Sitting with Trees: A Green Love Letter to Black Elder Women

Event Information

Four years ago, Photosynthesis: A Green Love Letter to Black Women was shortlisted in this space — a poetic offering honoring Black women as life-givers, memory-keepers, and sources of quiet strength. Nearly two years ago, that poem evolved into a formal research study: Sitting with Trees: An Eco-Autoethnographic Research Study about Optimal Aging and Black Womanhood.

Today, these threads return in conversation.

Sitting with Trees: A Green Love Letter to Black Elder Women is a virtual dialogue with two elder women who participated in the original study. Together, we revisit their experiences, reflect on new encounters with nature since the research concluded, and explore what aging, memory, and ecological connection mean to them now.

Blending poetry, eco-autoethnographic inquiry, and oral history, this gathering centers Black elder women not as subjects of study, but as living archives. It honors aging as deepening - as rootedness, as photosynthesis, as a sustained relationship with light.

This offering is both continuation and gratitude. A return not to repeat, but to listen again - and to witness how wisdom grows over time. Additionally, this offering is the first public announcement of the forthcoming anthology - Sitting with Trees: Nature, Memory, and Black Elder Wisdom Vol. 1 and the companion children's book - Sitting with Trees.

This webinar will also be screened at Art Hub Studios site, join us for tea/coffee and watch live: Art Hub Studios, Stanley Street, Deptford, SE8 4BL

Contributors

Dr. Christal Mischelle Omni, MPH, MLS

Dr. Omni is a Black women’s health researcher whose work is ancestrally guided and archivally supported.

She is a Black Joy scholar, eco-spiritualist and founder of the OMNI Institute of Well-being, Inc. Her work centers the spiritual and ecological wisdom of Black women—especially Black grandmothers—through storytelling, nature-based inquiry, and intergenerational research. As the creator of the Omni Process™ and a leader in eco-autoethnographic methodology, she weaves together scholarship, healing, and creative practice. A two-time TEDx speaker and award-winning researcher, Dr. Omni’s work lives at the intersection of land, memory, and liberation, inviting others to return to nature as a site of teaching, restoration, and joy.

Janet Haynes, EdD

Dr. Janet Haynes is an educator, scholar, and thought leader who earned her EdD from Fielding Graduate University in 2002.

She is best known for advancing auto-ethnographic research focused on African American women in corporate leadership. Her work spans published textbook contributions, doctoral mentoring, artistic residencies, and service as a federal grant reviewer.

Gloria Ragsdale

Gloria Ragsdale is a co-founder, alongside her two sisters, of a women’s organization dedicated to strengthening relationships among Black women and building community through fellowship, leadership, encouragement, and support. Gloria is also the co-author of a forthcoming anthology - Sitting with Trees: Nature, Memory and Black Elder Wisdom along with a companion children's book - Sitting with Trees.

She brings extensive administrative experience from her work in education as well as city and county government, and currently serves in community development within the planning division for the City of Lenexa. Outside of work, Gloria enjoys puzzling, long outdoor walks, and spending quality time with friends and family.

Insta: @drchristalmischelleomni

Ashley Powell

Ashley Powellis a Florida State University graduate with a B.S. in Psychology and a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT). She has been part of The OMNI Institute of Well-Being since 2022, serving as a Research Mentee, Research Intern, and now Teacher’s Assistant. Through mentorship, she has participated in the 2023 and 2024 International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (ISAN), first as a panelist, then as moderator continuing mentorship to the next generation of mentees. She also has served as a Nature Evolutionaries panelist and co-authored  “The Omnipresence of Black Joy,” which was published by the International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry in the Proceedings of the 2023 International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative. Ashley sees mentorship is a labor of love rooted in support, growth, and the permission to dream.

Michelle Gunn

Gemini Williamson

Eryn Files

Eryn Files is an emerging public service leader working at the intersection of public health, criminal justice reform, and human rights. She has conducted research on intergenerational wellness and currently studies employment as a social determinant of mental health for individuals re-entering the workforce after incarceration in Leon County, Florida. Eryn serves as a Brand Strategist for the OMNI Institute of Well-Being, where she designed the organization’s website and leads its digital storytelling. She is committed to advancing equitable systems and plans to pursue both an MPA and JD.

Website: www.OmniInstituteOfWellbeing.org

Insta: @omniinstituteofwellbeing

Location of event

Location: Webinar.