Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Indigenous Wisdom & Doula Care for Feminine Leadership with Madison Murphy Barney, Author of Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms

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Indigenous Wisdom & Doula Care for Feminine Leadership with Madison Murphy Barney, Author of Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, dear listener.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Warmly welcoming you into today's episode and conversation.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And before we begin, I wanted to give a brief orientation.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had originally planned on recording a solo episode for today on feminine leadership.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And for various reasons, as I was preparing to record the episode, it didn't feel like the right time.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I listened to that and I waited.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started preparing for the guest conversation, which I'm gonna be sharing today.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was reading about Madison's work, and as I was really attuning to the threads and the themes that I wanted to weave into this conversation, I felt like this was the conversation needed for Friday.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is the conversation that I believe is needed for this closing of Leo season with these themes of courage, feminine leadership being seen.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: This conversation is less about being seen and more about the feminine values that we can embody within ourselves and also the values that we can bring into the world and the values that are very much needed in the systems that we are all living in.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it wound up being the perfect threshold episode tying up these themes from Leo season and walking us into Virgo's Virgo season as well.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you will enjoy com today's conversation.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: In addition, for all of those reasons I've just named, this is also a beautiful way of embodying where I am in my cycle.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am in my earlial luteal phase, and this week I've really noticed a significant drop in my energy and in my capacity.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as a way of really honoring that change in my capacity and in my energy, this is a really creative solution that allows me to still offer a very juicy, rich, enlightening conversation to you on Friday, as promised, while also not abandoning me, my body, my energy, my capacity.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to share that with y'all before the episode begins.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna go ahead and transition now into the episode.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story podcast.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: As always, delighted and really excited to jump into another guest interview with you.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some goosebumps on my arms and on my thighs as I'm sitting here with today's guests.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: We were just chatting a little bit before we hit record, and her and I have lots of similarities.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have lots of uh crossover in our work, and there's lots of different threads that we're going to be following here today as we are moving from Leo season into Virgo season.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the universe works in such divine and mysterious ways.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like the timing of this episode aligned exactly as it was meant to.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually preparing to record a solo episode for Friday, and as I was preparing for today's guest interview, I said, no, no need to record another episode.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is gonna do exactly what I'm looking for.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited to be welcoming Madison on the show today.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'll share a little bit about Madison and then I'll turn it over to her.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Madison Murphy Barney is an Indigenous sister author, doula, and story-driven strategist and a member of the 2026 class of 40 under 40 in public health.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: She works at the intersection of care, creativity, and systems change, helping individuals and organizations meet uncertainty and transition without fear, fragmentation, or force.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Through the Center for Story and Strategy, she partners with mission-driven organizations to build strategy rooted in real community wisdom rather than assumption.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: She also offers doula support both in person through her Vermont-based um mangas, doula services, and virtually guiding individuals and institutions through life's thresholds such as birth, postpartum, death, loss, release, and reinvention.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Her new book, The Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms, draws on eight teachings from mushrooms and mycelium networks as a blueprint for returning to right relationship with ourselves, with each other, and the planet.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: She hosts the Entangled Health Podcast and writes the Substack Terracotta.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Madison, welcome to the show.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that bio.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I'm delighted to be here.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wonderful.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Madison, I always invite our guests to share a little bit about their story.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll invite you here to do the same.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I the first thing always in my bio is that I'm a sister.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'm a sister to five siblings, and they are in the book dedication as well.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I frame them there as my scattered home on this planet.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, being a part of a big family, being in like the elder cohort, um, you know, my older brother and I, you know, had four much younger siblings, and um it is it has made my life what it is, and I love being a sister.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was raised in North Dakota, um, and in Bismarck, North Dakota for the first 18 years of my life.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then I um, well, when I was like in third grade, my books were always late, my like library books, and the librarian was like, Okay, well then you're gonna have to like read a boring book.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And she gave me an eyewitness book about Greece, and I was like, Well, this isn't boring at all.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: I love Greece, actually, I'm moving to Greece the day I turn 18.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that just sort of like cemented something into my like body and soul and self.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it wasn't the day I moved I turned 18, but I did do my freshman and junior years of college in Greece.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I was 18 and a couple months old.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then from there I moved to Spain and then I moved to Azerbaijan and the Netherlands and Malaysia.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, and and did quite a bit of travel in those times.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then I um went to grad school in Boston and I studied public health because I um loved that it wouldn't actually make me choose.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like in choosing public health, I didn't have to choose that much because I'm like a chronic generalist, and so still there's gonna be so much like possibility.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, public health is so many things.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I had worked in like storytelling and I'd worked in oral history and I'd worked in anti-trafficking and like all these things.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, public health can just be this like wide net that I cast under which I do these things.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was shocking because I got to public health school and they were and just realized really quickly that like we don't listen to communities about what they need to be well, even though they are so like they are the best suited and most wise beings to tell us what they need to be well.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: We all know what we need to be well.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so yeah, I've made my practice off that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: I got some like real jobs um after grad school, um, all sort of in the um in service of eventually like going out on my own and doing like story-driven strategy work and community engagement work.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: And um at the same time as that, I was also um becoming a doula.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and now over the past year or so, that has all come together to be a like story-driven strategy and also like organizational doula role um to like hold conflict and beginnings and endings and and really alchemize um, you know, lessons learned from messy times and things like that, um, as well as like a literal doula practice of um birth and death.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I also do like divorce, I've done a Saturn return, I've done creative projects.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, because like doula, I always say like the doula mindset almost is like an infection to me, like it infected, like I can't see anything outside of a doula mind.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just truly is like has taken over in the best way, in the best infection I think it can get.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like the frame so much through what I through I see the world.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that makes a lot of um, you know, the more that I like come into my doula self, the more I also, you know, recognize how like this life of straddling worlds has always been really true.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, like being from an indigenous family, but not raised on our lands because of um forced removal and like always so like never being home, but being very much at home in community and like loved into being by people who like really are ideologically opposed to me, but love me so well and love me so much.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And just, you know, there's just so much like straddling and in between in my life that um it's helpful to now like be able to frame it in the like the world straddling of doula care.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and what else?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote a book.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um Our Ancestors Want Us to Be Mushrooms came out um, let's see, 13 days ago.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And um and this book is really a love letter.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote this book um from a place of frustration of how like complicated we have made the path forward and how like overintellectual, intellectual and like not human.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm constantly like both delighted and horrified by the attempts we make to like outsmart the planet and like think that we can do that and be like, we're gonna make a plan forward that doesn't involve the planet's wisdom.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, well, that's not gonna work, but um sure.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: I guess you can get seed funding for that and try to do that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you know, with that, I was thinking about, you know, like our, you know, in many ways, mycelium mushrooms were the were the doula of life onto the planet, right?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like we were all in the primordial goo, and then you know, we were brought on land with the support of mycelium.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, they mycelium have experienced many ends of the world.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, our ancestors have experienced the end of the world for many of us, and it is and have found how to build the new and to move forward and to love each other and care for each other.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, that was really the sort of um grounding of this book was this like we have actually the paths forward, um, and they are much more wise than anything we could think of, and and how there's all these characteristics of mushrooms um and mycelium that um we have too, and we just need to remember um and remember to um to reclaim our place within ecosystems rather than this sort of like false idea of of being over them in some way.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um yeah, I live on the side of a mountain in Vermont with um my partner and our two goats, and um, she's a baddie.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: She designed and built this house by herself, so like that's cool to like.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: I always say it's like I have like the ultimate privilege of literally living inside my partner's brain.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like my home is in her brain, um, which is pretty sick.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um yeah, I'm in ceremonial community, I'm in um a lot of queer family building community.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's a beautiful thing about doing doing doula work um in smaller communities.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like I, you know, used to do them in in um Boston and then when I lived in New York City.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but now it's like I don't know, these babies are around, you know.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was um selling my book at a queer arts festival last weekend, and I had a little tent and my table and whatever, and people are just bringing me their babies and they were like, I'm kind of sick of this baby.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want this baby?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like I was there since the babies been born, like absolutely, bring me your baby.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's like, you know, these are babies who have known literally their whole lives, you know, from the moment, and um, and so it's just so beautiful to just be the place where people drop their babies off because that's like truly all I've ever wanted for my life.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're actual babies, yeah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're true, they're babies who they're you know, their babies are hot and they're like done walking around.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and like they don't want them close to the concert, and so they just come to my tent and we hang.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Without even you saying anything, people are yeah, they just know they're just like, can we just just leave this baby here?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, absolutely.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: And if you forget to come back, I'll get this baby back to you eventually.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: We're chilling.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, wow, as I suspected, a very rich and and colorful life.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you've had a lot of varied life experiences, uh, both professionally and personally, with all of your travels and also really hearing um just the complexity and the polarity of your identity and the places you find yourselves in.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for bringing all of that into the conversation today.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure all of that lived experience really informs the way you show up for uh others and the way you show up in the world.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So really appreciate you walking your path and really fully embodying like your full multi-dimensional self.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a manifesting generator for those who speak that language.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and I just and I I sort of left out a big chunk of it um too, which feels important, um, especially with the name, the namesake of your of your podcast, is that you know, for like I did a real um healing endeavor um for many years, um, and re and only really feel like I got to the like um delicious life that I have now once I like dropped the sort of the frameworks and the protocols and like all of the self-help industrial complex stuff and allowed myself to like doula myself into it by like allowing myself to be in my life.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, I felt like for so long I was kept out of my life by always like looking around for the next thing to fix and and you know, this approach of just like um interpreting things through certain f other people's frameworks.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think doula care just really allowed me to get back into um my tools and and um my connections to this planet and to um the ancestral realm and others and and to just like allow like resource me in a way so that I trust that life can unfold and I can um meet it as it unfolds rather than try to like brace against it or control it through like certain tools or tips or tricks or things like that.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, yeah, but the I I like to say that the the first step in that journey that like really sort of opened the door and a lot rushed in.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm glad that I tried everything I tried was the um the 12 steps for adult children of addicts was like the most, you know, I couldn't have stayed in those rooms forever, but the time that I was in those rooms really like started me on um a witnessing journey that um has served me well.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so I um yeah, shout out to that, to that lineage of knowledge and the many around it and the many others that it led me to um and also led me away from, which I'm also grateful for.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious if you could share a little bit more about this doula care, this sort of like lens in which you're um kind of like approaching your work and the world.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like the lens that was really impactful for you on your healing journey.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I it's a lot of, you know, do the care really at its core is is like witnessing and accompaniment.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I always stumble over that word, but I say it all the time.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Accompaniment.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's like another one that I love, ungovernorable.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like I can't actually say it, but I love that word, but I cannot say it.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's frustrating.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, um, you know, it's this witnessing and this accompaniment through change and um and this resourceness and connection to like um understand that anything that we are experiencing is not the first time it's it we've spent experiencing our lineage, right?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that there's there's the cultivated wisdom and practice and ritual and ceremony around all of life's thresholds from any lineage that we are a part of.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and um and the way and so to to to know that is so much a part of not feeling alone in anything.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think our most powerful selves are selves that have like learned to dance with change and step into that unknown.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because we all know and we all have lived the effects, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Of like avoiding change and gripping to what was, or sort of going through partial change and then trying to reach back and like take what was with us or take who we were with us.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and it keeps us out of life, right?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: It keeps us sort of in our heads and out of our bodies.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so the doula approach to it really is this like allowing what is to come, resourcing, be it with like connections to um yeah, to spiritual realm, ancestral realm, planet, other species.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: I find like, you know, like nothing has helped my healing, like, you know, putting my body in the water as much as possible, and you know, and like just and these things that, you know, using the elements um to support that.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then yeah, so there's that great allowing and that great sort of like uh curiosity because there's no when we finally I think surrender to the um not trying to control through like through um what outcomes might be or what might come or um you know because like thresholds of every type are by nature unknowable.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: And when we sort of like learn to like love and trust ourselves in the unknown, I think we really get into life for the first time.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and then when you're like down with it, then it's like okay, all changes and like you want them, and you're you know, you feel resourced to get through them.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so it is this um, I think it's a lot of the the witnessing, the accompaniment, and then also this sort of turns into this like desire for the possibilities of change and of fully stepping into a portal and knowing that like um you will be you've got it to get to the other side and you've got it um and you're not you by nature couldn't do it alone because like every portal is is new to you but ancient on in terms of the planet and in terms and so yeah, it's um I guess not quite I guess maybe I could clean up like an elevator pitch for it, but that's kind of what I got.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it, yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: It it made sense to me, and my biggest takeaway was the witnessing and accompaniment, yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard, isn't it?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: That word, yeah, yeah.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that to me, I think is so powerful because through the lens of of my work, I do a lot of trauma-informed care.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma happens when we're lacking that compassionate witness.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so just to have that present, loving, compassionate witness can really change our experience of a situation.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It can change our experience of life.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it can really change, you know, like I was born into a responsibility for generations behind me and before me.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so much of that, I think, when we when we are witnessed through threshold moments and through change, um it allows us to like heal backwards and forwards and to and to sort of remedy in all these ways.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that feels really powerful about it and urgent about it, right?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: To allow that that witnessing.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and it is just such a um, I think it's like our I think our collective like liberation is really bound up in this ability to go through change together, um and to understand what we as individuals need to navigate change powerfully, and then like what we need together and how we can offer that.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, and so there's like an honesty to it, and uh, you know, like because I can't help but bring mushrooms into everything, um, you know, I think about this sort of um this presence they have where there's this like humility and this willingness to do the dirty job of like eating oil and like alchemizing it and decomposing and creating um like rich soil.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: But there's also this like, so there's this humility and this immense generosity, right?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Of like making life on earth possible and and connecting species to each other and all these other beautiful things that might see them do.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's also this like a little bit of a confrontation in there.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're held and there's a generosity, and then there's like, all right, we gotta get honest and we gotta get through it, you know, like we got to do this.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And like, I think that's what good doula care is too of this, like um, all of this resortedness and this generosity and this protection and this like co adaptability, as well as this sort of like um.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yo, I'll go with you, but we're going to the underworld.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like we're doing this.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and so I just I think like, yeah, in so many ways, mushrooms have like so much doula about them, or or we have so much doula about yeah.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's it's that sort of like, you know, I think there can be this um from the outside, this perspective of doulas is like this like sort of fluffy and like, you know, and just like, you know, and like bot good vibes and like you got it, mama, and things like that.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, I think doula gadula care is really like there's a moment in birth, be it of a person or a death or a um a birth of anything where you have to sort of just surrender and just and you know, sort of shake hands with the unknown and say, like, all right, it's you and me, let's do this.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um, you gotta be really in your body for that.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And um I, you know, my prayer for everyone is that their support people are like down to go on that journey too, and not um, or even, you know, like allow, you know, hold the container well enough so that they can go on that journey and and come back well and resource and know that they'll be caught on the other side.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, it's so it's just it's sort of funny to like the um the comparison between like what the work sounds like and what the work is, and um, there is that part of it of that like that surrender and and um and not being able to predict what will come next, but knowing that you're like you were resourced enough to figure it out.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, and thus we find ourselves here.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's powerful.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think so many of us struggle with change, with the unknown, and it sounds like this is really an invitation to to befriend the unknown and to trust ourselves that we can get through it.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that life is there, and even if it feels like, oh, you know, like, you know, I don't have the community that I would hope I would have for this, it's like, all right, well, like, um, you know, humans are not our only community.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we can have, you know, some of us have um spiritual teams or guidance or ancestral teams, or you know, I even like think yesterday I was like over my mind was in like over processing.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just like laid on a rock and like that rock did a lot more for me than I could have ever done for myself or anybody else.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I would have laid down on my partner's belly, I would have been a whole mess.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I was just like, all right, let me go give this other rock and like come back, you know?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so like there's so much co-regulation we can do with so many ancient beings um and so much connection that it's it's not only the humans that can like get us through this and accompany us.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's um there's so many other creatures.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for that.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think there may be listeners listening, and I know I've experienced that in myself where you maybe don't feel like you have that support.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: What you've offered here is a way to find that support through the natural world, through our ancestors, through the beings.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I found a lot of support through those um layers myself.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's so beautiful.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much generosity, it's just wild.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's all right there, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: If we want to open ourselves up to it.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had never had doula care um explained in that way.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this piece of the mushrooms being the doula of the world.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've kind of touched on it a little bit, but I'd love to hear more about that.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you can stop me anytime because I can never, I cannot stop myself in talking about this.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, there's that, you know, that bit I talked about of the sort of like the like um the that balance between like, all right, I've got you, but you've got to go.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which is all what all great mentors or teachers do for us, right?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that's why I love spending time with children so much too, is like, you know, they don't have a lot of patience for the like um delay of it all, you know, and it's and like um, and so yeah, and so I think that, you know, or what I've learned from mushrooms and mycelium, you know, is that like symbiotic relationship.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they they the every single step that we take, every breath that we take has a mycelial element to it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like we breathe in spores, we step on the underground networks, um, they support other species in um, you know, connecting tree roots and the forest floors and communicating through mycelium.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so there's this, yeah, there's this protective element through the symbiosis of of keeping everyone like nourished and cared for um and connected and um and then also just having these moments of like um magic.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's something that I I mushrooms feel like magic, right?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like when we see them a lot of times, it's just like, oh my god, how did you do that?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how are you, how are you looking like that?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, I've been talking and thinking and writing so much about this holding on to this like mystery and room for magic as a like a doula practice, yes, and also like a mycelial practice and also like a liberatory practice of like, because it protects us, right?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like if we are thinking forward and like holds hold on to the possibility of magic and the unexplainable and knowing that we can only do what we can do, but um, there's going to need to be this element of like of coming together and of the unexplained.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think it really resources us in a new way to be like, all right, we've got this, but um, but there's this like other mystery in the world that sort of keeps us running and keeps us a part of the ecosystem and keeps things going.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I think, yeah, great doulas hold space for magic um and and great mushrooms inspire it as well.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and there's also this element that I've been a little bit obsessed with too is like wildness um and allowing wildness and allowing ourselves like to be nature.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like more and more I think of being a human is like nature gave us a little piece of herself with some like senses to experience herself more fully.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: And when I'm thinking about things like that as being like a little chunk of the earth, because we are, right?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like we literally, the minerals, everything that builds our body is of the earth.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then also like most of the cells in our body aren't even human cells.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're like bacteria or everyone, like everyone who lives on your skin and your muck microbiome and all that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so in allowing that wildness, we allow so much more.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it like ties to that magic too of this, like, we are it is urgent, right?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: That we like find new ways to relate to each other and to the planet and to um, you know, to life itself.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And we're not going to be able to do that without um allowing like our wildness to come forth and our our place on this earth as bits of the earth.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and um, and that's why I think, you know, colonization and and um even before colonization, you know, like crusades and things, you know, what it all comes back to in the way, in the story that I have in the narrative I live in is this this fear of what's possible with all of this wildness on the planet and all of this like abundant creation and possibility and this desire to sort of rein it in and not let it be fully expressed because like what might become possible.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so, you know, the wildest moments of my life have been in like birth and death scenarios, um, and the wildest moments in um I think human history are at these thresholds and these changes and this like unexplainable, magical sort of um allowing, allowance.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so um the part in the book that I talk about is like creativity and unique gifts, but I think that there's just this like um urgency and necessity of like liberating those truths from within ourselves and allowing them to like come forth and co-create a world because like we've seen the result, we live in the results of the world of that being um constrained in certain ways, and um, that world can't go on, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like we've come to the end of that being a possibility if um you know if things are going to move forward and we're going to have, you know, folks having what they need and their needs met and abundance for for everyone.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, so it's yeah, so the mushrooms teach us that and um and do us in that way towards that like to allow that allowance of wildness and that that um sort of like lust for that magic and that mystery and that unknown.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because when we, you know, I like the example I use a lot, and I use it in the book, is like, you know, we were told from a young age that the moon and the tides have a really beautiful relationship, right?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: And like the moon pulls the tides and that's where tide goes up and down.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And like I've watched hours of YouTube videos about this, like trying, you know, trying to get the science of it down and being like, yeah, okay, gravity, cool, like that's great.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's some magic there, right?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like that this rock that is out above this like beautiful being who who like lights us in the night and and directs us, like also pulls the ocean like towards us, and then you know, and it's like, come on, like we, you know, like we're not really gonna be like, and so it's because of this gravitational, you know what I mean?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's that's magic.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just think that like something that I love so much about what mushrooms do and what like good doula care does is this sort of like slowing down and this like what else is possible question and this like curiosity and this questioning.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think like that's an element in there too of like when we really start to look at things where it's just like how is this all happening?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and um yeah, and it's really beautiful and it's it's it's um it's magical.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love that really beautiful.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finding myself a little touched, a little tear welling in my eyes.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: The moon will do the moon and the tides will do that to you.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm in deep relationship with the moon and the tides and my cycle, and I'm I'm talking about that on the podcast all the time.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for uh for really uh driving that point home.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's magic.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we all are and the magic in it.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there is, like you said, a degree of like uncertainty, like there's some things that just can't be explained.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and I see science is kind of magic in a way, too.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like to me, science and like spirituality and magic, like they're all part of the same sandbox.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of what what lens you're putting on.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you can and you can feel them wanting to be even more in conversation.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you can and you can see, you know, like there are some brilliant scientists, like I forget the name of the um scientist who wrote um finding the mother tree, but you know, like she was like almost kicked out of the scientific community and could barely get funding um for so long because she was, yeah, looking at the mycelial relationships and and that trees weren't just, you know, if we clear cut a forest and then try to grow back just one species, like it's actually the diversity of species and how they relate to each other.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I think about it too, there are so many like really lusted after mushrooms that can't be cultivated.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like we can't, we can't get truffles really to grow or some others.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it has they have to be sort of there's so many elements at play that we can't fully understand and we can study and study and study in them, but then like the more we find, the more we realize we like can't cultivate.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um yeah, but I think there is, I think we're in a time where science and spirituality and um are able to like have more conversations with each other, and it's not so um, you know, there's just one way of knowing.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: And we see it too a lot with um like the more, you know, shocking, the more that like folks allow indigenous folks to talk about like the way they relate to the planet, the more we learn about science and magic.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, who to thunk.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, because there's just these things, you know, it's so funny, you know, like these things that you know we've been taught for generations and then it like gets discovered um scientifically.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, some people are really salty about that, and it's like, let them come, you know what I mean?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's just like you know, like maybe it took a while, but yeah, like we gotta all get here at some like this is a group project, we need all of us.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, like if it takes a minute and if it takes like some dude at Brown University telling you, fine, then that's your truth, and that's okay.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: I too have believed a man at Brown University, you know, since my day.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you bringing that in as well.
• 36:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: As you were um talking about the magic and the mystery of the mycelium network and mushrooms, I had this um, I don't want to say a story because I'm not gonna go too far into the story because it's it's from a client's experience and we haven't talked about me sharing it.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there was an interesting thing that had occurred um when her and I started working together doing somatic work.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: She had expressed this curiosity around working with mushrooms.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so we began to explore it.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was a lot of things that came up just in that process of initial exploration and preparation intended to all of the things that arose in that process.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And fast forward months later, we're still working together doing somatic work.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: She actually never went forward with the psilocybin ceremony just because of the nature of her um her history and just kind of where she is in her journey.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just both decided it's you know not the right time.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: But what unfolded in that process felt very psychedelic.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it felt like she went on a psychedelic journey, even though she never touched the medicine.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And her and I were just having a conversation the other day, just kind of in awe of how um just the mystery and the magic and all of that.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And she never even touched it.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're that powerful.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it reminds me, I talk about this in the book.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a there's a line of thought that I neither like subscribe to or don't subscribe to.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: I just like hold it as like fascinating.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the idea that um in our evolution as humans, we only became human through interaction with psilocybin, which brought parts of our brain online that um hadn't previously been online.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so then it gets into these really beautiful questions of like whether or not that's true.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like if mushrooms, mushrooms don't have the bodies and the senses we have, but when we ingest them, these other things happen.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of folks with experiences with psilocybin, you know, report feeling more like connected and one and tied to the planet and a responsibility and accountability and all of these things that are desperate medicines that the planet needs right now, not desperate medicines, medicines that the planet desperately needs right now from humans to like tune into.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so then there just becomes this part of like, are mushrooms actually using us as these vessels to like experience through, um, you know, because there's stories, right, of like these like more parasitic mycelium and fungi that will like take over an ant's body and get and take over control and get the ant to do certain things, which is like fascinating and horrifying.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but at the same time, on the other side of it, like, are we just being used by mycelium as these like bodies of expression, in which case, like everything is so psychedelic.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, and um, yeah, and so I just I appreciate you sharing that story.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I just love that idea of like maybe we are just vessels for them to experience the world and to show us the way forward and to like imprint this blueprint in us um through, you know, through what they can offer through psychedelics.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is a beautiful, lovely thought to to hold.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what better to be hijacked by than a mushroom that wants you to love the world and feel at one with it?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it brings me back to what you said about the wildness and how the world we live in, the systems we live in, the they try to contain that wildness.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we can see this in in so many ways.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I love what you've proposed here.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like what what would happen if we just let the wildness reach its fullest expression?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what kind of world would we live in?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's an excellent question.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I it makes I sort of smirked when you said that because I can hear someone near me.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: And our nearest neighbors are quite far, but I can hear their lawn being mowed.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I was reading something the other day, like it's the most human thing ever is that we like took on small plots of land and then cleared everything that naturally grows there and then planted a different thing there, and then we water it so that it grows, but then we cut it down so it doesn't grow.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, and it's it's so like it, it like it's something that like endears me to humanness, you know, to be like, we're so cute and like so dumb.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, but when we allow it, you know, like things things grow wild, and like, you know, like I don't know.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: I left, I was trying this year.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I'm gonna have a tidy garden, like watch out world, like this garden's gonna be so tidy.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went to Sundance ceremony for 10 days, and like my garden is so feral.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I you can, you know, like you can't like, and that's all it took, right?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Was like a couple of days.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so there is just like it takes so little like letting go of control for everything to like bloom and that wildness to come back.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it takes like such a small absence, but we hold it so tightly by like, you know, the lawn mowing of it all.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right before we popped on, I was reading a post and maybe it was on your page, or maybe it was just the algorithm, but there was a post kind of saying that similar thing that you just said about just the the silliness of all of that.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a sweetness to it, right?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I talk about this in the book too of this, like I think it's in the conclusion um of like, I, you know, we get a bad rap as humans.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I really believe we belong here.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like we live on too brilliant of a planet to have brought us forward unless we belonged.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, you know, I don't think that like we've set out into these, like, see how fast we could go or how high we could go or how beautiful we could create, just in like, I don't believe we did really any of it in pursuit of destruction.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: It just became destructive.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it was led by some really like beautiful like curiosity and and desire to like to see what's possible.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, great, now we can just like tinker with that a little bit and like see what sort of like collective survival we can make possible with all we've learned.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I, you know, I think there is that sort of like in bringing it to just a place of the lawn and things like that, of this like humans, you know, we just we have these curiosities and these ways of figuring out that aren't that don't always do good, but I don't think we're always set out for, you know, like yeah, for destruction itself and that um it's okay to learn that they were destructive and then to um you know to like to learn from that and to to move forward.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um and lucky for us, like mycelium will be here to help us decompose all that stuff and turn it back into soil.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love this this uh component of the connection to the earth and really seeing the earth as a blueprint, as a resource, as a companion, as a friend, as something to steward, to take care of, and something that can take care and steward us as well.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's really I think is gonna be a key piece of our collective healing and liberation is returning to this truth, this wisdom of the earth, which is also us and our bodies.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I yeah, yeah.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it makes so much possible.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: It it really does.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited to to see how things continue to unfold.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh me too.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I also I want to weave in this piece of systems as well.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we've we've touched on earth and whether it's been named or not.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's been this thread of sort of feminine values that has been going through this conversation.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to hear a little bit more about your experience in the public health systems and how you're bringing this feminine sort of perspective and this earth-based wisdom into these systems.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's a great question.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, by really by honoring community as the, you know, like the folks who know best what they need to be well.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, that is so key.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and just and um, you know, the roots of of public health.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm about to start like a full series on this, um, hopefully next month of like the roots of public health were really radical and really bold and really, you know, like um took on housing and took on um food access and all of these things, and then over time got sort of um whittled away at through different initiatives and um and lobbying and all of these things.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then also um, you know, but what they really did was like there were these, you know, sophisticated systems within communities as well for how they cared for each other and their like ancestral medicines and their um birthing practices and all of these things.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: And and then um, you know, so public health sort of disincentivize and medicalized health in a lot of ways.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I am a huge proponent of like medical care where needed, like you know, like, like absolutely um, you know, think that like we should continue to strive in that way to like um support people's health.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um but by dismantling all like local public health, um, communal public health, tribal public health things, um, and creating this sort of like overall system of of health.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: And now we're in a weird and like and medicalizing it and making it individual responsibility, right?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like we saw that a lot, we've seen that a lot um in weave itself into our culture in so many ways, but in public health too of like it is your job not to get sick.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: It is your job, you know, like it's we see we at the site of the individual, sort of the site rather than looking at like what's in the water and and how are the housing conditions and and where who what are they eating and how are they you know getting places and things like that.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um and now we're seeing this real return to or this like a lot of times I think just like claim that there wants to be a return to but in some cases a genuine desire to return to like communal wisdom and like and and these things.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of my role in that is yeah working with sort of again being in that like in-between space of like bridging between organizations and the communities they're responsible for serving um in something I call story driven strategy, which is really just like listening to community, understanding what they want and need to be well, translating it translating it into like um uh things and approaches that the system or the organization can use and um operationalize it's funny even like the code switching that happens within this conversation we're having and how I use like such different language for you know for operationalize is not something I use outside of like talking about public health systems.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it's how I'm used to talking about it, you know?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um and and so yeah and so it's just it's it's allowing this reclamate because for now I guess since like like for around like a hundred a little over a hundred years we've had this this like very medicalized system that understand that like creates a lot of programming and a lot of initiatives for the community without ever interacting with or asking the community what it is they want.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you ask people you're like okay but the people are like oh I'm no one's coming to our like Tuesday night parents group or like parent resource group and it's like okay cool did you like ask anyone what they needed there?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like is that at a time that folks can get there like just you know these things that are like would you go to something that you were told was good for you if you hadn't asked for it and and it's just you know it's these sort of like common sense and it's interesting because it happens too in storytelling all the time because like a big part of what I do is like we do listening and then the translating into like um what the org can do to like better connect with and serve their community and then you know create like story in the community voice to like build trust and have them tell their own story of like what they want and need and things like that.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of organizations feel this like fear of like oh well storytelling is like um uh you know we want to how do we do it in the right way and things and it's like well it's like the really obvious things you know like you don't sit down with your best friend and ask like what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: So like don't sit down with a stranger and ask what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know like you probably storytell at your dinner table you probably like have scrolled TikTok today and there's like a lot of great storytelling on TikTok.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: So like you know how to do this.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's just when we like make it a thing that we're like okay I like I don't know how to and it's like yeah you do.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the most human thing about us is that we like tell stories and make meaning out of things.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah and so I do a lot of listening I do a lot of translation and then I do a lot of like creating of um I guess what come out to be like communications assets through stories told in community voice and um and also like community mapping to see like you know when organizations are like oh what is needed by our community I I do that.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then I also do organizational doula care um which looks like going to like conferences um and things and um and just being like a for like movement workers and folks in you know really doing the work um as like to do like somatics and mindfulness and um processing and things like that.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then at the same time do organizational do the work for like organizations that are ending or beginning or um merging and things like that to like come together in a good way and hold conflict and like allow it to be generative rather than sort of try to like skip past that part and get to the part where it's like over or merged or you know and I think like organizational endings especially in like nonprofit arenas are um ignored in many ways but it's like what happened and like how can we create something that shares those lessons learned and um and is it always a bad thing when something closes like I think a lot of times no I think sometimes the end is necessary for a number of reasons and how do we like honor that and like bring forth what was learned um in all of these ways.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah that was so systems like I think about systems in like a big way of like how they originated and then how now there's like this desire to get back.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of times it's is framed as this like new initiative to do something.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's like no those are the roots of public health like that's how the system was before it was like demolished and like turned into this weird sanitized thing.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: But um it makes me hopeful and um yeah and then there's the like organization by organization and community by community and then um yeah moment by moment of it too.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow I'm so grateful that you're you're bringing this body of work into these organizations and I'm also it gives me hope to know that organizations are hiring you to do this work.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like okay there's hope that people are are looking at um conflict and endings and mergers and new beginnings that are looking they're looking at it through this lens.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah doulas make great facilitators because it's like that sort of just like we don't know where the you know we we know where we're beginning we don't really know what the end looks like but we know how to like hold the vast in between of what's possible and like pivot and and um yeah intake a lot of information and things like that and hold conflict in gray area and yeah and so it's it's a um I too am grateful that people are hiring me to do it.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah that's yeah.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well we're kind of reaching um the end of our time together here for today and I always like to end the episode with some more kind of like practical takeaways that people can maybe explore and play with if they'd like if they're feeling touched by some of these themes.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: And before I kind of open it up to you to share anything that feels important, I do have this curiosity around the public health systems and the change that we've been seeing in our administration.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not um I don't talk about politics a lot on this show and we can't have conversations like this without being honest about what's happening in the world.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this may or may not be your exact um area of expertise but I'm curious if you have any information or insights um in regards to changes that have been happening in public health that listeners may want to be aware of.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah um a lot of them break my heart um and a lot of them I think are the inevitable result of how public health has been like treated and gutted and um sort of held up in in different ways and um and I think it's how I think about a lot of what our political climate is doing right now, which is is making us more honest um because things have gotten so loud that like I'm not of the belief that things are getting worse.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm of the belief that we are being forced to look at them because they've gotten louder and that like that actually is a great step for us um to sort of clean out the wound and and get to a place of of right relationship.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so um and so I think that it's sort of we've come to an inevitable place of um what happens when you lose trust of the public completely and a lot of that in my ethos comes from having not asked or included the public in what's been created in so long and not trusted folks as as um the geniuses that they are in in in thriving and being healthy.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and so um yeah so I think it's just it's like we we got here through um really polished, dishonest communication and relationships and our task forward is to create like a new narrative of what everyone deserves um in terms of their health and wellness and access and um and how we can get there.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah I it's and it's so um yeah it's just heartbreaking um to it's heartbreaking and it is like a um a call forward I think for many of us um to not to if something is going to be dismantled to this point to then be the ones who are like a part of rebuilding it rather than allowing the rebuilding to happen from the same folks who have done dismantling over again over many years this has has started to happen.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah thank you for that and uh gentle invitations to listeners to explore what that might look like for you yeah how can you help us to rebuild these new systems this new world that we all I'm I think we all want this world at least I know that's what I want I'm sure wanting medicine and that is what I'm wanting.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and and that's a big piece of the work here and a big intention of the work here is to really um educate people women specifically to empower women and um in our Monday episodes we do cycle uh tracking and syncing and so I talk about embodying the cycles as a way of sort of um creating this new way of being in the world when we can truly honor our bodies and our rhythms and where we are without thinking that we need to show up and perform and produce and be polished all the time letting our wildness be expressed.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah and I think of as you're saying that I just like the thought that came to mind is like oh we need a winter you know it feels like it's been like spring for so we've just been like spring springs you know and it's just like oh we just need to like a quick you know like an autumn into winter so that we can sort of sit around the fire and dream up what we need to build next.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I love that another gentle invitation here for listeners and I'm wondering Madison if there's anything that you would like to leave with listeners anything um practical or anything that they could explore anything that you feel would be important to know.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah the number one practice that I come back to and and try to bring anyone that I work with back to is like a practice of curiosity.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think that like the practice of curiosity it slows us down a lot.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: It like gets us out of binary thinking of that it has to be this or that or one or the other and allows like nuance and gray area and like what else might be possible um curiosity like allows us to like notice and to um yeah so I think it is just like it's something that can be infused into every day you know every you know parts of it and there's so many different practices and there's a number of practices in the book but um as well at the end of each chapter.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I think like the number one practice is a practice of curiosity and and just and um those who, what, where, when, why questions are just you know like even if it's like you're on a walk and you're like a tree is growing that way.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: Why is that tree growing that way?
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then you like start to notice these other things you know what I mean or like wow I hear this one bird outside my window every day why and it's like well maybe they're like feeding outside your window like do you want to see the nest?
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't know there's just so many things that I think is just like by allowing curiosity in and it helps so much with helplessness and feeling stuck when it's like okay what else might be possible it gets us out of our like entrenched narratives and our entrenched ways of being to be like what else could happen?
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: What else might am I not seeing what else um is there and yeah and I think collective curiosity too is it's so fun to like be in a place of curiosity with others like we all know that feeling of like when we're in a room of folks who are mutually curious.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it's pretty easy to bring into a room you know like we're all there's a toddler in all of us and so it's like pretty easy you know it's pretty easy to just like you know bring a few questions in and then suddenly you know the room is back to a place of curiosity.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah love that simple yet profound yeah game changer.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah Madison how can listeners connect with you learn more about you if they're feeling inspired by our conversation today yeah I am on Instagram at Madison Murphy Barney my website is madisonmurpybarney.com my book Our Ancestors want us to be mushrooms is available uh where you buy books and um if it's not available where you buy books you can ask like you can order books through local bookstores if that's the choice you make so you can say you know they can order it for you or um it's also like widely on the internet the audio book is available and it's in my voice.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if my voice irritated you during this podcast maybe don't download that.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um what else?
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: I have a few spots open right now in Threshold Alchemy which is um my group doula container for folks navigating change and oh and I'm on Substack ourmedicine dot substack.com um and I do a lot of stuff there.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful yeah but uh all of that in the show notes for listeners.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: Great thank you all so much.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah thank you Madison this has been a really lovely conversation I feel like we could probably talk for a few more hours but we'll close it here for today and just really thank you again for your wisdom for your work and all that you bring into the world thank you