Bella Figura, The Tradition of Living Beautifully

A reading of my essay, published on my Substack, “The Tradition of Living Beautifully,” titled “The resistance will not be televised.”

You can read more essays like this one at dolorestaranto.substack.com.

Jill Winger is the founder of The Prairie Homestead, an online space with over one million monthly visits dedicated to helping people learn how to grow their own food and opt-out of the rat race, regardless of where they live. In 2019, she published her best-selling cookbook The Prairie Homestead Cookbook, which was an Amazon Editor’s pick and won Best Cookbook in the 30th Annual Reading the West Book Awards given by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association.

She is host of the “Old Fashioned on Purpose” podcast, which has amassed over 5 million downloads since its inception.

She and her family also run Genuine Beef Company, which ships grass finished beef nationwide, as well as the Chugwater Soda Fountain. She has been featured in Urban Farm, Farm & Ranch Living, COWGIRL magazine, Woman’s Day, HuffPost, the Wall Street Journal, Wyoming PBS, People, and Buzzfeed. She resides on the Wyoming prairie with her husband, three children, and more farm animals than she can count.

Things discussed in this episode:

Photography as an art form

Motherhood & family life as inspiration

Accepting the changes in our bodies and lives

The curious world of Instagram

Being authentic to your style

Cultivating your aesthetic

Antiques as a way to slow down

Surrounding ourselves with beauty

Being present in the moment

Things discussed in this episode:

Leaving home and making a new community

Supporting local farmers

What toxins do to our bodies and fertility

The normalizations of toxins in our products

Natural beauty products

Diet as a means to wellness

The learning curve when it comes to natural living

The benefits of tallow as a beauty product

Things discussed in this episode:

Not being afraid to release old ways of thinking

Letting go of old ways of being

Switching career paths

The negative aspects of the music industry

Our work encompassing more than we originally imagined

Doing that work serves our community, as opposed to our ego

Re-evaluating stereotypes of what an artist’s life looks like

The ups and downs of long friendships

The magical aspects of long friendships

Things discussed in this episode:

The toxicity of the beauty industry

How the beauty industry relies on your self doubt for enormous profits

The toxic chemicals in beauty products that are making us sick

Loving the way you look naturally

How Instagram is skewing our sense of our own beauty

How social media sows intense self doubt in all of us

Ways to step away from the beauty industry

Using natural hair products

No more shampoo and the origins of shampoo use

Using herbs to heal your family

Coming into your power as a mother

Kari Jansen, herbalist, astrologer and ayurvedic practitioner, founded Poppy and Someday after years of studying herbalism, combining her passion for plants with her love of gardening, wildcrafting and herbal medicine making.

The company’s product line features an evolving collection of organic body care products. The product design process is rooted in the study of Ayurveda and Western Herbalism and focuses on native plant ingredients. Every ingredient comes from the earth and never contains any synthetics or preservatives.

Kari is a graduate of the California School of Herbal Studies, the Dhyana Center, the Ayurvedic Institute of America, Kairos School of Astrology and also holds a B.S. in Health and Nutrition.

Tomás Q. Morín is the author of the collection of poems Machete and the memoir Let Me Count the Ways, as well as the poetry collections Patient Zero and A Larger Country. He is co-editor with Mari L’Esperance of the anthology, Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine, and translator of The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Rice University and Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Shiva Rose was raised by bohemian parents in the countryside of Iran until the revolution occurred. Suddenly, a childhood nurtured on imagination and nature morphed into life as a refugee. Assimilating to a new life in America, she sought solace in old films, fashion and books, which led her to work as an actress in TV, film and theater. After having her first daughter in her early twenties she was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, an occurrence that propelled her on a path as a naturalist and activist.

She is the author of Whole Beauty, Daily Rituals and Natural Recipes for Lifelong Beauty and Wellness. She is also the creator of The Local Rose, a line of all-natural beauty products created with the utmost respect for the natural world and for you.