Deeper Change Events

CEIO's Deeper Change events create spaces that invite fundamental transformation. A change that is so deep that a return to the previous conditions is utterly inconceivable. Courageous conversations - grounded in peace, justice, and love.

There are four different ways we gather. Each has its own entry way into this work. All of them are about changing at the roots, practicing the world we want to live in, and deep connection with one another. Every event is freely offered with food to share. RSVPs are required.

Deeper Change Forums are deep dives into the work of practitioners, artists, change-makers, and scholars from near and far who address and move us toward systemic change throughout our society. Topics have ranged from environmental justice to wellbeing, organizing to art as disrupting injustice. Past speakers have included Mia Birdsong, Dr. Joy DeGruy, Leah and Naima Penniman, Bread & Puppet Theater, and Winona LaDuke.

Deeper Change Salons are a gathering space to engage in ideas, inspirations, and connections that highlight and celebrate the practices of change-makers in the New Haven area.. Past Salons have featured Paul Bryant Hudson, Farron Harvey, Eric Rey, Deloris Vaughn, and biz nearing. Upcoming 2025 salons feature Trey Moore and Thema Haida.

Deeper Change Practice: Sacred Reading: This is a monthly place for contemplation, meditation, reflection, and presence. Each event will center on a single poem or text with no pre-reading required. We’ll spend time with the works of authors like Audre Lorde, Ross Gay, Naomi Shihab Nye, John O’Donohue, Kai Cheng Thom and more.

Run by our Seeding Conscious Co-Creation team, these are regular gatherings knitting together threads of community, care, creativity and conscious co-creation. Meetup with other local facilitators, artists, healers, cultural producers and organizers. Attend workshops, co-work, receive care, make some art, stretch and eat some yummy food.

Deeper Change events & Fabric gatherings are open to all and offered freely. Registration is required.

DCF Current

Deeper Change Salon & Forum: October 17th & 18th
In partnership with Breathing Room Yoga & NXTHVN
featuring Thema Haida & Antoinette Cooper

Two Transformative Days of Deeper Change - Thema Haida & Antoinette Cooper

When:

Friday, October 17th from 7 to 9 p.m. (doors: 6:30 p.m.)
Saturday, October 18th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (doors: 9:30 a.m.)

Where:

Friday, October 17th @ Breathing Room Yoga
216 Crown Street, New Haven, CT 06510

Saturday, October 18th @ NXTHVN
169 Henry Street, New Haven, CT 06511

✨ Two days of transformation, one powerful community ✨
Both events are freely offered with love — registration is required & space is limited.

📅 Oct 17 | 7–9 p.m. | Breathing Room Yoga (doors: 6:30 p.m.)
Belonging in Healing Spaces with Thema Haida

Join Thema Haida for an embodied Deeper Change Salon, weaving meditation, breath-work, and somatic movement to explore belonging within ourselves and in community. Together, we’ll practice and discuss what it means to be "inclusive" in spaces curated for healing.

🌿 Refreshments will be served.

📅 Oct 18 | 10am–4pm | NXTHVN (doors: 9:30 a.m.)
Fire, Flow, Freedom: From Sacred Resistance to Embodied Refusal with Antoinette Cooper

Resistance is sacred—it awakens us, stirs the fire needed for liberation. If resistance becomes our only practice though, it can keep us reactive and exhaust our nervous systems. Through collective ceremony, movement, and witness, we'll explore a three-stage integration journey: honoring the flames of resistance, moving into radical acceptance of what is, and arriving at sacred refusal—boundaries that come from creative and energetic power. These embodied practices will help us sustain liberation work and beingness through a trauma-informed lens.

🌺 Breakfast: 9:30 a.m. | Workshop: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. | Lunch: 1-2 p.m. | Breakout sessions 2-4 p.m.
Join us for breakout sessions after lunch which may include guided meditation & sound healing, and more.

ABOUT THEMA HAIDA

Thema Haida is a deeply intuitive healer and certified Usui/Holy Fire Reiki Master Teacher, a REGISTERED Yoga Instructor, and an Advanced Metaphysical Healing Practitioner. With a unique ability to hold space for transformation, she integrates Reiki, intuitive energy assessments, and somatic wisdom to guide individuals toward wholeness and alignment.

Rooted in her commitment to healing justice, Thema's practice intentionally centers the well-being of women, LGBTQIA+ communities, and BIPOC individuals.

ABOUT ANTOINETTE COOPER

Antoinette Cooper is a poet, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale, a non-profit dedicated to healing intergenerational trauma in Black communities. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and serves on the Advisory Board for City University School of Medicine's Narrative Medicine Track.

Cooper's debut collection UNRULY (Legacy Book Press, 2025) maps the experiences of Black women's bodies in American medicine through poetry, memoir, and documentary evidence, offering what Thomas Hübl calls "Poetry of the Edge." Her work weaves together ancient technologies of storytelling and trauma-sensitive healing practices to create pathways for collective transformation.

Cooper facilitates trauma-informed workshops at organizations including MoMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Rikers Island. Her approach integrates embodied writing, somatic practices, and ceremonial space-holding. Cooper's work sits at the intersection of healing justice and literary arts, where storytelling becomes medicine and witness becomes transformation.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL WITH RECENT DEEPER CHANGE FORUMS

Nalo Zidan
Masculiminality: A Workshop for Imagining Accountable Masculinities

Winona LaDuke
Recovering the Sacred, Honoring the Seed

Dr. Jamila Lyiscott
Healing the Wounds of Racial Trauma (pt. 2)

INSPIRATION & WISDOM FROM PAST DEEPER CHANGE FORUM PRESENTERS

Preview: Conscious Co-Creation: A Path Toward Liberation