Lunar New Year Circle, Oakland Museum of California Art

“You’re not going to transform anything unless you love it.” ~ Grace Lee Boggs 🙌🏽💗🙌🏽

WOW, what an honor to be sought after and chosen to be a part of Oakland Museum of California Art’s Lunar New Year Festival this year 🎊🎎🎏

This sold out gathering with over a thousand registrants was hosted by @oaklandmuseumca to explore the shared connections between the diverse Asian cultures of the Bay Area and to ring in 2022, the Year of the Water Tiger 🌊🐯🌊

Along with the must have performances such as lion dancers, dumpling cooking demonstrations and live music, the OMCA team decided it was time to bring in a new addition to the lineup by way of healing circles.

Given the rise of ant-Asian attacks and increased xenophobia since the pandemic the museum wanted to hold safe & brave space for our AAPI communities to come together and uplift each other with both in-person and virtual healing offerings.

And who to host those then yours truly?! For real though, apparently when you Google: ” Healing Circle, Oakland”, “Lotus Awakens” is one of the first sites to pop up!

It was such a joy to work with @oaklandmuseumca we were given a unique set of design constraints: all ages, outdoor, open container, various languages and learning levels, one hour!

I brought on my longtime collaborator, dear friend, community leader, and AAPI advocate @thechristinejuang to make it happen.

Our healing-centered interactive arts experience consisted of music, movement, collaborative art, and connection questions. We also gathered in a moment of silence to honor the lives lost and the legacy of the AAPI community.

This isn’t new, our ancestors have been here for generations facing discrimination, violence, scapegoating, brutality, erasure and invisibility.

That said, I called in my ancestors big time for this one ✨🙏🏽✨

The magnitude of this gathering combined with a full-time job and full blown course led to some internal pressure, anxiety, and adrenaline.

But my ancestors came through! ✨🙌🏽✨

They ensured that those who chose to be there were meant to be and as we began, I let go and tapped into the wave of energy and pure delight.

Seeing the kids light up with glee, seeing folks dancing and moving in the sunshine, hearing people share their intentions for 2022, doing a collective tiger’s ROAR to close! 🎉🐯🎎

It was beautiful 🤩😍

Our client shared afterwards:

“Lotus and Christine were amazing community partners who brought a whole new level of depth and healing to OMCA’s 21 annual Lunar New Year celebration 🎎🧧🎊 It’s more important now than ever to hold space and uplift AAPI communities who have been experiencing racism, trauma, and xenophobia related to Covid.

I worked closely with Lotus and Christine to design both an in-person and virtual Zoom healing circle experience that was intentional, inclusive, and engaging for the museum’s diverse intergenerational audiences. And Lotus and Christine delivered! ⚡️⚡️⚡️

The entire process of collaborating together felt fruitful and authentic -- from ideating to designing to facilitating, Lotus and Christine were deeply intuitive, adaptive, reflective, experimental, and always held the needs of the community to the core of their work every step of the way 💞

It was beautiful and transformative to watch the two develop trust with and guide museum visitors of all ages and identities through healing circles while skilfully incorporating so many different interactive modalities into the experience, including movement, music, meditation, and art to engage children, adults, and elders 👧🏻👧🏽🧒🏻🧒🏼👧🏿👩🏻👱🏾‍♀️🧑🏽‍🦳👵🏾🧑🏾‍🦱👴🏼

It was an honor to be able to partner with this dream team to bring these much needed healing experiences to the OMCA community. Thank you both and we look forward to working together again!”

~ Linda Jia, Program Developer at Oakland Museum of California

So much gratitude for this experience and to my co-facilitator, @thechristinejuang for being there every step of the way. I definitely felt our ancestors beaming from above 😇

Big thank you to Linda for bringing us in 🙏🏽. If you haven’t visited @oaklandnmuseumca get on it! We also created a Self & Community Care Resource Guide for AAPI, which you can find on the OMCA Lunar New Year website.

Bring in Lotus Awakens for your next event at the intersection of healing, justice and the arts!

And here’s to 2022: a year of bravery, courage, confidence, passion, clarity and energy✨🎊🌊🐯🌊🎎✨