Podcasts about Liberation

On the wisdom of open awareness and the benefit of the simplest practices in our daily life.  0:00 - Introduction and Guest Welcome 1:57 - Machik Labdron and the Source Code of Life 7:47 - Mahayana and Vajrayana: Differences and Similarities 13:36 - Ground, Path, and Fruition: The Buddhist Path of Liberation 21:41 - Engaging with the Practices of Sky Mind 27:37 - The Paradox of Meditation and External Impact 36:31 - Sky Mind Meditation Practice Partners in life, practice, and parenting, Charlotte Rotterdam and Pieter Oosthuizen draw on decades of dedicated study and practice to share the rich teachings of Tibetan Buddhism and their application to modern life. They've served as faculty at Naropa University, are senior teachers at Tara Mandala Retreat Center founded by Lama Tsultrim Allione, and teach globally. Their recent book, Skymind: The Radical Path of Open Awareness (Shambhala, 2026), highlights the nature of mind teachings of the 11th century Tibetan yogini Machig Labdron and their relevance in our everyday lives. Amid life's relentless challenges, uncertainties, and endless striving, how do we find a sense of ease, clarity, and connection? Skymind offers a way to step back from life's constant push and pull and discover the spaciousness and wholeness that has always been within you. Inspired by the revolutionary teachings of Machig Labdrön, an 11th-century Tibetan yogini who pioneered a radical approach to inner freedom, this book introduces Skymind meditation—a practice that helps you cultivate clarity, compassion, and resilience by resting in the sky-like nature of your mind. Through simple exercises, contemplations, and Machig's powerful verses, you'll be guided to meet life's challenges with courage and radical acceptance. These teachings invite you to embrace every part of your experience—even the emotions and thoughts you'd rather avoid—and discover the freedom that comes from including everything in your awareness. Whether you are new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner, Skymind offers profound insights and practical tools to help you live with authenticity, ease, and a heart as vast as the sky.

This month, on Laura Flanders & Friends, we turn to the state of journalism—at a moment of deep disruption, consolidation, and consequence.  But journalists aren't simply standing by—they're pushing back, reimagining their work, and, in many cases, taking matters into their own hands.   This week we'll hear from the long-running independent collective Third World Newsreel, still thriving in an era some are calling “media carnage,” showing what it looks like to endure—and to resist. This show is made possible by you! To become a sustaining member go to LauraFlanders.org/donate Description: It's almost unheard of for an independent media collective to survive as long as Third World Newsreel has. Since 1968, they have chronicled some of the most pivotal movements in human history and continue to expand on their collection of over 700 titles. There's lots to learn about how they've adapted through technological revolutions, political persecutions, philanthropic booms and busts — and how the oldest media arts collective in the U.S. is making do in today's “media carnage”, as Laura Flanders puts it. Joining us are JT Takagi, an independent filmmaker, sound recordist, and the longtime executive director of Third World Newsreel. Tami Gold is an artist and activist whose documentaries grapple with everything from imperialism to sex work. Her films include My Country Occupied, Another Brother and Land Rain Fire among many more. Puerto Rican-born Juan Carlos Dávila works in film as well as TV, where he reports on social movements around environmentalism, militarism and the struggles of the working class on the island. His films include The Stand-By Generation, Viequez: An Endless Battle and Drills of Liberation. Join us as we look at the past, present and future of Third World Newsreel and ask how film can be used as a tool for organizing. “I'd say we feel more urgent now than ever before. Every day there's something happening that makes it clear that our rights and liberties, and people's lives all over the world are at stake. Not being in touch with the history and media that shows the truth of what's going on is really decimating people's ability to, as Juan said, know what to follow and what to do.” - JT Takagi “We need to retake the theater, the physical space that is being ignored by the corporations. Perhaps now that is the opportunity that we have . . . A theater is being rented by people who are organizers, and they're using their collective spirit and know-how to organize huge, huge crowds to come.” - Tami Gold “People can shoot stuff with the phone . . . I see a lot in Puerto Rico that people are still wanting to produce with the corporate industry standards. Many young filmmakers like myself tend to think that we need so many personnel to be doing films. Right now we can actually make films with less.” - Juan Carlos Dávila Guests: •  Juan Carlos Dávila: Documentary Filmmaker, Multimedia Journalist, Puerto Rico Correspondent, Democracy Now! •  Tami Gold: Filmmaker, Artist, Activist •  JT Takagi: Executive Director, Third World Newsreel   Watch on YouTube this episode that includes video clips referenced in this episode from Third World Newsreel; PBS World Channel 11:30am ET Sundays and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast February 25th, 2026. Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation.  Music Credit:  'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, 'Steppin' by Podington Bear, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends   RESOURCES:   Full Episode Notes are located HERE. Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes: •  Dolores Huerta & Ellen Gavin: Creative Courage in the Face of Fascism- Watch / Listen:  Full Uncut Conversation and Episode Cut  •  BIPOC Press for the People: Bursting the Corporate Media Bubble- Watch / Listen: Episode Cut •  Meet the BIPOC Press: Is Worker-Owned Media the Future of Journalism?- Watch / Listen:  Episode Cut   Related Articles and Resources: •  Documentaries Ripped From the Headlines Are Becoming Harder to See, by Marc Tracy, December 18, 2024, The New York Times •  My Country Occupied, Documentary by Tami Gold •  La Generación Del Estanbai (The Standby Generation), Documentary by Juan C. Davila and Third World Newsreel, Trailer •  Why Frederick Wiseman Was the Greatest Documentary Filmmaker Ever, by Richard Brody, February, 17, 2026, The New Yorker •. Fredrick Weissman Filmmaker, Producer and Theater Director, Zipporah Films Inc •  Drills of Liberation, Documentary by Juan C. Davila •  Third World Newsreel (TWN) Brings Historic Newsreel Retrospective To BAM, Anthology Film Archives, And DOK Leipzig, October 2025, Third World Newsreel •  Have You Seen It Yet?  The Algorithm Problem In Movie Marketing, by Charity Maxson, January 27, 2026, TR!LL Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Audio Editor, Sound Design, Narrator; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O'Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky: https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Send us Fan MailAirline seats, workplace bias, inaccessible events, and “just lose weight” culture all point to the same truth: anti-fatness is systemic, and it costs people real freedom. We're joined by Tigress Osborn, executive director of NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance), to talk about what it takes to build a fat liberation movement that actually includes everybody, not just the people with money, mobility, or proximity to big-city community spaces.We dig into the origins of Fat Liberation Month (created by NAAFA), why it moved to August, and how NAAFA keeps so much of its programming virtual to support accessibility, disability inclusion, and global participation. Tigress shares what's still on the calendar, including the Making Waves Fat Swim in the Bay Area and the Virtual Fat Splash, because summertime fun should not have a body requirement.Then we zoom out to the bigger fight: size discrimination and the Campaign for Size Freedom, the fat liberation flag and its evolving design, and why legal protections are still rare in the United States. We also get real about underfunded social justice work, donor programs, volunteering, and why small monthly gifts matter, plus what advocacy can look like when airlines and brands roll back inclusion.If you care about fat rights, weight stigma, accessibility, and community building, this conversation will give you both history and practical next steps. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find Big Sexy Chat.Support the showBigSexyChat.com appreciates you and our community. We do this for you, so if you ever have any ideas about a subject we can discuss for you, email us at bigsexychatpod@gmail.com.You can find us on Facebook and Instagram as BigSexyChat.Twitter (who knows how long we will stay there) is BigSexyChatPodCheck out our merch at  www.BigSexyTees.com  (credit to Toni Tails for setting this up for us!)Chrystal also sells sex toys via her website BlissConnection.com and you can use the code BSC20 for 20% off. Big thanks to our Sponsor Liberator Bedroom Adventures. We ADORE the products from Liberator.  And, to be clear, we all loved their products even before they became a sponsor!

Living with an undefended heart is not only a saying, but it is a practice that moves us toward liberation and away from greed, aversion and ignorance. In this talk Mary discusses her years-long practice and what an Undefended Heart is, and what it is not.Recorded Aug. 22, 2026 in the virtual worldSend me a text with any questions or comments! Include your name and email if you would like a response - it's not included automatically. Thanks.Visit Mary's website for more info on classes and teachings.

This month, on Laura Flanders & Friends, we turn to the state of journalism—at a moment of deep disruption, consolidation, and consequence.  But journalists aren't simply standing by—they're pushing back, reimagining their work, and, in many cases, taking matters into their own hands.   This week we'll hear from the long-running independent collective Third World Newsreel, still thriving in an era some are calling “media carnage,” showing what it looks like to endure—and to resist. This show is made possible by you! To become a sustaining member go to LauraFlanders.org/donate Description: It's almost unheard of for an independent media collective to survive as long as Third World Newsreel has. Since 1968, they have chronicled some of the most pivotal movements in human history and continue to expand on their collection of over 700 titles. There's lots to learn about how they've adapted through technological revolutions, political persecutions, philanthropic booms and busts — and how the oldest media arts collective in the U.S. is making do in today's “media carnage”, as Laura Flanders puts it. Joining us are JT Takagi, an independent filmmaker, sound recordist, and the longtime executive director of Third World Newsreel. Tami Gold is an artist and activist whose documentaries grapple with everything from imperialism to sex work. Her films include My Country Occupied, Another Brother and Land Rain Fire among many more. Puerto Rican-born Juan Carlos Dávila works in film as well as TV, where he reports on social movements around environmentalism, militarism and the struggles of the working class on the island. His films include The Stand-By Generation, Viequez: An Endless Battle and Drills of Liberation. Join us as we look at the past, present and future of Third World Newsreel and ask how film can be used as a tool for organizing. “I'd say we feel more urgent now than ever before. Every day there's something happening that makes it clear that our rights and liberties, and people's lives all over the world are at stake. Not being in touch with the history and media that shows the truth of what's going on is really decimating people's ability to, as Juan said, know what to follow and what to do.” - JT Takagi “We need to retake the theater, the physical space that is being ignored by the corporations. Perhaps now that is the opportunity that we have . . . A theater is being rented by people who are organizers, and they're using their collective spirit and know-how to organize huge, huge crowds to come.” - Tami Gold “People can shoot stuff with the phone . . . I see a lot in Puerto Rico that people are still wanting to produce with the corporate industry standards. Many young filmmakers like myself tend to think that we need so many personnel to be doing films. Right now we can actually make films with less.” - Juan Carlos Dávila Guests: •  Juan Carlos Dávila: Documentary Filmmaker, Multimedia Journalist, Puerto Rico Correspondent, Democracy Now! •  Tami Gold: Filmmaker, Artist, Activist •  JT Takagi: Executive Director, Third World Newsreel   Watch on YouTube this episode that includes video clips referenced in this episode from Third World Newsreel; PBS World Channel 11:30am ET Sundays and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast. Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation.  Music Credit:  'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, 'Steppin' by Podington Bear, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends   RESOURCES:   Full Episode Notes are located HERE. Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes: •  Dolores Huerta & Ellen Gavin: Creative Courage in the Face of Fascism- Watch / Listen:  Full Uncut Conversation and Episode Cut  •  BIPOC Press for the People: Bursting the Corporate Media Bubble- Watch / Listen: Episode Cut •  Meet the BIPOC Press: Is Worker-Owned Media the Future of Journalism?- Watch / Listen:  Episode Cut   Related Articles and Resources: •  Documentaries Ripped From the Headlines Are Becoming Harder to See, by Marc Tracy, December 18, 2024, The New York Times •  My Country Occupied, Documentary by Tami Gold •  La Generación Del Estanbai (The Standby Generation), Documentary by Juan C. Davila and Third World Newsreel, Trailer •  Why Frederick Wiseman Was the Greatest Documentary Filmmaker Ever, by Richard Brody, February, 17, 2026, The New Yorker •. Fredrick Weissman Filmmaker, Producer and Theater Director, Zipporah Films Inc •  Drills of Liberation, Documentary by Juan C. Davila •  Third World Newsreel (TWN) Brings Historic Newsreel Retrospective To BAM, Anthology Film Archives, And DOK Leipzig, October 2025, Third World Newsreel •  Have You Seen It Yet?  The Algorithm Problem In Movie Marketing, by Charity Maxson, January 27, 2026, TR!LL Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer; Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Audio Editor, Sound Design, Narrator; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O'Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky: https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Host Erin Ayala sits down with writer, speaker, and educator Chrissy King to unpack “body liberation” and how racism, diet culture, and the relentless “maxing” mindset intersect.Chrissy shares personal stories from her journey—writing The Body Liberation Project, navigating publishing, and redefining success on her own terms.Listeners will walk away with a fresh framework for reclaiming their bodies, boosting joy, and building collective freedom in their personal and professional lives.Key TakeawaysBody liberation vs. body positivity: Liberation means challenging systemic racism and diet culture, not just “loving every inch.”Spot the “maxing” trap: Constantly optimizing (protein, fitness, productivity) drains bandwidth and hampers creativity; learn to set intentional, sustainable limits.Collective liberation: Use your privilege to call out fat‑phobic, racist, or exclusionary language in everyday conversations and professional settings.Practical habit shifts: 1. Identify one standard you're chasing that isn't yours and pause it this week. 2. Replace doom‑scrolling with a tactile activity (e.g., crochet, chess) to reset mental bandwidth. 3. Share resources (books, articles) that center marginalized voices instead of speaking for them.Publishing insights: A slower, deliberate book proposal can yield a far better deal than an immediate offer.Chrissy's Substack, The Liberation Collective – https://chrissyking.com/substack (or similar)Instagram & TikTok: @iamchrissyking – https://instagram.com/iamchrissykingIf you found this conversation valuable, hit Subscribe so you never miss an episode, leave a review on your favorite platform, and share the episode with fellow entrepreneurs who are ready to break free from limiting body narratives. Connect with Chrissy on social media and dive deeper into the resources linked above. Let's build a community where every body can thrive!FeistyFest Info: https://livefeisty.com/events/feisty-fest/Register for FeistyFit: https://livefeisty.com/training/running/feistyfitfall/Courses and Coaching: https://livefeisty.com/courses/Women's Mechanic Camp in Tucson: https://livefeisty.com/events/bike-mechanic-school-tucson/Sign up to Receive The Feisty Women's Performance Newsletter:Feisty Women's Performance Newsletter: https://livefeisty.com/newsletters/feisty-womens-performance/Follow us on Instagram:@feisty_womens_performanceSupport our Partners:Momentous: Head to https://www.livemomentous.com/ and use promo code PERFORMANCE for up to 35% off your first orderWahoo: Learn more about Wahoo Fitness Products at: https://wahoofitness.pxf.io/0GAByRTifosi Optics: Use code FEISTY2026 for 20% off at https://tifosioptics.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Orca: Use the code FEISTY15 for 15% off at https://orca.avln.me/c/HzUkzIfxsmYo

The new X-Men cast has been revealed, amongst other big movies announced at the D23 expo. Plus, we discuss additions to NYFF64 & TIFF, some more info on the box office boom, and we also review a dozen new Oscar contender trailers on this latest episode of Oscar Race Checkpoint. D23: The Marvel Cinematic Universe X-MEN are revealed! - 2:33 …Including Inde Navarrette as Rogue, Kit Connor as Cyclops, Maya Boyd as Storm, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Adam Driver as Mister Sinister and Christopher Abbott as Prof X. Other D23 Announcements - 19:02 …Including The Incredibles 3, Coco 2, Ghost Market, The Bluey Movie, Lilo & Stitch 2, Zootopia 3, Frozen 3, Romy & Michelle 2, Ice Age: Boiling Point, & Star Wars: Starfighter. The Avengers: Doomsday Special Look Trailer Review - 24:31 BOX OFFICE REPORT: Spider-Man's 3rd weekend + Oak Street & Odyssey - 35:32 FILM FESTIVAL NEWS NYFF64 Spotlight Additions including Fjord, Club Kid and A Statement - 39:44 The Only Living Pickpocket in NY Trailer Review - 46:11 TIFF Additions including Bucking Fastard, Wild Horse Nine & A Liberation - 48:12 Midnight Madness adds Na Hong-jin's Hope + Trailer Review - 49:40 MORE OSCAR TRAILERS: Primetime starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen of To Catch A Predator - 54:04 Paper Tiger from James Gray, Driver, Scarjo & Miles Teller - 57:52 Gentle Monster starring Lea Seydoux - 59:34 Josephine starring Channing Tatum & Gemma Chan - 1:01:49 The Thomas Crowne Affair starring Oscar Winner, Michael B. Jordan - 1:04:25 OUTRO: Mike and I discuss his upcoming vacation, pending summer cold and our next guest hosted episode on our recent activity watching august movies, netflix and emmy nominees. https://linktr.ee/mikemikeandoscar

The Dalai Lama suggests that we check in with our spiritual practice every ten years or so. Using the 18th anniversary of teaching as a jumping off point, Mary checks in with where spiritual practice can lead and what it may look like. It's not about achieving a particular goal, but about how we show up in the world and recognize our shared humanity.Recorded Aug. 15, 2026 in the virtual worldBhikkhu Bodhi article: A Challenge to BuddhistsSend me a text with any questions or comments! Include your name and email if you would like a response - it's not included automatically. Thanks.Visit Mary's website for more info on classes and teachings.

Ever had a burning question about faith, life, or the Bible that you were too afraid to ask? Well, You Asked For It—literally! The summer teaching series is built around the real, honest questions submitted by you, the Crossroads community. Each week, we'll explore what Wisdom has to say about the things that matter most to you.

This is Part 32 of *Practical Anarchy – A Guide to Self-Determination*.. Please Like, Comment, Subscribe and Watch the whole series in order. Acknowledgements Dedication Introduction by Mark Sleigh Introduction to the author ► Full playlist:    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDT6pJU3_gViYVxWUTl8PcR29sW0GAcQK ► Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1864387554451463/permalink/1881786316044920/ ► Buy the book: https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=9dOIqr4EMtGT3x43Y9bhrmDaCPKCIzif4Y1dUjMvxgr #anarchy #history #politics #counterculture

Daniel Tutt and returning guest C. Derick Varn join Steve to discuss their new book, The People Are Not One: Socialist Strategy After Left Populism, whose title states its thesis outright. When the left speaks of a unified people confronting a corrupt elite, it conceals the real stratifications inside the working class and borrows a Manichean framework that functions identically on the right. Their argument: since 2008, from Occupy through Syriza, Podemos, Corbyn, and Sanders, left populism has served to extinguish the class antagonism at the center of socialism, operating as a new Popular Front in which liberalism holds the upper hand.The conversation lands directly on this show's own history. Varn is blunt about his long-running argument with MMT advocates: he never disputed the nature of the currency, he disputed the analysis of power. They are not going to let you have a Job Guarantee, because it removes their ability to discipline workers. Steve agrees, describing his own path out of economism and the trap of thinking a basket of policies and a few more progressives in office adds up to a threat to capital.On class consciousness, Varn is careful with a term he calls one of the most abused in socialist history. The reason to organize around the working class is not its victimhood. It is that the working class already possesses, collectively, the skills to reproduce society. The differences within the working class are resolvable. The difference between the working class and those who live off its labor is not.They close on electoralism. Varn's formulation: electoralism is a tactic, not a principle. Democracy is the principle. Tutt points to Lenin's actual position, that ballots are justified only alongside extra-parliamentary means and on terms of strict class independence. The Popular Front let liberalism lead. The United Front did not.If you've followed this show from Ep 218 - Beware! the Counter-Revolution with C. Derick Varn, through Ep 318 - The Death of the Left? with Simon Winlow & Steve Hall, Ep 371 - You Can't Vote Away Colonialism with Fadhel Kaboub, and Ep 388 - From Theory to Praxis: Lenin's Revolutionary Formula with Breht O'Shea, this episode is the strategic argument those conversations kept circling. Daniel Tutt is the author of Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family and How to Read Like a Parasite. His writing has been featured in Jacobin, Current Affairs, Philosophy Now and Aeon Magazine. He is the host of the Emancipations podcast and study group collective. Find him on Twitter @TuttReal or his Substack: https://danieltutt.substack.com/aboutC. Derick Varn is an author, poet, and educator, and host of the podcast Varn Vlog, where he publishes podcasts and series on the great thinkers, and interviews authors and academics. He is the author of Apocalyptics and Liberation and All That Bright Etc. He has been a union rep for the past six years. Find him on Twitter @TheRealVarnVlog or his podcast https://varnvlog.buzzsprout.com/

August 13th 2026 Yuriy describes the fact that Russians are erasing entire Ukrainian cities—first with mass artillery and then with heavy KAB bombs—reducing them to ash and rubble while calling it “liberation.” He describes Kharkiv being bombed daily, with deaths, ruined infrastructure, and familiar streets and parks scarred but still standing, unlike towns that now exist only as piles of debris visible on Google Maps. He calls the attackers a death cult and thanks people abroad whose support has helped Ukraine hold them back. Send Yuriy your letter of support fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com  Yuriy's Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  Subscribe to his substack: https://yuriymatsarsky.substack.com/  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT It is August 13. In my circle, there are more and more people who literally no longer have a hometown. It simply does not exist anymore. This is a Russian tactic to destroy entire cities and then plant their flags on the ruins. At first, they did it with artillery. Hundreds of guns, like in the First World War, pounded built-up areas, turning them to dust, along with their residents, their pets, their belongings, their dreams, and their hopes. Then, when artillery shells started running out, the Russians began dropping bombs on cities. Do you know what these bombs are called? The KAB 500, the KAB 1000, the KAB 3000. The number in the name is the weight of the bomb: 500 kilograms, one ton, three tons. Look on YouTube at what three tons of explosives looks like when it goes off, and imagine what happens to a city that is hit by bombs like that day after day. It is ruins upon ruins mixed with the bones of people and animals. It is ash that has burned for so long that it has become almost colorless. A lunar landscape looks more alive and more vivid than the landscapes of the cities the Russians have reached. And they call this "liberation." They are completely serious about it. Destroying an entire city, killing civilians, leaving not a single building intact, forcing thousands of people to flee and abandon everything they have, this is what the Russians call "liberation." I sincerely wish this kind of liberation on every one of their cities, every single one. My hometown, Kharkiv, is bombed every day. People die there every day. Buildings are destroyed. Infrastructure is being wrecked, and yet the city still exists. The streets where my grandfather and I used to walk when I was a child is full of bomb craters, but it is still there. The park where my daughter used to run around as a little girl took several bombs that burned its trees and killed squirrels and birds, but it is still exist. I can walk down that street. I can go to that park. And thousands of people can see their hometowns only on Google Maps because there is nothing left of them, only mountains of rubble and smell of explosives and death. And this has been going on for years. Just imagine, for years no one has been able to stop these maniacs, these followers of some strange death cult that does not even have a coherent ideology- just death for the sake of death. I am grateful to the people in other countries who still believe in us and continue to help us. Without you, we would not have been able to hold back this death cult. Without your support, it would have been impossible. Thank you  

Siyabonga Motha speaks to Mbasa Mvenene, Political Studies lecturer at the Walter Sisulu University to unpack Castro’s revolutionary vision, its influence on modern African politics, and what his legacy means for Africa today. Tags: 702, Aubrey Masango show, Aubrey Masango, Bra Aubrey, Africa at a Glance, Siyabonga Motha, Mbasa Mvenene, Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary, Capitalism, Imperialism, Socialism, EFF The Aubrey Masango Show is presented by late night radio broadcaster Aubrey Masango. Aubrey hosts in-depth interviews on controversial political issues and chats to experts offering life advice and guidance in areas of psychology, personal finance and more. All Aubrey’s interviews are podcasted for you to catch-up and listen. Thank you for listening to this podcast from The Aubrey Masango Show. Listen live on weekdays between 20:00 and 24:00 (SA Time) to The Aubrey Masango Show broadcast on 702 https://buff.ly/gk3y0Kj and on CapeTalk between 20:00 and 21:00 (SA Time) https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk Find out more about the show here https://buff.ly/lzyKCv0 and get all the catch-up podcasts https://buff.ly/rT6znsn Subscribe to the 702 and CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/v5mfet Follow us on social media: 702 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702 702 on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702 702 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkradio702/ 702 on X: https://x.com/Radio702 702 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radio702 CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens to eating disorder recovery when the culture around you starts celebrating weight loss again? In this deeply personal solo episode, Dr. Marianne continues sharing her eating disorder recovery story and talks about something that has surprised her: the return of body insecurities during the Age of Ozempic. After recovering from a decades-long history of anorexia, binge eating disorder, orthorexia, and bulimia, she rarely spends much time thinking about her body size. But the rise of Ozempic and other GLP-1 medications like Zepbound and Wegovy has changed the cultural conversation around weight, thinness, and fat bodies. During the height of the body diversity movement, living in a larger body felt different. Plus-size clothing became more visible. Larger bodies appeared in advertising. Conversations about weight stigma, fatphobia, body neutrality, and fat liberation entered the mainstream. Now, many of those gains seem to be disappearing as celebrities become smaller, plus-size departments vanish from stores, and thinness once again becomes something we're expected to pursue. When Eating Disorder Recovery Meets the Age of Ozempic Dr. Marianne shares what it's like to encounter old eating disorder and body image thoughts after years of recovery. Sometimes those thoughts arrive unexpectedly: Look at that celebrity. They did it. Why can't I? Having that thought doesn't mean eating disorder recovery has failed. Recovery doesn't necessarily erase decades of conditioning around weight and body size. Instead, it can help us recognize internalized weight bias when it resurfaces and decide whether we want to listen to it. Dr. Marianne also discusses an important distinction: wanting a smaller body isn't necessarily the same thing as wanting relief from anti-fat bias. Sometimes the thought, Life would be easier if I were thinner, reflects a painful reality about how fat people are treated rather than a genuine desire to change one's body. The World Is Getting Smaller for Fat People Anti-fat bias doesn't exist only in our thoughts. It shows up in the physical world. Plus-size clothing departments have disappeared from many stores, forcing people in larger bodies to shop online. Airplane seats continue to create accessibility barriers for larger passengers. Cars, restaurant booths, waiting-room chairs, theaters, and other public spaces frequently fail to accommodate body diversity. The message can become impossible to ignore: if the world won't make more space for you, you're expected to make yourself smaller. Dr. Marianne explores the mental health toll of repeatedly navigating environments that weren't designed for your body. Constantly wondering whether a seat will fit, whether a store carries your size, or whether a healthcare provider will blame your symptoms on weight creates an enormous cognitive and emotional burden. Defending the Right to Be Fat Dr. Marianne shares a recent dream in which she found herself defending her fatness to another person. When she woke up, she realized how closely the dream reflected the experience of living in a larger body today. Fat people often have to defend their right to exist without pursuing intentional weight loss. They may have to advocate for appropriate healthcare, accessible seating, clothing, travel accommodations, and the basic right to occupy space without apology. That emotional labor takes energy. For neurodivergent people, the burden can become even greater. Autistic people and ADHDers may already expend significant energy navigating sensory needs, executive functioning, uncertainty, masking, and environments that weren't designed for neurodivergent nervous systems. When neurodivergence intersects with anti-fat bias and other forms of marginalization, the cumulative mental health toll can become significant. Internalized Weight Bias Doesn't Mean You've Failed at Recovery Eating disorder recovery happens in the real world, not in a protected bubble. You can appreciate your body and still feel hurt by weight stigma. You can reject diet culture and feel grief when plus-size clothing disappears. You can practice fat acceptance and still have moments when you wonder whether life would be easier in a smaller body. Those experiences don't erase recovery. Sometimes what looks like body dissatisfaction is actually grief, anger, exhaustion, or a desire to move through the world without constantly having to advocate for your right to belong. Dr. Marianne shares the question that helps her separate internalized weight bias from her own values: Do I actually want a different body, or do I want a different world? Related Episodes How a Part of Me Wanted to Take a Weight-Loss Drug on Apple & Spotify. My Eating Disorder Recovery Story on Apple & Spotify. Finding Liberation-Focused Eating Disorder Support If the Age of Ozempic has stirred up old body image struggles, eating disorder thoughts, or internalized weight bias, you don't have to navigate those experiences alone. Finding an eating disorder therapist or provider who understands weight stigma can make a profound difference. Liberation-focused, trauma-informed, neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder treatment can create space to examine these experiences without making weight loss the goal. If you'd like to work with Dr. Marianne, she provides eating disorder therapy in California for adolescents and adults navigating anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, body image concerns, and neurodivergence. If you live elsewhere, Dr. Marianne also offers consultations and coaching for individuals, families, and professionals. Learn more about working with Dr. Marianne at drmariannemiller.com.

By sharing her personal story and painful family history, today's guest, Margaret Seidler, takes us along on a journey with her, a journey of discovery, of reckoning, and ultimately, of liberation. Along the way, we are reminded of the ability for story and art to connect us, to open our hearts and minds, and to help us find a different way into difficult discussions.  Find a full transcript and show notes HERE. Sign up for our newsletter and join us at The Inclusive Community to discover conversations, insights, and practices to encourage and support each of us working to build a more inclusive and equitable community. If you would like to help continue and grow our work, please visit our Support Us page. 

You're about to hear a conversation about leadership. Today's guest, Dr. Annmarie Caño, is an expert in leadership. Dr. Caño draws on her 25-year career in higher education — and her love of Ignatian spirituality — in her work today as a writer, speaker and executive coach who helps higher education and social impact leaders enact personal and systemic change. She draws heavily on liberation theology, liberation psychology and the legacy of the Salvadoran martyrs in her work and her personal reflections. And she has a wonderful new book from Johns Hopkins University Press called “Leading Toward Liberation: How to Build Cultures of Thriving in Higher Education.” But what today's host, Eric Clayton, continues to find so compelling about his conversation with Annmarie is the fact of where they met: She attended a conference that the Jesuit Media Lab co-hosted on the Catholic imagination and speculative storying. Why? It wasn't because she's a burgeoning fantasy author — though they do talk a bit about Tolkien in today's conversation. No — she attended that conference because she sees as foundational to her mission the work of bringing to life un otro mundo posible — or an “other” possible world. Quite literally, Dr. Caño is thinking about leadership as the creation of other realities, other ways of living, and she is concerned about ensuring that everyone — particularly those often forgotten by society — have a seat at the table. As much as Eric loves talking about Middle-earth and Narnia, he was even more excited to get to talk about what it might look like to build new worlds in our actual, real lives — and to consider the real people that can helped in so doing. Pick up a copy of “Leading Toward Liberation:” https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53804/leading-toward-liberation Visit Annmarie's website: www.annmariecano.com Find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annmarie-cano/ Annmarie references a book by Liz O'Donnell Gandolfo and Laurel Marshall Potter, “Re-Membering the Reign of God: The Decolonial Witness of El Salvador's Church of the Poor;” get a copy here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/remembering-the-reign-of-god-9781793618979/

What does it truly mean to practice ecotherapy? In this episode Will welcomes ecotherapist and founder of Natureza Therapy and Natureza Coaching Collective, Laura Marques Brown, for a thought-provoking conversation about the evolving field of nature-based mental health. Laura shares her journey as the daughter of Brazilian immigrants, how her search for belonging led her into the mountains of Colorado and graduate training at Naropa University, and why she believes nature became the one place where she never had to hide who she was. Together, they explore the foundations of her work in decolonized ecotherapy, her framework of Land, Lineage, and Liberation, and how reconnecting with the natural world can help people heal trauma, restore belonging, and rediscover their relationship with the living world. The conversation also examines some of today's biggest challenges facing therapists and mental health professionals, including burnout, the mental health impacts of climate change and social instability, and what Laura describes as our current polycrisis. She explains why nature should be understood as a relationship rather than resource, discusses building sustainable private practices that support both clinicians and clients, and offers practical ways anyone can begin reconnecting with the outdoors. Whether you're a therapist interested in ecotherapy training, a mental health professional seeking a more holistic approach to healing, or someone curious about the intersection of psychology, nature, mindfulness, and environmental wellbeing, this episode offers a compelling vision for the future of nature-based therapy and mental health. This podcast is supported by the White Mountain Adventure Institute (WMAI.org), where Dr. Will White helps individuals, leaders, and organizations navigate growth, change, and life transitions through coaching, consulting, and retreats.   Guest information:  Laura's Website: https://naturezacoachingcollective.com/ *People can book a free discovery call if they are interested in her programs and ready for change  Instagram: naturezacoachingcollective  Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/rootedpractitionercollective *free resources, trainings and community of liberated therapists!   

Using the teachings of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Mary reflects on awareness, and how we find it in our lives. Recorded August 6, 2026 in the virtual worldSend me a text with any questions or comments! Include your name and email if you would like a response - it's not included automatically. Thanks.Visit Mary's website for more info on classes and teachings.

My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Cinda Gault, author of the book Everything I Hope For. Cinda has demonstrated an enduring interest in women's lives. An undergraduate degree in Psychology led to her founding an agency to help victims of domestic violence. She followed up a stint as a prison guard with an M.A. in Criminology focused on domestic violence. Inspired to become a writer and learn about the literary tradition she wanted to join, she completed a doctoral dissertation on Canadian women's writing during the “identity years” of 1965-1980.   In 1988, she published her first novel as a Harlequin Superromance set in Guelph. Her first historical novel, This Godforsaken Place, was published in 2015. In between these novels, she won third prize in an international short story contest, earned a Ph.D. in English, and raised two sons. In 2023, she published A Small Compass, welcomed two granddaughters, and has a new novel, Everything I Hope For, set in the 1970s.   In my book review, I stated Everything I Hope For is a young adult late 20th century historical fiction by Cinda Gault. Although it is difficult for me to believe that 1970s is now historical, Cinda does an excellent job thrusting us into the world of Jesus Freaks and hippies.   In this coming of age story, we meet Belinda who is a senior in high school who has always been a good student and honest with her parents - especially her open-minded mother. But as her parents' relationship disintegrates and Belinda begins dating, everything she thought to be true about her relationship with her mother turns upside down. At seventeen, she finds herself on her own and making adult choices she's not quite ready to make.   We watch as she navigates familial bonds, romance, lust, friendship, higher education, finding a job, and true love. Throughout it all, Belinda is simply hoping to find what she's always wanted - to be accepted for who she is and to be allowed to grow and become.   I enjoyed this book and think you will too!   Subscribe to Online for Authors to learn about more great books! https://www.youtube.com/@onlineforauthors?sub_confirmation=1   You can follow Author Cinda Gault Website: www.cindagault.com FB: @Cinda Gault IG: @gaultcinda LinkedIn: @Cinda Gault X: CindaGault   Purchase Everything I Hope For on Amazon: Ebook: https://amzn.to/4xagglK   Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor IG: @terimbrown_author X: @terimbrown1   Want to be a guest on Online for Authors? Send Teri M Brown a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/member/onlineforauthors   #cindagault #everythingihopefor #YAfiction #historicalfiction #terimbrownauthor #authorpodcast #onlineforauthors #characterdriven #researchjunkie #awardwinningauthor #podcasthost #podcast #readerpodcast #bookpodcast #writerpodcast #author #books #goodreads #bookclub #fiction #writer #bookreview *As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

In This Episode: Honoring the Pause: Opening with a moment of silence to ground ourselves in breath, ancestral wisdom, and intentionality before diving into today's conversation. Opening Prayer We pause to honor the breath that sustains us and the silence that clears the way. We step into this space rooted in ancient wisdom, shielded against distraction, and undisturbed in our purpose. As we open these pages and engage these ideas, grant us the clarity to discern signal from static. May the words we explore serve as tools for liberation, strengthening our minds, nourishing our bodies, and fortifying our community. We give thanks for the privilege of focus, the wealth of knowledge, and the sanctuary of this circle. Rooted. Shielded. Undisturbed. Amen.   Grief, Joy & Creation: A personal reflection on navigating deep loss—grieving the passing of Ethel and my mother—while wrestling with imposter syndrome, finding solace in music, and celebrating life's small wins. The whitewashing of The Handmaid's Tale: A critical breakdown of how Gilead's post-racial casting erases the historical, racialized nature of reproductive control. We explore how white feminist dystopian tropes flatten intersectionality by repackaging the real-world historical oppressions of Black and Indigenous women into a speculative warning for white women. Literary Sovereignty & Counter-Narratives: Shifting the focus to works that center true resilience—examining Octavia Butler's speculative genius and Louise Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God as living records of Indigenous sovereignty and Black survival. Reclaiming the Archive: Why we must control our own narratives rather than relying on white savior tropes, highlighting institutions like the NMAAHC and NMAI that preserve real-world history over fictional panic. Perimeter Defense & Modern Vigilance: Drawing parallels between military readiness and civilian life—protecting our minds, digital spaces, and communities from scams, educational exploitation, and modern trickery through strict boundaries and active situational awareness. Pop Culture Round-Up: Quick takes on the latest season of Real Housewives of Orange County, the messy execution of Ladies of OC, why Carlos King's commentary remains elite, and a quick sports stat correction on William Jackson III's roster status with the Steelers. Resources & Mentions: Books: Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich; speculative works by Octavia Butler. Cultural Institutions: National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). What are your thoughts on this week's discussion? Drop a comment or reach out—we'd love to hear how these themes resonate with you. Explore our Roast-to-Order Subscriptions: www.fbroasters.com Connect with us on Instagram: @tnfroisreading Follow our creator journey: https://linktr.ee/tnfroisreading   #CoffeeSubscription #RoastToOrder #SpecialtyCoffee #HomeBrewing #SmallBatchCoffee #CoffeeLover #CreatorAuthenticity #EthicalSourcing

In Session 335 of In Class With Carr, we continue Black August during our annual study tour of Kemet [Ancient Egypt] and the Nile Valley. Following pathways of liberatory intellectual work of previous generations of Africans engaged in Global Black Study helps us to resist current efforts to disrupt deeper collective study as well as to attempt to privatize and commodify broad access to information. Studying Kemet is a foundational element of the broader work of liberating Black people and all humanity from all forms of oppression.Are you a member of Knarrative? If not, we invite you to join our community today by signing up at: https://www.knarrative.com. As a Knarrative subscriber, you'll gain immediate access to Knubia, our growing community of teachers, learners, thinkers, doers, artists, and creators. Together, we're making a generational commitment to our collective interests, work, and responsibilities. Join us at https://www.knarrative.com and download the Knubia app through your app store or by visiting https://community.knarrative.com.To shop Go to:TheGlobalMajorityMore from us:Follow on X: https://x.com/knarrative_https://x.com/inclasswithcarrFollow on Instagram IG / knarrative IG/ inclasswithcarr Follow Dr. Carr: https://www.drgregcarr.comhttps://x.com/AfricanaCarrFollow Karen Hunter: https://karenhuntershow.comhttps://x.com/karenhunter IG / karenhuntershowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kantu (they/he) is the founder and co-owner of the social media presence known as the Angry Autist. Indigenous to the Andes in Abya Yala, Kantu is Quechua and is racialized as a visibly Native person. Kantu is autistic, has dissociative identity disorder (DID) and has experienced psychotic depression. When founding the Angry Autist, it was their goal to bring awareness to their experience as a multiply and visibly disabled, racialized, and medium support needs autistic person. Since then, he has become further radicalized as explicitly anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-saneist, drawing inspiration from the ten principles of disability justice, the CripplePunk movement, Indigenous philosophy, mad liberation, and fat liberation. During this episode, you will hear Kantu talk about: How they discovered they have DID How DID stereotypes affect real-life perceptions of DID How their autism affected their own experience of DID Their experience with psychotic depression symptoms and treatments The meaning and significance of mad liberation To find out more about Kantu and his work, follow them on Threads @angry_autist and Instagram @angry_autist. They can also be reached by email at angryandautistic [at] gmail [dot] com. Other Beyond 6 Seconds episodes about dissociative identity disorder (DID): Amber Louise Ainsworth (episode 194):  beyond6seconds.net/194   Crystals Multifaceted (episode 215):  beyond6seconds.net/215  Support or sponsor this podcast: BuyMeACoffee.com/Beyond6Seconds Watch the video of this interview on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=JVP1yibrlXg Read the episode transcript: carolynkiel.com/podcast/mad-liberation Follow the Beyond 6 Seconds podcast in your favorite podcast player: pod.link/1336740192 Subscribe to the FREE Beyond 6 Seconds newsletter for early access to new episodes: mailchi.mp/f9f6e8356138/insider *Disclaimer: The views, guidance, opinions, and thoughts expressed in Beyond 6 Seconds episodes are solely mine and/or those of my guests, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer or other organizations. These episodes are for informational purposes only and do not substitute for professional medical advice. Consult a medical professional or healthcare provider if you are seeking medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment.*

The 6th Sun is Here! Can you feel it? Can you embrace your Liberty? Can you uncover what has been hidden for a very Long Time? Nature holds so many secrets, secrets that now are being revealed, you are Nature! Time of Liberation! I am you Magdala www.magdalas.com

Sheila Jeffreys - UK/Australia - How Feminists can Oppose Harmful Cultural Practices without being RacistJo Brew & Lierre Keith WDI and WoLF - The Climate Crisis and Transgenderism: Two symptoms, one causeLorraine Nowlin (online) - WDI USA - Women's Liberation Starts Here!♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀Enjoying our webinars? If you are a position to make a one-off or recurring donation to support our work, please donate here: https://donorbox.org/defend-women-s-sex-based-rights-with-wdi♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀Women's Declaration International (#WDI) Feminist Question Time is a weekly online webinar (Saturdays 3-4.30pm UK time). It is attended by a global feminist and activist audience of between 200-300. The main focus is how gender ideology is harming the rights of women and girls. See upcoming speakers and register to attend at https://bit.ly/registerFQT. There is also a monthly AUS/NZ FQT, on the last Saturday of the month at 7pm (Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney)/9pm (NZ). Register to attend at https://bit.ly/registerFQTAUSNZ.On Sundays (10am UK time), our webinar series, Radical Feminist Perspectives, offers a chance to hear leading feminists discuss radical feminist theory and politics. Register at https://bit.ly/registerRFP.Attendance of our live webinars is women-only; men are welcome to watch/share recordings here on YouTube. WDI is the leading global organisation defending women's sex-based rights against the threats posed by gender identity ideology. Find out more at https://womensdeclaration.com, where you can join more than 30,000 people and 418 organisations from 157 countries in signing our Declaration on Women's Sex-based Rights. The Declaration reaffirms the sex-based rights of women which are set out in the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 18 December 1979 (#CEDAW).Disclaimer: Women's Declaration International hosts a range of women from all over the world on Feminist Question Time (FQT), on Radical Feminist Perspectives (RFP) and on webinars hosted by country chapters – all have signed our Declaration or have known histories of feminist activism - but beyond that, we do not know their exact views or activism. WDI does not know in detail what they will say on webinars. The views expressed by speakers in these videos are not necessarily those of WDI and we do not necessarily support views or actions that speakers have expressed or engaged in at other times. As well as the position stated in our Declaration on Women's Sex-based Rights, WDI opposes sexism, racism and anti-semitism. For more information, see our Frequently Asked Questions (https://womensdeclaration.com/en/about/faqs/) or email info@womensdeclaration.com.#feminism #radicalfeminism #womensrights

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Vince Fakhoury Horn speakswith Rima Vesely-Flad about The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde—the silence she found in her own Buddhist community when she began writing about Palestine, Baldwin and Lorde's distinction between hatred that corrodes and rage that comes from the examined life, and the question they keep returning to: how to feel it all without causing more harm.Vince Horn: So, Rima, great to see you.I've been really loving getting to know you as a person and also your work. I've been reading your book. Unfortunately, I also spilled water on my copy, so it is a little... If you see me struggling to flip through the pages, that's ‘cause we had a bit of an accident here. But I've really enjoyed reading your work. Can't wait to get into it with you. Thank you so much for your time.Rima Vesely-Flad: Yeah. Thank you, Vince. It's been great to get to know you, too. We're so close. Amazing. Amazing.Vince Horn: Yes, and it's amazing as adults, we can carve out the time to hang out. So that's sometimes the hardest part. I feel like being in middle age is, like, making time to spend with cool people, so appreciate your time.Rima Vesely-Flad: Me too.Vince Horn: So let's talk about your new book. This is The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. Of course, before reading this book, I was familiar with you and your work. But it really struck me that you were writing in this book, like from the very beginning, you're writing about Palestine and Israel, which is not something I see many Buddhists really writing about or talking about in America.So it stands out just the fact that you're even talking about this subject. And then on top of that, you're bringing to bear these beautiful Dharma teachings and wisdom teachings from the Black tradition of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, bringing them to bear on this topic in the first chapter of the book, which I thought was quite courageous.And I really appreciate it, you know, as someone who has Palestinian family members and people in the West Bank I care about. So just on a personal level, really am grateful that you centered this in your writing. And I thought maybe we could start with that first chapter if you're up for it.Rima Vesely-Flad: Absolutely. It was actually the very last chapter I wrote. I wrote this book of course over several years, but as I was concluding in real time, the genocide was taking place, and I just found myself absolutely in a state of grief and rage and was really politically active around it in ways that I hadn't been in quite some time.Like feeling very pushed to speak out and to contact the Biden administration and representatives, people here in North Carolina who might or might not speak in Congress, and just found that I needed ways to speak out, and this is my community. The people who self-identify as Buddhist claim these traditions, these lineages, these practices, these schools of thought, and yet there was so much silence, and I felt really compelled to speak into that silence. And I know that's something that you feel and understand in a deep way. And then also, I'm not by any stretch the first Black activist or academic or thought leader to make the connections between oppression of people of African descent whose ancestors were enslaved and people who are in a state of survival as their land is being taken in real time. So all of those connections were very present, and yet in the Buddhist world, there was so much silence, so much evasion or even erasure of what's taking place. And it felt like it wasn't separate from my practice, and I had to speak.Even though at the time I hadn't even visited the West Bank. I since have, but at the time I was thinking and writing and observing and feeling from afar.Vince Horn: Yeah. Okay. I didn't realize you'd gone to the West Bank. Wow, we'll have to talk about that sometime. Yeah, there's early on in the book, there's a quote here that's really echoing what you just shared.I thought I'd share this ‘cause it really moved me quite a bit. You said, “I, like many Black Americans, like Southwest Asian and North African Buddhists, observe that violent oppression of Palestinians can never bring safety and security to Jewish Israelis. And as a Buddhist practitioner, it's important for me to speak out against the violence sanctioned by my government, my tax dollars.The policies of the US government do not represent my commitments. I'm horrified by the massacres in Gaza day after day, by the constant terrorizing of Palestinians in the West Bank. I think daily of Baldwin's words, ‘You don't know what's happening on the other side of the wall because you don't want to know.'”Rima Vesely-Flad: Wow. Even just hearing Baldwin's words in that context again, it really brings me chills. And so prescient, right? So prescient in terms of just anticipating how much more extensive... At the time actually that Baldwin visited, there wasn't a formal occupation, although there was theft of land. But this— that was 1961, and then the wall— right now the walls, the checkpoints, the just sheer magnitude of aggression and violence. Like Baldwin anticipated that, and then the myopia in Israel and in the United States.Vince Horn: Yeah. I think at the same time though as I read through your writing on this, I was really also struck that you're really trying to hold multiple realities here at once.You know, both holding the suffering of the Palestinians and the apartheid state that you're describing. At the same time, you have a lot of, as I do, Jewish friends and people that you care about who may not be able to hold that reality in the same way or who are struggling to in some cases. Who...and you treat that with real compassion I think in your writing and in your words. As I try to, you know, my best. And it's, of course, important to differentiate between Jewish identity and Israeli identity, which is often, you know, merged intentionally by the State of Israel.And for many people it's the way they're inculturated. It seems like that was kind of an unconscious merger in a lot of folks' identity. At least I've noticed that with close friends and even students in the last few years where we've had conversations around this. There's been real tension.And anyway, I appreciate that you're holding it with compassion, both realities here, not trying to sort of demonize Israelis or Jewish people. And really being aware of the antisemitism that this whole issue is also bringing about. Or it's... I'm not sure if it's bringing about or giving excuse to people to be bigoted.So I think it's cool the way that you're trying to weave those different things. And I guess I'm curious if you could say a bit about how you're taking that approach or why that's important to you.Rima Vesely-Flad: Yes. I start off the book talking about a relationship I had with a, I would say a mama bear, a mother figure who claimed herself, who self-identified as my godmother, and she was born in France to a very well-known filmmaker who had the opportunity for asylum in the United States, and he and his wife were granted this opportunity to flee, but were told they couldn't take their daughter, who was my godmother Via–Vince Horn: Wow.Rima Vesely-Flad: –was sent to a convent in France. So a Jewish girl sent to a Catholic institution, and she was blamed for the war and has suffered horrific antisemitic abuse. And it scarred her indefinitely. When she came to the United States, she took off the first part of her name, just called herself Via.She died of cancer many years later, and the wounds of that period were still quite evident at the time. I just remember, I have such extraordinary memories of her and what she suffered. And so part of my compassion and empathy, which is real, is that this nation state we call Israel was founded as ostensibly a refuge for people like Via and her parents.And this is a nation state founded upon theft of land. And what it meant practically is that 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their ancestral lands, and they and their descendants still to date live in refugee camps, which I was able to visit when I went to the West Bank. These are no longer tents.They're now concrete buildings, but stacked very high, very crowded, very narrow passages for walking, no play space for children. One of the refugee camps I visited in Bethlehem has an entryway that consists of keys welded into an arc, and these are the keys for return. People still possess the keys to their homes they were driven from 75 years ago. So to recognize the terror that took place during the Holocaust in Europe, and then to recognize the consequent suffering that was inflicted upon Palestinians, I think is not simple. Yes, safety, but one thing Baldwin says that stays with me over and over is that Palestinians should not pay for the sins of Europeans.Europeans committed the genocide, the Holocaust, and Palestinians should not have had to pay for that and should not have been driven from their lands to establish what is supposed to be a state of safety. And yet the atrocities being committed by this government and other governments, not saying that this very right-wing government is the only government that has committed atrocities against Palestinians. To say that this is a state of safety for people whose ancestors were exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust is, I think, to be very myopic, very limited. And part of what I'm trying to wrestle with is such deep confusion, like a deep state of confusion of how, if your ancestors have experienced the Holocaust, could you inflict this upon another peoples?So that's some of what I wrestle with in this first chapter is just like—Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: —what? And I'm not the only one. Like Ta-Nehisi Coates starts off his book talking about the— the book is called The Message. And he starts off his book saying like, “I just don't get it.” And I feel that too. I just don't get it. But then also, I don't understand this claim to sacred land, and that's part of what's happening with the atrocities in the West Bank in real time. And you know, all of us know it has escalated dramatically in the past few weeks.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: Like even worse than when I was there. And when I was there, that's when the farmers during harvest, the Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest were being terrorized.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: Including many Jewish activists, similarly from the United States and from Israel were being terrorized, all of them. Everyone who was in the fields trying to harvest the olives.Vince Horn: Right.Rima Vesely-Flad: That was happening in October, but now it has escalated dramatically in a city called Nablus and its surrounds.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: I actually went to Nablus. That was one of the places we spent some time.Vince Horn: Yeah. That's where my cousin is based. So yes. Oh, yeah. And I've heard that as well from her. So that's, in recent, like week or two, her house was broken into by the IDF and they destroyed one of the walls and were calling out for someone who they have no idea who it is.Yeah. And just, you know, like that's becoming more just kind of more standard. Like that's just happening all over the place. Yeah.Rima Vesely-Flad: It's becoming normalized.Vince Horn: Normalized, yeah, exactly.Rima Vesely-Flad: That aggression. Yes, so much. And one of the things I just sat with when I went, you know, I was in Jerusalem initially.There is coexistence. It's, you know, people are not separate. They are coexisting in real time. And yet, when I went to the West Bank and, you know, it's like I just don't understand. Jewish refugees were given 51% of the land by initially Britain and the United Nations then in 1948, 1947, 1948.Drove out Palestinians from their ancestral villages into refugee camps. Why do they want more? And one of the things I realized is that the West Bank consists or has many holy sites, both for Palestinians who practice Islam and for Jewish peoples who see these sites also as their holy sites. So I was based in a city called Al-Halil, and there's a mosque there that's called the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and that is one of the holy sites also for Jewish practitioners, people who are adherents.They have built settlements on top of Palestinian buildings, especially in the old village. So I saw all of this actually arrive just as there was an incursion of young people from these settlements into the city of Al-Khalil, which is also called Hebron. In any case, that claim to holy space in the sense, the idea, the narrative that God gave it to a certain peoples who are chosen and therefore all of the land is theirs, something I don't understand. And I have some real hatred— with regards to the atrocities taking place. And I feel that part of my practice is to really own that and feel that in my body, and then to work with it in such a way that it doesn't come out and get directed towards people.But I can feel that. And so part of what it means for me to claim these practices, like you, I'm in the Insight Diaspora, so we likely know many of the same practices. But part of it is working effectively with the body so much so that it's not targeted, it doesn't come out in random ways and cause further harm.But it's a hard practice, and some of what you see in that chapter or read is that muscle being flexed of like, how do I feel without it coming out in a way that causes harm? That is part of the wrestling. That is part of the practice.Vince Horn: Yes. And it's one that I noticed, like in my own training, I didn't get a lot of tools for that in the insight tradition because hatred was sort of like something we're trying to transcend or, you know, like notice and then counteract.That was usually the frame around hatred. It wasn't something like you can actually feel this anger and really feel rage. Like although sometimes people would, I think, give lip service to that, it never felt to me like a culture where people were actually doing that.And so I was just sort of repressing all this rage and sort of like carrying on. And now I realize that the wisdom of what you're saying is like, if you repressed all that rage it goes inward, it goes outward. It is not constructive. It's not generative. It's not healing. It's just kind of like a time bomb ticking.Rima Vesely-Flad: Yeah I think that's so wise. It causes anxiety and depression. It needs a place to land, and part of what I think we're meant to do with this work is cultivate that place to land, but do it in a way that's skillful so that we're not creating more harm. And I don't think that... is harmful, but I think it, when it's not effectively worked with, it does come out sideways, and then it can inadvertently or maybe—Vince Horn: Intentionally even.Rima Vesely-Flad: —intentionally create that. But I think part of it also is recognizing it, giving it space to be named—Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: —and legitimizing it. Like, it is a just rage. And hatred— actually Baldwin and Lorde both talk about hatred as corrosive. They talk about how it does actually impact us in ways that are not useful, and it does need to be worked with skillfully.But rage, they both say, comes from the examined life. It comes from legitimate and clear observation of patterns of oppression taking place and experienced in real time. And so that's energy that can be used, that can be directed in fruitful ways. And I think that distinction is really important, and it did inform my own experience of hatred.Of like, “Oh, it's here. How do I work with it in a way that doesn't corrode my spirit or it doesn't corrode relationships that matter to me?”Vince Horn: Yeah. I love what you're saying there. It seems like conflating hatred and rage would be one mistake there, to think like, “Oh, I shouldn't be experiencing this anger or this rage because somehow it's a sign that I'm, like, in this corrosive state of hatred.”But like, oh, it's real, and it's arising in response to something real. Like, I had never seen this quote from James Baldwin about how being a Black American means living with rage all the time everywhere, and that hit me so hard. I'm like, yeah, that's what it feels like as a Palestinian right now. I feel that and have always felt that.I didn't know that's what I was feeling for so many decades. But now that it's out in the open and it's like, oh yeah, like it's just this constant sense of rage at being constantly policed. You know, having your tone of voice policed, your words. Not being able to be a certain kind of emotive or, you know, loud.Like, all these things that are culturally, like what I grew up with. This was like the way that our family was. Like, it's not okay in this larger kind of white culture to display these kinds of things. And so you just like, you gotta tamp it down.Rima Vesely-Flad: And, you know, Foucault would say we learn to police ourselves to discipline ourselves. And I think part of our work then, in terms of recovery, is to name the ways that we self-oppress.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: I would say that's a huge, huge part of my practice, ongoing.Vince Horn: Yes. That makes so much sense because it is, like you're saying, it's internalized.Like, I— yeah, it's like I only need to get a few social signals before I start to realize, ‘cause I'm a socially intelligent being, like we all are. Like, oh, like, this is not okay. And if I continue to do this, there's gonna be kind of repercussions. And I think the bravery and the courage to do it anyway, and to deal with those repercussions, like, that seems to be where your work lives here, and it's a hard place to live.Rima Vesely-Flad: It is hard, yes. I mean, one of the things I also talk about in this book more broadly is that I grew up in a family where I wasn't wanted. My birth was not welcome, and that was something I knew from a very early age. So I learned to adapt. I learned all of these ways of trying to be wanted, trying to be claimed, being exceptional.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: So the idea that I would self-exile is, like, anathema. And that's where I start talking. And part of the way I use Audre Lorde's work in this first chapter in particular is to say, she calls us out, saying, “We must speak remembering we were never meant to survive.” But for me to speak in ways that might be confrontational or perceived as offensive is a very hard edge.But to self-silence is also to betray myself and my people. And that's the edge, right? To speak and to risk exile for someone like me, who has been exiled just because of the way I appeared in the world with dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, curly hair. And then also to adapt in so many ways that I recognize a level of self-betrayal or a betrayal of the people to whom I'm accountable.And I do consider my people are people of African descent who have been oppressed because of their embodiment in this particular context, which has shunned people of African descent as unworthy, as less intelligent. Has seen a kind of embodiment as inferior. We come up against that. I came up against that in my own family.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: It's a hard edge, and I think part of the work is to actually not be so alone, to find our people, to find people with whom we feel mirrored. That's also hard work, but it has come over time. I have found community, and that matters. And I think part of this work of sangha, which I think in our lineage is not so prioritized—Vince Horn: Right.Rima Vesely-Flad: —but if we take it on intentionally, we can truly honor it as one of the three jewels. Part of our work is really investing in sangha, even when it feels scary or even when it feels like, wow, I have to be held accountable for things that I say that might actually really harm somebody else. But to keep doing that work and to ask for that feedback and that accountability.Vince Horn: Yeah, that strikes me as so true, and I understand why sangha isn't prioritized when you have such an individualistic kind of culture of, you know, meditative achievement and self-work. It's like, oh yeah, well, of course if we're all just focusing on ourselves together, we're not gonna be focused on the bonds that connect us.And yeah, I found that to be a limitation really for many years now in that community. And sort of what drove me to like explore relational practices and other things that felt like they kind of help soften those boundaries and begin to kind of get a felt sense for like what interbeing feels like in real time.It's like this is what it actually is like to be connected to someone or to disconnect or to lose myself in someone else's perspective. I guess I wanted to honor too that like you're talking about all the reasons that one could not speak out even if there's injustice and one wants to speak out on behalf of people they care about and are identified with.That on top of the racial dimension of this, there's also imagine the gendered dimension of this for you as well. Like I see with my wife and other women I know who are raised in a more kind of gendered female way. Like it's just speaking up in general is hard to do. Or it's not something that's encouraged or, you know, people don't have...they're not offered that same level of training often when they're in a female body. So I guess I'm curious like is that also part of what you've had to work with in addition to the racial dimension of this?Rima Vesely-Flad: That's a really good question. I think initially, yes.Like, I was raised to watch and serve and people please. And that's how I got my goods, as my therapist would say. Like, I felt wanted when I—Vince Horn: Right.Rima Vesely-Flad: —gave people what they wanted, and I think that is a very, very gendered experience. I cleaned the house at an early age. I took care of my younger brother.I was with a single mother who worked a lot, so I held things together in the family home. And yes, I think that is a highly gendered experience that I've carried into adulthood. I think I have patterns that I'm still trying to work with around serving and adapting, people pleasing and what have you.I do also feel like there's some corrective, if you will, by becoming an academic. I think in my line of work, having jumped through a thousand hoops, I did three master's degrees, I did a PhD, I learned how to cite research and ask questions and back up and demonstrate. You see it in this book, right?Actually, the book initially was an academic book where I just took on Baldwin and Lorde and tried to show how they illuminate these incredibly important and timeless teachings that we now associate with Buddhism or call Buddhist. And I had a friend and a mentor, Ruth King, say, “Actually, we need your practice in this book.We need this to not just be through the third person, but we actually need your voice in this book,” which was really important and also incredibly hard. But part of why I felt I could take it on is that I was in a world in which I was expected to speak and facilitate, and I think there was a training not necessarily in the broader environment to which you're pointing, but in an academic environment where standing up and giving a talk or a lecture or doing Q&A on the spot was something I learned how to do.So in that way, I think there's more of a sense of, oh, I have this. I can do this. And that feels more, I would say, naturalized, for lack of a better word, just because it's been two decades of doing this so explicitly. And I've loved the academy, you know, being with people who read thick books.And I'm the kind of person, I'll walk into a store and I'll look at the endnotes before I look at the introduction, just ‘cause I wanna know who's cited and, you know, what research are they relying on? And like, who has informed this work? That matters to me even more so than the title or even the introduction.I wanna just know who, what school of thought is this author drawing upon. And I love being with people who also operate in that way. And I have this funny story of being a consultant for a book project for a friend of mine, and we were all taken out to Portland. It was my first time in Portland, and you know, beautiful city.And we hung out and talked and conversed and worked through these chapters, and then we sat in the hot tub and discussed Foucault. And, you know, it's just so, for me, natural to be in an environment where something like that is really fun. And that is, I think, a part of learning how to speak. I think the harder part, and this goes back to the gender question, is having been a Black girl in a white family and trying to figure out how to survive in such hostility.So yes, I do think that's both racialized and gendered kind of experience.Vince Horn: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, makes sense. I hadn't considered the training in academia would be such a sharp training. But it makes sense, yeah, that you'd sort of be expected to be able to receive critique and offer it and speak and debate.Yeah, that... I could see that both being kind of traumatizing and a very good training at the same time.Yeah. I appreciate it so much that you did bring your story into this book as well, because I feel like at least for me as a reader, it gives me something personally to connect with where I can sort of see, like, how the universal becomes personal, you know, in a way. Where it's like all these things that you're describing, and Baldwin and Lorde are describing, like, they make sense to me and I understand it.But then when you describe, you know, your experience of coming up with your grandparents and the specific ways, like not having your picture hanging up with the rest of your cousins, for instance. Like, that specific experience and the way that you shared it just made... It made all of the abstract universal stuff real for me in a way, you know, that I think it sticks with me, and it's like it lands in my heart, you know, in a way that is transformative.So I suspect that's probably true for others as well. So thank you for sharing that.Rima Vesely-Flad: Yeah, I would say that was hard in a way that academic citations and reading for ideas, making arguments is not so hard. Like, it actually comes very naturally. But the harder work of communicating the harm that was done and how I received it, and certainly because I was raised knowing them, my grandparents' rejection of me based on my skin color in particular was, it was deeply traumatizing, and I still work with some of my patterns of adapting, ways that still do not serve me.And then too, and this is something I'm more present with, is my experience of being abandoned by my father. Actually, yesterday was his birthday, August 2nd, also James Baldwin's birthday, and I found myself honoring James Baldwin, and having a really hard time honoring my father, who I had not seen at the time that he passed away for more than 40 years. And I also feel that, and the disconnection not just from him, but also my lineage. And a big part of this book is actually not attempting to reconcile with my grandparents or the members of my family that are still very overtly racist, and there are many, but actually to find my father's people and to cultivate a sense of lineage and belonging through my father's people who came from the Mississippi Delta.My grandmother moved north during the Great Migration, and I am in touch with those family members who descended from her. She's now deceased, but, and my father is also deceased. But to have some sense of connection and being claimed, to have visited the graves of my great-grandparents, in a certain way it's not full circle, but it is a sense of return, and by that I mean return to ancestors, biological ancestors who I now know the names of and have a place to go and now developing relationships with in terms of a broader family system. And those are folks who have claimed me.I, about a month ago, maybe just about three weeks ago, got to talk to the matriarch of my father's family, one of, uh, his youngest... Uh, not my father, I'm sorry. My great-grandparents, their lineage. I was able to speak to one of their youngest daughters, my great-aunt who turned 100 last December.Vince Horn: Wow.Rima Vesely-Flad: Who's now about 100 and a half, and I just think, wow, how amazing to have met her. That she knows my name, that I had some time with her, that she still wants to speak to me on the phone. That she sees me as a way to connect to her sister, my grandmother, who's, as mentioned, deceased. Sometimes I think that healing process is not attempting to reconcile with the people who have denied or rejected your existence, but to find people who claim you and who want to be part of you.I think that also speaks to this broader political environment. It's not about getting accepted by the people who have ideas of your inferiority. It's not about proving that you are, in fact, worthy of X, Y, and Z, but it's actually about claiming and developing and cultivating your own spaces. And I'll say this in a personal way, not so much about being accepted by a dominant white culture community, as much as cultivating the spaces that do feel supportive, in which I am mirrored.And I feel like both Audre Lorde and James Baldwin were oriented that way as well. Like Audre Lorde was part of the second generation women's movement, and they weren't, like, trying to fit into some stereotype of women. They created their own communities, and they had relationships with one another. She was a self-defined lesbian, and was with a community of women who honored their own sexuality and their gender, and who sought a kind of alternative to the broader dominant culture. I think that is so important. And Baldwin, as a gay man too, was oriented towards honoring his own sexuality and creating communities that essentially I don't want to use the word affirmed in, like, a tidy way, but just said, like, all of you, every part of you is welcome here.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: And so I do think that is incumbent upon us as well, not to look for acceptance, not to be claimed, but rather to invest in communities that we want to be part of.Vince Horn: Yeah. So it's like you're getting your belonging needs met by creating or finding the kind of community that you can be yourself there and not have to be constantly seeking external validation from a culture that's not going to validate you, or probably not for the next few decades at least. Rima Vesely-Flad: We could even say that within our insight lineages.Vince Horn: Yeah, absolutely. I guess that's the need for diasporas is rooted there. You know, finding... I remember the early community of people I hung out with were mostly people that were unabashedly interested in, like, mastering the states and stages of the path, which is a weird thing to say now ‘cause that's not where I am at all.But yeah, it was like a subculture of people who were like, “Yeah, we're really interested in hardcore meditation.” And that wasn't the scene in the insight tradition. It was more like healing and kind of long-term retreat. So yeah, I can absolutely relate to what you're saying. I'm curious to go back a little to the part of the book where you talk about karma.Because this is, I think this is an area where I've always struggled with early Buddhist teachings. And I remember the first class I took at Naropa on the first turning with Judith Simmer-Brown. We really explored karma in depth there, and it became clear to me, like the early Buddhist vision of karma was very individualistic.It was like you are the cause of— it was primarily putting everything back onto the individual. So I thought it was interesting when you're trying to bridge that with collective understanding of karma as well, and seemed like you're trying to hold both the individual and collective perspectives together, like not kind of falling into one or the other.But I always found early Buddhism was like collapsed straight into the individual perspective. So I'm curious, like how do you work with... Is that true from your point of view and from, you know, your scholarship? And like how do you then work with a tradition that seems to be, I don't know, hyper individualistic when there are also deep teachings on interdependence and interbeing you can find in the tradition as well, though I haven't found them as prominently in the early Buddhist tradition.Rima Vesely-Flad: I think that's true. I mean, the sutta that I rely on at the beginning of the chapter, which I can put into the chat if that's helpful, is one of the few that explicitly says, oh, and there are other causes and conditions for suffering, and I actually, I'll read that.Vince Horn: That's cool. So it is there.Rima Vesely-Flad: Yeah. It's, so it's an early Buddhist teaching or sutta, the Moliyasivaka Sutta, and it says, “Bile, phlegm, and also wind.” So our bodies, what's around us, “imbalance and climate too—”Vince Horn: Wow.Rima Vesely-Flad: —”carelessness and assault, with karma result as the eighth.”And it's saying these are all reasons for suffering. But it's true. It's one of the few suttas that explicitly acknowledges causes and conditions as sources of suffering. Where I delve into collective karma is, it's true, I found it less in early Buddhism, more in Mahayana Buddhism, the focus on language actually.The fact that we come of age as very small beings and learn language, and our language is collective. We are learning certain meanings along with certain phrases, and that is collectively formed, and that is a part of our thoughts. That is something that a number of scholars within the Mahayana Buddhist lineage talk about in many very complex texts over actually several centuries.So it is to say that we find that less in early Buddhism, but we do find that, and it's with that analysis in mind that I talk about the fact that we are shaped by the collective, and also that we have agency.Some of the gleanings I have towards how we might employ karma in a very constructive way come from postmodern thinkers who claim Buddhism, but who are also broadly read with thinkers such as Marx, thinkers such as Foucault, and, you know, people who are making connections in ways that, of course, are very far removed from early Buddhism.But one of the things that is drawn out by now a wide range of postmodern Buddhist scholars, so people who both practice Buddhism and are scholars of Buddhist teachings, is that we have agency. We're not simply beholden to actions of the past or even the collective, that we actually can practice and cultivate our thoughts, cultivate our words, cultivate our actions in a way that allows us to break free of patterns that are harmful or do not serve us. So that's where I go with that chapter on karma.Vince Horn: Yeah.Rima Vesely-Flad: Wanting to say we inherit so much, and we do. We inherit language. We also inherit culture. We inherit ways of thinking, and it's hard to see that because we swim in the waters even as we are inheriting them, yet there is some capacity for agency.Vince Horn: Yes.Rima Vesely-Flad: And that is what we can do. And maybe that's the emphasis in early Buddhism, is that we can work on our minds. We can free our minds from these oppressive patterns.Vince Horn: Yes. Yeah, and that makes so much sense in the context of, like, Indian caste system and the emergence of this, like, other way of living that's kind of outside of that caste system.I mean, it seems like such a powerful move to claim agency when you're in a culture that's, like, so determined by birth and status.Rima Vesely-Flad: Yes.Vince Horn: And then now, but in 21st century America, it feels like in some ways that view prevents moving forward to me with some of the deep learnings that the postmodern theorists have offered us over the last decades, you know, around the way that power gets calcified and ossified in systems, you know, that we're embedded in, in cultures that we are raised in.You know, having grown up here in the rural South, you know, this is a lot of what I've reflected on when it's come to reading works like yours and looking at racialization. Is like how I can't separate myself out from the place that I came up in. And I can see even with a Palestinian mixed racial household, like I was in a sea of white Southern Baptist Christians mostly.And, like, it had a huge effect on the way I talked and the things I thought were acceptable to say or to think. And, you know, I can even see the ways that I was always... I was trying to bridge the gaps with folks who are different because my grandfather moved into the part of town where the only Black folks in the entire county lived.There were two students in my high school who were Black. They were both... We rode on the bus together. I was quite close friends with one person. And it's like growing up in the small little mini minority space I remember trying to make connections with folks and sometimes just like really messing up and not because of that inculturation.I remember one time I wanted to share this story, which I've never shared before. Which I think it... I want to meet you in your vulnerability here because you shared so much in the book. But I remember a friend of mine had a friend over, young Black girl, and she was, I forget her name, but she came over.We were hanging out and getting to know each other. And I remember this thing that I said to her as a... Really, my intention was to try to connect. And I said, sometimes me and my family, we're also called “sand,” and then I used the N word. And this was my— and I said it totally smiling, you know, like really assuming this would bridge some gap between us, and that she would see, like, I'm like her.But the impact that it had was totally the opposite. You know, it's like, it really bothered her. She was crying later. My friends were like, “What the heck is wrong with you? Why did you say that?” And I was like, oh my gosh. And it was just such a rude awakening to the reality of race, and I could see that even as an older adult, you know, asking people where they're from to try to connect, when I appear as white, has this impact of really causing people to feel paranoid or feel like I'm coming at them in a way that's racially biased.You know, where I'm trying to, like, figure out where they're from ‘cause they're not from around here, you know, and stuff like that. And I could see how even being well-intentioned when you're trying to connect across difference, it's very easy to, because of ignorance, to really harm people. And I can see that in the community of white Buddhist practitioners, you know, where a lot of very smart and well-intentioned people, as they engage with this work, like, we struggle to figure out how to do that in a way that's not perpetuating harm on a racial basis.It seems safer to just not talk about it sometimes. And I can see that this is a real problem. Like, it prevents learning and it prevents people from being able to kind of see their own conditioning and kind of acknowledge like, oh, this is really ugly. You know, it's really ugly that I thought it was okay to just, like, use that language and that it wouldn't have that kind of impact.Like, I thought for some reason it was neutral.Rima Vesely-Flad: Yeah. Yeah, that, I think that does speak to what we were just talking about with regards to karma and language and how we are socialized, how we inherit so much, and how even a word that has been weaponized with such vitriol and hatred over centuries in real time is still like a brick at the body.Like, it can land and it's almost... Yeah, I could even feel, like your reference to it, just how it landed, ‘cause it's still such a powerful word, and it does point to the fact that we do exist in conditions of such hatred and violence, that we are landed upon all the time, and we have to figure out, like, how to acknowledge that in ways that don't take us under or, frankly, if this is wanted on all sides, create rupture so that there can't be a way forward to acknowledge the weight of what's taken place.And I think for people who have had that hatred— and again, I'm thinking of both Baldwin and Lorde speaking to this with such clarity and self-empathy. For that hatred to be received over and over, especially in early years, but not exclusively in early years, and to have ways to acknowledge it and to come out of it, I think is something that we are all called to do.And to maybe to, and I say this with real tenderness, ‘cause I am still learning and asking for feedback all the time. With some tenderness to, if you notice that something has been, that some harm has taken place, that something has caused rupture, or if you're told that by other people to go in, not with some sense of defensiveness or a sense of needing to explain yourself, or even needing to clarify your intention, but to come in and to say with real humility, “I'm sorry, and I want to know what this is for you, and it matters to me that your inner being, that your wellbeing is cared for.”That's what matters. And actually, I had a moment a couple of weeks ago, not even quite that long, where I said something quite offensive to a friend of mine, and I noticed. I just— you know, noticed by reading facial expressions, and this is part of our work too, right? To observe. And so I asked, and was able to receive some feedback and to really hear it.And I think something that I struggle with, and I imagine for you, Vince, this is real as well, is we both are parenting young kiddos. You have an 11-year-old, I have a 10-year-old, about to be 11. We are really busy. We're running households, and I think some of what I come up against in my own work is, where is the time to do that inner work of reflecting, processing, synthesizing how we might have created harm, returning to the relationship?Like, where is the time to really do that? And that is something I'm sitting with, is if I have said something or not said something and it has created harm, where is the space to process that? And so this practice of sitting every day, of taking refuge, creating a kind of consistent place to land every day, I think that is some of the work as well, is to have a place where we can receive ourselves and how we are working with that harm that we have imputed upon someone else.And that's a big part of the practice as well for me, is just to create that level of consistency. And to feel into that remorse, to feel into that regret, to feel how it lands with us, and to hope that we might be able to convey that and to be received. And we don't always know. We can put ourselves out there.We may not be received, but just to have that sincerity of approach and to not make it about us, but to really focus on how it has landed for the other person, and then in our own practice to do our work. I think that, for me anyway, has been a way forward. Not that I could write a rule book or some set of instructions. I would not say that. But, you know, I take real guidance from Audre Lorde who said, like, “It's on me to see my heel print on another woman's face.” I have to do my own work even if I do self-identify as someone who has had that level of systemic and interpersonal harm coming at me.I'm also in a place where I can oppress other people. I'm doing real harm for other people. And it's not one or the other. It's not simplistic, but it involves a level, I think, of spiritual and emotional maturity to really see that for ourselves and to be open to whatever has arisen and whatever harm has been done, and then to be accountable, to put ourselves in a position of being accountable to a group or to another person it is really hard work. Really very hard work.Vince Horn: Yeah. Yeah. At the same time, I mean, I can see that's the only way to gain in wisdom is to be able to do that work and then be like, “Oh, yeah, now I know better. You know, I know a little better how to engage or be with folks in a way that's not gonna cause as much harm.It's going to, you know, support others.” So yeah, thank you for talking to me today and for exploring this with us here in the Insight Diaspora. I wanted to mention, too, that you're very generously offering up sort of in-depth content around this for sanghas and other communities and leaders that are kind of interested in bringing this work into their communities.I don't know if you wanted to mention that for those that are listening and might want to reach out to you and explore that.Rima Vesely-Flad: Oh, yes. And I can put... I have a couple of things I want to put in the chat, but I can put my website in, and the bottom of the page are these offerings. Yeah, so—Vince Horn: Please.Rima Vesely-Flad: I have recorded a number of Dharma talks, eight Dharma talks with two practices based on the book. And the hope is that this is a self-guided course, but the hope is that people can both listen and then practice. And the hope is in community that actually that can happen. And still trying to figure out exactly how to essentially package all of that.But at the moment, people can register for a self-guided course and listen to Dharma talks, some of which come from the book and are somewhat expanded, and some of which come from other work I've done. So there's one called The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, and then there are three that will be offered live with a good friend of mine, Rashid Hughes, who has put together a practice he refers to as rest.He is a lovely human. He's done restorative justice work for a long time. He also has a Master of Divinity degree and leads a sangha in DC. And so Rashid will offer practice spaces live, and I will record Dharma talks. The next one is called Buddhism and Black Liberation. That comes from a book I published in 2022.And then there will be one offered in January called The Discipline of Liberation, and I think that's my next project. I'm just starting to get my head around it, but it's informed and guided by the writings of bell hooks.And then there will be one that actually points to exactly what we were just talking about with regards to harm and conflict and how to work with it internally and how to be in community, and I think a lot of us don't have that training, and I'm still someone, even now, who if I receive something in a hard way, I will go to my cushion before I'll go to another person.And maybe that's okay, except if I don't ever get off the cushion and go to that person, that's not okay. So really trying to, this is in real time, also trying to learn, like, how to have these harder conversations and do repair. That's really what I'm pointing to, how to do repair effectively so that there isn't only rupture, but there's a relationship that's sustained. So there will be one self-guided course. It will open in about a month on Tuesday, September 1st, and then three live classes with my friend Rashid, and starting in October, and then in 2027, two classes. And my hope is that we start to create some spaces that are trainings and also collective spaces where we can be guided, especially by, in my case, I'm thinking of Black thinkers, although always in conversation with other lineages, but really wanting to bring the wisdom of Black thinkers to the center of Dharma practice.Vince Horn: Yeah.Rima Vesely-Flad: Palestinian voices as well. I am really invested in that, too. And a friend, Kareem Gandoor, refers to Palestinian dharma, and I think, yes, that really resonates with me.Vince Horn: So yeah, Kareem. I know Kareem. Good stuff. Yeah, I've recently just connected with Mohsen Mawdawi, who is the president of Buddhist Association at Columbia.I think— didn't you do your grad work at Columbia?Rima Vesely-Flad: I did one of those degrees there. Uh-huh. In the same program he was in, yeah.Vince Horn: Uh-huh. Yeah. And it's been so nice to connect with fellow Palestinian Buddhists. All five of us are now connected. So I feel a lot of solidarity with the work that you're doing, and the way that you're centering the wisdom of Black teachers in the Buddhist lineage, bringing that to bear.So thank you so much for that work. I hope you continue doing it for a long time.Rima Vesely-Flad: Well, thank you. It does feel like the right work, and I feel so grateful to be able to do it long term. I mean, that's I think where I'm going here. Actually, being able to work... I'm gonna put my website into the chat.Being able to organize some of these classes is an attempt to make this work more sustainable, in addition to being like it both informs the next project and is an outgrowth of the current project. Get full access to Buddhist Geeks at www.buddhistgeeks.org/subscribe

The role and impact of corporate power and monopoly power in this country on the economy and on marginalized communities has been significant. Listen as Aaron and Damien discuss the piece “How We Beat Corporate Power Before”, featuring a conversation between Adem Sengal, Ron Knox, and Candace Milner in The Forge (in collaboration with Liberation in a Generation), which explores and analyzes the history of corporate power and monopoly power and how marginalized communities have resisted and organized against corporate power and for economic and social justice in various ways, and what we learn and take away from this incredible piece and conversation in our continued learning and unlearning work and fight for collective liberation. (This is our third episode this year discussing The Forge's Corporate Power series. Check out our “Challenging Corporate Power” and “Disastrous Housing Policy” episodes wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.)Follow us on social media and visit our website! ⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Threads⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Leave us a voice message⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Sati, or mindfulness is foundational to our practice and necessary for liberation. In this talk Mary discusses what mindfulness is and the Buddha's teaching on how we cultivate this vital practice and move towards awakening.Recorded August 1, 2026 in the virtual worldBooks mentioned: The Satipatthana Sutta by Bhikkhu AnalayoMindfulness by Joseph GoldsteinThe Noble Eightfold Path by Bhikkhu BodhiSend me a text with any questions or comments! Include your name and email if you would like a response - it's not included automatically. Thanks.Visit Mary's website for more info on classes and teachings.

On this episode of Africa Today, host Walter Turner speaks with Sónia Vaz Borges about the legacy of Amílcar Cabral and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. They explore how liberation schools in Guinea-Bissau used education, political consciousness, and community organizing as vital tools in the struggle against Portuguese colonial rule, and what those lessons continue to offer today. A weekly news program providing information and analysis about Africa and the African Diaspora, hosted by Walter Turner. The post Amílcar Cabral's Liberation Schools and the Fight to Build a New Guinea-Bissau [ENCORE] appeared first on KPFA.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) How to view and practice with the Hindrances such that they become and aid to Liberation

I was recently on Last Born in the Wilderness, a long-form interview podcast, to discuss how martial arts is represented, how it is taught, how it changes depending on the audience, and the Left and Right's relationship to it. We go far beyond the call to arms and examine what happens when the conversation goes no further than that. For those unfamiliar with my work, it may be unlike any conversation you've heard. Find more at https://www.southpawpod.com/

Discover the 3 illusions that make us see things not as they really are — and how lifting them restores clarity, balance, and connection to the Divine.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “The Three Veils and Seven Imbalances of the Mind” (pages 60–66), focusing on the Three Veils Yeshua reveals as the illusions that keep us in separation, judgment, and stagnation.Before we can dissolve the imbalances of the mind, we have to understand what's underneath them. These Veils shape the way we see reality, and by lifting them, we reclaim clarity, balance, and connection to the Divine.In this episode, we explore each Veil, how it shows up in daily life, and the practices that help dissolve it. This is essential groundwork for moving toward peace and freedom.What You'll Hear in This Episode* The deeper origin of the Seven Imbalances of the Mind* How the Veil of Separation creates shame, fear, and isolation* How the Veil of Polarity fuels judgment and emotional swings* How the Veil of Complacency keeps you stuck in avoidance* Practical ways to lift each Veil and restore inner balanceContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 3 — The Seven Imbalances of the Mind, which lays out the imbalances these Veils give rise to. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“By lifting the Veils, we reclaim clarity, balance, and connection to the Divine.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Discover the four energies of peace within the Sacred Heart — and how Simplicity, Stability, Surrender, and Stillness can bring lasting peace.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “The Chambers of the Sacred Heart” (pages 67–76), exploring the four energies that make up the Sacred Heart and how each one can transform your daily life.What if peace wasn't something you had to search for, but something you could embody every day? In The Freedom Transmissions, Yeshua teaches that the Sacred Heart is the gateway to your divine self — the place where peace, balance, and freedom begin. It's the bridge between the horizontal (our every day life) and the vertical (spirit, the divine).In this episode, we explore Simplicity, Stability, Surrender, and Stillness — the four energies of the Sacred Heart. These energies already live within you; your role is to illuminate and embody them.What You'll Hear in This Episode* What the Sacred Heart is — and why it's the foundation for spiritual peace* How Simplicity clears chaos and restores inner ease* Why Stability is essential for embodying the Divine* The deeper meaning of true Surrender (and how it's different from passivity)* How Stillness opens the doorway to Divine Grace* Practices to integrate these energies into your choices, relationships, and daily rhythmContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 4 — The Three Veils and Seven Imbalances of the Mind, Part 2, which lays out the illusions we're working to lift. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“The Sacred Heart is the gateway to your divine self — the place where peace, balance, and freedom begin.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection..If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Learn how to unstitch from fear and distortion — and reweave your life with the threads of love, presence, and truth.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “The Thread and Stitching of the Dreaming” (pages 81–96), exploring how we are woven into the Web of Life, and the threads we choose each day shape our reality.What are you “stitched” to — fear, imbalance, and distortion, or love, presence, and truth? In The Freedom Transmissions, Yeshua teaches that we are all woven into the Web of Life, and the threads (people, work, conversations, news, stories and beliefs…) we choose each day shape our reality.In this episode, we step into Part 2 of the book (The Freedom Transmissions) and explore how to identify the frequencies you're connected to, how to unstitch from patterns that drain your light, and how to reweave your life to align with your true essence.What You'll Hear in This Episode* How your soul is woven into your body through DNA, chakras, and spirit* The Web of Life — and what disconnection does to our energy* The truth about what we take with us after death* How to spot when you're stitched to distortion and imbalance* Practices to raise your vibration and reweave toward love and alignmentContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 5 — The Chambers of the Sacred Heart, which lays out the four energies of the Sacred Heart. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“The threads we choose each day shape our reality.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Learn how to separate what serves your soul from what holds you back — and reweave your life with purpose, peace, and clarity.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers the second half of “The Thread and Stitching of the Dreaming” (pages 96–106), deepening our understanding of how we're woven into the Web of Life and how to separate what aligns with our soul from what no longer serves.This is about releasing what no longer serves you. We revisit the importance of discerning what we're energetically “stitched” to, and explore Yeshua's teaching on the wheat (soul) and the chaff (ego identity). You'll learn how to release old attachments, honor grief as a sacred energy, and recommit to your spiritual evolution.What You'll Hear in This Episode* The wheat and the chaff — and how each shapes your reality* How to unstitch from fear, shame, and imbalance* Why grief is a sacred part of transformation* The difference between serving from the soul vs. the ego* The “one stitch” that matters most — your sacred heartContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 6 — The Thread and Stitching of the Dreaming, Part 1, which introduces the Web of Life and what we're stitched to. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“The one stitch that matters most is your sacred heart.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Learn how to turn life's in-between moments into fertile ground — and plant seeds that shape your future with love and intention.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “Sacred Seeds” (pages 124–145), exploring the seeds we're planting with our thoughts, words, and actions — and how those seeds shape our future and the collective reality.Through the lenses of Faith, Forgiveness, and Freedom, we're invited to navigate the “voids” in life — those sacred spaces of transformation — with courage, presence, and conscious choice. It's a reminder that you reap what you sow, and now is the time to plant with intention.What You'll Hear in This Episode* How to use life's “voids” as opportunities for spiritual reset* Why Faith, Forgiveness, and Freedom are the keys to the New Era* How to release old grievances and self-suppression* The difference between planting seeds from fear vs. from love* Daily questions to guide your choices and align with your soulContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 8 — Shades of Hope, which explores turning hope into a grounded, present-moment force. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“You reap what you sow, and now is the time to plant with intention.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Stop giving your power away — learn how to move from longing to true belonging and reclaim your spiritual sovereignty.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “The Servitude of Longing” (pages 149–161), exploring the difference between longing, which keeps us chasing external validation, and true belonging, which anchors us in peace, simplicity, and Divine alignment.This teaching asks a vital question: what you belong to also belongs to you — so is it truly aligned with your soul? Through discernment and conscious choice, we can reclaim our spiritual sovereignty and stop giving our power away.What You'll Hear in This Episode* How longing traps us in cycles of dissatisfaction* Why true belonging starts within, not in external systems or approval* How branding and influence can subtly “own” your identity* The importance of spiritual discernment in where and to whom you belong* A sacred prayer to restore clarity, humility, and sovereigntyContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 9 — Sacred Seeds, which explores planting seeds of intention through Faith, Forgiveness, and Freedom. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“What you belong to also belongs to you.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Discover how to break free from the illusion-self, reclaim your wholeness, and live from the freedom of your true divine nature.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “The Freedom of Be-ing” (pages 172–194), exploring how real freedom isn't about doing whatever you want — it's about being who you truly are.You'll learn how to recognize when you're operating from your chaff identity (in your mind and ego) — the illusion-self driven by fear, control, and external validation — and how to return to your wheat-self (your soul self), the divine essence rooted in truth, peace, and wholeness. This is the path to living a soul-based life.What You'll Hear in This Episode* How the illusion-self fragments your sense of peace and purpose* What it means to reintegrate lost aspects of your soul* How to trust divine timing in your transformation* Why some relationships, roles, and desires naturally fall away* How to embody authentic passion that flows with easeContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 11 — The Liberation from Longing, which explores releasing attachment and reclaiming spiritual sovereignty. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“Real freedom isn't about doing whatever you want — it's about being who you truly are.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Break free from the endless cycle of seeking — learn how to release longing and find freedom through true belonging.This episode is part of an ongoing series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “The Liberation from Longing” (pages 162–171), exploring how emotional attachment and the need for external validation create suffering, and how spiritual surrender offers a path out.In this episode, we explore The Liberation from Longing (pages 162–171) from The Freedom Transmissions. This teaching reveals how external seeking — for validation, possessions, or acceptance — traps us in a cycle of fear and attachment, and how true liberation comes from belonging to something far greater: the Divine.Yeshua invites us to see that we are already whole and complete, and that freedom doesn't come from acquiring more, but from releasing our attachments and trusting in divine belonging.What You'll Hear in This Episode* How longing drains your energy and keeps you stuck* Why true belonging starts with your soul, not external approval* How to identify what “owns” you — and how to release it* The role of faith in dissolving fear and scarcity* Why letting go of ownership frees not just you, but others tooContinuing the SeriesThis episode builds directly on Ep. 10 — The Servitude of Longing, where we first explored how longing takes hold. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“Freedom doesn't come from acquiring more — it comes from releasing our attachments and trusting in divine belonging.”If you've been chasing something outside yourself to feel whole, this conversation will help you release the grasp, reclaim your spiritual sovereignty, and live from peace instead of fear.✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist for the upcoming Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Discover how shifting your perception to Love can transform even your biggest challenges — and move the mountains in your life.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “The Power of Perception” (pages 197–209), exploring how our challenges — the “mountains” in our lives — are shaped not just by what they are, but by how we see them.Yeshua reminds us that Love moves mountains (what we perceive as the issues and challenges in our life). When we shift our perception from fear and control to trust and Divine Love, what once felt heavy can become holy. Some mountains are meant to be moved, others simply witnessed — but all invite us into deeper transformation.What You'll Hear in This Episode* Why perception determines whether a challenge grows or dissolves* How Love transforms the weight of your “mountains”* The difference between a real mountain and a perceived one* Why vulnerability is courage, and armor keeps us disconnected* How to trust Divine timing to move what needs to be movedContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 12 — The Freedom of Be-ing, which explores reclaiming wholeness and living from your true divine nature. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“Love moves mountains.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist for the upcoming Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Find out why clarity isn't about knowing everything — and how to receive the guidance you've been waiting for in a way your soul truly needs.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers the first part of the chapter “Clarity” (pages 210–218), exploring how clarity isn't something we earn by working harder or chasing answers — it's something we see when we're fully present.Yeshua reminds us that the clarity we most often seek — the exact plan, the perfect next step — is rarely given in the way we expect. Instead, clarity arrives through truth, acceptance, and our willingness to live in the mystery. When we stop resisting what is, we begin to see with new eyes.What You'll Hear in This Episode* Why clarity is the most common request made to the Divine — and how it's usually answered* The three main reasons clarity feels clouded* How impatience, misplaced focus, and resistance block the truth* Why free will means we'll never be handed the full roadmap* Simple practices to invite clarity nowContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 13 — The Power of Perception, which explores how shifting our perception to Love transforms our biggest challenges. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“Clarity isn't something we earn by working harder — it's something we see when we're fully present.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

When you stop chasing certainty and start embracing truth, clarity arrives. Discover how presence, self-worth, and love open the way forward.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers the second part of the chapter “Clarity” (pages 218–233), exploring how clarity isn't about knowing exactly what will happen next, but about aligning with presence, love, and truth, even in seasons of uncertainty.Yeshua reminds us that when clarity feels out of reach, it's often because we're rushing the timeline, avoiding an inconvenient truth, or rejecting parts of ourselves. The invitation here is to slow down, embrace all of who we are, and choose the “temple” of love and peace over the one built on fear and control.What You'll Hear in This Episode* Why lack of clarity is often about safety, not vision* How resisting truth clouds your ability to see clearly* The link between self-worth and your ability to receive clarity* Yeshua's metaphor of the two temples — and how to choose wisely* Practices to invite clarity through patience, presence, and self-acceptanceContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 14 — Clarity, Pt. 1, which explores why clarity isn't something we earn by working harder. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“Truth, even when uncomfortable, is always guiding you home.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

You have two sides within you — one rooted in fear, one rooted in love. This is how to choose the one that sets you free.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “Polarity, Resistance, and Transcending Doubt” (pages 252–276), exploring how within each of us lives both the Yeshua Self — aligned with love, trust, and Divine will — and the Lucifer Self — clinging to fear, control, and separation.Yeshua reminds us that resistance to growth is natural, but it becomes harmful when it keeps us locked in fear. As our light grows, resistance often intensifies. The key is to notice when we're operating from fear and gently return ourselves to the light.What You'll Hear in This Episode* Why resistance often increases as your light expands* The difference between healthy resistance (discernment) and unhealthy resistance (fear)* How to identify and shift from your Lucifer Self to your Yeshua Self* Why resurrection is an ongoing process of awakening, not a single moment* How to move from reactive living to conscious creationContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 16 — The Spectrum of Spirit, which explores light and void as partners in transformation. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“The key is to notice when we're operating from fear and gently return ourselves to the light.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist for the upcoming Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

Discover how salvation becomes a homecoming to your true self — and why the peace you've been seeking has been within you all along.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “Salvation” (pages 379–404), reframing salvation not as something granted to us from outside, but as an inner process of awakening to who we truly are.Yeshua reminds us that salvation is a return — a homecoming to the truth, love, and peace that already live within us. It's not about striving for perfection, but about remembering what's real when fear, illusion, and distraction pull us off course.What You'll Hear in This Episode* Why salvation is an inner transformation, not an external reward* How to release false narratives and choose faith over fear* The role of presence in dissolving illusion* What it means to “be the bridge” for others in times of awakening* How to move through light and shadow without losing your wayContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 22 — The Three Strands of the Braid of the Holy Trinity, Part 2, which explores redemption, joy, and sacred reciprocity. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“Salvation is a homecoming to the truth, love, and peace that already live within us.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

What if peace didn't require more effort — but less? Learn how to release striving and live from your true self.This episode continues our series unpacking The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. This installment covers “I AM Yeshua” (pages 23–33), where Yeshua introduces Himself and calls us to dismantle the “illusion self” so we can reconnect with the truth of who we are: divine beings in co-creation with Infinite Intelligence.If you've been chasing “more” — more achievement, more progress, more proving — this chapter invites you to lay it all down. Here, we're reminded that true peace doesn't come from striving, but from being.You don't need to believe in Yeshua to receive the grace in this work. The message is clear: you are already enough, and your presence is your greatest gift to the world.What You'll Hear in This Episode* Why choosing peace is choosing your true self* How to release the constant need for “more”* The difference between Light-holders and Light-workers* What it means to surrender without losing your power* How to hear the quiet call of your soul — and why it's growing louderContinuing the SeriesThis episode follows Ep. 1 — Introduction: The Freedom Transmissions Series, which lays the groundwork for this work. If you haven't listened yet, that's the natural starting point before this one.Something to Ponder“You are already enough, and your presence is your greatest gift to the world.”✨ Want to go deeper?If you're drawn to exploring this work in community, you're invited to join the waitlist of Foundations of The Freedom Transmissions Book Study — an 8-session guided experience designed for clarity, integration, and shared reflection.If you're ready for a new way of living — one rooted in peace, balance, and authenticity — this is where the journey begins.Resources & Links* Read The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher* Listen to my earlier conversations with Carissa: Carissa Schumacher on Channeling Yeshua and Creating The Freedom Transmissions and How The Freedom Transmissions Guides Spiritual Awakening* Subscribe to my Substack Hold the Light with Laurie Gunning GrossmanIf this episode resonates, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who's ready for their own spiritual shift.Stay Connected

This episode is a re-release; it originally aired November 10, 2022. In this podcast, Eckhart encourages participants to start with a moment of stillness. He says through quiet and calm we get in touch with that part of ourselves Eckhart calls “The Deep I.” Eckhart believes that by reaching beyond our personality and our physical bodies we will discover a deeper dimension to who we are. He says it's here where we transcend the old inner narratives to find liberation from ourselves. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We know what the authoritarian vision of education and schooling is—it's laid out in detail in Project 2025: an end to public education, taxpayer funding for religious and private schools, teachers reduced to clerks, and students as indistinguishable widgets moving along an assembly line as bits of information are poured into their upturned heads. For decades there's been a relentless campaign to define education in instrumentalist, linear, and expedient terms, and high-stakes standardized tests have been a common cudgel in the hands of the powerful, a kind of modern and scientized eugenics device. Simultaneously, the marketeers have organized a fire-sale, relentlessly selling off our public assets to private interests. All of this activity undermines the nature of intellectual inquiry and cognitive growth, transforming education into a matter of consumption, competition, and a hierarchy of winners and losers; the result is the eclipse of the public, the demolition of the commons, and the destruction of authentic learning. Join Bill in conversation with Jared Rock and Mike Schuwerk as they discuss their own North Star: Educational Humanism in a Post-Managerial Age, a liberatory alternative to the devastating dystopia we're living through.

Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, is back! Last time,  she told us serving your country can mean enlisting as an educator, a line we still bring up constantly. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation: why personal responsibility beats collective grievance, how socialism and communism sell real problems with fake solutions, a teacher's union resolution instructing teachers not to tell parents when a student is transitioning, intersectionality as what Marissa calls "victim bingo," and why PragerU ended up on the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate map alongside Charlie Kirk.  Summarized timestamps 02:42 – The founding principle: personal responsibility vs. collective grievance, and "the bigger the government, the smaller the citizens 07:13 – Why socialism keeps winning young people over — real problems, fake solutions 15:57 – Case study: why a young family can't afford to raise kids in New York (rent control, tort law, regulation) 20:15 – The "education industrial complex": inside the books training teachers — Lessons in Liberation and Cultivating Genius 22:31 – The term "adultism" defined, and what it does to parental authority 24:52 – The AFT resolution: teachers told not to tell parents when a student is transitioning 27:11 – The California law letting a 12-year-old consent to gender-affirming care without parental notice 33:59 – Why parents look away: "it's not my child" and the cost of that thinking 38:34 – Intersectionality as "victim bingo" — how kids get recruited into causes that have nothing to do with their lives 45:18 – PragerU as a target: the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate map, Charlie Kirk, and repeated platform takedowns 49:36 – Is PragerU "right-wing propaganda"? Marissa's answer, and the story of the $1 million donor who set out to expose them Quotes: "The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." — Marissa Streit "Socialism, I oftentimes say, is communism with lipstick. It's the same thing — the government's going to fix things for you by stealing everything from you, and then everybody ends up equally poor." — Marissa Streit "God wanted the Israelites who made it to the promised land to be a people who recognized that freedom isn't free. It comes with a sacrifice, but it's a sacrifice worth making." — Marissa Streit "A socialist and a communist will take a truth we all recognize, but they'll give you a solution that is a lie." — Marissa Streit "They're defining adultism as adults having power and rights to decide what young people's boundaries should be — and young people should go along with what adults say. They're defining it as tyranny." — Marissa Streit, on the term found in Lessons in Liberation "See the connection, how the unions are breaking the relationship with parents? The word 'outing' — you out somebody, you snitch on somebody. They know it's a negative thing, but they're saying the parent shouldn't know." — Marissa Streit, on the AFT resolution "It's getting worse because good people are not fighting against it." — Marissa Streit "Essentially that's what intersectionality does — it says find the victim within yourself, and now you can join the group. Once you join, there is no tolerance for diversity of ideas, only an expectation that you abide by communist and socialist values." — Marissa Streit "It's 100% a political cult. It's a cult and it has different tentacles." — Polina on intersectionality "Van Jones said recently the DSA is on the ground knocking on doors, and we're not gonna fix this until people commit." — Polina "Go to PragerU and make your own opinion. We're not in an era where you have to rely on the AFT, the NEA, or the New York Times to tell you what to think." — Marissa Streit https://www.prageru.com Books referenced: Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators; Cultivating Genius (Scholastic) Follow us on Instagram  @thecuriousmiddlepod Our Website: https://curiousmiddlepod.com Email us: thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com Substack: https://curiousmiddle.substack.com  

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today's clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. Listen to the full episode here. Have you ever thought about what you truly want in your sexual experiences? Are you curious about the often misunderstood aspects of female anatomy and how they play a critical role in pleasure? This episode with Susan Bratton, who is the "Intimacy Expert to Millions," promises to unravel these mysteries and more. Can long-term relationships reignite the passion that once was? How can we transform routine sexual encounters into thrilling adventures? Join us as we delve into Susan's transformative insights on empowering women to reclaim their pleasure and intimacy, even amidst life's changes. What is the Sex Life Bucket List, and how can it revolutionize your intimate life? Why is mental stimulation as crucial as physical? Susan Bratton offers practical tools and advice that promise to enhance communication, confidence, and sexual satisfaction in your relationship. In this episode, we uncover: How menopause changes sexual function and ways to reclaim pleasure and intimacy. Why understanding female anatomy is key to unlocking sexual satisfaction. How mental and emotional connection enhances female arousal and pleasure. Why trying new techniques can expand orgasmic potential and deepen intimacy. How the Sex Life Bucket List can help couples explore and communicate desires. Tune in to discover how Susan's insights can empower you to embrace a more fulfilling intimate life. Don't miss out on the vibrant possibilities that await you!     Sponsors Head to cozyearth.com and use my code HORMONES for 20% off sitewide! And if you get a Post-Purchase Survey, make sure to let them know you heard about Cozy Earth right here!     Are you in perimenopause or postmenopause and struggling with symptoms—but not getting the support you deserve? At Midlife Solutions, we specialize in hormone optimization for women in midlife. Our all-female clinical team offers telehealth care across all 50 U.S. states, with the ability to prescribe bioidentical estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid medication.   Book your FREE Hormone Discovery Call Find out what's really driving your symptoms and what your next best steps are.   Visit the website: https://karenmartel.com   Shop the Midlife Solutions Store Over-the-counter bioidentical hormone creams and oils — no prescription needed. Including: • Progesterone • Estrogen Face Cream • Vaginal Moisturizer and more!   Take the Hormone Quiz Discover hidden hormone imbalances that could be driving your symptoms. Get personalized results (and yes, they may surprise you).   Women's Peptide Weight Loss Program Clinically guided, hormone-aware weight loss for midlife women.   Midlife RESET HRT Program A complete, supportive approach to hormone replacement therapy in midlife.   Your host: Karen Martel Certified Hormone Specialist, Transformational Nutrition Coach, & Weight Loss Expert   Karen's Facebook Karen's Instagram

Activist and writer Raquel Willis tells us why we can't lose focus on intersectionality in the gender liberation movement. Plus, she talks about recording her experience of growing up Black and trans in a Catholic southern family in a memoir at the ripe age of 33. TRIGGER WARNINGS: death of a parent, suicide, grief Learn more about Raquel and her work at raquelwillis.com. Follow her on Instagram, Threads, Facebook and YouTube. Get a copy  of her memoir The Risk it Takes to Bloom. Stay connected and get involved with Gender Liberation Movement on their website and on Instagram. Hosted by Ally Beardsley and Babette Thomas, Gender Spiral is a quest to explore the modern experience of being a human in our gendered world. Listen to this episode ad-free, watch the video version, and access other perks on our Patreon: patreon.com/GenderSpiralPodcast. Thank you for supporting us! Find transcripts, merch and more at genderspiralpod.com. Follow us on Instagram @genderspiral.