Cacao Connection Concerts
...formerly Cuddle Concerts
Cacao Connection Concerts* are BACK!! I’m back. Changed. But here. It’s been quite a year.
As most of you know, my beloved Mom and I were SUPER close… We had such a fantastic relationship. I had the honor and challenging experience of being with her every day for the last month of her life. She transitioned like a boss… on a FULL moon, on April 6th, 2023. We celebrated her life with her church & Duluth community (& some of you all virtually & in-person) April 29, 2023.
Mom absolutely LOVED these events. I often say she was my MVC (Most Valuable Cuddler). For anyone NEW to Cuddle Concerts, now called Connection Concerts, the link for saving your spot has a longer description & this website has a bit more, but let me just say this…
These events are a lifetime in the making for me. My whole life has culminated into holding space & creating this type of experience & bringing people together to HEAL, CONNECT, PLAY & LOVE each other! In a safe, consent-based, platonic experience...
We combine MUSIC, dance, ceremonial cacao, wellness arts, bringing people together/creating community & connection… These elements have all been REALLY IMPORTANT parts of my life, especially allowing me to intentionally create a life of learning, growth, healing, movement, dance & music!I have cultivated & found profound INTEGRATION, healing and RESILIENCY. Discovered & revealed from over 25 years of personal, spiritual growth & the intense experiences of losing TWO of the MOST important people in my life.Mom & Marcus have been the most powerful & expansive relationships of spiritual growth/evolution, creativity & co-mentorship… Being both of their caregivers & medical advocates for the last months of their lives transformed me into someone who understands grief, transmutation & the profound GIFT of birth, breath, life & death.
For anyone curiously thinking, 'what are the details of these two loves & their lives, illnesses & deaths?' I’ll talk about that more at the event, but the broad strokes are:
Marcus Lovemore
My partner Marcus Lovemore & I shared 9 years in-love. He was a lifelong meditator (logging thousands of hours & studying/integrating all the great spiritual books/teachings) & an enlightened human who went through the process of dying with tremendous presence, grace, acceptance, love & gratitude. He transitioned from complications from surgery & side effects from unknown ideology kidney failure on November 4th, 2017 at age 45.
Mama Kay (Kay Strand)
My Mom & I co-created a really close relationship where we were each other’s confidants & often emotional/mental & spiritual-processing buddies. She got me started in personal growth, paying for my first weekend seminar in 1997. I became her “way shower” (her words) and taught her much of the yoga, processing & growth tools I learned in myriad trainings and my master’s in spiritual psychology. She transitioned 14 years after her first diagnosis of breast cancer with metastatic cancer in April 2023.
Back to this event… Cacao Connection Concert!!It’s EXPERIENTIAL, so I encourage everyone to be CURIOUS.
Notice whatever thoughts or preconceived ideas you have had when you heard about this, or when reading the description, and COME anyway! What is there for you to be curious about & what can you learn from this experience?
My Mom told me a few months before she died…“Katie, I feel so FULL of LOVE. My life, my family, my friends, all wonderful, and YOUR EVENTS, connecting with your COMMUNITY & cuddling has FILLED ME UP with LOVE! (I’m crying as I write these words; remembering how emphatic she was when she shared this with me.) The connections are so powerful. I’m so grateful!!
My Dad, who has never been to one of these events, commented when a small band of our loving community descended upon our home in Duluth to massage, sing to and give LOVE to my Mom (& support to me & my family) in her final days… here’s what he said: “I’m amazed at how strong the connections are with you, your friends & Mom… Mom has only known them for what, a year or so?! It’s incredible. Her face just LIT UP when she saw them…”
I hope you can come & experience this. I plan to have one Cacao Connection Concert per month in Minneapolis. I also plan to create these in other locations & would love your support! If you've been to a Cacao Concert and would like to fill out a feedback form, that helps us learn and improve upon these events!
In the meantime, reserve your spot using this link (also below) & I hope to see you at our next Cacao Connection Concert!
Together we feel, together we heal!
Love & Gratitude,
Your Chief Connection Officer,
Katie Strand
https://www.eventcreate.com/e/nov2023cacaoconnectionconcertmpls
Mama Kay's Transition
Mama Kay drops her body after 82 years...
On April 6, 2023, Mama Kay transitioned from metastasized breast cancer. She lived life with so much LOVE, growth, learning, healing, connection. She kept friends from childhood. As most of you know, we were extremely close. My heart felt broken all over again... After experiencing the intensity of caregiving, medical advocacy, and being present for my beloved partner Marcus's transition in 2017, the whole experience was familiar, but of course unique to my Mom... and, I had over a decade of adult life before I knew Marcus. I've never known a life without Mom. I continue to learn from both of them, as they were two of my greatest teachers. Memories of things they said, spiritual connection and communication with them, and the gifts of grief and pain continue to help me grow and evolve. And, I still wish they were here, healthy and whole. I also had a LOT of FUN with both of them. My primary emotions about both Marcus and my Mom are: GRATITUDE and LOVE. Those remain beyond everything. Those are in the foundation of existence.
Mama Kay Brick - words to live by
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About
BIO
ORIGIN STORY
ORIGIN STORY
Katie Strand is a Songwriter, Storyteller, Dancer, Director, Producer, Writer, Host, Consultant/Coach & Emmy-nominated Documentary Film Producer.
Strand's current & most recent projects are:
CACAO CONNECTION CONCERTS
lots more information on CCCs above!
A one-woman variety show about healing & transmuting grief through
Katie Strand is a Songwriter, Storyteller, Dancer, Director, Producer, Writer, Host, Consultant/Coach & Emmy-nominated Documentary Film Producer.
Strand's current & most recent projects are:
CACAO CONNECTION CONCERTS
lots more information on CCCs above!
A one-woman variety show about healing & transmuting grief through movement, connection, creativity and love... a LOVE story told through STORYTELLING,
MUSIC & DANCE.
NEIGHBORHOOD FOREST, I LOVE TREES*
A mini-documentary video project Strand directed, narrated, wrote, produced and edited, and includes an original love song to trees and highlights the non-profit Neighborhood Forest.
AKA SEX N STUFF FROM MN W/ LENA MERRYWEATHER
Lena is an educational/comedic character created by Strand. Lena embodies and explores personal growth on sex, relationships, and all kinds of stuff!
*Turning grief to gold &
Going viral with Neighborhood Forest:
Strand continues developing The Widow Lovemore on Rizzle, garnering more than 300,000 channel views. Plans are in the works to make The Widow Lovemore into a 18-minute TED-talk and expand it into an ensemble theatre performance, as well as create a documentary and feature film. Collaborators wanted!
Strand also produced, wrote, directed & edited the mini-documentary for Neighborhood Forest "I Love Trees.” Neighborhood Forest has been giving free trees to kids since 2010, but in 2021, they went viral and went from giving away an average of 5000 trees per year to 18,000! Strand's mini-documentary helped raise $50,000 for the non-profit. Neighborhood Forest gave over 18,000 free trees to kids this year!
More projects:
2018 Strand Directed/Produced Rock the Vote with the WNBA, worked on a Deadpool 2 commercial and produced "Just One of Those Things," an Ella Fitzgerald documentary by Eagle Rock Films. in 2019, Strand produced The Catalyst Content Festival and hosted the official Catalyst podcast. Strand has worked on many projects for HBO, PBS, NBC, MTV, Fox, BBC, including 4 MTV Music Video Awards, and over 20 national commercials including a Deadpool 2 commercial (featuring Deadpool/Ryan Reynolds & a Unicorn!), and an HBO/Time Warner Super Bowl commercial.
In addition to the aforementioned film and creative endeavors, Strand also manages organic social media accounts for small businesses and non-profits that have a positive impact.
In additional to creative, music and film projects, Strand loves learning, creating, and movement. Strand plays sings, plays piano, guitar, sails, writes, practices MMA/Martial Arts, Aerial Acrobatics, Stand Up Paddleboarding, and dances Fusion, Swing, Tango, Salsa and Zouk.
For the better part of 25 years, Strand has been studying & practicing personal growth, health and self-actualization via meditation, Kundalini yoga, movement, and personal growth seminars, which led her to earn a Master’s in Spiritual Psychology in 2008 and become a certified Hypnotherapist in 2010. She earned a Bachelor’s in Communications/Film from UCSD, graduating with honors/magna cum laude.
ORIGIN STORY
ORIGIN STORY
ORIGIN STORY
Hi! I was born in Duluth, Minnesota to a pair of demi-celebrity over-achievers. Both parents earned scholarships to university via academics and athletics, then went on to become prominent teachers, coaches, leaders and members of the Duluth community.
My childhood was full of singing for every family gathering & school concerts, playing
Hi! I was born in Duluth, Minnesota to a pair of demi-celebrity over-achievers. Both parents earned scholarships to university via academics and athletics, then went on to become prominent teachers, coaches, leaders and members of the Duluth community.
My childhood was full of singing for every family gathering & school concerts, playing piano, guitar, dancing, physical activity/fitness, and learning! My go-to hits to sing, starting at age 3, were famous movie songs, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow," "Somewhere Out There" and "Tomorrow". I loved movies growing up! I wanted to sing in and make movies… The third of four children, I had the opportunity to learn from my older siblings as well as my parents, peers and teachers.
Standardized tests revealed a proclivity for language and math, so at age 9, I was ushered into the nerd-club (SAGE) and was introduced to brainstorming, French, advanced math (The Fibonacci sequence was my first foray into the art of math), creative problem-solving, competed in state-wide scholastic competitions, and was given the opportunity to produce, direct, set-design and costume design two completely original plays that we performed at the state scholastic competition.
At the same pivotal time in my childhood (around 4th grade/age 9), I was assigned to be the AV-kid, another nerd-honor that gave me the opportunity to learn how to lace and run a film projector!... foreshadowing my career in film!
In high-school, I auditioned and applied for The Perpich Center for Arts Education in the music department, a highly competitive, residential arts high school in Minneapolis, MN, aka hometown of Prince! Only 10% of applicants are accepted.
For college, I ventured to San Diego and put myself through college (teacher-parents didn't have the budget to cover college & living expenses) so I got scholarships and grants, and worked as a personal trainer, Pilates & Yoga instructor from 1998-2002 to fund my education at UCSD. In 2004, I moved to Los Angeles to continue working in film and television.
My partner/husband Marcus Lovemore and I met in 2008 and spent a few years in Mount Shasta, but my primary home from 2004-2018 was Los Angeles, where I worked on a bevy of film and television projects, played music gigs (Bill Murray came to one of my gigs & demanded an encore!), danced swing, salsa and tango, attended graduate school for a master's in Psychology (University of Santa Monica) and had a beautiful, diverse community.
When I returned to Minnesota in 2018, due in large part to Marcus’s death, I was fortunate enough to produced/direct Rock The Vote with the WNBA and produce the Catalyst Film Festival. My father actually coached 3 owners/managers of the 5 primary event venues. Both parents continue to receive thank you letters and accolades from past colleagues and students. I owe and attribute many of my qualities (mostly good, but some, perhaps I'd like to trade-in) to my parents, both genetically and environmentally. They were both engaged, talented, loving and supportive humans and parents.
Despite some turbulence and trauma in my childhood, due primarily to an older brother-bully, and some bullying at school, I remain grateful for how my childhood shaped me and taught me the kind of human I want to be.
P.S. about my older brother who was a bully... He's a lovely man now. I did a ton of forgiveness and processing of those early childhood traumas, and it worked! We are closer than ever. Also, due to an accident in the family, he was the only family member who attended Marcus's memorial. He was simply awesome during that time - loving and supportive. We're very close now!) My meditation and personal growth experience and training, spanning over 25 years, and my masters in spiritual psychology helped me process the trauma and forgive so that I have a loving, supportive relationship with my brother.
WIDOWING
ORIGIN STORY
WIDOWING
For most of 2017, I took care of and held the hand of Marcus Lovemore, my love & life-partner, as he transitioned at the early age of 45. He was a healer, health/fitness expert, sifu/martial arts teacher, mindfulness master/teacher and artist. But more significantly, he was my favorite person on earth, who was on my side and in my corner
For most of 2017, I took care of and held the hand of Marcus Lovemore, my love & life-partner, as he transitioned at the early age of 45. He was a healer, health/fitness expert, sifu/martial arts teacher, mindfulness master/teacher and artist. But more significantly, he was my favorite person on earth, who was on my side and in my corner for close to 9 years. His loss was devastating... but more importantly, transformational.
My solo storytelling & songwriting show, The Widow Lovemore, shares about the experience of Marcus Lovemore transitioning and how I felt connection and communication with him during his final hours and after his death. Every human will experience the death of a loved one...
Grief is ubiquitous in every human life... it taught me how to do and be with the deepest depths of despair, transmute this intense sadness/loss and grief into creativity, connection, helping others/being of service, and love through curiosity, vulnerability, processing and a willingness to feel and learn from grief... within the galactic heights of love, connection and inspiration.
Grief will transform us into the best versions of ourselves, if we let it... But it's also the most difficult thing, beyond anything I could've imagined... And it's made me uniquely ready and qualified to coach you through life's biggest challenges and transitions so you are the very best version of yourself.