It has now been eight weeks since our chat. Wow, can it really have been that long? Where does the time GO?!

In that time, I’ve often thought about our talk, as it helped me start to put words around some things that up until recently have felt beyond the power of speech to name.

I still feel acutely the limits of words to adequately capture a spiritual path so relational, emergent and embodied. More and more, though, I feel compelled to try.

So I thought I’d write and share a few more resources.

You asked about practices - here are two meditations I created to help the listener experience of the healing field of the Great Mother.

I created these for use at bedtime, to turn that liminal window between waking and dreaming into a space for sacred self care..

So here are the tracks:

1. A visit to the Great Mother’s Abode:

Here’s a description:

This meditation begins with a body scan, helping you relax from head to toe. Then, you’ll be taken on a guided imagery journey to meet the Great Mother and receive her blessing and support for your transition into sleep and beyond.

You do not need to believe in anything in particular to enjoy this meditation, which is suitable for persons of all faiths.

What you’ll experience - a guided journey into your imaginal realm, integrating guided imagery, accompanied by a gentle musical soundtrack performed by me on Celtic harp and other instruments.

This meditation can help you:

• Relax mind and body

• Release anxiety

• Fall asleep more easily

• Sleep more deeply

• Get to know the qualities of the Great Mother as they live, experientially, in you

2. Connecting with the soul of Self Compassion

This one has a funny story behind it. When I wrote this meditation, I had spent a week laid out with COVID. While not a serious case, the illness had been deeply disquieting, in that it temporarily blocked access to the journeyspace, my primary source of spiritual connection since beginning my journey practice ten years ago.

For a week, it felt like my head was full of sand - a most uncomfortable experience. This brought with it a resurgence of negative self talk, as though someone had turned up the volume on every inner critic I had ever heard.

In this state, I became inspired to create a resource that could help take my hand and walk me through it, and that was how this came through.

Here’s a description:

This relaxing guided imagery track, called the Star Bath. supports deep relaxation, while helping you increase your sense of self worth through the power of hypnosis.

What you’ll experience - a guided meditation, incorporating both suggestion hypnosis and guided imagery, accompanied by a soothing musical soundtrack of string pads, nature sounds and Celtic harp.

This meditation can help you:

• Relax mind and body

• Enhance self worth and self esteem

• Release worries and cares

• Strengthen your powers of imagination

• Feel more self-connected

• Experience the soul of compassion, which opens increasingly to us the more we ground in the field of the Great Mother.

Finally, you asked about other paths and practices to deepen intuitive alignment with the field of the Great Mother.

So, to start with, let me just articulate again what I mean when I talk about the Great Mother.

When I say to the Great Mother, I am talking about a spirit of compassionate matriarchal responsibility which transcends the biological experience of mothering and is relevant to persons of all genders, to whatever extent we resonate with a sense of Mother Earth as giver and sustainer of life.

My service of the Great Mother is personal, arising from direct experience, and later integrated through seven years of spiritual apprenticeship. However, to also situate this culturally, this vision of Earth as feminine has ancient roots in traditional societies around the world, from the indigenous peoples of the Americas to my own ancestors, the Celts.

Neurobiologically speaking, the healing impulse of the Great Mother aligns most with right brain capacities for relational attunement, intuition, and creativity. Somatically, her locus of orientation is the felt sense, which can help us align with our own inner knowing .

In this way, the Great Mother counterbalances what psychotherapist Bonnie Badenoch has called the “left-shiftedness” of society, that is, the ways in which society overly values and prioritizes the ethos of the left brain.

This ethos centers doing over rest, autonomy over relatedness. Left brained culture is goal driven, prioritizing tasks and behaviors. It’s based in rational thought, judgment, and isolating things to look at them in a disconnected way, rather than seeing them in context.

That left-shiftedness is not just outside of us - it’s within us, too, leading us to prioritize rationality over the felt sense, individualism over relationship, and outside expertise over our own inner knowing.

A holistic view recognizes that left hemisphere ways of knowing are important.

However, they are also incomplete, veiling our true belonging to the wider natural systems in which we participate, pinching off our connection to much needed sources of support, and invisiblizing our responsibility within a wider field of responsibility.

A human system oriented too much towards one extreme at the expense of another perpetuates harm which can be seen today through the injustices of colonization and ecological devastation, which have their roots in individualistic impulses allowed to run roughshod without the mitigating influence of matriarchal care and responsibility.

To heal our communities requires that we right this balance, finding our way back to right alignment within the sacred order of things, acting from relational attunement and responsibility to one another and to Life Itself.

~~~

Much love to you, and thank you again so much for having me on your podcast. It was so sweet to connect with you in that space.

Noe

What is it to feel belonging in a group? Who is holding the energy to make a space safe? What are the unseen energies we take for granted when we step into a room, a group, a classroom?

In part 2 of this conversation with Noe Venable, we chat about the importance of trusting the felt sense and the beauty of co-regulation in group settings. Noe touches on the influence of core shamanism in her song leading and practices, as well as the importance of containment in groups.

This is a continuation of our conversation (part 1 here) and more goodness to come…

Highlights

00:47 - 13 plus years of song leading

01:56 - working with non-ordinary reality: how core shamanism informs Noe’s song leading

03:45 - how core shamanism differs from lineage-based shamanism

05:21 - intuition as inner guidance

05:55 - the healing movement that energetic containment in groups allows

08:14 - the invisible foundation that cares for both the leader and the group

10:40 - the importance of intentionality when creating group containers

12:39 - the felt sense of safety when holding or entering groups

16:43 - being able to unmask and be oneself in safely held spaces

18:17 - intuition and the felt sense, it’s not personal

20:43 - the subversive nature of talking about “new” things

Links

down the rabbit hole we go…

one-on-one work with Noe

Rabbit Den Spiritual Counseling - Uncover the healing power within. Through IFS, Brainspotting, Applied Shamanic Counseling, Depth Hypnosis, and more

in-person groups in the Bay Area

Mothersong Chorus for Women and Nonbinary Folks - Co-regulation through singing together. Therapeutic singing group, meeting in person in the San Francisco Bay Area

healing with Noe

Guided Visualizations for Falling Asleep

singer-songwriter work

Many and One (circle song)

(Inspired by IFS and a systems based view of the psyche)

Whatever You Are (circle song)

Sensitivity (circle song)

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ1hhU5ZO3qpsfC98Oz63iEz4ek8n4e61GjX

All the Animals (songwriter song)

What does it mean to connect with this healing frequency?

And how can we have a clear channel to allow intuition to flow through with ease and discernment?

These are just some of the question touched upon in this conversation with my dear friend Noe Venable.

Noe is someone who gets shit done. I would (and believe she would also) say that she’s an achiever. Since I’ve known her she’s become a mother (twice), led multiple children’s and women’s circles, made 2 singer-songwriter albums, went through 8 years of spiritual (core shamanic) training, and is now just about to fully fledge as a licensed therapist. Before we met, she was a touring musician who released multiple albums (maybe 6?), toured with Ani Difranco, and attended Harvard Divinity School (I’m sure there’s even more I’m not including here).

Noe is also one of the kindest, humblest, most caring and generous humans I know. Can you tell I revere her? We have seen each other through a lot of transitions, and though we live on different coasts we maintain a consistent — almost daily — connection, mostly through voice messages. I feel privileged that Noe as one of my closest confidants.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Highlights

04:26 - a grounded foundation for intuition to flow through

06:16 - right relationship with intuition

09:33 - encouraging those who want to develop intuition, and helping those with great rushes of it refine the container for it

13:39 - intuition arises when we are in right relationship to spirit (an internal family systems [IFS] lens)

17:13 - working with the healing frequency of the Great Mother (shifting from left-brain acculturation)

19:22 - right-brain ways of knowing

24:53 - impact of a left-brain dominant culture

26:30 - imposter syndrome wound

29:24 - survival, living under capitalism, and doing things differently

31:45 - acknowledgment of how hard our parts are working to stay alive in these times

35:00 - what’s my nervous system stage right now? turning toward what’s here right now

36:46 - asking different questions

39:25 - slowing down and getting curious

41:06 - a kindergarten teacher who made a difference to young Noe

45:19 - the simple yet profound impact of presence

In the next episode, Noe and I talk about energetic containment in groups, in particular around the song circles she leads.

down the rabbit hole we go…

one-on-one work with Noe

Rabbit Den Spiritual Counseling - Uncover the healing power within. Through IFS, Brainspotting, Applied Shamanic Counseling, Depth Hypnosis, and more

in-person groups in the Bay Area

Mothersong Chorus for Women and Nonbinary Folks - Co-regulation through singing together. Therapeutic singing group, meeting in person in the San Francisco Bay Area

healing with Noe

Guided Visualizations for Falling Asleep

singer-songwriter work

Many and One (circle song)

(Inspired by IFS and a systems based view of the psyche)

Whatever You Are (circle song)

Sensitivity (circle song)

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ1hhU5ZO3qpsfC98Oz63iEz4ek8n4e61GjX

All the Animals (songwriter song)

been writing life behind the scenes in relative silence. revisiting old words scratched down and stitched together in a seemingly disparate tapestry that’s somewhat unique to my own experience, and somehow feels universal, too. i mean, it’s written from experience, and hopefully that’s how we all write, otherwise, i’m not sure what writing is. i guess what makes it unique is our own special spin on things. the way we color stories with our own idiosyncratic distortions (maybe that’s redundant).

there’s one poem i keep revisiting these days, one that i wrote a couple of years ago before starting healing school. i shared it recently in one of my classes and it was received well, and it was requested i share it here, so i’m feeling compelled to please folks in a way that also pleases me, but not in a give-yourself-away people-pleasing way.

i hope it does something for ya…

not one thing is fixed

all will move or be moved

even a stubborn mule must budge

(with or without a dangling carrot)

eventually

.

the heart beats you

a spiraling rush of all you’ve consumed

and all that slowly eats you

and your ancestors, too

.

life breathes you

there is no choice

surrender to the sucking in and blowing out

you’re a particle of it all

.

your skin is not your own

home to galaxies of dust motes housing parties

of beings you cannot see

and even they have children, and die

.

weather wears you

the wind is dressed in your cells

the rain pays tribute to all bodies with your tears

and your ancestors, too

.

gravity forces you

humbled to the dirt

we all must face

might as well let it

or better yet become it

.

not one thing is fixed

nor was it ever broken

all flows holy and is wholly you

+

today, Polaris, i cannot see you,

obscured by clouds as you are.

sadness, but also relief,

that i do not feel the need

to strain my eyes,

to hold you in my gaze.

instead i can rest them,

and rest me,

under this blanket

within this body

on this ground.

i do not stretch to meet you,

so distant.

i rest in knowing you are

simply out there, shining.

and still, my heart aches

across the impossible light years

between us.

is it only in death we will truly meet?

i wait, sometimes patiently,

sometimes achingly,

with faith for that day.

++++

north star limerance (part 1)

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i sat and watched the radiance of you, Polaris, yield to the light of day,

fading to my eyes with each passing minute.

i fixed my gaze so fervently,

holding your body with ferocity,

burning your light into my eyes,

holding a grey haze around you

for longer than i had anticipated was possible.

and when pink appeared on the horizon, the Sun behind me,

i lost you in my sights,

and shed a tear from each eye

at the loss of your body

and the effort of holding you—

a small death to be relived

with tomorrow’s dark morning.

++++

*Polaris, as I just learned — our beloved north star navigation point — is not one star, but three that we perceive as a single point of light.

In the second half of our second conversation, Zaneta and I explore more about timing as intuition, including the importance of giving yourself the spaciousness of your own timing. We touch on how trauma, urgency, and hypervigilance can inform the way we perceive the messages we receive from the Universe and how asking different questions from a different place opens up new possibilities. We also start chatting about a future collaboration we plan to offer around developing a relationship with the land where you live to deepen your intuitive practice.

Highlights:

02:38 - we each hold a facet of the gem that nature holds the whole of

04:15 - mystery and structure are not necessarily separate, timing as intuition

05:24 - there’s an aligned thing to do in each moment

09:19 - the importance of spaciousness in knowing and living your timing

11:11 - remember to celebrate yourself, remember to rest; asking for guidance from a place of urgency vs agency

14:29 - tuning the hypervigilance dial

16:25 - where we listen and ask questions from matters

21:50 - a bit about a future collaboration on intuition and connection with the land (stay tuned for more on that!)

27:34 - touching on dream practice

30:07 - end conversation 2

Zaneta’s links:

website

substack

instagram

Here are some highlights:

01:54 - how drumming is integral to Zaneta’s being and informs the way they move through the world

05:54 - as in life and in drumming, time is relative and co-created

08:03 - drumming is an internal experience

10:28 - what you can do to attune to your own natural rhythm if you aren’t a drummer or musician

12:36 - moving through the world is a rhythm

14:47 - intuition and tracking rhythm

15:45 - edge: knowing when to rest and when to push

19:20 - struggle as a natural part of life and not judging the experience

22:55 - mindful partnership with plants and fungi, not using them to support the capitalist grind

24:38 - circular music, the wisdom of mbira

26:39 - developing relationship with the land, collaborating with trees, guided by dreams and threads of intuition

36:01 - connecting to deities as they come to you, Freya

38:52 - end part 2a

down the rabbit hole

Zaneta’s website

Chartwell Dutiro, Pasichigare (Mbira music)

Prospect Park Trees

Freyja

I went to the basement to bring the laundry down. Started the machine. Came back upstairs swiftly. Came inside (the cellar door is outside). Saw that I had somehow dropped one sock from the pile. Without hesitation stepped back out onto the snow-covered deck and went back to put the sock in the machine with the rest of the wash. As I started back up the cellar stairs, something pulled me back. I looked at the few things I have stored down here and thought, nah. Then I gave it a second thought. I went to the piles of books and without thinking pulled out 5 or 6 books from the top that felt relevant. I stepped away and felt there was more. I came back and opened a bin. I grabbed a journal from who-knows-when. That felt like enough.

I came back upstairs. I opened one book to this page:

Forgetful one, get up!

It’s dawn, time to start searching.

.

Open your wings and lift.

Give like the blacksmith

even breath to the bellows.

.

Tend the fire that changes

the shape of metal.

.

Alchemical work begins at dawn,

as you walk out to meet the Friend.

These are the translated words of Lalla (aka Lalleshwari, Lal Ded, Lal Dyad), a 14th century Kashmiri mystic woman.* Regardless of time and place, and even perhaps translation bias, the essence of these words continue to ring true. It’s just the reminder I needed to renew my faith in the connections and messages that come through in the wee hours.

++++

The journal I pulled out was equally intriguing.

Without thinking, I turned directly to a page from exactly 1 year and 4 days ago. The passage revealed a pattern. It described a practice with a sacred ally as I circle back around to practice with them again. And these words were on the page:

Redirect your mind & thoughts

towards what you wish to accomplish,

not what you fear will get in the way —

the obstacles are imagined & created

by your thoughts

Directing the flow of attention. Claiming time and space. That’s power.

This is when I offer gratitude to our ancestors and my past self for leaving these simple gems to guide us toward our truest selves. And to the little voices that guide our choices. Thank you.

*Lalla’s poem was translated by Coleman Barks. Many poems in the book from which this came, Naked Song, have been doubly translated and “reworked” from other texts.

Many things in life lead to nervous system dysregulation, but lately there’s one thing doing it that I have complete control over: waking up and scrolling.

I know, I know. You might be thinking, doesn’t everyone know that’s a mistake? Yeah, but sometimes curiosity, impulse, and convenience get the better of me.

Waking and scrolling, especially lately, fills me with a sense of dread that spills over into all aspects of my being, all of my relationships, and all aspects of my day. I started doing it with the false sense that I was informing myself on the state of the world. And while I know a little more about what’s happening “out there,” scrolling isn’t being informed, it is infusing oneself with fear. It is giving oneself over to the opinions and urgency of others. I get caught up in it. I lose my center. No bueno.

And it’s always there! Just tap into the stream and there you are caught in the fervor of reaction. It feeds the sense of urgency that something must be done, now! And while that is also true to an extent, there are other ways of being informed and taking action. Typically I’m of the camp that slow building and slow transformation are the most sustainable ways to make change. (Always thinking of Bayo Akomolafe here.)

So I make a different choice. One that is already so simple and accessible. I avoid the scroll and go back to my practices. Especially, waking, sitting, and writing.

When I’m with my son (every other week roughly) my morning routine is very predictably this: waking, writing a bit, sometimes reading a bit (right now the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by Ursula K LeGuin), preparing breakfast and lunch, continually nudging the child awake to get dressed, checking the bus time, refreshing the bus time, continually reminding the child he has to finish his breakfast and get ready to catch the bus. Impatiently staring at child as he ever-so-slowly ties his shoes, zips his coat(s), puts on his bag(s), and thinks to tell me some story during this whole process further glaciating the pace. A long-drawn-out goodbye (which I do secretly adore), and after I can no longer hear the child’s rolling adieus: I sit for 10 minutes. Then typically, at 8am, start London Writer’s Salon writer’s hour. And write for 50 minutes. After this I do freelance work until he gets home.

The couple of days I deviated from this mundane routine to scroll on substack—which these days includes a hefty portion of doom—I felt a stark and troubling contrast in feeling states. The deviation days led to an overall sense of, well of course, doom. The day after I decided that scrolling first thing really was a terrible idea and made a different choice, the feeling flipped to elation.

Scrolling isn’t the only thing to send me spinning, but it’s a fairly new way to amplify the feelings of dread. Before scrolling was a thing (early aughts?) I’d wake with terror in the night thinking of the oncoming apocalypse or ongoing polycrisis wondering what I could do to solve it. (I’ll let you know when I’ve single-handedly figured it all out, ‘kay?) Back then I poured myself into learning about all things sustainable, healthy, non-toxic, etc. The dread was one of the things that led me to learn about permaculture, medicinal plants, energy healing, and other earth skills. A story for another time…

When I began paying attention to how scrolling affected my mood, this also happened: I started likening these two opposing feeling states to two sides of the same coin. Like anger and passion, excitement and anxiety, and in this case doom and elation, the visceral feeling can be similar. These seemingly opposite states can both evoke feelings like: a fire burning inside, butterflies fluttering, nausea, a sense of gravity, or a sense of floating away.

One thing that led me to noticing the relatedness of these feelings, is that I stopped attaching meaning to them and just let myself be in them. I felt into the doom and allowed a curiosity around it. I felt nauseated and tuned deeper into that. When I went even deeper I noticed that the nausea was shifting into something else, something closer to excited anticipation. I stayed with the feeling on and off for a full day. I allowed the shape to change and by the morning, with both the behavior shift and the witnessing practice, I experienced this not-so-unpleasant feeling of being turned inside out.

So back to the practice of writing…

My favorite divination tool these days is the I Ching, in particular a modern incarnation of this ancient tool: Visionary I Ching Cards—The Book of Changes for Intuitive Decision-Making by Paul O’Brien, art by Joan Larimore. I’ve read other interpretations of the I Ching and have found this form to be most appealing in its simplicity. The art is also quite lovely.

Yesterday I decided to use the I Ching messages as prompts for writing poems. Infused in here are also dream bits from the night before, as well as some inspiration from the Tao Te Ching. (words in quotes are directly pulled from the book that accompanies the I Ching deck.)

“only sweet-and-sour reality”

and i have acquired many tastes.

.

when the lake dries up,

i find coins tossed as wishes

covered by silt.

.

when i think i’m alone,

i look to the lowly bugs

and lift them to my gaze.

.

when all that is left

is maggot-covered meat,

i relish in the extra protein.

.

i lift the exquisite rug

to reveal the tangled work beneath.

same fabric, different view.

the dawn starts softly

to become the fire

that feeds us all.

.

there’s fuel enough

when the work has been done

of chopping the wood.

.

no risk,

no reward

but don’t expect the latter.

.

if it comes, take note

and be grateful

knowing it will not last.

.

and if it does, take note

and be grateful

it has been with you all along.

.

inseparable from your essence—

what you create, creates you

what you attract, attracts you

what you become, becomes you

.

effortless effort,

two sides of the same coin.

whether the storm

or the stillness,

i breathe.

.

weather of struggle

or ease,

my heart beats.

.

firmly rooted

in the wind,

my hair blows.

.

and i have a good brush

and strong fingers

to undo the knots.

{a portal to dissolution & peace}

.

mind the mundane,

nothing else to do.

take a nap knowing

work will come.

your merit

is in being.

there is no need

for doing.

give yourself

the rest.

the mountain rose patiently

over eons.

rose of the mountain grows quietly

in silence.

subtle, resonant—

nothing to shout about.

reaching the summit

in hushed gratitude,

breathing steadily

without praise.

knowing it’s a miracle

just to live.

Funny how this morning when I flipped to the Tao Te Ching, this is the passage that was waiting:

Music credit: In the Heart by Organic Meditation Music Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0

EDIT: There’s a reason I have two names for this podcast, one of which is Work In Progress. Today, after posting, I’m sitting with the why of this conversation. Why this now? Why intuition now? Why interconnectedness now? Why magic now?

Welcome to the non-linear process of realization.

Or, being a humble student of the ways of the world as a cis white-bodied woman unlearning the impatience/urgency of white supremacy.

Or, how Zaneta so kindly and generously put it: “not enough spaciousness in creation leaves little time for evolution.”

I did not consciously set out to have this conversation with Zaneta with this specific intention in mind. But the more I sit with it, this is emerging. I know I’m not the only one to have been feeling into the way attention is fractured in many directions. We are being stirred. Intentionally distracted, intentionally made to feel insecure, intentionally stripped of a sense of agency. For many this is nothing new, but there seems to be a new flavor (at least to my limited perception). What is happening in the world is being amplified because it is directly affecting more people, specifically those who have known privilege (in many forms). There are those who have felt this intensity directed at them on this land since colonization, including (and these are not mutually exclusive, nor are they necessarily the same): people known as Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Queer; people who have been pushed out from their lands of birth or stolen from them; people who have given up everything they’ve known and risked their lives to be on this soil where there’s some perceived promise of freedom. For the latter group, arriving to escape the horrors of other colonized lands, it’s like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

After listening to our conversation multiple times, I’m currently sitting with this: the risk Zaneta’s mom took in coming to this country from the islands known as the Philippines. And her subsequent impulse, like many who uproot from their homelands, to assimilate and conform in order to survive. It is a very human thing to want to survive, sometimes at any cost. So I reflect on this with tenderness and without judgment.

One of the many costs of the survival mechanism known as assimilation is sacrificing the relationship to the still small voices that lead us to the closest thing that resembles freedom: unhindered self-expression.

It is with sincere gratitude and utmost wonder that I uplift Zaneta’s ability to listen to the voices that have led them to be who they are. Against all odds, including their parents’ resistance and the many currents of oppression and suppression, Zaneta is here and living their passion. The world needs more of us learning and practicing how to listen this way.

I call Zaneta, and other people who I have or will have conversations with here, “magical humans.” What do I mean by that? To me a magical human is someone who lives and moves with wonder, reverence, patience, and care. A magical human understands what is sacred. They see and feel and live the synchronicities of connectedness. They see and name things that other people wouldn’t. Their actions match their values. They are compassionate, kind, loving, trusting, and generous. Magical humans dance with the elements, and are connected to what is real, both seen and unseen. May we all strive to be magical.

{end of edited portion of this post.}

Zaneta’s name kept coming to my awareness when I was feeling into who to have a conversation with next. I wasn’t sure why but I just knew I had to follow the nudge. And it just makes sense. Our first off-camera conversation led us to discover our kinship in the love and need of connection with healing with the earth and spirit. The conversation posted here is a continuation of that, with more to come!

Zaneta (they/them) is a Filipinx interdisciplinary sound artist and nature recordist, medium, and all-around magical human. (I jokingly but also in all seriousness shared that these are the only people I’m really interested in speaking with, those with a magical bend!)

In their words…

“Drawing from the work of their lola sa tuhód (great-grandmother) as a hilot healer in Iloilo, Philippines, and her multi-modal ways of communing with the land, Zaneta weaves local field recordings, environmental studies, activism, sound art, community art and story gathering, painting, ritual, and vocal channeling, to create experiences of deep communion with the more-than-human world. Experiences that build conscious connection to local lands and wildlife, and support personal stewardship through ongoing community exchanges between land and people.”

Here are some highlights from our conversation:

02:30 making art as an intuitive practice, knowing one’s calling from an early age.

03:58 Zaneta’s vision of coming to NYC to play music at the age of 5.

05:33 the mythology of NYC in the 60s and 70s from dad’s experience as a touring musician.

08:10 the connective state of being and awareness that’s required to improvise, with a drumming metaphor.

11:34 Filipino cultural, spiritual, and ecological ways of being: holding the “self” concept in relation.

16:16 multiracial beingness, parental contrast, walking between worlds, and following an intuitive calling despite resistance and lack of family support.

22:50 the beginning of life and career via University of Southern California music school.

23:44 resisting mom’s visions for us, gratitude for the road not traveled.

25:01 discerning and tracking the voices — who is speaking to us when intuition strikes?

31:18 the knowing that comes with the knowing. breaking down intuition into pieces. understanding through the clairs.

34:20 connection to ancestors and creating altars at age 7. coping with childhood strife through spirit connection.

35:53 knowing as a childhood survival tactic. following your intuition whether it’s “right” or “wrong.” (aka, how to avoid getting stuck in perfectionism and preciousness)

38:49 the playfulness of following intuition.

42:57 how plants model improvisation.

44:09 why do you love what you do? what keeps you going with it?

45:44 “everything that I’m doing now basically is what I did as a kid.” singing to the moon, still.

47:39 doing the thing i want to do.

49:14 album and book of environmental sounds forthcoming!

49:44 cash poor and nature & knowledge rich.

51:31 coming to “it’s okay to do the thing you love” after years of healing work. being welcomed as multidimensional in these times.

53:24 the non-linearity of becoming. maintaining faith and hope in times of disconnection.

54:26 the cultural connection to the “and” that allows one to climb out of deep descents.

55:55 you’re never alone.

Wow! It continues to be a journey and each time I listen to this conversation I glean more understanding and awareness. Thank you so much, Zaneta for this first conversation. Thank you to you who are watching/listening/reading. I hope this resonates like a clear bell.

Where to find Zaneta:

• Zaneta’s website

• In Kingston NY this Saturday, February 7!

“This event features recordings from a larger project called Invitations from the Land: the Zena Highwoods, a year-long album of environmental seasonal soundscapes recorded in the Zena Highwoods and accompanying book of listening practices, ecological prompts, species illustrations and identification, stories of the forest, paintings, and forest transmissions, to invite listeners to explore their personal relationship with local ecology and climate care.

This project was created in ritual and collaboration with the forest, along environmental consultation with the @woodstock_land_conservancy, and the album and book will be released in a live premiere in Woodstock, NY September 2026.”

• Ecstatic dance in Nyack

i’m feeling the need to revisit things. things i’ve thought, written, spoken, shared, kept to myself. there is much to say and also maybe nothing that needs to be said. i sit in the paradox.

a few years ago when i was uprooting from a long life half-lived i started drafting a book. it would be my second book, after “northeast medicinal plants” and something very different from that title.

it would be called “unsettling.” it’s a story of my ancestors of blood, place, time, earth.

in a sense, we belong to all ancestors as they belong to us. we breathe the same air, drink the same water, are essentially made with the same stuff but with minute genetic variation. we have living ancestors in the plants and fungi who continually die back and set seed and spore in varying spans of time. we have ancestors forming and eroding below our feet that we eat and breathe: the stones (the grandfathers, mëxumsa in Unami). every day, many someones become ancestors. all are our relatives.

from etymonline:

relative(adj.)

early 15c., relatif, “having reference (to something), relating, depending upon,” from Old French relatif and directly from Late Latin relativus “having reference or relation,” from Latin relatus, used as past participle of referre “bring back, bear back” (see refer), from re- “back, again” + lātus “borne, carried” (see oblate (n.)).

Meaning “having mutual relationship, connected with each other” is from 1590s; that of “arising from or determined by relationship to something else” is from 1610s; that of “having or standing in a relation to something else” is from 1650s; that of “not absolute or existing by itself” is by 1704. In grammar, “referring to an antecedent,” from 1520s.

there is no separation.

we are all relative.

the as-yet-unwritten book is a weaving of my story with those of my ancestors, living and dead. when i began outlining this book in 2023, the timing of it felt right. now i’m not so sure. things are moving so quickly, and yesterday’s thoughts already feel outdated. so i’m sharing the outline here, so that at least the glimmer of what might have been (and might still be) can shine a bit.

UNSETTLING

(and re-connecting to the flow of life)

PART 1. OAK

A woman leaves the comfort of her home for the unknown. She crosses the sea to take part in the colonization of land that is held sacred by unknown others.

A woman leaves the comfort of her home for the unknown. Her sacred forest is cut in an act of subjugation and war.

We meet a plant that is sacred, an ancient, wise being standing for strength of Spirit and the abundance of the land. This plant:

• Is taken to build war ships, to build a “new” world, to build wagons to cross the “new” continent

• Has been with the people all along, and has much to teach us about being human children of the Earth

PART 2. TOBACCO

A woman leaves the comfort of her 20-year home for the unknown. She embarks on the Fool’s Journey and commits to live it everyday.

A 20 year old woman leaves the comfort of her home for the unknown. She embarks on a journey to a new land, where at 21, she dies.

We meet a plant that is sacred, a symbol of the giving nature of Mother Earth and the power of Father Sky to hear our prayers. This plant:

• Is taken, propagated, and used to build a colony on land that is rapidly being stolen. The exploitation of this plant and the land will kill many

• Has been with the people all along, and has much to teach us about being human children of the Earth

PART 3. BEAVER

A woman leaves the comfort of her home for the unknown. She heads west to claim “new” land with her family.

A woman leaves the comfort of her home for the unknown. She has been uprooted by the white settlers driving west.

We meet an animal that is sacred, an industrious being who shows us how to make the most of what we have at hand. This animal:

• Is a noble creature taken en masse, exploited as a commodity to clothe wealthy people in another land

• Has been there with people all along, and has much to teach us about being human children of the Earth

PART 4. GHOST PIPE

A woman leaves the comfort of her home for the unknown. She encounters many teachers on the road.

We meet a plant that is sacred, one who teaches us how to be at peace in our hearts, our true home.

The lands where this plant grows are at risk and must be protected.

This plant has been with the people all along, and has much to teach us about being human children of the Earth.

at the time i drafted this, i was living in Edwina White’s downstairs apartment. a lot was flowing! (maybe this will offer a hint of the magic that surrounds this friend, the first conversation of the women’s intuition project/work in progress.)

here are some of the things i was consuming and creating at the time this outline was taking shape:

ambitious stack of books

tobacco grown by sawmill herb farm, massachusetts

tobacco plant stamp i carved

stamps of the 3 sacred plants featured in the outline, framed in the rescuer/predator/prey trichotomy

Robin Wall Kimmerer wisdom, posted by Rowen White

truth by Audre Lorde, reposted by poet warsanshiree

Shelley Niro exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian

*fuck off* earrings worn by friend Dhyāna

genius meme reposted by dreikycaprice

Climate Futurism exhibit (Erica Deeman, Denice Frohman, Olalekan Jeyifous) at Pioneer Works

Scene from Beloved (1998) based on Toni Morrison’s novel, powerful performance by Beah Richards

Manitou

free writing that inspired the above outline

frame drum by firelight

excerpt from Shaman Pathways - Elen of the Ways by Elen Sentier

journal thoughts

fair warning

wisdom

Diwali altar by friend Vin

muddy barefoot hike, harriman state park

the poetry of life is everywhere

tune in…

what comes to your awareness?

let it guide you

shape you

let it unsettle you

rearrange you

what are you anyway?

but all that is.

Music credit: In the Heart by Organic Meditation Music Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0

Illustrations: Edwina White'

Memes: Liz Neves (using Canva without AI)

Many of us change our shape for other people. Too often to our detriment. We all do this to varying degrees, depending on our history. It isn’t necessarily unique to femme-bodied humans, but people-pleasing is more pervasive, I believe, in women. Kasia Urbaniak calls this “good girl conditioning.” It’s insidious. It shows up in many of our interactions. We shrink, we bend, we make apologies for our existence. We stop doing things we love. To be accepted. To belong.

It makes us sick. It’s a dishonest way to live. And there comes a time when it has to stop or it will kill us.

This often happens in mid-life as an awakening. Not a mid-life crisis at all, except for the regret we might feel at having bent so far for other people. It might manifest in something that looks like a tantrum, and for some people that’s what it is. Breaking free from self-created restriction, some of us go wild. It’s a necessary part of differentiating from the boxed-in version we were.

It looks different for everyone who experiences it. For me, going wild was fairly literal: becoming nomadic and answering the longing I had to learn earth-based living/survival skills.

In this installment of this ongoing conversation, Edwina reveals a bit of her own experience with this post-breakup freedom. With more space and time, she is returning to becoming more of herself.

(Funnily enough, this post drifted my way as I was drafting this. The algorithm is watching!)

Highlights:

00:36 Having to be creative as a parent, being an “old” mommy, and putting your energy into supporting other humans.

03:31 Being the wind in other people’s sails and then being able to restore your own breath.

04:25 Being blind-sided, the joke in the tragedy, and reuniting with one’s favorite things after sacrificing self for relationship.

09:04 Where do your gifts come from? And the stories that stick from childhood.

16:44 The trap of perfection and physical beauty.

18:40 Working time and impatient feelings, ie, what’s created in the waiting.

23:23 Dream while you cut your cucumbers.

27:15 The gift of silence and not filling the space.

29:31 Setting the stage and invitation to create. (Just don’t bring wine.)

32:56 Intuitive divorce.

35:21 I reveal a bit of my process with this project, and what I hope multiple conversations will reveal.

36:25 Just a little more, Edwina shares some initial coming to New York stories.

Down the rabbit hole:

Part 1 of the conversation

Edwina’s website

Edwina & Corrine’s fundraiser for docu I Got You

A Brief Aboriginal History

AIATSIS

Intuitive Divorce

Joanna Murray Smith

naming the now:

genocide

fascism

surveillance

misogyny

mutilation

extraction

exploitation

poison

destruction

hideousness

hatred

still, kindness

still, reciprocity

still, grace

still, reverence

still, nourishment

still, generosity

still, liberation

still, sweetness

still, creation

still, care

still, beauty

still, joy

still, hope

still, love

amor fati

love what comes

shadow & light

and all between

love the joy, the grief

pain & pleasure

do it deeply

for this is it

there is no other now

there is no other you

there is no other us

and when the big death comes

the only thing that remains

is how you lived as love

that is all.

This conversation started months ago. Well, actually it started years ago.

I was introduced to Edwina in 2023 by a caring friend who was helping me find housing in Brooklyn after a busy nomadic summer. The day I learned of the space, my son and I were on our way back from a visit upstate so we seamlessly swung by to check it out. As we’re standing in the apartment, a friendly dog runs down to greet us. I gasped, I know this dog! This is Pancake! I had met Pancake a month or two prior when another mutual friend was dog sitting him.

I decided to land at Edwina’s place for a spell. One thing leads to another, and she is now a dear friend. In her space, under her wing, I felt this surge of creative energy. Being with Edwina can feel like a great gust of wind that picks you up, spins you around, and leaves you with a fresh new perspective. I’ve learned it’s best to just let that wind take you as there are always beautiful consequences. Like this project, which was largely inspired by our conversations.

We can go on and on and we do. I’ve decided I’m going to share this long conversation in bite-sized pieces. This is part 1 of… I haven’t worked that out yet, but will soon enough.

My intention for this project is to feature women, one at a time, in depth, so you can get to know them and their relationship with intuition and creativity over about a month/moon cycle.

Here are some of the highlights and references of this episode.

01:31 Introducing Edwina White, unscary clown.

03:11 Trying things on and where that leads (radio, advertising, theater…).

05:14 The New York story, ie, who you meet when you follow intuition.

05:58 Where does intuition fit into your choice making? (Edwina’s Australian origins)

08:28 Doing something brave and stupid to face the terror and adrenaline of a new situation.

10:02 An ability to see if an idea will work.

12:09 How Edwina’s lucky number shows up everywhere, and how it inspired one of her big, defining creative projects (beginning with ménage à trois).

18:47 Coming to America for a big holiday.

21:18 How relationships could affect our ability to listen to intuition.

On the next episode, we get into how we get somewhere, what’s working, and what never did, especially in relationship to parenting and partnership.

Rabbithole References

Come on, Alice, let’s go…

• Edwina White’s website

• Edwina and Corrine’s film I Got You fundraiser

• “Are you looking after yourself?”

in this shared threshold created some time ago—not by our own will—we surrender to its rhythm. there are other rhythms, too, and our own, most especially, to heed. yet we sit here together, holding space for a new beginning.

it is an auspicious time to reflect with gratitude on all we have lived through and created. no need to be resolute, and in fact, i invite you to

give yourself the rest

that this time offers, gently, quietly, so that you may hear the stillness that lives inside of you. and so that you may let the goodness, in moments of grace such as this, arise to caress your tender heart.

this morning as i listened to raven’s call, crow’s wing beats, flicker’s screech, nuthatch’s honks, wren’s peter-peters and witnessed the way pine needles and other plant debris burrow deep into the snow as it melts in the sun’s light and refreezes in the dark night, these words arose:

it is not all death.

do not give yourself away

to anything

not even the most seductive thing

and especially not that,

for there is life in this vessel

that isn’t ready to escape.

be present to the invitation

to burrow deep into

the heart of your being

and abide there,

not in isolation

but in union.

all parts of you are worthy

simply because you are.

may you know your worth and rest in it, for that is a gift that will carry you through the felt sense of beauty and terror that life offers us.

blessed closing of the year!

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A funny thing happened this morning when I was recording this episode. I was in my practice, writing, and I attend London Writers’ Salon, and they have these hour long sessions where people just sit and write. In the beginning everyone says hello and says what they’re doing, and then you write for 50 minutes straight. And then at the end of the hour, they play music, and then they choose two people to share their experience. Well, today, as I was recording this podcast, I was, you know, doing many, many takes I wasn’t happy with and but I knew, like at 8:54, I felt okay, it’s time to stop. And just as I did, the music came on, and I had this feeling they were going to pick me today out of the couple 100 people who attend. And they did. They chose me, and I shared about this project.

And the funny thing is that there was an echo on my end, and it might have been because of my recording equipment, I don’t know, but somebody wrote in the chat, who needs psychedelics when you have London Writers’ Salon? And it just feels pretty true to what you might expect here. Not that it’s going to be entirely psychedelic, but I have been called psychedelic before, and I don’t necessarily need those substances in order to experience the psychedelic nature of life.

I want to share about what this podcast is and what what I intend for it, and know that it is emergent, and I promise it will be messy and raw and unfiltered and honest and earnest as I am.

It came about from a conversation.

I think most things come about from a conversation, whether it’s with ourselves or with another person or with the world, or with a tree like this pine tree that we are standing with. It’s a tree that is very emblematic of my life experience.

Anyway, what I want to share is,

this was born of a conversation with a dear friend, Edwina White, who will be the first person who I collaborate with on this project. What I intend for this is to highlight women who have some practice of creativity in their lives. And what I mean by creativity is in the broad* sense, not you don’t have to be an “artist,” you don’t have to be trained in anything. It is just, how does intuition guide you and your creative practice? What are the nudges and impulses that you follow and the choices that you make?

That to me, is creativity, and we are all creators of our of own reality.

So I wrote a little something. Something came to me one day when I was thinking about this project, at just the baby stages of it, and I’ll read it to you:

to know without knowing

how you know,

you may be able to trace a line

between two things

that means something

to your experience,

but the lines are blurred—

from whence did it arise?

a dream, a vision

something emerges,

a message whispered to your mind

from an unseen realm,

a flash, an image.

a song suddenly enters,

and there you are with

this bit of information.

And now what’s next?

The what’s next is up to you. It is your choice, your decision. Decide “to cut off.” What are you going to move from? How are you going to interpret the message you received, and where does it bring you?

You could consult friends if you need to. You can look into oracles for guidance, but ultimately, it is your choice, and it is your inner guidance that will bring you to the point of creation.

So what do you want to create?

Okay, so that’s all I want to share for now. Thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to continuing this conversation with you.

*in choosing the word “broadcast,” i’m just now noticing the opportunity to reclaim the derogatory word “broad” to describe women. yes, we female-bodied humans are broad in that we have breadth, a wide view of things and strong broad hips to check you with. we also have depth. stay tuned for broad perspectives on a broad range of topics!

listen to the post here:

I turn on the water, and it’s like a Pavlovian response. I start singing. Words bubble up from the depths. The flowing water, the elemental force that facilitates the movement of spirit. Here’s what came today:

What is magic but the mastery of self? What is magic but the mystery of self?

Magic is the mystery combined with our mastery.

I was trying to sing it this way: Mastery and Misstery (masculine/feminine balance), but isn’t life poetic?

Misstery, Mystery. The feminine that we can’t put a finger on, the wild we can’t capture. The sacred secrets of creation.

Magic doesn’t just happen. It may seem to begin with conscious intention setting but it’s so much more than that. A confluence of influences set in motion before we may even realize it. Where and when does it begin? You can think you can track it, and maybe in part you can. Ultimately, in my experience, it’s best to leave it mostly to the Mystery.

Like all great truths, there’s a paradox at play.

Healthy magic does require work—the work of knowing the self. Where do we operate from? Much of my life, I’ve largely been moving from unconscious or pre-actualized parts of self. That’s how most of us create our day to day reality. And we suffer for it, blaming other humans and circumstances for what we experience. Like Carl Jung said, “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Healthy magic requires the unearthing of deep core truths. Some of them may be unpleasant, like facing our hidden and evident fears and doubts. Making friends with inner critics and wounded inner children. It’s not for the weary, it’s certainly a worthy endeavor.

Magic is also about timing. What’s your rhythm, your pacing? It’s a force that can’t be forced. A felt experience that sends out a signal. Send it out into the universe, expect nothing. And wait.* Don’t try to stop time, and in the meantime, don’t stop creating.

From etymonline:

magic(n.)

late 14c., magike, “art of influencing or predicting events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces,” also “supernatural art,” especially the art of controlling the actions of spiritual or superhuman beings; from Old French magique “magic; magical,” from Late Latin magice “sorcery, magic,” from Greek magikē (presumably with tekhnē “art”), fem. of magikos “magical.” This is from magos “one of the members of the learned and priestly class,” a borrowing of Old Persian magush,

which is possibly from PIE root *magh-

“to be able, have power.”

I want to be clear that this isn’t magical thinking, which bypasses action (hence the mastery part). I believe magic is for everyone, but it is relative and results will vary.

I’m but a humble student, a work in progress. It’s a non-linear, emergent practice. I’ve made many “mistakes” on my journey over the years (it’s inevitable, and it’s only a mistake if we don’t learn from it). I’ve learned the best friends to have nearby are presence, patience, curiosity, and awareness. The realizations a coalescing of direct experience with the creative influences in my life (including great human friends, and teachers like Irma StarSpirit Turtle Woman and Wilderness Fusion philosophy).

*reminder of these words I posted the other day:

what we do in the waiting

allowing there to be nothing

noticing

energetic waves

rising tides

let them rise and flood

and watch

sit

and watch

don’t look at the watch

counting seconds

steals your soul

take the time

looking inward

drawing up

what is born of the waiting

is worth the waiting

one of the best soups i’ve ever made

untouched snow

won’t be forever so—

but oh the beauty!

of the seemingly blank slate.

the blanket hiding

imperfections,

except there are none.

all beneath the surface

perfect in its being there

showing through in still small hills.

blue and grey undulations

and the particles float above

creating the illusion of dance.

and it is also real.

flicker cries sharply,

a thick mist of icy minutia

falling,

a dispersed cloud from the branch

descending

slowly.

i praise the pines in their grace

of holding the weight of frozen water.

i praise the silence

in this moment of repose.

bird tracks in the snow

++++

We all belong to this moment.

And to all who came before.

It’s the end of the Gregorian calendar year and we are in this post-solstice time of reflection. Hopefully you are able to afford the luxury of pause right now in these days, to find a kind pace of slowness. I find this time to be very valuable in its affirming of life, as I look back on the year and all that has culminated to this point.

It also helps that there’s a thick blanket of snow outside. I’m in solitude. My company is long moments of silence. Thank you for this day.

++++

Yesterday was my paternal grandmother’s birthday. She would have been 109 if I’m doing the math correctly in my head.

Thinking of her head, I remember how resilient it was. In her older years, she was prone to falling and hitting it. These mishaps didn’t seem to deter her determination. I like to say I come from a line of tanks.

I think I had a complicated relationship with my grandmother, Nanny Rose Boccino Neves. My middle name is her first name, Rose. Looking back and reflecting on her life, a not-so-easy one, I have so much more compassion for her than I did as a child. One of 11 children to (what I’ve heard, “unkind”) Sicilian immigrants, mother of 7, my dad the youngest. He might not have been born but for the persistence of my grandfather, Delfino, an alcoholic among other things. After having her 5th child, my grandmother almost bled out. She was surely an undiagnosed diabetic for many years. Her babies were large. My father was over 10 pounds at birth.

In the records, her surname is listed as Boccino, Baccino, Buccino (oh, late 19th/early 20th century immigration). In her obituary, Boccino is the name listed, as it is for her father and mother and siblings.

I love name meanings and etymology. I like to let the meaning roll around and consider how it might play out in our lives. If her name was Baccino, there’s an association with Bacchus, god of wine, fertility, and revelry (akin to Dionysus). I like this association, though the shadowy sides of this god of inebriation were prevalent in my family and I’m not sure I want to dance with that (it would be tragically poetic though). Baccino is also a name that might be tied to the Piedmont of Italy, and my grandmother was Sicilian and Southern Italian, so maybe not. If it’s Buccino, it is said to come from an ancient Roman instrument, the buccina. This name is from Campagna in Southern Italy, so that at least tracks.

What I have in my records and what seems most resonant is Boccino. Boccino is an interesting one in that we can see the word “bocce” in there, that game in which a small ball (il boccino!) is tossed and opposing players aim to get their own balls as close to this boccino as possible. Bocce and boccino appear to come from the word bocciare, which means to crash, bump, hit, reject, fail. (I found a bit of etymology here in Italian which I was able to stumble through).

Crash, bump, hit, reject, fail. All seem sadly fitting for the hard life of my departed Nanny Rose. She had to work hard to feed her children, hard to exist amidst abuse from her family and her husband. I remember her as a bit withdrawn and humble at times, tough, stubborn, a bit explosive with anger at other times. There was a silence around her that felt like protection. I remember laughing with her about some things and her Sicilian hand gestures. How she would nod off on the couch and when caught with her mouth open would insist, “I was just resting my eyes.” As if it’s a crime to doze off. A crime to let down one’s guard in the presence of family. A defensiveness of rest. It breaks my heart to think of it.

All of this was present in my childhood, but without the awareness and capacity of this moment. It all lives in me, still.

Looking back at things I wrote this year, I came across these words I channeled from my grandmother (an excerpt):

i see you now as you were

at 5, at 10, at 15

but not the same.

you have the look of my daughters

(especially barbara and jean)

the ones who are with me now

and doesn’t that make sense.

you little channeler

you little witch, you.

that’s nothing new

it’s in your blood as it was in mine,

now bloodless and free

in this other place

with which you will someday commune.

(es fui, sum eris)

i see much more now from this place

and i help you when you step astray.

much more adept here

with clarity and wisdom

than you could see on earth.

i had to soften my mind against the hard hands

of those closest to me.

and this in response:

your servitude i did inherit

in much smaller degrees

as well as your salt

and your fire

the dampness of the bog

within the heart & guts

came, too

and i work to keep my head clear

despite that.

there are choices in what we keep.

i’ll take the stregheria,

the old curses & genuflections.

ho l’amore di mangiare,

but I’ll leave behind the overstuffing

and the denial.

it’s in my blood as it was in yours,

now bloodless as you are,

in this new form now

for more than 20 years.

washing the dishes,

i look at my soft hands

and wonder if you’d recognize mine.

++++

May the conversation continue, as it will, in me and in all that comes after.

the wings we are given,

fledgling as we are,

the gift of our ancestors,

whether they were aware

or not

of their generosity

to give us life

as they were given

for centuries, millennia

back to the earliest ones

whom we may not

recognize as kin

by their form,

their behavior,

their wildness.

pulling the thread

of the quilt

covered in ribbons

unraveling the stitches

back to that first

tear of fabric

that one swatch of living material

that continues to give us flight

can we touch on that wisdom

of the original form?

and before that, of the formless?

can we fathom that

we may all come

from nothing?

and from what was nothing born?

or who?

the original consciousness

the void.

a real snow angel, the imprint of a bird taking off (maybe a Carolina Wren, it’s a mystery)