Today we are talking with Robert Wilson Jr. Rob uses He/ him pronouns and identifies as African-American or black. He’s been a part of the fight for 15 campaign in Chicago, has canvassed for independent socialist councilwoman rosanna Rodriguez, has organized mutual aids and continues to work with folks who are trying to change their situations
He identifies politically as a revolutionary socialist / communist
Today we are talking with River Routen. River is an architect and a visualizer. His Facebook tag line is "I grew up in the woods", and that's true. He grew up in a neighborhood with a big dinner bell that used to call all the kids in the woods home for dinner. There is a book which was celebrated by the Sierra Club called "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv. It's about kids growing up without nature. River says that There is something very mystical when the forest takes over your perception.
Today, we are talking with Samara Powers. Samara (she/they) is a parent of two, a poet, and a demi-theistic, femme gender fluid, queer-postive, trans-positive relationship anarchist. she earned a degree in Creative Writing in 2018, and has a professional background in marketing and graphic design, restaurant work, and writing, and identifies as an artist. She is currently a 2nd-year seminary student at Meadville Lombard Theological School, and has been active at her home congregation as a Worship Associate, a member of their last Ministerial Search Committee, and former chair of the Relationship Advocacy Team. She is a Certified Facilitator for the OWL Curriculum for Older Adults. She co-houses with two other moms in an intentional micro-community called the "Mommune."
Today, we are talking with James Clarke. James is an omnistic UU who was raised as a skeptical Episcopalian in Connecticut. He aspires to be a heavy metal chaplain.
Today, we are talking with Sue Burke. Sue’s next science fiction novels are Dual Memory, coming in May 2023, and Usurpation in May 2024. She has also written the novels Semiosis, Interference, and Immunity Index, along with short stories, poems, and essays. She began working as a journalist while still in high school and eventually became a newspaper editor. As a result of living overseas, she’s also a literary translator, working from Spanish into English. She’s currently enjoying life in Chicago; she grew up in Milwaukee and has lived in Austin, TX, and Madrid, Spain.
Today, we are talking with Tere Parsley Starnes. Tere is a non-binary witch and astrologer.
Their astrology is rooted in the cycles and wisdom of the Earth. It is queer, radical, and oriented towards being the change we want to see. For them, astrology is a tool for practicing mindful intention—a blend of self-awareness with a desire for change and manifestation.
Tere has been a professional astrologer since 1995. They practice a modern form of astrology that they call Queer Hedge Witch Astrology—a pragmatic blend of liberatory, magical, archetypal, and psychological astrological practices. They use the Placidus house system. They are a writer and teacher, specializing in astrology and earth-based spirituality. The Reclaiming Tradition is one of their spiritual homes, blending reverence for the Earth with a responsibility for action.
Today we are talking with Ron Kanutski. Ron has Ojibway and Cree roots and is from the Bear Clan. He is a band member of the Red Rock Indian Band (Lake Helen 1st Nation) with his grandmother’s roots from the Moose Cree Nation. As a family man, married for 24 years and with his wife's support and dedication has assisted in raising 25 children in addition to his own. He has been drug and alcohol free for 31 years which he feels has grounded him to be a better version of himself.
Ron is a Confederation College Graduate: Native Child & Family Worker 1991
And a President’s Medal Recipient
He is an energetic social worker, cultural teacher, group facilitator, college instructor, comedian, promoter, and musician who is a long-term resident of the Ogden East End community in Thunder Bay ON. As the sole proprietor of With Care Consulting and Ron Kanutski Comedy he works diligently throughout Canada and the USA to wherever he is called which is currently NAN HOPE.
He believes in the power of spirit and the importance of connection.
Today we are talking with Ruin Riggs. Ruin is an autistic, queer, nonbinary polytheist who is way into landback, housing justice, queer and trans rights, and labor organization.
Today, we are talking with Joel (Awe) Diamond.
Awe is very actively retired. He says the term re-tired also means "to put on new tires" and keep on rolling.
Currently, he is a full time multicultural solidarity volunteer, he works part time in an undercover job, and has a gig protectively supervising a father whenever he sees his son.
His past careers included being an elementary school teacher, a social worker mostly working with child abuse, and a probation officer mostly working with sex offenders.
Awe was raised by 4 women.
He is enthusiastic about Goddess spirituality, feminism, and anti racism.
He has been married to Doris for 54 years, and they live a life with love love love and world travel.
Today, we are talking with Steve Smith. Steve is a dreamer and an explorer of ideas, whose eternal inner calling is to push the boundary at the edge of the "desert of the real" toward a vision of a brave and loving world. He completed the Diana's Grove Mystery School Rite of Passage program in 2008, and has worked with several groups to promote that tradition's ritual arts. His enthusiastic curiosity has provided a revolving door of pursuits over the years, but his lifelong loves of martial arts and video games has never left him. He teaches game development part-time at Johnson County Community College, squeezes in indie development when he can, and works as a research and development programmer for an engineering simulation company. He joyfully studies Chen taijiquan with Chen Huixian, and looks forward to the day when he can visit Chen village, the birthplace of taijiquan. He lives near Kansas City with his three cat-shaped marauders.
Today, we are talking with Tom Clowes. Tom is the founder, Executive Director, and cellist of Crossing Borders Music. Founded in 2011, Crossing Borders Music has become a leading, critically acclaimed interpreter of music by composers from under-represented cultures. Crossing Borders Music was a Headline Artist at the African Festival of the Arts, a Resident Arts Organization at the Chicago Cultural Center, and has been presented by the Old Town School of Folk, Montréal’s Society for the Research and Promotion of Haitian Music, United World College of South East Asia, and at Chicago’s Symphony Center through the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s African American Network. Crossing Borders Music has been featured on NBC-5 and ABC-7 Chicago News, on WFMT, on WBEZ, in the Chicago Tribune, and as a Critic’s Pick in TimeOut Chicago. Through a grant from the Sparkplug Foundation, Crossing Borders Music recorded a world premiere album of original chamber music with the composer, Grammy-nominated sitarist Gaurav Mazumdar, and is now planning its release on Ropeadope Records.
Tom is also a cello teacher at Chicago West Community Music Center of East Garfield Park, a music teacher at the Ambassadors Music Institute Summer Music Camp in Croix-day-boquets, a member and past Board Chair at Second Unitarian Church of Chicago; and a volunteer high school program counselor at the Midwest Unitarian Universalist Summer Assembly. He enjoys making fancy coffees, doing crosswords, running long distances, questioning racist online comments, and sharing meals with Cambodians in Chicago.
Jonas Ellison. Jonas decided to go to seminary in his 40s to become an ordained Lutheran minister. Before this, he'd stepped away from the church for a decade or two due to the tyrannical god they tried to sell him growing up. Somehow, much to his chagrin, he couldn't shake the Jesus thing. In coming back to Jesus's eternal story, he met some crazy-ass Lutherans who taught him about God's radically scandalous grace for him (and yes, even those he deems unworthy of it).He knew he'd found his theological home and signed up for seminary on the double.
He’s been sharing his whimsical ramblings online for more than a decade. Somehow, over the years, he’s put together a somewhat popular blog on Medium. He’s also written for other publications like Huffington Post, Observer, Crossings, Good Men Project, and more.
Ebony is a spiritual entrepreneur and Lay Community Minister with two ministries: Sunstone Chapel and Innovative Spirit. She is a life-long Unitarian Universalist from Silver Spring, Maryland. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from Sweet Briar College, a M.S. in Strategic Human Resources and Organization Development from Johns Hopkins University, and a Master of Arts in Leadership Studies (MALS) from Meadville Lombard Theological School. She completed her seminary internship at All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington, D.C. where she focused on adult spiritual development, social justice, and worship arts. She has a professional background as a clinical sociologist practicing in human resources, training, facilitation, and career consulting. Ebony is an Adjunct Instructor, having taught college and graduate courses in Business, General Education, and Sociology at three colleges. In her spare time, she enjoys writing poetry and stories. Her poems have been published in the 2021 inSpirit anthology and in BLUU Notes: An Anthology of Love, Justice, and Liberation by Skinner House Books. Ebony is the 2022 Winner of the Charles Billings Prize for Excellence in Preaching from Meadville Lombard Theological School and a recipient of the Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley scholarship from the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation.
April Neander is a Research Specialist at the University of Chicago and Scientific Artist. She was hired by the Luo mammal paleontology lab right out of grad school as a Scientific Illustrator in large part because of her experience processing CT data to make 3D models for animation. The Lab received a micro-CT scanner several years after that and April was trained to run the scanner and maintain the lab, in addition to scientific illustration. Running the micro-CT lab has become a large part of what April does, and she has been inspired by how beautiful the scans can be – seeing the insides of animals, plants, fossils, etc. After many years of admiring the beauty of internal anatomy, she began seriously working on the ExtraCT Skullpture the past few years. Her goal is to create abstract pieces that seem recognizably biological yet unfamiliar.
Nina Larson is of the firm opinion there are jobs that will pay you to do anything and everything. Her personal work history includes getting paid to travel domestically and live internationally. She has visited ‘a couple of places’ worldwide, 47 of the 50 states, and is currently working remotely as a Benefit Manager for a non-profit that can be described as a temp agency for the government. A long time passion is financial literacy as financial freedom is key to being a digital nomad.
roddy bell-shelton biggs is a Queer, BIPOC, Nonbinary seminarian, and an aspiring Public Theologian. roddy uses they/them pronouns. Owning the Christian faith of thier ancestors, roddy is grounded in Unitarian Universalist faith communities by choice. roddy is called to lead radical love, care, and sanctuary movements, simultaneously disrupting patriarchy and all systems of oppression plaguing our world. They genuinely believe that we must "Do everything in love" - 1 Corinthians 16:14 as we "Do justice, love mercy and tread humbly" - Micah 6:8
roddy is the incoming Intern Minister for The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fredericksburg, VA, and Ministerial Aspirant with the Unitarian Universalist Association. They are also the Former Worship Lead: UU Young Adult Revival Network 2020-2022 and a Former member of the UU Mental Health Network Board of Directors: 2020-2022
Dr. L. Carol Scott is a trauma-informed developmental psychologist, TEDx speaker, coach, and author. Carol brings the SASS—Self-Aware Success Strategies to help you get along better on the adult playgrounds you play on. (Self-Aware Success Strategies are based on "developmental do-overs" we can have of strategies we should have learned in early childhood)
Carol is Also a nationally respected thought leader in early care and education (ECE), Carol is former president of the board for Child Care Aware® of America, and the ECE System Integration Consultant for Steering Impact, the home of EarlyCare+, a technology innovation to revolutionize access for all parents and caregivers to the ecosystem of ECE services.
Atena O. Danner insists upon Black liberation and boundless curiosity. Her poems range from kitchen-table specificity to universal relatability, covering topics including neurodiversity, human connection, and collective liberation. Atena has recently published poems in ‘Raising Mothers’ online, 'Shelter in This Place: Meditations on 2020,' 'Struggle, Elevate, Celebrate: An Anthology of Women’s Voices' and in the inaugural issue of ‘understory quarterly.' She is an alum of the Hurston/Wright Writers Week, a former In Surreal Life Surreal Scholar, and has been a featured reader for The Guild Complex Presents Exhibit B series. Atena collaborates as a member of Surviving the Mic, a collaborative collective of survivors dedicated to creating brave and affirming creative spaces for survivors of trauma. In their home north of Chicago, near the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires and of the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations Atena lives with her partner and 2 free Black children. Her first poetry collection, ‘Incantations for Rest’ is available now via Skinner House Books.
Mary Sommers, CPM, MPS, IBCLC
Mary is the Director of Birth Center Operations and Perinatal Education at PCC Community Wellness, a Federally Qualified Health Center and Academic Affairs Director of the Midwest Maternal Child Institute. She is a Certified Professional Midwife, a Internationally board certified lactation consultant and holds a Master’s degree in Public Service from DePaul University. She is a childbirth educator teaching both at PCC and at Birthways in Chicago. Mary has many years of experience and the wisdom that comes from witnessing more than 1,800 deliveries over the past 35 years.
Early in her career, she co-founded Chicago Community Midwives, a not-for-profit homebirth service. Mary has since worked as a midwife, doula, and lactation consultant for various private practices in the Chicago area, Mary was a World Health Organization fellow, studying maternal health and breastfeeding programs in Netherlands and England. She has worked with midwives from Malawi and Grand Valley State to create a midwifery guidebook and APP, and was an advisory board member of CASA professional midwifery program in San Miguel de Allende, GTO, Mexico. Mary has worked for more than thirty years in community health as an administrator and director of maternal child health programs and has supervised more than 40 midwifery students and trained more than 100 doulas in her various administrative roles.
She is the author of More Than a Midwife: Stories of Grace, Glory, and Motherhood and The Doula Handbook. She is featured in the book, Bright Lights of the Second City: 50 Prominent Chicagoans on Living with Passion and Purpose by Betsy Storm. She is a Jung Studies student at the Jung Institute in Chicago. She is a dream practitioner and dabbles in the tarot and is fascinated by all things mystical. She is currently planning a Compassionate Center for Chicago.
The Rev. Darrick Jackson (he/him) is the Director of Ministries for Lifelong Learning of UU Ministers Association and an Affiliated Community Minister with Second Unitarian Church of Chicago. He is one of the authors in the book “Centering: Navigating Race, Authenticity and Power in Ministry.” Rev. Darrick is active in DRUUMM (the UU ministry for people of color, and is the treasurer for Healing Moments (a ministry for caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s). He is also the Managing Director of the Chicago Playback Theatre Ensemble and is an avid knitter. Rev. Darrick and his husband, Rev. James Olson, live with their two cats, Merlin and Morgana.
