FREE Vinyasa Yoga Series for Activists, Advocates, Social Workers, Grass-roots Organizers, and Beyond!

Philly has a vibrant population of folks involved in high-stress work. We are active in creating healthy, just communities through a variety of means. To maintain this work, finding health and solace in our own bodies is critical. Struggling against burn-out is paramount. I'm offering four one-hour yoga classes designed to provide and/or reinforce skills to counteract stress, cultivate health, reinvigorate, and hopefully inspire. 

WHERE: The A-Space Anarchist Community Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19143
215.821.OURS (215.821.6877)
WHEN: Mondays November 1, 8, 15, 22, 29  from 5:45 to 6:45 pm (Try to arrive by 5:40).
WHAT: Vinyasa Yoga. Yoga flow that allows students to move, stretch, strengthen, and lengthen with breath and mindfulness. Inspired and ignited with commitment to healthy communities and healthy selves. 

This series is FREE-- an offering to those who commit so much of themselves already (though donations to A-Space are always welcome!). Please bring a mat and if possible, confirm your attendance prior to class via email. If you don't have a mat we will try to provide some. Emailing ahead to express your need for a mat would be helpful.

No prior yoga experience necessary! The class will be shaped to those who attend and is open to all body shapes and sizes. Please share any health or mobility issues that may impact your practice (such as healing from an injury, pregnancy, soreness, etc.) prior to class either via email or before we begin.

Spread the news far & wide! All involved in some type of social justice organizing are welcome to attend! This is the honor system: your involvement can be a few phone calls a week or full-time engagement.

CONTACT: maigamilbourne@yahoo.com. 
Maiga Milbourne will be instructing the series. She was trained and certified to instruct vinyasa yoga for adults and children at Yogawood, Philadelphia Magazine's Best Yoga Studio of 2010. For the past ten years Maiga's primary work has been towards the release of the MOVE 9, Mumia Abu Jamal, and all political prisoners. Towards this end she's worked with International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal and Friends of MOVE, speaking at locations as varied as Yale University and squats in Barcelona, Spain. She's also helped edit “Ona MOVE,” a newsletter about the MOVE 9, and authored numerous other articles about these cases and their connection to larger leftist concerns. Yoga has created a sustaining base for this activity, which inspired her to become an instructor in the hopes of offering these tools for others in the movement. She teaches at Yogawood in Collingswood, NJ Sunday and Monday mornings at 9:30 am.

Saturday, Aug 28^th 11am-1pm

*mantras*mudras* meditation*

Please join us as we explore ancient healing practices to experience inner peace and deep relaxation.  These techniques may help with coping in stressful environments, managing work related stress as well as building a strong spiritual foundation.

JOIN THE CURB COLLECTIVE !!!

So, What is the Curb Collective ?

The Curb Collective is a new organization forming in Philadelphia which seeks to collect the perfectly good items that are thrown out to the curbs of this city on a daily basis by its more affluent wasteful residents and then to redistribute these items through the use of free markets and request based programs to communities throughout the city.

The Curb Collective is a Non-hierarchical group (No bosses / Leaders, everyone is equal and has a say] which uses the process of consensus to make decisions.

 Art of Apollo Cush 

Opening Saturday, August 21, 7:30pm

A-Space 4722 Baltimore Ave, West Philly

Free! Donations for Apollo greatly appreciated 

Apollo Cush is a self-taught artist, jailhouse lawyer, and death row prisoner at SCI Graterford who is currently working for his freedom by representing himself in a series of appeals. We will be showing some of his watercolor works as well as hearing music from Brenna Sahatjian of the Riotfolk collective, his friend, ally, and collaborator. She will be followed by a performance by Philadelphia's own Oubliette Ensemble. Members of Apollo's family will join us to celebrate his art and hear about his case.

Saturday, August 7

4:30-7:30pm

A-Space 4722 Baltimore Ave

Free—donations appreciated

Lessons of the Tekel workers’ struggle in Turkey: How to struggle from below?

Last winter, workers in the state-owned tobacco enterprise in Turkey (TEKEL) were presented with a new law called 4-C which was to include a massive pay-cut, take away benefits, and completely eliminate any job security whatsoever, reducing them to little more than indentured servants.  The question was not about privatizations but about dramatic cuts in the workers’ standard of living.  In the face of all this, a mass movement throughout the whole country began to form, led by the Tekel workers for a general strike to unite the whole Turkish working class in struggle against the new law (which is planned for more government employees in the future) and in defense of workers’ futures.  Workers from all over the country traveled to the capital to demonstrate day and night, sent letters to other workers under attack to join their struggle, built a tent city in the centre of the town where they could stay together, discuss and learn from each other, and even occupied the national union headquarters when it became clear that the union was only trying to slow the struggle down and buy time to secure a deal work out a deal with the Turkish state to secure the workers’ acquiensence.  After four long months of stuggle, the movement was eventually defeated and the workers dispersed, but there are still many lessons from this struggle to be discussed and understood better.  How can workers stand up to the bosses, the state, and the unions, overcome divisions within their ranks, and push for the solidarity of the whole working class and spread the struggle?  These are all burning questions for workers today, who are under attack all over the world in the face of the world economic collapse.  We think the Tekel struggle has demonstrated the way forward for the working class and also shown that despite what the ruling class would hope, workers’ struggles have the potential not only to spread and push back the bosses, but to build to the point where they can get rid of the whole system of exploitation, and build a new society where production is geared toward satisfying human needs and not profit—a world human community.