Steph Jagger

self discovery. In her latest work, Everything Left to Remember My Mother, Our Memories and a Journey through the Rocky Mountains, she navigates the emotionally rocky landscape of her mother's battle with Alzheimer's disease. Today, Steph joins me for a wide ranging, intimate and vulnerable conversation about her mother, mother, Earth, female archetypes, and so much more on this very special episode of

Holy Humane. Now, before we start, always just reading it on your website, just about you, and I love that you said I'm scared often I do we get comfortable? They're right, I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out. I'm always scared going into interviews, and especially with your book, because there's so many things that are very specific that I wanted to touch on and things that you've written that were so incredibly poetic and stunning.

It's such a beautiful book. So thank you for joining me on this podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm I'm really deeply honored to kind of co create something. Yeah. Absolutely, I love that both of your books, Everything Left to Remember and Unbound are both about the adventurous journey. You know, I travel all the time, of course, and I just wondered, what do you think it is about travel that helps

us discover ourselves? I think for me, starting with a very early travel that I did kind of right out of university, really, um, I discovered that I was no one but me. There was no role to play other than me. You know when you travel, and a lot of traveling I did was traveling on my own. And so I wasn't someone's sister. I wasn't someone's daughter. I wasn't I mean, I grew up in a place that my grandparents went to the same high school that my

parents went to that I went to. So so I wasn't anyone granddaughter or little sister, etcetera, which allowed me to then I think, practice showing up as me as as authentically me without having to fulfill those roles, and

I think I was. You know, some of the people that I've met on my travels have been people that have had sustained relationships with over time because I think they probably had a clearer sense of who I was, just based on me being made, me feeling the freedom to show up as you know, a naive traveler in the world. I love that I have never had that experience of travel. My travel has been very, very different.

When you say that you get to basically be more of yourself and you could be whoever you want to be, really, you know, and for me it's been so interesting because I'm showing up as me or what people it's probably it's probably completely so interesting. I love hearing that, though maybe I just need to put on a wig and completely different. I think some of it is is maybe

there's a broader question of travel or not. Where is it that I feel I have the deepest access to my own internal world and can kind of like pull that forward, and and that maybe travel for some people that maybe inside of their families, for other people that maybe in in kind of more private inner sanctums for others, And I think that's the kind of largest question is where did I feel as though I was encouraged to access a larger internal landscape and kind of bring that forward. Yeah?

Absolutely for me, that is for me, that's nature. Like yeah, And I know you talk a lot about nature. In fact, I'm going to just jump to this question because I one of the things that I um, one of the things that I've been exploring is more nature and being in tune with animals and just exploring what that brings out in me. But I find myself so resistant to it. Um. And in your book you said the truth meets you in nature, which is why it's sometimes hardest to go,

which like brings me to tears. I I just wondered if you had any words of wisdom on the resistance to her, because I feel like there's some resistance there for me. Yeah, I think, um, certainly that line, like the truth meets either there's there's probably a couple of things I would think about. Number one would be I think it is hard sometimes for us to go because

nature can't be anything other than it is. A cedar tree can't one day wake up and be like you know what, I feel like I need to like put on a bit of a mask this morning and like play the role of an alder like it just can't do that. Um. Really the only you know, raven or maybe the only exception they can throw their voice, um.

But outside of that, you know, I think I think one of the most confronting things is we're not used to that as humans, as as walking up to another human being and kind of going, this is exactly the essence of who this person is, and they can't change it, and they can't mask it, and they can't be something

they're not, and they can't pretend and they can't. So I think it's really confronting sometimes to go into nature, to go it is going to show me its rawest, truest identity and essence, and it's going to ask me to do the same. And there's very very few places that were asked to do that. In fact, most often were asked to do the opposite, Like most often were like, could you just play this role for me? You know, I'd really prefer that if you just play this role

for me. So I think that's confronting. I think the other part of nature and wilderness that is confronting, and I think especially so for women, is you know, we've been taught that nature is a wild, scary, dark place, and and that things there are feral and untamed, and there's beasts in the woods, etcetera, and so we shouldn't go there. And I think that's just a direct example of what we've been told about our own bodies. Oh yeah, I was thinking our nature, our nature is that's exactly

what it's been, that's right. And so I think actually what we're more scared of is meeting the kind of internal, feral, messy, wild, kind of howling parts of ourselves that we've been told we have to tame. And so when we go into nature and again we're kind of confronted by that, I think it's easy for us to mask and say that's the scary thing, that external thing, when in fact, I think it's our own interiority that we haven't been encouraged

to explore and trespassed. Like it feels like trespassing, which is ridiculous, right, because it's our own bodies and our own selves. And I think that's you know, one of the reasons that nature has been so so so powerful for me is kind of to go am I scared of that noise or am I scared of the feeling it brings up inside of my body that I am so deeply uncomfortable? Why and why is it that I'm

so deeply uncomfortable with feelings in my body? Yeah? Yeah, when I go into nature, even if it's just during the daytime, like out in our backyard, I find that that's where I'm not with my phone, I'm not with anything, and it's I think it is. I think you're right. It brings up whatever comes up at that moment in time. Um can be really confronting and uncomfortable because I'm I'm just being with nature and and my own nature, and

that can be Yeah. Sometimes I just sometimes we all want to run away from that, but it is, it's it's a it's a beautiful dance. Thank you for that. That really jumped out at me, because I know sometimes it's hard for me to just get myself outside and just be with ultimately me. Yes, that that's exactly it. I mean, it's like, are we scared of a nature

out there? Are we scared of our human nature? You know, that's a big that's always been, you know, a big question for me, and I think you know, to use nature as a guide, a guide for that you know. You also referred to um, you know in your question like what is it about her? Right as in mother nature? And and I think there are so many of us that when we think about mother, that can be a complex, scary, negative,

um kind of fraud relationship. And so if that's been the relationship with our own mother, why on earth would we want to have a relationship with the mother who? Yeah, when you put it that way, UM right, I mean this this is what you know if you if you flip this quite often if you think about this in a religious context. This is why many people, many men, I think, have have deep issues in religious because because

you know, priests are called father. So if you've had a negative relationship with father, why why am I How on earth am I going to get to a place where I could trust the Big Father? Oh yeah, so these are questions I asked myself. Yeah. Yeah, So I think that's a that's a learning and a you know for me, really the question is whether it's whether it's

remothering or continued mothering. There is a question thereof how do I if there wasn't trust inside of my own relationship with my mother or inside of my own relationship with my own mothering of self. How do I get to the place with nature where there can be trust between her and I? Wow, that's you just broke that down for me. Really, I feel so seen because I

I've been going through that with my own self. Of like, I did some work the other day where I was revisiting my my inner child, and and what came out was that I don't that peace of me, didn't trust me, and and so yeah, and then tying nature into that, and then trying my own mother's the relationship with my mother into that where I don't I don't run to my mother for solace and comfort and so yeah, And and I think I've had a lack of trust around

mother nature of like you know when people say, you know, let the earth hold you like it it could hold every I'm like and so but I recognize that I so deeply desire that, And I think sometimes sometimes I think what's coming up for me around nature is grief because I recognizing that I so deeply desire to be held by the mother and and starting to starting to hold my own child, starting to be able to be

held by nature is a journey. Yeah, you know, there's something coming up for me just as we're talking about this, which is um and I don't necessarily want to get into like like individual pathology, but um, you know, there's something to be said for visiting nature being in kind of wild spaces in broad daylight, which which feels to

me intuitively like very confronting as opposed to night. Now, a lot of people would say, well, like nighttime is when you're like, are in a tent and you hear all the noises and you're like, you know, there there's a there's a more visceral like fear with that, right, But you know there's a thought when you ask, like

what is advice about getting into nature? Like you know, for me where I live, I could open a window at night and it could be pitch black, but and I could hear frogs, and that might be the first step. Like there's an intuitive hit here for me. That's like I wonder if the first step is actually kind of in darkness, if that might feel more comforting and less

confronting than kind of broad daylight. Like what if there wasn't as much light so that I couldn't see at all, Like if it was just a little bit more sense based as in, what am I hearing, what am I smelling? What am I feeling myself touch, you know, et cetera. And and i'd be I'd be curious about that as a as an entry way and for people that it's also really reminiscent then of what is the womb like I was gonna say, Yeah, that feels very would Yeah.

I I get up fairly early in the morning and I let the dog outside, and that's my favorite time because there is something very womblike about it. And I love hearing the owls of owls that come visit, and it's my favorite. So, yeah, there is something about the darkness that feels very womblike. I love that, you know. I want to I want to talk about your latest book,

Everything to Remember, which is so stunning. It chronicles this epic camping trip that you took with your mom after her Alzheimer's diagnosis, And I just wanted to know a bit about your mother and how you would describe your relationship with her before her diagnosis. Yeah, Um, my mother is a wonderful woman. Um she My relationship with my mom was was good. That we weren't like best friend

mother daughter. We didn't have that kind of tightness um, but we also didn't have kind of a palpable kind of tension that a lot of mothers and daughters have. And I didn't feel really kind of pressured by her to fulfill any of her dreams and hopes, and you know, maybe that of her life that went on fulfilled, et cetera. I had from my mother. She was, she was and still is demonstratively warm. That was her primary mode of

mothering was too. Like I have countless memories of just her body like a hug, a hand, a touch of petting on the head, like all through my life. So there was this kind of physical availability and demonstrative warmth through my life. And there was a lot of consistency and a lot of a lot of safety woven into that. And I think what that gave me right from the get go was maybe what I'd call like nervous system

privilege in a lot of ways. Yeah, that that being said, there was I was a little one, and this is this is really in the book, that that felt a lot of emotion in rooms and felt a lot of energy in rooms, and no one, including my mother, especially my mother, was able to help me create language for that, and that there's a lot of confusion for me, and why am I feeling all of these things and nobody's talking about it, and nobody's helping me name it, and

nobody else is feeling it, you know. So there was a lot of shutting down of of different physical feelings for myself, energetic feelings, emotional feelings, etcetera, in order to kind of fit that mold. And and I think that created over time, Um, why aren't you blaming a bunch of things to me with words? Uh? That created over time a large kind of gap for us. I think

there's two other things. Is that just in general, what I was seeing in society and certainly inside of my parents marriage, which was quite a traditional masculine feminine roles inside of marriage, was a devaluation of the feminine. And so I simultaneously like devalued her um because I saw everybody else kind of doing that with the feminine, and and so it kind of pushed me in the direction of the masculine, which is a lot of what the first book is about. Um. And then everything left remember

is like kind of coming back to that feminine. And so I think there was a large devaluation and really are not seeing her now. That was kind of no fault of her own. That's more societal kind of systemic um view um. And I think the final piece with that is that there were and this has kind of talked about in the book, there was her own lived experience that that created deep, deep shame for her all

around the feminine. And so she didn't have access to that, Like she didn't give me access to that, but she also didn't have access to that, so there was an even further kind of pull for me to move away from her, like to separate from her like a maiden does we we we do that archetypeally we we have to separate from our mother's But there was there was a real kind of devaluation, and I think I think she also was taught to devalue and carried a lot

of shame around around the feminine, and so that that created a kind of chasm for us that that eventually through the book there was a much deeper exploration of. But that was you know, there was a demonstrative warmth, steadiness and safety on a multitude of different levels, and

a deep, generation long rejection of the feminine. Yeah, I mean, don't you think we're the first generation that's actually even recognizing that that shut down and the Yeah, I mean when you talked about you also kind of pushing that part of your mother away and turning towards the masculine. I mean, I relate to that so much, and it it made me very sad. Your book is so beautiful. It's really brought me to questioning so many things and

so much grief with it myself. But I'm like, oh, I can see where I've done that with my mother and how I've I've definitely been more masculine driven in my life, and it's it's now for the first time, I think I'm recognizing how much I've denied my own feminine and how much the world, especially right now, is denying and has denied the feminine. And it's enraging. Yeah, I mean absolutely. This was such a huge part of the journey for me, and this is like was a

real kick off. There was I was therapist I was working with who said straight up to me, you know, you think you're bigger than your mother, And I didn't know what that really meant. Cognitively, I was like, what is it? Do I think I'm smarter. Do I think I'm more important? Like what does that even mean? But but my body clear, I mean it was like my entire physicality was like uh huh. So I had to really reckon with that and a lot of this for me.

I think about this with my mother. I think about this with archetypal mother, and I think about this with mother nature, this kind of right sizing of she came first, and there were burdens that that generation had to carry that I think sometimes our generation doesn't always see. Now, that doesn't mean that there weren't hurts, that there weren't things that were mistakes made, that there weren't um there

wasn't pain caused. But you know, I often think about it when I think about my mom's generation and her mom as well, what they had to bury just straight up barry to make it through and and what our generation now has to unearth to kind of bring that back to life. Now, when I think about that in regards to just my individual mother daughter relationship, there's a lot of anger, right, Like, as you said, like I just I get enraged at that, and I get enraged

a society now. But when I pull that out in a time frame, and look at that from a lineage standpoint long term, I actually think there might be kind of like a mystic technique of Okay, this generation is going to bury the treasure, and that is their job, and they're kind of sacred contract and it is going to be painful, and their daughters are going to be very mad at them for that, and their daughters have a sacred contract of unearthing that, and that's going to

anger some of the previous generation who had to kind of keep their mouth shut for a long time. What what do you mean You're the generation that can now talk about this and what you know? I mean, that's terrifying. Mhm. Alright, on that intense note, we're going to cut away for a brief break, but we'll be right back with more. Step Jacker, Welcome back, my friends. Steph was just breaking down the multigenerational, multifaceted and multi layered concept of the

mother daughter bond. But when I think about it from that lineage kind of what am I looking at over two d and fifty three hundred years, I actually think, gosh, I have a lot of gratitude for the generations before for what they buried in a kind of mystical, unconscious attempt to keep safe. I love that. I love that perspective. I've never thought of it in that way. And yeah, I definitely have been able to find the gratitude for for my mother and for everything you just said of

the burying. Um, but it's sometimes along with the anger, it's sometimes really hard to rest in that gratitude. Of course, of course it's like a both. And this is where all this nuance comes over, right, Like there's lived experience and then there's like, you know, the mytho poetic version, right, and it's like, Okay, some days I'm if I've had too much coffee, I'm probably in the lived experience version.

And if I'm like, you know, have meditated all morning, I'm the mytho poetic and you know we dance, We dance in those spaces. Yeah, totally. I want to talk about your mother's Alzheimer's for you know, people out there who may have relatives that may be experiencing this, Um, maybe they might be experiencing some things themselves. What are what were some of the signs the signpost I guess along the way. Yeah, yeah, there, Um, there's there's a

lot and they're very different. You know, there's there's there's Dementia is kind of the larger umbrella. Alzheimer's is one of the um kind of spokes underneath it, and there's multiple other forms of cognitive decline. And you know, for for my mother, there was a lot of early things missing names, um, you know, for just general forgetfulness about

certain things, etcetera. But the real you know, when you walk across the street and there's a there's a hand flashing that says if it's like green, you can walk, and there's a person walking and then it starts to flash a hand like she started to get confused about those types of things, which is, you know, we know this stuff from when we're preschoolers. So there was there was a general confusion general forgetfulness, really forgetful with names

and dates and places, that type of thing. The main tip off for me. I remember I was driving with her in a car one day and we were having a conversation and I asked her a question and she said something that immediately enraged me. Like I was kind of like I cannot but I was so mad, and

I got into the car. She was dropping me off at a friend's place and I got into the car and it was my best friend and I immediately start launching into this story about how awful my mother is, right like, I'm just like I can't believe my mother just said that about And part way through the story, I stopped and I was like, wait, that's not my mother, Like that's not something she would normally do or say,

Like that is so far outside of the realm. Like my mom was a very like if you don't have anything nice to say, you don't say anything at all. And she was quite silent. She wouldn't really express kind of an opinion, especially an opinion that it was harsh or blunt. You know, that was just her. So when she said that, I I just remember thinking and I turned to my friend and I said, something's wrong with

my mom. And in that moment, just all of the puzzle pieces, the forgetting, the names, the general forgetfulness, all the things that I mentioned before just kind of click click click click click click click, and I went, Okay,

what was something's wrong? I think that shifting in personality is a very interesting sign, and it's this is it's often confusing because this is we're talking about, you know, the two thirds of the people diagnosed with Alzheimers or women, And so we're talking about a lot of women who are, you know, in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, which is

also you know, menopause. And there are a lot of shifts in our personalities and in our moods and in our you know, and so sometimes it's really tough to decipher, Like am I am I feeling brain foggy and forgetful and a little bit off and more moody because I'm going through a massive hormonal change And how am I talking to my doctor about that or you know, something going on with my brain? I mean, that's a that's

a tricky kind of thing. So those shifts in personality in general, forgetfulness, I think are really really important in that age to pay attention to that. I mean, to be honest, Like, I'll be forty in August and I have I have a lot of those symptoms because my hormones are changing and having to learn to work with that. Yeah, it's have a lot of brain fog and a lot of like I'll walk into a room and forget why

I walked into the room. And so when I was reading about this, and I have had concern until I started to recognize that these are these can be hormonal changes and this is what happens. Um I I did have concern. I was like, what's happening to my mind? I used to be so clear and so yes, um I totally. When I was reading this book, I was like, oh yeah, And sometimes I wonder if that feels like a precursor to something that could be going or it

could happen in the future. So it's definitely something as we go through these years to keep an eye on big time. Yes, absolutely, And you know our hormones play. There's a lot of research coming out that are that hormonal uh support and you know through the ages of forty and fifty can make a can make a big difference on our long term brain health. So that's an important um I just really think like I've thought that a lot this year. I turned forty last year, and

I it's it is top of mind. You know what can I do now for any inflammation, for cognitive health, for hormonal health, etcetera. As I look it, really what is a lineage Because you know my grandmother had dementia as well, lived lived well into her nineties. But um, you know this is this is inside of our our family for sure. Howld your mom? Now, my mom is going to be seventy this uh this August? Okay, I

love that August birthday. Um, so you did just mention your your mother's mother had dementia, and so what was what was your mom's role in taking care of her? And did she did your mom ever look at her and think this could be me? Ever? I, you know, as I said earlier, my my mom was a woman of few words, and so there was not a time where I ever heard her say, oh shit, this this is I'm feeling these similar things. But as I look back at the timelines, I just think how absolutely excruciating.

So my grandmother had, as I said, old age dementia. She lived on her own, um, you know, well into her eighties and was then moved into a care facility in her nineties. My my mom and her sister's um played kind of rotating roles of care. They would go and visit her. You know, there was one sister in basically daily you know, one helped more with groceries, one helped with walking her beloved dog, one helped with you know,

balancing the checkbook, you know, various different things. And my grandmother died uh six months after my mother's diagnosis, So there was most definitely a year or two year period of time where my mother was showing signs and knew she was showing signs. We were having active conversations about it while her mother was in a steep decline. And

I can't imagine. I mean again, these weren't spoken. But I look back and I think, no wonder there was such a huge resistance to go to the doctor to get any sort of diagnosis because you're just you're just watching.

It just would have been excruciating. And I think also for her sisters um to kind of you know, to see them, to see the two of them at the end of my grandmother's life, you know, in those six months to a year before my grandmother passed, to see the two of them together was just it was awful. They just their conversations were just nothing, they were it was. It was really excruciated. So I can only imagine that my mom uh found that to be difficult, and I

know my mom used to get um very frustrated. I do remember one time we went I went with her to help balance my my grandmother's checkbook. My mom started to get very frustrated, very bossy, very domineering, kind of like just kind of shut up and do this, you know, And and my grandmother turned to me and and said she doesn't like taking care of me. And my mom was kind of like, it's not that mom, it's you know. But there a lot of moments of high frustration in

that relationship. And I that also wasn't my mom. I mean, I can only assume that was because she was also a kind of looking locking eyes with what was going on in her own body. Yeah. Yeah, And when there's no words spoken about that, that's got to be a deep internal experience, very very confusing. You know. It's so interesting when you started to talk about the change in

your mother's personality. One of the things you talk about in the book though, was the picture that you took of your mother by the horse, And there was this like beautiful change in her personality too, where she was standing in a different way that she would have never stood,

and I just found it. It started to bring up a question to me of like does does also do you think Alzheimer's actually gives or brings out some of the shadowy or pieces of things that we've repressed and actually gives it an opportunity to speak in some way. That's what That's what came to me when I when I read that, it's just interesting. Yes, absolutely, I think

for better or worse. I mean, there's there's a lot of stories of people who maybe have spent a life repressing anger where where Alzheimers there's a period of time

where then there's you know, really large outburst of anger. Um, I think, you know when I think about Alzheimer's and again, you know, I I moved from the lived experience of the excruciating you know, day to day and the grief and the loss, and then I moved to a lens of kind of something that is more that I try to do this more expansive and kind of lineage based in maybe mytho poetic is to kind of think, this is a disease that is allowing this person's or changing

this person's time space reality constantly, and so in one moment she might be a hundred and seven and in one moment she might be seven or seventeen or you know, and and if I can actively grieve and move like, move into the center of grief, move into the kind of eye of the hurricane, and allow her reality to her time space, reality to shift instead of trying to force her to share mine, like to correct her and say no, mom. It says that's going to cause frustration.

And this is for anybody with any sort of neurodiversity, by the way, that then if you're allowing that person to have that reality and you're doing your own grief work to kind of meet them there, I think what you're shown in that place is nothing short of of magic. There's a there's a quote this isn't an interview I heard with Brandy Carlyle. She said, mysticism is the most practical thing in the world. The only thing about is

is it found smack in the middle of grief. And I think, gosh, if we if we can summon the courage to grieve what we're losing, to say, she is losing the reality of her being able to recognize me. I'm going to grieve that, and I'm going to walk further in and then what I'm going to see in that place is this woman in this coquettish stance, with this horse like, with this this grace that I had never seen her have before, all those times that I would have said, like I wish I knew my mom

as a sixteen year old. Okay, you know, if you're willing to move past your own grief and you're own ego and your own identity, you will get a glimpse of that. And so there are a lot of I think gifts. I mean, I've seen more of my mother in her disappearance, and again it's it's the relinquishing of the roles, right, Like, she doesn't have to be my mother, she doesn't have to play the role as my mother. So who will I get to see. I'll get to see a friend, I'll get to see a sixteen year old.

I'll get to see a flirtatious woman standing in the horse pasture. I'll get to see, you know, all of these different things which inside of the mother daughter role

there's a constriction there. Yeah, I mean when I hear that, like, I wish that for every woman, not that the Alzheimer's piece, but the wish that every woman could experience the presence of themselves and the playfulness of being all of these complexities and that we are because we are such complex creatures that do carry around um, such a one dimensional version of ourselves that we think we have to present.

And that's what I heard. For me. It's like, oh, there seemed to be a beautiful gift if we can find the gifts in these horrible situations of she got to be whoever she wanted to be, because it was in that moment. It's just very present. Absolutely. I mean, one of the things I've been fascinated by before all of this, before my mother was diagnosed, as I was fascinated by shape shifting, you know, the idea of of

shape shifters within mythology, et cetera. And then all of a sudden she's diagnosed, and I'm like, I've got a slow motion shape shifting. It's like I can watch a hummingbird's wings move slowly, Like I have this gift of being able to watch this. Now, there's going to be parts of it that are absolutely excruciating that I do not want to endure, that I do not want to see.

But there's also other parts of it that I'm like, oh, you were fascinated by shape shifting, Well here you are you if you want to if you are able to say yes to this. You can witness kind of a slow motion shape shifting and that takes some courage to do.

But there are gifts inside of that. Yeah, that seems like a life lesson of like where do we place our focus because that seems like, you know, that seems like that could be in any kind of situation of the rough parts of things, and then there's all of these beautiful gifts that we will miss if we're completely stuck in the negativity of the situation. And when I hear you talk about that, that's like, that's a big

life lesson of where you're placing your focus. That's exactly it, and we usually place it where there's pain or something pinched exactly. Yeah, and this is exactly what We're gonna pause for a brief break, but we'll be read back. Hello, Agan loves Steph was just breaking down the profound and beautiful lessons that come from painful and uncomfortable situations. I think we we actually do need to place it there

to kind of get through. But but can you as you're focusing on the initial pain or pinched area, can you add in a curiosity what else is here? Why is this pinched? How can I how, how does this need to be loved or tended to or nurtured so that I can move into the center of it, as opposed to kind of walking around it and saying you shouldn't be here, I hate you for being here, you know,

and and never kind of touching it. You know that there has to be that there's gonna be a kind of a curiosity that's including that which is which is hard. That's a hard thing. Yeah, it is a hard thing. I find myself walking around things often until I until I finally do land in the middle of it. And when you do, it's like, oh, the finally not resisting it is what allows things to move, as allows things to open up. And you know, you mentioned grief because

grief is It's funny. We've been touching upon grief on every episode of this podcast the season, and of course, yeah, I mean, you can't be alive, I think right now

without feeling some level of grief. And for those of us who feel so deeply, I feel like I wake up every day with it so heavy on my heart and try to find ways to be able to not ignore it, like to allow it to move because it's there, you know, like with your grief around this, like, how is how is your understanding of grief change through your mother's diagnosis. Yeah, that's a it's a beautiful question. I think of grief as a suite of emotions. It's not

a singular emotion. It feels to me like a many of them at once. There might be pain, There might be sorrow, there might be sadness, rage. There also might be relief and gratitude and hopefulness and love inside of it.

I think, um, this might sound stranger, I you know, maybe even like unattainable, and certainly can feel that way a little bit to me, But to be quite frank, I think it's one of the most beautiful things in the in the human experience because there's yeah, because there's a there's an ache to grief that is not unlike a thaw. And you know when you when your fingertips are frozen and they there's this just a searing pain.

There's like a searing kind of thumping pain in the in the in your fingertips and it's not it feels not dissimilar to that for me, that that that there's this great thaw happening. And when I think of something thawing, and I think of it moving from a state of

firmness into fluidity. I am hopeful. And so if we are able to actually step into grief and surrender kind of to it, then I think we're capable of of the whole range of all of the other human emotions involved in the human experience, which means we can live

life in a state of kind of aliveness. And I think you know, when we when we think about grief, I think we we often we we mostly pair it with death, right, and it is paired with death, but it could be death metaphorical, all different kinds of loss of a job or loss of a parent, for example. And I think inside of our society we that that's

that's the master initiation is life, death, life right. So in our society we try to push grief and death off, thinking we will just have increased, ever increased, capitalistic kind of life, moving in a linear direction, more and more and more life. Now that doesn't happen. What that does is it suspends the initiation and it moves us into living death, which is the freeze. Oh well, we'll wait to say that again. Right, So if we push death and grief off and say, we don't have time for that.

I don't want to feel that. We think it's going to lead to more living, but what it does is it suspends an initiation and causes living death. That's the freeze state. I'm concretized. I'm frozen. There's metastasization that happens in that place, and we think it's more life, but it is not. And so for us to kind of go, okay, let's look at nature like that's like saying, okay, fall, winter, you can't exist exactly, not allowed, and so things would die,

things would actually die. And so we've I think we've got to get more and more comfortable. And I think one of the I mean, obviously the relationship with grief, like ongoing with my mom um. But I think one of the things that's been most helpful for me with this is Um. I believe his name is pronounced Martin pratchell Um, and he wrote a book called Rain on Dust and it is about grief and praise and really how so many cultures outside of the Western world have

an element of grieving that is that is praise. Is how we sing hallelujah, you know, how we wail and chant and there's quite a sound to it, actually, and you know, you you know this as a singer. There's times where you're singing, right, there's times that you're singing about love, but there's this pain that's that's parallel, you know, in a voice, and and to me, that's grief. It's

not just love. It's the combination of grief and praise, like thank God, I felt this person had this person had this thing, and you know, maybe they're gone, but there's there's something so beautiful there. And I think it's a quintessential human experience that we we really try and push away. UM and I and I think it's it's time for us to start. And as you said, it's it's wonderful. I love you know that that all of the conversations this year have been around grief. We're seeing

this in the literary world. We're seeing this in so many different places that it's really time for us to go. Like this is you know, Catherine May's book Wintering. You know, I think this is why it's been so successful, because it's like, right, when do we rest, When do we

go dormant? When do we say goodbye? When do we you know, gather and sing and be in ceremony and really honor uh and be in awe of what we were able to have in this season of our life so as to allow it to come to a conclution and then you know, move into a stage of of renewed life of rebirth. Yeah. Wow, Yeah, that was a beautiful app Is there anything that any practice or anything that you have felt has supported you in your grief and to be able to get in touch with that

piece of you more absolutely? Um I would say that ceremony and ritual are a really really important part of my grieving process, and I want to make this as accessible as possible. This is not some formal thing where there's a you must do it this way. I think when people hear about ceremony, which they're like okay, like what are the ten rules, and it's like, no, this is this has been a very um uh free, kind

of made up process for me. So so, as an example, my mother was moved into a care facility in the summer of in Canada. I live in the US. I couldn't go, and in fact nobody could go because of COVID. She was just kind of dropped off outside and then one could go in with her, you know, so I couldn't be there, and I thought, this is a this is a this is a day full of grief. What do I do? And so I said, I'm going to cancel everything. I'm gonna move into ceremony. And I just

I walked around my property. I grabbed a big branch. I had a couple of raven feathers that a friend gave me. I poured some tea. I you know, I basically kind of used nature all around me and had music playing, had candled like any ceremony and ritual to me is like all of my senses. You know, how am I? How am I? How am I embodying this? That's what I'm trying to do is I could try and think my way through this, but that's that's not what my brands made for. That's my BRAINDS made for taxes.

That's about it. I need to I need to feel my way through this, and so I need to recruit all of my different senses and have them be present and let me make something, let me create something, let me offer something. And it's made up it who knows, you know. And I love to talk about that because it's I want to make that kind of process really

accessible for people to be. Like a ceremony could be you lighting a candle, jumping up and down ten times and lying on the ground right, could be whatever I think, which I think is really interesting. I love that you just brought this up because this has been something that I've been playing with, is this sense of play in my life because I didn't have it as a child

very much. I was forced into working and so play for me, and when I was really young, like ceremony and being with nature and that was such a huge part of of my world. I was an only child. I made up stories all the time like it was just such a massive part of my world. And I've been starting to find a return to that in some way once again, that resistance to nature and and and ceremony. Actually, I love ceremony. And it's like you just said, I

want someone get to give me the ten steps. I don't want to have to make things up because it's I feel like I'm quote unquote doing and it's yeah, and it's it really is this form. I know that it's asking me to play. Yeah. I mean most of us know if we do know of ceremony and ritual. We know about it in religious contexts, and first of all, most women weren't allowed to be in those types of ceremonies. If they were, there was a way to do it, and you could mess it up and get it wrong.

And so to really remove it from that and say like no, you can't play, and I love I love that you've said play because this this kind of ties back to the nervous system, This really embodied kind of way of processing grief or processing a moment in our lives. Play is a kind of nervous system blend of fear and curiosity. Oh right, Like there's how do you why

fear in play? Because because you're doing something unknown, risky, there's excitement, you know, there's that pendulum of excitement through fear. We're kind of right on, Like I've never gone on a swing that high before. I've never I don't know, I've never like jumped into pool and done a cannonball. I've never played in a sandbox before. Am I going to get it in my underwear? Like you just don't know?

There's a little bit of like it's it involves a vulnerability, and anytime there's a vulnerability, there's these little elements of fear and so adding it, making it and moving it to play is let's get curious about this, right, so as little kids, you know, you imagine a little kid maybe nervous to what I mean, you read about this in the book nervous to walk into school, right, nervous too nervous to be the one to do the sports day race, or to sing a song, or to paint

the picture or whatever. There's nervousness. There's a little element of vulnerability and fear. And often times, you know, our nervous system doesn't know what you know, that's a that's a scary day. I could shut down, I could freeze, I could you know, a whole bunch of different things. But the minute I add in wonder, awe, curiosity, what's going to happen here? Et cetera? Is is a really really beautiful state for for nervous systems to find safety

within some of those bordering on fear moments. Yeah, I love that that. I'm just about to embark on a tour, a new tour, and I've had so much anxiety around it because there's so much unknown. We're still putting everything together and it doesn't really come together tilast step, but you know we all on stage. Yeah, And so there is this I've been really trying to because there's you know,

it's the both end. It's like, I know, I trust and know myself so well and I know that everything will work out for its highest good, and I also have this complete fear and anxiety around it. And you just described that so perfectly for me. I'm like, that is my nervous system, not know we want to do with it exactly? And where's the slip stream between those two places? Right? Absolutely? Yeah. I would love for you, you know, to discuss you know, losing losing your mother

while she's still alive, Like, how is that? How has that affected your relationship with her? And when I look at my own parents, you know, I went through a lot with my parents have been through and we don't have very close relationships. And I've often think of how much grief I've had around them already, um, and how I don't look forward to them passing away because it's

like the second round of grief. Yes, And so when I think of your situation, I relate in a lot of ways, not that you know, I don't have the daily death and grief with with them, but I totally relate to that feeling of the grieving before the grieving. That makes sense. And before we explore that thought any further, we're going to take a quick pause, but we'll be at back Welcome back leaves. Steph and I were just diving into the multiple layers of grief that come with

our parental relationships as we age. There's current grief, there's anticipatory grief, um and I think also for a lot of us with our parents, especially if relationships have been fraught or tense, is then when we think about them dying, there's there's there's a there's a grief of the actual loss, but there's also a grief of I think if parents are still living and there's been attention in the relationship, there's always some internal part of us that's hoping it

might change, like one day they might be able to do this, one day I might be able to have this relation. And then and then if and when they go, there's a grief of like, oh, I actually never I am going to get that. I'm gonna grieve this person and I'm going to grieve the fact that I was holding out hope maybe in some way shape and form, so um for me, you know, the the experience has been again, how do I, I think maybe this is all of us, like, how do I allow myself to

move through and mature through life? You know, Maiden, mother, Autumn, queen Krone? How do I? How do I move through those things with some sort of like grace? And if I am going to move through those things and come into mother and kind of ask the quintessential question of archetypal mother for me is what will I allow to be created through me? And that could be human lives, so that could be creative projects, or that could you know, lots of different things, But what will I allow to

be created through me? Now? I also have to understand it as I move into that role, I have to release her from archetypal mother so she can move into her next stage of life. I think what we try and do is demand that they stay there, and especially if there's been things that are incomplete or we feel are incomplete. Instead of saying I'm going to move into mother, I'm going to mother myself. I'm going to mother my

creative projects, I'm going to mother children, et cetera. And I'm going to allow her to move into Autumn queen Krone and that may take different shapes and forms. And so for me with my mother, there's really been a question of how do I allow her to go on this journey which is going to be the disappearance, slow disappearance of her, and and what will my relationship to myself? Like she's going to kind of drop the mirror of

my own identity that she's reflecting back to me. Some people had that mirror dropped when they were fourteen years old and their mother is still around, right, But then there becomes a question of am I going to pick it up? Who am I going to ask to hold it? How do I hold it for myself? How do I use nature to hold it with me? And so that's an ongoing question for me of how am I actively mothering remothering self and how am I actively surrendering and

allowing her, you know, to move into different roles. I think there's also something really interesting, you know, as we talk archetypically kind of about made mother Autumn Queen Crone, I talked to a lot of women in their forties, fifties, sixties, etcetera that have you know, pretty big mama wound right, And I always like to reflect back, like I'll ask them like, so, how it's okay you're talking about the situation when you were ten. How old was your mom

when she had you? Okay, she was twenties, so she was thirty five at the time. Like here we care, you know, maybe like everyone like yeah, yeah, we're kind of going like, oh, I'm a I'm a forty fifty sixty seven year old woman, and I I really have got to learn how to step into remothering because I'm talking about the wounds that happened and occurred with me when she was twenty to thirty five, like younger than I am now. Like I don't I don't know about you,

but I don't feel like a fully formed human yet. No, no, fort Like I can't believe that I'm going to be forty soon. And it's like wait, I don't. And then what's really interesting about age is like I remember being really young and forty years old, and now like at forty, I'm like forty is so young and sixties not even old. Like we're still making mistakes, we're still learning how to apologize, we're still learning where our egos are at we're still

like all of these things. And so I often reflect back and I'm like, oh, my gosh, right, like my mom was only thirty two then, or she was only thirty four then, like or she was twenty eight, like when she made that horrible mistake that impacted me. Okay, again, we've got to have people take responsibility, and we've got to have boundaries, you know, appropriate boundaries for ourselves inside

of those relationships. But but there is this kind of perspective of, oh, we've got to we've got to really let women and move also into these autumn queen and kind of crone archetypes um and and I mean I could go I could talk a lot about archetypes. I won't go into it, but I think that's a that's been one of the ways, as you ask about, like what's my own grieving processes I moved through this is to allow myself to fully fully land inside of the archetype of mother, so that as I lose her, I

gain my own mothering of self. Yeah. Wow, that what a journey. That's a that's a definite journey. And I know I'm I'm definitely stepping into mother more for it for myself. Um. You know, I don't have children of my own, I have two stepsons. But I have learned that the more and more I step into mother myself, like, the more I am feeling like the wholeness of womanhood. Yes, yes, yes, which is really beautiful. Um. And it is such a jernie,

such a journey. You talk a lot about in this book about the splitting off of self, which I mean I think every woman, I think everybody can can you can relate to that, but every woman especially you know, your mother's lack of emotional, lack of words around that, uh, really played a huge part in that piece for you as a child, Like how how has finding your own words? Like how has that changed your life? And how has

that created more wholeness for you? Yeah? The main way I would answer that is that it's helped me remember. And I often like to use the word remember spelled r E dash member as in remember oh wow. Yeah, Like if we moved through our lives and we split off from ourselves, we we reject say the feminine, or we we reject our the personality that's too much or part of us that might be direct that as little

girls were told that's bossy and rude. Okay, that's got to be rejected and split off from we we dismember ourselves. And so I think for me there's always been this is just part of who I am, a real thirst for a translation of of those experiences in a translation

through felt sense and words. And that's I think having those words and having an ability to kind of like walk into those wordless spaces an attempt to translate something there has kind of helped me move through that process of remembering, of bringing those dismembered parts kind of back to self. And this is this is I mean, I could talk about um, you know, mythological examples. This is the story of original creation, the myth of isis and

osiris um. This dismembering and remembering of self, and it's a divinely, divinely feminine act to go and gather the dismembered parts and say they belong back together, and to create this is womb like to create a spaciousness even though it might be dark or chaotic or confusing m hm. And to kind of create that spaciousness and a translation for that remembering of self. Yeah, I mean I love that you said, even though it may be dark. Yeah, there's a messiness to it that can Yeah, that we

have to be able. It's like I think about, you know, looking at grief and then looking at our own mess and how we have. Both of those seem very similar to me in that we have to go into the darkness in order to bring those pieces back into wholeness. And I think it's not pretty sometimes exactly. I think

this is a feminine gift. I think one of the most harmful things, I think from a patriarchal standpoint, is to tell women to be neat and tidy, like you have to be this way, you have to look this way, you have to be this way, you have to behave this way this you have to be clean and neat, tidy and perfect because there is a very natural this is the womb, a natural um kind of place of pure potential that is only sense based. It's dark and all you can hear is a you know, heartbeat is

a drumbeat. And so where is the dark cavern that I can descend into? Where am I allowed to descend and get messy? And you know, all of these things, but that's you know, there's so much inside of that that We're often told we should be afraid of that, we should be afraid of that kind of woman. That kind of woman is evil, that kind of woman, you know, all of this type of stuff. So to to a this is where it kind of circles, does a full circle into nature. It's like, ah, that's where I'm mirrored

the frality. You know, that the wilderness of my own interior, of the messiness of the parts of me, that howell, of the part you know, all of those parts that society kind of deems is not an acceptable woman. M uh is really actually our gift that we've been kept from and and the people who can who can descend into that place and who can surrender to that glorious mess are often the people that come out with a

new creation, with new life. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I don't I don't think the new life is possible without that, right, I would think, what is what is this journey with your mother? You talk about surrender? What is it taught you about surrender? Like, what is it? What is it look and feel like to you to be fully surrendered into something? Mm hmm. It feels very out of control. It feels I mean, you know, I think about my mom should should five children in total? That's a lot

of creation, and there's a lot of creation. And I think about, um, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot. This this I just for this beautiful essay about about mother or type of mother is really kind of an annihilation of self that you have to You have to be both visible and invisible at once as a mother. And I think about that again. I don't have children, so I think about that in the creative process.

How am I both visible? So so for you, for example, you are you, and you're standing on a stage and it's your name, and and there you are. You're visible, all eyes on you, and and you're embodied and you're there. And what part of you is invisible enough to allow something else to come through you? What part of you have you been able to kind of get spacious about and move. It's like a flute, you know that that you can turn yourself into that that you're like, I

am here. I can feel my button, this seat, I can feel a guitar in my hand. I can feel, you know, I'm typing something out as a writer. And I can also feel there's like an invisibility of me that that something else is pouring through m and you could call that a flow state. Sure. Um, to me that is that is a surrendered act of creation and it's archetypal mother. Wow. Yeah, I never have thought about how much surrender I guess it takes to allow for creativity to flow through, to be that, to be on

the receiving end, to be penetrated by, to be a vessel. Yeah, because it it feels like, yeah, there are so many pieces of myself that I have to move slightly out of the way right in order for that to come through. That's the question. And if you move, if you move too much of yourself out of the way, then it could be a kind of disembodied or um, you know, you're not there. You annihilate too much of yourself and then it's like, you know, that's that's a tough thing.

And so how do we continue to grow the capacity from a nervous system standpoint, from an audiment somatic standpoint, to be in our flesh, to occupy our bodies at the same time as disappear ourselves and perhaps I mean mostly like the mental self enough to have to actually use the instrument, the human instrument to run enough energy to create things. I love it. I just have a couple more quick questions I wondered. I just wonder, what do you want people to take away from your book

and your story? M hmm. It's it's a tough you know. I don't know if I have any specific like I want you to get this. I want people to find something for themselves inside of it, I suppose without it being dictated by me. I mean, I think that's a quintessential mother like. I want you to have your experience and I don't want to put my hopes and dreams

over top of it. I'm gonna I'm gonna hold those for me and that feels complete within the creative process, and then I'm going to release you to go in the book, to go and be what you are going to be. Um. I do know that my mom's energy is in this book, and so there there is I think for some people they're going to feel that as a kind of her demonstrative warmth comes through. I think there's a like, how is it that you break something apart so much but I still feel held? You know?

That's I think that energy is inside of the book. I also think, you know, our world right now is pretty hell bent on on talking about all the things that are falling apart. Our political systems, are environmental systems or business systems. You know, there's a lot of things that we're watching crumble. It is terrifying. It's really it's very scary. All of the things that we thought, this is the thing that's going to hold me, that's going to keep me safe. This financial system, this job, that's

all the stuff. And I think as we watch things crumble, including the natural world, and this is for me with my mom, I'm watching her fall apart. This is the person I thought, you know, hold me safe and be there. I think it's important for us to point that out, those things out, this is happening, was just going on, and for us to create plans and actions and all of these different things. But I also think we need

to be held. I think we need to be told and whispered to and sung songs to that that say we're gonna be okay, you know, even when we're not. And I feel that in this book. Um yeah, And that's that's very much for my mother, that's that's that's very much her. I love that. I love that you honor her in this book and her energy and then it comes through. It's so stunning. I have one last question about music, because of course, yes, I I asked

you every guest what they're holy five songs are? They can be from It could be from right now in your life, where it could be from forever, whatever moves you. I would love to know, you know, we And I was thinking about this because I know you're gonna I know it's so hard. It's so hard, I you know. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna make this. And you know what, I'm a Canadian. I'm a Canadian, true and true, and so my list is Canadian. My my five songs are.

They're both Canadian. But Katie Lang's version of Hallelujah, especially live Hallelujah, Hallelujah, hallelu that's quite something. Joni Mitchell Both Sides Now is a big one. That song breaks my heart's glove Illusion Hill breaks my heart in the best way. Uh. Sarah McLaughlin Angel is a big that's and that's like high school. I don't know from this stopcossness that total high school, right. I could not have a list of Canadian music if I didn't have the tragically hips, so

Boots are Hearts is a big one for me. I don't know that. Oh my gosh, I have to go look it up. But even Babies is by Wolves and no exactly when they big Shee when it's part man really Ba. There's a lot of amazing hip songs, but that's a big one Um and a more current one um Lee Fullback into the Ether. I love that song. They're the fans something you can dance to it, hold on to something, your nose, you slip into the h I love that song. Yeah, it's so that's like heaven. Yeah.

Thank you, Thank you for sharing, Thank you for sharing your heart. Thank you. It was so nice to finally see your face and me right, I know, And thank you for just traveling on this journey with me for this last hour so eloquently. It was stunning. I learned so much from you, So thank you for being here. Well, you were very good at this and it is my honor and privilege to be witnessed too and participate in. Thank you, And that wraps up this episode of Holy Human.

I want to thank Steph Jaggers so much for joining me. It was such a beautiful conversation, and I highly recommend her hauntingly beautiful and moving it new memoir, Everything Left to Remember. I found it profoundly moving, and I'm sure you all will do, especially after this conversation. And please leave me your thoughts about today's episode or anything else in the comments where you're listening, because I love connecting and hearing from you all, so send me a thought.

On our next Holy Human, I will be joined by Brie Malayson, a spiritual facilitator with a surprisingly practical approach to tapping into the transformative power of your true potential by tuning into your intuition, into your soul. I think you'll find her way of viewing our spirituality and purpose really unique and refreshing and very insightful. So until then, please take care of yourself and each other, and I love you. Holy Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a

production of I Heart Radio. You'll find Holy Human with land Rhymes on the I Heart app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get the podcast that matter most to you.