Funding for Collective Social Healing Center

Dear Friends,

 

I'm Trish, an academic (reluctantly) turned energy worker. I am aware of so many beautiful community efforts happening through this forum, and so I put this ask forward with deep humility.

 

The What

I have been given a rare opportunity to enter into an intensive 2+ year in-person traditional Hawai’ian healing school under the supervision and training of a respected Native elder. I have been waiting, training, and praying for this opportunity. This is all happening quickly. My heart and body are registering a definitive “yes” in knowing that this is my next step.  And so I am asking my community for some help.

 

As part of following the path of Spirit, I have drastically reduced my income to fully devote myself to my practice, Transformative

Consciousness, as Spirit has asked. I am asking for your help because I realize that hyper-independence in myself is a trauma response—both individual and ancestral—and that I am a person in the human community who needs some help right now, and no one will know if I

don’t ask. The amount of money that I need to enter this program is not something that I have access to, and it is not the type of thing that I can “work harder” for. I went that route with building the yurt, including conducting 85 healing sessions in one month, and my left shoulder is still, literally, paying the price for that.

 

Background

Hawai’i was the site of my deep spiritual awakening when I attended a plant medicine retreat on O’ahu, which ultimately led me to leave

academia in 2019. Aware of the history of colonialism and the ongoing occupation of the Sovereign Nation of Hawai’i, I was not planning to attend until I had a Spirit dream urging me to go. As a dreamer, I knew I should pay attention. During my first meditation the spirit of Mamaki, a sacred herb, wrapped itself around me and told me to “LISTEN.” In my deeply colonized state, I had no idea that plants spoke or that I could hear them. When I asked what I was being redirected towards, I continued to receive messages about “Uni-verse." This led me in the direction of frequency healing and vibrational medicine, which I have been practicing intensely for the past four years, two of which have been in social isolation on a mountain in Vermont. Last year when I came to the Big Island for the first time, the land directed me to “LEARN.” And so that is what I am seeking to do.

 

The Why

I’m asking because this is the training that I need to do to carry out my community-based work in the world. This is about collective healing, which is deeply needed at this time as old systems crumble and we are asked to remember old/new ways of working in right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the Earth. Whatever help I receive will be paid forward many times over as I build out the Center for Transformative Consciousness.

 

The Center for Transformative Consciousness is a Holistic Healing and Educational Center for Activists, Advocates, Influencers, Cultural

Workers, and Changemakers to heal, receive nourishment, rest, and reflect, rooted in an ethos of Spiritual Activism—the nexus of the spiritual and material registers. It understands that these are the frontline workers of the New Earth. It will be co-advised by a Council of like-hearted collaborators and co-conspirators from a range of life paths, epistemes, and lineages that intentionally disrupt imposed borders and boundaries.

 

The Center is premised on the idea that the energy we bring to activist and organizing efforts is the energy we are bringing in to cultivate a more just world, and so we must be clearing old wounds and traumas—individual, ancestral, and collective—to engage in these efforts from true Heart space. It also recognizes that we need to be here to do the work.  Learning to pace ourselves, working coalitionally, and using deep discernment to determine when it is appropriate for our bodies to rest, work, and learn is necessary for this heart-based collective rewiring.

(Phase One of Our Build last year was fully funded from Coaching and Biofield Tuning Sessions I conducted, alongside of the energetic support of friends and community).

 

The Center embodies more of an underlying ethos than a Westernized “mission” statement. Here are some of the overarching goals and principles of the Center:

 

• Fostering intercultural learning and networking opportunities forpeople from different life paths, cultures, paradigms, and perspectives to be and dream together in intentionally curated ways and spaces to build the cooperative networks we need.

 

• Intentional cultivation of a collaborative, cooperative, living and learning space where Changemakers can come to reset and clear old

traumas so that they can step deeper into their work in the world.

 

• Global focus, locally rooted.

 

• Free of cost to BIPOC, LGBTQ+, low-income changemakers, frontline activists, and cultural workers.

 

• Rooted in Black, Indigenous, AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander), Global South, and POC (People of Color) perspectives,

paradigms, and teachings.

 

• A living and learning environment that actively models radical interconnectedness of mind, body, heart, and spirit to plant the seeds of

social transformation. A call to remember the old/new ways of being in community.

 

• Guided by a Council (in Western terms, a Board of Directors) that embody many life paths and cultural traditions.

 

• Grounded in principles of right relationship—right relationship with ourselves, each other, and all sentient beings.

 

• It is modeled in reciprocity, interdependence, interconnectedness, and collaboration principles. These are qualities of the Divine Feminine suppressed after generations of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

 

• A reclamation of the commons. A place for cultural workers, writers, theorists, artists, and visionaries to come on retreat with the option to lead classes and programs that put forth their teachings, especially as they are heart-guided and rooted in disrupting binary logics of

destructive, oppressive systems.

 

• The Center works very closely with the land as a friend and accomplice, implementing Indigenous farming methods, working with

sacred herbs and plants, operating off-grid, and using sustainable building materials and methods.

 

• Najat Croll, my partner, is utilizing her training in green design/build practices to implement infrastructure that aligns with the principle of right relationship, and leading free BIPOC build programs.

 

My Qualifications

The qualifications that I bring to building this center include:

• 15 years of teaching social justice classes in the college setting

 

• Ph.D. in Feminist Studies with a particular focus grounded in social

theory, praxis, and transnational feminist thought

 

• My book, Transnational Testimonios: The Politics of Collective

Knowledge Production, published in the Decolonizing Feminisms Series at the University of Wasington Press (2018).

 

• Continuing Education study with teachers including Rev. angel, Lama Rod, Jasmine Syedullah, and Resmaa Menakem

 

• Teaching graduate courses on Transformative Justice, Spiritual Activism, and Transformative Social Change through the Women’s

Spirituality Department at California Institute for Integral Studies

 

• Leading and developing curriculum for somatically-focused workshops and series--including Self-Care for Changemakers, Building Heart-Based Alliances for a Just World, and Walking With Whiteness--that utilize an embodied, applied approach of working with spiritual principles to confront white supremacy and racialized trauma

 

• Leading somatically focused anti-oppression trainings for yoga studios, non-profits, and Higher Ed for the purpose of collective liberation

 

Alongside of these social justice focused trainings and interventions, I have been working very closely with the healing arts for the past ten

years, receiving training and certifications in:

 

• Bhakti Yoga

• Ayurveda

• Herbalism

• Inner Alignment Coaching (Ayurvedic Psychology & Somatics)

• Biofield Tuning (Frequency Healing with Tunings Forks)

• Druidry (Ancient Celtic Indigenous Spirituality)

 

I have also received Reiki and Munay-Ki attunements, in addition to having the privilege to learn and witness Spirit-based practices in Cuba, Zanzibar, Hawai’i, and the Sacred Valley of Perú.

 

What Drives this Vision

As I have navigated these different realms, paradigms, and dimensions, I have learned that we are in a moment of unification in which we are being asked to bring these pathways, teachings, and wisdoms into meaningful, respectful convergence—to live and learn true reciprocity in the Oneness.

 

I say this not from an extractive posture, but from an expansive, collaborative, heart-based one, that understands that the pain and suffering in this world is at its core energetic and that each of us play a definitive role in bringing this troubled world back into balance through the principles of right relationship, accountability, reciprocity, and love.

 

If all of this sounds idealistic, then so be it. I make no apologies and have no need to convince. I know, see, and feel this world so intimately, and it is my deepest heart desire to cultivate a collaborative space to co-create this world together.

 

My Ask

What I am asking for at this time is two-fold: 1) help in raising the funds to enter into this intensive traditional Hawai’ian healing training as the immediate next step to building The Center for Transformative Consciousness; 2) Funds to begin actualizing infrastructure and staffing

the Center for Transformative Consciousness.

 

My total ask for tuition and Phase I of the Center for Transformative Consciousness is $144,000. It feels important to note that the entirety of my tuition goes directly into an Indigenous led and operated non-profit that is deeply devoted to honoring the Sovereign Nation of Hawai’i and funneling these resources back into the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawai’ian) community.

 

I have a full Business Plan and Pitch Deck for those who may be further interested in investing in the Center for Transformative

Consciousness and learning more about my long term vision for the Center(s).  You can learn more about me and my work at Transformativeconsciousness.com.

 

I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading and considering this request.

 

With deep humility and gratitude,

Trish