Ten live online circles with Tanya Forgan
What can you hear in yourself when you can speak in your own voice?
A ten-week journey for mixed-race and dual-heritage women to listen to themselves, be inspired by one another, and bring something of who they are into what they make, lead or hold.
The journey at a glance
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Where I come from
My mother is white British. My father is Black and from Dominica. There are things I know about where I come from because I grew up with them. There are things I’m still finding out. And there are things I’ve come to know about myself in the living of my own life.
I know what it is to walk into a room and work out quite quickly which parts of me people will understand. Sometimes it happens before I’ve even spoken. I know the pleasure, too, of telling a story to another mixed woman and getting to the funny bit without having to give her the whole backstory. And I love it when she tells me hers and it goes somewhere I could never have guessed.
I want to know what might happen if we had ten weeks together. Time to tell the stories we usually shorten. To hear ourselves think. To be surprised by what another woman has made of something she’s lived through. To follow a question about our people, or to make something we’ve wanted to make for years.
There is no one way to be here. Speak in the voice that comes. You can reach for a word from home, change your mind halfway through a sentence, or sit quietly until you know what you want to say. You can tell us as much of the backstory as you want to.
You get to decide where the story starts.
What we’ll explore
When I speak about the medicine of our people, I think about the things that have helped them live and stay connected. How they made a celebration. Who came round when there was a death. What they sang, what they grew, what they did with their hands. The ways they made each other laugh when things were hard.
Over these ten weeks, you might get curious about something you grew up with and have never asked about. You might find yourself longing to know a place, a language or a person you’ve only heard stories about. You might sit with a piece of music and discover how much you remember. We’ll make room for the delight of these encounters and for whatever else they bring up.
We’ll also listen for what’s yours. What have you learnt through the life you’ve lived? What do you know about making a room feel welcoming, asking a good question, bringing people together, making something beautiful, or staying close to what matters when things get difficult? Sometimes another woman hears something in a story you’ve told a hundred times and asks you about the very thing you’ve always skipped over. That’s one of the reasons we’ll do this in company.
Who this is for
For the ones who live between countries, cultures, identities and beliefs. For the third culture ones, the misfits, the ones who never quite fit into any box.
Maybe you’ve hidden behind labels and beliefs that don’t quite fit. Maybe your melanin has been commented on, or you’ve been seen as white passing, or it’s felt hard to speak about not belonging in a society that doesn’t know how to handle polarity.
You don’t have to pick a side. You can exist in the space between.
Weavers is a space to reconnect to a deep sense of knowing, and to reclaim parts of your identity that may have been lost along the way. You choose which parts you want to remember, which you want to release, and which you want to walk with going forward. A space to move beyond limiting beliefs, to give thanks and pay homage to our ancestors, and to see your skin as a masterpiece. Permission to simply be, without needing to pick a side.
Weavers is for women who identify as mixed-race or dual-heritage and feel drawn to the relationship between who they are and what they make, lead or hold.
You might be a facilitator, artist, teacher, practitioner, organiser or someone who’s always been the one to get people together. You might already have a body of work. You might have something you’ve been thinking about for years and want the company of other women while you find a way to begin.
You can come with a close relationship to your heritage, with questions you’ve carried for a long time, or simply because you’d like to spend ten weeks in the company of other mixed women and see what happens when you give yourself that time.
The ten weeks
We’ll get to know one another through the stories we choose to tell. I’ll bring a few questions and we’ll make some agreements about how we listen, how we share and how we want to be together. There’ll be time to talk in pairs and time to hear the voices in the whole circle.
We’ll slow down enough to notice what we’re drawn to. I’ll guide an embodied practice and give you time to write or sit quietly with what comes. What have I been hearing in myself lately? What would I like to give more attention to? You can begin with whatever answer you have today.
We’ll spend time with the people, places and communities that have shaped us. Bring a photograph, an object, a word, a memory or a question. We’ll see where it takes us. Between circles, you might ring someone, look something up or revisit a place that holds part of your story.
We’ll share something of how our people have cared for one another, made things, grieved or celebrated. We’ll listen for what those ways of doing things meant in the lives of the people who carried them. This is a week to be curious about what other women bring and to notice what you feel drawn to learn more about in your own life.
We’ll make time for ritual together and explore what gives a gesture meaning. You might make a small ritual for something you want to honour, welcome or remember. We’ll talk about where the practices we know come from, who has shared them with us and how we can honour those relationships in what we do.
Each woman will bring something she wants to share with the circle. It could be a song, a page of writing, something she’s made, or a story about a woman whose way of doing things has stayed with her. We’ll give ourselves time to follow what catches our attention. You might leave wanting to try something you’d never have thought of on your own.
This is a week to make. You might begin a piece of writing, sketch out a gathering, make a ritual you want to share, or explore a change you want to make in the work you already do. You can bring an idea you’ve had for years or work with something that’s only just occurred to you. We’ll give it some time and see what takes shape.
Bring a little of what you’ve made. Read it to us. Guide us through the first few minutes. Tell us what you’re trying and where you’d like another pair of eyes. We’ll give each other feedback you can actually use, with room to go away and try again.
We’ll spend time with the relationships that have grown in the group and the ones we’d like to build beyond it. There’ll be room to ask for something you need, offer something you have, or say to another woman, I’d love to keep talking about this with you. We’ll each think about who we want to be in conversation with as we take our work into the world.
We’ll share what’s taken shape and close with a ritual we make together. One woman might leave ready to send an invitation. Another might want to go home and tell a story differently, begin a conversation in her community, or give something she’s made to someone she loves. You’ll choose where your work goes next and what you want to keep tending after we finish.
The practicalities
We’ll meet weekly on Zoom in a small group. I’ll bring the ways of working I use in DEVOTED: embodied practice, time to listen, ritual, and the chance to try something in front of others and hear how it landed. We’ll spend time in the whole circle and in smaller groups so there’s room for relationships to grow.
Some weeks you’ll leave with something you want to do. Other weeks you might find yourself thinking about a story someone told, or hearing your own answer to a question a few days after we asked it. Bring that back. We have ten weeks to find out what comes of being together.
Your guide
Circle facilitator, ritualist, somatic practitioner and teacher
Tanya Forgan is a circle facilitator, ritualist, somatic practitioner and teacher whose work is devoted to restoring community, reclaiming the wisdom of the body and remembering the sacred art of gathering.
Register your interest
If there’s something in you that wants a little more room, I’d love to meet you.
Register your interestLeave your name and email and I’ll be in touch with dates and details for the first Weavers group. This opens an email to me.
Restoring the art of being human, together.