Free First Thursdays: October

Luana Morales is an Afro-Boricua Birth, Death, and Ancestral healing arts practitioner: birth and bereavement doula, death midwife, circle keeper, officiant, reiki master teacher, ritual guide, spiritual coach, and herbal apprentice devoted to reclaiming and reimagining our birth, death, and Afro-Indigenous healing practices. She is a Luminary, Neighborhood Salon Co-Facilitator, and Community Care Weaver for the Movement Sustainability Commons. In 2017 she co- founded Seeds of Our Ancestors, a mobile interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and multi-lineage healing squad in service to movement spaces devoted to healing justice. She started the Spirit of the Earth Carry me Home Project as a response to support low income/undocumented families with the financial impact of the death of a loved one. Spring 2021 she started the Journey of the 13 Moons cohort, a sacred BIPOC only space for folks to reconnect/discover their medicine, reclaim the exiled parts of themselves, and bring healing to their bloodline. All her work is led by joy and pleasure, rooted in our ancestral earth based practices. She co-creates containers that support reflection, experimentation, healing, learning, collaboration, and are birthed in the name of our individual and collective healing and liberation.

Luana Morales, Photo by Feda Eid.

MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo is a Louisiana born community based healing midwife, somatic bodyworker, ritualist, and song weaver, who is dedicated to transformation & healing within oppressed communities while leading & Priestess-ing from a centered presence that honors the Somatic Body & the Earth Body as our primary home & re-Source. MawuLisa embodies a rich and eclectic background in the Healing Arts, weaving together the somatic technologies of generative somatics, Strozzi Institute, Ayurveda, Craniosacral, Afro-Indigenous earth based wisdom traditions, and the healing gifts generously bestowed to her by her beloved Ancestors. She focuses her medicine towards healing & transforming the impacts of historical / racialized trauma, gender oppression, and sexual violence for herself & others and has opened many doors & pathways in the last decade to forward somatic based healing & transformation in service to Black Liberation and the reclamation of Afro-Indigenous healing traditions. Her current passions include co-stewarding land, redistributing stolen wealth, facilitating grief rituals and training as an initiated priestess in the Isese / Ifa Tradition.

MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo, Photo Courtesy of the Artist.

Jessica Paulino is a mother of many with one child earthside, Noemi and bonus Mama to Elysia. A Maternal Health Advocate, DONA-trained Birth doula, Death Doula, Grief worker and Yoga Teacher, she is the Founder of The EMA Project and Golden Flor Wellness created to support your wellness needs. Born and raised in Boston to Dominican parents, she is the proud daughter of immigrants and pays respect to her Taino lineage and Teachers.

Jessica Paulino created The EMA Project Inc., with big dreams and tons of love in memory of her sonshine, Edward Manuel Arnold (EMA). An organization that supports families impacted by grief, neonatal loss, and/or pregnancy loss. Founded in 2021, after experiencing the premature birth and death of Eddie Manuel, she understood the need for additional support, tools, and resources in our community through ancestral work and healing. Grief is love and all of it is honored here. Services include coaching, support, advocacy, and bringing awareness to maternal health with a focus on closing the higher mortality gap in BIPOC birthing persons.​ With a passion for movement work, circle building, liberatory frameworks, and healing through restorative and social justice practices. She has deep community ties and thrives on connecting others to the resources and support they need. As a Birth and Death Doula she is especially passionate about supporting birthing persons who have experienced loss.

She is active in multiple organizations including as a board member for TAGa and Propa City Community Outreach. Jessica currently serves on the Mind the Gap Coalition for the Moms Matter Act, a legislative bill In Massachusetts that supports perinatal mental health resources. Jessica lives in Hyde Park, a neighborhood of Boston, the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-esset, Pokanoket, and the Wampanoag people.

Jessica Paulino, Photo by Isoken Steve Osemwenkhae.

Nashira Baril (she/her), a biracial Black ciswoman, is the daughter and great-granddaughter of midwives. She experienced the sacred care of community midwives at the hombirths of her siblings and her own two children. With a master’s degree in Maternal and Child Health from Boston University School of Public Health and nearly 20 years of experience designing and implementing public health strategies to advance racial equity, she founded Neighborhood Birth Center in 2015 and co-founded Birth Center Equity in 2020. Neighborhood Birth Center will be the first-of-its-kind community birth center in Boston, providing community midwifery to strategically address the maternal health crisis. Nashira brings a structural analysis and embodied practice to the design and implementation of public health strategies that advance justice and equity. She has worked at the Boston Public Health Commission, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Human Impact Partners. A self-identified country-mouse, she feels most free when she is barefoot in the grass or jumping in a lake. Nashira lives with her family in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-esset, Pokanoket, and the Wampanoag people.

Nashira Baril, Photo by Leise Jones Photography.

Erin Genia, Photo Courtesy of the Artist.

Erin Genia Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate (she/her), is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and community organizer specializing in Indigenous arts and culture. Genia’s work in these areas is focused on amplifying the powerful presence of Indigenous peoples on the occupied lands of America in the arts, sciences and public realm to invoke an evolution of thought and practice that is aligned with the cycles of the natural world and the potential of humanity. Genia’s artistic practice merges Dakota cultural imperatives, pure expression, and exploration of materiality with the conceptual. Erin is fluent in multiple modes of expression: sculpture, fiber, sound, performance, digital media, painting, printmaking, jewelry and ceramics. Her work has received attention from diverse audiences, and has been exhibited nationally and internationally, at the Urbano Project in Boston, the Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica, the Museum of Northwest Art and the International Space Station.

Josh Knowles is an electric violinist, singer/songwriter, and composer based in Boston, MA. He brings an eclectic array of influences to his original work, continually striving to fuse his traditional foundation with modern songwriting, experimental studio production, and stunning live performances.

Josh Knowles, Photo Courtesy of the Artist.