“From Spirit to Practice and Beyond
We carry traditional knowledge and folkways that in our experience are among the most powerful resources to shift generational collective trauma toward the alchemy of liberation in ways sometimes inaccessible through allopathic medicine and modern psychotherapy alone (although as practitioners we utilize both ancient and modern healing modalities). Our work to educate our communities about these resources also involves decolonizing our concepts of reality and possibility themselves, as well as restoring honor to African Indigenous healing practices historically suppressed due to anti-Black capitalist oppression. Moving from the inner self to the world around us, we
[Re]member, [re]claim and honor our languages, epistemologies and practices;
De-normalize the languages and behaviors of oppressive systems; Deconstruct & divest our languages and practices from the connections/connotations with oppressive systems within us first, then our families, communities and beyond.
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WIND & WARRIOR INSTITUTE FOR LIBERATORY HEALING
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Our mission as WWILH is to share the insights and methodologies we’ve gathered in the fields of wellness, indigenous healing, creative ritual/ceremonial arts, and building transformational organizational cultures. Our priority is to share these in the form of intergenerational mentorship and comprehensive trainings in cultural arts and healing arts for Black and Native women and gender-expansive spirit healers, as well as for members of other marginalized communities.
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We train people to carry the work of healing into their communities and movements, to meet the need for leadership in this area, with a unique arc of training that leads to Certification in Liberatory Healing Arts.
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The WWILH Curriculum distills the combined 90+ years of experience of the three inaugural core faculty into two paths of study: a one-year Introductory Immersion and a three-year Certification Path. Both paths demand graduate-level rigor and dedication. The intentions described above are engaged theoretically and in praxis, through a framework that incorporates the following core principles of The Wind & The Warrior:
The Wind & The Warrior in Residence
sample WORKSHOP Offerings from Wind & Warrior 2019 annual practitioners retreat
Many traditions describe the elements and their corresponding significance by associating meaning in the pairing of an element with a cardinal direction. In the Chinese five-element paradigm, for example, the North is associated with water; whereas in the Lakota tradition, water is associated with the West. From our collective meditations on this year’s organizing principles for our Gathering, we devised a unique set of pairings where we combine an element with one of the four directions not to signify a correspondence, but to play with the juxtaposition and interaction of element and direction. Below you’ll find descriptions of the central conjuring sessions we’ll share on Saturday and Sunday.
The East - Water
EAST | the rising; the beginnings; the darkness & light.
WATER | the purifier; the reflection; the creator & destroyer; the transmitter; the sculptor of grooves.
healers/artists/griots/activists at the frontlines feel the waves of the energetic and political tides on multiple frequencies. We are called upon to create new systems, link our networks, reclaim & reinvest in our ancestral healing & knowledge practices — and to heal and sustain ourselves in and for this work.
What do we mean by healing?
Heal: to cause a wound or injury to become sound.
Becoming Sound
Together, we will vision healing as a pilgrimage—a journey through cycles of remembering, dormancy, transformation, and emergence.
We will use water, sound and movement ritual to explore the cycles, to examine what is meant by healing and what it is calling for in/from us. Finally, we will create practices for the year/s ahead for conjuring and remembering on the journeys of our personal, spiritual, collective, and environmental healing, for emergence and liberation.
We will focus on the direction of the East and the water element to catalyze our remembering, create and share practices for becoming sound in our spirits and bodies, and for reverberating these practices out to sustain & fortify our communities, movements, and environment.
Lead Facilitation by Nana Fofie
THE SOUTH - FIRE
Grounded in the element of fire and the cardinal direction of the south, together and alone we will explore two central questions - How can I manifest in this lifetime my Greatest Good? And how can I scale up my process to advance needed changes in family, community and movements? The exploration of these questions will inform the creation of affirmations and sacred symbols to support one’s journey to answering these questions in practice. We will make and empower symbolic objects to physically embody the spells we create.
Lead Facilitation by Ife Afriye
THE WEST- AIR/ETHER
How can we fortify the practice of forgiveness, rooting in our hearts the needed mercy whose medicine makes coalition possible?
Along the magnetic currents of our home planet Earth, the energies of the West bring us powers of release and connect us with our ancestors. Energy channels (called Nadis in Vedic yoga, meridians in Chinese medicine) within our subtle bodies are activated and transformed by sound vibrations. The water molecules that comprise most of our bodies are literally re-shaped by their encounters with sound waves.
Together we will hum, sing, moan and speak into our bodies, from within our bodies, using intentional healing spells, mantras, and affirmations to shake loose, alchemize and release unconscious punishment-based emotional body blocks comprised of the unforgiven.
Lead Facilitation by Karma Mayet
THE north- EARTH
As descendants of black divinity, we must give ourselves permission to release the traumas of our past. In this sacred act, we birth familial and community transformation.
Many conjured new home in the land known as the North, new roots joining older roots deeply embedded in the Earth. The land yielded new traditions, intentionally bridging all that was distant with the reality of new land.
Mother Earth is our sacred source. We will intentionally call the ancestors by name, schlay (cover) ourselves with Mother Earth’s herbs, listen to her rhythm, move against her hard and soft spots, and invoke imagery grounded in ancient ritual to help with transformational healing, emotional release, and overall wellness.
Lead Facilitation by Nana Korantema