What if the very things which challenge our ability to ‘fix’ or ‘produce’ in the ways we’re used to are the things which bring us closer to sacredness? I recorded this episode a month ago, right after I recorded the ‘Sacredness: Part 1’ episode and while grief and uncertainty were right under the surface of my skin. Like with Sacredness Part 1, I ended up adding in some updates and edits as I was prepping to release. Like with Sacredness Part 1, my wonderings are raw and full of prevarication. You won’t find many sound bites or clear-cut answers here. Instead you’ll hear me drawing threads of understanding and insight together in real time, while being a mouthpiece for something that might be wisdom (or maybe not?) to come through. You’ll hear me muse further on: What we should perhaps be looking for in our guides and mentors;A saying I heard in a yoga class and why I think it’s short-sighted as far as a spiritual and cultural approach goes;My understanding of the term ‘shaman’ and why it might help us to stop thinking we all can or should be one;How language can affect our ability to be in right relationship with ceremony, with the sacred, with the medicine we each carry;The language of energy as our birthright;The role of the messy and uncomfortable in our initiations and becoming;Ceremony vs navel-gazing;And a part of my journey I don’t speak about much, but which seems to be pointing me to…. something.  When the road of words and doing and fixes runs out, may we arrive at the profound and terrifying silence. And in this silence, may we meet ourselves stripped bare. And when we find ourselves stripped bare, may we hold the present of what really matters in our hands and heart. And may we realize we were only ever beautiful and worthy. May we finally realize what it is to be alive. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

If we held up a laugh-meter (like the one from Monsters, Inc) what would our laugh levels be? and Why do we just feel drawn to certain places? and Do our ancestors matter? and Is it possible to befriend crows while being a nomad? These are the types of questions (serious and silly) you’ll hear around today’s fire where I’m joined by the ever-optimistic, comedy-loving Kate Graham -  a shamanic oracle and creator of the Empath Energetics intuition development and archetypal healing program. With training in hypnotherapy, yin and restorative yoga, thai yoga massage, aromatherapy, reflexology and shamanism, Kate uses her experiences to teach people how to trust their own bodies and hearts. She has also worked on an alpaca farm, lived nomadically in a van, and moved to manage a retreat in the Scottish Highlands, all in the name of intuition. So for those of you familiar with my story (goatherd turned organic farmer turned yoga teacher turned shamanic practitioner turned nomad… etc) you can imagine that we have a lot of shared conversation topics… and they will wander through territory deep, wise, irreverent, visionary, and most likely sort of meaningless, too. Topics like: tuning into the energy of lands and locations;how we might be selling our long-ago ancestors short;the beauty of it taking all kinds;why did we put structures which hold us in place into place?;moving from hopelessness to optimism;what remembering ancestral ways of meaning-making, healing, celebrating, and integrating have meant for us personally;the balance of light and dark;the role of tricksters, crows, and comedians in society;the difference between healers who put things back together and healers who walk the edges with you;why healing work can feel so hard and exhausting sometimes and some shifts in approach which might make it easier;how love and abolition are teaching us right now… and more. This is a longer conversation because we just kept riffing off each other. But watching it back as I was preparing these notes, I kept finding myself laughing and wondering about things all over again.  Join us around the fire? You’re most welcome here. May we each find the gift of our part in things and the places, people, and rituals to nurture those sparks. May we laugh more than we think we should and be free to flow where our medicine is most useful and our hearts feel most alive. May we have the courage and trust to come undone and rediscover something of even greater beauty. May we love our boundaries and therefore be able to love everyone. May we befriend the crows. You can find Kate G: Heartsfrontier.com YouTube @heartsfrontier Instagram @shamanicoraclekate And if you've come for Kate G, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Can we be human and not believe in sacredness? What does ‘sacred’ even mean?  The energy of these times in this moment of full moon, Spring equinox, and lunar eclipse feels deeply challenging, beautiful, and initiatory. And I had a message come through as I meditated one night about what sacredness actually is: “Sacredness is not what we do, or even what we feel - it’s a quality of presence and listening which allows for some magic, some alchemy and potential for relationship to occur.” So in honor of the challenge, hungers, hopes and dreams of this moment, I offer you my musings on sacredness and what that message means. You’ll hear about: intuition vs illusion;a colonial mindset about our relationship with the land and the animist alternative;why witnessing is one of the greatest gifts we can give;how we struggle to recognize the sacred and now how to be with it;ritual vs ceremony;trauma vs initiation; … and more. What does sacred mean to you? And do you think you can be human without some sense of the sacred? I’d love to hear your perspective. May we be changed by the process of our lives and our loves. May we let wonder guide us deeper. May we trust the unfolding of our journey and have people around us who see the intact innocence of hearts and help us stand for that in ourselves and others. Always. P.S. This episode constitutes a first because the theme of sacredness has been working me since I recorded it and showing me some places where I remain out of alignment with what I say I’m standing for. So I’ve gone back in to cut out a few small parts I originally shared. They deserve more gatekeeping (not as a power move, but as relational discernment) than I had given them. So thanks for being with me as I put what I preach into action. _________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

The Spring Equinox (referred to in several European countries as some version of ‘Ostara’) is midway between Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice and a day of equal dark and light - the day and night are the same length. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is a time of blossoming, of unfurling, of tending the soil and placing new seeds. (The Southern Hemisphere celebrates the Fall Equinox and the equal light and dark on the way to endings and the shorter days of winter). We’re also beginning the astrological new year as the sun moves from Pisces into Aries and begins its next cycle through the zodiac. And we’re entering eclipse season which symbolically can be seen as a time to let the shadows show us new perspectives on the natural order of things.  It’s a potent time of fiery energies and, possibly, deep wounds and griefs. So can we remember that the dark soil is fruitful for growth and all new life springs forth from what has decayed? That the quickening which began in February may now be in labor contractions and that we have to surrender the outcomes and allow ourselves to be changed to fully live the mystery of rebirth and initiatory portals. This is as much a time of unbecoming as it is a time to celebrate new life.  Gather with me around this virtual fire and you’ll hear me flesh these ideas out more (and give you an embodied breath practice to explore your relationship to these times); as well as offer some ways you can celebrate, honor, or otherwise align yourself with the season. And I'd love to keep hearing from you: How are you celebrating this brief moment of equilibrium on our way to longer days? How are you noticing or honoring the endings necessary for beginnings and tending the soil in which you’re entrusting your new seeds? May we find the rest and the down cycles as we stretch toward the light. May the soils we tend nurture the seeds of compassion, connection, and freedom in ourselves, our communities, and the wider world. May we not forget that a life is just one piece of the greater churning of Aliveness and may we be in service to the holy tension of opposites, as Love.   ** Photo of the Sheela Na Gig carving is by Graham Hobster. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

It’s been a while since I’ve had a guest around the fire for a host of reasons but today, for this new moon, I’m joined by Tad Hargrave of Marketing for Hippies (among other culture-making endeavors). I got to meet Tad back in October in Edinburgh where we were both in town for the Scottish International Storytelling Festival and enjoyed our post-story session conversations around mutual interests of culture, myths, ancestral wisdom, and being human and humane.  I’m delighted to be able to invite you into conversation with him, too. Tad currently lives in Duncan, BC, though he hails from Edmonton, AB (traditionally known, in the local indigenous language of the Cree, as Amiskwaciy (Beaver Hill) and later Amiskwaciwaskihegan (Beaver Hill House) and his ancestors come primarily from Scotland with some from the Ukraine as well. His bio page on his website has several different versions and is a testament to what I would name as the meeting point of wandering, wondering curiosity and depth of connection. At the core, it seems Tad has always been interested in stories, craft, music, leadership, building community around positive change, and creating events for people to come together to make good things happen. He’s also an accomplished sleight of hand magician and speaks Scottish Gaelic with conversational fluency! So what will you hear in this conversation?  Join us for our musings around: moving beyond the individual to a reverent acknowledgement of the line we came from;ancestral wisdom, preserved with us in mind, and encoded in stories and other folklore;why stories had to be changed to survive and how we can flesh the bones back out again to find the deeper meaning;the difference between stories and spells;the cultural wealth still present in Europe in spite of rupture and colonization;what it might mean to be more human, especially as our ancestors might have conceived of it;what the function of culture is and how it’s created;the difference between how empire views evolution and how nature seems to view it;how ethical marketing ties in with it all… and more. There’s a lot packed into this conversation - with some wisdom, curiosity, grief, and gratitude. And, to paraphrase the Martín Prechtel quote Tad shares towards the end of the conversation, an attempt to be beautiful on the way to some answers.   What does being more human mean to you? We'd love to hear. You’re welcome here with us around the fire. May we fall in love with the world around us and let ourselves be moved by that love into beautiful action. You can find Tad: Website – https://marketingforhippies.com/ Substack - https://tadhargrave.substack.com/ And if you've come for Tad, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

I’m not going to pretend I think this is one of my best episodes. In fact, it feels like it’s one of my most rambling and least ‘helpful’. But it’s my birthday today and sometimes we get to just be human, not a’ helpful’ ‘resource’. Sometimes good enough is just that. So join me around the fire for a short and sweet episode and to hear my raw, unpolished wonderings about ritual; ceremony; thresholds; grieving and celebrating - both alone and together; and the absolute miracle of being alive. I also offer you a game, if you will, you can join me in playing as a way of celebrating my birthday. If you do, let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear. May we explore and let the Great Mystery guide us into unplanned play from time to time. May we honor our grief as well as our dreams. May we experience and receive the nourishment of belonging to ourselves, each other, and the wider web of kin and aliveness. May we know where we are through gratitude for exactly who and what we are. In times of darkness and despair, may we come home again to Love. Here’s to another turn around the sun. (And yes, that's me as a baby in the cover art for this episode) You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What do you think of when you think of violence and peace? Antidote? Opposite sides of a coin?  As you’re probably aware, the through-thread of my wonderings and conversations in this podcast is a question: in the face of the dehumanizing forces of the world, how do we devote ourselves to more humanity?  And in these times, questions around peace, violence, and justice feel deeply relevant and urgent to questions of humanity.  So on this new moon, join me around the fire for some of my heartfelt musings around: violence, peace, culture;what I think many wellness spaces are missing;and what I view as the orienting principle we need as we navigate a world of both dualism and non-dualism. You’ll hear my take on four ‘messy’ emotions we often vilify within ourselves and how we can begin to shift our inner cultures of punishment, rupture, and exile to ones more aligned with our values of peace, love, and harmony (spoiler alert: it’s not by training ourselves away from these emotions!).  The creation of anything starts in the head as an idea and vision, then it has to move through the heart to the hands and legs. We have to be it, move as it, in order to create it. What do you think? Did this episode shift your perspective or experience? Is there anything I missed? I'd love to keep hearing from you. May we be the change we want to see. May we liberate ourselves to liberate others and vice versa. May abolition begin with our wounded, exiled selves. May we come to know the difference between shame and loving accountability. May we see it, feel it, be it. May Love be our North Star. _____________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Imbolc is a Cross Quarter celebration - midway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox; widely celebrated on February 1st each year, although in 2024 the astrologically-derived date is Feb 4 or 5. But at its heart, it tells us we are at the beginning of the beginning of Spring and invites us to take note of the subtle shifts which herald a larger transition, the tension of opposites and contradictions which exist uncomfortably side by side in any threshold. “Use this time to close and prepare, change is happening.” I’ve been speaking a lot recently about transitions and integrations as I continue to metabolize my massively expansive experience of a four-month pilgrimage and stay open to what feels like big changes coming. And in this bonus episode, I continue that: using this nature-based celebratory marker and deep-lineage tradition to remind me (and you) that there is nothing in nature which moves abruptly from one thing to another and that sometimes we just need to be ‘in retrograde’ ourselves.  After all, we are each innately and unavoidably the meeting point of innumerable threads of what has been, what is, what could be, and what will be. And to be alive, wholly and fully alive, is to dance back and forth between those. The trajectory of a journey isn’t linear. Case and point? This episode: which is still working me, even after I finished recording, and which is just one snapshot of an understanding which has continued to grow since yesterday. Heraclitus wasn’t lying when he said we can never step in the same river twice. So, if you’re at a threshold and finding yourself annoyed, discouraged, frustrated, disheartened, flailing, “back where you started”, and generally “failing to move forward”, “get on with it”, etc… join me around the fire.  We’ll be messy and find proof that we’re designed to be so, together. And I'd love to keep hearing from you: Did this shift anything for you in your perspective or relationship with a threshold or transition you’re navigating right now? How are you noticing or honoring the gradual shift from Winter to Spring? May we remember that just enough tension on the warp threads, the underlying architecture of our own selves, allows us to weave new beauty. May we remember the aesthetic pleasure of irregular rhythms, trustworthy not in their linearity but in their roving cycles. May we look to Nature, not to reinforce what we think we know, but to be eldered and continually taught of the perfection of complex designs. May we not make too comfortable a home in either where we’ve been or where we hope to go, but rather recognize each moment as arrival-pause-and-departure. May we hold our own seasons of retrograde with as much honor, reverence, curiosity, wonder, and fiercely accountable compassion as we do our direct lines. And may we hold steady in our courage and willingness to be unmade and reshaped again and again by the life unfurling beneath our feet.   _______________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Integration often takes longer than we think it will - the space between what’s here and what we now know to be possible is a place of healthy tension, heartbreak, creativity, imagination… hopefully leading to more wholeness and vibrant human-spirit expression. As my post-pilgrimage integration journey continues, I share with you some John O’Donohue-inspired musings around Absence as creative force and soul-home.  You’ll hear a breath meditation and synopsis of the Slavic story of Vasilisa (plus an image from the story which feels potent to me right now); as well as some of my wonderings on: wholeness;presence and absence;our fear around ‘nothingness’;the crux of the tension inherent in being a soul and a human;and being ‘in rhythm’ vs ‘vacancy’. I continue exploring the perfection of our messy designs and share with you an invitation to be kinder to ourselves when going through a rough patch. And I'd love to keep hearing from you: What do you think? Where do you find rhythm between your own Presence, Absence, and vacancy? Does any of this land for you? Or do you see it all as something else? May we know each moment to be the threshold it is because we honor both our body-self and our invisible self. And may both those selves have places to retreat into rest. May we treat ourselves to absence when the time is now. May we befriend our hunger and longing so it becomes the instigating spark of our creativity and imagination. May our many pieces come home to wholeness. And may we be able to sort the dreams from the dirt to find the treasures of possibility in all our peak experiences.   You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Today around the fire I let you in a little more to some of my journey from deep disconnect and depression back to a lighter and more full-bodied experience of my life, prompted by the dark spiral I’ve found myself in over the past few weeks. I talk about the tension we often feel in those places between needing others and needing to go inward. And I share about big emotions and why those of us who feel them often struggle to know how to tend them without throwing them around or having them come out sideways. I also talk about Love and fear and a surprising (to me anyway) perspective shift I had around my own heartbreaks and ‘weaknesses’. So where does your heart seem to break repeatedly? And did this perspective shift land or illuminate something for you? I’d love to hear. May we find the holiness in the hurts so we can be more alive. May we get ever more graceful in navigating our big feels and tender places, in the quiet of our own experience and with each other. May we grow our capacity to hold more Love before it turns to fear. May we trust the innocent perfection of our own hearts to guide us home.  _____________________ You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Welcome back around the fire where today I’m modeling showing up as I am, fresh from being sick and the rawness of landing back in the United States. It’s a pretty common phenomenon to get sick after a really expansive time. And while there are plenty of physical, immune system reasons for this, there is also an energetic and spiritual component, going often unrecognized. This component, when tended to, can help us integrate and metabolize our peak experience in powerful ways. It may even help us plan for our integration periods in ways that minimize our body’s need to get sick and shut down. So gather with me around our virtual (and germ-free!) fire while I share my thoughts and experiences with why the sickness happens (energetically and spiritually) and how we can work with it. Plus: what I mean by ‘peak experience’;the differences between escapism experiences and transformative ones;why integration is critical in being a more intact and alive human;how ritual can help us in that space (and a little plug for my Insight 2024 (Tarot) offering currently happening); … and more. Jokes on me for thinking this would be a short little episode… I have a LOT to say on the subject (and find my mind still circling hours later: “..and another thing!”). But stay with me through my rough voice, a coughing fit or two, and you may hear something to support you after your next peak experience. Have you experienced being sick this way before? I’d love to hear. P.S. The people credited with authoring the piece where I first read about “safe vs brave spaces” are: Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens. You can find out more about the tarot offering mentioned at the end here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/tarot-for-2024 May we honor the tender aliveness of our hearts as the darkness begins its slow turning towards light. And may we be available to honor the tender aliveness of the hearts of those around us. In sickness and in health. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

In my head and, at times out loud, I’ve been calling this trip I’ve been on in Ireland and Scotland an ancestral pilgrimage. While it has and is turning out to be so much more, the instigating spark first grew out of a journey of wanting to know who my people were, where were they from, and what they believed… before they became a colonizing presence in the United States, before they became ‘white’, before many of the broken systems of our world became our over-culture. As a true ‘North American, mixing-pot mutt,’ I have many lines of lineage and ancestral culture I could explore but my Celtic Isles line has been the one calling to me first. So what a coincidence, or perhaps not, that about a month into my time in Scotland, I got an email from my mom saying our cousins, who have been doing genealogy research on the Byrne/ O’Byrne side of the family, discovered a third cousin in Ireland and he’d be happy to meet with me. In a time when so many of us seem to be hungry for a connection to place, to people; for a deeper sense of belonging and family; I really lucked out and hit the jackpot. This episode is the story of how it felt to meet these cousins and my musings around:  why do we long to know more about our ancestors?was I always interested?why do we lose contact with these memories?what are the repercussions?What do we do with the wounds and traumas in the lineage?what was it like to encounter their memories again?did it change my life?what if we don’t know where we’re from or the threads are too interrupted to trace? You’ll also hear me drop a seed of a potential offering and an invitation to hear from you about your experience, questions, challenges around this subject.  So here, on the dark night of a new moon, nearing the darkest day of the year, let’s gather around the fire to dream and hold tenderly our hearts and their hungers.  May we feel how deeply we belong and how many ancestors, alive and long gone, dreamed the preciousness of our lives into being, in the best way they knew how. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

In the past when I’ve traveled, I’d have had a steady commentary running through my mind, as if I was evaluating myself and what I was experiencing from the outside, while planning what silly things I was going to write about it to friends back home.  This trip is proving to be different. Which means, I find myself with less to say and more immersion into the stream of experiences. But I still want to invite you along. So here is part two of my musings. Recorded solo, after a short break from recording new conversations and a whole lot of mileage, challenges, and small and big joys. You’ll hear me share some of the themes and intentions I’ve been tending to as I’m opened up by being out of my normal routines. Themes like: coming back alive;trying too hard;choosing to trust in benevolence;grief;unlearning comfort as the goal;using my own social nervous system as a weapon against myself; … and probably some more. Let’s gather around the fire.  Fairly short and sweet, I hope you feel the lightness in it. I hope you find something inspiring. I hope you find it says something of importance and also a whole lot of nothing, at the same time. And I hope, when the time comes to just be in silence together, you feel it too, your own enoughness, wherever and whenever you find yourself tuning in. You can find Kate: Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

When Erik and I recorded this episode, we intended it to be a bonus episode… and yet I’ve kept putting off listening to it. Honestly, I think I expected to find it super cringe (and it is a little, though not as much as I feared). But now here we are, approximately 1.5 months after recording it. Travel hasn’t allowed me to record many new episodes with guests and the moon moves through its phases… and I can’t keep hiding anymore. Some context: August 23, I left the US and flew to Scotland to begin four months of living on the road here and in Ireland. This episode was recorded at the end of August, less than a week after my arrival. Thousands of miles of journeying are between the Kate who writes this and the Kate you’re about to listen to. And yet, I still don’t totally know what this journey is about. I suspect most of it won’t come clear until after the trip. But in this episode, you’ll hear my initial musings on: why I’m in Scotland and Ireland;ruptures in my ancestral roots;tending inner wounds of oppressor and oppressed;layers of culture;choosing to build skill and capacity for healthy conflict;healing backwards and forwards;feeling the land calling me;the gap between my expectations and reality;a reactivated ‘witch wound’;my why behind the podcast and the surprising (to me) revelation that starting it was also connected to this trip;letting stories be alive;knowledge, wisdom, and stories in community; when myths become propaganda;waiting for heroes to come save us;learning how to receive stories so we can more intentionally engage with them …. and more. As I say at the end, I hope this episode gives you a little more sense of who I am. I hope it inspires you or allows you to find something that allows you to feel you belong around this fire. I hope it reflects how stepping away from what’s familiar and onto another land can open us, humble us, enliven us. I hope it avoids completely interpreting another culture through my own lens. And where I inevitably have, I hope you can hold the tension of my own interpretation with the differing ones you have or have heard. After all, conversations like this walk the line between facts, stories, and possibilities. And that’s why we gather around the fire.  You can find Kate (me): Website- www.wildsacredjourney.com Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations like this: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Today’s session around the fire was recorded about 10 days into my time in Scotland and watching it back for these notes, I’m aware of how ‘fizzy’ and ‘unsettled’ my system feels; how old meaning-making patterns were being stirred and and challenged and I was in the place of being unmade. Perhaps you’ll see something different in me, too. Or perhaps that’s how it always was and it looks and feels different now, later, after more shifts and settlings. But one thing today’s guest, Dougie Mackay, and I share is a living inquiry into how to be a more natural human. And so, here we are, me at the start of a trip and him in between journeys, telling stories, sharing points of connection and curiosities, enjoying being human, together.  Dougie Mackay is a storyteller hailing from the Scottish Highlands, who weaves his background in Community Education with his love of the natural world, bushcraft, primitive skills and other regenerative practices, into a storytelling practice often done outdoors or in unusual settings, and used for group-work facilitation, development, connection, and empowerment. He’s renowned for his warm demeanor and engaging style and all of that comes through in our conversation as we explore some his favorite topics, like: stories as tools for entertainment, education, and connection to culture and landscape; the functionality of storytelling in modern times; how can we use stories to enrich our personal lives; and what can we glean about an older animistic culture through the stories they told… as well as: our personal quests for meaning and cultures of substance (and how Dougie finally discovered meaningful culture at home in Scotland);following the trail of ancestral severance;the instinctive human impulse to be curious about the horizon;how travel can help us see our own homes, what’s local, and what’s universal;Scottish Ceilidh culture as a cultural template for hospitality and connection;the overlapping skills for storytelling and traveling well;how he got into stories and storytelling; generational events like the Highland Clearances and how they can continue to impact a cultural psyche;the ability of stories to bring things alive in our bodies and help us make sense of where we are;the three types of stories in the Scottish seanachie tradition;holding stories with reverence to find more richness;the practice of ‘leaving something out for the fairies’... and more. He also shares two, beautiful stories with us around this digital hearthfire. So if you love to travel, love stories, and are curious about how we continue to be more natural humans - join us. I think you’ll find we have much in common. You can find Dougie: Website – https://storyconnection.org/ Instagram - @dougie.mackay.story Podcast - https://storyconnection.org/tales-for-our-times/ (available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts) And if you've come for Dougie, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. ----------------- To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

We all need a certain level of containment - some boundaries and understandings to help guide us. However, things get sticky when we confuse certainty with containment. And when we (often unconsciously) try to avoid our fear of uncertainty. Today, I’m joined at the fire by Erik Eging - a PR and Communications specialist, photographer, and no stranger to medicine spaces; as well as a human now supporting this podcast.  He shares his personal story of leaving a “high-demand” religion; what it looked like for him to discover he still needed some sort of spiritual meaning-making system; and how he moved into authorship of that for himself. Whether you identify with having left a cult or other high-demand community; have concerns about some of the power-over dynamics you see being perpetuated in spiritual and medicine spaces; or have gone through some sort of initiation where your sense of certainty and security was lost and you had to find a new way forward… join us around this fire. We don’t shy away from things like: the erasing and rewriting of our own histories;ancestral healing and not wanting to look back at the pain; where our spirituality and anti-racism journeys can overlap and inform each other;certainty being fragile even though it feels like confidence;how do we recognize ‘truth’?;the real culprit isn’t the belief system but the lack of room for doubt;containment without rigidity;cultivating inner authority or authorship over life;the wounds of self-betrayal;how to recognize cult-like dynamics at play around us (and some of the varied and perhaps unexpected) places they can show up;when the Savior complex appears and how to stop taking, giving away, or accepting other’s power; … and more. And all of you is welcome here. You can find Erik: Instagram - @eging.erik And if you've come for Erik, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

What happens if you take two humans, both with some sort of calling to catalyze change, sit them down together during the Lion’s Gate Portal while spiders spin webs overhead, and then release that recording into the world on a Full Moon in Pisces???  A helluva magical, fiery, and loving conversation. Pull up your chair, your log, your rock; get your tea, your hot cocoa, your popcorn - whatever you need to get comfortable because joining me around the fire today is Katharine (Kat) Hargreaves: “the woman in the boat who meets others on the threshold,” a shamanic practitioner, ceremonial guide, and initiated medicine womxn who provides spiritual mentorship, apprenticeship programs, and psychedelic integration support for those on the healing path.  And when it comes to many of the big questions we face on spiritual journeys, within the plant medicine world, as soulful entrepreneurs, or as humans in ‘white’ bodies aiming to ‘do better’… we don’t hold back.   You’ll hear our thoughts on things like: finding friends and relationships with the wild ones, our non-human kin;tending the earth means tending the body;definitions of ‘medicine’ beyond something we put in our bodies;humans are not a scourge, nor are they supreme;Kate’s shift from being in service to the wounds to being in service to the old ways;Kat’s experience learning to hold her own medicine and the medicine of “you’re not ready yet”;what plants can offer us, as teachers in their own right;colonialism, ‘white’ culture, and being rootless;ritual, divination, and accessing the wider web of wisdom;unlearning greed and power-over hierarchies to find initiations and integrations as natural gatekeepers;taking more responsibility (in healthy ways)the challenges and process of ‘finding your medicine’ and living your purpose… and so much more. This conversation, while potent for any listener who loves complexity and spirituality, will probably feel especially powerful for you if you spend a lot of time in spiritual and wellness spaces or consider yourself a healer, yoga teacher, herbalist or server of plant medicines, etc; and especially if you hold those sacred roles while navigating the world within a ‘white’ body and grappling with questions of doing it the honorable and ‘right’ way.  If so, or even if you’re called for another reason, let yourself be moved into place around this fire. I think you’ll find something awakening, grounding, challenging and affirming here.  You can find Kat: Website – www.wildalive.co Experience an Ancestral Divination – www.wildalive.co/divination Newsletter – wildalive.substack.com Instagram – www.instagram.com/katakhann Linkt.ree – https://linktr.ee/katakhann And if you've come for Kat, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

Freedom. Birth. God. These are all words that have become quite loaded and contentious topics of conversation… and yet, in this episode, we dive in. Joining me around the fire is Stella Udeozor - a first-generation Nigerian-American, mother of two, digital content Creator, storyteller, photographer, and birthkeeper backed out of Cincinnati, Ohio; who, through her business, Freedom Birth Story, aims to capture the true, and free, essence of every story, especially those of birth and motherhood. Neither of us expected this conversation to go where it did, but, as you’ll hear Stella say, that’s what happens when you gather around the fire! Join us and you’ll hear us lovingly question the stories we’ve been told to find stories that feel more free (and other musings) on subjects like: shifting from dogma to a personally-aligned relationship with spirituality;looking through the systems to find the heart and integrity untouched by corruption;language, place, and belief as as sites of freedom and sites of oppression;storytelling as medicine;the complexities of allowing stories to be living processes while making sure you’re writing your own (not someone else writing it for you);God not as fixed entity but as myriad faces and aspects;how honoring our ancestors and praying to saints can be the same thing;discernment, embodiment, and not outsourcing our power when it comes to birth, death, and everything in between;what ‘freedom’ means to each of us… and much more. While these subjects can, in some situations, feel large and heavy, there’s a lightness and joy pervading every moment of this conversation; reminding us curiosity and wonder are key, unlearning can be fun, and, in the end, it’s all about the stories we believe and the ones we tell.  If you’re in a place of unlearning or deconditioning from a system or identity you didn’t choose or grew to find oppressive; if you’re feeling trapped and wondering how to feel more free; if you’re tired of living stories of wounds and limitations and want to write stories of possibility… join us around this fire. I think you’ll find something grounding, touching, inspiring, and reparative.  You can find Stella: Website: https://www.freedombirthstory.com/ Instagram - @stellasfreedomstory; @freedombirthstory And if you've come for Stella, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

I love starting each episode by asking the guest about the forces that shaped them because it drops us right into their unique tapestry of places, ancestors, languages, religions, beliefs, wounds, and victories - in short, the truest stuff of our individual and shared humanity.  In a world where ‘trauma’ has become a buzzword and the pendulum seems to have swung from sweeping things under the rug to memeing about our tenderest hurts and armchair psychology in online public forms, we can find ourselves surrounded by stories of not receiving love in the ways we needed, of feeling trapped or controlled, of being taught to be someone else instead of ourselves (all important conversations)... often without the nuance and depth guidance to help us move towards what’s next.  Today’s conversation with Claudia Olivos - an artist, mystic and curandera who weaves art with myth, nature, the cosmos, intuition and the magic of Spirit as she channels energies of the Divine Feminine through Sacred Mothers and Goddesses from around the world - bravely wades into her wounds around her relationship with her mother and fundamentalist belief systems… and then opens up about the gifts she found within the wounds and how they led her to create her Sacred Mothers and Goddesses Oracle deck and shaped her into the self-proclaimed “Shamanic-Witchy-Priestess’ she is today. You’ll hear us explore:  Claudia’s childhood conversion from Catholicism to Evangelicalism;the hidden symbolism nestled within modern religious movements;channeling and the creative process;how Mother Mary acted as Claudia’s conduit to accessing the goddess archetypes and helped her heal her mother wound;the Universe as a playful place;reclaiming power and joy in the face of grief and hurt;destruction in service of creation;polytheism as different access points into the Unnameable Mystery… and so much more. If you’re someone who moved away from the religion of your youth and has grappled with finding your way with belief and faith; if you’re someone who has yearned for a connection with the Feminine you’re not finding in our culture; if you want to find the wounds in your gifts and let them open you to magic and possibility, or even just hear more about the process of channeling different aspects of the Mystery… join us around this fire. I think you’ll find something nurturing, uplifting, and empowering in this conversation.  You can find Claudia:  Website: https://olivosartstudio.com/ Instagram: @olivosartstudio TikTok: @claudia.olivosartstudio Youtube: https://youtube.com/@olivosARTstudio And if you've come for Claudia, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support

One aspect of being human is toggling back and forth between the stories and experiences of our personality self or our smaller, 3D, human self… and our Soul self, or the parts of us who can zoom way out and be open to (even if we can’t grasp completely) a vaster understanding of the larger Cosmos and web of life. This conversation with Kari Hohne - a dream analyst, artist, and expert on the eastern and western archetypes that inspire our dreams and oracles; including ancient astrology, Tarot's archetypes, and the Tao te Ching and I Ching - explores what it means to live joyfully through zooming out and tapping into a deeper, broader, and more universal wisdom and story.  All that Kari has studied and experienced leads her to consider this wider, ‘second’ vision the more objective of the visions and perspectives available to us as we seek to navigate being one of many organisms alive on this planet. And from the lens of this river of wisdom and the language of symbolism, we explore: what shamanism means to Kari;the idea that our world is not worse, but rather the best possible expression available at this moment;the ‘24-hr mind’ and dreams (including nightmares) as tools for awakening;how ancient wisdom traditions like Daoism and the I Ching guide us to Nature as a teacher;non-linear time;the role of wonder in living joyfully;technology and expanded consciousness;fear and creativity;the language of symbolism… and much more. Author Robin Wall Kimmerer says in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, that “even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the Earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”  Kari, too, chooses joy. And she invites us to step into wonder and joy, and give it back. Gather with us? Step into the Great River with us? Choose joy with us? I hope you will. _______________ You can find Kari -  Website http://www.cafeausoul.com Wellness Videos http://youtube.com/natureisaguru Books https://www.amazon.com/Kari-Hohne/e/B0030V73B0 Music https://open.spotify.com/artist/1pX44YkVsIQ1JesGyUKyMV And if you've come for Kari, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts. P.S. The Velveteen rabbit quote I butcher in this episode: “Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.' 'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” ― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit _________________ To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts: 1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. 2. share widely 3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kate-powell-wsjp/support