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Send Julie to Cote d'Ivoire

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I am continuing my west African dance education by traveling to Cote d'Ivoire in March 2016 to participate in a month of dance immersion. African dance has brightened my creative life with joy, expression, and the opportunity to explore African cultures. It's influence on my metalwork and jewelry is invaluable to my growing career as an artist. With your help, I can travel to the motherland to immerse myself in dance, learn and heal, grow and experience a new culture.
Here is what the funds will go towards:
-accommodations
-transportation
-food
-paying teachers and musicians
-visa costs

Born and raised on a farm in the mountains of western North Carolina, I've always had a strong affinity to nature and freedom. I was always curious of the continent of Africa. I remember not learning much of this place in school and wondered why.
My interests have been as vast as horse training to herbalism, blacksmithing and silversmithing to west African Dance. In college, I studied Anthropology, Humanities, Writing, Dance, African Studies, and later Professional Crafts with focus in metals.
The first time I left the United States was in 2001, to Ghana for three months of study abroad and to explore and learn dance. I experienced culture shock only upon returning to the country where I grew up, because it seemed so backwards from the bright life of Ghana. The endurance of joy and life that I witnessed those three months changed me forever. I could see now, that America was kinda backwards when you could see the other side of the world. Ghana showed me that people are more valuable than money, that connection is more important than time, and sharing is more cherished and necessary in a struggling world than hoarding.
I have shaped my life with this perspective, running my own metalworking business, sharing my creativity with others, dancing and drumming and consistently learning. The flow of time, creativity, connection with others, with the earth, with our environment, plants and animals, with rhythm and music and movement have conveyed the greatest meaning to my life. I have returned to Africa two more times since Ghana in 2001. A trip in 2006 brought me to Southern Africa with a group of herbalists from all over the world. Leading the group was the late Frank Cook, a master herbalist who had traveled the earth studying plants. This journey of a month brought us through South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and Botswana, meeting the local people and plants. The third journey was in 2013, for a month to Kenya with a good friend, to explore metalworking, the culture and people, and the plants and animals.
The experience of traveling to Africa has sustained me through some very rough times in life, harboring a perspective of reality apart from the typical American ideology of privilege and ease. I carry a knowing of the healing brought on through struggle, the depth of a truth we can experience by allowing our curiosity and acquiescence to teach us. Africa has revealed the strength of struggle and connection, the depth of true healing and continuation of joy penetrating our lives. I seek to share this with others, to channel the creative spirit of this land to bring healing and connection to others, to enrich the lives of others as the motherland has enriched mine.

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise.

Maya Angelou

JL Merrill Metalworks

Organiser

Julie Louise Merrill
Organiser
Asheville, NC

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