DeeplyRooted: Black Mary-Olivering with brontë velez /167
Lead photo of brontë velez by Sai Hossain
Deeply Rooted is a new offering devoted to inviting relief, balance and abundance into our lives during these uncertain times. We've brought together some amazing folks who we feel are wise stewards of Earth, spirit, community and bodily wisdom who will share a variety of grounding practices and coping tools to lend support during this unprecedented time where it can be easy to feel overwhelmed.
This week, brontë velez transports us through revolutionary prayer. We hope brontë’s incantation ignites your creativity and fills up your inner well with joy, strength and peace.
Follow our Deeply Rooted releases, coming your way on Mondays, to find solace and awaken inspiration through guided meditations, poetry and prose readings, questions for deep inquiry, story-telling, musical performances and more. May these offerings nourish your inner sanctuary and foster resilience, empowerment and liberation.
“May we learn from the mushrooms what it means to carry death into new life.”
brontë velez by Andre D. Wagner
about brontë
brontë’s work and rest is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). as a black-latinx transdisciplinary artist, designer, trickster, and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking & prophetic communiy traditions, environmental justice, and death doulaship.
they are currently moved and paused by the questions, “how can we allow as much room for god to flow through and between us as possible? what affirms the god of and between us? what’s in the way? what ways can black feminist placemaking rooted in commemorative justice promote the memory of god, which is to say, love and freedom between us?” they relate to god as the moments of divine spacetime that remind us we are not separate, the moments that re-belong us to the earth.
they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice and hospicing systems of oppression through serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective, educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth, and quotidian black queer lifemaking ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life.
You can follow brontë’s work by visiting leadtolife.org or following her on Instagram @littlenows or @lead2life.
♫ Theme music by Pura Fe. “Black Mary-Olivering” by brontë velez with musical track by Stoic Beats.
The Lead to Life mantras were written by brontë velez and Kyle Lemle from Lead to Life.
Recommendations from brontë
@Earthisohana’s collaboration on “Compassion in Crisis”
Follow and support @mia.mingus for disability justice wisdom during this time on Instagram
Follow @weaving_earth on Instagram for an upcoming earth intimacy series called “Wild Reckoning”
For The Wild Podcast is an anthology of the Anthropocene; focused on land-based protection, co-liberation and intersectional storytelling rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth and consumerism.