This episode of Belonging is a swapcast with Kathryn Fink of The Heart is a Cauldron. Kathryn believes in a world where each of us lives in deep connection — with our wild soul, our purpose, and our place in the wondrous web of being. To magic this world into reality, they sew an untamed array of seeds into the soil of their work as a mentor, podcaster, and queer mystic — weaving together animist ethics and enchantment, trauma-informed Buddhist psychology, transformational coaching, reverence for the mythic spirit and ancestral folkways, a devotion to justice, and a lifetime of living in the liminal.Together in this episode, we talk about the tender and vulnerable ways we have learned about belonging, belonging as a radical antidote to Empire, the perversion of belonging in toxic religious spaces, finding belonging and sacred connection in the places churches have been built (atop ancient sacred sites), what we've learned about belonging through podcasting, approaching belonging when someone disagrees with you, how to find belonging in a time such as this, and creating personal rituals and living practices around grief.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/kathryn-fink/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Kathryn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

Lara Veleda Vesta is back on the Belonging podcast, continuing the threads of our conversation from a couple years ago and introduce her new book, Wild Soul Runes: Reawakening the Ancestral Feminine.Lara is an artist, author, storyteller, and educator transforming chronic illness into a path of healing and reclaiming. Her research interests include ancestral connection and disability as initiation. She shares her journey with mythtelling, folk magic, ancestor lore, and ritual practice with her Patreon community and through classes at the Wild Soul School.Together in this episode, we talk about Lara's process with writing and illustrating her new book and getting the book deal, what are the runes and where did they come from, being in relationship with ancestral tools, how to work with Lara's book Wild Soul Runes,the journey to spiritual sovereignty, and finding spirituality amidst chronic illness and disability.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/wild-soul-runes/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Lara on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veledavesta/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

Megan McGuire is a mother, partner, permaculture gardener, and ritual weaver living on the lands of the Dakota people near Kaposia. Her ancestors have tended the Mississippi River for many generations, and she continues to steward this river in her day job as a biologist with the federal government. Megan is on a long journey to reclaim the earth-honoring practices of her European ancestors — especially their seasonal rituals and holy days — and to wed these practices to her local bioregion. She seeks to belong herself to the land and waters through devotion, ritual, and activism.Together we talk about finding belonging to the land you live on as a mother, teaching children about death and including them in grieving to allow them the opportunity to have a relationship with the dead, mothering as ritual, spiritual connection, and ancestor veneration, detangling from harmful aspects of Religion, and bringing ancestral European birth traditions to the modern day.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/megan-mcguire/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Megan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forest.whisperer/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

We are living in a time of collective trauma and that is exactly what I'm talking about with my guest, Rachael Maddox, in this episode of Belonging.Rachael Maddox is a trauma resolution educator, coach, and guide who’s helped hundreds of humans move from sexual, complex or developmental trauma into pleasure, power, and trust-filled relationships. Rachael teaches and mentors other coaches, healers, and therapists who are devoted to trauma-informed, radically inclusive, pleasure-positive approaches to changing lives and culture.Together in this episode, we talk about how we are living inside prolonged panic of collective trauma right now, how to define secure attachment through a somatic/nervous system lens, how to tune into our range of resilience and regulation, how we begin to build stories and identities around our physiological responses and the collective trauma bonding we're having with folks who have similar trauma responses, post-traumatic growth, feeling the collective need for collective grieving, finding the smallest way to mobilize, the desire for revillaging and what makes it so difficult in practice, and finding our center of sovereignty in order to truly be in regenerative community and building it at the right scale.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/rachael-maddox/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Rachael on Instagram: http://instagram.com/rachaelmaddox/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

MaryBeth Bonfiglio joins me on this episode of the Belonging podcast to talk about the many commonalities we have in our ancestral connection work and lives. MaryBeth is a writer and a practitioner of ancestral folk magic of her ancestors (from Sicily and mainland Italy). She is deeply devoted to knowing and understanding her roots and learning their ancient and not-so-ancient ways of being together, and with the land. She also gathers people on her ancestral land of Sicily to anchor in the earth, village practices, food stories, ancestral arts, dance, music, and celebration—all within community.Together we talk about feeling (un)belonging where you live and finding a sense of home, how to live in apology and do the repair work when it's hard to stay on colonized land, connecting to ancestral lands as a relational experience, and coming back to the "why" of ancestral connection.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/marybeth-bonfiglio/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow MaryBeth on Instagram: http://instagram.com/marybethbonfiglioFollow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

This episode really feels like I'm inviting you into my home and into a relationship that has been really vital and nourishing to me and that is with Bethany Gurrola of Alma Rising.Bethany is my post-partum doula, but as we talk about in this episode, the relationship and support system we're building is really so much more than that. It's built on a real sense of reciprocity. So in this ongoing exploration of what it means to be in deep community, grieving the loss of the village, and navigating a way back to re-villaging, Bethany and I realized that something about what's happening between us feels like we're on the right track.So together we talk about the nature of this relationship and the importance of doula support for everyone in a variety of important life moments. We talk about boundaries and self-care in doula work, reciprocity of energy within Capitalism, how doula care ripples outward into your community, the difference between nannies and doulas, dreaming forward better medical support — for queer, nonbinary, trans, Black, and Indigenous folks and families, and teen moms, and working with the youth to set change in motion and foster emotional intelligence from a formative age.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/bethany-gurrola/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Bethany on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alma_rising_doulacare/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

This conversation is another tender one for me. I find as I'm navigating these initial months of motherhood (and in the absence of being able to have lots of community come over to my house), I'm having the essential conversations here on the podcast.The wonderful Jessie Harrold joins me in this episode to talk about major life transitions and the skills we need to traverse change. Jessie is a coach, women's mentor, and doula who has been supporting women through radical life transformations and other rites of passage for over a decade. She works one-on-one with women and mothers, facilitates mentorship programs, women’s circles and rituals, and hosts retreats and wilderness quests.Together we talk about "arriving" at motherhood as an identity, how major life transitions (like motherhood and loss of a family member) make painfully clear that we as a society don't know how to show up for each other, the skills we need to learn as a society to traverse change better, learning how to ask for community care and learning how to extend care without being asked, the tension that can arise in asking for and navigating community care, nonlinear reciprocity, practices around major life transitions, and the invitation to create new culture.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/jessie-harrold/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Jessie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessie.es.harrold/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

Today on the Belonging podcast, I am joined by Rachelle Garcia Seliga. Rachelle is a Mother, Wife, and Midwife who has spent the past 18 years working with women and families, in service to woman-centered/ family-centered birth, health, and Life. She is deeply invested in the revitalization of community living as the most important medicine of our times. All of her work is dedicated to midwifing a cultural shift — honoring our innate wisdom, personal authority, and the sanctity of Life.This conversation with Rachelle was one I deeply needed to have in one of the hardest weeks of my postpartum journey. Her words really land deeply with me, and I truly don't think you need to have given birth or have a child to feel the depth and the urgency of this conversation. Together we talk about defining midwifery as the original tenders to community care, the unavoidable grief at the repair work we as a global community must do to tend to birthing folk and re-village, returning to our biology to break the cycle of dis-ease, pathology treatment vs. care-taking, the importance of the exo-gestation period (aka postpartum), how to begin the process of re-villaging and creating a regenerative future, and honoring the mother.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/rachelle-garcia-seliga/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Rachelle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/innatetraditions/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

I get so many questions about working with the moon, so I could think of no one better than the Moon Witch herself, Sarah Faith Gottesdiener, to join me on the Belonging podcast and talk about moon work.Sarah is a queer artist, teacher, business owner, and psychic tarot reader. She has written, edited, and distributed 10 books about the moon (you many know them as the Many Moons workbooks). Her most recent and comprehensive book, The Moon Book: Lunar Magic to Change Your Life, came out in December 2020.Together in this episode, we talk about being in a dark moon time (I usually call this a winter time) and the cauldron of profound transformation where you need to be okay with not knowing what comes next. We also talk about disentangling your creations from systems of oppression, moon work as energy work, becoming stewards of our energy, the moon as a reflector vs. the moon as a projector, the sacredness of grief, and resisting scarcity mindset — all with the foundation and guidance of the moon.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/sarah-gottesdiener/My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Sarah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gottesss/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/

In my first interview back after having my babe, it feels so fitting to be talking to the delightful Nic Strack as I begin to navigate the parent path.Nic (pronouns they/them) is a Whole Human Parenting Coach, supporting parents to honor and embrace the fullness of their own & their child’s humanity. In working with Nic, folks have opportunities to cultivate self-awareness in order to live and parent in alignment with their integrity.Nic got me thinking about parenting and re-parenting, and I'm finding there's such a deeper piece in their work — in reflection of self and the way we operate and lead ourselves in the world that is a reflection on the way we were parented and the way we want to show up for each other in the world (whether that's for our children or otherwise).In this episode, we talk about how parenting relates to self-parenting and harboring resentment of how you were or were not raised — and then how to find compassion through all of that. We talk about seeing something as a problem that needs to be fixed vs. something to be with, and then getting precise about what you're actually experiencing when faced with discomfort. And we also talk about navigating the gender binary for your children and checking yourself when you're projecting in your parenting.Find show notes for this episode here: https://beccapiastrelli.com/nic-strack/ My book Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self is now available wherever books are sold! My intention with this book is for it to be your guide to reconnecting with the earth, your ancestors, and your communities as you come home to your whole self. Despite our best efforts, our modern world leaves so many of us feeling isolated, unworthy, and alone. We’re unrooted from the land, untethered from our lineages, disconnected from our communities, and separated from our deepest sense of self. Root & Ritual is meant to be a pathway back to connection and wholeness through rituals, recipes, and ancestral wisdom. Find more information at: http://rootandritualbook.com/Follow Nic on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicstrack/Follow Becca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapiastrelli/