Help Send Shani to the Caribbean✨✨🌼🌼🌿🌿

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Hello my wondrous and brilliant friends, family and community! It’s me SHA-NI-[TA] your steamy watery spirit chaser and I am coming at you via the interwebs to let you know some exciting things coming up for me. And I would love your encouragement and support along the way <3

In just a few months (December 2019), I’ll be taking off to CUBA in order to deepen my artmaking and spiritual practice. This is HUGE for me because 1) I haven’t left the country in 10 years, since studying abroad in Madrid, Spain for a year when I was a very tender 23 years old, 2) giving myself permission to do what my heart yearns for is ALWAYS a constant struggle for me and committing to this feels like the sweetest gift, and 3) It will be my first time making an intentional effort to connect with West African and Afro Cuban spiritual practices outside of the U.S. 

Since 2015 after leaving a toxic racial justice org, I have made a commitment to developing a ritual that centers artmaking and creative work as a means to counter negative thinking patterns, challenge perfectionism, and to connect more with the indigenous practices of folks from the African Diaspora. Spending time in Cuba will give me an opportunity to continue to ground my work in the magic of these earth-centered spiritual practices and continue to strengthen and integrate my relationships with my ancestors, family lineage, my community, and myself. 

I would love to spend time with/at Yoruba Cultural Association, Museo de los Orishas, La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Regla, and Museo de Africa. I’d love to connect with Afro Cuban collectives and listen and hear more about their experiences around identity, resistance, culture, art, and spirit. AND of course the artists, movers, and dancers. Where are they? Can we be friends? Lol. Seriously. Creating a rhythm around artmaking and moving my body has been such beautiful medicine for me and has fed my spirit in ways unimaginable. I would love to be a student for these two weeks and really just listen, learn, and feel all that I can. 

In order to make this trip happen I need your support. I am fundraising for $2,500 which will cover travel expenses, housing, and art supplies for the two weeks. There are a few ways you can support me in crafting this experience:

  1. Join me and my community Saturday October 19th from 6:00-9:00pm at Yoga Love Oakland for a celebration/fundraiser for the release of my new work “Tales from the Garden of Vortexes” which uses storytelling and visual art to explore the ways in which struggles of the mind can manifest into vortexes. Vortexes that can keep us under AND can also at the same time propel us forward. 

  2. Have you been to Cuba? Let’s meet up or talk? Do you know people or have friends who have gone? Can you put me in contact with them? Is anyone connected with the artist, spiritual, healer, and/or queer communities out there? If so, please hit me up! Have you seen/listen to any documentaries/podcasts that talk about the life of Afro Cubans and the history/practice of Santeria or Ifa? Send them my way. Either way,  I would love to spend time hearing from ya’ll. <3 <3 <3

  3. You can share this page with your folks on social media, email, word of mouth! I would so greatly appreciate it.

  4. Lastly, you can donate to me directly through venmo: @shani-ealey or paypal: @ https://www.paypal.me/shanirealey. Any little bit, whether it be $5, $10, $20 would be soooooo appreciated it. ORRR You can also go over to my Etsy Page and buy some art prints. I still have a few copies of “What the Spirit Says” where I talk about the harms of toxic workplace culture and how I struggled to maintain my emotional/physical well-being.

I’m so hyped ya’ll! I am starting to feel like WOW this is really going to happen! Thank you all so much in advance for your support in helping me be able to continue to create art that celebrates the magic of people of the African Diaspora and preserve the practices that we need to heal our mind, bodies, and spirit and thrive in this world. 

Sending so much love & big squeezes,

Shani <3 <3 <3