Jun 22-29: Song Smorgasbord!

Here's a buffet of song possibilities this week.  Join us for one or all!   

• Mon, Jun 22 - Retrain Your Lizard Brain
• Wed, Jun 24 - Protecting Sacred Lands
• Thu, Jun 25 - Online* Song Leader Training 101: For Social Action
• Fri, Jun 26 - Songs for Tending Our Hearts
• Mon, Jun 29 - Singing for Liberation

More details about each under each image.  

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Retrain Your Lizard Brain:  Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

Mon, Jun 22, 6:30-8:30p (not Jun 25 🤦)
Location: New City Center, near 31st + Bloomington, Mpls.
With Good Trouble.  

😷

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Protecting Sacred Lands:  Song Circle + Meeting

Wed, Jun 24, 6:30-8:30p 

Location: Creekside UCC, I-35W + Diamond Lake Rd, Mpls.

With The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, Music That Makes Community, Center for Sustainable Justice, and Singing Resistance TC. 

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Online Songleader Training 101: for Social Action

Thu, Jun 25, 6-8p CT 

Location:  Online

with Music That Makes Community. 

Register: https://www.musicthatmakescommunity.org/virtual_101_20260625

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Songs for Tending Our Hearts: a song circle for grief and the weight of the weary world

Fri, Jun 26, 7:30-9p 

Location: Yess Yoga, near 26th + Nicollet, Mpls. 

With Good Trouble. 

Register: https://www.yessyogastudio.com/yoga-workshops/

 

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Bonus!!!

Singing for Liberation: Monthly Songleader Incubator Circle

Mon, Jun 29, 6:30-8:30p 

Location: CTUL, near George Floyd Square, Mpls. 

Open to new/experienced songleaders, drummers, and all singers!

With Good Trouble. 

 

*May 13*: Retrain Your Lizard Brain

What: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness and Resilience
When: Tuesday, April 15 + May 13, 2025, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Where: New City Center, 3104 16th Ave S, Minneapolis
Register: Eventbrite.  Sliding scale.  

Masks up please!

See details from previous events here.  

We welcome walk-in registration, so come even if the Eventbrite is closed.  You can make a donation on Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute's GiveMN site with a note "Lizard Brain" and the date.   

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Jul 9: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

What: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience
When: Tuesday, July 9, 2024, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Where: Walker/New City Church,
3104 16th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55407 (map)
With: Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute and GOOD TROUBLE

REGISTER HERE: Eventbrite
Facebook event page 

How do we find our way through personal, cultural, and systemic trauma towards resilience?

Setlist from May 2 Retrain Your Lizard Brain

Here are the songs we sang at the very first Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience at Walker/New City Church on Thursday evening, May 2, 2024.  Enjoy the links to online recordings for your at-home remembering pleasure!  

• Neuroplasticity Song (Ahlay Blakely)
• The Center Will Hold (text: Brene Brown, from Atlas of the Heart; music: clb)
• Do You Feel? Do You Heal? (Lu Aya Nephew, The Peace Poets + Deirdre Shabaaz)
• The Cure for the Pain (text inspired by Rumi; tune: Yam)
• Grief is Coming (Aurora’s Song) (Liz Digitale Anderson)
• The Shame Song (Ahlay Blakely) 

* no online recording available. If you discover one, please let us know in the comments!

Here are some of the Resources we promised to share:

• About the Card Decks: Having a tangible tool to sit with and reflect our feelings back to us helps us slow down, process, and make space for emotional work and intentions we otherwise tend to ignore. In May we spread out the Rest Deck by Tricia Hersey and the Artist Grief Deck, made by hospice workers in the pandemic.
• Instruments we use: 
• CajonTab by Louson Drum - Conie has a 12" CajonTab; Liz has one of the Pro series. Get to know a bit of the cajon's musical history here. Use Liz's affiliate link to get 10% off!
• Shruti Box, literally "sound" or "singing" in ancient Sankrit, replicates the sound of the Tambura, an East Asian Indian drone instrument. Part of the family of drone instruments that show up in many cultures, related to bagpipes and harmoniums. Conie's instrument is from Shrutibox.com run by Ron Kravitz of https://www.musicinthemoment.com/ in Philadelphia, PA.

Thank you to the crew who jumped in to retrain their lizard brain!  The right people were there, tenderness, grit, and support were shared. Community was tended. This is part of the world we're working towards!

Many thanks to Mni'sota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute for offering the amazing Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience (STAR) training that Liz and Conie took in June 2023 and to being interested in partnering with us when we expressed interest in offering a hand-on offering.  Many thanks to Jean for their supporting hands-on support to bring this into being!  

We're planning to make this session monthly because the work of Trauma Awareness and Resiliency is long and slow!  The next Retrain Your Lizard Brain session will likely be Thursday, June 13, 2024; stay tuned for details on this blog as they unfold or sign up for the In-person Singing and/or the Good Trouble Songleaders newsletters

Keep singing and stay warm, hydrated and creative!

Love, Liz and Conie, a.k.a. Good Trouble

Setlist from "Exercising Our Voices & Bodies Toward Liberation" from Let's Get Free (7/1/23)

Greetings!

If you're reading this you might have attended the "Exercising Our Voices & Bodies Toward Liberation: Call & Response Community Singing & Theater of the Oppressed" workshop at the Saturday, July 1, Let's Get Free Together series of Education for Liberation MN in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Here is a list of songs we sang with links to online recordings and related resources.

Songs

• I did not come here alone (The Peace Poets)
• Welcome to the chaos (clb) - the link is to the original.  We substituted "chaos" for 'table' and "be free" for 'to the feast'.
• Which Side Are you On/We're on the Freedom Side (Florence Reece, 1931) - be sure to watch the whole 8 minute video to hear both the original version and the BLM update with "We're on the freedom side" response (c. 5:00). More videos of Pete Seeger, Ani DiFranco.
• Healing is Possible (Orion Johnstone)
• Our Liberation (Peace Poets) - studio version featuring Carami Hilaire

Resources

• Theater of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal) - read a succinct summary on Center for Applied Theater's website
• We Rise: A Movement Songbook, compiled by the Poor People's Campaign.  
• Full Voice: Five Elements of the Voice - the opening vocal exploration with the shruti box (shrutibox.com) is based on this work.  

Please be in touch if you would like to have Good Trouble lead a workshop like this for your community or if you have questions or comments from our time together!

Reflections on Healing before the 3rd Midwest Mixed Conference

Reader, I ask for your supportive witness at this time.

The following detail may not make sense to you if you haven’t done trauma work or read My Grandmother’s Hands. And that’s ok.

Some of you know I’ve been working on a project called Biracial and Rural, a community of care and storytelling space. It’s an urging that has been growing for several years and starting to take more shape as I have made space for more healing. I’m at a point