The Collectivity Project
by Alyx Somas
About Alyx
The Collectivity Project is a labor by Alyx Somas, a Native Northern American with roots from multiple Detribalized Peoples, whose maternal and paternal lineages have been living upon Tongva Lands for four generations. Their work is dedicated to Collective Cultural Re-Indigenization, partnering with the cultures of belonging, reciprocity, and restorative action.
They are guided by indigenous lineage teachings and supported by their experience in group facilitation, and their training in somatic healing. They have spent the last decade working in education and organizing community spaces for art, healing, honoring ancestry, connecting with the land, communal grief and prayer, and rituals of initiation. They especially find joy in ceremonial song, dance, and counsel.
They are on a journey of Initiation, training to be a Good Elder. All of their work holds heart in the belief that "we all come from peoples who gathered around fires storytelling, dancing, and grieving together." They are tending to multiple chronic illnesses while gently composting generations-old colonial wounding; resourcing in prayers that dismantle supremacy, and offering prayers towards the unfolding of a multicultural peoples living out restored relations, in devotion to Inter-Dependence and to the ancestral ways of reverence for all that lives.
Their labor is for the world coming, where we gather together over the open flames that birth reciprocity from the fertilizer of colonialism’s decay, united in our Praise and Grief towards the expression of our true nature — Reciprocity and Deep Beauty.
My work is based in the indigenous lineage teachings around inherent worth and belonging. All of my work is informed by the belief that all people in the western world share the trauma story of colonialism, being severed from their earth-based traditions and relationships of reciprocity with the land and the collective. Likewise, all people share the origin story of a deeply indigenous nature, and my work is to help restore these practices and relationships in accessible ways for our collective liberation.
My work is workshop-based, verbally sharing these teachings, using tools like circle-style sharing and deep listening for group process, space for reflection and journaling, and times of meditation, embodiment and somatic attunement for integration.
OUR VALUES
Belonging
All people carry inherent worth and wisdom.
Steadfastness
Cultural re-indigenization in the face of widespread and institutional colonialism requires embodied relationships with deep faith, prayer, rest, repair and grief.
Understanding
We have all been harmed by colonialism for generations, and we will default to these habits of supremacy and separation because of this entrenched over-culture.
Empathy Is Not a Destination
Understanding that we all share this original wounding of colonialism, we know that our liberation is truly intertwined. Our efforts for liberation do not stop at empathy for the oppressed. We understand that the oppressed within depends on the liberation of the oppressed without.
Compassion
All people carry deep grief and wounded belonging, and most harm we cause comes from this place.
Interdependence
Our true human nature is interdependence and reciprocity with all.
