Each afternoon, members of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery invite you to a community circle designed to help us grieve our individual and collective losses. By naming our losses and mourning together, we can open to grief’s potential for solace, regeneration and transformation. We will engage in breathing practices, journaling, sharing, and a simple ritual using a communal altar to which we are invited to bring offerings that honor our losses, including photos and/or responsibly foraged gifts from nature. Facilitated by Erin Selover, Limei Kat Chen and Sheri Hostetler.
Note: The room will be open each day for an hour starting at 2pm, before the session begins at 3, for those who want to come and sit quietly and/or write messages for the altar, but the room will be closed once each session begins to assure privacy.
March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Panelists
Buddhist Retreat Teacher
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Erin Selover, a residential Buddhist retreat teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California, somatic trauma therapist, and Rites of Passage guide currently living at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, is also: co-founder of the Celtic Wheel Sangha; a member of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery’s Buddhist Working Group to Protect Oak Flat; and board member of the cooperative nonprofit, Nourishing Futures.
Community Organizer, Researcher and Mindfulness Teacher
Limei Kat Chen, a Bay-Area-based queer Chinese diasporic community organizer, researcher, and mindfulness teacher who draws from several lineages (including the Plum Village tradition, Tantric Buddhism, Daoism, and Earth-based teachings), is active in the Buddhist Coalition for Oak Flat in solidarity with the Apache groups fighting to protect that sacred site and also organizes in the Bay Area with the
Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity and
18 Million Rising, working to support survivors of violence and to use art and music as healing medicines.
Lead Pastor
First Mennonite Church of San Francisco
Sheri Hostetler, Lead Pastor at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco since 2000 and one of the founders of what is now called Inclusive Mennonite Pastors, a coalition of pastoral leaders seeking LGBTQ+ justice in the church, is co-founder of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, which calls on Christian and Christian-descended people to address the extinction, enslavement, and extraction done on Indigenous lands. Co-author of
So We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis (2023) and co-host of the
Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast, Sheri is also a spiritual director, a permaculturist descended from long lines of Amish-Mennonite farmers, and a poet whose work has appeared in
A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry and
Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems.