Be Here Now: Land, Lineage, and Healing from Within the Wound

Be Here Now: Land, Lineage, and Healing from Within the Wound

“The oldest meaning of neighbour is ‘all our relations’ — that which is alive, which is next to each other.” How do we learn to practice relationality when we grew up inside a culture that taught us to treat each other as objects? This week I talk with writer, bodyworker, and longtime healing justice organizer Susan Raffo from Minnesota Makocé, in a season when Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) had occupied Minneapolis. This intimate conversation illuminates how our deepest wound often isn’t any single act of violence, but rather the habit of turning life itself into an object and inflicting that in myriad ways onto each other. We explore how we can reclaim relationality through centring care in our organizing work, by building coalitions across deep political difference, and as lineage bearers in honouring the sharing of knowledge intergenerationally. RESOURCES: susanraffo.com [http://www.susanraffo.com] REP [https://www.repformn.org/] Cara Page [https://carapage.co/] Healing Histories Project [https://healinghistoriesproject.com/] Remember, Repair, Reconnect Retreat with Susan Raffo [https://wildbody.ca/retreat] + hosted by Marika Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

What does Whiteness mean?

This week our glossary entry is on Whiteness. Episode 4 of the podcast explores the terrain of building intimacy across difference, knowing ourselves and each other more deeply, and both the costs and gifts of living a life of radical self-honesty. If you haven’t listened yet to my conversation with Prentis Hemphill — you can go back and find it in episode 4: Being in Relationship Across Difference in Power, History, and Identity We are a member supported podcast. You can join us on Substack and pledge a monthly donation that helps us make Lost Together possible and sustainable. You can also leave us a review on Apple podcasts. RESOURCES: Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1903. White Racial Identity Development Model (Janet E. Helms, 1990) Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (bell hooks, 2004) Living in the Shadow of the Cross: Understanding and Resisting the Power and Privilege of Christian Hegemony (Paul Kivel, 2013) Michael Eric Dyson [https://michaelericdyson.com/] White Supremacy Culture Characteristics [https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/characteristics.html] Ancestral Embodiment Audio Course [https://wildbody.ca/ancestral-body] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Being in Relationship Across Difference in Power, History, and Identity

“Sometimes freedom is like, can you hold me please?” How do we build relationship and intimacy across differences in power, history, and identity? My guest this week is Prentis Hemphill.  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. Prentis served as the Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter Global Network and was a lead somatics teacher with generative somatics and Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD). They hold an M.A. in Clinical Psychology. They are also the creator and host of the acclaimed podcasts Finding Our Way and Becoming the People. Prentis lives on a small farm in Durham, NC, with their partner, Kasha, their child, and two dogs. In this episode, Prentis and I talk about the practice of building relationship across difference without appeasement or defensiveness, how to let go of identities that have outgrown us, and what it looks like to turn toward each other, honestly, in a time when so much feels uncertain. website: prentishemphill.com [http://prentishemphill.com] Instagram: @prentishemphill RESOURCES: The Embodiment Institute [https://www.theembodimentinstitute.org/] Embodied Ancestral Inquiry [https://www.embodiedancestralinquiry.com/] Focusing Book [https://store.focusing.org/products/focusing] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

What does Transformative Justice mean?

This week our glossary entry is on Transformative Justice. Episode 3 of the podcast dives into learning to do conflict more skillfully and how this relates to a vision of community beyond punishment and isolation. If you haven’t listened yet to my conversation with Brook Thorndycraft on growing our capacity for conflict and why it’s important for our communities, movements, and the planet — you can go back and find it in episode 3: Between Collapse and Emergence: Learning from Conflict in Turbulent Times. We are an ad-free and member supported podcast. You can join us on Substack and pledge a monthly donation that helps us make Lost Together possible and sustainable. LINKS: https://transformharm.org/tj_resource/transformative-justice-a-brief-description/ [https://transformharm.org/tj_resource/transformative-justice-a-brief-description/] https://transformharm.org/transformative-justice/ [https://transformharm.org/transformative-justice/] Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement [https://rep.club/products/beyond-survival?srsltid=AfmBOoq1ZidCm5LPCCO2Jn6Yw-TlCs-4PIxdIT3GT6quI7XQIBIoUmX3] The Wetiko Legal Principles: Cree and Anishinabek Responses to Violence and Victimization [https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487522025] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Between Collapse and Emergence: Learning From Conflict in Turbulent Times

"That sense that we can just dislike each other and then dispose of each other when it gets too hard is the thing that keeps us stuck in these old systems.” What if the problem isn’t conflict, but our inability to stay with it? With over 15 years of experience and a background in mediation (Q. Med), adult education (MA), and Somatic Experiencing (SEP), Brook bridges the gap between systemic change and the human nervous system. Through coaching, training, and custom change processes, they help organizations transform power dynamics, psychological safety, and conflict into sources of possibility. This episode explores why conflict is having a cultural “moment,” what actually happens in high-stakes relational breakdown, and why most of us were never taught the skills to navigate it. In this conversation, Brook Thorndycraft shares their path into conflict work through transformative justice, mediation, and somatic practice. At the core of this is a simple but challenging truth: we don’t get to get rid of each other. Learning how to stay, even when it’s hard, is essential to any future worth building. bigwaves.ca [http://bigwaves.ca] https://substack.com/@bigwavesbrook [https://substack.com/@bigwavesbrook] LINKS: Two Loops Model: complexsystemsframeworks.ca/framework/two-loop-model/ [http://complexsystemsframeworks.ca/framework/two-loop-model/] Deep Democracy: https://www.waterline.coop/ [https://www.waterline.coop/] Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira: decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/ [http://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]