Somatically Deconstructing the Beauty Hierarchy
A Workshop and A Book Release you don't want to miss!
Dear Friends of Shourd Somatics and The End of Isolation Film,
There are two, exciting things coming up that involve myself and people I partner with in love and liberation:
I’m co-hosting a workshop on Somatically Deconstructing The Beauty Hierarchy with another wonderful politicized somatic practitioner kathleen marie. It will take place on zoom, Monday, June 5 · 10am-12pm PDT. $20 - $75 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. Register Here. We’re at a moment in this country where many people are doubling down on conventional beauty standards: fake tans, weight loss drugs, the many-billion-dollar anti-aging industry. Losing our status on the beauty hierarchy can literally feel life-threatening because, for humans, belonging is safety. But, these are our bodies — dammit. We get to enjoy them, to inhabit them fully, and experience love, joy, and grief. This is the form we get to play in. Under these masks, layers, and constructs is the source of our aliveness, life force, our vitality and our collective power to make change. kathleen marie and I will host a workshop where we will sit with these questions and more as we somatically deconstruct pretty privilege. RSVP Here
My romantic and creative partner, Suotonye Emile Deweaver, has a brilliant book coming out…TODAY. The book is called Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy, and an Abolitionist Future and it is literally one of the top 5 books on organizing, surviving and liberating our ourselves I have ever read. Yes, I love this man and I am biased, but I am also 100% right about this. I will be at the event this Saturday, May 17, 2025, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, in Oakland, 3340 International Blvd, Oakland, CA. RSVP here. I will also be at the events in Santa Cruz and Chicago. This is a book that can and will shake up, enliven and grow our movement to reimagine justice outside prisons and jails and help us transform our culture. Let’s make it happen people, buy this book!
More about Kathleen, Suotonye and myself…
Sarah Shourd is a Somatic Practitioner and Coach trained in Trauma Transformation. She is also an award-winning Narrative Change Leader in the field of reimaging justice outside prisons and jails through journalism, theater, books and film. In 2009, Sarah was living in Syria when she was captured near the unmarked Iran-Iraq border and imprisoned by the Iranian government incommunicado in solitary confinement for 410 days. This experience has been a springboard for Shourd's work and leadership for healing, justice and collective liberation over the last 15 years.
With lucid, urgent prose, Suotonye Emile Deweaver, intervenes in contemporary debates on criminal justice and racial justice efforts with his eye-opening discussion of the tools we need to end white supremacy—both within and outside the carceral setting. During his twenty-one years in prison, DeWeaver covertly organized to pass legislation impacting juveniles in California’s criminal legal system; was a culture writer for Easy Street Magazine; and co-founded Prison Renaissance, an organization centering incarcerated voices and incarcerated leadership. "Wherever you land on the spectrum—from prison reformer to prison abolitionist—Emile DeWeaver’s powerful words will challenge and inspire you."—James Forman Jr., J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law, Yale Law School
kathleen marie is a politicized somatic practitioner who is a commitment to collective liberation, ethical power, and the unfolding of care-centered communities. they have been practicing different forms of somatics for over 20 years and believe that somatic tools are one possibility for helping people find agency that is rooted in collective liberation and interdependence. kathleen’s life and work use a pleasure-centered approach to transformation.
