Date: Thursday, June 9, 2022, 7:00 - 8:00 pm ET
Available by: Join by Videoconference Only (learn more about videoconference)

Play and Spirituality in Community:

A Joyful Gathering of Ritual, Surprise, Experiments and Collaborations

Facilitated by Rev. Wendy Jo Cole and Barrie Cole

My sister Barrie Cole I are excited to welcome you to Play and Spirituality in Community, A Joyful Gathering of Ritual, Surprise, Experiments and Collaborations. We will begin with a short talk and an invocation of Play and Spirituality and then we will Play. Our Play will be based in Barrie Cole’s Collaborations and Experiments.

Let’s experiment, collaborate, and see what happens when we spend time with each other in playful ways which break protocol, enchant, and connect. We will start with a list of meaningful and/or ridiculous activities which are frameworks to new ways of being and seeing. The order of these activities will be determined through randomization. Whisper singing, light watching, personal think tanks, one- minute sermons, flying practice and a gallery of  hands are some of the experiments/ collaborations we may explore.

After Playing, Collaborating, and Experimenting together, we will answer questions and reflect on this process. We will do a short surprise practice, and end with a closing prayer to the Divine in Play. 

Facilitators

Rev. Wendy Jo Cole

Rev Wendy Jo Cole is an Interspiritual Minister and an Interspiritual Counselor through One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. Her roots are in Judaism, and she serves all faiths and backgrounds with compassion, play, and love.  

She is also an Early Childhood Educator. Wendy Jo works as a matriarch and teacher at Mi Casita in Brooklyn NY and has spent most of her career as the Director of the progressive anti-racist Cooperative play-based pre-school Maple Street School for 20 years. 

Wendy Jo attends the Ackerman's Institute and studies family therapy. She is a founder of a racial and social justice conference and series for early childhood educators Little Chairs Big Differences where she learns and leads at the same time. Wendy is committed to dismantling white supremacist culture beginning with herself. Wendy is also a founder and Board Member of the Brooklyn Coalition of Early Childhood Programs, a coalition dedicated to policy, advocacy, and mutual support made up and led by diverse early childhood program leaders in Brooklyn. Wendy is a play revolutionary and is committed to creating collaborative culture that is just and joyful in schools, organizations, and families. 

Wendy has a master’s degree from Bank Street College in Early Childhood Leadership, a MSW from University of Minnesota, and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. Wendy lives in her radical expansive LGBTQIA, multi-racial, neurodiverse inter-generational blended family in Brooklyn, NY on Lenape Land.

Barrie Cole

Barrie Cole is a  playwright, essayist, monologist, poet, and short story writer. Some of her plays include Reverse Gossip, Reality is an Activity, Elevator Tours, Meaning is Tricky, and Fruit Tree Backpack.  Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and most recently in the book Storytellers’ True Stories About Love. Her work is concerned with language, imagination, and what it means to be alive.

She has also assisted dozens of people in writing and editing novels, essays, non-fiction books, dissertations, speeches, memoirs, plays, and articles. She believes that everyone can improve their writing skills in pleasurable and measurable ways with generative writing strategies that effectively interrupt outmoded patterning and create new pathways for expression. She has led writing workshops as well as workshops in collaborations and experiments for individuals and groups as well as in colleges, libraries, schools, retreats, and symposiums. She holds a BA in Theater from Emerson College, an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College.

If you have questions about registering for this course, please contact One Spirit Learning Alliance by email to info@1spirit.org or call 212-931-6840.