Whole-Group Session One: study & personal reflection

​

Recording of First Live session can be found here.

​

Study Materials

 

Each whole-group session will include a mix of time checking in around independent and small group work, as well as focusing on something specific that everyone has looked at ahead of time as a form of homework. We’ll keep these assignments short, and we’ll also be sharing various resources to support the small group process that is at the heart of the intensive.

​

As you prepare for our first whole-group session (Oct 1), please take some time to work with the following two study materials and corresponding reflection questions. We’ll use these assignments as a jumping off point for focused group discussion in the session.

 

Along with to the two study assignments, below, you may want to review some of the additional, optional materials here (particularly if you haven't taken a course with us recently.) These optional study materials include a handout on animism, and a link to Jen Kiok's ancestral recovery story, that were not part of earlier versions of the Before We Were White courses.

 

Assignment #1

Excerpt from: A People's Guide to Capitalism - Hadas Thier (20-25 min read) / Please do not share this Google doc with others. Ty! 

 

Reflection questions:

• After reading this selection, take a moment to notice: How do you feel in your body? What emotions are you experiencing? What thoughts follow these feelings? Before moving to the next questions, you may want to take a moment to journal, draw, move, sing, walk, or otherwise spend time in these feelings and sensations.

• What stands out to you from this reading? Did you have any a-ha moments? New ideas or a new perspective on the nature of capitalism, its origins, or ways in which various forms of oppression are historically related to it? Is there anything you disagreed with, question, or would want to further investigate?

• Given what you know about your family story, in what way you can relate that story to the historical narrative presented here?

• Optional, additional reflection questions here.

 

Assignment #2

3000-year-old solutions to modern problems | Lyla June (14 min watch)

​

Reflection questions:

• After watching Lyla's talk, take a moment to notice: How do you feel in your body? What emotions are you experiencing? What thoughts follow these feelings? Before moving to the next questions, you may want to take another moment to journal, draw, move, sing, walk, or otherwise spend time in these feelings and sensations.

• What was it like to listen to what Lyla June's talk after reading Thier's chapter on the birth of capitalism? Can you name three distinct differences in the approach to meeting human needs between the Indigenous practices Lyla describes vs the approach that capitalism takes?

• How do you relate your family story to what Lyla shares? This may include ancient traditions lost as well as participation in colonization and genocide against Indigenous people's whose practices Lyla describes.

• How might ancestral recovery and healing play a roll in building a society in which life affirming, sustainable, animistic practices define the ways in which humans meet our needs?

​

Personal Reflection

​

In preparation for our first whole-group session, and the start of the 6 month intensive, please take some to reflect on your hopes, goals, and intentions for your participation in this program. You may have something very specific you want to accomplish, and you're excited to have the structure of the intensive to support you in following through on that. Or you may know that you want to deepen your own ancestral recovery work, but have more general goals or intentions for how this happens and be joining the intensive primarily for the experience of building relationships with others equally committed to this kind of process. Or ... your reason for joining may be something altogether different!

 

Regardless of what you are bringing to our time together, we hope you'll spend 30-45 minutes of dedicated time simply reflecting on what brought you here, what you hope to gain or accomplish, and what you have to contribute to the process of the whole-group and your small-group as part of our journey together. The following prompts are meant to support this process of considering and setting intentions or goals.

​

Spiritual (or non-intellectual) Process​

• Take a walk. Visit the "outdoor spot" you spent time in during the Before We Were White course, or any outdoor space that is special to you.

• Spend time with, or re-assemble, the family altar you made for the Before We Were White course, or enter into any space or place you have a sacred connection to. Alternately, you may hold, sit with, or place on display an object that carries special meaning for you, especially related to family or ancestry.

• Open yourself up to something quiet and curious within: What draws you to this program? What do you long for? What do you have to give?

• Reviewing the first and second activities for the Before We Were White course may support this part of your process.

​

Personal Goals for the Intensive

• What are your goals and intentions for participating in the Resilience & Repair pilot program? Building relationships with others? Doing family research? Uncovering something meaningful from the past? Forgiving or letting go? Deepening your own sense of self and belonging? Something else?

• Do you have any unrealistic expectations that you might want to temper before beginning? Or do you feel like you need to give yourself permission to actually dream a little bigger, hope for something more?

​

Small Group Possibilities

Supporting a small group of participants in making connections and doing small group work with one another is a new process for White Awake. We're excited and honored that you've signed up to be part of this process with us! We believe that you have so much to contribute to one another that this is where the real magic of the intensive will happen. It will be work, and it will require some creativity, grace and stepping into new aspects of leadership you might not have experienced before, but we believe the effort will more than pay off. 

​

While small-groups may engage in specific activities together, we expect that much of the small-group process will be oriented around supporting one another with work you are each doing, individually, in your own time (outside of whole-sessions and small-group meetings.) White Awake will be sharing three types of resources to help your small group have a successful experience with one another: 1) sample agenda's for a how a small group session could run; 2) resources to help you create group norms & make decisions together; and 3) potential activities your small-group could engage in together.

​

With all of this in mind, please prepare for the small-group process by considering the following prompts:

​

• What are your wildest hopes & dreams for your experience with your Resilience & Repair small-group?

• What is the minimal amount of connection and benefit you would be happy to receive from your small-group?

• What are your priorities for the small-group process? For example, there might be four different types of activities you want to engage in with your small group ... if you had to pick just one or two, what activities would be most important or meaningful to you? You may want to review the answers you submitted in your small-group interest form during registration. If you have not filled that form out, be sure to do so! 

• What are you bringing that you can contribute to your small-group's process? In what way might you be willing to stretch yourself? What kinds of "giving of self" would you want or expect from others?

***

 

Thank you for taking the time to prepare for our first whole-group session together! We look forward to seeing you soon.

​

​