 Peace and blessings, beautiful people. My name is Leticia. I use she, the pronouns, and I am calling in live and direct from Ocoquisa territory, also known as Houston. And you're coming in to Roots 2020 Reimagined, the fierce urgency of now. Thank you for joining us. I hope you are getting really cozy and have some water nearby. And before we get started, I'll have our language justice partners, Bacha Lenguas, walk us through our language access. Hola, hello. Yo soy Catalina y mis pronombres son ella y ella, y estoy aquí hoy con mi compa y con interpreter, María Luisa, sus pronombres ella. Somos miembros del Colectivo de Justicia de Lenguaje, Bacha Lenguas, basado en Bulbancha Luisiana. Greetings, I'm Catalina. My pronouns are she and they, and I'm joined today by my comrade and co-interpreter, María Luisa. She, her pronouns. We are members of Bacha Lenguas, Language Justice Collective, based in Bulbancha Luisiana. La justicia de lenguaje es nuestro derecho a entender y ser entendidas en el idioma en que nos sentimos más poderosas. Language justice is our right to understand and be understood in the language in which we feel most powerful. Si está viendo la transmisión en vivo y necesita interpretación en español, avísenos en el chat y le daremos acceso al Zoom. If you are watching on live stream and need Spanish interpretation, let us know in the chat and we'll grant you access to the Zoom. Voy a dar algunas pautas para las personas hablando para la justicia de lenguaje. I'm gonna give y'all a few tips for the people speaking today for Language Justice. Por favor, habla un paso lento y constante. Si estás hablando muy rápido, nos verás hacer este señal de manos que significa ir más despacio. Invitamos a que lo hagan también. Es posible que sea difícil vernos en tu pantalla, así que pedimos que le echen un ojo al chat también por si enviamos un mensaje pidiendo que vayas más despacio. Please speak at a slow and steady pace. If you are speaking too fast, you'll see us make this hand signal, which means to slow down. We invite you to do this as well if you see us doing it. It may be hard to see us on your screen, so we ask that you please keep an eye on the chat in case we send a message asking you to slow down as well. Hablamos alta y clara. Si tienes alífonos con micrófono, utilízalos. Haremos esta señal con la mano si no podemos escucharte. Están todas invitadas a hacer lo mismo. También enviaremos un mensaje al chat. Speak loudly and clearly. If you have headphones with the mic, please use them. We'll make this hand signal if we can't hear you and you are all invited to do the same. We will also send a message to the chat. Mantén tu micrófono en silencio si no estás hablando. Keep your mic on mute when you're not speaking. Una persona a la vez, por favor, les interprete solamente pueden interpretar con una voz a la vez. No queremos estar en la posición de tener que decidir cuál voz privilegiar sobre otra. One speaker at a time, please. Interpreters can only interpret one voice at a time, so we don't want to be in the position of having to decide which voice to privilege over another. Si eres pilingüe en español e inglés, siéntete libre de cambiar de idioma, solo pedimos que no cambies de idioma en medio de una oración. If you are bilingual in Spanish and English, feel free to switch back and forth between English and Spanish. We only ask that you please try not to switch languages in the middle of a sentence. Y no sufras en silencio si hay algún problema con la interpretación. Por favor, déjanos saber en el chat o envíe un mensaje a les enfitriones. Crear un espacio bilingüe virtual es una experiencia nueva y requiere paciencia para ir más lentamente para así poder terminar juntas. Gracias al equipo de Alternate Roots que hizo esto posible y gracias por aprender con nosotros. And finally, don't suffer in silence if any issues with the interpretation arise. Please let us know in the chat box or send a message to one of the hosts. Creating a bilingual virtual space is a new experience and it will take patience to move a little slower so we can all get through this together. Thank you to Alternate Roots staff who made this possible and thank you for learning with us. Excelente, thank you Bancha de Lenguas. We appreciate you growing with us. And again, if you're watching on live stream and need Spanish interpretations, let us know in the chat and we'll grant you access to the Zoom. Otra vez si está bien de transmisión en vivo y necesita interpretación en español, avísenos en el chat y le daremos acceso al Zoom. We can't continue without giving thanks to Alternate Roots' generous donation and support. First of all, all of the Rooters, all the members, all the folks who've been here since 1976 or maybe last year was your first time or you're just now getting to know us. Private individuals, funders, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation, Mellon, Surna and the Doris Duke Foundation. Thank you so much. All right, now we're moving on to introducing our first, our first videos. Can we remind everyone about pronouns? Our gender ethnic group reminds us to change all of our profile pronouns and in the chat. So it includes, so if you don't know where that is, we have tech support who can guide you there. There should be three little bubbles in the top right of your picture and you can change if you click rename. As you're adding pronouns, drop in the chat where you're zooming in from and if you know the names of the Indigenous people who are stewards of the land you're currently occupying, drop that into the chat too. If not, we invite you to learn more about land acknowledgement. One website is native-land.ca. And that's one, but there are many and we encourage you through this journey, not only during Roots Week, but beyond to continue to investigate that. And finally, just a quick reminder that Roots operates in a space and virtually together with our community agreements. We'll drop the link in the chat for you to reference. I know that this entire experience is always centered in wellness and radical expressions of love and that may look in so many different ways, one of them being turning off your camera if you need to, walking away to get a little dance break or a stretch break and of course go to the bathroom when you have got to go to the bathroom. Our wellness team reminds us to take care of ourselves while we're in this virtual space and we'll have plenty of tips to share out to you throughout this experience. Now let's go ahead and get our evening's done. First, we'll have a gallery walk and studio visit with Ambrose. Hey everyone, this is Ambrose. I wanted to do a short video to introduce the virtual salon that I curated for Alternate Roots this year. So I am from Ashland, North Carolina. My mom introduced me to Alternate Roots a while ago but I don't even know how long it's been now. Tuneco, she's a writer and does a lot of other things that y'all should look into. She currently, she started her own business called Ambrose Consulting. If you wanna look more into what she's up to now. So the virtual salon that I curated, I was brought on this year by Indy Mitchell who invited me to do the visual arts programming this year. And the virtual salon is an online exhibition featuring images from Southern and Caribbean artists and one artist from Brazil also. So the title of the salon is In the Hallway and I wanted to talk about the idea of the hallway like when you walk into your great aunt or your grandfather or your own home and you just have pictures, photographs, momentals, maybe newspaper clippings, objects, those types of things just scaling up the wall and the wall is full of these images and these memories. And I think that that type of space is representative of a lot of the ways that we make memories and keep memories alive in our own homes and like our personal, private lives, the intimate space of our lives. And so I wanted to honor that space, that hallway and kind of bring all these artists from different places and backgrounds together to create our own hallway and our own monument to our experiences and memories and things that we are thinking about through visual arts. And then the other idea of the hallway is this passageway. It's like this intimate space that you have to travel through. So it's kind of like every artist I think has had some sort of migration be a part of their lives, whether they migrated from the Caribbean to the South or their family migrated from the South of Chicago or New York and then they went back to the South. I think that everyone has some sort of travels and migration that are some sort of passageway or hallways they've been through to get to where they are now. And then also just the idea of this passageway from the past, the present, the future and bringing all of those things together in this kind of in-between vestibule that is really rich with metaphor and has been used a lot in a lot of different ways. So I wanted to ask you all what that space means for you. What is being in the hallway or what is the hallway represent for you in this context? And for you all to check out the work from the artists. So I hope you enjoy. I worked really hard on this. I created the website fully on my own from scratch. It was my first time making my own website like this. So I hope you all return to it more than once. Share it on social media, share it with people that you think would be interested. And I hope you like it and I hope you like the artists and maybe reach out to the ones that would stand out to you. So thank you. So this is the virtual exhibition or virtual salon. This is the main page. So the website is www.routeswithvirtualsalon.com. I'm just going to take you through the website a little bit. So as you kind of hover over each image, it'll show you the artist's name and you can click the image and it'll give you a little bit more information and you can also go into full screen right here and see the full image like that. This is an image by Laurel Austin. She's from Grenada. We met attending Central St. Martin's together. We were both studying abroad in London and we met each other and I thought her work was really powerful to kind of start off the salon because it's kind of, to me it's a very spiritual image and it's this young black woman or black girl who is kind of stopping you with her hand. She's saying stop and kind of inviting you in and at the same time she's kind of like looking you in the eye and maybe asking you to really be present with her and be present in the exhibition and see all the images that follow her and what they might mean in a relationship to her starting it all off. Obviously that's just my interpretation and the artist definitely has her own intentions and her own meanings and everyone who sees the piece is gonna have their own things. So there's more images. A lot of these images feel very spiritual to me and there's a mixing between nature and figure and textures. If you hover over the video with your mouse it'll play automatically. Here's Angela Davis Johnson, one of our Reuters. Yeah, I just want y'all to scroll through the salon, spend a little time with the images, you know, open it up if it intrigues you. Read the title, go to full screen so you can really take a look. I wanted to actually tell a story with all these images. I think that they all kind of have a relationship to each other that is really beautiful and really strong. A lot of it is spiritual and I think it's like the figure is kind of leading you where you are with these days. This is work by William Paul Thomas and there's that kind of intermixing with these abstracted pieces of the body and textures and these kind of darker spiritual spaces and of course the baby in this video. My Logan lit in Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah, just spend some time with it, kind of figure out what the stories are that you're getting from it and how the work speaks to each other. A lot of them are somewhat organized by color and aesthetic but also how they relate to each other in terms of the subject matter. This is a video that Heather Lee from Durham, Spirit House shared and I think you should really definitely take the time to watch the whole thing three minutes and 42 seconds and if you click on it, it'll play with sound. You can watch it in full screen. Definitely take a look at that. All these pieces just feel really powerful to me. This is work by Vicky Meek, another reader. And I also wanted to bring fashion into it because I feel like there are a lot of relationships between fashion and fine art, as we call it. That should be explored a little bit more. So this is a Brazilian artist and fashion designer and right here is an artist from Barbados who creates jewelry and she also paints and does lots of other things too. This piece is a Jamaican artist. It's a moss cape. Definitely read more about it because it's really touching. This is a Chante Kindle from Tennessee. This is a Baltimore artist. Ashley Minner, another reader. And then we also have some photographs mixed in here. These are paintings of monuments falling and being taken down. So I wanted the exhibition to kind of start off kind of smooth and meditative. So you kind of get these still moments with these figures meeting their eyes. And then you get some more movement, escapes happening, backgrounds, actual places. There's definitely something going on with hair and figures and dancing. I'm gonna get some more color, a lot of stillness, textures, lots of texture and experimentation. And as we move down, I really like how this video by Logan Lynette moves into this digital work by Mark Floridor. I don't know if I'm saying his last name correctly. But then as we get towards the end, you kind of get this screen moment and it gets a little more busy. There's a little more movement and energy with the sticks and all of this mess here that Christina McField focuses in on. Had the Confederate flag burning and monuments being taken away. I wanted to end it on this piece by John Merriweather kind of as a statement of like, this is a monument, this is a statue, this is a sculpture. And that can be a replacement or an add-on to really just be shameless and black and beautiful and awesome. So yeah, take a look, go through the exhibition. There's an about page that talks more about the title. Right here, the artist tab is list of artists. So you'll see each artist's name and then you can click on their name and a pop-up will show and we'll talk about them and their work and you can see the images. And there's some extra images here, so definitely take a look if you want to see more from some of the artists that maybe isn't shown on the main page. Definitely take a look here. And then this one, Interact. I really want y'all to go here because I know you Reuters are always down for a call and response. So this is a blog post-type format. I wanted there to be some sort of interactive thing where y'all can leave your comments and responses and you can add links in your comments, you can upload videos and there's some questions here. What impacted you or stayed with you most from the virtual salon? So you click the title here, click here to enter and you just scroll down and you can write a comment right here in the space and click comment. So yeah, let us know your responses, what artwork stands out to you. And there will also be some events listed on this page because we have a panel discussion and a studio visit with one of the artists too. So stay tuned for that. Thank y'all for listening and engaging and I hope you enjoy it. Again, the website is rootsvirtualsalon.com. Thank you. Y'all, it's not a goose trying to silence me. Can you hear me? Okay, excellent. Bueno, all I know is I guess my spirit, my reverberation was so high, but I muted myself. But yes, please, if you have a little moment of breath to go in the hallway throughout the week, I highly recommend it. I know that I'm just so proud of seeing everyone's work and to see Ambrose, freaking amazing curatorial spirit. So give some love in the chat. Maybe if you've been skimming through it, you could share some of your favorite pieces that have been inspiring you. Okay, I'm gonna move along, keep us flowing through this generous evening and introduce one of my favorite human beings, one of my favorite peoples on the universe, Hannah, Pepper, Cunningham. Show them some love in the chat and I'm gonna just let it hand it over from the gulf to the other end of the gulf. Thank you so much, Leti. It's really, I can't, I just am remembering when we were hosting together on that Lutherage stage. And actually today I was wearing the same, that golden rod tank top that I was wearing on that beautiful night. So just anticipating. I can't think of, thank you so much for your love. All right, I am Hannah, Hannah, Pepper, Hannah, Pepper, Cunningham. I use they, them, ooh, I'm gonna slow down already. I use they, them pronouns and I am located in Bulbancha. A description of what is in my Zoom window now is I am a white person with long dark hair with a blonde streak in it and brown eyes. I am wearing a pale jumpsuit with a rust colored vest and I'm sitting in front of a white door. I wanted to give a little context for the piece I'm gonna share tonight called Carbon Capture. And as well as that piece's connection to the TL team and how you can get involved throughout the week. So Carbon Capture is a piece that I began working on during a residency at a studio woods on the West Bank of New Orleans, Bulbancha. Early on my process involved taking a lot of videos with my smartphone camera, which I'm holding up right now as a way of researching the way the questions that I was asking showed up in nature. From this research, I developed a live performance and it was that live performance that I initially proposed to present at Roots Week. The idea was minimalist set, some audio visual elements and ideally a lot of stage presence. Obviously times have changed and I had the opportunity to think about how I would change my presentation for these times. I thought about performing live and in the end I chose to come full circle back to my little smartphone that I'm holding up again and to attempt to share the story within some of the visual contexts from which it emerged. And a couple of months ago, a couple of months ago, Indy Mitchell, AKA, Masteress of Cultural Exuberation and Agitation and a visionary artist and curator that I've been really, really blessed to share creative space with for several years now reached out to me about presenting this work in concert with the teal transition team led by Joisha Dutta, previously known as the Green Team. This was also a full circle moment for me as Joisha's work around just transition and with another gulf as possible was a huge inspiration for carbon capture. So I was excited to accept Indy's invitation as well as his proposal to present carbon capture in multiple parts, which is why you'll be seeing episode one this week and episode two next week. You will see also that the teal team has become a part of the world of the piece, both in ways that are already established as well as in ways that will emerge through the work of the teal team during Roots Week Reimagined. If you're interested in getting down with the teal team in conversation with not only this piece, but a much larger conversation around just transition and liberation, contact Joisha at gmail.com or find the teal team on Slack. Finally, like many other actors and theater artists at this time and all of us, I'm struggling with not only what my work can be in this time, but also how to build connections and opportunities without the post-show schmooze time or Roots Week porch sitting. So even though there's no physical porch to sit on, if you are interested in chatting, please be in touch. And thank you all. And I'm gonna pass it over to the live stream. Lots of love and appreciation. I knew even before the camp surveyors came that I was gonna be on the wrong side of things. When I grow up, I want to have a family of my own. I want to clean the air. I want to defend our nation. Once upon a time, carbon sequestration camps were outsourced to the developing world, increasing global instability, and denying our nation the multiple benefits of domestic carbon capture. CS camps reclaim the productivity of the land through reforestation and afforestation projects that clean our environment using trees genetically enhanced to capture an unprecedented amount of carbon from the atmosphere. But that's not all. The camps provide jobs for deserving citizens and contain domestic terror threats by rehabilitating criminals and dissidents through the proven value of agricultural work. I never thought that my family's world would be anything out of them. Run down, dangerous, in the death. I'm worried about my kids' future and about their safety. When the CS camp came, our world was transformed overnight. Now I feel safe. And I know that I will be helping to rehabilitate the land. Residents of regions selected for carbon sequestration have priority placement for camp employment with on-the-job training and subsidized housing. If a CS camp is heading your way, check out our website, CS.Camp, for more information on what to expect. Now is your time to get on board. Apply for employment and housing today. The camp is my future. The camps are my future. The camps are my future. Hey, Ben. I really hope this message gets to you. You know, when the surveyors came, I was working so hard on my EMT license. Like, it was the one thing that was going to finally get you and me a step ahead. To be honest, I did not believe they would choose Roseville for their carbon dioxide reclamation camp. We felt like living in Roseville protected us. That there'd always be somewhere poorer than Roseville, and somewhere darker than Roseville. I like that it was like that, but it just always seemed to be true. And I thought you were dumber than rocks for joining up with the teal, because I thought it was some sort of teenage wave cutting back at your mom for dying. And I thought it was fucking dangerous putting their propaganda on our door, putting both of our lives in danger. You and me had just been hitting the stride, Ben. I felt like you were turning your back on what I was trying to give you. I've been speaking with a member of the teal who has covertly contacted this station from inside a carbon reclamation camp. They're speaking on the conditions of anonymity. Now, you and I have been chatting for a bit, and I'll be honest, you don't really strike me as an enemy of a state. How did you become involved in a terrorist organization? That attitude is a lot of what we're working against. For a long time, people where I come from didn't relate to a movement that has started on reservations and in prisons. We didn't think we needed a liberation movement until we did. And the movement is growing stronger every day, not just in the teal territories themselves, but in camps like these. And on the outside, too, we're gonna win. We wanna tell everyone who might be thinking of joining to join today. I didn't take up your calls after you got sent to a camp. Any veteran it would have. Still, everyone who joined up with the teal just got sent to a camp right behind you. You know, you were right, though. Came home not long after to see an eviction notice on the door. They gave us two days to pack it all up. All they were kind enough to put a dumpster on the block for everything we couldn't carry. We had a choice. Leave town, try to make it somewhere else, or apply for a job at the camp. But you know I didn't have anyone anywhere else. Can you hate your amp for choosing the camp? That was amazing. Everyone, give some love to Hannah, Pepper, Cunningham, and the chat. I'm like, we've gotten so used during this quarantine to just been watching all the episodes. So you guys gotta wait. You gotta come back next week, okay? You know, bite your nails a little bit, but wash your hands. So thank you so much. I'm anticipating the next one. Take a sip of water if you haven't already or any other beverage that's bringing you joy, keeping you hydrated. And I love that we're coming full circle, bringing us back to Tejas, bringing us back to Texas. Three of my sisters I get to introduce. Erica Chilomé, Seiba Ely, Vanessa Mercado-Taylor. Give them some love in the chat. I love these people so much. And I know you do too. And I'm going to let them go ahead and introduce themselves if you don't know them already. Gracias. Tumal sinu. Shambagashi unani ulatana. Erica Chilomé pa. Saludos. Que te brille siempre el sol y que tengas buena energía en este día. Mi nombre es Erica Chilomé. Good evening. May the sun always shine on you and may you have good energy on this day, this evening. My name is Erica Chilomé and I, in this beautiful being next to me, are calling in from south of the Arquicosa River on sacred land that has been home of many traditional peoples, including the Wichita, Kamanchi, Hisani, Tantawa, and Gado people. And I am so honored and proud to be here with my roots family in adaptive way during this great shift. Thank you to all the organizers this year who are ushering us into this moment and allowing us to hold space during this time. And I want to thank our sister Carla Aguilar for opening us this morning with such a beautiful meditation and attention to the sacred water. With that intention and without having planned it in our cognitive minds, but certainly through the great spirit, we wanted to close this sharing and this day honoring the water in the same way. So I want to take the time now to ask everyone watching to take a minute or two to get a cup or a bottle of drinkable water, water that you have accessible and set it next to you at this time as we would like to invite the water in this journey and we'll take some time to engage with the water at the end of this sharing. So I'll let y'all go ahead and do that. And thank you, Leti, for reminding us to consistently stay hydrated. Yes, so if you have not done that, take that very seriously right now. And as you are doing that, I hope you can still hear me for the sake of time. I'm going to keep talking. I'm honored to be here in this presentation. Give me one second. Okay, I'll keep talking. I'm like, what's going on? All right, I'm honored to be here in this presentation with my sister, say by Eli, my TV, a holder of cultural memory who so graciously agreed to perform with me at Alternate Roots this year and what would have also been a beautiful live performance for you all. With this online transition, we also like Hannah made the decision to prerecord our offering and with the support of my sister and Indigenous futurist, this beautiful being. Vanessa Mercado Taylor, we decided to create a short film that weaves time. So that's very lovely. The power of our ancestral past, the urgency of the present moment, and a healed future that is to come. We did this through the braiding of archival footage of current movements present in the sacred lands of Tejas, an Indigenous futurist narrative more than five years in the making called Earth Roots, and the powerful blood memories that Sabah and I bring through the spiritual technologies of poetry and music. What you are about to see is my humble editorial and directorial film debut. I had to say that because my sister's well, you got to say that. And I'm like, I'm nervous. I wash my hands. And more importantly, what you are about to see is an intentional offering to my communities, my peoples, and to the Earth that I have been honored to call home from the Arquicoza River to Yanawana to Lenca Territoria in Central America and to you in the virtual world, my beloved Roots family, Dios nam sei, you ometeo. And I'll pass it to Sabah. Ometeo, tumal sinu, ulatanan, seiba ina, kelsol brian ti, may the sun shine on you. I'm Sabah Elie, Lenka Maya. I speak to you from Yanawana or Somisek, ancestral lands of many Indigenous groups including the Kuawe-Dekken and Carrizo-Komecrudo. Thank you so much to Alternate Roots and everyone behind the scenes that has made this project possible. We're so excited to share it with you. This has been a transformative project for this trio here presenting today, as it will also be for our viewers. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to grow next to Tiri Erika Chilomé and Tiri Vanessa Mercado who I admire very much like a little sister looks up to her older siblings. Soy la memoria viviente is not being shown tonight as entertainment. I have heard Erika profess many times in one of her poems that this work is for our livelihood for our much needed revival. I have learned that ancestral languages are encyclopedias about the natural spiritual and universal world that we are a part of. The vibration of an ancestral language tastes like home on our tongue. I have savored this truth more as I begin to move my lips and hum in the ways that my grandmas did. And I have been challenged many times for the audacity to speak these languages in such a broken way. And for what? It won't even help me get a job, right? That's why a lot of people learn languages these days. And we forget the value of learning ancestral languages. I have been able to gather what have not been able to gather the documents to prove tribal affiliation or indigeneity in a time that showing citizenship is now also demanded by our own people. Many indigenous languages were eradicated with the genocide and continued criminalization of our peoples for speaking it but Lenka Kotik which is one of my languages was said to be extinct yet here it is in this film today She La Sayuna means I remember well and I as in the ancestors within me remember well. In this film you will remember what has always been within you and was never lost. Thank you. Thank you. Gracias. Tiri Seiva. Blessings everyone. Inepo Merejildatiak Vanessa Mercado she heard ella from the land with my sister here of the Arquicosa River of the Kato Wichita the Comanche Hosani and Tonkawa. I am so honored to be sharing our work with our Roots fam who has always been such a beautiful reflection of what is possible in community. I'm really humbled by the brilliance of my sisters here Erika and Seiva and thankful to have been surrounded by women who through their own healing have helped me navigate my process of decolonizing and reclaiming the wisdom of my yaki ancestors who were displaced by land theft and genocide in the Sonora Desert. The narrative for what you're about to see has come through the decolonizing work of many women of color who have walked with what would become a theater performance and now a film series that imagines Earthroot a re-indigenized future without colonization, environmental destruction, and patriarchy. In this multimedia expression of Earthroot we reclaim our spiritual technologies our songs, our ceremonies, our languages and we weave together stories from the movements in the global south to remember that when black and brown bodies reimagine the future it's revolutionary because as we reclaim our power our healing becomes the resistance of our grandmothers and the dreams of our descendants we manifest what will be. As stated by my sisters here Earthroot a revolution blooming is a three-season serial anthology being written for the black and brown diaspora scrolling through Netflix desperately searching for a reflection that might soothe the pain of a warring empire on their doorstep. We invite BiopoC Fem and non-binary artists and activists to join us in creating alternate routes towards our collective future. You all see what we did there? Towards our collective future we're dropping the link in the chat y'all Glasokamati for time traveling with us we are the ancestors that our descendants are remembering and now we're going to pass it off to the live stream please enjoy. This meeting is being recorded. The time before council 49 generations ago the revolution of mothers planted seeds for Earthroot Born at dawn Iha de Rosa Roja the clan of long memory who came to age when the star people returned 2020 of the sixth world. Sacrifice was ritual life itself the earth her procession unmuted in my blood like she did I write this with my limbs seated with postured hands head bowed in submission to the prayerful cadence of a tender heart the language of the divine by way of the water I hold this memory quietly savoring her longing the same way we day drink stars the same way the moon loves the sun as save her son the rhythms of war dancing in her bone exploding in her heart draping her skin they called her la poeta cantante in the metrics of her own time we would call her scientist traveler of spirits and minds student of paradox weaver of paradigm a reflection of God a reason to stay alive sixth grade english teacher demo everything except human and this is not something that is new this is not something that is new with this administration it is not something that is new to uh you know when these immigration laws began I also identify as a lanka maya and if you know your history you know that the lankas and the mayas have ancestry that is older than these borders and these governments that currently exist on these lands or anybody to go home or that they are a foreigner or that they don't belong here because we are from I feel like and I'm being profited from right in my community we're also a prison system right because the more money they have in their pockets like we feel like we are the entertainment but you know lift what is going on in our homes and how scared we are to even go out in there because she was working and to keep you in and to keep us separate and so I appreciate the people's migration crisis is not unique to this border it is worldwide we need to think about why are these migration patterns intensifying around the world there is something greater going on it is not just oh they don't belong here they're illegal they're breaking the law there is something greater going on and there is so much hate brewing so we need to stop and think about that right because it's not just wide against brown we need people who are going to stick with us to each other so I'm not here to point fingers we've done it to each other I know immigration it is not just all these children are lost what are we teaching our next generations what are we teaching as a human race and I hope that they're with their families you know of my children and there's other people saying that these parents are human traffickers my parents are my heroes because they risk their lives and they almost died in a hundred different ways trying to cross that border to get me here because they aren't and voice my concerns I could get murdered because that's the situation that we're in we're human toxic weight of our human hate our trembling hope our violent desperation and it holds it still and the receipts the price that was paid by the trees no longer seen the vibrant and colorful beings that can barely to be freed by our load our collective right under our feet the forced complicity of a hackberry tree the weaponizing of our death the overgrown architecture of our pain it is here where we stand as a monument to our becoming and gracefully holds endlessly offers you and every breath forward to let the water heal and to honor the sanctity of the living boxes on these screens and beyond these screens and within our bodies by taking even this breath is a gift is an intention of honoring the living and hold on they can hold on we're having a sound issue right now hey do you see the sound is in streaming the site let me know I can repeat okay all right giving so much grace to all of us as we're moving through the cyberspace doing this intentional work making sure we're weaving these memories and these archives together I just wanted to invite everyone to take a deep breath in grace for yourself and all the feelings that you're feeling right now I want to honor this work and this ability we have to to meet each other in this place and to weave these memories and these archives for our descendants thousands of years from now where they're going to be like oh look at them trying to figure out the tech and the audio and doing it because we are in love with the way that this light carries us the way that the earth carries us in the way that our sacred water runs through us and so I want to invite everyone to give attention to the water that I asked you to get the water that opened our hearts this morning with the beautiful meditation that our sister Carla led us through this morning and for those of y'all who weren't there we're going to we're going to move into that a little bit here where we're holding this life source this sacred auita that that we're made out of that gives us and sustains us life inside of us and inside of our future generations that live within our bodies and hold that water and you can leave your eyes open you can close your eyes and I want you to thank yourself and the water that moves inside your body first for everything it did today to bring you to this place because everything that it did is enough to give life to the memories of your descendants and the memories of your ancestors full circle and this water that you are holding is a sacred gift that our ancestors fought for you to hold in this second in this moment and we're going to ask the water to live within us to give us and nurture our feelings to hold our feelings so take a take a drink of this sacred life giving source that you're made out of take a drink of this beautiful beautiful gift from this patch on my mind from your ancestors and allow that water to not only nourish you but to nourish and code all the memories of resilience and survival of this day and every day that you've been alive and for it to carry that because this water will be around when you your body is gone and when your descendants are living and asking and praying to the ground and praying to the water to allow us to remember who we are and to guide us in those lost moments and take another drink take another drink right now and give all of that memory of resilience all the archives of who you are no matter what you've done no matter what you feel give that back to the water because as Carla told us today that water is sacred and ever living in eternal and it has been here and we'll be here way before these bodies and these conscious minds are alive so you know we thank the water we thank you for coding your memories of resilience in the water we thank every breath that you've taken today and you know for those of you who feel you're not doing enough because of all the things you're learning today all the things we learn at roots that we might feel overwhelmed the water holds us it is the by the water that we are living it is by the water that we are giving grace for every breath that we take and we give thanks to that our is vida water is life and so are you my relatives thank you so much for tuning in today to our presentation to all the presentations and we give thanks for those who are curating the space and holding us down so we might do this work thank you I'm Adele the ocean I'm saying you my goodness yeah I'm over here I was loving on my jug of water and I it's just it comes full circle the divine is always present ever present yesterday I was invited by some of y'all may know ebonyna while golden one of our roots sisters Betty's daughters and spirit house fam to talk about water and we're all having these conversations simultaneously universally it's not it's not serendipitous it is exactly as our divine has said it to be and I want to encourage and every one of y'all if you have the opportunity to sit by a puddle a lake a bayou a swimming pool or a glass of hot tea tomorrow is our day of rest and find time to sing to the water because water holds memory and every act counts as a labor of love again giving infinite infinite gratitude to each and every one of y'all for coming and getting cozy with us this evening before we close again shout out to the tech team y'all behind the scenes magic I'm just like so impressed that's also like am I just here talking to my teal chair y'all make it happen again we now see the importance of having all languages close to our hearts so shout out to interpretation team for bringing that for reminding us of that for honoring the stories that language hold and together all of the work teams shout out to you all let's keep imagining let's keep dreaming let's utilize this technology as tools and as reminders gentle reminders to go for walks to hug some hardwood trees because they can hold they can hold the pain that we are we are feeling right now and nourish our roots because trees talk to each other y'all know that okay sorry and I can just keep going thank you to all of y'all thank you for all of your energy this weekend and tomorrow is the day of rest we can come back together for the autumn equinox on Tuesday bringing a sense of balance and to this beautiful community that we have I will see you on Tuesday 2 p.m central or 3 p.m eastern or time what is it it's a construct but we will be there for beyond punishment a conversation about abolition check your email and mark this day of mercury Tuesday for details and I will see you in your dreams thanks roots I love y'all are we logging off now thank y'all I love y'all so much thank you let it go