018: White Ladies Finding Themselves, Evolving our Language, and Death Doula’ing with Rachael Rice

Sometimes you just need a winding conversation…one with really no start and end (other than we only had an hour scheduled).Throw in Rachael Rice and you have one magical, radical, whimsical, intriguing, inspiring, and challenging conversationWE COVER THE GAMUT…LITERALLY…LIKE CRADLE TO GRAVE.We start off talking about art and snowflakes and how BAD I am at art and we throw in some exotic marshmallow making and then Rachael agrees to be my surrogate crafty mom…WHA?!?!?!?!?!(Little does she know I fully plan on taking her up on this when I’m trying to think of a crafty project with my daughter).We end up talking about our abusive dads and how it impacts our parenting (and truthfully, scares us), why we think people should be judged, cultural appropriation and how it relates to/impacts Rachael’s artwork, disability advocacy and the importance of evolving our language, sitting in the uncomfortable, her work as a death doula (this stuff is f a s c i n a t i n g), and our anesthetized culture which OF COURSE has people eating Tide Pods.Listen in, take notes, ask yourself (and others) some hard questions and come say HI to RACHAEL and ME on Insta to continue the conversation.FAVORITE MOMENTSTo see boho-laced dreamcatchers manufactured overseas so that I can make money…? Fuck that. No way…that’s not why I’m on this planet.Can white people just unplug from the internet for a minute and let the non-dominant folks have the floor….throw them some money and just say, “Thanks.”?I’m trying to direct my rage….I’ve appropriated the anger of oppressed folks and I need to remember…what’s mine?There’s ableism in demanding everyone to memorize and learn concepts our culture doesn’t actually educate us on…at all!It’s staggering the amount of care taken to protect children from the reality of the world…the way that life is.Death for me, crosses the level of comfortability in the uncomfortable and I think it’s because I’ve wanted my dad dead for most of my life and that makes me feel like a shitty person.Parts of us are meant to be broken – that brokenness is part of how we know ourselves to be human.PEOPLE + RESOURCES MENTIONEDIllana Burk of YOUR LIFE’S WORKSHOPThe END of Rachael’s DreamCatcher careerRachael’s conversation with Carmen Spagnola of NUMINOUS PODCASTRachael’s writings about the WHITE LADY FINDING HERSELF (NOTE: Rachael and I both identify as WHILFTS).MEET RACHAELI am a full-time artist, writer, and educator. My work lies at the crossroads of creative expression, community, justice, teaching, healing and magic.My background is in critical pedagogy + constructivist theory where I specialized in differentiated instruction and educating for democracy with concentrations in Art and English.I have spent over 20 years in the classroom as a certified, licensed public school art teacher, as well as in after-school and out-of-school community-based arts programs that serve primarily at-risk youth, folks with disabilities and low-income communities.In a subsequent professional iteration, I spent some years in the social enterprise non-profit startup world where I worked to implement systems to support communities where our current systems have failed. This included things like innovative repurposing of industrial surplus, outreach, development + fundraising, and starting alternative + complementary currency supported approaches to health care.Learn more about Rachael at WWW.RACHAELRICE.COM.WEBSITE ∆ INSTAGRAM ∆ PATREON ∆ FACEBOOK ∆ ETSYSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.