193 - Mikel Ibarra: The Art of Feminine Rebellion in the Face of Censorship, Patriarchal Politics, & War === Monica: Monica: Welcome to the Revelation Project podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project and what gets revealed gets healed. Monica: Hello, dear listener, and welcome to another episode of the Revelation Project. Podcast I'm your host, Monica Rogers, and this podcast is all about disrupting the trance of unworthiness, lifting the veils of personal illusion and cultural deception that keep us from remembering our divinity and inherent wholeness. Monica: We also explore alternative narratives to traditional patriarchal influences. Monica: And that certainly applies for today, because today I'm with artist Mikel Ibarra and you are going to love her. I'm sure as much as I do, but her work is. All about the creation of vulva pies. Basically she uses desserts as an art media to explore women's issues. Monica: So today we're going to be exploring all kinds of things about women's. Reproductive rights are rights to creation. We're going to be talking about labiaplasty. We're going to be talking about sex toys. We're going to be talking about female anatomy. We're going to be talking about all kinds of great things. Monica: But mostly we're going to be talking about the courage of an artist and bringing that courage out to the world no matter what your art form is. Because you never know what It's going to create out there in the world. And in the process of our conversation, we introduce you to a small community of women who are changing the status quo with their artwork, and it's deeply inspiring. Monica: So before I tell you any more, let me first give you two reminders. Monica: One is to please join the monthly giveaway. If you haven't already, and you are listening to this podcast, don't forget to go to the website at join the revelation. com and get yourself on the giveaway list. To win a chance to get curated gifts and books that celebrate the feminine and the journey of unbecoming this whole unbecoming process, whatever that means to you is all about discovering who you really are under all of the layers of not you. Monica: And so we have. Uh, incredible books donated by incredible authors specifically for this giveaway, along with artisans and gifts from others who are just really loving this podcast and want to be part of this energy. So please join us, go to my website and get yourself on the list. Otherwise, we only want to make sure that people win who actually want to win, right? Monica: Because if you're not a reader, why would you want to win the giveaway? Monica: I also want to announce with great enthusiasm and delight that Libby Bunton and I are going to be offering Unbecoming again, this coming January. And we only have availability for 14 to 16 women. And the spots will go fast because this particular. Monica: Coaching Circle has been a huge hit. I am so happy to say. So if you're a woman who craves community and connection with other women, but haven't quite figured out how to be with other women in a way that really deeply nourishes you, then this is the sisterhood for you. This is also for you. If you want to be more visible, daring, and inspired. Monica: Let's say you also long to deepen your spirituality. There is so much available in terms of the teachings, tools, and practices of what we're calling embodied feminine leadership. And in this four month period, you are going to discover the gifts that you have to share with the world, even if you don't yet feel qualified enough to put yourself out there. Monica: This is all about unbecoming from all of the patriarchal programming that has taught you to be. Pretty pleasing and polite to stay small and uncomplicated. And what we want to do is unravel, help you untangle from all of that so that you can have more joy, vitality, and pleasure in your life. So please join us by going to jointherevelation. Monica: com slash unbecoming to learn more and to. Have an enrollment call with Libby and I, not this is not a test. It's more really of a meeting to find out if this program is a good fit for you. And we want to make sure you're a good fit for the program. So please join us again by going to the website, join the revelation. Monica: com slash unbecoming and be part of this next sisterhood circle. And please don't delay. As I mentioned, we have limited spots this time around. Monica: Okay, now on to my amazing guest, Mikel Ibarra. Here's how she describes herself. I'm an artist using primarily desserts as an art media to explore women's issues. Monica: The expectations and restrictions imposed upon us by society are self imposed standards are all competing for my attention as I create my art. Monica: My career path has taken me from artist to public school teacher, to full time mom, to running a home bakery, to teacher, and finally back to myself as an artist. Monica: My art is a reflection and a convergence of all of my life experiences up to this very point in time. And more about my work can be found at piesinthewindow. com. So, again, this, ah, I love. Mikel's artwork, you have to go and see it, whether you go to her website at pies in the window. com, or you immediately find her on Instagram at pies in the window, you are going to not only love the vulva pies that you see, but the stories that come with them. Monica: And let me tell you, talk about just my heart and my attention. Monica: Deeper understanding of what we all face as women when it comes to normalizing, celebrating, and approving of our bodies, just the way they are. It's so important. This episode in specific is so important for women out there who have any form of sexual dysmorphia. Monica: I really encourage you to listen to this episode because we go deep. No pun intended. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming my guest, Mikel. Hi, Mikel. Mikel: Hi, that was so nice. And I didn't cry. I'm proud of myself. Monica: Thank you. I mean, it's so interesting to hear our bios kind of read back to us and to be introduced and acknowledged. Monica: Right. It actually is very touching. It is. And I just want to say that that is exactly the word I would use when I started diving more deeply into your work, because when I, at first glance, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so fascinating. And I wanted to learn more because all of the vulva pies that you. Monica: Make and then photograph and then post it's like, there's no two alike. And it's the truth about women in general. And it brings up all of this stuff for people. So what I love the most about it is that part of the revelation project for me. Is about those places that meet us in the world and reveal something in that moment about the beliefs that we hold or that challenge us to see something a certain way. Monica: And that's immediately what your work provokes right away. And so I wondered if you could just start by telling us and the listener more about what the hell I'm talking about, because how would you describe your art? Mikel: Oh, the first word that came to mind is confrontational, but I'm not confrontational usually, but my art is portraits. Mikel: Of vulvas as actual pies. They're real from scratch pies, hand sculpted, sometimes painted out of real pie dough. And the idea just came to me after he said he had a home bakery and had been an artist and art teacher and combining those two things. It just like the vulva pies came to me and I just followed it and did it. Mikel: And so. I mean, I don't, you really have to see it to know Monica: You really have to see it. You really do. Mikel: And Instagram is the window. Like it was a project originally made for Instagram and that social media viewing of women, how we're always trying to present ourselves. Either through beauty or just our lives are great. Mikel: Look at us go, you know, and so it seemed like just putting out the, the vulva as a pie plate as a product, but also meaning it as art, it just brought all the flaky layers of the concepts that I tackle in my personal art together. And it just took off without me with me, Monica: It sure did. It sure did with or without you. Monica: I feel what I hear you saying is who knew that you would start putting this out and get, and that's that intersection. I feel like of our creativity in the world is that we're having one experience and then we put it out there and we see its impact out there and. That starts its own revelation project in terms of what then gets revealed to us in the way that it kind of creates this third thing. Monica: There's you and your art and then presenting it out to the world and the world meeting it. Becomes this whole other right spirit of what becomes pies in the window. Mikel: Yes. And it like my idea was more heavily focused on objectification and women being products and assumed for consumption. And when I started putting it out there, even just from the first one. Mikel: The comments I got, the people that reacted, the messages I got were about you helped me see myself, you see me, these things have happened. My body's different. This is not, I thought something was wrong with me until I saw your pies because so many women don't. Even get to look at their own body or even know the proper terms because we're taught shame and to stay away. Mikel: You know, that's not very nice was the first message I got about my own self, looking at myself and it's like, what's not nice. The body part, me seeing it, you know, tell me more. Monica: Help me understand. Mikel: Right. And so then I felt like I started representing vulvas and women and our bodies. And then it's just expanded in ways that I didn't imagine. Mikel: And that's fine. Cause it's like, I'm having a conversation with all the viewers and it's been Monica: wonderful. Yeah. Monica: I want to circle back to the, some of the things that you just said, because the feedback that you get. So one of the things I heard you say is women who've said, you helped me see myself. You helped me see that I'm, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but, but I do want to kind of start to surface some of these things because the revelations that come for women, um, So first of all, my revelation when I saw your work was, Oh my gosh, they're all so different. Monica: Yes. You're literally creating imagery of pies, of vulvas that are actual vulvas. First of all, I wanted to check in and find out, how do you. Get these images or what are you creating from? Mikel: Well, when I started, I just started looking online for pictures of vulvas and that's a rabbit hole. Do not type that in your Google. Mikel: And then I kept looking for, I had to, you know, sharpen it up to get away from pornography. I had to type real vulva, um, medical pictures of vulvas. And then they're all the same illustration of this almond shape thing with Three holes, you know, and so I just kept digging deeper and I found on Wikimedia Commons, some copyright free images of photos of vulvas that were just like recumbent or reclining views where you could see in full detail the anatomy that was non sexualized and That's kind of the direction I went, and I just kept just doing these portraits, and the first ones were just copyright free images, and then as I've gone on, now I'm like, uh, I numbered, I call them by their pienumbers, so like pie1, pie2, pie3, so I just finished, I think, pie76, that I haven't posted yet, but, so these last few series have been pictures of models, so people have emailed me or they put in my Google form photos of themselves, either frontal views or reclining. Mikel: And I've been taking submissions that was hard for me to do just to be trusted. I didn't feel like I could be safe, you know, with, I'm safe, but could I keep the images safe? Cause I didn't want them to be seen by anybody else. I didn't want them to end up anywhere else. So I took a long time before I was ready to accept images, but. Mikel: Now I have a whole lot of images to work from, but at first it was hard. Monica: Yeah. Amazing. And so you literally take submissions from women. So women can apply to be a model or they just go to your pies in the window. Instagram. Is that where they can. Like apply to do that Mikel: On the website. I have a tab at the top that says models. Mikel: And then when I'm accepting submissions, I they can go to a Google form and fill it out and then submit their files on there. And then I have examples that I'm looking for. And as long as I can see the photo Monica: And I would love to explore this actually both ways, I would love to explore a little bit, like what the model gets from doing it, what, you know, any feedback that you've gotten and then the viewer as well, because I think again, what I'm really understanding is that this, your artwork has opened up a whole dialogue that has empowered Women and men, I think, you know, like my husband was actually also looking at your Instagram feed and we were just, it actually allowed us to have a little bit of a conversation about just. Monica: In a partner dynamic, you know, it brings up some stuff that allowed me to actually share some of my vulnerabilities and my own shame around growing up and same thing. I will never forget being introduced at one point to Mama Gina's work. Somebody introduced me to her work and I, and it was way years, years, years ago. Monica: And I remember saying. As long as it doesn't require me to sit in front of a mirror naked, I'm in, which is such a revealing statement to begin with, to realize that I had never seen my own vulva, that I was ashamed to even look at it up until I was in my thirties is really. Tragic. It's tragic. Mikel: It is. It is. Mikel: And I'm right there with you. Like even doing the artwork. I didn't just like pull out a mirror and sculpt my own. I still have not sculpted my own and it's not, I don't have any shame around my vulva. I don't have any, you know, thing that Makes me feel like I need to hide it or anything, but I just have this sense of what I've been taught is shame of modesty, you know, like, you know, good girls and what good girls do and what good girls don't do. Mikel: And like, I. I have horrible shyness around my body, you know, and so these women in this space, just in them being willing to share with me, it's humbling and it's just inspiring. And it, it, I mean, so much space in me has been made for myself. I'm just like the same way I'm inspiring them and helping them see themselves. Mikel: They're helping me see myself. Monica: It's so true. It's such a. A two way giving and receiving, right? It really, and it's how I really believe we're designed to be in community and men too. We cannot, we're not meant to journey alone. And yet so many women are doing just that. They're in their human journey alone and they're isolated, even in a room full of people is what I like to say. Monica: And so as I kind of come to the first page of your website, you talk about this, you say, this is a home to my ongoing art series, exploring the paths between empowerment. Acceptance, sexuality, and objectification from my personal window. What I hear is from my personal revelation project, because it's a very similar way of looking at this. Monica: And then you say that you hope your art will connect with others in a way that is somehow meaningful. And again, I want to really invite here, anything that you want to share about what women have shared with you about. Seeing your work, interacting with your work and yeah, what it's meant to them. Mikel: Yeah. Mikel: Um, Mikel: I think a lot of. Women have come to me with stories of sexual abuse and sexual trauma and things that have been said to them, offhanded comments they've heard about, um, labia length or labia size, and I mean it doesn't even have to really happen to us, we just have to hear about it happening. To someone else, you know, like if somebody shamed somebody else publicly and we start hearing about it, then we're like, Oh, we better fix that. Mikel: So nobody shames us. So one of the stories that comes to mind is a. A young person was really into gymnastics and she was, they have to wear the leotards. And when she hit puberty, her labia started growing and protruding and, um, I believe it was the inner labia was sticking out further than the outer labia and it wasn't talked about and nobody was saying anything and it was showing through her leotard and nobody said anything to her. Mikel: She saw it and became humiliated and quit gymnastics, and she was top level gymnastics, but quit because of that. And I feel like those kinds of conversations happen all the time. I've had stories of people who've self mutilated and thought about self mutilating. They've gone as far as going to doctors. Mikel: For labiaplasty, Monica: Which is actually I've learned through you is I had no idea how, I mean, I knew about labiaplasty, but I didn't know just how popularized it has become and how devastating it has been for women that don't understand. What it is that they're really doing to their bodies and what the long term implications are. Monica: And for those listeners who've had this procedure done, this is not to, I'm not bringing this up at all to disagree with your choice. I'm talking about it from the perspective of actually the medical industry and how the medical industry has miss educated and also continue to kind of miss the mark on understanding the true anatomy of the vulva, the vagina, and that It's a huge issue. Monica: So there, from my understanding, we have a serious problem with the medical communities that do this work because they are actually harming the women that they're doing the labiaplasty on because. They don't have, first of all, the proper anatomy, and it's not even in the anatomy books properly. And the second thing is, they're, most of these are male doctors, who, Aren't the ones that also experience what it feels like to then have the scar tissue and all of the other things that are repercussions from this. Monica: And so again, if you're somebody out there that's listening, that's had no issues. I'm so glad I'm so glad because that is what I'm learning is that that's not the typical case, that most women who have this surgery actually experience a number of issues. Mikel: Right. And there's so many things that can happen that seem to be disregarded by the doctors when they tell the people about the procedure and like. Mikel: So you can have loss of feeling, you can have scar tissue, it's very painful. One of the things is like the clitoral hood is sometimes has a lot of skin over the top of it. And if they go cutting into that area where the all of your nerves are, endings are, all of your feeling, they can cause serious damage to the way that you receive pleasure. Mikel: And that is our pleasure and that part of our body is The part, the clitoris is, some people say clitoris and they're both correct, but they, that body part is left off of anatomy charts. It's left off of everything and it is everything to us. And so there are a lot of activists trying to fight to change. Mikel: that industry. And there's a lot going on where just to be educated and make sure that your doctor knows about your body before you go in. And it's not just cosmetic, you know, our labia are the inner labia, the outer labia, your urethra, your vaginal canal. You know, a lot of women that have had birth, they think, or given birth, think they need to have their Vaginal canal sewed a little tighter, you know, when you had an episiotomy, just get that extra two stitches and tighten it up. Mikel: But what happens is you have painful intercourse a lot of times afterward. And so these are the types of stories that get shared with me. A lot of my, when I post the photos with people who shared a story, I write their words with the image. So if somebody went through Instagram and looked at all the photos, you could read. Mikel: The people who did leave a story and didn't choose to post anonymously. And there's a lot from survivors to people who have considered labiaplasty and even hair removal. Hair is another big stigma. Are you too hairy? Are you not hairy enough? And you know, it seems especially men. And mothers, men and mothers have no problem telling you exactly their opinion of your body and what they think is wrong with it. Mikel: And so I've had women be shamed by their mothers, like, Oh my goodness, your labia are huge and something's wrong with you, we need to go to the doctor. And then sadly the doctor agrees, Oh, it's just excess skin, we'll laser it right off. It's horrifying that we're not taught that all these body types are normal. Mikel: You know, that we're taught that. They could be corrected or to be fixed. That's, I think that's the scary part about labioplasty. Monica: It is. It's a really scary part. And you made me aware of a woman's work who I'm now following on Instagram. Her name is Jessica Penn. And. She's all about educating the medical community to take vulvas seriously. Monica: And she's been seen on the daily show and on the New York times. And we've invited her to come here on the podcast. Thanks to you, Mikel. But it's really interesting, you know, like what she shares, even. Not only does she share about all kinds of issues of labiaplasty, but she also shares about hysterectomy and she shares about even some of the things that. Monica: We don't realize about, for instance, that the toys that are on the market and what some of those sex toys do to the nerve endings. And so one of her posts is all about how research is showing that vibration from power tools can cause permanent damage to nerve endings, axons and blood vessels in the skin of the hands. Monica: Right. We're talking about men. But doctors typically reassure us that vibrating sex toys are safe, but actually some of the accounts. And reports from women are indicating otherwise, and what they're starting to find is that many women are dependent on vibrators for pleasure and actually can't orgasm without them. Monica: And it creates again, this invitation to this whole other conversation about us first understanding our own anatomy. And as my friend and colleague Libby would say, to really understand that we've been taught that the dial of our pleasure. Is for somebody else to determine to put their hands on that dial and turn it up or down, but that somehow we're the last ones that got our hands on our own dial to understand our own pleasure. Monica: And so it's really interesting. In so many of my women's circles, part of the unbecoming process is to help women understand own pleasure and what actually turns them on, not only sexually, but in all ways. Yeah. What actually turns them on and understanding that we're just as different in what turns us on as we are in how we look and in terms of what our vulvas look like and that we're all built so differently and that none of it is bad or wrong or broken. Monica: Right. It's like, I love the book. Come as you are. I love existential kink, right? Like all of these other books and women out there who've brought to our attention, just how important it is for us to understand what these kinks are and to normalize them and to. Learn how we can actually educate ourselves and our partners in terms of what are the things that are going to help us relate to each other better, but not from this place of shame and also from this place of true consent and understanding so that yes. Monica: Vibrators all day long have no issue with that, but it's, do we understand some of the deeper needs and are we. Aware of our own needs and giving our permission to have those needs and without shame, without shame and without blame. Mikel: Yeah. And then that also with the vibrators, it brings up, I've been reading a lot about capitalism and, you know, looking at. Mikel: How, especially with women and all oppressed people, the answer is always something that we have to go by, you know? So the answer to our orgasm pleasure is go buy a vibrator. And I don't know if you've shopped for one recently, but they were running in the like 200, 150, you know? And so it's nice that we can have luxury sex toys and they're nice, but just to not even teach. Mikel: Young people, their anatomy, so that they have the option of pleasuring themselves digitally, so to speak, you know, and like teaching their partner. And then one thing about women's bodies is we're all different in the way we look and the way that we Receive pleasure. So, you know, this may be too graphic. Mikel: I don't think it is. Not for my work, but, um, you know, like some of us enjoy penetration and some of us do not. Some of us only can climax through clitoral stimulation. Some of us can climax through penetration and it is a lot of work, so to speak, to try to figure that out for a new partner, you know, but that should be part of the joy and pleasure. Mikel: And if we didn't have shame, It could be a wonderful thing to introduce your body to a new person. And I'm really just learning this too as I do the work, but One of the things Mama Gina teaches, you know, in her, in her books is that your body is different and you do have to learn to turn it on and what excites you so that you can share that with your partner. Mikel: And then that would mean that we have to teach that masturbation is okay, that looking at yourself is okay. And I think we have such a fear that if we Do not nip it in the bud. As soon as our children discover their genitals, they're going to just become raging sex monsters in it or something. It, you know, it doesn't even have to be about sex. Mikel: It's just their body. And we are the ones that sexualize it. They are not, they don't even think about, they don't know anything about it. And so if somehow we can just get to that point where we can normalize our bodies and growing. As we grow and not thinking pleasure is something what I don't even know a good word. Mikel: I keep thinking salacious, salacious, salacious. That's, you know what I mean? It's just, it's sad that we're taught shame before anatomy. Monica: Right. And even those of us that didn't necessarily grow up in a religious household, you know, it's like, it's just, it's kind of back to in the air we breathe, you know, there's this, again, back to these microdosed messages from a very, very young age, but then the more we can Understand as well that this is, this is at the seat of our power and that it's by design that we've been disconnected and disassociated from our own bodies, from our own. Monica: Erotic power from our own erotic knowing, and this ties in very much to, I would say your energy as an artist, my energy as an artist in my art form of podcasting, everybody's energy is could be considered their creation energy could also be tied into this erotic energy. And so having that energy. First and foremost, be accessible and not continually shut down. Monica: It starts to make one wonder, Oh, interesting. The more I kind of look at this upside down world from the perspective of, Oh, that's by design that we are cut off from our sexuality, because a woman or. Or a man who is fully embodied in their creative potential, who understands the what's possible in that fertile place of creativity, that there's a currency there. Monica: There's a power that creates something. Well, beyond what like all of humanity, everything that there is, right. It's absolutely every possible possibility is one of my guests brought up is part of this erotic power and potential. And in this moment, recognizing something that you said earlier, which is one of the reasons. Monica: Two, that we're continually challenged to create something, which is honestly the most pleasurable experience is because we are so exposed to so much fear and trauma on a day to day basis. And in fact, this was something that you were mentioning earlier, Mikel, about how you're witnessing this right now in some of your artist friends who are. Monica: Disconnecting from creating their art. I wondered if you could share more about that. Mikel: Yeah. With, with everything going on in the world right now with, you know, there's wars, I feel like there's wars everywhere now, but especially with what's going on between Israel and Palestine and the Ukraine and Russia, and then in the disparities in the United States with homelessness and the income wealth gap and racism, you know, it just, it seems like one thing after another is just this. Mikel: Big pancake of bad, you know, and that makes us withdraw and it makes us feel guilty to create because creating is, is our greatest joy. And when we create, we're open and we're receiving and other people, you know, I think that sharing your art is, or whatever you create in sharing your words, sharing your vision, sharing your thoughts, that is. Mikel: What we are meant to do as humans. We're here to expand and create and have joy. I mean, our, our world is just abundant and perfect. And when we see these atrocities going on and we're sensitive creators, you know, like our, we feel afraid to share because we feel so much empathy for what we see bad happening, but it's like one of those cycles, you know, and like the Ouroboros, if we, if we don't create. Mikel: Then the world contracts and we'll slip into darkness and it's like not shining your light. And so, we have to be activists and we have to speak out, but we can't just rage all the time. You know, we have to have those moments of respite and, and there's always that seed of birth. You know, there's women giving birth right now in these war zones and it's terrible, but it's still that seed of hope. Mikel: Every birth, every creation. Is hope and that's what will change the world. You know, that's what I think. That's how I think I got this idea, is that divine feminine energy coming to me, just some lady in my kitchen who hadn't created any meaningful art in so long. You know, I'm hiding in the dark winter of December, literally, and it was 6 a. Mikel: m. in the morning. And then this Idea of hope and I got so excited and that's that spark and then when I did this art and put it out there I mean my family thought I was nuts. I'm like, I'm gonna make vulvas out of pies Monica: And I'm gonna make vulva pies Mikel: And they're like, okay do what you need to do and then um, that's but that courage to create When I was a public school teacher, you know, I had things, I felt like I was going to really lose if I started putting out art like this, but people would turn their back on me. Mikel: It would be so shameful just to do it, but that's that I'm circling back around to what we're talking about. That's that same courage that it takes almost to keep creating, to write a song, you know, when we're in the middle of a war zone, you know, we have to keep going. Monica: Yeah. We have to keep going. Advertisement: Unbecoming. Advertisement: Adjective. Not flattering, shocking, unsuitable, not appropriate, unseemly. What does it mean to be in the unbecoming? For me, it's been years of unbinding myself from the impossible rules and expectations it is to be a woman. Breaking the chains my mother wore, and her mother wore, and her mother's mother wore. Advertisement: Refusing to settle for what patriarchy and trauma were trying to mold me into. It's unbecoming to sit that way. Cross your legs. It's unbecoming to speak up like that. Be polite. It's unbecoming for a woman to be sexual. Don't be a slut. It's unbecoming to express anger. Put on a happy face. These are just a few of the insane messages I was waterboarded with by culture, advertising, TV, and even by many of my well intentioned female role models. Advertisement: But the ultimate bind is that the only way for me to heal requires me to be exactly all of the most unbecoming things a woman could be. It requires me to express my rage and make it right instead of making it wrong. It requires me to include my grief and allow my tears to fall. It requires me to stop asking for approval and to approve of my own damn self. Advertisement: It requires me to be in full ownership of my intense sexual and sensual power. It requires me to put myself before others, even when speaking my truth pisses people off. And believe me, it pisses people off. It requires me to be scared and sometimes even scary. In other words, Not flattering, shocking, unsuitable, not appropriate, unseemly. Advertisement: The only way to become who you're meant to be is to unbecome from these impossible binds you think are keeping you safe when they are really keeping you stuck. More space and freedom to live fully are on the other side of this work, and you are so worth it. Enrollment is officially open for our four month Unbecoming Coaching Circle and Sisterhood, and we kick off in January of 2024. Advertisement: This is an intimate space, so spots are limited. I'm inviting you to be the most unbecoming you the patriarchy could imagine. Will you Unbecome from the Binds of Patriarchal Programming with us? Check out the details and book a call with me, Libby Buntin, and your favorite, Monica Rogers, by going to jointherevelation. Advertisement: com slash unbecoming. That's jointherevelation. com slash unbecoming. See you there, sister. Monica: I'm going to read this part of your, your bio because I think it's so beautiful. so beautiful. So You say, in life I've traveled from artist to wife and mother to art teacher to baker and dessert decorator, and finally back to myself as an artist. My art is a reflection and convergence of all my life experience up to this point in time. Monica: I left teaching art to be a full time mom after the birth of my fourth child. I've always been a working mom. This change was profound and confusing. In fact, I felt lost and inadequate. Throwing myself into homemaking. I learned to bake from scratch. Of course, everything had to be perfect. And I say that with complete recognition, the pressures I put on myself were endless. Monica: I was comparing myself to an ideal mom that now I'm certain is imaginary. Amen. Interestingly, the slow process of spending hours in the kitchen seeking perfection in baking reawakened the visual artist in me. I felt inspired to create meaningful content and tackle my feelings about the proverbial. Monica: Woman's place in Americana, the woman's place has been in the home and the kitchen is the heart of that home. Families gather around the table for meals, fun, and in times of crisis, the image of the mother nurturing and feeding the family wearing an apron and a loving smile pervades our marketing and ideology of what it means to be an adult woman. Monica: An image as American. Monica: As apple pie. And then there's the sex symbol. This is the one you don't want to bring home to your apron wearing mama. What a paradox, huh? She oozes sexual energy and horniness splayed out on the hood of a car tongue, licking her lips with a come hither stare, a sweet little tart. Monica: She's our cherry pie. Tastes so good. She's gonna make a grown man cry. We were raised to be good girls, seeing naughty girls command attention. We end up navigating the waters, never quite feeling like we've met all the expectations exhausted and jaded from our attempts left with guilt and shame that we are not all things to all people. Monica: So here you are. Taking this standard of beauty defined by entertainment and the fashion industry, really exploring how we hardly even know what a normal body really looks like. And. Really your artwork is about immersing yourself in your own fascination with these roles that we've had to play as women throughout history and popular culture, from the goddess to the pinup, right? Monica: Like our roles are as diverse as our bodies. And so then here you are in the mix of all of it. Right. Um, so. Your work really is such a personal symbol of your own love of duality, double entendres, seeing multiple sides to an issue and. Monica: What I'm hearing in everything you're saying about the artist is that this actually is the place where the artist is most needed is in these, what I'll call cultural wars, even the wars we cannot see, right? Monica: Like this war. That you're, you know, really, um, it's like, what do you do in the face of propaganda? And that is, you know, something that I've really been exploring a lot lately because there's so much propaganda, including all of the propaganda that has impacted women for eons. Definitely. It's all been propaganda. Monica: And so what do we do? And this is this conundrum that I, I feel, and I'm, I'm wondering what you think of it. Yes. Monica: We know as women, we can create, but meaning create, right, biologically create, but there are so many of us. Who have something creatively to share with the world that don't, because it's never the right time or the right climate. Monica: And because so many of us are, as you mentioned in this good girl, modesty upbringing that has taught us that we need to stay pretty pleasing and polite in order to belong anywhere. Mikel: Right. And that's the thing it's having. The courage to create whatever that is that you feel inside of you. And it's hard to do that because we are. Mikel: Actually shunned, you know, we are actually kicked out of our circles. And so, you know, a lot of times people get pen names, go about it in secret. Like when I started the pies in the window account, I didn't put my real name on it. I didn't put my first name. I just did it. And having that space to create, even if you do it in secret in a notebook, nobody sees, you know, until you get the courage. Mikel: To share it with a group, having a woman's circle group, like your own becoming group. That's so powerful. And I, I, there was a podcast you did with a lady who was doing, I think Lilith circles. Is that what they were? Yeah. And when I heard that, I was just like, I want that, you know, we need that. Everybody needs a circle of women. Mikel: And I know a lot of us do have circles. Mikel: But a lot of those circles are patriarchal enforcing circles of women. You know, like they, they beat us down. They keep us in line there. They're like the little crab in the bucket that yanks you back down. We need the wild feral circles that empower us to be the goddesses that we are. Mikel: And even saying the word goddess, you know, I know I've listened to so many of your podcasts. I know that word is just, even that felt wrong to say, is God going to. Strike me with a lightning bolt if I say goddess. And Monica: Isn't that funny that we all as women, that's, that's a phrase actually, Mikel, that so many women say, they say, is God going to strike me? Monica: Like that is so telling right there that we've, even those of us that haven't been raised in a religion have that. It fascinates me that we're that. Monica: predisposed or composed to believe that coloring outside the lines and even thinking certain thoughts will bring like, that's how powerful the trance of unworthiness is in terms of understanding how it keeps us in line. Mikel: It is, and that's, and then finding the women that will support us and uphold us and encourage us to keep going. Monica: Encourage our rebelliousness, encourage our creativity that will call us forth in our leadership that will celebrate us in the mass of the places where we're afraid, right? But we're going to hopefully, you know, with the help of our sisters. Monica: Stay true to ourselves. And that's this other part that I love about your work, Mikel, is that there's so much that comes, I think, from what Catherine Blackledge, who is somebody that I interviewed way back when on the podcast, she. Monica: Was the author of raising our skirts and she talked a lot about the power of Anna Sarma, which I think some people pronounce it differently, but it's this idea of exposing the genitals and so. Monica: I think that there, and I know that you're only recently have really been diving into Mama Gina's work or you had in the past, but then you put it away and brought it back out again. Mikel: I put it away. It was too much, too powerful. Monica: Right. There was too, too powerful. And this is a woman who makes vulva pies. I know. Monica: Yeah. So it's all here in this space, women knowing ourselves intimately in this way, what turns us on, what our anatomy is approving of ourselves in any size, shape, and form in exposing ourselves without shame. And I say this metaphorically and not so metaphorically, because what I'm also really recognizing is that the women who are. Monica: Submitting themselves to you as models for your work, that's Even if they're doing it anonymously, it's a breakthrough. Monica: It's a way for them to claim reclaim themselves. And this process of reclamation is so powerful and it's so inspiring. Mikel: Yeah. And like you had asked me earlier, what do they get? For doing it, and they don't get anything they get to tell their story. Mikel: They get to be part of the project. And at first I was trying to send prints to them, but it was costing me, you know, 8 per print, then postage. And there was a lot of international. So now I just give them a digital copy. But it's, I mean, they just get to be part of the art and I don't charge them to make the portrait either. Mikel: You know, it's just a reciprocal thing. That courage, one more thing came up, but, um, it's, we so often as women are on display, you know, like we can flash ourselves for cash for the patriarchal strip clubs or, you know, for erotic or pornography or for money or, um, because. Our husband wants us to perform in a certain way, but it's not usual for us to do it for ourselves, you know, because we want to own this pleasure, this power of our own selves and feel ourselves. Mikel: So I think that's what we really have to Get back in line with, you know, just, and it is that talk of consent, but even with all the consent, we're still way behind in the pleasure gap. We still put everybody else first, you know, before ourselves and not just sexually, but in every way, I think we're just trained to do that from the beginning. Monica: Yeah. Well, with your permission, I would love to read one of the shares on Instagram under pie65. Okay. Mikel: Cause you, you, I don't have a memorized. Monica: Yeah, it's pie65. So. It's made in collaboration with a model who wishes to remain anonymous and she shared a part or they shared a part of their story and the reason for participating. Monica: So it is perfect for this part of our conversation. So this person says, when I was eight or nine, my mother gave me a picture book called how babies are made her version of the talk. It got the general idea across, but it left out a lot of important details, such as basic female anatomy, lacking other resources. Monica: I tried to extrapolate on what the pictures in the book had shown me by drawing pictures of my own. I eventually was caught doing this in math class and my teacher. Who already hated me, therefore treated me like a sex offender. I felt guilty and angry at the same time, sensing I'd done nothing wrong, but unable to properly articulate why I'd done it. Monica: The road to self discovery and acceptance from there was a long one. I didn't figure out that I had a vagina until I was 13. Or have the first inkling about my clitoris until I was 19 with one very anticlimactic sexual relationship already behind me, I wished I'd had a trusted female figure in my life then to answer questions, help me see that there was nothing shameful or ugly about that part of my body that gave me both the power to create life and the ability to experience physical ecstasy. Monica: Maybe the best thing about getting older has been the steady deepening of my understanding of my corporeal self. I still don't have her entirely figured out, but I'm getting there. And then you add, this story resonates with so many of us and it does. Do you know that my mother gave me that same book? Monica: Really? So it's so interesting. Yes. I want to find that book. Yeah, it's actually, I mean, I'm sure there are other versions of it, but the one that I'm thinking of was in cartoons and so it was almost silly graphic in a way it was cartoonized because like we couldn't have like actual pictures because that would be right. Monica: No, no, no. Mikel: He would become a prostitute. Monica: But I remember, right, I mean, it's just so fascinating and that and also that books were often used. I've heard this so often that books or pamphlets or nothing was often used in lieu of a conversation, right? Yeah. So you're left to just pick up on things and that never goes well. Monica: I'm just going to say that that just never goes well. It doesn't. Mikel: No. Or you go, nowadays you go to the internet and clickety clack something, you know, a term you heard or, and then you're on the internet getting your sex education and, and that's bad. I think, you know, I mean it could lead you to all kinds of Monica: Well, it, you know, it easily leads you to discover. Monica: Ways to, I'll call it ways to like release that sexual energy, but again, it's at what cost over time, right? There's so, there's such a taboo around having the conversation and normalizing it and back to the importance of women. I think we're starting to recognize that no one's coming to save us. I think we're starting to recognize that it starts with a revelation that. Monica: We're the ones we've been waiting for that. We're the ones that are going to be our own savior, that we're the ones that are going to take our pleasure into our own hands. And when we must, we must, it should have been that way from the beginning. But more and more women are starting to recognize this is some bullshit. Monica: Like I can't, like, we can't do this anymore. Like this is because now we're seeing the generational repercussions of it. You know, we're seeing so many women mutilate themselves on the altar of acceptability. And it's tragic. And this is the part that I think you're bringing to light all of these ways that there are stories and images that can help women find themselves and say, Oh, I'm not. Monica: I'm, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm not broken or that one looks like mine or mine doesn't look like anybody else's and that's okay. Or like I was born this way and therefore this is my design and that gets to be exactly what it is. Mikel: Right. Yeah. And then when we're only seeing certain images in the entertainment industry that are, you know, either digitally altered or edited, or there's makeup on it, you know, and you don't know what you're seeing, but there's just not a lot of diversity in what we get to see in entertainment, whether that's pornography or just R rated movies or anything, you know, it's just, everybody has this triangle between their legs. Mikel: And we don't even see a lot of men in regular entertainment at all. And then in pornography, it's like gigantic, shiny things or something, you know? Monica: Yeah. And this actually brings me what a paradox as well. Like, it's so interesting that we're shown the images. There's no censorship in that way, but then we're censored all day long. Monica: And this brings me to understanding, like, what's it like for you? Putting these images out there in the censorship with social media, because I think a lot of people don't understand how censored social media is. Anybody that it's like there's sanctioned pornography, right? You can watch this and this only, and there's sanctioned violence and there's sanctioned propaganda. Monica: But if you wanna be an artist out there and you want to show the human body, I mean, I'm constantly seeing artists who are having to put. Warnings and labels and yeah, it's yeah, what comes up for you when I Mikel: So much what comes up is the shock of being censored when you've been going along and Instagram as one platform has nudity is okay. Mikel: And your art in their terms of an agreement. It's like in art. It's okay. Art and photography. And then immediately, like, yeah. It's not just censorship of the body itself, there's, my first pie that was censored was, I think, Pie 26, and it was black, and it was the first one that was black, and it was immediately taken down, and so that's the only image I've ever had taken down. Mikel: And I couldn't understand why. And then I also got all these DMs from people telling me, how can I post that race, that ugly shit? And they just said all kinds of terrible things. And I was so excited to finally do. Color, you know, in my pies and figure that out with pie crust. That was a big deal, but yes, that Monica: Was it. This one, Mikel, Mikel: That's that one content removed. And so I put it up again and behind it, but. You know, now, instead of just outright taking things down, I get throttled. So even with 22, 000 followers, if you look at my engagement, it'll be like 500 got to actually see something. And I have all these content warnings in the backend telling me my content does violates policy. Mikel: And I constantly have to. Appeal it and constantly have to write emails if I want to stay on top of it. And sometimes it just wears me out and I don't care. And I depend on people. So like if someone shares my stories, then that's more engagement and the more people see it and then they show it more. But so many female creators that make vulva art or any kind of nudity, it seems like we're censored more heavily. Mikel: And then, even, we were talking about sex toys, there's a toy called Unbound, and Unbound Babes made a male account that was called, like, Turbo something, and they had the same toys The same content, but marketed for men. So it was like a massager and it was like, get pumped up, you know, get ripped. And it's just a parody account and it has never gotten censored. Mikel: It flows through the ads. They, they get all their ads gone. Nothing's been taken down. And I see that with people who are willing to portray women in pornographic ways. Um, like I was just looking at this account yesterday that I can't remember his whole name, but it had pulp in it. And he paints these images of very close up oral sex. Mikel: women bent over, you know, all kinds of things that are much worse than mine and, you know, my figure drawing type things. And he has 300, 000 followers and it's just not lost on us that We're censored unfairly, like we're still being expected to be good girls in the algorithm, you know. Monica: Even in the algorithm, we're expected to be good girls. Monica: So interesting. Mikel: And Jessica Penn, Jessica Ann Penn, I think is her name on there. But she's done a lot with AI and it tried to push the boundaries of chat, GPT and different ones and Try to make them draw our anatomy and talk about it. And, and we, our bodies are censored all the time. Like if you say vulva to AI or Google, like even your Google Home device, if you try to ask it what a, a vulva is, sometimes I'll be like, I'm sorry. Mikel: Yeah. It's like, huh, I'm sorry. I dunno what you're talking about. Monica: We have no record of the vulva Mikel: And then you say penis, and then they're like, oh, lemme tell you all about it. Ta ta, you know, and it's. It's just that same, it is. And that's that propaganda and AI. And we just have to keep calling it out and keep calling it out. Mikel: And so my husband, we were talking about that when I showed him that pulp account and he's like, well, there's your next project. Pretend you're a man and start doing the same thing. It's getting to that where we're just going to have to. Prove the absurdity and the double standards all the time and not back down this time. Monica: Yeah. That brings me to want to ask you actually, what is your bigger vision and your bigger hope? What if you were to dare to dream about the work that you're doing? What would you want to envision for the impact of your work in the world Mikel: for? Uh, that's a big question for, I mean, for the impact. I just, I would like to be able to see more people. Mikel: able to make their own art, you know, unapologetically. And then I would like to be able to see my own, you know, personally, my own art be in more what's traditionally fine art spaces, whether it becomes like. Installation art where people can come and see it, not just on Instagram, but in person, you know, maybe like a little bakery installation piece where people can come and see the actual window. Mikel: But I think every instance of. vulva, every instance of female body, every barrier that we can break down just by keep putting it up. You know, we've seen penis drawings on every wall and every school desk and every, everything, everywhere. And I think Us being on equal footing in every way, sexually, financially, artistically. Mikel: Cause I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with the gorilla girls, but they go into art galleries and they find that only like 30 percent of all fine artists. Represented in art museums are female. And so we have to get naked to actually be in the museum, you know, hanging on the wall, there's nudes of women everywhere, but all the women artists were erased from history. Mikel: So there were women painters. There have always been women, sculptors, women, painters, women, side by side with men, but for some reason, their great works get carried on and brought forth through history. And ours just kind of get left out. Monica: Yeah. Monica: And I want to go back to what you and I had started talking about was really what is an ancient understanding of the power of women's genitals. Monica: What is known as Anna. sma, right? Is that how you pronounce it? sma? I say Mikel: it far more. Oklahoman. . I say Anna Erma . . But that's just because Anna Monica: Erma, that that might also, I say syrup of too Mikel: Syrup. Anna Erma syrup. Monica: I love that. I love it. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, and it's, so for my listener who is not familiar with this, it's the gesture of lifting the skirt or the kilt. Monica: What, uh, what have you got on under your kilt ? It's used in connection with certain religious rituals, eroticism, and of course, lewd jokes. However, it's deliberately provocative by self exposing one's naked genitals. And there's all of these famous examples of Women showing their genitals to literally stop tanks to change the weather to actually have the crops grow. Monica: And so there's also, you know, when I was in Greece this past summer, I learned all about the cult of Demeter and Dionysus and the. Eleusinian mysteries and all of the ways that there was actually a festival to celebrate and honor the relationship of Demeter and Persephone and this whole mythology behind that story is that Persephone is taken from her mother into the underworld and her mother is so Distraught and literally in a depression because her daughter has been taken from her and the only way to get Demeter to actually come back to life is an old crone who makes her laugh by exposing herself and of course, it's. Monica: Persephone is returned to her mother. And so becomes this underworld agreement that Persephone comes back to the upper world and then goes back to the lower world for summer and winter. And so it's this beautiful mythology, but it also includes this practice that I found so interesting, again, the Anasarma. Monica: You know, or however you call it the raising the skirt, right? How ancient this idea is of creating a provocative response from nature, you know, from attackers from it's incredibly powerful. And so another, you know, mentioned that I want to bring up as part of this conversation is to also really. Monica: Recognize that earlier we were talking about like all of the wars going on in the world and the way that people have despaired. And so many of us women. I find are so activated more. I find more than ever before, like activated and involved and very showing up in their activism. And, you know, it makes me think of the story of Lama Gabawi and how she stopped the war in Liberia was that all of the women there went on a sex strike until the men. Monica: Would meet and agree to terms to stop the war. And it's really interesting when we don't consider how powerful our creative expression is, because we can tend to really be rightfully distraught by what we're seeing out there in the world. Right. And. What you said before is so important. That's when we need to double down on our creative capacity to imagine something different and to then take the steps that will, whatever our part in that looks like, and so your part might look like. Monica: You continue to make pies that awaken women to their own sufficiency, to their own enoughness, to their own, to normalize their bodies and their lives, not as broken, but as exactly right. Right. And that self approval and what comes with that self approval as you know, is It's a very fertile revelation because with that revelation of self approval, like I'm not broken. Monica: Maybe I'm not broken. Maybe there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe it's actually the system comes all other revelations like that becomes a very fertile place for more revelations about how I can stop objectifying myself as actually the problem and start to look at how do I now become part of the solution. Monica: But using my own creativity and my own self expression and my own permission to create exactly as I wish to have that be a different perspective, kind of like, you know, our perspective on the card that we chose. It was like, and your dream, right? It was like your first dream, you had a dream about a stone or a rock. Monica: And the first thing you thought was, Oh, Charlie Brown, you know, only got a rock. I got a rock. And then you were like, Oh my gosh, wait, but there's this whole other perspective. And I think that's what we're in the practice of doing right now as women is like, we're picking up whatever rock we're getting and being like, wait a minute, maybe there's something more here. Monica: And maybe this is happening for me. And maybe like, it's good. Like I'm good. And this is all good. And everything is exactly right. Mikel: Yeah. It's like that. It is just like you're. The first podcast of hers, I listened to The Rape of Eve, just reframing how, who Eve was in the Bible and what she, what happened and how that whole story went down. Mikel: It's like those, all these tales of reframing. And I think that's what. Women artists, women writers, women activists, that's what we're called to do right now. Because what we're seeing is, as Judy Chicago described in her book, Through the Flower, the patriarchy gone mad. And it's so overbloated with its own power. Mikel: It's like heavy on the violence, you know, and destructive energy that we, we have to get step up and change it with our, you know, feminine energy. We have to rebalance, we have to do this or we will not succeed. You know, there's no guarantees here that we're going to. Pull it off, but we, we just got to either do it or die trying, I think. Mikel: And that's why it is so important that we keep creating and keep imagining and rebirth. What's going to be next. You know, there has to be something to start to come to. There has to be something for us to all strive for. Monica: Couldn't agree more. Mikel: I love that. Like the Iranian ladies with their hair, you know, and the fighting to just be in public without a hijab or with the hijab and how they all stood together and they would stand up against this brutal violence of the morality police when they would just be beaten in the street and those women, if the videos of the women seeing a woman by herself and just going to her and standing with her, you know, especially standing Us as older women, you know, we can do a lot for younger women. Mikel: We can stand up for them. We can not pull them back down into the bucket. You know, we can cheer them on, support them in every way. And it's almost like, you know, growing up in the eighties and thinking I needed to be the cherry pie on the hood of a car to police. Everybody, you know, that's how I thought I was supposed to be. Mikel: I didn't want to be June Cleaver, apple pie. I wanted to be cherry pie. Monica: Right. Again, it's so interesting because they're the, it's like the Virgin or the whore and it's like in modern culture, you had June Cleaver or the, you know, the woman on the hood of the car. It's so interesting. Mikel: Yeah. And I just absolutely want to say you get to be both, you could be and, you know, and all of it. Monica: And everything in between, it's just such a great way of, of again, like starting to really awaken all of these archetypes and to not only awaken these. These archetypes, but to create them to create new, and I think, and I, and I do see that happening simultaneously with the destruction. I do have to say, and I have so much hope that what is actually happening right now is part of what needs to To die in order for all of us to awaken to what is really wanting to be born because we are definitely in what I would call the messy middle of our human evolution. Monica: And it is, I think, a really gritty place for a lot of people. And even if you're not in the midst of it. The actual conflict, I think there's a lot of people exploring their inner conflict while they're watching the outer conflict, you know, it's just forcing so many of us to really look at where we ourselves are participating in any conflict, simply in how we're holding ourselves or being with ourselves or those in our lives. Monica: And it's, I don't know, you know, there's like a. A grief and a relief that comes with looking at these really dark places. And what I find is that when I do that work, you know, and I get wicked, uncomfortable, oftentimes there's no longer the energy of resisting it and a new energy or space is there for me to create something new. Monica: I like that. And I hope that that's really what, what we're seeing happening out in the world too. Mikel: I hope so too. Just we can't accept anything else other than that new, we can't go back, you know, we can't go backwards from this point. We have to go forward. One way or another. Monica: Yeah. Monica: And we will. And I, and I just, I love, I just want to thank you again for just being so vulnerable and so daring, courageous, you know, all of the things that you've had to really be all of the ways that you have continued to fight for your right to do your art, to share your work with the world. Monica: All of the ways that you're making such a huge difference. And I think it's such a wonderful example, you know, Mikel of. I really heard you when you said you had no idea what would happen when you kind of first put this out there. But what I really hear is that the biggest step for you was to just take that one step and just, it didn't, you didn't have a whole world formulated before you. Monica: Put it out there. You're just like, let me just see what happens. And in it suddenly kind of exploded into something that has now become what I will call a movement. I think that you're part of really a movement of self expression that is so that the world is so hungry for. So thank you so much for all of the work that you're doing. Monica: I just, it's an honor to be with you today and to have you on the show. Mikel: I appreciate that. I appreciate it so much. Mikel: And I. When you were talking, one more thing, when I started, I did not know there was vulva art or yoni art. I didn't know anything about it until I started posting my work. And then there's always the people, usually women, who are like, Oh, yeah, you put a, you know, you put a vulva or a pussy online and everybody wants to see it. Mikel: That's why it's so popular. But it absolutely has not been a case of sex sells. Most of my followers are women. Most of the people have been empowered by it. There's been very little negativity. And I think it's because I just put it out with love and hope that it would reach the right people at the right time. Mikel: And thank you for having me on and talking with me. And I just learned so much from listening to your podcast and following you on Instagram. So. You've been a blessing to me, so thank you. Monica: I love that. And I, I love mentioning to that for Mikel and I, we were introduced to each other. I think through Lucy Churchill, it was Lucy, a sculptor who I definitely have to circle around and interview her too, because her artwork is. Monica: Stunning out of stone and I'll, you know, be sure to put her link in the show notes and get her back on the show. We had had like a sound issue and so we, we kept recommitting that we were going to meet again. But then same thing, like just seeing your work, it's like I knew exactly who to forward it to, you know, like I knew exactly who was gonna like love it. Monica: Celebrate it and get into it and just, and that's the thing too, is now following you and reading, you think, Oh, you know, I've done this work for so long that blah, blah, blah. But then you read somebody's story, like the ones that you're posting and it's like, Oh, suddenly you're like. Oh my gosh. I hadn't, I hadn't remembered that or hadn't, I hadn't thought of it that way. Monica: So it's like our stories also are part of this and our stories are so healing for so many women. They are. So for our listeners, I'll be sure to put Lucy's. Links in the show notes, Mikel's links in the show notes, Jessica and pins links in the show notes so that you all can experience a mini community of women who are changing the world. Monica: So until next time, more to be revealed. Thanks again, Mikel. Mikel: Thank you. Mikel: We hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us at jointherevelation. com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list, or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening and as always more to be revealed.