In this episode, Tristan and Rashid take us to Khayelitsha, one of South Africa’s largest townships, about 20 miles southeast of central Cape Town. Built during apartheid-era forced removals, Khayelitsha continues to bear the scars of spatial inequality. But in the heart of its informal settlements, two young founders, Bongeka and Aphiwe (Qhama), have created something remarkable: Thembisa Ratanga, a community space they describe as “a safe space in a not-so-safe place.”

Through a clip from the original Liminal Space episode, we hear Bongeka and Aphiwe reflect on the deep connection between nature, spirituality, and the body. Yoga poses that imitate trees and birds. Sunsets you don’t plan but can’t avoid. The quiet gift of a wetland on the edge of a township. Tristan and Rashid then unpack what it means to “just be” in a world that demands we constantly produce or consume, and ask whether rest itself might be a revolutionary act.

THEMES

Coming home to our bodies. Being vs doing. Nature as teacher. Rest as resistance. Spatial apartheid and its legacy. Yoga in the township. Eliminating economic isolation.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

This episode features a clip from The Liminal Space Season 2, Episode 11: What happens when we reclaim our stories and find home in our bodies? With Bongeka and Aphiwe. The full conversation runs about an hour and is available on all podcast platforms.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

FEATURED VOICES

Bongeka & Aphiwe (Qhama) are the founders of Thembisa Ratanga, a Khayelitsha-based NPO that uses education, art, and sport as tools for community development and self-empowerment. Their space has been dubbed “a waterfront in the township.”

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.

SUPPORT THEMBISA RATANGA

Bongeka and Aphiwe are currently running a BackaBuddy campaign to support day-to-day logistics and building improvements for the kids in their community. If you’d like to contribute, visit the link below.

CREDITS

| Produced by | Rashid Adams
| Music by | Arkenstone
| A collaboration between | Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| BackaBuddy | backabuddy.co.za/campaign/tembisa-ratanga
| Full Episode | Listen on Apple Podcasts
| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

What happens when imagination meets reality? In this pilot episode, we kick off a special miniseries in collaboration with The Liminal Space Podcast, bringing voices from Cape Town, South Africa to the Common Good conversation. Hosts Tristan Pringle and Rashid Adams introduce themselves, share what drew them to the idea of liminality, and explore the stories that ground them right now, from earth as a shared garden to the liberating power of intuition. The episode closes with a collectively written poem on imagination, storytelling, and the search for glimpses of a better world.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Over seven episodes, this miniseries brings a Global South perspective to the Common Good Podcast’s core themes: the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation, and the structure of belonging. Through conversations with guests in Cape Town, from yoga practitioners in Khayelitsha to musicians, educators, and community organisers, we explore what it looks like to rebuild belonging in the wake of extraction and inherited inequality.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town. He works across faith-based, corporate, and grassroots organisations to hold space for dreams of a better world, and to make them real.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and researcher based in Cape Town. His academic work explores how indigenous music-making within decolonial Christian frameworks functions as a form of sacred resistance.

CREDITS

| Produced by | Rashid Adams
| Music by | Arkenstone
| A collaboration between | Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

Welcome to the Common Good podcast, a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging.

Earlier this summer, Walter Brueggemann passed away. His friendship with Peter Block and John McKnight was the spark that inspired the Common Good Collective, and the first three seasons of this podcast captured conversations among these three voices.

To honor Walter’s memory, friends of the Collective are hosting a local gathering in Cincinnati on September 19th in Cincinnati called The Provocation: Practicing Prophetic Imagination in Memory of Walter Brueggemann. We’d love for you to join us.

Today’s episode is a talk Walter gave at the first Common Good Collective gathering in 2018. In it, he turns to the Exodus narrative as a guiding script for social imagination, showing how it helps us uncover hidden meta-narratives and resist the totalizing forces of extractive economies.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change.

Welcome to the Common Good podcast, a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging.

Today’s episode is something a little different. We’re sharing a recent conversation with Peter Block that originally aired on the Avenue M, hosted by Joey Taylor and Haroon Moghul. In each episode they speak with remarkable guests to help unpack the moments that shape us, the struggles that build us and the questions that intrigue us.

This rich and intimate conversation centers on Peter Block, a long-time organizational development thinker, and his reflections on mortality, loneliness, freedom, and purpose.

Peter Block is an author and citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the co-founder of
Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed to build the skills outlined in his books. Peter is part of the Common Good Alliance of Greater Cincinnati and was a member of his local neighborhood council. His books include Activating the Common Good, Confronting Our Freedom, Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Answer to How Is Yes, Community, and The Abundant Community.

Things referenced in episode:

• The Vitality of Death: Essays in Existential Psychology and Philosophy by Peter Koestenbaum
• Vitality of Death (video of conversation between Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block)

Avenue M is sponsored by Queen City Diwan, which leads travel adventures, immersive experiences, leadership retreats and religious pilgrimages. Queen City Diwan is excited to share its fall schedule, including an October ‘umrah in Saudi Arabia, a January trip to Andalucía just for college students—and, over Thanksgiving break, we’re planning an incredible tour across three countries. Learn more on our website. Avenue M is produced by Bespoken Live with music by Zach Swelber, who plays in Circle It and Mosant.

This Common Good Podcast was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change.

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging. For this week's episode Chris LaRue, the Director of The Hive, speaks with Kristen Barker.

In addition to being a fellow at the Hive, Kristen Barker is a social entrepreneur and the President and Co-Founder of Co-op Cincy and is a Co-Founder of 1worker1vote. She designs and leads participatory education events with English- and Spanish-speaking co-op workers, and helps worker-owners make their businesses more successful. Kristen also helps our design team determine the feasibility of potential co-op businesses, helps retiring business owners determine whether they can sell their business to their employees, and helps viable co-ops access the capital they need to leverage their ideas.

Chris La Rue has been the Executive Director of The Hive since 2023. As the “chief storyteller,” Chris seeks to amplify the story of transformation The Hive has to tell: one in which people integrate the wisdom of our contemplative traditions in ways that make meaningful collective change possible. He believes that The Hive is uniquely positioned to create a better world by helping individuals find their people, and find their practice.

The Hive is a grassroots mindfulness community curating multi-week classes, workshops and a Membership community. It has been formed by facilitators asking the question, "What are the resources that lie within our vast lineages, traditions, and modalities of healing, and how can we place them in service of the common good?"

Check out Co-Op Fest on June 7th.

Here's the writing shared by Howard Thurman: All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change.

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging. In this episode, Joey Taylor and Sarah Buffie speak with Prentis Hemphill.

Sarah Buffie is the visionary founding director of Soul Bird Consulting ,which believes that nothing has the power to heal like supportive relationships. Specializing in trauma responsive care, Sarah helps organizations and individuals disrupt current models of thinking by building empathy and understanding around the effects of trauma.

Prentis Hemphill is a writer, embodiment facilitator, political organizer, and therapist. They are the founder and director of The Embodiment Institute and the Black Embodiment Initiative, the host of the acclaimed podcast, Finding Our Way, and author of the book, What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World.

The poem shared was You Must Be Present by Jose Olivarez.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change.

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and structures of belonging.

This 8 weeks series consists of mini episodes which are being produced in partnership with The Hive, A Center for Contemplation, Art, and Action, as a part of an ongoing class they’re offering locally called Election Brave Space: Compassionate Resilience For Our Shared Future. The intention of these episode is to introduce a variety of simple tools and practices to help you navigate this politically tumultuous moment, leading to and through the election.

D. Lamar Hughes is a gifted speaker, poet, leadership coach, and community organizer. Holding a BA from Bluffton University and an MA from Bowling Green State University, he co-creates and uses his education in communication and organizing for the Future Change Makers Movement. Born and raised in Northwest Ohio, D. is a passionate advocate dedicated to fostering inclusivity and driving positive change through faith, mindfulness, anti-racism, group facilitation, and community organizing. Hughes believes that unleashing the power of unity by bridging gaps and breaking barriers across diverse communities will build a world where acceptance thrives and positive transformation blooms.

Chris La Rue has been the Executive Director of The Hive since 2023. As the “chief storyteller,” Chris seeks to amplify the story of transformation The Hive has to tell: one in which people integrate the wisdom of our contemplative traditions in ways that make meaningful collective change possible. He believes that The Hive is uniquely positioned to create a better world by helping individuals find their people, and find their practice.

Resources Mentioned:

• #5. Ella Baker, Septima Clark, and The Highlander Folk (ft. Stephen Lazar and Daniel Marshall) on Lost Prophets: A Podcast About the Voices We Need to Hear Again with Pete David & Elias Crim
• Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Hive is a grassroots mindfulness community curating multi-week classes, workshops and a Membership community. It has been formed by facilitators asking the question, "What are the resources that lie within our vast lineages, traditions, and modalities of healing, and how can we place them in service of the common good?" In this series we’re hearing from The Hive’s 6 core faculty members and The Hive's Executive Director.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation.

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and structures of belonging.

This 8 weeks series consists of mini episodes which are being produced in partnership with The Hive, A Center for Contemplation, Art, and Action, as a part of an ongoing class they’re offering locally called Election Brave Space: Compassionate Resilience For Our Shared Future. The intention of these episode is to introduce a variety of simple tools and practices to help you navigate this politically tumultuous moment, leading to and through the election.

La Shanda Sugg is a healer, trauma-informed therapist, and consultant. La Shanda is passionate about creating safe spaces for exploration, healing, and growth. She is an expert at bringing people into their bodies and developing a nurturing relationship with their own nervous systems.

The Hive is a grassroots mindfulness community curating multi-week classes, workshops and a Membership community. It has been formed by facilitators asking the question, "What are the resources that lie within our vast lineages, traditions, and modalities of healing, and how can we place them in service of the common good?" In this series we’re hearing from The Hive’s 6 core faculty members.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation.