Take Care of Your Blessings

In May 2022, Auburn partnered with Je-Shawna Wholley to co-create a symposium with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and her book Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals.

This interactive session was an opportunity for participants to practice “undrowning”—a radically loving relationship to the saltwater within and around us, an interspecies breathing practice towards accountability and presence.

 

 

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Participants created a collective poem together and the music that served as the energetic anchors for our space are also included below.

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Opening Song: The Waves We Give by Beautiful Chorus

Meditation Sound: Sounds from the Ocean

Closing Song: Ochiemay by Hauira

 

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It is our hope that our time together nourished spirits and inspired work as the change agents, healers, and light workers that you are. May you continue to practice undrowning.

 

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Je-Shawna Wholley is the founder of the Earthseed Black Family Archive Project, member of the first Sojourner Truth Leadership Circle cohort, and Northwestern University Women’s Center Feminist in Residence