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

Winter is upon us again in the Northern hemisphere, so this week I’m resharing my episode on rituals for winter.First, I invite you to notice what winter looks and feels like where you live. Because many of us don’t celebrate a “white” Christmas and not everywhere looks like a Bavarian ski village in December.Then, I invite you to notice what winter feels like energetically in your body. Do you feel exhausted and need to hibernate? Or do you experience a deep permission to turn inward and tend to yourself?For me, winter is the Dream Time. And during this period of less light, I embrace the fertile void and doing less.In this episode, I also share my rituals of dream-journalling, being with fire or flame, working with pine essence, winter kitchen magic, sauna or bathing magic, tracking the sunlight, and easeful intention setting.ResourcesMy dream teachers: Liz Migliorelli and Grandmother Sarah Maclean BicknellMilla Prince‘s wisdom of Finnish sauna traditionsRoot & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self

If you crave or cherish brave connection with your community, your ancestors, and yourself, this episode is for you.Trevia Woods is a mixed-race woman with Indigenous ancestors who has two decades of experience in bodywork, education and community-building. She has roots in the Midwest and Colorado, after traveling the world finds herself back in America finding her roots and how she belongs in the world. Trevia supports people in unpacking cultural appropriation, community building, as well as helping Culture Makers gift the world with their knowledge, lived experience and wisdom so not only they, but their clients can thrive.In this episode, we discuss the differences between cultural appreciation and appropriation, the challenges of building community amidst all the messiness we bring, and the time it takes to know and trust people.We also unpack how hard it is to release urgency, and Trevia shares more about her ancestral history and how she’s crafting local community right now — with the devotional practice of a Buy Nothing group.More from TreviaVisit Trevia’s website, Many Trees LifewayFollow Trevia on Instagram @trevia_woodsPurchase Feel Better. Do Better.: A Guide for People Who Want to Change the World, but Sometimes Have Trouble Making It to LunchResourcesEpisode #107: Feeding & Healing Ourselves Amidst Collapse with Carmen SpagnolaBeau of the Fifth Column’s videos on Community Networking 101, Finding your Community Network & Keeping Community Networking GoingMore on White Supremacy CultureBelonging Episode #36: Creating Nourishing Community with Nisha MoodleyHow We Show Up by Mia BirdsongEpisode #78: Non-Linear Reciprocity and Skills to Traverse Change with Jessie Harrold

If you have a long-held dream (or even the quietest whisper of a thought) that you want to live on and with the land, this episode is for you.Hillarie Maddox is the founder of Black Girl Country Living and creator of Rewilding Workshops. In 2020, she and her family left the city for the country without knowing what they were getting into. Along the way, she fell in love with nature and discovered the healing powers it has for individuals, communities, and the earth. She also believes deeply in the importance of access to the outdoors for BIPOC people and centers them in the experiences she creates.In this episode, we discuss our journeys leaving cities and tech careers for slower lives in deep relationship with the land. We unpack what it means to own land, to cultivate it, and to respect its wisdom.Hillarie also shares the challenges of her first two years on her farm, the many things Nature’s been teaching her, and the Rewilding Workshops she’s creating for her BIPOC community. Then we swap stories of the trees where we live, and the joy and grief that comes from tending to them.More from HillarieHillarie’s Instagram @blackgirl.countrylivingHillarie’s Substack newsletter

Waverly Davis a multidimensional twin mama, facilitator of sacred spaces + sounds, artist, and podcaster residing outside of Charlottesville, Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains on unceded Monacan territory.In this episode, we discuss how we incorporate the sacred into motherhood by embedding rituals into our daily lives and threshold moments.Waverly also shares her birth story and how a plant ceremony called her to a more sacred life. Then we journey through her rituals & practices for tending to her nervous system in challenging moments and how she co-creates sacred space with her kids.More from WaverlyBelonging and Beyond with Becca Piastrelli on A Wave Away with Waverly DavisWaverly’s websiteWaverly’s Instagram @heywaverlydavis

In today’s episode, I reflect on the role community plays in our lives and the stories we share with each other about our yearnings for connection.Tune to hear me reflect on what community looks like in my life right now and my dreams for how community might gather on my new farm home in the years to come.I also explore the challenges of reaching out for support and connection when our energy is low, the art of a nervous system soothing invitation, and the practical and sacred sides of community tending.Resources:Watch my video, Manifesting My Dream Community: Exactly What I DidListen to Episode #107: Feeding & Healing Ourselves Amidst Collapse with Carmen SpagnolaListen to Episode #81: Natural Rhythms & Regeneration for Breaking the Collective Trauma Spell with Rachael MaddoxListen to Episode #96: Friendship deserts, creativity floods, and ancestral mothering with Megan McGuire and Ariella DalyJoin my home practice, Tending the FlameBuy my book, Root and Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self

Carmen Spagnola is a wilderness guide, podcast host, Le Cordon Bleu-trained Chef, rose and vegetable gardener, collapse-aware coach, and witch of no particular affiliation.In this episode, we discuss the ongoing saga of her 300+ lb. TikTok-famous pumpkin and explore the term “collapse” as it relates to being collapse aware as an individual and as a collective.We wind through her journey from being a latchkey kid to attending Le Cordon Bleu in France to working on mega yachts — learning the depths of hospitality and writing her new cookbook, Spirited Kitchen. We also explore the practice of feeding memory as a way to connect with and honor our ancestors, even if they weren’t always the most honorable.Together, Carmen and I look at the large, societal problems that inevitably cause grief. And Carmen shares ways to soothe ourselves and move out of a freeze state in the face of such big issues and feelings.More from CarmenThe Spirited Kitchen CookbookThe Numinous NetworkYuletide WorkshopCarmen’s Instagram @carmenspagnolaCarmen’s TikTok @itscarmenspagnola

In today’s episode, I invite us fireside to connect with our ancestors — the humans, plants, animals, and stardust we come from.Tune to hear me reflect on how wild and perfect it is that we’re all here. And how profoundly we’re connected by our shared planet.I also explore our chosen and affinity ancestors. And I share my journey of connecting with my lineage and a few specific ways that you can connect with yours.I hope you’ll listen and then join me for the live cohort of Tending the Flame: Lineage, beginning on October 31st.More resources:Join my home practice, Tending the FlameBuy my book, Root and Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the SelfListen to Episode #25: Shaking the Amnesia with Lyla JuneListen to Episode #41: The Season of Samhain and the Wild Hunt

Erin Claire Jones uses Human Design to help thousands of individuals and companies step into their work and their lives as their truest selves and to their highest potential.In this episode, we have conversation about how Human Design can give us permission to be ourselves and help us live with greater ease and authenticity every day.We discuss Human Design basics including types (generator, manifestor, manifesting generator projector & reflector) and authorities (sacral, emotional, splenic, and more). Then we go deeper to explore how we incorporate Human Design into parenting and partnership, so we can affirm our partners’ and our children’s experiences of the world, especially when they’re different than our own.More from ErinLook up your designUse the code BELONGING to get 10% off your Blueprint, a personalized guide to your unique designFollow Erin on Instagram @erinclairejones and @humandesignblueprintJoin Erin’s next free webinar & her next course💫 Join me on December 11 for Basking in Your Glow: Rituals from the Ancestral Hearth Fire with Seagrape Apothecary. Learn more here & use the code BELONGING for a discount on registration.

Clare Foale is a Mum, a creator, a space holder, a brink walker and an ocean lover, living on Garigal Country in Australia.Together, Clare and I have an open and vulnerable conversation about our experiences with delayed postpartum depression. We share the moments beloved practitioners finally helped us see we weren’t okay. The strength it took to acknowledge our pain when so many people dismissed it. The ways our depression was separate from our love of our children. And the power of letting your family witness how you take care of yourself.This conversation is medicine, and I hope you’ll listen to it, especially if you enjoyed my solo episode on postpartum depression.More from Claire:Clare’s websiteClare on Instagram @clarefoaleThe Spacious Card DeckResourcesIf Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie

So much has changed since I last had my husband Tim on the podcast. We became parents. We decided to leave California. We bought a house in upstate New York.It feels like almost everything is different since that last episode three years ago. So this week I’ve invited Tim to come back to the show for an open conversation about our family and how we navigate change.Together we discuss why having our daughter was a catalyst to slow down, how we handle the tension between his tech-paced career and our earth-paced life, and the many challenges of facing sleep deprivation & postpartum depression together.Tim also shares about his experience with men’s work and men’s retreats, and how his relationship with Atlas has evolved since she was born. And we both open up about how we return to each other when we feel distant or disconnected.ResourcesEpisode #32: Navigating Marriage, Spiritual Transformation, and Witchy Life with Tim PiastrelliEpisode #101: Lessons from my journey with delayed postpartum depression