On & off the field, Queering Systems Change & Healing Justice During Pride Month

Within and in-between. We out here.

A historical record of a month in the life of a queer, Systems Change & Healing Justice Facilitator. I’m putting this down because I’ve had my labor, my work, my lived experience erased before, and I for one want to look back to this seriously fucked up time in human history and be able to say I SHOWED UP (and I took care of myself in the process).

🔻 Meeting with Forward Through Ferguson, initiating training & thought partnership for the Systems Change Fellowship project my co-facilitator Ishy and I lead at SQSH.

🔻 Meeting with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) St. Louis office to join their queer focus group & partner on widening impact for non-punitive, restorative healing programming in STL High Schools.

🔻 Starting up my 10-week Embodied Rawthenticity workshop at Empowered Spaces with guiding folks through somatic exploration & agency building of whole body consciousness.

🔻 Having my film art work AND stagecraft included in MOHO Justice’s 1st curated exhibit, A.MUSE.D, celebrating s*x workers & Black Ballroom, fortifying unseen and oft erased complex history & identity of real live human beings.

🔻 Facilitating the white antiracist caucus for SQSH’s new peer support warmline team, uprooting & transforming reactionary barriers, stepping into embodiment of courage over comfort.

🔻 Having MULTIPLE, growth-edge challenging conversations across staff teams & collectives, regarding institutional accountability, de-hierarchizing power and just generally detangling knots & threads of exquisitely imperfect human communication.

🔻 Marching in the streets, taking up intersections demanding divestment from military industrial corporate cooption (pinkwashing) of Pride and supporting one comrade & neighbor in particular recover their breath & nervous system from a panic attack induced by a delusional individual who thought ramming his car into protesters was going to be a good idea he could get away with (@ me if anyone needs the license plate number).

🔻 And lastly, got me shiny new Y membership so I can keep my 44 year old ass out here as holistically strong and healthy as I can be because chronic illness is a bitch and Pluto in Aquarius for the next 20 years is demanding this Aquarian show up to be an active part of the revolution applying the hard fuckin’ earned wisdom, compassion & unconditional love the Universe provides ALL of us in every atom, every cell, every breath, every relationship.

In solidarity,

-Deanna-