detail from Space Station Monk-Ranger by Cauleen Smith
“boda became. old as ocean. wise as whale. black as undrowned sun. bold as what we been through.”
-quotation from Dub: Finding Ceremony
Saturday and Sunday Feb 29 & March 1 2pm-5pm Eastern
Boda is the known name of my Ashanti ancestral mother who survived the middle passage journey between West Africa and the Caribbean. In Spanish, one of the languages of the captors? Wedding. In Twi one of the languages of the world she was stolen from? Yellow coral. This writing intensive is informed by my ancestral listening relationship to her, supported by generations of grassroots genealogical research in my family, my own dreams and the poetic receptivity practice that characterizes Dub: Finding Ceremony.
This 2 day reflective writing and listening ceremony is for people who want to listen to their ancestors more deeply, especially for those of us whose ancestral relationships have been impacted by slavery, genocide, partition, war and world-historical violence. Guided by Boda we will engage writing activities on divine persistence, environmental attunement, intergenerational communication and cleansing.
The course will be limited to 12 participants.
Tuition is sliding scale $200-350. Sign up with a non-refundable* deposit of $75 here:
(Write “Undrowned” in the paypal notes!)
*If the course is full when you sign up, your deposit will be refunded. If you don’t attend the course for any other reason, your deposit will be a cherished donation to the ongoing work of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.
This is part of Brilliance Remastered‘s series of intensives on Ancestral Listening celebrating the publication of Dub: Finding Ceremony, an ancestral listening text by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Duke University Press in February 2020.)