Deconstruction

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

Create a cocoon. Light a candle. Wear headphones.Let the music move through you.Let the part of you that is still becoming feel seen.A Ritual for Uranus in Gemini In honour of Gemini’s duplicity, I wanted to try this one again.This audio was originally recorded for the Jupiter Cazimi (Breathing into Belonging), but it never quite anchored the body the way I knew it could.So I returned. Recut, rethreaded, reimagined.This time, I wove in the music that was actually playing when I recorded it—Liquid Bloom.What emerged was something else.A journey.Evocative.. Alive.This one won't be for everyone, but it was for meI’m releasing it again, as Uranus enters Gemini—an auspicious moment for shapeshifting, redefinition, and multiplicity.It feels right that there are now two versions.This journey was originally recorded to use with Cannabis as a sacred Ally & may be especially resonant for those who work with this Plant in an intentional way.If you choose to receive it, I invite you to do so with care.Music:Heart of the Shaman: Ceremonial Medicine SongsLiquid Bloom Learn More: ⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠ &⁠⁠ Rachael

This is a guided meditation to help you return to your body, your breath, and your being.Gently. Honestly. With reverence.There’s a place inside you that knows how to come home. Not through effort. Not through fixing. But through breath. Through sensation. Through presence.This meditation is an invitation to meet yourself in that place. Together, we slow down. We root into the body. We track the subtle rhythm of aliveness moving through. And we listen.Recorded on the New Moon and Jupiter Cazimi—a moment of cosmic clarity and inner expansion—this offering supports you in cultivating a felt sense of safety, groundedness, and belonging.Let yourself be met. Let it feel good to be here. You are not alone.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.Music:Downstream - Shivarasa Interospection - LaraajiGreen Lane - Jonny NashLearn More: ⁠Alchemy⁠ &⁠ Rachael

Dr. Ido Cohen, a Jungian psychologist and psychedelic practitioner, joins Rachael for an insightful dialogue on trauma and emotional healing. They discuss the delicate balance of personal and collective pain and highlight the power of community in fostering vulnerability and authenticity. The conversation navigates the transformative nature of self-acceptance, emphasizing how grief and celebration coexist. Ultimately, they explore the sacred work of intimacy and reconnection in a culture often driven by disconnection.

In this episode, I sit down with Mackenzie Amara for a rich and reverent conversation about the mother wound—how it lives in our bodies, our culture, and our ancestral lines. We explore grief as a spiritual excavator, the path to existential secure attachment, and what it means to surrender to love even when loss is inevitable.Mackenzie brings the rawness of new motherhood, the insight of depth psychology, and a deep relationship to archetypal energies. Together we speak of shape-shifting in service, calling in help, and the chaos within the mother complex. This conversation is a threshold—a remembering of the mother within, and a call to grieve, to feel, and to belong again.Mackenzie Amara is a depth-oriented psychologist, writer, Jungian analyst-in-training, and doctoral student in Clinical Psychology. She’s also a 5Rhythms® teacher, a mystic, a new mother, and someone devoted to healing the psychic wounds that keep us from inhabiting our wholeness. Her work lives at the intersection of the mythic and the clinical, the sacred and the irreverent, the rational and the unknowable.This episode is for those apprenticing to the long dark. For those learning to love without grasping. And for anyone who suspects the mother within may be the one who’s been here all along.Connect with Mackenzie Amara:InstagramSubstackWebsiteLearn more: ⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠ &⁠⁠ Rachael ⁠