Embodiment Matters podcast

#Fitness #Alternative Health #Buddhist #Religion #Carl Rabke #Erin Geesaman Rabke

36:27

Not many artists actually hail from Tennessee, but the scenic valleys and rolling hills of The Volunteer State are part of Dustin Lynch’s DNA. In this episode of On the Bus, Country Thunder CEO Troy Vollhoffer sits down with Dustin to discuss his journey from playing fraternity parties and weddings across the southeast to being the first country artist with a club residency at the Wynn in Las Vegas. Plus, stick around for our new segment, Thunder Strike, where Troy features upcoming festival performer Riley Green’s hit song “Damn Good Day to Leave” to give you a taste of what’s to come at Country Thunder in 2025.…

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Embodiment Matters is an ongoing, rich conversation about what it really means to be embodied, and why and how embodiment matters so much in our daily lives and in our world. Our guests include wise and insightful teachers from the realms of somatics, Buddhism, meditation, social justice, psychotherapy, movement arts, bodywork, martial arts, neuroscience, environmentalists, indigenous teachers, and more. In our conversations, we explore a wide range of topics around waking up and being embodied, and offer guided practices to help return to your embodiment as a source of wisdom, guidance and intimacy with life. Your hosts, Carl Rabke and Erin Geesaman Rabke, have been devoted to waking up and being embodied for the last 25 years. They have extensive training and practice in The Feldenkrais Method, Yoga & Yoga Therapy, Structural Integration, Embodied Life, Buddhist Meditation, Tai Chi, Focusing, Ayurveda, and more. They share a passion for sharing potent practices that support people in becoming more embodied, more mindful and aware, more rooted in liberating kindness, and more free in all ways; as well as more able to bring their unique gifts forth to beneﬁt the world. They live in Salt Lake City, and can be found at bodyhappy.com

63 episódios

Embodiment Matters Podcast

updated há 24 dias

Home de séries•Feed

63 episódios

#Fitness #Alternative Health #Buddhist #Religion #Carl Rabke #Erin Geesaman Rabke

Todos os episódios

Embodiment Matters Podcast

1
Men of Depth and Soul: A Conversation with Dr. Jaiya John and Alexandre Jodun 1:25:44

há 24 dias1:25:44

1:25:44

Greetings listener friends! We are excited to share this conversation with Dr. Jaiya John. This is the second episode in the Men of Depth and Soul series that Carl is hosting with our dear friend and colleague, Alexandre Jodun. Jaiya is an incredible poet, writer, teacher, and human being and the founder of Soul Water Rising press. as he writes on his website: "My lifelong calling and work is freedom from the sickness of supremacy and inferiority. Freedom from oppression. Freedom to live a beautiful life. Food, water, and shelter are nothing if the one being fed, watered, and sheltered is immersed in the profound suffering that is poverty of the soul. I am grateful to carry out the humanitarian work of feeding souls the bread and breath of Love, compassion, and hope. In an often dehumanizing world, Soul Water Rising is a global rehumanizing mission, stirring the soul to remember itself. We support the healing and freedom journeys of historically dehumanized populations and cultures. We honor womanhood and fatherhood. And we treat the sickness of racial and cultural supremacies wherever they exist." In our conversation, we move through so much terrain looking at how men are being called by the times. We unpack the notion of freedom, and what it means to seek freedom for all beings, we talk about systems top-down dominance, and the pervasive presence of what Jaiya calls the "superiority/inferiority virus." We speak of the sacredness or eros, and how few boys have models of how to be with this energy in a way that feeds life. So much goodness. We hope you enjoy the conversation, and please share it with any friends who might enjoy listening. You can find more about Jaiya and his work at https://jaiyajohn.com More about Alexandre https://www.ahealingbridge.com/holistic-psychotherapy-counselling And more about Carl and Erin at https://embodimentmatters.com…

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Men of Depth and Soul: A Conversation with Francis Weller and Alexandre Jodun 56:03

há 9 weeks56:03

56:03

In this conversation, we begin a new sub-series of the Embodiment Matters podcast, Men of Depth and Soul, where Carl and our dear friend and colleague, Alexandre Jodun will be hosting interviews around what is being asked of men in these times. We begin the series with our friend and mentor, Francis Weller. Francis is a psychotherapist, soul-activist, and author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. Our conversation moves through many topics: men and grief, the relationship between power and love, the loneliness and isolation so many men feel, how we can bless each other and call out to each other's gifts, and so much more. On February 13th, Carl and Alexandre begin an online men's group, Men of Depth and Soul: Rooting into Sacred Activism. Francis Weller will be one of the guest elder/ teachers along with Pat McCabe, Woman Stands Shining. You can find out more about that course here, https://embodimentmatters.com/menofdepthandsoul/ You can find more information on Francis and his work at https://www.francisweller.net More on Pat McCabe https://www.patmccabe.net More on Alexandre at https://www.ahealingbridge.com…

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Open Me: A Conversation with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer 1:13:05

há 12 weeks1:13:05

1:13:05

We are so excited to share this podcast with the amazing poet and human, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. As Erin mentions in the intro, you might want to have some tissues handy, as we dive right into the deep end, and the conversation is filled with tenderness and beauty. In our conversation, Rosemerry reads some of her gorgeous poems, and we move through many rich themes including grief and gratitude, ways to be with someone who is grieving, holding paradox and the stretch of the human heart, and being opened by life. The conversation has the same wide range of this experience of being human as does Rosemerry’s writing. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives with her husband and daughter in Placerville, Colorado, on the banks of the wild and undammed San Miguel River. She served as San Miguel County’s first poet laureate (2007-2011) and as Western Slope Poet Laureate (2015-2017) and was a finalist for Colorado Poet Laureate in 2019. She performs as a storyteller, including shows in Aspen at the Wheeler Opera House, at the Taos Storytelling Festival, Page Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. Her TEDx talk explores changing our outdated metaphors. For five years, she performed in the Telluride Literary Burlesque. She has been writing a poem a day since 2006, posting them since 2011 on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. In 2023, her poems can be heard daily on the Ritual app, The Poetic Path . Favorite themes include parenting, gardening, ecology, love, science, thriving/failure, grief and daily life. You can find more about Rosemerry and her work at wordwoman.com You can find more about the the course that Erin mentions, Take Heart, Embodying the Great Turning, that she will be teaching with Leilani Navar, with Rosemerry as a guest teacher, along with Francis Weller, Cynthia Jurs, and Lydia Violet Harutoonian at embodimentmatters.com/live-with-erin-and-carl/…

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Experiential Deep Ecology: A Conversation with John Seed And Skye Cielita Flor 1:17:47

há 12 weeks1:17:47

1:17:47

Friends, we are delighted to share this conversation with two beautiful Earth-loving humans, John Seed and Skye Cielita Flor. John is a long-time Earth activist, writer, teacher, musician, who, along side Joanna Macy, helped to grow the body of work called Experiential Deep Ecology or The Work that Reconnects. Skye is a teacher, folk herbalist, plant medicine ritualist, mama, and friend with whom we have connected for several years in online spaces with Francis Weller, Bayo Akomolafe and Josh Schrei. You can learn more about John and Skye, and their unique stories and bodies of work at johnseed.net and deepearthdreaming.world In our conversation, we talk about the origins of deep ecology ecology work, we speak of ways to de-center the human, and the practices that help to reconnect us with the living intelligence of the Earth. We speak of the challenges of parenting in these times, along with the difficulties of doing this kind of soul work in what John calls “the religion of economics.” It is a rich and deep conversation with wisdom holders from different generations who hold such beautiful respect for each other’s wisdom and insight, and such deep love for the Earth and life. We hope you enjoy the conversation! You can find more information about the classes that Erin mentions in the introduction here: embodimentmatters.com/live-with-erin-and-carl/…

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Summoned by the Earth: A Conversation with Cynthia Jurs 1:06:01

há 19 weeks1:06:01

1:06:01

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Beauty as Ballast, Grief as Guide, Body as Sacred Land: A Conversation with Leilani Navar and Erin Geesaman Rabke 1:03:22

há 22 weeks1:03:22

1:03:22

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Soul Water Rising: A Conversation with Dr. Jaiya John 1:14:04

há 31 weeks1:14:04

1:14:04

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Musical By Nature: A Conversation With Zuza Gonçalves 1:21:04

há 46 weeks1:21:04

1:21:04

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Living a Soulful Life: A Conversation with Holly Truhlar and Alexandre Jodun 50:31

há 1 year50:31

50:31

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Watering the Seeds of Soul: A Conversation with Holly Truhlar and Erin Geesaman Rabke 1:09:11

há 1 year1:09:11

1:09:11

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Embodying Maitri: The Essential Ingredient With Erin Geesaman Rabke 49:42

há 2 years49:42

49:42

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Initiation and the Markings of Adulthood: A Conversation with John Wolfstone 1:00:21

há 2 years1:00:21

1:00:21

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Embodying Reverent Relationship with Marika Heinrichs 1:08:04

há 3 years1:08:04

1:08:04

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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On Mycelium, Compost, and Animate Sensibilities: A Conversation With Sophie Strand 1:11:42

há 3 years1:11:42

1:11:42

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

Embodiment Matters Podcast

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Animal Body, Deep Time and the Thing We All Long For: A Conversation With Josh Schrei 1:05:06

há 3 years1:05:06