power to the people — Episodes

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.

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.