In this space, we will tend to communal and individual grieving with Cultural Workers in our greater diasporic community. We invite folks from different sectors of Cultural Institutions to arrive to a 2 Session offering that will support the opportunity to learn supportive Rituals and Practices in tending to griefs of working in institutions while holding the Griefs of the World. These spaces will support reflective as well as embodied practice using transformative justice and transformative community building frameworks, trauma/liberation informed somatic practices, and ancestral and activist lineage expanded offerings from JL and Lu’s lived experiences. Throughout these 2 offerings we will create a space for experiences to be shared and lessons and medicine to be gathered from the community that arrives.
This offering will be facilitated by Jana Lynne (JL) Umipig and Lu Aya with intention of those holding space be both BIPOC and White Bodied facilitators for specific needs of those that arrive and to address identity dynamics in the space we create together.
Session 1- Rituals and Practices of Grief for Self Sustainability in the Cultural Work
Session 2- Rituals and Practices of Relationship Witnessing/Being Witnessed in Grief for Sustainability in Cultural Work
Register for Session 1 below:
Facilitator Bios
Jana Lynne Caldetera Umipig, Associate Director of Curriculum at OF/BY/ FOR ALL
JL is a cultural organizer and cultural bearer and does this work through multiple channels including multidisciplinary justice centered creative arts, educator for liberation for the classroom and beyond, and intuitive and ancestrally informed body, energetic and divination work- all rooted in the embodied acts of decolonization for self, community and the world.
JL also is a committed Grief Worker and Death Doula supporting communities and families in creating rituals to honoring on-going relationships with those in their lives who have transitioned Spirit Side and in tending to the ongoing Griefs of a world that is Unjust and that is violent on our bodies, minds and spirits. She centers much of this work as in all other work on supporting children and youth’s relationships to loss and death as well as supporting families who have their lost children.
JL has trained in Pekiti Tirsia Kali since 2015 through Pekiti Tirsia Elite NY/NJ under the tutolage of Matasna Guros Francis Estrada, Agalon Njoli Brown and Mandala Arvee Garde. JL is a practitioner of Hilot through her elders from her Maternal lineage and through tutelage from Apu Adman Aghama of Hilot Academy of Binabaylan. She has been an Inner Dance facilitator since 2016 and has been instructed under Serena Olsen and Pi Villaraza. JL is also certified Level 2 Reiki Practitioner through Minka Brooklyn from the teachings of Reiki Masters Aki Baker and Manu River Del Prete. JL is a CorePower Yoga C2 Vinyasa certified instructor specified work in Prenatal Yoga and holds a certification in Embodied Social Justice through The Embody Lab instructed by Dr. Sará King & Dr. Rae Johnson in May 2021 and completed her Somatic Attachment Therapy Practitioner Certificate in April 202 and CORE Conscious Radical Equity Certification through MINKA Brooklyn (Cohort 2).
LuAya is the Community Catalyst at OF/BY/ FOR ALL
Lu Aya aka Luke Nephew (he/they/we) is the co-founder of The Peace Poets, a Hip Hop and Spoken Word crew from The Bronx that has made an indelible mark on the social movements of our times by supporting the re-emergence of the art of collective singing in protest and direct action. He is a poet, educator, emcee, musician, facilitator and friend of the people. Lu earned a degree in Public Health and Healing with a minor in Latin American and Latino Studies from Fordham University, as well as post graduate certificate, International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance.
He has woven together the fields of art, human rights and public health by designing programs and facilitating community building workshops for peace and justice in Ecuador, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, Sudan, Kenya, Niger, Liberia, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Afghanistan, India and Nepal. Having spent years as an organizer and humanitarian aid worker, he now focuses on infusing music into the actions of social justice movements by offering training on how to compose and lead poignant beautiful accessible songs. Lu is also a trainer with The Wildfire Project and a member of several local community organizations where he lives in Oakland.
In doing cultural work with our relatives facing the most severe crisis of war, torture and incarceration, we encounter the deep well of our mourning. The work of unveiling the sea of our grief and learning how to swim can only be done together. Lu is committed to meeting each of us where we’re at, welcoming into the space our instinctual wisdom to heal together.