The healing power and resilience of the earth simply is. As human beings, we can access that power and capacity for healing. But the scale of our access exists only at whatever level we connect to Earth in a reciprocal way—rather than in a one-sided relationship, as has been the dominant mode of American Empiric culture. Because almost all of us were conditioned in a system that does not teach or understand Earth sovereignty and personhood, it is easy for us to miss the mark in our relationships to Earth and her beings (including other humans), even when our intentions are good.
To shift the dynamic that has led us to our current climate and extinction crises, we need not only to grow our awareness, but to reprogram the way we relate to our plant and animal kin, the land itself, and the elements.
In Earth Consent Work, we decolonize our relational awareness from within, establishing new ways of using our senses, growing sensory intelligence, and having conversations with Earth beyond human language. These abilities are not dependent on any religious or spiritual beliefs, nor any specific background or way of being. They are a human birthright, as is the scale of connection and healing that is available to us through them.
When we have real conversations with and are able to hear the voices of the land and elemental beings, we grow access to a new scale of participation, creative power, and healing, which is infinite. And from that space, we have the opportunity to experience quantum leaps of change.
These workshops are in relationship to Victory Highway by RAFFAELLA, currently on view as part of Press Play at the Tarble Arts Center. Participants are invited to visit the exhibition before, during, or after participating in the workshops.
November 7, 2020, 2-4 pm | Zoom
How do we know when our actions are in alignment with the desires of the planet? How do we know when we are moving in integrity with the tree, plant, and elemental life that supports us where we live? In this session, we’ll learn basic practices and foundations of Earth Consent, acknowledging as we go some of the ways that the human ego, as conditioned by the colonial project, has the capacity and will to do unintentional violence without noticing. We’ll investigate these proclivities non-judgmentally as a way of growing awareness of them, and beginning to shift them.
November 21, 2020, 2-4 pm | Zoom
When we dream in alignment with Earth wisdom, everyone is honored and no one has to compromise. The most aligned individual dreams always serve the collective dream, even when we experience significant resistance. At the intersection of all our needs, ‘no’ becomes possibility and ‘yes’ is just a path. When a dream dies, it is almost always either that we require different circumstances to actualize it; it wants to rest; or, it was not in fact our dream, but only a conditioned or socially-programmed dream. In this session, we will recast and reimagine notions of relational integrity with human and more-than-human kin. We will weave our circle with benevolent ancestral allies, and plant, animal, and intergalactic allies, to align and elevate our dreams to the collective.
December 5, 2020, 2-4 pm | Zoom
What do we actually want? What is the reality we want to be in? If we could magically hit reset, what would we create together in place of what we’ve had? Because we’ve been conditioned in social and political arenas to fight for scraps, we don’t always realize how small we are dreaming, or the scale of the magnificent realities we have the power to call in. When we destabilize conditioned desires within the context of mutual care and support, we can then reach deeper into our imaginations and the space of infinite creation. If we imagine everything exists and is possible, how does that change what we wish for? If we dream in community, how does that change the shape of days to come? In this session, we will actively dream a circle of healing and reciprocity into being.
Each session within the workshop series will build on the previous session. While you are invited to participate in any way that works for you, the process will be most beneficial if you commit to all three workshops. Please arrive on time, as the online portal will be locked following the welcome to protect the contemplative ritual space being created.
About Maura Pellettieri
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Maura Pellettieri is a poet, art writer, and performer. They currently teach ecopoetics and embodiment throughout the East Bay and San Francisco, as well as virtually. Their work focuses on ecofemme poetics; questions of place and home; architecture; land consent; and power. They utilize ritual, psychogeography, and deep listening practices to write and teach about the human relationship to Earth. Their work has been supported by grants and residencies, including from The Edward F. Albee Foundation, The Yiddish Book Center, Seguin Maine, Playa, Washington University in St. Louis. Their writing appears in The Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, On The Seawall, Denver Quarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, Fairy Tale Review, Adroit Journal, Guernica, Apogee, Tammy Journal, and others. They received their MFA in Writing at Washington University in St. Louis. They make their home as a guest on Chochenyo Ohlone land. |
