Embodiment Matters Podcast

In this conversation, we speak with our friend and teacher, Cynthia Jurs, along with our dear friend and cohost, Leilani Navar, of The Turning Season Podcast.    Cynthia recently published Summoned by the Earth: Becoming a Holy Vessel for Healing our World, which is a wisdom book for our times. As both of us have shared, this book is an extraordinary weaving of  spiritual biography, riveting travel adventures, essential Dharma instructions, sacred activism, deep ecology, indigenous wisdom, and an overall beautiful story of a human being dedicating her life to liberation, and caring for this living Earth in these mythic times in which we live.       Our conversation moves through many terrains including working with difficult times, the balance of prayer and activism, dismantling systems of domination, keeping our fingernails dirty with the work and practices of liberation, and so much more.   In the beginning of the conversaiton, Erin mentions the gathering of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, and you can find information on that here.     We hope you enjoy, and we highly recommend reading Cynthia's book (or listening, as she reads it in her own voice.)    To find our more about the class, Take Heart: Embodying the Great Turning,  that Erin and Leilani are teaching in January, 2025 with guest teachers, Cynthia Jurs, Francis Weller, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Lydia Violet Harutoonian you can click here.   You can find out more about Cynthia's Gaia Mandala practice here and her Earth Treasure Vase project here.   And you can find out more about Leilani Navar and the Turning Season Podcast  here  

11/20/24 • 66:01

    Beauty as Ballast, Grief as Guide, Body as Sacred Land     In this conversation between dear friends Erin of Embodiment Matters & Leilani Navar of Turning Season https://turningseason.com/ we dive into rich topics which we’ll be exploring in some upcoming online offerings.    Beauty as Ballast, Grief as Guide, and Body as Sacred Land. We also delve into the 5 Vows of the Great turning as articulated by Joanna Macy (see below.)   To find out more about our 3-Sunday series, click here. https://embodimentmatters.com/take-heart-3-sundays-of-encouragement-for-weary-earth-lovers/   Soon the January course Take Heart: Embodying the Great Turning,  with special guest teachers Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer https://ahundredfallingveils.com/,   Cynthia Jurs, https://earthtreasurevase.org/about-us/founder/  Francis Weller https://www.francisweller.net/,  and Lydia Violet Hartoonian https://schoolforthegreatturning.com/,  will be listed on our events page.  Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay tuned to this and future offerings.  https://embodimentmatters.com/live-with-erin-and-carl/        Five Vows of the Great Turning   I vow to myself and to each of you to commit myself daily to the healing of our world and the welfare of all beings.   I vow to myself and to each of you to live on Earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products, and energy I consume.   I vow to myself and to each of you to draw strength and guidance from the living Earth, the ancestors, the future beings, and our siblings of all species.   I vow to myself and to each of you to support you in your work for the world, and to ask for help when I need it.   I vow to myself and to each of you to pursue a daily practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart, and supports me in observing these vows.

11/1/24 • 63:22

In this conversation/ transmission we were so honored to hear Dr. Jaiya John pour forth from the depths of his heart and soul in a way that can’t help but touch your own.  We were blessed to hear from Jaiya about his background and how he went from being shy and voiceless to a fully-dilated voice for Love. We were blessed to hear him read passages from several of his extraordinary books including Freedom: Medicine Words for your Brave Revolution; All These Rivers and You Chose Love; and Dear Artist: A Love Letter. Carl and I also each read a short excerpt from his forthcoming book(s) We Birth Freedom at Dawn. We are so grateful for his generosity of spirit, his gorgeous writings, and his presence in our lives. His love and courage are contagious. Our wish is that all who listen become infected and go on to spread this love and courage in your own communities. What an honor to share a conversation with the extraordinary soul, poet, teacher, writer, Dr. Jaiya John. Please find more about him, his books, his poetry gatherings, his newsletter, his Instagram and more at www.jaiyajohn.com Toward the end of our conversation, Jaiya mentions our dear heart-friend Alexandre Jodun of ahealingbridge.com If you loved this podcast, please share it far and wide!

8/29/24 • 74:04

Dear friends,   It is such a pleasure to share this conversation with Zuza Gonçalves.   I met Zuza at the Bobby McFerrin Circlesongs School, and was so moved by his presence, his kindness, the way he moved around the room, and how he led us in movement, song and body-percussion. It felt to me like original human music.   Zuza has been exploring alternative ways to collective music making for more than 20 years, integrating vocal improvisation, body percussion, movement, dialogue, cooperative practices and collaborative methodologies to  promote experiences where music and human connection are interconnected and feed off each other.   Born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, Zuza has a bachelor’s degree in Music (composing and conducting) and a graduate degree in the Pedagogy of Cooperation.  He is the co-creator of Música do Círculo, part of the faculty at Bobby McFerrin's Circlesongs School, at IBMF (Ghana edition) and travels internationally for festivals and workshops on Música do Circulo.   In our conversation, we speak about vocal improvisation as ancestral practice, and how we are all musical by nature. We speak about the challenges that arise when we outsource our musicality to a small number of perfomers, and don't experience ourselves as being a part of music being made in daily life.   We also explore the value of play and improvisation, an how essential these qualities are for learning, and meeting challenging times, and how rarely modern adults get to experience play and improvisation.    Zuza also guides us all in a wonderful improv practice to sing and play along with.    To find our more about Música do Círculo and the upcoming retreats and trainings you can visit https://www.musicadocirculo.com   To find out more about the Circlesongs School you can visit https://circlesongs.com   Also Zuza mentions The Well, a global vocal improvisation network https://thewellvocal.com   And here are links to other circlesongs/ vocal improv resources:   http://www.judivinar.com https://www.rhiannonmusic.com https://gaelaubrit.com http://www.joeyblake.com https://www.destaniwolf.com https://www.christianekaram.com http://www.rizumik.com/ https://www.jaospina.com https://www.varijashree.com https://www.goussycelestin.com/works https://vocaltoning.net

5/15/24 • 81:04

Greetings, listener friends. We are so happy to share this episode with our dear friends and colleagues, Holly Truhlar and Alexandre Jodun. In our conversation we speak about what it means to live a soulful life, and why it matters. We weave through many topics connected to soul, including being embedded in relationship with an animate world, ancestors and future beings, imagination and the imaginal, the spell of individualism, ripening adulthood and becoming elders, our relationship with the wild, community building and more. We hope you enjoy the conversation.    Holly Truhlar (she/they) is a grief therapist, group facilitator, and community organizer. She’s most known for her collaborations with politicized grief tending, collapse psychology, and soul activism. Her body of work is a remembering of what it means to be people of potency and culture. Over the last decade, she’s facilitated small and large groups (700+) using ritual, storytelling, creative processes, and Deep Democracy work. She earned a Doctorate in Law and Masters in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology, though she learns the most from her relationships with the Wild, including the land she inhabits, Ancestors, Hekate, and donkeys. You can find out more about Holly.and her work at hollytruhlar.com   Alexandre Jodun (he/him) is a holistic psychotherapist, facilitator, ritualist, and ceremonialist with a creole-diasporic ancestral heritage. Through a decade of immersion and training within integrative and process-oriented, as well as earth-based and animist paradigms, he passionately walks his path of being a facilitator who can stand with feet in multiple worlds. His eclectic work with individuals, couples, and groups focuses on relational intimacy, grief and loss, altered and extraordinary states, intentional use of psychedelic & master-plant ritual technologies, and the psychospiritual processes of ripening into mature adulthood. You can find out more about Alexandre’s work at ahealingbridge.com     You can find out more about the Soulful Life online community, which is opening its doors to new members in March of 2024 at Soulfullife.mn.co

3/17/24 • 50:31

Watering the Seeds of Soul A conversation with Holly Truhlar and Erin Geesaman Rabke   Find out more about Watering the Seeds of Soul at hollytruhlar.com embodimentmatters.com https://watering-the-seeds-of-soul.mn.co     In this conversation we explore how we came into grief work both personally and professionally.   We share a bit about what is unique about our approach to grief, including Soul, somatics, the mythopoetic, anti-oppression, biocultural restoration and more.  We talk about the Six Gates of Grief as articulated by our dear friend Francis Weller: Everything we love we will lose. The parts of us that have not known love. The sorrows of the world. Grief over destruction of the planet and injustice. What we expected and did not receive. Loss of village and connection. Ancestral Grief from the trials and tribulations of our lineages. The harms we've caused, both personal and collective. We also explore Francis’s articulation of the 6 elements of an apprenticeship with sorrow.  Practice as a form of ballast. Self-compassion. Staying in our adult presence. Remembering our wild entanglement. Growing a relationship with silence and solitude. Developing right relationship with sorrow. We also dive into why grief work is important in the world today.  We hope you enjoy the conversation! If you’d like to join us for a live online course starting in February, see https://watering-the-seeds-of-soul.mn.co to fill out an application.    About Holly: Hello there friend, I'm Holly Truhlar. I'm a grief therapist, ritualist, and community organizer.  I'm most known for my work in collapse psychology and politicized grief tending. In my search for what's just and holy I earned a Doctorate in Law and Masters in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology; yet, I found more Soul, more of what mattered, in witnessing grief and spending time with animal-kin. For over a decade, I've facilitated small and large groups (700+) using ritual, storytelling, creative processes, and Deep Democracy work. I'm a queer abolitionist and two time sibling loss survivor (Ivy & Brett 🩵). My "positive obsessions" are liberation-based community and culture, donkeys and mules, and the color turquoise. My deepest gratitude goes to my ancestors, mentors, and teachers who've guided me in my work and life, including Desiree Adaway, Kai Cheng Thom, Aftab Erfan, and Francis Weller. I've also been deeply influenced by many poets, authors, and activists, including adrienne maree brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, Harriet Tubman, ALOK, Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, Fannie Lou Hamer, bell hooks, Craig Santos Perez, and Jennifer Mullan.  About Erin Hi, I’m Erin Geesaman Rabke. I am a Somatic Naturalist and Embodiment Mentor. I have spent the past 30 years studying & teaching in various lineages of somatics and embodiment. For the past decade, I've been weaving somatic practices with deep ecology, grief tending, praise practice, anti-oppression, & soul work. I am committed to courageous kindness and have a heart vow to live a life of benefit & to steward refugia of many kinds. I have been practicing for 30 years in the Tibetan Buddhist meditation traditions of Dzogchen and Lojong. I’m grateful to be mother to a 13-year-old boy wonder. I’m also a podcaster, a permaculture gardener, a writer, a collector of books and plants, & am a lucky partner to my beloved Carl. I'm a feral Buddhist animist ritualist, home herbalist & beekeeper. I am a lover of poetry, good coffee, big red wine, long walks, and all facets of growing, cooking, sharing and eating food. I'm dedicated to using my skills to ripen mature human beings and to nurture sane and soulful culture. I aim to be grounded, spacious, and gracious. I love being an Earthling with my whole heart.  

1/16/24 • 69:11

Embodying Maitri: The Essential Ingredient with Erin Geesaman Rabke     We’re delighted to share with you this podcast where Erin speaks about the practice of Maitri. Maitri is a Sanskrit word often translated as “lovingkindness” but several teachers in our lineage have gone further, naming it “courageous unconditional friendliness,” or “brave warmheartedness.” In this episode, Erin speaks about the importance of this practice in living a healing life. Traditional Buddhist teachings suggest beginning the practice with oneself, then extending our circles of care ever outward. Erin shares personal stories of working with this practice, and invites you in. She also shares about her upcoming online class Maitri: A Courtship with the Essential Ingredient. You can learn more about that offering here. https://embodimentmatters.com/maitri-courting-the-essential-ingredient/   Erin refers to a few sources of inspiration in this episode including:   To Love and Be Loved: The Difficult Yoga of Relationship with Stephen and Ondrea Levine https://www.soundstrue.com/products/to-love-and-be-loved   bell hooks  All About Love https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17607.All_About_Love Her Interview with Thich Nhat Hanh https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/interviews-with-thich-nhat-hanh/interview-with-bell-hooks-january-1-2000/   Open and Innocent by Scott Morrison https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3397459-open-and-innocent   There is Nothing Wrong with You by Cheri Huber https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27580.There_Is_Nothing_Wrong_with_You     And Mary Oliver’s poem, To Begin with the Sweet Grass   https://embodimentmatters.com/love-yourself/      

2/12/23 • 49:42

In this conversation, Carl speaks with John Wolfstone. John is third-generation settler, working on the Traditional and Unceded territory of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok Peoples. His blood and bones hold Hebraic, Norse and Celtic ancestry, and his spirit is from the Stars. As a wilderness rites-of-passage guide, ritualist, community consultant, relationship coach, and transmedia story-teller, John is on a mission to reclamate adulthood initiation rites-of-passage. Holding space for the great grief of our times, John designs and facilitates rituals of transformation, in service to regulating the personal and collective nervous systems back to belonging with the Earth. John apprenticed in numerous indigenous and ancestral ritual healing lineages during his decade long adulthood initiation quest, and bows in reverence to his many teachers, mentors, guides and elders. John tends thresholds of all kinds, and can often be found praying by a fire, whistling bird song, invoking his ancestors, and training his craft as a sacred huntsman. John is also one of the cofounders of the School of Mythopoetics. In our conversation, we explore initiation, and why it has been so central to the human experience. We also talk about what is lost, in terms of the presence of adults and elders in the world, when practices of initiation are absent in a culture. We talk about the markings of adulthood, exploring some of the indicators that someone has grown into an adult, or not. And we look at how to grow a literacy with initiatory process, and for the many of us who have not grown up in cultures with intact rituals and rites of passage, how to bring these practices and principles into our lives and our communities. John is facilitating a year-long adulthood initiation ritual apprenticeship through the School of Mythopoetics beginning November, 2022, and you can find more about that here. https://www.schoolofmythopoetics.com/ritual-apprenticeship You can find more about John and his work here: johnwolfstone.com www.schoolofmythopoetics.com    

11/9/22 • 60:21

Embodying Reverent Relationship with Marika Heinrichs   What a pleasure to speak with Marika Heinrichs of Wildbody.ca about somatics, lineages, respect and repair - and what a delight to have such a rich and tender conversation in Rumi’s field that sits outside of any rigid and fixed ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing.    I hope you enjoy this important conversation.      Marika Heinrichs is the granddaughter of German Mennonite, British, and Irish settlers to the part of Turtle Island colonially know 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). She is grateful for the nourishment and support of her peers, mentors, and more-than-human kin.    Links: website: wildbdoy.ca IG: @wildbodysomatics Courses: wildbody.ca/embodied-ethics     Here is a link to a beautiful and important piece written by Marika which I referred to in our conversation - On White People Building Belonging Together in our Movements for Liberation. https://wildbody.ca/blog/on-building-belonging-as-white-people-within-our-movements   Some powerful quotes from Marika’s writings and teachings:     "I believe that building healing communities is just as important as having access to individualized healing supports such as therapy.       Divesting from appropriation is about both surrendering entitlement and feeling into the truth of our own peoples. I believe we are all capable of appropriation, and as a white bodied person I don't feel it's my work to tell Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour how to engage with their practices. I can share from what I know through my own journey into these questions, which includes feeling how intimately connected extraction, violence, and severance from the natural world are to the projects of white supremacy and Christian hegemony.   Lack of acknowledgment and consent, spiritual bypassing, claiming ownership and superiority, prohibitive costs, lack of access for the descendants of the very peoples from whom practices emerged, no sense of connection or accountability to our own peoples, normalizing cis, straight, thin, white, able bodies… the list goes on.    I want to envision a methodology of somatics that is invested in liberation right down to the roots of the lineages and histories of our practices. If we are not tending to the ways that this field has been shaped by supremacy, we are missing a core component of embodied liberation.    Practices emerge from culture, they are shaped by time, place, and cosmology. All of our peoples had practices and ways of working with the body towards healing. Even if we engage in the most consent-based, ethical, values-driven protocols with practices from outside our own cultures, we miss the crucial work of facing into the grief and joy of our own lineages and peoples. I believe that the unwillingness to do this is one way that the field of somatics can perpetuate white supremacy, and I envision new/old practices that reconnect us with our ancestors and carry us through mourning, accountability, and repair as white people. As practitioners, we hold power around shaping these conversations in our field, and in supporting these conditions with these we serve.        All those years practicing yoga are part of what shaped me and helped me to grow the capacity to release it for a practice that feels more aligned, more liberatory. It’s not for me to decide who should or shouldn’t practice yoga, or whether or not something is appropriation. Those questions can serve as distractions, virtue signalling that keeps us from the work of divesting from the roots of whiteness that lead to appropriation in the first place. I do know that the space that was left when I quit yoga made room for a new kind of connection to emerge that feels much more rooted in my values, and my lineage. I am not sure how we can approach practices such as yoga as white people without having something to share in return. A practice entails a relationship, if we don’t know who we are or where we come from, how can we really engage in mutual connection?"  

9/13/22 • 68:04

Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories.  She believes strongly that all thinking happens interstitially – between beings, ideas, differences, mythical gradients.   In a favorite audio program called How to be an Elder, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says: “”What makes an elder, a heartfelt spirit, a clear mind, a talented heart, one who is young while old and old while young, an activist for the Soul? Is it formulae, schemas, lexicons? It could be. But also, and often more so, I think it is very like the flowering of the trees in the forest, as we gather more years: we straggle and stride onward in our better learned ways to give out even more seeds for new life, and to blossom wildly in so doing for self and others … “    During our conversation Carl honors Sophie’s way of showing up as an elder and oh, does she scatter seeds (and underground microrhizal fungi) for new life.    She’s a prolific writer who shares via her newsletter on sophiestrand.substack.com and on Instagram and Facebook as cosmogyny. Two lovely essays on her website that we discuss in this conversation are https://creatrixmag.com/melt-divine-feminine-into-divine-animacy/ and a great story on relationship with a woodchuck called https://braidedway.org/mentorship-with-the-more-than-human-world/ You can find those and more at sophiestrand.com    Her first book of essays The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine will be published by Inner Traditions in Fall 2022 and is available for pre-order from all online booksellers. Her eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels The Madonna Secret will also be published by Inner Traditions in Spring 2023.    In this conversation we explore embodiment, pleasure and discomfort, love stories as ecosystems, complicating the idea of individualism, about queerness and explorations of  masculine and feminine outside of a binary, looking for stowaways of other stories in monotheistic religions, myths as the voice of the landscape and considerations of how stories travel and cross pollinate, the porosity of identity, about Sophie’s experience with illness and the problems with mainstream ideas of wellness, how Sophie came to her animist sensitivities, and so much more.    We know you’ll enjoy this rich conversation with a truly brilliant and beautiful being. 

4/21/22 • 71:42

Animal Body, Deep Time and The Thing We All Long For: A Conversation with Josh Schrei Friends, we are delighted to share this recent conversation with Josh Schrei. Joshua Michael Schrei is the founder and host of The Emerald podcast. The Emerald combines evocative narrative, soul-stirring music, and interviews with award-winning authors and luminaries to explore the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination. The Emerald draws from a deep well of poetry, lore, and mythos to challenge conventional narratives on politics and public discourse, meditation and mindfulness, art, science, literature, and more.  A writer, teacher, and a lifelong student of the cosmologies and mythologies of the world — in particular the Indian subcontinent — Josh has sought to navigate the living, animate space of the imagination and advocate for a world that prioritizes imaginative vision. Josh has taught intensive courses in mythology and somatic disciplines for nearly 20 years.   In our conversation, we cover some good terrain. We explore some pithy some essential Zen teachings, we look into what is the experience of our animal body, what does it mean to living an animate universe? Throughout the conversation, we weave in the image of deep time, of the long arc of human evolution, and the profound inheritance that each of us carries. We speak of elements of the teacher-student relationship, and what supports learning, unfolding, and embodying what we all long for.  May you enjoy the conversation, and we always love to hear your reflections. You can find out more information on the Emerald Podcasr, and Josh’s teachings wherever you listen to podcasts.

3/23/22 • 65:06

Tipping The Scales Toward Love & Goodness In this beautiful conversation with poet, writer, and teacher Mark Nepo, we begin exploring Mark’s beautiful take on what it means to be embodied. Throughout the conversation, we were blessed with Mark’s soulful readings of several of our favorites of his poems. We discuss how care can erase the walls we keep building between us, and how using our imagination in service of a more beautiful world is so needed in a time of polarized divisiveness. It’s our generation’s turn - are we going to make a world rooted in love or rooted in fear and violence? Mark talks about the spiritual journey through the metaphor of a flower - not getting anywhere, but unfolding from the inside out. Mark speaks to a quote from William Blake: “Straight is the road to improvement. Crooked is the road to genius,” as well as looking at the original definition of genius, and affirming that we each carry genius. Mark shares many stories from his book More Together than Alone, about the power of building community. Mark also shares a potent story about literacy in the Dark Ages in Europe - only 10% of the population was literate. 10% of the people kept literacy alive! What if we commit to being and nourishing the 10% who keep literacy of the heart and soul alive during these challenging times? We hope you find deep nourishment in this beautiful conversation. Mark Nepo is a poet and spiritual teacher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over 40 years. With over a million copies sold, Mark has moved and inspired readers and seekers all over the world with his #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening. A beloved poet, teacher, and storyteller, Mark has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time,” “a consummate storyteller,” and “an eloquent spiritual teacher.” His work is widely accessible and used by many and his books have been translated into more than twenty languages. A bestselling author, Mark has published twenty-two books and recorded fifteen audio projects. Recent work includes The Book of Soul (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2020), Drinking from the River of Light (Sounds True, 2019); More Together Than Alone (Atria, 2018) cited by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2018; and Things That Join the Sea and the Sky (Sounds True, 2017), a Nautilus Book Award Winner. Mark was given a Life- Achievement Award by AgeNation in 2015; in 2016 he was named by Watkins: Mind Body Spirit as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People, and was also chosen as one of OWN’s SuperSoul 100, a group of inspired leaders using their gifts and voices to elevate humanity. In 2014 Mark was part of Oprah Winfrey’s The Life You Want Tour, and has appeared several times on her Super Soul Sunday program on OWN TV. He has also been interviewed by Robin Roberts on Good Morning America. Mark is a regular columnist for Spirituality & Health Magazine. In his 30s Mark was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma, a struggle which helped to form his philosophy of experiencing life fully while staying in relationship to an unknowable future. Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. He continues to offer readings, lectures, and retreats. Please visit him at: www.MarkNepo.com, http://threeintentions.com and http://wmespeakers.com/speaker/mark-nepo In February 2022, Mark will be teaching in Salt Lake City, Utah through the Jung Society of Utah Friday, Feb 25th, 7pm: Heartwork: Being a Spirit in the World Saturday, Feb 26th, 9am-1pm: Reclaiming Our Humanity: Being Fierce and Tender in Our Call to Love  You can find out more about these events, and register at jungutah.com  

1/18/22 • 61:23

Embodying Prayer and Soul Activism In this beautiful conversation, I speak to poet, facilitator and soul activist Nan Seymour, who also happens to be one of my dearest friends. We take as a springboard for our conversation Nan’s recently published book of poems called prayers not meant for heaven. Nan weaves several of her poems throughout the conversation and they’re beautiful. We talk about bio-cultural restoration, about the importance of writing and reading during these times, about the importance of praise and noticing the ways in which we’re awestruck. We also share a very candid discussion about Nan’s love of Jesus as her first radical social justice teacher. There’s so much goodness and inspiration here and I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did! You can order Nan’s book here https://www.toadhalleditions.ink/prayers-not-meant You can read and/or participate in Nan’s poetic project in support of Great Salt Lake here  https://nanseymour.com/blog/item/141-irreplaceable-a-1700-line-praise-poem-in-the-making You can learn more and sign up for a session of River Writing here https://riverwriting.com/ And you’ll find much more inspiration at Nan’s website here https://nanseymour.com/ Nan mentions our shared mentor Deena Metzger http://deenametzger.net/ And our recent podcast with her https://embodimentmatters.com/i-wish-you-heartbreak-an-exploration-of-the-19-ways-with-deena-metzger/ You can take a virtual tour of the church we talked about here - watch the video showing you all the radical dancing saints! https://www.saintgregorys.org/the-dancing-saints.html A little more about Nan in her own words: “I provide narrative encouragement. In 2015 I created River Writing to foster voice and authentic connection. I delight in how this practice challenges the tyranny of perfectionism and breaks through walls of isolation. I've led scores of oral storytelling workshops for people from all walks of life. Everyone has stories no one else can tell. I'm devoted to helping folks find, shine, and share them. We never know who our stories are for. I believe in saying the truest things we can say. My debut poetry collection, prayers not meant for heaven has recently been published by Toad Hall Editions. The poems, written primarily during the pandemic, are prayers meant for the earth and for each other. I hope they will vine around us here on the ground, leaving us more knowingly and gladly intertwined. Count me deeply smitten with life in all forms including scrub oak forests, vultures, and wild violets. I'm currently writing about the imperiled ecosystem of the Great Salt Lake, my near neighbor. I'm deeply concerned about the future life of stromatolites, brine shrimp, brine flies, and the entire feathered citizenry of the Pacific Coast flyway. I'm praying with my pen, writing about the lake with the hope that we will cease diverting her waters in time. The chambers of my heart are occupied by my daughter Beatrice, my love Mustafa, River Writers, and Sophie, my border collie/lab companion. I'm devoted to community and dare to hope that our collective participation in human evolution is tipping the balance of the cosmos towards kindness and even love.”

1/17/22 • 65:22

Liam Bowler is a teacher, writer, father, bodyworker and hosts the Body Awake Podcast.    He is the author of A Creator’s Companion, a beautiful book that explores the many elements of the process of creativity.    In our conversation, we speak about embodiment, and embodiment as relationship, and how each of our understandings of embodiment has evolved over the years.    We reflect together about creativity, and the necessity of courtship with the creative process. We speak about how creativity is not limited to those who are identified as artists, but how becoming truly becoming yourself, finding your voice is an act of creation.    We speak of intimacy and not knowing, and what feels most important in the times in which we live.    You can find out more about Liam, and his work and teaching at thebodyawake.com

1/5/22 • 60:45

Ariella is a beekeeper, writer, teacher, musician and mother living in Northern California. Her work with honey bees came through a lifelong interest in human connection with the non-human world.  She is a graduate of the Lyceum, a European shamanic pathway with the bee and the serpent as its central motifs.  Within this tradition, she is trained in the healing and seership modality known as the Pollen Method.  Her work is a fusion of her love for the natural world and embodied, womb-centric practices.     Ariella seeks to foster a deeper relationship between humans and the natural world through honey bees, seeing the bee as a bridge species between our domestic lives and the wild, both within and around us. She is a lover of wild places, liminal spaces and the song of the land.  She teaches shamanic dreamwork, natural beekeeping, and women's retreats all guided by the honeyed wisdom of the serpent and the bee.   You can find more about her work at www.honeybeewild.com and on instagram at beekeepinginskirts.    Below is the text of a beautiful post of hers I read from a recent Instagram post. You’ll see why I and many others are so enamored with her writings.    “It's not really about beekeeping. This love affair. This devotion to doing it better. To listening. To finding another route that gives and heals, instead of takes. We can call it beekeeping, because, surely, there are some tricks of the trade, some caring for the bees in their boxes that we can learn. But really, it's about your roots comingling with the mycelia. Really it's about your tears dripping into the river. Really it's about the moon dipping into your dreams and curling around a whispered tune you think you remember from long ago. It's not even about saving, unless the saving is you and you are the forest, and the forest is the sea, and the sea is the stars.⠀ ⠀ What it's about, is Weaving. ⠀ Reweaving. Rewilding. Restoring. Revivifying. ⠀ It's about Listening. ⠀ Ear to the hive. Womb to the earth. ⠀ It's about Grief and Exaltation. ⠀ Sting in your heart, honey on your lips.⠀ It's about Remembering.”   References:    In our conversation we spoke about the work of mythologist Martin Shaw and specifically this trailer for his book Scatterlings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0T7UP1U1Ts https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57195435-scatterlings   And Ari also referred to the writings of Joanna Macy. I recommend any of her work (or my classes where we dive into it!) including Active Hope,  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13235686-active-hope World as Lover World as Self, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/536524.World_as_Lover_World_as_Self A Wild Love for the World. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51551987-a-wild-love-for-the-world   I also love this video with Joanna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmjF1jE2K0    I also referred to the book, Native Science, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1049116.Native_Science   You can find more about the Lyceum in which Ariella studied for a decade here: https://sacredtrust.org/workshops/pollen/

12/9/21 • 65:37

We Were Made For These Times: A conversation with Kaira Jewel Lingo   In this conversation with Kaira, we explore many rich topics including:   embodiment and mindfulness as not separate her new book We Were Made For These Times the practice of coming home to ourselves applying these teachings in the mess of real life rather than just a monastic situation social justice and mindfulness and how each of these need each other the mantras of True Love from Thich Nhat Hanh powerful teachings from 2 monks from Plum Village who attended COP26 the powerful practice of kissing the earth with your feet layered mindfulness and so much more   Kaira Jewel Lingo began practicing mindfulness in 1997 and teaches Buddhist meditation, secular mindfulness, and compassion internationally. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel teaches in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, at the intersection of racial, climate and social justice with a focus on activists, Black/Indigenous/People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth. Now based in New York, she offers spiritual mentoring to individuals and groups. She is author of the just released We Were Made for These Times: Skilfully Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption from Parallax Press. Visit kairajewel.com to learn more.    Kaira is offering a retreat Dec 4 and 5, 2021, through Spirit Rock, on the same title as my new book: https://spirit-rock.secure.retreat.guru/program/we-were-made-for-these-times-kj1m21/?_ga=2.185343337.1993561752.1633760566-881770598.1633760566&lang=en   Along with her partner who is an Episcopal priest, she is offering a new Buddhist Christian community of study, practice and action that meets monthly. People can sign up here if they'd like more info. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSftoybrmY3MixFXo2qrFxGajc2p3bn82WPeqbuRoRWKhwkNcg/viewform  

11/28/21 • 62:18

    In this rich conversation with wise woman Pat McCabe we explore many topics including    embodiment as a core practice of decolonization and her trouble with the word “decolonizing”  healing after cultural severance through Indian boarding schools in family history and the power of growing a multi-faceted identity the importance of including the body in prayer (in her case through sweat lodge ceremony) The question: How do human beings live in such a way that we can support other life to thrive - as do other members in the web of life?  How thinking 7 generations ahead slows us down in our decision making Preparing ourselves to meet the times. Grappling with this question: “Is it too late and what should we be doing?” Pat’s hope for the emergence of the sacred masculine and its role in supporting the sacred feminine eros to emerge. Both are such powerful forces!  the need for radical self love and radical self trust stepping out of the power over paradigm.  The importance of encouraging the behavior we want to see more of - rather than nitpicking each other’s imperfections.  The recognition that we can’t eat money, as Chief Seattle said - and Pat’s work to support folks in returning money to the flow of life to support earth healing. How would it be to have zeros in your bank account while the earth is dying? To realize in retrospect that you could have done something about it.      https://www.patmccabe.net/    Her primary work at the moment is: • The reconciliation between the masculine and feminine, Men's Nation and Women's Nation • Remembering, recreating or creating anew a narrative for the Sacred Masculine • Addressing the Archetypal Wounding that occurred in our misunderstanding and abuse of technology in prayer, ceremony and science

11/27/21 • 70:03

Embodying Spontaneity: A Conversation With Jozef Frucek of Fighting Monkey   In conversation, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Jozef Frucek. He and Linda Kapetanea are the creators of Fighting Monkey, which is a beautiful system that weaves together movement, learning, communication, creativity, improvisation and a re-imagination of the process and experience of aging.    Jozef has studied deeply in Chinese medicine and martial arts along with having advanced degrees in voice and movement. He and Linda teach at Universities and dance and performance companies around the world.    I had followed Fighting Monkey for many years in the natural movement world, and was able take some classes with Jozef when they began teaching online during the pandemic. I was reminded of a line from one of our Feldenkrais teachers, Ruthy Alon, who coined the term “the grammar of spontaneity.” I find that Fighting Monkey helps to grow a grammar of spontaneous, natural, dynamic movement that weaves together essential principles from many movement traditions.     In our conversation, Jozef and I speak about how growing our spontaneity and creativity in movement increases our sense of creativity and spontaneity in how we live, how we think, how we speak, and express ourselves. We also discuss how essential new ways of thinking and participating in the world are, given the immense challenges we face in these times. We speak of the importance of systems based practice when it comes to movement and to life. We discuss the importance of play in learning, and how many adults forget how to learn and play as we age. We also look at the aging process, and how the manner in which we approach our movement shapes how we approach our aging process. You can find more about Jozef, Linda and Fighting Monkey at fightingmonkey.net

11/23/21 • 58:59

I Wish You Heartbreak - An Exploration of the 19 Ways with Deena Metzger   We’re so grateful and honored to begin the 3rd season of the Embodiment Matters podcast by sharing with you this rich conversation with wise elder Deena Metzger.    A poet, novelist, essayist, storyteller, teacher, healer and medicine woman who has taught and counseled for over fifty years, in the process of which she has developed therapies which creatively address life threatening diseases, spiritual and emotional crises, as well as community, political and environmental disintegration.   Deena has spent a lifetime investigating Story as a form of knowing and healing.  She conducts training groups on the spiritual, creative, political and ethical aspects of healing and peacemaking, individual, community and global, drawing deeply on alliance with spirit, indigenous teachings and the many wisdom traditions. You can read a longer story about Deena’s extraordinary life here http://deenametzger.net/bio/   Deena teaches powerfully through asking challenging questions, and we have been grateful to be her students for several years.   Her current work is envisioning a new future for all beings. Considering new forms of peacemaking, healing, and sanctuary for all beings is encoded in the 19 Ways to a Viable Future for All Beings. Essential to the 19 Ways are respecting and restoring Indigenous ways, the Pathless Path, and the No Enemy Way. Deena works with writers to develop the literary voices essential for this time and she is a mentor to those who are seeking their own paths to be healing presences for the future. For many years Deena has lived at the end of the road at the edge of the wild in Topanga, California, with various animal companions.    In this conversation we explore Deena’s articulation of the 19 Ways. We talk about working with dreams not in a personal, psychological way, but in a communal way. We talk about what she wishes for all of us - and the answer might surprise you. We explore illness as a messenger - through her own personal history with cancer as well as the covid 19 pandemic. I also share a powerful story of an experience with Deena many years ago which changed my life in a powerful way and which had both of us in tears. We hope you enjoy this clarion call from a wise elder to live differently and to meet these times with courage, community, and heart.    Some relevant links:  Deena’s Website: http://deenametzger.net/ The 19 Ways: http://deenametzger.net/19-ways/ This powerful poster of Deena made decades ago http://deenametzger.net/the-poster/ A list of Deena’s published works: http://deenametzger.net/published-works-3/ Deena mentions this book, Blackfoot Physics, in our conversation  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/110248.Blackfoot_Physics

10/19/21 • 63:56

Greetings Listener friends,    We are delighted to share with you our recent conversation with Langston Kahn.   Langston Kahn is a black, queer teacher and shamanic practitioner who specializes in radical human transformation, ancestral healing, and restoring an authentic relationship with our emotions. He stands firmly at the crossroads; his practice informed by somatic modalities, contemporary shamanic traditions, initiations into traditions of the African diaspora, and his helping spirits and ancestors weaving it all together. Langston gives workshops and lectures internationally, in person and online. He serves in the leadership by council of the Last Mask Community, a collective of people striving to live in alignment with ancient shamanic principles in service of personal and collective liberation. He is the author of Deep Liberation: Shamanic Teachings for Reclaiming Wholeness in a Culture of Trauma.  Langston lives in the ancestral lands of the Lenape, Rockaway and Canarsie also known as New York City.  In our conversation we dive into a wide range of topics: We speak about embodiment, and Langston’s perspective of embodiment as the willingness to be in a state of flux, and change, and to not get stuck on one story of who we are.  We explore the practice of Focusing, the method of somatic inquiry developed by Gene Gendlin, (which Langston learned from his mom,) and how the principles of Focusing support Langston in being in relationship with the more than human world in shamanic practice.  We discuss shamanism, and the challenges around appropriation and capitalism. We explore healing, animism, trauma, ancestral work, ritual and much more.  Langston is a radiant human being and teacher who has a deep foundation of practice.  We hope you enjoy the conversation, and we highly recommend  checking out his book and his work.  You can find out more about his work at his website: LangstonKahn.com.  

5/12/21 • 66:48

We’re so grateful to be able to share this inspired conversation with the amazing Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset. We absolutely love her book, Sacred Instructions, and highly recommend it! While we only touched on a fraction of the questions we wanted to ask Sherri, we did explore many rich topics together, including  Her beautiful perspective on embodiment How we come to recognize our power and how this can get confused in a capitalist culture (and what the Law of Attraction gets right and wrong) on living in a time of prophecy and what that entails The sources of her strength The need to examine and change the stories we’re telling- for example, the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in the U.S. which celebrates colonizing and killing indigenous pagans in Ireland Indigenous values as compared to Euro-centric values and the resulting differences in culture and experience.  Her incredible, visionary, 21-year ceremony dedicated toward Healing Turtle Island, and more.  And wondering together: Will we exit the planet or change our course??      What a powerful conversation with a wise visionary for our times. We’re so grateful to Sherri for this conversation and her work and way in the world. Please explore more at her websites:  https://sacredinstructions.life/ https://www.healingturtleisland.org/   Sherri was born and raised on the Penobscot Indian reservation (Penawahpskek).  She speaks and teaches around the world on issues of Indigenous rights, environmental justice, and spiritual change. Her broad base of knowledge allows her to synthesize many subjects into a cohesive whole, weaving together a multitude of complex issues and articulating them in a way that both satisfies the mind and heals the heart. Sherri received her Juris Doctorate and a certificate in Indigenous People’s Law and Policy from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. She is an alumna of the American Indian Ambassador program, and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship program. Sherri is the Founding Director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization dedicated to the global protection of Indigenous land and water rights and the preservation of the Indigenous way of life. Prior to forming the Land Peace Foundation, Sherri served as a law clerk to the Solicitor of the United States Department of Interior; as an Associate with Fredericks, Peebles and Morgan Law Firm; as a civil rights educator for the Maine Attorney General’s Office, and; as the Staff Attorney for the Native American Unit of Pine Tree Legal. She has been actively involved with Indigenous rights and environmental justice work for more than 25 years. In 2010, she received the Mahoney Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award, for research into Human Rights violations against Indigenous Peoples. In 2015, she received the Spirit of Maine Award, for commitment and excellence in the field of International Human Rights. In 2016, Sherri’s portrait was added to the esteemed portrait series, Americans Who Tell the Truth, by artist Robert Shetterly. And, she is the recipient of the 2017 Hands of Hope Award from the Peace and Justice Center. Sherri has been deeply committed to cultivating and renewing the traditional and ceremonial practices of her people. She has worked in many capacities over the past 30 years helping to highlight and advance the position of Wabanaki peoples.  In addition to helping her own people, Sherri has been a longtime advisor to the American Indian Institute’s Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth and was a program coordinator for their Healing the Future Program. She also served as an advisor to the Indigenous Elders and Medicine People’s Council of North and South America for the past 20 years. In this role, she has worked with Indigenous spiritual leaders from across the Americas, helping to ensure that their voices are heard within the larger society. This has included bringing their messages to political leaders in the U.S., and Canada and the Indigenous Peoples Forum at the United Nations. Sherri is the visionary behind “Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island,” a global healing ceremony that has brought people together from all corners of the world. The ceremony is designed to heal our relationships with one another as human beings, and then to heal the relationship between human beings and the rest of Creation.  It has been attended by people from every continent (except Antarctica), who have come together to pray with one heart and one mind for the healing of all life on Mother Earth. 

4/19/21 • 69:46

Embodiment & Social Justice We shared such a potent and enlivening conversation with Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Dr. Scott Lyons. In this conversation we talk about an upcoming training they are hosting called the Embodied Social Justice Certification Program. So of course, we talked about some of our favorite topics - embodiment, social justice, soft-bellies, the highly contagious nature of reactivity, spiritual bypassing, ways of perceiving our world as influenced by our conditioning and our language, and the skills that support us in doing the deep and necessary work of becoming embodied and co-creating a better world for all. We dive into talking about liberation, cancel culture, minding our own business, and the essential foundation of contemplative/somatic practice for doing any kind of racial healing work. These are two wonderful human beings and skilled teachers and we think you’ll love this rich conversation as much as we did.    Learn more about the training here https://www.theembodylab.com/embodied-social-justice-certificate     Dr. Scott Lyons is dedicated to teaching embodiment as a way of exploring human development, healing, growth and transformation. Scott’s deep passion is to integrate somatic practices, transpersonal inquiry and scholarly research into the creative and healing arts. Scott is a Clinical Psychologist, Osteopath, and Mind-Body Medicine practitioner who specializes in therapies for infants, youth and adults.   Scott is the founder of The Embody Lab DrScottLyons.com  TheEmbodyLab.com IG@Drscottlyons   Rev. angel Kyodo williams is a writer, activist, ordained Zen priest and the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace, published by Viking Press in 2000, and the co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation , published by North Atlantic Books.   You can find out more at:   http://angelkyodowilliams.com/ http://transformativechange.org/ https://radicaldharma.org

4/2/21 • 79:49

What a powerful conversation we shared, exploring Plotkin’s new book, the Journey of Soul Initiation as well as his vast body of work.  Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., is a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural regeneration. As founder of western Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute in 1981, he has guided thousands of seekers through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision fast. Previously, he has been a research psychologist (studying non-ordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, and whitewater river guide. In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack peak, Bill experienced a call to adventure, leading him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. Bill is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (an experiential guidebook), Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (a nature-based stage model of human development through the entire lifespan), Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche (an ecocentric map of the psyche — for healing, growing whole, and cultural transformation), and The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries (an experiential guidebook for the descent to soul). He has a doctorate in psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. You can dive into the rich world of his work at www.animas.org    We explored so many rich topics in this conversation, beginning, of course, with embodiment, as well as how humans can become life-enhancing partners with Earth and Cosmos. We talk about Bill’s framing of adulthood and maturity and his powerful sentiment, that 90% of older people in modern culture haven’t reached beyond late adolescence. We talk about how to understand where you are on his map of maturity and the process of soul descent, as well as what makes a true adult (and it’s not age-based!) We talk about the beautiful image of adults and elders as imaginal cells in culture, as well as what he calls the four facets of wholeness and ways of cultivating these. Bill shares comments on working with mature urgency in relation to our times and his admiration for Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects. We talk about the history of initiated elders and initiatory customs and rituals being what dominating cultures have continually wiped out in the partnership-based cultures they colonized, and what a great loss this has been around the globe. We talk about why rites of passage are so important personally and culturally. This whole conversation is so powerful and is rooted in the rare depth and comprehensive framework of his life’s work and evolving understanding of human development. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did!

3/20/21 • 70:07

I’m so thrilled to share this episode with you, dear listeners, in which I have the privilege of interviewing one of my hero-writers, Kathleen Dean Moore, whose 2016 book Great Tide Rising: Toward Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Changewas life-changing for me. In this moving conversation, we explore the extinction crisis, what love really means, the importance of facing grief directly; about the necessity of locking the door to despair; and the importance of maintaining outrage as a measure of love and conscience. I’ve long loved the way Kathleen weaves a rich multiplicity of perspectives into her writing: that of mother, grandmother, naturalist, philosopher, professor, and earth-lover. Kathleen speaks about moral courage, about the shift in her writing from praising the beauty of the natural world to a fierce call to defend it. We explore how to speak to children about the climate crisis, and the big question: What can one person do? (I love her answer to this!) We discuss some favorite passages from Great Tide Rising as well as from her beautiful new book, Earth’s Wild Music. I find her work and her words so simultaneously heartening, sobering, and a powerful spur to caring action. I hope you enjoy her as much as I did. I can’t recommend her books highly enough. Please also check out Music to Save Earth’s Songs, a project she’s developed as part of the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University which includes 20 4-minute concerts weaving music and spoken word. Detaisls are below on that as well as where to find her beautiful books. Kathleen Dean Moore, Ph.D., served as Distinguished Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Oregon State University, where she wrote award-winning books about our cultural and moral relations to the wet, wild world and to one another. But her increasing concern about the climate and extinction crises led her to leave the university, so she could write and speak full-time about the moral urgency of climate action. Since then, she has spoken out across the country, publishing Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, a collection of short essays by the world’s moral leaders about our obligations to the future. That is followed byGreat Tide Rising: Toward Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change (2016); Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World (February 2021); and Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change(April 2021). Her work on the extinction crisis includes a film, “The Extinction Variations,” a collaboration with a classical pianist. She writes from Corvallis, Oregon and from an off-the-grid cabin where two creeks and a bear trail meet a coastal inlet in Alaska. Find Kathleen’s wonderful books here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/371383.Kathleen_Dean_Moore Here are details about an upcoming book launch party online for Earth’s Wild Music https://events.oregonstate.edu/event/earths_wild_music_book_launch_party And here are details and a link to the wonderful project Music to Save Earth’s Songs:  https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/feature-story/music-save-earth-s-songs In a series called “Music to Save Earth’s Songs,” the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University will offer twenty, four-minute concerts that weave music and the spoken word to celebrate the creatures that fill the air with sound – frogs, wolves, songbirds, growling grizzly bears – and to inspire action to save them. Videos will be released online on Mondays and Thursdays at 6 pm, from now through March. The series is inspired by a new book by Kathleen Dean Moore, Earth’s Wild Music.

2/8/21 • 56:38

Friends, we are thrilled to be able to share our recent interview with the incredible  Cynthia Jurs with you.    Before sharing her official bio, I want to tell you that I find Cynthia to be one of the most moving human beings I’ve met in a very long time. Her humility, her wisdom, her bone-deep dedication to healing the Earth and fostering awakening in herself and others is truly awe-inspiring. I adore her so much it’s almost painful! Carl and I have had the good fortune to learn and practice with her this past year and it’s been such a timely gift.    Cynthia is a Lama in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition and a Dharmacharya in the Order of Interbeing of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. In 1990 she made a life-changing pilgrimage to meet a 106-year-old hermit and meditation master living in a cave in Nepal, from whom she received the practice of the Earth Treasure Vases. She is the guiding teacher of the Gaia Mandala Sangha in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she teaches a unique blend of engaged buddhism and sacred activism in response to the call of the Earth. Cynthia’s nonprofit, Alliance for the Earth is dedicated to facilitating a global community committed to planetary healing and collective awakening through the Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Project. She has partnered with indigenous elders and young activists around the world and for ten years has carried out a peace building program in Liberia, West Africa. Cynthia is currently at work on a book and film entitled, Summoned By The Earth.    In this conversation, Cynthia tells the story of meeting and asking a potent question of a 106-year old meditation master in a cave in Nepal and the life-changing consequences she’s still living out today, 30 years later. We explore the topic of sacred activism, subtle activism, and engaged Buddhism, and Cynthia’s incredible project of burying sacred Earth Treasure Vases, little clay vessels filled with prayers for healing the Earth, on every continent around the globe. Cynthia shares about where she’s drawn strength to continue to persevere in her dedication and her practice. We talk about collective awakening and Thich Nhat Hanh’s prediction that the future Buddha will not be a human being, but rather a sangha, a community of beings awakening together. We talk about so many juicy topics, from the practice of listening to the Earth to the distinction between belief and faith; from the potent teachings in the breath to experiencing Gaia in our own bodies and minds. Cynthia shares a passionate invitation to not close our eyes before suffering, but to stay awake and engaged with what is happening in our world. Cynthia also shares briefly about an incredible practice of Tara Gaia. We’ve been lucky enough to be at the first two transmissions of the practice. We close the conversation with a beautiful prayer Cynthia shares about taking refuge in the Earth as the embodiment of teacher, teachings and community. We hope you enjoy this wise and touching conversation as much as we did!!    Some links you’ll likely enjoy exploring:    Cynthia’s website: https://gaiamandala.net    The monthly newsletter: https://gaiamandala.net/contact-us/ which keeps people informed about all offerings including the full moon meditation.    Full Moon Full Moon Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Meditation:   https://mailchi.mp/earthtreasurevase/full-moon-global-healing-meditation   The link to register for the Tara Gaia Teachings:   https://mailchi.mp/ff4def15a264/tara-gaia-online   

9/4/20 • 73:07

In this episode, Carl speaks with Ian MacKenzie, host of the Mythic Masculine Podcast.  Ian MacKenzie is a filmmaker, speaker, and writer who lives on the Salish Sea with his partner and son.  His films include Lost Nation Road, Amplify Her, Sacred Economics, Prayer to the Earth, an Indigenous Response to These Times. For more than decade, Ian has been tracking the global emergence of new culture. From the desert of Burning Man to the heart of Occupy Wall St, he has sought and amplified the voices of visionaries, artists and activists who have been working toward planetary system change. In our conversation, we explore several of the rich themes that have woven through the conversations on the Mythic Masculine Podcast. We explore dynamics of power, and what can shift in the experience of masculine and feminine polarities outside of a power-over structure. We look at the loss of wildness, and the domestication that many modern men experience. We also speak about embodiment, ritual, and rites of passage.  We weave through many essential themes and inquires about what it means to be a man in these times.  For more information about Ian and his work you can visit ianmack.com or themythicmasculine.com

8/23/20 • 61:37

Uncommon Considerations in the Anthropocene An Interview with Dr. Bayo Akomolafe   Friends, we’re thrilled to share with you this most recent interview with our dear friend, Dr. Bayo Akomolafe. Bayo is a poet, philosopher, psychologist, professor, proud diaper changer, and passionate about the preposterous. He’s a thinker and speaker unlike any you’ve met before. Born and raised in Nigeria, Bayo currently lives with his wife and two children in Chennai, India, and pre-pandemic, spent much time traveling the world teaching on transraciality, emergence, postactivism and more. He is a widely appreciated speaker, teacher, public intellectual, author and facilitator, globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, counterintuitive, and indigenous take on global crisis, civic action and social change. He is the Executive Director and Chief Curator for The Emergence Network (A Post-Activist Project] and host of the online writing course, ‘We will dance with Mountains: Writing as a Tool for Emergence’  Erin first met Bayo while taking this class in 2017, and we’re both thrilled to hear that this life-changing course will be offered again in Fall of 2020. Read more about Bayo and explore his unconventional and refreshing perspectives through his website www.bayoakomolafe.net, including this recent essay, which Erin refers to in our interview. https://bayoakomolafe.net/project/i-coronavirus-mother-monster-activist/     A friend recently said it so well: “I feel if I can relax and let go of a certain part of my mind and just fall in with Bayo’s words, I always grow.” In this conversation, we explore Bayo’s ideas about making sanctuary. He shares Yoruba proverbs, including “In order to find your way, you must become lost,” and “May your road be rough.” We explore white supremacy, colonial mind, and modernity and the unfortunate“flattening of the sacred.” We talk about control, queering binaries, resisting “simple and neat” stories or explanations, and relaxing into our entanglement with the world and each other. Holding the tensions of paradox are a necessary skill. Bayo talks about the necessity of making way for grief, what he calls “the vocational project of touching loss,” and the possibility of decorating these wounds as a way of making sacred.    We also explore topics of justice, fugitivity, bodies as becomings, and explore some musings on how Bayo learned to think in these unique ways. We also speak about the beauty of bewilderment. There’s so much richness in this conversation! We hope you can relax certain parts of your mind and grow as you listen to Bayo “shock you into noticing the world differently.”    You can listen to our first conversation with Bayo in 2018 here: The Light Longs for the Dark: A Conversation with Bayo Akómoláfé - Embodiment Matters

7/13/20 • 72:31

A Mythic Response to Our Times   In this profoundly deep and freewheeling conversation we cover so much soulful ground. We begin with one of our favorite topics that Michael Meade has been teaching on for years: Your innate genius. He tells of the origins of his teaching about genius with severely at-risk youth, and about how in honoring our unique genius we are all equal, across race, class, and other categories. We also explore the ancient notion that “the genius hides behind the wound,” made popular by Carl Jung; and the fact that for so many during these intense times, core wounds are activated, which means genius is nearby.    We explore the perspective of these times being one of initiation that can awaken us to ourselves, our gifts and wounds. Michael speaks about the function of community in initiation, what he’s learned over 35 years of studying and creating rites of passage. Micheal explains that while we are in a big time of “not knowing,” the soul knows exactly what this is in terms of initiation. Michael says we’re being called to new levels of humanity; to seeing one another as our home; and to the possibility of protests being rituals. Michael also speaks about the rituals that happen at his men’s retreats where the central part is opening the wounds of the culture with honest talk between men from widely diverse backgrounds; and the healing that comes from making a ritual of what happens.    Michael also talks about the second half of the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” which states, “If the young people aren’t welcomed into the village, they will burn it down just to feel the warmth,” and how we are seeing this happen now around the US and beyond.    We explore the topic of soul and Michael’s emphasis on the fact that if we want the world to change, it has to start in the human soul. We also weave a beautiful thread speaking to elders, deceased writers, people we revere - and the ways their souls are still reverberating in the world today.    Michael also discusses the importance of transformation in these times - that we must schedule that which is not working before building the new or returning to “normal.” He also elucidates beautifully the returning interest in rites of passage today. We also explore reimagining education, healthcare, politics; the way everyone’s genius is called forth by the times; and we end exploring the meaning of “apocalypsis” which is not the end of times, but collapse and renewal as we see in the model of the natural world.    What a wild and wise ride we had!! We hope you enjoy listening as much as we did.    Michael has a new live online series coming up which we highly recommend, and he’s offering our listeners a discount.  Read more below:   Thursday, July 2 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Pacific Time - Rites of Passage: Collective and Individual Friday, July 106:00 pm – 7:30 pm Pacific Time   - Die Before You Die Friday, July 17 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Pacific Time  - The Pathless Path Each 90-minute event includes story, poetry and a Q&A session. Events can be purchased separately for $20 or at the discounted price of $49 for the full series.   EMBODIMENT MATTERS PODCAST LISTENERS SAVE 20% ON FULL SERIES: Use discount code EMBOD20 at checkout You can register here: https://www.mosaicvoices.org/shop/#!/Paths-of-Initiation-Live-Online-Series/p/208520033 Series registration includes HD audio and video recordings of all events Michael Meade, D.H.L., is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. He combines hypnotic storytelling, street-savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient myths with a deep knowledge of cross-cultural rituals. He has an unusual ability to distill and synthesize these disciplines, tapping into ancestral sources of wisdom and connecting them to the stories we are living today. He is the author of Awakening the Soul, The Genius Myth, Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of The Soul, Why the World Doesn't End, The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul; editor, with James Hillman and Robert Bly, of Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart; and editor of Crossroads: A Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage. Meade is the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a nonprofit network of artist, activists, and community builders that encourages greater understanding between diverse peoples.   You can listen to our earlier podcast conversation with Micheal here: https://embodimentmatters.com/mythic-by-nature-a-conversation-with-micheal-meade/

6/28/20 • 70:56

Hello, listener friends! We’re delighted to share with you our most recent conversation with our dear friend and mentor, Francis Weller, psychotherapist, soul-activist, and author of the life-changing book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, as well as a newly released book of essays which we discuss in this interview. It is titled: In the Absence of the Ordinary: Essays in a Time of Uncertainty and is available for free or by donation on his website. https://www.francisweller.net/store.html In this episode, recorded on May 26th, 2020, we jump right into discussing our current global circumstances as what Francis calls a Rough Initiation. We explore Francis’s suggestions for responding to overwhelm: self-compassion, turning toward our feelings, being astonished by beauty, and having patience. We explore what Francis calls growing an apprenticeship with sorrow, and the possibility metabolizing our sorrows into something medicinal for soul and for community. Francis speaks to a powerful quote from  Human biologist Paul Shephard, that states, “The grief and sense of loss, that we often interpret as a failure in our personality, is actually a feeling of emptiness where a beautiful and strange otherness should have been encountered.” We explore this beautiful and strange otherness and so much more. We are sure you’ll enjoy this beautiful conversation as much as we did. Many thanks to Francis for sharing his words and wisdom so generously. 

6/11/20 • 57:03

We had such an enlivening conversation with Steven which we’re so excited to share with you!  In this conversation we talk about Steven’s history - which included leaving civilization as a young man to live in the wild and forage to sustain himself. He eventually felt called to returned to civilization, pursued higher education and eventually growing food and medicines in new/old ways. He offers a beautiful short exercise on how to listen to plants. We also talk about the habit of gratefulness and the orientation toward illness as a great teacher and healer. We explore ways of inhabiting the great give and take with Earth and the importance of loving our food. We also explore a less human-centric approach to gardening - which he calls wildculturing. What a beautiful and inspiring conversation about connecting more deeply with the intelligence of earth through our food, our gardens, our own bodies, and more. We’re now dreaming of visiting Steven and Megan’s Sacred Gardener school when travel is possible again. It looks amazing!  Steven is an artist, farmer, wildcrafter, builder, teacher, writer and visionary who has more than thirty years experience living co-creatively with the Earth, practicing traditional living skills of growing food, building and healing. In 1996, he created the Algonquin Tea Company, North America’s premiere bioregional tea company. He has given talks and run workshops internationally for more than twenty years and taught plant identification and wilderness skills at Algonquin college for 11 years, and at the Orphan Wisdom School for eight years. In 2014, Megan and Steven started the Sacred Gardener Earth Wisdom School. Steven released his first book The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden in 2016, and his second, Sacred Gardening, was released in June 2017. “The Sacred Gardener was chosen for our farm/school’s name because it conveys something that we feel is unique in our approach to both growing and teaching here on the farm. While there are many places, books and ways to learn about gardening or working with the Earth, there are very few that put the needs of the Earth first. This means not just thinking about production and convenience for ourselves but making the effort to step forward gently with real ecological/spiritual integrity. In everything we do we try to honor the ancient agreements with Nature. These agreements, which enabled our ancestors to survive and us to be here now, have long since been ignored and forgotten by western culture. Even radical forms of “environmental” action like organic gardening, permaculture and wilderness skills such as hunting and foraging are done with little or no thought as to the consequences of what we’re taking. We are always in the center of our thoughts and move forward with unflinching entitlement to what we take.” Find out more about Steven, his beautiful books, the incredible Sacred Gardener school and more at www.thesacredgardener.ca   

5/29/20 • 62:53