Mind Full of Everything

Sunaura Taylor on tracing ecologies of multispecies disablement, injury and resistance

Whilst living in realities polluted with ableist, colonial and capitalist values of human domination and subordination of the more-than-human, where can we seek inspiration and hope for manifesting alternative futures of inclusivity, vulnerability and reciprocal care? How can tracing trails of injury and resistance to generational disablement of human and more-than-human communities equip us with the necessary tools for building a disabled future that is grounded in the values of living with and caring for the body and the environment?

This month, we are joined by the wonderful Sunaura Taylor, an artist, writer and author of Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation (The New Press, 2017) and Disabled Ecology: Lessons from a Wounded Desert. Taylor has written for a range of popular media outlets and her artworks have been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. She works at the intersection of disability studies, environmental justice, multispecies studies, and art practice. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in the Bay Area with her daughter Leonora, husband David, and their two cats, Rosie and Pirate. 

In this heart-felt episode, Sunaura offers us ways of mapping out disabled ecologies by framing our ecological crises as a multispecies disablement that extends out to biotic and abiotic bodies, human and more-than-human life, and across generations. Using the themes of her book Disabled Ecology: Lessons from a Wounded Desert as a grounding, Sunaura sows seeds of hope and radical imagination for a disabled future, which resists ableist and colonial systems of power to foster values of alternative caregiving and meaning-making of the diversity and beauty of our worlds.

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Leah Rampy on eco-grief and the paradox of reconnection to the more-than-human world

As we mourn human-induced ecological loss and violence to the more-than-human world, what space do we hold for grieving what we have lost in ourselves by creating walls that were once blurred boundaries between our bodies and the ecosystem? How do we create joy from what remains of our lost capacities to communicate and connect to other bodies through languages of the heart?

This month we bring to the space Leah Rampy, a writer, retreat leader, and educator who weaves ecology, spirituality, personal stories, and practices to help others deepen their relationship to the natural world. With experience as a teacher, professor, corporate and nonprofit executive, and leadership consultant, she began a decades-long journey to understand what lies beneath our unwillingness to change our interactions with the natural world.

Her growing commitment to reweaving soul and Earth has been informed by leading over a dozen pilgrimages and many more retreats, extensive reading and research, her contemplative practice, and she shares her wisdom of the living world through her book Earth and Soul: reconnecting amid climate chaos. Leah has taught in public schools and universities, held leadership roles in Fortune 100 companies, offered executive coaching and leadership consulting through a company she founded, and led a nonprofit organization. Leah holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum from Indiana University.

The episode explores the complexities in grieving ecological loss and degradation community fragmentation and environmental inaction, particularly bringing focus on the paradox of reconnecting to the natural world we were never apart from. Our conversation invites moments of reflection on how we see our ecological crises through a human lens but also how we see ourselves placed in the ecosystem, from moral responsibility to collective identity.

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Maanarak of Grey on de-commodifying creativity and invitations for flow

Making livelihoods from artistic passions is essential for sustaining art communities and preserving the art itself, but many artists find the joy of creating being lost within the struggles of survivorship and power imbalances of our capitalistic world. What can de-commodifying creativity look like for artists seeking more fluidity and joy-making in their creation processes but also balancing their business needs?

This month, we bring back to the space the wonderful Maanarak of Grey, the artistic alias of Radinka Ustasia, a multidisciplinary artist from the Caribbean island of Bonaire. From 2010-2023 Maanarak has lived, studied, and worked in the Netherlands, with the highest qualification she obtained there being a Bachelors of Science in International Development Management, majoring in Rural Development and Innovation, at Van Hall Larenstein in Velp. During her study program, she minored in Art and Creativity at work and this is where she started an exploration of combining her competing passions. 

In this episode, we extend from the previous episode's themes of artistic expression and playfulness in activism and development to explore the ways in which we can balance capitalistic tendencies to monetise joy and basic financial needs in our lives, and challenge urges to perfect and structure as a way to expand our limitless imaginations.

Connect with Maanarak on Instagram (@maanarak.art).

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Nayo Shell on being seen in the natural world as people of colour

Whilst being in natural spaces is a birthright for all, with nature being us and us being nature, BIPOC communities often find themselves alienated from the ‘natural world’ so guarded by privilege and power, it almost seems impossible to feel seen or even safe. How then can reviving deep cultural connections to the land through improved eco-education remediate historical harms of environmental injustices faced by our communities?

This month, we invite to the space Nayo Shell, the visionary founder of EcoWell Co., a transformative platform established in 2020 with a mission to deepen our connection with nature through wellness practices and eco-education. A Maryland-native holistic wellness teacher, environmental scientist, urban planner, and climate activist, Nayo is dedicated to amplifying eco-consciousness and resilience to climate change. Through her multifaceted background, she endeavors to bridge the gaps between our minds, bodies, spirits, and the Earth, igniting mindful, radical (r)evolutionary change from within. As the host of the Meditation Matters Podcast and curator of the EcoWell Co., Nayo inspires individuals and communities to embrace collective transformation towards a resilient, harmonious world.

In this wildly open and animated conversation, we centre re-storying as an essential tool for countering eco-narratives rooted in colonial power, particularly re-instilling confidence and courage in people of colour to engage in environmental placemaking. Nayo weaves together embodied intention-setting practices to offer people of colour ways of finding place and belonging in nature, as a way to reclaim lost identity as interconnected beings.

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Connect with Nayo on Instagram (@ecowellco).

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Camille Sapara Barton on growing cultures of care in communal grief tending

When growing up in a culture that instills individualistic healing modalities in us as children, what then can restorying grief tending as a communal praxis do for caring for our individual and collective selves? We centre this crucial question in this month’s episode with Camille Sapara Barton, exploring key pathways in inspiring cultural shifts for grief work in times of sociopolitical divides and ecological degradation.

Camille is a writer, artist and somatic practitioner, dedicated to creating networks of care and liveable futures. Rooted in Black feminism, ecology and harm reduction, Camille uses creativity, alongside embodied practices, to create culture change in fields ranging from psychedelic assisted therapy to arts education. Based in Amsterdam, Camille designed and directed Ecologies of Transformation (2021 - 2023), a masters programme exploring socially engaged art making with a focus on creating change through the body into the world. They curate events and offer consultancy combining trauma informed practice, experiential learning and their studies in political science. Camille’s debut book "Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community", published last month by North Atlantic Books, offers deeper insight into their work and informs the themes of this conversation.

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Connect with Camille on Instagram (@camillesaparabarton).

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Maanarak of Grey on artivism and playfulness in international development

In a culture that inhibits adult creative integration, how can grounding community development work in play, creativity, vulnerability and inner child healing help materialise knowledges into transformative development practice?

This month, we invite to the space Maanarak of Grey, the artistic alias of Radinka Ustasia, a multidisciplinary artist from the Caribbean island of Bonaire. From 2010-2023 Maanarak has lived, studied, and worked in the Netherlands, with the highest qualification she obtained there being a Bachelors of Science in International Development Management, majoring in Rural Development and Innovation, at Van Hall Larenstein in Velp. During her study program, she minored in Art and Creativity at work and this is where she started an exploration of combining her competing passions.

In this episode, we discuss the place that artivism holds in sustainable development and the ways in which art and science can be interwoven to make the development sector more accessible, fluid and equitable through the powerful tool of play. By getting in touch with our inner child and the playful modes of creation we once had access to as children, Maanarak guides us in exploring the deeply healing forces of art that invite opportunities to be vulnerable and in touch with ourselves, our communities and our ecosystems to bring about long-lasting systemic change.

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Connect with Maanarak on Instagram (@maanarak.art).

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Hajar Yazdiha on the politics of togetherness and imagining collective futures

In a world of co-optation, violent othering and systemic oppression, how can tracing the histories of resistance and collective resilience of communities (including those we are not from) liberate and expand imaginations beyond the confines of sociopolitical structures? What can life look like if we, as humans, abide again by nature’s laws of interconnectedness, cyclical healing and symbiotic living?

In this month’s episode, we are joined by Hajar Yazdiha, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California and faculty affiliate of the USC Equity Research Institute. Hajar researches the politics of inclusion and exclusion, examining the forces that bring us together and keep us apart as we work to forge collective futures. She is author of the book, The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement with Princeton University Press. She is also a public scholar whose writing and research has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, Time Magazine, LA Times, ABC News, The Hill, and The Grio.

In this wonderfully inspiring conversation, Hajar dismantles the politics of togetherness and othering by interweaving her lived experiences, the collective memory of the Civil Rights Movement and the innate creative abilities of the human being to illustrate how systems have historically oppressed and violated certain groups, but also how these groups have resisted and transformed these systems of harm. It is in these stories of struggle and resilience that hope emerges, a sense of shared hope and relief that we can remake the liberation created and experienced by generations before us.

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Katya Lovejoy on the remembrance of ancestral joy and resilience

Why is it crucial that we open up the individualised clinical model of therapy so that it incorporates the multidimensionality of intergenerational trauma healing? In what ways can we begin to shift therapy narratives to ancestral joy and resilience to restore balance and hope in community efforts of system resistance and reimagination?

Today we are joined by Katya Lovejoy, a clinical hypnotherapist, trauma coach, and mental health educator who supports highly sensitive people to reclaim a sense of wholeness and empowerment after trauma. Katya holds degrees in neuroscience and social work, as well as esoteric trainings from lineages around the world. She approaches trauma healing from an individual, ancestral, and collective lens, and utilises subconscious, somatic, and spiritual approaches to finding release and resolution. Katya is committed to the liberation and empowerment of all people, and is on a mission to end the transmission of intergenerational trauma in families and communities by sharing the most effective modalities for sustainable transformation. 

In this beautifully inspiring episode, Katya explores with us the power of tapping into our ancestral bodies and lineages to draw out deep inspiration and joy from the rituals and ways of being of previous generations, human and more-than-human. Katya steps out of the linearity of the conventional therapy model to invite opportunities to open up the therapy space for stories and nostalgic remembering of a time which preserved the dynamism and animacy of connected living, whilst also holding space for accountability and remediation of ancestral practices which no longer serve our time.

Biggest thank you to Katya for holding space for Agrita during this difficult period of mourning for her and her family after the recent passing away of her grandfather. We hope this conversation reaches the hearts of everyone who has, or currently is experiencing, grief over the passing of a loved one, particularly elders who have taken position as ancestors, and that the compassion and love that is tied to intergenerational trauma healing holds space for you to process your emotions and move forward.

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Agrita Dandriyal on regenerating hope in new times

How can the emulation of nature’s processes of regeneration seed hopeful inspiration into new beginnings? In what ways can we tap into the regenerative capacities and energies of our material bodies to engage in reparative changemaking that feeds imaginations of a reality that break cycles of internalised scarcity and overconsumption to nurture cultures of care, mutuality and rest?

In our first episode of 2024, we are joined by the host Agrita Dandriyal to explore the ways in which we engage in the complex regeneration of our material and non-material capacities with the beginning of each new year. Being deeply inspired by the microcosms of her family’s gardens and the political space of her body, Agrita calls for a remembering of the eco-cultural roots of regeneration in values of reciprocal care and resilience so that we can reclaim the reparative power of the age-old concept and materialise our dreams of equitable and restful realities.

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Maribeth Decker on heart-led communications with more-than-human kin

How can we deepen our understanding of the ways of being of our more-than-human kin through the art of heart-led communication and embodiment practice? In what ways can decentering the human experience equip both our animal companions and ourselves with the necessary energy healing tools for smoother life transitions?

For our final episode of the year, we welcome onto the show Maribeth Decker, an intuitive animal communicator, medical intuitive, and energy healer, is the founder of SacredGrove.com, where People and Pets Heal and Connect.

She works with people to help their animal companions move gracefully through transitions - into the family, into a new family, or onto the next life. A retired Navy officer, Maribeth’s rich personal life experiences have enabled her to bring a wealth of heart-centered wisdom to her work with each client, and her unyielding intention is to consistently bring forth the maximum benefit for all concerned in the most benevolent manner possible.

In this heart-felt and deeply emotional conversation, Maribeth walks us through her beautiful journey of animal communication and energy healing, and how her gift of telepathically connecting to any beloved more-than-human, as well as wildlife, has equipped both carers and their animal companions with tools to understand each other on a deeper spiritual and emotional level and move through more difficult phases in life, particularly as more-than-human kin transition to the spirit world.

Maribeth envisions her work inspiring a shift in consciousness in homes and families where people ‘see’ their animal companions, and other more-than-human beings, as having experiences, standpoints and decision-making abilities that are indeed ‘more-than-human’, and she hopes this will induce greater consciousness-level shifts at the macro-scale.

Connect with Maribeth and find out more about her work at SacredGrove.com.

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Visit mindfullofeverything.com for all episode resources.