Unbroken Chain Podcast

Nick Nail is a musician, painter, gentle soul, and friend of ours in Birmingham. Here Nick explores his lifelong quest for comfort and belonging after experiencing a painful split in his consciousness in the wake of early childhood sexual abuse. At times Nick has found relief in long distance running and creating music and art and at other times in codependent relationships and regular heroin use. Nick has a tremendous capacity for compassionate observation. He talks with radical transparency about the gifts and limitations of addiction, choosing homelessness, bearing the stigma of being a "bad person," discovering the permission to enjoy life, and learning to be of service to the world. Nick recently detoxed from heroin at our house and this conversation was recorded a few days after he was finally walking, talking, and eating again. "Who's to say that anybody is wrong for doing something that they're lead to do? All the things that we go through are just something to help us do better tomorrow, you know?" More podcasts where podcasts are found, MauraJames.com and IG: @maurajames.

["Your Jewel" - Michael Nau]

Juliana Mulligan is the founder of Inner Vision Ibogaine, where she coaches people before and after treatment sessions with the powerful entheogen ibogaine. Her call to devote her life to helping others formulate a new healing life structure is deeply personal: after seven years of struggle with opioid dependency, which forced her into the further trauma of the mainstream rehab system, from methadone and Suboxone to 12 step programs and the justice system, Juliana finally found freedom with ibogaine. Although the treatment was a success, the clinic did not followed proper safety protocols and Juliana nearly died several times during the experience. Ever since, she has been focused on safety guidelines, promoting women run clinics and co-authoring a guide for vetting providers. She became a certified EMT and trained in three Ibogaine clinics in South Africa, Costa Rica, and Mexico, acting as a provider and lay-therapist. She currently works as the Psychedelic Program Coordinator at The Center for Optimal Living, which focuses on Harm Reduction. You can find her recent articles at Double Blind and Chacruna. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at MauraJames.com.

["A Calf Born in Winter" - Khruangbin]

Sophia Remolde aka Lobsterbird is a nomadic creator, performer, writer, and energy worker who helps guide spiritual creatives to phase out of their jobs and into careers they love and that serve the world. During lockdown at her parents house this year, she answered an unexpected internal call to start growing her own food, something she had no previous experience with aside from once killing some bamboo. Several months later, she is the proud cultivator of a thriving food forest and on her way to a permaculture certification. She has started a mycelium education initiative to support people around the world at all levels of resources and in all kinds of physical spaces to begin their own journey into relationship with the soil and their food. You can find those resources at Grow.me and all her other offerings at Lobsterbird.com. More podcasts where podcasts are found, at MauraJames.com and IG @maurajames.

[“We Are one” - MAZE ft. Frankie Beverly]

In honor of the two year anniversary of Unbroken Chain, I took a moment to look back on the journey. In a sweet conversation with my partner Daniel, I share my intentions for starting the podcast and touch on some of the things I've learned along the way: deep listening, connecting with the unbroken part of another's soul, confronting suffering, reckoning with whiteness, psychedelic tools, plant medicine teachers, and other juicy goodness in between. I'm sending this out with much gratitude and love for the dear ones who have joined me on this ride. I see you, and I love you. More podcasts where podcasts are found, at MauraJames.com and IG: @maurajames.

["Solar Plexus Chakra" - Beautiful Chorus]

Daniel Fox is a filmmaker, music curator, cosmic coordinator, and deep lover of humans who also happens to also be my partner. The son of a Southern Baptist preacher, Daniel grew up deeply formed by evangelical conditioning in the Deep South: toxic masculinity, the eternal threat of hell, overt racism, sports as religion, rabid materialism, sexual shame, and so much fear. He talks about the suicidal depression that overtook his life when he finally left the only community he had ever known and speaks publicly for the first time about coming to terms with childhood trauma that he spent many years trying to avoid. He honors the many teachers including hiphop artists, powerful women, and entheogens like cannabis and mushrooms that offered him a path to reconnection with himself and divine wisdom, and helped him find the grace to see his parents and their culture with new perspective. He now walks with others emerging from religious trauma in confronting harm, breaking cycles of abuse, and making meaning on their own terms. You can reach out to Daniel at DanielFox.tv and IG @daniel.carl.the.fox. More podcasts where podcasts are found, MauraJames.com and Ig @MauraJames.

["The Sun Will Shine On You" - Jeff Lynne's ELO]

Royal Parker is an activist based in New York's Hudson Valley. On July 18, 2020, he lead a rally of 400 peaceful protestors in support of voting rights and police oversight. The event became the subject of national news when his group was met with hate speech and violence from counter-protestors representing the Duchess County Conservative Party and pro-police supporters. In this thoughtful and transparent conversation, Royal reflects on his experience as a highly visible black leader in the movement for justice. We talk about learning to integrate non-violence into practice, the psycho-emotional fallout of violent confrontation, and the call to serve, as well as his background in the US military during the era of the trans ban as he was beginning to transition genders. You can connect with Royal on facebook @UntilWe'reAllFree and online at untilwereallfree.com. More podcasts at MauraJames.com and IG @maurajames.

You can watch Chase Bauer's short documentary about the recent rally and conflict, "Pleasant Valley Black and Blue," for free online: https://vimeo.com/449899198

["Someday We'll All Be Free" - Donny Hathaway]

Samantha Zipporah is an educator and support person for rites of passage related to reproductive and sexual health. She helps people understand the power, pleasure, and magic available in fertility and sexuality, particularly centered on wombs and ovaries. On her website and Patreon, you can find an abundance of resources related to conscious contraception and ovulation awareness, holistic healing after abortion and miscarriage, and non-medicalized reproductive health. In this conversation we explore the intersection of physiology and spirituality, reclaiming our bodies from pharmaceuticals, and becoming attuned to the natural cycles of our internal ecology, touching on PMS, grief, and moon lodge practice along the way.

Some of the books she recommends in this episode include: The Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess, The Great Cosmic Mother, The Chalice and the Blade, and Wild Power from the Red School. Find Sam online at SamanthaZipporah.com and IG @SamanthaZipporah. More podcasts where podcasts are found, MauraJames.com and IG @maurajames.

["Eternal Life" - Shira Small]

Ananda is my housemate and one of the kindest, most beautiful old souls in a young body I've ever met. He has spent the last five years teaching himself to play music and channel it into the world as an expression of love and healing. In this hang from my kitchen, we explore what it means to be alive in a human experience in this world, from the nature of reality to the relationship between matter and consciousness, all deeply informed by relationships with psychedelic medicines. Ananda shares what he learned growing up surrounded by addiction and other destructive energies, how he learned to think for himself, embrace neurodivergence, drive his life with intention, and channel the masculine. Come on in. More podcasts where podcasts are found, on IG @maurajames and MauraJames.com. ["In Every Direction" - Junip]

Voice Porter is a poet, muralist, and master gardener, among many other creative roles. He is a founding member of Ensley Alive, a collective movement dedicated to the renaissance of Ensley, a neglected neighborhood where he grew up in Birmingham, Alabama which became synonymous with violence and poverty in the city's imagination. He heads the Color Project, which creates gardens and public art that have transformed the area into a destination space for creativity, physical and mental wellbeing, and community for residents and visitors. In this expansive conversation, he talks about his experience of America as a black man and father, exploring the exposure of willful ignorance, rejecting the language of the oppressor, wielding art as revolution, and honoring his family's lineage of growing food, bartering, and nourishing his community. You can contact Voice at [email protected], find him on facebook under Brian Voice Porter Hawkins, or on IG @freevoice. More podcasts where podcasts are found, MauraJames.com, and IG @maurajames.

["Wake Up Everybody" - Teddy Pendergrass]

Cameron Whetstone is a tarot reader and intuitive based in Brooklyn, NY. In this juicy and expansive conversation, she shares her journey into the work of being human—resolving trauma and honoring her ancestors. From growing up biracial in America, to climbing the corporate fashion ladder and numbing out to reality TV and alcohol until her immune system could no longer tolerate it, Cameron shares valuable insights about awakening to her conditioning and freeing herself from it. She offers a comprehensive understanding of the physiology of trauma through the nervous system and how we can create a conscious, compassionate relationship to it. So many grounding tools here to anchor us in times of undoing. Find Cameron on IG @cameron_whetstone. More podcasts where podcasts are found, MauraJames.com and IG @maurajames.

["Turtle Medicine" - Delia Chariker]