The Story Behind Our Healing Ceremony & Newspaper Fundraiser on May 3, 2014
San Quentin was visible, glistening almost like a Greek temple in the sunlight. It was November 2013, and we were up on Ring Mountain in Tiburon, a place sacred to the Coast Miwok/Hukuiko of the San Francisco Bay Area. Drums in hand, participants in my Gaia Grid Activation Program and I were suddenly inspired to send healing to prisoners enclosed below. We drummed our hearts out for several minutes, pouring our intentions to these men, unknown to us personally.
By the end, I had the strong sense that we needed to do this again –– only bigger.
The syncronicities began. In my 14 years in CA, I had never seen emails about San Quentin, yet suddenly the prison was coming across my transom. Before I knew it, out of the blue the Hass School at Berkeley hired me to write an article on students who had written a business plan to help the inmate-run newspaper, the San Quentin News, expand its reach to all California prisons. When I interviewed two students from the team and told them about my idea, they immediately led me to the contacts I’d need to coordinate such an event within the prison, including the inmate editors of the paper. Another email on San Quentin popped through: a colleague, May Elawar, shared about her work with Kid C.A.T., a group of men incarcerated before age 18 who grew up in prison and have matured into a community that cares for others, is responsible to others, and accountable for their own actions. The messages were clear, and I decided to combine the healing ceremony with fundraising for the prison paper by having participants make a donation to join us.
The Magnetic Process
Laura Belzer, one of the students in my Take Up Your Sacred Role program this spring subsequently led me to BJ Wasserman and Rob Allbee. Both of them have been doing impressive work helping San Quentin prisoners and parolees “heal from the inside” through the prison outreach program known as the Inside Circle Foundation. I attended their fundraiser on April 1, and heard the testimonies of former prisoners, including Allbee himself, on what let them to prison -–– and how the transformative work in the circle led let them out.
That confirmed for me that redemption is possible, and that what helps foster redemption is spiritual assistance.
On April 6, at Matthew Fox’s Cosmic Mass in Palo Alto, a couple of people I know approached me, asking about the event. Both times I spoke about it, someone overhearing was drawn to join us, saying that they, too, had felt called to help the prison. One of them was AshEl Eldridge, a young man from Oakland who has worked with San Quentin inmates as a spiritual teacher. Our hope is for AshEl to be among those inside the prison leading a guided meditation circle at 3 pm, when the drumming to send healing will begin on the mountain.
Others have continued come on board to join our ceremonial teams outside and inside the prison that day. Thus far, they include Marien Grace, Eliahu Goodman, David Nicol, Dolan Beaird, and Lis Addison. Others who have given support and guidance include May Elawar, Devaa Mitchell, Suraya Keating, Judy Tretheway, and Susanne Bersbach. The list is growing!
Students in my spring program will help set and hold the sacred space on the mountain: Astrid Cheney Hutchison, Lillie Falco-Adkins, Joy Karin Weyland, Laura Belzer, Katie Bush, Christina Nielsen, Chris Brusati, and Pat Reza.
Cutting through a Complex Issue with Love
If you have felt disturbed about the warehousing of vulnerable men who carry the wounding of our society, and you have felt hopeless about helping, then this is the event for you. We all know that some of the crimes represented in San Quentin have been quite serious. We also know that the criminal system disproportionately, and, at times, unethically, ends up targeting people of color. Moreover, we know that the reasons people become vulnerable to criminality are many, influenced by economic, social, emotional, energetic, and spiritual factors.
The issue of where responsibility for transgressions ultimately falls –– even whether the influences are of this dimension or another –– is a complex one. Regardless, and operating from the belief that, as Alice Walker says “anything we love can be saved,” we will join to create a field of love, healing & forgiveness –– for ourselves and the men in San Quentin –– on May 3 from 1-4:30 pm at Ring Mountain in Tiburon.
Warmly,
Marguerite Rigoglioso
Founding Director, Seven Sisters Mystery School