experiments in felt futures
AUGUST 2 — NOVEMBER 22, 2025
A four-month literary immersion where we will remember and explore felt futures as a liberatory lifeforce within ourselves to feel, dream, and design the futures that our creative being and practice can live inside.
guided by the
book collection,
may we dream and design felt futures: where our creative being and practice can feel the sensations of care, intimacy, and liberation by Denise Shanté Brown, this literary immersion transforms the collection's pages into ceremonies of praxis and play¹.
together in intimate community
We will embrace the sensorial and the sensuous while seeding worlds of care. We will (re)connect with our creative lineages, abundant creativity, rituals, and devotions. We will embody new ways of being, knowing, relating, and making that will carry us from this breath to the next.
the experience
“experiments in felt futures” is a four-month literary immersion designed for us to remember and explore the futures we long for and love. Each month, we will activate the pages within the book collection, may we dream and design felt futures, offering a practice ground for sensory-based experimentation, inquiry, and storytelling. This literary immersion will hold us through the ongoing process of growing a creative life and practice that insists on care² and audaciously trusts the futures that are leaking through our pores.³
the people
This is for creative and intuitive beings, space holders, designers, artists, writers, organizers, care givers, care receivers, wild worldmakers, and multidimensional dreamers. This is for people who know how necessary it is to create the conditions for feeling deeply and moving toward more possibilities, especially as we do the work of collective care and liberation. This is for folks who refuse to be disembodied in their creative practice and want to curiously engage with the sensorial, intuitive, intimate, sensuous, known, and unknown.
the cadence
Our weekly gatherings will be live, spacious, and care-full. We will begin with a Welcome Gathering and end with a Closing Ceremony. Space will be held twice a week for two hours each day from 5:30 - 7:30pm EST: Tuesdays for Guided Experiments and Thursdays for Embody Sessions. To help us savor the practices, Pause and Integration weeks will be woven in between each month. Everyone will have access to our private community on Discord and a collaborative Are.na channel with a library of co-curated resources.
a breathing entity, creative compass,
and liberatory life force within us that trusts
the sensorial and the sensuous as we
dare to make the futures we desire a reality.
what if we enter the practice ground
to feel, dream, and design the futures
we long for and love?
maybe the worlds you want to weave refuse to be woven without your body knowledges designing the way forward.
maybe you know your practice is meant to experience a more intimate relationship with your (dis)abled body, your more-than-human worlds, and your dreams for care and liberation.
or maybe you can no longer ignore the futures living and breathing within you—longing to be deeply felt, remembered, and explored so new visions can begin.
the practice ground is fertile for us to remember and explore the liberatory lifeforce of felt futures that exist within ourselves.
here, we can shape a creative practice that honors our (dis)abled bodies and lineages, nurtures our abundant creativity, renews our rituals, and protects our devotions.
at the heart of this offering is the experimental concept of felt futures:
Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
They are chaotic, sometimes painful, sometimes contradictory, but they come from deep within us. And we must key into those feelings...This is how new visions begin.
— Audre Lorde, Conversations with Audre Lorde
the experiments in felt futures framework
The experiments in felt futures framework is made of four literary immersions, transforming the book collection may we dream and design felt futures into ceremonies of praxis and play. Each cycle within the literary immersion invites us to feel deeply, dream deliberately, and design care-fully.
Activating the power of story, every week connects us with the presence of felt futures by excavating the creative lineages, abundant creativity, rituals, and devotions that will design the futures our creative being and practice are longing to experience.
The beginning formations of this framework and creative offering were created during my participation in the Winter 2024 Seed A World Retreat guided by Ayana Zaire Cotton.
the experiments in felt futures
literary immersion
August 2 - November 22, 2025
Enrollment closes August 1 with 12 spots that include 2 scholarship seats.
Focusing on one book per month, experiments in felt futures will flow from August - November, beginning with a Welcome Gathering and ending with a Closing Ceremony. We will convene at Zoomland twice per week on Tuesdays (Guided Experiments) and Thursdays (Embody Sessions).
Remembering breath as creative sustenance, Pause and Integration weeks will also be woven in between each month for us to saturate in the illuminations and practices wanting to come through.
guided experiments
Tuesdays at 5:30 - 7:30PM EST
to rehearse and try-on the practices and possibilities breathing within the book collection through the four pathways of felt futures: creative lineages, abundant creativity, rituals, and devotions.
embody sessions
Thursdays at 5:30 - 7:30PM EST
to be in collective inquiry and storytelling about the shape our creative politic and care praxis is longing to take and to share ways we can be breathing embodiments of the futures we feel and desire.
august
welcome gathering: august 2 at 1PM EST
to meet the spirit of fellow experimenters, share the dreams and desires each of us is bringing into the experience, and shape collective agreements.
pause & integration: week of august 25
literary immersion 01:
creative lineages
Book: “and when we touch our creative lineages”
Practice: communal storytelling
Felt futures wander within the collective remembrance of memory, grief, and legacy to touch the lineages of who we are, what our bodies know, and who/what we honor as creative beings.
This experiment invites us to trust story as medicine and collective memory as preservation. Through communal storytelling, space holding, and memory keeping, we will wonder:
What parts of our creative lineages feel necessary for us to excavate, reclaim, nourish, and preserve? What will our stories reveal about what matters most to us, the ways we practice, and why we return to creative work? How can the feltness of our spoken histories illuminate the futures we want to live inside?
september
pause & integration: week of september 29
literary immersion 02:
abundant creativity
Book: “to tend to each other’s abundant creativity”
Practice: intimate correspondence
Felt futures intimately correspond with the people and more-than-human beings in our lives who tend to our breath, our being, and our abundant vessels of creativity.
This experiment invites us to write words and worlds to those who are generously filling our abundant vessels of imagination, dignity, and (self) determination. Through intimate correspondence, memoir, and truthtelling, we will wonder:
Whose existence supports who we are, what we feel, and what we long to transform? How can the intimacy of letter-writing become a practice of worldmaking and archiving? What futures of care exist within our letters to each other while at the edges and ends of the world?
october
pause & integration: week of october 27
literary immersion 03:
rituals
Book: “let us listen for and design the rituals we desire”
Practice: ritual design
Felt futures listen for the rhythms, renewals, and reconnections of ritual to deliberately bring our commitments and desires into existence.
This experiment invites us to continuously listen in long, luminous ways and design the everyday rituals our beingness desires. Through ritual design, communal dreaming, and ceremony, we will wonder:
What is our relationship to ritual, to spirit, to life, to ancestors? How do we long to be held through the complexities of change? How can we practice transforming our days into liberating and meaningful moments?
november
closing ceremony: november 22 at 1PM EST
to celebrate the four-month journey and showcase your creations that emerged from our experiments in felt futures. This ceremony also welcomes your invited beloveds and kinfolk to join us in the celebration.
literary immersion 04:
devotions
Book: “while protecting the energy of our devotions”
Practice: devotion documentation
Felt futures prepare a soft sanctuary of safety for our devotions and the energies they carry, the things we’re made of, and the things that matter most to us.
This experiment invites us to be in intimate relationship with what we are devoting ourselves to energetically. Through devotion documentation, sanctuary building, and living manifestos, we will wonder:
What can the act of devotion reveal to us and teach us? Where are we placing our energies and loyalties and how might this guide the politic of our creative practice? How can we deepen our dedications and protect what matters most to us as we design wild dreams for care and liberation?
may we dream and design felt futures is a celebration of a life — or rather, lifetimes — of creative practice converging into being.
In this, Denise Shanté offers up an intimate gift — an access to herself, as an access to ourselves. May we journey well together, and live into our “felt futures” collectively.
— Sara Yang (she/her), IO Studio
the materials
and support
systems you will receive:
A free copy of the book collection, may we dream and design felt futures by Denise Shanté Brown
To receive a free copy, you must be in the US and register before July 31.
If you already have a copy, your registration fee will be discounted.
Four 3-week immersions totaling 24 live sessions
The decision to record will be collectively decided during our Welcome Gathering.
One private 45-minute session with Denise Shanté to offer guidance on a future you’re dreaming and designing into existence. This session can be scheduled after the literary immersion closes, from January - March 2026.
Care-centric teachings grounded in Black feminism, design justice, healing justice, and somatics.
Easeful engagement with multiple modes of media to open different meaning-making portals that honor our bodyminds.
Pause and integration weeks between each monthly literary immersion.
Access to join a private community on Discord for asynchronous connection with other participants.
Access to downloadable mp3 files of all four soundscapes that include me reading excerpts from each book. These soundscapes are a collaboration with Filipinx-American ambient musician and designer, Camille Nibungco (they/she).
Library of co-curated resources on Are.na connected to each month’s theme.
Invitation to be published on Denise Shanté’s “feeling our futures” substack, speaking to the felt futures emerging within you and your creative practice.
Closing ceremony with a showcase of what you’ve created during the four months, welcoming invited loved ones to join us.
experiments in
felt futures is for
you if:
You want to experiment with feeling, dreaming, and designing futures that emerge from your deepest desires and intuitions.
You’re seeking a playful practice ground where you can start embodying sensorial ways of being, knowing, relating and making alongside an intimate community.
You're longing to experience the sensations of care, intimacy, and liberation within every aspect of your practice and personhood.
You’ve been pouring a lot of care into communities, movements, and spaces and now want to build practices and worlds that will also care for you.
You feel a sense of aliveness when frameworks offer you the freedom to explore your interior worlds through multiple modes of expression, inquiry, and experimentation.
You're ready to trust your sensorial knowledge and tend to the expansive, (dis)abled body from which you create.
You connect with your creative practice as a call to remembering, sensing, listening, embodying, collaborating, reimagining, storytelling, and writing.
You want to uncover, deepen, or reconnect with your creative lineages, abundant creativity, rituals, and devotions.
solidarity pricing
The pricing tiers are borrowed from friend and creative co-conspirator, nènè myriam konate.
If you need a 4-month payment plan option, please indicate this in the registration form below.
nurture
$1950
Choose the nurture tier if most of the following applies to you:
your (embodied or relational) proximity to whiteness, your gender, your sexuality, your marital status, your citizenship, your health, and/or your level of education grant you structural advantages
you, your family, or your partner own the home you live in
you have investments, retirement accounts, or inherited money
you have access to family money and resources in times of need
you work part time or are unemployed by choice (including unemployment due to full-time school in a degree-earning program).
By choosing this option you are nurturing this practice, paying it forward, and pouring into scholarships.
sustain
$1250
Choose the sustain tier if most of the following applies to you:
you have stable income and/or you share living expenses with your family or your partner
you can meet your basic needs (food, medication, housing, childcare, transportation, etc.)
you have access to health insurance and/or other benefits through your employer, your family, or your partner
you are able to miss work either for sickness, emergencies, or leisure and are still able to pay your bills
you are able to make regular payments towards your debt.
By choosing this option you are sustaining this practice.
honor
$750
Choose the honor tier if most of the following applies to you:
you are black and/or indigenous
you have been forced to leave your native land
you are disabled
you face structural barriers due to your sexual or gender identity
you are a survivor of sexual/domestic violence
you are single and/or solely responsible for your living expenses
you are a sex worker
you have been denied work due to your incarceration history
you have significant debt
you are supporting (chosen) family
you take risks to meet your basic needs (food, medication, housing, childcare, transportation, etc.)
By choosing this option you are naming how much you can pour into this practice while honoring your needs and inviting me to honor them with you.
join experiments in felt futures
In loving regard for the Black, disabled, and chronically ill body from which Denise Shanté creates, 2 full scholarships for experiments in felt futures are being offered to Black disabled and/or chronically ill folks with a creative practice.
The interest form includes the same registration questions for all participants, plus one additional field for you to share more about why you’re applying for the scholarship and how this experience will resource you and your creative practice.
Interest Forms will close by midnight EST on Friday, July 25. Chosen recipients will be notified on Wednesday, July 30.
Scholarship recipients (in the US) will also receive free copies of may we dream and design felt futures.
If you’re someone who wants to donate funds and help financially resource the accessibility of this literary immersion, please email me here.
full scholarships
the experiments in
felt futures manifesto
written by Denise Shanté Brown
we begin by feeling.
with our bodies as the compass,
our interior worlds are sensuous
sanctuaries that will carry us
through every trusted dream,
desire, and devotion.
porous and potent—
care is the connection,
intimacy is the sustenance.
liberation is the breath.
experimentation will be a
promise because the abundance
within us longs for ceremonies
of collective praxis and play.
crossing and transcending
borders, our creative beings
are expansive. our creative
practices are embodied.
our creative dimensions
are expressed.
each ritual and movement
guiding our fully felt futures
will be an ode to our creative
lineages and the legacies we
were made to design and write.
this is the practice ground.
this is the rehearsal.
meet the author & guide
Through everything endured and remembered, my body is here—creating the conditions to feel the futures I desire as my practice continually reorients itself to connect with what can become more possible for us.
Felt futures came through as a divine contribution worth naming and bringing forward into the collective because it wants to breathe within each of us—as creative compass, as liberatory lifeforce—to help make the futures we desire a reality.
Alongside creative spirit, I listened. I surrendered. I excavated. Now, with over 10 years of designing a creative social practice rooted in the sensorial and the possible, I’m honored to guide us closer to the futures we deserve—futures where every part of our creative being and practice can feel the sensations of care, intimacy, and liberation.
The pages within may we dream and design felt futures were designed to be your creative sanctuary, activated through shared ceremonies of praxis and play. This four-month literary immersion, experiments in felt futures, is our moment to remember and explore the futures echoing through our bones so we can open pathways for what our bodies have dreamed and known.
denise shanté brown
MULTIDIMENSIONAL DESIGNER
CREATIVE CO-CONSPIRATOR
INTUITIVE WRITER
join experiments in felt futures
Frequently Asked Questions
Are scholarships available?
Yes! Two full scholarships are available for Black disabled and/or chronically ill folks with a creative practice. If this is you, you can submit your interest through this form. Interest Forms will close by midnight EDT on Friday, July 25 and recipients will be notified on Monday, July 28.
Do you offer refunds?
This is an intimate experience, holding space for 12 participants with recorded sessions decided upon by the group.
Please read all of the information and schedule details, attend the free discovery and soundscape session, and dedicate space to be in your discernment about alignment and capacity before making a decision to register.
If an emergency arises and you’re no longer able to attend, please contact me to receive a refund. Refunds will not be given from August 2 and beyond.
How do I pay?
After completing the registration form, you will be emailed a payment link to save your seat and pay via Venmo, CashApp (these two preferred) or Stripe.
What access supports will be available?
Every gathering will have scheduled breaks with freedom to take additional breaks as your bodymind needs, auto-captioning via Zoom, co-generated community agreements, camera on/off as desired, and all forms of communication welcomed (voice, chatbox, emojis, movement).
What materials will I need access to?
A copy of the book collection, may we dream and design felt futures (one will be shipped to participants in the US).
Something to write with
Something to write on
Any creative and art making supplies you enjoy
collective spells for
felt futures
may we be free, safe, and at peace.
may we remain grounded in our humanity, in care, in love, in solidarity, in truth.
may we be love.
may we continue to be brave hearted in our expressions and let unconditional love overflow through the woven stories of our omnipresence.
may we be unapologetic.
may we continue to feel deeply.
may we continue to connect to our compassion and humanity.
may we connect to creative life force that leads to our deepest expressions of love and community.
may we trust the futures that leak through our pores and spill into infinite oceans of wisdom.
may we continue to nurture our minds, bodies, and souls with creativity and authenticity.
may we look to our teachers in the natural world, unseen realms, and inner-Creatrix as we co-weave our felt futures.
may we trust our creative compass and feel our way to the futures we love, desire, and deserve.
co-written by friends, comrades, and creative co-conspirators who joined the virtual book launch and celebration on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 for the collection “may we dream and design felt futures” written and designed by Denise Shanté.
notes
¹ My love for P. Ife Williams’ definition of praxis is alive here, defined as “our commitment to a constant, cyclical practice of rigorous reflection and action.” Echoing this framing, maybe play could be “our commitment to a constant, cyclical practice of ungovernable wonder and experimentation.” P. Ife Williams, “Reflections on the Negation of Blackness//Affirmations of Our Clairvoyance Through Creative Healing Praxes,” in:cite journal 1 (2018), 28.
² This description of the experience comes from the quote, “For once, I can see the beauty in having flesh that is as loud as my spirit. It insists on care, it is just as stubborn as I am, just as brilliant, and I forgive it for being like this, disabled and furiously alive.”Akwaeke Emezi, “My Spirit Burns Through This Body” (2020).
³ This description of the experience comes from the contribution, “may we trust the futures that leak through our pores and spill into infinite oceans of wisdom.” from nènè myriam konate as part of “collective spells for felt futures” which was co-written friends, comrades, and creative co-conspirators who joined the virtual book launch and celebration on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.