Black Folk Living Off the Land

I really enjoyed having this conversation with the lovely ladies of the Black Bodies Podcast, plus their other guest Ms. Rachel of Hawaii. Check out this episode where we discussed the journey to a sustainable lifestyle, and show them some love on their other episodes as well!

Where is your attention?

Black joy comes not from denial of racial injustice, but from Black sovereignty. Sovereignty = Freedom + Power. After the (understandable) flood of grief and anger, let’s focus our collective energy and attention on building. “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you

Garden Tour 2020

Take a quick walk with us through our garden! This is the best time of year 🙂

What are you doing about screen time?

Do you worry about the influence and impact of media on our kids? Black children take in more TV, music, and online videos than other groups of children and I worry about the impact that this has on their brain development, socialization, and self-image. But I also get tired of constantly arguing with my kids

New Normal

Homeschool Resources BrownMamas.com – Muffy Mendoza is a brilliant sista out of Pittsburgh who offers homeschool strategy, online conferences and a moms’ support group for those in the PA region. KamaliAcademy.com – Samori Camara was a teacher in New Orleans who decided to ditch what he calls the “Public Fool System” in favor of education

Coming home

The other day, I heard a really good podcast interview of Tiffany Dufu, the women’s leadership guru and powerhouse author of “Drop the Ball.” Because Tiffany is, like me, an African American working mom with a Ghanaian husband, I wanted to feel camaraderie. Her message – that modern women should learn to do less and

Are your “distractions” really your guides?

I’ve always been the good student. I went to “gifted and talented” school growing up, was voted “most likely to succeed” in high school, and graduated summa cum laude after four years of university. I had found my “thing” – academics. I loved school so much that I kept going for a long, long (long,

Breaking the Busy-ness Habit

So a few months ago, I did an unbelievable thing. I took my own advice (gasp!) and took a step toward recovery from the most popular drug in America: busy-ness.

My activism: Unapologetic Black JOY

A child of a Black Panther and an escapee of the Jim Crow South, I grew up steeped in Black pride and an understanding that one of my core duties on this Earth (and requirements for survival) was resistance to an interlocking system of oppression that would love to see me and my kinfolk destroyed,

The Creative Quarantine

I used to think that work-family “balance” was a goal to strive for, but now I think that balance is probably the worst thing for my brain. Balance implies that I will spread my energy and attention equally across the various demands on my time, gracefully keeping all the plates spinning in sync (or, at

Love of Self, Love of Community (aka Chicken and Egg)

Terisa Siagatonu, a Bay Area spoken word artist, recently inspired me to reconsider the often-heard and readily accepted idea that “you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else.” 

What the Law of Attraction Really Means (And why it’s not that different from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

Have you heard of the Law of Attraction? Of course you have.

The Simple Life (Isn’t So Simple)

“Living simply makes loving simple.” ~bell hooks Simple living is all about consciously choosing to live with less material possessions, reduced work time, and sometimes even less technology than the average modern American. How one chooses to design their simple life may look differently for each individual, but the underlying premise is to develop a

Fight, Flight, Freeze, or…Feel

Your boss walks in to your performance evaluation with a frown. A waitress gives a snarky response to your question. As you exit a store, a security officer chases after you. What is your response to each of these situations? To varying degrees, each represents a potential threat or danger to your well-being. Perhaps you’ll

The 10 Cures for Burnout

We all know that feeling of being done. How many times have you said “I just can’t” in the past week? Might be a sign that you are burning out, and this doesn’t just affect your performance at the j-o-b.