In this conversation, we speak with ritualist, healer, and rites of passage facilitator, Kedar Brown, founder and director of the Rites of Passage Council. Our conversation meanders through a variety of soulful topics. Kedar opens the conversation with a beautiful prayer and invocation. We speak of what it means to live in a good way, to become who we are meant to be, and give our gifts to the world. We speak of the markings and indications of adulthood, and what happens in the absence of initiation. We also speak of the importance of remembering our innate ritual intelligence. We loved speaking with Kedar, and look forward to him joining as one of the guest teachers in our upcoming Men of Depth and Soul along with Francis Weller. You can find out more about Kedar and his work at ritesofpassagecouncil.org You can find more about the Men of Depth and Soul Class at embodimentmatters.com and ahealingbridge.com Kedar is the founder and director of Rites of Passage Council, an organization offering deep nature ceremonial encampments around the world. He is an internationally known ceremonialist, healer, intuitive and teacher of psychological and spiritual awareness with over thirty-five years of professional experience. Over this time Kedar has developed an effective and unique approach to emotional and spiritual healing by braiding together his depth of clinical knowledge of experiential psychotherapies with more nature based, indigenous wisdom teachings and healing methods from around the world.

In 1994 Kedar apprenticed with Steven Foster and Meredith Little at School of Lost Borders in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the form and process of the vision quest ceremony and eco-psychology. He has also apprenticed for many years with Malidoma Some, PhD, initiated elder and shaman of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, West Africa. Kedar has also had the honor and privilege to learn many valuable insights into healing from his apprenticeship with Cherokee elder and medicine person, Will Rockingbear.

"I have known Kedar for a long time as a man of spirit with remarkable devotion to healing. He tends to his duty with royalty and ferocious commitment. As a man who hears the call of Earth and Nature, Kedar extends his hand to those in quest of change and transformation and is always willing to lead them into and guide them through a deep sense of communion with themselves. Having worked with him in a number of rituals and ceremonies and watched carefully the way he gives of himself to spirit, I have come to respect his priestly devotion to the sacred in Nature and in every human. His work deserves respect and reverence."~Malidoma P. Some´ PhD. Author, Teacher & Tribal Elder of the Dagara Tribe of West Africa.

Greetings listener friends!

This is a re-release of a conversation we had with writer, teacher and soul activist, Francis Weller in 2020. We are releasing some of our favorite conversations that are connected with the themes we will be exploring in our 13-month mentoring training, Refugia, which begins in February 2026. Francis will be one of the guest teachers, along with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Alexandre Jodun and Alyona Kobevka.

We recorded this conversation just after Francis released the first version of In the Absence of the Ordinary was released as an e-book. The book was recently published in 2025, and is a beautiful collection of soulful and potent essays about the time in which we find ourselves. There is also an audio version with Francis reading that is lovely.

In this episode, recorded in May, 2020, we jump right into discussing our global circumstances as what Francis calls a Rough Initiation. We explore Francis's suggestions for responding to overwhelm: self-compassion, turning toward our feelings, being astonished by beauty, and having patience. We explore what Francis calls growing an apprenticeship with sorrow, and the possibility metabolizing our sorrows into something medicinal for soul and for community. Francis speaks to a powerful quote from human biologist Paul Shephard, that states: "The grief and sense of loss, that we often interpret as a failure in our personality, is actually a feeling of emptiness where a beautiful and strange otherness should have been encountered."

We explore this beautiful and strange otherness and so much more. We are sure you'll enjoy this beautiful conversation as much as we did. Many thanks to Francis for sharing his words and wisdom so generously.

For more information on Francis and his work, visit francisweller.net

For more information on our classes, grief rituals and Refugia program, visit embodimentmatters.com

In this episode, our dear friend and colleague, Alexandre Jodun, interviews us! Alexandre had noticed that over these last six years of the Embodiment Matters podcast, and us (Carl and Erin) interviewing so many extraordinary teachers and luminaries, that you, our dear listers, had not heard so much from us about our work, and the soul medicine we carry. So, Alexandre reached out and asked to interview us on our podcast. We loved this conversation with Alexandre so much! It felt like the three of us sitting on the porch together reflecting on all the things we love. We speak about integrating practice with family, growing community, ripening adulthood, embodying freedom, the value of grief work, and many other rich topics. We also talk about the intention and vision behind Refugia, our 13-month mentoring training that begins in February 2026, that weaves together these threads we have carried in somatics, soul-work, deep ecology, grief-tending, meditation, voice, and more, in ways that help us each become more fully ourselves, and support us each to become refugia, places where pockets of life are protected and can flourish amidst all that is collapsing and unraveling. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. You can find out more about Alexandre and his and his wife, Alyona's beautiful work at http://www.ahealingbridge.com And you can find out more about Carl and Erin's work and Refugia program at https://embodimentmatters.com/refugia/

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

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

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/

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/

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

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.

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!