“Any system of oppression can't be part of the sacred because it's a perversion of the sacred. Because systems of oppression create the idea that some people are more sacred than others, and that's wrong. … Therefore, I have work to do all the time about being aware of how I believe those messages, and how they are constantly bombarding me, and trying to convince me of their rightness. What am I always doing to bring awareness to them, to be present with them, to acknowledge what is my responsibility versus what is the system and how within the system can I push against it at all times? And then what are the areas where I can just model that sacredness that a system like cisheteronormativity, for example, doesn't believe is sacred.”
- Kaitlyn Hatch

Kait Hatch is a multi-genre writer, mixed-media artist, Buddhist chaplain, philosopher, and community organizer, whose unique identity as a queer, disabled, racialized white Canadian with Métis, British and French colonialist ancestry informs their worldview and work.

In this episode, we explore how art, contemplative practice, and social justice intersect and inform Kait’s work creating contemporary Thangka pieces depicting Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in all different embodiments resisting dominant gender and cultural norms, and the Sacred Love/Sacred Lives mixed-media series celebrating disabled, trans, and queer folks.

Links to topics mentioned in this episode:
Learn more about Kaitlyn Hatch's work, her Sacred Love/Sacred Lives project, and her Representation Matters series
Find out more about the process of Thangka painting
Learn more about the Thousand Armed Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri 
Read Pema Chodron’s essay on practicing peace or this piece on how lojong (mind training) awakens the heart
Listen to Zenju Earthlyn Manuel discuss The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender

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Find the show notes + transcript on our website: Choosing To Create
Follow us on Instagram: @choosingtocreate
Come join us for a mindful or creative event at: www.deepbreathnetwork.org

And: if you can, please take a minute to subscribe and rate Choosing To Create in this podcast app - you'll help us reach more people to share these insights and conversations. 

"[Art is] preservation of different feelings that we can tap into . . . this constant rearticulation of the self. And to be part of an ecosystem where we remind ourselves of our reflections, we remind ourselves of one another - because it's hard to see ourselves. And so these different communities remind us and they help each other. We help each other see ourselves and we know how powerful that is." - Ramel J. Wallace

"I do have a drive and a purpose to transform these spaces into a better reflection of what creativity can be and how it can liberate people." - Ramel J. Wallace

Ramel Wallace is a community agent who specializes in identity, community, and creativity. He is a San Diego native, educator, poet, and Hip Hop storytelling artist. For over a decade now, he has used his voice to tell stories and to invite others to create art and share their stories. He co-founded thChrch, a creative incubator and community space, and is also owner of The Holyfield, a media company which evolved from its earlier roots as a community music studio. He is a board member of the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art, and he is also the first Black host of Creative Mornings San Diego. We’ll be talking about how practices like mindfulness and stillness support his creativity and social justice efforts, and how hope and storytelling inform his work in lifting up others and bringing about change.

Footnotes:
Learn more about Ramel Wallace's work
Find out more about Creative Mornings, the world's largest face-to-face creative community
Read Audre Lorde's essay Poetry Is Not A Luxury
Listen to Cornel West speak about hope and also it's relationship to optimism and despair

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Find the show notes + transcript on our website: Choosing To Create
Follow us on Instagram: @choosingtocreate
Come join us for a mindful or creative event at: www.deepbreathnetwork.org

And: if you can, please take a minute to subscribe and rate Choosing To Create in this podcast app - you'll help us reach more people to share these insights and conversations. 

-------------------------------
Join our email list! SIGN UP HERE
Find the show notes + transcript on our website: Choosing To Create
Follow us on Instagram: @choosingtocreate
Come join us for a mindful or creative event at: www.deepbreathnetwork.org

And: if you can, please take a minute to subscribe and rate Choosing To Create in this podcast app - you'll help us reach more people to share these insights and conversations. 

“We need to dismantle some of the grand ways in which we think about doing social justice work, doing political work, doing artwork, when it can be a microcosm, a manifestation within ourselves to actualize a desire we have. It doesn't have to be anything more than that. If we do it for ourselves, we're doing it for the world. Because we're a part of that world.”- Rusia Mohiuddin 

Rusia Mohiuddin comes from a long line of people in her family who have committed their lives to living in service to others. Her grandfather, Mashiur “Jadu Miah” Rahman, was the father of the Bangladeshi Independence Movement, and her mother Monsura “Mukti” Mohiuddin was a former Member of Parliament who served & fought for poor people both as a historically elected official & as a citizen. 
 

In this episode, we’ll be talking with Rusia about how her family’s values and history influenced her to continue that legacy. She shares with us how approaching her organizing and social justice change work in a more mindful and contemplative way brought her back to her art making. We explore artmaking as a political and spiritual practice, and discuss how both creating art and working towards social change can be powerful acts of alignment with our values and what is most important to us.

See Rusia’s art, printmaking, and calligraphy on Instagram

Based in New York, Rusia is a master trainer, facilitator, coach and a strategist who pioneered the integration of somatics into an organizing framework. Rusia is currently the founder and principal of UP and the founder of Ma Mukti. Her current mission, through Universal Partnership, has been developing a holistic model for social justice change work that places in its center the necessary transformation of social change agents. Rusia brings a unique style to creating pathways for individuals to bring their best selves forward when enacting social change in their organizations & communities. Rusia has also developed a model for coaching social change agents, called Embodied Coaching, that is based on her developed model of embodied leadership.

Find the show notes + transcript on our website: Choosing To Create
Follow us on Instagram: @choosingtocreate
Come join us for a mindful or creative event at: www.deepbreathnetwork.org

And: if you can, please take a minute to subscribe and rate Choosing To Create in this podcast app - you'll help us reach more people to share these insights and conversations. 

-------------------------------
Join our email list! SIGN UP HERE
Find the show notes + transcript on our website: Choosing To Create
Follow us on Instagram: @choosingtocreate
Come join us for a mindful or creative event at: www.deepbreathnetwork.org

And: if you can, please take a minute to subscribe and rate Choosing To Create in this podcast app - you'll help us reach more people to share these insights and conversations. 

Welcome to the Choosing to Create podcast where we’ll explore what moves us to make something, what cultivates the conditions for us to create, what sparks us to dream of a new kind of world and then act to create what we want to see in it? Your host is Desiree Aspiras, an educator, therapist, and facilitator. For the last few years she's focused on integrating creative and contemplative approaches into her work in mental health, higher education, artmaking, and social justice. In this podcast, we’ll have conversations with artists and activists, creatives and changemakers, where we’ll examine the intersections of art, awareness, and activism, and look at how these threads weave themselves together to influence who we are, and what we make and offer to the world. 

We officially launch this August, so make sure you subscribe to and rate the Choosing To Create podcast on this podcast app.

This podcast is a production of Deep Breath Network.
Follow us on Instagram at: @choosingtocreate
Continue the conversation and join us at Interconnected, a virtual community for artists and activists.

-------------------------------
Join our email list! SIGN UP HERE
Find the show notes + transcript on our website: Choosing To Create
Follow us on Instagram: @choosingtocreate
Come join us for a mindful or creative event at: www.deepbreathnetwork.org

And: if you can, please take a minute to subscribe and rate Choosing To Create in this podcast app - you'll help us reach more people to share these insights and conversations.