387 Spirituality and Politics “Knowing Oneself”

This week on Spirituality and Politics with Marielena Ferrer, we are inspired by the Know Thyself Podcast and dive into what it means to know oneself. We converse about who are we, what enlightenment is in various traditions, how the Tarot provides that path in the Western tradition, our different levels of consciousness, judgement, shakti accumulation and bits and bobs more. We may need to carry some of it over to our next show if you want to join in. Email!

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

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386 Robyn Moreno “Get Rooted” and Poet Gold “Be the Poem”

Robyn Moreno is an award-winning author, speaker, Curanderimso practitioner, meditation teacher. and host of the popular podcast: Get Rooted with Robyn Moreno. She has appeared on The Today Show, Wendy Williams, Extra, and CBS Mornings and has presented at the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW Interactive, and the Omega Institute, among others. A native Texan and certified yoga teacher and life coach, Robyn lives with her family in the Hudson Valley of NY.

Robyn’s work is rooted in her journey of overcoming burnout and rediscovering herself through the ancient healing practices of Curanderismo, a tradition passed down from her Mexican grandmother. Her powerful story and actionable wisdom are captured in her award-winning book, Get Rooted.

Today on the show Robyn shares some of her story of how she got to the point of burnout and what her healing journey has looked like. Similar to her book, our conversation weaves through her story and practical wisdom that she’s uncovered as a part of her journey, from the aha moment reading Woman Who Glows in the Dark to overcoming the uncomfortable stillness she’d avoided for decades. Robyn is honest, passionate, and generous with her knowledge.

She’s leading a retreat the weekend of August 22 – August 24, 2025 at the beautiful Omega Institute  guided by those teachings – Get Rooted: Mexica (Aztec) Practices to Find Peace, Purpose & Joy in Uncertain Times. This retreat is a calling to root back into nature, our ancestry, and the truth of who we really are before the world told us who we should be. Additional support is offered by three wonderful guest teachers Asha Frost, Daniela Miranda, and Sarah Anne Wilkinson who will offer their own ancestral wisdom.​

In the second hour of the show, Poet Gold returns to talk about her newly published book, Be The Poem, Living Beyond Our Fear, book signing and performance  this Friday, August 8th at CCE. A rare talent who grabs you by the heart and says “Recognize” – Poet, author, performer, songwriter, community “Artivist,” voice over artist, speaker and emcee, Bettina “Poet Gold” Wilkerson is pushing the boundaries of poetry and the spoken word. Living with a chronic illness since childhood, Poet Gold, or as she is affectionately known as, “Gold”, brings a soul-searching insight about the human existence, love, dreams, challenges, and triumph.

“Poet Gold is an inspiration, a beacon and a voice we need right now to bring
healing and to bring hope. Through poetry, prose and song, she feeds us, giving
us manna and well earned instructions on survival and how to live life fully,
courageously and with joy.”
—Pamela Sneed, Author of Funeral Diva, City Lights 2020

Here’s the Lion’s Gate Portal astrology and Full Moon report as I mentioned.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

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385 The Feminine Frequency “Intuition”

Today on The Feminine Frequency, Jennifer Mulak and I talk about Intuition. But first! We revisit the use of the word “feminine” and why we’re working with it, despite feedback that it can feel prickly (my words).

So what is intuition? Where does it come from? Why is it undervalued? How do you recognize it? How has it come up in our own lives? How do you cultivate it? Just some of the topics we consider and share on today’s show.

Here’s the book, Everyday Intuition Jennifer recommended on intuition.

And a Happy Birthday to our Leo Friends! Come celebrate with Sarah Carlson this Saturday at the Unicorn in Kingston… Solarize Dance Party.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

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384 Merritt Minnemeyer “Creativity, Faith and Rebuilding After Loss”

Today on the show… Merritt Minnemeyer is on a mission to eradicate executive mediocrity in entertainment, innovation, and the arts.

As the Founder of Master of One Coaching, LLC she employs 25 years of leadership experience, her background in performance and production, and her entrepreneurial DNA in guiding visionaries to exceed expectations, including their own.

She is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) by the International Coaching Federation, a “recovering” actor, an international speaker, and a passionate catalyst of the conscious business movement. She holds a BFA in Acting from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, a Masters of Professional Studies, and several specialized coaching certifications.

Having rebuilt her life after being widowed at 35 with 3 young, “neuro-spicy” kids, Merritt believes that conscious, creative leaders are the #1 key to a thriving future, and that anything is possible when inspired people channel their power for good with excellence, integrity, and artistry.

She lives with her darling husband of 10 years, Tom, their now nearly grown kids, and their menagerie of furbabies in the Hudson Valley, NY.

Merritt shares about her early interest in theater, how that evolved and eventually soured a bit to encourage her to broaden her horizons. After marriage and many physically and emotionally difficult years trying to conceive, the stars aligned for her and her then husband Peter to adopt their first child. A move and 2 foster children later, Peter is diagnosed with cancer and passes before the twins are legally adopted. Merritt miraculously survives a year where she loses her father, husband and grandfather, and is left to navigate the challenges of her grown family. With time and the support of many, she is on the other side thriving and engaged in purposeful work supporting executives and their organizations she feels passionate about. Our conversation is full of inspiration, honesty and hope. You can learn more about Merritt’s work via her website and take her creative leadership style quiz here.

Happy New Moon this Thursday!

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

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383 Spirituality and Politics “Living Together and Making Art in the County Jail”

It’s Theresa and Marielena talking the art of living together on Spirituality and Politics. First up, a share about a special local happening. On Sunday, July 21, Hey Neighbor Food Club is hosting their first event at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston (4–6pm). It’s a preorder-and-pickup food event featuring handmade dishes — tamales, pupusas, empanadas — prepared by a small group of incredible local chefs, most of whom are female immigrants launching their very first food businesses.

The chefs are part of the Briico Food Academy, which helps new entrepreneurs build sustainable income, community connections, and confidence through food, without needing outside capital or formal business experience. Each meal tells a story of migration, tradition, and resilience, and proceeds go directly to the chefs.

Marielena shares her experience teaching art to women incarcerated at the Ulster County Jail and the many interactions that taught her about them and their lives including surprising insights through the vision boards the women created, their creative writing exercises, and how they collaborated with one another. Through that experience she shares her thoughts about how living together in an incarcerated setting can teach us about the art of living together in a broader community. The womens’ art “Voices Unbound” is currently exhibited at Unison in New Paltz now through August 31st.

This weekend is Upstate Art Weekend. Lots is happening, including some amazing events at Unison.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

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382 Singha Hon “Visual Storyteller and Community Caretaker”

Singha Hon is a visual artist, illustrator, designer, and educator from New York City.

Her work is inspired by nature, dreams, community, and mythology, and the many threads that weave us all together. As a teaching artist, she has taught on subjects ranging from drawing, portraiture, sculpture, printmaking, cyanotyping to an intergenerational cohort of students.

She has worked as a teaching artist with The W.O.W. Project through their storefront residency and through the Creatives Rebuild New York program. She is currently a Public Artist in Residence through the PAIR program with DCLA in NYC.

Her murals and installations exist across New York, including in downtown Manhattan and in Kingston, NY.

Today Singha talks about her early relationship with art and how she eventually finds a way to align her passion for storytelling through art with her values in a way that supports her continued creation. She talks about what inspires her work, nature, mythology and dreams and how these relate to both her personal life and her work. Singha shares the mythology that inspired her Lunar Calendar, “Door Gods, Our Community Protectors,” “Black Bear // Dreams of the Mountains,” and “Welcoming Dreams, A Return.” She speaks passionately about the need to expand the narrative that’s available to the collective, including a return to earlier narratives and those to be imagined as a way towards a brighter future. We also meander into shared thoughts on how it can be hard to say “No” unless we’re held within a giving culture.

Here’s your Full Moon Astrology !

I also mention the Hey Neighbor Food Project which is having it’s first pick up on July 21st with a pre-order date of July 16th.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

http://iwantwhatshehas.org/podcast

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381 Kingston Spotlights with Kristin Kessler

On this last day of Pride Month and leading up to the 4th of July, I can’t help but think of all the ways our freedom is impacted on a regular basis, from how and who we choose to love and marry, how we raise our children, our body autonomy, how we care for our health and make decisions about our body and how to care for it, our ability to be free from the religious views of others, and our freedom to move freely in the world. I share some thoughts and welcome yours in return!

Then I am joined by Kristin Kessler, a project manager in the Department of Health and Wellness for the City of Kingston where she manages New York State grant-funded Creating Healthy School and Communities program (CHSC). CHSC works towards making Kingston a healthier place to live for everyone by supporting policy, system, and environmental changes that increase equitable access to nutritious foods and opportunities for physical activity in our schools and communities. Additionally, she supports Live Well Kingston, in particular the Heal Well and Eat Well focus groups.

As a registered dietitian nutritionist for over a decade, she has worked in a variety of roles from teaching family nutrition workshops to nutrition communications for food brands to advocating for equitable nutritious food access at a large food bank. After exploring the field of dietetics, she ultimately found her greatest passion was in exploring how to make food and healthcare systems more accessible and affordable for everyone. She strongly believes that equitable access to nutritious food is a right, not a privilege.

Kristin lives in Woodstock with her husband, son, and dog, where she is a part of the Woodstock Complete Streets Committee. In her free time she enjoys hiking, biking, teaching yoga, and exploring all of the charming nooks and crannies the Hudson Valley and Catskills have to offer.

Live Well Kingston has launched a new photo and storytelling project, “Kingston Spotlights” which captures the real-life impact of theCreating Healthy Schools and Communities (CHSC) grant, a New York State program, now in its final year of a 5-year grant. CHSC has supported everything from the community-driven design for the new Post Office Park to helping to launch the now annual Spinach Fest at JFK Elementary School, and so much more in between! But in this shifting environment, there’s growing urgency to share not only the impact of these community-based initiatives, but the strength and beauty in local communities like ours in Kingston.

The project consists of documentary photographs and interviews with community members to highlight how they’ve made use of the funds and the impact they’ve had on the community.

Here are some resources from Kristin:

Food Policy Bite- She writes these quarterly. During the show she referenced Food Policy Bites Issue 3 on SNAP: https://livewellkingston.org/food-policy-bites-issue-3/

The stats that she quoted for SNAP-Ed came from the Educational Toolkit on this website: https://savesnaped.org/

If hearing about the positive impacts of SNAP and the potential cuts was interesting to you, she recommends checking out Food Policy Bites Issue 5, which lists a whole bunch of food policy resources: https://livewellkingston.org/food-policy-bites-issue-5/

Kingston Spotlights project page: https://livewellkingston.org/kingston-spotlights/

https://www.instagram.com/livewellkingston/

https://www.facebook.com/livewellkingston/

Keep an eye on the Engage Kingston page for updates soon about the Food System Plan- https://engagekingston.com/food-system-plan

Kristin’s email is located here along with the Eat Well Kingston info! And, here’s my previous conversation with Kristin about working motherhood.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

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380 Jennifer Mulak’s “Heroine’s Journey”

It’s time for The Feminine Frequency! This month, co-host Jennifer Mulak shares with us her own Heroine’s Journey.

Jennifer is the founder, alchemist and earth steward behind Cosmic Mother – where she offers a line of botanical skincare, herbal potions, and energy work.

She is a healer, a problem solver, an herbalist, flower practitioner and energy worker, a writer, a recovering rule follower, and a curious student of spiritual teachings. She is delighted to make her home in Shokan, NY with her partner, Ariel, and their two rescue pups.

As she continues to strip away years of programming and societal and familial conditioning, the plants support her every step of the way. She continues to deepen into connection with Nature and the energy around her, and her own internal guidance.

We get to hear about Jennifer’s life through the lens of the stages of the Heroine’s Journey, from her early separation from the feminine and identification with the masculine to experiencing the boon of success in finance. Jennifer’s life on Wall Street started out fun and rewarding, but several years into it, she began feeling its emptiness and yearned for something more. Her intuition and a series of life events led her to plants and a life coach who helped her build a plan that allowed her to begin manifesting her heart and souls dreams. Things haven’t always gone as planned. She’s had to watch our for patriarchal programming to keep it at bay, but she’s quick to catch it and works to keep herself and her life in a healthy balance between the masculine and the feminine.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

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379 Stephanie Wilson Medlock “An Improbable Companion”

Stephanie Wilson Medlock is the author of two magical realism novels, An Improbable Companion, released by Dorrance Publishing in 2025, and The Lives of Things, published 2013. She is the co-founder of the San Miguel International Storytelling Festival, and arranges storytelling events annually in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. A storyteller herself, Medlock performs regularly in the United States and Mexico.

She is also the co-founder of the Writer’s Studio at the University of Chicago Graham School, where during her long career she developed the well-known Publishing Program, the Medical Writing and Editing Certificate, the Translation Certificate, and the National Museum Publishing Seminar.

Our conversation begins with her early start as a writer and a reader and her love of fairytales. She pivots in college to pursue a more practical career and finds herself in journalism fighting her way through a man’s world clad in her miniskirt as was the fashion in the 70’s. She does what’s expected of her, marriage, daughter, but manages to carve a meaningful career out of her interests and talents finally getting her first book published in 2013 with her second to follow earlier this year which she’ll be reading from at the Elting Library in New Paltz, July 9th at 7pm and in October in Catskill.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

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378 “There is Another Way” with Marcina Hale of Reconsider

It’s our monthly conversation about Spirituality and Politics. Joining Marielena and me in the first half of the show today is Marcina Hale, Program Director at Reconsider. She was on the show back in 2019. (Check out show #52 to hear her story). She is an Executive Producer of Fantastic Fungi, Producer of Disturbing the Peace and There is Another Way, and a facilitator for Reconsider’s work ”play” shop experiences, which have been held in the U.S. and internationally. Marcina spoke at TEDxKC Women about how to change the world in which we are living. Marcina’s vision is to catalyze the creation of experiences that evoke thought and conversations that both challenge and inspire new ways of relating to ourselves and to life itself.

There Is Another Way tells the story of a group of visionaries who refuse to surrender to violence and injustice, and in doing so show that another path is possible – for them, for us, for all of humanity. As we are all faced with essential questions about who we are, will we choose collective liberation, where the needs, rights, and safety of all are prioritized – in which our humanity comes first, knowing that no one is free until everyone is free.

Combatants for Peace, nominated for two Nobel Peace Prizes, is an extraordinary bi-national group of former enemy combatants -Israelis and Palestinians – working together during an ongoing armed conflict. Faced with the devastation and escalating violence of October 7th and the war in Gaza, the very core of the movement must face great challenges and show that there is another way. The first question they have to face is their own belief… Is this possible?

Reconsider is hosting a virtual screening of the film this Thursday, June 12th and an in person screening at the Rosendale Theater on July 25th.

Our conversation inspires some deep reflection on what we believe is possible, and what we’re doing to hold that vision for peace.

Marielena shares info about the upcoming “Voices Unbound,” Art Exhibit from incarcerated women at Unison following their Art Spark Program. June 21st opening from 1-5pm. The show will run through July. We talked about Art Spark last month on Spirituality and Politics.

Here’s your Full Moon Report!

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT

http://iwantwhatshehas.org/podcast

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