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So Many Wings

So Many Wings

Jacks McNamara

So Many Wings, a flock of misfits and changemakers, is a podcast that draws on our backgrounds in transformative mental health and social justice organizing to gather our people and share stories and visions as we struggle for collective liberation. This project is a node in the growing network of creatively maladjusted folks who are rising up and capturing the imaginations of people who are ready for change. We chose the name So Many Wings because there are so many ways to get free, and because we can only get free together, as a flock of misfits and changemakers moving through the world. We hope you’ll join us.
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Top 10 So Many Wings Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best So Many Wings episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to So Many Wings for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite So Many Wings episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Join us for an interview with Wheels Darling where we discuss her path towards becoming an acupuncturist, herbalist, and health educator with an anti-oppression analysis.

Topics we cover include:

  • Mutual aid as medicine
  • Coming of age as full-time activist
  • Possibility magic as a tool and anti-oppression lens
  • Becoming a healer and educator
  • Choosing to pursue an advanced degree/medical license
  • Dynamic transformation, sacred openings, nervous system repatterning, cognitive reframing, and the magic of dreaming and thinking bigger
  • Being a healthcare worker during COVID
  • Connecting to ancestral earth-based spirituality
  • Cultural appropriation in spirituality and medicine

About Wheels:

Wheels Darling is a queer acupuncturist, herbalist, body worker, healer, educator, witch, and collaborator of educational projects. They are based in the place currently called Portland, Oregon. Wheels is particularly excited to work in the places that are in between, the liminal spaces between what was, what is, and what could be. She uses this imaginal vantage to dream up educational programs, treatment plans for her patients, health equity plans of action, intimacies with her family, friends, lovers, communities, the larger world of humans, and all that is other than human.

Wheels' specialty is that she is a generalist. She's studied literature, political economy, herbalism, East Asian Medicine, queer and feminist theories, revolutionary and radical movements, ways of honoring each of the beings of this planet, histories and stories of those not represented in normative history books, magic, euro-pagan-earth-based spirituality, somatic healing, creative writing, and many other forms of Liberation Studies.

Find Wheels online:

Links to relevant resources:

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

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So Many Wings - Mad Liberation: An Interview with Vesper Moore
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06/25/21 • 45 min

Join us for a wide-ranging conversation with Vesper Moore. Topics we cover include:

  • Getting involved with the Mad Liberation Movement
  • How disability, ableism, and saneism intersect with “mental illness”
  • Survivor led mutual aid spaces
  • Decolonizing the gender binary
  • De-pathologizing the experiences that get diagnosed and labeled under the western mental health paradigm
  • How restrictions on psychedelics and the western medical model's suppression of indigenous culture are interconnected.
  • The history and reemergence of Madness Network News.

About Vesper:

Vesper Moore, is a mad liberation activist, trainer, writer, and psychiatric survivor. They have been advocating as a part of the mad movement for several years and have been the recipient of many social justice and diversity awards.

Vesper has brought the perspectives of mad people, disabled people, and psychiatric survivors to national and international spaces. They have experience working as a consultant for both the United States government and the United Nations in shaping strategies around trauma, intersectionality, and disability rights. They have been at the forefront of legislative reform to shift the societal paradigm around mental health. Vesper as a mad queer indigenous person has made it their life’s mission to rewrite the narrative psychiatry has enforced on our society.

Find Vesper online:

Links to relevant resources:

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

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Join us for a wide ranging conversation with Dick Schwartz where we discuss everything from the origins of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model to the role of Self-Leadership in contemporary social justice movements.

Topics we discuss include:

  • How it’s the nature of the mind to have multiple parts
  • The role of legacy burdens in what gets called “mental illness”
  • The visionary history of systemic family therapy
  • The potential synergy of Open Dialogue and Internal Family Systems
  • Why it’s much easier to train non-therapists in IFS
  • The potential role of Self-Leadership in contemporary social justice movements

About Dick Schwartz:

Richard Schwartz began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called “parts.” These patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationship that resembled the families he had been working with. He also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients. From these explorations the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s.

IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely-used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms.

In 2013 Schwartz left the Chicago area and now lives in Brookline, MA where he is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Find Dick online:

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Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

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Join us for a conversation with Kanchan Dawn Hunter about the trajectory of her decades of social justice work, raising children, and specifically the ways mental health, racial justice and urban agriculture are all intertwined. Kanchan talks with us about her work to support black and brown women in farming and herbalism, and her efforts to lift up black boys and men in the face of increased targeting of their lives. We had this conversation a few months ago, while sitting around a table in Kanchan’s beautiful tiny house with a view of the San Francisco Bay, as her puppy was running around our feet.

About Kanchan:

Kanchan Dawn Hunter is a parent, an educator, and the Director of Community Outreach at Spiral Gardens Community Food Security Project. For more than 30 years she has been engaged in work at the intersection of community building and racial and environmental justice. Kanchan has worked with Hand in Hand Parenting, the Berkeley Ecology Center, World Trust, and Spiral Gardens, as well as helping to develop the breakthrough curriculum “Healing the Hurts of Racism” and the film “Making Whiteness Visible.” Her deep commitment to healing her own internalized oppression made it possible for her to intentionally reach out to black and brown men and boys in her community as a way to actively show support for them in the face of increased targeting of their lives. Since transitioning into environmental justice work, Kanchan co-founded Soil Sistahs with Doria Robinson, a gathering of black and brown women that meets at Spiral Gardens monthly. Through this gathering, women of color are able to meet in a safe space connecting with the soil through meditations, garden projects, and plant study. The purpose of this gathering is to ensure that we have equal access to local soil and growing our food together in it, as a way to deepen our connection to the planet, ourselves..... and each other. Soil Sistahs inspired her to co-create the 1st and 2nd Annual California Women of Color Herbal Symposium, an event that spanned an entire weekend sharing and learning from multiple teachers and each other on the beautiful Navarro River.

Find Kanchan online:

On the web: http://www.spiralgardens.org/

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kanchandawnhunter

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mamakanchan/

Links to resources that were mentioned:

Spiral Gardens Food Security Project: http://www.spiralgardens.org/

Soil Sistahs: https://www.facebook.com/soilsistahs/

California Women of Color Herbal Symposium: https://www.facebook.com/CWOCHS

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

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Join us for a conversation with T. Aisha Edwards where we discuss recovering from complex trauma, somatics for liberation, Radical Rest, and so much more.

Topics we cover include:

  • Unburdening the impacts of socialized oppressions for POCs and Queer/Trans folks
  • Using healing justice to support folks on the front lines of racial justice uprisings
  • The Emergent Liberation Collective podcast
  • The trauma-informed stabilization model
  • Parts work: unblending and befriending

About Aisha:

Aisha Edwards, LMHC (xe/she) is a somatic trauma therapist, healer, writer, performance artist and fire breathing light warrior. She uniquely weaves Gestalt, Somatic Experiencing, early developmental movement, Neuro Emotional Technique, ancestral healing and concepts from Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Herbalism into a holistic approach to emotional and spiritual health that fosters the sovereign relationship with the body as the vehicle to wellness, wholeness, connection and liberation from all forms of oppression.

Find Aisha online:

Links to relevant resources:

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

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Join us for a wide-ranging conversation with Crystal Davis of Blooming Fire Healing where we discuss how magic helps us survive, becoming a BIPOC healer, and much more.

Topics we cover include:

  • Shapeshifting
  • Learning to live with depression
  • Becoming a healer and reiki master
  • Being a “feral witch” (or Crystal’s term for solitary magical practitioners)
  • Building relationship with the things we can see and the things we can’t
  • BIPOC healing circles
  • Tarot as a mirror and a map

About Crystal:

Crystal Davis (she/they) is an intuitive empath, healer, and magic maker living in Portland, OR. She moves through the world as a queer Black cis woman. The alchemy of her interests, experiences, and survival have led her down this winding road of exploration, reflection, and the path of the witch. She found her way to metaphysics in her hometown of Richmond, VA. After beginning her Reiki training, Crystal was called to the Pacific Northwest to continue her study of alternative healing and magic.

Healing is a journey - one step inevitably leading to the next. Her perspectives on healing have been informed by her lived experiences, work with youth, and individuals surviving houselessness and poverty at Sisters of the Road. She is an alumni of the Blue Iris Mystery School and a Holy Fire Reiki Master/Teacher. She is a volunteer practitioner with healing justice organization Radical Rest which provides mental health and wellness services to support BIPOC organizers and activists in their continued work of liberation.

Through Blooming Fire Healing, she offers tarot, energywork, and monthly BIPOC healing circles to support the healing and magic that her clients bring into the world. She believes that when individuals are in full bloom they give a gift to their entire community.

Find Crystal online:

Links to relevant resources:

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

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Join us for a conversation with L.D. Green, in which we discuss their contributions in radical mental health movements, the anthology We’ve Been Too Patient, which they co-edited with Kelechi Ubozoh, and their practice as a writer.

Topics we discuss include:

  • Labels and language in radical mental health movements.
  • Representation of queer and trans folks and people of color in the anthology
  • Time travel and madness in speculative fiction and science fiction

About LD Green:

LD Green is a non-binary writer, performer and educator. They have been published in Salon, The Body is Not an Apology, Mad in America, TruthOut, and elsewhere. They co-edited and contributed to We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, Stories and Research Challenging the Biomedical Model with Kelechi Ubozoh published by North Atlantic books and distributed by Penguin Random House in 2018. A former member of the Icarus Project and a former poetry slam champion, they are a Lambda Literary Fellow in Fiction and write and enjoy science fiction and fantasy. They are assistant professor of English and creative writing at Los Medanos College in the Bay Area of California.

Find LD Green online:

On the web:

Links to relevant resources:

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

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Join us for a wide ranging conversation with Clare Bayard where we discuss her 20+ years of organizing in grassroots multiracial struggles for collective liberation, and the role of somatic healing work and the importance of mentorship for intergenerational movements of resistance. Content warning: interview includes mention of sexual trauma and white nationalism.

Topics we discuss include:

  • The space between impact and intention.
  • Healing for the sake of being able to show up in work for collective liberation.
  • How anti-racist work has evolved over the years.
  • The role of mentorship in movement building. Mentorship as a bidirectional relationship.
  • Community safety work - alternatives to police, transformative justice, grassroots neighborhood organizing. Concrete suggestions on how we prepare for the wave of increased state repression that is coming.
  • Security as solidarity.

About Clare Bayard:

Clare Bayard has organized for over 20 years in grassroots multiracial movements for collective liberation, and co-founded Catalyst Project, a movement building center supporting white anti-racist organizing. Clare is an organizer and a parent, a direct action trainer with The Ruckus Society, a writer, and a somatic healing practitioner who focuses on working with survivors of sexual assault and war. Clare's training comes from coalition and campaign work in many movement sectors, particularly in migrant rights, global justice, housing rights and anti-displacement, Palestinian liberation, anti-imperialist struggles against US wars and G.I. resistance, post-Katrina Gulf Coast Reconstruction, and climate justice. Demilitarization and connecting struggles against US empire at home and abroad are at the heart of Clare’s political work. Clare is active in the War Resisters International Network, served in board and staff positions at the War Resisters League for over a decade, and has worked closely with About Face (formerly known as Iraq Veterans Against the War) since soon after its founding.Clare’s writing has been published widely including the Guardian UK, Z Magazine, Alternet, Common Dreams, The Hill, and the recent anthology We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st century America.

Find Clare online:

Links to relevant resources:

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

On the web: https://somanywings.org

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somanywingspodcast

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/somanywingspodcast

On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/somanywingspodcast

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Join us for a conversation with Israel Francisco Haros Lopez where we discuss how art saves lives, how ancestors help us, the evolution of the Alas de Agua Art Collective, and much more.

Topics we cover include:

  • Poetry of the people
  • Healing and respecting ourselves
  • Moving beyond the spirit of the colonizer that lives in all of us
  • How institutions become borders
  • Asemic writing
  • Relentless hope

About Israel: Israel Francisco Haros Lopez was born in East Los Angeles to immigrant parents of Mexican descent. He brings his firsthand knowledge of the realities of migration, U.S. border policies, and life as a Mexican American to his work with families and youth as a mentor, educator, art instructor, ally, workshop facilitator and activist. He studied at U.C. Berkeley and received a degree in English Literature and Chicano Studies followed by an M.F.A in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts. At formal and informal visual art spaces, Israel creates and collaborates in many interdisciplinary ways including poetry, performance, music, visual art, and video making and curriculum creation. His work addresses a multitude of historical and spiritual layered realities of border politics, identity politics, and the re-interpretation of histories. He was formerly the Highschool Homeless Liason at SFPS Adelante and is one of the founders and forces of energy at Alas de Agua Arts Collective and the New Mexico Murals Project. In 2020 he began working with YouthWorks, Reunity Resources, and Mother Nature Center to grow food for the community on county owned land at San Isidro Crossing

Find Israel online:

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Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website

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Join us for a conversation with Ahjo Sipowicz where we discuss their path into radical embodiment and the creation of their book EarthBodyBoat.

Topics we cover include:

  • Coming into wholeness as a neurodivergent, genderqueer creature
  • Meaning-making and integration after altered state experiences
  • Using scores and performance to connect with the earth and ourselves
  • Freeing the rivers dammed by patriarchy and colonialism
  • Croning, eldership and aging
  • Divination and art-making with an Iphone
  • Making a book to make community

About Ahjo:

I am a white, non-binary, neurodivergent, pansexual, elemental creature, residing for 30 years on Tewa land at O’gha Po’oge—White Shell Water Place—Santa Fe, New Mexico. My ancestors, primarily Lithuanian and Norwegian, migrated to the Chicago area where I was born and raised. In 1989 I studied the Life Art Process at the Tamalpa Institute with Anna Halprin. The values of the Life Art Process continue to guide me—including creative process over end product, creating dialog between expressive mediums, communicating with the self, life through ritual, performance, and art making.

I call myself a “somatic earth artist,” one who is in apprenticeship with both the personal and earthly soma, and expresses both the conflicts and the Eros of these relationships through art. My art arises out of my InBodyNature practice, in which I actively dialogue with nature—communicating, performing, witnessing, and creating in collaboration. I bridge these experiences with writing, video documentation, and visual art through the technology of iPhone apps and composite photography. I am a self-published author of the newly released memoir/artist journal, EarthBodyBoat: Queer Journey of A Somatic Earth Artist.

Find Ahjo online:

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Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website:

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FAQ

How many episodes does So Many Wings have?

So Many Wings currently has 25 episodes available.

What topics does So Many Wings cover?

The podcast is about Mentalhealth, Podcasts, Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Psychology and Activism.

What is the most popular episode on So Many Wings?

The episode title 'We’ve Been Too Patient: A Conversation with L.D. Green' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on So Many Wings?

The average episode length on So Many Wings is 48 minutes.

How often are episodes of So Many Wings released?

Episodes of So Many Wings are typically released every 16 days, 21 hours.

When was the first episode of So Many Wings?

The first episode of So Many Wings was released on Apr 8, 2020.

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