Hey Garden(ers),
There are so many ways that we hear terms like community care used. When it comes to emergencies and urgent situations, one of the ways that we can imagine community care is how we include our loved ones in our emergency planning. Have you ever heard of a 'healthcare proxy', or thought of someone to help advocate for you in health decisions? Learn more about the process in this helpful guide by the Conversation Project.
For past attendees of Working Towards Witness (WTW) and Black QT (Queer/Trans) people in Garden, workshop facilitators Ebbie and Sun have a poll for a potential new offering! Check for further instructions in the Announcements section below! They hope to see you in virtual space soon! Please stay tuned for information about the next Working Towards Witness workshop.
🫂 The next session of Chronic Illness and Long Covid Support Group will be this Thursday July 17th from 5:30pm-7:30pm PST with Chanelle! Navigating everything that comes with chronic illness can be difficult - from managing symptoms to experiencing grief over missing your pre-illness life. This is a peer support space where we can share our feelings about living with any chronic/long-term illness, including long COVID, during an ongoing pandemic. RSVP here!
😷 Hang out, chill and play games with Black folks who take COVID precautions at Bonfire in Garden! The next Bonfire will be this Saturday July 19th at 5pm PST where we'll be watching and discussing Spies of Mississippi. RSVP here.
🎨 Craft & Yap 🦜 will take place this Sunday, July 20th at 11am PST. Come hang out and make stuff! Whether you’re journaling, stitching, collaging, or just vibing, this is a space for creativity and connection. Bring a project or come to get inspired and maybe learn something new. All crafts, all Gardeners welcome! Hosted by Deeda. RSVP!
🎤 Come join the Open Mic this Sunday, July 20th at 1pm PT. This open mic is a collaboration between TranscendAsian Pride Collective, Q-WAVE, and Garden. This Open Mic is a freeform setting for folks to read/sing original work or excerpts from published content that resonates with them at this moment. No writing or prior open mic experience is required to participate! Be sure to RSVP!
📚 Join saffy as they embark on a literary journey of self discovery and read selected pieces from her debut collection Deeper on Thursday July 24th at 5pm PST, A Live Reading of Deeper and Poetry Workshop. Call on your people and prepare to be guided on a spiritual reclamation of self. Content warning: selected pieces may contain mentions of disordered eating, suicidal ideation, self harm, fatphobia, transphobia, queerphobia, sexual themes. RSVP here!
😱 If you love some good horror movies, we want to watch with you! Chanelle & J Mase will be hosting Horror Head Movie Marathon Part 3: Garden's Revenge! From niche films that make you squirm to more pop-culture horror comedies, we love all the subgenres of horror! Join us Saturday July 26th starting at 1pm PST! RSVP here
🎨 Let’s unlock our creative spirit together! Garden's Way a 12-week meetup where we’ll discuss chapters, share progress, and encourage each other as we move through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Open to anyone (writers, painters, musicians, dreamers, etc.) looking for a supportive space to grow and express themselves. 🌱 Sundays at 11am PT starting July 27 through Sep 28, hosted by Deeda & Mo & Dan. Meeting weekly at Garden and yapping asynchronously in our Signal group. DM a host to be added to the Signal group, or join us at their weekly meeting! RSVP here
🎬 Saturday August 2nd at 1pm PST is Best Practices for Facilitating and Hosting in a Virtual World! Wanting to hone in on your virtual facilitation and/or hosting skills for Garden events, Zoom or other digital meetup spaces? Join J Mase for best practices of holding space in a virtual environment! RSVP!
🫁 Want to increase your lung capacity? Come to Breathing in the Knowledge Nursery! Every weekday at 9am PST. RSVP here!
💃🏾 Join Caroline for Co-Twerking on Tuesdays at 3pm PST! We will follow video(s) with a warm-up and cool down sequence, with dancing in between. This is meant to be an aerobic exercise, so bring water and items that will provide you comfort while dancing your butt off! Video suggestions welcome. Duration: ~30 minutes. RSVP here.
📔 Quiet-ish Reading Club / Connect (QRC) 💜💛📚 meets Tuesdays at 6pm PST! QRC - Garden Edition is where we chill together in mostly quiet company of 45 min reading blocks. Bring your own: book, audiobook, article, magazine, comic book, training manuals, graphic novel, paperwork/forms, poetry, etc. anything you’d like to or need to read. Most of the time will be us practicing sustained silent reading (SSR) in cozy, quiet company together. We will take occasional breaks to chat and socialize - mics optional. Learn more about QRC - Garden Edition. Like to be kept up-to-date on QRC meet-ups in Garden? Fill out this interest form. RSVP here
🎥 Name That Movie (Night!) is Wednesday at 5:30pm PST! In collaboration with Self Defense group, this week's movie is a 2011 action/drama about a martial arts master moving from Foshan, China, to Hong Kong, where he aspires to teach his fighting techniques to a new generation. However, he is drawn into a treacherous world of corruption as well as a fateful showdown with a merciless boxer. Think you know what it is? Come thru and find out! RSVP via the visit page.
🪷 Stretch it out as Caroline leads us in another weekly afternoon Yoga sesh Fridays at 3pm PST by streaming a yoga video from YouTube and following along. Videos will be between 25-45 minutes long between easy to moderate pace. Drop ins are always welcome! RSVP via the calendar on the visit page.
📺 Based on Issa Rae's acclaimed web series Awkward Black Girl, Insecure is a show about the awkward and messy experiences of a young Black woman. Join us for the next showing on Friday July 25 at 6pm PT to stream and chit-chat about Issa and her crew's hilarious moments, relationship drama, bad decisions, breakups and glow-ups. Issa watch party at The Dunes! RSVP via the visit page.
🦾 Self Defense Discussion Series with Caroline will be Sundays at 8am PT. Each group includes reading, discussion and (potential) movement on self-defense principles! In these politically challenging times, it is especially important for our collective liberation and self-care to learn self-defense. RSVP via the visit page!
💻 Do you work from home and sometimes feel a little too isolated from others? Come Co-Work with us in Garden! We are a 24/7 drop in space for folks to join to co-work silently, listen to music, play a game or chat amongst each other in the chat box.
📰 The Trans Journalists Association supports a community of hundreds of trans journalists and advises the journalism industry with resources to reflect trans experiences accurately and humanely in the news. Currently, they are seeking a Program Director. The Salary range for this position is $60-$80k. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
🌍 The Indigo Arts Alliance Mentorship Residency bring together artists from diverse backgrounds of the African Diaspora to engage in their creative process, while building lasting relationships rooted in co-mentorship. We believe artists hold the key in creating a better world, and in our work, we allow for Black and Brown voices to lead the way. Applications are accepted from all over the world on a rolling basis and instructions can be found here.
🎶 Musicians Foundation is formed to foster the interests and advance the condition and social welfare of professional musicians and to provide voluntary aid and assistance to professional musicians and their families in case of need. They offer one-time financial assistance grants is open to professional musicians across all genres. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
🍉 Centering Palestine has a zoom every Tuesday at 5pm PST, along with other resources to show up for Palestine available here.
😷 World Health Network has a weekly call to organize community members against mask bans every Friday at 12pm PST.
✍🏾 For past attendees of Working Towards Witness (WTW) and Black QT (Queer/Trans) people in Garden, workshop facilitators Ebbie and Sun have a poll for a potential new offering. Please complete at your earliest convenience and feel free to add your email to the form for WTW updates! They hope to see you in virtual space soon! Please stay tuned for information about the next Working Towards Witness workshop.
✊🏾 As we move through the summer, Black August is on the horizon! For those unfamiliar with Black August, it is a time to commemorate the struggle and movement for Black Liberation. We'll have a slate of events for that, and if you would like to propose or host an event for Black August, the event proposal form can be found here.
📢 As a follow-up to the Anti-Blackness sessions GenDoc facilitated with us a few weeks ago, she has graciously provided this Notes on Anti-Blackness write-up which shares some key takeaways about how Anti-Blackness shows up in BIPOC spaces and what non-Black folks can be doing to support dismantling that.
🌻 We are looking to open Garden up to more community orgs who would like to share space with us here. If you are part of an org that may benefit from office/event space here, please email info@meetatgarden.com
💌 Don't forget, we can design and host non-Garden virtual events too.
Until next our avatars meet,
🪄Al, 😻Gata & 🪻J Mase
PS: Have a one-time-event or a recurring event and need a place to host? Email us at info@meetatgarden.com!
Garden is a free 24/7 space, but it does cost money for us to maintain it on Gather.Town. If you'd like to donate to this work, consider throwing some money in the pot here. To send donations directly through our 501c3 fiscal sponsor, email us!