From the Garden of Serenity. Strength. Style: Sylvia Ewing
Sometimes people ask me how I get so much done. I have 6 grandchildren, a day job as a nonprofit executive in a media organization, I teach meditation, write stories and poems, have numerous board and volunteer activities, and 2 podcasts. Here’s my secret—I go with the flow. I believe in Kahlil Gibran's saying that work is love made visible; I offer the results of my activities as a gift to those around me. And I try to work with joy. I believe in the beauty of coincidence, or what my Pastor Otis Moss calls spiritual serendipity. One example is meeting Vicki Goldston, publisher of this magazine, at the Jackson Park Yacht Club in Chicago and being asked to participate in this particular issue!
Offerings and service are so important to me that I created a streaming program, Serenity Strength and Style with Sylvia Ewing and Friends. I ask people a few key questions, like how they find calm and serenity, and what they offer. I highlight these inspiring, courageous, and optimistic people and share their stories at a time when many people feel fragile, disconnected, and afraid. I’ve always been sustained by learning more about people doing good in the world, especially stories of Black faith and resilience, and I think people of all backgrounds benefit from them.
Starting in the summer of 2026, I ask my guests to reflect deeply on who they are and to be vulnerable as they share who they are and how they walk through the world. Some say serenity is a work in progress, or they find it in their connection to family, faith, and nature. Strength can be physical, like Cardio drummer Mary Commodore, who brings fun exercise to people of all ages, but it can also be an attitude and speaking with ancestors, like healer and life coach Pilar Audain. Style can be a favorite color, like for Black storyteller and cultural curator Emily Lansana, who loves pink and uses it to energize her day. Or offering the generosity of mentoring, like one of my longtime friends, Avery R. Young, known as Chicago’s first Poet Laureate and creator of the operetta Safronia. He described what he offers not as his phenomenal work as an interdisciplinary artist. He’s most proud of showing up and being present for the people he has mentored. My offering is to introduce you to people like Marguerite Griffith, a financial advisor, microfarmer, and death doula. People are amazing! I could go on and on about people like filmmaker, author, and director Pemon Rami, who mentored actor Robert Townsend, and musician and educator Shawn Wallace and playwright-poet Tanikia Carpenter, who inspired Chance the Rapper with one of her poems about grandfathers. I’ve interviewed artists ranging from musicians like MacArthur Fellow Reginald Robinson, who keeps the history of ragtime music alive, to my frequent collaborator, Grammy-nominated bluesman Billy Branch. But don’t take my word for it—check them out yourself.
Through my work as a PBS TV pledge host and a broadcast theater and event producer, I’ve had the chance to interview everyone from Chris Botti and Aaron Neville (who writes poetry) to Deepak Chopra. Wayne Dyer was a mentor. What I've learned is that we live in a garden of God, and we can choose to feed the positive or the negative. My guru, Goswami Kriyananda of Chicago, used to say, "You can’t plant corn and then be surprised when you don't grow apples." What do you offer the world? What inspires you? I leave you my poem, celebrating our beautiful differences and our shared rituals.
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Rituals
Sylvia Ewing
I love rituals that mark milestones, swirling us together,
the way clouds form the foreground of the sky.
Like babies' first birthdays, served in different containers of delight.
Carnitas, cerveza, and cake with actual fruit filling.
Favors for adults with name and date on the printed ribbon.
Fried chicken, sweet wine, card games, and music.
Gold lame trimmed socks and a dozen barrettes
swimming on tiny braids like anemones in the sea.
Toddler status declared in a new fade and trim.
I’m here for it all.
Carnations create the corsage for the prom.
Roses trail fragrant fragments down the aisle.
Speaking of down the aisle,
I’m delighted when orange and red marigolds
sigh, sharp scents at Indian weddings
and mingle with eucalyptus in Mexican ceremonies.
I’m grateful for another love deposit in the Bank of Hope,
when two people invite us to listen as they say, “I do.”
And what of floating in life's arms to mark time?
The graduation or debut, the Bar and Bat Mitzvah,
the Quinceañera? Bismillah.
All are currents rippling in our Moon River of existence.
I see continuation in the memories shared at a wake.
I hope for reality in the words ‘rest in peace’
at the cemetery.
I warned you that I love all rituals.
Ritual is how we know we are, were, and will be alive!
Rituals was published in Newcity Magazine in 2025
Bio
Sylvia Ewing is a producer, broadcaster, non-profit executive, and poet. Sylvia hosts and produces Serenity Strength and Style with Sylvia Ewing and Friends, available on YouTube (sylviaewingspirt), sylviaewing.com, and Roku via Von.tv. Other uplifting production work includes Rhythm Rhyme and Resilience.
She is a published poet, award-winning Journalist, and inductee into The HistoryMakers African American archives for media. Sylvia is the 2020 recipient of the Illinois Humanities Award with her daughter, author, poet, and sociologist Dr. Eve L. Ewing.
Sylvia has been a Certified Meditation Teacher since 2009 and a practitioner for decades. She is the host of This Moment with Sylvia Ewing at yogachicago.com
She is working on a book on communications strategy
Sylvia Ewing (she/her)
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