Mia Birdsong - How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

I N LATE 2018 , my mentor Akaya Windwood convened a retreat of about two dozen women of color to contemplate what she called the New Universal, something she and I had started talking about the year before. I had been exploring (and continue to explore) Black womens culture of leadership as an antidote to the damage wrought by the dominance of patriarchy and white supremacy. Its overly binaryBlack women versus patriarchy and white supremacybut was a simple starting point. Akaya expanded it to include women of color more broadly. New Universal is, in part, about redefining what leadership needs to be for us to create a world that is interdependent, generative, and loving. Her invitation was to come together with like-minded, like-hearted sisters who are dreaming of a world that celebrates, understands, and cherishes our wisdom gathering to create space that is emergent, unstructured, and designed to evoke the best in each of us.

Akaya is a master facilitator, brilliant leader, and believer in infinite possibility. She chose each of the women who attended the four-day gathering, and applied what she calls a Wise Fools structure (no agenda or clear outcomes, but an invitation to embrace a beginners mind). I picked up my friend Aisha from the San Francisco Airport and headed north to Petaluma, where the retreat was taking place. On the way, we both admitted our skepticism about this retreat. It seemed like a lot right before the holidays when we both had a million things to take care of. But we were looking at it as an opportunity to spend some time with great folks and have extended solitude to check things off our to-do lists. We agreed that the only reason wed said yes is because we love and trust Akaya, who is renowned for her ability to develop leaders and her commitment to a just global community infused with purpose and delight. Both of us have been supported, shaped, and encouraged to stand more powerfully in our strengths because of her mentorship. Neither of us could give our husbands any explanation for what we were doing other than when Akaya asks us to do something, we do it. In fact, all Aisha had in her calendar to block out the four days was Akaya said.

Of course, we were smart to listen to her. What we experienced was extraordinary. Akaya brought all of us together in the mornings and evenings so we could get to know one another and share whatever was on our mind, punctuated with brief free-flowing sermons from her. With little guidance other than dont do anything you do not fucking want to do, we practiced world making. In the space of four days, we created a culture that was safe, curious, joyful, caring, and generous. We decorated cookies and went for long walks. We discussed our wildest dreams and unspoken desires. We laugheda lot. We talkeda lot. We cried, sang, and disagreed. We soaked up wisdom, love, and joy in one others presence.

For sure, it was time out of our regular lives, and there was a suspension of the labor and attention daily life requires. The retreat center provided our food and shelter. We did not have to tend to the needs of children or elders or anyone else. There were no threats to our well-being that we needed to defend against or navigate. We didnt spend enough time together or get close enough to have any serious conflict. But with very little effort we stepped out of the demands and constraintsexternal and internalof our modern lives. We dispensed with the constant rushing and linear ordering of hours and days. We stepped away from the sense that everything from time to money to food to space will run out at any second. We let go of the desire to be right, the fight to be seen and heard, the race toward better and more. We lingered, we listened, we inquired, we wondered. Our rhythm was not driving and relentless, but continually transforming and spacious. We had time to enjoy and learn, to rest and reflect, and to offer and receive care and consideration from one another.