Processes: A Meditation by Terra Oliveira
These illustrated verses are a witnessing of one's self, in all that we have, in all that we've lost, in all that's on its way to us.
Processes: A Meditation unravels a small, unclouded window into a life in reflection of itself, as energy felt through the body, with the intent to bring the reader back to their awareness; their spiritual center.
Terra Oliveira is a Philadelphia-based writer, the founder / editor of Recenter Press, and a youth programming facilitator at The Free Library of Philadelphia and in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. They are the author of And Still To Sleep, An Old Blue Light (2017), and Processes: A Meditation (2017), and were the Artist-In-Residence at The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu at The Great Wall of China in March of 2017. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, they studied documentary film production at San Francisco State University, and spent two years working, traveling, and studying in farms, monasteries, artist residencies, ashrams, and eco-villages throughout California, India, Nepal, and China. During this time, they also became a survivor of labor trafficking, an experience which crystalized in Oliveira the need to abolish systems of oppression and exploitation that drive humanity into harming their brothers and sisters. Now, their core value is in devoting themselves to spiritual, political, and emotional growth and spaces in harmony with those principles. For Oliveira, this looks like studying and practicing Buddhist, Christian, and revolutionary teachings, being in a deeply loving cohabitative partnership, co-facilitating nonviolent communication workshops, attending free groups and conferences for political education, recovering from the impact of personal and familial addiction in an alienated society, seeking principled channels for revolutionary organizing, and connecting with nature. You can keep up with them on Instagram @terraolvr.
Collection of illustrations and micropoetry. 60 pages (Color). Published by Recenter Press in September 2017.