Every fourth Monday of the month, Inside Out Collective Member Aishah Shahidah Simmons (@afrolez) hosts WPFW's Inside Out Collective radio program. Simmons is a survivor of childhood and adult sexual violence, award-winning cultural worker, Buddhist practitioner and Mindfulness Meditation Teacher committed to healing, humane justice in response to inhumane violence, and love WITH accountability®. 

The Inside Out radio program illuminates and celebrates the rich diversity that is the LGBTQIA+ experience. The groundbreaking show, created by Sheila Alexander-Reid, has aired continuously since 2008, and is Washington, DC's only show of its kind on the FM dial and one of only a handful in the country. As the name implies, the Inside Out Radio Collective takes you inside this community to look at everything from pop culture to US National and international politics through an LGBTQIA-inclusive lens. We are proud to be part of the legacy of cutting-edge public affairs programming on WPFW, home of jazz and justice radio. 

Tune in every Monday night 6-7pm on 89.3FM in Washington DC or listen from anywhere in the world https://wpfwfm.org

Inside Out Radio

Dharma & Mindfulness

At a time when Black women, femmes, and girls are suffering more intersectional oppression than ever, are being pushed to the margins, and have little to no body autonomy, the May 22, 2023 edition of Inside Out LGBTQ+ Radio show #Standing4BlackGirls is critical and another reason why it is imperative that our listening audience support WPFW --home of Jazz and Justice -- where programming like Inside Out LGBTQ+ Radio is on the air every Monday night at 6pm EST.

Host Aishah Shahidah Simmons was joined by guest-host Sheila Alexander-Reid, who for many WPFW listeners in the DC Metro area needs no introduction. Sheila is the founder of Women in the Life Association and the former director of the Mayor’s Office for LGBTQ Affairs from 2015-2021. In 2008, Sheila founded Inside Out Radio on WPFW to create an on the air voice for the LGBTQ community. Fifteen years later and we’re still on the air. Inside Out is Washington, DC's only show of its kind on the FM dial and one of only a handful on the radio in the country. 

Our three distinguished guests included: Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, Brianna Parnell and Zorrie Petrus.

Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson is a writer, educator, director and guitarist. Her books, plays and films include Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical, White Nights, Black Paradise and the 2021 novel and 2022 play Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic: The Life and Times of Rory Tharpe. Rock 'n' Roll Heretic is a 2023 Lambda Literary Drama finalist. She is a co-facilitator of the L.A.-based Black LGBTQI+ Parent and Caregiver group. Dr. Hutchinson is the founder of the Women’s Leadership Project Black feminist mentoring and civic engagement program for girls of color in South L.A. and Black Skeptics Los Angeles. 

Student activist Brianna Parnell is an artist, budding guitarist, #Standing4BlackGirls coordinator and Women’s Leadership Project (WLP) alumni from Gardena High School, Class of 2019. Brianna aspires to attend Pratt Institute in New York, and pursue a graduate degree. After college, she aspires to be an owner of multiple Black-owned businesses that will put wealth back into her community.

Student-Activist Zorrie Petrus. Zorrie is a 21 year-old photographer, filmmaker and musician (guitar, drums, keyboards and viola), who was born and raised in Los Angeles. She started out as a violist, dancer and overall lover of the arts, then photography and filmmaking came along soon after. She currently attends El Camino College, and has been a member of the Women’s Leadership Project since 10th grade. Sikivu and Zorrie perform as the @DistantEngines band in South L.A.

By amplifying the lives of Black women, femme, and girl victims and survivors of sexual and domestic violence, abduction, and homicide, the #Standing4BlackGirls coalition created by the Women's Leadership Project in South Los Angeles, answers the essay question by legendary jazz singer, actor and activist Abbey Lincoln (also known as Aminata Moseka), "Who Will Revere the Black Woman?"

Learn more about the Women's Leadership Project: https://womensleadershipla.org/

#Standing4BlackGirls on Inside Out LGBTQ+ Radio

Katea Stitt Program Director of WPFW FM 89.3 Pacifica Radio- Home of Jazz and Justice in the DC Metro Area and streaming online from anywhere in the world https://wpfwfm.org envisioned, curated and hosted hosted a two hour special honoring the life and legacy of the phenomenal, trailblazing, iconic, legend, Buddhist and new Guiding Ancestral Spirit Tina Turner. This is part two of the two-hour special that aired live on May 29, 2023 at 5pm ET. 

Guests include:
Living Legend and Black Rock Icon Nona Hendryx. She is an award-winning American vocalist, record producer, songwriter, musician, author and gay-rights activist who's work in the music industry spans more than 55-years. Hendryx is known for her work as a solo artist as well as for being one-third of the trio Labelle, who had a hit with "Lady Marmalade". Her music has ranged from soul, funk, and R&B to hard rock, new wave, and new-age. She's been a Buddhist practitioner for over 40-years.

and

Aishah Shahidah Simmons who is a Black feminist lesbian survivor, Buddhist, Trauma informed Mindfulness Meditation teacher, award-winning filmmaker of NO! The Rape Documentary and author/editor of the 2020 Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse.

WPFW presents "Another Hero: Unpack the Legacy of Tina Turner"

A recording of "The Brahmaviharas: The Heart Winds Beneath Our Sails in Ease and Dis-Ease " - a community meditation and dharma talk by Aishah Shahidah Simmons @elmcommunityinsight on Saturday, June 10, 2023 at 10:30am ET. The community discussion was not recorded. https://elmcommunityinsight.org 

The video recording of this meditation and talk is available here: https://youtu.be/UATzTBpSJZU

Chapters:
0:00 - 2:21 - introduction by Traci Hodes, Ph.D.
02:22 - 29:56 - guided meditation by Aishah Shahidah Simmons
29:57 - 36:56 - Aishah's honoring of Pan Asian Origins of Buddhism and Mindfulness
36:57 - 43:50 - 7-minute pause for hydration, stretching, walking meditation, or journaling
43:51- 1:13:30 - dharma talk on the brahmaviharas by Aishah Shahidah Simmons
1:13:35 - 1:16:52 - closing mettā meditation written by Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

What are those practices that can support us in times of despair and also times of joy? The heart practices known in Theravada Buddhism as the Brahmaviharas (Great Abodes, Divine Dwellings, Divine Abodes) are heart winds beneath our sails when flying high and laying low. 

We tend to look for a way out when struggling with despair, fear, anger, and anxiety. When we practice regularly with the brahmaviharas, we can cultivate the compassionate strength to face our realities. The four brahmaviharas are:

Mettā (loving-kindness).
Karuna (compassion).
Mudita (empathetic or vicarious joy).
Upekkhā (equanimity or balance).

The brahmaviharas support our softening in the face of great despair without spiritually bypassing. We aren’t turning away or zoning out. Instead, we are turning toward and tuning in. They are concentration practices that point our attention to the object of the number of phrases. They are not mechanical exercises or affirmations. Instead, the phrases become anchors like our awareness of breath, sound, and bodily sensations. They steady the mind, train it, and the body to rest in the heart-mind (cittā). We can find sanctuary and rest in these qualities. We can quiet the mind and experience refuge or sanctuary in our boundless hearts. 

Resources referenced during the talk:
We’ve Been Here All Along  Funie Hsu published in Lion's Roar
In this article, "Funie Hsu says it’s time we recognize the contributions of Asian American Buddhists and address the racism and cultural appropriation that marginalizes their ongoing role in transmitting the dharma in the West."
https://www.lionsroar.com/weve-been-here-all-along/

You Belong: A Call for Connection by Sebene Selassie (HarperOne 2021)
https://sebeneselassie.com

Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out by Ruth King (Sounds True, 2018) - https://ruthking.net

Tuere Sala - https://tueresala.org
Dara Elebe Williams: https://www.dharma.org/teacher/dara-w...
Konda Mason - https://www.spiritrock.org/konda-mason
Larry Yang - https://www.katalyfoundation.org/team...

Link to Aishah Shahidah Simmons's talk on Cultivating Balance in the Eight Worldly Winds
  

 • Balance in the Ei...  

For All Beings, Mettā meditation by Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is featured in the anthology, Afrikan Wisdom: New Voices Talk Black Liberation, Buddhism and Beyond, edited by Valerie Mason-John (Vimalasara), (North Atlantic Books, 2021), pp. 329-330

The title of Zenju's recently published book, Opening to Darkness: Eight Gateways for Being With the Absence of Light in these Unsettling Times (Sounds True, 2023) - https://zenju.org/

The Brahmaviharas: Heart Winds Beneath Our Sails in Times of Ease and Dis-Ease

Thirty-eight years ago in 1985, Black lesbian feminist Mother Warrior Poet Audre Lorde wrote, Poetry is Not A Luxury “for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless-about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding.”

Indeed, Poetry is not a luxury as Ancestral Mother Lorde teaches us. My guest on the last Monday in LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in 2023 is an embodiment of Lorde’s timelessly prophetic words. Sunu P. Chandy whose pronouns are (she/her) is a social justice activist through her work as a poet and a civil rights attorney. Her collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was selected for the 2021 Terry J. Cox Prize, and was published by Regal House in March 2023. The powerful poems in Sunu’s debut collection, My Dear Comrades, traverse queerness, race, law, survivors, parenting, and so much more.

Based in Washington, DC, Sunu Chandy also serves as the legal director for the National Women’s Law Center and serves on the board of the Transgender Law Center. She was included as one the 2021 Queer Women of Washington and one of Go Magazine’s 100 Women We Love: Class Of 2019. Tune in for live poetry interspersed with a conversational interview between two friends and comrades who've known each other for 30-years. Learn more about Sunu at https://sunuchandy.net

This interview aired live on Monday,June 26, 2023 at 6pm ET.

The Inside Out radio program illuminates and celebrates the rich diversity that is the LGBTQIA+ experience. The groundbreaking show, created by Sheila Alexander-Reid, has aired continuously since 2008, and is Washington, DC's only show of its kind on the FM dial and one of only a handful in the country. As the name implies, the Inside Out Radio Collective takes you inside this community to look at everything from pop culture to US National and international politics through an LGBTQIA-inclusive lens. We are proud to be part of the legacy of cutting-edge public affairs programming on WPFW (PACIFICA), home of jazz and justice radio.  

Tune in every Monday night 6-7pm and listen from anywhere in the world https://wpfwfm.org

Inside Out Radio -  My Dear Comrades: Poems About Queerness, Race, Love and Survivors

Survivor-Healer, Award-winning Filmmaker/Writer, Buddhist/Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, and Inside Out Radio Collective Member Aishah Shahidah Simmons engaged in a conversational interview with her beloved and brilliant friends, Sangodare Wallace and Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs about their paradigm shifting work including: The Mobile Homecoming Project, the QUIRC App, "Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals," and the forthcoming 2024 biography, "The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde," and more. 

Sangodare and Dr. Lex are partners in all things that vibrate in the frequency of love. They are award-winning Black feminist queer visionaries working in the service of interconnection.
Learn more about this dynamic duo:
https://QUIRC.APP
https://alexispauline.com
https://mobilehomecoming.org

This interview aired live on Monday, July 27, 2023 at 6pm ET.

The Inside Out radio program illuminates and celebrates the rich diversity that is the LGBTQIA+ experience. The groundbreaking show, created by Sheila Alexander-Reid, has aired continuously since 2008, and is Washington, DC's only show of its kind on the FM dial and one of only a handful in the country. As the name implies, the Inside Out Radio Collective takes you inside this community to look at everything from pop culture to US National and international politics through an LGBTQIA-inclusive lens. We are proud to be part of the legacy of cutting-edge public affairs programming on WPFW (PACIFICA), home of jazz and justice radio.

Tune in every Monday night 6-7pm and listen from anywhere in the world https://wpfwfm.org

Inside Out Radio: Brilliance Remastered With Sangodare Wallace and Alexis Pauline Gumbs

A recording of "Kisa Gotami's Story Reminds Us That We Are Not The Only Ones" - a community meditation and dharma talk by Aishah Shahidah Simmons @elmcommunityinsight on Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 10:30am ET. The community discussion was not recorded. https://elmcommunityinsight.org.
You can view the video recording on YouTube: https://youtu.be/b-FR_ZIlOE0

Time Codes: 
00:02 - Welcome
00:55 - Guided meditation 
37:00 Dharma talk + Closing Mettā

Illness, betrayal, and death are among the many forms of suffering we tend to believe we are the only ones experiencing when •not if• they occur. Aishah shared what Kisa Gotami's story teaches about impermanence, the eight worldly winds, and equanimity; and how her story offers a path forward. 

Related Resources:
Buddhist Women at the Time of the Buddha by Hellmuth Hecker
Downloadable PDF - https://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/budwomen-buddha6.pdf

Anicca (Impermanence) Chant:
Annicca vata sankhara     All things are impermanent 
Upada vaya dhammino     They arise and they pass away 
Uppajjitva Nirujihanti         To be in harmony with this truth 
Tesam vupasamo sukho   Brings great happiness.
Link to a version of chant (in Pali Only) https://youtu.be/6nuFv2_g7dg

The Eight Worldly Winds are - Gain/Loss, Status/Disgrace, Censure/Praise, Pleasure/Pain
Link to Aishah's April 1, 2023 dharma talk "Balance in the Eight Worldly Winds" - https://youtu.be/de-Ih0vJFEw

Dharma Teachers referenced:
DaRa Williams - https://www.spiritrock.org/dara-williams
Tuere Sala - https://tueresala.org
Jeanne Corrigal - http://www.jeannecorrigal.com/
Rachel Lewis - https://rachelmeditates.ca/

Kisa Gotami's Story Reminds Us That We Are Not The Only Ones by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

A recording of "Upekkhā | Equanimity: an anchor amid the groundless that life offers" - a community meditation and dharma talk by Aishah Shahidah Simmons at Elm Community Insight on Saturday, September, 2023 at 10:30am ET. The community discussion was not recorded. https://elmcommunityinsight.org.

This recording is also available on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/5DgKFaCzmiU?si=-1PzzeM71usWJWQC 
and Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/867630648

Skip to: 
00:02 - Welcome by Traci Hodes, Ph.D.
01:40 Guided meditation by Aishah Shahidah Simmons
37:03 - Dharma talk by Aishah Shahidah Simmons
1:02:59 Closing by Traci Hodes
1:04:26 Mettā (Dedication of Merit by One Earth Sangha)guided by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Life is up, down, and all around. When not tuned in to the present moment, the vicissitudes can perpetually blow us around like a tumbleweed in a strong wind. Upekkhā | Equanimity is an anchor amid the groundlessness that life offers us. It’s the balance that supports our witnessing and being fully present for life’s vicissitudes. Naming Harriet Tubman as a bodhisattva, Aishah underscores how upekkhā is not milk toast. It is a compassionate force that is compassionately fierce.

Referenced and Related Resources:

The closing poem read by Aishah at the end of her guided meditation is from The Moon Appears When the Water Is Still: Reflections of the Dhamma by Ian McCrorie
https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Appears-When-Water-Still/dp/1928706177

The "Dedication of Merit" Aishah read during the closing mettā is by One Earth Sangha
https://oneearthsangha.org/articles/dedication-of-merit/

Upekkhā | Equanimity allows us to witness and be fully present for impermanence. 
Anicca (Pali) | Impermanence (English) Chant:
Annicca vata sankhara     All things are impermanent 
Upada vaya dhammino     They arise and they pass away 
Uppajjitva Nirujihanti         To be in harmony with this truth 
Tesam vupasamo sukho   Brings great happiness.
Link to a version of chant (in Pali Only) https://youtu.be/6nuFv2_g7dg?si=phplPbmB1Z_0ENH0

When we are agitated and in a reactive space, dharma teacher DaRa Williams invites yogis to ask ourselves the practice question, "Given the external conditions, what are you going to do about it (without causing harm to oneself or to others)?"

Below are practice questions created by dharma teacher Larry Yang that we can ask ourselves while practicing mettā | lovingkindness. Since mettā and upekkhā are in a cylical dance with each other, Aishah encourages incorporating these questions into an equanimity practice. They are especially helpful when the impulse is to react instead of pausing and then responding.
 
Can I be loving (to myself or others) in this moment?
If I can’t be loving (to myself or others) in this moment, can I be kind?
If I can’t be kind (to myself or others), can I be non-judgmental?
If I can’t be non-judgmental (of myself or others), can I not cause harm?
If I cause harm (to myself or others), can I cause the least amount of harm possible?

Link to Aishah's April 1, 2023 dharma talk "Balance in the Eight Worldly Winds" (Gain/Loss, Status/Disgrace, Censure/Praise, Pleasure/Pain)
https://youtu.be/de-Ih0vJFEw?si=CLAFP-CVgeClY-Wp

Link to Aishah's June 10, 2023 dharma talk "The Brahmaviharas: The Heart Winds Beneath Our Sails in Ease & Dis-Ease."  https://youtu.be/UATzTBpSJZU?si=0WI7kJGfuOIngPOJ

Dharma Teachers referenced:
Tuere Sala - https://tueresala.org
DaRa Williams - https://www.spiritrock.org/dara-williams
Larry Yang - https://www.spiritrock.org/larry-yang

Upekkhā | Equanimity: an anchor amid the groundlessness by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

"What you do to children matters. And they might never forget." Toni Morrison, God Bless the Child

Survivor-Healer, Award-winning Filmmaker/Writer, Buddhist/Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, and Inside Out Radio Collective Member Aishah Shahidah Simmons engaged in a conversational interview with Mirror Memoirs Co-Directors Amita Swadhin and Jaden Fields. 

Mirror Memoirs is a national storytelling and organizing project intervening in r*pe culture by uplifting the narratives, healing, and leadership of Black, Indigenous, and of color Two Spirit, transgender, non-binary, intersex, and queer survivors of childhood r*pe and s*xual assault. Mirror Memoirs is a community of belonging for anyone who wants to end r*pe culture without leaving any survivor behind.

Amita, Jaden and Aishah are sibling survivors, dear friends, trusted comrades and co-conspirators in breaking silences, healing from, disrupting and ending childhood sexual abuse without policing, prisons.

Learn more about and get involved with Mirror Memoirs
https://instagram.com/mirror.memoirs
https://facebook.com/mirrormemoirs
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mirrormemoirs/

This interview aired live on Monday, September 25, 2023 at 6pm ET. 

The Inside Out radio program illuminates and celebrates the rich diversity that is the LGBTQIA+ experience. The groundbreaking show, created by Sheila Alexander-Reid, has aired continuously since 2008, and is Washington, DC's only show of its kind on the FM dial and one of only a handful of live LGBTQIA+ radio shows in the country. As the name implies, the Inside Out Radio Collective takes you inside this community to look at everything from pop culture to US National and international politics through an LGBTQIA-inclusive lens. We are proud to be part of the legacy of cutting-edge public affairs programming on WPFW (PACIFICA), home of jazz and justice radio.

Tune in every Monday night 6-7pm and listen from anywhere in the world https://wpfwfm.org

Inside Out Radio: Mirror Memoirs - No Survivor Left Behind with Amita Swadhin and Jaden Fields

Truth (conventional and ultimate) often feels like a rarity in these turbulent times. This is a recording of Aishah Shahidah Simmons' September 27, 2023 guided meditation and dharma talk on the Sacca (Truth) Parami in Buddhism at the Insight Meditation Community of Western Mass (IWM). The community discussion and closing mettā were not recorded.

Referenced during Aishah's talk
The closing poem read by Aishah at the end of her guided meditation is from The Moon Appears When the Water Is Still: Reflections of the Dhamma by Ian McCrorie, Pariyatti Press 2003, page 73
https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Appears-When-Water-Still/dp/1928706177

Aishah opened her talk with an extended Toni Cade Bambara quote on Truth. The quote is  from a published interview with Bambara in Claudia Tate's book Black Women Writers At Work (NY: The Continuum Publishing Corporation, 1983) on page 17.  Previously out of print for years, Haymarket reissued the book in January 2023.
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1926-black-women-writers-at-work

Aishah shared the "Recitation of the Recitation of the Five Remembrances" that she learned from Traci Hodes, Ph.D. at Elm Community Insight
1. I am of the nature to grow old. How can I grow old with grace?
2. I am of the nature to get sick. How can I show tenderness to myself during sickness?
3. I am of the nature to die. How can I be conscious of this truth?
4. Everything I care about and everyone I love is of the nature to change. I will be separated from them. How can I love without attachment?
5. I am the owner of my actions. They are the ground upon which I stand. They are my continuation. How can I act with skillfulness in body, heart, and mind?

A talk on the Sacca | Truth Parami by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

A recording of "Cultivating Karuna | Compassion in times of despair" - a community meditation and dharma talk by Aishah Shahidah Simmons Elm Community Insight on Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 10:30am ET. The community discussion was not recorded. https://elmcommunityinsight.org.

This recording is also available YouTube: https://youtu.be/NHh5lfPs6AY
and Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/874374803

Skip to:
00:00 Guided Meditation (with a compassion practice)
36:00 Movement Meditation/Journaling
45:45 Dharma Talk

Karunā (Compassion) is the desire to remove harm and suffering from others. It can hu-manifest as a trembling, quivering, or moving of the heartmind in response to one’s suffering, including our own. Cultivating and practicing karunā | compassion in these never-ending turbulent times allows us to soften, discern, and respond, not react. Contemporarily, the world feels like it is on fire in the midst of a drought. Histories and herstories remind us that while this time period is unique it’s also not unique in terms of the horrors that we are both aware and even unaware that have happened for millennia. If there were ever a time to cultivate compassion it would be all of the time. 

Referenced and Related Material:

"Where life is precious, life is precious." - Dr. Ruthie Wilson Gilmore quoted in Amelia Abraham's article, "Ruthie Wilson Gilmore's politics of care"
https://www.documentjournal.com/2023/04/ruth-wilson-gilmore-abolition-geography-politics-literature-prison-reform-blm-tyre-nichols/

Opening to Darkness Eight Ways to Being With Darkness in the Absence of Light (Sounds True, 2023) by  Zenju Earthlyn Manuel. Learn more at https://zenju.org

In Stages of Meditation, Kamalasīla’s writes about karuna in the intermediate section.
Root Text: https://www.sachenfoundation.org/kamalashilas-stages-of-meditation/ 
and
An edition featuring "The Dalai Lama explanation of the principles of meditation in a practice-oriented format especially suited to Westerners"
https://www.amazon.com/Stages-Meditation-Dalai-Lama/dp/1559391979 

Excerpt from "Meditation on Karunā" is from A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life by Shantideva
https://www.shambhala.com/a-guide-to-the-bodhisattva-way-of-life-2164.html
and
https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Bodhisattvas-Way-Life-Altruism/dp/0948006889 (newer edition)

Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out (Sounds True, 2018) by Ruth King. Learn more at https://ruthking.net

During the -unrecorded- discussion following the dharma talk, a yogi shared additional resources in support of our current moment on October 14, 2023:

"You are invited to read and listen more to Thich Nhat Hahn's (Thay's) teachings on Peace Between Israelis and Palestinians : https://plumvillage.org/articles/peace-between-palestinians-and-israelis

Thay wrote the poem, Recommendation, in 1965 to support the practice of students in the School of Youth for Social Service.  These students were endangered and sometimes killed as they ventured into villages impacted by the war,  to support rebuilding and bring hope. This poem has been adapted into a song that we sometimes sing, Alone Again (Promise Me): https://plumvillage.org/articles/blog/poems-of-thay/alone-again-song-recommendation-thays-poetry

Another resource for this moment is Please Call Me By My True Names, where Thay speaks to our interbeing with those who suffer and those who create suffering: https://plumvillage.org/articles/please-call-me-by-my-true-names-song-poem "

Cultivating Karuna | Compassion in times of despair

A recording of Aishah and her father, Michael, paying homage to Tyrone Smith on the occasion of his 80th birthday (July 14, 2022) celebration held at the William Way Center on August 21, 2022. 

Tyrone joined the ancestors in February 2025. 

Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Michael Simmons honoring Tyrone Smith on the occasion of his 80th Birthday

Aishah Shahidah Simmons brings the confluence of cultural work, activism, and a 2500-year-old practice to ground her courage in living this complicated life. A survivor-healer, Black feminist lesbian award-winning writer-filmmaker, Aishah brings her life lens to work reinforced by a 22-year practice of Vipassana Meditation and trauma-informed, mindfulness meditation teacher certifications. More than one year of cumulative silent retreat practice in the U.S. and India, a daily meditation practice, three decades of therapy, and a cultivated community are foundational to Simmons moving through the trauma and suffering she experienced from childhood and adulthood sexual violence. 

Aishah’s cultural productions --the 2006 groundbreaking, Ford Foundation-funded acclaimed feature film, NO! The Rape Documentary and the 2020 Lambda Literary-award winning anthology, love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse break silences, offer healing paths for trauma, and provide visions for humanely disrupting the inhumane epidemic of sexual violence. 

Feminist activist Gloria Steinem says of Love WITH Accountability, "With this brave and healing anthology of truth-telling about sexual abuse within Black families, Aishah Shahidah Simmons sets an example for all families."

Ahead of its time, NO!’s world premiere at the 2006 Pan African Film Festival occurred 19 months before Title IX was successfully applied to campus sexual assault cases and is one of the contemporary instigators of the modern campus sexual assault movements. 

Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and human rights activist, says, “If the Black community in the Americas and the world would heal itself, it must complete the work, NO! begins.” 

Since 1995, Aishah has led over 400 workshops and dialogues in the U.S. and in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. She has received numerous awards, and held Artist-in-Residence and/or guest faculty appointments at colleges/universities and organizations including the University of Chicago, Temple University, Scripps College, Spelman College, Williams College, the University of Pennsylvania, the Weekly Dharma Gathering Platform, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Elm Community Insight: An Engaged Meditation Society, Morgan State University, Insight Meditation Community of Western Massachusetts, Sounds True, the Highlander Research and Education Center, the Collegeville Institute and Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons

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