First, let's define our terms.  

(With a little assistance from our pal, Wikipedia.) 

Culture.  

As in...

..."the social behavior and norms found in human societies"

As in...

..."the set of customs, traditions, and values of a society or community, such as an ethnic group or nation"...

As in...

..."the set of knowledge acquired over time"...

As in...

..."the development of a philosophical soul, ... (or) the highest possible ideal for human development"...

As in...

..."all the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism, and through artifice, become fully human."

As in...

..."to inhabit a place sufficiently intensive to cultivate it—to be responsible for it, to respond to it, to attend to it caringly"..

As in, something We create.  Inhabit.  Something we must be constantly tending, examining. sifting through and excavating what is useful, what is good, what is worth keeping and what is now ready to leave behind.  

This week, we sit down and ponder what is happening right now inside this country and the dominant culture there.  We look at our responses.  And examine it all through the rich and multi-faceted lens of our earlier conversation with Lyla June Johnston - poet, activist, scholar, and proud conduit of LOVE.  

What is an appropriate response to injustice?

How do we react when we feel the anger rising just beneath our skin, but in our hearts we wish to conduit peace, and lasting transformation?

How do we respond to the braided truths that we carry?  Do we abscond with the pieces of our selves and our past which we can no longer stomach?  Which we can no longer abide?  Or do we willingly and bravely turn towards them, confront them and gently start to shift the way the tide is turning?  

Apologies, in advance for the sound recording herein.  As usual, we had some kerfuffles with technology and ended up just sharing this conversation as is - A phone call between friends.  Two women, shooting from the hip, and speaking from the heart  Grappling with the questions.  Somehow attempting to live our way - with you - into an Answer.  

Enjoy.

Welcome to another episode of MEND.

As I sit here, recording these words, we’re just coming off a week of watching the daily news unfold around the horrendous proceedings around the border.

Photographs and stories of children being ripped from their mother’s breast.

Taken, after an arduous journey from their own, war-torn countries, seeking a better life here - being told that their young child is being taken for a bath and then, instead, placed inside a cage or shuffled into the foster system somewhere.

We are horrified and outraged at what is happening inside this country at this moment - and yet.

And yet.

We are reminded that this is nothing new.

That this is a country that was founded upon slavery.

Upon the systematic genocide and oppression of native peoples.

And while - to our privileged gaze - these atrocities seem like a great departure from our stated values of “justice and liberty for all”, to native people and people of color - they have known that this supposed liberty has only existed for a ruling and privileged few - and usually come at great cost to many.

For this episode, we are greatly honored to welcome Lyla June Johnston.

Lyla June is a poet, musician, human ecologist, public speaker and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (tee-say-say-es-ta-hees) (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her dynamic, multi-genre performance and speech style has invigorated and inspired audiences across the globe towards personal, collective and ecological healing. Her messages focus on Indigenous rights, supporting youth, inter-cultural healing, historical trauma and traditional land stewardship practices. She blends her undergraduate studies in human ecology at Stanford University, her graduate work in Native American Pedagogy at University of New Mexico, and the indigenous worldview she grew up with to inform her perspectives and solutions. Her internationally acclaimed performances and speeches are conveyed through the medium of prayer, hip-hop, poetry, acoustic music and speech. Her personal goal is to grow closer to Creator by learning how to love deeper.

….

We sat down to speak Culture - and the capital of culture-making, taking, and appropriation with Lyla.

As someone who can speak firsthand to the long-ranging effects of discrimination, oppression, cruelty and genocide… we were blown away by the way in which this amazing woman continued to steer the conversation back toward the themes of Love, Forgiveness, collective healing & Restorative Justice.

At a moment in time, where we may be feeling numbed by the sheer volume of abhorrent news coming at us.

At a moment where we may be feeling collectively overwhelmed and overtaken by feelings of rage or hatred, Lyla June issues forth a clarion call.

To not get stuck inside the hatred.

To not dwell inside the wound.

To not let ourselves go numb.

But rather, to rally ourselves and what capital and currency we carry - in song, prayer, ceremony, or protest - and to walk deeper into this fray.

Armed with our songs.

Armed with our love.

Armed with our vision and deep, abiding wish for a world that looks altogether different than the one we now currently inhabit.

We are honored to share this talk with you today.

The words and story of a woman who had every right to dwell inside the pain and inherited anguish of a colonized and brutalized people.

But who has chosen to live her life as a means of glorious, powerful & heartfelt protest.

May her words and vision inspire you.

And help us to move together toward a culture and a world that may exist only now as a dream or a song.

Thanks, as always, for being here.

We hope you enjoy.

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write”

~Virginia Woolf 

Virginia Woolf first shared this sentiment back in 1928, just as women were coming into ever-more visibility and gradual power in all areas of public life.  Since then, we've been searching for that mythic "room of our own".  The magic space that would make it possible for us to do work that we love, express ourselves, create & to leverage our unique talents and abilities for a living (or dare we even hope thriving?!) wage, to boot.  

In our first season, we looked to the origins of cannabis culture and the similar sentiment embedded there.  Move up to the hills.  Throw some plants in the ground.  Build your own schools. Grow your own food.  Create your own currency.  Your own (counter) culture.  We have also seen how that culture has been gradually (and almost wholly) taken over by the values of the dominant culture.  

In this, our follow-up chat to our talk with the lovely Sandy Connery & Jennifer Barcelos of Namastream & Soulful MBA - we tackle the space of the Internet as one for people's and particularly women's voices and empowerment.  

As more and more people flock to the virtual spaces to create their messaging, their own platform, and to create a form of livelihood - what are the dangers and pitfalls that we face?  Can we step into the digital space and keep our values, our attention & our cultural (or, better yet,  counter-cultural) values intact?  Or are we destined to a similar fate as the back-to-the-landers faced?  In striving to promote our own values and our own vision inside the unruly and noisy spaces of the inter webs... how do we stay sovereign?  stolid?  

Has technology, indeed, created this hallowed Room of our Own?  

And, if so.. how are we to navigate and move about this space?

Thoughts on that plus some tools and resources we've unearthed to help us navigate this space.

We hope you enjoy.

In an effort to retain balance and a multi-sided conversation…especially after our episode on Experiential Capital and our seemingly harsh criticism of the screen and what lies behind it….we step into the tech world to speak with two women who have created their careers in the tech industry.  

Jennifer is an attorney, a change-maker, a mother and an entrepreneur. 

Sandy is also a mother and previsouly spent two decades in footwear and gait analysis. 

Together they have created Namastream, a software for wellness professionals, and also co-host The Soulful MBA podcast.

Our conversation delves into the world of the internet, social media and online learning…is there soul to be found there?  Is there a way to use this space for good?  How do we, especially as women, step into this male dominated realm and create or find our strengths and power, while keeping our integrity and our heart.

These women present us with the very convincing suggestion that technology is a pathway for women to share their teaching, one that gives them an opportunity to access their power,but also offer advice on how to not get consumed by the dominant voice.

We talk the 9-5 work schedule and why to throw it out the window,

How to teach our children about learning on the internet,

How to value the work that we as women bring to the community,

And ultimately how to run a tech company and still have time in the day to hunt for morel mushrooms…

More about these insightful women and the work that they do can be found at Namastream.com, there you can learn about the software they have created, read their blogs, and listen to episodes of their podcast, The Soulful MBA.  

These women have shown us that despite the many negative aspects one can argue that exist with the Internet, there are also many ways to use the space wisely, and with soul.  

Enjoy.

Welcome back to another micro-episode.

This week, we sit down to unpack some of the ideas we unearthed with Waldorf Educator, Jeff Lough.  Things like - How do we drop into a richer experience of this Life?  What enlivens the day-to-day?  How can we take the teachings and applications of this philosophy and apply to them to our own lives? 

Along the way, we talk Experiential vs. Intellectual Knowing, bring in some of our favorite books & resources once more & also send out the call for this coming June 1st - where we start our own little version of the Minimalist Game! (Which you can read more about here.)  

For our version - starting June 1st - we want to encourage each of you to start getting rid of at least one item a day.  For 30 days.  (If you've got more to release, by all means!  Please do!) Ultimately, though, this is not about living with less but rather, living with More.  Living with richer experiences, richer relationships, richer bodies, minds, lives, bank accounts, even.  What happens when we make the emphasis less about acquiring & maintaining our things & shift our focus to upgrading, enjoying & truly dropping into the felt experience of this Life?  

We can't wait to see.  

To find out more about the challenge, plus to contribute your ideas for a pithy hashtag for this game, drop on over and follow us on Instagram.

"Train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  

~Proverbs 22:6

These were the words often bandied about in my (Amy's) childhood.  Used in that moment to speak to a certain type of religious education.  But what if we took this idea into a larger framework?  Expanded the context and the meaning?

What does it mean to educate a child as an evolutionary and still-incarnating being?

What does it look like to take the long-haul aproach - to not rush into books or standardized tests or memorized facts and figures - but to first prioritize the development of the soul - of an inherent sense of reverence, play & wonder - to build a spirited “F-you” into the curriculum of a budding adolescent because we VALUE their want and need to revolt - and have built it into the way we educate them?

And more - what would it look like to translate these ideas - beyond the classroom, beyond the realm of the scholastic, the world of childhood - and to work to educate, emancipate and elucidate humanity as a whole?

Join us as we take this hour to speak to local School Psychologist, Educator, Advisor, Administrator & ardent Advocate - Jeff Lough - about the undergirding philosophies surrounding Waldorf Education, a method devised by Rudolf Steiner in Europe during the late 1800's.  

When we first embarked upon this conversation with Jeff, we expected to find ourselves engaging in a talk around Intellectual Capital, but soon found ourselves knee-deep in the...

Experiential.

Spiritual.

Anthroposophical (don’t worry - you’ll hear that one again)

Material

And so much more.

And while we geek out a bit, admittedly, on this particular methodology and philosophy - 

I want to urge you to keep a broad and open perspective.

To listen for ways that these ideas filter into your own experience.

Your own Philosophy of Life.

And into what it means to empower and educate oursleves - at every step of the way.

What experience do we wish to have inside this Life?

And how do the ideas, methodologies, principles and patterns we subscribe to - help us to step up and claim the fullness available to us?

And what are we actively doing - to step into the world we wish to inhabit?

May the questions put forth here - help shed some light - as you move down your own path.

May they re-orient you back toward your own true north.  And help us all, collectively - reclaim a better way.

This week, Anne & I got together to have yet another talk - inspired by last week's interview with Wasteland Rebel, Shia Su - to break down the different ways we can reduce our footprint, our waste & live lives more fully invested in Each Other.  In the actual Lived Experience of LIVING - rather than in the acquisition of Stuff.  

We throw out some books, some ideas and some practical suggestions on how we all can start transitioning into this simpler, yet richer way of being.  

As always, we try to keep these micro-episodes short & sweet - so that you can pick up what you need and get to work applying these ideas to your life.  Like, Now.  

We hope you enjoy.

“Don’t start where it is difficult”.  These  words of wisdom come from Shia Su, a woman well-versed in the zero-waste movement – a name she admits can be a bit misleading.  Shia offers numerous tools and life hacks for cutting down on your waste and consumerism, actions that anyone with an inkling of willingness can start to implement into their life today, one step at a time.  These can be found on her website and blog at wastelandrebel.com. She also has a new book that just came out called “Zero Waste – Simple Lie Hacks to Drastically Reduce Your Trash”.

This is what Shia urges – to start where it is easy, to take one piece of the puzzle and fit it into your daily life until it becomes a habit.  She emphasizes that it is not about the over zealous, tackle-it-all-at-once, total life altering changes – these are not sustainable and very rarely successful.  It is about the slow, intentional steps that you can nestle into your every day.

Shia now lives in Germany, but has traveled and lived in a variety of other places. She shares with us some interesting insights into how various cultures approach the issues of consumerism and waste, if at all.  In this episode she also talks about the importance of access, who you surround yourself with and the ways to be successful and forgiving of yourself while on the path to zero-waste.

What’s your first step going to be?  If you feel inspired please share it with us on Instagram or FB or send us an email, share it with a friend, with a stranger sitting next to you on the bus or in line at the grocery store…let’s share the ways we are reducing our waste and our consumerism…let’s join the zero waste movement together…one step at a time.

If you've been following the progression of this season, you know that we've been following up these longer interviews with shorter, bite-size "Thread" episodes, where we sit down and unpack some resources on how all of us can take action in these areas - both within our individual lives, and in the communities of which we play a part. 

We’re doing things a little differently with this "micro"-episode.

Well.  First off.  

It’s not micro.  Not mini. Not even a little bit.  

For this episode we chose to dip back into our local community to seek advice and  counsel from a man who has made working with Capital - both paper money - but also social, experiential, cultural currency, as well - his Main Focus for most of his LIFE.  

Fhyre Phoenix is the creator of the Community Currency project.

If you don’t know that is - don’t worry.

Stick around and we’ll let him eloquently explain it for you.

When you have an expert living down the street from you, you don’t dilly-dally in your own small pool - you go the Fountaiin.  The Wellspring itself.

So, although this episode is full-length, we know the time will be well worth your while & you’ll get a lot out of this talk.  

We sure did.

We could say more - About how inspiring this conversation was.

About the wisdom that this man and valuable community member has un-earthed in simply re-arranging his own relationship to livelihood and money.

Or about the surprising connection to Passion, Poetry, & even Plumbing that runs through this work.

But we’ll let you find all that out for yourself.

Believe me - if you truly desire to begin to un-hook from a life that feels less-than, a job you hate, and begin to arrange your world in such a way that you feel empowered, excited, and deeply connected to your fellow man… this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Enjoy.

Financial Capital with Bari Tessler

"Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and enlivens the other who turns it on his fellow man."

~Kahlil Gibran

This week we delved into a realm that was, admittedly, uncomfortable at first, and seemed perhaps counterpoint to the intention of this season.  It was, however, written into the framework that we have chosen to follow, so we forged ahead into the realm of Financial Capital. The resulting talk we had was far more inspiring and cohesive with our motivations that we would have thought even possible.  Bari Tessler, is a Financial Therapist, a Mamaprenuer and the founder of the Art of Money, book and year-long program described is “Financial Therapy for your Soul”.  

A large part of Bari’s work is helping people understand how money connects to our bodies and our emotions.  For her there is a direct connection between Financial Literacy and Emotional Intelligence. 

We spoke about our relationship to money…as women, as products of our educational and cultural system, as member in a partnership, and as mothers….and the importance of understanding this relationship.  She offers us a glimpse into the work she does with others by offering some advice and gems of wisdom when dealing with the ebbs and flows of our financial story.  She even manages to bring in a bit of Zen Buddhism and discusses how we can work through our own Money Koans.  

This is a money talk like you have probably never had.  So pour a cup of tea, grab a pen and paper for notes…and enjoy.