Wild Sacred Journey Podcast

I'm always quite reflective around my birthday and this episode was recorded only a few days after my 40th. So you'll hear musings on: rites of passage; why I suspect the point of being human may actually be relationship; how posturing and collapse both lead to burnout; the possible connection between being risk averse and not experiencing unconditional belonging; why a linear concept of progress might support us thinking we can avoid consequences… and how that seems to catch up to us in midlife; why learning to steward consequence might be necessary to feeling at home in our bodies and the world;…and, of course, more. As always, I welcome hearing what you think.With love,KateP.S. The links I mentioned:Starter Kit: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/starter-kit1:1 bespoke guidance and support: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/individualAnd stay tuned for info about the roundhouse gatherings_____________________________You can find Kate:Website: www.wildsacredjourney.comEmail – kate@wildsacredjourney.comInstagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

Back in mid-October I received an email from long-time listener and spiritual development devotee Anne Ruel, sharing some thoughts and questionsep 49 had sparked for her as she considered questions of burnout, purpose anxiety, and integration in her own life and journey.I thought about responding in a solo episode but had a suspicion a real-time conversation between the two of us would be richer. So in early December, we sat down and chatted all things “integration”.Anne shared her story of starting with yoga and then moving further down the spiritual growth and development path through training after training (in yoga, energy healing modalities, life coaching, cacao ceremonies, etc)... and how she ended up feeling more burned out, alone, and lost than ever before. At the time, she hadn't heard of the idea of integration. And she admits that though she's beginning to suspect it was the missing piece for her, she feels mystified about what it actually is, how to know it's happening, and what signs might signal it's complete.So we get into it.Along the way, you'll hear us explore things like:the cultural rootlessness and lack of true mentors which leaves us with an immense inner hunger (and how capitalism wants us to feel that and why it can get us into trouble);reclaiming curiosity, depth, enoughness, our own power and self-responsibility, and the permission to do things differently;what wisdom actually is;the costs of coercive capitalism, prizing youth over older age, and punitive justice systems (and how those tie into integration, burn out, feeling lost and overwhelmed);setting boundaries (even with spirit guides and the things we love, partly as a way to maintain a sacred sense of connection);the relational dance of encountering Spirit and untangling ourselves over and over again;“peak experiences” as ruptures of our timeline;riding the “down wave” after a peak experience… (hopefully) without feeling like we're having a psychotic break;how we might find who we are and what our purpose is;and at what point in our spiritual development journey transformation actually happens (hint: it might not be what you're used to thinking it is)…and more.As you can probably tell from that list, this is a deep (and lengthy) conversation. This might be one you want to listen to in chunks. I listened in for if there was a good place to edit it into two episodes, but decided to leave it intact as one. I leave it to you to find your right pacing for listening.And I do hope you'll listen. And share if it resonates. From where I stand, integration is one of the key (often missing) pieces to navigating the spiritual and wellness world with more integrity - whether we're there to deepen our own journey, or as a guide/ teacher/ facilitator for others. We need more conversations like this.Join us around the fire? You're most welcome here.And thanks, Anne, for reaching out with your questions, sharing your story and hard-earned wisdom, and joining me in this conversation. (P.S. If you're a listener and find yourself with questions, musings, etc after an episode - feel free to reach out. Maybe we can have a conversation, too) ___________________________________You can find Kate:Website: www.wildsacredjourney.comEmail –kate@wildsacredjourney.comInstagram: @wildsacredjourney_kpAnd if you want to connect with Anne, feel free to pass a message through me by my email above.

Back in November, Kate Graham (who you may remember from episode 40) interviewed me as part of her Oracle Mountain Chats - a series of conversations with the speakers and visionaries of the first ever OracleFest. I really enjoyed our conversation and thought I'd share it with you all here. You'll hear us chat about:  titles and roles like “oracle” or “shaman” in modern times; why I think the practice of animist kinship might have kept our ancestors from experiencing burnout; how our disdain for our pre-industrial ancestors might keep us disconnected from wisdom and possibility; the call of these times to reclaim our humanity and what practices might bring us there; what forces are shaping us and how they leave us feeling broken and flawed; our purpose individually and as humans; the one practice I'd like to suggest or invite people into in these times; some more of my own “healing journey” …and more OracleFest Online will be happening Jan 31-Feb 2, 2025. You can still join us if you want to: https://oraclefest.com/?aff=kate_wildsacredjourney ________________________ Otherwise, you can find me: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

I had plans for a different podcast episode today. But I need more rest and spaciousness in my day. Perhaps you do, too.  In fact, I'm quite confident you do. So this episode is not just about rest and why it's probably so key at this moment in the year… but also an actual invitation to rest.  Set a timer. I'll get you started.  Let's rest more. With love, Kate P.S. If you're interested in Insight 2025, you can find more info or purchase yours here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/tarot-for-2025 (It's available for purchase until Jan 16th, 2025). _______________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

Are we manifesting? Are we practicing unattachment to results? Are we trying to create a new us, a better us? How do we even know what a better us might be or look like? Are we good enough as we are? If so, what's the point, what drives us into any kind of action? There's a lot that feels confusing and overwhelming at this time of year. So here, on a new moon at the beginning of a new year, I talk about the rhythms of planting, tending, harvesting, evaluating which are available to us at many points throughout the year. I also muse about hunger and desire and some of the pitfalls we can fall into when we're manifesting from our modern ways of perceiving and relating to the world, as opposed to more ancestral and animist ways of perceiving and relating (and how that can affect our burnout and purpose anxiety). And I share a method that seems to be working well for me (hint - it's not a word-based theme and I'll also tell you why I suspect that didn't work for me). Whatever your way of honoring this moment in time, may you find a way to wield your desires on behalf of more beautiful and meaningful relationships with the world. And may you move in the direction of a most honest and loving aliveness, expressing itself through you. With love, Kate P.S. If you're interested in Insight 2025, you can find more info or purchase yours here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/tarot-for-2025 ____________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

A quick bonus episode with some thoughts around burnout and the holiday season and what we might consider in order to honor a more ancestral rhythm. First conceived in late November, then recorded a week or so ago, the rhythm of bringing this episode to you demonstrates my own honoring of this rhythm. No rush. Everything in its time. If you do want to join us in the virtual roundhouse for an experiential exploration and re-imagining of how our longer ago ancestors would have gathered for ceremony and story; as a way to keep themselves human, whole, connected, and alive at this time of longest night and the return of the sun… we'll be gathering on Dec 20th (tomorrow from when this episode actually goes live). You can find more info or save your spot: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/winter-solstice-in-the-roundhouse Here's to rest, the fruitful darkness, and the blessed return of the light. With love, Kate __________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.” - Wendell Berry Tad Hargrave, one of our guests in today's episode, likes to reference this quote. And seeing a need to call people back into their humanity, finding ways to help them go about their days with more goodness and beauty, is something at the heart of both of our work. We also both love stories and myths. In fact, we talked about those very things in episode 38. Recently, he's been teaming up with Kakisimow Iskwew (aka Natalie Pepin) - a Metis Cultural Educator who helps guide Indigenous people reclaiming their culture to connect with their living teachings around art, food, language and connection to spirit. And together, they're offering deep spirals into the story ‘Briar Rose' as a way of beginning to access indigenous cultural memory of Mother Europe. I jumped at the chance to have them both gather with me here to spiral around some of the big, important questions many of us who want to live as creatures and want to do something about the ugliness which seems to be everywhere in the world today seem to be grappling with and wondering about. Questions like: What is culture? And if we're ‘white' or of European descent (particularly if we live in so-called ‘North America'), do we have ‘culture'? How are we defining indigenous - as an identity or something else? What does it mean that stories hold memory? How do we navigate the hunger, the thirst, the grief and shame which seem to be in so many of us these days as we reach for something meaningful and nourishing? And if we find some deeper roots, and they feel like their ‘ours', how do we go about honoring them in a good way? Since we recorded the conversation, I attended a three-hour online version of their spiral into Briar Rose and the story is still resonating within me and moving me in ways that aren't ready to be articulated yet; but are inviting me into deeper relationship, into protocol, with the story itself and the living culture it's carrying. May this conversation be a way of growing more culture - may it offer you some soil, or perhaps the glimpse of some roots, an idea of where to dig to find something which invites you back into deeper humanity.  And if you're feeling the call, I highly recommend their work with Briar Rose. You can find more about it here: https://meetingmyancestors.com/briar-rose/  __________________ As always - if this conversation moves you in some way, please help share and pass it on to others you think might also be moved. This type of sharing helps feed these conversations and the work we're up to in the world. Find Tad: https://tadhargrave.substack.com/ Find Natalie/ Kakisimow Iskwew: https://meetingmyancestors.com/ Find Kate: www.wildsacredjourney.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Back in late August, I sat down to have a flowing, juicy conversation with the wise, down-to-Earth Tamy Roloff (herbal tea seller, coach, midwife, mother and grandmother) around aliveness and aging; and more specifically the question: is it inevitable that we settle in to die with little excitement or joy for the future beyond retirement prospects?  Along the way, we also explore: spirituality; plants as friends; ancestral ways and animism; women's life cycles and seasons; how being a woman is often framed as a negative thing and other ways we might be able see it; pain avoidance, mindset, and how that affects our ability to find pleasure and our own rhythms; community and living counter-culturally; travel and how it opens us to other ways of seeing ourselves and the world; possible benefits to loneliness; self-trust; …and more. Join us around the fire? You're most welcome here. _____________________ And if you've come for Tamy, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations exploring the question: in dehumanizing times, what might help us stay human and be more fully alive? You can find Tamy: Website: wholisticwomantea.com Instagram: WholisticW Facebook: Wholistic Woman YouTube: WholisticWomanTea You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What if your fear of being seen as lazy is wasting your fire and contributing to your burnout? And what if what we've been taught to consider as laziness is our body and brain trying to recalibrate back to more sustainable cycles of efforting and rest? __________ Your desire to contribute and make a difference is a genuine and beautiful thing… and when it gets entangled with (often unconscious and unexamined) societal conditioning around the evils of laziness and the glories of productivity… we end up primed for burnout. But we need our fire. In these times, perhaps, more than ever.  We need to be able to face challenges in less exhausting, more pleasurable ways. We need to work rest into our cycles of efforting so we can keep going. Tune in to hear me share these thoughts and some exercises I've found to be helpful. Try them with me and let me know how it goes?  I'd love to hear.  Here's to climbing our mountains, Kate ______________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Last weekend I made a hat. I took a pile of wool fibers and turned them into something functional and beautiful for my head. And since then, how wool fulls and felts has been popping to mind as a metaphor for relationship and community building. In the wake of the US elections, I felt drawn to share some of these musings with you and go a little deeper into why I believe these ancestral skills practices, alongside more animist and ancestral wisdom and healing traditions, make for a potent store house for our individual and collective humanity. So which relationships make up the threads in the fabric of you? Which do you not feel so full without? Which frictions and differences are actually serving to make you stronger and more resilient? Which are too much and risk tearing or damaging the cloth of you? Which are not enough to encourage the bonding needed for us all to become? Where can you turn to be reminded of your humanity? How are you passing humanity down to the ones who will come after? I'd love to hear.  Here's to being stronger together. Here's to staying human and staying alive. With love, Kate ________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What distinguishes a pilgrimage from everyday life? Did our long-ago ancestors suffer from burnout or purpose anxiety? And, if not, why? These are two main questions I'm exploring at the one month mark of being back in Scotland after my epic ancestral pilgrimage here (and in Ireland) last year. You'll hear me muse about: what being on pilgrimage means and whether we can practice it even if we can't leave home; connecting with our ancestral tapestries through food, language, song, and story; what might be possible if we brought more wonder, magic, and vulnerability back to the small moments of life; why I suspect our ancestors didn't struggle with purpose anxiety; if worrying about purpose is actually a way of seeking validation; a basic definition of ‘integration'; … and more. Do you have ways of practicing pilgrimage (whether through travel or at home)? What is your way of being curious about the universe? I'd love to hear.  Here's to wonder and questions and the magic of aliveness, Kate ________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Have you heard the expression: “the veil is thin”? And do you have an experience of what that means? This bonus episode is in honor of what the celtic culture would call Samhain (though plenty of cultures around the world have other celebrations at this time of year honoring the ancestors and marking this moment of the thinning veil). In this episode, you'll hear me muse on  what I think a “thin veil” means; where this particular season fits into the larger seasonal cycles and rhythms of aliveness; how working with the season might support us in burnout recovery or keep us from entering into burnout… and more. I also offer some self-inquiry prompts to perhaps hold lightly as you attend to the seasonal themes of clearing space and harvest. Although most of the episode is geared towards the Northern Hemisphere, I offer some brief thoughts for those in the Southern Hemisphere at this point of your Imbolc, too. Many blessings for our journey into the cave, Kate __________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Have you experienced the grief of wondering whether your life, whether YOU, have any purpose? Only to try thing after thing while seeking your purpose; ultimately ending up more uncertain and confused? And burned out now on top of it? You're not alone. This episode is in response to a listener who wrote to me after listening to my Episode 49 on Wellness World Pitfalls if we're not including shadow work. She was drawing some connection between what she heard in my episode and an interview she heard with Elizabeth Gilbert which touched on purpose anxiety. She found herself curious about this connection and the practice and process of integration. She wondered if I had any thoughts. Turns out, I do.  Enough that there will be more than one episode on this subject. This first one focuses on my perspective on Purpose Anxiety - what it is; why we seem to struggle with it; and a redefinition of ‘purpose' which might be helpful (and undermine the idea that you need more trainings, more approaches).  Now, it's the first time I've tried to articulate some of these thoughts out loud, so they may not be their most coherent and easily digestible yet. They're still fairly web-y.  But I have tears come twice in this episode, so there's something juicy here. Tune if you're curious: What, even, is our ‘purpose'… and why do we seem to find ourselves anxious about it? What do late-stage capitalism and empire have to do with why we find it hard to feel like we have purpose? What's the role of ‘individuality' in a “we're all one” world? Why can't I seem to find my purpose by myself? (and more) What do you think about ‘purpose' as being relational? Or what stood out to you most in this episode? I'd love to hear. Your wonderings and impressions just might spawn a whole ‘nother series of episodes! We can also engage in beautiful back and forth, oral and collective wisdom-making, together through conversations at a Wisdom Wednesday call. First Wednesdays of the month. You can find more info or register for the next one here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays With so much passion for your truest expression, Kate _______________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Holding feet to fire here. With compassion, of course... This episode is in response to many of the pitfalls I see on social media and in real life spiritual/ wellness circles. Things like: how much harm still gets perpetuated in spiritual spaces; how much burnout and long-term ineffectiveness is still prevalent; finding a space or group which seems to be doing things differently, only to realize it's the same ol' better-than, power-over shit… just with more incense and crystals; being burned by teachers and practitioners who turned out to be on an ego trip - wanting you to somehow validate them and their insecurities by being just like them; Or, being that practitioner who has a sneaking suspicion, in spite of your best intentions, you're using your clients/ students to soothe your wounds? And these outcomes seem inevitable, given the cultures that we've been raised in and the lack of elders we have to show us a different way. It's how we wield the tools of ancestral wisdom traditions and spiritual practices, just like any other tool, which determines the outcome of its use - help or hurt? This is where I see perspective and mirroring, shadow work and nervous system maintenance as being key, often missed and usually unglamorous, steps in our growth process. So tune if you're curious: What happens to our spiritual practices, our healing journey, if we're all light and no shadow work?  What happens if we do certification after certification or ceremony after ceremony and don't integrate?  What might be the outcome of prioritizing the flashy over the unglamorous maintenance work?  I believe our answers to these questions matter deeply if we want a world which looks more humane, more just, more loving, and more balanced and harmonious. These questions might help point the way back to some sort of right relationship. In fact, these questions might help point the way back to some sort of right relationship with these ancient wayfinding practices; a relationship with them where they're the compass leading us through inexperience and cultural immaturity, and out into deeper wisdom and more intactness. What stood out to you most in this episode? Did any of it leave you feeling uncomfortable? If so, I'd love to hear. And if you'd like to explore 1:1 work, I'm in the process of updating that page on my website so best right now is to email me and we can discern if we're a fit. We can also keep this conversation going on a Wisdom Wednesday call. First Wednesdays of the month. You cna find more info or register for the next one here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays With so much fierce compassion, Kate ___________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Happy Autumn Equinox! Our modern cultures often view things like progress as being very linear. One of the side effects of this is swinging between extremes like a pendulum - in the case of cycles of burnout, we swing between being full on and being shut down… with very little space in between. But our long-ago ancestors understood cycles very differently, in part because they observed the seasons - they practiced noticing the subtle shifts and transitions. And they viewed cycles as spiral or more circular. This allows us to be in a rhythm, rather than feeling ourselves at the mercy of extremes. If we can reclaim these practices and seasonal celebrations, perhaps we can notice the seasons of our own lives with more richness and complexity… and catch the signs it's time to rest before burnout has to take us out completely. This episode uses the story of The Descent of Persephone, to muse about shifting from linear pendulum arcs to spiral cycles. I also offer some self-inquiry prompts to perhaps hold lightly as you attend to the seasonal themes of clearing space and harvest. Although most of the episode is geared towards the Northern Hemisphere, I offer some brief thoughts for those in the Southern Hemisphere at this point of your Spring Equinox, too. Many blessings for this harvest season and the shadow of the eclipses, Kate P.S. If you'd like more info in working with me 1:1, you can email me - that webpage is under construction. And if considering joining Sanctuary, you can find that info: www.wildsarecjourney.com/sanctuary. _________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

As a shadow moves across the moon today, I offer you my perspective on shadow work - what it is and how it connects to burnout.  The term shadow work is getting thrown around a lot these days, so if you're someone who:  is curious to hear how I understand it;  struggles with feeling hijacked by younger versions of you seemingly out of the blue;  can't quite seem to bridge the gap between knowing better and doing better; wants to know how soul retrievals and codependency are linked; or feels deeply empty and can't figure out why a few days of rest don't seem to be enough to bring you back from burnout…  this is an episode you may want to tune in to. What stood out to you most in this episode? Did any of it “ping”?  If so, I'd love to hear. And if you'd like to explore 1:1 work, I'm in the process of updating that page on my website so best right now is to email me and we can discern if we're a fit. If you think you'd like to join Sanctuary, we start Sun Sep 29th and you can find more info: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/sanctuary Blessings for this time of change, Kate __________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Have you found yourself thinking, “I can either burn it all down or die,” yet both of those options feel too costly? While that may feel like an incredibly uncomfortable and desperate, or even hopeless, moment (I know, I've been there); I offer it's actually a pivotal and precious one. It's aliveness inviting you back. In this episode I share what I see as being the case in those moments, the nervous system and whole soulful-human context, and what I believe the best next step is so you can set yourself up to engage with the gifts of this crossroads, this realignment. What do you think? Is this accurate to your experience? Does creating space make sense? Does it leave you with more questions? If so, I'd love to hear. And if you'd like some more direct coaching or engagement with me around this topic - Wisdom Wednesdays happens the first Wednesday of each month and you're welcome there.  And in September 2024, we're enrolling our second cohort for Sanctuary - six months of spacious, low-urgency monthly gatherings. It might not move the needle on getting you more space, but it offers a place to connect in low-pressure, come-as-you-are ways… which might feel like a really significant little bit of nourishment. Find more about both of these through my website. With appreciation, Kate ________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

“Am I doing enough?” How often do you find yourself wondering that? As you look at the pain of the world, in moments of challenges in your close relationships, about your own growth journey? And how does that question leave you feeling? If you're like me, or a lot of the clients I see, or many of my friends… you probably ask this pretty often. And it probably leaves you feeling more stressed, paralyzed and overwhelmed, burnt out. But there's a beautiful invitation hidden in that question, once we get past the fear and the truth that we might not be.  So this episode is my take on how we can let that question bring us home to ourselves and back to more aliveness. I cover: what's happening in your nervous system when you find yourself asking it; how you can use the discomfort of the question for good; a simple (and maybe even kind of fun way) to stop measuring your answer with outside metrics and instead start playing and exploring; and why this might actually help you create the world you want to see - in the life you already have. Did you give the steps/ reframe a try? If so, I'd love to hear how it went. With appreciation, Kate __________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

When people are skeptical about “animal guides” or “plant teachers,” part of the criticism usually revolves around the question: “how do you know you're not just making it up to justify things?” Answer: You don't. Not really. But we are meaning-making creatures. And we are observant. Much of our scientific and academic knowledge pursuits are based around the idea of being an impartial observer. As though we could somehow separate ourselves from the world we are observing. As if we aren't all innately and intimately interconnected. As if we are somehow a problem or a contamination of Life, rather than a piece of it. As if we don't belong. How exhausting, to try and maintain that level of separation between ourselves and our environment. How lonely, too. Could this be part of our modern epidemic of burnout? And what might happen if we let our observations of a plant or an animal bring us a message or some wisdom? Would that leave us feeling emptier than we were before? Or more alive? In my experience, it's almost always the second. Today's podcast episode is an example of how beyond-human kin, science, and folk tales can be teachers and inspire curiosity and insight into how to be alive.  Note: I'm no scientist, although I feel deep love, wonder and curiosity for the natural world. So please be patient with any misspeaks that may be present in this episode. I'm relating to the natural world in the way most natural to me. It's not the only way, and it is valid. I've always loved moss and recently I've been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's book, “Gathering Moss”. So you'll get to hear my current moss-prompted musings on burnout, feeling somewhere between death and life, surviving, thriving, and little glimmers of nourishment. Woven in with the book-inspired musings is a synopsis of the old English tale “Mossycoat” - a Cinderella-like story of initiation, but with the magic of moss at the center. Anything that particularly stood out to you from this episode? Anything you'd like to hear more on? I'd love to hear. With appreciation, Kate P.S. If you have questions, want to chat about this more, or had an aha come up you would be interested in processing a little further, you might want to consider joining me for Wisdom Wednesday (next one is August 7th). It's a PWYC ‘office hours'-style gathering just for your questions. You can find out more or register: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays _______________________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

This bonus episode explores the ancestral harvest holidays, like Lammas and Lughnasadh, generally celebrated on August 1st, and marking the beginning of the harvest of storage crops and the subtle shift towards Fall. I muse on what the practice of these holidays, the themes and perspectives they invite, might have to show us about burnout. And I share some agricultural context for the season and some questions you might want to sit with to guide your decisions about how and where to dig deep and spend your energy in preparation for fallow cycles in your own life. Although most of the episode is geared towards the Northern Hemisphere, I offer some brief thoughts for those in the Southern Hemisphere, too. Did this illuminate anything for you? If so, feel free to share. With appreciation, Kate P.S. If you have questions, want to chat about this more, or had an aha come up you would be interested in processing a little further, you might want to consider joining me for Wisdom Wednesday (next one is August 7th). It's a PWYC ‘office hours'-style gathering just for your questions. You can find out more or register: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays _______________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

This episode marks a shift (at least for now) in the format of these podcast episodes. Instead of sitting around the fire, we're moving through the world.  Instead of longer and deeper, we're aiming for more bite-sized (hopefully without losing nuance). And, at least for now, you'll mostly just be hearing from me. These changes are prompted in part by the needs of my own life, and in part as a response to the world and what it seems like we're all needing in these times. We need more movement, more time outside (walk with me as you listen, perhaps?). And we need less of pretty much everything else when it comes to consumption and taking in. As you'll hear me share in the episode, part of my post-pilgrimage integration has been continuing to reflect on burnout - the causes, cost, and antidote. I started my trip depleted, I ended up alive. And I've been curiously tracking that within myself since to see what the causes were, how our lives seem to predispose us to burnout, and what the possibilities might be if we can end that cycle.  While there's a lot I could say on the subject (and you'll continue to hear me explore), in this episode I focus more on:  burnout vs aliveness as questions of energetic balance; my suspicion that burnout is a modern ‘ailment'; noticing and responding to a cycle of burnout before it gets too bad; linear progress vs cycles as two rhythms - and only one allows for aliveness; and why this matters for the world. Let me know if this stirred any thoughts. I'd also love to hear initial impressions on this new format.  And if you know another sensitive, soulful human who struggles with burnout from trying to fit into the middle when they belong on the edges, and you think they might like this episode, feel free to share this. May we stay human. May we create worlds of vibrant aliveness. With care, Kate You can find me: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

If we assume that because we've been born and are not yet dead, we're alive… is there a cost? What is aliveness, after all? And how many times will I eat soap? This is an episode about aliveness. An episode about cycles of rupture and repair. An episode where I share a silly story about me eating soap (multiple times, to date!) and some of my own journey from being unaware to being more in rhythm with life. A few months shy of this podcast's second birthday, and inspired in a few ways by my conversation with Tad Hargrave (ep 38) and work I'm doing in his Marketing for Hippies Membership, this is an episode where I tune back into the question these conversation coalesce around: what does it mean to be human… and what if being human, being alive, isn't inevitable? You'll hear: how decreasing aliveness and interrupted rupture-repair cycles seem connected to me; the way I see aliveness trying to manifest itself through us now; the three planes of existence and the three main alchemical ingredients I see as necessary for repair after rupture (and in any attempt to align ourselves again with life); why certain modalities may only take us so far… and more. Since much of this conversation seems to land squarely at the heart of how I see the world (and my work within it), I would love to hear from you: what pinged? What do you disagree with or have more questions about? Any thoughts/ impressions? You can email me: kate@wildsacredjourney.com. I'd love to hear. May we find again our rhythm in the cycles of rupture and repair - in moments when that's easy and in moments when we have a lot of skin in the game. May we see our aliveness as a precious gift to be stewarded with care. May we remember Love as the necessary ingredient in all things. And may we learn our lessons so we don't have to keep eating soap… or at the very least, eat less of it each time. ______________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

How do we say ‘yes' to life, without saying ‘no' to death? How do we “rise to the occasion” and “wrestle something good” from the heartbreak of a terminal diagnosis? What does it look like to “become familiar with grief and uncertainty in intimate ways”? Today's virtual fire-side conversation about being human and being alive is with Duncan Passmore - husband, father, writer, and woodworker of 20 years - as he shares his story and the story of his son, Torin, diagnosed at a young age with Pearson syndrome, a rare and incurable mitochondrial disorder. It's a story of life and death, grief and beauty; punctuated with the power of story, the mystery of ceremony, the practice of craft and community… and the building of boats. It's also a way of inviting you, if you feel able and called to, to weave into the community Torin has inspired and contribute to Duncan's family's GoFundMe; raising the funds to support them spending six months with Torin's presence and his memory as they build a boat and sail it on Lake Windermere - a request of Torin's he didn't live to see fulfilled. As someone grappling in my own ways (as most of us are) with fears, griefs, and the way life laughs at plans; as someone who believes in the power of community, of cultures devoted to full-spectrum aliveness, mystery, story, and ceremony; this feels like a deeply worthy story to share and a deeply worthy endeavor to support. Join us around the fire? You're most welcome here. May we shed the armor which keeps us trying to hold off what is. May we become vulnerable enough and brave enough to share our stories so community might find us and, when the time comes, hold us. May we use our hands and heart to craft beauty from grief so we might fully embody at least some small part of what it seems to mean to be human and to be alive. May Torin's presence and memory live on through the ripples of his story and the way it disarms us and invites us to rise to the occasion of our own lives. You can find out more about the project and become a part of the prayerful building of the boat through Duncan's GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/9983ec87 Please also consider sharing the GoFundMe so we can continue casting the net wider and weaving more people into this story. They're at 50% as of the recording/ publishing of this episode and have until June 9th to make it the rest of the way. P.S. My Zoom seems to have finally caught up to the version with the floating reaction videos - so please excuse the random thumbs up and balloons which seem to pop up at strange and slightly inappropriate times. _____________________ And if you've come for Duncan, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that aim to awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What if the very things which challenge our ability to ‘fix' or ‘produce' in the ways we're used to are the things which bring us closer to sacredness? I recorded this episode a month ago, right after I recorded the ‘Sacredness: Part 1' episode and while grief and uncertainty were right under the surface of my skin. Like with Sacredness Part 1, I ended up adding in some updates and edits as I was prepping to release. Like with Sacredness Part 1, my wonderings are raw and full of prevarication. You won't find many sound bites or clear-cut answers here. Instead you'll hear me drawing threads of understanding and insight together in real time, while being a mouthpiece for something that might be wisdom (or maybe not?) to come through. You'll hear me muse further on: What we should perhaps be looking for in our guides and mentors; A saying I heard in a yoga class and why I think it's short-sighted as far as a spiritual and cultural approach goes; My understanding of the term ‘shaman' and why it might help us to stop thinking we all can or should be one; How language can affect our ability to be in right relationship with ceremony, with the sacred, with the medicine we each carry; The language of energy as our birthright; The role of the messy and uncomfortable in our initiations and becoming; Ceremony vs navel-gazing; And a part of my journey I don't speak about much, but which seems to be pointing me to…. something.  When the road of words and doing and fixes runs out, may we arrive at the profound and terrifying silence. And in this silence, may we meet ourselves stripped bare. And when we find ourselves stripped bare, may we hold the present of what really matters in our hands and heart. And may we realize we were only ever beautiful and worthy. May we finally realize what it is to be alive. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

If we held up a laugh-meter (like the one from Monsters, Inc) what would our laugh levels be? and Why do we just feel drawn to certain places? and Do our ancestors matter? and Is it possible to befriend crows while being a nomad? These are the types of questions (serious and silly) you'll hear around today's fire where I'm joined by the ever-optimistic, comedy-loving Kate Graham -  a shamanic oracle and creator of the Empath Energetics intuition development and archetypal healing program. With training in hypnotherapy, yin and restorative yoga, thai yoga massage, aromatherapy, reflexology and shamanism, Kate uses her experiences to teach people how to trust their own bodies and hearts. She has also worked on an alpaca farm, lived nomadically in a van, and moved to manage a retreat in the Scottish Highlands, all in the name of intuition. So for those of you familiar with my story (goatherd turned organic farmer turned yoga teacher turned shamanic practitioner turned nomad… etc) you can imagine that we have a lot of shared conversation topics… and they will wander through territory deep, wise, irreverent, visionary, and most likely sort of meaningless, too. Topics like: tuning into the energy of lands and locations; how we might be selling our long-ago ancestors short; the beauty of it taking all kinds; why did we put structures which hold us in place into place?; moving from hopelessness to optimism; what remembering ancestral ways of meaning-making, healing, celebrating, and integrating have meant for us personally; the balance of light and dark; the role of tricksters, crows, and comedians in society; the difference between healers who put things back together and healers who walk the edges with you; why healing work can feel so hard and exhausting sometimes and some shifts in approach which might make it easier; how love and abolition are teaching us right now… and more. This is a longer conversation because we just kept riffing off each other. But watching it back as I was preparing these notes, I kept finding myself laughing and wondering about things all over again.  Join us around the fire? You're most welcome here. May we each find the gift of our part in things and the places, people, and rituals to nurture those sparks. May we laugh more than we think we should and be free to flow where our medicine is most useful and our hearts feel most alive. May we have the courage and trust to come undone and rediscover something of even greater beauty. May we love our boundaries and therefore be able to love everyone. May we befriend the crows. You can find Kate G: Heartsfrontier.com YouTube @heartsfrontier Instagram @shamanicoraclekate And if you've come for Kate G, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Can we be human and not believe in sacredness? What does ‘sacred' even mean?  The energy of these times in this moment of full moon, Spring equinox, and lunar eclipse feels deeply challenging, beautiful, and initiatory. And I had a message come through as I meditated one night about what sacredness actually is: “Sacredness is not what we do, or even what we feel - it's a quality of presence and listening which allows for some magic, some alchemy and potential for relationship to occur.” So in honor of the challenge, hungers, hopes and dreams of this moment, I offer you my musings on sacredness and what that message means. You'll hear about: intuition vs illusion; a colonial mindset about our relationship with the land and the animist alternative; why witnessing is one of the greatest gifts we can give; how we struggle to recognize the sacred and now how to be with it; ritual vs ceremony; trauma vs initiation; … and more. What does sacred mean to you? And do you think you can be human without some sense of the sacred? I'd love to hear your perspective. May we be changed by the process of our lives and our loves. May we let wonder guide us deeper. May we trust the unfolding of our journey and have people around us who see the intact innocence of hearts and help us stand for that in ourselves and others. Always. P.S. This episode constitutes a first because the theme of sacredness has been working me since I recorded it and showing me some places where I remain out of alignment with what I say I'm standing for. So I've gone back in to cut out a few small parts I originally shared. They deserve more gatekeeping (not as a power move, but as relational discernment) than I had given them. So thanks for being with me as I put what I preach into action.

The Spring Equinox (referred to in several European countries as some version of ‘Ostara') is midway between Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice and a day of equal dark and light - the day and night are the same length. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is a time of blossoming, of unfurling, of tending the soil and placing new seeds. (The Southern Hemisphere celebrates the Fall Equinox and the equal light and dark on the way to endings and the shorter days of winter). We're also beginning the astrological new year as the sun moves from Pisces into Aries and begins its next cycle through the zodiac. And we're entering eclipse season which symbolically can be seen as a time to let the shadows show us new perspectives on the natural order of things.  It's a potent time of fiery energies and, possibly, deep wounds and griefs. So can we remember that the dark soil is fruitful for growth and all new life springs forth from what has decayed? That the quickening which began in February may now be in labor contractions and that we have to surrender the outcomes and allow ourselves to be changed to fully live the mystery of rebirth and initiatory portals. This is as much a time of unbecoming as it is a time to celebrate new life.  Gather with me around this virtual fire and you'll hear me flesh these ideas out more (and give you an embodied breath practice to explore your relationship to these times); as well as offer some ways you can celebrate, honor, or otherwise align yourself with the season. And I'd love to keep hearing from you: How are you celebrating this brief moment of equilibrium on our way to longer days? How are you noticing or honoring the endings necessary for beginnings and tending the soil in which you're entrusting your new seeds? May we find the rest and the down cycles as we stretch toward the light. May the soils we tend nurture the seeds of compassion, connection, and freedom in ourselves, our communities, and the wider world. May we not forget that a life is just one piece of the greater churning of Aliveness and may we be in service to the holy tension of opposites, as Love.   ** Photo of the Sheela Na Gig carving is by Graham Hobster. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

It's been a while since I've had a guest around the fire for a host of reasons but today, for this new moon, I'm joined by Tad Hargrave of Marketing for Hippies (among other culture-making endeavors). I got to meet Tad back in October in Edinburgh where we were both in town for the Scottish International Storytelling Festival and enjoyed our post-story session conversations around mutual interests of culture, myths, ancestral wisdom, and being human and humane.  I'm delighted to be able to invite you into conversation with him, too. Tad currently lives in Duncan, BC, though he hails from Edmonton, AB (traditionally known, in the local indigenous language of the Cree, as Amiskwaciy (Beaver Hill) and later Amiskwaciwaskihegan (Beaver Hill House) and his ancestors come primarily from Scotland with some from the Ukraine as well. His bio page on his website has several different versions and is a testament to what I would name as the meeting point of wandering, wondering curiosity and depth of connection. At the core, it seems Tad has always been interested in stories, craft, music, leadership, building community around positive change, and creating events for people to come together to make good things happen. He's also an accomplished sleight of hand magician and speaks Scottish Gaelic with conversational fluency! So what will you hear in this conversation?  Join us for our musings around: moving beyond the individual to a reverent acknowledgement of the line we came from; ancestral wisdom, preserved with us in mind, and encoded in stories and other folklore; why stories had to be changed to survive and how we can flesh the bones back out again to find the deeper meaning; the difference between stories and spells; the cultural wealth still present in Europe in spite of rupture and colonization; what it might mean to be more human, especially as our ancestors might have conceived of it; what the function of culture is and how it's created; the difference between how empire views evolution and how nature seems to view it; how ethical marketing ties in with it all… and more. There's a lot packed into this conversation - with some wisdom, curiosity, grief, and gratitude. And, to paraphrase the Martín Prechtel quote Tad shares towards the end of the conversation, an attempt to be beautiful on the way to some answers.   What does being more human mean to you? We'd love to hear. You're welcome here with us around the fire. May we fall in love with the world around us and let ourselves be moved by that love into beautiful action. You can find Tad: Website – https://marketingforhippies.com/ Substack - https://tadhargrave.substack.com/ And if you've come for Tad, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

I'm not going to pretend I think this is one of my best episodes. In fact, it feels like it's one of my most rambling and least ‘helpful'. But it's my birthday today and sometimes we get to just be human, not a' helpful' ‘resource'. Sometimes good enough is just that. So join me around the fire for a short and sweet episode and to hear my raw, unpolished wonderings about ritual; ceremony; thresholds; grieving and celebrating - both alone and together; and the absolute miracle of being alive. I also offer you a game, if you will, you can join me in playing as a way of celebrating my birthday. If you do, let me know how it goes. I'd love to hear. May we explore and let the Great Mystery guide us into unplanned play from time to time. May we honor our grief as well as our dreams. May we experience and receive the nourishment of belonging to ourselves, each other, and the wider web of kin and aliveness. May we know where we are through gratitude for exactly who and what we are. In times of darkness and despair, may we come home again to Love. Here's to another turn around the sun. (And yes, that's me as a baby in the cover art for this episode) You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What do you think of when you think of violence and peace? Antidote? Opposite sides of a coin?  As you're probably aware, the through-thread of my wonderings and conversations in this podcast is a question: in the face of the dehumanizing forces of the world, how do we devote ourselves to more humanity?  And in these times, questions around peace, violence, and justice feel deeply relevant and urgent to questions of humanity.  So on this new moon, join me around the fire for some of my heartfelt musings around: violence, peace, culture; what I think many wellness spaces are missing; and what I view as the orienting principle we need as we navigate a world of both dualism and non-dualism. You'll hear my take on four ‘messy' emotions we often vilify within ourselves and how we can begin to shift our inner cultures of punishment, rupture, and exile to ones more aligned with our values of peace, love, and harmony (spoiler alert: it's not by training ourselves away from these emotions!).  The creation of anything starts in the head as an idea and vision, then it has to move through the heart to the hands and legs. We have to be it, move as it, in order to create it. What do you think? Did this episode shift your perspective or experience? Is there anything I missed? I'd love to keep hearing from you. May we be the change we want to see. May we liberate ourselves to liberate others and vice versa. May abolition begin with our wounded, exiled selves. May we come to know the difference between shame and loving accountability. May we see it, feel it, be it. May Love be our North Star. _____________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Imbolc is a Cross Quarter celebration - midway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox; widely celebrated on February 1st each year, although in 2024 the astrologically-derived date is Feb 4 or 5. But at its heart, it tells us we are at the beginning of the beginning of Spring and invites us to take note of the subtle shifts which herald a larger transition, the tension of opposites and contradictions which exist uncomfortably side by side in any threshold. “Use this time to close and prepare, change is happening.” I've been speaking a lot recently about transitions and integrations as I continue to metabolize my massively expansive experience of a four-month pilgrimage and stay open to what feels like big changes coming. And in this bonus episode, I continue that: using this nature-based celebratory marker and deep-lineage tradition to remind me (and you) that there is nothing in nature which moves abruptly from one thing to another and that sometimes we just need to be ‘in retrograde' ourselves.  After all, we are each innately and unavoidably the meeting point of innumerable threads of what has been, what is, what could be, and what will be. And to be alive, wholly and fully alive, is to dance back and forth between those. The trajectory of a journey isn't linear. Case and point? This episode: which is still working me, even after I finished recording, and which is just one snapshot of an understanding which has continued to grow since yesterday. Heraclitus wasn't lying when he said we can never step in the same river twice. So, if you're at a threshold and finding yourself annoyed, discouraged, frustrated, disheartened, flailing, “back where you started”, and generally “failing to move forward”, “get on with it”, etc… join me around the fire.  We'll be messy and find proof that we're designed to be so, together. And I'd love to keep hearing from you: Did this shift anything for you in your perspective or relationship with a threshold or transition you're navigating right now? How are you noticing or honoring the gradual shift from Winter to Spring? May we remember that just enough tension on the warp threads, the underlying architecture of our own selves, allows us to weave new beauty. May we remember the aesthetic pleasure of irregular rhythms, trustworthy not in their linearity but in their roving cycles. May we look to Nature, not to reinforce what we think we know, but to be eldered and continually taught of the perfection of complex designs. May we not make too comfortable a home in either where we've been or where we hope to go, but rather recognize each moment as arrival-pause-and-departure. May we hold our own seasons of retrograde with as much honor, reverence, curiosity, wonder, and fiercely accountable compassion as we do our direct lines. And may we hold steady in our courage and willingness to be unmade and reshaped again and again by the life unfurling beneath our feet.   _______________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Integration often takes longer than we think it will - the space between what's here and what we now know to be possible is a place of healthy tension, heartbreak, creativity, imagination… hopefully leading to more wholeness and vibrant human-spirit expression. As my post-pilgrimage integration journey continues, I share with you some John O'Donohue-inspired musings around Absence as creative force and soul-home.  You'll hear a breath meditation and synopsis of the Slavic story of Vasilisa (plus an image from the story which feels potent to me right now); as well as some of my wonderings on: wholeness; presence and absence; our fear around ‘nothingness'; the crux of the tension inherent in being a soul and a human; and being ‘in rhythm' vs ‘vacancy'. I continue exploring the perfection of our messy designs and share with you an invitation to be kinder to ourselves when going through a rough patch. And I'd love to keep hearing from you: What do you think? Where do you find rhythm between your own Presence, Absence, and vacancy? Does any of this land for you? Or do you see it all as something else? May we know each moment to be the threshold it is because we honor both our body-self and our invisible self. And may both those selves have places to retreat into rest. May we treat ourselves to absence when the time is now. May we befriend our hunger and longing so it becomes the instigating spark of our creativity and imagination. May our many pieces come home to wholeness. And may we be able to sort the dreams from the dirt to find the treasures of possibility in all our peak experiences.   You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Today around the fire I let you in a little more to some of my journey from deep disconnect and depression back to a lighter and more full-bodied experience of my life, prompted by the dark spiral I've found myself in over the past few weeks. I talk about the tension we often feel in those places between needing others and needing to go inward. And I share about big emotions and why those of us who feel them often struggle to know how to tend them without throwing them around or having them come out sideways. I also talk about Love and fear and a surprising (to me anyway) perspective shift I had around my own heartbreaks and ‘weaknesses'. So where does your heart seem to break repeatedly? And did this perspective shift land or illuminate something for you? I'd love to hear. May we find the holiness in the hurts so we can be more alive. May we get ever more graceful in navigating our big feels and tender places, in the quiet of our own experience and with each other. May we grow our capacity to hold more Love before it turns to fear. May we trust the innocent perfection of our own hearts to guide us home.  _____________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Welcome back around the fire where today I'm modeling showing up as I am, fresh from being sick and the rawness of landing back in the United States. It's a pretty common phenomenon to get sick after a really expansive time. And while there are plenty of physical, immune system reasons for this, there is also an energetic and spiritual component, going often unrecognized. This component, when tended to, can help us integrate and metabolize our peak experience in powerful ways. It may even help us plan for our integration periods in ways that minimize our body's need to get sick and shut down. So gather with me around our virtual (and germ-free!) fire while I share my thoughts and experiences with why the sickness happens (energetically and spiritually) and how we can work with it. Plus: what I mean by ‘peak experience'; the differences between escapism experiences and transformative ones; why integration is critical in being a more intact and alive human; how ritual can help us in that space (and a little plug for my Insight 2024 (Tarot) offering currently happening); … and more. Jokes on me for thinking this would be a short little episode… I have a LOT to say on the subject (and find my mind still circling hours later: “..and another thing!”). But stay with me through my rough voice, a coughing fit or two, and you may hear something to support you after your next peak experience. Have you experienced being sick this way before? I'd love to hear. P.S. The people credited with authoring the piece where I first read about “safe vs brave spaces” are: Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens. You can find out more about the tarot offering mentioned at the end here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/tarot-for-2024 May we honor the tender aliveness of our hearts as the darkness begins its slow turning towards light. And may we be available to honor the tender aliveness of the hearts of those around us. In sickness and in health. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

In my head and, at times out loud, I've been calling this trip I've been on in Ireland and Scotland an ancestral pilgrimage. While it has and is turning out to be so much more, the instigating spark first grew out of a journey of wanting to know who my people were, where were they from, and what they believed… before they became a colonizing presence in the United States, before they became ‘white', before many of the broken systems of our world became our over-culture. As a true ‘North American, mixing-pot mutt,' I have many lines of lineage and ancestral culture I could explore but my Celtic Isles line has been the one calling to me first. So what a coincidence, or perhaps not, that about a month into my time in Scotland, I got an email from my mom saying our cousins, who have been doing genealogy research on the Byrne/ O'Byrne side of the family, discovered a third cousin in Ireland and he'd be happy to meet with me. In a time when so many of us seem to be hungry for a connection to place, to people; for a deeper sense of belonging and family; I really lucked out and hit the jackpot. This episode is the story of how it felt to meet these cousins and my musings around:  why do we long to know more about our ancestors? was I always interested? why do we lose contact with these memories? what are the repercussions? What do we do with the wounds and traumas in the lineage? what was it like to encounter their memories again? did it change my life? what if we don't know where we're from or the threads are too interrupted to trace? You'll also hear me drop a seed of a potential offering and an invitation to hear from you about your experience, questions, challenges around this subject.  So here, on the dark night of a new moon, nearing the darkest day of the year, let's gather around the fire to dream and hold tenderly our hearts and their hungers.  May we feel how deeply we belong and how many ancestors, alive and long gone, dreamed the preciousness of our lives into being, in the best way they knew how. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

In the past when I've traveled, I'd have had a steady commentary running through my mind, as if I was evaluating myself and what I was experiencing from the outside, while planning what silly things I was going to write about it to friends back home.  This trip is proving to be different. Which means, I find myself with less to say and more immersion into the stream of experiences. But I still want to invite you along. So here is part two of my musings. Recorded solo, after a short break from recording new conversations and a whole lot of mileage, challenges, and small and big joys. You'll hear me share some of the themes and intentions I've been tending to as I'm opened up by being out of my normal routines. Themes like: coming back alive; trying too hard; choosing to trust in benevolence; grief; unlearning comfort as the goal; using my own social nervous system as a weapon against myself; … and probably some more. Let's gather around the fire.  Fairly short and sweet, I hope you feel the lightness in it. I hope you find something inspiring. I hope you find it says something of importance and also a whole lot of nothing, at the same time. And I hope, when the time comes to just be in silence together, you feel it too, your own enoughness, wherever and whenever you find yourself tuning in. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

When Erik and I recorded this episode, we intended it to be a bonus episode… and yet I've kept putting off listening to it. Honestly, I think I expected to find it super cringe (and it is a little, though not as much as I feared). But now here we are, approximately 1.5 months after recording it. Travel hasn't allowed me to record many new episodes with guests and the moon moves through its phases… and I can't keep hiding anymore. Some context: August 23, I left the US and flew to Scotland to begin four months of living on the road here and in Ireland. This episode was recorded at the end of August, less than a week after my arrival. Thousands of miles of journeying are between the Kate who writes this and the Kate you're about to listen to. And yet, I still don't totally know what this journey is about. I suspect most of it won't come clear until after the trip. But in this episode, you'll hear my initial musings on: why I'm in Scotland and Ireland; ruptures in my ancestral roots; tending inner wounds of oppressor and oppressed; layers of culture; choosing to build skill and capacity for healthy conflict; healing backwards and forwards; feeling the land calling me; the gap between my expectations and reality; a reactivated ‘witch wound'; my why behind the podcast and the surprising (to me) revelation that starting it was also connected to this trip; letting stories be alive; knowledge, wisdom, and stories in community;  when myths become propaganda; waiting for heroes to come save us; learning how to receive stories so we can more intentionally engage with them …. and more. As I say at the end, I hope this episode gives you a little more sense of who I am. I hope it inspires you or allows you to find something that allows you to feel you belong around this fire. I hope it reflects how stepping away from what's familiar and onto another land can open us, humble us, enliven us. I hope it avoids completely interpreting another culture through my own lens. And where I inevitably have, I hope you can hold the tension of my own interpretation with the differing ones you have or have heard. After all, conversations like this walk the line between facts, stories, and possibilities. And that's why we gather around the fire.  You can find Kate (me): Website- www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Today's session around the fire was recorded about 10 days into my time in Scotland and watching it back for these notes, I'm aware of how ‘fizzy' and ‘unsettled' my system feels; how old meaning-making patterns were being stirred and and challenged and I was in the place of being unmade. Perhaps you'll see something different in me, too. Or perhaps that's how it always was and it looks and feels different now, later, after more shifts and settlings. But one thing today's guest, Dougie Mackay, and I share is a living inquiry into how to be a more natural human. And so, here we are, me at the start of a trip and him in between journeys, telling stories, sharing points of connection and curiosities, enjoying being human, together.  Dougie Mackay is a storyteller hailing from the Scottish Highlands, who weaves his background in Community Education with his love of the natural world, bushcraft, primitive skills and other regenerative practices, into a storytelling practice often done outdoors or in unusual settings, and used for group-work facilitation, development, connection, and empowerment. He's renowned for his warm demeanor and engaging style and all of that comes through in our conversation as we explore some his favorite topics, like: stories as tools for entertainment, education, and connection to culture and landscape; the functionality of storytelling in modern times; how can we use stories to enrich our personal lives; and what can we glean about an older animistic culture through the stories they told… as well as: our personal quests for meaning and cultures of substance (and how Dougie finally discovered meaningful culture at home in Scotland); following the trail of ancestral severance; the instinctive human impulse to be curious about the horizon; how travel can help us see our own homes, what's local, and what's universal; Scottish Ceilidh culture as a cultural template for hospitality and connection; the overlapping skills for storytelling and traveling well; how he got into stories and storytelling;  generational events like the Highland Clearances and how they can continue to impact a cultural psyche; the ability of stories to bring things alive in our bodies and help us make sense of where we are; the three types of stories in the Scottish seanachie tradition; holding stories with reverence to find more richness; the practice of ‘leaving something out for the fairies'... and more. He also shares two, beautiful stories with us around this digital hearthfire. So if you love to travel, love stories, and are curious about how we continue to be more natural humans - join us. I think you'll find we have much in common. You can find Dougie: Website – https://storyconnection.org/ Instagram - @dougie.mackay.story Podcast - https://storyconnection.org/tales-for-our-times/ (available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts) And if you've come for Dougie, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. ----------------- To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

We all need a certain level of containment - some boundaries and understandings to help guide us. However, things get sticky when we confuse certainty with containment. And when we (often unconsciously) try to avoid our fear of uncertainty. Today, I'm joined at the fire by Erik Eging - a PR and Communications specialist, photographer, and no stranger to medicine spaces; as well as a human now supporting this podcast.  He shares his personal story of leaving a “high-demand” religion; what it looked like for him to discover he still needed some sort of spiritual meaning-making system; and how he moved into authorship of that for himself. Whether you identify with having left a cult or other high-demand community; have concerns about some of the power-over dynamics you see being perpetuated in spiritual and medicine spaces; or have gone through some sort of initiation where your sense of certainty and security was lost and you had to find a new way forward… join us around this fire. We don't shy away from things like: the erasing and rewriting of our own histories; ancestral healing and not wanting to look back at the pain;  where our spirituality and anti-racism journeys can overlap and inform each other; certainty being fragile even though it feels like confidence; how do we recognize ‘truth'?; the real culprit isn't the belief system but the lack of room for doubt; containment without rigidity; cultivating inner authority or authorship over life; the wounds of self-betrayal; how to recognize cult-like dynamics at play around us (and some of the varied and perhaps unexpected) places they can show up; when the Savior complex appears and how to stop taking, giving away, or accepting other's power; … and more. And all of you is welcome here. You can find Erik: Instagram - @eging.erik And if you've come for Erik, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What happens if you take two humans, both with some sort of calling to catalyze change, sit them down together during the Lion's Gate Portal while spiders spin webs overhead, and then release that recording into the world on a Full Moon in Pisces???  A helluva magical, fiery, and loving conversation. Pull up your chair, your log, your rock; get your tea, your hot cocoa, your popcorn - whatever you need to get comfortable because joining me around the fire today is Katharine (Kat) Hargreaves: “the woman in the boat who meets others on the threshold,” a shamanic practitioner, ceremonial guide, and initiated medicine womxn who provides spiritual mentorship, apprenticeship programs, and psychedelic integration support for those on the healing path.  And when it comes to many of the big questions we face on spiritual journeys, within the plant medicine world, as soulful entrepreneurs, or as humans in ‘white' bodies aiming to ‘do better'… we don't hold back.   You'll hear our thoughts on things like: finding friends and relationships with the wild ones, our non-human kin; tending the earth means tending the body; definitions of ‘medicine' beyond something we put in our bodies; humans are not a scourge, nor are they supreme; Kate's shift from being in service to the wounds to being in service to the old ways; Kat's experience learning to hold her own medicine and the medicine of “you're not ready yet”; what plants can offer us, as teachers in their own right; colonialism, ‘white' culture, and being rootless; ritual, divination, and accessing the wider web of wisdom; unlearning greed and power-over hierarchies to find initiations and integrations as natural gatekeepers; taking more responsibility (in healthy ways) the challenges and process of ‘finding your medicine' and living your purpose… and so much more. This conversation, while potent for any listener who loves complexity and spirituality, will probably feel especially powerful for you if you spend a lot of time in spiritual and wellness spaces or consider yourself a healer, yoga teacher, herbalist or server of plant medicines, etc; and especially if you hold those sacred roles while navigating the world within a ‘white' body and grappling with questions of doing it the honorable and ‘right' way.  If so, or even if you're called for another reason, let yourself be moved into place around this fire. I think you'll find something awakening, grounding, challenging and affirming here.  You can find Kat: Website – www.wildalive.co Experience an Ancestral Divination – www.wildalive.co/divination Newsletter – wildalive.substack.com Instagram – www.instagram.com/katakhann Linkt.ree – https://linktr.ee/katakhann And if you've come for Kat, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Freedom. Birth. God. These are all words that have become quite loaded and contentious topics of conversation… and yet, in this episode, we dive in. Joining me around the fire is Stella Udeozor - a first-generation Nigerian-American, mother of two, digital content Creator, storyteller, photographer, and birthkeeper backed out of Cincinnati, Ohio; who, through her business, Freedom Birth Story, aims to capture the true, and free, essence of every story, especially those of birth and motherhood. Neither of us expected this conversation to go where it did, but, as you'll hear Stella say, that's what happens when you gather around the fire! Join us and you'll hear us lovingly question the stories we've been told to find stories that feel more free (and other musings) on subjects like: shifting from dogma to a personally-aligned relationship with spirituality; looking through the systems to find the heart and integrity untouched by corruption; language, place, and belief as as sites of freedom and sites of oppression; storytelling as medicine; the complexities of allowing stories to be living processes while making sure you're writing your own (not someone else writing it for you); God not as fixed entity but as myriad faces and aspects; how honoring our ancestors and praying to saints can be the same thing; discernment, embodiment, and not outsourcing our power when it comes to birth, death, and everything in between; what ‘freedom' means to each of us… and much more. While these subjects can, in some situations, feel large and heavy, there's a lightness and joy pervading every moment of this conversation; reminding us curiosity and wonder are key, unlearning can be fun, and, in the end, it's all about the stories we believe and the ones we tell.  If you're in a place of unlearning or deconditioning from a system or identity you didn't choose or grew to find oppressive; if you're feeling trapped and wondering how to feel more free; if you're tired of living stories of wounds and limitations and want to write stories of possibility… join us around this fire. I think you'll find something grounding, touching, inspiring, and reparative.  You can find Stella: Website: https://www.freedombirthstory.com/ Instagram - @stellasfreedomstory; @freedombirthstory And if you've come for Stella, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

I love starting each episode by asking the guest about the forces that shaped them because it drops us right into their unique tapestry of places, ancestors, languages, religions, beliefs, wounds, and victories - in short, the truest stuff of our individual and shared humanity.  In a world where ‘trauma' has become a buzzword and the pendulum seems to have swung from sweeping things under the rug to memeing about our tenderest hurts and armchair psychology in online public forms, we can find ourselves surrounded by stories of not receiving love in the ways we needed, of feeling trapped or controlled, of being taught to be someone else instead of ourselves (all important conversations)... often without the nuance and depth guidance to help us move towards what's next.  Today's conversation with Claudia Olivos - an artist, mystic and curandera who weaves art with myth, nature, the cosmos, intuition and the magic of Spirit as she channels energies of the Divine Feminine through Sacred Mothers and Goddesses from around the world - bravely wades into her wounds around her relationship with her mother and fundamentalist belief systems… and then opens up about the gifts she found within the wounds and how they led her to create her Sacred Mothers and Goddesses Oracle deck and shaped her into the self-proclaimed “Shamanic-Witchy-Priestess' she is today. You'll hear us explore:  Claudia's childhood conversion from Catholicism to Evangelicalism; the hidden symbolism nestled within modern religious movements; channeling and the creative process; how Mother Mary acted as Claudia's conduit to accessing the goddess archetypes and helped her heal her mother wound; the Universe as a playful place; reclaiming power and joy in the face of grief and hurt; destruction in service of creation; polytheism as different access points into the Unnameable Mystery… and so much more. If you're someone who moved away from the religion of your youth and has grappled with finding your way with belief and faith; if you're someone who has yearned for a connection with the Feminine you're not finding in our culture; if you want to find the wounds in your gifts and let them open you to magic and possibility, or even just hear more about the process of channeling different aspects of the Mystery… join us around this fire. I think you'll find something nurturing, uplifting, and empowering in this conversation.  You can find Claudia:  Website: https://olivosartstudio.com/ Instagram: @olivosartstudio TikTok: @claudia.olivosartstudio Youtube: https://youtube.com/@olivosARTstudio And if you've come for Claudia, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

One aspect of being human is toggling back and forth between the stories and experiences of our personality self or our smaller, 3D, human self… and our Soul self, or the parts of us who can zoom way out and be open to (even if we can't grasp completely) a vaster understanding of the larger Cosmos and web of life. This conversation with Kari Hohne - a dream analyst, artist, and expert on the eastern and western archetypes that inspire our dreams and oracles; including ancient astrology, Tarot's archetypes, and the Tao te Ching and I Ching - explores what it means to live joyfully through zooming out and tapping into a deeper, broader, and more universal wisdom and story.  All that Kari has studied and experienced leads her to consider this wider, ‘second' vision the more objective of the visions and perspectives available to us as we seek to navigate being one of many organisms alive on this planet. And from the lens of this river of wisdom and the language of symbolism, we explore: what shamanism means to Kari; the idea that our world is not worse, but rather the best possible expression available at this moment; the ‘24-hr mind' and dreams (including nightmares) as tools for awakening; how ancient wisdom traditions like Daoism and the I Ching guide us to Nature as a teacher; non-linear time; the role of wonder in living joyfully; technology and expanded consciousness; fear and creativity; the language of symbolism… and much more. Author Robin Wall Kimmerer says in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, that “even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the Earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”  Kari, too, chooses joy. And she invites us to step into wonder and joy, and give it back. Gather with us? Step into the Great River with us? Choose joy with us? I hope you will. _______________ You can find Kari -  Website http://www.cafeausoul.com Wellness Videos http://youtube.com/natureisaguru Books https://www.amazon.com/Kari-Hohne/e/B0030V73B0 Music https://open.spotify.com/artist/1pX44YkVsIQ1JesGyUKyMV And if you've come for Kari, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. P.S. The Velveteen rabbit quote I butcher in this episode: “Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.' 'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” ― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit _________________ To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Cultures of survival rely on labels for stability - they want to know if a, then b; and in general, it's an approach that works for us for a while. But eventually, we hit a moment when we can't continue as we are. When the frameworks and approaches we've been taught can't get us to the next step in our lives. When we realize it's how we see things that may be part of the problem. To unlearn those ways and find our next one takes courage, compassion, and patience. We have to be willing to be with our discomfort, uncertainty, and (sometimes) skepticism.  Today's conversation with Dahlia Rose (founder of The Conduit School and a healer, teacher, guide, and conduit for high vibrational energies within her in-person and online communities) explores what it takes to build our unique bridge from survival to thriving, from prescription to intuition, from limitations to expansion. You'll hear us wonder through the threads of:  the forces that shaped Dahlia; how she got into working with crystals; invitations to grow through neurodivergence and queerness; tapping into our otherworldly senses through our physical ones; the connection between fascia and karma; taking a multidimensional approach to life; becoming your own guide; star nations… and more. If you've been wanting to explore working with crystals beyond a prescriptive approach; if you've been wanting to hear more about multidimensional reality and star nations in a way that doesn't avoid or negate the body; if you're feeling alone at a threshold between the known and the uncertain… join us around this fire. I think you'll find something reassuring, inspiring, and reparative in this conversation.  You can find Dahlia:  Email: pleiadiancouncils@gmail.com Website: https://www.theconduitschool.com/ Instagram - @dahliasdiscourse Facebook: Dahlia Rose And if you've come for Dahlia Rose, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. 2. share widely3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

“I don't teach voice because I think I'm a great singer. I teach voice because it's one of my favorite ways to commune with my own heart and life and to move energy and pray.” This is one of the last things today's guest, Hanna Leigh - a ceremonial musician, voice doula, weaver, visionary and founder of a budding organization called "Weaving Remembrance" - says in our conversation. And I think it sums up perfectly so many of the threads you'll hear us weave. From Hanna's path with devotional songs in church, then mantras, then icharos; to her passion for traveling and immersing herself in cultures and languages; to her desire to live places with no machines and remember ancestral craft; to her playful exploration of the full range of human expression through singing with nature and the elements; you'll hear us wonder about: balancing being human and spirit; the magic of manifestation; the possibilities opened through ancestral remembering; intimacy and deep connection with nature; bridging the worlds of AI and hand-made; shaping and being shaped by culture… and more. Whether you're someone who considers yourself a singer or not: if you've ever dreamed of living off grid, if you've yearned for more time to wander and expand, if you've faced a sobering reality that's made you appreciate the messiness of being human, if you wonder what else is possible… I think you'll find something of resonance in this conversation.  Gather with us? Expand your heart and voice with us? Stand at the portal between what may have been, what could be, and what is with us? I hope you will. And then, let's sing it. ________________ You can find Hanna Leigh and Weaving Remembrance:  Personal Website: https://www.hannaleigh.org/ Weaving Remembrance Website: https://weavingremembrance.org/ Instagram - @hannaleighsong And if you've come for Hanna Leigh, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. __________________________________________ To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

The more of these conversations I have, the deeper I understand why we're gathering here around the fire - answering a whispered call. Sometimes the ‘why' is in the guest's personal wisdom, earned and shared through a life fully lived. Other times, it's because their life and studies offer us a cultural framework different from our current one, often richer in wisdom and spirit. Today's conversation with Jen Murphy, an Irish woman descended from a lineage of storytellers and wisdom keepers on her maternal line; and creator of Celtic Embodiment, a cutting-edge modality that fuses the ancient wisdom of Celtic Mythology with the emerging field of Feminine Embodiment Coaching to transform modern life for women; is the later. Jen's fascination with the natural coalescence between our ancestral myths and our bodies as a potent brew to reclaim our sovereign power, brings forth musings on culture, story, language, mythical ancestors, and place.  We explore: the indispensability of story and arts in early Irish society;  the differences between oral and written traditions and what that means for culture; language as a means of accessing the lore stored in the land; place vs non-place and broader issues of cultural displacement; the Irish understanding of the three cauldrons of the body; our bodies as sites of reclamation and eldering; what the Irish sovereignty goddess and mature king have to teach us about personal and collective right relationship… and more. If you're someone who sees how we got here, knows things need to change, and is curiously looking around for examples, recipes, threads to alchemize into new possibilities for our culture and our future, join us around this fire. You're in for a potent, enlightening, and inspiring conversation.  May it spark a remembering from within your own body and the wisdom of your mythical ancestors. You can find Jen:  Website: https://www.celticembodiment.com/ Instagram - @celticembodiment And if you've come for Jen, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow', ‘like' or ‘subscribe' where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Our guest around the fire this episode is Amana Mayfield-Faulkner, supportive sister and guide for women who are motivated to deepen their understanding of themselves. Through her life, her work, and her own podcast (The Heart of the Soul), Amana is an explorer of pregnancy, birth, death, mothering, sociology, culture, nature, nursing, midwifery, reiki & mediumship… among other things. And you'll feel Amana's curious, courageous, open heart in this conversation which begins with an exploration of initiations (hers have come at times in the form of travel, the death of her first love at a young age, and then motherhood and child loss). And from there it meanders through archetypes, culture, and mediumship. We get curious about what it takes to get comfortable in the experiences that stretch us, that grow us, that are, by their very nature and design, uncomfortable. We wonder about safety and belonging and what it takes for our hunger for those to feel met. We weave our conversation through the cycles of life and death, through the risk and reward of rebirth, all to grieve and celebrate the magic of being human. Gather with us? Be gently and courageously curious with us? Be a willing ‘yes' to the adventure of life with us? I hope you will. The wheel of life is turning, we'd love to have you along for the ride. You can find Amana:  Her website: https://www.birthingnova.love/ The Heart of the Soul Podcast: https://www.birthingnova.love/podcast-theheartofthesoul On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ljFiZ4fgTqhdU9bG4DRFJ?si=8421969531344ccf On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-heart-of-the-soul-with-amana-be-love/id1555599589 And if you've come for Amana, welcome! I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Today, on the astrological day of Beltane, Bealtaine ‘as Gaeilge' (in Irish), we gather around the fire with Sionnáin, a musician, songstress, quantum therapist and water carrier from the West of Ireland, whose path is devoted to honouring, celebrating & remembering with the Tuatha Dé Danann, the mythical tribe of Shining Ones.  You'll hear tales from her journey through personal and ancestral wounds around lineage, language, loneliness, and disconnection from homeland and place; and how she found herself on a path woven with and in service to the awakening of the songlines of Ireland.  Woven through her personal stories, you'll hear threads of Irish cultural rememberings, rooted in the land and language, like: the Irish name for Ireland (Éire) and it's connection to the sovereignty goddess Éiriú; the power of names; the ancient practice of Imbas Forosnai;  the Goddess Brigit and the Tuatha Dé Danann; visiting sacred sites (and how you can start engaging with that practice in a  good way); and two medicine songs/ invocations she has channeled through in Gaeilge, the Irish language. Together, we discuss looking beyond our family tree to our mythical lineages for ancestors to guide us; how we need stories that still reflect the land; the power of grief and forgiveness in opening us to deeper paths and the worlds that overlap with this one; and our hunger for these wisdoms in these times. Whether you have direct ancestral connection to the lands of Éire or not, may this conversation serve as an awakening to the ancient rememberings of land, lineage, and language in your bones. May we all experience the love, blessings, and gratitude for those we meet along the way.  May we all find our guides in these journeys of remembrance.  May your heart and body know safety, belonging, and the blessing of communion. May it be so.  And from Sionnáin: “my deep grá and buíochas to all those who I have been blessed to meet along the way. Especially to those who have guided and supported this journey of remembrance.” You can find Sionnáin on Instagram: @shannonsoulsounds And if you've come for Sionnáin, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. Please feel free to share these conversations widely. Rate or subscribe/ follow where you listen to stay up-to-date on new episodes and to help others discover them. You can become a supporting member of the podcast community by joining us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney Thank you! Go raibh míle maith agat! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Today's guest around the fire, the charismatic and loving Dan McNeil, self-proclaimed teacher, brother, husband, and father; has taken a winding route to get to where he is today, but as he says early on in the episode, while life has taken him many places, the voice of spirit has always been the same. And you'll feel that in our conversation - a conversation that dances between:  the despair of the world and laughter;  the practice of mindfulness;  what real heroism may be; finding our callings; plenty of stories and parables; … and through it all, a voice of spirit that stays steady and loving and hopeful. If you, like us have found yourself feeling overwhelmed and heart broken; if you like us, have found yourself wanting to fix or save the world; if you, like us, wonder sometimes why you're here and what's your purpose; if you, like us, believe in the power of love… pull up a chair and join us.  I think you'll feel in good company.  (And it may feel like the perfect conversation for the beginning of eclipse season and the invitation to introspection and new beginnings of a new moon and solar eclipse) You can find Dan's blog/ website here: https://danmcneil14.wixsite.com/graceandgratitude You can find the “Meditate Like Christ” story he referenced here: https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=973 The Skeleton Woman story I referenced can be found in “Women Who Run With Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. If you've come for Dan, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. P.S. As a community medicine space, this podcast is relational - it weaves webs of connection and mutual respect and care across time and space. If you appreciate and support the future we're seeding here, you can support the weaving of this web in a few ways: 1. Share episodes with friends and family or online with your community. It also helps the podcast immensely if you like, rate, subscribe to or follow the podcast where you watch or listen so you get notified when new episodes drop and new listeners find us as they search. 2. Join us on Patreon! Doing so supports conversations like the one you just heard and allows you access to live community gatherings and medicine circles… and more, as we continue to grow. It also helps me keep this space advertisement-free so the conversations stay intact as they are. https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What does it mean to be a full-spectrum human? What are all the pieces that weave together to form our experience and how do we distill them down into something that holds deep resonance for us? These questions lay at the heart of the conversation that unfolded when I got together with Dajé James, aka the Story Doula, a storyteller, flower essence practitioner, and space-holder for wild-hearted leaders and creative entrepreneurs, who supports creatives in owning their voices and waging beauty with their unique medicine. Our explorations of:  ancestral connection;  distinguishing instinct from intuition;  the roles of ritual, initiation, and elderhood in our development;  and what's meant by “finding your medicine”  are all interwoven with Daje's own story - from running away from a cult to go to college, to the visceral intensity of experiencing her first big spiritual awakening and initiation, and what she's passionate about cultivating in the world now. If you're someone who is curious what else might be possible for our culture and our future; if you're someone with a deep spiritual connection; if you're someone who wants to open your intuition and develop your capacity for subtle communication… I think you'll find something of resonance in this conversation.  Gather with us? Open to the Great Mystery with us? Welcome your full-spectrum experience with us? I hope you will. Your medicine is wild, unique, and necessary. (Please note: per Dajé's request, this episode is audio-only) You can find Dajé:  On Instagram - @thestorydoula On her website: https://www.thestorydoula.co/ On Substack: www.thestorydoula.substack.com And if you've come for Daje, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What's left when all else melts away? When you find yourself at a threshold; in the middle of an initiation; grappling with the things you would never have consciously chosen? In a moment or many when you're stripped of your accomplishments, or people you love, or the things you thought you knew? Who are you then? And what really matters? One of my first spiritual teachers and long-time friend, Dr. Christen Scott aka the Yoga Shrink, has been on a journey of unlearning ‘doing and accomplishing from a place of inadequacy' to find deeper presence and acceptance her whole life. From getting the doctorate, to running marathons, to a thriving clinical psychology practice, she has always gone for it. And then a new devotion to the practice of yoga started showing her another, more love-centered and body-centered, possibility. Not one to do anything with half her heart, Christen and her husband Preston went all in on living, teaching, leading, and serving from the principle that there is Love or there is Fear - and they choose Love. This episode is the story of how her understanding of Love has been tested and deepened in the year and change since Preston's unexpected and sudden death the day after Thanksgiving 2021. Through laughter and tears, you'll hear us explore: how the wilderness of bereavement makes it impossible to go along with the aspects of society that run counter to full humanity and aliveness; sacred and ancestral approaches to grief and loss; how Christen learned to tend her grief and some ways we, as a society, could support grief better; the inquiry - what if loss, although challenging, isn't a wound or a problem? What if we are, in fact, perfectly designed for it?… and more Having spent the last year+ with my own primary and secondary grief in the wake of Preston's transition, this episode feels particularly poignant. If you're watching this episode, you'll see how much of it I spend with tears in my eyes. And yet, somehow, this is not a sad or heavy episode - it's a deeply loving and reparative one. Gather with us? Celebrate life with us? Sit in the full expression of humanity, including the commonality of loss, with us? I hope you will. The world needs us heart-broken-open, fully alive, and available for more Love. You can find Christen here: https://www.yogashrinks.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support