0038 - The Weight - Arielle Estoria - Words For The Body & Soul
Shownotes:
Human experience cannot be captured by headlines and hashtags. To really understand each other, we must open our hearts and ears to experiences outside of our own. Whether it be through spoken word, visual art, or the simplicity of a shared conversation, to honor the image of God is to do the hard work of empathy and listening. To get at the heart of the simple commandments to love God and love others, we must practice gentleness and graciousness with each other in dialogue that extends beyond one message or conversation. Now more than ever, we must fight back against isolation and desensitization by holding space for raw, human emotion and suffering to be collectively felt.
Spoken word poet, author, and speaker Arielle Estoria has created a unique space for others to hear words not only for the ears, but for the soul. Her spoken word poetry encompasses injustice, women’s empowerment, self-love, and other engaging topics that foster meaningful connections between one community and another. Arielle believes that each one of us has something specific to offer to the world and encourages us to faithfully use our gifts to bring about freedom in one another.
She joins Eddie and Chris to discuss “Remember Her,” her recent poem honoring Breonna Taylor, empowering women to seek strength and fullness, struggling to find her authority as a woman in a patriarchal tradition, and the way in which performing arts give a voice to the voiceless. In all of her work, Arielle challenges her audience to not only hear her message, but encounter and apply it in a greater context.
The Weight Afterthoughts:
We've realized that a lot of great conversation actually happens AFTER we say goodbye to our guests and turn the microphones off. So, we decided to turn the mics back on (and a camera) and create a segment called, Afterthoughts.
Check it out on our Youtube page by clicking the image below!
Resources:
Follow Arielle Estoria on the web:
Find Arielle’s work and other resources below:
https://arielleestoria.com/work
https://msha.ke/arielleestoria/
Listen to “Remember Her” here
Listen to “Human” here
Check out Arielle’s sweatshirts, mugs, books, and more here
Find Arielle on iTunes and Spotify
Follow Arielle on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/arielleestoria/
https://twitter.com/arielleestoria/
https://www.youtube.com/user/estorious
Full Transcript:
Eddie Rester 0:00
I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly 0:01
Eddie is speaking on The Weight podcast with Chris McAlilly. That's not a good way to do it.
Eddie Rester 0:07
We should maybe pause and start over.
Chris McAlilly 0:09
I don't like that. Well, I was trying to do it different.
Cody Hickman 0:11
You did it different.
Chris McAlilly 0:13
Thank you, Cody, for your commentary.
Eddie Rester 0:16
I'm here today with Chris McAlilly.
Chris McAlilly 0:18
[LAUGHTER]
Eddie Rester 0:21
And he's here with...
Chris McAlilly 0:23
I started to talk when you were... I was starting to talk when you were gonna talk. So let's do it one more time.
Eddie Rester 0:28
Okay.
Chris McAlilly 0:28
Okay.
Eddie Rester 0:30
I'm here today with Chris McAlilly.
Chris McAlilly 0:32
And I'm here with Eddie Rester. [LAUGHTER]
Eddie Rester 0:35
And this is The Weight, and we
Chris McAlilly 0:36
[LAUGHTER] I'm sorry.
Eddie Rester 0:37
decided we would mix it up. But Chris wanted it different, and...
Chris McAlilly 0:41
I'm sorry. We gotta do it one more time. And then this is it.
Eddie Rester 0:43
I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly 0:45
And I'm Chris McAlilly?
Eddie Rester 0:45
[LAUGHTER]
Chris McAlilly 0:45
[LAUGHTER]
Cody Hickman 0:45
[LAUGHTER]
Chris McAlilly 1:00
This is not good for the aerosols. Let's do it one more time, then this is it. This is it.
Eddie Rester 1:05
If you kill me because of this...
Chris McAlilly 1:06
I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill myself. Alright, I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 1:10
And I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly 1:11
Welcome to The Weight.
Eddie Rester 1:13
We're glad you're here today. Today's guest is Arielle Estoria. She's a spoken word poet, author, speaker. She has spoken with companies such as Google, Sofar Sounds, Lululemon. She's worked with the Skims campaign by Kim Kardashian and more. She's emceed all sorts of these things. She's really one of these gifted artists who works in the world and speaks in the world.
Chris McAlilly 1:38
In the conversation, we hear about her monologue of Coretta Scott King, a poem that she did in the wake of Breonna Taylor's death, how she uses her art to draw empathy for humanity across the board and her desire to see her art kind of not just be heard, but being encountered.
Eddie Rester 2:01
I think one of the important moments for me in the conversation was the piece around empathy and that the thread for her and the women that she talks about, the women she encourages, how do we draw out empathy so that we're not just talking at each other, but we're really beginning to understand each other, and that she hopes her poetry--and we're gonna put a lot of it in our show notes, so you can go find it in the show notes. You can hear her read it, but she wants to open us up to one another in what she does.
Chris McAlilly 2:34
I think that the church has an opportunity in the day days ahead, that we kind of talked about at the end of the podcast, about ways in which we can support the next generation, and its pursuit of a life that may be different than kind of what we expect for our children or for the next generation. But she kind of speaks to how we can offer encouragement and a place and space, so that not only her but people coming up behind us can find a way to communicate the Gospel in the culture today.
Eddie Rester 3:14
You know, one of her taglines is "words, not for the ears, but for the soul," and I think you're gonna find in her some great words for your soul. Thanks for listening today. Enjoy the podcast.
Eddie Rester 3:28
[INTRO] Let's be honest, there are some topics that are too heavy for a 20 minute sermon. There are issues that need conversation, not just explanation.
Chris McAlilly 3:36
We believe that the church is called to engage in a way that honors the weightiness and importance of these topics for how we live faithfully today. We'll cover everything from art to mental health, social injustice to the future of the church.
Eddie Rester 3:47
If it's something that culture talks about, we need to be talking about it, too. [END INTRO]
Eddie Rester 3:54
We're excited today to get to talk with Arielle Estoria, who is a poet, a spoken word poet, and we're glad to spend some time with you today, Arielle.
Arielle Estoria 4:05
Thank you. Thank you for making time. I'm excited.
Eddie Rester 4:09
Now you're out in Southern California. Is that right?
Arielle Estoria 4:12
Yes. In the LA-Pasadena area.
Eddie Rester 4:17
That's a nice area to be in.
Arielle Estoria 4:20
It is. It's my favorite.
Chris McAlilly 4:23
Tell us a little bit about your work, and you do not just spoken word poetry but a little bit of, I mean, you're an inspirational speaker and a model, and tell us a little bit about your journey for folks who don't know your story.
Arielle Estoria 4:39
Yeah, so I am predominantly, most days, I am a poet, a speaker, an author. And then there's, like, a drop down of creativity from that and that just looks a lot different. Whether it's social media storytelling, or acting or whatever the drop down may be in that given timeframe. And I'm born and raised in the Bay Area and moved to LA for school to study psychology and theater. And I graduated in 2015. And I've been full-time a poet, a speaker for the past five, almost six years now.
Eddie Rester 5:17
How did you discover your gift for poetry, for the spoken word? How did you just stumble into that? Did someone encourage you in that? How did that become a part of your gifting and your sharing?
Arielle Estoria 5:31
Yeah, wow. Well, if you ask my dad, he is also a pastor, he would say it comes from him. Like, he would like to take the credit for it.
Eddie Rester 5:41
Of course he would.
Arielle Estoria 5:42
But both my parents are speakers, you know, so I grew up with parents in ministry. And so I've kind of seen a different form of speaking, of articulating and communicating all my life, through both of my parents. And so I've always been a writer, if you will. I have journal upon journal upon journal that I wrote in as a kid, just to process life and faith and the world around me. And then I started doing theater, around seventh grade, and then more in high school where I attended an arts high school. And so a lot of my poetry now started as theater, and I would write and perform the monologue, plays, and things like that. And spoken word kind of trickled out of that.
Arielle Estoria 6:32
So I had already been used to being on stage. But it was more storytelling and being vulnerable on behalf of others' story, and character stories and not necessarily my own. And then I kind of say that God kind of took my journal pages and breathed them out into the world. And that started this journey of doing more spoken word and embodying my own story and my own experiences and vulnerabilities. And that started about in college. And I was on a competitive poetry team for two years at my university. And then it just kind of trickled from there. And I kept doing it. I'd always written. That was just what I love to do. And then it became my career. And first it was calling though, and really following that pursuit.
Chris McAlilly 7:19
One of the things we share in common is my dad's also a pastor, so we're both preacher's kids. And I think that for, I think people that grow up in the church, but particularly for preacher's kids, you grew up around the language of the church, and you also, it's interesting the way people speak about certain things in the church, and then certain things or topics that are kind of beyond the church. I guess, how has that, in growing up as a preacher's kid and being around the church and its language, how has that kind of set the background for what you're trying to do? Are you working with that or against the grain of that? How are you? How do you think about that?
Arielle Estoria 8:01
And it's kind of a mix of both. When I first started doing poetry, I was naturally in a lot of churches seeking out a lot of conferences and youth camps and things like that. So I'm already ingrained in the church culture in church language. As I started to get older and really embrace my art, it didn't make sense to me to be light around other lights. It didn't make sense for me to have this gift and only be talking to people who understand it. Because I'm speaking the language, and I'm walking the talk. And so I started to kind of not rebel, but just expand a little bit.
Arielle Estoria 8:47
I'm like, if I have this gift, why am I only using it with people who understand what I'm talking about, you know, get the language? And so I really started to branch out, and my first book, I actually wrote with a guy who identified as a red letter Christian, and he was very gritty in his language, if you will. He did have some poems that were very coarse and used language. I didn't, at that time, and I still really don't, but I felt it was important for us both to be in the book. And I got a little bit of a backlash from that. And I, I made the comment of if people can encounter Jesus through me, then who's to say that they can't encounter Jesus also through these poems that are essentially grief and pain and anger and doubt and discomfort? Why can't He be found in both?
Arielle Estoria 9:44
And that really just kind of trickled into more of just growing up, I didn't know if it was fully okay to be an artist as a Christian. The fear was always like, you know, you can't be a Katy Perry if you're going to go into the industry. You know, you can't lose yourself and lose your faith. And for me, it was mostly about how do, how do I go in these places that I know I'm meant to be a part of, but still bring the light? I call it sneaky Jesus, that people would encounter who God is and who the divine is, through words, and through poems, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a scripture. If God, if the living Word is active, and alive, if we are carrying the Spirit of Jesus, then why cannot that not be then funneled through poem, through conversations and not always through a sermon or through just direct scripture? And so that's kind of been my journey. It's a mix of both. Because I don't know how not to be centered in who God has called me to be, and at the same time, I don't want it to only be for people who speak the same language.
Chris McAlilly 11:03
Was there a moment when you embraced an identity a spoken word poet? Was there a poem where you were like, "That's, that's it? That's my voice. That's what I'm trying to say?" Or was there something that you put it into the world and other people started kind of you seeing that in you? Talk a little bit about that.
Arielle Estoria 11:26
Yeah, so I mentioned that I started with theater. So my first performance in college was actually a monologue. I wrote a monologue in the perspective of Coretta Scott King Jr. as Martin Luther King Jr's wife. And I wrote about pretty much a love poem in the perspective of Coretta Scott King Jr. about Martin Luther King. And we knew him as an activist, and as this truth teller, and this movement starter, but she knew him as a husband, you know, as a partner. And so I really wanted to create a conversation around that. So I performed that poem. And it was who I call now my poetry brother, he heard it and he was like, "Did you write that"? And I was like, "Yeah." He said, "That was spoken word." And I was like, "No, it's theater. It's a monologue. You know, it's like when you..." and he's like, "No, but the way you performed it, and even how you wrote it, that was spoken word." And then that then turned into my experience of being on a competitive poetry team.
Arielle Estoria 12:31
But it was really like, I didn't know there was a name for it necessarily, at first, this art of speaking out loud what was then written down. And I naturally did that in my theater context, but it became a little bit more intentional in college. And then graduating, where it was, I was asked to perform for senior chapel. And I remember getting off stage and being like, "Okay, if I was supposed to be that for the rest of my life, then I think I would." And I still to this day, whenever I keynote or speak longer form, I add poetry into the conversation, because I think it's more captivating for the audience. It adds different elements, and it carries the story or the topic along with me in really beautiful ways. And so it kind of was something that was seen in me and spoken over me. And then I was like, "Okay, well, what is this? Let's run with it and see where it could go."
Eddie Rester 13:30
One of the things that you write in your your bio says, "I wholeheartedly believe that each person has been given a gift, a gift that ultimately becomes a key to unlocking, releasing not only individual freedom, but the freedom of others, as well." And when I hear you talking about this gift and your growth in it, what I hear is that you've experienced just that. That your gift not only has given you great freedom, but as you've spoken to people, to different crowds, as you shared your gift, you've been able to extend freedom to others, as well. Are there stories of folks that from that encounter, that you've seen that happen in them, that they've kind of claimed maybe a different journey or some new life or some freedom on their own?
Arielle Estoria 14:22
Yeah, well, I think that's the whole point of being an artist, of being a speaker. Like, if people are only encountering or hearing, no, if people are only hearing what I'm saying, and they're not encountering it, they're not applying it to their lives because they are experiences, then I don't think I'm doing my job as an artist. I don't think I'm doing my job as a speaker in that moment, because it's meant to be a takeaway, you know. It's meant to be a "take this with you. Use this how it applies to your story." And I often think of it as like a ripple. There's one ripple. But inevitably, another ripple creates another and thereon and thereon and then it becomes a wave.
Arielle Estoria 15:11
And my favorite part of being vulnerable in these poems and having people come up to me after and sharing, you know, "I was going through chemo, and I listened to your poem, 'This Is for You' on repeat, and I swear, it's what kept me alive." Just like all these really crazy, beautiful stories, that for me is just, I am just a ripple. And this is a wave, and it is so much bigger than me. And bigger than us entirely. And so, for me, I always want it to be something where people walk away feeling more seen and more known in their own life, in their own awareness. And if my story comes up read, and which helps them to do so, the that's great.
Arielle Estoria 15:57
My favorite are just like, I did a call yesterday with a class full of artists, and pretty much all of them are about over the age of 40--50-,60-year-old people--and this call, and I'm like, "What am I gonna say to these people who are, who have so much more wisdom and so much more life experience than I do?" And yet still, I had this one sweet woman, who was like, "You've taught this 50 year old so much about how to be in my gift." Like, "I'm still learning how to be in my gift." And so those conversations are, literally appeal to why I do what I do, because it can't, it can't start and end with me. It has to go beyond it.
Chris McAlilly 16:39
From the Coretta Scott King monologue, I see a through line in some of your work through "Human," which is a piece that you did back in 2016. And then I saw that you this year have done a poem that you offered for Breonna Taylor. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about kind of how your art participates in the larger conversation about what it means to be Black in America at the moment, what it means to be a Black woman in this moment?
Arielle Estoria 17:17
Yeah. Well, "Human" was kind of the first poem that I wrote where I had to acknowledge what that felt like and what that was. I mean, I grew up and my parents made it very clear, you know, "You are your name meaning." Arielle means lioness of God. And each of my siblings all have very distinct name meanings. And "You are loved. You are creative. You are this; you are that." And it was never like, "You're Black, you're Black, you're Black." We just... that was just who we were were. Like, we knew we were Black. We knew that was a part of our culture and who we were. And it was never something that we had to be told.
Arielle Estoria 17:58
And then I got to a private Christian university with predominantly white peers. And it was like, "You're Black, you're Black, you're Black." And I'm like, "I know this. Why are people... Why do people feel the need to tell me this?" And it became even moreso a part of my identity, because that's how people, that's the only way people saw me at first. And then getting into that poem of"Human." That was one of, not the first racial injustices that we've seen, but it was the biggest broadcasted one at that time. And I did not want to write that poem because I hadn't had those conversations of being an African American woman, of coming from a Black family. And so it was that poem that kind of broke that third wall, if you will.
Arielle Estoria 18:49
And I had to talk about it, because I think where the misconception comes in with these conversations is that it's happening to them. It's happening over there. It's not a direct connection to me, but me being a person who was directly connected to people of all different backgrounds, of all different ethnicities, I wanted to break that space of like, no, it is connected to you, because I am feeling this as deeply as I'm feeling it, and I am connected to you; therefore, you also should be feeling it as deeply. And to try and reconnect the thread of who we are as humanity and who we are as people with blood and veins and life and breath with different shades of homes on the outside and bringing that energy the back to the table. And using stories of my family, you know, and the relationships that I personally have and sharing that through.
Arielle Estoria 19:51
And with Breonna, it was... Her death broke me in a different way, because it was a woman and I have predominantly sisters, and I felt very connected to her as a sister. And that poem started because I was writing a letter. There was this campaign going on to write a letter to the mayor. And it was to send a birthday card, because it was around Breonna Taylor's birthday. And I was like, what kind of card do you get a stranger? And I'm sitting and writing, and I'm, and I'm looking at these cards and instantly a voice, God, however, I don't know if it was myself or, or what it was, but it was "get a sister card," like a Happy Birthday to your sister. And I'm writing in this card, and I stopped to write the poem, because I felt very connected to her, her not going into her 27 year, which for me, my 27th year was transformational. And so again, finding this... there's more of a thread there than we think. [A READING OF ARIELLE'S WORK "REMEMBER HER" BEGINS]
Arielle Estoria 20:59
[SINGING] Say her name.
Arielle Estoria 21:03
Say her name.
Arielle Estoria 21:08
Say her name.
Arielle Estoria 21:14
Say her name.
Arielle Estoria 21:17
Brionna.
Arielle Estoria 21:19
Brionna.
Arielle Estoria 21:28
Oh, Brionna.
Arielle Estoria 21:35
Say her name.
Arielle Estoria 21:38
Where is her protest? Where is... [END SINGING]
Arielle Estoria 21:50
Where is her protest? Where is the rage burning for the female body/Not televised, not recorded,/ her death, not a silent act/ A violent exchange of bullet to skin/ eight times/ Her screams, her cries/ Still echoing in the walls of an apartment/ Once home--now a battleground/ She... was a brief moment/ A hashtag/ Her life, a brief moment/ The theory diminished to fumes/ Her murderers home,/ Sitting comfortably/ Her body home/ Sitting unrest underground/ Do not forget about the black woman/ Do not forget about the chest that kept you/ The hands that held you/ Do not forget about the black woman/ They say 7 is the number of completion/ So the irony of You not experiencing your 27th birthday/ sits as acidic as the blood/ seeped into your apartment carpets/ We are a year apart/ 27 was the year I found myself/ was the year I found how to re-speak/ the name God on my tongue/ The year I found love and love found me/ The year I lived life to the fullest--/ Your life... cut short, unplugged/ Wiped from the story/ I pray you lived your best year/ I pray you found yourself before you lost her/ I pray that as the bullets hit you, that God held you/ All in the same breath why you breathed your last breath/ I'm sorry your life could not have seen fullness,/ could not have reached completion /I'm sorry that you are not here/ Your body maybe buried love,/ but your name will not be
Arielle Estoria 23:50
[SINGING] Brionna,
Arielle Estoria 23:50
Brionna,
Arielle Estoria 23:54
Oh Brionna,
Arielle Estoria 24:00
say her name,
Arielle Estoria 24:06
Brionna,
Arielle Estoria 24:11
Brionna,
Arielle Estoria 24:15
Brionna,
Arielle Estoria 24:20
say their names. [END SINGING]
Arielle Estoria 24:30
Sandra Bland. Kayla Moore. Sandra Bland. Korryn Gaines. Mya Hall. Kayla Moore. Oluwatoyin Salau. Mya Hall. Tanisha Anderson. Pearlie Golden. Tanisha Anderson. Kayla Moore. Shelly Frey. Sandra Bland. Korryn. Kayla Moore. Sandra Bland. Atatiana Jefferson. Mya Hall. [LISTS NAMES OF OTHER FEMALE VICTIMS OF POLICE BRUTALITY, ONE ON TOP OF ANOTHER] Pearlie Golden. Atatiana Jefferson. Tanisha Anderson. Kayla Moore. Sandra Bland. Mya Hall. Leslie Furcron. Pearlie Golden. Tanisha Anderson. Shelly Frey. Atatiana Jefferson. Miriam Carey. Korryn Gaines. Mya Hall. Sandra Bland. Kayla Moore. [CONTINUES NAMING AND REPEATING THESE WOMEN'S NAMES, BUILDING IN INTENSITY]
Arielle Estoria 25:58
Brionna Taylor! [POEM ENDS.]
Chris McAlilly 26:04
The poem is just, it's devastating. I mean, it's beautiful, but it's just, it creates a sense of connection both to you and to the reality of her death. It's a common quality of art, but I see it in your work that what you're trying to draw out, it seems, is a connection to another human story. Poetry and testimony, I feel like have a way of distilling that down to its essential, kind of the essential emotional quality in a way that, you know, perhaps other forms of art or medium, you know, that take a kind of a longer form. You know, there's, I guess there's just more emotional punch in a poem, perhaps, I don't know.
Arielle Estoria 26:56
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 26:57
That's not a question. I'm just thinking about what it did to me, hearing it.
Arielle Estoria 27:04
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 27:05
One of the words that you've brought up a couple of times here is empathy. And I feel like one of the things that your work connects to, it just allows us to think, from the side of the other. And one of the things I struggle with our world today is how did we lose that connection that we're supposed to have to each other? And then the other side of that, is if we lost it, how do we reignite it? It seems like yes, Chris was just saying, testimony, storytelling, poetry, art might be the path back for us. What do you think? How do we reignite that sense of empathy, that care and love for someone because we understand the connection?
Arielle Estoria 27:57
Yeah. Well, I mean, if I could go a little Baptist kid, I think you go back, okay. If you go back to the simplicity of the commandment "love." Love God; love others. Like, we over saturate what was intended from the beginning. And we lose empathy, one, because we have lost touch with how to love ourselves and how to love and be loved by God. We lose empathy, because disconnection is a powerful thing. And the power to reconnect and to reunite which would heal more than I think our world is prepared to heal from. And with that, I mean, the act of empathy itself.
Arielle Estoria 29:04
Every person has been built and wired with the ability to find some type of, "I see you. I understand." Because there's more that is happening between each other than we think. You know, a lot of times, especially in America, it's the lone island, the "it's just me, all alone here." And it's not you know. Like, we are so interconnected. I think what the pandemic, what this racial setting is teaching us is how connected we actually are, and that we have been so distant from ourselves and so distant from each other, that it has created, I mean, this extremely systemic ingrained part of who we are as society that has to be uprooted. We can't move forward unless we find our ability to connect, to see each other, and say, "I'm so sorry. I see you. I'm holding you. I acknowledge you." And to do that for ourselves, to have that gentleness, that grace with ourselves, and then to have that gentleness and grace with each other. And, I mean, I think our world would be a very, very, very different place if we were better at "I'm sorry," if we were better at, "I see you."
Eddie Rester 30:35
And to say, "I see you" to someone requires a level of vulnerability, I think.
Arielle Estoria 30:41
Absolutely.
Eddie Rester 30:41
That somewhere we've bought into the lie that we don't have to be, we don't need to be vulnerable. To show someone softness, or what someone might see as weakness, would somehow make us less instead of making us more.
Arielle Estoria 31:03
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 31:05
As you think, one of the poems I was listening to earlier was the poem, "The Dreamer and Doer." And one of the lines in it was "where you are now is where you're meant to be." Talk about that a little bit more. You know, this is a hard moment for all of us, whether it's pandemic, facing up to systemic racism, it's an election season. How do we claim that right now is where we were meant to be?
Arielle Estoria 31:44
At the beginning, everything shutting down and things closing, I had a friend who reached out to me and she asked, like, "How are you?" And I said, "Oh, I'm just fine, I guess," you know, "I'm alive. That's something. How are you?" And she's like, "I'm great. As weird as it sounds, I feel like I was born for a time like this in our society." And that really wrecked me, because at first I was adjusting, you know, to where you are. And then for days and days and days, I just kept replaying that over in my head. And it was like, "Okay. Am I, too, made for a time like this in our society?"
Arielle Estoria 32:32
To an extent, are we all somewhat not made for a time like this in our society? And so that quote is, is, I love it, because you can apply to everywhere. Where you are now is exactly where you're supposed to be. All of life led us to this second, this call, this timeframe in our society. You where you are, and me where I'm at, everything, and how I've been led and guided and how you've been led and guided brought us here, on purpose. There's no accidental thing in a life that is too intentionally, divinely orchestrated and created, no matter how off putting it is, no matter how grieving it can be. There's purpose in all of that.
Arielle Estoria 33:25
And I am very much a silver lining kind of person. I can't help but find the hope in something, even in the worst of the worst situations. Because I do think there's more to come. There's more after. So here, right now, in this moment is teaching me something about who I will become later and where I will be then. And, learning that and grasping that like, "Oh, this season is wrecking. But I am supposed to be here. This is part of my growth. This is part of my expanding. This is part of knowing and moving, how I'm meant to unfold as a human being in the state of existing, and to continue to grow into who I've been created to be. And that person has been orchestrated and designated before I even knew that I could be full and alive and a whole person." And I think that it's really important to be present in where you're at, otherwise, we'll miss things. And we'll miss what God is doing in the right here and right now.
Chris McAlilly 34:40
I want to ask, you use the image of a lion or lioness in your work. You did a piece called "Symphony of a Lioness," and it's kind of in the background. You said it was connected to your name as well. The, I guess the flip side of the empathy conversation where, you know, I think we tend to present ourselves to others as stronger than we are, and without weakness, the flip side of that, I think, is some of the things I hear you talking about when you are speaking to an audience of other women who are artists or creatives or business women or entrepreneurs. And what I hear you saying in that setting is you're more powerful than than you think you are. You're not, the insecurity is not all that you are. Take your place, find your place, or take your place at the table. Talk a little bit about kind of what you've learned as a woman pursuing a career in some of these spaces, and then the encouragement that you offer to other women.
Arielle Estoria 35:48
Yeah, well, I think for me, again, I grew up with a mom who spoke and who taught and who preached and I think there is... I have a quote, and, you know, that says, "The voice of a woman is powerful." And I think for me, specifically within the Baptist tradition, I didn't grow up believing that or knowing that. I grew up knowing that there was a place and a space that women can and cannot exist within. And yet, when you trace the Bible, all the moments that shifted direction, that pivoted on what Jesus was doing, you can find a woman at the center of that. And that, really looking at that wrecked me, 'cause then it was like, "Well, how, why can't we be preachers?"
Arielle Estoria 36:49
I can't, like I watched my mom have to preach on the floor in our church two weeks before a 12-year-old boy preached from the pulpit. And that didn't make any sense to me. Why there was a less than, when we were both created in the image of God, when we were both given voices and discernment and awareness? And so I love the electricity of the feminine, and that still being a divine thing, because God is both. And really sitting in that space.
Arielle Estoria 37:26
And so women are my favorite because I think of Eve a lot. I had like a whole year where Genesis was like, really, really pressed on my heart. And this conversation of who Eve was and who she could have been and really sitting in that space. And was she the weakest link? Is that really why the enemy could have gone for her was because she was the weakest? I don't, I don't know if I believe that, if I sit with that. So a lot of my work is reminding women of their own strength, that they are part of the story, that they deserve to sit at the table, that they are worthy of being spoken to and spoken through. And reclaiming those spaces, because I think the small myth actually keeps us from fullness and being who God has created us to be. And sometimes that is to have a platform. Sometimes that is to be behind the scenes. But it's up for us to figure that out and not being told what it is or what it's not.
Arielle Estoria 38:30
And also my name means "lioness of God." So there's nothing small. I didn't know how to be that. I don't know how to not roar. I don't know how to not use the voice I've been given. And the misconception was that because I'm a woman that I actually wasn't given it, and that is my goal to disorient and debunk.
Eddie Rester 38:57
It's great that you talk about the moments in Jesus's life, these moments where things are shifting in the presence of women in those moments. When I was in seminary, I took a class on women in Scripture, and what we discovered is that even in the Old Testament, although it's a lot of male stories, there are these significant moments of change. Think about Moses's life, where, you know, it's women that really set that story in motion. And when you read and you discover that women are doing the naming of the children for the Hebrew people, which was a thing that was done by, typically in that day, by the men and so there's a lot under the surface that we miss because we read scripture from typically a male-dominated setting and so we miss a lot of the underneath. We really have to go back and as you said, you just have to sit with it sometimes to see what God is really offering to us, particularly the things that surprised us sometimes. I think the role of women in Scripture is huge, hugely misunderstood.
Arielle Estoria 40:09
Absolutely, yeah.
Chris McAlilly 40:11
One of the things I was wondering if you would speak to is if there is a woman listening to this, who's kind of, at one of those inflection points in her life or career and trying to figure out, "Do I continue trying to create, fight my way into or find my place at a table that's already there? Do I need to actually go out and create a new table and a new space for my work and my life?" How would you, what would you offer to a person kind of struggling with that choice?
Arielle Estoria 40:52
My, when I left for college, my mom went back to school. She had started going to seminary shortly after I started college. And she was like, "You made me go back to school." Like, "I feel like there was some more in me that needs to be learned." And we had and then later on she would kind of write and work on projects and work on books. And she kept talking about not having time and not having space. And I said, "Mom, there are women who are not yet free, because you refuse to write down the keys to unlock them." And I think that is the same for any woman with a gift or a tugging. That tugging is there for a reason. And there are women, there are men, there are people that you will transform, that you will affect, because of that tugging, because of those words, because of that project. And it's a yearning, it's going to continue being a yearning. So not only are you being at a space where that pause and that stagnant, necessarily is keeping you from being who you need to be. But it's also keeping you from affecting the people that you were put here to affect.
Arielle Estoria 42:14
I remember speaking at this event, and this woman came up to me after she's like, "Okay," we were both speaking, she was like, "I need help," like, "you gotta motivate me, because all these women who have spoken before are hitting it out of the park. And I just am feeling, like, insecure. Like, what am I doing here?" And I told her, I said, "Look, when you get out there, you're going to speak to a certain amount of those people in the audience who have not yet been spoken to. The woman before, they've been spoken to. The people who have spoken already, they've already talked, talked to who they needed to talk to. But now there's going to be another group of people who you specifically are here to speak to. And I will go and I will say what I need to say. And I will speak to a whole different group of people who need to hear what I am prepared to speak to."
Arielle Estoria 43:01
So the misunderstanding is that there's not, there's too many people doing X, Y, and Z. But no one is going to do it like you. I'm an Enneagram 4 to the T, so I am a snowflake. I know that I do not operate in this world the way that other people operate in this world, because that is how I've been designed and wired to be. The same goes for each and every one of us. There's something very specific about how you are supposed to show up in this world, and it is only made for how you are meant to do so. And so reminding and encouraging women of that, that you have keys that are meant to unlock other women's freedom. And who are you to keep that to yourself?
Eddie Rester 43:48
That's such an important insight. Where did you... Was there someone who helped you grasp that along the way? Or is that something that one day, just the Spirit led you to? Where did you, because it's so important to know and to speak and to help others grasp as well? Where did that come from?
Arielle Estoria 44:08
I think a lot of my own comparison, a lot of my own shutting down, of playing small and then getting to the point of like, "for what?" You know, like, why do I do that? Why do I operate that way? And when I did speak and when I did communicate, when I did perform or I did put up pieces and the responses that I was getting of like... This is not just about me. That's, I mean that's really what it is at the end of the day, is that yes, I operate differently. Yes, I'm unique in a space because I've been given gifts to do so but even more so it's so much bigger than me.
Arielle Estoria 44:50
And I don't know if I can pinpoint a specific person or thing that led me there except for Yes, [...] because I was like, mid-college when I said that to my mom, you know, like, "I, I'm not gonna" [...] "this is clearly something I'm being told to tell you, but it feels true, you know." And then walking in that myself of, like, this, "I have this. I've been given this. And it's unique. And it's valuable. And I'm going to do whatever it takes to put it out in the world." And so, yeah, there's definitely not a pinpoint of person or place or thing. I just felt very, very led in that space, kind of always.
Chris McAlilly 45:37
One of the things that I'm just seeing in your work is that you've done work with, or at, or offered keynote talks at Google and Lululemon, and you've been involved in the Skims campaign by Kim Kardashian. And those are, you know, cultural spaces that I wonder, kind of, as you've moved in and out of those spaces, thinking about your work and what you're trying to offer, what have you learned in those spaces? And then what have you been trying to do in that dimension of your work?
Arielle Estoria 46:16
Yeah, I think the crossover is my motto is "words for the ears," no, "words, not for the ears, but for the soul." That is for everything. You know, that's for everywhere, both cultural and spiritual and all of it, you know. It's words that are meant to be felt, that are meant to be experienced, and I can't limit, you know, where that goes. I have kind of always petered in quote, "both worlds," if you will. And specifically, with the conversations of Google and Lululemon, my conversations are always the same: I'm reminding people that they are enough. I'm reminding people that they are loved. I'm reminding people that they're, that the gifts that they have, that they've been given, are so much bigger than then they give them credit for. And it doesn't really matter if I'm speaking at a woman's conference, you know, in a church, or if I'm, you know, speaking to women who work for NASA and at Google, I still want to say the same thing and have that be the thread between my work and every world that I get to work in.
Eddie Rester 47:39
Just, we're moving towards the end here, and as you've talked a little bit about your mom and kind of her going back to school, what has been your parents, kind of, how have they seen your work? How's your dad, the pastor, seen your work in the world?
Arielle Estoria 48:04
It depends on the work. That's for sure. I have definitely branched out from a lot of more Baptist, evangelical way of experiencing God. And my dad does not fully understand that. And we see very differently, and yet we've had the same hurt on a lot of things at the same time. And so it really depends on... Like, even with the Skims campaign, it's like, it's shapewear, you know? It's shapewear that was skin toned. And so he was like, so excited that he was like, "What is she wearing?" You know, like, "What is she wearing?" He's like, "Oh, that's cool." And then every day after was like, "Oh, what's your follower count?" Like, "How are you growing?" Like, "What's happening?" And so it kind of switches over, or there are days, you know, where he's taking me to every church that he's associated with, and trying to be my dadager, you know. So there is a balance to it sometimes, but then there are some things that we have come to terms with, that he probably won't ever fully understand. And that conversation was I, kind of, you know, I was like, "I don't tell you how to do your ministry, and I ask that you don't tell me how to do mine." And kind of leaving that where it may and learning, learning, both of us learning from that.
Chris McAlilly 49:34
I think that can be expanded. I mean, just I understand that implicitly. But I also wonder if it could be expanded a little bit. As we think about the church, kind of, making a place for the next generation and its calling and the ways in which God is at work among young people today, how would you encourage pastors across the country, you know, parents of children who are trying to raise their children in the faith, but are perhaps, you know, trying to struggle through the best ways to do that? What encouragement or what words of wisdom would you offer?
Arielle Estoria 50:15
Yeah. I think one thing is remembering that as you're raising, you know, your kids, you're doing and using what you have and what you've been given. And being intentional with that, but then also the scriptures say, "Train them up in the way they should go," which means they will go, which means there needs to be a releasing that happens, and sooner rather than later, just from personal experiences. It's the best route, but it's train them up in a way they should go.
Arielle Estoria 50:57
And I think, you know, Michelle Obama's mom, she talks about, you're not raising kids, you're raising adults, because they won't stay kids forever You are raising human beings who will go out in the world, who will be a part of society. So as you're raising, and knowing that they will go, who are you raising to go and to be out in this world? And I think that's something to be intentional with. But then I also am not a parent. And so I don't know what that is like. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of it. And that was one of the biggest things for me is just, "I'm going. And you raised me enough and equipped me enough to go and know that I will still stand on my own two feet." And yes, it's terrifying. But the release is necessary. And at the end of that you trust that the prayers and that the covering will go with them. That means that you cannot, and really sitting and covering that and trusting that the Lord and the faith that you have and believe in is also what's carrying your children.
Eddie Rester 52:17
My wife uses that quote a whole lot. She reminds me that we're raising adults and not children. But it's true, because there comes a moment, and my kids are one's in college, one's about to head to college. And there is this moment where you do have to trust that they're going to go and they're going to create a path and they're gonna find a way that's faithful for them, using the gifts that God has given to them. And sometimes I can already tell, that's gonna be a hard thing to do.
Arielle Estoria 52:46
Yeah,
Eddie Rester 52:46
We are so thankful that you spent some time with us today, Arielle. It's been a real pleasure to get to talk with you and share with you a little bit.
Chris McAlilly 52:56
If you want, if people want to follow up and learn more about your work, where would you point them to go?
Arielle Estoria 53:03
Yeah, everything is Arielle Estoria. So: A-R-I-E-L-L-E E-S-T-O-R-I-A. That's dot com, on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, Spotify, and all of the above. And yeah, I'm pretty active on Instagram, And I respond there for the most part. So if you're looking to send me a message, do so that way and then everything on my website, you can find books, you can find sweatshirts, mugs that tell you that you're magic and all that fun stuff.
Chris McAlilly 53:36
We loved talking with you. Loved it. We'll be watching and following what you do in the future. Thanks so much.
Eddie Rester 53:44
Thank you.
Arielle Estoria 53:46
Thank you.
Eddie Rester 53:46
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening today. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And go ahead and hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts.
Chris McAlilly 53:58
This wouldn't be possible without our partner, General Board of Higher Education in Ministry. We want to thank also our producer, Cody Hickman. Follow us next week. We'll be back with another episode of The Weight. [END OUTRO]