#VoicesForRacialHealing

Maker education has the potential to empower all individuals to think critically about complex systems and encourage them to be active participants in building and shaping the future they want. In this episode, we are joined by Charles Sutton, a librarian and aspiring public intellectual. Through his professional and personal work, he is committed to developing human agency and structural change where needed. His interests include early and emergent literacy, critical making, and maker education/empowerment. Charles is a thinker and a tinkerer. The following quote from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man sums it up best: “Call me, since I have a theory and a concept, a “thinker-tinker.” In 2015, Charles spoke at TEDx Evansville on the topic "Maker Education: Empowering individuals to make a better world." He discusses how he transformed his home into an urban ecological experiment – implementing workable alternatives to current practices that threaten our water, energy and food security. Can makers of all stripes facilitate healing and restoration of urban communities? Can they - we, because we all can make something - help to ameliorate the deep-seated wounds to communities caused by racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, economic disinvestment, etc.? We will talk about this and much more in this episode. Please join us!

This episode, I am joined by Erva Baden, a contemporary shaman who weaves together various healing modalities with compassion and humor to journey with folks who are committed to their own path of deep healing and transformation. She is one of the original co-founders of Shadow Work Seminars (TM), a Reiki master, and a long-time facilitator in the Woman Within organization. She has also studied energy work, chakra healing, and core shamanic techniques under the direction of internationally recognized teachers. With more than 25 years experience in facilitating process work around the world, Baden's Soul Restoration series draws on her more recent study of trauma recovery to assist people to reclaim their lives and to restore their souls’ radiance from the effects of the traumas of racism. She states: As a woman of African descent, I have a growing awareness of how the 400 years of enslavement and oppression of my ancestors here in the United States of America still live in me as subtle messages influencing my thoughts and behaviors. So.... having done lots of internal work over many, many, many, and many more continuing years it appears that I’ve been prompted to get out there and offer what I know and what I’ve experienced to a larger community of black folks. I believe we all have the innate capacity to heal – from anything. Sometimes we just need a coach, trainer, guide – someone to cheer us on, offer suggestions and walk with us along the path (it can get pretty rocky!). This is mind, body and spirit work at the deepest level. I will commit to you if you commit to yourself. For more info about Erva and her Soul Restoration workshops, visit http://onesourceenergywork.com

Join me as I chat with and play some songs by Bethlehem and Sad Patrick, members of the Philadelphia-based musical duo Be Sad Music. We'll talk about their 5+ year collaboration and themes of love, struggle and healing in their music. Bethlehem, a singer, songwriter and self-described "vocussionist," was described as “Germantown’s next rising star” by WHYY/NewsWorks Philadelphia after the release of her first solo album, “Bigger Than Music”. Sad Patrick, a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, was kicked out of the Calliope School of Folk Music when he started using “jazz” chords. The duo, and their songs about love, love lost, and love that is better off lost, have won audiences over at notable performances at genre-spanning events throughout Philadelphia and beyond. “The local duo blends the focused minimalism and poetic lyrics of folk tradition with simmering, freewheeling jazz and blues — slick guitars, soaring vocals, nuanced melodies.” - John Vettese, WXPN The Key and Key Studio Sessions “Bethlehem brings raw, unapologetic gospel energy to Sad Patrick’s songs. – Homer Jackson, Philadelphia Jazz Project Go to their website for more info!