By Becca Piastrelli
Welcome to Belonging, a podcast that explores being alive in the age of loneliness. Becca Piastrelli is your host and guide on a journey of courageous reconnection as we explore topics like rites o
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The podcast currently has 139 episodes available.
Immersing myself deeply in the season of Summer here on the East coast has meant that I went on a little hiatus when it comes to sharing about my journey with moving my whole family across the country, purchasing land, learning farming, building community, and everything else. So, for this episode, I asked my friend Sarah Wildeman, who’s been a beloved guest on the podcast before, to interview me about what has been present in my life in this season. I’m on the cusp of the anniversary of our move from the West coast to our farm in the Hudson Valley and my relationship with this land and the community around me is ever evolving, changing, sometimes challenging and very much deepening.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[3:51] Longing for the East Coast and Connection to the Land
[10:40] Building Community and Navigating Tensions
[16:29] Slowing Down in Work and Choosing a Different Way of Life
[20:29] Letting Go and Finding New Purpose
[27:30] The Ongoing Journey of Grappling and Growth
[32:22] Living Life Through the Lens of the Farm
[34:04] Reconnecting with the Land and Trusting Intuition
[37:27] Supporting Each Other Through Transitions and Embracing Different Roles in Partnership
[42:47] Feeling Satiated and Accepting What Is
[48:48] Embodying Generosity and Celebrating Differences in Partnership
In today’s episode, I am joined by Lara Vesta, author of ‘The Year of the Dark Goddess’ and ‘The Moon Divas Guidebook’ (among other titles). In this conversation, we explore navigating difficult rites of passage, learning its culture through myths, fairytales and other symbolism and calling in our webs of support - whether they be human, spiritual, animal, plant or otherwise.
Lara offers us tools and insights how we can empower and transform ourselves through the processes of grief and fear, drawing from ancestral traditions and the wisdom of the Dark Goddess.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[5:46] Navigating Rites of Passage
[8:11] Learning How to Cope with Challenges through Myths and Fairytales
[11:38] Developing our Internal Knowing and Webs of Support
[13:16] Becoming Sovereign in your own Process
[15:58] The Transformative Power of a Daily Ritual and Recording it
[19:32] Introducing the Dark Goddess and her Many Forms
[23:23] Our Culture’s Separation from Death and Discomfort with Grief
[27:26] Seasonal Awareness, Ritual and Self Care for Rites of Passage
[32:48] The Time it Takes to Integrate a Rite of Passage
[36:09] The Garden as a Mirror for Life and Navigating its Hardships
[35:37] The Purpose of Challenges
In today’s episode, I am joined by my friend Gemma Brady of ‘Sister Stories’ to explore our mutual passion of sharing circle work. One of Gemma’s mission is to make going to circle as common as going to yoga class and in this conversation, she shares how she approaches circle as a living, breathing art form. She shares vulnerably about how she experienced her second pregnancy and how circle, both as a participant and a facilitator, sustained her most through that time. Above all, this conversation is an invitation to everyone who feels the call to do circle work to explore their own unique expression and what it means to them to devote themselves to the heart of the practice.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction and The High Lady Workshop on Facilitating the Circle of your Dreams
[5:39] Introducing Gemma Brady and our Personal Connection
[11:40] Gemma’s Background in Spaceholding and the Creation of ‘Sister Stories’
[17:23] The Power of Deep Speaking and Listening
[19:03] The Essence of Circle Beyond the Aesthetic + Unbranding Circle
[23:04] Circle as a Philosophy
[24:49] Spreading the Word of Circle
[27:44] Marketing Circle Work and Claiming your Unique Expression
[33:41] Shifted Assumptions around Circle
[37:57] Preserving Integrity and Allowing Evolution and Creativity in our Offerings
[40:49] Humanity and Imperfection in Circle
[42:39] Circle as Medicine for the Facilitator too
[51:33] Offering Circle Facilitation
In today’s episode, I am joined by Johannah Reimer to talk about holding circle for our girls and the female-bodied youth that are in our lives. Johannah is a soulcentric educator, ceremonialist, teen mentor, and an artist of many trades. Trained as a Waldorf teacher, Johannah has been working with children of all ages for over 20 years and holds a particular passion for tweens/teens striving to meet their developmental needs for mentorship and initiation in a culture that has forgotten how to do so. Johannah founded Wakeful Nature & Girls Group as a means to fill the initiatory void for girls crossing the threshold of childhood into adolescence with guidance, ceremony, and community.
Johannah and I share our passion for the healing that can happen through circling and ceremony and in this conversation I get the change to get nosey about her incredible work facilitating girls groups, the impact this work has on her as a space holder and so much more. Above all, Johannah calls for the ‘village aunties’ to step up, cultivating more awareness around what today’s generation of girls is moving through and weaving together multi-generational embodied wisdom.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[09:43] Remembering How to be Village Aunties
[12:17] Challenges Faced by Girls in Today's Society
[18:00] Creating Safe Spaces for Girls through Long-Term and Ongoing Support
[26:48] Social Media Use by Teens and Navigating Belonging and Connection
[34:32] Ritualising & Normalising the First Bleed through Ceremony + Ritual
[40:22] Being a Girls Group Facilitator
[43:47] Moving into a Post-Patriarchal Society
In today’s episode, I am answering listener questions. Topics range from sharing my personal viewpoint on religion and spirituality, navigating different roles and jobs during my day and in my life and dive deep into circle-related questions too.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[01:00] Do you practice any religions or spirituality?
[06:23] Your work used to be more focused on hands on elements and literal making. How do you still integrate that into your day to day life?
[11:24] How do you juggle/hold all of your different jobs and roles? Both big picture and like a “day in the life” type thing.
[14:55] How to know when to let a friendship go or how do you do it?
[18:23] Is it possible to start a successful circle with non-circley friends?
[22:05] Does it always have to be everyone shares? Other prompts for shyer or younger?
In today’s episode, I am joined by my friend Amelia Hruby. Amelia is a feminist author, educator, podcaster and founder of Softer Sounds podcast studio (who used to edit this podcast too!). I brought her onto the podcast today specifically because of her amazing podcast ‘Off the Grid’, which is a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing their clients.
Even if you don’t identify as a small business owner - there’s something about what Amelia shares about leaving social media in this episode that transcends it all and will leave you feeling inspired to explore your virtual presence.
Amelia opens up about the impact that leaving social media has had on her life and makes the beautiful connection between her patterns of anxious attachment and how that showed up in her virtual presence too.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction [11:01] The Decision to Leave Social Media [13:16] Anxious Attachment to the Online Sphere [16:37] Life after Leaving Social Media [19:56] Creativity in Business w/o Social Media [20:56] Loneliness and Virtual Community [24:34] Running a Business outside of Social Media [27:27] Finding Community outside of Social Media [29:00] The Need to Feel Seen [36:44] Curation Online [40:40] Aggravation of Wounds of Belonging by Social Media [48:36] The Harmful Ways the Algorithm Preys Upon Vulnerabilities [52:46] The Impact of Culture and the Joy of the Internet [53:41] Bringing Intention, Awareness and Agency to the Virtual Landscape [54:16] Choosing a Different Path and Finding Liberation [54:55] Main Takeaways [56:36] Amelia’s Work and Offerings
It takes a deep initiation of need for care to get you to shed the layers of hyper individualism and show up as the village. In today’s episode, I get fired up about why the ones who are showing up and arriving on the doorstep with the soup are often the caregivers with a limited capacity themselves. I talk about my own journey with asking for and receiving support, experiencing the power of circle and council and navigating anger and cynicism along the way.
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– Caregivers with less capacity being the ones who show up
Resources + Links
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[5:41] Initiation into Caregiving and Kinkeeping
[7:35] The Myth of Hyper Individualism
[8:36] Those Who Show Up for the Village are the Ones with the Least Capacity
[9:56] The Bottomless Pit of Need
[12:12] Creating Community and Circle
[16:48] Replenishing Yourself as Keeper of the Well
[18:26] Navigating Cynicism and Anger when Feeling Unsupported
[20:52] Weaving Yourself into the Mission
[21:20] Beheld Council Invitation
[23:05] Next Episode Preview
In today’s episode, I am joined by my dear friend Ginny Muir to talk about the longing for deep intimacy, the importance of healing in relationships, navigating rupture and repair in community and circle specifically. Ginny is an incredible spaceholder, medicine woman, witch, tantrika and so much more. Specifically, she has an incredible way of supporting relational conflict.
Rupture and repair is an innate way of being in community, and yet to so many of us this is absolutely terrifying. In this conversation, Ginny shows her amazing skills at supporting others through navigating conflict and we give real-life examples as to how we navigated conflict in circle before - and the tools that helped us work though it.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[00:00] Introducing Ginny Muir
[07:25] Longing for Deep Intimacy
[09:45] Healing in Relationships
[11:33] Wounds and Attachment
[14:29] The Process of Rupture and Repair
[15:55] Conflict in Friendship vs Romantic Relationships
[19:55] Embracing Polarity and Diversity in All Relationships
[24:37] Triggers as an Opportunity for Self Love
[25:51] Turning Conflict into Deeper Intimacy
[27:07] Navigating conflict through the Lens of the Nervous System
[28:11] Rupture and Repair in a Retreat
[38:29] Finding Safety in Circle
[41:35] Consciously created circles and communities
[43:05] The experience of Holding Space and Trusting the Unfolding of Ceremony
[46:40] Using Circle Technologies
[52:49] Learning from Experienced Teachers
[54:32] Receiving Support through Microdosing 🍄
[56:17] Journey to Scotland & Reconnecting with the Earth Ways on the Ancestral Land
A year ago, I almost completely gave up on my work. Emerging from the early years of motherhood and feeling my creative spark again, I felt motivated to get back into the deeper aspects of my sacred work.
So, in a flash of creative impulse, I announced a new program to the world in the place we announce things these days: on Instagram. It was received mostly with a good deal of excitement and interest, and…it was also received with some intense criticism - primarily in the form of snarky comments and DMs from complete strangers who were making a lot of assumptions about me. Assumptions without curiosity. Assumptions wrapped in judgment. Over a period of 72 hours, I received wave after wave of comments that felt challenging to hold on my own.
In this episode, I tell the story of grief, shame and how being in sacred council helped me heal and grow through this experience.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction [2:45] Sharing the story of almost giving up my sacred work after receiving criticism [9:23] The divine timing of an in-person retreat weekend [9:50] Unfurling during the cacao ceremony [12:06] The power of sacred councils [15:31] Continuing despite challenges and feeling tender [16:02] The offering it all started with and hosting it again [17:16] Join BEHELD - a sacred council for space holders
In today’s episode, I am joined by Becca Rich - a trauma-sensitive, certified holistic coach with a background in engineering and mindfulness, who teaches Holistic Time Management. In today’s episode, she shares with us her wisdom on the meaning of time, the role of control, how we can honor the cyclical nature of our bodies within our digital calendars and so much more. She also coaches me on the part that grief plays in experiencing loss of time and freedom, especially with having a child.
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Resources + Links
Timestamps
[00:00] Introducing Becca Rich and her work
[07:40] Understanding & shifting our relationship with the concept of time
[11:54] Navigating time in different life seasons
[19:08] Finding satisfaction at the end of the day
[20:50] Chasing productivity and overcoming disappointment
[28:48] Embracing a digital calendar liberation practice
[35:44] Creating a weekly template
[37:45] Calibrating the calendar with menstrual cycle
[42:45] Dealing with overcommitment and overwhelm
[44:55] Respecting the cycle
[45:53] Different Levels of time privilege
[46:23] Divesting from productivity hustle culture
[47:10] Healing ancestral stories for the future
[49:37] Life is short, but life is also long
[50:00] The spiritual component of time
[50:19] The simplicity of taking a breath
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