October 2025 : Creating Spaciousness To Practice Listening Together

Note: This message from the Executive Director references World Mental Health Day, World Suicide Prevention Day, and grieflove – that place where there's no space between words. If you or someone you know is having a hard time and would like someone to listen, please consider requesting support from Cambridge H.E.A.R.T (Cambridge Holistic Emergency Alternative Response Team) who has a confidential, peer-run HEART Line [617-902-0102]. Leave a voice message or email at help@cambridge-heart.org for support. They write, "Even if you're unsure of what you need, feel free to reach out, and we can figure it out together".

Gracious Day!

It's 10/10 of the Year 2025, and I want to know: What are you feeling in this moment? Really.

More than anything, I hope this message reaches you in good health and with hope on this World Mental Health Day. I'm entering October with great gratitude for September and what GriefLove – a place where there's no space between words — continues to teach me.

September marked a new year for many of us and it included our soft launch of the season with our Sunday in the Park. It was magnificent—a circle of Black women breathing together synchronously with Keyona, finding our groove with Jessica B's Cowboy Boogie, expanding our quilting project led by Harriette and Ms. Shirley, and hosted with radical hospitality by our Steering Committee and shared leadership with Carmela, our Organizational Leadership Fellow. Chaos preceded and followed in the world, and still, for those few hours together, we were well. I can't even count the amount of shared guttural laughs and the confirmations of belonging felt. 

Some of our community members needed to stay home and rest or had previous plans, and they were right where they belonged too. The hope is that this Fall we'll co-create new opportunities for synchronous connection (online and in-person), but before we speed up, we're slowing down—because we're wondering: Who's in the loop? Who should we be talking to, co-organizing, and deepening our partnerships with? And most importantly: Who are we to one another? Not simply the exchanges of names, but what else do you want us to know about you? What more of our mission is clamoring to come alive? Black women know the stakes if things don't change. Share what’s really on your mind. Ya know?

For me? My birthday was actually in September too. Specifically, September 10—another day centering mental health and more specifically, World Suicide Prevention Day—designed towards destigmatizing conversations about mental health with an aim of saving and extending lives. As someone who doesn't believe in coincidences, it feels cosmic for two reasons. First, it feels like an inherited duty to raise awareness and practice speaking more fluently about suicidality, grief, and more radical forms of community care. Second, for anyone who is less comfortable speaking more directly about suicide, on September 10th, 30 days later, the whole world is given another chance to try again on 10/10—today. Today is a day to check-in with oneself but also with one’s people.

While I have never experienced suicide ideation myself, I have been and remain a confidant for those who have or are currently navigating ideation. And since I live with a physical health condition that research shows a higher rate of suicidality, I feel adjacent to it and deeply empathize. In this extended period of polycrisis with growing hostility towards more than our efforts of organizing—a very extreme violence against our very beings—I worry there are many more among us who  feel susceptible or are in fact experiencing this level of despair. As the rate to which family and friends discuss health declines, so does the perception and reality of social support, and that’s where CCS2S exists to change.  "Learning to breathe in unbreathable circumstances" was what Alexis Pauline Gumbs was writing about in Undrowned. The phrase and the full book of meditations on Black feminisms and marine mammals  captures the unnatural weight of grief in the seismic scales of genocides and even the rising threats of autocracy we are experiencing. There are steps to autocracy and authoritarianism, and there are also steps to freedom and power. The 10 Steps Campaign suggests we recognize the role of power, activate community, and build collective action. With no desire to perform wellness, the options become to unravel, unwind, unmask and really take charge.

What actions are required for more of us to grow old with our dreams? Big questions that are being answered by way of many means, but not yet enough, so we keep showing up to discuss how we live - how we survived, and how we'll next get over.

And so I ask you: What does it mean to show up authentically in community right now? What does it mean to respect concentric circles of leadership?

Maybe it sounds like making room for community members who might say:

"I need/want to be in community with you ASAP."

"I need space from this community for the Fall/Winter."

"I have high capability, but am low capacity."

“Ask me again in 3 months.”

“Can we connect together in 2026?”

"I don't have an answer, but I want to be in a room where I can listen"

These are all valid. All true. All levels of capacity are welcome here, and we want to renormalize that it's time we all slow down, re-prioritize, reassess our grips, and create the spaciousness (even if at first solely with our minds) that we need to organize our lives around our wellbeing --- especially with what's really going on!

This is how we practice being in the world as our  fullest designs with recognition of our  inherent dignity. So for October, November, and December --- a DreamStorm is where we next begin! Shanae, what are you talking about? I'm talking about creating space for us to collectively release, dream, navigate, and elevate our wellbeing together—to imagine what our community can become when we center our collective visions, needs, and possibilities. A DreamStorm is our way of gathering to ask not just "what is?" but "what if?" It's where we storm the limits of what we've been told is possible and dream into what we know we deserve in community. Let's Talk About IT!

While I share this, I'm holding closely a memory from two years ago at the R.A.C.E (Reparative Arts in Community Engagement) Conference in Baltimore. There was a repeated phrase that stopped me in my tracks: "The People Make The Space." It captured everything I believe about community—that home is where our people are, and the spaces we create together matter deeply.

This truth pulses through our work at CCS2S. In our Sunday gatherings, whether at Simply Erinn's Hair Salon, our public parks, or the Citywide Senior Center—wherever we convene, the people in the room shape what becomes possible. That's why our Fall programming is centering community listening sessions as our style of open, honest circular forums. For the next three months, we're reaching out to those interested in building capacity to further enact health in our locality—whether you've been with us since inception or this is your first time hearing of us! (Because a family member, friend, or colleague forwarded this to you, perhaps?)

This Fall marks entering our 17th year of grassroots organizing, and we want to be in community with you! Join us as we explore: "Who are we?" and "Who are we to one another?" by gathering an intergenerational group of Black women and girls on the frontlines of medicine and public health, as well as our homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods as spheres of influence.

Whoever you are, you deserve community.

In our community, we deserve safety and joy-fueled health.  

Together, we have a type of power narrated as navigational capital.

Together, we can weather any storm.

This month we'll be joined by returning faculty Dr. Jacklyn (Jackie) Omorodion of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School who specializes in clinical genetics and health disparities. She recently authored a paper about inequitable testing and racial bias related to ovarian cancer. We'll also be joined for the first time by Nekia Clark, the Director of Community Engagement and Outreach of the Ellie's Fund in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. As a breast cancer survivor and family advocate, Nekia Clark presented an eye-opening testimony regarding medical debt and the financial impact of treatment in support of House Bill 410 / Senate Bill 214.

Creating space and time to really listen to one another is how we creatively resist!

Consider registering to be who makes our space this Fall too!

In solidarity,

Shanaé Burch

Executive Director

Community Conversations: Sister to Sister

Photo By Wren Rene