The Wandering Below

Today we’re taking another deep dive into a framework that supports viewing the world as unbroken. This healing paradigm, called German New Medicine (GNM), combines the scientific and Wise Earth traditions we discussed a couple episodes ago.

Like any paradigm, GNM is a way of seeing things. In particular, this system serves as a lens through which the human body can be understood from a biological and evolutionary perspective.

It is neither a healing modality nor a means for fixing problems. It is simply — and profoundly — a mindset that positions Nature and its creatures as infinitely wise.

GNM is based on the understanding that the psyche, brain, and body are all one united being that responds to personal and environmental happenings in a biologically purposeful way. This paradigm is built upon the foundation of five biological laws, which we discuss in this episode.

Thanks for tuning in! If you’re interested in exploring more about German New Medicine, learningGNM.com is an excellent resource as are Dr. Melissa Sell’s YouTube channel and podcast.

If you’d like to connect with us, find us on instagram or reach out at [email protected]. For more reflections, check out Stella’s blog.

Simply wanting to adopt a new mindset is not powerful enough of a technique to change your mental rules.

In this episode, we’re using presuppositions from the neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) model to talk through how to adopt new beliefs.

Neuroplasticity explains the brain’s ability to rewire itself through experience. Flexibility in our neural pathways effects changes in thinking and behavioral patterns and can have a sustainable impact on our mental health and emotional well-being.

If you want to shift your beliefs about the world, you’ll need to exercise your neuroplasticity in order to reprogram your mind. This typically requires some awareness on your part, along with the intentional use of effective tools.

According to the NLP modality, language can be utilized as one such tool. Although we’ll introduce this modality briefly in today’s conversation, our main focus is the underlying set of “rules” or assumptions that NLP provides.

The purpose of the human mind is to process sensory and emotional input, inform our bodies what will support our advancement, and protect us from anything that could be detrimental to our wellness. It accomplishes this function by establishing rules and viewing our lives through the lens that those rules provide to determine what actions to take, which relationships to pursue, and how to interact with the world.

If you reach a point when you realize the mental “rules” – in other words, beliefs – you’ve held thus far are hindering you more than they’re helping you, you’ll need to replace your existing beliefs with new ones.

This is because the mind can’t do its job when it’s completely empty. It won’t allow you to simply delete your former beliefs and wait to see what arises naturally. You must insert new beliefs in their place and then continuously remind yourself of what those new beliefs are until they stick.

Eventually this new worldview will direct your actions and, from there, you’ll realize you’ve created a positive-feedback loop that supports you in maintaining your new mental rules.

After sharing in our previous episode – “Paradigms of Healing” – that we generally adhere to the Wise Earth Tradition, we wanted to explore how to anchor an unfamiliar mindset into your life in a grounded way. The NLP presuppositions we talk about here have provided practical support to us in affirming this paradigm in our everyday lives.

We aim to live according to the Wise Earth Tradition because we see it as the most effective and respectful way for us to practice and engage with ecological well-being. The perceived gaps between our modern lives and the environment dissolve in the presence of this tradition’s wisdom, and we consider this endeavor a requirement if we are to forge new relationships and create connected communities. Ultimately, the overflow from this leads to a more easeful symbiosis across our Earth.

Thanks for tuning in! If you’d like to connect deeper, find us on instagram or reach out at [email protected]. For more reflections, check out Stella’s blog.

As a follow-up to our previous episode on medicine, we zoomed out to look at the frameworks provided by three major healing paradigms. These medical- or health-based traditions gave rise to the tools, medicines, and modalities we’re familiar with today, but what we’re focusing on here is how they also provide different lenses through which we as individuals view the world.

This discussion revolves around how our mindset informs the ways we see our own personal wellbeing, yet its implications overflow into every area of human life and far beyond. We’re diving into this topic because it’s the basis for some of our upcoming conversations about ecological healing in all the forms it takes.

For reference, the healing paradigms reviewed in this episode are:

Thanks for tuning in! If you’d like to connect deeper, find us on instagram or reach out at [email protected]. For more reflections and life lessons, check out Stella’s blog.

Welcome to the first episode of Season 2 of The Wandering Below: Messages of Healing for an Unbroken World. With this season’s focus being on what we mean by “healing” and “unbroken,” the question “what is medicine?” is really just a starting point for a much broader conversation – and truthfully this episode barely scratches the surface of all there is to explore on the subject. 

Join us as we talk through the etymology of “medicine” and “health,” the four bodies or levels of being, and the seven medicines of the Wise Earth Tradition.

For reference, the four levels of self are:

And the seven medicines are:

We’re taking the podcast in a new direction with more of a teaching format, and we hope the information shared in today’s episode, the remainder of Season 2, and beyond serves you and supports your wellbeing.

If you’d like to connect deeper, find us on instagram or reach out at [email protected].

There’s plenty of evidence suggesting our world is broken. There’s an endless supply of stories circulating about how society is fragmented and the environment is being destroyed.

If we tune into the narratives currently firing across the collective, it’s natural to experience a sense of hopelessness. However, when we encounter even an ounce of inertia beyond the despair, it reveals to us a request for our participation.

Nature reminds us that we are not the problem, but rather that challenges arise when we shy away from our humanness. The paradox is that being more doesn’t necessarily lead to having more. Obtaining material goods from a place of integrity ensures our needs are met while also allowing for respectful and sustainable use of resources in place of depletion, disaster, and extinction.

The invitation then is to engage more fully with the Earth, our ecosystem, our communities, our families, and ultimately our true selves. Anchoring deeper into presence within allows us to enter the world with an optimistic view of the future.

This is not about sugarcoating the reality of things. It’s about rewiring our minds and recalibrating our vision to see the possibility in what’s alive at this moment. It’s about writing a new story that is neither ignorant of the upheaval happening in these times nor inherently fatalistic. It’s about acknowledging the fact that we are living in a landscape of great evolution – and about creating spaces that support us in exploring this uncharted territory without fear.

There is an equilibrium required here and it’s our calling to name it. On the surface, defining a balance that’s nourishing to the planet and all its beings might look like turning to the past for wisdom. But when we’re courageous enough to peer into the subterrain, we discover a need for modern eldering.

We aren’t elders ourselves, but we’ve come to the realization that the work we’re doing in having these conversations is part of an ancient revolution. Season 1 of our podcast was an exploration of topics that are actively transmuting in the crucible of our lives. As we reflected on the themes that arose and considered how we wanted to move forward into Season 2, we pieced together a mythopoetic adventure.

Our purpose in sharing our thoughts with you is to offer a different perspective. This perspective challenges us to view the world as unbroken. It requires us to be fully present and uphold our values as we give reverence to the inherent wholeness of Nature. It also guides us to focus on the ways our own empowerment is tightly woven with our capacity for healthy decision-making and our willingness to take conscious actions as human beings.

The conversations we have here are raw, heartfelt, and sometimes controversial. May they provoke you into remembering the animal-god within. We’re Davide Zimolo and Stella Roback, and we welcome you to The Wandering Below: Messages of Healing for an Unbroken World. Join us this season as we explore topics including: healing modalities and paradigms, sociopolitical structures, climate change and conscious consumerism, Nature’s wisdom, and gratitude.

Find us on instagram | https://www.instagram.com/thewanderingbelow/

Write to us | [email protected]

Read Stella's blog | https://stellamoondrops.wordpress.com/

Welcome to the final episode of Season 1! We’re back with another seasonal check-in as spring is in the midst of unfurling.

In this conversation, we chat about:

Thanks for dropping in with us! If you’d like to connect deeper, find us on ⁠instagram⁠ or reach out at ⁠[email protected]! We love to feel you. And stay tuned for Season 2 – we’re excited for the adventure we’re taking The Wandering Below on as we head in a new direction!

This was an emotional episode. We talked about surviving and thriving, immigration and welcoming, grief and gratitude, place-based identity and nourishment, sankofa and remembrance, ancestors and energetic codes, and what it’s like being a bridge between the past and the future.

We opened with a bit of background on the topic that inspired this conversation: the environments in human design. From there, we allowed it to flow freely to see where we landed. As usual, we wound up wondering and wandering through uncharted depths rather than reaching a concrete conclusion.

This discussion weaves together so many threads – most of which are coming up in our lives right now, relevant for each of us in different ways – and yet much of it is left untouched. There’s only so much we can dig into in this amount of time, but we’d love to go deeper with you in the seasons ahead.

We invite you to join the conversation with us. Let’s tug on some of these threads together and see how the tapestry of our human family looks as we rearrange the pieces in a way that makes sense, holds our bones, and feeds our hearts. Reach out to us at [email protected].

In this episode we share the etymology of “safety” and “protection,” discuss how a sense of safety starts from within while the ability to protect requires the development of certain skills, and explore how the Human Design splenic center relates to all of it.

As humans, we have animal bodies and conscious minds. Our reality revolves around both survival-based instincts and interpersonal relationships. We have biological on/off switches that tell us when there’s a threat in front of us and when we’re safe. We also have community and culture that impact us and are impacted by us.

A major source of subconscious programming is story. When you change the way you see things, the things you see change.

You have the power to bless a space with safety simply by your being there, but it requires you to connect with or cultivate your own sense of safety within your body. We wonder if those with defined spleens (again, this is a reference to Human Design) have an innate and consistent radar for safety – and even emit that frequency themselves – while those with undefined spleens require input from their environment.

Beyond survival, splenic awareness provides information about what’s nourishing and supportive and what’s not. It reveals what will help us thrive as individuals and build resiliency as a community.

We reached the realization that most dangerous situations are a result of people fearing the potential of danger. What would our world be like if we focused more on our inner stability than on protecting ourselves from perceived threats? What would change if we challenged the stories we’ve been told about problems that exist far from us in time and space?

This is a broad and sensitive topic, and our conversation about it is informed by our own personal experiences, the beliefs we’ve received about safety in the past, and our differing experiences of what safety feels like in our bodies. We touch on behavioral ecology, etymology, and of course Human Design.

We genuinely desire to open this discussion up as wide as we can. It might be selfish of us to want to hear what you think – but we also see that the more this is talked about, the safer the world will be for more members of our human family and beyond. Share your hearts with us at ​​[email protected]. 

If you’d like to learn more about Human Design, our previous episode where we introduce the system is a good place to start. To generate your Human Design chart for free, click here.

The post we reference in this conversation is here on instagram.

Today we’re chatting about growth, eldering, and charged language. The Wandering Below is a collection of our raw conversations – and sometimes that includes calling each other out in love. We push each other’s views on growing, decomposing, and identifying what’s truly valuable.

As much as we might not want to think about it, there are fewer elders in our world now than ever before. Maybe that’s why we hold innovation in such high regard – and even why something being held in “high” regard is considered a good thing. What about things that stay low? Or things that stay still? What about the soil and the plants’ roots and the mycorrhizal network? And what about the beings who live underground? What about decay? What about fear and fighting and grief?

We welcome all of it and invite you to wander with us.

Find us on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thewanderingbelow/

Read Stella's blog - www.stellamoondrops.com

By the way, we have a guest speaker joining us in this episode! You’ll hear our dog Dex barking in the background a couple times. He’s a *growing* boy and got very excited by our conversation. Dex and our other (quieter) dog Ziggy are rescues adopted from a local humane society. Davide is supporting another nearby shelter, HumaneCNY, to raise funds for their animal care needs through the Boilermaker Road Race Charity Bib Program. If you’d like to contribute to the wellbeing of some furry friends, click here to learn more and consider making a donation. Thank you!

Today we’re reviewing seasonal energetics, sharing the script from our 2022 winter solstice ceremony, and checking in with where we’re at in this period of hibernation. We’re complex humans in simple animal bodies after all.

Winter’s darkness invites celebration. Engaging in ritual during this time keeps us grounded throughout our journey along the internal, spiritual spiral we travel upon during the season of emptiness.

In this episode, we reflect on how winter has flowed so effortlessly for us this year and posit that perhaps this could be rooted in the way we blessed the season’s opening with ritual darkness and ceremonial emptiness. Winter delivers grief, offers glimpses of death, and silently demands surrender – and this keeps us in touch with what’s real.

Click HERE for our full breakdown of seasonal energetics. HERE is the written script for our winter solstice ritual, if you’re curious. Share with us how your winter has been at [email protected] – we’d love to hear from you!