Music. This is belonging a podcast that explores being alive in the age of loneliness I'm your host Becca piastrelli, a writer mother and Community tender currently living on the ancestral lands the coastal walk people and present day Marin County California. In this show we explore topics like Rites of Passage cultivating meaningful community. Seasonal and cyclical living and what it means to be a good ancestor in these times.
I have thought-provoking conversations with friends teachers elders and ancestral medicine Keepers to help support you in bringing more meaning and connection to your life. I also pop in here and there to share updates and learnings from my own story because we were meant to do this. Music.
You can expect to be challenged by New or Old ideas face your beliefs and what systems and formed them get curious and brave to tell the truth about the deeper harder things and feel comforted and then knowing that you don't. Music. Hello and welcome back to belonging it's Becca piastrelli here on the heels of covid just getting over it.
Was waiting to record this intro because I have quite a raspy voice after 10 days with the vid but feeling better and so so grateful to my body and to bone broth shout out to bone broth I just want to say if you don't make your own bone broth and you're buying it you just don't know what you're missing out on so I'm sure you can look up a bone broth recipe on the internet. But I just want to tell you what I put in mind I feel very strongly about this because bone broth is Nature's Miracle.
Truly so good for you so healing in so many ways so here's what I do the basics are bones. Now obviously this is for people who are not Beacon if you are just like skip ahead 30 seconds to a minute and we'll get on with this but what we do is we like roasted chicken once a week and we just keep the carcass and the bones a friend of mine Isha mood Lee said that every time like we chicken wings or any chicken in the house or another animal just keep all those bones.
They're all good or you can buy the bones but where I live bones are now really expensive because everyone's Mike and their bone broth so just get what you can.
Bones and then a little bit of vinegar like an apple cider vinegar that helps pull the nutrients out of the bones and then fill it a pot of water then I add two cloves of garlic that I chop I chop a whole onion in half and put it in there I have a big knobbly piece of Ginger that I chop up and I put in their Ginger is Magic and then I put, lot of Veggie scraps so throughout the weeks when I'm like cooking veggies if I'm not giving it to the worm compost or the chicken compost.
Particularly onions which you can't give to either I just put it in a bag in my freezer so you know like ends of carrots or celery or anything like that. You just take it and put it in the pot Frozen and then. I add in this is okay this is the secret every year I either grow forage or buy from a farmer the farmers market metal. Great when it's like beautiful in like after the rains where I live the rains are in like. Midwinter and I buy big bag of nettle.
Yes stinging nettle you're going to be okay if you get stung it's actually really great for blood flow and I put it in the freezer, that's like for the whole year so I buy a lot and when you freeze it it does it's not stinging anymore and then I take a handful of Frozen metal and I put it in the pot and then.
Chicken feet if you can handle it chicken feet clean chicken feet they're so gelatinous and so that's going to make your bone broth feel like have that sort of gelatinous jelly nature that's just so good for your digestive system for your gut for your bones for your skin for your nails for your hair for healing.
So I have a boiling right now upstairs and you can add all sorts of other things that you want to but that's like my tried-and-true recipe oh my gosh I forgot, a lemon cut a lemon in half didn't think I'd be giving this recipe.
I bet you have really amazing bone broth recipes to so always hit me up for extra ingredients for your tried-and-true bone broth and then I simmer it on the stove for 24 hours other people do it in a crock pot or, pressure cooker I like to simmer it for 24 hours and fill the house with magical smells, so anyways there you go this episode brought to you by bone broth recipes to help you with your illnesses of the changing season.
So I wanted to share with you that I just got back from a really nourishing.
Community gathering in ritual that's also where it got covid, it was so special so it was a gathering up on the east coast in Connecticut where we have a friend who has land and this community we all used to live together in the Bay area of California but a lot of us have gone our separate ways and it's made us really sad about the fact that we don't all live on a compound on a farm but I don't know if that's actually realistic in this time in these times or if we can all
financially afford that or or work with that so what we do is we commit to at least once a year coming together for the beginning of Spring here in the northern hemisphere Beltane May 1st May Day all sorts of terms for it and honor it and, we have an honored Elder grandmother Sarah MacLean Bicknell who I have interviewed on this podcast who comes and shares her ways indigenous to the British Isles but we also have a diverse community of folks,
who are trying to reclaim their ancestry in all the ways and we.
We aren't trying to remake what what our ancestors did 200 300 years ago we're taking that energy and weird creating ritual for us so Tim helped build a maple and we have a friend Gina by Monty Bloom generation who adorns the maypole crown and then, we had people take on roles from the Beltane ritual you can look it up if you're like what are you talking about Becca and we have such a beautiful queer Community both sexuality and in gender expression and so we.
We had different expressions of what masculine feminine and sexuality. Meant to each of us in the way we dressed and who were the flower crowns and who who danced the maypole and who jumped the fire and it.
It was just a moment after many years it started with you know a little dinner where everyone wore a flower crown if they wanted to and we didn't we just had like a general conversation about community at the dinner table and maybe talked about how flowers are the sexual organs of a plant and that was it and we've come so far to be.
In a space where people want to you know set aside funds and time and Leadership to make this happen and every year like will it happen again I don't know but it was really special to have Atlas be a part of it and wear her white dress in her crown of flowers and Watch Me dance the Maple and be a little concerned about Mama but also like okay Dad is here too so we're going to be okay and there's music and I love music and really.
Really calling and envisioning a lot more parents they're just in this community I'm one of the only parents bringing a young child and, just from our last episode talking with Megan McGuire and Ariella daily really wanting to create Community ritual and Gatherings that are centered around the children.
But it's not like kids tucked in the corner having to run off to nap them and missing important elements so I think that's where my leadership is in this community is being a voice for that and helping folks realize with the timeline and with the spaces that this is how you can incorporate families because once you have a child however you have one like your life is forever changed. And you want to include your family and ritual at least that's my experience.
So I was excited to share that with you it was really special and Powerful space to be in and last year when we went Alice was eight months old and I was so sleep deprived and was nursing her or napping her so much of the day that I felt really other din the space and shared it and and we're working or working towards a new and different way.
And then the other reason I was out in the east coast is if you listen to the last episode you know that Tim and I are looking for a new home to create community and yeah we're considering leaving California which is apparently very controversial to all my beloved friends here, but it's yes that's what we're looking so we looked at a few Communities In Schools and but mostly we sat in our Airbnb for a week with covid-19.
Going crazy so that's where I've been in case you wanted to know and that's why I have a raspy voice at this moment and today I have a conversation, for you with another repeat guest I'm loving asking my friends, on this podcast having rapport with them and talking even deeper.
With them so Asha Frost is in anishinaabemowin or a jib way Medicine Woman and member of the chippewas of now wash First Nation and she's a Healer and spiritual mentor and we had her on the podcast a few years ago when her viral article dear white woman who wants to be like me took off and, as she shares in the episode led to a lot of intense trolling frankly but also put her on the map in a way that she got a book deal and sharp book just came out you are the medicine.
I highly recommend getting this book it's beautiful it follows the moons and the medicine that goes with it from her own ancestral gnosis and connection to the Earth it's a really beautiful way to support indigenous knowledge and Indigenous ways and it's just a lovely lovely book.
So in this conversation we talked about the medicine of publishing a book like we both published books in the last year like we talked about it real deal folks you know how it is around here we discuss why we felt called to write how books can be like babies they're not babies, but they're like babies and the ways releasing our books made us more resilient we talked about how both our books our invitations to move at a slower Earth pace and then we have to walk our talk and do that too,
so it's a call to recognize the postpartum grief that comes when you release creative work you work so hard on it for so long and then.
Because I'm the world and there is a heaviness after that so we talked about that and it's an opportunity to embrace the end of the extended winter we've been undergoing Linda craft Rites of Passage for ourselves that acknowledge a new season basically it's about throwing parties and how we need to throw more parties for ourselves and if anyone tells us have are you throwing too many parties are you celebrating yourself too much say are you celebrating yourself not enough.
And I would love to celebrate you will you celebrate me more. I am excited to share this with you I love Asha so much you are the medicine again is the name of her book. Please go get it listen to her magical voice and maybe listen to it on Audible because. Some of us just want to be read to and that's a beautiful thing okay I'll get out of the way join us for this conversation with a passion for us. Music.
For postpartum depression which was like really a big deal and it really helped I'm just like contending with the fact that I don't know all the feelings that brings up right of like how our ancestors used to do it and how that is impossible now. Oh my gosh in Becky you had her during a pandemic I'm like just realizing how like.
Traumatic that was I feel weird even using the word traumatic cause I'm like traumas much more intense but you know Asha the week she was born, the smoke was so bad here it looked like the sun didn't rise oh my God like the sky was dark red all day like we lived on Mars it was truly like. I don't know I went to a place in my head where I was just like what is this world she is Born Into.
Yeah it was white and then you also had your book come out during that time to like I really think you need to give yourself credit because it's a really do you understand I know I have the book right here it's a lot but you know I want to talk about that yeah so I've talked a lot on the podcast about how it's a dream come true right to publish a book and it's also like.
When you work with a publisher which is also very helpful there's there's certain things you just have to do contractually and so I had to edit it 11 postpartum can you imagine you have too little it's not it's not ideal like even from my last edit they're like oh they're supply chain issues you were doing it you have to have it done in three hours and I was like. I don't the eye it was like my last eye to like look over everything make sure it was all perfect in three hours and I'm like.
This is ridiculous because they are like oh it's Thanksgiving so we we have done this done for this because good things every weekend I was me. So yeah I was frustrated by that because all my everything that I had to deliver had to be on time and then everything they came back I don't have it for you to but it was like, I had to plan it out because I was like well my kids are getting we're in lockdown again and kids are home I'd really like to get this done before you know.
So it's frustrating the whole book for you happened in lockdown yeah everything yeah like you know I always I think. This whole thing with me sharing so much about motherhood.
Is just it's really important to me as someone who's been just constantly mystified by how people do things, you know like how are you running a business and being a mother how did you publish a book like how did you navigate like some really like major grief or you know intense autoimmune disease like how are we doing it and I think there's such a disservice in, I'm grateful to social media but it's such a disservice as far as like we don't.
We should highlights so it's like which you know we want to celebrate but I I'm just like here's how it happened it was rough there were bad days I know and also I did it and I'm proud of it but yeah so here you will I just commend you because I know like after it came out. I thought about you a lot actually sounds like how did she have a new barn and write and get all these hearts and then launch yeah.
Because a launch is just a lot of outward Focus stuff no and totally energy lots of energy and I think there's an added layer for you being an indigenous woman and just like the labor you have to do in the launch you don't have to write but you're being asked to do and have to and education right yeah that's probably so exhausting and your mother and you have autoimmune, I do she's yeah yeah so there's so much there you have to be tracking and your book you are the medicine is out.
And you did it and I just want to say congratulations I know how much behind-the-scenes goes into it how many your help are you out from publishing it was a it was a month last week so it's like five weeks so it's fresh it's fresh it's very fast.
Well I'll just say to the audience this is your second time guest what I've been doing lately is just inviting like my most beloved is back on because I'm just like that's why I want to be doing life you know and catching up so episode 57 called Web of connection with Asha Frost if you want to know a bit more. About what you share both in the beginning of the book and this really viral article you wrote called dear white woman who wants to.
Be like me and we talked a lot about your experience as an indigenous woman and cultural appropriation and all of that we're not going to talk about that today.
That's a really excellent episode to listen to and hear more from this incredible woman Asha Frost what we're going to talk about today is, I really am interested in the motherhood comparison and postpartum comparison of writing and launching a book this incredible book you shared maybe you can just give that like sort of snapshot you give everyone about what the book is about so they can go grab it
so our so it is well it's based around the 13 Moon cycles of the year and each moon cycle has its own medicine so its own teaching its own, Essence is on energy so I really wrote it almost as an oracle that folks could perhaps just flip through and see what medicine is speaking to them at this time
of course our world is very linear and you know indigenous knowledge and ways of being is very cyclical so I really I really had that vision of it just being like little medicine potent medicine wisdom.
Parts that you could just read into and then help you remember who you are so, it's infused people are like oh did you plan it all I wouldn't really was channeled it was very channeled and the words are very, I wanted to infuse them with a vibration that would help that remembering and come back to that Divine knowing that really your enough and you belong because that's the folks I work with that's always the thing they struggle with the most of the belonging the,
the disconnection and also how colonization Capital capitalism the patriarchy how that strip so much away from us. And how we need to unwind some of that to come back to our true knowing and connection so. Each moon has an animal medicine that goes along with the moon so you can learn about the animal spear for that Moon and then how you can incorporate.
Those teachings into your own life in your own way without taking and appropriating from other people's culture it's beautiful I think having written a book. Reading other people's books I'm really appreciating more deeply how they're laid out and that's so interesting that you say it was channeled because I remember.
I took a look at it right when I got it a few weeks ago and I was just like how and and from who and I know so you are indigenous Ojibwe living on the land currently known as Canada, I was wondering if this was like.
Passed down indigenous knowledge through Elders or if it yeah if it comes from within and it sounds like maybe a little bit of both this whole idea of gnosis go NOS is right that we are we are we have indigenous wisdom in us and we have Earth connection innocent if we can call it up that we can write their stories and and our myths now and be the medicine now so I'm just curious yeah about that with you well I think I mean.
The sad thing is and I write about this in the book is that so much of our knowledge was almost extinguished and there's so much just connected which is part of my story because my grandparents are in residential school and, very colonized and wanting to do that assimilation piece and part so that is part of my history so I've had to find different ways of knowing and being and returning to those aways living not in my My First Nation not in my community.
For certain reasons such as that trauma that kind of carries through so. Coming back how do you come back when you aren't around your village and that way and you won't have those Elders living next door. How do you come back my mother was always such a beautiful teacher for me and we lived in a very white like white town and away from that indigenous knowledge so returning does involve dreaming fidgeting.
Working with different teachers of course but also listening to that Divine wisdom that comes with from within and something I was very conscious of as well is there so much. That comes my way from my community around what I share so I wanted to be very very particular about this being channeled from my spirit and connected to my ancestry and also channeled from from my own medicine because that was really important to me that. That I was in right relationship with my community as well.
And sharing from this place that's that was really a very very important tension mmm-hmm and I there's so many parallels between.
Yeah my intention with with my book root and ritual which is like the the reality the truth of being alive in these times and having you know this braided blood from various lands and processing that grief and letting it be here and also embodying Earth ways and the ways of our ancestors even if we don't have that written down which most of us don't and I'm finding as a woman entirely from old European lands often what's written down is written
you know by the victors and so what to just not be always seeking something about our linear capitalist minds of like just tell me what it is and that's truth I sort of see like how people adhere to the Bible in that way and it's like well actually if you could look through history even for you as a indigenous woman to be like what what has influenced. Those and who wrote them and what wasn't written down and what who never learned to read.
You know are right and what was lost you know and they became ancestors you know and they're left their bodies and so what can we where can we. Find our meaning and where can we find our ritual and how can we do it in a good way it's a big question and when I don't want us to run away from her shy away from out of fear of being wrong or bad and a lot of it is finding teachers.
And a lot of it is is slowing down, don't just Google it all right and tune in so I think that's beautiful that this book is that offering and I think my linear brain is very. Appreciative of the framework of the 13 moons there's something about that that just feel like okay thank you something I can sink into and the seasonal aspect of it to seems really helpful okay so when did you know you wanted to write a book.
I feel embarrassing this but I didn't know I didn't know it was mostly people in my community are saying like when are you going to write this box you know I had this face my community that they just always would say this like this would be such a good book your post would be such a good book I'll put together and it was somebody just approached me and said you know hey this is doing this thing
it's this diverse was running tests yeah so they asked me like just you have to write a you just have to write this like little essay and just apply so, I did that and at the time I just had released my dear white woman letter so I thought oh well include that in there if they really want if they're really serious about this and they really want to like invite an indigenous voice in there it has to be filled with truth so that was my most truthful.
Staying at the time and they said oh yes sure you can come to the spiders workshop and there was like 15 of us so it was a competition. I don't love scary it was it was but I remember being at the workshop and then coming home and feeling like.
I want like I just knew that it was that moment where I was like I want to do this like I just felt it it's almost like that awakened it so it was like an awakened something inside of it I worked really hard on that proposal because I thought yeah this is it like I see things I guess those opportunities as this this is I can pour everything into this and then say that I did my best so.
That's what happened and that I found it like the day before my birthday I remember I got a call remember when you got it I remember just hearing so much for you. I'm just so thrilled particularly I'm really happy hey house they came under Fire it seems like they're really responding and evolving like all of us are right pink eyeshadow well yeah and that I mean that kind of Under Fire came after I got that deal so.
Even that Journey was challenging for me because it was a question are you going to stare at it and go and a lot of people ask me that how come L say now that all this is happening and, I had to do a lot of inner like self-reflection around that like where am I going to make the most impact and I knew that taking up space since they don't have a lot of indigenous authors there,
that was the place that was going to create the most Ripple for my path that's what I felt but I had to get it took me a while to get strong in that, so it's not always like a straight line right it's sometimes it's just like oh my goodness this is the right thing.
But I'm so glad I did it now because I feel like I my goodness now I have now has a sphere of its own and it's just it's making its impact that I have dreamed of it to make and, it's doing its thing so I'm so grateful that I said yes hmm I really feel that in my own experience writing my book for a while it was like my heart outside of myself similar to a child and really tender about it and then I had to do some rich I was I got like a crappy Amazon review and it will really
took me in my legs out from underneath me what did they call it guys don't go on Amazon and touch it let it be. Let it be I think I was called like typical woke you know something like that probably okay but I had to do a deep ritual with my therapist to remember that my work is done. And this book is similar to a child like it is now your turn.
To live out your destiny to live out your have your ripple effect how if you're a spell that's how I thought of it right a spell out in the world and I can't control you I don't want to reel you back in that's like that's like a codependent ancestral powder I'm really trying to break you know of not letting the child go letting the creation go and have, have legs have wings so it sounds like you figured that out maybe sooner than I did and I think that's a really healthy way to do it.
Yeah I mean there's it's a daily practice right it's a deal because it does feel like if it does feel like he brought something really big and. It does feel like a child I people told me that and I kind of didn't believe them after I've had children it's different that's not cool right and then like okay.
Yeah so I guess I'm curious how it felt leading up to because what happens is you turn in the editor of the book and you have to turn in edits then sometimes returning and it's again sometimes it turned out it's a third time you go through, book cover stuff you go through all these things and then there's a long wait until it comes out and how was that lead up for you, emotionally mentally spiritually.
Yeah I think it was interesting because I've launched programs before and so I knew what a large would entail, and I was just feeling a little bit like I was feeling anxious about it I was I was like oh my goodness this is like it's actually kind of come out because it is a long process from when I started like I think that was 2019 that I applied when I put my essay in.
And then it didn't come out till March 20 22 so it was a long process of writing and it's interesting too because you write things very in the moment and you look back and like even in there I received a new spirit named recently. And my other Spirit I'm not my old spirit in the both the save or the I'm still use them both but that's in there and I thought oh my goodness I've already kind of.
Evolved a little bit out of that space but this is what's out there and it's being it's being launched now so. Leading up to the launch phase I just knew I had to have a way to gather a lot of energy I knew that I needed the capacity to be able to put the energy into it that I really wanted to. But I did actually really realize how much the capacity you actually need to show up so much and share so much of your biggest dream.
Yeah over and over again and yeah Elizabeth Gilbert says the book is never done it's due. Hmm and then the second part which I heard her say in person when she was launching her book city of girls she said and you will have a moment where you hate it because you've outgrown it.
Hmm and hate might be too strong of a word but I wonder how that resonates with you, it's interesting I have moments where I just feel like I don't want to talk about myself into the same three questions over and over again but I mean the teachings that are in the book or teachings that I have, shared for I've been in business for 20 years so I think that they are they're sort of a gathering and collection of those teachings.
So I can see me getting to the point where I'm a little bit ready for the new thing but right now there's still ripe in my heart there's still there sort of feel very like. Kind of universal in that way I'm hoping that's what they land for folks. So they feel okay the parts that were hard for me where I shared before you know we were talking about the quick editing so I had like two star very quick last edit and there was initial abierto jib Wayward that was misspelled.
And that I like wanted to fall to the ground because there's so much trauma wrapped up in, me not knowing my language perfectly may not end up being passed down because that was like Stripped Away from my grandparents like so that almost killed me like all it makes me emotional because it was so I was just like how did I miss that like,
if I just had one more day Mel you know you go through all the things maybe I would have seen it but it was just so heartbreaking for me to see that and then just to be so afraid.
Like that's where my fear all Rose and that moment you know me there's typos in books like whatever but it's like that was really hard for me and I thought, what if all the indigenous people come and just call me out or just say all these like things to me so that belonging piece I just want to belong and be accepted and that I make this mistake.
That came up in the audio version as well because I don't know how to speak it perfectly so I would stop and listen to the Ojibwe language dictionary to try to say it properly and I still knew I pronunciation wasn't perfect or maybe even correct at times but. I came to a place for him like at least I'm trying that's all I can do and it's not my fault I don't know my language it's not my fault like I'm trying to learn.
But that's where those things take over that like perfect that white supremacy perfectionism yeah yeah I try to hold us down or keep a small so those moments like obviously are still very awake in my in my being. Yeah thank you for sharing that and you do talk about in the beginning of the book about yeah you cannot be fluent. In your indigenous language and that yeah that comes with so much and I know that yeah there's such scarcity in this ability to be a card-carrying native person and.
Yeah that's the world we live in there's a lot of grief there in the weeks leading up I was very scared of being canceled I mean we're launching in a very, tough cultural time around that and we both talk about some hot button topics and right that's so beautiful and wise of you to see the root of it. I've just wanting to belong yeah I too.
In my own way I can relate to that and be happy I said for your book would be so like that's all you pour so much into it and it that I feel so vulnerable like just.
It's interesting I was when I did my audio book The First the feedback I got from the person recording it was like, this is a very controversial you're going to trigger a lot of people know yeah it was that I was so vulnerable I just a read like three days worth while you know what it's like to record that yeah so I was really raw my heart was wide open and I was like oh,
so I had to do some work around that of just like I mean I knew that's a possibility but I thought that's the first feedback I get you know is so fascinating it's so that's a reflection of them that's a reflection of them right but it was very much like and I think I just I did go into a little bit like this is just so real and raw for me right now because it's like very just recent but I
when into a bit of a freeze almost like getting myself ready for stuff to come my way and I just like got myself ready and then I mean so far everything's been really beautiful there's been some white fragility pieces but I'm used to that so nothing is coming out it's been really like oh my goodness so I really think I've been in freeze mode for the last, five weeks just waiting for all of that stuff to come and then I realized oh my gosh but a she already went through that like.
When that dear white women letter went out that all came up and you people were just sending all of these messages and so angry they were we oh yes so you can forget of course that you've already been through something and that you survived, you're still here and you built some resilience along the way and I really see how I forgot that leading up to the dark, yeah yeah the medicine of a book and what it brings what it brings up in US.
And what it brings forth and us I really hear you and feel that in myself there's a way my skin is a little thicker, you know and also yeah so you write it and then you launched it at least a year of not unless unless you're like a really famous person where the Publishers like we're launching it ASAP right you write it and then
it comes out later and so you're capturing a moment right you channel the moment like it came through in a moment and then it comes out and and we're a little different afterwards but you know there's the Timeless - of you know that book captures like you said 20 years of work and for me it's about 12 years of of deep work and so there's the.
The letting it just like trusting that those words came in the right time and that they're going to have their impact on every person that picks up that book individually then they're having their impact on us and there was something that happened to me during the writing. For me and I wanted to happen for you where I did a little.
I'm glad I did this where it was just like I want these words to resonate 50 years from now and someone picks us up in a free library on the street you know or whatever it is and I think that helps with the resilience piece right is. Is this is not like a pop a pop self-help book you know there's something deeper there and I'm wondering.
In your writing process did you have moments of like that where you could see how the book itself is embodying eldership or how your words themselves are so much you know how did you ever think about seven generations to come how the how this book as an entity as a child as something of an from your body and your soul and your spirit and your ancestors would carry forward.
Yeah I think I wrote the whole book like that I mean I wrote the whole book as though this is going to be my only book like I really agree with what's next time like nothing no time to recover I just I did for everything.
That I know now I guess into it I didn't really hold back anything so and people have see folks the feedback has been people have said this is a classic which I think is a beautiful compliment, this will be you know read for many a long time and then also people say I have to go slow like I have to go slow and at first I was like oh does that mean it's boring or is it like but they're just like I feel like I want to take it in slowly and.
For some reason that's really speaking to me now because I thought well that's beautiful because I really intended to I poured in so much potency that I'm glad that it's being taken in. And slow little and slow little doses little measures of medicine yes okay I think that is the deepest. Compliment that someone wants to savor your words I've been thinking a lot about how sometimes I get competitive with myself when reading books and there's something about.
It's the instant gratification it's the inability to be with. And Savor the slow moments it's just being of this urgency culture that I'm really looking into more deeply of wanting to say I read the book wanting to be done running across the thing off the list wanting to get to inbox zero wanting to be done because then I feel. Productive and actually like I am inviting myself into a slower Earth pace of life and how challenging that is and so to save her a book.
To I'm I've recently come upon this. Concept of pleasure delaying you know when you're like I'm saving that movie for like a special moment I'm saving that food for when I can really sit down and enjoy it and there's something about moving slowly through a book or any experience that feels like an honoring of oneself and one's nervous system so mayor books be read slowly yes I actually love that that's a beautiful spell to put out into the world.
So you posted on Instagram a few days ago I mean as of recording this I think this is coming out in a month about the postpartum. I don't know if you said fourth trimester but you had this beautiful real where you showed yourself holding your human babies and making this comparison I'm wondering if you could share more about how since we're talking and it's fresh you know your book is 5 weeks old how you're doing mama.
I remember sitting on the toilet seat like with it down and just let shutting the door at all my family was there and just sobbing and just and I remember my mom coming and going. What is wrong and I just couldn't explain to her I was so sad I was so sad.
And there's been moments of that where I'm like I think I need a moment in the bathroom and lock the door and sitting just just sitting his like there's just this sort of grief and I'm like what am I grieving I'm not sure what I'm craving is that the end of this journey might be.
Is it that this is out of the world right now and I what I think it is is like I remember feeling I love being pregnant and I remember feeling like they were so safe like I knew what was going on we had this like, beautiful relationship and nobody else was holding them or nobody else was energetically impact that was like big thing like when they came at us like all these energies now are holding them and you know if it was loud energy or intense I get really like anxious about like
they're not in my sort of safe space anymore and that's what I realized it was that grief it's still there like. It felt very safe writing it it felt very say it might your own little world you're writing your communing you're channeling your listening and then all of a sudden it's like gone. And I did say like it's like an umbilical cord is cut and it's a bit disorienting so I think I feel disoriented and a bit like.
People ask me what's next I mean I know I have things that could be next but I'm just like I'm in a really big void. And it just feels very disorienting and I just kind of feel like I just got to sit here and sink into this because I don't know what else to do. Hmm yeah why do people ask that. I got it a lot to maybe it's like the more and more and more Earnest of our culture or yeah like why can't we just be with it.
Why is it hard for us to be with it I'm including you and me you know but like I know it's a beat and it's a rite of passage right so, you are emerging changed and that needs witnessing and space and integration I don't know if our society allows for really that integration like I mean that's what I for myself included but that integration of like, celebration and then just like,
letting it be like giving all this space for it just to like do its thing right and let them breathing life into all these different places I think it's hard to because we can't see all the places it's.
Going or touching like I'll get messages sometimes and I'll think how did it make it there like it that's always exciting for me you know it's all across in Australia are all these places so exciting but it's there so, sometimes yeah just that being that Boyd also I always remember that's what the great mystery is that's what they create mystery can touch me.
This is where the magic can happen if you just let it be but sometimes that means closing the bathroom door and crying and just just letting all of that flow out which is not everybody's like oh you must be so excited and so happy and I am yes and. Yes and there's free so I think rape and I wrote this grief and joy can exist at the same time.
And we need space for both energy allows space for both of that everybody wants you to be just joyful just celebratory right like the mother coming in the bathroom and saying what's wrong you know it's like we care but we also have a hard time yeah it was really sad I was really sad I felt disappointed I felt really disappointed and I think.
What I realize is I needed a ritual I needed a ritual to be seen and honored to make my what did I say I wanted my internal experience to be made external and I'm wondering. If you did any rituals either pre and or post publication day. To make your internal experience a tangible reality for you I love that it was this recent full moon actually.
In the book If you read it it's the suckerfish Moon so it really is about like purification and cleansing and it apart with my therapist a couple weeks ago and he's like.
You're not taking up your rightful space so we said something about taking of your rightful space now that this is out here like, your relative size it says something about that and I was really like oh this is so interesting like I had lost a bit of my connection to my power, I think in this process because I just wanted to kind of hide and Shrink some I really used that as a ritual of like taking up my size and my space again and
I stood on I have this little medicine wheel cloth and I stood on that I did this like beautiful wish paper and this huge smudge and I just. I asked for anything that was kind of in my field that that was just kind of like I don't know taking up the space that I didn't need anymore to be released so. I feel much better after that so I did need a virtual to do that and I think also I was sad you know planning like a launch in a pandemic right we didn't have like.
We didn't have really book signings and at the time when we didn't even know if we went out of lockdown I don't very recently.
We didn't even know what was going to happen so I planned like a book party for the end of June for my my closest because of everybody has capacity restrictions and indoor-outdoor certain so it's just all such a mess and I was like I want I love celebrating and I just think, I want to do that so that will be the end of June which is a little farther out than I would have wanted it to be but I do hope I been I'll just be like.
I'm happy to do this now you know I can celebrate this but it is kind of sad and kind of sucky that we didn't we didn't get too late do the things that authors get to do, but you see authors doing even writing like I wanted to write in like a coffee shop or you can go away for the weekend and right somewhere like beautiful in the forest or something and none of that happened, so there's creeper on that oh thank you for saying it,
there's a medium blog post that I will share with you in the audience in the show notes called dear pandemic author that made me cry because it was just like yeah that just really acknowledges what you're saying like these little these little moments that are like signposts and things maybe we would dreamed of for a long time you know I wanted to write a book for years and there were I really had a vision of how it would go and it did not go.
And that's okay what you know what medicine what a life wasn't but I think you are so wise to plan and any authors or future authors listening I think this is wise locked out or not to plan an in-person celebration later after publication.
Because you might be in freeze or you might be in grief but sort of like a naming ceremony I'm not sure what would be in your in your culture but something to give it time your book will be walking then I don't know I'm really loving this baby metaphor you know or like crawling or eating solids and you could be like okay and I'm better I you're taking care of yourself and you're feeling more like.
I don't know a back on Earth and able to be like hi I did this in for your community like you did this. And how I'm very inspired and considering that for the year anniversary of mine because that was something I really wanted to and it just wasn't possible yeah I think that's so even if you think about all we have. Babies I mean have like Mother's blessings and how they usually happen when you're still pregnant.
You really need to be blessed like about six ones out which way we really need to have that like even the 40 days out like it when you're back in your body when you're back in.
A little bit at least you need something I think after that so I'm there is a part of me I can find that sly, oh I shouldn't be celebrating still in June you know there there's those little things that enough is enough don't get too much to yeah no no I know I'd buy you and your yeah required those voices and just to be in a celebration, and what modeling you can give your community in the celebrating of yourself because.
This is what I'm realizing is we all have versions of that like you know people listening may not have books but they have something you know I've just been so plunged into rite of passage Theory, rite of passage practice and seeing how. That's really been taken away from us by you know just white supremacy and capitalism and the systems that have really wiped away our ancestral ways.
And how, all of us are going through things not just like you know becoming parents or sealing Partnerships but creating things getting new jobs completing jobs writing these you know like big moments writing books starting businesses closing businesses I'm also very interested in like divorce parties but like what how can we be completing things as much as we're launching and breathing things and
and so yes heck yes have the parties so that we can give each other Fuel and permission to be doing that on any scale at any time.
And I'm curious to you about you know because we've both been doing intense things during this pandemic Time It's Different it's different I guess in different parts of the world but, even like the completion a little bit things are opening up a little bit I just finding that a lot of people are in the void right now we've been in this like almost two year artificial winter,
it's just been like that's not really the natural cycle or not supposed to be frozen for two years like this or in this sort of yeah artificial winter so.
I'm curious about even bringing a ritual to a little bit of what seems to be a bit of an ending or like who knows what's going to happen but I just feels like like that because I think a lot of people right now that I'm speaking to are like I'm just floating, I don't have a solid container anymore and I feel like there are sort of in the void to so.
It's collectively there's an interesting energy right now so if we brought sort of that rite of passage into this time I wonder what we're going to happen. This is Major like you said to me like you had a baby and did. A book during the pandemic and me being like I'm just realizing how traumatic that was and I'm thinking about how a lot of us are maybe just coming to but some of us not even trusting because maybe this will go longer who knows and how ritual.
Can can bring meaning and bring us to this moment of like oh that happened and I've been I've been thinking about like when Krakatoa blew up or the plague in Europe or the wars and famines and experiences that I'm not comparing covid to any of these things but what I'm comparing is that cultural experience of like extended. Dare I say winter extended experience of like this isn't are cyclical seasonal way something has changed.
For us and we need to acknowledge it as such and I'm wondering yeah like what did the people do after major events like this. And when they didn't what impact has that had. You know so this is something you really got me thinking about that you and I are doing on a smaller scale for ourselves and I love that you're bringing it in for everyone. With you know what's emerging now it does seem like we're emerging in some way.
And how can we honor that yeah well the book is out there anything you want to share. More about you and the book first of all people go get it and if your. What I like to say is if you're a local like Corner bookstore doesn't have it ask them to stock it. So that people can see it's a beautiful cover yeah what do you want to share about it so people can get more arrow and audio listen to your beautiful soothing voice on audio thank you guys I love that I love the audible version I'm.
I'm so I'm so amazed that there's two ways to take in the medicine. I think I just my intention for this book like it got very simplified was just that there were moments of remembering that somehow tears would spring to your eyes and some way or. You would feel like just a familiarity in some way and you feel okay I know this from somewhere so it might be in your blood and bones already might be your ancestors around you. And also that they have a vision for you thousands of ancestors are.
Final love into you and they have this this vision for you that the medicine you're carrying is meant to be here on the planet at this time however you're meant to. Sprinkle those seeds is your way and I think that that's really important because I think we need to at this time so I hope. I hope my words activate some sort of remembering within every person that weekend. Hmm yeah it's really stunning creation and I thank you for.
Everything you did a lot of hard work to make this a reality this is something I've also realized like every book that's out there represents prayer and courage and rejection and.
A real Devotion to something deeper so thank you so much for doing all of that, and having me I love something with you and I love that we can share our experiences to of because of music is filled only so it's been so lovely to know that I'm not alone thanks for being down to having this conversation about the real real behind it all I think it's going to start in a deep way something you much. 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. If you want to check out show notes or listen to past episodes go to belonging podcast.com and if you like what we talked about here and want to know more you can subscribe to my newsletter, Becca piastrelli.com help you. Music.