Visit the website: www.wakingtheoracle.com.

Waking The Oracle is now a project of The Bakken Center for Spirituality at The University of Minnesota

Overview

Waking The Oracle is an on-going project that creates immersive experiences activating intergenerational community wisdom sharing, healing & wellbeing through music and dance, storytelling, participatory arts and dialogue. Waking The Oracle events foster meaningful connection to self, community and the planet as we build our capacities to learn and heal together in these challenging times and create our positive futures together. 

Who and What are Oracles?
Oracles guide us and help us find visions and inner truths. Oracles might include trees, magical beings, ancestors, and so many more. They are all around us and within us. When we gather together and listen with our hearts we can hear them showing us the way. In challenging times Oracles help us grow and ultimately teach us how to move from despair and disconnection to wise action, repair, restoration, and communities of care. 

History of Waking The Oracle
Based upon 30 years experience working at the crossroads of music, community healing, health, community organizing, science, and spirituality, Waking the Oracle was first raised in 8 weeks while director/founder Molly Sturges was a visiting professor at GWU in arts and community engagement. A few years later WTO was embraced and is now evolving with the amazing team at The University of Minnesota with The Center for Spirituality and Healing . The core WTO creative activation team started to build in January 2024. Upcoming 2024 public events include WTO pop-up events and public activations with community partners in April 2024. 

Waking The Oracle Activities 

Waking The Oracle Creative Activations
Through music, story, dance, community dialogue and surprise, Waking The Oracle creative activations are created in partnership with organizations, groups and communities to open up spaces for reflection, dialogue, and creative expression. Adapting uniquely to each setting and environment the creative activations open up spaces that cultivate our capacities to lean into challenging topics and experiences while cultivating warmth of heart, deep listening and lifting of our spirits. 

Community Listening, Dialogue and Wisdom Circles
Led by Waking The Oracle facilitators, circles can be done in partnership with any group and focus on any topic. Designed to create spaces of meaningful exchange, WTO circles foster compassion, dialogue, empathetic listening, as we develop our capacities to connect across divisions and lean into our innate wisdom and healing capacities. 

Waking The Oracle Creative Care Immersive Pop-Up Events
Immersive experiences blending music, poetry, storytelling with science informed mindfulness practices for restoration and wellbeing. The pop-up events offer spaces to restore, reflect and connect with others as desired through community circles and sharing of food. WTO Pop-Up events are light on their feet and able to be realized in many settings. 

Community Healing & Wellbeing Guide Training

Community Well-Being Guide training supports participants with foundational and adaptable practices for facilitating group spaces that foster compassion-centered whole person health, community connection and healing and planetary health. Integrating contemplative and participatory creative practices, social justice and ways of nature practices, this accessible training is relevant both for people already working with groups and communities and those who wish to in the future. Developed over years collaborating with people in trauma infused settings practitioners will come away with potent tools and guide maps that serve as templates made to be customized to each person and community. The training was created to be adapted to a variety of timescales and settings. 

WAKING THE ORACLE TEAM 

WAKING THE ORACLE Founder/Artistic Director/Ensemble Member: Molly Sturges(www,mollysturges.com) 

WAKING THE ORACLE CREATIVE ACTIVATION TEAM:
Molly Sturges, Chance York (Ensemble Member) , Eric Mayson ( Music Director/Ensemble Member) 

WAKING THE ORACLE ARTISTS: Matt Rahaim, Alvina Bruggerman, Maria Arriola, Michael Duffy, Maja Radovanlija, Beth Workman and other TBD

PRODUCTION TEAM: Center for Spirituality and Healing Team at UMN

See rehearsal videos of Oracle premiere here.

Original activation videos from DC upcoming

Waking the Oracle is created from the many lessons and insights gained working over nine years on the music, community building, and climate justice project, Firerock which was developed with hundreds of people in community workshops around the country.

Visit www.wakingtheoracle.com

Foundting Artist Statement By Molly About Oracle-

For the first time as a community engaged contemplative citizen artist and activist, I truly followed my heart throughout this project. I stayed aligned with my spirituality, my love of planet earth, commitment to ending domination paradigms, my deep devotion to unity-through-diversity consciousness and appreciation of irreverence, surprise and humor. Additionally, I had been through enough in my life, both physically and emotionally, that I knew how to let go of that which is not so important. I trusted myself. I now know much more about how to be truly comfortable in the uncertainty of the creative process and how to support that in others which really just is fundamental to all of life. I know much more about how to surrender everything moment to moment and to listen into what is emerging- how to lead with faith and an open, unknowing heart. In the end I included my own joy while creating Oracle. And that was a game changer.

There is magic in Oracle. There are embodied surprises, deep tendernesses and more. I love that. And because I love it - it IS much more powerful as a force for healing at a time when we really need to be reminded that we ARE THE LOVE and we TRULY CAN live in balance with each other and the planet.

Waking the Oracle is my small contribution to helping create our path. This is the power of art and music to heal our ancestral lineages and moving our social imagination with the power of our shared hearts and unique expressions. We can create the world we want - and we are despite all appearances.

My deepest prayer has been to be a vessel for the healing of our planet, to be an agent of love and service in our world in my unique and small way.