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

Rachael Rice is someone who I have held in high esteem for some time. She is first and foremost, an artist — depicting the world as she sees it and as what she sees coming. She's also a prolific writer, educator, and death doula. Her work lies at the crossroads of grief, radical togetherness, creative expression, death, learning, and magic. Rachael's art, writing, and speaking have really expanded my lens of the world as I work to decolonize my mind and awaken to a deeper, more real, more radical experience of this world. So I asked Rachael to come onto the Belonging podcast to talk about death, knowing that we would weave a conversation that goes so much deeper than just death — because death is a part of life, it's a part of all things.I really see this conversation as a continuation of the one I began with my death midwife teacher, Jerrigrace Lyons, on the Belonging podcast last year. Rachael and I recorded this conversation with the nearness of death that felt potent in the height of COVID-19. Together, We talk about how we live in a death-phobic society, a society that believes in unfettered growth — not really taking in that life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We talk about the consequences when we pretend that things don't end (because they do), being in an underworld journey, somatic grief embodiment practices, and a radical remembering of animism.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/rachael-rice/Follow Rachael on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rachaelriceFollow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/

Shauna Janz joins me in this episode of Belonging. Shauna is a sacred grief counselor who holds space for all the areas and intersections of grief — embodiment, rituals, ancestral connection, and the individual and group process. She is dedicated to tending belonging in our world — within ourselves, with each other, with our other-than-human relations and with the sacred. She creates space for reaching into the rough and beautiful places that are a catalyst for transformation and healing, personally and collectively. Her offerings are trauma-aware, somatic-informed, and culturally-inclusive and anchored in the resiliency of the human spirit, decolonizing, and animist values.Shauna and I recorded this episode before the current uprisings, so our conversation about grief was mostly focused on COVID-19 (which is still a present reality), but working with our grief is absolutely relevant to our calls to dismantle white supremacy and police brutality and create a paradigm shift. Together we talk about questioning our relationship with grief, grief as an offering, the need to be witnessed in grief, disenfranchised grief, and inherited resilience vs. inherited trauma.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/shauna-janz/Follow Shauna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacredgriefshaunajanz/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/

Julie Parker, Founder of The Beautiful You Coaching Academy, Co-Founder of Priestess Temple School, host of the Priestess Podcast, published author (her book Priestess is available for pre-order as of TODAY!), and speaker joins me in this episode of the Belonging Podcast.Together, we talk about the meaning of the word "priestess" and what it looks like to embody it in this world, ancestral pilgrimage and being descended from European lands while living in colonized Australia (where Julie lives), our collective longing for sisterhood and how to heal trust with other women, and leaning into discomfort in order to build new paradigms — Julie shares her story of choosing to turn down a major book deal that was out of integrity.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/julie-parker/Order Priestess here: https://juliesuzanneparker.com/priestessbook/Follow Julie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julesyparker/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/

June Marisa Kaewsith, also known as "Jumakae," joins me on the Belonging Podcast today. Jumakae is a professional artist, wellness consultant, and storytelling coach who first roped me in with her TEDx talk and her powerful storytelling voice. I knew I wanted to talk with her on Belonging about her ancestral connection, but we dove so much more into the power of stepping into your ancestral identity in these times of the pandemic and ways to navigate these times of uncertainty — including envisioning the future in a different way.Together, we talk about how to stay rooted in times of change, how June changed her name as an act of empowerment and deepening into her Asian-American identity, ancestral connection practices (and how we tend to over-complicate them), breaking the model minority myth, releasing the need to take on the world's suffering as our own, creation as self-regulation, and using this time to envision a new future.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/jumakae/Follow Jumakae on Instagram: http://instagram.com/jumakae/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/

Much of the curiosity around my work has to do with ancestral connection and ancestral practices, which is why I am so excited to share my conversation with Gogo Thule Ngane on this episode of Belonging.Gogo is a Sangoma priestess and healer guided by the elevated ancestors of her lineages from the Mossi of West Africa and Zulu of South Africa. She works as a diviner using ancestral shamanic practices and ceremonial traditions. Her healing practice offers workshops, ceremonies, and retreats from the perspective of ancient African cosmologies. She walks the path of a wisdom keeper devoted to preserving and honoring the ancestral way of healing.It is such a privilege to talk to someone who is so connected to their ancestral ways as Gogo is. Gogo shares her journey to becoming a Sangoma priestess, how she's learned and remembered the ways of her ancestors, her current ancestral practices, ancestral elevation, and calling upon ancestors and elders during scary and uncertain times.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/gogo-thule-ngane/Follow Gogo Thule Ngane on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thuleheals/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/

In this episode of the Belonging podcast, I am joined by Asha Frost, an Anishinaabe (Ojibway) Medicine Woman (member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation), Healer, and Spiritual Mentor. Asha wrote an article titled "Dear White Woman who wants to be like me," which went viral for many of the same reasons why it caught my attention: it's a powerful calling in around cultural appropriation.Together, we talk about Asha's experience as a First Nations woman of Turtle Island, having grandparents who grew up on the reservation and were sent to residential school, the ways carrying generational trauma shows up in Asha's life plus how she works through it, navigating the response of her viral article, and cultural appropriation.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/asha-frost/Follow Asha Frost on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asha.frostFollow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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'm thrilled to bring you a conversation with Ayana Young, a fierce warrior for the earth and fellow podcaster. I have learned so much from Ayana over the years about what it means to be alive in the Anthropocene (the Age of Man) and how to find hope in action. Ayana specializes in intersectional environmental and social justice, deep ecology and land-based restoration, and was a co-founder of the Environmental Working Group.Together Ayana and I talk about how she lives her life today in the woods of northern California and her commitment to a new way of being in the Anthropocene. We dig into the psychological dimensions — the fear and grief and discomfort — of living in these times, not just with the world-wide pandemic, but in the midst of climate collapse and whatever else might be coming our way. It's a heavy but important conversation, including about finding hope and action in this moment and in the future.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/ayana-young/Follow Ayana Young on Instagram: http://instagram.com/for.the.wild/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/

Mimi Young is a shamanic practitioner and founder of Ceremonie, a shamanic and ritual-based brand, and although we scheduled this conversation before any of us knew the extent of where we would be during this COVID 19 outbreak, what we had planned to talk about is very timely during these moments of Physical Distancing.Mimi shares her experience of having a five-month bedrest when she was pregnant with her second child and what she experienced in the isolation of this time — including a deep meditation practice, an accidental introduction to shamanic journeying, and an initiation. We tie Mimi's experience to what many of us are feeling and experiencing in this time of an uncertain timeframe of isolation.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/mimi-young/Follow Mimi Young on Instagram: https://instagram.com/shopceremonie/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/

Lisa Olivera, a writer and therapist, joins me in this episode of Belonging to talk about showing up as yourself to make meaningful connection. This conversation weaves together what it really means to be human in these times and why it's so important to vulnerably share all sides of ourselves. Through her therapy work and writing, Lisa helps others realize that they can repair abandonment or loneliness wounds and really come into themselves.Together we talk about how to show up imperfectly and apologize and grow from our wounds and mistakes, how vulnerability and humanness and fallibility is so important for the evolution of our culture, how social media fits into connection and belonging, and Lisa also shares some mindfulness and embodiment practices that help her feel more centered.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/lisa-olivera/Follow Lisa Olivera on Instagram: https://instagram.com/lisaoliveratherapyFollow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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 invited Constanza Eliana Chinea, a Latinx certified yoga instructor, on the Belonging podcast to open up a bigger conversation happening in the wellness and yoga industry about decolonization, access, and privilege. Constanza Eliana not only teaches yoga, but she specifically works with yogis and entrepreneurs to decolonize their yoga practice, create equity for teachers of color, and build inclusive spaces in the yoga community.This episode is not here to tell you that you cannot practice yoga. In this conversation, Constanza Eliana shares what she's seeing in the yoga industry that's causing harm, how we can make this practice more equitable, why to reconsider the use of "namaste," what to look for in yoga studios, and how to bring up concerns to bring them into deeper integrity.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/constanza-eliana-chinea/Follow Constanza Elianza on Instagram: https://instagram.com/eliana.chinea/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/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/