Ana Hristić

Greetings! My name is Ana, she/her/hers, and I come to you from Belgrade, Serbia, at the confluence of two rivers, Sava & Danube. My journey here today has been a winding one; similarly a joining of two forces - that of living a version of the immigrant story in the US in a white body (for now 30 yrs!) and that of being a lover/healer/reformer of sorts in a time ripe with examples of both joy and suffering all around me.

I’ve found that it has only been through relationships - a more intimate level of relationship - that I have been able to refine what my purpose is and where I’m most needed, and when. For me, it has been only through connection with (an)other(s), a conscious & consensual embodiment of the practice of being - a practice of loving - that I’ve been able to build the muscle-memory of simultaneously feeling at home and at peace, while dreaming of and working toward liberation and justice. Courage of Care is at the confluence of these two forces, for me, these two rivers I call life!

Vaishali Mamgain

Greetings, I’m Vaishali (she/hers) I’m from the Himalayas and now live in Wabenaki territory. I draw on my maternal lineage that embodies a sense of rootedness and adventure. I’ve long been part of communities -academic, activist and spiritual - and Courage is where I feel “at home.” I liken being part of Courage to experiencing waves lapping on a beach: there is movement and stillness; there are different textures, the chartreuse seaweed, the purple shells, the pebbles – all vibrant and inherently playful. And it’s changing, moment by moment! It’s a perfect metaphor for Courage where our way of being honors multiplicities. I find myself in circle, listening, learning, offering to/with folx whose life experiences are so very different and wonderfully familiar. I am offered a respite and inspired to collaborate. The journey itself is replete with offerings and occasional missteps. I’m still exploring that. I do it with gentle confidence knowing that I can reveal all who I am and what I aspire to be.

My family recently adopted a dog. I read that it takes a while for a “rescue” to feel they are home, to feel free to “misbehave.” Well, recently our lovely Dahlia robbed her fellow dog’s food. Caught in the act she closed her eyes. “No,” we said with firm love. She heard us, then rolled over, exposing her sweet, soft belly -disarming us with her openness. “I can learn from that!” I thought. At Courage that’s our invitation – come, bring your beasts, close your eyes if you need to for a moment; we will sit, dance, move, love - “be” together; we will sing ourselves some fierce compassion as we envision and embody a just, beautiful world.

Kai Horton

Hey y’all! My name is Kai. My pronouns are they/them/theirs. These pronouns allow me the space to be multitudes, & the witnessing that: in being me, there is plurality, ocean, freedom. I am queer. This way of loving & being & relating is the embodiment of that wincing, painful euphoria when falling in love, knowing that in this fierce loving we expand our capacity for deep grief. Holding true that in this queer body is nonlinearity to all of it, none of it, some of it constantly. I am a person of color of Latinx & Asian descent.

These cultural imprints bring a sort of fluidity, poetry, expansiveness to how I move, speak, love, & show up. I am a child of immigrant parents. My lineages are not far from me, our foods, cultures, languages, art forms have been with me since my consciousness took this form. I am a queer joy advocate. A lover of nature & how it informs how spirit moves me & through me. I love movement both of the body & the masses & feel a deep calling to tending to both. I am a conduit of poetic expression. I come to you, to Courage, with a hunger to hold & be held, to witness & be witnessed, to grow, love, expand, to be free. I come to you excited to go on this journey with you at Courage, at the Summer, & beyond. I am so excited to meet you. See you soon.

Miko Brown

Hello, everyone! My name is Miko (Miko/Miko's). I am embodied as a queer Black person - as a Black woman. I’m in the practice of affirming and loving myself as I emerge newly in each moment, always seeking to honor and attend to how life is emerging and expressing itself through me while honoring and affirming how life is emerging and expressing itself through others. I feel most alive in communities, spaces, and relationships of loving and liberatory practice.

Being a part of Courage feels like answering a call to community, a call to love, a call to belonging and care, a call to being held and seen and loved and recognized. To me, Courage is an experience of the kind of togetherness and care that heals and uplifts and liberates. It’s an experience of the kind of love that celebrates and affirms and holds you in all of the ways you deserve, all of the ways you are. And what I love most about Courage is how in Courage space and community, I’ve felt held in ways that have enabled me to hold others, for us to hold each other together - co-holding, co-healing, co-liberation. I am passionate about social justice and equity, collective care and healing, self-love in action, and contemplative and liberatory practices for the benefit of all beings and our planet.

Brooke Lavelle

Hi, all! I’m Brooke (she/her), a nomadic home-body born and raised in Bayonne, NJ to two working class parents of Irish and Norweigian descent. After spending nearly two decades roaming—from Atlanta to the Himalayas and from the Bay Area to Berlin—I now call Brooklyn, NY—Lenape Territory—home. I love New York because I feel that I can be both rooted AND wild here.

I’m big sister to Jenny and Pat, auntie to Milo, cousin to Jadie, Bri and Kai, and many more. Family means the world to me. And Courage is my family, too. I’ve made lifelong friends in this community, and am so grateful to be able to walk through this life with such amazingly loving, humble, wise and fierce beings!

Courage is my familial home and it is also my spiritual home. It is where I get to engage honestly and wholeheartedly with the bittersweetness of this life -- the suffering, the pain, the heartbreak and also the joy, the love and the wild, wild beauty. Being able to be with that both/and is, to me, the heart of spiritual activism.