Unbroken Chain Podcast

Maria Benardis is a Gourmand Award winning author, health coach, teacher, chef, and founder of Greekalicious. After a high flying career in tax accounting led Maria into grave illness and western cancer treatments ravaged her body, she left it all behind and poured herself into healing in body, mind, and spirit by following the intuitive wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers. She is the author of "My Greek Family Cookbook" and is currently writing a memoir about her healing journey. She now offers coaching and consulting services to help others seeking to radically step into health. In this conversation she advocates for our sovereign right to direct connection with higher power, and shares her perspective on "diet" culture, "natural" food marketing, cutting the cord of intergenerational abuse, and the true meaning of bliss. You can find Maria at Greekalicious.com.au and on facebook and instagram. More podcasts on all platforms and MauraJames.com.

["Have a Talk with God" - Stevie Wonder]

Ty Fenelus is an intuitive coach and healer. After experiencing a visitation from her grandmother in the days after her death, Ty's life was forever changed. She now works full time with spiritual guides to channel information from the highest sources, help guide people in their life purpose, and unlock blockages in body, mind, and spirit. In this conversation we talk about the team of beings—archangels, animals, plants, aliens—that are here to support us in our human incarnation. She shares the many tools such as astral projection, lucid dreaming, and meditation that can help us access their wisdom, and she shares stories from other cultures who have deeply integrated this spiritual communication into their every day practices. Connect with Ty at TyFenelus.com. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at MauraJames.com or on instagram @maurajames.

["Icaro" - Vexento & Lucas King]

Megan Baer is a spiritual leader of the Native American Church who lives in Athens, GA. Among many offerings in support of transformation, she hold ceremonies with the sacrament of wachuma (also known as the San Pedro cactus). In this generous conversation, Megan shares how plant medicine has radically changed her relationship to herself, giving her profound relief from a relentless barrage of negative thinking. With a masters in social work, Megan has also worked extensively in the conventional mental health sector. We talk about the place of psychedelics in the evolution of mental health care, love as alignment, holding space for one another to become our best selves, and much more. You can find Megan on facebook or send her an email: [email protected]. More podcast where podcasts are found and at MauraJames.com.

["Everyone Is Good" - The Roches]

Caroline Yongue is a lay Buddhist minister in the Soto Zen tradition and director of both the Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, a "green" burial ground in Asheville, NC, and the Center for End of Life Transitions. Much of her work involves helping people prepare for the dying process, assisting with home funerals, and holding space for grief. She has transparent conversation about dying in a death-denying culture that has effectively privatized death. In this deeply heart-opening conversation, Caroline talks about the grace of death as a spiritual community event, buddhist understandings of our transition to and from life, and the practices that help her stay present to what is, even in the presence of death. You can learn more about Caroline's conservation burial ground at carolinamemorialsanctuary.org and deep dive her offerings on home funerals and death midwifery at ceolt.org. More podcasts where podcasts are found, at maurajames.com and on instagram @maurajames. ["Eventual Surrender" - William Tyler]

Chris Rushing is the leader of the Oklevueha Native American Church of Inner Light in rural Alabama. Alongside his wife Janice, and his two sons, he shares sacramental plant medicine ceremonies with those who come seeking healing, reconnection, and prayer. He is also a painter who channels his visionary experiences onto canvas. In this deeply generous conversation recorded the morning after we joined him for ceremony, Chris talks about how plant medicine has deepened his relationship to Creator, radically changing his understanding of the Christian religion, and returned him to Christ’s pure message of love. We talk about meeting god, telling the truth, free will, the darkness that masquerades as light, heaven and hell within our minds, “knowledge-squashing” culture, and the nature of death. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at www.MauraJames.com. [“See What Love Can Do” - Jerry Garcia Band]

Tepahteh Hutze, aka Oso, is a medicine man from a lineage of curanderos who carries the wisdom of the Nahuatlakas and the Lakota. Life is a ceremony, he says, and everything we do is prayer. He holds regular sweat lodge and medicine ceremonies for his community, and offers the opportunity for all he meets to return to their earth-based roots and claim the medicine that is our birthright as humans. In this conversation, I share some of my recent experiences in ceremony with him, and he talks about our place in creation, the disconnection that has created abusive relationships with our environment, and how we can cleanse ourselves naturally with the four elements. "Treat people with your heart, and you'll never be wrong." Learn more about Oso's offerings at www.tepahtehhutze.com and reach out to him on instagram @tepahtehhutze. More podcasts and art at www.maurajames.com and @maurajames. ["Peyote Healing" - Robbie Robertson and Verdell Primeaux]

Jeanette Waddell is a professional storyteller born and raised in Hancock Co., Georgia. Hancock is a majority black county with a profound sense of community, as well as a history rooted in slavery. She celebrates the radical storytelling that nourished and liberated her enslaved ancestors, and the need to examine how we teach American history today, often by continuing to glorify oppressors and depicting black bodies in contexts of violence and poverty. We talk about the gifts and challenges of life in the rural South: the sense of protection and abundance within black communities, the urgent need for infrastructure and resources, and the still entrenched inequalities inherited from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. She discusses the healing underway in Hancock County and her vision for the redemption and thriving of future generations. You can find Jeanette on facebook and more podcasts everywhere podcasts are found and at www.maurajames.com. ["Let's Have a Ball Tonight" - Tim Maia]

When Yin's six-month old baby Wally was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood eye cancer, she was plunged from the bliss of new motherhood into chemotherapy world. The side effects of the chemicals being pumped into Wally, who had only consumed breastmilk at that point, made him violently ill, so Yin and her husband Brian began looking for any and all resources to help him. This lead them to cannabis oil, and the results were immediate and stunning. This is the story of Wally's healing, and the medicines that saved his life. It is a story that shatters the taboos around children and cannabis that keep untold numbers of families from access to transformative healing. A documentary made from footage Brian filmed during Wally's treatment called "Waldo on Weed" (2019) premiered at Tribeca Film Festival this summer and is currently making festival rounds. More podcasts and stories wherever podcasts are found and at maurajames.com. ["All To Myself" - Amber Coffman]

Jim White is a master storyteller of many mediums: critically acclaimed solo artist of six albums, record producer, visual artist, and writer of award-winning fiction. He is also the narrator and defacto tour guide of the award winning BBC documentary "Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus" (2003), a road movie set in the rural South, which the LA Times described as "decidedly strange, delightfully demented." Prior to becoming a musician, Jim led an "aimless, diverse life," working countless menial labor jobs: dishwasher, landscaper, lifeguard, cook, surfboard laminator, road builder, culminating with 13 long years driving a taxi cab in New York City. He is currently completing a memoir based on a series of uncanny coincidences that befell him during his days driving that taxi. Jim was also a pro surfer, served as literary commentator for the National Endowment of the Arts, and was a European fashion model. In this conversation, recorded at his home in Athens, Georgia, we cover a lot of territory, from his childhood in the "Christ-haunted south," to the undoing of harmful spiritual programming, and the universal value of his self-therapy through music. You can enter Jim's world at www.JimWhite.net and wherever music is found. More art and podcasts and www.maurajames.com. ["A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes" - Jim White]

Jerusha Keren (Ep 1) returns to the podcast! Jerusha is a pranic healer and former mental health nurse based in the midwest. We spent several days together talking about our growth and service in the evolution of the human species. Jerusha has enjoyed a profound and direct relationship with the divine for her entire life, which her Jewish faith has nourished and supported. She generously helps me unpack some of my negative associations with the institution of religion and answers my long-held questions about the G-d of the Old Testament. We talk about the nature of mind, the cycle of rebirth, the meaning of suffering, and how we can work together to return to the Garden of Eden. More podcasts at maurajames.com and everywhere podcasts are found. ["Reincarnated Souls" - The Wailers]