So Many Wings

Join us for a conversation with Israel Francisco Haros Lopez where we discuss how art saves lives, how ancestors help us, the evolution of the Alas de Agua Art Collective, and much more.

Topics we cover include:

• Poetry of the people
• Healing and respecting ourselves
• Moving beyond the spirit of the colonizer that lives in all of us
• How institutions become borders
• Asemic writing
• Relentless hope

About Israel: Israel Francisco Haros Lopez was born in East Los Angeles to immigrant parents of Mexican descent. He brings his firsthand knowledge of the realities of migration, U.S. border policies, and life as a Mexican American to his work with families and youth as a mentor, educator, art instructor, ally, workshop facilitator and activist. He studied at U.C. Berkeley and received a degree in English Literature and Chicano Studies followed by an M.F.A in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts. At formal and informal visual art spaces, Israel creates and collaborates in many interdisciplinary ways including poetry, performance, music, visual art, and video making and curriculum creation. His work addresses a multitude of historical and spiritual layered realities of border politics, identity politics, and the re-interpretation of histories. He was formerly the Highschool Homeless Liason at SFPS Adelante and is one of the founders and forces of energy at Alas de Agua Arts Collective and the New Mexico Murals Project. In 2020 he began working with YouthWorks, Reunity Resources, and Mother Nature Center to grow food for the community on county owned land at San Isidro Crossing

Find Israel online:

• On the web: www.waterhummingbirdhouse.com, www.alasdeagua.com 
• On Social Media:
• • https://www.facebook.com/Waterhummingbirdhouse-472849272822605
  • https://www.instagram.com/waterhummingbirdhouse/

Links to relevant resources:

• https://xikanadas.wordpress.com/
• https://www.reverbnation.com/lalloronaxroniclesmonologues
• https://barriosnakesongs.wordpress.com/

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

• On the web: https://somanywings.org
• On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast
• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast
• On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Today So Many Wings’ host Jacks brings you up to date about why Sascha is on leave from So Many Wings, and discusses topics including centered accountability, navigating harmful behavior, forgiveness, transformative justice, and love.

Links to relevant resources:

• 9 Ways to Be Accountable When You’ve Been Abusive article by Kai Cheng Thom: https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/02/be-accountable-when-abusive/
• Book: Beyond Survival, Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement: https://www.akpress.org/beyond-survival.html
• The opportunity to make amends, Jacks’ column in the Santa Fe Reporter, which they read in this episode: https://www.sfreporter.com/columns/necessarymagic/2020/11/04/necessary-magic-12/

Find Jacks online:

• On the web: https://jacksmcnamara.net

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for a conversation with Danni Biondini where we discuss her path from radical mental health activist at the Icarus Project to becoming the Chair of the Community Mental Health Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

Topics we cover include:

• Coming of age as a radical activist in San Francisco
• Rebuilding after a breakdown by understanding systems of oppression
• Using intellectual defenses as a way to grow
• Foucault’s Panopticon - internalizing the dominant gaze of the social order
• History of the Bay Area Icarus Project chapter
• The power and limitations of peer support 
• The power and limitations of working as a clinical therapist
• Building a radical therapy practice and the importance of mentorship and supervision

About Danni Biondini:

Danni Biondini is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in San Francisco, and  Assistant Professor and Chair of the Community Mental Health program at CIIS. She is the Director and Supervisor of a psychodynamic therapy program at Francisco Middle School, overseeing the therapy services provided to kids at the school. As a longtime school-based therapist, she has a major interest in how to intervene on schools as sites of socialization. She came to the field with a background in radical mental health, as a member of the Bay Area Icarus Project in its heyday. She brings a radical mental health lens to her work, trying to build communities of therapists working within the system to change it. 

Find Danni online:

• On the web: www.dannibiondini.com
• On Instagram: @biond_the_pleasure_principle

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

• On the web: https://somanywings.org
• On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast
• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast
• On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for a multi-faceted and life-affirming conversation with writer, writing mentor and independent scholar Meg-John Barker where we discuss their wide ranging thoughts on gender non-conformity, plurality, consent, ‘anti-self help,’ and participation in queer and other subcultures.

Topics we cover include:

• What it means to write an “anti self-help book”
• Plurality and trauma
• The intersections of psychology, gender non-conformity, and relationship structures outside the mainstream
• The crucial and complicated nature of consent
• Navigating the contradictions of academia and DIY media production

About Meg-John Barker:

Meg-John Barker is the author of a number of popular books on sex, gender, and relationships, including Queer: A Graphic History, Gender: A Graphic Guide, How To Understand Your Gender, Life Isn’t Binary, Enjoy Sex (How, When, and IF You Want To), Rewriting the Rules, and The Psychology of Sex. They have also written a number of books for scholars and counsellors on these topics, drawing on their own research and therapeutic practice.

Find Meg-John online:

• On the web: rewriting-the-rules.com, megjohnandjustin.com
• On Social Media: 
• • Twitter: @megjohnbarker
  • Instagram: @meg_john_barker
  • Facebook: megjohnbarkerwriter
  • YouTube: youtube.com/c/MegJohnBarkerPsych/

Links to relevant resources:

• Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22760492-healing-the-fragmented-selves-of-trauma-survivors
• Plural Selves: https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/plural-work/
• The Bisexuality Report: https://www.bimedia.org/bireport/
• Life Isn’t Binary: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43818540-life-isn-t-binary
• Queer: A Graphic History: https://iconbooks.com/ib-title/queer-a-graphic-history/
• Gender: A Graphic Guide: https://iconbooks.com/ib-title/gender-a-graphic-guide-2/
• Sexuality: A Graphic Guide: https://iconbooks.com/ib-title/sexuality/
• Meg-John and Justin podcast: https://megjohnandjustin.com/
• https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/self/zones-of-stuck-patterns/
• https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/self/plurality-and-trauma-2-practices/

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for an intimate and far reaching conversation with scholar, educator, and media producer Erica Hua Fletcher where we discuss contemporary mental health social movements, community health and healing, identity politics, and the rise of Mad Studies. 

Topics we cover include:

• The limits of terms like “madness” and “mental health”
• The many useful lessons learned from researching The Icarus Project and other forms of peer support
• The multiple and complex gifts and traps of embracing identity politics 
• The growth of the Mad Studies field in the academy and beyond
• Critical psychiatry and how public mental health care can be radically transformed

About Erica:

Erica is a scholar, educator, and media producer based in Los Angeles, California (Tongva land). She currently serves as a co-president of the Anthropology and Mental Health Interest Group, in association with the American Anthropological Association's Society for Medical Anthropology; and this fall, she is starting a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA, where she will be doing research on issues related to veterans recovery and resilience. Erica writes about contemporary mental health social movements, community health and healing, and carework; her scholarship and course offerings span the health humanities, social medicine, mad studies, and social work. She has taught at four public universities, most recently at the University of California at Irvine. 

Find Erica online:

• On the web: https://ericahua.weebly.com/
• On Social Media: Instagram @erica.hua 

Links to relevant resources:

• To download Erica’s articles: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erica_Fletcher3
• For more on the return of class consciousness among the Left: See Adolph Reed Jr.’s article “The Myth of Class Reductionism:” https://newrepublic.com/article/154996/myth-class-reductionism
• Mikkel Krause Frantzen’s article “A Future with No Future: Depression, the Left, and the Politics of Mental Health: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/future-no-future-depression-left-politics-mental-health/
• Recent article and reflections on the Mad Studies movement: Peter Beresford (2020) ‘Mad’, Mad studies and advancing inclusive resistance, Disability & Society, 35:8, 1337-1342, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2019.1692168 
• To join Mad Studies Reading Groups (via Zoom), email Matthew Jackman at [email protected] the (Australia-based) monthly reading group.  
• Visit https://www.pinkskythinking.com/mad-studies to register for upcoming reading group discussions (based in the UK).
• To connect with social researchers with lived experience, visit User/Survivor Research Network at https://usersurvivorresearch.weebly.com/ and sign up for the mailing list. 

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for a wide ranging conversation with Dick Schwartz where we discuss everything from the origins of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model to the role of Self-Leadership in contemporary social justice movements.

Topics we discuss include:

• How it’s the nature of the mind to have multiple parts
• The role of legacy burdens in what gets called “mental illness”
• The visionary history of systemic family therapy
• The potential synergy of Open Dialogue and Internal Family Systems
• Why it’s much easier to train non-therapists in IFS
• The potential role of Self-Leadership in contemporary social justice movements 

About Dick Schwartz:

Richard Schwartz began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called “parts.” These patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationship that resembled the families he had been working with. He also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients. From these explorations the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s. 

IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely-used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms. 

In 2013 Schwartz left the Chicago area and now lives in Brookline, MA where he is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Find Dick online:

• On the web: https://ifs-institute.com/about-us IFS Institute: 
• On Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/InternalFamilySystems

Links to relevant resources:

• What is Internal Family Systems?  https://ifs-institute.com/
• Inside the Revolutionary Treatment That Could Change Psychotherapy Forever: https://elemental.medium.com/inside-the-revolutionary-treatment-that-could-change-psychotherapy-forever-8be035d54770
• Depathologizing the Borderline Client by Richard Schwartz: https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/179/depathologizing-the-borderline-client

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

• On the web: https://somanywings.org
• On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast
• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast
• On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for a conversation with Issa Ibrahim where we discuss how racism has affected his experiences of madness and institutionalization, and how radical creativity and underground community led to his escape.

Topics we discuss include:

• Coming of age as a black man in Queens and being driven “crazy” by racism. 
• Smuggling internet into an asylum and connecting with the radical mental health movement.
• Structural competency and how mental institutions ignore racism.
• The joker in the White House, waiting for Superman, and limitations of the heroic narrative.
• The protest psychosis - how schizophrenia became a "black disease."

About Issa:

Issa Ibrahim is an artist, writer, musician and filmmaker born in 1965 in Jamaica, New York. He has been the Artist-In-Residence at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center’s Living Museum since 1992. Issa is also the author of the 2016 memoir THe Hospital Always Wins, published by Chicago Review Press.

Issa’s artist statement: “My interest in the politics of race, mental illness, and popular culture informs my range of subject matter. I am telling a parallel narrative. My life as a psych patient, a flawed Superman, learning to navigate the many identities I had to assume in the system in order to survive various barriers to freedom, in addition to exposing the Everyman in the world at large. We are living in a comic strip, with plenty of super villains and heroes, love stories, cliffhangers, absurdist comedy and heartbreaking tragedy. With equal parts whimsy and warning, I use familiar icons in historical settings as reflections and metaphors for our own bankrupt culture.”

Find Issa online:

On the web: Http://issaibrahim.com

On instagram: @issaibrahim065

On YouTube: Http://YouTube.com/c/issaibrahim

Links to relevant resources:

• How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease: An Interview With Jonathan Metzl: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/side-effects/201005/how-schizophrenia-became-black-disease-interview-jonathan-metzl
• The History of the Mad Movement & Alternatives to Biomedical Approaches: https://idha.teachable.com/p/the-history-of-the-mad-movement-alternatives-to-biomedical-approaches
• Mad Love documentary featuring Issa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLG3aG8SJ2tPvVoAO-6JEufAKQnYjVY_1P&v=HqDMRl2zqbo&feature=emb_logo

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for a conversation with Laura Mae Northrup where we discuss her podcast Inside Eyes and the therapeutic use of psychedelics and entheogens in healing sexual trauma. 

Topics we discuss include:

• Entheogens as a “a spiritual remedy for the spiritual wound” of sexual trauma.
• Understanding sexual violence within a political context.
• The racist basis of psychedelic exceptionalism and arguments for decriminalization.
• The therapeutic use of entheogens/psychedelics with folks who experience altered states without the use of medicines.

About Laura Mae Northrup:

Laura Mae Northrup is the creator and host of the podcast Inside Eyes, a series that explores the use of entheogens and psychedelics to heal sexual trauma.  She is a practicing psychotherapist and educator. Her work focuses on defining sexual violence through a spiritual and politicized lens and supporting the spiritual integrity of our collective humanity.  She is a champion of living more fully engaged and responsible lives through the healing use of entheogens and psychedelics.  She lives and works in Oakland, CA.

Find Laura online:

• • Laura’s website: https://www.lauramaenorthrup.com/
  • Instagram: @lauramaenorthrup   
  • Twitter: @inside__eyes  
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraMaeNorthrup

Links to relevant resources:

• Kitty Sipple - Breaking Convention lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_BXpv1CSow
• To learn more about decriminalization: 
• • Drug policy alliance: www.drugpolicy.org
  • Students for Sensible Drug Policy: https://ssdp.org/
  • Decriminalize nature: https://decriminalizenature.org/

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for a powerful conversation with bilingual art therapist Isabel Ribe on her work inside and outside of US detention centers, her poetry and painting, and frontline community organizing to build a more just world.

Content warning: There’s a beautiful and powerful poem at the end of this podcast that has descriptions of gender based violence.

In this episode we discuss:

• Trauma therapy for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers
• The critical importance of bilingual counselors and therapists
• The trials of navigating grad school and legitimacy in the system
• The importance of recognizing art and creative healing in communities of color
• Santa Fe Dreamers Project
• Working as a counselor for trans folks held in detention centers
• Relationship with the land and painting and poetry as practices of resistance

About Isabel:

Isabel Ribe is a Bilingual Counselor and Art Therapist providing trauma therapy and case management for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers throughout New Mexico as well as remotely in detention centers around the country. Isabel did her clinical training at Solace Crisis Treatment Center, Esperanza Shelter and with Gerard’s House’s Nuestra Jornada Program. She also served for many years as a case manager and family advocate with the Santa Fe Public School’s Adelante Program. She is passionate about providing culturally competent, Spanish language mental health services to the immigrant community. Isabel is also a poet and artist and member of Santa Fe’s Alas de Agua Art Collective, and enjoys life on her farmstead in Pojoaque with her husband and four legged family. 

Find Isabel online:

• On Instagram @ceryndipitous

Links to relevant resources:

• Alas de Agua Art Collective:  https://alasdeagua.com/
• Santa Fe Dreamer’s Project:   http://www.santafedreamersproject.org/
• Adelante: https://www.sfps.info/teaching___learning/student_wellness/s_f_p_s_adelante_program

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

Join us for a wide ranging conversation with Clare Bayard where we discuss her 20+ years of organizing in grassroots multiracial struggles for collective liberation, and the role of somatic healing work and the importance of mentorship for intergenerational movements of resistance. Content warning: interview includes mention of sexual trauma and white nationalism.

Topics we discuss include:

• The space between impact and intention.
• Healing for the sake of being able to show up in work for collective liberation.
• How anti-racist work has evolved over the years.
• The role of mentorship in movement building. Mentorship as a bidirectional relationship.
• Community safety work - alternatives to police, transformative justice, grassroots neighborhood organizing. Concrete suggestions on how we prepare for the wave of increased state repression that is coming.
• Security as solidarity.

About Clare Bayard:

Clare Bayard has organized for over 20 years in grassroots multiracial movements for collective liberation, and co-founded Catalyst Project, a movement building center supporting white anti-racist organizing. Clare is an organizer and a parent, a direct action trainer with The Ruckus Society, a writer, and a somatic healing practitioner who focuses on working with survivors of sexual assault and war. Clare's training comes from coalition and campaign work in many movement sectors, particularly in migrant rights, global justice, housing rights and anti-displacement, Palestinian liberation, anti-imperialist struggles against US wars and G.I. resistance, post-Katrina Gulf Coast Reconstruction, and climate justice. Demilitarization and connecting struggles against US empire at home and abroad are at the heart of Clare’s political work. Clare is active in the War Resisters International Network, served in board and staff positions at the War Resisters League for over a decade, and has worked closely with About Face (formerly known as Iraq Veterans Against the War) since soon after its founding.Clare’s writing has been published widely including the Guardian UK, Z Magazine, Alternet, Common Dreams, The Hill, and the recent anthology We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st century America.  

Find Clare online:

• Catalyst Project: collectiveliberation.org
• Clare’s writing: https://healingandjustice.wordpress.com/

Links to relevant resources:

• War at Home book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/927659.War_at_Home
• A Troublemaker’s Guide: Principles for Racial Justice Activists in the Face of State Repression: https://tinyurl.com/y9kxhom4
• Catalyst Project: www.collectiveliberation.org
• GI Rights hotline: https://girightshotline.org/
• About Face’s Open Letter from Veterans to Recently Activated National Guard: https://medium.com/@VetsAboutFace/minnesota-national-guard-stand-down-for-black-lives-7596e1f0493b
• Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ): https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/
• Anti Police-Terror Project: https://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/
• Ruckus Society: www.ruckus.org
• Bay Area Solidarity Statement: https://couragetoresist.org/solidarity2020/

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast