Deconstruction

This Solstice marks the darkest night of the year and the true beginning of winter — a season of retreat, lowered energy, and inward listening.Over the past year, what was once a largely women-oriented clinical practice has shifted into walking nearly equally alongside men. It has been a profound privilege. Again and again, I’ve been hearing the same themes: deep fatigue, loneliness, a desire to retreat inward, and emotions that have waited a long time to be felt.This meditation was created as an accompaniment to that experience.While it uses he/him language, it is accessible to anyone who feels resonance. It offers a gentle place to land in the body, to meet heaviness without trying to fix or change it, and to honour wintering as an intelligent and necessary movement.Listening notes:Choose a quiet, cozy space where you won’t be interrupted. Wear Headphones.This meditation was recorded in the Jungle, so you will hear the sounds of the Wild. Notice what that activates, allow it to be, and keep breathing.Wintering PlaylistA big thank you to the Jo(H)ns in my life who listen to all my meditations. my Muse.Learn more: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ &⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachael

For this Full Moon, and in preparation to have her back on Deconstruction, I am re-releasing one of the most popular episodes of Deconstruction with my dearest friend, Zara Neukom. In this episode, we engage in a captivating conversation exploring the transformative modality of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). Zara shares her personal journey to AEDP and how it has become her clinical home, offering insights into its depathologizing framework and emphasis on the inherent healing capacities within each individual. Throughout the discussion we touch upon themes such as embracing the unfelt, navigating the intensity of healing, and reorienting towards the experience of embodiment.Based in Kelowna, British Columbia, Zara Neukom is a dedicated psychotherapist whose practice centres around relational and somatic approaches. With a focus on facilitating deeper connections to one's body, accessing innate wholeness, and privileging lived experience, Zara's work embodies a commitment to holistic relational healing. She also happens to be one my closest friends and sisters. I love her deeply!Please go learn more about Zara on her ⁠Website⁠.Click to learn more about ⁠Alchemy ⁠and ⁠Rachael.⁠Help us amplify the message!Please Rate and Review the podcast on ⁠Apple ⁠and ⁠Spotify⁠!

For this New Moon I am re-releasing one of my favourite episodes — an important conversation with Saj Razvi on psychedelic somatic healing and the power of relational repair.In this episode, Saj and I explore Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP), a somatic trauma modality that works in psychedelic states to address relational wounding and autonomic self-correction. We discuss how PSIP gently returns people to early developmental layers where attachment ruptures first formed, allowing core self and lost parts to re-emerge.We speak about why secure attachment is one of the greatest stabilizing resources, the pathways and responsibilities within transpersonal psychedelic therapy, and the ethical importance of preparation, relational support, and tending negative transference.Saj Razvi is the Founder and Director of Education at the Psychedelic Somatic Institute and a pioneer of PSIP. He served as a clinical researcher in the MAPS Phase 2 MDMA trial, has taught PTSD studies at the University of Denver and the University of Copenhagen, and now trains clinicians internationally in using legal medicines like cannabis and ketamine for relational and autonomic trauma healingResources Referenced in the Show⁠Saj's Ketamine Session ⁠⁠White Paper⁠⁠Solution Session⁠⁠Is PSIP Right for you⁠⁠Find a PSIP Clinician⁠Click to learn more about ⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Rachael⁠

Are we creating cracks in the fog of our collective consciousness—or adding to the noise?In this conversation, I sit down with musician and spiritual artist ⁠East Forest⁠ to explore attention as sacred currency in a world that profits from our distraction. We speak about creating art that interrupts rather than performs, the tension of living within broken systems, and the practice of slowing down in times that demand urgency.Together we touch on creative integrity, what it means to live counter culturally, ⁠Ram Dass⁠, technology, and what it means to be guided by something wise amidst collapse.East Forest: eastforest.orgEvents: eastforest.org/ticketsPatreon Council: patreon.com/cw/eastforestMusic talked about in this episodeNewest MeditationBonesRam Dass (Album)Music for Mushrooms (Album)Music for the Deck of the Titanic (Album)Soundtrack for Psychedelic PractitionersMusic for Mushrooms DocumentaryLearn more: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ &⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachael

How do we navigate times of disorientation and change without losing ourselves? In this conversation, Dr. Patrick O’Neill brings his background in organizational psychology and years of guiding leaders through transformation to reflect on thresholds as spaces of both challenge and possibility.We talk about attention as a radical act, vocation as an unfolding call, and the ways grief, eldership, and intergenerational stewardship shape the future that wants to emerge. Patrick’s insights invite us to meet the liminal not as something to rush through, but as a place where new life takes root.Learn more about Patrick’s work:Leading Awareness InstituteDr Patrick O'NeilLearn more: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠⁠⁠ &⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachael

This episode of Deconstruction is an invitation into active imagination. Rooted in my Celtic lineage and blessed for the Waters on the land where I live — the unceded and traditional territory of the Syilx First Nations — this meditation offers a safe container to meet our own Inner Terrain through sensation & image. It teaches how regulation opens the ground for imagination, how orienting to the elements roots us more fully in belonging, and how to trust whatever arises as enough.Before you begin, prepare a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted. Wear headphones if you can, and make yourself comfortable — cozy, supported, at ease.In a time when attention is scattered outward, this practice is a ceremony of return — a way of coming home to the body with curiosity, safety, and compassion.This episode is dedicated to Alice Anne & Zara Neukom, my Anam Caras.Find the Music here:Virgo New Moon Playlist Learn more: ⁠⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠⁠ &⁠⁠⁠ Rachael ⁠⁠

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” – Mary Oliver I’m releasing this Bodyful encounter for the Aquarius Full Moon.A gentle return to Self.To the home of the Body.A re-emergence into the goodness of Now.This isn’t meditation in the traditional sense.No rigid posture. No discipline to uphold. No efforting.If you feel like moving, move.If you need stillness, rest.Simply watch yourself gentlyand tend to the soft animal body of you.In these times of intensity and activation, when our attention is mined and our nervous systems are hijacked by the chaos around us,may this be a soft bed of moss to land in.For the best experience, I recommend listening with headphones, in a quiet, comfortable space with soft or low lighting. Let this be a moment just for you.Learn more: ⁠⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠⁠ &⁠⁠⁠ Rachael ⁠⁠

In this episode, I speak with Marisa Radha Wepnner about conscious festivalling—not as escape, but as sacred emergence. Together we explore how festivals, when entered with intention, can become ceremonial spaces for nervous system repair, archetypal play, and collective re-enchantment.This is not therapy in the clinical sense.It’s beyond the clinic.It’s art-based. Improvisational. Somatic. Alive.A kind of adult playground where you can be fully expressed, fully felt, and fully witnessed.We talk psychedelic integration, ritual, ecstatic dance, devotion, and the healing function of play. And we ask: What becomes possible when we treat joy, beauty, and adventure as legitimate sites of transformation?If you’ve ever remembered yourself on a dance floor, in the forest, barefoot and free—this episode is for you.I am not sure why my voice is echoey in the epsidoe.. Tickster was playing with me. Ram Dass Legacy Retreat (Aug 14–18, Blue Ridge Mountains):The Art of Living Retreat CenterExplore Radha’s work:⁠⁠Radha's Website⁠⁠⁠⁠Love Service Wisdom Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠Guidance meditation ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠East Forest's Music ⁠Learn more: ⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠ &⁠⁠ Rachael ⁠

Here, on my Leo New Moon, the Jesse Roper saga completes!After recording my episode with musician Jesse Roper, I offered to create a meditation for a big show he had coming up—one that was taking place in a cave. An audacious offer.What came through was unexpected—joyful, easeful, and deeply alive.I’ve been in conscious relationship with the Muse since January, and this meditation feels like part of that unfolding. Though it was originally crafted for one person, I’m releasing it here as a personal archive.A small symbol of what can happen when I follow creative impulse without needing to understand it.And yet, the energy it carries is for anyone feeling something rise before a performance, a ceremony, or a moment of being seen. A way to come back to the body. To steady. To begin from centre.It will be particularly helpful if you play guitar haha!Released with the Leo New Moon, in honour of creative reciprocity and the joy of sharing what moves through us.To hear the full conversation with Jesse Roper, listen here: Joyful Transmission: Music, Stories, and Aliveness.For the best experience, I recommend listening with headphones, in a quiet, comfortable space with soft or low lighting. Let this be a moment just for you.

In this week’s episode of Deconstruction, Rachael drops in with rockstar & artist Jesse Roper for a rich, entertaining, and wildly alive conversation on performance, presence, and joy as a revolutionary act. What begins as a playful exchange unfolds into something deeper, a study in what it means to follow aliveness through fear, and offer it back as medicine.Jesse is a natural storyteller, full of humour, integrity, and presence. His stories trace the path from fear to flow, from distraction to devotion. Together they explore music as emotional regulation, the magic of teaching kids to write songs, and the energetic exchange that makes live music feel like medicine.This episode is a celebration of generosity, groove, and the relational magic that happens when we let joy be the message.Bonus: Stay tuned for a special guided meditation Rachael created for Jesse before one of his concerts—released later this week as a companion piece to this conversation.Jesse Roper MusicJesse Roper InstagramJesse Roper Tik TokMusic in episode: The Hurricane's EyeBody LanguageRed BirdLearn More: ⁠⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠⁠ &⁠⁠⁠ Rachael