Join the CommUnity of Support for Kjersten!

Dear Kin ~ My name is Kjersten (Shares-ten: she/they/ki).

I am a Beauty Activist, Community Songleader, Song Catcher, Community Organizer, Eco-Edutainer, Mother, Gardener, Artist, Musician, and Earth Lover. I currently reside near the Santiam River, in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains, on Kalapuyan land.

In 2020, my performance career as "Magic Mama, Eco-Edutainer" was effectively cancelled. Though I still managed to produce a series of climate action education videos, I have not been able to put my live-looping performance back into action for a few reasons.... I was violently evicted from my home after the 2020 wildfires and spent the winter and following year of 2021 displaced and in radical survival mode. I am still healing from the trauma and PTSD, along with the stress-induced inflammatory dis-ease that ensued. During all this, I applied for pandemic unemployment, which took a year to finally kick in.

I am now sheltered and have begun to put new pieces together as I reinvent myself. I lead monthly community song circles in Corvallis and Portland OR, along with special visits to surrounding areas. I am co-producing a song gathering called Cascadia Song Rise (now organizing for the 2nd annual). I am working on recording my songs, co-facilitating micro-grief rituals, and I recently launched a forum series "Kin-Centric Circles: Exploring Rematriation and Song Circle Culture." I am also developing educational kits for Corvallis teachers to use in tandem with the No Food Left Behind videos I produced during the pandemic. Additionally, I hope to soon be working with the Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center as a music and song specialist.

None of these things provide me with regular income however, and since I now live at least an hour drive from my communities, donations often barely cover expenses. I'm meagerly making ends meet as a fringe-dwelling, edge-walking, new-world-imagining, baby crone.

All this leads to my vulnerable request for support from you, dear Kin, reaching out through mycelial networks far and wide because....

I have been ordered to pay back my pandemic unemployment! I applied for an appeal which was denied based on some bureaucratic technicality. Meanwhile, it took the state a year and a half to respond to my appeal. As it turns out, thousands of people (most of us in the very low income brackets) are being bullied by the system in this way. Having to dredge up specific and traumatic details about my life from 2020-2021 to navigate the legal shenanigans has reactivated my PTSD, dysregulating my nervous system and causing painful inflammation that makes basic daily functions challenging. I don't have the strength to fight the system in this way, I would rather focus on what I am creating, and who I am becoming.

So, I asked myself, "what healing might this situation have to offer?" What I discovered is that I have been carrying a wound of belonging, a story of being abandoned by the village when I needed the most care.

You can help me heal that wound. Even the smallest donation here is a way to say "I got you! I'm part of your village of care, you are not alone!"

Funds gathered here will help me focus my energy on healing and continue to offer my gifts to you all, rather than going into debt to the system that was supposedly there to help us during the pandemic. Rather than hiring a lawyer and continuing the fight, I am simply setting up a payment plan and moving on. I am calling on you, my circle of care, to help me through this. Thank you so much for your love and support!

Watch my No Food Left Behind videos here

Listen to some of my songs on Bandcamp here

Follow me on Instagram

Check out my website Magic Mama Music

Watch for Song Circle postings on Facebook Events

Let's build a better world together! Who's with me?

Thanks again, for being a part of my circle of care!

I appreciate YOU!