We Rise

Welcome to part two of our final iteration of the Crosspollination community block party series Roots of Justice: Protecting the Land, Protecting the People . Because of the fullness of the dialogue, we’re sharing this event out in 3 episodes.  Listen to episode 54 to hear the beautiful opening ritual, featuring musical artists Sam and Nikbo, and our own co-director, co-conspirator nicky. We’re so...

In this political moment, we are so grateful to share with you the final episodes of our Crosspollination series. In these transformational times of simultaneous pain and potential, may we continue to weave & fortify our relationships with ourselves, each other, our ancestors, with land, with water and the other beings that call this earth home.  May these conversations support you and your lo...

La Madre Tiarra of Auspicious Acoustics introduces Blessed Assurance: Auspicious Acoustics grassroots fundraising initiative for their work with the Parents, Families, Caregivers and Loved Ones of Ascended Young Ones, aka The Angel Baby Constellations (ABCs). We Rise invites you to listen to our dear friend & collaborator, Tiarra as she shares about her beloved Angel 🌸Cherry🌸, her personal i...

Welcome to this conversation between Co-founder, Layel Camargo, Wellness Practitioner, Erica Gibbons & Artist in Residence and Somatic Scribber Kate Morales, of Shelterwood Collective. We Rise is honored to be in community with Shelterwood, a queer, trans, black, indigenous, people of color-led land stewardship project located on unceded Kashia and Southern Pomo territory in so-called Cazadero...

Welcome to part two of our recording from our June 8th Crosspollination community block party, Diasporic Care: We Show Up for Each Other .  Because we had so many incredible guest speakers on our panel, we are breaking this conversation up into parts one & two. If you missed part one, we highly encourage you to listen to We Rise podcast episode 50, Diasporic Care , which includes a beautiful o...

Diasporic Care: We Show Up for Each Other Welcome to Part 1 of 2 of this live recording from our Crosspollination community block party series. This event took place on June 8th, 2024. This episode features our opening prayer* with Dr. Uzo Nwankpa , & the beginning of our speakers panel, featuring the brilliant hearts & minds of: Sarah O'Neal, Oakland-based poet & organizer Lubna Morra...

Join Layla K. Feghali of River Rose Remembrance & Iman Labanieh of Baylasan Botanicals for a timely conversation about Layla's newly released book, The Land in Our Bones . Highlighting lineages of herbal resilience, diasporic stewardship, and unraveling the rippling impacts of colonial violence on our earth and communities, this book about people and traditions of the Levant offers relevant fo...

Crosspollination is a block party series created by We Rise Production with the purpose of strengthening and deepening existing connections and initiating new ones, after the changing culture and community landscape Oakland experienced in years of social distancing and pandemic. Our themes will deepen into an exploration of how WE TAKE CARE OF US. We Take Care of Us is a phrase that comes out of B...

Join Gloria Lucas of Nalgona Positivity Pride & Luca Yacón of Radically Fit Oakland in this enlightening & heart-to-heart discussion diving deep into the realms of Harm Reduction, Eating Disorders, & Body Movement. This thought-provoking conversation is an exploration of:⁠
 Harm Reduction Strategies
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 Personal Eating Disorder Journey
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 Body Movement and Acceptance
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 Decolonial appro...

Born and raised in the Bay, Iranian-American singer-songwriter Adrienne Shamszad hops on the mic and shares her voice with We Rise listeners, debuting her first full-length album in 15 years: Wash It All Away! Adrienne's music is dedicated to our collective liberation - and is an intimate incantation of her heart. Equal parts silly and heartfelt, Cat and Adrienne get into it on this episode of the...

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness. EP 5: Sacred Rainbows, Weaving Our Crossroads In this bonus episode Cat, Erika, & nicky gather round on Nahuatl, Ohlone & C...

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness. EP 4: Sacred Winds, Returning to our Power of Shedding In this episode Erika, nicky & Cat are joined by dancer and creator of h...

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness. EP 3: Sacred Fires, Returning to our Sexual Creativity In this episode Erika, nicky & Cat are joined by healer, steward, and gu...

From Queer & Well's Earth Day event: A panel with Christina Chase of National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) & Cat Brooks of Anti Police Terror Project (APTP), moderated by Layel Camargo When we think about communal care it is vital that we talk about the ways in which we take care of each other as queer and trans Black and brown folks. How do we show up for one another in a...

From Queer & Well's Earth Day event: A Conversation with Layel Camargo of Shelterwood Collective & Inés Ixierda of Sogorea Te Land Trust As queer Black and brown folks, what does it look like to be reconnected to land our ancestors stewarded before colonialism & white supremacy? What are the ways we can come back to this land and rebuild not only the land itself, but our relationships...

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness. In this episode we are reclaiming Earth Mother and the soils as part of who we are, what we're made of. Erika, nicky & Cat open...

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness. Episode One: Sacred Waters, Returning to Our Natural Flow offers expansive praxis for a calling to calmness, to flowing slowly as w...

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness. How do we want to be seeds now? In Episode 0, Erika, nicky, & Cat are accompanied by writer & astrologer Karina Falcon to i...

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness. In this 5-episode series, we’ll deconstruct the ways we connect to each sacred element -Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, and Ether. Togeth...

This is it, right here, this is the final episode. And if you’re here right now, and you’ve been choosing to return to this work again and again, I want to say, thank you. Cuz If we want alternative means to responding to harm other than the systems on offer from the state, we are the ones who have to invest time, energy, labor into learning, healing, imagining, practicing, remembering, and organi...

Last episode, we focused on the accountability part of community accountability. We explored how changing our behavior to live accountably is lifelong work, is violence prevention, takes building skills until they become muscle memory. Fortunately for us, Mia gave us many opportunities to practice. In this episode, we learn from this practice – and – we focus on the community part of community acc...

Thank you for listening to our podcasts over the years, or months – or if you're new to our work, welcome! After 6 years of groundwork, we’re celebrating how far we’ve come & asking you – our community – for support. Donate to our first ever fundraiser! Your contribution supports queer, femme, Black Indigenous and People Of Color-centered multimedia productions. Our collaborations uplift liberator...

As the cohort continued, we learned that building the capacity to practice transformative justice takes immense and consistent personal work. We’re talking the basics of being human, like self reflection, and how to communicate. These personal inquiries into how we live our values, and how we respond to our inevitable mistakes, were like portals into the heart of TJ. Into what it would take to sup...

Our facilitator, Mia Mingus, used the metaphor of a fist to explain how, unlike our current severely punitive carceral system, TJ creates conditions that support folks to step up and take accountability when they’ve caused harm. In this episode, we explore how these systems have shaped us, and ask, how else can we respond to violence, harm, & abuse? Episode transcript: bit.ly/TheRealWork-Episo...

On episode one, we got up to speed about the conditions that brought theater makers in the Bay Area to organize around TJ. This episode is dedicated to unpacking, at its core, what is TJ? Episode transcript: bit.ly/TheRealWork-Episode-2 Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: sogoreate-landtrust.org Save the West Berkeley Shellmound: shellmound.org BATJC Pods & Pod Mapping Worksheet Instructions: batjc.wordpr...