Spiritual-Social Medicinal
Apothecary
calling forth the medicines of our times
Deepening, reclaiming & restoring our relations
SSoMA studies how to hospice the modern ways of knowing, being and relating that are harming life as we know it, and how we heal our relations with life-force to deepen our capacities for collective health and just-relating. We bring together artists, healers and knowledge-keepers of relationship to face heartbreak and breakdown with inquiry, love, grief, wonder, and commitment.
S • S o • M • A
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S • S o • M • A 〰️
Spiritual-Social
Our collective survival depends on the inseparable relationship between spiritual, social, ecological and political life. SSoMA works to revitalize this relationship while interrupting the divisive forces that tear spirit, relationships and the earth apart.
Spiritual—from Latin spīritus, or ‘breath’—refers to the unseen and invisible forces that animate and sustain life; the whole of reality. Disconnection from these universal principles is at the root of our current nature, climate and social emergencies.
Social, a word with roots in ‘companion,’ speaks to how we organize collective life: norms, economic and intimate relationships, and cultural institutions. It includes how humans relate with the earth, other beings, each other and the consequences of modern/colonial violence on what we value and discard, who lives and dies.
Medicinal
SSoMA’s medicinal approach integrates artistic practice, spiritual practice, social analysis and research, and engagements with plant and other medicines. It is grounded in ancient, anti-colonial and queer wisdoms that articulate the spiritual-social relationship and that are, historically and ongoingly, targeted for destruction by the modern/colonial project. We especially engage with the study of sacred inquiry, queerness, and ecological knowledges.
Health—from Old English hǣlth or whole—involves both conditions for experiencing wholeness (including its complexities) and strategies for moving towards greater physical, psychological, emotional, social & spiritual wellbeing.
We need medicines—substances, preparations, knowledges, and practices that have healing properties in different forms and scales—which address modern crises of separation.
SSoMA is part of a worldwide movement to restore the health of our climate, ecosystems, and bodies that are being destroyed by colonial systems of separation.
Apothecary
SSoMA carries on the tradition of apothecary both as a person and a transdisciplinary, queer gathering place for medicines and medicine-making. Part magnetic field, part queer dwelling, part creative laboratory, part refuge, it exists to generate and protect the vital medicines for our times.
The word ‘apothecary’—from the Greek apothēkē, or ‘storehouse’—once meant both a healing practitioner and the place where they make, protect, gather and share medicines and medicinal knowledge.
Historically, apothecaries worked with plants, herbs, minerals and other medicinal elements to support the health of individuals, communities and their local ecologies. Today, herbal medicine, medicinal farming and traditional ecological wisdoms are under attack.
SSoMA Rooms
Center for Sacred Inquiry
The Center for Sacred Inquiry is a home for ancient knowledges and knowledge-tenders and wisdom-keepers, the House of Yin and the Yin Ceremonial Council, and researchers carrying out sacred spiritual-social inquiries. Current medicinal inquiries include vital grief practices for our time and deepening yin-based approaches to organizing.
Register for Introducing the House of Yin online conversation, 10 Dec 2024
Queer Imagination & Liberation Lab
Queer Imagination & Liberation Lab (QUILL) studies the medicinal qualities of expansive queerness from spiritual-social-ecological perspectives. It organizes educational and research-based activities that support the development of creative practice in the spiritual-poetic arts.
Download a free copy of the Queerness as Map & Medicine zine
Ecological Knowledges
The Ecological Knowledges room is dedicated to developing knowledges and resources to support land-based and land-back movements. It explores themes such as soil protection and guardianship, valorizing and securing sustainable funding for medicinal farming, and engaging with plant medicines in organizing for liberation.
Nursing for Planetary Health
Unite, mobilize, and support the global nursing communities toward a shared understanding of our unique responsibility to co-create a world where all life can flourish.
Partner with SSoMA
Are you a spiritual-social thinker, artist, healer, wisdom-tender, activist and/or benefactor?