“Life prays for life – and life grows from desire and love. The whole world is praying for love.” These are words from Perdita Finn’s beautiful new book, Mothers of Magic.

In this episode, Perdita Finn shares with us her expansive views on the many mothers. She talks about mother “not as an individual identity but as a collective reality” and dreams of a world where we all feel deeply mothered, not by one individual but by the whole world.

Our conversation includes topics like:

• The many mothers

• Appetite, desire, & eros

• Learning what is enough

• Prayer ~ it’s gifts and shadows

• Dreaming about the world we want

• The magic of the mothers

It was such a joy to have Perdita back on the podcast ~ I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Join the waitlist for my courses starting this fall

Gathering Bones Course

Wild Sovereignty Course

Send me a message

Check out my Substack, The Mythic Fig

Buy my book about Eve and Creative Transgression: The Flesh & The Fruit

Connect more with Perdita:

Buy her new book: Mothers of Magic

Visit her website

Check out her Substack

 Join her on Instagram

Perdita Finn is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World and Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors. She is the co-founder with her husband Clark Strand of The Way of the Rose, an international fellowship of beings dedicated to the earth, the rosary, and the Lady by any name you want to call Her. They are co-authors of the book of the same name. They live with their family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains.

What does it mean to experience myth as a living practice?

In this episode, mythologist Maria Souza and I explore this question. Maria shares her profound wisdom and insight around the power of old stories to bring depth and meaning into our everyday lives. In our conversation we explore myth as:

• spiritual practice

• door for our initiations

• way toward self-belonging and sovereignty

• connection with the more-than-human world

• invitation and opening to wilder questions

In the second part of our conversation, Maria tells us the Brazilian story of Jaci and Naia and we explore with this story together, diving into its complexity and metaphoric wisdom.

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If you want to listen to the story of Bluebeard, you can listen here.

Bluebeard and the Power of Disobedience

And if you want another story, you can listen to the episode on the Ugly Duckling here.

Wild Belonging and the Ugly Duckling

Join the waitlist for my courses and you will be the first to know when enrollment doors open for the fall courses.

More about Maria:

Maria Souza is a Comparative Mythologist, Poet, Educator, and Narrative Therapy Practitioner whose work explores the enduring relevance of myth, symbol, and story in contemporary life. Drawing from the fields of mythology, history, depth psychology, and spirituality, she offers a multidisciplinary approach to understanding ancient narratives and their significance for modern life.

She holds a postgraduate degree in Comparative Mythology from Instituto Dedalus, a Master’s degree in Ecology and Spirituality from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), and an Advanced Training Certificate in Applied Mythology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her academic and professional work bridges scholarship and practice, supporting women in engaging myth as a living tradition.

Connect with Maria and learn more about her work

What is archetypal polytheism and what does it mean in daily life?

In this solo episode, I continue this series on cultivating a mythic sensibility and engaging the mythic imagination in everyday life.

Topics I talk about in this episode include:

• What are archetypes?/archetypal theory

• Our obsession with “The One”

• The perils of the Salvational Fantasy

• What I mean by archetypal polytheism

• The significance of mythic figures

• Ways of practicing archetypal polytheism in daily life

• How archetypal polytheism can increase our felt sense and practice of wild belonging

Also, if you want to be the first to know when enrollment doors open for my courses that start this fall ~ Gathering Bones & Wild Sovereignty ~ join the waitlist and I will keep you posted.

For more information on me and my work, and to send me a message visit my website.

www.drvanyaleilani.com

Books to help you explore mythic figures through an archetypal approach:

Pagan Meditations by Ginette Paris

The Goddess by Christine Downing

The Flesh and the Fruit by Vanya Leilani

In this solo episode, I elaborate and deepen into what it means to live with a mythic sensibility and to weave the worlds of the mundane and the mythic as we live our daily lives.

I also talk about:

• The primacy of the wild imagination

• Exploring the invisible world from different perspectives

• Examples of weaving the worlds together

• How a mythic sensibility remembers us back to our wild belonging

• The problem of exile and dismemberment from the mythic

• Ways we can begin to cultivate a mythic sensibility

During this series on the mythic sensibility and mythic imagination, I invite you to let me know how this is landing with you and if you have any themes or questions that you might want me to address here on the podcast. I would love to hear from you! You can send me a message here.

Also, if you want to be the first to know when enrollment doors open for my courses that start this fall ~ Gathering Bones & Wild Sovereignty ~ join the waitlist and I will keep you posted!

We can also connect through The Mythic Fig, my Substack publication.

You can also visit my website at www.drvanyaleilani.com

What does it mean to live with a mythic sensibility?

We are starting the new season of Belonging to the Wild with another wonderful conversation with Dr Thomas Moore. In this conversation, we explore what it means to live with a mythic sensibility. Our conversation includes themes like:

·      what it means to have a mythic sensibility

·      the difference between myth and mythology

·      the importance of psychological polytheism

·      the dangers of mythic fundamentalism

·      the myths in daily life

Dr. Moore also tells us about his new book, The Cure at Walden Pond, and talks about the ways that Henry David Thoreau lived his life with a profound sense of myth.

Thomas Moore published his classic Care of the Soul in 1992 and has since written twenty books on spirituality, sexuality, myth, religion and depth psychology. His books have been translated into thirty languages. He has taught religious studies and psychology and has been a psychotherapist for over 30 years. He often speaks at C. G. Jung societies and has done special work consulting at major medical centers with the idea of bringing soul to medicine. He was a close friend and collaborator with James Hillman and published an anthology of Hillman’s work with extensive introductions and commentaries. He writes fiction and music and has a special relationship with Ireland, the home of his ancestors. He lives in New England.

Find our more about Dr. Thomas Moore

Buy his new book!

Join the waitlist for my fall courses and be the first to know when enrollment doors open!Send me a message or question ~ I would love to hear from you!Visit my website to learn more about my work

In this episode, Mackenzie Amara and I explore the idea of cultivating a secure existential attachment. We talk about what that means and explore what it feels like to have a secure attachment to source, life, or existence itself.

In this fascinating conversation, we also explore themes of love and shame, the experience of spiritual bypass, and what Joseph Campbell really meant when he encouraged us to follow our bliss.

We talk about the experience of gods dying and being born, as well as the necessity of living with what Mackenzie calls “crucifying paradoxes.”

Mackenzie Amara is a writer, researcher, consultant, & 5Rhythms® teacher. She is a Diploma Candidate at the International School of Analytical Psychology in Zurich, training to become a Jungian analyst, and she is a clinical psychology doctoral student at Saybrook University in Oakland, CA. She holds a Master's degree in Clinical & Counseling Psychology from Columbia University & a Bachelor's degree in Psychology & Spiritual Experience with a minor in Child & Adolescent Psychology from New York University. She is certified in Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy (The New School & Center for Optimal Living), 5Rhythms® (The Moving Center), and Holistic Psychology (The Open Center). Her research interests include psychedelic psychotherapy, psychedelic integration, dream analysis, mythology & symbolism in clinical practice, and the application of nondual teachings to human growth. 

Connect with Mackenzie:

Website

Substack

IG

Upcoming retreat

Connect with Vanya:

Website

Join the Belonging to the Wild Collective

Contact Vanya

Instagram

Download free eBook: A Guide to Leaving the Obedient Life

In this conversation, Perdita Finn and I talk about the generosity of the long stories of our souls, explore what it means to have meaningful relationship with the dead, and circle around deep questions of belonging and connection.

Acknowledging that our species often feels lonely, bereft, and disconnected, Perdita invites us to wonder about what it would be like to live in an “economy of prayer.”

She asks this beautiful question: How would we live if we all remembered we have been each others mothers?

Her work invites us into a sense of deep belonging with all beings ~ human and more-than-human, living and dead.

Perdita Finn is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World and the forthcoming Mother Spell: Summoning the Love at the Heart of the World. She is the co-founder with her husband Clark Strand of The Way of the Rose, an international fellowship of beings dedicated to the earth, the rosary, and the Lady by any name you want to call Her. They are co-authors of the book of the same name. They live with their family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains. 

You can connect more with Perdita and her work at here:

https://takebackthemagic.com/

https://wayoftherose.org/

IG: @perditafinn

Join the Belonging to the Wild Collective

Connect with Vanya

Sign up for Vanya’s Letters

Download free eBook: A Guide to Leaving the Obedient Life

In this episode, Amy Wilding joins me in this wonderful conversation about finding inner permission, cultivating body sovereignty, and decolonizing our inner landscapes as we walk into more fullness and freedom.

Amy shares about how her body led her into a powerful awakening of her wise and wild knowing. We talk about ways patriarchal consciousness uses our disconnection from our bodies as a tool of oppression, emphasizing the importance of body autonomy and cyclical literacy.

As we weave our way through this conversation, we explore the significance of finding the voice of our pleasure and honoring what feels good right now as powerful ways of knowing, guidance, and liberation.

Amy has been leading women's circles and mother-daughter circles in the Louisville area for over 15 years. Her soul work is, first and foremost, dismantling patriarchy by creating safe spaces for women to access their wild wisdom and reclaim their inherent power. She supports people of all ages in cultivating body sovereignty, cycle literacy, and empowered embodiment. She is passionate about guiding menstruators in connecting with their inherent wisdom, and unlearning the shame and taboo related to our amazing, powerful bodies.

Amy is a queer and inclusive feminist, author, and National Board Certified Integrative Women's Health Coach. Her first first book, Wild & Wise: Sacred Feminine Meditations for Women's Circles & Personal Awakening, was published in 2017, and her next book, Period of Change: Welcoming Your Daughter's Period with Care and Confidence will be launched in March of 2026.

Ways to connect with Amy:

www.periodofchange.com

www.redtentlouisville.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/amywildingofficial

Insta: www.instagram.com/amywildingofficial

Insta: www.instagram.com/periodofchange

Ways to connect with Vanya:

www.drvanyaleilani.com

IG: @drvanyaleilani

Download Vanya's free eBook, A Guide to Leaving the Obedient Life

Check out Belonging to the Wild Collective

Order Vanya's book, The Flesh & The Fruit

In this conversation, Dr. Thomas Moore and I explore the experience of creative transgression and the relationship between Eros and transgression. Deeply grounded in the archetypal sensibility and perspective, we discuss the role of obedience and disobedience in the soulful life and the importance of being faithful to the creativedaimon.

In this intimate conversation, Dr. Moore shares his views on what he calls “imaginal theology” and what it means to live in spiritual sovereignty.

Thomas Moore is the author ofCare of the Soul, a bestseller on the New York Times list for almost a year. Since then he has written thirty books on matters of soul and spirit. He lectures in many parts of the world, recently online in Rome, Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Malta, Russia, Serbia, the United States, and Canada. In those years he has also been a psychotherapist influenced mainly by C. G. Jung and James Hillman, his close friend for four decades. He has won many awards, including an honorary doctorate from Lesley University and the 2003 Humanitarian Award from Einstein Medical School. He has been an archetypal analyst and an unaffiliated theologian. Thomas’s most recent book is The Eloquence of Silence.

Thomas Moore's website

Vanya's Book: The Flesh & The Fruit

Download Vanya's Free eBook: A Guide to Leaving the Obedient Life

In this conversation, Ben tells us the story of realizing that at some point his heart had snuck out the back door. In that moment he heard these powerful words: “if you don’t have your heart you have nothing.” He tells us about how this experience launched him into a mythic quest to find his heart again, a journey he shares in his book The Way Home.

We talk about his experiences with synchronicities, vision quests, and the power of images to guide us on our mythic journeys. We explore practices that help us find our heart and Ben encourages us to find practices that “we feel charm around” as we court our hearts back to the center of our lives.

Ben Katt is a meditation teacher, hospice chaplain, and coach. He is the author of THE WAY HOME: Discovering the Hero’s Journey to Wholeness at Midlife. Ben teaches meditation in prisons and facilitates wellbeing experiences for companies and organizations. He is a certified advanced meditation teacher, holds a Master of Divinity degree, and is a former ordained minister. He lives in Milwaukee, WI with his wife and three children.

website: www.benjaminkatt.com

book link: thewayhomebook.com

IG: @akabenkatt

Here is the episode with Cherie that I mentioned:

Sexuality, Spirituality, and Self-Belonging with Cherie Katt

I would love to connect with you!

Website: www.drvanyaleilani.com

Check out my new book: The Flesh and the Fruit

Download my free eBook:

A Guide for Leaving the Obedient Life

Offerings in The School of Wild Knowing

Find me on Instagram @drvanyaleilani