Lydia Theon Ware i - Blacklandia, Writer, Poet, Homelessness, Mental Health & More

In this episode we speak with author Lydia Theon Ware I

Lydia is an author based out of the Inland Empire. She talks to us about her Christian Fatih, homelessness, working for Blacklandia, mental health, her magazine and much more.

GUEST
https://www.instagram.com/lydiaflorencetheon?igsh=ZWI2YzEzYmMxYg==

https://www.instagram.com/cartlessmagazine?igsh=ZWI2YzEzYmMxYg==

https://www.facebook.com/sunchild.twi?mibextid=ZbWKwL

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PODCAST:
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BOOK: 
10 Things Your Parents Should Have Taught You...But Didn't

https://www.amazon.com/Things-Parents-Should-Taught-Didnt/dp/B0BB5CL3MF

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________Content______
00:00 - Intro
03:45 - Who is Lydia
10:51 - Blacklandia/Writing Style/Christian Faith Influence
23:16 - Cartless Magazine & Homelessness
31:06 - Addressing Mental Health
42:00 - "Howling Butterflies"
46:23 - Poem "Total Surrender"/Meaning of Lydia's Name/Current Projects
53:49 - Stream Glitch/Poems/Words of Empowerment
1:03:13 - Host Returns/Woman's Shelter
1:08:01 - Lydia's Empire

Transcript

Hey, everybody. We got a great guest. But before you get into it, let's hit you with that intro. Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Empire, where we like to engage with everybody from pastors to actors, rappers to trappers, and everybody in between. And yes, we like to have interesting interviews with interesting people. And guess what? We have another great guest for today. But before we get into it, please like the video, you guys. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't. We're really trying to build it, and we're doing really great things out here. If you guys didn't know, my name's Antonio Lee Miles. Yes, the one and the only, the real one, not the phony. If you didn't know, then you don't know me. And so we're so glad. And like I said, we have another great guest today, writer, poet, author, so many great things. And her name is Lydia Theon Ware. Hi. Welcome to the Empire, Lydia. Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here. Glad to have you. And how you been? I've been doing good. I've been doing good. I just, I'm going to be working with Empowerment Edutainment. They're going to be going into schools to do theater and poetry and puppetry. And I'm writing the poems for their script. So I started doing that this morning. We're going to be starting next week, I believe. So that's something that's brand new that's happening in my life. Cool. How did that come about? I went to, um, they had a production at the box in Riverside and I went to it and I was so impressed by their, the caliber of their work that, um, I wanted to work with them. And so I got their information, um, that was in December and now we're just beginning to meet up. I sent my resume in and they, um, we had a call last night and, um, Sharon, Sharon, was the individual that she's the executive director and she wants to bring me on board. So that's what happened. Cool. Cool. Well, congratulations on that. Thank you. Awesome. So for people who may not know who you are and what you do, Lydia, can you please tell us all who you are and the things that you do? Well, okay. I'm Lydia Theon where I, I am a self-taught poet. I am the editor of, um, Cartless, the magazine for individuals that are homeless. Um, I work with the path of life ministries when we do workshops about, um, cartless. Um, I am a workshop leader for Blacklandia, a subset of Inland Institute, nonprofit organization is a publisher, um, in Inland Empire. Um, I work with starting over incorporated as a house manager and all around, um, I go to RCC. I'm taking African-American studies and hip hop right now. That's all I'm doing right now is taking these couple of classes. School just started. So I'm like in the process of getting my feet wet and doing all the homework and everything and practicing my hip hop, the routine. I know the routine. I just, I don't do it very well, but I'm working on it. Got you. So it's like dancing hip hop? Yes. Natural dancing hip hop. Okay. Yeah, so the instructor, he's really cool. He's a truck driver. He's an entrepreneur. His music plays while we do the beats, while we do the steps and stuff. And so it's just really cool. Cool, yeah. At first, I didn't know if you were talking about if it's dancing hip hop or learning the history of hip hop. I wasn't really sure at first. Oh, yeah. Got you. Yeah, that's a good workout. It is. Awesome. Okay. And Lydia, can you give us a brief story of like how you grew up and where you grew up just as a brief and to where you are today? I grew up in Ontario. I was born in Los Angeles, raised in Ontario, California. I started doing poetry when I was 13 and I had a, it started in like the sixth grade. Um, I had a poem, I had to write a story, like what was my favorite hobby? And I wrote about daydreaming and the teacher hated the poem. And next year I turned in the same poem. Cause that's just how you do it when you're a kid. And the teacher, she loved it. And she submitted it to Cal State San Bernardino. And I won honorable mention. So I went to Cal State San Bernardino, went on stage, took somebody's hand and got a little certificate and, uh, I've been writing poetry ever since. I live in Riverside for like 20 years. I was homeless like about 15 months before I moved into Riverside. And when I moved to Riverside, I started going to RCC. I started taking dance classes because it was the only thing I really could focus on. And when I was homeless, I had this situation where I didn't feel like I was myself anymore. So I changed my last name, um, to Theon where I, um, my birth name is Jefferson, of course. Um, but I changed my last name and it changed who I was completely more than just being myself. Like it became who I am and it is who I am. Um, RCC was the first official place that gave me my last name. Um, After that I did it legally through the court systems and everything like that. So, so my driver's license is on my social security card. Um, and I am grateful for the ability to come through homelessness to the other side, you know, to the point where I, I worked for the path of life, uh, path of life homeless shelter as a residential, um, service individual, um, I worked as a peer support specialist for 13 years and I was a peer educator at one point and then now I'm a house manager starting over. Nice. And starting over is like a homeless shelter or something like that? It is a nonprofit organization that helps people that are AB109 or that are homeless. They have nowhere else to go and they are trying to get back into society. It's transitional living. So they have eight houses working on getting more within the LA, Riverside County, San Jacinto, Emmett, Eastville. Okay. And, you know, it's interesting because I want to assume, you know, I guess I'll talk from personal experiences that You know, you mentioned dancing a lot and I know that then dancing is really therapeutic and like relieving. So is that what it's like for you as well? Yes, it is the happiest, happiest time of my time of my life is kind of like dancing. Um, I didn't start, I mean, the first time I danced was when like it did sink on the mile when I was like seven or something, but I didn't start, uh, I didn't dance again until I was in college. And, um, I was going through a lot of different difficult things at college. I was at Cal Poly Pomona and I was just taking dance as I was going through a difficult period at the school. And I fell in love with doing it to the point where I just want to do it for the rest of my life, kind of. So I've been dancing at RCC. I didn't major in it because I didn't have a major in dance at the time. And I'm just getting back into it. I graduated in 2007, going back to school now. It's interesting because I wanted to be someone who was in movement, like to be a dance therapist and stuff, but life happened and I became a peer support specialist. But I'm now just going back into it, trying to do dance and never stop. Just never stop anymore. I think if you're open to it, I think you should definitely look into like partner work dance, like salsa, bachata, merengue. Those things are really fun, dancing with partners. Yeah, when I get more mobile, like more nimble, you know, so I can like follow my partner with dignity, I will do that. I've taken a, not square dancing, but I took a class at RCC that was partner dancing. I got it like a C, but it was really fun. Gotcha. I don't think you should wait to more nimble. I think you just got to jump in the fire. You know what I mean? Just got to jump in the fire. But I wanted to ask you, you know, Because you work for Blacklandia, correct? I do. I still do. Yeah. So can you tell us what is Blacklandia, its importance, and your role there? Blacklandia came out of the George Floyd 2020 incident. where the more the Black voices wanted to have a chance to be more representative, a representative in the Inland Empire. And so artists, poets, Romaine Washington, Ginger Galloway, Lisa Henry, Jesse Coates gathered together so that they could bring a different voice to Inlandia, a Black voice, a voice Black individuals, people of color, just to give them a chance to have their voices represented, heard, understood, given the ability to be out there and say, this is what a Black body is. This is what a Black person is. This is how I sound. This is what I look like. This is how I feel. And we're given the ability to just speak I did a workshop called Even Butterflies Can Holla, and it dealt with the anger of Black women and how Black women can't be angry, really, unless we're called strident or B-I-T-C-Hs, and you have to control your anger or not even be allowed to use it as a woman. I mean, Black men cannot be angry as well, but Black women have to be submissive and sweet and intelligent and powerful and strong. And you can be angry as a warrior in a movie, but in real life, you have to suppress it. Sometimes you can't even frown. You have to smile. And what's your duties there? I am a workshop leader. I, um, I create workshops. And so, um, we do proposals. We would submit them to Lisa, Lisa Henry, um, the creator at, um, Riverside Art Museum. And she's also one of the directors of, um, Blacklandia. We submit our, our, our proposals and then we, um, we create them, um, submit them, they get approved and then we create the curriculum for them. And then we, um, promote them and get the audience that we need to get. Um, and then we just do the workshops. I've done workshops on poetry, um, then workshops on mostly poetry, just writing. I've done, the last one I just did, um, was called Dark Matter. We just finished this past Sunday and it was with, um, 14 to 18 year olds. Um, we did, uh, Mammy Till's exhibit. We did a, uh, a focus on Emmett Till. His life is 14 years. And we did paintings of the kids. They did artwork of their mom. We wrote poetry on puzzles. We talked about chess, the black and white pieces,
 how there's so many intricate pieces of chess. But when in real life, the game of real life black and white, you could die as a black person if you don't play the right moves. And if you do play the right moves, you could still pass. What's some of the proposals that you've proposed? Oh, some of the proposals I proposed. A few of them were like black grief, just the ability to, it was, it was like a really extensive proposal where I was talking about how an individual should grieve and how they do grieve, how people grieve. And the proposal I had was, Dark Matter was a proposal, a proposal for review of Butterflies Can Holler. Another one that got approved is talking about, let me think, what was that one that got approved? I can't remember right off the top of my head. And usually the proposals require funding, correct? Yes, Inlandia Institute funds funding. the proposals. We get funding from California Riverside County, get funded by the National Endowment of the Arts, get funded by Poets and Writers. Okay. So that's all in the proposal, right? The funding, what the project's going to be, et cetera, et cetera. Well, when we do the proposal, we submit it and then Katie and Lisa look at it. And then they have funding for Blacklandia through the different like Poets and Writers programs. the endowment for the arts, um, when their proposal is accepted, then the funding is, um, granted. And then we, we, we do it. Gotcha. And, uh, Lydia, so like, let's say people have never read or heard your style of writing. How would you define your style of writing? Um, Christian without rhyming. I write about the Lord. I write about my love for the Lord. Um, I write about homelessness, I write about, I tell stories about nightmares. I write a lot of different things, mostly, but it's vibrant, original, kind of like it doesn't evoke imagery that, I just say things that usually cannot be said. Like what? A lot of it is about What do you say that usually can't be said? I write about assault. I write about assault nightmares. I write about things, homelessness and the inability for people to be seen. I write about, are we chess pieces? I asked the Lord, are we chess pieces? And he responded, we are masterpieces to him. And how he sees us, he directs us. He thinks us. And he believes that we are a living queen and a living king of true beauty. And our light is a luminosity that brightens the darkness in the world. Brightens the light of the world. And so that's my poem called Peace. That's a part of it. I have poetry here. I've also been published in Chola Needles. What is that? Chola Needles is a publication that is based in Joshua Tree, California. Okay. So you've been publishing with that company? Yes. Okay. It's a non-profit. Okay. Yes. Okay. You know, and it's interesting because I was going to ask you about the importance of your faith and your writing, right? And it seems that, in my opinion, correct me if I'm wrong, that your faith is a big part of your writing, correct? It is. It is. And has it always been a part of your, have you always had a Christian faith or is this something that's kind of relative new? It's nine years and let's see, October, November, December, January, February, four months new. I've been a believer for nine years and four months. Um, before that, um, I was a Buddhist for 12 years. Um, and in October, um, 25th, 2014, I had this, I call it a death mirror thing where I was, I was asleep, but, um, My body was getting weaker and weaker, and I felt like my spirit was leaving me, like I was going to not wake up. And I called out, Lord, Lord, Lord. And I'm a Buddhist, and I'm doing this, calling out, Lord, Lord, Lord, three times. And the Lord, Jesus, he changed whatever was happening to me into this regular dream. And I woke up, and it was 4 a.m., October 25, 2014. And I gave my life to the Lord that morning. And... we watched a comedy tape together. I felt like he was right there with me as I watched a comedy tape, Monique's Big Black Comedy Jam. And I felt like I never looked back. I turned in my I turned in my ,, which is my scroll that I would chant to. I turned it in that Sunday. And they said they would hold it for me. And I kind of like, I was crying as I turned it in because I was like 12 years of my life had ended in a way. But I never looked back. I've been a Christian ever since. And I was 45 and I found Jesus waited for me. I found him finally. And it's amazing that I feel like they say that he knocks and he waits for you to answer. I felt like he had knocked and he had just sat there at the door waiting for me to open it. and um 45 years is like a long time to be without him but now I'm with him and I felt like there's no there's no way I could live without knowing that Jesus loves me and he loves I feel like he loves and he waits for everyone and he waited for me a lost sheep with no wool you know my soul had no wool I had no wool I had no value that I could see but he saw it in me and he And he brought it out to me. And so that's to a point where I know I'm loved. I know that I have friends that love me. Whenever I go to the end of everything that I have, he always supplies me with success and he supplies me everything that I need. Me, the one that did not believe. I was into the goddess. I was into Wicca. I was a Buddhist, Nishin Shoshu, Buddhist, and he waited. Yeah, you know, it's so beautiful because it's like, what is it? Finding out that you're thirsty, but you didn't know you were thirsty in a way. That you were, some food that was missing in your life. You're like, wow, I just, Never had this before. Where have you been all my life? Yes, the living water. I'm sorry. The living water, just the water, the water at the well, the woman at the well was like, did not know that the water that he offered her was the water of living life and the true water, the true, you know, and it's just, I didn't know that I was part at all. I thought life was fine and I was wrong. and so when I write my yes no I was going to say you never know until you know if that makes any sense yeah you don't know what you've been missing or what you haven't had until you've actually partaken of his life his word his truth so that's what my poetry is about now for the most part I love it. And you know, I think you also mentioned that you are offline, we spoke that you, you have a magazine called cartless. Is that correct? That is correct. You would like to talk a little bit about it, why you created it? What's it about? Who's it for? Um, okay, cartless is in 2099 2000. I was homeless for 15 months. And years later, I realized I had my own apartment and I lived there until until late last year, and I realized that the reason that I was able to get out of homelessness 20 years ago was that I didn't have a shopping cart. I didn't have a shopping cart, so I didn't gather all my things and put it into an actual grocery shopping cart. So I realized that a shopping cart is a temporary destination. You don't worry about getting out the street. Once you have a shopping cart, you worry about the cart. You worry about making sure that it's safe, everything in it is safe. You collect things to put in the cart. Your cart becomes your temporary home. And some people gather three carts or four, and then they have people watch their carts while they go gather things to eat or go shopping or go to the library or go float a sign. They have people watch their cart. Get you off. It doesn't get you from outside. It doesn't get you off the street if you have a shopping cart. So whenever I worked at Path of Life, I would tell people, don't get a shopping cart. Just have a suitcase, a blanket, or backpack. A blanket and a backpack. Jacket. Don't do the shopping cart. That's where the name Cartless came from. The magazine itself, it's for individuals that are homeless, for them to get their voices heard. for them to get their energy in a printed form, to be out there, distributed amongst them, for the people that are homeless, for anybody who wants to read their work. We were presented with articles in the Press Enterprise. We did readings at the main library, the old main library. down from Riverside. And some of my students, some of the writers in my classes were, that I did not know until later, that they were like English majors. And when they did the reading, they said, they told me that they said that they were English majors when they, and that they had started to believe that they could no longer write again, that they would never pick up a pen and do it again. and um because they were homeless they lost everything and they had given up on the idea that they could write and when they the stories that they did um that were printed in the press enterprise were phenomenally and and were well written very well written and I gave them the the ability to write again they told me so I was like wow I i feel like The idea of being able to express yourself, to show that you have talent. Homeless people aren't given that avenue. They're not given that. They're given $2 and non-eye contact or they're ignored. But when you talk to them, learn their story, give them a piece of paper and a pen, give them some paint and just a place to sit down and relax and create, they're up for it. They step up to it. And they're very talented out there. Beautiful. So how can anyone who may be without a home or homeless be able to find this, be able to participate, be able to listen? in my opinion, I think a lot of homeless people might be reluctant to want to share their story or feel like they're welcome to do things. Um, in my opinion, I could be wrong, but yeah. Can you help answer some of those questions? Yes. Um, we're going to start up this year again, um, most likely in the summer. We just, we usually go to the path of life shelter and, um, Before it was
 a 24-hour shelter, we would go in in the afternoon when it was empty and we'd invite people that were homeless that were in the shelter to come right. But now it's like the shelter is 24-7 so that their people, anybody can come in and they can stay there all day and usually they want to watch TV. So it's kind of hard to do a workshop inside the shelter. So we're looking for a place where anybody could come that is homeless and and participate. Um, we're looking to start up in either late spring, early summer. Um, it's going to be in the daytime and anybody that, um, young people, older veterans, we're looking for people that have experience who are living homeless or living on house to have experienced living on house who want to share their work. Um, it's sometimes fire. Yes. If it's not going to be in San Jacinto, that's where I live, it's going to be in Riverside, always. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And you said for all ages, anyone who's experienced being unhoused, anything like that? Okay. Great work. Great. This is super cool. Is there a website people can find this at? Say someone is currently homeless and they can find maybe some old work. How do they do that? They could go on inlandiainstitute.org. There's also on Facebook, there is a Cartliss website where the workbooks are, like we did a video recording of the lessons that we did for during the pandemic. So the lessons are on the Facebook page, Cartliss, the magazine. They could go on the Facebook Cartliss the magazine. Um, and look at the different, um, we have pictures of, uh, we did a photo shoot of second year, um, artists, writers. Um, so that's on Facebook as well. So, um, they could go there, do some of the, um, works work, do some of the, the prompts and submit their work that way. If they want, they could upload their stuff to that. page if they like, or they could contact me on that page and we could just get to gather together. We've gotten, we have three magazines so far. Right now they're, they're hard copy, but not digital, but that's their next step is to work on making the, the hard copy digital. That's one of the things we're going to be working on this year. Super cool. And it might be an easier process than it may sound, making it digital. Everything's digital. We live in a digital world. I was going to say you're a digital girl. That's funny. Little Madonna, future Madonna quote. I've noticed that in some of your writings, and correct me if I'm wrong, but There seems to be a lot of mental health speaking about and talking about. And why is it important to address mental health? It's important because it just needs to be addressed. It needs to be spoken about. Nobody that wants to really address how easily people can be misdiagnosed, how people can be overmedicated how people can be ignored, how people's lives can be uprooted by, by a system of misinformation. Sometimes when you go, this is, okay, this is me personally. When you go to a psychiatrist, they want, and they want, they see you, they want you to take, they want to put a stamp on what you are as an individual and they want to give you their prescriptions, not find out your history, find out what works for you and say, oh, let's continue to work with that. They want to make sure that you take what they want you to take so they can say that what they give you is actually working too. And it's myself, I have a mental health diagnosis and I've had two phenomenal doctors that have helped me in the past, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Trammell. And they listened to me, they laughed with me, they helped me get through some really difficult times. That's two out of several that were not as perceptive of me as an individual. And as a peer support specialist, someone who has lived experience, someone who can walk alongside of the people that have gone through what I've gone through, homelessness and mental health, you walk alongside one and everyone that has a diagnosis and everyone who has an addiction, they're their own best expert. They know what they need because they know who they are. And there's a recovery model, which is what peer support specialists are. And then there's the medical model, which is psychiatrists and clinicians. And I don't feel like they're meshing very well right now. I feel like they're not dovetailing the way they need to. Sometimes I want to write a book about the recovery model and the medical model and how I feel like there is an idea of peer support specialists are patients with a badge. They're not respected. They're given, they are looked as if they were a patient that just had a badge on, not as a person of worth. And maybe that's just my own personal experience within the system, but I feel like it needs to be addressed because I know NAMI works. Yeah. Go ahead. I know that NAMI works very well very deeply and telecare works very deeply with accepting the recovery model, but there's a long way to go of combining the two. There really is. Can you explain for people who may not know what the recovery model is? And two, why do you think they're not meshing with the medical model? recovery model is looking to the person as they are their own best expert. They are the ones, um, you walk alongside, you do not dictate to what that person is, has to do or what they should do. You listen to what they're having to say. You give them, um, you, you walk alongside them as they go through their life and you ask open ended questions. You give them the ability to speak their truth. You honor their truth and, if they do not resistant or not compliant, they don't want to take their medication. They are saying that they have the ability to say yes or no to it. And it's, it's, it's kind of like, um, it's the ability to choose your life, the ability to say yes to your life or no to your life. If I don't want to take the medicine, um, and I want to remain homeless, or if I want to remain in psychosis, if I want to continue to hear the voices, if I want to continue to be depressed, then the recovery model, we want to walk along and say, I hear what you're saying. And I am here to say, I tell my story and I say, there's the other side. There's the other side of depression. There's the other side of mental illness. And this is what I have done. And I understand that that's not what you want to do. What do you want to do? What do you want to do? And how do you want to do it? And where do you want to go from here? The medical model is take this prescription. I'll see you in three months. And I know what's best. And this is my understanding. I know what's best because I've gone to, I've had 18 years of school. I've got the book learning. I know the DSM-5. And I know what the signs are. I know what the diagnosis is. And I know that medication helps. And the medical model and the recovery model can work together. Medication does work. Counseling does work. Therapy works. Seeing someone that can prescribe things for you that will give you a better sense of quietness, a better sense, less anxiety, a brighter sense of yourself so that you're not as depressed. All that works. But if you're not ready for it, if you don't want it, being in recovery, you got to take the steps that you want to take. And when, and the medical model sometimes does not want to accept that and they call it noncompliance or resistance. And it's just someone being able to say, somebody's trying to say, I want this and not that. Recovery says, okay, what do you want? Medical model says you need to be 5150. Ooh, so that's how you become 5150, you become non-compliant because you want to do your own thing, according to the medical method. According to the medical method, that's my opinion. That's in the 13 years that I've worked with mental health. Yeah, yes. And 5150, folks, is basically like being put into like a mental hospital, correct? That's a 72-hour hold. 5150 is the number that they use, that the officers use when they are called in to do it or when clinicians are called to assess where that person needs to be put on hold for three days. It has to do with mentally, right? It has to do with the mental, right? Yes, it does. When someone is acting out of a normal behavior or quote-unquote normal behavior. They're walking around erratically speaking, behaving in a way that is not socially acceptable. 5150 means that you are a danger to yourself or others. You're a perceived danger to yourself or others. And so the police and Riverside Police are working with clinicians right now so that clinicians will go out with them and be the first responder so that they can determine what's best for that individual, as opposed to sending people being sent to jail or being harmed. So Verisight is working on that. I've spoken to different officers and they discussed how they are training, how clinicians are being trained to go out and be first responders in that regard. So people that have the, huh? That is so cool. Yes, it's needed. It's so needed. It's so like needed. So it's kind of like, you don't want people to be hurt because officers, their response is to protect the scene, to protect themselves. And when they see something that is out of sorts, they're not trained to respond in a deescalated way to train, to ask, how are you feeling? What's going on? What can we do? Asking questions in a deescalating way or even the way you stand with someone who is having difficulty seeing reality, you have to stand like at a 45 and stand in a way that is a way that makes it safe for them to be themselves. And sometimes people just can't have reality within them. And they have to be 5150 to protect themselves and to protect other people. It is a necessary thing. But sometimes if you could talk to people, you could talk them down and to just, have you taken your medicine today? Do you wanna take your medicine? Do you have it with you? Would you like
 to take it? We want some water so that you can have that. Do you feel like you are going to hurt yourself? Do you have a plan? There's questions that people that go out there can ask. If you have a plan, do you have availability to carry out that plan? That's one of the main questions you ask. Do you have a plan if they say they want to harm themselves? Wow. Wow. Super heavy. And I know it's not an easy job. Yeah, I know it's not an easy job, especially like getting these counselors to help join the police force. I know it's going to be a tough task, but I think the more help we can get, the better. And as long as people want to help themselves, I think that's great. And, you know, I wanted to talk to you about Is Howling Butterflies, right? Your poetry book, right? Yes. To me, when I was going through it, I was like, it's kind of like a memoir, right? And then I also think we talked about how you're working on making it a novel. So talk to me. Is it kind of like a memoir? And why are you considering making it a novel? OK. This is odd, because the Lord has told me to write 33 more chapters. So I'm going to have 44 chapters. It's going to turn into, like, it is a memoir. I really had a really difficult year. The last two years have been really difficult. So I documented it. Last year, I became homeless again, and I was not expecting it. And so I lost my house of 20 years. I lost my cats, both of them, Mask and Lion. They were going to be 21 last year. I lost my cat. car because it was an accident. I walked away from the accident, which is a blessing, totaled the car. So everything just like happened. I ended up quitting the job that I had for five years, brand new position in the same company, very good company, telecare. I just needed to focus on my wellness. And so I wanted to be well, so I would be able to help other people, which is what I was doing, but I needed to focus on me. So I left that position. And so I spent like a year just trying to rediscover like who I am. And so to turn this book, this little chapbook that I had to turn it into a novel is, is a challenge. Um, it's like, it's right now a chapbook is 11 chapters and I've got like 33 more to write. And, um, it's a, it's a good challenge cause I want to, I want it to be a memoir slash. Fiction, because I have a lot of cool ideas. I'm a creator. I'm like an idea individual. I can come up with ideas very well in a second. And I have all these different ideas, and I want to put them in a novel. I want to have 44 chapters of how you maneuver homelessness, how you create a life, how you How you open yourself up to the Lord, how you don't lose faith. That's one of the things that I did not lose. I mean, seriously, the car, my house, my cats. My mental health was questioned for a little bit. I lost a lot. I lost everything, like everything. But I didn't lose my faith. I didn't blame the Lord. I wasn't angry at him. I don't know why. But it was the only thing that I have from then until now and then from now until forever is my belief in the Lord and in Jesus and the Holy Spirit and Father. And I'm like, okay, I'll take that. If that's all I've got, then that's what I'm going to take. And that's what I'm going to go forward with. And it's unbelievable because once you lose everything... it's pretty devastating. But when, when I'm walking with Jesus, it's like, okay, okay, this is over. This is over. This is, this is over. Um, but you're here. Yeah. Perspective is everything. And that's okay. That makes it okay. Yeah. Perspective is everything. And, um, you know, you really don't, faith really doesn't exist without it being tested is what I learned. You really don't know what faith is until you've talked about it. And it's kind of a wow thing. So cool. I look forward to it. You know, we have a short amount of time left, but if you have a poem that you want to share with us, we would love to hear a poem. If you have a short poem you want to share with us. All right. I'm going to... I've got a couple from... Okay, I've got one from Chola Needles called Total Surrender. I read. I don't memorize. Not yet anyway. Total Surrender. Twisted into my swollen throat lies a grain of sand so small that a microscope cannot blink. On this tiny grain of sand my hope relies. This tiny grain, upon further inspection, is a mustard seed, hidden beneath a false fairy wing. All my hope relies on being able to taste this tiny grain of mustard, oh so small, soaking in the bottom of a roasted water can, full of deeper tears, and of the spigot that won't shut down the despair. Raised to hate my curiosity, I still want to believe in this mustard seed. Even though I can't see it or smell it or breathe it or lick it or maim it or send it back to heaven, I hunker down, hold my breath, and I inhale, I taste, I swallow, I choke, I believe. Awesome. Thank you for sharing. And I caught a lot of the Christian references with the eye of the needle and heaven and mustard seed, of course, classic, super classic. Lydia, what is something that most people don't know about you? Let me think. I like to dance. I love to dance. I was a dancer. Everybody knows everything about me, really, because I talk a lot about who I am. It's got to be something in there. Something in there. Something in there. It's got to be something in there. I'm an open book. Like, for example, what does the I in your name stand for? Oh, spirit. I stands for spirit. I chose my name. My last name used to be Jefferson, Lydia Florence Jefferson. But my last name now is Theon Ware I. There's an entire story behind it. Would you want to hear the story? It takes like about two minutes. Come on, hit us with it. Hit us with the story. Let us know. Okay, here we go. When I was homeless like 22 years ago, I was at a library and I got a library book. I spent time in the library. Come on a public library. I got this book called Devil's Day by James Blish. And in it, there was a character named Theron Ware. And he was, he was a warlock and he could command demons. And I'm like, I need to command these demons that are going through my life right now. I need to have control over them. So I said, I'm going to be Theon Ware because I didn't remember the name of the character. So I went back to the library and I got the book again. I'm like, oh, it's Theron. It's not Theon. I'm like, okay, well, Theon is the female version of Theron. So I'm Theon Ware I. And a few years later, like several years later, after I officially changed my name, I looked through, I wanted to change the meaning behind it. So I looked through a dictionary. I had a dictionary. I sat on a bus bench and I looked up all the parts of my name, T-H-E-E-O-N-W-A-W-A-R-E. I looked it all up. And I came with the meaning of my name, which is the entire meaning spiritually is like fifth earliest fifth, a warrior windblower in outer desert metal spirit. Fifth is like five letters in the name. Um, Oh, fifth earliest fifth, a warrior windblower and outer desert metal spirit carried by the wind. Elion is right after Eon in the, um, in the dictionary. and so elion means carried by the wind and so um that's that's what my name means and I always get it mixed up but okay it's fifth earliest fifth carried by the wind a warrior wind blower and outer desert meadow spirit that's that's the whole meaning of my name um um I stand for spirit because um I comes before jay um spirit was just the way it worked out um That's what my name means. That is so beautiful. Super awesome. So it came from a book of warlock and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. I was going through a really difficult time when I was homeless. And homelessness 20 years ago is completely different from homelessness now. That was your phone going off with us, folks. That was my phone going off, yes. I messaged him for something else. But I needed to just not be a Jefferson anymore. I couldn't be. I wasn't. I wasn't. And I believe that my name now, it's just who I am. Yeah. It's just who I am. So no more moving on up to the east side? No more. No. I've come down to earth. Not in the sky, no. Not in the sky, right? We in San Jacinto in the desert. Yeah, seriously. Lydia, I want to thank you so much for being on The Empire. Can you tell us some of the current projects you're working on? Current projects. I just finished Dark Matter, Blacklandia's Dark Matter. I'm working on a chess game. It's chess, but it also has dice. So I'm working on developing a workshop based on that. Black people need dice. Yes. Even Butterflies Can Holler Part 2 is coming this summer, or the spring or the summer. We're going to revisit the anger of Black women and where we are now. How angry can we be now? Aren't Black women known for being angry? That's the thing. There's the trope, right? But It's not the classic, of course, we're black, we're angry. What? No, we're black and we have emotions and we want to share them. But if we do, we get shut down. So how do we share them if we can't share them? But we have to share the one that everybody sees. I think it's the approach that really gets everybody. The approach. Oh, there is this beautiful going on with the live stream. Oh, what do you mean? Oh, man. What happened? Are we okay? I'm looking. Hello? I'm live. Are you still there? I can do a poem. Okay. I'll wait patiently. Wait patiently so the Lord can say his words. Okay. Okay, Antonio is gone. I don't know if this is still live, but I will give you a poem as I wait for him to come back and dismiss. Okay. Peace. Are we chess pieces to you? You are masterpieces to me, he replied. Why do you feel like a pawn on a board when you are a living queen, a living king of true beauty? As my creation, as my child, as my breath, I made you, I watch you, I read you, I see you, I thank you. I direct you. As my queen of beauty, as my king of beauty, you are charged with being
 a light beam whose luminosity lessens the shadow's power. There is no wooden board on a table in the sky that I sit at and play a game with. There was a crib that I stood before, umbilical cord in hand, prayer in my heart, gazing at you. There was a neuron gently buzzing to life. next to her color wheel of blue and gold brushes as your egg was planted so softly in your mother's womb. As I gaze at your budding glory, I dip my golden brush into the paint of your soul and you begin. Let's see. Antonio? Hey! I think I'm still alive. Okay. All right. Well, Antonio is working on getting back on. I still might be on the air. We're gonna go until one o'clock. I just wanna give you poetry and talk about the love I left for the Lord. He is good and he is kind and he wants the best for everyone. That's just it. In religion, he wants to hear your voice. And he wants to hear your sound. He wants to hear your stories and your struggle and your time. He wants to give you time. Jesus does. And I think that that is the most beautiful thing. Of course he died. Of course he came back. That was 2000 years ago. And he came back and he stayed. Is that impossible? That's impossible but he did it anyway so I'm gonna give you a poem until somebody comes back and says it's over okay um let me see I've got I've got a long one called sand but I don't want to give that one to you I'm just I'm just playing here we go dancer true love is being inside Outside is a heat wave of tense and cracked veins. Inside she brings her homelessness, her sense of being not enough. It shows. The walls are filled with cobwebs and the dishes in the sink smell like forgotten books. Wishing for a way to be a Proverbs 31 woman, she prays. She prays. And God? And God? Well, God? Busy. Maybe not. But he is big. She wants to serve him. The song in her heart was dying. Maybe if she danced, his magic would surround her again. I'm a big person, but I love to dance. And I think that if you are big, dance anyway, move anyway. It's the most beautiful thing to do. Movement can heal. Everything and all things. Movement is Jesus. Movement is like Jesus. But movement is something that can make all the pain go away. And it can hurt your knees. So be gentle. But damn. I'm going to see if Antonio is texting me. And see where the stream is at. Okay. Well, I'm not leaving until he comes and says goodbye. There. I don't know if I can hear this. The Empire Podcast, brought to you by The Empire Podcast. Let me see. I'm going to... You know, I've watched people be alive. And I watch them like struggle with the things that they're doing, like look and look. I'm like, oh, so unprofessional. But it's like, it's really, it's real. When things are going wrong, you have difficulties. So I have more, now I'm going to have more grace for people that are struggling to get their feet up and working and running. It's always good to learn new things. It really is. I'm texting Antonio. Actually, I'm emailing. Wow. I don't know what happened. Okay. What a nightmare. I've been doing poetry. Technology. I'm like... I've been doing poetry the entire time. I'm like, sorry, folks. I don't know what the heck happened. The computer was just like, yeah, we're just going to kick you out. And it's like, what? But then I go to a different web browser and I could still message? Like, what's... anyway it was uh thank you lydia for staying on commenting um if we have someone watching you know comment down below let us know what you could see um this has been so wild I can't that was so crazy um but we're here we're here now Got you. Were you reciting poetry? What were you doing to kill time? I gave him two poems and I talked about the Lord and like how he's waiting for you and how he doesn't leave. I was just just spreading the light. You know, I, you know, I didn't know if I was live or not. So I gave him two more poems. and thank you yeah you were still I don't know what happened the host me for some reason got kicked out but she's still on and then anyway I don't know hey as as the as we say in the church the devil's a lie the devil's a lie you know so we're here remember we're talking remember earlier we're talking about faith being tested oh man that was a test right there Definitely. So thank you for staying on. Yeah. But you were telling us about your current projects, right? That you were working on. Did you tell us all of them or did we stop midway? Right now, I'm just, I'm trying to, I'm looking for women for the woman's house. So that's what my most, my main goal right now is making flyers for RCC. I am doing African-American studies. You said for the women's house? Is that what you said? Yes, Xavier House. Can you explain what that is? Xavier House is a sober living for women. It's located in San Jacinto. Homeless women that have AB 109 status, which is realignment status, which means that they've been incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and they are currently homeless. And They're on probation or parole, and they need help. They need assistance. The rooms are two people per room. It's $750 per month. If AB 109 will take care of that, or you pay out of pocket, and we have seven beds available. So I'm looking. That's my current. That's one of the things that I'm going to be working on this next month is to fill our house. And they have case managers that come weekly. They also have peer support specialists that come and do projects with the women. Utilities are included. You supply your own food. House supplies are provided. It's like a two-story house in a very nice neighborhood. Is it a limited amount of time that they get to stay there or is it limited? Six months to a year, I believe. There's also something called Path to Seed. Path to Seed is classes that they take that help them get ready for work. And there's a stipend that's included with that. And that's twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays that they go to. And there's workplace preparation that they get people ready for. Vianne Carls is the executive director. And Vianne Carls, and she has a passion for people that have been formerly incarcerated and people that are incarcerated. So she spearheaded starting over. And so that's what she's passionate about. That's beautiful. Yeah. She also has a really cool bookstore called Shades of Africa located in Corona. Just shout out. Oh, shout out to you. Shades of Africa. Awesome. So Lydia, I want to thank you again for being on the Empire podcast. sharing your stories. Can you, let's say 100 years pass by, 200 years pass by, half a millennia passes by. What would you like your empire to look like? Whether it's your Christian faith, Blacklandia, dealing with homelessness, family, et cetera. What would you like your empire to look like half a millennia from now? Millennia from now. I wish there would be no more paying for children. I wish there would be dancing and art and creating. No more trafficking, no more assaults, no more pornography. Just love and health and wellness and big people being able to move and be themselves without having to worry about weight. And and Jesus, of course, and Holy Spirit, and Father, just relationships, talking, and no machines, no screens, just long conversations, eye contact, and people looking at each other in the face and just being amazed by the beauty that they see, and the melanin would not matter anymore, and black and brown, and... off-white, we just believe in each other and share dinner and dance and write poetry together and just celebrate breath and celebrate the Lord and celebrate the sun, both the sun and the sky and the sun of the sky. That's what I want 100 years from now, just for us to have fun. I think we should have fun now. Life is too short and time is not promised. So dance, sing, play, write, look at other people's eyes, in their eyes, see their souls, and just believe in God, believe in yourself, believe in love, believe in fun, believe in movement, believe in fatness and skinniness, and just believe, believe in life, believe in love. Believe in Jesus. Beautiful. And that's what you would like your empire to look like? How people will remember Lydia? Yes, because I'm going to get it all started. I'm going to get it all started and then it'll continue. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Especially the dance part. I love the dance. I think it's one of the best ways of spiritual and artistic expression is through dance. Lydia, I want to thank you so much for being on The Empire. Can you please tell everybody how they can find you, support you, know more of your message, get your work? Can you please let everybody know how they can do those things? My Instagram is at Lydia Florence Theon. I've also got at Cartless Magazine. I've also got at The List. Those are my Instagrams. My... Should I give out my email? I don't think that would be good to give out my email. Okay. If you want to email me, it's simple, L-T-W-A-R-E-I at gmail.com. Tell me what you think of my poetry. And landeinstitute.org. Look at them. Look up them. Look them up. They are phenomenal in getting people's voices that are marginalized out there. They're publishers. They have a publisher work if they choose. So submit. Submit to them. Submit to the Lord. But yeah, Lydia Florence Theon. That's my Instagram. I don't have a YouTube channel yet. Cool. Yeah. And it's up to you if you need a YouTube channel. But I think as long as you have social media where people can find you, that's really the juice. Yes. And probably a website. Those are probably really good things. And I'll have all of her stuff in the description eventually. But then there's where everyone could find you and just click on those things for you. But I think, folks, we had a great time today. We learned a lot about Lydia and her name, where it came from, how she found God after abandoning Wicca culture and
 things like that. We learned about how Christian faith has been so part of her as she also has a magazine called Cartless, which is dealing with, you know, which is related to the homelessness and fighting homelessness and how it deals with abandoning the shopping carts, right? And having just like a suitcase and things like that. And she's just doing great work out here. and uh again I want to thank her for being on I want to thank all of you guys for being on uh please support the channel like the video subscribe to the channel helps a lot if you want to donate support all the contributions go back into the channel go back into the community you can do our cash app which is dollar sign t-h-e empire podcast and the rest which will be in the description and my name is antonio d miles if you didn't know the host and uh other than that we'll catch you guys in the next episode okay thank you thank you so much this has been a pleasure lydia it's been a pleasure thank you so much see you guys in the next one