Welcome to The Tarrying Place, a space of support, learning and resource-sharing for Black women of faith and spirit-rooted leaders.

 

This project is a direct outgrowth of the work of the Sojourner Truth Leadership Circle (STLC) whose mission is to help Black women-folx embody STLC’s twin mantras:

 

Self-care is a mandate for prophetic leadership.

 

Social justice movements will no longer happen on the backs or over the dead bodies of Black women.

 

The Tarrying Place represents the wit and wisdom of the community of more than one hundred women-folx who make up our ever expanding Circle, each of whom is engaged in their own life’s journey to activist-centered self and community care reflected in our guiding mantras.

 

Welcome

 
 

A place for loving Blackness

The Tarrying Place is for self-defined Black women-folx of all ages, stages, and stations who are ready to proclaim and embody the belief that: Loving Blackness is the spiritual calling of our time.

If you understand that your own Black woman’s body is deserving of nurturing and care as your birthright, this place is for you.

 

We will begin populating portals with content that corresponds to the five elements.

 
An image of a beautiful tree that represents grounding, which is what our exercises, experiences and meditations in Earth will provide.

Find your grounding in Earth.

This portal contains exercises, experiences and meditations that ground individuals and groups in the core principles of STLC.

Explore Earth
 

Check back soon for additional resources from our other elemental portals

 
An illustration of a black woman's hands holding water

Water

Dive deep into our many truths and wade toward healing together

An illustration of a black woman's hands holding a spirit

Spirit

Conjure and create new words, new rituals, new worlds

An illustration of a black woman's hands holding a horn with gusts of wind.

Wind

Dream revolutionary dreams

An illustration of a black woman's hand holding a lit torch, indicating fire and aliveness.

Fire

Stoke the fires of our passion for Black Aliveness

Lisa Anderson, founder of The Tarrying Place and Sojourner Truth leadership circle, speaking in front of a group of black women.
 

Launched in 2013, STLC is a comprehensive program whose mission is to make the ordinary care of the bodies, minds and spirits of Black women a priority in their own lives—and within the social justice spaces where Black women leaders disproportionately serve.

All of our work is steeped in the lived experience and intellectual expression of Black women.

We are rooted in Audre Lorde’s ground-breaking idea that caring for ourselves is a revolutionary act, and organized around the guiding mantra that:

Self-care is a mandate for prophetic leadership.

STLC converts these core values into a practical program for Black women leaders of faith and moral courage to use in their own lives and with the vulnerable communities they serve.