S2:03 BETWEEN BORDERS AND BELONGING with Akwaeke Emezi & Susuyu Lassa

S2:04 BEYOND THE GAZE with Indya Moore & Wendy Flores

Beyond the Gaze with Indya Moore and Wendy Flores In today’s conversation we’re exploring what happens when we refuse the gaze that measures us through extraction, conformity, and control. What becomes possible when beauty, gender, and worth are reclaimed through land, memory, and liberation? Indya Moore is an actor, activist, and visionary whose work illuminates the intersections of identity, beauty, and justice. Through storytelling and advocacy, they explore what it means to inhabit one’s full self, reclaim space, and challenge systems that seek to contain or measure worth. Their voice invites us to imagine a world where freedom, creativity, and sovereignty are not only possible, but lived. Wendy Flores is a youth worker at The Brotherhood Sister Sol [https://brotherhood-sistersol.org/], where they lead food justice workshops for young people from elementary through high school. Through hands-on lessons in healthy cooking, nutrition, and knife skills, Wendy empowers youth to build lifelong wellness habits and share that knowledge with their communities. Wendy also manages the seasonal Bro Sis Green Youth Market in Hamilton Heights, mentoring young people in running a farmers market while teaching them about local food systems, customer engagement, and healthy eating. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is a series, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, in which we explore what it means to be sovereign. With Black land at the center, this podcast brings together prominent activists, artists, and weavers with the rising generation of Black land stewards for inspiring conversations that honor the past and create blueprints for the future. This podcast is hosted by Crysta Bloom [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and Clara AgborTabi, and co-produced by Crysta Bloom, Clara AgborTabi, and Zera Bloom [https://www.subvert.fm/zerabloom]. Our theme music is created by Naima Penniman [https://www.naimainfinity.com/] and Zera Bloom. Our artwork and graphics is created by Crysta Bloom. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is presented by Soul Fire Farm [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/]. Follow Indya at @indyamoore [https://www.instagram.com/indyamoore/] Find Soul Fire Farm at https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/] and on social media @soulfirefarm [https://www.instagram.com/soulfirefarm/] Follow Wendy at @wendeezy [https://www.instagram.com/_wendeezy_/]  Follow Crysta Bloom's work at https://www.embodiedbloom.com/ [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and on social media @crystaembodiedbloom [https://www.instagram.com/crystaembodiedbloom/] Find Clara AgborTabi somewhere offline! Follow zera bloom on bandcamp [https://zerabloom.bandcamp.com/] and instagram [https://www.instagram.com/zera.bloom] Learn more about Naima Penniman's work at https://www.naimainfinity.com [https://www.naimainfinity.com/about] and on social media at @naimainfinity [https://www.instagram.com/naimainfinity/]

S2:03 BETWEEN BORDERS AND BELONGING with Akwaeke Emezi & Susuyu Lassa

Between Borders and Belonging with Akwaeke Emezi and Susuyu Lassa Many of us come to land through rupture—through migration, through displacement, through histories that have severed, but not erased, our connection. So what does it mean to return to right relationship with land… when our presence is shaped by borders, by policy, by systems that were never meant to hold us? Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) is a Nigerian writer and artist whose work moves across boundaries of form, identity, and belonging. Rooted in Igbo cosmology and shaped by life between Nigeria and the diaspora, their writing explores embodiment, migration, memory, and the ongoing negotiation of self within and beyond imposed borders. Through acclaimed books including Freshwater and Dear Senthuran, Emezi invites us to reconsider what it means to exist, to belong, and to be in relationship—with land, spirit, and with one another. Susuyu Lassa (any/all pronouns) is a queer, Nigerian, creative alchemist at heart. Their work is rooted in liberatory social justice movement spaces, organizing with stakeholders across our food system to bring about structural and grassroots level change. Traversing two continents, Susuyu carries many worlds within them, translating what has been into what may be possible. Their labor is undergirded by the deep conviction that every single life is sacred, and when we work together we are resourced enough to choose interdependence and self-determination in defense of the sacred. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is a series, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, in which we explore what it means to be sovereign. With Black land at the center, this podcast brings together prominent activists, artists, and weavers with the rising generation of Black land stewards for inspiring conversations that honor the past and create blueprints for the future. This podcast is hosted by Crysta Bloom [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and Clara AgborTabi, and co-produced by Crysta Bloom, Clara AgborTabi, and Zera Bloom [https://www.subvert.fm/zerabloom]. Our theme music is created by Naima Penniman [https://www.naimainfinity.com/] and Zera Bloom. Our artwork and graphics is created by Crysta Bloom. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is presented by Soul Fire Farm [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/]. Learn more about Akwaeke at https://www.akwaeke.com/ [https://www.akwaeke.com/] Find Soul Fire Farm at https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/] and on social media @soulfirefarm [https://www.instagram.com/soulfirefarm/] Follow Crysta Bloom's work at https://www.embodiedbloom.com/ [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and on social media @crystaembodiedbloom [https://www.instagram.com/crystaembodiedbloom/] Find Clara AgborTabi somewhere offline! Follow zera bloom on bandcamp [https://zerabloom.bandcamp.com/] and instagram [https://www.instagram.com/zera.bloom] Learn more about Naima Penniman's work at https://www.naimainfinity.com [https://www.naimainfinity.com/about] and on social media at @naimainfinity [https://www.instagram.com/naimainfinity/]

S2:02 FROM SCARCITY TO SOVEREIGNTY with Prentis Hemphill & Nico Le Blanc

From Scarcity to Sovereignty: Fear, the Body, and Our Relationship to Land Our food systems, land relationships, and community structures mirror our internal landscapes. When we are organized around fear and unprocessed trauma, we build systems of hoarding, extraction, and control. When we metabolize fear, we can build systems rooted in reciprocity and care. Prentis Hemphill is the bestselling author of What It Takes to Heal, a groundbreaking exploration of healing, justice, and transformation. A therapist, somatics teacher, facilitator, political organizer, and writer, Prentis is also the founder of The Embodiment Institute and a leading voice in embodied leadership and collective healing. For over a decade, Prentis has worked with individuals and organizations through their most challenging moments of change—navigating leadership transitions, conflict, and the alignment of practice with values. Grounded in an embodied approach, their work ensures that our intentions aren't just ideas, but are fully lived, felt, and practiced. Nico Le Blanc is a co-founder of Unshackled Alchemy, an intergenerational, community-rooted, and ecologically regenerative vision of liberation-grounded in food and health sovereignty, healing spaces, and reciprocal relationships with the land, water, skies, and all beings. Guided by the wisdom, care, and radical imagination of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as femmes, queer, and trans ancestors, their work helps cultivate spaces of belonging, restoration, and collective possibility. Through the Unshackled Alchemy Land Project, Nico supports the creation of an intentional sanctuary in the Northeast that centers BIPOC land stewardship and invites community into practices of rest, healing, and expansion. Their work is an ongoing invitation to decolonize, disrupt systems of oppression, and remember more liberatory ways of being in relationship with each other and the earth. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is a series, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, in which we explore what it means to be sovereign. With Black land at the center, this podcast brings together prominent activists, artists, and weavers with the rising generation of Black land stewards for inspiring conversations that honor the past and create blueprints for the future. This podcast is hosted by Crysta Bloom [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and Clara AgborTabi, and co-produced by Crysta Bloom, Clara AgborTabi, and Zera Bloom [https://zerabloom.bandcamp.com/]. Our theme music is created by Naima Penniman [https://www.naimainfinity.com/] and Zera Bloom. Our artwork and graphics is created by Crysta Bloom. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is presented by Soul Fire Farm [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/]. Learn more about Prentis at https://prentishemphill.com/ [https://viviensansour.com/] Follow Unshackled Alchemy Land Project at https://unshackledalchemy.com/ [https://unshackledalchemy.com/] Find Soul Fire Farm at https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/] and on social media @soulfirefarm [https://www.instagram.com/soulfirefarm/] Follow Crysta Bloom's work at https://www.embodiedbloom.com/ [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and on social media @crystaembodiedbloom [https://www.instagram.com/crystaembodiedbloom/] Find Clara AgborTabi somewhere offline! Follow zera bloom on bandcamp [https://zerabloom.bandcamp.com/] and instagram [https://www.instagram.com/zera.bloom] Learn more about Naima Penniman's work at https://www.naimainfinity.com [https://www.naimainfinity.com/about] and on social media at @naimainfinity [https://www.instagram.com/naimainfinity/]

S2:01 RETURNING

Welcome to Season TWO beloved community!   This season, we keep asking: What does it truly mean to be sovereign? Not just in theory — but in land, lineage, labor, and love. This episode is a compilation of voices from Season One — a mosaic of visions imagining Afrofuturist communities thriving in creativity, spiritual practice, and sacred care for the Earth. We asked each guest to paint a picture of the next world, and now we return to those visions — and listening, you’ll notice new connections, the spark of ideas taking root, and a sense that the future is something we can shape together. As a Black Mycologist, our co host Clara, has been learning from mushrooms this winter — how they connect quietly beneath the surface, supporting life we don’t always see. How growth takes time, happens in collaboration, and how decay and renewal are part of the same cycle.   Episode one explores those underground networks in a new way: through a compilation of voices, a living mosaic of visions imagining Afrofuturist communities built on creativity, wisdom, spiritual practice, and care for the Earth. Like mushrooms, these visions show how small, hidden actions can grow into something strong and lasting — and listening will leave you noticing patterns, possibilities, and connections you hadn’t seen before.   Featured Voices: Leah Penniman [https://www.instagram.com/leahpenniman/?hl=en] LeeAnn Morrissette [https://www.lcmorrissette.com/] Bailey Hutchison [https://www.instagram.com/truculturecommunity/] Junauda Petrus [https://www.junauda.com/] Ysanet Batista [https://www.instagram.com/ysanetbatistavargas/?hl=en] Patrisse Cullors [https://www.patrissecullors.com/] Ayo Ngozi [https://www.instagram.com/ayo.herbalist/?hl=en] Yura Sapi [https://yurasapi.wordpress.com/] Karen Rose [https://www.sacredvibeshealing.com/about-karen-rose] adrienne maree brown [https://adriennemareebrown.net/] Naima Penniman [https://www.naimainfinity.com/] Hana' Maaiah [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/hana-maaiah/]   Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is a series, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, in which we explore what it means to be sovereign. With Black land at the center, this podcast brings together prominent activists, artists, and weavers with the rising generation of Black land stewards for inspiring conversations that honor the past and create blueprints for the future. This podcast is hosted by Crysta Bloom [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and Clara AgborTabi, and co-produced by Crysta Bloom, Clara AgborTabi, and zera bloom. Our theme music is created by Naima Penniman [https://www.naimainfinity.com/] and Zera Bloom. Additional music for this episode by zera bloom. Our artwork and graphics is created by Crysta Bloom. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is presented by Soul Fire Farm [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/]. Find Soul Fire Farm at https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/] and on social media @soulfirefarm [https://www.instagram.com/soulfirefarm/] Follow Crysta Bloom's work at https://www.embodiedbloom.com/ [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and on social media @crystaembodiedbloom [https://www.instagram.com/crystaembodiedbloom/] Find Clara AgborTabi somewhere offline! Follow zera bloom on bandcamp [https://zerabloom.bandcamp.com/] and instagram [https://www.instagram.com/zera.bloom] Learn more about Naima Penniman's work at https://www.naimainfinity.com [https://www.naimainfinity.com/about] and on social media at @naimainfinity [https://www.instagram.com/naimainfinity/]

S1:09 LITTLE SEEDS with Vivien Sansour and Hana' Maaiah

In this podcast, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, we explore what it means to be sovereign. In this conversation, we look at ecocide in Palestine and across the African continent, and we explore seed saving as a path forward — a sacred act of preserving history and culture in the face of ongoing dispossession.  We know that colonization and occupation are not only political but ecological systems — from deforestation and monocropping to water theft and soil depletion. We share this episode as a seed of hope - nurturing the possibility of repair, return, and regeneration.   Vivien Sansour [https://viviensansour.com/] is the Founder and Executive Director of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library [https://www.palestineheirloomseedlibrary.com/]. As an artist, researcher, and writer, she uses installations, images, sketches, film, soil, seeds, and plants to enliven old cultural tales in contemporary presentations. She advocates for seed conservation and the protection of agrobiodiversity as a cultural/political act. Vivien founded the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library in 2014, where she works with farmers in Palestine and around the world. As an extension of this project, she created The Traveling Kitchen [https://viviensansour.com/Traveling-Kitchen] - a social engagement project aimed at spotlighting conversations about climate crisis, food politics, and the imagining of new worlds.   Hana’ Maaiah is a Palestinian-Jordanian nomadic farmer, beekeeper, educator, friend and organizer. Her forever fascination of Earth’s intersections in farming, energy, climate, race, politics and spirituality has brought her around the country. First, to Montana as a River Ranger, then Oregon where she studied Environmental Science and Agriculture, Alabama where she thrived as an Assistant Farm Manager and mentor in youth programs. In learning that “to free ourselves, we must feed ourselves”, she landed at Soul Fire Farm, starting as the Interim Farm Manager and currently serving as the Farm Education & Programs Manager.  After almost a decade of farming and teaching around the country, she learned the urgent need to bring advocacy and care for the Earth from the fields to the streets. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is a series, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, in which we explore what it means to be sovereign. With Black land at the center, this podcast brings together prominent activists, artists, and weavers with the rising generation of Black land stewards for inspiring conversations that honor the past and create blueprints for the future. This podcast is hosted by Crysta Bloom [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and Clara AgborTabi, and co-produced by Crysta Bloom and Zera Bloom. Our theme music is created by Naima Penniman [https://www.naimainfinity.com/] and Zera Bloom. Our artwork and graphics is created by Crysta Bloom. Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is presented by Soul Fire Farm [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/]. Learn more about Vivien's work at https://viviensansour.com/ [https://viviensansour.com/] Find Soul Fire Farm at https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ [https://www.soulfirefarm.org/] and on social media @soulfirefarm [https://www.instagram.com/soulfirefarm/] Follow Crysta Bloom's work at https://www.embodiedbloom.com/ [https://www.embodiedbloom.com/] and on social media @crystaembodiedbloom [https://www.instagram.com/crystaembodiedbloom/] Follow zera bloom on social media at @zera.bloom [https://www.instagram.com/zera.bloom/] Learn more about Naima Penniman's work at https://www.naimainfinity.com [https://www.naimainfinity.com/about] and on social media at @naimainfinity [https://www.instagram.com/naimainfinity/]