MEND Season 3 - Episode 52

Seeding the Light to Come with adrienne maree brown

If you’ve listened long enough, you’ve heard this show go through various incarnations and iterations.

Moving into some interesting rabbit trails and seeking to find it’s footing in the larger world.

And as this new year begins - and I anchor more deeply into what I want my own work and legacy and path and service to be and become - I get a clearer sense of what this tiny platform is and can be.

A tiny light.

A way to cast hope, clarity, direction, inspiration, information & guidance into an often dark & deeply distracted age.

A way to call us back to ourselves - as wise, compassionate and brilliant beings.

Resilient and connected beyond measure.

THIS is the gift of this work and this platform and the conversations herein.

So, it is with this heart in mind - that I am beyond pleased to bring you the first conversation of 2019  - an interview with adrienne maree brown.

adrienne is the author of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She is a writer, social justice facilitator, pleasure activist, healer and doula living in Detroit.

She also, along with her sister Autumn Brown, creates a podcast of her own, How to Survive the End of the World - which I highly reccomend.

At the end of last year, adrienne and i sat down to talk about her work inside Emergent Strategy - and dipped a bit into the work ofher upcoming book - Pleasure Activism.

We discussed the many roles and duties she carries out in service of this larger work and the non-linear way her career and callings have iterated over the years to bring to where she is today.

We dropped into conversation about mushrooms and birch trees - and gaining insight & direction from the natural world - on things like reclaiming our earthworm nature, our fungal nature & underground nature, as well.

We talked about call-out culture and whether or not it’s really getting us to where we ultimately want to be.

A bit about what it means to be a WOE - in adrienne’s vernacular - and the mechanics of real, transformative relationship in real tim

We talked about  what it actually takes to create long-term, systematic change - just a hint -  it’s not what you think.

A spiritual practice to engage on - of all places - social media.

And lastly, this white woman got schooled on the sacred being-ness of Beyonce.  

As with all things she does, this conversation with adrienne was deep, wide-ranging, hugely pleasurable and insightful on a grand scale.

To find out more about adrienne and her work, please make sure to check the show notes.

To connect with me - your host - Amy Day - a bit more - ask questions, spark up a conversation, and let me know how this lands in your world - feel free to drop me a line - either via a review in itunes, or over at mendpodcast@gmail.com

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for doing your own great work in this world, holding fast your own great THREAD.

We need you so.

MEND Season 3 - Episode 48

Yoga for the Revolution with Carrie Ingoglia

Happy Voting Day!!!!!

If you’ve listened long enough to this show, you know I am a semi-proud member of the woo club.

I’ve drunk the wheat-grass-flavored koolaid and donned the galaxy-themed stretchy pants and played joyous, studious & deeply-driven rounds of solo Twister on my little sticky mat.  

For better or worse, I am a self-identified yogi.

But, as you also may know, I tend to want to throw up some caveats and barriers between me and that crowd.  

Yogis as white, affluent, cis-gendered folks who achieve enlightenment through bettering their handstands.  

Nope.  Not it.

Yogis who, when confronted with the atrocity of gun-violence or police brutality or the proposed erasure of non-binary peoples, prefer to do a little slow-motion disco on their sticky mats, send light & love, and let some other, less spiritual being do the dirty work of confronting this icky bit of humanity.  

Please don’t toss me in this bin.

Yogis who think it’s enough just to concentrate on elevating their own vibration as a way to make the world a better place.

Yogis who use practice as a way to retreat from the world and it’s problems rather than a way to arm ourselves to confront them.

Yogis who use spirituality as just one more consumer product they can buy, soak up, and then toss by the wayside as it suits them, spraying themselves in its’ ephermal mist and never letting its’ harder teachings penetrate the skin.

As you can see, I’ve got some beef with the current mainstream yoga culture, as it were.  

So, it’s always a delight and a surprise when I come across someone who is using the practice to move counter to the culture.

Who is not so fixated on the perfect handstand, but, rather on using the physical practice to perfect their character, learn how to sit with the uncomfortable and confront injustice both inside themselves and in the world.

These are the types of conversations I love to have.

So, I was thrilled to have this talk with Carrie Ingoglia, an Ayurvedic Yoga Teacher, who is the writer and producer of the podcast Yoga For the Revolution. I say more about this inside the intro of the talk, so listen up for more details about that.

Carrie and I talked about carrying the practice beyond the mat, learning how to be uncomfortable and some of the people we look to in this world of the spiritual who are also doing real-world good, as well.  

Far from a conversation with two polished, lifelong devotees & activists, what you are about to listen to is a real-life chat between two, heartfelt, imperfect women who are wanting to do better.  Who are not always certain of what the next step is, but are willing to move into the gap, nonetheless.

Like the physical practice, it is always an invitation.  To get quiet. To see where we are moving out of alignment - with our hearts, our beliefs and our calling.  And to take steps - humble, daily, faltering ones - to move out into a better way forward.

For more on Carrie, her podcast and the other great work that she does, make sure to check the show notes.  And, as always, if this chat has touched you in any way, and you want to add to the conversation, please make sure to leave a rating and review in iTunes.  

And, of course, if you haven’t already, get out there and cast your ballot.  

It’s not the be-all-end-all, of course for righting the wrongs of our culture.  

Voting doesn’t buy us a free pass to go back to whatever-ing the other 364 days of the year, right?

But it’s a start.

MEND Season 3 - Episode 47

Taking Poetic Action with Leslie Castellano

“Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. ”

― William S. Burroughs

When it comes to leading lives of passion & creativity, we tend to believe in a set binary.

There are those of us - so we say - that are meant to write, paint, dance, create - make the world a bit more vivid and beautiful by our voice, our touch, our presence.

It is the work to which we are called to in this life.

Then, the same story goes - there are those who are meant to engage in matters of policy.  Civic discourse and dialogue. Who can best affect change at the structural, boardroom, nuts-and-bolts, dare I say, utterly artless side of cultural exchange.  

There are the artists.  

And then there are the policy makers.  

And ne’er shall the two entwine.  

They are made for such entirely different things in this life.
My guest today is someone who tosses this limited theory out on it’s head.

Leslie Castellano is a local performance artist, teacher, dancer & businesswoman - who also happens to be running for City Council - Ward 1, in Eureka, to be precise - this year.  

In this talk, we discuss her decision to venture out of her long-tenure as contributing artist to her local community to a person who is striving to affect policy, as well.

We talk about the intersection of Art & Politics.  

About shifting out of our individual and collective comfort zones to lobby on behalf of the type of world we want to live in - which sometimes means canvassing, making phone calls, and going door-to-door, rather than simply writing a song or creating a dance piece.  

At the heart of each of these impulses, Leslie states,  is a driving desire to care for people and build community.

Through her efforts as an activist, artist & community organizer, she longs to build a society where all people are valued.

We talk about where this impulse has taken her thus far and the places she’s venturing into just now.

I hope you’ll be inspired, as I am, by the work and presence of this wonderful woman.

She’s a reminder to me that even though we all have our designated comfort zones - we can step out of them.  

We can take on new roles, new languages & new possibilities to begin to mend the culture where we live.  

There is a place for ART.  For beauty & symbolism & delight.

And there is a place for re-writing laws and by-laws.  For upending the current structure and mapping out an entirely different system than the one we’ve known.

And there is a way to synthesize the two - so that together they - we - all of us - can THRIVE.

MEND Season 3 - Episode 46

Re-Making the Culture with Kelly Diels

Several years ago, you may have heard me mention here or there - I made the decision to step more fully into the online space.  

I came to the realization that if I was going to eke out a living for myself as an herbalist & yoga teacher, I was going to have to connect with a larger community than the one I had access to inside my small, college town.

So I started the work of learning the basics of online presence.  Marketing.  Messaging. 

Learning how to build an audience and a following so that you have some folks to share your work and services with.  

 But I ran into some issues.  

From what I could see - and still see by and large - is there’s a working model out there.  

For yogis, in particular, this model appears to be - thin, able-bodied, white-presenting, cis-gendered folks, scantily-clad in gorgeous sunlit studios, or dreamy Costa Rican beaches - doing super-duper advanced bendy things, tossing a few hashtag-blessed, hashtag-YogaEveryDamnDay type things into the mix - and then making mention of their upcoming workshop or teacher training.  

 The message embedded into the medium was - and continues to be…

“Don’t you wanna be like me?…  I’m perpetually smiling and conventionally beautiful and I live a life of opulence and ease…. Oh yeah - and I’m deeply spiritual too - you can tell this by the amazing arm-balances I do and the sanskrit terms I use.  

Sign up for my thing and find out how you can be glowy and enlightened too!!!  

Link in bio.  “

I tried to emulate this approach a for awhile.  

Take some well--constructed photographs of me in a handstand.  Me doing something nifty and bendy 

Me looking happy and smiley while hoisting my leg up past my shoulders.  

This is how you share your yoga stuff right?

But the trouble was - this stuff is just So Not Me.  

I’m not thin.  

I can’t do a vast array of incredible acrobatics with my body.

Furthermore, my own experience of yoga and long-term practice has taught me - that the true work of transformation - be it personal or collective - looks very different than a simple outward pose.  

 I wanted to tlak about the work of healing that I had experienced and that I wanted others to experience as well.

I wanted to engage a conversastion about spirituality and practice that has absolutely nothing to do with shiny, happy, people on Central American beaches.  

I wanted to extend the invitation of this practice I so loved out beyond the confines of the rich & white & bendy. 

I wanted to find a way to make the messaging about Spirituality as a way to more deeply engage with the world and it’s problems and it’s inhabitants. 

Not simply retreat from it. 

 But where was there a model I could follow there?

 Enter Kelly Diels.

Kelly is a writer & feminist marketing consultant.

Over the course of a years-long, in-depth analysis of what she saw happening in social media, she came to coin the term “Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand” & it was through this work that I first came across her.

Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand.

Sounds like a good thing right?

Turns out, as Kelly puts it, it is rather... ,

“An archetype women must comply with and embody in order to be deserving of rights and resources

AND

A marketing strategy that leverages social status and white privilege to create authority over other women.”

In other words, the current model operating out there - not just in the yoga and wellness game - but across multiple levels of entrepreneurship - is a predatory model.  That replicates and sustains the very systems and practices that we as healers, creatives and feminists - want to take down. 

 So what’s the solution?

 Over the last year, I’ve had the great privilege of learning from Kelly and some of the other wonderful people who are a part of her community and work.  

We sat down to talk about what it looks like to move into and inhabit the online space with the same integrity and grit we bring to other areas or our work and life.  

On taking the long view - and on the power of being a continual Disruptor - saying and doing the uncomfortable things - even when it feels like you aren’t getting anywhere.  

We talked about money and vulnerability and how we create access to our work - that of healing and culture-making and transformation - to those who need it most - while still staying solvent and buoyant ourselves.

 Through my own tutelage with Kelly, I have learned that there is indeed something very wrong with the existing model.  I now have language around how to unpack it.  And furthermore - my own vision and language of a better way forward. 

It’s possible to do good, healing, transformative work in the world.

It’s possible to make a living too - and avoid the gross, predatory marketing models that we’ve absorbed.  

 The culture may be deeply broken - but we can continue to step in - and in so doing, gradually create a counter-culture of our own.  

Together  - as Ms. Diels tells us – we can thrive. 

A note: At the end of our conversation, Kelly mentions some upcoming offerings she has lined up - one of them being her fabulous “Little Birds & Layer Cakes” social media workshop.  I want to make mention that the date listed here inside the podcast is wrong. 

The new, revised date for this workshop will be this upcoming Saturday, October 20th.  And a little shout-out I’ve taken this workshop myself and it’s grand.  HIghly recomend.  

Take a peek at the show notes to find out more about Kelly and the work that she does and where you can find her and her culture-making work and words.  

As always, if you’ve enjoyed this talk, please take hte time to leave a review or rating in iTunes so that others can find us, as well.  

I hope you enjoy this talk.  

May it uplift and fortify you in the ways you are striving to heal and mend the world around you, too.

MEND Season 2 - Episode 43

Spiritual Capital

with Carolyn Baker

Everyday we are faced with the evidence of global collapse…ecosystems around the world are dying or shifting rapidly, the number of people in the world far outnumbers what the earth can support, extreme weather is becoming a regular occurrence, ice caps are melting faster than previously feared, animal and plant species are dying off daily and we humans are becoming more insistent on our technologies, our machines, our tearing away at the flesh of the earth.  

Many of us feel the pain and anguish of this deeply and often ask ourselves,

How are we to cope?

Where do we pull our resources and our energy and take a stand?

What is our work in these times?

The grief so often can be overwhelming.

There is, however, a light in the dark night of our collective soul.

Carolyn Baker is a former psychotherapist and prolific author on the subjects of resiliency, spirituality, activism and how we as humans find our way in the murky and terrifying waters of global collapse.  Through the avenues of webinars, podcasts live workshops, books, articles, one-on-one life coaching and more, she assists people in “preparing for the dire consequences of the collapse of industrial civilization and abrupt climate change.” Her long list of books, along with links to articles, programs, speaking events, upcoming classes and information on the work that she does, can be found on her website carolynbaker.net. 

Carolyn observes that every person walking around today is traumatized and overwhelmed by the catastrophes, the destruction, the impending doom of our world.  But she urges us to allow that grief of this to be the power of our activism.  We may not be able to avert the affects of climate change or destruction by nuclear war, but we can do our shadow work, deepen our connections to each other and to the earth…we can, and should, be of service, build bridges of humanity, create and cultivate joy in our lives…and open up to the divine… this is what we are called to do.   

MEND Season 2 - Episode 34

Community Currency with Fhyre Phoenix

If you've been following the progression of this season, you know that we've been following up these longer interviews with shorter, bite-size "Thread" episodes, where we sit down and unpack some resources on how all of us can take action in these areas - both within our individual lives, and in the communities of which we play a part. 

We’re doing things a little differently with this "micro"-episode.

Well.  First off.  

It’s not micro.  Not mini. Not even a little bit.  

For this episode we chose to dip back into our local community to seek advice and  counsel from a man who has made working with Capital - both paper money - but also social, experiential, cultural currency, as well - his Main Focus for most of his LIFE.  

Fhyre Phoenix is the creator of the Community Currency project.

If you don’t know that is - don’t worry.

Stick around and we’ll let him eloquently explain it for you.

When you have an expert living down the street from you, you don’t dilly-dally in your own small pool - you go the Fountaiin.  The Wellspring itself.

So, although this episode is full-length, we know the time will be well worth your while & you’ll get a lot out of this talk.  

We sure did.

We could say more - About how inspiring this conversation was.

About the wisdom that this man and valuable community member has un-earthed in simply re-arranging his own relationship to livelihood and money.

Or about the surprising connection to Passion, Poetry, & even Plumbing that runs through this work.

But we’ll let you find all that out for yourself.

Believe me - if you truly desire to begin to un-hook from a life that feels less-than, a job you hate, and begin to arrange your world in such a way that you feel empowered, excited, and deeply connected to your fellow man… this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Enjoy.

MEND Season 1 - Episode 24

The Last Word (for now...)  SEASON 1 Finale

with Part 2 with Jentri Anders, Ph.D.

We live in a doomsday era.  So much of our existence is in question and we wake each morning to a new tragedy in the world.  Around us people are allowing hate to be their motivation and justification for atrocities many thought we had outgrown. What is there that should give us hope?

In our own corner of the world the changes are happening so rapidly most are unsure of what the future will bring.  Skeptics worry about encroaching outsiders from larger, less committed and cohesive communities.  Once again the battle is being waged on our environment, and once again the land needs people to step forward and defend Her.  Our livelihoods are at stake…but perhaps this is a good thing.   Perhaps now is the time to grab the reins so passionately and confidently held by the cultural refugees of the 70’s; those lovers of freedom, equality and sustainability, the revivers of voluntary simplicity and builders of our community.  Now is the time to take control of our future before the outsiders and big companies have their way.  I say this knowing that most of us were outsiders at some point, and that should bring us humility, but if we move forward with the same intentions and values of the back-to-the-landers then I believe we will be moving forward justly and in accordance with the general rules of good stewardship.

This episode is the second part to an interview we did back in the spring, with Jentri Anders…a back-to-the-lander who went on to finish her degree in Anthropology, and then wrote an enthnography about the very community and people she was a part of.  We played the first half of her interview in Episode 2, as part of the foundation of our stories.  In this episode we get to hear more of her story on the founding of Southern Humboldt culture as many know it today…but mostly we talk ethics, responsibility, offing the pig in you, and finding where our strength comes from.    

May these words of advice echo from our modern origins and guide us as we move forward with integrity and a deeper awareness of what is at stake.

To find out more about Jentri Anders and her work, visit:

https://shumjentri.wordpress.com

MEND Season 1 - Episode 23

Steve DeAngelo - The Man behind the Manifesto

You know those rare moments in life where you get to meet a truly celebrated figure?

Someone whose face you’ve seen online & in print?

Someone who’s built up a worldwide following behind their work - and for one brief, shining moment you get to sit and chat with them?

How often do these real life meetings ever live up to the hype?

How often do we build up an impossible image of the celebrity in our own minds - that when we meet them in the flesh - it pales in comparison to the shining visage we’ve erected in our minds???

THIS was not the case as Anne & I had the great pleasure to find out - as we sat down for an hour to talk with the venerable Steve DeAngelo this past week.

We spent weeks e-mailing back and forth with his camp, reading his book, watching his Youtube videos and appearances - so that we could get good and ready for this talk with a man who has been on the Activist & Advocacy front of the Cannabis world for some 40 years.  

For those not fully familiar with his work, Steve is the owner of the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, CA - the largest medical cannabis dispensary in the United States, serving over 200,000 patients.  

Fortune Magazine has named him one of the top 7 most powerful people inside the Marijuana Industry today.  

He’s written a terrific book about the history of cannabis, prohibition, and his own work inside this world - The Cannabis Manifesto.

And is also the co-founder and president of the Arcview Group - a company aimed at introducing bright, promising cannabis entrepreneurs to angel investors who can fund their work.  

We speak to Steve about his path of Activism & Entrepreneurship (and why he sees them as mutually beneficial).  About his own time & connection to our neck of the woods, inside the Emerald Triangle, and his own love of the culture we have built up here and the work of the legacy cannabis farmer.

He shares his thoughts on the unique challenges confronting our community and the tools he sees as key to staying vital & financially solvent in the tumultuous time to come.  

He talks about the ways in which the Prohibition era programmed us toward a mentality that will not sustain us in the next iteration to come.  And the shift he sees as critical to become viable in the new, legitimate marketplace.  

And he offers us guidance on how to continue to affect the current paradigm surrounding cannabis.  Moving, as he says, “out of the shadows & into the Light.”

And ultimately Steve guides back to the plant itself.  

To those amongst us who are called to work with and cultivate it.

To use it reverently & as the healing, medicinal currency for which it is best suited.

To caretake the plant so that it can caretake us and our families and communities, and usher in the type of world we wish to inhabit…

We simply must be willing to sit & listen..

And trust that the way we will be made known.

We are deeply honored and proud to bring you this powerful talk from a great man.  

Cheers.

Links:::

Steve DeAngelo.com

Harborside Health Center

The Arcview Investment Group

The Cannabis Manifesto Book

MEND Season 1 - Episode 14

The Politics of Pot (round I)

As we narrow in on the halfway point here, we want to begin to open up the conversation.

About what’s coming next.

What to be watchful for and how we, as residents of this community, can play an active part in shaping the future of not only the ganga world - but the larger one we all inhabit , as well.  

To that end, we spoke this week with Jesse - a northern Humboldt resident who is currently on the front lines up in Del Norte county, working with the Board of Supervisors, city council and local government there to try and shape a sustainable cannabis policy and regulatory guidelines for cultivation in that neck of the woods.  

With that work in mind, he has co-founded the Del Norte Grower’s Association.  

He talks to us about what it’s like to be the forerunner on this issue - and why, rather than try to jump into the already over-crowded ring of Oregon and Humboldt County growers, he’s elected to shift his focus to the small-scale, rural region of this state.  

The cautionary tales he sees being played out in areas: like Humboldt, or Calaveras, or Yolo County; where, to his view of things, there has been far too much growth far too soon.  And the policies in place within these regions - though claiming to work for the small family farm - may actually signal their undoing instead.  

We speak about the problems with imposing the same stringent codes and regulations upon a large-scale, industrial operation as one would put upon a small, artisanal family farm.  And the need for variance, discretion and huge allowances for the latter if the small, boutique end of this industry is to survive.  

How our current policies here in Humboldt, to his view, only serve the biggest players in the industry.  And how the small-scale growers and operations may very well be, in his words, “thrown under the bus” with the current mode in which we are operating and moving forward.  

And he puts forth a rallying cry to action for us all.  Because the old rules of operation - that worked so well during the years of Prohibition - will no longer serve us in this coming age. And we all get to step forth and be vocal - if we want to play a part in how this Conversation plays out.  

There was so much wisdom, insight and education to be had in this talk.  

We hope you leave feeling enlightened, empowered and ready to engage in this next phase of our collective Evolution.  

This is a moment in our history that needs every single one of us bringing what we have to the Table.  

To find out more about the organizations we mention, or to get involved with their mission and work visit:

The Del Norte Growers Association FB page: https://www.facebook.com/delnortegrowers/

The CA Growers Association: http://www.calgrowersassociation.org

The Humboldt County Growers' Alliance: https://www.hcga.co 

MEND Season 1 - Episode 7

The Peace of Wild Things...

Welcome back.

In this hour, we talk to Salmon Girl - a longtime SoHum resident & outspoken member of the community.

She talks about the vast changes she’s witnessed in & around her beloved home over the past 40 years - about the shift from Wilderness to encroaching Industry and pollution - including sound, visual, and environmental - taking its toll all around.  

We speak about the loss of connection to the land itself.

Both physical but also spiritual as well.

About the problems surrounding Regulation - which, in many ways, is geared to support and promote Industry, above any real concern for the natural habitat.  

She tells us her own ideas about the marijuana plant - in her words, a “white-man luxury crop” - and the “cult” she sees having sprung up around it’s cultivation, use and promotion.  

As always, our hope here is to incite useful, instructive and in-depth conversation.

These words may leave you with more unanswered questions.

But may they also spur you to find the solutions, as well.

Oftentimes, it’s from the places of deep questioning, and heartache - that we unearth our own Salvation.

We hope you enjoy.  

MEND Season 1 -Episode 4

Before the Culture...

In this episode we interview a long-time Southern Humboldt resident and activist who tells us one of the origin stories of marijuana in Humboldt County as it relates to the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970’s.  

We learn how this plant helped provide opportunities for activists, at home and abroad, and supported the building of a solid, thriving community.

We reflect on the impacts of marijuana’s progression through Humboldt County's community through the years, and discuss (and sometimes lament) the frustrations of it's current trajectory.  

We hope you enjoy this glimpse into the life of an activist before marijuana took over the Humboldt scene.