Dr. Zachari Cahn has been a dear friend and brother of mine for just about 3 decades. We met as young adults and have continued and deepened our friendship across space and time. A highly accomplished functional medicine doctor, he is also deeply committed to men’s work through the Mankind Project and holistic healing of relationships through counseling and coaching that brings together wellness modalities for body, mind and spirit. 

Zachari and his wife Tatiana (an equally accomplished and skilled healer) hold Masters degrees in Traditional Chinese Medicine from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, the top rated accredited Chinese Medical School in the US and Doctorates from the Pacific College of Health & Sciences.  With over 6 years of training and 20 years practicing researched based natural compounds, acupuncture, herbs, nutrition, massage, western clinical diagnosis and pharmacology (drug/herb interaction), they are among premiere providers of alternative healthcare in Asheville. 

But perhaps their greatest accomplishment of all is a thriving, juicy, fulfilling marriage that is a life long work in progress, full of lessons and gifts… and their three beautiful young daughters. 

In this vulnerable and powerful conversation, we dive into the countless miracles that had to occur for us to even use words in the first place, the healing potential when having difficult conversations with our loved ones, the potency of deep listening and how, what Zachari calls, ‘life-giving interpretations’ can shift your mindset and heal the adversaries within, bringing freedom and joy into your life and your relationships. 

To find Zachari and Tatiana: https://www.ashevillealternativewellnesscenter.com/

If you are interested in our 2024 couples retreat, email: [email protected]

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

Seraina Duveen is a Mystic, Transformational Mentor, Peace Artist, Eros Temple Holder, Community Weaver and my dear friend. In this conversation we begin with the radical statement that “Peace on Earth is possible” and weave our way through how to access and work with Eros, what it means to make peace in world of chaos and violence and how to begin to move out of emotional stuckness into the natural and vibrant movement of your life force. 

She shares about her life’s work…

“In my work I am focused on the creative power of an everyday intimacy with life, creating an ancient future of peace, harmony and beauty on earth.My offerings are here to serve humanity in its journey into soul liberation, remembering our inherent power of being alive Co-Creators with every action, feeling, dream and movement we are part of.I am the ignator and CEO of OŪN MOVIR / ONE MOVEMENT - Mystic Life Academy. I host a Podcast Series, organize Art Projects, Sacred Pilgrimages, Tantric Retreats, and am seeding the wisdom of a sacred life wherever I go. Since 1999 I offer different reconnecting and transformational events, currently writing a manifest in 10 units for a creative and holistic life.I have designed 10 different Online Courses all on the subject of our individual and collective awakening, remembering the healing wisdom within true connection and the sensual intimacy of a soul lead everyday life.My connective networks weave into different countries all over the world, co-creating with artists, activists, change bringers, leaders, healers, community weavers, temple holders, earth whisperers, ….. Humans who have worked with me share how their lives have been deeply touched, transformed and inspired through their experiences, returning to their innate wisdom, erotic joy for life, and strong will to participate within the human experience in its most alive way.”

You can find Seraina and her offerings at:

https://www.onemovement.earth/

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

Justine Kiva Epstein is an organizer, facilitator, writer, naturalist, tracker, rites of passage guide, ad-hoc ritualist, council carrier, and bird enthusiast attending to the cry of the earth and people for ancestral healing, cultural renewal and systemic reimagination. In her own words...

"I am descended from an expansive mix of peoples from the European continent, most prominently the British Isles, Ireland and Germany, as well as Lithuania and Russia of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. My ancestors crossed the Atlantic in many waves and due to many different circumstances over the past ~400 years. I am very much still in the process of uncovering the individual and collective stories of my people, both before their passages and after, and how their lives and legacies shape the world and my place within it. 

I live with an enduring sense of responsibility to uncover and acknowledge the truth of my ancestors’ lives and actions and the larger narratives and ideologies of racialized capitalism and dominance that they lived within, and in some cases built — and to do what I can with my time here on earth to reckon, grieve, heal and transform those legacies into something more humane, whole, and just.

My deep longing for justice and the dream of a world of balance and regeneration have guided me to ask what is mine to do in service to healing, liberation and repair for myself and my people? I have found that the most meaningful and impactful work I can do is to turn towards my ancestors and the money I have inherited in their names, and begin to uncover their stories, and release that unjustly accumulated wealth into the communities most directly harmed by its creation.

Over the past few years organizing with Resource Generation I have begun to redistribute my own inherited wealth and mobilize other people with
wealth and class privilege to join me. I am currently redistributing 50% of what I have access to and am working to increase my giving in the
coming years while organizing my family and extended family towards reparative action and right-relationship with money, land and power." (Bio from https://www.morganhcurtis.com)

Justine’s work and collaborations…

https://resourcegeneration.org/

https://walking-water.org/

https://www.morganhcurtis.com/justine-epstein

https://www.morganhcurtis.com/ancestors-money

https://m4bl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/defining-reparations.pdf

https://www.morganhcurtis.com/decolonial-dames-of-america

https://www.facebook.com/shadetreefoundation/

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

Kamuela Enos is the director of the Office of Indigenous Innovation at the University of Hawai'i System. He was formerly director of Social Enterprise for MAʻ O Organic Farms, a farm that understands the ways that land feeds beyond just providing food. He was born and raised in Waiʻ anae on the island of Oʻahu. Kamu is a radical thinker and bridge builder, helping to translate the incredible intelligence of ancient/future indigenous technologies to the language of modernity. I’m sure you will enjoy this life giving conversation where we envision ways that indigenous wisdoms frame potent pathways guiding us towards the Beloved Futures. 

Resources

Office of Indigenous Innovation

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

My dear friend Alnoor is one of the most intelligent, articulate, prescient and generous humans I have had the privilege to know. He is an activist, journalist, political strategist, community organizer, Sufi mystic and psychic-architect of big dreams for our transition to post-capitalist, life-affirming futures of interdependance and grace. 

From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs, co-found of Transition Resrouce Circle and a visionary behind the incredible community - Brave Earth/Tierra Valiente, a center for applied cultural transition in the rain forests of Costa Rica. 

Alnoor breaks down the roots and rhizomatic shoots of the meta-crisis we face in this collective moment of existential threats to humans, other than humans and the planet. Offering pathways to become relevant and useful in this time - the time of the Kali Yuga - by harnessing the courage it takes to face our reality directly... with full compassion for our shared complicity. He invites us to see this lifetime as an assignment rather than an affliction. To take full responsibility for our place in the cosmos and our choice to be here at this time. This is a powerful conversation that you will not soon forget. 

"Your life is a comedic, shamanic, creative act and you must find your god-hood in the midst of the carnival."  ~ Alnoor Ladha

The Rules: https://therules.org/
Brave Earth/Tierra Valiente: https://www.braveearth.com/
Transition Resource Circle: https://www.transitionresourcecircle.org/
Culture Hack Labs: https://www.culturehack.io/

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

Chris Block is currently the Chronic Homelessness Initiative Director at Tipping Point Foundation. Previously, he was the CEO of American Leadership Forum (ALF) Silicon Valley. In all things he is a systems transformer and radical change maker. Armed with pure presence and an ability to move with ninja like grace through some of the stickiest systems, like homelessness, Chris helps us understand the practice of making space as a key aspect of truly transformative leadership. He is a student of Zen Buddhism and Aikido also as pathways to emergent leadership. I know you will enjoy this conversation with one of my favorite humans and a true master of Beloved Futures thinking and being.

Resources:

Tipping Point Chronic Homelessness Initiative

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

Bio taken from the Kahakulei Institute: Aunty Puanani Burgess is a poet, priest, aunty, and friend to many. She has been a community activist in the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement for over fifty years. As the designer and facilitator for Building the Beloved Community - a process that brings ceremony, storytelling, and circles of trust and respect - Aunty Pua has shared Native Hawaiian practices throughout the world to bring healing and reconciliation. She served as the Myles and Zilphia Horton Chair for the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee and as a community scholar in residence at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawai'i. Aunty Pua is an ordained Zen Buddhist priest in the International Daihonzan Chozen-ji. I hope you enjoy this beautiful conversation with a wise elder whom I am very blessed to call my friend.

“You want to make a difference? Then start by looking within.” – Aunty Puanani Burgess

Resources:

A video about Building the Beloved Community made by one of Aunty Pua’s young students

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

Ashanti is an activist poet, decolonial dialogue facilitator, published writer, my partner in facilitation at the Culture Hack Labs Rhizome Fellowship and the founder of Learning 2 Unlearn  - a decolonial narrative consultancy. She was a prominent student leader at Stellenbosch University during the 2015/2016 #FeesMustFall student movement in South Africa. And following the 2020 #BlackLives Matter uprising, the idea for Learning 2 Unlearn was born.  

 Ashanti shares with us her experience of growing up as a young black woman in the relative comfort of of post-apartheid South African suburbia and the radical awakening she had as a student during the Fees Must Fall student uprising. From her work with decolonizing narratives to spoken word poetry to her recent stint on the Parisian runway at fashion week, Ashanti is a powerful beam of light. This is a vibrant episode, alive with the passion and purpose of a beautiful human whom I am blessed to call my soul sister and friend. 

Resources: 

 Learning 2 Unlearn 

 @ashanti_kunene 

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures

For this first episode of the Beloved Futures podcast, Aubrey talks with her dear friend Yael Marantz. Yael is a strategist, systems-thinker, biomimicry practitioner and community builder. She has over a decade of experience in communications, design-thinking and innovation. As she awakened to the intelligence and solutions found in Nature and launched Mimetika, a biomimetic-led consultancy pioneering life-centered design.

Understanding the implications of our meta-crisis, Yael immersed herself in communities and cultures outside of the dominant system while completing her masters on how we can reimagine communities through Nature's genius.

Yael is a founding steward of Brave Earth (Tierra Valiente), center for applied cultural transition, and Fuerza De Amor, a community resilience network, in Costa Rica.

Yael serves as the Managing Director of Culture Hack Labs and devotes herself to creating narratives in service to life to create systems change. She is a Moon Dancer, self professed mermaid and one who lives life as ceremony in devotion to the earth and all her forms.

Resources:

Brave Earth - https://www.braveearth.com/

Culture Hack Labs - https://www.culturehack.io/

Fuerza De Amor - https://www.fuerzadeamor.org/

@yaelm

FOLLOW AUBREY'S WORK

Website: www.ourbelovedfutures.com
Instagram: @aubrey.morgan.yee
Substack: ourbelovedfutures.substack.com
Book: Our Beloved Futures