Led by Caverly Morgan, Suniti Dernovsek, David Perrin & Latifa Till
How is our practice a resource for moving into the world rather than avoiding it? How can our love of humanity be the ground from which we address racism, injustice, and oppression?
If you identify as white, how can we fully see our role in maintaining systems of oppression so that we may let them go? So we may all know our inherent liberation.
No one wins in this system.
If our practices don’t offer a way to work with this, then we are maintaining the privilege of ignoring and/or bypassing what marginalized populations can not ignore or bypass.
This day of retreat is specifically designed for those who identify as white. The practice of identity-based caucusing is vital in fostering a collective community that honors inclusivity and belonging, and de-centers a harmful hegemony. There are important conversations for white people to have, accountable to BIPOC individuals, aimed at dismantling racism. Only when white people are ready to do the work of confronting the myriad of emotions, attitudes, behaviors, and actions that stem from internalized white supremacy will we be able to forward a just, equitable society of collective presence.
Join these four white-identified teachers for a day of practice, embodiment, discussions, and action-planning about committing or re-committing to a practice rooted in love rather than alienation, awareness rather than ignorance, and engagement over apathy or burnout.
Tuition (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Proceeds from the event will go to a Presence Collective BIPOC scholarship fund as well as Radical Dharma.
*Sliding scale language borrowed with permission from Rev. angel Kyodo williams.
$75 - Rebalancing: for those with more than enough financial resources (personal or institutionally supported) and a desire to support access for others to help rebalance systemic inequity.
$50 - Fair: for those with sufficient financial resources who can pay fair value for the experience.
$25 - Supported: for those with currently limited financial resources who will avoid further hardship while benefiting from access supplemented by the community.
Schedule
This day of retreat is designed to benefit folks in as many time zones as possible:
7-8am PST/10-11am EST (folks can access recording or show up live) - Simple guided meditation, hour of contemplation
9am-12pm PST/12-3pm EST - Group work led by all four teachers
1-2pm PST/4-5pm EST - Movement with Suniti
2-2:30 pm PST/5-5:30 EST - Breakout groups for participants
2:30-3:30 pm PST/5:30-6:30 EST - Co-facilitated group discussion
4-5pm PST/7-8pm EST (folks can access recording or show up live) - Integrative contemplation with Suniti and Caverly
Teachers
Caverly Morgan (she/her) is a meditation teacher, nonprofit leader, and visionary. She is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Presence Collective, dedicated to igniting personal transformation and collective awakening. She is also the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Peace in Schools — a nonprofit which created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. Caverly blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent Zen monastery. She has been teaching contemplative practice since 2001. Caverly leads meditation retreats, workshops, and online classes internationally. She has been a visiting teacher at Open Circle, the Science and Nonduality Conference, Insight Meditation of Seattle and Charlottesville, MNDFL, the Mind and Life Conference, Esalen, and the New York Zen Center of Contemplative Care. She has also been interviewed on Buddha at the Gaspump.
Suniti Dernovsek (she/her) is a movement educator, meditation teacher, somatic intuitive, artist and craniosacral therapist. She has been a student of dance, yoga and Vajrayana Buddhism for 20 years. She offers retreats, workshops, teacher trainings, weekly classes, online courses and private sessions.
Through years of study and practice, Suniti has developed an expansive tool kit to assist individuals in their personal practice. Each session is tailored to meet your individual needs and often include a combination of movement, breath work, gentle listening touch, meditation and therapeutic somatic dialoging. Suniti holds a container for you to access a heightened state of awareness and to be in a unique conversation with your body. The work that unfolds together brings you into an experience of being at home in yourself. You are the teacher; the expert and we allow the wisdom of the body to guide us. Through deep somatic inquiry students are guided towards a feeling of wholeness, integration and presence. We feel into new pathways and possibilities while unlocking habits that may not be serving us anymore.
Suniti’s main teachers are Lama Padma Drimed Norbu, Todd Jackson, Wendy Hambidge, Deborah Merkle and Carol Gray. She collaborates with many amazing teachers and has had the honor of working alongside Caverly Morgan on several retreats.
David Perrin (he/him) is a meditation teacher and mentor. Meditation, the contemplative path, and service have been at the crux of my life since my youth. Born in Rochester NY, raised in Connecticut, I attended public and private schools, and a Reform Judaism synagogue. I currently identify as white, heterosexual, able-bodied, with financial and educational privileges, using he/him/his pronouns.
For over two decades I have practiced and studied in the Shambhala tradition. In addition to teaching in Shambhala, I have served as MNDFL Lead Teacher and Director of MNDFL Teacher Training, as well as cofounder of MNDFL ED schools-based program. I have taught at the Institute for Compassionate Leadership, the 200hr Teaching Mindfulness Teacher Training with Shanté Smalls and Ethan Nichtern, and throughout New York City at schools, corporations, and nonprofits.
Everything I do in life relates to meditation and dharma. My householder life includes being a husband, and a father of three children. I have worked or participated in many diverse fields: from athletics to social justice activism, theatre, community gardening, social service, residential healthcare, philanthropy, woodworking and craft arts, environmental stewardship, education, psychotherapy and more. I am formally trained and licensed in NYS as creative arts therapist. I am also a trustee at the Perrin Foundation dedicated to supporting youth-directed social change in Connecticut and beyond. I am committed to anti-racism and anti-oppression in all spheres of life, particularly in meditation and spiritual communities.
Latifa Till (she/her) is a lifetime student of the human heart. She believes that ease, joy and love are our natural state, and it’s useful to notice, and be kind with, what gets in the way of these. Her spiritual path is reflected in the Rumi quote, “Your task is not to seek for love, but rather to seek for and find all the barriers you have built within yourself against it.”
She believes our work as individuals, and in community, is to open the heart, search for and try to speak truth, explore the mysteries of unity, and celebrate the glories and sorrows of being in a human incarnation. She studies Japanese Tea Ceremony and is a senior Dance Leader with the Dances of Universal Peace and a Sheikha (senior teacher) with the Sufi Ruhaniat International. She is also a meditation and mindfulness consultant.
Latifa leads Sufi and meditation retreats internationally and has served as an online meditation mentor for thousands of participants from around the world. For five years she hosted, Real Life, a talk radio show dedicated to exploring meditation mindfulness.
Cancellation Policy
No credit or refund is available if you cancel on the event start date, if you do not show up, or if you leave a program or event early.
If Presence Collective cancels: on rare occasions, due to unforeseen circumstances, we may need to cancel a program. Should this circumstance arise, you will receive a full refund.
