The School of Unusual Life Learning (SoULL) is a non-traditional school that teaches about wisdom, nature and somatic awareness with a whole human life perspective.We are at a beautiful yet vulnerable moment in SoULL, as we transition in leadership from our founder, Jeanne Denney, to a co-directorship between LiZhen Wang and Nandita Batheja (past SoULL students, doulas and teachers). You can read more about who we are and how we came into our roles in our December newsletter.It is admittedly challenging to ask for donations at a time where there is so much urgent and dire need around the world. We sincerely hope that all of us can contribute wherever we can to the people on the frontlines of great suffering. At the same time, we believe in SoULL. We believe that this school has something unique and necessary to offer our world-in-crisis. SoULL teaches a whole-life curriculum that speaks directly to the existential panic of our current times. It offers a balm to the primal places in us that, often unconsciously, experience daily terror around death, change, loss and grief. This terror can feed all kinds of things that we don’t want. Violence. Separation. Othering. Exploitation of the earth and her resources.In our personal lives, it can lead to a deep anxiety about doing enough and being enough. It can lead us to chase lives that don’t feed our deepest nature. It can lead us to pursue aggressive medical interventions for loved ones at their end-of-life – even when doctors tell us it will only give them a few more weeks or months – instead of the chance for them to die more peacefully at home, or in hospice, with time for our goodbyes.SoULL offers a balm that helps us experience the truth of our own nature. Through curriculum and embodied experiences, we study and observe for ourselves: what is the truth about our lives? What happens as life moves along? Why is there so much fear around aging and dying – are the horror stories true? How does it look in plants? Animals? Our own bodies? SoULL offers contact with our own, inherent coherence and a sense of continuity of life – connecting the dots from before the beginning of things, through a lifecycle, to after the end.Many of our students, after taking the first part of our program, say something like: I don’t have the words to describe what I’m learning, and that’s because somehow I’m receiving it in my body before my mind. My cells are finding relief. Something deep is settling, and I don’t even know how to explain it yet. SoULL is mysterious yet tangible in this way. What it touches, changes.We see so much potential for this material. We are fundraising so that it has the chance to continue on to more people, in more places, in increasingly creative ways. Your donation will go towards student scholarships, as well as new programming for specific fields. Some of our visions include: programs for first responders who face life and death daily; programs for communities facing polarities/divisions as well as bridge-builders working at this nexus; shorter ‘little bite’ programs for ‘ordinary mortals’ around the world, and more!Finally, and maybe most significantly, your donation means a lot personally for LiZhen and Nandita. If you’re reading this, and you still have no idea what we are talking about, but you love us and want to support us, we are so grateful for that too. No donation is too small or too big. We are raising money, but we are also raising energy, awareness, and collective momentum for this beloved school we are stewarding. Your $2 or your $200 or your $2000 all adds to the collective momentum, and this is truly significant. After all, we teach about the body and energy—life!—so we know your participation increases the strength of our collective body.On that note, we set up our fundraiser to uplift and celebrate the many gifts in our SoULL community! Below you will find a beautiful array of offerings, generously donated by past and present SoULL students. We hope you enjoy their creativity and healing gifts. Some of you will also get to meet our beloved SoULL students if you choose one of the sessions or conversations with them, offered below!If you would simply like to donate without selecting one of these gifts, we also welcome that. You’ll find donation buttons with no offering attached, and there is a choose-your-own-amount option at the bottom of the buttons, on the right side of the screen.Thank you!!!With love,Nandita, LiZhen & the SoULL teamFor reference, here are examples of some of the handmade gifts.Watercolor by DevikaSoULL BraceletCollage Card by DavneyCeramic Mug by Baiba