The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope

Felix Rosado is an abolitionist and restorative justice practitioner committed to ending human caging in all its forms. When 'justice' has become synonymous with cops, courtrooms, and cages, how do we begin to envision new ways of truth-telling and reckoning with harm? In our fourth episode of Season Four, Felix and Dwight explore this question, the griefs and gratitudes of freedom, the spiritual groundings of the fight to abolish prisons, and what it means to be 'free-ish.' 

Felix Rosado escaped a death by incarceration sentence after 27 years via governor clemency in 2022. He is cofounder of Let’s Circle Up, a restorative justice (RJ) education project. He currently serves as Program Coordinator of Healing Futures, an RJ youth diversion program with the Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project (YASP) and adjunct professor of RJ at Chestnut Hill College. He also is a founding member of the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CABDI) and committed to ending human caging in all its forms.

Felix will be a facilitator for Continuing Revolution 2024: Restorative Justice as Spiritual Practice, a hybrid conference for young adults (ages 18-35) interested in exploring the connections between their political, interpersonal, and spiritual lives. Join us June 7-10 at Pendle Hill outside Philadelphia, Beacon Hill Friends House in Boston, Friends Place in DC, or online. We hope you'll join us! Learn more and register at https://pendlehill.org/learn/ 

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

In this current political moment of polarization and divisiveness, when and how do we commit to staying in fellowship with one another? How do we discern individual and institutional next steps with faithfulness and humility? In this conversation, Adria discusses the ways Jesus’s life and ministry grounds her work, the importance of approaching one another with compassion in disagreement, and her continuing discernment journeys around staying aligned with personal and organizational purpose.

You can also watch Adria's Pendle Hill First Monday Lecture, "Embracing Spiritual Gifts," on Pendle Hill's YouTube channel.

Adria Gulizia is an attorney, mediator, facilitator, and coach. Her concern for the spiritual formation of Friends of all ages has led her to serve in roles ranging from children’s religious education to Earlham School of Religion’s board of advisors. In collaboration with the School of the Spirit, she is currently exploring what it might look like to step into radical faithfulness across theological boundaries amid the twin temptations of anger and despair. Adria is a member of Chatham-Summit Meeting (NYYM) in Summit, N.J. To learn more about Adria's work, visit  https://shadowofbabylon.com/  

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Parker Palmer is an teacher, activist, and writer whose work explores issues in education, community, spirituality, and social change. He and Dwight explore vocation, aging, and the paradoxes of solitude and community, life and mortality, faithfulness and urgency: How do we embrace paradox to pursue that which is life-giving?

Parker Palmer is a teacher, writer, and the founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage and Renewal, who works on issues in education, community, spirituality, and social change. He is the author of ten books, including Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, and most recently, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old. He holds a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and his work has been recognized with thirteen honorary doctorates. 

Parker Palmer first came to Pendle Hill as a resident student in the fall of 1974, an experience that stretched into an eleven year tenure as the Dean of Studies. His time here catalyzed his relationship with Quakerism and shaped his work, thought, and writings on pedagogy and spiritual communities. This work, and his ongoing contributions to Pendle Hill, continue to have an incredible influence on the study, work and worship here on Pendle Hill’s campus and beyond.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

In this opening episode of Season 4, Dwight and Francisco discuss grief, gratitude, staying grounded amidst uncertainty and polarization, and the guiding queries and themes of the season.

Dwight Dunston is a West Philly-based facilitator, hip-hop artist, educator, and activist who has brought his creativity, care, and compassion to schools, community centers, retirement homes, festivals, and stadiums all over the country and internationally.

Francisco Burgos is the executive director at Pendle Hill and has facilitated spiritual retreats and lectio divina sessions for many audiences. Francisco was a De La Salle Christian Brother for almost ten years, serving in Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, and has been a Friend since 2004. He is a member of Harrisburg Friends Meeting and an attender of meetings including Monteverde Friends Meeting in Costa Rica and Adelphi Friends Meeting in Maryland.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Welcome to Season 4 of The Seed! Join us as we explore what spiritual alignment looks like in this moment of escalating social and political upheaval and violence: How do we cultivate discernment to stay the course and stay connected to our leadings? How are we being called to transform ourselves and our communities to break down systems of oppression and embody new ways of being?

Guest voices in order of appearance: Adria Gulizia, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Felix Rosado, Valerie Brown, and Parker Palmer. 

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

K. Melchor Quick Hall is a popular educator, writer, and researcher. In this final episode of Season 3, she and Dwight explore the importance of nurturing practices of creative play, what it means to honor legacies of liberation and care, and what freedom and hope look like in our lifetimes and beyond.

Read the transcript of this episode.

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K. Melchor Quick Hall, PhD is a popular educator, writer, and researcher. She is the author of Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness, and co-editor, with Gwyn Kirk, of Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and Beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism. Advancing racial equity in education and research, she is Executive Co-Director, alongside Cheryl Jefferson Page, of the African American Education & Research Organization (AAERO) @ Melchor-Quick Meeting House (MQMH), an organization founded by her mother and first teacher, Paula Quick Hall. As part of the food sovereignty movement, Hall is also the Director of Education for Global Village Farms.

Watch Melchor's June 2023 First Monday Lecture, "Reparations is to Justice as Art is to Freedom: Linking Healing and Creativity," on Pendle Hill's YouTube channel. 

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

How do we begin to imagine futures not yet here? What can we do today to embody the liberation we want to see?

Matthew Armstead (they/them), an experiential facilitator and performance artist, asks how, right now, we can embody the worlds we want to create. Here, Matthew grounds in the past, present, and future, delving into Nichelle Nichols’s role on Star Trek and a transformative phone call from Martin Luther King, Jr., the current climate crisis, and performance pieces that have transformed their sense of what it means to come home to ourselves. 

This interview was recorded on Pendle Hill’s campus. The bell you hear in the background during the episode is the bell inviting people to the dining hall for each meal.

Read the transcript of this episode.

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Matthew Armstead (they/them) first learned about Pendle Hill when studying at Swarthmore College, and years later returned to Pendle Hill to co-develop then teach Radical Faithfulness in Action. Matthew is the Director of Culture Work Studios, where they accompany small, multiracial organizations committed to social justice through change processes to be who they say they want to be, with compassion, creativity, and complexity. At Culture Work Studios, Matthew also makes performance experiences for audiences that are reclaiming power to embody the futures we want to create. At the heart, Matthew helps us practice being the change we want to see. To learn more about Matthew's work, visit cultureworkstudios.com.

Watch Matthew's October 2023 First Monday Lecture, "Belonging in Unknown," on Pendle Hill's YouTube channel.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

How can we cultivate a relationship to communal silence? How can practices of silent worship allow us to build trust and open to the unknown?

Ingrid Lakey, co-founder of Earth Quaker Action Team, talks with Dwight about her journey to a public-facing role in environmental activism, the power of collective action, and the ways silence allows us to attune to Spirit and embrace a multitude of truths.

Read the transcript of this episode.

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Ingrid Lakey has been a trainer and facilitator for 25 years, leading workshops on anti-racism, diversity, team-building, non-violent direct action, and conflict. Almost 14 years ago, after the birth of her child, she gave up a career in public radio to follow her leading to be a climate justice activist, becoming one of the founders of Earth Quaker Action Team, a grassroots organization building a just and sustainable economy through nonviolent direct action. She is a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and lives in West Philadelphia, four blocks from where she grew up.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

How do we create rituals to witness each other and our communities in transformative moments and cultivate a sense of belonging? What role does forgiveness play in our individual and communal spiritual practices? 

Autumn Brown is a writer, musician, facilitator, and organizer. Here, she and Dwight explore the power of choosing how we want to be witnessed, the vulnerability required to find and create community, and how forgiveness allows us the space to reclaim our senses of self.

Read the transcript of this episode.

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Autumn Brown is a writer, musician, and facilitator. She co-hosts the podcast How to Survive the End of the World, and supports liberation movements and workplace democracy as a worker-owner of the Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance (AORTA). To learn more about Autumn’s work, visit www.aorta.coop and www.iambrown.org. 

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Season 3 is here! As we begin to explore the practices that enrich our connections to ourselves and to each other, Dwight and Francisco share what's been spiritually nurturing them, their relationships to community, and their understandings of radical hope.

Read the transcript of this episode.

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Dwight Dunston, host of The Seed, is a West Philly-based facilitator, hip-hop artist, educator, and activist who has brought his creativity, care, and compassion to schools, community centers, retirement homes, festivals, and stadiums all over the country and internationally. His love of people and his belief that our stories and histories hold the key to our healing and wholeness has inspired him to design unique workshops, classes, and programs that support individuals to feel more rooted and heart-opened to themselves and to others.

Francisco Burgos is the executive director of Pendle Hill. Francisco comes to Pendle Hill from the Center for Community Initiatives at the Monteverde Institute in Costa Rica. He was born in Santo Domingo, but identifies as an internationalist. Francisco was a poet, an educator, a father, and as a self described dreamer whose visions are grounded in reality.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.