In this episode, Sherri Mitchell-Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset discusses remembering our kinship to one another and to all living beings as a path to reconnecting and interdependence. She offers the wisdom of rooting in our values and shaping the emergence of the world we want to create.

Full of hope, discerning insight, and applied practice, Sherri sheds light on a path to a better world.

Sherri Mitchell-Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset

Sherri Mitchell -Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset, is an Indigenous attorney, activist, and author from the Penobscot Nation. She received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Arizona’s Roger’s College of Law, specializing in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy. She is an alumna of the American Indian Ambassador Program, and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship Program. Sherri is the author of the award-winning book, Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, which has been published in four languages. She is also a contributor to more than a dozen anthologies, including the best seller, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, along with Resetting Our Future: Empowering Climate Action in the United States, and My life: Growing Up Native in America.

Sherri is the founding Director of the Land Peace Foundation, an Indigenous educational organization that focuses on Indigenous leadership, environmental justice, land rematriation, and kinship building. The Land Peace Foundation has provided training for some of the largest environmental NGO’s on the planet, helping them develop better policies and procedures for engaging with Indigenous Peoples living on the front lines of climate change. They also curated an eight-part series with the Global Council on Science and the Environment that provided training for thousands of scientists and scientific scholars from more than 40 countries, highlighting Indigenous scholarship and traditional knowledge. Sherri was also key member of the development team for the ACE Mandate of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under Article 6 of the UNFCCC and Article 12 of the Paris Agreement. This framework was adopted by the Biden Administration and is currently being used to provide education, engagement, training, and workforce development for climate action in the United States.

Sherri serves as a Trustee for the American Indian Institute, she sits on both the Global Indigenous Advisory Council and the North American Advisory Council for Nia Tero’s Indigenous Land Guardianship Program, and is a board member of the Post Carbon Institute.

Sherri is the recipient of several human rights awards, including the Mahoney Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award and the University of Maine Alumni International Human Rights Award, and her portrait is featured in the esteemed portrait series - American’s Who Tell the Truth. And, she is the convener of the global healing ceremony, Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island, a gathering that has brought more than fifty-thousand people together from six continents, with elders from 40 Indigenous nations, to focus on healing our relationships with one another and with our relatives in the natural world.

Sherri Mitchell Website

Land Peace Foundation

Show Notes

Journey of Peace & Friendship

Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, Sherri Mitchell 

Transcript

Trans communities are being targeted in deeply inhumane ways in this cultural moment.

How did we get here and what can we do to support trans communities?

In this powerful and timely episode, Teo Drake and Alex Kapitan offer insightful context for how, when, and why the current attack on Transgender communities arose. They trouble the disinformation and narrow gender constructions fueling these attacks.

Drawing powerful links between reproductive justice, attacks on immigrants, and the attacks on trans communities, they show how the far Right has eroded the rights of bodily autonomy and the rights for people to be who they are.

With their characteristic radical welcoming and deep compassion alongside their fierce political analysis, Teo and Alex offer practical ways for trans folx to take care of themselves in these dangerous times and for cisgender people to advocate for justice for trans communities.

Guests

Teo Drake is an organizer, a teacher, and an artisan who works in wood and steel. As a queer and trans long-term HIV/AIDS survivor, the practices and philosophies of yoga and Buddhism have been both life-saving and provided the foundation for his organizing and teaching. He is a co-founder of the Transforming Hearts Collective, a collective dedicated to the spiritual care and liberation of queer and trans people, and has served in leadership in several different organizations in the worlds of HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ advocacy, faith and spirituality, well-being, and anti-oppression, including being a founding member of the Transgender Law Center’s project Positively Trans and serving on the faculty and board of Off the Mat, Into the World. His writing can be found in the anthology Yoga and Body Image and at the blog Roots Grow the Tree, and his artisan crafts can be found at The Tinkering Gnome.

Alex Kapitan is a community minister, educator, organizer, fellow co-founder of the Transforming Hearts Collective, and founder of the language project Radical Copyeditor. Alex's work is rooted in helping people live their values in deeper ways by unlearning oppressive ways of being and working to create the world we want and deserve to live in. With a background in faith-based organizing, book publishing, and activism, Alex does interfaith LGBTQ work, supports faith groups in practicing radical welcome, and also regularly offers workshops and presentations on conscious language for publishing companies, media organizations, and other groups.

Links for Teo and Alex:

• Transforming Hearts Collective: www.transformingheartscollective.org
• The Tinkering Gnome: https://the-tinkering-gnome.com
• Radical Copyeditor: https://radicalcopyeditor.com 

Show Notes:

Resources from Teo and Alex to support advocacy, activism, and awareness:

• For great 101 materials, we recommend this collection from the Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/category/gender-identity

• For a concise overview of facts about trans youth, we recommend this Washington Post piece: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/04/22/transgender-child-sports-treatments/ 

• For info on U.S. anti-trans legislation and state-by-state details, we recommend Trans Legislation Tracker (https://translegislation.com) and Movement Advancement Project (https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps)

• For an overview of the anti-trans movement and debunking of anti-trans disinformation, we recommend this episode of Ezra Klein's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-you-read-the-g-o-p-s-anti-trans-policies-youll-see/id1548604447

• For breaking news and excellent trans-led reporting, we recommend Erin in the Morning: https://www.erininthemorning.com

• For people of faith, we also have resources available through our collective: https://www.transformingheartscollective.org/online-courses 

Transcript

Image description of cover art: teal background, white and black text. Images of Alex and Teo smiling at the camera.

In this episode, Susanna shares about her new book, Ignite Your Yoga: How to Live, Practice, and Teach as an Authentic Yoga Steward. We discuss her journey in writing this book and her first one, Embrace Yoga's Roots.

Yoga is a practice for self, community, and for a better world. We talk about how yoga philosophy, traditions, and practice can shape our lives, our parenting, our relationships, and how we show up in the world. As we practice, we can avoid both religious dogma as well as cultural appropriation; instead, we can embrace yoga with integrity and by doing so, access our inner power and truth in ways that can shape how we show up in the world.

Susanna Barkataki

Susanna Barkataki, M.Ed. Yoga Therapist, is a trailblazing yoga leader and visionary, known for honoring yoga’s roots. Founder of Yoke Yoga, a social yoga app offering micro-practices for quick peace, she brings yoga to all, solving everyday problems. Susanna founded the award-winning Ignite Institute for Yogic Leadership and Social Change, training students in YTT 200/300 to create social impact with yogic tools. She’s the author of the #1 International Bestseller Embrace Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice and leads transformative wellbeing programs, consulting with organizations like Yoga Alliance, Peloton, and CBS. Susanna's work is reshaping the future of yoga, making yogic wisdom accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Susanna's website

Ignite Institute

Transcript

In this heartful episode, Naomi Ortiz explores their art as a spiritual process of listening to the land, grief work, and the difference between interdependence and mutual aid.

As we discuss their new book, Rituals for Climate Change: A Crip Struggle for Ecojustice, we explore what disability justice offers the climate justice movement and what rootedness in place offers to people living with disability. Naomi also shares some rituals to sustain us in these times.

Show Notes

Naomi's definition of self care, from Sustaining Spirit:

"So self-care means being aware of ourselves where we are rooted, aware of what is around us and evolving from the lessons we learn in order to survive and thrive."

Naomi Ortiz

Naomi Ortiz (they/she) is a Reclaiming the US/Mexico Border Narrative Awardee and a 2022 U.S. Artist Disability Futures Fellow. Ortiz's collection, Rituals for Climate Change: A Crip Struggle for Ecojustice, offers potent insights about the complexity of interdependence, calling readers to deepen their understanding of what it means to witness and love an endangered world. Their non-fiction book, Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Justice, provides informative tools for diverse communities on addressing burnout. Ortiz is a co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Every Place on the Map is Disabled: Poems and Essays. A Disabled Mestize poet, writer, facilitator, and visual artist, their work focuses on self-care, disability justice, and climate action in the Arizona U.S./Mexico borderlands.

Website: www.NaomiOrtiz.com 

Transcript

**Image description of episode cover art: teal background with white and black text. Salmon colored inset boxes. An image of Naomi smiling at the camera wearing hoop earrings and a black sweater decorated with white stars. Naomi is behind a yellow creosote bush.

We discuss the deep value of Polyvagal Theory for showing us how social connection impacts mental health and overall wellbeing. We explore how to apply Polyvagal theory to intergenerational trauma of historically marginalized groups. Our guests discuss what ancient wisdom and collectivist cultures have long known about community support and regulation.

This episode also includes practices for resourcing and supporting ourselves in challenging times.

Guests

Niloufer Merchant, Ed.D., L.P

Dr. Niloufer Merchant is Professor Emeritus at St. Cloud State University and a Licensed Psychologist currently in private practice in Minneapolis, MN. Her areas of specialization include working with complex trauma with a focus on trauma related to racial/cultural issues. She is certified in EMDR and trained in several embodied practices. She has presented and published widely on multicultural counseling, cultural competencies, and group work. She has also held multiple leadership roles on local, state, and national levels including American Counseling Association. Throughout her career, Niloufer has advocated for creating safe spaces for people of color in schools, universities, and community settings promoting antiracism and systemic change. She has presented on the application of Polyvagal Theory (PVT) in understanding and healing racial trauma including a TEDx talk which connects the principles of PVT to cultural practices and ancient wisdom. Presently, she serves on the Editorial Team and is a Course Partner for the Polyvagal Institute.

Devika Dibya Choudhuri

I have over two decades of balancing academic and clinical experience; working clinically with individual and group clients on issues of sexuality, trauma, violence, acculturation, and grief as well as of training graduate students in Counseling on these issues. Using a primarily qualitative research lens, my scholarship and service has included looking at the experience of LGBTQIA collegians, BIPOC clients in counseling, historical and multigenerational trauma, gender and sexuality.

Resources

"From Intergenerational Trauma to Intergenerational Healing," Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart

The Myth of Normal. Gabor Maté

Historic Trauma Resilience Inventory, Dr. Devika Dibya Choudhuri and and Dr. Quentin Hunter, 2023.

"Evaluation of the UNREST Questionannaire for Testing the Social Resistance Framework," Roni Factor, Ichiro Kawachi, and David R. Williams

Other BIPOC+ Mental Health initiatives 

Call Blackline

Helping the most-impacted folks

HEARD

We are deaf and disabled people who support deaf/disabled incarcerated people.

Indigenous Circle of Wellness

We envision a future where our communities flourish in holistic well-being.

Indigenous Women Rising

Committed to honoring Native & Indigenous People’s inherent right to equitable and culturally safe health options.

Latinx Therapists Action Network

National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN)

Advancing healing justice by transforming mental health

The Red Ma’at Collective

Committed to creating spaces that promote healing, justice, and empowerment

Transcript

In this episode, Kazu Haga shares how fierce vulnerability can guide social justice work as it supports the healing of both individual and collective traumas. Injustice, he notes, is a manifestation of trauma, which cannot be fully healed on individual levels. Instead, we need to work with the collective trauma of families, groups, cultures, and societies.

This profound conversation feels so resonant in this cultural moment. Kazu reflects on how we can integrate more song, grief circles, and other rituals into social justice work so as to access the vulnerability that is inherently there and more deeply connect with one another. We can then work with the possibilities that emerge, which is both deeply insightful and hopeful. 

Guest Bio

Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Fierce Vulnerability Network, a founding core member of the Ahimsa Collective, a Jam facilitator and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm as well as his new book, Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse. He works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country.

He has over 25 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work. He is a resident of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA, where he lives with his family. You can find out more about his work at www.kazuhaga.com.

Transcript

In this episode, we talk conjuring, contemplative emergence, and embodying justice. We explore the challenges of higher education and how contemplative practices can support us in remaining aligned with who we are and move us toward wholeness. This spacious episode also includes a practice, alongside laughter and inspiring reflections.

Ericka Echavarria, JD LMSW, is a dedicated and experienced contemplative leader with a strong focus on building capacity and resilience in social justice workers. Her work centers on supporting transformative change within social justice workers, thereby promoting more mindful, embodied, and justice-focused service to reduce harm to vulnerable communities.

Ericka Echavarria's Linked In Profile

Maria Hamilton Abegunde – Abegunde – began studying and practicing Contemplative Practices over 40 years ago and continues to integrate them in her research, writing, teaching, and service to multiple communities. You may read her contemplative writings in the Journal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences, North Meridian Review, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, ASHE: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expression, and Black Joy Unbound. She is a Black Earth Institute, Cave Canem, Ragdale, and Sacatar Fellow. Abegunde is a faculty member in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University.

About Maria Hamilton Abegunde

Show Notes

Contemplative Practices and Acts of Resistance in Higher Education: Narratives Toward Wholeness, Eds. Michelle C. Chatman, LeeRay Costa, and David W. Robinson-Morris.

Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy, Robert Farris Thompson

Transcript

This deliciously spacious conversation with three Contemplative and Activist beings/scholars/practitioners explores how we can embody wholeness even in the troubled systems of higher education.

Restore your spirit connecting with Michelle C. Chatman, David W. Robinson-Morris, and LeeRay Costa as they talk about their new anthology. Share stories of grounding, healing, and navigating the fraught culture in higher education. Hear how contemplative practices can help diverse communities reconnect, integrate, and reclaim our wholeness.

Guest Bios

Michelle C. Chatman is a cultural anthropologist, community ritualist, vocalist, educator, and contemplative practitioner. She is Associate Professor of Crime, Justice, and Security Studies at the University of the District of Columbia, where she also serves as Founding Director Mindfulness and Courageous Action (MICA) Lab which advances community-engaged research and training on culturally relevant mindfulness and contemplative approaches. She is committed to amplifying healing-centered approaches that enable us to create organizations, systems, and structures of justice, liberated learning, and equitable thriving.

Website

LeeRay Costa is a lifelong contemplative practitioner and has been actively integrating contemplative practices into her teaching, research and community work since 2012. Trained as a feminist cultural anthropologist, she is Executive Director of Leadership Studies and the Batten Leadership Institute, and Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies /Anthropology at Hollins University, and the Co-founder of Girls Rock Roanoke (a youth empowerment nonprofit). Her current interests include engaging spirituality, contemplative practices, and creative expression in the service of human flourishing, planetary healing, and transformative social change.

LinkedIn

David W. Robinson-Morris is a scholar, activist, author, philosopher, human rights advocate, educator, organizer, DEI practitioner, higher education administrator, and student of contemplative practices. At the writing, Robinson-Morris was appointed the inaugural Executive Director of the Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life at Dartmouth College. He is the the Founder of The REImaginelution, a strategic consultant firm working to engender freedom of the human spirit and catalyze the power of the imagination to reweave organizations, systems, and the world toward collective healing and liberation. David served as the final Executive Director in service to the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (CMind). He is the author of a research monograph titled, Ubuntu and Buddhism in Higher Education: An Ontological (Re)Thinking (2019, Routledge). 

Websites: reimaginelution.com or centerforthehumanspirit.org

Show Notes:

Contemplative Practice and Acts of Resistance in Higher Education: Narratives Toward Wholeness, eds Michelle C. Chatman, David W. Robinson-Morris, and LeeRay Costa.

Find out more about book and community events

Tree of Contemplative Practices, Maia Duerr 

Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-making in Nineteenth-century America, Saidiya V. Hartman

Transcript

Hala Khouri and Tessa Hicks Peterson talk about the anthology they edited, Practicing Liberation: Transformative Strategies for Collective Healing and Liberation, Reflections on Burnout, Trauma, and Building Communities of Care in Social Justice work.

We explore radical imagination, healing from trauma, and collective care in the work of individuals, communities, and organizations.

Show Notes:

Book website

Emergent Strategy,: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, adrienne maree brown

Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, Robin D. G. Kelley

Tessa’s new book: Liberating the Classroom: Healing and Justice in Higher Education.

Interview with Tessa about her new book on Against the Grain on Berkeley-based KPFA (Pacifica) Radio (broadcast worldwide via kpfa.org and archived here).

Hala’s last book, Peace from Anxiety: Get Grounded, Build Resilience, and Stay Connected Amidst the Chaos.

Guest Bios:

Hala Khouri, M.A., SEP, E-RYT (she/her), is a sought-after speaker and trainer on the topic of trauma informed care, embodied social justice, trauma informed education and resilience. She has been teaching yoga and movement for over 25 years and has been doing clinical work and trainings for 15 years. Originally from Beirut, Lebanon, Hala has dedicated her life to the study of trauma, justice and building resilience. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Columbia University and an M.A. in Counseling Psychology and an M.A. in Community Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Hala is also trained in Somatic Experiencing, a body-based psychotherapy that helps resolve trauma and its symptoms.

Hala is a co-founder of Off the Mat, Into the World, a training organization that bridges yoga and activism within a social justice framework and an Adjunct Professor at Pitzer College. She leads Collective Resilience trauma informed yoga and somatics trainings nationally. Hala also trains direct service providers and educators to be trauma informed and culturally responsive.  She leads a monthly, online membership program called Radical Wellbeing which supports people through embodied practices and community building. She is the author of Peace from Anxiety: Get Grounded, Build Resilience and Stay Connected Amidst the Chaos (Shambhala) and editor/ author of Practicing Liberation: Transformative Strategies for Collective Healing and Systems Change (North Atlantic Books, 2024)

https://halakhouri.com/

Tessa Hicks Peterson is a scholar activist, teacher, facilitator, mother, wife, daughter, friend, dancer, and community-builder. She is the Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement and Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Pitzer College. Her duties since she arrived at Pitzer in 2006 have included teaching and administration, including directing the Community Engagement Center (CEC), Critical Action + Social Advocacy (CASA), Office for Consortial Academic Collaboration (OCAC) and Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. From 1998-2005, Tessa worked with communities throughout Los Angeles on human relations and civil rights issues, ranging from the Associate Director at the Anti-Defamation League, Youth Programs Director at the National Conference for Community and Justice, and Health and Life Skills Director at the Boys and Girls Club. She has a Masters and PhD in Cultural Studies from Claremont Graduate University and a BA in Psychology, Sociology and Spanish from UC Santa Cruz. Tessa teaches classes and facilitates trainings on issues ranging from anti-bias education and social justice to empowerment through movement, mindfulness, and art. Her scholarship centers on transformative movement organizing and healing justice, community-based education and research, social change theories and movements, decolonization and indigenous knowledge and prison education and abolition. Tessa spends most of her work advancing community-campus partnerships for social change and is a board member of Bringing Theory to Practice and Starting Over, Inc. Tessa is blessed to be firmly grounded in dance, community, and a beautiful family. Her ultimate work in the world is to engage with, teach about, learn from and better connect healing*arts*education*justice

https://tessahickspeterson.com/

In this heart-opening episode of ChangeMaking Connections, we immerse ourselves in the profound tapestry of indigenous wisdom with the remarkable Yuria Celidwen.