Spiritual Talk: Rest + Play - Why We Prioritize Them When The World Is Burning (Part 2 of 2)

April 28, 2022

Please note there is a Part 1 and Part of this Spiritual Talk, because we didn't have closed captions initially set up. So we paused the Spiritual Talk to move to a new Zoom room that had closed captions. While this meant we had to pivot and modify the conversation, it felt important to acknowledge the harm our lack of set up had on the people who needed closed captions (and how this is a common occurrence for them), and make amends.

WHO: For folks who feel exhausted in their work, their life, and their activism, movement, and/or liberation work, but feel like there’s too much at stake to stop.

WHAT: This Spiritual Talk focused on why and how WildSeed Society prioritizes collective and individual rest and play in our movement and liberation work - even in the midst of organizational uncertainty and financial insecurity. So we can face this burning world from a more resourced and skillful place.

Erika Totten and Sandra Kim explored:

• How WildSeed Society members are unlearning the belief that we can't slow down to center our well-being, and shifting how we show up at work and in our lives in ways that honor our humanity

• How WildSeed Society found that slowing down to rest and play is strategic and necessary for us to have the capacity to address the challenges facing us

• What became possible for WildSeed Society after the team intentionally centered their rest and play in the midst of addressing organizational uncertainty and financial insecurity

• How WildSeed Society wants to support our community with invitations to our upcoming Rest + Play Retreats

WHY: The world, as we know it, is burning. In the face of uncertainty, we have been socially conditioned to keep pushing forward and take action - even when we’re exhausted and don’t know what to do.

But giving from an empty cup usually means we end up hurting ourselves and sometimes unintentionally hurting others by the way we’re showing up. When we steamroll our own feelings and needs to “get things done”, we can too easily steamroll others along the way.

While this may be how we’ve been conditioned to react, this isn’t the only way we can respond. There’s another way to be.

At WildSeed Society, we do not believe that we need to save a system that has never served us. Nor do we need to merely survive its collapse. Rather we are choosing to retreat together in ways that nurture collective thriving - by building refuges for each other.

In other words, we're engaging in a Liberating Retreat. With rest + play at the heart of that we can learn to respond to crises from a place of groundedness, spaciousness, and curiosity.

If you want to learn more about how we're doing that, please join us in this critical discussion — for ourselves and for our movements.

SPEAKERS

Erika Totten is the Light Guardian of the WildSeed Society. She creates and facilitates transformative healing spaces for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color of all identities to process racial stress and trauma, and to experience embodied liberation & collective joy, in the midst of dismantling systems of oppression. She's committed to the movement for Black liberation and the evolution of our collective consciousness. Erika's the founder and director of Unchained Visioning, a core member of Harriet's Apothecary Healer's Collective, and secretary of The Community Healing Network .

Sandra Kim is the Spirit Weaver of the WildSeed Society. She helps people learn how to take refuge in themselves, each other, and the land so they can turn towards the frightening realities we live in and not lose connection to the joyous realities we also live in. Sandra identifies as a mystic for the (r)evolution with her spirituality being grounded in Zen Buddhism in the Plum Village tradition, animism, the I-Ching, and energy work. She is also the Founder of Everyday Feminism and Re-Becoming Human, and creator and facilitator for different online anti-oppression spaces offering spiritual and emotional support.