A Peace of My Mind

John Gerber is a graphic designer and a fine artist in Minneapolis. He describes himself as someone who thinks and feels deeply. He has had an on again / off again relationship with alcohol. He stopped drinking completely between the ages of 30 and 40, but when his 40th birthday came around, he decided to celebrate. He describes it like this: "Then between 40 and 60, I think I drank probably to make up for those 10 years."...

Casey Pytleski is a mother, a wife, and a recovering addict. Although she had experimented with my substances as a youth, it was an unexpected introduction to meth as an adult that led to a quick addiction and unraveled the idyllic life she and her husband had created. At the time of our interview, it had been 89 days since her last use. 

Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board and the arts and cultural heritage fund for ...

Welcome to A Peace of My Mind, a project that uses storytelling and art to rediscover what connects us. I’m John Noltner, the founder and director of A Peace of My Mind and I have the good luck to travel the country and the world interviewing people to help reveal the beauty and wisdom that is all around us….if we choose to see it.

This new season of the podcast is called Sobr. S-O-B-R and we are exploring stories of addiction and r...

Jan Selby is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally in settings ranging from film festivals and art museums to university classrooms and on Public Television. BEYOND THE DIVIDE premiered at Montana’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at the Peace on Earth Film Festival. After a year of traveling to festivals world-wide, BEYOND THE DIVIDE was broadcast on Twin Cities ...

Duncan Gray is a retired Episcopal Priest and was the 9th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. I met him at St. Peter's Episcopal church in Oxford, Mississippi, where he was rector, like his father before him. His father served from 1957 to 1965 during the turbulent era when James Meredith was the first Black man who was allowed admission into the University of Mississippi.

St. Peter’s organized itself in 1851. The c...

Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar is chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. She has spent decades helping her community fight for federal recognition of their tribe and finding resilient solutions to the political and environmental challenges that have seen their traditional lands literally wash away into the Gulf of Mexico.

(We did this interview on the front porch, ...

Greg Campbell has gone home to die. His liver and kidneys are failing and on Wednesday, March 8, he left the hospital because he didn't want to die in an institution. He has chosen to die at home where he finds peace and love and safety.

We talked about his faith, his desire to teach people that they don't need to fear death and the deep joy in having time to say goodbye to friends.

Greg said, "Am I...

April Grayson was born and raised in Mississippi. She left the state after college and returned again 10 years later to tell stories about her home state and, in particular, about the Civil Rights Movement and the history of race in Mississippi through oral history and documentary films. April is the director of Community & Capacity Building at the Alluvial Collective, formerly the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconcilia...

Randell Sam is a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. I met Randell while spending some time with the Water Protectors near Palisade, Minnesota. After a brief introduction in Ojibwe, Randell shared some of his history with alcohol and drug addiction. After years of using, he found the true meaning behind his Anishinabe name, which is, “I Am The Walking Light.” Randell plays an important role in the recovery movement in his comm...

Harvey Goodsky, Jr. lives in McGregor, Minnesota. As a part of the Sucker Fish Clan, he carries the responsibility of being the shepherd of the land. His priority is to keep that teaching and learning alive through his own seven children and their future generations. Harvey opens our interview with a message in his native language, Ojibwe. 

We talked about his childhood and growing up as Anishinaabe, his connection with th...

Sandy Gokee is Anishinaabe—Bear Clan—and lives in Ashland, Wisconsin. For the interview, we sat outside at a park overlooking Lake Superior as a storm skirted around us, so you might hear a little wind and maybe even thunder in the recording. Sandy introduces herself in her native language, Ojibwemowin. 

She shares her concerns about the invisibility of Indigenous people and how imbalanced life is between human and non-hum...

Afton Thomas is the Associate Director for Programs at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Afton talks about Oxford as the progressive south, and the importance of continuing to share stories of the past so we can live better today and in the future. At the time of this interview, Afton's involvement and voice in the community had led her down a political path a...

Mary Dougherty lives in Bayfield, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior. As she says, just about as far north as you can go in the state without getting wet. She is the author of "Life in a Northern Town: Cooking, Eating, and Other Adventures along Lake Superior."

We talked about preserving the watershed of the world's largest fresh water lake and how we need to look upstream at the sustainability and health of the...

Mike Radtke is the operations manager for the Madeline Island Ferry Line in Bayfield, Wisconsin. He started there as a captain and over the past 32 years, he has made the 20-minute, 2.5 mile journey between the mainland and the island thousands of times. 

We talked about his observations of how Lake Superior has changed through the years, his family's long-time habit of hosting international exchange students and the ...

Michael Skoler describes himself as a reformed NPR correspondent, a dad, a meditator, and a backpacker. Michael is the communications director for Weave the Social Fabric Project, an initiative of the Aspen Institute, designed to address the broken social trust in America. 

We spoke about  his work in Africa during the Rwandan genocide, his desire to care open-heartedly and his goals to foster community at a grassroots level with th...

Shane Claiborne is a speaker, activist and author. He founded the Simple Way, an intentional community in Philadelphia, building a neighborhood of belonging. And he leads Red Letter Christians, a group that tries to live “like Jesus meant the things he said.”

I interviewed Shane at the Sojourners office in DC right after the Moral March on Washington, led by the Poor People’s Campaign.

We talked abut living simply, living c...