Belonging: Conversations about rites of passage, meaningful community, and seasonal living

I chose this time of year — the winter, waning time of year — to talk about something that I have experienced a lot of in my life: burnout. When we go against the energies of the season, especially in this productivity-focused culture, we experience a lot of burnout — and some of us don't even realize that's what we're experiencing or we resist identifying with being burnt out because burnout has been equated with failure.So today I'm sharing some thoughts on burnout and I'm bringing in a couple other voices to share their stories. We're talking about the symptoms of burnout, the causes of burnout, and some of the ways that you can begin to heal yourself from burnout.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/burnout/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

I took one of Morena Cardoso's Danza Medicina workshops for embodying the sacred feminine at Spirit Weavers a couple years ago and it was a profound experience in my relationship with my own body. Then, when I found myself circling with Morena for a Samhain gathering this year, I had to pull her aside to interview her for the Belonging podcast.This conversation goes deep. We talk about her embodiment work with Danza Medicina, working with the feminized experience while breaking down the oppressive nature of gender and the binary, Morena's perspective on what's going on in Brazil and her work in building relationships in reciprocity with some of the indigenous peoples of Brazil, and committing to our own growth and process — especially as people who hold space for other folx in this work.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/morena-cardoso/Follow Morena on Instagram: http://instagram.com/danzamedicina/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

Natalie Ross of Earth Speak joins me on the Belonging Podcast today. As the title of her podcast suggests, Natalie is intimately in relationship with the earth and is in regular communication with the land through her intuition and the senses that we normally don't pay attention to or place value on in our modern world.So in this conversation, we talk about tapping into those senses, finding messages in the shadow aspects of our society (like reality TV and litter), learning how to ground and calibrate your energy (especially as a Highly Sensitive Person), and wrestling with the mindset that this is all made up.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/natalie-ross/Follow Natalie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthspeak/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

One of the most frequent questions I get is how to create a sacred gathering or a women's circle. I get it. It's hard to do and yet it's something all of us so deeply crave. So I invited my dear friend, Katina Mercadante, to join me on the Belonging podcast. Katina and I have been collaborating on sacred gatherings for years now. We started our monthly moon circle together and we've collaborated on ritualizing celebrations and gatherings from birthdays to Bealtaine festivities as well.In this episode, Katina and I talk about remembering and feeling those ancestral ways of gathering and celebrating rather than reading about how you're "supposed to" do them. We talk about the power of being a host and being the one to extend an invitation for sacred gatherings even if you're in the process of figuring out how to do it yourself. We talk about how we both came to Jean Shinoda Bolen's work and how we began to collaborate to start our own circles and gatherings in our lives.We hope this episode inspires you to begin to gather your community in a way that feels meaningful to you.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/katina-mercadante/Follow Katina on Instagram: http://instagram.com/atinakaFollow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

Rachael Alaia joins me on the Belonging podcast for a potent and important conversation about facing an uncertain future in the midst of eco collapse, ecocide, and the grief and anxiety that comes with it. Many of us across the globe are experiencing more extreme weather and natural disasters (the fires here in California being just one example), and Rachael helps folx engage in body awareness, ecological sentience, and personal inquiry for personal planetary healing.Together we talk about the physiological response to trauma as a result of ecogrief, finding community to co-regulate and creating a plan for environmental disaster, how to feel safe coexisting with others despite trauma, examining our reality through Systems Thinking, and honoring enjoyment and pleasure in the midst of grief work.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/rachael-alaia/Follow Rachael on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachael.alaia/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

We're here in the witchy time of year—of thin veils, of the Great Hunt, Season of the Witch, and of the beginning of the darkening times here in the northern hemisphere. So in this episode of Belonging, I'm talking about Samhain and what this time of year meant for the ancestors.I'm digging into what it means to embrace the dark side of the year, I'm sharing some folkloric origins of Jack-o'-lanterns, trick or treating, and ancestral offerings, Samhain as the new year in Gaelic traditions, and the preparation this time offers us for the winter ahead.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/samhain-wild-hunt/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

My dear friend Lorena Aguirre joins me on the podcast today. Lorena has a very popular podcast in the Spanish-speaking world called Con Amor, Carajo! in which she addresses those living within a deeply Catholic, patriarchal existence to spread messages of feminism and empowerment to those who do not benefit from these systems.Together, we talk about what Lorena's experience was like as a woman in patriarchal Mexico, her connection with ancestors (or rather, what I'm sure many can relate to, guilt over a lack of connection with her ancestors), the importance of Día de Muertos, and Lorena's work with empowering other women.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/lorena-aguirre/Follow Lorena on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/descubremasdeti/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

Sarah Durham Wilson, Healer of the Maiden wound, talks about transitioning from Maiden to Mother archetype, unhealthy traits of each archetype, being 'unmothered,' healing unworthiness wound, and the impact of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy on women's identities and power dynamics.

Today's episode of Belonging is a solo episode where I'm sharing my meditation journey! Meditation is something that has come in and out of my life throughout my journey of belonging. I don't consider myself a "master meditator" by any means, but lately, it's something that's felt really strong in my practice.So, I'm sharing the meditation practices and tools that have worked for me, plus a guided meditation that you can do right now.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/meditation/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/Credit for the phrase "be a good ancestor" goes to Arianna of https://www.quwutsunmade.com/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/

Erica Feldmann, owner of HausWitch, discusses the resistance of close community, the power of using the word 'witch', the importance of housework, and infusing magic into everyday tasks. They also explore the significance of the broom and challenge gender dynamics in domestic work.