I have the honor of speaking and engaging the community in song to open Evergreen's 2024 Equity Symposium with the theme "Building Skillful Coalition."

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!

I will be a guest on this weekly song circle called Sisters in Harmony Global! Sharing songs with fellow songleaders Heather Houston and Sarina Partridge.

I want to just name for myself that I do not identify as a woman or sister, I am joining this event as a non-binary guest. This is a lovely way to stay connected with global community and receive song inspiration.

Register to reserve your spot and receive your Zoom link.

“Surrendering to your sorrow has the power to heal the deepest of wounds”

-Sobonfu Some-

In life it is necessary to grieve those things that no longer serve us in order to let them go. Grief is a common human emotion that impacts us all. It can come to us through divorce, illness, loss of dreams, conflict, death, change and so much more. Grief is an invitation to feel. It invites us to come into the body to shed light on those things that are ready to be released in order to heal. Because of this, we must have ways to move our pain. Grief needs to be regularly felt and released or it begins to smother our joy, creativity, and our ability to connect with our self and others.

Community Grief Ceremony is a safe way to learn how to lean into grieving within and among community. Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through validation, acknowledgement and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing. Each of us has a basic human right to that genuine love, happiness and freedom.

Grupo Masato is a multi-ethnic Portland-based band that plays highly irresistible danceable music from Latin America! A powerful combinations of Chicha, Cumbia and Afro Peruvian music that invites all ages to meet on the dance floor and celebrate our diversity. Chicha music grew out of the Andean music in Peru mixed with Cumbia rhythms from Colombia, and were transformed and reinterpreted by electric guitars, Fender spring reverb amplifiers, complex African based percussions and the discovery of psychedelic rock. Grupo Masato explores and celebrates this diverse music with a powerful show that will make you want to dance. Grupo Masato’s music is as intoxicating as the beverage it's named after, a powerful liquor from the Amazon jungle in South America, made out of fermented yucca.

I get to play timbales, other percussion, and sing with Grupo Masato!

Last year, I taught for the first time at the NW Songwriter Soiree Winter Retreat and this year I get to do it again + help co-facilitate with Robin Jackson. This year it's taking place on the Oregon coast, January 15-18, which I'm very excited about. Essentially this retreat includes 4 days of songwriting and creative workshops, open mics, yoga, amazing food, nature and time with awesome teachers and mentors. Check it out!

Join us for an inspiring evening of art and storytelling with local artists and organizers of The Haven. We will explore art as the heART of social change through discussion and experiences of socioculturally transformative art.

This event will feature community singing, a panel discussion, and open mic performances. There will also be a bar selling herbal elixirs and mushroom potions throughout the evening!

Bring your friends, your medicinal music and movement performances, and your open heART <3

6:00 pm - 6:30 pm Arrival and mingling - get your herbal elixirs! 6:30 pm - 7:15 pm Opening with land acknowledgement and community singing. 7:15 pm - 8:00 pm Panel discussion featuring Haven organizers & local activists 8:00 pm - 8:15 pm Intermission 8:15 pm - 10:00 pm Open mic for community to share social-change oriented performances - dance, poetry, music, freestyle, or anything else you want to share in a 7-minute slot.

If you would like to sign up to share at the open mic, please fill out this google form: https://forms.gle/p2efLUP8YFwm7hEZ8

We will do our best to integrate everyone’s offerings into the evening, as long as they are a good fit for the intentions we are gathering around the intersection of arts & social change.

~ Panel Moderator & Event Organizer: Lux Gypsum ~ Panelist & Event Organizer: Ashley Bonn ~ Panelist & Community Singing Facilitator: Shireen Amini ~ Panelist: Mic Crenshaw ~ Panelist: Danny Stevens ~ Panelist: Emily Ra ~ Herbalist at Herbal Elixir Bar: Reishi Strauss

QUESTIONS: Email Lux Gypsum at lux@healingrising.com or Ashley Bonn at bridgebuilderpdx@gmail.com

INDIGENOUS RECIPROCITY NOW GENERATES PSYCHEDELIC FUTURES FOR ALL 21+ Beloved Presents, Tiger Fox, and the Psychedelic Health Equity Initiative are thrilled to co-host an evening of connective celebration honoring lineage and supporting greater access in psychedelic healing. We are amplifying the mission of the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, which supports the psychedelic space to become allies in strengthening and protecting Indigenous Peoples, their medicines, and knowledge, supporting Indigenous Communities to thrive for generations to come.

Forward Together was co-created last year with the purpose of centering the importance of marginalized people’s access to psychedelics, facilitator training, healing modalities, and the rights of the Indigenous peoples who originated psychedelic medicine work

READY! Honoring the IMCF - 9pm Come circle up and drop in as we honor the vision of IMCF, hear their story, and connect with their mission.

SET! Beloved Song Circle - 9pm In this revolution we gather to sing. Sing for healing, creation, grief, and renewal. We deeply rejoice to offer a time to bring all of our voices together with three phenomenal song leaders for a Beloved Song Circle with Shireen Amini, Claudia Cuentas, & Hanifa Nayo.

GO! Reciprocity Resonance - 10:30pm - Two rooms of music with Liquid Bloom, Savej, Rebelwise, and more!

Free and all ages!

PROTEST ‘WHO WILL OWN THE FOREST?’ CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 27 12pm Wednesday, September 27 at the World Forestry Center (4033 SW Canyon Rd, Portland)

On Wednesday, September 27 grassroots activists and leaders from the forest defense & climate justice movement will converge at the World Forestry Center at noon for a massive demonstration to confront these Wall Street capitalists and put them on notice that managing forests to maximize profits for the rich & stall climate action will be met with increasing resistance. There will be speakers, music, marching bands, theatrical performances, art & creative resistance, and more–come out to show these Wall Street elites that extractive forestry and false solutions will be risky investments in the face of staunch grassroots opposition!

forestsoverprofits.org

Shireen will perform / lead song at 2:00pm.

OUR POWERS COMBINED! Community Singing to Seed Liberation   ꩜ 8/30 Ann Arbor, MI | land of the Anishinaabeg  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-powers-combined-community-singing-to-seed-liberation-ann-arbor-tickets-695031647367?aff=oddtdtcreator

꩜ 8/31-9/4 Singing in Love: Tamaqua, PA | land of the Lenni-Lenape  https://events.humanitix.com/singing-in-love?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

꩜ 9/5 North Hampton, MA  | land of the Pocumtuck, Norwottock, Woronoco, Agawam, Nipmuck, and Abenaki  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-powers-combined-community-singing-to-seed-liberation-noha-tickets-686098036697

꩜ 9/6 Boston, MA | land of the Massachusett, Abenaki, Micmac, Maliseet, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Passamaquoddy, Pawtucket, Pennacook, Penobscot, Pequot, and Wampanoag  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-powers-combined-community-singing-to-seed-liberation-boston-tickets-692654697847?aff=oddtdtcreator

꩜ 9/9 Brooklyn, NY | land of the Lenape  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-powers-combined-community-singing-to-seed-liberation-brooklyn-tickets-692657446067?aff=oddtdtcreator

꩜ 9/10 Philadelphia, PA | land of the Lenape  https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=48533&stype=-8&sView=day&sLoc=0&date=09/10/23

꩜ 9/12 Washington, DC Area | land of the Nacotchtank, Piscataway, and Pamunke   https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-powers-combined-community-singing-to-seed-liberation-dc-area-tickets-716336601057

꩜ 9/13 Richmond, VA | land of the Powhatan and Monacan https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-powers-combined-community-singing-to-seed-liberation-richmond-va-tickets-691182634867?aff=oddtdtcreator 

꩜ 9/14-17 Love Song: Marshall, NC | land of the Anikituwagi (Cherokee)  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdDcpCV-ohOFF8_Tls3C80GCHMiFiF8sd3_GbgOkYF7KkGSDA/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0&fbclid=IwAR3a80fg7tP08yucXst2sCeftBLsCCQqib9cJ3FEg5UF_jOY0TFxZSlR5is

꩜ 9/20 Asheville, NC | land of the Anikituwagi (Cherokee) https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-powers-combined-community-singing-to-seed-liberation-asheville-nc-tickets-692664978597?aff=oddtdtcreator

Song kin Shireen Amini and Lyndsey Scott merge their medicines for the first time for an East Coast song circle tour! As students of, as well as leaders in, the community singing movement, they are asking-in-motion about song’s liberatory power. Co-creating a space of authentic, playful, & deep devotion, they will forge a strong container to hold the complexities of each of our identities and histories intersecting. Through heart sharing, somatics, song, and rhythmic expression, they will invite energy to re-whole us in our individual and collective bodies: grounding, attuning, grieving, releasing, connecting, and celebrating. We’ll ask, what’s needed here now? What’s possible when we open our hearts to this aching world and dare the soulful risks it asks? May we be the world we dream, in real time, as song washes over us with grace that overflows into action.

Our tithe for this tour goes to MMIWHOISMISSING a 100% Indigenous-lead sovereign and educational voice that advocates for grassroots efforts, working directly with MMIR families, survivors, & Tribal coalitions laying the groundwork, socially and politically to protect our Indigenous Populations from further Colonial Violence.

Free and all ages!

Catch the Vibe: https://youtu.be/FL2tg9hU-nk

Through an evening that is part musical performance & part sing-a-long, artist-activist Lydia Violet takes us into the realms of Singing the Bones, a program she has spent these past years working on, encouraging the reconnection to ancestral cultures through music and story. Many of us grow up disconnected from our ancestral cultures, requiring us to consciously turn towards our histories and study to learn the foods, festivities, folklore, and songs that lay there. Tonight is a celebration of three American artists who have pursued this path of connection, sharing some of the bounties of what they have found.

Lydia will share songs from her Iranian and Armenian heritages, rich with poetry and longing. M'Gilvry Allen will share fiddle tunes and ballads from his Scottish, Irish, and Scandinavian ancestries, luring us in with rhythm and strings. And Kele Nitoto will share music from Haiti, Congo, and West Africa, drawing from his multiple generations of a musical family from Oakland itself. And these three artists will collaborate together, weaving a multi-cultural celebration!

You're invited to come and enjoy the sounds, and learn some tunes as well! We will also teach you some songs throughout the night, summoning the joy of singing together. We hope to weave a soulful thread for that which feels tattered and longs for peace and reconnection.

Free and all ages, outdoors, First Friday Art Walk show!