*September 15th: Embodying Compassion: A Day of Healing for Black Women with Arisika Razak

Embodying Compassion: A Day of Healing for Black Women

with Arisika Razak

East Bay Meditation Center

285 17th Street, Oakland, CA 94612

How, as Black women, do we move from “surviving” to “thriving” in a society that hates our bodies and denies our achievements? What traumas occurred in our families of origin, and how do the Buddha’s teaching support our recovery and healing? What ancestral wisdom supports our journeys in these perilous times – and what do we need to leave behind in our quests for liberation? Join us as we use movement, meditation, writing, Dharma teachings and small group discussions to focus on self-care, healing, and compassion, ritually reclaiming our joy and empowerment while releasing the histories that no longer serve us.

Please bring an item to place on our community altar and a gift to share with another Black woman.

EBMC TEACHERS ARE NOT PAID BY THE CENTER. You are invited to offer a voluntary financial gift to them at the class. The East Bay Meditation Center operates using a generosity-based, gift economics model. This means we charge no set registration fees to attend our events and instead rely on the generous giving of our community. All classes at the Center do come with a financial cost. Class participants are offered an opportunity to make a voluntary gift to EBMC during the registration process or at an event itself. Please note that no one will be turned away for lack of funds. If you would like to explore any EBMC volunteer positions, please send an email expressing your interest to admin@eastbaymeditation.org.

In order to protect the health of community members with environmental illness, please do not wear fragranced products (including natural fragrances) or clothes laundered in fragranced products to EBMC.

About the Teacher:

Arisika Razak, RN, NM, MPH is the former Chair of the Women’s Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). Her teachings incorporate diverse spiritual traditions, women's health and healing, multicultural feminisms, queer theory, and contemporary diversity theory. Arisika has led national and international spiritual and healing workshops and ritual celebrations for women for over three decades, as well as embodied spiritual workshops for women and men, including day-long workshops at EBMC where she is a core teacher in the POC and Maha Sangas. She also co-facilitated workshops with Marlene Jones at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.