Meditating for Black Lives, a local organization that supports community efforts to heal oppression using principles and practices of various meditation traditions, hosted their very first meditation session in Herbert von King Park last June. “We were just going to meditate and think and hold this space for each other in light of the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and countless others. That’s what was going to happen,” says founder Brittany Micek.

That’s not exactly what happened. 2,000 people showed up on that summer morning to what would be the first of many community meditations in Bed-Stuy and Brownsville.