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Just when we thought we were wrapping up our Spring Series and getting in Summer Retreat mode...we realized it's really not going to feel like Pride this year without another Saturday Playdate!! Our lead facilitator, Kip, will be moving up island this summer so this will be our first playdate led by some new facilitators who are seasoned Big Kiddos and are ready to continue welcoming you into belonging through play. Kip will still be there to support when needed, but we are feeling super lucky to be inviting in some new community spaceholders. Their photos/bios will be coming soon!----
Join us as we invite our inner-children into a space of belonging within our adult bodies. We will welcome them back home; reimagining how to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, hold with their hands, feel with their hearts & run to their own rhythms.
We will be playing a variety of games, most of which will be guided by the wildlife interactions that support the livelihood of Douglas-Fir forests of the Pacific Northwest. We will deepen our understanding of the forest’s ecology, our impact on and potential for relationship building with these lands and work with how to re-invite our inner little one a place to explore, wander and be met in their re-emergence to ourselves and one another.
WHEN:
- Saturday, July 6th - 10am to 1pm
WHERE:
In-person, outside at X̱E,OL,X̱ELE₭ (Beaver Lake) More details to come after registration received.
ABOUT KIP:
Your host, Kip (they/them), is a white, genderqueer, invisibly disabled, forest school mentor who seeks to re-enliven the child-like wonders and spirits that we may have lost along the way of growing into our adult selves. Their ancestors settled on Turtle Island by way of the Highland Clearances in Scotland on their maternal line, and from what is now known as the Ukraine on their paternal line. They believe accessing space for playfulness in our lives is one of the many beautiful ways we can reconnect and help to heal our relationships with our little ones within. With Kip’s background in land-based education & Relational Somatics they will facilitate a variety of games that represent some of the ecological relationships connecting all around us, as well as hold space for reintegrating a felt sense of our inner-children.
Above all else, Kip believes in the power of play as a doorway into a type of embodiment that allows us to show up more wholly for tending the needs of the cultural wounding in our modern world. At a time when the need for systems-wide transformation is so deeply needed, Kip believes the ability for our nervous systems to be adaptable, attuned and playful is essential to our imagining and birthing of new paradigms of being.
OUR FLOW:
- Arrival & Landing: Name Tags, Forms, Trickle-In Game/Wildcraft
- Opening Circle: Collective Orientation, Group Embodiment Invitations, Introductions, Gratitude, Song (heartful & land-based, in support of gentle connection & bodily awareness)
- Group Snackluck!
- PLAY!
- - - A variety of games, all situated in the ecology of the Pacific
Northwest.
- Closing Circle: Cool Down & Embodiment, Debrief, Closing Song, Reflection & Goodbyes
INVESTMENT/RECIPROCITY:
- $25-$55 Tiered Pricing per session
- Compassionate Pricing Options Available via email, no questions asked, no one turned away for lack of funds!
- Extensive details about Tiers/Sliding Scale in Registration Form
REGISTRATION REQUIRED:
E-Transfer & Contact: [email protected]
10% of proceeds will go to PEPÁḴEṈ HÁUTW̱, an organization that provides participatory education opportunities about traditional and healthy food systems to contribute to the restoration and revitalization of native ecosystems in the W̱SÁNEĆ homelands and promotes food security and indigenous food sovereignty in the W̱SÁNEĆ community and beyond. We encourage you to stay in the loop about their future volunteer ecosystem restoration projects - learn more at https://pepakenhautw.com/
REGISTER HERE:
https://forms.gle/B6yiSQXEbRMZeCjr9
ABOUT THE CONTAINER:
This space will prioritize Nervous System Regulation as we gently tend the path of embodying our inner children. Kip will hold a container that trusts each and every participant to move through embodied prompts at their own unique pace. Together we will find the right size and space for us to be with what is most alive for each other. We will make room for pause, reorientation, breath, laughter, reflection, grief; for whatever may arise.
Although this is not an exclusively queer/trans space, we will all be uplifting and centering the unique experiences of queer/trans participants. If you wish to attend as a straight/cis ally, please be considerate of showing up in ways that support the intentions for this gathering. Listening from a heartspace, offering gratitude and following the lead of those modelling community etiquette are some of the ways that straight/cis allies may show up to this series in a good way.
ACCESSIBILITY:
***We are in a co-creative process of expanding our perception of accessibility as an organization, and in community. Shoutout to our amazing Big Kid, Dustin, for consulting with us on the possibilities for folks with wheelchairs to attend! 🙂 If you have ANY questions and/or wish to share any personal access needs that would allow you to participate to your full potential, please reach out! Our accessibility info will be updated in the coming months to reflect a more thorough approach to sharing information about these events - including a video & photo tour of our location site! Stay tuned***
For now, we can share this:
Terrain: We will spend most of our time on a grassy field. There are some paved walkways (i.e. around the bathrooms), and the other main walkways through the park are either medium-sized gravel, or forested trails with uneven ground (roots, rocks..etc). We have typically taken a gravel path that has a hill midway to get us from one field to another. And, our program can be flexible in terms of which spaces we land in, and how we get there. Please reach out if you'd like to jam about how we can co-create your participation if the conditions of terrain propose a barrier for you.
Physical Exertion: The games being played as well as the roles you may choose to take up in a particular game exist on a spectrum of “intensities” from none/low/medium and high; please reach out to Kip if you have any accessibility needs that we should know about. There are usually roles and easeful shifts that can be made to specific games on the fly, but advanced notice will help ensure there will be a way in for everyone in as many games as possible.
Bathrooms: One single-stall, wheelchair accessible, gender neutral bathroom will be available for use by the parking lot. There are 2 multi-stall, wheelchair accessible, gendered bathrooms as well. This is also the only area on site with access to drinking water. While we are playing, this bathroom will be approximately a 5-10 minute trip away through a forested or gravel trail. There are also 4 gendered, single-stall pit toilets equidistant in the other direction across a large field (this route is not wheelchair accessible). Please reach out if being closer to the bathrooms is a priority and we will happily shift our play locations throughout the park accordingly.
If you have other accessibility needs we should know about, please let us know.
A NOTE FROM KIP:
The act of accessing embodied play on the lands of the W̱SÁNEĆ Nations is not something that I hold lightly or without complexity. As an uninvited White Settler myself, I acknowledge the depth of sacrifice that local Nations have had to bear in order for people like me to learn, heal and connect through the act of land-based play. I am committed to an emergent and self-reflexive process of decolonization in my work and offerings on these lands, and to deepening my understanding of true Reciprocity.
In my life and through the work of Big Kids, I am committed to the responsibility of giving back to these lands and its peoples financially, relationally, and through other tangible means. It is my hope that through land-based offerings that I may strengthen and re-enliven appropriate, ancestrally informed ways of being in reciprocity with ourselves, each other, and the land for generations to come. I recognize my own relationship with these lands benefits and is inseparable from the ongoing systemic disconnection and violence local Nations face
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Elk/Beaver Lake Regional Park, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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