InTRA-PLANETARY MUSINGS

Called "the most intriguing African-American Buddhist" by Library Journal, Rev. angel Kyodo williams was made for these times. She has been bridging the worlds of transformation and justice since her critically acclaimed book, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace was hailed as “an act of love” by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, and "a classic" by Buddhist pioneer Jack Kornfield.

Her work, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love & Liberation, is igniting communities to have conversations necessary to become more awake and aware of what hinders liberation of self and society. Rev. angel applies wisdom teachings, embodied practice, and is a leading voice for Transformative Social Change. Known for her willingness to sit with and speak uncomfortable truths with love. Rev. angel notes, "Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters”.

preferred pronouns are: Rev, she, they

CONNECT: facebook | twitter | instagram: @ZenChangeAngel

Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to

Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker,

posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds

Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Bayo Akomolafe is the Founder of The Emergence Network and host of the online postactivist course, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains’. He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California and University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. He sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Local Futures (Australia). In July 2022, Dr. Akomolafe was appointed the inaugural Global Senior Fellow of University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute. He has also been appointed Senior Fellow for The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany. Websites: www.bayoakomolafe.net; www.emergencenetwork.org. 

Nova Reid is a thought leader, TED speaker, author and producer .

Often described as a force to be reckoned with, Nova uses her professional background in mental wellbeing to encourage meaningful change from the inside out.  Through her impactful advocacy and powerful public speaking, writing and storytelling, she has become renowned as an agent of change, selected as one of Black Magic Network’s Top 100 Black British Women and receiving a Precious Award for Social Impact.

Nova is a regular contributor to BBC News and Sky News, and has written for publications including the Guardian, Vogue, Elle, and Stylist. In 2018, she was invited to attend the Royal Wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to provide expert media commentary.

She has provided bespoke consultancy and worked with a variety of organisations including Google, BT, Bloody Good Period and human rights charity Birthrights.

In 2019, Nova was headhunted by TEDx Frankfurt to deliver a talk on racial microaggressions - Not all superheroes wear capes - which was upgraded as a TED talk in 2020. Through her TED talk, podcast series, Conversations with Nova Reid and as a former professional actress, Nova has established herself as a highly-skilled public speaker and interviewer who creates space for people to talk about a variety of topics, a personal highlight being an in-conversation with acclaimed actor David Harewood at the National Theatre in 2021.

Nova’s sought-after online academy which has consistently been described as life-changing – Becoming Anti-Racist with Nova Reid and her best selling debut book, The Good Ally is out now.

Ozioma Egwuonwu is an internationally celebrated speaker, strategist, transformation coach, and expert in Transformational Strategy and Systems Change. Regarded as a key visionary voice for our times, Ozioma’s life’s work is dedicated to supporting individual and collective progress.  

Known for her powerful insight and ability to sense emerging patterns, Ozioma delivers inspiring talks around the world that rouse people from states of apathy, sadness, and resignation, inspiring them to take action towards transforming entrenched patterns in the present so they can create pathways of possibility towards more desirable futures.

In 2012, Ozioma founded World Dream Day, celebrated annually on Sept 25th, it is the first-ever global holiday day dedicated to activating ideas, goals, and dreams.  

Ozioma is also the founder of BurnBright International, a training, coaching, and consulting company specializing in the development of Transformation Potential within individual, businesses, and communities.

https://www.oziomaegwuonwu.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ozioma
www.burnbright-lifeworks.com
www.worlddreamday.org 

Alixa García is a Colombian born, globally-raised, multi-disciplinary artist, activist, and cultural activator whose work is imbued in ritual, spirit, and deep reverence for our Great Mother, Great Lover: our Earth. She is an award-winning activist, poet, and filmmaker. She is also a professional writer, visual artist, musician, and facilitator. She is a co-founder of Climbing Poetree and Truthworker Theater Company, and founder of Alixa Garcia Studio. She's an editorial board member of ERA Coalition & Fund for Women's Equality, and her work has been published by Whit Press, AK Press, Hatchett, & Daraja Press. Alixa's words, visions, and music continue to travel the world on a mission to open portals of imagination and imaginal collectivity.

For more than two decades, Andrea has worked to promote economic mobility and Black liberation across Washington state. As Byrd Barr Place’s CEO since 2008, Andrea leads the organization in its efforts to build an equitable Washington through innovative programs and services that nurture people’s health and well-being. She’s also instrumental in designing initiatives that focus attention on the adverse impacts of racism and advocating for policy and systemic change.

As an immigrant to this country at the age of 12 and a single mother at 19, Andrea knows how it feels to be marginalized and struggling to make ends meet. Throughout her career, Andrea has translated her lived experience, coupled with her determination, to facilitate healing and forge solutions to advance equitable opportunity.

Inspired by the uprising for racial justice in 2020, Andrea, along with three other Black women, launched the Black Future Co-op Fund, Washington’s first cooperative philanthropy created by and for Black people to ignite Black generational wealth, health, and well-being. Near the same time, she also joined with three other women of color to create the BIPOC Executive Directors Coalition, uniting nonprofit leaders of color statewide through healing and advocacy to generate abundance in communities.

Andrea serves as a commissioner on the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs, on the boards of Craft3 and Crescent Collaborative; and as a steering committee member on the Washington Black Lives Matter Alliance. She earned a MPA and a BA from Evergreen State College.

Andrea lives in Skyway, Washington, with her husband and two children, whom she appreciates learning from every day — her young son who’s just discovering the world and her daughter who’s in her 20s and finding her way as an adult. Andrea is also an avid runner, who has completed Seattle’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon nine times.

I, Edwin Cleophas, am a family man with a passion for the youth and the transformation of South Africa. I have been involved in youth development for most of my life and founded ‘Project No Limits’, an after-school program in his local community of Klein lei, Esterified, Western Cape, South Africa. Having personally experienced the challenges of growing up in a disadvantaged community; disadvantaged by the social ills of gangsterism, substance abuse, single parent homes, peer pressure etc. I understood the importance of providing the youth with an alternative perspective to that which they are exposed to on a daily basis. Part of the process is exposing these at-risk youths to new environments and experiences as this can serve as a catalyst to a permanent and lasting change in their behaviour. I hold a B.Th. degree in Theology, an Honours degree in Psychology, a BPsych Equivalent degree and is a registered Psychometrist with the Health Professionals Council of South Africa (HPCSAA. I also attained a Master’s degree in Development Studies - Social Development, and am currently registered as a PhD candidate with the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University, under the guidance of distinguished professor of Sustainable Development, Professor Mark Swilling. 

I am a recognised and respected social justice activist, and through my non-profit organisation, The Social Justice Agency (TheSJA), (Reg. No. 2020 / 158008 / 08) I collaborate with various civil society organisations and corporate stakeholders to advance the social justice project by navigating difficult conversations around race-based disparities in South Africa. My organisation also raises funds to provide free career development services to students from disadvantaged communities, with the aim of empowering students to make informed career decisions and choices and ultimately, eradicate unemployment and poverty.   My work as an anti-racism activist attracted the attention of the South African government’s Department for Sport, Arts and Culture, where I was appointed by Minister Nathi Mthethwa as a Social Cohesion Advocate in 2019. I have since been elected as the Secretary General for Social Cohesion and Nation Building in South Africa.   

brontë’s work and rest is guided by the cosmology and promise of sabbath for black people and the land. as a black-latine transdisciplinary artist, trickster, educator, jíbare and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, abolitionist theologies, environmental regeneration, death doulaship, and the levity of absurdity. 

the prayer of their life is to support safe and hilarious passage through climate collapse.  they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice (Free Egunfemi) and hospicing the shit that hurts black folks and the earth through serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective (leadtolife.org) and ecological educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth (weavingearth.org). 

they are currently co-conjuring a film with esperanza spalding in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and practicing pastoral care (in an ecological and ministerial sense) as a co-steward of a land refuge in Kashia Pomo territory in northern California. mostly, brontë is up to the sweet tender rhythm of quotidian black queer-lifemaking, ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life — 

brontë’s work and rest is guided by the cosmology and promise of sabbath for black people and the land. as a black-latine transdisciplinary artist, trickster, educator, jíbare and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, abolitionist theologies, environmental regeneration, death doulaship, and the levity of absurdity. 

the prayer of their life is to support safe and hilarious passage through climate collapse.  they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice (Free Egunfemi) and hospicing the shit that hurts black folks and the earth through serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective (leadtolife.org) and ecological educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth (weavingearth.org). 

they are currently co-conjuring a film with esperanza spalding in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and practicing pastoral care (in an ecological and ministerial sense) as a co-steward of a land refuge in Kashia Pomo territory in northern California. mostly, brontë is up to the sweet tender rhythm of quotidian black queer-lifemaking, ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life — 

Milicent is a Creatrix. Passionate about hosting the dreams and visions of Black women, she is the founding Executive Director of The Octavia Fund.

Milicent has found her calling in this work: creating sacred space for Black women to remember and embody their truest selves in service of collective liberation. Her own awakening to the power of rest, woven together with her Black lineage’s gifts of radical imagination and prophetic visioning, guide her towards the very heart of justice. Milicent knows that cultivating creativity and desire is necessary; she understands rest and dreaming as revolutionary acts.

Milicent spent nearly two decades before The Octavia Fund working towards justice through direct service, policy, advocacy, urban planning, and philanthropy. In all of her work, she is guided by a deep desire to nourish community, build bridges, heal divides, and advance equity and justice for all. She works in service of Spirit, is guided by her ancestors, and prays that all that she does will be a blessing to the human and more than human world.

Angel Acosta works to bridge the fields of leadership, social justice & mindfulness. He completed his Ed.D. in the Curriculum and Teaching Department at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research explored healing-centered education as a promising framework for educational leadership development and community care.

As a member of the 400 Years of Inequality Project, he designed the Contemplating 400 Years of Inequality Experience to support communities with understanding structural inequality through a mindfulness-based and contemplative approach. With an interest in better understanding collective trauma, he is currently collaborating with other scholars to develop group processes for collective healing. 

For close to a decade, he served as a program director for the national nonprofit CFES Brilliant Pathways. In that role, he supported educational leaders and their students by facilitating leadership trainings and creating pathways to higher education. With a passion for helping young people to think globally and act locally, he directed and taught at a global leadership study abroad program in Rome through the award-winning organization Leadership exCHANGE. This opportunity to bring students from all over the world to study leadership, cross-cultural communication and social entrepreneurship inspired Angel to deepen his commitment to transformative action in the U.S.A. 

After participating in the Mind and Life Institute’s Academy for Contemplative Leadership, Angel began consulting and developing learning experiences that weave leadership development with conversations about inequality and healing to support educational leaders through contemplative and restorative practices. As a former trustee for the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, he participated as a speaker and discussant at the Asia Pacific Forum on Holistic Education in Kyoto, Japan. 

Angel is a proud first-generation Dominican-American and graduate of SUNY Plattsburgh. He currently the Director of the Garrison Institute's Fellowship Program. He also serves as the Creative Director at the NYC Healing Collective, a community initiative curating work and insights at the intersection of healing, wellness, and societal transformation. Lately, he has become curious about the ways in which technology can be used as force for advancing racial equity and dismantling structural inequality.