To honor Martin Luther King Day 2019, Lead to Life invites you to dream into and create our post-capitalist, post-white supremacist, post-colonial world, where the police state surrenders their weapons for the people to melt them into shovels to plant life that regenerates the land. Together, we will create a live alchemy ceremony that honors the transformative decomposition of violence.  The future we are envisioning is now.

The ceremony will follow the annual Reclaim King march - inviting residents of the Bay Area (occupied Ohlone territory) to liberate a future where Dr. King’s vision is realized 50 years after he was assassinated.

“I still have a dream today that one day war will come to an end, that [they] will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, that nations will no longer rise up against nations, neither will they study war any more.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”

ABOUT THIS CEREMONY

Our metal casting artist James Brenner alongside local East Bay metal artists, will lead us in a live demonstration of making tools from weapons. The guns have been donated by our partners the Robby Poblete Foundation & United Playas, who collected them from volunteer gun buy back days across the Bay Area.

Join us as we gather in prayer, in grief, in praise, and in creative action to reimagine violence and to decompose White Supremacy in our city, our country, and our world.

Community members from the Oakland area who have been directly impacted by gun violence are invited to offer disabled weapons into the fire to be transformed. Other community members are invited to gather in solidarity and prayer to bear witness. The shovels we make together will be used in tree planting ceremonies in honor of Earth Day, April 2019, where we will plant 50 trees at sites impacted by violence, and sacred sites across Oakland.

This ceremony sustains a prayer cast in Atlanta, GA in April 2018 where we transformed 50 guns into 50 shovels to plant 50 trees to honor the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. Click here to learn about the beauty that took place in ATL.

This ceremony is free and open to all! Tax-deductible donations of $15 - $50, though not required, are humbly appreciated to support our ongoing work to reimagine violence.  

RSVP

You can RSVP on our eventbrite page.  Click here for information and registration for our Week of Healing Justice gatherings taking place January and April 2019, including the Tree Planting Ceremony, People's Supper and Permaculture Action Day.

Lead to Life & Permaculture Action Network invite you to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Planting Justice Nursery in East Oakland for a Permaculture Action Day on Sunday,  January 20th. This is a free, family-friendly event filled with ecologically regenerative hands-on projects, workshops & skill-shares, music, and a  community   meal. This is the sister event to this past April’s Lead to Life series in Atlanta, Georgia, where 50 guns were melted down into 50 shovels to plant 50 trees in honor of the 50 years since MLK’s assassination. We will use these shovels again this January 20th, 2019, to plant trees, install regenerative systems, and build ceremonial space.

The following day, Monday, January 21st, we ground this same process in Oakland where we will melt guns into shovels after the People’s March to Reclaim the Radical Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Sogorea Te’ is an urban, indigenous women-led organization that facilitates the return of Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone land in the San Francisco Bay Area to indigenous stewardship. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust site at Planting Justice’s East Oakland Nursery is the first piece of land put into the community land trust, and will be the site of the first ceremonial arbor built on Ohlone Land in 250 years.

Planting Justice facilitates permaculture designs and installations for homes around the Bay Area and regenerative educational programs, hires formerly incarcerated folks at a family-supporting wage, and now runs the largest organic fruit, nut, and berry nursery in California right out of a two-acre site in East Oakland.

Lead to Life is transforming weapons into shovels for tree planting ceremonies at sites that have been impacted by violence or carry spiritual significance. These guns, donated from the public and collected from police departments, are transformed by metalsmiths into shovels and tools that plant trees to memorialize loved ones, and lands, lost to violence.

This is Permaculture Action Network’s 92nd action day in which communities brought together through a cultural event are invited to direct their energy into hands-on projects that improve regenerative common spaces and bring forward a just and regenerative world.

For this occasion, our partners RAWtools & James Brenner have  forged a reimagined arsenal of garden tools made from weapons. Folks from across the East Bay are coming together to use these ceremonial tools towards two revolutionary land regeneration projects on 105th Ave in East Oakland.

This day will be an act of beloved community and grassroots liberation as part of Oakland’s annual weekend to reclaim the radical legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.. To honor the vision of Dr. King, the work of people across Oakland, the significance of the Jewish tradition of Tu Bishvat, and the indigenous stewardship of these lands, we will work with our hands in the soil to decompose colonialism. We will live into a practice of land reparations, through supporting the return of Ohlone ancestral homelands.

This event is free and open to all! Bring your friends and come prepared to learn new skills, build food-producing systems, and have a dirty, good time!!

RSVP:  Register here - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lead-to-life-reclaim-radical-king-weekend-tickets-54007880023 - to receive up-to-date information on the event location and logistics.