Rooted Healing

A special Winter Solstice episode with the glorious medicine singer-songwriter Fia, from Sweden, who has a unique way of weaving music that empowers the listener to drop deeper into themselves and find their own medicine. Since the release of her debut album "Made of Stars" in 2016, Fia has been touring worldwide and continues to touch hearts wherever she goes. 

Fia diligently creates music that bridges the worlds of spiritual healing, celebration, activism, ancestral wisdom, prayer and self-growth.  In this episode, Fia talks about using the voice to direct energy, channelling voice-play from her homeland, singing together to rise our pain and anger into change, living sensitively and rooting into place, commitment to musicianship and meeting our blockages with song. Fia reminds us that we are singing beings and that the healing potential and expressive importance of using our voices authentically is profound.

Fia's songs woven into this episode are Golden Age from her album Waterfall of Wisdom, Gold from Nordic Spirit, I Am from her debut album Made of Stars and Time For Greatness (also from Waterfall of Wisdom).

Fia's instagram.

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Thanks to Mike Howe for his ongoing music contributions.

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Sarah Janes is a writer, researcher and avid lucid dreamer. Her first book Initiation into Dream Mysteries, Drinking from the Pool of Mnemosyne is coming out this year in the US and early next year in Britain. It explores the ancient history and philosophy of dream therapy and sleep medicine, beginning in deepest antiquity through to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. Sharing more than a decade of research on Sleep Temples and Mystery Schools of the Esoteric Tradition, Sarah explores the evolution of imagination, memory, and consciousness throughout the ages and proposes that dreams have been fundamental in the creation and development of culture. Sarah curates events and talk series, such as her recent series exploring feminine power in the ancient world coinciding with the touring exhibition #FEMININEPOWER at the British Museum. She is also currently working with author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake and Guy Hayward at the British Pilgrimage Trust to reinvigorate the practice of dream incubation on pilgrimage in Britain. Sarah co-hosts a weekly chat show - Consciousness Hour with Anthony Peake, discussing life after death, dreams, Near Death Experience and OBEs, psychedelics, altered states, synchronicity, parapsychology and time perception.

In this episode, Sarah shines light on Mnemosyne, memory and imagination, ancient sleep temples and healing dream rituals, lucid dreaming and hypnagogia phenomena, dream pilgrimage, psyche architecture and orgasmic portals to consciousness expansion.

Join us on Patreon for exclusive content to expand on the topics covered in this show. Along with this episode, we are sharing Sarah's research papers and the poem 'Dream of the Rood'. Join soon to enter the give-away for Chris Park's book The Sacred Wye and gain immediate access to a rich archive of resources.

Explore our upcoming in-person gatherings and our slow-study online journey Deepen Your Roots.

With thanks to Mike Howe for his ongoing music contributions.

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Sam Gandy is an ecologist, writer and researcher with a PhD in ecological science from the University of Aberdeen and an MRes in entomology from Imperial College London. He has been involved with the cutting edge of psychedelic research, working as Scientific Assistant to the Director of the Beckley Foundation, and as a collaborator with the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London. Sam is also an innovation leader with Ecosulis, offering nature-based solutions and accelerating local and global rewilding projects. 

This conversation spans easing existential anxiety, psilocybin-assisted therapy and the hopeful reintroduction of beavers across Britain. Could social projects of regeneration be married to psychedelic-assisted therapy? What other ways can we innovate more nature connection and regeneration, whilst also healing our inner and outer landscapes?

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Thank you to Mike Howe for his ongoing music contributions.

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Ebyän Zanini Chimba is a decolonial and ecofeminist activist, teacher, and multi-disciplinary artist. Her most recent collaborative piece, the internationally acclaimed short film “Amoriri” has reached the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. Ebyän weaves worlds through her words and workshops that inspire, heal, and revolutionise—drawing us closer to ourselves, each other, and the Earth. She “abides by the wisdom written in rock, wood, water, and in our hearts”, reclaiming the animist roots of her Nubian-Italian ancestral heritage.

This is a beautiful, tender and insightful conversation on deeply needed topics. How can we decolonise our practices and life choices? What questions and conversations do we need to keep having, no matter how uncomfortable they may be? We talk about grounded spirituality versus spiritual materialism, embodied activism, decolonising birth and motherhood and some glimpses into the creative process behind ‘Amoriri’, with snippets of the music woven into this episode.

Watch Amoriri on YouTube.

Join our Patreon community for exclusive offerings from our podcast guests, including a transcript of this episode.

Learn more about the 6-week Womb Sciences Immersion, starting November 1st.

Visit Rooted Healing to learn more or head straight to our GROW space to explore our online offerings.

Thank you to Mike Howe for his ongoing music contributions.

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Annie Spencer is a renowned ceremonialist and beloved elder. She is a leader of vision quests and rites of passage, with a background in humanistic psychology and earth-based spiritual traditions, having been apprenticed in Native American practices in the 1980's and more recently in Guatemalan Mayan teachings, and Annie weaves these with the traditions of the land in Britain. She is also a well-loved storyteller, bringing alive the old myths of this land and connecting us with the earth and its magic as she creates spaces for wisdom and change to emerge.

This beautiful conversation spans Annie's connection to her homeland in Cornwall, the traditions and teachers that influence her work, stories from the Deer Dance, or La Danza del Venado (in Taos Pueblo), the important and nuanced role of the heyoka as a kind of sacred clown in the culture of the Sioux (Lakota and Dakota people), Annie's vision quests, rites of passage and thoughts on Ecopsychology, with a beautiful short story inspired by hope and how interconnected we all are at the end.

Donate to Friends of Lakota (or find a way to give back to the people carrying the traditions you've been helped by)

Book References

The Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia by Esther Jacobson

The Man Who Killed the Deer by Frank Waters

After the episode, Annie also recommended that everyone should read "The Dawn of Everything' by David Graeber and David Wengrow

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Join our Patreon community for exclusive content to nourish your healing journey, including a transcript of this episode and upcoming giveaways, from £1 a month.

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Many thanks to the ongoing music contributions from Mike Howe, Chris Park and Dorrie Joy.

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Chris Park is a Druid, ecological artist, musician and storyteller, immersed and versed in the ancient lore and wisdom traditions of the Isles of Britain. He teaches ancient technologies, experimental archaeology, educational projects, eco-building, professional storytelling, folk music and raising the awareness of the heritage of beekeeping, where he is also a host on the Living Beeing Podcast, bringing conversations together for the love of bees. He began working with the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids in 1997 and he hosts seasonal ceremonies within a sacred grove at home, and further afield as a Druid priest, celebrant and teacher. 

Chris was in the BBC TV show ‘Surviving the Iron Age’, which followed 17 volunteers living as Iron Age Celts, over 7 weeks of a wet Welsh autumn, where they had to maintain their settlement just as the Celts did 2000 years ago. 

He guides storytelling and folkloric tours around the ancient landscapes of the White Horse of Uffington and Weyland's Smithy, The Ridgeway and The Avebury Complex and Stonehenge, discovering archaeology, heritage, nature and a deeper sense of place.

In this episode we cover a Druid's relationship to land and place, Chris's multi-faith water prayer ceremonies, his pilgrimage for peace in a coracle,  the importance of art and music as forms of Bardic magic, stone circles, cultivating a belonging with land and people... and so much more.

Join us at Patreon for all of our wonderful giveaways and specially curated content to deepen your healing journey.

Learn more about Druidry

Learn more about our work at Rooted Healing

The Rooted Healing podcast is hosted by Veronica Stanwell, with thanks to Mike Howe for ongoing music contributions. The flute in this episode is played by Chris Park.

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Tree Carr is an author, dream guide and death doula, who works in the esoteric realms of dreams, death and divination.  Her published books ‘DREAMS: How to Connect With Your Dreams to Enrich Your Life’ and ‘Conscious Dreamer’ are both deeply insightful, fascinating reads, weaving science with anecdotal dream guidance from someone who has clearly ventured across her own inner landscapes with deep curiosity. Tree works closely with oneirogens (dreaming plants and herbs) as part of her conscious dreaming practice and facilitates workshops and ceremonies to connect people more deeply into their dream-work alongside explorations with plant consciousness. 

Tree’s work as a Death doula or End of Life Guide, involves helping people spiritually, emotionally, existentially and practically at the end of their lives, holding the space for healing, peace, support and compassion during the profound and sacred time of death and dying.

Tree is gifting our podcast patron listeners her workshop 'Death and the Psychopomp'. You can become a podcast patron from £1 per month, where you receive a plethora of exclusive content and giveaways.

GIVEAWAY! Win Tree's book  ‘DREAMS: How to Connect With Your Dreams to Enrich Your Life’ by sharing this episode on social media and tagging @Tree_Carr and @Rootedhealingco or become a podcast patron. Prize-draw is on the Harvest full moon September 10th.

Book references

The Art of Dying by Peter Fenwick

The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian C. Muraresku

Please rate and review the show! We are still collecting a magical alter set to give away to our winning review.

Join us at Deep Remembering or Animate Landscapes next month.

Explore more at rootedhealing.org

The Rooted Healing podcast is hosted by Veronica Stanwell, with ongoing music contributions from Mike Howe. 

Support the show

Christiana Eva Schelfhout is a musician and healing arts practitioner, who has had her own deep apprenticeship with chronic mental and physical illness, which has lead her on an expansive path of exploration and discovery around the world, drinking from wellsprings of traditional knowledge. Much of her extensive time in training and facilitation has been spent as a Trauma Informed Yoga Instructor and as a maker of healing songs and sounds. She regularly sits in ceremony and spends much of her time immersed in studentship with plant allies. She is the founder of Animate Healing and works with the prestigious wellbeing centre Shou Sugi Ban House in Watermill, New York.  Her musicianship transmutes into her work in the healing arts and snippets from her EP ‘UNDER (cov)Her’ are woven into this episode. 

Resources and references

Nutrition and physical degeneration (Book) by Weston A. Price

Rachelle Garcia Seliga @innatetraditions

Carly Rae (Integrative Bodywork)

Katya Nova @nurturingnovas

The Great Cosmic Mother (Book) by Barbara Moore and Monica Sjöö

Gain you 50% off to work with Christiana 1 on 1 by joining us at Patreon. You can become a podcast patron from £1 a month in exchange for a variety of carefully curated content to enrich your healing and explorative journey. Visit Patreon.com/rootedhealing to help us cover the costs of the show.

Find out more about our Summer Solstice Rebirth gathering and book with your exclusive 20% discount.

The Rooted Healing podcast is hosted by Veronica Stanwell

With thanks to Mike Howe for the ongoing music contributions.

Support the show

Sofia Abramian is an enchanting Mother, Doula and women’s facilitator, who calls for a shift in consciousness around womens' self worth and natural birth, reminding us all that ‘our bodies are a measure of the universe’ and that we have the wisdom, strength and innate ability to celebrate womanhood, birth and motherhood as a deeply central, spiritual aspect of the human experience, reviving the icon of the fertility goddess, mother and life giver. We need more doulas like Sofia to remind us that birth matters and that the more we know about our bodies, the more we realise how perfect we are - like Earth herself.

Watch the filmed version of this episode.

References

Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives

To listen to Sofia's meditation (available to everyone) visit our Patreon page. You can become a podcast patron from £1 a month in exchange for a variety of carefully curated content to enrich your healing and explorative journey. Visit Patreon.com/rootedhealing to help us cover the costs of the show.

Find out more about our Summer Solstice Rebirth gathering.

The Rooted Healing podcast is hosted by Veronica Stanwell

With thanks to Mike Howe for the ongoing music contributions.

Support the show

Lilja Þorsteinsdóttir is a Psychologist from Iceland who specialises in group psychedelic integration, healing trauma (and the emotional and physical symptoms in women), harm reduction, and treating addiction and chronic pain and illness. She has created a safe platform full of courses to help people get in touch with their playfulness and creativity, increasing people’s self-understanding and connection with thems elves and the world around them. She offers needed perspective on both the healing potential of psychedelics in psychotherapy and the risks involved. She calls for all involved in facilitation and participation to practice reciprocity with the cultures, medicines and lands that these healing practices derive from.

Book References

How To Change Your Mind - Michael Pollan
The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel A. van der Kolk
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts - Dr. Gabor Maté
Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer

You can become a podcast patron from £1 a month in exchange for a variety of carefully curated content to enrich your healing and explorative journey. Visit Patreon.com/rootedhealing to help us cover the costs of the show.

Find out more about our Summer Solstice Rebirth gathering.

The Rooted Healing podcast is hosted by Veronica Stanwell

With thanks to Mike Howe for the ongoing music contributions.

Support the show