EarthSong Rising
September 5 – 8, 2019, North Carolina
Regarding Our Beliefs
We believe in the power of community singing to bring us closer together, to help us align with our truth, and to integrate healing and liberation for all people and this Earth. We believe Our songs are prayers and medicines that metabolize grief and offer beauty to one another, and to the Earth. We believe that singing is a primary way humans can connect and feel a sense of belonging.
We know that singing has been integral to many movements of liberation, and we want this gathering to support efforts towards a world of harmony, equity, and justice. Singing arises blessed unrest within the soul, sometimes described as a profound sense that everything is not alright, coupled with a belief that we do have agency, we do have power in our voice. We’ve seen the power of respectfully sharing songs and lineages of songs to expand our awareness and bring diversity of language, thought and feeling.
By gathering and sharing these songs that live in our hearts and souls and come forth when needed, we seek to support healing the heart of our one planet.
Community Liberation
Community liberation describes an approach to collectively gather around the work of acknowledging and dismantling the various forms of oppression woven into the cultural and institutional fabric of the United States, including: systemic racism, sexism, classism, colonialization, gender normativity & homophobia.
Who is Community Singing For?
Recently, several women of color from the community singing movement in the Midwest wrote a document titled: “Who is Community Singing For?” The missive acknowledges that they encountered racism at community singing gatherings, and states that, “If Community Singing is to be for everyone, we believe it must explicitly identify as an anti-racist, anti-oppression movement. We offer this challenge with love.“
The document outlines qualities of anti-racist, anti-oppression movements, answers why this stance is so important, and provides action steps to make changes to community singing gatherings. We at EarthSong Rising accept this challenge, with a heart of care that strives for radical inclusion. We are shifting our gathering to align ourselves with the challenge presented by “Who is Community Singing For?” and will continue to look at how we can do better each year. Please read these excerpts below, and view the full document here.
“…in a racist society, groups that don’t actively push back against racism are, by force of inertia, certain to recreate racist structures and repeat racist values within themselves.“
“In our song gatherings, we are dreaming (and, for a week or a weekend or an hour at a time, trying to live in) a new world. If we are hearing the words of the songs we’re singing together correctly, that means a safe and sustaining world where each person is valued just as they are, where the whole person (body, spirit, mind, emotions) is welcomed and accommodated, and where primal, necessary connections to each other and to the natural world are given their due.
People of color, low-income people, and LGBTQ+ people want these things, too—urgently so, since we often have been forcibly separated from our communities and homelands, our village fires. We have found something in Community Singing that fills some of that longing and we want others to know of its value. But we can’t be ambassadors to other marginalized people on behalf of this movement if it won’t fight alongside us for full inclusion.“
Developing a new culture: workshops with Kristin Wilson
“Whiteness without Supremacy”: Aligning our communication and behavior with our values
Are you someone who cares about social justice efforts and interested in focusing in on how to align your social justice values with anti-oppression behaviors? For most White folks, racism resides in the shadow of our psyche, and therefore behaviors that perpetuate White Supremacy culture are enacted in unintended ways and in ways we may not be aware of. Most White folks I know think they are not racist yet continue to exist in predominantly White spaces and cause unintended harm to people of color without realizing this is happening and wonder why more people of color either don’t come to their events or communities or come and don’t stay. Or we realize the patterns of behavior that do cause harm but aren’t sure how to change in a holistic way that shifts the culture around us as well. This workshop is designed to focus in on communication (verbal and non-verbal) patterns that do cause harm, how to interrupt harmful patterns when they occur and address that harm in ways that allow for the possibility of connection and growth.
White Fragility & Apathy: Healing ancestral trauma in real time & building a framework for a new culture of “Whiteness without Supremacy”
We will work to understand a role trauma plays in colonization and racialization of White bodies; understand the necessity of individual and collective healing; and share a framework to build a new culture of what Resmaa Menakem calls “Whiteness without Supremacy”. This workshop is designed for White folks who are familiar with what Robin Di’Angelo calls White fragility and have consistently worked to understand the historical framework of racism in the United States and the overall concepts of structural, interpersonal, and internalized racism.
*The content is designed by a White American queer cis-woman for White folks and people of color are welcome.
Kristin Wilson is White Southern Appalachian American queer cis-woman of European ancestry committed to working with with organizations, groups, and individuals seeking a greater wholistic sense of well-being by implementing anti-oppression frameworks. She works in a national capacity as a trainer and consultant for organizations, groups, and individuals with predominantly White identified people dismantling White Supremacy Culture and identifying and developing a culture that best aligns with their values. Kristin works locally in Asheville, NC at Buncombe County DHHS as a Resiliency Coordinator in Social Services and Neutral Facilitator of Child and Family Team meetings in Child Protective Services to advocate for children and families and support social workers, community providers and supports to build a resilient, healthy community free of violence, abuse and neglect. Kristin has worked within the non-profit, private, and government sectors specializing in women’s empowerment, therapy, domestic violence, child protective services, anti-racism, spirit-centered work, GLBTQ initiatives, youth work, leadership development, and wholistic healing. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a MSW from Smith College School for Social Work. Kristin also studied at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, Appalachian State University, and the University of Tennessee.
People of Color Alternative/Affinity Space
Intentions
- To create a comfortable and inviting, dedicated physical space for people of color (PoC) to relax and be together in community
- To encourage conversation and interconnection between those who identify as PoC, regardless of outwardly perceived physical characteristics! To hold space, for a variety of topics centered around racial justice, equity and identity
- To provide opportunities to dialogue, share meals, experience deep connection and breathe in an intentional “safe space” within the context of an “integrated white space” environment to
- To encourage inclusion of children and youth of color and invite dialogue centered around issues of identity and belonging
- To devote time to share ideas about best practices to collectively cultivate the PoC space and encourage similar spaces at future gatherings
We invite you to read this article about why people of color need spaces without white people.
About the facilitators:
Alice Dixson is a licensed barber, community and spiritual activist, bodyworker, a generational elder in a long line of Civil Rights activist and is currently working as a Visitation Coach for Buncombe County Department of Health and Human Services through the SPARC Foundation. Alice has worked with the juvenile justice system, is a member of the ACE Learning Collaborative, a board member of Be Present, a racial equity facilitator at a number of venues including the annual South East and New England Herbal Conferences, Earth Haven Ecovillage, and as a consultant for the Reconnect for Resilience training curriculum. Alice was raised to believe that life is a mural and not just a single picture. Alice’s work is based on the premise that everyone wants to be seen and heard. Alice’s passion for equity and healing shows up with compassion in all aspects of her work and for all people.
Community Liberation Tent
The Community Liberation Tent is a space for educating ourselves about the oppressions experienced by many people in our society. Why are we having such a tent at a song gathering?
We know that EarthSong Rising, like all that happens in the United States, is a site where the painful and imperative national conversation about racism and reparations needs to be engaged, and we accept this challenge with love. We will focus on understanding racism and privilege, but there will also be space held for conversations about other intersecting oppressions in our society. We will have an anti-oppression library available, as well as folks at the tent who are present to facilitate dialogue (staffing the tent during designated times).
So please gather with us at the Community Liberation Tent as we explore our commonalities and our differences, and consider steps that we can take to support and create a more equitable future. This will be a space for education and accountability, but also for compassion and listening. Come with your curiosity, your brave and open heart! Also, please bring books and resources to share with others in our anti-racism/liberation library!
About the facilitators:
Paige feels passionately about moving the liberation conversation forward by supporting various efforts at EarthSong Rising including community safety and racial equity. She is especially interested in de-colonizing the english language in literature, the works of Toni Morrison, and is in the process of clarifying her own genderqueer identity. She is focused at this time on raising a conscious, compassionate child with her partner jack Fischer. Paige, jack and their child Saoirse will be happy to encourage and take part in dialogue with folks at the Community Liberation Tent. pronouns: she/her
As a white folk who receives white male privilege, jack is committed to bringing the equity conversation into white spaces. Both community safety and racial equity are issues jack is doing his best to be informed about. jack has recently written a small book for the greater Asheville area entitled white spaces: Notes on Race and Privilege for a (pretty darn) white Community. pronouns: they/them
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Can’t wait to Sing with You!