The Numinous Podcast

It’s wonderful to have a genuine friend named Crystie Kisler with me on the podcast today. Crystie Kisler is the co-founder of Finnriver Farm & Cidery, (@finnriver) and is a mother, farm wife, and community networker in the Chimacum Valley, on an organic farm located along a salmon stream on the north Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Her partner, Keith, is farming heritage wheat at @finnrivergrain I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing Crystie’s warmth and generosity in circles together, workshops together, and could feel it in the atmosphere when I visited Finnriver on a trip for my son’s 16th birthday. If I had a farm-based business, I would use Finnriver as the model and template.   Where Crystie and I could spend probably forever talking and visioning and activating dreams together is where land-based spiritual connection and social justice meet, where business ownership and equity and advocacy intersect, where dismantling supremacy culture meets building a worthwhile and beautiful and delicious future.   This is a conversation between two white ladies grappling with what it means to connect to land you don’t come from, and how we might try to learn how to belong there. Here is the poem that Crystie wrote and read to us:   Belonging (draft)   What will it take to belong here truly   To a land I was not born to, nor my parents or theirs or theirs?   Once I have learned the timing of the swans’ swooping return?   The names of the many  feathered ferns?   Once I am on familiar terms with all the wild berries?   Been covered head to heel by nettle stings  and blackberry briars?   Immersed myself  in the sea  wrapped in kelp?   What if I smeared  Semiahmoo Muck all over my body?    What if I packed it  in my mouth?   What if I ate only from this ground? Drank only rainwater  and creekrun  from these clouds?   What if my feet never left  this land again?   If the birds knew me by scent  and did not scatter  when I went by?   If all my neighbors waved? If I knew the names of all the bones and stones I found on the beach?   Is there any way to belong here?  In this place.  This time and space?   Will I always feel Extraterrestrial? Invader?   What would cedar say about me?   Could I become familiar to here? Make family? Grow roots? On a farm?  Can I untangle from harm?   Could I learn the real word  for home?   Could I assemble myself  whole among the mycelium?   Could I find my way  by the feel of it  under and through me?   Is it morbid to say I feel like I will only fully belong when I am buried here?   When I have given All of myself back?                    ~Crystie Kisler, 8/2

I’m thrilled to welcome back to the podcast, Nicholas Pearson - longtime listeners will remember him from episode 158 (Beyond Crystals Basics). Nicholas is an author, healer and teacher and today we’re talking about Flower Essences and how they can be so safe yet still effective, and how to work with them if you’re new to this as a healing modality or ritual tool, including some really unique methods I haven't seen anywhere else.  Check out Flower Essences from the Witch's Garden: Plant Spirits in Magical Herbalism Nicholas has recently announced some very exciting new offerings including an expanded pocket version of Crystal Basics with over 450 gemstone listings – follow Nicholas on Instagram @theluminouspearl to hear when pre-orders are available. Plus he’s co-leading a pilgrimage to Glastonbury in spring of 2023 to visit sacred wells, stone circles, and ruins, and to meet the crystal and gemstone guardians of the landscape. Amazing! Find out more here. To join my 7-week psychoeducation course, Contact Nutrition 101, simply sign up for The Numinous Network.    Here's a transcript of this interview.

Sophie Macklin is an anarchist mystic living on Tongva land, near the Los Angeles river. She’s lived in California for fifteen years but comes from Canterbury, England. She practises brythonic polytheism, antifascism, devotion to an animate world, and anarchist living. She specializes in topics related to anarchism, mysticism, radical history, communication with the human and more than human world, anti-capitalism, antifascism, reclaiming the commons, anti-ableism, and exploring different ways of knowing. Sophie is the person I chose to be the first reader of the manuscript for my book, The Spirited Kitchen. From the very earliest kernel of thought I had about potentially writing a book, she came to mind as the person I wanted to give me the first pass of honest feedback. Why? Because I think she might be the smartest person I know. Her cultural analysis is tops and I have learned so, so, so much from her way of teaching and of being in business. And at the time, I still had some things to unpack in my own mind about what to valorize and what not to valorize in a book about ancestral veneration, as a white settler under capitalism, in a time of increasing fascism. I knew there was nuance needed and also some firmness and boundaries so that my work couldn't be pressed into the service of white supremacy. I’m so grateful for Sophie for helping me see how I could improve my manuscript. Here we are jamming on anarchy, antifascism, ableism, and ungovernable bodies. Check out Sophie's work here: Beyond the Blood Ungovernable Bodies Radical Well Tending: Living Folkways of Care with Sophie & Becka I also mentioned RCCX Theory. This is a model we often use when we discuss sickness in The Numinous Network, particularly within the Sensitive Nervous Systems + Long Covid Connection group. *** Have a question or comment? Looking for life advice? Need some witch wisdom? Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode! Click here to leave me a voice or written message.  

Marika Heinrichs is the granddaughter of German Mennonite, British, and Irish settlers to the part of Turtle Island colonially known as Canada. She is a queer, femme, somatics practitioner and facilitator whose work focuses on the recovery of ancestral wisdom through body-based ways of knowing, and challenging the appropriation and erasure of Indigenous knowledge in the field of somatics. Marika resides on Attawandaron, Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe territory (a.k.a. Guelph, Ontario).  Kai Cheng Thom Susan Raffo's Piece on the origins of craniosacral therapy Susan Raffo's piece on acknowledging the lineages of healing practices Bear Hebert on quitting yoga Michael J. Morris Prentis Hemphill Don Hanlon Jonhson Camille Barton Robin Wall Kimmerer Resmaa Menakem generative somatics NeuroAffective Touch Focusing Marika's blog post on Bealtaine Marika's course for practitioners *** Have a question or comment? Looking for life advice? Need some witch wisdom? Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode! Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes and Rituals of the Wheel of the Year is now available for pre-order! (Check it out here.) In this episode, I'm sharing how and why I wrote this cookbook – the stories, friends, mentors, and supports that helped me navigate the fear, creative blocks, and emotional paralysis that came up in the process.  Resources In This Episode Sarah Selecky Nerys Patterson's Cattle Lords and Clansmen Michael Newton, HiddenGlen.org F.Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough and The Scots Kitchen Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch Quaker Committee of Care  Sophie Macklin's courses: Ungovernable Bodies and Beyond the Blood Lauren Bacon: Curious For A Living Cyndi Brannen, PhD. Ira Glass quote about having killer taste that exceeds your skill level Roxane Gay's writing Masterclass   Check out the pre-order bonuses! If you place a bulk order, or have a group of Spirited Kitchen fans who'd like me to visit your bookclub, please reach out to: admin@carmenspagnola.com Come hang out with us in The Numinous Network where I'll be doing cooking demos in Carmen's Cookbook Club and holding online Wheel of the Year rituals for each solstice, equinox and halfway point in between.  The book hits stores on October 18, 2022. Pre-order today and save $10 per copy!    

Aurelie Richards is a writer, educator, beekeeper, witch, performer, community builder, gardener, wounded healer. She's a Jewish woman with trans experience, living in Germany. She's long been an advocate for queer rights, trans community building, and domestic violence prevention, especially in rural and small-town contexts. And she's the manager of The Numinous Network and very dear to me. Aurelie had feedback for me about something I said in my last episode with Nikiah Seeds, so we've continued the conversation here. Listen in as we work through differences and bring in more context and practice repair skills like the soft start up, balancing power, and dropping in to deep listening. Check out her work at AurelieRichards.com Hang out with us in The Numinous Network

Welcome back to the podcast, Nikiah Seeds! Nikiah has been a ceremonialist and teacher of ritual, myth, and ancestral veneration for a couple decades now since her early years as a doula. She’s founder of the Red Moon Mystery School and co-author of the book Moon Mysteries about connecting with your menstrual cycle, and she’s been leading sacred drum-making retreats for years and years.   Nikiah was last here in 2017 when we talked about sacred beekeeping. But we’ve actually known each other since about 2007. We've witnessed each other grow and our careers evolve over the years so it’s fun to be able to have a visit and talk about the thresholds we stand upon now as women at midlife. Originally we were going to talk about ageing and elderhood and Embracing the Crone and how that archetype speaks to us, but actually…it turns out there’s still a lot to figure out about this in-between phase of becoming the cunning woman who stands between maidenhood and cronehood.   

Danielle Blackwood last appeared on the podcast in 2019 when we talked about her previous book, The Twelve Faces of the Goddess. Now she’s back with a fabulous book that I highly recommend to people aged 25 to 55 especially - it’s called A Lantern In The Dark: Navigate Life's Crossroads with Story, Ritual & Sacred Astrology. We're talking not only about the famous (infamous?) Saturn Return (age 28-30), but also about the lesser known major Midlife Transits: • the Pluto Square (age 36 to 48) • the Neptune Square (age 39-43) • the Uranus Opposition (age 41 - 45) • the Saturn Opposition (age 44 -45) • the Second Saturn Return (age 58 - 60) Learn more about Danielle's work here. Sign up for my newsletter to get the link for Free Week in the Numinous Network happening June 16 - 22, 2022.

A preparatory episode as we approach the midsummer solstice. Let's check-in with ourselves and our goals, self-regulate, and recalibrate, so we can hit our stride mid-June. I offer a brief and simple somatic practice, plus a really cool (time-sensitive) announcement!

Cyndi's Brannen's most recent book, Entering Hekate's Garden: The Magic, Medicine & Mystery of Plant Spirit Witchcraft, is a rich and enchanting journey with 39 plants, along with 39 ways to work with botanicals in your daily life and deeper rituals. Learn more about Cyndi's online programs at KeepingHerKeys.com Listen to her podcast, More Than This: At the Crossroads of Modern Life and the Deeper World