Rendering Unconscious welcomes Lyla June Johnston and Tanaya Winder to the podcast!

Lyla June is an Indigenous public speaker, artist, scholar and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages from Taos, New Mexico. Her messages focus on Indigenous rights, supporting youth, traditional land stewardship practices and healing inter-generational and inter-cultural trauma. She blends undergraduate studies in human ecology at Stanford University, graduate work in Native American Pedagogy at the University of New Mexico, and the indigenous worldview she grew up with to inform her perspectives and solutions. Her internationally acclaimed presentations are conveyed through the medium of poetry, music and/or speech. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in Indigenous Studies with a focus on Indigenous Food Systems Revitalization. Follow her at Instagram.

Her songs North Star (feat. Quincy Davis) and Water is Life (feat. Oliver Enjady) are streaming on all platforms now. You can watch the videos at her YouTube. All Bandcamp sales benefit @7genfund dedicated to Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination and the sovereignty of Native nations. Visit their website: https://7genfund.org

Visit Lyla June’s Bandcamp at: https://lylajune.bandcamp.com

Tanaya Winder is a poet, writer, artist and educator who was raised on the Southern Ute reservation in Ignacio, CO. An enrolled member of the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, her background includes Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, Diné, and Black heritages. Tanaya writes and teaches about different expressions of love (self love, intimate love, social love, community love, and universal love). Follow her at Instagram.

She is the Director of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Upward Bound program; during her 10 years there she has served hundreds of Indigenous youth. She also teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico. Tanaya believes everyone has a gift they’ve been placed on this earth to share. Her specialties include: youth & women empowerment, healing trauma through art, creative writing workshops, and mental wellness advocacy.

Tanaya created Dream Warriors Management, a collective of Indigenous Artists who believe in pursuing passions, dreams, and gifts to better loved ones and communities while also uplifting others. Each artist travels to perform concerts, run workshops, teach empowerment and artistic skill sets, showcase his/her performance art & artistry, and speak at various engagements throughout the country. In addition to their artistic endeavors, they hustle hard to work within communities whenever they get the opportunity. Together, they developed the Dream Warriors Scholarship.

Support Tanaya at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tanaya

You can also check out her TEDx Talk presented at TEDxABQ 2013: Igniting Healing – a powerful talk on the power of poetry and creativity.

Mentioned in this episode:

Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel

Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Joy Harjo

This episode is also available to view at YouTube:

Rendering Unconscious Podcast is hosted by psychoanalyst Dr. Vanessa Sinclair, who interviews psychoanalysts, psychologists, scholars, creative arts therapists, writers, poets, philosophers, artists & other intellectuals about their process, work, world events, the current state of mental health care, politics, culture, the arts & more.

Support the podcast at Patreon. Your support is greatly appreciated!

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Rendering Unconscious Podcast can be found at your favorite podcasting platforms, including:  Spotify  /  iTunes  /  Soundcloud  /  Podbean

Dr. Sinclair is the author of The Pathways of the Heart (Trapart Books, 2021), Scansion in Psychoanalysis and Art: the Cut in Creation (Routledge, 2020) and Switching Mirrors (Trapart Books, 2016).

Dr. Sinclair is the editor of Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Politics & Poetry (Trapart Books, 2019) Outsider Inpatient: Reflections on Art as Therapy (Trapart Books, 2021) with Dr. Elisabeth Punzi, On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Lacanian Perspectives (Routledge, 2018) co-edited with Dr. Manya Steinkoler, and The Fenris Wolf, vol 9 (Trapart, 2017) co-edited with Carl Abrahamsson. 

The song at the end of the episode is “North Star (feat. Quincy Davis)” by Lyla June. All Bandcamp sales benefit @7genfund dedicated to Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination and the sovereignty of Native nations.

Many thanks to Carl Abrahamsson, who created the intro and outro music for Rendering Unconscious podcast.

Image: Tanaya Winder and Lyla June