40. Embracing Creativity, Curiosity, and Destiny: A Conversation with Dasha Kelly Hamilton

In this inspiring episode of ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, host Aderonke Bademosi Wilson welcomes the dynamic and creative Dasha Kelly Hamilton. Dasha shares her journey, from her childhood as a military brat to her current work as a performance artist, writer, and facilitator. This episode delves into themes of creativity, curiosity, and following one's destiny, highlighting Dasha's unique approach to engaging communities in meaningful conversations.

Aderonke introduces Dasha with descriptors such as creative, curious, destined, setting the stage for a deep dive into her life and work. Dasha discusses her creative upbringing, including her love for arts and crafts, and how her curiosity about different cultures and experiences has shaped her life.

Dasha shares her experiences growing up as a military brat, living in various locations including Daegu, South Korea; Stuttgart, Germany; and Hawaii. She reflects on how this nomadic lifestyle influenced her adaptability and engagement with different cultures.

Dasha discusses her latest project, 'Making Cake,' a show that combines edutainment with conversations about equity, race, class, and gender. She explains how the show uses creative methods like storytelling, games, and baking to facilitate meaningful discussions within communities. 

Dasha delves into the historical and cultural narratives behind cake ingredients, highlighting issues of access, power, and intentional design to exclude or oppress. She describes the interactive nature of the show, which includes live baking and community engagement.

Aderonke and Dasha discuss how they met through a video of Dasha's storytelling performance with The Moth, where she shared her experience of moving from Wisconsin to Alaska. Dasha explains the origins of The Moth and her role as a host for the organization.

Throughout the episode, Dasha emphasizes her belief in following a destined path, making choices that align with her faith and purpose. She reflects on how her work is about personal fulfillment and engaging communities in essential conversations.

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Transcript

Aderonke (00:01.324)
Welcome to another edition of AB Wilson's Heart of the Matter, a podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth and empowerment. Hi, I'm Aderonke Bademosi Wilson and my guest today is Dasha Kelly Hamilton. Dasha, welcome to the show.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (00:29.497)
Thank you so much.

Aderonke (00:31.06)
And your descriptors are creative, curious, destined. Dasha, tell me about those. Let's start with creative.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (00:40.599)
I have always been the arts and crafts kid. So I know looking backwards at the way that I process, the way that I exchange with people, is the way that I move through the world. It's creative, that curlicue, that little flair. And not for the sake of flair, but just wouldn't it be cool if, dot, dot, dot. So that's really an important part about how I've, literally how I live. And that comes from being curious about everything that.

I'm around, I'm a military brat. So you get to be curious about these different cultures, about different people, about all the different ways there are to have a birthday. And I've come to appreciate that every step, even the ones that I didn't plan on, were supposed to happen. So I can celebrate this path that I'm on as much as it is curated and intentional, it's also following a destiny that I am learning to be.

are continued to be obedient to.

Aderonke (01:40.65)
And Destined. Tell me about Destined.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (01:44.035)
that the choices that I know that I make are also coming from an ancient place. They're coming from a faith in all the ways that I'm supposed to move. And I think that the work that we have in being alive is deciding and shaping how we are supposed to be alive. We're given a whole bunch of information, a whole bunch of instructions, a whole bunch of gadas and shouldas. And our journey is to really carve away like clay.

to a journey and a life that's supposed to be for us. There's a way to be alive, but it's also particularly a way to live our lives. So the work that I do, the people that I get to meet, the challenges that I've had to push through are all a balance of opportunity and choices. And not that we all have this path, I don't think that it's carved out in advance, but there's a destiny.

when you're following based on what you feel you know you should be. You can't be anywhere where you're supposed to be if you follow that way. So it's destined, the way that I am, the way that I'm not, where I'm going and where

Aderonke (02:55.808)
Okay. And so thank you for sharing. And so to get to our first question, please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends will be surprised to learn.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (03:13.697)
I would say that one, I played college volleyball. So I started playing volleyball in middle school and all the way through high school and.

I was able to play my first two years in college at East Carolina University. So I was just recently at a young cousin is starting volleyball. So I'm the one in the stands. I'm the coach cousin on the sideline. Come on now, let's move your feet. Let's get, and she's trying to give me the settle down gesture from the floor. no, you invited the wrong one. You invited the wrong one. I'm not casual about this. I am not casual about this right here.

Aderonke (03:48.622)
You

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (03:54.243)
Come on, drop low, stay on your toes. So I don't do the family barbecue volleyball. It makes me crazy. Why are there nights when people on this side are in that? I play college volleyball. People might not know that. The second thing that people may be surprised, I'm a military brat. So my father.

retired as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. And from the age of four until I went off to college, my family was a traveling family. military, have the option of, especially going overseas, you get shorter duties. If you go solo, but my father, we traveled as a unit, the four of us stayed on the road. So I've lived locales around the world. And I also, in my adulthood, worked through a restless spirit.

you grow up knowing that you're going to move every three or four years. You my first job, once I got out of school, I'm already processing how many years I'm going to be in this city and thinking about the next place I'll be. Then I'm not happening, but that's a process. But most importantly, being a military kid, I know I'm whole grown up, but I still come military kid. It shapes how you engage with people. It shapes how you adjust to change.

has like every any life experience a lot of ups and downs but I wouldn't trade it for any other option of how I was able to grow up. And the third thing people might be surprised

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (05:34.499)
I did a lot of choir and competitive singing.

But be clear, no one's going to offer me a record contract. I don't sing, right? I sing. I learned to sing. I'm the alto section. But I enjoyed that a lot. So I enjoyed the experience of being in a choir in the parts. the idea, the metaphor of harmony and also the skill of being able to harmonize. just listened to, quickly, an interview with

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (06:11.928)
the sister actress who is in Wicked and also played Harriet. And she was describing how her voice with the other character.

how it goes together. And she talked about just the technique of two people, and you've got two people who sound incredible individually, but is there an ego? Do we have the same texture? And most importantly, are we both working together to make a sound together? Which is different from both of us singing our voices together and wanting to see if they shine side by side well, but releasing all of that to make a sound together is an embodied

experience that I would say, they really like when I was thinking about the third thing, I didn't know. I would say that was something that I think leads into how I work with people. And my grandmother was the first African-American woman to be certified by the United States Department of Agriculture to sell meat.

Aderonke (07:13.646)
Hmm

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (07:14.607)
So I come from a Malone's fine sausage. We 65 years now sell the product, a staple hoghead cheese. It's gourmet because it's the best. And so growing up, watching that kind of commitment and intensity and labor, focus, drive, entrepreneurship, advocacy, fire, and then my mother now is running it and just, so I have a lot of examples of how to walk through the world with your back straight.

Aderonke (07:50.476)
Well, thank you. I just want to go back to being a traveling military family. What are some locations that you've lived?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (08:00.175)
Taegu, South Korea, lived in, I'm gonna call a foreign country for me anyway, was Indianapolis, Indiana.

Aderonke (08:08.153)
Hahahaha

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (08:13.612)
Went to high schools for my high school years in Stuttgart, Germany. By the time I'm out of school or out on my own, that's when my parents, got stationed in Hawaii. I said, daddy, you're not slick. I don't know how you pulled this off. I don't know how you pulled this off, but we're coming to visit a lot. So we had a good blend of stateside and overseas tours.

Aderonke (08:41.613)
And if people wanted to buy your family's Malone's fine meats, how would they find that?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (08:49.903)
You can go to Gloria's Malone Fine Sausage and order online, but we also are in your deli section in grocery stores. are throughout the Midwest and we are expanding. the customers that we have there in the South typically buy direct. So we are now expanding. It's a matter of distribution and delivery and showing up in those stores on those shelves as well.

Aderonke (09:14.447)
I have a look for it. So Dasha, can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that you're particularly proud of?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (09:25.391)
Yes, I am especially excited to, hmm, I'm gonna back that. It's not even about being excited. I am fulfilled, I am proud, and I am thrilled in all of the actual definitions of those words to have this experience called making cake that when I landed on this production, I turned to my husband and said, this is my retirement plan.

And Making Cake is a show that I tour that is edutainment, as one would call it, where I'm using all of my skills as a writer, as a creator, as a performance artist, as a facilitator.

to engage communities in conversations about equity, about race, about class, about gender, about all of the isms that we have been conditioned to move through without being encouraged to interrogate. And now we all find ourselves in this tangle of being alive at this time, not having asked these questions in ways that are productive. And we're in the shrapnel of all of that.

So Making Cake started as an invitation to come to a community in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which is a small bedroom community, lots of Caucasians that live there, and in the height of trying to enter the conversation about race and racism. And it was a theater company, an art center that said, hey, we've seen you speak twice now. We're ready for you to come in and have us talk about this topic.

I engage these discussions using the arts, using creativity, using silly camp games, using ways for people to be human and foolish together and then whoa, before you know it, we're in a conversation about Picatopic. So that's what I've built my work on. So the other piece about this experience is it's a culmination of things that I've figured out and trial and error along the way.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (11:37.069)
So I pulled together these facilitations and involved magic markers and we're doodling and we're being goofy together and we're now having these group conversations about your experience with power. And now we're having one-on-one conversations about your exposure to class. And now we're having these imaginative.

exchanges with strangers in some cases about what your story is about listening to someone else's experience and not a performative gesture but really sitting down and having conversations of consequence and the difference is you both are in the discussion. And so having those experiences I said man this is no one cried no one no one broke out broke broke out into a rash

We can do this. We can have these discussions if possible. And one of those sessions that we had was held at a bakery. I said, we can just get everybody together over some cake. light bulb. I've done productions where you, that center objects, because every object has a story. Bookmark, for example, chairs used to be an aspirational object because the people up on the hill who had stuff had chairs with backs on them.

The people who didn't had more like benches. So the aspiration was one of these days I'm going to get a chair. That's how you know you've made it. Lawns are the same way, right? So everything has a story. So having that in my mind, I started to research the ingredients of cake and the basic ingredients for cake all tell the story of access. You needed to have wealth to have sugar. You needed to have the luxury of time.

to even be able to bake a cake before the science of it, it took days to bake a cake. then baking powder and leavening created and it shortened the time. But before that moment, you needed to have, as I say on the show, a pastry team of servants and slaves to bake a cake anytime for any reason that you wanted.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (13:43.725)
And for this reason, cake has always been attached to celebration, right? So you had to have a knowledge of domesticating animals if you wanted to have butter. So just getting these stories and then you get into these rabbit holes and keep looking for information and the narratives in them. I tell the love story of the person who invented baking powder. We have baking powder because he wanted his wife to be able to have sweets.

But in telling all these stories, it also begins to tell the story of access, of power, intentional design to exclude, of an intentional design to oppress, an intentional design to steal and rewrite narratives that benefit white men.

And by the time I get this part in the show, we've already laughed together. We've already talked about German chocolate, mean, a devil's food chocolate cake. We've already, we've already, we've already, we've already. And now we're gonna say things that are true. And then we're gonna have cake. So as part of the show, I'm telling you stories. I've got media going and there are two bakers that are baking cakes live on stage. And then we have cake with the audience and we talk about what they heard, what they thought, they talk to each other.

And so one, the process, the steps of one, my career, two, the way that I think, three, the opportunity to even launch this show, and then the affirmation and the confirmation of the show being picked up by an agency and being booked. And I'm on my third year of my tour. There's a documentary that's already made its way into a rough draft. And when I go and perform, I'm engaged in the community in dialogue.

So it's not about me going and jazz hands and spirit fingers and I get to be on stage and perform. The conversation is part of the show experience. Being able to have conversations in the community before and after is part of, again, my destined calling and I'm really good at it. And the best part is none of it's about me. I get to exercise what I'm really good at to engage a community in a conversation that they want to have and that we all should have.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (15:54.989)
So for the trajectory, I'm proud. Of the final experience, I'm proud. And that I'm really just beginning is what gets me thrilled and excited.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (16:09.165)
making cakes.

Aderonke (16:11.398)
And I've seen the videos online when I was looking you up. And at this point, I want to say how we met because we met in quite an interesting way in that. And I don't know how I came across your video on YouTube, I think, of you doing, you're on a stage talking about

moving and living in Alaska. And I think between North Carolina and Alaska and making a commitment to your husband.

and then your experience of catching salmon. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I found that fascinating. And so I said to my colleague, let's find her. I want to talk to her. And we did. And you and I talked. And then you agreed to be on the podcast. So tell us a little bit about that video. How did it start? And how did you finally make the decision to move to Alaska?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (16:55.384)
of all things, me.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (17:18.959)
Sure. That was such a fun experience. That's a series or an organization called The Moth. And The Moth is a storytelling organization that's been around, I want to say, for 25 years now. And it's an opportunity for people to get on stage and tell a story about an experience from their life.

And it was started by these guys that moved from the South, from Kentucky, I believe, and moved up to New York. And one of the things they talked about missing was being back home in the country, sitting out, trading stories with each other and friends. But here they were doing it sitting in an urban setting on a porch and the moths that were dancing around the light bulb that they were sitting on.

Then it was invite some friends over, then it became a venue. And now there is a moth reading in most major cities. There's a stage show that tours. And I was a host for the moth in Wisconsin for a number of years. And when the pandemic hit and they moved the show, the best to virtual, I was a regional host. And then was invited to be a host and also tell a story on the main stage.

And I had this story about moving to, about living in Alaska, between Wisconsin and Alaska. So the Moth by itself definitely invite people. There's a radio show, there's a podcast. If it ever comes to your city, definitely check it out. What I love about it is that you can have a topic, and like you have a topic and it means something to everyone else. And we know that in our brains, but to see it activated is really a fun night. So the very first time I've done a public storytelling, the top,

was stranger in a strange land, right? So I told a story about going to New York for the first time and going to New York with all of the movie ideas of what you think New York is going to be and what you need to be afraid of. But ultimately actually having somebody following me and a way that I was able to escape that experience. But all the things that made it worse were my Midwestern ideas of what the city was like.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (19:27.033)
Someone else told a story about traveling abroad for the first time and losing their purse and their passport and their luggage. Someone else told a story about going to their in-laws for the holidays for the first time, stranger in a stranger land. So you have this invitation and the audience shrinks because everybody in that theater can relate. Even if they've never been on a high-speed chase, you can relate. And again, these are things that we know as walking grownups, but to be an experience that's entertaining and really well done and exciting.

It's just a powerful reminder of what we're capable of and how similar we are. And the stories are amazingly well told. So I was excited to be asked to be a part of that cast. And moving to Alaska, my husband and I dated long distance between Milwaukee and Anchorage for about three years. We met at a conference. you know, how, hey, guys, ancestors, God, why is my person so far away?

There was like, well, you two are far away because we need this to work. We need this to work. So it's hours and hours and literally years on the phone and videos and getting to know each other in that way. And we got married in Alaska and then he moved to Milwaukee for a few years and then we're moving back to Alaska. our children are years age difference in our kids.

So getting my daughter through high school and getting back into Alaska at that time, his children are ready to start high school. The pandemic hits, one. And I'm also, at this time I've been halfway in my term as the poet laureate for the city of Milwaukee and had just been named poet laureate for the state of Wisconsin. And I know I said I'm gonna move to Alaska, not right now, but I'm also, mean, we know I'm not gonna walk away from a laureateship. So it was trying to figure out how to.

honor both of those things. And we came up with is I would live between two cities. So I would live, be in Alaska, be in Anchorage in the summer and the winter is when I wasn't as busy doing laureate stuff. And in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the spring and the fall. But the thing was, as far as Wisconsin was concerned, I was always in Wisconsin because of the pandemic and everything being virtual.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (21:49.837)
my director and I, we made it really clear that I would keep my Alaska profile really low. And so I was able to tell that story and what upset it was I learned to fish. And that was a shock to everyone who knows me. My mother still looks at those pictures and like, who is this woman? Who is this woman in these waiters with a fish catching salmon? So it turned out to be an incredible gift of, I call it an active meditation. So was the story of learning to fish that also

was a way to follow a dream, achieve a great accomplishment while also expanding this experience.

Aderonke (22:29.992)
And thank you. Thank you for sharing that story. And I'll put the link to the video in the podcast notes. So before I watched your video, I had no idea that there were poet laureates for a city and a state. Tell me about that. kind of, what do you have to do as a poet laureate?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (22:56.975)
The laureateships are, I often describe them as you are going to reflect to your community your relationship with this art. So in some cases, for the city of Milwaukee, the laureate before me was a Latin writer. So his priority was creating writing workshops for Hispanic writers. And as a state laureate,

and a city laureate because my background with this craft is rooted in community work, is rooted in leveraging the experience of poetry, the process of creating. It's leveraging the creative process to build community, to empower people, to excite folks about their own capabilities. So as a poet laureate,

you're inviting people into the craft. You're using poetry, you're showcasing poetics as a way to celebrate people. So yes, and it is for poetry. So there are other laureates whose approaches, I just love this art. I love this form and I wanna celebrate poets, poetry. Yes.

My authentic experience though, I was not banging with poetry coming up as a kid. I hated that unit in school. I didn't really understand or appreciate the art until I was an adult in my 20s. Now I've been a writer since I was a child, so fiction is my first love actually. And for me, I always tell the story poetry was that unit of why are we studying these riddles from dead white men? What is this about? Because you didn't know

Aderonke (24:48.724)
Thanks.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (24:50.895)
you weren't always sure what it meant, different from prose. And I didn't always, I was always questioning, how do we know that this is what they meant? How do we know? How do we know? How do we know? But going to an open mic and watching people speak their poems, their stories, their language, even the ones that I may not have understood because I'm watching a person in front of these strangers say these words, but it's a different experience. And then the people in the audience,

Aderonke (24:53.838)
you

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (25:20.067)
Like I was saying about the storytelling at the MAUF, the people in the audience are having experience of your witnessing vulnerability, where you're sipping on your coffee or your cocktail. It's a social moment in listening to other people creatively and artistically tell what they're thinking, how they feel, at the bottom line, which is different than, or feels different, I should say, than an academic reading where it's about pentameter and form and structure and stanza.

And if you don't connect with that, then the words and the story matter less. And poetry at the root is an ancient human art. It's living, it's a heartbeat. So connecting to that human heartbeat part of poetry invited me back into the craft. And with that, it was creating an open mic space for adults. It was then encouraging those adults to...

produce a chapbook. was then inviting people who were doing it other places to come and perform in our venue. It was going to high schools and teaching kids how to use poetry as a way to express themselves. It was turning it into a high school poetry slam league. It was taking adults and youth across the country to compete and to produce product. It was using poetry as a way to self-esteem. So yes, poetry, but the gold in the process.

Aderonke (26:20.014)
you

Aderonke (26:25.23)
you

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (26:45.359)
which is also expanded to teaching other artists to mine their creative processes as a way to shine their good in ways beyond their art. So that all swirled in my poet laureateship was finding ways to use poetry to bring people together. The City of Milwaukee I did, again we were virtual poemologues, and it was finding a poem and inviting people to look up a poem to respond to me with.

And then we have a conversation similar to this one. have the four same questions. And of course, with every life, all those four questions become 400 different conversations that begin and end with a poem. So it's inviting people to not be afraid of this thing that we were all trained to fear. We were trained to be afraid of poems and poetry, and that's only four, and it has to sound like I was shocked as an adult to find out the things that I've been scribbling between my short stories.

Aderonke (27:19.336)
you

Aderonke (27:30.476)
Mm.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (27:40.921)
counted air quotes as poems to learn that I've actually been a poet all along, just the way that I think. I've used metaphors as a kid, as that weird kid, as a way to explain myself to people. So it's really inviting people into the way that we already find ways to communicate connect. And my laureateship for the state was to create a project that again used a line of poetry that people would

Aderonke (27:54.478)
you

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (28:09.625)
create new pieces from, but my focus was to center incarcerated writers. So the whole project involved building a website, working with these poets who happen to be in gated communities, as one of them called it, and using their work as a way to start a poetry exchange. So people can still go to alignment.org, write a prompt, submit a poem, and then

for us pedestrians, meaning we're outside, you'll receive a poem from someone else who wrote to the same prompt. And for the folks who were inside, we had volunteers that would upload and send them their matches manually. And the message in this was you have to decide as a participant if it matters that this poem that you receive in email came from a person who lives in the suburb or a person who lives in a cell.

Aderonke (29:06.999)
Hmm

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (29:07.427)
And then you had to decide in your own little conversation what that's all about for you. Because we have poets who are in these boxes. We can talk about how they got there. We can talk about whether the boxes need to be there. But we can talk about the fact that these are people. And that we have to start there is a conversation by itself. But that's what bubbles beneath. That's the inspiration. But at the creative part, you're just in this exchange. Not a pen pal. You don't have to move.

remain besties, but you'll just get this reminder of art. And this project has been, I created a commemorative anthology and that was presented as a proposal and it got picked up by a publisher. So Jaded Ives Press is going to publish this collection, this anthology of Alignment. It comes out in April of 2025. And this collection has

incarcerated writers, other poet laureates, professors, students, farmers, people who've never written poems before. And I'm excited about it, one as a tangible output of what intentional work and creative change can do. And as a template of other community experiences, other institutions, other individuals that can create materials for people to read.

to replicate this experience. These are small things that have, that make huge, huge, huge waves in a person's life and in the community. So far, I know I started in the poet laureate ship, but that's what I did with mine. That's what I did with mine.

Aderonke (30:39.319)
you

Mmm.

Aderonke (30:48.558)
Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that and enlightening me. I had no idea what poet laureates did. And so I've gotten some more information about that. So Dasher.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (31:06.701)
And there are laureates who do readings, I do lots of readings and workshops. I just wanted to add that there's the colleagues of mine, and there's actually now a society of black poet laureates. And they're at this point, I think we're 200 strong. So these are current and past, and we're laureates of cities and states and some of the...

And in my peers, our work so often is connected community that there's a community element component that we are passionate about, which is also changing the experience that people just assume that as poet laureate, we just want people to be poets and write poems and read poetry places. Yes, that happens too. But the newer invitation is to use these platforms to also continue to.

My focus is human and social wellness. And we all get to use this platform and this art form as a way to tell those stories and encourage those moments.

Aderonke (32:16.718)
This is very exciting and I'm sorry, continue?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (32:17.453)
and all of us, the qualifications, we're all.

As in the qualifications, we're all incredible writers.

Aderonke (32:32.312)
Thank you. So Dasha, please tell us about a time when you made a difference in another's life. What were the circumstances? Paint a picture for me.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (32:44.035)
What came to mind right away were the young people I've had a chance to work with through, my work is Still Waters Collective, and Still Waters Collective is a nonprofit that I started.

as a way to use the arts and poetry and spoken word to impact lives, impact community. And it started, I could mention we're doing open mics, we're having a poetry slam league, we're doing workshops and having events and going into the schools, at some point I can't beat all the schools, right? So it's now how to then create this experience for other adult poets and giving them an opportunity and a couple of dollars in their pocket.

to create this team of teaching artists to expand what we're doing in multiple schools, which then became these young people stayed at my phone and once they graduate, creating these opportunities where now how do we teach them? So we create internships and fellowships for them to become teaching artists and going back to their alma mater's in most cases to then be the coaches of the poetry slam club and then that teaching that's teaching them how to create curriculum, how to lead workshops, how to

be a liaison in an adult setting. So you are the contact for that teacher or the principal and how to stand in those spaces. So getting to a space where now I have these young people I've been working with for many years and we're in 16 schools and doing the SLAMs and we're doing teaching classes and a lot of wonderful work, right? And to have these young people and I turn and go, wait a minute, what do you mean you're afraid to make a phone call?

Just pick up the phone and find out if it's such and such. What do you mean you're afraid? What do mean you don't know where the stamp goes? What are you talking about? So I had this moment of as adults, we often invite young people into leadership. And what that was looking like was inviting them into the room, but not really giving them the tasks to lead. So that's like inviting someone into a kitchen and they can watch. And yes, you are going to learn things by observing.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (34:57.153)
someone cook that thing, but until you try to cook that thing, know, just beating the eggs or just peeling this something is not the same as making the whole meal. And in getting, and I understand, I understand, I've done youth development, I understand, you gotta have them.

You gotta have them peel the carrots before you have them make the whole stew. Understood. But not now at this window of young people who have now graduated or about to graduate and they're realizing that they've only actually shred the carrots. And we're expecting them to go out in here and be great in college. We expected them to go and start a business. And some of that is a matter of just that transition from being a young person to being a young adult, the safety net's taken from you. And you really gotta figure this game out.

And that's just no matter where and how you live. so in this fellowship experience, was, okay, you guys are gonna spend a year with me. And not because I have the answers, but just a focus time. What are you concerned about? What are you curious about? And then we're gonna create a fellowship experience that explores all of that. We did conferences, we listened to podcasts, we had these conversations. I had a series of...

lunches we went on called the feed and it would be hey I don't want you to come have a we're gonna have lunch with my fellows and you're not giving a career talk you're not giving them any motivation we're just going to have lunch and at the end of that they experience realize that you know what I can't have a conversation yeah you can have a conversation with air quotes grown-ups and the grown-ups are also you know one lunch and woman talked about loss of you know the loss of her mother and another one we they were we had this discussion about

I want to say wrestling or wrestling and Harry Potter. So one, they're able to see that, this big business card also has to get ready for Thanksgiving or also has an issue with their cousin. And they're able to also add things that they didn't give themselves credit for knowing. So having this whole experience, had lots of different, really, really powerful. They had presentations they had to do at the end.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (37:05.303)
And one of the young people in the middle, they're like, you know, in the middle of one of the years, they said, we're mad at you. I said, I've noticed. Let's talk about it. You're asking us to do stuff without telling us how to do it. It's kind of how this fellowship goes, because you can figure it out. You have all the tools to figure it out. That's what this is about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because what we then realize is that we're not really mad at you. What we're mad about is how deeply ingrained it us that we've been told that we can't.

Aderonke (37:25.998)
you

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (37:34.893)
how deeply ingrained it is in us of what we cannot do. That's what we realize we're actually mad.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (37:45.135)
One, for this young person, and at that time they were 19, to have the self-awareness to come to that understanding, that recognition, powerful. Two, the three of them that year as peers were able to have, I didn't prompt that, I didn't facilitate that, they had that conversation.

And that this wild, not so wild, bold, piece together experience that I was intent on making for them gave them the container to have that. And we, when we talked a lot about it, said, you know, do you understand the kind of age, you know, the agency that you have to have done this? And said, yes, I do. And I hope that you walk away knowing that you have it too.

And we all do, and it's how to activate it. And that's, like I said at the beginning, figuring out how to live this life that we've been assigned. Not always easy, and the risks don't always pay off. And the guesstimates are sometimes actual guesses. And it is a muscle. It is a muscle. And I, in that work, was able to appreciate a...

levels of privilege and proud of the universe giving me an opportunity to leverage that same privilege for a great, great good. And these young people are literally changing and healing the city in their, I call them their neo-grown. They're in their mid to late 20s now, some of their early 30s. And...

and this sense of self that they stepped into their early steps as adults from this experience of, wink, writing poems, but not at all writing poems.

Aderonke (39:56.822)
And so what were the key strengths and qualities you relied on to make a difference?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (40:05.869)
Learning how you think, how you move, how you be, and trusting that.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (40:18.283)
One of the things that I...

And also learning what it takes for that machine, for you as a machine, how you, what you need and how you work. So every thing that produces, and we are creators, you want to know how it works. And even the ways that it may malfunction. So that was part of the work as well. But being able to really pay attention to what makes me tick.

and learning how to make use of how I think, which I think is maturing beyond just defending how you are and how you think. So one, defending how you are and how you think, I had to be really clear that just because this amusement park of ideas isn't happening inside the mind of the person I'm talking to,

What they're reflecting back to me is all of their, what, how's that gonna work? And who's gonna do that? And where'd you get that out of? how? And then if I follow their logic around my ideas, then my idea won't happen. My idea, I'll be thinking about, well, you know, maybe that isn't, you're right, that's never been done. But because my amusement park is not in their head does not mean my amusement park won't have great rides.

So in my learning, life learning, it's again how this music park should go. when I was a peer, when I was the director of a city-wide program for the Y, called the Black Achievers Program. And this program gauges adult volunteers in various professions, various industries to serve as the, basically the staff and

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (42:14.639)
program, the volunteers implement the program into the community in a variety of ways, and a huge part it obviously with young people. So there's a college tour, there's an interviewing program, there's a scholarship committee, different things for people to do. And in an experience, the time that I came on the program, was one...

to reclaim volunteers that had stepped away from program. It was to refine the program offerings and also to deepen and expand the youth that were involved. came in, was the great first year, amazing second year and realized, had a conversation with myself, okay, Dasha, just because you can do new things and you've got this amusement park of ideas doesn't mean they all have to happen.

One, think about what change does to an organization. One, is this because you thought it was cool or because it has to happen? So was learning to edit and moderate.

enthusiasm and great ideas. So that those are the things I would say just in understanding how I work. It's given myself the space to be expansive in my ideas but also giving you know building the the muscle and the humility and the

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (43:45.741)
the breadth of the bigger picture.

to be able to activate all of those, activate ideas when and as they should.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (44:00.525)
And being centered in that helps me trust what project to take on and partnerships not to take

Aderonke (44:02.562)
Great, thank you.

Aderonke (44:11.522)
Thank you. And can you recall a situation where you overcame a challenge that led to personal growth? Your personal growth. What did you learn from that experience?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (44:33.911)
I would say in that same line of thinking it was with Still Waters. I didn't intend to start a nonprofit. I intended to do these projects and the events that turned into, and I looked over my shoulder and realized it wasn't an experience, was an organization. And because it.

it wasn't founded as an organization with those pillars in place. It was putting pillars into it as it was moving. I've described it as trying to put bones into a very fluid body. I got to a point of beyond capacity. And it was a great moving body that didn't have the bones it needed.

for this next phases. So it was a difficult window of what did do wrong and how can I do better and wanting to shake fist at all of the forces of grants that didn't come and people that didn't show up and then back to and my own woulda, shoulda, and coulda. So in that experience of learning or giving myself permission to stop.

and that stopping and quitting are two different self-conversations. looking within with, again, what's best for this experience and where are my feelings just hurt? And where is this an ego moment? And also, what is this fear of pausing?

And so the growth moment was knowing that stopping is okay, that knowing that.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (46:19.791)
that in all of my best, best, best efforts, that sometimes that will just be my best, best, best efforts and not internalizing when those best, best efforts don't line up with everything that I'd imagined.

because you're taught to manifest and you're taught if you do X, Y, Z, that these are the outcomes you're going to have. And when there's this rift between vision and reality, just as a human, you're going to sit in a space of questioning. So my growth moment was not the words of acceptance, but really sitting in an acceptance of what is and seeing the nudge.

of opportunities that I wouldn't have pursued otherwise. I wouldn't have made space for otherwise. So the growth was really being able to, I think I'd always heard accepting XYZ was in a defeatist way, but was able to shift that really as an acceptance and a gratitude and a looking ahead of, right, well, then what am I supposed to be looking at and doing then?

So I would say that was a growth muscle that I'm still leaning into to this day. I'm grateful for it. And as we look at a 25th anniversary, those young people I'm talking about, they're calling, ready to take the organization forward.

which was always the vision. So sit back and it will come together as it should. So the frantic movement of making things happen, I had to pause and go, okay, how much of that was ambition and how much of that was just fear? And asking that question helps me sit in spaces that are difficult in a different way.

Aderonke (48:10.986)
Excellent, thank you. And I appreciate you expressing the fact that you had to face fear head on. I had a conversation this morning about fear and how it can cripple you until you overcome it. And then when you look back and you think, wow, that was OK. Why was I afraid at that point?

in hindsight.

Aderonke (48:44.558)
And so that resonated with me, your comment about fair and making me really look at it and how people see that you can get through your fears and then just appreciate having gone through them where you are at the next point on your journey.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (49:09.933)
One more time.

Aderonke (49:12.186)
I was just saying, helping people to get past the fairs so that they can look back and appreciate where they are at that point in their journey, having gone through the fair.

Aderonke (49:27.756)
You are listening to A.B. Wilson's Heart of the Matter podcast.

Welcome back to Heart of the Matter. My guest today is Dasha Kelly Hamilton. Dasha, let's look at self-care. What self-care practices or strategies help you to sustain your energy and motivation while navigating your journey?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (49:55.043)
I'm a newbie at this.

I would say on a daily basis, my self-care practices are to wake up and just keep my eyes closed. I take a long time to get out of the bed now, asking myself questions of how I am, a couple of affirmations in my mind. Because what I've found is...

Okay, I work on a habit every year during the month of my birthday. And a few years ago, the habit was making sure that the first thing I'm asking myself is how are you Dasha? Not what do you have to do today Dasha? So that teeny tiny enormous gesture just elongates my, the time I spend just thinking and maybe it's a, sometimes it's thinking in ancestors, sometimes it's talking to spirit guys. This is in my head. The first few moments when I awake,

having these kind of spacious thoughts and finding some of a routine to ease into the day. In a bigger picture, self-care that I go to is I'm an arts and crafts kid still. So I have a sketchbook. Sometimes I'm listening to a story and I'm sketching. I learned how to do polymer clay and I made polymer clay pens and stacked them up and gave them out to people. I just recently got into fabric.

collaging and I'm making a journal. So I just gave one to a cousin of mine. So I like to find a tactile hands-on, literal hands-on artsy craftsy projects that I can just set up, get out the supplies, put on some music or a story. And then that evening or afternoon of being creative in that way will stay in my body for days. So I try to give myself to that pretty regularly.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (51:54.511)
stand-up comedy. This is plenty of it on the internet, have that in my feed to laugh. So laughing is a thing. And I love movies.

But the slow morning, I would say, is the most consistent self-care because it really does set my energy, my focus, my temperament. And I feel like the day belongs to me, the day that isn't happening to me. So however you slowly ease in your day. And I know sometimes you get up and you've got to get on that thing, but those few minutes, literally a few minutes, can make a huge difference.

how the day begins. I've learned having protein instead of anything else also sets my day.

Aderonke (52:41.568)
And so how am I sharing?

Aderonke (52:48.139)
Perfect, thank you. And how might sharing your experiences of success and growth create a positive ripple effect in your family, community, the world?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (53:04.653)
A lot of us live, I would say, I'll speak for myself, I have felt living my life out loud and is one way to demonstrate here's what it looks like to try to do something hard or invest in something that you love. But having those actual conversations about what it took to put this podcast together about what that felt like to get that.

that's just to make that stumble over fill in the blank optical. It's important for people to hear what goes into making things happen, not just celebrating or lamenting the output. And in lot of cases that's.

I think that's all people see. a friend who's known me since grade school. I don't have very many of those. Who just yesterday was, I'm just, learning so many things about you. What? What do you mean you're learning things about me? You know me longer than anybody. Well, yeah, I asked different questions and you shared different stories. So telling those stories that may feel mundane, because in a list of, you know, things you're doing, maybe it is mundane, but it can be important, an important lesson or important inspiration for people who would.

who are evaluating and mapping their own stories. Break away from always presenting the packaged, polished version of ourselves with the bow on it and the label already printed out. Here are the ingredients, here's the mess. It's gonna be that polished thing, but it's gonna be a mess first.

Aderonke (54:25.453)
Mm-hmm.

Aderonke (54:44.664)
Great, thank you. And what exciting opportunities do you see on the horizon? And how do these opportunities align with your passions and aspirations?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (54:57.172)
On the horizon, I'm excited about being able to travel to communities with alignment. it aligns with my work because it's again less about, come and buy this book and more about using this book and its release as a way to give tools to local communities to be in community creatively, helping new communities start something new. So I'm really excited about.

the experiences that are embedded in this project. I'm looking forward to getting out and meeting new people.

Aderonke (55:39.374)
And so you mentioned your book alignment. What book recommendation do you have? It can be a book that you've read recently or something that has stayed with you over the years.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (55:56.383)
Of course I have more than one but the first one that comes to mind is the great cosmic mother by Monica Zhu and I have been reading this book a couple pages in the mornings, you know, let's say three or four times a week I'll break it out and I'll have it read a couple pages with my coffee almost like scripture and it is the story, yes it's the history of religion but specifically it is the

It is the story of humanity.

and being able to backtrack how our beliefs that's turned into culture, that has become religion, that has turned into patriarchy, going back to the very, very beginning of just how we interacted as humans, and specifically how women and the regard for women has shifted in that time. So to learn that the first 200,000 years of human existence, people understood God was a woman.

Very different from where we're standing now. So there's history in it, there's politics in it, there's culture in it, and there's certainly religion in it. But the way that the story is woven as the story of us and how it has shaped today is really fascinating and powerful, infuriating and I thought really well done. Similarly, The Coming by Dr. Daniel Black is a poetic narrative of the...

transatlantic abduction of African bodies, but the poetics of how he tells his story is much, it's done in a way that's so beautifully done. It's about these humans, these souls, and what we learn in ignoring signs. His language is just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, and it's a short book, I think it will be. And the last one is The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (57:48.491)
Any Matt, welcome glad well, well not any, that's not true. But the tipping point in how he's able to remind us of tiny moments that have seismic literal ripple effects into our world understanding and it's they're clever and they seem small. And this remind us of how.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (58:12.345)
how linked and fragile and infinite our connections are and the the stories that he's chosen to tell and the impact that we all have as individuals in every moment that we're in. So those are three that I think tell great stories and hopefully shift the way that, or enhance the way that we think.

Aderonke (58:36.942)
Dasha, I've enjoyed our conversation. I've really appreciated what you have shared and getting to know you a little bit more. And so is there anything else? Do you have any final thoughts?

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (58:53.677)
My final thought is to remind all of, because they're now our family, natural listeners, they're all now our family, that we are all creators and we are all creative. When I go into sessions, one of my favorite soap boxes, I'll ask the room who thinks they're creative and everyone doesn't raise their hand because everyone, the people that don't raise their hand often are thinking.

I've asked, are you an artist? Can you dance? Can you sing? Can you write? Can you? No, I didn't ask that. I said, are you creative? And the answer is yes, because that's how brains work. And then leading into the fact that we all are creative, which means we can create something that didn't exist before, a shortcut, an understanding, that means we can create a new future. That means we create all things. We can create pathways. And when we invite ourselves to see ourselves as creative, as a strategy,

It expands what we all know and believe that we're capable of doing individually and together. So creativity is a strategy that I want everyone to remember that they have, and we get to apply it.

Aderonke (59:58.68)
Thank you. And I'm going to share some of the appreciation nuggets that I got during our conversation. And one of the things that you said, connected with me, is fishing as a meditation. That the fact that before you had gone to Alaska, presumably you had never fished, but you took it up and you have embraced it.

as an opportunity to be one with being outside and being in nature, but coupled with the patience of catching a fish. And so that really resonated with me. And that poetry is an ancient human art. I had never looked at it like that. And your perspective on who had control over art historically.

And now the fact that we have people, Black people who are embracing it and using it as a voice. And so that was an appreciation nugget. And what you just said, what you just said, we are all creators, we are all creatives. And looking at my life, I would have said,

in the first 40 years, I would never have considered myself a creative. And more and more as I lean into being a photographer, being all the things that I create has allowed me to see myself differently and even to call myself an artist. So I appreciated that, that we have to remind ourselves and others.

that we are all creatives, we all can create something and appreciate that about ourselves as I appreciate this conversation. Dasha, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for saying yes when this stranger from Bermuda reached out to you and said, would you be on my podcast? And there was no hesitation, you said yes. So thank you so much.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton (01:02:20.847)
Appreciate the invitation. Destined.

Aderonke (01:02:24.002)
Yes, yes, we aimed where we began.