Podcasts about ramaytush ohlone

Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. In this episode  Emily chats with multimedia artist Tricia Rainwater. Tricia delves into her artistic journey, focusing on self-portrait photography and installations. Her work, seen in exhibitions like 'Allegedly the Worst is Behind Us' at San Jose's Institute for Contemporary Art, addresses themes of political innateness, erasure, and the importance of creating personal archives. She also shares her experiences from childhood photography to her impactful pieces that highlight missing Indigenous women and girls. Their conversation touches on the emotional power and societal responsibilities of art.About Artist Tricia Rainwater:Tricia Rainwater (she/her) is a mixed Choctaw Indigiqueer multimedia artist based on Ramaytush Ohlone land. Tricia's work ranges from self portraiture to large sculptural installations. Her work has been featured nationally and internationally through group shows and artist features. In her work, Tricia, focuses on creating pathways to a resilient and hopeful future by centering the process of grieving and healing. She is a recent recipient of the SF Artists Grant through the SF Arts Commission.Visit Tricia's  Website:  TriciaRainwater.comFollow Tricia  on Instagram:  @TriciaRainwaterArtLearn more about the exhibit, 'Allegedly The Worst Is Behind Us', currently at the ICA San Jose - CLICK HERE. --About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women's Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWilFollow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast--CREDITS:Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson. Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 LicenseThe Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions. For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com

Celebrate Gil Cuadros with Kevin Martin, Rafael Pérez-Torres, & Amy Scholder. Opening by Greyson Wright & readings by Joseph Cassara & Flavia Elisa Mora. City Lights & the SF LGBT Center celebrate the publication of "My Body Is Paper: Stories and Poems" by Gil Cuadros, edited by Pablo Alvarez, Kevin Martin, Rafael Pérez-Torres, & Terry Wolverton, foreword by Justin Torres. Published by City Lights Books. Purchase "My Body Is Paper" here: https://citylights.com/my-body-is-paper-stories-poems/ Purchase "City of God" here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/city-of-god/ Since "City of God" was published by City Lights 30 years ago, it has become an unlikely classic (an “essential book of Los Angeles” according to the LA Times). The book has touched those who find in his work a singular evocation of Chicanx life in Los Angeles around the time of the AIDS epidemic, which took his life in 1996. Little did we know, Cuadros continued writing exuberant works in the period between his one published book & his untimely death at 34. This recently discovered treasure, "My Body Is Paper," is a stunning portrait of sex, family, religion, culture of origin, & the betrayals of the body. Tender & blistering, erotic & spiritual, Cuadros dives into these complexities which we grapple with today, showing us how to survive these times & beyond. Gil Cuadros (1962–1996) was a groundbreaking gay Latino writer whose work explored the intersections of sexuality, race, & spirituality. Diagnosed with HIV in 1987, Cuadros channeled his experiences into "City of God," capturing the raw emotions of living with a life-threatening illness. His lyrical intensity & unflinching honesty shined a light on marginalized communities & familial expectations. "City of God" has gone on to become a classic of Chicanx literature. Kevin J. Martin is the executor of the Estate of Gil Cuadros, & a longtime copyeditor & writer. He serves as Senior Writer & Associate Editor for MagellanTV, where he writes on various topics related to art & culture. Rafael Pérez-Torres is professor of English & Gender Studies at UCLA & author of "Movements in Chicano Poetry and Critical Mestizaje," co-author of "Memories of an East L.A. Outlaw," & co-editor of "The Chicano Studies Reader." Amy Scholder is a literary editor & documentary filmmaker known for amplifying the stories of marginalized artists & activists. Amy began her career as an editor at City Lights. She has since served as US Publisher to Verso Books, later joining 7 Stories Press as Editor & Chief. In 2008, Scholder left 7 Stories to become the executive editor of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York. Scholder was approached by director Pratibha Parmar & producer Shaheen Haq to help finish their hybrid documentary feature, "My Name Is Andrea," about Andrea Dworkin. She became an executive producer of the film, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Joseph Cassara is the author of "The House of Impossible Beauties" (Ecco), winner of the 2019 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction & finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. A graduate of Columbia University & the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he currently serves as the George & Judy Marcus Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Flavia Elisa Mora is a queer, Mexican migrant artist, activist, & community organizer raised in occupied Ramaytush Ohlone land, in La Mission. Her main two foci are muralismo & Flor y Canto poesía. Flavia's work delves into the exploration of her identity, relationships, migration story, family & community history. She is a published writer, performs poetry throughout the Bay, & is one of the lead artists for the mural "Alto al Fuego en la Misión," located on 24th and Capp, SF. Event originally broadcast from City Lights' Poetry Room on Thursday, May 30, 2024. Hosted by Peter Maravelis. Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation. citylights.com/foundation

Alternative visions for social change rooted in the frameworks of capitalism and colonialism only reproduce contemporary structures of power. How can indigenous perspectives and knowledge inform the structural transformation necessary to improve the health of the natural world and of human communities? Dr. Cordero will discuss how indigenous epistemologies challenge the ideas and practices related to capitalism and colonialism and how the enhancement of indigeneity and sovereignty are critical to the maintenance of indigenous epistemologies. Insights drawn from the discourses on decolonization, settler colonialism, and epistemicide will be revealed throughout the presentation. Last, Dr. Cordero will share how indigenous perspectives and knowledge inspire work of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone.

Alternative visions for social change rooted in the frameworks of capitalism and colonialism only reproduce contemporary structures of power. How can indigenous perspectives and knowledge inform the structural transformation necessary to improve the health of the natural world and of human communities? Dr. Cordero will discuss how indigenous epistemologies challenge the ideas and practices related to capitalism and colonialism and how the enhancement of indigeneity and sovereignty are critical to the maintenance of indigenous epistemologies. Insights drawn from the discourses on decolonization, settler colonialism, and epistemicide will be revealed throughout the presentation. Last, Dr. Cordero will share how indigenous perspectives and knowledge inspire work of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone.

San Francisco lies on the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone, who are still here, and who have stewarded this land for thousands of years.I was born in San Francisco, a few blocks from where I live today. Sometimes I wonder what it means to love a city. It's easy to dream about San Francisco, but how real are these dreams? What would it take to make them real?Produced by Emily Shaw, with audio assistance from George S. Rosenthal. Special thanks to the Prelinger Library, Ray Pang, Palace Shaw, Stepfanie Aguilar, The Stone Foxes, Eileen Torrez, Justine Lucas, Angel Island, and Ellyn Shea.Archival recordings courtesy of the Prelinger LibraryField recordings by Emily ShawCity on the Water - The Stone FoxesHey There, San Francisco - Eileen TorrezSan Francisco, You've Changed - Justine LucasGet Your Kicks on Route 66 - Angel Island with Ellyn Shea

Our 10th and final episode of Season 2 extends our critique on the history of colonial acquisitions and collections with a focus on the colonial legacies of the institutions of Museums. We focus on the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center, recent movements to 'decolonize' museums as with the Museum of Us in San Diego, and discuss whether it is possible to ultimately decolonize these institutions. Speakers:Dr. Amy Lonetree (enrolled citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation), Dr. Alírio Karina, Dr. Samuel Redman, Gregg Castro (t'rowt'raahl Salinan / Rumsien & Ramaytush Ohlone), Dr. Cutcha Risling-Baldy (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk), Nicole Lim (Pomo), Dr. Micah Parson, Dr. Chris GreenAudio editing: Daniel StonebloomInterviews: Martin Rizzo-MartinezMusic: G. GonzalesLinks & Further Reading:California Indian Museum & Cultural CenterAcorn BitesDecolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums, Amy LonetreeThe National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations, Edited by Amy Lonetree and Amanda J. Cobb“Decolonizing Museums, Memorials, and Monuments,” The Public Historian, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 21–27 (November 2021), Amy LonetreeMuseum of Us“Race: Are we so different?” ExhibitMuseum of Us: Colonial Pathways PolicyAgainst and Beyond the Museum, Alírio Karina

Join us in welcoming guest Nicola Andrews to The Write Attention podcast Episode 10: Mentorship & Community. Nicola Andrews (Māori, Pākehā) is a member of the Ngāti Paoa iwi, currently living on Ramaytush Ohlone territory. They are the winner of the 2023 AAALS Indigenous Writers Prize for Poetry, and their writing has been supported by communities including the Kearny Street Interdisciplinary Writers Lab, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Rooted & Written, and the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation. Their debut chapbook, Māori Maid Difficult, is forthcoming with Tram Editions. In their spare time, they watch dinosaur documentaries with their cat.   In Episode 10, the group discusses what does or does not make for a good mentor, trusting your intuition, managing the closing and building of writing communities, and what thoughts go into putting together a collection of poems or stories.   Nicola Andrews also reads an excerpt from their poem, "Self Portrait with the Queue" from their debut chapbook, Maori Maid Difficult.   You can also find Nicola here: Website: bit.ly/NicolaAndrews Social Media: @maraebrarian (twitter) @poi_division (Instagram, Bluesky)     Show Notes Māori Maid Difficult at Tram Editions: https://trameditions.com/catalogue/2023-authors/ Tram Editions, https://trameditions.com/ Paper and Stick by Priscilla Wathington, https://trameditions.com/paper-and-stick-by-priscilla-wathington/  Weren't We Natural Swimmers by Aliah Lavonne Tigh, https://trameditions.com/werent-we-natural-swimmers-by-aliah-lavonne-tigh/  RAWI, https://www.arabamericanwriters.org/  APAture 2023, https://www.kearnystreet.org/apature  APAture Literary Arts Showcase: https://www.kearnystreet.org/events-blog/2023/9/11/apature-2023-literary-arts VONA, https://www.vonavoices.org/  Chelsea T. Hicks, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/chelsea-t-hicks,  and Words of the People https://wtpgathering.org/  Craig Santos Perez, http://craigsantosperez.com/  Periplus mentorship collective, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0SRWxJqx4oNbWVmbq4j9JE5INhisz76--U63UbtncM/edit  Write or Die, https://www.chillsubs.com/writeordie/education       

Notes: “I feel inside of myself something expanding when I sing," says Te. They've used song to metabolize experience for as long as they can remember... and as Te shares this song, we get to feel into their experience of trust. Alchemy could be a way of building gold out of fear; something beautiful is uncovered as Te sings and shares about learning to carry the complexity of song sharing loosely, relationship to each other and the earth, liberation... and the magic of a sigh. Songwriter Info: Te Martin is a song-keeper and ritual artist. They were born on Ramaytush Ohlone land in San Francisco and have been shaped by Ocean, Redwoods, circus arts, and theater games. They facilitate oral tradition singing classes and workshops that focus on song as a tool for collective liberation, somatic regulation, and ancestral connection. Te served as co-organizer of Thrive Street Choir in the San Francisco bay area for six years, is a student of Gaelic song, and released their first professional music video and EP of original songs, "Water & Bones," in 2021. ​Sharing Info: Yes -- The song is free to share in oral tradition groups, but please contact Te for recording and/or performing permission Links from the conversation:  The Lama Foundation: https://www.lamafoundation.org/ Pueblo Tiwa People Northern New Mexico: https://accessgenealogy.com/new-mexico/tiwa-pueblo-indians.htm Southern Pomo Coast Miwok:  https://alamedanativeart.com/post/alameda-native-history-project/coast-miwok-and-southern-pomo-map/ Songs of Mother Europe: https://weavingremembrance.org/songs-of-mother-europe-fall/ The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18144590-the-alchemist The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron: https://juliacameronlive.com/books-by-julia/ Alchemy process: https://aras.org/concordance/content/alchemical-process-and-its-stages Village Fire Singing Iowa: http://www.villagefiresinging.org/ Liz Rog: https://realsmalltowns.com/liz-rog-singing-as-breath-and-food/ Singing Alive Oregon: https://singingalive.org/ Melanie DeMore: https://melaniedemore.com/bio/ Lisa G. Littlebird: https://thebirdsings.com/ Finding Our Voice on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/findingourvoiceproject -- while Josh and Te's "Finding Our Voice" project didn't end up with lots of accessible recorded interviews, it built more community among songleaders and nurtured both Josh and Te. Laurence Cole: https://www.laurencecole.com/ Thrive Street Choir in San Francisco bay area: http://www.thriveeastbay.org/thrivestreetchoir Lyndsey Scott: https://www.lyndseyscott.earth Joanna Laws Landis: https://soundcloud.com/nextgenna/healing-through-grief-joanna-laws-landis Ysaye Barnwell: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-serendipitous-life-ysaye-barnwell-and-the-healing-power-of-music/2015/05/01/718db920-e52e-11e4-905f-cc896d379a32_story.html "I'm Yours" by Tracy Chapman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LdCazk77D4 "The Long Way Around" by The Chicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5HKLteH9Mc Molly Hartwell & Laura Boswell - Wellspring album: https://wellspring.bandcamp.com/album/wellspring Put Your Roots Down: https://riseupandsing.org/songs/put-your-roots-down Put Your Roots Down on A Breath of Song: https://www.abreathofsong.com/episodes--show-notes/2-put-your-roots-down ​ Te's Links: ​EP, "Water & Bones": https://temartin.bandcamp.com/album/water-bones "May This Body Be a Bridge" Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Mn_2BSNAg Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/temartin Mailing List: https://mailchi.mp/1debadd3ebb3/sos  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/te.martin/ Song Learning Time Stamps: Start time of teaching: 00:04:52 Start time of reprise: 01:00:19 ​​ Nuts & Bolts: 4:4, major, 3 layer ​Join the A Breath of Song mailing list to receive a heads up as a new episode is released, plus a large version of the artwork, brief thoughts from my slightly peculiar brain... and occasional extras when they seem vitally important! No junk -- I will never sell your address. I read out all your names into my living room when I send new mailings... I appreciate the connection to you who are listening and singing these songs with me. Exchange energy with A Breath of Song with dollars at the Gratitude Jar (whoo-hoo!!!!), or by making comments, leaving reviews, suggesting songs or songwriters (including yourself) ..... your participation matters!​

Notes: Te Martin describes this song as an exhale... I experience it like that, too... a relaxation, a release. It's so very welcome to me as I'm coming into a busy time of life, with lots of commitments lined up -- I need ways to let go quickly, in the middle of all the flurry. Having this song in my mind lets me do that... and if I happen to be with someone else who's willing to sing, it's so easy to echo it back to each other. Next week is a songwriter conversation with Te... bicycles, miso, and the natural world all come into play! Songwriter Info: Te Martin is a song-keeper and ritual artist. They were born on Ramaytush Ohlone land in San Francisco and have been shaped by Ocean, Redwoods, circus arts, and theater games. They facilitate oral tradition singing classes and workshops that focus on song as a tool for collective liberation, somatic regulation, and ancestral connection. Te served as co-organizer of Thrive Street Choir in the San Francisco bay area for six years, is a student of Gaelic song, and released their first professional music video and EP of original songs, "Water & Bones," in 2021. ​Sharing Info: Yes -- The song is free to share in oral tradition groups, but please contact Te for recording and/or performing permission Links:  EP, "Water & Bones": https://temartin.bandcamp.com/album/water-bones "May This Body Be a Bridge" Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Mn_2BSNAg Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/temartin Mailing List: https://mailchi.mp/1debadd3ebb3/sos  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/te.martin/ Song Learning Time Stamps: Start time of teaching: 00:03:53 Start time of reprise: 00:12:10 ​​ Nuts & Bolts: 4:4, major, call & response ​Join the A Breath of Song mailing list to receive a heads up as a new episode is released, plus a large version of the artwork, brief thoughts from my slightly peculiar brain... and occasional extras when they seem vitally important! No junk -- I will never sell your address. I read out all your names into my living room when I send new mailings... I appreciate the connection to you who are listening and singing these songs with me. Exchange energy with A Breath of Song with dollars at the Gratitude Jar (whoo-hoo!!!!), or by making comments, leaving reviews, suggesting songs or songwriters (including yourself) ..... your participation matters!​

Native or tribal sovereignty refers to the right of American Indians and Alaska Natives to govern themselves. In some definitions native or tribal sovereignty is an inherent right, whether the tribe is federally recognized or not. But what does native sovereignty mean to Indigenous peoples, non-Indigenous peoples, governments, organizations, and beyond? Gregg Castro, Cultural Director for the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, has worked on preserving his Indigenous heritage for three decades as a writer-activist and by educating the broader world about the Ramaytush Ohlone—the Indigenous people of the land now called San Francisco. In this episode, Gregg is joined by Lazzuly Mello, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Core Faculty in the Community Mental Health Program at CIIS, for an illuminating conversation exploring the complexities of native sovereignty from his perspective as a member and advocate for multiple California tribes. This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 22nd, 2022. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. We hope that each episode of our podcast provides opportunities for growth, and that our listeners will use them as a starting point for further introspection. Many of the topics discussed on our podcast have the potential to bring up feelings and emotional responses. If you or someone you know is in need of mental health care and support, here are some resources to find immediate help and future healing: -Visit 988lifeline.org or text, call, or chat with The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 from anywhere in the U.S. to be connected immediately with a trained counselor. Please note that 988 staff are required to take all action necessary to secure the safety of a caller and initiate emergency response with or without the caller's consent if they are unwilling or unable to take action on their own behalf. -Visit thrivelifeline.org or text “THRIVE” to begin a conversation with a THRIVE Lifeline crisis responder 24/7/365, from anywhere: +1.313.662.8209. This confidential text line is available for individuals 18+ and is staffed by people in STEMM with marginalized identities. -Visit translifeline.org or call (877) 565-8860 in the U.S. or (877) 330-6366 in Canada to learn more and contact Trans Lifeline, who provides trans peer support divested from police. -Visit ciis.edu/counseling-and-acupuncture-clinics to learn more and schedule counseling sessions at one of our centers. -Find information about additional global helplines at https://www.befrienders.org.

LisaRuth Elliott is a visual artist using found material to create her paper collages. She is also a fiber artist, weaver, experimenter of plant dyes on textiles, and public muralist. Inspired by beauty in the textures and patterns around her and what has been cast aside, she transforms the banal into new and dynamic combinations showcasing human occupation. She is prompted by the stories and landscape of San Francisco, of Yelamu and its creatures, as she learns about and stewards unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land as an urban farmer and is deeply interested in the exploration and understanding of place. It infuses all of her work, from being a public historian to creating art.In this episode we discuss what's unique in the landscapes that offer gifts of materials for creative composition, both found and grown.  We also discuss seasonality and sustainability of native plant materials in landscapes, and the fact that tracking changes through time is a part of the process, listening to the materials, and having conversations through abstract/ non-representational art. You can find and support her current and future offerings through her website: www.lisaruthcreates.com more up to date work on IG at @lisaruthcreates or @sfurbanwanderer.Her collaborative poetry collage exhibition of the book What unseen thing blows wishes across my surface? with San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck is on display at the San Francisco Public Library main branch, 6th floor: until 16 February 2023.  a collaborative poetry/collage project showcasing the daily work done during the pandemic.  https://sfpl.org/exhibits/2022/11/05/what-unseen-thing-blows-wishes-across-my-surface#and LisaRuth  isthe Irish Consulate of San Francisco's chosen artist to participate in a global project: “Common Threads” in celebration of St. Brigid's Day 2023. As an Irish-American using materials endemic to this place where she lives, she contributes a small part of a larger cloak/quilt to be assembled from pieces coming from all over the world and to be exhibited in Dublin in February 2023. Her textile square is made of plant-dyed silk with cotton backing using California native plants as dyes. https://www.ireland.ie/en/st-brigids-day/common-threads/Intro Music, Irish Trad tune: The Micky Dam- guitar instrumental by Richard Mandelof the Jammy Dodgers, https://thejammydodgers.com/Richard_Mandel.htmlwith Permission for MixedMedia TalksSupport this and future shows at Patreon.com/mixedmedia_talksSupport the show

There is a long legacy of extractive and exploitative relationships in academic study of Indigenous California, seen clearly in the origins of the fields of anthropology, ethnography, & archaeology. These unethical relationships have resulted in colonial collections of Indigenous ancestral remains, funerary objects, songs and ceremonies, and Indigenous knowledge and wisdom, much which still has not been returned to Indigenous communities. This opening episode of Season 2 of Challenging Colonialism offers an overview of this history, helping shed light on why many Native Californians have understandable concerns about working with academics.Speakers:Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk), The Honorable Ron W. Goode (Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe), Dr. Robin Grey (Ts'msyen from Lax Kw'alaams and she belongs to Waap Liyaa'mlaxha, a Gisbutwada House in the Gitaxangiik Tribe), Cindi Alvitre (Tongva, co-founder of the Ti'at Society), Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash), Gregg Castro (t'rowt'raahl Salinan / Rumsien & Ramaytush Ohlone), Mark Hylkema, Maia PostenAudio editing: Daniel StonebloomInterviews: Martin Rizzo-MartinezMusic: G. GonzalesThe title for this episode, Illicit Acquisitions, comes from our interview with Cindi Alvitre.Links & Further Reading:“Where Have All the Anthros Gone? The Shift in California Indian Studies from Research ‘on' to Research ‘with, for, and by' Indigenous Peoples” By Peter Nelson“Archaeology and Social Justice in Native America” By Nicholas C. Laluk , Lindsay M. Montgomery, Rebecca Tsosie, Christine McCleave, Rose Miron, Stephanie Russo Carroll, Joseph Aguilar, Ashleigh Big Wolf Thompson, Peter Nelson, Jun Sunseri, Isabel Trujillo, Georgeann M. Deantoni, Gregg Castro, and Tsim SchneiderWe Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women's Coming-of-Age Ceremonies By Cutcha Risling BaldySkull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, And The Battle For Native American Identity by David Hurst Thomas, Foreword by Vine Deloria Jr.Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums Samuel J. RedmanSupported by California State Parks Foundation

The hunt for the Mystic Waterhorse, the children, and the dark thing that took them...   We would love for you to join our community. Visit our Point Mystic Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/OctoberIsle   There really is a secret of Point Mystic - one that you can be a part of...   Written by:  Christopher Reynaga & Marguerite Croft   Produced by: Christopher Reynaga   Story Development and Story Editing by Marguerite Croft   Graham Rowat is the voice of James Kenyon   Fox is the voice of himself.   Kris Plowden is the voice of Tristan   Our featured song is "Trust Fades" by Nine inch Nails from their album, Ghosts V. You can find more at NIN.com.   Point Mystic exists outside of this world, but is produced on the homelands of the Ramaytush Ohlone. We are grateful for their stewardship of this land and for our resulting ability to create and produce Point Mystic.   Point Mystic and this story copyright 2022 by Christopher Reynaga and Marguerite Croft, all right reserved. This podcast recording is distributed as a Creative Commons, Attribution, NonCommercial, ShareAlike 4.0 International.

Aries Full Moon I heal.  I embark.  I start anew.   On the latest episode of Cosmic Cousins,  we explore the invitation of the Aries Full Moon. We check in about the current astrological transits, talk some tarot, and of course connect to our bodies. Aries rules the head, brain, and face. Also on this episode, enjoy an Aries–Libra reflection and song by one of my current mentorship students Racheli Wercberger.  Racheli (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary, white Jewish somatic practitioner currently practicing and living in San Francisco, California, on occupied Ramaytush-Ohlone land.​   Here's a quote from Racheli:   "Libra and Aries together remind me that being in relationship doesn't require sacrifice of myself. On the contrary, it requires me to be my full entire beautiful self." In addition, we are joined on the Aries Full Moon podcast episode by friends Brandon Alter and Angel Lopez, also known as The Spiritual Gayz.  In our conversation Brandon uses the phrase "Living the Rainbow of Pain" – which is what I chose to title our conversation.  We explore Aries, Chiron, Mars in Gemini, grief, identity, and much more.   Announcement – Recently I had the honor of being on Tandy Gutierrez's podcast The Magic Spark.  Quite in alignment with Chiron's themes, we get intimate discussing my own wounds and journey with healing. It felt very vulnerable to share in this way, however Tandy held space in such a loving and supportive way. If you are in need of extra reflection on your own healing journey, perhaps you'll check out this episode titled:The Wound of Body and Abandonment.   Aries Full Moon Questions for Reflection: Who am I?  What do I desire?  How am I being invited to more lovingly stand in my power? Aries Full Moon Affirmation: It is safe for me to be an individual. I have a right to be on this planet. I am a teacher and student of life. Aries Full Moon Sunday, October 9, 2022 1:54 pm PST 17º 41' Perhaps you place out on your altar the Emperor card for the Aries Full Moon and the Lover's card in honor of Mars in Gemini. Then begin to reflect on 2022 through the lens of the Lovers. If you have any profound connections, stories or synchronicities with the Lovers in 2022 and you feel called, please reach out to me through email letting me know.  Then, come the Gemini Full Moon (December 7, 2022), we will reconvene and I will share a couple of our community's stories.  I look forward to connecting and playing with you in this Gemini way. Full Moon Blessings to you!    LINKS Sign-up for Mailing List + Newsletter About Jeff Hinshaw Astrology Mentorship Journey to the Star Healing Retreat Astrology Reading Tarot Reading Podcast: iTunes, Spotify, or Podbean Patreon for Cosmic Cousins    

La Mezcla is a polyrhythmic San Francisco based dance and music ensemble rooted in Chicana, Latina and Indigenous traditions and social justice. Its founder, Vanessa Sanchez, spoke with us about the process of developing the company's latest work Ghostly Labor, a film and soon-to-be dance theatre piece that explores the history of labor in the US Mexico Borderlands. We spoke about the extensive research and development of the work, rhythmic crafting and hybridization and capturing clean sound when you're surrounded by traffic and farm equipment.Ghostly Labor will screen as a part of SFDFF's Raising Voices on Thursday, November 3rd at 7PM at the Roxie Theater. More information can be found at this link:https://sfdancefilmfest.org/fall-festival-2022/shorts-program/raising-voices-3/https://vanessasanchez.net/lamezcla/@sfdancefilmfest@lamezcla_sf@jjleanos@clschweitzThis episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

Steven Melendez is the artistic director of New York Theatre Ballet, a Manhattan-based ballet company dedicated to performing classic masterpieces and new contemporary works for adults and innovative hourlong ballets for young children. Steven's introduction to ballet began as a young child through the New York Theatre Ballet School's LIFT scholarship program that creates an equal opportunity and an accessible dance training environment for talented at-risk homeless and underserved children. A documentary about Steven and the program, also titled LIFT, will have its West-Coast Premiere on Saturday, November 5th at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. @sfdancefilmfest@couellette87@thestevenmelendez@liftdocumentary@nytheatreballetTickets for the 2022 San Francisco Dance Film Festival are now availablehttps://sfdancefilmfest.org/fall-festival-2022/This episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

Lenora Lee, artistic director of Lenora Lee Dance and Olivia Ting, multimedia graphic designer, had been collaborative partners for quite some time, and are currently working on their newest premiere "In The Movement" which will run for nearly two weeks at the beginning of September at ODC theater. Chris spoke with them about the experience of taking dance and creating an immersive environment, the importance of honoring the history of the people and the sites they choreograph and create on, and what they hope to accomplish when translating dance into film.@sfdancefilmfest@couellette87@lenoraleedance@oting1@67suenoshttp://www.lenoraleedance.com/This episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

Nadia Adame is a Spanish multidisciplinary award-winning artist with a spinal cord injury and the current artistic director of AXIS Dance Company. She studied Ballet & Flamenco at the Royal Dance Conservatory of Madrid and has a BA in Theatre from the University of Colorado. She was a company member with AXIS (2001-2003) and Candoco Dance Company (2007-2008). In 2004, she co-founded and was the Co-Artistic Director of Compañía Y in Spain, a multimedia and performance collective. Nadia's credits include dance, theatre, commercial, and independent film projects in the UK, Spain, US, and Canada.@sfdancefilmfest@couellette87@axisdanceco@nadia_adamehttp://www.nadiaadame.com/This episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

In Indigenous protocol, we're beginning this week's episode honoring the original stewards of this land that many of us in Frisco now occupy — the ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone. Now, let's take a trip down Valencia Street to La Misión. The neighborhood is home to not one, but two rich cultural districts. Calle 24 Latino Cultural District was first established in 1999. More recently, in 2020, it was joined by the American Indian Cultural District — a home base for the Urban Native community. Its aim is to uplift the culture, history, and continuing contributions of American Indians in San Francisco and beyond. On this week's Rightnowish, we introduce you to some of the people behind this cultural district that's the first of its kind in the Golden State. Mary Travis-Allen (Mayagna, Chortega, Seneca) is the President of the District's Advisory Board and recalls memories of "Little Rez" along 16th Street. Debbie Santiago (Washoe, Osage) and her mother, Alberta Snyder (Washoe) share their memories about the SFUSD's Indian Education Program that ran out of the American Indian Cultural Center on Valencia Street in the 70s and 80s. Karen Waukazoo (Lakota) remembers her late mother and local hero, Helen Waukazoo, who co-founded Friendship House, the oldest social service organization in the United States run by and for American Indians. Last but not least, we venture to the waterfront at Fort Mason to talk with Sharaya Souza (Taos Pueblo, Ute, Kiowa), the Executive Director of the American Indian Cultural District about the legacy of the Alcatraz occupation.  There are so many Native stories alive in La Misión — we hope this is just the start to more of us hearing about them.

Sean Dorsey is recognized as one of the country's first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographers and the first transgender artist to appear on the cover of Dance Magazine. Sean not only presents his own work through Sean Dorsey dance, but is also the artistic director of  Fresh Meat Productions which invests in the creative expression and cultural leadership of transgender and gender-nonconforming communities. He was most recently featured in KQED's If Cities Could Dance series, which not only profiled his career but also presented filmic reinterpretations of his stage work. We discuss how choreographic material changes when brought from stage to film back to stage as well as his dreams for the future of trans artists in dance and dance film.@sfdancefilmfest@seandorseydance@freshmeatsfSan Francisco Transgender Film Festival Call for EntriesEarly Deadline: August 11https://sftff.org/submissions/Transgender Dancer Sean Dorsey Invites Trans and Queer People to Dream Big | If Cities Could Dancehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnP2yjqrZDg&ab_channel=KQEDArtsThis episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

If you've seen dance in the Bay Area, you've probably seen Babatunji. His extraordinarily athletic and almost superhuman movement style has captivated audiences both onstage as a longtime company member for Alonzo King Lines Ballet as well as onscreen in films by Post:Ballet, Max Savage and Kate Duhamel's Candy Bomber, among others. Clare spoke with Babatunji about his dance journey and his insight and experience as a dancer on film.@babatunji@clschweitz@sfdancefilmfest@linesballet@sfdanceworks@postballet@candybomberkateAmy Seiwert's Imagery presents Sketch 12: Dear Diary on July 15th and 16th at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason. Featuring three world premieres by Artistic Director Amy Seiwert, Imagery's new Artistic Fellow Natasha Adorlee, and Choreographer Joshua L. Peugh.https://www.asimagery.org/sketch-12This episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

In this episode, we meet East-West Psychology PhD, Monica Mody, who is a writer, poet, and educator aligned with earth-based and decolonial feminist perspectives. Monica speaks about her approaches to writing, scholarship, and poetry as a cross-genre, transdisciplinary practitioner, and we discuss her dissertation, titled "Claiming Voice, Vitality, and Authority in Post-secular South Asian Borderlands: A Critical Hermeneutics and Autohistoria/teoría for Decolonial Feminist Consciousness," which received the 2020 Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology awarded by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. Monica speaks about the importance of tracing and reconstructing her motherline story and how her creative process helps to tap into the voice of her ancestral memory and the voices of the ancestresess. She shares two of her poems and we discuss the role of poetics in her academic writing and what the intersection of knowledge and creativity looks like to her. We end with discussing Monica's ideas about what she calls earth-ecstatic spirituality. Monica Mody is the author of Kala Pani (1913 Press), the forthcoming Bright Parallel (Copper Coin), and three chapbooks including Ordinary Annals (above/ground press). Her academic writing can be found in The Land Remembers Us: Women, Myth, and Nature, and Integral Review: A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal For New Thought, Research, and Praxis. Her poems appear in anthologies including The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, Future Library: Contemporary Indian Writing, Witness: The Red River Book of Poetry of Dissent, and &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing. Her poetry has also been published in Poetry International, Indian Quarterly, Almost Island, Boston Review, and other literary journals. Besides a Ph.D. in East-West Psychology, Monica holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) from the National Law School of India University. Among the awards she has received are the Sparks Prize Fellowship (Notre Dame), the Zora Neale Hurston Award (Naropa), and the Toto Award for Creative Writing. Monica has presented her work widely, including at the Parliament of World Religions, Symposia of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, American Academy of Religion Western Region, Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conferences, and Oakland Summer School. She has been invited to read her poetry at events including Poetry with Prakriti, Bengaluru Poetry Festival, the Trauma and Catharsis Symposium on Performing the Asian Avant-Garde, and the Asian American Writers' Workshop—as well as been a part of art shows including Rites of Passage: 20/20 Vision. Monica was born in Ranchi, India, and currently lives in San Francisco, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone territory. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Monica Mody website: www.drmonicamody.com Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode, we meet East-West Psychology PhD, Monica Mody, who is a writer, poet, and educator aligned with earth-based and decolonial feminist perspectives. Monica speaks about her approaches to writing, scholarship, and poetry as a cross-genre, transdisciplinary practitioner, and we discuss her dissertation, titled "Claiming Voice, Vitality, and Authority in Post-secular South Asian Borderlands: A Critical Hermeneutics and Autohistoria/teoría for Decolonial Feminist Consciousness," which received the 2020 Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology awarded by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. Monica speaks about the importance of tracing and reconstructing her motherline story and how her creative process helps to tap into the voice of her ancestral memory and the voices of the ancestresess. She shares two of her poems and we discuss the role of poetics in her academic writing and what the intersection of knowledge and creativity looks like to her. We end with discussing Monica's ideas about what she calls earth-ecstatic spirituality. Monica Mody is the author of Kala Pani (1913 Press), the forthcoming Bright Parallel (Copper Coin), and three chapbooks including Ordinary Annals (above/ground press). Her academic writing can be found in The Land Remembers Us: Women, Myth, and Nature, and Integral Review: A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal For New Thought, Research, and Praxis. Her poems appear in anthologies including The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, Future Library: Contemporary Indian Writing, Witness: The Red River Book of Poetry of Dissent, and &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing. Her poetry has also been published in Poetry International, Indian Quarterly, Almost Island, Boston Review, and other literary journals. Besides a Ph.D. in East-West Psychology, Monica holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) from the National Law School of India University. Among the awards she has received are the Sparks Prize Fellowship (Notre Dame), the Zora Neale Hurston Award (Naropa), and the Toto Award for Creative Writing. Monica has presented her work widely, including at the Parliament of World Religions, Symposia of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, American Academy of Religion Western Region, Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conferences, and Oakland Summer School. She has been invited to read her poetry at events including Poetry with Prakriti, Bengaluru Poetry Festival, the Trauma and Catharsis Symposium on Performing the Asian Avant-Garde, and the Asian American Writers' Workshop—as well as been a part of art shows including Rites of Passage: 20/20 Vision. Monica was born in Ranchi, India, and currently lives in San Francisco, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone territory. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Monica Mody website: www.drmonicamody.com Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tori Lawrence is a choreographer & filmmaker who produces immersive site-specific dances, interdisciplinary performance installations, and dance films that explore the relationship among body, landscape, and architecture. During the month of June 2022, Tori  has been in residence with Sara Shelton Mann at the Fort Mason Center of Arts & Culture on the experimental performance work 7 Excavations. In this episode, Tori offers detailed insight into the creation of the work and reflects on her own work exploring the creative potential of 8mm and 16mm film.7 Excavations culminates in a one night only Summer Solstice performance on Tuesday, June 21st at 8PM at Gallery 308 at the Fort Mason Center For Arts & Culture.https://fortmason.org/event/sara-shelton-mann-excavations-summer-solstice-performance/@sfdancefilmfest@torilawrenceco@sara.shelton.mann@fortmasoncenterThis episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

This week, we welcome Dancing Through the Lens co-host Chris Ouellette. Chris' unique path in dance includes training at San Francisco Ballet, performing internationally with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and acting as a company manager for AXIS Dance Company. This conversation touches on Chris' first encounter with dance film, his work with accessibility in dance spaces and how some of our audience may already have a picture with himSubscribe to SFDFFs new dance film series Encore Shorts at this link:https://sfdancefilmfest.org/2021-encore-shorts/@sfdancefilmfest@couellette87@axisdancecoThis episode was recorded on the ancestral lands of the Yelamu, part of the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. Learn more at https://native-land.ca/

This is Five and Nine, a podcast newsletter at the intersection of magic, work and economic justice. Welcome to Episode 001. This episode features a live reading and a reference to the Seed Root and Garden spread in action. As a very visual medium, the tarot benefits from being able to engage with the imagery of the cards, and we include the images from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck for reference. See our previous newsletter to learn more about the Seed Root and Garden spread.Listen to the podcast now, or read the transcript below, or both! Ana: That was "Tiger Rag," performed by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918. It's part of 400,000 sound recordings made available in the public domain this year. It felt like an appropriate tune for this month because this month marks the Year of the Tiger.  Hi everyone. My name is Ana Mina, AKA An Xiao. I'm an author and intuitive coach working from Tongva, Ohlone and Lenape land. I serve as the producer on this project.  Dorothy: Hello. My name is Dorothy Santos. I'm a writer, artist, and educator based on Ramaytush Ohlone land. And I'm one of the Directors of Magic for Five and Nine. Xiaowei: My name is Xiaowei Wang, and I'm an author, artist and scholar based in Ohlone territory. I'm one of the Directors of Magic and Creative Director on this project. Ana: So we started Five and Nine as three friends from the art and technology world and kind of realized that we are interested in also these issues around magic, tarot, how that fits in with topics around work, economic justice, and decided to put this podcast and newsletter together as a way to foster the conversation, bring a critical discussion to these topics. Especially, especially right now, during this time when there's so much confusion, so much concern around the future of our planet. Xiaowei: So I have had the privilege of working with both of you on various professional projects. And I feel like I've learned so much in terms of how to balance both doing creative work, doing meaningful and impactful work, as well as trying to pay the bills and think about student loans. And so I'm hoping that this newsletter really opens up a lot of difficult conversations that are often sidestepped about the actual process of how to do things. Dorothy: I, aside from adoring the two of you, and again, also making magic in different permutations in the world. I also just saw this as a Thundercat call, and I am really Lion-O, but I'm probably in a Snarf body. That's fine. I'm okay with that. I almost feel like working on something outside of work and academia that allows me to be much more expressive in how I want to talk about work and labor and career and the differences between those three things. It really is because I think we need paths and avenues that allow us to think a little bit more abstractly about the every day, because sometimes the banal and the mundane of something as simple, which we'd like to think is simple, like earning money, building a portfolio, having a new skill, like those, those aren't actually as banal as people think. Xiaowei: In some ways, I think of Five and Nine as — and to pull in my mom here, she always says, “I like to share my mistakes with you, so you don't have to go through them, Xiaowei.” And I see ourselves as having this circle of magic, where we share observations, mistakes, moments of failure or contemplation as we've tried to navigate this work-centric world that we live in, while at the same time balancing our values and also the amount of debt that we owe to the US government. Dorothy: So for me, it's this ongoing archive of our thoughts and observations on how capitalism has actually affected each of our practices as artists, writers, and also people that I've had an engaged in professional work in various ways. Ana: There's the very practical and the very magical, and how do you balance those things? How do you talk about those things? I think all three of us have been engaged in this conversation for years now. It's good to talk about that and to ask ourselves, what does it mean to do work in a world that's so deeply unjust? Dorothy: I remember one of the things my mom said to me when — and I was actually on TV, like the evening news, at a protest one time. And my mom said something really interesting — and I don't critique her for this, I understand it, but it is complicated, it's been over a decade — but my mom said, "I didn't immigrate to this country for you to suffer or risk your wellbeing in your life for other people."  And I didn't know actually how to respond to her. But when you come from an immigrant family, the nine to five thing actually doesn't exist. All of my life as a kid, my grandparents woke up — actually, they woke up at five in the morning, my dad woke up at four, and the workday was atypical all the time, because it was more about survival than it was about thinking about a career. And even before I had the language of economic justice, I did also have magic. And I think the confluence of all those things in my life now, decades later, is for a reason. And I feel like I'm doing so many things later in my life, and I think that's another consideration when thinking about this work that we do — is this kind of intergenerational dialogue around what these things actually mean. Xiaowei: For a long time, my mom had that attitude, and I think still does to some extent, but I realized it's because she's coming from a culture where the social safety net is there already. And oftentimes it comes in the form of family. Coming from a big sprawling Chinese family, like, say what you want, but I have cousins who are queer who are maybe not accepted in mainstream Chinese society, but it's always, the bottom line is, your family is there to provide for you and to always accept you. And then on top of that, you have this broader social safety net in China. And so in some strange way, I realized, I guess I could understand how it's a little bit perverse to like get paid just to be in a society where that kind of social support and social benefit is not the default. Ana: I kinda like where we landed with that name, Five and Nine, the symbology of five as this turning point, the nine not quite the completion, but almost there, kind of rethinking this whole thing.  Dorothy: Ana, you just read my brain. You know, numerology is, has always fascinated me. And I think one of the things that I love about the name that we chose is five in the tarot is also about conflict and challenges and how you battle something out. So even if we look at the different suits, Five of Swords, Five of Pentacles or Coins, et cetera, and as someone who comes from this background of visual and critical studies, I always look at the symbology. And the Five of Swords is always this really tricky card to talk about because it's someone walking away from — it's people walking away from one another, but are you the victor, or are you the person who has been defeated? And this is what is so freaking magical about the tarot is that you actually don't know that until much later on. And so when I think of the Five of Swords, or I think of any of the Five of fill-in-the-blank suit, I think of that, that in one way, shape or form you can explain something. I think there's a great responsibility when being a tarot reader as well, because you have to not just actively and deep, listen to someone, you also have to, there's so many other things involved, body language, context, reading the proverbial room. But then it's also Five AND Nine. It's not Five TO Nine. And I know I'm being a real semantics geek right now, but as you mentioned, Ana, Nine isn't actually about completion. It's about just getting there, just getting there. And so, I love that as simple as Five and Nine sounds, it's actually much more complex, and the tarot actually tells a deeper, broader story. And I think that's what's so beautiful about it, and why I've loved it ever since I was a teenager.  Xiaowei: I love that term, "reading tarot and reading the room," because one of the things that I think for folks who maybe have never read tarot or just tangentially know about it, it's like, where does this come from? Where does all this knowledge come from that you're spitting at me during this reading?  And I think that points to how we've really constructed these ways of where knowledge comes from. Especially in the West, knowledge comes from seeking. It comes from actively downloading comes from probing, I think of Jeff Warren's work and when he talks about microscopes and how with a lot of modern microscopes, you're like actively shooting radio waves at the object. But the very flip side of that, the tarot really surfaces is that it's about tuning in, that actually all of this knowledge, all of these reflections, all of the wisdom to be gained, it's there already. And tarot is this way of helping us tune in to the things that are already there. And, there are so many practices that fall into alignment with that as well, like walking meditation, things like that. And I also love reversals because when I was taught to read reversals by Eliza Swann from Golden Dome, she posed reversals as an exclamation point. And again, too, I think we're just so used to thinking in binary. So like a reversal — "something that was good is now bad" — but actually that's not it. There's always this Middle Way in between, which is what we have to tune into.  Ana: And so it's the “Middle Way Podcast.” Seed, Root, Garden Spread (11:25)Ana: Dorothy and Xiaowei are the Directors of Magic for this project, and they created a spread for the Year of the Tiger. Dorothy: Yes: seed root garden. It is a three card spread that looks at and asks and prompts the querent — or I also want to be very expansive here for anyone who is interested in reading for other people. The seed card is what needs to be planted. The root card is how to best cultivate, and the garden card is what environment, place and/or space — however you want to think about that — is needed to have this root bloom even further and to grow and be attuned with the seasons. And the reason why I talk about shape of a spread and that there's variations of it, that if you wanted to create a triangle, so, you know, at the bottom left of this is a seed. The top is the root. And then the lower right-hand corner of the triangle is the garden. That's one way of looking at the shape of the spread.  But you can also have the seed at the bottom. And then on top of that is the root card. And then on top of that is the garden card. For those of you that are not familiar with tarot, the basic three-card spread oftentimes represents past, present and future. Sometimes when I do three card spreads for people, and I say, "Okay, we're going to just do something quick and dirty. We're going to do past present future." It's very daunting for a lot of people because that timescale is just like, "Whoa, wait, my whole life? You mean like my whole ass past? Like, that's a lot to think about!"  But when you think about it in the context of seed root and garden, playing around with a different — not just semantics, but meaning of what a three-card spread could mean and could be for you, dear listener, I think what I'm hoping for is that there's something in particular that you're wanting to seed. So if you already know, I want to gain a skill that allows me to work with the community more. So that might mean I really love design, so I want to create flyers, or I want to help with PR or social for a campaign.  Well, that's the seed, and then you kind of have an idea of what you want to root and, you think, well, this is kind of best rooted in community. The things that I want to do. And the garden that you want to develop off of that, the environment you want to create is not just context for who else is riding with you, but what do you need? What kind of environment do you need to actually cultivate and continue cultivation of that?  And the seed root and garden spread is just one avenue and one path for you to learn even the language of the tarot. Depending on what cards you get, it's infinite, the combinations you can get. Then the tarot, albeit the universe, starts to talk to you through that and how you might understand, okay, well, you understand what your seed is, but maybe this is the thing that you need to understand. Maybe there's a decision that you need to make, maybe you're getting the Two of Cups here, so you have some type of feelings and emotions around a decision based on the seed that you actually want to plant, et cetera.  Xiaowei: So part of our work at Five and Nine is thinking about the different seasons, and being that it's both winter in North America, where we all are currently, as well as Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, it's really a time to start planning out the crops or the garden.  One of the things that really came up was a conversation that we had last year around this time. Oh God, now my brain is like, what is, what is time? 20—? No, the year before 2020, during September and October, Dorothy, you and I were talking about the fires and everything going on and kind of this phrasing of people saying, it's the end. And I think we have a very simplistic notion of the end, and we forget that it's actually like, there's a lot of other things like composting, or just a cycle of things that happened. Dorothy: I will cite Mama Dulce here, my mother, who texted me this morning saying that she was watching a UFO documentary on Netflix and how she said, well, you know, this isn't the end of humanity. This is a lesson in how we need to survive, need to change. And you do that through very intentional, slow practice.  Okay, let me pick the easiest plant. So pothos. One of my good friends, Helen Tseng, they sent me something like apartment therapy. I don't even know if it's from that, but I started getting into plants more a few years ago, and they gave me a trimming of their pothos, and it's grown considerably. I actually have different trimmings all over the apartment that I live in. But the article I think they sent me, it had the line or the headline was, “The stupid, easy plant to take care of.” And I'm sharing this because even at the rate that the potho grows, it's a reminder of duration and time and what you're doing and where you were when you first took care of the trimming when you first planted it. And, obviously, my planting skills have graduated to other plants. I'm bringing this up related to the spread because I remember my mom, she was scared for her plants when she would travel because she would say, “Oh God, I know I'm going to come back to one or two of my plant babies, and they're completely dead.”And that was the case when I took care of it, but not anymore. But I think that was one of the foundational aspects of coming up with this spread with you was if we think about this and apply it to the way we look at how we show up in the world and how we are present with other people, whether it's through our work or community organizing or artistic practice, how do we take a seed and cultivate it? And what do we do with the roots when they come in and what should we consider?  Because even before you plant a seed, you actually have to know whether that seed is going to grow in the environment you're placing it in, because some seeds just won't grow. And sometimes you learn those lessons after the fact. I think we came up with variations on how this might look for someone. And that was something I felt was very important because some people want to see the seed root garden relationship as a triangle. Some people might see it as an actual sprout, something that grows vertically, but it's pretty open. And I think that's what I love most about what we came up with.  Xiaowei: Yeah. And as an avid gardener I think there's just always a magic that I encounter when it's early morning and I get to really be with the plants, and plants just go through this. You can kind of tweak it through adjusting the environment. But it's like, they just grow. No matter what, they will grow, even if they're outside, and you're like, I forgot to water them. They will grow towards water. So this kind of magic of survival and of life and this kind of vital force is really powerful to me. I think it's also incredible how a flower, it goes to seed, it just has this kind of intrinsic lifecycle. And to me that reminds me of the power of just knowing when certain things are enough. And what I mean by this is when I first started reading tarot for myself, it was like really in my wishes. Like, “I have this wish to achieve this thing and how do I get there? And the tarot will help me do that.” And now looking back upon it, it's very simplistic. It's more just like, “How do I tune in to try and figure out this garden in this season?” And very practically, earlier this week, I was talking with a friend who was not sure if he should leave his job. He was like, "But when will I know?" And I was like, "Well, you'll know when you know." And not to sound cryptic about it, but he was kind of going on about how he didn't like this new set of managers that were hired, things like that. And he was like, "Oh, but I don't want to leave because of that." And it's like, “Yeah, exactly.” The decisions that you make have to come from that same force of a flower. It just, , blooms, it just opens up. It has to have that same kind of energy. And so I think this spread really reminds us of that in its formation. Applying the Spread (20:41)Ana: Should we do a reading for ourselves for this project? Dorothy: I mean, I am down for that. Who's gonna pull a seed card?  Xiaowei: Do you want to?  Dorothy: Sure. I'm picking one right now...  All right. Ready? Jesus, I got the Five of Pentacles. Xiaowei: The tarot has a good sense of humor.  I pulled the Four of Wands for roots.  Dorothy: Wow. Okay. Okay. Ana: The garden: I pulled the Tower. Dorothy: Oh my God. Goddess, really, actually.  Holy — so many thoughts...  Ana: Okay. Five of Pentacles. It's a seed that needs to be planted. The root is a Four of Wands, how to best cultivate. And the garden, the environment, and the place that's needed to have this fruit bloom further is the Tower. Dorothy: I don't think that the Five of Pentacles is meant to be about us. I kind of understood that as the context of what we're in. I know that that the garden is for that maybe, or it might be read that way, but I think the seed that needs to be planted being the Five of Pentacles has more to do with, oh, how have we processed, metabolized, taken in the loss and the grief that we are experiencing in our own individual lives in relation to our communities, our work, professional academic community, and what we witnessed all around us?  And this is going to sound really strange, but sometimes the most beautiful things are seeded from something that is very painful. Like when we read for one another, all we do is laugh when we pull cards, because it's just like, “Oh yeah, thanks, universe, I hear you loud and clear.” [The Five of Pentacles] is these two individuals, these two figures that are plowing through the snow literally, and one is injured, another one is forging ahead. And then you see these Pentacles at a window.  And I felt visually when I saw that, I thought, “Oh, okay, we have to take what we've been given, and that becomes the seed of the work that we do.” Because it's not just about accomplishments. It's not just about the experiences that we've gained. It's also what we've lost, and the different types of failures we've experienced in our individual lives that bring us together to not just understand one another and how we're going to be in this continuous dialogue, because — and I always tell people this, when I read for them — the tarot is probably not going to mean anything if you don't do the work. And that's what the universe is trying to tell you.  I always have this joke when I tell people, I always am just trying to be the Oracle in The Matrix. You know how she tells Neo in the original Matrix that you didn't come here to ask what to do. But you came here to figure out why you're doing it. People already know and have decisions made up in their mind. The reason why people go to tarot is they want to understand, well, why do I feel this way? Or they want to seek affirmation or confirmation. A really ethical, responsible tarot reader will always know that you can never predict things and that as painful and as uncomfortable something might be that that might be the actual thing that needs to be planted. So it becomes something different and new and evolves into something unexpected.  Xiaowei: I think one of the things that I love about spreads is that so much of the cards, there's an intrinsic meaning, but then there's also the context that they're in. And to me, there's this element of the Five of Pentacles card that is about relationships to institutions. And then also people who are these injured people, who are kind of banding together. And at least in the context of the spread that we've just done, to have the root be Four of Wands just highlights that energy for me in the Five of Pentacles even further. That's about coming together to really build this refuge for ourselves.  Dorothy: The one aspect of the card visually I don't like is the representation of disability as a type of thing that communicates loss and grief, and I wanted to just big up and put a little shine on the New World Tarot, which actually represents so many different types of bodies and ability, disability, and all different types of morphologies — human morphologies — that are of strength and a type of relentlessness. As someone who suffers from chronic pain, it hasn't actually hindered my spirit, and I deal with it the best way that I can. And I'm bringing this up because I oftentimes feel we live in a world, in a culture where those things are not factored in. But they are represented as, you're losing at the game, and the game being, capitalism or, whatever, whatever game you feel that we're all playing. And I read with different decks for different people. I really love the whole format of, sometimes, if I'm in the mood, allowing my, my querent, the person who has sought a tarot reading to, choose their deck. And that's been a really great practice for me because it really forces me to be present with the person, and to just be in the moment, because I don't know what deck they're going to choose, number one, but also it forces me to really connect with the different visual formats I'm working with, but also the different symbologies. And that's just something that I wanted to point out.  Ana: One thing that I find interesting when I'm talking with people who do these kinds of ancient practices, or old practices, I should say. There's something deep here, but at the same time, the thing that I struggle with is , yeah, the same practice that contains so much wisdom at the same time contains these problematics contains things that we may not agree with anymore as a society or as readers. I feel like we're trying to navigate which wisdom is still relevant, which wisdom is still applicable Xiaowei: I love what you two have brought up about this kind of duality between tarot and all of these practices as having this kind of ancient wisdom, but then also some problematics. And I think , for me, I always think of in Buddhism, how we talk about the moon is a symbol of enlightenment, but all of this is just pointing to the moon, right? Like, don't mistake the moon for enlightenment.  And that reminds me of reading tarot as well. It has a knowledge of a certain kind, but don't mistake the card for the precise knowledge. I think especially this image of the Tower card, like everything that we're saying and thinking, and our reflections on the tarot. You know, 20 years down the line, the stuff that we're saying now might be entirely antiquated or problematic or so different, and so of this time period. And I am a thousand percent okay with that.  Ana: I'm noticing something, looking at the spread, going from bottom to top, is it's a bit of an ascension into a tower. You have two figures outside, arguably, a building or a tower. And then at the root, those two figures are, instead of maybe struggling outside, are now celebrating it, cultivating it, building something beautiful. And then just as we've been talking about with that cycle — cycles of change, cycles of planting and rooting and gardening — those two figures eventually find themselves trapped in that tower and leap forth. So many of the people I've been reading for or talking with are finding themselves in this exact intersection right now of trying to get into the game, reaching a point of cultivating and celebrating that, and then finally asking, “Oh, this is right for me anymore?”Xiaowei: Some time ago, Ana, we were talking about David Brooks and his book, The Second Mountain, and — all my distaste for David Brooks's conservatism aside — I think the Tower also speaks to that kind of Second Mountain notion. That it's not just like you've reached the top — "There you are, enjoy your castle." But there's always more mountains to be climbed.  Dorothy: I think something that's also related, is the Tower is also about coming into a new type of consciousness. I'm kind of citing Rachel Pollack here because I always think about the ways that the bodies are depicted in the Tower and how the head is oftentimes pointing almost directly to the Earth. Yes, you can kind of posit it as a type of death, but it is a type of a forced leap maybe, or a really fast dive into a consciousness that you're not expecting. And I feel that that is so in relation to what we are experiencing now and when we're doing this project. We're starting it in the midst of a global pandemic. Even just thinking about the tower card, I often times think that what people forget is there's value in understanding and digging through the rubble of the ruins. That if you want to rebuild something, it's there for you. But the ruins also tell you that what came before it didn't last for a reason. And you may not know the reason of why the Tower has crumbled, but what does it tell you about the land that you're on, in a figurative and literal sense?What does my mom say? Oh my gosh, I want to bring her wisdom into this. My mom used to tell me like, "No one's going to build a monument for you." Nothing's infinite, and what is infinite is not tangible . Xiaowei: To me, I think the Tower in this spread, especially as we're reading for our project, also points to how there are so many ways where when we start to talk about work or career, or even magic, it really just becomes about the level of the individual and focused on like, well, what can you do? And the Tower, I think, really embodies an ethos that we all share, which is this broader one of recognizing that the ways that we experience the world, they're part of this bigger sky, this bigger context that we're all part of.  It's very much the way that it's drawn. These people falling out of the tower. It's very much a conditioning that's extremely Western in a lot of ways. There's a type of architecture in Japan, a country that has a lot of earthquakes, where the buildings are made of wood, and they're very lightweight. There's not a lot of glass that's used. And it's built so that it eventually collapses and doesn't hurt the people who are inside of it.  Year of the Tiger (33:31)Ana: So it's the Year of the Tiger. February 1, 2022 until January 21, 2023. And we have just noticed that Dorothy's Zoom profile has her wearing a pretty amazing tiger shirt. Dorothy: I actually got that thrifting and. I remember the reason why I bought it is because I used to be friends with a couple of stylists, and I remember one of the things they said to me was, "Your attire doesn't match your personality."I don't think this is going to surprise you two. When I worked at — when I had a corporate life, I always wore, what do they call it? Like, a very east coast palette for like for winter. I always wore gray, black, dark, dark, dark brown, like super dark colors all the time. And they said, "I think you need to start wearing print." And so this was my compromise when I saw this, and that's why I bought it because I said, “Well, it's still black.” I love wearing black, but I love this animal. And this animal is awesome and there's it's print, so why not?  Ana: And so somewhere in the middle is this amazing shirt that has this beautiful tiger on it.  Dorothy: I mean the one revelatory thing that came out this week when Xiaowei said that tigers sleep for like 12 hours or something. Xiaowei: Twenty! Dorothy: Twenty. Okay. And, you know, listen, that sounds amazing. Ana: That's where they get all their energy, right?  Dorothy: That's true.  Ana: How else are you going to be brave and ferocious if you don't get your beauty sleep first? Dorothy: Oh my gosh.  Xiaowei: I just love it because it's a kind of reminder of where to save your energy. I'm sure like as big cat predators, they need to eat a lot, but it's like, why spend all your energy chasing down a tiny bamboo rat, if you can sleep for 20 hours and catch something bigger? Dorothy: I mean, a hundred percent. Xiaowei: I was checking in with my therapist, and she was like, well, how are you doing on the basics these days? And I was like the basics, like, you know, writing 800 words a day?  And she just gave me this look. And she was like, "That's not the basics. That's high functioning." Literally what she said was like, "The basics is sleeping, drinking water and leaving the house once a day." Dorothy: Oh my God. Oh my Goddess. Oh, also quick question. In the Chinese Zodiac I'm Year of the Horse. What are you two?  Xiaowei: I'm Tiger. Dorothy: Oh yeah, that's right.  Ana: I'm a Pig. Dorothy: I joke around and say I'm a stallion….Five and Nine is a podcast newsletter at the intersection of magic, work and economic justice. We publish “moonthly” — a newsletter every new moon

When academic, best-selling author, and filmmaker Raj Patel and physician, musician, and activist Rupa Marya joined to write a book together, the result was a deep dive into how our economic, political, and social structures fan disease, often invisibly. “Inflammation is the body’s appropriate response to damage, or the threat of damage,” says Marya. “We’re learning that the social, environmental, and political structures around us are tuning the immune system to sound out the full range of inflammation.” Patel adds, “Capitalism primes our bodies for sickness.” In Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, released in August 2021, Marya and Patel arrive at a new systems level of diagnosis that incorporates history and the pathologies of power, offering treatment options to heal people and the planet. Rupa Marya, MD, is an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where she practices and teaches internal medicine. She’s co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, a collective of healthcare workers committed to changing social structures that impede health and wellbeing for different groups of people; and the founder and executive director of Deep Medicine Circle, a worker-directed nonprofit committed to “healing the wounds of colonialism through food, medicine, story, learning and restoration.” Working with her husband, the agroecological farmer Benjamin Fahrer, and the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone in their ancestral territory, she is a part of the Farming Is Medicine project, where farmers are recast as ecological stewards of rematriated land and food is liberated from the market economy. Her work in social advocacy has earned her trust from indigenous communities where she lives, in Ohlone territory and in places where she has served, such as Lakota territory. In 2016, she was invited to Standing Rock to assist with medical response to increasing state violence toward indigenous people protecting their sovereign land in the face of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Outside of her medical work, Marya is a gifted guitarist, singer, and composer. Her band, Rupa and the April Fishes, mixes styles -- from jazz to punk to reggae -- and spans multiple languages. Her music explores themes of climate justice, ecology, politics, culture, and the impact of violence and racism on people of color. She lives with her husband and two sons in the Bay Area where, at the invitation of Lakota elders, she is helping to develop a clinic to “decolonize food and medicine” at the Mni Wiconi Health Clinic and Farm. Raj Patel, PhD, is an author six times over, a filmmaker, and an academic. He is a research professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, a professor in the university’s department of nutrition, and a research associate at Rhodes University, South Africa. Patel credits an upsetting encounter witnessing an adolescent girl carrying a crying infant while begging on the roadside during a family trip to Mumbai in his early childhood as a formative experience that led to the big questions that shaped his life. Those questions never left him, and prior to his writing and academic work, he worked for the UN, the World Bank, and the WTO to explore possible solutions to poverty, hunger, and inequity. Later, he would become a fierce critic of those very same multilateral institutions, and has been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. Yet today, he serves on the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems and has advised governments worldwide on the causes of and solutions to crises of sustainability. Among Patel’s books are Stuffed and Starved, which examines the inequities of the world food system wherein a billion are obese even as another billion starve; the New York Times bestselling The Value of Nothing, which critiques the free market’s notions of value, especially with regard to fundamental needs like clean water, housing, and health care; A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, which details how capitalistic distortion of environmental, social, and health costs of goods has devastated society and the planet. As a filmmaker, Patel recently co-directed a documentary on climate change and the global food system called The Ants and the Grasshopper, which follows Malawian women impacted by climate change as they travel the United States and attempt to convince Americans of the reality of the global threat. Please join Rahul Brown and Andrew Kim for this illuminating conversation with two trailblazers dedicated to deep consciousness and deep medicine for healing the earth and all her people.

When academic, best-selling author, and filmmaker Raj Patel and physician, musician, and activist Rupa Marya joined to write a book together, the result was a deep dive into how our economic, political, and social structures fan disease, often invisibly. “Inflammation is the body’s appropriate response to damage, or the threat of damage,” says Marya. “We’re learning that the social, environmental, and political structures around us are tuning the immune system to sound out the full range of inflammation.” Patel adds, “Capitalism primes our bodies for sickness.” In Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, released in August 2021, Marya and Patel arrive at a new systems level of diagnosis that incorporates history and the pathologies of power, offering treatment options to heal people and the planet. Rupa Marya, MD, is an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where she practices and teaches internal medicine. She’s co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, a collective of healthcare workers committed to changing social structures that impede health and wellbeing for different groups of people; and the founder and executive director of Deep Medicine Circle, a worker-directed nonprofit committed to “healing the wounds of colonialism through food, medicine, story, learning and restoration.” Working with her husband, the agroecological farmer Benjamin Fahrer, and the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone in their ancestral territory, she is a part of the Farming Is Medicine project, where farmers are recast as ecological stewards of rematriated land and food is liberated from the market economy. Her work in social advocacy has earned her trust from indigenous communities where she lives, in Ohlone territory and in places where she has served, such as Lakota territory. In 2016, she was invited to Standing Rock to assist with medical response to increasing state violence toward indigenous people protecting their sovereign land in the face of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Outside of her medical work, Marya is a gifted guitarist, singer, and composer. Her band, Rupa and the April Fishes, mixes styles -- from jazz to punk to reggae -- and spans multiple languages. Her music explores themes of climate justice, ecology, politics, culture, and the impact of violence and racism on people of color. She lives with her husband and two sons in the Bay Area where, at the invitation of Lakota elders, she is helping to develop a clinic to “decolonize food and medicine” at the Mni Wiconi Health Clinic and Farm. Raj Patel, PhD, is an author six times over, a filmmaker, and an academic. He is a research professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, a professor in the university’s department of nutrition, and a research associate at Rhodes University, South Africa. Patel credits an upsetting encounter witnessing an adolescent girl carrying a crying infant while begging on the roadside during a family trip to Mumbai in his early childhood as a formative experience that led to the big questions that shaped his life. Those questions never left him, and prior to his writing and academic work, he worked for the UN, the World Bank, and the WTO to explore possible solutions to poverty, hunger, and inequity. Later, he would become a fierce critic of those very same multilateral institutions, and has been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. Yet today, he serves on the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems and has advised governments worldwide on the causes of and solutions to crises of sustainability. Among Patel’s books are Stuffed and Starved, which examines the inequities of the world food system wherein a billion are obese even as another billion starve; the New York Times bestselling The Value of Nothing, which critiques the free market’s notions of value, especially with regard to fundamental needs like clean water, housing, and health care; A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, which details how capitalistic distortion of environmental, social, and health costs of goods has devastated society and the planet. As a filmmaker, Patel recently co-directed a documentary on climate change and the global food system called The Ants and the Grasshopper, which follows Malawian women impacted by climate change as they travel the United States and attempt to convince Americans of the reality of the global threat. Please join Rahul Brown and Andrew Kim for this illuminating conversation with two trailblazers dedicated to deep consciousness and deep medicine for healing the earth and all her people.

We are very excited to introduce you to Ms. Niba Audrey Nirmal, who we will be chatting with today. Niba Nirmal is a multimedia science communicator based in Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco, CA). She produces and hosts videos about science for places like SciShow, Seeker, and her own channels at Notes By Niba. She completed her B.S. in Genetics and Genomics at UC Davis, where she also researched the effects of climate change on crops and earned a double-minor in Environmental Toxicology and Diversity Studies. She received her M.S. in Genetics from Duke University, where she researched the genetics, form, and function of plant roots. Learn about a career as a multimedia digital content creator/science communicator!  You can find her on these platforms:  Niba @NotesByNiba Instagram https://www.instagram.com/notesbyniba/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/notesbyniba Twitter https://twitter.com/NotesByNiba Website www.notesbyniba.com Feminist Book Club Podcast code FBCNiba

Friend, Community Organizer, & Leader, Kami was born and raised in the town of Wahiawā on the island of Oʻahu in the occupied Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Kami relocated to Ramaytush Ohlone ancestral lands after spending four years in Duwamish ancestral lands studying, working, and teaching. Kami's professional and cultural work is influenced by Filipino grassroots organizations in the U.S. and in the Philippines. Kami is also a part of Kapwa Health Collective, a grassroots Filipinx health-centered organizing & education collective. ABOUT:Kasamahan Co, (previously named Reclaiming FIlipinx Identity) is a platform that not only amplifies voices of Filipinos in Hawai'i but is also a platform that serves to create stories that seeks to create sustainable outlets that showcases our cultures, contextualizes Filipinx narratives and prompts dialogues. Our conversation speak to diverse experiences, identities and talents that are often overlooked, supressed or erased. By building connections between community members with those in the diaspora, and homeland, we hope to foster the next revolutionaries across the industries. SUBSCRIBE for more Kasamahan Co on Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok & Twitter! Be part of the Filipinx Mental Health discussion video: https://forms.gle/j6Y7r1wAKiKY5LJt5 Support Kasamahan Co through our venmo: @kasamahanco This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app SUPPORT US: Venmo: @kasamahanco Stay tuned for our GoFundMe Page to help raise for funds for our upcoming series & projects! If you want to be one of our BLOG WRITERS for our website, we are currently open for more OP-ED Articles, as well as POEMS, & Mediums that helped define what it means to RECLAIM OUR NARRATIVES, OUR FILIPINX/O/A IDENTITIES. Send us your submission here: https://forms.gle/cKgbYa6THAU1WZqu8 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kasamahancollective/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kasamahancollective/support

BONUS episode - Leaving Grad School Conversation on Clubhouse hosted by Susanna Harris, PhD featuring Niba of NotesByNiba and Diana Klatt. Over 50% of people who start a PhD program leave without the degree. Why? Niba of NotesByNiba on YouTube talks about her experience of leaving Grad School as well as the experiences of those interviewed for her newest video 10 Stories on Leaving Grad School + Why I Left, which premiered on April 15th, 2021 on her YouTube! Niba (she/her) is a multimedia science communicator based in Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco, CA). She creates scientific content through articles, photos, social media, and primarily through science video hosting. She received a science film making fellowship from Jackson Wild and has created videos for platforms such as Stanford and Seeker. As a visible and invisible minority, Niba strives to be inclusive of all minority statuses. As a model turned scientist turned content creator, Niba explores the science in cosmetics, fashion, and skincare through YouTube and Instagram as @NotesByNiba. One of her favorite videos blends her Indian heritage, plants, and the science of henna body art. As an undergraduate at UC Davis, Niba investigated the effects of climate change on crops and pursued diversity studies. Her graduate work at Duke researched the genetics, form, and function of plant roots. Find out more on Niba's Website. A full-text transcript of this episode is available via google doc. Follow the host Susanna on Twitter: @SusannaLHarris

This week, we will be joined by Niba Nirmal (she/her). Niba's video, 10 Stories on Leaving Grad School + Why I Left premiered on April 15th, 2021! "Last year, I made a choice to leave Duke University -- not with a PhD as I had originally planned, with a masters degree. Though it was the right choice for me, I was not prepared for the backlash of that decision. Leaving has a weird stigma around leaving and assumptions about being able to “succeed” or not being "smart enough". In dealing with the repercussions of my decision, I felt alone and reached out to others who had left to learn from their experience. This video is their perspectives, experiences, and thoughts on leaving." - Niba Niba is a multimedia science communicator based in Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco, CA). Niba creates scientific content through articles, photos, social media, and primarily through science video hosting. She received a science film making fellowship from Jackson Wild and has created videos for platforms such as Stanford and Seeker. As a visible and invisible minority, Niba strives to be inclusive of all minority statuses.As a model turned scientist turned content creator, Niba explores the science in cosmetics, fashion, and skincare through YouTube and Instagram as @NotesByNiba. One of her favorite videos blends her Indian heritage, plants, and the science of henna body art. As an undergraduate at UC Davis, Niba investigated the effects of climate change on crops and pursued diversity studies. Her graduate work at Duke researched the genetics, form, and function of plant roots. Find out more on Niba's Website. A full-text transcript of this episode is available via google doc. Join us each Saturday at 3 pm EDT/12 pm PDT for the YouTube live stream where we talk about maintaining mental health and balance in grad school. The podcast episodes are posted the Tuesday after the live stream! Want to be a guest or know somebody we should be talking to? Fill out our google form! Follow our host Fay on Twitter: @xiaofei_lin Check out the PhD Balance website for more info on Grad Chat!

Stephanie Garma Balón, MA, AMFT (she/her) is a second-gen, Pinay-American, & proud Mama—born/raised on occupied land of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, AKA: Daly City/San Francisco, and of Ilokano & Visayan decent. As an Expressive Arts Therapist at StarVista in North San Mateo County (SMC) providing individual and group therapy to youth, parents, and families, Steph leans on her belief in the transformative healing power of the arts. This inspires her to intentionally integrate ritual, visual art, writing, and poetry in her professional and personal practice, especially as it relates to her continuous decolonial healing journey. Steph's work is rooted in trauma-informed care, narrative & relational-cultural therapeutic approaches. She has over 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector and has an extensive community mental health advocacy background addressing health inequities amongst underserved populations, namely within the Filipinx community. She is a co-chair of the Filipino Mental Health Initiative of SMC, which was awarded a 2.6M grant by the State of California to launch a Social Enterprise Cultural Center for the Filipino American demographic in Daly City.