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ONLINE: Afrikan Healing and Wisdom

April 6 @ 9:00 am - 10:30 am

ONLINE: Afrikan Healing and Wisdom

With Vimalasara Mason-John, Arisika Razak, and Aleta Toure’

First Sundays, starting November 3rd 2024

9:00 – 10:30 AM PT

Closed captioning provided over Zoom

April 6th 2025 registration

May 4th 2025 registration

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APRIL 6th PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

Healing Intergenerational Trauma: Working with the Ancestors with Shirley E. Mason, aka Cuban Redd

One of my biggest successes during my time on this Earthplane is the success of having *Broken the Cycle*  (of verbal, physical. sexual abuse)  so my children could grow in an environment without fear caused by the ones whose role it was to support, nurture, and love them. I did not achieve this by myself. My mothers attitude played a major role. I would also like to address the concept of “good and bad ancestors” and the fact that so-called bad Ancestors are shunned with no seeming redemptive quality. It is said in the Buddhist tradition that when healing occurs, it heals the Ancestral line backwards and forwards.

Guest Speaker:
Shirley E. Mason, aka Cuban Redd, has performed all over the London circuit & and festivals, including Edinburgh twice, Hay-On-Wye and Stoke Newington. She has been ‘Open to Spirit’ from birth and has travelled many pathways to become the practising Nicheren Daishonin Bhuddist, studying ‘Shekem Maat’ with Shola Caroline Arewa whilst always remembering and lifting up her blood stained Elder brother Yashua. She is currently an Ambassador for the Africa Centre in London UK.

 

Join us for EBMC’s first Black-led, Black-Sangha Affinity group held on the first Sunday of every month starting on Sunday, November 3rd, 2024 from 9 AM till 10:30 AM.

Today, those of us living in the USA vibrate to the breath of our Ancestral North Star, highest realm of guidance. Our ancestors are with us, as we step into a seemingly repeated quantum leap of time, during one of the most turbulent election seasons since the presidential election of 1876, and the 1877 compromise which ended Reconstruction. We are in a sentinel moment, echoing the situations described in Martin Luther King’s book, “Why We Can’t Wait”. Like our Diasporan kinfolx, we are questioning our common humanity, as we see the age-old dream of peace, and ecological balance distorted in the deep and seemingly bottomless pool of genocide, war, climate change, ecological devastation, poverty and global health pandemics. 

Join us as we bring a timely spoonful of Afrikana medicine to these challenging and difficult times. We’ll add ancestral healing traditions to the simple practice of the breath, sharing meditations, libations, chanting and other embodied practices to remember our resilience, honor our ancestors, and support an inclusive and affirming community for all members of the Afrikan Diaspora. 

 

COST

Here at EBMC, we practice gift economics and our programs are offered freely without set fees.  Financial gifts from our community help to sustain our teachers AND our center.  Generosity is the Buddha’s first teaching, the lifeblood of EBMC, and an act of sacred reciprocity.  We ask that those who have more financial means give more, in order to help balance the giving of those who have less financial means.

To make a gift to sustain the work of East Bay Meditation Center, please do so via our website: eastbaymeditation.org/dana. Consider becoming a monthly donor for any amount! These contributions are especially valuable to our sustainability.

Please also consider giving a financial gift to our teachers as well, who do not receive a salary for their work, and give their teachings freely to all. In this way, we practice sacred reciprocity between teachers and students.

Giving Information:

VENMO: @Arisika-Razak

PAYPAL: arisikarazak@gmail.com

(Please reference “Afrikan Healing & Wisdom” and the teachers will share the gifts with each other)

 

REGISTRATION

For March 2nd 2025

For April 6th 2025

We will continue to add registration for each month!

 

TEACHING TEAM

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John is the author of the new revised edition of Detox Your Heart – Meditations For Emotional Trauma published by Wisdom books in 2017. She is co-author of the award-winning book Eight Step Recovery – Using The Buddha’s Teachings to Overcome Addiction. She is a TEDx speaker and is the author of eight books including her award winning novel Borrowed Body. She is the curator of Teachings in Uncertain Times, an online retreat by Teachers of Color for Tricycle Magazine February 2017. She is a leading African Canadian voice in the field of Mindfulness for Emotional Trauma and Addiction.

Arisika Razak, MPH, EBMC Core teacher, is the former Chair of the Women’s Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Previously a nurse-midwife, her teachings incorporate diverse spiritual traditions, women’s health and healing, multicultural feminisms, queer theory, and diversity theory. Arisika has led national and international healing workshops and ritual celebrations for women for over three decades, as well as embodied spiritual workshops for people of all genders. She has co-facilitated workshops with Marlene Jones at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and regularly leads workshops at EBMC.

Aleta Toure’ (Visiting Teacher) Aleta Toure’ bears witness as a vessel for social change through organizing, education and healing arts. She centers healing in monastic lifestyle knowledge though Intentional Communities and Black cooperative movements. Her cooperative serves communities through Black Trauma Anonymous (BTA), Tai chi, Ecstatic Healing Dance and Healing Responders. Aleta spends time within Peace Pagodas, monasteries, hermitages, and dojos which have framed her work through Free Marissa Now, “I am Troy Davis”, University Without Walls and other Diasporic Movements. She leads the 2025 California Reparations Interfaith Healing Walk to bring healing, theory and practice back as a Liberation tool.

Details

Date:
April 6
Time:
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Event Categories:
,

Venue

East Bay Meditation Center
285 17th Street
Oakland, CA 94612 United States
+ Google Map
Phone:
510-268-0696

Details

Date:
April 6
Time:
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Event Categories:
,

Venue

East Bay Meditation Center
285 17th Street
Oakland, CA 94612 United States
+ Google Map
Phone:
510-268-0696