(ep 5) How can I practice self care? An interview with Hopi Noel Morton

02/14/20 • 35 min

Collective Drift: Celebrating International Women, Culture, and Travel

(Ep 05) How can I practice self care? An interview with Hopi Noel Morton

In my interview with Hopi Noel Morton I learned that self care is the way she lives her life. In order to be successful and to help others you must help yourself first. You must put your air mask on first before you can help someone else. Self care is something that Hopi’s mother taught her. Through her mother she’s learnt that even beauty is a part of taking care of yourself. If you at a minimum wake up and get dressed and make yourself look good it can start the projector of feeling good. You must create time for yourself.

This episode is sponsored by Knight Foundation in support of PAMM- Perez Art Museum Miami’s fund for African American Art. Their annual ART + Soul Celebration is this Saturday, February 15th. It’s my favorite party of the year in Miami. Purchase your tickets at pamm.org/artsoul2020 choose celebration for the party and feel free to use my discount code DRIFT2020.

In our interview with Hopi we learn about her company Hopi Works where she helps people who helps people. She gets to work with artists and filmmakers, but more importantly she gets to work with people and projects that she likes. This exemplifies how Hopi has mastered the art of self care. She’s worked on projects with Will and Jada Smith, on Caribbean film festivals, and is now traveling the globe supporting a documentary on tattoo artistry around the world.

Hopi has traveled all over the world. And has had the opportunity to see some amazing places, have authentic memorable experiences, and connect with the people when she travels. Hopi talks about her trip to the Island of Lamu, Kenya. Through her experience in Lamu she was able to learn more about Muslim culture as well as gain a deeper understanding and respect for the modest aspects of being a Muslim woman. Prior to visiting Lamu she looked at their modesty as oppression rather than a choice. After getting to know the women of Lamu she learned that this was a choice, that they were flourishing leaders, and they were empowered. That the women felt there was a time and a place for modesty and a time for being sexy. She tells us about a magical experience she had while attending a women’s celebration, where only women attended.

Hopi has traveled extensively around the world and has provided us with a few authentic travel tips. Hopi’s preference is traveling to places where she can stay close to nature. Hopi recommends renting a house and possibly having a local chef so that you can have authentic food.

While Hopi has lived in multiple cities around the world she calls Miami home. She feels like Miami is a place where she feels most comfortable being her. Hopi’s background is mixed, her mother has Dutch and Finish heritage and her father is African American. Miami’s diverse culture allows her to fit in. She also loves that Miami gives her easy access to cities around the world. She’s able to fly to places nationally and internationally with ease right out of Miami International Airport. She also loves the arts and feels that institutions such as the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) and Art Basel making Miami an art hub of the world.

What is being a woman? Embracing all that our higher power has empowered us with and graced us with.

Where to find Erica and Collective Drift:
Instagram: @CollectiveDrift
Facebook.com/CollectiveDrift
collectivedrift.com
Travel Chat Dine - Feb 27 travelchatdineethiopia.eventbrite.com

Where to find Hopi
Instagram: @hopinoel

(Ep 05) How can I practice self care? An interview with Hopi Noel Morton

What is being a woman? Embracing all that our higher power has empowered us with and graced us with.

Where to find Erica and Collective Drift:
Instagram: @CollectiveDrift
Facebook.com/CollectiveDrift
collectivedrift.com
Travel Chat Dine - Feb 27 travelchatdineethiopia.eventbrite.com

Where to find Hopi
Instagram: @hopinoel

Previous Episode

(ep 4) How Can Living Abroad Change Me with artist Beatriz Chachamovits

The Collective Drift platform was created to celebrate all women, the beauty of their cultures, and international travel experiences. I believe that women possess magic, that gives them strength and grace to change the world. We learn how to tap into our power in various ways based on our cultural backgrounds and our journeys. Join me and an amazing collective of multicultural and ethnic women that are artists, cultural leaders and travel enthusiasts as they tell their stories about their culture, their tribe of women, their passions, their art, and their favorite international experiences. Welcome to Collective Drift.

During this episode of Collective Drift, I sat down with marine activist and Brazilian artist, Beatriz Chachamovits. We dove into a multitude of topics including her art, marine life, Brazilian culture and living abroad.

Beatriz is passionate about marine life and her artwork is a display of her love for it. A large body of Beatriz’s artwork is on coral reef systems, these drawings and sculptures are highly detailed and intricate. Her work largely depicts endangered sea life to show the destruction of the ocean and its animals due to human disregard. Rather than finishing the pieces in their lifelike bright hues, Beatriz leaves her corals and sponges absent of color for you to see the corals as they are dead.

Beatriz told us about how she gained her love for the marine world. She told us about her passion for marine life and the importance of protecting it. And also discussed her rituals for beginning and ending her artwork. We also touched a little on the fires in the Brazilian Amazon.

Growing up in Brazil provided Beatriz with access to an array of cultures. We talked about the rich diversity of cultures within Brazil, the positive impacts of it as well as the current ethnic and racial divides that seem to be happening around the world. We also spoke about her Jewish and Brazilian cultural influences including a story about her very passionate grandmother. The center is her favorite place in Sao Paulo where you can go to really feel the authentic essense of the city. We talked about how cultures are expressed through Brazilian food.

Although Beatriz grew up in a very culturally diverse Brazil she mostly was exposed to other Jewish Brazilians. When she lived in Australia for 6 months in a student exchange program she had the opportunity to actually experience other cultures. That time in her life changed her - it made her understand that she needed cultural diversity. She tells us about her time in Tel Aviv, how the women there are so strong, the amazing art scene, the night life, and even her first experience with another woman.

Beatriz wants to know “What makes them stronger?”.

Where to find Erica and Collective Drift:

Instagram: @CollectiveDrift

Facebook.com/CollectiveDrift

facebook.com/groups/CollectiveDrift/

collectivedrift.com

Where to find Beatriz:

Instagram: @beatrizchachamovitz

https://www.beatrizchachamovits.com/

Next Episode

(ep 6) What do you do to push yourself through? With Overtown hotelier and historian Kristin Kitchen

What do you do to push yourself through? How do you deal with adversity? Is it possible to succeed during a pandemic? How does a hotelier run a hotel during a time of trouble? How do you use creativity to solve difficult problems? These are all things that hotelier Kristin Kitchen handles naturally because her mother handled difficult situations with imagination and creativity. It’s her grandmother’s voice in her head that inspires her and pushes her through to continue to be her best. It’s the poems that she learned as a child that continue to guide her with their wisdom. It’s the international volunteer trips that she has taken that has allowed her to refocus.

This is an interview with the remarkable Kristin Kitchen. She is an African American woman, the owner of the Sojourn Heritage bed and breakfast collection, historian and mom of her rambunctious seven-year-old daughter. She owns 6 Acres B & B in Cincinnati, OH and has recently opened The Dunns Josephine Hotel in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami, FL. While her hotels celebrate African American Heritage the majority of her guests are not African American. We had a great conversation about the stories shared at her boutique hotels, how her grandmother and mother influenced her tenacity, and how international travels have impacted her. As we are living in the Coronavirus pandemic we also discussed how she has been able stay positive by having creative solutions.

This episode is the first of a series of episodes that is sponsored by the Southeast Overtown/Park West CRA and will highlight the creative women business owners in their community. So you’ll also learn about how Kristin chose the Overtown location and including her favorite spots in Overtown. You can see them in detail below.

Kristin Kitchen has been a hotelier for 15 years opening up the first of her Sojourn Heritage Hotels 6 Acres B & B in Cincinnati, OH and more recently the The Dunns Josephine Hotel in the Overtown area of Miami, FL. Both hotels celebrate African American history and are a treat to stay at especially for is a wonderful place to stay at especially for history and jazz buffs.

Throughout Kristin’s she has noticed that African American history hasn’t been told properly or enough in the United States or in other countries around the world. This is one of the things that has inspired her to open hotels based on African American heritage. At the hotels guests are invited to participate in “Let’s share life over breakfast”. In these discussions the guests learn about African American history and share their own stories. Kristin's favorite discussion was when white family visited the hotel as a part of their annual celebration of their mother in conjunction with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Their mother had walked over the Pettus Bridge with Dr King, and did this defying her husband who didn’t want her to go by borrowing money from her black maid.

CLICK HERE to Read more and to get the list of Kristin's favorites...

Southeast Overtown/Park West CRA
instagram.com/miamicra

Collective Drift
instagram.com/collectivedrift

Dunns Josephine Hotel
instagram.com/dunnsjosephinehotel/

Music by Catherine Knowles