In today’s episode, our guest, Hillarie Maddox, interviews me (Becca) to get some personal updates on the journey of rewilding and all that unfolds when we take the steps that brought us from the dream to buying and living on our land. I open up to vulnerably reveal some of the grief, the questioning and the spiral of regret that happened when we initially landed on the farm and how we had to really speak the dream alive again each night so that we could move through that resistance. Both Hillar...
Jan 31, 2024•56 min•Season 1Ep. 121
In today’s episode, I give you updates from my new life on the farm (here in Hudson Valley, New York) and share both the challenges and joys of renovating an old house. I share the resources and learnings I have gathered in creating and tending community from the perspective of someone who has just moved to a new place. Tune in to hear more from me on: - Living on a farm and renovating an old farmhouse - Why community is an important value and a vital need - How transitions in life, such as beco...
Jan 24, 2024•22 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Sweet podcast listeners, I’ve been missing you. I’m not quite ready to be back on the mic yet but wanted to drop in here with a little update from my life (moving across the country is a whole thing) and an opportunity to work with me this autumn if you’ve been curious about holding a circle in your community. The link to join us is beccapiastrelli.com/circle-craft
Oct 01, 2023•10 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Summer feels like a ripe tomato — the peak fullness of the season where so much is revealed as the light of the sun shines down on us all. In this episode, I complete my series of ancestral rituals for each season, with reflections on summer. I share why summer is a season of work and rest, how this time teaches us the lessons of the Mother, ways to honor our inner wild creatures, and the power of garden time. I also offer ideas for summer rituals, including my favorite herbal tinctures, fire pr...
Jun 12, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 119
If you’re curious about what village life is like beyond the picture-perfect cottage-core images on Instagram, today’s conversation is for you. In this episode, Sarah Wildeman and I delve into a topic near and dear to my heart — revillaging and community-centered living. Sarah is a leadership & relationship dynamics coach, community-builder, and founder of Our Common — a coaching and consulting practice serving community seekers, community builders, and existing communities. Together, we dis...
May 15, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 118
Living in capitalism while not being consumed by it can feel overwhelming and confusing. Today, I’m joined by Bear Hebert (they/them), a feminist and anti-capitalist business coach who helps small business people (and other beloved weirdos) figure out how to build the world-yet-to-come inside the world-that-currently-is. Together, we discuss making space for grieving our own and others’ participation in capitalism, the ways we internalize capitalism and exploit ourselves in our own businesses, a...
Apr 24, 2023•59 min•Season 1Ep. 117
If you want more powerful, matriarchal-inspired, healing community in your life, this episode is for you. I’ve been circling for over a decade, but it’s been a while since I’ve talked about the practice of Circle on the podcast. So in this episode, I share what it means to practice Circle — including what it is, how it works, some challenging but important historical context, and how it has shaped my own life. I truly believe that Circling has the power to connect us to each other, heal centurie...
Apr 10, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 116
If you daydream about purchasing land and relocating to a tiny town far from city life, this episode is the gentle invitation and reality-check you need before taking the leap. Today I’m joined by Alissa Hessler, an author, podcast host, and former corporate tech employee who left the big city to move to a rural community for love. In this episode, we discuss common reasons people choose to leave cities, the importance of being as prepared as possible before moving, and some things to expect if ...
Mar 27, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 115
If you’ve ever felt disconnected from or unworthy in your body, this episode is for you. Today, I’m joined by Hannah Husband for a discussion on our relationships to our bodies and movement. Together we channel childlike curiosity about the ways we like to move. And we unpack how diet culture and the wellness industry disguise anti-fat bias as concern for “health,” as well as how we often outsource our connection with our bodies. Hannah is a body liberation coach committed to supporting folks wh...
Mar 13, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 114
We’ve all inherited beliefs — those sayings, lessons, and ways of being passed down through the generations and permeate the culture we live in. Often they’re so deeply rooted that we don’t even realize how much they’re affecting us and our ability to weave in with the natural world. In this episode, I delve into some of my own inherited beliefs. And I share my most cherished tools for releasing the ones that don’t serve me. I also explore how the simplest practices like going outside, moving ou...
Feb 26, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 112
This week I’m thrilled to have Mara Glatzel back on Belonging to celebrate her upcoming book, Needy: How to Advocate for Your Needs and Claim Your Sovereignty. In this conversation, we discuss how to to connect with our needs, respect our wants, and let go of the fear that having needs makes us undesirable. We also dive deep into attachment styles, parenting, and learning to communicate our needs to our partners and friends. Listening to this episode will help you get one step closer to acknowle...
Feb 20, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 112
Winter is upon us again in the Northern hemisphere, so this week I’m resharing my episode on rituals for winter. First, I invite you to notice what winter looks and feels like where you live. Because many of us don’t celebrate a “white” Christmas and not everywhere looks like a Bavarian ski village in December. Then, I invite you to notice what winter feels like energetically in your body. Do you feel exhausted and need to hibernate? Or do you experience a deep permission to turn inward and tend...
Dec 26, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 112
If you crave or cherish brave connection with your community, your ancestors, and yourself, this episode is for you. Trevia Woods is a mixed-race woman with Indigenous ancestors who has two decades of experience in bodywork, education and community-building. She has roots in the Midwest and Colorado, after traveling the world finds herself back in America finding her roots and how she belongs in the world. Trevia supports people in unpacking cultural appropriation, community building, as well as...
Dec 19, 2022•57 min•Season 1Ep. 111
If you have a long-held dream (or even the quietest whisper of a thought) that you want to live on and with the land, this episode is for you. Hillarie Maddox is the founder of Black Girl Country Living and creator of Rewilding Workshops. In 2020, she and her family left the city for the country without knowing what they were getting into. Along the way, she fell in love with nature and discovered the healing powers it has for individuals, communities, and the earth. She also believes deeply in ...
Dec 05, 2022•53 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Waverly Davis a multidimensional twin mama, facilitator of sacred spaces + sounds, artist, and podcaster residing outside of Charlottesville, Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains on unceded Monacan territory. In this episode, we discuss how we incorporate the sacred into motherhood by embedding rituals into our daily lives and threshold moments. Waverly also shares her birth story and how a plant ceremony called her to a more sacred life. Then we journey through her rituals & practices for t...
Nov 21, 2022•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 109
In today’s episode, I reflect on the role community plays in our lives and the stories we share with each other about our yearnings for connection. Tune to hear me reflect on what community looks like in my life right now and my dreams for how community might gather on my new farm home in the years to come. I also explore the challenges of reaching out for support and connection when our energy is low, the art of a nervous system soothing invitation, and the practical and sacred sides of communi...
Nov 07, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Carmen Spagnola is a wilderness guide, podcast host, Le Cordon Bleu-trained Chef, rose and vegetable gardener, collapse-aware coach, and witch of no particular affiliation. In this episode, we discuss the ongoing saga of her 300+ lb. TikTok-famous pumpkin and explore the term “collapse” as it relates to being collapse aware as an individual and as a collective. We wind through her journey from being a latchkey kid to attending Le Cordon Bleu in France to working on mega yachts — learning the dep...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 107
In today’s episode, I invite us fireside to connect with our ancestors — the humans, plants, animals, and stardust we come from. Tune to hear me reflect on how wild and perfect it is that we’re all here. And how profoundly we’re connected by our shared planet. I also explore our chosen and affinity ancestors. And I share my journey of connecting with my lineage and a few specific ways that you can connect with yours. I hope you’ll listen and then join me for the live cohort of Tending the Flame:...
Oct 17, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 106
Erin Claire Jones uses Human Design to help thousands of individuals and companies step into their work and their lives as their truest selves and to their highest potential. In this episode, we have conversation about how Human Design can give us permission to be ourselves and help us live with greater ease and authenticity every day. We discuss Human Design basics including types (generator, manifestor, manifesting generator projector & reflector) and authorities (sacral, emotional, spleni...
Oct 10, 2022•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 105
Clare Foale is a Mum, a creator, a space holder, a brink walker and an ocean lover, living on Garigal Country in Australia. Together, Clare and I have an open and vulnerable conversation about our experiences with delayed postpartum depression. We share the moments beloved practitioners finally helped us see we weren’t okay. The strength it took to acknowledge our pain when so many people dismissed it. The ways our depression was separate from our love of our children. And the power of letting y...
Sep 26, 2022•52 min•Season 1Ep. 104
So much has changed since I last had my husband Tim on the podcast. We became parents. We decided to leave California. We bought a house in upstate New York. It feels like almost everything is different since that last episode three years ago. So this week I’ve invited Tim to come back to the show for an open conversation about our family and how we navigate change. Together we discuss why having our daughter was a catalyst to slow down, how we handle the tension between his tech-paced career an...
Sep 12, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Marysia Miernowska is a teacher, author, Earth activist, green witch, folk herbalist and healer rooted in the Wise Woman Tradition of Healing. She has spent her life traveling, learning and sharing different regenerative ways of tending to the Earth, healing land, and healing people. She is the Director of the School of the Sacred Wild and author of The Witch’s Herbal Apothecary. Together, we have conversation about our beloved crystals, particularly how to be with our stones and how to return t...
Aug 22, 2022•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 102
While I often talk about mothering on the podcast, it’s been a few seasons since I shared a personal reflection on being a mother. So this episode of Belonging is a solo episode where I open up about my journey with delayed postpartum depression. In this episode, I talk about struggling with anxiety and rage, realizing that I was taking out my anger on my partner, being diagnosed with PPD, trying meds that helped and then didn’t help, microdosing psilocybin to support extended breastfeeding, and...
Jul 11, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Anoushka Florence is a teacher, an author, a circle-tender, and a mother. She is the Keeper of the Mama’s Village, the Mama of The Goddess Space, and the author of The Women’s Circle. Her work is based on ancient spiritual feminine practices that are grounded in the belief that the power to heal comes from within. Together, we begin with the question what is circle? and spiral out to the importance of women’s circles, rituals, cleaning as clearing, ancestral lineages and more. We also discuss co...
Jun 27, 2022•52 min•Season 1Ep. 100
Tracy Benjamin is a food photographer, stylist & blogger based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this episode, we have a tender conversation about grief, and all the ways she’s experienced it since her mom’s sudden death in 2017. Together we explore how loss can encompass our full range of emotions and impact every area of our life. Tracy shares what it feels like to be the only woman left in her family and the joys and struggles of becoming her family’s keeper — hosting their gatherings, th...
Jun 13, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 99
Nicole Antoinette is a writer, podcast host, and community-builder who is super into long-distance hiking. In this conversation, she tells us the story of how long solo hikes have become her spiritual & devotional practice. Together we explore the power of facing fear and discomfort, the lessons gained from embracing loneliness, and the self-trust that comes when there’s no one else to ask for answers. Our conversation is an invitation for the hikers and non-hikers among us to consider how w...
May 30, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 98
Asha Frost is an Anishinaabe (Ojibway) Medicine Woman (member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation), Healer, and Spiritual Mentor. Last time she was on the podcast we discussed her viral article “Dear White Woman who wants to be like me,” and today she returns to share her new book You Are the Medicine with us. Together we explore the medicine of publishing a book. We discuss why we felt called to write, how books can be like babies, and the ways releasing our books made us more resilient. We...
May 16, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Dacy Gillespie is a personal stylist who intuitively guides us to discover the clothes we feel best in — uncovering and releasing what society says we “should” wear in the process. Together we explore the question “what do you want to wear?” and we talk about how pausing before purchasing can help us make more ethical decisions and find clothes we love. Dacy also shares why “flattering” is a fatphobic concept, how to approach your clothes when your body changes, and her advice for online shoppin...
Apr 18, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 95
Lisa Olivera is a writer, therapist, and creative who shares work centered around radical acceptance, cultivating compassion, and integrating our stories and full humanity. She is also a new mother, just five months postpartum at the time we recorded this episode. Together we talk about the pressures and expectations of motherhood, the deep joy and grief of becoming a parent, and how having two tiny eyes on you all the time invites you to embody your values and step into your integrity. We also ...
Apr 04, 2022•56 min•Season 1Ep. 94
Belonging is back! After my winter hibernation, I find myself craving a little vernal worship. So this episode is all about ancestral rituals and practices for spring. First, I share lessons I learned while wintering, including my stepping away from social media, making my life small, and my seasonal self-care wheel. Then we dive into the pleasure of seeds, greens, flowers, eggs, honey, and milk. I offer my favorite practices for planting, cooking, nourishing yourself, and connecting with ancest...
Mar 21, 2022•35 min•Ep. 93
