In our last episode before summer break, I talk to my big sister and friend, Rasheeda Creighton. Being that Rasheeda has known me for more than half of my life you can imagine this conversation is full of memories, revelations, and deep honesty.  In this episode we talk about checking all the boxes and then deciding to break all the rules, designing a life to which you feel aligned and connected, and how choosing to leave both her marriage and job changed everything.  Learn more about Rasheeda and her work at rasheedacreighton.com.

This month we’re talking to my friend and collaborator Aseanté Renee, principle of the Axon Group and founder of The Susu House. Aseanté and I are a true pandemic friendship. We met virtually on a social app over a year ago and have built a friendship that has allowed us to collaborate on a few projects together, most recently being our Sister Circle Sunday series in the Lab. In this episode, Aseanté talks about finding her own, personalized spiritual practice after her divorce, embracing her healing journey, and how she’s working to make healing accessible and cost-free for Black and brown women and femmes through The Susu House. If you’d like to donate to the Radical Healing Fund to help the Susu House fulfill its mission you can donate here https://moorephilanthropy.com/susu-house/. You can learn more about Aseanté and her work at Susuhouse.org.

This month in the lounge I’m joined by Dr. Christina Harrington, Design researcher and professor at Carnegie Mellon University and one of my design partners in this work. We met a little over a year ago on a panel and since then have been able to join forces to create Building Utopia, an Afrofuturist inspired Speculative Design toolkit. Christina’s goal in her work is to bring the ideas of design to our communities, the ones who have always been at the forefront of new innovative ideas. In this episode, which I’m calling Do the Thing, Christina talks about finding her authentic self as a queer, preacher’s kid, ditching engineering for design, and having the courage to put new ideas into the world. Learn more about Christina and our Building Utopia project at buildingutopiadeck.com. Learn more about Colored Girls Liberation Lab at coloredgirlslab.org.

This month we’re joined by my beautiful sister Arianne Edmonds of the J. L. Edmonds Project. Ari and I met over a year ago as cohort mates in the USC Civic Media Fellowship. It felt pretty obvious from the start we were supposed to know each other; and in that time we’ve built a sisterhood that allows for a soft and sturdy stillness, one where we find immense joy and deep reflection. Ari has that way about her and I think you’ll feel it as you listen. If I had to think of a theme for this episode I’d say it is, “nothing is lost.” Arianne digs into her journey to archiving and sharing her great, great grandfather’s work, how a year in Ghana changed the way she creates, and how she’s looking at her contribution to her family’s legacy differently than before. Learn more about Ari and the J.L. Edmonds Project at jledmondsproject.com.

Today’s guest is one of my best friends, Courtney Hall, intimacy coach at Sundara Intimacy. In our conversation, we touch on finding the courage to be authentically you in every space you enter, why she started Sundara Intimacy and how her parents’ unfulfilled dreams may have influenced her life of freedom.