Season 2, Episode 4: Emergent Strategy Podcast “What the Whales Tell Us with Michaela Harrison”
*Please note: these transcripts are intended to increase the accessibility of the podcast; there should be no reprinting or distribution without permission.
Michaela: (00:00:00) Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I feel uplifted. I feel elevated. I feel expanded. I feel healed. I feel odd being every time I'm in their presence.
(00:00:10) Theme Music (“Wolves” Instrumental - Hurray for the Riff Raff)
adrienne: (00:00:28) Hello and welcome to the Emergent Strategy podcast, hosted by the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute. We are a collective of facilitators, mediators, trainers, and curious humans interested in how we get in right relationship with change. Today I will be guiding our interview. I am adrienne maree brown, ESII's writer in residence. As a gentle reminder, emergent strategy is the way we generate and reshape complex systems and patterns with relatively simple interactions. And the book Emergent Strategy came out five years ago, and we are in a period of real reflection of where it's gone and what we've learned. And today our guest is one of my very, very, very favorite people. Is one of the people that I think the highest of in the world. I think has deep integrity and is doing such beautiful and important work for the species. So our guest is Michaela Harrison, an incredible singer, cultural worker, and whale whisperer. And Michaela, I'm trying to remember the first time I really came across your path. I feel like from the moment I met you, I was like, that is someone to be reckoned with. That's someone to take seriously. And as I learned that you were doing this whale project, I was like, oh, an emergent strategist. Like this is someone who's really trying to figure out how we get in right relationship with the world around us. So the first thing I wanna ask you is just how are you doing right now today?
Michaela: (00:02:11)Thank you, adrienne. It's so good to be here with you. It's so good to see your face. Right now, I am, I'm boyed up. I'm joyful because I'm here in this space with you and I'm excited for our conversation. I had a little, I'm a little blip in my peace vibe this morning. A family member tried to offer a few little jabs at my bubble, you know, so I'm, I'm inside of the observation of that and how I responded to it. And –
adrienne: (00:02:43) How did you respond to it?
Michaela: (00:02:45) I wished her peace and I prayed.
adrienne: Ah-huh
Michaela: And then I took a shower, got in the water and, you know, washed it off. So I'm good.
adrienne: Ah.
Michaela: I'm good. It feels significant that it happened before we came through this conversation though. So I'm, I'm bringing it. I'm, it's present with me as we –
adrienne: (00:03:10) Uh, is present and, Hmm. I'm always glad to be here with you. I feel like the whales know some of the things that I need to know and you're in the translation business. <laughs> So first, do you feel like an emergent strategist? Like, would you claim that, do you align with that? Do you feel adjacent to that?
Michaela: (00:03:30) Oh, I definitely do feel aligned with it. Yeah. I don't necessarily consciously think of myself that way. If I were to describe what I'm doing, that wouldn't necessarily be the first framework that would come to mind, but I definitely feel aligned with it. I mean, as I said, when we were in the barn at Durham in Durham, what I, when I read the book, I was like, ‘oh yeah, this is totally, this is totally what I'm doing and have been doing’. You know, I just didn't have that language for it. So definitely.
adrienne: (00:04:10) I just heard a Rumi quote via Brené Brown. That was “the heart is the sea and language is the shore”.
Michaela: Umm.
adrienne: And it really moved me in terms of, you know, applying that to emergent strategy because I feel like emergent strategy is a technology of the heart, you know, the heart, trying to understand the world and navigate that, the constant changes of the world and the interconnections. And then –
Michaela: Yes.
adrienne: – I feel like the book was a language, a sure point, you know, it's just sort of like, we are all touching this water, you know <laughs> like, like some of us –
Michaela: Yes.
adrienne: – are swimming in the water. Some of us are watching the water trying to observe it, but, but there's something that we're all attending to and you know, that, that idea of language then, you know, I'm like, what language can we offer to it? And then where does language fall away? So before we get into the outstandingly cool things you're doing right now, I'd like to back it up, you know, kind of where Michaela Harrison comes from. Uh, I'd love to know maybe what feels like the most important parts of your political lineage. Like what shaped your, your caring for the world and wanting to shape it, wanting to be involved?
Michaela: (00:05:34) Well, I'm a DC native and that's very significant in terms of any conversation about politics because –
adrienne: Yup.
Michaela: – you know, I grew up in black DC when it was chocolate city, you know, and I grew up with parents who were present for the riots that came and the wake of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination. I grew up with, um, grandparents who went to the March on Washington and always talked about that engagement.
adrienne: (00:06:14) Wow.
Michaela: I was mentored by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagan and nurtured by Sweet Honey in the Rock and held by that family that I came into in my early twenties and that –
adrienne: Oh.
Michaela: – definitely, significantly shaped my perspective on social and political engagement and how I personally wanted to position myself as an artivist in supportive, progressive social change. So I also, I have a background, that a lot of people don't know, but I studied international affairs.
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: And –
adrienne: Wow. <laughs>
Michaela: – worked in < Michaela & adrienne laughs> Yeah. I worked in, I worked in international human rights for a while. I did a stint as what I call a like on reconnaissance at the IMF and the world bank, like –
adrienne: Wow.
Michaela: – kinda like as a spy. <laughs>
adrienne: Yeah. You were like – <laughs>
Michaela: My personal reconnaissance –
adrienne: (00:07:15) – see what I can see and get out of here <laughs>
Michaela: (00:07:16) – inside of those institutions. Yeah. So all of that, I bring to what today is basically my position as a healer and –
adrienne: Um-hmm.
Michaela: – and that context applies to all realities, political and otherwise. That's how I see myself and find myself.
adrienne: (00:07:38) Mm. I love that. And that emanates from you, you know, I feel like when people meet you or hear you, that ground is there, that ground is in there in you, and then something called you to the whales. And, you know, we were talking about, we generate the questions together as a team. And one of the questions that came from the whole team was what brought your attention? What moved your attention to the whales and to their songs? Yeah. Let's start there. We have a few questions, <laughs> but like, yeah.
Michaela: (00:08:11) Okay. <laughs> Well, I, and I told this story before I was maybe 15 or so the first time I heard a recording of whale songs. I have no idea how it got to be so, but one of the very first CDs I owned was songs of the humpback whale, which is the first publicly released recording of whale songs.
adrienne: Wow.
Michaela: It was released in 1970 and I had it on CD. Like shortly after I got a CD player. I don't know how or why. I don't remember.
adrienne: (00:08:48) Wow. I love it. I was like, I was listening to the Jets. You were listening to the humpback whale. Hi-jinx ensued. <adrienne & Michaela laughs> Yeah. Yeah.
Michaela: (00:09:00)I was listening to a lot of other things too, but songs of the humpback whale was in there. And I remember hearing it and being like –
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: – this is, this is for me. Like, I don't know exactly what is going on, but something inside of this sound is for me, you know. And after listening to it for a while, I kind of tucked it away. And it was like, I knew it was for another time. And then in my twenties, I read a book called Dolphin Dreamtime by an author. I can't remember if it's Jim, I think it's Jim Nollman. The last name is Nollman, N O L L M A N. And it was about his interactions with cetaceans around music. And he'd done all these experiments and had all these exchanges with cetaceans involving music, but it was instrumental music.
adrienne: (00:09:54) And cetaceans are dolphin, whales?
Michaela: Yes.
adrienne: And is there anyone else in that?
Michaela: (00:09:59) Basically dolphins and whales. Yeah. And that really, I was like, oh, this is, this is what I'm supposed to do. You know, when I read that, I just, I felt that it hit home for me.
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: And there was nothing about singing, you know, it was all instrumental music that he was working with and in his exchanges with them. And so again, I understood that it wasn't for that moment and I kind of tucked it away. And fast forward to 2016 or 17, I was in Bahia where I spent a lot of time. I've been spending and for almost 30 years in Bahia going regularly, and I was performing at, um, a sea turtle reserve called Projeto Tamar which is in a place called Praia do Forte, Bahia. And, uh, they have like a musical component, a performance aspect, uh. So I was sort of in residence there as a performer and spoke briefly to the director of the project about my desire to see the whales and connect with the whales because they have whale watching tours from there.
Michaela: (00:11:10) So he arranged for it. And when I went out on the boat, I, when the whales appeared, I just started singing to them. It wasn't, again, like this idea was somewhere in my consciousness, but not really at the forefront of it. It was just the emotion of encountering the whales for the first time physically, you know, IRL, that just moved me–
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: – so profoundly and, and the magic of their presence, I just started to sing. And when I sang, they came over to the boat and began to interact. You know, they danced, they did synchronized swimming, you know, and went under and around the boat. And it was just holy. It was holy, you know, and everyone on the boat felt it and –
adrienne: Wow.
Michaela: – was so moved. And in that moment, I knew that it was time for this work. And I still didn't know exactly what it was. (00:12:18) But the next time I performed at Projeto Tamar, when I came off stage, I was met by the person who ended up who it turns out was the Director of the Humpback Whale Institute, which is right down the street from the sea turtle reserve. And the communications director, there is the brother of the, of Projeto Tamar, so he came up to me and was like, ‘I heard that you wanna sing with the whales. And we are here fully signed up, you know, to join you in this work and supported in whatever way we can’. And so then I found out they had all these archives, like years worth of archives of whale songs that they had been recording since they've been in the region, I mean, decades worth of whale songs. And so I began to listen to the archives or the whales in the area and in listening the vision for what would become whale whispering, started to evolve. And then I went home and then about six months later, I went back in 2018 to begin the project.
(00:13:27) Break - Recording of Whale song with Michaela
adrienne: (00:13:43)Oh my God, there's so much about it that just feels like destiny.
Michaela: Yeah.
adrienne: You know, like it's like the fact that you were able to touch into something that was going to be an important part of your journey and be like, okay, it's not time yet. Like the maturity of that, you know, uh, feels like it's imbued with destiny and I'm, I'm moved by that. And what has this practice of whale whispering taught you about listening in general and particularly listening across species or kinship of networks?
Michaela: (00:14:17)What, one of the many, many things that it's taught me about listening is that there's always more to hear. And so whatever you may think you heard or understood the first or the second or the third or the seventh or the 18th time around, there's always more that you can gain from listening again and more deeply, you know, like it's never finished. And particularly across species, you know, there's, there's infinite layers of possible meaning, understanding, communication and creativity that are being expressed all the time around us and tuning into that, tapping into it, listening to it, seek some type of connection to it, understanding from it. It rearranges the mind, you know, it opens channels and it fires off synapses that are not used in, I would say most human communication or spoken communication between so-called humans. And it's something that I've been doing my whole life. I grew up an only child. And I spent a lot of time in nature alone. And nature has always been my refuge and my company. So I had friends, you know, as a child who were trees, who [WORD/PHRASE UNCLEAR] pet squirrel, <laughs> you know. And so it's something that I've always –
adrienne: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Michaela: – been doing. <Michaela & adrienne laughs> (00:16:02) Yeah. So this, shifting it to the whales in particular has been, I, I mean next level sounds so ridiculous and cliche to say, but you know, obviously going into the ocean and the sounds, the way sound is relayed underwater has literally changed my life and the way I relate to the world and moved through world, and it's been profoundly healing and it's required me to rearrange my understanding of myself, you know, and I, you know, I'm a quintuple Pisces, so – <Michaela & adrienne laughs>
adrienne: (00:16:48) Yes, you're like, I was literally born for this. Like, this is what I was made and structured and constructed to do. <Michaela laughs> That’s right. Wow!
Michaela: But I understand myself so much more as an aquatic being, you know, through this work that like, it's all water, we're all water. We're all moving through water all the time. And –
adrienne: That's right.
Michaela: – this, this listening and this communicating, this exchanging has allowed me to expand into that understanding of myself as an aquatic being, and, and enrich it in, in ways that I had no idea what happen at the beginning of this.
adrienne: (00:17:30)Hmm. Hmm. I love that. I have so many questions. One of them is just in a couple of words. Who were you before and who are you now, when you say that has changed you?
Michaela: (00:17:46) Before I was someone who identified with being a mermaid and now I am embodied as a mermaid.
adrienne: (00:18:00) So it's the idea, the idea of something external versus the living experience of it. So whales, you know, we are in this moment with the planet where everything is in flux, everything is changing and humans have had such a negative impact on the planet. And particularly in the environment of the whales as we've had a negative environment to impact on our own world. You know. I really struggle with the idea that we think ourselves a superior species on this planet. And yet so much of our function is to destroy the only place that we can live. You know, I'm just like, I don't think there's any superiority in that world view. So I think the whales have something to teach us. And I'd love to hear if could share what you think they are offering us around adaptation around surviving in ever changing environments.
Michaela: (00:19:00) Yes. I've, I've used that word superior just for lack of a better word. I'm searching for one in regards to the whales, because in my encounters with them, my understanding of them is that they are superior to us, you know.
adrienne: Yes.
Michaela: And I'm, I mean, just on every like intelligence, grace, compassion, generosity, just my experience with them consistently has been of being in the presence of superior beings. And I feel, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I feel uplifted. I feel elevated. I feel expanded. I feel healed. I feel odd being every time I'm in their presence. I mean just listening to them, but also physically being in their presence. It's something transformative and elevating. So I feel that, I know that they are offering us access to a way of being on this planet that is more generous. That is more fluid. (00:20:14) That is more melodious. That is embracing of the understanding that there is enough –
adrienne: Um-hmm.
Michaela: – for all of us. You know, I think part of what happens a lot in the conversation about climate change and healing the environment is that there's a mentality of scarcity. And I hear and get so much from the whales that there is no scarcity. There really is –
adrienne: Yes.
Michaela: – plenty for all. It's the way we approach it and the way we interact from it and the way we take, you know, um, and offer or don't offer –
adrienne: That's right.
Michaela: – in return. And so from them, I hear a message first and foremost of union, you know.
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: And it's union that is beyond the idea of interconnectedness. It's really this, this relaying of the fact that there is only one being, there's only one being, and you, you know, so many have said this, but, but my exchanges with them have like dropped me so much deeper into the reality of it.
Michaela: (00:21:38) That there's only one being. That there are infinite expressions of that being and we each represent an expression of that being.
adrienne: Um-hmm.
Michaela: But there's no separation between us. And so when we're talking about the environment, when we're talking about the climate and what we have rot on it, we're talking about self destruction and I feel it's so important to talk about self destruction because, you know, we do it personally on an individual level –
adrienne: Um-hmm.
Michaela: – you know, in various ways. And if we're not, if we're having a conversation about what's happening with the environment, and we're not simultaneously having a conversation about what's happening in our own bodies and the ways that this society has supported us in actively self destruction on it, self-destructing on an individual level. It, the work is not holistic, you know, and that, for me, this journey personally has been so much about like that bridge. How am I, how am I treating my environment? How am I dealing with my ecosystem? And from there looking at the rest of the world, you know, and the whales have just in such a loving, compassionate embrace, been supporting me in seeing as a beautiful world that deserves to be lovingly cared for.
adrienne: (00:23:22) I love that. You know, I think, um, I've been really in a deep reflection around this piece that both, that we are all one. And what does that mean? What does it mean to be all one with people in denial of that? And what does it mean to be all one with people self-sabotaging, you know, what does it mean then to be a body that is facing violation on a planet that is facing violation? You know, like how do we feel our way through that? And I think that's part of what has been moving emotionally for me has been like, oh, this is a period where we have to grieve what, what has been done. You know, we have to, grieving is the consequence, you know, grieving is the practice that is in alignment with the consequence of, of decisions made. Um, and in my own practice, I find that grieving is allowing room for me to be like, I care about this body, this life, this time, this planet. And I, I care less about those who don't care about it. <laughs> You know, like I'm just like, I really wanna be in relationship with those who also care about it and just focused on what that care looks like. And, and it feels like practice. And what you're doing feels like a practice. This going, the singing, the bringing it home and, and sharing. Um, and I know it's not the only practice, you know, I know that you have lineages of practice that you're in. I'd love to hear whatever you wanna share about what you're practicing these days, both influenced by the whales and you know, lessons from other teachers or practices that emerged from your own intuition.
Michaela: (00:25:13) I am practicing meditation. That's been with me most of my life and varying degrees of consist consistency. But at this point it's definitely a core practice for me. And one of the things that sustains me through the madness, you know, I'm practicing water work in a much more specific way than I had been before evolving this relationship with the whale, cuz that's definitely been one of their messages to ally myself with water and a message to relay to people, to human peoples, get allied with water. And so practicing singing to water, practicing anointing myself with water, practicing water gazing, and doing healing work with water, which I've always done. But now that's, it's more, more engaged than it used to be. Um, in terms of my work –
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: – around laying on of hands and making spiritual baths, I am practicing free diving –
adrienne: Oh.
Michaela: – and going deeper. And you know, it's been a very organic journey with that in terms of like, I haven't studied it, I'm just allowing my body. And this is part of the water relationship, you know, development, but just allowing my body to listen, to and learn from the water in terms of how to go deeper and surrender in the ocean to find how to work my organism in that environment. And that has, you know, informed my life walking around on solid ground in so many ways.
(00:27:24) Break - Whale Song recording
adrienne: (00:27:50) I tell people the story that, you know, you and I sat in a song circle at Sage Crump's house and you sang that song, “True Love”, um, which stuck with me, you know, which is also a water song. “Step into the wide river of true love”. Um, and, and wash yourself inside that river, you know? Um, and I recorded that and played it, you know, every day for months. I just played it and listened to it and surrendered to it. And then we were in the song circle again at Sage Crump's house. And my now beloved, that was our first date, basically our first moment together, you know, she showed up and was like, ‘I'm in love with you. I wanna spend time with you’. I was like, ‘No, but you can come to this song circle’. <laughs> And we sat there singing. And I was like, oh, I think this might be the river of true love. And, uh, you know, I think songs are so important. Songs like that are so important. The songs you create. I wonder if you could share just a bit about how you write songs, because you're not, I might be making an assumption here, but I feel like you're not driven by the release of music and sales of music and you know, the music industry in any way, but it feels like you're full of song and you're finding a way to be in integrity with all the song that's in you. So yeah. Anything you wanna share about the writing process and, and what are the conditions that allow you, or, or invite you to share your music? You know, what is it for you, this singing?
Michaela: (00:29:33) Well, thank you. Thank you for that. And it's so, just fills me up to know, you know, that, that song in particular and songs that I create in general have blessed you and –
adrienne: Hmm.
Michaela: – I think I catch songs, you know. <adrienne laughs> Sometimes I sort of sit down with the intention of creating a song about something specific, like something moves me in a certain way and I'm like, oh, that's a song and I'll sit down. And really, it's mostly about listening, back to listening. You know, I feel like I'm listening to my higher self, my OD, I'm listening to nature. I'm listening to the universe to understand what wants to be brought through me in this specific form. But a lot of times it's something that just comes like, and often it's just one line or it's a strain of a melody that I'll get in a moment and I'll be like, okay, that's a song. And I'll like, repeat it until I know it. And then come back to it whenever it feels like more of it wants to come through and I'm working on speaking of practice, I'm working on having a more consistent practice with space and time for, you know, creating.
adrienne: (00:31:00) Yeah.
Michaela: But up until now, it's largely, it just been on inspiration. And when it comes, you know, when it's flowing, I mean, I, I grew up singing in gospel choir, you know, in church. And so my understanding of the purpose of music is that it exists to allow us to feel the presence of the divine. And so that's what the music that I create is from, and that's what it's for. It's very circular. You know, when the music comes to me, it's because I'm feeling that presence, you know, and when I'm expressing it, when I'm sharing it, it's to circulate that presence, that vibration, that energy and, and give others access to it through what's moving through me.
adrienne: (00:31:56) It feels like you, like medicine comes to you in the form of song, you know. That, um, medicine that then like, oh, other people can use this medicine, slip it into the mix, but I'm really grateful to hear that description. You know, I feel like that's how my songwriting practice works too. It's just like, I'm like, here's the song, you know, if you can grab it, go ahead and grab it. <laughs> And if not, you know, trusting that, that song exists. There's something in me that's always like, well, even if I don't like hear it perfectly or record it or catch it, the song exists, you know, the song exists it's –
Michaela: Yes.
adrienne: – in the ether, it's in the universe and someone will hear that song. Um –
Michaela: Yes.
adrienne: – and, but I'm so grateful when it's me, when I'm like, I hear this song <laughs> you know, I can't believe I hear this song.
Michaela: Yes, yes.
adrienne: Yeah. It's such a blessing. And it does feel like a lot of times I feel like a song allows emotion to move through like a song as ceremony. Um, so I'm curious for you, um, what is emerging for you? Like, you know, what is emerging from the work you've been doing that feels like the next step there, and is there something emerging that's like, you know, I can, I'm starting to see a new horizon or there's something beyond this that I'm moving towards, you know?
Michaela: (00:33:24) Yes. Um, well that ties back in with you –
adrienne: Yay. <laughs>
Michaela: – and, and our connection as you really were so pivotal in expanding my understanding of what this whale whispering work is when you invited me to do a workshop at the emergent strategy immersion that happened in New Orleans a few years ago. And I hadn't, I hadn't thought about sharing it in that way. You know, I was thinking, okay, this is, I'm co-creating songs with the whales about water and our relationship to water and the environment and tapping into the songs and the medicine of the Middle Passage that the whales hold and that memory. And I was thinking about creating something to be recorded and shared and filmed and shared. But I wasn't thinking about this work as work to be shared in community gathering spaces, as technology. And you helped me see it as that. And so more recently that's been a lot more –
adrienne: (00:34:42) Oh, wait, before you say more recently, I wanna paint the picture for people of what happened because it was so outstanding. It's one of my favorite experiences I've ever had in my life. Um, Michaela came, we got a pool. So we had been gathering, uh, I think this, we had been gathering for three days and we had moved a ton of grief, a ton of anger. We had done like emergent rituals, uh, around how black women get treated in movement and treated in society. And a lot of, a lot had moved. And then we all come to this pool and your invitation was that we could be in the pool or out of the pool, you know, totally up to us. You, I believe, tossed coins into the pool.
Michaela: (00:35:32) Yeah. Pennies.
adrienne: (00:35:33) Pennies into the pool. And then you played the whale songs and invited us to sing with you with the whales and a song emerged as we, and we were, I was in the water, you know, I was like, I'm in my full mermaid joy place.
Michaela: Yes.
adrienne: In the water singing, floating. And then we all had the opportunity to dive down and grab a penny. That we are all one feeling and emerged so fast for me. We are one in the water and we're in one vibration and we're in one emotional landscape, which is allowing a lot to move. Like one person went into a massive grief release. Someone else was like giggling and pleasured, you know, like, and you could hear, it was just like, oh, there's room for all of us, because we're all one. So we're in, you know, this one organism. Anyway, I just wanted to share what it felt like, you know, because it was like, oh, the whale, you know, I felt like, oh, this is what the whales be like <laughs> you know. Yeah.
Michaela: (00:36:40) Yes, yes. And that's, I mean like that, from that I understood like, oh, it's not just about a recording. It's about like, sharing this in, in gathered spaces for people to experience it collectively how, how unifying and how healing and how permissive, you know, this vibration is. And so like, whatever I was doing before in terms of, you know, my singing work, performance work, et cetera. This like bringing the whale songs into the mix has just like exploded my understanding of what's possible, you know, because I've seen it time and time again, when, I mean, there's, and I don't pretend to know the fullness of what it is, but there's something that they're doing that is so miraculously healing and restorative. And, and I just, I feel very, very honored to be in this relationship with them to be a part of bringing, circulating their songs more above the surface.
Michaela: (00:38:10) And so in terms of how my vision has expanded moving forward, I've always had this vision of a healing space. I mean, all my spaces are healing spaces, but I have a specific vision of, you know, having land near the water in Bahia that's a dedicated space for healing and cleansing and retreat. And now I know that integral to that is bringing people out to the whales. Like I really, in addition to doing this community gathering work to share this, I, it feels so important to like physically support people in having this direct experience of being in the presence of the whales and going underwater to, to experience the sound healing of these songs, you know, that I'm creating with the whales and the whale songs together. And then also collectively singing on the water, you know, with the whale present, like all of that is now part of the vision for what, you know, whale whispering is moving forward. Yeah. And I, I, I'm constantly thinking about ways to make it. So you were talking about like, I'm not focused on, you know, getting my music out into the world in a certain way. That's not what motivates me. And that's true. And I'm, I'm at a place now where I have a tendency, I have had a habit of holding and that all relates to the womb work that this project also is a part of and getting at the roots of ancestral and personal sexual trauma and how, you know, my wound has become a sight of holding and, you know, freeing myself from that and, um, this legacy of, of womb sickness and fibroids. And so I know that I need to release and I need to share that, you know, part of my assignment is to share what I create. And so I am thinking about, and focusing on recording and how I share the things that, that the songs and what I create with the world in ways that feel like they're in integrity, because I want everyone to be able to access this healing, whether they can, you know, get on a plane and come to a tropical place and get into the water or not.
(00:41:01) Break (instrumental: outdoor/nature sounds/bells)
adrienne: (00:41:15) I mean, you know what, Michaela, as we're talking, it really makes me think. I'm like, maybe, maybe it's part of the emergent strategy series. Like maybe it's an audio book –
Michaela: (00:41:27) I love that idea.
adrienne: – project, you know, like something where there's the whale songs and there's you teaching or sharing. You know, I'm, I just am like, I love this idea of, I keep thinking of this, what are the forms? You know, what are the forms that allow people to hear? And I feel like, you know, making the album is one thing, but there's something about you as the teacher. Um, you know, it's, it's the releasing of the music and also the releasing of your teacher self, the releasing of your teacher body that is really exciting to be a witness to. So what feels like the most resonant question for you right now? Like what is the question that keeps coming back to you maybe that's guiding your work or, or, you know, waking you up in the morning, like, oh, what about this?
Michaela: (00:42:23) I think right now, for me, it's finding, connecting to, remaining connected to a core place, a centered, some sense of equilibrium in this living with awareness of, and connection to this oneness and knowing myself to be a part of and existing inside of this source. While simultaneously being engaged with and in, in progressive movement to, to heal my physical self, my personal self, black women and prismatic folk in particular and the world.
adrienne: (00:43:19) Say more about that prismatic folk.
Michaela: (00:43:21) Oh, uh <laughs> yeah. I don't, I identify with the idea of queer, but the word itself really gets on my nerves, cuz it's just not a word that's ever [CROSSTALK] been in my vocabulary.
adrienne: Um-hmm.
Michaela: It feels real, real white to me. So at some point when queer started to be, you know, circulated –
adrienne: all the rage <laughs>
Michaela: – more, I was like, I'm not gonna use that word. And then I just sat and I was like, what's a word that feels like, it means this for me, but is not that. And so prismatic is what I came up with because it represents the spectrum of –
adrienne: I love it.
Michaela: – expression and you know, it's the rainbow and it just has room for all the different shades and all the different. Yeah.
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: So that's my –
adrienne: (00:44:11) All the different ways. I love that. You better give us new language.
Michaela: (00:44:17) Yeah, so that seeking that –
adrienne: I love all that.
Michaela: (00:44:19) – balance is –
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: – my focus right now, because there are moments when I feel like, you know, in my Piscean way, like way out in the stars and like, oh, just, you know, I'm just <laughs>
adrienne: (00:44:33) Yes, I'm out here. <adrienne & Michaela laughs> So great.
Michaela: (00:44:41) In the love and in the stardust and twinkling –
adrienne: Yup.
Michaela: – right along with them, you know.
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: And I am embodied on this earth as you know, a prismatic black woman.
adrienne: Yes.
Michaela: With these health challenges –
adrienne: Yes.
Michaela: – and looking at all these health challenges in my family and in my community. Looking at all this, you know, brutality and harm and wanting to contribute this opportunity that I have to be embodied in this way –
adrienne: Yeah.
Michaela: – for, for healing and for, for solution and for progress.
Outro: (00:45:24) This podcast is produced by Natalie Peart. Music for the Emergent Strategy podcast is provided by Hurray for the Riff Raff and their album Life on Earth. To support the ongoing work of the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, please make a donation at alliedmedia.org/esii.
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