CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

[Cheerful theme music begins]

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

Sonya Renee Taylor is a world-renowned activist and thought leader on racial justice, body liberation, and transformational change. Her best-selling book, The Body Is Not an Apology, offers a radical framework for self-love and has helped many to identify and dismantle bodily-based hierarchies to build new worlds of possibility and justice. In Sonya’s newest book, The Book of Radical Answers, she provides honest, empowering and age-appropriate answers to real questions from young readers about health, sex, gender, race, and justice. 

In this episode, CIIS Dean of Faculty Development, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Danielle Drake joins Sonya for a healing and transformative conversation that explores how we can open ourselves to seeking radical answers to the world’s most pressing and painful questions, and how we may find our own liberation through the journey.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 25th, 2023. CIIS Public Programs members can watch a video of this talk on their member portal. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Dr. Danielle Drake: Welcome Sonya. I have been looking forward to this conversation.

Sonya Renee Taylor: So mutual, so very mutual.

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes. So speaking of mutual, we have a shared common experience of being slam poets, which is not a... And you know, I have my own history with slam and the ways that it affected the work that I did sort of in the future. So I'm interested how poetry slam may or may not have had an influence on your current work as a public speaker and humanitarian and social justice activists. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yeah, I mean, slam is such a world, right? It's just such a world. And it's actually been very interesting. When I left, I stopped sort of participating in competitive performance poetry around 2011, I would say is pretty much where I left. And by 2013, I was done, formally done. And I really, in some ways thought it was this like heartbreak, like that's an old life. And this is the new life, even though the body is not apology was born out of a performance poem that I wrote. So the world sort of bled into each other. And then I was like, that's an old life. And now it's been really interesting. I was actually at a retreat a few weeks ago in Massachusetts. And there was a young man who came up to me and I didn't know I knew him. I knew his mother and I, you know, I knew him. But he came up to me and he hugged me and he was like, you know, the world needs all of your art. And he was like, I remember you on that stage in 2006 at the International, like the individual world poetry slam in Charlotte. And I was like, what is happening? But it felt like it was, it was actually such a beautiful reminder that it was like, I don't have to have like a life that I did and it was over. And then a life I did and it's over. Like actually what life is, is like, can you bring, can you weave all of the different threads of your existence together to make one really beautiful tapestry? And so performance poetry has been coming back to me. I had an event in Berea College, the Bell Hooks center just a week and a half ago. And someone asked me a question and I was like, the answer to that question is a poem. And I got up and I performed the poem and I was like, Oh, this part of me wants, so it never left. I think I was just pretending that it was gone. Cause I was like, I'm above that now. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I mean, I feel like that's a familiar, like when you said it, I was like, yes, I've been there. And also there's a faculty member that is, has been recently hired as core at CIIS. I'm just going to shout out Jenna Robinson. And she, I met her at a poetry slam and sort of brought her along this journey. And I love what you're talking about, about weaving all the different parts of yourself and that you don't have to, you know, 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Be siloed. I don't have to be compartmentalized, like I get to be a whole being and all of the experiences that I've ever lived actually informing who I get to be today. And so, and I show up to that. Can I let all of it be there? You know? 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And it's so necessary, right? That it's those people, like you were talking about the, the young man who came and said, the world needs all of your art. And it's like, oh yeah, the poetry is in there. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yes, yes, yes. And there are so many things that I learned in, in slam that have never left me. The ability to connect instantly, which is what you have to learn how to do. If you want to win a slam, you got to figure out how you make the thing stick in three minutes, right? It's really helped me figure out how do I connect the most salient thing it is that I'm trying to say about this so that it actually like actually penetrates in the moment, right? Like what does it mean to be an impact in the moment? And slam definitely taught me that without question. And it also taught me that like, you can say all the things in the world. If, if it doesn't reach the people you mean for it to reach, does it really matter? And so, yeah, I learned a lot and I'm so grateful to be like allowing those lessons to come back in right now. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes, it's like a rec, a reclamation. And you know, 

Sonya Renee Taylor: where were you slamming? I want to know where you were, like, where were you doing? Where were you? What teams were you on? 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I don't know. It was just, it was just for a short while. And it was in Oakland. I was the 2003 Oakland poetry slam champion and we did go to nationals and we did go to the final stage that year. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: So you went to, you were in Chicago. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I was in Chicago. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Wait a minute. That was the first year. This is so wild. So you tapped me in because what happened was I discovered poetry slam in 2003 in April of 2003. I was not on a team, but my friends were like, we're going to go to the national slam. So I went in 2003 to Chicago, which means I saw you on final stage. And then the next year I made my team and I ended up winning the national individuals. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And what, what team were you on? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I was Baltimore DC. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Oh my goodness. How wonderful is that? Yes. There was a whole backstory to that, our performance, because we were in like a train accident or whatever. Like, yeah. Like the day before. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I actually remember this. That's wild. Wow. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I know. Now that is really, I mean, taking it all the way back. And I remember holding, holding such like emotion while performing and everything just felt so raw. And I was like, Oh, maybe I'm tired. Maybe I should just go somewhere and sit down and write a poem. Might just have it be a page on the page. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: So you were on the way, we're like, 

Dr. Danielle Drake: we literally were like, 

Sonya Renee Taylor: we're like this, cause you were on the team with Scorpio Blues, inner city. I can't remember y'all on the final stage. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes. Princess. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yes. Princess

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes. Princess was on that team. Yes. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Wow. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yep. And Scorpio Blues is my like bestie to this day. So yeah. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I love her, I haven't seen her in such a long time. So sweet. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Oh my goodness. So yes. Slam. And I think that there was also what I feel like you just sort of took it and like pushed to the next level was the voice that Slam gives you in terms of being able to talk about the things that are happening, right? The social justice, the activism, all of that. And so, you know, really you said that the body is not an apology was really a poem first and that you first like uttered those words to a friend, like in a, in a conversation, like what was the impetus for that? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yeah. So, you know, it was, I was at a Slam. It's really fast. It's like so much of my life was formed in this particular places. But we were at an enter, we were at the Southern five poetry slam in Knoxville, Tennessee. And I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and, and she was sharing that you may have an unintended pregnancy. And I am the nosy friend, the self professed nosy friend who gets in your business from a place of love. That's where I describe it. And so I started asking her about some of her sexual health choices and you know, what was going on that had her sort of in this circumstance. And she shared with me, my friend has cerebral palsy and she shared with me that she didn't feel entitled to ask this person to use a condom because her disability already made it difficult for her to be sexual and stuff. And you know, I really feel like that moment was, you know, and the through me, not of me moment. So like, like whatever was being handled in that moment, I was supposed to say it, it was supposed to do what it was supposed to do. But I said, your body is not an apology. And it's not something you offer to say sorry for my disability. And when I said it, it was in me soon as I like, I was like, oh, there's something deeply resonant about whatever that was that just came through. And you know, and it was beautiful and a poignant moment between me and my friend. And afterwards, I was just like, that's not leaving me. What do I do with this thing that isn't leaving me? And at the time, the only thing I, you know, poetry was my sense making tool of the world. It was how I would write myself to epiphany, like, let me write this thing until the, till I understand it, right? Until it makes sense to me. So that was all I knew to do with these words was be like, all right, there's something that's trying to tell me what's the poem. And so then I wrote the poem. And the poem just kept calling forth new things. It was calling forth the poem. And then it was like, now it's telling you something about the places that you're living in apology, Sonya. And now it's like, you know, it's inviting you in the places where you need to be indicted and then it was causing me to sort of confront those things. And then it was like, great, now it wants to be shared with other people. So what about a Facebook group? What about, and all of a sudden it just kept making things, literally. It made an entire world around me. And I'm very clear that my job was to just let it, you know? 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yeah. It's one of those things, as you said, where it comes to you, through you for, you know, the world. And literally it has changed the world. I remember hearing about your book first and then seeing it and being so blown away by what I'm going to call just the tenderness with which you invited people to reclaim themselves and as at that time, I was a professor in the expressive arts therapy program at CIIS. And we were teaching this class. Everyone learns multicultural therapy. Like you know, that's a thing, but we were attempting to break it out of that form and shell and space and just sort of weave it into all of the classes. And so the faculty were like, we're going to put this book as a reading, like a core reading for the program, not for just one class. So when students would ask us like, what should I read in preparation to come to the program? We would recommend the body isn't not an apology because we just all loved it so much. And it spoke to the tenants of how we want it to hold, what it means to train to be a psychotherapist. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: What a tremendous gift. What a deep honor. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: You gave that to us and we were so happy to have it. Such a beautiful gift. And now in my role as Dean of Faculty Development DEI, I'm sort of charged with curating and creating content that assists faculty in developing their teaching skills and relational skills to better meet the ever increasing diversity of our students in our learning spaces. And we have sort of, we have a number of groups, I think that feel unseen as members of the community, but two that are really speaking up and really taking notice right now for us are our trans students and our size diverse students. Just yesterday I hosted a training on size diversity and fat liberation that was hosted by NAFA and Tigris Osborne was there. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: That's my friend. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And I, you know, I guess given your history of working inside of and with these communities and I'm interested to know what strategies you feel might be helpful for people who are not familiar with or that have biases towards individuals who are identifying in these ways because it's happening. It's still happening. And we, you know, the point I think that we're trying to convey as faculty is, you know, care for all and it's hard when people are coming in and they're fresh and new. And so like, you know, any wisdom that you have that. I mean, 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I think that, you know, the, the challenge is that we are all indoctrinated to see the world through this lens of comparison and through this lens of hierarchy, right? We're trying to situate our sense of self-worth through am I better than this? Am I worse than that? Am I better than this? Am I, you know, like, am I like this or am I not like this? This, this constant sort of comparison to the other. And I think that the more that we practice dismantling the notion of the other, the more we soften into knowing this, right? Like there's no experience that I've ever had. It was deeply impactful that didn't come through relationship. It didn't come through actually getting to know a human being, getting to understand particular things that they were navigating and then having the spelt experience of empathy and connection with them. And so I think, you know, it is essential and so necessary for us to have affinity spaces and for us to have spaces where people who are living certain specific experience, identity based experiences have the opportunity to be through, be together and talk about those things. But we also have to be building the containers for relationship, which means that we have to be willing to struggle together. And I think one of the challenges of, of the last decade, I would say, right, is that we've, we have forgotten that like relationship is inherently rocky and complicated and challenging. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: It's messy, 

Sonya Renee Taylor: It's messy, it's inherently messy. And that we have to be willing to be messy together. But we've created particularly through social media culture, this curated perfectionistic way in which we think we need to be, which then means that like me as a person who doesn't have experience with trans people, let's say, right? I don't, I don't have, there is no space where I'm allowed to make a mistake because then I'm canceled. So guess what I'm going to do? I'm just never going to get to know trans people. I'm just going to leave them over there. And then I'm just going to keep all of my biases the way I've had them. Right. And so we've, we've created a culture that is counterproductive to actually building the kind of relational solidarity that we actually need for all of us to survive. I'm just like, how do we learn how to give everybody way more grace, way more, way more grace, way more, and a lot more patience. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I'm so glad you mentioned cancel culture because I often think about this and I've had to think about it. I think in my role as faculty and now, you know, in this role as Dean of faculty development. And I, it really is, it's just this, this idea of being able to give people grace and to be curious, to not come in with all of these preconceived notions. And if you do being curious about that, that 

Sonya Renee Taylor: exactly, exactly, exactly. Oh, I have all these thoughts. Where did I bring them come from? Right about

Dr. Danielle Drake: And it's like tracking the thread of history in your cell in your, 

Sonya Renee Taylor: So powerful. And I think that there's not a, you know, we don't leave the space, but again, it's powerful because we have decided that we've attached all of these things to our sense of identity. So if I don't know I'm bad and I'm wrong, then I'm less than again, right?

Dr. Danielle Drake: Right. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Now, now I have to pretend like I know things I don't know rather than being curious because now my self identity is wrapped up in that. And just like, if we could deconstruct all of it, we could just get to the clarity that all of it's a lie. Every time you are trying to figure out some externalized way, situate your own sense of self where you are in the lie, like start from there. You're in the lie. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Right. Right. And that it's just that whole idea of the reality that everything is a construct. There is nothing on earth. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: We made it all up. We made it all up. We made it all up, which means we can make them make it again. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: We can make it again. And I just love this, you know, this, you know, leaning into the softness and the gentleness, which I think is also really hard for some people because we've been taught that we have to be hard. We have to be rigid about what we think and feel and believe. And that whatever we think and whatever we feel is truth. And so, you know, what, what sort of, you know, because I imagine that in your work in, you know, sort of proliferating the body of a—the body is not an apology around the world that you run into people who, you know, feel like I have to be this thing, like, you know, whatever it is, the ridges. Right. What is a way to soften? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yeah. I mean, for me, like the way to soften is just like, I don't know any of this. I don't have an answer. Right. Like, I don't know. And can I just acknowledge that I don't know that it's okay not to know. Right. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And that is, I feel like critical and radical work because there are some people who have never been given permission to not know. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: To not know. And that we've, you know, and we have constructed a world inside of this idea of the world is a construct. We've constructed a world where it's really dangerous to not know where we've, you know, where it has been life and death. If you don't have the right answer, if you don't say the right thing, if you don't talk correctly to the police officer, right? Like there, we've made the stakes really high for not knowing. Right. But one of the things that I, you know, and I've been really thinking a lot about like, how do I, again, to this question of how do all the threads weave together? I've been thinking about abolition as a framework and I've been thinking about what does it mean to not adopt police state inside of my relationship with myself. Right. And so the first place I get to adopt an abolitionist framework, the decision that I don't have to be carceral with myself means that even if the stakes are not knowing out there in here is where I get to practice the kind of liberation I want to live with the kind of liberation I want to live into. And so here we are not going to be that, even if that is what's true out there here, we are not going to be that. So here, guess what? I get to not know, which is a tiny piece of revolution. It's freedom. It's freedom. And I think we've been, you know, there's so many ways in which we've been practicing freedom backwards. We keep thinking of it as an external destination. And I keep saying, and I'm so more and more convinced every single day that if we have not figured out how to experience it as an internal experience, even if we arrived at whatever it is we're calling freedom, we wouldn't recognize it. We wouldn't know it because we ain't never seen it. We ain't never smelled it, felt it, touched it. It is not an embodied experience. And so I can't make a free world by myself. I need us all in collection to do that. I can practice the things that feel the most liberatory inside of my beingness. Every single day I get to practice that. And the more that I practice that, the more I have the tools to begin to implement that in the external world. That can't happen from the other way though. It just can't. It just hasn't. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: You know, it's right because anytime we experience something or are able to, what I'm going to say is demonstrate compassion for another person. It's like, you can't even do that until you've done that same level of compassion for yourself. And so it is like really this idea of giving people permission to not, like you said, have a police state. I just, inside of ourselves, oh my gosh, you know, all the rules, all the ways that we, you know, sort of govern with an iron fist and are so rigid and you said ungraceful with ourselves. Right? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. And just really not, we're not in the practice of practicing compassion. And so the question is where every day can I practice more compassion with myself? I can, you know, and like, and even, and I think one of the things that people get tripped on tripped up on when I talk about that is the idea of practicing compassion with ourselves as I'm always nice to myself, right? No, it's, it is, I am kind to the parts of me that aren't kind to me. Right? It's I'm loving to the parts of me that don't love me. It is, I am practicing love at whatever level I can access it first. So right now, all I have is I hate everything. I love the me that hates everything. I can start there. And then from there you keep dropping down until you actually get to an integrated place of I, you know, I have compassion for the fullness of me for the fullness of the ways in which I show up, which creates so much more spaciousness compassion for the fullness of the ways in which humans show up. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes. Yes. I'm going to take us to a place that I think is important which is really thinking about in this same vein and context the place that we're in with all of these wars that are happening on this earth. And I'm just going to name that I'm practicing, I'm studying for my licensing exam. And one of the things that I've been learning about is threat management theory, which is this idea that we as human beings are often seeking out the threats that threaten our livelihood, that threaten our beingness that threaten our lives and pushing and inherently making an us versus them in order to survive in order to, you know, gather as many of the scarce resources, you know, around. And we see that happening in all of the wars that are happening right now with Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Hamas, the various genocides that are happening all over the continent of Africa. You know, what kind of wisdom might we be able to apply here from the perspective of both self-love and then also sort of radical community love and care? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I think I don't see when, you know, I think it's always interesting this term radical self-love as it came through me. What I was always clear about was like, I'm talking about how do I start at the physical source that is me while recognizing that everything else is just an extension of that. And so when I say radical self-love, I don't mean self as in the individual. I mean, self as in the location of person first, such that everything else it is that is connected to me, which is everything also gets to experience that love. That's the whole point of it. And so what, you know, what I think we are at this particular moment in history where we are beginning to see the particular illusions that we've been living in. We're beginning to see some of these things that don't make sense anymore, right? And consequently, because we are in what feels like a real paradigm shift, we're also in the swirl in the midst of the confusion of that paradigm shift. We are half in a new way of being and still half in an old way of being. And the old way of being that's very committed to the old way of being is fighting hard to hold on. Right. And then so of course there was the turmoil and the resistance and the anger and the frustration and the confusion that exists inherently inside of being in the liminal space that is where humanity is right now. I feel like part of the problem is that for those of us who can see that there is some new thing merging, we are still trying to figure out how we navigate the new thing with old tools. We are still trying to figure out how we be in the new world with the old stuff. And the truth is we can't. The truth is that the reason that we are moving is because that didn't work and we did it for a really long time. We continued to do it for a very long time and it has been wildly unsuccessful as a project for humanity. And so then the question becomes, how do we begin to use new tools? But the challenge is again, back to this conversation, we have embodied so much of the old paradigm. We've embodied so much of, we think about, we use terms like decolonization and these sorts of things and anti-imperialism and we are using these terms, but we really haven't gotten granular again about the ways in which we are embodying them. The ways in which the tenants of those things are things that we're practicing with ourselves in ourselves every single day. And so one of the things that I've been noticing even inside of this conversation around the bombings in Gaza and this horrendous violence that is happening right now is that there is a way in which we get rewarded as a society, again, and I think this is part of the danger of the social media culture that we're in right now, we are rewarded for outrage more than we are rewarded for building the energy for the new thing that will bring about a new possibility. We are rewarded for the outrage of the old possibility. We're rewarded by claps and people on our backs and just whatever sort of feel good thing that happens, right? Likes and all the little dopamine hits, slot machine mechanisms that they built into social media. And so right now what I've been noticing is that there are people who are living in these circumstances right now who don't have an option about whether or not they are moving from a trauma response because they are in an active trauma right now. They are being bombed. Their lives are in peril. They are literally in trauma. And we are inside of this digital media culture deciding that solidarity means like acting like we are also traumatized. And what I'm offering is that there is no deep and sustaining assistance and solidarity in everybody deciding that we're all now going to move from our trauma response. Some of us actually need to take the moment and remind our own systems and our bodies that we are actually not in danger right now. As people who are not in danger right now, it's our responsibility to be moving from a regulated nervous system such that we can see possibilities that people in trauma cannot see because they are in active survival mode. So if the only thing that we're going to continue to do is cultivate rage and trauma, then we are not helping to create the new avenues of possibility for how we get out of these circumstances. And I think that that is where we're really missing the opportunity in this right now moment. I'm just like, 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes.

Sonya Renee Taylor: We are not like deciding to be in suffering as an act of solidarity to those who are in suffering does not stop people suffering. Deciding to be as clear and cogent and in the most grounded version of yourself such that you might be able to see beyond this present moment, which is actually how we map our way to something else, is actually the most vital and important gift we can give those people who are suffering right now. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I love this. This is where I want to live. What you just said. Because what we then get an opportunity to do is to operate from a place of generativity and sustainability and creativity, like all of that. So we get a chance to create whatever structures need to be a new, right? That that is part of like this abolitionist like framework is it's not just about tearing down. What are you going to build in its place? And how do you start to lay the foundation and provide the structures and to gather up the creativity and to make it generative amongst lots of different beautiful minds and bodies and hearts and thinkers and then make it so that it is sustainable. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Exactly. Exactly. And there's nothing sustainable about blowing out everybody's, you know, adrenals and everyone's off the charts. Like there's nothing. And that's the reason why we have these short bursts of attention on atrocity. And then we're on to the next trauma du jour. We're on to the next trauma du jour because we can't sustain it. We haven't built anything inside of ourselves that allows us to actually be with the struggle to the other side. And so I'm interested in how is it and again, like interested in creating the, you know, the future for Palestinians. What I am interested in is being a solid grounded space by which those people, after they come out of trauma, can have a place to go that feels like it's solid, that doesn't feel like the rubble they're standing in now so that they can begin to actually live in that energetic space so that they can vision about the future that they want. But if I'm just as dysregulated as you, who's holding the space for what needs to come and arise for what's next? Someone's got to be able to do it. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And I think the other piece that sometimes gets missed in all of that is that in order to hold that foundational space, right, the holding space for folks who are coming out of trauma to receive is that there has to be someone who thought about the system of how we're going to hold these people. And that takes time. It takes time and sustained energy. And that in this world of like instant, like I got to do something right now, everybody's in trauma, I got to do something. We don't get a chance to mindfully and sustainably build. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Exactly. Which is why we don't have sustained new things. It's why we're inside of a collective trauma loop that keeps repeating the same thing. And again, back to this particular kind of carceral thing, then what we do is for the people who are choosing to say, actually, I'm going to just hold, I'm going to hold whatever it is that I need to hold to stay in my grounded peace such that I can give what is my most useful offering, then those people are judged and shamed because they're not performing activism right. So we're back inside a particular kind of carceral relationship to one another. And now I have to punish you for not doing the thing I think you should do right now. Right. And so it's a, it's this loop that we're in and the invitation, I believe in terms of getting out of the loop is, can I come back to my own beingness? And I take a deep breath and can I remind myself right now that I am not actually in trauma. Even if I have an epigenetic connection to the experience in this physical right now moment, I am not in trauma. And as soon as I tell my body that as soon as I calm my amygdala, guess what? All of a sudden the entire way I'm relating and all the things I see shifts in that moment. If we all just did that, we would begin to see some whole new things start unfolding in the world right now. If we all just did that one thing. Yeah. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes, yes, yes. I love it. And I love the way that you are talking about brain science and I'm going to go one first. And then we'll go further and just say that if we got out of our place of amygdala and we're like, you know, sort of helping to nurture our forward movement towards our prefrontal cortex, the very next place, the very next place is the hippocampus, which I often call the hope of the brain body. Cause it's the place where we generate new neural networks, neurons, and we can think in new ways because we have the experience of our ancestors in our inside of our epigenetics and we can create something based on their wisdom that's already inside of us and move it forward. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Forward. Exactly. Come on brain. Come on. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Come on brain science. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Come on brain. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I love it. This I feel like is probably one of the most important pieces that I feel like we can have. I want to, I want to switch gears a little bit because you have a new book that is being released and it's called the book of radical answers, real questions from real kids, just like you. And in this book, you engage a brilliant Q&A targeted towards kids and adults and adolescents about subjects ranging from sexuality and gender and friends and family and government and religious religion and everything in between. And I would like to know what was the spark for this book and what do you feel like is the importance of focusing on you for this offering? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yeah. So happy book birthday, it came out yesterday. So I'm so glad it's out in the world. And you know, when the publish, when my editor approached me back in 2020 in the summer of 2020 and asked me, you know, if I had, if I had something on my heart for young people and I always have something on my heart for young people, I had been thinking about like just the range of questions that young people have asked over the years and the range of questions I asked and I'm like sort of the auntie to all of the people who have kids in my life. And I'm the auntie who my friends send their kids to ask the questions they don't want to answer. It's time to talk about condoms, go to auntie Sonya. It's time to talk about whatever it is. I get a sort of, 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Okay, so I know who I'm sending my son to then when it's time. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: There you go. Well, I got a whole book for him. So what now? That was really what, that's really what I thought was like, right, there's this, you know, there, there are these questions that I know are ants that are hard to answer that are complex that feel and the parents feel like, I don't know what to say. Like I don't know what to say. And I'm like, what's the most loving, honest, authentic, generous way that we can meet young people in the inquiries they have. And for me, it was like, well, one, we can first just affirm that they're already really wise, smart, intuitive beings who if they tap into and connect to that will actually be able to find a lot of their own answers and a lot of their own inner guidance. And here are a whole bunch of things that you can also consider and think about as you go seeking your own wisdom. And I just wanted young people to have that. And people often ask me when I wrote the body's non-apology, will you write something for young people? You know, and I've written a lot, you know, like I've got lots of books about bodies and those sorts of things. And I, I was like, right. What, what feels most essential is how do, how do I help young people really employ the idea of radical self-love to tackle the big issues that are coming up in their lives? And this feels like the, my attempt at doing that. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: It is so beautiful to see the questions that are being posed and the answers that you provide. And it really is just as you said, you are like going to be the auntie to a whole generation of young people through this book, because it feels like that, that's that, that special bond that you have with your auntie and that kind of like loving, like, you know, I believe in you and you can do anything. And here's, here's what I know, you know, already. And I'm just going to add this little piece and help you think through it just a little more. And then I want you to go back and have that conversation with your parents. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yes. Yes. Then, you know, you got to go talk to them. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Right. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Exactly. That's really what I wanted. That's really what I wanted. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: It's so wonderful. And to that end, I also wanted to talk about your book covers. Your book covers are evocative and stunningly inclusive. And as I have been preparing for the talk, I've had your books lying around and my two and a half year old son has been mesmerized by the covers of your books. And it's already like leading to some beautiful observations and discussions with him. So, you know, if you could talk about the process and choices, meaning and personal value that you, that you need to create such important imagery as a part of the process of creating your book. And I feel like it's somewhere in there with the world needs all of your art. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: It's so interesting. And thank you for pointing that out. I think that, I mean, it matters what we see, right? Like what we see helps inform what becomes possible for us. And you know, when the body is not an apology came out and I cannot take credit for this and to talk about it in the second edition that, you know, I had done this photo shoot with a photographer named Carrie Froth in San Francisco and she had already sort of visioned this reinterpretation of the American beauty scene. We, you know, we're, I think, Mira Sovino is in the roses and she's this thin white girl in the fantasy of Kevin Spacey in this movie. And she was like, what if we reconceptualize that with all kinds of bodies, all kinds of women's bodies, trans women's bodies, fat bodies, bodies of different colors and sizes and asked me to be a part of it. And I was like, yeah, that sounds super fun. So I signed up and I didn't think the, you know, I didn't know what was happening with the images. I just said, yes. And there was a period of time where the images sort of were online and they went pretty viral and I was like, Ashton Kutcher reposted and Little Wayne reposted. And I was like, wow, what's happening? After that, I just kind of left it alone. I was like, okay, that's what happened. And then when I was in talks with my publisher, Barry Kohler about the book cover in my vision, I was like, oh, I really love this idea. And I was like, what if it's just like a mosaic of a bunch of different bodies, all like this. And my editor at the time, Jeevan said, no, that's the book cover. It was just the picture. And I was like, no, that's not the book cover. I'm just naked. That's not, that's not the book. And I had this real fear. And the fear that I had was my own piece of indoctrination. It was like, who's going to want to buy a book with a fat black naked lady on the front? And it was that fear itself that was what made it so important for that to become the book cover. First and foremost, it was about me being like, is what I wrote in this book real? Real enough for me to practice it? Real enough for me to practice it on the cover of the book in Barnes and Noble? Is it that real? And I had to be willing to grapple and say, yes, yes, yes, I'm willing to say that this body too is not an apology. So much so that I'm going to put it on the cover of the book. And then that process then had to work its way through an entire organization. The entire publishing house had to be having a conversation about what it felt like to have this naked fat black woman on the cover of this book and what that meant. And all of a sudden it became this conversation about what does it really mean to say the body is not an apology? And what does it mean to decide to publish those words? Where are you in alignment? And so what I've always loved about The Body Is Not An Apology is any place that it's been, it has pulled everyone who's touched it along with it. It's like, if this is where you say you enter the conversation, now you also have to do the work of being in alignment with it. And so once we did all of that and so much transformation happened from it, I was like, oh, this is going to do the same thing in the places where it goes. And so it's been beautiful having people come to me and be like, my two year old said, I had someone come up to me and say, Ami, there's a fairy on the cover of the book. The fairy is naked. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: That's exactly what my son said. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I love that I've been like a little naked black fairy for little children around the world. So delighted. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: That's so amazing. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: It's such an invitation into a normalization of bodies that we do not normalize. All of a sudden, it's not a surprise to see a large black woman's body. Why? Because from the time you were two, there was this really beautiful book that's been hanging out in your house that you now have this affection and these memories for, which changes the way that you operate with those bodies when you see them in the world 

Dr. Danielle Drake: In person. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: In person, that's the power of imagery. That's the power of it. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And that is a way by just having the book and the imagery in a home, even if you are not having conversations that you have now invited curiosity and grace and a whole host of other things that we talked about earlier into your space so that now you can sort of create this new way of being like, oh yeah, this is not foreign to me. I just have to say that when I saw the cover, I cried because I was like, it's me. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: It's me. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: It’s me. And I didn't feel like it was foreign or anything like that. I looked at it and I was just like, my people, you know, we so beautiful. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: We so beautiful. Exactly. Exactly. And that's really what I wanted. We worked really hard on the cover for the book of radical answers because what I also wanted was to, I was like, I'm not going to be the naked lady on the crib. The book this time, but what I want is for young people to see themselves down to the level of, I was like, none of the kids have acne and teenagers have acne. Can we put some acne on the baby? 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes. I mean, my son was literally like looking at this book, turning it over, looking at it from every angle you see, like every, like there's so much diversity represented here. There's someone in a hajib, there's someone, I mean, just like whatever you can imagine wearing glasses, braids, twisties, colored, all the various colors of hair. I mean, it's just like, you could just like look at the cover and be like, oh yeah, this seems like I could find myself here. 

Sonya Renee Taylor:  Exactly. And that’s what I want.

Dr. Danielle Drake: And that's all about representation. Yeah. Representation is so important, so I really appreciate your attention to the art that you are putting out as a part of the words that you, you know, the visuals that you're putting out as a company with the words that you are, you know, sharing with us. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Thank you, thank you

Dr. Danielle Drake: I see so much of your work being really rooted in spirituality, but even more so in my favorite topics. We're trying astrology. It's like, and especially with CIIS, we just are like, this is like, this is like, this is like astrology home. So when I, when I first took this position and I was introducing myself to the wider community, I was like, so let me tell y'all since I know you want to know all of you astrologers in this institution, I was like, I have a Scorpio sun. I was just like giving all of my, all of my birth chart information. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Hey fellow Scorpio sun, when's your birthday? 

Dr. Danielle Drake: November 4th. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: November 12th. Yes. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Love that. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yes fellow Scorpio. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yes. So I, and everyone was like overjoyed. They were like, oh, okay. And they, and then there was like this whole sharing in the chat of like everybody's. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Sun moon and rising. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Right. It's awesome. Right. And so I, you know, how did you get into it? What's happening with it? Where are you? What are you loving about it? What are you curious about? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yeah. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm fascinated by this journey that astrology is sort of inserted itself into my life. It feels really similar to when the body's not an apology was like, Hey, you're going to do something now. Um, I feel like astrology is, is doing a bit of that. You know, back in, I've always been like, I've always been interested, like, you know, as a young person, I was like, Sun sign astrology. I'm a Scorpio. What does it mean to be a Scorpio? Right. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what it meant to be a Scorpio and then kind of living into some of the, you know, the mythology of Scorpio. And then, but it really wasn't until I would say 2020 when, um, I really had a massive reckoning. I was in my Uranus opposition. If folks who follow astrology know it's characterized in traditional conversation as a midlife crisis. Basically Uranus, the planet of disruption and surprise for the purpose of liberation blew up my whole life. And I, and all I could feel was like something had a cataclysmically cosmic is happening right now. And I want to know why the planets hate me. That was the way I was approaching the conversation, obviously the planets hate me and I need to know why they hate me. And so I reached out to an astrologer who's a good friend of mine now, Jessica Lignato. And I was just like, my life is blowing up. Can someone please tell me why? And she was like, I'd be happy to read you for my podcast. And, and so she shared all of these things about what was moving in my life at that time. And all of it made so much sense. And it all felt so, it, there just, it, there was something soothing about realizing that what felt like just random calamity wasn't random at all. That there was actually an intention, a relationship between my individual life and an entire cosmic force that was actually trying to move me toward my highest, most aligned self. And while it hurt and it was hard and it was really painful, I, there was some deep sense of hope in knowing that it wasn't accidental, that there was something purposeful trying to manifest itself in my life. And so I just really sort of started deep diving. I wanted to know more and I started reading more and looking up things and just sort of, and it found that I was like, if astrology is a language, and I'm not a particularly language girl, I speak like six words in French from, you know, middle school, French class. It's not my, it's not my ministry, but there's a way in which I have a certain, I was like, oh, I feel like I have an intuitive understanding of this language. It makes sense to me. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yeah. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: And so I started deep diving and studying and I really spent 2021 when I was in New Zealand and still in lock COVID lockdowns and in significant isolation, just being like, I'm going to become a student of astrology, Sonya. And I just, and I would be like, I look at your chart, can I look at your birth, do you know what time you were born? Do you know what time you were born? And asking everybody if I could look at their birth charts. And then as I would do it, I really had this experience of the chart starting to tell me things about them. I was like, oh, I'm this, oh, this is this, this is what's trying to happen here. And I would start communicating to people what it was that I saw. And they were having deep resonance. Folks were like, yes, that's. And I was like, oh, this. And so I just started, I just started reading anybody's chart who would let me read their chart. And for two years, I just sort of practiced on people like, let me read your chart. And people were, and it seemed to be this, what was practiced for me seemed to be a really significant gift for other people. And then this year, life just was like, it's time to offer this officially. It's time to offer it and, and, and, and, you know, receive payment for it and it's time to offer it. And so a month ago, I started opening up to, um, opening my calendar for birth charts, readings, channel, your chart readings is what I call them. And, um, it's been tremendously successful and lots of folks have signed up and it's, you know, it's, it's been really beautiful, beautiful experience. And I think I love, as a Scorpio, um, I love vulnerability and intimacy. I tell people all the time, that's my kink vulnerability and intimacy is my kink. And there is nothing 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Go hard, 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Right? So hard, right? And there's nothing more intimate than looking at what the sky was doing the moment that you were born that is here to provide a map for your soul's evolution. Like there's nothing more intimate that, and that, and I consider it such a deep gift and an honor that people allow me to know them that way and to share with them what it is that I see. It's just been so beautiful. It's really been gorgeous. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: I love hearing about this because I mean, almost word for word, what you said is exactly how I feel about birth charts and the ways that I integrate them into my psychotherapy work. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Ahh I love it. Weaving the threads. We're weaving the threads. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Yeah. And it's so it's, and as you said, it's both beautiful and vulnerable and intimate. And when someone allows you to, it's almost like opening up like that, the box that's underneath your bed, that you keep all your little things that you want to hide from the world right in there. And it's like you, you're like lifting the cover open for someone else to see. And that in and of itself is such a beautiful thing. Do you recognize like a sense of spirit or spirituality and ancestor like coming through those readings? Like do you experience that sense? 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I think that it's other people's guides actually. I, you know, often I'm just like, Oh, your ancestors, your guidance have something that they want you to know about your journey. And I'm just been willing to be a channel for it. Right. It's just like, we're going to teach Sonya this language and then she's going to show up and we're going to tell her things through. And that's really the experience I have is that I am connecting with the guides that are here to help folks in their particular journey in this lifetime and to make it easier. That's one of the key focuses of my, of my readings is like, look, we have all the things that we have in our birth charts and they're, you know, a combination of easeful and uncomfortable. And there are some pathways, the way I described it was like you and the universe are playing a harp and the universe is already plucking the strings. It's going to pluck and you don't have a say so in that, but you also co-creating the song. And so you will pluck strings too. Now the question is, will you pluck the strings that are harmonious or will you pluck the ones that are discordant? And the joy of looking at a birth chart is I can say, here's the most harmonious sounds you can be making with the universe. Here's the ones that's a bit discordant. You get to choose. Right. And I really love the opportunity of being like, how do we all get inside of a co-creation that allows us to access more peace, pleasure, joy, ease, and love in our existence. And wisdom. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And wisdom 

Sonya Renee Taylor: And there's a pathway inside of your chart and wisdom and there's a pathway inside of your chart. There is something there that will help you get there. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Listen, Sonya, thank you so much. This has been such an amazing conversation. I feel like we've been orbiting each other for so long. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: I know. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: And just to actually make contact, make the connection feels really, really special and important. And so I just want to say thank you and acknowledge you for everything that you have created that is changing the world into making something new. You're really doing it. You're helping us get there. And so I really appreciate you. And I would love for us to end on a deep breath together. 

Sonya Renee Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a delight, an absolute delight. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Wonderful. Deep breath. 

Dr. Danielle Drake: Thank you, everybody. Ashay

Sonya Renee Taylor: Thank you, everybody.

Dr. Danielle Drake: Good night everybody

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Izzy Angus, Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Patty Pforte, Nikki Roda, and Pele Shalev. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities. 

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