Wild Sacred Journey Podcast

In the past when I’ve traveled, I’d have had a steady commentary running through my mind, as if I was evaluating myself and what I was experiencing from the outside, while planning what silly things I was going to write about it to friends back home. 

This trip is proving to be different. Which means, I find myself with less to say and more immersion into the stream of experiences.

But I still want to invite you along. So here is part two of my musings. Recorded solo, after a short break from recording new conversations and a whole lot of mileage, challenges, and small and big joys. You’ll hear me share some of the themes and intentions I’ve been tending to as I’m opened up by being out of my normal routines.

Themes like:

• coming back alive;
• trying too hard;
• choosing to trust in benevolence;
• grief;
• unlearning comfort as the goal;
• using my own social nervous system as a weapon against myself;

… and probably some more.

Let’s gather around the fire. 

Fairly short and sweet, I hope you feel the lightness in it. I hope you find something inspiring. I hope you find it says something of importance and also a whole lot of nothing, at the same time. And I hope, when the time comes to just be in silence together, you feel it too, your own enoughness, wherever and whenever you find yourself tuning in.

You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

When Erik and I recorded this episode, we intended it to be a bonus episode… and yet I’ve kept putting off listening to it. Honestly, I think I expected to find it super cringe (and it is a little, though not as much as I feared). But now here we are, approximately 1.5 months after recording it. Travel hasn’t allowed me to record many new episodes with guests and the moon moves through its phases… and I can’t keep hiding anymore.

Some context: August 23, I left the US and flew to Scotland to begin four months of living on the road here and in Ireland. This episode was recorded at the end of August, less than a week after my arrival. Thousands of miles of journeying are between the Kate who writes this and the Kate you’re about to listen to. And yet, I still don’t totally know what this journey is about. I suspect most of it won’t come clear until after the trip.

But in this episode, you’ll hear my initial musings on:

• why I’m in Scotland and Ireland;
• ruptures in my ancestral roots;
• tending inner wounds of oppressor and oppressed;
• layers of culture;
• choosing to build skill and capacity for healthy conflict;
• healing backwards and forwards;
• feeling the land calling me;
• the gap between my expectations and reality;
• a reactivated ‘witch wound’;
• my why behind the podcast and the surprising (to me) revelation that starting it was also connected to this trip;
• letting stories be alive;
• knowledge, wisdom, and stories in community; 
• when myths become propaganda;
• waiting for heroes to come save us;
• learning how to receive stories so we can more intentionally engage with them

…. and more.

As I say at the end, I hope this episode gives you a little more sense of who I am. I hope it inspires you or allows you to find something that allows you to feel you belong around this fire.

I hope it reflects how stepping away from what’s familiar and onto another land can open us, humble us, enliven us.

I hope it avoids completely interpreting another culture through my own lens. And where I inevitably have, I hope you can hold the tension of my own interpretation with the differing ones you have or have heard. After all, conversations like this walk the line between facts, stories, and possibilities. And that’s why we gather around the fire. 

You can find Kate (me):

Today’s session around the fire was recorded about 10 days into my time in Scotland and watching it back for these notes, I’m aware of how ‘fizzy’ and ‘unsettled’ my system feels; how old meaning-making patterns were being stirred and and challenged and I was in the place of being unmade. Perhaps you’ll see something different in me, too. Or perhaps that’s how it always was and it looks and feels different now, later, after more shifts and settlings.

But one thing today’s guest, Dougie Mackay, and I share is a living inquiry into how to be a more natural human. And so, here we are, me at the start of a trip and him in between journeys, telling stories, sharing points of connection and curiosities, enjoying being human, together. 

Dougie Mackay is a storyteller hailing from the Scottish Highlands, who weaves his background in Community Education with his love of the natural world, bushcraft, primitive skills and other regenerative practices, into a storytelling practice often done outdoors or in unusual settings, and used for group-work facilitation, development, connection, and empowerment.

He’s renowned for his warm demeanor and engaging style and all of that comes through in our conversation as we explore some his favorite topics, like: stories as tools for entertainment, education, and connection to culture and landscape; the functionality of storytelling in modern times; how can we use stories to enrich our personal lives; and what can we glean about an older animistic culture through the stories they told…

as well as:

• our personal quests for meaning and cultures of substance (and how Dougie finally discovered meaningful culture at home in Scotland);
• following the trail of ancestral severance;
• the instinctive human impulse to be curious about the horizon;
• how travel can help us see our own homes, what’s local, and what’s universal;
• Scottish Ceilidh culture as a cultural template for hospitality and connection;
• the overlapping skills for storytelling and traveling well;
• how he got into stories and storytelling; 
• generational events like the Highland Clearances and how they can continue to impact a cultural psyche;
• the ability of stories to bring things alive in our bodies and help us make sense of where we are;
• the three types of stories in the Scottish seanachie tradition;
• holding stories with reverence to find more richness;
• the practice of ‘leaving something out for the fairies’...

and more.

He also shares two, beautiful stories with us around this digital hearthfire. So if you love to travel, love stories, and are curious about how we continue to be more natural humans - join us. I think you’ll find we have much in common.

You can find Dougie:

We all need a certain level of containment - some boundaries and understandings to help guide us. However, things get sticky when we confuse certainty with containment. And when we (often unconsciously) try to avoid our fear of uncertainty.

Today, I’m joined at the fire by Erik Eging - a PR and Communications specialist, photographer, and no stranger to medicine spaces; as well as a human now supporting this podcast. 

He shares his personal story of leaving a “high-demand” religion; what it looked like for him to discover he still needed some sort of spiritual meaning-making system; and how he moved into authorship of that for himself.

Whether you identify with having left a cult or other high-demand community; have concerns about some of the power-over dynamics you see being perpetuated in spiritual and medicine spaces; or have gone through some sort of initiation where your sense of certainty and security was lost and you had to find a new way forward… join us around this fire.

We don’t shy away from things like:

• the erasing and rewriting of our own histories;
• ancestral healing and not wanting to look back at the pain; 
• where our spirituality and anti-racism journeys can overlap and inform each other;
• certainty being fragile even though it feels like confidence;
• how do we recognize ‘truth’?;
• the real culprit isn’t the belief system but the lack of room for doubt;
• containment without rigidity;
• cultivating inner authority or authorship over life;
• the wounds of self-betrayal;
• how to recognize cult-like dynamics at play around us (and some of the varied and perhaps unexpected) places they can show up;
• when the Savior complex appears and how to stop taking, giving away, or accepting other’s power;

… and more.

And all of you is welcome here.

You can find Erik:

Instagram - @eging.erik

And if you've come for Erik, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts.

To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts:

1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review.

2. share widely

What happens if you take two humans, both with some sort of calling to catalyze change, sit them down together during the Lion’s Gate Portal while spiders spin webs overhead, and then release that recording into the world on a Full Moon in Pisces??? 

A helluva magical, fiery, and loving conversation.

Pull up your chair, your log, your rock; get your tea, your hot cocoa, your popcorn - whatever you need to get comfortable because joining me around the fire today is Katharine (Kat) Hargreaves: “the woman in the boat who meets others on the threshold,” a shamanic practitioner, ceremonial guide, and initiated medicine womxn who provides spiritual mentorship, apprenticeship programs, and psychedelic integration support for those on the healing path. 

And when it comes to many of the big questions we face on spiritual journeys, within the plant medicine world, as soulful entrepreneurs, or as humans in ‘white’ bodies aiming to ‘do better’… we don’t hold back.  

You’ll hear our thoughts on things like:

• finding friends and relationships with the wild ones, our non-human kin;
• tending the earth means tending the body;
• definitions of ‘medicine’ beyond something we put in our bodies;
• humans are not a scourge, nor are they supreme;
• Kate’s shift from being in service to the wounds to being in service to the old ways;
• Kat’s experience learning to hold her own medicine and the medicine of “you’re not ready yet”;
• what plants can offer us, as teachers in their own right;
• colonialism, ‘white’ culture, and being rootless;
• ritual, divination, and accessing the wider web of wisdom;
• unlearning greed and power-over hierarchies to find initiations and integrations as natural gatekeepers;
• taking more responsibility (in healthy ways)
• the challenges and process of ‘finding your medicine’ and living your purpose…

and so much more.

This conversation, while potent for any listener who loves complexity and spirituality, will probably feel especially powerful for you if you spend a lot of time in spiritual and wellness spaces or consider yourself a healer, yoga teacher, herbalist or server of plant medicines, etc; and especially if you hold those sacred roles while navigating the world within a ‘white’ body and grappling with questions of doing it the honorable and ‘right’ way. 

If so, or even if you’re called for another reason, let yourself be moved into place around this fire. I think you’ll find something awakening, grounding, challenging and affirming here. 

You can find Kat:

Freedom. Birth. God.

These are all words that have become quite loaded and contentious topics of conversation… and yet, in this episode, we dive in.

Joining me around the fire is Stella Udeozor - a first-generation Nigerian-American, mother of two, digital content Creator, storyteller, photographer, and birthkeeper backed out of Cincinnati, Ohio; who, through her business, Freedom Birth Story, aims to capture the true, and free, essence of every story, especially those of birth and motherhood.

Neither of us expected this conversation to go where it did, but, as you’ll hear Stella say, that’s what happens when you gather around the fire!

Join us and you’ll hear us lovingly question the stories we’ve been told to find stories that feel more free (and other musings) on subjects like:

• shifting from dogma to a personally-aligned relationship with spirituality;
• looking through the systems to find the heart and integrity untouched by corruption;
• language, place, and belief as as sites of freedom and sites of oppression;
• storytelling as medicine;
• the complexities of allowing stories to be living processes while making sure you’re writing your own (not someone else writing it for you);
• God not as fixed entity but as myriad faces and aspects;
• how honoring our ancestors and praying to saints can be the same thing;
• discernment, embodiment, and not outsourcing our power when it comes to birth, death, and everything in between;
• what ‘freedom’ means to each of us…

and much more.

While these subjects can, in some situations, feel large and heavy, there’s a lightness and joy pervading every moment of this conversation; reminding us curiosity and wonder are key, unlearning can be fun, and, in the end, it’s all about the stories we believe and the ones we tell. 

If you’re in a place of unlearning or deconditioning from a system or identity you didn’t choose or grew to find oppressive; if you’re feeling trapped and wondering how to feel more free; if you’re tired of living stories of wounds and limitations and want to write stories of possibility… join us around this fire. I think you’ll find something grounding, touching, inspiring, and reparative. 

You can find Stella:

I love starting each episode by asking the guest about the forces that shaped them because it drops us right into their unique tapestry of places, ancestors, languages, religions, beliefs, wounds, and victories - in short, the truest stuff of our individual and shared humanity. 

In a world where ‘trauma’ has become a buzzword and the pendulum seems to have swung from sweeping things under the rug to memeing about our tenderest hurts and armchair psychology in online public forms, we can find ourselves surrounded by stories of not receiving love in the ways we needed, of feeling trapped or controlled, of being taught to be someone else instead of ourselves (all important conversations)... often without the nuance and depth guidance to help us move towards what’s next. 

Today’s conversation with Claudia Olivos - an artist, mystic and curandera who weaves art with myth, nature, the cosmos, intuition and the magic of Spirit as she channels energies of the Divine Feminine through Sacred Mothers and Goddesses from around the world - bravely wades into her wounds around her relationship with her mother and fundamentalist belief systems… and then opens up about the gifts she found within the wounds and how they led her to create her Sacred Mothers and Goddesses Oracle deck and shaped her into the self-proclaimed “Shamanic-Witchy-Priestess’ she is today.

You’ll hear us explore: 

• Claudia’s childhood conversion from Catholicism to Evangelicalism;
• the hidden symbolism nestled within modern religious movements;
• channeling and the creative process;
• how Mother Mary acted as Claudia’s conduit to accessing the goddess archetypes and helped her heal her mother wound;
• the Universe as a playful place;
• reclaiming power and joy in the face of grief and hurt;
• destruction in service of creation;
• polytheism as different access points into the Unnameable Mystery…

and so much more.

If you’re someone who moved away from the religion of your youth and has grappled with finding your way with belief and faith; if you’re someone who has yearned for a connection with the Feminine you’re not finding in our culture; if you want to find the wounds in your gifts and let them open you to magic and possibility, or even just hear more about the process of channeling different aspects of the Mystery… join us around this fire. I think you’ll find something nurturing, uplifting, and empowering in this conversation. 

You can find Claudia: 

One aspect of being human is toggling back and forth between the stories and experiences of our personality self or our smaller, 3D, human self… and our Soul self, or the parts of us who can zoom way out and be open to (even if we can’t grasp completely) a vaster understanding of the larger Cosmos and web of life.

This conversation with Kari Hohne - a dream analyst, artist, and expert on the eastern and western archetypes that inspire our dreams and oracles; including ancient astrology, Tarot's archetypes, and the Tao te Ching and I Ching - explores what it means to live joyfully through zooming out and tapping into a deeper, broader, and more universal wisdom and story. 

All that Kari has studied and experienced leads her to consider this wider, ‘second’ vision the more objective of the visions and perspectives available to us as we seek to navigate being one of many organisms alive on this planet. And from the lens of this river of wisdom and the language of symbolism, we explore:

• what shamanism means to Kari;
• the idea that our world is not worse, but rather the best possible expression available at this moment;
• the ‘24-hr mind’ and dreams (including nightmares) as tools for awakening;
• how ancient wisdom traditions like Daoism and the I Ching guide us to Nature as a teacher;
• non-linear time;
• the role of wonder in living joyfully;
• technology and expanded consciousness;
• fear and creativity;
• the language of symbolism…

and much more.

Author Robin Wall Kimmerer says in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, that “even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the Earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” 

Kari, too, chooses joy. And she invites us to step into wonder and joy, and give it back.

Gather with us? Step into the Great River with us? Choose joy with us?

I hope you will.

_______________

You can find Kari - 

Cultures of survival rely on labels for stability - they want to know if a, then b; and in general, it’s an approach that works for us for a while. But eventually, we hit a moment when we can’t continue as we are. When the frameworks and approaches we’ve been taught can’t get us to the next step in our lives. When we realize it’s how we see things that may be part of the problem. To unlearn those ways and find our next one takes courage, compassion, and patience. We have to be willing to be with our discomfort, uncertainty, and (sometimes) skepticism. 

Today’s conversation with Dahlia Rose (founder of The Conduit School and a healer, teacher, guide, and conduit for high vibrational energies within her in-person and online communities) explores what it takes to build our unique bridge from survival to thriving, from prescription to intuition, from limitations to expansion.

You’ll hear us wonder through the threads of: 

• the forces that shaped Dahlia;
• how she got into working with crystals;
• invitations to grow through neurodivergence and queerness;
• tapping into our otherworldly senses through our physical ones;
• the connection between fascia and karma;
• taking a multidimensional approach to life;
• becoming your own guide;
• star nations…

and more.

If you’ve been wanting to explore working with crystals beyond a prescriptive approach; if you’ve been wanting to hear more about multidimensional reality and star nations in a way that doesn’t avoid or negate the body; if you’re feeling alone at a threshold between the known and the uncertain… join us around this fire. I think you’ll find something reassuring, inspiring, and reparative in this conversation. 

You can find Dahlia: 

Email: pleiadiancouncils@gmail.com

“I don’t teach voice because I think I’m a great singer. I teach voice because it’s one of my favorite ways to commune with my own heart and life and to move energy and pray.”

This is one of the last things today’s guest, Hanna Leigh - a ceremonial musician, voice doula, weaver, visionary and founder of a budding organization called "Weaving Remembrance" - says in our conversation. And I think it sums up perfectly so many of the threads you’ll hear us weave.

From Hanna’s path with devotional songs in church, then mantras, then icharos; to her passion for traveling and immersing herself in cultures and languages; to her desire to live places with no machines and remember ancestral craft; to her playful exploration of the full range of human expression through singing with nature and the elements; you’ll hear us wonder about:

• balancing being human and spirit;

• the magic of manifestation;

• the possibilities opened through ancestral remembering;

• intimacy and deep connection with nature;

• bridging the worlds of AI and hand-made;

• shaping and being shaped by culture…

and more.

Whether you’re someone who considers yourself a singer or not: if you’ve ever dreamed of living off grid, if you’ve yearned for more time to wander and expand, if you’ve faced a sobering reality that’s made you appreciate the messiness of being human, if you wonder what else is possible… I think you’ll find something of resonance in this conversation. 

Gather with us? Expand your heart and voice with us? Stand at the portal between what may have been, what could be, and what is with us?

I hope you will.

And then, let’s sing it.

________________

You can find Hanna Leigh and Weaving Remembrance: 

The more of these conversations I have, the deeper I understand why we’re gathering here around the fire - answering a whispered call. Sometimes the ‘why’ is in the guest’s personal wisdom, earned and shared through a life fully lived. Other times, it’s because their life and studies offer us a cultural framework different from our current one, often richer in wisdom and spirit.

Today’s conversation with Jen Murphy, an Irish woman descended from a lineage of storytellers and wisdom keepers on her maternal line; and creator of Celtic Embodiment, a cutting-edge modality that fuses the ancient wisdom of Celtic Mythology with the emerging field of Feminine Embodiment Coaching to transform modern life for women; is the later.

Jen’s fascination with the natural coalescence between our ancestral myths and our bodies as a potent brew to reclaim our sovereign power, brings forth musings on culture, story, language, mythical ancestors, and place. 

We explore:

• the indispensability of story and arts in early Irish society; 

• the differences between oral and written traditions and what that means for culture;

• language as a means of accessing the lore stored in the land;

• place vs non-place and broader issues of cultural displacement;

• the Irish understanding of the three cauldrons of the body;

• our bodies as sites of reclamation and eldering;

• what the Irish sovereignty goddess and mature king have to teach us about personal and collective right relationship…

and more.

If you’re someone who sees how we got here, knows things need to change, and is curiously looking around for examples, recipes, threads to alchemize into new possibilities for our culture and our future, join us around this fire. You’re in for a potent, enlightening, and inspiring conversation. 

May it spark a remembering from within your own body and the wisdom of your mythical ancestors.

You can find Jen: 

Our guest around the fire this episode is Amana Mayfield-Faulkner, supportive sister and guide for women who are motivated to deepen their understanding of themselves. Through her life, her work, and her own podcast (The Heart of the Soul), Amana is an explorer of pregnancy, birth, death, mothering, sociology, culture, nature, nursing, midwifery, reiki & mediumship… among other things.

And you’ll feel Amana’s curious, courageous, open heart in this conversation which begins with an exploration of initiations (hers have come at times in the form of travel, the death of her first love at a young age, and then motherhood and child loss). And from there it meanders through archetypes, culture, and mediumship.

We get curious about what it takes to get comfortable in the experiences that stretch us, that grow us, that are, by their very nature and design, uncomfortable.

We wonder about safety and belonging and what it takes for our hunger for those to feel met.

We weave our conversation through the cycles of life and death, through the risk and reward of rebirth, all to grieve and celebrate the magic of being human.

Gather with us? Be gently and courageously curious with us? Be a willing ‘yes’ to the adventure of life with us?

I hope you will.

The wheel of life is turning, we’d love to have you along for the ride.

You can find Amana: 

Today, on the astrological day of Beltane, Bealtaine ‘as Gaeilge’ (in Irish), we gather around the fire with Sionnáin, a musician, songstress, quantum therapist and water carrier from the West of Ireland, whose path is devoted to honouring, celebrating & remembering with the Tuatha Dé Danann, the mythical tribe of Shining Ones. 

You’ll hear tales from her journey through personal and ancestral wounds around lineage, language, loneliness, and disconnection from homeland and place; and how she found herself on a path woven with and in service to the awakening of the songlines of Ireland. 

Woven through her personal stories, you’ll hear threads of Irish cultural rememberings, rooted in the land and language, like:

• the Irish name for Ireland (Éire) and it’s connection to the sovereignty goddess Éiriú;

• the power of names;

• the ancient practice of Imbas Forosnai; 

• the Goddess Brigit and the Tuatha Dé Danann;

• visiting sacred sites (and how you can start engaging with that practice in a  good way);

• and two medicine songs/ invocations she has channeled through in Gaeilge, the Irish language.

Together, we discuss looking beyond our family tree to our mythical lineages for ancestors to guide us; how we need stories that still reflect the land; the power of grief and forgiveness in opening us to deeper paths and the worlds that overlap with this one; and our hunger for these wisdoms in these times.

Whether you have direct ancestral connection to the lands of Éire or not, may this conversation serve as an awakening to the ancient rememberings of land, lineage, and language in your bones.

May we all experience the love, blessings, and gratitude for those we meet along the way. 

May we all find our guides in these journeys of remembrance. 

May your heart and body know safety, belonging, and the blessing of communion.

May it be so. 

And from Sionnáin: “my deep grá and buíochas to all those who I have been blessed to meet along the way. Especially to those who have guided and supported this journey of remembrance.”

You can find Sionnáin on Instagram: @shannonsoulsounds

And if you've come for Sionnáin, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts.

Please feel free to share these conversations widely. Rate or subscribe/ follow where you listen to stay up-to-date on new episodes and to help others discover them.

Today’s guest around the fire, the charismatic and loving Dan McNeil, self-proclaimed teacher, brother, husband, and father; has taken a winding route to get to where he is today, but as he says early on in the episode, while life has taken him many places, the voice of spirit has always been the same.

And you’ll feel that in our conversation - a conversation that dances between: 

• the despair of the world and laughter; 
• the practice of mindfulness; 
• what real heroism may be;
• finding our callings;
• plenty of stories and parables;
• … and through it all, a voice of spirit that stays steady and loving and hopeful.

If you, like us have found yourself feeling overwhelmed and heart broken; if you like us, have found yourself wanting to fix or save the world; if you, like us, wonder sometimes why you’re here and what’s your purpose; if you, like us, believe in the power of love… pull up a chair and join us. 

I think you’ll feel in good company. 

(And it may feel like the perfect conversation for the beginning of eclipse season and the invitation to introspection and new beginnings of a new moon and solar eclipse)

You can find Dan’s blog/ website here:

What does it mean to be a full-spectrum human? What are all the pieces that weave together to form our experience and how do we distill them down into something that holds deep resonance for us?

These questions lay at the heart of the conversation that unfolded when I got together with Dajé James, aka the Story Doula, a storyteller, flower essence practitioner, and space-holder for wild-hearted leaders and creative entrepreneurs, who supports creatives in owning their voices and waging beauty with their unique medicine.

Our explorations of: 

• ancestral connection; 
• distinguishing instinct from intuition; 
• the roles of ritual, initiation, and elderhood in our development; 
• and what’s meant by “finding your medicine” 

are all interwoven with Daje’s own story - from running away from a cult to go to college, to the visceral intensity of experiencing her first big spiritual awakening and initiation, and what she’s passionate about cultivating in the world now.

If you’re someone who is curious what else might be possible for our culture and our future; if you’re someone with a deep spiritual connection; if you’re someone who wants to open your intuition and develop your capacity for subtle communication… I think you’ll find something of resonance in this conversation. 

Gather with us? Open to the Great Mystery with us? Welcome your full-spectrum experience with us?

I hope you will.

Your medicine is wild, unique, and necessary.

(Please note: per Dajé’s request, this episode is audio-only)

You can find Dajé: 

On Instagram - @thestorydoula

What's left when all else melts away? When you find yourself at a threshold; in the middle of an initiation; grappling with the things you would never have consciously chosen?  In a moment or many when you’re stripped of your accomplishments, or people you love, or the things you thought you knew?

Who are you then? And what really matters?

One of my first spiritual teachers and long-time friend, Dr. Christen Scott aka the Yoga Shrink, has been on a journey of unlearning ‘doing and accomplishing from a place of inadequacy’ to find deeper presence and acceptance her whole life. From getting the doctorate, to running marathons, to a thriving clinical psychology practice, she has always gone for it. And then a new devotion to the practice of yoga started showing her another, more love-centered and body-centered, possibility.

Not one to do anything with half her heart, Christen and her husband Preston went all in on living, teaching, leading, and serving from the principle that there is Love or there is Fear - and they choose Love. This episode is the story of how her understanding of Love has been tested and deepened in the year and change since Preston’s unexpected and sudden death the day after Thanksgiving 2021.

Through laughter and tears, you’ll hear us explore:

• how the wilderness of bereavement makes it impossible to go along with the aspects of society that run counter to full humanity and aliveness;
• sacred and ancestral approaches to grief and loss;
• how Christen learned to tend her grief and some ways we, as a society, could support grief better;
• the inquiry - what if loss, although challenging, isn’t a wound or a problem? What if we are, in fact, perfectly designed for it?… and more

Having spent the last year+ with my own primary and secondary grief in the wake of Preston's transition, this episode feels particularly poignant. If you’re watching this episode, you’ll see how much of it I spend with tears in my eyes. And yet, somehow, this is not a sad or heavy episode - it’s a deeply loving and reparative one.

Gather with us? Celebrate life with us? Sit in the full expression of humanity, including the commonality of loss, with us?

I hope you will.

The world needs us heart-broken-open, fully alive, and available for more Love.

Sometimes it feels like there’s an assumption that to shift our current exploitative and divided relationship with the land, we have to be different than we are, adopt a certain lifestyle aesthetic… so I’m super excited for this conversation with winemaker Jason Murray and artist Sandy Gray-Murray of Arterra Wines and Hawkmoth Arts, two people who epitomize lifestyle, not as aesthetic but as conscious choice; as act of reverence for the land and beauty - all by staying true to what they feel is theirs to do and be in the world.

In a nod to my earlier conversation (ep 5) with Dr. Shanequa Smith, Jason says, “we feel we are trying to build new systems. It’s not easy.” And it's true. This conversation is both inspiring and sobering - honoring the beauty of life without shying away from the challenges we face as humans at this time, and particularly as humans trying to be the change we want to see in the world.

In it you’ll hear us explore:

• the difference between art, craft, and artisan - between product, process, and consumption;
• how staying on your path requires shutting out the noise (and one of the most helpful tools for when the noise gets loud);
• making tough, imperfect choices when it comes to sustainability and finding your ‘right’ way;
• concrete examples of how Jason and Sandy live their values through the craft and process of their work;
• why sourcing your choices from beauty and the land is such a revolutionary act… and more.

You may hear things you agree with, you may hear things that challenge you. You may hear things that are out of your daily experience and don’t slot easily into your current understanding. But as Jason says towards the end of the episode: “If you don’t, are you even talking?”

Gather with us? 

Forge a new path with us? 

Celebrate beauty with us?

I hope you will.

The world needs the biodiversity that is all of us.

You can find Jason and Sandy, the winery and the art at:

For this powerful and moving episode I’m joined by one of my teachers, an amazing human who has had a profound impact on my life and journey, Tammy LaDrew. Tammy is a Life Artist, Writer & Personal Development Coach who teaches people how to live better lives through The Art of Awakening, Wayfinding and Conscious Creation - the art of connecting with their inner inspiration, reclaiming their Spirit, and delivering their creative presence into the world.

The experience of being struck by lightning at the age of 17 initiated Tammy into her journey of sensing energy and the subtle world. The deviations and challenges of that path, and the way she both chose and learned to engage with them, have ultimately brought her into a wisdom journey - one where she can both nurture and hold others (like me!) in loving accountability.

She’s a heart-felt and natural addition to our village fire. And so, here we are.

A rich episode, you’ll hear us explore:

• recognizing the full expression of yourself from the conditioned one;
• a structural framework for understanding how to meet the world soul-soul, not role-to-role;
• why we often end up repelling the things we long for;
• the ‘rules’ of Conscious Wayfinding and how they help us create our lives;
• when your spiritual tools become hypervigilance;
• the privilege, power, and responsibility of being human and creating a world we want to live in;
• what’s actually at stake for us in these conversations;
• the surprising thing that might save humanity…and more.

Gather with us? Awaken with us? Be moved with us?

I hope you will.

All of you matters here.

For this curious, wise, and earth-paced episode I’m joined by Tish Linstrom - a friend, peer, and guide, with a passion for providing women deeply transformative, nourishing, and empowering spaces in which to experience their bone-deep knowing and aliveness in order to claim more soul-rooted + authentic expressions of their innate wild natures and belonging.

I first met Tish when she reached out, after years of being deep in the bone cave of menopause while still closely mothering, looking for someone to hold some space for her while she integrated the profound personal and spiritual shifts. Along the way, we both discovered a kindred soulship and love for conversations exploring archetypes, ancient wisdom, and Earth-held, wild journeys of becoming.

Of course I wanted to bring one of those conversations to you. And so, here we are.

You’ll hear us explore:

• the journey to elderhood (no, it’s not inevitable - it’s a practice and a role);
• menopause and powerful feminine rites of passage;
• perpetual “daughterhood” and how it affects our growth as women;
• the role mystery plays in healthy individuals and societies;
• the power of archetypes to guide and support us;
• and how perhaps it’s more effective to be deliberate in what we care about rather than seeking to not care at all…

I show up to this conversation a little raw and tender and through being together, around our virtual fire, listening to receive… something in me shifts. (Which is the point of this project after all - a reminder, an exploration, a practice of finding nourishment and repair through gathering each others’ stories).

Gather with us? Listen with us? Be curious and moved with us?

I hope you will.

All of you is welcome here.

Here in both the 11th episode and the first episode of 2023, I reflect on what I’m aiming to do with these conversations - namely to explore, in dehumanizing times and an increasingly virtual world, what it means to be human. Asking: how do we use our innate human ability to be able to walk with a foot in each world (the physical and the imaginal) in powerful and constructive ways?

Through reflections and some of my own story, I explore what reweaving ‘animism’ - the cosmology of a living, breathing, soul-infused world - has gifted me and how it supports an embodied and deeply sacred sense of kinship with myself and life around me.

In this episode, you’ll hear my ruminations on:

• what animism is as a cosmology;
• the culture we’re currently swimming in;
• how a more animistic worldview might help us change the trajectory our species seems to be on;
• how without animism and a more rooted and embodied relationship to ourselves and our lives, we risk using wellness tools to perpetuate or simply put bandaids on our modern ‘illnesses’;

… and more.

This feels like a vulnerable conversation for me for some reason - probably because it feels so important. I’m glad you’re here.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on animism, our current cultural trajectory, or something that helped you recognize and hold things as sacred - I welcome it. 

If you’d like to hear me in conversation with someone, connect me with someone, or ask me about something you’d like to hear me talk about, I welcome that, too.

For this deeply moving and thought-provoking conversation, I’m joined by the tender, honest, and fierce Evelyn Deming - someone who, through deep soul calling and her colorful and sometimes challenging past, found herself comfortable in the sacred and messy space of death. Evelyn has tended the dying as a former hospice nurse, board certified nurse coach, and death doula; and has plans to support people with life-limiting diagnoses as an end of life coach. 

Though currently on a professional break to concentrate on her own healing, she continues to challenge us all to answer the question: if death is our birthright, what do you want to do with the time you have left?

I’m thrilled to have this conversation because, in the last few years particularly, I’ve come to see how deeply interwoven grief is with what it means to be human… *and* how deeply grief- and death- avoidant our culture is, at least here in the U.S.

But we know we’re not actually getting out of here alive, so what becomes possible when we acknowledge that fact and live accordingly?

This episode sits firmly in that question, while also exploring:

• what it is to live well and die well?
• is grief the price of love?
• do you have to be spiritual or religious or believe in some afterlife to engage with death in a holistic sense?
• do we have any say in the legacy we leave?
• can the practice of letting go help us practice for our final breath?
• how can having wants and knowing what they are help you feel complete at the end of your life?
• can you hold the healthy boundaries you need with someone *and* repair rupture when they pass?

Join us. Join us in mess, in grief, in laughter, in letting go, in being curious, in being resilient. Join us in a powerful conversation about being human.

And let’s keep the conversation going. What are your answers to the questions we pose here? Where has grief touched your life and how has that opened you? Where has acknowledging the inevitability of your own passing gifted you something? As Mary Oliver asks: “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

We’d love to hear.

This episode I’m joined in friendship and conversation by the gentle-and-fierce visionary, Anna Carapetyan- a birth and postpartum doula, educator and coach; who provides care and support while promoting an orientation toward process, growth, autonomy and interdependence; all so you thrive through your transformative life events.

This is an episode of curiosity where we slow down and ask: what’s actually going on here?

We explore questions like:

• What does it mean to ‘mother’?
• Do we need freedom?
• What stories or assumptions of what’s possible have we inherited? And what trajectories are we setting up for the ones who come after us?
• When it comes to giving birth or entering into a transformational experience, is there a ‘right’ way to go about it? How do we set ourselves up to thrive and what do we even mean when we talk about thriving?
• In a world where we don’t get to choose how things will change us, what does it mean to have vision?

We hope you’ll join us in curiosity. And if there’s anything you leave with, we hope it’s the desire to question even your own assumptions about what’s possible for you and the world; and the permission to pursue paths that help you build trust in yourself and our collective deep wisdom, rather than the prescriptive approaches that would have you believe the answer is outside you and lies in doing more.

What are your answers to the questions we pose here? What new stories are you writing through your life?

We’d love to hear.

You can find Anna on Instagram at: @annacarapetyan

In this conversation I’m joined by the powerful and radiant Amy Rachelle Taylor - an Intuitive Soul Guide and licensed mental health clinician who coaches people in shadow work, inner child healing, and ancestral & inter-dimensional alchemy for more love, clarity, and personal power.

This is a conversation that really roots into what it means to be a unique human expression *and* a quantum frequency of Love; a drop in the sea and the sea itself.

Through our explorations of:

• ancestry and lineage;
• labels and identities;
• being judgemental;
• words as imperfect starting places;
• what ‘Divine Feminine’ and ‘Divine Masculine’ actually means;
• (and more)...

you'll hear the common thread of integrating and alchemizing the messy and challenging aspects of ourselves and our lives to liberate the deeper truths of who and what we are - an ongoing expression of life itself (and, perhaps, a mushroom).

I thought about naming this episode ‘What Was, What Is, and What Could Be’ as a nod to the breadth of our conversation and the breadcrumbs we drop, aiming you to possible starting points and a spectrum of where your journey of remembering wholeness might take you.. all of it a reminder of how powerful we are when we can be present with ourselves and our context with immense compassion.

What stirred within you during this conversation? What have you inherited and what are you creating? What sparked an alchemical moment?

We’d love to hear.

You can find Amy on Instagram at: @amyrachelleintuitive

In this conversation I’m joined by the amazing and effervescent Micah Peterson - a human whose joy, love, and depth of compassion I’ve had the privilege of knowing since we were 14 years old. I wanted to have Micah on to share about his life and story because of his passion for village and community care, and also because I wanted to hear his perspectives as someone with identities that intersect in Blackness, queerness, and maleness.

One of the things I found in this conversation is a testament to how much more we can learn about another by pausing to ask them, no matter how long you’ve known them, “and how was that for you?”

This conversation is powerful, in large part, for the vulnerability and transparency Micah brings in sharing his journey. Beginning, as many of us do, with feelings of unworthiness and ‘Otherness’ from a young age; Micah then takes us through the discomfort of recognizing how that shaped him; the process of coming into a different relationship with himself; and finally, the testing of his relationship with self and community through a recent tragic and traumatic experience within his family. In sharing about that recent experience, Micah generously allows us to witness his emergent and relatable process of repair, including:

• realizing how much the tools he developed earlier support him now;
• mistakes he’s made and new lessons he’s learning;
• and places where he’s still actively exploring and curious - letting tragedy lead him to gifts and the full complexity of being more human.

We cover a lot of territory in this conversation and there may be moments in it that stretch your capacity as you listen. This, too, is part of journeys of repair and being more human and we give some space for this in the conversation, but I always encourage you listening to your body and what it needs to feel whole.

Did you recognize something of yourself in this conversation? What was most impactful? We’d love to hear.

You can find Micah on Instagram at: @micahhasthefloor

In this conversation I’m joined by the lovely, wise, and endlessly curious Lindsey Melton - a former dancer, Gyrotonic Method practitioner, and a breathwork facilitator with a gift for bringing clarity and elegant simplicity to the muddy experience of being humans in bodies.

Through the lens of breathwork and compassionate relationship with our bodies, we explore:

• learning to listen to the wisdom of our bodies (and children!);
• all the ways we can use breath to meet ourselves and the world around us as we are;
• feeling connected in a technological world;
• individuality, codependency, and interconnectivity;
• how breathwork can fuel our activism;
• the power of healing in groups…

and so much more.

How did this conversation leave you feeling? Did you learn anything new or find yourself curious about anything? We’d love to hear.

In this conversation I’m joined by the compassionate, wise, and fierce Dr. Shanequa Smith; a Restorative Practitioner with a passion for decolonizing inwardly - healing from systemic and sociohistorical inequity and generational traumas to better build new cultures and systems, rooted in joy and opportunity.

In this episode, you’ll hear Shanequa’s story from the hoods of Harlem, NY to Charleston, WV. She shares how pursuing education and listening to Spirit helped her realize that while economic poverty can be hard to shake, inner poverty is something she could get free from, and something she is passionate about helping other Black and marginalized community members also find opportunities to heal from. All so that we can build new, less exploitative, systems that work for everyone.

Through her experiences and our conversation around it, you’ll hear threads circling topics like:

• intergenerational trauma and how that affects development of individuals, groups, and cultures;
• how easy it is for our own experiences to limit our expectations and vision, and how challenging it can be to shift those;
• a powerful analogy for those of us in white bodies who struggle with shame and inner conflict when it comes to the subject of racial inequity;
• the role awareness and joy play in making the necessary transition from ‘fighting against’ to ‘building something new’;
• a more nuanced and challenging idea of what true community is and can be
• the pitfalls of a well-intentioned desire to “help” and some things to think about as we approach “charity”
• a critique of white-dominated wellness and spirituality spaces and some things to consider when bringing restorative/ reparative justice in.

How did this conversation leave you feeling? Did you learn anything new or find yourself curious about anything? We’d love to hear.

In this conversation I’m joined by the endlessly curious and deeply wise Emma Sartwell; whose spiritual journey leads to the impressive resume of: interfaith chaplain, ordained Buddhist minister, author, and student and skilled practitioner of a diverse variety of healing modalities like: yoga, meditation, energy healing, shamanism, Somatic Experiencing, psychodynamics, and mystical Judaism (to name a few).

Who better to sit with in the question: with access to seemingly endless different paradigms, what does it mean to pursue paths of spirit and tradition in this time and place?

In our winding inquiry, you’ll hear us explore:

• ‘Spiritual Shopping’ vs ‘Depth and Apprenticeship’ - pros, cons, and ways to discern whether it’s helping or hurting us;
• what becomes possible when we allow the things we’re trying to ‘fix’ to become the path - when our own, lived, human experience becomes the sacred text and the temple;
• where our own journeys began and how they’ve evolved;
• a possible framework to help if you’re beginning your journey or are feeling like you’re grasping after your next path;
• the different modes of knowing offered by head, heart, and body… and how they inform us being more human.

What are you finding about pursuing paths of Spirit in these times? 

How has your journey led you to be more human? 

Did what you hear today open up any new wisdom or awareness? 

We’d love to hear.

You can email me (Kate): kate@wildsacredjourney.com

You can email Emma: emma@somaticspiritualcounseling.com;

In this conversation with energy healer, Conscious Transformation mentor, and plant medicine guide, Jaime Lehner, we follow threads of curiosity and wisdom while exploring:

• plants as consciousness and teachers;
• how, in an era of disconnection and distraction, working with plants can bring us back to our bodies and hearts - our true natures;
• the rise in popularity of plant medicines and some pros and cons;
• the courage and willingness it takes to let ourselves be transformed by encounters with plant teachers and our own interconnectedness;
• what to do with the pain of activism - paths of medicine and paths of poison
• finding an internal navigation system
• slowing down our transformative journeys
• tips for discerning if you’re called to work with plant medicines and where and with whom
• ways to connect with your body, heart, and nature even if you’re not called to work with plant medicines… and more

What threads of wisdom or curiosity did this conversation open for you? We’d love to hear.

Feeling dissatisfied is an uncomfortable and very normal part of our human experience. 

In this bonus solo episode we explore: 

• how we can harness the gifts of dissatisfaction; 
• the link between dissatisfaction and creativity (and how that might point to ways we misunderstand creativity); 
• and the bridge between where we are and where we want to be

There's also an announcement for an offering coming up on Tues September 20, 2022 specifically for those of you: 

• feeling frustrated or let down by your close relationships or your work;
• grieving lost dreams or a sense of purposelessness;
• or looking to the future and just feeling bleak

In this conversation with poet, creativity coach, and dance instructor, Ellis Elliott, we explore: 

• the people and places that shape us;
• writing to escape and writing to connect;
• things that challenge our notions of what it is to be human;
• myths about creativity;
• how regular creative practices can help us be more human... and more.

What's your takeaway? We'd love to hear.