Full Transcript:

[00:00:00] Emily Race: Welcome to the Founding Mothers podcast, where we're imagining new ways of living with one another and our planet. I'm your host, Emily Race. 

[00:00:21] And this is the season one finale, and I have a very special episode for you today because it's just me on the mic. I'm looking to honor the endings of the cycle that is this season, this initial experiment of Founding Mothers, and also to share some of the reflections that I took away, not only as someone who produced and created this podcast and went on to this adventure of creation, but also as someone who's very much on the learning journey and applying what I took away from each of these conversations into my own life.

[00:00:56] So I wanted to bring it home on a personal level and share a bit about what I've been trying, wrestling with, practicing, coming out of this season. And I also wanted to share what to expect for the next season of the Founding Mothers podcast and future iterations of this platform. So all of that to come in today's conversation.

[00:01:17] Let's dive in.

[00:01:21] All right, so first I wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you to our listeners. I am just so blown away by the responses I've been receiving after putting this podcast out into the world. Whether you've only listened to one episode or all of them, it means the world to me to know that this content is making a difference in your lives.

[00:01:38] Please, please, please continue to let me know what you think of the conversations, what you wanna hear more of, what you're wrestling with in your own lives, what you're applying. I'd love for this to be an ongoing conversation with you all. 

[00:01:50] I will get into this in a bit, but I'm also looking at how to evolve this platform, how to evolve the content so it is digestible, so it's actionable, because really the point of doing this at all is to inspire us as a collective body into new ways of being, relating with ourselves and one another. 

[00:02:06] I wanna make sure that this content is actually making it into your ears, into your minds, into your hearts.

[00:02:12] But first I wanted to start on a personal level and just share a bit about what I've been thinking about since having these conversations with such an amazing group of people, and can we first just acknowledge the collective group, the network of perspectives, the leaders, the visionaries that joined us on this season?

[00:02:30] It really blew my mind personally. As I continued on the path of producing this and following the string of this creative idea, I couldn't believe the response I got from guests from the outreach process, and it really has inspired me to continue and see who else is a "yes" to sharing their vision on this platform.

[00:02:50] We got a really wide array of perspectives, lived experiences, areas of impact, aspects of society, and yet there's so, so much more to dive into.

[00:03:01] I do look forward to seeing who joins us for future seasons and also continue to think strategically about what perspectives we want to hear.

[00:03:08] And again, I am always open to your feedback on who you'd like to hear from. So let that be an open invitation to you all. 

[00:03:16] There are a lot of themes coming out of this season that I noticed, and as I was looking at how to apply what I was thinking about into my own life, one thing that really stuck out to me was this idea that where we put our dollar, where we invest our money, and our time, of course, but just through the lens of our money for now, where we invest our money can go a long way in creating the world we want to see, and the amount that we can contribute, invest, donate, et cetera, may vary. But I wanted to start by looking at where am I just making everyday purchases in my life and what am I supporting by doing that?

[00:03:49] This was actually inspired in many ways by my conversation with Stephanie Leah, Putting the Planet First episode: 

[00:03:56] Stephanie Leah: Then when I find myself, Ooh, that looks good. I do, I need that. I'll take a moment. I haven't really gardened in the last week or two, or I haven't been in the greenhouse, or there's always some kind of disconnect that's happening when I feel like I need to have a material possession, release the dopamine. 

[00:04:14] Emily Race: Through talking to her, I really saw that there is a lot of room for me to grow in my own life in terms of thinking about my consumption. Am I buying out of filling a void? Am I buying out of an impulse or do I really need this thing? 

[00:04:27] Where that led me is two places I wanted to share with you. One, at the start of the year, I decided to do an intentional living audit on my life, with the goal of transitioning about 75% or more of my purchases from an intentional place where I'm supporting people, organization, businesses that are a part of the world I want to see more of. 

[00:04:49] And what that also looks like is divesting from those that I do not think are in alignment with my values or are causing more harm than good. 

[00:04:57] This feels like a huge undertaking. The way I broke it down was first by putting together a list of what I'm looking for as I do this audit, with the understanding that this list of criteria that I'm creating is going to evolve over time as I do more research and understand what I'm looking for. 

[00:05:14] Currently, my checklist includes people, environment, supply chain, transparency, accountability, and materials, and I think it will continue to evolve.

[00:05:24] And in those categories I'm looking at who owns the company? Who works for the company? What are they doing for reparations, equity, justice, and healing?

[00:05:32] For the environment, what's their footprint and what are they doing to reduce that footprint and give back to the planet? 

[00:05:37] Supply chain, where is this product made or where are their products made? How are those products made? Who is impacted along the way? 

[00:05:45] Transparency around all of the above. Are they just making claims and using fancy shiny marketing language, or are they actually transparent on how they are doing all of the above with clear, measurable goals and reporting? 

[00:05:57] With accountability, it falls within the same realm, but also are they working with different organizations for certifications and accountability across the board, of which I'm discovering a number of organizations that exist to create those accountability measures and metrics.

[00:06:12] And then lastly, what are the materials that they're using? And again, there's a number of partners and organizations I've found that are working with companies to help with these initiatives.

[00:06:22] For example, Repreve is one I found that partners with companies to use recycling plastic into sustainable fibers, and this came out of the rabbit hole I was around on activewear and trying to divest from Lululemon. 

[00:06:36] On that point, in terms of divesting, the other thing that came up for me, and really started with internal discomfort, that every time I ordered a product from Amazon or received the boxes from Amazon, I did not feel good inside.

[00:06:49] In my conversation with Chiara Francesca, in Episode 27, Embodying Our Way to Human-Centric Systems, they provided a really great point around having our decision making align with our internal values. 

[00:07:03] Chiara Francesca: It comes back to that compass of what are we personally willing to stake at the service of a less messed up world? And some discomfort is going to be part of that. 

[00:07:16] Emily Race: Right. 

[00:07:16] Chiara Francesca: And some situations in which there might be not just discomfort, but maybe some fear or friction or tension even within ourselves. But there has to be a way in which what we think is right and then how we act in our lives match. 

[00:07:33] Emily Race: This really struck home for me because it's something I've been thinking about and wanting to get towards and making those tiny changes moment by moment to do so, and here I was sitting with these Amazon packages surrounding me and feeling like there has to be a better way. 

[00:07:46] I think unconsciously, it has become so habitual to quickly jump on Amazon and get that overnight two day delivery. So much ease there, right? But I also was feeling like I am so disconnected from where these products are made. I don't feel good about the quality about most of them. 

[00:08:03] And I'm sure there's many upsides of Amazon, I'm sure that there's certain businesses that find that they can reach more people by being on Amazon, and I do wanna follow more of the thread around the pros and cons, but it's more from an internal place. I just don't feel aligned with it. And I wanted to explore another experiment to see what would happen if I divested from Amazon and instead went to make purchases from local businesses, perhaps made things myself instead of buying them, or even questioned the need for that thing in general. 

[00:08:33] What's interesting is I also happen to have at the moment, a daughter that is very mobile, she's nine months and counting and crawling and climbing and putting her fingers towards every single electrical socket. And so the other day, I was like, I really think we need to get those electrical socket plug blocker things, and then the immediate following thought was, well, where am I gonna get that if I can't get it from Amazon?

[00:08:55] And it brought up this discomfort and it brought up this moment of, okay, this is gonna take a little bit longer to figure this out, and that's okay. Again, in Chiara Francesca's episode, they talked about discomfort being a part of making change. Obviously the discomfort that's associated with having to take a little bit of time to figure out where to get an electrical plug is on the scale of discomfort relatively manageable, compared to some of the other discomforts and fears that may come up with making changes in alignment with our values. 

[00:09:25] I still wanted to share this as an example of what I'm doing as a result of these conversations and what that actually looks like tangibly.

[00:09:34] Another area of my life that I've been reevaluating since doing these conversations is the food that I eat, where I get my food, how I relate to the food systems.

[00:09:42] After having the conversation with Shakira Miracle from Santa Barbara County Food Action Network, it was one of our earlier episodes, #3, Fighting For Food Sovereignty:

[00:09:51] Shakira Miracle: I get people saying all the time, oh, this is some bougie person talking about going to your farmer's market and spending $5 for a tomato. 

[00:10:00] If more people bought that tomato, the price would go down, demand would go up, more tomatoes would be grown. 

[00:10:08] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:08] Shakira Miracle: Believe you me. Those local farmers, they wanna grow more tomatoes.

[00:10:12] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:12] Shakira Miracle: But they have to have the cash upfront so that they can invest in the seeds and the nutrients and the staffing to till and harvest and distribute. 

[00:10:22] Emily Race: We as a family started going to the local farmer's markets, and I cannot tell you, I mean, this is something that you would think, I would think, I had been doing this already given the values that I hold, and yet it was not a behavior that was built into my routine.

[00:10:37] Since now going to the farmer's market regularly, nearly weekly, as often as we are here, it has rooted me in a sense of community that was not there before, and also really feeling that connection to the local farmers, of which I wanna support and continue to get to know better, and feel like there is this village center that I keep returning to, that again, roots me in a place.

[00:11:00] This connects me also to another area that's been top of mind and front of heart and centered in my actions ever since doing this podcast, which is thinking about community differently. 

[00:11:11] It's always been in the background as a value of mine, and yet I didn't really understand how important community is and the role it plays until it continued to show up as a theme in nearly every single conversation that I had. 

[00:11:25] Whether we're talking about healthcare or education or food systems or our families, or care, the presence of community can create accountability. It creates support. It creates resourcing, perspective, a feeling of self in relationship to others versus a feeling of individualism.

[00:11:47] There's a number of episodes, if you've been listening, that you would've heard this theme as well. 

[00:11:51] And what I realized is for me, actually, community was lacking. I currently live in an area where I've only been here for two years. We moved here during COVID, we hadn't really had the opportunity and then later taken the opportunities to build community, invest in that. And I think it is something that also takes some time. 

[00:12:08] It was through a conscious shift, which started to form around the time of recording this podcast and also concurrently becoming a new parent, that I really had to put more intentionality around this community piece because, one, I realized how important that support was gonna be for us at this stage of our life, but also acknowledging how important community is at any stage of life and realizing that I needed to put more effort and intentionality in creating that. 

[00:12:34] This was a question that I asked again in Chiara's episode around, how would you recommend someone starts?

[00:12:38] And one thing that they suggested that I really held on to was this idea of starting with what is it that you love? What is it that you're passionate about? 

[00:12:46] Chiara Francesca: It's not any person's individual fault if you feel isolated, if you feel alone, if you have a hard time having deep friendships, right? 

[00:12:54] Emily Race: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:54] Chiara Francesca: The system is very much designed for that to be the norm. And also there are plenty of cracks in that system. It's more about knowing what do you love and how can you connect with others that love what you love? 

[00:13:07] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. 

[00:13:08] Chiara Francesca: And make your sphere of influence a little less lonely and a little less alienated and a little more human. 

[00:13:15] Emily Race: For me, that has looked like, at this stage of life, building community with other parents. People who are navigating similar situations at this time. 

[00:13:22] But I am continuing to blossom what that looks like outward, I have joined existing communities that are focused around creativity.

[00:13:30] I'm also looking to create a community currently that would look like meetups with caregivers and their children so that the children of different ages could play together, learn from one another, and the caregivers could also be engaging in different activities together. I would bucket these activities as "homesteading" activities. These are things that I'm interested in learning more about. Everything from plant dying to cooking meals together. 

[00:13:53] This idea formed because I know that there is a time, and there are certain places when it would be very common for people to cook meals with one another, to be making things together and to be doing so intergenerationally.

[00:14:05] I am looking to, and experimenting with how do we recreate that now even if we live differently than in a old World Village kind of communal setting. 

[00:14:14] I am in the process of testing that out. To give you a more in-depth example, I was thinking about cooking meals and how you can cook a meal alone and that can sometimes be what's nourishing, and other times it's actually really nourishing and a completely different joyful experience to cook communally with others.

[00:14:31] If you think about a kitchen at a restaurant, there's different stations that people have and they're divvying up the responsibility that way. So there's an efficiency with it, but there's also a really enriching aspect of the conversations that can happen, the ideas that are shared, the ways that a recipe could evolve, music that could be playing, the richness of that experience can multiply. 

[00:14:51] Even when I'm cooking a meal with my husband or my mother or my sister, it completely evolves that experience. 

[00:14:58] So I was imagining what would it look like if I made an invitation out to this parental group that I'm currently in, and we came together, we batch cooked a large meal or batch prepped vegetables and soups or whatever. And then we divvied up that meal and took it home to eat throughout the week. Maybe we enjoyed the meal together, but the idea really was more what if we made things together that we could then take home to the rest of our families and enjoy as lunches or dinners throughout the week.

[00:15:27] I see so much potential there. That's something I'll be trying, stay tuned for more. 

[00:15:31] All of this is under that umbrella of what could it look like to bring more community into my life and more accountability, really, into my life. 

[00:15:39] From that, what I'm hoping will continue to blossom on the accountability front, that through coming together, we could start taking more political action, more actions that are aligned with change on a larger level. Because I do realize through these conversations on this podcast, that change really will only happen when we organize. Trying to solve for things like climate change, for instance, or educational policies or care policies, are not gonna happen in our own home alone, but rather by coming together. So that's an area that I'm looking forward to continuing to dive more into and also seeing where Founding Mothers as a platform, as a foundation of community and network in blossoming, how that can also be fertile soil for some of that organizing work to potentially happen.

[00:16:26] That really reminds me with all of this, I wanna frame it for myself and for listeners who are following along with me here, that this is about a work in progress, a constant evolution, a constant process of learning, reevaluating, applying what you've learned.

[00:16:40] This is where I've been at from a starting place. And it's not even the beginning, right? It 's a new chapter in my overall journey of aligning my actions with my values, and seeing myself as an active participant in creating the world that I wish to see, and no longer being a passive bystander or a complainer, or in a victim mindset or feeling disempowered or confused or lost in my place in the world, but rather tapping into, okay, where am I now and where can I begin? 

[00:17:07] Another area I wanted to debrief with you all, the topic of ancestrality, of connecting with our ancestral roots. This came up in so many episodes.

[00:17:17] Namely in Honoring Death and Continuing Bonds with Valenca Valenzuela, Episode 17: 

[00:17:22] Valenca Valenzuela: I hadn't been around my Mexican family all that much growing up. Especially being mixed race, I had this issue with who am I? 

[00:17:30] Emily Race: Yeah. 

[00:17:30] Valenca Valenzuela: What do I get to claim? As soon as I started working with my ancestors more, I realized my ancestors are just as Mexican as any other Mexicans ancestors. And so it really helped me to reclaim that part of myself. Yes, you are just as Mexican as anybody else, and that was really healing as well. That would be my hope for other people too.

[00:17:50] Emily Race: As well as Decolonizing Therapy, Episode 26 with Dr. Jennifer Mullan:

[00:17:54] Dr. Jennifer Mullan: There has to be reconnection, a re-rooting, a regrounding to everyone's own process with their own ancestries. Whatever that looks like to a person, including people that have been foster care systems, never met their family systems, have been adopted. 

[00:18:09] There's lots of different creative ways I'm hearing that we can begin to understand what's a little bit of my people's lineages, histories? Where'd they come from? What did they do? What was that land like? What were their daily practices? Did they go walk this many miles to get water? Did they tend to chickens in the morning? Did they do yoga? What did my people do?

[00:18:32] Because with that knowledge, it isn't just intellectual. It is vastly embodied and visceral. Every time I learn something else about my peoples, I would get emotional. I would go through a purging period. I would start thinking about what does this mean for me and where I live, or what I do, or how I engage with people? 

[00:18:52] Learning these things helped me to understand so much that I couldn't verbalize, that no kind of procedure could get me to. 

[00:18:58] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:58] Dr. Jennifer Mullan: And so I want that for everybody.

[00:19:00] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:01] Dr. Jennifer Mullan: That experience that we can't put our fingers on and quantify. It's our divine birthright. 

[00:19:06] Emily Race: What I've realized after seeing this recurring theme around connecting with our ancestral roots, that in my family, there is very little conversation around who we are, where we came from, who our people are beyond our living generation here and now.

[00:19:21] That's something that always was a mystery to me. And it was also something that I was kind of afraid to touch because it wasn't being discussed.

[00:19:27] What I felt after listening to some of these guests share around the importance of connecting with their ancestral roots is that I'm actually missing a part of myself.

[00:19:35] I am, as a result, not connected to a part of my story of who I am, what I've inherited, what I want to pass on to future generations. What I want to repair and heal. What are the traditions that perhaps will root me in a sense of belonging, a sense of stewardship? And on that reparations piece as well, where are there pieces of my ancestral line that have caused harm, that could create a sense of wholeness by looking at that, being with that, and again bringing some healing to that. 

[00:20:07] Because it feels like such a mysterious area, it also felt overwhelming. I didn't really know where to start, and I felt alone in that process. But one thing I gathered from this, and that I've started to put into action, is that it really can begin anywhere.

[00:20:19] I've started by having conversations with the living people in my life and documenting what I'm finding, having recorded conversations and getting those transcribed, putting together virtual folders so I can capture assets like photos and videos and documents and start to create a keepsake of all these things and through that start to see the breadcrumbs and follow those breadcrumbs.

[00:20:41] I am at the very beginning of that journey for sure, but already it has been very illuminating to start to see and hear a bit more about who my people are and where they came from. And I think there's a bit of fear in it as well, right? Like what if I find something out that I don't want to own or I don't want to know?

[00:20:59] As someone who is white identifying in this country, especially at this time, I think it's so important to push past that discomfort and that fear and lean into it with a sense of curiosity. Because if anything, on the other side of that, I'm sure will be a sense of hmm. Resolution, ease, moving away from the dis-ease that can come from that discomfort.

[00:21:19] I've also taken on that practice of keeping an ancestral altar, adding my ancestors and my husband's ancestors to our family altar, so we can keep them in our day-to-day thoughts and have them be on our team as we pray for what we want and give gratitude for what we have.

[00:21:36] And that all came from that conversation with Valenca, but also that one with Dr. Jennifer Mullan, and also with Claudia Serrato in the Episode #7, Reclaiming Indigenous Foodways. What I realized from that conversation is I actually don't know what the food is of my people. And again, that was all hitting on that wound, I would say, that bruise within me that didn't know the answer to what am I indigenous to. 

[00:22:01] Claudia Serrato: What a wonderful way to know who you are through food, through the story of which you ate as a child, and who introduced that food and where did that food come from. For some folks, you might even discover that you might not know where your origins are today, but if you follow those foods and those recipes, you might just make that discovery.

[00:22:21] Emily Race: I think Claudia also offered a really beautiful invitation to people to just start with what you have access to and what you know. 

[00:22:28] The last area I wanted to highlight in terms of what I started taking action around was, I realized following one of our first conversations with Layel Camargo of Shelterwood Collective Episode #2, Healing With The Land: 

[00:22:40] Layel Camargo: To be a steward, you just have to listen and you have to move slower and be okay with the fact that a year might go by before I really understand whether I should pull this agave out or whether I should really help these little three redwoods, maybe they're getting a little bit more shade and that's why they're growing so slow. Let me try to trim the side of this other tree.

Everybody deserves and can be a steward. Reconnect with the land by just listening and by having patience, and try not to make too many decisions around things that impact Mother Earth without really giving it a proper chance to show you what you should be doing.

[00:23:19] Emily Race: We spoke about what it meant to be a steward of land, and it's something that I believe is in the DNA of my soul to take care of land. At the same time, I feel like I have a long ways to go from where I would like to be and where I am now. 

I do my best to be present to the spaces that I'm in. Layel mentioned that to be a steward is really about listening to the land and what it needs, and this is a practice for me of taking time in the environment I'm in and just noticing my relationship with place. Breathing into that relationship. This is something that also came up in our conversation with Lauren Hage, Episode #8, Relational and Nature-Based Education: 

[00:23:58] Lauren Hage: Take a moment to do whatever it is that is resourcing for you. You know what that is; there's many ways. And then to go outside and sit, stand, maybe walk, maybe lie down, whatever it is that you wanna do or is right for you, but to see if you can find a place outside and just let yourself be enchanted, be belonged by that patch of grass near you, or that bird near you, or that tree near you, or the flower or the leaf on the ground, or the rock that's next to you, whatever it may be. 

Just let yourself, just for even a few minutes, let yourself be enchanted by, belonged by that being that friend and I offered that with a prayer that we can reclaim our attention, which is so sought after these days.

[00:24:49] Emily Race: And I also realized that there are some knowledge gaps that I'd like to fill. After years and years of talking about wanting to learn about permaculture, I have finally registered into a permaculture online course just to start to fill in some of my knowledge gaps around that area.

[00:25:04] And I would say, what's also important to me on that path is to continue to learn from Indigenous voices and to question and look at where permaculture as a practice, as a study, even in with itself has been harmful in terms of extracting ways of taking care of the earth and repackaging it through a white lens that then strips that knowledge away from its Indigenous roots and from the knowledge keepers who have been doing these practices in their cultures for many, many decades, centuries, years, generations, lifetimes. 

[00:25:42] Those were a few examples of things that I am taking on currently to put into practice. I just wanted to share them with you, and I would love to hear from you all what you're putting into practice, if you care to share.

[00:25:52] My last point, I wanted to connect that through line to what's next for Founding Mothers. 

[00:25:57] When I look at the collective of people that we had on this platform, I'm really proud of and excited about and grateful for that diversity of voices, perspectives, et cetera. But there's so many other areas to dive into.

[00:26:10] One thing I'm continuing to question for future seasons is what perspectives are missing? 

[00:26:15] As it was named by Danielle M. Jones in the episode we did together called Healing Through Intentional Communities: 

[00:26:21] Danielle M. Jones: If you're gonna be truly liberatory, it's important that the folks at the margin are actually centered in your work.

[00:26:29] Emily Race: Danielle speaks about the importance of centering those voices that are typically on the margins, and that is something that was front and center for me in reaching out to guests for this season. And I wanna continue to do so and continue to question and look at and examine, what are the voices on the margins that we need to center in these conversations?

[00:26:46] That's a bit about what you could expect for Season 2, as well as I'm reexamining the format, I wanna ensure that these episodes do reach as many people that want to hear them as possible. And time is a constraint for so many of us, so I'll be looking at how we could potentially shorten the episodes or break the content into shorter digestible content.

[00:27:05] In the spirit of really honoring the completion of a cycle, I've decided to take a pause, fully complete this Season, and then I will be integrating the learnings, listening to whatever feedback you all have to share with me, and then moving into creation mode for Season 2 from a new place, a new cycle.

You can expect Season 2 to come out this Season 2023. 

In the meantime, I hope that you revisit any episodes that you have missed and you have been dying to get to. Please, please, please share this podcast with those in your life who would be interested, or who are looking for ways to make a difference in their lives and their world, looking for new visions to get behind, or looking for inspiration for their own vision. 

Beyond the podcast format, I am thinking about what can community look like? How could we tap into the network that's starting to form here between our listeners and the guests? And what kind of support can we continue to create for one another?

What action can we take together? What conversations can we be having together? All in favor of weaving this beautiful world that we're dreaming and birthing into reality. 

[00:28:08] I'm also dreaming of and excited to explore more what video content could look like, what it would look like to get into the documentary space.

[00:28:15] These are all seeds of ideas, but I'm putting it out there because I'm also looking for feedback and would love to hear from you all on how that lands. 

[00:28:22] Very lastly, in terms of supporting this podcast, have a Patreon page as well as a PayPal page. Both of these can be accessed on our website under Support if you go to www.founding-mothers.com/support.

[00:28:36] Up until now this podcast has completely been funded by myself and I'm happy to continue to do that. It's really coming out of my heart, my desire to, one, experiment with this creative medium and put these conversations out into the world, but in order to sustain and grow the vision further, it will come to a point where additional funds will be needed.

[00:28:56] For now, I'm playing with the idea of a Patreon and a PayPal as ways of receiving donations. I'm also exploring the idea of applying for grants and always open to other ideas that I don't yet know of to raise money for this platform. 

[00:29:11] So that's it for me for now. It's been, again, a huge pleasure, a complete joy to be in community with y'all and create these conversations and get the feedback I've done getting.

[00:29:23] So thank you for being a part of the journey and stay in touch. Stay in touch. Thanks so much.

[00:29:33] Thank you for listening to this episode of the Founding Mothers podcast. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Emily Race, and edited by Eric Weisberg. If you wanna support the show, please leave us a rating or share this episode with the important people in your life. We'd also love to hear from you if you or someone you know would be a great guest to share about their vision for the.

[00:29:54] You can email emily@founding-mothers.com or visit www.founding-mothers.com/podcast.