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The Dance of Many Threads · Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 31, The Dance of Many Threads.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is late Saturday night as I record this.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finally settling down from one of those full fabulous days
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: when you finally sit down, take off your shoes and think, wow.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: This was a day.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what's particularly wonderful is that earlier today,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: before any of this happened, I wrote my Slow Down Granny reflection for tomorrow.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I called it The Dance of Many Threads.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I am continuing that theme since it seems so appropriate.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have been thinking about how full my life just seems right now.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Launch Academy,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: a high ticket offer course,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: an AI seminar,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: two scripts waiting for me to bring them to life,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: my new Quora and the lessons I'm taking,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Instagram,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: my podcast,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: my writing,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: the wisdom keepers, my ageless living circle, family, friends, Good grief.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I look at all of it and wonder how so many things ended up on the same calendar.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But lately I've begun seeing those things differently,
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: not as a list,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: as threads,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: different colors,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: different textures,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: different parts of my life that from a distance might not seem to have anything
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: to do with one another.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yet they do.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: One of the gifts of the work I've been doing
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: with Launch Academy has been seeing something I hadn't quite seen before.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is an ecosystem here.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: The circle,
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: the podcast,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: my writing,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: the wisdom keepers, the conversations, the teaching, the creating, the playing.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: They aren't separate little projects I've somehow accumulated.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: They are all connected.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And underneath all of them is something I have finally learned to put into words.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I create spaces where people feel seen, heard,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: and valued, and are inspired to live with greater awareness, connection, and joy.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's my why.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is my joy.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: My small contribution to enriching the lives of others.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the wonderful part.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't stand outside of any of this dispensing wisdom.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm growing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm being surprised.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm becoming.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The circle is such a beautiful example.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I created it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I hold a space.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But every time we gather, I receive something too.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Someone says something I hadn't considered.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Someone tells a story that changes the conversation.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: We laugh, we question, we notice.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: We learn from one another.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: The giving and receiving become almost impossible to separate.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I went out today,
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: and life apparently decided to illustrate the whole darn podcast for me.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I went to an amazing gallery exhibition that included
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: the sacred feminine goddess work of my friend Glen.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was art, beauty,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: creativity,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: and friends, connections with people I care about, conversations Another thread.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And later,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Santani's for a dynamite show called What a Woman Really Means,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: featuring Sybil English.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, the show became something more.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: People started dancing and dancing and dancing, old and young alike.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: The room was alive.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there among all of us was my friend's 95-year-old mother,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: singing and dancing right along with everybody else.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: 95!
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want a definition of ageless living, I could probably give you one.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But why bother?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I could just point to her.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: There she was, not observing life from the sidelines.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: She was in it, singing, dancing, participating, living.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I found myself thinking again about all those threads,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: art, friendship, women, creativity, music, generations, movement, connection, joy.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: None of this was on some grand master plan designed to illustrate my philosophy of life.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was simply Saturday.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: My Saturday.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's the point.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We spend so much time trying to figure out what our lives mean.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe sometimes we need to just stop looking quite so hard and notice what is already there.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking of the loom as a metaphor for all of this,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: thread by thread,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: a tapestry slowly taking shape,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I have another metaphor sitting right here in my home right now.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: My new cora.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: The cora is this fabulous West African instrument.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: 21 strings.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Each one has its own sound.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Pluck one string and you hear one note.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: But put those strings into relationship with each other
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: and you have exquisitely beautiful music.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps our lives are like that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Work is one string,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: friendship another,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: purpose another, play, living,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: learning,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: creativity, family,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: the unexpected invitation,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: the thing you said yes to without even knowing why,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: the 95-year-old woman who gets up and dances.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps our job isn't to make every string sound the same.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe It's to listen for the music they're making together.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so tonight,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: as I settled into the quiet after a very full and very joyful day,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking myself how I managed to fit all of these things into my life.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm simply grateful that they're there.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder about you.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: What are the threads in your life right now?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are you looking at them as separate demands?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Things pulling you in too many different directions?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or is there something running through them that you haven't noticed yet?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Something that connects them?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Something that sounds very much like you?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the pattern isn't finished.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mine certainly isn't.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still becoming.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe we don't need to see the finished tapestry.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we simply keep choosing the next thread,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: listening for the next note,
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: noticing, learning, living, and every once in a while, getting up and dancing.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know this one is a bit longer than my usual podcasts,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: but I just couldn't help but share this just incredible day with you.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for living and learning along with me.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I will be here on Monday of next week.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep becoming.