From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging Times: Recent Episodes
Suzanne Maggio
From Sparks to Light shares the stories of people who choose to follow their spark and light the darkness. Each week we’ll hear the stories of people who are giving back in different ways. Learn what inspires them and what they learned along the way. I hope their stories inspire you to find your spark and encourage you to shine your own precious light in the world.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community.
This week we’re revisiting an episode with Koen van Rompay, an infectious diseases researcher and the founder of Sahaya International. In this powerful episode, Koen reminds us that action begins with one small step.
For the full show notes, please refer to episode 57.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with non-profit administrator and public health professional Wendy Voet. She began her career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, and in this impactful episode, she reminds us that when the going gets tough, "Keep Moving Forward."
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with author and activist Dan Glass, whose advice is simple —sometimes you have to get into Beautiful Trouble.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This summer we're replaying some of our top episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we're revisiting an episode with Joey Garcia whose advice is simple - Say Yes!
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This is part 8 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.
Today on the podcast we're revisiting a conversation from Season 2, with Martina Clark. Author, Activist, and HIV survivor.
Imagine being 28 years old, arguably at the beginning of your life, and told you have 5 years to live. With a sense of nothing to lose, Martina Clark, writer, teacher, and activist, dove into an activism that led her to becoming the first openly HIV-positive person to work for UNAIDS in 1996.
She captured that life in her memoir, My Unexpected Life, a mix of personal story, travel, humor and an up-close look at the squishy underbelly of the United Nations that follows her personal journey—emotional and physical—interwoven with her professional path. It is an insider’s view to the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly as pertains to women.
A native Californian, Martina teaches in the City University of New York system at Laguardia Community College where she empowers the next generation of young people to explore their passions to find their voice in the world.
To learn more about Martina's work visit her website:
martina@martina-clark.com
martina-clark.com
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This is part 7 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.
“I am an educator, listener, advocate, supporter and challenger,” reads Greg Casillas from his version of the George Ella Lyon poem, I Am From. “I am from the belief that it’s never as bad as it is good. I am from a brother that said the only thing that we are given is a chance.”
Greg Casillas knows the power of story. The gift of showing up and listening. Of bearing witness to someone else’s journey.
In April, Honoring Our Experience held it’s biannual retreat. Tucked away in the California hills, long term survivors of HIV/AIDS. gathered with the newly diagnosed and those who support them, for a weekend to remember. A time to share their stories. To be grateful. To hold each other close. And to heal.
It was on that weekend that Greg Casillas came to terms with pain he’d been carrying for far too long. Pain he barely acknowledged was still there. But that’s what happens when you bear witness. When you show up for yourself and others. Slowing down allows you to look inside —and come to terms with moments sometimes long forgotten.
Pain shared is pain divided. That’s the healing power of story.
Greg Casillas is a healer. The Strategic Program Director at CRRC (Community Resource and Recreation Center) in Canyon Lake, TX, he provides program development, dissemination, coordination and policy & procedure structure to 4 different programs housed at CRRC.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- Think about someone in your community who needs support. What is one thing you can do to to lessen their load?
- Consider writing your own “I Am From” poem. What are the experiences of your own life that make you who you are?
- It’s easy to look outward, seeing the work others need to do. How can we use those opportunities to look inward and challenge ourselves to grow?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“I felt as empty as a drum,” says Molly Carr, a Juilliard-trained, world class violist. It was a career she had worked her whole young life for. She travelled the world and performed on some of music’s most iconic stages. From Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center, Molly has shared the stage with some of the world’s greatest musicians and yet, “the constant focus on career and the fear that it could all go away,” sucked the joy from the instrument and the music that she had loved since she was a little girl. When a shattered glass bowl made it impossible for her to play, she found herself searching for a way to make meaning of her life. A chance experience with a late stage Alzheimer’s patient changed all that and opened her up to a new way of using the gifts she had been given.
As she sat at the bedside of Ruth, the late stage Alzheimer’s patient, she promised her that if she could ever play her instrument again, she would return with some of her friends to play for her. Six months later she made good on that promise, and Project: Music Heals Us was born. From prisons to hospitals and refugee camps, Project: Music Heals Us brings the healing power of music to some of the darkest places in our world.
Under the direction of Dana Martin, Project Manager for the Music for the Future Program, PMHS recently completed a seven week program with the Sonoma County Jail in Santa Rosa, CA. participants earned certificates and school credit for their participation as part of a new pilot project with the Juilliard School in New York City, NY.
Dana Martin, Project Manager, Music for the Future, Prison Programs, PMHU
Molly Carr is the founder and creative director of Project: Music Heals Us. A world renowned viola player, she is on the faculty of the Juilliard School and performs as a member of the Juilliard String Quartet and the Carr-Petrova Duo.
Dana Martin is the Program Manager for Music for the Future; a music composition course presented by Project: Music Heals Us. Dana is an actor, multidisciplinary artist, educator and theater critic based in Los Angeles, CA.
You can learn more about Project: Music Heals Us here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
"No matter who other people are, when you peel back the skin, we're all the same," says Hulda Brown of her struggle to find her place in a world that hasn't always been welcoming.
The daughter of a single mom, she had a difficult childhood. She was taught that she was not worthy of love. That she had no value. That her voice should not be heard. But despite those early messages and painful experiences, Hulda Brown would not be silent.
In 1991 she was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, contracted, she believes, from a needle stick while collecting bottles and cans to earn some cash. It was experience, she says, that opened the door to a future that would help her find her voice and use it to share her experiences to educate and support others.
In this very special episode of Honoring Our Experience, Hulda speaks to us about what it was like to be a flake of pepper in a salt shaker, a metaphor she uses to remind us of the discomfort and challenges in trying to find our way in a world of difference. On the eve of her 80th birthday, Hulda Brown reminds us that finding your voice is a powerful thing, and once we've found it, we need use it for good.
Learn more about Honoring Our Experience Here.
Photograph from here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“I’m not Melinda Gates,” says Joy Kolin, the founder of Giving Joy, an organization that encourages and strengthens women entrepreneurship world wide through micro grants and mentorship. “But you don’t need to be. What we’ve learned is that you can do a lot with a little. We can all make a difference —and we should.
A self described Tex-Israeli, Joy Kolin was born in Texas but spent most of her formative years in Israel. It was those international beginnings that led her to a love of travel. Of a curiosity for exploration that would pave the way for finding her true passion.
She’s spent her professional life working in the area of international relations —making a global difference. From health care to peace negotiations, she’s been a part of some interesting work. Work that many of us could only imagine. But it wasn’t until she made the choice to shift her focus to supporting women directly through her innovative micro grant program that she experienced the joy of truly making a difference.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- We often worry that we don’t have the capacity to make an impact —that what we have to offer might be too little. But Joy teaches us that it doesn’t take a lot to make a difference. What is one small thing you can do today to help someone else?
- Joy talks about the multiplier effect, the idea that even the smallest action can produce big ripples. How can you extend your reach by doing something that has a multiplier effect.
- Practice curiosity. Try something new today. What did you learn?
Learn more about Giving Joy here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“I wanted to work in something that could better the lives of my community,” says Mariana Incarnato, an Ashoka Fellow and the Founder of Doncel, an agency in Buenos Aires Argentina that focuses on changing the way youth who leave residential care are supported as they find their way into adulthood. A clinical psychologist, she worked in Spain for a few years before returning home to her native Argentina. “My sense of belonging was very deep,” she says of her desire to return home. “And my sense of working for social justice was very deep as well.”
That injustice motivated her. “Almost 50% of the people live below the poverty line so when you feel you belong to a community, that sense is very strong —that commitment is very strong, if you’ve had more opportunity than others.” She founded Doncel, an organization dedicated to fighting for the rights of children who were timing out of residential care. Faced with the end of care at the age of 18, young people who have been in the foster care system face an uphill battle. Without family to support them, many end up on the streets, struggling to find their way. Armed with the knowledge that youth leaving care had knowledge to share, Mariana Incarnato and her band of activists fought to create laws that would put in place supports that would give them the help they needed to take their place in society.
Mariana Incarnato is the founder and former director of Doncel (The word means maiden in Spanish and refers to a noble young man who is not ready to leave the castle for war), In 2012 she was chosen as an Ashoka fellow, an organization that celebrates global change makers.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- Each of us have an opportunity to create a community where we all belong. Which are the communities where you feel a sense of belonging?
- Mariana believes that if we are fortunate enough to have opportunity, we can do something that could better the lives of others. Where have you been given opportunity? Is there something you can do to share what you have been given?
- Who are the voices that need to be heard in society? What might we learn if we could take the time to listen?
- Learn more about Mariana’s work here.
- Visit her Ashoka Fellows page here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Florencia Lalor’s adopted family always spoke openly of her adoption. “It was one of the things they did right,” she says. And if she ever wanted to search for her birth mother, she always knew she would have their support. That moment came in 2004, when curious about the mother that gave her up, she grabbed the phone book and began making calls. What she discovered set her on a path that would change her personal and professional worlds.
Florencia Lalor has spent her life working to understand the experience of adoption. An adoptee herself, she has spoken to hundreds of adoptees from all corners of the world. “I found one common thing… that we all have in common,” she says of the experience of the adoptee, “And that is that very profound fear of not being loved.”
Florencia Lalor is a psychologist and social worker in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is the founder of La Voz del Hijo, a virtual platform for adoptees to bring their voices forward. She is co-author, (Belén López Medus y María Casabal) of a children’s book, Ojos Color Cafe, Hazel Eyes, that is geared towards helping adoptees speak out about their experience.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- Florencia says that the early wound created when a child is given up for adoption creates a “fear of not being loved”, a fear that exists, no matter how much they are loved by their new family. How might knowing that help us to understand the journey of friends who are adopted.
- How does knowing where you come from affect your sense of belonging —or deepen your understanding of yourself?
- A truth about adoption is that adoptees belong to two families. Creating space for that duality is critical for the adoptee. Think about the “families” that you belong to. How do you integrate them in your own life?
You can learn more about Florencia's work here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This is part 5 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.
Harry Breaux never thought he’d live past 30. His father died of a heart attack at 50. His mother passed away when she was 51. Now, at 79, he’s outlived them both.
Being diagnosed with HIV did not come as a surprise. “You can’t play in the water and not expect to get wet,” he says. When he finally grew sick in his early 50s, he battled three simultaneous infections that threatened to take his life. Hospitalized, he found himself forced to make a decision he never expected to make. Would he let the virus take him, or would he figh?. The rest, as they say, is history.
There’s something that happens when you accept that this is your life now,” he says. “You can beat it back …but it will never go away.” Now as an “elder” member of the Honoring Our Experience Community he bears witness to the journeys of so many who have come after him, sharing his story and listening to theirs, holding a deep compassion and empathy for the struggle that unites them.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- Harry grew up in a small town in Louisiana, where what was acceptable was colored by a very conservative world view. How are you shaped by the culture, environment or community in which you live?
- When Harry got sick he made a decision that would change his life. What important decision(s) have you made that changed the course of things to come? What did you learn from those decisions?
- Sharing our stories help us to recognize we are not alone. Listening to others helps us develop empathy. Who can you listen to this week? With whom can you share your story?
Learn more about Honoring Our Experience here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“I knew I wanted to look at things differently,” says Cleveland Harvey, a social worker who works in palliative care with people who are struggling with serious illnesses. “When I interact with people I want to either help or understand them better.”
Cleveland Harvey’s journey to social work is rooted in his early experience as a child in South Central Los Angeles during the mid-eighties when the area was steeped in the gang and crack epidemics. As the only black child in the neighborhood, he struggled to find direction. A chance meeting at a local hospital led him to find people who mentored him and nudged him towards social work, encouraging him to commit his life to making a difference for others.
March is National Social Work Month. Social workers are professional helpers, people who are committed to making the world a better place. From the care and protection of children to creating policy that shapes communities for years to come, the work of a social workers is diverse and wide reaching, guided by a set of principles aimed at fighting against discrimination, supporting the disenfranchised and lifting up those who struggle to have a voice.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- Who are the people who have mentored you?
- What are the lessons you learned from them? How did they shape your journey?
- How can you pay it forward? Are there opportunities in your community for you to mentor and guide someone?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Hi folks,
March is national social work month. Social work is one of many professional helping careers, but it’s also an identity. I am a social worker, I tell my students with pride. It’s not my career, its my calling. A calling to serve others. A calling to raise up the disadvantaged, the voiceless and the marginalized. To walk beside the people who often walk alone.
Today I’m sharing an episode from season 2 with my friend and fellow social worker Gary Mallon who reminds us that being seen for who you truly are is one of the greatest gifts we can give one another.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“I’m very much a proponent of chop wood, carry water. Just do,” says Paula Sheil, an educator, writer, poet and the founder and president of Tuleburg Press. “My sock drawer is incredibly organized.”
It’s an old Zen proverb. Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. When it feels like things are tough, we can still wash the dishes. Weed the garden. Clean out our sock drawer.
Paula Sheil is a dynamo. As an elementary school teacher she filled her
classroom with student created cardboard missions so that they could experience exploring California’s Camino Real. As a college educator she teaches her poetry students to shift their perspective from their own internal strife to the external world they live in. To begin to notice, to connect with the universal in life’s experience. It is there that true connection happens. As the founder of Tuleburg Press, she works to bring the voices of Stockton area writers into the world.
She’s a learn by doing kind of person, so it’s no surprise that when she was gifted an old fashioned printing press, she used it as an opportunity to create The Write Place, a non profit center where students of all ages can learn the book arts.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- What does Paula mean when she says “chop wood, carry water”?
- When you feel stuck, discouraged or frustrated, what is one simple action you can take?
- How can you turn your attention outwards? Can you approach life with an observer's curiousity?
You can learn more about Paula, Tuleburg Press and The Write Place here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
This is part 4 of a special series focusing on the work of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with longterm survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.
It started like a nightmare. Pregnant, in a toxic relationship and far away from the family she loved, Deirdre Johnson learned she’d been infected with the HIV virus. It was December 5th, a day Deirdre now celebrates. The day her life changed forever.
On a Christmas Day hike to the top of a nearby mountain, Deirdre asked for guidance. “I was about 5 months pregnant…, and when I got to the top of the mountain I prayed. Wherever you want to send me,” she promised, “I’ll go.” No longer afraid, she took matters into her own hands and the rest, as she says, is history.
She turned her focus to making a difference, not just for herself and her children but for those who would come after. Now, a celebrated public speaker and advocate, she is the co-founder of Ending Criminalization of HIV and Over-incarceration in Virginia (ECHO VA). You can learn more about her work here.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- In those moments of great challenge, where do you seek answers?
- What have you learned through those darkest moments?
- Where are the opportunities for you to share that wisdom so that others may benefit from your journey?
You can learn more about the work of Honoring Our Experience here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“There is no getting over this. You will find a way to use it,” says Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn of the traumatic injury that changed her life. “You will find a way to incorporate this into your life. You will make meaning of this pain and you will find a way to exist —sometimes in the loss.”
22 minutes. That’s the amount of time Joyce Mikal-Flynn lay on the pavement beside a swimming pool while friends worked desperately to resuscitate her. She’d just swam the final leg of friendly competition when she sank to the bottom of the pool.
Those 22 minutes became the catalyst for a profound life change. The motivation she used to come back stronger. Not just to survive but to thrive. Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn is the founder of Metahab, a strength based system to help individuals recover from traumatic events. She is the author of two books, Turning Tragedy into Triumph: Metahabilitation, A Contemporary Model of Rehabilitation and Anatomy of a Survivor: Building Resilience, Grit, and Growth After Trauma as well as numerous articles about post traumatic growth.
As you listen to this episode consider:
- What is one difficult experience you struggle to recover from?
- How can you focus on the ways in which this struggle has presented you with gifts you did not expect? (For example, feeling grateful for having survived?)
- How can you begin to incorporate these gifts into your life?
You can learn more about Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
In honor of Black History month, we revisit a conversation from Season 2 with Dr. Samuel Aymer, a professor of Social Work at Hunter College.
"How do we hold multiple truths? How do we (as people of color) embrace our humanity when that humanity is not always valued," asks Samuel Aymer, a professor of Social Work at Hunter College. "It's not the first thing that comes up... This is difficult stuff to talk about."
This is a conversation about the importance of reflection. Of seeing ourselves when we walk through the world. Having role models to look up to who challenge and encourage us to be our best selves. And in the face of difference, to have those conversations that give us a window into experiences we have not lived so that we can learn and grow.
Samuel Aymer teaches Clinical Practice with Individuals and Families and Violence Against Women at Hunter College in New York. His scholarly and research endeavors centers on the intersection of masculinity, African American men, race, trauma, intimate partner violence, fatherhood and psychotherapeutic interventions.
As you listen to this episode consider:
- How are you reflected in the community around you?
- What impact does that reflection have on you? On your sense of belonging? On your understanding of value?
- How can we work to expand our experiences? Of enhancing the reflections around us? How might that expansion enhance our own growth?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“Everyone is looking for the same things,” says Catherine Schweikert, a PhD and Physician Assistant who has spent the past few years researching the profound power of compassion. “We are all in search of what makes us feel safe, happy, healthy and free," she says.
“What that means to me may be wildly different than what it means to you,” she adds, but that’s not the point. It is understanding that desire which has the power to heal us. As different as we may be, we have the potential to hold compassion for everyone we meet, even when we disagree.
Catherine has devoted her career to exploring the transformative power of compassion with special emphasis on the medical profession. With a PhD in Psychophysiology, she is the author of The Compassion Remedy, How to leverage the psychophysiological benefits of compassion to beat burnout, renew relationships and enjoy greater well-being.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- What does it mean to you to feel safe, happy, healthy, and free?
- How does understanding that others are looking for the same thing shift your experience of them?
- What is one place where I can practice holding compassion today?
To learn more about Catherine’s work, visit her website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“I got tired of being tired,” says Ms. Billie Cooper of her life as an addict. ,Along term HIV survivor and trans activist, she knew she needed to make a change. “I got tired of not being able to eat, of living on top ramen. I wanted a better life.”
Ms. Billie has had her share of challenges. But through it all, she has learned to turn pain into purpose. Sober for 23 years, she is a cancer survivor and veteran. HIV positive for more than 35 years, her history with the long term survivor community began many years ago with her involvement with AIDS, Medicine and Miracles. She was in that first healing circle, more than 10 years ago, and she remains a loud and proud voice for everyone who needs someone to stand by their side, to lift them up and to give people a fighting chance.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- We are all shaped by the paths we’ve walked. How do the paths you’ve walked shape how you show up in the world?
- What challenges do you face? What are the lessons to be learned from them?
- Ms. Billie talks about a person who challenged her to follow her truth, someone whose support was instrumental to Billie’s life journey. Who is that person in your life? How can you be that person for someone else?
You can learn more about the work of Honoring Our Experience here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
On From Sparks to Light, we hear the stories of people who are making a difference. People who are giving back in various ways. What we don’t often hear, however, is the stories of how their actions impact others. What happens because of that work.
In 2024, Honoring Our Experience will celebrate its 10th anniversary. Over the next year we will hear the voices of the people who have become integral members of the long-term survivor’s community that Honoring Our Experience has helped create. People who never imagined they would live long enough to look back and recognize the path they’d walked and discover the new one that stood in front of them. People who have found their spark and are leading the journey forward.
This week, Gregg Cassin, the founder of that extraordinary program and I talk to Carlos Ferriera who tells us how important community was in his recovery and learned to forgive himself and find his purpose.
Carlos immigrated to America at the age of 4 from the then Portuguese African colony of the Cape Verde Islands. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and fulfilled his parent's dream by becoming the first member of his family to obtain a college degree. In 1982, he left for Southern California as the New York City winters were bleeding him and the pall of death hung heavy.
He hoped to escape the ravages of AIDS. But in 1985 he tested positive with a 3-year life expectancy. Fortunately, he turned out to be a long term non-progressor. He survived HIV/AIDS, but almost did not survive the meth epidemic in the 2010s. He am eternally grateful to SFAF, in particular the harm reduction based Stonewall Project, for helping me turn his life completely around.
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so, with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some STYLE”. - Carlos Ferriera
You can learn more and support the work of Honoring Our Experience here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
When Sandy Holman was a teenager, she watched as the Klu Klux Klan burned a wooden cross on her high school soccer field. This wasn’t in the deep south, but in the Sacramento, California neighborhood where her family moved when she was in elementary school. It was that experience, as well as several others, that led her to recognize the work she was meant to do in the world. A world that does not treat all people with love, dignity and kindness.
Sandy Holman, also known as the Purple Lady for her passionate love of the color purple, has dedicated her life to breaking down the systems of inequality and injustice the poison our communities. As the director of the Culture C.O.-O.P., she travels the country working with organizations to create environments of equity, diversity and inclusion. "But change is hard," she reminds us.
A powerful storyteller, she is the author of several children’s books, including Grandpa, is Everything Black Bad? and We All Have a Heritage.
To learn more about Sandy and the Culture C.O.-O.P., visit their website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Back on the podcast this week is my dear friend Gregg Cassin. Gregg is an HIV/AIDS activist, a public speaker and someone I’ve known since our college days back in Boston. He is also someone who has dedicated his life to serving the HIV/AIDS communities, bringing healing to those whose lives are impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The focus is simple. To bring people together to build community because as Gregg knew intuitively from the very first days of the epidemic, community has the power to heal.
Gregg works in San Francisco for Shanti Project, an organization that is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary next year, where he leads a program for long term survivors of the epidemic called Honoring Our Experience.
This month on From Sparks to Light we are joining forces to launch a special project, the Honoring Our Experience Series. Each month on the last Thursday of the month we will introduce you to some of the people who have experienced the epidemic firsthand, people who have found that when we share our stories and build communities, healing happens.
Today Gregg joins us to take us back to the early days of the epidemic and the experiences that lead him forward.
You can learn more about Honoring Our Experience and Shanti Project, here.
You can support the work of Honoring Our Experience here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Bill Glenn, a retired therapist and author, spent 18 years preparing to be a Jesuit priest before he realized he was being called to something else. “I knew my work was elsewhere," he says, although I had no idea what it was.
Two years later, the AIDS epidemic hit. “It was as if I’d been called out of the Jesuits to be present to this epidemic. He realized this was the work he was trained to do, to attend to the pain in the world. This is the journey he writes about in his memoir, I Came Here Seeking a Person. One Gay Man’s Spiritual Journey.
A question I that comes up often when talking to guests on the podcast. How did you get started? What prompted you to take action? In this powerful conversation Bill Glenn challenges us to attend to the pain around us. “Pain is all around us,” he says. “And each of us is called to bear witness to it. To be present to those in need. That is at the heart of making a difference.
To learn more about Bill, or to purchase a copy of his book, I Came Here Seeking a Person: One Gay Man's Spiritual Journey, please check out his website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“[The poverty] was a really big shock,” said Koen Van Rompay, an infectious disease researcher who was in India to speak at a conference. Seeing all the people on the streets of Chennai begging for food was painful. “I felt very frustrated. Here I was a scientist… trying to do something about HIV, but these people lacked even the basic necessities in life.” He had to do something, but what?
He met a social worker named Mr. Selvam, He showed Koen some hand embroidered greeting cards made by the women of his village. He was selling them to make money to support his fledgling nonprofit, one that was focused on giving the children of his small rural community a chance at something better. Koen bought them all with the pledge to sell them to his friends and family and send the money back to Mr. Selvam.
One small step. This was the humble beginnings of Sahaya International, the nonprofit Koen runs from his kitchen table in his home in Davis, California. Twenty years later, the organization is a 100% volunteer-based network of friends that supports a growing number of programs in developing countries, aimed at helping underprivileged communities by promoting education, health, socio-economic empowerment and conservation.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- Action begins with one small step. What is one small step you can take today to make a difference?
- How do you handle adversity. “Don’t give up,” Koen says. Even if you don’t meet your desired outcome, keep going.
- Who are the organizations in your community that are doing good work? Consider partnering with them.
Dr. Koen Van Rompay is a veterinary doctor, originally from Belgium, who leads a dual life. For the past 3 decades, he has been an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, Davis. Most of his career has focused on studying HIV, which has led to several interventions that are now used globally to treat or prevent HIV infection. In more recent years, he has also done research on the latest pandemics, such as Zika virus, and SARS-CoV-2. In 1997, a trip to an AIDS conference in India inspired Koen to step outside his comfort zone and become more socially engaged. During his spare time, he founded and manages the Davis-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization Sahaya International (www.sahaya.org). Sahaya International is a 100% volunteer-based network of friends that supports a growing number of programs in developing countries, aimed at helping underprivileged communities by promoting education, health, socio-economic empowerment and conservation.
To learn more about Koen and Sahaya international, visit their website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“I was in a crisis," said Joey Garcia, author and writing coach. "I’d done all the things I was supposed to do to be successful… but the corporate life was not at all what I imagined it would be.” It was then that she said Yes to an invitation to return to the land where she was born and found herself face-to-face with a people who needed her help.
While there, she met the local Catholic Bishop. “If there’s anything I can do for you,” she said, “Just let me know.”
“You can put on a teacher training,” he said. She stumbled to respond. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that this would be his request.
The next Yes proved to be a transformative one —one that led to the launching the nonprofit Rise Up Belize created to improve the educational opportunities for Belizean children.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- Are there opportunities for you to step outside your comfort zone?
- Have you felt the call to to take a risk? To try something completely new?
- What holds you back? What keeps you from saying “Yes”?
To learn more about Joey Garcia, please check out her website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
When he was just 23 years old, Juan Pablo Romero Fuentes opened the doors of the family home in his little village of Jocotenango, to give the children of his Guatemalan community a chance at a different life —one beyond the drugs, gangs and crime that were a part of his childhood. After a brief time teaching in a private school, he recognized that education, as he saw it, could be so much more.
The concept was simple. “Everyone is welcome, treat the other with respect, lets talk,” he said, and the beginnings of Los Patojos, loosely translated as The Little Ones, was born. Now, seventeen years later, El Patojismo serves more than 500 students each year, with two schools and a style of education that includes programs where creativity, wellness, sports, and job training are an integral part of the regular curriculum. In 2015 Romero Fuentes was named a CNN hero for his work for the children of Guatemala, an honor that brought well deserved attention and recognition to his extraordinary vision.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- There are many challenges exist in every community. Which are the ones that matter most to you?
- Where are the local opportunities to get involved?
- What resources, talents and skills can bring to you bting to the table? How can you use your own gifts to make a difference?
To learn more about El Patojismo, visit their Global Giving page.
Listen to Juan Pablo Romero Fuente’s episode here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
When her eldest son became a victim of gun violence, Nicole Gardner knew she needed to make a change. She left behind family and friends and the Boston neighborhoods she’d called home and moved with her children to California.
But gun violence knows no zip code. A few years after settling in her new community in Marin County, her daughter Ronique was killed in a drive by shooting.
Determined to turn her pain into purpose, Nicole joined Moms Demand Action, a national grassroots organization that works to end the epidemic of gun violence through pushing for gun safety measures, political action, and community education. It was there that Nicole honed her public speaking skills and no works to brings her energy and experience to making our communities safe for us all.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- What issues inspire you to get involved in your community?
- Where can you find others who share your concerns?
- Nicole reminds us that everyone is dealing with something we know nothing about. How might this change the way we approach the people you meet each day?
You can listen to Nicole’s episode here.
To learn more about Moms Demand Action, click here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Spending a month volunteering at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta, India was a life changing experience for Wendy Voet, a public health advocate and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The injustice of “watching people die of diseases that could be easily treated in the United States,” had a profound impact on her. “Everyone deserves the same means to have the human experience they want to have,” she says.
Her parents were academics. The academic life was inspiring. It taught Wendy to ask the questions and stay open to learning. In the summer her parents would travel, and the experiences opened the world to her, inspiring her to study abroad in college and then join the Peace Corps where she served in Niger. It was there that she recognized the shared humanity that exists between all people. While the lives of the people she met may have been different than her own, she learned that we all want the same basic things and it inspired her to go about working to make sure that the inequities that exist might be rectified.
As you listen to this episode consider:
- How can you approach the things that are unfamiliar to you with curiosity rather than judgement?
- Can you listen to different perspectives and see what you might learn
- When faced with people who are different from you, can you focus on the experiences and desires that unite us?
Wendy Voet is a non-profit leader and public health professional with over 25 years of experience in the areas of organizational management, fundraising, partnership development and program design. She has worked for a wide range of organizations working to meet the healthcare needs of various communities as well as work towards social justice. Currently, Wendy is a Senior Program Advisor for Jhpiego Corporation where she helps to design and seek funding for programs worldwide in maternal child and newborn health and HIV prevention and management.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“Ninety percent of the efficacy of the transformation of activism is relational. It’s how we look after each other on an everyday level… It’s the everyday things that keep us loving each other.” says Dan Glass, an award-winning activist, academic, performer and writer.
Dan’s activism is rooted in his experiences as the grandson of Holocaust survivors. Growing up in a family steeped in intergenerational trauma inspired Dan to devote his life to making a difference. He teaches others to harness their pain to stand up for the causes they believe in. To rid the world of the hatred that divides us. At the core of Dan's work is in developing a critical consciousness and creativity to spur people to "read their reality and write their own history".
A native of London, Dan is recognized worldwide for his work in the LGBTQ+ community. A prolific writer, author and speaker, he travels the world inspiring others to channel their personal power and stand up for one another. Dan’s latest book, Queer Footprints, takes the reader “through the city streets to uncover the scandalous, hilarious, and empowering events of London’s queerstory.”
More about Dan Glass
- Insta - @danglassmincer
- Website - The Glass Is Half Full
- Publicity requests to jamesk@plutobooks.com
- Queer Footprints - A Guide to Uncovering London's Fierce History
- The video from the flagship Queer Footprints London launch and some of the tours - here in Whitechapel, Trafalgar Square and Kings Cross.
- The film about Dan's Polish Nan - Never Again Ever- Fighting the Polish Far-Right
- Dan's TED Talks - Can harnessing trauma revolutionize our world?
- Dan's first book - United Queerdom - from the Legends of the Gay Liberation Front
- The press interview after invading Nigel Farage's pub.
- Article - Running from the Synagogue to Soho
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Hi. I’m Suzanne Maggio, the host of From Sparks to Light —the podcast about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Our third season begins Thursday, September 28. In this new season we’ll be meeting people from across the globe who are making a difference in their communities. People like Dan Glass, whose episode drops next week. He’s a London based LGBTQ+ activist with a powerful story about how his family’s Holocaust survival planted the seeds for a lifetime of standing up for others. And Wendy Voet, a public health advocate who began her career working at Mother Theresa’s Home for the destitute and dying in Calcutta India.
And that’s not all. You might notice a change in our theme song. “Where Love is Love,” the melodic intro we’ve used for the past two seasons is about to be released as an LP - written and performed by my talented brother Robert Maggio.
Don’t miss a single episode. Head over to your favorite podcast platform and subscribe to From Sparks to Light.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Sometimes a long walk makes all the difference. After her marriage broke up, Leigh Brennan, a longtime yoga and meditation teacher, found herself alone. Faced with an overwhelming sense of grief for a life that no longer was, Leigh bought herself a plane ticket and walked the 500 mile Camino de Santiago into a new way of being.
Leigh returned to the U.S. anxious to stay connected to her newly found Camino spirit. She created a virtual home for pilgrims, The Camino Cafe Podcast. The podcast serves as a place where pilgrims can return to the sense of community they felt as they walked. She created a vlog show called Good Morning Santiago which features the beautiful destination city of the Camino Routes and hosts post Camino restorative yoga, mindfulness and debriefing circles for English speaking pilgrims arriving in Santiago.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“My role is not to eradicate pain but to walk alongside people who are in it,” says Heidi Pidcoke, a licensed clinician who specializes in somatic, or body centered, therapies. It is these experiences that we talk about in this episode of From Sparks to Light. Of a calling to serve others that led her to South Africa and then to Kenya. About her work to heal the traumatic effects of generational violence through the mind body connection of somatic therapies.
Heidi’s grew up for the first 11 years of her life in Brazil. She is a 3rd culture person, a child who grows up in a culture different from the one in which his or her parents grew up. Since then she has lived in California Philadelphia, and Texas in the United States, London and Pretoria South Africa, Nairobi, Kenya and Geneva Switzerland. Originally born in Brazil,
In this time when the world seems smaller than ever, we talk about what it means to be at home in the world.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- What are the people, places or experiences in my life that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable for me?
- When I am in pain, how can I become more open to the help and love that is available to me?
- How do these experiences open me to learning and foster understanding of things I had not previously understood?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“With what I have learned, it’s my turn to pass on the knowledge to the next generation,” says Rose Hammock, a wise young member of the Pomo, Wailacki and Maidu tribes.
Despite Rose Hammock’s young age, she’s only 26, she has already made a lasting mark on her community. She dedicates herself to sharing this wisdom with the youth of her community.“Through traditional dance, I have had the honor of learning many things from my elders,” she says. “I have had the honor of learning how to basket weave, bead, sew, and learn about plants. My hopes are that our young people will carry this on to future generations.”
Many of us know so little about the history, traditions and culture of our first generation. For example, we recorded this interview on May 5, the day of remembrance for missing and murdered Indigenous Women, a profound historical trauma that continues to plague the Native people.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- What are the cultural traditions of your own heritage? How do those traditions help create your identity?
- Where can I open myself to learning about the values and traditions that are different than my own?
- How can I support creating space for different traditions and practices in my own community?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Trevor Gardner believes that all students deserve to be treated with dignity, even when they make mistakes. Our school discipline system dehumanizes students, banishing them from the classroom and inadvertently fueling what’s known as the school to prison pipeline.
A lifelong educator, Trevor began to explore alternative ways of discipline, a practice we call Restorative Justice. It’s a theory of justice that focuses on mediation and agreement rather than punishment. One that builds on the relationships created with students to extend opportunities to learn beyond the texts and lectures that happen in the classroom. He calls this pedagogy, “The Wisdom of the Why”, the power of educators to have a deep sense of purpose in this work and the skill and power of communicating that to students.
As you listen to this conversation, consider:
- What is the purpose of discipline? Is it simply a form of punishment or is there the potential for something more?
- How has my own experience shaped my view?
- Do I believe that people deserve to be treated with dignity, even when it may be challenging to do so?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
You have $80 dollars in your pocket and two suitcases. and you’re ready to take on whatever comes your way, or so you thought. At 18 you’re ready to spread your wings and try something new. Before you left your mother handed you a name on a slip of paper, a relative you’ve never met. You board a plane to a place you’ve never been before.
When Silvia Graf left her home country of Germany to begin a life in the San Francisco Bay Area, she could not know what was ahead, and yet with each bump in the road she grew stronger, turning her attention to the needs of others. A victim of domestic violence, Sylvia would not let those challenges deter her. She adopted children from the foster care system, volunteered with incarcerated youth and aided families with neurodiverse children. “Love is a choice,” she says and through a lifetime of service she shows us what it means to make the choice to love.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @suzannemaggio_author
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Michael Pritchard personifies compassion. As an army medic tending to wounded patients, his big heart and warm spirit earned him the praise of the doctors he served under. “Even from early childhood I knew I was an empath,” he says. He also knew how to make people laugh.
He spent his career as a comedian and inspirational speaker using laughter and empathy to heal some of the most wounded among us.
“I get up sometimes and I know my wife has struggled twenty years with cancer. I’ve had heart surgeries and knee replacements,” says Michael Pritchard, “But when I can find an opportunity to get up in front of someone who’s hurting, I put my spiritual energy into helping them—because it’s a prayer for me.”
As you listen to this episode consider:
- Where can I lead with heart and compassion?
- How can I help heal the wounded around me?
- When I am struggling, can I turn my energy towards helping someone else?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Joe Cuddemi’s mother never went to college, but she instilled in him the value of education. Raised in an Irish Catholic family in Boston, the path was clear. “I grew up in an era when I could be a doctor, a lawyer or a priest,” he says.
In high school he had a German teacher who changed his understanding of the role educators can play in the lives of their students. “I remember her asking me how I felt,” he said, “No one had ever asked me that question quite that way before.” She knew what it meant to engage students in the classroom. To give them a sense belonging and purpose.
Joe talks about the importance of finding mentors to help guide you. About the importance of staying humble, maintaining a learners mind and giving to others what was given to you. Teaching, after all, is about paying it forward.
As you listen to this conversation, ask yourself
- Who are the people who inspire me?
- How can I use the lessons I learn from them to be my best self?
- Where can I use my unique talents to provide inspiration to others?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Elizabeth Quiroz spent 12 years addicted and trafficked on the streets of San Francisco. Arrested and incarcerated multiple times, she lost custody of her three-month-old son. It was more than she could bear.
“It broke me,” she says.
In jail she entered Starting Point, a program that provides intensive counseling for inmates. “I learned about family addiction, trauma, and PTSD. For the first time in my life I was no longer numb.”
Sober for more than a decade, Elizabeth is the co-founder of Redemption House of the Bay Area. She helps others recover from life on the streets. “I learned how to turn my pain into purpose,” she told me. “I used it for fuel.”
As you listen to this episode ask yourself:
- Have I been numb to the pain in my community?
- What does it take to wake up and take action that makes a positive difference?
- How can I use my pain to fuel a higher purpose?
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
As Gregory Ramkissoon walked to work at the university in Kingston, Jamaica, he encountered a community of squatters living in such poverty he felt sick to his stomach. Shacks made of cardboard and scraps of tin. Babies wailing. Humans living in filth and garbage.
It was 1978 and when Gregory faced his urban planning students in a lecture hall that morning, he told them to follow him. As the group streamed out into the street, he asked them how they could help those who were suffering.
“Start where you are,” Gregory told me. With this philosophy, he launched Mustard Seed Communities, an NGO that began with a school for children in Jamaica and has now expanded to five countries.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- What work has been placed in my path?
- What keeps me from stepping in to help others?
- What is one step I can take today to ease another’s burden?
To learn more about Msgr. Gregory or support the work of Mustard Seed Communities, please check out their website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“Never judge and always believe.” These are the lessons that Susan Pulido learned in her early years as a rape crisis responder. It was in that work that Susan, now a Confidential Advocate at Sonoma State University, found her calling. Awed by the efforts these young victims of sexual trauma made to continue to pursue their education she set out to change a culture that has become all too common on college campuses all across the country. “1 in 4 women will experience sexual violence in their college years,” Susan tells me. “We have an obligation to stand up for one another.”
As you listen to this conversation, ask yourself:
- How can I work to be an ally for those who are victimized or treated unjustly?
- Where do I need to speak up and challenge the status quo ?
- How can I cultivate relationships of autonomy and mutual respect?
“I have tremendous faith in our young people,” Susan says as she gets ready to retire. “They’re going to act up and do what needs to be done.”
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
“Whatever you do, lead with love,” says Renee Ho, founder & executive director of Amor Para Todos (Love for All). When a loved one came out as trangender in 2019, Renee vowed to do whatever was needed to love, support, and protect them. There’s a fifty percent chance that a transgender person will seriously consider ending their life. Renee pledged to change that statistic and created a school-based early prevention program that celebrates gender diversity.
As you listen to this episode, consider: How do we create communities where everyone is celebrated? What step can you take today to see yourself and others more fully reflected in the world? How were you educated about gender diversity and what would you like to see as a key lesson in schools?
To learn more about Renee's work, visit:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amorparatodosapt/?modal=admin_todo_tourInstagram: @amorparatodosapt
Twitter: @AmorParaTodosLVhttps://twitter.com/AmorParaTodosLVGoogle APT Contact Form: docs.google.com/forms/d/1Gy2G2C0WICIuHbrxyt55e71CnzPfJLeG1JnnvoJk0Hc/viewform?edit_requested=true - Snapchat: amorpara_todos
- Tik Tok: amorparatodosapt https://www.tiktok.com/@amorparatodosapt?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
- https://aptamorparatodos.weebly.com/
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
When Marc Zywaczewski dreamed of being an actor, he could not imagine that the greatest role of his life would be — as a social support coordinator for dementia patients. When the loss of his older brother to suicide shook his confidence and left him struggling to find direction, Marc found safety in musical theater. After years abroad, performing on the international stage and as a social director on Disney cruise ships, Marc returned home to Melbourne, Australia where his boundless energy and deep compassion brightens the lives of seniors in his care.
As you listen to this episode, consider:
- What responsibility do we have to our elders?
- When faced with illness and dementia, do we treat them with dignity, adapting to their new reality?
- Can we help them find purpose and meaning, even when they can no longer do what they once could?
With respect and admiration, Marc Zywaczewski brings joy and meaning to the lives of the aged community with whom he works. “Find joy in everything you do,” he says. “And most importantly, don’t forget to play.”
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Blindness is not a disability. It is an opportunity to see things differently. That’s the lesson Paul Fordham learned from his father, a classically trained pianist who who was blind from birth. It is a lesson that has served him well in the 18 years he has worked to end homelessness in Marin County, California.
What does it mean to change? Are we invested in our own views or open to learning new things? Do we see limitations as destiny or are we willing to being surprised? When challenges arise, how can we come together from a place of values rather than fear? “Despite different challenges and abilities,” says Paul Fordham, “We all have the capacity to grow.”
Paul Fordham is the co-CEO of Homeward Bound of Marin where he plays an integral role in fundraising, social enterprise development, program oversight, and strategic planning. Paul stands for housing equity and is motivated to shift the systems that create poverty and homelessness in our communities.
To learn more about Homeward Bound of Marin, visit their website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
You go about the business of living. Husband, family, house in the suburbs. The ingredients of a happy life. Just like the one you were raised in, right? And then one day, something happens that makes you question all of it.
Martha Engber is the author of Bliss Road, her upcoming memoir about the journey to answer those questions. Her efforts to discover the missing piece that was hidden in plain sight and the struggle to find the words to put it all together. It is the story of the heartbreaking pain experienced as the result of being raised by a neurotypical father with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder, and the ultimate journey to heal. In Bliss Road she offers a path that opens the door for healing, not only for herself but for others as well.
Bliss Road, Martha’s fifth book, will be released in June. When she’s not writing, editing or giving workshops, she spends her time on her surfboard, bike or two feet, on the road to a more blissful life.
You can learn more about Martha here.
To preorder Bliss Road, click here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Imagine leaving home to travel to a foreign country, to begin life anew. You have $80 dollars in your pocket and two suitcases, ready to take on the challenges of whatever comes your way, or so you thought. Life in the new country is hard. You struggle to find your place and along the way you meet difficulties you could never have imagined.
When Silvia Graf, my guest on the podcast this week, left her home country of Germany to begin a life in the San Francisco Bay Area, she could not know what was ahead, and yet, with each bump in the road she grew stronger and stronger, turning her attention to the needs of others. A victim of domestic violence, Sylvia would not let those challenges deter her. Committed to make a difference in the lives of others, she adopted children from the foster care system, volunteered with incarcerated youth and aided families with neurodiverse children. “Love is a choice,” she tells me. Through a lifetime of service to others, Sylvia shows us what it means to make the choice to love.
Sylvia Graf was born in Bavaria, Germany, She graduated cum laude with a degree in criminal justice and social welfare from the University of West Florida. Her volunteer work includes working in the youth justice system and as a court appointed Guardian Ad Litem.
In 2016, she started working as a respite care provider for the Exceptional Family Member Program of the Air Force, where she utilized her experience with children with special needs by helping families manage their daily life, and supporting their neurodiverse children.
After she was diagnosed with celiac disease, she founded Simply Prima, where, as a personal chef and caterer, she helps people with dietary challenges have safe, healthy, and accessible food.
Sylvia is currently honing her speaking skills, so she can help those who feel they don’t have a voice be heard. She is looking forward to opportunities to mentor and speak for women who have found themselves in similar situations.
To learn more about Sylvia's business, Simply Prima, please visit her website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Elaine Leeder says she was always drawn to the dark side of life. As the daughter of a Holocaust refugee, she has spent the better part of her life trying to understand that darkness. The desire to make sense of that which seems so difficult led her on a journey into one of the darkest places in our society, our prison system. Elaine volunteers in a restorative justice program that offers both victims and offenders the opportunity to face one another, not as adversaries but as equals, to engage in conversations that have the potential to set them free.
What she has learned through that work may surprise you. It is the topic of our conversation on the podcast this week. From inside the walls at some of California’s most famous prisons, Elaine has worked with some of the most traumatized of individuals. Hurt people hurt people she reminds us. And yet it is in these conversations, through the power of restorative justice, that she has witnessed moments of profound transformation, for both the victim and those who have done the harm.
Elaine Leeder is a Professor Emerita of Sociology and the Dean Emerita of the School of Social Sciences at Sonoma State University in California. Previously she was a Professor at Ithaca College, Ithaca NY. She has over 40 years of distinguished accomplishments and experience in academia and public service. Leeder is listed in Who’s Who of American Women, Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who of American Teachers.
Her awards include a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship, Visiting Scholar status at the United States Holocaust Museum, outstanding teaching awards, research and travel grants and numerous awards from student and community agencies. She received the Real Hero award from the Sonoma County (California) Red Cross for her work in prisons.
Leeder has an MSW from Yeshiva University, an MPH from University of California at Berkeley and a PhD from Cornell University; she has published five books and numerous articles. Her book The Family in Global Perspective: A Gendered Journey is based on her Semester At Sea voyages in 1992, 1999 and 2013. It is now in its second edition. Her book My Life with Lifers: Lessons for a Teacher, Humanity Has No Bars describes her work at San Quentin State Prison and Elmira Correctional Facility.
Currently she does victim/offender dialogues in prisons across the state of California. Her exemplary career encompasses roles as professor/teacher, psychotherapist, consultant, author and advocate for social justice.
To learn more about Elaine's work, please visit her website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
I grew up in a family of expectations. From the way we behaved to the way we thought, there was one right way. It is something I wrote about in my first memoir, The Cardinal Club, A Daughter's Journey to Acceptance. But life has a way of reminding us that we're not in control. It's taken me a lifetime to unlearn that lesson, something I continue to work on today.
That lesson is one that my guest on the podcast this week, Leigh Brennan, learned when the life she'd always dreamed of fell apart. After her marriage broke up she she mentioned to a friend that she'd always dreamed of walking the Camino de Santiago. But Leigh had never imagined walking alone. It was something she'd hoped to do with her now ex-husband. Faced with an overwhelming sense of grief for a life that no longer was, Leigh bought herself a plane ticket and walked her way into a new way of being in the world. As she faced the uncertainty of the journey ahead, she learned to let go of expectations and free herself for what was possible.
Upon her return home, and anxious to stay connected to her newly found Camino spirit, Leigh created a virtual home for pilgrims, The Camino Cafe Podcast. The podcast serves as a place where pilgrims can return to the sense of community they felt as they walked. When my book Estrellas came out, I appeared on her podcast and despite the fact that we'd never met in person, we became instant friends. It wasn't until I walked the Camino Primitivo this past year that I actually met her in the flesh and we shared a wonderful dinner together in Santiago where Leigh now lives.
In addition to the podcast, she also does a vlog show called Good Morning Santiago which features the beautiful destination city of the Camino Routes. Prior to becoming a full-time pilgrim, Leigh is also a longtime yoga and meditation teacher. She hosts post Camino restorative yoga, mindfulness and debriefing circles for English speaking pilgrims arriving in Santiago.
Leigh now lives full-time in Santiago de Compostela. She has one daughter, Kiley, currently in architecture school in the US and a labradoodle puppy named Cooper.
To learn more about Leigh, visit her website.
You can find the Camino Cafe podcast on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
February was Black History month. March, it turns out, is National Social Work month (as well as Women’s History month… more on that later). I can’t think of a better way to honor the intersection of those two things than with this conversation with Dr. Samuel R. Aymer, an Associate Professor of social work at Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.
I often feel like I don’t have enough time in my day to reflect on the things that are important. To consider larger ideas, ideas that challenge and expand my existing experience. Moments that transcend the day to day and call me to grow. This conversation was one of those moments. An opportunity to step into the shoes of another person and learn about a different way of walking through life.
Sure, we’re both social workers. We share that commonality. We’re of a certain age. We both east coasters. There are many similarities. But each of us walks through life with our own experiences. With our own history. When we look in the mirror, it is us that we see.
This is a conversation about the importance of seeing ourselves when we walk through the world. Having role models to look up to who challenge and encourage us to be our best selves. To have those conversations that give us a window into experiences we have not lived so that we can learn and grow.
Samuel Aymer teaches Clinical Practice with Individuals and Families and Violence Against Women. He is the chairperson of the school’s clinical practice sequence. His scholarly and research endeavors centers on the intersection of masculinity, African American men, race, trauma, intimate partner violence, fatherhood and psychotherapeutic interventions Dr. Aymer worked for several health, mental health, and victim assistance organizations throughout New York City. Dr. Aymer has an MSW and a Ph.D. in clinical social work. He conducts workshops and lectures on family violence, trauma, African-American lifestyle issues, cross-cultural counseling, and diversity. He maintains a clinical private practice—specializing in group and individual treatment with adolescents and adults.
You can learn more about Samuel's work here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Imagine being 28 years old, arguably at the beginning of your life, and being given a terminal diagnosis. My guest on the podcast today is Martina Clark, a writer, teacher, and activist who has spent her career fighting to make a difference in the lives of those affected with HIV/AIDs .
Faced with a positive diagnosis at the young age of 28, Martina was told she had no more than 5 years to live. With a sense of nothing to lose, she dove into activism which led her on the unexpected path of becoming the first openly HIV-positive person to work for UNAIDS in 1996. In her work as an AIDS activist she has traveled all over the world, sitting at some of the most powerful tables in the AIDS pandemic, dedicated to bringing the voices and experiences of people living and dying with the disease to those who had the power to make a difference.
She captured that life in her memoir, My Unexpected Life, a mix of personal memoir, travel, humor and an up-close look at the squishy underbelly of the United Nations, My Unexpected Life follows her personal journey—emotional and physical—interwoven with her professional path. Martina’s memoir adds an insider’s view to the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly as pertains to women. Throughout, she draws parallels to the COVID pandemic–including her own long-haul bout with COVID.
A native Californian, Martina teaches in the City University of New York system at Laguardia Community College where she empowers the next generation of young people to explore their passions to find their voice in the world.
To learn more about Martina's work visit her website:
martina@martina-clark.com
martina-clark.com
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
As a clinical social worker, I’ve spent my professional career working with folks who are struggling with life. Let’s face it. Life is challenging. It’s both beautiful and brutal. Tranquil and tumultuous. Filled with joy and pain.
My conversation this week is with Susan Dunn, a woman who has spent the better part of her life trying to make sense of the duality of existence, the complexity of the human spirit. Susan is an educator and support manager with NAMI, the national Alliance on Mental Illness. It’s an organization that helps people whose lives are impacted by mental illness, both for those with a diagnosis and those who love and support them.
What strikes me most about this conversation is the brutally honest way Susan talks about her own journey, from a little girl looking to books to help her find her way out of the chaos of her own family to the professional she is today, a guide for others to find their own way through.
Susan Dunn, M.A. has devoted nearly 4 decades to serving vulnerable and traumatized populations through Sonoma County nonprofits. With a masters degree in depth psychology from Sonoma State University, Susan has focused her career on building resilience within communities and teaching trauma recovery practices. Beginning in 2009, she implemented evidence-based student assistance programs in underserved school communities, including the incorporation of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) speakers into classrooms. Currently she serves as Education and Support Service Manager for NAMI Sonoma County. She is also a NAMI California trainer.
You can listen to her episode here.
NAMI - National Alliance for Mental Illness
NAMI - Sonoma County
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
A month ago I had the opportunity to talk to Dan Mullins, a Sydney-based singer/songwriter, broadcaster, podcaster and writer. Dan is the host of My Camino, an Australian based podcast that is heard around the world.
Having walked two Caminos, with another one in the planning stages, I can honestly say that we Camino veterans are an unusual sort. The Camino family is strong. There’s a kind of psychic energy that seems to draw us together, even years after we’ve made our journey. It’s an experience that never leaves you, as the multitude of podcasts and books testify to. At the same time, the import of that journey seems to take on new meaning as we find ourselves reliving those steps when we find ourselves in the company of other pilgrims. It’s a yearning we all hold, as Dan says, ~ to find what we’re looking for.
Dan is a veteran radio producer, having worked on the Alan Jones Show - the number one program in Sydney - for more than 16 years. As a musician, he was signed with Sony Publishing in the 1990s, toured the world and Australia with acts like Bryan Ferry, Desiree, Michelle Shocked, Stephen Cummings, Violent Femmes, Hothouse Flowers and The Church.
Dan still performs 80 shows a year - he’s a storyteller, a six-string troubador with soaring vocals and lilting melodies. He’s played thousands of gigs, non-stop weekend after weekend, year after year, plying his trade in pubs and clubs the length and breadth of the country.
Dan wrote the single, Somewhere Along the Way (the Camino Song) after walking in the footsteps of millions of pilgrims before him on the Camino de Santiago. It can be found on his album, Duende.
This weekend I’ll have the opportunity to share Camino stories with the audience of Occidental Center for the Arts, in Occidental California. If you’re in the area, please stop by. You can find the information on my website.
I am so grateful to Dan Mullins for having me. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
As a young, white, middle class girl, I never gave much thought to the issue of immigration. The community I grew up in wasn’t particularly diverse. Most of the people I knew looked like me.
The granddaughter of Italian immigrants, I grew up a stones throw away from the New York harbor where Lady Liberty resides. I’ve been to the Statue of Liberty many times, both as a child and as an adult, and I always took her promise of welcome for granted. That is, until the ripe old age of 24, when I moved to California.
Living in California, the issue of immigrant’s rights is one that is never far from mind. My classroom is filled with students whose mothers and fathers and sometimes the students themselves made the difficult trip through our southern border, often surviving profound trauma, for a chance at a different life. A life a safety, dignity and opportunity.
My conversation this week is with Evelyn Wiese, an immigrants' rights attorney who has dedicated her career to righting the wrongs in a broken immigration system, one that currently has about 20,000 people in detention. It is a system that does not live up to the promise of the poem emblazoned on that magnificent statue in our harbor, “"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” We have not always welcomed the stranger. We do not treat our migrants with dignity. As you will hear in this conversation, despite the promise to protect victims of violence and persecution, we treat migrants as though they were prisoners, detaining them often in squalid conditions for the “crime” of wanting a better life.
Evelyn Weise previously worked in the Immigration Representation Unit of the Alameda County Public Defender's Office. Prior to this, she worked at CARECEN SF, a nonprofit serving and advocating for San Francisco's Latino community. Evelyn is committed to fighting to dismantle the U.S immigration detention system and, more broadly, for the human right to migration. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Evelyn also holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.A. with Honors from Wesleyan University.
To get involved with the fight for Immigrant’s Rights, contact one of the organizations below:
Freedom for Immigrants
NorCal Resist
Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
I’m happy to be back with you after a long winter break, the kind of break that gave me some time to really unwind. It’s been almost seven years since I left the nonprofit world and settled into an academic calendar that creates enough space to truly step back, take a breath, and really feel what it’s like to have space. Space to breath. Space to rest. Space to think.
I’ve been thinking about intention recently. What it means to be intentional about the way we live. Being mindful of purpose. Trying to live in a kind of way that honors what really matters in our lives.
The spring semester of From Sparks TO LIGHT opens with a conversation with someone who has asked himself this very same question. Trevor Gardner is a lifelong educator who has spent the better part of his career working in the classroom dedicated to making a difference in the lives of his students. He explores what he calls “The Wisdom of the Why”, the power of educators to have a deep sense of purpose in this work and the skill and power of communicating that to students. When we teach from that sense of purpose and we are transparent with students about our why, it builds trust and a sense of walking/working alongside students.
What is the intention and purpose of our education system? How well does it meet that purpose? One of the more challenging aspects of education is a discipline system that dehumanizes students, one that banishes them from the classroom and inadvertently fuels what’s known as the school to prison pipeline. A system that removes students from the classroom, separates them from their community and sets them on a course from which there is often no return.
Recognizing the need to change the narrative, Trevor Gardner began to explore alternative ways of discipline, a practice we call Restorative Justice. Restorative justice is a theory of justice that focuses on mediation and agreement rather than punishment. Offenders must accept responsibility for harm and make restitution with victims.One that builds on the relationships created with students to extend opportunities to learn beyond the texts and lectures that happen in the classroom, a practice that restores the relationship, equilibrium and dignity to the school community.
Trevor Gardner has been an educator in the Bay Area for 24 years. He has taught high school English and history and has worked at multiple levels of school leadership. He is currently the Director of Teaching and Learning at ARISE High School in East Oakland. Trevor is the author of Discipline Over Punishment: Successes and Struggles with Restorative Justice in Schoolsand the editor of Leading in the Belly of the Beast: School Leadership in a System Designed to Fail.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Happy New Year and welcome to special bonus episode of From Sparks to Light. Today I’m chatting with my good friend and fellow author Frances Rivetti who has just released her second work of fiction, the novel The House on Liberty Street. A story that takes place on Christmas Eve in the northern California community of Petaluma.
Frances and I have known each other since our boys were in elementary school. In my early years as a fledgling blogger and wanna be writer, it was Frances who inspired me and when I found myself at a crossroads after my mother’s death from Alzheimer’s disease, desperate to try to figure out how to put my thoughts to paper, it was Francis who encouraged me to call our now mutual editor and friend Elaine Silver who walked me through the steps necessary to make my dream a reality.
She was born and raised in the East Anglia Fenland region of the UK. Frances trained as a newspaper reporter with the Ely Standard and Wisbech Standard newspapers in Cambridgeshire in the late 1980s, before making a move into Press & Public Relations work with the East Anglian Regional Health Authority, based in the city of Cambridge, traveling back roads with her notepad and camera in order to produce in-house newspapers for hospitals large and small throughout East Anglia.
She relocated to Northern California in 1990, at first temporarily, soon launching into a decade-long career in media relations with the Living History Center, producers of the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire and Dickens Christmas Fair. During the late 1990s, as a mother of three young sons at home in Sonoma County, she returned to freelance PR and journalism, with a focus on lifestyle writing for wine country and regional publications and a five-year column in the Petaluma Argus Courier, South County Notebook.
Frances has worked with local non-profits promoting their mission within the community, predominantly Petaluma Educational Foundation, handling its PR for several years and maintaining strong ties with many local groups that she writes about on her established blog site, Southern Sonoma Country Life.
She later established her own publishing house, Fog Valley Press and wrote her first book, Fog Valley Crush — Love at First Bite, At Home in the California Farmstead Frontier, as a non-fiction love letter to the place she calls home, which released in 2014. Fog Valley Winter, Pioneer Heritage, Backroad Rambles & Vintage Recipes followed in 2016.
Her first novel, Big Green Country, set against the controversial backdrop of Northern California's Emerald Triangle, released in 2019 and was awarded a Gold Medal for best regional fiction for the Pacific West in the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards.
The House on Liberty Street is her second novel. She lives in West Petaluma with her husband Timo.
You can learn more about Frances Rivetti on her website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Here's part 2 of my conversation with Maris Blechner. If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, hit pause and go back and listen to the first part of our conversation. In this conversation we dig deeper into the adoption experience, about the impact on the child and the family and the things adoptive parents can do to support this important and life changing transition.
Maris Blechner is an adoptive and birth parent, a licensed clinical social worker and educator, and an internationally respected trainer and speaker who has spent the last thirty-nine years working for the improvement of the lives of children in the child welfare system. One of the founders of the parent-led multi-service adoption agency that she directed for twenty-six years, Maris relates proudly that she comes from the citizen-activist child-advocacy community and brings that neighborhood and personal family experience to her professional work. These days she has enjoyed mentoring, doing specialized consulting and training, and teaching at her own school, the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. She has been featured as a storyteller (about adoption) on the Moth Radio Hour, on NPR and podcasts, and even on the BBC, and has a chapter in It’s Not About You: Understanding Adoptee Search, Reunion & Open Adoption, 2016.The NYS Adoptive Parents Committee: www.adoptiveparents.org.
To learn more about adoption, please check out the following links:
- Adoption and Foster Family Care of New York: https://affcny.org
- The North American Council on Adoptable Children: https://nacac.org
- Family Focus Adoption Services: familyfocusadoption.org
- Adoption Learning Partners:
Resources Maris mentioned in the episode:
- HOLT International
- The Primal Wound
- Maris Blechner (the MOTH appearance)
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Today on the podcast we’re taking a field trip to the online classroom of Maris Blechner, a social worker, educator and expert in the field of adoption. So pack up your notebooks, sharpen your pencils and get prepared to learn at the feet of a master. This episode is so rich I didn’t want it to end. There’s so much to think about here that I decided to split it into two episodes. Be sure to come back next week for the second part.
This conversation was one of those where I could literally feel the synapses in my brain firing. I thought I understood adoption, I mean, I’m a social worker after all so it’s not like this is my first rodeo, but this conversation gave me a new understanding, a deepening and richness to the nuances of chosen families that I am so grateful for. What happens when a family adopts a child? What is it like to accept the “wrapped present” and watch it begin to slowly show itself to us? What are the challenges with identity formation between the adoptive family and child? And what about the hundreds of thousands of children foster care system? Children who desperately need a home?
Perhaps the biggest learning for me was around the topic of loss. “Adoption begins with loss,” Maris reminds us. A foundation of loss that never goes away. I was so struck by this reminder. Of the need to verbalize that loss, to bring it out into the open and give the child a language to talk about an experience that brought them to this moment. The notion that without loss the new family would never have formed. In a world that favors brevity and quick fixes, this conversation reminds us of the richness in the complexity of life, the “stepping stones” as Maris puts it, that without which there would be no story.
Maris Blechner is an adoptive and birth parent, a licensed clinical social worker and educator, and an internationally respected trainer and speaker who has spent the last thirty-nine years working for the improvement of the lives of children in the child welfare system. One of the founders of the parent-led multi-service adoption agency that she directed for twenty-six years, Maris relates proudly that she comes from the citizen-activist child-advocacy community and brings that neighborhood and personal family experience to her professional work. These days she has enjoyed mentoring, doing specialized consulting and training, and teaching at her own school, the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. She has been featured as a storyteller (about adoption) on the Moth Radio Hour, on NPR and podcasts, and even on the BBC, and has a chapter in It’s Not About You: Understanding Adoptee Search, Reunion & Open Adoption, 2016.The NYS Adoptive Parents Committee: www.adoptiveparents.org.
To learn more about adoption, please check out the following links:
- Adoption and Foster Family Care of New York: https://affcny.org
- The North American Council on Adoptable Children: https://nacac.org
- Family Focus Adoption Services: familyfocusadoption.org
- Adoption Learning Partners:
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
What happens when we take leaps of faith? When we step into the unknown, holding the belief that we are in the right place at the right time. That whatever comes next, we’re going to be OK. Perhaps even richer for it?
My guest on the podcast today is Meghan Murphy, a fellow social worker, college instructor and friend who personifies just that. From her earliest years when her mother and father relocated the family from the beachside town of Santa Cruz, California to the small town of Quincy in the Sierra foothills, Meghan’s journey has been marked by leaps of faith.
We act as if life is predictable. As if we can plan the next step with such precision that we are assured of what comes next. We choose our colleges, majors, partners, careers believing we have some control, but the truth is, we don’t know what comes next. Setting our sights on our own expectations can blind us to the beauty of what is right in front of us. We may miss the opportunities that exist in the now, in the next right thing, whatever that might be.
As a social worker, Meghan’s entire career has been focused on giving back. From her work with the homeless, to HIV drug users, to youth in residential treatment to teaching, she personifies what it means to live with an open heart. And yet, what I love most about this conversation is her stories about stepping into the unknown. Of her leaps of faith. When she’s taken the road less travelled and turned those sparks into light.
Meghan Murphy has worked with diverse non-profit agencies in California and internationally as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, West Africa. She has 18 years of experience working with vulnerable populations including people who use substances, persons with mental health challenges, and youth involved in the justice system. She holds a Master of Social Work degree and has been sainted by the Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (as Saint Face of Compassion). She lives in Northern California with her husband Albert and her daughter Emma.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
What happens when we take leaps of faith? When we step into the unknown, holding the belief that we are in the right place at the right time. That whatever comes next, we’re going to be OK. Perhaps even richer for it?
My guest on the podcast today is Meghan Murphy, a fellow social worker, college instructor and friend who personifies just that. From her earliest years when her mother and father relocated the family from the beachside town of Santa Cruz, California to the small town of Quincy in the Sierra foothills, Meghan’s journey has been marked by leaps of faith.
We act as if life is predictable. As if we can plan the next step with such precision that we are assured of what comes next. We choose our colleges, majors, partners, careers believing we have some control, but the truth is, we don’t know what comes next. Setting our sights on our own expectations can blind us to the beauty of what is right in front of us. We may miss the opportunities that exist in the now, in the next right thing, whatever that might be.
As a social worker, Meghan’s entire career has been focused on giving back. From her work with the homeless, to HIV drug users, to youth in residential treatment to teaching, she personifies what it means to live with an open heart. And yet, what I love most about this conversation is her stories about stepping into the unknown. Of her leaps of faith. When she’s taken the road less travelled and turned those sparks into light.
Meghan Murphy has worked with diverse non-profit agencies in California and internationally as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, West Africa. She has 18 years of experience working with vulnerable populations including people who use substances, persons with mental health challenges, and youth involved in the justice system. She holds a Master of Social Work degree and has been sainted by the Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (as Saint Face of Compassion). She lives in Northern California with her husband Albert and her daughter Emma.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
Who am I? That’s the question our guest asked herself as she stared at the results of a DNA test that she’d taken just for fun.
Jodi Klugman-Rabb (Rabb is her married name) was raised in Marin County, California, an only child of her mother and a father she describes as abusive. By the time she was 2 her mother was divorced and a few years later, married Wayne, the man who would become her stepfather. A person that Jodi describes as kind and “generous of spirit”. But it was roughly 8 years later, when Jodi was 12 years old, that she learned that the man she knew as her stepfather was really her biological Dad.
Wild, right? The discovery was a welcome one to young Jodi. Wayne was a wonderful father to Jodi and gave her the kind of love and support she needed. Sadly, Jodi’s time with Wayne was short. He died when she was only 22, leaving behind a host of memories and a sense of identity that launched her into adulthood. Although her family was not particularly “religious”, in college Jodi embraced Judaism, an ancestral and faith tradition she had inherited from her father. She married a Jewish man, joined a local synagogue, began a successful career as a psychotherapist and had two children.
And then one day all that changed. She’d taken a 23 and Me DNA test on a whim, curious to learn more about her ancestral heritage. What she discovered shook her to the core.
Jodi, a vivacious and precocious redhead had never felt like she belonged. She didn’t resemble the other Jewish girls she knew, and grew up with a nagging sense that something just wasn’t right. It took the results of a DNA test to help her understand why.
Although it took two years for her to completely make sense of what she discovered that day, it changed her life. Already a practicing psychotherapist with a thriving practice, Jodi’s own experience reshaped her sense of identity and led her to focus her practice on helping others to understand theirs. She pioneered the only mental health treatment protocol dedicated to DNA surprises, called Parental Identity Discovery™; a unique, holistic approach to resolve trauma, synthesize identity and adjust to family dynamics. In 2001, Jodi received a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from Dominican University of CA, and in 2004 obtained licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist and later Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor.
She embarked on a doctoral program at Touro University Worldwide in 2020 and expects to receive a PsyD in Human & Organizational Psychology in Fall 2022. She currently serves as a professor at Dominican University of CA’ s graduate program in Counseling Psychology.
To learn more about Jodi’s work, please explore the following resources.
Jodi’s website: at jkrabb.com
Blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-family
Podcast: Sex, Lies and the Truth
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago
Follow Suzanne on Social Media
- Instagram @mamasuzanne
- Facebook @ Suzanne Maggio author
- Twitter @ bottomofninth
My conversation on the podcast today is with Jill Salvino, an accomplished commercial director and storyteller and the director of Between the Shades, her debut feature documentary that examines the power of labels and the transcendence of love with a deep dive into the LGBTQI experience.
So much of what Jill understands about life resonated with me. The idea of recognizing that our time here is finite, that life is made up of moments, some that are certain to pass us by if we don’t take the time to notice. Of the idea that listening can heal us. Of creating a space for hearing one another’s stories with an open heart. That diversity is a gift. “Diversity breeds innovation,” she says.
But mostly the message of this conversation is that humans are wonderfully eclectic creatures that desire to be seen and accepted. To love and be loved. To be part of a community. To bring their full and complete selves to the world. As the film reminds us, there is no black and white to the human experience, and the sooner we understand that, the more peaceful our world will be.
Jill’s film, Between the Shades was screened and was honored at dozens of film festivals and partnered with Passion River Films for distribution. It is licensed in over 300 schools and libraries and available on television as well.
Jill has collected over 200 industry awards, including an Emmy, and directed hundreds of commercials and long form content. She has directed four film shorts. Taking it for Granted has screened and won prizes in over a dozen film festivals across the US, including a special screening at NYC’s Downtown Film Festival after taking home Best Drama. The Sonnet Project #74 & #153, presented by the New York Shakespeare Exchange, currently touring in the UK and Lies People Tell which premiered in the San Pedro International Film Festival. It was chosen by the New York Women in Film and Television as one of their Top Short Films of the Year. Jill is a member of Promax, long-standing chair of the Telly Silver Counsel, and a Gold Member of the New York Women in Film and Television, Judge of The Emmy's as well as a recipient. She lives in Asbury Park, New Jersey with her wife Susan.
As our country struggles with the polarization that divides us, Jill’s film offers a way out. An opportunity to listen with an open heart to the experiences of those who may live lives that on the surface appear different from ours, but underneath, remind us that people are people, and we all have our own unique stories to tell, if we only take the time to listen.
To learn more about Jill, please visit her website.
To see Beyond the Shades, Buy or rent Between the Shades for home viewing on iTunes. Digitally screening on Google Play, Fandango Now & Amazon Prime or purchase the DVD at Target & Barnes & Noble
Follow Jill on Instagram @directorjill
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrell...
Today we’re talking to Annie Bacon, the Executive Director of Seeds of Learning, a non-profit organization that works to improve educational opportunities in rural Latin America. I caught up with Annie in her car, but even though the sound quality isn’t the greatest, I thought this conversation was worth sharing.
In 2011, I took my first trip with Seeds of Learning. I took along 18 high school students, two of which were my own to a remote village in El Salvador. For a week we lived in a rustic retreat center, without the benefits of indoor plumbing or hot showers and spent our days digging a trench in the sun baked earth. We were preparing the ground for the foundation of a new school, one that would be completed over the course of one summer by a stream of volunteers and community members, most of whom we would never meet.
In the evening we would gather together and discuss our day, processing what we had seen and the inevitable emotions that seemed to course through our bodies. The poverty was unmistakable. For many of the students, it was the first time they’d ever seen anything like it and yet they were struck by the resiliency of the people they met. The enthusiasm of the students who spent hours in tin walled classrooms that baked with the heat of the midday sun, without books or supplies, the things they’d taken for granted.
I have done that trip many times since, with more students than I can remember. Each time, whether it is in a small remote village in El Salvador or the mountains in Nicaragua, the story is the same. We’ve come here to make a difference. To give a community a chance for something better. A commitment to making the world just a little bit better.
But we’ve left with so much more. With a better understanding of the world we live in. Of the struggles that so much of the world faces. Limited resources. Of governments that do not always value the needs of the people they are meant to represent. Of communities where there is endless need. And the responsibility we have to do what we can to make a difference.
For more than 23 years, Annie Bacon has worked with Seeds of Learning. First as a work group volunteer in 1994, and later returned to work as an intern during a semester abroad program in 1997 and the summer of 1998. In 1999, she began full time work with Seeds of Learning as the Program Administrator splitting her time between Nicaragua, El Salvador, and the US. Later she became the Program Coordinator, Director, and 8 years ago, SOL's Executive Director. The organization works with North and Central Americans to build and equip schools in Nicaragua and El Salvador, educate children and adults, and promote cross cultural understanding.
Annie has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with Concentrations in Latin American and Peace and Conflict Studies from Swarthmore College. She lives in northern California with her husband Juan and son Santiago. Welcome Annie.
To learn more about Seeds of Learning and the work they're doing in Central America, please visit their website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrell...
Today on the podcast we’re talking to Mark Rimple, a musician, educator, composer, performer, union member, father and all around deep thinker. I met Mark through my brother Robert. They’re colleagues in the music department at West Chester College in Pennsylvania.
Mark is one of those people who has a passion for learning. It’s evident from the earliest moments of his life when a young friend introduced him to The Beatles and he never looked back. He absorbed music into his soul, and became an accomplished guitarist with a deep love for medieval and renaissance music.
In this conversation we talk about teaching. About the relationship between teacher and student. About the challenges of a pay for play educational system and the challenges that two years of Covid impacted education present in the classroom. Mark spent many years involved in union work, advocating for his colleagues in an environment that hasn’t always treated its members with the respect and dignity they deserve. Union work allowed Mark to feel like he was making a difference, especially in a world where problems often feel too big and unwieldly to do much about.
But my favorite part of this conversation is the discovery that despite working in different disciplines, Mark and I do much the same thing. We teach people to listen. We talk about how critical it is to learn to hear the music of life, from the harmonious tones to the dissident ones, and our shared belief that it is only in learning to listen to one another that we will truly heal what ails us.
Mark Rimple is a composer, lutenist and countertenor in addition to his many other talents. His work has garnered critical notice for his interpretation of early music from national newspapers and journals including the Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Early Music America, and Early Music (UK). He principally plays medieval and Renaissance lute, archlute, gittern, citole, psaltery, cittern, and viol.
He is a founding member of the vocal-instrumental ensemble TREFOIL. Mark has recorded early and new music as countertenor and lutenist with the Newberry Consort, Trefoil, Seven Times Salt, and Cygnus Ensemble and has performed with The Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra and Curtis Orchestra (on mandolin), The Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra (lute), Network for New Music (lute, guitar, mandolin) and The Philadelphia Classical Symphony (guitar).
Mark principally plays medieval and Renaissance lute, archlute, gittern, citole, psaltery, He earned his Doctorate and Masters degrees from Temple University and his Bachelors degree from University of the Arts. He is a Professor of Music Theory and Composition at The Wells School of Music at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
You can learn more about him by visiting his website
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrell...
I met Michael Pritchard many years ago when I heard him speak at a holiday party for a roomful of social service types tasked with lifting up the disenfranchised in our community. That afternoon, he fed our collective souls with a combination of storytelling and humor unlike anything I had ever seen before. After the crowd began to thin, I summoned up my courage to introduce myself to him.
At the time I was running a fledgling nonprofit, with not enough money and too much work and a handful of students I was tasked with inspiring. The only problem was, I was burned out. I’d been burning the candle at both ends for a long time and the work was starting to get to me.
I don’t know what i said to him. I don’t suppose matter. But whatever it was, Mike knew what I needed. He looked me in the eyes and gave me a pep talk, one that hit me right in my heart. He invited me to bring my students to “shadow him” when he visited a local school district, performing a handful of shows for the students.
I watched as he paced back and forth. A caged tiger searching for prey. He told stories that made the kids laugh uproariously. He ran through a series of impersonations, from Yoda to Wookies and many more. He had them eating out of the palm of his hand.
And then he lowered the hammer.
“How many of you know someone who gets picked on, bullied or is the last one to get picked to play,” he bellows. Dozens of hands shoot high in the air. He invited student after student to share their stories. The tears flow and Mike is there to stand beside them, to witness their courage. To challenge the students to stand up for one another. To choose kindness over cruelty. “Hurt people hurt people,” he reminds them.
Mike is the change he wants to see in the world. He began his career on both the comedy stage and as a juvenile counselor in San Francisco’s Youth Guidance Center. In 1980, Michael Pritchard won first place in the San Francisco International Stand Up Comedy Competition as well as winning the prestigious California Probation Officer of the Year.
Offers from Hollywood rolled in including a guest appearance on an Emmy Award winning episode of “Taxi.” His sensational stand up comedy billed him with Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld,Dana Carvey and Whoopi Goldberg. But Michael knew he was being called for something else.
A deeply spiritual man, Mike draws from his counseling background, and began using humor to inspire. His broad audience base - from corporate employees, healthcare workers, and government and state officials - have honored him with countless standing ovations and numerous awards
As a result of his work, Michael Pritchard has been featured on CNN, NBC’s The Today Show, The Tonight Show, CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt, Time Magazine and People Magazine.
He’s done seveneducational series for PBS and distribution has been seen by millions and focuses on youth guidance in the areas of violence prevention as well as a appearing in The Happy Movie.
To learn more about Michael Pritchard, please visit his website here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de San
One of the greatest gifts of teaching is to watch a former student spread their wings in the world. Take the years of education, the life experience, the curiosity and passion they possess and find their place to shine. Today on the podcast we talk with former student, intern, colleague and friend Allison Murphy, someone I first met in the classroom more than 20 years ago. Allison is a clinician, founder and CEO of Mothers Care, a service provider for women during the prenatal and perinatal periods of pregnancy and delivery. In layman’s speak, Allison provides support during some of the most significant and extraordinary times in a woman’s life, when she is pregnant and in those first early months of motherhood.
The discovery that a woman is pregnant sets into motion a series of changes. For some, it is a time of great excitement and anticipation, for others, a time of anxiety, fear and worry. For many of us, a combination of all of these feelings and more. Yet society does not often create space for the latter, leaving the new mother feeling isolated and alone. Left untreated, these issues can cause serious problems. According to Mothers Care’s website, “Nationally, nearly 1 in 5 women struggle with maternal mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression, yet most go untreated (2020mom). Additionally, 1 in 10 Dads will experience depression postpartum (Postpartum.net). The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated mental health struggles. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) August 2020 findings, 40.9% of U.S. adults reported struggling with poor mental health.”
The mother of two, Allison recognized the need for support for women who struggle during this difficult time. In 2010 she began to work with a local OB/GYN, hoping to build a partnership and create a lifeline for those facing challenges. Her commitment and hard work paid off. Now, after years of diligence and dedication, Mothers Care is a thriving service provider in partnership with a host of local OB/GYNs, mid-wives, pediatricians and healthcare providers.
Allison received her Bachelor of Arts from George Mason University, her Master of Arts from Sonoma State University, and she completed post-graduate training at the Family Institute of Marin with a focus on Family Therapy. She has over 30 years of experience working in clinical settings with individuals, families and couples. She is an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Interface Master Trainer and sits on committees for the Sonoma County Mental Health Services Act and Sonoma County Nurse Family Partnership. Allison’s experience includes instructing at Sonoma State University, consulting, training, and presenting to state and local organizations on the topic of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders; and co-hosting a community public radio program.
She is the proud mother of two children and the grandmother of a beautiful baby boy. Allison lives in Petaluma, California with her husband Jack.
To learn more about Allison's work and Mothers Care, please visit their website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
My guest this week is Shugri Said Salh, the author of the beautiful memoir, The Last Nomad, Coming of Age in the Somali Desert and the passage comes from a novel she’s currently working on.
Shugri’s is the story of a woman who grew up in a culture very different from our own. A “spare daughter” she was sent to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert at the age of 6. She tells the story of chasing warthogs, standing on termite mounds and listening for the sounds of predators in the distance as she watched over her herd of goats.
In the evening, when the work was done, they gathered around the fire and it was here that Shugri learned the power of storytelling. That extraordinary vehicle for sharing histories, imparting wisdom and making the wide world, just a little bit smaller.
We talk about the importance of noticing, of living in curiosity and the possibility of story to bring people together. About the generosity of the Somali people, and opportunity through the language of storytelling, to capture the beauty, that exists all around us. As Shugri says, we can not all walk in another’s shoes, but we can certainly learn from them by hearing their story and have compassion. At the end of the day, stories have a way of reminding us of our shared humanity.
Shugri Said Salh was born in the Somali desert. In 1992, she emigrated to North America after civil war broke out in her home country. She attended nursing school at Pacific Union College and graduated with honors. Although this is her first book, Salh has been storytelling since she could talk. From her grandmother and the nomadic community in which she was raised, she heard stories and learned of their power to entertain, teach, and transform. When she isn’t writing or telling stories, she works as an infusion nurse. Salh lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.
Shugri's book, The Last Nomad, is available from bookstores and online booksellers.
Her website is https://www.shugrisalh.com.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
This week on From Sparks TO LIGHT we meet Mark Oberschmidt, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Thailand. He’s also a fellow peregrino and someone I’ve known since I was in high school. Mark was friends with my brother Michael and because we were so close in age, his friends were often my friends too. Fast forward 40 years - Mark was interested in walking the Camino and we reconnected when my book Estrella’s came out. As luck would have it, we found ourselves on the same journey this past summer, and we were able to reconnect face to face.
Like me, Mark felt a calling to national service. As someone who had applied for Peace Corps myself but hadn’t gone, I was interested in hearing about his experience. Like me, he grew up in Central New Jersey. I was curious about what it was like to live in a country so different from our own. What he learned while he was away. How that experience shaped what came next.
Mark is a civil engineer in Northern Colorado. He has a BS in Civil Engineering from West Virginia University and a Masters’ degree in Water Resources from Colorado State University. He’s an active volunteer in his community serving as the president of the Fort Collins International Center and a Fire Lookout for the USFS in Roosevelt National Forest at the Deadman Fire Lookout.
His passions include travel, hiking and other outdoor activities, playing in the snow, learning new languages and meeting people from all around the world. He lives in Fort Collins Colorado with his wife Nancy and his two children.
I’ve never been to a high school reunion, but the chance to catch up with someone I knew so many years ago when we were just the seedlings of who we would become was more fun than I could have imagined. I know you’ll enjoy hearing about his journey it as much as I did.
To learn more about Mark, check out the following links.
- http://fortcollinsinternationalcenter.org/
- On Facebook @mark.oberschmidt
- Email: moberschmidt@gmail.com
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
That’s the voice of Gary Mallon, a fellow peregrino I met this summer while walking the Camino Primitivo in the north of Spain. As fellow east coasters, we bonded right away, and when I heard he was a social worker, I knew I had to have him on the podcast. I had so much fun talking to him about the work he’s done over the course of his career. He’s spent the better part of his life in the field of child welfare, working with kids in the foster care system. He’s warm, funny and really smart, and as climbed through the Cantabrian mountains this summer, the conversations we had made the kilometers zoom by.
Like me, Gary began his career in residential treatment, caring for children who could no longer live with their families, and also like me, his journey that began from his Catholic roots ignited a spark that fed his desire to make a difference in the lives of the children he met throughout his career. When I talked with him he was in Louisiana, doing work with the state’s child welfare system. If you listen carefully, you might hear a train or two passing by.
Gerald "Gary" Mallon is the Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare and the former Senior Associate Dean of Scholarship and Research at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College in New York City.
For more than 46 years, Gary has been a child welfare practitioner, advocate, educator, and researcher. He is an internationally recognized expert on LGBTQ+ children, youth, and family issues particularly as they relate to child welfare and juvenile justice. His scholarship and practice has been recognized through multiple awards.
Gary is the author or editor of more than thirty-one books, several of which have been translated into Spanish, Japanese, French, and Italian. He has lectured and consulted extensively throughout the United States, and internationally. He earned his doctorate in Social Welfare from the City University of New York at Hunter College, holds an MSW from Fordham University and has a BSW from Dominican College.
He has been a foster parent and is the adoptive parent of now grown children. He lives with his husband, Martin and Bruno, his dog in New York City and New Orleans.
To learn more about Gary, check out his website: https://www.garymallon.com
Follow him on social media:
on Facebook @gary.mallon.79
On Instagram @geraldpmallon
On Twitter @mallong
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
A new season is right around the corner. Join us on September 8st for a whole new collection of stories of people who are giving back. New episodes drop on Thursdays. You will find us on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Just hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.
Last week we finished our first season of from Sparks to Light. This week I'm sharing an interview I did with Leigh Brennan on her podcast, The Camino Cafe. It was a fun interview about walking the Camino and my memoir, Estrellas, Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago. As you listen to this episode, I'm off on my second Camino, the Camino Primitivo, that goes from Oviedo, in Northern Spain, to Santiago. I'm excited, nervous and ready for this new adventure.
To learn more about Leigh Brennan and the Camino Cafe Podcast, please check these sites.
The Camino Cafe Podcast
Leigh Brennan's website
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
Many years ago, when I was a Jesuit Volunteer in Montana, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit several reservations and learn about Native culture and traditions from some of the local tribal members. After a year in Great Falls, I went to work on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana. The years there were a mixed blessing. Working with Native children who were victims of child abuse and neglect was not easy and I struggled to find my place amongst a people who have been historically violated by people who look like me.
Still, I left those years with a profound reverence for the traditions and culture of the Native people. For their connection to their elders, to the generations that have come before. Theirs is a wisdom we would be wise to pay attention to, and It is with that intention I am thrilled to introduce you to Rose Hammock, a caring, compassionate and wise young member of the Pomo, Wailacki and Maidu tribes.
We recorded this interview on May 5, the day of remembrance for missing and murdered Indigenous Women, a profound historical trauma that continues to plague the Native people. Rose shares several resources to learn more about this issue, from MMIWUSA, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and the Sovereign Bodies Institute to the UIHI, The Urban Indian Health Initiative.
Despite Rose’s young age, she’s only 26, she has already made a lasting mark on her community. We talk about holding space, for welcoming voices and choosing the healing way. I can think of no better way to welcome her then to allow her to introduce herself to you.
chiin tha ‘eh. (how are you?) My name is Rose Hammock.
I am Pomo, Wailacki, and Maidu.
My family comes from the Round Valley Indian Tribes and the Big Valley Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians. I also carry Indigenous roots from parts of Mexico and Nicaragua, from my mother.
I am a recent graduate from the Santa Rosa Junior College.
I have two Associates of Arts degrees; one being in Early Childhood Education and the other in Social and Behavioral Sciences.
I serve many roles within my community, working with many groups and organizations. Some of those groups and organizations include: Pomo Project of Sonoma County, Big Picture Learning Native American Initiative, Redbud Resource Group, California Rural Indian Health Board, and California Indian Museum and Cultural Center.
As a traditional dancer, I travel up and down California sharing songs, dance, and prayer. I have been a traditional dancer for the past thirteen years of my life.
Through traditional dance, I have had the honor of learning many things from my elders.
I have had the honor of learning how to basket weave, bead, sew, and learn about plants. With what I have learned, it’s my turn to pass on the knowledge to the next generation. My hopes are that our young people will carry this on to their future generations.
A majority of my work in the community is a reflection of the way I grew up. My community has always picked me up when I needed it.
When working in “Indian County”, you treat all of your people like family.
I have a lot of people in my community who are my aunties, uncles, and grandmas. Working in my community has shown me love, patience, motivation, and compassion. My community made me who I am today.
yah.wii’ (thank you) Rose Hammock
Rose's places of work:
- The Redbud Resource Group
- Big Picture
Today we’re talking to D’Lynda Fischer, a city council member for the city of Petaluma, a community in northern California about 45 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. But the truth is, this could be a conversation about any community across America, and many places in the world as well. This is a conversation about climate, about our environment and the steps we can take to make a difference in the world we live in. We talk about honoring the planet and paying attention to the choices we make. It’s about living intentionally so that our children, grandchildren and the generations to come have a place to call home.
I learned so much during this conversation. For one thing, (and I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this) I’ve never actually been to a city council meeting, in this city or in any other of the many places I’ve lived. Perhaps I should have, because the more we know about what goes on at city hall, the more we can demand that our elected officials make decisions that benefit all of us. This conversation allowed things to come together for me, like the pieces of a puzzle that I’d struggled to understand. Does recycling really matter? Are paper straws better than plastic? It all felt so insignificant, but this conversation left me feeling energized, with actual steps I can take to help my community become carbon neutral and it left me wanting to learn more.
D’Lynda grew up in a politically active family in the foothills of Anchorage, Alaska. She became an adult while living in New York City and migrated to Southern California where she had a successful career as an Urban Planning Consultant. She moved to Sonoma County nine years ago and worked as a consultant to non-profit environmental organizations. She is passionate about healthy food systems, connected communities, and being a leader in this changing world.
To learn more about D'Lynda Fischer you can check out her website.
To learn about the Cool City Challenge, check out coolpetaluma.org.
Read Social Change 2.0 - A Blueprint for Reinventing our World by David Gershon.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
We’re going to try something different today. I was introduced to the work of Abby Van Muijen by one of my social work students who found a feeling wheel Abby had created in searching for inspiring and powerful content for the local social work newsletter and I was instantly smitten.
Abby’s work is extraordinary. It is beautiful on an aesthetic level, but is so much more than that. Abby grapples with complex, social justice concepts and creates moving visual representations that draw the viewer in and invites them to think critically about the material presented.
Like me, Abby was raised in a middle class world, a space where avoiding these difficult issues is easy to do. But Abby made a different choice. From the moment they crossed through Caldecott Tunnel on the way to attend the University of California at Berkeley, their world expanded.
As a college instructor, I’m always looking for creative ways to activate the critical thinking of my students, inviting them to view the world around them from different perspectives. Abby’s work does that. I invite you to look at their website. Spend some time with the different graphic recordings. Think of them as invitations to approach with curiosity. Download the feeling wheel or some of the worksheets. Try them out. Ask yourself, how am I doing today? What am I feeling? Where am I feeling it? What is my body telling me? What do I need? I think you’ll be fascinated.
Abby VanMuijen (they/them) is a graphic recorder, artist, illustrator and creative consultant currently practicing in Berkeley, CA. Abby specializes in illustrating complex, systems-level content and strives to make work that is handmade, rooted in deep study and in service of social justice movements.
Abby's Website: www.avanmuijen.com
Find Abby on social media
- Instagram: @avanmuijen
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/abby-vanmuijen-5723a915
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abby.vanmuijen
Things Abby mentioned in the episode:
- The Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley
- Ananya Roy, professor, UCLA
- Resma Menakin - therapist
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
“The two most important words that you can say are I am”, says Jimmy Carrethers, inspirational speaker, teacher, personal development trainer and life coach. “But be careful with that because whatever you attach those two words to, you become.”
When Jimmy Carrethers was a young boy, he struggled to find his voice. He was so afraid to speak that when he was just 8-years-old, he locked himself in the garage, lined up all his stuffed animals in a row and proceeded to preach to them from the Bible as he balanced himself on a stack of milk cartons. It was there, he says now, that his public speaking career really began.
His childhood was not an easy one. Marked by violence and without positive role models, he struggled with confidence and self-esteem. That is until one day when a martial arts teacher told him he believed in him and things began to change.
This is a conversation about the power we have to change the course of our lives. About what happens when we learn to believe in ourselves and help light the way for others. Jimmy’s “preaching” is filled with story, humor and truth.
As an inspirational speaker Jimmy educates people on how to build self-esteem, self-compassion, and develop great communication skills in order to create a working and learning environment that promotes social/emotional wellness.
Jimmy’s desire to help people reach their true potential has made him one of the most admired and sought after speaker and trainer. His experience in the power of human potential, combined with his dynamic, humorous, and inspirational speaking style, makes for an exciting and motivating environment. He encourages people of all ages to “Live with PASSION!!” and to realize that your “PAST is NOT your POTENTIAL”.
Jimmy has worked with several non-profit organizations, providing coaching and training and is now teamed up with Mr. Michael Pritchard, PBS Host Comedian at Heartland Media Foundation. Together they have traveled around sharing their incredible, captivating and inspiring message of HOPE, LOVE, COMPASSION and TEAMWORK.
You can reach Jimmy Carrethers at (510) 894-9235 or (925) 272-8104
To Find Jimmy Carrethers on Social Media
- On Facebook @ Facebook.com/LifeEnhancers1
- On Instagram @ jcarrethers21
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
“If we’re going to do what I believe we need to do for the rest of our lives, you need to go back with me.” - Peter Pretorius
Ann’s husband Peter had just returned from Mozambique where he learned first hand about the humanitarian crisis facing the people of this neighboring nation. Peter’s visit was meant to be for a day, but with no means of transportation out, he survived for 10 days, sleeping under a bush with no water, food or shelter. Witnessing the profound effects of poverty, death and disease, he returned to South Africa a changed man, determined to do something to help. He took his wife back to Mozambique to see what he had seen and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
In the early 1980s, Ann and her husband, the late Peter Pretorius, resolved to do whatever they could to alleviate human suffering on the African continent after what they witnessed in war-torn and famine-stricken Mozambique. Their vision led to the establishment of JAM International, the global humanitarian organisation that Ann has served for almost 40 years.
A mother of six, with 14 grandchildren, Ann has a great appreciation for the value of family and her extended “JAMily”. Referred to by many as “Mama JAM” because of her big heart, Ann is a highly motivated and empathetic person who is fiercely passionate about seeing an Africa that thrives.
In June 2021, their son Isak took over as the JAM Group CEO as Ann stepped into the role of Founding Director on JAM’s International Board. As Co-Founder, Ann is the key relationship representative, focused on the history and heart of JAM through networking with governments, donors, ambassadors and at leading fundraising events and launches.
She remains a champion of JAM’s beneficiaries and custodian of its vision. In 2021, JAM impacted nearly 2.4-million lives across seven countries in Africa. Together, Peter and Ann received several prestigious awards, including the 2018 African Ubuntu Award for Social Responsibility, and were one of five finalists for the AidEx 2014 Humanitarian Hero of the Year Award.
In April of 2022, JAM International was renamed ForAfrika, You can learn more about them here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
Joe Cuddemi and I travelled in similar circles in our college days, although we didn’t know each other well. After graduation we both ended up in Montana as Jesuit Volunteers; Joe was a teacher on the Fort Belknap Reservation while I was in Great Falls and then in Ashland on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. We saw each other at retreats and I remember at least one wonderful afternoon riding horses together, but it wasn’t until this conversation that I had the chance to learn about his journey, about a searching to find his spark, the thing that gave his life meaning and purpose.
Joe grew up in Boston (you might hear evidence of that in this interview) in a big Italian family surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Although his parents never went to college, His mother instilled in him the value of education, a lesson he took to heart. We talk about the experiences and people who helped guide him through more than 35 years of experience as a teacher, counselor, and principal. About staying humble and maintaining a learners mind. About the value of finding mentors and giving to others what was given to you. Teaching, after all, is about paying it forward.
Since 2015, he has been a national educational consultant serving hundreds of districts and schools across the country. Joe delivers keynotes, facilitates workshops and coaches educators in the PLC at Work process, Transforming School Culture, RTI at Work, Priority Schools and Social Emotional Learning.
Joe earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Boston College, a master’s degree in the Art of Teaching Mathematics from Northern Arizona University and his principal licensure at Colorado State University. He lives in Thornton, Colorado with his wife Donna.
To learn more about Joe Cuddemi visit his page at Solution Tree
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
For years I’ve been teaching service learning courses, classes that expand beyond the classroom out into the community, that pair academic learning with hands on community engagement. One of my favorite community partners is Forget Me Not Farm, a place where children who have experienced abuse and neglect get to heal through learning to care for once abused and neglected animals who at one time shared their history.
This week I had the chance to talk with Carol Rathmann, the founder and director of the farm that is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Despite growing up in the city of San Francisco, Carol had a love of farm animals. We talk about the conference she attended that ignited her spark and encouraged her to use her passion to spread light to the children in her community. Carol is a go getter, someone who is not afraid to ask for what she needs, especially when she believes in what she’s doing.
Over the years my students have had their own magical experiences “on the farm”. Students come back to the classroom frull of stories about feeding the earless pig “Van Gogh” or watching the children squeal in delight as Teddy, the baby lamb, nuzzled up to them. Some students have enjoyed their time there so much they continued to volunteer even after the class was over.
Carol Rathmann is the founder and director of Forget Me Not Farm and executive director of Forget Me Not Children’s Services. For over 40 years she has been involved in animal welfare and for the past 30 years with children and animals. She holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology and studied the benefits of animal assisted and horticultural therapy to child victims of abuse and neglect, as well as certification as a Specialist in Animal Assisted Activities and Therapy. She is the recipient of many national awards recognizing her for her innovative work in the prevention of child and animal abuse. Carol lives on a small farm along with 20+ animals she has rescued.
To learn more about Forget Me Not Farm
Website: www.forgetmenotfarm.org
Forget Me Not Farm on Social Media
- on Facebook @forget-me-not-farm
- on Instagram @_forgetmenotfarm_
- on Twitter @farm_forget
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
My relationship with Patti Digh’s work began many years ago when I stumbled upon her wonderful blog, “37 days”. Despite the obvious differences, (she was raised in a small town in North Carolina, is a natural redhead and has the most wonderful southern drawl), I felt something strangely familiar in her words as I sat on that first day and read essay after beautiful essay. It was like looking in the mirror. I felt like I had known her my entire life.
The title of that blog was inspired by the death of Patti’s stepfather just 37 days after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The time frame became a wake-up call for her and she asked herself the question, “What would I be doing if I had 37 days to live.” After the sudden death of my father in 2007, I knew that question. I had asked it myself. Many of the writings from that blog found their way into book form and became an award winning book called Life is a Verb.
Patti is an author, speaker, and educator who builds inclusive learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics like diversity, inclusion, and meaning. She is the author of 8 books, including the award-winning Life is a Verb.
I was thrilled when she agreed to join me on the podcast to talk about the sparks that led her to a life of activism. For the past last three decades she has focused her energies on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She’s developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations, and been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.
She has served on diversity councils for major non-profits like AARP, the American Red Cross, and many others. Patti teaches social justice education classes, and hosts an annual Life is a Verb Camp that fosters community among creatives from around the world.
Welcome Patti.
To learn more about Patti Digh, visit her website.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
I have known Heidi Pidcoke since the late 1990s, when we worked together at the Family Institute of Marin, a mental health nonprofit in Marin County, California. At the time Heidi was a Marriage and Family Therapy intern, working on earning her hours for clinical licensure. One of the great joys of my professional life is to be able to watch the people I’ve had a role in training go out in the world and build their careers, sometimes, as in the case of Heidi, careers that I’ve both admired and envied.
I remember the hours spent in my office talking over weekly supervision like they were yesterday. Heidi’s view of the world and of her role in it was expansive, having grown up for the first 11 years of her life in Brazil. Since then she has lived in California Philadelphia, and Texas in the United States, London and Pretoria South Africa, Nairobi, Kenya and Geneva Switzerland. Originally born in Brazil, Heidi is a 3rd culture person, a child who grows up in a culture different from the one in which his or her parents grew up. She is trilingual, fluent in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English.
It is these experiences that we talk about in this episode of From Sparks to Light. Of a calling to serve others that led her to South Africa and then to Kenya. She talks about her work to heal the traumatic effects of generational violence through the mind body connection of somatic therapies. In this time when the world seems smaller than ever, we talk about what it means to be at home in the world.
Heidi has a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Bryn Mawr University and a Masters in Psychology with an emphasis in Somatic Family Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a trained EMDR practitioner with a multilingual international practice. She currently lives in San Francisco, California with her cat Milla.
To learn more about Heidi's work, visit her website.
To reach Heidi directly, email her at heidi@heidipidcoke.com.
To learn more about EMDR, a healing technique mentioned in this episode, click here.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
That’s the voice of Egypt Worthy, and the little bodies she’s talking about are the third graders she worked with as a City Year Volunteer back in 2016. National Service is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Anybody that knows me knows that joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps myself, after I graduated from Boston College, literally changed the course of my life.
Over the years I’ve encouraged many of my students to choose to step into service because I know the impact it can have when you take that leap of faith and sign on the dotted line. It’s not always easy, but leaning into the discomfort changes you. It’s the paradox of giving. In the end, it always seems like you get more than you give.
That’s why I wanted to talk to Egypt. I wanted to understand what motivated her and how serving others shaped the who she is today. She has a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Newman University in 2014 and is currently getting her Masters degree in Social Work from Widener University. She served in Fema Corps in 2015, City Year in 2016, CareForce in 2017 and she’s currently working as an Impact Manager for City Year, back in the same school where she began her service in Philadelphia in 2016.
I’m so grateful she’s joined us today. Welcome Egypt.
City Year Info:
- City Year Philadelphia (3rd-grade classroom) 2016-2017
- Care Force HQ (Boston) 2017-2018
- City Year Philadelphia (Impact Manager) Feb. 2020-present
You can find Egypt on Social Media here:
- Instagram Username: @Mstrouble10
- Facebook: @Ramses Cannon
National Service Organizations mentioned in this episode
- City Year
- FEMA Corps, Peace Corps and AmeriCorps VISTA
- Jesuit Volunteer Corps
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
For over twenty years, Darlene O’Brien has been an inspiring speaker, dynamic trainer, and passionate disability rights advocate. She’s also a holistic educator, with a successful bio-energetics practice in both Northern and Southern California.
Since going blind in 1998, she has dedicated herself to demonstrating that all people, with or without disabilities, deserve the same considerations and opportunities found through social interaction and competitive employment.
After going blind at the age of 35, and with two young children to support, Darlene realized that the career development needs of those with blindness and low vision were profoundly underrepresented in her area of Northern California. So she created the career development program in Sacramento, where she addressed the vocational needs of the blind and low vision community. She also realized that employers would benefit from a better understanding of how to hire and work with individuals with disabilities, so she co-created the Spirit of Inclusion workshop, with a local non-profit organization, A Touch of Understanding where she delivered a lively, hands-on Disability Awareness and Etiquette Training program, to thousands of employees throughout the greater Sacramento area.
She has developed a reputation for being a dynamic inspirational speaker. Her enthusiasm and tell-it-like-it-is humorous style have won over audiences in both the public and private sectors.
In addition to serving on ATOU’s board of directors for over 18 years, she continues to facilitate their annual event, An Evening of Insight, which enables its participants to experience a meal under blindfold, while interacting in a lively social environment.
She is currently writing her teaching memoir, in addition to developing a new talk show. Darlene believes that genius is held within each one of us, regardless of physical, intellectual, or mental ability, and that this genius is here to serve the greater good. She believes that it is incumbent on each of us to discover that genius and bring it into the world, because it is only then that we will raise humanity to its highest potential.
A Touch of Understanding - the organization that Darlene speaks about in the episode.
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
Julie Bridge is the founder of Mearas Group and Executive Director of The Brego Foundation.
This conversation begins with a story about a girl and her horse. About the connection that happened when she first sat on his back and felt herself begin to heal. It is a conversation about the mystical power of nonverbal communication and the recovery that is possible when we tune in to what we know deep inside.
In 2007 when she rescued her first thoroughbred from a Washington feedlot and named him Brego, the Brego Foundation was formed. The Brego Foundation provides services for veterans, individuals in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction and others affected by trauma. It is dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and retirement of former race horses and other horses in need of a second or even third career.
Julie has an advanced degree in Depth Psychology and has had the honor of training and apprenticing with some of the most influential leaders in the area of Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning. She lives on Tabula Rasa Ranch in Sonoma County, California.
Julie's Contacts
- The Mearas Group: http://www.mearas.net/
- The Brego Foundation: http://www.brego.org/
The book that inspired Julie's work
- Linda Kohanov, The Tao of Equus: A Woman's Journey of Healing and Transformation Through the Way of the Horse
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
Margo Gallagher is someone I’ve known since our sons were preschool pals almost thirty years ago. This is an extraordinary conversation about loss, about walking into the tunnel of grief and coming out the other side. It’s about the lessons she’s learned through some difficult years and how she put the pieces back together again. But mostly it’s about sharing what she’s learned to help others.
Margo is a mother, artist and activist. She is a co-owner of Vibe Gallery in Petaluma, California. Margo’s own creative work includes beautiful mandalas she calls “Kaleida-Stars”, work that symbolizes the shattering and reconstructing of life that comes through loss. She has been a Hospice Volunteer for more than 10 years and a vital part of supporting the local community celebration of El Dia de Los Muertos.
To learn more about Margo, please check out these links.
KaleidaStars - Margo's original artwork
Vibe Gallery, Petaluma, California
Good Vibe - Vibe Gallery Adds to Petaluma Arts Scene - The Bohemian
Find Vibe Gallery on Social Media
- On Instagram: @vibegallerypetaluma
- On Facebook: @vibegallerypetaluma
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
Find Suzanne on Social Media
- https://www.suzannemaggio.com
- On Instagram: @mamasuzanna
- On Facebook: @suzannemaggioauthor
- On Twitter: @bottomofninth
For roughly 12 years Elizabeth Quiroz was addicted and trafficked on the streets of San Francisco and incarcerated numerous times, eventually losing custody of her 3 month old son.
But this is a story about redemption. About second chances and what happens when you turn your life around. It’s a story about dedicating your life to making sure that what happened to you, doesn’t happen to others.
In the years since her final confinement, Elizabeth battled to reclaim her life. Now, clean for more than a decade, she’s overcome addiction, arrests and incarceration. She’s gotten married and along with her husband, built a new blended family. She earned and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Sonoma State University and is currently working on her Master’s degree in Social Justice. In 2018 she received a full pardon from the governor of California.
That same year, Liz and her partner Lisa McQuaid formed Redemption House of the Bay Area. A non-profit dedicated to helping victims of trafficking. Elizabeth’s memoir, Purified in the Flame, will be released next month.
You can learn more about Liz and her work with Redemption House below:
Redemption House of the Bay Area
Survivors of Human Trafficking Extend Lifeline to Victims Still on the Street in Sonoma County
On Instragram @redemptionbayarea
On Facebook @RedemptionHouseBayArea
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
This is a conversation that began many years ago, in our Boston College days, when I knew him simply as Gregory. He is, to me, the personification of joy. He is bubbly and playful and whether we were sitting in the Eagles Next cafeteria at BC or chatting over lunch or dancing in the streets of Boston, he always had a knack for making me laugh. We talk about paying attention to the world around you. About the lessons he learned from his mom and dad about how important it is to start right where you are. And although Msgr Gregory is now Catholic, he wasn’t always. He was raised in a Hindu family and schooled in the Muslim faith. He has an eclectic soul, filled with a kind of generosity of spirit that has always inspired me to want to be the best version of myself I can be.
Gregory Ramkissoon was born in Trinidad, West Indies as the 5th of 13 children. He holds a degree in Urban Planning, as well as Master’s degrees in Philosophy and Theology from Boston College. In 1978, Gregory Ramkissoon started Mustard Seed Communities (MSC). a home for a handful of the children who had been living on the streets of Kingston.
In 1984, when he was ordained a Catholic priest, he knew he wasn’t called to a parochial vocation. Instead he saw the need to address poverty in developing countries and dedicated himself to continuing the work he’d begun several years before.
Now, what started as a small home for a few dozen children in the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, has grown into homes, schools, and small business enterprises in Jamaica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
In 2010, Monsignor Ramkissoon was conferred with the Order of Jamaica, the country’s fourth highest award.
To learn more about Msgr. Gregory's work and Mustard Seed Communities, please check out their website.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MustardSeedCommunities
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mustardseedcommunities
Twitter: @MustardSeedComm
Mustard Seed Communities Ireland website: https://mustardseedireland.ie/
Mustard Seed Communities Zimbabwe Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/msczim/
Mustard Seed Communities linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mustard-seed-communities
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please check out his website.
To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.
I can't think of a more perfect way to start this podcast than with a man I've admired since I first met him. Gregg Cassin is funny, compassionate and filled with an energy that is infectious. I felt pulled to him immediately as have so many of the people he’s met along the way.
Gregg has spent the past 30 plus years leading retreats and workshops for the HIV, LGBT and Queer Youth communities. He founded the San Francisco Healing Circle and the San Francisco Center for Living as well as assisting with the national AIDS, Medicine and Miracles Conference. Gregg’s work honors the scores of friends lost to the virus as well as the loved ones who remain. He works at San Francisco’s Shanti Project and is the creator of “Honoring Our Experience” a retreat program addressing the issues of long term survivors of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He also facilitates retreats for LGBTQ young adults and the LGBTQ asylee and refugee community.
Gregg’s work with the queer community honors the sacred inner journey we are all called to. Story-telling remains the foundation of his work which explores the importance of self-love, connection, belonging and innocence.
In 1990, Gregg was awarded a Congressional Certificate of Special Recognition, presented to him by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as well as honors from the City of San Francisco. He is seen in the ground-breaking documentaries “Absolutely Positive” and “That’s a Family.” His greatest joy is the gift of being a parent and grandparent to 3 amazing humans.
You can learn more about Gregg's work here:
https://www.greggcassin.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/greggcassin/
To learn more about Suzanne's journey along the Camino, check out her memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago. Please visit https://www.suzannemaggio.com
To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of our theme music, please visit https://www.robertmaggio.com
Hi , I’m Suzanne Maggio, a social worker, educator and writer, and this is From Sparks to Light.
In 2019 I walked Spain’s famous pilgrimage, El Camino de Santiago. One night, in the small town of Carrion de los Condes, I went to a pilgrim Mass. At the end, I was given a small paper star, a reminder to be the light for someone. As I continued along those 500 miles, that simple gift came to mean a lot to me.
In these challenging times, I believe we have an obligation to show up for one another. To give back to our communities. To bring our light into the world. From Sparks to Light shares the stories of people who choose to follow their spark and light the darkness. Each week we’ll hear the stories of people who are giving back in different ways. Learn what inspires them and what they learned along the way. I hope their stories inspire you to find your spark and encourage you to shine your own precious light in the world.
Episodes drop on Thursday. Please be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.
If you’d like to learn more about what inspired this podcast, please check out my memoir Estrellas – Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago.