the hive newsletter
Shades of Honey newsletter bringing you updated events, merch, future collaboration, news, and our community
NOTES FROM THE HIVE
POEM OF THE MONTH
COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT
BOOK OF THE MONTH
NO-FLY ZONE
OUR COLLABORATORS
HONEY OF THE MONTH
September 2022
From : Micaela Grant
A selfie of Micaela in a white tank with their hair out fills the frame
NOTES FROM THE HIVE— Micaela (she/her)
_____________________________
Hi everyone! For this month’s newsletter, I’d like to talk about some of the challenges I’m currently facing. If any of this resonates with you or you’d like to spark a conversation with me about anything at all, feel free to dm me on instagram @mlcaeia.
The other day, I was venting to my therapist about how hard and exhausting it is sometimes to have strong, healthy interpersonal relationships with people. After affirming that I do a good job with my relationships, he said something so simple yet so striking to me. He said, “You are good with the external, you’re good with navigating and maintaining your relationships. But, please don’t abandon yourself Please don’t forget about the internal”. He continued to talk about how the majority of the work I need to do is internal, it’s making sure I nurture my relationship with myself first and foremost. I sat back in my chair and spaced out for a little bit after hearing that; what he’d said weighed on me heavily but it also seems like a necessary weight to bear. I realized that, in the process of trying to make sure I’m not abandoned by those around me, I have in fact abandoned myself. I had never really made that connection before, I never really even thought too hard about my relationship with myself. Sure, I take care of myself on a physical level, but emotionally you could say I’ve been like a deadbeat parent to myself. For me, the month of September looks like nourishing myself, it looks like listening to my body the first time, it looks like slowing down and giving myself a chance to breathe, it looks like calling in my friends and setting healthy boundaries. September looks like me showing up for myself, just as I show up for the people around me.
In hope and solidarity,
Micaela
therapy
By Audre Lorde
“Trying to see you
My eyes grow
confused
it is not your face
they are seeking
fingering through your spaces
like a hungry child
even now
I do not want
to make a poem
I want to make you
more and less
a part
from my self.”
(Page 281 of Collected Poems of Audre Lorde)
SHADES OF HONEY BOOK OF THE MONTH:
Giovanni’s ROOM
Created by James Baldwin
Set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris, this groundbreaking novel about love and the fear of love is "a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction" (The Atlantic).
In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.
David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.
David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
Community highlight:
Dunia shawty
(she/they)
Hi, I am Dunia, A Black Denverite who is passionate about all things frequencies.
As a Practitioner, Vocalist, Musician, and Spiritualist, my goal is to share my gifts and encourage elevation through spiritual journey and development through tools I have used my whole life. Everything you need is already inside you and my aim is to help you connect with spirit to gain that clear direction to heal and thrive in every aspect possible.
I provide Sound Bath sessions (private or group), art installations, and sound experiences to promote community. I want you to be able to trust in yourself and your own gifts while developing healthy energetic boundaries.
You can find out more information about Dunia’s Room, Group Classes, Weekly Sound Clearings, and Sound in Color: A Sound Bath for POC as well as their private sound healing sessions!
Support Dunia’s Room: A Night of Soul @ Fort Greene
October 18, 2022
Bar Opens at 7. Music starts at 8
““And with every step I took it became more impossible for me to turn back. And my mind was empty—or it was as though my mind had become one enormous, anaesthetized wound. I thought only, One day I'll weep for this. One of these days I'll start to cry.”
—James Baldwin
OUR COMMUNITY
THESE ARE PEOPLE IN OUR COMMUNITY THAT CONTINUALLY SHOW UP FOR AND ALONGSIDE SHADES. THEY HELP US TO HOST EVENTS, FUNDRAISE, AND STAND IN LOVE WITH US! PLEASE SUPPORT THEM, THEIR MISSIONS, AND THEIR BUSINESS!CUT & PASTE COLORADO
@cut.paste.colorado on IG
THE BRAZEN PROJECT
fights to shift the culture on Colorado campuses to end abortion stigma. We’re loudly, unapologetically pro-abortion access. We help lift up and share stories, have meaningful conversations with other students, and push for a better understanding of this common medical procedure. Right now, we’re active on the Auraria campus, CSU, and CU Boulder.
THE LABORATORY OF RITUAL ARTS & PEDAGOGY
The RAP LAB at the University of Colorado, Boulder is a trans-disciplinary research hub for the study of hip-hop cultures and adjacent artistic movements of color. We not only study the history of this artistic movement but its mechanics as a dynamic system of rituals that can be implemented in the streets to help youth and families engage in culturally legitimate learning. Inspired by a natural sciences laboratory and a hip-hop record label, The RAP Lab is experimental, project-driven, and outward-looking. We bring together students, faculty, and community leaders to work on collaborative and individual research, publications, digital multi-media content, archives, courses, community projects, and public events.
CELSTIAL ALEGRIA REPARATIONS NETWORK
The Reparations Network is a community funded action to make reparations to our beautiful Black community. The Reparations Network was originally created to run parallel each time I offer the Confronting Anti-Blackness for Latinx and Chicanx program. For Fall 2021, the Reparations Network ran in tandem with the Confronting White Supremacy program I collaborated on with Bianca Mikahn and Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Denver.
From the community raised funds, Celestial Alegría pays $500 of reparations to 10 Black leaders, artists, organizers, healers and organizations each week as the Confronting White Supremacy participants moved through the 10 week training program. Each Friday reparations recipients are uplifted on the Celestial Alegría social media!
Since the launch of the Reparations Network in July 2020, our community raised $20,000 through this grassroots community action, and offered reparations to 40 Black siblings and Black led organizations in our community!
NO-FLY ZONE
Rest helps us recover from physical and mental effort and can be either active or passive. Relaxation techniques like mindfulness are active forms of rest since we have to practice them. Moderate exercise is sometimes considered active rest, as it can be more restorative than reclining or doing nothing at all. Passive forms of rest like napping or lying down also come to mind when we think of rest.
Shades of Honey offers the “no-fly zone” to provide a way for you to rest. This month we have included a poem by LeChell "The Shootah" R.H. Sit back, relax and enjoy, even if it’s only three minutes.
HONEY OF THE MONTH
Every month we give you new tunes!
CURRENTLY STREAMING:
Notes to the Hive August Song
Curated by Micaela Grant
I loooooooove this song, I recently discovered it when it came on shuffle on spotify. Both sonically and lyrically, I feel that Alemeda in this song captures my attitude toward life right now.