Shades & Layers
Shades and Layers is a podcast focused on black women entrepreneurs from across the globe. It is a platform for exploring issues and challenges around business ownership, representation and holistic discussions about the meaning of sustainability in an increasingly complex global context. Conversations are wide- ranging and serve not only as a Masterclass in Entrepreneurship but also provide wisdom and tools for Successful Living. It is a space for meaningful conversation, a place for black and other women of color to be fully human and openly share their quirks and vulnerabilities.
Guests include prominent figurers in the beauty, fashion and wellness industries both in the Northern Hemisphere and the Global South.
Dr. Theo Mothoa-Frendo of USO Skincare discusses her journey from being product junkie to creating an African science-based skincare range. Taryn Gill of The Perfect Hair is a brand development whizz who discusses supply chain and distribution of her haircare brands. Katonya Breux discusses melanin and sunscreen and how she addresses the needs of a range of skin tones with her Unsun Cosmetics products.
We discuss inclusion in the wellness industry with Helen Rose Skincare and Yoga and Nectarines Founder , Day Bibb. Abiola Akani emphasizes non-performance in yoga with her IYA Wellness brand and Anesu Mbizho shares her journey to yoga and the ecosystem she's created through her business The Nest Space.
Fashion is all about handmade, custom made and circular production with featured guests like fashion designer Maria McCloy of Maria McCloy Accessories; Founder and textile/homeware designer Nkuli Mlangeni Berg of The Ninevites as well as Candice Lawrence, founder of the lighting design company Modern Gesture. These are just a few the conversations on the podcast over the past three years.
Shades & Layers
The Black Mermaid Foundation with Zandile Ndhlovu (S7, E7)
THE BLACK MERMAID
Zandile Ndhlovu is the founder of The Black Mermaid Foundation, an organization dedicated to changing mindsets and bringing people (particularly for Black and Brown people) closer to the ocean. She is South Africa’s first Black free-diving instructor and through this work, Zandi is providing equitable access to nature and showing that our beliefs about the ocean can coexist with exploring its depths. Our conversation is an exploration of how she came to this work and how it has evolved over the years.
Zandi’s story is one of resilience and transformation. Before becoming a free-diving instructor, she was navigating racism in corporate South Africa. After exiting this world, she used her experiences as a catalyst for change, leading her to establish her own consultancy. And that was just the beginning. As you listen, you'll discover how she carved out her path to becoming a visible and prominent figure in the world of sustainability.
Dive into Zandi's world of storytelling, and you'll find yourself captivated by her tales of teaching children from townships about the ocean and the joy she finds in it. You'll also hear about her children's book, "Zandi's Song," a transformative story that has been essential to furthering her cause. She is a testament to the power of dreams, the beauty of the ocean, and the strength in breaking barriers.
LINKS AND MENTIONS
The Black Mermaid Film
Zandi’s Ted Talk – You can watch Zandi’s Ted Talk here
Explore other stories of black women doing incredible things in water here
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Hello and welcome to Shades and Lears. I'm your host, kutuanus Kosanarechi. Today we're going deep into the ocean with the founder of the Black Mermaid Foundation and South Africa's first black free diving instructor, zandi Lindlow. After many years of being the only black person on her diving excursions, she set out on a mission to reconnect black and brown people to the ocean. As she puts it, we are all land based ocean people. You are definitely going to fall in love with Zandi's positive energy and the palpable passion with which she speaks about her work.
Speaker 1:Our conversation will have you wanting to go and explore the water or, at the very least, getting the small people in your life into the water, I promise you. Our discussion touches on the various myths and beliefs surrounding our relationship with water as black and brown people. We explore how we can reconcile these beliefs with free diving, while discovering the self and finding liberation in the water. We also discuss her well received children's book, zandi's Song, which is another way she's introducing small people to the ocean. Here is Zandi and this is her story. Can you start by describing your work and the deeper meaning you attach to these activities?
Speaker 2:I'm working to create access to ocean spaces and my whole idea says if we have access to the ocean, particularly as black and brown people, we can build that connection that allows us to care For me. It's an idea that says what does it mean to reclaim space? What does it mean to heal from where we come from? But also what does black joy look like in the ultimate of all worlds, in the water?
Speaker 1:specifically, and you look very, very, very joyous whenever you're going into the water. So what led to this work?
Speaker 2:I think it was from diving for almost five years and you're always the only black person on the boat. And so the idea of identity, the idea of assimilation, and so for me it just said what a safe space for expression in the water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Can you give us an insight as to how you give people access to the ocean space?
Speaker 2:Thank you for this. I run a foundation called the Black Mermaid Foundation and through the foundation, which is a nonprofit organization, we take kids out that mostly live in like township areas to the sea and we go out on snorkel excursions. So we learn about the ocean, we learn about the conservation aspect, as in the challenges that the ocean is facing, and then the kids kit up and we go into the water. For most of the kids it's the first time seeing beneath the surface and so there's always lots of fear. I always say it's actually interesting how the boys might talk the big talk, but the girls are the first ones to get in Like okay, what do you need me to do? And every single moment for me is transformative and as we're growing I'm less and less taking the groups out myself. So we're getting help and we're capacitating to make sure that we have space to grow.
Speaker 1:So you have a team now.
Speaker 2:Yes, we've outsourced a part of our work to another organization, but I do have an administrator and I do have a strong support team around the foundation.
Speaker 1:Great, so tell me about these children and how you find the candidates to go into the water, and how do you work, do you partner with schools, etc.
Speaker 2:It's actually interesting. From jump I knew I didn't want to work through schools because I grew up in Soweto. And it's funny how, because of the, we might all live in Soweto but we don't have access to the same resources.
Speaker 2:So some of the things that came from like better earning abilities, were teachers, nurses. Those kids went to private schools, and then there were kids in the community that went to the local schools, and so I knew I wanted to focus on a community building initiative that would equalize access so that all kids would be welcome and no one, based on whatever school they go to, got access and the other doesn't work in the community and there's a community advice office, so that's how we get our kids. Hey guys, we've got an excursion coming up. Are you able to get us 12 kids or 35 kids? And because we came through from COVID lockdown, they had all of these lists of the entire community because of the food parcels that were being yeah, yeah, good idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the midst of this crazy pandemic was information that allowed us to know in each house how many kids there are and to be able to work from some kind of organized way to reach as many kids as possible so that they would have their own day out at sea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do you finance this whole thing?
Speaker 2:This is a very good question, for when we started in 2020, we've always been self funded, as in I take my pay, I look at my bills, pay for my bills and then take four kids out, and then take another four kids out and, as grown as I've grown in my income ability, we've been able to expand the amount of kids that we take out. But recently we received a grant from 11th R Racing and I think that is helping us move into the next possibility of the foundation the space of building capacity, but also ensuring consistency of the excursions that happen, and I think that's powerful and really excited about the funding that we've gotten, but also pursuing more funding because we do want to expand, and so that's been really exciting for us moving into the grant receiving space.
Speaker 1:And I know you've got the funding. So your other business activities that bring in income, can you touch on? Those you know, like the instruction, instructing activities, etc.
Speaker 2:I've been very lucky, so I love teaching, but I don't teach as much anymore just because I don't have the time Right. What do I do in the midst of it all? It's a lot of work, whether it's commercials or if it's art films, but I would do a lot of speaking work globally. So just invitations to speak around my story, around conservation, motivation. What else do I do? I'm moving into film. So often I am talent in front of camera and now I'm moving towards writing my own stories and creating my own films. I already have a film that's gone out into public streaming platform and it performed really, really well.
Speaker 1:So is that the Black Mermaid film? Oh my gosh, I love it, I was yeah, yeah, I did. It is fantastic. What a lovely personal account you know.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much because it's interesting. You get so many people that tell your story, but it's never quite your way, and so I think that was powerful. And as I'm moving and growing, I want to tell other stories, and I you know Denzel Washington said something so beautiful. He said Steven Spielberg might make the most beautiful movies and just be so incredible at the work that he does, but he'll never understand what a Sunday in a black household looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a nuance in how we tell our stories and I'm excited to build that into the story of black and brown people in the water and just build that connection and finding room to tell our stories in a nuanced manner that reminds us of home, of ownership, of the beauty of identity and just expanding our narratives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, speaking of ownership, I'm taking it away from the business now, but I loved your.
Speaker 1:You had a conversation with marine biologist Dr Nazreen Pierre? I think yeah, and of course you know this is one of those exclusive careers that very few black and brown people think about and you know this is another point of access. But you know, since you started this work, what has your observation been in terms of the changes? You know that are occurring as your story gets told, as you speak to people like Dr Nazreen, and you know others around the world that you've been in conversation with.
Speaker 2:I definitely would say it would be the expansion of our perception of how we exist next to water. It's like a curious observation and if I have to speak to my social media, it's like a curious observation of like 68 months and then you get a DM that says I've been watching you for eight months. You haven't taken me out into the sea.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Real right, and so for me, I think it's one of those moments that just says my work, I think, is creating expansion. But also there's more and more black and brown people that are showing up all across the world, and I feel like that representation is something that we've always needed. Representation allows you to believe that you can do how we show up in spaces, allows us to embody new dreams, and I think I've been lucky enough to be able to see that. And even in the foundation I have this young one, cs, 13 years old, and he's always trying to race me in the water, trying to hold his breath longer, but also he's the same kid that will spin off and go pick up plastic and put it back in the put it back in our boy, because he's seen me do it. And so it's this whole idea that says people do what you do, they don't do what you say, and you hope that you find enough place in room in the world to tell off beautiful potential.
Speaker 1:And yeah, yeah, so I've also heard you talk about. You know our fear of water as black and brown people. So how does a sourter girl find freedom deep in the ocean? I'm still afraid of the sea. No rational reason behind it? Yeah, not whatsoever, because I am such a good swimmer, I'm a strong swimmer, but the ocean you know is one of those spaces where I go in very, very cautiously.
Speaker 2:Do you know? So I did an interview with CNN and we were having a discussion about it, so I had an opportunity to speak to over 50 people from across the world that lived in the ocean in different ways, and everyone was like oh, I'm the only one, oh, I'm the only one. And I'm like do you have a story from your childhood? And so for me it was like there's often three prongs to it. It's one of the stories that we grow up within our families. There's a snake in the ocean, there's snakes that's going to take you, there's ancestors in the water, but then there's the social hold. Black people aren't water people.
Speaker 2:And we have taken that narrative and internalized that. We have rented town with eyes, yeah, and we're holding it as a badge of honor. But the problem is this conversation is not complete. Why are black people not water people? What is his story? What does history have to say about that? Can we complete it?
Speaker 2:If we're going to go there, right, and that's on both sides, I will always say this is from both sides. And then, for me, the third part says what does trauma traveling through DNA do to a people? There is an incredible lady called Vita Wade. She's based in Montserrat, and she said to me Zandi, what do you think, how would you feel about the water If, when you looked at it, it was the smell of death? Can you picture the people that traveled over these waters, died in these waters and witnessed all kinds of traumas around these waters? That blood runs through us too, and so I, for me, remain cognizant of the fact that a lot of us hold fears that are internal, external, in society. But I also like you, like you're saying, I'm a strong summable. When I look at the sea, it's daunting.
Speaker 1:What is?
Speaker 2:that Right, and so it's just to make room for that, I think. And for me, how do I find space in the ocean? I think it was interesting because the I always grew up in an oddball. I was an oddball growing up.
Speaker 1:I just found yes, oddballs unite.
Speaker 2:I found land, we. I found people difficult. I felt I found boundaries difficult, what it means to be a girl why don't you behave like a girl? Why don't you? Why don't you behave like a girl? Why is your voice so deep? What does it mean to be a black woman? These, these, these boxes around identity were were very difficult for me and right up straight into my adulthood, and so my first ever snorkel trip is an entire freak out. But at the end of that is like this moment of seeing more beauty than I've ever seen in my entire life. And all of these beautiful animals with wild colors and they all look so different and they are perfect. There's no one normative in the ocean and shape my life. It felt like I finally found my WhatsApp group.
Speaker 1:You know the one yes, yes.
Speaker 2:The one is a yellow fish and it was almost. It was finding belonging in a place of off Of. There's no one way to look and it's fine, and that's how the ocean ended up being my home.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Hey there. Before we get back into the episode, I'd like to ask you a favor, if you haven't already please give us a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app so that others can find us and share in this journey. Five stars would be great, thank you. And now back to my conversation with Zandi Lindlow, founder of the Black Mermaid Foundation, an organization dedicated to reconnecting black and brown people to the ocean. Up next, we discuss how South Africa's migrant labor system disconnected us from nature. We also talk about her children's book, zandi's Song, as well as the project the Ocean of Color, on which she collaborates with fellow POC and underwater photographer from the Bahamas Katie Store. So, with all these boxes and Lucky you, you found a place which doesn't put you in a box. But how did you survive corporate life before that?
Speaker 2:I was barely breathing, barely existing, and I think as a free spirited being I found it, and I think that's where race came into play for me. When you grow up in Soweto, you grow around other black people, so there is no reference to blackness, exactly. And so when I was 21, when I started working and I will never forget coming back to my friends and saying something's not right in my office and at the time I had white friends and well, whatever. But the point is, I come back to my friends, I'm like guys, something's not right. I don't know what it is, but something's not right and a little bit later, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm the black. I'm the black, but people are going through it and I'm, you know, all of a sudden, you have this moment of looking at who you've always known yourself to be, through the lens of what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very disturbing, the hardship around bodies that look like mine. And so corporate was hard and because I never held back, I was like keep me out of it. I don't care what's you know been agreed on as normalcy, but I don't want to be a part of that. But it definitely got to me because at a point my heart was freaking out because of the tight box Don't get too big for your shoes. And it's not the shoes of dreaming, but it's the shoes of blackness. Don't be so big. You think right.
Speaker 2:And that's when I knew I was like I need to start my own business, because number one, this manager, cannot be it, my life cannot handle it. And and there was just so much around that, the space of realizing that it's either I choose to betray myself and let my heart die in order to live here and earn the big bucks, or I try something different. I bet on me and that's how I started my first consultancy and I did great. And then I went on to move into diversity and inclusion work because, again, corporate was so difficult around those, those facets of existence and I needed language to move past. That's racist. That's racist, felt basic. It didn't talk to what was going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it's also antagonizing. You can't have a conversation once. That is out there.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? And so I needed, I needed language, and as I got that language, I was not only able to heal myself, but I was able to help other organizations heal themselves, communicate better and see better outcomes with stakeholder management and stability management, which was amazing.
Speaker 1:Great. And how did you make that transition? Did you have a grand plan or you just decided all right, that's it. See you later.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. I don't think I had a grand plan, but what I did know is that I wanted to help black owned businesses because I knew that while I was in corporate, black owned businesses could never afford someone like me because at the salary at which you're being paid, you're operating at the highest level, you know how to land the biggest accounts. And so when I left, I actually approached two companies and I said, hey, listen, you guys need help, but you can't afford my salary, so I can be on retainer to both of you and the both of you can make my salary. What do you want? What do you want? A year later, they'd both met their hopes and the biggest brands that they hope to land Nice and I obviously empowered.
Speaker 2:I knew I had the skill, I knew how to do it, I knew how to do what needs to be done. But there was a clarity in that and as I moved across and working in my own healing the second part, the diversity and inclusion it did not have as bigger plan. I just knew that I was healing and I think there was space in the world to create better conversations between varying levels of power that move between not only race but where people come from, and I think that was powerful and we did fantastic in that industry way more than I thought we would do and being managing director for so long, you end up being so strongly head that when I moved into the ocean I had an opportunity to be hot and driven by the heart and I think that is probably the biggest blessing to date.
Speaker 1:Which industry was this?
Speaker 2:So I was working in the power industry, power construction industry in South Africa, and you know that hard, hard race issues. But also it just it challenged me to be stronger, to be better, to run ahead, and I've always been that person. No train can outrun me. If something's going wrong, I will outrun the train and I will catch up, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that must have been good preparation for being the only black person on the boat when you started doing your freediving.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it was good preparation, but I think it gave me. I had space to breathe because I had language, and I think when you look at the different pillars that speak to race and power and dominance, in that moment you can kind of see yourself through various facets, and I mean from witsuits that fit horribly to every single person, deciding that they would ask you about your hair, and you think what does it mean to already be the only outsider? And then there was Afrikaans, which was a really that has always been a trigger for me and it is still a trigger for me. I think I do better, but even now, like I'll be on a film set and everyone says Zandi, what's your requirements, I say no Afrikaans on set.
Speaker 2:I cannot only be the only black person who also happens to be the talent and anyone tries to speak Afrikaans around me. I don't want it and I think that is one of my lines in the sand of how we build stronger and more equitable industries that are inclusive and allow people not from that one particular group to be able to enter and create change as well. So it's by myself creating multi-dimensional levels of change, not only in how I show up in the ocean, but in how I work behind the scenes and how I'm received when I arrive in a place and the expectation around it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic. Sorry, I just lost my train of thought because when you said Afrikaans is a trigger, I was just thinking about the spring box and all the vet can't mess. That was going on, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I think you know I'm often asked how South Africa doing with regards to her racial work and I'm like we're still a country in healing. We have dreams, we have hopes. Mandela spoke of a very clear rainbow and we are committed to the rainbow dream, but we still have things that we're working through, like how power looks a certain way and how Afrikaans is still a way that includes and excludes, especially in big industry, like construction and film, and while nature makes a film, that is important to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know there's this whole thing that well, it's a thought I've always had, that you know it's probably the cruelest thing that was ever done by colonialism and capitalism. It's separating people from nature, giving them no access to nature, because then why would you care what you know? And also it makes it this exclusive thing, which is why it can be sold back to us.
Speaker 2:No, no you're completely right. And when we open this, we open a can of worms, right? We say where we come from. Most of us come from rural homelands. My dad comes from KZN, in the rural mountains, but we move into a space of migrant labor and the pursuit of better, the pursuit of income sources and that kind of made us leave everything else that we ever knew behind. When I speak to my grandmother, she always says we have become monsters. Where I come from, we've always taken care of nature. I don't know what's going on in the world today. We've always been stewards of this earth.
Speaker 1:We take care of her and she takes care of us. We just don't give back. We just keep taking and taking and taking. Yeah, so back to your work of making, you know, these changes tangible. Of course you've got the Black Mermaid Foundation and now you've written a book and you know that's training little ones to. You know actually care. So can you tell me how that came about, what it's called also and what the story is?
Speaker 2:just the highlights, the book is called Zandi Song and it's a little girl that lives in a township that has an encounter of dreams of the ocean. She eventually gets in there and the ocean takes her on this adventure, and so it is conservation, it is a township space, it is culture and it is history. So tradition and history. So even in the book I reference my Zulu beats and it is important because identity you don't leave any part of you behind but also history. You know, when you look at the wailing industry in South Africa, it's so important we understand what has been done so that we know what we will never do again. I'm a believer in that, and the book is called Zandi Song and it's so beautiful and it was just dreamt from me coming across the most beautiful world I could have ever imagined and finding home in it. And it's beautiful and it's done so amazingly well in South Africa and I'm excited for it to land in the States in 2014.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I'm sure my boys will love it, because there's also a mere man.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely interesting enough. It's been so gender fluid, like I get boys that are reading it, girls that are reading it. But I think it's planting the seed. You need to be yourself and kind of having new dreams. It's really exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:This is Jayzen Leyes, and my guest today is Zandi Lindlowu, founder of the Black Mermaid Foundation, and now it's time to get into Zandi's personal story. She takes us back to her childhood in Soweto, which is as far away from the ocean as you can get, by the way and we also get into the Shades and Layers Rapid Fire. But first let's talk about her upcoming projects that promote the protection of our oceans. I think one of the things that also makes your work tangible is your visibility and also working with people across the world. I was fascinated by the Ocean of Color project. Yeah, so can you touch on that, what that is about, who you're working with and, yeah, what's your mission?
Speaker 2:The Ocean of Color is the space that we wanted to create of building active representation of everybody doing incredible things across the world. A digital publication that went out and it's been so difficult keeping up with that, but it is still a big dream. But I think so. My partner is Katie Katie Stor. She's based in the Bahamas, an amazing woman that started filming in the water way before I'd ever heard of anybody else filming in the water Right, right, and so it's been a really great partnership. But I think again, I think for me it's seeing how we can do it better, to be able to make time and space. Again, we go back to what Consistency? You know, consistency builds community, and so we're just working on that and getting it right. It's also been very well received because, again, in the community, who's showing up? How are we making sure that there's publications in the world that remind us continuously, consistently?
Speaker 1:Yeah, wonderful Speaking of visibility. Of course you're doing this film work as well. Do you have any special projects coming up in that regard?
Speaker 2:Definitely, do I find myself have this interesting belief. I have to tell you, when you are dreaming with the universe, you need to allow the universe an opportunity to dream the biggest dream before you speak, about the things that have been placed in your womb, and so you need to let that form. And so I think I've just been blessed with knowing the stories I want to tell, writing them, having partners that are able to come on board and give their skills, and so give us a few months and we definitely are going to be putting out something new. And again, you don't have to. When you see my face and you see my name, you know that it's black and brown people, it's the water, it's stories about us and that's it. But also I've got an exciting project that comes out in January and I hope everybody is looking out for it because it's going to be on a global platform and just an amazing work.
Speaker 1:Can't wait. Yeah, so I hear you mentioned story a lot. Why is that important to you?
Speaker 2:I feel like story is how we, it's how we re-imagine. I'm a lover of story, I live for story, but it just expands all the worlds that we could ever imagine Before we travel anywhere. We travel in a book, we travel in the words, just to understand where people have been, where they come from their different languages, and I feel like story stirs imagination. Imagination is where we create the things that change the world, and so if we're unable to see it in our own heads before it has happened, how can we bring it to life? So I believe in story, to just to be able to create things that have not been seen yet with clarity and conviction, and that's how you bring things to the physical world.
Speaker 1:So I always like to get into the background of my guests. So something I heard you mention your grandmother. There's also Soweto in the story, but, you know, can you point to maybe one or two major events or even people that were present? You know, to, kind of, when you look back you think, well, that makes sense. You know this is why I ended up where I am today. So do you have any memories that are significant in your trajectory?
Speaker 2:I definitely have both, and they include the same human, my dad. So, when I think of who I am today, like a lot of people have said, whether hell do you get this, this confidence, this fighter spirit from decided you're not participating in things as they are? Who said it's okay? And I think it was my dad. So, growing up, my mom was very quick to the belt, very quick to the belt for everything.
Speaker 2:And my dad would just be like, but wait. And I'd be like, yeah, but I don't want that. My dad's like that's fine. He gave me a place for expression in a world that felt so tightly set in how things had to be, and I think for me that was powerful. But when he passed away, that was the second big thing that changed my entire life and I think I always think about it.
Speaker 2:It was the realization that if anybody had made me the day before, I would tell of the biggest love I'd ever known, and they would never quite understand that, because the following day it's just like this vanished existence.
Speaker 2:So for me, those were two big lessons the idea that you need someone who's in your corner, who helps you to liberate your own existence, but also realizing the power of the present moment. That's all there is. We're guaranteed nothing in life, and so what does it mean to be present to the call, present to the love, present to this gift? That is this moment. And I feel like when I was younger I battled expressing emotion because I think I was angry about it for a very long time, but when I look at it today, I realize that it was the first seed of understanding the gift that is the. Now that there is nothing else in this world at this moment and if you can live in it fully, you have the power to go back into memory and touch the fabric of those memories when times happen, and I think that is life-changing for me and has been life-changing for me Fantastic.
Speaker 1:It's actually quite a skill to be present and I imagine you need it going underwater holding your breath. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:As a freediver. It's the only skill you have. It's the ability to be in the here now. Your body is freaking out. It wants to breathe. There's so much going on, it's dark, you might come across wildlife. All you have is your ability to be present, to not name it, like even when you're afraid. You don't have to name it, you can just be present to what is. I think we have an obsession as humans of naming things and naming emotions and naming. Sometimes you just stop and you stare and you call nothing the moment, nothing that's all Just let it be.
Speaker 1:Have you had any close?
Speaker 2:encounters. I haven't. I think all I can ever think about is the one bull shark that challenged me to the surface. And so when you come across a bull shark, when we're diving deep, we always say make space for just in case you come across a bull shark. Bull sharks are just crazy in that way. And so as I was ascending, we were just ascending together slowly and it's just sussing you out and again, you can't just break for the surface. And when it was comfortable that I was not prey, it kind of moved away and I broke for the surface. But I didn't feel in danger, I felt in control. But it was just for me a reminder of what it means to be present to every single moment. And sharks aren't trying to eat us, it's not a vibe, but of course they will suss you out.
Speaker 1:I have to tell my husband, with that, he's got a fear of sharks, he's got a shark watch. I kid you, not Like every day he checks if there've been any shark attacks and I'm thinking, dude, the sharks don't want you Live your best life, I think there's feelings, it's hilarious, we have to be sent down, not everybody. It's genius, brilliant, yeah. So before we wrap things up, let's get into the rapid fire. First question If you had to write a biography today, what would you call it and why?
Speaker 2:A world unimagined, because where I come from and where I live today is unthinkable and undreamable, and I never thought it possible?
Speaker 1:Great. And if you had to turn that memoir into a movie, who would you pick to be the lead actress?
Speaker 2:I don't know, probably someone crazy like Issa Rae. I really love her. I love the fact that she understands the space of being awkward and, yeah, she's the first girl that comes to mind. Fantastic.
Speaker 1:And aside from Issa Rae, if you had to invite a famous black woman, living or dead, to dinner, who would it be?
Speaker 2:Maya and I, I think the way we hold our beauty as women. So many of us are shaped by her words of what it means to just embody the fullness of our existence and to not be afraid. And also, if I could, Toni Morrison also has amazing work of expanding the idea of creating work for us and for us being the main, the center of existence. It's beautiful. I love it.
Speaker 1:It is beautiful. It's basically the manifesto of being a black woman. Just go Maya, Toni, and you're covered. Fantastic, fantastic. So if people want to work with you and enjoy a taste of your work, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:On Instagram. I am Zandi the Mermaid. You can also find me at the Black Mermaid Foundation and website, wwwblackmermaidcoz.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Zandi. Is there anything else that you're burning to tell us about yourself that you feel we maybe haven't covered?
Speaker 2:I want to remind us that the ocean is all around us. There's no thriving humanity without thriving oceans. When we think of the fresh water that we drink, that's thanks to our oceans. Food security, the oxygen we breathe. She lives around us every day, whether we are landlocked or not, and so I want to remind us all that how we take care of our oceans, indicative of what we're going to leave behind for the generations to come. Perhaps that's one and two the reminder that we are all land-based ocean beings. When we go out into the water, our bodies start reacting in a way that gets us ready to dive, and so to kind of lean into that fear. And every time we lean into fear, there's new worlds that open up for us. And so to touch our fears, to not be afraid so much.
Speaker 1:Oh wonderful, that was amazing. Thank you so much, and that is all from me this time around. Thank you for listening and thank you, zandi, for sharing your story. It's been an absolute pleasure and an honor. If you want to learn more about Zandi's work, please head over to the show notes, where you will find links to her online presence, and if you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with a friend. I'm Kutuanos Kasana-Ritchie, and until next time, please do take good care.
