THE WERK Season 1 Episode 05: Spiritual Activism - Your Spiritual Practice As A Pathway To Create Social Change and Liberation With Michelle Johnson
Release Date: 11/21/2021
THE WERK Season 4 Episode 07: The Werk Podcast Reflections; Every Ending Harkens A New Beginning With Brittany & Laura
The Werk
Hello beautiful community, this is our last episode of The Werk Podcast. We want to thank you for supporting our passion project. We've learned so much from the guests we've interviewed and also from you. We are looking forward to integrating everything we've learned to co-create and re-imagine a better future for all. We believe that the dismantling and deconstructing work still needs to be done but we are both in a season of our lives when we want to take some rest, imagine, lean into pleasure, and play. Please keep in touch with us through our personal social media platforms. We...
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THE WERK Season 4 Episode 06: Re-imagining The Future - Returning To Wholeness Together With Kelley Nicole Palmer
The Werk
In this Episode: Kelley shares her origins story and what led her to do this work in the yoga space. How Kelley is building and co-creating a post-colonial paradigm. Kelley shares how we can acknowledge what is but also have hope and manifest and create a better future. Kelley's reimagining workshop is more about questioning what you value outside of a reality tied to capitalism. Kelley speaks about wholeness and why that's the goal in manifestation. Kelley defines the term Whiteness. Kelley shares about her non-profit The Sanctuary In The City. The importance of prioritizing joy. ...
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THE WERK Season 4 Episode 05: Climate Change Work With Intersectional Climate Scientist and Mystic Dr. Chandler Puritty
The Werk
Dr. Chandler Puritty is an intersectional climate scientist and mystic. She received her doctorate from UC San Diego in Biology. She now teaches classes on how climate science, environmental science, capitalism, white supremacy, and race issues intersect and all contribute to our climate crisis. Dr. Chandler creates content and teaches on Tik Tok. In This Episode: Dr. Chandler shares her origins story on how she became a scientist and then eventually, a doctor in biology with a concentration in plant community ecology. Dr. Chandler shares how through colonization, the invasive...
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THE WERK Season 4 Episode 04: "My Daughters are Rising" - The Healing Power of Storytelling with Anita Kopacz
The Werk
Anita Kopacz is the author of the Simon & Schuster fiction novel, Shallow Waters. It is the second title that Charlemagne tha God released on his imprint, Black Privilege Publishing. Anita is the former Editor-in-Chief of Heart & Soul Magazine and Managing Editor of BeautyCents Magazine. She is an award-winning writer, a Spiritual Psychologist, and a certified Tantra coach with a passion to see people thrive. Anita also created the nonprofit, Zero F's Given to raise awareness and help victimized and disenfranchised populations heal from sexual trauma, find their voice, and reclaim...
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THE WERK Season 4 Episode 03: Abolitionism Is Spirit Work With Anthropologist Dr. Nicole Truesdell
The Werk
Dr. Nicole Truesdell is an anthropologist and abolitionist scholar and teacher. Dr. Truesdell’s previous experience includes being an administrator and faculty member at Brown University and Beloit College, working with students who are underserved and underrepresented in higher education. At Brown, she founded the Institute for Transformative Practice, which housed 7 student-focused identity centers, and worked to create collaborative, cooperative, and coalition based programming and research around collective liberation. At Beloit College, she created the Office of Academic...
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THE WERK Season 4 Episode 02: Sacred Medicines as Holistic Framework for Ancestral Healing with Buki Fadipe
The Werk
Buki Fadipe is a Nigerian and British certified Professional Psychedelic Medicine Facilitator, Trauma informed 200-hr YTT Hatha Yoga practitioner, Decolonized Educator, Seer & Spiritualist. She is passionate about reclaiming ancient earth/indigenous wisdom practices to act as a basis for Earth centred integrative healing. Using a decolonized lens in her practice, Buki fuses her knowledge of the science of the physiological & neurobiological effects of trauma with indigenous and traditional perspectives on healing with sacred medicines. Her specialisms include but are not limited to the...
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THE WERK Season 4 Episode 01: Intersectional Environmentalism - Protecting People & The Planet With Leah Thomas
The Werk
Leah Thomas, Founder of Intersectional Environmentalist & Author of Leah Thomas is a celebrated environmentalist based in Santa Barbara, CA. Coining the term ‘eco-communicator’ to describe her style of environmental activism, Leah uses her passion for writing and creativity to explore and advocate for the critical yet often overlooked relationship between social justice and environmentalism. With this intersection in mind, Leah founded and launched in 2020, a resource hub and platform that aims to advocate for environmental justice, provide educational resources surrounding...
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THE WERK Season 3 Episode 06: Access to Plant Medicines and Funghi Are Our Birthrights With Shante Little
The Werk
Shante is a Black & Indigenous psilocybin advocate and educator. She has a background in Eastern Woodlands edible and medicinal plants as well as entheogenic plants and fungi. She combines the two studies to explore the synergistic relationships and effects of herbal medicine. Shante also serves as a DEI consultant who specializes in integrating considerations for BIPOC and working class into entheogenic medicine and psychedelic healing. In This Episode: Shante shares her origins story from being a professional track and field athlete to being an educator and now a psilocybin...
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THE WERK Season 3 Episode 05: Liberation is Our Birthright With Syntyché Francella
The Werk
Syntyché Francella is a medicine woman and yoga therapist. Through Dehya Yoga, she offers group yoga therapy classes for BIPOC bodies. A trained diplomat and educator with over two decades in the field, she believes in the healing power of intuition, movement and community. Syntyché is trained in a range of modalities; from kundalini and yin yoga to trauma-informed therapies and practices which empower folks to embody freedom daily. In This Episode: Syntyché shares the significance of the year 1999 and the intuitive hits that led her toward her self-discovery and...
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THE WERK Season 3 Episode 04: Coalition Building For An Equitable Future For All With Ericka Jones
The Werk
Ericka Jones is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion professional for over 12 years. In her current role, she collaborates with key stakeholders to develop comprehensive strategies that will increase diversity, build and sustain inclusive behaviors to generate equitable outcomes. Founder of the Yoga Coalition, an alliance for combined action bringing inclusion, equity, and diversity to the yoga community. Ericka is a 200-hr yoga teacher and lululemon brand ambassador. Bringing diversity, mindfulness, and inclusion into spaces is her purpose and passion. In This...
info_outlineMichelle Cassandra Johnson is an activist, social justice warrior, author, anti-racism consultant and trainer, intuitive healer, and yoga teacher and practitioner.
She has led dismantling racism work in many settings for over two decades and has a background and two decades of practice as a clinical social worker.
Michelle’s work centers on healing from individual and collective trauma, coming back into wholeness and aligning the mind, body, spirit, and heart.
She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
She has worked in several non-profits and served as an elected official and on many non-profit boards of directors. She has led Dismantling Racism Trainings with large corporations, small non-profits, and community groups, including the ACLU-WA, Duke University, Google, This American Life, The Center for Equity and Inclusion, Auburn Seminary, Kripalu, Yoga Alliance, and Lululemon, and many others.
Michelle published Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017 and her newest book, Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief was published by Shambhala Publications in 2021. She teaches workshops in yoga studios and community spaces nationwide and is on the faculty of Off the Mat, Into the World. She was a Tedx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019 and has been interviewed on several podcasts in which she explores the premise and foundation of Skill in Action, along with embodied approaches to racial equity work, creating ritual in justice spaces, our divine connection with nature and Spirit, and how we as a culture can heal.
In 2020 she created her own podcast, Finding Refuge, which explores collective grief and liberation and serves as a reminder about all the ways we can find refuge during unsettling and uncertain times and of the resilience and joy that comes from allowing ourselves to find refuge.
In This Episode:
- The awareness that comes with awakening and how this relates to social justice.
- Why embodiment is the key to healing racism.
- If White bodied folks don’t have the resiliency to do this work, what will it take?
- Rest as a necessary tool for activism.
- The work that White bodied people have to do.
- The work that the BIPOC community has to do.
- The practice of remembering and how we can have grace and compassion for those who are remembering.
- Skill In Action Instagram
- Skill In Action Website
- Laura Chung Instagram
- Brittany Simone Anderson Instagram
- The Werk Podcast Instagram
- Awaken and Align Instagram
- Awaken and Align Website
- YouTube Channel
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