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Unlocking Sacred Sexuality: A Journey into Deep Connection with Olivia Grace Jensen · The Corn(ish) Witch

• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to the Cornish Witch podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Freya, a witch who lives in Cornwall but who isn't a born and bred Cornish maid.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: In this two-part episode, my guest is Olivia Grace Jensen.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: Olivia is a transformational mentor and facilitator.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: With nearly 10 years of spiritual study and exploration of transformational group work, in part one of today's episode, we delve into Olivia's unique journey through spirituality, embodiment, and sacred sexuality.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Olivia shares her insights on the importance of physical connection, intuitive touch, and the transformational power of living in alignment with one's true self, especially in a modern disconnected world.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: Olivia, welcome to the Cornish Witch Podcast.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, fellow podcaster as well.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: So it's nice to meet another podcaster and to interview another podcaster on the show.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: So you know what it's like.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I do, I do, so I'm really grateful.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually the first podcast I've done in person.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh really?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've done, I think all of mine have been with people that are either really far away or abroad.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really lovely to be in person.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having me.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: I try and do as many of my podcasts in person as I can.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's lucky because I am mainly based in in Cornwall, so I'm happy to travel.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: People will meet me at the little um studio that I can use in Launston.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think I've done one podcast.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: No, I think I've done two or three podcasts where it's been online, um, but which still went really well.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: But no, I'd much prefer to be, you know, either in the in a s in in people's spaces, if they let me into their space, it was really, really special and I'm really grateful and just connect with them and connect with their energy, or um just be in sort of the studio space that I can borrow with and yeah, I think it's just really important to have that sort of physical connection, like it's just with other people in the room with you.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um everything's just so online these days, isn't it?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like yeah, and I I blame COVID for that.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: I think some people really like being online and working from home.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was probably like an introvert to dream.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but for me, I think I'm a bit of an ambivert.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: I need to be around people to motivate me.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah but if I'm working from home a lot, I feel just like I'm going mad and I get really isolated.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: So with this, I always try and make sure that I'm literally yeah, meeting people in real online.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you get to meet my dog as well.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I've got to meet your amazing dog who've had to shut away.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: He's so he's just so happy to see people, but he would be uh um probably taking the microphones.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: Your dog is um would you like to explain a little bit about your dog just because this is an audio podcast?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, can too.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he is a Sicilian rescue.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Found him at a petrol station on a random highway in Sicily when I was living there.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he's been with me ever since, so that's gonna be nearly two years this summer, and he's now a British resident and living back in Cornwall with me, and yeah, is my kind of companion, I guess, because yeah, also spending a lot of time alone, living working alone, yeah, working a lot from home, and he truncates my day, really.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So every morning we're down at the beach down the road, which is just pretty wild, and more often than not, there's nobody on the beach, and so I'm training him and we play all these little games, and yeah, it's really it's a big it's a big responsibility to have a big dog by yourself, but he is just such a gorgeous position to my life.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I you know, I think there's so many reasons as to why animals come into our lives.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, even when we were driving down the highway, um my partner at the time said, Oh, should we pull in and get a coffee?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, no, I don't really want one, but okay.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'd been off in a daydream thinking about what would I do if I got pregnant and had a baby and and then we pull into this petrol station and and we saw him and we both just immediately thought, oh god, this is this is our dog.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so he came home with us and yeah, he's been with us ever since.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, for people listening, because it's an audio podcast, he looks like a cross between I don't know, maybe golden retriever and some sort of wolf hound.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually got a DNA test in the kitchen.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I can't.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I need to do with him because the first one failed, but I'm trying to find out what his what he is so that I can start meeting his specific breed drives, which I think I'm doing intuitively anyway.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, maybe Italian spinola, maybe a bit of lurcher.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: He said you've got lurches, um Irish Wolfhound, retriever.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: The more I'm actually training him and kind of connecting with him in a more structured way, the more I see his retriever coming out.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think as a stray, they're so self-sufficient and we don't know what his life was like before we found him.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So he didn't, he doesn't he didn't show any of those interests in like play or food, or he was just pretty wild and knowing he can get what he needs whenever he needs it.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm working specifically to like up those drives.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is a real niche, like dog training.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, I like it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like really learning a lot about intuitive touch, and um there's a center in Cornwall called the Wolf and Dog Centre, um, who's a guy that runs it, wrote this fantastic book about living with wolves.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I'm really kind of learning a lot about training and intuition and wolf culture and dog culture, and so I can get a bit nerdy on it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I'm seeing more of his retriever come out because he's getting greedier and yeah, getting more into kind of playing, and and that's really good because I think it's a sign that he's on brand for his breed.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's a big dog, he's a sort of dog that you would take into battle with you, like he's so big, like but he's like a big gentle giant at the same time.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: He's gorgeous.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe I'll get a photo of him too.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and we can yeah, pop it up on um on the Instagram.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's hilarious to me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like on like the back streets of Sicily, he's he's been in a documentary.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in my little tiny world, he's becoming minutely famous.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Oh.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think it's nice, especially like you say, you don't know what he's been through, and yeah, yeah.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: I um I always wonder what I would do if I well I did rescue a dog out actually about months ago, but it wasn't it wasn't like a a rescue rescue.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: I was just um gonna have to attend it about dogs now.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was just coming out of um out of I was just doing a visit at work and I was coming away from the place I'd done this visit and um I crossed over the road to where my car park was and it was in a little a little tiny village and I just suddenly saw like this this this tail go against, like go, go um sort of like go go across like really quickly, and I was like, what was that?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then um out of nowhere this gorgeous brown and white spotted collie just came out of nowhere and just like came straight up to me, like belly up, just wanted loads and loads of cuddles, so so friendly, had a collar but had no tag, it just clearly escaped.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but wouldn't stop following me and like would just run in front of me and lay down, and then like run in front of me and lay down.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I got opened up my car door, I know like I always keep a blanket in the back of my car just in case this thing ever happens.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're a dog person, yeah.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: But I got the blanket and I threw it on the back seat and I was like, come on, then.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: And she jumped straight in the bank and I was like, Okay, we're going to the bets.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: So she was such a good girl.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: She just like chilling in the back and then drove her to the bets.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: I ran the bets on the way, they're like, Yeah, it's fine, bring her in, popped into reception.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: They gave them like a like a lead, you know, how you can just sort of slip them through.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: And like she just was like, put her head into the lead, she was just such a good girl, like, and then they're like, We'll let you know if her if she's chipped, and we'll let you know her owners come and collect her.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: And she was chipped, and her owners did come and collect her, and she did just she did just escape that day.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: But I was a little bit sad.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, Oh, I'm really glad that she was back home, but I would have liked to have kept it.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sweet, very sweet.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: But moving away from dogs, no, because it's from dogs to witches.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, from dogs to witches.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so can you tell um the listeners um a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do before we sort of get started onto your spiritual journey?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I am British born.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm about to find out my own ancestry DNA as well.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So excited.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want to find out whether I've got any links to Cornwall because I feel really, really connected to this land.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have some Danish in me from my dad's side.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I don't know much about my history.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I lived in New Zealand for six years, and I would always do a lot of um receive a lot of bodywork, and I did a lot of training in indigenous Maori body work, which is called Midimeri.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And all the healers would always say, You've got to find out your fucker papa, which is your genealogy, you know, you've got to find out.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this one session with this woman who put her hands on my feet, and she was immediately like, You're a free spirit, you're this, you're that, and telling me all these things I already know about myself.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And she said something about you need to trace your fucker papa because there was an ancestral woman that came over from New Zeal from the UK to New Zealand, and you need to learn about her.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I've always kind of understood in the back of my mind, okay, that side of who I am, I want to find out more about because we're quite disconnected from our roots as modern society, I think, unless you're got an indigenous background, and so I'm starting to feel more like okay, I want to find out more about ancestrally who I am and where I'm from.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess how I would describe myself is I feel like I'm a very passionate person, um very spiritual person, very connected with this idea of soul and this belief that we all are human having a spiritual experience.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I really feel like freedom, freedom and beauty is what drives me, and I am mostly myself, I feel most myself in wild, expansive nature.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So Cornwall suits me.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: It feels a little bit like New Zealand, and that's that was such an intuitive call to move there, and I just kind of left my life and felt so at home and myself in such a yin, wild, beautiful landscape.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I really feel like landscape mirrors something happening on the inside.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I'm very connected to my family, got a beautiful family, and I am a writer, I'm trying to own that more.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a fundamental aspect of me.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and then what I do, so I am a mentor and facilitator.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: At the moment, I'm holding events in Cornwall based on intimacy and connection and um what I call the soul, which is really like the deep self or the true essence of who we are.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll get into that later, but yeah, I'm really passionate about people being who they really are and not having to wear a mask and walk through life pretending that we're something that we're not and getting to the end and thinking, God, all that didn't matter anyway.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish I'd just been more true to myself.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I'd say embodiment and the body and sexuality and intimacy is is a core thing that I'm passionate about, and like conception and pregnancy and womb work, and there's so much.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so much for us to go into, which is really exciting.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um I did a uh ancestry DNA test a few years ago, and I found it really, really interesting.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I found it really, really helpful as well.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: There's still so much to go into and explore and learn, and sometimes you have to come away from it because you sometimes you just can't see the mud for the trees, especially when you're doing your family tree.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: But um, but yeah, I found it really, really fascinating.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's like mainly England, Scandinavia, Scot and Scotland, and a little bit of Germanic Europe.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard things from my mum about oh, we've got some Spanish and we've got some this and we've got some that, and I think, do we?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we know this?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody really seems to know, so I'm gonna find out.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let me know what um it'll be interesting to find out what your results are and um especially what you're intuitively feeling as well when they come through.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, I could be wrong, I could be from Birmingham or something.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm obsessed with the pinky blinders so move as well.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Were you born in Cornwall?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was born in Buckinghamshire.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's where I grew up, and then I went to Union Sheffield.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Studied history and politics, and then I moved to London, lived there for about four years, um, and then I moved to New Zealand, then I lived in Sicily, and I'm in Cornwall.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, so this is your first time in Cornwall?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I've never lived here before.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this is all new building friendships from scratch.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've got old friends dotted around the country, but but they're mostly like having babies and in a very different stage of life.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, most of my really dear friends are from New Zealand and then not necessarily New Zealanders, but everyone's kind of scattered in this global network I'm part of, which is amazing because I've got people all over the world, but also means that I I was moving back here thinking, apart from my family, I don't know anyone down here.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I've been so lucky in such a short amount of time I've connected with some really gorgeous people.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's this woman that lives up the road who's just amazing.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: So that's really nice.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: One of the beautiful things about Cornwall is you kind of end up you find a lot of like-minded people and it's very, very friendly.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: I moved down here seven years ago to be with my family, and I didn't know anyone apart from my family moving down, and I was leaving behind everything I knew back up in the Midlands.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, what am I gonna what am I gonna do?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I needed to be with my family, like that's where home is for me.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it's the the best decision I ever made.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like the connections and the friendships that I have made down here have been stronger and are stronger than what I had back home because no one kept in contact with me.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I made and I was making the effort to keep in contact with those old ties, and that wasn't being reciprocated.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, why am I putting myself through all of this effort and a four or five hour drive and it's not being reciprocated?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then I've you know, I think in the last seven years I've learned to become more boundaried and stuff like that as well, and I've learnt to I've learned what not to accept when it comes to friendships as well.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: So it's taught me a lot, but yeah, I it's it's the best decision I ever made moving down here, only knowing my family.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, and I've just yeah, made some wonderful connections, and I'm and I'm sure you'll continue to do so.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and also I think as you get older, and you know, I've gone through such a massive change in the last seven, eight years.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I really feel like I've gone through a full death and rebirth cycle, and who I am I actually feel more connected to who I am at my essence than what I was as a child than I ever have before.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: But there is um a completely like unrecognisable quality to me as well for some people, and that I think there's just a natural change that happens, and sometimes it can be awkward letting go of friendships because we can make it mean something about us, or not all of us really have great tools to kind of gracefully end a friendship with love or just acknowledge that we're changing.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely didn't do that very gracefully in some ways when I moved to New Zealand.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually deleted loads of people off Facebook, deleted everyone off Instagram, started a new Instagram and didn't talk to loads of people for ages, and I can imagine that was really hurtful for some people, but it wasn't actually about anyone in particular, it was more like I didn't know it at the time, but moving there felt like I need to work out who I am away from who people think I am.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that was so liberating, and it was a really important thing for me to do, and I don't think I articulated that very well.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: But also I've noticed that I I do do that, you know.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I I feel like as a spiritual woman connected to the cycles of life, I'm not expecting to stay the same.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, and yeah.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: But it's like every number of years, we completely on a s on a cellular level in our bodies completely regenerate and renew ourselves.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm not sure what how how long that cycle is, how many years it is, but it's just it's it's interesting that we go through it spiritually and emotionally, personally, but our bodies also shed, literally shed the old, yeah, and re and and renew that yeah, we knew ourselves.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Even every month if you want to move that fast.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because you know what?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, every yeah, yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I listened to your episode with Trudy, did you?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which I really enjoyed in that you you talk a lot about cyclical living and and the blood and the power of the menstruation process, and yeah, it can be deeply, deeply like regenerative timing.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Since since that episode with Trudy, I have looked at my menstrual cycle in a completely different way, and I no longer feel like because you've listened to the episode and I feel like I'm wasting.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's a waste every month, and I'm not, you know, fulfilling that societal duty of you know having children.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: And now I completely see it I see it in a completely different light, and yeah, I've taken some of Trudy's advice and I do things differently now, but I love it as well.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm benefiting from it in such a holistic and emotional and spiritual way.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, it's been incredible.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to waste a drop of my blood.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't now.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just initially save every single drop I can.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I'll tell you what, my plants love it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: I was having I had a I've got like a jungle outside now.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: I've got like an uh an angel begonia, and it's it's like a a clipping off my mum's original one, which I think was her grandmother's, it's nearly a hundred years old, right where the clipping has come from.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so I've got a really, really tall one in my living room, and then I have one in my kitchen, which is another like offshoot, um, and it was dying.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: It was really dying, and I had a money tree, which I call money penny, from my granddad, and she was also not doing well either.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I I I put a few drops in to those, and they are thriving, absolutely thriving, like new leaves, like new stems.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's incredible.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, okay, I know I need to give you guys every month, like tell the big global change of fertilizers, because that'll be the next thing they'll start coming for me.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but no, it's um yeah, it's it was such a a re I think a revelation during the episode with Trudy.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I'm in a lot of a I I was very disconnected from my period, and now I'm in a much better place.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's amazing.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's great, yeah.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting what these intuitive calls to start something like a podcast can bring out in you, because I know that the podcast that I made about soul and spirit-led leadership, which I was touching on before, that the arc of that podcast really grew me.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Really, really, really grew me.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel um like quite far away from that content already.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of like that podcast was partly just for me to kind of grow through in an exploration of what leadership was to me at that time.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think as creative spiritual women, nothing is ever just a product as it is like we're being worked by the process of creation.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's we really nurture, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's beautiful.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I th I I felt in that episode that you were sharing vulnerably about sick cat very upset, yeah, yeah.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: But but there's there can be this um I guess kind of like expectation in more like spiritual witchy, woomy circles that everybody's on the same page, or you know, if you're connected to your womb, you're somehow more witchy, or if you're you know connected.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Connected to your blood, you're somehow more spiritually advanced, or but that's just absolute bollocks, really.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone's on their different phase of their past.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really gorgeous to listen to the episode and feel you really receiving something from it as well.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: No, it was yeah, it was a wonderful experience.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I met Trudy at the witch festival, I think, a month before.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I'd been following her for a couple of years.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'd had her while Sam Sarah was on my radar for a little while.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: So it was so nice to sort of it's funny, I I I feel like since doing this podcast, I meet people when the time is right.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um the last episode that I put out a couple of weeks ago um with a person called Ralph, um, they and I were trying to get together to record a podcast episode, and for uh ex like situations out of our control, we just weren't able to get together when we when we had arranged to just sort of extenuating circumstances.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I said to them, When the planets align, we will get together and record our episode.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: And the day that we recorded the episode, there was a planetary alignment.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: I was just like, What?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: But it's just interesting how things will just naturally just sort of align or or meet up or like you'll just sort of come round into that sort of circle, and it's like, oh, you're sort of joining together.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's very and I love it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: I I think that's sort of the magic and the mystery to it as well.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I could try and look at it uh in a skeptic way or a logical, rational point of view, but I don't want to do that.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know life's boring and positive.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like we are, you know, we are the magic, and oh, is it who's the is it Royal Dahl who says those who don't believe in magic will never find it?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, but yeah, it's a nice quote.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's a lovely quote, yeah.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um but how did your spiritual journey start?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um well I think I was always a very I wouldn't have ever called it spiritual, but I was such a shy, intuitive child, and I was very magical and had a real access to imagination and kind of unseen worlds, and my mum was really amazing at kind of supporting that in us and in me in particular, I think.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very, very, very fortunate to just I feel like the way my mum raised me was very not my dad, but I th I think it was more my mum, like really supporting the the kind of natural essence of who I was when it came to creativity and intuition and um exploration, and she would take us to National Trust houses and gardens and castles, and I remember going to Windsor Castle and all these different castles and and we'd kind of had these day outs, and I just remember feeling so connected to magic and history, and me and all my sisters had these kind of like very niche interests um in like the Tudor time, yeah.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: There was a couple of books that I remember reading because one of my favourite things was to go to the library every week, or I remember going to Waterstones and there was a Costa upstairs, and I got to choose some books and then I'd go and have a hot chocolate, and it was like I just dived into all these worlds, and I mean, as you can see about my bookshelf here, like I'm such a reader, I just really, really, really lose myself in in story and life writing and fiction.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a couple of books that are Celia Reeves books.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one's called Witch Child, which is why I called my subset Witch Child, and that's about a a young woman who sails across the ocean.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: She's a young witch and she sails across to America, and that and it's the time of the witch hunts, and so she's writing her story and she weaves it into a quilt and then it gets found, so it's based on a true story, but it's a fiction book.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so these kind of books really charted my upbringing, I think, and really helped me see myself in the way that I see myself now with more self-awareness about the more kind of like spiritual witchy sides to me.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say my kind of spiritual path in a more tangible term, like way, kind of took off when I left London and moved to New Zealand and I was really quite unhappy in London and feeling like God, this just isn't really me, you know, and and then when I went to New Zealand I just had a lot more space in my not just work-life balance and life was easier and more fun and um had a lot less structure and I had a lot less obligation and I always had a lot more money because the w I was just getting paid a lot more and working a lot less and 'cause I've had a work life balance out there.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely, definitely.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I just really took myself on so many trips and adventures and went into nature and trained to be a yoga teacher and I was just following my intuition and these breadcrumb trails and basically at every point I just kept saying yes to things that I wanted to try and I just had this huge awakening time, massive, and it was precipitated by everything I'm saying and also some really, really intense kind of awakening connections with people.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm a Libra soul, so for anyone that knows about astrology, that the Libra initiates through relationship, that's just it's kind of inevitable.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a Libra rising in your chart, you will initiate yourself in life through relationships.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I can give thanks to some of the beautiful men in my life, in my path that um yeah, really, really grew me.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, there's so much, but yeah, I would say that that that time, those early years in New Zealand, it was like not only did I had a have a kundalini awakening through the body, got really into kundalini yoga, and my body just woke up and started like fizzing and popping, and even I was having like um flashes behind my eyes, and I got tinnitus, my ears started ringing, and and all of this I think was just like my body waking up to this life force that had been stagnant, and um then I got really into esoterics and started learning more kind of consciousness structures that complemented the awakening I was having through my sexuality, through my body, through the yoga, and yeah, then the lid blew off really.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting when you say you started seeing flashes behind your eyes.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I go to a sister circle, and the recent when I was out on Thursday, we did breath work and we did something called the the bee breath, which was um when when you breathe out you hum, but you you plug your ears as you do it, so your your body resonates everything and you turn yourself into like a singing bowl.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: And and as I was doing it, and the resonance gets deeper and deeper, I started seeing like flashes of like electric blue behind my eyes, and then I had to come out of it, and I was like, Oh my god, was that really loud?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: And they were like, No, it wasn't really loud at all.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, that felt really loud to me.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was just incredible.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: But to have that reaction and see the colour as well, I was like, did anyone see colour?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: And like one of my friends was like, No, and I was like, Okay, yeah, but yeah, it's it's awesome when your body.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not I'm probably not as in tune with my body as I could be on a spiritual level.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but when I do get those little flashes of it, it is wonderful.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, it's like it I feel like quite nostalgic in this moment from those early days because uh part of me was was thinking, what the fuck is happening to me?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really angry a lot and like raging and didn't really know where to channel a lot of this.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and luckily I had a two friends in my life that were older than me, very, very, very, very witchy, and not necessarily on the kind of stereotypical what you'd think of a witch, but but very attuned to magic and their own intuition and guidance, and and they really held me and supported me through this time and the the Maori bodywork and healing that I was experiencing a lot of, that was also a real anchor point because I got really interested in energy, and I I just kind of started to see myself as um I always knew I wanted to be a life coach of some sort, but I ended up working in government for nearly 10 years, and I got to the point in my government career in New Zealand where I just wanted to kill someone, and um I just felt like I'm not having any impact from behind the the desk, you know.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just really felt so frustrated, and all of this was leading me towards this kind of awareness of actually I have the capacity for healing in my hands and also in my consciousness, and I just was so thirsty for knowledge.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's always been something very, very particular, not to me like I'm special, but but it's been a hallmark of my life is that I am very hungry, yeah, and I always want to be further forward than I am.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've got lots of Capricorn in my chart.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I always want to be 10 steps ahead.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like how I understand it is I feel like I have this powerful soul that really doesn't fuck around and knows where it's going and knows what it's capable of and and really believes in like the service to humanity.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And all that might sound really grand, but I just I just feel like my my soul is like here for a mission, and then I have this personal self that's wrapped around it that is just like insecure or you know, has it the human side, yeah, exactly, yeah, and can only move at a certain pace and and doesn't want to like race forward and blow all its circuits, and so that's been a dance always, and that was really playing out in my in my path until I finally reached a point where I felt like okay, I'm in the right place now.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was searching for for always for people where I felt like there's real resonance.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And although I'd had lots of people in my life who are amazing, who are deep friends, amazing family.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was in New Zealand that I found people who I kind of felt like oh, these people want what I want, like they actually want to upturn the rocks in life, they want to really be given to the mystery.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not actually quite it's not that common experience in humanity.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Most people are just happy doing their life, you know, whereas there's always been this thirst and this hunger and insatiability for more, more, more, more, more, which I feel is tempered now.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like actually now my spirituality and my spiritual path is embodied and grounded, and yes, I still have those tendencies to kind of want to strive forward, but I'm much more at peace with um I guess having anchored anchored what God is for me inside of myself now.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I'm looking for it on the outside anymore.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I feel like it lives in me, whatever God wants to mean, you know.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: Have you heard of the Akashic Records?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: If we could go into a real deep dive about that, I haven't looked too much into the Akashic Records, but I do find them very interesting that that we have everything encoded in our DNA and that we just need to unlock it and find out what those ancestral secrets are, what they what what why we're here, you know, uh unlock those truths.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I find that really, really interesting, especially for people who are who have had a spiritual awakening or or are able to completely connect with their spiritual side and people who, you know, might have struggled with mental illness or psychosis, and they find a lot of truths from that.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I find yeah, the the cashic records a very interesting thing.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really don't know anything about that.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: My path has been more embodiment, sexuality, and what I would call soul work.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I really think that most things point back to the same arc.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, call it the hero or heroine's journey or whatever, which is like we go through life with our trials and tribulations, and those of us interested in knowing that feeling that there's something more in them wanting to know what's underneath.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do I and sometimes it comes from suffering, yeah.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like deep, deep, deep suffering or mental psychosis or addiction or death or trauma, or and there's this kind of on your knees moment where you feel like some people call it the mac truck moment where something in your ha life happens and and you think, Okay, I'm on my knees now, I cannot go on.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so deep in my suffering, something has to change.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I never had that.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, I really had a I've been very blessed with a beautiful life.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I definitely feel really connected to the idea of there's a t teacher of soul called Michael Mead, who talks about the deep self and the little self.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the deep self is the soul, the little self is the personality or the ego.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Although I don't really like the word ego because I think people it's like kind of got connotations for something other than what it is, which I just think it's like the human form.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, where I'm going with this is this idea that Michael Mead speaks to this concept of we are some we are often most connected to our soul in times of crisis, and it's actually these times of deep crisis and instability and inevitable change and transformation that help us go into that phase of metamorphosis and come closer to our essential nature and our soul or our core essence, and that can be really scary those times, really, really, really scary because we are opening the door to something that's unknown, and that I feel like that's what's happening collectively.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're in this time of massive upheaval, yeah.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Structures that have held us for so long are completely crumbling, or people are seeing them for what they are, yeah.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_03: But there's no obvious blueprint forward, and so yeah, we're in a time of great instability, like collective uncertainty, yeah, financial sucking in of the arsehole, and feeling like it's just the one percenters that already get I mean, it's like everyone is suffering, and that one percent are just fine.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I just feel like there's no it's not a it's not a down paying system, yeah.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's not, I just feel like everything goes up to them and it just yeah, infuriate it just infuriates me.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know this is why this is really why I do what I do, is because I really believe in in self-leadership and um soul-based community and people having deep roots with people that they love that don't have to be family and friends, it can be allies, you know, neighbours, people on the path, the people we live with, and instead of because the the world is so globalized now, it can be terrifying, you know, we're all like saturated with so much information and and things that I'm sure like people listening and everybody knows we're digesting and receiving too much information for us to process, it's too overwhelming.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like the antidote to that is grounded, soulful, meaningful human connection and intimacy, which is why I hold the circles that I do, the retreats that I do, the temples that I do, because I know how important being really truly seen for who you are is like it's so nourishing on such a deep level, but it's also so important that we have touch and connection.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like these primal animal parts of us that actually just want to like nuzzle up and feel held and cared for.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: When you say touch and connection, I um a few months back at Circle, we had someone bring in um oh my gosh, what's it called?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: You do a lot of stuff with your thumbs, it's Chinese medicine.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: Karina, I'm so sorry.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: Read flexology.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: And we all ended up I'm so sorry, Karina, if she hears this, she's gonna be like Freya.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, she's amazing.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: But we all sat in a circle and just massaging each other, and it felt lovely.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because we were all having that physical touch.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: There was nothing sexual about it, there was nothing like you know, weird about it.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was just like you said, being held, and it was just so comforting and just so yeah, no, just nurturing, and it felt safe, yeah, yeah, you know, as well.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, absolutely.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, so important, so important, and it's also it's also uncomfortable and and scary to ask sometimes for these things that we need.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're ill and you just really want your mum to kind of stroke your hair or for someone to look after you, and it's partly by having a dog, it's so lovely.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to not override his boundaries and you know jump on top of him and cuddle him too much because he doesn't really like it that much, but there's something really gorgeous about co-regulation, you know, like when he's sleeping near me and how when he's when he chooses to sleep near me or he chooses to sleep at my feet, it that's his way of saying, I feel safe with you, you're my chosen person.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of think it's the same when it comes to connection in community settings.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Most people, unless you have an intimate partner, you're not having your touch needs, your oxytocin needs met.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be scary because obviously there's so much perpetration and and you know, pain and suffering that's been caused by transgressions of boundaries in the world, and lots of people are carrying experiences from when they didn't have their boundaries honoured.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think as women as well, we are in this country and in the Western world, actually that's not fair, everywhere, but we are at a a state where we are being persecuted and our boundaries are being well completely ignored and brushed aside, and yeah, we are experiencing physical and sexual violence, yeah, which is then makes it hard for us to reach out for intimacy and reach out for touch because then we're so traumatized, like yeah, yeah, it's a huge topic and there's so many different angles, but what what I'm I guess bringing in the work that I'm doing is wanting to guide people and support people with intuitive touch in a way that feels really safe, yeah, that moves at the pace of the nervous system at the individual and the group, um, that's completely agenderless, non-goal-oriented, agenderless touch, not sexual, but it's nourishing.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: I held a temple once a month in Porthtown, and on Friday we had our temple and we did a practice where we just sat back to back with somebody and l like felt your own heart and then breathed and felt the heart of the person behind you through your back, and just resting in that place.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, it's quite profound.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you like warm candlelight music, yeah, connecting with the heart of yourself, of the other person and of the collective, oh so yummy.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you did this where you just lean back into somebody and just be held.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: And temple's not very it's not a very well-known concept in a lot of places.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously there's the kind of archetypal religious temples or the places that you go to for worship, yeah.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: But temple has its own kind of culture around it, but more and more now temple the idea of temples becoming more popular, and it's kind of in some ways been co-opted a little bit by tantric scenes and neo-tantric scenes, and so some people think that temple is a sexual space, which it can be, but that's not what temple is for me.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Temple is so much more about devotion and the sacred and authentic human intimacy and connection.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the temple that I'm holding is not a sexual space, everyone keeps their clothes on, but it's really deep and gooey, and yeah, the most radical thing that might happen is that you have a cuddle with someone, okay, but it feels I think good, you know, and and at the end of the the evening people are like, wow, I really needed that in the same way that the reflexology felt good.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: It it actually feels really good to be held.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: So if someone came to you who were who had an interest in going to temple, but well I use myself myself as an example, I I when I feel safe with someone, I'll be I'll be I'll allow that physical touch, you know.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um like we had a cuddle once we were like I felt safe with you.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um but it's say if if I I went to a a space where it was a temple or it was like a a practitioner's a space of like practice and there were men there as well as women, I wouldn't feel comfortable in people coming near me at all because I've I've got a I've got a history of where I've been violated um and I'm in I'm in a place where I have been single for a very long time and I'm in a very solid place but at the same time I I recognise that I am human and I do have needs.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: So and I need to learn to not suppress them and go, no, I don't need that.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um but going into a space where it is intuitively tuning into your body and then tuning in with people who you don't know and then people of the opposite sex, that would be very scary for some for someone like me.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd be like, uh my friends know I give fuck off vibes.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, well, what do you expect?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: So how would you work with someone who was curious in coming into that space, but to help them feel held and safe?
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like their boundaries aren't being um broken.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, thank you for asking that and for for sharing that personally.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's so common.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would say half half the group in in any general generic group, you know, that I hold, half the group probably feels like that at least.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's about always connection with self first.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is always invitational.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's absolutely no agenda or expectation to go into anything that you don't want to.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: And also there's an awareness in me that not everybody feels comfortable to say no, even if they want to.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's all sorts of things happening inside of us and different ways in which we express our no or don't express our no.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a and obviously I'm only human as well as a facilitator, sometimes I might get it wrong, but there's a there's a way in which I'm tracking what feels most authentic and genuine for each person and for the group, and I always err on the side of caution.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I've had five temples, and because this is a new space and I'm a new person to the area, and temple culture is new down here.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've been very slowly moving towards what could possibly potentially happen as a group, and it's taken five temples for at the end of the last temple, there was a group cuddle, and I didn't feel anyone up for it before.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've got no agenda, you know.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't actually really care whether people touch each other or not.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not really if I have no like this is what temple is or this is what tonight should look like.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's more like I'm feeling intuitively what's the most authentic, supportive, empowering, nourishing, genuine thing that can happen between this group of people tonight.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's completely individual, everyone on their own mat in their own journey.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's chatting in dyads or sharing with one other person.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a little bit of like arm stroking or asking for what you need, but it's it's always about inviting people to move at their pace.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: And everything's invitational and knowing that there's nowhere to get to, and it can take a very long time for some people to feel comfortable in a group space.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not a normal thing.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not a thing that we're experienced at in our society.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Being vulnerable, being open, being in our hearts, being in our bodies in a group of strangers.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty radical.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting because I'm just thinking back and thinking of different cultures, and you're from you're from, well, I say you're from, you spent six years in New Zealand, but years ago I worked at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, like like 10, 12, quite a such a long time ago.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_03: And um the majority of people who work as techies, tech technicians at the French Festival, come over from Australia and New Zealand.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: Techies, techies, yeah.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember being backstage, we had a big sofa backstage, and I just remember not feeling very well.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um I felt a bit sick, I had a headache, I was probably hungover.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I had these these two people, um, one was oh god, I can't remember their names.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: I can't remember their names, I'm not gonna say their names for um the pop pri their privacy.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_03: And also I haven't spoken to them like over a decade.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but they were one was from one was from New Zealand and one was from Australia, but they both lived in Australia.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't know each other, but they suddenly like physically held me, though like Freya lay down, and like I had one was just like stroking my head, the other was just stroking my legs, and I was like, What are you doing?
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, just chill out, it's fine.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: It was totally normal for them to do that.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was like within their culture, yeah.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: But for me, I was like, Why are you touching me?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then I eventually sort of relaxed and got like got into it, and it was really nice.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: Did you notice that being over in New Zealand or um being in like yeah?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are very British, aren't we?
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: And our sensibility is British, yeah.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would say that what's called Pakiha, which is white, white European New Zealanders, I would say they're pretty similar to us.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously generationally and culturally, they are often Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English by ancestry.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I didn't particularly experience New Zealanders as like physically any warmer or cooler than us.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: But Maori, the indigenous population and Samoan and the other cultures that live there are definitely so much more tactile and the Maori culture as I can kind of perceive it is is so no bullshit, so honest, so humble.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a level of um oh how do I describe it?
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: I guess an anecdote comes to mind is so uh a Maori funeral is called a Tani.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean I'm not an expert by any means, but I did work in the care and protection system and I did have a lot of exposure and working alongside Maori communities, Maori people, and also as I've mentioned a few times, I was really into this body work and learnt from this woman who is still I would say one of the most impressive, if not the most impressive, spiritual teacher and inspiration that I've had in my life.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: This woman's literally building an army.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's she's incredible.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's really putting the Maori indigenous culture of bodywork back on the map because there's all these suppression acts that happened and oh during colonization, a lot of um the kind of inherent practices to their culture were trampled on and all of that other stuff that happens.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm losing my train of thought.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: Where was I going with this?
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh yeah, so I think it was her that shared that if you go to a tiny if like this p if if you're not grieving enough, the elders, or you're not like really feeling or accessing your grief, the elders will hold you and keep you there until you go there emotionally, until you like wail and really let yourself go.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know whether that's the case, obviously, for for everyone, but that's an anecdote that sticks out.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's something in the Māori culture that's just inherently much more upfront and much more welcoming of humanity and yeah, like touch and the kind of warts and all aspect of all culture.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Australia, I'm not so sure, but I do feel that there's there's particular aspects of Australian culture, very niche, obviously, where sacred sexuality and um kind of embodiment and like home birth midwifery and things like that, there's there's a real kind of subculture of Australia that's very, very, very leading the charge on that.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a woman called Jane Hardwick-Collings who's a home birth midwife, she's a crone, she's just amazing.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: She's a leading kind of global figure in this movement.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I don't know whether I could say it's the same for all Australians and New Zealanders by any means, but I do feel like there's pockets where for whatever reason like a culture has mushroomed and become so much more normalized where touch and embodiment and like dualership and I I bef even before I moved to New Zealand, you know, I've been following people from a particular area of Australia called the Northern Rivers for maybe like 15 years.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I went there a couple of years ago and just felt like wow, in a parallel universe I live here because there was there were people from that place, Julia Allen, who's a sexologist who's this quite famous leading sexologist, was listening to her for the last 10 or 12 years, and yeah, and I kind of realised over time, oh, something I feel like in my soul is calling me towards these cultures where people are having conversations about intimacy and holistic well-being and sexuality and all the other things I'm interested in that's just not apparent in my day-to-day life in England at all.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it's changing now, you know.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's I mean, Cornwall's pretty, there's loads of amazing people doing lots of cool stuff down here.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_03: There definitely is.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: You've you've mentioned um sacred sexuality and your and you mentioned a little bit about your sexuality when you're coming into your spiritual journey and then um sexology as well.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_03: Can we do a bit of a deeper dive into it's not something that I'm I've ever thought of I mean, I've heard of it, but I don't really know much about it.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um obviously I know about you know sexuality, but not uh but sacred sexuality, and that's like what what what does that mean, or how how would you explain that to someone?
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: So for me it's sacred sexuality is about in really basic terms making sex more sacred, which is moving away from what most of our culture is having, which is like friction-based transactional sex, whether it's like hetero or otherwise, um, there can be this like oh, it's a huge topic, but some of the challenges I see, for example, because I've worked in sexuality for a while, is people being disassociated from their bodies and their hearts, feeling numb down to trauma, lifestyle, all sorts of different things.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um porn use is really wrecking people's cognitive brain chemistry capacity to feel pleasure.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um toxic stuff like wearing microplastics, having your phone in your pocket all the time, um yeah, like basically burning your pelvis with like toxic radiation, um lifestyle habits, alcohol, drugs, impacts facility, all of this impacts blood flow on an anatomical level to our genitals and to our pelvis and connection with our womb and some of the stuff that you talked about with Trudy about womb health.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like there's this collective kind of like um you know, like when oil sits on water, yeah, there's this kind of like like numbing of our sexual expression in the world for all the reasons I just mentioned, but also culturally things still remain taboo, it being challenging to have honest conversations with someone, even if you love them about your needs and what you want, and people feeling like a weirdo if they have a desire for something that's a little bit left of centre, or yeah, you know, all of that like can keep sexuality in a box, but for me, sacred sexuality is about liberating this stuff and coming into deeper connection with your heart, connecting your genitals and your heart, so there's not this kind of like for example, you know, like lads about town just going out on the prowl and having sex with as many people as they want, or even one person, and there's no love there, even if it's transpersonal, you'd have to marry that person, but it's just a trade and exchange thing.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: Something wrong with that if that's what you want, but when you're when your body and your heart and your your your whole being is connected to this idea that sexuality can be more sacred, that the space you make love in can be beautiful, that the feeling of touch and can be more intuitive, that you can check in before about boundaries, you know, your history, what do you want, what do you need, how would this feel good to you?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think sacred sexuality uh sacred sexuality is also about widening the spectrum of what sex is.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's so not just about genital touch or connection, it's like the way that we exist with each other, the way that we speak to each other, the way that we create beauty, the the feeling behind it all, the aftercare.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I think about bringing a lot more consciousness, care, and heart to an experience of sexual connection or intimate connection in any form.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it there's also a real spiritual aspect to it as well, which is being able to merge with someone sexually and have this incredibly intimate experience with someone, it can be quite a holy experience and a very empowering, very initiatory experience to feel like, as a woman, for example, to feel your body honoured and loved and held and touched in a way that we all maybe crave, but don't know how to ask for, and then on a kind of physical level to actually have a spiritual experience of a sexual connection with someone where you're not really you anymore, you're like off somewhere else having this like mega journey, you know, with like no drugs involved and just kind of really touching the essence of what it is to be like human and spirit.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's that's a really gorgeous experience.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I I was often when I was younger feeling like this is not the sex that people are writing love songs about, this is not like transcendental, this is like good at best, and I really really wanted to know what it was to have the kind of love making that that people really write songs about.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's portrayed in the yeah, I think I'm just such a romantic, honestly.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm such a sucker for romance and love, but I mean my I my experience is it's totally possible and it's so not about quantity, you know, it's like quality and calibre.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would rather have one, you know, like gorgeous experience of conscious, deep, meaningful connection than lots of little like treats at the buffet kind of thing.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what everyone would have a different way of describing it, but I guess that's what sacred sexuality is to me.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: So have you worked with couples and individuals and helping them with their sacred sexuality?
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_03: How does a how does a what do you call it a therapy session?
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not traditional therapy, no, I call it therapy, um, but it's it is very therapeutic in ways.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I I do individual sessions with women, which is like um town chick-inspired kind of yoli massage, and that's very devotional, very ceremonial, very um kind of drop into that like woomy, gooey, delicious space, and and often that can be to touch on what you're sharing earlier about boundaries, and often it's like well always less is more, yeah, but often it can be like actually just even the act of a woman saying yes to having somebody's hands on her in a ceremonial, non-goal-oriented, devotional way, it's like you know, really mind-blowing, and that can be massively healing before you've even touched any sexual side of anything.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I did tantra massage with men for a long time, I don't do that anywhere that work anymore.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yeah, with couples, which is I I love working with couples, and um also around pregnancy and conception and helping people maintain that intimacy after they have a baby or in preparation for having a baby, and so much of it is like winding back any sense of trying to get somewhere and actually dropping out of the mind or out of expectation or out of story, and just it's so simple, like just being present with our human experience in the body.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: And often I learn, often I what I love to teach people is is how to move energy through their body in a way that I would call it Eros, like how Eros, this inherent life force that lives in us, can start to move and kind of like yeah, just like a soda stream, you know, you like wait wake up the bubbles and it just starts through the body.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: That can be really nourishing even in and of itself.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and when you've got two people who are connected to their own Eros and maybe having their own self-pleasure practice or or like just taking care of themselves, eating well, sleeping well, journaling, you know, all the like traditional hallmarks of like looking after yourself well.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: When you've got two people that are doing that, when you come together, and then you start bringing in Eros and and more of like a I guess conscious, like intentional way of connecting, the difference is massive.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it really illuminates where as a couple we're kind of expecting someone else to facilitate an experience for us, or we're having this unspoken dynamic of um maybe we feel insecure but we don't want to voice it, or maybe we want something we don't know how to ask for it, or maybe there's like some resentment that's built up of like wanting to be held, you know, it's it's very common that men want to be supported, men want to be looked after, they want to have sensuality and touch and slowness, and they want to be provided for, they want to be cared for, they often want to have their hair stroked, you know, they also want to be not just the strong one in a traditional sense.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: And very often women are also wanting to surrender and and um let go of everything that they're holding and and just drop into a state of deep presence.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_00: So although I think the frame of sexuality or sexuality or tantra can bring up certain images or ideas for people, for me they're just umbrella terms for depth.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that's what I really like to work with people on, is how do you be present in your body, in your heart, and feel truly connected to yourself and meet another person from that place can be quite profound, very, very, very simple.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but we don't know how to do this often as a society.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_03: We just don't know this stuff.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_03: No, we we're taught we're taught sex on a reproductive level, yeah, and and to not get to not get someone pregnant like in school and that's it.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_03: But mingy.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_03: It literally is that and it's it's not it's not really talked about.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I don't know if schools are changing.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I don't I don't really think they are changing, but I think, you know, even even the the concept of consent is is very mixed and blurred.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, especially with young people, that they don't really know, you know, well can I s can I can I if I've said yes, does that mean if I want to stop I can't because we're already consented and it's just it's yeah, there's just uh what you're describing sounds like a much healthier and you know, kind of the right way to talk about sexuality and and and to educate people, yeah.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: But there's you know, sexuality and and also that yeah, you're allowed to feel good, you know, like you don't have to walk through life like a fucking martyr with a stake on your back, like, oh, when I've completed all my tasks and made enough money and done all the right things, then I can enjoy myself.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's we're allowed to feel good, you know.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sex should feel good, it it should be pleasurable, it should be something gorgeous to experience with somebody else, it should be something that can connect you on a soul level with a person you deeply love or or someone you care about.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it's like it's just it's so simple, actually, I feel like, and that's really what it's all about.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: And same as everything I'm sharing, all my work, the temples, mentorship, everything I do is is just really about unpeeling the layers of what we think we have to be, yeah, so that who we really are can come forward and the and how empowering and enjoyable life is when we stop trying to pretend that we're something other than we are, and yeah, just to love your.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: body as it is and I mean I know this all this is easy to say it's not like I have it down perfect either like of course I have my stuff but yeah I there's some there's is something in me that that likes to kind of unpeel and just get to the truth.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's the truth of the moment?
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's the truth of this exchange?
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_03: How long do you work with couples or individuals for?
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: So four hours.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: So four hours is a minimum session.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um couples can be four hours or a weekend or eight hours or longer.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: It depends what you want to do or you want to explore and then I work with people one-on-one for either a couple of sessions at a time or three months which is like an immersive mentorship and we meet every other week and then we're in constant pretty much communication as much as the person wants to communicate with me.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and that can be oh I love that like it's you just get a window into somebody's life and and the more the more we are in connection the more people receive and and yeah just kind of walk alongside someone for a short part of their path and it's just a real privilege.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_03: I hope you all enjoyed part one of this episode with Olivia.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_03: If you're interested in Olivia's work or you would like to work with her I have gone and linked all of her details in the show notes.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_03: Olivia is also going to be holding a retreat in Devon called Softcore which is a body of work focused on self-connection through body, heart and soul.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_03: The dates for this are the 14th to the 18th of May and I have included all of her details for this in the show notes.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_03: Be sure to join us next week in part two where we can kin where we continue our conversation and discuss personal growth, self-awareness, compassionate leadership and a need for organisational change to embody personal growth and authenticity.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_03: Let's move on to our witch weekly events where I let you know what witchy or spiritual events are happening in and around South Devon and Cornwall.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_03: Starting with local covens that are seeking new members so if you're a solitary witch looking to join a coven this might be for you.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_03: Roz and Booker, one of Cornwall's longest established covens hold meetings in North Cornwall and the Devon-Cornwall border.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_03: Applicants are welcome to introduce themselves via email and come visit their website for more information.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_03: The Cunning Grove is a witch and a cult shop based in Plymouth.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_03: They currently hold the Coven of the Sacred Grove.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_03: They are a diverse group of witches from different paths that come together to learn and support each other.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_03: Within their coven they break the year down into four seasons.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_03: The physical coven meets on a Tuesday and Thursday nights fortnightly they also have an online coven with spaces available.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone is in a group together and each week they drop different techniques and teachings from PDFs, slides and videos.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_03: Joining the covens comes with a range of benefits you can get money off the shop and services and you can also make use of the Coven Library which is for local members only to join the physical coven it's£30 per person and if you want to join the online coven that's£15.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_03: If you would like to get in touch you can message them through their Instagram page or Facebook page and I've also added their email address in the show notes.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_03: Local witchy and spiritual events continuing with the Cunning Grove on Wednesdays they hold a witch and stitch which is a free weekly crochet knitting and witchcraft session and on Saturday mornings they hold a free witch and brew session which is a social with tea talk and it has a teaching focus.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_03: This is from 11am until the last witch leaves and you can find out more information via their website which is linked in the show notes.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_03: The lovely Seren from Serendipity Healing holds three women's circles.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_03: These are Tuesday in Abbot Skurswell Wednesday in Torquay and Thursday in Totnes and they are all from 7pm until 9pm participants can choose the date and venue that suits them and she covers the same information in each one.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_03: They happen every three weeks so you can celebrate the Sabbath and connect to nature cycles and then they will have a session between each Sabbath to look inward.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_03: She teaches a variety of modalities to help people explore and integrate the parts of themselves that are holding them back from who they want to be.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_03: These include somatic movement, guided meditations, tarot and oracle cards, witch runes, exploring crystals, herbs, journaling, creative expression through arts and crafts, reiki, sechem energy, drumming and sound, goddess work with the archetypes, meaningful ritual and ceremonies and lots more.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_03: The Cabinet of folklore and magic in Falmouth will be holding their tarot card readings on Saturday.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Kicking things off this weekend it's Tarot's Van This will be happening in Launston, North Cornwall.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Tarosvan is the Cornwall Festival of Ghost Stories and it's been set up by Emily who runs Black Cat Books and Lawrence who does the Lawnston Ghost tours.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_03: I will be podcasting at this event all weekend.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_03: If you see me in town with my headphones on and a microphone please do come along and say hello.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really excited for this weekend there's going to be lots going on around town and Launston does have a reputation for being the haunted capital of Cornwall.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_03: So come along have some fun and you never know you might just see one or two ghosts.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_03: Also on Saturday the 28th of March Wild Tribe Events will be presenting their pagan and spiritual fair imbued at Ivor Potter Hall.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_03: This is from 11am until 4pm and it's free entry.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Emma Jane Saunders from Dragon Goddess Healings will also be at the Spiritual Fair and she will be offering her readings and healings.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_03: Sunday the 29th of March a sigil workshop is being held at 2pm at the Cabinet of Folklore and Magic in Falmouth there are limited spaces for this and it's£25 per person.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_03: The ticket includes all the supplies you will need.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_03: The workshop will allow you to step into the world of sigil magic where you will briefly look into the history and use in magic and then you will learn how to create and activate your own designs.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_03: The lovely Megan Field from Sacred Curno will be holding her Sacred Curno Circle on the 2nd of April this will be 7pm until 930pm in Lisgard.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's£10 per person and the theme is cyclical wisdom something new from the Temple of Cornwall Rebecca who runs the Temple of Cornwall she's facilitating a new course and this is called walking the wheel an in-person immersion around the sacred sites of Cornwall.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's a year long immersion of all of the sacred walks around Cornwall.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's a collection of ceremonial group walks throughout Cornwall to bring you deeper into communion and with the deities elementals and medicine of this ancient Celtic land.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Throughout the year you will gather every six weeks at different sacred sites around Cornwall.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_03: Each ceremonial walk you will receive a spectrum of ceremony, ritual, community, oracle guidance and some home baked sweet treats.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_03: There is currently an early bird discount which is 20% off the full price and this ends on Sunday the 29th of March.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_03: However if you're not able to make the deadline this Sunday the 29th of March and it's still something that you're really interested in Rebecca has kindly offered to give my listeners an ongoing discount code if they would like to join the course.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_03: So if that's something you'd be interested in then send me an email at the Cornishwitchpodcast at gmail.com or on any of my socials and I will let Rebecca know of your interest.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Links to all of the events that I have mentioned are in the show notes.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_03: If you have an upcoming witchy or spiritual event and you would like me to do a shout out for your event on the show then please contact me.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_03: My details are in the show notes and you can find me at the Cornish Witch podcast on Instagram and Facebook.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_03: That is everything I have for you for this episode.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for listening to the Cornish Witch podcast this podcast is an independent personal project created outside of my professional life it exists as a space for conversation with witches, spiritual practitioners and those walking their own paths sharing lived practice, ritual, experience and folklore often rooted here in Cornwall and the land itself.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_03: If you value these conversations and would like to support the continuation of the podcast there is a voluntary link in the show notes.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_03: Listening will always remain free and there is no expectation to contribute.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Whether you support here stories onward by sharing them with others, thank you.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_03: Your presence honours the craft and keeps these tellings alive.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_03: May these stories find you when they are meant to and until next time may the path rise to meet you