The Gratitude Gathering, Day 1: Opening Ceremonies

NOTE: This event is part of The Gratitude Gathering Retreat, which starts the evening of Nov. 20.

To register for this event: click “RSVP”, and you will be redirected to The Gratitude Gathering Retreat Registration page.

How can we use the power of gratitude during difficult times? Heading into Thanksgiving, join a three-day virtual retreat to honor our losses, connect with our inner sources of gratitude, and nourish our hearts. We will come together to reimagine Thanksgiving and prepare ourselves for the winter holiday season ahead. Join us for a unique multi-day experience of community connection, creativity, and celebration.

FRIDAY, NOV 20: CONNECTION

4:30 - 6:00 pm PST // 7:30 - 9:00 pm EST

We begin our weekend in community connection - setting intentions, remembering our ancestors, and holding space for our grief through ritual. Meet your new virtual family - a beautiful community of souls who will be walking through this weekend with you.

Opening Ceremonies co-hosted by Bea Martino, Reimagine event producer, multimedia artist and grief-advocate, Brad Wolfe, Reimagine Founder and Executive Director, Kristin Urquiza, activist and co-founder of Marked by COVID, and Brenda Salgado, mindfulness author, and traditional medicine woman

Discussions in Grief & Gratitude Circles facilitated by Belinda Liu, founder of Gratitude Blooming and Omar Brownson, co-founder and CEO of the gratitude platform gthx

Meet our hosts

Beatrice Antonie Martino / Reimagine

Beatrice (Bea) Antonie Martino (she/her) is a Reimagine event producer and Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary installation artist, choreographer, and grief activist. She specializes in crafting site-specific, multi-sensory experiences and interactive environments that hold space for introspection, emotional processing, and community connection. Working at the intersections of live performance and technology, she uses video art, projection, movement, and choreography to build worlds that encourage holistic engagement with our shared humanity. Her current work explores individual and collective relationships to grief and mourning, and seeks to create new healing rituals to honor the dead.

Bea's academic background includes B.A. degrees with honors in Dance and Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an M.A. degree from New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study (Artistic Thesis: What Remains: Ritual Spaces for the Contemporary Mourner). Driven by multiple experiences of significant personal loss, Bea has been exploring themes of grief, memory, loss, and identity in her creative work since 2007. In a society where death and grief are marginalized, she believes that we need to make more concerted efforts to create communal spaces in which people can process these experiences through ritual.

To engage with Bea’s work and learn more about her upcoming projects, please visit: https://www.beatricemartino.com.

Kristin Urquiza / Marked by Covid

Kristin Urquiza (she/her) is the Co-Founder and Chief Activist of Marked by COVID. She is a graduate of Yale University and UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy where she has a Master of Public Affairs. She is an environmental advocate at Mighty Earth, where she works to hold corporations like Cargill accountable to their industrial agricultural practices that displace indigenous people from their lands and drive deforestation in places like the Amazon rainforest and beyond. Additionally, Kristin works closely with Liberation in a Generation, a group working to narrow the wealth gap between people of color and white families in the United States within a generation.

Her grandparents were migrant farmworkers– from Mexico and Oklahoma — and her father worked in the fields as a child. She grew up in the Maryvale community of Phoenix, and is a proud product of public primary education and the first person in her family to go to college. Maryvale is a community of predominantly people of color and immigrants, and is now seeing the highest rates of COVID-19 in the nation, where people are waiting 13 hours to be tested.

Kristin’s parents contracted COVID-19 in June, following Governor Ducey’s downplay of the severity of the coronavirus and subsequent rollback of the state’s shelter-in-place ordinance. When her dad passed on June 30 from COVID-19 she launched Marked by COVID to honor her father, collect stories of people who have been impacted by COVID-19, and inspire safer public health policies. With the help of friends and family, she wrote the first #HonestObit, invited the governor to her dad’s funeral, and held a vigil at the state capitol. For more information about Kristin and Marked by COVID visit: https://markedbycovid.com.

Brenda Salgado

Brenda Salgado (she/her) is an author, speaker, medicine woman, and is the founder of Nepantla Consulting. She is currently in the process of establishing the Nepantla Land Trust and the Nepantla Center for Healing and Renewal. She holds degrees in Biology (BA), Developmental Psychology (BA), and Animal Behavior (MS). Brenda has over 20 years of experience in leadership development, nonprofit management, spiritual teaching, movement building, women’s health, and environmental and social justice. She has received training from indigenous elders in Toltec energy healing, traditional medicine, limpia ceremony, and indigenous prophecy and teachings for the times we are in. In the past, she served as the Director of the East Bay Meditation Center, Associate Director at Wisdom & Money, and as a Senior Fellow at the Movement Strategy Center. She has also served on the boards of Movement Strategy Center, Unity San Leandro, and Lion’s Roar Foundation. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Charis Foundation for New Monasticism & InterSpirituality. In November 2016 she released her first book, Real World Mindfulness for Beginners: Navigate Daily Life One Practice at a Time.

Belinda Liu

Belinda Liu (she/her) is the founder of Gratitude Blooming, an organization that integrates art, nature and self-inquiry into inspiring gratitude-based tools and experiences for personal insight, human connection and social change.

As a former Teach For America teacher, China Fulbright Scholar, education reform leader and tech entrepreneur, Belinda is deeply embedded in diverse local and global communities. Her superpowers are shining a light on people’s strengths, bringing them out into the world, and creating life-changing group learning experiences.

She and her husband are also co-founders of Hestia Retreat Center in Mount Shasta, CA, a magical 10-acre sanctuary for individuals and groups to explore and live their purpose from the inside out.

Omar Brownson

Omar Brownson (he/him) is the co-founder and CEO of the gratitude platform gthx. He is also a leader-in-residence at NationBuilder. He’s been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Los Angeles Times, among other media for his work in green infrastructure and social impact. Previously, Omar was the founding executive director of RiverLA and has held leadership positions across finance, sustainability, and public policy. He serves on the boards of InsightLA and Kiss the Ground. Wherever he is, Omar makes sure to take a beat to notice good and share joy. Read more about his journey at www.oprah.com/fearlessgratitude