Hearth & Heather

Virgo season has arrived: it’s time to keep hold of our values while also doing botanical crimes. The days grow shorter; the light dips lower. Our energy is dipping lower, too. In this episode, we talk about some of the ways that we’re learning to navigate perpetual crisis (hint: with slowness). As usual, we’re also swapping stories about the things that delight us, keep us curious, and hurt our Virgo feelings. This is a shorter conversation than usual, but we packed a lot in here! 

Mentioned in this episode:

• Episode title inspired by the book Summers End by Juneau Black
• Falling Fruit foraging app
• Jesus That’s Weird podcast
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
• Ijeoma Oluo on Instagram
• The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
• A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
• Rachel Lee-Carman’s zines
• The World of Agatha Christie 1000-piece Jigsaw
• Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, documentary
• Kathy’s Columbo Vibes playlist on Spotify
• Mother Earth's Plantasia album by Mort Garson
• The Cadfael Chronicles by Ellis Peters

Join Kathy by the fire as she talks about reframing the Slavic summer solstice ritual, Ivan Kupala, into a less binary intention-setting practice.

Mentioned in Episode
- Wolf of Coins on YouTube
- Polish Folk Witch on YouTube
- Kupala Summer Solstice Ritual from Crone Vibes

On the late winter Easter Sunday when we recorded this episode, we were feeling the accumulated weight of ongoing trauma. Somehow, acknowledging this led us into a conversation about play, and this episode ended up being a LOT of laughing. We do some digging into our videogame likes, dislikes, and style of play. We ask who is the Patrick Swayze of this era? What is the standard number of dicks in a bag of dicks? What is the American Coot, and why should you care? Tune in for the answers to these and other compelling questions. Play is resistance; play is growth; play is life. Have fun out there and share your fun with your people.

Mentioned in episode:

• Scorched Earth tarot readings on YouTube
• Games: Stardew Valley, Wylde Flowers, Horizon Forbidden West, World of Warcraft, Rift, Cookie Clicker, Spiritfarer, Baldur's Gate, Shelter, Witcher 3,  Fallout 4
• TV Shows and movies: Black Books, Young Ones, Fallout, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, The World’s End
• Star Trek training exercise: Kobayashi Maru
• Kateri’s photo of the American Coot (Instagram)

We’re bringing just-woke-up bear energy to a conversation about our intentions for the months ahead. As we think about what we want for ourselves this winter, the conversation takes us into vulnerability in play, being [un]comfortable with letting silence play out, the idea of “coolness,” and risk and authenticity in friendship. Can we use play to reach for deeper community, while still honoring our fears around being vulnerable? We also share what’s on the stove in our winter kitchens, and swear a bit. 

Mentioned in episode:

• Scorched Earth tarot readings on YouTube
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• “What Adults Forget About Friendship,” by Rhaina Cohen in The Atlantic
• “Nurturing your community through the winter” cartoon by Sophie Lucido Johnson
• Lester Bangs
• The Morale Department
• “I don’t take compliments well” cartoon by Asher Perlman

In the Northern Hemisphere, the leaves are turning, flowers are going to seed, and we’re very excited to be unpacking our cozy-times decor and blankets. Here on H&H, fall is our favorite season, and this episode is a whole snuggling vibe. Both of us did some hard work field-testing various soft products that physically and emotionally support us; we bought the stuffies and squishmallows so we could bring you the hard data. (We do it all for you, dear listeners!) As the year winds down, it’s natural to be thinking about rest, so we explore some ideas that support rest as resistance. We’re also talking about the hacks we use to lean into blanket life when it’s colder outside, how our autumn nesting is different from our spring nesting, and the foods we’re excited to be cooking and eating this season. Put the kettle on, and settle in with us.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Through the Woods Candle - R. Rebellion
• Ophidia Rosa Tarot Deck by Leila & Olive
• Lune Innate  on YouTube
• Kathy’s personal-sized 6-ring planner
• Kathy’s fav pens: Zebra Sarasa Clip 05 and WRITECH 0.5mm Fine Point Tip
• Kateri’s fav pens: Pilot G-2 .38 and Pentel SparklePop 
• Goose plushie and Beet [knockoff] Squishmallow
• Yoga Nidra
• Kindle page-turner remote 
• Fair Folk Podcast, Episode “The Twelve Days: December Almanac”
• Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell
• Joy Marie Clarkson, poet

This quarter, we’re both experiencing what it’s like to grow passively - to learn about what springs up when we leave empty space. As we explore the feeling of liminal spaces, we talk about being (recovering) people-pleasers, how we’re learning to be curious about ourselves, some tools we’re using to keep those spaces of possibility open, and the growth that happens accidentally along the way. We also talk a bit about how we met, and some ways that we’ve changed over the years. And of course, it wouldn’t be Hearth & Heather if we didn’t talk about our favorite mysteries.

Mentioned in episode:

• Real Self Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness by Pooja Lakshmin
• Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell
• Radical Remedies: An Herbalist’s Guide to Empowered Self-Care by Brittany Ducham
• “I said yes” and “I said no” punchcards from Shanalee Hampton 
• Manoj Dias on  InsightTimer and Instagram
• Comfort TV: Midnight Diner (Netflix), Columbo (Peacock TV), and Poker Face (Peacock TV)
• Annika Hansteen-Izora
• Cook as You Are: Recipes for Real Life, Hungry Cooks, and Messy Kitchens by Ruby Tandoh

We’re still very much in conversation with time this spring. On this episode of Hearth & Heather, we’re looking at time through the lens of our hobbies. We talk about the living nature of the spoken word, and the way that boating on a river can shift a small slice of landscape into a big, slow, and contemplative world. Kathy shares what she’s been experiencing recently in her experiments with art; Kateri gives an update on her #AnnWoodStitchBook 100 Day sewing project. And we talk about the hobbies that we share, and how feeding your joy can spread joy to other people. 

Mentioned in this episode:

•  Underland: A Deep Time Journey and Landmarks, both by Robert Macfarlane
•  The People of the Sea by David Thomson
• Poetry readings by Anis Mojgani, the current Poet Laureate of Oregon
•  Normal Gossip podcast
•  @farmandfolk on Instagram
•  Negative Painting with watercolor tutorial from Harinder Sahota
• Kateri’s birding binoculars: Vortex 8x42 Diamondback HD Binoculars 
• Kathy’s birding camera and telephoto lens: Canon EOS Rebel SL3 DSLR + Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM Lens
•  The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson
•  @folk_hattie on Instagram
•  Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell
•  Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
•  Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit
•  Getting to Center by Marlee Grace
•  Murder She Drank and the  Murder Buddies Book Club 
•  Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon
•  The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St James
• “The Watering” by Sameen Affaf 

Small moments of fables, stories, and poems with Kathy and Kateri, sprinkled among our quarterly podcast episodes. In this mini-episode, Kathy tells her variation of the folk tale of Baba Yaga and Vasilisa, mainly based on how her grandmother told it to her, with a few dashes of the feminist re-tellings she read as an adult.

This story does not tell a neat tale of bending all things to our will just by trying hard enough. It is more a tale of trusting yourself and knowing that some seemingly impossible tasks may just need faith and thought around them. With this trust, the unknown does not have to be walked into with fear; it can become an ally. Approach with a willingness to embrace mystery.

As we’re in the year-long month of January, it seems like the perfect opportunity to dig into the subjective nature of time. We talk about how time has slowed for both of us recently, and we reflect on some of the ways we’re experiencing that and what it means for us. We also explore creative projects we’ve encountered about how to mark time. There’s also some casual chat about perfectionism and how we’re letting arbitrary expectations slip away from us, so look out for that. And Kathy has some really, really good tips on kid stuff that is super fun for the self-parenting grownup.

Mentioned in episode:

• Ezra Klein Show,“ Time is Way Weirder Than You Think ”
•  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience  by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Cyanotypes and phenology wheels
•  6 of Pentacles/Diamonds 
•  Sleep Baseball  podcast
•  “How black pepper sedates marijuana paranoia,” Chicago Tribune
•  Sophie Wood Brinker  (heron bumper sticker)
•  adrienne maree brown’s Instagram 
•  Bella Luna Toys 
•  Ann Wood 100 day stitch project 
•  Fair Folk podcast 

Small moments of fables, stories, and poems with Kathy and Kateri, sprinkled among our quarterly podcast episodes. In this mini-episode, Kateri reads two poems for Winter Solstice: "Burning the Old Year" by Naomi Shihab Nye and "To Know the Dark" by Wendell Berry.