Shame Piñata

Imagine standing at the crossroads of change, holding the weight of grief in one hand and the hope for healing in the other. Life is full of transitions—some we celebrate, others we endure. How do we mark the moments that shape us? How do we find meaning in the spaces where loss and growth meet?   Episode Resources: → Grief & Loss Episode Archive: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss → Share Your Story: https://ever-changing.net/contact Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e9-insights-into-grief-and-loss _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Shame Piñata: Creating Rites of Passage for Real-Life Transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Browse Previous Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Opening & closing music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

You're invited to check out two additional offerings from the Shame Piñata team: Everyday Magic for Ukraine, short weekly meditations for Ukrainian allies that support you as you support Ukraine 10 Minutes for Your Heart, a 10-part limited meditation series for Ukrainians - now available in both English and Ukrainian Join us for one or both!   Learn More: → Everyday Magic for Ukraine: https://ever-changing.net/daily-magic  → 10 Minutes for Your Heart: https://10minutesforyourheart.com    _________________ Follow 10 Minutes for Your Heart → Show Website: https://10minutesforyourheart.com  → Listen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL16dvREXasBenBRzctOlGT1WLLHUhXQci → Media Kit: https://ever-changing.net/media-kit-10-minutes-for-your-heart  → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meditations.for.ukrainians/  _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Weddings are more than just a celebration. They are markers of a profound life transition that affects not only the couple but also their families and community. Today we reflect on the full range of emotions that can accompany this pivotal rite of passage and learn how our guests made room for them in the wedding time.    Episode Resources: → Authentic Weddings Episode Archive: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → The Conscious Bride: https://conscious-transitions.com/books/  → Share Your Story: https://ever-changing.net/contact     Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e8-insights-into-authentic-weddings    _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Imagine navigating the journey of life with the power of ritual in your hand. From births and weddings to grief and personal growth, each change shapes who we are. Today we reflect on five seasons of conversations with ritual makers and look at how they have use the tool of ritual to heal, grow, and transform.    Episode Resources: → Rites of Passage Episode Archive: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Share Your Story: https://ever-changing.net/contact    Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e7-insights-into-rites-of-passage    _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

How can we honor our youth as they come of age in ways that are strengthened by tradition and also allow their unique spark to shine? What would happen if we let them tell us what they need and co-created ceremony with them? Join us as we hear the story of the Emergence Ceremony that bridged into a powerful transformation for the entire family. Episode Resources: → SoulShine Life with April: https://soulshinelife.com/ → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulshinelifeyoga    Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e6-the-emergence-ceremony    _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Being part of a religious or spiritual community can be a wonderful support in life. Shared customs and traditions can bring comfort, connection, and a shared experience of the Divine. But what role does ritual play in all of this and how does it help us connect to the Divine? Join us for an exploration of Baptism as a Rite of Passage - from both sides of the pulpit.    Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e5-baptism-as-a-rite-of-passage   _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Imagine being able to attend a bold and beautiful theater performance that gives voice to a path you might know all too well, a path of healing from the impacts of violence or trauma. Imagine what that might feel like in your core, to see someone go on a journey similar to yours and get to the other side of it. (This is part 2 of a 2-part interview with Alina Zievakova.)   Episode Resources: → Blooming - Watch the Performance (47:49) https://www.scenesaver.co.uk/production/bloom-in-violence/ (Registration is free and only takes a few minutes)   → Part 1 of This Interview: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e3-blooming-amidst-the-war-pt-1     Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e4-blooming-amidst-the-war-pt-2   _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Imagine having a silent witness, a partner who is with you all the time, even when you go through the hardest moments of your life. Imagine not being alone but instead being held, accompanied, supported. What might that feel like in your heart, in your body, in your bones? (This is part 1 of a 2-part interview with Alina ZIevakova.)   Episode Resources: → Blooming - Watch the Performance (47:49) https://www.scenesaver.co.uk/production/bloom-in-violence/ (Registration is free and only takes a few minutes)   Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e3-blooming-amidst-the-war-pt-1  _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

So it's the big day. The day of the Techno Cosmic Wedding. With your virtual invitation in hand, you walk into the venue. Prayer flags hang from the ceiling above you. A set of handmade neon signs rests neatly in the window ledge, spelling out “Marry Me Colleen” The neon question mark at the end is no longer working, but that's okay because she said yes.   Episode Resources: → Matthew Fox: https://www.matthewfox.org/  → Michelle Jordan: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.jordan.9461  → "I Am Not Afraid" Song: https://www.daraackerman.com/new-album-skyland  → A Joyful Wedding Can Still Make Room for Grief: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/07/31/joyful-wedding-can-still-make-room-grief/  → “We Have Come to be Danced” Poem: https://alicewalkersgarden.com/2019/10/hard-times-require-furious-dancing-we-have-come-to-be-danced-jewel-mathieson/    Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e2-techno-cosmic-wedding-2  _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

What would you think if you received an invitation to attend to something called a Techno Cosmic Wedding? Would you be curious? Avoidant? Undecided? What if it was framed as a post-modern, rave-inspired event where your whole self was welcome. How would you feel then?   Episode Resources: → Matthew Fox: https://www.matthewfox.org/  → The Cosmic Mass: https://www.thecosmicmass.com/  → A Joyful Wedding Can Still Make Room for Grief: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/07/31/joyful-wedding-can-still-make-room-grief/    Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s5-e1-techno-cosmic-wedding-1  _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Join us on YouTube for a new audio mediation series! "10 Minutes for Your Heart" is a trauma-sensitive meditation series specifically designed for Ukrainian listeners. The series, hosted by a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher, offers 10-minute sessions to explore power, passion, and essential life-force. The meditations focus on connecting with breath, body, and personal power, providing flexibility for listeners to decide how they want to participate and what their body needs in the moment. Presented in English with transcripts available in both English and Ukrainian, the series aims to create a safe and supportive space for listeners to engage in healing and self-discovery. English level B2/C1 suggested. ----

Episode Summary: What happens when shame stops us in our tracks? When we find ourselves in freeze mode and realize that it's actually shame that's holding us there? How do we break the spell and move through that paralysis - and what if there is a way to release that shame back to wherever it came from?   Episode Resources: → Sheila Rubin: https://www.sheilarubin.com/  → The Center for Healing Shame: https://healingshame.com  → New Book: Embracing Shame: How to Stop Resisting Shame and Turn It Into a Powerful Ally: https://healingshame.com/embracing-shame    Episode Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s4-e9-embracing-shame _________________ Libsyn Promo Code: Get up to 2 months of free podcasting service with Libsyn! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=PINATA Get your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, get helpful stats, and get podcasting! _________________ Episodes by Topic: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer 

Episode Title: S4 E8 How Long Does Grief Take? (Irisanya Moon)   Episode Summary: A significant loss can come in many shapes and sizes and has the power to change us at a fundamental level. That rebirthing we go through after a big loss is so important and can also be so painful. Two questions that can often come to mind are: “How long will this take?” and “Can I make it through?”   Episode Resources: → Irisanya Moon: https://www.irisanyamoon.com  → New Book: https://www.irisanyamoon.com/store/p19/norns-weavers-of-fate-and-magick.html → Transcript: https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s4-e8-how-long-does-grief-take _________________ Additional Episodes: → Episodes on Rites of Passage: https://ever-changing.net/rites-of-passage  → Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings  → Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss  → Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times  _________________ Shame Piñata: Creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Stories from people who have used ceremony to create authentic weddings, make it through hard times, honor deep loss, or reinvent themselves.  _________________ Follow Shame Piñata → Show Website: https://shamepinata.com → Subscribe in Your Favorite Player: https://kite.link/shamepinata → Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shame-pi%C3%B1ata/id1493325872 → Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2F8tCPhyIW5AEQFLKLhuoi → Google Podcasts:  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGFtZXBpbmF0YS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw== → YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shamepinata → RSS Feed: http://shamepinata.libsyn.com/rss → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamepinata → Rate/Review: https://ever-changing.net/rate-sp _________________ Listen If → You're feeling stuck → You're going through a tough time → Something significant has happened and no one gets it _________________ Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes. Learn more at https://shamepinata.com    _________________ Disclaimers: https://ever-changing.net/disclaimer

We love to be in control. We love to know what's going to happen, how long it will last, and what effects it will have on us. But what if, like a tree in the wind, flexibility and surrender are our greatest tools? What if discomfort can be our friend? Music by Terry Hughes   Links: Irisanya Moon   Rate This Podcast Also Check Out:   Additional Episodes on Making it Through Tough Times     Love Shame Piñata? Subscribe on iTunes Follow on Spotify Follow on Podchaser Follow on Instagram Connect on Facebook

The first year after a significant loss can be so hard. As the wheel turns and the light changes, visceral memories can arise of this time last year when things were different. How do we create space for our hearts as we go through a year of firsts?   Music by Terry Hughes Image credit Bruce Tang   Links: If you or someone you know is in an emotional crisis, reach out to the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.   Shelter in Place Podcast   Rate This Podcast Also Check Out:   Surviving a Recent Loss

Finding our right work can be a journey. In our life, we may have had many jobs, explored many paths. What might it feel like to live your passion, to bring your full self to your work? If you listen very carefully, is your heart actually telling you which way to go?   Music by Terry Hughes Links:   Wild Hearts Rise Up Rate This Podcast Also Check Out:   Do You Need a Ceremony? (Significant Moments) Do You Need a Ceremony? (Reinventing Ourselves) Do You Need a Ceremony? (The Deep Dive) Daily Magic for Peace Ways to Support Ukraine   Full Transcript   Mandelberg: There's nothing about you that you've decided is true that you can't choose differently. If you're willing to get curious about all those decisions and conclusions you have about who you are or what you're capable of… curiosity is like the key to life.   Finding our right work can be a journey. In our life, we may have had many jobs, explored many paths. What might it feel like to live your passion, to bring your full self to your work? If you listen very carefully, is your heart actually telling you which way to go?    This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. There are so many rites of passage in our complex, multi-faceted lives. Birthdays, weddings, new jobs, relationships starting and ending. One rite of passage we haven't spent much time on yet is finding our right work, starting a business venture that comes from the heart.    You might already have such a business venture, or perhaps it's something that sounds good but it's miles away. If the latter is you, then you're in luck. Today's guest Molly Mandelberg is going to walk us through her story of becoming a coach and ritualist practitioner. I have to warn you that Molly's enthusiasm is infectious. She is a very talented coach by nature and she will open up your mind and your heart to possibilities you didn't even know existed.    Thomas: I guess what I would ask you is…  would you take me into your story?   Mandelberg: Yeah, so one of the biggest transformations that I've gone through in my life was actually starting my business and stepping into more of a leadership role, I think, in my life. And while that was directly related to my clients, it also has spilled over into my relationships with my friends, my family, my communities that I've decided to partake in or involve myself with. And yeah… I wrote a whole book about this story of, kind of what I had to go through are the big turning points and lessons that I've learned, but who I was 10 years ago before ever starting my business was sheltered, and hiding… somebody actually used the term “hunted” about my energy once and I was kind of a prickly person, I was easily triggerable, I was very unconvinced of my self worth. I was kind of angry and hurt and had lots of trauma that was still unprocessed.    And I think that we as humans often go through a transformational period around 29 to 32, during our Saturn Return anyway, but it happened that I started my business right before that Saturn Return. So there is this real big wave of personal development and personal growth and I've always been someone who is interested in the bigger picture of who I am in this body on this earth and what that really means. But it wasn't until my late 20's when I started looking at, “Can I help people?”, and “Am I capable of doing that, of being a contribution in other people's lives? And do I want to make my life kinda about that by becoming a coach or holistic practitioner?” And there was a lot of stuff that came up to stop me. A lot of places where I thought, “I shouldn't. I can't. No one's gonna pay me for that,” or “I should just go back and get a j.o.b.”    And through investing in mentorship and through taking the journey of really looking at what is that limiting belief and do I want to allow that to continue stopping me or do I want to choose something different now? Studying a bunch of different modalities of healing practices and techniques, and also really kind of for the first time in my life immersing myself in larger community and actually surrounding myself with people who are doing work similar to that of looking at the shadow and looking at what we desire and what we think is limiting us from getting there, from reaching for it, from actualizing that in our lives. Yeah, I've had some close friends who are on similar sort of parallel paths to mine, that believed in me before I believed in myself. They saw who I was becoming before I had an awareness of what that was. And choosing to trust them and what they saw in me when I didn't have that yet, was like really the one of the things that kept me from giving up or quitting or going back to some other life.    And now I get to run a beautiful business that lights me up from the inside out, while traveling the world and knowing that, at least in some people's lives, I'm making a really big difference. And I can acknowledge that like, plainly and honestly, that there's no doubt in my mind that I'm doing something of value now. Because I was willing to go and look at that stuff and keep moving forward through it, I think.   Thomas: Can you take us into, like, a moment when you were facing something difficult? Like a specific moment or time that you remember when you were still working through that process? What did that look like?   Mandelberg: Yeah, absolutely. So I had a moment where I was ready to quit, I was ready to quit my business, I was ready to go back to… I… before my business, I was nomadic Vagabond hippie aimless and working kind of jobs that I hated so that I could just get enough money just to get back on the road and go on another adventure. And I was looking at, “Okay, I, I'm not making enough money in my business to support myself…” I was about a year and a year and a half in… and “I'm tired of trying, I'm tired of it not working. I'm tired of not having the magic recipe that makes this successful or makes my efforts worthwhile.” And I kind of had this beautiful sisterhood of a couple of friends who were in a business training program that I was in, and I told them, “Hey, like, I'm gonna get a job like, I can't do this anymore.” And they said, you know, “We get it. We've been there. We see you.” And their advice to me or their recommendation, their hope for me was to just wait a week, because a lot of times when we're in the emotional throes of something that we feel like we can't face, that's not the time to make big life changes are big choices that are going to change your path.    Sometimes those are the times to just sit with it and feel the feelings and notice the emotions and maybe write down all the stories that are buzzing through your your head. But that's not the time to upend your whole life when you're in the midst of it. And so I did. I waited a week. And again, those were the people who saw something in me that I couldn't see yet. And so I was sort of looking at: What do they see? What is that that they're aware of that I haven't been willing to claim, own, or acknowledged yet? And it happens that in that week, a couple of people signed up for a session. A couple of those sessions turned into packages. My financial reality dramatically shifted in the span of a week or a week and a half. And I was doubling down on my business, I was like, “Okay, that's evidence to me that I'm moving in the right direction and I'm going to do with whatever the heck it takes to step into that, to step into whatever they're aware of, to step into my own discovery of what that is and what I can be.” But yeah, it was… it's emotionally challenging to run a business where you're basically selling yourself. You have to look at, “Do I believe in what I'm doing?” which is “Do I believe in me?” and we're not… most of us are not raised or programmed by the society to believe that we're worthwhile, or at least I wasn't. And so it took a lot of courage to start saying, “You know what I can, and I'm going to try and I'm going to unpack whatever story that is that says I shouldn't or I can't.”   Thomas: That's wonderful. I love that waiting a week. That's… I'm going to use that. That's a huge bit of wisdom there. That's amazing.   Mandelberg: Yea, it sounds simple. But it does make a difference.    Thomas: Well, my second question is then, now that you're on the other side of the rite of passage, what is your life like? And what is your work like? And how do you show up in your work?    Mandelberg: Yeah, so I run a six figure business out of a sprinter van. I haven't given up the hippie Vagabond side of me, I just gave up the starving artists part of that. I make art. I write books. I have two podcasts. I have, I think, nine or ten different programs that I run. Usually, I'm only running about five or six in a year but I have a bunch of online courses and creations. I am on all different kinds of platforms and people  thank me for my work. People show up to classes or workshops that I teach from all over the world. And I literally thrive on getting to do the work that I'm doing. I feel like I get paid to be myself more so than I get paid to do some service that I've come up with. And my brain works in kind of an interesting way. Because I have that heart-centered, spiritual emotional awareness of what I think how the universe works in my interesting point of view. And then I also have this kind of engineering brain of like tactics and strategy and pieces of the puzzle coming together and using automation and stuff like that. So I get to use both of those expertises, kind of, in my business where I'm helping people bridge that world of, you know, we're doing really deep, powerful work, but we have to use these really technological strategies to get the word out about them. And how do we do that without falling out of alignment with who we really are? So yeah, I get to live my passion which is creative. It's location independent. It's getting to see and be with the people that I love, no matter where they are in the world. Like, my mom was just going through a health kind of crisis issue the last few months and I got to just drive up to Oregon and spend that time with her and have her back while she was going through that, with absolutely no question in my mind that that's where I was going next. There was nothing else I had to move around to make that possible. And to get to live a life where that is something I can do with ease is, like, really extraordinary to me.   Thomas: Definitely. I'm curious how ritual played a part in your rite of passage. Was there a moment when you did a certain kind of ceremony or small ceremonies, or…   Mandelberg: Oh yeah. There's been lots of ways I've participated in… I mean, I've run my own women's circles and had… attended medicine ceremonies, and many gatherings that were deeply powerful for me. And also a big one for me is daily ritual and having sort of ceremony in my regular life. Every single day, I write before I get out of bed in the morning. I write before I go to bed at night and that is like, that's my spiritual practice, that's my mental health practice. That's where I connect to, you know, mantras and affirmations and gratitude and I'd say a gratitude practice is like the biggest tool that I've used over the years to keep my vibe where it needs to be, to keep… to pull me out of depression if that comes up. To raise, just raise me to the frequency I want to be living on. And then meditation has been a really like ongoing practice that sometimes I fall out of and then go back to and my goodness when I'm back on the wagon of meditating every day… And it is such a huge life hack, like the downloads and the insights and the information and the like peace and calm that's available with a meditation practice. I know I'm, like strumming a very old harp here, but it is so valuable and so life changing, in my opinion. So I think it's a combination of the daily rituals and practices that I have and then absolutely, I've had some, the, like, deep child stories of… I had sort of a evil stepfather when I was growing up and a lot of the work around that has been done in ceremony too and looking at my relationship patterns and who I be and in relation to other people and how I interact and how I'd like to be in those places. And sort of discovering what's the first step in changing that pattern? And finding that sort of throughline through ceremony and through sitting with healers. And I mean, shamanic journeying without medicine, and also with medicine, has been, yeah, a big catalyst in my growth. Absolutely.   Thomas: And is ritual something that you use with your clients at all?   Mandelberg: Definitely. Yeah. I mean, when I started my business, I was doing hypnotherapy. So I was using that as sort of a ritual and practice, also, but I bring in guided meditation and visualization. And we talk about the kinds of habits we're building and the ways that we're tending to our energy. A lot in my group programs, while we're talking about really strategic stuff, like hiring an assistant or, you know, using your email list well, or, you know, building out your next course or program, that is also happening simultaneously with the conversation about the energetics of who we're being and how that's magnetizing people to our businesses. So, yeah.   Thomas:  As you're speaking, I'm getting a sense of so much intention, like intention with yourself in your heart, in your own practice in building your own life, your own work life and your life the way you want it to be, and then providing that to the people that you mentor and coach. It's really…. it's really inspiring.   Mandelberg: Yeah, I think intention is everything. Yeah, I think our reality is so much about the being and not as much as we think about the doing. And it's super important to pay attention to that I think…and and that, to recognize that we get to choose, we get to choose what we desire and focus our energy on that and that intentionality can change our entire life.   [MUSIC]   If you enjoy Shame Piñata, consider checking out our second show. It's called Daily Magic for Peace and it's a totally different kind of show. Each episode invites you to grab an item and do a simple ritual for peace in Ukraine. Episodes are less than 10 minutes long with a focus on calming the nervous system and keeping your heart open. You can find Daily Magic for Peace wherever you're listening to this podcast.   Thomas: One thing I wanted to ask you is that you spoke about broadening into community and trusting community more as you were growing. And I'm curious how your experience of community may be different now than it was before.   Mandelberg: Oh, yeah, totally. I had the story that I have to do it all myself, that no one is safe, and that I'm alone. And so I had this, I still have kind of this fierce independence to me. But it was a chip on my shoulder before and now it's a quality that I have access to more than anything. And, yeah, it took some trying, and it took some experimentation to find communities that I did feel safe and held in, to find a sense of belonging in those places. And that alone is a huge growth experience to go from. I know so many of us sort of far-out healers and holistic practitioners and like, just tuned-in people feel like we're alone in the world. And that, you know, if we get too visible, or get too loud about who we truly are, that we have that witch-wound that says, “Oh, no, you're going to be, you know, ostracized for this.” And finding places where you do feel safe to be all of you, where you feel safe to be in your bigness and your most magical and weird self and be accepted and adored and like high-fived and celebrated for that. That's a game changer, to not just be witnessed, but to be surrounded by people who get that side of you and maybe resonate to the same frequency is eye-opening, especially for me first as someone who…    I was raised in kind of a Christian community, not community, but the town I was in had a lot of Christian people growing up. And my mom raised us believing in like the Law of Attraction and the Akashic Record, and she used to channel and all this stuff. And so she kind of told me as a kid, you know, “We talked about this stuff at home, but we, it would probably be better if you don't talk about it with your friends.” And I carried that probably too far out into my adulthood of, “I have this weird, magical view on reality, but it's better if I just don't tell anyone about it, because people who disagree might, you know, shame me for it or make it wrong or not want to be around me because I have these weird views.” And so it took some time to deprogram that, but finally being in places where I feel that sense of belonging - and I know that that's possible for literally anyone out there. There is no kind of weird that's so weird, that it's not shared by at least a few other people. Which is why things like Comic Con are so cool. It's like, in school you were  probably a nerd and now you have all these people who think you're awesome for that thing. That's worth finding! There's websites like meetup dot com. There's all kinds of gatherings that exist in you know, the online space but also in person in different cities and communities that it's worth doing some research and going to show up to things like that, that maybe seem uncomfortable at first to see if you can find your your village, your sort of like-minded friends. Because it's easy to convince ourselves if those people haven't come across us in our lives, that we're the weirdo, that we're the odd man out. And the truth is, yeah, there's a lot of community available for any kind of person I think. And it takes courage to go and dig into that but it's so worth it. It's so worth it to not feel alone. We're not a kind of animal that's meant to be alone.   Thomas: No, it's like a matter of health and survival for us to actually…   Mandelberg: Hugely. Connection is vital to life.   Before we ended our conversation, I asked Molly if there was any last bit of wisdom she wanted to share with us.    Mandelberg: Question everything. “Is this true about me? You know, what would be the opposite of this? Is there evidence to show that that's also true?” You know, “What do I want to be right now? How would I like to be feeling? What would excite me? What can I add into my life right now that would just feel better or change to the game?” And then one of the things I say at the end of my podcast every time is, “Ask big questions!” …so that's a curiosity piece. And “Take bold actions!” So like show up. Try something new. Go exploring. Become the like, explore discovering your life every single day. And yeah… “You're here for a reason” is the last thing I say in my sort of sign off. Because I think it's true. I don't think people come into these bodies by accident. And it could be to change one life, and it could be to change a lot of lives, but it could just be to change your own life and learn, you know, what more you're capable of being and perceiving and actualizing for yourself. But that stuff is worth showing up for.   Molly's story, Molly's journey, and the passion she shows for her work are inspiring. I'm going to leave you with her wonderful list of questions. I encourage you, if you have a moment, now or later on today, maybe sit with them for a bit and see what downloads you get: What do I want to be right now?  How would I like to be feeling?  What would excite me?  What more am I capable of?    Molly Mandelberg is the Founder of Wild Hearts Rise Up, Creator of “Magnetic Influencer Collective” and also the writer and illustrator of "The Wild Hearts Rise Up Oracle Deck". Molly works with coaches, healers, and conscious leaders to broadcast their messages with ease, so they can reach more people, and make more money with less time spent.   Our music is by Terry Hughes. Find us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata, reach us through our website, shamepinata.com and subscribe to the show on your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

When someone passes away, the loss can bring us to our knees metaphorically - and sometimes literally. When it's literal, that's the body talking, echoing the heart. Crying can be like that too. Today we look at intention, death, and tears.   Music by Terry Hughes   Links: Married & Manifesting   Rate This Podcast     Also Check Out: Surviving a Recent Loss The Un-Baby Shower     Full Transcript   Kluttz: I just feel so at peace with what happened now and I just think that some of my family members are not there yet, and so I try to be careful about what I say because I don't want to dishonor their grief if it's taking them, you know, longer than it took me because everybody has their own journey in it.   When someone passes away, the loss can bring us to our knees - metaphorically  and sometimes literally. When it's literal, that's the body talking, echoing the heart. Crying can be like that too. Today we look at intention, death, and tears.   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today I would like to introduce you to Ryan Klutz, a Women's Marriage Coach based in Southern California. Ryan's work was recommended to me by a friend who really admires how intentional she is.    Kluttz: I get up at about 5:15 so that I can have a solid hour, hour and a half to myself because I don't like to talk when I wake up and I don't want anyone talking to me either. So instead of forcing my family to be silent when they wake up, I get up early so that I can have that time and space to myself. And then I get to journal and meditate and drink my tea and then I take our puppy for a walk. And by then I'm ready to function on some level and, you know, if we run into someone who wants to interact with her or has a dog, you know, I'm fully ready to have a conversation with another human being. And then I come inside and everybody is starting to get up. And that's definitely the most important piece for me. So yeah, starting off the morning, doing journaling and meditating and then making sure that I have little bits of mindfulness throughout the day to keep it going.   Thomas: Do you have lists or things put around the house to remind you to drop into that place?   Kluttz: I put it in my list of things to do for my daily tasks for work because I've… Yeah, someone pointed out to me that because if I do struggle with that, then the place where I don't struggle is my to do list. And so if it's on my list, I'll do it. And that's what's been happening. [LAUGHS]   Thomas: Nice, nice. I just had this random memory pop in my mind of when I was working at a new job and I had a big list of things to do to remember how to do everything as I was being trained and I was very nervous. I stepped away from the desk, and I came back and somebody had written… somebody had seen my list, which I felt a little bit embarrassed about that somebody had seen that I had this list, and they wrote, “Do a little dance” at the end of it. [LAUGHS] So I did a dance and I checked it off. And I yelled, “I did a little dance!”   Kluttz: That's great. Yeah, that's, that's kind of the types of pushes that I need. You know, my husband will sometimes come out of the bedroom and see me hunched over my desk, and he'll try to gently say, “Maybe you should take a break. Maybe you should go meditate or something.” And normally what I was doing before was brushing it off and, you know, kind of feeling like “Don't boss me around.” Even though he wasn't, you know, he wasn't bossing me around. He was making a suggestion and trying… because he could see that that could be something that would be helpful for me in the moment. But I get… I would get tunnel vision on what I was doing. And so now, and this is just really within the last couple of weeks, because my grandpa passed away at the end of February. And it really… as difficult as it was to deal with at first. I mean, he was 96, so it wasn't like we were completely shocked about it, you know, we were just sort of enjoying the time that we had with him while he was still here. But when he actually passed away, it allowed me to see things differently. And to start recognizing that as much as I love to check off boxes and complete tasks, is that what I want to be able to be to say that I did when I potentially reach 96 years old? Or do I want to have, you know, I really enjoyed myself. And that was one of those things that I've read and seen… that list of the Top Five Regrets of the Dying. I'm fully aware of the idea of enjoying your life and I do implement a lot of pieces of those ideas but it just sunk in on a deeper level.   So when Ryan and I first met to chat and get to know each other before the interview, we thought it would be wonderful to have her come on Shame Piñata and speak about rite of passage she had been through with her husband and offer some perspective in the realm of conscious marriage. However, during the interview when she shared about the loss of her grandpa, the energy just kind of changed and I think we both knew that that was what needed to be spoken about that day. So you're going to hear more about Ryan's Ryan's grandpa Jack. And I want to give you a heads up that her grandpa passed in kind of a sudden and kind of a sad way.    Kluttz: He was still skiing at 93. My dad actually had to go visit him in Maine where he lived by himself in the middle of the woods with just his dog and say, you know, “Hey, I think it might be time for you to not ski anymore given your age and, you know, the fragility of your bones possibly …” And I thought that was funny. And I know at 94, he learned to ride a snowmobile… And he was just constantly doing things. And one of the things… my husband and I asked him what the secret to life was, and he said, “Never sit down.” And, you know, we took that to mean exactly how he was - he was always doing activities and enjoying himself, you know, because he talks about how other people who were also WWII vets, they passed away sooner because once they retired, they just stopped doing anything, because they felt for some reason that, you know, retirement meant doing nothing. And he was still driving, still plowing other people's driveways for them when it would snow because he lived in Maine and snows a lot. Winter is very long in Maine. So yeah, he was just a really incredible human being and for me to have... As sad as I can get that he's gone, the ability to use that grief to change my own behavioral patterns has been really, really powerful. And so I'm grateful for that. And I'm also grateful that he gets to be with my grandma now, because she passed away almost 12 years ago, and he really, really missed her still. So it's just sort of like a completion and I've become accustomed to grief and so I just wanted to start to sort of use it instead of fight it.   Thomas: Hmm. Can you say more about that, about using it?   Kluttz: Yeah, I mean, I definitely, you know, when I found out… it wasn't… It was an accident, actually. He had been plowing people's driveways and he pulled his truck into the garage, shut the garage door, went in the house, and went about his evening, had dinner and everything and then went to bed. He never turned his truck off.    Thomas: Oh, wow.    Kluttz: And so his… his bedroom was right beside the garage, basically just down a little hallway. And so carbon monoxide got into the house. And so he did go peacefully in his sleep. He blocked… the dog past as well. She was a very sweet dog. And so I allowed myself to have that time of just feeling the grief, just allowing the sadness to come out however it wanted to come out. I took off a few days and let myself just do whatever I felt like doing which ended up being part of the way that I saw I could be allowing myself to be doing way more of what I want to do on top of building the career that I'm working on. And so once I was able to let that part pass, it became, you know, the sort of the things I mentioned earlier of how do I want to feel about my life if I reach 96? Or, you know, whenever it's the end for me, how do I want to feel? And I don't think that I would be proud of myself to say, “Well, I checked off all my boxes”, you know… So I just started to sort of pivot and and be inspired by his life instead of being… instead of continuing to be sad, you know. I'll always miss him. But I felt like, for the first time, in losing someone, I really felt like I could ask myself the question, “How can this serve me?” Because going forward, you know, we all lose people in our lives and I can fully sit with the idea that you have to let the emotions pass, but I also want to learn from it. So that was a way for me to learn from the grief itself, what can I pull into my life that I loved about him? And that way, he, you know, continues to live on.   Thomas: Definitely. That's so beautiful.    [MUSIC]   If you enjoy Shame Piñata, consider checking out Daily Magic for Peace. Daily Magic for Peace is a totally different kind of show that invites you to grab an item and do a simple ritual for peace in Ukraine. Episodes are less than 10 minutes long with a focus on calming the nervous system and keeping your heart open. You can find Daily Magic for Peace wherever you're listening to this podcast.   Thomas: It's so rare for people to give themselves permission to feel the grief when they lose somebody and especially what we've been experiencing with COVID, I think we've all become sort of extra numb to… It's been so overwhelming and it's been difficult. And then there's the personal and there's the collective and there's the global and there's so many layers to it. So I think even now, it's even more amazing when people can give themselves the time to really feel. So healthy.   Kluttz: Yeah. I mean, within the last year, I think people either were forced to feel, or, you know, just tried even harder to push it down, which is super difficult when you're stuck at home and you don't get to see anybody. But yeah, that's part of what I teach is letting your emotions out. Because someone once said to me, “What comes up must come out.” And if we don't address it… and I think people get scared when they think of, “Oh, I'm going to address my emotions.” And I learned several years ago that our emotions are really just feedback about how we're feeling. And it's not, I think we tend to feel like, the way I feel right now is I'm going to feel for the rest of my life, if I let it out. I'm scared of letting it out. And if we do let it out, it passes so much more quickly. It's been a week and a half and I really miss him, but I don't get choked up when I talk about him anymore. And you know, a few days ago, I still was, so I just give myself the time and space to let it out. And now I can feel the acceptance and the peace and the joy of who he was and the connection that we had. And I'm also really happy with the relationship that we had. Because, you know, sometimes when someone passes away, you immediately think of all the things that you should have done or that you wish you had more time for. And I felt completely at peace with the fact that we visited him, I called him, we emailed, and I texted him pictures of our daughters and our dog because he really loved dogs. And so I didn't have that feeling of, “Oh, I wish we would have, you know, seen him more.” You know, we did a lot and we actually were planning on seeing him this summer. So there was a part of me that was missing that and was, you know, because… even though he was 96, I really hadn't even thought about the possibility of not seeing him this summer. And so that was actually probably one of the hardest parts of the grief for me was accepting that. But yeah, I agree that a lot of people don't allow them to sit…   don't allow themselves to sit with their emotions and I think it's just kind of a societal norm that you need to just suck it up. Keep on going.   As the interview went on, our conversation turned to the power of tears, how they help us, cleanse us, rebirth us. How they are a physical process highlighting our body's innate ability to heal and self-regulate. And we both acknowledged times when we didn't want to cry out of a desire to protect someone else.    Kluttz: Actually just… four days after I found out, I was listening to soothing music laying on the couch and like going in and out of crying as my, my girls were sitting on the couch watching a movie. And I wanted to be able to let it out but I didn't want to…. I didn't really want to talk to them about it in the moment. So I was, you know, sort of in this in-between place where I know, it's okay for me to cry in front of them, but I just kind of want to lay here and let it out. And as you know, the tears were coming out, it felt like, I had this thought of, “This as a physical manifestation of just my body needing to release these emotions.” And it's really powerful.   Thomas: And then if we follow it and let it happen, you know, if it's a safe enough place, or we're just able to go there, let ourselves just drop into that, it can really just do what it needs to do.    Kluttz: Yeah, it's just it feels counterintuitive to do that. Thomas: Yeah. Have you noticed your tears being different for different kinds of crying ever?   Kluttz: Actually, no. I have not noticed that. But I feel like the next time I cry about something, I will start to pay attention. Like, you know, how it feels when they're when they're coming out. That's very interesting.   Thomas: When I'm really emotionally attached to something, and I'm really like, “This is unfair!” … and I'm creating, like a lot of content, that my tears are sort of small and hot. But then I had this other experience where it's some… I don't remember what even what it was, but a couple of times something was just breaking my heart that was just… it sort of had a beautiful quality to it. It wasn't like tears of joy, but it was just… there was a lot of selfless feeling to it…. an innocence. I don't know how to explain it, but the tears were, like, cool and large. And they just had such a different feeling to them. And I was like, “Wow, this is crazy! My body creates…. I cry different apparently depending on, like, what I'm processing.”   Kluttz: I've never noticed the difference in temperature. But I guess the amount that comes out sometimes can differ. I actually… when I watched a live stream of the funeral and you know, I have… I had already allowed so much of my grief to come out that when other people were speaking and crying… especially my dad when he was speaking, because he was the second oldest but my uncle that was the oldest died in a plane crash, gosh, almost 20 years ago now. So he's been the oldest for a while and so he spoke and it was a good mix of sad and then light things that made people chuckle. And I had my husband makes fun of it when they show it in movies, but I'd had one single tear went down! And then other times, it's like across your whole bottom of your eye and it feels like it's just like gushing, but I don't know what the difference is as far as how I'm feeling when those things happen or when other things happen. So I'm gonna definitely watch out for that.   I'm glad that you got to spend this time with us and that you got to meet Ryan and hear a bit of her story. And I hope that your relationship with your own tears is a connected and loving one. The people we love are such a gift and losing them can be so very hard, like a hole ripped into the tapestry that is us. I encourage you to be as gentle as you can with yourself today if you are going through a recent loss and know you're not alone.    Ryan Kluttz is a marriage advocate teaching women to empower themselves in their own marriages. She has been married herself for 16 years and knows what it takes to make it amazing. Ryan currently lives in Southern California with her husband, two daughters, and their puppy. Find her work at https://www.marriedandmanifesting.com    Our music is by Terry Hughes. Find us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata, reach us through our website, shamepinata.com. And subscribe to the show on your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Today we revisit one of our most popular episodes, an early interview with Sheryl Paul, author of "The Conscious Bride". Sheryl's work allows us to reflect on how the pain, grief, discomfort, and vulnerability that can arise throughout the wedding process can actually be doorways into joy if we are willing to let them in.    Music by Terry Hughes   Links: Sheryl Paul's work The Conscious Bride Shelter in Place Podcast   Also Check Out: Inviting Grief to the Wedding My Self-Marriage Story   Rate This Podcast Full Transcript   Paul: I'm always interested in what's not being talked about what people are experiencing, but are trying to stuff away, trying to sequester, trying to sweep into the corner under the rug... when all that does is create shame and all that does is create anxiety.   Sheryl Paul has a unique ability to see the invisible, to see what has been silenced. Her book "The Conscious Bride" has been helping couples prepare for marriage for 20 years - and prepare in a very specific way. Her work helps couples create room for all of the emotions that come with transition, not just the picture perfect ones. Funny thing is, that allows for even more joy. Join me for a conversation with Sheryl Paul.   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. When I got engaged six years ago, a good friend of mine gave me a book called "The Conscious Bride". Now, I'm not a reader, as my husband will tell you, but I devoured this book. I loved it because it touched on the shadow, the stuff we don't talk about, the stuff that gets in our way when we want to feel one way but actually feel a myriad of other ways all at the same time. It named the shadow that hovers over the wedding: the attachment, the fear, the uncertainty, the hidden power-struggles and the grief that lies beneath them, and that a big part of stepping into a new life is letting go of the old one - and not just for the couple. The Conscious Bride gave me permission to feel all the ways, and it helped me create room for everyone else to feel all the ways too, so ultimately, we could all process the transition without getting into weird fights about random things. I was so happy to have a chance to speak with Sheryl Paul.    Thomas: So what led you to write this book?   Paul: So, I was in a master's program around that time. I was at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, which I don't know if you're familiar with, but it has a very strong Jungian focus. And I had always been interested in rites of passages and I had a deep sense that there was a lot that was not being talked about around the wedding. And I started to interview women and I did a lot of interviews, especially when it came time to write the book, which came from my master's thesis. So it started out as as a thesis and then evolve into a book. And I started to see that there was a big gap in the cultural conversation around around transitions in general. All transitions are bypassed and overlooked, but particularly the wedding and then in particular, how much focus there is on the joy and the perfection and everything has to be blissful and ecstatic from the moment of the proposal into the first year of the wedding, and there was just no conversation happening about the shadow, about the death experience, about what women (and men) are actually experiencing quite a bit of a time. And, you know, the more I researched and the more I looked and the more I spoke, the more it became quite clear to me that just that again, that there was a real gap in the conversation around this pivotal rite of passage, one of our few ceremonies that we still invoke in the culture. And yet it's done in such a way where we really gloss over the element of a transition, of the reality that when you are in transition, you are in a death experience, you are in a liminal zone, you are between identities, you are letting go, you are grieving. And we only expect people to feel joyful. It creates a lot of anxiety and it creates even more chaos than there naturally would be around an event like this. Because I'm feeling sad, because I have a sense of loss, because I feel like a part of me is dying, because I'm not over-the-moon ecstatic... something must be wrong with me, or with my partner, or with the decision to get married - something's wrong. And it's an incredibly deep sigh of relief to the soul to know that nothing is wrong. In fact, the more you let those difficult feelings in, the more you will open to the joy; that the pain and the grief and the discomfort and vulnerability are the doorways into the joy, into what we are expected to see all and into what we hope to feel. And what I started to say earlier was that that the wedding more than any other transition, I think, has (probably being pregnant becoming a mother comes close) carries a very strong cultural expectation of unilateral joy and it is supported in a big way by the wedding industry that sells perfection and sells joy. So it's a it's very big money behind selling us the bill of goods by selling us this message that you are supposed to be joyful and the way to do that is to create a perfect event.   Thomas: How do you work with someone if they're just starting to realize that they don't have to only feel joyful?   Paul: So, I tell them to read my book. And, you know, it's really the first part it's about re educating people to understand all of the normal and necessary feelings that accompany this transition. And once they understand that everything they're feeling is normal and necessary, they can start to let it in and and feel it, feel the grief, feel the loss, feel the vulnerability, feel the loneliness. These are all normal feelings that accompany transitions. So once we give ourselves permission to feel without that overlay of "because I'm feeling this it means there's something wrong" everything changes from there. We don't then have to misassign meaning to the feelings and to think, "Because I'm feeling sad, it means I'm making mistake." No, it has nothing to do with that. You're feeling sad because you are in a rite of passage. You're feeling sad because you are in the death experience, letting go of this identity, this primary identity as single person, as daughter, and shifting into an entirely new stage of life, a new identity. And there is no way to go through that without feeling grief.   Thomas: You spend a good portion of the book talking about how the bride is separating from the father/father figure and the mother/mother figure and the friends. Can you say more about that process?   Paul: Yes, so it can go a few different ways. If the bride is very close to her father, that's one set of emotions and experiences where there is tends to be a lot of grief, a lot of crying, really good, medicinal, necessary crying to make that separation process... and to make it more effective to make it more complete to make it more conscious. Again, in the naming, to say, I am separating from my dad, I am no longer going to be... Yes, I'm his daughter, but not in the same way, not as my primary identity. That my new partner is going to be number one and I'm transferring allegiance. So, that's one example of one way that it can go if if someone's very close to their father. If somebody doesn't have a close relationship with their father or there is no father figure in their life, that's a different kind of grief of the loss of not having had that or never having had that. The same as somebody has passed away. If somebody who's getting married and their mother's no longer alive. You know, that's, that's one way that grief can come through, as opposed to a mother who is very much alive and very much involved. And then there's a separation. There's… there's a loosening of cords that is required.    Thomas: I'm curious as you're speaking how this applies, I'm sure it's very different, but how it applies to folks who were older when they get married, or maybe a second marriage.   Paul: It can be different, it can be similar. It depends. It depends on a lot of factors. But regardless of the age, especially if it's a first marriage and you're getting married at 40, you're still letting go of a massive identity. And in some ways, it's even more of a letting go because of all of those years that you spent as a non-married person. And so there's a lot of grieving, a lot of shedding of the independence, the separateness, all of the control that you have when you are a non-married person, that every inch of your life is your own: your home, your space, how you spend your time, how you organize your weekend, it's all yours. And so that is its own massive death experience for somebody who marries later, you know, and who has had that many more years than someone who's 22 if you're 42, that's a lot of years of being the sole architect of your life.   Thomas: So you work with people around transitions, all kinds of transitions now, and I'm curious if ceremony plays a part in that with them.   Paul: I'm a big fan of ceremony. Because my work is largely over the internet. I'm not the one doing the ceremony with them. I would love to be that person, but I'm not. But I always encourage people to create ceremony and create rituals. And so, you know, if it's somebody getting married... and I've had a lot more men come my way, by the way, since I wrote The Conscious Bride. And I'm thinking of some right now who are in one of my small coaching groups. And he's getting married on Saturday, and I won't, I won't share the specifics, but it's... because it's his story. But it's really beautiful to witness men in their transitional process and the rituals that they come up with because I encourage people to find their own rituals that are meaningful to them. Ways to acknowledge the end of you know, in his sake, his bachelorhood that that time in his life is over. And so he has been sharing these incredibly potent rituals that have come to him for ways of recognizing that that time in his life is over. And what ritual does is, as you know, is it, it concretizes, it makes it and embodies what's happening, so that it brings it out of just that realm of talking about it and it sends it into a realm that we can't see with our five senses, but very much exists and yet calls on the five senses to help transmute the experience into another form. And so rituals help us cross over that sometimes very scary divide that just looks like a big, cavernous, empty space, crossing from one identity to a new identity, from one stage of life to the next. And without the rituals we are... we're pretty lost and so, you know, again, as I, as I said earlier, the wedding is one of the few ceremonies that we have, which comes with ritual. A lot of people tend to minimize or diminish the ceremonial aspect because they're so focused on the party and the reception, you know, that's where all of the energy goes. When really, it's the ceremony that has so much power to carry us over the divide between one stage and the next.   Thomas: And that's something I'm trying to encourage and put seeds out in the world for as well, that people take that the ritual, the ceremony of the marriage, the wedding and they, they feel free to do it their way so that it's powerful and is as powerful and meaningful for the couple as possible.   Paul: Yes, yes! And I think we are at this extraordinary time in our world where we have freedom to do that, where we are breaking out of the traditions that have gone stale and revitalizing them with personal meaning of what is meaningful for you. And there may be long-standing time-honored traditions that are still meaningful. And I'm by no means one to throw everything out that we've come from, because many of those rituals are gorgeous and meaningful - but only if they're meaningful for the individual, right? Only if they land in a place where something inside of you says yes, right? That helps me, that bolsters me, that comforts me. Right? So, you know, whether it's at a Jewish wedding standing under the Chuppah, you know, it's just this beautiful symbol of, of our new home and and this, you know, long standing tradition... if that's meaningful to somebody great. If it's not, then it really.. it's not going to do anything for you on a spiritual level.   I shared with Sheryl that before my wedding, I created a self-commitment ceremony for myself. And in that ceremony I presenced all of my Ancestral grandmothers with the acknowledgement of how important marriage might have been for them, how much of a survival tool. I did this because women's  standing in society has evolved so much even since my mother's generation, but yet we are still connected to our Ancestral legacy and felt like a really important thing to me.    Paul: That's incredibly beautiful that you did that and so powerful and it's probably the number one fear that comes up for women that I'm working with in their pre-wedding time in their engagement, is the fear of what does marriage mean? And does it mean that I am beholden to this person now and I lose all sense of self and I become boring and frumpy and... This is the legacy. This is what we've been handed, right? This is what it has meant for thousands and thousands of years is that for women, marriage has meant really the death of self: I exist, to take care of the man and to take care of the children and that's it. And so there's this very deep ancestral legacy that we have to consciously break with and recognize that we are so lucky and we are so blessed to be on this new threshold, that we get to redefine what marriage means for us. And we only can really know that after we've taken the leap, because on the other side, on the first side, on the engagement side, it just all looks and sounds so scary to most women. And you know, that's why I have so many exercises in The Conscious Bride, more-so I think in The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner, on what does it mean to be a wife? What does that mean to you? What does the word wife connote? When you think of wife, what is the connotation for you? And it's very rare that someone's going to say, "Oh, I see this rad, sexy woman, you know, like, doing like, the dance on the rooftops." Like, no, that's not usually what we think of when we hear the word wife. But it could be. More and more we are redefining that. And we are seeing that. And so I tell people, but look out into the world today and find those those models of marriage where you see a woman who is doing her life fully, you know, and yes, maybe she's also a mother and she's, you know, loves being married and she's fully committed to her path and and making her offerings, and doing her work in the world. Right? Separate from wife and mother. So, yeah, I love, I love that I love what you share. I love what you did. I think that is not only powerful, but essential on that ceremonial ritual level to recognize what we've come from.   Thomas: I'm just so happy and honored to have the chance to talk to you after, after all this time of really, really, really appreciating your book and your wisdom.   Paul: Yeah, thank you, Colleen.   It means a great deal to me to have the opportunity to share Sheryl's wisdom with you. I hope that you are able to use it or pass it along to a friend. Here's one final bit of wisdom, a quote from The Conscious Bride. "A marriage is a rite of passage no matter when it occurs, and the woman must still pass through the phases of her transformation. She must die, she must sit in the unknown, and then she will be reborn."   Sheryl Paul is the author of The Conscious Bride and The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner. Her website contains a plethora of resources for addressing life transitions. Learn more about Sheryl and her work at https://conscious-transitions.com. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to review it on Apple Podcasts. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

As we continue to move out of the pandemic and begin to vision what we want our new lives to look like, what do you see for yourself? What are you creating? Are you anxious to get back to everything at once or perhaps are you seeking a slower, more intention way of living. What might that look like?   Music by Terry Hughes Notes: Be Ceremonial Be Ceremonial App App Store | Google Play   > > Rate This Podcast 

Daily Magic for Peace is a meditation podcast that supports you as you support Ukraine. Debuting on Apple Podcasts at #37 (US) & #11 (Australia), Daily Magic for Peace invites you to get centered and stay centered as global events unfold.   Magic works best with action! See this list for easy, practical ways to support Ukraine: https://ever-changing.net/ukraine.    We'd love to hear the creative ways you are supporting Ukraine (and yourself)! Email us at shamepinata@gmail.com.   _________________   Ways to Listen → Add Daily Magic for Peace to the end of your news playlist. → Listen first thing in the morning to start your day with hope. → Listen before sleep to relax.   _________________   Increase the Magic Rate and review on Apple Podcasts to help us build the circle Share your favorite episode on Twitter   _________________   Follow Daily Magic for Peace → Show Website → Follow on Apple Podcasts → Follow on Spotify → Follow on Google Podcasts → Follow our RSS Feed   _________________   Top Episodes → #12 | A Bowl of Earth → #17 | A Bell → #39 | Your Heart → #56 | A Blue and A Yellow Crayon → #60 | A Bowl of Rice   _________________   Daily Magic for Peace is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Learn more at shamepinata.com. Music by Terry Hughes.     _________________ Disclaimers

In those significant life changing moments, like becoming a parent or losing a parent, it's easy to feel lost, ungrounded. We might think to ourselves, “Yeah, ceremony could maybe be a useful thing right now, but where do I start?” Well, there's an app for that and it's beautiful!   Music by Terry Hughes   Notes: Be Ceremonial App (App Store) Be Ceremonial App (Google Play) Be Ceremonial Daily Magic for Peace   Rate This Podcast Also Check Out: I Want to Have a Ceremony with You The Programming Language of the Soul Full Transcript Sheldon: Here's a wedding ceremony and you follow it step by step and here's a funeral ceremony… and I wanted to blow that out of the water. And so it's like a choose your own adventure experience where… here's a bunch of things to inspire you. Pick and choose the ones that you like and then change them if you want.  In those significant life-changing moments, like becoming a parent or losing a parent, it's very easy to feel lost and ungrounded. We might think to ourselves, “Ceremony could maybe be a useful thing right now, but where do I start?” As the saying goes, there's an app for that and it's beautiful.  This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today I'm excited to invite you to join me on a behind-the-scenes look into Be Ceremonial, the world's first ceremony creation platform. It's an app you can download from the App or the Google Play Store and it lets you build simple, customizable ceremonies for any purpose.  Just to give you a sense of how it works, I'm going to open the app on my phone right now and tell you what I see. So on the homescreen is a list of latest offerings including new ceremonies and free virtual workshops. If I click on the “Create” button, I can open a free sample ceremony and customize that or I can choose from a list of ceremonies with a defined topic, including trying to conceive, mother blessing, miscarriage, abortion, wedding, divorce, terminal diagnosis, or sitting vigil - and that's only a partial list.  Okay, so here's how building a ceremony works. If I click into the free sample ceremony, I'm asked to choose if this ceremony will be for me or for someone else (I think it's cool that you can actually gift a ceremony to a friend). Then I'm asked to choose if it will be me doing it alone, with other people, or virtually. And then I can begin building my ceremony which is structured in 5 parts: opening, past, present, future, and closing. For the opening, the app gives me three choices: Opening Space, Candle Lighting, and Three Breaths. I can click into any of these to see what they're about, what materials and preparation I'd need to do them, and a list of steps to follow. And I can look through all of the offerings until I've found the flow that works best for me. For example, I might choose to take 3 breaths to open my ceremony, release the past with a fire release ritual, take a ritual walk to honor the present, and then ceremonially cross a threshold to step into my new future, and finally close with a water ceremony. Once I've chosen all of the components, they will be available as a step-by-step list that I can have with me as I prepare and actually hold the ceremony. It's actually very cool and user friendly. And it takes some of the guesswork (and groundwork, really) out of building a ceremony so that I can really focus on what is moving in me and choose ritual components that match that flow.  Now that we've taken a deep dive into the app itself, let's come back out to the bigger picture so I can bring you into a conversation I had last spring with Megan Sheldon, the co-founder and CEO of Be Ceremonial. Here's a listen. Thomas: I'm curious, how did you find your way to ceremony in life? Sheldon: I've always been a community seeker, a connector, a convener. I was recently at a retreat that I was hosting around ritual and a girlfriend of mine from high school was telling me about these, you know, we didn't… we didn't call it ceremonies then. But she's like, “You would host these gatherings and you were so intentional in the questions you would ask and the way you would bring people together.” She was the first of any of my friends to have a baby. And she remembers, I had forgotten about this, but she remembered I gathered all of her girlfriends around in the room and I'd found this little owl shaker and I passed it around and asked everybody to infuse it with, well, you know, wishes and blessings for her. And that was, you know, 12 or 13 years ago. So I'm constantly reminded that this path hasn't been an A to B kind of path, it's been an unfolding.  When I was 20 years old, my mom went through breast cancer. And my mom and I are very close. And I was living in Montreal and she was here in Vancouver. And I remember getting the phone call from her and just like every instinct in me wanted to just get on a plane and come home and be with her. But she didn't want that. She… I was in the middle of exams and she really needed me to stay where I was, so she could focus on herself. But what she ended up doing, I now see as ritual, is she would find these books, and she was introduced to Yungian kind of theory and Marion Woodman and Women who Run with the Wolves and all of these books that, you know, she was just discovering, and she would buy two copies, and she would send me one in Montreal, and I remember I'd get these books and I would be reading them at the same time she was reading them on the other coast of Canada. And opening up this kind of world of the Divine Feminine and what it means to connect with your Ancestors and your roots and your heritage. And I'm… a white settler stolen lands here in Canada and I have really struggled with my place in this… in this part of the world. And where do I fit? Where do I belong? I think that need for belonging has been a huge theme in my life. And these books kind of taught me how to connect with that part of myself. And with my mom and with her mom and with her mother's mother and this beautiful lineage of women and men. So it's a tricky question and one that continues to evolve. But if I am being completely honest with myself, I have always been ceremonial, I just was never given the language or the permission to kind of see myself that way. So I've had to really come into it on my own and reclaim that space in a way that feels like me. Megan echoed one of my own ideas about ritual, that of it be self-organizing. That we know how do ritual together, it is one of our inherent gifts. We might have just forgotten. Sheldon: It's so interesting because people always say to me, “Oh, I could never do what you do. I could never do this!” And I think, “Do what? This was just like… I'm actually not doing…” I always say to people, “I'm actually not doing this, I'm setting the container, you know, I'm offering the invite...” I've studied a lot under the Art of Hosting - I don't know if you know it - it's like a global-wide kind of way of gathering people and their philosophy is like, the invitation is everything. If you can send out an invite and let people know what to expect and what to prepare and how to feel empowered in the space so that they're not having to look for the leader like, “Who's in charge?” Like, that's… that's one of the worst ways to convene is to have that hierarchy. So the idea of the Circle Way of having everybody step in and be responsible for co-creating the ceremony, the ritual environment has always guided me. And I'm a firm believer, and I say that every time I can be in a ceremony or a retreat, or rituals with friends, I, you know, I focus on the invitation, and I say, we were all stepped into this and we are now going to co-create this space together. And if you need to be quiet, if you need to walk away, if you need to scream, if you need to do anything that is okay. Like this is you're making your own experience. And I think that's just a way of thinking that we haven't really been taught in our capitalistic patriarchal culture of, you know, the top-down, right? This feels rebellious for a lot of people so yeah… Thomas: And it's kind of the same principle with the app, right? Because you've created this technology that people can... there's tools, there's framework, there's structure, there's examples, there's ideas, all this kind of thing…. But you're not there helping somebody in person, helping somebody create a ceremony and they can create a ceremony… Like, I created two today that are really important to me but I'm not ready to do them yet but I have the framework set for when I'm ready to step into them. And so you won't be with me when I do them. I mean, unless I could call you later and talk to me because I know you… Sheldon: Please! Thomas: …but like, you won't really be there with me. But yeah… you've created the… you've given the invitation and you've created the container. Sheldon: Yeah, and it took me a long time to see how ritual and ceremony, which for me is so sacred and so precious and so important in my life and in the lives of those that I serve and that I work with to see it as, you know, bridging with technology. So backtrack a little bit, my husband and I decided to get married eight or nine years ago now and we looked at the wedding kind of template that was in front of us and we've been to so many weddings before, and they were so lovely and so wonderful. And they weren't us. I never was like… oh… this felt exactly like me because it was exactly like my friend or my family member. So I really wanted to learn how to intentionally craft a wedding that represented our values. So that was our first ceremony to co-create together and I think we did a really wonderful job. And shortly after our wedding, we tried to get pregnant and we did. And, you know, seven weeks later, we miscarried. And then we got pregnant again and miscarried. And a third time, miscarried. And each time it was like this invisible loss that nobody knew. It was just, I mean… this was seven years ago. So it was just starting to kind of get a little bit more traction in terms of the media and people talking about it a little bit more, but nobody was talking about a ceremony where I could honor and say goodbye. I was never even offered any of the remains from the hospitals after my DNC procedures. It just… I know now I could have asked for it and they would have had to have given it to me. I didn't know that then. I didn't know my… what I was allowed to do. Everything felt so kind of, you know, the health care system owned everything, right? You don't ever think of it as being something there that you can challenge or that you can confront.  Thomas: Yeah. Sheldon: So I started to create my own rituals around my loss. And my husband, Johan and I, we created our own rituals and ceremonies to acknowledge not only the loss of life, but also the loss of the stories we'd started to tell ourselves. I had a lot of growing anxiety. What was happening? Why was my body doing this? Will I ever get pregnant? You know, it was in my mid to late 30s at that point, so that… you know, there was this time pressure that was both external and internal. Yeah, I think that time for me it was really about learning how these things that I naturally wanted and needed did in my life were rituals. It was ceremony. It was, you know… I wanted to sit with my girlfriends and not only share my story, but hear their story. I wanted to, you know, every year on a due date or on a loss date, I wanted to have something that I could do that would connect me so that I wouldn't forget that I wouldn't grow… grow further away from it.  Thomas: At the same time that Megan and Johan were dealing with pregnancy loss, they were also losing Johan's father to ALS.    Sheldon: There were so many invisible moments along that journey that we did not know how to recognize. You know, a diagnosis when you first… when he first received it, but when he first told us like, what do you do in those moments? How do you bring ritual and bring ceremony to that moment when the floor comes crashing out from underneath you? And then over the next, you know, six months and year and two years as he started to lose his capacities and we started to lose that kind of feeling of hope for the future and…  There were so many of those moments that I did not know, at the time I could have brought ritual into, I could have been kind of slowly building out that kind of legacy. So we went through that experience. And then when the pandemic hit and my husband was, you know, found himself at home, and I really wanted to imagine something new. He's a problem solver. He's like, “I just want to build something that will help people.” That's just has been his driver. It has been a really interesting experience to bridge ceremony with technology and one that I continue to learn about. But I'll get emails from people on a weekly basis about how, you know, they were gifted something through this experience, or they discovered something. They were able to honor, you know, a death anniversary in a way that they never thought was possible. And I know for 100% of… I know without a doubt that I would never have crossed paths with that person had it not been through technology. You know, they'll be in Australia, or Belgium, or St. Louis and they'll be reaching out because this app touched them in a certain way, it impacted their experience. So yeah. Thomas: Wow, you're inspiring me now. I'm thinking I have a lot of my good friends, I have their death anniversaries on my calendar so I remember to reach out to them. I would love to share your app with them.  [MUSIC Thomas: So as people check out the app and they get started with it, do you have any guidance for them on how to start the process? Sheldon: Yeah. So the app is Be Ceremonial and you are invited in and there's two pillars that make up the app environment. And one is the ability to create your own ceremony, like a DIY approach. And we started with the birth and death aspects, the two areas of life, because they're the two thresholds. They're usually the places where people are seeking ceremony the most. They… you know, they have a miscarriage or they find out they're pregnant, or they, you know, they want to honor, you know, the end of their breastfeeding journey. There's something that happened in that kind of beginning of life stage or the end of life. You know, they lost a parent, or a death anniversary's coming up, or they have been hanging on to these ashes from a cremation and they don't know what to do with them. So we really started to populate the app with these ceremonies that you could create for yourself around birth and death. And we are now in the midst of bridging out the life cycle. So, I am a Life Cycle Celebrant. I work with people on ceremonies around mastectomies and hysterectomies. Ceremonies around moving into a new home or leaving a childhood home. I've worked with people who have been fired and lost a job and they wanted to create a ceremony to kind of honor what that job brought them and also kind of burn in the fire the things that they wanted to never do again. There are so many points along the lifecycle, both visible and invisible, that deserve to be ritualized. They deserve to have that kind of ceremonial intention built into it. So that's, that's the pillar one that's like one side of the app experience is to be able to create your ceremonies and some people might come in and know exactly what they want and they just want to create a ceremony around a death anniversary, and they can just, you know, pay per use so it's a single-time purchase that they want.  And then other people are really seeking something more. They're really wanting to understand their own relationship with ritual and ceremony. Or they're a care provider. We've got a lot of death doulas and birth doulas and hospice volunteers, midwives, naturopath counselors using our app and they create ceremonies for their clients and their patients. So they're using this as a tool that they can kind of bring to the people that they work with. I've also got a lot of celebrants using this, so there's a wedding ceremony in there and if you are, celebrate, and you've got a new client, and you want to kind of give them some ideas as to what's possible in terms of ritual, you can create a wedding ceremony that you then send to them and they can pick and choose rituals they like. You can then add new ones, you can create your own, you can draw… You know, it's the biggest thing to remind yourself there is that it's you know, you don't need to follow this word for word. It's just a guide to inspire you. I think of it like a blueprint.  The other side… the other pillar of the app which we're really starting to build out this year is the learning environment. So I've hosted tons of online workshops and courses I ran last year, had about 120 students come through a six week training that we offered around end-of-life rituals. And I want to take all of those little mini workshops and build them into the app environment. So for the people that are the members, the subscribers (you can have a monthly or yearly subscription), I want there to be a place where they can go and think, “Oh, gosh, if a client just reached out, reached out or a friend reached out, and you know, they have a child who died.” And they really want to acknowledge the you know, the grief that the family and the friends might be holding. And I want to be able to create a ceremony workshop that explores kids' relationship with grief, and how to explore that.” You know, on the other side of it, maybe there's something around, you know, I've hosted a lot of divorce ceremonies, which has been really interesting for people. And everybody's always like, “Oh, I want to know more, I want to know what what else I can learn about this and how else this can be done and where the, you know, what other cultures are doing” So being able to look at the… the learning environment as a place to have that, that ability to go deeper if and when you choose. I think is really exciting for me, and for a lot of the people that have reached out because I think that there's, you know, the people that come in, and they just want something quick and they want something now and they know, you know, they don't need a whole lot of hand holding. And then there's the people that really want to build a community here and they want to share back their story after they created a ceremony so that it might inspire someone else. And that's my big hope with where Be Ceremonial can grow is that it will become, you know, “This is us. This is our invitation. We've been a catalyst, we've created this framework. Now let's let the community populate it. Let's let people step up and make this their own space. Let's allow this to be a place that connects us and inspires us when we hear stories from people around the world and how they took the same five rituals that I took and yet their ceremony turned out so differently. That's so interesting. I want to hear about that…” And that's the storyteller in me is just wanting to create a space where those stories can be celebrated and witnessed. Thomas: That's wonderful. Well, I feel like what you've created with this, the two of you, it's just such a gift. So on behalf of, I don't know, everybody everywhere, I just want to thank you so much. And I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to join me in this exploration of Megan and Johan's work at Be Ceremonial. I hope that a piece of Megan's story, either a moment of creating ritual to honor a life transition or her overall entrepreneurial spirit has inspired you as it has inspired me. Megan will be back soon to speak more about slow technology and how she is using ritual to transition from pandemic to endemic.  Megan Sheldon is a Cultural Mythologist, End of Life Storyteller, and a Celebrant. She is also the co-founder of Be Ceremonial, the world's first ceremony creation platform, giving you the ritual tools you need to create your own ceremony. You can sign up for a free account at www.beceremonial.com or download the App in the App Store. Our music is by Terry Hughes. Find us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata, reach us through our website, shamepinata.com. And subscribe to the show on your favorite player. Also be sure to check out our second show, Daily Magic for Peace, supporting you as you support Ukraine. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.  

Season 4 of Shame Piñata launches in February! Join us as we continue to explore the rites of passage we've missed and how we can creating new ones. Find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Radio Public, or your favorite player.   Music by Terry Hughes   Seasons 1-3 are available to binge now! https://shamepinata.com Full Transcript   Hi there, it's Colleen Thomas from Shame Piñata. We're back from haitus and ready to speak with more industry leaders in the rites of passage world.   Sheldon: There are so many points along the life cycle, both visible and invisible, that deserve to be ritualized.   Mandelberg: We get to choose what we desire and focus our energy on that. And that intentionality can change our entire lives.   Find the show on your favorite player and go to shamepiñata.com to learn more.

What do we do when the unthinkable happens and we lose someone we love? How do we create space for our heart, our pain and our love which is now expressed as an overwhelming grief? How do we do that while simultaneously putting one foot in front of the other each day?   Music by Terry Hughes Episode image credit Bruce Tang   Notes National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Voice: 800-273-8255 or Chat   Be Ceremonial App - App Store & Google Play   Rate This Podcast   Also Check Out: The Materials of Ritual (Material Feels Podcast) The UnBaby Shower (Tristy Taylor) Full Transcript   What do we do when the unthinkable happens and we lose someone we love? How do we create space for our heart, our pain and our love which is now expressed as an overwhelming grief? How do we do that while simultaneously putting one foot in front of the other each day?   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. You know how when you go through a really big transition, the world seems different? Like you're still you but everything around you has changed and the pieces don't fit together anymore? Well, I'm coming to you from one of those times right now. My mom recently passed away and life is different.    Today's show isn't going to be a regular episode of Shame Piñata because my heart is needing space and time right now. We will bring you a regular episode of Shame Piñata soon, and I'm really excited that we will be speaking with Megan Sheldon, creator of the world's first ceremony creation platform, an app called Seeking Ceremony. It gives you the ritual tools you need to create your own ceremony. Please check it out in the App or Google Play store and join us again next time to hear how it was created.    MUSIC   So my mom passed away a month ago. We spent a week coordinating and holding the funeral and the burial and dealing with those immediate sorts of things and then I spent two weeks sitting on the porch watching the clouds. I need more time with the clouds, more time with my memories, and more time with the shifting sands of being the only remaining member of my family on the planet.    But I wanted to reach out to you, to tell you we're still here, and share a little bit about the daily rituals that are helping me make sense of this transition. So consider this an honest reporting from the early days of big personal loss.   Some of the rituals that are helping get by are tending with great care to the emotions that arise, however irrational or unrelated to the loss they might seem. I know that on the journey of losing someone who cared for me at an early age, feelings may come up that are from earlier days, or that don't make sense, or that are from my unconscious mind. So that's number one, being tender, open, and attentive. I suppose that's more of a state of being than a ritual but it informs how I'm living my life and structuring my time right now.    Another thing that's helping is inviting my community to sit with me for maybe a half hour at a time one on one to let me talk about my mom and the experience of losing her. Basically each conversation revolves around the question: What is today feeling like? This was actually an offshoot of having so many amazing friends come at me the week she died asking, "What can I do?". I was in no fit state to speak with anyone those first few days but I knew their support and presence would be invaluable later on in that oh so quiet period after the funeral is over and everyone else has gone back to their regular life. So one day on a whim, I created a spreadsheet and asked them to sign up for a time to have a phone call over the next few months. This actually turned out to be a really lovely act of self-care. It's given me constant support, taken the pressure off of my husband to be my sole shoulder to cry on,  created space to reflect deeply on how this change is affecting me day to day, and given me a built-in schedule of connection with some incredible people, some of whom I'm just starting to get to know.    On the practical side, I have two rocks that I hold every day. Holding one in each hand allows their energies to meet in my heart. One of them is from the land where my mom was buried. They connect me to that land where my heart is also buried. I have a journal or two. I have a favorite necklace of my mom's that I wear everyday and I have a daily meditation practice at a dedicated altar/workstation (because there are still many death-related tasks to do so a workstation seemed very important).    I also found a way to make a small space serve two functions. When I am meeting with my friends, I sit in the studio in front of the computer with my warm table lamps on either side. When I need to have business calls, I sit in the same space, but use the overhead light alone. This makes the space feel much more businesslike and less cozy. It in effect makes it a different space which is what I need it to be. Different states of being. Different aspects of going on after the death of a loved one.   If you heard last month's bonus episode where I spoke with Catherine Monahon on the Material Feels podcast about everyday rituals, you heard me mention my "I know what to do" ring. This was a ring that I had purchased on a whim last year while my mother was recovering from a health crisis. At the time, I had seen someone wearing a lot of rings who seemed very confident and decided (very rationally) I just needed a great ring, that would help me know what to do! That would help me handle that difficult situation! This ring is the final piece I bring in when it's time to do business or insurance paperwork, sitting under that overhead light. Simply put, it puts me in the role of the one who knows what to do.    So this is a bit of my honest reporting from the early days of a pretty major loss. In the future, as the time feels right, I'll share more about my process and what I'm learning from it. If you are in transition right now, healing from the loss of someone you care deeply about, whether that be a recent or ongoing, please know that you are not alone. Please reach out and ask for exactly what you need. Please don't be shy or feel that you will be a burden. Friends are essential, family is essential, professional grief support is essential - and you are allowed to have all of these things.    If things are really dark, or you feel unsure about how to put one foot in front of the other, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Seriously. 800-273-8255. You can call them, and in these modern times, you can actually also chat with them. I'll put the link in the show notes. Seriously consider reaching out if you feel this way. There are amazing people on the other end of the line and it's okay to just to reach out to say you feel like crap.    However you feel, do whatever you need to make space for your heart and your grief. Thank you for joining me today and we'll see you next time.    Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Ritual can help begin things, end things, bridge over from one thing to the next. What differentiates one kind of ceremony from another often comes down to intention. But what are the materials of ritual and how can we use them to design ceremonies to support us in doing "the thing"? Links: Material Feels Podcast CXM Designs Shame Piñata Opening & Closing Music by Terry Hughes Material Feels Podcast music by Liz de Lise   Rate This Podcast   Full Transcript   Colleen Thomas: I have to contain my natural excitement a bit, so to be quiet and to listen, cause what my job is, is to listen and to hear and to hear between the words and to say, oh, wow. I tell me more about that….a lot of deep listening and just profound respect for their process and gratitude that they would in that they are involving me in their process. Um, cause they're letting me in, even if I'm not in the ritual, I'm helping them plan it and probably going to check in with them afterward just to sort of get a debrief on how it went.   I feel in the zone the whole time I'm in ritual space, especially if I'm not facilitating or having to be my brain, if I can just be in my body, you know? I feel most empowered when I feel like I'm not doing it alone,when whatever is moving, maybe being witnessed by people, listening to this thing I'm sharing or watching this thing I'm doing, and they're with me, you know, they're a hundred percent with me. They're like linked up with me, like energetically in this space. I feel like I'm like connected to spirit, to ancestors, to, you know, in my case to the goddess or all it is, well, then I feel like I'm, I'm not alone. And that, that is very, very freeing and comforting.   Colleen: My name is Colleen Thomas I'm a ritual artist and an independent audio producer. I am based in the San Francisco bay area. materials that I work with are time and space and elements.   Catherine: How would you define a ritual?   Colleen: It's intentional space that's created with one or more people and it is, um, usually has an intention, with a sacred space of some kind created, um, whether that's or an intentional space, I could say, cause it's not always the, the word sacred and religion kind of go together.   Like that bridge to juniors thing I had when I was leaving brownies was a ritual. It was very secular ritual, you know, anyway, and it wasn't, and they didn't make a big deal and invoke any gods or goddesses or anything obviously. But you know, like it was an intentional space. Like parents came, it was like, there was a program, it was like a, this is the purpose of this gathering. It was a ceremony.   Welcome to Material Feels, where we explore the intimate relationships between people and the materials they have fallen in love with. I'm your host, Catherine Monahon.   Just a heads up this episode is a bit intense: ritual and ceremony is a deep topic. It can bring up heavy emotions, and the kind of work Colleen does asks us to go to a vulnerable place. You might need time to process during or after so I encourage you to press pause, jot down some thoughts, listen with a friend and maybe give yourself some extra time after listening to decompress. Please take care of yourself.   The interview with Colleen was recorded on Ohlone land in Oakland, California, and this episode was produced on the traditional territory of the Kumeyaay. The Kumeyaay's territory has incredibly diverse geography in the state of California, stretching from the coast to the desert, with valleys and mountains between. The Kumeyaay have intimate knowledge of this topography, their cultural practices in tune with the seasonal changes.   San Diego County has more reservations than any other county in the country. Every time I do a land acknowledgement, I don't just google “Whose land am I on?” I take time to read and listen to the voices of the people. Indigenous ways of relating to the material world are sustainable and sacred; as a Material Feels listener, I imagine you care about those things, too. Non-indigenous listeners, please take time to learn about the not-so-distant history of residential boarding schools; pay a land tax to the first people's whose land you occupy, and use whatever platforms or resources you have to bring awareness and take action.   Today, we're exploring the materials associated with a creative practice we've all engaged with in one way or another: ritual & ceremony. Ritualist Colleen Thomas specializes in crafting rituals for life transitions and co-creating ceremonies that often deviate from the traditional ones many of us are used to (baby showers, birthdays, weddings or funerals).   Catherine: Why do people come to you in search of ritual?   Colleen: I connect with people, they are going through a change in they're a little bit lost and they're not sure how to create comfort and create meaning and create perspective when… it's like things happening to me is sort of the theme, right? Like, you know, I'm S yeah, like I'm suddenly going through a divorce or, um, or COVID is suddenly here and well, what are we going to do? I did some rituals with friends about that. Betty Ray said on my show, Shane piñata that, rituals create a space that help us create a container for the strong emotions that come with transition.   Catherine: Then what do we do with that container after like, I... I'm interested. I love that quote. And I think about you building the container and thoughtfully filling it with the materials that you choose with that person, but let that like, then what happens?   Colleen: Well, we have to figure out what the intention of the ritual is. The planning of it is almost as good as the doing. And the planning in my experience takes a lot longer than that. The actual doing the ritual right there doing the ritual could take an hour or something, but the planning can take weeks. And so a lot of the shifting and then making sense of the thing and the coming to terms with the thing. And then what is this going to mean for me and what are all my feelings about it and what are, what do I want to do with these feelings? Do I want to express them? Do I want to be angry and throw things? Do I want to, you know, curl up in a ball and you know, whatever, they are right. Playing with those feelings, working with the feelings, um, w that all happens during the prep. I mean, it could happen in the ritual too, but it's happening deeply with the prep, right? Figure all this stuff out and make sense of everything and just really pull it apart. It's like giving ourselves time to really let this thing be what it is, and to take up space and to not just be like an inconvenience, we shove aside this is important, this transition and how I feel about it and how I'm reacting to it, all the positive and negative ways. I might be reacting to this, you know, they're all valid.   And so it's like creating space for that. Especially like if you and I were in a process together, creating something for you, like, I would hope I could be there for you as somebody, you could explore that with, to whatever degree you want it to, and just kind of be in that space with you.   When we do the prep work and we feel into what, what will the, the hour long ritual say, it's an hour? What will that do for us? What do we want that to do for us? How do we design that? So it does. And the thing, you know, it's a safe container, or we get the rage out or we're witnessed for this, or we walk across the bridge or whatever we're doing, right? Like we figure out how to engineer design it. Um, so that it maximizes the potential of that happening. And then if that's done well, and if everything goes to plan and you know, rituals got its Spirit's got his own way and its own agenda.   But in that moment there most likely will be some kind of change or shift or transition transformation. And then afterwards there can be just a feeling of, you know, release and it happened. And now I'm like this often a sense of, um, vulnerability because we were vulnerable and we told our truth in front of people, you know? And, um, sometimes when I tell a very personal thing or a deep thing or something, a couple of layers in my heart or whatever, I start shaking afterwards. And sometimes I don't even know I've done that until I start shaking. And then I realize, okay, that was a, that was a, you know, a vulnerable thing that I just did.   But wait! You say. This is an art materials podcast, is it not!? Why are we talking about ritual and intentions and all this abstract stuff and not… oil paint, or clay, or paper? Well, I see ritual as an art form, and with every art form, there are materials and creative practices that go into creating it. Depending on one's faith, culture, personal choices, and intentions, the materials are vast and varied.   Catherine: Are there particular materials that you are drawn to?   Colleen: The intentional container is a big one, probably the most, probably the biggest one. Intentional container can be created by like reading a poem or taking a breath or having a moment of silence. It could be reading the Lord's prayer. It could be anything, you know, but it doesn't have to be religious.   Offerings are always the first thing, you know, um, making an offering of whatever that is. It could be words, it could be prayer. It could be a water, flower petals,   Some of the intentional objects to create the space, which, um, again, most of my experiences from the pagan community, which invokes the elements and the directions: objects such as feathers or incense for air, um, salt or earth for earth water, a bowl of water for water, um, and a candle or, and, you know, uh, an electric candle, um, or an image of fire.   Then there's also symbols of the numinous, goddess, or God like statues Mary's images, Mandalas.   Honoring of, you know, the, the thing that is, uh, spirit to us or nature, or not spirit for people who don't, who don't connect to spirit.     Honoring the ancestors is another big, um, piece of my practice.   Journaling and art supplies, um, can help us, you know, um, process stuff. And also remember what happened, create something to take with us with a new intention. Um, and music can be very helpful to can put us in a different space.   Colleen identified time and space as her core materials: creating a “container,” for people to engage with deeper emotions, imagination and connection. Then there are a range of materials that go into building out that container into a ritual or ceremony specially designed for you: special objects, photographs, symbolic objects for the elements, art supplies, music.   She also talks about invoking the elements…and I am intrigued. What is invoking, though? How does one… do that?   Colleen: I do that with rescue remedy, you know, the five flower formula that is, um, that is a homeopathic remedy to deal with stress and trauma. What, I don't have it with me, I just kind of invoke it. I just say the five flowers in that, you know, in that remedy, I just, I need you right now and I need you to come and help me calm down and be in this moment and just kind of invoking them in my mind. And with my heart really works for me. It creates, it creates their presence. It welcomes their presence.   Catherine: When you were just saying about invoking and inviting, I thought it was really interesting. You, you closed your eyes, um, and you sort of had this different emotion cross your face.  And, um, I'm curious when you are inviting something in, when you were in or invoking or inviting or, um, I don't know if conjuring is the right word. Um, what does that feel like for you?   Colleen: My body feels warmer when I go into that space. Um, it's not a headspace, it's a body space and it feels like for me, it feels like a very receptive space. Maybe that's why I close my eyes because I'm not trying to, you know, see anything or accomplish anything, but I'm just like instead sort of turning inward, coming to a more quiet place with my eyes closed. And I usually put my hands out sort of unconsciously, like, you know, um, receiving with my palms open, upward, just sort of, um, inviting and imagining allowing that presence to come to me. And it's really just coming to me in me. Right. I mean, if you were here, you might have the same experience, but might be different. It's all, it's, you know, it's like, not, especially if we're not like burning something in this space, it's not in this space, it's just in us. Right. So it's like, I feel like we, we each have our own connections to these things and we each have our own connection to different deities or divinity or plant medicine or essence of whatever, whatever it is, even memories, really healing memories can, we can invoke. And if I remember them and then they can start to kind of filter down through our bodies and ourselves and our bodies can sort of quiet and, and remember, and you know how that, yeah, actually I I'm really happy.   Do you have a memory that quiets your mind or gets you in a certain state? It's kind of like the happy place we explored a few months back, inspired by paper artist Zai Divecha. Except in this case, it's a distilled memory, like Hillary's memory of riding a bicycle down the center of an aisle in the elementary school theater for a production of Paul Bunyan.   For me, I visualize the steps from wedging a ball of clay to centering it on the wheel.   Colleen shares more about the importance of the elements, and how invoking the materials of water, fire, air and earth can help build the foundation for a particular ritual.   Colleen: If you're at a ceremony and somebody is calling in the elements in a really, um, effective way, I feel like people start to feel it in their bodies, like the way they describe it, you know, welcome north welcome earth. You know, um, the land we stand upon the, you know, the rock beneath our feet, the bedrock beneath that, the way we are connected to our ancestry and the, you know, the strength and the mountains and, you know, the things that they say that the images that they create with their words, uh, it's usually words. Um, although it can be movement too, depending on how you're doing the invocation of the elements, but if they do it well there, I think people begin to feel it. They begin to feel like the bones in their body and the heaviness of their body on the earth and gravity, and like the things that are earthy. And, and if you have like a, a bowl of salt, you know, grabbing the salt and, or a bowl of earth grabbing the earth, you know, like just, you know, like things where you really start to feel it and connect with that aspect of, of that, that element.   There's a long list of reasons that people gravitate towards ritual. I think it helps to think of them in two categories. First, ritual as a private, ongoing way to enrich your life and create stories through small moments, and second, ritual as a more elaborate ceremony sometimes with others involved, for processing hard emotions and to find a sense of peace and belonging.   Colleen gives me an example of how a small, ongoing ritual can make a big difference.   Colleen: I have a lot of intentional jewelry that, you know, is, was given to me like the moonstone I'm wearing today. It's  as big round moonstone. And, um, it, I didn't give it to myself at a ceremony or anything woo or anything or anything, anything specific I really bought honestly bought it because I read the mists of Avalon a long time ago and fell in love with, uh, there's must be a moonstone. And I don't even remember now, but I just was like, I want a moonstone like that. And then I saw it at a store in Denver. It was a beautiful piece of moonstone. And, um, and I, I put it on I'm currently, um, in Ohio helping my mother through some health challenges. And I, when I packed, I was like, I'm taking the moonstone, even though I haven't worn it for years.   I helps me stay calm. It really helps me be having inner calm heart. And so like every morning I put this on and there's no choice. Cause I only brought the one necklace. I put it on every morning, but it's like, this is part of my calmness for day.   Creating stories through ritual with jewelry, a morning intention setting for starting the day or an evening ritual for closing the day… I found this to be a relatable way ritual is already present in my life. When I record narration for the show, I put on specific jewelry, and the clothes that make me feel most like me. I do my hair in a special way. When I used to go out in the before times, I felt that my bracelets passed down to me from my grandparents were both protecting me and cheering me on.   So, what about the other category… the possibly public, more elaborate rituals to process emotion and craft a story in times of transition, celebration or upset. Most of us are familiar with these in the context of major life events (birthdays, weddings, funerals). And often these ceremonies are tangled up in religion.   A lil' disclaimer… I was raised with very little exposure to religion; I consider myself pretty secular. In fact I have a bit of a bias against religion. I asked Colleen about the role of religion in ritual, and she mentioned the name of a guy I had never heard of: Matthew Fox. He helped found something called Creation Spirituality, a Judeo-Christian religion with a lot of crossover with psychology, feminism, art and physics. And there's a lot of reverence for nature. Colleen tells me about Fox's “Techno Cosmic Masses,” essentially ecstatic dance parties that started in Oakland and are now held globally (or were, before the pandemic). It's a sort of a remix of mass, designed to build community and connect people to a visceral, ritualized celebration. She shares a bit more about how engaging with Techno Cosmic Masses inspired her and her now husband to co-create their wedding ceremony.   Colleen: There is something about you doing something with our body that, um, connects to our spirit in my experience. I volunteered with the mass and actually we, uh, with his permission, use it to create our wedding. Um, and in spending a lot of time with the mass, I, I realized that I spoke to Matt about this. I said, you know, it's, it's really hard to explain the mass to people. It's this really, really involved, intense experience to go to a cosmic mass. And it is based in the Christian faith because, cause he comes from that. There's dancing and, um, there's worshiping and there's, it's a very embodied and it's very difficult to explain it. Like if I showed you a video, you get a little more, if you went and you get it. Right. So when we were basing our wedding on the cosmic mass, we asked people to come. We ever said everybody come to one. Cause they were having them regularly come to once you can get it in your body, what this is and working with him, I realized, okay, the reason it's so hard to explain it is because it's not a head experience.   It is a heart and body experience. And to me, that's where ritual is powerful. I'm not a heady person. I get really lost in, um, you know, uh, academic texts. I need to touch stuff….   My ears perked up when she was talking about bodily experiences and touching stuff. I so relate to this when it comes to the art world; I get lost when theory is the topic of conversation, or if there is a minimalist piece on display with a whole lot of writing I'm supposed to internalize.   I'm most present when I can engage with materials that are mutable… materials I can hold in my hand and squish. Learning about the cosmic masses, and remembering Colleen's early memory of graduating from Brownies and crossing that bridge, I understand that while ritual or ceremony might seem synonymous with religion, the terms can live more freely and intersect much more with my own spirituality when I think about them in terms of visceral, bodily experiences.   Rabbit hole moment!   I was curious as to why ritual plays a bigger role in some societies rather than others. Since the U.S. is so heavily influenced by the OG colonizers (Oh hay England!), I learned about the impact of the industrial revolution on holidays and local festivals in the UK during the late 19th century.   Within a three year span, bank holidays went from 36 down to 4; the time spent off doing the rituals was seen as a loss in profit, and so… the calendar got changed. Engaging with ritual shifted from the public sector to something you were expected to figure out on your own time. Commercialized entertainment became the norm as well: sports, theaters and circuses grew in popularity. Sundays became the mandated day of worship, and in growing urban centers where conditions were not super sanitary, communal enjoyment found a home at the pub.   Just let that set in. Traditional and cross-cultural rituals and ceremonies have to interface with capitalism; fought for by certain groups, forfeited by others, traded in for maximized profits  and Sunday mornings, with approval from the dominant religion.   If you are off celebrating the moon and performing rituals left and right to process your emotions and build relationships with people who aren't your coworkers, when will you have time to make and spend money?   Wait… is engaging with ritual and ceremony… anti-capitalist!?   Am I… secretly a priestess!?   Okay one last rabbit hole: there is also a history of mainstream media demonizing ritual and ceremony, making it seem spooky or evil (see: anything Pagan, witches, there's a whole thing about apothecaries and home medicine. Demonizing the natural world is a thing, don't get me started on the history of parks and the way nature is seen as a wild female in need of taming or should I say… domestication. Oh man. So many connections, for another day.   Where were we!?   Colleen and I discuss the materials and practices that might be used for four different types of rituals. Rituals to build connection, separate from something that needs be let go of, bring in newness or setting intention, and rituals for dedication and commitment.   First, connection.   Colleen: I would say materials for original connection might be a cord. They can be braided together. Things, obviously things that can be connected. Um, gosh, I guess you could even use like Legos or like bristle blocks or anything that, anything that you could physically put together and build, build something on. Um, I can imagine a family having a ritual of, um, connecting, you know, creating a family or blending families where they're actually like building something out of Lego, you know, like each family has a color or something and they've just built something together.   Catherine: Oh, I love that. I'm from a blended family. So I'm like, oh my God, we should have done that that way.   Colleen: A separation or release, um, often the ritual tools, um, use for that as the materials would be, you know, um, things that would, you know, um, cut. Um, so scissors, um, maybe again, a cord to symbolize the connection. Um, maybe I'm braiding a cord. Um, I've done several release rituals in my life that some felt like cutting was appropriate and some felt like unbreaking, or unweaving was more appropriate.   Then we talk about “new seeds” – rituals to welcome in new chapters, set goals or invoke different versions of ourselves.   Colleen: A lot of people, um, plant an intention at the new moon and sort of harvested on the full moon, or you could do it on the winter solstice and the summer solstice, um, and a practice that I had for a while and my husband. We got some soil, we gotta bean put it in with an intention, watered it every day. And then after two or three days, you know, you see some shoots. Um, and, and I had a bean that was the intention was trust. Um, and it actually grew like crazy and it was like growing up the wall and across the ceiling and, and, um, we call it the trust being, it kind of took over the kitchen.   Then, there is dedication.   Colleen: Well, probably rings would be typical. Um, or, um, in terms of like a marriage would be typical. It's fascinating to me that people walk around wearing things that identify the vows they've taken, right? Like, like, you know, I'm wearing a wedding ring and I also have a self-commitment ring for what I married myself. Um, and they're very different in my mind. And people might guess where the wedding ring is. They might not guess what the other one is, cause that's a less common ceremony. Um, but if I saw somebody wearing a you know, uh, a nun outfit or preacher outfit, you know, I would have a sense of where they're, you know, you know, like it's like, you, you it's publicly claiming, you know, I've done this thing. I've dedicated myself in this way and I'm not hiding it.   What rituals are you drawn to when you hear about all the different kinds of materials and intentions and processes? What rituals are you already practicing and you maybe didn't even realize?   I'm drawn to one in particular, and I think it has to do with my own stuff, as one might say. My own emotions and issues that I need support with. I'm most curious about separation. The ability to let go of something. To set it down.   But when I try to identify what I want to separate from, I can't land on a person, place or thing. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed by… everything?”   I'm gonna pin that thought down for later… because often when we first identify the problem we want to solve, we're actually looking at a symptom… a red flag indicating there is something else beneath the surface. Colleen talks about how often you have to go deeper to “finding the need” hidden in the pull to craft a ritual.   Colleen: Finding what wants to move and what it needs to move, and that might sound strange. So let me say more. So if I, if I'm feeling happy about something and I'm realizing that I need to have, I want to have a ceremony about, let's take a concrete example. Um, let's say I've, I've lost my job and with it, my sense of self, um, and that's a grieving time and that, that, that beginning process of figuring out what needs to move like there's grief. Maybe there's a part of me that, um, maybe there's other stuff, you know, that that's like the journaling. And I talked about like, you know, finding out what what's in there, what needs to move. Like in my mind, it's kind of like, there's, there's discontent and hard feelings and they're, they're an indication that we're changing and growing and that there's emotion that wants to move. And, and what we tend to do is watch TV or buy something or, you know, not feel it cause it's, it's like, Ooh, you know, it's all unconscious. There has to be some coping, so we can't just run around screaming all the time, unfortunately. So, and yet is, do we have the capacity to create an intentional space where, where we can go into those feelings and how do we do that? Because nobody wants to do that. Right. It's gotta be safe. We gotta know, we can get back out of it. If we go into hard feelings, a lot of us don't go into hard feelings because we think we'll never come out. So like, what do I need to go into those? Do I need to be willing? Um, I need to feel like I have support with me. Right. So a lot of that pre-work is like feeling into what are those feelings and what needs to move. And it's an emotion, hint, it's emotion, right? What needs to move? And then what does it need to move? Like, what is like, I guess those things I just said or what it might need to be like, it might need, you know, I'm, I need my best friend with me, you know, and I need that Teddy bear then that will, you know, like the, kind of the comforting, soothing container things like, you know, what, what does it need to move?   While Colleen was explaining this to me, the process of making sure someone has everything they need, I started to visualize packing a backpack for a long and arduous hike. You need to know the terrain, the climate. You need to think about sustenance, hydration. Maybe you bring music, a phone charger, a book or a portable watercolor set. With rituals, instead of hydration and sustenance, you need tools for creating an environment ideal for emotional safety, connection to you self, and imaginative play.   What would be in your backpack?   Colleen shares a story about Betty Ray, a guest on her show, to illustrate how someone might identify a need, pack their metaphorical backpack and then act on it in ritual form.   Colleen: To go back to Betty Ray, she shared one of my early episodes that she went through a breakup and she was tired of giving herself away to men and to drama. And she spontaneously grabbed her checkbook and a ring. And she went to the top of the hill in San Francisco that I don't remember the name of. And she went up there and she wrote a check to the guy she'd just broken up with, um, you know, here's my energy, I'm giving you. And she ripped it up. And then she wrote a check to herself and she put it in her bra. And then she, she married herself with a ring and she basically just like grabbed her checkbook and grabbed a ring. And she knew intuitively she needed these two things. Didn't know why once the top of the hill and just, and it would, and it was new year's I think it was, I think it was Y2K. And anyway, it was like a significant moment. She was just like, she just knew some part of her knew exactly what she needed to do. It was quick, it was powerful. Whenever she looked at the ring, she remembered, you know. Yeah, exactly what you committed to.   Colleen: I always encourage people to have a give a lot of thought as to who will be involved, you know, who do you want to have there? And sometimes we can go to, oh, I should have these people because they, blah, blah, blah. You know, or they'd be mad if I didn't, but it's like that kind of thinking really can't come into it or can't be where we end, because like, if we're going to let them to let the vulnerability happen, to let the magic happen, to let the transformation happen, my style is to get really vulnerable. And, and that's what I work with people to see if they want to do that too.   And, and then, and then that needs to be really safe. People, you know, who won't talk about it later, you know, who won't, you know, cause they're going to know a deep part of us. Right. And then, and then also with that, anything that happens in ritual space, part of the magic and the power of it can be kind of keeping it that's, that's how things are passed down, you know, where it's, you don't know everything and it's kind of hidden and that can of course be sort of shady and not good, but also it, it does protect the magic of it, you know? So like if we have a very powerful ritual and, and I'm there witnessing something for you, or we'll let let's say, it's my ritual. If I go telling everybody which I sometimes do on my show, Hey, I had this ritual and I did this stuff and this and this and that, like I have to know that that's, it's opening that container.   I felt okay about doing it on my show because I felt like I'm sharing it with people who might use nobody's written me and said, that was so when you did. Right. But, but somebody might, and that would really potentially, you know, so like, it's just, it's just important. I always tell people, be super thoughtful, mindful of who you invite and just anything you ever say about the ritual ever to anybody, because it, opening it up is, is, goes right to that really vulnerable place.   The thought of building my own ritual and choosing who I want to witness it, my “stuff” as I mentioned earlier, immediately comes up. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by excluding them, so I let them in. Yikes.   I think the challenges and inspirations you encounter when you design a ritual, much like the process of creating art or building relationships, may reveal more about you, your values and your struggles, then whatever actually happened to you to make you need a ritual to get through it.   That being said, that life experience you went through (or are going through), especially if it was traumatic or disruptive, is something that others have been through, too. And those spaces where people with shared lived experiences can connect with one another are vital.   Colleen: I had a conversation on a different show about, I don't know that affinity groups is the right word, but the group where the kind of group where everybody's been through, the hard thing, you know, like a, like a, like a group everybody's come out. Or, um, I was in one of, um, people who'd had a friend murdered survivors of homicide, you know, like, and like nobody, nobody gets that thing unless they've been through it and people can have all kinds of, you know, empathy and it just doesn't quite get there, but people who've all been through it. Like, that's, there's a, there's a connection there aren't words for, and it can be incredibly healing.   Catherine: Throughout the process of a ritual or a ceremony, when do you feel the most empowered and in the zone?   Colleen: I think I feel in the zone the whole time I'm in ritual space, especially if I'm not facilitating or having to be my brain, if I can just be in my body, you know? Um, and, um, and I feel most empowered when I feel like I'm not doing it alone, I think is my answer when whatever is moving, um, maybe being witnessed by people, listening to this thing I'm sharing or watching this thing I'm doing, and they're with me, you know, they're a hundred percent with me. They're like linked up with me, like energetically in this space. Right. I'm not alone. Or, or, and or if I feel like I'm like connected to spirit, to ancestors, to, you know, in my case to the goddess or all it is, well, then I feel like I'm, I'm not alone. And that, that is very, very freeing and comforting.   Catherine: How are ritual and storytelling connected?   Colleen: I like to use ritual as a place to tell the hard stories, you know, like I could have you, I could have a bunch of people over for dinner and tell them a hard story, but that might be then it's part of a social event and it's not all like people get it. That's a really hard story for me to tell her if it is, it can be like, oh, that is downer for the evening. Thanks a lot. You know, like it, it doesn't always fit like these really intensive experiences or stories that we could have that we might want to share. It's kind of like creating a place for it, you know, say, Hey, I'm having this event, I'm going to tell this really hard story. And I want people to witness it, if you want to be seen in that or if you want to grieve it or whatever it is, you know, like, I feel like we don't get too many chances to be real in life. Um, so we can create these intentional ones to be really real with each other.  getting to use all of the modalities, you know, a sound and, and, um, and visuals and body and costuming and movement and dance, and, you know, alters and space and time and audience, and, you know, all that stuff can be used in both mediums.   Catherine: Why do you love what you do?   Colleen: Hmm. Because it gives me and other people that I work with a chance to be real and to show up in a way that we don't always get to in life to create spaces where we can be our fullest selves. And I think for me, creating ceremony, bleeding, designing, being in ceremonial space is being my fullest self.   Colleen: In ritual we're often  ascribing a meaning to an object. So like I just got this ring the other day. Uh it's, it's a, it's a gold ring with a circle on it and I'm wearing it on my middle finger of my right hand. And I got it cause I watched a movie with it, had a man who seemed very confident who had a lot of rings. And I was like, oh, I need a lot of rings that will do it. That will help me, which was completely ridiculous. And then I looked online and I saw this ring and I'm like, that's a nice ring. I will know what to do when I get that ring. And I was so excited for it to come. And I was like waiting at the door when it came and I put it on and I'm like, this is so stupid. It's just a ring. But, but, but I haven't given it like, I mean, that's the meaning it already had. Cause I already built that story about him. I haven't given it any real meaning yet. Right. And I could give it a meaning like, you know, all as well or, you know, the circle is complete or I'm, I'm calm or in anything I want, I can put any kind of meaning on it. So I guess I'm saying all this, just to say that any object in our life can become, um, a focus for an intention. So, and it can be private. So I can give this ring a meaning in my mind that you will never know, but every time I see it, I will be reminded of that. And it will help me, you know, deepen into whatever that is, whatever I want it to be to stay calm or everything's fine. Or, um, I know everything or I do know what to do. You know, the spring did tell me what to do and I know it now, you know, I can find it, I can find it out. You know, maybe that's what this ring is now that I think about it. But, but like I said, in one of my shows, I, I can, I can have like a wonder woman DVD cover sitting up in my kitchen. That to me makes me remember that I'm wonder woman and I'm strong and I'm everything I need. And if you come to my house, you won't know, you won't know it, it's private and that can happen with any object at any time, which is really good.   I've been working on the show for two years now. It isn't a job. It isn't a hobby.   It feels like an ongoing ceremony where I process emotions publicly, with my listeners as my witnesses… And when you respond to me, when there is an exchange that happens, my reaction is visceral.   It reminds me of how I felt at the artist residency at Freehold when Ang, Selena and I broke down honeycomb with our hands. My mouth flooded with saliva… it was a split second, bodily reaction I can't explain. And I don't even want to explain it: it was real.   Like Colleen said… it's a body experience.   It's an experience I have as I am crafting the narration for the show in my head walking down the street, and finally holding the mic, my breath bringing the conversation to life, with you on the other end… I feel like I'm not alone.   That feeling is both comforting and freeing… I feel both held and released.   So what is the intention of this ceremony, other than publicly proclaiming my love to an auditorium of strangers?   When Colleen started talking about dedication and talking about how folks of faith wear certain outfit to declare their commitment to God, I thought about the role of fashion and adornment for the queer community and for my own role as host of Material Feels. I call the state of mind I get in when I produce the show “pod-brain.” All my people pleasing habits and existential angsting goes out the window. I don't feel the need to respond to texts. I cancel and move plans, guilt free, to prioritize the podcast. I feel fully alive.   It sounds like Material Feels is both a dedication and invitation for connection.   I want to come back to the earlier pull I had towards rituals of separation… And I want to re-examine it.   Maybe you are thinking about a ritual or ceremony you want to craft to move through hard emotions or a transition. Maybe you had a gut reaction to the four categories we talked about.   What if we take my initial reaction and split it apart to see what's inside…   This exercise of going deeper reminds me of the values exercise I did inspired by glassblower Deborah and by my therapist loved ones. How underneath one value there may be a deeper core value pulling the strings and running the show.   Or, as Colleen puts it, find what needs to be moved.   Sure, there are things in my life that I need to let go of. I'm drawn to minimalism in all senses of the word, freedom, less attachment to things that drain me. Vanlife has been a fantasy for… oh I don't know… three years now.   But when I was drawn to separation, it was a pull to separate from… well… everything.   I feel overly connected to and burdened by… everything. People, places, things, emotions, memories, worries.   Through a lot of work on myself, I understand that this is partly because I see the potential in everything, partly because I do not value my own time and energy enough, and partly because I want to be liked.   My greatest fear, other than making a mess and wasting food in the kitchen (see Pigment episode for the cashew incident) is not lions, tigers, bears or even climate change, though it probably should be that last one. My gravest fear is… disappointing people. And not being liked. And I feel totally weighed down by the gravity of people's eventual disappointment or displeasure with me.   To add to the mix, people have rarely told me I disappointed them. This rarity has me believing that, because I've been busting my ass to please everyone for most of my life, it's working! I'm close to perfect, everything is FINE, even though every three weeks I want to separate from everything AKA, ya know, just… stop existing.   I have such an ingrained struggle with allowing too much IN… being TOO dedicated to too many things.   My next thought is… I don't think I can address these recurring thoughts through a ritual of separation. I'm not good enough at separating. Flexing my dedication muscle would be so much easier…   Thinking about the things I feel pretty good at…. Throwing on the wheel, parallel parking… I practiced it. A TON. And the first time I did those things, I was trash at it. So just because separation is messy and hard and a bit awkward, doesn't mean I can't start now.   I actually asked Colleen about this conundrum, and she suggested I feel it out, explore where the impulse goes. It's such a similar process to working with the material world. I made a discovery, and now I have to play with it…I think that's the beauty of ritual and ceremony for me. It makes the hard things in my mind tangible. When something is tangible, I feel I can understand it. And because ceremony overlaps a bit with performance and storytelling, I can play with it, share it with others, get more information. Add characters and ambiance, try it on, turn it upside down, play it backwards.   I've started brainstorming what a hybrid ritual of separation and dedication looks like for me, one that allows me to approach and disrupt my own patterns safely.   I think sharing hard stuff on air is important. And that's why I wanted to share how dark my thoughts get when I'm feeling overwhelmed. While I feel a bit exposed and vulnerable, talking openly about mental health is a value I hold dear and tenet of this show.     This episode might bring up some life transitions and hard emotions of your own. As a host, it's my job to invite you in but also protect you a little bit: I often ask you to meet me where I'm at, I like the Material Feels community to feel called in and present. I imagine that as we've been talking some of your own stuff has been brought up. This is my formal invitation to check on the contents of your backpack. Add in a few symbolic objects, call in the element that aligns with your intentions, and think about where you want to go next and who you want to go there with.   And on your way there, I hope you begin to feel both held and released.   We'll be wrapping up Season 2 this fall with the release of another EP from Associate Producer Elizabeth de Lise, who writes our underscores and composes original music for the show. Expect a teaser for Season 3, updates about my business, CXM Productions, and some fun narrative experiments from the residency at Freehold. Thank you for being on this journey with me. If you'd like to support the show, find us on Patreon, or donate to us directly via PayPal: paypal.me/cxmproductions. And now, an original song by Liz, inspired by the materials Hillary Rea used for storytelling during her first ever artist residency at the Elsewhere Living Museum in Greensboro, NC.

Sometimes the cultural limits we grow up with can become our norms. Like the water we swim in, we forget to question them. What happens when we notice them and push back? Today Grace Chon shares her story of what happened when she dedicated a few moments a day to creative expression as a new mom and the photo series that went viral.   Grace Chon Creativity School Podcast Grace's Photo Series   Shelter in Place Podcast Labs Weekender   Music by Terry Hughes   Rate This Podcast Also Check Out: S2 E5 The Unbaby Shower (Tristy Taylor) S2 E10 Finding Your Own Magic (Erica Sodos) Full Transcript   Chon: I'm just really glad that I, you know, didn't buy into the stories of what's possible as a mother, what's possible as a working mother, and that I've really been able to experience that like, you can be all all of you!   Sometimes the cultural limits we grow up with can become our norms. Like the water we swim in, we forget to question them. What happens when we notice them and push back? Today Grace Chon shares her story of what happened when she dedicated a few moments a day to creative expression as a new mom and the photo series that went viral. This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas.    Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Several years ago when I was considering starting this podcast, I stumbled upon a show called “Creativity School with Grace Chon”. My husband and I listened regularly on our way to the train station each morning and then I continued to listen as I walked from one foggy bus stop to the next in downtown Oakland. Grace was just starting Creativity School then, and she regularly shared what a scary journey it was for her: putting herself out there, being bold enough to think she had something relevant to say, worrying no one would listen. I could relate to all of that! And yet, she did it and she modeled for me and all her listeners how to just go for it, believe it yourself, and make it happen. But not just simply to “go for it, believe in yourself, and make it happen” - but to really get on a deep level that starting a new project is a hugely vulnerable thing. It takes deep courage and chutzpah and there's a simple reason for that. Our creative projects are actually little bits of our souls. In creating them we are letting a bit of our soul-essence come into a form that can be shared with our world. That sounds completely safe and easy, right?   Grace and I recently sat down to talk through another transition in her life - becoming a mom for the first time. We focused on what that huge transition was like for her, how she took care of herself throughout it, and how she found time to keep expressing her creative self.    Thomas: So take us to that time in your life, what was what was going on? How did it feel to be there?   Chon: Ah, gosh, it was a really hard time in my life. Nothing can prepare you for motherhood. And I think, in hindsight, it's easy for me to see what was so hard about all of it. Aside from it just being a brand new experience, you're doing something you've never done before, the lack of sleep, the postpartum depression, all of that. But I think what I've realized is also being a type A workaholic overachiever where I prepare myself as much as I can by reading all the things. You can't do that with motherhood at all. Like nothing you read, nothing you try to prepare yourself with can prepare you for this moment and for this experience. And so I was just grappling with a lot, I think, not just physically, like, literally not sleeping, trying to take care of a baby, but emotionally, mentally… All while trying to juggle that with a career too. Because I was, you know, self-employed career as a photographer, and I only did a three month maternity leave and then I just jumped right back into work. And so it was a lot going on and I kind of felt sometimes, like I was losing myself, losing my identity as just Grace. But also, who am I as a photographer now? Where does this put my career? And it was just a lot of struggling. It was hard trying to find myself in where I fit where, you know, I fit in with this whole new role I have now as a mother,   Thomas: Totally, and I have to imagine that because I haven't been through that transition for myself. But I imagine it's got to be like… I mean of everything we could do in life, right? It's gotta be like one of the biggest transitions, especially for a first time mom.   Chon: Huge transition that you just cannot ever prepare for. Nothing can prepare you for it. And it's interesting, because I had another baby a year and a half ago and it was a completely different experience because I'd been through everything before I knew what to expect. Even just the lack of sleep didn't impact me as much as it did the first time because I knew what was coming. But when you really don't know what's ahead, transitions can be really… like when you're in that it can be so hard and challenging.   Thomas: Was there a bigger sense of need… of like faith and support and whatever faith might mean the first time through?   Chon: Yeah. [SIGHS.] What's so interesting is I am a very deeply spiritual person. And I have been my whole life, but I really dug deep into it probably five years before my son was born. And, you know, I think when things get really challenging and hard, that's really when one would think that's when you need your spiritual practice or your faith the most. And that's actually in my time when I completely just forgot it, because I was so… Oh, gosh, I was in a really dark place and I just didn't even have the time to meditate, you know… And you know, what's interesting, again, I keep comparing it to now my second child, because I had the wisdom and the experience of having gone through it, you know, I went through some very hard times with my second child as well but this time, that's when I leaned in purposefully, even more into my spirituality, leaned in even more into the meditation and leaned in even more into the faith and the trust and all of that, but it was a lesson learned with my first one because again, like I said, that's really when I wish I had been able to go more into my own faith and my own inner knowing and I just don't even think I had the bandwidth to do to do that.   Thomas: So tell me about the photos of the baby and your dog and how that… How did that happen?   Chon: So my son's name is Jasper, my dog's name is Zoey. And Zoey is a rescue dog from Taiwan. I adopted her in 2007. It's so funny because she's 15 now and things have changed so much in 15 years, because now it's pretty well known, especially in the rescue community about rescue groups that go to other countries where animal welfare is just not as sophisticated or even as top-of-mind as it is here. And so they'll bring the dogs from those countries to adopters in the United States. It's very common, you know, from Iran or other places in Asia, Korea. But in 2007, it was considered very weird. And I did not do it on purpose but I went on petfinder.com to adopt a dog and I came across this puppy staring at me, that was just the cutest thing. And it turned out she was from Taiwan and they had a volunteer and they flew her over here and so she was looking for a home. So that was Zoey. Turns out, she's like this shyest thing you'll ever meet and when we had Jasper, she wanted nothing to do with him, like at all. And so over a period of I want to say by… it took seven months for her to allow him to even touch her. And then once that happened, it was like, “Oh, this kid is really interesting. I like him.” Like, “I'm into him.” And so that was going on, and like I said, I had gone back to work when he was only three months. And I just started feeling like, really like that longing have like, my creative self. And when he was sleeping, I had this idea for taking a photo of them side by side wearing the same hat just because I thought it was cute. And so I took one when he woke up, and I put it on my Facebook page, and my sister was like, “Oh, my God, like, this is so cute. You have to shoot more of them!” And so I did, I ended up shooting 23 of them. I would work on it whenever Jasper went down for his nap. So I just get little spurts of really just getting to do whatever it is that I wanted. Because it was… I was shooting it for myself. It's not client work. It's not for anyone other than me… and it was my space and time to just be me and be as creative as I wanted. And the images just took off. They went viral. They ended up all over the world. I remember in one day I was getting interviewed on the Colombian radio and just interview after interview from websites… like on the phone, from email. And so I'm just doing this all while Jasper was I think nine or 10 months old and just juggling all the media. They were on the Today Show with Kathie Lee and Hoda. I mean, no, it was just crazy. It was… it was amazing. It was an amazing experience for me, because I felt almost like, “You're still in their Grace. You know, like you… you had the seed of an idea that spoke to you. You somehow found the time to get it out of you and just express yourself and shared it and it resonated with people and see like you're still there. You can still do all these things. It's just… it's coming from a different place now.”   This kind of self-talk is one of the things I love to see Grace model. This caring voice within her that cheers her on. Along with her vulnerability, I love this glimpse into a very simple but  profound way that Grace takes care of herself and honors where she is on her journey. We'll be right back.    [SHELTER IN PLACE PROMO]   Grace and I spoke about the freedom that she gave herself in being creative for a few minutes while Jasper took his nap. She was just being herself and it was fun. I asked Grace if she thought it was the energy of that freedom, that fun, that drew people to the photo series.    Chon: That was there and that's what people were responding to. I mean, it's really cute. Right? It's like a little, what's so cute about it is that Zoey looks exactly the same in every single photo. And then Jasper is the most sparkly little rascal you'll ever meet. And so every photo, his smile and his expression is slightly different. And then all the different hats are just different accessories, you know, and I think it was just all these pieces came together and it was just really whimsical. It was really cute. It purposefully was not… what's the word I want to use? It wasn't like cloyingly sweet, you know, it was minimalist. It was, in my opinion, like I wanted it to be very well designed and thoughtful. And so I think a lot of these pieces sort of came together in a way people hadn't seen before and they were really responding to that.   Thomas: That's a huge thing that happened. So how did that impact your experience of becoming a mom?   Chon: You know, what's interesting is that if I'm completely honest, there were times in my darkness where I really thought, “I've ruined my life.” Like, “This is it. This is the end.” I think a lot of this was probably my postpartum depression speaking. But there were times where I was just like, “What did I do? Like I ruined my life.” Like, “My life is gonna be struggle and hardship from here on out.” I think a lot of moms and parents who have been through especially those very hard initial three months know what I'm talking about. I think we've probably all had a moment where like, we're questioning our life decisions and like, “What did I just do?” but it's completely added this richness to my life that has changed everything. Like it hasn't just changed me as a human being, that informs me as an artist, me as a photographer, me as an entrepreneur, me as a business person. And I can't remember… I feel like at one point, someone said this to me, and I wish I remember who it was and when it was. But they said that your work is only gonna get better because you're a mom and they were absolutely right. And it's not that it's like I'm specifically making work about motherhood now or anything like that, but it's better because I just have much so much more access to my emotions and my feelings, and I have a richer experience of like, just, it's - I have this whole layer of life that I've never experienced before, I think anytime you can add more experiences, to you know, all the things you've been through, you bring that with you, it becomes just a new part of you. And so I think, having gone through motherhood and transitioning to that has just made me a better artist. And I also think, you know, talking about spirituality, becoming a parent is a pathway to really healing yourself. You know, I mean, I have encountered things in me that I never would have had to access, you know, as far as wounds and healing myself, I never would have had to go there, if I never became a parent. You know, there they are mirrors. And it's been really revealing to me on exactly the places that I needed to go and heal myself so that I could show up and be the best mom that I can be. And in doing that, that's only made my work better, too. So it's just been a really interesting. I mean, interesting is not even quite… I don't even know what word to describe the journey of parenthood, and now it's informed everything that I am now, but it's been very deep and it's been very illuminating and it's been very healing.   Thomas: It kind of sounds like maybe there was a point in time when when you're when your brain was like, "Oh, I'm either a creative or a mom." Like, “There's not room for both.” And then there was sort of this bright light of, "Oh, wait, I can do both! And it can be even better. At, you know… at both”.   Chon: Yes, you just said it so perfectly. That's exactly… yes! Yes, I think it's so easy to get into very black and white thinking. You're and it's exactly what you just said it was… it was me learning that process and, and going through this realization that I can absolutely be both that both are so beautiful and so valuable. And it's like, the totality of me is what makes everything I do. Because me being a great artist is me being who I am and being authentic and expressing myself and bringing that with me into my mothering. And my mothering is about love and unconditional love and service and all these things and I bring it into my art, right? And so it was really learning how they coexist and how they really help each other. It's like a synergistic relationship.   Thomas: And it's like, it's that idea of being our fullest selves and all the realms that we're in and that not hiding our light. But that's easier said than done. Right? Am I saying that right... yeah, it's easier said than done. Because it's so there's so many things in our minds, especially as women we get socialized that being a mother has to be a certain thing we get told you can't possibly make money in being an artist or creative. Like there's just all of this, like background noise that I know in my life, I've felt like I've overcome a lot of limiting thoughts only to realize that they're actually running through my system and affecting me at a deeper level. It's like a constant dropping, "Oh, it's still there." "Oh, it's still there." You know, because it's like the water we swim in and we're raised with so it's an I think it's a… kind of an ongoing process.   Chon: It is. I've experienced the same. I think it's really becoming aware of what you're thinking and how you're feeling and exposing what those very limiting beliefs are. And I think for me every time I have tried to expand what's possible for myself I just find more of them you know, that's what I just feel like it's an ongoing thing but I enjoy this process. I love this process. I love getting to know who I am. I love finding where I'm holding myself back and I love knowing that all of it's an illusion like I can be anything and anyone that I want to be and it's the only thing that's really stopping me is my own limiting thoughts of what I think is possible. And like you said we're swimming it in and and so cultivating the awareness to even know what you're swimming in and knowing you have the power and the choice to change what that is. I think it's fun. I love you know, I say like I really… I have no desire to do things like bungee jumping and skydiving because I think going within myself is so much more exciting. It's… I really enjoy it.   Thomas: I think an important piece of my life I think But I've learned to do is to is to create a, an atmosphere for myself that counterbalances the water I swim in. So I try to surround myself by things that are very meaningful to me. And people that speak in ways that inspire me and you and your show and having you in my life through listening to your show is just been one of those things. It's like a pillar of… you're just so positive. And so just everything I just, I just love you and your work!   Chon: Thank you! Oh, you just made my day! Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, I think that specific to the creative journey, it is so unknown, it's like motherhood, it's like, you can't plan for you. You're so purposefully putting yourself on a path where everyone has told you it's not possible. We have so much surrounding us, the water around us tells us that the life of creativity is so not possible. And as if it is possible, and it's worked out for people, it's because they're really special. And it's so not true and so that's… I'm so happy to hear that this show speaks to you. Because that's just what I want people to realize. It's all not true. They're all just stories, and we can change them.   Thomas: Yeah, and there are so many ways that we can be creative in life, like it doesn't creativity doesn't have to be, you know, writing or drawing or singing, or… it's just astonishing to me how creative people are, in general. And then we… somehow it's become like a thing that we're not supposed to own or I don't know, it's just but it feels like it's almost like our, our soul essence. It's like, it's like, you know, because we're all going to create what we're going to create and if we're bold enough, we're going to create great stuff, and it's going to be unique, it's gonna be like our soul speaking.   Chon: 1,000% agree with you! I'm like nodding my head so hard. Yeah, I really think, again, it's like we've limited what that is. And I agree with you. I think it is the energetic imprint that we put on the world and it's our very own unique energetic imprint. And really another way of saying that it is our soul's expression. And I think the reason why people who want to be creative, and just for some reason feel like they can't be the reason why it is such a wound, it's painful, is because we are all creative. Literally, we all have this soul, we all have this energy that wants to self-express and to hold back something so… it's the foundation of being human. How wounded are we to say that we're not creative when that is what we're here to do? We are here to self-express and be unique. And, and then suddenly people are saying, “Oh no, but that's not valuable. You can't make money doing it. It's only a hobby. And only special people can do it anyway…” Like you're denying something so basic and foundational to every single human being out there.   Thomas: Well, it's so it's such a treat to have you here and to hear you tell the story in real time and to get to talk to you in real time.   Chon: Oh, it's such a delight to be on your show. I love your show. I love everything you're doing. I love, you know, your heart for everything. I can feel it and I can see it and so it's just such a delight to connect with you and be on your podcast. Thank you so much.    Creativity School with Grace Chon is a wonderfully self-reflective exploration of Grace's journey as a photographer, bridging into being a podcaster and more recently bridging into being a creative coach. What I love about Creativity School is how transparent Grace is on the show, how she talks herself through each transition and lets us in on all of the vulnerability and the uncertainty. Recent episodes touch on when people don't like your work and releasing the fear of failure. There's a link to Creativity School in the show notes. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.    Grace Chon is a commercial animal photographer, recognized for the highly expressive portraits of animals she shoots for ad agencies, pet brands, magazines and more. She's also the author of two books, a Creative Transformation Coach, and the host of Creativity School podcast, where she guides people on how to share their unique gifts and talents with others. Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

It can take great bravery to come out of the closet, to let the people we know the best know us on that deep, real level - especially if knowing the true us might be hard for them. There isn't a commonly held rite of passage for coming out as queer, but that doesn't mean we can't create one. Links: The Self-Confident Queer (A Free Guide for Queer Folks To Build Your Self-Worth) Queer Spirit Podcast Before Stonewall (NPR) Music by Terry Hughes Rate This Podcast Also check out: Daily Magic for Peace (NEW!) A Queer Pagan Handfasting (Also featuring Nick & Thom) Full Transcript Venegoni: You know, even though I feel like I was very lucky and very privileged to, when I did come out, like, my family did accept me for the most part compared to other people, but it's still there's... you know, a misunderstanding and a challenge there that it's not really like celebrated.   It can take great bravery to come out of the closet, to let the people we know the best know us on that deep, real level, especially if knowing the true us might be hard for them. There isn't a commonly held rite of passage for coming out as queer, but that doesn't mean we can't create one.    This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Joining me today are returning guests Nick Venegoni and his husband Thom. Nick and Thom joined us way back in season 1, when they gave us a look into their handfasting ceremony, a wonderfully full-bodied ceremony which invited their entire community to weave a love spell together. Check the show notes for a link to that episode if you'd like to know more! Nick and Thom also joined me in an exploration of favorite questions to ask my guests: What is a rite of passage you wish you'd had? As queer folk, we shared the experience of coming out and spent some time thinking through what a coming out ceremony might look like. Nick, who works with the deeper questions around queerness and spirituality as a therapist and coach, led us off.   Venegoni: Yeah, so a ritual passage ceremony I wish I could have had would be something along the lines of a coming out ceremony. You know, I think that for so many queer people that not only is it not honored, but it's something to be ashamed of or to hide. And so I think that there's... there's a big opportunity that is lost there. And that it… not only you lose an opportunity for feeling proud or feeling empowered about who you are and the way you show up in the world, but it can for many people just create a wounding around shame. And that's part of why I, through my therapy practice and my coaching practice, have created, you know, some workshops and processes for people to be able to go back to repair those experiences, to maybe feel more empowered and to carry that power forward into their life.   Thom: Yeah, I would... I mean, my whole thing is I wish that nobody had to come out.    Thom: That because if all of these forms of sexual expression are just… are natural, which is what we're just in denial of as a society, and as a culture. We don't ask straight people to come out. So I hope we get to a place where nobody has to “come out”. That we somehow learn how to make it as organic a process as supporting the psychosexual development of heterosexuality. And queer people, of course have to go through the process of being enculturated as heterosexual and we have to have like two brains. And it's almost like when we come out, we're sort of saying, "Okay, I'm kind of tired of like being putting on the other brain for you. I now know I need you to put on a different brain for me." Like people don't understand that like, "Well, I have already been struggling and suffering to make you comfortable. So when you say 'I am now uncomfortable', it's like, oh, you have had one moment of discomfort and I have had a lifetime of pain."    Thom brings up a great point here. It seems to me that the dominant/louder/more powerful groups in our society routinely ask members of other groups to conform to their standards. We see this with divisions related to sexual orientation, race, and religion. What Thom describes is something known often as code switching, when individuals feel they need to speak or act to match the norms of a group outside their own. Another thing that can happen is that the dominant culture can also try to pigeonhole members of other groups to make them easier to categorize, which ultimately of course dehumanizes them and erases the chance to know the fullness of each person.   Thom: People's sexual preference and sexuality can also transform. You know, I mean, there are... You know, for the most part, there's a central tendency of like, “these people are just these people”. But there are people who do travel through a spectrum and back again in their life. There are lots of women who start out getting married, having kids, and then they decide they're lesbian. And, you know, that's way more common among women than it is men. But there are men who like get married, and they feel like they're one way and then they change their mind, or, I don't know... I just feel like if you're like 12 years old, and you try to tell your parents like, "Oh, I like my same gender" then they're going to start creating your experience for you, instead of understanding how to support your own exploration of what that means. Just the way that heterosexual people, it's like, well, you're going to date a lot, you're going to meet people, you're going to figure out what you like, you're going to, you're going to go through a series of relationships. You might go through a series of marriages. I think we just need to grow a lot, like as a society, not as individuals. But our cultural story, like our shared cultural story, I think needs to grow and mature and become a lot more sophisticated. But that said, there are a lot of people who do have wounding around coming out or not being able to come out or not being able to seen or witnessed in the right way that you know, can be... You can go back into those moments and heal them and heal that moment in time and, you know, really change the present. Not change the facts, but change the energy which might be limiting you in ways that you don't understand yet, you know...   Thomas: I think the closest thing that I had to a coming out ceremony was - and I think, I think I might have shared this with you, Nick, I don't remember - that the stagecraft teacher in my college who built a stage… well, she built a stage, she built the door and we… a closet - she built the closet! And we all got to come out of the closet, you know, in a big line at a coming out day dance, the Mary B. James coming out day dance. And at that dance, the queer people, the self-identified queer people, were wearing a purple flower and the allies were wearing pink. So everybody was, like, trying to figure out what color everybody was wearing. And, like, under dance lights where purple and pink kind of look the same under dance lights…. so it was really crazy! But it was like an actual celebration, because when I came out to my parents, it wasn't such a good… it was a really hard moment.   Thom: Well, I didn't really come out to my family, they just sort of figured it out and I never corrected their assumptions, which was a nice way of doing it. But they also didn't bring it up and make it hard for me so that I could just then, like talk about boys that I liked when I was in high school. And you know, as I got older, they weren't, like, surprised that I was dating men. But I've always been very untraditional in a lot of ways so they weren't really expecting me to be traditional about relationships either. But when I came out to my grandmother once, and I realized like, oh, I've never actually just told her that I'm gay, you know? And one day, I went to go visit her with a friend of mine, a female friend, a woman friend of mine. And she was like, "Oh, is this your girlfriend?" And she thought maybe she was expecting... it was so weird. She's like, "Are you expecting?" And I was like, No... I was like, Grandma... actually, I called her Nana... I was like, "No, Nana, I'm gay." Like, "I don't date women." And she just got quiet for a moment and went blank and all she said was, "I don't know... I don't know what you mean." And that was like... I was like, "Okay, she's not ready to go there." She's not freaking out. You know, she's not crying and world has ended...   Venegoni: It's like you just spoke Klingon to her.   Thom: Yeah, she was just like, "What? I don't know what to do with this information." So then we just got to have the same relationship we always ever had. And I got to have the moment of being like, Okay, I have informed you and I'm glad that there's no you know, drama that I need to sweep up and we'll just carry on. And, you know, she never made that assumption again which was good. So...   Thomas: Is that something that you, that either of you have ever thought about, doing any kind of retroactive… well, actually, sorry, let me go back, Nick, to something that you said about workshops and practices that you share with your… around coming out. Is there anything that you could share with us in this venue of like, how those work or what you do, or what support you offer?   Venegoni: Yeah. So, you know, I've been studying for a number of years at a school in Berkeley called the Foundation of the Sacred Stream, which teaches a variety of classes in transformative studies and energy medicine and that kind of thing. And one of the classes that they offer was called Initiations of the Sacred Masculine. They do another one for women called Initiations of the Sacred Feminine. And before I even took that class, I was thinking about wanting to do some kind of workshop for queer folks but I wasn't really sure. And so it was after that class, where we sort of talked about the... you know, what we're talking about but just around, like gender identity, not so much about sexuality. But the way that when a boy becomes a man, or when a girl becomes a woman, you know, that transition in adulthood based on your gender... and how in a lot of older cultures and tribal cultures, they still have processes around that. But in modern Western culture, they don't have that. And, you know, so through that class, we went through a series of processes to help us see that and understand that and the effects of that... of not having that and what can we do to reclaim that. And so I took that as a template of inspiration into what I created, which I just created this course, and it's called Reclaim the Power of You, but it's specifically for queer folks around reclaiming power that was lost during that period of coming out. You know, when people may have, you know, disowned you or abandoned you or rejected you or judged you for that process. And so there's a... you know, it's... it's a several week process that I take people through of exploring that and understanding that and then getting through to a point through this spiritual process that I've created using guided meditation and other tools like that to help people reclaim that power that was lost through that experience of coming out which to me is a kind of initiation, you know. So the I... all of these things... you know, I think that, you know, a big part of what your podcast is about, you know, in a way can be framed as an initiation, which I think of initiations as these gateways that we have the opportunity to walk through and transform ourselves in our lives. And those gateways hold power, you know, so it's a way to sort of step into, you know, a new experience of who you are. Whether that's like, I'm no longer a child, I'm an adult now, you know, whether that's through your gender, your sexuality, or your biology, or you know, whether that's... In Christianity, there's confirmation, you know, whether that's a... you know, a vision quest that you know, someone goes on or anything like that. I think they're all different opportunities for initiation that can be like a ritual or just a process that could feel like a hardship or an ordeal. Sort of a growth spurt in a way where you have an opportunity to really grow and step into a new level of power in terms of who you are in the world and carrying that forward in your life.   I love that! Framing our life transitions, whenever, however they come, as initiations. Initiations that lead us through gateways that hold power. That's why I think we should really honor our transitions, mark them, make a big deal out of them - at least in our own hearts. Because these are the gateway moments in our lives. When we go through something like a divorce, or a we get a diagnosis, or we walk away from an old career, or we come out - these experiences may not be comfortable or fun, but they allow us to step into a new experience of ourselves. We'll be right back.   [MUSIC]   It's wonderful to have you here! Be sure to check out our new series called “Daily Magic for Peace” Daily Magic for Peace offers a quick and simple way to focus your intentions, prayers, and actions toward healing the crisis in Ukraine. Find the show as a separate podcast on your favorite player. If you feel like you've done all you can but still want to do more, join us in doing some Daily Magic for Peace.   Thom: I turned 50 a year ago. I just had my 51st birthday but a part of my 50th birthday... we did a ceremony, sort of a... like a power-retrieval type ceremony where we did go back and look... heal like specific woundings from when I was younger so that all of that energy would then collapse into the present and I would then move forward into this next part of my life without that energetic disturbance or that energetic attractor, if you will. And so that was a situation where it wasn't specifically related to coming out because I didn't have any coming out wounding, but we did do a ceremony where we went back to deal with a past, you know, scenario and then heal that in the present and that was really eye-opening and amazing and  don't know why I never thought of it before.   Venegoni: Yeah, I mean, I think that's just another example of what I'm talking about of these... these demarcations that you can use as a way to sort of propel yourself forward into, you know, a better place or a new phase in your life. Yeah.   Thom: Because I wanted my fifties to be my power years and I thought, well, we better go in and clean up the past a little bit. And it was interesting how... I mean, it wouldn't say I felt lighter but I would say that I had like clusters of memories around some of this old trauma that all just kind of... like I sort of forgot that like, I forgot to behave in all of the ways that I behave because I'm constantly trying to just take care of the trauma or cope with the wounding. And it's like, oh, okay, well, that's not there anymore so my energy can now go to the things that I really desire, you know. And be it really, really in the present with what I want to be in need to be in alignment with right now. And I can see how that could work for coming out also, you know, some sort of a power-retrieval ceremony, where you, you know, go back into that space and, like reclaim your power. Because what happens is, of course, we gave up power somewhere to someone, and we forgot that that's what happened, but energetically, that's still the reality. These are great questions. You know, most people… most people don't ask us these things everyday. So I don't, I don't often think about... about it.   We don't talk about these things enough. And we can create opportunities to go back and reclaim our power. We only need our creativity and an openness to explore time beyond the linear. Underneath any trauma or wounding, we are still whole and we can find our way back to our true selves. Ceremony and community can help. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to sit down again with both Nick and Thom and also grateful to be able to share their wisdom with you.    Nick Venegoni & his husband Thom live in San Francisco, California and have been together for 15 years. Nick is the host of the The Queer Spirit podcast and a sound healer practitioner. Be sure to check the show notes and download a copy of his free guide to help queer folks build  self-worth, called “The Self-Confident Queer”. Thom is a mystic and ritualist in the school of Natural and Ancestral Witchcraft and co-creator of the Trees and Stars open coven. Our music is by Terry Hughes. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player to be notified when new episodes are released. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Announcing Our New Series: Daily Magic for Peace! - The first few episodes of Daily Magic for Peace will be released here. - To continue receiving episodes to your podplayer, subscribe at the links below! - Help us send good energy! Subscribe & share with one friend today! ---------------------------   Daily Magic for Peace offers a quick and simple way to focus your intentions, prayers, and actions toward healing the crisis in Ukraine. By gathering one or two items and joining the circle, you will help send positive energy to counterbalance injustice, anger, and fear. Music by Terry Hughes. Find us on your favorite player or at shamepinata.com.    Ways to Listen: - Add Daily Magic for Peace to the end of your news playlist. - Listen first thing in the morning to start your day with hope. - Listen before sleep to relax. - Listen before participating in any activity for which you want to be fully present.   Subscribe: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-magic-for-peace/id1613640092 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6My8jcSF7g7IURys9nSkHi - Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+4JDR_J4Ec - Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/c1dcc878-f686-4ee5-a695-cc54bdc3f8fb - Show Website: https://ever-changing.net/daily-magic   If you feel like you've done all you can but still want to do more, join us in doing some Daily Magic for Peace.   _________________   Donation Sites - CNN: https://action.publicgood.com/campaign/ - NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1082992947/ukraine-support-help   Prayer, Chanting & Ritual - Russill Paul: https://www.facebook.com/russill.paul - Jennifer Berezan's Song for All Beings: https://youtu.be/DzPTHstpJ2I - Starhawk's Spell for Justice: https://starhawk.org/a-spell-for-justice/   Stay Informed - State of Ukraine (NPR): https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510366/state-of-ukraine - NYT The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-daily   Make Your Voice Heard - President Joe Biden: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ - US House of Representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative - US Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm - UK Parliament: https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/ - President Emmanuel Macron: https://www.elysee.fr/en/contact/ - Chancellor Olaf Scholz: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/service/contact

Announcing Our New Series: Daily Magic for Peace! - The first few episodes of Daily Magic for Peace will be released here. - To continue receiving episodes to your podplayer, subscribe at the links below! - Help us send good energy! Subscribe & share with one friend today! ---------------------------   Daily Magic for Peace offers a quick and simple way to focus your intentions, prayers, and actions toward healing the crisis in Ukraine. By gathering one or two items and joining the circle, you will help send positive energy to counterbalance injustice, anger, and fear. Music by Terry Hughes. Find us on your favorite player or at shamepinata.com.    Ways to Listen: - Add Daily Magic for Peace to the end of your news playlist. - Listen first thing in the morning to start your day with hope. - Listen before sleep to relax. - Listen before participating in any activity for which you want to be fully present.   Subscribe: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-magic-for-peace/id1613640092 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6My8jcSF7g7IURys9nSkHi - Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+4JDR_J4Ec - Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/c1dcc878-f686-4ee5-a695-cc54bdc3f8fb - Show Website: https://ever-changing.net/daily-magic   If you feel like you've done all you can but still want to do more, join us in doing some Daily Magic for Peace.   _________________   Donation Sites - CNN: https://action.publicgood.com/campaign/ - NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1082992947/ukraine-support-help   Prayer, Chanting & Ritual - Russill Paul: https://www.facebook.com/russill.paul - Jennifer Berezan's Song for All Beings: https://youtu.be/DzPTHstpJ2I - Starhawk's Spell for Justice: https://starhawk.org/a-spell-for-justice/   Stay Informed - State of Ukraine (NPR): https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510366/state-of-ukraine - NYT The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-daily   Make Your Voice Heard - President Joe Biden: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ - US House of Representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative - US Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm - UK Parliament: https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/ - President Emmanuel Macron: https://www.elysee.fr/en/contact/ - Chancellor Olaf Scholz: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/service/contact

Announcing Our New Series: Daily Magic for Peace! - The first few episodes of Daily Magic for Peace will be released here. - To continue receiving episodes to your podplayer, subscribe at the links below! - Help us send good energy! Subscribe & share with one friend today! ---------------------------   Daily Magic for Peace offers a quick and simple way to focus your intentions, prayers, and actions toward healing the crisis in Ukraine. By gathering one or two items and joining the circle, you will help send positive energy to counterbalance injustice, anger, and fear. Music by Terry Hughes. Find us on your favorite player or at shamepinata.com.    Ways to Listen: - Add Daily Magic for Peace to the end of your news playlist. - Listen first thing in the morning to start your day with hope. - Listen before sleep to relax. - Listen before participating in any activity for which you want to be fully present.   Subscribe: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-magic-for-peace/id1613640092 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6My8jcSF7g7IURys9nSkHi - Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+4JDR_J4Ec - Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/c1dcc878-f686-4ee5-a695-cc54bdc3f8fb - Show Website: https://ever-changing.net/daily-magic   If you feel like you've done all you can but still want to do more, join us in doing some Daily Magic for Peace.   _________________   Donation Sites - CNN: https://action.publicgood.com/campaign/ - NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1082992947/ukraine-support-help   Prayer, Chanting & Ritual - Russill Paul: https://www.facebook.com/russill.paul - Jennifer Berezan's Song for All Beings: https://youtu.be/DzPTHstpJ2I - Starhawk's Spell for Justice: https://starhawk.org/a-spell-for-justice/   Stay Informed - State of Ukraine (NPR): https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510366/state-of-ukraine - NYT The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-daily   Make Your Voice Heard - President Joe Biden: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ - US House of Representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative - US Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm - UK Parliament: https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/ - President Emmanuel Macron: https://www.elysee.fr/en/contact/ - Chancellor Olaf Scholz: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/service/contact

Today we dive into the sacred blood rites of menarche and menopause in a conversation with Magician and Menstrual Educator Erica Sodos.    Links: Crimson Wisdom (Colleen's book on the power of the blood!)   Erica Sodos   Erica's Show 3/5/22 Show in Castle Rock, CO   Susun Weed's Book: New Menopausal Years: Alternative Approaches for Women 30-90   Music by Terry Hughes   Rate This Podcast   On an Android Device?   Also Check Out: Welcome to Womanhood   Finding Your Own Magic (also w/Erica Sodos) Before we start today's episode, I'd like to place us in time for a moment. Today is March 3, 2022. It's been seven days since Russia launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine. I just want to acknowledge that this is a lot. It's a lot of heartbreak. It's a lot of feeling helpless. And it's a lot of fear. What you are feeling matters. So I invite you to pause for a second and notice what you are feeling. Notice your body, your breath, your heart. And I invite you to join me as I ring a bell for everything that is happening [RINGS BELL]. Thanks and now here's today's show.    The culture we are born into hands us a template for what it means to be human, what it means to progress through the various stages of life. This template may tell us that some transitions are good and some are bad, but what if everything is mutable? What happens when we feel empowered to name our own reality?   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.    When you hear the phrase “rites of passage” what do you picture? A bunch of people gathered together, maybe outdoors? Is there a fire? Is there a ceremonial feel? Is the concept of anthropology lurking around somewhere perhaps? This might be what you see and it also might totally NOT be what you see, but it's interesting, isn't it, that phrase rites of passage evokes a certain something.   Today we're going talk about one of the things it most commonly evokes, the idea of coming of age. We're also going to talk about another rite of passage that doesn't always get spoken about about in a positive way, the time of menopause.    The coming-of-age time when we're anywhere from 9-13 brings physical changes and hormonal changes and brings on the start of menstruation for some of us. And some number of years later that menstruation will stop. It might stop naturally or through surgery or illness. These are two points in life that we're going to talk about today: the beginning of bleeding which is sometimes called menarche and the end of bleeding which is usually called menopause. These are potent times in our lives and they are worthy points to stop and reflect on the full-body changes they bring - and perhaps even identity changes they bring.   These are life changes that are often associated with women's bodies and women's experience. However, many people with menstrual cycles do not identify as women. They might identify as trans men, transgender masculine, gender fluid, or not identify with any gender at all. This arena of talking about the blood is one I have worked in for many years and I am constantly striving to open the circle and welcome more people into the rites of passage we can build around the blood. I think it's really important as well to broaden the education of the non-bleeding people around us to what happens during the moontime, what happens during the bleeding part of the cycle both physiologically and energetically and all the ways we can celebrate and honor that.     The format of today's episode is a conversation I had with Erica Sodos. Erica was on the show last season speaking about the magic of everyday life, which makes sense because Erica is a magician. Erica is also a menstrual educator. She published a zine for many years called Moonflow, which included thoughtful articles, tips, and even a comic strip about the power of the blood. I call Erica my blood sister because she's been right there along my own journey to learn to love my menstrual cycle and to deepen into the power and mystery it afforded me.    These days we're both nearing or in menopause, so our conversation about the blood was held within that context. It was also held within the framework of the NeoPagan tradition of honoring the Triple Goddess, commonly known as Maiden, Mother, Crone - each of which symbolizes a phase in the life cycle. If you've never understood what could be useful, important, or even good about the menstrual cycle, I invite you to give today's episode a listen.   Thomas: I wanted to ask you what's a rite of passage you wish you'd had.   Sodos: So I wish I had a ton of rite of passages and I wish I learned that concept when I was younger. But as you could probably guess, the rite of passage I really wish I had was my first moontime! Definitely. I think it would have shaped me as a… almost like a different person. I mean, it would have taught me to love my body and my blood and I wouldn't have had to figure that out decades later. You know? So, I'd say it's my moontime. That's such a… that could be such a beautiful ritual.   Thomas: Have you gone back to do any kind of retroactive anything about that?   Sodos: I have done it on my own but not to the extent that I know you have because I love how you'll actually like, recreate it with your friends and community. You're amazing with your right of passages. But I think a number of years ago I did something. But now I'm in perimenopause and so at this point, I'm entering a whole new phase and my age. It's scary. It's different.   Thomas: I think it's never too late to go back and do the the first ones, the older ones.   Sodos: Say a woman is seventy so she hasn't bled for a while. She could still celebrate her first moon time?    Thomas: Yeah, sure…   Sodos: Really? Even though she's already been through all these different cycles in her life. And I guess, I guess you're saying you can do it, you feel that you can do a rite of passage whenever, like even if it was a while ago?   Thomas: Yeah. I mean, it has a different effect, I think, than doing it at the moment. But I believe that ritual transcends space and time and I've been in a post… a retroactive menarche ceremony with one of my blood mothers who got a big room of 30 women together who were all, you know, in their 30s 40s 50s… I don't know how old everybody was… But we went and we did a meditation… we went back… we met somebody… I don't know, it was a long time ago, we just… it was like shamanic meditation when we went back and we got the teaching and we experienced sort of a, generic version of like, “This is how it could have been when you got your blood”. And we had this incredible teaching and learning and then we had… the woman who led it, her mother was… They did like a… what I've heard called an angel tunnel, where everybody one at a time walked down, a passageway made by the women. The women were standing in two lines and you walked through the two lines and it was kind of like being birthed and once you came out, you were… that was your transformation you came out in you were a woman and you were welcomed to womanhood by the Grandmother, who is the facilitator's mother who was just amazing and she gave us like a red necklace and she gave us this incredible hug. And she was like, “Welcome to womanhood!” It was so… it was so amazing, because the way… It was Georgette Star who who did it, and the way that she held it all together, and it was… she made it such a sacred experience. And it was all for women who, you know, were not 12 or 13, it was all for grown women to go back and connect to the moment of the, you know, the Maiden. And it was, it was just transformational and so I know that it can transcend space and time. It helps if you have a really good ritual practitioner can who can run it for you.   Sodos: That sounds like magic, like talk about magic. Like I'm feeling that… that you… Well, that's the same idea like when I was in therapy and the therapist would have me go back to an experience from when I was little and say, you know, I was attacked, or my parents were out of control or whatever and then she would be like, “Who would protect you?” And then I did all these meditations where there was this bear… this mama bear would come and like took me away until all the fighting was still going on, but the mother was… And I think that that's that same idea. It's like almost like neural… changing the neuroplasticity in the brain, right?    Thomas: Right.   Sodos: I mean, you're going back. And you're reclaiming this experience, whether it's trauma, or a rite of passage, which couldn't be trauma if it's meant a certain way. [LAUGHS] And like getting your moontime and then you kind of recreated it and then in a way the timeline changes. Right? Did you feel for you and other women like the timeline changes?   Thomas: Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Like the historical events that happened in my life when I did really get my blood when I was 12 didn't change but yet the part of me… the 12 year-old who's always living in me now has had a very different experience… had like the original experience and then had this other amazing experience which kind of weaves together.   Sodos: So you became more whole, in a way.    Thomas: Exactly.   Sodos: Because that 12 year-old who grew up who was fractured or whatever you want to say never truly connected to her power or whatever it was. But now she's had a different timeline within you, so it makes you different now, is that kind of…   Thomas: Exactly. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.    Sodos: And that was the idea of what the therapist was doing with me.    Thomas: Right.   Sodos: Right? Taking me back to the wounding and then… God,  it'd be kind of amazing, wouldn't it, to just do that…I mean, it takes a long time to just go through your life and try to reclaim all those bad experiences?   Thomas: Heal each thing…   Sodos: Be like, “Okay, this one was last week…” No, just kidding.   [MUSIC]    Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with us! If you'd like to learn more about this whole blood as sacred thing, check out my book “Crimson Wisdom”. It's available now on Kindle and tells the story of what a modern day Red Tent can look like.  Check the show notes for a link.    Thomas: I'm in menopause… I'm postmenopausal now so it's like I'm in that phase and that's a whole other rite of passage that I'm… I don't know that I'm ready to honor that yet. [LAUGHS]   Sodos: How long has it been since you've bled?    Thomas: Almost two years.   Sodos: You haven't bled at all, not even spotting? And you're younger than me. How old are you?   Thomas: Yeah, I know I stopped when I was 48. And I'm almost 50.   Sodos: Wow. I was getting mine like every… constantly… like bleeding all the time like, like just tons of… like a lot of blood. But I think that's… they say you could either get non or get a lot and wow, two years… you, have you done a Crone ceremony yet?   Thomas: No, I just haven't felt ready. I haven't felt like I'm still grieving - and I'm not actively grieving, that's why it's taking so long - grieving that not having the blood time and not having the, you know, that deep pull, that richness. Even though a lot of times when it came when I had it, I was like, “Yeah, okay, I don't really want to go there.” And I was like, “It's gonna go away, you're gonna really miss it, you're gonna be really sad, you better do it!” And so I would fight it, you know, a lot, then. And then it was like, okay, now it's gone and I'm in that bitter place where I don't want to hear people talking about how great it is, because I'm angry I don't have it.    Sodos: …how great menstruating is?    Thomas: Yeah, which a lot of people don't say that, but sometimes people do say that.    Sodos: Most people hate it. Yeah. As you know, hence the magazine.   Thomas: Or I'll say, “I'm postmenopausal”, or, you know, and they'll be like, “Oh, thank God”. And I'm like, “No, actually, my story is really different and…” But so I'm still processing, I'm still processing it. But I'm going to have a Croning ceremony or something of that nature at some point.   Sodos: I think, like… I hear what you're saying, because for people like us who worked, would it be inaccurate… I mean I don't want to like speak for you, but like, I'll just say we and tell me if I'm projecting. We worked to honor our blood. Like it was something that we wanted to be sacred. So when I say I'm scared, I'm scared to lose my blood. I think that's what you're saying. Like… Now did you have side effects and stuff? Did you have…   Thomas: Yeah, I've had a lot. I've had a really hard time with hot flashes. They're… I think they're getting better. They're getting better or I'm getting more used to them.   Sodos: Still?   Thomas: Yeah, I'm still getting them. And the worst part, gosh.. I would get these really bad ones for I'd be on transit because I used to commute an hour and a half to work and I would have, you know, my clothes, and then a sweater and then a jacket and then like a hat and whatever and then my bag and my you know, and I'm on BART or crammed in a bus or whatever, crammed on BART, whatever. Then I'd have a hot flash in the middle of all that and it was like…and  sometimes I thought I was going to pass out or throw up or something.    Sodos: Have you read books about menopause like to help you?   Thomas: Yes, I… I… yes. Before I was postmenopausal, I read a lot of books and then when I was actually on my honeymoon, I was reading a book about menopause.    Sodos: So you were still bleeding.    Thomas: I was still bleeding then, yeah.   Sodos: It's funny that you read them so early and now you're in it and you're going, “No” The only one I have is about a year ago, I bought the Susun Weed book. Yeah, she's so cool, Susun Weed, and I like that book. She talks about the Croning. I wonder too… even for someone like you who works on this stuff, the word Crone is very loaded. Do you think… do you not …do you like the word Crone? Like, do you feel like a Crone? Because you don't look like a Crone… stereotypically.   Thomas: It's interesting because… So when I was first into the blood mysteries, I started… I got really fascinated with the idea of the Crone and I started offering classes for women who were much older than me to tell them how much to love the Crone time.    Sodos: [LAUGHS]    Thomas: And I knew that I was like, really in a weird place teaching that, right? Because I was just like, “I can't tell you anything about it obviously, but I'm going to get you together, I'm going to tell you what I've read about how great it is and then you're going to, you know, tell me, you know, insane or whatever… And the women would get really inspired by what I would say. But what I realized was that, because I was in like my 30s, I thought that postmenopausal was like, “a group of women”. And so and as I worked with them, I had women of all ages coming to these workshops, and I realized I had women who are 50 or 40. Well, maybe 50, late 40s, early 50s… and I had women who were 80, and they were in a completely different phase of life and they were all in one bucket in my head because I was naive enough to not understand any nuance about this yet. So when I hear the word Crone I always think of it of course, as an old woman, and I don't feel like I'm there yet. But then it's like, there's lots of stages in life. Right? And there's the menopause and post menopause. But I don't know that it has to be the Crone right, then. I mean, it could be. I don't know that I'm ready. I think I will probably call it a Croning ceremony when I do it, but I don't feel like I'm worthy of being a Crone yet. I haven't earned that yet.   Sodos: I think yeah, I'm also afraid for my blood to stop. And it kind of reminds me of a relationship. Like, I used to do this thing where when I was in a relationship I would only focus on what was wrong… when I was younger… what was wrong with the person and then when I was out of it, I would focus on what was good. So it was like a way to be miserable as much as I could. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if you ever did that, but… So, but like it's like with our menstruation… it's like… because we've worked hard to focus on what we love. Yeah, it's like, but now it might be a good time to focus on what you didn't like about it because then you can…you know what I mean? It's like a relationship like, “You're gone. I'm not getting you back in this life. So you were kind of annoying. Remember those cramps I used to have… and all the time?” and I don't know…   Thomas: Well, I am really grateful that I've had, I call them my blood sisters and my blood mothers and my blood grandmothers. You've been an incredible blood sister for me all this time and then I've had women who've been older than me who've been, you know, in more of the teacher role than like the companion role and, and their teachers have been my blood grandmothers . I've just been so blessed to have had this amazing group of women around me. So… and those are the women I will turn to as I go to celebrate my Croning whenever I do that.    Sodos: Yay!   Thomas: Oh, my goodness. It's been so amazing to talk to you. I'm so glad we got to do this. Thank you so much.    Whether the concept of the blood as sacred and important is part of your everyday life or something you hold a little ways away from yourself and look at with suspicion, I am so glad you joined us today.    What's a rite of passage you wish you'd had? What's a hard experience you'd like to reclaim? As the author of your own story, you have the power to name, rename, and even reimagine the events of your past. Ritual, ceremony, and community are tools that can help you with this important work.    Erica Sodos is a magician, speaker, emcee, psychic entertainer, one of only a handful of female mentalists in the world. She is an avid lover of nature, a dedicated vegan, an environmentalist, and an activist and tour guide at an animal sanctuary. You can find out more about Erica and see examples of her magic at ericasodos.com.    Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

She saw him as a free spirit who was never going to get married. She didn't know how to let go of him because maybe there would never be a wedding and a dance. How one mother and son completely transformed their relationship with a ceremony in the middle of a lake.    Links: HealStory Podcast   Music by Terry Hughes   Rate This Podcast   On an Android Device?   Also check out these episodes: Why Weddings Make Us Crazy   Inviting Grief to the Wedding   There Must Be Something Wrong   Full Transcript   Astro: I've personally never heard of, of a mother and son, or even a father and a son, one-on-one ritual to mend and heal any unconscious issues that they may have had. I just hadn't heard of it. I think it's awesome.   So much of life is based on expectations. We anticipate our traditions to be there. The Father Daughter or Mother Son dance at the wedding can be a way of saying I love you and I'm moving on now. But what happens when there's no wedding?   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.   It's season 3 already - I'm not even sure how that happened. I'm so happy to have you with us as we continue exploring the wide variety of rituals and ceremonies we can build to address life's challenges. My hope is that as you navigate what life brings you, you might consider using ritual as a tool to honor yourself for something, or release something you no longer need, or honor in a relationship that's changed and grown over time. Today we will be exploring this last one: what it can look like to honor a relationship that's changed and grown over time.    I'm going to invite you into a conversation I had with my friend Astro and his mom Jeanne about a ritual they created together. It started when Astro noticed that his mom seemed to be getting a little triggered whenever he had a serious relationship. There seemed to be some feelings coming up that felt a little codependent or enmeshed. Now, Astro and his mom are really close, so he was able to just go to Jeanne and talk with her about what he was noticing and together they realized that Jeanne might be grieving the loss of her son as she watched him interacting as a grown man with a partner. I invite you to listen in on their story, the delightful way they relate, and how they intuitively turned to ritual to work through the tensions he'd noticed. One quick note - Astro's given name is Patrick, and you'll hear Jeanne refer to him by that name throughout the interview.    Colleen: Give me a sense of what your relationships like between the two of you.   Jeanne: [LAUGHS]    Astro: Hmmm.   Jeanne: I think it's fantastic.    Astro: Yeah, it's pretty good.    Jeanne: But I'll let you speak for yourself.    Astro: You go first, then I'll go.   Jeanne: Well, I'm aware that… what do I need to say? He's just been a fantastic young man to journey with since he was an infant.   Astro: I'm not so young anymore…   Jeanne: Huh?   Astro: I'm not so young anymore.   Jeanne: Well, no, you're not young anymore, but you're full of wisdom and it's just delightful to see how you are operating in life and… So… I happen to be a spiritual director and have done counseling and psychotherapy stuff and all that. So it's not, it's not what do I need to say? So I could go with the flow a lot easier, maybe than some parents.   Colleen: Got it.    Jeanne: …and that my job was simply to know that he's a gift to the universe and my job was to unwrap him.   Colleen: That's beautiful.   Astro: Yes, that's nicely said.    Jeanne: And so… then there was some times I found out that my wrapping was too tight.   Astro: We kind of realized that in kind of rehashing the story, that we had probably the same outcomes, but we had come to the ritual from different places which is really interesting, but that'll come up later.    Colleen: And what was going on in your relationship at the time that you had the ritual that led you to the ritual?   Astro: So I was at school at Naropa Institute at the University of Creation Spirituality and I was kind of learning initiation and working in ritual and the value of that for rites of passage. And I had just started to like, kind of recognize some dynamics that I'd never seen before, in the dynamic of our story, in our life, in our you know... So when my partner was interacting with my mom and I, there were just some things I was noticing that I hadn't seen in my mom before. So then I just kind of brought up my mom and I was like, “You know, is there something going on?” And she, you know, to her credit, like, it took a little time because these things are kind of unconscious motivations. But it came up and I think she recognized that - this is my memory of it at that time - was that she recognized that there was some stuff and through the work that I had done, ritual work, I was like, “Well, hey, let's dive in and let's figure something out just to address that stuff.”    Jeanne: And then, of course, I think I was… I was unconscious. I mean, I wasn't aware. So his bringing that up, made me… enabled me to look at it, and realizing that he's a free spirit, he's a seven in the Enneagram and they're… they don't usually make commitments. And so I figured that he'd probably have many partners, his life and maybe not a long-term committed. But I also was aware of that if there is something that's still tying an umbilical cord of me to Patrick and not setting him free, that perhaps a ritual would be helpful in my letting go, what I wasn't fully conscious of.   Astro: What I would, what I was noticing those unconscious things, and I think mom kind of just said it a little bit was just this idea of needing to let go and that's just that's, I think, a natural rite of passage in the story of parents and kids. And that happens through different stages throughout the life and one of those stages is when they are of an age where they, if they so choose to have a kind of a partner and then leave and create a family and life of their own. And I think, because Mom saw me as such a free spirit and world traveler and this kind of person that maybe wasn't going to have a traditional rite of passage, which she would be more used to in her tradition… and she grew up with, you know, much more traditional religious ceremony, AKA marriage, right? So since I probably wasn't going to get married, I think she was feeling a loss of  the opportunity to have clarity of my transition from this family into my own. Does that make sense?   Jeanne: Yes. Because as I say to him, one of the transitions are the ritual is at a wedding festivity, where oftentimes the bride dances with the father, and there's a letting go… it's a… it's letting go of that bond in celebration of a new relationship. So it's… I didn't realize how meaningful it is for mothers to dance with their sons, because there again is the closeness, the journey, and letting go. So I didn't see that that was going to happen and didn't necessarily constantly have a sense of we that needed to be replaced or or held. It was really, if there is still ties, what is the traditional way in which those ties are released?   Astro: Right. Yeah. To summarize, as you stated, we had both recognized there was a need for letting go.   Jeanne: Yeah.    Colleen: Right. Right. And I think it's amazing that you both had the consciousness… and that you're both on the same page with that. You're both open to that.   Astro: Yeah, it took some time. But yeah, we got there.   [MUSIC]   So they knew what the problem was and they chose to come up with something fun to deal with it. How cool is that, especially between a mother and son? I didn't hear any pointing fingers or blaming. When I hear this story, I see two people coming together to walk around a problem as a team. And I see two people who have seen the power and adaptability of ceremony to move them through an event.    Colleen: So, take me through the planning process when you're planning the ritual.    Astro: So we live on this beautiful lake and this is… this is already kind of a ceremonial place for us like… it's very spiritual and profound place for our family. We've been… our family's been here for a couple generations, at least Mom's side. So…   Jeanne: Oh, on the lake? Yeah. I'd started out in a basket as a baby on Seneca Lake and went other places and came back.   Astro: Seneca Lake in the state of New York, in the finger lakes. It's a really special place.   Jeanne: It is.    Astro: So we knew this would be the ritual spot, the lake. And it was like a beautiful summer time and we just hopped in a small fishing boat and we went out to the middle of the lake.   Jeanne: And Patrick had been a tennis player so he had a lot of trophies and I was trying to figure out where to put these trophies. So when he talked about it'd be nice if we had some object or something to release, I thought - ha, ha!   Astro: That's so funny because I feel like I I had the same idea at that same time. She thinks it was her idea to do that.   [TALKING OVER EACH OTHER]    Jeanne: But it was your idea. Anyways, it was a mutual idea. Here's the synchronicity between the two of us.    Astro: It was mutual, whoever was there first.   Jeanne: So we went through… we went through the trophies deciding which ones were…   Astro: …the ugliest.    Jeanne: Right. The ugliest or didn't have… necessarily have the…   Astro: …we found like two second place ones or something like that.   Jeanne: Right. We kept the first place and the ones that really stood out and then decided, okay, these really are just going to take up dust and so, but they are something that was part of my watching him and his being in that sport. And so we decided I'm not sure how many… we…probably at least three…   Astro: We took four…   Jeanne: …three or four we took out with us in the boat. And then we decided, “Well we're in the boat, how would we work this? Well how about we pick one up and then we talk about starting early on in life.” And I don't remember what we said, but it was segments of our life and celebrate…   Astro: I think it was pretty much you doing it like you just kind of took it and you held it and you were present with it and just sort of spoke to like my like… being like a baby and a toddler and what that was like for you and you know…    Jeanne: Yeah. Probably so.   Astro: And I remember like, some… lot of tears like there was emotion. And I felt like I was kind of holding space.   Jeanne: I didn't remember the tears, it was so long ago there. But I thought, you know, it was great to be letting go and letting the memories be cherished and off into the waters. So…   Astro: I'm sure we started with some intentional prayer and breathing.   Jeanne: I don't know about the breathing at that point.    Astro: Well, something centering.   Jeanne: But we were… Sure.   Astro: It was totally calm, like, the lake's pretty big. It's almost two miles across. We live… we were literally in the middle of the lake. Like we took a time… a while to get out there in a small fishing boat and so we were intentional and…   Jeanne: It was a sacred moment.    Astro: …and it's like 600 feet deep at that point…   Jeanne: …so we knew they'd never come back. [LAUGHS]   Astro: [LAUGHS] Yeah, unless they floated! But we got the heavier ones, like the ones with the marble base. Not like the wooden ones…    [LAUGHING]   Astro: That'd be funny.   Colleen: Yeah, I always wonder what that means when I make an offering and it comes back. I'm always like, “Hmmm…”   Astro: Yeah, there's a whole nother meaning. Oh, maybe you're not supposed to let go of me. Maybe we're supposed to be enmeshed the rest of our lives.    Jeanne: There's a lot of stuff in this lake… people buried… put their ashes in there…   Astro: Yeah, we've had friends who've put their ashes…   Jeanne: …ashes in the lake. I mean, had a ceremonial ritual with him in the boat. So… and that was before. Yeah, that was before this… our having the ritual. So that wasn't the first time we'd gone out of the boat to recall life and to celebrate life, and to let it go.   Colleen: And yet, this was a different, this was a different kind of letting go. This is letting go of a “past life”, of somebody who's still alive who's transitioning and letting go of the past relationship. It was kind of a rebirthing of your relationship.   Astro: Totally, totally. And I think that's kind of what it felt like to me is she's announcing,...she's like, to me it's like she's saying, you know, “This trophy is Patrick as a toddler” and letting it go. It's like kind of like a death. And the same thing with like, whatever the next trophy represented and like the adolescence, and letting go of that. And, you know, so that was kind of like a death and a rebirth. When all that was let go, it was definitely a rebirth it felt like and, and you know what we can get into and what to me it felt like a genuine shift, a genuine transformation in our relationship.   Jeanne: Which was nice to have that occur. And you know, asking to be sharing this with you then we did a little talking to recall just what did we recall? This was about 18-20 years ago. And so it had for me, I was surprised that it had such an impact on Patrick.   Colleen: I'm curious what felt different to you after the ceremony, Astro.   Astro: I mean, one of my main motivations, as I said before, was to, like have a pretty copacetic relationship in the family with my partner at the time. And I don't know, I just noticed, a like, sort of this kind of sharpness that I had discovered, like I thought I'd seen in mom when my partner came in, or just certain situations arose that were bringing up this unconscious sort of triggers that were gone, like completely gone. Like she was at ease and I didn't see any of that, that sharpness. That edge had seemed to, like dissipate. It was almost like we had like a sort of, like an unspoken contract, like a secret contract that like, between us that that energy was just dissolved. And it was completely dealt with and didn't exist anymore. And it… to a big extent, and I think our relationship became less around the dependencies and co-dependencies around childrens and parents and it became more about peers and spiritual friends and coworkers on planet Earth. And I think, we're we never lose the fact that we're mother and son, but it became… it was just another phase in us being more, you know, mutual in our lives together as opposed to the dynamic of like, “This is your identity and this is my identity and this is how we relate.” And now there seemed to be much more freedom,and openness and respect. Like I don't know, a lot of people who live live with their parents as regular as I have since I came back, like I do a lot of world traveling. Those years, I wasn't living at home, and then the last few years, I spent a lot of time with my family, with my parents, and we get along like, like gangbusters, we're like friends. You know, some people can't live can't spend more than three days with their parents, you know, without all these codependent dynamics like blowing up in their face. And we literally like… we enjoy each other's company, we have fun together, you know.    Jeanne: Right.   Astro: I've personally never heard of, of a mother and son, or even a father and a son, one-on-one ritual to mend and heal any unconscious issues that they may have had. I just hadn't heard of it. I think it's awesome and I'm sure people have but I don't know.   Colleen: I haven't heard of it either. And the whole first season of the podcast was focused on weddings because I thought it was something that people would be very familiar with the concept of a wedding and talked a lot about how to do a wedding on your own terms and make your own, make it very unique to what you need as a couple, or as more than a couple of it's more than two people that are that are uniting. There was a big theme about unconscious, you know, things coming up mothers of the bride and the groom, you know, “freaking out”, you know, or “bridezillas” or whatever… And all of that, because of not taking the time to, or not having space in our teaching and our learning to allow space for the feelings which are being changed… you know, the reaction to the change of the relationship.   Astro: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It's huge. Well, and this is kind of a spin off of that, I think, the marriage theme.   Jeanne: My seeing it not happening, because he's a free spirit and if there was ever a ceremony, it'd be quite different, not knowing it. So just realizing that gee that's not going to probably happen. And how…   Astro: So this was our dance.   Jeanne: This is our dance. This is our dance.   Astro: Letting go.    Jeanne: I've had my dance. You can do whatever you want. [LAUGHS]   Colleen: Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for telling that story.   Jeanne: I have no idea how you're going to put this together in a podcast.    Astro: Oh, she's a professional.   Jeanne: She's a professional. Thank you, Colleen.   And thank you for joining us today for this beautiful story. I love it because it's a clear and simple example of noticing a disconnect within a relationship, acknowledging it, and finding a way to come together again. How much easier could life be if we could openly acknowledge when we're not feeling comfortable about something? If we could say things like, “I'm noticing I'm a little sad that you're getting married,” or “I'm kind of freaked out you're having a baby because I'm afraid I'll never see you again. How can we work with this? How can we stay connected?” It's all about taking care of ourselves, being human, and asking for what we need. Then, finding a fun ceremony to build together!   Jeanne Judson is a world traveler with a Masters in Education. She's an elder, spiritual director, Enneagram instructor, Reiki Master and lover of life. Astro is a conscious activist producing music and media to promote healthy evolution personally, socially, and environmentally. After returning from the protests at Standing Rock he started co-producing a podcast called HealStory aimed at ancestral healing through personal storytelling. You can learn more at www.healstory.com or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And if you would like to support his work you can do so at www.patreon.com/healstory.    Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Season 3 of Shame Piñata launches in February! Join us as we continue to explore the rites of passage we've missed and how we're creating new ones to mark how we're changing today. Find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Radio Public, or your favorite player.    Music by Terry Hughes   Seasons 1 & 2 are available to binge now at https://shamepinata.com Full Transcript   Hey there, it's Colleen Thomas. On Season 3 of Shame Piñata, I'll continue asking my favorite question: What's a rite of passage you wish you'd had?   Venegoni: A ceremony I wish I could have had would be something along the lines of a coming out ceremony.   Sodos: The rite of passage I really wish I had was my first moontime. Definitely. I think it would have shaped me as almost like a different person.   Find the show on your favorite player or go to shamepiñata.com to learn more.

Initiations come in all shapes and sizes, from graduating with a formal degree, to becoming a parent, to losing a parent. We can't control what experience the universe sends us, but we can meet each change with our full, honest selves. Alicia Connor inspires us with a story of taking a change and flowing with it on her own terms. Music by Terry Hughes Alicia Connor https://www.aliciaconnor.com Alicia's YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT0DBT0dF_qEeiePwcxamMw Rate This Podcast https://ratethispodcast.com/shamepinata On an Android Device? https://shamepinata.libsyn.com/samsung Also check out: Do You Need A Ceremony (Pt 2) - Reinventing Ourselves https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s2e6-do-you-need-a-ceremony-pt-2 The Un-Baby Shower https://ever-changing.net/episodes/s2e5-the-unbaby-shower   Full Transcript Connor: Like say if I'm traveling like in a car with somebody else. You know, they're driving, so I can't trust them. When are we going to go the bathroom? Where are we going to eat? Where are we going to get to drink something? So I just bring everything with me. It's not that I have trust issues, but I take care of myself. [LAUGHS]   Initiations come in all shapes and sizes. From graduating with a formal degree, to becoming a parent, to losing a parent. We can't control what experience the universe sends us, but we can meet each change with our full, honest selves. Alicia Connor inspires us with a story of taking a change and flowing with it on her own terms.   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.  Sometimes we see change coming and sometimes it's just kind of suddenly there. When it arrives without warning it can create a numbing, a blocking out, a wanting to turn away. This is so human. The cool thing is that as humans, we are incredibly adaptive and creative and often times we will take actions to find our center again without even realizing that's what we're doing. Like cutting our hair after a breakup. That could be conscious, that could be unconscious, but either way it's a step toward owning what's happening to us. Owning the change.   Alicia Connor joins us today to share a story of going with the flow of life even when it flowed in a challenging direction. Alicia began to have some issues with her vision when she was 17. She saw some different health practitioners. They told her different things. Then, there was a diagnosis and a realization that things were going to change.    Connor: I got glasses when I was 17 because that's when my vision loss started. But I didn't know it was this genetic thing that was going to actually cause vision loss, like ongoing. So when I was 17, I went to like, your average, eye store whatever, eye world in Boston, and I was getting this pair of glasses. And I remember the optometrist, he was like... he was like, do these do anything? Like, there was a sense... he was not confident that they did anything. It was basically like putting clean glass in front of my eyes. So like, a hair or two better, right? But I felt like, well, I'm driving, they help a little bit, so I should wear them, right? And like, what else? Like, am I... I didn't know that. I could say like, I don't think they do anything, because there was some difference. And he didn't seem to know enough to be like, "If they're only helping you a little bit, let's talk about that, and I could maybe like refer you to somebody else, or maybe you should see a like... somebody else". But there was definitely a lack of confidence in his voice that I remember, like his surprise. And then the reason why I went to the Rhode Island Eye Institute was after when I was 19, I went to get a second pair of glasses, because I was like you you're supposed to get new glasses every so and so whatever. Right? And you know, it seems like these aren't doing anything. And the optometrist that I went to at that time, she was hardcore. And she was like, "I don't know, I can't figure it out. I can't correct you. There's nothing I can do. I don't know what's going on." She called the Rhode Island Eye Institute right then and I was dilated, I was dilated... and I love it when people go out of their way and just go the next level, and she got me an appointment that day when I was dilated.    Thomas: Oh, wow.   Connor: So I literally just walked 20-30 minutes to the place and then was tested.   The result of her test at the Rhode Island Eye Institute was a diagnosis of a genetic condition that would mean that her vision would decline over time and that someday she would need to stop driving. A short time after Alicia received the diagnosis, a sudden opportunity came up to really change things up in her life. It involved a long drive. A long drive that would ultimately become her last drive.    Connor: I actually remember my last drive as like, like, an adventure, like it was fun. I was 19 and I just dropped out... A good friend of mine from that I knew since fourth grade was going to school in Western Massachusetts, and I was going to school in Providence, Rhode Island. But she asked me just before Thanksgiving that year if I would be interested in to move to San Francisco. And she was like, "Oh, by the way, I need to know in three days." So I was like, "Okay, I'm on it. I'm thinking, I'll get back to you." And I knew like when she says three days, then that means three days, it doesn't mean five. And I had mean some awesome connections in Providence, Rhode Island, but not enough to like ground me there. And there was enough challenging experiences that year to to not see like, like... a new chapter would be helpful at that time. And so I turned back and I told my friend after three days, "Yeah, let's do it!" So we set the date for January 1 we are going to leave the East Coast and start driving toward San Francisco. And what's interesting is around that time period, it was just that year, I had been diagnosed with hypoplasia of the optic nerve at the Rhode Island Eye Institute. And it was interesting that… it was… it was that year, right? Like I was diagnosed with this vision loss condition that was genetic, and told, like, I'm not gonna be able to drive someday but I didn't know when that was. And I could see well then and I could drive then and so it wasn't a problem at that moment, but it was an imminent problem.    I'm not going to be able to drive someday. That's a huge thing. Most of us expect to stop driving in our 80's, not some significant time before that. As I listened to Alicia's story, I began to wonder if this drive, this last drive, was a kind of rite of passage.    Connor: It just kind of is interesting, in hindsight, but looking back at the story that my life... that it was that year that I actually like, was there any thought on like my visual loss in like what I was going to do? Like, I have no idea maybe the subconscious was like, you gotta just do this because of the I don't know, who knows. We don't know what Alicia's spirit was thinking then, but I was decisive, which is really cool. And so yeah, so what was interesting was I was the one that rented the extension van, you know, not like a regular van, but like an extension van that could, like we could store both of our stuff in there. And I was literally taking everything I owned and she wasn't taking everything she owned because she had parents that could store stuff for her. And so that was also an interesting detail. Like, this is all of my stuff. So I picked up the truck in Providence, Rhode Island, and then I drove to Boston, by myself, picked her up, and then we went to like, New Year's Eve party. And then the morning of, we hit the road. And we took… because she… my friend had a couple friends she wanted to visit along the way. So we took, like this really weird route.   They went to Memphis and hung out with Elvis's stuff in Graceland, through Kansas and Colorado, switching off driving the whole time. And then they got to Utah.    Connor: ...and when I was driving in Utah I just started crying. And when I was like packing and everything in Rhode Island and I like had to you know give notice in my apartment, I had to give notice my job, I had to drop out of school...   Thomas: Wow, so much!   Connor: Yeah, and like get rid of stuff and, "Okay, do I really want this?" I get rid of all these things. And I had to get my cat, the cat that I grew up with, I had when I was in Providence for like, I don't know, three quarters of the time, and I had to give that cat to my mom and... there was just a couple details. Basically, I didn't figure out that I had done something really big and like I was in huge transition, right, until I got to Utah. There was a delayed response and this is, you know, this was kind of common for me in terms of emotions. I'm more of an observer, or was more of an observer as a kid and a younger adult, or... in terms of my younger years. And so it made sense that it I was like, all of a sudden, like, "Oh, my gosh!" And so my friend was like, "You got to pull over." And it happened to be in this part of the highway where it's not ideal to pull over, but she was like, "Pull over. You have to like... we have no choice." So we pulled over and then we sat on the curb, and or like, whatever... it was, like a curb like section that we sat down. And I was like... [SOBBING SOUNDS] You know? And she was like, "What's up?" And it was just like, "Everything!" Right? There was no answer. It was like, like, I don't even know what I said. But I knew it was like everything. Yeah... the unknown. And I knew, like, I didn't have that much money, like, a couple hundred bucks. And then I knew I had like a check for like, $300 that was going to be sent to my temporary apartment from my work. And so it was just like, all of these... all of the uncertainty in everything just crashed. And so my friend was nice and comforting and everything. And then she took over driving. And it was just... It was actually, I think it was a relief that that happened before we actually got to San Francisco. Because I remember when we got to San Francisco, like we were on Haight Street, and we parked either after we moved all our stuff in my friend's sister's apartment. But I remember when I parked that van, that I was like, "This is maybe the last time I'm going to drive." Like I just had that feeling. I was like, "This is it, I'm gonna not drive. This is happening soon. And like me in the van... like that's it."   Thomas: Wow.   Connor: And I was just very conscious of it, not in like a stressful way, and I wasn't talking about it with my friend. It was just something I just knew that it would be better because I could drive then. I think it's better to make a decision when you know about something and be able to process it before you are forced to. Because I think... I mean, it's not possible all the time, but if you have like a suggestion of like, "Hey, maybe this is something you should look into", or whatever - it could be related to health, it could be anything, you know - preventing any sort of struggle, or any kind of like issue in the future is always a great strategy. And I was thinking randomly once in a while, like when I had my license, like I was like, "This is my last like driver's license."    Thomas: Hmmm. Wow.    Connor: So I did… I didn't think about it, but it didn't. It wasn't something that I was like freaked out about. And I think it was because I could see well then.   Thomas: Yeah. So you're sort of in like an empowered place within the realm.   Connor: Exactly. In control. And it's much easier to make, it's like if you're grounded and you're like, "Okay, this is the... it's on my side like this is my decision. Now." Instead of the external. Like say, some people experience vision loss, very dramatic, right? There's an event and so can be very stressful and that's because it happened very quickly. There was no preparation for it, and so that's a totally different situation and that is much more challenging.   [MUSIC]   I want to invite you to take a breath with me [BREATHES] and invite you to appreciate yourself for being here to listen to Alicia's story. This is a story about the human body and illness and disability. These are words that can make us unconsciously close down, or turn away, or kind of leave. When I first began working in the disability community, I was taught that sometimes we don't rush with gusto toward these concepts because being differently abled or having a chronic illness, is a club that anyone can join at any time and that's really scary.    And bodies change and illness happens, and they make up some of the million transitions we go through in our lives. Each one, a journey. The transition from one experience of being in a body to the next experience of being in the same body (that's different now) is a journey. As choreographer Bill T Jones (who, by the way, is HIV positive and who lost his partner Arnie Zane to AIDS) as he says, "My body is a spiritual experience that's constantly growing and changing."   [MUSIC]   Connor: I think... I think transitions are really interesting and I tend... I've had a couple of experience where I'm kind of like the all... it's not like the all or nothing ,but like deal with everything all at once. Like when I broke up with long-term relationship. It felt... I was like, going through a lot. My father passed away around the same time and it was just like this thing. It was kind of like... it was a similar, a very similar experience of when I was given this opportunity like, "Hey, Alicia, do you want to move to San Francisco? I need to know in three days," I was given this opportunity and then I was forced to assess my life. And my father's death was that opportunity to assess my life and how I was living it. Because when somebody passes away the reflection on what... how life is going with the person could me is a common experience. And here I was forced to look at my life because my father passed away... And it was a good thing, he was a Vietnam vet, an alcoholic, and it was time for him to go. He had enough time on this world and I'm sure he's rocking it in his next life. And so it was like relieving and everything, but it's still like death and grieving. And I think the main thing about transitions is like seeking out the support you need and talking about it with others. And sometimes we might not want to talk about it and that might be a great time to journal, just to get it out.    Thomas:  Mm hmm, yeah.   Connor: Letting yourself go through the transition and feel the feelings. Because sometimes transition can produce or increase anxiety, but that's the unknown. And the fear of unknown, and things usually work out. We have a choice, like... like go the the fearful, anxiety-ridden, intense route and just kind of be a monster or... and not approachable. Or we could, you know, go through life and experience it, because there's a lot to experience and enjoy much more to experience and enjoy the struggles.   Thomas: Wow. Well, thank you, thank you so much for telling, telling me the story, telling us the story, and the insights that you have into it. And I just think it was so brave of you to just... to just take that risk and do that move. And I feel like it's very in line with the spirit of you that I know. You're very bold, and you're very brave. You're strong.   Connor: Thank you. Thank you so much, Colleen.   Letting ourselves go through the transition and feel the feelings. Seeking out the support we need by talking about it with others. These are the reasons I love Alicia. She's so keyed in to the essence of being human, of being vulnerable, and being bold at the same time. Life surprised Alicia with a big change and she took action to own that change, to flow with it on her own terms. In a way, the cross-country drive was part of how she marked the transition, how she reinvented herself at a time when the universe had thrown her a curveball. I hope Alicia's story and spirit inspire you to do something bold today, something maybe you're not even sure you can do.    Alicia Connor is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Chef in San Francisco. She is the creator of "Quick & Delish by Alicia Connor," a meal planning and cooking series on YouTube that brings wellness to people by helping them create meals that are quick, delicious, and nutritious. Learn more about her work at https://www.aliciaconnor.com.   Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. We'll be back in February with Season 3. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Remember what it felt like the first time you saw something truly amazing, something that blew your mind? Like the first time you saw a movie in the theater as a kid or someone showed you the constellations? Magician and mentalist Erica Sodos helps us learn to rediscover that sense of wonder, awe, and amazement.   Music by Terry Hughes   Links: Erica's Virtual Winter Show 12/26/21 (The Witch and Wizard)   Video Erica's Routine with Her Mom (Momma is Magic)   Erica's Public Psychic Show in Denver 12/18/21 (The Magic Within, Psychic Explorations with Erica Sodos)   Erica's Website   Also Check Out The Programming Language of the Soul   Rate This Podcast   Full Transcript Sodos: And literally, I swear, the tree was my bestie after that. And now… it's like, if I don't walk there... Today I didn't walk over there and I thought, “Oh, I haven't seen my friend!” You know? And I'm not just a tree hugger, I kiss them. I love to kiss them and get in there. Do you do that? Do you hug trees? I love it.    Remember what it felt like the first time you saw something truly amazing, something that blew your mind? Like the first time you saw a movie in the theater as a kid or someone showed you the constellations? Maybe when you discovered the best superhero ever? What if it could be possible to keep hold of that sense of wonder, awe, and amazement?   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Believe it or not, that sense of childlike wonder is a place we can still go, even as adults. It can be a little more complicated to get there (b/c adulting), but I'm a firm believer that joy, awe, and wonder are foundational components to living a healthy life. And what's more, they are essential skills if we want to build our own unique ceremonies to honor, appreciate and acknowledge the many ways we grow and change as we move through life. There are huge industries cashing in on our need for expansiveness and joy (think Disney, Hollywood, and gaming)and there are also simpler ways to find magic closer to home in everyday life. Slowing down, being alive to possibility, and noticing exquisite beauty in little moments are a few examples.   Today we will be talking magic. What is it? Where do we find it? And how do we spell it? We'll be focusing on many different types of magic, from stage magic to real magic and how they overlap. Our guide for this conversation is Erica Sodos, one of a small number of female stage magicians in the US who is also a mentalist. I've known Erica for almost 20 years and I can tell you that she truly walks her talk. She finds magic all around her in every moment and she's inspirational. I'd like to invite you to listen in on a conversation Erica and I recorded about a year ago, when we were all still in lockdown.   [MUSIC]   Thomas: You are somebody in my life who has helped me connect with magic like really nobody else in your own unique, totally unique way, and I've always wanted to ask you, and I'm glad to have on the chance, how do you find magic in life? Like, what's your thread? What's your connection? There's several kinds of magic that you're connected to. So I want to know, how are you connected? What is that like?   Sodos: First, I want to say that means so much to me, Colleen, for you to say that because as you know, I think you're one of my wisest friends. So that means a lot. Yes, so how do I find magic in my life? Well, you know, it's funny because I look for it, right? I look for magic. And so because I'm looking, I also find it. And I believe that everything has energy and everything is connected. I guess you could call me an animist, right? So everything is alive. I also like to sometimes call myself a biophiliac, which is a lover of life. So I find magic because I love all… everything that exists. And so being outside... and I understand that not everybody can get outside... so even looking outside or having houseplants. I counted recently. We have 39 houseplants and so… they are these beings are taking energy from the sun and they're living. And then of course, there's the spirits in our house, house spirits... and then, because I know we're all home a lot, and we feel kind of isolated, but I believe that life is all around us. So... and then animals of course.   Erica has a cat named Princess Patches Precious Poppycock McGee and at the time of our interview, Erica had a daily practice of drawing a sigil in her wet cat food every morning. A sigil is a symbol considered to have magical power. We recorded our interview on a Sunday.   Sodos: Like today I did a sun because it's Sunday that we're recording. I made a sun sigil, so everything can be fun and to me it's fun too to do that. What else do I do? Correspondences! So for people who want to get involved you know and find more magic, like learning correspondences. I mean, everyday like, is it like Monday… Oh and the moon cycles, of course we share that. You know, that's another way to harness magic. What sign is the moon in? What cycle is she in? But the correspondences: so Monday is the moon and Tuesday is Mars and Wednesday is Mercury and so that they're different deities and so you could get into that energy and learn the correspondences. And foods of correspondences! So what we eat has energy and what we wear. And, you know, it's…so that's another ways and that then you find meaning and like everything is connected. Oh, and then magic. I mean, I think working on magic alone, you know, that's how I connect to magic. And magic connects, performing magic connects me to real magic and ritual in so many ways. First of all, it's archetypal. So I mean, I have... I'm super into Tarot and I have like... but I put the cards everywhere. I don't look at them so much always, like telling the future but more as meditative tools, like I put them on altars and things. And the Magician archetype is so powerful. And a long time ago, the magicians would combine trickery with their performance to you know, to create change to help people believe, right? They... so they would combine trickery with real magic. And so I love that. So that helps me and also having an idea of something I want to do, like a magician goes, "Oh, I'd like to make that levitate." And then we have to think of how we're going to make that levitate. And so that's magic. And then the third most powerful is how it affects people, is when people see magic. They're in an altered space. And I didn't say that, Colleen, that's the biggest that's also another way I find magic is being present and meditating. And, like I have this…  every time I blow out a candle now by where we have all these plants, the smoke, the way it intermingles with the leaves of the - you know what I'm talking about, right - the way it intermingles with the leaves. I mean, it's pure magic.   Thomas: I want to go back for a second, you just said several kinds of magic. So I'm going to try to say them back and correct me because I'm thinking that you said that there's the magic of connecting to spirit. And then the magic of performing magic as being a magician. And the magic of how the receiving of the magician's work affects your audience, when their mind is blown and they're like, "Wow". And then a fourth kind where you're seeing magic in everyday life, like little magical moments that are just that just blow your mind.   Sodos: You know, it's funny, because... so I think there's a lot of overlap, because, and the first one, I might call it, I think it's cool. You said connection to spirit, but it's like... it could be connection to plants. So I guess you could say plants have spirit, not looking at it like there's one spirit, like, Great Spirit, but more like everything is alive. So you're saying like... it could be ghosts, you're connecting to it your Ancestors, or fairies or plants or a certain deity that you have a connection to or something? Yeah, I like that. And then there's actually performing magic which overlaps because there's that, and that of course, is about transcending having the person go into a magical moment, right? And then there's magic in the everyday. And then there's also magic, because, you know, like, if you look at the definition of magic, it's basically, you know, control over natural forces like supernatural powers. I mean, the dictionary will define only two of what you said they will define one, a magician, which I am like, who can do tricks and then two, extraordinary power. But I think when you're in a transcendent state watching a magician, you can do anything because inspiration moves, right? I mean, there's overlap.   Thomas: Tell me more about the magic with the C and the magic with the CK. I've never been very clear on that.   Sodos: I know that traditionally MAGIC is magic on stage. A magician is on stage performing a magic show. And then magic with an MAGICK is more real magic. Like if you look online, there's all these people who are into, you know, spells and rituals and that kind of thing and they would spell it with a CK like magickal living, you know, "how to infuse everything with real magick" with a CK. Unfortunately, I can't go into the minutiae of why but I know that the words actually have... sort of like faerie and fairy, FAERIE and FAIRY. They actually have different etymology, those two words. They come from different... and then they just got blended. And for me ferry AE is the authentic fairy and AIRY, is like Disney. And so like I like to say, my passion, my real deep passion is where real magick, like CK, meets performance magic. I mean, I have a lot of passions, but you know, where they blend.   [MUSIC]   It's great to have you with us today! Magical moments come in all shapes and sizes. They weave through our lives in predictable and not-so-predictable ways. If you're in a life transition right now (a magical moment or a not-so-magical moment) and would like some support, you can work with me to have a custom ceremony built just for you. Find out more at shamepinata.com.   Thomas: Has magic helped you deal with a life transition, with a hard life transition?   Sodos: I thought about this a lot and I'd say... what... you said helped me, has magic helped me with a life transition? And I think the biggest experience that I had of that specifically is when my mother died. I don't know if you're familiar with what I did with what my mother died. So I'm going to tell you,   Thomas: You did a show, right? And you had her join you in the show.   Sodos: When she was dead, yeah.   Thomas: Right   Sodos: So my mother was a performer when she was younger and had some mental illness. It was a challenging relationship but she was also very funny and dynamic and alive and alive... And she had a big shadow. And so she always wanted to perform with me, but it was… the relationship was challenging. And she was in nursing homes. This is so funny, funny and sad. I would do magic shows at the nursing home. And we'd practice like, "Oh, we could do routines together!" Her nursing home. And so I'd say, "When I hand you this cylinder, you do this." And so I… and we practice and I'd hand it to her... and she had dementia really bad so she couldn't remember what we were supposed to do. So when she died, when she was dying in hospice, I just knew, and I kept saying, "Mom, I'm going to make up a routine with you. I'm going to make up a routine with you, I promise." And I didn't know what it was. And a couple months after she died, I realized that I still had so many of her voice messages saved on my machine. So I edited them together and she was hilarious, like, and she would sing on my machine and she'd say things about how... how unhealthy she was. And so I edited them and then we perform... we... I put together this routine at her memorial, which we did at a theater where I before the pandemic was doing my monthly psychic show, although my mom has been dead for quite a while now. And I created this thing where we had a conversation and I put her ashes, her real ashes, in this box and I did a seance and we had this conversation. And I called on my mom's spirit. And it was funny, like, "Where are you?" And it was her actual voice saying, "Well, I think you know where I am." And I'm like, "Well, are you enjoying yourself?" And she goes, "Well, as usual, I'm eating too much." And because she was at times in her life very, very obese. And I had her say really funny things like we had a hilarious conversation. And then I said, "Show me a sign" and I put the box down on the table and it levitated all over the room. And to me that combines real magic and performance magic because it was a way to process her, my relationship with her, and grieve and not only grieve her death, but grieve the challenging relationship. And I mean, it's always layers of the onion, so I'm still doing that many years later. And it was amazing, Colleen, because many... because the next day I performed it in Vegas at this nightclub, the same routine. And every time I did it crazy things happened. Like three years later, I did it in Vegas and my sister called me the next day. And when my mom was admitted into the hospital before she died… like six months before she died we lost her wallet and everything and it was found the day after I did that routine three years later.   Thomas: Wow!   Sodos: It was hilarious, like... so it definitely tapped into some dimension of spirit.   Thomas: Wow, I was following along with you doing that work, but I've never heard you really describe all of it before. So I just feel so honored to be let into that time in your life. And to be aware of how amazingly embodied and empowered you are to… and creative you are, you're just so amazingly creative, to have to brought that together and to have shared that with the world your own processing of that really, really big loss.   Sodos: Thank you so much. That means a lot. That means a lot.   Thomas: Wow. Well, so… one thing I wanted to ask you, because I know that you are connected to magic in so many different ways and it's also your day job. So I wonder if it ever starts to be a little bit less than fun, or it starts to feel like work, or you need a break from it, or… does that ever happen?   Sodos: Yeah, so you mean... Right. So the performing magic, does that take away from my experience of magic as I...   Thomas: Because it's your job? Because you're in a half-to position with it to some extent?   Sodos: Well, I think it's actually the opposite. I think it deepens my connection to magic, because there's witchy people who are into real magic and then there's magicians and it's shocking how few magicians actually like real magic. Like they hate it. Like, like, some magicians actually dislike real magic. And I think, "Well, you're a magician. So I would hope that you would love real magic. You're pretending to do magic. So..." For me, as someone who loves real magic, I do my magic from that way. So I do many different kinds of magic. So I can do card magic with the rest of them and then I do this branch of magic called mentalism. If you're familiar, it's a psychic magic, so it's mind reading, and predictions. And when I do that, I'm combining all kinds of magic and people don't know what's going on. Like, they're just, "What the heck?!" And you know, so when I do that form of magic, feeling people's reaction to it and seeing it helps me believe in magic. So it actually deepens my connection to magic. Does that make sense?   Thomas: Yeah that does. Mm hmm.    Sodos: I think where it does limit my magic is, when I see a magic show, like most magicians want to know how everything's done. Like, that's all they care about. I mean, it's very male dominated, so you can imagine it's... that's a different conversation, but... They want to know how the trick is done and unless I'm going to do something I'd rather not know. So if I see a magic show where I know it's tricks, I don't want to know because that takes away the magic for me. I only want to know the magic that I'm going to do otherwise, I'm going to be enjoyed by what you're doing and to me, it's real magic. And not only that, but I do some magic effects that I literally don't know how they're done. I know that sounds weird. But there's a whole there's magic that it doesn't even make sense. That's why it's so cool, magic. [LAUGHES]   Thomas: You don't know how they happen, but they happen reliably enough that you can perform them and trust that they'll happen?   Sodos: Yeah, there's certain techniques in magic. There's different techniques… and you know, I was learning some card stuff and it's like, "How... How is that working? I... this is my card..." I practice myself.  And to me, that's magic. And I also think it's magical that people think of this stuff that like somebody makes up this stuff and then they sell it or whatever they write books. Yeah, it's very cool.   Thomas: So you just said, and I know from knowing you that a big part of your… a big part of your inspiration and your work is to inspire people to find their own magic. What advice do you have for helping people begin to open their eyes to the magic around them in everyday life?   Sodos: Yeah, that's a great question. So I'd say slowing down, paying attention, looking around them, utilizing all their senses. So again, I can just walk into a room and notice the sun coming through the window, and again... the highlight of my day. You know, you're transcended, even if it's just for a second. So I'd say one of the ways to experience more magic is to slow down, pay attention, and feel. Open to our feelings, connect to nature as best they can, you know, I know again, different bodies, but being outside and feeling the sun and the wind. And, you know, weather and the changes. Meditating, the old classic that's pretty much good for most things. Meditating is brilliant. And I even think altars, you know, just starting to create even if it's just a candle and a glass of water, you know, lighting a candle and sitting in front of the candle and make things fun. Cleaning. During the pandemic, I have gotten so into cleaning, it's actually weird and I make it a whole ritual, because you have to clean and it's… whether it's I'm listening to a podcast or to music to a mood and I think of intention and as I sweep by put the… So it's like, it's like infusing intention, you know, even if it's just when you wash your face and you say, “I open to magic and I'm going to see clearer” and paying attention to. If... if one lives with a companion animal, or a plant, you know, feeling the plant and sensing, I think opening up to subtler vibrations. It's really helpful.   [MUSIC]   Opening up to subtler vibrations, infusing intention into the things we do, and creating simple altars. These are three great ways to find our own magic. And it's important to find what sparks for each of us, right? I may miss the little things that jump out to you and you may miss the ones that appear to me. They're really reflections of the magic within us, of that space that is alive to awe, open to wonder, and willing to believe in magic.    We will hear more from Erica in season 3, but for now I invite you to consider how you might find more magic in your world. You might be like Erica and find yourself called to draw meaningful symbols in your cat's breakfast, maybe you'll have a conversation with a certain tree you pass on a walk, or see if you can hear the spiders laughing. Whatever you do, follow your intuition, as you continue to find your own magic.    Erica Sodos is a magician, speaker, emcee, psychic entertainer, one of only a handful of female mentalists in the world. An avid lover of nature, dedicated vegan, environmentalist, activist and tour guide at an animal sanctuary, Erica is committed to ending speciesism by creating a world that honors all beings. You can find out more about Erica and see examples of her magic at ericasodos.com. You can also find links to upcoming shows in the show notes.   Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Sometimes we feel a call to deepen, to learn, to grow and while there are many amazing teachers in the world, one of the greatest resources we have is our own intuition and our unique connection to Spirit. But in day to day life, it can be difficult to tap into these sources of wisdom. How can we create an intentional space to hear their voices?   Music by Terry Hughes Rate This Podcast   Other episodes in this series: S2E4 Do You Need a Ceremony? (Pt 1, Significant Moments)   S2E6 Do You Need a Ceremony? (Pt 2, Reinventing Ourselves) Sometimes we feel a call to deepen, to learn, to grow. And while there are many amazing teachers in the world, one of the greatest resources we have is our own intuition and our unique connection to Spirit. But in day to day life, it can be difficult to tap into these sources of wisdom. How can we create an intentional space to hear their voices?   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.    This is the 3rd episode in a 3-part series called "Do You Need a Ceremony?" In part 1, we looked at significant personal moments, times when something important happens in life that might call for a moment of reflection, or celebration, or silence. We talked about how ceremony can be a helpful tool in honoring these event or milestones. In part 2, we looked at how ritual can help us reinvent ourselves when things get hard, when we're forced to let go of something we love, or when we just feel ready for a change.    Today we will look at how ritual can help us learn more about ourselves and deepen into our own inner wisdom. Let me say more about what I mean by this. Sometimes when I'm feeling lost or when things are especially hard, I look around and wish there was someone there to tell me what to do. Even when I am standing there all alone, it's amazing to remember that there is someone there who can do that for me - potentially several someones. For me personally, there's Spirit, my Ancestors, and my guides… As mythic astrologer Caroline Casey says, "Co-operators are standing by...." But also - perhaps most importantly - there's me, the deeper, wiser, older part of me, the part of me that I call "intuition", "gut feeling" or "body wisdom".    For you this may be different. You may experience Spirit differently or not at all. You may not experience any cooperators standing by, but you always have your internal compass, your knowing, your truth. And if by chance you've lost sight of that recently, know that that's something I don't believe we can ever truly lose.    This inner knowing can help me when I'm needing advice, looking for wisdom or when I just want to get some perspective on what's going on in my life and heart. For me, it's almost like my day-to-day mind keeps my attention on what needs to happen next and then next and then next to stay focused and meet my goals, while my deeper self holds the expansiveness of my being, the arc of my life, the complexity of the worlds I move through, the wonder of everything happening in each moment. And connecting to my deeper self bring me into that expansive space where it's all so much bigger than what I conceptualize as "me" and once I'm connected to that space, I can much more easily receive guidance or information from the co-operators.   Now, there are a myriad of ways you might already have cultivated to connect with your intuition. You might sort out the complexities of daily life while you're running or doing yoga. Journaling might give you space to put out all out there on the page so you can see the next steps forward. You may find calm and deep connection through a meditation or mindfulness practice. What I'd like to share with you today are some thoughts on how ritual can create a container to let you take a deep dive into your inner wisdom, like in a specific period of time. We'll be right back.   [MUSIC]   It's wonderful to have you with us today! In this 3-part series, we're exploring how ritual can help us mark significant moments, reinvent ourselves, or go deeper. What about you? Have you created a ceremony that changed you, helped you start over, or took you to a new level of connection within yourself? If so, we'd love to hear how you did it. Tell us about it through the contact page at shamepinata.com.    Here are some examples of times when you mighty feel a call to go into a deep-dive of self-connection: - at the new year, whenever you might celebrate that - during the bleeding time of your cycle (if you have one) when intuition can be heightened - when you need a reset - when you're feeling lost - when something particularly difficult is going on or when you're struggling with something in your heart - at significant astrological moments, such as your birthday, half-birthday or Saturn return and speaking of astrology, Mercury retrograde is a great time to stop, deepen and reflect   All of these are examples of times when you might sense a desire to create a kind of power-moment to connect with the deeper self.    If you're resonating with this idea, I invite you to sense into an upcoming moment that might feel like a good match for a deepening ceremony. It could look like setting aside a few hours before your birthday party to meditate and read Tarot cards to wrap up the last year of your life. It could be an intentional dinner on your own where you really taste the food and notice the memories that come along with each flavor. You might take a weekend workshop to create some structure for your solo journey. You could do an all-night vigil on the longest or shortest night of the year.    These can be very rich internal experiences where we connect super deeply with ourselves and build trust and gain knowledge. Some modalities of connection to our wisdom are: dreamwork, Tarot, reiki, Tai Chi, freeform movement and dance, freeform painting, drawing or sculpting, journaling, or collage. We can invoke the Ancestors, listen deeply to their wisdom and create art based on what we hear. We can set up a mirror and take a deep dive into our eyes for hours by candlelight.    But wait, this might all sound silly and selfish and kind of weird! There are so many wonderful things and so many challenging things in life. The challenging ones can wear us down. In order to be our best, show up as fully as possible for the people we love, ceremonies like these can fill us up so we can be more available to the people we love, more available to our world.    It's all about asking for what we need and being open to receiving answers to our questions and prayers. It's not so much making the thing happen as deeply listening to what is needed, taking our problems to the river or the ocean and listening to what we hear back. Trusting in what we hear back.   Our music is by Terry Hughes. Please follow us on IG or Twitter at shamepinata. And subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Even with all of the progress we have made through COVID, somehow, time is still a spiral. Join us for a look back at the 1-year anniversary of the lockdown where we explore the concept of time and how it helps us make sense of life.    Links: What Happens When We Lose Our Social Rituals? The Liminal Space – Embracing the Mystery and Power of Transition from What Has Been to What Will Be Music by Terry Hughes Full Transcript   I was listening through the library of Shame Piñata shows recently, and was struck by how little has changed since our discussion of COVID time was released back in March of this year. That was the one year anniversary of when the pandemic really took hold in the US, when the lockdowns started.    Since March, things have opened up a bit more. Kids are back at school. Grocery stores are busier. And at the same time, that sense of liminality, that sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop still feels like it's here with us. So I invite you to join me in reflecting on that one-year out episode. I invite you to dive back in with me, into the spiral of time, into an exploration of what time give us, how it serves us, and what it means to us... all with the goal of finding our own center in the midst of continuing liminality.    Torres: First, I have to say, like, I don't... I know you were putting like the toilet paper tubes in a little area in the bathroom but I wasn't sure why and now you have them out on the table and I'm noticing they have like a... it's like a journal... it's really cool.    This is my husband Rodrigo sitting with me and 47 empty toilet paper rolls.    Torres: ...look, I have a collection of paper rolls with stuff written on them and I'm like...   I used them as a way to mark our progression through the pandemic.    Thomas: Here's the very first one.    Torres: Oh, wow. Yeah, and we're, we're about there. It's almost a year now.   Thomas: Yeah. It was March 18 I think when we went on lockdown.    Torres: Wow.    Thomas: So this is March 30 '20. And then there's a March from '21 there at that end.    Torres: 3/2/21. That was two days ago.   Thomas: So I dated them and I have them arranged them arranged by month so we can see how many we used each month.     Torres: Ok.   After a while of just dating them, I started also writing little journal entries on them.    Thomas: What do you got there?   Torres: Ah, let's see... let me grab one of these. 8/1/20: My podcast is...   Thomas: ...now...   Torres: ...now available on Alexa. And it's written around the tube so it's like, you have to turn the tube around to read it.   Thomas: Right. It's an interactive journal experience.   Torres: Yes. It's a spiral with time.   Time is a spiral - right now and always. And COVID time is a ride all its own. Whatever your experience of time has been in the past year, join me for a look at what time gives us and the benefits of letting go. We'll also explore our own personal connection to space and time so we're not so thrown by the world around us.    This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.    So how are you doing with time right now? Do you have enough of it? Too much of it? Do you feel lost or are you right on track? Do you know what day of the week it is? How sure are you about that? I've been having a hard time telling which way is up for about a year now, and it's disconcerting and I know I'm not the only one. I've heard several people say in the past year that it's difficult to focus, it's difficult to keep track of what month it is, difficult to gauge the passage of time during the day. Was that 15 minutes? Was that only two weeks ago? COVID has really been messing with our ability to keep track of time, mostly because it's a completely liminal space that's asked us to give up the framework we've used our whole lives.   I found an article on liminality recently from Alan Seale, the Founder & Director of the Center for Transformational Presence. The piece was written in 2016. Seale, who could probably never have imagined how impactful his article would be in the early 2020's tells us that, "The word 'liminal' comes from the Latin root, limen, which means 'threshold.' The liminal space is the 'crossing over' space – a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. It's a transition space."    Time is a super interesting thing. We feel secure when we build routines and expectations based on its constant presence. We mark time with concepts like generations, lifetimes, stages of life, annual patterns, weekly schedules, daily routines. Let's take a moment to consider what COVID has done with these concepts. It's become difficult to connect across generations which has kind of separated us from that intergenerational space that's so rich an important. The National Academy of Sciences recently published a study showing that life expectancy in the US went down in 2020 due to the pandemic, so there's a hit to our concept of what constitutes a lifetime. Along with that, the life expectancy reduction for the Black and Latino communities is 3 to 4 times that for the white community. That very statistic threatens to erase any gains we've made in equity on its own. Stages of life and the ways we mark them have also been affected. Graduations, weddings and other gatherings designed to mark the stages of life largely abandoned for almost a year. We're missing those rituals, really missing them. And lastly, as you know, our annual, weekly and daily patterns have completely changed.    This is no small thing. I know you know this, and I just really want to say that whatever you're feeling right now, and whatever happened the last time you maybe suddenly just lost it over something small, you're not imagining things. This is weird. We didn't build our lives to make sense of this. An extended period of liminality with no warning and no psychological preparation is pretty brutal. COVID time to me feels like living inside a jar of sand and water that's being constantly shaken. Kinda like a snow globe, but without the pretty winter scene creating a calming sense of place.    What does time do for us? Or to be clear, what does an organized sense of time do for us? I think it gives us stability and maybe even sanity. At the very least, it provides a lay of the land, a framework, something to base our expectations on. But maybe we need to even be more fine-tuned in discussing this. It's not that time isn't flowing normally right now, right? Two weeks is still two weeks during COVID, but the thing that's weird is it doesn't feel like two weeks. I thought that I would get used to the flow of time in COVID and eventually it wouldn't be so disorienting, but that actually hasn't happened. I think that's because we're still in the liminal, threshold space, and the big question "When will this be over?" still can't be answered. So there has to be some benefit from this weird time we're in, some way we can grow from it. We'll be right back.    [MUSIC]   Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with us! If you enjoy listening to Shame Piñata, you can support the show by sharing with a friend or co-worker. We're into our 2nd season now (yay!) so all of our first season episodes are available on your favorite player and there might be one there that would really call to someone you know. And thanks!   One thing we can definitely do is practice disconnecting from our attachments and embracing the feel of flow. We might realize we're already doing this multiple times a day once we start paying attention. We can also use this time to reframe our view of the world and how we show up in it. We can fight for making a better world, a more equitable world. I have a quote on my desk that I look at every morning from writer Roxane Gay, something she said a year ago when the pandemic started, "The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For Black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free." And this is a chance for all of us to change the way we live, who we connect with, what kind of media we consume, and whose words we surround ourselves with. We are being offered the chance to see things from a different angle.    And as Alan Seale says, "Herein lies the power and the gift of the liminal space. The liminal space shakes us out of our habitual lives. It draws us out of what we have known, yet does not allow us to know what is coming next, or when. It's the chrysalis stage for the caterpillar."   So how do we keep track of time within liminality? Here are a few ideas. First, routine events can help: A daily walk, a weekly lunch, a monthly treat. These are things our subconscious mind can begin to rely on for comfort and stability. And they can even weave in some connection if we want that. There's number two, regular social connections. I've been lucky enough to be part of a family that's held weekly Zoom calls for almost a year now. Before COVID, visits were few and far between, but we just celebrated our 50th call last week. (I know because my uncle keeps track and he held up a big 5-0 sign as we began the call).    If you don't have regular social connections in your life right now, consider looking online at the activities and groups you find interesting. So many things have moved online right now. It's possible to attend workshops and ceremonies on the other side of the world. And if you can't handle any more screen time, consider events that might allow you to call in rather than connect online and maybe take a walk while you listen.    Third, nature is still happening! The Earth still turns every 24 hours, bringing the steady rhythm of sunrises and sunsets which can be very potent times to observe the majesty of life on our planet. And the moon still pulls on the waters in our bodies just as much as she pulls on the waters of the Earth. You can mark the month by her changing light and if you choose to honor the new moon or the full moon, know that there is a very rich history in that tradition. And of course there are the many sabbats around the wheel of the year as celebrated by the earth-based religions throughout time. Here in the northern hemisphere we're coming up to Spring Equinox later this month which will of course be the Autumnal Equinox in the southern hemisphere. And that brings us to the mid point between emptiness and fullness, a moment of balance. And balance brings us to ritual.    [MUSIC]   We can create rituals to mark the significant moment in our lives. As social psychologist Shira Gabriel says, "Rituals mark the passage of time as sacred." We can also use ceremony to center ourselves when things are topsy-turvy. Here's a simple ritual sketch we might use to find ourselves even within the flow of COVID time.   So first we might create an intentional space by finding a still corner of the house or maybe taking a walk to find a quiet space in nature. Then we might take a few deep breaths and really feel into the body. What does it feel like to be sitting on this thing? What is the feeling of the air on my skin? How many sounds can I hear?   Next we might get in touch with any spiritual guides, Goddesses, Gods or entities we work with or connect to the numinous however we experience it with gratitude and humility. Connected to this greater force, we might notice that our breathing has softened a bit and that we feel just a little bit calmer.    We might then bring our focus to the wide field of time, seeing ourselves in the very center of it, complete and whole, grounded and calm. Noticing how it moves in spirals, how it dances around us and holds great complexity. And yet at the center of it, we are focused and deeply connected with our own self, our own presence. Sound healer Aleya Dao talks about the golden river of light that flows at our core. We might connect to that pure essence of self as we watch time go by like a movie.    We might begin to sense the many ways that our core essence transcends time, transcends the grids our mind creates to make sense of it. We might come up on a younger version of ourselves and feel moved to share something we've learned with them. We might seek out an older version of ourselves and ask for some wisdom to make this COVID time easier.    Mostly, we can rest in the deep knowing that all time is now and all space is here. This ceremonial experience of time transcends the limits we've known before, and allows us to heal in new ways. When we're ready, we can return to the space we're in, take a few deep breaths and maybe move our body around a little to come back to waking consciousness. And we might want to write down a thing or two of what we experienced in the open field of time.    So how are you keeping track of time right now? What's working for you? Drop us a note on the shamepinata.com website and we will share your tips in an upcoming show.    Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can support the show by subscribing on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Catherine Monahon (producer of the wonderful Material Feels Podcast) shares their journey from breakup to new home. At the start of the journey was heartbreak. At the end was a celebration of the love that had supported Catherine all along the way.    Music by Terry Hughes   Links: Material Feels Podcast Rate This Podcast CXM Designs   Other episodes about making it through a hard time: The Un-Baby Shower Inviting Grief to the Wedding Full Transcript Monahon: When I got there and people were helping me with all my stuff I looked at the bed and it's like a different size bed than I'm used to, you know, sharing a space with another person. I was used to a larger bed. And I just didn't even have sheets to put on it. And she was helping me move and she was just like, "Let me run down the street to my house. I have an extra set of sheets." And yes, I could have gone to Bed, Bath and Beyond or ordered some sheets online. But in that moment, it was so bleak. Looking at that mattress on the floor that was this... the wrong size for a single person, you know? Or the wrong size for what I was used to. And she went down the street with... like within 15 minutes... materialized with sheets that she... I still have them... they're these dark, velvety purple sheets that I associate with that time. They're really soft and I will forever be grateful to her for that. So just people showing up in different ways, small ways that they probably don't even realize still.... I still think about it today.   How do we create ways for the people who care about us to show when we need it? When is it okay to ask for help? Does asking for help mean we are weak? Does it make us needy? We'll speak today with Catherine Monahon who asked for help when things were hard, and whose community showed up in a big way.   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.   So today we have a great story to share with you. It's a story of loss, of heartbreak, of healing, of hope and of gratitude. And not only gratitude but a brave showing of gratitude, a public sharing of love and appreciation. A ritual of love and appreciation.    You know when you go through something really hard and you dare to be real about how hard it is with your friends? When you dare to ask for help? Today we'll talk with Catherine Monahon who produces and hosts the Material Feels podcast. Catherine and I met through radiogines, listserv for women, femmes and gender non-conforming folks in San Francisco Bay Area who work in audio.    When I asked Catherine if they might like to speak about a rite of passage they'd gone through on Shame Piñata, at first they couldn't think of anything, but then they realized that the brunch they organized to thank the friends who helped them get through a breakup was a significant moment. We'll get into why and it was significant in a bit.    First, though, the journey. Catherine was 28 and had just been through their first major breakup. It was a time of uncertainty and pain. Not wanting to stay in the home they had shared with their partner, they struck out looking for a new place to live in the Bay Area, which was hard because housing is hard to find and because they were heartbroken. Catherine placed an ad for housing and that ad was seen by two good friends, Amos and Eirik, who hadn't even heard about the breakup yet.    Monahon: And it was actually an amazing moment because I was sitting with my two friends watching some live music outdoors and I remember I had looked up at the sky, and I was like, “I just... I can't imagine trying to find the right home for me right now. I just need something to fall into my lap.” And then I looked at my phone, and Amos was like, “Hey, I saw your ad. Like oh, my gosh, what happened between you guys? Do you need a place to land? You can live in our living room.”    Thomas: Wow! That's magical.    Monahon: I responded within 30 seconds. I was like, “Yes, yes. And yes!” Yeah. So I... I had a handful of people help me move into that living room for the indefinite future, you know, a couple months. And then I had some people help me move from that living room to where I live now near Lake Merritt.   Thomas: Nice. So your community really showed up for you.   Monahon: Yeah. I also, like, emailed 15 people, and I was like, “I need support!” Maybe not 15, maybe like 11... but for the first couple weeks, while I was sort of in shock, I had, by just by chance, three of my very close friends checking on me everyday, in but they would... it was weird. It was like they were coordinating with each other but they weren't. The rhythm of those friendships sort of kept me going for the first month or two while I was looking... because I was looking for housing. I didn't hear from Amos and Eirik for the first month of that experience. I was like sleeping on couches and like, yeah, so… And then I did, I sent an email out once I realized I had a place to live temporarily and people helped me go through stuff. I mean, I couldn't even think about all the crap I had to look through, like. They and they took stuff. Like I had one friend who was really excited about all of these things that I had that I was like, “If I look at this, I'm gonna cry” like, “I don't want this anymore”.    Monahon: That was a relief that they... she found joy in that stuff. So one person just basically helped me get rid of all my stuff.   I didn't realize at first that Catherine was basically couch surfing for the first month after the breakup. It was only in the second month that they found a place to land in the living room with their two friends. Here is a quick description of what life was like those two months in Berkeley.   Monahon: My time with Amos and Eirik was very enriching. Even though I was sleeping in their living room, it was a very cozy space, there were plants everywhere. And they are both very into food. And I had a pretty bad relationship with food at that time. I hadn't been eating from grief, and just in general wasn't really eating fresh fruits or vegetables. And they are both vegans. And they sort of reintroduced like, fresh, delicious, seasonal food into my life just because it was all around me and they would share with me. They had plants that Eirik adored and cared for, and we always would talk about the plants and notice their growth. It was a very zen and peaceful place to be. And they're both super sensitive queers who are totally down to hold space or emotions, which was a major added bonus. So during that time, I was basically going to school doing homework, crying in the kitchen, eating fresh fruit, looking at plants and searching for housing.   That sounds like a pretty good place to be doing the liminal space dance in, doesn't it? I asked Catherine if receiving that support from Amos and Eirik helped them feel ready to put the word out to a wider crowd, if it helped them feel that support would be there if they reached out.   Monahon: Yeah, yeah. And I think also with moving, I don't know.. You've... there are literal things to do. You know, “Put this in a box. Move this up the stairs”. And I knew that people were probably worried about me. I mean, this was... I was in a relationship for six years and we... these were mutual friends that you know. So yeah, I knew people want... people  would check on me. And I'd be like, “I can't deal with you. I want... I want you to be able to help me…” So I was like, I was like, and also moving was gonna be I had a feeling it would be really upsetting. So I was like, well, at least I can try to turn it into some kind of like, party not even… maybe party's the wrong word, but barbecue vibe.   Thomas: Right. Right. As opposed to just heartbreak and tears and Kleenex boxes lining the walls and...   Monahon: Yeah, and and most of these people who ended up at that, at the brunch that we'll talk about, they saw me in the... in those stages, you know. They... we had all been connected in some way, whether it was my heartbreak or something that they were going through. And I kept track of it too. Like I journaled about how each person showed up for me, and I really internalized those memories, like they were so that I they're so fresh. I kind of wanted to celebrate them, those people I mean, yeah.   Thomas: Yeah. So was the brunch a celebration?   Monahon: It was part... it was part celebration of, like how I felt each person had brought such special gifts to my experience and so different. And it was part... like, I've had that experience before I went to boarding school at a very young age so I've moved a lot. And I've always... I know what it feels like to move into a room, and then suddenly be like, “Well, I'm here,” like, “It's over,” you know? And that's awkward, that waking up. So I...I kind of anticipated that that would be even worse. So it was it was like part celebration part.... I didn't... I wanted that day to be a good day. And then it was also like a closing, I was like, “That time... Although I loved living with Amos and Eirik, That time is over now. The time of feeling ungrounded not knowing what's going to happen. Feeling like, I'm falling apart. Like, these people saw me through it and I want us all to, to like, kind of kiss that time goodbye.”   Thomas: That's awesome because it's really insightful of you because all these people have been, like watching you and supporting you and keeping an eye on you probably and all these things and, and it's so it's kind of like I can see it. Like if it's my story. It's like I'm getting to this place and I'm like, “Okay, I'm good. And thank you and you know, you can tone it down like 90% of how much you're worried about me now like I got this,” to kind of let them, like disengage.   Monahon: Yeah. And just kind of it's almost like a performance too because it was like, “Okay, you're doing it. You woke up and your new apartment. And... and you're gonna say thank you to all your buds and then you're gonna move on.” Whether or not that really happened, that it was still it... I think it... it worked a little bit. But then I feel likeI would remember the brunch, I'd remember those people and those moments like, it I felt like it was creating something that I could almost like a worry stone where I could like, go back to it.   Thomas: Nice. Do you have any mementos that you physically have from that brunch or that time?   Monahon: No, I think other than that page of my journal. Because I invited... I actually wrote their names down. I'm just gonna count them real quick. So I invited nine people two weeks beforehand. And three of them couldn't come. So the people who couldn't come, I texted them a picture of their part of the map that I had made. And I still, like thanked them and told them why... I even invited my friend Liz, who lives in Philadelphia. I knew that they couldn't come. But the invitation they got it.    Thomas: So what was the map like?    Monahon: So the brunch was kind of like: I had moved twice. It had been three months. And so the map that I made was essentially just a list of memories. Everybody had, like, you know, a bunch of green dots of like, highlighted dates. You know, August 22, we went camping. August 3, I had that meltdown in public and my brother gave me an omelette, or something. And so... if like my three friends who couldn't come, I took a picture of their part of that list I had made and was like, “Hey, you know, you really showed up for me in these ways and I really appreciate that about you.”   Thomas: Wow. That would be such a nice thing to receive, to have somebody like, remember some random thing that I did, or that happened between us like writing it down and putting a date on it and sending it to me as part of like a thank you, or acknowledgement. That's so thoughtful.   Monahon: You just don't know how big of a deal it is when you do something like that. Like for you, it might be a couple hours of your morning on a Saturday and your friend's cat has died. And for them, it's like, I'll never forget that Colleen showed up on this made up scenario. [LAUGHS] But like, yeah, I think, yeah, what? They got me through it.   Welcome to today's show! Whether this is your first or your 25th episode, it's always wonderful to have you along. If there is something changing in your world right now, some shift you're going through, know you're not alone. Shame Piñata will continue bringing you stories to inspire your own creative response to a changing self. Subscribe today in your favorite player!   Thomas: You said that you felt like something that was wrapped up nice and tight at the brunch.   Monahon: Yeah, it was a very emotional… it was a very emotional day. And I wasn't expecting it to be. Like when I had prepared to, like appreciate everybody in front of everybody. And I just wanted everyone to see everyone, like to know how amazing everybody at that brunch was and how much they impacted me. And so I like made a... I set a couple... I made it short, too, because I had one I have one friend who really doesn't like to be appreciated in public. So I really tried to do it like just short Cliff Notes/spark notes and it was wild to see people who like aren't necessarily tight. They are not close friends necessarily. But because we, it created this really sort of this like little bubble of like, trust and love. And my brother who, you know, doesn't really know my chosen family that well. He got really emotional and he sort of gave this speech at the end where he... he like cried. We're both cryers and you know, he was just like, “It means the world to me that Catherine has this support network...” And then he said a bunch of nice stuff about me and I was like, “This is not why I'm throwing this brunch.” And everybody's all, “Oh, we love you.” I was very mushy and gushy. gushy and it's not something I normally do. So, I guess, feeling held by like, it just felt very safe and I felt very present.   Thomas: Did you have a little bit of trouble taking that in at the time? Was it too much or was it okay?   Monahon: It was okay. Because nobody tried to... everybody was just kind of sitting with it, you know? It was because I think it was a brunch to acknowledge heartbreak and my empty new apartment room. So I don't think I think there was no, like... I didn't have to worry that anybody was going to be uncomfortable at the brunch.   Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I love this story. Because I love how much you're obviously taking care of yourself in it, you know, it's... I can see that you're honoring the people who helped you. And also, it was so bold of you to ask for help and to accept it. And then you had this whole brunch, which you could have just written them all, like, notes or emails or said thanks for something that you call them together and you put, you know, energy into it is just inspiring. And it's another example of how we can take care of ourselves through little things that we could call ceremony or ritual, or we could just not. But they kind of serve a purpose of, you know, of intention. Everybody knew what the meaning was of that whole time for you.   Monahon: Yeah, and I didn't really think about it like that until I listened to your show. Like, listening to the way that you talk about ritual and ceremony. And I started thinking like, What does that apply to my life? You know, as someone who doesn't… I... other than my art practice and creative endeavors, I don't feel particularly connected to it. And then I realized that the brunch kind of kind of tapped on that, or edged up against that, and overlapped with a lot of what you've talked about on the show. I was like, “Oh, that's what that was.” [LAUGHS]    Catherine is the producer and host of Material Feels, a podcast that explores the intimate relationship between artists and their materials. This means that Catherine speaks with artists about watercolor and clay, glass and wax. Recently they have been musing on and speaking about ritual as an art form.   Thomas: I know, you've been exploring ritual a little bit yourself on Material Feels and I'm curious, what has been moving for you about that? Or what have you noticed? Or has it... has anything shifted for you as you played around with it a little?   Monahon: I think one thing that I have noticed about myself and the way, like, my sort of ritual personality is that I really like... I like tradition and I like anniversaries. So you know, the day I dropped my first episode was like Valentine's Day and that's like a big deal to me. Valentine's Day is now always going to be a big deal about the podcast, about my creative love for the world and myself.    Thomas: Nice.    Monahon: But then, like, also, what I've learned as I'm exploring ritual and ceremony is witnessing and including other people. So, I've made art my whole life, but I've never I never included anyone else in it. It's always been very personal and private. But now with the show... there's this, like, sacredness to the audience for me. Like, whenever I start, whenever I start thinking about the next episode, like, organically thinking about it, I'm... I'm talking to my listeners in my head. So I think the ceremony of producing a show where I… I really want my listeners to be like intimately with me. And I think learning more about... like creating the container, as you say, sonically... I mean, that's been really cool to think about and try to try to move forward with.   Thomas: Yeah and Material Feels has so much sound richness and playfulness and it's... it's got such a unique container. It's kind of like, I just thought this... it's kind of like a... like a stained glass prism that turns different ways that... it's like, yellow here, and then blue here, and then opaque here and translucent here. And it's just... it's always changing as I listen to it, like the episode. And it's... but it's not like discongruent or whatever the word would be, you know? It's not like, “All these things… What? What's going on?” But it's kind of like no, no, it's it's art. And it just keeps changing. And it's such a unique format and it's so you.   Monahon: Oh, thank you. Thank you for saying that about the prism. That is really cool. I like that.    Catherine's story illustrates how taking a risk and getting vulnerable can not only open opportunities to receive support ourselves, but can provide our friends and loved ones with a chance to show up for us. And that's what we really want to do, right, show up and love each other? Because it feels good, because the struggles of the folks we love touch our hearts, and because we're all human and we all have something to offer, from carrying away some heartbreak-soaked stuff to bringing a friend a set of sheets.   I am super grateful to Catherine for sharing the ups and downs of their breakup journey and giving us a look into the brunch itself. I am also thrilled to have had a lot of time lately to talk ritual with Catherine. If you'd like to hear more of this conversation, told through the Material Feels lens, check out the latest episode of the Material Feels podcast, called Emotion (Ritual and Ceremony). It explores the elements, storytelling, and finding what needs to be moved.   Catherine is an audio storyteller with a background in art. They facilitate workshops and create podcasts with a focus on creative practices and art materials. Their writing about art, illness and disability has been published in The New York Times, WIRED Magazine and the Leonardo Journal. Learn more about Catherine's work at www.cxmdesigns.com.   Our music is by Terry Hughes. Please follow us on IG at shamepinata. You can also follow us on Twitter at shamepinata. Reach out directly through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Ch-ch-ch-changes! In part-two we step off the beaten path and into the unknown. Maybe by choice, maybe not. Either way, we have all we need to reinvent ourselves. We just need to get creative.   Music by Terry Hughes   Links: My Self Marriage Story   The Queer Spirit Podcast S4E7 - Ritual, Ceremony & Rites of Passage   Rate This Podcast   Full Transcript   Picture this. It's May, the very end of the year at a busy middle school. Everyone is ready for summer but the 8th graders are acting especially weird. They're getting in trouble for silly reasons and sometimes acting completely out of character. I've learned over time that 8th graders can act a little strange in that last month because they're preparing for a huge change. They have no idea what life will look like next year, which of their friends will still be in their lives or what academic, social and even emotional challenges high school will bring. They're at that place, in the words of Shel Silverstein, where the sidewalk ends.    Life gives us moments like these again and again, chances to step off the beaten path and into the unknown. What does it take to make that leap? How can we make it easier? What are some little things we can do to support ourselves and the ones we love through the process of reinventing ourselves?   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.   This is part 2 of a 3-part series we're calling, “Do You Need a Ceremony”. In part 1 we focused on honoring important personal moments, the kind there are no party decorations for - and really, the kind we might not even think about honoring. Moments that run the gamut from a huge loss like losing a beloved pet, to joyful moments like paying off our student loans. The idea is that if it's an important moment to us, it's important to celebrate it or mark it in some way. Today we're going to talk about how ritual can help us reinvent ourselves.    Sometimes it can feel like it's time for a change. And sometimes we grow without even realizing it. And other times we don't even know we need to change until we get out of our routine and when we return to it, we realize it doesn't fit us anymore. Has that happened to you? These are the kinds of changes we'll be talking about today as well as the many intuitive ways we already demarcate change and growth in our lives.    So first, how do we know when we're going through a change? Of course, sometimes it's quite obvious. Like when everything is going great and suddenly it all falls apart. Big changes can happen like that, suddenly, and with little warning. These can be super unsettling, disorienting, and upsetting. When a change happens - especially if it's a big change that takes our focus, it can be easy to lose touch with the things that ground us and keep us calm.    Sometimes we might not notice that things are ticking along and we're silently coming to a moment of meaningful change as a person. It might feel like we don't easily fit into a role we've always held or like no understands what's really going for us. We might notice new feelings like feeling frustrated or annoyed or even more tired than usual. We might notice we're feeling kind of trapped or unappreciated.    The reality that we're constantly growing and changing goes somewhat against the way we typically think and plan. For example, we live our lives as if we're all set and nothing will really change from this point forward. We anticipate life stages and probably expect that we are likely to move though them just like our parents did, but in the day to day, things can feel pretty stable. So the fact that we're always growing and changing kind of works against the comfort of the known, the stability of the familiar. We're probably eventually going to get tired of this exact job or the unique culture of this company. We may decide to change our major at a very inconvenient time. Maybe by the time we've saved enough to buy our dream home, we've met someone who wants to travel the world instead of settle down.    We change.    One night years ago, I cooked a wonderful fish dinner and after cleaning up, I stepped outside to take out the trash. Upon returning to the apartment I was surprised to realize the entire place smelled like fish. I hadn't noticed it during the time I was cooking and eating but after being in the the fresh air for a few minutes it was obvious to me. This became a metaphor in my life for the value of taking a break from my regular routine in order to make sure it was still working well.    When changes happen that I don't want, two of the most helpful practices I've learned to do are to be in flow and to say thank you. There's something about trusting the flow and showing that trust by saying the words "thank you" that transforms my experience. This brings to mind one of my favorite quotes by Meister Eckhart. “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”   Another way to approach change is through the meme, “When something changes in your life, just yell ‘plot twist!' and keep going”. I try to remember that one too because… I'm really not in control. As much as I want to be, as much as I feel like I need to be, and as much as I OK I want to be. I'm not - and that's hard.   We'll be right back.   Thanks so much for joining us today! Just a heads up that if you're in a life transition right now and would like some support, you can work with me to have a custom ceremony built just for you. Go to shamepinata.com to learn more.   Changes can actually be helpful in that they invite us to reinvent ourselves. For example, we might change our diet if we are diagnosed with an illness. That's just a small example.    Here's a list of times when I might choose to re-invent myself: - after a loss - when my life is changing in a way I can't control - when I see a change coming - when an old chapter is closing or a new chapter is starting - when I just feel like I'm becoming a new person - when I want to get unstuck - when I really want to change an old habit or mindset - when I notice that hard feelings are getting in my way - or when I feel inspired to become a better or a different person   There are ways that we intuitively reinvent ourselves in life by using intentional actions. For example, cutting our hair, changing up our personal style, moving to a new place, reaching out to new people, trying something new, even walking a different way to work, anything to honor the way we're changing.   In addition to these intuitive methods for changing it up, we can go a little deeper if we want. Here are a few examples:   If I see a change coming, I can use ritual to ground on a daily basis - ground into the things that give me strength and help me be me in the flow and be able to say thank you so that I am able to navigate the change with as much resilience (and grace if I can muster it) as possible. Perhaps lighting a candle each morning. Taking 10 minutes of the day to do a breathing practice. Dancing to one song everyday and full-out expressing myself as much as I can for those 5 minutes.    When I'm starting a new chapter in life, I can weave the sacred into that experience in several practical ways, from creating a personalized playlist of songs to cheer myself on and hold the hard feelings, to bringing my friends and loved ones around to circle up with me and vision what my life could be like.    When it's time to get unstuck, ceremony might help me to simulate the stuckness. Maybe a friend can hold my arm another friend can hold my foot and act as stand-ins for the things that are holding me in place. I might dialogue with them and talk about the limitations I feel and find in my body to be ready to make the change and break out of their grasp. Or perhaps it's a different direction. Perhaps my body might indicate a need to surrender to these forces until an a-ha moment arises and I see things in a different way. This kind of thing can also work when a bunch of bad feelings are in my way.    You're seeing a pattern here right? Rituals are physical acts that we do that have a greater significance than just the act itself and they are effective because they tap into our subconscious mind. Sometimes physical actions can just be straightforward physical actions like drinking a cup of coffee. We want coffee. We drink coffee. End of story. But we might also take a sip of our Grandmother's favorite coffee on Samhain to honor our continuing connection to her through the veil, remembering what it felt like to sit in her kitchen as a child smelling the coffee brewing. The cool thing is that anything we do in life we can do with intention. In ritual space, simple acts can be profound.    Let's move on to a real life example of using ritual to reinvent oneself. I will actually give you two. These are ceremonies I've spoken of before, so I will add links in the show notes so you can hear the full story on each one.    The first one is from the time when I was preparing to get married. I knew, in that way we can know ourselves so well, that despite my best efforts, I was going to have a tendency to hold the wedding in a lopsided way. I was going to want the fairy tale as the main event, not the commitment and the day to day struggle, the active noun of love. (Mr. Rogers says love is an active noun, like struggle). I was going to focus on the dress and the fairy tale and ever after... you know, the things girls get socialized into wanting. Now, I've been a feminist for many years and I know that the archetype of the bride was going to run deep and would pull out all the little girl stuff in me. So I decided to consciously counterbalance that pull by committing to myself first.    I designed a self-commitment, or self-marriage, ceremony which I held about three months before the wedding. As I said, there's a much longer story here and you can hear it on the episode called "My Self-Marriage Story". But I will tell you here that the ceremony was a profound moment of reinventing myself as I was about to get swooped up into a bunch of old stuff I didn't believe anymore. It allowed me to reinvent myself so that I was in a calm, grounded place, resourced within myself before I made that commitment with another person. And the vows I made to myself in that ceremony are still relevant to me every day.    The second example is from another moment in time when I felt called to reinvent myself. I had been at a job for too long and the day finally came for me to leave. The trouble was that it was difficult to see where I was headed next because I had so many backlogged hard feelings from my time of stuckness. You can hear all about how I dislodged and released the old stuff in an interview I did on The Queer Spirit podcast. It's the last question host Nick Venegoni asked of me on the show and it's linked in the show notes.   I invite you to think and feel through all of these examples and ideas and match them up against any places in your heart in you that might be ready for a re-boot. You are an amazing, glowing, changing being. Celebrate it!    Our music is by Terry Hughes. Be sure to subscribe in your favorite player to make sure you're notified when new episodes are released. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

In the words of Nick Venegoni, “Initiation is a moment when you can step into the next level of power.” Nick compares initiation to leveling up, like in gaming. You gain a new power. What if this is true? What if we can reframe the challenges in our lives as initiations that not only help us get through the hard moments but also help us to level up?   Links: The Queer Spirit Podcast Website Facebook Twitter Instagram Rate This Podcast Music by Terry Hughes   Full Transcript In the words of Nick Venegoni, “Initiation is a moment when you can step into the next level of power.” Nick compares initiation to leveling up, like in gaming. You gain a new power. What if this is true? What if we can reframe the challenges in our lives as initiations that not only help us get through the hard moments but also help us to level up? This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today we are going to explore a recent conversation I had with Nick Venegoni. Nick has been a guest on Shame Piñata and hosts his own show called The Queer Spirit Podcast. The Queer Spirit Podcast highlights conversations with artists, healers & activists who enliven, heal & empower the LGBTQ+ communities. In the following episode of The Queer Spirit Podcast you will hear a discussion focusing on ritual, initiation and change. Topics covered include the ritual I created to honor the 10 year anniversary of my father's passing, the first ritual I ever did, how rituals help us make sense of change and the power of initiation. We will also touch on coming out as one of the biggest queer initiations, my own coming out story and also, the story behind the name of the Shame Pinata podcast. Stay tuned through the end of Nick's show for a preview of what's coming on Shame Piñata this summer. And now, The Queer Spirit Podcast. Venegoni: Welcome to The Queer Spirit Podcast. I'm your host, Nick Venegoni. Here we have conversations with artists, healers, and activists who enliven the LGBTQ+ communities, and who empower our queer spirits to flourish. Before we get started with the interview, if you haven't heard, I've started a Patreon account for the podcast. Patreon is a way for you to help support the show and get special rewards in return such as a thank you shout out on the show, and an enameled button with the queer spirit logo. This year, I've also added access to videos of the podcast interviews and a free monthly live virtual sound bath. If you'd like to join in supporting the show, just go to patreon.com/queerspirit. You can also find the link in the show notes. Any Patreon funds remaining after the basic production costs will be donated to nonprofit supporting diverse queer communities. Once again that link is patreon.com/queerspirit. Thanks for your consideration. Venegoni: My guest today is Colleen Thomas. Colleen is a ritual artist and independent audio producer her podcast Shame Piñata focuses on creating rites of passage for real life transitions. Today we talk about the importance of ritual as a container and support for big and small changes in our lives. Colleen shares how she discovered the power of ritual to help her feel supported through life's challenges. She also shares some examples of the ways people have honored their relationships from the stories heard on her podcast. Find Colleen and her show at shamepinata.com. Venegoni: Hi, Colleen, welcome to the show. Thomas: Hi, Nick, it's so good to be here with you. Venegoni: Yeah, I'm excited to talk a little bit more about your podcast, having recently been a guest on it myself and share a little bit more about the vision that you're bringing out into the world. But before we do that, I wonder if you can just tell us a little bit about what inspired you to start a podcast about rites of passage? Thomas: Sure. Well, I guess it's sort of a roundabout answer. I have a very strong interest in radio and working in radio in some capacity, which there's a story around that too. But I'll just stick with this story. I was offered an internship with a local radio station and was so excited about it. But then I also started a new day job that exact same moment and I couldn't do both because one was 40 hours a week, and one was 20 hours a week and I was going to have a three hour a day commute so there's no way it was gonna fit! And so after about a year of getting my feet settled at the new job and learning all the new things with the commute and all the changes, life change, I found an audio coach and she helped me figure out a podcast project because I just wanted to be doing something. And I really wanted it to be about performance art, because I'm very interested in performance art and developing myself as a performance artist. But she said, “You keep telling me amazing stories about ritual.” And I decided… first I was like, “No… ritual... yeah, I do that all the time. I want to do this new thing.” And she's like, “No, no, I really think about it.” And then I thought about it and then I decided, “Yes, this is a thing. This is an important piece of my life. I have a master's degree in spirituality, I've put a lot of thought and energy into it. And I love to design ritual,” so I decided to make that the focus of the show. Venegoni: Great. So what is your history and your background with… or your just... your relationship with a ritual in general? Thomas: Well, I was an only child, I am an only child, so when I was a kid, I did a lot of things on my own. So I think a lot of my creativity comes from that. My friends say that I'm like, the most creative person they know. I'm like, sort of... that's like, “Oh, you're so creative.” They always say that. So I think I kind of had that already. And make believe it's been a really big part of my life, you know, I can see... I can entertain myself, I'm fine on my own. And I was religious when I was a kid but I wasn't... I guess really wasn't spiritual until I had sort of an awakening after college when I realized that my moon flow was a very sacred thing for me. And the time of the menstruation became a very big spiritual practice for me. And that led me to a school in Oakland, California, Matthew Fox's University of Creation Spirituality... well, that sort of spiritual, that awakening spirituality and me led me there. And then I got to focus on the blood mysteries for my master's thesis. So I got to really delve into the concept of the Red Tent during that time. And just sort of around that time, I just started, you know, honoring the new moon and the full moon and creating ritual for this and that and I just began to realize that rites of passage are super important, like whenever anything is going on in my life that you know is a little difficult or challenging, or I want my community around me... or it's usually for me, always things that nobody would understand. So like there's no ceremony for this weird thing is happening in my life, so I'm gonna have to create it. So that's kind of what prompted creating ceremony. Venegoni: Yeah. And for you what is important about creating some kind of ritual or ceremony for these strange or unique or significant things that are happening in your life? Thomas: Well, they're important, and they're usually scary and new, and I don't want to be alone in them. And they're all really important moments. And I guess it's basically I don't want to be alone. Venegoni: And even if it's something that's just happening to you, can you just share like how, by doing ritual, you don't feel alone? Thomas: Well, I usually do it in community. So that's kind of a built-in way. I do ritual by myself but lately, it's been more in community. I guess, what I do mostly when I'm alone, is I'm often planning something that I'm doing in community. So bringing people together... I just had a big ritual for myself about a month ago on the anniversary of my father's death, the 10 year anniversary of my father's death, honoring another step I felt I had taken in my own healing from that relationship. And it was really healing for me to plan it and to sense into what was changing exactly, and it was several things. And to honor... to figure out where those things wanted to go and exactly what would honor them. And exactly, then how would I bring community into that? And like, what would that look like? And it involved some jewelry, presenting myself with jewelry [LAUGHS] This is a typical theme for me - I have a whole bunch of significant jewelry. And I picked people to present me with the pieces. And those people, I gave them the full lowdown, “This is exactly what this means, and let's work together on how you will present this to me, you know, in ritual space.” And then I had... I also invited everybody to that particular ritual to bring something. So it's very important for me to have everybody's voice in the circle. And so everybody brought some kind of reading. Everybody got involved in some way. And the beauty of that is that at first I thought, “Oh, I'll just send out… please read that.” And then I was getting some… “Oh, that doesn't resonate with me... that doesn't… that feels weird”, or, you know, or “Can I read this?” and that was kind of I didn't want that. But then it actually turned into this really much deeper and richer involvement of each person so that they really showed up with this thing that meant something to them and then they contributed. So then it was like we were weaving, constantly weaving, this circle deeper and stronger with all of us. And it ultimately helped me achieve one of my big goals with ceremony, which is even if it's for me, for everybody to get something out of it as much as that's possible. And everybody always says things like, “Oh, you did this for us. This isn't for you, you engineered this for us” you know… It's like I'm always really happy when they they feel that way about it. Yeah, Venegoni: Yeah. Yeah. And you've used a word that I really resonate with when I think about ritual, which is weaving. You know, in pagan communities, when we talk about spellcrafting, we talk about weaving a spell. But even for those who don't resonate with the word spell, I do think even in ritual, particularly with other people, that there's this way that it feels woven together, like we all have a little a part of it, you know. I think about this idea of like the maypole at Beltane when people... everyone's holding on to a ribbon and they're all dancing together, and they're weaving this beautiful pattern around the pole. Or even if you're alone, and you are working with Spirit or other Deities, there's a way in which they are working with you and they're weaving this ritual with you together. And it could be the image I'm getting right now is, you know, weaving a blanket of protection or comfort around you if there's grief or sorrow, or some challenge happening. But the.. I really like that image and that sense of weaving. Do you have a special memory of one of your own rites of passage? I mean, you just mentioned this one about the anniversary of your father's death. But I wonder if there's something in particular maybe even like the first one that felt significant to you that really felt like, “Oh, this is for me, I'm really, you know, this works for me better than, you know, maybe this other religion that I was raised”? Thomas: Hmm. Well, I had a period of my life when I was just first in college, I met a woman who was a bi witch. And those both were new concepts to me - like as them as being legitimate was new to me. Like I had heard of bisexual people in my life, but it was always with, “Oh, yeah, that person is a little confused...” You know, like, it was never like, “Oh, that person's bi and they're cool.” or, “They're just a person”, you know, like, it was always like, there was a caveat that it was like - bad. And even from my gay friends that's what I was hearing. And later when I came out to some of my gay friends as bi, they were kind of like, “Oh, I'm sorry.” and I was like, “Just stop it!” So... but she was bi and so that was a little challenge for me, too. Like, you know, like, “Oh wait, she's really amazing” reprogramming you know, my brain. And then she was a witch and something about her being both challenged me in those ways at the same time. And I think I was always a witch and just didn't know it. When I was six or four or something like that, my mom made me a bad witch costume. The Wizard of Oz was big in our house. So she made me the bad witch costume. And the next year, she made me the Good Witch costume. And then I just, I literally wore them every year. I rotated the Good Witch, Bad Witch, Good Witch, just like and… I liked the Good Witch costume a little bit better because it had a like a princess... the hat was turned into like a princess hat and it had like a big piece of taffeta hanging down off the point, you know, so it sort of swirled around me. And so that felt very pretty to me, and soft, and blue was very blue. But other than that I didn't have a preference of the Good Witch, Bad Witch. And so I just feel like then later meeting this woman in college and realizing what being a witch meant to her being a pagan, earth based spirituality and learning what that was, that just felt like, wow, that makes so much more sense than, you know, the way I was trained to learn all the Christian things I was raised with. Those always felt very important to me, but I've never understood them and spent a fair amount of time banging my head against the wall trying to get them in. And it just never really it never fit. It never exactly made sense to me. And so then I met her and then I sort of moved into that space. And so that freshman year, I remember the spring of my freshman year in college, I remember, that was like a real time of awakening. And I was surrounding myself with pagan learnings and pagan experiences. And I had one, I don't usually refer to them as spells. Now, like you mentioned that word, I don't really resonate with that word. But when I first came to it, that word was used a lot. And so I was sort of involved in that word. And my first spell I did was it was this, like, “Let me be healthy and green. Love myself. Love the planet…” It was very, like, very, it was very good witchy! under a tree. And I just sort of like I read something out of a book, which is totally not the way I operate. Now, like I would never read something out of a book or a spell now, because it's like, “Wait, now what does that mean? And what was the intention behind that?” and I'm not going to read out of a book unless I really love it. But I was, you know, under this tree reading this spell, and it was something about having a green cord and tying it on a tree or something. And it was just basically a prayer. It was very simple. But I remember that as being a very profound moment of me moving into this nature-based place that felt so empowering and so lush and so real and immediate. Venegoni: So one of the things that you sort of tagline in your podcast as you want to talk to people about how rituals help us make a sense of change. And we sort of touched on that a little bit. But I'm curious, both through your own experience, and through the interviews you've had with people, like, how do rituals help us make sense of change? Thomas: Well, early on in my show, one of my guests, Betty Ray, she said, “Rituals help us create a container to hold the powerful emotions that come with change.” And that really, like I was like, Yeah. Like all my guests have been putting words to these things I've been feeling all this time and that is exactly… to me... that resonates for me. Because... if the other thing that I've been noticing is like if I'm developing this theory that we can handle change, and change is a very constant thing, but we don't like it. And we like to just tick tick tick tick along like normal and like, “Okay, I'm good if this like, you know, all these things in my life stay the same, and it's good, I'm good.” But then like something happens, then I go into this place of, “Oh!” and upset and fear. And it's like strong emotions. Basically like boom, strong emotions! So then maybe that's a situation... problems, not all of them. But maybe that's a situation where a ritual could help. You know, I was brainstorming last night, my next episode, which I'm thinking about calling, like, Do you need a ceremony? Or is it time for ceremony? Or how do you know you need to ceremony or something like that. And I was thinking about all the changes in our lives that happened, and maybe which ones of them, you know, how do we know if we want to ceremony around this or not? Like, like, if I need to move, maybe I don't have time for a ceremony because I'm busy moving so like, sorry, you know. But if somebody is that I love is sick and I can't be with them, maybe that's a perfect time for ceremony for myself, or to gather people around me to sit with me while I hold space for them, you know, across the miles or whatever is challenging. We can feel into like, “Would something be helpful? Would it be helpful to create a container for these emotions? Or would it just be helpful to like, write them all down in a journal and like, just put them somewhere?” You know, like, it doesn't have to be, you know, a zoom call with friends or people in my living room or you know, it doesn't have to be a big thing. It could be a very small, intentional act to help deal with a situation. Yeah. Venegoni: And I know that something You and I had discussed on your show a little bit was the concept of initiation. And I'm curious, you know, what sort of your ideas are about initiation, what initiation means, particularly in the construct of a ritual? Thomas: Well, you were the one who said that on my show, I thought it was Thom, but it was you. And it was really a magical moment for me when you said that I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is that's exactly…” Like I had been framing it like that, like, when I think of initiation, I tend to think of, you know, Imbolc, or, you know, joining a group and, you know, going through something... being initiated into, like, a coven or something official like that, like… Not just like, “Oh, I'm going into phase 27A of my life now” You know, and, or my relationship now, right? And so that's an initiation. So like that, that just struck me as like, wow, that's beautiful way to put it, because, especially if something is coming up that I don't want, you know, like, this thing is like, “Oh god, this horrible thing is happening in my life!” Like, you know, how, yes, I'm changing, I'm being forced to change in this moment. How can I reframe this as an initiation? Or how is it initiation, or what I want to claim and is one now, like, and what's being ignited in me what's being birthed in me and needing to deal with this change, right? And then, of course, the we can, you know, becoming 40, becoming 50, becoming 60, getting married, having a baby, all those things, you know, initiations into a new phase of life, it just seems to me like using that word initiation makes it, it just feels really different than saying, “I'm going into a hard thing or changing in some way.” Venegoni: Well, what I'm thinking about right now, as we talked about, is if you just take the word initiate, usually to initiate something means that you are doing it of your own volition. You know, you've talked about some of these other things that just kind of happen that we don't have control over like death, or the cycles of our body… you know, those kinds of things that often we know that they're going to come but we have to just prepare and deal with it and so let's just create this container to have to work through it more easily. But to initiate something means that you are doing it because you have to. So that was just something I just thought of now is like that's a way to sort of take the power back. And that's also the way that I think about initiation. So it's a moment when you can step into the next level of power. You know, if you think about it from a sort of gaming perspective, it's a level up. You gain a new power, and what is that power? And how do you really sink into that and hold that? Or what is that new tool that you may acquire through this process of the ritual and what comes after that? Thomas: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think so too. It's like a choice. Yeah. Venegoni: And in our culture, you know, there are certain things especially from a religious perspective that we do initiate ourselves, you know, as you've talked... mentioned, and you talk about on your podcast is weddings and baptism and other things. But, you know, I also talked to people about like an initiation, like a graduation as an initiation. Thomas: Definitely. Venegoni: You know, you are completing something, you are gaining this certificate or this diploma, that's gonna give you power and allow you to, you know, level up in your career or in your work or whatever it is that you do, and you can bring that out into the world. Thomas: Yeah, they often call it matriculation. You know, I had a situation in my school where somebody didn't have a diploma because they had matriculated; they were in a different system. They were like, “Well, you didn't graduate.” It's like... it’s the same thing! Yeah, but that word has like going on, that means going on finishing. So it's like it's a different way of... we call it graduation, but it's really matriculation, which is going on. Venegoni: Yeah, yeah. And as I think I talked about on your show, and I'll just mention it again here for folks, as I think one of the biggest initiations that queer folks go through is coming out, you know, coming out in terms of your sexuality or your gender identity. And it's also something that, you know, a lot of queer people... we have to continue to come out to more and more people as we move on and, and that there is a way in which it's looked at as something scary, or, you know, because it can be a significant change for people if their family or their community or their loved ones are not accepting that, they could be rejected or abandoned. But there's also a claiming of power that can happen with that too, like I'm stepping more fully into my truth and who I am. And there may be some big changes that happen that I don't have control over. But what are the ways that I can take this forward with more power and feel more solid and myself? Thomas: Definitely. Definitely. I feel like the coming out stories are very powerful to hear. And when we go to that place and queer community where people share their coming out stories, it's like... it's that deep, powerful sharing that happens within a group where everybody in the group, you know, gets it. And they've all got their own, like really deep well from it. And there's just a very personal place. And so obviously, hearing coming out stories for anybody would be powerful, hopefully. But within the community, it's like... it's all kind of like... it's just so much. It's so powerful. Venegoni: Yeah. Now, I've noticed that on your podcast, you've had a fair number of episodes where you talk about weddings. And I understand because that's probably the most common, you know, whether or not people are spiritual or religious, they still go through that ritual of a wedding, even if it's just going to the courthouse and signing a document. There's still something ritualistic about it. But I'm curious to know, like, if you've learned anything interesting or unique by talking to so many different people about their weddings, or, you know, if weddings have taken on a new meaning for you, now that you've heard so many different stories about it? Thomas: Well, I chose weddings as a focus for season one, because I thought, just like you said, it could be a good entry point for folks and I thought I might stick with a theme for each season going forward. And then I decided that I didn't know I could get enough stories about like coming of age for season two, or whatever. So maybe I just needed to kind of go generic, but I wanted that to be an entry point for people. And I talked about two different sorts of ideas behind rites of passage on the show. One is the ones that there are and there aren't party decorations for. That’s kind of the way I see it, like, there are party decorations for weddings, and graduations, and well... not exactly funerals, but that's accepted as like, you know, a rite of passage or community time around a significant change. And then there's the personal ones, like the one I'm talking with my father, you know, the 10 year anniversary of my father’s passing, like, there’s no party decorations for that, right? So I got to create it myself. So I sort of want to have those two branches constantly in the show, right? So… but to your question about learning about weddings, I've just been inspired by people who have done it their way, which is kind of... and I have sought out those people. “You did it your way. Come talk to me!” you know… And your handfasting with Thom resonated so much with what I did, in my own experience, with my husband. It was like pretty much... we did a very similar thing of involving the community, being married by everybody. We invited, you know, big, huge ritual, you know, in a big space, big… nobody's sitting in chairs, everybody's super involved the entire two hours, you know, like so it was a really... it was a joy to speak with the two of you, because it resonated so strongly with my experience which I still have so much good feeling about. You know, and there was one interview with Betsy Weiss, she and her partner, Brandon, they had not gotten married, they had a ceremony which was not a marriage. And that was so she could be connected with her family before her mother passed. So it was as if they were getting married - it was sort of hard to conceptualize. And her aunts like had to make centerpieces because they didn't know what to do. They were like, “We're gonna make centerpieces!” you know, we're just like… “Okay, you're not getting married, but we're gonna make centerpieces…” because it was such a hard time for the family and her mother was passing away. But it was like... they did a wedding right before her mother died but they consciously did not get married. And they had one everybody understand that, and everybody was really confused. But like, they did exactly what they wanted. In the end, everybody kind of got it, you know, and they had this lovely... different levels of the ceremony where the deeper ceremony was very intimate, it was just the family. And then they had like, another level where they had was sort of like a reception, but it was like a gathering of more people. And then another gathering of more people, like sequentially throughout the day not like another day. And it was just really beautiful, the way that they involved everybody at different levels, you know, in different ways around the ceremony that was super meaningful to them that people really didn't get, but they showed up for anyway. And they were just kind of trusting, “I think this is what you want…” you know, like… So it was just … that was the most unique one. But they've all been super inspiring in terms of everybody doing it their own way. And really, it's kind of soul searching in the process, because a lot of people in the interview share their process with me, you know, how did you get from here to there, you know, and taking it apart and really finding what sparked for them, you know, what does this need to be for us? How do we make it happen? Venegoni: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I like about that, and what you've sort of mentioned before, is that with ritual, it can usually be a lot more, a lot richer and more special if you are making it your own. You know, you talked about the first ritual that you did that you just kind of read out of the book, and you're like, “I don't really know, but I don't know how to do this. I'm just going to read something out of a book”, but now you only create it yourself. And that's one of the things that I talked to a lot of queer folks About especially queer couples or people who are in any kind of relationship, and they're like, “Well, I don't know if I want to get married…” or even if they do get married, like how they structure their relationship itself. It's like, you get to make it what you want. And I think that that something's unique that straight people can do too and they just don't think about it or know it. They just feel like, “Oh, I have to follow this formula,” you know? But you can make the ritual what you want it to be. It doesn't have to look like it looks in the wedding magazines or on TV, or that you can make your relationship look how you want it to look. And so, you know, that's just one of the things I think is really important to get across to all people, you know, just to keep sharing that. So I really like that, you know, that they created this unique thing for themselves. And like, this is not a wedding. I mean, it sounds kind of like a loosely, maybe a commitment ceremony. Thomas: Yeah, yeah. I don't think they would have used that word for some reason, but I think you could, it was like an acknowledgement of their relationship. Yeah. Venegoni: It's an announcement of like, this is who we are, Thomas: What you just said, was making me think that telling people you can do... I do that a lot, you can do anything. You know, out of the box, it’s up to you. And yet people like, “Okay, if I can do anything, then what does that mean?” Like I mean that's like, “Jump off a cliff!” You know? There's like, you know… anything's possible and so it can be helpful to have, I guess that's kind of another thing I'm hoping maybe my show would fill or things like my show, it's like, here's a bunch of examples of things people have done. And like when I work with people to help them create a ceremony, I'll sort of feel into… “Okay, exactly, what are you looking for here?” and then like, then I'll just start throwing out… “Listen, I'm just going to dump a bunch of ideas out and you're going to maybe like a couple, you're maybe not going to hate a couple, whatever, I'm just dumping them on the table, and then you can just sort of flip through them. And if anything resonates, you know…” Then, because we need like some building blocks, when we go from a total structure to total nothingness, that doesn't work unless you really like... you've got a thread to build on, or you've already kind of picturing something, you’ve got a felt sense of what you want, and brainstorm. And all that… it kinda doesn't come out of nowhere. Like it has to be built. So... or has that you have to let it build, right? So it's like, we all need examples, like we all need that. Like, as a woman, I would say, we need that strong woman that we're like, that's a woman who's married, and she's still completely in herself. That... I like that and I want to build on that idea. Like, I did that in my life, you know? And so, like, we need examples, and we need ideas to kick around. Venegoni: Yeah, yeah, and that's, you know, one of the things I think is really great about your show, that it helps people hear, oh, this is something different and that's possible. And maybe I want to do something kind of like that, but maybe not exactly the same and I'll take a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I mean, to me, that's also a ritual is a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Throw it all together, and you see what happens. Thomas: Exactly and then you mix it all the people and yeah… Venegoni: And then the day of, you know, the magic comes together, and you're like, Oh, it's created something completely different. The alchemy of the ritual. Thomas: Exactly, yeah. You never know what's gonna happen. Venegoni: So Colleen, before we wrap up, can you share with us a personal practice or experience that has supported your career spiritual flourish? Thomas: You know, really, I would say, my mom. She... the short version of my coming out story is that my dad laughed, and my mom cried. And it was, you know, a hard moment. But then over the years, she became an advocate. It was like, extremely slow, from my perspective. You know, I would be at pride and I would see a PFLAG contingent and I would cry. I would always cry when I saw PFLAG because I just thought, “Oh my god, I'm so lost. My parents will never ever, ever, ever, ever be there.” And I just was just such a devastating to me that I mean, they hadn't been mean, they hadn't been cruel, but they were just never going to go there is what it felt like. And it mailed my mom one of the PFLAG books and I told her, “Listen, you got to find people to process with because I can't process this with you because I'm the problem in this, you know, equation for you.” And I sent it to her work because I didn't want like my dad to see it at the house. And she said she kept it in a drawer for a couple of years, I think. And then she read it. And then she found a PFLAG group in our town, which... Our town is very small so the PFLAG group was also like the gay group. So it was like both supporters and queer people. And there she met a woman who ran the Unitarian Church, and she was the pastor of the... minister of the Unitarian Church. She was a lesbian, and she thought she was amazing. And so then she joined the Unitarian Church... anyway, all this snowball effect, right? And that she was around a lot of queer people and, and then it... you know, years later, she sent me this picture of herself standing in front of the television. So my dad had taken it because my dad just watched TV 24/7 after he retired and, well that's not true but he was often watching TV. And so she stood in front of the TV. And she said, “Take a picture of me!” And she was wearing a like a sandwich board, like an advertising sandwich board that said, “I love my bisexual daughter”. And she was headed off to pride in some city nearby. And she said… she told me that she said to him, “There are five phases in, I don't know, acceptance or something”, you know. “The first is denial, that's where you are. The last one is advocacy, that's where I am!” And then she walked out of the room with her her sandwich board. You know, now she's still a big advocate when she can get out, she’ll go to pride stuff. And so she's jus... and she says to me, you know, it's really sad that my dad never really changed at all. And she said, “You know, it's really sad that your dad never really moved,” but she was just so… And, you know, and just knowing that when I was back at this Pride Parade, seeing the PFLAG, and it was just devastating to me, like, never ever imagining that she would end that there'd be any movement with them. It was just, she was really… She became a lot more comfortable with the witch thing too, eventually. So that was really scary, too. Of course, you know, we get it, we get a lot of messages about about witches that are bad. So she's continuing on an ongoing basis, being a very supportive person in my life. Venegoni: So one last question. Your show is called shame pan, yada. Can you help us understand what that's about? Thomas: Yeah, sure. So when I was coming up with names for the show, I was trying to think of like descriptive names, like, you know, reinventing ritual, things like that. And I was brainstorming with my husband, and he said, “Well, you could call it like blue dog. And it won't matter what you call it, as long as you then you know, put out your message and people associate your message with the words blue dog.” So he said, “So, you know, maybe think about that.” So I was thinking about that, and brainstorming with a friend at work. And I said, “Well, I don't know, like this blue dog idea. I don't know if I want to do that.” And she said, ”Well, okay, if you looked around, like what you do when you do ritual, and what do you see? You know, we don't see a blue dog, what do you see?” And I said, “Oh, I see a shame piñata because I had just done a ritual recently, which is how I had that job where I was with this new coworker on lunch talking about this, where I had been at my old job (and I'm going to do an episode on this, but I haven't yet) I had... I was at a job for 14 years and I stayed like 10 years longer than I probably should have. And each of those years, I ended up sort of dying inside and sort of a way, right? This happens. And when I didn't make the change I needed to make. And it got to a really critical moment and I needed to leave. And I had so many, so many, so many hard feelings. There were like 10 years of hard feelings about myself being at this job, which was crazy. And I decided that shame exposure was a tool I wanted to use, which is something I had learned about in therapy, where we talk about something we feel deeply shameful about in a safe place, with people who will be kind and not, you know, laugh and stuff. And so I created a ritual around... it was shame I was feeling about staying in this job. And I did a ritual around it and with some friends on on zoom. This was before the pandemic, but they were remote friends, I wanted to have them involved, just my like four closest friends in the world and... because I feel like, “I'm not gonna tell too many people about all this shame!” And so part of the ritual involves piñata that I bought on Amazon, that I put sort of the negative self talk... I just kind of let it all come out of my head and I pasted it all over this piñata and it was just all these awful words on this piñata. And I decided it was my shame piñata and part of the ritual involved finding it in myself to be ready to shift to like, “Let's make this change now!” And being not just an idea. It started with the idea, “Oh, I should go break the shame piñata.” And then it was like standing in front of the shame piñatawith a stick going, “I'm just… I want to die. I don't have any desire to actually do this.” And it was like, “Just let the ground open up and swallow me now. Whatever it is watching me like I'm still in it.” But then waiting, just waiting, just waiting and starting to hear this little voice say, “No.” It was very quiet. And then it got louder. And I just let it organically grow. And then pretty soon it was like “No!” and it moved into my arms. And then it was like smashing the piñata and then that magic happened, right? And then it like changed and shifted and a few other things in the ceremony facilitated that as well. But it was the like the moments, the ceremony was like the breaking of the shame piñata and it really worked. It worked. It got me like boom! out of that job boom! into another one really quickly. Everything just like lined up. It was one of those work rituals that like ended up working really well with the intention. So when I had that conversation with her, she said, “What do you see” and I said I see a shame piñata…” and nobody's gonna have that podcast name. Venegoni: That's true. It's a very unique and memorable name. Yeah. Was there anything inside the shame piñata? Thomas: Yeah, I had filled it with my favorite candy. And just as a side note on that was that I had, in my spirit of wanting everybody to get something out of their ritual, I had bought a separate set of little tabletop piñatas, these little tiny ones and I had asked my four friends who were participating in the ritual… I didn't want to tell them I was sending them a piñata, but I said, “What small thing do you like? What would be a nice small thing for you?” And one person wanted like bubbles that you blow out of a little tiny, you know, like in a wedding bubbles? One person wanted puzzle pieces. One person had told me some candy. So I stuffed these tiny little piñatas with whatever they wanted and I sent them off to them. And then I said, “Listen, you're getting this piñata, here’s this piñata. Everybody was to write something on their piñata that they want to let go of. And so then after I did my piñata, everybody did their own piñata. Venegoni: Nice. Thomas: We got to witness everybody you know, release a little something... because there's always something to release! Venegoni: So where can listeners find the Shame Piñata Podcast? Thomas: Anyplace you get your podcasts, it should be there. Very, very wide distribution, and definitely iTunes, Spotify, and then you can go to shamepinata.com Venegoni: And they can also find you on Instagram, right? Thomas: Yes, thank you Instagram and Facebook, mostly Instagram. And Twitter. Venegoni: Yeah. Well, we'll have those links in the show notes. Well, Colleen, thank you for being here and chatting about ritual and initiation and change and release and power with me. It's been a pleasure. Thomas: It has been Thank you so much, Nick. Venegoni: To find the resources we discussed today, find the show notes at the queer spirit.com and if you enjoyed the show, remember to subscribe rate and review on iTunes. This will help us reach and support more queer people all over. Thanks for listening and see you next time. You’re listening to a special edition of the Shame Piñata podcast featuring a recent episode of The Queer Spirit Podcast. I'm very happy to have the opportunity to share this conversation with you. If you are not already subscribed to The Queer Spirit Podcast, you can find it on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts. You can also find the show on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. See the show notes for links. And now, as promised, here’s a quick preview of what’s coming up on Shame Piñata in the next few months. Upcoming episodes will focus on reinventing ourselves, going deeper, everyday magic, releasing cords with a parent, and disability as initiation. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please visit https://ratethispodcast.com/shamepinata. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.  

When Reverend Tristy Taylor and her husband decided to stop trying to have a baby, she honored that loss with a special ceremony. During her time sitting shiva, "grief first" was her mantra. Then a dream inspired her to create a celebration of her decision to not become a mother.   Links: Tristy's Blog Post on The UnBaby Shower Video Tour of Grief Ritual Art Journal Tristy Taylor  The UnBaby Shower (KPFA International Women's Day Edit) Rate This Podcast Music by Terry Hughes   Full Transcript   Taylor: Yeah, it's a major life transition for women that's not acknowledged, you know, or talked about really.   Thomas: It's just like a failing, or a loss, or a...   Taylor: A giving up.   Thomas: Yeah, exactly.   On our journey through life, we will come upon moments that invite us to reinvent ourselves. Big changes can do this like moving away from home, getting married, starting a family or choosing not to start a family. How can we slow down in these moments and really honor what’s changing, really honor how we’re changing?   This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today we’re going to go deep. Are you ready? We’re going to dive into one of those moments that’s really a rite of passage, an initiation, a change. One of those moments that ceremony is perfect for because it invites us to use all of our creativity and all of our heart. And what’s more, it invites us to use ceremony for what ceremony does best, to create the container to hold the strong emotions that come up with big changes.    Tristy Taylor joins us today to share the story of her unbaby shower, a three-part ceremony she designed when she and her husband decided to stop trying to conceive. She took her time. She followed the threads of what was changing in her and she ended up creating a beautiful ceremony that both honored her grief and was also a celebration.    Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I think... It does start with the journey my husband and I were on to make a baby together. And after trying the usual routes and discovering that nothing was happening, we entered the world of fertility treatments, medical intervention and started down that road, which included some pretty powerful hormone therapy that was... quite a journey to be on that. Basically, all my emotions were at 11 all the time. [LAUGHS] So like, you know, small inconveniences became like fiery, mountainous, rage-fueled tirades. [LAUGHS] And eventually did end up having a pregnancy, but then that pregnancy was... the pregnancy ended up being ectopic. So the fertilized egg and embedded in my fallopian tube. And, you know, we didn't know that and I ended up going to the emergency room one night with just intensive abdominal pain and they took one look at me and said, "You're bleeding internally, and we need to open you up immediately." And then that's when they discovered that... that my tube had ruptured... my fallopian tube had ruptured. And after that experience, we kept trying but it started to... all signs started to point to this was gonna be painful and challenging and not really get us where we wanted to be. And my husband and I talked for a long time about what that choice meant to be child-free. And he kind of took it in stride and sort of said, "Well,I'm gonna use that energy to do other things." And he, like started his own business and, you know, spent a lot of time away from me and away from home kind of diving into almost a little bit avoidant perhaps of his own feelings. But building this business that he'd always wanted to create and felt free to create now that we weren't trying to create a family and all the sort of pressures that might have come with being a parent. It kind of freed him up. And kind of the opposite happened to me where I just felt like my life had been pressed pause... like the pause button had been pressed on my life and I didn't know what happened next. And being someone who really tries to show up to what's happening in my life, regardless whether or not I understand it, I realized that I needed to honor this loss. So... and to really allow some space and time to feel the grief of the loss of being a mother and and even this particular pregnancy loss with the ectopic pregnancy. And being an interfaith minister, I read a lot about all sorts of rituals and I had recently read a really beautiful piece about the modern day of sitting shiva for someone who had passed away from the Jewish tradition. And, knowing that shiva means seven, seven days and I really like felt the like ritual power behind that. I mean, it's a ritual... but that seven days like I really felt how... to devote seven straight days to my grief where grief came first and nothing else had precedence over my sitting inside of my grief... My whole body just resonated with that. I just was like, Yes, that's what we're gonna do! And that's what I did. And I didn't, really... Other than my husband, I didn't talk to anybody. I ended up doing a lot of crafting, which felt really good. I ended up making these kind of heartfelt... heart-shaped sachets with like lavender and different herbs in them... calm... these sort of calming craft/sewing kind of stuff that would that was very focused, but I was also kind of putting my grief into these pieces that I was making. And yeah, it was... it was very powerful time and spent a lot of time in nature and just cried a lot. And didn't think about the future or what my life would look like, I just really tried to focus on the moment, which is challenging, you know. Our Western culture really pushes us to get over our grief as soon as possible and not to dwell and like... all of that stuff... When really, I think the more we can show up for our grief, the more can beautifully move through us. And we can truly let it go. We have to feel it first.    During the time of sitting shiva with her grief, Tristy had a dream. In the dream, she was out in the snow looking into a kind of hut, a hut that felt very ancient. Inside the hut women dressed in animal skins were gathered around a very, very pregnant woman, putting oils on her and celebrating her. There was a fire in the hut but Tristy was outside in the cold and she knew through the knowledge that comes in dreams that she was not allowed into the ritual because she was not fertile and she would be bad energy for the pregnant space.    Taylor: And I woke up crying, and hurt very hurt by the dream. And I also know from doing dream work all my life that no dream ever comes to hurt us and be like, "Look at you, you know, you're stuck, Haha!" You know... Our dreams always come for health and wholeness. And so I really sat with the dream. I drew pictures from the dream... I felt into it. And and the gift that came out of the dream, cause I do think all nightmares have a gift. The gift that came out of the dream was this idea for an unbaby shower. Because it didn't feel fair to me that I should be left out in the cold. And this transition that I was making is just as valuable as the transition of becoming a mother, the transition to not be a mother. And so I connected with two very good friends who are great ritual-makers and we started to piece together this whole ceremonial ritual around having this unbaby shower. And it started with the grief. It started with doing a grief ritual with these two women and really having their support and being in nature together, and making food together. And then that transitioned into this more celebratory shower-space where about 18 women came to my house and painted my body with body paints and gave me blessings. And it was so interesting because it was raining at the beginning of the shower ("the shower"). So we all had to like jam into my little, you know, 700 square-foot house. And then by the afternoon the sun had come up and then I was all like covered in body paint and we just went outside and we're just running around and it was so joyful. There was so much joy. And the way I kind of completed the ritual was making this dedication to being a creator, being a spiritual guide, being... offering my gifts to the world. If I wasn't going to be mothering a new life, then I would be holding this spiritual, creative space for others. And it always makes me think of that Dolly Parton quote, because she also couldn't have children. She tried and she couldn't have them and she just said, "Well, God just decided that I'm gonna be mom to everybody kids." You know, like, I just love that. And I love being, you know, an auntie to my friends', kids. And that feels really like a powerful and important role as as my auntie's were to me as a kid. So that's how that all came about.   Thomas: I love... I love that. I love... I love the way that you love ritual, and you lean into it and into your dreams. And I love your stories, because I love to hear you listening. The layers at which you listen inspire me. And remind me what you discovered about your grandmother and your great grandmother.   Taylor: Yeah. So my... my ruptured tubal pregnancy where I had to have emergency surgery was on March 3. And my... my mother told me that her mother, my grandmother, was born on March 3. And I remembered that her mother, my great-grandmother, died giving birth to her. So my great grandmother died on March 3 giving birth. And I had this emergency surgery that saved my life and I would have died through trying to become a mother. So there was this fascinating karmic Ancestral wound being healed, I believe. I didn't die, I survived. And I really do... from the ancestral work that I've done in my life, I've had visceral experiences. Because time is not linear in that world, like time is a spiral. It's past. It's present. It's future all at once. And so the healing that I did on that day and continue to do ripples back to my Ancestors. You know, and that's my female line. It's my mother's mother's mother, you know, that... all of that is relevant to my experience, you know. And of course, none of that was planned, it's just how it unfolded. It's one of those kind of magic, unexplainable moments, you know, where we've kind of put the pieces together afterwards. And it's like, oh, that seems significant! [LAUGHS]   Thomas: I've always loved the physiological connection that we have to our grandmothers, because... I always have trouble saying it... I... the egg that became me in my mother's ovary... that...   Taylor: ...was in your grandmother.   Thomas: ...was in my grandmother's body - yes!   Taylor: Isn't that amazing?   Thomas: It's so crazy!   Taylor: Yeah. Incredible. And the work they've done about how, like, the stress and trauma of our grandmothers are in those eggs within eggs, like we're literally physically inheriting that trauma. You know, which is, you know, powerful healing work that we all can do as women.   Thomas: Mm hmm. Absolutely.    Tristy's story inspired me so deeply because of the depth of her commitment to the process. Letting the grief ritual come to her, sitting shiva for the 7 days, then creating the unbaby shower to return to her society as a woman who will not be having children. Listening to her story reminded me of my own journey on the road to motherhood and my ultimate decision not to go there.    Thomas: I so appreciate hearing the story of the baby shower because I went through my own process of figuring out... of having a moment in time in my life when I needed to decide which way am I going to go - towards somebody who might want to have a baby or stay with somebody I really like a lot who's very clear they don't want a baby. And I was at the age where I had to pick. And it was a little hard, you know, because I had... You know, I felt like I was losing a lot. But then when I sat with it, and sort of took apart all the pieces of being a mom, I realized that I only wanted certain pieces that were definitely not... didn't equate with having a child or trying to have a child... it just was like, not my thing, even though I felt so much pressure to be a woman in that way. And a lot of, like, legitimate grief and loss when I when I walked away from it, which isn't something I ever thought I would feel but it was there. It was like, wow, okay, to go through these feelings. And my partner was, really, really there for me. And I sought out community, I put an ad on Craigslist for women who had chosen not to have a child who wanted to chat with me about it and I had like four or five women have conversations with me.    Taylor: Oh, I love that!   Thomas: You know, there's nowhere to go to find those women. So I found a few and that really helped me feel like okay, I'm not alone. And then I asked my mom, you know, what do you think? And she said, "You never wanted kids, even when you were a little." And I was like, "Oh, okay, that helps. Thanks." [LAUGHS] Because you know, figure there was some wisdom there that she might be able to give me, plus she never pressured me to have kids, which was immensely helpful on the journey to decide, you know, what was right for me. So I... I know a little bit about I didn't go through the journey of trying, but I went through the journey of deciding, you know, deciding to walk away. Actually, I just had a flash... My parents loved antiques and they had this antique cradle. And my mom lived in Italy before I was born and she kept beer in it and she said the Italian neighbor would always come in and... I guess he'd bring her beer... I don't know... he would come in the house and he would say, "Where is the baby?" And she'd be like, "It's the beer goes in the cradle." Because at that point in her life, she didn't think she was going have a baby because they had tried and tried and tried and tried and given up and then they had beer in the cradle.   Taylor: And then you're all, "Surprise!" [LAUGHS]   Thomas: TYeah. Hi. Move the beer, there's a baby now.    Taylor: That's amazing!   Thomas: Oh, thank you so much for sharing this story with me and with us. And I look forward to sharing out your blog posts with which has the some of the images from your journal and you have the video walkthrough of your journal that you kept during that time.    Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad to share it with you and anyone who resonates or is inspired to create their own ritual. And, you know, I mentioned the blog post, that part of it was inspired by a woman who had a ritual around starting menopause and what that meant to her so I really, I really love to encourage others to think about those major life transitions, like even like leaving a job and starting a new one or moving to another state, which I'm about to do, like, I've been thinking about, like, "Oh, I'm gonna be letting go of California, you know, and what does that mean, to me is born in San Francisco, and, you know, born and raised here. So I think there's lots of space for ritual in our lives if we make it. Yeah. If we have that conversation, we listen and respond.   Tristy Taylor is an Interfaith Minister and Ritualist, providing support and companionship to those that live on the fringes beyond traditional religion. She firmly believes that ALL people deserve to have rituals and ceremonies that honor life’s transitions, regardless of their spiritual beliefs. She has had major personal life experiences around grief and death and is comfortable supporting others during these very human experiences. You can find out more about her work at www.createwithspirit.com.   You can hear a longer version of this same interview where Tristy shares more about what her time sitting shiva looked like on the KPFA Women's Magazine Archives.  Look for the link in the show notes. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

As we go through life, we inevitably come upon moments that are difficult. Some might be incredibly personal ones that it feels like few other people could understand. We have some options in those moments. We can ask for help, of course. And we might also create a ritual that is uniquely perfect to address our own needs. Please Review Us on Podchaser! Music by Terry Hughes   Full Transcript You know that feeling when an inconvenient emotion is gnawing at you, bothering you, and you just really wish it would go away? It might feel like no one would understand what you're going through anyway, so why even try to explain it? Maybe, just maybe, that thing is you trying to get your attention with an important message.    As we go through life, we inevitably come upon moments that are difficult. Some might be incredibly personal ones that it feels like few other people could understand. We have some options in those moments. We can ask for help, of course. And we might also create a ritual that is uniquely perfect to address our own needs.    This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.    A lot of our interviews are with people who have created ceremonies to honor life transitions that are socially acknowledged. The birth of a baby, a wedding, and death are known as the "big three" by celebrants, but there are plenty of other transitions we celebrate publicly, including getting a new job, graduating from school or finishing a training program, moving into a new home, a relationship anniversary, a friend anniversary, getting a promotion at work, committing to a partnership in community. Most of us have  experienced ceremonies like these, as well as the wide variety of what constitutes "ceremony" for these events, which could range from receiving a card from a friend, to flying to Hawaii for a wedding. The function of these moments is usually to recognize publicly that this person is now different. Their label has changed, one of the many badges they wear in the world has been swapped out or added to. They're a mother now, they're a manager now, they live in the city now, or the country now, "I now pronounce you” The list goes on.    These ceremonies alert the community to their new status and also invite the person to step more deeply into the new role, knowing that on some level, other people care about this change in their life and will hold them accountable to the expectations that come with it. Some couples even ask everyone present at their wedding to help them honor their wedding vows as they move forward in life as a couple, and ask that they speak up if they see the couple failing in that regard.    In addition to helping us honor our changing selves publicly, ritual is also a wonderful way to walk ourselves through personal transitions, the kind that we might not feel comfortable sharing with the world, the kind of personal milestones that society wouldn’t see or wouldn't recognize.    Today we're kicking off a small mini series called, "Do You Need a Ceremony?" in which we'll focus on a variety of life experiences where ceremony might be helpful and see if it's something we might like to explore. In part 1, we'll touch on the important personal moments we might see coming as well as those that might surprise us.   So what are some personal transitions we might see headed our way? Here are some random examples. We might be anticipating our last child leaving the house, the anniversary of a traumatic event might be on the horizon, or the passing of a parent from whom we've been estranged. These are each somewhat nuanced and potentially complicated moments, which we might or might not feel called to work with. But if we do feel called to support ourselves through them in some way, we can turn our mind and heart toward how that could best happen.    While the socially-recognized moments often have a framework we can build a ceremony on, the personal ones may not. So here we are invited to dig deep into what is changing for us. We might begin by asking ourselves some questions like: What is shifting? What needs to be marked? How does this change make me a slightly different person? What do I want to have witnessed in this transition? How might community be part of a ceremony?    Someone once asked me if I do a ritual every month to honor a significant personal moment. My answer was no, I don't do ritual for moments of personal growth unless I'm having a moment of personal growth! My point is, you will know when you need a ritual. To help you identify those moments and consider what you might do with them, here's a simple ritual sketch.   The first thing is to begin to cultivate an even deeper self-awareness than I might already have so that it's easy to identify anything that's trying get my attention. Is anything gnawing at me? Or scaring me? Or worrying me? Is something coming up that I don't feel super comfortable with? Does my heart need some extra care around a loss? Is there something I'm really hoping someone else will do for me? What do I need?   So let's say I create this kind of open dialog with myself over time and one day I realize there's something there. There's something that is asking for my attention. I might spend some time kind of getting to know it. What does it feel like to be in touch with this need, this thing? If I journal about it, or let my mind float to it while I'm taking a walk, what do I learn? Do I have any judgments about it? "Oh, that shouldn't matter," or "I'm being selfish," or my personal favorite, "I should be over that by now." The judgments are important, so I want to hear them out. I know they come from a good place, a part of me that's trying to avoid conflict. So I hear them out and then thank them and set them aside.    Bringing a curiosity to the process will help the need or desire to show me what's happening with it. If it's a fear, it might feel tight and want comfort. If it's anger or longing, it might already be moving and just need some channeling. I might sense into where it wants to go and imagine the most supportive setting possible. Does it want to hide under a pile of blankets? Does it want to storm and rage and break things? Does it just want to say how it's feeling about a hard situation? I'll spend some time feeling into it.    As I do this, I might begin to imagine what actions would meet its needs and what it might be like to be witnessed doing those actions in a supportive way? If it's a fear that wants to hide, what would it be like to invite a friend to hide under a blanket with me and tell them about this terrifying thing? If it's rage, what's the safest way I could break a bunch of stuff and maybe even yell and scream about what I'm mad at? You see where I'm going here... the ritual creates the container and the action helps the emotion move. And the witness... the witness is magic. There's something about being seen in our deepest moments that transforms us beyond what we can do alone. I really can’t explain it.    Once I have a sense of what would feel really good, really supportive to this part, it's time start bringing everything together by deciding/intuiting the details of who, what, when, where and how. I'll remind myself to be bold and brave, really go for it and ask for what I want. I'll be getting vulnerable so it's super important to remember to take care of myself in terms of who I invite and how I share anything about the event.    Mostly, I'll do everything in my creative power to honor this thing, feeling, need, and take it seriously. I know that I'm actually doing healing beyond my own when I honor an important moment for myself.    [MUSIC]   It's so great to have you with us today! If you value what you hear on the show, you can become part of the Shame Piñata community by helping us build our Podchaser page. Podchaser is donating 25 cents to Meals on Wheels for every review in April. Find the link in the show notes & don't forget to subscribe to the show in your favorite pod player if you haven't already.   Let's go through this with a concrete example. Turning 35 was a significant moment for me, because it meant outliving two strong women I admired and wanted to be like. Both my great-grandmother and a close friend of the family who helped raise me never reached that age. Each of them died at 34 and a half in very heartbreaking ways. At some point, probably between turning 34 and turning 34 1/2, I realized it was coming, the moment of having a birthday they never had.   That feeling. I don't even know what it was. Some combination of dread, loss, heartbreak and just plain fear. That was what I was working with. It was real and it was in my face and it was alerting me that I had some work to do, and that I had some feelings to process. So that was step 1, finding "the thing", the "pain point" as the saying goes in business. The thing that is coming up to be addressed.    The next step was to sense into how those feelings wanted to move and design a ceremony to facilitate that. It took me some time to build that ceremony, as simple as it ended up being. It was really kind of a long, slow process of sitting with the feelings as they came up, journaling, talking with friends, doing some small rituals, visioning and healing. I focused on coming to terms ever so slightly more with what happened to each of them. And I spent time reminding myself that I was actually a different person than them and it was okay for me to have my own story. I imagined what it might be like to chart my own course beyond their example.    Ultimately, I decided to have a large gathering of friends come over on my birthday and to simply tell them the whole story, let them witness everything. When the day came, we all jammed into my little yellow cottage for a big celebration and we really enjoyed being together. Eventually everyone settled down for me to tell the story. It was heartbreaking to go into it and it felt kind of awful to share such grief with my friends. But they stayed, and they listened, and they honored how much these women meant to me, and how scary it was for me to go on on my own. And then, quite spontaneously, they gifted me with an angel tunnel, which was formed diagonally in the little cottage and through which I walked with closed eyes between two lines of friends who whispered to me how much they loved me as I passed, the things they admired about me, and the ways I had touched their lives. The angel tunnel wasn't part of the plan for the event, it evolved on its own and it was the perfect conclusion to the ceremony because it was a birthing, a bridge into the next part of my life, the part where I would begin to map my own way forward. And it also bridged me quite lovingly into being 35, and set me on that path knowing that a whole bunch of people who loved me had my back as I moved tenderly forward.    The steps again are to identify the "pain point", sense into what it needs, and design the ceremony to support that. I invite you to give it a try the next time something is gnawing at you.    You are invited to join us for parts two and three in this short series called "Do You Need a Ceremony?" They'll be headed your way later this spring and early summer. Our music is by Terry Hughes. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Nick & Thom were married in a big, open field in Oakland California. This was right after same-sex marriage was legalized in the US and it was a huge celebration. Join us for a glimpse of their special day. Links: Queer Spirit Podcast Music by Terry Hughes   Full Transcript Thom: And it was funny when we were in - was it Nevada City? Venegoni: Nevada City. Thom: I was... went to this cafe and there's this woman we know from another witchcraft tradition and I hadn't seen her for years and I'm sitting there writing this ritual that we have been in ritual space creating and then she walks in. And she's like, "What are you doing," and it was actually somebody who I could tell her what I was actually doing, not just like, "Oh, I'm writing my wedding ceremony." And, but she really supported my flow at that moment. It was great. So random... It’s the little moments in our lives that can be so rich. Little moments when synchronicity pops and we are seen at a deep level. These moments can and will happen at random, and they can also be thoughtfully cultivated with patience and care through ceremony or ritual design. And it’s truly wonderful to go through that design process as part of a team. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.  Thank you so much for joining us today. If you’ve listened to any of our episodes from season one, you know that we mostly focused stories about weddings. This season we will branch out to share stories of people using ritual to honor a myriad of life transitions. But we will still keep talking about weddings from time to time - including today! Today we will hear the story of the handfasting of my guest Nick Venegoni and his husband Thom. It happened in a big open field in Oakland California and we’d like to take you along and give you a glimpse into the day. Handfasting is an ancient Celtic ceremony in which the folks getting married or committing to each other have their hands tied together as a symbol of their connection. It is commonly associated with the Wiccan or Pagan traditions, however it is working its way into ceremonies in other traditions and even secular ceremonies. Here’s Thom. Thom: You can create any ceremony you want to make that handfasting happen. You know, there's a sort of a template for marriages in our society that everybody is very mapped to and a handfasting gave us the opportunity to step outside of that pre-scripted experience to make something that was more meaningful and important and reflective of who we are.  Thomas: So what was the setting for your handfasting? Venegoni: Well, we actually spent a lot of time trying to find a place that we wanted to hold it at because we wanted to have it in a space where we could be... have the ceremony outside and then depending on, you know, the weather possibly go inside if we needed to. But we had it in early May and so we were fairly lucky with weather and we ultimately landed at a park up in Oakland Hills called Joaquin Miller Park, which is a large park and there's lots of areas to it and this is a particular area. It's sort of you go up the hill and as you're driving in, you can actually look west and see all of the Bay Area and San Francisco from there. But then once you go in, it feels very secluded and like you're in the middle of nowhere in the woods in this big sort of field where we had it. So that's where it was. Thom: Yeah, we basically rented a giant field in the park from the city of Oakland for the day. Thomas: And they were 200 people at your ceremony? Venegoni: At least, yeah. Thomas: Yeah. I'm curious what the process was... that planning process, which is such a rich time for couples. Was it like a spark of idea for one of you and the other one was like, "Oh, yeah!" or would like... and what was the process you went through between, like the beginning and like getting to that day? Thom: The beginning, middle and end that led us to the beginning?  Thomas: Right! Thom: Act One, no... Well first, we used ceremony to create the ceremony. So there was actually more to it. We had created sacred space in a way that we do, and we invoked the Muse, you know, just the spirit of inspiration. And then we went into our own experience and just tapped into spirit and let that information flow through as like, what are you being drawn to? What feels important? What's gonna... you know... and we weren't judging or questioning anything that came up just like any good brainstorming session. But this was like spiritual brainstorming. So it was really about what is moving our energy and making us feel connected to the magic of this ceremony. So we... and then we wrote all that down and we use that as our blueprint to start to craft the ritual and incorporate those elements. Like, how do we get there? We now know where we kind of want to go, but then how do we get there? Venegoni: And then, a few weeks later, I think we ended up going to... we went out of town to go visit a friend of mine and in this little town up in the foothills. And I was hanging out with my friend, and Thom just took all those notes and went and sat in a cafe one day and sort of came up with the first draft I think... Thom: Well, not sort of. I did. Then I put all of those... that vision together into the beginning of a cohesive whole. You know, things were coming through, like we wanted song and community and we wanted people... everyone to be able to participate. And we didn't want like a... one person who stood in front of us and we really wanted, like a collaborative ceremony. And then we just like... ideas for, you know, like colors and props and ways to communicate with people and... Venegoni: And even elements like water, like we both got an impression of water. We're like, well, we don't know how we're going to bring water into it. We're not going to be near a body of water but we'll figure that out. And then I think there was something else about dancing, we wanted to have dancing be part of it. Thom: Mmm hmmm. Venegoni: And then we asked a friend of ours who we've known for a number of years to, not necessarily be the officiant, but we were calling her the priestess of ceremonies, to sort of be the ringleader. And so then we met with her I think, at least one or two times and got her feedback about what might need to be changed or adjusted from her perspective in terms of being the one who's going to be running the show most of the time. Thom: Yeah, the whole “how is this actually gonna work/boots on the ground?” So, yeah, there were a lot of phases to it, it was like a two hours ceremony that was just kind of non-stop.  What came through very clearly for Nick and Thom was that they wanted to have a ceremony that was about not only them but also about their community. They wanted to create a magical, transformative experience for everybody to be in a Love Spell together and for each person to weave their own love magic, for themselves, for Nick and Thom, and for the world.  Thom: It had a lot of layers, but we needed the, you know, sort of to “cast”, you know, put the right people in place, who would be able to, you know, hold it properly, witness it properly. Because we had a lot of, you know, in the lingo "unrehearsed participants". So there are people who we knew were familiar with various forms of this form of ritual... this type of ritual... like in general. And then we had, you know, people from like our family or friends of friends who this might have been the first time they've done something like this. So we couldn't let it be totally technical. But we had to move this... move the ceremony in a way to let people naturally invoke and fall into and create the energy as the spell was continually shaped until we kind of sort of sent it off as a prayer to the universe at the culmination of the spiral dance. Nick and Thom put most of their wedding gifts toward bringing in an art photographer they knew and loved to fully document the day in his own artistic style. As we talked, Nick and Thom looked through their wedding album and reflected on the day. Thomas: Can you describe one or two of those pictures for us? Thom: Sure. Well, on the cover is the actual... our hands fasted. You know, a lot of people even like gay men, we see a lot of like gay men's weddings and they look just like sort of straight people's weddings, but the gay version and two guys wearing tuxedos or whatever. But even like our clothes, we had somebody, like hand-make us these sort of like loose linen clothes so that we could be comfortable and I wore all yellow and Nick wore all red. So kind of like the Queen of England, you would know exactly where we were, right? Like we... Because it was a big crowd and a big space and so that was one way we drew attention to ourselves. So it's our hands and over the bowl of water. So water came into it  because we had this blessing. We had a big bowl of water and we didn't want one officiant... we had to explain what we had our mistress of ceremony... priestess of ceremonies explained that at some point in the ritual everybody was going to become our officiant. So we had this bowl of water and then like everybody lined up and we didn't want to sit there and have to talk to everybody like, "Oh, this is so beautiful, thank you," you know, blah, blah, blah... We didn't have time or space or energy for that. So we had somebody else come up with a simple song and we were like, "Everybody just sing this simple chant song while you're in line and when you while you come up to us..." Because it was also just part of the energy... And then they put their hands in the bowl and then they sort of said their silent blessing for us and then like poured... like sprinkled that water on our hands. So our hands were over the bowl of water and that was what was on the cover of the book is us with our hands fasted over the bowl of water during the part where everybody was coming up to us singing this lovely song about, "All life comes from the sea. Everything returns to the sea." And anyway, so that's the front cover of the book. You just see, like our hand... the hands fasted over the blessing bowl, which was actually the moment when in sort of a traditional ceremony they're like, "I now pronounce you," but like everybody was doing it. But we didn't want them to... they're not making our relationship, we're making our relationship, but we want their blessing. And also, it was very important for us and for the spell for the Love Spell and for the magic to have our community, like acknowledge, like two men making this, you know, commitment, this romantic commitment. Because we're creating like this energetic template of something that, you know, exists in the world in... like ambivalent, and sometimes controversial, and lots of times, invisible way. And we were, like, part of the magic was putting it right out there - not like once but you know, 200 times. Vengoni: And that part of the ceremony was actually for me one of the most magical things because this thing happened. And at one point, I'm like, why is this happening? So, Thom's cord was red, my card was green, and then they were sort of tied together over our hands. And about halfway through, I looked down and the water in the bowl is turning blue. And I'm like, "What is going on here? This is like... we are transforming water with the magic!" And it wasn't until about we almost got all the way through that my mind, because I was so in the moment, started thinking more analytically, "Oh, it's probably dye from the green cord was leaking from the water into the bowl, turning it blue." Thom: I could see that people really wanted that, that moment with us, and that we weren't going to be able to have that and so we had to like engineer that. We weren't going to have, like a reception line, you know that that whole thing. So um... So that was amazing to basically be married by every single person we invited.  We’re so glad you are here! If you enjoy the show, you can become part of the Shame Piñata community by sharing your story about how you marked an important life transition, either the kind they do or don't make party decorations for. Visit the contact page at shamepinata.com to get in touch. And if you have a friend who is in wedding planning mode, please share this episode with them.  I shared that a big focus of the Shame Piñata podcast is to encourage people do whatever they might want to do for their wedding instead of what might be expected of them and our conversation turned to the wedding industry and the pressure it can create for couples.  Thom: Well, that's commercialism and capitalism and you know... they want you to believe that the only way you're gonna get that meaningful experience is if your budget is at a certain level and you consume these things. And then your ceremony just becomes about whether... how good you feel about how close you came to that ideal, rather than that you just were witnessed by the people who love you making a commitment to somebody that you want to spend your life with. Venegoni: Well, I also think that's the the blessing of being queer, you know, not just around your wedding, but around anything is that, you know, there's a challenge that comes with it, because you have to create something new because it hasn't really existed before. Although we're getting far enough along now where things have existed before for younger queer people. But, you know, so the challenge is you have to create it. But the gift is that you get to create whatever you want. You don't have to do some predetermined thing. I mean, some people feel like they have to try to fit into this box that other straight people, things that other straight people have done before, but you have the chance to create something new that's going to be right for you, whether that's your wedding, or your relationship, or your job, or the way that you run your household, or who your family are, you know, any of those things... Thom: Yeah, and the rest of it is just pictures of, you know, various moments like drumming and spiral dance and... Thomas: Were the two of you in the center of the spiral dance, or were you n the spiral? Venegoni: Yeah, we ended up in the center. Yeah. Thom: And our friend Urania, who's a Reclaiming Tradition teacher and priestess, she's really good at leading spiral dances. So we had her... because there was no way we were going to be able to think at that point. We needed somebody who just knew... had done it so much, it was just in her body, you know. And so she was in the front and then it was Nick and then it was me. And so we wound in, we just ended up in the middle. So instead of like winding in, and then normally wind back out again. We just wound in and then stayed there. So then we were like in the center. So then when everybody was... let go of each other's hands, we were like in the center of this big onion, you know, of just love and power and getting to just take it all in. There was actually a funny part during the ritual. This is actually one of my favorite things. Right after we had our hands fasted, the priestess of ceremonies, Jenya, she had found like four plants in the group that she went to beforehand and was like, "Okay, there's a part of the ritual when this happens, I'm going to you and you need to do this." So they were going to call to us, and we had to then... but they were calling to us from like four different parts of the circle at one time. So obviously, if we're tied together, we can't just tear off willy-nilly. We have to figure out: What are we doing? What's our priority? Who... what direction are we going to go together? And it was like a challenge for us, like a spiritual challenge in the midst of the ceremony that was like an energetic template for what it's like to be married, you know, where it's like, "Oh, if we're going to... we're tied together, we have to kind of figure out like, when do we go in your direction? And when do we go my direction when there's not agreement" you know? So it was this funny moment. We were both like, like... a cartoonish moment where we just sort of took off, like, like... "I'm going this way," "I'm going that way," like, "Oh, wait, we're like, tied together. What are you going to do, tear my arm off?" You know, like, like a rubber band kind of thing where we sort of like popped away from each other and then sort of snapped back and kind of bonked heads. And you know... And then we had to sit and have a conversation in front of everybody... a quiet... they couldn't really hear what we were saying. We're like, "What do we... what do we do? Which way do we go?" Venegoni: "Where do you wanna go? Where do I wanna go?" Thom: ...you want to go? Yeah, I want to go... And so then we just made a decision and walked towards somebody. And everybody was like, "Yay, they figured out their first challenge as a married couple!" Because we've been together for like, 12 years already, you know?  Venegoni: No, it was... [COUNTS] nine years.  Thom: Nine years. So that was like, another way that the... our community was witnessing us behaving as a married couple and we were like normalizing. Like, yes. See, we're married. And this is what married people do. We're just, it's just like every other marriage where you have to figure it out. And this is not any different. And we just got, like, 200 people in one moment to go, "That's a marriage!" So it was just great. We were just built in a lot of that affirmation felt really, really important. Because, you know, the legal, the Supreme Court decision had only come down that July of 2013. And we actually got legally married at a courthouse with a friend of ours in August of 2013. Because we knew we were ready and we just did it. And then we then had this other ceremony in May, that was more of, like the public. Because, you know, legally we needed to just get the paper signed. You know, we already... everything else was in place, but then we had to have like, the big celebration. Venegoni: Yeah, we actually used our photo that we took of us the day we got legally married as our wedding announcement.  Thom: Yeah. But we didn't tell people, "We got married at the courthouse and now we're gonna... we're getting really married." We know it was all it was all... You know, we had been denied that we couldn't have gotten married any sooner, you know. We could do domestic partnership. We could do all these legal things. So um, so again, it was so new that we really wanted to like... There was a political element, a little bit of political theater involved, also, where we really were like, let's not just sort of like, hide and be quiet about this. Let's go, “ Okay, you know, like, no take backs. This is it. We're done. We're moving forward now.” This is the new beginning point for all of us. And of course there are still people who are resistant to that, but we're not... there's no... we're not going back. I am so grateful to Nick and Thom for sharing their planning and ritual process for such a large-scale event, and grateful to have had a peek into their special day. I want to encourage and remind you that if you ever find yourself in wedding planning mode, know that the sky is the limit in terms of your choices for ceremony creation. Of course there are financial realities and familial traditions will be part of the story, but your imagination and ability to step outside the box will always be there for you. Nick Venegoni & his husband Thom live in San Francisco, California and have been together for 15 years. Nick is the host of The Queer Spirit podcast and is a sound healer practitioner, who enjoys making home made pickles. Thom is a mystic and ritualist in the school of Natural and Ancestral Witchcraft and co-creator of the Trees and Stars open coven for the exploration of the Hidden Mysteries of Spirit, Nature, Self, and Cosmos.  Our music is by Terry Hughes. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player to make sure you're notified when new episodes are released. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Time is a spiral - right now and always. And COVID time is a ride all its own. Whatever your experience of time has been in the past year, join us for a look at what time gives us and the benefits of letting go. We'll also explore our own personal connection to space and time so we're not so thrown by the world around us. Links: - What Happens When We Lose Our Social Rituals? - The Liminal Space – Embracing the Mystery and Power of Transition from What Has Been to What Will Be - KPFA's 2021 International Women's Day Programming Music by Terry Hughes Full Transcript Torres: First, I have to say, like, I don't... I know you were putting like the toilet paper tubes in a little area in the bathroom but I wasn't sure why and now you have them out on the table and I'm noticing they have like a... it's like a journal... it's really cool. This is my husband Rodrigo sitting with me and 47 empty toilet paper rolls. Torres: ...look, I have a collection of paper rolls with stuff written on them and I'm like... I used them as a way to mark our progression through the pandemic. Thomas: Here's the very first one. Torres: Oh, wow. Yeah, and we're, we're about there. It's almost a year now. Thomas: Yeah. It was March 18 I think when we went on lockdown. Torres: Wow. Thomas: So this is March 30 '20. And then there's a March from '21 there at that end. Torres: 3/2/21. That was two days ago. Thomas: So I dated them and I have them arranged them arranged by month so we can see how many we used each month. Torres: Ok. After a while of just dating them, I started also writing little journal entries on them. Thomas: What do you got there? Torres: Ah, let's see... let me grab one of these. 8/1/20: My podcast is... Thomas: Now Torres: Now available on Alexa. And it's written around the tube so it's like, you have to turn the tube around to read it. Thomas: Right. It's an interactive journal experience. Torres: Yes. It's a spiral with time. Time is a spiral - right now and always. And COVID time is a ride all its own. Whatever your experience of time has been in the past year, join me for a look at what time gives us and the benefits of letting go. We'll also explore our own personal connection to space and time so we're not so thrown by the world around us. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. So how are you doing with time right now? Do you have enough of it? Too much of it? Do you feel lost or are you right on track? Do you know what day of the week it is? How sure are you about that? I've been having a hard time telling which way is up for about a year now, and it's disconcerting and I know I'm not the only one. I've heard several people say in the past year that it's difficult to focus, it's difficult to keep track of what month it is, difficult to gauge the passage of time during the day. Was that 15 minutes? Was that only two weeks ago? COVID has really been messing with our ability to keep track of time, mostly because it's a completely liminal space that's asked us to give up the framework we've used our whole lives. I found an article on liminality recently from Alan Seale, the Founder & Director of the Center for Transformational Presence. The piece was written in 2016. Seale, who could probably never have imagined how impactful his article would be in the early 2020's tells us that, "The word 'liminal' comes from the Latin root, limen, which means 'threshold.' The liminal space is the 'crossing over' space – a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. It's a transition space." Time is a super interesting thing. We feel secure when we build routines and expectations based on its constant presence. We mark time with concepts like generations, lifetimes, stages of life, annual patterns, weekly schedules, daily routines. Let's take a moment to consider what COVID has done with these concepts. It's become difficult to connect across generations which has kind of separated us from that intergenerational space that's so rich an important. The National Academy of Sciences recently published a study showing that life expectancy in the US went down in 2020 due to the pandemic, so there's a hit to our concept of what constitutes a lifetime. Along with that, the life expectancy reduction for the Black and Latino communities is 3 to 4 times that for the white community. That very statistic threatens to erase any gains we've made in equity on its own. Stages of life and the ways we mark them have also been affected. Graduations, weddings and other gatherings designed to mark the stages of life largely abandoned for almost a year. We're missing those rituals, really missing them. And lastly, as you know, our annual, weekly and daily patterns have completely changed. This is no small thing. I know you know this, and I just really want to say that whatever you're feeling right now, and whatever happened the last time you maybe suddenly just lost it over something small, you're not imagining things. This is weird. We didn't build our lives to make sense of this. An extended period of liminality with no warning and no psychological preparation is pretty brutal. COVID time to me feels like living inside a jar of sand and water that's being constantly shaken. Kinda like a snow globe, but without the pretty winter scene creating a calming sense of place. What does time do for us? Or to be clear, what does an organized sense of time do for us? I think it gives us stability and maybe even sanity. At the very least, it provides a lay of the land, a framework, something to base our expectations on. But maybe we need to even be more fine-tuned in discussing this. It's not that time isn't flowing normally right now, right? Two weeks is still two weeks during COVID, but the thing that's weird is it doesn't feel like two weeks. I thought that I would get used to the flow of time in COVID and eventually it wouldn't be so disorienting, but that actually hasn't happened. I think that's because we're still in the liminal, threshold space, and the big question "When will this be over?" still can't be answered. So there has to be some benefit from this weird time we're in, some way we can grow from it. We'll be right back. [MUSIC] Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with us! If you enjoy listening to Shame Piñata, you can support the show by sharing with a friend or co-worker. We're into our 2nd season now (yay!) so all of our first season episodes are available on your favorite player and there might be one there that would really call to someone you know. And thanks! One thing we can definitely do is practice disconnecting from our attachments and embracing the feel of flow. We might realize we're already doing this multiple times a day once we start paying attention. We can also use this time to reframe our view of the world and how we show up in it. We can fight for making a better world, a more equitable world. I have a quote on my desk that I look at every morning from writer Roxane Gay, something she said a year ago when the pandemic started, "The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For Black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free." And this is a chance for all of us to change the way we live, who we connect with, what kind of media we consume, and whose words we surround ourselves with. We are being offered the chance to see things from a different angle. And as Alan Seale says, "Herein lies the power and the gift of the liminal space. The liminal space shakes us out of our habitual lives. It draws us out of what we have known, yet does not allow us to know what is coming next, or when. It’s the chrysalis stage for the caterpillar." So how do we keep track of time within liminality? Here are a few ideas. First, routine events can help: A daily walk, a weekly lunch, a monthly treat. These are things our subconscious mind can begin to rely on for comfort and stability. And they can even weave in some connection if we want that. There's number two, regular social connections. I've been lucky enough to be part of a family that's held weekly Zoom calls for almost a year now. Before COVID, visits were few and far between, but we just celebrated our 50th call last week. (I know because my uncle keeps track and he held up a big 5-0 sign as we began the call). If you don't have regular social connections in your life right now, consider looking online at the activities and groups you find interesting. So many things have moved online right now. It's possible to attend workshops and ceremonies on the other side of the world. And if you can't handle any more screen time, consider events that might allow you to call in rather than connect online and maybe take a walk while you listen. Third, nature is still happening! The Earth still turns every 24 hours, bringing the steady rhythm of sunrises and sunsets which can be very potent times to observe the majesty of life on our planet. And the moon still pulls on the waters in our bodies just as much as she pulls on the waters of the Earth. You can mark the month by her changing light and if you choose to honor the new moon or the full moon, know that there is a very rich history in that tradition. And of course there are the many sabbats around the wheel of the year as celebrated by the earth-based religions throughout time. Here in the northern hemisphere we're coming up to Spring Equinox later this month which will of course be the Autumnal Equinox in the southern hemisphere. And that brings us to the mid point between emptiness and fullness, a moment of balance. And balance brings us to ritual. [MUSIC] We can create rituals to mark the significant moment in our lives. As social psychologist Shira Gabriel says, "Rituals mark the passage of time as sacred." We can also use ceremony to center ourselves when things are topsy-turvy. Here's a simple ritual sketch we might use to find ourselves even within the flow of COVID time. So first we might create an intentional space by finding a still corner of the house or maybe taking a walk to find a quiet space in nature. Then we might take a few deep breaths and really feel into the body. What does it feel like to be sitting on this thing? What is the feeling of the air on my skin? How many sounds can I hear? Next we might get in touch with any spiritual guides, Goddesses, Gods or entities we work with or connect to the numinous however we experience it with gratitude and humility. Connected to this greater force, we might notice that our breathing has softened a bit and that we feel just a little bit calmer. We might then bring our focus to the wide field of time, seeing ourselves in the very center of it, complete and whole, grounded and calm. Noticing how it moves in spirals, how it dances around us and holds great complexity. And yet at the center of it, we are focused and deeply connected with our own self, our own presence. Sound healer Aleya Dao talks about the golden river of light that flows at our core. We might connect to that pure essence of self as we watch time go by like a movie. We might begin to sense the many ways that our core essence transcends time, transcends the grids our mind creates to make sense of it. We might come up on a younger version of ourselves and feel moved to share something we've learned with them. We might seek out an older version of ourselves and ask for some wisdom to make this COVID time easier. Mostly, we can rest in the deep knowing that all time is now and all space is here. This ceremonial experience of time transcends the limits we've known before, and allows us to heal in new ways. When we're ready, we can return to the space we're in, take a few deep breaths and maybe move our body around a little to come back to waking consciousness. And we might want to write down a thing or two of what we experienced in the open field of time. So how are you keeping track of time right now? What's working for you? Drop us a note on the shamepinata.com website and we will share your tips in an upcoming show. Catch a special edition of Shame Piñata this Sunday March 7 on KPFA's International Women's Day Programming. Interfaith Minister Tristy Taylor will speak on the importance of ceremony in women's lives and The UnBaby Shower she designed when she and her husband stopped trying to have children. That's at 1:30pm Pacific this Sunday, March 7 on KPFA.org. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Being a woman in this world brings challenges. Susan wanted to prepare her daughter Nikole for those challenges in the best way possible. So she invited several of her closest friends to a non-religious ceremony and asked them to present Nikole with some of the things that had supported them in their own lives. Notes: Susan Burgess-Lent Susan's Book: Trouble Ahead: Dangerous Missions with Desperate People Join the Shame Piñata Mailing List Love Shame Piñata? Subscribe on iTunes Follow on Spotify Follow on Podchaser Follow on Instagram Connect on Facebook Join us for a Ceremony Full Transcript Burgess-Lent: I think that's the key is you have to decide, "Okay, this is a milestone." And we can do it fast and furiously. We can plan it out. But either way, the marking of the experience is what counts and the community that forms around that discovery, that realization, is really valuable, especially for women. In her book "Circle of Stones", author Judith Duerk asks, "How might your life have been different if there had been a place for you to go to be with your mother, with your sisters and aunts, with your grandmothers, and the great- and great-great-grandmothers, a place of women to go, to be, to return to, as a woman. How might your life have been different?" This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome, welcome to the second season of Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. I am so glad you've come back to join us for season 2, and if you're new to the show, welcome! I'm especially happy to have you here today because this season we will begin to branch out and talk about rites of passage people have created for events beyond weddings. Weddings are amazing, don't get me wrong, but there are many more life transitions that we can honor with ceremony. We're going to start off today with the life transition that probably comes most readily to mind when I say the words rites of passage. Today we will meet Susan Burgess-Lent and her daughter Nikole Lent. Susan and NiKole will tell us about their welcome to womanhood ceremony, the one that Susan created when Nikole turned 16. The setting for the ceremony was their home to which Susan invited her closest women friends to bring a symbolic gift to honor her daughter. The ceremony was 17 years ago, but you can hear how it is still an important part of their lives today. Thomas: Susan, I wanted to start with you and ask you what inspired you to create the Welcome to Womanhood ceremony for Nikole. Burgess-Lent: It was a process. I think I was discovering what it meant to be a woman more profoundly at the time than I had before. And when we had Nikole, I decided that my purpose was to raise a competent and compassionate human being. And I realized that at the same time, she'd also be kind of a captive of her gender. There were bad things that would happen because that's what happens to women. And much to my grief, I couldn't prevent them. And so, you know, this was an initiation into another level of the sisterhood. You know, my generation dealt with a lot more... we were more thoroughly indoctrinated into deference. I didn't want that passed on to my daughter. So, you know, and I think also her struggle during her early teen years exhausted both of us. And I wanted to celebrate the end of that, as well as this new phase that she'd come into that seemed somehow more grounded. Thomas: Wow. And what background did you have with ritual at that time, Susan? Burgess-Lent: Not a lot beyond, you know, the usual holiday things and birthday celebrations that... the normal ones that we have. But I also felt that some kind of maybe subconscious need to translate the more religiously oriented rituals that I had grown up with into something that was secular and to the point of providing Nikole with some real tools. Thomas: And can you put into words the kind of tools you wanted to provide her with? Burgess-Lent: I think that it was that first of all, that there were a whole lot of women out there who come before her, who knew the path had suffered many of them, some of the things that would happen to her and got through it and figured out what to do next. Plus their gifts were... were sort of iconic, you know things to carry, things to wear, things to listen to, that had provided some support for them in their lives. And I I feel like the ceremony had as much impact on them, as it might have had on Nikole. I asked Susan and Nikole to take a step back for a moment and describe what happened in the ceremony. Burgess-Lent: Nikole, do you want to do that, or should I? Lent: You can go ahead. Burgess-Lent: Well, okay. I had invited my women friends. I had a circle of about 10 women or so. And I told them that I wanted them to share with Nikole, the wisdom that they had acquired over the years being a woman. And that if they wanted to bring some gift, it would be in the form of something that was symbolic. And they could read a poem, or they could play some music, or they could dance or they could have an object, it didn't matter. I left it up to them. Thomas: And what were some of the gifts that showed up? Lent: I can speak to that, because I still have many of them. [LAUGHS] One was this gorgeous woven, very intricately woven, basket that our friend had made by hand. And I've used it for so many things over the years and it's held strong for... yeah, pretty much like 15-17 years at this at this point. Susan: Yeah. Lent: And it's like a... it's just a gorgeous bag that I've used for produce when I'm at the farmers market and carrying important... I've like kept precious items in it. And it was... it's just sturdy and very... Like it... it looks like she had spent hours on it. But I think she was, you know, adept in these weaving skills. So maybe it was... it was very thoughtful. And another friend gave me Joni Mitchell's album "Blue" which I love and I've listened to like in times of heartbreak and in times of you know, just the... she's... She wrote a card that said something like, "These songs are tattoos on my soul and have been with me for like, you know, profound moments in my life. And I hope that they can be there for you the way that they worked for me." And I listened... that album was like... it was like a friend to lean on. And then another friend made this beautiful... she's a mosaic tile and glass artist and she made this... a mirror that was like specifically crafted and tailored towards like a young, kind of like angsty teenager artsy vibe. [LAUGHS]. But that I loved and that I had in my room. And I forget which... Another friend had made... she did a painting of like, it was an image of a woman that was kind of in transition that I had in my room for a long time. And there was also the crown... I wore a crown, like, it was like kind of a bramble and with flowers, you know, while I was in the middle of this ceremony, and that... It just felt like an honor to be celebrated and cherished, and that was a symbol of that. Those are some of the gifts that I can think of there... I am sure there's more but, you know, it's been some time. But a lot of good stuff. A lot of precious, thoughtful, deliberate offerings. Thomas: Wow, that sounds amazing. It sounds like the people who showed up really had prepared and were really fully present with you. Lent: Yeah, everyone seemed to take it very seriously. And it... you know, it was light and we had we had... we enjoyed ourselves and we had, you know, some... a nice breakfast and... But yeah, everyone... like it was like the experience of transition into womanhood was something that everyone present took very seriously. Thomas: Was it something that you talked with your friends about afterward? Lent: I did. And I was the only person that I knew that had had something like that aside from, you know, friends that had ceremonies related to religion or cultural background, be it a bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, quinceañera or things of that nature. But as far as like a non-religious based rite of passage ceremony, I was the only person that I knew that had experienced such a thing. So my friends are really curious and excited and intrigued by that. We'll be right back. If you value what you hear on the show, you can become part of the Shame Piñata community by getting on the mailing list for all the upcoming events and news and don't forget to subscribe to the show in your favorite pod player if you haven't already. [Music] Thomas: We spoke a little bit about this before, but I'm curious if you can say more about how... well the broad question is how did the ritual change you, but specifically, I'm curious how, how it changed your relationship with ritual, if at all? Lent: I think just the importance and significance of getting women friends together for me personally is really profound. And at one point, I was in a fashion collective and we... One day, I was just like, you know, "It'd be really... I'd love to just go somewhere where I could scream and not be heard. That would be nice. Do you guys want to go to the top of a mountain and just scream if you need to and..." We had other like sage burnings and four directions... just release ceremonies or spreading ashes of friends that had passed. These things became a regular activity in my life. And I think that... having... ritual being a thing that was important to me in my teenage years, like, carried on into my adult years and still is important to me. Thomas: Same question to you, Susan. How did your relationship with ritual change, if at all, after the ceremony? Burgess-Lent: Well, I took it very seriously that this sort of thing ought to be incorporated in many more ways in our lives. I spent a lot of time in Africa and I know that the sense about rituals of all kinds was a really important part of lives. And it was both a pause and a reset that said, okay, we have something to celebrate, to grieve, to whatever it was... There was a whole way of doing it that honored the community, not just women but men and women together. And I felt that rituals that women can have in particular around major events. Certainly a birth... welcoming... you know, the transition to womanhood, motherhood, menopause, all of those things. We have some ceremonies, and I'm not sure that I qualify a baby shower as a ceremony, but it sort of is. And these are major points of change in a woman's life and gathering more women together just makes it better. Thomas: [LAUGHS] Yeah. I'm curious, Susan, from your perspective, did the ceremony 17 years ago changed Nikole in any way? Burgess-Lent: Oh, I'm sure it had an impact. I think the thing that I noticed right away is that she seemed to begin to take herself more seriously as a woman. And I felt that, you know, she's become, partly because of the support around the issue of being a good human being, she's become a really extraordinary individual who is in intelligent, beautiful and fierce - in particular about what she thinks is fair and right. And all those things are honored when you say, "these are the values that matter in the world... in our world, in our women's lives." And taking yourself seriously on that is real big deal. Thomas: Is that something you were aware of, Nikole? Lent: I think it, it felt nice to be taken seriously, at that ritual. Like it felt like I was being taken seriously so it seems natural that I would shift into feeling in my power, having women acknowledge what a powerful, you know, moment of transition, this is for you... You don't get that... I wasn't getting that in school. [LAUGHS] I was getting a very different way, which is not always welcome. Having that acknowledged by, you know, elder women who I respected along with... accompanied by wisdom that was helpful... definitely was encouraging to step into my power, I would say. Thomas: That's wonderful. And that's a such an intense time, such a potent time to be given... shown that mirror and welcome to stepping into our own power. So what advice would you both have for somebody who is considering maybe doing this for their child, a coming of age sort of ceremony? Burgess-Lent: Well, I would say that you have to start wherever it is you are. You know, you... you don't have to be elaborate. You just have to be honest and creative. Do what works for you. And really, there's wonderful research all over the place about, you know, customs for women. Some of them aren't so good but the ones that are have, you know, objects and scents and foods, and you can integrate a whole lot of things in this. I think we did have cake, [LAUGHS] and some others. But I can't recall now. It's all it's a total sensory, if you want it to be. Thomas: How about you, Nikole, any thoughts on advice for someone considering creating one? Lent: Yeah, I would say, I was thinking along the same lines of just making sure you meet your child where they're at. Like, you know, tailoring it specifically to who they are like it... you have to get to know get to know what your, what your child is into, and what things might appeal to them and, and that will kind of guide you in how to arrange something like this so that it's not, like a scary, terrifying... it's an inviting thing to be a part of. Like, I was I felt comfortable and like it was like something to look forward to and something I was excited to participate in. And I think it was important, like, you know, we talked about maybe, wouldn't it be nice if we had some of my friends my age there. But I think for me, the powerful element in it was that I was being welcomed to womanhood by elders. And that was a unique experience for me that stands out is just having women that have lived it that can share about it and and have fun with it. Like it should be a fun thing. [LAUGHS] Burgess-Lent: Yeah, most of all should be fun. Yeah, I do remember that little crown it was it was grapevines intertwined with flowers, as I recall, and you looked so cute in it. Lent: But on a final note... that it's... I just want to emphasize how important I feel that rituals and ceremonies marking rites of passage are in this day and age. I feel like it's becoming even more important with just like how time moves more quickly and rapidly with technology especially having just those moments where you celebrate and honor like, wow, this is a major pivotal life thing. And it's gonna go by really quick. And let's take a moment to just honor this together. I think that's really important. Thomas: I do too. I think you said it very well. Thank you for saying that. [LAUGHS] Lent: Yeah. Burgess-Lent: Thanks for inviting us to re... re visit the time and the thoughts that went with it. If there is a young person in your life who is approaching a coming of age milestone, there are so many resources that can support you in creating a religious or non-religious ceremony to mark that transition. I hope that Susan and Nikole's story has widened your ideas about what that could look like. And if listening to this story brought up any sadness about missing an opportunity to celebrate coming of age for yourself or someone else, know that ritual transcends space and time and it's 100% possible to create retroactive rituals. We'll talk more about those this season too. Susan Burgess-Lent is a veteran international aid worker, warrior for women’s rights, author, mentor, and public speaker. She is Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Center’s International, an Oakland-based non-profit that creates safe resource centers for women affected by conflict and poverty. Nikole Lent is studying to become a trauma-informed substance abuse counselor. Pre-pandemic, Nikole worked as a Chef for musicians and events. Nikole is passionate about dance, comedy and performance art. Our music is by Terry Hughes. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player to make sure you're notified when new episodes are released. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

On Season 2 of Shame Piñata, we'll dive into what it looks like to create rituals for the important moments in our lives. Music by Terry Hughes   Love Shame Piñata? Subscribe on iTunes Follow on Spotify Follow on Podchaser Follow on Instagram Connect on Facebook Join us for a Ceremony   Transcript I’m Colleen Thomas. I help people make sense of life through ceremony. On Season 2 of Shame Piñata, we'll dive into what it looks like to create rituals for the important moments in our lives. Lent: The experience of transition into womanhood was something that everyone present took very seriously. Thom: But there was so much variety and people were totally involved. So you weren't just watching. It was like, you were in it. Find us on favorite player or go to shamepiñata.com to learn more.

On the second season of Shame Piñata, we explore rites of passage for real life transitions such reaching a certain age, facing a significant loss, receiving a diagnosis, or choosing to reveal our true selves to the people we love. Music by Terry Hughes. Links: Be sure to catch up on Season 1 as well! Love Shame Piñata? Subscribe on iTunes Follow on Spotify Follow on Podchaser Follow on Instagram Connect on Facebook Join us for a Ceremony Full Transcript Four of my closest friends watched from their computer screens as I put on a small pile of t-shirts, each one on top of the other. Before putting on each shirt, I read aloud the words I had painstakingly written on the fabric with a ballpoint pen. Words of grief. Words of loss. Words of shame. [MUSIC] The thing about shame is that it thrives on secrecy. So I'd created this ceremony to share it in a safe space, to expose the shame and take some of its power away. Putting all those t-shirts on felt awful. But it was an important beginning of the ceremony that ultimately freed me. I’m Colleen Thomas. I'm a ritual artist and I help people make sense of life through ceremony. This is Shame Piñata. It can be difficult to keep going through the hard times, but the good news is that as human beings, we are so amazingly creative. We can reframe major life changes as initiations and we can do it on our own terms. Lent: The experience of transition into womanhood was something that everyone present took very seriously. It just felt, like, an honor to be celebrated and cherished. Venegoni: A ritual passage ceremony I wish I could have had would be something along the lines of a coming out ceremony. You know, I think that for so many queer people that not only is it not honored, but it's something to be ashamed of or to hide. Taylor: I didn't die. I survived. And I really do... from the ancestral work that I've done in my life... time is not linear in that world. Like, time is a spiral. It's past. It's present. It's future all at once. And so the healing that I did on that day and continue to do ripples back to my Ancestors. On Season 2 of Shame Piñata, join me to explore how to honor each change as a new beginning. Episode 1 launches on February 5. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public or go to shamepiñata.com to learn more.

What if I told you that it's possible to find grace and flow in the middle of chaos? What if I said you could learn how to dance in liminal space and be a rock star, a liminal kind of rockstar. It's all about releasing expectation and connecting to the things that matter the most. Music by Terry Hughes Links: S1E9 COVID-19 A Ritual for Flow Upside Down & Inside Out OK Go - Upside Down & Inside Out BTS - How We Did It Full Transcript We're nearing the end of the year. It's been 9-12 months in the COVID space, depending on what part of the world you're in. And we're not done. What if I told you that it's possible to find grace and flow in the middle of chaos? What if I said you could learn how to dance in liminal space and be a rock star, a liminal kind of rockstar. It's all about releasing expectation and connecting to the things that matter the most. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. I've been thinking a lot lately about peace and grace and COVID sanity. I was struck by something I heard from recently from Dietician and Chef Alicia Connor. She said, "Let go of the past. Accept the now. Hang tight." There's so much wisdom in that. Because we can't go back. Even though we might be wishing with every fiber of our being for restrictions to be lifted and life to go back to normal, really, there's no going back. We've come so far in this weird COVID journey that we know things will never be the same. They'll just be new and different at best. Today we're going to break down Alicia's statement and spend some time reflecting on each part of it. We'll look at what letting go can mean, both in terms of COVID and in terms of regular life. We'll explore the now, with all of its discomfort and liminality. And we'll talk about what hanging tight in the strangeness of that now can be like, and how we can find our balance there. As we move toward the end of the calendar year and those of us in the northern hemisphere deepen into the winter season, the stage is set to support us in a natural process of letting go. Winter is a wonderful teacher for rest and hibernation, releasing what's ready to fall away with the leaves and rest beneath the snow. At the same time the winter holidays focus us on light, life and connection, the earth grows quiet. If we create some time to sit in the quiet, maybe even in the darkness which begins so early now, and notice what's ready to be released, we may find old things, old beliefs, old hurts, hard feelings that are still hanging around from old relationships, bits and bobs we haven't forgiven others for (or forgiven ourselves for). And we might even find some deeper things like old blankets of shame we've walked around in for years, or things we've carried that maybe aren’t even ours. Letting go can mean many things. Letting go can mean honoring ourselves for holding these things, honoring the people at the other end of cords, grudges or miscommunications. Letting go can mean laying some things down, letting them drop into the earth. Releasing attachments. It can also mean releasing expectations. Expectations for a return to normalcy, expectations for simple answers to the complexity of our world today. It can mean allowing the mandala of this moment to exist, all things existing at the same time in the same place. Happy things, joyful things, sad things, heart-wrenching things... all woven together as part of the whole. Letting go is important for our mental health, our nervous systems, and our basic ability to cope with change. Releasing any rigidity in our body, our mind, and our heart can help us soften and flow with what actually is. But as we've been exploring this season on Shame Piñata, being in the now is not always comfortable or fun or even doable. We may find, when we try to quiet our mind or body that we're quickly distracted by thoughts or sensations. Similar distractions may pop up when we learn of some new scary fact or hear a hard story. Our nervous systems protect us. It strives to keep us in balance and to block out overwhelm, at least mine does. Sometimes if something is just too much, or there's been too much intensity for too long, I kind of leave the room. My eyes glaze over. The person I'm with knows I'm not really listening anymore. I'm just beyond my tolerance level at that moment. This is normal. Especially now. I'd love it if we could give ourselves permission, and give others around us permission, to stop for a moment when we pop a nervous system fuse and take a break. Maybe take a breath. Because resistance to overwhelm is actually a healthy and sane response to a crazy situation. The thing about the now is that it's sort of timeless, right? It's "this now moment", which makes it both a single moment and all time and space at once. How do we make sense of a long string of "this now moments"? We can get kind of lost. It all can become sort of gelatinous. Most of us are used to a schedule or a rhythm of events.... this could be daily... this could be annual. We're used to making sense of things through life rhythms. Summer travel plans, weekly health routines, a daily schedule of meeting or other events. Liminality itself can be kind of brutal. Marking time, floating... it's almost like we're treading water while we hang out waiting to see how things will land. I was thinking about navigating liminality and an image popped in my head from a music video by the band OKGO. Stick with me here because I know this is a bit of a jump. If you haven't seen the OKGO video for Upside Down & Inside Out, you need to. Not only because it will help illustrate my point, but also because it's an amazing video. It's the only music video I've ever seen that was filmed in zero gravity, excepting of course Commander Chris Hadfield singing Space Oddity on the International Space Station. When I think of liminality, I see the OKGO band members swimming around the inside of a plane as it flies in parabolas in the skies over Moscow. The video was filmed on a jet plane that was flying up and down in great sweeps called parabolas. Each parabola gave the band 27 seconds of weightlessness to perform a piece of their zero g choreography. They filmed the video in one take as the plane completed 8 parabolas, pausing in place in between weightless peaks and then cutting out the paused sections. The video was directed by lead singer Damian Kulash and his sister Trish Sie. In one of the many behind the scenes videos, the two spoke about the process the band went through in learning to move around in a zero gravity environment. Damian said, "Most people's response to weightlessness is just to start swimming," to which Trish added, "It takes some time to train your body not to flail around. Kicking and paddling when you're in the air is not the same as kicking and paddling in water. You just look panicked." And there are many frames of the band members kicking and flailing around, looking pretty uncomfortable in their first test flights. But by the time they filmed the video, they had found their way around and learned how to glide here or push off that thing to head over there. They were doing complex choreography in periods which bridged the divide from double gravity into weightlessness. They moved almost as efficiently as the aerial dancers they brought in as flight attendants. I share this image with you to illustrate that it takes some time to find our grace and flow in liminality. We're not born to it. We're used the reliable gravity of our everyday lives. When that basic force is gone, we can feel lost within the task of simply moving from point A to point B. But once we get it, we can do it. We can even find grace in liminality. And as song says, "Gravity's just a habit that you're pretty sure you can't break." So here we are hanging tight. In this moment. And now in this moment. How can we support ourselves in keeping on going as the moments go by? Here's a simple ritual sketch you might try out and adapt in any way that support your current situation. So first we might take a deep breath and sit with the concept of centering. What does centering feel like today? What is center? Where is center? And then we might ground down into the earth and allow our bodies to land and quiet a bit. As we sit in the stillness, we can begin to notice any energetic cords we are connected to, cords that others may have placed on us, cords we may have put out into the world to keep track of things or to keep our balance. Things we love. Things we fear. Things we're attached to. We can notice those and let them dissolve, connecting instead to ourselves and to the earth, growing a bit heavier as we connect again down. Amongst the cords we may find expectations or attachments to outcomes. Rigid expectations we might have for ourselves or for others. Rigidity. Need. Attachment. We can play with releasing those, just play, and see what it feels like to be floating safely in the now. Then we might call to mind a place where we feel safe and good. Maybe a place we've been, or a place we've seen pictures of. A place where there are no worries. A place where we can vision and dream for a bit. And in this place we can ask ourselves, "What's important? What do I know in my core? What's one thing that really matters to me?" and see what comes. And as images arise, we can quietly let them wash over us. Things we love. Things that matter. Things that define us because of our unwavering connection to them. Timeless things. True things. Core things. And we can welcome these things into our consciousness and thank them for being part of our life and our heart. And then we might make sure we're still connected to the good earth, take a few deep breaths, and return to the room where we can do some journaling about how to create more connection to those things on a daily basis. How to let them become our anchors during this floaty, liminal time while we're still paddling around in zero gravity. We can't go back. And there's no forward to go to yet. So for now, we wait. And we float, and we Zoom, and we knit or bake, and wash our hands, and wear masks and make thoughtful choices. There's kind of really just the now. There is simultaneously no return to what was, to the life we had before COVID, and no next life yet. Let go of the past. Accept the now. Hang tight. Our music is by Terry Hughes. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player to make sure you're notified when new episodes are released. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

It's the big day and there's a lot going on. Relationships are being redefined. Power dynamics are actively shifting and yet, in the words of wedding planner Tria Chang, "It's taboo to acknowledge or to express anything but joy." What would it look like to make room for some of the more complex emotions? To let everyone acknowledge the effect a wedding has on their unique relationship to the couple? Music by Terry Hughes Image Credit Mercedes Bosquet Links: A Joyful Wedding Can Still Make Room for Grief The Cosmic Mass What is Creation Spirituality Full Transcript Chang: I was actually talking to a young woman the other day who is thinking about becoming a wedding planner. And she had one hesitation, she asked me, “I heard that people act irrational and crazy on wedding days, is that true?” And I had to be honest with her and tell her it's partly true. People behave in ways that seem bizarre and irrational on wedding days, but if you really strip away what's happening, to me it makes perfect sense the ways that they're acting out.  So it's the big day and there's a lot going on. Relationships are being redefined. Power dynamics are actively shifting and yet it’s taboo to feel anything but joy. What would it look like to make room for some of the more complex emotions? To acknowledge the effect a wedding has on their unique relationship everyone has with the couple? This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. I'm so happy to welcome Tria Chang and her wisdom back on today’s show. Tria and I met last year when she was in the process of planning her second wedding. She was working through a rich and complicated experience of weddings, being a former wedding planner who had participated in over 100 ceremonies and who had gone through a divorce during those years. As she looked ahead to her second wedding, she wanted to create a unique ceremony that was a perfect fit for herself and her partner.  At the time we met, I shared with Tria some of the details of my own wedding, specifically how it was designed to make room for all of the feelings, both happy and other. Weddings bring up a myriad of feelings and yet we're taught that there is only room for joy on the day. There's no above-board acknowledgement of how the new union will shift the family dynamics or sometimes push friendships to the back seat. We are not encouraged to sit down and have meaningful conversations about these things with our friends and family, about how the new union will change things for everyone. And when something is not brought into the light or given room for expression, it can take on a life of its own. Think people behaving irrationally at weddings. Think Bridezillas.  Shortly after that first interview, Tria and I sat down again to explore what all is happening at a wedding - the many people, the many perspectives, the many feelings. The big mash up of everything happening at once and the things that may not get acknowledged. We typically think about the couple when we think of a wedding, but there are so many more people involved and each person brings their own perspective, expectations, and life experiences to that day. There's the couple, their parents and siblings and maybe even children, their friends and family who make up the wedding party, and the guests. In addition to people we could look around the room and see, there are also invisible forces that can influence the day. There's that phenomenon I call the female legacy, which women can be acutely attuned to by the mere fact that marriage has been a survival tool for women historically. I'm not sure how else to describe it other than to say weddings can be heavier for women. There also may be some acute losses going on, such as the loss of a father to give the bride away or the loss of a close friend missed by the entire community. And there's often this idea that it all happens in one moment, there's this wedding, and it happens in a day and boom, you're married and it's all transitions are finished.  Chang: To add the behind the scenes perspective even for the vendors, for most of the weddings that I planned, there were at least 8-12 different vendors working on things. And each of those vendors come in with their own goals and agendas. So for example, the makeup artist will of course be wanting to make the bride look beautiful because it's her day, but she also has her portfolio to think about. So she'll be wanting the photographer to get certain shots of the hair and makeup, be sending that to her or be recording it for herself for her own social media or website. The photographer's obviously working on a portfolio as well and they want to get a certain type of shot that can help them get on wedding blogs or gain the trust of other clients. And the planner or stylist has a certain look that they're trying to achieve so that they can also show their best work in their portfolio and attract future clients too. So there are a lot of desires going on on a wedding day, not just the personal, also the professional. And then there is that feeling of transition, as you said, and transitions don't happen in one moment that you're not a completely different person right after you have the ring on or right after you kiss. It's just part of the process. So there is a lot going on in the wedding day, and that you're supposed to pack all of these things in, and you're supposed to be thrilled about it the whole time. So everyone is really supposed to be on their best behavior, and it doesn't usually turn out that way. Thomas: Right. And we've had quite a few conversations about the other feelings, the feelings that are harder maybe, the feelings that don't fit in the pretty package, the feelings that we're not allowed to have at a wedding, they get discouraged, and maybe the even the unconscious losses that folks aren't even aware that they're feeling. What tensions have you seen come up at weddings? Chang: Yeah, there have been a lot of tensions that come up, I think the most common one I've seen is usually between the couple and their parents. So sometimes there are mothers of the bride who are feeling protective, or like they don't really want to let go. So they start trying to control small things like the way the bride is getting her makeup done, or trying to change menu items last minute. It can really come out in ways that seem unrelated, but are just things that catch their attention and show them a way of having more control in that moment. I also had a client who…  they were a slightly older couple and so they didn't have their parents involved in the planning at all. And when the mother of the groom showed up to the ceremony site, which was an art gallery, she was furious. She just hated the venue. She thought it was so ugly and she told me, “These pictures on the wall, they're awful. They have to go. There aren't enough flowers!” And, you know, in an art gallery you can't change the display. It's off limits. We did end up moving some flowers around for her. And she didn't like the concrete floor which was part of the modernist look. But I talked to the bride and groom and told them I think it would really help her if she could have some say. And so they were comfortable with us putting down an aisle runner, so at least having something cloth for them to walk down - f or whatever reason that became important to her in that moment. Thomas: Right. And would you say that with a lot of these people, that these attempts to regain a little bit of control, feeling uncomfortable, that it was unconscious? Chang: Yes, I definitely think it was unconscious, I think they were really focused on that tangible thing. Because that seemed rational to them that seemed like something they could handle. Whereas going within and taking those steps inside and recognizing I'm losing my son or my daughter in these small ways. That's a really daunting thing to look at. And you don't really want to look at that on a wedding day, because what if it breaks you? What if you break down and end up inconsolable? You don't want to be that person at a wedding. You want to be supportive and joyful. So yes, I definitely saw a lot of unconscious outbursts at things that were probably not the real problem. But after those outbursts, people did seem to be able to feel a little bit better or maybe they felt a little embarrassed about how they acted and were able to let go and get into the joy of it more. Thomas: How do you think it would have been different for those in those situations, if the couple had said, "We don't want you to hold it together. We want you to just be here and have all your feelings." Chang: I like that idea a lot. But I've also seen the dynamics between parents and their children can be so hard to change that even if their children tell them, “Be yourself, let go,” if that's not their personality, I'm not sure they would be able to do that. But maybe even just having that permission would have felt good. It's hard to say. Thomas: Right. Tria wrote an article for the Washington Post about the wedding my husband and I created, specifically how we worked in a section for grieving. To explain how our wedding came about, I need to take you back 20 years. In the year 2000, I moved to California to attend Matthew Fox's graduate program in Creation Spirituality. Fox is often described as a renegade theologian and it was his unique event called the Techno Cosmic Mass that drew me to his school. The Techno Cosmic Mass, or Cosmic Mass as it is now called, is a multimedia rave-like community worship experience that brings prayer and devotion off the pages of the hymnal and into the soles of the feet. During my years in school I attended almost every mass. One thing I didn't know was that my future husband was also attending those events. But we wouldn't even meet each other for another 5 years when the masses were no longer being produced. So we met. And then 10 years later, we decided to get married and began considering what kind of ceremony might be a good fit for us. We were actually kind of stuck because we come from different traditions and nothing seemed to come organically. But as synchronicity would have it, Matthew Fox and his team began producing the Cosmic Mass again right around that time. And on a Sunday night, in a room full of people sweating their prayers under flashing dance lights we realized we found it - we'd found the way we wanted to get married. We were going to create the first ever Techno Cosmic Wedding. The structure of the Cosmic Mass follows the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality. To give you some context, the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality are: The Via Positiva, a time of joy, awe and wonder; the Via Negativa, a time of darkness, letting go, and grieving; the Via Creativa, honoring ourselves as divinely creative beings; and lastly the Via Transformativa, a time of preparing ourselves to go forward as spiritual warriors. While we structured the entire wedding on these four paths, it was the Via Negativa that was most unusual to have in a wedding. Matthew Fox defines the Via Negativa as "a time of communal grieving for the suffering of the planet and all beings."  Here's how Tria described the Via Negativa section of our wedding ceremony in her article: "The room was dimly lit. Wedding guests were seated on the floor, eyes closed, some crying, some reaching out in comfort. Bodies swayed gently to a melancholic chorus, and a woman’s voice crescendoed with emotion... The speaker invited guests to summon feelings of loss - whether those be for the loss of loved ones, of faith, of youth, of passion - and to embrace feelings of fear, for the world or for themselves." It was important for us to include time for these harder emotions in our wedding ceremony because we wanted to make room for our full selves to show up both at the wedding in the marriage.  Thomas: And we've spent some time too talking about the idea of the Via Negativa which comes from the wedding that my husband and I had where we actually had a section of the wedding dedicated to grieving and we've talked about how that was very unusual. Chang: Yes, and wonderful, I think. Thomas: And you and your fiancé are planning something a little bit like that for your second wedding. Chang: Yes, so we have such a small wedding and I think our guests tend to be on the more conventional side. So instead of having it at the actual wedding and having an orchestrated section of going through Via Negativa like you did, we've been spreading it out over the months leading up to the wedding, and we plan to continue making space for it after the wedding even in the years to come. Because I think it's important to realize that negative feelings, especially grief, they don't go away after one session. They can't be addressed very quickly. But if you make space for them in an ongoing way, I think it makes it easier to make joy the forefront of a certain day, in this case the wedding day. So what we've been doing is having conversations with people close to us and asking them what kind of fears they might have about how our relationship going forward might be or any fears for us as a couple, or just anything on their mind really that may be different from the regular congratulations. And then inspired by you and Rodrigo, my fiancé and I did our own kind of private Via Negativa with the two of us. We did it last week and we lit candles and turned off the lights and played some music and then I asked us to write down in a notebook all the things that we were scared about or nervous about for the wedding day. And then all of the things that made us have those fear feelings for marriage in general. And so we wrote for a little while and then we took turns sharing things and it lasted about two hours actually. We really got to talk about a lot of things. Anything from just where would we spend Christmases, like which family gets us at which time of year, to how will the dynamic change when we have children, and what will happen if, you know, one of our parents passes away, how will we take care of the other one? So we really covered a lot of ground and I think felt a lot better afterwards. But we also recognize it's a conversation that will continue. And then we had a special song to us and did the eye contact for a while to kind of let it all settle in.  Thomas: That's wonderful. That's so wonderful. Chang: Yeah. Thomas: So you've really laid the groundwork, then for yourself, each of you individually plus you as a couple plus the people in your life, to have space to share any fears, any, any worries... Chang: Yes, yeah. Because we are both at a point in our lives where we recognize marriage is difficult, because life is difficult and you're attaching yourself to someone else's life. So you will get all their difficulties plus all your difficulties. And that is something to celebrate, because you'll have someone with you, but it's also something to be a little bit nervous about and having space for all of that really feels a lot better. And I do have you to thank for that because it kind of didn't click for me until I saw your wedding ceremony from the video you showed me. And seeing that Via Negativa and seeing the space you made made me realize that was what was missing in my wedding planning. Because I had been going to a bit of therapy and trying to deal with my own feelings of worry because I was married before and it didn't work out. And so I knew I had to do this second wedding and marriage differently. But I wasn't quite sure how. So seeing your experience really helped me. I asked Tria how she worked with couples around the loss of a loved one at the wedding.  Chang: With acute losses, or grief in general, that can be a really difficult thing to handle at a wedding because, as we talked about, a wedding is supposed to be all joy and it feels scary to invite something in that will bring you grief and sadness. But sometimes people are important to us and when they're not there, to kind of brush it under the rug, it doesn't really feel real. So I think, in some ways, it could be interesting to expand what happens at a wedding to include some of the things that happen at a memorial or a grief ritual. So we can look to other cultures, for example, like the Day of the Dead. You know, they have these beautiful altars and flowers and favorite foods of that loved one, and they really presence them. And at most weddings I've been to where they've lost a loved one, they either have a line about them in the program or a picture or two kind of on a shelf in a corner that you can easily bypass if you want to. And they are honoring them, but they're making it really kind of optional and something that's easy to ignore if you're not comfortable with that. But it could be really lovely to actually invite that deceased loved one in and really have them there with a favorite food or some tradition that they loved. At my little wedding ceremony, we are having our... instead of place cards with people's names, we're writing cards to everyone with our heartfelt sentiments to them and we're writing them on watercolor painted envelopes and cards. And my mom was a watercolor artist and a lot of weekends, we would spend painting big sheets of watercolor together and then cutting out envelopes. And in those days, people used to mail each other letters often. So we would use those envelopes. So I had my fiancé make these envelopes with me and I really felt her there with me. And he's never met my mom so it was a great way for me to introduce her to him and show him this is how I would spend my weekends with my mom. And I know that having those envelopes there on the day, it's small, it's not going to be very distracting for people who didn't know her. But I will make a mention of the meaning that they have to me. And I think I'll feel her there more in that way. Thomas: Hmm, that's a really beautiful way of including her.  As the interview came to a close, Tria and I touched on inclusivity at the wedding, how to include everyone even in a small ceremony.  Chang: We are actually having a very casual meetup at a cafe, the week after our wedding ceremony for all of those friends of ours who we didn't feel like we could accommodate at the ceremony because it's so small, but who we still wanted to celebrate with in some way. So we're just having some snacks at a cafe and a tarot card reader and a watercolor portrait artist. And that’s pretty much it we're just gonna hang out. For me, I'm so... I think I have a caregiving aspect to my personality that I have not been able to shake. So when I think about holding an event for people, I literally think of it from every single person's perspective and think of how to make it comfortable for them. So we're having 25 people at our wedding. And that's, you know, me thinking through the day 25 times and that seemed like my limit. I feel like I don't want to think through this in 125 ways, just 25. That's all I can manage. Thomas: Is that something that you ever recommended to your clients when you were a wedding planner? Chang: Oh, no. That's just a problem that I have. I don't recommend it at all. Yeah, I've even tried to imagine for my two year old niece, like, okay, she's gonna get bored around this time. So I'm like... put Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes on our playlist for the wedding. Like, make sure to have something for everybody. Thomas: Oh, wow. That is super personalized Chang: A little kid playlist just for the cute little ones.  Thomas: That’s so wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your inspiration and for sharing your story of your, your second wedding, and all that you're learning and doing and experiencing and all that you bring from everything you've done before. Chang: Thank you as well and, to use your term, for holding space for all of these conversations. And I think that there is such an automatic track that people get on when they wedding plan so I hope that hearing stories on your podcast will help people realize they don't have to follow an automatic track. They can do it as they want to. They can have a Via Negativa if they want to. Thomas: They can!  Thank you so much for joining us today for this conversation about making room for all of the emotions on the wedding day. To hear more in Tria's wonderful written words, check out her piece entitled, “A Joyful Wedding Can Still Make Room for Grief” listfed in the show notes. While you're there, check out some footage of the Cosmic Mass on the Cosmic Mass website.  Tria Chang is a writer and organizer. Follow her on Instagram @tria_chang. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you got something out of this episode, please share it with a friend. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.  

What does your body need in order to rest fully? What does your heart need to soften a bit? What would it feel like to rest - not with one ear out for the next crisis - but actually fully rest? Basic Steps of a Ritual for Deep Rest 1. Set aside concerns 2. Nest building 3. Set an intention 4. Invite guides/guardians/Ancestors 5. Rest in the space 6. Listen in the space 7. Return slowly 8. Have some water Music by Terry Hughes Links: Reparations for Black People Should Include Rest Black Power Naps ----------- Full Transcript My coworker described how she spent some of her time this past summer. She said she just needed to be on the beach staring at the water. So she did that, while her kids built sand castles and looked for shells. She sat there for several days, just slowing down and doing nothing. Listening to her words, I realized I'd done my summer break completely wrong! Life is super dynamic right now. There's never a dull moment from the election on the horizon to health issues, natural disasters and a huge leap forward in social justice. How can we be our best? How can we show up as fully as possible? Maybe resting is part of the picture. Not resting with one ear out for the next crisis, but just fully resting. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today we're going to talk about resting deeply. Like, actually letting go for a whole series of minutes. Putting the world on pause. Putting the phone on do not disturb. Noticing any aversions we might have to letting go and actually doing it. We'll talk about why rest matters, why we avoid it sometimes, and create ways to find out what is truly restful to us. If resting isn't a challenge for you but you know someone who's chronically on edge, please share this episode with them. So, what is the point of rest? I often find myself wondering that when I'm feeling short on time, or in crisis mode. Sleeping and even eating can seem like an awful waste of time. Why can't I just get on with it? Rest actually has several functions. It allows our body to do some basic healing without the added strain of pushing forward. It helps to create a little more space in our heads. It gives us some breathing room. And, it also allows us to process our experiences. Years ago I was checking out a graduate program in spirituality. During my first visit to campus, I asked several of the students what they wished they had known before they started. They all said hands down they wished they'd taken their time with the program, to have had more time to absorb everything on both an intellectual and a personal level. That was a huge insight for me and it turns out that they were right. That program offered some deep lessons that it would have been a shame to rush through and lose the chance to fully absorb. This wisdom on integration aligns with what I learned from my favorite yoga teacher about savasana, or corpse pose, which is often done at the very end of yoga class. He said that savasana is actually half of the yoga practice, because it allows our body to integrate the work we've just done. So without those 10 minutes of lying still on our backs on the floor, significant benefits of the class would have been lost. If resting is so great, why is it difficult sometimes? I invite you to pause for a moment and look around the space you are in. Check out the colors and shapes. Notice a few sounds. Notice your breath. Notice any tension in your body. And I invite you to take a breath that's a bit of a deeper breath than usual or maybe experiment with any wiggles or any small movements that your body might like to make in this moment, in “this now moment” (as the saying goes). Throughout this pandemic, I'm learning that “this now moment” can be a pretty uncomfortable place. The liminality, the uncertainty, the watching, the waiting... all bring challenges I've never had to deal with before. And they can be very unsettling and uncomfortable. And I think that's why rest has eluded me. Because resting is an in-the-moment thing. Deep rest, where I'm not trying to figure things out, or creating small problems as a distraction from the bigger ones, or distracting myself with excessive work or eating or television. But actually resting in “this now moment”. Alongside thinking about rest I’ve also been thinking about how to unpack my white privilege. I decided to learn about how rest is different for different people. I know that white people can have expectations of safety and comfort that are not shared by black indigenous and people of color. I found a great article by Janine Francois who researches race, racism and cultural heritage. In her 2019 piece called "Reparations for Black People Should Include Rest", she writes the following. "Time, as we know it, is a colonial invention and forms the backbone of American society, making the racial distribution of time inherent to white privilege. As whiteness dictates freedom, education, pleasure, and social mobility, have you ever wondered why so many of those considered to be our “greatest” artists or philosophers are white men? Who among us has the access to time to make “masterpieces” or to “think,” without dealing with the impacts of oppression? Racism robs us of our time to be creative, to dream or simply be." Janine goes on to share an elaborate description of her experience of the Black Power Naps exhibit at the Matadero Madrid Contemporary Art Center in Spain. Black Power Naps, created by Navild Acosta & Fannie Sosa, is a sculptural installation, vibrational device and curatorial initiative that reclaims laziness and idleness as power. I encourage you to learn more at https://blackpowernaps.black/ When I think about what kind of rest I need right now, I notice that I need different rest than normal, deeper rest than normal. With so much going on that's so heavy and important, I need extra time to process right now. I need a serious savasana. I need time to, as I call it, stare at the walls. That time needs to be very slow. So I made a list of thing that are slow and nurturing to me, things like reading, bird watching, cloudspotting. Being at the beach, being in water. Wordless time. Time in silence. Time surrounded by the music I love. At my graduate school, there was a room called The Cave. It was an interior room with no windows, and it was kept very dark. It had an altar with a few candles burning all the time and some beautiful Tibetan wall hangings. When it wasn't being used for drumming circles or meditation classes, it was available to just go sit in. I loved walking into it in the middle of the day, feeling the quiet pressing in on me. Getting lost in the dark. Sometimes I could hear a bit of conversation at the front desk, because there was a vent in the wall right there, but usually it was quiet. The Cave was the heart of the campus, because we all knew how important that deep, quiet, personal resting place was. That place where we might better hear the wisdom inside of us, that place where we could process the experiences of the day. If the first step is making a list of the things that are deeply restful, the second is to schedule time for them. I've been playing with this for a month or so and am finding it to be a rich source of self-support. So I encourage you to consider calendaring some deep rest. Maybe a half hour a day of deep rest? Another way to drop into deep rest is to use ceremony as a container. Here is a simple ritual sketch to do just that. A first step might be to make a quick list of everything we don't want to forget, everything that we need to hold onto. Make a list, honor the things we wrote down as very important and worthy of our energy, and make a conscious decision to set them aside for a while. Let them go, let them be held by something or someone. We could set the list in a box where we know it won't get blown away or lost, or even give it to a friend to hold (in real life or in our imagination). Then, when we’re ready, we might do some nesting. Gather everything that we will help our body relax completely. Pillows, blankets, cover the windows, put on some relaxing music, maybe a bath would be nice. Maybe if we have a stuffed animal, that might even be nice to hold. What feels deeply nurturing? What helps us feel safe? Then we might create sacred space or create the container in whatever way feels right to us - calling the circle, casting the circle, saying a prayer, lighting a candle - creating the container. I think with deep rest it can sometimes be helpful to have some company. We might call in a beloved Ancestor or Spirit Guide or a deity we work with. Call them in, invoke them, welcome them to the circle. And then we can rest, relax the body, do some deep breathing to balance out the hard edges, follow the flow of any emotions that arise, let ourselves drift, dream, imagine, journey. Rest in the space. Listen in the space. Allow some of that deep healing to filter up through us in the space. There is no one way to do it. There's no right way to do it. Our intuition will lead the way, allowing our breathing and our body to follow. When the music ends or we feel complete, we want to come back very gently. If we're lying on our back, we might roll to one side and lie there for a bit. Then sit up slowly and have some water and maybe journal. Just as we took time to create the space as we went in, it's really important to come out slowly. And it's also nice to thank and release anyone we called in, and then open the container. The very last thing we might do is to really honor and appreciate ourselves for having taken the time to do some deep resting. I encourage you to think about what would be most nurturing and restful to you this week. It might be nature, some kind of making or crafting, dance, movement, meditation, taking a nap in sacred space, taking a nap in regular space, anything that helps you slow down and be in the moment - your moment that you create as your "this now moment". Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to review it on Apple Podcasts. That’s one of the best ways we can help other people find the show. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

A discussion with Betty Ray on the three phases of a rite of passage & the tools they offer us for composting our grief. Music by Terry Hughes Links: Betty Ray Betty’s talk: We Must Initiate the Young People Arnold Van Gennep Lisa Miller of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute Menarche ritual Full transcript: Ray: And then there’s the whole midlife crisis and a porche and a girlfriend and whatever and all that, but we don’t really talk about what’s going on psychologically or spiritually. The transitions in our lives can bring up difficult feelings. It’s easy to see the lay of the land when we’re walking a straight path, but when the sidewalk ends, all kinds of confusion can come up. We may lose track of where we’re going and even start to question our values. How can ceremony help us through the transformations in our lives? Join me for a conversation with Betty Ray. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today we’re going to slow it down and really look at rites of passage. Where did that term come from? What’s the anatomy of a rite of passage? And what can these ceremonies be used for? Our returning guest Betty Ray helps parents design customized ceremonies to help their youth go through a coming of age process, something that is deeply needed in American culture today. But she understands that all big transitions are worthy of the same process, whether it’s coming of age, approaching midlife, or even experiencing a significant loss. Betty and I had a conversation recently about using the rites of passage structure to design a healing ceremony. This could be any kind of healing ceremony, but I asked her how the rites of passage structure could be useful to design a ceremony for someone who had lost a child. Ray: I think the language rites of passage to me is more structural because rites of passage articulates a structure. There’s a three-part structure to rites of passage which is immutable and across all these different cultures. And that is really a benefit because that gives us a way in which we can design meaningful personalized rites of passage or healing rituals or however you want to describe it, there’s lots of ways. But I think the language around rites of passage for me has been to articulate this tripartate model which is so powerful. The first one, the first phase of totes of passage is called separation and this is from the work up in Arnold van Gennep and this was from 1909. So this guy a long time ago studied all these different cultures and found across cultures and across time and space that people were using the same three phases. And in fact, Joseph Campbell was really inspired by Van Gennep’s work and used his rites of passage work for the hero’s journey work which is amazing. Like I didn’t know that. Did you know that? My God, I was so excited about that, I was like “Oh, you’re kidding me!” That's so brilliant because it makes sense that rites of passage would make a good story. So the three steps are separation, where the initiate leaves the comforts of home. And whether that’s a young person going off to figure out who they are and discover their identity or a middle-age person who has to leave the sort of the structure that their life has become. So then the second phase is called liminality or I’ve also heard it referred to as metamorphosis and that’s the phase where once they’ve left there kind of betwixt and between as Victor Turner said. It’s this time when you don’t know what’s going to happen to you and that’s when this beautiful phase of ego death comes in. You don’t know. You die. Who you are, who you were, is no longer who you are or who you want to be. And then there’s design elements I can make liminality more or less... that’s a design challenge for those of us who want to do these. And then the reincorporation phase where the young person for the young middle/elder whoever comes back to wherever they were, to the original, you know, container and then takes what they’ve learned and bring it back to... so that they may be in their community once again. So there’s kind of a, you go off into the netherland, you go off to the wyrd world, the forest, you know, in our mythologies... all kinds of heroes journeys there. Yeah, so those three phases I feel like are really valuable as design elements. So that’s why I was talking about that. And we can talk about how to put this into someone who’s lost a child. How do we manage that, those feelings and the grief and the identity and all of the elements, the psychological elements, that go into holding that and how does one release that and reinvent themselves to be able to move forward and to not just be completely paralyzed by that loss? I think what I love about rites of passage, however you talk about them, is that they do offer tools for composting our grief, or our fear, or whatever - getting it out and turning it into something else. The transformative nature is really powerful. Thomas: What's the benefit in designing our own ceremonies? Ray: I think that our 21st century culture has become so individualized that certain kinds of rites of passage, the generic thing, just don't resonate. And so the benefit of a personalized sort of self designed DIY rite of passage or ceremony, transition ceremony, is that it can be something that is deeply meaningful to you. And I don't think these work if they're not deeply meaningful to you. So I would argue that there is no reason to do this if it isn't personalized. It's really important that it be meaningful, and that it come from a place that has such heart and meaning that it can that it does the sort of psychological lifting. When it is individualized, it's a creative process. It's really fun. It's really fun to think about what is the thing that nurtures me. It's really fun to think about what is the thing that I'm trying to heal. It's not fun - that's not fun. But it's healing. It's healthy to look at what is the thing that I want to let go of and how do I design something so that I can take back my power over this thing that has really hurt me or has humiliated me or that I want to leave behind. And that can be anything from a relationship to a mindset. You know? It's a lot different than talking about in therapy and I love therapy, I go to therapy. It's valuable. But again, getting into this psychic space of ego death, right? You’re kind of more open and vulnerable and you kind of like you, you're working with the programming language of the soul. And it's a lot deeper than just the cognitive stuff. We don't... cognitive is important. But this when you're working at the soul level, it's more potent. I love that way of describing it: that what we’re doing in ritual is working with the programming language of the soul. Does that make sense? We’re getting into an area where words don’t work, so it’s a little bit difficult for me to use words to describe it, but think of the rituals you’ve participated in in your life and remember what they felt like in your body. There’s a reason we do devotional ritualized practices in religious settings. Taking the bread, stepping into the Mikvah, casting a circle with the athame. These are physical things we do to connect, ritualistic soul-level actions we take. They are separate from our thoughts. When we hear the phrase “rites of passage” we may think of life stages such as coming of age, getting married, or having children. But life transitions are not always predictable or planned. A sudden illness or loss can knock us off our game and create a need to withdraw and heal. That’s where rites of passage or ritual can become invaluable. Ritual can provide a space of deep healing where our pain can be witnessed and honored. Ray: When I was about 25, I was involved in a bike accident. And I was not wearing a helmet and I was unconscious for a day or two. And I woke up in the hospital and I was all like, double vision, concussion - a real mess. And I got out of the hospital and I was like in bed, you know, I couldn't work, I was out. And I was just really just discombobulated. And I had this major double vision, and I was so like, I couldn't even, you know, literally couldn't see straight. And my mom called me, you know, and she said, "I would like to offer you a rite of passage at my house." And I was like, I don't know what that is but it has to be better than this wherever I am right now, this sucks. And I'm in bed and I would love to... sure whatever that is, do it up! And so she said, "Okay, I want you to invite somewhere between 6 and 10 women that are older that you look up to and that your respect," and I was like okay. And so I know she knows some cool people and I know a few cool people and I put together this list and they all came to her house at the winter solstice. And one of her friends had made me a paper machine a mask to wear for the ceremony. And it was like this beautiful thing that had a butterfly at the mouth and like flower up at the head and like these beautiful beads... and it was really... it was like, okay, so I put that on, we came to her house and there was a fire in the fireplace and all these women were sitting in a circle and I wore the mask. And they proceeded to each tell me a story, or read a poem, or kind of reflect me, or reflect the world so that I could kind of titrate it and understand it, some things about the world things that were, you know, through poetry and beautiful writings and pieces of art. And I just sat there and just absorbed this giant mirror of all these older women that were so wise and so loving and so interested in helping me heal. And I could just feel that energy and I'm wearing this mask. And then at the end of it, I had to, I had to write, based on everything I had heard, I had to write a series of commitments to myself, and like things I wanted to keep, things I wanted to nurture, things I wanted to deepen and explore. And then I had to write a series of things that I was ready to release. And she had a fire in the fireplace and at the time, I took the things I wanted to release and I put them in the fire. And we said a prayer. And then it was over and it was probably about 20 minutes. It was a short thing, maybe more - I don't remember maybe it must have been more - but anyway, it was really powerful to me. It was a really, to have all these older women hold me in that way taught me the power... and to and to experience the intentionality of that moment, the gravitas, the beauty, you know, she... the home was beautiful, it smelled nice, it was people you know, it was just a sensory experience of being in this kind of like other world. And the kind of the grace that I felt afterwards was just like, wow, I knew this was powerful! And I was really interested in doing more of it. I was in my mid 20s. And I remember kind of putting it out there and sort of doing a little bit of research after it was over, like kind of getting out of my depression hole and going down to the bookstore and researching a little bit. And I got this clear picture that this is too woo woo for the world. I can't do this now. It's not ready. It's too weird. And so I took a hard turn and I went into writing about popular culture, and, you know, teaching myself technology and HTML and like, I kind of went there. But it always stuck with me, it was always part of my soul. You know, it was like I was awakened. Wow, that's a cool thing! You can do this stuff and it really helps your soul! It helps you get out of, you know, self pity and suicidal ideation and you know, kind of loneliness and all this crap that I... and my physical thing didn't change. I still have the crazy double vision. But I was just, it was something that changed in my being. So, you know, but over the years, I sort of dabbled in it, you know, I kind of come back to it and I found it on the dance floor. And I really found like, dancing really helped me with the soul work and, you know, I would take an astrology thing here and they're like, kind of like closet woo woo, you know. And then I found this program at, you know, at Columbia, right, like, fancy-pants ivy league school has this weird little thing called the Spirituality Mind Body Institute. And it's actually not woo woo. It's a bunch of researchers who have found evidence for the benefits of spiritual exploration and spiritual experience. And I was like, okay, it's coming out. Now it's time. You're going in! So I took that program, I quit my job and I am now working on the rites of passage stuff. Lisa Miller, the woman who founded the SMBI, the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, has done all kinds of really interesting research on the power of intergenerational spirituality. So she's she says that when a young person has a container, a community, you know, who are holding them in a place where they can explore "lowercase s" spiritual practices they're so much healthier, they have a much, much higher rate of... a much lower rate of depression, anxiety, self harm suicide, and it's like 60-ish percent; it's ridiculously powerful. Yeah, yeah, it's a big deal and it's sort of free. So it's kind of, you know, it's not like you have to like build a new school or have a mountain that you know... going off to the mountaintop or anything, you can just change your practices. So it's important for families and communities to know about that. One of my favorite things about ritual is that it can transcend space and time. What I mean by that is if there is something that happened in our past - maybe a hard time we went through all alone or a significant personal accomplishment that got overlooked by our friends and family - we can actually do ceremony for it now and bring some healing to both the past and present versions of ourselves. That may sound strange if you are new to the concept of ceremony. But if you do this work regularly, you know what I’m talking about. My first experience with this was when I read a book called “Red Flower: Rethinking Menstruation” by Dena Taylor. It inspired me to create the menarche ceremony that I never had. Because ritual transcends space and time, it didn’t matter that the ceremony took place 15 years after my first period. My inner 12-year-old was fully present and felt fully welcomed into womanhood that day. I asked Betty to reflect on her past and think of any transition she wished she had had a rite of passage for. In answering my question, she spoke about a very personal subject. She spoke about healing from an abortion. I’m pausing to give you a heads up now in case this subject is close to home for you or in case you are listening with children. Thomas: Are there any experiences in your past that you wish you could have had it rite of passage for? Ray: There are several. I had an abortion and that was the biggest source of shame ever. And I had no way of... I mean, I had… it was very difficult to like make peace with that or understand, you know... nobody talked about it. So, having some sort of a, you know, there's an Amanda Palmer song about an abortion… it’s a ceremony and it's beautiful and I sobbed the first time I heard it. I think having that would have been a good idea. It would have been a way to heal that in a way that was good for me. Although what I did do is I ended up moving out to California from Minnesota to honor that. It was like, I'm not ready to be a mom here. I'm gonna to go do whatever it takes for me to know that I can be a parent. And that means going out to California and sort of following an instinct that there's work out there for me that will not only be meaningful and enrich me but it will help others. Like I wanted to be able to have to have an authentic sense of myself in the world and I just had no way of doing that where I was. So coming out here was sort of that for me, but it wasn't the same and it was certainly not witnessed. No one knew about it. You know, that was my own sort of thing. Yeah. Thomas: Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I've heard that in the blood mysteries for women, that that's one of the blood mysteris, you know, that that's got that same depth as, or is considered in some circles by some healers to be, in the same depth of you know, menarche, menstruation, menopause, birth, and abortion, miscarriage even, you know, just that it's that it's that really deep, really, really deep place. Ray: It is. Thomas: Yeah. Ray: Well, yeah very confrontative because it forces you to look at your life in a way of like you're at this giant fork, right? And like, what are the resources over here? What is my capacity? What does that what does that life look like? And what is the life look like on the other direction? And they’re… you can't go through it unchanged because it causes such reflection and it causes such anguish and it's so... it's very complicated. So it definitely, you know, I think it just transforms you and so for me moving out here was like, “Thank you, Little Spirit.” You know, it was all in the attempt to, well, to be able to welcome that little spirit back someday. And I don't know that I did. I don't know if my daughter is the same little spirit, but certainly there is a little spirit now too. Thomas: Wow, thank you. I’m so very grateful to Betty for giving us the low down on the anatomy of a rite of passage and for sharing with us so vulnerably. I encourage you to think back and notice if there’s anything in your past it might have been helpful to have a rite of passage for. It’s not too late! Together with a close group of friends and family, people who can take your healing seriously and honor your story, you can go back and have the transition witnessed. Betty Ray is a speaker, author, and consultant who uses design thinking to co-create meaningful rites of passage to help her clients navigate transitions. Learn more about her work at bettyray.net. If you’re a parent or work with youth, be sure to catch her talk “We Must Initiate the Young People” on YouTube. Check our show notes for links to that plus more information about Arnold Van Gennep and also Lisa Miller of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to review it on Apple Podcasts. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.