Resetting The Table

This is a special episode we recorded on a summer podcast retreat on Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) territory, Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast. While resting ourselves, we explore how we can embody rest as a radical and reciprocal practice. We discuss rest as a form of resistance to capitalism and white supremacy, essential to community care and advocating for systemic change, and our own understanding and experiences of rest as a rhythm of life—whether it be napping, building boundaries, connecting to the land, and sacred attentiveness. As we touch on lessons from Black feminism and Jewish shabbat, precursor to the Christian sabbath, we ask: who has access to rest? What would rest redistribution look like? How can rhythms of rest lead us into broader and transformative changes? We hope you will be challenged and inspired by this conversation to practice a rhythm of rest in your own life and community.

A huge THANK YOU to our Patreon supporters for making this retreat possible for us!

Episode Notes & Annotations:

In this episode, Céline, Maria and Trixie talk about the importance of representation, the pervasiveness of whiteness in books and stories we read growing up, and the powerful recognition that comes with seeing ourselves in the media. We takedown some tropes and discuss the emergence of Asian experiences and storytelling, including Turning Red, Never Have I Ever, and Scarborough (no spoilers!).

In this fiery episode, which builds off our Gender Troublemaking episode, Maria, Céline, and Trixie have a candid conversation about white feminism 101. What is white feminism, how does it show up in everyday interactions and norms as well as society and culture more broadly? How have we experienced and witnessed the harm done by white feminism, historically, and today? In this salty, laughter-filled discussion, we cover the history of white feminism as in league with white supremacy, pop culture examples, and TERFism as a form of white feminism.

Content note: In this episode, we mention slavery, sexual violence and lynching. These topics are not covered in depth or detail. As always, do what you gotta do to take care of yourself and skip this episode if that’s what you need.

Technical note: We had some sound issues with this episode, so you might notice some weird blips, background noise, and static. Thanks for the patience as we do our best to address this moving forward.

Notes & Annotations:

In this episode, Maria, Céline, and Trixie talk Gender 101: what is gender, what does it mean to us, and how can we be gender troublemakers no matter what our relationship to gender is? In this informal and playful conversation, we cover a range of topics related to gender: basic terminology, gender as a social construct, the gender binary and how it relates to capitalism and colonialism, troubling gender, and the significance (and practice) of using pronouns. We touch on feminism and gender, heteronormativity in the church, and showing up for trans siblings and trans women. Also, Maria comes out as nonbinary! They use they/them pronouns now.

Content notes: The first part of the episode is mostly Gender 101 and our own experience and commentary. Around the 38 minute mark, we talk about violence against trans women. Around 45 minutes, we talk about colonialism and genocide when we discuss where the gender binary comes from.

Additional Resources & Readings:

In this exploratory conversation about consent, Céline, Maria and Trixie discuss how consent connects with bodily autonomy, especially in our interactions with one another, and how the lack of consent (societal as well as interpersonal) leads to distrust and disconnection from our bodies. We talk about teaching and modelling consent with kids, choice, communication, and unpack the problematic use of “consent” by anti-vaxxers and the right.

In this episode, Trixie and Céline interview a familiar guest: Maria! Maria talks about doula work, the importance of inclusive and expansive language in birth work, navigating the medical industrial complex, and breaking open taboos around birth and bodies. We loved having this energizing conversation that showcases Maria’s wisdom and brilliance, and are excited to share it with you.

This episode is an introduction and exploration to abolition, Chapter 1 of what we hope will be an ongoing series. Maria, Trixie, and Céline discuss the necessity of abolition (of prisons, police, and other carceral systems) and the imaginative alternatives gifted to us by the transformative justice tradition. We ask how abolition and transformative justice can re-orient us from a paradigm of punishment and fear to one of connection and community safety.

Transcript available: https://resettingthetablepodcast.blogspot.com/2021/05/episode-9-talking-abolition-ch-1.html

Episode Notes & Annotations:

In this episode, Céline and Maria speak with Silver Stevens, a Two-Spirit artist and activist from the wolf clan in the Gitxsan Nation, about sex work, decriminalization, and body sovereignty. They talk about destigmatizing sex work, rights not rescue, Jesus and harm reduction, and how decriminalization connects to decolonization. We’re honoured to share Silver’s powerful voice and incisive wisdom and experience with you.

Transcript available: https://resettingthetablepodcast.blogspot.com/2021/04/episode-8-on-decriminalization-and-body.html

Episode Notes & Annotations:

In this far-ranging and fluid conversation, Céline, Maria and Trixie speak with Kathy Kwon about church, hybrid identities, living in multiple tensions, the prophetic gift of queerness, and embodied social justice. They touch on many things including the fraught process of finding and making community, looking to the living world to learn change and transformation, and tuning into the work of liberation and justice on the margins of institutional power. We talk a lot about our Christian faith in this episode, so some of the language might get jargony for some listeners. Keeping this in mind, we’ve added some additional notes of explanation below.

Transcript available: https://resettingthetablepodcast.blogspot.com/2021/04/episode-7-on-church-embodiment-and-gift.html

Notes on vocabulary:

In the Christian tradition, the “prophetic” is that which speaks truth / the voice of God to God’s people, often into places and times of complacency and injustice. Probably the most well-known scholar on the prophetic is Walter Brueggemann (he was interviewed on the On Being podcast). Kathy, Maria, Céline and Trixie also all refer to “the kingdom,” short for the “the kingdom of God,” or in womanist theology, “the kin-dom.” In the Christian scriptures, this refers to what Jesus talks about bringing in as God’s renewed and transformative vision for creation: a radically upturned society where the marginalized are centred, systems of violence abolished, and resources and wealth are redistributed. We can think of this as similar to the concept of utopia in some radical political theory—a fully liberated future that is also actively manifesting in the present—or, the “community of creation” (Dr. Randy Woodley), reflecting the Indigenous worldview of deep reciprocity and relationship.

Episode References & Annotations:

Trixie, Céline, and Maria respond to the Atlanta shootings, especially in embracing anger as a just and generative force “in the teeth,” in Audre Lorde’s words, of racism, misogyny, and white supremacy. We didn’t plan this episode extensively, so the conversation is free-flowing and organic, with some raw emotion. We conclude with a guided grounding practice for our listeners.

Transcript available here: https://resettingthetablepodcast.blogspot.com/2021/04/episode-6-on-anger-after-atlanta.html

A note on language: After the episode aired, we were very lovingly reminded by someone that using the term ‘female body’ can present various levels of baggage and barriers to our non-binary and trans listeners. We’re sorry. We commit to do better. Language has power, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to learn more liberatory and loving ways of being, speaking, and relating, together.

Episode Notes & Annotations:

In this episode, Céline, Trixie and Maria discuss the beauty and complexity of friendships, including their own, and explore ways of elevating and celebrating friendships and platonic intimacy. They discuss how we can move away from a relationship hierarchy built on romantic partnership and the nuclear family, and expand our practices of friendship and affection to be more generous, creative, subversive, and abundant. A lot of this conversation was inspired by Mia Birdsong’s book, How We Show Up, but you don’t need to have read the book to dial in (although we hope you eventually do!).

Transcript available here: https://resettingthetablepodcast.blogspot.com/2021/03/episode-5-on-expansive-friendship-and.html

Episode Notes & Annotations

We brainstormed this episode topic before we’d all read the book, but Mia Birdsong’s How We Show Up ended up being a major anchor for our discussion. We especially recommend the audiobook version, which Mia reads herself.

In this episode, Maria, Trixie, and Céline discuss their relationships to their own bodies, and talk body hair, body shaming, beauty standards, white feminism, and problematic definitions of womanhood. They explore how the policing of bodies' presentation is connected to the upholding of the gender binary and colonial racial categories—and how marginal expressions of beauty, culture, and gender can be a form of resistance. Also, there's ranting about purity culture. This episode is a JOURNEY; buckle in!

A note on language: Céline uses the words “white womanhood” and “white femininity” to describe the intersection of whiteness, or white supremacy, with ideas of femininity and womanhood as enforced by the gender binary. She is not referring to white women specifically, but to the power structures that create and uphold the categories of white and woman.

Language matters, and we’re always learning how we can align our words and conversation closer with generosity and liberation. Got a tip? Email us at resettingthetablepodcast@gmail.com.

In this episode, Celine and Maria talk with Métis plant educator and herbalist Lori Snyder on healing our relationship to the land, guerrilla gardening as decolonization, the wisdom of plants, and aligning our personal practices with the creativity and abundance of the living world. Lori shares a wealth of wisdom on living in wonder and reciprocity with the earth in an age of climate crisis, and our joyful responsibility for reverence and integrity with our non-human relations. We’re so excited to share this enlivening conversation with you!

In this episode, Trixie, Celine, and Maria unpack their experiences growing up and breaking up with White Jesus, the damaging assumed default of whiteness when depicting the Divine, and how White Jesus functions to uphold the power of those at the top of the social and political hierarchy. They also discuss problematic white saviourism as apparent in colonialism (both historic and contemporary iterations), missions, and development work, and re-envision liberatory ways to represent God, Christ, and the sacred, as well as to reclaim cultural practices in decolonizing their spiritual journeys.

In our first full-length episode, Céline, Trixie, and Maria contextualize anti-Black racism in Canada from an East Asian perspective and discuss the importance of foregrounding Black lives and Black liberation in anti-racism work. We talk about holding a posture of openness, unlearning dominant narratives, uncovering hidden histories, and how anger can be a generative force for change.