Engaged Liberation

This is the season premiere of Brown Enough, season 3! But I also had to share it with y’all, because it features Substacks finest, the incomparable Vico Ortiz — actor, activist, drag king, and joyful disruptor. From swashbuckling on screen to breaking binaries in life, Vico is redefining what it means to take up space with authenticity, be radically honest, have, courage, and play.

In this chat, we talk all about finding ourselves, being ourselves, letting go of other peoples baggage, polyamory, self expression, fencing - the list goes on! It’s a juicy one.

If you love Engaged Liberation, find some medicine and love here, consider buying me a coffee and/or supporting me here for just $2.75 / $3.35 / $5 a month! Also - now’s a perfect time to buy a copy of Brown Enough in Paperback (one for you, one for the homie, one for the neighborhood library) and listen to the Podcast, Season 3 just dropped!

Today’s Engaged Liberation is absolutely incredible! I got to sit down with a friend, mentor, best selling author, the person I call when I need a ritual or limpia, and brilliant spark of life, Juliet Diaz, the author of The Altar Within, and other amazing reads.

We chat communal liberation, solitude, how words are spells in your mouth, how our stories are our ancestors stories, reciprocity, freedom, radical activism, and that we all have the power to love everybody - no exceptions. It’s a great one! A powerful one! A medicinal one!

Enjoy xo

If you love Engaged Liberation, find some medicine and love here, consider buying me a coffee and/or supporting me here for just $2.75 / $3.35 / $5 a month! Also - now’s a perfect time to buy a copy of Brown Enough in Paperback (one for you, one for the homie, one for the neighborhood library) and listen to the Podcast, Season 3 dropping October 15th!

Engaged Liberation is you-supported. Support :)

This is an unedited version of my original chat with the brilliant and hilarious Pooja Tripathi, for the Brown Enough Podcast.

We chat comedy, violin, tugging on human heart strings, and taking risks.

Pooja is the proud owner of the In My Culture Substack, where can find out about her latest existential crisis, what's been funny or inspirational to late…

Yara Travieso is a brilliant artist, film maker, big feeler, and wisdom sharer. Yara embodies so much love and power in this world. I have been healed and quoted Yara many times in this life (“The more I heal, the less ambitious I become.”) and I will continue too. This is one of my favorite and most powerful conversations I’ve had on here. And now I have the privilege to share it with y’all. Enjoy.

Some other clips of Yara’s wisdom:

PS. a poem this convo inspired:

Make the body tender.

Not too soft

Not too firm.

Tender

Open like earth after rain.

The body is ancient

It spills, It seeps, It builds bridges.

It is where all the answers are.

We live through practices of connection. We learn that skin is not a wall But a prayer, A possibility.

We turn up the volume On the desire to be more alive. Let the ache be a signal. Let the longing be a guide.

Turn up the volume

On our liberation. Until the silence of oppression cannot hold its shape.

Let the body lead.

Tender,

Ancient,

A map we were born with, A revolution we carry.

If you love Engaged Liberation, consider supporting it for just $2.75 per month / $3.35 per month / or $5 per month (cheaper than an LA cup o’ coffee)

“My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. There is no other way work of artistic worth can be done. And the occasional success, to the striver, is worth everything. The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” - The one and only Mary Oliver

Engaged Liberation is a you supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider subscribing.

Melissa Lozada-Oliva is a Guatelombian (Guatemalan-Colombian) American writer. Her book Candelaria was named one of the best books of 2023 by VOGUE and USA Today. Her work explores the intersections of Latina identity, feminism, hair removal & what it means to belong. In this incredible convo we chat turning off our phones, bringing back Selena through seance, and paving our own way.

The Full unedited episode can be found here and the edited version on Brown Enough.

If you love Engaged Liberation, consider supporting it for $5, cheaper then my LA cup o’ coffee. You’ll gain access to weekly group meetings, as well as full access to the Engaged Liberation podcast. Thank you!

Kristen McGuiness is the founder of Rise Books, she’s a best-selling author, editor, and an integral part to helping me birth Brown Enough into the world. She coached me through my own book proposal process and then helped me publish the book through the publishing company that she helped create (RowHouse). Now, through her new publishing company Rise Books - she offers incredible resources and services to authors at all levels of their artistic journey. One of those incredible offerings is their 5 Months to Memoir Seminar. I have done it and it's incredible!

Have you been dreaming of writing your memoir? Have you started but don’t know where to go with it? Have you already finished your draft but feel like you need a space to workshop your book? Then Five Months to Memoir is for you .You can learn all about here and also in the video / episode. Enjoy and keep writing your story, keep speaking your truth. We need it.

ps. The next workshop begins on Thursday, March 27th and goes through July 3rd. Sessions are from 10:00am-12:00pm PST every other week. The workshop is 10% off with the code WRITENOW

If you love Engaged Liberation, consider supporting it for $5/mo, cheaper then my Los Angeles cup of coffee. You’ll gain access to weekly group meetings, as well as full access to the Engaged Liberation podcast. Thank you!

I got to chat with the one and only, Samuél Lopez-Barrantes (from, if not, Paris)… The first person I ever heard talk about Substack, and likely the reason I hopped onto this platform.

We chatted all things creativity, writing processes, liberation, joy, oppression, and how if you want community you just have to go get it. This is a beautiful one. Enjoy

Kalah Hill is a freedom Doula, shame slayer, and pleasure activist! The founder of In Pleasure We Trust. On this wonderful chat we

To find out more about Kalah and her services follow on Instagram @kalah.hill and check out her website www.inpleasurewetrust.com

Engaged Liberation is free. If you love it, consider supporting it financially. For $5/mo, you’…

This week I get the pleasure of chatting with Candy Santana, a brilliant actress, author, and former lawyer! Enjoy this conversation on acceptance and hearing that call inside of us, the one that says whether to stay, go, stop or change directions…. As Lauryn Hill says beautifully, “God gave us a steering wheel for a reason.” Sometimes we have to turn l…

I hide my face when I cry.

Or at least I turn my face away from anyone around.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a best friend, my partner, family - I’ve been turning away and hiding my tears for almost my whole life.

In one way, I’m glad I’m even crying. Crying in general, letting the salt water leak from my face was hard for me for about 28 years. You should have seen the internal crisis I had when watching The Lion King in movie theaters for the first time - I had to leave when Simba’s dad wouldn’t wake up (spoiler)… It’s was all the cliche’s you can think of: I didn’t really see my father cry, I believed it was weak, I didn’t know it’s medicinal benefits, the feelings felt bigger than I could grasp, it wasn’t what men did…

But here I am now, 36 years old and still hiding my face, hiding my tears. Which inherently says, “you shouldn’t see this” or “this is wrong.”

Maybe it’s just habitual - this hiding - a story that tells me I have to be some stone faced perfect person who always feels okay (whatever okay is). But, like any habit, it simply takes awareness and practice to start a new one… to recognize and engage with this wanting to hide, and in that recognition I can instead choose to look into the eyes of whoever I am with, and to cry with my head high.

Engaged Liberation is reader-supported. Consider supporting me for significantly less than an $8 Oat Milk latte. Hopefully these writings are just as delicious and caffeinating.

Because Liberation is all about recognizing, not running, not hiding. It's about accepting that pain, the emotion, and not letting it define me. I cry, you cry, we all cry, and liberation tells us, "That’s part of this whole thing." Or as the poet Gibran would say, “I cried enough tears till I dug me a permanent smile.”

Liberation isn't about being perfect; it’s about intimacy with the moment, with whatever that moment has to offer, and not shying away from it. Engaging with the messiness of this life, even when it means letting you see me wiping the tears from my beautiful face.

xo