Unbroken Chain Podcast

Rev. Shannon Spencer is the founder and director of the Asheville Poverty Initiative and moonlights as a prison chaplain at the Swannanoa Correctional Facility for Women. In rapidly gentrifying Asheville, NC, API seeks to address poverty by facilitating opportunities where the voices and experiences of "the poor" are heard and valued. While society makes various attempts to meet the immediate needs of those impacted, these basic services rarely succeed in changing the unjust systems that cause so many to go without in the first place. API aims to challenge stereotypes and decrease the fear that stems from an "us" and "them" philosophy. API offers free lunch five days a week at a community cafe in west Asheville called 12 Baskets, which uses 100% rescued prepared food. This cafe is a container for connection, where all are welcome and reminded of their worth and purpose in this world. In our conversation, Shannon shares the compassion that drives her mission, and we talk transformation over transaction, abundance over hoarding culture, and dismantling systemic poverty at a relational level. You can find Shannon at www.ashevillepovertyinitiative.org. More podcasts at www.maurajames.com and wherever podcasts are found. ["The Broken Side of People Everywhere" - The Dead Tongues]

Dr. Jasmine Syedullah is a feminist political theorist of abolition and co-author of "Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation." Deeply inspired by the 19th century writings of antislavery abolitionist Harriet Jacobs, Jasmine's current work explores how women's defense against the surveillance, policing, detention, criminalization, and punishment of everyday practices of self-making pose challenges to the bonds of racial capitalism. In our lively and potent conversation, Jasmine discussed the current landscape of carceral logic, our tendency to protect ideas over people, how we choose to engage with the inevitable trauma of change, and the practices that help us attune to our internal wisdom in order to transform our relationships to institutions, our neighbors, families, and selves. "You can inhabit oppressive systems in unconventional ways." More podcasts at maurajames.com and all podcasting platforms. ["Brand New Day" - Esther Phillips]

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is a black feminist lesbian activist and documentary filmmaker devoted to ending sexual violence without relying on the criminal justice system. A survivor of child sexual abuse at the hands of a family member, her latest project is an anthology arriving fall 2019 called "Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse," which includes transformative storytelling by 40 diasporic black voices. Her 2006 film, 'NO! The Rape Documentary,' broke taboos that hid heterosexual rape and sexual assault in African-American communities and continues to be used as a teaching tool around the world. In this conversation she puts films like 'Leaving Neverland' and 'Surviving R. Kelly' into context, exploring the cult of family, enabler culture, and America's foundational lineage of rape. She shares her personal experience with sexual assault and the practices that have helped her navigate the deep and challenging work of learning to hold herself and her loved ones accountable for the harm they have caused in order to break deep cycles of suffering. You can read and watch more of Aishah's work at www.notherapedocumentary.org and www.lovewithaccountability.com, and connect with her on instagram @afrolez. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at maurajames.com. ["Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" - Nina Simone]

Randy Scott Carroll is a Philadelphia-based musician and radio producer sharing for the first time his intimate story of healing and transformation. The son of a fundamentalist pastor, Randy experienced sexual assault as a child that deeply influenced his perception of the world and his place within it. After running from his past for many years, the Me Too movement sparked Randy to look at his experiences head on and finally begin healing the wounds that had driven him into toxic relationships and self-destructive behaviors that only perpetuated his trauma. In this radically vulnerable conversation, Randy talks about the gift and curse of traumatic experiences, what it means to believe survivors, learning to perform that "everything is fine," redefining masculinity, discovering belonging in the queer community, and the practice of holding space for healing. You can find Randy's music and storytelling on Spotify and instagram @randyscottcarroll. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at maurajames.com. ["Let Your Love Wash Over Me" - Randy Scott Carroll]

Sarah Knapp is a musician, healer, and traveler who moved home to San Diego three years ago to care for her father who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In caring for him and others at the end of their life, she uses music therapy and an innate love of elder wisdom to bring exquisite calm and peace. "No matter how disoriented he is, music always works. When I put on his favorite songs, he relaxes. He feels safe; he becomes present." Sarah founded the San Diego chapter of the Resistance Revival Chorus and the community gathering place One House Community Center. She holds regular community events including Death Cafe and trauma informed yoga. In this conversation we talk about her dad's return to his divine boyhood, the exquisite beauty of the dying process, grief ceremonies, the medicine of Gaia's playground, and what she's learned about how to live. Find her beautiful offerings at sarahknappmusic.com, and on instagram: @everythingtrueisfree. You can watch a short documentary about her and her dad called "The Great Forgetting" at vimeo.com/309242521. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at maurjames.com. ["Kali Yuga" - Georgia Anne Muldrow]

Mia Pean is the Executive Director of My Sister's Place, a non-profit devoted to rescuing and rehabilitating victims of human trafficking. She has opened five homes internationally, including two in her home country of Haiti, and is currently devoted to opening one in Atlanta, Georgia, which has a $290 million human trafficking economy. As a child, Mia escaped an abusive home to raise herself and her younger sister in a squat in Brooklyn, which set her life's course on a radically compassionate mission to protect society's most vulnerable. She discusses the realities of trafficking in today's world and how predators target those who will not be "missed" by society. She talks honestly about the faith and self-care necessary to do the work she does, and how her aversion to organized religion has made room for the recognition of god within herself. Find her online at www.mysistersplacehaiti.org to take action and champion these women and children alongside her. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at www.maurajames.com. ["What's Your Thing" - The Staple Singers]

Kathryn Solie has dedicated her life to the study and practice of non-duality and inner work. She works one on one with people looking to remember their authentic selves through the use of tarot readings, dream interpretation, herbal medicine, intuition building, shamanic journeying, creative expression, and meditation. Today she takes us on journey into the transformative medicine of poison plants. We go deep into the underworld of datura, hellebore, henbane, belladonna, and amanita muscaria, and explore the myths that help unlock their wisdom. She talks about the pagan origins of Christmas traditions, the loss of our European shamanic lineage, wrathful goddesses, and the intersection of buddhism and plant medicine. Find Kathryn on instagram @persephonespath and at www.KathrynSolie.com. More conversations at www.maurajames.com and wherever podcasts are found. ["Sunrise of Forever" - Layne Redmond]

Jennifer Patterson is a grief worker who uses plants, breath, and words to explore survivorhood, body(ies), and healing. As a queer and trans affirming herbalist and breathwork facilitator, Jennifer has built an inclusive, sliding scale one-on-one practice called Corpus Ritual, and she also holds group workshops at healing spaces, LGBTQ centers, a needle exchange and harm reduction clinic, veterans hospitals, on college campuses, and online. She is the editor of "Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti- Violence Movement" (2016) and the creative nonfiction editor of Hematopoiesis Press. In this beautifully transparent conversation, Jennifer discusses her surrender to the psychedelic healing process after years of destructive patterns rooted in past trauma. She talks about her experience with iboga, mother of all entheogens, the somatic imprint of trauma, the dark magic of alcohol, the predation of the "healing industrial complex," the legacy of free and sliding scale work, and how to grow the parts of ourselves that are ok despite all our wounds. "For those of us who have lost faith in the world, in a god, these are ways that we can gain some faith back, and they're body-based. It's in ourselves. We get to connect to our own spirit. And spirit at large, too." Find Jennifer's beautiful writing and her herb shop at www.corpusritual.com and hematopoiesispress.com and on instagram @corpusritual. More podcasts available where podcasts are found and at www.maurajames.com. ["Healing Song 1" - Verdell Primeaux]

Writer and cultural activist Ifetayo Harvey works in communications at the Drug Policy Alliance. She has spoken widely on her experience growing up with a parent in prison, and she is a passionate advocate for ending the war on drugs and mass incarceration, improving education, sexual health and reproductive justice. In this conversation she gives us a brief history of the drug war before diving into the opportunity presented by our current moment: whether we use the tide of legalization to deconstruct the prison industrial complex and begin to make amends for centuries of oppressive, racists lawmaking. She talks about the traumatic fallout of mass incarceration, harm reduction and public fear around normalizing drug use, accessibility to medicine, using psychedelics to shift consciousness en masse, and protecting psychedelic spaces from predatory individuals and institutions. You can find her writing at www.ifetayo.strikingly.com and a wealth of resources from the DPA at www.drugpolicy.org. More podcasts at www.maurajames.com. ["Walking in the Rain" - Grace Jones]

This is the story of Darryl Carter and of New York City, his home for the last five decades. With the backdrop of a rapidly evolving city, Darryl tells intimate stories from his journey through love, addiction, loss, and transformation with side splitting humor and radical transparency. He shares scenes from the idyllic working class 70s, the crack-ravaged 80s, and the aggressive gentrification that has followed in recent decades. A keen observer of human behavior, he talks corruption of power, corporate tyranny, escapism, nonconforming, sex addiction, satan in a crack pipe, getting humbled by women, and the moments of clarity that have turned him into a devotee of gratitude, forgiveness, and peace. His wisdom is hard won, and he knows what really matters. "Don't you want to be understood and accepted as a human being? That's all of our dilemmas. More than anything in the world… human beings want to be loved." Come hang with us at his apartment in the Bronx. More at maurajames.com. ["We Got To Have Peace" - Curtis Mayfield]