Activist Training Camp and Women's Writes Poetry Slam

On Sunday, we host an Activist Training Camp at Barnard College. There are workshops on art and activism, anti-oppression, youth activism, high-profile actions, to name just a few. The trainers are phenomenal and the all-women group is one of the most ethincally and generationally diverse crowds that I have seen at a "peace event" in a long time. The attendance is too low to consider the event a true success, but throughout the organizing process I have learned immensely and I continue to learn from the powerful connections I make with the participants at the training, particularly with the youth in the youth activism workshop that I co-facilitate with Ariel and Adrienne.

In the evening, we have a Women's Writes Poetry Slam at the campus theater. Again, attendance is low. But energy is high: Morley's songs, especially "Women of Hope," reverberate through the black box space; Queen's "tight jeans" spoken words cuts through the room; Reno and her K-9 companion have everyone laughing in tears; Ariel and I share a poem; Bonnie gives me a new sense of what it means to have courage and to transform reality; Hershelle is so real that the room stops breathing for a second; Ellen brings Palestine into the room--a big family that takes up a lot of space, on stage and inside our souls; and more...
The collaboration with Sacred Slam produces a beautiful event, and I feel that even if the room isn't packed with bodies, it is filled with dancing souls.