Ep. 8: Together Rooting Into the Soil of Right Relationship
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Reflections from this first season open up dialogue on the connections between themes of repair from the personal to the systemic. Your co-hosts Nikishka Iyengar, Jessica Norwood, and Andrew X share their reflections and lay bare some of the learnings from the show and this time of transformation.
Highlights:
• Jessica, Andrew, and Nikishka gather around the mic once more to share reflections and close out this first season
• Your co-hosts summarize key lessons and insights from the journey of producing this show inside of a pandemic and the lessons they are carrying
• Exploration of how humility, vulnerability, courageous conversations, and economic solidarity can support our work of repair
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Nikishka Iyengar 0:07
As we grapple with these larger systems and institutions that are responsible for the harm the inequities the in justices in the world, how do we ensure that – while we're on this road to repairing the world, while we're on this road, rebuilding a new economy and transforming institutions – that we ourselves are a reflection of that transformation.
Show Intro 0:34
You ready, we get down to business. Investing in existence. Shifting from a system steeped in extraction that steady sapping our peoples and planet to cash in, slashing widening gaps in our access to land wealth, peace, satisfaction. Imagine basing relations on more than transactions. It's time for new pathways, and we need to shape them. Though our inner landscapes, our relations, our approach our dedication, we're on the road to repair as a commitment to transformation.
Welcome to the Road To Repair a podcast exploring our journey out of business as usual economy toward, collective healing and liberation. We are your co hosts, Andrew X, Jessica Norwood, and I'm Nikishka Iyengar,, and we're very excited for this conversation.
Nikishka Iyengar 1:27
Welcome y'all to what is somehow our last episode of this first season. This is your co-host Nikishka, and I cannot believe we're at the end. Now, this isn't really the end, of course, because we'll be back for more next season. But this is a moment of celebration for us. If you listened to this podcast from the beginning, then you know that we all came together at the start of this pandemic. And, well, we are nearing two years of life under COVID. You might be wondering, does it really take two years to put out a podcast with just eight episodes and all say not if you're in it to just produce a podcast. But for us, it wasn't just about the podcast, right? It was an experiment and embodiment – truly. As we grapple with these larger systems and institutions that are responsible for the harm, the inequities, the in justices in the world, how do we ensure that – while we're on this road to repairing the world, while we're on this road to rebuilding a new economy and transforming institutions – that we ourselves are a reflection of that transformation. So in the season finale, we're sharing a few things. We're sharing the ways in which we've each individually transformed inside of this project and inside of the pandemic, and what some of the lessons learned are that serve as wayfinders for us in this road to repair, we'll also share some of our favorite moments from previous episodes. And if you haven't yet, please go check them out. Rate us! Review us! All of the things! The episodes are beautiful if we do say so ourselves.
Jessica Norwood 3:14
Recently, I've been reflecting on our road as co-hosts to create this podcast and how it's changed me from the inside out. When we started the podcast, the pandemic had just begun. And it was scary, it was stressful. People just kind of kept going. Like, it was this odd thing. I mean, everybody's been there and knows what I'm talking about where events didn't fully fully cancel, they just kind of moved online work didn't really stop. It just went on to a conference call. And there were colleagues, friends of mine family members who struggle with COVID. And way too many people lost their lives. And the way that we held it was like it was an inconvenience, like it was a distraction. And the mantra, if you will, became "just keep going," just, you know, "push through, it'll be over soon." And we kept talking about getting back to normal or doing what we used to do as if anything was ever normal. I located out of the country during this time, and it was a tough start for the podcast with the distance and all of these uncertainties. And things were fastly shifting all around us. There was a constant energy of upheaval, and I found that we as a team on the podcast had to dig deep into our values. We had to understand deeply what right relationship meant what pacing meant, what time meant, because the timeline that we have for this podcast, completely vanished. And there were moments where I really wasn't even sure we could complete the project. I think that was really where the most profound change came for me in the pandemic, because it forced me to start saying a new mantra to myself instead of this old kind of keep going. I kept saying to myself, respect the pandemic, respect the pandemic, stop trying to go around this stop trying to go through it head on, stop trying to box it and stop trying to contain it. Respect it. There is a slowness, that this pandemic commands, there is a return to home that this pandemic demands and for me home, and you know, I talk about it all the time about my obsession with home, but home for me is an is a synonym, if you will, for roots – for rootedness. So where am I rooted? And what am I rooted in? That's what the pandemic brought to me. For too long, I think I've been rooted in a practice that said that my worthiness was about what I could produce. And that is capitalism, that your worthiness is about what you can produce. And if I couldn't produce, in this example, this podcast, then it meant that I was in some way failing. And the importance of the road to repair – not just the title of the show, but the idea behind it – was that this model of worthiness, attached to productivity, it was time for that to end that my worthiness was so much more about what I could give make, but about my own experience, how I felt, my imagination. And it was time that we shut that down. So I think, for me, there was a great shift and that really challenging, what made me me what mattered most what are those right relationships? What am I rooted in, and noticing that I have been rooted in a system of economic violence, and that I learned behaviors, I learned an attitude that said, Just keep going, even when everything around me was in upheaval, everything around me was falling apart in such chaos, produce, produce, produce. And finally I had to say, Nah. Respect the pandemic. Understand these lessons that are coming forward, and what it's meant to do for you, at this time, so that nobody else ever goes through a moment where they are in a global health crisis, and do not have the resources, the relationships, and the ability to keep themselves safe, mentally healthy, physically strong, feeling abundant, that is where I really wanted to be not inside of what we had been taught. And that was a big change for me.
Nikishka Iyengar 8:00
That all deeply, deeply resonates, Jessica. And it's been a very similar experience for me, folks are probably familiar with the work of the Nap Ministry. But Trisha, aka the Nap Bishop, also talks about this a lot. And I think each of us co-hosts has had to grapple with the ways in which this, you know, "productivity trap" still shows up for us, right? Despite maybe, you know, cognitively understanding why it's problematic, it still shows up. So, you know, along similar lines, and this will come as a surprise, and no one who knows me, but I struggle a lot with perfectionism. I can be really hard on myself and don't offer myself the same grace that I offer others. And so I really wouldn't do a lot of you know, quote, unquote, re-parenting my inner child work on myself in this past year, I actually, I want to shout out Matisse, Haynes, I'll drop her website in our show notes. But Matisse has been my coach and has really, really helped me to get to the root of these issues within within myself and see how, you know, this perfectionism and martyrdom that tends to show up within me, you know, the inability to give myself room to make mistakes, even these are all sort of aspects of white supremacy culture that has made a home in my body and my brain, right. And so yeah, she's been really, you know, instrumental and helping me kind of make that shift. And I'll say that I'm still a work in progress here, of course, in terms of unlearning this stuff, but our journey with this podcast has also given me the opportunity to continue down that road and, you know, develop new practices, new ways of being. So yeah, on that note, I know we all have moments where we maybe learn new practices from the, you know, the brilliant guests on our show this season. Jessica, maybe you want to start what were what were some of your favorite moments?
Jessica Norwood 9:53
What were some of my favorite lessons from the guests this season? Hmm, you know, I absolutely love this season. Just hearing first, my co-host, Nikishka and Andrew X was just brilliant to hear your magic. And the way that each episode wove in these different things with your unique perspective was *chef's kiss!* Fan-freakin'-tastic. I loved it. I loved every moment. All right, so it's probably no surprise. But because I'm greedy, I have two favorite moments. There were others. But I tried to narrow it down. And I could only get to two, I couldn't get to one. So here are my two. I loved talking with adrienne maree brown. In the episode that we do together, we talk about imagination, and specifically black imagination. And it had me all fired up! Black imagination – and the reason I centered it really emphasizing black imagination, is because there has been always inside of blackness, this ability to look at an uncertain future. And to breathe life into it. Like, I don't know what this is going to be, but I can feel it. I can see it, I believe it. And so it is. So we are doing it. That is blackness and I believe that there is a healing balm, inside of that kind of imagination, one where we take the brokenness and distress and transform it into joy, and a promise of a brighter tomorrow. So the central theme for me this year has been that we have been in a crisis of imagination. I think so. I think we've been in a crisis of imagination. And for me, it is important to challenge this and to sort of speak into this, because it stops or it challenges our ability to reinvent ourselves and to repair. I have conversations about this all the time, about what it takes to create new attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. And our imagination is all about the capacity, we have to create those new attitudes, to evolve those beliefs, and to shift those behaviors. That comes from imagination. So how do we stop holding on to the status quo? And how do we come out of the emptiness of this experience of resource and capitalism? How do we face the fear of letting go of the old system and old ways of being and doing? Imagination.
Nikishka Iyengar 12:33
These questions you just raised, Jessica, are also I think, a great segue into one of my favorite moments on this podcast that, you know, connects back to a lesson of this pandemic has tried to teach us over and over again, it was actually a moment that didn't make it to the final cut of the episode. But that's only because that episode had just so many other gems. To no one's surprise that's the interview that Jessica did with adrienne marie brown, although let me just say like all of our guests are phenomenal. But this interview that Jessica did with adrienne, adrienne shares a story about something that had just unfolded in her life at that time. And from that there's a lot of lessons there that we could get into in a second. So I just want you to hear this.
adrienne maree brown 13:16
I guess a couple, you know, week and a half ago, I paid off a major debt to the IRS. And I was a war tax resister. So from when we first met, I was a war tax resistor for 13 years, which meant that I refused to pay taxes that I knew would be going into war coffers, and since the majority of taxpayer money that we put into US federal taxes goes to the war, and they cannot guarantee that they won't put it there. This was, you know, through the Iraq war and war in Afghanistan, the sort of perpetual war systems that we're in, I was just like, I don't, I don't want to fund it. I don't agree with it. I don't think I should be forced to fund it. And I wrote a nice letter to the IRS every year just saying I will still not be funding this. And I wasn't hiding. You know, I wasn't like hiding that. I knew that this was a strategy that people have used throughout history as a resistance model. And I tried to be really intentional with my money, always. So even when I haven't had much I have redistributed it. I put it back into charitable work. Over the past few years, particularly as my books have taken off and become bestsellers. That money has gone back into community experiments and emergent strategy community experiments in building curriculum, so that community can be with each other, but they caught up with me three years ago, they caught up with me. They garnish my wages, they took everything I had so cleared out all of my bank accounts and you you haven't lived until you
Unknown Speaker 14:49
you know, been in a grocery store. No card is working and then you call and they're just like it's all gone. And I feel fortunate that I had enough safety net that
Unknown Speaker 15:00
I wasn't like, Oh, now I am homeless, and I have nothing to eat. Like I had community, I had friends. But you know, the work of being a consultant, there were gigs that I was going on, then through those years where I was like, what I eat, or having a place to say is fully dependent on if these organizers feed me, what they feed me, and how they feed me. I don't have anything, right. And I'm in charge of this room, but I have nothing. There's nothing, you know, I won't be able to spend anything in addition to what's happening here. So it was super humbling as an experience. It was super humbling as a political strategy experience, because what I recognized was, I still deeply believe in war tax resistance as a methodology, but not in a singular way, as I was practicing it,. I was standing alone on my mountain, right. And what I now believe, is if I was to ever do the strategy, again, that it would be part of a mass effort that a lot of us would say, we are all going to divest from this war economy. So my family, my friends got me together, and they're like, "Girl, you know what's gonna happen? You're either gonna go to jail on this, like, you know, you're going to go to jail, because you don't have the money and you're wanting to still resist, or you're going to pay this money. And we're going to figure this out. And, and I'll just, I mean, in the nitty gritty of it, like they the IRS negotiated with me that they wanted me to pay upwards of $2000/month to them, but my wages regardless down to $400/month, and I had no money. So I was really like, "I don't understand the math of this," right. And it really took, like, I had to pull back resources that I had been flowing into community efforts. I had to call people and be like, "I can't donate the same way I used to, I can't give the same way I used to, like, I have to pull this stuff back." And really, I had to redistribute, I had to get a financial advisor, and really sit down, I reached out to you at that point, Jessica, and I was like, "I need a financial advisor, I need a lawyer, I need to understand how to protect myself how to protect my writing work, my intellectual property, like, all these things, so that I can kind of be a grown up moving through, you know, a grown up anti capitalist moving through capitalism, like how do I survive and have my integrity intact." So I posted about it, because I finally made the payment, which meant a ton of redistribution, a ton of saving, a ton of sacrifice, a ton of unlike anyone, I'm like, I live in a one and a half bedroom in Detroit, that, you know, this, I've been needing to upgrade and, like, be in a much bigger space for some time. But I've stayed right here. You know, like, you just have to make those those hard calls. And so it has felt like I can enjoy the abundance of my labor yet. That's okay, because I'm going to clear this debt, and then engage in the collective strategies to continue my justice work. It felt amazing. I felt amazing to pay it, which is shocking, you know, because it's just like, I'm giving money away, you know. But it also – I had to rewire myself that the money isn't mine, I can't think of it as mine. I have to put a blessing on that money, that it's going to go to education, it's going to go to the things I care about, and that the best use of my time for this period of my life is not to be in jail if I don't have to be in jail. Right? So I'm like, if I thought that was the right move, the best move that I would have done it. You know, I believe in direct action, I believe in in protest in that way. I do not believe in these prison systems. They do not play fair. They're not designed to. And I have work still to do. So if I can stay out. You're doing that work. I'm doing it. So long story short – long story long. Thass's what had happened, Jessica.
Nikishka Iyengar 18:50
I thought the story was so perfect in the way that they doing categorizes what was happening, right? Her sort of, like, "standing on this mountain alone," like she says, trying to individualize a solution to what is a much deeper structural problem. And then trying to reframe it, as you know, what could it look like for this to to not be an individual strategy, but maybe to be a collective strategy? In the last couple of years – in no small amount do you do the total failure of our public health institutions and government overall – I think we've all been forced to come up with individual solutions to this whole pandemic, like a whole global pandemic. Where, yeah, we're forced as individuals to come up with solutions for this and to keep ourselves safe and to keep our families and communities safe. And there's a way in which this individualizing of what is a deeply systemic problem is actually a deep reflection of capitalism as a culture and white supremacy as a culture. Because if you you know individualize the problem, then the power structures that exist that are at the root of the problem, get to escape accountability. We all see those. You know, there's a little viral, feel good stories on social media sometimes right? When the teacher might sacrifice something, and you know, I don't know, like now all the kids in her class get like free lunch or something and their lunch debt is completely wiped out. You know, y'all know the stories that I'm talking about where we kind of see that on, I don't know, the "Today Show" and other morning, local news shows. And I think as a culture, we would those stories, what I think about is, we tend to celebrate the teacher in that story, right? Let's just use that example. We tend to celebrate the teacher, the hero in the story, without questioning why that teacher had to do what they did in the first place, like, why kids in this country go hungry in schools in the first place? And like, how grotesque is it that we have something like a "lunch-debt" for kids? That is so wild to me. And on that same thread? You know, it's been said before, but it's, it's really problematic how inside of this pandemic, moms and I think parents overall, have, you know, we've been hailed as superheroes over and over again, right. But there's been little to no actual support that we've received, we have an economy that completely devalued and invisiblizes the work of caregiving. And I think we're all feeling the impacts of it. Whether we're caregivers or not. adrienne's personal story, was a reminder for me that when we move away from trying to individualize a systemic problem, we actually create the potential for real change to happen. We're not going to solve the climate crisis by, you know, shaming individual people into recycling more, we're not going to solve poverty with pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of false solutions, and we are not going to dismantle US imperialism, by singularly engaging in war tax resistance, as adrienne says, But there is hope and there is possibility in collective resistance strategies, and I think that's why we need to focus our attention. But yeah. What about you, Andrew? What were some of your favorite moments?
Andrew X 22:12
You know, I really appreciated throughout some of these conversations this embrace of this lens of "economic biomimicry," and how it informs right relationship, weaving together themes or signposts on this road to repair. I heard a lot of big-picture thinking systems thinking. That was unanimous across the guests that we featured on this show – their work grounded in spirit, in ancestor reverence, mutualism, cooperatives, community organizing. Multiple people validated community-owned-and-controlled productive assets. Nwamaka highlighted that through reparative, restorative economic framework that she and those that she works with utilize in their investing strategy that she shares. Kate and Tiffany also like Nwamaka bringing it through their framework and investing strategy. Leah Penniman brought in the historical reference to post-emancipation reconstruction era and the call for community-owned-and-controlled productive assets having land and productive assets on that land that can continue to care for future generations. Aniya manifested through worker-owned cooperative growing out of Zebras Unite. And of course, most recently Joseph Cureton at Obran – their worker-owned cooperative conglomerate. So, you know, we see these themes repeating over and over. And another one was this kind of spectrum from disposability, cancel culture, conflict avoidance, on the one hand to building trust, investing in love on the other hand. adrienne maree brown obviously has a whole book on cancel culture. And you know, Leah talked about how interpersonal conflict and community is something that is just enormously challenging, that has the capacity to potentially destabilize good work that has been done. Really appreciated Aniyia talking about, you know, just the inevitability of conflict, and really thinking critically about how we hold and carry that. And, you know, on a personal level, that's been something I've been sitting with too a lot. It's just, you know, these courageous conversations, navigating the wounds that come up, maybe for ourselves, maybe for others, and how we navigate that in relationship to one another. And, you know, also highlighted connecting back to the disposability thing, you know, Obran growing out of cooperation among formerly incarcerated black men. Another theme is decentering whiteness, and emphasizing black imagination and love. And again, hearing that from waka from adrienne maree brown, from Leah – you know, again, talking about the deep healing action of connecting black indigenous people to the land in a meaningful way. And you've heard you know, my dear co-hosts, Jessica and Nikishka constantly talking about this through this season as well.
Jessica Norwood 24:59
Please check out the episode with Leah Penniman and Andrew X. Whoa. Okay. All right. So I have been obsessed with "economic biomimicry." That's the idea of using nature to inform your structures and to help you think about right relationship, and communal order in economics and finance. So listening to Andrew and Leah, it was just soothing. You can tell they have a really beautiful rapport. They're family to one another, and it was just – I don't know – something to my body. It felt so connected to what they were saying. There's a part of the episode that I want you to peep and it's when Leah's talking about going to Ghana, and being there and doing her work as Queen Mother. And people start to quiz her about her life in the United States. Because I mean, the United States is a little strange. And they said, you know, "is it true that in the US, you all put seeds in the soil, and you don't pray, you don't dance, you don't sing, you don't pour libation, you don't even say thank you to the Earth, but you expect the seed to nourish you?" And when I heard her say this, it struck me and I was silent. I mean, she talks about being struck silent, but I was silent as well. Because what she said, afterwards really hit home, particularly in a season of our life. She said, "That's why you're sick. That's why you're sick, you treat the earth as a commodity, not as a relative." And there is this way, way where if we care for one another, if we understood the level of interdependence, if we understood that the success of the other is uniquely bound to the success of myself, if I treated you as if you were my friend or family – and you know, by now that that's the kind of lending that I do – but if, if I treated you as a relative, if I treated you in a deep way, like family in a loving way, then what will be possible to manifest. And their conversation just blooms after this, y'all. It goes into "ecological humility," about asking permission and creating healthy boundaries. Now, let me tell you, Andrew then comes in, and then he hits us, okay, with the fact that humility, the root word of humility, comes from humus, which actually means soil. And the idea of ecological humility, undergirds my favorite topic of right relationship, talking about right relationship to the land, and everything around you, and that you're not separated or superior to nature, but you're rooted in an operating system that is dependent on one another. And that it's a humbling aspect. Okay, mic, drop, mic, drop, mic drop for Andrew and Leah, definitely a favorite.
Nikishka Iyengar 28:11
That was a favorite for me, too. And what you just said about basically embodying that interdependence that we know to be so true in this world,. That interdependence – that's a law of nature. And yet most of us don't always internalize that and act that way, right? I sound like a broken record. But the pandemic has really, really revealed that. And that understanding, and embodiment of interdependence is a theme that emerged throughout the season with our guests, but also behind the scenes and making of this podcast. And we've talked about this before. But Andrew, I want to make space here for you to share more on this topic. And, you know, just bring us home.
Andrew Baskin 28:50
I'm really sitting with how difficult it can be for us to slow down to pause, to take the space that we need to really care for ourselves for our relationships. That's really big. It's, you know, I think for the first time many of us have seen this beast of capitalism come to a grinding halt in the context of the pandemic. And in some ways, there's this interesting possibility that that opens, right that this is a system that we can actually transform at the personal level. You know, I experienced tremendous heartbreak this past year – lots of arrows through the heart and navigating that slowing down and tending to my foundations. You know, there's a really fabulous podcast. It's called this intentional life that has supported me in moving through some of this breakdown into break through this past year. The show's produced by Karmay Gourley and Lotus Wong and highly recommend checking that out. It talks a lot about both this external, kind of, hero's journey as well as the heroines journey – kind of similar to the hero's journey but more internally expressed. There's just some incredible things that have circled back to me in this time, some things that I'm letting go of in this time. The winds of change are a' blowin'. And I am counting my blessings and so grateful that I personally through this pandemic have, in one way or another felt held by the universe. But I'm also still trying to move more deeply into listening into silence. And in full transparency, I want to share that, you know, our journey as co-hosts/co-producers for this show, we have been through so much in our lives individually together as a team. And we're still holding on still holding strong sided to bring you all of this content, which we are so passionate about. Just to reflect the transparency in our group and some of these themes of right relationship and repair, there was a call that we had as a team that was particularly challenging that had opened up some wounds. And on that call in all of the intensity in that moment, what shines through is how we held on, held on to all that we had built together in our relationships and in the work. Moments of the conversations where emotions were high, and yet, we root it in and found our way to repair. That these inevitable ruptures arise from the wounds that we carry, and that we are able to return to ourselves and to one another with compassion, grace and humility, it is such a blessing if we are able to transmute these experiences into a source for character development and growth for deeper relationships. I say compassion and grace and humility, and they're just words that roll off the tongue. But to really practice that to really live into and embody that, that is to be walking the road to repair. And I appreciate how Jessica mentioned that it's so much more than a title, the road is real. And we are never stagnant on the journey between repair and disrepair. The issue that we experienced on that call had arisen from my own wounds, which then had a cascading activating effect that I hadn't intended. And that came from my own wounds around disposability, and cancel culture around abandonment and betrayal. And fortunately, I was able to recognize that and show up in deep humility and compassion for myself and for my beloved co-hosts. That was probably our most challenging moment and we showed up for it. It wasn't the first time we showed up for each other through a pandemic, and our relationships, or ever deepening with ourselves and one another. Courageous conversations! I am forever grateful to you Nikishka and to you, Jessica, that you have held me through an immensely challenging time in my life, and that you have helped one another and that you have held this team and this work. I know each of us are so grateful to be bringing this conversation to all of you out there, grateful to you for tuning in, for sharing it, for summoning the courage to live into it –However, that may live for you in this moment. And yeah, Jessica, Nikishka words really cannot express the gratitude that I feel toward both of you and the respect and admiration and love. I'm deeply honored to be collaborating with you in our effort to share some of what we've learned, continue to learn, bring this conversation to a wider audience. Thank you again to all the guests that we had on this show – all the wisdom that you've shared. And the road continues, and I'm excited to see what's next as we continue to walk alongside one another on this road to repair.
Show Outro 33:17
Thank you for joining us on the Road To Repair. Our greatest hope is that this show will have a transformative impact for those of you tuning in the road to repair podcast is produced by Andrew X, Nikesh K and gar and Jessica Norwood with amazing post production support from FRQNCY Media. Music for the show was produced by Andrew X in close collaboration with artists and sound designer Zachary Seth Greer and the luscious vocals and original poetics of Naima Penniman shout out to Sofahood for all of the amazing artwork. You can check out more of all of their great work on their website, which you can find links to at www.theroadtorepair.com. We always love the social media shout-outs and you can help this message read below for those who might really benefit from it by rating this show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts. And if you feel called to you can make a donation to support the show at www.theroadtorepair.com. Thanks again for tuning in and stay tuned for our next episode.
Unknown Speaker 34:15
We stand with the land. We are far more than a commodity. We join with the water. Our bodies are not property. We're reclaiming our shared sovereignty and shaping an economy based on reciprocity, cooperative, accountable. Ground in justice and ecology. The empire is toppling. Who want to be about this prophecy? We've been summoned to the summit. Trust we here for something. What is now possible? Who are we becoming?
