New Seneca Village
Year Two Update
Our continuing journey centering restoration, connection and visioning in life and leadership.
Welcome to Year Two!
New Seneca Village (NSV) is a human-centered intervention designed for women and non-binary leaders and healers of color whose love and labor are core to the fulfillment of our societal hopes. Our Village is an invitation for these folks to center restoration, connection and visioning as core elements to nourishing and sustaining their leadership in both life and work.
We understand that detaching from the relentless demand for productivity and the other extractive ways that our organizations, institutions and society operate, allows us to reconnect to our Selves, our values, and our purpose. This is especially crucial for folks whose work creates the present and the futures that we want to live in.
New Seneca Village is an experiment in what might be possible when we...
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abundantly resource leaders and healers, allowing them the time and space to tap into their inner wisdom within an intentional community focused on the same.
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gather in/with nature to more easily honor that we are a part of nature and that periods of dormancy are consistent across, and critical to, all life.
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access restorative practices to remind ourselves of all of the ways, paths, knowings and guidance that are within reach.
As the world grows more complex and the urgency of our societal issues grows with each moment, the time seems ripe to expand and deepen where and how we source our power. We think that where our humanity and our divinity meet is a good place to begin.
Read on to learn more about New Seneca Village in our second year!
We Center
The New Seneca Village experience is designed to center restoration, connection and visioning
as renewable resources for presence and leadership in life and work.
Villagers come together over a series of months to collectively engage these themes,
even as they individually create their own restorative journeys and ultimately their residency experience.
Our always emerging Village definitions are below, as well as the aligned offerings we provide.
How Do You Define Restoration, Connection and Visioning in Your Own Life?
RESTORATION
An intentional focus on reconnecting with one’s Self, with nature, and with others
out of a desire to contribute to life, work, and community
from a resourced and sustainable place.
CONNECTION
Recognition of one’s self in relation to and relationship with others, including community, nature, ancestors, and consciousness.
VISIONING
Connection to Self and purpose as a path to imagining and creating ways of Being and collective futures in a new way.
The Village provides complementary
weeklong residencies in gorgeous nature.
The Village provides access to Travel + Back Home grants so that all Villagers can show up and be present.
The Village provides shuttle transportation between the airport + venue.
The Village provides a three session Restorative Vision circle series for each cohort of Villagers to ground in our individual and collective restorative journey.
At residency Village healers offer group and individual restorative practices designed to support restoration of all Villagers.
The Village offers connection, visioning and other gatherings for Villagers to attend or not as they please.
New Seneca Village is an opportunity to practice the future now.
We encourage Villagers
to follow their own rhythm
& flow while engaging in community with consent and communication practices at the forefront.
In this way, we all get a taste of the future we are working towards which further clarifies and expands our ability to vision the paths forward.
“This experience was life-changing/saving.
It is a roadmap to freedom. Freedom from imposter syndrome, capitalism, and all the other isms that hinder Black and Brown Women. The energy of this residency will be felt by communities across the globe. The workshops, the nature, the spiritual embodiment, the tools learned, the information shared will be with all who attended this residency forever.
As a Mental Health Counselor and Community Advocate, it was imperative for me to take a step away to rest and rejuvenate. There are no places like this. This does not exist anywhere.
I am very grateful for my time."
— Ebony Dowdy, Atlanta, GA
"The meeting of movement folks beyond preconceived containers of areas of work, titles, and seeded conversations is SO NECESSARY. In these trying times and movement work cultures, it is unreasonable to expect linear career trajectories. NSV provides a place of SOLACE, reflection, and supportive alignment for folks who are clearly deeply invested in transforming the world into a place of deeper love and justice. In this way, NSV seeds important relationships that transcend quickly crumbling movement structures and nourishes leaders to think with big vision towards sustainability and healing as a means of transformation."
— Raj Escondo,
Healing Justice Practitioner,
Oakland, CA
“We NEED this. This has allowed me to show up to work and my life more energized, focused, creative, and ready to vision!
Without taking intentional time for rest, our health takes a hit.
We burn out and our creative fire dies out. Without rest, we cannot serve our world and our communities in the ways we envision.
We cannot bring about the change we wish to see in the world.
Without connection & collective visioning, we lose sight of the larger picture. We need to be learning from one another, dreaming together, building knowledge together, and sharing stories -- this is so critical to our work in this world & in creating a more just, equitable world.
It is spaces like this that create and empower leaders -- both experienced and new. It is spaces like this that pave the way toward the future.”
— navi kaur, Code2040, Nonprofit, Bay Area
“A realization for me came in the form of clarity of expectations on our vision of the future. The future(s) we envision are generally a list of things, desires, conditions for thriving, that we strive to create and embody.
This residency has reminded me what its like to embody that vision. To create a microcosm of that experience we desire for ourselves, our loved ones, etc.
To me that is magic, being able to create the future in little moments of now and how we can all take part in that magical practice of bringing the future into the now when and where we can. I aspire to create environments that center what I want in the future more often.”
— Ellina, Only in San José,
civic participation,
Muwkema Ohlone Lands
"This residency was a gift at so many levels: it has restored my physical health, offered psychological and emotional healing and well-being, and replenished a depleted nervous and digestive system.
It has also provided a profoundly needed perspective on the work I do in the world. The experience of being deeply cared for, nourished by the kindness and solidarity of the other people here, and resting in our shared commitment to making a better world here and now, has re-energized me for justice work but in a new way.
It has affirmed the power of coming together in joy and abundance as a radical approach to anti-oppression work, one that is more sustainable and will probably bring about more meaningful transformation than efforts focused only on structural change."
— Tina Lopes; structural change
and leadership transformation;
Toronto, Canada
“In order to create change in the world, the leaders of the change need nourishment and support. They are often in jobs that focus on service rather than income and typically come from a giving philosophy.
Spaces like New Seneca Village foster the seeds of this very crucial part of moving forward into justice and peace globally by providing restoration and inspiration that enable participants to be able to envision new pathways to sustainable global change and their role in this vision. It also connects leaders to forge relationships and pool resources to create new forms of service and inspiration. NSV is a life-altering time-out to create
a world-altering life.”
— Sonya, Eighth Light Yoga,Yoga,
Portland, Jamaica, WI
"Honestly, I was in a place of burnout and questioning my current path.
Just one week allowed me time to think, reflect, and plan for my future. I came back to my workspace more committed and energized than I've been in a long time and my colleagues can tell. I'm also walking and speaking my truth in a way that I wasn't previously, which has been so liberating! The sense of empowerment I gained from my time as an NSV resident has made me so much more in tune with my needs. Not to mention, a reinvigorated me is also an asset to my organization."
— Rehema Barber,
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts,
Michigan
"Every day i have to tap into a creative, fiery, as well as loving place, to hold space for all of the experimentation, thought work and critical people work. But i run out of gas; And the lower my personal and psychic fuel the less effective i find my outcomes to be.
Space and time to renew and tap back into source can purpose propels my work forward for months at a time. Thank you so much, New Seneca Village!"
— Noni Session, East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, Impact Investing/Community Real Estate, Oakland, CA
New Seneca Village centers connection to (and sourcing from) intrinsically human resources;
time, space, nature, community, restorative practices and our wise inner Selves.
Throughout our experience, Villagers engage in individual and collective conversations
and practices designed to prioritize their own sovereignty.
A sacred environment is created each time we gather, unique to the people and the place.
Translating what arises is not our role and so we ask Villagers to share their thinking
about the New Seneca Village experience in their own words.
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Resources for All
Time
We consider this offering a time out of time experience.
An intentional container within which habits of Doing are replaced with time to center Being.
"In this village experience, I got a much deeper connection to the so-what beyond "what we can see" during the residency. Building the skills for the future, making space to cultivate them in the now, through accessing rest, creativity, play, and reflection - this is what emerged for me, from listening "through a different lens."
– Anisha Desai, AORTA, Worker-Owned Transformational Consulting and Coaching Cooperative, Bay Area CA
Anisha is also a New Seneca Village Advisory Circle member
Space
Villagers choose their level of engagement moment to moment so that they have the space to center their own rhythm and flow.
This alone is a powerful interruption of productivity culture and allows for the unearthing of Villagers' own needs, knowings and intentions.
“The beauty in collectively taking a pause together as women of Color and stepping away from all that calls us into our daily lives is immensely restorative. Many who have capital and wealth take moments like these as a luxury. For most, if not all of us during this residency, it was the first time we ever could even dream of a time away from work and our lives to pause and reflect.
The reason we aren't usually allowed a pause is because we've never really had the means or the time to do so, we've all been immersed into a hustle culture of needing to build toward what's next without intentionally pausing to have a well-crafted next step. This time away for us to slow down and pause allows for us to build in different ways as the changemakers we are.”
— Melanie Jiménez, non-profit, New York
Nature
New Seneca Village is intentionally hosted (and grounded) in nature.
We recognize nature as a loving and expansive partner, teacher and guide in reclaiming our humanity and accessing our divinity.
Community
New Seneca Village is an intentional community experience.
We are clear that the interplay of personal and community intention and care are crucial to our healing and our leadership.
“ The residency for me came at the exact time I needed it to really center my healing and pour more of my energy and creativity toward it (vs. work).
I came out the residency feeling a deepened commitment to my healing, understanding how much of it is beyond writing in my journal or going to therapy-- but that its in community with others trying to shape new ways of being, that I am resourced to dig into my sadness, and that I can shift the ways I offer to movement that is supportive of this process.”
— Kandace Montgomery, Movement Strategist
Restorative Practices
Village healers provide group and individual Restorative Practice offerings so that all are able to acces, explore, re-engage and embed sustainable practices into our lives beyond the residency.
"I absolutely enjoyed and was delighted by all the group sessions led by each healer as well. Just an overall amazing experience.
The healers were so essential to the magic, the deep healing and to establishing a healthy community vibe at the residency. Can't thank them enough for the way they shaped our capacity to gather.
— Tina Lopes; structural change and leadership transformation; Toronto, Canada
Higher Consciousness
We are clear that we are not alone as we choose our actions in the world.
Our life force is precious and it is sustained through our connection with our wise inner Self (including our guides; ancestors, Spirit, nature, practices, etc.)
This residency experience has validated so much for me in my pursuit of centering rest in my life. For a long time now I have been fighting against a current of hustle and this experience has given me much more than permission to center rest first as I build spaces for transformation in my community.
I now know that I do not have to sacrifice service and wellness, and the downloads I received from spirit are confirmation that there is no urgency except the urgency of wellness of my body, mind and spirit.
— Nafasi Ferrell, Narratives Unbound LLC, Transformative Wealth Advocate, Kirkland, WA
2023 Villagers...
Advance Justice in...
Academia
Conservation
Child Advocacy
Civic Participation
Climate Change
Criminal Justice
Economic Justice
Education
Housing
Human Rights
LGBTQ issues
Maternity Health
Leadership Development
Organizing
Policy
Philanthropy
Racial Justice
Social Impact
Social Work
Youth Engagement
Live + Work in...
California
Georgia
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Oregon
Toronto
Washington
West Indies
Wisconsin
Vancouver
Are...
Identify as...
Village HEalers
provide group and individual restorative offerings while at residency
Learn more about
2023 Village Healers below.
Angela : Bay Area
Berenice : Bay Area
DejaJoelle : Minnesota
Marla : Atlanta
Choosing to integrate into our village is an opportunity to say yes to an experience that will open breath and space for you to be. To dream. To integrate into your cells deep rest and nourishment.
— Berenice, Herbalist and Founder of Hood Herbalism
Prajna : Bay Area
Because the residency was so full of intent, it really helped me to think about my rest time and how intentional it should be whenever I have it scheduled.
It also helped me to think about what kind of healing might be needed instead of going to typical healing modalities.
— Marla Renee Stewart, Velvet Lips Sex Ed, Atlanta, GA
Raj : Bay Area
Women of color often carry the weight and bear the brunt of movement work as well as of families and communities, and it shows in the early mortality of many of our beloved leaders.
To give women of color doing change work time to rest and be is revolutionary community care.
— Prajna Choudhury, Energy Matters Acupuncture & Qi Gong, Oakland
Sonya : Jamaica, W.I.
Learn more about Village Healer's,
their modalities, philosophy's and contact info.
sister sadada : Massachusetts
Rashmi : Bay Area
Village Inquiry
Life - despite our efforts to control it or 'expertise' our way through it - is an experiment.
We are all new here and we are all just trying to figure it out (and hopefully leave things better than we found them.)
Honoring this experimentation, New Seneca Village
centers and celebrates inquiry.
We encourage the individual and collective questions that bring us closer to purpose and knowings of our wise inner selves and the practices, approaches and strategies that are ours to do to cause the future we want to see in the world.
See below for some of the inquiries arising
from the Village this year, along with pictures
of Villagers at residency.
We invite funders in particular to notice the themes in the inquiries and to wonder about how to be responsive.
One question I have been left with as a reflection is: How can we live in powerful abundance without participating in greed or a system that is exclusive?
It has also led to a commitment to being a living demonstration rather than trying to fix or heal anyone else or any systems.
— Sonya, Eighth Light Yoga,Yoga, Portland, Jamaica, WI, Spring residency
What calls to your soul/spirit and how do you respond?
- from Village connection session
How do we create communities of care that meet a range of needs (food, education, spiritual, physical, mental, etc.) without heavy reliance on capitalist, colonialist structures?
- from Village connection session
Will the hustle ever end and what’s on the other side?
- from Fall Village connection session
How do I balance care for myself, my people, and community?
How do I do this while navigating the realities of capitalism and sustainability?
- from Summer Village
connection session
How does the sacred show up in our work?
- from Summer Village connection session
How to show up authentically as myself, pushing back on systemic norms in alignment with myself?
- from Summer Village connection session
How do we source our collective leadership + from where?
- from Fall Village connection session
How do we help turn our collective toward more love, wisdom, and balance?
- from Village connection session
What questions are you exploring right now?
Organizational Snapshot
Want to know what we have been up to as an organization?
We shifted our Advisory Circle model to invite in Villagers who were interested in hosting their own offerings for the Village.
See below for reflections on these offerings from our Advisors themselves.
We Shifted to a Co-ED model to better practice collaborative leadership model.
Taina Jones, our former residency lead, is now Co-Executive Director bringing her considerable organizational skills, her thoughtfulness and her loving care to more aspects of the Village.
We look forward to welcoming in a Social Ecosystem Director this year.
Check out our hiring post!
Spring 2023 Villagers
Whidbey Island, WA
Advisory Circle Voices
Anisha
I am proud and humbled to co-steward the ever-evolving vision and dream that is NSV - a tender space of co-creating liberatory culture in real-time, with the very humans who are quite in touch with the wisdom, intuition and memory to make such a space thrive in the now and beyond.
My offering is working on a Theory of Change for a project that is simultaneously co-creating future conditions in the present tense. It has brought me into a powerful design challenge that involves a deep listening, synthesizing, meaning-making, and tracking micro and macro shifts as they emerge, so that the TOC is truly representative of the community.
Anisha Desai, AORTA, Sector: Transformational Coaching and Consulting; Bay Area, CA
Aldita
I hope my offering of getting more philanthropic exposure to NSV will bring about new donors.
I think just having a workshop in this LGBT funding conference is recentering/changing how we think about rest and restoration & land reclamation as a needed for BIPOC trans/queer organizers.
Aldita Gallardo,
Principal Consultant,
Philanthropy,
Bay Area
Saneta
This work has profoundly impacted my research in terms of what I see and what resonates, what feels possible or relevant. The thinking about how to sustain and communicate what New Seneca is, which I see as a radical form of reparations has made me notice how anemic so many forms of care/self care/ and liberation are. I am grappling with developing a vocabulary to make this legible to others.
Saneta devuono-powell,
Ground Works Consulting,
Atlanta
Dr. T
The Healer Philosophy has offered the Village a place to start co-creating a framework for the Healer role at NSV Residencies.
In clarifying and engaging with this handful of simple statements, the Village has evolved our agreements and expectations for Healer offerings.
Giving and receiving in the unique environment of NSV offers Healers and Leaders alike have been supported to explore what it's like to be our whole selves in community together.
Dr. T/Teresa Lau,
LAB at Vibrant Body Wellness,
health and somatic education,
Bay Area, CA
Summer 2023 Villagers
Northern California
Gratitude to
Our 2024 Funders
Your general support grants and light reporting requirements
help us stay focused on our mission and offerings.
:: You Have Our Trust Fund ::
:: Kataly Foundation ::
:: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ::
New Seneca Village funders provide flexible funding that allows us to design and evolve our programming, develop deep partnerships, pour into leaders and healers and sustain our staff team.
Thank you for understanding our vision and for supporting leaders and healers through our offerings!
Much gratitude in particular to YHOT fund whose multi-year grant commitment allows us to commit to the activities that are crucial to our work.
Village Financials
Expenses
We are currently a fiscally sponsored project.
Our fiscal sponsor receives a 9% fee on all Village funds raised.
Revenue
Join us as we evolve how we collectively care for and resource the leaders who consistently advance justice in our society.
If you are interested in funding New Seneca Village, please reach out to us at team@newsenecavillage.org.
Fall 2023 Villagers
Whidbey Island, WA
A note to Funders
across all funding areas
New Seneca Village is a love offering designed to truly resource leaders and healers
with an intervention intentionally designed to interrupt current funding and organizational practices.
Behind all issues areas, organizations, and programs are scores of leaders and healers who dedicate enormous
amounts of their time, energy, brain power and hearts to the crucial work necessary to ensure that our society works well for all.
The depth and breadth of this work tends to be unacknowledged and nominally funded with little to no long-term resource
commitment for organizations which often results in extractive leadership conditions sourced from scarcity.
All practices have impacts and philanthropy's choice to fund women and folks of color in this way also has impact.
New Seneca Village exists to serve the leaders and healers that advance the issues you care about
in an abundant and generous way - focused on their Being and not their doing - for all of our sake's.
See below to learn more from Villagers about what else it is important for funders to know about this work.
"Choosing to fund our village is choosing to shift the cellular memory of our community. Every rested nourished connected body in our community contributes to the energy of our bigger ecosystem. It is an investment in the future of this planet.
People that come through our space are people systemically shifting our communities with their work. Spaces like New Seneca are a necessary anchor point for us. They give us an opportunity to receive a level of care that we are working to systematized within our work environment that for many of us, does not exist yet.
When our community organizers are rested and cared for, so is everyone around them."
— Berenice, Herbalist and Founder of Hood Herbalism
"Philanthropy plays a crucial role in addressing historical injustices. By contributing to initiatives like New Seneca Village (NSV), you have the chance to redirect resources back to people that have been divorced from opportunities to thrive. This act of returning stolen wealth is not just a moral imperative but a step toward rectifying injustice.
NSV is a testament to the fact that financial resources can be harnessed to create spaces and programs that promote healing, reconciliation, and a profound sense of belonging. By investing in NSV, you are actively participating in the process of healing and nurturing connections among people working at the frontlines of keeping our communities safe, housed, fed, and whole. Supporting NSV demonstrates your commitment to dismantling broken systems and redistributing resources and wealth in a way that promotes justice.
The leaders of NSV have the wisdom and vision to guide this process, and your partnership can make all the difference in realizing a more equitable and compassionate world."
– Ali Anderson, Feed Black Futures, Food Sovereignty Non-Profit,
Working in Sacramento Oakland and Los Angeles California
“For leaders and healers to be stewards of transformation in the world we must have spaces to restore and connect to be our greatest selves in a world that demands so much of our time, our bodies and our spirits.
Being in leadership requires so much destruction as it is centered around hustle mentality, capitalism, and white supremacy. Not having intentional spaces created for us to take time to reflect on how our work affects our mental and physical health is why we especially people of color live such short lives.
If we truly wish to make a better world not just for people of color but for all of us, we must center rest and rejuvenation as a necessity so that future generations can live healthy and abundant lives.”
— Nafasi Ferrell, Narratives Unbound LLC,
Transformative Wealth Advocate,
Kirkland, WA
“New Seneca Village needs to exist because unfortunately, a lot of our social justice centered organizations do not walk the walk when it comes to truly caring for their employees that often carry the work forward!
We need places of pause, stillness, and to connect with our own worth and sacredness outside of our productivity - especially as women of color, femmes of color, queer/gender expansive people of color.
And this is not so that we return "more productive," but simply because we are worthy of rest. NSV also offers the opportunity to connect with other change makers!”
– non-profit, oakland, CA
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“I heard a funder share this week that they were interested in funding communities who were looking toward "ownership," an indication of their "advanced" development/thinking.
Whatever that "next" thing is, may it be land projects or leadership development or funding communities that are growing collective governance structures, the individuals who are moving this work can not be working around the clock and at the pace and structures that we have set up the work in.
Our design must include periods of rest, interiority, cultivating authentic relationships - because it supports us to show up for the innovative work needed to fuel the world.”
— Anisha Desai, AORTA, Worker-Owned Transformational Consulting and Coaching Cooperative, Bay Area CA
“The New Seneca Village is an incredibly impactful space that has the potential to assist in ushering in the transformation needed in the current state of our world. So many of those who are dedicated to cultivating positive change are undervalued, under resourced and burnt out.
By allowing these communities to not only rest, but reconnect with their passion and purpose, New Seneca Village nourishes actionable change in our world.
Personally, this residency deeply expanded my capacity to show up fully in my work and my community. Being held with so much intention has offered me a space to grow as an individual and within a network of powerful change makers. I know undoubtedly that more people that can attend these types of experiences, the more positive impact we will see in world.”
— Adrian Bello, The Kin DAO, Cooperative, San Francisco
"New Seneca Village is already creating something so radically new and transformative, every effort should be made to remove any barriers that prevent the full vision from coming into being. The benefits and outcomes of the residencies are profound and beyond measure. The funds that are invested are only one small part of all that is poured into this transformational process.
Having been given the opportunity here is an outpouring of generosity, love, goodwill, creativity, a willingness to share what we have, what we know, to lean in to each other and share whatever we know, can do, make or say that will bring us to deeper wholeness. The land, ocean, plants, animals, birds all support this creative, healing and community-building experience.
It's a taste of the world we all long to live in."
— Tina Lopes; structural change and leadership transformation;
Toronto, Canada
Legacy Vision
The New Seneca Village described here and in our Year One Update is a pilot project.
Our vision is to have a community-owned nature-based Village retreat center space so that we can provide this offering for leaders and healers throughout the year, and in a way that allows us to adapt responsively to our collective needs.
We are actively looking for funders who are open to comprehensive funding for land, infrastructure and operating costs to ensure that our offering is fully sustained and remains grounded in generosity and abundance.
Learn more about our Legacy Vision.
Ain Bailey,
Founder + Co-Director
Thank you for your curiosity and affinity for New Seneca Village and our legacy vision. We appreciate the time you have taken to learn more about our work.
We consider it an honor to hold space for leaders and healers in this way and invite you to think about how you prioritize care, communication, consent and connection in your own life and with and for the people powering the professions
that make this society turn towards its better self.
How might you center restoration, connection and visioning
in your own life and work?
Taina Jones,
Co-Executive Director
People + Place Acknowledgement
National
As a remote organization whose pilot model includes travel to natural settings across the country, we acknowledge that we find ourselves on various stolen lands that are sacred to a number of Indigenous Peoples, including but not limited to Tribes, Nations, and Peoples such as: Muskoke, Ohlone, Snohomish.
We are grateful to the Indigenous Peoples who have cared for and stewarded these lands in Right Relationship from the beginning. We are clear that our ongoing presence on this land is egregious.
Global
We also want to acknowledge all people who have been forced from their own indigenous lands and land-based practices, ancestors and relationships due to de-humanizing economic, political, violent or climate related transgressions of others. As well as those whose labor and life force have been extracted and used in service of others before themselves.
Labor
We acknowledge the legacy of slavery and the enslaved African people whose life force and labor was exploited for generations to help establish the economy of the United States and many other nations across the world.
By recognizing the land that was taken from First Americans, the forced labor that was provided by enslaved Africans and black people, and the ongoing extractive practices that are foundational to many of our systems and societies, we acknowledge that we understand the source trauma that has shaped our collective present.