Finding Refuge

Omisade Burney-Scott (she/her) is a 7th generation Black Southern feminist, creative and social justice advocate. Over the past 25 years, her “work” has been grounded in social justice movement spaces focused on the liberation of marginalized people, beginning with her own community.  

This commitment to liberation has manifested through advocacy work, philanthropy,  community organizing, and culture work. She is the creator/curator of The Black Girls’ Guide to  Surviving Menopause, a multimedia project that curates the stories of Black women, women identified, and gender-expansive people who are perimenopausal, menopausal, or post-menopausal. This project is a direct result of Omisade finding herself and her peers living at the intersection of social justice movement work, creative healer identities, and aging. She has chosen to use the medium of storytelling to disrupt the erasure of Black women's voices as they age through sharing their first-person narratives and lived experiences.  

Omisade is a member of the 1999-2001 class of the William C. Friday Fellows for Human  Relations, a 2003 Southeastern Council on Foundation’s Hull Fellow, and founding member of NGAAP, the Next Generation of African American Philanthropy. She has served on various nonprofit boards, including the Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom, Fund for Southern  Communities, Spirithouse NC, Village of Wisdom, Working Films, and The Beautiful Project.  

She is a 1989 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and the proud mom of two sons, Che and Taj. She resides in Durham, North Carolina.  

In this amazing episode, we discuss:

Menopause
Blackness
Black women
The Power of Storytelling
Rewriting Our Story
Systemic Oppression
Truth-Telling
Different Stages of Life
Mothering
Imposter Syndrome
Spiritual Practice
Destiny
Faith
…and more!

You can connect with Omisade on her website, Instagrams @blackgirlsguidetomenopause @omisadeburneyscott, Twitter, and Facebook

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, non-profit founder, speaker, and author. She is the founder of Peace in Schools, a nonprofit that created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. Caverly is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemplatives committed to personal and collective transformation. She is the author of A Kids Book About Mindfulness as well as The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together.

Caverly blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent Zen monastery. She has been teaching contemplative practice since 2001 and leads meditation retreats, workshops and online classes internationally. More at caverlymorgan.org.

In this episode, we discuss:

The Heart of Who We Are
Spirit Forward
Spiritual Practice
Reconciling Spiritual Warriorship And The Need to Soften
Spiritual Bypassing
Presence
Devotion
Practice
Where We Place Our Attention
A Book as an Offering
Collective Trauma
Collective Resilience

Connect with Caverly on her website or on Instagram @caverlymorgan

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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An accomplished speaker and teacher, Nikki is an MBA, E-RYT500, Yoga Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Addictions Recovery Specialist, and Ayurvedic Specialist. Born from her personal struggles with addiction, deep study, and work with countless students, Nikki is the founder of Y12SR: Yoga of 12-Step Recovery. Based on its theme ‘the issues live in the tissues’, Y12SR is a relapse prevention program that weaves yoga, neuroscience and trauma healing with the practical tools of 12-step programs.

Y12SR meetings are available internationally and the curriculum has rapidly becoming a feature of addiction recovery treatment centers.   Nikki’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Black Enterprise, The Huffington Post, Origin Magazine, CBSnews.com and countless podcasts.  She is honored to be a co-founder of the annual Yoga, Meditation and Recovery Conferences at Esalen Institute and Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.  Nikki has been featured as a speaker at the International Association of Yoga Therapist (IAYT) conference,   International Conference on Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the 2022 Clinton Global Initiative.  She was named a Yoga Journal Game Changer and is an honored recipient of the esteemed NUVO Cultural Visionary Award.

In this episode, we discuss:

Dharma
Addiction
Ego
Aspects of the Personality 
Relief vs. Resolve 
Healing
Recovery 
The Good Next Right Thing
The Bhagavad Gita
The Path of Yoga
Legacy
Lineage
Refuge and Sustenance 
Vibration 
Chanting

Connect with Nikki on her website, Instagram @y12sr, and Facebook.

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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Erin Trent Johnson is a Black Mama Body, embodied coach and liberation guide, storyteller, facilitator. Erin lives by the words of the Combahee River Collective Statement, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”

Erin is the Creator of Black.Mama.Body. Experience an embodied communal healing and creative refuge and abundant homeplace for Black, Indigenous and women and femme bodies of culture. In community, Erin holds spaces that ignite spiritual rebellion and remembrance within systems of extraction and exploitation. Through story, art, ritual, testimony and witness, Black Mama Body is the womb of creation. 

Erin is also the founder of Community Equity Partners, a coaching and consulting practice focused on reimagining systems and institutions that produce Black health and wholeness–Whealth.

As a certified professional coach, trained facilitator of group dynamics, somatics, racial justice, political activism, and community organizing, Erin knows how institutions, systems, and politics function and reproduce harm specifically for Black women, femme, queer, poor and disabled and neuroexpansive bodies. Erin’s purpose and lineage has called on her to hold sacred communal space for Black nourishment, imagination, and the healing of intergenerational, structural, and everyday institutional and personal trauma.

Erin is a journeywoman who practices ritual and deep nerding out and liberatory play.

Erin has coached and facilitated liberated learning and leadership development experiences for people and institutions around the world, trained and mentored coaches and therapists, and continues her practice and study of Somatics, Abolition, and Spiritual  with Black, Indigenous, and Bodies of culture around the world.

Erin is a 5th generation Philadelphian, descendant of the laborers, the healers, the domestic workers, farmers, and wisdom keepers. She lives with her partner in life, Ajamu and daughter Maya. Erin loves to dance, swim, wander, garden and play with her daughter, Maya.

In this episode, we discuss:

Body Wisdom and Health
Soulbattical
White Supremacy
Anti-Racism Practice
Abolitionism
Rest as Resistance 
Rest as Refuge
Mothering
A Practice of Surrendering 
Living The Life of The Living
Black Mama Body Experience
Joy and Grief 
Community
The Power of Healing in Communal Spaces 

Connect with Erin Trent-Johnson on her website and on Instagram @black.mama.body.experience

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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Rebby Kern (they/them) is a wandering spirit shining light into the lives of others. Rebby’s personal mission is to operate from connection, seeking justice and empowering voices. Rebby generates space for connection, empowerment and self-discovery through their 10+ years in LGBTQ policy and activism drawing connections to yoga asana and philosophy while uplifting experiences of marginalized identities. Their experience drives their passion to include diverse identities around race, gender identity, sexual orientation, body, disability and more. 

Rebby is an awarded national facilitator on race equity, gender justice and queer liberation within Rebby Kern Yoga, HRC Welcoming Schools and All Children All Families, as well as a consultant to educators, wellness leaders and professionals.

Rebby serves as the Director of Education Policy at Equality NC, advocating for and investing in young change-makers, supporting policy reform and implementing LGBTQ-inclusive training and professional development across North Carolina. Rebby also serves as a board member of Youth OUTright, empowering LGBTQIA youth.

In 2019 Rebby was selected as one of the first lululemon Ambassadors for the newest Charlotte store, Atherton Mill. As a lululemon Ambassador, Rebby is able to lead in power in the Charlotte community and beyond. Rebby is the first non-binary person of color to represent lululemon in the region and continues to uplift voices of LGBTQ and BIPOC people who often don’t find themselves represented within the lululemon brand.

As a person in recovery for 10 years, Rebby is a facilitator for Yoga 12-Step Recovery grounding their own practice in an addiction recovery model which connects yoga, neuroscience, and the practical tools of 12-step programs. 

In this episode, we discuss:

Self-Trust
Community Care
Family of Origin
Adoption 
Chosen Family
Addiction
Spiritual Practice
Advocacy Work
Communication With Our Younger Selves
Refuge 
The Seat of The Student 
Inner Wisdom 
Being of Service 
Agency
Sovereignty 
Love and Rage

You can learn more and book Rebby at their website and follow @rebbykern on Instagram. 

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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Kerri is the founder of CTZNWELL, a movement that is democratizing wellbeing for all. A descendant of generations of firemen and first responders, Kerri has dedicated her life to kicking down doors and fighting for justice. She’s been teaching yoga for over 20 years and is known for making waves in the wellness industry by challenging norms, disrupting systems and mobilizing people to act. 

A community organizer, wellness activist and author of the forthcoming book American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal, Kerri is recognized across communities for her inspired work to bridge transformational practice with social justice. She’s been instrumental in translating the practices of wellbeing into social and political action, working in collaboration with community organizers, spiritual leaders and policy makers to transform our systems from the inside out. Her leadership has inspired a movement that is actively organizing around issues of racial and economic justice, healthcare as a human right, civic engagement and more.

Kerri is a student of abolition, anti-racism, ableism and decolonization. She works diligently to dismantle oppression within herself and the systems and culture she is a part of. She works in support and solidarity with BIPOC leaders and organizations to explore how to work across lines of difference to advance equity and build community resilience. Her partnership with Michelle C Johnson, Race & Resilience, aims to provoke transformative change in community and institutional spaces that moves us from a culture of separation, supremacy and scarcity to one of connection, cooperation and care. 

In this episode, we discuss:

Collective Wellness
Well-being
Interconnectedness
The Personal as Political
Finding Refuge in the Mundane
The Story of a Hero
Detoxing From Systems That Prevent Us From Being Well 
The Birthing of American Detox
The Writing Process
Discovery of Oneself
Rest as Refuge
Perfectionism
Justice
Equity

Connect with Kerri on her website, ctznwell, or on Instagram @kkellyyoga and @ctznwell.

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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Mado Hesselink (she/they) helps yoga teachers integrate their heart-centered mission with practical teaching strategies so that they can integrate the benefits of yoga into their lives and share those benefits with their community.

A student of yoga for over 20 years in the Krishnamacharya lineage, Mado is white & able bodied, queer, neurodivergent, an immigrant, and lives on unceded Cherokee land. Her life has been profoundly influenced by the experience of growing up in Hawaii as a third culture individual, by becoming a mother at the age of 24, and by the death of her own mother in 2012. Parenthood and partnership continue to be her greatest yoga teachers while asana and meditation support her aim to show up skillfully and compassionately in every area of life.

On her podcast “The Yoga Teacher Resource”, Mado draws from nearly two decades of teaching experience to share relevant stories, practical tips, and down-to-earth advice specifically geared towards yoga teachers. Her membership community the Impact Club supports yoga teachers to stay consistent with their personal practice, find their voice, and move past psychological barriers to show up fully in service to the world. Community, accountability, and mentorship are often missing in the lives of independent yoga teacher and the Impact Club exists to fill that gap. Mado is also co-founder of the Anatomy Bites membership community and has created several online courses for yoga teachers. She loves gardening, preparing food, walking by the river, and learning about... well almost anything.

In this episode, we discuss:

The Path of Yoga
Multiple Truths
Things That Seem to be in Opposition 
The Opposite Sides of the Same Coin
Structure and Surrender
Developing the Capacity for Not Knowing or Having All of the Answers
Skillful Action
Practices to Bring us Back Into a Place of Skillful Action
The lower self and Higher Self
Integrity and Union
The Garden as a Metaphor
Birth, Death, Decay, Composting
Parenting
Grief 

Connect with Mado on their website or on Instagram @yoga.teacher.resource

The Impact Club: https://www.helloyogateacher.com/impact

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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Sherene Cauley (she/her) is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, the founder of The Nurtured Life, the Associate Director of The Whole Health Center in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a Phd student working towards her Doctor of Ministry with a focus on social transformation from United Theological Seminary, Twin Cities. 

Sherene lives with her husband, mother, and children on the coast of Maine. 

Sherene founded The Nurtured Life in 2003, a Maryland-based wellness service to build mindful life practices into everyday living. As a mother and connected community member with an academic background in education, she recognized the need for holistic early childhood education and designed The Nurtured Life to offer guidance to families in communication, physiological awareness, natural world connection, and whole foods sustenance.  In 2008, Sherene completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training with Diane Finlayson and, in 2009, a certificate in pregnancy yoga to integrate yoga practices into family care. The role of The Nurtured Life naturally broadened to become a nexus for practical and emotional family support with the launch of a whole foods purchasing cooperative, a network of peer support, and coaching services for parents and families.

As someone who has struggled throughout her life with dyslexia, she began to recognize how her neurodivergent sensitivities help her to tune into her internal and external environments, which not only allow her to experience her spirituality more fully but also to guide others in healing practices that are responsive to mind and body. In 2018, Sherene completed a Master of Arts in Health and Wellness Coaching from Maryland University of Integrative Health and formally became a wellness coach.

The Nurtured Life has evolved as a wellness coaching service for clients across the country and includes workshops on attuning to our inner and outer realities to build supportive, sustainable lifestyles.

Sherene’s academic research has examined the effects of hegemonic white patriarchy on spirituality and human development. As an American and woman of Iranian heritage, she recognizes both socially and personally the harm caused by systems of oppression and the need to actively cultivate a culture of well-being. She continues to combine her knowledge in health coaching, peace studies, and wisdom traditions to offer coaching around barriers to peace, equity, and social justice. 

In this episode, we dove into the following topics:

Grief
Joy
Connection
What calls us to our work and to practice 
Pain as a catalyst for truth and transformation
Children and how they don’t want to transcend this human experience or reality
Evolution and our understanding of history 
The cosmic unfolding 
The nature of healing
The process by which people heal
Spiritual practice
Community as a congregation
What results from us believing we are separate from one another and all things
Embodiment
Repatterning 
Ritual 
Showing up authentically

Connect with Sherene on her website or on Instagram @thenurturedlife_sherene.

Support Sherene’s access fund for coaching and to support her clients and practice of not turning anyone away.

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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During her childhood, her family traveled throughout India, devoted to a colorful yogic life. Rohini got to experience an upbringing that was centered around a love for their community. 

Her days were filled with meditation, chanting, yoga, and cleansing the body in an effort to grow as a spiritual being. 

As she traveled throughout India, staying in different temples and volunteering at community events, Rohini got to see and experience the most sacred places in India where most people were not allowed. 

Today, Rohini is internationally recognized as a teacher of the Akasha and spiritual explorer. Through her revolutionary approach to empowering spiritually curious individuals, Rohini guides her community through a wondrous journey inward so they can experience the awe of a limitless reality. 

Through the MI Community, her podcast, and her educational opportunities, Rohini makes the wisdom of the Akasha accessible to everyone. 

During this episode, we discuss:

Akashic Records
Sharing the Akasha and How to Read Records in an Accessible Way
Ancestral Lineage and Legacy
Grief and Loss of a Child 
The Vedas
Vedic Astrology
Karma 
Spiritual Bypassing 
Cultural Appropriation
The Soul’s Path
The Spiritual and Physical Body
Spiritual and Physical Alignment 
Harmony
Living and Leading from the Heart
Our Individual and Collective Work to Make the World a Better Place 
What it Feels Like to be Alive at This Time 
Laughter and Joy

Connect with Rohini on her website or on Instagram @magicinclined.

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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Tina Strawn (she/they) is a joy and liberation advocate, activist, author of "Are We Free Yet? The Black, Queer Guide to Divorcing America" (Row House Publishing, January 2023). Tina is the owner and host of the Speaking of Racism podcast. The heart of her work is founding and leading Legacy Trips, immersive antiracism experiences where participants visit historical locations such as Montgomery and Selma, AL, and utilize spiritual practices as tools to affect personal and collective change. Tina has three adult children, an ex-husband, an ex-wife, and an ex-country. She has been a full-time minimalist nomad since February 2020 and currently lives in Costa Rica. Tina travels the globe speaking, writing, teaching, and exploring where on the planet she can feel safe and free in her queer, Black, woman-identifying body.

In this very special episode, we discuss:

The Blaxit Social Movement
The Experience of Being a Black American and Choosing to Leave America
How Black People Can Never Truly Leave the Experience of Being Black 
Isolation Versus Finding and Creating Solitude
Racial Trauma 
The Experience of Being a Black Ex-Pat Nomad
Tina’s Writing Process
Grief
Liberation
Systems of Oppression and How We Find Freedom In Spite of Them 
White Supremacy
Black Joy
Sovereignty
Pleasure
Committing to Peace and Joy 
Dreaming and Visioning

Connect with Tina on her website and Instagram @tina_strawn_life

Purchase Are We Free Yet: The Black Queer Guide to Divorcing America

Podcast music by Charles Kurtz

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