Last year, Conjure! Freedom Collective member Richael Faithful led a two-part meditation series with white supporters to honor Black lives, called “Liberatory Healing Circles Reclaim Sovereignty and Heal White Supremacy.”
Faithful has practiced energy healing for nine years and describes herself as a folk healer, street shaman, and an energy worker. She currently holds a weekly meditation class every Monday at Freed Bodyworks. Now, her new Liberatory Healing circles have become a growing safe space for the community.
“Black Lives Matter DMV organizers needed a space where white folks in solidarity could tend to themselves because some people were inflicting noticeable harm at Black Lives Matter DMV events,” explains Faithful. “It felt important to redirect white supporters’ eagerness to fight systems back toward their own selves and lives, people with whom they have relationships, and the institutions where they wield influence.”
After receiving feedback on last year’s healing circle, she facilitated a session for people of color with the theme of reclaiming sovereignty, and another for white individuals regarding healing white supremacy. On March 7, Faithful will continue her healing circles with a liberatory healing session strictly for multiracial and biracial community members.
Tagg: How do you describe “Liberatory Healing To Reclaim Sovereignty & Heal White Supremacy”?
Faithful: A space that intends to support efforts toward spiritual and emotional integration within a white supremacist system that denies racial and ethnic plurality through storytelling, ritual, and drum meditation.
Tagg: In addition to your previous sessions, why is it important for you to continue the series for biracial and multiracial individuals?
Faithful: It was biracial and multiracial community members that spoke to the need for another circle. In my conversations with these community members, they described a distinct experience with white supremacy, in which their bodies and families were sites of struggle that did not necessarily fit with people of color or white people. I am relying on specific experiences that community members have shared to curate the circle because I am not able to draw from my direct experience as a Black queer person who grew up among white affluence. Although the experiences of biracial and multiracial folks vary dramatically as with any so-called identity group, I’m confident that our circle geared toward storytelling will be a helpful space.
Overall, it is imperative to acknowledge biracial and multiracial identity in 2016, and I feel responsible for not contributing to biracial and multiracial folks’ invisibility.
Tagg: Have you seen this work done somewhere else?
Faithful: Yes. Erika Totten via To Live Unchained is holding a similar space for Black folks with her Emotional Emancipation Circles each Wednesday night at Emergence Arts Community Center. Generally, I think that there are increasingly more strains of “healing spaces with (love) politics” across the country and world. This is one of my versions of it.
Tagg: What can people expect from the sessions?
Faithful: A space of one’s own, for and with each other. I tend to curate healing circles that allow for individuals to have deep internal experiences among a group and to share, as they feel moved. There will be perspective and hard reflections, storytelling, poetry reading, and communing with the drum.
The Liberatory Healing circles will continue in April and May. For more information or to bring a session to your space, visit www.freedbodyworks.com or e-mail Richael Faithful at conjurefreedom@gmail.com.
