Grief Magic: Rituals, Tarot & Creativity for Seasons of Loss

Hey everyone, I am sorry for the unexpected podcasting pause! Much has happened in the world, I have moved to a new home and I just didn't have the headspace to edit & upload a new episode in a little while. But I am back and excited to share thoughts and conversations in this way. Today I am sending a wonderful interview with Allison Carr to you - she recently wrote a really touching zine called Sovereign and so around that we explored finding our own truth, questioning authority and teachers and connecting with our bodies. Allison shared what somatic practices mean to her, what kind of experiences she has made in healing trauma and she also gave us a really great intro to poly-vagal theory. I am really excited to share this as the first episode of autumn and I think as we go into the darker part of the year in the Northern hemisphere there is so much to explore and treasure here. Enjoy! 

Allison Carr is a queer witch, healer, writer, mother and licensed acupuncturist, currently living on the traditional territories of the of the Tanana Dene peoples, also known as Alaska. She is a 10th generation settler of Scottish, German and Scandinavian descent and is sustained by the land she lives on and her relationship with the plants that grow there. She is the creator of the Sacred Wheel Podcast, author of the memoir zine: Sovereign, and offers online sessions in compassionate witnessing and somatic regulation, as well as an online class about regulating your nervous system and the occasional class about magic. Find out more about her at http://allisoncarr.net Instagram: @allisoncarrmagic Resilience Course: https://resiliencecrashcourse.teachery.co/the-resilience-course Order the Zine: https://allisoncarr.net/the-sovereign-zine-order-page/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, I'm happy to be back with a beautiful interview episode - I talked to Katherine May (a fellow writer!) about her book Wintering, our experience of the pandemic, the creative process and many other interesting things. I dropped deep into her writing this summer and read her book in just three sittings, which is magic in pandemic attention span terms. I hope you'll receive some comfort and inspiration from hearing about her thoughts too! Here is some of what we explored:  - What it means to accept seasons if Wintering - Being a wild swimmer and how it is the best thing ever - Being with the truth of loss, disappointment and failure - Self-acceptance and finding your people after an autism diagnosis later in life - Writing anti-self-help books Katherine May is an author of fiction and memoir whose titles include Wintering, The Electricity of Every Living Thing, The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club, The 52 Seductions, Burning Out, and Ghosts & Their Uses. She is the editor of The Best, Most Awful Job, an anthology of essays about motherhood. Her journalism and essays have appeared in a range of publications including The Times, The Observer, Good Housekeeping and Aeon. Previously the Programme Director for Creative Writing at Canterbury Christ Church University, Katherine currently works as a literary scout for Lucy Abrahams Literary Scouting and a freelance editor for organisations including Faber Academy and Audible. She lives in Whitstable, Kent with her husband and son. Twitter.com/_katherine_may_ instagram.com/katherinemay_ www.katherine-may.co.uk 

 Here is my book Rituals, which I mentioned in the intro: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/book/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, I'm so happy to send this interview with Sheree Mack your way - it's been beautiful to talk to her and I got so much inspiration from the way she approaches creativity, nature and life in general. Here is some of what we talked about:  

My practice manifests through poetry, storytelling, image and the unfolding histories of black people. I engage audiences around black women’s voices and bodies, black feminism, ecology and memory. I facilitate national and international creative workshops and retreats in the landscape, encouraging and supporting women on their journey of remembrance back to their authentic selves. I'm currently writing a mixed-genre memoir around a black woman's body with/in Nature. As the Project Coordinator for a Heritage Lottery Funded project, I’ve been working with Northumberland National Park Authority, Durham Wildlife Trust and the National Trust, to offer opportunities to BAME communities to spend time outdoors to develop and deepen our relationship with nature. https://www.patreon.com/shereemack https://earthsealove.com/ 

As promised here is the link to my book: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/book/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey loved readers, I am feeling both shy and excited about this one, I am reading from my first book called Rituals - simple & radical practices for enchantment in times of crisis. I'm also sharing a few little life updates and a preview of my upcoming journaling program DREAM. If you like you can buy my book here: www.yarrowmagdalena.com/book/ and if you have a minute I would also totally appreciate a review

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, happy Friday! I'm bringing you a really nourishing and inspiring conversation with Quai Nystrom - we recorded it in mid March and it kind of feels like my last "normal" recording, it reminds me of #lastnormalpicture on instagram. I really love Quai's work, their approach to gentle & active participation in our day to day healing and all the wisdom they have to share about plants. I hope you'll get as much out of listening as I did! Here is some of what we talked about:  

Quai (they/she*) is an herbalist, psychotherapist and perpetual learner. Their work focuses on healing trauma, easing anxiety and discovering the connectedness of emotional experience and bodies. In other words, she believes that if you want to adequately address struggles then you can’t talk about emotional experience without including the body. In their herbalism practice, Quai seeks to go to the roots. This means tending to the inner layers of each individual while applying awareness of what they navigate in the outer world. She tunes into identity, lived experiences and culture. Additionally, Quai’s work considers the resources and relationships to others and the environment that each person brings. Quai has been offering counseling and therapy for over 15 years and herbalism for the past 4. As an herbalist craft, ritual and utility inspires them to be a plant-person matchmaker. Quai is based in New York City, but her herbal work is sometimes done remotely. They aim to reach those who are interested in care-full, conscious use of botanicals and practices that go slow in order to go deep. *Quai uses both they and she pronouns to honor androgynous, fluid and feminine aspects of their personhood. If this is new to you, you can read up on gender queer, non-binary, and gender fluid identities to learn more. http://discoverspace.me/

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, happy Friday! I'm coming your way with a short solo episode - a few announcements about my book and upcoming programs as well as some resources and thoughts about staying engaged in anti-racism work beyond the current wave of protest. It's great that so many more of us are joining in conversations and in action and I hope that we can work together to make sure this movement is never dying down again. I'm talking a bit about how I would like to do better for the podcast, what has helped me stay engaged and also I would like to share a bunch of resources with you:  

Books I mentioned: Why I no longer talk about race with white people by Reni Eddo-Lodge, My grandmother's hands by Resmaa Menakem, The Colour Purple by Alice Walker as well as Pleasure Activism and Emergent Stategy by adrienne maree brown.  

I also mentioned Black Minds Matter UK http://blackmindsmatter.co.uk/and the How to survive the end of the world podcast: https://www.endoftheworldshow.org/ Black owned bookshops & other businesses to support: https://www.ukblackowned.co.uk/ A reading from "The Well" by brontë velez on the for the wild podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20NFKSfxEcI ...this is just a small start, I am committed to bringing you more conversations and resources to continue this work.  Thank you for listening! 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, I hope you're safe and okay and that you are supporting the fight against police violence and anti-blackness wherever you are in any way you can. I'm sending a beautiful conversation about tending to grief in times of crisis with Shauna Janz your way. It was so good to listen back to it just now and I'm just really grateful to be able to share it with you. Here is some of what we talked about:  

Shauna Janz (she/her) is dedicated to tending belonging in our world - within ourselves, with each other, and with our other-than-human relations. She creates space for reaching into the rough and beautiful places that are a catalyst for transformation and healing, personally and collectively, through grief work, embodiment, ritual and ancestral healing. Shauna has been serving individuals, families, communities and organizations since 2008, and recently launched an online school of Sacred Grief. Her offerings are trauma-informed, somatic-based and anchored in the resiliency of the human spirit, healing justice and animist values. She resides in Victoria, BC, on the west coast of Canada - traditional lands of the Coast Salish people. She is a lover of inspiration and creativity, and can be found dancing, playing music, and walking in the wilds of nature and mystical communion. Her ancestors are from the lands of Scot Celtic, northern Germanic and Nordic cultures. www.shaunajanz.com www.sacredgrief.com We mentioned my zine called Our Bodies as Anti Capitalist Business Mentors which you can sign up for for free alongside a summer workshop series on small business mentors that I am offering here: https://yarrowdigital.com/free-workshops/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey sweet listeners, thank you so much for joining me for another episode! It's my honour to bring you a conversation with Adrienne Sloan, who spoke so beautifully about things that really matter to me right now. I hope this episode will bring you some joy and comfort as you go about your day.  I also want to say that I am in full support of the protests against police violence and that I hope 2020 will be a year of lasting change beyond what we can imagine right now. I know my work as a white person isn't done by just naming my solidarity and I'm committed to showing up in better ways now and in the future. I'm currently completing my book Rituals and am therefore taking a break from social media, but I'll be back soon.  Here is some of what Adrienne and I talked about:  

Adrienne Sloan is a child of the 70’s, a wanderer between worlds who holds space for visionaries and creatives to embody connection with their ancestors and their deep-time kin. She is dedicated to the unraveling of human-centered narratives through exploration in the imaginal realms. Adrienne is the granddaughter of Jean Lorraine, Elizabeth Ann, Dorothy, Netta, Jenny, and Paloma. https://adriennesloan.com/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, I hope this episode with the wonderful Emily Cross finds you well and safe. I really, really loved talking to Emily about her work as an end of life doula and a facilitator of living funeral ceremonies. Our conversation covers things like fear of death, natural burials, living with embodied death awareness and what it's like to participate in one of her living funeral ceremonies. If you feel curious and open to thinking about your own mortality and are in the right place to engage with thoughts around death I think you might really enjoy listening to this episode. If you like you can also consider joining the next virtual ceremony on June 5th, the link is below and here is a video that will give you a better idea of what to expect: https://youtu.be/da_NJjqwGtw 

Emily Cross is an end-of-life doula, musician, and artist living in Austin, TX. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where her visual artwork centered around mortality and loss, she moved to Austin and quickly became integrated within the arts and music scene. In 2015 she decided to pursue a career serving the dying, and earned professional certifications from the University of Vermont and from Quality of Life Care. She established Steady Waves End of Life Services in 2017 and brings her unique set of skills to her work with the dying and their families. You can sign up for the virtual living funeral ceremony on June 5th here: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=15983494&appointmentType=14314217 https://steadywaveseol.com/ https://www.virtuallivingfuneral.com/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey friends,

I hope you are safe and doing as okay as you can <3 I loved listening back to this episode with Alexis J. Cunningfolk – their work is so comforting to be around and continues to inspire my own practices. We recorded this last year, which now feels forever ago, and so much of what Alexis shared feels extremely  immediate and important today. Here is some of what we talked about:

Alexis J. Cunningfolk (she/they) is the intersectional herbalist and witch behind Worts + Cunning Apothecary. She is dedicated to the re-enchantment of the world and helps folks to re-member themselves back home to their magick through herbal healing, magickal arts, and sound therapies both ancestral and modern. Her work is informed by her queerness, mxd ancestry, and the fact that they’re a young hag just waiting for time to catch up. They host online and in-person courses for starry-hearted healers as well as offering in-person services grounded in building communities of inclusivity and justice. Connect to free resources and more at wortsandcunning.com.

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//