Evento

The Stories in the Butter: Radical Body Butter Workshop

In a world that continually commodifies and equates our worth with our work, self-care is a defiant and radical act. As Ancestor Audre Lorde said it is an act of political warfare. It is both the healing and the revolution. Yet even in our acts of radical self-care, there has been attempts to co-opt and capitalize on our healing rituals. Just one example of this is the reduction of holistic and powerful plants like Shea Nuts and Coconuts to over-simplified actions or properties that they carry. This workshop aims to challenge this commodification movement and to reconnect to our relationship with land and ourselves by bringing back the living (hi)stories of some of our plant allies. To uncover the radical roots of our practices and begin to bring to light the some history and traditions that have been hidden or taken. This workshop is guided by questions like: What are the stories that we are feeding our skin, our selves? What magic do these stories lend to our self-care ceremonies? And how does this help us remember our wild selves, our connection to each other and mother earth? How do we honor the sacredness of our bodies and selves that goes past quick fixes?

Together we will make a make natural body butter, while intentionally honoring Shea and Coconut as ingredient allies we are asking to bring us healing and nurturing. We'll learn how these two trees have been and continued to be used traditionally. Each participant will leave with a small jar of body butter. We will also discuss how this honoring can transform our practices of self-care into self-care ceremonies.

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Bio:
As an Afro-Caribbean person, Allie is passionate about reclaiming ancestral knowledge around tropical plant medicines and (re)membering African lenses of relating with land. This passion is rooted in her experience living in Ghana where she was first exposed to tropical plant medicine through work with a natural healer. She also has experience as a health educator and food/garden educator with a focus on connecting culture and health. She will be attending Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) this fall with plans to connect traditional lifeways with allopathic approaches to medicine. Allie also sells natural body butters and hair butters as well as other self care goodies through Etsy page, Unruly Sii.