We hold decolonizing liberationist+collectivist
space+time for re+integration of self+other+All+That+Is.
At first glance, it may seem unreasonable and unfeasible...
Still... this intentionally utopian proposition is inspired by the visions labeled “unrealistic” that emerge from faithful dreams and efforts of our ancestors, teachers, generations to be, and the Life Source connecting every+thing+one.
As Dr. Bayo Akómoláfé succinctly phrased:
“The possible is colonial.”
Meet the Leadership Team
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facilitator, soul+tender, spiritual guide, chair, co+founder
alê [they, them] is a person of the “in-between space.” They are a non-binary immigrant of color from Brazil, a soul+tender, intersectional justice advocate, interdisciplinary+artist, and liturgical curator in love with God and Sentient Beings. Earlier in their ordained ministry, rev co-led the formation of the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus, UMForward (para-Methodist social justice advocacy collective), and LMX (Liberation Methodist Connexion). They held pulpits in UMC congregations for over ten years, three years as the minister at the Sierra Foothills Unitarian Universalist congregation in California, and just concluded a tenure as the Minister for Faith Formation at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia.
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elder, mentor, 2nd chair
Althea [she, her] is the Assistant Professor of New Testament at Drew University.
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board secretary
Akilah [she, her] is a Project Manager Consultant.
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board treasurer
Randy [he, him] is a Spiritual Director, an InterPlay Life Practice Program Leader (LPL), and a Certified InterPlay Leader. Randy has degrees in physics and divinity. His experience includes teaching high school math and physics, working in philanthropy, and turning doodles into fine art prints. He desires to build just and sustainable communities, is exploring forest gardening, and tries to incorporate InterPlay philosophy as a core decision-making tool in his life.
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board member
Traci [she, her] is a dynamic executive with more than 20 years of leadership experience across government, nonprofit, religious, and media sectors. An accomplished attorney and an award-winning journalist, she has directed multimillion-dollar operations, advanced open government reforms, and led strategic communications for high-profile organizations. Traci currently serves as Executive Director of All Souls Church, Unitarian, where she oversees a multi-million-dollar budget, cultivates major funding, and drives equity-centered organizational development. Previously, she served as Director of the DC Office of Open Government, shaping transparency policy and advising global stakeholders. Known for her expertise in governance, civic engagement, and values-based leadership, Traci has secured over $3M in grants and private funding. She is currently completing a Master of Divinity at Wesley Theological Seminary.
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board member
Tim [he, him] is a Senior Data Engineer in the energy industry and father of three. Raised in São Paulo and currently residing in Philadelphia, he is active in the Unitarian Universalist Society of Germantown. He is especially involved in immigration activism in the Philadelphia area. A spiritual seeker, he is also a lifelong learner of spiritual practices from various areas, in particular, mindfulness practices.
“The degree to which you feel whole is the degree to which you are aware of your connection to every living being. Every wall you erect to keep out pain will keep out possibility.”
~Andrea Gibson
Advisory Council
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Artist, Psychologist, Art+therapist.
Priscilla [she, her] é artista, psicóloga (CRP 92.236) e arteterapeuta (AATESP 1122/06240).
Iniciou sua trajetória artística em 1998 na Escola de Belas Artes de São Paulo e, a partir de 1999, passou a integrar arte e psicologia como caminhos complementares de autoconhecimento e cura.
Sua prática une símbolos universais, arquétipos, máscaras e mandalas, explorando o inconsciente coletivo e promovendo autoconsciência no processo artístico para acessar insights profundos de transformação.
É criadora do Ateliê Urucum, um espaço de criação e expressão que propõe empoderar sujeitos na construção de uma sociedade antirracista, com estratégias de atuação na política, na educação e na defesa dos direitos humanos — contribuindo para a redução das desigualdades raciais, sociais e de gênero.
Priscilla também é idealizadora das vivências Caminho de Autodescoberta — Individuação através da Arte com Barro e Mandala . Suas oficinas do fazer artístico se manifestam no caminho de cura, integração e reconexão entre mulher e natureza.
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Writer
Margaret [she, her] is a Hapa writer of Okinawan and Anglo American descent. Born in Okinawa, Japan, she grew up mostly in southern California with bouts in Florida, Mississippi, Singapore, Scotland, and England. She currently lives by Ocean Beach in San Francisco with her family.
Margaret attended college in London, but the distractions of the ‘70s curtailed her formal education. Still, she is a lifelong student of spiritual practices and is a reiki practitioner. She is a lay leader at Pine United Methodist Church, a historic Japanese American church in San Francisco.
Her writings include two books,Yuletide Angleswith eLectio Publishing andHeaven off the Coastto be released in June 2026 by Fuente Fountain Books.
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Pulmonary and Sleep Physician.
Brenda [she, her] works as a Pulmonary and Sleep physician in Sacramento, California. She began her medical journey with a Bachelor of Science in biology and math from the University of California, Davis. She pursued her Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy degrees at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon, and completed her Internal Medicine residency at the University of California, San Diego. She further specialized in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine during a fellowship at Oregon Health & Science University. After fellowship, she remained at Oregon Health & Science University as an Associate Professor for many years, before moving back to California to focus on family and clinical work. She is double board certified in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Medicine and is a member of the American Thoracic Society and the American College of Chest Physicians.
Brenda’s clinical practice is informed by her philosophy of combining deep knowledge, deep listening, and deep creativity. With a hat tip to Henri Matisse, “What matters most to me? To work with my patient until I know them well enough to improvise, to let my mind run free”.
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Chaplain · Soul-Guide & Community Companion · Cultivator of Belonging · Loyal Friend & Faithful Confidant
Victor [he, him] is a storyteller of the sacred ordinary, a soul-guide and tender of thresholds, the kind of companion you meet on a wooded Maine trail who reminds you—without ever needing to say it—that you are already whole. He is a painter of worlds stitched from memory, courage, and saltwater light, a community companion who believes every life carries a quiet magic waiting to be named.
He has lived many experiences: Fortune 100 corporate chaplain, hospice chaplain, wanderer, wayfinder, and a once-unclaimed self. A former evangelical shaped by rigid certainties, he spent years repressing the God-given beauty of who he was created to be. Now he moves through the world fully integrated—spirit, soul, and body—living into the imago Dei with a freedom he once believed was impossible, remembering at last that he is wonderfully and complexly made (Psalm 139). It is from this reclaimed wholeness that he now serves as the island’s chaplain through his work at Chebeague Community Church, tending the soul of a community he loves.
He tossed into the air the old story that Scripture requires a single, final, unquestionable authority. In its place, he found a God who meets him in mystery, curiosity, and holy uncertainty—a God who is not threatened by questions but revealed through them. Victor’s spirituality now lives in the wide spaces: in wonder, tenderness, desire, grief, and the long arc of becoming.
His geography of becoming is marked by seekers’ circles, communal retreats, deep listening, and the brave spaces where people dare to tell the truth. He carries names like blessings, listens as if every story deserves a home, and walks beneath Maine’s trees as if they have been expecting him.
Victor’s people are the seekers, the queer beloveds, the outsiders, the spiritually bruised, the ones told they were too much or not enough, and all who arrive with trembling stories hoping to be met with gentleness. These are the ones who recognize his light.
Victor resides along the waters of Casco Bay, where he practices the slow art of belonging. His presence is an invitation: to feel seen, loved, held, and never alone. To remember that you are, and have always been, part of something holy.
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Associate Professor, Department of Black Studies and the Study of Religion, University of California, Riverside.
El/yse [they, them]* is a scholar, artist, and educator whose research, art, and teaching lie at the intersections of blackness, sexuality, gender, and spiritualities/the religious/the sacred. Ambrose is the author of A Blackqueer Sexual Ethics: Embodiment, Possibility, and Living Archive and creator of the Black Trans Ethical World(un)making Lab. They currently serve as Associate Professor in the Departments of Black Study and the Study of Religion at University of California, Riverside.Their ongoing photo-sonic series is entitled “Spirit in the Dark Body: Black Queer Expressions of the Im/material,” and their art has shown in San Diego, New York City, and São Leopoldo (Brasil).
El/yse Ambrose resides in southern California. They are a fulfilled partner, plant sibling, and parakeet parent.
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Writer, Minister, Organizer, Executive Director of TRUUST [Transgender Religious professionals Unitarian Universalists Together.
Julián [they, them and per, per] is a Unitarian Universalist minister whose work weaves together tenderness, truth-telling, and community care. With a law degree and a Master of Divinity, they bring a blend of legal insight, theological depth, and grounded compassion to every project. Julián is a published author with Skinner House, and a creator of worship, story, and learning spaces that honor human dignity and interdependence. Their writing explores gentle persistence, belonging, and the sacred work of showing up for one another with courage, clarity, and love.
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Building Service Worker
Adrian [he, him] is a member of Park Ridge Community Church in Park Ridge, IL. Born and raised in Oak Ridge, TN (growing up Baptist), he attended Vanderbilt University, where he met his wife, Carol, who is now an ordained UCC elder. A father of four, he has taken seminary classes at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and is currently a Building Service Worker at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.
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Professor, Pastor, Social Justice Advocate.
Genilma [ela, dela], doutora em Teología pela Escola Superior de Teología, São Leopoldo, RS. Foi professora no Brasil, na Costa Rica, em Moçambique e no México. É pastora da Igreja Metodista no Brasil, actualmente trabalha com projetos na área de justiça social.
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Leonard [he, him]
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Minister, Consultant, Intensives Institute.
Leela [ze, zim, zir] is a storyteller, a painter of worlds, the wizard you need to meet in the woods so you learn to use your magic without blowing up everything around you.After a childhood with one stable address and theoretically clear goals, Ze tossed everything in the air to find out what needed to happen instead. Ze moved to the Midwest for college, and since then ze have been in IT, theater tech, fine woodworking, bodywork, coaching, bread baking, and a half dozen other things. Ze lived in France, Portugal, India, Canada, and across the northern US, with and without partners, with and without housemates, with and without a clear direction.
Since founding The Intensives Institute ze have gotten clear on the mission, the vision, and the goal: to give intensives a space (and a world, let’s be real) where we can flourish and use our power for good. Now ze get to do it, and you get to do it with zim.
And yes, the reverend is real.
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Pastor of West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship, Community Organizer.
Jonny [he, him] is an ordained pastor with MC USA, serving the West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship. He also serves on the Mennonite Action national team, the steering committee for the Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities, and is on the Philadelphia Alliance for Peace and Justice for Palestinians. He writes for Anabaptist World, and w “Jesus Takes A Side,” and is a DMin student at Eastern Mennonite University.
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Psychotherapist, Einstein Healthcare Network.
She(l) [she, he, she, they] is a white genderfluid psychotherapist, artist and senior student at the Zen Center of Philadelphia. They are passionate about working in a systemic lens with individuals and relationships that are queer, neurodivergent, and defying systemic oppression. He believes through building an interdependent connection to one’s intuition/wise mind and community, we can withstand hardship in the path of liberation and empowerment of all people. She has a degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and is licensed in the state of Pennsylvania. They are a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional with training in Bowen Family Systems and Mindful Psychodynamic theories.
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M [they, them] is co-founder and co-director of enfleshed. M wonders, wrestles, and works in the places where spirituality, activism, culture(s), and creativity entangle. Over the last two decades, they have had the pleasure of collaborating in spaces and movements of shared longing and action such as Texas Freedom Network, SURJ (Showing Up For Racial Justice), UmForward, Reconciling Ministries Network, ONE Northside, and with other collectives of organizers, faith communities, and creatives. They are passionate about the ways spirituality and theology both support and hinder the work of freedom for all of us, especially at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, and our place in the whole of things on this planet.
Formerly, M was ordained in The United Methodist Church before voluntarily withdrawing their credentials to better align their spiritual, relational, and political loyalties for this collective era. They received a Bachelor’s in Organizational Communication from the University of West Florida, a Master of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and a Certificate of Spiritual Direction from Cherryhill – a pagan and nature based seminary.
Currently, they are also working at Faith in Harm Reduction while in school for psychedelic facilitation to support spiritual growth and social transformation. In their spare time, they love hiking, camping, mushroom foraging, and working with stained glass. You can see some of their work on Instagram here.
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Jeremiah [he, him]
