On Monday May 20, Claudia spent an our with WUNC host Frank Stasio on his show, The State of Things. The conversation was wide-ranging, from Claudia’s personal experience as an activist to the causes and remedies of burnout to the value of silence and spiritual practice. As always, Frank was a provocative and inquisitive host.
e perfect time to join the 99 people who have already contributed to our new kitchen. We are thrilled to announce the launch of our Indiegogo campaign, Feeding The Heart!Our goal is to raise $20,000 in 30 days! This is only a portion of the money that we need to buy new stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers, sinks, counters and other equipment. It will help with construction, plumbing and electricity costs. It will also allow us to make the kitchen available for shared use with local farmers and food business which will be an exciting new revenue stream for stone circles.
We are so excited that the growth and expansion of the work at The Stone House is creating a demand for a larger kitchen – a commercial kitchen. We want to give a big thanks to everyone who has helped us raise over $26k so far out of a total goal of $80k.
The thoughtful and inspired food that is prepared by the cooks at The Stone House is one of the most essential things we do to nourish people working for social justice and change. Your support will help bring this soul-nourishing food to more people!
Give. Tell your friends. Thank you.
We were so honored to welcome Alexis Pauline Gumbs and angel Kyodo williams for a fireside chat on the relationship between community care and self care this February. Please listen to the clips below for some of the incredible words they shared!
This is a very rich conversation that will continue in many forms in the upcoming months. Check out this resource list or come to Jennifer’s Magnificent Monday workshop on Self-Care on April 15 to continue exploring.
Thank you to Julia Wallace for the audio files!
We are looking for *recipe testers* to make our recipes at home, to make sure they are easy to follow and accurate before we publish them. You can do this from anywhere, as long as you have access to a kitchen and your own ingredients. You can sign up to test at least 2 recipes, or more if you would like! If you’re interested, please fill out our sign-up form here, and we’ll contact you if we still have recipes that need testing!
Recipe testing will take place in February, with a goal of being complete by March 1st. We will send you the recipe and a short feedback form to fill out after you make it.
Many of the recipes that we plan to put in our cookbook are recipes that, as cooks, we create on the fly each time we make them. For the sake of the cookbook, we’ve written the recipe up with quantities and directions that approximate what we do – but we don’t know for sure that these ingredients, quantities, and directions will work out the way we intend when followed by someone else. Other recipes were modified by us from another location, but have changed enough that we need to test them to make sure they turn out. So, we need folks who can try out making some of our recipes at home, and give feedback, to make sure the recipes are easy-to-follow and accurate. This is where you come in!
If you sign up to test recipes for the cookbook:
All recipes do need to be tested and feedback returned by March 1st.
All recipe testers will be mentioned by name in the acknowledgments of the book!
Please fill out the form to sign up! And please contact Noah (noah@stonecircles.org) if you have any questions.
Looking forward to sharing food with you,
The cookbook team – Noah, Lizzie, Miriam, Claudia
We have a wonderful announcement: Generous people like *you* have already donated nearly $20,000 to help us expand our kitchen – we’re on our way to our goal! Our plan is to build a beautiful commercial kitchen off the rear of the main house where we can serve larger groups, offer more food-based workshops and classes, and provide a shared-use kitchen for local farmers and producers. Read more here.
Sarah Cross, who is supporting this special campaign with some part-time fundraising work, shares some reflections on food, love and poetry, and why this new kitchen is so important to our work.
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I was part of a writing group a number of years ago, led by a wonderful writer and guide of writing process. She gave us this assignment one week: to observe ourselves doing something that we loved and to write about it.
I don’t remember anyone else’s writing or what they wrote about, but I do remember when we met the next week to share our writing that we’d each had a common experience through this assignment: we’d fallen in love with ourselves.
I chose to write about myself cooking dinner for the ten people that I shared my home with at the time. I pictured myself in the big communal kitchen, my back to the commercial stove, making, as it turned out, ginger-squash-lentil soup and a birthday cake. I stared at myself, if one can do that in one’s mind’s eye, watching this projection of myself do the same things over and over again. And inhabiting myself as I went through these cooking motions. First I did a ‘free write,’ writing swiftly everything that came to me, and then over multiple revisions, shortening those paragraphs into a poem. I realized that I not only loved these actions but that I loved myself when I was doing them. Even now when I read the poem I wrote, I feel a great affection for myself and a warming of the heart.
I feel that the loving and close focus of the writing process led us to the experience of love and intimacy with ourselves. And I think food can lead us there, too.
Can you picture yourself at the table at The Stone House in silence or surrounded by the chatter of new and old friends connecting? Can you conjure up that moment of breathing in the smell of a sweet potato coconut soup, brazilian black bean stew, mango-jicama salad, ginger chocolate banana bread? Or taking a first bite of kale avocado salad, Indonesian peanut soup and basmati rice, fig compote on oatmeal, a salad of greens fresh from the garden with a cilantro-lemon sauce? A bite of food at The Stone House demands that focus and intimacy with the what’s on your plate or in your bowl. There is always a moment – a moment created by the incredible food, by its freshness, how it was lovingly cooked, the unexpected or familiar flavours; by the atmosphere of attention and welcome that defines The Stone House; by our appreciation of the preciousness of abundant food – of total focus on the food and the act of eating. And I would argue that in this moment of attention there is a profound experience of love for ourselves that is at the very heart of why we are here and what we are sharing with each other. When we choose to nourish ourselves, and to join with this stone circles community in nourishing ourselves together, we are affirming the right to that nourishment and affirming our love for ourselves and our families and communities. We are feeding our heart and the heart of our movements. We are, very simply, loving.
We want more people to experience the very tangible nourishment of food and the larger nourishment The Stone House offers. We want The Stone House and stone circles’ vision to succeed on a big scale, and that requires something new. We have launched an effort to expand the kitchen to help make this possible. New equipment, bigger space, more room to cook for more people. You can read more about our vision for the new kitchen and for food justice at the kitchen campaign’s website, Feeding the Heart.
Please come by sometime soon for a bowl of soup. And take a moment wherever you are today to focus on your food.
for once she’s forgotten herself
like then
crouched down in boggy spring soil
where teeth carved a mushroom’s edge
now
forcing weight through knife on squash
rising to tiptoes
driving down through flesh and seeds and rind
to familiar chopping block
heels to blue flecked linoleum floor
the loose circles of shoulder and elbow
wrist and finger
rock of knife
swirl of lentils in rinsing water
spatula carving cake dough from red ceramic bowl
lost batter brought to mouth
the essential
uncomplicated
good of food
unexpected hot burn of onion
relief in the yield of carrots
the openings and closings of thumb and first knuckle skinning ginger
for the same abandon and trust in speech
the same deftness in more complicated pastimes
the same rising and descent through her own flesh
–Sarah Cross, October 2007
by Chad U. Jones
A decade ago, I would fixate on the process and content of a group. These were the Ps and the Cs that mattered to me in early adulthood. My habits were shaped early. I was drawn to the fellowship of groups after spending my first two decades running for class elections; 
group-oriented community service; the joy of hors d’ourves, beverages and small talk at the cocktail parties that my parents hosted; and the thrill of team sports as a third-grade middle linebacker (and right guard) in football and a (oversized) point guard or (short) forward on the basketball court while in middle school. This orientation to group activities was in my DNA, the last born descendent of a mother who chose to be PTA president and a precinct captain for Pat Schroeder (for Congress!), and a father who was a founding member of the Colorado affiliate of the National Bar Association, which is the black lawyers association.
So, in my teens and 20s, Process and Content were my thing. My choices in paid work and voluntary surroundings mirrored that. I would walk into rooms – meetings, polling places and even movie screenings -and note the gender balance, the racial composition, and the age range of the people present. With a facility for numbers, and a knack for counting and many things mathematical since grade school, I could quickly do a headcount of the assembled crowd. Practically any crowd. Over time, I observed how male voices would take up as many minutes of airtime as female voices, even if men were outnumbered 4:1.
When I was the only person of color present, or the circumstances when and where Latinos, Asians, Native Americans and Blacks were absent, I obsessed over what topics were talked about, what was glossed over, and what failed to be mentioned entirely. I observed how certain things took up much more time than they had been allotted and who or what suffered the pinch of there “just no being time for that.” In essence, I got to see how priorities and choices were made, consciously or subconsciously, that defined the parameters and the values of a group.
***
Five years ago that began to shift. I became less focused on that original set of P + C, Process and Content. They were eclipsed in my conscious with a new set – the P of Practice and the C of Ceremony. Serendipitously, this occurred as I began to visit The Stone House and spend more time in Mebane.
Over multiple years, I have seen how Ceremony colors how we talk with one another. Ceremony is how we embrace and greet, both new people and familiar people. How we spend the 10 minutes before sitting for a meal. Whether we sit for a meal or if we cram one of the three daily sittings for food, nourishment and appreciation with some other moving physical activity – like driving, walking, or sitting in front of a computer screen.
Ceremony has trumped Content by elevating the choices that are made about how we interact. By realizing that there is a choice whether we spend every moment together speaking, or allowing ourselves to feel what it is like to silent in the physical presence of others. By doing so, Ceremony cultivates a space that allows our souls and ourselves to communicate in countless other ways (and elevates the 70% of our communication that is nonverbal).
Like Process and Content, Ceremony and Practice blend together sweetly. They influence, inform and affect one another. Ceremonies of how we position our physical bodies. The choice of blessing a meal, and acknowledging all of the workers, natural resources and elements that resulted in the food on the plate in front of me. The Practice of trusting a group of people to take care of themselves, rather than give a litany of instructions as if we all still had the developmental minds of kindergarteners.
In adulthood, we have had decades of conditioning to obsess over other people’s needs. So much so that we are raised – in families, in schools and in workplaces – to prioritize other people ahead of ourselves. As a result, under-prioritizing ourselves must be unlearned through new Practice and Ceremony.
Of all the gifts of Practice, the greatest may be that I recognize how there are countless choices that I can make for myself, first and foremost.
In fact, that there are countless choices that I make each morning, even if I do not consciously notice. I make choices based on: the time that I wake up, the amount of space and time I give myself to brush my teeth, as well as what I choose to put into my mouth and into my pockets. The choice of recognizing that what I put in my mouth determines what I put in my belly, which feeds (or starves) my soul.
All of these choices impact the space, the permission and the choices that I make for myself, altering my physical self. My internal systems greatly affect how my external self behaves and interacts with others. Practice is not only sitting on a cushion, but the Practice of drinking two cups of water within 10 minutes of waking up. The Practice of how long I spend in the shower. The Practice of whether I attempt to multitask by squeezing in a text message at a red light, or an email reply when I have been asked to listen to someone else’s story.
The Practice of how I feel about time and timeliness. Therefore, how much or little my own sense of self is determined by whether I show up on time, late or 10 minutes early.
At 22, I used to prioritize arriving in places at least 10 minutes ahead of schedule. I set my wrist watch 10 minutes fast as practice of tricking my eyes and my mind about the time. By 28, I would cram my days so full of commitments that I frequently ran 15 minutes late. And I had to shield myself with indifference about the time that I showed up. A mix of emotion and identities made for a confusing relationship to time.
Nowadays, I am delighted to have fewer commitments in order to give myself more time in advance. As a result, I trust that I will arrive exactly when I am supposed to. And this different Practice of time has opened up the spaciousness and compassion to recognize that other people will show up exactly when they do. It is freeing to not be consumed with judgments about what other people’s timeliness or tardiness indicates about their character or their soul. Instead, I can choose to observe the Practices that they cultivate in their own lives, and the Ceremonies that they adhere to. These are more loving ways to see and experience life, than to attribute an arbitrary justification about the content of someone else’s character when I know so little about their lived experience.
The mission of stone circles at The Stone House is to sustain and strengthen people working for transformation and justice. stone circles was founded in 1995; in 2007 the organization created The Stone House, one of the only social justice-oriented centers for retreat and training in the country. Located in Mebane, NC, stone circles at The Stone House welcomes over 1,000 people each year for radical hospitality, spiritual retreat, leadership training and work on the land. The Stone House is comprised of 70 acres and multiple buildings. The organization has 5 core staff, 12 additional support staff and contractors, and a robust network of volunteers and advisors. The organization is governed by a national Board of Directors.
Having successfully established The Stone House, which receives over 1,000 people each year, established strategic vision and programming, and created a diverse revenue stream, stone circles is now in search of a dynamic and seasoned Executive Director to lead the organization through its next phase of growth. We are looking for someone who can lead with humility and strength.
The Executive Director is the leader of the organization and stone circles’ primary representative in the outside world; they must be both grounded in a social justice orientation and skilled at resource development. The Executive Director is responsible for stewarding the organization’s vision, achieving its mission consistently, providing strategic leadership, ensuring financial and organizational sustainability, and overseeing organizational management. The Executive Director reports to the Board of Directors and supervises the Associate Director, Program and Fundraising Support and fundraising consultants.
Strategic Leadership and Constituency Building
Resource Development and Fundraising
Board Relations
Financial and Organizational Oversight
The ideal candidate will have significant strengths in leadership and resource development and a minimum of 10 years of professional experience in the non-profit sector. stone circles is living into its potential to transform the social justice movement. The Executive Director will be results-oriented and entrepreneurial, ready to shape this big vision and translate it into everyday reality.
More specifically, stone circles seeks someone who has:
A portion of this job is performed in an office setting in a rural location. Significant travel and program delivery makes up the remainder of time. Flexible hours, including evenings and weekends, are often required.
Interested candidates should submit a resume and cover letter, including the names and contact information for three references, by email to executivedirectorsearch@stonecircles.org by January 7, 2013. No phone calls please.
This is a full-time exempt position. Compensation includes base salary commensurate with experience, health and dental insurance, and a generous leave policy including retreat, vacation and sick time.
stone circles is an equal opportunity employer, a diverse organization and one committed to an anti-oppression analysis, policies and ways of being. We strongly encourage people of color to apply for this position.
We are thrilled to be celebrating our 5th year here on the land. Five years of laughter, love, sweat and silence. To relive and/or experience the highlights of the last five years, check out the following:
You can open the report directly on the website by clicking the image below OR click this link to get a PDF version.
Coming Home to The Stone House from stone circles at The Stone House on Vimeo.
We knew it wouldn’t be easy to recognize everyone who has helped us get this far but we wanted to try! This PDF document includes: 
Just click here to open the PDF.
Dear stone circles at The Stone House friends,
You can imagine that this decision did not come lightly. Claudia’s love for this organization and this place is felt and known by many. She has reached a point where she wants and needs to focus her energy on teaching, training and writing – both within and beyond stone circles. Claudia will stay connected as a senior teacher and program consultant. And, as The Stone House enters its next five years, new leadership will help us build on a fundraising and business model that allows for continued growth and sustainability.
As The Stone House approaches its 5th Anniversary, the board, staff and succession team are dedicated to a smooth and intentional leadership transition. In October we will communicate our detailed transition plans, share the job announcement for our new Executive Director, and express how stone circles’ beloved community can continue to play vital roles in the next phases of our organizational life and work.
This transition at stone circles at The Stone House builds upon two decades of history and impact. The tremendous resources supporting the process include an incredible staff, dedicated board, strong reputation, a wide community of supporters and volunteers, and the proven ability to deepen the inner life of those working for change. Over the past five years we have:
We are really excited to welcome eight amazing artists from the US and Canada for Soul Sanctuary this week. Take a look at the bios of these incredible folks and be inspired by their work as we are. Soul Sanctuary is organized and guided by local Durham artist and activist Ellen O’Grady.
[photo by Julia C. Smith, participant in Soul Sanctuary 2011]
CATHERINE EDGERTON, Durham NC
Catherine is a queer artist and musician who is working on developing her relationship between the arts and social justice work. She is committed to living in, creating with, and serving a diverse community of people who work to transform critical ideas into social change. Catherine was born and raised in Durham, where she feels very rooted and present. She currently volunteers with El Kilombo and the Durham bike co-op. Catherine’s friends and family are incredibly important to her, as is her dog, whose name is Harvey-Sue.
DOMINIC BRADLEY, Brooklyn NY
Dominic is a multimedia artist, grassroots activist, and licensed social worker. He just finished a tenure with NYU’s EMERGENYC program and is currently organizing around sexual violence in communities of African descent. He volunteers with an organization called Black Women’s Blueprint and recently performed in a BWB production named Mother Tongue Monologues that explored black female sexuality and black sexual politics in front of an audience of approximately 300 community members. Dominic also helped plan an emotional justice- themed community asset mapping workshop for a companion event entitled Catharsis. He is working closely with other volunteers to host a parallel meeting to the UN Commission on the Status of Women as well as to develop follow-up/follow through community workshops during Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April.
INDEE MITCHELL, Philadelphia, PA/New Orleans, LA
Indee is a Queer, gender fluid performance artist interested in exploring the connections between identity, healing, and art. A southern storyteller to the core, they understand social justice activism as a key tenant to her artistry and being. He is a mover, speaker, thinker, healer, creator wanting to hold space and visibility for those who understand their self beyond binaries and static boxes.
JODI LASSETER, Durham NC
Jodi brings her expertise in facilitation, training and participatory methods to her ongoing work in various education and environmental justice movements. Her work at Spirit in Action centers on coordinating two national networks–the Education Circle of Change and HOME (Healing Our Movement Ecosystem)—and working with the SiA team to provide organizational development and innovative workshops to grassroots organizations. Originally from the mountains of North Carolina, Jodi has pursued her passion for positive social transformation through the use of music, singing and ritual in movement-building spaces.
KIM CROSBY, Toronto Ontario
Kim is a queer femme, survivor, mixed race, Venezualan Arawak, Indian, Scottish, Afro –Dominicana born in Trinidad, living in Toronto. She is a writer, educator, activist, facilitator, consultant, social entrepreneur and yoga instructor as well as an award-winning multidisciplinary artist. She has spoken on panels and conferences nationally as well as facilitated radical community dialogues including Queer As Black Folk hosted by The Black Daddies Club and was the keynote speaker at the 2011 Unity Conference. She is also one of the owners of Toronto’s Glad Day Bookstore, North America’s oldest independent bookstore serving the LGBT community. Kim is a core member of the nationally touring Lesbian Blues group, a collective of Black Queer Folks committed to decolonization through creative political performance as well as T-Dot Renaissance, a wave of cultural and artistic collaborations for this generation of emerging artists of colour. She creates to heal and stay alive.
NANCY KATES, Berkeley CA
Nancy is the producer/director of the feature-length documentary Regarding Susan Sontag, currently in post-production. She co-produced and directed the documentary Brother Outsider: the Life of Bayard Rustin, which premiered in competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and on the national PBS series “POV.” The film went on to win more than 25 awards worldwide, including the 2004 GLAAD Media Award. In her free time, she enjoys swimming, hiking, cross-country skiing, volunteering, and annual adventures in jam-making.
PINA RUSSELL, Brooklyn NY
Stephanie JT Russell, “Pina,”is an executive strategist, published author, educator, and working artist with over 25 years’ experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors. She is a seasoned practitioner of conflict resolution and group dynamics disciplines, and uses her skills to build relationships with clients for Board, executive and staff development; fundraising; project and program design; literary communications craft, art direction and publishing; and identity re-branding. In the late 1980s, Pina co-created Soul To Soul Teleconferencing Network, the first pre-Internet video teleconferencing system for the New York City Board of Education, connecting three inner-city schools in New York City’s Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan. A longtime sustainability and peacebuilding advocate, Pina has been a consultant to Religions for Peace (a United Nations NGO), The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, and AfriCares. As Executive Director of Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland, she oversaw exhibits and multidisciplinary programming serving a 1,000-member artists community and a public constituency of over 70,000 regional residents. Pina has consulted for Bay Area clients such as PEN Oakland, and The City of Oakland Public Art Program. She also consulted with Project for Public Spaces, an international urban-redevelopment organization. As a working artist, Pina has exhibited and performed at world-class venues and has published nine books.
VANESSA HUANG, Oakland CA
Vanessa Huang is a poet, cultural worker, and activist whose practice inherits teachings from the prison abolition, migrant justice, gender liberation, transformative justice, disability justice, and reproductive justice movements. Currently, Vanessa takes refuge in the breath aliveness of song through voice and cello and is stewarding the completion of a first poetry collection, quiet of chorus, which was a finalist for Poets & Writers’ California Writers’ Exchange Award. Vanessa’s poetry and writings have appeared in numerous collections. Through letters, the Internet, performance, rallies, and letterpress printing, this poetry has stood-sat with courage hearts including California’s prison hunger strikers, Miss Major, Marilyn Buck, Troy Davis, Cece McDonald, and a range of life-affirming collaborations including the Free Shifa campaign in Atlanta, campaigns/organizing against transphobic violence and discrimination in NYC, and Oakland’s first general strike since 1946.
stone circles sustains activists and strengthens the work of justice through spiritual practice and principles. Click to learn more.
The Stone House is a center for spiritual life and strategic action in Mebane, NC. Interested in visiting or renting? Click here.