This past season of Liberation Spring titled: Our Spirits, Ourselves was a truly trans formative experience that allowed me to better understand how North American culture attempts to narrow which belief systems are valid while others are kept on the periphery of acceptance. The class allowed me to see how these attempts are a direct assault on my ability to connect to the teachings and practices of my ancestors. I am Mexican American but my ancestral connection is to the land, the skies, and waters that nurtured my bloodline, Before attending this class I hesitant to accept the “accuracy” of my abuelita and abuelitos. However, now I am honored and humbled to revisit their lessons, the use of plants, and connection to the land. I feared being labeled as an atheist or someone that is “making all this stuff up.” However, this class has allowed me to see how these attempts at questioning my spiritual understanding was a result of an attempt to limit my relationship to the land and its energetic influences over my livelihood. This class allowed me to see how important it is for people who are engaged in conscious raising efforts toward liberation to also consider the role spirituality has on our ability to connect with one another through our differences and also our similarities while also recognizing their artificiality. – Johnny Aguirre
Prepare to stretch. Prepare to be amazed. Give your humanity the reboot you didn’t know it was craving. Liberation Spring is a game changing adventure for the intellect, heart, and spirit. LS offers practical community-based solutions for both living in and re-imagining the modern age of late-stage capitalism in which we find ourselves embedded. Unfurling the fabric of colonial rule and global domination is neither a project for the complacent nor the faint of heart. In fact, it takes a brave and open one. The processes and curriculum are simultaneously enlightening, confrontive, confounding, exhilarating, and gloriously messy (like all worthy and noble pursuits). Anjali Nath is the brilliant thumping pulse of this freedom school project. She’s the brainchild and lead facilitator of Liberation Spring’s sophisticated decolonial curriculum and intimate learning environment. The pedagogy invites students to learn by unlearning; to engage with innovative and ancient approaches for reclaiming land-based and indigenous knowledges for the sake of planetary renewal; one that’s equitable and just for every global citizen and stakeholder.
The most significant take-away for me, personally, was the opportunity to examine and re-examine my relationship to / with culturally appropriated ritual, ceremony, and practices. This segment of the course–with Anjali’s apt and mindful guidance –connected me to my own ancestry and mother tongue of origin. Anjali expertly and graciously led us home to deeper understandings of self and heritage by inviting all students to research particular words from our ancestral homelands. This simple yet profound assignment launched my personal journey of inquiry that has now expanded to include the study of Celtic language, Tarot, and DNA testing and mapping.
Anjali Nath’s very warm and cozy Liberation Spring freedom school is comprised of a robust,, generous, engaged, and compassionate community of people who truly care about each other and who are fervently committed to the formation of a renewable world. Liberation Spring is a rare standout from the crowd of many contemporary activist spaces and modern affinity groups which get bogged down in bureaucracy, infighting, and the prevalence of hostile call-out culture that shames members who are in the early stages of waking up from the collective sleep walk of imperial supremacy. Liberation Spring is the antithesis of shame-based anything and is one of the safer and more intimate learning spaces available. – Kelly J. Kelly
