Black Rest @ The Maroon Collective

I am hosting small batch private communal resting workshops. My community yoga Installations are immersive and interactive each class is thematic and built into a larger collection of installations. Partnering with different public and community spaces to create more culturally relevant opportunities to wellness, somatic movement to the people that truly need it. The classes can be a beginner to intermediate and either resting or full range of motion intuitive movement class (where you move at your own pace and listen to your body) with a custom curated playlist ranging from R&B, soul, rap, improvisational jazz, mantra, binaural beats, and advanced jazz into the space age jazz- think Sun Ra or late John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane and Fela Kuti. This is an invitation to join me as we go on a journey of collective and self-exploration using journaling meditation, sound baths comprised of Tibetan brass singing bowls and crystal singing bowls, collected nature sounds, gongs, and chimes to create a symphony of attunement for inner clarity. Rest is a human right but often denied to the poor, Black and otherwise multi- marginalized around the world. I want to reframe the idea of rest being a luxury to a basic necessity that should be afforded to us all. While doing so we will engage the larger framework of racial capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy and uplift anti supremacy work. I would love to impart on Black people that before we were stolen and forced to labor tirelessly for 400 years, this has not always been our reality or a necessity for survival. I would like to use a tool that has been utilized for over 100,000 years to help Black people self determine our next steps forward. I see community as a living breathing body. Though there are overarching super structures that contribute to limited access due to race, class, and gender, a community is comprised of people. I hope to show these people the power of rest and reserving their labor. I would like to use these rest workshops to cultivate individual power in each participant and how we can harness radical rest and Black wellness as tools of collective power to affect our individual lives, our families, our communities, and our built environment. By capturing the work through audio, video, photos or live streams, this creating access to digital and physical spaces to community build with and for Black People. With the space to dream and bring ease back into our existence excavates our humanity. We can find the tools help to curve out more powerful coping strategies to process stress, trauma, and actively resist white supremacy all while resting. Together, we can envision benevolent and healthier black families and communities. I will take 8 people into each of these rest classes holding 1 class per week for 6 weeks all touching on one of 6 themes of rest, growth and reconciliation. I would like to give each participant a journal, a sleeping mask and lavender spray. The classes would last for 1h 30 minutes and insights be discretely captured through surveys, audio or video with the consent of the people in the workshops. By attending the workshops, your presence is consent for audio and video release unless you tell me you would like to not be recorded or photographed. Workshops themes I am looking to explore: Communal Rest Rest For Grief Rest For Anxiety Rest For Racial Trauma Rest For Families Rest For Moms Rest For Black Queer Futures Rest For Children Chair Yoga for Every Body Black Meditations for Rest and Introspection Sound Healing for Black Rest