Workshops and Events
Events
Workshops
Whiteness Is Not an Ancestor: Book Study and Reflection Group, Part 2
Offered through Gathering Ground
Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021, 7-9 pm
Online via Zoom
To register, click here
Some of us struggle with our family history of white privilege and harm. Join us for the second session of a two-part workshop and reflection on the book Whiteness Is Not an Ancestor: Essays on Life and Lineage by white Women. Using a lens of inherited trauma and family history, this collection of 12 personal essays offers a hopeful, humanizing path for dismantling whiteness. . In 12 different ways, from 12 different backgrounds, these writers untangle innocence, grief, race, privilege, boundaries, and belonging in their families and ancestries. We need our ancestors; without them, we wouldn’t be here. How do we find strength to reckon with and learn from them and bring healing to our lives and world?
You are welcome to participate if you missed the first session. Participants should plan to read 1-3 chapters from the book and do some short reflections. The book is available at local independent bookstores and the Seattle Public Library. If you need to borrow the book from another community member, or assistance in purchasing it, contact Beth at GatherinGround.Seattle@gmail.com or 206-860-3641.
Fall 2021 Pregnancy and Birth Loss Healing Circle
Dates and times TBD
Pregnancy loss is very common:
- 1 in 3 people who experience pregnancy will have an abortion at some point in their lives
- Between 15% – 20% of all pregnant people experience miscarriage
- Full term losses affect about 1% of pregnancies
In addition, growing research confirms that infant mortality rates for black families in the U.S. are more than double the rates for white families due to higher rates of preterm labor, inequities in health care and the impacts of systemic oppression.
Despite these staggering statistics, we rarely acknowledge the personal and collective impacts these events can have. Sometimes they happen in the early stages of pregnancy before a person has let friends, family, or co-workers know they are pregnant. When they are more visible, these losses can be shrouded in shame and unacknowledged as significant experiences for our bodies and within our families and communities. Because these losses are hard to talk about, many people lack the support they need to grieve and seek healing.
In a safe and supportive circle, we can share our full stories and allow the wide range of experiences that surround pregnancy and birth losses. These might include sadness, guilt, anger, and emptiness. Sometimes they also include experiences of relief, courage, connection, and insight. They always include experiences of initiation.
While experiences of pregnancy loss and birth loss are rites of passage, too often they are not recognized as such. In our circle, we honor the deep meaning of these events.
The group will gather weekly for five weeks in sacred circle to:
- Share and witness our stories
- Plan and participate in ritual together to honor our experiences of loss
Each week’s gathering will be shaped by those called to the circle. It may include guided visualization, meditation and journeying; family constellations; and creative exercises to help hold the truth of these experiences, acknowledge the pregnancy through ritual, and renew the heart-womb connection. No prior experience with any of these practices is necessary. We invite you to participate whether your experience of pregnancy or birth loss occurred recently or decades ago.
These gatherings do not take the place of professional counseling. Rather, they can complement it by tapping into the powerful healing that can happen within a sacred circle.
Who is this Circle for?
Because we will be focusing on the womb and the embodied aspects of carrying a pregnancy, this circle is open to people who have been pregnant and have experienced a pregnancy loss or birth loss. We especially welcome queer and transgender parents and parents who are Black, Indigenous and people of color. June and Katie, who are both white, queer parents/grandparents, endeavor to create an inclusive and trauma-informed space facilitated through the lens of social and reproductive justice.
Space is limited to 8 -10 participants.
For more information and to register, click here.
Fee for the 5-week series: TBD. Scholarships available.
Facilitators:
Katie Spataro is a doula who works across the full spectrum of pregnancy experiences including miscarriage, abortion, birth and postpartum. Her practice utilizes ritual, touch, breath and movement to tap into the wisdom of our bodies to support our personal and collective healing journeys.
June BlueSpruce is an intuitive healer and mentor who offers dream consultation, wellness and life coaching, energy healing, soul retrieval, and Family Constellations work (a method of making visible and healing family and ancestral stories and patterns). She also leads a variety of workshops and group experiences.
Family Constellations Circles
Date TBD
Online via Zoom
Do you feel confusion or dread anticipating family gatherings during the fall and winter holidays? Do you need to push a reset button on some of your family stories and patterns?
Systemic Family Constellations
In this safe and sacred circle, participants will have the opportunity to choose representatives to embody key people from their lives and ancestries. Through facilitated movement and words, the representatives can make visible what has not yet been seen and bring new awareness and understanding of the situation.
Our families are our original place of belonging. Even when family relationships are difficult, we can come to be at peace with the fact that without them, we wouldn’t be here.
Unresolved events in families and ancestry can cause problems in the present. Without knowing it, we may try to bring these to light by reliving them in our bodies, our connections with others and our work lives.
For more information about Constellations work, click here and here.
Dream Circles
Dream Wisdom for Dangerous Times
Second Wednesdays, Feb. 10, March 10, 5-7 pm
Pacific time zone
Online via Zoom
Each workshop limited to 10 participants
I will host each workshop on my Zoom channel. Each will be limited to 10 participants. If you want to join, please email me to register by the day before the workshop, and I will send you the link.
Cost: $25-40 sliding scale
Please share the Facebook event.
In a dream circle you can:
- Receive the insights and healing messages that come in your and others’ dreams – even the ones that seem confusing or scary
- Strengthen your intuition
- Communicate with spirit allies and ancestors
- Experience the joy and deep connections that come when we share dreams in a circle
People who have been in my dream circles have had experiences like these:
“June leads the dream circle respectfully, accepting all members where they are. To share my dreams in this circle opens up my dreams to amazingly accurate insights. My life is enriched by participating with June in this dream circle.” – Barbara
“It is worth the experience of sharing such a personal aspect as dreams with community, and the insights that result are eye and heart opening.” – Patrick
“Not only have I gained a deeper understanding of my dreams, but it has also helped me gain a deeper trust in my own intuition.” – M
“June’s dream circle helped me know at a deeper level that we need not take the universe at face value; there is a deeper knowing that can come to us in dreams and it’s well worth exploring. June is a skilled and gentle mentor and facilitator. She helps each person in the circle find their own truth on their own terms.” – JD
“June is passionate about dreams and deeply attuned to the messages they send us from our higher selves. She holds the space for a circle of dreamers with compassion, presence and great sensitivity.” – PT