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Heritage Settlements retreat retreat is a call to action from ancestral lands of east texas to the hearts of cultural practitioners throughout the diaspora. It's a lo-fi site specific creative arts convening curated to couple dynamic cultural workers with the ecological and cultural space of the rural south for an immersive three day retreat. Part collaborative exploration part experiential think tank, the weekend is sure to provide cognitive and ecological space for new idea formations and relational building around ideas on freedom, ancestry and the transformative power of Diasporic cultural arts.
The settlement heritage retreat is a re-visitation and celebration of the often forgotten and distorted articulations of rural Southern Life, not only from an archival past, but in its contemporary present-future. It honors the legacies of our fore-mothers and fathers who invested in the vision of land as a site for intergenerational wealth , liberation and cultural preservation. 
Walking as meditation The simple experience of alternating steps with the left and right foot naturally helps create a meditative state.
There is a tremendous richness of experience to become aware of as you walk. The body loves movement, and will reward you with pleasure if you pay attention to how it feels! So much of the time we are caught up in our mental worlds -- thinking of the past or future, planning, imagining... 
Dear ancestors and friends,
Time spent away from the city and in the bosom of the south has brought me closer to the realization that America has changed. That the landscape of the rural south has changed, a change in a direction vague, inconspicuous, all the while promising. The once riddled place of grueling labor is now plagued with depressing unemployment and privatized prisons. Pastures and fields once lined with rows of cotton rice and tobacco now lay empty, bare and haunted with nimble hands of specters from times past. Jim Crow still caws but the feathers mange, tongue is swollen and wings crippled with pain. What will the Southern region of America become in the wake of a technological global society? In the wake of automation? In the wake of international agriculture and foreign trade, in the wake of rapidly evolving ideas on spirit consciousness? In the wake of complex expressions of sexuality and the reconstruction of the family unit? What will the south become? What has the south become? How will there be a reconciliation of urbane with the rural, the north with the red dirt roots. And the land spaces in-between. With warm regards, Viktor l ewing Givens 
“The past and future merge to meet us here,”
As historic buildings age, the challenges of preserving them and the neighborhoods they anchor multiply. Preservation works to facilitate the survival of these historic sites. Preservation promotes responsible and equitable development. Preservation confronts continual environmental disruption. When years of divestment and poor maintenance leave neighborhoods with vacant and dilapidated buildings, public officials and citizens often seek a quick solution by razing the deteriorated structures and destroying the neighborhood’s soul. it becomes the job of the artists, vision doulas, entrepreneurs and innovative cultural practitioners to devise new strategies of spatial reconfiguration and activation. 
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Sacred sites, otherwise known as vortexes, are places on earth where the land has concentrated power to exponentially amplify, catalyze and accelerate all transformation, awakening, and change. The veils are thinner in these locations where multi-dimensional reality is more easily accessed and traveled. As such, the spiritual and mystical realms are more readily available and accessible to those that are physically within the site and are receptive with an open heart and mind.
The study of foodways is important to cultural studies and encompasses issues of race, class, gender, economy, environment, geography and history, among others. From this definition, it’s clear that foodways is much more than just studying food ― it’s considering food consumption on a much deeper level.Throughout the retreat we explore the embedded cultural/spiritual memories in food preparation, presentation and communal consumption.
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WHO ARE THE ANCESTORS
They be the salt of the earth/Traverse dimensions folded onto itself/They are the reason you cant recall--what had you leave the room in the first place/They jolt you out of your sleep and/ Caress you back into the slumber./ Them / They / Those ones whose/Presence shadows this dimension. The ones buried in the grave rotting at the stem/They ain’t dead, jus’t living another sort of way. /They who feed and nourish the roots of ancient trees/ Ancestral altars serve as a portal or gateway for communicating and transferring energy from you to your ancestors and vice versa. After you setup and start to work with your ancestral altar you will have a beacon of light that attracts and satisfies your family members that have passed on.
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Communing as Social Intervention I am deeply convinced that change must be relationship-centered. We don’t create change purely on the basis of the content of a policy. We don’t create change purely on the basis of winning an argument or, even, winning a particular vote at a given time. Change has something to do with who we’re going to choose to be, together, as the human family.
John Paul Lederach 
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