somatic semantics 120
ride the cadence of your bravest breathing
hi hello,
welcome to the one hundred and twentieth issue of somatic semantics.
time is a fiction, your pulse is real
join the clap back manifest(o) winter 2026 cohort to ride the cadence of your bravest breathing1.
“what’s true, what’s incredibly honest, is that the breaths one either chooses or is forced to take IS the practice”
denise shanté brown, the life-giving consequences of creative rest: a personal essay on reckoning with what happens to creative practice when choosing softness and slowness2
“what is our bravest breathing? what is our unapologetic action towards self-determination?”
alexis pauline gumbs, undrowned: black feminist lessons from marine mammals
registration for the clap back manifest(o) closes today!
who are you?
what do you need?
what do you want?
what are your demands?
answer these questions with(in) a cohort of hoes, healers, artists, intellectuals, organizers, auntxs, lovers, dreamers and schemers as we articulate personal manifestos and deepen our fugitive3 practices.
“nènè’s 9 week virtual retreat was a spiritual excavation. a puncturing of time and space, to voyage to the past from the future. this retreat was the doula to my own manifesto and a birthing of a self more-whole. a process of remembering lineages and an intimate meeting of kindred souls carrying each other to a world that exists in our collective radical imagination. thank you nènè myriam konaté.”
amuna, manifest(o) summer 2025
the clap back manifest(o)
📍where
zoom (online)
with auto-captioning and recording
🗓️ when
january 12, 2026 to march 11, 2026
mondays and wednesdays from 12:00 to 13:30 eastern time
🤲🏾 the offering
1 syllabus
1 methodological playbook
9 playlists curated by g l o w z i and digital polyglot
9 workshops
9 story circles
🚨registration closes today!
“this nine-week journey was one of my favourite highlights of the summer. during a period when chaos, stress, and pain continue to permeate the world and our daily lives, this space served as a soft cushion for me.
the presentation and organization of the meditations and invitations were exquisite. the vibes and spirit of the space that nènè curated were immaculate.
i wanted to attend all the sessions, but on the days i had to miss some, my day felt incomplete. but i am grateful that there was always follow-up with materials to catch up on.
this is one of the spaces where i feel like something has changed in me since i joined, and i can’t really pinpoint what it is, but i know my living manifesto will continue to blossom, thanks to the seeds planted here. thank you, nènè, and everyone who was in my cohort.
- with love, duha”
duha, manifest(o) summer 2025
the journey
week 1
how did we get here?
week 2
tell me the story of your name
week 3
yes, and… also
week 4
who are you?
week 5
what do you need?
week 6
what do you want?
week 7
what are your demands?
week 8
who will hear you?
week 9
where will you go?
“this workshop lives in my heart as a space of excavation, of gentle probing and uncovering. it felt lovingly confronting, incredibly warm and expansive, and like i was being held as i met myself anew. there was a feeling of being in chrysalis alongside others, cocooned in our gathering, as we were invited to deepen the work of transformation together.”
belen, manifest(o) summer 2025
i hope to share this journey with you and i trust our paths will converge when they must.
i leave you with angel bat dawid’s london:
with love + light,
nènè
in the opening lines of be fierce, the eighth chapter of alexis pauline gumbs’ undrowned: black feminist lessons from marine mammals, the author asks what we can learn from “marine mammals [who] live with graceful ferocity, navigating treacherous circumstances daily” before prompting us to consider what “our bravest breathing” might be.
my dear friend denise shanté brown is a multidimensional designer, creative co-conspirator, and intuitive writer birthed from a lineage of poets, artists, teachers, community organizers, and caregivers. i met denise shanté during ayana zaire cotton’s winter 2024 seed a world retreat and i’ve been blessed to be in dialogue with her ever since. i highly recommend denise shanté’s practice, infused with her notion of felt futures, to anyone who is committed to dreaming a world otherwise. visit her practice ground tuesday january 20, 2026, during a free discovery + soundscape session that will introduce you to experiments in felt futures, denise shanté’s four-month literary immersion.
fugitivity as in marronage, as in stealing away, as in building a world otherwise while inhabiting one that seeks to destroy us, as in jazz, as in improvisation, as in remixing the raw materials of the present into the futures we require