Inheritance of Peace

Inheritance of Peace with Amy Shimshon-Santo

Inheritance of Peace with Amy Shimshon-Santo “The equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” - Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I want to be a sanctuary, even in times of chaos or corruption. I learned this from my father and grandmother. They gave me an Inheritance of Peace. This podcast series highlights the Inheritance of Peace of survivors — everyday people from different generations and walks of life. Poets. Researchers. Shepherds. Healers. Music for this podcast is by Avila Santo (Avilasanto.com) amyshimshonsanto.substack.com

Episodes

  1. May 21

    Pranidhi Varshney

    Service as a Peace Practice Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): This is Inheritance of Peace and I’m Amy Shimshon-Santo. In this episode, we enjoy a conversation with Pranidhi Varshney. She is a mother of three, and the founder of Yoga Shala West, an accessible Ashtanga Yoga space, where people seek balance through the daily practice of “skill in action.” Having immigrated to the midwestern U.S. as a child from India, she’s become an expert at swimming between the poles of here and there, motherhood and community life, personal awareness and being a part of positive change. Her Inheritance of Peace draws from yoga philosophy, Gandhian principles, and the example set by her parents. How can we cultivate joy in our relationships while being of service? How can even our strongest actions be guided by love? AS²: We’ll just hop right in. The first question is, who are you? Pranidhi Varshney (PV): Who am I? The ultimate question. AS²: Exactly. PV: My name is Pranidhi Varshney. I live here in Los Angeles and hail from India, originally. I was born there, and moved to the states when I was about six. I made my way to California, and I love it here. AS²: Right on. You knew how to drop in. PV: Who am I? Yeah. That’s who I am. It’s interesting. In our culture, in the Indian culture, we rarely define ourselves by who we are in a solo context. Even what we call each other is always relational. Except for my children, I call them by their names. I usually just call them by their pet names, or sweetheart or something. But when you’re a child in my culture, you’re always referring to everybody by their titles, not by their names. “In our culture, the Indian culture, we rarely define ourselves by who we are in a solo context. Even what we call each other is always relational. Along with the relational aspect, respect is a really big part of Indian culture. Respect for the elder. Everybody elder to you has a title, including siblings. We use those words auntie and uncle to refer to anyone outside your actual family who is older to you. My parents’ friends, I call them all aunties and uncles. In that way, the sense of community continues to broaden.” AS²: What are examples of that? PV: My sister’s name is Navya, but my children do not call her Navya, or even Auntie Navya. They call her Mausi which means mom’s sister. AS²: Oh! PV: We have names for our mom’s brother. I don’t have any brothers, but even my cousins would be referred to as my brothers, so they would call them a certain name. And then from my husband’s family, there’s a certain title for each person. So that’s how my culture, as Indian culture, is. It’s very, very relational. AS²: Wow, I love to hear what the actual titles are. Sometimes the titles let us know. Not all family relationships in every culture are not always named. What are some of the other titles? PV: Well, that’s interesting, because I’m thinking now in Indian culture, there’s never a title for any child. Along with the relational aspect, respect is a really big part of Indian culture. Respect for the elder. Everybody elder to you has a title, including siblings. I have three children. My older daughter, middle son, and then my youngest daughter, who’s just turned one. She doesn’t speak yet, but my middle son obviously speaks. He’s almost five, and he calls my older daughter, not by her name usually, but by the honorific, which is Didi, which means older sister. Anyone older to you generally has a title, and anyone younger to you generally does not. AS²: You’re a student. You’re learning. Oh, I love that. One of the ways that language is so important is it weaves us together in social relations. You can’t just translate everything. I have friends who have said, if you lose a language you lose the social relations because you don’t have a name for it. It’s not just auntie or uncle. It’s very specific relationships that matter. PV: In our culture, something else is cool too. You said auntie and uncle, so it’s reminding me that auntie and uncle, we use those words quite often, but they are used to refer to anyone outside your actual family who is older to you. My parents’ friends, I called them all aunties and uncles. In that way, the sense of community continues to broaden. AS²: Yes. PV: My children call my sister Mausi, I call my mom’s sisters Mausies. AS²: Nice. Oh, I love it. Beautiful, beautiful. PV: It is funny that when you asked me who I was, I was so American about it. This is my name. This is where I live. This is where I’m from. AS²: That’s the way it is. PV: But this is constantly how I feel. It’s sort of balancing between these two poles. Since being a child, and an immigrant child, that’s kind of just how we swim. Between these two poles. AS²: That’s how we swim. That is exactly how we swim, and it’s a real benefit. It’s a tremendous benefit. Because in every language and every culture comes all this knowledge and a worldview. And if you can see things from more than one perspective. you have twice as much to pull from, or three times as much, or more. So I’m a real fan of that. But we learn in school, and we learn in society, to edit that part out and leave it at home. Even though it’s so valuable. PV: Do you think it’s still that way? AS²: Do you? PV: Well, the reason I ask is I noticed that in my children’s education, they’re so encouraged to bring their cultures. There’s really a sense that we’re all part of something here and we’re all bringing our unique perspectives. There’s a real sense of belonging. I know that not all schools have that, but I feel blessed that we do. I see such a big change, even from when I was growing up. So I was curious. AS²: I love that you defended that thought. For me and for my grown children, it was definitely not like that. It felt like an aspirational idea. Something you had to create. Oftentimes we would go do the cultural events at school so that the teachers or administration knew where to begin, and then welcome other people into that process. But it was kind of a homemade feeling of trying to bring the home culture into the school space. So I’m really glad that it doesn’t feel quite as divergent for your kids. Because you want to be whole. PV: Yeah. Of course. AS²: That’s good news. What do you get to do with your life force? Sometimes this changes over time. PV: I get to do lots of things. I get to do the laundry, I’m sitting here in my laundry room, so that’s what I’m thinking about. I haven’t pulled those clothes yet. I get to do a lot of laundry folding. I get to do a lot of cooking. I have three children. AS²: That sounds to me like a Buddhist response. PV: But I also get to teach yoga and hold space. I get to be a wife. I get to go swimming sometimes, ride my bike sometimes, while I listen to music (riding) down the LA River. I feel like I have a pretty great life. When I remember that I do. I think that’s the challenge. It’s easy to drop into places of negativity. But when someone is posing me the gift of a question like “what do I get to do with my life?” I really think about it. Wow, I get to do pretty cool stuff. AS²: Did you choose what you’re doing, what you get to do with your life? Parenting and running a yoga shala. Mentoring people. Creating your family. Being a partner. PV: Part of me wants to say, yes, I consciously chose all these things. But I don’t know if I believe that we have as much agency as we think over the way in which we point our rudders. How we direct ourselves. I think our agency is more in how we are wherever we find ourselves. The way in which we carry ourselves. The way we respond to the stimuli that are given to us. I think real wisdom is knowing that. I’m not coming from a high and mighty place. It’s been energy trying to direct the course of my life. But I think the times that I’m most fulfilled, most at peace, happiest, when I can really love where I am. And whatever challenges I find myself in, change how I’m showing up in those challenges. It’s not like we don’t have to make choices in our lives. We have to choose. Am I gonna go this way or that way? But, when I was younger, I think there was a lot more will involved. Like through force of will, where am I gonna steer the ship? “I think our agency is more in how we are wherever we find ourselves. The way in which we carry ourselves. The way we respond to the stimuli that are given to us. I think real wisdom is knowing that. As I’ve gotten older, I am trying to find the stream a bit more and follow that. Where am I needed? Where can I be of service? Where do the skills that I have align with what the world needs? As I’ve gotten older, I am trying to find the stream a bit more and follow that. Where am I needed? Where can I be of service? Where do the skills that I have align with what the world needs, and how can I follow that? AS²: My momentum is associated with everything around me that I’m a part of. PV: Yeah. It’s taken me some time to get there. I was a very rebellious teenager in some ways. I was like, I’m gonna break out of this container that I feel like I’ve been placed in. I broke out of it, but then one has to deal with the consequences of that. It took me a while to deal with the consequences of those decisions that I made. There were times when I felt unhappy with where I ended up. But, I look around and there’s so much beauty. There’s so much beauty, and there’s so much joy. I have these three beautiful children. Now that I’m thinking about it, decision-making in my life is less about spreadsheets and charts and things like that, and more of an inner sense of knowing. That’s been a very constant thing, and not everybody makes decisions that way. My husband certainly doesn’t, but I feel like that’s how I make decisions, big decisions, in my life. It’s throu

    41 min

  2. May 7

    Leonora Simonovis

    APPRECIATION & MUTUAL RESPECT Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): This is Inheritance of Peace. I’m Amy Shimshon-Santo. In this episode, we speak with Leonora Simonovis — poet, editor, professor, and mother. Simonovis traces her Inheritance of Peace to early life lessons of ingenuity and gratitude that she learned during her childhood in Venezuela. Her stories reveal deep empathy for human and more than human life. She highlights the importance of “relationality” between people (and our many cultures) along with plants, animals, and the land. Simonovis advocates for rejecting greed and cultivating mutual respect as the foundation for working toward peace. Thanks for tuning in. Leonora Simonovis (LS): I am a human. A wild little animal. I am a mother of two. I am a poet, a writer, a teaching artist. A wanderer. A seeker. Someone who cares very much about the land. I’m just happy to be alive, in these crazy times. And to go through it with some awareness, and to learn as I move along the way. AS²: Oh, yes. I want to make a t-shirt now that says, “I am a wild little animal.” LS: Please do. I’ll buy it. AS²: Thank you for that poetic entrance. LS: I think my life purpose is to live my life in the best way that I can. That is a process, because it changes, and it shifts. Sometimes I think that I am where I need to be, and sometimes I think that I need to shake things a little bit so that I can move and transform whatever has become stale. Part of it is education. I find that being in the classroom and having difficult conversations does help me understand why things are the way they are. And what my role could be. AS²: Do you want to give an example of a difficult question that you might pose? LS: Yeah. So this semester, we are reading a novel by a Native American writer Darcie Little Badger. Elasoe is the name of the novel. It’s a beautiful YA (Young Adult Fiction) novel about a 17-year-old young woman who has powers. She’s aware of the responsibility that having those powers means. There are a lot of questions about: Okay, if we have the power to do something, how do we do it? If we had all of that power, would we attack? Would we create war? Or would we instead try to negotiate, have conversations and dialogue? We got to talk about all of these things. One of the students said, “I can’t believe how similar this is to our reality.” And that was the point of reading the novel. How can I create connection and build community? But, also, a community that can think critically and compassionately about others and what is going on in the world. Would you stand up for someone else? Or would you just let it play out because it doesn’t “affect you.” The book helped us have some deep discussions about relationality in today’s world, and history, and how we fit into all of that. “I became aware of the fact that home is wherever I am. Of the land as a sentient being, as a mother, as a caring figure.” AS²: I’m going to turn us toward the next question. What are the lands that you feel connected to and why? LS: Such a good question, thank you, I appreciate that. I would say I still feel very connected to Kumeyaay land in San Diego, in Southern California. It’s the first place where I became aware of the fact that home is wherever I am. Of the land as a sentient being, as a mother, as a caring figure. But I also learned about the indigenous lands in my home country, which is something that I wasn’t as conscious about. I mean, I had read a little about it. My mother, when I was very small, bought me a lot of stories by indigenous people from Venezuela, from different parts of the country (books) that had been translated by missionaries. One of those is my very favorite story. I still have it. It’s all scuffed up. It’s called El Tigre y El Rayo translated by Cesáreo de Armellada. AS²: El Tigre y El Rayo. LS: I actually studied Warao, which is an indigenous language. Living in California, I became aware of my heritage. I didn’t know, until I was in my 30s, that my great-grandmother was Native. I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. I spent most of my childhood there, and then I came to the U.S. and did my middle school on the East Coast in New Haven, Connecticut. I didn’t want to go back to Venezuela. I had already adjusted. We went back to Caracas and I finished high school. I went to undergraduate school. I did a master’s degree, and then I applied for a Ph.D. in the United States because I always wanted to come back. Which is a very complicated thing. I had friends, I had community. My whole family was there, but I never felt like I fit. I had experienced discrimination. That caused a lot of inner conflict for me. I did my Ph.D. here in the United States, graduated, and got a job in San Diego to teach at the University of San Diego. I taught there for 17 years. AS²: Bravo. LS: California was the one place where I did not feel different. And it was not just the Spanish-speaking people, it’s just that there was a sense of belonging, of being accepted, of building community. Also, I learned a lot about the language that is used to oppress others. I learned a lot about history, things that I was somewhat aware of but hadn’t explored before. For example, in Caracas the mountain that surrounds the city — because the city is a valley — is called El Avila. The indigenous name is Waraira Repano which I knew, not from school, but from my mother. And then I started digging deeper and found out about the Indigenous people who lived there before the Spanish came. There’s a lot of confusion about who was what, and where they lived, because borders were created, and tribes were separated as well. But I’m still trying to learn, who were the people before me? And I know the Tainos were first, and that connects us to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Being in California, and bonding with the land and with the people there, allowed me to open up and to look at a part of myself that I had not looked at before. AS²: Having been born in California, I’m happy California had a positive impact on you. My son’s name is Avila and my brother had a dear friend in Venezuela who brought back a big poster of the mountain that says El Avila and that was up in his room when he was a child. LS: You are a mountain, my child. AS²: That’s funny. A friend of mine, Mamle Wolo, is a Ghanian / German writer born and raised in Ghana. Her father’s language is Krobo, and the term for mountain and woman is the same word. LS: Oh, wow. I love that. There’s something there. AS²: I’m just curious. Was your MA in Caracas also in languages and letters? LS: It was in Literary and Cultural Studies. But many of the theorists were European. That’s what we were encouraged to use when writing essays or articles. Which I think is why I decided to become a writer. Well, I was already a writer. I already wrote. I was being told “why aren’t you using so-and-so’s work? Why aren’t you looking at this?” And I was like, but these are my ideas! I wanted to discuss from an experiential point of view, and that was not acceptable. AS²: I empathize with that. In the social sciences, we hear “one can’t write this” if it’s not citable, a non-legitimate citation. Unless you turn to qualitative research. At best, this is a way of people longing to have a global theoretical discussion, but at worst it is a new iteration of hegemonic criteria for cultural or literary theory that doesn’t allow one to bring out the language of the mountain. Poet Kamau Brathwaite said, my theory of language is the volcano! I come from an island of a volcano. When he was studying abroad, he defined his own cultural framework for literary theory and used a natural part of the environment to tie onto versus a theorist from a completely different climate. LS: Yeah, I love that. His poems can be used as theory. They’re just beautiful. And they’re rebellious in the best of ways. I hadn’t thought about Brathwaite in so long. I need to go back and reread him. AS²: I particularly like his interviews. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve been enjoying these Inheritance of Peace interviews. How do wonderful people, who are good at different things, come to theorize and understand their own lives? LS: Yeah. They can be so revealing. AS²: So, it sounds like your poetic inquietudes started way back. I guess it was not just political, or socio-cultural, there was some little thing in you. Maybe that’s “the wild little animal?” LS: It is! I was thinking about that recently because one of my first connections to poetry was Lorca (Federico García Lorca). Lorca was not a conformist. We had a lot of U.S. influence [in Venezuela] because of the Cold War. There was so much influence in Latin America from the United States, cultural influence. All the Disney stuff for the kids especially. AS²: Like Ariel Dorfman‘s analysis of How to Read Pato Donald? LS: All that. My mother was never happy about that. So sometimes I would ask, Oh, can I have Mickey Mouse, whatever. Sheets? And she was like, No, we can’t afford it, but I think it was more than that. I think it was, No, I don’t want that influence on you yet. You can decide later if you want Mickey Mouse. But right now, I’m gonna show you what’s here. Both my parents always said, Before you get to know another country, get to know your own and what’s there. “Both my parents always said, ‘before you get to know another country, get to know your own and what’s there.’ I remember on road trips, we used to listen to a lot of folk music, and that’s how I learned history about my own country. Not the official history and the heroes. I learned about place from those songs.” I remember on road trips, we used to listen to a lot of folk music, and that’s how I learned history about my own country. Not the official history and the heroes and all that stuff, but

    44 min

  3. Apr 23

    Deike Peters

    Reunification as Inheritance of Peace Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): This is Inheritance of Peace. I’m Amy Shimshon-Santo. We’re back with a fresh series that aims to create a culture of peace as a personal and global endeavor. In this episode, just in time for Earth Day, we connect with Deike Peters, a German-American educator, urban planner, and environmentalist. Her parents were children of World War II, and the Berlin Wall fell when she was a teenager. A witness to the reunification of East and West Germany, her inheritance of peace is that “peaceful regime change is possible.” Let’s listen in. . . [Deike Peters and students Aayusha Prasain, Taiho Higaki, Aakash Baral, Colby Baker, Jenny (Thao-Linh) Vo, Yakubu Mohammed Abass, Khostsetseg (Chloé) Tumurbat, Miyuki Sase, Nala Thomas, Dimpi Lama, Anh Khue Nguyen, Sarah Truong, study the global significance of the Berlin Wall, 2026] Deike Peters (DP): “Who are you?” always depends on the context where the question is asked. I might say, “Oh, my name is Deike.” Or if I come into a classroom I might say, “Oh, my name is Professor Peters.” I recently introduced myself as a “German-American environmental urbanist.” Which is so funny, because I start with a hyphen, so it’s already a dual identity. And then I’m not even content with describing myself within a single discipline (as an urbanist), but I throw in the environment as well. I guess it’s an indication that we are all multitudes. I’m Deike – and it’s a very unusual name. At least in this country, I often have to just restate my name multiple times for people to get me right. I was named by my mother. It’s a version of a diminutive, a Frisian name. A name that comes from a borderland between the Netherlands and Germany. In a way, it’s an appropriation that my mom just thought was beautiful. My home region in Germany is an old industrial coal mining region (The Ruhr Valley). I grew up in Post-war Germany. It was a region in decline. Dortmund is my hometown and a place where we’re sort of at the tail end of the extraction that happened through the majority of the 20th century: the coal mining, the steel production. Part of my family were people who came to be part of that era of mining and extracting from the late 1800s on, helping and producing the steel that ‘re-steeled’ the country. Industrialization is at the very core of that part of the family history. At the forefront of a lot of environmental conflicts these days is, of course, resource extraction. The fact is that a lot of these struggles are global and united. You trace back some of your own biographies, but hopefully at some point there’s a way to connect dots at a more global level. I am thinking about my own history and connectedness of land extraction. Hopefully you have a path in your life where you move from learning and recognition to at some level being part of a solution. It might have been coal extraction. These days lithium mines are at the forefront of what we might have to resist against. Hopefully you get to do something with your life that is still connected to where you come from. Be a lifelong student. Keep learning. Tap into other people’s wisdom. At some point, you’re on the spot for having to help the next generation of young people point the way a little bit. “At the forefront of environmental conflicts these days is resource extraction. The fact is a lot of these struggles are global. Hopefully at some point there’s a way to connect dots.” When I graduated from high school in Germany they asked: “Who do you think you’re gonna be? What’s your plan?” I wrote in the yearbook: “I want to do something with languages.” Which is hilarious, right? Being a planner was not on the horizon. But I think it makes sense because we need multiple languages. I grew up [around] too much silence. A lot of what we need to be able to do as young people is to translate, broaden our ability to express ourselves. So multiple languages were really important to me. Once I felt oh, now I have a second or a third language as part of my arsenal of expression, what do I do with it? This is where my idea to become an urban planner came from. Become somebody who has “real” skills. Looking at a settlement or actual map-making, planning. I didn’t know it was going to be more counter-mapping, ultimately. Languages first, as a means of translating and communicating ideas, and then the planning and plan-making as a more interventionist solution-making, skill-building arsenal. Planning is about who’s making decisions in this world. Who’s empowered? Who’s put in a position of laying out futures for us? I know now it was very naive, but I think this idea of plan making was a way to help inscribe rules into the world. Some of us might have to do this, with hopefully different ideas. AS²: I feel so much empathy with what you’re saying, so I’m leaning towards the microphone. When you do go through an advanced education in urban planning, seeing the way decision-making is coming down right now is such a shock. Especially if you learn the scientific method. It’s a slower pace of improvisation based on a feedback system, where you make a little move, and then you assess the impact through data, and then you lean towards the things that are working and getting you where you want to go. So, there’s of course innovation and improvisation in it, but there’s also deep reflection and a circulation of ideas and reflection and ideas and reflection that I think are more likely to guide us towards the kind of outcomes we want. “I grew up in a Germany that was at the very center of the Cold War with cruise missiles pointing to East Germany. Threat of nuclear obliteration was a part of your childhood. The Green Party, at the time, was intertwining social progressive ideals with the idea that we need to think differently about our relationship with the environment. Environmental thinking was going to be our pathway.” DP: As far as urban planning as a profession in Germany at the time, the discipline was explicitly connected to the ecological awakening that was happening. Growing up in West Germany in the 70s and 80s was a post-war environment very different from the U.S. First of all, this crazy idea that my parents’ generation was the “Stunde Null” the “zero-hour” generation. The idea that a country, as a whole, can start over. So you have May 8th, 1945, as the end of the war. But then, all of a sudden, you had a new Germany where supposedly “we’re not Nazis anymore, because the Nazi regime is over.” My parents were 5 and 8 at that point. I grew up in a Germany that was at the center of the Cold War with cruise missiles pointing to East Germany. So the threat of nuclear obliteration is part of your childhood. The Green Party, which was the most progressive political force at the time, is intertwining social progressive ideals with the idea that “we need to think differently about our relationship with the environment.” Environmental thinking as something that was going to be our pathway. Talk about peace, right? It’s a cold war, we’re not hot. The missiles are not exploding. But if there’s a pathway towards a better future, a better world, a better re-entangled way of being on this planet: ecological thinking and systems thinking were what these planning faculties wanted to think about. My planning education didn’t come out of the modernist, dominating tradition of let’s all build neighborhoods looking from above. The kinds of teachers, and the pathway for an education in urban planning faculties at the time, was very inherently progressive. People who had good community organizing roots, and naive hopes for an alternative future. AS²: I really appreciate the hopefulness. My mother, who is in her 90s, said “You have to have a romantic idea.” It’s very hard to get anything done, to mobilize things, without a romantic idea. It gives me a sense that we have a very small flash of time on Earth, and we don’t get to see the bigger picture, and things can change. I guess that’s my romantic idea. We’re not stuck, we’re not powerless, even though it might feel that way right now. One of the classic stories that a lot of Jewish people have said is anything is possible if German people and Jewish people can hang out. You’ve been impacted by growing up with parents who were children of war. That reality may have also demanded the romantic, hopeful environmentalist response. We really know how bad it can be so let’s really try for something very good. In terms of an environmental focus as something that can bring people together across regions and nationalities and cultures. [Remnants of the Berlin Wall at the Topography of Terror. Photo: Deike Peters] DP: When we talk about any kind of reconciliation, it has to be peaceful so there can’t be war. But it also has to relate to the way that we relate to the more-than-human world. My parents, of course, did not have the luxury of reflecting on the past, or where they come from. My parents’ generation is the generation that had to endure the silence that came after the rebuilding. So my mom would always share with us these very, very strong childhood memories. She was born in 1940, so her first 5 years of her life were bomb shelters and enduring hunger. She grew up with a mother who struggled for them to survive, and with a father who, when he came back from fighting in the war, she didn’t recognize. Her earliest childhood memories were of a war that she didn’t understand at the time. I think more dramatically: a war that was also never explained to her afterwards. Her father never was able to speak about his experiences. The German educational system did not really “talk.” There was not a good way in the 50s and 60s to grapple with the enormity of the Holocaust. My mom was sort of a s

    35 min

  4. Mar 24

    Paul & Michaela Shirley

    PROTECTING PEACE AT HOME Creating a culture of peace can begin with the first people we know — our family. Today’s episode with Paul and Michaela Paulette Shirley focuses on familial love and support as an Inheritance of Peace. Michaela’s significant work in Indigenous Planning is shaping what is possible in community development, educational policy, and ethical research. She’s the daughter of two phenomenal people: Paul and Dolly Mae Shirley. Paul comes from a long line of Diné sheepherders and Michaela is an urban planner and doctoral candidate in American Studies. In this interview, Paul and Michaela, reflect on life lessons from Isabelle Shirley — Paul’s mother who lived for 99 years. They speak about lessons learned from family, our relations to the land and livestock; and the value of discipline, work, and protecting peace at home. [Paul Shirley standing with his mother Isabelle Shirley. Photo courtesy Michaela Shirley.] Michaela Shirley (MS): I am Michaela Paulette Shirley. My clans are Water Edge, born for Bitter Water. My grandparents are of the Salt and Coyote Pass clans. I am originally from Kin Dah Lichii, which means Red House in northeastern Arizona, located on the Navajo reservation. I am so happy to be here. Thank you! I’m joined by a very special guest who is very important. I’ll let him introduce himself. Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): Yay! Great. Paul Shirley (PS): I was born and raised as a sheep herder. I’ll be turning 73 next month. This little bordertown we have is along the I-40 New Mexico borderline. That’s where we’ve mostly been going to get our stuff, which is 45 miles back towards Arizona, towards Window Rock, where we come into. We’ve been at a bordertown all our lives. With my five daughters, and so many grandkids, we had to travel to Phoenix, Tulsa, Seattle and places like that once or twice a year. That’s how we come to be. Still having my grandma’s herd of sheep, which my mom took over. So, recently now, I have it, with 30 heads (of livestock). AS²: I’m so glad to be here together. Mr. Shirley and Michaela are some of my favorite people in the world. Thank you so much for making time to be together. The next question is about what you get to do. That might be a bit different for both of you. For Paul, you mentioned sheep camp and sheep herding, and Michaela is into research and studies. What do you get to do with your life force? MS: Okay, well, I’ll let my dad go first. [Paul Shirley seated beside his wife Dolly, their children standing in a row behind them, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Photo courtesy of Michaela Shirley.] PS: All our grandkids are pretty well taken care of. So we hardly have any time with them just once in a while. Like, summertime, there’s maybe a few days. So that’s one good thing. We raised our girls to know how to take care of their own kids instead of the grandma or the grandpas doing the job for them. We’re less stressed that way. That’s what the kids like to come back to. The grandkids. AS²: Do you want to say a bit about your grandma’s herd of sheep for people who haven’t felt what it’s like to herd sheep? PS: Well, my mom was the only one that didn’t get her education. Her siblings, younger brothers and sisters, all went to boarding schools or wherever but she never went to school. That’s why my grandmother gave the Sheep Livestock Permit to her to take care of alongside us — being me, my two brothers, and two sisters. Five of us. We maintained my mom’s business of sheep herding. That’s primarily what our girls did, was participate with my mom during the summer at the sheep camp farther into the mountains. My mother, all she did was walk, walk, walk after the sheep all her life. That’s what put her to the age of 99. So she finally passed last year. All she stood for was disciplining. She never gave up on discipline. That’s why now, that’s what I stand with. Being able to discipline people that don’t have the right track of mind. AS²: Mhm. And know the difference. PS: We were totally able to get rid of people, like, what you help us get rid of that time you visited. I admire how you traveled by yourself to Albuquerque that time. All by yourself. Yeah. All our girls were like that. They know how and manage to travel by themselves. Especially our first one, the head of the girls, now had to go back to Seattle by herself. She’s a hustler like you on the highway, on the open road. [Michaela and Atlas Shirley.] AS²: When you gotta get someplace, you just gotta get there. PS: Yeah. They all like doing that because they don’t want to be pampered by anybody else. They like to do it themselves. AS²: That’s a lot of strength and will. PS: Yeah, that’s what I’m proud of. Me and the mom (Ms. Dolly Mae Shirley) we’re proud of our kids and grandkids, and three great grandsons. AS²: I know they’re proud of you too. PS: Yeah. MS: Dad, did you want to tell how you start your day, everyday? PS: I start my day with hot coffee in the morning. MS: He makes the best hot coffee. PS: Talking about sheep, we butchered yesterday and we had roast mutton on the grill. There were 20 people. Mostly the relatives. That’s what we experienced. And Michaela enjoyed her mutton. AS²: I bet. [Paul Shirley seated beside a photo of his grandson Atlas. Photo courtesy of Michaela Shirley.] MS: Yeah. I’m the family member that has always taken the higher education route. So my daily life is very different, but every step along my journey, my family has always been very supportive of me. Whether they were offering their prayers for me, for success, or even monetarily. And now these days helping to take care of my 3-year-old when I need to do some stuff for school. But all along the way, my family has been very, very encouraging and supportive. My mom and dad have always been the ones to pay for my application fees: my undergraduate, my graduate, and now my second graduate degree for my Ph.D. program. They have always made their mark in that very special way for me. My parents and my family have always been very supportive and loving in that way. And even now, they’re always asking me questions about what the whole process is like. And that was the beauty of the morning that my dad and I got up early, after they brought home my son from him being two weeks away from me because I had to finish my comprehensive exams. My dad was the one that made coffee and was curious about what the process entailed. I showed him what I was working on at the end of this exam. I have this framework I’m trying to build, and it’s tied back to schools and how we are trying to build better communities in our reservation. Because our reservation is homelands that are very, very important to us. Thankfully, we’re an Indigenous tribe that still retains its original territories. That’s not the case for some other Indigenous peoples who’ve been removed. PS: Relocated. MS: Yeah. But, for us, thankfully, we are where we are from originally. So, all of my work goes back to trying to figure out strategies and ideas for how to go about our future planning. And it all does start with the teachings from my late Nali, Isabel Shirley, who is my dad’s mother that he spoke very admirably about. She comes up a lot in our stories, even in our daily lives. She was always so strong mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and there was nothing that could keep her down. So the essence of who she is as a person, I really want to keep honoring and respecting that in my work. At the same time honoring and respecting my parents, and the lands that we definitely still have. My dad plays a really big part of staying connected to the land by having a grazing permit which is how Navajos have to go about their sheep herding these days. Having to inherit a sheep permit. AS²: Do you want to say any other words about the land that you belong to or are connected to? MS: Well, for us, and a lot of other Diné families that practice this tradition of burying your umbilical cords and your placenta in the land. That’s something my mom and dad still do to this day for all of their grandkids and great-grandkids. No matter where you go in the world, you will always remain connected. That’s home. And that is important, because for a lot of Diné families, we end up having to out migrate to places far beyond our reservation territory boundaries. Like my dad saying “Seattle, Tulsa, Phoenix.” Those are distant places that we’ve had to go to in order to secure the best opportunities for ourselves.That’s also why the planning work I’m trying to do is ensure that we don’t have to leave our reservation in order to pursue those great opportunities. I don’t think I would have that sort of connection, or passion to our homeland, had it not been for my parents dropping us off during the summer for sheep camp. “We were taught not to be claiming lands. Primarily, on my mom’s side through her culture. Never to say “this is my land.” All she would say is: ‘What’s 6 feet under and so many square measurements, that’s where your land is.’ - Paul Shirley PS: For my part, pertaining to land, we were taught not to be claiming lands. Primarily, on my mom’s side, through her culture, how she really disciplined us was never to say “this is my land.” That’s not proper for her. Not a human being. But livestock that graze on the land. That is primarily what I stand with. AS²: You don’t own the land. PS: Yes. All she would say is: “What’s 6 feet under and so many square measurements, that’s where your land is.” [Dolly and Paul Shirley, Michaela Shirley’s parents.] One thing my mom stood with was: Be a man. Be a woman. Be respectful. She did not like domestic violence among families. She pretty well maintained discipline when her in-laws came about (In-laws will come in peace or us [kids would] never be there). Try to de

    30 min

  5. Mar 19

    Mahnaz Motayar

    WALKING IN PEACE DURING WAR How can ancient Persian history reveal enduring legacies of peace — even during a time of war? In this episode, we listen to Dr. Mahnaz Motayar, an Iranian-American writer and neuropsychologist with nearly 50 years of experience innovating creative therapeutic processes and guiding mental health education. Memories of her homeland provide a sense-memory of peace through the beauty of ancient architecture, mouth watering sweets, and the enduring poetry of legendary Persian poet Saʿdī (1210–1291) who inspired humanist ideals underlying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) centuries later. Listen to Motayar and learn from her fresh perspectives on the importance of valuing peoples, cultures, and land. [Tomb of poet Sa’adi Shirazi (سعدیه) located in the city of Shiraz, in the province of Fars, Iran.] Mahnaz Motayar (MM): My full name is Mahnaz Motayar. However, my nickname that I have grown up with is Naz Motayar. I’m a human being. I’m an immigrant. I have been in the United States for almost 50 years. And, my passion, and my vocation and my avocation has always been working with people to make life a little bit easier for them in whatever way possible with the circumstances that they are in. And I’ve been fortunate to be doing that, also, for 45 years. Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): What do you get to actually do with your life force? MM: My life force is truly about people, and community. My life force is about bringing peace, comfort, and ease wherever I am and with whomever I am. My career started as a public health educator, and then I taught at various universities for a number of years and then I started my practice as a clinical neuropsychologist. I loved all those pieces of my life, and I see that I’m a person who works better without borders. And, institutions right now, both academic and medical establishments, there’s a lot of borders. Not honoring the diversity of human beings, not just ethnic diversity, but every person has different desires, different strengths, different weaknesses. Unfortunately, in these establishments these days, you cannot acknowledge those. The focus of my life right now, is, promoting health and wellness through music and community. “My life force is about bringing peace, comfort, and ease wherever I am and with whomever I am.” AS²: May I ask you if you were in charge of how public health education was unfolding, if you were the author of that space, what it would look like? MM: It would be very creative. It would create space for people to realize their own potential rather than just learning some information and applying it to the entire population. It would be very respectful, creating a space for people to transform themselves rather than just be lectured at, and saying you gotta take this protocol and apply it to everyone who has this illness. Or, if you’re teaching this course, you have to teach this and this. More of an experiential, interactive, engaging process, rather than just information and lectures. AS²: How did you figure that out? MM: Creativity was always a part of me. I always believed that creativity will allow us to reach each other in a more intimate way. If I could use an analogy, Amy, it would be like if you take a frozen food and just defrost it, then everybody can do that. But to cook? AS²: Ha! Right. “But to cook.” I’m so glad to be here with the real chef. MM: It’s an honor to be interviewed by a real chef. AS: Do you have a favorite food ? MM: I like sweets. There’s some Persian sweets that are really… AS²: Which one? MM: I love cream puffs. AS²: Yes. MM: I like Napoleon’s. AS²: Yes. MM: I can do without food… AS²: …but not your sweets. MM: In response to your question, I was just thinking, you and I can pick up the same recipe and it can come out totally different because of our own unique energies, because of the resources available to us. Because of so many other elements. We are to cook. We are to make food that is not tasty at all, and then play with it, and make it better and better, until we reach that place where we say, “Oh, this is it.” AS²: I see. So health —mental health, physical health, education, public health education — should have that kind of openness and creativity. MM: Absolutely. [Image depicting Saʿdī (seated left) and Abu Bakr ibn Sa’d (seated right). Made in Mughal India, dated 1602.] AS²: The next question is about your connections to place. What lands do you feel a sense of connection to? MM: I was born in Tehran, Iran. And, to this day, my connection is to that land. I live in San Jose, California. I’m also connected to this land. But the place where I feel whole, and where I feel healed, and, strangely enough, where I feel at peace is still my homeland. AS²: Absolutely. MM: It’s very strange to feel at peace with a place that is totally out of peace. AS²: I can understand that though because the un-peace isn’t natural. What I mean to say is, to say: “I feel at peace with my place where I was named, I was made” makes sense to me— even if it’s a place that right now, is not at peace. Because that’s not its authentic state. What is the peace of Tehran? What is that to you? “The peace of Tehran is the hospitality of the people. The peace of Tehran is people are willing to help and reach out to each other. The peace in Tehran is amazing beauty in buildings that are thousands of years old. The peace in Tehran is generosity of its people. The diversity and a strong culture that is based in community.” MM: The piece of Tehran is the hospitality of the people. The peace of Tehran is people are willing to help and reach out to each other. The peace in Tehran is amazing beauty in buildings that are thousands of years old. The peace in Tehran is generosity of its people. The diversity and a strong culture that is based in community. AS²: I’m so glad to hear that that’s your definition of beginning. That you were born into a place of welcoming and community care and ancient architecture. And that that place is Tehran. MM: One of my favorite quotes that actually brings me peace is “when we replace an I with a we, even illness becomes wellness.” AS²: Yeah. MM: And whenever we are held, and cared for, and we were made to feel safe, there is much more potential to feel at peace. If god forbid, I consider you my enemy. How can I feel safe or at peace if I have an enemy? AS²: Right. We’ve been in a writing group together, and it’s been so wonderful for me just to hear your work, and you’ve heard my stuff, too. And I thrive so much on just knowing that you have a foot in a region where my mother’s family is. That a lot of people wouldn’t even be able to imagine. And that we share this understanding of, like, how do you create a space of wellness? How do you create a space of peace? And I believe that people have always been doing that somewhere, and we don’t hear enough about it. MM: People are doing it here. And we don’t hear about it. They’re definitely doing it in the Middle East right now. “Whenever we are held, and cared for, and we were made to feel safe, there is much more potential to feel at peace.” AS²: Yes. MM: And we don’t hear about it, because there is a segment of society that does not want people to be together. They make profit by separations, by divisions, by disentanglements. And I think it has always been that way. The intensity of it has changed. And, my prayer is that this intensity will wake us up. AS²: What would you like to have awoken? MM: That we are all human before we are anything else. AS²: Absolutely. MM: I mean, if I don’t know where you’re from, Amy, and you don’t know where I’m from. How would we treat each other? AS²: Well, we might treat each other from the face value of how we behave, what we say, how we show up, what we feel. And, you know, we know, specifically. You were born in Tehran, my mother was born in Jerusalem as a Jewish person. And I delight in you. And I always love when it’s your turn to read. I love to listen. And I can’t see why people couldn’t come to that kind of a place with people from different nationalities, if they knew each other, if they actually got to know each other at their best. MM: I was working at the VA hospital and this young man came to my office and looked at me straight in the eye, and said, “I cannot work with you.” Right. It was our first session together. And I said, “I respect that. It would just help me greatly if you tell me why. Because you don’t know me, and I don’t know you.” And he said — it was during the Iraq Desert Storm War — he said, “You remind me of the people I had to kill.” I said, “I would be happy to go and arrange for another therapist to see you. And I would appreciate a chance if you just sit and have a dialogue together. But if that’s really hard we don’t have to. And he agreed. And we sat down. And we had the most amazing conversation. I’m sure it must have been very difficult for him. But he gave it a chance. And the only reason, probably, that he did give it a chance is because I gave him freedom to choose. We are to give each other freedom. In everything. In conversations, in interactions. Freedom. Respect. Empathy. AS²: The benefit of the doubt? A clean slate, just a fresh beginning. Right? I’m going to meet you in this moment. And not with this legacy that my family, or myself, may be carrying. We sometimes turn to ancient stories as an excuse for bad behavior now. Instead of taking responsibility for good or bad behavior now. And we are ancient people. But we’re also people who I would hope that one thing we have in common is that we want futures for our children and our grandchildren, and for the land. MM: The land is never gonna forget. AS²: The land is never gonna forget. MM: History may forget. People may fo

    39 min

  6. Mar 12

    Beah Batakou

    PEACE AS ENDURANCE How does one go about creating a culture of peace when we grow up inside social systems we did not author that are often violent or unfair? In this episode, we hear from Beah Batakou — a poet and attorney based in Accra, Ghana. Peace making requires qualities that she learned from her mother and grandmother like “steadiness” and “strategic calm.” For Batakou, creating an inheritance of peace means transforming survival into structures for flourishing, and having the disciplined endurance to bring them into life. Let’s jump right to learn more. Beah Batakou (BB): I consider myself to be a woman of many faces — something of a jack-of-all-trades. Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): And a master of many. BB: I consider myself a dual cultivator, particularly in relation to my professional life. I am a lawyer by profession and I am also a poet. I cultivate both practices simultaneously, always trying to understand how poetry weaves into the law, and how the law in turn, intersects with poetry. Beyond my professions, I am also both Beninese and Ghanaian. I rarely identify myself as simply Ghanaian, even though that is the orthodox expectation where I come from. In my community, lineage is patrilineal, so people often say that you belong to your father’s family. But I was not raised by my father’s people. I was raised by my mother and her family. And the world I grew up in carries many influences that are not strictly Ghanaian. Because of that, I cannot confidently say I am only Ghanaian. I am also Beninese, and that heritage has shaped me in important ways. Before colonial borders were drawn we were part of a continuous cultural space anyway. Despite differences in ethnicity and tribe, people lived within overlapping worlds and shared practices, so the distinction has never felt absolute to me. Much of my work, both as a lawyer and as a poet, is concerned with inheritance. I often write about spiritual inheritance, cultural inheritance, political inheritance, and bodily inheritance. I come from countries that have been shaped by trade, by missionary presence, and by colonial administration. At the same time, they have also been shaped by resilience and by the quiet labor of ordinary domestic life. My writing, and even my practice of the law, sits at that convergence. “I come from countries that have been shaped by trade, by missionary presence, and by colonial administration. At the same time, they have also been shaped by resilience and by the quiet labor of ordinary domestic life. I try to understand what it means to grow up within these pillars of society, and to develop a language capable of interrogating them without flattening their complexity.” I have always been interested in what it means to grow up within systems that existed long before you arrived. Many of my poems engage with Catholicism, gender, and economic constraint. I often speak about gendered expectations, religious systems, and poverty—about the structures that shape everyday life. I try to understand what it means to grow up within these pillars of society, and to develop a language capable of interrogating them without flattening their complexity. I also have a deep affection for what I call chaos, though I do not mean it negatively. I think of chaos the way one might look at a child’s scribbles. There is a kind of beauty in that disorder. It is a convolution of things that do not neatly fit together, and I find that compelling. For me, that kind of chaos represents tension. I often feel a surge of joy when I can inhabit that tension and create something from it. Growing up, I was very much a church girl. My childhood was shaped by catechism, rosaries, and prayer camps. At the same time, I grew up aware that these structures often carry violence alongside the comfort and solace they provide. Despite that, I was raised by very strong women—my mother and my maternal grandmother. Their endurance was not always described as strength, and the things they survived are not experiences we would ordinarily romanticize. But I see their lives as a form of profound endurance, and that is the strength I recognize in them. My life has also been shaped by place—by the sea, by heat, by dust, by classrooms and offices. All of those textures find their way into my poems. In some ways, they also find their way into my legal writing. Since last year, I have become increasingly attentive to the idea of the body as an archive. The manuscript I worked on at the Watermill Center in New York explored this. I was trying to understand what it means to think of the body as something that stores history, how trauma and devotion leave inscriptions on flesh, and how memory and experience travel across generations through the body itself. In many ways, I see myself as someone trying to reconcile reverence and rebellion within the same breath. AS²: There’s so much happening in what you’re describing. I was also raised at a kind of crossroads — between legal ideas of justice, the frameworks societies create to keep people safe, to establish precedents, and to organize collective life — and the artistic space which is deeply concerned with culture-making. Even though I come from a different part of the world, your language of reverence and rebellion feels very legible to me. So does your affection for chaos. Sometimes things do need to be shaken up. Not in a destructive way, but in a way that reveals where power sits and how it operates. Your work seems to do that—pointing toward power from different angles. And you’re clearly not owned by anyone but yourself. My second question is this: how do you spend your life force? What kinds of things occupy your time and energy? BB: Yes, definitely. When you mentioned “life force,” the first word that came to mind was ambition. But I don’t really think of life force as ambition. This year especially, I’ve found myself in spaces where people say, “You come across as a very ambitious person. How do you do that?” And the truth is, I’ve never really thought of myself that way. I tend to think more in terms of energy, or force. When I reflect on what I get to do with my life, I think about the accumulated charge of my experiences. Those experiences didn’t break me, but they marked me. That charge includes grief, anger, discipline, faith, and a great deal of doubt. It includes desire, fatigue, and hope. When I write, those charges become legible. A lot of what flows out of me is rooted in those emotional and spiritual registers, and sometimes it might appear heavy. But I don’t consider myself a pessimistic person. If anything, my professional training—especially as a lawyer—has taught me to see what could exist but does not yet exist. That orientation naturally brings grief, anger, doubt, desire, and fatigue into my work. I tend to gather all of those forces under a larger structure that I call survival. “I convert silence into speech. I convert confusion into image. I convert memory into form. And through that process, I also refuse simplification.” The ability to transform expressions of survival into structure is really what my purpose is about. Many of us—especially women, and particularly women of color—inherit systems that we did not design. We inherit patriarchal authority, religious hierarchies, and economic precarity. These systems exert pressure. They shape us and, in many ways, attempt to contain us. What my work allows me to do is metabolize that pressure rather than simply carry it. I don’t want to carry that pressure unchanged. I want to transform it. What I do feels like a kind of conversion. I convert silence into speech. I convert confusion into image. I convert memory into form. And through that process, I also refuse simplification. There’s always a temptation, especially when writing about faith or violence, to reduce things to a single narrative. To choose between condemnation and devotion. Between one side or the other. Between black and white. But the force that drives my work—the transformation of survival into structure—allows me to hold nuance. It allows me to hold reverence and critique at the same time. So I can love the ritual that raised me while still interrogating the harm embedded within it. I can love being Catholic and still say, “This is wrong. This is painful. This is what is happening.” In doing that, I’m able to honor my ancestors without romanticizing their suffering. In many ways, this practice keeps me balanced. It’s a discipline that helps me live my life with a certain steadiness. Staying on that path requires constant revision—of my work, but also of myself. Every day I learn something new. And what I write, at any given moment, is simply the best expression of my life force that I can produce at that time. AS²: Well, that was definitely a poetic response. There are lines throughout it that reflect a poetic mindset. At the same time, your work clearly extends beyond the page. You also run an educational organization focused on menstruation education for women and girls (@HappyMonthlies). And you stepped forward to write and contribute to a national report for the United Nations on the state of women and children. So alongside your creative writing, you are also active in the public sphere—working on women’s rights and menstrual health advocacy. In other words, your writing takes many forms. Some of it is poetry. Some of it appears as formal reports. Some of it is written as policy briefs or legal documents. “Much of my life and work begin from a simple set of questions: What systems have we inherited? What are those systems doing to our bodies? And where do we go from here? That orientation is why my work often circles back to human rights.” BB: Yes. I did contribute to what we call a mid-term sub-periodic review, which has since been published. The report is available on the webs

    51 min

  7. Feb 24

    Margarita León

    [PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT] LA ÉTICA BIOCÉNTRICA DE MARGARITA LEÓN “La ternura es la forma más modesta de amor. No tiene emblemas o símbolos especiales. Aparece cuando miramos de cerca y con cuidado a otro ser, a algo que no es nuestro ‘yo’ pero donde nos descubrimos a nosotros mismos.” - Olga Tokarczuk Amy Shimshon-Santo (A): Hola. Estoy aquí hoy con la fabulosa Margarita León, poeta fenomenal. Vamos a aprender con ella y escucharla y conversar sobre la herencia de la paz. Margarita León (M): Soy una mujer relativamente joven que he dedicado mis esfuerzos, mi tiempo, los años que tengo de conciencia, a enaltecer con un nombre artístico la herencia de mi madre. Mi mamá me heredó una raíz, que es la raíz otomí. El idioma que me enseñó, me crió desde el rincón más humilde que es un rincón semidesértico de México, es el estado de Hidalgo, históricamente marginado por las estructuras de poder que gobiernan nuestro país. He trabajado mucho personalmente tratando de criar a mis hermanas pequeñas que se quedaron a mi cargo porque mi hermana mayor migró a los Estados Unidos. Después migró mi hermano, después otro hermano, y mi hermana pequeña. Me atraviesa una historia de migración muy grande, que ha sido muy triste, pero que al mismo tiempo ha sido un motor para interesarme en estos temas. Por eso estoy aquí. Por eso soy amiga de Amy. Compartimos además las inquietudes de la poesía. Más que una poeta en lengua hñahñu, que es el idioma otomí, un idioma mexicano indigena. Uno de los más importantes de México. Soy una mujer comprometida con enaltecer esa raíz que he añorado desde mi infancia, esa herencia que me dejó mi madre. Ella era una mujer muy sabia que extendía tres pesos para alimentar a diez bocas en su casa. Una mujer que supo cómo sobrevivir a las violencias que una mujer indígena y pobre puede sufrir en México. A: Pues es un honor y un gran placer estar juntas y tener chance de convivir y escucharte, y crecer nuestra relación que ya vamos un tiempo cultivando. Cuéntanos, ¿qué te toca hacer hoy con tu fuerza de vida? Sé que enseñas. Sé que escribes, que has hecho en investigaciones regionales. Pero en tus propias palabras, ¿qué te toca hacer? “Una de las responsabilidades más grandes que tengo es la de criar. Más allá que crear mi obra poética, paralelamente debo estar criando a mi hijo. Tengo como una obligación, casi heredada, que él sea un buen ser humano.” M: Pienso que una de las responsabilidades más grandes que tengo es la de criar — la crianza de mi hijo. Por eso este tema de las herencias de paz me provoca mucho. Me provoca tantos sentimientos eso de andar peleando unos con otros. Porque me provoca justamente estar pendiente de lo que ocurre en mi entorno. Recientemente falleció un amigo muy querido, un maestro para mí. Alguien a quien he leído, que he estudiado, y he querido mucho. Se llama Eduardo Hurtado Montalvo. Él decía que ser poeta es tener las antenas bien puestas para recibir toda la información que hay a nuestro alrededor. Pienso que debo estar mirando todo lo que acontece a mi alrededor porque estoy criando más allá de crear mi obra poética, debo estar criando a mi hijo, que tiene siete años. Siento una obligación casi heredada de que él sea un buen ser humano. A: Sí. M: Y eso es algo que pesa mucho, pero que a la vez se disfruta. Y es un sentimiento. Creo que tú me comprendes. A: Sí como madre, claro. M: Exacto. Como un sentimiento de responsabilidad y pero que al mismo tiempo te genera felicidad. Pero al mismo tiempo, esa felicidad suele pesar por el amor que sientes a esos humanitos que estás criando y que quieres que tengan una piel sensible a lo que acontece en el mundo. A: Sí. Si Si. Entonces, ya has mencionado un poco la conexión de las tierras. Ya hemos conversado bastante sobre el ser planetario. Ser humano significa pertenecer a la Tierra. Entonces, ¿con qué tierras sientes una conexión? “He sido muy curiosa de conocer el mundo porque cuanto más lejos estoy más ganas tengo de regresar. Mi conexión más profunda está acá en el Valle del Mezquital.” M: Bueno, he tenido la oportunidad de estar en Sudamérica, en el sur. He tenido la suerte de conocer con mayor profundidad Argentina, por ejemplo, que estuve ahí ya un tiempo haciendo unos estudios, en Perú, en Lima, con amistades que conocí en Cuba. He sido muy curiosa de conocer el mundo porque justamente cuanto más lejos estoy más ganas tengo de regresar aquí. Lo quiero, más como que más siento esa conexión que me jala, que me atrae. A: Mhm. M: Porque aquí es donde más feliz he sido y donde más he sufrido. Es una dicotomía rara y perversa. Quieres estar donde más sufres, donde más te duele, pero también donde más he sido feliz, porque es donde crecí, donde tuve a mi madre por nueve años. Donde enterraron a mi padre y donde están mi abuela, mi abuelo, que mis hermanos mayores no tuvieron la suerte de venir a enterrarlos porque no pueden venir después de haberse ido, porque no podrían volver y tienen a sus hijos allá. Entonces mi conexión más grande, más profunda es acá donde se le llama el Valle del Mezquital, que es un valle semidesértico donde amanecemos a menos 5 grados, pero durante el mediodía estamos a 20 - 25 grados de temperatura. Es un clima extremo que te duele en las mejillas el viento cuando te pega porque es muy frío, pero también el clima cálido del verano es hermoso, hermoso. Y es acá donde yo quiero que descansen mis cenizas también junto a la gente que más amo. A: Qué bonito. El círculo de la vida. Las generaciones. Todo el mundo sabe que hay herencias de violencia, de colonización, de desposesión, de esclavitud, del fascismo, de tantas cosas que nos han hecho a nuestras familias sufrir. Pero pienso que no estaríamos aquí vivos si alguien en nuestras familias no tuviera un concepto de cómo encontrar una estabilidad interna y también social. Como no nada más sobrevivir sino criar personas fenomenales como tú. Ahora sí, entramos en la pregunta central: ¿cuál es tu herencia de paz? “El pueblo Otomí, mi pueblo, es un pueblo que se rige por una ética biocéntrica — una ética centrada en el amor a la naturaleza, y la conexión con el todo cósmico.” M: Creo que hay una herencia que me dejó mi madre. Y también mi padre, pese a sus grandes defectos, que es la herencia del amor a la naturaleza. En las clases que doy en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, yo les digo a mis alumnas y a mis alumnos que el pueblo Otomí, o sea mi pueblo, es un pueblo que se que se rige por una ética biocéntrica, una ética centrada en el amor a la naturaleza, a la conexión con el todo cósmico. Porque acá hay una de las prácticas muy antiguas y milenarias de mis abuelos. Mis padres todavía me enseñaron. Mi padre me enseñó a hacerlo, y yo le voy a enseñar a mi hijo. Pero cuando sea un poco más grande, porque es una cosa de espiritualidad y de creencia filosófica, pero también es un tema delicado que estamos tratando con los guardianes de la naturaleza. Acá los conocemos como Sanjua, que son guardianes que son pequeños, son piedras que caminan y que castigan al humano que no cuida las plantas, que no cuida los animales, que destruye. Y entonces, por milenios, ese pensamiento espiritual es el que permitió el respeto y la supervivencia de la naturaleza, de los animales. De ahorita con los megaproyectos que se han implementado, como acá hay una cementera de un hombre muy rico de México. Se ha destruido parte de esa fauna y de flora que había aquí cerca, se han desplazado. Se han ido los pájaros. Se han ido muchos animales porque el cambio del entorno del aire es otro. Ahora está contaminado por otros. Factores, ya que vienen de esta cementera que está operando acá en medio de la serranía. Entonces esa herencia para mí es fundamental. Yo no soy católica. No soy cristiana. No soy evangélica. No tengo otra creencia más que esa, que es la del amor a la naturaleza, la conexión que tenemos con las plantas, los animales, todos los bichitos. Le digo a mi hijo. Todos, incluso los pequeños insectos, son seres sintientes. No los puedes aplastar porque tú no eres superior a ellos. Y ese pensamiento para mí es el que yo quiero heredarle a mi hijo. Pero que al mismo tiempo me da miedo porque este mundo no está listo para una persona que piense así, porque aquí la supervivencia del más fuerte es la que impera el que tiene más poder, más armamento nuclear más. Y a lo largo de la historia. Lo hemos visto. Y me da miedo esa herencia que esa misma herencia mía me da miedo que mi hijo la tenga, pero a su vez, es lo único que yo tengo para darle. Entonces, no sé, Amy, tú ves que yo estoy en un en una como en una paradoja. ¿qué voy a hacer? Porque es lo que tengo para él y al mismo tiempo, se que eso lo puede volver frágil e indefenso ante los otros. No? A: Ah! Es una complejidad que he pensado bastante también en eso, pero lo veo como fuerza. Lo veo como poder. Lo veo como orientación de vida y no como fragilidad. Porque en mi propia perspectiva, en la violencia no hay futuro. No hay futuro en la violencia. Nos enseñaron que en las historias dominantes hay siempre armamentos. Hay siempre lo más poderoso y las víctimas. Yo sé que eso es una herencia humana que puede existir en el rumbo de la casa con violencia doméstica o en el barrio. Y no es nada más las personas que ocupan posiciones de poder más altas que podrían ser violentos uno con el otro. Pero desde mi perspectiva, esa herencia que recibiste de tus padres y abuelos, y que quisieras dar a tu hijo, es la única forma de la familia humana de sobrevivir. No hay futuro sin esa filosofía y perspectiva y forma de vivir que te han dado a ti, y que estás pasando a la próxima generación. ​​No debe ser siempre lo más violento, más dominante. Bueno, esa es

    37 min

  8. Feb 19

    Inheritance of Peace (Trailer)

    INHERITANCE OF PEACE with Amy Shimshon-Santo. I want to be a sanctuary, even in times of chaos or corruption. I learned this from my father and grandmother. They gave me an inheritance of peace. This series highlights the inheritance of peace of survivors — everyday people from different generations and various walks of life. Poets. Researchers. Shepherds. Healers. Tune in to Inheritance of Peace on Apple Podcasts and Warm Blooded Mammal with Hair on Substack. Get full access to Warm Blooded Mammal With Hair at amyshimshonsanto.substack.com/subscribe

    1 min
  • 8 Episodes

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About

Inheritance of Peace with Amy Shimshon-Santo “The equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” - Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I want to be a sanctuary, even in times of chaos or corruption. I learned this from my father and grandmother. They gave me an Inheritance of Peace. This podcast series highlights the Inheritance of Peace of survivors — everyday people from different generations and walks of life. Poets. Researchers. Shepherds. Healers. Music for this podcast is by Avila Santo (Avilasanto.com) amyshimshonsanto.substack.com

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    Inheritance of Peace with Amy Shimshon-Santo
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    8
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Amy Shimshon-Santo
  • Show Website
    Inheritance of Peace