MEND Season 3 - Episode 57

Finding your WHY with Amy Day

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Thank you for your forbearance during this last, little unscheduled absence. As you’ll hear inside the episode, I’ve been needing some time to rest. To renew. To step away and remember the bigger picture behind all this busy-ness of Life. The WHY of this project and of all I’ve chosen to step into.

So, now. Back. Behind the mic and the laptop.

Ready to step into the next iteration of this project and to share with you…

*some of the talk I gave awhile back ago at the local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship - on TRUST. On trusting the role you have to play in the larger web of this Life. No matter how small. On honoring and steadfastly weaving the unique thread that you carry. On stepping in - All In - armed with intention, skill & vision - to the work, projects, relationships & even play - to which you are called. And Why it matters.

Just me - talking briefly about the work of engaged spirituality. And the reminder that we never truly know at the outset what the end result of our actions will be. The seeds we plant may be humble. Simply providing a lush path for others to step onto. Some of them may bloom in a mighty and prolific way. But we need to keep planting. Keep tilling. Keep scattering seeds. And it is not to us to determine how they will grow.

And if you find yourself in a quagmire, as I was not too long ago - lacking energy, lacking momentum, vision, JOY. Come back to your own great WHY. The vision that fuels all the tiny what’s and how’s and when’s inside your everyday. How do they line up? And are the actions of your daily life - really & truly - feeding into the bigger picture you seek?

……….

To find out more about the things/links/communities/resources mentioned on today’s show, visit:

• TheWorkofTheseHands.com - for coaching, yoga, and a little virtual hug from yours’ truly.

• HUUF - the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, where I gave the talk and where the work of Engaged Spirituality really shows up.

MEND Season 3 - Episode 56

Any One of Us with Caterina Kein & Vanessa Vrtiak

Awhile back ago, you may remember, I got to speak to my good friend - poet & mother - Therese Fitzmaurice - who is one half of the spoken word collective “A Reason to Listen”, a grass-roots, Humboldt grown poetry collective.  

This month, I had the great pleasure of sitting down with the other half of this force for good in the Universe - ms. Vanessa Vrtiak.  Vanessa is a poet, social worker, and activist. She has self published 5 books of poetry, and is co-founder of A Reason to Listen. She has a MA in Public Sociology, and her thesis is titled: Reintegration in a Rural Community: Strengths, Barriers, and Recommendations for Reentry in Humboldt County.

In the weeks to come, Vanessa will be directing a play here locally on the North Coast.  Her 6th one in total, penned by the prodigious Eve Ensler - this one entitled - Any One Of Us - Words from Women in Prison.  

This play is a a collection of stories from formerly and currently incarcerated women from across the nation whose aim is toward healing, understanding, and change with the goal of using their writing and voices to impact policy, laws and treatment of incarcerated women. Together these writings reveal the deep connection between women in prison and the violence that often brings them there.

I sat down to speak with both Vanessa - and the lovely and articulate Caterina Kein - who has a background in criminal justice and works as part of the philanthropy program at St. Joseph’s hospital in Eureka, CA - and is also one of the actors for this production.  

Together, we spent about an hour talking about the sytemic issues women face both in and outside the system.  The culturall biases and hurdles they face when they go to re-enter society.

And - perhaps - most importantly - what we can do - inside our small, daily actions - to shine a light - and shift the landscape inside this portion of the world.  

We talked about the bridge between Art & Action.

And overcoming & dismantling the narratives we’ve inherited & creating new ones not only for ourselves - but for those who have been caught inside, penalized and degraded by a system - whose aim on paper is said to be that of Rehabilitation.  

But in actuality, can often be anything but.

I urge you to sit with these wise women.

To take a moment to invite their stories to land isnide your heart.

I invite you to carve out an evening to go see this play and to sit inside the brave space that they’ve created for us all to collectively share for the night.

It is inside these spaces we glimpse what is possible.

It is inside these moments, we catch a spark of what can be.  

We open ourselves to new possibilities.

We allow ourselves to be broken open so that something new can be born.

I want to thank these two powerful women for sitting and talking with me for an hour - and for the wonderful work they are doing in our local world.

May these words inspire and hearten you.  

May they do what Art does best - namely - create a catalyst for change first inside your own heart - that fans from there - out into the waking world.  

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 51

Undoing Consumer Spirituality with Kat Kim

If you are anything like me, you grew up thoroughly steeped in the religious and spiritual lineage your parents subscribed to during this time of year.  

You sang the hymns, read the stories, recited the verses and enacted the little play each year with cardboard cutout sheep and nose-picking wise men and usually a well-swaddled Baby Alive doll to stand for the Christ child.

Maybe, like me, at a certain point, you absconded with the cultural, religious and spiritual narrative you inherited.  Rejected this anglo, narrow-minded Savior. And yearned for a way to connect with this season in your own rite. Enact rituals, stories and songs that spoke to your own heart, your own values and carried forth a wisdom tradition you could solidly support.

Cuz after all, in the absence of the sacred, what exactly are we left with?  Santa Claus?

In an effort to replace the consumer narrative, I came upon the great work of  Kat Kim. Kat is a spiritual teacher and coach who is here to serve the Spiritual Nonconformist, the misfit, & the misunderstood.

In other words, a changemaker.

For over ten years she’s applied what she knows about behavioral change and spiritual transformation to help her clients create radical, nonconformist change in their lives.

With an approach  based on Hermetic Philosophy, New Thought teachings, and the wisdom passed down through the ages by Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

(And Chomsky. Can't forget Chomsky.), she helps dreamers and doers who find themselves holding back or playing small reclaim an unshakeable faith  - both in who they are and what they’re here to do.

I spoke to Kat, in particular, about her deep analysis around what she has come to call “Consumer Spirituality - The New Cultural Addiction”.  

Over the course of our chat, Kat did a brilliant job of breaking down the different parts and components of this thread - and also, and perhaps, more importantly - helped to illuminate the ways in which we - as individuals, consumers and creators of ritual and culture and tradition in this world - can do our own work to disrupt this current trend.  

How we can re-attach to the sacred  - in a way that holds meaning and vitality to us.

How we can disrupt the scarcity and lack model that rampant consumerism thrives upon.

And how we can reclaim our birthright - as sentient, conscious and divinely creative beings - in an age that would have us believe we are only as bright or brilliant as the items we flash and carry.

One of the great gifts of this podcast is that it provides me the excuse to seek out conversations with strong, wise women.  I spend an hour or so in their presence and feel my heart, mind and spirit elevated for days after, as a result.

And I press record.  

And get to share the experience with you all, hopefully, as well.

May these words empower you to drop the stories that no longer serve.

To abandon the traditions that empty your wallet - and worse - bankrupt your heart.  

May they empower you to step more deeply into your own work, analysis and culture re-construction.   Pick up the thread. Set it to to motion. In the way that You - alone - are called to do.

Thanks for being here.

You can find out more about Kat at her website - katkim.com

Make sure to click on her blog to read the full, brilliant piece on consumer spiritaulity.

And be srue to leave a rating and review in iTunes if these words have stirred something in you.

Or drop me a line at mendpodcast@gmail.com and share your story.

We are living in a moment where almost everyting now has been broken open.

How will you tend to the mending - step in - and do the work that is needed at this time?

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 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 31

Living Capital with Marcie Goldman

Welcome back.

Today, we move into the topic of Living Capital.  In the traditional landscape of Permatculture, from where we’re taking a page this season…  this form of vital currency is often defined as our local Ecology.

The land, soil, air, water, animals, plants - i.e. the very stuff that sustains LIFE.

Another way to look at Living Capital, and the way we’ve chosen to cozy up to this topic is through the very intimate ecology of the BODY.  How we choose to feed and sustain and, as you’ll hear again and again throughout this conversation - NOURISH - ourselves, our families and the skin we’re in.

Toward that end, we sat down this week with Marcie Goldman.

Marcie is a nutritionist who rallies against the current culture of fad diets and the idea that stringent dietary restricitons will somehow lead to long-lasting health.

This is a woman who wants us to FEED ourselves.

On every level.

Inviting MORE food to the table, to our gut biomes & returning to a way of  - here it is again - Nourishing ourselves - that honors the wisdom of our bodies, our earth, and our ancestry.

We loved sitting down with Marcie, where we dipped into some unexpected territory around dieting, childhood eating disorders, & toxic beliefs and patterns around food (that we often get from seemingly “healthy” sources).  

Ultimately, over the course of our conversation, we circle round automatically to the reality that truly nourishing ourselves - and re-connecting to our inherent appetites and vitality - in the end re-connects us to the health of our own ecosystem.  Re-connects us back to each other, the living culture of which we are a part, and the earth itself.

You can find out more about Marcie at her website at marciegoldman.com

While you’re there be sure to sign up for her meal plan, which includes a whole array of nourishing food and herbal remedies to add into your life.

We loved sitting down and talking food and Living capital with this wise and well-fed woman.

We know you will too.

MEND Season 1 - Episode 5

With My Own Two Hands....

Welcome to our fifth conversation where we speak to Jane - a veteran, single-woman farmer, living and working in the hills of Southern Humboldt.

In our time together, we discuss how an educated & ambitious woman who could've "done anything" with her talents and drive - chose to spend her life here.  Caretaking the land and this plant with which she feels a tremendous bond and affinity.

We dip into the questions of what it means to craft a well-lived life.  We look at the hazards, but also blessings of living independently and remotely in the woods.

We tackle the gender roles and stereotypes that still reside within this industry.  Plus drop into some honest, unadulterated talk about money, hard work, privilege & what it's really like for a woman to forge her own way - & eke out a life on her own terms.  

We hope you enjoy.  

MEND Season One - Episode 2

A Brief History of Place

In this episode, we have the great honor to sit down for a lengthy & illuminating talk with Ms. Jentri Anders, Ph.D.  

Anthropologists sometimes get accused of "going native".  In this two-part episode we speak with a native who went anthropologist.  After dropping out of Berkeley, and society, Jentri Anders made her way to Southern Humboldt county where she spent the better part of 15 years living and working amongst the, as she calls them, "refugees".  

She eventually went back to school for her PhD in Anthropology, writing her dissertation on the people and society she was a part of.  Her book, Beyond Counterculture, The Community of Mateel, gives a unique and thorough perspective on life and people in the hills of Southern Humboldt before the marijuana boom.  

We are so grateful to begin this season with her story and perspectives on the formation of this unique community and the people known to many as the ‘back-to-the-landers’.

And to start off with this insightful and spirited entry into the land and people we'll be meeting along this path.   Enjoy.