What is “petals and possibilities?”

petals and possibilities is a love offering from LPCG that aims to celebrate and bring attention to multiracial organizations and their practices that align with liberatory power and Embodied Antiracist Organizational Culture (EAOC). We believe the sharing of organizational stories and liberatory practices can be medicine for our movements during the multiple crises of our time. This harvesting and pollination of stories and practices is made possible with funding from the REACH Fund at Borealis Philanthropy.

Who is Liberatory Power Consulting Group (LPCG)?

We are an intentionally multiracial group of Black feminist and antiracist learners and guides who are committed to Black and Indigenous wisdom, power, and sovereignty, liberatory power, and the embodiment of antiracist organizational culture. ​​We are guided by our vision of a Black feminist future in which all people experience care, safety, dignity, and belonging. In our consulting work, LPCG partners with Black-led multiracial social justice organizations who desire to join us on the personal and political journey of transformation, supporting people and organizations to be agents of choosing liberatory power over supremacist power. We are excited to experiment beyond our roles as coaches, facilitators, and consultants to create petals and possibilities. Our team includes Mattice Haynes, Jen Willsea, Mindy Kao, and Kate Morales.

What do you mean by liberatory power?

Mattice: Liberatory power is the energy that's available to us all to shape worlds rooted in care and interdependence with spirit, the forces of nature, and each other. It’s ancestral power that predates colonization and encounters with whiteness. Black feminists point me towards this multitude of embodied sources of power that provide the energy necessary for remembering, imagining, refusing, and transforming.

Jen: Liberatory power is an invitation to choose, again and again, not to be seduced into control, domination or power over. I have been conditioned to hold and accept supremacist power as normal through my whiteness. Yet I am discovering what it feels like to embody liberatory power instead, which means being honest about my use of power, showing up in my fullness without dehumanizing myself or anyone else, and connecting with sources of power such as interdependence, spirit, the earth, love, imagination and repair. I am committed to continue discovering what liberatory power is through my practice because I believe that tapping into this kind of power makes the seemingly impossible, possible.

Kate: I know what my own liberatory power feels like through cultivating an awareness of my system to be able to respond to conditions around me in conscious ways, without my spirit getting possessed by reactivity. I also understand the project of liberation to be a collaborative one (Lama Rod Owens), in which we practice relating to one another and to all beings without the spirit of domination. Liberatory power is, to me, an alchemical process of transforming what we’ve been given into what we deserve - for ourselves, our ancestors and our descendants.

We have also found Cyndi Suarez’s description of liberatory power to be helpful. For Cyndi, liberatory power:

• Is the ability to create what we want

• Views differences as strengths and entertains interdependence as an option

• Requires the transformation of what one currently perceives as limitation

• Builds relationships based on mutuality and reciprocity

• Stems from an abundance consciousness

Source: The Power Manual: How to Master Complex Power Dynamics

What is embodiment*?

Embodiment invites us into an awareness of what our somas (bodies in their wholeness) are practicing. Not just what our minds or egos lead us to believe we are practicing but what we are actually doing, how we are behaving and communicating. Embodiment reconnects us to our inherent worth, dignity, and power by helping us get back in touch with our emotions, bodies, stories, and Source. Embodied transformation is a process of taking consistent new actions under pressure in alignment with our vision and values.

*Our growing understanding of embodiment is shaped by many teachers including but not limited to: Prentis Hemphill of The Embodiment Institute, Monica Dennis, MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo, Strozzi Institute

How did you decide who you would invite to participate?

Each member of the LPCG team shared the names of multiracial organizations we’re aware of who we think are or might be practicing liberatory power and moving towards an Embodied Antiracist Organizational Culture (EAOC). We’ve invited 14 organizations to join us on this journey.

How will you resource our participation?

Each organization that chooses to participate will receive $500.00 by August 2023.

What does my participation look like?

First, we invite you to listen to this 25-minute audio introduction which will ground your participation. The next step of your participation is sharing your organizational stories about liberatory practices using one of two approaches: 1) record yourselves in conversation OR 2) have a live virtual conversation with someone from the LPCG team.

How do we let you know that we’re saying YES to your invitation?

We’re so glad you want to join us in this! Please complete this form to let us know you’re committing to participate. In this form, you’ll have the opportunity to tell us if you plan to record your own conversation or if you want to be in a live virtual conversation with someone from our team. Please also share with us the information we need to send the financial gift to your organization.

How do we schedule the conversation with LPCG?

We can’t wait to talk with you! Please use our online calendar to schedule a conversation with someone from our team between now and April 20, 2023.

Is there a deadline to participate?

Yes, we want to receive all recordings and complete all conversations by April 20, 2023.

How will the stories and practices we share be used?

We hold your organizational stories and liberatory practices with the sacredness of love. Our intention is for elements of the stories and practices, shared via the recordings or live conversation, to be somatically scribed into visual maps that will appear in a resource atlas. (Learn more about somatic scribing here and on the Somatic Scribing podcast.)

What advice do you have for recording a conversation among ourselves to share with you?

Decide which two or three people from your organization will record a conversation together. Decide what kind of device and app you will use to record your conversation. We can accept audio recordings in mp3, mp4, m4a, or wav formats and have found that the following works well for capturing good quality audio recordings: sending the audio only file from a zoom call, speaking directly into your phone recording app, or using a recording app on your computer.

Find a quiet-ish place to record. We’d love it if you are able to walk and talk or sit outside together but do what works best for your storytelling pair or trio. Perhaps begin with grounding or centering together.

We’re offering a set of conversation question cards here to support being in conversation together. To make the experience more dynamic, we encourage you to print out the question cards and randomly select a few to spark storytelling and conversation. Feel free to skip a card and draw another one if it doesn’t resonate with you. We imagine that you might explore 2-3 questions together and record a conversation of up to 30 minutes.

How do we share our recorded conversation with LPCG?

Please upload your recording using this form by April 20, 2023.

What is an Embodied Antiracist Organizational Culture (EAOC)?

We wrote a visionary definition of EAOC in 2021, based on our work facilitating internal culture transformation processes with multiracial organizations, and putting our values into practice as a multiracial team ourselves. While an Embodied Antiracist Organizational Culture (EAOC) must be self-defined by each organization, for us in an EAOC:

• the wisdom, skill, and lived experiences of Black people, Indigenous people, and all people of color are honored and reflected in the organization’s power structure

• intersectional Blackness is affirmed and Black, Indigenous, and other people of color don’t have to assimilate to nor center whiteness in order to thrive and experience safety, belonging, dignity, and joy

• the norms and values of Black feminism or an Indigenous worldview (or the values of another BIPOC culture that is essential to the work of the organization) are centered

• each person’s identities, positionality, and embodiment are considered important factors in the strategic role that they play in making the organization’s mission possible

• the proactive identification and counteracting of anti-Blackness and other forms of racism inside (and outside) the organization is prioritized

• antiracist values, mindsets, and assumptions are visible in behaviors, policies, practices, outcomes, and impact

Note: Sometimes it is strategic to pursue racial justice, equity, and liberation in an all same-race or majority same-race organization. We do not assume that all organizations need to be multiracial in order to achieve their goals; we assume that some do, and these are the organizations our approach is designed to support.

How can I stay updated on petals and possibilities?

We will send regular email updates to all participating organizations.

Who can I contact if I have additional questions?

We are happy to answer any additional questions that you may have. Please contact us by email at connect@liberatorypower.com.