Heartwood BIPOC Mindfulness Community Gatherings
First and Third Fridays, 6-7:30pm ET*
Free, Live Online Program
Heartwood BIPOC Mindfulness Community comes together on the first and third Fridays of each month, facilitated BY people of color, FOR all who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) looking for politicized trauma-informed mindfulness teachings and community. Each first Friday is facilitated by Guangping and Rahil, including grounding, teachings, beginner-friendly guided meditation, reflection, and closing with a song. Each third Friday is a space held by a community member (supported by our Care Crew), similar to the first Friday format but without the teachings and with limited guidance in the practice. We prioritize community connection and support in our time together, with generous time for check-ins and sharing. Weekly topics and series range widely and have included: grounding in the body, working with rage or grief, relationship with winter and resting, ancestors and lineage, loving our shadows, refuge and attachment theory, queer wisdom, and the four elements as related to Avatar: The Last Airbender (the anime show). As we recuperate, explore our edges, and build community in this space, we support each other’s growth and healing while building a more just and compassionate world together.
Note that the space is held from 6pm to ~7:30pm ET, followed by an informal “afterparty” hangout space for those who would like to stick around (usually casual conversation, maybe more singing, sometimes dance parties or cooking together).
Accessibility: we currently have automated closed captioning, and we offer multiple options when facilitating (eg short movement practices, small groups vs journaling, meditation guidance). We regularly check in on access needs and do our best to meet them. Each session also has a “support unicorn” – someone with whom we can place you in a breakout room at any time if something comes up and you would like 1:1 space to verbally process / share silence / dance it out / whatever.
Everything is optional and we welcome you to show up just as you are. You – ALL of you – is welcome. All your joy, grief, rage, pride, shame, shadows, magic, fatness, black-ness, Asian-ness, shortness, masculinity, femininity, neurodivergence, abilities and disabilities, queerness, transness, straightness, thinness, lateness, never-meditated-before-and-don’t-know-anyone-ness, need-to-take-a-nap-during-the-teachings-ness, forgot-dinner-now-eating-pizza-during-introductions-ness, all of it is welcome. Truly.
View our community agreements here.
Reach out to rarojiani@challiance.org to be added to the community’s listserv (reminders, including quote / poem / song sources from the prior week, and upcoming events of interests).
New to the Heartwood BIPOC Mindfulness Community Practice?
Register at www.chacmc.org/connect to receive the Zoom link.
Meet the Heartwood Practice Leaders
Rahil Rojiani
Guangping Chu
Rahil Rojiani (they/them) is a queer, genderfluid, South Asian Ismaili Muslim, and an abolitionist trauma-focused psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance / Harvard Medical School. Rahil’s contemplative practices are informed by their Muslim faith, secular mindfulness traditions, and multiple Buddhist lineages, starting at Brown University where they majored in Contemplative Studies— a multi-disciplinary study of meditation, spirituality, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. Rahil has conducted several years of research on the neuroscience of meditation, and they have been facilitating and teaching meditation since 2014— particularly for healthcare professionals, BIPOC, and community organizers. Currently, they co-facilitate Heartwood, an online politicized BIPOC mindfulness and healing space. They are a graduate of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, and they serve at Buddhist Peace Fellowship as the president of the Board of Directors. Rahil is devoted to using contemplative practices and somatic psychotherapies for healing trauma in oppressed communities working toward collective liberation.
Guangping Chu (they/them) plays many roles including learner, educator, caregiver, sibling, and mindfulness meditation facilitator. Their healing journey includes uprooting patriarchy and toxic masculinity, making reparations for intergenerational wealth, learning ancestral language(s), and being silly, to name a few threads. They practice qigong, cultural somatics, and Buddhism in the Plum Village tradition with the intention to honor their ancestors and create more possibilities for future generations.
