Finding Refuge

The Finding Refuge Podcast is back for a moment. I sat with my comrades and colleagues, Rebby, Stephanie, and Tema to have a conversation about the turn of the wheel and the elemental energy of air. We talk about breath, life, the winds of change, and air as a transformative element and energy. Enjoy the podcast and stay tuned for the next one when the wheel turns again to summer.

Aimée Cartier is a professional psychic who has been doing readings for those who are at a crossroads or want direction on what choices serve their highest good since 2007. She is known for her clear accurate insight, her attention to practical details, and her compassionate guidance.  With her practical, down to earth, story-telling style, she’s been guiding others through speaking and teach...

Yetta Myrick is the mother of a young adult son diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, and Intellectual Disability. She is the Founder and President of DC Autism Parents (DCAP), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the District of Columbia.  Ms. Myrick has served as the CDC’s Act Early Ambassador to the District of Columbia since 2016, led the DC COVID-19 Response Team from 2020-2022, and is currentl...

Donna is an Author, International Yoga Teacher and Educator, Speaker, Facilitator, and Wellbeing Coach. She is also the Founder of Curvesomeyoga. Donna is passionate about making the yoga and wellbeing spaces more inclusive and diverse so that everybody can experience the transformational benefits of yoga.  She has written for and featured in countless digital and print publications such as R...

The enigmatic Mache Chache, is an Houngan Asogwe (Haitian Vodou High Priest), Shaman, and Conjurer, whose spiritual prowess and ancestral lineage have captivated the hearts and minds of seekers worldwide. With an innate connection to the ethereal realms, Mache has emerged as a guiding light in the realm of spirituality.  From a tender age, Mache’s extraordinary gifts were evident, drawing att...

Karine Bell, MSC, SEP, is the founder and co-dreamer for the Rooted Global Village. She's a bi-cultural Black woman, a speaker, somatics educator, practitioner, somatic abolitionist, and scholar-activist in training focused on deepening an understanding of the impacts of trauma and oppression on our lives, and liberatory and decolonial frameworks and traditional/indigenous approaches to trauma hea...

Naomi Ortiz (they/she) explores the cultivation of care and connection within states of stress. Reimagining our relationship with land and challenging who is an environmentalist in the Arizona U.S./Mexico borderlands, is investigated in their new poetry/essay collection, Rituals for Climate Change: A Crip Struggle for Ecojustice. Their non-fiction book, Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Just...

LaUra Schmidt is the founder of the Good Grief Network and the brain behind the “10-Steps to Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate” program and the FLOW Facilitation Training modality. She is a lifelong student, curator, and practitioner of personal and collective resilience strategies. LaUra holds a BS in Environmental Studies, Biology, and Religious Studies and an MS is in Environmen...

Mara Branscombe is a mother, writer, yogi, artist, teacher, mindfulness leader, ceremonialist, and spiritual coach. She is passionate about weaving the art of mindfulness, self-care, creativity, mind–body practices, and earth-based rituals into her life and work, and she has been leading community ceremony since 2000. Mara runs international retreats, corporate leadership programs, and online coac...

Rashid Hughes seeks to bridge the worlds of contemplative practice and collective care. He is a proud graduate of the Howard University Department of Music and the Howard University School of Divinity. Rashid is a certified Mindfulness Teacher, a certified Yoga Instructor, a Restorative Justice Facilitator, and currently in training to become a Fire Pujari. All of Rashid’s perspectives flow from t...

Shawn J. Moore is a Mindfulness Educator and Coach, Stillness Architect, and Buddhist Dharma practitioner. Residing at the intersection of leadership and mindfulness, Shawn creates sacred spaces for stillness and self-inquiry to help change-makers align their strengths, intention, and impact. Through his integrative approach, he holds transformative containers for self-renewal, personal discovery,...

Jamilah Pitts is an author, educator, social entrepreneur, and wellness educator whose work centers the liberation, healing and holistic development of communities of the Global majority. Jamilah has worked and served in various roles and spaces to promote racial justice and healing. Jamilah has served as a teacher, coach, dean, and as an Assistant principal. She has worked in domestic and interna...

This show is very special to me. I wasn’t sure how to end Season 3, but last month on a Saturday evening, my grandmother, Dorothy, sent me on a journey. She sent me to find an interview from 2008. I interviewed her for the National Day of Listening and was called to find the interview and listen to her voice. I heeded her call to locate the interview because when Dorothy asks me to do something, I...

Ayanna Freedom is an Author, Podcast Host, Yoga Teacher, LICSW, and the Founder of B FREE Wellness. B FREE is a nonprofit organization designed to transform people’s lives by providing free and affordable mental health, movement and mindfulness services to those whose lives are affected by trauma, addiction and oppression.  She has led multiple trauma sensitive and equity and belonging progra...

This epsiode of Finding Refuge is pure fire! I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Cara Page and Erica Woodland, co-editors of Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation . Read more below about the themes we weaved together during the interview and about Cara and Erica.  Cara Page is a Black Queer Feminist cultural memory worker & organizer. For the past 30...

Ariella Daly is a natural beekeeper, dream weaver, and teacher living in Northern California.   Devoted to the bee in both the physical world and the spirit world, she synthesizes natural beekeeping, animism, dreamwork, and earth activism through writing, workshops, and teaching. Her work with the bee came through a lifelong interest in human connection with the non-human world. She is traine...

Phyllis "Sweet Potato"  Jeffers-Coly aka Ta Ta Phyllis is the co-founder and co-owner of DIASPORIC SOUL, which she and her husband, Eddy "Professor Onion Sauce" Coly, established in 2016. DIASPORIC SOUL offers heritage and healing experiences that integrate both culture (SOUL) and contemplative practices.  DIASPORIC SOUL Heritage & Healing Experiences hold space for Black people to d...

Omisade Burney-Scott (she/her) is a 7th generation Black Southern feminist, creative and social justice advocate. Over the past 25 years, her “work” has been grounded in social justice movement spaces focused on the liberation of marginalized people, beginning with her own community.   This commitment to liberation has manifested through advocacy work, philanthropy,  community organ...

Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, non-profit founder, speaker, and author. She is the founder of Peace in Schools, a nonprofit that created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. Caverly is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemplatives committed to personal and collective transformation. She is the author of A Kids Book...

An accomplished speaker and teacher, Nikki is an MBA, E-RYT500, Yoga Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Addictions Recovery Specialist, and Ayurvedic Specialist. Born from her personal struggles with addiction, deep study, and work with countless students, Nikki is the founder of Y12SR: Yoga of 12-Step Recovery. Based on its theme ‘the issues live in the tissues’, Y12SR is a relapse pre...

Erin Trent Johnson is a Black Mama Body, embodied coach and liberation guide, storyteller, facilitator. Erin lives by the words of the Combahee River Collective Statement, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” Erin is the Creator of Black. Mama. Body. Experience an emb...

Rebby Kern (they/them) is a wandering spirit shining light into the lives of others. Rebby’s personal mission is to operate from connection, seeking justice and empowering voices. Rebby generates space for connection, empowerment and self-discovery through their 10+ years in LGBTQ policy and activism drawing connections to yoga asana and philosophy while uplifting experiences of marginalized ident...

Kerri is the founder of CTZNWELL, a movement that is democratizing wellbeing for all. A descendant of generations of firemen and first responders, Kerri has dedicated her life to kicking down doors and fighting for justice. She’s been teaching yoga for over 20 years and is known for making waves in the wellness industry by challenging norms, disrupting systems and mobilizing people to act.  A...

Mado Hesselink (she/they) helps yoga teachers integrate their heart-centered mission with practical teaching strategies so that they can integrate the benefits of yoga into their lives and share those benefits with their community. A student of yoga for over 20 years in the Krishnamacharya lineage, Mado is white & able bodied, queer, neurodivergent, an immigrant, and lives on unceded Cherokee...

Sherene Cauley (she/her) is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, the founder of The Nurtured Life, the Associate Director of The Whole Health Center in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a Phd student working towards her Doctor of Ministry with a focus on social transformation from United Theological Seminary, Twin Cities.  Sherene lives with her husband, mother, and children on the coas...