Latest / Homestead And Heal Podcast / Ep 12: Living in Rhythm with Motherhood: the Connection to Nature & the Wisdom of Our Bodies with Nicole Parker

Transcript

Ep 12: Living in Rhythm with Motherhood: the Connection to Nature & the Wisdom of Our Bodies with Nicole Parker · Homestead And Heal Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Homestead and Heal.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Scott.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Lindsay, and we live with our three children on a farm in Vermont.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our lives revolve around growing food and medicine, working with the body, and trying every day to live in deeper relationship with the earth.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're welcoming guests to our farm for intimate retreats where they can slow down and feel deeply into this earth-body connection.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is about remembering something many of us have forgotten: that we're not separate from the natural world.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Our bodies are part of it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Our healing comes through it.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when we reconnect to both, our purpose often begins to reveal itself.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Through conversations with herbalists, farmers, body workers, and people walking unconventional paths, we explore what it looks like to step outside the modern paradigm and build lives rooted in connection, healing, and reciprocity with the earth.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, welcome back to Homestead and Heal Podcast.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here today with my friend Nicole of The Seed of Joy.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I probably discovered Nicole online somehow just through her magnificent writing and thoughts and heart sharing.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just I absolutely love just the way you think about life.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so refreshing when I stumbled upon your work.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then especially rooted.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now having been a guest teacher and rooted, I just feel entirely honored to be in the same circle as you doing that work, that very, very important work for mothers and women.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I know Scott too listened to a podcast, right?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can't remember what it was.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: About raising sons.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you called it?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, yeah, I did a workshop on that a couple years ago.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it was maybe there was a podcast that you were on where you talked about that workshop.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I I told Scott, you gotta listen to this because it was just everything we were stumbling into in terms of our thoughts around masculinity and growing up in this world as a boy and being a man.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Scott.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think you suggested I listened to it in terms of stuff we were bumping into with raising our son Remy.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: But then when I listened to it, it was like so validating for me.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really a conversation that I wasn't that I haven't heard that much.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's basically what I know of your work.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: But but it was really amazing and really appreciated, really everything you had to say and totally resonated for me.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we'll probably get into that a bit.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I imagine we who knows, who knows what we'll get into.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself and telling everyone, yeah, just anything you want to share about you and your life and your work.
• 2:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I am raising a bunch of sons.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I have four of them down here in the Sonoran Desert.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so much of my work in the world is through my motherhood, but also through the giving of myself to motherhood as a realm and to all mothers that I know, and to the archetype or concept of mother and how she gets to show up in the world.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, that is so rooted in this idea that motherhood is that there's a physiological template for thrival that motherhood imprints upon us, and that the more, and yet it's in competition with a lot of our modern structures, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: The primal structure of our body isn't necessarily held inherently by the structures of our society.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think a lot of women are feeling that tension.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the more that we create conversation and space to tease that out and look at like how can we honor our primal bodies and how can we stay present with our children and ourselves evermore while still maybe even enjoying and indulging in all these modern conveniences and structures, and how can we allow them to enrich our motherhood rather than compete with it?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think is just so fruitful and also almost these, it's mysterious, it's hidden, it's not really spoken of, and there's not a lot of modeling or structure for it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that women and children and families and therefore humans deserve to have those conversations because it's just the most impactful thing you could do is make the life of a mother a little bit sweeter.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I just love hearing you speak, and I love the way you've helped me orient to one of the things I think I've really enjoyed learning from you is just that we don't have to be a victim.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: We can still also be an inquiry around everything that mothering is, but specifically with motherhood, just the whole the whole idea that you go into motherhood and it's so hard and it has to be this terrible experience.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the moms get together and talk about.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly there are challenges, absolutely.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I've loved your way of just first of all, just orienting to magic in general and generosity and just miracles of everyday life, but also this idea of yeah, how can we have these deeper conversations around mothering and not get set really into any groove too much?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is a huge part of it because yes, it's hard.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Parenthood is hard, motherhood is hard, and it's supposed to be.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for me personally, that's part of it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, if it's supposed to be hard, then I have to pathologize the challenge.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: I just have to figure out what I need to feel in integrity, giving myself over to it.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then, like, how fruitful is that?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: How many miracles, how many blessings, how much magic is found in that space of being of just resisting the urge to pathologize what's in front of you and instead figuring out what structures you need to receive it instead.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's cool.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're already feeling really inspired.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, it's it makes me think of something that I feel like is totally maybe not related or off-topic, but this idea of the way we approach something and how it hits us or what we make our reality around it reminds me of this conversation that I have with a mentor of mine that I play music with, which is around the birth of reggae music, which is so enlivened and happy and bright and beautiful coming out of trench town, Jamaica.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Coming out of this place where people are like living.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love that this is the connection.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, but no, it's true.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like these people, it's it was like these folks were super poor, like super poor.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And still the music that they invented out of this experience is just brings so much joy to people and is celebrating the bright parts of life.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's what came to mind.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I love that.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of kind of left field, but but not really.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I just love also that Scott calls this man Amit a mentor because in our little weird online realm, it's like you pay a mentor and it's a thing.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an older man who Scott absolutely adores and spends time with regularly playing music, and is he is a mentor.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: One of my very best friends.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: I describe him as a mentor because I learned so much from his philosophy about life, and yeah.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he's much older than me.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing we always like to do is just set where you are in the world.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we're you're calling in from Arizona, is that right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, down on Mesonorian Desert.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned, I think before we hit record that it's been raining a bunch there.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: This last week.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so yeah, it's actually Ditto Mons.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, cool.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: So always just curious what is exciting for you in the natural world where you live right now.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's my most exciting time to be here.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Summer and like also the hardest.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: This is really interesting.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone loves an Arizona winter and like they're lovely, but honestly, every winter I just wish it were colder.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's actually specifically the monsoon season in summer is my favorite part of living here.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: The summers are grueling.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: We were at like 115 last week, and it'll be 100 by 9 a.m.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's no really skipping it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: The intensity here is just not only intense, but really relentless in how it presents itself to you through the world.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then there's monsoons, which are only happening as far as in the desert, the Sonoran Desert is the only wet desert on Earth.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so there's even a really drastic difference between like Scenix is only two hours north of us, and yet Scenics is not a part of the Sonoran desert, and there's a really extreme climate shift, specifically when it comes to water and greenerly, greenery in plant life.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so these monsoons hit and it just pours and storms for days on end, and it totally shifts the pressure, and not even sometimes not even the temperature, it'll still be like a hundred plus degrees, and now it's just humid, which no one's used to, or whatever else.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: But the relief and the kind of like deep exhale that you can feel all people and all everything here take is so unique.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think maybe even because it's this like moment of levity in such extreme density when it comes to the summer season here.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even, it's so out of my realm of what I know that I'm like struggling to picture it.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like hard rains and then eases up, or is it like I don't know, it will ease it up.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: It or it flash floods, you can't drive, it pours and pours.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: My yard will flood several inches of water within 20, 30 minutes.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then yeah, it'll usually stop within an hour and then move on.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then this week in particular, we've had so many back to back that there, I think there were three different nights this week that it just rained the entire night long.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so you wake up in the morning and it's like actually cool, even though it only got down to 80 degrees overnight, and just the whole earth is just a little bit slower in this season of unhinged masculine, fast, hot, hard, heavy energy.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden it's just a really open, soft pause that's forced upon you in the same way that the heat is forced upon you the rest of the time, too.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And how about like plants?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are there are you loving any plants right now?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to picture what the what it's like in the Yeah, we yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: So the monsoons hit and everything almost overnight gets green.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Everything come like May, June is just it all looks dead.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: It looks like nothing lives here.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then it gets a little taste of water and everything just opens up and turns green.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: We have in our yard these two absolutely massive grandmother mesquite trees that most people even around us have cut theirs down.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: These are like older growth mesquite trees, and they're just massively, and they sprawl out all along my fence line and over onto my roof, even and they shade 90% of my yard, and my children get to climb in them, and we have rope swings, and it's just such a source of like the trees, very specifically on the plot of land where I get to live, are such a source of connection and like caretaking.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's this feeling of like entrusting my children into my yard, specifically because of what grows there and what holds them.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I love that, and they're leafed out and green and they they hang all the way down to the ground, and so you can walk under and it's been closed.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow because the branches hang all the way down and are like kind of tickling the grasses that are coming up, and so there's not only all this shade, but also these kind of two almost little pockets in our yard, like built-in fort spaces almost where you just feel like you step into something else because it's so enclosed.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds amazing and magic.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's really fun.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's this is making me think about and curiosity around your own childhood.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you grew up in Idaho or Washington or somewhere up there.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I grew up in North Idaho, up in Queerlane.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to know, yeah, just what makings of your current life you can see from your childhood, including your relationship with trees or plants or earth connection.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's so fun.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about this briefly when you came and most recently taught and rooted.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I remember.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, I love that.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because yeah, the climate I grew up in is completely different than where my children are growing up right now, like in forests and so much water, so many rivers, so many lakes, so much, so much colder.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: And yet, my primary memories of my childhood, specifically at the ages that my boys are right now, was going out into the yard and being in this really beautifully deep relationship with this tree in my front yard that I could climb and me and my brothers would play under.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt like was a friend to me.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so there are definitely moments where I send my boys outside.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they don't even want to go out, and I'm sending them outside.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And yet I can peek through the windows and I see them out experiencing the kind of relationship with the land that I remember having, even though the land looks so different for them.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of, we were talking about this a little bit last night, almost this idea that just from previous interviews we've had, I'm just thinking of the fact that you were just saying there are all these different landscapes, but really it is all still connected and still all earth.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: We can just have, I don't know, do you want to speak on that?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm probably not articulating it very well.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where to jump into that.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, just that even if you have a different landscape that you're connecting with, a totally different type of tree or whatever it is, or everything is looking brown and then turns green, whereas you grew up in a land of green, I'm sure.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just all so beautiful that we can have these.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: The earth is one living entity.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that heartbeat is right there.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And whatever it looks like where you're connecting with it, is if you can tap into that a bit and make that connection, it's still gonna hold you in that same way.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: That part of Northern Idaho, I'd only driven through there once, but it was like, I just remember it being one of the most gorgeous spots driving from Vermont to Northern California.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think partially because east of there, coming through Montana was such a foreign land to me, so brown.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was coming through in August, and everything was just cooked brown for such a long stretch.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get into that part of northern Idaho, and it's again tall evergreens and just rivers and lakes, and so beautiful.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's a place that I would like to return to because it just made such a deep impression on me.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I love hearing that.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you've even just passed through there.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's where I got to grow up.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: I know that place.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've also passed through there, and this is just reminding me of my own as a kid.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: My mom would get us up at four in the morning and we would drive from Kansas to my cousin's house in Pocatello, Idaho, which is not the same green lush of Court Elaine, but we would do that in one day.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was a crazy.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, how on earth we would get there at 10 at night.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: My mom would just drive like a mad woman, probably on those five-hour energy drinks and whatever.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to know.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I do also remember, and just to watch the landscape change so much as a kid on a drive like that from Kansas through Nebraska and then all the way up.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I do remember there was a summer where we moved from Kansas to Seattle, the Seattle area.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that summer I went to an arts camp in Michigan.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so we drove from Michigan all the way to Seattle.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I do remember that same sort of feeling of once you get into that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can, I don't know, Court d'Alene feels Pacific Northwest, at least to some extent.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's technically considered that, but it has that vibe, and I remember that same sort of feeling.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really interesting one to think about now as an adult.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't done a long car trip like that in a really long time.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what about anything, any other memories of yeah, first connection or like how you mother or just connection to your body?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've always been interested in being a mother.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, definitely.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's always been my singular goal was to have a bunch of children and raise them really close to the earth and raise them outside.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: We did do several cross-country moves with my boys in the last five years.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's funny to think of them.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, your mom just crushed it with salami and cheese sticks, and you just like a couple iced coffees and knock it out.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And definitely got to have that experience of moving.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: We went from Seattle to Austin, Texas, back up to North Idaho, and now down to the Snoran Desert.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think less than three years we did all of those shifts.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And very much got to have this experience that Scott was talking about, where I was like, okay, this is the same thing I'm held by the same thing, but I've always been held by.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: And my only task is just to figure out what it looks like to recognize her in that now.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: The way that God and Earth are presenting themselves to me is unrecognizable, but it's actually there for me to recognize.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: And such an incredible process to be able to just to figure that out and to immediately sink into.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: By the time I was moving to Arizona, I was like, what are the plants' names?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Who are my friends here?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Plant friends, what is the landscape?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Where are the mountains?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Where is the water?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: And to really sink down into essentially, if I innately belong to the earth, what shape do I take to belong to the earth in the way that she is here for me now?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Which has been a really cool process, especially moving here and then getting divorced and having another baby and starting a business and all of these really remarkable identity shifts that specifically the desert has held.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I will all honestly tell you, I hated the desert before I got here.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, no, it's not beautiful, it's dead, it's dry, it's hot.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Those are all the things I don't like.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be there.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even want to visit.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: And yet, the invitation of the earth here initiated exactly the things within me that I would need to carry myself through the season that I'm in.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually don't know how else I would have what kind of structural support I would have had to move through the season that I've just been dragged through had I not had the like specific energies and frequencies of the earth that exist in this desert specifically, which has just been such a gift.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's amazing.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And do you feel like do you feel like settled there?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel do you think you'll be there like long term?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's I do still think that there's a reality with the desert that it's unsustainable.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um just like macro, like thinking about macro lens, it's just unsustainable.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this macro lens, it's unsustainable.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: And even just you can see it every September, October, everyone's feeling burnt out.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's just this low-level buzzing agitation in there.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's not, there's so much yang energy, and there's not really enough yin.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: And there's just this hyper masculine, creative, productive, like it's so alive, and there's not a lot of inherent rest, which has been a cool thing to then consciously cultivate for my children to protect that biological rhythm.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: But then, yeah, they'd also there's just my water comes from 350 miles away in order to sustain with people who live here.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not a sustainable system.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think there's something medicinal about the desert and the way that it shows up and the way that it holds people, and I suspect that the rest of my children's childhood will be somewhere a little more balanced.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I always think of that when we like we don't travel to deserty places very much, but I always have this awareness of like, yeah, it's just crazy.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Less people should be living in the desert parts of this country in particular.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's insane that we do that.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the only insane thing we do.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like not at all, but I get it.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's I I really do, even just living here and I live here, and still I look around and I'm like, why are we all doing this?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's so weird that this many people have just decided to because it's you're really working against nature in so many ways, which I think is an interesting way to approach being alive.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is making me think again, random thoughts coming up.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it's been we've had our weather has been all over the board this year.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's just been we've had some mid-90s, which is as hot as it gets here.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes, when it gets that hot, it's really humid.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so even the high 80s, low 90s, when it's super humid, is uncomfortable for nearly everyone, as far as I can tell.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, most people don't have air conditioning and yeah, I'm just talking about in general.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: More people do now.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: But and then we've had a bunch of cool weather.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We've had periods that were like the ground was really saturated, now we're dry.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've had a bunch of cool weather kind of the last couple weeks.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's the middle of July, and we're having cool.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mornings, which is a little bit unusual.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I just had to go to the hardware store, and it's cool-ish today.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Almost long sleeved, not quite.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I was just thinking about being in there in the middle of July, and it had such a different feeling than a couple weeks ago when it was 90 degrees.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: What the just the feeling of the day in the world.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: The energy.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: The energy of the place.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And just I felt so relaxed.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's 70 degrees or something.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like there's just the sort of slower, calmer energy, which I really appreciate.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's such a necessary rebalancing, too.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: People have lived here for a long time, somehow.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: But also climate was quite different.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like a hundred years ago, it was really overlogged and all kinds of things where the desert functions a lot differently than it used to.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: And there's arguably this biological need for activity and rest and heat and cold and to be able to move through cycles, even if I think just to have that experience of how does my body relate to the energy that's available to me right now?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: And having enough variance in that and what that does for us as humans in our own life to just be exposed to varied energy and varied invitations and to see what we want to do with them.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And how does that change your day?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: And how does that change the way you talk to your wife and your kids?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And like, how chill is it to go to the hardware store when it's only 70 degrees?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: And what happens if you aren't having those kind of cyclical invitations when we have such inherently cyclical physiology?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's interesting.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm thinking about, I feel like maybe I just saw you posting some about you just raising your sons to have the awareness of women's cycles and the shift.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm thinking about, I hadn't really ever, I guess I have thought about how our winters in Vermont are this very yin, very just reset time.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if you want to speak about any of that at all.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just how you're raising your sons to understand the cycles, both of bodies and of the land.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of my favorite things, I feel like.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel every month when I'm bleeding, I'm like reminded how glad I am that I speak to them the way that I speak to them.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because there are, it shows up in so many places, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it shows up in my body every month, and I think it is such a remarkable piece.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have any daughters, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's not like I'm not imprinting how to care for your own body, and yet very much am imprinting this knowledge of this is how you revere women, this is how you treat wombs, this is how the world works, and we know that because women's bodies tell us.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so cool to have them all be at an age where at this point, if we talk about it every single month for your entire life, by five years, you like really got it.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't actually take that long.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: So my boys are nine, seven, five, and three.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna interrupt you to ask that.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my boys are nine, seven, five, and three.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: They're all 18 months to two years apart, just about.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they're there's a kind of satisfaction in them that I can see in centering my body, in caretaking me, in showing up for me.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: And my boys, they're intense, they're really embodied physical voice.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so the base level energy in our home on any given day is really ratcheted up.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty someone is punched every day.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's never not something happening, and yet I every single time I start bleeding, it's like, oh hey boys, mama just started bleeding.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Reminds me, what are the next couple days gonna look like for our family?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, Oh, quieter, but quieter voices, softer bodies, ask before we touch you, we won't be going to the park.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna have ramen for dinner, aren't we?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: We they list off all these things that matter, and they know that our world changes when my body changes.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that gives them such a foundation for life in the sense of if you want to find truth, go look at the cycles of the earth, go look at the cycles of the womb, and you'll find a lot of it.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And is that the only sources of truth in the world?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it also is really truly a template that humans are given of if you want a place of truth to return to, here it is.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel that my boys are really getting that framework where they know where they can return to.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's like all the delicious pieces of my seven-year-old was doing the dishes yesterday, and turns out he was like, I just feel like you need some help.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: But it also was that he was like washing my favorite mug to make me uh hot coffee, and then tucked me in on a sheepskin and made sure to bring me my wolf socks because I'd forgot to put them on.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so-and-so was like whittling a stick and came in to show me and was like, Oh, and someone else was like, literally goes, bro, she's bleeding.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Don't yell at her.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're so on it, and then the way that ripples out into if you were to take the next circle of exposure, is into our community, where my children are really well versed in caring for mothers and what it looks like to tend to postpartum mothers, and what it looks like to center a baby's physiology, and to really allow the physiological reality of someone else to impact and influence how you decide to move through the world, and like how good it feels to be of service to someone else's body.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is just and then that ripples out to the earth and look at her seasons and how we can know her and how she loves us and invites us to love her based off of what she is telling us.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that looks like very consciously constructing our home rhythms through the seasons, especially living in a place where it's not naturally done for us.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: Living in North Idaho, if it's nine degrees, you're automatically slowing down.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's not, you're not having to do that on purpose.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas here, I really have to have Lee lean into our rituals and our rhythms and to consciously name to them the days are getting shorter, the earth is slowing down.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: We must slow our bodies down with her.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: She protects us when she shows us how to rest.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then consciously pulling back our social calendar or making sure we go to bed even earlier and like really sinking into everything that's available.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then on the flip side, being like, the days are getting longer and there's more opportunity to move and to connect.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: What do we want to do with that space?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Look how the earth is waking up.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: You can go out into my yard right now.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's all just dirt, it's feral, which is great because a lot of the yards here are graveled, and this is why I'm in the house that I'm in, because it was not.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: But you could go out right now and you could just scoop up a handful of dirt, and it would be like just absolutely there would be so many things crawling in your hands in any given part of the desert.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: There is so much life happening, and getting to be able to go out and show them and be like, look, look at what's available to us right now.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Look how much energy we have, look how alive your body feels, look what the sun is giving us, and oh, he's giving us so much, and he just doesn't stop.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And being able to give them that language, even if not especially when it's these crazy hot days, that they are just like, because of course they remember living up north.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: They sometimes are like, oh, the desert, where we're church, because it's so intense.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And instead, yeah, getting to introduce them to okay, what's the magic of this moment that you think you don't want, but does have so much for you, and guiding them to feel feel the way your body lights up because the sun is quite literally pouring energy into your body that you did not have before.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're getting to hear my oldest son said the other day, he's I think I eat less food in the summer because I'm I don't need so much energy from food when father son is just putting so much right into my skin for me.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, heck yeah, dude.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Here's your coconut water instead.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's really, I don't know.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of my favorite parts of being a mother is to give them because I think it's an innate thing.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I'm like constructing this kind of a relationship.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think I just give language to it, right?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think humans just do exist in relationship with their bodies and each other and the earth this way when they're allowed to.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: But it's one of my favorite parts of being a mother is to give them language for what that looks like and then to watch the way that their bodies sing when they are in alignment.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're giving language to it, but you're also you're, I think probably, I don't know what the right word is.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not training, but you're like training them to stay in the connection.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I think it our over culture is like, let's figure out all the ways we can disconnect you, which is one of our questions is are there, were there times in your life when and I'm like, I have my like inside guess of no, there couldn't have been.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like she's so wise and beautiful.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: And but were there times when you felt disconnected either from the earth or your body?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just because this is what's been interesting for Scott and I to reflect on this ourselves.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Scott doesn't have as much of those times not much of those times of feeling disconnected from like the earth connection.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: My connection with my body has maybe been confused throughout to some extent.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but okay.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, just that, I don't know, how what comes up when we ask that question?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are there times when you've felt that?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think my initial answer, and maybe I'll feel differently about this in a couple hours when my mind continually has turned it over.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I think my initial answer would be like there's definitely been seasons where I feel more disconnected from my sense of self and my place of home within my body.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the kind of the tether to my connection to Earth has always been where I find the medicine of like, even if I'm feeling disconnected from myself, I'm connected to her.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the language that I have for that and the intentionality that I have that for that in my life now is very explicit, right?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: I can absolutely just lay out, yes, this is my practice, and here is why, and here's what it does for me.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I can also look back to being 17 and my parents are getting divorced, and me and my boyfriend broke up, and I'm working too much for some reason, and all these things.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: And did I have the same language for the ritual then that I do now?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I also 100% it was my practice to be like, I need to go to the river.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: I need to go just put my hands in dirt.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: I remember having a therapist at the time who was like, You should go eat dirt.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, Go to the riverbank, put your hands in the ground, and I want you to lick the soil off your fingers.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Okay, yeah, sure.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: So there are some things like that, but I can look back all the way through my life with big feelings in my little six-year-old body.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: I would go tell the lemon bomb about it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: I would go sit and pull the leaves and rub them and smell my fingers and sob my sorrows into the grass.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: And did I know that's what I was doing or why I was doing it?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: But it also was always where I go.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's that innate connection that, yes, it is absolutely innate, and you're giving language to it for your boys, but I would say hopefully, in giving language to it, you're also, I think, either preventing the disconnection from happening or helping them more quickly get back to orienting to that connection.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I could totally see that.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I would hope so.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think just since you were just mentioning eating dirt, I what has come up for me a couple of times in this conversation is just thinking about your conversations around nourishment.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we absolutely love your postpartum cookbook.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: We make some of the recipes out of there regularly.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that comes to mind for me that I feel really inspired by with you is always just orienting to that nourishment of your body as well.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to say anything about that?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's another huge, I think that's another huge piece where these same things show up for me.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: I have pretty high standards for what we put in our bodies.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's really easy to get very quickly swirled up in dogma or ideology or fear, right?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Where like I'm only going to nourish my body in a specific way because I'm so afraid of what happens if I don't, versus the place that I get to come to it from now.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: And what the language that I give my boys, like, I don't want to make them afraid of food.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's I don't want them to be afraid to share some ritz crackers with a friend or whatever else it might be.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: But the language I use with them is that we nourish our bodies in whatever way brings us closer to God, closer to earth, closer to each other, closer to ourselves.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's how we decide what we eat.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And that actually can encompass lots of things because that means that Mama Carissa can 100% order takeout to our house.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't matter what is in that takeout, that is good food because it brought us closer to love and connection to her and ourselves and to God through the like caretaking in that act.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: That is good food that we should eat.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it also shows up in all these ways where my we pray over our food every meal, and my three-year-old has been very into him being the one who says the family prayer before we eat.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so fun to watch the ways that my values have like trickled down through the children.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: And his language reflects not just the way that I would say blessing, but the way his older brother says a blessing and also his own little bits of himself.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And their prayers are never just thank you for this food.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, thank you for the people that grew it.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for the earth that watered it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for the son that took care of it.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: His little blessings are also like, I think he said thank you for Miss Patrice, who is the flower lady at Whole Foods, who doesn't even do anything with the produce, but he's like, she gets lumped in because she's a part of it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: This like greater network.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: My oldest a couple weeks ago was saying the blessing, and he oh my god, made me cry.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: He almost cried.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: He somehow, in his little prayer space, got himself to a point where he was praying gratitude and blessing for the mothers of the farmers who grew our food.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And what a gift it is that there are mothers that raised men that raised food to nourish our bodies, and may their mothers be blessed this night by our gratitude for our meal.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm crazy.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: What a wild web of how much, and I think it's just what gets me too is like this sense of connection and belonging.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like my child feels so held by life, so held by the earth, so held by our community, that in his mind, that's a completely reasonable connection to think of the mothers that nursed the men that grew your food while you have dinner with your mom.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then it was like, and thank you to our own mother who took that food from the farmers and made it into this meal.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, I'm now in this place where I'm in some kind of shared frequency with mothers that I will literally never know.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's no actual concept of who these women are, other than somehow she and I are contributing to this shared goodness accidentally and yet just as significantly as if I were to actually cook a meal with a friend.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: A million percent.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it really just speaks to connection, which like if we had if it weren't for like SEO optimization and all that crap, like that's probably what this podcast would be called, would just be called connection.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cause like that's really what it's all about.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we are all connected, how the earth is connected, how we are earth, all these things.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just yeah, it just makes life so very beautiful when we can orient around this.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And just remember, like, we're never alone and we are always supported, and we're supported like your son's prayer, like by so many people that, like you said, you'll never even know, can't even imagine their life or anything like that.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's incredible.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm inspired.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super inspired.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I feel like we could talk to you for hours upon hours and hours, and it would be so amazing.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, like, what feels most alive.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, either in your mothering or in the work that you're bringing more widely to the community, like rooted, or I'm not sure if you have other programs that you're running.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because one of the things I'll mention too that I really loved is I had, I think as I was building my own online business, I had so much shame.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think shame more than anything.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Confusion around what you're doing.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna say to be on my phone or something and doing a work task and have my kids around and just feel, yeah, just yeah, confusion, shame, whatever you want to call it over how this might not feel in alignment with my values or something like that.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I love inrooted just how you have people orient their values and how you've described, I think I'll describe this right.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you talk with your kids, you're like, I'm helping Mama Carissa or whoever else.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're on your phone sending a text message, you're like, I'm supporting this mama right now.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is my work in the world and this is how I do it.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it just keeps it so much lighter than how I think in the modern world we can just get feeling like everything is opposing each other.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like we can't, we can't use technology because that's not in alignment with our values, but like, I want to do build this business or whatever it is.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know why that was coming to me, but I just really have appreciated some of your some of the ways you've I to me it feels like you've lightened the load of like what it is to be a human and to be a mother.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that feels like a compliment.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that as like such a compliment.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's a massive compliment.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you brought this up.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's something that's very much at the forefront of my mind lately.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because I definitely felt similar things.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was pushed into this place where I had to figure out how to start making money when as a little girl, I was like, I'm gonna be a stay-at-home mom and never make a single US dollar in my own name.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's for some reason the goal.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: And very much was in this place of feeling like the idea of making money or extending my creativity or my service beyond my front door was inherently a threat to what I keep within my home, to my children, to my motherhood, to our rhythms, to my presence or integrity or capacity with them.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: And there was this this real wrestling with God for me for a while, where it's like, I don't want to.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's gonna ruin every golden beautiful thing that I cherish in my life.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how dare you ask that of me?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: How dare I be like cosmically required to take up more space or to receive more blessings?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: Allow me to be content.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: That feels like a threat to what I've created, and I've created my most favorite thing, and so I just can't risk it, was this feeling.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: And yet have to feed said children, right?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: And did eventually get to this place where I was like, okay, I just have to decide that if I have this most golden gift that I've cherished for my entire life long and it's now in front of me, that God is not going to ask me to tarnish this in order to receive something else.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: That pro I guess that's just not possible.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: Which means that this idea that I have that business and motherhood inherently deteriorate one another, maybe that's just not true.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's just a false dichotomy that I am so caught in.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: And just because I haven't seen the third path doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so, what would it require of me?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: What would I need to give myself over to letting God show me what is that third path in real time?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: What does that look like to be devoted and surrendered to that?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, that did come back to okay, these are my contracts with the universe, these are my values, these are the things that matter.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the framework that I'm gonna build from.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: And in every single business decision I ever make, I am going to come back to these things.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so long as I do, my motherhood will be safe and my work will be abundant.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if I deviate from these contracts, I think it won't work and I'll have a terrible time, which I've done.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's been times where I launched something out of fear, but and it tanks, and I'm like, silly me.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I know I knew the rules.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: I got scared and I tried to do something else and it doesn't work.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I have honestly gotten to a place where I've I'm the sole financial source for my children and absolutely have people that can step in to help me and save me, or my mom will order us groceries or things like that.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: But like I've been sustaining my children with my work for several years now, and I do it without taking myself out of their lives.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: I still get to homeschool, I'm still with them all the time.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm 15 hours a week max that I'm working, and only six of that am I away from them.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: And as much as I've constructed a business to match my values, and therefore my motherhood also continues to match my children's childhood.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Where I do tell them who my clients are.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: I do say, Oh, hold on, boys, I'm gonna listen to a voice note from Mama Oh, this afternoon.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna go with dad for a couple hours, and I'm gonna talk to Mama Lindsay, and I'm gonna Do this and that, and they know that's what I'm doing, and it fits for them because that actually is how I live my whole life.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same for them as if I was like, We're gonna bake an extra quiche and we're gonna go drop it off at Mama Hana's house because her husband is sick or so-and-so is out of town or whatever, that just fits for them.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: This concept that our family generously pours out our resources to mothers in the world is just true.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so whether that's with our actual hands in our in our home or in the homes of other women, or if it's mama listening to a voice note or hosting a class or being like, I'm gonna send this message to see what which mothers want to receive it, that fits for them.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: Mom gives to us and gives to other mothers, and the more she does both, the better both are.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's just like a truth of how they experience me and how they then experience the world.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I do feel like I've hit this place where I don't feel like my work in the world is in competition with my motherhood, and not because I've managed to keep them so separate.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's very often kind of the language.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have to really firm boundaries between, which like structure is great.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: I love having assigned work hours, but but actually, I think I've struck that balance the more that I've integrated my business and my motherhood and allowed them to be these like overlapping realms rather than treating them like they're a threat to one another.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to be so careful to keep them from touching one another.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: I invite them to touch more.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they have shared values, so it's what fits.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like bringing so much intentionality.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Your intention obviously is so strong, and I don't know, yeah, to struggle through that.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: It really sounds like you are creating a third way and demonstrating that out into the world, which is what is what Lindsay's responding to, I think, to just to yeah, do it differently.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because the danger of those things is the reason that you have that fear is because some of that can be so insidious in your life that you're not present.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like maybe boundary is the wrong word.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: I really like the way that you're like that.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: Makes so much sense.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, it is tricky because some of those, like the technology and phones and the all of it, it can just be, it can erode what your golden gift is.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you're not checking in with that balance, if you don't have sort of a standard of, I don't know, I'm having a hard time articulating what I'm trying to say, but it's amazing to hear someone speak so clearly.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: And now that you've found it, that you're achieving that.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say, just before we started talking, I was like, I really want to revisit this family values and really what you teach and rooted.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something that is missing somewhat from our house, like really specifically speaking with intention about our values and how our actions are in alignment with our values.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not entirely missing, but there could be more.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the explicit speaking of it, I think we model what our values are with our kids a lot of the time through yeah, the way we live.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: We grow our food and we care about those things, we connect with nature all the time, and we're grateful for all the gifts, but we don't have that much specific language around checking in with those things.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not always.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I definitely want to revisit that.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that this is a perfect example of yeah, of that, and just how it's just I it's just really inspiring to speak to you.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: I feel just so inspired.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that everyone listening is gonna be inspired because yeah, I feel this way every time.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I also just have to say, I think you're what 31 or something.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: 31.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: I just turned 32.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: 32.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: Happy birthday.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy birthday, and I'm 42.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is one of my favorite things about getting older is learning from people that are younger than me and just knowing that it's not an age thing.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's just really beautiful.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love learning from you.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think our the final question I would love to ask is just any advice you two questions.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: One is more like where to find you online and things like that.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the one before that is any advice you wished you would have gotten earlier on in your journey and in your path.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: A good one.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: The biggest question ever.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: I more than anything, I think the what's been my biggest blessing in life and was also the hardest for me to find, that was like maybe even the most painful lesson for me to get towards, was this greater sense of safety, this greater sense of being held by God and earth and place and humans, and just this felt sense of right belonging to my life as it is, rather than trying to which is the human condition, right?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: To fight against it or make it what we want it to be, or like, oh, that's uncomfortable.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: How could I change that instead of just giving yourself over to it?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think if anything, I wish that I would have leaned in a little bit sooner to this actual place of embodied surrender to life as it comes to me.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because they were definitely years of fighting my own current, as we all do.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: Not that I still don't, everyone does, but that was really the biggest work for me.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think has been the biggest shift in myself and like how I experience myself as a woman is how receptive I am to life as it gives to me rather than as I wish it would.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Love that so much.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so where can people find you and your work online and otherwise?
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm on Instagram at the Seed of Joy, and mostly there.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: That is where I mo run pretty much all of my stuff that I'm doing.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: I will run rooted again this fall.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: And for the summer, I am actually set to start a whole bunch of conversations with mothers specifically on business and allowing your motherhood to be the blueprint rather than the bottleneck for your creation in the world and what that gets to look like, depending on your individual values.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy to hear that.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be so beautiful.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you so much.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so nice talking with you.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: So nice to meet you.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we'll have to have you on again because there's a whole nother piece of how you framed the idea of what we do with the idea of masculinity and as uh just the whole big conversation that was inspiring to me what you had to say about that.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we'd love to check back in with you.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: I would love that.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: This has been absolutely wonderful.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to this episode of Homestead and Heal.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you loved it, please help us spread the word by subscribing to this podcast and leaving us a review.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about our work, visit homesteadandheal.net.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're wishing you the life of your dreams, one that feels deeply rooted, fully alive, and connected to the earth beneath your feet.