Creation for Liberation Podcast Chetna Mehta

In this episode, Sara and Chetna talk about:


What liberation smells like, sounds like, feels like for Sara


All of our energetic pathways as music, and the unblocking of those pathways bringing music and liberation to the world


Chetna’s journey with the Bansuri and the permission to make music


Sara’s relationship with the banjo as a way to soothe her soul as she’s in relationship to the instrument


The krar as it relates to the banjo and how it’s different


Sara’s ancestral connection the krar through her dad’s Eritrean background, and her pursuit of opening to and belonging with the krar


Sara looking to her heritage and her grandmother for what she needs to mother herself in a different way, which lead her to using her hands and being her senses as she cooked and played music


Her discovery of finding her cultural DNA, through repetition and doing with her hands, and eventually going to Jamaica and being connected with a banjo and krar-maker


Her trust of “more will be revealed” and saying yes even though it doesn’t make sense


Similarities between West Africa and Jamaica as a site for Black liberation


The discomforts of being there with the environment, and also the cultural and communal resilience and spirit 


Lessons in accepting perfection, the “mark of the maker” and letting our instruments (including our bodies) have their beautiful scars (and how the instrument imitates our bodies) 


The process of getting intimate with the wood, gourd, goat skin and other earth materials for the instrument 


Being in collaboration and consent with the materials and tools we’re using


Sara’s experience in Conscious Creators and the support she receiving in this process over the last few months


Being in deep listening and collaboration, and locating ourselves in the process too



Find more:


Sara on IG: @saragbanjo (Sara offers 1:1 Oracle Card Readings, SoulCollage®️ Facilitation, Enneagram Consultation and support for your creative project with vocals, lyrics, melody, voice acting & narration, ambient song and gourd banjo live through her embodied empathic voice.)


Chetna on IG @mosaiceye and the podcast @creationforliberation 



Other offerings:


Upcoming Events: Embodying Bhakti: The Yoga of Love - a series for women and non-binary activists, Reclaiming our Creative Inheritance: a 2-hour workshop on June 4th


Work 1:1 with Chetna for high-achieving changemakers to go beyond your logic and conjure your embodied creative magic

In this episode, Lama Rod and Chetna talk about:


What liberation smells like, sounds like, feels like and looks like for Lama Rod from both an abstract and embodied experience


Contentment and acceptance alongside the wrongness, suffering and crisis of the world


The subtle practice of “holding the chaos and crisis, instead of the chaos and crisis holding you”


Holding space for everything that’s arising is still feeling the chaos and tension, feeling our hearts breaking and enraging, and also still being connected to the space that’s holding us and everything


Reacting to everything may create more harm, and gives little space to respond


The choicefulness and consent of this practice


Chetna references Dylan McGarry’s art that speaks to how to hold ourselves and each other accountable requires holding


Accountability is meeting the reality, showing up and telling the truth


We have to confront our personal broken-heartedness as an expression of the collective disappointment


Not giving in to everything being “too much”, letting things arise in the nature of one’s own mind


Liberation work is calling us to do what we thought was impossible


Lama Rod’s practice of “no choice” as a way to not bypass the work or give himself excuses


Chetna’s relation to this with choosing to be in recovery, and having chosen “no choice” when it comes to engaging with certain substances


The necessity of “no choice” despite our human shit, to eliminate complexity and not enabling ourselves to get out of the work


Boundaries as a way to maintain discipline and dedication in the face of difficulty


“No choice” as conducive for empowerment, balance and liberation


On the other side of some rigidity, hard choices is discomfort is space, like a crucible  and the discomfort of alchemy


Seed processes and the struggle of a seed cracking open to sprout, and how it relates to our nature’s propensity to emerge through discomfort


Surrendering to the dark or the unclear, where our awareness isn’t and where there are narratives of danger


Lama Rod’s relationship to the energetic of depression, and the medicine of surrendering to get close to the depression and see what it needed


The darkness is asking to be tended to, and the need to offer care to the things we’re afraid of


Pressing down, avoiding and pressurizing the darkness before it leaves us without choice due it’s need to be released


Depression as a portal to liberation, love and compassion when we sit down and ask what it needs and why it’s here


Tending to the darkness softens our hearts and reduces the isolation


The advanced practice of loving the things we’re most afraid of 


The distinction between love and like; wanting someone to be free and resourced even if I don’t want them to be my friend


If someone, or a collective of people were free and getting what they needed, what harm would that prevent?


Trying to love in this way has to come after we spend time with the rage, fear, grief


The coexistence of loving someone (and understanding that they deserve to be free) and being pissed off at them too 


How this could allow us to take less personally our anger without it overtaking us or making it wrong in us


The Love is what holds the space, the watery Love sets the boundaries for the fire of anger without repressing it or letting it overtake or spread wildly


You can sometimes help someone be free by staying out the way, and whatever we do in Love is helpful


The apocalypse as something that’s been around for centuries, not just our lifetime or our disruption


The apocalypse has been experienced by many different communities across time; this can allow us to zoom out beyond the confines of our lives


This is a time of decolonization, when we are dealing with the wounds of colonialism


Abolition as a way of healing to abolish

In this episode, Feroza and Chetna talk about:


The creative process being a spiritual one, and how honoring that is transcending the inner critic that says “you’re a fraud”


Feroza’s relationship with her creative muse


Creativity rising up in her like water that have to be poured out based on experiencing a lot of emotions


Creativity also rising up in her when her muse comes gently knocking


Developing a relationship with her muse where there is a trust and patience


Honoring her body’s request to make music, even though “no one is asking for it”


Her joining Creative Somatic Alchemy which was a journey back to her creativity and herself after a medical trauma 


The impact of community connection in her creative practice


Negotiating with her muse, speaking to her nicely, and treating her well


Revolving her life around her intuition and honoring that there’s always time to pause


Setting herself up to have no excuse to pause by walking with a notebook and pen to honor the whisperings


The felt sense of music from her muse and music from her mind, based on the sensations in her body and emotions


Creating music that invites people to feel, and recognizing that many people aren’t ready or willing to go there


She asks the question, “what does your soul say?” “what does your heart say”, and focuses on offering her music to folks who are thirsty for this


The important activism in art that invites us to feel and rest, to give water to the fire of the world


Her experience with Mosaiceye community as her fellow witches and unicorns, and what it helped steward in her to create differently than she has before


Being held in graceful accountability made her want to be herself even when she felt sad, how it helped her be honest


The challenge and beauty of sharing music and watching folks listen, receiving affirmation and being together in it


The permission to play and flow with herself and within her collaborations


Grace and grit being invitations she took on and accepted from her learnings


Taking generative space from creative practice, whether it be music, ceramics, relating and conversing; to rest and give space for divine alchemy to have a hand


Bringing open experimental energy to creative practice like Dee Dee from Dexter’s Lab (lol)


The difference between “passion” and doing what she needs to do, because “I am, therefore I create.” 


The deeper we get in touch with our creativity the more likely we’ll be disrupting systems that oppress our creativity, and we need community to do this hard work and play.





From Feroza:


Feroza on Substack for stories and musings behind the songs (ferozacayetano.substack.com)


Feroza’s BandCamp: https://ferozacayetano.bandcamp.com/music


Feroza on IG @feroza.cayetano (instagram.com/feroza.cayetano)


The songs played: “Bring Me Back” and “human, pt. ii”





From Mosaiceye:


The 3-month Creative Somatic Alchemy (mosaiceyeunfolding.com/communityevents/creativealchemy)


The 4-month Conscious Creators program (mosaiceyeunfolding.com/communityevents/consciouscreators)


The River Membership Community - launching with the Summer Solstice! (mosaiceyeunfolding.com/theriver)


Chetna on IG @mosaiceye and the podcast @creationforliberation 


The Chetna Unfolding newsletter on Substack (chetnaunfolding.substack.com)





Other offerings:


Upcoming Events: Welcome Spring 2024: an Intention-Refreshing workshop; Reclaiming Creativity Workshop with Kripalu; Embodying Bhakti: The Yoga of Love - a series for women and non-binary activists (mosaiceyeunfolding.com/communityevents)
Work 1:1 with Chetna for high-achieving changemakers to get out of your heads and into embodied creative alchemy (chetnamehta.co/sessions)

In this episode, Ameera and Noa talk with Chetna about:


What life is like lately for each of them at the time of recording this conversation at the end of February, around 140 days after October 7th


What “peace” means to each of them today, alongside the violence that they’re actively threatened by daily


How Ameera holds the human need to defend and protect against violence while working for peace


Why each of them are committed to the work and mission of Tomorrow’s Women


Ameera’s background in joining the organization for cross-border collaboration when she was a teenager


How their empathetic and connecting conversations give them both resilience and hope in humanity despite the violence


What they each want us as activists outside of Palestine and Israel to be aware of and how to be supportive in this time of crisis


How they keep hope when the war goes on and people lose faith in the future



Find:


Tomorrow’s Women online via their website


Art to benefit the mission of Tomorrow’s Women


Chetna on IG @mosaiceye and the podcast @creationforliberation 


The Chetna Unfolding newsletter on Substack (chetnaunfolding.substack.com)



Other offerings:


Upcoming Events: Welcome Spring 2024: an Intention-Refreshing workshop; Reclaiming Creativity Workshop with Kripalu; Embodying Bhakti: The Yoga of Love - a series for women and non-binary activists
Work 1:1 with Chetna for high-achieving changemakers to get out of your heads and into embodied creative alchemy

In this episode, Chetna shares:


The Chetna Unfolding newsletter where she’s been publishing more recently about longing and depression as portals, second arrow suffering, the addiction to binary thinking, and more


Ahimsa and nonviolence, and the confusing contemplation about what peace means today


The day count and loss of 30,000 Palestinian lives, 1,400 Israeli lives, and uncountable plant and animals lives taken by genocide


An introduction of Hawah Kasat, an award-winning educator, community organizer and yogi among other things


HawaH talking about “negative peace” and “positive peace” 


How the negative/positive peace binary helps her understand to some degree, but also has its limitations


HawaH talking about the nuance of nonviolence


Binary-thinking as a strategy to make quick moves in a panic


The illusionary clarity of binary-thinking that leaves little room for nuance and complexity


How relying on panic to carry us forward f*cks us over even more by fueling even more panic and suffering.


The distracting suffocating binary of enough and not enough in regards to our activism


The present-traumatic stress caused by over-consuming media 


How there is no one-right way and to believe and assert on others that there is one right way to think, to be, to act right now may be a perpetuation of domination and separation


The inquiry: “how can I expect to steward- from my dysregulated nervous system- a New Earth that’s wholly different from the one built by dysregulated nervous systems?” 
The inquiry: “how can I- and we- be influences of change in the world without perpetuating colonial cultures of separation and domination?” 


The inquiry: “how can I expect to disrupt the cycles of trauma and fear when I’m acting from my trauma and fear?”


Her desire to normalize when and what we don’t actually know…and to open to the possibilities of connection and healing in that unknown.



Find:


HawaH’s website: hawah.us


HawaH on IG @hawahkasat


Chetna on IG @mosaiceye and the podcast @creationforliberation 


The Chetna Unfolding newsletter on Substack (chetnaunfolding.substack.com)



Other offerings:


Upcoming Events: Welcome Spring 2024: an Intention-Refreshing workshop. Embodying Bhakti: The Yoga of Love - a series for women and non-binary activists


Work 1:1 with Chetna for self-trust, creative reclamation and divine aligning (chetnamehta.co/sessions)

In this episode, James and Chetna talk about:


Art as alchemy and permission to be bold and expressed


The importance of leaning into creativity during these times of violence, multiple genocides and divisiveness


How art is often born out of suffering, and how James’ creativity is fueled by grappling, pain and what feels hard to make sense of


Turning the pain, the lead, into beauty or gold; releasing or purging sadness through liberating art


Art as a service to ourselves to transmute, and offering a light to others who need it too


How art has been and can be an agent of change, revolution, and liberation


Creativity representing sovereign consciousness and our ability to respond


In times of conflict, different people have different roles, and the role of the artist is to offer better alternatives and plan visions and dreams in the collective consciousness


Owning the art that feels good for each of us, and letting ourselves be in the front row seat to our art and process, is important for the abundance and prosperity of our creativity


Artists are there to remind us that we have sovereignty over our own consciousness, and give permission to listen to the callings within us that might be oppressed in our society and culture


Rising in our leadership and being the leaders we want to see and stop looking for institutional validation, that could mean being of service to the people immediately around us


The Human mind as an amazing tool, but not the only tool; and how we need both the head and heart, facts and feelings


James’ creative process beginning in his emotions and bodies, and his ideas coming downstream from his emotions


The head and the ego being great to edit, craft or finish and launch a project


The Yin and Yang of the creative process, and need to stop repressing the Yin and feminine energy


The need of an awakening of the Goddess within all of us, and return to intuition to guide us


How individual creativity comes from balancing the divine and masculine energies


Creativity as a spiritual practice, and the magic of creating something out of nothing


We’re all baby Gods creating things from imaginations that are portals to other dimensions


Listening to the whispers to birth mystical illuminations in everything that we make


How the Muse is attracted to dedication, devotion and discipline



Find:


James’ website: www.jamesmccrae.com including his new book, The Art of You (jamesmccrae.com/the-art-of-you)


James on IG @wordsarevibrations


Chetna on IG @mosaiceye and the podcast @creationforliberation 


The podcast to watch on youtube



Other offerings:


Upcoming Events: Conscious Creators Launch Program and Alchemizing the Inner Critic Series starting in January (mosaiceyeunfolding.com/communityevents)


Work 1:1 with Chetna for self-trust, creative reclamation and divine aligning (chetnamehta.co/sessions)


Organizational Engagements: to bring purpose, creativity and embodied workshops to your team (mosaiceyeunfolding.com/organizational)