Mystics in the Matrix

In this episode the brilliant Anasuya 'Too Much' Isaacs shares with us about her journey to find the Feminine Face of God that led her across the globe, exploring multiple faith traditions, in search of the MOTHER. She shares the full circle revelations that led her to a mystical form of Hinduism robust with the Divine Feminine, and then back to the Christian tradition - one that was rooted in the voices and stories of women who were the foundation of early Christianity. The re-birthing eve!

We also speak about the story of women over the ages, from the oppression and burning of women in Europe, to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the many ways in which we have been divided and separated, naming the systems and structures that have created the current situation we find ourselves in. Anasuya shares her desire for women to know and embody their worth and just how phenomenal they really are, which is at the heart of her call to heal the sisterhood!

In Part 2 of our conversation, we will dive more into what healing the sisterhood looks like in our current culture (North American) in which we live in the aftermath of colonization, oppression is still very alive and very real, and there is a deep need for acknowledgment, repair, awareness, softening of the heart, and being able to see each other as fully  divine human beings.

To learn more about Anasuya's work with women check out the course she is current offering - Unapologetically Too Much with Anasuya

Anasuya's Bio:

Anasuya Isaacs is a globetrotting Alchemical Transformation Coach Trainer, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Writer, and Painter. As a Cultural Ambassador, she has developed empowerment programs for people to speak the unspeakable, love their broken selves and own their innate power by combining the power of storytelling, empathy and the creative arts/theater to teach the power of Words to manifest your desired outcomes now. She has empowered Women and young people through her programs all across New York City as a Teaching Artist as well as in France, Kenya, Italy, South Africa and Germany. Trained in the Stanislavsky Method of acting in Paris, France, Anasuya co-founded a theater company in Paris with friends to perform classical French theater in the Commedia dell’Arte style. Returning to the States, she continued as an actress in her own plays and as a spoken word artist. As a lover of words, she has edited and been included in several anthologies of poetry and essays.

As an advocate for women’s leadership, Anasuya is also a Certified and Licensed WomanSpeak Circle Leader, facilitating the unleashing of the brilliance of women’s voices as public speakers. This training expands Anasuya’s healing offering to women and children  ready to liberate their voices stolen by trauma from rape, sex trafficking, sexual and physical abuse. As a Certified Intentional Creativity Teacher, Anasuya creates and leads workshops and programs that lead people into a Vision Quest into the heart of their Soul Work and their innate healing capacity using visual art, writing and sacred rituals.

Her longing to be a career diplomat to bring cultures and people together in peace, led Anasuya to study International Relations and Communication at Oberlin College. As required by the US State Department, she became bi-lingual in French, deepening her study of the language at the Sorbonne, Universite de Paris, in Paris, France.  She has traveled to 22 countries and has lived in six countries outside of the United States. Witnessing the need for women’s leadership, Anasuya created and has been facilitating her Let Love Lead workshops and programs that ignite the sacred alchemy between theater, poetry, song and art a

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This is a conversation with author, poet and brilliant ‘compost heap of ideas’, Sophie Strand. Sophie is kind, generous of spirit and invitational. Our time together was an unhurried meander, getting a sense of each other before we approached the big topics that we planned to speak about. We arrived at things she has recently been writing about, namely challenging our conceptions of both healing and trauma, acknowledging incompleteness as an intrinsic and beautiful part of life, and the generativity that constraints offer us.

We also briefly speak of the craving for rooted relationships, the impacts of pandemic times, the holobiont that makes us a 'we', the profound medicine of walking (for those who are physically able) intentionally and regularly around the places you live to build intimacy with the land and all the beings therein that you are in curious kinship with. Oh, and radical uncertainty.  Enjoy Sophie's amazingness. 

Below you will find links to her social media and places you can preorder her up and coming book - The Flowering Wand - Rewilding the Sacred Masculine.

Sophie's Bio (from her website):

Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. Give her a salamander and a stone and she’ll write you a love story. Sophie was raised by house cats, puff balls, possums, raccoons, and an opinionated, crippled goose. In every neighborhood she’s ever lived in she has been known as “the walker”. She believes strongly that all thinking happens interstitially – between beings, ideas, differences, mythical gradients.

Her first book of essays The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine is forthcoming in 2022 from Inner Traditions. Her eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels The Madonna Secret will also be published by Inner Traditions. Her books of poetry include Love Song to a Blue God (Oread Press) and Those Other Flowers to Come (Dancing Girl Press) and The Approach (The Swan). Her poems and essays have been published by Art PAPERS, The Dark Mountain Project, Poetry.org, Unearthed, Braided Way, Creatrix, Your Impossible Voice, The Doris, Persephone’s Daughters, and Entropy. She has recently finished a work of historical fiction, The Madonna Secret, that offers an eco-feminist revision of the gospels.  She is currently researching her next epic, a mythopoetic exploration of ecology and queerness in the medieval legend of Tristan and Isolde.

Follow her on Facebook or on Instagram @cosmogyny.

PREORDER her book The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine Via Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Inner Traditions publishing, Bookshop.org, and other book sellers.

Podcast Music:
Podcast intro created by Amber Samaya
Completing song is intuitive song inspired by Sophie's essay "Your body is a doorway"
You can hear more of my music on Spotify under Amber Samaya

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The podcast formally known as I'll Have What She's Having has been reborn and retitled, the Mystics in the Matrix.

This serves as my introduction to the Mystics in the Matrix, the 'why' behind the re-naming, and the intention and energy this podcast now holds. Times and seasons change, and we change with them. This is adaptation, movement, melting, and allowing myself and offerings to be reshaped with grace. 

Thank you for listening. 

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This is a conversation between two dear friends, whose red thread connection stretches over land, sea, and challenging times. Listen to Joahnna Rivera and Amber Samaya share from their hearts about the complexity of navigating Covidien times, the power of compassionate witness and friendship, the importance of naming what must be named, allowing ourselves to grieve for our world, and entering into personal ritual and creativity to bring coherence around our choice to vaccinate as part of the alchemy of interconnection!

About Johanna:
I am an apprentice of the land, and a keeper of the mysteries of feminine cycles. A wild woman, who is connected to herself, her intuition, her inner landscape, and who listens to the messages of the earth. Remembering the wisdom within, which is buried in our bones and our wombs.

What I share has been shaped by my years working on women’s rights and environmental justice in Iraq and has evolved into a more spiritual journey reclaiming our sovereignty as women and being in deep devotion to the Earth. As we root into our bodies, and live in reciprocity with the earth, we will rise as wild and wise women.

Chakral Toning Session with Johanna

Womb Wellness Sessions with Johanna: https://fb.me/e/1hKbhGDVx

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wild-and-the-Moon-100910377944481

Instagram: @wild.and.the.moon

Self-Identified Women are invited join Johanna and Amber for Red Thread Circle around the Alchemy of Interconnection in Covidien Times.
 
Sunday, September 26 at 11 am PT | 8 pm CET
Circle by Donation
Register here: https://form.jotform.com/212515366761254

Music: 

Opening underlay: What Once Was by Gavin Luke - Free Music Archive
During Poem: Fragmented by Gavin Luke - Free Music Archive
Completion drumsong : performance by Johanna Rivera of song created from the Rainbow Gathering Community 

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In this episode I sit down with Artist, Teacher, Coach and Women's Empowerment Advocate, Sylvia Becker-Hill to talk about the shift away from patriarchy and towards a new paradigm where justice, human and other than human life, kindness, and a whole and healthy planet are all honored and taken into considering every step of the way.

Sylvia shares her reflections on the archetypal transformation from some of the more negative aspects of the warrior archetype to that of the  'Artist' or creative. This shift has great potential on both the personal and transpersonal level. 

Sylvia also expresses the importance of honoring the parts of our current paradigm that have been useful, and not 'throwing everything out' or trying to revert back to ancient matriarchal structures that also had their own power imbalances. Sylvia believes we should instead glean what has been valuable from both paradigms and take these forward with us into the next place we are collectively journeying toward and co-creating.

Sylvia's Bio
I believe creativity is your birthright and suppressed creativity leads to in-authenticity, depression and sickness. After decades of channeling my creativity through my corporate clients to empower their success, I finally found my way back home to the artist I always was.

I graduated successfully from the Color of Women Certified Art Teacher training with Shiloh Sophia, founder of the MUSEA global art movement. Intentional Creativity is for me self healing, self liberation and self empowerment. Merging it with my treasure chest of coaching and facilitation methods and sharing this cocktail of empowering transformation with you is my path forward.

I live with my New Zealand husband and our two teenage boys in a Southern California garden paradise full of old citrus trees, hummingbirds and wild rabbits. When I'm not empowering leaders around the world in coaching sessions using Zoom, you will find me reading in my hammock or painting in my whimsical art studio nestled under the shade of a California pepper tree at the back of our garden.

Website: https://sylviabecker-hill.com/
Juicy Life Leader Academy: https://juicylifeleader.com/

Resources Mentioned
Book: Caliban and the Witch ~ Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Sylvia Federici
Book: Leaving My Father's House  by Marion Woodman
Color of Woman Intentional Creativity Teacher Training: www.colorofwoman.com

Music
Here to Stay by Jon Algar from Epidemic Sound
Hymn For the Brave by Miles Avida from Epidemic Sound
Mad Humans by Kellee Maize from The Free Music Archive https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kellee_Maize/The_Remixes/Mad_Humans_J_Glaze_Remix
What Is the World by Amber Samaya Gould https://vimeo.com/549540121
Here To Stay by Jon Algar from Epidemic Sound

Sense of place and land acknowledgment
This podcast was recorded from my room overlooking grass, trees, and big sky on the traditional unceded, stolen, territory of the Tla'amin Nation. To them I offer my respect, witness, and gratitude for the profound relationship of care and stewardship they have maintained in this beautiful place for time immemorial, and for the teachings of interconnection and thinking 7 generations into the future that are shaping me in new ways. As a settler, brought up in a white supremacist culture that lacks honor, I am grateful and humbled by the invitation to see the world in this sacred, respectful, and intimate way. 

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In this episode, I connect with a very dear soul sister and friend, Farrah Theresa. Farrah is a nature connection guide, permaculturalist, and musician. Her and I speak about  'ecological identity' and the various threads that lead into and out of this concept. We gently dig into rich soil together, co-locating ourselves in the sacred realms of being human, being here on earth, being of earth, and being for earth. Farrah also shares a powerful guided meditation as well as a gorgeous and haunting song weaving that she channels on the piano in the moment.

Farrah's Bio

My name is Farrah, South African born and bred on the land of the Sesotho , isiZulu, IsiXhosa & Setswana, currently living on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation (Squamish) land in British Columbia, Canada.

​With my foremost training Social Anthropology & Psychology I first channeled my love for the service of humanity from a social perspective and later into eco-social endeavors as an Environmental Educator, Permaculturalist and general plant-enthusiast in Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa and most recently, the West Coast of Canada. 

Something kept tugging at me soul to go deeper, to connect with the roots of my childhood in wild places where the dangers of baboons, green mambas and wild bush-pigs kept us ever witness to our place in the world. 

​Thus began my journey 'back to my wildish-nature' through the guidance of the Work That Reconnects, Forest Bathing, Coyote's Guide and Braiding Sweetgrass. 

 And so I offer you this co-exploration of deepening & expanding our true relationship with the natural world through intentional earth-based practices. 

​My deepest hope in these offerings is that we may learn to live our lives in authentic gratitude for all that we are gifted in this life, and in so doing co-create a more harmonious world. 

______________________________________________________________________

To learn more about Farrah and her beautiful offerings you can find her online at...

Website: https://www.farrahtheresa.com/
Current Offering: Self-Guided Forest Bathing
Instagram:  @farrah_theresa
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/farrahtheresa
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FarrahTheresa

Show Notes:

Music

"Running Water" by Jason Shaw from the Free Music Archive
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RUNNING_WATERS______________2-46

"Clear Waters" by Kevin MacLeod from Incomtech
https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3516-clear-waters

Podcast theme music is "Karma Cat" by Dyalla (Creative Commons License)

Books Mentioned

Coming Back to Life ~ by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown 
Thinking Like a Mountain ~ Multiple Authors
Magdalene Manuscript ~ Tom Kenyon
Ecological Intelligence ~ Ian McCallum 
Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind ~ Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist
Anansi Boys ~ Neil Gaimon
Women Who Run With the Wolves ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/ambersamaya)

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You’re on an adventure for the soul. Whether that means you’re chasing mountain tops or conquering complex life situations or business challenges, you want to make every moment count. You find satisfaction is being an explorer. You don’t just live, you experience. 

You understand that life has texture and crave, real authentic support during those pivotal moments we all confront. This is why I invited Ann Marie McKenzie to join me on the Podcast today. 

Ann Marie counsels deeply in self-leadership through emotional intelligence, guiding you to create a handcrafted life and business that intentionally feels good. She works with people who are ready to get open about living soulfully and is the go-to experiential Master Desire Map Mentor and Transformation Guide to living and doing business in ways that sustain the soul. 

Meditation, doTERRA essential oils, and Truthbomb readings are just some of the many spiritual tools she uses to strengthen the heart-mind connection in her sessions.

Ann Marie offers curated intimate programs for entrepreneurs, corporations, businesses, and women’s circles providing feelings-based experiences that encourage people to get real, get creative, get messy - and get clear. 

Our conversation covers some deep territory and really left me feeling inspired and re-ignited in my passion for living a life that is deeply connected to and led by my soul. This ability to know how we want to feel and bring those feeling states into being inside our lived experiences is perhaps more poignant right now than ever.

We talk about..

❤ The powerful and profound Desire Map process and the life areas it walks us through - Lifestyle & Livelihood, Creativity & Learning, Body & Wellness, Relationships & Society, Essence & Spirituality
🧡 The great sifting experience we're having, and the impacts of physical distancing, spending more time at home with family, spouses, or alone, and the emotional impacts of this
💛 Our current cultural shutdown providing us the time for reflection and self connection (and the perfect time for diving into the Desire Map!)
💚 The mirror effect of our personal transformation impacting the collective
💙 The conflict and drama triangle - how we can transform the Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer reactions to the Challenger, Creator, and Collaborator responses instead!
💜 Understanding the value of healthy 'selfishness' and embracing unexpected gifts of time
💕Learning how to give from the overflow

May this be good medicine for your hearts. May you consider how you *actually* want to feel, and...go after it. Even now.

 To connect with AnnMarie, you can find her in the following quantum online spaces:

Website: https://annmariemckenzie.com/about/
doTERRA Wellness Advocate site: https://www.doterra.com/US/en/site/annmariemckenzie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annmariemckenzie13/  @annmariemckenzie13

AnnMarie is open and willing to guide you and your friends and family through the Desire Map. It's always best done in groups of people who dig each other's company and will cheer each other on in their Core Desired Feelings. So get in touch with her if you and your Beloveds would like to organize an online Desire Map group facilitation - it is a powerful powerful process. I've done it myself 3 times and it has shifted my life in measurable ways each time. 

xo 
amber samaya

Music: 
Ocean View by dyalla
Ophelia by Les Hayden
Karma Kat by dyalla 

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It has been quite a powerful and dynamic week and month for many of us as we face a rapidly shifting world in light of the COVID19 'pandemic'. There are other things pulling at our hearts like Indigenous land sovereignty, global climate destabilization, young people fighting for a democracy in China, and the impacts of late Capitalism on our hearts, bodies, minds, environments and social fabric. But here we are - holding all of this - and also in the process of having to socially distance ourselves from each other when, in so many ways and for so many reasons, we want to be showing up in community, organizing, standing on frontlines...together. We want to be in service to all life. There is uncertainty here. And big brazen paradox. 

My guest today is someone who understands well what it means to walk with paradox. 

Dr. Iréne de Brice is Costa Rican bioscientist, certified holistic health practitioner and herbalist, mystic and self-taught artist. During her formal education she completed graduate programs in biosciences, and also completed a MS in Natural Health and Lifestyles in 2011.

Much like our current reality, her life has been split in a dualism. On one side, her scientific body of work has revolved around molecular virology and most recently, infectious disease epidemiology. On the other, she has held on to natural artistic skills from early childhood and has sought nourishment in natural health studies and practices, lifelines that have helped her manage a lifelong struggle with anxiety and high-functioning depression. 

Holding it all in the balance, as a scientist, an artist, and a womxn committed to honoring the sacred and uplifting the HUEmxn experience, Irene aims to live a humble life of service anchored in the Socratic paradox. All she knows...is that she knows nothing. (Even after 13 years of intense scientific training!)

This is a SPECIAL episode, unplanned but emergent, as we are gifted with Irene's knowledge and insight to help us navigate these troubled waters. 

In this conversation we cover SARS-CoV-2 (COVID19), studying and understanding Life, the catharsis of art, science +/vs spirituality, One Health, why slowing down is good medicine, checking our privilege even during crises, and how we can care for each other in this dynamic time. 🙌🏽⭕️

A very informative and powerful episode that I hope will be good medicine for you.  

Your can find this incredible 'scientartist' at the following online locals:
Website: https://puraprana.com/
Instagram: @Ihwsh.pod

Thank you for listening and supporting.

amber samaya xo

Links:

Irene's interview 'Archetypal Woman Series' interview with Mary Margarets Kelly: https://www.marymargaretskelly.com/post/archetypal-woman-series-ir%C3%A9ne-de-brice
Useful article on COVID19 and how social distancing helps!: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/?fbclid=IwAR29y7es0mhVnO-OZ1DFn8qHQd5PVocC4G-0mr2_6oZbJdT88htVaqTUUXU
Understanding One Health: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Health

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As a young girl a framed drawing of two bears sharing a tricycle accompanied with the words ‘simple pleasures, life treasures’ hung on Amanda Shale’s bedroom wall. It is no wonder then, that later in university when she learned about the intentional lifestyle of Voluntary Simplicity through a reading group that she felt a strong resonance and has been on this mindful path ever since. Slowly and steadily she applied it to all aspects of her life, finding contentment with ever less comforts and belongings until we come to this current iteration of her journey. Trading the pursuit of wealth and status for a spiritually satisfying life she has grown into a self-assured and storied wild woman now in her mid-thirties.

And the short version? She is a dog mom, a van dweller of 6 years, adventurer, forager, podcaster, thru-hiker, photographer and writer.

Amanda speaks with me today about her long-term commitment to voluntary simplicity, her practice of presence when facing the harshness of both the physical and mental environments she finds herself, and the many lessons she has learned in her life as an outdoor adventurer, van dweller, and 'perpetual visitor' on the earth.

Amanda offers some beautiful wisdom and her lifestyle and personal story are both inspirational and paradigm shifting!

Hoping you enjoy this chat between the two of us - me, from my cabin in the woods, and Amanda, in a secret magical location somewhere in the desert outside of Sodona where she found 4 bars of perfect cell reception! Yahooo!

To learn more about Amanda and her dog Frank, you can find her online at...

Website: www.tidelinetoalpine.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tidelinetoalpine/ @tidelinetoalpine
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/tidelinetoalpine/
WALK9 Podcast: http://walk9radio.buzzsprout.com/

With presence,

amber samaya xo

Show Notes:

Poetry shared was by yours truly - Amber Samaya. Remember the Animal combined with The Reckoning. Both poems written when I was outside on the land being shaped and informed by it.

To learn more about Voluntary Simplicity, go here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/voluntary-simplicity.asp

Music:

The music you heard in this episode included...
 
"Breezy" by Axletree from the Free Music Archive. 
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Axletree/Sunset_EP/Breezy_May_Acoustic

"Bluebell" by Axeltree from the Free Music Archive. https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Axletree/Sunset_EP/Bluebell_Acoustic

"Stars" by Ayla Nereo from the Free Music Archive. https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ayla_Nereo/By_the_Light_of_the_Dark_Moon/Stars_1372

"Ancient Discoveries" by Gabrial Lewis from Epidemic Sound. https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/0xmS3avpdE

and the podcast theme music is "Karma Cat" by Dyalla (Creative Commons License)

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Today I felt inspired to share with you a song I wrote two years ago - a song about remembering our sacred dreams. Re-entering the trajectory of them. The power and essence of them. The way in which they are always there inside - the pilot light within the soul. You may forget about them. They may get buried. But that light - those sacred dreams - they always stay lit. Ready whenever you are. <3

What grace. What goodness. There is always another chance to be whole again. To live from your soul again. 

May your sacred dreams be your lived realities.

This song is inspired by the poems of Rumi. ⭕️

xo 
amber samaya

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