Calling in & Building Meaningful Community

The history behind these rituals that we enact during the certain times of year and. There is something about the end of a harvest because we have agrarian ancestors who farmed the land and who depended upon it to live and thrive in their communities there's something about the celebration and the gratitude. Of what has been cultivated what has been harvested what grew what thrived and then a real.

Preparation for the coming winter for the dream time for the rest time for the cold time for the harsh time and a reminder that we're never meant to do it alone. So I get really excited about Community gathering in particularly November and December which is very much tied to holidays I live in United States American Thanksgiving it's always the third Thursday in November and then that rolls right into. Holiday fun times that last through the end of December.

But I also find myself burning out really easily and exhausted and sometimes sick and then wanting to be super introverted and feeling a little confused about like how to fulfill this desire this ancestral desire. I have to gather with community and how to do it in a sustainable way. So this is not going to be an episode on how to do Thanksgiving and the holidays sustainably I've talked about that a lot in the past and I can talk about it another time I also think there are.

Lots of folks in the like wellness and coaching world that can beautifully guide us through. How to do the winter holidays and Gathering and family time. With boundaries and resourcing and self tending and all of that. I think what I want to talk about more what gets me more jazzed is to talk about intentionally. Calling in and cultivating community in your life and so the best way I can do that is to talk about where I'm at.

Because I wonder if there are some misconceptions out there in the world and the big bad World about. How Community shows up in my life and I certainly love to share the Highlight Reel is particularly on social media. Of when when I am because we naturally do that when things are exciting we want to share it we want to share it and so I do have these ways of gathering with community that I share and I also feel loneliness.

Often and I also live in, you know a single family nuclear family situation in the suburbs of California. And as you know if you listen to past episodes or follow along with me or my emails Tim my partner and I are thinking. More long-term about how to do community like do life in a more communal relational. Way because if there's anything I've been fully convinced of in this lifetime is that this isolated way we're living does not serve us.

In any phase of Life childhood teen years when you're single when you're partnered when you have a child. When your elderly I skipped over a big part but you know what I mean and so, I've spent a lot of time and I continue to do research because I think my life's work is to Grapple with this out loud and. We've bought this farm and we are slowly going to make our way there in 2023 and part of why we. Bought this land was with an intention to be in deeper community.

So how does community look in my life right now hmm and it is a remembering and forgetting and remembering again so I'd say as a human being who has a small child and both parents work and I have so many dreams and and projects and people to tend to.

I often find myself tired I'm also still struggling with fatigue and easily, run out of resources ever since I gave birth but even before I gave birth I'm honest I'm tired a lot and so in the being tired there is a retreat that happens where, you know I want to be alone I want to especially as a mother I want to be alone I want to go to bed early but I want to just like read a book by myself I take a bath or watch a show and then

there is a point where that sort of tips over this invisible line that I sometimes can't notice is there until I've crossed it tips over into okay I've been alone too long I'm lonely, I need Community this is where I'm interested in like what it would be like to live in close proximity with other folks you know that meals are shared with or like play dates are scheduled with or paths cross where that could sort of Bowie me a little bit more.

Because what I have to do in these moments I have to reach out this is what I coach people in doing when they say oh I just yearn for like-minded like hearted folks in my community like how do I do this how do I how do I create circles how do I how do I gather in this way and and I say well in these times we live in you have to sounds like you have the desire so you have to create it

you have just a cultivating you do the inviting you have to the Outreach the initiating some folks are really bummed to hear that because like more work and I feel it too sometimes but I do know that this is a yearning most if not all of us have and because we are in our little boxes on the hillside it takes effort.

And so that's what I try to remind myself of is to carve out time and my energy carve out time and my calendar to remember that it's just as important as drinking water and moving my body and feeding my family and making sure I get enough protein and going to bed and, all these ways I taste stretching my body it's also.

Connecting with with human beings so when that line is crossed and I've been in the bathtub too long and I start you know making up stories about how everyone's hanging out without me because Instagram is not helping that which is why I'm. There might be an episode coming down the line about my relationship with social media because that feels like it's evolving quickly and it's definitely seasonally attuned.

That can reinforce a feeling of being alone or everyone hanging out without me or missing out is scrolling on Instagram I know I have to reach out. And so. That means reaching out to friends that means we see on text threads that means planning to meet up for dinners or lunches or coffee dates and. What I'm learning in that Outreach is because sometimes I have a nervousness around my time sometimes everyday have a nervousness around my time.

At least in the construct of linear time and so I'm learning to be way more clear in my invitations way more clear about it's okay to have a quick meet up.

Like last week I had coffee with some friends of mine with some fellow Mamas and it was the first time we all got together actually without our children which felt like a milestone because all our kids are over to now and we always use we the first two years we'd all just meet up with our babies and sometimes it was Mayhem and sometimes they would just like sit and babble.

On the blankets actually there was one always crying but what we've realized is like Wilt a sort of like kind of them saying this will take what we can get but I think we make the most of what we can get so

Feel like how do I do more of that I think clear invitations are a big part of it. I think a lot of us are pretty nervous about our time and maybe say no because. Things just aren't possible and there is a risk of being over scheduled but I think if we can be really clear like.

Hey I'd love to meet up and have coffee or tea with you sometime oh I had one that was really great someone reached out to me first of all she said I'd love to chat with you do you prefer to be emailed text or DM debt, and I was like mmm text it then she texted me and she said hey sometime in the next couple months I'd.

When it's feeling spacious to meet up for coffee and I don't think it would be more than an hour and I'd love to meet up here and they I'd love for it to be in the morning because that's when I have childcare and just wondering what would feel good for you, and there was something about the invitation that had me like not ghost it although I'm not a real ghost sir but I am a pusher offer and PS anyone who has an iPhone now that the new update has Mark as unread for text messages

chef's kiss Thank you for that but that invitation just felt like such a yes because it was really soft and tender and offered consent to me and gave me a lot of information I think there is an art to the invitation that can help soothe all of us with like blasted out nervous systems Sue this into a space of connection.

So there's a hot tip right there, and then I know some of you are curious about more of like the sacred Gathering side of community and in that place I really have stepped into a place of leadership so for those of you who are lucky to be in a community where there is establish leadership around Gatherings and you're invited in cool I think

for me to get what I need I've had to be a part of the team that plans be part of the group of people that initiates be a part of the team that envisions and I have found through.

Going to these gatherings and identifying people who have that same energy I haven't had to do it alone so I'm not over here like planning bonfires and rituals and and weekend intensives of healing and song circles and fire ceremony that I mean I have made it a priority in my life and I participate in some and I've identified the other folks the helpers the vision errs the medicine Keepers a people who organize these things and we've come together in a way that has been.

Really natural and over the last eight years of my life and I remember it started when I moved to Mill Valley California from Oakland California and I didn't know many people and I started going to Gatherings and then talking to people in charge and then it naturally came up this way and I remember I have this YouTube video that had like my most views and a long time and it is a slightly cringey title but it was how I manifested my dream community and it was true for me it was true for me then

but in the video. I talked about how I moved to this town and I said what I wanted I made like a vision board I wrote about it in my journal and it happened and I think a lot of it was because I made myself available it wasn't just spell-casting I made myself available to these events I was like. Ear was always out and I would show up to them and then I talked to the people who led them.

And eight years later I'm in a circle with some of them and now I have this deeper Community who I've talked with some of them here on this podcast where we like travel to gather and celebrate like we have a we celebrate Beltane made a the return of the season of light every Every Spring together and then eventually Tim and I will be hosting Beltane on our farm we're going to be the new location for it with

we've already identified the field away from the road where the maple will be up and the Lilac Orchard where we'll put the tents up for everyone to camp and I can talk about the farm Vision in a moment although I'm feeling a little private about that but I know that's like the number one question I get just what are you planning to do with the farm.

This is all to say like a lot of this takes time that I never thought that we'd be looking at the maypole field on our farm eight years ago when I moved into that little cottage and made that YouTube video up manifesting my dream community at that point it was just like making myself available to like Howl at the Moon once in a while anyone else want to wear a black on Halloween and we're which at anyone else like feel connected to the full moon anyone else like

want to dance around a fire because I think that would be cool, and then now I'm in such a place of leadership around that and surrounded by folks who are also in leadership and so I do get these invitations and I do make these invitations. So I wrote in my journal that is sitting in front of me like ideas and notes for this episode I wrote what skills am I still in need of Becca and there are so many there are so many I feel so new there's something about the more.

It's probably a great meme out there about this but the more you learn about a topic, for the more you devote yourself to the Mastery of a topic the more you realize you have no idea about it that's how I feel about.

Cultivating meaningful Community how to live in a community way how to be a more relational human being the more I learn the more I unlearned the more I realize I know so little and I'm in a devotional practice to grappling with my desire to feel more in community, and also the ways I'm repulsed and scared.

About Community Living I think I joke a lot about like a you know you don't need to go live on a commune in order to feel a presence of community and I think that's because I'm scared of living on a commune I'm also obsessed with any sort of like podcaster documentary about all these like land-based communities from the 70s most of which have not gone well and I'm very curious as to why

when I talk about Community Living I know a lot of people default to ways that it hasn't worked in Modern Times And so I am, curious especially as someone who's married to an introvert who feels very suspicious of human beings a lot if you listen to episodes with Tim you know that about him as someone who was raised in a bike hyper individualist family situation and, still lives in one how we as human beings in this modern time.

With the privilege you know the Privileges that we have which is you know my audience in this like Western industrialized world with a fair amount of privilege like how do we shift the culture too, be more Community minded and that starts and always is with me. So what skills am I still in need of I think a lot of what I want to work on is.

I really liked my interview with Carmen Spagnola which was my last episode she has this incredible Community called the numinous network and I love how she talks about. Like a nervous system regulation getting contact nutrition and like the titration the small bits of easing your nervous system into a new way of being. And that's that really resonates with me I think Becca few years ago did all this research and was blown away and I think.

Yeah you can't just go 02 land-based commune I remember Rachel Maddox was I interviewed her on this podcast who I know just recently did an experiment with a land-based community talking about like how can we meet. These needs for the village in ways that our nervous systems can actually handle and is it just two friends buying. House next to each other and knocking down fences I think are really daily talked about that too and.

My interview with her and Megan McGuire I think there are many different ways to do it. And what I want to work on is my fears of losing control my nervousness around men in charge my nervousness with conflict that's a big one I feel like I am a devoted student of how to navigate. Disharmony in a group setting and not just want it to be just like harmonized immediately and how to call my nervous system to navigate it and I think the only way to do that is to well be trained but also to navigate

conflict in community it's like what is the thing if you're afraid of something you just have to have enough interactions with it for the fear to like go away that's they say about fear of flying you're afraid of flying just fly a lot or like afraid of spiders just look at a lot of spiders exposure therapy so I feel like I need exposure therapy in navigating conflict in community. And I think I just always wanted to let it be known to myself and to others that like I'm a baby.

In the deep end when it comes to this stuff because this a lot of this work has been lost and I don't come from a family of origin or a lineage that has skills in this area. So a lot of my work is encouraging us all to do it together. So the farm people are wanting to know the people want to know. What are we doing and the answer is I don't know I don't know yet and I have felt pretty. Frozen.

Around and overwhelmed at all the possibilities and so I've been really to try to move through my saw the freeze of overwhelm I've been going into this dreaming space and so I could tell you a little bit about what I'm dreaming. About and what I don't want to be held to it and to it's really precious and tender right so I invite you to witness what I'm dreaming in. And I asked for a no input I got some input on DMs I didn't put a boundary there so it's okay on what I was supposed to do.

On the farm in it I didn't like that feeling in this is like a side note for this as yet unplanned podcast. Conversation with myself or maybe someone about consent and DMs and Anonymous relationships of intimacy we establish over DM's but yeah I've been told you have to do permaculture you have to be a vegan and not raise any animals just rescue them you have to do grass-fed beef you had do a cut flower garden and and so I remember when we were in the first few months of

just like learning about farming and figuring out the survey and getting the inspections and like testing the soil and we're still in all of this process it's taking a long time but we're not being urgent about it I lost the thread of the why like why are we called to do this and. I'm returning to that now with the letdown of bottom with the leaves releasing from the deciduous trees and and its community.

It's community and so what do I dream of I Dream of building my parents house so that they can be, mere minutes walk from ours and they can we can have some someone's of intergenerational living in a way that is titrated and are all of our nervous systems can navigate. I dream of building tiny homes.

For friends and folks who need Sanctuary from evacuations or unsafe living conditions or burnout I dream of glamping tents or like belt ends in the summer having campouts I dream of animals in the barn baby calves nursing on their mamas I dream of. A massive vegetable garden where part of the plots are given to maybe students at atlases school and we can teach and learn gardening together.

I dream of releasing some of the fields to Young Farmers just learning so they don't have to have that barrier farming that comes with owning land or even leasing land can be so expensive I also just learned from the farmer who is tending to the land while we're not there that Dairy Farmers have a higher suicide rate then veterans.

And he's teaching me and Tim so much about the devotional work of farming particularly if you're doing it in a like non Mass sort of corporate agwe, and I want to support that I dream of like learning and raising animals to feed my family from like beginning to end including the sacredness and just brutalness of harvesting.

It's that I can really be an Integrity with my food I dream of doing that Community I dream of bringing folks who know indigenous ancestral skills to lead skillshare classes on the farm and having some of the attendees be able to attend for free I dream of weddings in the barn I dream of retreats in the barn, I dream of men's work happening with Tim in one field and me having circles and a year and another,

I dream of friends staying for the summer and their children swimming in the lake or ice skating on it and winter. I guess I guess that's all that I want to share because that feels pretty tender to even share with you now.

There's such a temptation to enact plans like immediately and I'm about to interview Hillary Mattox AKA black girl country living who is a few steps ahead of me in going from the city to a homestead and how that goes but I dunno that the way of this life is one that is slower and more informed by the land and.

I feel like it's somewhat Colonial to have all these plans for land that I have I don't I'm not sitting on that land right now and we have some work to do on the house the house was built in 1860 and we have some things to finish up here in California and so this is all moving in a really really at a really slow pace so. To have a vision and then get it in motion before even getting there and feeling the land. And there's just so much.

In the way of ritual and relationship with this land that has seen many quote owners Society of owning land is very challenging to me. Yeah there's some work to be done there's some relationship building to be done so yes I've been reading about flower farming and. Raising cows and and dreaming about. Okay I'm dreaming about a cut flower filled with arches in a maze like a pumpkin patch like corn maze.

But with flowers that bloom in October like maybe dahlias or sunflowers and then having a little Farm Stand that's like little person size like Atlas toddler sliced this is this is what I'm thinking about maybe I'll do it maybe I won't and selling pumpkins and eggs for my chickens and things like that and supporting other farmers in the farm store. And having it been being on or system with a little like venmo code and a cash box and then maybe a stage.

For local bands to play on those are my dreams hold them tenderly we'll see what happens. So as we to bring it back preform dream list head into the seasons of gathering. To consider what you really want out of these gatherings and to be clear in your invitation.

It's okay to do it differently it's okay to actually decide that even though we've always done it this way let's try this way, it's okay to make people a little uncomfortable by honoring the ancestors of the land you live on it's okay to say you want to leave out an ancestor Spirit play Thanksgiving. It's okay to opt out of the drunken Christmas Eve party if that's not your thing I don't know why these are coming through this these aren't true for me but maybe they are for you.

It's okay I think it's radical act to choose to do a gathering in a more conscious way and I know that a lot of us are craving that. OK hope this served as always when I complete these solo episodes I have a confusion as to what I just said but my trust I trust that the right words came through I'll be back in a couple of weeks with another interview bye for now.

Thank you so much for joining me in a time when our attention is being pulled in so many different directions it means a lot that you took time out of your day to spend it with me and in these important conversations. For show notes and links and more information about my guests you can head to belonging podcast.com. And if you'd like to hear more from me and get access to my free newsletter called slow and seasonal, you can head to Becca piastrelli.com / subscribe.