Collaborative Alchemy

In this episode, I’m talking to artist and activist B Merikle. In their “day job” they work as a non-profit executive director, challenging anti-Blackness everywhere that they hold space and lead groups. B’s heart-centered work is profoundly informed by the women that came before them. B intentionally seeds liberation in all that they do, with eyes focused on the coming harvest. B says that they believe deeply in the power of stark contrast — trauma and pleasure — to create new Black futures that free us all.

“Pardon my language, but it’s a literal goddamned miracle that most Black people in this country who are descendants of the Middle Passage actually even exist. And I wanted to show people [through my work] what that miracle meant, embodied, in real time.” —B. Merikle

Our conversation happened during Lughnasa (harvest season) in 2021.

My guest is orchardist and poet Linda Joy Cordtz. In this epidsode, we’re talking about farming as meditation, poetry, and the transformational nature of living close to the earth. We’re also reading excerpts from her book entitled “Walking in the Orchard”. Linda says, “Your partner is nature. She will always show you the most unbelievable bounty, and then whisk everything away. And it's all equal. It just is.”

In this episode, I talk with activist, bridge builder, and the founder of The Be Seen Project, Mindy Tsonas Choi. Our conversation focuses on identity-led creative work, the somatic experience of real belonging, and what happens to potency of our work when we step outide of capitalistic structures. Mindy says, “Now that I’m heading into 50, right in the mid-point of my life, I’m looking at and thinking about belonging in new ways. If you had asked me at the beginning of my creative journey about belonging, I would have described it as being accepted and being welcomed by a community. And now, especially as an activist, as an edge dweller, as someone who has skin in the game, belonging is really about self-reclamation and claiming spaces and naming them for ourselves.”

In this episode I talk with facilitator, leadership mentor, and creative catalyst Anya Hankin. In this wide-ranging conversation we talk about creating purpose-driven work, showing up in our imperfect fullness, and what it means to truly practice reciprocity. Anya says, “Bearing witness is at the core of my work. We all deserve to be seen, to be heard, to be celebrated. So much of it is knowing that we get to be our flawed, real, human selves and be seen in that. My story touches something in your story. My experience touches something in your experience. I think that is the heart of witnessing. There is something so healing in recognizing that we’re not alone in it.”

In this episode, I talk with actor, voice coach, and educator Jack Greenman. Jack also happens to be my life partner. Jack left a tenured faculty position, mid-career, at Southern Methodist University to live rurally with his family and homeschool his children. Join us as we discuss creativity inside and outside of institutions, zazen meditation, homeschooling, and bringing your whole self (even the icky parts) to the creative act. We also reveal a family secret. (Shhh… don’t tell our parents!)

My guest is actor, musician, dancer, choreographer, and entrepreneur Yusef Seevers. In this episode, we talk about the importance of radical self love, Black joy, and the healing power of meditation. Yusef says, "Self care is about returning to a place of infinite love. And I think that the resistance people have to it is that is seems too simple. Nothing we ever do in this new world is as simple as love. So in all things that I do, in all things that I teach, in all things that I am living, I am pointing to that LOVE that is in oneself... I am pointing to YOU... as the one who is LOVE."

My guest is Dr. Jennifer Atkinson and in this episode of Collaborative Alchemy we are talking about the role that storytellers and artists have to play in the fight for climate justice. Dr. Atkinson says, “The story of climate change has been a scientific story from the very beginning. That’s the way we always tell it. But we have known that story now for three decades and longer. We don’t need more scientific research in this moment. What we need now is our storytellers to convince us to act on what the sciences have been telling us. We need the artists to help us imagine a thriving future. What does that look like?”