and The Spark Inside: A Special Book for Youth. She also wrote a book on student political activism on college campuses just after graduating from Northwestern University in 1989.
With her late father, the social scientist Dr. Roger Mills (considered a pioneer of "Three Principles" work globally) she co-founded the non-profit Center for Sustainable Change, and served as Executive Director and Education Director for a decade. In this role, she raised funding and directed community-based resiliency projects across the United States, in schools, health agencies and inner city neighborhoods--with remarkable and transformative results.
Ami re-engaged in political and climate activism in 2016, and has served on the Extinction Rebellion Global Support Regenerative Cultures working group, bringing Three Principles training to global activists around climate and species extinction. She has been trained in Kingian nonviolence and Dynamic Facilitation. She is currently engaged in several ongoing projects addressing political division, US politics and ecology.
Conversation #6
Full Panel Q&A
Join us for the final conversation!
This final conversation of the series is a chance to share our insights, reflections and awarenesses that have come forward throughout the series. It's also another chance to ask questions of our incredible speakers.
Final reflections can often be the most powerful! We're looking forward to being a part of this conversation.
- The Direction We're Looking in Together!What's possible when we all look in the same direction?
Wisdom
When we listen for wisdom together, what will we hear? How will that impact us and our communities and what we create?
Compassion
What is possible when we bring the feeling of Love and Compassion, our True Nature, to conversations that are sensitive and tender for us?
Understanding
We will explore how a deeper level of listening and understanding of each other and of our True Nature is a powerful agent in healing and creating change.
Community
Community is deeply important in general for us as humans, but especially now as we go through a collective transformation, having community where we feel seen, heard, respected and valued can be so helpful.
Fresh Thought
As we open up and explore these conversations together, we will have the chance to hear our own insights and fresh thought that will help us in creating something new.
Transformation & Action
We know from our Spiritual understanding already that deep levels of transformation are possible. What happens when we use what we see to create transformation at a larger scale, with each other.
How will our actions change?
"Being "firsts," "onlys," and marginalized "Others" in a still-Eurocentric profession continues to create a tension of opposites Black women in depth psychology mediate daily as we work to be conduits and creators of a transcendent third reality in our field. A reality that not only includes, but centers us and the work we do."
- Sharon D. Johnson, "Seeing in the Dark: Wisdom Works by Black Women in Depth Psychology"
- Listen to the Recordings!
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Recommended Resources
Here's a robust starter kit of resources that can be supportive as you continue this journey!
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