M. Eliza Hamilton Abegunde, poet and Reiki Master, will share some insight into her work as a healing facilitator who uses the body as a "memory site".  Ms Hamilton Abegunde's primary work focuses on the recovery of ancestral memory, especially those of people of the African Diaspora, and how a better understanding of those memories can help a person embrace their spiritual self and release old patterns.

We are especially privileged to have Ms Hamilton Abegunde visiting us.  She is a Cave Canem Fellow.  She was chosen as lead teacher for one of Captain Bill Pinckney's sailing voyages through the Middle Passage, and works with UNESCO on various cultural programs, as well as speaks and reads widely at bookstores and literary festivals.  Hamilton Abegunde is the author of various poetry collections and has been featured on PBS, WBEZ, WVON, and CBS Sunday Morning.  Her work has also been featured in several independent films.

Glenda Bailey-Mershon, editor of Jane's Stories:  An Anthology by Midwestern Women, says"  "When she speaks, her presentation is simple, yet compelling, part reading, part exhortation, part evocation of the fundamental relationship between memory and heritage.  Because we all know grief, we all know shame.  Hamilton Abegunde's work inspires her audience to connect with the secrets and hidden treasures in their own individual histories.  To read Eliza's work is to know in one's heart and soul the grief and terror of the enslaved and the terrible alienation of the enslaver.  And yet we are all so near to the bone of truth we cut by reading or listening to her work somehow enriched and relieved by the experience."

For a sample of her poetry visit www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/poems/midnight.html