A quarantine support episode! Lily Sage and I check in with each other and discuss the unique challenges of quarantine to the soft fluttering of wind chimes in the background. Lily Sage is a Montessori school teacher focused on incorporating decolonization methods in the classroom, a wilderness guide and teacher, a Doula, Herbalist, Artist, Performer, and a sweetheart. Please join two old friends for a relaxed conversation about how we're staying sane in this very strange time.
Land Acknowledgement: Lily is speaking to you from Cochiti Pueblo, where the language of Keres is spoken.

TW/CW: Brief mention of filicide, medical marijuana and marijuana use, psychiatric medications, brief mention of Hurricane Katrina and infrastructure collapse, Covid-19, and Quarantine 2020.

Episode Notes:

Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Day Address
https://americanindian.si.edu/environment/pdf/01_02_thanksgiving_address.pdf

https://danceforallpeople.com/haudenosaunee-thanksgiving-address/

Lily would like to add that the prayer at the end parallels the lineages recited in traditional Jewish prayer. Here is more on the Mourner's Kaddish.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/text-of-the-mourners-kaddish/?fbclid=IwAR3lLuyZZv4BGz0AyTbSWbLkp7JGT4w-gWWnt6g3VPaQTDNjGjr-erEFe0s

Lynn Margaulis is a biologist who also talks about parasitism as a form of symbiosis in her work, "Symbiotic Planet"

I also spaced in the episode and forgot to mention that I have actually experienced a loss of infrastructure in a disaster. I weathered a number of hurricanes, including Sandy where we were without power for two weeks. Other storms have left my family without electricity, water, or heat for weeks at a time - at least once in a freezing winter. My family also lived in CA for the '89 earthquake. I forgot in the moment because I have always considered us lucky in these situations and thought of it as an "interruption" rather than a collapse, and I didn't experience it as trauma. I don't compare any of the natural disasters I've been blessed to lived through to Hurricane Katrina.

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I talk a bit about my experiences with self-defense training post-trauma. My sister Chie joins me partway through the episode to share her thoughts as well. 

TW/CW: Sexual assault, abuse, self-defense attack simulations and scenarios, and street harassment.

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Chie and I talk about the flexibility of memory after trauma. We discuss what it's like dealing with repressed, altered, and recovered memories. Chie also shares a bit about her experiences with IFS and EMDR therapy.

TW/CW: Repressed, altered, and recovered memories, emotional developmental trauma, emotional and verbal child abuse, and abusive teachers.

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This bonus track is an excerpt from a conversation with Chie. We ended up talking about Star Trek Voyager for 20 min...it happens...join two nerds as we shoot the shit and discuss our love of Voyager's strong women, and how survivor issues intersect with some key episodes of Voyager. Be warned of spoilers! 

TW/CW: Discussion of Star Trek episodes involving PTSD, flashbacks, repressed and recovered memories, and accusations of assault being questioned and doubted.

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In part 2 of my interview with Chie we discuss eating disorders, the work she's doing in recovery, having healthy boundaries, having cis male partners, and her decision to leave the Shambhala Meditation Community following the reports of abuse there.

TW/CW: Eating disorders, abusive teachers, cults, and abuse within religious/spiritual organizations.

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My sister Chie and I talk about what was helpful and supportive after her assault. We discuss her decision to return to college after it happened, the effects of PTSD on her life, how it influenced her thesis work, and what helped her get through it. I share an incident with a PTSD trigger in a meditation workshop, and we discuss the importance of utilizing the Disability Department in school and communicating with professors. 

TW/CW: Sexual Assault, PTSD, abusive teachers, and a conversation about binary gender socialization (no dog whistles - trans women are women and trans men are men).

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A strategy for defeating negative, intrusive, and potentially triggering thought patterns. This includes personal experience with this practice, a brief explanation of Buddhist Wrathful Deities, and help brainstorming to get you started on finding something similar that works for you.

TW/CW: Descriptions of imagined graphic violence (throat cutting), and discussion of triggering thought patterns.

The article I quote in this episode:
https://buddhaweekly.com/tantric-wrathful-deities-the-psychology-and-extraordinary-power-of-enlightened-beings-in-their-fearsome-form/

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How your sense of smell is tied to memory and how this can affect PTSD symptoms.
TW/CW: A non explicit personal experience of a PTSD flashback. 

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