Musician and human laser beam of positive energy Phil Cook comes to the woods in Alabama for an intimate conversation by the creek. We talk everything from space and swing, to dad’s ski tapes, to getting diagnosed with ADHD at 40, and learning to respect the power of plants. It’s been a big time of reflection and setting new direction. Welcome to Phil’s big, beautiful world. You're part of the family now.  Watch Phil’s new documentary Stay Prayed Up and listen to his new album All These Years. He’s on IG @philcookmusic. More podcasts at MauraJames.com and IG @maurajames. [“All These Years” - Phil Cook]

My dear friend Chase Bauer returns to the podcast with a deeply personal exploration of the nature of mind. In telling the story of a recent psychedelic ceremony, Chase reveals how a constellation of wisdom including nonviolent communication (NVC), guru yoga, and the witness of LSD helped him understand his relationship to addiction in a radically new way. Along the way we contemplate cults and spiritual abuse, whiteness, codependence, the value and limitations of constructing mental models, and doing whippets in your 30s. Watch Chase’s short films Calling For Home Care and Pleasant Valley Black and Blue and connect with him on IG @cosminomena. More podcasts at MauraJames.com and IG @maurajames. [“Love Is Overtaking Me” - Arthur Russell]

Kathy Nida is an artist most well known for her quilts, which depict potent visions of the human experience. She describes quilting as a form of meditative practice that is essential to her mental health. She has intentionally prioritized it throughout her life, including while also being a mother and a full-time middle school science teacher. In this conversation, we explore truth-telling and censorship, art and capitalism, pantyhose revolt, and finding hope for the future in critically-thinking 12-year-olds, among much more. You can connect with her at kathynida.com and on IG @knida. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at MauraJames.com. [“Down By the River” - Letta Mbulu]

Hasan Oswald is a filmmaker who made the documentary film HIGHER LOVE in Camden, NJ with no professional experience, no budget, and no crew. Using YouTube to learn all things film and selling his blood plasma to make ends meet, he somehow pulled off a zero-budget hit. Higher Love tells the story of a blue-collar father tries to bring his pregnant, heroin-addicted girlfriend home from the streets. Oswald shares stories about the making of the project, as well as his next feature about Yazidi families in the Middle East seeking reunification after thousands of people were kidnapped by ISIS. You can connect with him at HigherLoveFilm.com and @HigherLoveFilm. More podcasts where podcasts are found and MauraJames.com. [“Dreamlands” - Still Corners]

Susan Ateh is a breathwork facilitator whose goal is for all people to experience love for themselves. An Irish-Cameroonian living in LA as a working actor for many years, Susan realized that the misogyny, materialism, and judgment inherent to the film industry had worn down her love for her craft, and she found herself paralyzed by depression. She shares how breathwork reconnected her to the beauty of her emotions and helped her begin to release decades of unprocessed emotion, a journey into reconnection that she now holds space for others to walk. We talk about the socialization of “the good girl,” the trope of the “angry black woman,” comparison culture, capitalism and colonialism in the wellness industry, and the importance of apologizing for our participation in white supremacy—unconscious and conscious—when we begin the work of deprogramming our minds and hearts. You can find Susan and her virtual breathwork circles at www.susanateh.com and IG @irishinfused. More podcasts where podcasts are found, www.maurajames.com and IG @maurajames.  [“Deep Silence” - Loma Suyo]

Jeanette Waddell is a storyteller and wise elder based in middle Georgia. She returns to the podcast (catch her on episode 37!) to share her experience as a black woman in America, from confronting racism in intimate relationships to underrepresentation of black bodies in the media to learning to keep her heart open with healthy boundaries through ongoing oppression. She shares the stories of community organizing and individual vision that ground her in her own agency: Malcolm X, MLK, the organizers of the bus boycotts, and the community of the black church. Through it all, she presents storytelling as a powerful tool for manifesting freedom in a world based on exploitation and enslavement. You can email her at [email protected]. More podcasts where podcasts are found and MauraJames.com.  [“If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)” - The Staples Singers]

Nick Nail is a musician, painter, gentle soul, and friend of ours in Birmingham. Here Nick explores his lifelong quest for comfort and belonging after experiencing a painful split in his consciousness in the wake of early childhood sexual abuse. At times Nick has found relief in long distance running and creating music and art and at other times in codependent relationships and regular heroin use. Nick has a tremendous capacity for compassionate observation. He talks with radical transparency about the gifts and limitations of addiction, choosing homelessness, bearing the stigma of being a “bad person,” discovering the permission to enjoy life, and learning to be of service to the world. Nick recently detoxed from heroin at our house and this conversation was recorded a few days after he was finally walking, talking, and eating again. “Who’s to say that anybody is wrong for doing something that they’re lead to do? All the things that we go through are just something to help us do better tomorrow, you know?” More podcasts where podcasts are found, MauraJames.com and IG: @maurajames. [“Your Jewel” - Michael Nau]

Juliana Mulligan is the founder of Inner Vision Ibogaine, where she coaches people before and after treatment sessions with the powerful entheogen ibogaine. Her call to devote her life to helping others formulate a new healing life structure is deeply personal: after seven years of struggle with opioid dependency, which forced her into the further trauma of the mainstream rehab system, from methadone and Suboxone to 12 step programs and the justice system, Juliana finally found freedom with ibogaine. Although the treatment was a success, the clinic did not followed proper safety protocols and Juliana nearly died several times during the experience. Ever since, she has been focused on safety guidelines, promoting women run clinics and co-authoring a guide for vetting providers. She became a certified EMT and trained in three Ibogaine clinics in South Africa, Costa Rica, and Mexico, acting as a provider and lay-therapist. She currently works as the Psychedelic Program Coordinator at The Center for Optimal Living, which focuses on Harm Reduction. You can find her recent articles at Double Blind and Chacruna. More podcasts where podcasts are found and at MauraJames.com. [“A Calf Born in Winter” - Khruangbin]

Sophia Remolde aka Lobsterbird is a nomadic creator, performer, writer, and energy worker who helps guide spiritual creatives to phase out of their jobs and into careers they love and that serve the world. During lockdown at her parents house this year, she answered an unexpected internal call to start growing her own food, something she had no previous experience with aside from once killing some bamboo. Several months later, she is the proud cultivator of a thriving food forest and on her way to a permaculture certification. She has started a mycelium education initiative to support people around the world at all levels of resources and in all kinds of physical spaces to begin their own journey into relationship with the soil and their food. You can find those resources at Grow.me and all her other offerings at Lobsterbird.com. More podcasts where podcasts are found, at MauraJames.com and IG @maurajames. [“We Are one” - MAZE ft. Frankie Beverly]

In honor of the two year anniversary of Unbroken Chain, I took a moment to look back on the journey. In a sweet conversation with my partner Daniel, I share my intentions for starting the podcast and touch on some of the things I’ve learned along the way: deep listening, connecting with the unbroken part of another’s soul, confronting suffering, reckoning with whiteness, psychedelic tools, plant medicine teachers, and other juicy goodness in between. I’m sending this out with much gratitude and love for the dear ones who have joined me on this ride. I see you, and I love you. More podcasts where podcasts are found, at MauraJames.com and IG: @maurajames. [“Solar Plexus Chakra” - Beautiful Chorus]