Hey Garden(ers),
Spring may be in full bloom, but we are excited and ready for summer! ☀️ Our 24-hour long Summer Solstice event to welcome the sun will be going down June 21st-22nd! Have a workshop idea, a shop you want to vend, a performance, a game you'd like to facilitate, a meetup, or have capacity to be a late night hours volunteer? Check the volunteer sign-up form here (please fill out by June 1st) and to attend RSVP here! Day Passes will be available and ASL will be provided.
Also, if you're attending any protests consider taking some additional precautions to keep yourself safe. Here are some resources we've found: A protest security checklist from cyberlixir and recommendations from ykreborn. It's important to remember that realistically we won't have the capacity to do every single thing on a checklist, and that's okay. Changing how we usually do things is challenging, and gradual change is still a step closer to progress.
🥰 Queer Gardeners, don't miss out on 😍. May 10th at 1pm PST, Garden is collaborating with the Freddie Social app for You Should Date Me, an interactive queer dating experience where selected participants will present on why folks should date them as the audience gets to ponder the most important of dating curiosities. Questions, mayhem, and passions ensue! RSVP! Want to be one of the few that gets to pitch yourself or a friend from the digital stage? Apply here ASAP as this form will be closing soon! ASL will be provided. If you have BIPOC friends that aren't Garden members but would like to attend, they can RSVP here for a Day Pass!
👁️🗨️ Ebbie (they/them) and Sun (they/he) heard y'all wanted a Part 2 to their New Year's Day offering and are glad to be bringing back Working Towards Witness, May 11th from 12pm-3:45 pm PST. This 2 hr 45 min. workshop is a sanctuary space for Black QT (Queer/Trans) people guided in movement, rooted in text and built on each other to explore playfulness, release, and an unshaming heart. Let us build and fortify by engaging in generative conversations about Black autonomy and reclaiming Black Indigeneity practices. Please fill out this interest form to find out more and let them know you're coming!
🌿 May 24th at 1pm PST, GenDoc will be leading a session on Dismantling Anti-Blackness for non-Black Garden members, with a closed session for Black folks the week before on May 17th at Bonfire. As a Black-led, BIPOC space, understanding how anti-Blackness can show up in our communities is an important tenet of our work. RSVP for this session here.
❤️🔥 Join Mo for Garden’s Roast Wanted: A Night of Roasting, June 8th at 1:30pm PST. Let's make space for the anger in our hearts 👺 Wanna roast your homophobic relative? The concept of time? Politicians who keep fucking up your life? A celebrity you have petty beef with? COVID deniers? Hating knows no limits… but there's guidelines for this roast (we do believe in ethical hating 🤓):
☮️ No roasting Garden members.
🤐 If you’re roasting someone who is NOT a public figure, please don't use real names/pictures.
🙅♀️ No racism, ableism, fatphobia, or any discrimination. Be creative!
🥊 Punch up, not down.
⏰ Each roast should be 15mins or less.
Propose a topic here! RSVP here!
☀️ Our 24 hour long Summer Solstice event to welcome the sun will be going down June 21st-22nd! Have a workshop idea, a shop you want to vend, a performance, a game you'd like to facilitate, a meetup, or have capacity to be a late night hours volunteer? Check the volunteer form here (please fill out by June 1st) and RSVP here! Day Passes will be available.
🫁 Want to increase your lung capacity? Come to Breathing in the Knowledge Nursery! Every weekday at 9am PST. RSVP here!
🥣 Grab your favorite cereal for dinner and watch anime & cartoons with us at Monday Night Cereal! Join us every other Monday at 5pm PST. Next time, Monday, May 5th, we're watching Yu-Gi-Oh- the second season. Your move!
💃🏾 Join Caroline for Co-Twerking on Tuesdays at 2:30pm PST! We will follow video(s) with a warm-up and cooldown 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! This week's movie(s) is a documentary about four Black Trans sex workers in New York City and Atlanta. Think you know what it is? Come thru and find out! RSVP via the visit page.
🫂 The next session of Chronic Illness and Long Covid Support Group will be Thursday May 8th 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 via the calendar on the visit page.
🪷 Stretch it out as Caroline leads us in another weekly afternoon Yoga sesh Fridays at 2:15pm 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.
🦾 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!
🪩 Honoring Uncle Clifford's Rule #.0025 — 'Wear Y'all Mu’Fuckin Mask,' we’re keeping it safe so everyone can party in Chucalissa without leaving home! Join Deeda and GenDoc for 'Nights at the Pynk,' a 'P-Valley' virtual watch party every other Friday. The next screening will be Friday May 9th at 6pm PT. Click here to RSVP!
🐣 Parents Meetup is back, first Sundays at 11am PST! The next meetup is May 4th. RSVP here, and come to have casual conversation with other Garden parents!
📺 Join us every 3rd Saturday of the month at 11am PT for Garden Ghibli, where we view a Ghibli movie and attempt to make our way to watch all the magical Ghibli movies! The next meetup is on Saturday May 17th. RSVP here!
😷 Hang out, chill and play games with Black folks who take COVID precautions at Bonfire in Garden every 3rd Saturday! The next Bonfire is Saturday May 17th at 5pm PST. We'll be talking about anti-Blackness as it manifests in our communities. RSVP here.
💻 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 Body Positive is seeking a full-time and remote, Executive Director. Their organizational mission includes helping people of all ages develop resilience
against appearance-based discrimination, body dissatisfaction, and eating
disorders by sharing practical, life-long tools that build self-compassion,
sustainable self-care behaviors, and positive connection with others. Salary is $100,000, and applications are due May 15th.
✊🏾Emergent Fund is a rolling, trust-based, no strings attached, monthly rapid response and emergent organizing grant for movement and frontline communities responding to urgent and specific unanticipated crises or opportunities to build power. They explicitly fund rapid response and emergent organizing grounded in movement values and power-building led by frontline Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
🍉 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.
🌻 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!