Embodiment Matters Podcast

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

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

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.

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/

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

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...

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.

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.

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

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.”

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

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/

We Were Made For These Times: A conversation with Kaira Jewel Lingo In this conversation with Kaira, we explore many rich topics including: 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

In this rich conversation with wise woman Pat McCabe we explore many topics including 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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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!