The Joyous Justice Podcast

EP 139: A New Dawn, Not a Farewell: April's Solo-Hosting Journey & Tracie’s Evolving Role

• April Baskin

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In this captivating episode 139 of the Joyous Justice Podcast, a pivotal moment unfolds as April Baskin and Tracie Guy Decker delve into a heartfelt and transformative discussion: They unveil significant changes that will shape the future of the podcast, marking a new era in their journey of advocacy and growth.

This episode is not just an update; it's a reflection of resilience, the power of collaboration, and the beauty of evolving paths. As April takes a bold step in a new direction, and Tracie explores exciting endeavors, they invite listeners to be part of this momentous transition.

Filled with profound insights, personal revelations, and a glimpse into the future of Joyous Justice, this episode promises to be a compelling listen that will leave you inspired and curious about what lies ahead.

Links:

  • Tracie & Emily's latest podcast: https://dtass.buzzsprout.com/
  • For Lucifer fans!: https://lightbringers.buzzsprout.com/


Discussion and reflection questions:

  1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
  2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
  3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
  4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
  5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

    Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and  get connected &  involved in our community!

    Join our online community:     https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

    Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at     https://joyousjustice.com/connect

    Find April’s TikTok videos here:     https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

    Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

    Visit     https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and  get connected & involved in our community!


April:

You're listening to the Joyous Justice Podcast. A weekly show hosted by April Baskin with Tracie Guy Decker. In a complex world in which systemic oppression conditions us to deny others and our own humanity, let's dedicate ourselves to the pursuit and embodiment of wholeness, love, and thriving in the world-- and in our own lives. It's time to heal and flourish our way to a more joyously just future.

Happy Gregorian New Year. It is so good to be back. I think it's worth informing those of you who are listening, which is most of our listenership who are listening, that I am not alone on this podcast. So I can also let Tracie also help me usher in the Gregorian New Year. And bring your voice on to this episode pretty soon from the outset. Hi April. Hi listeners. It's been a long minute. Well, it's been a long minute for you listeners. April and I speak every week still, so. Yeah. But I'm, I'm excited to be back on the podcast today. Yes! Woooo hoooo! I'm excited too. I hope you are too. It's Tracie. Tracie is in the podcast building y'all. So, and we wanted to take a moment in this moment of freshness and newness. As much as you vibe with that, I do for reasons that might be for another episode. I'm going to try to stay on track here. We wanted to take a moment to share some updates. as you know for since when, Tracie? March or April, March, April of this year. one, there's been like three or four podcasts, and they've all been me. And moving forward, I am going to be, so the big headline news of this podcast. this episode is to inform you, in partnership with Tracie that we are making another update in the ongoing evolution of the Joyous Justice podcast and of different elements of Joyous Justice, the Joyous Justice podcast, formerly known as Joyous Justice. Juice Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie. And in this next stage of evolution that neither one of us foresaw, or anticipated or predicted I am going to be moving forward as the sole host of the podcast. And likely as I figure different things out, have at times continued to just be a solo podcaster as I was during part of last year and also invite on different guests and likely bring Tracie back in any number of ways for us to engage in our April and Tracie magic. Around racial justice, around Torah, around life learnings, about social justice, strategic leadership, around anything in the, at that time that we decide it would be fun to discuss. So we wanted to inform you of that and share some additional reflections and insights and take a little bit of time to talk about it together and share our thinking with you so you can be, brought in. as Tracie mentioned, we've been thinking and processing a range of different things and also navigating, both aligned and also divergent pathways, meaningful, challenging, in different ways for both of us. 2023 was quite challenging and demanding. At least let me speak for myself. It was the hardest year in my adult life, or in the hardest year in terms of my leadership. It was the hardest, most challenging year for me. And I can let Tracie speak for herself, both around last year and where she is right now. But in. Form that is somewhat atypical for me. I didn't wanna bury the lead and just wanted to share upfront that that is an update. And now I wanna give Tracie a moment to say anything. If you wanna say anything right now. And then for us to talk about some of the, any implications, answering certain questions or just talking about this, and also hopefully taking some time, although it's hard to take some time, take some moments of appreciation and also know that we just. Much of our appreciation has already been expressed through all of the different 130 plus episodes of Jews Talk Racial Justice and Joyous Justice podcast that we've already done together and that Joyous Justice will continue to share out that material. And hopefully now that we are in a different phase of maturity within the company. we recently passed our five year mark. We're no longer an infant or a toddler as an organization. We're a kid who can walk on its own and is still continuing to learn and evolve. And in that, in this next phase of development, we'll see, but I'm hoping to be sharing more of the content that we've already shared and lifting it up and helping make it more accessible to you, to more folks. And so, We wanted to just take this moment to acknowledge that things are shifting and also. This is not a parting, per se, in the ways that one might think of a transition at times when a person is shifting from being co host to no longer being co host. Tracie, I'll pass it to you. Yeah, it's like, the way I'm thinking about it, April, is that, like, I was a part of the ensemble cast, but now I'm gonna be kept on as, like, a re recurring guest character in this. In this show. Yeah. Yes. Beloved in both roles. Thanks. Yeah. I think that in our, in the last episode I was in, I talked about sort of needing some space and the things, 2023, I don't know if it was the most challenging in my adult Life because there have been some challenging years, but it definitely was, it was big and it continues to a lot of demands which you know, that's how life works and to use the spoons metaphor that has been popularized by some of the the disabled community folks who call themselves spoonies I want to use the spoons metaphor, which is that, you know, if we imagine that we have a number of units or spoons that we get each day to use on intellectual and emotional endeavors. And then once you're out, you're out. Life has been requiring a lot of spoons for me, for a while now. And the work that we do together, April, also requires a lot of spoons, not in a bad way, it's just, it's deep and important work, and I have felt that I haven't had, yeah, I felt that I haven't had sufficient spoons to do it justice and that continues to be the case most of the time, which is why I'm transitioning from, or keeping the, not on the ensemble cast, designation, at least. For the foreseeable future. Yeah. And also, it's deep and important work that we do together and I'm not, and I don't want to give it up entirely. So, that's where I am. Yeah. And do you want to say, speaking of where you are, some folks may know, but I think a number of people don't know, do you want to say, since you are such a brilliant creative, some of the ways that. You've continued. I really love that metaphor. There was something we were watching or some part of the text study I was a part of and I think we spoke about it about I can't sometimes a book I think we talked about it on the podcast or I'm not sure. I can't remember if it was a personal offline conversation or online About you know this idea of unfurling and that we both needed some space wanted to take some space We've been really in deep partnership and we're continuing that deep partnership But in a number of ways we were doing that before For where we were both in a phase of growth and unfurling different things and not being fully sure what was going to unfurl and recognizing that we needed our own space to do that and to allow those things to come up. And some different things have unfurled and been seeded and sprouted and blossomed. In your experience, and I think it would be refreshing and sweet to hear and, to have you share and have us listen to you about some of, those things that are exciting and feel good for you to share. In this context. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. Well, I parlayed some of the things that I learned about podcasting from our work together to start a podcast with my biological sibling as opposed to you as my emotional sibling, my biological and emotional sibling, my sister. My sister, Emily Guy Burken is, brilliant and hilarious. And so we launched a podcast called Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t. There's an asterisk in place of the I. Where we're looking at, we look at pop culture, especially from our childhood and sort of take a deeper look at some of the subtext and the tropes and the things that have become part of our mental furniture without being examined. And that's exactly how. Sexism and racism and ableism and fat phobia all kind of get like baked into the way that we think and express ourselves is through those unexamined tropes and stereotypes and subtext. And so we're looking at those things in some beloved pop culture. So the Twilight series, the Muppets, Ghostbusters, the Princess Bride, these kinds of things that from our Gen X childhood. Um, and others and we're having a really good time and it is, it feels, like tangentially related to the work that you and I have done together, but requires fewer emotional spoons. Yeah. And I was just about to say something about that, about how Nothing needs to, like it really doesn't, but I am overjoyed about the fact about how it aligns so deeply with values that are really important to your choice, just as about important, that are very important about joy and taking time for fun and connecting with our beloveds and engaging in not only social change leadership, which you've also continued and was honored for, for those who don't, okay. Know, one of the things that Tracie was up to in the past few months, more recently in this past fall, she was honored by Jews United for Justice and got the Heschel Award. Now, Tracie, can you remind me of the specific, the languaging of that? I know in part, it's also honoring the sacred, gorgeous memory of Elissa Froman(z'l), but I, I'm not sure if it's the, I know you were honored at the Heschel Awards. I'm not sure if you got the Elissa Froman(z'l). Can you, yeah, can you help me out here? So there were, there were three honorees of the Heschel Vision Awards and I had the named honor, the Elissa Froman(z'l) Heschel Vision Award for 2020. Yes. So mazel tov again. Just to kind of paint the full picture here and I like what we're doing. I like what's kind of coming into being and then to focus or maybe not even focus, but into the picture here on this episode that feels so on brand for so much of our work together that it's like a wholehearted sharing and painting of what's going on in Joyous Justice Land and in Tracie Guy Decker Land and in Kohenet April Baskin Land and so mentioned that just to say that you've shifted and taken more space and you're engaging, oh, that's what I was saying, right, is that I was speaking about how I love how, aligned, not that it has to be, but how aligned the work that you're doing with your sister is with a core element of joyous justice, which is taking time in general, and particularly when we're navigating things that are hard, right? To still engage in joyous care and creation and, and connecting with people that we love, that that helps nourish and clarify, and it helps, is supportive in general of us cultivating our minds and our hearts to be in alignment with the ultimate destination we're looking for, that I hope both is deeply just and also profoundly joyous, right? So I just, just, I think it's so great. And every time you talk about it, and every time I get to see the clips or listen to episodes, there's just so much. Yeah, we have a really good time together. We definitely have fun together. I mean, we've been trying to make each other laugh for 40 years. So, you know, at least 40 years. Um, so. Continuing in that Guy Berkins's tradition. And, and so that's something for folks to know about that. That a lot of things are going to continue to be happening in the joyous justice sphere and especially on the joyous justice podcast. And that Tracie and I are looking forward to figuring out together the ways that she will continue to be part of the joyous justice podcast. And if you didn't already know, if at times you're like, Oh, I miss, I miss hearing Tracie's voice or like. Goodness, I have all this brilliance and there's so much sh*t and I would love to think and consider profound insights and thoughts about it Well now, you know where you can go on Any platform where podcasts are available to experience Tracie If you really like tracing you're like I want kind of more Tracie But also a whole different human with her own brilliance and financial expertise You get Tracie and emily and Get to, continue to experience Tracie's metaphorical, analytical, loving, wholehearted brilliance. Thanks, April. Right? And there's a way where some of that internalized oppression in me is like, I don't want to lose listeners on this podcast. And in this moment, as I'm vibing with Tracie, And feeling the fullness of all that we've created together and the mystery and richness and sweetness of what we may create together in the future that feels like an illusion that fear, fear feels like an illusion and and it's more like. No, this is actually a season of shift, but also growth and fertilization in different ways. And I really hope that, for those for whom it's relevant for you that you can experience this transition and this shift at least partly in that way. you know, God willing, neither of us are, departing, and we're taking up space in similar and in different and new ways and in various platforms. And so in the show notes for this episode, you'll be able to see you'll be able to get links if you want to check out Tracie and Emily's podcast. They also have another fan, is it called fan fiction or like fan? fandom podcast about Lucifer, which we've heard about before, but in case you didn't already know, Were rewatching Lucifer all six seasons. We do two seasons, two, excuse me, two episodes. Okay. So it is still very much like, it's, yeah, it was a YouTube show. It's now being released as a podcast. It's very specific though. So like, If you're not a big Lucifer fan, like, I, I, yeah, I mean, you might just love to listen to us because we are hilarious and adorable person listening to this. It's like, oh my gosh, or who or, somebody, you know, in your life and you know, how phenomenal Tracie is. So now, you know, okay. And in future episodes as I'm strategizing with, yeah. Current members of my team, which I need to update y'all about that, and with Tracie, I will be keeping you posted about what's coming with the Joyous Justice podcast. Exciting things, exciting things, and meaningful and significant things, and because they are meaningful and significant things,. I can't imagine doing all of that and not have Tracie continue to be a beloved thought partner and dreamer and metaphorical magical maiden who helps to bridge divides and helps to concretize visionary, profound, deep concepts into accessible ideas and metaphors that we can carry in our hearts and pockets and purses and backpacks. I think that's about it for now. Is there anything else that we wanted to mention, Tracie? I just remember there was a note that I wrote that I think I basically already conveyed, but is there anything else that you might want to say before we start to send people? I want to express a deep appreciation for. Um, all the time that we've spent together and, and our listeners and what's ahead in 2024. I think that it's, I mean, it's, it's really been, it's, it's been really powerful experience and, I want to have like the perfect metaphor, especially for the way you just built up the, the way that I, you have, you've done them dozens of times. I want to say hundreds. I don't. But. I don't have it. Yeah, I don't, I don't have one for it just at the moment. I have some things I want to share so you might be able to weave with what I'm about to say, but I'll let you finish your thought and then we'll see. I mean, I just, I mainly just wanted to, you know, just say how great it is to be back in the, in the virtual studio with you. And, I'm looking forward to my, guest appearances in 2024. Yes. Yeah. Same, same. I'm looking forward to that. And thank you. Right. I wanted to touch upon some of the appreciation, and say, thank you for doing that. And thank you for reminding me that just before we started the podcast, I was in a place now, it's a different place that I'm in now where I want, I knew I wanted to do a podcast for a few different reasons. It really works with part of how I'm able to express My message, my brilliance, my thought leadership, and I really needed an exceptional partner. I really needed a partner, like I just didn't, it felt unfulfilling. And also too, I was in the midst, I was beginning. I was on the precipice of a massive transformation, much of what, which I've undergone in the midst of us recording all our episodes. So I want to appreciate Tracie the ways that you've been a friend and a confidant and held it down. Not so much on the podcast, but more just within Joyous Justice. As I've been undergoing repeated substantial metamorphoses and then reached a point where this year, an even more intense metamorphosis that began by like a huge point of friction and Shero's Journey moment where I reached a real low point in different ways and then just needed to float for a long time. And I love how that metaphor, like we were talking, you were talking about that earlier in the year and I just needed to Let myself float and experience a range of shifts and transformation and also what's coming up for me right now in the realm of appreciation is just all the various topics we've covered and when we met through a program that I was invited to be a lead consultant on, and, and our buddy Noah, our shidduch, our matchmaker, you know, was like, I really want to bring on this person, Tracie, and it was in the moment, I was just like, I'm really not into, I don't, I don't know, we have, we have a really great thing going here, and thank God for Noah, and for recommending Tracie, and then meeting Tracie, and absolutely falling in love with her, and being like, can she be in every meeting, and then us beginning our conversation, y'all know the arc for those who have been listening. for a while. And I'd been in the market. I was like, I want to find a co host, someone who especially as I'm evolving and wanting to do my Afro Indigenous coming home work and identity reclamation work and weave that into my leadership and being in this tender kind of mushy, varying back and going back and forth between a butterfly and going back into a caterpillar stage. And in the mushy, Transformative stage to have someone to be an energetic and intellectual anchor and partner as someone with multiple ideas. It was just hard for me to fixate and focus on something. And Tracie has been such a phenomenal partner that provided a counterpoint to my. Expansive, like expanding out of my different awarenesses and weaving all these things and how do I hold that and then make a coherent statement. And now I'm in a place where I've done the work and I don't even know what the metaphor is for me, but I'm feeling more rooted and I don't have that same need, practical need. For a regular partner although I do need Tracie in my life and want her to still be a part of this podcast, but I'm not in that same place anymore and a huge part of that or significant. thread on that journey was the work that we got to do together and for me to have that partnership and support as I was finding my way and still remaining anchored to connection and so the other piece that I wanted to name quickly, and it seems like you might have other thoughts and ideas and maybe metaphor, maybe not, no pressure. You've come up with so many metaphors. I was not expecting you to turn out a metaphor. I don't think of you as a metaphor machine. I think of you as a metaphor maven and as spirit so inspires you, you, a list, you know, a flower. A metaphorical flower blooms and you gift us with them. And I thought I was good with metaphors and I am great with metaphors, but you are a metaphor maven. The other piece that I want to say and just appreciate to your point about appreciating our listeners and our community is, I can't even remember, I think I might have mentioned it, but I just want to appreciate All the different folks who have shared episodes who have been loyal listeners consistently have listened to nearly every episode. I want to love and appreciate you up until this point. And I hope you continue to join us and also perhaps expand your podcast repertoire and get some joy from two socially conscious, thoughtful, brilliant Jewish women. That being Tracie and Emily, that wasn't obvious. And I wanted to appreciate that there. There's more that I can appreciate. You know, the list is so long I can't cover it all, but some things I want to touch upon is one of our listeners was a staff member and or is a staff member at a Holocaust Museum and ran study groups and discussion groups based upon our podcast. A number of y'all did this and I specifically remember that person. Some of you like our buddies at T'ruah recently shared one of our episodes, one of our Jewish holiday episodes, and wove it into their social justice Hanukkah theme. And various other organizations have included various episodes of the Jews Talk Racial Justice and Joyous Justice Podcast in curricula. that they've written, and there's just so many, and we've had so many insights and healings and, and I think our conversations have offered insights and reframes and I just want to take a moment to, thank you Tracie for reminding me to appreciate that and celebrate That we have a number of super popular podcast episodes from the holidays, from the high holidays, from Passover one of Tracie's best metaphors about how Judaism and Jews and anti Jewish oppression is both a particle and a wave we've just covered a lot of ground thus far, and I'm excited for us to cover more and for me to lead the way in covering more and branching out and continuing to cover some of the kinds of themes we've covered to date and also perhaps covering more in different ways and doing so in ongoing but shifted in nature, partnership and collaboration and co conspiratorship with my beloved friend Tracie Guy Decker. Now, oh, the one last piece that I want to mention, in light of some of the appreciation we just shared, or anything really in this episode, but especially remembering and celebrating in this moment of reflection, and in this moment of transition, and this mini siyyum, but not a full siyyum of sorts, a closing, a closure of a specific season of the podcast to date. If there's anything that particularly stands out to you, we'd love to hear from you. Please feel free to email us, at info@joyousjustice.com. If in hearing some of these different things and in hearing the appreciation, if you heard yourself or if you didn't hear yourself, but you know that hopefully you may feel that like I'm also thinking of you too, but if you want to retroactively be like, Oh, my goodness, as I'm hearing these things, I didn't even think to tell you we did this whole program, which I'm actually think somebody did do that. And I'm just never around this episode, or this is this has become a core part of our program or leadership in this way. We would really love to hear that and see if there's some way that we might lift it up. And also it would just be sweet for Tracie and I to get that message. It'll come to me, but I will forward them to Tracie too. And will also give us a sense of what's resonated with you to date. And if you want to, no pressure, but also if you're, Also want to speak to, I'm really excited about these different things. We'd love to hear. We'd love to be an ongoing conversation with our friends and our fellow buddies, accomplices, allies, co conspirators and kindred, beloved community and family in this work. If you did or didn't hear yourself,, please let us know. It really warms our hearts. Has been and will continue to be a labor of love for us. And we're so excited for what's ahead. And we're glad to be in this with you. And if you've gotten to this point, thank you for listening to Tracie and me. And if you have any other questions, feel free to let us know. I think we've been pretty transparent here. And I said to Tracie before we recorded this, and I also just think it's sweet and it's special to me. It means a lot to me as someone who's had both desired and undesired transitions, that this is a moment of transition that's anchored in growth for us and different ways that life is moving or that life lessons or life experiences moving through us and the ways that we're navigating that it's an evolution in our relationship. It's not a closure. It's a shift in how we've been operating to date and me shifting into the role of primary host and, Tracie will be back. And there's something that just feels really beautiful and poetic about that, about navigating a beautiful, graceful gray area where it's like, no, we're not maintaining. What was because that doesn't make sense in light of how we've evolved and what's what life is calling on us. And that doesn't mean also that it has to be a total departure or rupture or that something went wrong. That we're continuing to reach for each other and be in relationship and also giving ourselves and the joyous justice podcast and various parts of our work together and separately space to grow and evolve and continue to be in conversation as we want to be in conversation with all of you and our movement work. And with you around what's happening in your life and what's meeting you in this season, in this moment, and the ways that we can be of resource to you. So is there anything else, Tracie, you want to say before we close them out with our outro? Thanks for having me back. Of course. Always. Always. I love you so very much. Love you too. And we love you, beloved listener. with very little funding. We're almost no funding actually for the podcast itself per se, or maybe a little bit from inkind donors, indirectly. We've produced, by business standards, a very successful podcast with a really strong listenership. And we've done that in partnership with you. And it's both understandable the way Tracie and I being so close and intimate together and being dear friends and Having gone to mikveh(spiritual bath) together and having gone through a number of professional and personal trials together and navigating it both separately and together individually as those things happened and as we've already said, we just. deeply love and appreciate you and the ways that you've listened and amplified the sharings of our minds and our hearts. And we're excited to move forward together with you. And hopefully throughout this episode in the ways that make sense. You've had time and space to reflect upon ways that you've perhaps shifted in the last couple of years and the ways that you're both moving in similar and in different ways yourself. And hopefully this episode or perhaps this episode is like maybe there's something that's itching or like an inkling for you. And this and I think that this episode can hopefully offer or serve as a balm and or a source of encouragement and inspiration that we can move and evolve and take up more space and it is possible to have partnerships and friendships that have room to breathe and shift in significant ways that I think will ultimately lead to really brilliant, courageous outstanding outcomes that neither, that none of us perhaps can foresee in this moment right now, but I trust that when we give ourselves, Tracie and me, and also when you give yourself the space to unfurl and move and let relationships be in deep conversation and also like, let things move and shift that that Makes room for more magic and also positions us in the long run to be able to have access to greater strength and authenticity, which will only be in deeper service of our joy and our capacity to work to powerfully advance justice and love so much love to you. Much love to you. Tracie.

April:

Thanks for tuning in to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and how you can get involved with our community. Check out the info in our show notes or find us at joyousjustice.com com. If you enjoyed this episode, show us some love! Subscribe wherever you're listening. Tell your people, share what you're learning and how your leadership is evolving. Stay humble, but not too humble and keep going because the future is ours to co-

create.