Miranda McDaniel is no stranger to diverse groups of people, progressive minds and inclusive ways of being. Born and raised in the California Bay Area, she grew up rooted in communities that embraced these values, which served as the catalyst in wanting to create similar spaces and experiences for others. Miranda has received and led training in Restorative Practices, has served as an adult trainer in Be the Change Youth Development curriculum, and later went on to work as a CalSAC trainer and Chapter Representative. Now living in the Tampa Bay Area, Miranda works to create community and sisterhood through co-leading Black Girl Boss, a networking group for Black women entrepreneurs in the St. Pete area, and helps companies with their strategic DEI initiatives with The Unpacked Project. She looks forward to challenging the status quo by utilizing her voice to educate allies and shed light on social inequities across marginalized groups of people.

Join the conversation with Tekla and Miranda, including Miranda’s experience in DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and Restorative Practices work, especially inviting in white women to the work- not only why they need to be doing the work, but HOW. Miranda’s past podcast, The Unpacked Project, is full of great information and conversations about why white women especially need to be aware of their own bias, internal racism and how to effectively make change, through their own internal work and learning.

Tekla and Miranda discuss:

A bit about Tekla’s journey doing the internal work that is antiracism work, and how she has worked to release white guilt and fragility to be able to talk about these topics and invite more white women into the conversation.

Miranda’s experience of being a WOC and teacher, educating allies and white women, and how she does not take on the labor, but educates and opens the eyes to those wanting to re-educate themselves.

Miranda’s self- care practices, including the power of journaling, and how she made choices to take herself out of the grind culture that was not supporting her highest self.

Miranda’s approach to building bridges through her education and coaching work.

The info-guides Miranda created, and places to start with antiracism work, More than Just an Ally and The Basics of Bias- and how she has seen these starting places support people on their journey.

The observation of the expansion of DEI work in 2020 and how in the past 2 years the support has dwindled- and how to keep doing the work even when it isn't as "popular" and the importance of the work.

They discuss Tekla’s aversion to social media and Miranda shares the ways that she supports and helps entrepreneurs to use social media, giving some helpful tips and how she can be a great support to entrepreneurs. Contact Miranda for a discount for listeners of this show!

How to connect with Miranda:

thesocialcontentlab@gmail.com

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesocialcontentlab

Podcast The Unpacked Project: Join us in crucial conversations that will challenge barriers to equity and inspire action towards a more compassionate and inclusive future.

On Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2VQqzg4gHbtwvCrOjEsyIJ?si=c4e9db0ebace42da

Black Girl Boss- Community & Sisterhood Entrepreneur Group for Black Women in the Tampa Bay/St. Pete, FL area-, find them on Facebook: Black Girl Boss

Tonja Reichley shares her journey of her pull to Ireland as a teenager, and how when she finally visited Ireland in her 30s, she knew she had to return. Her journey of returning, of learning and becoming an herbalist and teacher. She now lives in western Ireland and leads pilgrimages with people who want to connect with the land in a spiritual and ancestral way, to heal and connect to the ancestors before there was the label and construct of whiteness. Tekla will be leading a retreat/pilgrimage to Ireland September 15-22, 2025 with Tonja - details coming soon at teklacayers.com. Throughout this episode, Tekla and Tonja discuss:

• How a pilgrimage to Ireland can heal ancestral wounds of oppression- the importance of diving into ancestral history and traditions, and how it can heal the cycles of oppression.
• Irish goddess and saint Brighid- who she was and how she is inspiration and guidance for both Tonja and Tekla- Tonja shares a bit of storytelling and experience with Brighid.
• We begin and end the conversation pulling cards from Tonja's 2 oracle decks, and discuss the offerings Tonja shares with the world.
• How holding space to be in community and to have stillness and quiet is an act of healing and resistance to the capitalistic and white supremacy culture we live in.
• The importance of community and how what we learn in community, and in classes, ripples out beyond us when we share it with others.
• Tonjas' experience working through Resmaa Menakem's programs and how she brings these practices to her students.
• The journey that Tekla and Tonja have been on together, doing anti-racism work and sharing it with other white women through holding healing spaces.

More about Tonja: She is a tender of hearths. She tends to the hearth of her home in Kinvara Ireland where she welcome pilgrims and hold sacred space for guests. She tends the hearth of community, of the Earth, of the Cailleach, who guides her way on. She tends to the hearth of her ancestor’s, the nameless ones who through the mists of time have created herbal remedies, as she does. She tends to the hearth of the wise woman, the bean feasa, the hag, the crone, the witch, those who ever seek, as does she, to live outside of dominant culture with values of sovereignty, simplicity and participation. She tends to the hearth of storytelling, sharing the myths of her heritage through lived experience and story, keeping them vibrant and relevant and ever new. She is a student and teacher of herbal remedies and of the Irish Wisdom Tradition, as she has for over 20 years. Her legacy to these learnings includes her Way of Brighid Oracle Cards, honoring Irish goddess and saint Brighid, her book Wild Irish Roots: A Seasonal Guidebook of Herbs, Ritual and Connection. Her latest culmination project, released November 2022, is The Way of the Wild, An Oracle Experience into the Irish Wisdom Tradition.

Connect with Tonja here:

www.dancingwiththewild.com- her website

https://tonjareichley.substack.com/- her Substack- subscribe to receive her daily sacred act haikus seasonal spellbooks

https://www.instagram.com/tonjareichley- her instagram

We talked about White Supremacy Culture and the incredible resource of https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/ and invite you to explore.

The Be Rooted podcast returns from a brief break with Tekla sharing a solo podcast about how she learned to do the work that she does, because it can be challenging to say in just a few words what work she does. She shares the highlights of her education of the past 15 years and how she brings her own healing and education to her students and 1:1 clients. She explains how Reiki isn't "just an energetic healing practice" and how she integrates somatic awareness and healing, and how intuitive work supports to release trauma from the body. She shares how her own education has trained her to hold space for others and how she teaches others to do the same with somatic and energetic awareness. Tekla appreciates you taking the time to listen, to hopefully get a better idea of what she brings to clients and students.

Tekla is grateful to her teachers over the years and for how they have supported her to integrate her practices to be able to be a healing presence and space holder for others.

You can read more about Tekla's teachers and mentors here: https://www.teklacayers.com/gratitude-to-my-teachers/

Please sign up for Tekla's newsletters on her website, as she is not on social media and her newsletter and this podcast are her ways of connecting! https://www.teklacayers.com/

You can schedule a free 30 minute phone call with Tekla here if you have any interest in working with her: https://calendly.com/teklacayers/free-call

Crystal Chinn is a Japanese American raised in Honolulu, HI, and who found Reiki to support her grief from 3 miscarriages. Through this conversation, Crystal shares her journey discovering Reiki and the Reiki lifestyle, including meditation, trust in her intuition, and letting go of the corporate grind culture. She is one of Tekla's students who has moved into sharing distance Reiki and teaching Reiki. She discovered Crystal Singing Bowl Healing by following her intuition, which she learned to listen to and trust, through her years of practicing daily self-Reiki, receiving Reiki and sharing Reiki with others. Listen for stories of Crystal's journey with Reiki including:

• How she incorporates and lives the practice of Reiki daily, practicing and sharing it with her children and family, and professionally.
• Finding Reiki when she was a beginner to any kind of energy work, and how powerful her first experience was- her story of healing deep grief from 3 miscarriages.
• Learning how to meditate after quitting after her first try- how she started with smaller steps and kept going, learning to love the practice of meditation- motivation for those people who think they "can't meditate"!
• How she learned through Reiki and body/mind awareness to heal herself and the pain in her shoulder- the discovery of what it was connected to and the power to let it go.
• Her journey as a Japanese American raised Mormon with Buddhism influence, and her instant connection with the practice of Reiki.
• Her connection with Reiki and knowing that her elders practice Reiki- and the Reiki connection to Hawaii and Mrs. Takata, who brought Reiki the US.
• Crystal explains Reiki from her Japanese American perspective and the Japanese culture, and why she says, "No wonder Reiki is Japanese!"
• How sharing Reiki with her grandmother in Hawaii (when she was in Colorado) helped her grandmother be able to communicate clearly and support her with Parkinson's.
• Some magical stories of Reiki and following her intuition- her two Reiki babies who came after her Reiki and acupuncture healing journey.
• We even touch on antiracism and discuss our own cultural heritage and honoring the roots of the practice.
• Crystal is a great storyteller and her connections of how living the practice of Reiki has changed her life for the positive, even through the unpredictable times of life.

More about Crystal and how to connect with her:

Crystal Chinn is a Japanese American born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii and currently resides in Colorado with her husband and 3 daughters. She found Reiki about 5 years ago after struggling with multiple miscarriages and fertility struggles. Her initial journey with Reiki was for self-healing purposes and she quickly fell in love with the community of people and was shocked to experience the level of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing from Reiki. When the pandemic hit, she started practicing Distance Reiki on family and friends and soon fell more in love with the power and simplicity of energy healing. Crystal specializes in Distance Reiki and works with clients over the phone and incorporates powerful meditations and visualizations to intensify the Reiki experience for her clients. Through this journey and with the assistance of Reiki energy, Crystal has learned to incorporate sound healing into her Reiki practice with Crystal Singing Bowls, and now offers group sound bath sessions in her community. Her goal is to empower her clients to take charge of their own energy with the blessings of Reiki and Sound Healing by teaching them about energetic boundaries, awareness and incorporating daily meditation practices to strengthen their mind, body and spirit.

Tekla's incredibly talented podcast producer and friend, Carin Huebner, joins Be Rooted today to share her stories and her journey of healing. There is a lot of reflecting on the past and growing up in the grind culture, how it affects mental, physical and spiritual health. Carin also shares her journey with healing religious trauma, and her wisdom from being a spiritual director for 8 years. Listen with the amusement and laughter that Carin brings to the conversation, and how an open mind to different ways of healing can bring even more healing!

Specifically they discuss:

• You don't know what you don't know- growing up as a teenager with physical pain, and when Western medicine is all you know, and when not exposed to other modalities, you just listen to the authority.
• Carin's experience of listening to the authority (doctors, pastors, Jesus, God) and how she learned to unlearn this way of being and learned to listen to her own body and intuition.
• The journey of learning that what we put into our body (pizza rolls, bagels and sugar) can really affect the physical and mental bodies.
• How Carin has healed her body when the doctors told her teenage self "there is nothing we can do".
• Carin shares some eye-opening stories about religious trauma and abuse, and the fear that it can bring up, and how it can engrain thoughts and ideas about healing, and Carin's healing journey and deconstruction.
• The neti-pot: how it can be a gateway drug to alternative and holistic ways of healing. :)
• Opening up and letting go of fear around energy healing modalities and realizing that there are a lot out there beyond Reiki! Specifically how acupuncture opened up both Carin and Tekla's eyes to energy and it is all connected and it is all energy.
• Carin's journey with Reiki- how it was for her weird friends but not her, and then how powerful it was for her, and her journey learning Reiki in Tekla's Be Rooted program.
• Carin's takeaways from receiving and learning the practice of Reiki, and how it is so connected to many parts of her healing journey- and how it is now a daily practice and part of her life.
• Ancestral healing and how Reiki and other healing modalities helps with this.
• You can heal your mind/body/spirit if you were pumped up with antibiotics and even if you took Accutane! Tekla and Carin share their stories here!

Tekla is grateful to have Carin as her podcast producer and highly recommends scheduling a call with her if you are at all interested in podcasting. Tekla would not be doing this without Carin's expertise and support. Carin is also an amazing artist, creator, and guide. Check out her websites about art, podcasting, and coaching here:

Website: https://www.carinhuebner.com/

Art Website: https://www.carinhuebner.art/

Instagram: @carinhuebner

CW: religious trauma and spiritual abuse

Dr. G (Dr. Giavanni Washington) joins Tekla to share her wisdom and knowledge, and her process of creating The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck. Dr. G is on an ancestral mission to make the world safer for Black bodied people, and she is doing it through building community, her oracle deck, educating others, and one-on-one ancestral healing sessions. Listen to learn about her Oracle deck as we discuss:

• The power of using oracle decks and how they can be a guiding message in life- to validate what is happening or invite a new perspective.
• When Dr. G was not seeing Black bodies and Black goddesses in oracle decks, she decided to make her own- how she did this and the work it took.
• The research Dr. G did to learn about the goddesses, and how she used her academic expertise to sift through the (white-dominated and racist) opinions of the history and stories of the goddesses.
• To begin the interview, Tekla pulls a card from the deck and they discuss what it means to each of them. Get a glimpse of this beautiful deck through their conversation and how they interpret the card.
• Dr. G is a teacher, and she shares her passion for educating about the roots of racism and especially Black bodies. They discuss the unique course Dr. G created, Liberated Bodies, and how the course showed up different for allies and for Black women who took the class.
• The importance of affinity spaces and spaces that are of mixed cultural bodies, and Tekla's experience being Dr. G's student in Liberated Bodies for Allies (and why she hopes it is offered again- it is a powerful class!)
• Tekla shares a vulnerable realization she had in Dr. G's class about her own white fragility, and how it does not serve, and how she continues to work through releasing the story that keeps her from action.
• They talk the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and some of the misconceptions many Americans may have about it, and why it is important to unlearn and re-learn history.
• Ancestral healing and how The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck supports this, for all bodies, not just Black bodies. (Tekla loves the deck and uses it regularly).
• Creating and leading community and being an entrepreneur can be lonely- and where Dr. G & Tekla have found support around this.
• Learn about Dr. G's one-on-one Ancestral Alchemy healing sessions and how she is honoring her ancestry by the work she shares with the world.
• Tekla will have Dr. G return after her Ancestral Alchemy 1:1 session. Stay tuned!

More about Dr. G and how to connect:

Called to the medicine of ancestral restoration, Dr. Giavanni creates healing opportunities to reconnect with lost histories and ignite hidden ancestral wisdom. Dedicated to amplifying Black Beauty, reconnecting to the deep roots of Black Divinity and encouraging the full expression of Black Joy, Dr Giavanni Washington's latest creative endeavor is the Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck. Dr G, as she is affectionately known, is an intuitive healer, mother, speaker and spiritual guide who holds a doctorate from UCLA’s department of World Arts and Cultures and was recently selected for the California Creative Corps Artist and Culture Bearer Fellowship by the California Arts Council.

Website: https://blackgoddesswithin.com

IG/TT: blackgoddesswithin@gmail.com

Learn all about The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck here- you can even pull a card virtually on the website! Check it out, it is very cool- https://www.drgiavanniwashington.com/deck

Cynthia Taylor is in her second phase of life, with her grown children and husband supporting her as she is the new business owner of South Coast Organics & Bulk Foods in Wakefield, RI. She shares her journey of being a Child Life Specialist, while finding her own healing journey through the Applied Healing Arts program at the Tai Sophia Institute. She was Tekla's accountability buddy in graduate school and they share stories of learning how to be a healing presence. You can feel Cynthia's healing presence by listening to this conversation- be inspired by her experiences and storytelling as they discuss:

• What do you "do" to be a healing presence? What practices are important to continue?
• The ripple effect of Cynthia's own healing journey with her family and her job as a Child Life Specialist.
• Cynthia's experience of bringing in mindfulness practices to one of the biggest children's hospitals in the country, and how powerful small changes can be for the children as well as the doctors and nurses caring for them.
• Why it was so exhausting to bring in new mindful ways of being (presence) into the business setting that is the hospital system.
• How presence is healing for others- Cynthia's experience of being a healing presence, from working with children to now being a business owner and community builder in her small town in Rhode Island.
• The importance of being in the season of winter and being in the unknown, and how it can be uncomfortable, yet so rewarding if you allow for the presence in the winter seasons of life.
• How being in the winter can blossom into a spring that is more than you may ever dream and how Cynthia fell in love with the herbs of the earth and how she is sharing them with her community.
• The power of practices like Qi Gong and yoga for grounding and being in the unknown or challenging times that life brings.

More about Cynthia:

Cynthia blessed to have a loving husband of 26 years, Will Taylor and two amazing adult children, Nick and Kaila Taylor. She earned my Bachelor of Science degree from Florida State University in Child Development specialized in Child LIfe in 1997 and she earned her Masters of Arts degree from Tai Sophia University now known as Maryland University of Integrative Health in Applied Healing Arts in 2013. She worked as a Certified Child Life Specialist for 15 years at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore Maryland from 2006 - 2021. She started studying spiritual herbalism in 2020 with The Gaia School of Healing & Earth Education. She finished her first year certificate in 2022 mainly working on healing herself and family and in 2023 started working on year two on how to serve others. On her journey during and after Tai Sophia I earned my level 2 as a Reiki practitioner. Her life has taken her on an adventure from raising a family and working in western medicine in Pennsylvania and Maryland to downtown Wakefield Rhode Island owning an organic bulk food and herb shop, South Coast Organics & Bulk Foods, being a part of and serving a loving and nourishing community.

Connect with Cynthia:

South Coast Organics & Bulk Foods in Wakefield RI email is info@southcoastbulkfoods.com and the web page is http://southcoastbulkfoods.com

Michele Bickley has practicing and teaching yoga and dance for over 20 years. She is an entrepreneur who continues to hold a kind and loving space for her students, in person, on zoom, on retreats, and in the public school classroom. She is a teacher with her own inspiring story of recovery, healing and growth through meditation, yoga and 12 step work. We dive into all these topics together. Join us as Michele holds an authentic and kind space with Tekla as they discuss:

• Michele's journey of first teaching dance in classrooms in LA to learning yoga from some of the top teachers on the planet, how she fully immersed herself into learning and practicing yoga, and how she honors her teachers and the roots and traditions of yoga.
• Teaching yoga and dance to children in the classroom setting- why it is Michele's favorite thing to work with younger people and the profound shifts she notices in kids.
• Why her work is never "work" from teaching outdoor yoga summer camps to kids, to yoga classes in person and on zoom, to retreats- what keeps her motivated.
• The community and classes that Michele has built over the years is authentic and "real life"- how she creates this community that is welcoming and gives the space to connect. (Michele is one of Tekla's favorite teachers and was her daughter's first yoga teacher when she was 2.5 years old).
• We dive into 12-step work for healing and recovery- the connection Tekla and Michele have with the healing they have both found through 12-step work, and how it integrates into their yoga practices. Michele shares her journey of recovery with an eating disorder, and how she found recovery in her 20s.
• Through the recovery conversation, they discuss denial and how it serves as great protection until one is ready to recover and heal (and why it is SOOOO worth it once the choice is made to drop the denial and heal!)
• Retreats! Michele hosts retreats throughout the year and we discuss our love of retreats, and the benefits of them (and acknowledge the privilege to be able to go on retreats... and why we wish we could get funded to offer them to all!)

More about Michele and how to connect with her:

Michele is in love with yoga and the art of sharing it creatively, in all areas of life…on and off the mat.

She grew up dancing and teaching in Baltimore (studied at Baltimore School for the Arts), then moved to L.A. in 1998 after receiving a degree in Fine Arts and Dance from SMU in Dallas, TX. While living in Los Angeles, Michele had the privilege of studying with some of the finest teachers on the planet.

In 2002, Michele co-founded Muv Dance and Yoga, an innovative arts organization that brought Yoga and Dance to hundreds of LA public schools, creating spaces for children to shine. She created the Yoga for the Classroom DVD that was used in schools all over the world.

Over the last decade, Michele has developed “Shake Your Shakti,” a Dance / Hip Hop Yoga Method that offers a style and space for people to experience high levels of joy, freedom, connectedness, and health.

Michele currently lives in Maryland where she is a proud mama of two lil’ yogis, teaches classes and workshops, leads retreats locally and internationally, and adores creating events to bring communities together to help promote peace on the planet.

Her passion for creating a safe space, nurturing the spirit, moving creatively, uncovering freedom in our body, and exploring the depths of this ancient yoga practice in an accessible way, are the foundations for her teaching.

Anyone can practice with Michele via her zoom classes :-)

LoveLifeYoga.org

Facebook: LoveLifeYogaWithMichele

Instagram: @YogaForRealLife

Twitter: @YogaForRealLife