Below are a few of the profound ways that our mighty world leaders have lifted up themselves and their people during this crisis. 

Xoli Fuyani ~ Capetown, South Africa

In South Africa, Xoli has been able to draw on our support to bring sanitary pads, hand sanitizer, masks, a journal, a small chocolate, mobile data, and hope to her girls in the townships of Khayelitsha and Lavender Hill.

“These girls are particularly affected by the secondary impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. Many people living in townships rely on informal sector employment, much of which has dried up under the lockdown, leading to unemployment. Moms are often caught between buying bread for their family or sanitary pads for their daughters. These are very difficult decisions to make when living under economic stress.”

Amidst all of this, Xoli has been able to focus on her long-term students, a group of brave teenage girls. Each afternoon, she meets with her girls on WhatsApp, conducting her girl’s group to support their need for connection and perspective. Our resources not only supported these basic supplies, but Xoli has been able to provide the girls with internet so that they can stay in touch.

Without internet, none of these quarantined teenage girls can reach out to check on and uplift each other. Information about self-care in these times would not be accessible. Many of these girls are the leaders in their families, providing healthcare information and advocacy for those in need. Our love in action has supported their capacity to meet up online one hour a day.

Of course, after years of empowering the girls to make their own reusable cloth menstrual pads, it has been sad for Xoli and I to now be guiding them back to using disposable products. Hopefully, this will be a short-lived new/old norm, but for now without water there is no way to wash the reusable pads. Xoli has worked diligently to get water supplies into the township in a way that did not cause large groups to gather and expose one another unnecessarily to Covid-19. Thank you Xoli for your powerful advocacy and steadfast tender loving care.

“Golden Bridge funds were able to ease the situation and brought back Dignity for our girls.”
~ Xoli Fuyani

DJ Grin the Peacemaker ~ Ohio, USA

Donation Mahanga, otherwise known as DJ Grin the Peacemaker, is a resettled Congolese refugee living in Akron with his wife, Sifa, and his 5 children. He describes this time in the following way:

“It’s been a traumatic situation for me and my family/community, more than it was when we were fleeing out of our country Congo with over 6 million people killed!! As a youth and community servant, it is the most hectic moment in life to be told to be in your house, not to go to work when monthly bills can’t stop coming in, being told not to visit nor being visited by anyone in our community.”

DJ respects that he could have lost his life like so many others who faced genocide, famine, and disease as refugees. He describes the miracles in his life of meeting the right people and the Golden Bridge community, the gifts of receiving words of encouragement and support from all of us. With our help, he was able to step out of a work situation that was putting him at risk. DJ now aims to create new ways of generating income. For now, he is recovering his health and reaching forward to his community, encouraging others to be safe and spirited in these rugged times. DJ will continue to bring his musical ministry to the world in ways that will heal, educate, and inspire. Check his video out above. This epic peacemaker is grinning love and gratitude to us all.

“God created us for a purpose, and we can’t go away from it, neither can we die before we accomplish that mission.”
~ Donation Mahanga

Yolanda Demetrio ~ Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Yolanda Demetrio is the founder and director of Espaço Aberto, a revered dance studio serving hundreds of children, teens, and adults in the Rio de Janeiro area, especially in Rocinha, the largest favela in Brazil. We learned that the Covid-19 virus is fast-moving through her community. It is impossible to quarantine at home with people living so close to each other in the favela.

Without jobs and internet, information and supplies are hard to come by. People are literally being left to die on the streets. Yolanda has been a steadfast leader, providing food staples, love, cleaning products, and online dance classes to her people.

“Com ajuda de Golden Bridge pude ajudar que ficaram felizes porque tinham o que comer os dias seguintes.”

“With the help of Golden Bridge, I could help families who were happy because they had something to eat in the following days.”
~ Yolanda Demetrio

Yolanda talks about how this basic support is “…saving our lives.”

Our Golden Bridge team knows that our lives are forever woven with this beloved community. We save and serve one another’s lives in different ways. Our work together in Rocinha this past year has deepened our bonds of love and shared devotion to raising healthy leaders in wholesome communities. We trust that we have an alliance that will be strengthened through Covid-19.

“Obrigada por deixar essa raiz com essas meninas mais forte para superar o inesperados. Você não tem noção o quanto sua estadia com elas as transformaram encorajarem. Gratidão eterna gratidão.”

“Thank you for leaving this root with the girls stronger to overcome the unexpected. You don’t have the notion of how much your time with them transformed and encouraged them. Gratitude, eternal gratitude.”

We feel this way too Yolanda. Gratitude, eternal gratitude!

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All prayers on deck dear friends.

More stories of resilience and creative liberation to come in the weeks ahead!

We welcome your additional donations to support our leaders in supporting their communities around the world:

Threshold consciousness can be a blessing! In this time out of ordinary time, if we are safe, supported, and soul searching, we are able to access a heightened sense of reality. The old is dying away and the new is not yet in view. That which is true becomes very clear. The rest becomes toxic and urgently in need of change.

The delicate and precious nature of life is revealed on this Covid precipice. Our vulnerability and brilliance are ever more evident. If we are blessed to not be in a moment-to-moment survival dance, we actually are being given the space and the consciousness to hone our visions and discern how we use our precious energy every blessed day.

I am more clear now than ever that my life is dedicated to liberating stuck energy, grounding, resourcing, and mobilizing life-giving creative currents.

In my own psyche, this is true. On the dance floor with individuals, this is true. Within relationships, this is true. In diverse community dynamics, this is true. And yes, even with money, this is true.

As we move into this new era, I would like for us all to talk more openly about money.

Golden Bridge is indeed a non-profit organization, however, it is not a charity. We invest in somatic social change agents. We share resources so that the same creative intelligence that many of us have been so privileged to liberate and develop can also be liberated and developed in others who have access to fewer outer resources.

My personal resources, financial and otherwise, have been dedicated to creating safe spaces and experiences where people can come home to themselves, to heal their pasts and move into their futures with the vision and the inner and outer resources needed to make their dreams come true.

Rarely do we just give people money to survive. We offer folks tools to establish their own pathways for survival.

Now is a different time, however. This is a time to do whatever it takes to make sure that our global family members are truly safe and fed.

Over the past month and a half, our dance community has helped to generate some financial resources to help our beloved community in diverse situations stay alive and online. Funds for basic necessities like soap, water, beans, rice, and internet, yes internet, have been shared.

I want to thank you all for expressing your love by helping us raise some of the funds needed to support our long-term students of this work, many of whom are now pillars in their communities.

Whenever basic survival money has been sent, our community members have been encouraged to find ways to use these resources to not only establish basic sustainability and safety for themselves, but to also inspire their students to be safe and creative too. In the next post we will highlight a few of the profound ways that these mighty leaders have lifted up themselves and their people during this crisis.

Making something out of nothing is an art. If ever there is a time to manifest magic in the midst of madness, now is the time. I hope that these initial stories shared inspire you to turn your gifts into gold in the thick of this pandemic and into the future.

Thank you again for your support.
Let’s keep the energy flowing, financial and otherwise.

In prayer and focused action,
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Melissa

~ Lilla Watson, Indigenous Australian or Murri visual artist, activist, and academic.

Out of our minds.

Into our hearts.

Befriending that fear. Mobilizing through the outrage. Allowing the grief. Remembering the joy. Embodying the empathy. Channeling the love.

We will not be silenced in our silos.

Wild ones, let’s sound the call, speak the truths, unite our voices. Let’s honor, explore, and express our heart’s vast energies. Let’s open together and deepen our loving presence through this threshold.

Last night, the birds sang on the top of their lungs after two feet of snow blanketed these Rocky Mountains. These winged ones guide the way. When Spring seems to be lost, they remind us to sing louder and together!!!

Sunday’s Movement Mass will be devoted to liberating the raw and real wisdom stirring in our hearts. We will sound our call.

Together, we will cultivate our ground of being along with liberating our hearts truths. From there, we will find ourselves in our right minds.

See you there. Sunday, April 19th, 2020, 11am MST.

In the dance.
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Melissa

Potential.

Yours. Mine. Ours.

Who knew that the entire planet would be invited to this season’s holy of holies. Be it Easter or Passover, Springtime or Autumn, these times of pause call us to remember the potential that is always available.

Potential for breakdown. Potential for breakthrough. Potential for madness. Potential for miracles. Potential for conflict and chaos. Potential for collaboration and peace.

We do not know what will be born of this worldwide initiation. We do know that we are being tested in ways we could not have imagined. Our weakest links are being revealed; individually, interpersonally, collectively. Our greatest potential for collaboration is being mandated. All of our lives depend on this.

Over the holiday weekend, people will go to the temple to pray, to the Mass to pray, to the Earth to pray, to the mosque to pray, to the mountain top to pray, to the desert to pray. And hopefully, none of us will leave home to do this. We will be called to find these sacred sites within; the Beloved thriving in our bones, the resurrection in our ribs, the Divine’s love in our lungs, miracles in our muscles, Grace in our gait, holy communion in the reunification of Spirit and flesh. Our souls will come online. Our call for justice sounded. Our fears will be embraced by the spirit of love that we cultivate together, despite and because of it all.

Join us this Sunday in the temple. Movement Mass.

We will be moving together to pass through this treacherous time with fierce dedication to the truths longing to be liberated.

We will be moving together to release that which we do not need, moving away from the disease of greed into the glory of our shared bounty.

We will be moving together to pass through the pain, opening to the potential of healing.

Uniting our healthy breaths, let’s pray for the vast potential of you, me, and we. This life-giving energy longs to be accessed, harnessed, and released through each one of us with every blessed breath and right out into the world.

The link to Movement Mass will be sent once again via email. ZOOM in with us at 11am MST, Sunday, April 12th, 2020.

I’ll see you in the temple!

Only love.
Melissa

We meet again.

This week we have a few small changes to Movement Mass and some life-giving stories to share.

As the daily news grows heavier, the golden stars that we each are shine ever more brightly. Years of disciplined inner work has prepared us for this time. We get to see what we are made of, our tenderness and our tenacity.

Check out what Vusi has created to help educate his community about handwashing in Durban, South Africa!

facebook.com/1280103801/posts/10216888630349600

Pure innovation and beauty. Utilizing the arts for education is so powerful. Thank you Vusi for modeling how to meet this challenge with creative, humble leadership.

This time is rigorous and rugged. We know that all true rites of passage are. Riding the waves from shock to right-action is also an art. Our work together over decades has prepared us for this time of back to back initiatory ordeals. Not only is it key how we navigate through the wild rides of our own nervous systems, our shifting emotions, and our busy minds, but how we work with one another is obviously essential.

This week, we have seen the devotion of humanity in action in profoundly inspired and unprecedented ways.

In my little world, some loving friends invited my daughter into their safe space. Their generosity of spirit will never be forgotten. My mama heart can beat a bit more calmly now. And, my daughter is being held by people who have never met her before.

This is what is required. Helping one another when we can, however we can.

You all have done this too. This week, we were able to send financial support to numerous young leaders around the world as they now hunker down for their time-out-of-time. Because of the resources generated during Movement Mass, we were able to rapidly get funds to folks for basic supplies of dried beans and rice, veggies, water, cleaning supplies, and internet access. Access to the internet is key. People need to be able to reach each other

We all know how important contact is. How many calls and Zoom dates have you had this week?

This past week, we also honored my elder daughter’s 35th birthday during a Zoom call with friends and family from around the world. A moment of celebration with people ages 2 to 95 years. This gathering was such a relief, profoundly life-giving during this time when so much screen time is focused on numbers of deaths. We celebrated life. Some folks had not seen each other since childhood. Some people may never see each other again. We all know that now. Nothing is to be taken for granted.

Please know that we do not take your funds for granted.

Last weekend we raised double the funds from the week before, a humble amount but one that allows us to help our community get grounded for the next few weeks! Thank you, dear community. We will need to keep doing this so that we can reach more of those in need and continue to do so during these turbulent financial times.

We know that everyone is being impacted financially, so please keep showing up to dance deeply with us regardless of your financial offering. We are devoted to keeping the beat together.

Let’s move to unwind the traumas, open the creative channels, and access the collective intelligence needed in these times.
 

This Sunday, we will meet on Zoom again for our weekly Movement Mass.

We have made a slight change to our sign-up process. We will share the Zoom link via email only. An email will arrive in your inbox via our listserve. Your email will arrive on Sunday morning at 10:30am in time for you to set-up your space, make your donation, get your water, etc. before Movement Mass Online at 11am. If you are already receiving our emails, you are on our list, and your link will be sent automatically. (Check your spam folder if you don’t see it.)

For many reasons, we will only be offering access to the event during Movement Mass. We look forward to having you join us LIVE via Zoom, ideally with your videos on, where we can feel the loving connections that we are so used to exchanging in person. The first three online dances will stay up and available via our YouTube Movement Mass Playlist.)

If you want to invite your friends and family to dance with us each Sunday, please simply send them to our Online Movement Mass page. They can sign up there. They will then be included in our email group that will receive the link to dance on Sundays. Simple. One time sign up, and they are in.

Above all, wherever you are, please stay safe. And, let’s keep moving, moving through the many layers of this epic turning, one conscious, loving step at a time.

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Melissa

“Covid-19 is like a rehab intervention that breaks the addictive hold of normality. To interrupt a habit is to make it visible; it is to turn it from a compulsion to a choice. When the crisis subsides, we might have occasion to ask whether we want to return to normal, or whether there might be something we’ve seen during this break in the routines that we want to bring into the future.”

— Charles Eisenstein

Full article, very potent and important:
charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation