Welcome to Precisely! a podcast by the team at Courage of Care and The Arrow Journal;  in these times of increasing chaos and possibility, the arrow symbolizes the courage to define a clear direction for how we gather, practice, and get free.

In season three of Precisely!, host Brooke Lavelle and special guest co-host, katie robinson, talk with our guests in our upcoming Like Water series—Cynthia Ong, Paloma Schultz, Reverend Greg Snyder, and Autumn Brown.

In this episode, Brooke and katie speak with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt (and former lawyer), Paloma Schultz, about applying principles of self defense -- from a stance of care for all -- to our relationships and our movements.

To join us for the series, visit: https://courage-of-care.teachable.com/p/like-water. These interactive seminar sessions will be recorded if you can’t join us live on Tuesdays from 12-1:30pm ET, beginning April 7, 2026.

To read the full issue of The Arrow Journal, and to access our full digital archives, join us on substack @thearrowjournal.

We'd like to thank our podcast producer, OB McDougall, our co-host katie, robinson, our Co-Directors, Brooke Lavelle & Maha El Sheikh, and our managing editor for the arrow and this special issue, Ashley Wilson. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Precisely! a podcast by the team at Courage of Care and The Arrow Journal;  in these times of increasing chaos and possibility, the arrow symbolizes the courage to define a clear direction for how we gather, practice, and get free.

In season three of Precisely!, host Brooke Lavelle and special guest co-host, katie robinson, talk with our guests in our upcoming Like Water series—Cynthia Ong, Paloma Schultz, Reverend Greg Snyder, and Autumn Brown.In this conversation, Brooke Lavelle and katie robinson speak with movement leader, relational facilitator, and martial artist, Cynthia Ong. Cynthia shares lessons on warriorship from her kung fu teachers and how she’s applying those lessons in political and ecological organizing work through her incredible organization, Forever Sabah in Borneo.

To join us for the series, visit: https://courage-of-care.teachable.com/p/like-water. These interactive seminar sessions will be recorded if you can’t join us live on Tuesdays from 12-1:30pm ET, beginning April 7, 2026.

To read the full issue of The Arrow Journal, and to access our full digital archives, join us on substack @thearrowjournal.

We'd like to thank our podcast producer, OB McDougall, our co-host katie, robinson, our Co-Directors, Brooke Lavelle & Maha El Sheikh, and our managing editor for the arrow and this special issue, Ashley Wilson. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Precisely! a podcast by the team at Courage of Care and The Arrow Journal;  in these times of increasing chaos and possibility, the arrow symbolizes the courage to define a clear direction for how we gather, practice, and get free.

In season three of Precisely!, host Brooke Lavelle and special guest co-host, katie robinson, talk with our guests in our upcoming Like Water series—Cynthia Ong, Paloma Schultz, Reverend Greg Snyder, and Autumn Brown.

In this opening conversation, Brooke and katie speak with Courage’s Co-Director, and our seminar series co-curator, Maha El-Sheikh. The trio discuss how water found them, how this investigation into water came to be, and how water can help us find a way forward in these times of violence, chaos, and uncertainty.

To join us for the series, visit: https://courage-of-care.teachable.com/p/like-water. These interactive seminar sessions will be recorded if you can’t join us live on Tuesdays from 12-1:30pm ET, beginning April 7, 2026.

To read the full issue of The Arrow Journal, and to access our full digital archives, join us on substack @thearrowjournal.

We'd like to thank our podcast producer, OB McDougall, our co-host katie, robinson, our Co-Directors, Brooke Lavelle & Maha El Sheikh, and our managing editor for the arrow and this special issue, Ashley Wilson. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

In the fifth and final episode of our second season of the Precisely! podcast, host Brooke Lavelle talks with Maha El-Sheikh, Co-Director of The Arrow and Courage of Care, about how we build pluriversal capacity in our everyday lives and work. Together they point to ways in which we are already pluriversal and how we can lean into that knowing in order to build muscle for and commitment to meeting and embracing multiple world and ways of being.

Listen in!

Maha Co-directs Courage of Care and The Arrow Journal. With 20 years working in the international humanitarian sector, Maha’s work currently focuses on the social injustices underlying our global crises. As a facilitator, she is inspired by 15 years living and working in Palestine and Lebanon, learning how connection to heart, beloved community, mutual aid, joy, and compassion can serve as antidotes to oppression, colonization, injustice and violence. She is eager to support those working in the aid sector to not only find sustainable ways of working in the face of ongoing violence and destruction, but also to find ways of seeking alignment—personally and professionally—with values of love and liberation.Maha is also the co-founder of the first non-profit, volunteer-run yoga center in Palestine, and brings her experience in studying and teaching trauma-informed yoga, somatics, and meditation to explore the interconnection of healing, social transformation, and justice.

Maha is one of the creators and facilitators of our Pluriversal Practice Seminar, which is now available for self study! Study and practice with us.

Many thanks to our podcast producer, OB MacDougall!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

In the fourth episode of our latest season of the Precisely! podcast, host Brooke Lavelle talks with Katrine Bregengaard about the ontological shift necessary to grasp pluriversality (And yes, we break down ontology; or at least we try to!) Together, Katrine and Brooke explore why the “pluriverse” is not the opposite of the “one-world”. Instead, they consider the profoundly relational frame shift needed to really catch on to the power and possibility—as well as the inherent agency and vulnerability—of pluriversal practice.

Listen in!

Katrine has partnered with Courage on numerous programs and currently co-leads our Pluriversal Practice Seminar, which is now available for self study! Study and practice with us.

Katrine Bregengaard (she/her) is a philosopher, activist, and contemplative teacher based in Copenhagen. She teaches critical and decolonial approaches to human rights theory and practice, while using her background in Buddhist meditation and somatic practices to facilitate the integration of inner work with collective change, as a vital component of embodied liberation.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

In season two of our Precisely! podcast, host Brooke Lavelle talks with the ever-brilliant Farah Mahesri about how we can soften the grip of the one world, as well as our habits of one-worlding. We talk COVID, collapse, grief-tending, and maintaining—and stepping through—portals of possibility. Listen in!

Farah has partnered with Courage on several projects, and currently co-leads our Pluriversal Practice Seminar, which is now available for self study! Study and practice with us.

Farah Mahesri (she/her) works as a strategy, organizational and leadership development thought-partner and collaborator for social justice, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. She previously worked at Tides Advocacy, a 501c4 organization, and its sister organization Tides (a 501c3 entity) providing strategic, political and compliance support to multi-entity organizations working to build independent political power and work toward collective liberation. In this role, she helped to develop and launch several power building funds including for COVID response and to support climate justice and political organizing; and created a peer learning program to connect progressive executive directors together. She also provided strategic and political advice to organizations such as Dream Defenders, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, California Environmental Justice Alliance Action, Detroit Action and others. Previously, as a Muslim-American coming of age during the post 9-11 era, Farah worked with international organizations working on the anti-war/peace agenda. Since 2022, she has been working as an independent consultant supporting organizations to align strategy to operations and navigate the new realities of how we work and interact at work. She sits on the board of multiple organizations, including LA Defensa and Creating the Future and hosts a podcast on applying liberatory principles to the future of work. She organizes with Alliance of South Asians Taking Action. Farah lives in Oakland, California.

Thanks to our producer, OB MacDougall, and the entire Courage and Arrow team!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

In season two of our Precisely! podcast, host Brooke Lavelle talks with grassroots organizer and Director of the Inner Activist, Jorge Salazar, about the nature of “one-worlding”, and how we can catch it even in our movements for justice and liberation.

Jorge moved to Canada as a refugee from Colombia in late 2000, and has used his own immigration journey, life experiences, training and education to bridge communities and facilitate positive change within government, organizations and grassroots groups for more than 15 years. Jorge has worked to support connections between diverse communities, particularly between indigenous, immigrants and refugees among others, in BC, Canada and the Americas. He has worked with Immigrant Services Society of BC, MOSAIC, the International Institute for Child Rights and Development - University of Victoria, City of Vancouver, the Ecumenical Task Force for Justice in the Americas, PeerNet BC and most recently as a Manager for the Fresh Voices Initiative with the Vancouver Foundation.

Jorge has partnered with Courage on several projects, and currently co-leads our Pluriversal Practice Seminar, which is now available for self study!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

In season two of our Precisely! podcast, host Brooke Lavelle talks with writer, scholar, interdisciplinary artist, and Courage faculty, katie robinson. katie is devoted to the exploration of what is present and possible outside of the white supremacist colonial imagination, and helps makes the idea of the pluriverse accessible, inviting, and alluring.

katie is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where they are writing a dissertation at the intersections of depth psychology, decoloniality, and police and prison abolition.

katie leads Courage’s Succulence program, and has co-designed several other courses within Courage of Care, including our Pluriversal Practice Seminar, which is now available for self study!

Our team wishes to thank all of our guests and co-collaborators on the Precisely! podcast, seasons one and two, as well as our co-leads for our Pluriversal Practice Seminar.

Special thanks also to our teams at Courage and The Arrow, and our producer, O.B. MacDougall.

To learn more about the work of Courage of Care and our events and our offerings, follow us on substack @thearrowjournal. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

In our final episode of our inaugural podcast series, Precisely!, host Brooke D. Lavelle speaks with The Arrow’s Managing Editor, Dr. Ashley Wilson, about the pluriverse, and why it matters not only for justice but also for spiritual practice. Ashley Wilson earned her PhD in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2019. Her anthropological training, an aspirational practice in clear seeing in and of itself, ultimately led her to the spiritual path. She is now an active practitioner in the Plum Village tradition and finds pure joy in working at the intersection of the academic and dharma worlds. She also works in educational publishing and shares the practice of mindfulness and meditation through personal coaching sessions and retreats. She delights daily in the practice of solo motherhood and seeing the world anew through the eyes of her young son and littlest teacher, Sage.

The Arrow Journal and our Precisely! Podcast is made possible through the generous support of our members. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to access our full digital archive and weekly relationSHIFT sessions. Thank you!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe

In our fourth episode, host Brooke D. Lavelle talks with artist and colleague Dr. Marlo De Lara about her engaging essay, “Embracing Our Kin through Deep Listening Practices: Intersections of Kapwa and Sonic Meditations.” This essay appears in our recent special issue, The Power of the Pluriverse. Read the full essay and access our full digital archives by subscribing to our substack.

What’s the difference between listening and hearing? You can listen to someone’s words, but you can hear their warmth. What does deep listening mean in today’s world and what could it teach us about this shared experience of human survival?

From the essay:

Deep Listening takes us below the surface of our consciousness and helps to change or dissolve limiting boundaries.

When we begin to shed the illusions of separated selves, it becomes more clear that we are present beyond our own mindbody worlds. In other words, body experiences and sensations break the barriers between us. In the 1970s, Pauline Oliveros, whose musical career was centered around improvisations with others, created a series of exercises making sound and intentionally listening with all our senses, leading us to sharing intimately on a spiritual plane. These sonic meditations and text scores were instructions on how to be in Deep Listening Circles (DLSCs) with one another. To be present with our bodies through these exercises provided openings that could be difficult to access in other areas of our busy lives. To connect with others by listening, moving, and dreaming with others, our conscious experience of life is amplified.

Marlo De Lara received a PhD in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds and an MA in Psychosocial Studies at the Centre of Psychoanalytic Studies at Essex. Their practice works within the realms of sound performance, visual distraction, and film.

Learn more about Marlo’s offerings here: https://linktr.ee/marlo.delara

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thearrowjournal.substack.com/subscribe