Ripples and Rumbles: Knowing From The Edges

The Series

Subversion. The dictionary definition is “to turn from below.” At Big Waves, we yearn to turn things …the things that are getting in the way of collective liberation. We work with organizations pursuing that vision, and we focus on the turning. We think about subversion, and we think of “below” as places that are hidden, unspoken, taken for granted, and invisible. Inside ourselves, and in our relationships.

Last year we talked about this in a series of public, recorded conversations we called Ripples and Rumbles. We talked about queerness, power, conflict, and reconciliation. We’ve been thinking about those conversations, and how so many of us sense there is a different leap we can make, a hidden path we can find, beyond all of the big hearted and heavy lifting so many are already joined in. One of the explorations we are most energized by is an exploration of knowing, not knowing, and its realms. What kinds of knowing are prioritized and reproduced, and what kinds are ignored or silenced? How are our efforts to transform affected by this? 

We are exploring this with others again, in a series of public and recorded conversations that we are calling Ripples and Rumbles: Subverting Knowing. It is a five part series, setting the stage first with the story of knowledge as we understand it today, and then considering less dominant forms of knowledge: outsiderness, edge work, disorientation, imagination, and sensual and embodied knowing. We will close with a step back from knowing, to being.

The Second Conversation: 

"Knowing From The Edges"

Who is invited into the dominant story, and who is outside? The view from the edges can foster a fierce and alchemical knowing, a different way of understanding what happens around and within us. What can be known in the shadows…when we dive deep into the places in ourselves that scare us, that we hide or push away or condemn? Join Brook Thorndycraft and Kai Cheng Thom for the second conversation in Ripples and Rumbles: Subverting Knowing.

Kai Cheng Thom, Master of Social Work, MSc Couple & Family Therapy, is a Certified Somatic Sex Educator, Qualified Mediator, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Certified Professional Life Coach based in tkaronto/Toronto. Kai Cheng's work focuses on the intersection of social justice, pleasure activism, and transformative approaches to healing conflict and harm. She is the author of six books, including the Publishing Triangle Award-winning essay collection on Transformative Justice, I HOPE WE CHOOSE LOVE, the New York Times-featured picture book From the Stars In the Sky to the Fish in the Sea, and the recent Canadian bestseller Falling Back In Love With Being Human.

Link to join will be emailed to registrants in the week of the conversation.