The things offered here respond to the idea that the systems of power embedded in our culture - capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, racism, and the like - cultivate and reward different kinds of disconnection.

Over centuries they have, in subtle and extreme ways, encouraged disconnection from a seemingly endless list of things: from people who are different from each other, from a felt sense of connection to land, from the magic imbued in mundane life, from the things we rely on to sustain our lives, from the rhythms of the seasons, from those we come from...the list goes on. This kind of disconnection from the world we inhabit is a modern cultural phenomenon, but it has been a long time in the making.

In many corners of daily life, disconnection can seem like the norm. We can miss out on experiencing the aliveness we know is pulsing all around us. This is one effect of the systems that continue to shape our culture: a kind of internal relational deadness where deep connection would naturally be, born from the separation from each other, ourselves, the land, and some overarching sense of what holds it all together. As daunting as this is, on the flip side, it means that there is always more that we can be connected to - because there is likely always more that we may find we have been, consciously or unconsciously, disconnected from.

Dismantling Deadness is a place to experience expanded awareness in service of opening up more connection to ourselves, others, and the world around us. The programs and experiences offered here are meant to create a safe container within which to practice stretching awareness past the limits and disconnection we have learned, following the belief that growing our connection to any one thing is a way of growing our connection to everything. And when our connection grows, we can act and feel in accordance with more and more of the world we inhabit.