¶ Introduction
🔊 Hands
This is Belonging, a podcast that explores being alive in the age of loneliness. I'm your host, Becca Piastrelli, and I mentor spaceholders, kinkeepers, and circle facilitators to be catalysts for belonging in their communities while also generously resourcing themselves at the same time. I am also a mother and land steward of a farm on the ancestral lands of the Mohican people in the present-day Hudson Valley of Mihan.
In this podcast, I explore topics like cultivating meaningful community, seasonal and cyclical. ritual and rites of passage, and what it means to be a good ancestor in these times. I have thought-provoking conversations with friends, teachers, and elders to help support you in reorienting. Towards a legacy of regeneration and reconnection that breathes life into feelings.
🎵 Music
For my own story, because we were meant to do this together, cosmically holding hands as we walk the spiral of life. You can expect to be challenged by new or old ideas, face your beliefs and what systems informed them, get curious and brave to tell the truth about the deeper, harder things. and feel comforted in the knowing that you don't have to navigate it all alone.
For show notes and links mentioned in these episodes and to sign up for Slow and Seasonal, my once-in-a-while email newsletter, head to beckapiastrelli.com.
🎵 Music
Hello and welcome back to Belonging, the podcast. I'm your host, Becca Piastrelli, recording from the farm here in the Hudson Valley of New York, where things are about to get very full. Because this is my last episode before I go have a baby. Before I go into babyland in the postpartum cave. So if you don't hear from me for a while, you'll know why. And basically I'll see you when I see you.
I learned from my first time having a child five and a half years ago to not make too many scheduled promises. Um and to just see how recovery goes for me. But I feel very supported and excited even and ready to do the dang thing whenever that happens. So before I disappear into Babyland. I wanted to leave you with something really good. I have been sitting on this concept for a while and it's really been lighting me up in person in my in-person conversations.
Which in person has really started to overtake my online life, someone who really gets a lot of community and content and research done in the internet world. And that has been my life, my work. My business has been online. It's been an interesting shift to see when I very consciously wanted to. be more analog in my life to see how I'm being more and more fulfilled by conversations and activities offline. In my life following the big
shift from suburban California to a regenerative farm in the Hudson Valley. So What I've been talking a lot about is what if millennials, the millennial generation, which I am a part of, maybe you are, if you aren't stick with me. What if millennials weren't dealt a bad hand? but a sacred one. And I think it could also be said, what if we, those of us that
Are
alive in these times. with agency and resources and feel so overwhelmed and so confused and Despairing sometimes and apathetic times. What if we're not screwed? What if we've got everything we need? to midwife something new. So today I'm sharing a conversation with one of my IRL in person friends here in Hudson Valley. Her name is Sarah Davidson and we talked in my living room a few weeks ago. So Sarah is a mother.
A thinker, she is a witch with an MBA, which so am I, and someone who is actively working to reimagine how communities finance and support themselves from the ground up. So she was the one who brought this concept to me over a dinner. And then I just made sure at every dinner I was at I was sitting next to her so we could talk about it more and more.
And she was gonna write it and I said, Can we just get on the podcast and can we just share this? Can we just share this concept? So we talk about generational identity. bioregional economies and local currencies. Astrology, we talk about what it actually looks like to turn towards each other instead of away, especially in a time of crisis. and about why this moment that some would call collapse or the great turning or the great simplification. might actually be the moment we were made for.
particularly the millennial generation. And we share more about the stats around that, which I find very compelling. So it's a conversation that has left me feeling genuinely hopeful and quite frankly fired up. Around my work and my purpose and my mothering and my community work and And I hope it'll do the same for you. And I've been working behind the scenes this whole pregnancy. Oh my gosh, this pregnancy has had me on fire.
on something I'm really excited about. And it's a shift in my work. I've been still teaching circle craft an incredible cohort this past winter. But also looking to initiate more of us into community stewardship, not just training about it, not just reading about it, but living it. So that we can actively build and operate revillaging hubs everywhere on every street.
around this world. So I've got these big ideas and I've been working slowly towards them. If you're on my email list, I've been talking about them. So that's what I'm looking forward to picking up. Of this second matres threshold I walked. So stay tuned. But let's dive into this conversation because it's for all of us. Whether you identify as a millennial or not, I really welcome you in to the possibility of hope that we have
Much on our side when it comes to bringing through um a new, more equitable, more land connected, more community-connected world that we deserve. All right. Sarah Davidson, welcome to belonging.
¶ How We Met and Our Similar Dharmic paths
We just attempted to record a beautiful intro and I wasn't. I didn't hit record. So we are trying this again. Here we are. In my living room, in the huddle. In person, you are one of my dearest friends. Mm-hmm. I've known you for a couple years. met you soon after I m I moved here and what we've learned over time Is that we have a lot in common, a lot of interests that are in common, including because I LinkedIn stocked to you the other night because Maybe I should get back on...
It's we both worked at the same very obscure company that is probably no longer we're
It does not be a good idea.
At the same time in twenty twelve for like six to eight months maybe? And it was it was the time. How can we describe this time that so many of us millennials know? It was like hope and change.
We
We it was up to us through corporate sustainability and responsible capitalism to lower the temperature of the planet. And we were gonna do that through this selling memberships to this company.
That's just... We were raising awareness and calling attention to
And you were doing smart cities and I was doing electric vehicles.
I was doing like general membership.
Yeah, sponsor. Oh I see.
I always felt a little uh uncomfortable. those products'cause it was a shisty company.
It I mean.
Funny that it was a shisty company in the New York office where I worked and in the
And the San Francisco office.
Yeah.
Yes, we work the exact same time. So this is like just such a funny interesting thing because I then meet you here in the Hudson Valley. We're both moms, you know, we both love to like go out and have dinner and drinks and we both like to be witchy. Just had no idea there was this other part of us, this like hopey changey, millennial part of us. Um but it it wove its way into our conversations eventually where I realized actually we have similar dharmic paths, I would say, like ethoses.
um being alive in this time and having this cosmic assignment. So yeah, you came to me with this idea that you were so excited Which was about being millennial and how you're just really over the millennial apathy, the millennial malaise, the like boomers left us.
With the short end of the stick, we've had to deal with multiple economic crashes and wars and I mean, certainly this is all true. And like a burning planet and like Uh and like we have we know, we can't afford homes and and we're all social media addicted and we ha you know, there's just so much around the millennial story. that has like us climbing a mountain that's unclimbable. But you were like We were we were born
And you c you gave me this rallying cry that I responded to. So I that's why what we're talking about. Because I wanna spread the word alongside you around yeah, this time of collapse, this time of radical change, this time of like upheaval. and why we were meant for it. Mm-hmm. So where do you wanna come in?
Well, the first time that we recorded this I was gonna come in one way, but now that you just gave that slightly tweaked introductory Okay. I do I feel like the moment that I kind of knew we were sort of kindred spirits in this is um we were at a dinner and I was talking about the biore. And you were like, you know, I've got an MBA, and like I'm very interested in this too. And I was like, I have an MBA too. And
I'm a witch with an ambassador.
Whiched with an MBA. And I feel like since then we've just sort of been very dialed in on like a pretty I don't know, like pretty unique line of conversation about, you know, sort of living in the Hudson Valley in this time. I think we're part of the wave of moms of families who moved up here post COVID. Yeah. And um have been really like very intentional about how we're building community.
And I think finding a lot of possibility in how we're building community together and bringing in other women. here and so it's been just you know I've been finding so much um like I've been learning so much.
I remember I was talking about this farm stand I have. Maybe you listen to the podcast.
I did. I listened to the podcast. You made like fifty three dollars and eighty seven cents last year.
And you were like, Becca, this is the most incredible thing you're doing. I get it. Oh, we were at a dinner, a boozy Mother's Day at dinner.
Ha ha.
And you were like looked me in the eyes and you're like, Yeah. No, it's really important. Bioregionalism is really important.
Okay, so all of that, yes, that's all good.
¶ The Millenial Generation and Generational Theory
So this thing about millennials, where to begin? I I kind of first got um wind of this theory when I was living in DC right after college, in the height of the hope and change era. And, you know, everybody who was there And there was a book called Generation We, which I think was by Mor
We'll link to it in the show notes.
Yeah. And and I I saw one of them speak actually and the whole idea was about how millennial Are a generation that is considered the hero generation. So they've got this theory that there's four different Over, you know, each one is about twenty years, so they're eighty year cycle. And each generation is defined by the sort of macroeconomic activity that's occurring as they're being as they're growing up and then that they mature into. And the same.
And so these reincarnations of the same generational types continue to occur. So we are the next iteration of the great generation before us. They went and fought World War Two, came back, rebuilt the nation. The greats are responsible for a lot of the infrastructure that we know today in terms of so social. Right, like the healthcare system that we have, the education system that we have and I think they were really
National Park. Yes.
Um that even the the the water that we have. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, yeah. That was maybe more. Had the boomers who came after them and then Gen X, and each of them is defined by the world in which they grow. And so just like to give the recap of these the four that are in our lifetime, right? Great. So there's the the the greats, right? Then there's the sort of post World War Two America where our parents really were defined by strong institutions and social unity.
optimism and they're known as the profit type. So it's like this world of expanding prosperity and strong institutions. And then there's the awakening, which is the Gen Xers. These are the like eras, the awakening is like the era, but the the generation that we know. is the Gen Xers who were kind of like pissed off and they were rebelling against the institutions and they're really focused on personal freedom. Um they're like the nomad archetype.
they become, you know, sort of survivors in this like later period of their lives. They they're really defined by like their own sort of rebellion and like the hardship that they kind of face. And then there's a great unraveling, which is the era in which we grew up, right? The beginning of um the beginning of really the the beginning of the turning. So for us that was to your point, it was the economic crash just as we were sort of in our college
era or high school era if you're not an elder millennial. You know, watching the towers fall, which was such a defining moment for all of us. The beginning of like, you know, remember Dolly? Like the beginning of all of these, the like sheep? Wasn't there like a sheep that was like genetically cloned or something? Like it was like the beginning of the unraveling, the beginning of
The beginning of social media.
The beginning of social media. Remember when Facebook happened when we were in college? The beginning of everybody having a phone. Yeah. Like so we sort of grew up in the age of the unraveling and we come of age The hero generations before us during these times of crisis. Yeah. And it doesn't matter where you sit on the political spectrum. Like if you have a pulse you know that this is an era of just complete all the systems that we know have been completely dismantled.
all the systems that we grew up with really no longer apply. I mean, again, whether you support this administration or not, government is not gonna function The way that it used to be Yeah. Right. Like the way that AI has taken such a hold on us. Like the way that we get information is not the same as it was before. Like it's a completely it's the beg it's the dawn of a new era for us. and millennials were born for this moment. Like we are the ones who were raised in a time of dismantling.
And we are coming of age. And I think the fact that we you know, we've talked about this a lot in both turning forty this year, like there's something very profound about this moment, at least as a woman. I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I I found like it it feels very intentionally like, okay, I'm I'm like settled as a human being. You know, I have three beautiful children, my husband live here.
And like entering into this next era with a lot of intentionality about how to build community, about how I wanna live, about how I wanna spend my time, about how I want to fill my
And
if you can think about us as millennials taking that stance. You know, that like we are on the precipice of adulthood. We are taking over all the institutions. We're ta stepping into leadership roles. Like, you know, the the elder generations are not going to be with us forever.
And they shouldn't be leading as much as we should be leading
Exactly. So I think that that's like the And that's really the idea that gets me excited is that like I and I think the the other piece of this and I'm kind of rambling but the other piece of this is this idea of how we relate Right. We grew up in a world where like we do believe in equality and sustainability and I feel like we care less about like whose fault it is that the planet's on fire. We just like want it to not be on fire and know that the decisions that we make.
Contribute to whether or not it's on fire. And so I think that we're a very aware generation. We're a really interconnected generation. And we're empathetic, we're pragmatic, we're really celebratory.
A lot of us have gone to therapy.
We've been in therapy our whole lives. Like I think yeah, we're very in touch with our You know, we we expect each other to like have a sense of what's go you know, like you like our our our husbands are in therapy, like the men are dialed in and we're all, you know, living in a world where everybody's comfortable using their pronouns. Like We're w we are also introducing, I think, a much more empathetic style of leadership than we have had before.
And so for all these reasons, I think like, yes, it is a dumpster fire out there. And we're really well suited to take this on and to start to like calm things down a little bit.
What do they say about Gen Z?
The Gen Z So Gen Z grow up uh during instability and crisis and their typical traits are adaptive, sensitive to social systems, institutionally cautious. skilled at navigating complexity, and they become the careful stabilizers of the new order built after the crisis. So like they're sort of coming of age as the crisis is
Yeah. I think about like Greta Thunberg. Like this uh this has been
Right.
Right.
Exactly. When you wouldn't see your pair I mean you'd leave in the morning and come back in time for dinner. Yeah. You know, like that's not a world that exists.
Yeah. Okay, so we're talking about the generational theory, which I find very compelling. And then we have you talk about the astrology of these times.
¶ The Astrology of these Times
I'm all I'm I'm into the astrology and I I'm also not someone who fully like comprehends the astrology, although it's been pretty clear that the astrology has been very intense lately. I've been back on my Channy app and understanding the eclipse season and what's going on, but you brought in this really cool way of looking at what's happening in this one area of uh astrological phenomenon that relates to our gener
Yeah, and I also do not pretend to be an astrologist, so I will share what I know from listening to Chani and the others. But I was, you know, again, I think that I've sort of taken an interest in this since I moved up here and I'm surrounded by all these wonderful witchy moms and witchy people. But I, you know, last year I was very taken by what I was hearing about how all of the outer planets, they're like the slow outer moving planets.
That take, you know, anywhere from, you know, a a few, I don't know, like call it 10 or 20 years to shift to hundreds of years. And the fact that they were all transiting last year was like very significant in the astrology world. And it was really like demonstrative of this like complete era transition that was underway. So that like very much captured my attention. And then there's been a lot of sort of also conversation about Pluto, which is one of the slow-moving planets.
And that's a planet that's typically associated with power and institutions and wealth and control structures. And it's just left this long transit through Capricorn, which is a sign that's traditionally linked with governments and hierarchies and corporations and formal authority. So this Pluto is moving out of that.
And you know, over the past fifteen years as it's been going through that transit, we've watched those systems, you know, consolidate and hollow out and we've seen all this corruption get exposed. And that these systems are just not meeting human needs the way that they once were. And so Pluto's moving into Aquarius. Now, which is a sign associated with networks and technology and collective movements and social experimentation. feminine energy.
And so the transformation is shifting from the centralized authority towards distributed power and peer networks and more social architecture. And so I think that that also and this is like again my novice not knowing too much about astrology, but I feel like the more that I listen It's like so many of these planetary forces are also aligned.
This unraveling, this re rebirth. And I'm not saying this is like over and But on the other side is this much more sort of a quality democratic type of um existence
Yeah. Right. So before we recorded we twenty twenty four. that's twenty years. That's a generation. And that's our moment. Like that's us from sixties. Like this prime time. in like human adult modern life.
when we're wa stepping into our power, like this is the shift that's happening astrologically as we're like about to take over all the systems. I mean, we're already, you know, as the moms of the group, like We're organizing the dinners and deciding what time we're all getting together and what things we're signing up for and like what our communities look like.
Is sort of what I'm saying, is I think yeah, we're already doing this in a lot of ways, and so when people feel or sort of express this, like vision of millennials being this like sad live in the basement, spend all their money on avocado toast. Like what did you think was gonna happen if you, you know? Whatever, aren't you responsible with your resources? And it's like, well, actually, I think we're living our lives in a way that are demonstrative of this much brighter, more interconnected.
More intentionally community-based future, which is feels like one of the big things that's missing, right? That we no longer have the support systems that we as a people used to have, that we've become so isolated. And I think millennials are bringing us back.
Hmm.
Okay, so there's a final piece here that really just exploded my brain.
¶ The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History
Feelings of being And so it's this The greatest wealth transfer. ever in recorded history.
That seventy trillion dollars.
Seventy trillion okay, you s you s tell us what's happening.
So this is the idea and this is sort of where you and I connected on this topic and you were like, Wait, what the what? So over the next twenty years is g is the greatest wealth transfer in history from boomers to millennials. Seventy trillion dollars are gonna be shifting sort of societally, and that comes with also all of these leadership positions and everything else. And so just like whether we do anything or not, that's just like happening in our economy.
So how is that that's moving through inheritance? That's moving through
Yeah, I mean that's that's like the amount of wealth.
that
You know, boomers hold now.
Yeah.
That they won't be here to be holding on to anymore. So it's inheritance, it's through assets, it's through all of the infrastructure that we have. that is that is, you know, no longer going to be theirs when they're not here. And so the argument and sort of the discussion that I think we've found so compelling is this idea that even with like the slightest bit of intentionality. that's all the resources you could possibly need.
To make massive change.
Chi it's the seed capital for the future that we want to live in. I mean Those are the dollars that should go towards your like local financing institutions, towards your communities, towards all the nonprofit type stuff that we wanna see, all of the
Subsidizing health care.
Exactly.
Feeding people who are hungry. Affordable child care.
All all of the th and like the fact that we you know that we can't pencil out regenerative agriculture. Like Well they can certainly pencil if you can get the dollars to move in the right way. We subsidize, you know, corn and soybean commercial farming. Why can't we subsidize all these other things that And so I think that the idea of this wealth transfer, when you say like what exactly is that? Like it's it's the amount of dollars and and
transitioning. And so I think that we as a generation, I mean, this is our opportunity. Yeah. You know?
I that I think what lit me up is f my first thought when I heard it was like, Well not everyone is gonna have access to that money, not everyone has access to like generational wealth inheritance, but then I realized, no, it's going into a system, which so you work in finance, I do not. So you've we've talked through it a little bit in a way that I'm understanding more about like
money flowing in a system, like a archaic system that has money flow a certain way, but new leaders are coming to the system, right? With different values. That's us as military. and the mu and a lot more money is flowing in. So whether or not you inherit it from your dad is not really what we're talking about in here. Although that's an important role that if you do, you play, you know, in the c in the culture.
But it's like being able to get it as loans, being able to get it as grant money, being able to access it in all these ways, creating financial institutions that receive it and then disperse it, which is what you're really excited about. Your bioregional finance.
concept which I want to talk about in a second. But That just did something to me, as someone where Tim and I had earned money through primarily Tim's high paying tech And for me to go from a place of like, oh, shame that not everyone has this money and what do I do with it, to being like, oh, I am a vehicle, Tim and I are a vehicle to move that money into my community.
Through this regenerative farm we're building, through creating this like bioregional hub, which is our farm stand half the year, through like free or low cost gatherings we have through our s through paying taxes, like all these ways in which we're funneling it. Like think about that on a massive scale. And that just got me so excited and really shifted my perspective from millennial apathy who like can't afford to buy a home, which is true for a lot of people, to, okay, wait a second.
Something bigger is going to happen and is is ha is underfoot, is underway. Yeah. What else do you want to say about? Because you got me there.
There's so much to say about that. Like where to begin. So I think okay, if you're a millennial who's like who is living with your parents and who doesn't have a job that is a nine to five and you're sort of hustling on the side or whatever, you still choose how you spend your money, right? And like
you still choose whether or not you vote and how you engage with your peers. And I think that all of those behaviors to what we were saying before, like contribute to like we just we're we're we're programmed a certain way because of the world in which Right. So I do think those decisions that you make every day are sort of already moving us towards this different type of future than we have right now. And
Yeah, it's part of why I think I probably looked at you and was like I so get it about the farm stand, right? Because it's not just saying that like, oh, you know, you grew these like six tomatoes and you made whatever, eight dollars. It's like whole way that you're designing your farm is, you know, very much like in gratitude for the the land that it's on and with like acknowledgement that the things that you grow will be healthier when the soil is healthy and that the products that you use
like really matter for the, you know, bioregion and for the products and for your home and for your family. And so I just think that it's like going many steps back, right? Before you get to the like economic transfer, it's like all of the steps that you take to inform the decisions that get us there are really important. Yeah, to what you were saying earlier, it's like i like whether or not you're inheriting this money directly is irrelevant because we are inheriting
you know, the political power and the institutional like like whether or not you're running the company or running the nonprofit, you're operating in that world, right? And you're making decisions that support the transition of the things and how we're programming things and
Right, and this is at the PTA level and the city council level and the affordable housing committee level. It's about like the board seat at the local nonprofit. And like the money is gonna flow that way, right? Or it's or it's like running a bank, but it's like every little piece of the web It matters and we are hitting the age where we step into those roles.
more. And we decide which tax credits we're gonna get behind and which ones we're not. And like, you know, w all all the projects that we think should be supported versus not. And this this conference I was at earlier Which is about it was a food systems like morning conference.
Woman who kicked things off, Kathleen Finley, who runs Glenwood, who's amazing. And she basically was describing like our very commercial food system that we have today, right? With like the very traditional, like large farms that are owned by. versus the sort of other extreme, which is all these like scrappy little farms. you know, sort of bespoke distribution networks and it's this like much more complicated, diverse, small
sort of messy system. And I think what what what I was getting out of the conversations today was the idea of like if we could put some infrastructure around this messier system and we could have the same type, I mean this this commercial system is heavily supported through subsidies, federal subsidies. I mean, that's why it exists.
And yeah, lobby.
And lobbying of course. I mean, because there's all the resources behind that because for a long time that's how we've been feeding everybody, and now we know that that food isn't supportive. to our bodies and to our land and that that's it's actually in a lot of ways killing us. I mean that's like that
The land.
And the land. I mean it's poison. It's contributing to all of these climate So on the other side, you have this system that's much more regenerative for our bodies and for the land and for our And that's lacking. It's lacking the infrastructure. It's lacking the like same type of coordination for that to be successful. And you don't want it you this is not a system that's gonna scale the way these other systems have scaled because it's not about scale.
No, we're decentralizing through the unraveling. But see that's that's the other point here.
¶ Decentralising through the Unraveling and Midwifing the New World
Maybe we're just saying the same thing in different ways, but let's do it. Keep going. To get people to get it is like as things are unraveling Pluto and Aquarius, the systems that were built during the industrial era and the tw early twentieth century. are failing. Like even the financial system is failing, but we can take these seeds, right? The seeds of this like wealth transfer, the seeds of this opportunity of our time in our lives. To midwife a new world.
And it's complicated, but it's like we each have our role and like you're talking about the food system, like decentralizing the food system. I mean, we're talking about big lofty things. It can almost be overwhelming, but it's like we've got the next twenty years at least. And we've got things on our side. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think also, I don't know, I like tend to be a big picture person. I'm not much of a details gal. Evidence through a number of Trials and tribulations today alone. But I think it doesn't actually have to be this like big overwhelming thing. I think it's like I think it's like it would be nice to live in a world where you can decide to pick the organic thing or the not organic thing and the organic thing. Right because the organic thing is equally supported.
And the electricity in your house is coming from a place that's not, you know, extracting from the place So I think and in terms of like us today I think it also comes down to like how you spend your dollars and how you spend your time and the conversations that you have and how you hold space for other people. I think it doesn't have to be so complicated and I think it's not so complicated and I firmly believe that we're already doing
So it's not like we're saying like, okay, so everybody like find your local regenerative farm today. It's like just keep going. Like keep doing what you're doing. Keep living the life that you're living. Keep being the empathetic everybody gets a trophy kind of person that you grew up as. And I think we're gonna get there. I mean, history is on our side and the planets are on our side.
Yeah, and I think it's a framing, right? It's a framing I talk about this a lot in my Revillaging and women's circle and just like sharing about what we're doing here on the farm is like seeing yourself as. Sometimes I use the term village mother and I think I heard you say that actually in your fortieth birthday speech which I wanna Yeah, it's like not seeing what you're doing day to day as n as meaningless. Like it's there's such deep meaning in each of these decisions and choices and
Ways we spend our time. And that can sometimes feel exhausting when you just you're like, I gotta tune out, man. There's just too much going on, there's too much information coming my way. But it's like taking what you're saying about like just keep going like Like so much is on our side, and and I'm alongside you saying, and like see yourself as a community leader, see yourself as a bioregional hub.
see yourself as like a re villager in the way you interact at the coffee shop and the way you choose to spend your time and like make a slightly braver, bolder choice every time. The way that you can see.
Yeah. I mean I think it is like I was after we had this conversation about the company that we both work for whatever that was a week ago, I was thinking a lot about Like that era of our youth and this whole like Obama infuse. like sentiment of like one voice can change a room and if your voice can change a room it can change a city and if a voice can change a city it can change a nation and change the world and like Exactly.
And that's like what that was like so like our early adulthood was so like informed by that kind of thinking. And I I sat with that for a long time. feel like it's like where where at least where I'm at now, I think where a lot of us are at now is like Probably not gonna have your voice like change the nation and change the world, but certainly like how you carry yourself, how you hold space for other people can like shift the
You and I both turned forty last year and you we both we both made a a bigger deal about it. Not mad about it at all. You had a beautiful, beautiful dinner ritual experience year Escorpios it was like around Sawin Halloween time.
¶ The Intentionality of the 40s Portal
at your in your grandmother's beautiful home, so in your ancestral home. And there's a lot we could say about it, but what I if you feel comfortable sharing, like you made a really thoughtful speech. at that dinner and it was it was like a rallying cry to all of us sitting at the table. Like you it you know, it was like, yeah, girls dinner but it wasn't just girls dinner. You were like, okay, here's a here's a moment. Mm-hmm and I'm wondering if you want to say anything.
Sure. Um, I mean I think it's similar to a lot of the themes that we've been talking about, but I thought a lot about turning forty, inspired in large part by your fortieth portal transition. Um, and actually spent a few months before working um with this amazing woman, Katherine Moore, to like declutter my home, which felt really important and she would sort of
Cleaning out sessions like
Portal look like to you? And what do you want to how do you want to feel on the other side? And what does that look like? And what do you want to leave behind? With you. feel like I was very present for that moment. And yeah, it was right on Halloween. It was Frances' birthday. So there were sort of two of us that were witchily dialed in and you led this beautiful ritual. Yeah, I was thinking about that a lot and a lot about what the other side of that portrait.
And, you know, again, it's really like I think in your for me at least, like in my twenties and thirties, it was a lot of like running around and being really reactive and Really wanting to You know in my thirties. Found what I was looking for in my
No, like a really like going into forty was like very intentionally wanting to fill that table with, you know, fresh.
And and I think also I was feeling I do feel a lot of gratitude just to be born into the family that I'm born into. Grandmother And so I think just feeling really like intentional and a lot of gratitude for the resources that I have. Again that's like sort of The beginning of the chapter of responsibility. Like, you know, you have the young I already have the young kids. I'm not like worried about whether
Like that piece is done. I know where I live, I know what my kids And I feel responsibility for To the extent that I can Responsibility.
Which millennials are?
more well equipped to do.
We are. I think that we have boundaries. I think that we know our limits. And so again, when when we we were talking about this dinner, my friend was like, So do you want to like ask everyone take on a new thing in their community. And I'm like, no, it's again, it's like your own, whatever that looks like for you, right? Whatever your empowered self looks like. And for me, I think community sort of showing up in a way that I think can get people excited about new
Old ideas that feel new again. But that was very much like my intention for this next chapter of my life was to just feel empowered in this like responsible era. And it feels like a lot again with like the parents. And the responsibility of the leadership of everything. Yeah. But there's so much power in that. And if we work together, you know, we're all in this era together. And we were born to be collaborative. And Pluto's helping us be.
Yeah, and I have found just even like I am extremely pregnant right now recording this, and like you have three kids. One is very small and A job, like there's so and like we're both so bummed about the state of the world right now and yet we're feeling energy. We're feeling energy. Like I'm talking about like caffeine like energy, but it's not from caffeine, although I'm also having a lot of fun. But like there is a way in which
embracing the responsibility in community and understanding that we're all nodes on this big web. You know, it's so counter to this hyper individualist, like do the right thing or else. That's very like demotivating. You know, like I feel on fire when I talk to you about these things. I feel bolder. I'm taking big action. You and I have a big
lunch meeting next week where we're both taking bold action for things we're working on, you know, despite like so much happening in your life and I'm imminently giving birth. Like we're feeling the movement. Yeah. And that's the power of this time and of who we
And I think it's so like part of that is kind of thing with and they're like oh yeah and you know this person's doing I think there's an excitement around this way of perceiving what's happening. The the world is in a really horrible state.
Yes.
Like to the point where we can't even really it's it's I mean it's it's
And so
To keep you going. And this isn't a pretend thread. This is like, this is also real. Real like your beautiful daughter in the other room. Like, this is also you know, the choices that people make. And I think the more that we can't control It's even more important that we are very intense.
So I would like to hear a bit more before we close.
¶ Fostering Healthy Regenerative Ecosystems through Bioregional Financing
And if you can break it down for us who don't fully live in this world of of money and finance. Yeah. This you know, this system that is breaking down slowly, but that you work in and about this concept that you're working on and it's so cool.
So I will give a very a very quick overview. But the basic idea is, you know, we've talked a lot, and I know you talk a lot on this podcast about sort of the bias. and thinking very regionally. And so there is an idea.
hyperloop.
Like hyperlocal. Yeah. Thank you. So for us, we think about that as like the Hudson River estuary region, right? So from call it Albany to New York City, which is a pretty large region, but you can break that down into little micro regions. But the idea is to develop a system that can support all the things that are fostering healthy and regenerative ecosystems, whether that's people, whether that's the land, whether that's animals, like the lived environment. mental health.
Is there a way for us to be supportive of all the things that are regenerative and positive and again like supporting healthy? And so this I I read this book maybe two years ago now by this woman, Samantha Powers, called Bioregional. Where she basically lays out this concept of using capital To support all of these things we care about and to think about returns, not just in a way that is like dollar returns, but returns that um are demonstrative of the benefit that something is. Yeah.
And so I think there's a lot of different ways to do this. We have a few localized currencies in use in the Hudson Valley, which I think are really exciting. And the idea that they
Are being used all over the country. Yeah. In California we had it too.
Oh cool. I didn't know that.
Yeah.
What was it called in California?
Well, there was this town nearby where I lived called Fairfield.
Fair butt.
Cool. Like the Burke share.
Like the Burke shares. Yes. And you so you keep the currency
Yeah, yeah.
community and that cycles the money through your community. Yes. We love
We love this idea. And it's also someone was telling me that during COVID when everyone was so worried and the markets were going crazy that the use of this local currency like shoots through the roof because everyone's like, Well, I can touch this and like I know that this six, you know, Berkshares get me that loaf of bread or whatever.
Which is if I may pause you for just a moment. something that is really counter to what we're told in media and movies about crisis that we'll turn on each other. We need guns. uh you know, we're all coming for each other's things, but actually when crisis hits and COVID is a perfect example of a crisis, um, we're more likely to turn towards each other and community. You can see it when hurricanes hit.
like things happen all over, it's that we actually turn towards each other more and that's with our money.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. And with our time and our attention and our kindness, no matter how w how much ranting on Reddit, we're coming towards each other in that way.
And that's what I think is so exciting about this concept of some sort of like centralized financing hub that is not run by someone else, it's run by people in the community. that know the projects that they're supporting, that know the people who are running those projects. And like
You know, I I don't know exactly what the structure is. This is sort of like a working concept. Yeah. But in theory, like somebody defaults on a payment and it's your next door neighbor, you're like, Okay, well, you know, let's find some other way to make this work because we want your farm to continu you know what I mean? Like we're not gonna have your farm go under because you produce the apples in the region. You know, like I think i it's the recognition that everybody's playing this role.
building a healthy ecosystem. And and again, whether that's like housing or medicine or, you know, or farms or whatever, the idea is to have some sort of like patient capital source where the investment priority is on this like regenerative ecosystem. concept and not necessarily about returns to shareholders because at the end of the day we need food, we need a planet, we need home And so like that is the outcome that is desired.
Yes, and so you're working on it right now as a way to Nourish. And support. where you live and where I live too. And I think what I want people to take away from this is like a lot of us are fearing the unraveling of these systems and there are people that are thinking about and creating new systems right now. You know, right now, thinking about how to decentralize financial institutions so that we can support our local economy. Like it's happening in so many ways.
How we're gonna feed like literally our neighbors and ourselves, like how we're going to take care of each other, birth the babies, like this is happening. So I this is me telling you, listening. Who's like in a place of doom scrolling and fear? Like there are people doing really cool shit right now and have been for a long time, preparing for the great simplification, as Nate Hagen says, or the great unraveling, the great turning that We can we can meet this moment. And it requires us to
find ways to weave back or weave our way back towards each other to find that energies that spark and we all do the best we can with what we have. But I think what you're creating with this. BFF, bioregional financing facility, which is the
So good.
Best acronym is proof of that. You know, and you're doing that, like that's not like you also have a job and children and all that stuff, so you're You're finding your way through it.
And you know, I see you doing the same thing. That they're doing. One other thing that I just like wanted to get out there in the world is a few years ago, I was having my star chart done by. you know, used to do my chart every year and I remember it was like right around the time that the capital was being And yeah, heavy time. And I just remember saying to her, I think I was pregnant at the time. This is such an insane time to like have a child and like what is this world that I'm bringing
¶ The New Generation is Right on Time
And she was like, oh Sarah, like they're they're the most suited to deal with the world that they're gonna inherit, right? That like they're gonna be better suited than you would have been if this had happened, you know, like
The ones'cause they're born into
Because they're born into it and like whatever the forces are that like had these people do what they did, like these
It's just like it's it's exactly right on time. Like all of these I think that like us as millennials sort of coming into our awareness and like taking on this role of like being, you know, entering into our middle age at this moment in time is like so And I think all of it, you know, it there's so much that is so scary and so unknown and like we are just watching everything collapse.
And I mean, I'll stand by it. I think that we're really uniquely positioned to not just inherit this world, but to really create this next iteration of our existence.
That's the assignment we've been given. Yeah. It's like how are we gonna rise to it, you know, with resourcing and with even joy. That's my whole thing is like I want to talk about collapse from a place of like a way where we can joyfully meet it if possible. And I think you're someone who I've connected with on that. So it's a lot of it's just doing it together.
Witchy dinners are a good way to
Dinners are we highly recommend watching dinner. Thank you, Sarah.
Becca, thank you for your interest and your enthusiasm and support. It's a lot more fun to have conversations like this with you. So thank you. Thanks.
Thank you so much for listening. In a time when our attention is being pulled in so many directions, I feel honored you chose to devote some of yours here with us. If you want to check out show notes or listen to past episodes, go to belongingpodcast.com. And if you like what we talk about here and want to know more, you can subscribe to my newsletter at Becca PS. I'll be with you again.
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