Celebrating Winter Solstice with the Clearing

Fittingly, the Clearing’s first collectively-planned service/ritual was a powerful Winter Solstice ritual and gathering, held at The Vault, a black-owned community event space that showcases the art and culture of Durham and is particularly supportive of local organizing efforts among queer and trans people of color. It was a beautiful and heart-opening moment for the community!

The Clearing’s core team, a group of leaders that grew out of the Clearing’s initial community conversations, planned and held the ritual and gathering on Thursday, December 21. Close to fifty people came together to celebrate the longest night of the year and the power and brilliance of darkness—and, afterwards, a delicious meal.

Folks were invited to bring an object for the altar that represented something sacred to them, something they wanted to honor about the solstice, and/or someone they wanted to bring into the space. We shared reflections and poetry primarily from Black and Brown people. We offered time and space for folks to reflect on what they needed to let go of and put in the earth, as well as what they were invested in holding onto to give them what they needed for the new season. And then we shared a wonderful meal. It was magic, not just because it was a really meaningful moment for folks, but because it helped set the tone for more opportunities to gather in worship together in the future.

The Clearing has evolved into a space that encourages folks to show up, be present, share their struggles, successes, challenges, and desires in a safe, supportive environment. We are cultivating and co-creating loving and sustainable spiritual spaces that are anti-racist, anti-capitalist, queer, womanist, feminist, and de-colonized, offering all the folks coming together to move the Clearing from dream to reality something we didn’t anticipate—a chance to make the impossible possible!

Currently, as we share monthly dinners, co-create spaces for ritual, celebration, and healing, and build an evolving team of visionaries and organizers that will continue to breathe life and love and meaning into this community, we are also building beautiful relationships in the community. The Durham Co-op Market, that provides our monthly meals, the LGBTQ Center of Durham, the Vault, and the Radical Healing Collective are all community gathering spaces where queer/trans POC folks have deep roots. We’re excited to keep building and growing and healing together.

The Clearing Grows Through Community Conversations

The Clearing is growing! In the past year, this emerging spiritual community centering the voices, experiences, and liberation of queer and trans people of color and open to all, has been deepening its work in Durham, NC.

Transforming Hearts Collective co-leaders LeLaina Romero and Rev. Mykal Slack, along with a group of close friends and chosen family in Durham, connected around a common vision for spiritual community that none of them had found in the area, but were longing for. We co-created spaces for rest, renewal, and uplift in the midst of HB2 repeal efforts, facilitated honest and pain-filled dialogue in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, and held visioning sessions to lay the groundwork for a series of community conversations to help identify leaders and continue to cultivate and curate what this new spiritual adventure can and should be.

The first two community conversations took place this spring—the first at the LGBTQ Resource Center at North Carolina Central University and the second at the LGBTQ Center of Durham—to explore people’s hopes for spiritual community. More than thirty people participated—people of color, queer folks, and trans/non-binary folks, ranging in age from 9 months old to 60+. Our time together was filled with the sounds and feels of babies playing and elders sharing; bread being cut, salads getting dressed, soup heating up; gratitude for the openness and the willingness to share what’s real, what’s hard, and what’s good, among new friends.

We learned that, for folks to show up fully, they wanted a multigenerational, nonjudgmental space to share meals and music, be outdoors together, hear cool sermons, learn from sacred texts, and make art. We also learned that, because of past pain in spiritual spaces, understanding how to show up as an anti-oppressive, multi-faith, multi-vocal space will take time and intention.

We visioned and dreamed together, and made a plan for sharing monthly dinners, finding the joy and release of dance and moving our bodies, embracing the power of ritual, and reclaiming public space out in the world, as well as building an evolving team of visionaries and organizers that will continue to breathe life and love and meaning into this community. And we continue to dream about engaging trans/non-binary communities in altar-building in places where we gather and connecting with local artists and musicians about creating art spaces and dance parties as places for healing. Ashe!

The Clearing Creates Space for Ritual and Healing During Anti-HB2 Protest

The Clearing, founded by Transforming Hearts Collective co-leaders, is an emerging spiritual community in Durham, NC, that centers the leadership and needs of queer and trans people of color and focuses on self-love, self-healing, and community healing as radical and revolutionary acts. The Clearing is for people who don’t want or need organized religion but are yearning for community and connection, as well as people who love worship and spiritual community but haven’t felt at home in church for a long time.

In April 2016 the Clearing showed up in love for our communities when opening session began at the North Carolina General Assembly. We knew it would be a big day for trans and queer communities and organizers because it was the first major HB2 repeal effort since the special session that led to the passage of the bill. We also knew that we wanted to create a different kind of space for folks—one that would enable people to get away from the overly politicized, intensely divisive spaces that are often at the heart of protests.

We showed up with quilts and rugs, coloring books, and communion, and got a commitment from Believe Out Loud to supply us with snacks and fruit. We set up on the front lawn right in front of the legislative building, set apart from everything that was going on and in the midst of it, all at the same time, and waited. 

Slowly but surely, people began to come. Many folks requested communion and a prayer before going to speak with legislators. Some folks wanted rest. Others wanted to color and talk with friends. We had community singing and a call-and-response moment of commitment and affirmation. People came to get a snack or some water. We had printed up many copies of a collection of inspiring and affirming quotes, and so some people stopped by to take a quote to keep with them because they knew they weren't going to leave when asked and would likely get arrested. One of the local organizers stopped by simply for a hug and a time to be quiet after a proponent of HB2 yelled at her that her mother should have aborted her. The Clearing was so much more than we could have ever anticipated that day, and it gave us the fire we needed to commit to moving it forward.