a planet whispering circle
and fundraiser
JOIN US FOR A PLANET WHISPERING CIRCLE + FUNDRAISER TO RAISE MONEY FOR THIS PRINCIPLE, PARABLE AND ANCESTRAL PROMISE: “back in the day, the village took care of its healers, artists and essential workers for the planet.”
This circle is for people invested in spiritually grounded, holistic, integrated, interweaving approaches to the complex, multi-pronged ecocide and capitalist/colonial/environmental collapse in front of us.
Please come if you are here for courageous, inventive, ancestor-inspired approaches that address root cause solutions, and build/protect/grow flourishing economies of divestment, solidarity, interspecies liberation, audacious collective care, and thriving village wealth.
Come if you want to grow, create, grieve, fall apart, come alive again (and again), give, receive and live wholeheartedly in a grief-centered way of life, and build grief-centered economies that honour your unique love story with the universe.
JOIN US
SATURDAY AUGUST 15
1-4PM eastern time
🌳on the wood wide web🌳
zoom zoom zoom
what is a planet whispering circle?
I am Shaunga, a long-time grief-worker, death doula, spiritual midwife, planetary altar carrier and professional “SEE-ER.” In my 42 years, I have always had the ability to perceive and speak to the “unseen realms” of life, the spirit world, and our beyond-human relatives. I’ve done professional readings and supported queer and trans community for 20+ years, and have continued to develop my gifts alongside dedicated teachers, Elders, and peers who are invested in abolition, solidarity, and ancestor healing.
During this 3-hour period, I’m offering mini-readings for folks who want to build strength and capacity for thriving village principles. How these readings work:
• one person comes forward with a big question, or a small thing, currently sitting on your heart and in front of humanity
• choose one of my planet whispering services, and I do a reading for you
• the goal of each reading is to illuminate what thriving village principle(s) you currently embody, that a community needs to witness, support and resource
We’ll have time for ~5-8 people to receive a reading during the circle. We have room for many people in the audience to attend live or watch the replay.
The beauty of a planet whispering circle: whatever comes up in one reading usually contains relevant, meaningful and necessary messages for many people to witness and receive.
Those who feel called to receive a reading in public embodies a principle that many of us carry in our ancestral memories of what life was like in thriving villages. That is, some aspects of our healing, self-development and growth are meant to be witnessed and held in community. Many parts of our internal tensions and (r)evolutions are expressions of larger village dynamics.
When we receive a reading from a healer in circle, it gives our village the opportunity to learn and recognize who we are on a level of soul, spirit, heart, mind and body. It gives the village instructions on how to care for us and support us accordingly. Because of this, the entire village becomes more of itself: more fed, more whole, more alive.
meet my wing woman
I’m blessed to have my long-time deer friend and current wing-woman, contribute to this circle: RAVYN WNGZ.
In between readings Ravyn will offer spiritually grounded, abolitionist, political commentary and weaving.
She will speak to the unfolding of our central principle: back in the day, the village took care of its healers, artists and essential workers for the planet.
Ravyn will bring her own research questions for us to collectively tend to, on themes of raising our standards of accessibility and collective care, village principles that ensure our healers, artists and services workers are resourced, and that protect intergenerational, interspecies liberation as a whole.
She’ll speak to both the complexity and simplicity of what it takes to grow the promise of an interweaving global thriving village, and meet the enormous challenges ahead of us as a species.
All who attend will be encouraged to share your own big questions and small things in the chat, including what thriving village principles speak to you as they emerge.
After the event, we’ll create a giant map.
I will take some time to create a map of our big questions and small things, along with the medicine, insights and illumination of thriving village principles that emerged from our gathering. I will map these on a planetary altar of north, west, south, east and center.
Ravyn and I will study the map and add additional emerging guidance. This map and its insights will be shared with all who attend, along with the replay from the event.
THOSE WHO RECEIVE READINGS CAN CHOOSE FROM ONE OF THESE SERVICES:
CELESTIAL WHISPERING
(the quantum birth chart)
In this reading, I do a channelled reading of your birth chart. Along with configurations of planets, constellations and houses, I look at the quantum matter or unseen aspects of what was present in the sky at the moment of your birth. This practise comes from a 16-year practise and journey with decolonizing astrology, and reclaiming earth-honouring traditions and cosmology systems from my lineage. I have an open reading in this practise available on my youtube channel with a long-time good listener. Check it out here.
ANIMAL WHISPERING
(the revolutionary heart or animal universe)
the revolutionary heart is my signature animal communication service. I speak to an animal companion who is beloved to you, whether they are in body or in spirit. I get their perspective on your question, how they see you, and how your relationship reveals the thriving village principle(s) you embody.
animal universe is an incredibly special cosmology system that I have reclaimed and re-membered from my ancestral wisdom traditions. In this reading I look at which primordial animal guides sit on important places of your birth chart, and act as guardians with a purpose.
STORY WHISPERING
(clairvoyant tarot or the chosen many)
This one is so fun. After you ask your question, I listen to which fictional character or story wants to speak to us because they/it has extraordinary insight and guidance in the moment.
Or, you can request a specialized reading from my one-of-a-kind clairvoyant tarot deck, the chosen many. This is a deck specific to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I pull a card from the world of Buffy to speak to your question and illuminate your thriving village principle.
BODY WHISPERING
This reading is really about spiritual diagnosis on complex questions and personal/planetary challenges. After you ask your question, I look to what part of the human body is speaking (heart, lungs, feet, etc), and what part of the planetary body speaks in collaboration with the human body (trees, ocean, plants, etc). Together, they tell a story that points toward repair, restitution, survival and thriving.
If you’re interested in receiving a reading, please fill out this form.
the fun(d)raiser
This fundraiser is both a rapid-response need, and a full-hearted commitment to practise, workshop and grow our fundamental principle as a thriving village prototype.
What I want most of all is to get people in the room who long to live and experience what it’s like to live, work, grieve, play, rest and grow in an ecosystem of holistic village care and protection. This is an ongoing learning, unlearning, research, experimentation and development of grief-centered economy building. We all know we’ve been “colonized in a cup” (as a previous teacher used to say), so this is a learn-as-we-go project.
This is part of my larger research and current ancestral task – a giant vision and small thing on my heart, a vision and design for a VILLAGE ARTIST GRANT ECOSYSTEM. (To learn more about this project, you can read our public research report.)
here is what I would like to do with the money we raise:
LEVEL ONE
✰ rapid-response for Shaunga’s accessible living fund: I am a queer, multi-gendered (trans identified), Bengali spoonie and community auntie. I currently need urgent accessibility support. This will go toward funding an accessibility care team around me, assistant(s) with daily/city errands, nutritional support + physical therapy (for loss of mobility/strength + chronic pain and flares), grief support/survivor support/spiritual support (for abuse and trauma recovery), animal dependent care, and tending to urgent accessibility issues in my home and overall health.
The first chunk of money raised must go toward these accessibility expenses, as well as reciprocity for the labour and services shared during the event between myself and Ravyn, and financial offering for anyone else who contributes significant labour to the event.
LEVEL TWO: Shaunga’s Thriving Village Budget
Once we fulfill level one, I want to see how much money we can raise to play with, and grow Shaunga’s Thriving Village Budget. Keep in mind, we will likely not be able to fund everything at once. But I want to share my ideas so you can get a sense of what we can create here, as we grow this a multi-year, long-term project. Here are some of my immediate ideas:
✰ a holistic, integrated approach to wildfire survivor support
→ as we know, multiple Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario have been recently hit hard by wildfires. Money raised can be sent directly to communities asking for emergency financial support.
→ funds can be devoted to resourcing a turtle-island wide advisory council of Indigenous, Black, Afro-Indigenous Fire Keepers, Water Protectors, Land Defenders, Elders, and Wisdom Keepers who are working on root cause solutions on the topic of forest fires and environmental crisis at large
→ resourcing local healers and service workers: I am currently based in Tkaronto (Toronto). Many of us have been impacted by the recent worsened air quality from wildfire smoke. Moreover, we’ve gotten word that many, perhaps hundreds of Indigenous wildfire survivors and evacuees will be coming to the city for safe passage. They’ve asked small businesses and service providers to offer anything generous to evacuees they can, from warm meals, gifts, or service-based donations.
But here’s what I’m thinking: in times of crisis, it’s always healers, artists that step up and offer their services for free. But we are doing this at a time that many of us are experiencing extreme economic, financial, environmental, social, and personal stress. With money we raise, I would be able to pay higher amounts to people I invite onto my accessibility team, such as bodyworkers, cooks, city drivers, nutritionists, herbalists, grief workers, movement coaches or various kinds of healing practitioners. That means they also will have extra support, time and energy to be available for the pressure of our current times: whether that is offering more free gifts, low-cost services, rest, or spend more time in shared spaces of recovery and restitution.
✰ growing village-raised public funding for my practise and services, that doesn’t rely solely on institutions, charities, non-profits, or corporations
→ here I can offer certain parts of my services where a transactional model is not appropriate, nor is it appropriate for these services to rely on state/institutional funding. In this model, my financial bases are covered, which gives me room to play. Here, I’d like to organize local and online spaces for ancestor-guided artists to workshop their stories, access studio space, get coaching and feedback on works-in-progress, sit in sound baths and breathing circles, and take my Ancestor Theatre workshops.
✰ paid research positions: as we grow the pot, I’d like to build funding for paid positions for writers, readers and good listeners, to study stories with me, and my specialized technique of unearthing timely ancestral guidance via script study (the next story I want us to study is avatar the last air bender!)
I want to create paid position(s) for people who are grieving an important loss, and want to learn from my body of work on animal companion loss, for grievers of all kinds, or for someone(s) who wants to go on a 1:1 ancestor dreaming apprenticeship with my mentorship.
Note: There will most definitely be a process and agreement of exchange and reciprocity when it comes to how anyone receives money or paid positions from my thriving village budget. In any kind of ancestor-healing space, sincere offerings must be made – they just don’t always have to be monetary. The point is, that I want to experience what it’s like to have a willing village resource and protect the work that we do together – teachers and students, healers and seekers, as essential labour performed on both sides.
✰ small gifts for disenfranchised labour: the heart my vision and design for a Village Artist Grant Ecosystem transforms disenfranchised labour into beloved, cherished, paid village roles – which then become the building blocks of grief-centered, earth-honouring economies.
I would love to create avenues for folks who gather around this project to receive financial support for your disenfranchised labour, and how that labour grows into more thriving village principles. This fund can start as small financial gifts/offerings, and that grow into bigger paid positions and village-raised artist grants.
Disenfranchised labour cannot be separated from feminized labour and racialized labour. This is labour that keeps families, movements, generations and selves alive. And yet, we are culturally trained to assume this labour is never worthy of reciprocity, and that we will never exchange money directly for this labour.
some examples of disenfranchised labour…
click to read more.
WORKING THROUGH CONFLICT
Some of the hardest work we ever do is while moving through complicated relationship conflict. Yet these moments are rarely financially supported and pushed to the realm of “personal issues” or “community drama.” We often feel shame or the need to hide that we are struggling, instead of having access to a well-resourced village that wants the best for each individual and can support a process of relationship repair and evolution.
When the process of moving through conflict isn’t supported, things can turn nasty much more quickly. And, we are much more likely to avoid personal responsibility or healing work required to be better people in our relationships, which then turns into never-ending, repeating, looping conflict that never gets released, intimately or collectively.
In Shaunga’s Thriving Village Budget, community members can receive financial support specifically for the labour of moving through conflict, and add to our collective research, as to how our relationship to ourselves, each other and liberation changes when this labour is protected.
RETROACTIVE PAY
What about all the times women of colour educated white women on their racism for free? Every time femmes educated men? Every time employees educated their employers on creating safe working environments? Every time Black women educate everyone on everything? We are so deeply trained to expect free education, which sometimes turns into endless mentoring and mothering, and we never get those hours back.
Yes, we’ve all seen funny memes about how we ‘should’ charge for this labour. But I don’t actually think it’s a joke when you recognize how traumatizing and depleting these patterns are, and how much energy it takes away from us when we could be focusing on better things.
The ancestors + parts of ourselves who have never gotten a real, sincere, tangible offering for this type of work are tired. They need offerings. They need reciprocity.
WRITERS AND READERS FOR A LIVING
This one acknowledges that “writing” and “reading” is indeed labour, and when you perform this labour, you deserve to be paid for it. Not because you taught a class about writing. Not because you went viral on substack. Not because you landed a book deal or temporary job. Simply for the labour of writing and reading.
I can’t wait to put money toward mini-grants for good listeners to read, listen, write, and study stories with me.
This fund can then extend further to visual artists, musicians, craftspeople, service workers and practitioners of all kinds. Imagine getting paid just for the labour of what you create, regardless of outcome?
GET PAID TO REST AND PLAY
My goal this summer is to gather a few weirdo queer and trans adults to run through sprinklers at children’s parks with me – and get paid for the labour of learning how to play, have fun, and be restful.
So many of us did not get to play enough as kids – we had to take adult responsibilities early in life, our families were living in great economic stress or poverty, and many have grown up in situations of domestic violence. It takes WORK to learn how to rest, play, and be at ease.
And yet, when we are well rested, relaxed, and have spaces to express ourselves, laugh, be in joy, and have fun, we are much more equipped to create and invent our best offerings toward a liberated world.
GRIEVING AND DYING FOR A LIVING
So many of our repeating collective problems can be boiled down to the fact that we live in death-denying societies. We have no economic/cultural models that exchange money for the inherent labour of moving through an end-of-life + transition + afterlife phase.
For us to truly be available to truly transform our relationship to white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, patriarchy, ableism, homophobia/transphobia and the ways capitalism has been internalized in all of us – we need time, support and resources to fall apart. To listen, be still, grieve, and dismantle out-worn generational relationship cycles, enough to be present and re-member an earth-honouring way of living each day.
This is what everyone on this journey needs to be available for. It is essential to co-creating conditions of genuine liberation, ancestral recovery and communal repair. And yet, we sidestep and turn away from this work by design.
Here, we offer financial protection to those who are going through transitional, grief-filled experiences. We experience and share what becomes possible when we are held by an ecosystem designed to protect this labour.
…there is so much more from this fund we can grow over time!
reserve your spot
and contribute
If you’re excited about this work, please join us! I will share updates and information at the event about what kind of money we have raised, and how I’m imagining we can play with Shaunga’s Thriving Village Budget. Come and share what matters to you, what excites you the most, because I want to have your input. To keep updated on how things unfold, you can follow along my free newsletter on substack.
Click the link below to contribute an amount to this fundraiser. Anything generous and in your capacity is deeply appreciated. Everyone who contributes will get access to join the event on August 15 (look for the confirmation email in your inbox after you contribute).
For those who want to attend the event but cannot afford to contribute anything, we’ll have a sign up sheet for free tickets. We welcome anyone who can contribute support by amplifying, sharing and promoting this fundraiser.
do you want to support?
Anyone who wants to support this fundraiser or the work as a whole, please do reach out!
There are folks with many different kinds of wealth, skills, experience. If you have ideas of how you want to contribute, I’d love to hear. If you are running projects and see places of potential mutual collaboration, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Right now, I would benefit most from support with amplification and promotion. If you have capacity to share and amplify the invitation to folks who want to invest in these types of village-centered practices, please do.
Additionally, if anyone has a zoom account that can host larger amounts of people, and can support with running the tech side of the event – please reach out.
Finally, if anyone has capacity to sponsor ASL Interpretation (or find someone who can) that would be amazing as I can’t cover this cost up front.
Any support in these directions is much appreciated, so that I can focus on spiritual preparation to host a phenomenal event.
You can reach out to mercury@shaungatagore.com – you can put “fundraiser support” in the subject title.