So much is unfolding on our planet right now, and having a space to be in community with others committed to a caring, just world is essential. This time in our history is presenting both opportunities and challenges as global forces are intent on building economies and power to further police bodies of culture, 2SLGBTQIA+ folks, and anyone who embodies identities that are marginalized and targeted by dominant culture, climate chaos, and general uncertainty and tumult. And we’re supposed to operate as if everything is ok…and we’re not.
As facilitators, activists, educators, and people deeply committed to getting free, these are some of the questions we have at this time:
What does relationship look like in this context?
How can we survive this time when we’ve never lived through a time like this before? What lessons can we bring forward from ancestors who did make it through equally challenging times?
How do we “find the others,” those who are also committed to getting free?
What have we forgotten? What can we practice so we remember?
How are we medicine for each other?
What ancestral technology can we tap into to reimagine and dream our way forward?
What do we want our legacy to be from this time?
How do we stay in connection with ourselves, each other, the land, and all beings?
These questions have led us to create this offering, The Gathering, which is an opportunity to come together, connect, raise consciousness, grieve, heal, connect with resilience and joy, center relationships, and develop new skills to meet this moment.
The Gathering begins with a three-day intensive, March 19-21, 2025, where we will build a sacred container, connect across lines of difference, and explore the themes of accountability and liberation. Then, we will meet in race-based affinity groups (BIPOC/PGM and white-bodied) monthly for two hours, each gathering from April to August (see dates and times below.) Our time will conclude with a session on September 25, 2025. Our September session will either be in shared space, across difference, or in affinity groups again based on what facilitators and participants feel is most needed.
Over the course of our time together, we’ll explore:
What accountability means personally, in community, and culturally
Holding space for ourselves and one another given the cultural context
Holding space during moments of collective trauma
Our specific role and options for response based on our embodied identities
Somatic awareness for group attunement
What it means to get free in the current context
What we need to choose love over fear
and more
We will meet via Zoom for our sessions.
Sessions will be recorded for those who aren’t available to attend each live gathering. Because we are fostering a strong community of practice, we expect participants to make every effort to be present for and contribute to the live group dynamics.
The Gathering will be led by Michelle Johnson, Stephanie Ghoston Paul, Rebby Kern, Tema Okun, and Amy Burtaine. Each one of the facilitators is in constant inquiry about what accountability means personally and in community as we work toward creating conditions for liberation. To learn more about each of them, read below.
Dates and Times:
Three-Day Immersion March 19th-21st 10:00 am-2:00 pm PT/1:00-4:00 pm ET
Affinity Groups
PGM/BIPOC 10:00 am-12:00 pm PT/1:00-3:00 pm ET
April 16th
May 14th
June 18th
July 16th
August 13th
White-Bodied Affinity Group 10:00 am-12:00 pm PST/1:00-3:00 pm EST on the 2nd Monday of each month.
April 14
May 12
June 9
July 7
August 11
Investment:
Justice Pricing:
We offer a three-tiered scale:
$1800 - Community Rate (discounted)
2200 - Sustainer Rate (pays for you)
$2500 - Supporter Rate (supports others/as well as yourself)
We invite you to consider what you are able to contribute and if you are in a position to pay at the higher end of the scale to support others who are not positioned to pay the highest tier of the scale.
If you are white-bodied and in a position to sponsor a space for a PGM to attend this offering, please email info@michellecjohnson.com or donate to the sponsorship/scholarship fund via Venmo @MichellecJohnson LLC or Paypal. Please note The Gathering in the Memo line.
Payment plans and a pay-what-you-can option are available upon request.
Please contact us directly to inquire about payment plans or a pay-what-you-can option. info@michellecjohnson.com
About the Facilitators
Michelle Cassandra Johnson (she/her)
Michelle is an author, activist, spiritual teacher, racial equity consultant and educator, and intuitive and shamanic healer. She approaches her life and work from a place of knowing we are, can, and must heal individually and collectively. Michelle facilitates workshops and immersions, leads retreats and transformative experiences nationwide, and offers an array of healing services for individuals and groups. For over 25 years as a racial equity educator, she has worked with large corporations, non-profits, and community groups. Michelle is a five-time published author, and In May 2025, her sixth book, The Wisdom of the Hive, published by Sounds True and co-written with her best friend, Amy Burtaine, comes out.
Michelle was a TEDx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019 and has been interviewed on several podcasts in which she explores the premise and foundation of Skill in Action, along with embodied approaches to racial equity work, creating ritual in justice spaces, our divine connection with nature and Spirit, and how we as a culture can heal.
Michelle leads courageously from the heart with compassion and a commitment to address the heartbreak dominant culture causes for many because of the harm it creates. She inspires change that allows people to stand in their humanity and wholeness in a world that fragments most of us. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, sweet dog, Jasper, and her honeybees.
Rebby Kern (they/them)
Rebby is a dynamic soul rooted in a vision where love and connection flow freely—between humans, nature, and all the worlds we don’t yet have words for. As a nonbinary, biracial, hard-of-hearing trailblazer, Rebby believes in weaving communities where relationships are sacred and our collective humanity is nurtured through radical care. Based in Charlotte, NC, they serve as the Senior Specialist for Welcoming Schools at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, working tirelessly to create brave spaces for the next generation of changemakers.
Stephanie Ghoston Paul (she/her)
Stephanie is an internationally recognized speaker, racial justice facilitator, organizational development consultant, life coach, and recovering lawyer. Her sweet spot is helping movement-makers bring to reality a radically transformed world through wholehearted coaching and consulting. With individuals that looks like self-care and boundaries work to help leaders balance their lives by coming back home to themselves. Within community, Stephanie holds space for collective healing through truth-telling, and explores what it means to be a living ancestor. In organizations, she co-designs pathways to name harm, imagine liberatory ways of being, and engage in the messy culture and people work needed for that transformation. Stephanie believes that when people, communities and ecosystems fully align and embody their purpose, we move toward a future where all human beings are free, whole, and enough.
She’s been described as a purpose-whisperer, an ecosystem connector, and a culture alchemist. Stephanie is also a best-selling author, the podcast host of Take Nothing When I Die, a documentarian and a TEDx speaker. She centers ease and care in her life and her work, making sure to practice what she preaches. When she's not "working" Stephanie enjoys cooking spicy dishes with her partner, finding new flavors of delicious tea, and witnessing her small humans discover the world.
Tema (she/her)
Tema has spent over 40 years working with and for organizations, schools, and community-based institutions as an educator, facilitator, and coach focused on issues of racial justice and equity. She currently facilitates, consults, coaches, and offers talks for and with leaders and organizations nationwide. She also offers spiritual guidance and coaching to activists interested in spiritual grounding - you can find out more at the website FierceLove.info. She is an artist, poet, and writer and is the author of the award-winning The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don’t Want to Know (2010, IAP) and the widely used article White Supremacy Culture. She has published a revised version of this article on an extended and expanded website at www.whitesupremacyculture.info. Tema is a long-time Palestine solidarity activist and a member of the Triangle Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. She sits on the boards of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and Solidaire. She belongs to the Bhumisphara Sangha under the leadership of Lama Rod Owens. She lives in Durham NC where she is fortunate to reside among beloved community. Her current project is deepening her ability to love her neighbor as herself. She is finding the instruction easy and the follow through challenging, given how we live in a culture that is afraid to help us do either or both.
Amy Burtaine (she/her)
Amy is a facilitator, anti-racist trainer, teaching-artist and coach who is committed to collective liberation. She has worked nationally and internationally as a community-based theater educator specializing in theater for social change, and is a facilitator of the work of the Theatre of the Oppressed. She believes that the arts can help us envision a world that is socially just, equitable, and free of oppression, where everyone can find and use their voice and where all voices are heard equally. Her greatest passion is working with groups and communities to use the tools of play to find connection, collaboration and healing. She currently works in collaboration with BIPOC partners to bring anti-racism training and equity processes to organizations. She co-authored a book on facilitating white affinity spaces as anti-racist practice with Robin DiAngelo that was released in 2022. Amy lives on an island in the Puget Sound with her husband and son, two dogs and two beehives.