Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause Omisade Burney-Scott

Welcome to our 6th iteration of the ⁠Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause⁠ podcast: the Season of Orisii. Building on our international diasporic tour from last year, this season's theme is Orisii, or 'pairs' in the Afric language of Yoruba. We've invited different types of pairs to explore the through-line between menarche and menopause. You will hear parent/child, partner/lovers, and siblings offer their reflections and observations about this journey as individuals and as Orisii. We, as people capable of menstruation, understand that each experience is unique and impacts both ourselves and the connections we have with our loved ones.



For this second episode of our Season of Orisii, we have couple, Michelle Graham-Freeman and Sterling E. Freeman.



MICHELLE GRAHAM-FREEMAN has taught Spanish at Durham Academy for 30 years. The first 17 years were in middle school with grades 6-8. The remaining years have been in pre and lower schools with grades preK-1. This 31st year is her last as she and her daughter, Joia, become franchisees of Season 2 Consign--RDU. Season 2 is dedicated to providing the highest quality, pre-owned designer brand and luxury handbags to clients around the world.



STERLING E. FREEMAN, is a co-facilitator of UnLearning Sexism Accountability Circles, and co-host of a podcast in process, Beyond Being A Good One podcast. Sterling is a Co-Founder and Principal with CounterPart Consulting, Co-Founder of BREATHE: A Whole Black Experience, and the creator and host of The Wisdom & The Work podcast. All his efforts contribute to the work of dismantling oppressive systems, and imagining and building spaces that enable liberation and thriving for all. At this point in his journey, he is an aspiring womanist. Sterling lives in Durham, NC with his wife, Michelle. They have an adult daughter, Joia.



Show Notes:

Produced by Mariah M., Creative Director at BGG2SM

Hosted by Omisade Burney-Scott, Founder & Chief Curatorial Officer at BGG2SM

Edited by Kim Blocker of TDS Radio

Theme music by Taj Cullen Scott

Season 6 Artwork by Assata Goff, artist & in-house Iconographer of BGG2SM

Season 6 of the podcast is sponsored by The Honey Pot Company

Learn more about Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause at www.blackgirlsguidetosurvivingmenopause.com

Welcome to our 6th iteration of the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause podcast: the Season of Orisii. Building on our international diasporic tour from last year, this season's theme is Orisii, or 'pairs' in the Afric language of Yoruba. We've invited different types of pairs to explore the through-line between menarche and menopause. You will hear parent/child, partner/lovers and siblings to offer their reflections and observations about this journey as individual and as orisii. We as people capable of menstruation understand that each experience is unique and impacts both our selves and connections we have to our loved ones.



On this first episode, we have gina Breedlove and Ash-lee Woodard Henderson: partnered orisii

gina Breedlove is a grief doula, sound healer, vocalist, mother, grandmother, author, and oracle of grace. (website | IG)

Ash-lee Woodard Henderson is an organizer, strategist, soon-to-be author and the first Black woman co-Executive Director at the Highlander Center for Research and Education. (Ash-Lee's IG | Highland's IG)



Produced by BGG2SM Creative Director, Mariah M.

Hosted by BGG2SM Founder & Chief Curatorial Officer, Omisade Burney-Scott

Edited by Kim Blocker of TDS Radio

Theme music by Taj Cullen Scott

Season 6 Artwork by Assata Goff, artist & in-house Iconographer of BGG2SM



Season 6 of the podcast is sponsored by The Honey Pot Company



Learn more about Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause at www.blackgirlsguidetosurvivingmenopause.com

During 2023, the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause continued to bushwack a maroon path for those menopause stories left at the margins by launching a diasporic tour that took our team to the UK, Harlem, Toronto, and Puerto Rico.



Our intergenerational team has learned to hold the “both/and” dynamic tension of curating storytelling spaces more deeply. We are infinitely grateful for the lessons we have learned from our travels together, community conversations, and partnerships that include:




What it means to make offerings in communities where we do not reside
What it means to partner with people who have different definitions and understandings of community, culture, justice, gender, healing, and liberation
What it means to collaborate with BIPOC and queer creatives and artists who are infinitely talented and habitually underresourced
What it means to hold intergenerational space in ways that don’t reinforce ageist tropes about who can offer wisdom, respect, power, and perspective
What it means to create, in real-time, a culture of belonging and care for and with your team
What it means to travel internationally as a team in ways that keep us safe from harm
What it means to be patient, humble, and accountable
What it means to try and fail
What it means to try and soar



In this last episode of this very special season of the podcast, you will hear stories from our time in Toronto and team reflections from Puerto Rico. As you soak up this offering, we will leave you with these questions as 2023 comes to a close:




What is the important liberatory work you want to do for your community and the spaces you occupy?
What stories live inside you that are ready to be shared?

See you in 2024!



Episode Notes



Voices heard in this episode:




Alexandra Jane, BGG2SM Social Media Manager
Farhath Siddiqui, BGG2SM Hits the Road Videographer, Siddiqui Media
Assata Goff, BGG2SM in-house artist
Omisade Burney-Scott, Creator & CCO at the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause



Feature Orisii interviewees:


Amma Gyamfowa, Founder of Womanist Healing
Georgina G., mother of Amma



Season 5 Host and Producer:


Mariah M., Creative Director at the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause

Score credits (all music free to use under Creative Commons Licensing):




Moving Fast by Holden Excess
Beauty all Around Us by Steven Beddall (AudioLibrary)
AfroLove by The LadyProducer (AudioLibrary)
BGG Season 4/5 Theme - Taj Scott

This season and the diasporic tour were made possible by our partners and sponsors at The Honey Pot Company, Kindra, Elektra Health and the Groundswell Fund.



For the past four years, the Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause has been a multi-media platform with Reproductive Justice, Black Feminism, and Healing Justice as our north star. At its core, this means we fundamentally believe that none of us are free until all of us are free, and when the most vulnerable of us are taken care of, all of society stands to benefit. BGG2SM unapologetically stands in solidarity with all marginalized people and their struggle for freedom, and their demand of their innate human rights.

Happy World Menopause Month!



This year, the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause has been deepening our intergenerational narrative shift work by co-creating peer learning exchanges to normalize the menopause experience of Black people in the UK, New York, Toronto, and Puerto Rico. We are also co-hosting intergenerational menopause storytelling events called "Orisii" ( "pairs" in Yoruba).

The peer learning and the Orisii dinner are being offered in partnership with community-based women-led organizations. We identified each of these locations because of their strong Black diasporic communities. We have local partners on the ground, or we are seeking to connect with more partners on the ground. In addition to the events we co-host, BGG2SM is documenting our learning during our travels, introducing how each partnering organization works to normalize menopause for Black and Queer communities and sharing stories from participants about their experiences with their bodies, identities, and relationships.

So.... our podcasts in Season 5 will sound a little different. Think if "This American Life" was centering on Black intergenerational menopausal stories.... LET'S GO!



This summer, the BGG2SM team traveled to Harlem, New York, and was blessed to partner with long-time friend and sister of the heart, Ebony Noelle Golden, Founder and CEO of Betty's Daugther Arts Collaborative.

Ebony is a performance artist, scholar, and culture strategist whose work consists of site-specific performance rituals and live art installations that explore relationships between creativity and liberation.

For the last decade, she has collaboratively created site-specific public art performances grounded in authentic community storytelling. Each time, she has felt that those folks who joined herself and her collaborators on their creative journey had been enveloped into the project itself—no longer audience members, but co-conspirators or co-performers.



We had a great time hosting three amazing gatherings for people Global Majority who are living and thriving in New York. These included the Menopausal Multiverse Cocktail Hour, Peer Learning Dinner, and Orisii Intergenerational Dinner using the Say More deck. We were also honored to interview singer, composer, creative, performer, and our Beloved, YahZarah, and her mother Beverly about their memories of their first menstrual cycle, bodily autonomy, agency, and sovereignty.

Themes explored in this episode include:


Right Relationship Partnership
Spiritual Reciprocity
Care and Wellness
Agency and Autonomy
Shame
Being at home inside your body
Rites of Passage
Intergenerational Healing



Voices heard in this episode:



Ebony Noelle Golden, Harlem Community Partner & Founder of Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative



Omisade Burney-Scott, Creator & CCO at the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause



Mona Eltahawy, global feminist & guest at Orisii dinner | featured on Season 2, Episode 5 of the BGG2SM Podcast



Feature Orisii interviewees:



YahZarah, singer, daughter & mother of 1

Ms. Beverly, children's author, former educator & forever mother



Host: Mariah M., Creative Director at the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause



Score credits:

Sunflower by Soyb

Lude Illa by Joe Bagale

Sweet as Honey by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena



All music free to use under Creative Commons Licensing via AudioLibrary

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0



Thank you to our partnering sponsors, The Honey Pot Company, Kindra, and Elektra Health for making this leg of the BGG2SM Hits the Road possible!



Next Stop Puerto Rico! Stay Tuned!

www.blackgirlsguidetosurvivingmenopause.com

This year, the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause plans to deepen our intergenerational narrative shift work by co-creating peer learning exchanges to normalize the menopause experience of Black people in the UK, New York, Toronto, and Puerto Rico. We are also co-hosting intergenerational menopause storytelling events called "Orisii" ( "pairs" in Yoruba). The peer learning and the Orisii dinner are being offered in partnership with community-based women-led organizations. We identified each of these locations because of their strong Black diasporic communities, we have local partners on the ground, or we are seeking to connect with more partners on the ground. In addition to the events we co-host, BGG2SM is documenting our learning during our travels, introducing how each partnering organization works to normalize menopause for Black and Queer communities and sharing stories from participants about their experiences with their bodies, identities, and relationships. So.... our podcasts in Season 5 will sound a little different. Think if "This American Life" was centering on Black intergenerational menopausal stories.... LET'S GO!



This spring, we traveled to the UK to partner with Karen Arthur, fashion creative, model, menopause advocate, and creator of the UK-based podcast Menopause Whilst Black centering the menopause stories of Black women in the UK. We hosted two intergenerational gatherings, a peer learning dinner with other Black women, femmes, and gender-expansive people engaged in work in the UK focused on women's wellness, gender equity, mental health, menopause, and aging. We also co-hosted our first Orisii (Pairs) intergenerational dinner in St. Leonards-on-Sea (Sussex). Each guest attended a delicious dinner with a special "plus one" guest and was guided through conversations about bodily autonomy, body sovereignty, pleasure, identity, and mental health using the Say More deck.



In this episode, you will hear the beautiful soundscape of....



UK Peer Dinner Guests:



Fay Reid

Anita Powell

Dr. Nneka Nkwokolo

Marcia Jones

Kenya Fairly

Maureen Anderson

Eileen Bellot



Orisii Intergenerational Dinner Participants:



Teresa Adjorlolo

Dorcas Magbadelo

Claudine Eccleston

Kareem Arthur

Maheni Arthur



Our Community Partner:



Karen Arthur



BGG2SM Team Members:



Leigh Reid

Mariah Monsanto

Omisade Burney-Scott



Check out the video on Patreon!



Score Credits:



All music licensed by artlist.io

Ido Maimon - NYC - Instrumental Version

Sémø - Better - Instrumental Version

Yulee - Gotta Love - Instrumental Version



Big Thanks to our sponsors and collaborating partners who made this stop possible, The Honey Pot Company and Kindra!

This year, the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause plans to deepen our intergenerational narrative shift work by co-creating peer learning exchanges to normalize the menopause experience of Black people in the UK, New York, Toronto, and Puerto Rico.  We want to take you all along with us on our Magical Menopausal Multiverse School Bus tour!



In each location, we will also co-host curated intergenerational menopause storytelling events called "Orisii" ( "pairs" in Yoruba). The peer learning and the Orisii dinners are being done in partnership with community-based organizations fulfilling a pre-COVID commitment to center the menopausal lived experiences across the African diaspora.

We will be in the UK this spring, working in partnership with Karen Arthur, fashion creative, model, menopause advocate, and creator of the UK-based podcast Menopause Whilst Black centering the menopause stories of Black women in the UK.  New York is scheduled for this summer, partnering with Ebony Noelle Golden of  Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, and Luquillo, Puerto Rico is scheduled for this fall, and we will be partnering with Molly Jones of  Love, Soul, Beautiful. We are finalizing our partnership with Toronto native  Michelle Osborne and are looking at September to come to Canada!



Meet our new team member Madylin Nixon-Taplet, founder of Love Önwa Photography, Associate Director of Artist Training for The Beautiful Project and BGG2SM Documentary Creative Advisor:



Madylin started Love Önwa Photography in 2020 in response to losing her job of 13 years, wanting to spend more time indulging in her photography as a love, wanting to advance her artistry, and wanting to develop & grow as an entrepreneur. Their mission is “I Capture Souls and the Magic of Life”. Madylin truly believes that every human on this planet has something beautiful about them, even if they can’t always see that within or for themselves. She shares, "my goal is to show people themselves! Exactly and as beautifully as she sees them".

The name Önwa means moon in Igbo, as Madylin is a child of the moon (Cancer ♋️ Energy). When she photographs, what she presents to the client resonates as a letter that she is writing to their soul. To their experiences. To the beauty, she sees that she wants to be reflected back to them. And so she ends with ~Love Önwa.



STAY TUNED!!



Season 5 and BGG2SM Hits The Road Sponsors Include:



The Honey Pot Company 

Kindra

Elektra Health



We also want to thank our GENEROUS donors:



The Groundswell Fund

Common Counsel Foundation Honeybee Fund

Jeanette Stokes



Episode Details:



Host: Omisade Burney-Scott

Producer: Mariah M.

Podcast Theme Music: Taj Cullen Scott



Send your thoughts, suggestions, questions and more to decolonizingthecrone@gmail.com!