Yetta Myrick is the mother of a young adult son diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, and Intellectual Disability. She is the Founder and President of DC Autism Parents (DCAP), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the District of Columbia. Ms. Myrick has served as the CDC’s Act Early Ambassador to the District of Columbia since 2016, led the DC COVID-19 Response Team from 2020-2022, and is currently leading the DC Act Early Team. In 2022, she co-authored and self-published, "Mr. Marshall’s Block Party". Ms. Myrick leads the DC Autism Collaborative’s Developmental Monitoring, Screening, and Evaluation Subgroup, co-leads the Family Advisory Group, Outreach and Education Subgroup, and the Community Resources and Support Subgroup. She serves as the Parent Educator/Advocate on the ECHO Autism HUB Team at Children’s National Hospital. Ms. Myrick co-leads the “Family Voices United to End Racism Against CYSHCN and Families” Project and served as the Co-Investigator for the “Building Capacity in the African American ASD Community for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research” Project funded through the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award. In 2021, she was appointed to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, J.D. Additionally, Ms. Myrick is a member of the DC Developmental Disabilities Council and was awarded the 2024 Advocate in Equity Award by the DC Developmental Disability Awareness Month Planning Committee. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication Studies from The Catholic University of America.

Donna is an Author, International Yoga Teacher and Educator, Speaker, Facilitator, and Wellbeing Coach. She is also the Founder of Curvesomeyoga. Donna is passionate about making the yoga and wellbeing spaces more inclusive and diverse so that everybody can experience the transformational benefits of yoga. 

The enigmatic Mache Chache, is an Houngan Asogwe (Haitian Vodou High Priest), Shaman, and Conjurer, whose spiritual prowess and ancestral lineage have captivated the hearts and minds of seekers worldwide. With an innate connection to the ethereal realms, Mache has emerged as a guiding light in the realm of spirituality. 

Karine Bell, MSC, SEP, is the founder and co-dreamer for the Rooted Global Village. She's a bi-cultural Black woman, a speaker, somatics educator, practitioner, somatic abolitionist, and scholar-activist in training focused on deepening an understanding of the impacts of trauma and oppression on our lives, and liberatory and decolonial frameworks and traditional/indigenous approaches to trauma healing and community building. The most important thing you could know about her today is that she feels most authentic, most joyful, when living from the heart. She embraces curiosity and wonder as compass points and embraces research as an act of reverence for, and curiosity about, life. Her love and dedication to her children fuel a fire for this orientation. She believes in the healing made possible at the personal and collective level by the work we do through transforming experience in our bodies today. She combines continued practice and study in somatics with studies in decolonial depth psychology with a focus on community, liberation, indigenous and eco-psychologies at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Naomi Ortiz (they/she) explores the cultivation of care and connection within states of stress. Reimagining our relationship with land and challenging who is an environmentalist in the Arizona U.S./Mexico borderlands, is investigated in their new poetry/essay collection, Rituals for Climate Change: A Crip Struggle for Ecojustice. Their non-fiction book, Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Justice, provides informative tools and insightful strategies for diverse communities on addressing burnout. Nominated and selected as a 2022 Disability Futures Fellow and a 2021-2023 Reclaiming the US/Mexico Border Narrative Grant Awardee, they emphasize interdependence and spiritual growth through their poetry, writing, facilitation, and visual art. 

LaUra Schmidt is the founder of the Good Grief Network and the brain behind the “10-Steps to Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate” program and the FLOW Facilitation Training modality. She is a lifelong student, curator, and practitioner of personal and collective resilience strategies. LaUra holds a BS in Environmental Studies, Biology, and Religious Studies and an MS is in Environmental Humanities. LaUra has earned certificates in “Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy” and “Climate Psychology.”

LaUra’s new book on eco-distress, How to Live in a Chaotic Climate: 10 Steps to Reconnect with Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet, is available through Shambhala Publications.

Aimee Lewis Reau is the cofounder of the Good Grief Network and the heart behind the “10-Steps to Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate” program and the FLOW Facilitation Training. She was born and raised in Adrian, Michigan. Aimee is an edgy & reverent contemplative, healer and yoga/intuitive movement instructor. She also DJs under the name eXis10shAL.

Aimee received her Bachelor’s degree in English, Poetry, and Religion from Central Michigan University before obtaining her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Georgia College & State University. Aimee's new book on eco-distress, How to Live in a Chaotic Climate: 10 Steps to Reconnect with Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet, is available through Shambhala Publications.

Mara Branscombe is a mother, writer, yogi, artist, teacher, mindfulness leader, ceremonialist, and spiritual coach. She is passionate about weaving the art of mindfulness, self-care, creativity, mind–body practices, and earth-based rituals into her life and work, and she has been leading community ceremony since 2000. Mara runs international retreats, corporate leadership programs, and online coaching and personal development courses. Mara has taught yoga, meditation, and mindfulness for over 20 years. She is the published author of “Ritual As Remedy: Embodied Practices for Soul Care”, and “Sage, Huntress, Lover, Queen: Access Your Power and Creativity through Sacred Female Archetypes.” 

Rashid Hughes seeks to bridge the worlds of contemplative practice and collective care. He is a proud graduate of the Howard University Department of Music and the Howard University School of Divinity. Rashid is a certified Mindfulness Teacher, a certified Yoga Instructor, a Restorative Justice Facilitator, and currently in training to become a Fire Pujari. All of Rashid’s perspectives flow from the two wisdom traditions of contemplative and restorative practices.

Shawn J. Moore is a Mindfulness Educator and Coach, Stillness Architect, and Buddhist Dharma practitioner. Residing at the intersection of leadership and mindfulness, Shawn creates sacred spaces for stillness and self-inquiry to help change-makers align their strengths, intention, and impact. Through his integrative approach, he holds transformative containers for self-renewal, personal discovery, and capacity-building that ease clients on their journey towards peace, clarity, and freedom. 

Jamilah Pitts is an author, educator, social entrepreneur, and wellness educator whose work centers the liberation, healing and holistic development of communities of the Global majority. Jamilah has worked and served in various roles and spaces to promote racial justice and healing. Jamilah has served as a teacher, coach, dean, and as an Assistant principal. She has worked in domestic and international educational spaces, including Massachusetts, New York, the Dominican Republic, China and in India. 

This show is very special to me. I wasn’t sure how to end Season 3, but last month on a Saturday evening, my grandmother, Dorothy, sent me on a journey. She sent me to find an interview from 2008. I interviewed her for the National Day of Listening and was called to find the interview and listen to her voice. I heeded her call to locate the interview because when Dorothy asks me to do something, I do it. After searching multiple hard drives, I found her interview. I listened, and it was so lovely to hear her voice. A few days later, I told my mother I wanted to release the interview with Dorothy as my final episode of Season 3. 

Ayanna Freedom is an Author, Podcast Host, Yoga Teacher, LICSW, and the Founder of B FREE Wellness. B FREE is a nonprofit organization designed to transform people’s lives by providing free and affordable mental health, movement and mindfulness services to those whose lives are affected by trauma, addiction and oppression.  She has led multiple trauma sensitive and equity and belonging programs.  She is a lover of breath and lives on Cape Cod, MA with her daughter and dog, Sawyer. 

This epsiode of Finding Refuge is pure fire! I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Cara Page and Erica Woodland, co-editors of Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation. Read more below about the themes we weaved together during the interview and about Cara and Erica. 

Ariella Daly is a natural beekeeper, dream weaver, and teacher living in Northern California.   Devoted to the bee in both the physical world and the spirit world, she synthesizes natural beekeeping, animism, dreamwork, and earth activism through writing, workshops, and teaching. Her work with the bee came through a lifelong interest in human connection with the non-human world.

Phyllis "Sweet Potato" Jeffers-Coly aka Ta Ta Phyllis is the co-founder and co-owner of DIASPORIC SOUL, which she and her husband, Eddy "Professor Onion Sauce" Coly, established in 2016. DIASPORIC SOUL offers heritage and healing experiences that integrate both culture (SOUL) and contemplative practices. DIASPORIC SOUL Heritage & Healing Experiences hold space for Black people to deepen their capacity to practice self-care and for healing and restoration, resilience and resistance.

Omisade Burney-Scott (she/her) is a 7th generation Black Southern feminist, creative and social justice advocate. Over the past 25 years, her “work” has been grounded in social justice movement spaces focused on the liberation of marginalized people, beginning with her own community.  

Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, non-profit founder, speaker, and author. She is the founder of Peace in Schools, a nonprofit that created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. Caverly is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemplatives committed to personal and collective transformation. She is the author of A Kids Book About Mindfulness as well as The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together.

An accomplished speaker and teacher, Nikki is an MBA, E-RYT500, Yoga Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Addictions Recovery Specialist, and Ayurvedic Specialist. Born from her personal struggles with addiction, deep study, and work with countless students, Nikki is the founder of Y12SR: Yoga of 12-Step Recovery. Based on its theme ‘the issues live in the tissues’, Y12SR is a relapse prevention program that weaves yoga, neuroscience and trauma healing with the practical tools of 12-step programs.

Erin Trent Johnson is a Black Mama Body, embodied coach and liberation guide, storyteller, facilitator. Erin lives by the words of the Combahee River Collective Statement, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”

Rebby Kern (they/them) is a wandering spirit shining light into the lives of others. Rebby’s personal mission is to operate from connection, seeking justice and empowering voices. Rebby generates space for connection, empowerment and self-discovery through their 10+ years in LGBTQ policy and activism drawing connections to yoga asana and philosophy while uplifting experiences of marginalized identities. Their experience drives their passion to include diverse identities around race, gender identity, sexual orientation, body, disability and more.