Podcast appearances and mentions of kimberly ann johnson

On this episode, my guest is Stephen Jenkinson, culture activist and ceremonialist advocating a handmade life and eloquence. He is an author, a storyteller, a musician, sculptor and off-grid organic farmer. Stephen is the founder/ principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School in Canada, co-founded with his wife Nathalie Roy in 2010. Also a sought-after workshop leader, articulating matters of the heart, human suffering, confusions through ceremony.He is the author of several influential books, including Money and the Soul's Desires, Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), A Generation's Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (2021), and Reckoning (2022), co-written with Kimberly Ann Johnson. His most recent book, Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart's Work, was released in August 2025. He is also involved in the musical project Nights of Grief & Mystery with singer-songwriter Gregory Hoskins, which has toured across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.Show Notes:* The Bone House of the Orphan Wisdom Enterprise* Matrimony: Ritual, Culture and the Heart's Work* The Wedding Industry* Romantic Sameness and Psychic Withering* The Two Tribes* The Roots of Hospitality* The Pompous Ending of Hospitality* Debt, And the Estrangement of the Stranger* More Than Human Hospitality* The Alchemy of the Orphan Wisdom SchoolHomework:Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart's Work | PurchaseOrphan WisdomThe Scriptorium: Echoes of an Orphan WisdomTranscription:Chris: This is an interview that I've been wondering about for a long time in part, because Stephen was the first person I ever interviewed for the End of Tourism Podcast. In Oaxaca, Mexico, where I live Stephen and Natalie were visiting and were incredibly, incredibly generous. Stephen, in offering his voice as a way to raise up my questions to a level that deserve to be contended with.We spoke for about two and a half hours, if I remember correctly. And there was a lot in what you spoke to towards the second half of the interview that I think we're the first kind of iterations of the Matrimony book.We spoke a little bit about the stranger and trade, and it was kind of startling as someone trying to offer their first interview and suddenly hearing something [00:01:00] that I'd never heard before from Stephen. Right. And so it was quite impressive. And I'm grateful to be here now with y'all and to get to wonder about this a little more deeply with you Stephen.Stephen: Mm-hmm. Hmm.Chris: This is also a special occasion for the fact that for the first time in the history of the podcast, we have a live audience among us today. Strange doings. Some scholars and some stewards and caretakers of the Orphan Wisdom enterprise. So, thank you all as well for coming tonight and being willing to listen and put your ears to this.And so to begin, Stephen, I'm wondering if you'd be willing to let those who will be listening to this recording later on know where we're gathered in tonight?Stephen: Well, we're in... what's the name of this township?Nathalie: North Algona.Stephen: North Algona township on the borders, an eastern gate [00:02:00] of Algonquin Park. Strangely named place, given the fact that they were the first casualties of the park being established. And we're in a place that never should have been cleared - my farm. It should never have been cleared of the talls, the white pines that were here, but the admiralty was in need back in the day. And that's what happened there. And we're in a place that the Irish immigrants who came here after the famine called "Tramore," which more or less means "good-frigging luck farming."It doesn't technically mean that, but it absolutely means that. It actually means "sandy shore," which about covers the joint, and it's the only thing that covers the joint - would be sand. You have to import clay. Now, that's a joke in many farming places in the world, but if we wanted any clay, we'd have to bring it in and pay for the privilege.And the farm has been in [00:03:00] my, my responsibility for about 25 years now, pretty close to that. And the sheep, or those of them left because the coyotes have been around for the first time in their casualty-making way... They're just out here, I'm facing the field where they're milling around.And it's the very, very beginnings of the long cooling into cold, into frigid, which is our lot in this northern part of the hemisphere, even though it's still August, but it's clear that things have changed. And then, we're on a top of a little hill, which was the first place that I think that we may have convened a School here.It was a tipi, which is really worked very well considering we didn't live here, so we could put it up and put it down in the same weekend. [00:04:00] And right on this very hill, we were, in the early days, and we've replaced that tipi with another kind of wooden structure. A lot more wood in this one.This has been known as "The Teaching Hall" or "The Great Hall," or "The Hall" or "The Money Pit, as it was known for a little while, but it actually worked out pretty well. And it was I mean, people who've come from Scandinavia are knocked out by the kind of old-style, old-world visitation that the place seems to be to them.And I'd never really been before I had the idea what this should look like, but I just went from a kind of ancestral memory that was knocking about, which is a little different than your preferences, you know. You have different kinds of preferences you pass through stylistically through your life, but the ones that lay claim to you are the ones that are not interested in your [00:05:00] preferences. They're interested in your kind of inheritance and your lineage.So I'm more or less from the northern climes of Northern Europe, and so the place looks that way and I was lucky enough to still have my carving tools from the old days. And I've carved most of the beams and most of the posts that keep the place upright with a sort of sequence of beasts and dragons and ne'er-do-wells and very, very few humans, I think two, maybe, in the whole joint. Something like that. And then, mostly what festoons a deeply running human life is depicted here. And there's all kinds of stories, which I've never really sat down and spoken to at great length with anybody, but they're here.And I do deeply favour the idea that one day [00:06:00] somebody will stumble into this field, and I suppose, upon the remains of where we sit right now, and wonder "What the hell got into somebody?" That they made this mountain of timber moldering away, and that for a while what must have been, and when they finally find the footprint of, you know, its original dimensions and sort of do the wild math and what must have been going on in this sandy field, a million miles in away from its home.And wherever I am at that time, I'll be wondering the same thing.Audience: Hmm.Stephen: "What went on there?" Even though I was here for almost all of it. So, this was the home of the Orphan Wisdom School for more than a decade and still is the home of the Orphan Wisdom School, even if it's in advance, or in retreat [00:07:00] or in its doldrums. We'll see.And many things besides, we've had weddings in here, which is wherein I discovered "old-order matrimony," as I've come to call it, was having its way with me in the same way that the design of the place did. And it's also a grainery for our storage of corn. Keep it up off the ground and out of the hands of the varmints, you know, for a while.Well that's the beginning.Chris: Hmm. Hmm. Thank you Stephen.Stephen: Mm-hmm.Chris: You were mentioning the tipi where the school began. I remember sleeping in there the first time I came here. Never would I have thought for a million years that I'd be sitting here with you.Stephen: It's wild, isn't it?Chris: 12 years later.?: Yeah.Chris: And so next, I'd like to do my best in part over the course of the next perhaps hour or two to congratulate you on the release of [00:08:00] your new book, Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart's Work.Stephen: Thank you.Chris: Mm-hmm. I'm grateful to say like many others that I've received a copy and have lent my eyes to your good words, and what is really an incredible achievement.For those who haven't had a chance to lay their eyes on it just yet, I'm wondering if you could let us in on why you wrote a book about matrimony in our time and where it stands a week out from its publication.Stephen: Well, maybe the answer begins with the question, "why did you write a book, having done so before?" And you would imagine that the stuff that goes into writing a book, you'd think that the author has hopes for some kind of redemptive, redeeming outcome, some kind of superlative that drops out the back end of the enterprise.And you know, this is [00:09:00] the seventh I've written. And I would have to say that's not really how it goes, and you don't really know what becomes of what you've written, even with the kind people who do respond, and the odd non-monetary prize that comes your way, which Die Wise gamed that.But I suppose, I wrote, at all partly to see what was there. You know, I had done these weddings and I was a little bit loathe to let go, to let the weddings turn entirely into something historical, something that was past, even though I probably sensed pretty clearly that I was at the end of my willingness to subject myself to the slings and arrows that came along with the enterprise, but it's a sweet sorrow, or there's a [00:10:00] wonder that goes along with the tangle of it all. And so, I wrote to find out what happened, as strange as that might sound to you. You can say, "well, you were there, you kind of knew what happened." But yes, I was witness to the thing, but there's the act of writing a book gives you the opportunity to sort of wonder in three-dimensions and well, the other thing I should say is I was naive and figured that the outfit who had published the, more or less prior two books to this one, would kind of inevitably be drawn to the fact that same guy. Basically, same voice, new articulation. And I was dumbfounded to find out that they weren't. And so, it's sort of smarted, you know?And I think what I did was I just set the whole [00:11:00] enterprise aside, partly to contend with the the depths of the disappointment in that regard, and also not wanting to get into the terrible fray of having to parse or paraphrase the book in some kind of elevator pitch-style to see if anybody else wanted to look at it. You know, such as my touchy sense of nobility sometimes, you know, that I just rather not be involved in the snarl of the marketplace any longer.So, I withdrew and I just set it aside but it wasn't that content to be set, set aside. And you know, to the book's credit, it bothered me every once in a while. It wasn't a book at the point where I was actually trying to engineer it, you know, and, and give it some kind of structure. I had piles of paper on the floor representing the allegation of chapters, trying to figure out what the relationship was [00:12:00] between any of these things.What conceivably should come before what. What the names of any of these things might be. Did they have an identity? Was I just imposing it? And all of that stuff I was going through at the same time as I was contending with a kind of reversal in fortune, personally. And so in part, it was a bit of a life raft to give me something to work on that I wouldn't have to research or dig around in the backyard for it and give me some sort of self-administered occupation for a while.Finally, I think there's a parallel with the Die Wise book, in that when it came to Die Wise, I came up with what I came up with largely because, in their absolute darkest, most unpromising hours, an awful lot of dying people, all of whom are dead now, [00:13:00] let me in on some sort of breach in the, the house of their lives.And I did feel that I had some obligation to them long-term, and that part of that obligation turned into writing Die Wise and touring and talking about that stuff for years and years, and making a real fuss as if I'd met them all, as if what happened is really true. Not just factually accurate, but deeply, abidingly, mandatorily true.So, although it may be the situation doesn't sound as extreme, but the truth is, when a number of younger - than me - people came to me and asked me to do their weddings, I, over the kind of medium-term thereafter, felt a not dissimilar obligation that the events that ensued from all of that not [00:14:00] be entrusted entirely to those relatively few people who attended. You know, you can call them "an audience," although I hope I changed that. Or you could call them "witnesses," which I hope I made them that.And see to it that there could be, not the authorized or official version of what happened, but to the view from here, so to speak, which is, as I sit where I am in the hall right now, I can look at the spot where I conducted much of this when I wasn't sacheting up and down the middle aisle where the trestle tables now are.And I wanted to give a kind of concerted voice to that enterprise. And I say "concerted voice" to give you a feel for the fact that I don't think this is a really an artifact. It's not a record. It's a exhortation that employs the things that happened to suggest that even though it is the way it is [00:15:00] ritually, impoverished as it is in our time and place, it has been otherwise within recoverable time and history. It has.And if that's true, and it is, then it seems to me at least is true that it could be otherwise again. And so, I made a fuss and I made a case based on that conviction.There's probably other reasons I can't think of right now. Oh, being not 25 anymore, and not having that many more books in me, the kind of wear and tear on your psyche of imposing order on the ramble, which is your recollection, which has only so many visitations available in it. Right? You can only do that so many times, I think. And I'm not a born writing person, you know, I come to it maniacally when I [00:16:00] do, and then when it's done, I don't linger over it so much.So then, when it's time to talk about it, I actually have to have a look, because the act of writing it is not the act of reading it. The act of writing is a huge delivery and deliverance at the same time. It's a huge gestation. And you can't do that to yourself, you know, over and over again, but you can take some chances, and look the thing in the eye. So, and I think some people who are there, they're kind of well-intended amongst them, will recognize themselves in the details of the book, beyond "this is what happened and so on." You know, they'll recognize themselves in the advocacy that's there, and the exhortations that are there, and the [00:17:00] case-making that I made and, and probably the praying because there's a good degree of prayerfulness in there, too.That's why.Chris: Thank you. bless this new one in the world. And what's the sense for you?Stephen: Oh, yes.Chris: It being a one-week old newborn. How's that landing in your days?Stephen: Well, it's still damp, you know. It's still squeaky, squeaky and damp. It's walking around like a newborn primate, you know, kind of swaying in the breeze and listening to port or to starboard according to whatever's going on.I don't know that it's so very self-conscious in the best sense of that term, yet. Even though I recorded the audio version, I don't think [00:18:00] it's my voice is found every nook and cranny at this point, yet. So, it's kind of new. It's not "news," but it is new to me, you know, and it's very early in terms of anybody responding to it.I mean, nobody around me has really taken me aside and say, "look, now I want to tell you about this book you wrote." It hasn't happened, and we'll see if it does, but I've done a few events on the other side of the ocean and hear so far, very few, maybe handful of interviews. And those are wonderful opportunities to hear something of what you came up with mismanaged by others, you know, misapprehend, you could say by others.No problem. I mean, it's absolutely no problem. And if you don't want that to happen, don't talk, don't write anything down. So, I don't mind a bit, you know, and the chances are very good that it'll turn into things I didn't have in mind [00:19:00] as people take it up, and regard their own weddings and marriages and plans and schemes and fears and, you know, family mishigas and all the rest of it through this particular lens, you know. They may pick up a pen or a computer (it's an odd expression, "pick up a computer"), and be in touch with me and let me know. "Yeah, that was, we tried it" or whatever they're going to do, because, I mean, maybe Die Wise provided a bit of an inkling of how one might be able to proceed otherwise in their dying time or in their families or their loved ones dying time.This is the book that most readily lends itself to people translating into something they could actually do, without a huge kind of psychic revolution or revolt stirring in them, at least not initially. This is as close as I come, probably, to writing a sequence of things [00:20:00] that could be considered "add-ons" to what people are already thinking about, that I don't force everybody else outta the house in order to make room for the ideas that are in the book. That may happen, anyway, but it wasn't really the intent. The intent was to say, you know, we are in those days when we're insanely preoccupied with the notion of a special event. We are on the receiving end of a considerable number of shards showing up without any notion really about what these shards remember or are memories of. And that's the principle contention I think that runs down the spine of the book, is that when we undertake matrimony, however indelicately, however by rote, you know, however mindlessly we may do it, [00:21:00] inadvertently, we call upon those shards nonetheless.And they're pretty unspectacular if you don't think about them very deeply, like the rice or confetti, like the aisle, like the procession up the aisle, like the giving away of someone, like the seating arrangement, like the spectacle seating arrangement rather than the ritual seating arrangement.And I mean, there's a fistful of them. And they're around and scholars aside maybe, nobody knows why they do them. Everybody just knows, "this is what a wedding is," but nobody knows why. And because nobody knows why, nobody really seems to know what a wedding is for, although they do proceed like they would know a wedding if they saw one. So, I make this a question to be really wondered about, and the shards are a way in. They're the kind of [00:22:00] breadcrumb trail through the forest. They're the little bits of broken something, which if you begin to handle just three or four of them, and kind of fit them together, and find something of the original shape and inflection of the original vessel, kind of enunciates, begins to murmur in your hands, and from it you can begin to infer some three-dimensionality to the original shape. And from the sense of the shape, you get a set sense of contour, and from the sense of contour, you get a sense of scale or size. And from that you get a sense of purpose, or function, or design. And from that you get a sense of some kind of serious magisterial insight into some of the fundament of human being that was manifest in the "old-order matrimony," [00:23:00] as I came to call it.So, who wouldn't wanna read that book?Chris: Mm-hmm.Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Stephen. Yeah. It reminds me, just before coming up here, maybe two weeks ago, I was in attending a wedding. And there was a host or mc, and initially just given what I was hearing over the microphone, it was hard to tell if he was hired or family or friends. And it turned out he was, in fact, a friend of the groom. And throughout the night he proceeded to take up that role as a kind of comedian.Audience: Mm-hmm.Chris: This was the idea, I guess. Mm-hmm. And he was buzzing and mumbling and swearing into the microphone, [00:24:00] and then finally minimizing the only remnant of traditional culture that showed up in the wedding. And his thing was, okay, so when can we get to the part where it's boom, boom, boom, right. And shot, shot, shot, whatever.Stephen: Right.Chris: There was so much that came up in my memories in part because I worked about a decade in Toronto in the wedding industry.Mm-hmm. Hospitality industry. Maybe a contradiction in terms, there. And there was one moment that really kind of summed it up. I kept coming back to this reading the book because it was everything that you wrote seemed to not only antithetical to this moment, but also an antidote.Anyways, it was in North Toronto and the [00:25:00] owner of the venue - it was a kind of movie theatre turned event venue - and there was a couple who was eventually going to get married there. They came in to do their tasting menu to see what they wanted to put on the menu for the dinner, for their wedding.And the owner was kind of this mafioso type. And he comes in and he sees them and he walks over and he says, "so, you're gonna get married at my wedding factory."Audience: Mm-hmm.Chris: In all sincerity.Stephen: Mm-hmm.Chris: Right.Without skipping a beat. Could you imagine?Stephen: Yeah.I could. I sure could.Chris: Yeah. Yeah.Stephen: I mean, don't forget, if these people weren't doing what the people wanted, they'd be outta business.Audience: Mm-hmm.Stephen: No, that's the thing. This is aiding and abetting. This is sleeping with the enemy, stylistically-speaking. [00:26:00] The fact that people "settle" (that's the term I would use for it), settle for this, the idea being that this somehow constitutes the most honest and authentic through line available to us is just jaw dropping. When you consider what allegedly this thing is supposed to be for. I mean, maybe we'll get into this, but I'll just leave this as a question for now. What is that moment allegedly doing?Not, what are the people in it allegedly doing? The moment itself, what is it? How is it different from us sitting here now talking about it? And how is it different from the gory frigging jet-fuelled aftermath of excess. And how's it different from the cursing alleged master of ceremonies? How can you [00:27:00] tell none of those things belong to this thing?And why do you have such a hard time imagining what doesAudience: Hmm mmChris: Well that leads me to my next question.Stephen: Ah, you're welcome.Chris: So, I've pulled a number of quotes from the book to read from over the course of the interview. And this one for anyone who's listening is on page 150. And you write Stephen,"Spiritually-speaking, most of the weddings in our corner of the world are endogamous affairs, inward-looking. What is, to me, most unnerving is that they can be spiritually-incestuous. The withering of psychic difference between people is the program of globalization. It is in the architecture of most things partaking of the internet, and it is in the homogeneity of our matrimony. [00:28:00] It is this very incestuous that matrimony was once crafted and entered into to avoid and subvert. Now, it grinds upon our differences until they are details.And so, this paragraph reminded me of a time in my youth when I seemed to be meeting couples who very eerily looked like each other. No blood or extended kin relation whatsoever, and yet they had very similar faces. And so as I get older, this kind of face fidelity aside, I continue to notice that people looking for companionship tend to base their search on similitude, on shared interests, customs, experiences, shared anything and everything. This, specifically, in opposition to those on the other side of the aisle or spectrum, to difference or divergence. And so, opposites don't attract anymore. I'm curious what you think this psychic [00:29:00] withering does to an achieve understanding of matrimony.Stephen: Well, I mean, let's wonder what it does to us, generally, first before we get to matrimony, let's say. It demonizes. Maybe that's too strong, but it certainly reconstitutes difference as some kind of affliction, some kind of not quite good enough, some kind of something that has to be overcome or overwhelmed on the road to, to what? On the road to sameness? So, if that's the goal, then are all of the differences between us, aberrations of some kind, if that's the goal? If that's the goal, are all the [00:30:00] differences between us, not God-given, but humanly misconstrued or worse? Humanly wrought? Do the differences between us conceivably then belong at all? Or is the principle object of the entire endeavor to marry yourself, trying to put up with the vague differences that the other person represents to you?I mean, I not very jokingly said years ago, that I coined a phrase that went something like "the compromise of infinity, which is other people." What does that mean? "The compromise of infinity, which is other people." Not to mention it's a pretty nice T-shirt. But what I meant by the [00:31:00] phrase is this: when you demonize difference in this fashion or when you go the other direction and lionize sameness, then one of the things that happens is that compromise becomes demonized, too. Compromise, by definition, is something you never should have done, right? Compromise is how much you surrender of yourself in order to get by. That's what all these things become. And before you know it, you're just beaten about the head and shoulders about "codependence" and you know, not being "true to yourself" as if being true to yourself is some kind of magic.I mean, the notion that "yourself is the best part of you" is just hilarious. I mean, when you think about it, like who's running amuck if yourself is what you're supposed to be? I ask you. Like, who's [00:32:00] doing the harm? Who's going mental if the self is such a good idea? So, of course, I'm maintaining here that I'm not persuaded that there is such a thing.I think it's a momentary lapse in judgment to have a self and to stick to it. That's the point I'm really making to kind of reify it until it turns ossified and dusty and bizarrely adamant like that estranged relative that lives in the basement of your house. Bizarrely, foreignly adamant, right? Like the house guest who just won't f**k off kind of thing.Okay, so "to thine own self be true," is it? Well, try being true to somebody else's self for ten minutes. Try that. [00:33:00] That's good at exercise for matrimony - being true to somebody else's self. You'll discover that their selves are not made in heaven, either. Either. I underscore it - either. I've completely lost track of the question you asked me.Chris: What are the consequences of the sameness on this anti-cultural sameness, and the program of it for an achieved understanding of matrimony.Stephen: Thank you. Well, I will fess up right now. I do so in the book. That's a terrible phrase. I swear I'd never say such a thing. "In my book... I say the following," but in this case, it's true. I did say this. I realized during the writing of it that I had made a tremendous tactical error in the convening of the event as I did it over the years, [00:34:00] and this is what it came to.I was very persuaded at the time of the story that appears in the chapter called "Salt and Indigo" in the book. I was very, very persuaded. I mean, listen, I made up the story (for what it's worth), okay, but I didn't make it up out of nothing. I made it up out of a kind of tribal memory that wouldn't quite let go.And in it, I was basically saying, here's these two tribes known principally for what they trade in and what they love most emphatically. They turn out to be the same thing. And I describe a circumstance in which they exchange things in a trade scenario, not a commerce scenario. And I'm using the chapter basically to make the case that matrimony's architecture derives in large measure from the sacraments of trade as manifest in that story. [00:35:00] Okay. And this is gonna sound obvious, but the fundamental requirement of the whole conceit that I came up with is that there are two tribes. Well, I thought to myself, "of course, there's always two tribes" at the time. And the two tribe-ness is reflected in when you come to the wedding site, you're typically asked (I hope you're still asked) " Are you family or friend of the groom or friend of the bride?" And you're seated "accordingly," right? That's the nominal, vestigial shard of this old tribal affiliation, that people came from over the rise, basically unknown to each other, to arrive at the kind of no man's land of matrimony, and proceeded accordingly. So, I put these things into motion in this very room and I sat people accordingly facing each other, not facing the alleged front of the room. [00:36:00] And of course, man, nobody knew where to look, because you raised your eyes and s**t. There's just humans across from you, just scads of them who you don't freaking know. And there's something about doing that to North Americas that just throws them. So, they're just looking at each other and then looking away, and looking at each other and looking away, and wondering what they're doing here and what it's for. And I'm going back and forth for three hours, orienting them as to what is is coming.Okay, so what's the miscalculation that I make? The miscalculation I made was assuming that by virtue of the seating arrangement, by virtue of me reminding them of the salt and indigo times, by virtue of the fact that they had a kind of allegiance of some sort or another to the people who are, for the moment, betrothed, that those distinctions and those affiliations together would congeal them, and constitute a [00:37:00] kind of tribal affiliation that they would intuitively be drawn towards as you would be drawn to heat on a cold winter's night.Only to discover, as I put the thing into motion that I was completely wrong about everything I just told you about. The nature of my error was this, virtually all of those people on one side of the room were fundamentally of the same tribe as the people on the other side of the room, apropos of your question, you see. They were card carrying members of the gray dominant culture of North America. Wow. The bleached, kind of amorphous, kind of rootless, ancestor-free... even regardless of whether their people came over in the last generation from the alleged old country. It doesn't really claim them.[00:38:00]There were two tribes, but I was wrong about who they were. That was one tribe. Virtually everybody sitting in the room was one tribe.So, who's the other tribe? Answer is: me and the four or five people who were in on the structural delivery of this endeavour with me. We were the other tribe.We didn't stand a chance, you see?And I didn't pick up on that, and I didn't cast it accordingly and employ that, instead. I employed the conceit that I insisted was manifest and mobilized in the thing, instead of the manifest dilemma, which is that everybody who came knew what a wedding was, and me and four or five other people were yet to know if this could be one. That was the tribal difference, if you [00:39:00] will.So, it was kind of invisible, wasn't it? Even to me at the time. Or, I say, maybe especially to me at the time. And so, things often went the way they went, which was for however much fascination and willingness to consider that there might have been in the room, there was quite a bit more either flat affect and kind of lack of real fascination, or curiosity, or sometimes downright hostility and pushback. Yeah.So, all of that comes from the fact that I didn't credit as thoroughly as I should have done, the persistence in Anglo-North America of a kind of generic sameness that turned out to be what most people came here ancestrally to become. "Starting again" is recipe for culture [00:40:00] loss of a catastrophic order. The fantasy of starting again. Right?And we've talked about that in your podcast, and you and I have talked about it privately, apropos of your own family and everybody's sitting in this room knows what I'm talking about. And when does this show up? Does it show up, oh, when you're walking down the street? Does it show up when you're on the mountaintop? Does it show up in your peak experiences? And the answer is "maybe." It probably shows up most emphatically in those times when you have a feeling that something special is supposed to be so, and all you can get from the "supposed to" is the allegation of specialness.Audience: Mm-hmm.Stephen: And then, you look around in the context of matrimony and you see a kind of febral, kind of strained, the famous bridezilla stuff, all of that stuff. [00:41:00] You saw it in the hospitality industry, no doubt. You know, the kind of mania for perfection, as if perfection constitutes culture. Right? With every detail checked off in the checkbox, that's culture. You know, as if everything goes off without a hitch and there's no guffaws. And in fact, anybody could reasonably make the case, "Where do you think culture appears when the script finally goes f*****g sideways?" That's when. And when you find out what you're capable of, ceremonially.And generally speaking, I think most people discovered that their ceremonial illiteracy bordered on the bottomless.That's when you find out. Hmm.Chris: Wow.Stephen: Yeah. And that's why people, you know, in speech time, they reach in there and get that piece of paper, and just look at it. Mm-hmm. They don't even look up, terrified that they're gonna go off script for a minute as [00:42:00] if the Gods of Matrimony are a scripted proposition.Chris: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us, that degree of deep reflection and humility that I'm sure comes with it.Stephen: Mea Culpa, baby. Yeah, I was, I got that one totally wrong. Mm-hmm. And I didn't know it at the time. Meanwhile, like, how much can you transgress and have the consequences of doing so like spill out across the floor like a broken thermometer's mercury and not wise up.But of course, I was as driven as anybody. I was as driven to see if I could come through with what I promised to do the year before. And keeping your promise can make you into a maniac.Audience: Hmm hmm.Chris: But I imagine that, you [00:43:00] know, you wouldn't have been able to see that even years later if you didn't say yes in the first place.Stephen: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I wouldn't have been able to make the errors.Chris: Right.Stephen: Right. Yeah. I mean, as errors go, this is not a mortal sin. Right, right. And you could chalk it up to being a legitimate miscalculation. Well, so? All I'm saying is, it turns out I was there too, and it turns out, even though I was allegedly the circus master of the enterprise, I wasn't free and clear of the things we were all contending with, the kind of mortality and sort of cultural ricketiness that were all heirs to. That's how I translated it, as it turns out.So, PS there was a moment, [00:44:00] which I don't remember which setting it was now, but there was a moment when the "maybe we'll see if she becomes a bride" bride's mother slid up to me during the course of the proceedings, and in a kind of stage whisper more or less hissed me as follows."Is this a real wedding?"I mean, that's not a question. Not in that setting, obviously not. That is an accusation. Right. And a withering one at that. And there was a tremendous amount of throw-down involved.So, was it? I mean, what we do know is that she did not go to any of the weddings [00:45:00] that she was thinking of at the time, and go to the front of the room where the celebrant is austerely standing there with the book, or the script, or the well-intentioned, or the self-penned vows and never hissed at him or her, "is this a real wedding?"Never once did she do that. We know that.Right.And I think we know why. But she was fairly persuaded she knew what a real wedding was. And all she was really persuaded by was the poverty of the weddings that she'd attended before that one. Well, I was as informed in that respect as she was, wasn't I? I just probably hadn't gone to as many reprobate weddings as she had, so she had more to deal with than I did, even though I was in the position of the line of fire.And I didn't respond too well to the question, I have to say. At the moment, I was rather combative. But I mean, you try to do [00:46:00] what I tried to do and not have a degree of fierceness to go along with your discernment, you know, just to see if you can drag this carcass across the threshold. Anyway, that happened too.Chris: Wow. Yeah. Dominant culture of North America.Stephen: Heard of it.Chris: Yeah. Well, in Matrimony, there's quite a bit in which you write about hospitality and radical hospitality. And I wanted to move in that direction a little bit, because in terms of these kind of marketplace rituals or ceremonies that you were mentioning you know, it's something that we might wonder, I think, as you have, how did it come to be this [00:47:00] way?And so I'd like to, if I can once again, quote from matrimony in which you speak to the etymology of hospitality. And so for those interested on page 88,"the word hospitality comes from hospitaller, meaning 'one who cares for the afflicted, the infirm, the needy.' There's that thread of our misgivings about being on the receiving end of hospitality. Pull on it. For the written history of the word, at least, it has meant, 'being on the receiving end of a kind of care you'd rather not need.'"End quote.Stephen: That's so great. I mean, before you go on with the quote. It's so great to know that the word, unexamined, just kind of leaks upside, doesn't it? Hospitality, I mean, nobody goes "Hospitality, ew." [00:48:00] And then, if you just quietly do the obvious math to yourself, there's so much awkwardness around hospitality.This awkwardness must have an origin, have a home. There must be some misgiving that goes along with the giving of hospitality, mustn't there be? How else to understand where that kind of ickiness is to be found. Right? And it turns out that the etymology is giving you the beginnings of a way of figuring it out what it is that you're on the receiving end of - a kind of succor that you wish you didn't need, which is why it's the root word for "hospital."Chris: Hmm hmm. Wow.Audience: Hmm.Chris: May I repeat that sentence please? Once more."For the written history of the word, at least, it has meant, [00:49:00] 'being on the receiving end of a kind of care you'd rather not need.'"And so this last part hits home for me as I imagine it does for many.And it feels like the orthodoxy of hospitality in our time is one based not only in transaction, but in debt. And if you offer hospitality to me, then I owe you hospitality.Stephen: Right.Chris: I'm indebted to you. And we are taught, in our time, that the worst thing to be in is in debt.Stephen: Right?Chris: And so people refuse both the desire to give as well as the learning skill of receiving. And this is continuing on page 88 now."But there's mystery afoot with this word. In its old Latin form, hospice meant both 'host' and 'guest.'"Stephen: Amazing. One. Either one, This is absolutely amazing. We're fairly sure that there's a [00:50:00] acres of difference between the giver of hospitality and the receiver that the repertoire is entirely different, that the skew between them is almost insurmountable, that they're not interchangeable in any way. But the history of the word immediately says, "really?" The history of the word, without question, says that "host" and "guest" are virtually the same, sitting in different places, being different people, more or less joined at the hip. I'll say more, but you go ahead with what you were gonna do. Sure.Chris: "In it's proto Indo-European origins, hospitality and hospice is a compound word: gosh + pot. And it meant something like [00:51:00] 'stranger/guest/host + powerful Lord.'It is amazing to me that ancestrally, the old word for guest, host, and stranger were all the same word. Potent ceremonial business, this is. In those days, the server and the serve were partners in something mysterious. This could be confusing, but only if you think of guest, host, and stranger as fixed identities.If you think of them as functions, as verbs, the confusion softens and begins to clear. The word hospice in its ancient root is telling us that each of the people gathered together in hospitality is bound to the others by formal etiquette, yes, but the bond is transacted through a subtle scheme of graces.Hospitality, it tells us, is a web of longing and belonging that binds people for a time, some hithereto unknown to each other is a clutch of mutually-binding elegances, you could say. In its ancient practice, [00:52:00] hospitality was a covenant. According to that accord, however we were with each other. That was how the Gods would be with us. We learn our hospitality by being on the receiving end of Godly administration. That's what giving thanks for members. We proceed with our kin in imitation of that example and in gratitude for it."Mm-hmm.And so today, among "secular" people, with the Gods ignored, this old-time hospitality seems endangered, if not fugitive. I'm curious how you imagine that this rupture arose, the ones that separated and commercialized the radical relationships between hosts and guests, that turned them from verbs to nouns and something like strangers to marketplace functions.[00:53:00]Stephen: Well, of course this is a huge question you've asked, and I'll see if I can unhuge it a bit.Chris: Uhhuh.Stephen: Let's go right to the heart of what happened. Just no preliminaries, just right to it.So, to underscore again, the beauty of the etymology. I've told you over and over again, the words will not fail you. And this is just a shining example, isn't it? That the fraternization is a matter of ceremonial alacrity that the affiliation between host and guest, which makes them partners in something, that something is the [00:54:00] evocation of a third thing that's neither one of them. It's the thing they've lent themselves to by virtue of submitting to being either a host or a guest. One.Two. You could say that in circumstances of high culture or highly-functioning culture, one of the principle attributes of that culture is that the fundament of its understanding, is that only with the advent of the stranger in their midst that the best of them comes forward.Okay, follow that. Yeah.So, this is a little counterintuitive for those of us who don't come from such places. We imagine that the advent of strangers in the midst of the people I'm describing would be an occasion where people hide their [00:55:00] best stuff away until the stranger disappears, and upon the disappearance of the stranger, the good stuff comes out again.You know?So, I'm just remembering just now, there's a moment in the New Testament where Jesus says something about the best wine and he's coming from exactly this page that we're talking about - not the page in the book, but this understanding. He said, you know, "serve your best wine first," unlike the standard, that prevails, right?So again, what a stranger does in real culture is call upon the cultural treasure of the host's culture, and provides the opportunity for that to come forward, right? By which you can understand... Let's say for simplicity's sake, there's two kinds of hospitality. There's probably all kinds of gradations, [00:56:00] but for the purposes of responding to what you've asked, there's two.One of them is based on kinship. Okay? So, family meal. So, everybody knows whose place is whose around the table, or it doesn't matter - you sit wherever you want. Or, when we're together, we speak shorthand. That's the shorthand of familiarity and affinity, right?Everybody knows what everybody's talking about. A lot of things get half-said or less, isn't it? And there's a certain fineness, isn't it? That comes with that kind of affinity. Of course, there is, and I'm not diminishing it at all. I'm just characterizing it as being of a certain frequency or calibre or charge. And the charge is that it trades on familiarity. It requires that. There's that kind of hospitality."Oh, sit wherever you want."Remember this one?[00:57:00]"We don't stand on ceremony here.""Oh, you're one of the family now." I just got here. What, what?But, of course, you can hear in the protestations the understanding, in that circumstance, that formality is an enemy to feeling good in this moment, isn't it? It feels stiff and starched and uncalled for or worse.It feels imported from elsewhere. It doesn't feel friendly. So, I'm giving you now beginnings of a differentiation between how cultures who really function as cultures understand what it means to be hospitable and what often prevails today, trading is a kind of low-grade warfare conducted against the strangeness of the stranger.The whole purpose of treating somebody like their family is to mitigate, and finally neutralize their [00:58:00] strangeness, so that for the purposes of the few hours in front of us all, there are no strangers here. Right? Okay.Then there's another kind, and intuitively you can feel what I'm saying. You've been there, you know exactly what I mean.There's another kind of circumstance where the etiquette that prevails is almost more emphatic, more tangible to you than the familiar one. That's the one where your mother or your weird aunt or whoever she might be, brings out certain kind of stuff that doesn't come out every day. And maybe you sit in a room that you don't often sit in. And maybe what gets cooked is stuff you haven't seen in a long time. And some part of you might be thinking, "What the hell is all this about?" And the answer is: it's about that guy in the [00:59:00] corner that you don't know.And your own ancestral culture told acres of stories whose central purpose was to convey to outsiders their understanding of what hospitality was. That is fundamentally what The Iliad and The Odyssey are often returning to and returning to and returning to.They even had a word for the ending of the formal hospitality that accrued, that arose around the care and treatment of strangers. It was called pomp or pompe, from which we get the word "pompous." And you think about what the word "pompous" means today.It means "nose in the air," doesn't it? Mm-hmm. It means "thinks really highly of oneself," isn't it? And it means "useless, encumbering, kind of [01:00:00] artificial kind of going through the motions stuff with a kind of aggrandizement for fun." That's what "pompous" means. Well, the people who gave us the word didn't mean that at all. This word was the word they used to describe the particular moment of hospitality when it was time for the stranger to leave.And when it was mutually acknowledged that the time for hospitality has come to an end, and the final act of hospitality is to accompany the stranger out of the house, out of the compound, out into the street, and provision them accordingly, and wish them well, and as is oftentimes practiced around here, standing in the street and waving them long after they disappear from view.This is pompous. This is what it actually means. Pretty frigging cool when you get corrected once in a while, isn't it? [01:01:00] Yeah.So, as I said, to be simplistic about it, there's at least a couple of kinds, and one of them treasures the advent of the stranger, understanding it to be the detonation point for the most elegant part of us to come forward.Now, those of us who don't come from such a place, we're just bamboozled and Shanghai'ed by the notion of formality, which we kind of eschew. You don't like formality when it comes to celebration, as if these two things are hostile, one to the other. But I'd like you to consider the real possibility that formality is grace under pressure, and that formality is there to give you a repertoire of response that rescues you from the gross limitations of your autobiography.[01:02:00]Next question. I mean, that's the beginning.Chris: Absolutely. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Thank you once again, Stephen. So alongside the term or concept of "pompe," in which the the guest or stranger was led out of the house or to the entrance of the village, there was also the consideration around the enforcement of hospitality, which you write about in the book. And you write that"the enforcement of hospitality runs the palpable risk of violating or undoing the cultural value it is there to advocate for. Forcing people to share their good fortune with the less fortunate stretches, to the point of undoing the generosity of spirit that the culture holds dear. Enforcement of hospitality is a sign of the eclipse of hospitality, typically spawned by insecurity, contracted self-definition, and the darkening of the [01:03:00] stranger at the door.Instead, such places and times are more likely to encourage the practice of hospitality in subtle generous ways, often by generously treating the ungenerous."And so there seems to be a need for limits placed on hospitality, in terms of the "pompe," the maximum three days in which a stranger can be given hospitality, and concurrently a need to resist enforcing hospitality. This seems like a kind of high-wire act that hospitable cultures have to balance in order to recognize and realize an honorable way of being with a stranger. And so I'm wondering if you could speak to the possibility of how these limits might be practiced without being enforced. What might that look like in a culture that engages with, with such limits, but without prohibitions?Stephen: Mm-hmm. That's a very good question. [01:04:00] Well, I think your previous question was what happened? I think, in a nutshell, and I didn't really answer that, so maybe see how I can use this question to answer the one that you asked before: what happened? So, there's no doubt in my mind that something happened that it's kind of demonstrable, if only with the benefit of hindsight.Audience: Right.Stephen: Or we can feel our way around the edges of the absence of the goneness of that thing that gives us some feel for the original shape of that thing.So you could say I'm trafficking in "ideals," here, and after a fashion, maybe, yeah. But the notion of "ideals," when it's used in this slanderous way suggests that "it was never like that."Chris: Mm-hmm.Stephen: And I suggest to you it's been like that in a lot of places, and there's a lot of places where it's still like that, although globalization [01:05:00] may be the coup de grâce performed upon this capacity. Okay. But anyway.Okay. So what happened? Well, you see in the circumstance that I described, apropos of the stranger, the stranger is in on it. The stranger's principle responsibility is to be the vector for this sort of grandiose generosity coming forward, and to experience that in a burdensome and unreciprocated fashion, until you realize that their willingness to do that is their reciprocity. Everybody doesn't get to do everything at once. You can't give and receive at the same time. You know what that's called? "Secret Santa at school," isn't it?That's where nobody owes nobody nothing at the end. That's what we're all after. I mean, one of your questions, you know, pointed to that, that there's a kind of, [01:06:00] what do you call that, teeter-totter balance between what people did for each other and what they received for each other. Right. And nobody feels slighted in any way, perfect balance, et cetera.Well, the circumstance here has nothing of the kind going with it. The circumstance we're describing now is one in which the hospitality is clearly unequal in terms of who's eating whose food, for example, in terms of the absolutely frustrated notion of reciprocity, that in fact you undo your end of the hospitality by trying to pay back, or give back, or pay at all, or break even, or not feel the burden of "God, you've been on the take for fricking hours here now." And if you really look in the face of the host, I mean, they're just getting started and you can't, you can't take it anymore.[01:07:00]So, one of the ways that we contend with this is through habits of speech. So, if somebody comes around with seconds. They say, "would you like a little more?"And you say, "I'm good. I'm good. I'm good." You see, "I'm good" is code for what? "F**k off." That's what it's code for. It's a little strong. It's a little strong. What I mean is, when "I'm good" comes to town, it means I don't need you and what you have. Good God, you're not there because you need it you knucklehead. You're there because they need it, because their culture needs an opportunity to remember itself. Right?Okay. So what happened? Because you're making it sound like a pretty good thing, really. Like who would say, "I think we've had enough of this hospitality thing, don't you? Let's try, oh, [01:08:00] keeping our s**t to ourselves. That sounds like a good alternative. Let's give it a week or two, see how it rolls." Never happened. Nobody decided to do this - this change, I don't think. I think the change happened, and sometime long after people realized that the change had had taken place. And it's very simple. The change, I think, went something like this.As long as the guest is in on it, there's a shared and mutually-held understanding that doesn't make them the same. It makes them to use the quote from the book "partners," okay, with different tasks to bring this thing to light, to make it so. What does that require? A mutually-held understanding in vivo as it's happening, what it is.Okay. [01:09:00] So, that the stranger who's not part of the host culture... sorry, let me say this differently.The culture of the stranger has made the culture of the host available to the stranger no matter how personally adept he or she may be at receiving. Did you follow that?Audience: A little.Stephen: Okay. Say it again?Audience: Yes, please.Stephen: Okay. The acculturation, the cultured sophistication of the stranger is at work in his or her strangerhood. Okay. He or she's not at home, but their cultural training helps them understand what their obligations are in terms of this arrangement we've been describing here.Okay, so I think the rupture takes place [01:10:00] when the culturation of one side or the other fails to make the other discernible to the one.One more time?When something happens whereby the acculturation of one of the partners makes the identity, the presence, and the valence of the other one untranslatable. Untranslatable.I could give you an example from what I call " the etiquette of trade," or the... what was the word? Not etiquette. What's the other word?Chris: The covenant?Stephen: Okay, " covenant of trade" we'll call it. So, imagine that people are sitting across from each other, two partners in a trade. Okay? [01:11:00] Imagine that they have one thing to sell or move or exchange and somebody has something else.How does this work? Not "what are the mechanics?" That can be another discussion, but, if this works, how does it work? Not "how does it happen?" How does it actually achieve what they're after? Maybe it's something like this.I have this pottery, and even though you're not a potter, but somebody in your extended family back home was, and you watched what they went through to make a fricking pot, okay?You watched how their hands seized up, because the clay leached all the moisture out of the hands. You distinctly remember that - how the old lady's hands looked cracked and worn, and so from the work of making vessels of hospitality, okay? [01:12:00] It doesn't matter that you didn't make it yourself. The point is you recognize in the item something we could call "cultural patrimony."You recognize the deep-runningness of the culture opposite you as manifest and embodied in this item for trade. Okay? So, the person doesn't have to "sell you" because your cultural sophistication makes this pot on the other side available to you for the deeply venerable thing that it is. Follow what I'm saying?Okay. So, you know what I'm gonna say next? When something happens, the items across from you cease to speak, cease to have their stories come along with them, cease to be available. There's something about your cultural atrophy that you project onto the [01:13:00] item that you don't recognize.You don't recognize it's valence, it's proprieties, it's value, it's deep-running worth and so on. Something happened, okay? And because you're not making your own stuff back home or any part of it. And so now, when you're in a circumstance like this and you're just trying to get this pot, but you know nothing about it, then the enterprise becomes, "Okay, so what do you have to part with to obtain the pot?"And the next thing is, you pretend you're not interested in obtaining the pot to obtain the pot. That becomes part of the deal. And then, the person on the making end feels the deep running slight of your disinterest, or your vague involvement in the proceedings, or maybe the worst: when it's not things you're going back and forth with, but there's a third thing called money, which nobody makes, [01:14:00] which you're not reminded of your grandma or anyone else's with the money. And then, money becomes the ghost of the original understanding of the cultural patrimony that sat between you. That's what happened, I'm fairly sure: the advent, the estrangement that comes with the stranger, instead of the opportunity to be your cultural best when the stranger comes.And then of course, it bleeds through all kinds of transactions beyond the "obvious material ones." So, it's a rupture in translatability, isn't it?Chris: You understand this to happen or have happened historically, culturally, et cetera, with matrimony as well?Stephen: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.Yeah. This is why, for example, things like the fetishization of virginity.Audience: Mm-hmm. [01:15:00]Stephen: I think it's traceable directly to what we're talking about. How so? Oh, this is a whole other long thing, but the very short version would be this.Do you really believe that through all of human history until the recent liberation, that people have forever fetishized the virginity of a young woman and jealously defended it, the "men" in particular, and that it became a commodity to trade back and forth in, and that it had to be prodded and poked at to determine its intactness? And this was deemed to be, you know, honourable behavior?Do you really think that's the people you come from, that they would've do that to the most cherished of their [01:16:00] own, barely pubescent girls? Come on now. I'm not saying it didn't happen and doesn't still happen. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, God almighty, something happened for that to be so.And I'm trying to allude to you now what I think took place. Then all of a sudden, the hymen takes the place of the pottery, doesn't it? And it becomes universally translatable. Doesn't it? It becomes a kind of a ghosted artifact of a culturally-intact time. It's as close as you can get.Hence, this allegation of its purity, or the association with purity, and so on. [01:17:00] I mean, there's lots to say, but that gives you a feel for what might have happened there.Chris: Thank you, Stephen. Thank you for being so generous with your considerations here.Stephen: You see why I had to write a book, eh?Audience: Mm-hmm.Stephen: There was too much bouncing around. Like I had to just keep track of my own thoughts on the matter.But can you imagine all of this at play in the year, oh, I don't know, 2022, trying to put into motion a redemptive passion play called "matrimony," with all of this at play? Not with all of this in my mind, but with all of this actually disfiguring the anticipation of the proceedings for the people who came.Can you imagine? Can you imagine trying to pull it off, and [01:18:00] contending overtly with all these things and trying to make room for them in a moment that's supposed to be allegedly - get ready for it - happy.I should have raised my rates on the first day, trying to pull that off.But anyway.Okay, you go now,Chris: Maybe now you'll have the opportunity.Stephen: No, man. No. I'm out of the running for that. "Pompe" has come and come and gone. Mm.Chris: So, in matrimony, Stephen, you write that"the brevity, the brevity of modern ceremonies is really there to make sure that nothing happens, nothing of substance, nothing of consequence, no alchemy, no mystery, no crazy other world stuff. That overreach there in its scripted heart tells me that deep in the rayon-wrapped bosom of that special day, the modern wedding is scared [01:19:00] silly of something happening. That's because it has an ages-old abandoned memory of a time when a wedding was a place where the Gods came around, where human testing and trying and making was at hand, when the dead lingered in the wings awaiting their turn to testify and inveigh."Gorgeous. Gorgeous.Audience: Mm-hmm.Chris: And so I'm curious ifStephen: "Rayon-wrapped bosom." That's not, that's not shabby.Chris: "Rayon-wrapped bosom of that special day." Yeah.So, I'm curious do you think the more-than-human world practices matrimony, and if so, what, if anything, might you have learned about matrimony from the more-than-human world?Stephen: I would say the reverse. I would say, we practice the more-than-human world in matrimony, not that the more-than-human world practices matrimony. We practice them, [01:20:00] matrimonially.Next. Okay. Or no? I just gonna say that, that's pretty good.Well, where do we get our best stuff from? Let's just wonder that. Do we get our best stuff from being our best? Well, where does that come from? And this is a bit of a barbershop mirrors situation here, isn't it? To, to back, back, back, back.If you're thinking of time, you can kind of get lost in that generation before, or before, before, before. And it starts to sound like one of them biblical genealogies. But if you think of it as sort of the flash point of multiple presences, if you think of it that way, then you come to [01:21:00] credit the real possibility that your best stuff comes from you being remembered by those who came before you.Audience: Hmm.Stephen: Now just let that sit for a second, because what I just said is logically-incompatible.Okay? You're being remembered by people who came before you. That's not supposed to work. It doesn't work that way. Right?"Anticipated," maybe, but "remembered?" How? Well, if you credit the possibility of multiple beginnings, that's how. Okay. I'm saying that your best stuff, your best thoughts, not the most noble necessarily. I would mean the most timely, [01:22:00] the ones that seem most needed, suddenly.You could take credit and sure. Why, why not? Because ostensibly, it arrives here through you, but if you're frank with yourself, you know that you didn't do that on command, right? I mean, you could say, I just thought of it, but you know in your heart that it was thought of and came to you.I don't think there's any difference between saying that and saying you were thought of.Audience: Mm-hmm.Stephen: So, that's what I think the rudiments of old-order matrimony are. They are old people and their benefactors in the food chain and spiritually speaking. Old people and their benefactors, the best part of them [01:23:00] willed to us, entrusted and willed to us. So, when you are willing to enter into the notion that old-order matrimony is older than you, older than your feelings for the other person, older than your love, and your commitment, and your willingness to make the vows and all that stuff, then you're crediting the possibility that your love is not the beginning of anything.You see. Your love is the advent of something, and I use that word deliberately in its Christian notion, right? It's the oncomingness, the eruption into the present day of something, which turns out to be hugely needed and deeply unsuspected at the same time.I used to ask in the school, "can you [01:24:00] have a memory of something you have no lived experience of?" I think that's what the best part of you is. I'm not saying the rest of you is shite. I'm not saying that. You could say that, but I am saying that when I say "the best part of you," that needs a lot of translating, doesn't it?But the gist of it is that the best part of you is entrusted to you. It's not your creation, it's your burden, your obligation, your best chance to get it right. And that's who we are to those who came before us. We are their chance to get it right, and matrimony is one of the places where you practice the gentle art of getting it right.[01:25:00] Another decent reason to write a book.Chris: So, gorgeous. Wow. Thank you Stephen. I might have one more question.Stephen: Okay. I might have one more answer. Let's see.Chris: Alright. Would I be able to ask if dear Nathalie Roy could join us up here alongside your good man.So, returning to Matrimony: Ritual, Culture and the Heart's Work. On page 94, [01:26:00] Stephen, you write that"hospitality of the radical kind is

On the 135th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I'm delighted to welcome our guest, Stephen Jenkinson. Stephen is a cultural worker, teacher, author, and ceremonialist. He is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, founded in 2010. He has master's degrees from Harvard University (theology) and the University of Toronto (social work). He's the author of Come of Age, the award-winning Die Wise, Money and the Soul's Desires, and Reckoning (with Kimberly Ann Johnson). His latest book, Matrimony: Ritual, Culture and the Heart's Work, invites readers to contemplate the significance of matrimony, ceremony, and cultural articulation—and how to redeem them for future generations.In this rich conversation, Stephen explores profound questions about life, love, and the nature of existence. The discussion delves into the essence of ceremonies, particularly in matrimony, emphasising the need for meaningful endings and the responsibilities we hold towards future generations. The discussion weaves fate, ancestry, humility, and the call to “proceed as if you're needed” into a meditation on how we might live fully inhabited lives.For Stephen's latest book, Matrimony:To buy your copy: https://orphanwisdom.com/store/matrimony/About the book: https://orphanwisdom.com/books/matrimony/For more of Stephen's work: Website: https://orphanwisdom.com/Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/00:01 – Introduction01:37 – The Condition of Pondering06:28 – Roots of Pondering10:16 – The Dream Another World Has of You19:36 – Needed vs Important21:46 – Matrimony and the Presence of the Absence26:00 – Longing and Belonging 31:00 – Modern wedding and the privatisation of love35:47 – The Art of the Ending41:40 – Pompe and the Necessity of Closure43:47 – Ritual as a Gift to the Village45:45 – The White Heat of Possibility51:25 – The Active Witness53:43 – What Is a Good Life for Stephen?

What does it mean to treat birth as a portal: one of transformation, intuition, and magic?This week on Moonbeaming, Sarah Faith Gottesdiener is joined by Natasha June, a doula, herbalist, and longtime member of the Moon Studio community, for a conversation about preparing for birth and all of its emotional, spiritual, and intuitive dimensions.In this episode you'll learn:Why birth is a transformational portal—even for those who don't give birthHow to cultivate and trust your intuition during pregnancy and parenthoodThe emotional and spiritual layers of preparing for birthWhat doulas really do (and why their support matters)The importance of informed care and advocacy, especially for BIPOC birthing peopleNatasha June is a Los Angeles–based Certified Full Spectrum Doula, Vaginal Steam Facilitator, Herbalist, and Placenta Specialist. She found her way to birth work after becoming a mother herself. Natasha works in both private practice and through the AAIMM Doula program, supporting birthing people across Los Angeles County. Her work focuses on reproductive justice, informed care, and the need for strong support before, during, and after birth—especially in response to the disparities that impact BIPOC and Black maternal health. She believes our perinatal care system must evolve to fully honor the mind, body, and spirit of those bringing new life into the world.Moon Studio workshop reminder:June 29th: The Constellation of the 9's: The Hermit, The Moon, & the 9's: https://moon-studio.co/products/the-constellation-of-the-9s-the-hermit-the-moon-the-9sJoin the Moon Studio community:Join the Moon Studio Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/themoonstudioBuy the 2025 Many Moons Lunar Planner: https://moon-studio.co/collections/all-products-excluding-route/products/many-moons-2025Subscribe to our newsletter: https://moon-studio.co/pages/newsletterFind Sarah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gottesss/ Learn more about Natasha June:https://www.rarebreedhealer.com/IG: @rarebreedhealermama@rarebreedhealer.com Book mentioned in this episode:The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson — kimberlyannjohnson.com/the-fourth-trimester

Return guest Ash Robinson dives deep with Kimberly Ann Johnson into the challenges and opportunities for women in business amidst the current economic and technological climate. They discuss the role of AI on personal and professional life, the importance of financial stability, and the need for a clear vision and strategy, particularly for women. Ash emphasizes the significance of taking stock of one's current situation, identifying needs, and focusing on sustainable growth. They also touch on the role of professional resourcing, the balance between enduring and sacrificing, and the importance of community and support in achieving long-term goals. This Fall, they will be offering round 2 of the Mastermind for Women Entrepreneur, so look out for a sign-up announcement coming this August!   Bio Ash Robinsoon is the strategist standing behind many leaders who are doing their big work. From Ash: “I'm a wife, mother of three, and deeply value my family life. As a CEO for most of my career, I spent most of my time creating and building, not consulting. I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and have personally worked in both product and service businesses across many industries, including early education, fitness, consumer products, online education, brick and mortar, franchise systems, and technology (software). My experience is a unique blend of professional management and entrepreneurship in both private and public companies. In 2014, I co-founded bon-fire for business, an experiential education and consulting firm that leverages strategic planning and human design to bridge the gap between untapped potential and business performance.  bon-fire is built on the idea that human beings are driven to create value, and that creating a path for harnessing talent and creating sustainable, thriving culture is the surest way to win in our networked age.  For the last 15 years, I have been a student of people and the teams and organizations they work on-- from my work in early education leading a team of hundreds to my own pursuit of optimal health and making a real difference in my work.  My passion and research in neuroscience, cognition, behavior change, and culture inform both the tools and approach we use in bon·fire.  I believe that your organization is actually a living system- highly adaptable, renewable, and self-organizing- which creates the possibility for a new level of both value creation and engagement with your vision and effective progress toward it. Business can be a bridge— igniting the spark of the human spirit and providing the structure in which a committed group of people make a positive impact.  My passion is for bringing people around the bon·fire to achieve extraordinary personal and business performance. I believe we have to build the world we want to belong to.”   What You'll Hear After seeing so many women's businesses thrive from  their masterminding course they wanted to craft another offering. Our finances are a huge part of our eros and how we express ourselves in the world What role does AI play in online and coaching businesses?  To build the world we want to belong to that's  our work to do What does AI use tell us about our nervous systems Do one thing well Uncertainty creates instability When we are clear we can take more embodied action to what we are after. Existential dilemmas live in the parasympathetic nervous system Action comes from a healthy sympathetic drive How do you young people deal with a helpless parasympathetic response to the world? Mistaking business/system problems for personal problems  The how do wee accomplish the vision can be messy Finding clarity not all about a perfect strategy it's also about being resourced and nourished Trying to take stock of the “As Is View” What do I need to get where I want to go? Reaching financial goals always has a weigh    Links Website: https://bon-fire.co/ IG: @ashrobinsoncalhoun  

In this episode, Kimberly Ann Johnson and filmmaker/producer Jackson Kroopf reflect on their respective experiences watching Best Picture Winner Anora. They discuss their contrasting experiences of seeing the films in theaters, what role sex and violence played in the film, and unpack some of what they were drawn to and troubled by in the film. And while they both found the hedonism in the film uncomfortable, the film's ending landed, particularly in its portrayal of power dynamics, intimate rapport, and the broken fantasies that emerge in pursuit of the American dream. Along the way, they consider to what extent the film's success hinged on a desensitized audience and what that might say about where we find ourselves culturally when it comes to the female body, our nervous systems, and sexuality. If you'd like to dive deeper into these topics, consider signing up for Kimberly's upcoming course Activate Your Inner Jaguar: Movement, Meditation & The Female Nervous System.   What You'll Hear Why Kimberly walked out the first time she saw it. A consideration of how sex and violence functioned in the film. What commentary is the film making about the nature of sex work? The erotic vs. the pornographic What is the moral center of the film? What role does comedy play in the film? Sadness around desensitization in our culture The desire for representations of sexuality that are connected, off-script, non-generic Representations of sexuality on a woman's own terms The fantasy of the American Dream falling apart Old world vs. new world when it comes to 1st and 2nd generation immigrants Is there any worth in bearing witness to extreme hedonism Can cinema re-sensitize us? Does violence in films reflect what's in the collective or determine what's in the collective? What happens when couples more openly discuss their sexual preferences? Can repair happen if a negative sexual experience takes place with a partner? Longing for seeing representations of moral men outside of "hero" roles Links Sign up for the course Activate Your Inner Jaguar: Movement, Meditation & The Female Nervous System here.

In this episode, Kimberly Ann Johnson is joined by journalist, and fellow Jaguar, Kristin Butler to discuss the case of Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman: a celebrity couple who are currently both facing charges around Gaiman's ongoing sexual misconduct. Kimberly and Kristin share their own personal reactions to the case, as well as the way the reporting on the story reveals common challenges for women dealing with fallout from sexual boundary rupture, particularly fawning. They explore the complexities of boundary violations, the impact of the #BelieveSurvivors movement on men, and the psychological responses for women searching for agency and empowerment post boundary rupture. The conversation touches on the broader implications of sexual abuse, the role of social media, and the importance of Activate Your Inner Jaguar work in empowering individuals to recognize and assert their boundaries. They discuss the power of embodied consent and the challenges of navigating gray areas in sexual interactions, as well as circumstances where structural power and interpersonal power fluctuate in relationships between men and women.   What They Discuss? Trigger warnings and disclaimers in journalism Fawning between young women and older men who abuse their power What is the journalistic responsibilities of storytelling and reporting around sexual boundaries An in depth consideration of Tortoise Media's podcast series Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman Fawning when the threat is not front of you What happens when your flight response doesn't activate? How does our nervous system respond to a boundary rupture? Tendencies to blame oneself after a sexual boundary rupture Self-Gaslighting What's a trauma loop? What is compelling me to enter certain sexual situations? How does activate your inner jaguar empower women? What is the responsibility women have to their own nervous systems and for their behavior? The complexity of #BelieveSurvivors What is too overprotective for a parent? Is it safe to be a sex positive parent? How do highly publicized extremes impact sexual norms? How does virtual socialization impact our in person interactions? How does emotional support from AI impact our relationships It's become normalized to for men and women to degrade/insult men  The quieter forms of anti-male bias How does structural power and relative power play out between men and women? How does power play out in everyday relationships? The power of embodied boundaries   Links Sign up for Activate Your Inner Jaguar: Movement, Meditation, and The Female Nervous System here - Early Bird price ends May 2nd

Welcome to a special Easter edition with the seasonal topic of how our sexuality changes from teens to postmenopause.  Spoiler alert, there are no eggs or chocolate to be found here, but the themes of Spring 'becoming' in the maiden years fit beautifully with the epic greenness and becoming of late April growth. My guest is Kimberly Ann Johnson, somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Sexological Bodyworker, Birth Doula, author, and single mother who offers a uniquely refreshing view of well-being in the female body. We talked about:What the erotic seasons are in a woman's life, their vices and virtuesHow to support your teen's sexualityGrief of many kindsKimberly's experience of perimenopause and what she learned about herselfThe challenges and joys of being in peri with a teenKimberly's course is here and her website can be found hereKimberly's Instagram @kimberly.ann.johnsonOther resourcesMarion Woodman Kimberly's books are The Fourth Trimester and Call of the Wild Steven Jenkinson Call To Love Weekend Workshop - 5th-6th July London (pay easefully with instalments if you book by May 5th)You can buy me a cuppa here Buy The Perimenopause JournalKate's free resource libraryInstagram @kate_codringtonBuy Second SpringPerimenopause Unwrapped online course Perimenopause Starter Kit MusicTrust Me by RYYZNArtworkKate's portrait by Lori Fitzdoodles

This is a special re-release of an episode featuring guest host Jackson Kroopf speaking with the incomparable Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson. We're bringing this conversation back to let you know about something special happening this weekend from Stephen Jenkinson and the Orphan Wisdom School: Sanity and Soul: Die Wise 10 Years. Taking place on March 15th and 16th at 10am Pacific, this 6-part online event is a deep dive into the wisdom of death, grief, and the soul, 10 years after the publication of Stephen's transformative book Die Wise. You'll get to experience the depth of Stephen's work in a pretty unique way: through 4 recorded grief counsel sessions with dying people, hearing Stephen practice, in 2025, the kind of work described in Die Wise. Plus, he'll be joined by two brilliant colleagues—a neuroscientist studying human consciousness and a filmmaker exploring the afterlife—to discuss the lasting impact of Die Wise on grief counseling, death doulas, and the way these ideas continue to shape our world. If you want to learn more and register, visit orphanwisdom.com/events. But now, enjoy this conversation from March 2023, following Reckoning at Mt. Madonna. Please do consider gifting yourself or a loved one this upcoming offering, Sanity & Soul that promises to provide some ceremony in these  troubled times in ways only Stephen and the Orphan Wisdom School can. Link: https://orphanwisdom.com/event/die-wise-sanity-and-soul-ten-years-on/   What You'll Here in this Episode: Reflections on witness from retired birth and death workers The value of disillusionment The power of loneliness The proliferation of self pathologizing The complex politics of feelings The religion of western psychology Adolescents grabbing for pop psychology labels The respect in not offering solutions The eagerness to escape from pain while grieving Is love dead? Blessing not as approval but the emergence of something new Marriage as both celebration and loss Matrimony between cultures An only child and single parent inviting in a new husband Building an escape route as you enter a union The no-go zone of contemporary western marriage 15 minute weddings, 15 minute funerals, 15 minute births The cultural casualties of uniformity Being healthy enough to tend to home and neighbor   Links ig @reckoning live Sanity & Soul Sign-Up https://orphanwisdom.com/event/die-wise-sanity-and-soul-ten-years-on/

It's not often I feel nervous. I worked for many years as a photographer and met people from every stratum of society, from the wealthy and famous to the outcast and downtrodden. One thing I learnt early on is that nerves resulted in bad imagery. So when it came time for this podcast with Stephen Jenkinson, a man whose work I've followed for nearly a decade, I was nervous. It's not that Stephen is difficult to talk to or combative; it's because Stephen is a master of the English language, and each word he uses is carefully chosen based on its etymology. He also doesn't let you get away with anything if he believes you've incorrectly identified something. My nerves quickly abaited once I felt Stephen's generosity of spirit.   This is one of the most meaningful conversations I've had. Stephen traverses: - What we have lost in our modern societies, if there is a way back, and if there were, to what we think we are to return to. - Death and our lack of education around the ultimate which every life faces. - What it truly means to cultivate a mindset that sees us creating genuine connections to one another to create communities that will benefit future generations. Most of all, Stephen reminded me that our lives are shaped by the questions we ask rather than the answers we seek—in his own words, "I'm far more in favour of the wonder of the question than the certainty of the answer." As the great poet E.E. Cummings phrased it, "Always the most beautiful answer to he who asks the most beautiful question." It was an honor to speak with Stephen, and I know you'll get something significant from his life-long pursuit of asking the most beautiful questions.  It was an honor to speak with Stephen, and I know you'll get something significant from his life-long pursuit of asking the most beautiful questions.    About Stephen Jenkinson, MTS, MSW ~ Culture activist/ farmer/author ~ Stephen teaches internationally and has authored seven books of cultural critique. He is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, co-founded with his wife Nathalie Roy in 2010. The School's new project, The Scriptorium (2025), is creating an archive and library of his life's work. Apprenticed to a master storyteller as a young man, he worked extensively with dying people and their families. He is former programme director in a major Canadian hospital and former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school. Stephen has Masters' degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work). In 2023 Stephen received a Distinguished Alumni Honours Award from Harvard University for “helping people navigate grief, exploring the liminal space between life and death, and connecting humanity through ceremony and storytelling.” In August 2025, Sounds True will release Stephen's newest book: Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart's Work.  He is also the author of Reckoning (co-written with Kimberly Ann Johnson in 2022), A Generation's Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (2021), Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul's Desires: A Meditation (2002). He was a contributing author to Palliative Care – Core Skills and Clinical Competencies (2007). Since co-founding the Nights of Grief and Mystery project with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins in 2015, he has toured this musical/ tent show revival/ storytelling/ ceremony of a show across North America, U.K., Ireland, Israel, Australia and New Zealand. They released their first Nights of Grief & Mystery album in 2017, and at the end of 2020 released two new records: Dark Roads and Rough Gods. A new album release is planned for 2025. Stephen Jenkinson is also the subject of the feature length documentary film Griefwalker (National Film Board of Canada, 2008, dir. Tim Wilson), a portrait of his work with dying people, and Lost Nation Road, a shorter documentary on the crafting of the Nights of Grief and Mystery tours (2019, dir. Ian Mackenzie). He was a stone sculptor turned wood-carver, and learned the arts of traditional birch bark canoe building. His first house won a Governor General's Award for architecture. He now lives on a small scale organic farm in an off-grid straw bale house. The 120 year old abandoned granary from across the river which appeared in Griefwalker was dismantled last year and re-erected at the Orphan Wisdom farm, where it is again a working barn.   Site https://orphanwisdom.com/   Events https://orphanwisdom.com/events-list/   Feelings with Strangers   Socials https://www.instagram.com/feelings.with.strangers/   YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@FeelingswithStrangers  

Suuzi and I continue the discussion sparked by my last episode about culty trends in the wellness space by talking about her past with Kundalini yoga- what drew her in and, eventually, how noticing the state of nourishment of those deepest into the cult precipitated her exit. We then catch listeners up on our midlife metabolic meltdown hEaLinG jOuRnEyS and what path we're taking forward as we continue to recover our vitality and deepen our understanding of why women's bodies are so metabolically expensive. Patreon bonuses for this episode include an extended conversation w/ Suuz about the reaction to the German New Medicine episode (114) & how it surprisingly kindled a discussion amongst patrons about a remarkably similar ideology, a 10% off coupon code for Suuzi's grass fed, grass finished liver pills, and a chance to ask us questions. Also photos of Suuzi in turbans! Dr. Suuzi on Instagram Mother's Best Liver Pills Amber's Nourishing Motherlines Substack Amber's website MythicMedicine.love  Take our fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? quiz Amber/Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Mentioned in this episode: Kimberly Ann Johnson on Whose Body Is It Breath of Fire Kundalini cult/Guru Jagat documentary The Rooted in Resilience podcast and specific Minnesota Starvation Experiment episodes with Kathleen Stewart The Energy Balance Podcast Cronometer nutrition tracking app How to Not Get Fat on the “Pro-Metabolic Diet”: a guide for switching to nourishing foods while avoiding fat gain by Kaya of Fundamental Nourishment Eating a “Pro-Metabolic Diet” Will Not Heal You: an appeal for having context to understand the big picture by Kaya of Fundamental Nourishment

As it's almost mid-November, and having witnessed what I have both as a woman and a coach I felt it super necessary to put out an episode talking about December/Christmas and the juggle — or let's be honest the STRESS — it can be for some.Many don't speak about how the load and expectations can become heavier at this time of year and suffer in silence, whilst feeling like a pressure cooker(!).In this episode I speak about:reducing stress and why it's importantlistening to your bodythe heaviness of real or perceived pressures and expectationswelcoming greater enjoymenthonouring your capacity at any given time (aka giving less f**ks about some of the things)a funny share about buying prezzies for Matildaboundaries and dealing with the emotions of others LESS (if you can)how our energy can be affected by people and placesbeing an advocate for your/your family's needs and desiresdo you want to/have to travel around Christmas?!Themes: boundaries, Christmas, family, parenting, relationships, At the end of the podcast I share a poem by me.The books I mention are 'Call of the Wild' by Kimberly Ann Johnson, 'When the Body Says No' by Gabor Maté and 'The Body Keeps The Score' by Bessel van der Kolk. I also mention Mark Groves.Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please consider leaving a review on the platform that you listen. Click here for Spotify or here for Apple Podcasts.Want to learn more about working with me? Book in for a free 30-minute discovery call by emailing me at lucy@lucywyldecoaching.com.For more insights, you can follow me on Instagram, and don't forget to sign up for my newsletter at www.lucywyldecoaching.com.

In this episode, podcast producer Jackson Kroopf interviews Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson about their upcoming live audio series Never Land / Sever Land - Dirt, Place, Ancestry, and The Making of Culture From The New World.  They discuss the impact of their recent trip to Ireland on their ongoing collaboration around culture making in the wake of a global pandemic. They reveal details about Stephen's work-in-progress manuscript and how it relates to orphan wisdom. They consider the implications of the “New World” in contemporary circumstances, the sticky territory of ancestry, and how dirt fits into all of this. A glimpse into a very special offering to come, this conversation gives you a preview into what happens when these two come together to consider the topics and work they've devoted so much of their respective writings and teachings to: how to consider (your) place when history is never far past.   What you'll here wonderings about: What it means for North Americans to visit their ancestral homeland The consequences of being cultural orphans Native culture and its relationship to whiteness What ancestry means to your travel plans The difference between making culture from and making culture for... Peter Behrens' book "The Law of Dream" Stephen's musings on Tobe Hooper and Stephen Spielberg's film Poltergeist Back to the land / farming fantasies Dirt and its layered wisdom Shifts in Stephen's teachings from warnings to descriptors The Unauthorized history of North America What it means to always feel like you're running Why its different to listen to this series live... What wellness has to do with all this... You can learn  more and sign up for their upcoming class "Never Land / Sever Land: Dirt, Place, Ancestry, and The Makings of Culture From the New World" from October 20th-November 17th at: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/never-land/ photo by Mattias Olsson  

In this episode, depth + somatic psychotherapist and The Whole Paradox Host, Molly Mitchell-Hardt interviews author, educator, and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Kimberly Ann Johnson. They talk about:menopause as a reckoninghormones as godsthe culture around menopause and aging"worrying" about fertility, perimenopause, menopausethe pressure to go on HRT (hormone replacement therapy)coming to terms with limitationliving in a "what's wrong" culture listening differently as a result of shifting hormones and access to wisdomhow social media is impacting women's perceptions about menopauseand much more...Follow us @mollymitchellhardt and @thewholeparadoxFind Kimberly Ann Johnson:Follow Kimberly on instagramVisit Kimberly's website for courses and MotherCircle-starting in SeptemberReferences:Hagitude Dr. Sharon BlackieCall of the Wild by Kimberly Ann JohnsonThe Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann JohnsonThe Upgrade by Dr. Louann BrizendineThis podcast was produced in association with Channel the Sun by Kevin Joseph Grossmann.  Musical stylings by Kevin Joseph Grossmann.

Jennifer offers a practice to dispel the myth that a regulated nervous system equates to calmness and neutrality. Drawing on insights from somatic experiencing practitioner Kimberly Ann Johnson, she emphasizes the importance of practicing flexibility in your nervous system to manage life's challenges. Jennifer introduces a playful practice of friendly wrestling to help you activate latent energy, track sensation, support an energetic re-set and make way for necessary expression, movement or boundaries.This practice contributes to your understanding of the activation-receptivity energetic pole  so you can access greater aliveness and discernment. If you have an insight from this practice that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear! Email Jennifer with any questions or observations- jennifer@sparkcoaching.caLinks & resources—For more practices, invitations and writing from Jennifer, subscribe to Jennifer's weekly newsletterFollow Jennifer on Instagram or LinkedIn Gratitude for this show's theme song Inside the House, composed by the talented Yukon musician, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Jordy Walker. Artwork by the imaginative writer, filmmaker and artist Jon Marro.

Transformational growth can be aided by mindset shifts but deeper change is initiated and sustained through the body. Jennifer talks with Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner, educator and author Kimberly Ann Johnson about how to develop receptivity and activation so you can practice radical responsibility. Together they explore: Why embracing your animalistic nature supports a healthy nervous systemHow to listen to and trust your body's signals Why activating your nervous system can help you feel less exhaustedHow your natural body changes can be real-time rites of passage Tune into this honest and refreshing conversation about how to embrace your body as a portal to greater intimacy, possibility and liberation. Links & resources—Learn more about Kimberly Anne JohnsonFollow Kimberly on Instagram or her podcast Sex, Birth, TraumaFor more practices, invitations and writing from Jennifer, subscribe to Jennifer's newsletterFollow Jennifer on Instagram or LinkedIn Gratitude for this show's theme song Inside the House, composed by the talented Yukon musician, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Jordy Walker. Artwork by the imaginative writer, filmmaker and artist Jon Marro.

A solo episode with Elisa who shares her insights and own unlearning about running a podcast.  You'll hear a review of top quotes from guests and also a preview of what is to come with a new series on Relationships coming soon.  “I am unlearning that I always know in the moment what is good or bad. The present is always changing our stories about the past. We have the ability to change the past because we have a different relationship with it, based on our present day." Connor Carrick, Episode 1  “Unlearning is the ultimate act of humility for me. It is the surrender to the fact that everything and everyone is a teacher, and everyone and everything is a student.” Claude Silver, Episode 15  "What I feel when I hear the word unlearning, I feel a relief, a softening, a permission. And, what I think about it is that if we have some intact culture and some experience at all with elder-hood, and what it may be to be near someone who are true elders, or many people or who are true elders, there wouldn't be so much we have to unlearn, we could trust the learning that we did." Kimberly Ann Johnson, Episode 22 "Unlearning in degrees matters." Kate Fagan And, Elisa previews an upcoming episode with Jordan Dann which will be released on June 13th.  Elisa Haggarty is a Conscious Leadership Coach who works with executives and teams to create more collaborative and radical responsible leaders in the workplace. Follow her podcast at @thesoulpodcast and @elisamaryhaggarty  www.elisamaryhaggarty.com     

Moms are not the only ones who feel nervous about birth, dads often do, too! Here are some pro tips for dads from an experienced dad who has had a hospital birth, birth center birth, & home birth. Dads, soak in the education & learn how to feel more confident prior to birth!Resources Mentioned:The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson: https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Trimester-Postpartum-Balancing-Restoring/dp/1611804000Rachel's other favorite postpartum book- Natural Health after Pregnancy by Aviva Romm: https://amzn.to/3BIztQjCheck out Informed Pregnancy+https://www.informedpregnancy.tv/ NOW IT'S YOUR TURN! "Like" our Facebook and Instagram pages- @TheNaturalBirthSite The NaturalBirth Site- TheNaturalBirthSite.com SIGN UP for the NaturalBirth Education course to best prepare your body & mind for natural birth (only $65) Read natural birth stories- and submit your own SHARE OUR PODCAST with anyone you know who is interested in natural birth! Check out our HELPFUL PRODUCTS GUIDE

This week we are rebroadcasting our episode with Kimberly Ann Johnson originally aired in April 2023. Feeling into the state of our nervous systems and our relationships with each other and ourselves, this episode offers a powerful perspective on the importance of recognizing and tending to how life feels. Together, Ayana and this week's guest Kimberly Ann Johnson discuss the depths of pleasure and the dimensions of healing. Kimberly brings deep knowledge regarding reproductive and sexual health, especially paying attention to the often untended somatic nature of sexual boundary repair and the complicated nature of what we bring into sexual relationships. This conversation is steeped in trust and intimacy. Kimberly's focus and understanding offers a guide to the ways we might come to handle and regulate our own nervous systems in order to act in alignment with our desires, rather than with the prescribed roles we have been put into through societal conditioning. Kimberly Ann Johnson is a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, yoga teacher, postpartum advocate, and single mom. Working hands-on in integrative women's health and trauma recovery for more than a decade, she helps women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries, and sexual boundary violations. Kimberly is the author of the Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It for Good, as well as the early mothering classic The Fourth Trimester, and is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast.Join us on Patreon at patreon.com/forthewild for an extended version of this episode.Music by Lake Mary & Talk West and Katie Gray. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

Our guest today is Kimberly Ann Johnson, who has been working hands on in integrative women's health and trauma recovery for a decade with 1000s of women, as a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner, sexological body worker, educator, and author. She's the author of many books including The Call of The Wild, and her work has been featured in the NY Times, Forbes and Vogue. She's a sought-after teacher it feels like an extra special treat that she opened up and shared generously about her journey to understand the impact of her own trauma experiences in her body. We explore the teachings of Call of the Wild book, about what we can all learn about the healthy predator expression of the jaguar in the journey to heal trauma. As Kimberley says on her website, “if you can learn to speak your body's language, and transmute trauma into positive, reparative experiences in the present, if you can make the shift into acting from a stance of your deepest, truest self … everything changes.”We explore:Kimberley's menstrual cycle journey in the years running up to menopause; how she has navigated her symptoms and what the journey has taught her about resting, movement and how to tend to herself at this phase of life. .How having a baby and navigating the post-partum period transformed her life. Kimberly's fresh approach to nervous system repair, and how women can learn to step out of the prey role that we are conditioned into - and which puts us in a default fawn, freeze or flee nervous system response - and awaken their inner healthy predator.---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email info@redschool.net---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Happy 2024 Beloved Soul Sisters! May this be a year of abundance, wealth & nurturing for us all! This episode was recorded on January 1st 2024 Watch this Episode on ⁠Earthing Nova Youtube  Decks I use in this 2024 card pull: https://schoolishness.com/market/rfp-a-practice-deck/ https://animamundiherbals.com/products/herbal-astrology-oracle-deck Women mentors I mention: Danielle Searancke: https://www.squamishmedium.com/ Emilee Saldaya: https://www.freebirthsociety.com/ Kimberly Ann Johnson: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/ Rachel Brathen: https://www.yogagirl.com/ Mother Night by Clarissa Pinkola Estès: https://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com/new_audio_spoken_word_release__mother_night__myths__stories__and_teachings_for_le_101252.htm Connect with me Amana ⁠Sign up for Mother Circle⁠ ⁠Listen to a former client share about her experience of Sistership Support ⁠ Check out my Sistership Offerings for Women: ⁠www.BirthingNova.Love⁠ ⁠Book your Free Connection Call with me⁠  ⁠Schedule Your Mediumship Reading with me⁠ Listen to/watch me guesting on other Podcasts: ⁠Free Birth Society⁠, ⁠Where the Wild Women Grow⁠, ⁠Wild Sacred Journey⁠, ⁠Healing Birth⁠, ⁠The Renegade Mama⁠, ⁠Born Wild⁠ Watch this conversation & More on ⁠YouTube⁠  I am committed to keeping this podcast Uninterrupted & Ad free Please Support me by donating through  Venmo ⁠@AmanaBeLove⁠ Until next time, remember  Be brave, be wild, be love, be you & be the change that you seek for yourself & for the generations to come --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/amana-be-love/message

Magical New Moon

Welcome back to The Deeper Call. In this episode, I feel so nourished to be in conversation with author, bodyworker, doula, sand Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Kimberly Ann Johnson.Together we explore the deep wisdom of the body, the power of orienting our attention, and the importance of healing ourselves and supporting each other.Join us to hear more about —Healing more by pushing lessThe importance of orienting toward what's generativeHow social media impacts our nervous systemTending to our coherenceLetting our bodies guide us into movementThe “hold it” momentsRe-learning how to have preferencesMore from AshleySubscribe to Ashley's SubstackVisit Ashley's websitePurchase Ashley's booksFollow Ashley on InstagramMore from KimberlyVisit Kimberly's websiteRead The Fourth TrimesterRead Call of the WildRead ReckoningTake Kimberly's course, Fourth Trimester FoodMentioned in the EpisodeStephen JenkinsonPassionate Marriage by David SchnarchAle DuarteThe Big Leap by Gay HendricksNeuroAffective Touch ..✨ Join me on Substack to continue this conversation ✨

Tahnee sits down with the formidable and incredibly inspiring, Kimberly Ann Johnson, for a raw and potent chat about the feminine experience. The women explore the role of archetypal rites of passage; birth, menarche, menopause, death, and the unique, nuanced and powerful technology that female physiology inherently embodies.   Informed by her work as a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, author, yoga teacher, mother and postpartum advocate, Kimberly speaks with true reverence for the cyclic nature of womanhood, expressing that the faculty of listening, witnessing and holding space for the processes that are forever unfurling themselves within the body, mind and spirit of women is one of the most nurturing acts that women can offer both themselves and others. When we give our deep attention to the beauty, wildness and non linear nature of the feminine experience we agree to a rebellion against the rigid societal structures that feel as though they are designed to keep women confined to an existence that is far too small for the raw force of their intrinsic nature.  Kimberly shares her work with people in trauma, defining trauma as the outcome of an incomplete cycle, an event that because it has gone unwitnessed and unacknowledged in its full, lingers as injury in the body and psyche. Here we are introduced to the profound impact of circle work, of sitting in the presence of and holding space for the buoyancy and the dullness that colour the spectrum of human experience.  As Kimberly speaks she allows herself to feel and express emotion as it arises, her voice at times choked by the acknowledgement of grief, joy, love and despair, and it is truly freeing to receive. The courage of heart, the embodiment of all she teaches and practices is a breath of fresh air, a humbling gesture of solidarity to the part in all of us that longs to feel safe within the full scope of our somatic experience. I loved this one, I hope you do too.    Kimberly & Tahnee discuss: - Kimberly's origin story. - Community and what women really need postpartum. - The power of witnessing and circle work. - Feminine trauma, what it is and how it presents in the body. - Archetypal rites of passage. - Menopause & not giving a f#ck. - Kimberly's work with Stephen Jenkinson and the  value of wisdom and eldership in our society.   Resource guide Guest Links Kimberly's Website. Kimberly's Instagram. Kimberly's Facebook. Kimberly's YouTube. Kimberly's Linkedin. Mentioned In This Episode Mother Circle Online CourseKimberly's BooksSecond Spring Book - Kate CodringtonJane Hardwicke Collings WebsiteJane Hardwicke Collings Four Seasons JourneyJane Hardwicke Collings Autumn Woman Harvest Queen WorkshopUma Dinsmore-Tuli Yoga Nidra Related Podcasts The Power Of Menopause with Jane Hardwicke Collings (EP#77)Only Living People Die with Stephen Jenkinson (EP#203)Sexual Activation and Feminine Embodiment with Eva Williams (EP#144) Connect With Us SuperFeast InstagramSuperFeast FacebookSuperFeast TikTok SuperFeast Online Education   Check Out The Transcript Below: https://www.superfeast.com.au/blogs/articles/trauma-the-feminine-experience-with-kimberly-ann-johnson-ep-210    

“We had a certain way before becoming a mother that we related to our jobs, our worth, our sexuality, our bodies—and motherhood changes all of that. There's a reorientation as we come back into ourselves.” –Jessica ConnollyWhat does mothering mean when kids get older? Have you ever wanted a deeper discussion about mothering? I'm talking with MotherCircle leader Jessica Connolly about anchoring into our motherhood and power.Many of us long to go beyond the surface level conversations. We want to explore the experience and the changes we experience in work, our bodies, our sexuality, all the way down to our soul level. So how you do that?Jessica reminds us that as mothers we are already leading. We can lead with more intentionality. We can create spaces and expectations that invite the deeper conversations.We talk about: Engaging with women of different ages and experiences to create a map of the journey we go on as womenCreating a legacy for our kids of having deeper conversations and passing on wisdomMaking spaces of intentionalityThe rose, thorn, bud practiceLearning to listen from the heartSimple rituals that bring intentionality and an opening to deeper experiencesABOUT JESSICAJessica is a birthworker, holistic coach, and a circle leader committed to the practice and sharing of wisdom. She is the mother of 4 daughters ages 6-16, and has extensive experience in leadership, group worship, academic settings and the sharing and exchange of information in non-traditional ways.She leads circles, retreats and online classes at the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern science. She is the co- creator of the MotherCircle Facilitator Training along with Kimberly Ann Johnson and is currently teaching the MotherCircle anchor course.She serves women who want to discover the pathway of feminine wisdom and intentional community, for themselves and for their children. Jessica lives in a San Diego urban beach town on a property with 9 kids, 3 families, 4 adults, 3 dogs and 2 chickens.LINKSWebsite: ​​https://mothercircle.com/free-checklist/Instagram: @mother.circle @moon.daughtersDOABLE CHANGESAt the end of every episode, we share three doable changes, so you can take what you've heard and put it into action. Change comes from action. Doable changes are things that you can add into your life, one at a time to make micro shifts and really create a ripple effect that will create a big change over time. Choose one that really piques your interest and roll with it. Here are three Doable Changes from this conversation:CREATE ONE RITUAL. Rituals don't have to be complex or time consuming. They are simply things you do consistently, usually to mark something or bring attention somewhere. For example, you could light a candle to open a conversation or group. You could turn on a certain song to indicate it's time to wind down the day. You could pause to say a simple prayer or even thank you before a meal. Pick one and do it throughout the week.TRY ROSE–THORN–BUD PRACTICE. In Rose–Thorn–Bud, each person has a chance to share something good from their day, something hard from their day, and something they are looking forward to. It is a chance for others to listen from the heart, not to solve problems. An easy way to do this is around the dinner...

Have you wondered how to avoid a challenging birth? Or how to best heal postpartum?We are joined by Kimberly Ann Johnson, a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner, educator, and author, who helps women heal trauma, awaken their power, and feel at home in their bodies to start living life on their own terms.In this episode, we discuss:How the transition to parenthood can change our livesWhy awareness of our nervous system is important when preparing for birth and postpartum.What factors impact birth trauma and healing, and how to avoid a challenging birthHow intergenerational and community support can create a more supported postpartum experienceFollow Kimberly on IG: @kimberly.ann.johnson or at @mother.circleResources mentioned:>> https://mothercircle.com/>> The Fourth Trimester Book by Kimberly Ann Johnson>> For provider recommendations: Admin@kimberlyannjohnson.com Waitlist for A Path to A Powerful Birth: www.clearlightbirth.com/waitlistDon't forget to check out the blog post .If these topics light you up, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening from.After you review the show - snap a pic and upload it here - and I'll send you a little surprise as a thank you.Your feedback helps this podcast grow, and I am so grateful for your support!Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. Consult with a qualified healthcare professional for personalized advice.

Summary In this episode, Kimberly and Khadija reflect on their recent mutual aid efforts in the wake of fires in Maui. Khadija shares what she has witnessed in her community and the tremendous impact of donations that have directly reached her neighbors. They reflect on destination travel and the impact of tourism on both the land and the people of Hawaii. Khadija describes what led her to invite Kimberly and Stephen Jenkinson to Reckon on the island this coming November. They wonder together about the ethics of retreats, tourism, and what it means to be an “under-the-scene” worker.    To learn more about Maui Reckoning with Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson, hosted by Khadija Striegel, go here. This is a gathering for the Maui ‘ohana. You can contribute to the event by making a donation here. Bio Khadija is an herbalist, bonesetter and farmer born, raised, and living in Maui. She's in graduate school studying Hawaiian language and culture. Khadija works with a non-profit caring for the native plant gardens at a Heiau, an ancient Hawaiian place of prayer. She offers Lomi Lomi body work to her community, in addition to tinctures and remedies under the title Family Traditions Maui.   What You'll Hear: There are not only stories as a result of the fires in Maui - there are still ongoing lives and lived experiences. The variety of extremes that co-exist in Maui - of destination weddings, vacations, and those walking heavy with grief. These fires aren't an isolated incident. They are part of a broader timeline of things that have taken place on Maui. The donation effort of money and herbs and medicine are no small thing. This community is making an impact. There are still areas of the island that do not have safe water. Opening care packages with kids after a disaster. Development and tourism on the island has directly impacted the land in a way that doesn't feed the land, water, and people. The fires are inextricably linked to this. Lahaina as a special gathering place, whose streams lack water as a direct result of hotels and vacation homes and visitor rentals Land stewardship is actually simple. An act of love. Loving something not just for ourselves. Loving something by letting it be. The parallels of tourism and addiction. The addiction of going anywhere, doing anything, wherever I want. Whose job is it to teach the culture of a place? And to what audience? There is a longing to belong for many people. Many people find it in Hawaii. But at what cost? The difficulty of land and home ownership for native Hawaiians. Retreats in Hawaii. The infrequency of native Hawaiians leading sacred nature experiences? The power of a voice that doesn't  say simply “it's all okay” when it's clearly not “all okay. What does it mean to be under-the-scene workers? Not behind-the-scene but under-the-scene? Reckoning in November is to offer something to the residents of Maui.   Resources   Maui Reckoning, with Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson, hosted by Khadija Striegel, for the Maui ‘ohana   You are welcome to contribute to the event. Please send your donation via PayPal to Khadija here with the note “Maui Reckoning Donation”.   If you would like to send herbs and materials directly to Khadija to support the community in Maui, find Khadija's letter and list here.    You can connect with Khadija via khadija@familytraditionsmaui.com   

In this week's episode of the podcast, I am chatting with the amazing Kimberly Ann Johnson. We chat about a wide variety of topics, but Kimberly takes us on a deep dive into the nervous system and its effects on the body. This valuable information will help you understand more about your nervous system and in particular your own responses. Enjoy XYou can visit Kimberly's website here - http://kimberlyannjohnson.comDownload a copy of Chapter One of her book Call of The Wild here - https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/chapter/Follow Kimberly on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kimberly.ann.johnson/If you would like to buy a copy of either of the books that accompany this podcast please go to your online bookseller or visit Amazon:-Labour of Love - The Ultimate Guide to Being a Birth Partner - click here:-https://bit.ly/LabourofloveThe Art of Giving Birth - Five Key Physiological Principles - https://amzn.to/3EGh9dfPregnancy Journal for 'The Art of Giving Birth' - Black and White version https://amzn.to/3CvJXmOPregnancy Journal for 'The Art of Giving Birth'- Colour version https://amzn.to/3GknbPFYou can also purchase a copy via my website - www.birthability.co.uk Follow me on Instagram @theultimatebirthpartner @birthabilityBook a 1-2-1 session with Sallyann - https://linktr.ee/SallyannBeresford Please remember that the information shared with you in this episode is solely based on my own personal experiences as a doula and the private opinions of my guests, based on their own experiences. Any recommendations made may not be suitable for all listeners, so you should always do your own research before making decisions.

Hey hey mama! So last week, Alison Avayu and I had so much to talk about that I had to have her back again! On today's episode we dig into the Spiritual Journey from Maiden to Motherhood as well as how we as women have to really learn the asking for help is not a sign of weakness but instead a sign of strength! After personally struggling through the first few years of motherhood with two small kids, a partner that worked long hours, and very little family around to help, Alison Avayu saw the need for resources and community for moms and how lacking our society was in providing support for moms. Alison Avayu decided to create Motherhood Elevated, a resource guide or "pocket doula" after having 2 little boys 23 months apart. She saw the need and found a way to fill it!You can connect with Alison -Her website - https://linktr.ee/alisonavayuInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/alisonavayu/We mentioned the books Women Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés https://amzn.to/42Ju7yWand The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality by Kimberly Ann Johnson.https://amzn.to/3XaiBvw I'm Sarah - a wife, homeschooling / unschooling mom, and a neurodiverse woman who has battled autoimmune disease my whole life. I am fiery and fierce and have a passion for helping other mamas learn to trust their gut and learn to be the best advocate they can be for themselves and their children!I became obsessed with helping other moms have what they need to be the best advocate they could be! So I created a FREE PARENT ADVOCACY TOOLKIT! I have packed it full of resources so you no longer have to spend hours searching for the best ways to handle a meltdown or why your child will not eat certain foods or what your state's special education laws are. I did the searching for you so all you have to do is click the link and it's yours!https://www.sarahyoungllc.com/parentadvocacytoolkitSupport the show Get my free Parent Advocacy Toolkit!https://www.sarahyoungllc.com/parentadvocacytoolkitI support moms of medically complex and neurodiverse kids. I have found that often special needs moms feel isolated and overwhelmed so I created the Calming the Chaos of Special Needs Motherhood Membership where you can feel validated, supported, and confident. You will get trainings from experts, support and connection in this amazing community. They say it takes a village and we would love for you to be a part of ours! Ready to check it out?!https://www.sarahyoungllc.com/calmingthechaos

The brilliant author of “The Fourth Trimester” & “Call of the Wild”, Kimberly Ann Johnson joins Blyss & Dr. Stu for a really fascinating conversation into rites of passage and our autonomic nervous system. You have to hear her!In this episode of Birthing Instincts:Tears during birth and the impact of interventions on laborAddressing pelvic floor issues after hospital birthThe transformative power of rites of passageThe female nervous system and the effects of epiduralsBuilding supportive communities in the birthing processChallenging societal norms and encouraging critical thinkingThis show is supported by:LMNT | Go to drinklmnt.com/birthinginstincts to get a free sample pack with every orderNeeded | Use code BIRTHINGINSTINCTS for 20% off your first month or first 3 months of a one-month subscription at thisisneeded.com. BIRTHFIT | Go to birthfit.com and use the code INSTINCTS1 for a discount on the Basics Prenatal program, or INSTINCTS2 for a discount on the Basics Postpartum program.Connect with Kimberly:Books: The Fourth Trimester / Call of the WildInstagram: @kimberly.ann.johnson | @mother.circle Website: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com | www.mothercircle.com Resources:Download Chapter One of Call of the Wild for free hereGuided pelvic floor mapping hereKeli Garza: www.fourthtrimestervaginalsteamstudy.com Ellen Heed: www.sexologicalbodywork.comConnect with Dr. Stu & Blyss:Instagram: @birthinginstincts / @birthingblyssWebsite: birthinginstincts.com / birthingblyss.comEmail: birthinginstinctspodcast@gmail.com Call-in line: 805-399-0439This show is produced by Soulfire Productions

In this episode, guest host and podcast producer Jackson Kroopf interviews Kimberly and Stephen Jenkinson about their ongoing event series Reckoning: Birth and Death Among Us. They discuss the role of witness in their work as birth and death workers, the politics of feelings in a culture where pop psychology has become a religion, and dive deeply into their relationship to matrimony. In anticipation of their final event this summer, “Reckon and Wonder: Grief, Elderhood and Spirit Work,” taking place this June 29th-July 2nd, 2023 at the Orphan Wisdom school in Ontario, they reflect on the difference between recording and live events and the unique impact that their convergence has revealed in their respective relationships to the oral tradition.   What You'll Here Reflections on witness from retired birth and death workers The value of disillusionment The power of loneliness The proliferation of self pathologizing The complex politics of feelings The religion of western psychology Adolescents grabbing for pop psychology labels The respect in not offering solutions The eagerness to escape from pain while grieving Is love dead? Blessing not as approval but the emergence of something new Marriage as both celebration and loss Matrimony between cultures An only child and single parent inviting in a new husband Building an escape route as you enter a union The no-go zone of contemporary western marriage 15 minute weddings, 15 minute funerals, 15 minute births The cultural casualties of uniformity Being healthy enough to tend to home and neighbor   Bio Stephen Jenkinson is a cultural worker, teacher, author, musician and ceremonialist. He is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, founded in 2010 with his wife Nathalie Roy. He has Master's degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work). Since co-founding the Nights of Grief and Mystery project with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins in 2015, he has toured this musical / tent show revival / storytelling ceremony across North America, U.K. and Europe and Australia and New Zealand. They released their Nights of Grief & Mystery album in 2017 and at the end of 2020, they released two new records; Dark Roads and Rough Gods. Stephen is the author of Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul's Desires: A Meditation (2002). Most recently, Stephen published Reckoning (2022) with Kimberly Ann Johnson.   Links Reckon & Wonder: Grief, Elderhood, Spirit Work ~ A weekend at Orphan Wisdom, Ontario  

Embrace the wisdom of your years and let it shine brightly! Elderhood ain't the time to fade away - it's your time to illuminate the world with your experience and love.As we journey through life, we often think about the legacy we want to leave behind. It's a big question that can bring up all sorts of emotions - from pride to anxiety. Today, we've got two incredible guests, Stephen Jenkinson and Kimberly Johnson, who are going to help shed some light on this question. Together, we're going to explore their latest book, "Reckoning," and dive into topics like spirit work, elderhood, grief and plague, and building culture in a time where self-interest often comes first. One thing that really stood out to us is the idea that elderhood is a function, not an identity. It's pretty mind-blowing stuff, and we can't wait to delve deeper into it. So sit back, relax, and join us for an inspiring conversation with two amazing authors and thought leaders. Let's open our minds and broaden our horizons together! ABOUT STEPHEN JENKINSON Stephen is a Canadian writer, teacher and grief literacy advocate Website: https://orphanwisdom.com/ ABOUT KIMBERLY JOHNSON Kimberly is the author of the classic early mothering book, The Fourth Trimester, and has spent the past twenty years working with people and their bodies as a sexological bodyworker, somatic experiencing practitioner, yoga teacher, and birth doula. She specializes in helping women heal from birth injuries, gynecological trauma and sexual boundary violations.Website: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/  WHAT YOU WILL HEAR [03:30] Discovering the Inspiration Behind the Book "Reckoning." [10:54] Unpacking the Message of the Book. [19:56] Reckoning with Our Time on Earth. [24:23] What does responsible citizenship mean and how can we become one? [33:31] Stephen's Perspective on Aging and Wisdom [39:57] Imagining a World Without Elders [53:10] What to expect from the book? [1:07:32] Connect with Stephen and Kimberly. If you look at the civilized world and think, "No thank you," then you should subscribe to our podcast, so you don't miss a single episode! Also, join the uncivilized community, and connect with me on my website,⁠ YouTube⁠, or⁠ Instagram⁠ so you can join in on our live recordings, ask questions to guests, and more. Get a copy of one of my books,⁠ Man UNcivilized⁠ and⁠ Today I Rise⁠ Click here to sign up for the⁠ Kill the Nice Guy course⁠

Feeling into the state of our nervous systems and our relationships with each other and ourselves, this episode offers a powerful perspective on the importance of recognizing and tending to how life feels. Together, Ayana and this week's guest Kimberly Ann Johnson discuss the depths of pleasure and the dimensions of healing. Kimberly brings deep knowledge regarding reproductive and sexual health, especially paying attention to the often untended somatic nature of sexual boundary repair and the complicated nature of what we bring into sexual relationships. This conversation is steeped in trust and intimacy. Kimberly's focus and understanding offers a guide to the ways we might come to handle and regulate our own nervous systems in order to act in alignment with our desires, rather than with the prescribed roles we have been put into through societal conditioning. Kimberly Ann Johnson is a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, yoga teacher, postpartum advocate, and single mom. Working hands-on in integrative women's health and trauma recovery for more than a decade, she helps women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries, and sexual boundary violations. Kimberly is the author of the Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It for Good, as well as the early mothering classic The Fourth Trimester, and is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast.Join us on Patreon at patreon.com/forthewild for an extended version of this episode.Music by Lake Mary & Talk West and Katie Gray. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

Lauren, with guest Jaclyn have a fun conversation swapping their precipitous birth stories, 6 to be exact! They both each have had 3 fast labors and so they not only share their stories but discuss the mutual experience of having babies in a fast and furious style. They chat about way to prepare their hearts and minds to be able to surrender to whatever birth may hand them. It's a fun conversation and I hope it helps you feel seen and hear if your perfect but fast birth felt a traumatizing and gain some perspective should you find our self preparing for a possibly very fast birth again. Note: Lauren couldn't recall that it was Kimberly Ann Johnson define trauma as "too much, too fast, too soon" CONNECT: Email us to say hi: holywildbirth@gmail.com Put in a request for future topics and/or submit a question for future Q&A episodes: Fill out the form Apply to tell your birth story on the podcast: sisterbirth.com/podcast-guest Join Natural Christian Home Birth (Assisted and Unassisted) - a FB community From Lauren: Instagram Midwifery consults or virtual services: Email  lauren.rootedineden@gmail.com From Brooke: Instagram Trust God, Trust Birth Workshop - a 5-part high-level roadmap to a confident home birth (pay what you can) Faith-Filled Home Birth Workshop - a free, 3-part video series delivered to your inbox Embrace Birth Journey Membership - comprehensive and holistic faith-based home birth preparation (courses + private community) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/holy-wild-birth/support

Join Kris Kington Barker as she speaks with guests, activist Kimberly Ann Johnson and culture activist Stephen Jenkinson. They will talk about elderhood, spirit work, and building culture in a me-first era. This discussion is in advance of their live appearance in San Luis Obispo on March 16th.Broadcast date: 2/23/23Central Coast Voices is sponsored by ACTION for Healthy Communities in collaboration with KCBX and made possible through underwriting by Joan Gellert-Sargen.

When we talk about birth as a sacred experience, it's not about feeling no pain and golden light with classical music playing. It will be bloody and probably messy, but there's a deep, transformative power when we embrace the rites of passage we're meant to go through as humans. Those unmedicated, oxytocin-filled, physiological births are becoming a rarity, but they're sacred. It means intact relationships, more empathy in the culture, and more people who have a sense of harmony with their environment. If we want to see a change in the world, we must consider how we bring babies into it. Today I'm joined by Kimberly Ann Johnson, a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution practitioner, yoga teacher, birth doula, and single mom. Kimberly is doing some unique work, and we've bonded over the role of hospital interventions in natural childbirth. She doesn't shy away from the complex, controversial conversations, and she joins us to explore how we can start to repair the harm we've done as a society regarding birth. Visit the show notes for more: https://www.BelovedHolistics.com/110 Made possible by: FullWell - code BELOVED10 for 10% off the best prenatal vitamins and men's virility vitamins on the planet! BIRTHFIT - code BELOVED to get one month FREE in their B! Community! BiOptimizers - code BELOVED for 10% off the only sleep aid you'll ever need! Organifi - code BELOVED for 20% off their Harmony cacao blend! Learn More Website | KimberlyAnnJohnson.com Podcast | Sex Birth Trauma Book with Stephen Jenkinson | Reckoning Instagram @kimberly.ann.johnson Connect with me Instagram @nathanrileyobgyn TikTok @nathanrileyobgyn Beloved Holistics Shop Medical Disclaimer: The Holistic OBGYN Podcast is an educational program. No information conveyed through this podcast should be construed as medical advice. These conversations are available to the public for educational and entertainment purposes only. Music provided by EdvardGaresPremium / Pond5 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theholisticobgyn/message

Blissful 2023 to you Beautiful Souls! At the start of this episode I do a little oracle card pull, 3 cards. One for the past, 2022, one for the present January 2023 and one of the year ahead 2023! I hope this card pull inspires you to bring more creativity, sacred & ceremony into your daily existence in 2023. I get a lot of questions from women who are curious about working with me about "what the the work is like?" so in this episode I go on to talk about the sistership support work I do with with women around the world. It can be hard to put into words what this work looks, sounds and feels like and how it transforms the women that choose to work with me, so I try to share some of that here with you beautiful soul sisters! I share about how we work together virtually over video and voice messaging. Co-creating ceremony, practicing nervous system somatic experiencing skills, activating your voice, leaning into your inner knowing, exploring your core values, establishing healthy boundaries & so much more. I also share some of my stories of how I came to this work, I am an experiential teacher, so I teach about the personal & professional experiences I draw upon as well as the mentor's I have been working with for the past few years and continue to be learning from. Watch this on Youtube  A few past Episodes I mention include: Episode 6 Stories of Bjorn My first Love and his Death Episode 20 Stories of my first born Heartly and the impact of her short life Episode 35 is a short share of all 6 of my pregnancies & birthing storie Episode 45 with Danielle Searancke my mediumship mentor Episode 44 In the second half I speak about Kimberly Ann Johnson another one of my mentors   Connect with me Amana Check out my Sistership Offerings for Women: www.BirthingNova.Love Book your Free Clarity Call with me  Schedule your Intuitive Mediumship Reading Watch this conversation & More on YouTube    If you want to leave me a review on apple podcasts I will Gift you an intuitive psychic reading in Gratitude & Thanks!  (Offer available for a limited time)    As each of you are unique, the reading will be as well, I can share that most women express their experience with words like “held, witnessed, loved, connected, aligned, they feel increase trust in themselves, they feel seen and often feel more centered with clarity about their purpose and path” You can check out full reviews written about my readings on my mediumship offerings page. Your reading will be given through a voice message on email. What I need from you is a screenshot of the review you have written and a short voice or video message of yourself introducing yourself to me, first stating and then spelling out your name. Send it to me via email at amana@birthingnova.love  I will use this information from you to record a voice message reading for you that will be about 10-15 minutes in length. An approximate $50 dollar value as my 30 minute readings are $111 USD.  If you feel aligned with my energy & are wanting to tap into your wild side, birth your baby wild and free,  I support women just like yourself all over the world!  To learn more or book your free clarity call with me go to my website www.birthingnova.love Also if you would like a full mediumship reading you can book one through my website as well.    I would love to connect with you!    Until next time, remember  Be brave, be bold, be love, be you, & be the change that you seek for yourself & for the generations to come   

Hello Beautiful Soul Sisters!!!  Happy Returning of the Light if you are in the Northern Hemisphere!    I was hoping to publish this episode on the Winter Solstice, but my first recording's audio was incredibly bad… I am sorry to say this one does have some random feedback but is much better! I did purchase a new microphone but the little issues in this episode seem to be from an unstable internet connection, so perhaps the next episode I record will have to be with my hotspot…. I hope that you still find ease in your listening.    I am celebrating with you the return of the light as we have moved past the darkest day and longest night of the year!    This is a solo episode where I share stories of two different women only gatherings I had the honor of experiencing in November and December.  One was a gathering I hosted at Skalitude in Washington State, the other at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico hosted by Kimberly Ann Johnson. Both incredibly potent and transformational!!! I am continuing to bask in the love & joy of these experiences as I take time to integrate & soak them into my full being.    So much love to you all!!    If you want to leave me a review on apple podcasts I will Gift you an intuitive psychic reading in Gratitude & Thanks!     As each of you are unique, the reading will be as well, I can share that most women express their experience with words like “held, witnessed, loved, connected, aligned, they feel increase trust in themselves, they feel seen and often feel more centered with clarity about their purpose and path”    The reading will be given through a voice message on email. What I need from you is a screenshot of the review you have written and a short voice or video message of yourself introducing yourself to me, stating & spelling out your name for me.    Send it to me via email at amana@birthingnova.love and I will send your reading back to you as soon as I am able.  Thank you Thank you for taking the time and energy to write me a review!!!    Connect with me, Amana: Check out my Sistership Offerings for Women: www.BirthingNova.Love Book your Free Clarity Call with me: https://www.birthingnova.love/appoint... Schedule your Intuitive Mediumship Reading: https://www.birthingnova.love/mediumship     Links I spoke about in the Episode: Skalitude: http://www.skalitude.com   I behold you: https://awakeningharmony.bandcamp.com/track/i-behold-you Unstoppable Joy by Marya Stark: https://open.spotify.com/track/6Gk0LlBaavFcuJmzoYfMEY   Kimberly Ann Johnson: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com There are links to all her books and courses on her website   Wheel of Consent: https://bettymartin.org/videos/   Ghost Ranch: https://www.ghostranch.org

Hey everybody. This was a powerful interview to record. Stephen Jenkinson has quite a presence and it took me from my default jovial nature to a real sense of centering and depth and real-ity.    He invites (demands?) me to question my priorities: death over growth, my ancestors over myself.   If the goal of this show is to participate in your evolution, then this episode is one of our best.   I'm excited to hear your feedback, so if you listen to this, and are moved by it, please get in touch. I want to hear it. I want to air it, even.   Be 1 and Be Well! Ankur   Show Links: Voicemail:  https://www.speakpipe.com/10khshow Email: info@10kh.show Twitter: @10khshow   Guest References: Stephen's Jenkinson's bio here: https://orphanwisdom.com/about/  And (as of fall 2022), he's on tour: - Readings and live conversations with Kimberly Ann Johnson called Reckoning Live - Nights of Grief & Mystery (video clip here: https://youtu.be/l9-V2W4h_m0)  

Stephen Jenkinson is a Harvard-trained author, activist, farmer, sculptor, and canoe-builder who has worked in his native Canada as a palliative care provider for dying people and their families. In this challenging conversation, Stephen reflects on the deep roots of our troubled times and on how rich and full human belonging – in one's life, one's culture, one's place – means letting go of our drive for autonomy to embrace the beauty of our limits. RESOURCES: Donate to support this podcast at https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/ Stephen's website: https://orphanwisdom.com/ Stephen's latest book (with Kimberly Ann Johnson), Reckoning: https://orphanwisdom.com/reckoning/ Stephen's Nights of Grief and Mystery 2022 Tour: https://orphanwisdom.com/nights-of-grief-and-mystery/

This week: “How our bodies can naturally help us heal?” Kimberly Ann Johnson is a sexological body worker, somatic experiencing practitioner, yoga teacher, postpartum advocate, and single mom. Working hands on in integrative women's health and trauma recovery for over a decade, she helps women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries, and sexual boundary violations.Kimberly is the author of 'Call of the Wild, How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power and Use It for Good', as well as the early mothering classic 'The Fourth Trimester'. She is also the host of the podcast 'Sex Birth Trauma'. In this episode, Kimberly and I speak about why trauma lodges itself in our bodies, practices to help us come home to ourselves and what we can learn from wild animals about our own wild feminine selves. You can find and follow Kimberly Ann Johnson on Instagram @kimberly.ann.johnson, and on her website Content: birth injuries, trauma recovery, body, women's health, postpartumSupport the Show: Official members receive regular resources and tools that support well being. Join here. Share the love: Online reviews help others find us! Leave 5 stars or a written review on iTunes, or go to our website. Talk to us: If you have a topic or guest idea you would like us to consider, send us a message. Or, connect with us on Instagram and Facebook.Visit our website: https://ifyouknewme.showThis episode was produced by Jamie Yuenger and Piet Hurkmans. Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stephen is a living legend. He is the author of one of my favorite books "Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul". He also recently co-authored a book with Kimberly Ann Johnson titled "Reckoning". Stephen started his career as a palliative care social worker in "the death trade", which, in short, is the over-medicalized, over-pathologized process of dying in the West. In this episode, we dive deep into birth and death, particularly when the two occur in the same breath. Death of children is confronting, and in our society, "kids aren't supposed to die". But what if they do die? Who has the language and courage to hold space for their grieving parents? This task has been vested to medical professionals, but we are just as incompetent in talking about death as anybody else. Instead, we resort to platitude and dangle carrots of hope that perhaps a dying child is merely an illusion. This conversation is powerful...and it was an honor to have Stephen on the show. Made possible by: Fit for Birth - 20% off pregnancy- and postpartum-specific exercise and nutrition coaching (or courses to become a better coach yourself!) Organifi - 20% the healthiest protein powder available, all plant-based, non-GMO, organic, glyphosate-free...you get it... BiOptimizers - 10% off Mag Breakthrough plus free gut health goodies! [00:14:00] euphemisms and death You don't “pass away”. You “die”. Health care professionals at expected to be good at talking about mortality without having any training in the language Nobody is READY to talk about their own death; in some ways, you must force them to confront it [00:25:00] The story of a birth and death coincident It's our job to give a patient persmision to talk about death and dying The “Book of Supposed To” guides our confrontation with death “Kids aren't supposed to die” appears in this book Not “living a long” or “full” life is inconceivable What happens to us as we grow up that we lose track of our mortality? Lose the notion of a truly full life? [00:38:00] just because we can extend life, does this mean that we should? citizenShip malpractice COVID-19 was a God It provided an opportunity, and we missed out Because we all didn't die, does that mean that we won? COVID required us to aim our middle sunward, but we instead aimed our missions outward [00:54:00] humane versus human humans haven't been a “part of nature” for a long time Stephen is often accused of being “anti-medicine” The cost of everything we do to avoid mortality is incalculable Gregory Hoskins Band (stay tuned to the very end of the episode to hear one of Stephen's songs...) Catch Stephen on tour with Gregory Hoskins Buy Stephen's books Stephen's website Find me on Instagram @nathanrileyobgyn and my practice at: www.BelovedHolistics.com Music by: Labrinth and Preservation Hall Jazz Band --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theholisticobgyn/message

Kimberly Ann Johnson is a somatic experience practitioner, sexological bodyworker, author, podcast host, and doula. She returns to the podcast to speak about the turmoil of the past couple years, and recounts the journey that led her to co-author Reckoning with Stephen Jenkinson. We speak about our mutual experience feeling alienated from the “wellness” community during Covid, and the great loss and betrayal we felt from those who pitted individualism and “personal sovereignty” against community and social responsibility. We also touch on the importance of becoming conscious of our biases, cultivating humility and nuance especially in times of heightened emotion, the risks of overvaluing the hero's journey, and what we can do to make ourselves worthy of elderhood.Purchase a copy of Reckoning by Stephen Jenkinson and Kimberly Ann Johnson here.Find Kimberly on Instagram and on her website KimberlyAnnJohnson.comSongs featured: “Ballad Of A Thin Place” by RF Shannon and “Baby Hallelujah” by KonradsenCheck out this live performance of “Baby Hallelujah” by Konradsen - How to support the show:Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunesBecome a paid subscriber on SubstackVisit my website - AnyaKaats.com & Find me on InstagramA Millennial's Guide to Saving the World is a reader and listener-supported project. If you find this content valuable and have the means to donate financially, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for only $5/month. Get full access to A Millennial's Guide to Saving the World at anyakaats.substack.com/subscribe

Celebrating the release of their new book Reckoning, Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson grapple with the key themes of their convergence: grief, heartbreak, culture work, elderhood, and the prevalent myth of individualism in this Me First era we find ourselves in.  Three times as many people listened to their 2021 conversations (Episodes 135 and 136) than any other talk, which led to a five conversation series, an exchange of letters, and now Reckoning To order the book- hardback, paperback or audiobook go to: www.orphanwisdom.com/reckoning Bullet points won't do this episode justice, so buckle in for the two hour ride that is more in the spirit of the original conversations than about the book itself.

Stephen is a culture activist, teacher, author, and co-founder if the Orphan Wisdom School. His work centers around grief, elderhood, community, and is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, and working for a time we won't see. Stephen and I speak about how a lack of generational connection and transmission has provoked deep rupture and brokenness. We discuss the difference between communities and collectives, the danger of individualism and personal “sovereignty,” and how grief is an inevitable outcome of true “awakening”. We also touch on guru/student relationships, societal misconceptions about power and privilege, how to cultivate belonging as a state of being, and the devastating effects of living in a culture that has traded grief for grievance.Purchase a copy of Reckoning by Stephen Jenkinson and Kimberly Ann Johnson here.Songs featured: “Invocation” by Nights of Grief and Mystery, “The Future” by Leonard CohenHow to support the show:Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!Become a paid subscriber on Substack.Visit my website - AnyaKaats.com & Find me on InstagramA Millennial's Guide to Saving the World is a reader and listener supported project. If you find this content valuable, please consider becoming a paid supporter for only $5/month. Get full access to A Millennial's Guide to Saving the World at anyakaats.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm welcoming Kimberly Ann Johnson & Stephen Jenkinson to speak about the new book they co-authored, Reckoning, which came out today. Our conversation about the times we're living in, and the culture that got us here, it's rich, nuanced, and, as Stephen says at the end, bottomless. May it spark new curiosity, insight, and reflection. Buy Reckoning: www.orphanwisdom.com Stephen's website: www.orphanwisdom.com Kimberly's website: www.kimberlyannjohnson.com IFS Women's Circle: www.womensyogateachertraining.com/ifscircle Sara's website: www.saraavantstover.com Sara's newsletter: www.saraavantstover.com/#newsletter Sara on IG: www.instagram.com/saraavantstover Sara on FB: www.facebook.com/saraavantstoverauthor

It's my great pleasure to have Kimberly Ann Johnson join me for a rich and wide-ranging conversation on The Becoming Podcast this month. I've been following Kimberly's work since her seminal book, The Fourth Trimester, rocked the worlds of mothers and birth workers alike when it was released five years ago.  Since then, I've come to view Kimberly as someone who sees the connections between seemingly unrelated things and brings us insight and wisdom from intersections in the worlds of birth + postpartum wellness, somatics, sex and trauma. Here's a little more about Kimberly:  she is a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, yoga teacher, postpartum advocate, and single mom. Working hands-on in integrative women's health and trauma recovery for more than a decade, she helps women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries, and sexual boundary violations. Kimberly is the author of the Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It for Good, as well as the early mothering classic The Fourth Trimester, and the upcoming co-authored book with Stephen Jenkinson, Reckoning.  She is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast. The conversation I had with Kimberly was so generously informative and thoughtful – I can't wait to share it with you.  We talked about: > Kimberly's new book, Reckoning, co-authored with Stephen Jenkinson, on navigating grief in the times we're living in. > How Kimberly's first book, The Fourth Trimester, was truly a roadmap for the rite of passage into motherhood….and also what she feels are the necessary next steps in our culture's approach to postpartum wellness. > How female nervous systems are unique, and how Kimberly's recent book The Call of The Wild invites women to understand their nervous systems and learn what they need.  Hint:  it's not more deep breaths and hot baths. > How learning the particular language of your nervous system allows you to experience deeper authenticity and power – even in circumstances, like birth, that are often vulnerable. > “Hold it” moments, and how we can metabolize important moments in our lives, no matter how tiny or tectonic their impact.

Spotting postpartum depression can be tricky if you don't know what to look for. Meet Katie Lovejoy, mother, poet, and screenwriter of the Netflix film To All the Boys: Always and Forever, along with several other TV and film projects. In this episode of First Words, she candidly shares her experience in the trenches of postpartum after the birth of her son, and how she navigated her way out to find joy in parenting. Katie will also discuss how parenting changed her as a writer and the role poetry played in her healing process. You can find Katie Lovejoy on Twitter @katie_lovejoy and IMDb. Katie's credits mentioned in this episode: To All the Boys: Always and Forever Resources mentioned: The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson on Bookshop.org

In this podcast, Kimberly Ann Johnson joins Sounds True founder Tami Simon to speak about her new audio learning program, Reclaiming the Feminine: Embodied Sexuality as Spiritual Practice—and the journey many of us need to make to work through shame, heal from patriarchal oppression, and begin to prioritize ourselves and our need for pleasure. Kimberly and Tami discuss the code of ethics of the sexological bodyworker; the shroud of shame that surrounds sexuality in many cultures, and the vital task of “unshaming” work; dealing with the pressure to “want to want to have more sex”; determining and expressing your genuine wants and needs; the concept of feminist sex; the social nervous system—the first branch of determining safety and how we relate with others; building your arousal capacity; “jaguar work” and healthy aggression; a self-care lovingkindness practice; and much more.

For many it feels like aspects of community and being together has changed since the pandemic.  Thankfully there is much we can do to create the belonging we crave, and to work with our nervous systems to move back into ways of connection that feel good. This week I'm talking with Kimberly Ann Johnson, a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, yoga teacher, postpartum advocate, and single mom on relating and cultivating community in challenging times. Working hands-on in integrative women's health and trauma recovery for more than a decade, she helps women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries, and sexual boundary violations. Kimberly is the author of the Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It for Good, as well as the early mothering classic The Fourth Trimester, and is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast.

On today's episode, Alexandra speaks with Kimberly Ann Johnson, a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, yoga teacher, postpartum advocate and single mom. Working hands-on in integrative women's health and trauma recovery for more than a decade, she helps women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries and sexual boundary violations. Kimberly is the author of the Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It for Good, as well as the early mothering classic The Fourth Trimester, and is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast.This episode is for you if you are interested in exploring the intersection between spirituality and conscious sexuality.In this episode, you will hear:Ideas about modern-day understandings of feminism and how the strive for “equality” is actually the strive to be the same as those in power, and ideas on different ways we can approach feminism, and different questions we can ask to help us center into what this really means as women in today's world.Surrendering into our experiences in the body, and how our natural bodily experiences and processes can often feel painful, if we are not giving ourself the space to surrender into them.What Sexological Bodywork and Somatic Experiencing Work as a practitioner means, and how it can help women and people work through many different experiences in the body including birth injuries, gynecological surgery and scar tissue, and sexual boundary violations.Ideas on giving yourself permission to make mistakes, mess up, and learn from our sexual experiences, even as practitioners, and how staying grounded in our boundaries is helpful for navigating new experiences.And more!Follow along with Kimberly on IG @kimberly.ann.johnsonAnd discover all of her offerings on her website HERE.