Full Transcript for Dr. Tayla Shanaye - Ecospiritual Attention, Land-tending, and Birth as Expanded Consciousness

word spiritual, but just touching it was to that individual that and and how you know, cheers to you for knowing what to say in that moment or knowing what it was that that student needed to hear, or what would benefit that student in that time? 00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:31.279 And so how did you know that that was how could you tell that that was you probably didn't tell, you're just a very intuitive relational being, but um is it because you're paying attention to the attention economy and how everybody's profit or corporations are profiting off of our attention, or is it something that you've always been aligned with that consciousness is sacred, and so you it's a commitment of yours? 00:06:31.839 --> 00:06:34.160 Well, I'd love to say it was forever, but I don't think so. 00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:34.959 No, no. 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:46.639 Um I certainly have, especially in the meth, you know, in recent years, been really really in the experience of what it is to have my attention hijacked. 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:48.639 Oh, hijacked is a good word, yeah. 00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:55.439 Yeah, have it hijacked, have it controlled, have it directed without my consent. 00:06:56.319 --> 00:07:06.720 And how that has very real physiologic, spiritual, and psychological consequences. 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:19.040 Um, the ways in which a body, the immune system, right, the endocrine system, the way that our entire b system really responds when there's a full hijack of our awareness. 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:25.600 And we live in a culture where that, like you're saying, is the norm. 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:38.160 Like there's a there's a collective awareness um with those that know how to hijack attention, that it is ultimately the most precious thing that any of us actually possesses. 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:50.639 And if they can direct our attention, they have control of where our bodies go, how our bodies move, how our bodies breathe, how our bodies eat, how our bodies sleep. 00:07:50.959 --> 00:07:51.120 Yeah. 00:07:51.839 --> 00:07:52.879 Literally everything. 00:07:53.279 --> 00:07:53.600 Yeah. 00:07:53.759 --> 00:08:27.279 Um and it's been through somatic practice and kind of being deeper, more deeply um invested and kind of obsessed, arguably, with the nervous system, not just the human nervous system, but really seeing it as this ancient ecological sacred technology of communication that is the same as tree roots, as mycelium, as star systems, as bird song, as it's all the same firing across synapses, right? 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:32.960 This all of these ways in which creation communicates over and over again through sensation and impulse. 00:08:34.639 --> 00:09:22.159 And as I've gotten more into my care of that and meeting it with other technologies of practice that allow me to really be fully invested with my own curiosity, um, wonder and awe, whether that's in-nature connection, whether that's deep connection with other humans, um, whether that's

deep spiritual practice or just like deep embodiment practice, whether whatever those things are where it's like, oh, I have my attention and I am gifting it, or I am I'm utilizing it in a way that um signals my availability for connection, for intensity, for um that kind of what is possible in the synapse, in the in the between of a synapse. 00:09:23.039 --> 00:09:28.559 What happens, what happens when that when something fires in between what happens between. 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:40.080 Um my sensitivity to the directing of my attention without my consent has gotten I've gotten quite sensitive. 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:45.360 Um I can feel it, you know, I can actually feel it coming out of my face. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.080 I can feel the way that it's like, oh no, I've lost it. 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:51.759 I have all of my attention to the algorithm, I'll be back in three hours. 00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:53.120 Like three hours. 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:54.799 Right. 00:09:54.879 --> 00:09:56.960 And it's like, oh, I've gave I I gave it up. 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:01.679 It's gone and it's not mine, and I have no control at this point. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:10.159 Um in that feeling, then what what happens in my body as a consequence of that? 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:21.600 Yeah, I sleep, what happens to the regularity of my eating, what happens to my relations, yeah, my physical relations, yeah, my material mattering. 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:22.080 Yeah. 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:25.759 And people feel are feeling that collectively. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:32.320 And so as you were talking about, you know, the three takes three hours, or you know, whatever time. 00:10:32.799 --> 00:10:35.039 Um, it I people have the language, right? 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:36.559 They call it doom scrolling. 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:56.080 Um, or if anybody goes to work and then that feeling afterwards of just for me personally, I feel super hung over if I'm on the computer for an extended period of time, but just for survival purposes, I have to normalize that as an academic, and and other people do too for survival. 00:10:56.159 --> 00:11:14.799 And so this kind of goes into your area of expertise in research, which is how heteronormative patriarchy um, I don't know the words that you use, but kind of perpetuates this traumatization and this disconnect with our bodies and our souls in that sense. 00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:17.840 So if you could say more about that in your area of research. 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:18.960 Yeah. 00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:25.840 So I've kind of got, you know, a tangle of research fascinations. 00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:51.200 Um my my focus in my master's program of somatic counseling psychology, you know, was doing a lot of frontline work and uh particularly regarding water protection and just like deeply caring for the waters and showing up at prayer walks and really investing my energy into like caring for the people who are showing up for the

water, like who cares for the who cares for the helpers, right? 00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:51.679 Yeah. 00:11:51.840 --> 00:12:03.840 Um, and really witnessing how both water protection is a trauma response, and then how having to be inside of resistance movements perpetuates the trauma. 00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:18.080 Like using it's not lost on me as an example, the famous example of Standing Rock, where there are people praying for the water and then the water is being used against them, and with the with the being sprayed by the fire hoses. 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:20.320 Oh, wipes right on the bridge. 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:26.080 And so there's this way in which it becomes the self-perpetuating cycle. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:37.600 Um and inside of that, then moving from there to like, okay, well, what is what is this, what is happening to our collective awareness? 00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:57.440 And can I find a place where it feels deeply obvious that this is where you know, white supremacy, cis hetero patriarchy, cap exploitative capitalism, exploitation and extractivism, um, you know, human supremacy, where all of these things are getting enacted all at once. 00:12:57.679 --> 00:12:58.000 Yeah. 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:13.279 Um and I also became a mother around the same time that this question happened and realized like, oh, the mother body is the place where all of those things happen at once. 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:14.159 Oh wow. 00:13:14.720 --> 00:13:15.039 Wow. 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:23.840 And really being a black woman and pregnant, it was very clear that it was like, oh, this is where all of these things happen in one moment. 00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:48.320 And the mechanisms of control was through hypermedicalization of childbirth when we look at the long history of childbirth, the entire practice of childbirth as a cultural practice, so not as an experience historically the world over animal birth that happens over and over again with all animals that give life birth. 00:13:49.200 --> 00:14:26.960 Um, but this very particular thing we call the American birth practice, the US American birth practice obsectrics and gynecology are so deeply an enactment of the force of linear time, the force of power, particularly of uh with its deep roots in white male doctors, um, the erasure of spiritual significance, the erasure of the mother, um the the mechanisms of violence and technical technological control over a birthday body. 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:41.120 Um just like so deeply obvious in navigating um, not just like my experience, but really like, oh, let's take the lid off of what it means to become a person in this culture. 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:57.519 And when we look at birth and the amount of trauma that exists inside of birth and bifurcate out or delineate out traumatization and enforced through mechanisms of control and trauma that happens due to unexpected loss. 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:06.159 Because I don't want to say that birth itself is natural, birth is not inherently safe or right, like people die. 00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:14.720 That is part of the the meaning making around birth is that it opens the portal where both options are possible. 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:19.600 But we there's both ends of the spectrum of life, birth and death available in one moment. 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:20.080 Right. 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:29.200 Um so I'm not going to argue that like there's not a time and a place for medical intervention, there's not a time I none of that, right? 00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:56.559 But when we can are able to kind of get a little bit of spaciousness between trying to control for death and control creation's processes, and look at the way that those controls actually proliferate patterns of disempowerment, patterns of exploitation, of extraction, of violence, of the enforcement of chronological time on natural processes, the kind of boxing in. 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:07.440 Yeah, it's pretty pretty obvious that there's a there's this enactment in which you are not born a human being, you are birthed a person. 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:09.759 Oh interesting. 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:15.840 And inside of that, the mother or the birthing person, the person, the gestational parent is remade. 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:19.759 Because it's also a major transformation for them. 00:16:20.399 --> 00:16:20.720 Right. 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:21.919 Right. 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:30.960 And so they're remade into the structures, definitions of what is appropriate for the person who has gestated and birthed a human being. 00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:31.679 Yeah. 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:58.399 So when you said that the mother body was where all of these moments intersected and all of these categories or dynamics, I'm picturing the axis mundi, which is kind of a spiritual or mythological entity or concept where it's where the the transcendent and the imminent kind of merge, and people say that with trees are an axis mundi, right? 00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:01.279 And so there's this emergence that's happening. 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:12.720 Um but then in your work you've also said that um that birth is an expanded state of consciousness. 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:17.119 And so I want you to, if you could just dig into that a little bit, because I totally agree. 00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:27.920 And you know, while I don't have the concepts or the words for it, you you know, focusing on it in your PhD, I'd love to hear you speak more about that because I see it as this opportunity, right? 00:17:28.160 --> 00:17:54.880 An opportunity to of initiation, or I don't I don't even think I like the word rite of passage, but um seeing it as this opportunity to expand one's sense of self or relationality or connection to the cosmos, but the way that it's situated in this in America at least is that you just kind of fit into this, for lack of a better word, robotic or mechanic, it's mechanistic, right? 00:17:54.960 -->

00:18:01.279 It's this mechanistic way of initiating the spirit world into the material world. 00:18:01.359 --> 00:18:06.079 So it's almost like sets us up for being like, this is what this culture has figured out now, right? 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:27.519 This you're you're uh semi-robotic, you know, you gotta fit into the algorithm at some point, but that initiatory process of of the rite of passage from from this liminal space or this non-being to being, uh there are ways that we could make that so much more spiritually potent. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:30.960 So if you could say a little bit about that in your work. 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:39.039 I think it, regardless of the the cultural practice around it, it is spiritually potent. 00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:39.759 Yeah. 00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:42.559 That's the baseline truth of it. 00:18:42.720 --> 00:19:04.720 I think that the influence of technology, the influence of medicalization, the influence of money, of control, of time, the amount of control that gets exercised on childbirth is an actual indicator of how transformative, sacred, and spiritual it actually is. 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:05.920 That's a good point. 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:14.880 I think that the mechanisms of control are being leveraged because something so profound is happening. 00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:21.039 Something that we actually have no real like clue about. 00:19:21.519 --> 00:19:21.920 Yeah. 00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:25.200 It's pretty kind of otherworldly. 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:27.680 The fact that we make more humans. 00:19:27.839 --> 00:19:28.160 Yeah. 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:31.119 Um that we just do this. 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:32.000 It's insane. 00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:33.200 Our bodies just do that. 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:37.279 They would just do that, and then they come out, and then and then that's it. 00:19:37.359 --> 00:19:39.359 Now there's another person on the planet. 00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:41.039 And they just grow in you. 00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:43.279 And then just grow and then they naturally. 00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:45.359 And it's fine, and you just eat a lot. 00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:47.599 It's like right. 00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:49.039 What? 00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:51.759 Um don't understand. 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:54.880 We don't understand when babies come out because it's not up to us. 00:19:55.039 --> 00:19:56.880 The babies decide when they come out, right? 00:19:56.960 --> 00:19:57.200 Yeah. 00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:06.160 It is so intensely sacred that the mechanisms of control, I think, that are being exercised are just an indicator of that. 00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:09.279 And when I think about expanded states of consciousness, right? 00:20:09.359 --> 00:20:18.640 I'm thinking about things like trans dance, I'm thinking, of course, about things like psychedelics, I'm thinking about things like any spiritual practice that allows us to access the otherwise. 00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:19.279 Yeah. 00:20:19.920

--> 00:20:35.200 All of which have been intensely controlled, been medicalized, been professionalized, been taken out of their indigenous roots, been taken out of the hands of the midwives, the shamans, the seers. 00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:39.920 They have been made crazy, they have been made superstitious, they have been made dirty. 00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:44.640 Then we professionalize this thing and sterilize it because it has to happen. 00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:47.519 People still need to come through these thresholds. 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:50.720 Um, we just want them to come through this door. 00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:51.359 Yeah. 00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:52.400 Oh, interesting. 00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:54.240 We want to dress the door. 00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:54.640 Yep. 00:20:54.799 --> 00:20:55.759 We want to dress the door. 00:20:56.079 --> 00:20:58.480 There's this one door that you can go through and it looks like this here. 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:07.920 And we're gonna put this facade on it so that you come through it understanding your role in this very small blip of culture and human experience. 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:09.279 Yep, yep. 00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:16.000 And yeah, so the profundity of it is like is is impossible. 00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:17.440 It's like nothing to argue. 00:21:17.599 --> 00:21:23.519 It is in deeply entrenched in all of our uh everybody's experience. 00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:24.079 Yeah. 00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:36.799 Um and so I think that there is yeah, when we when we're able to really say, like, okay, well, what is actually happening? 00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:43.039 We can't we have to look at like, oh, a baby is born, which is the cultural narrative. 00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:46.720 The cultural narrative is a baby is born. 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:59.680 But the the experience that is at the core of childbirth is uh for so many aspects of it, the birther. 00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:02.799 Undoing the birthing. 00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:13.759 And there is an abysmal amount of research on the experience that somebody has while actually going through a childbirth process. 00:22:15.039 --> 00:22:17.839 There's very little research asking what do you see? 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:18.640 What do you hear? 00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:19.440 How do you feel? 00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:20.160 What do you think? 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:21.039 What comes through? 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:22.240 What kind of transformation? 00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:26.720 What kind of information is available in that expanded state? 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:48.480 And my curiosity around meeting that was really stemmed from reading a lot of like kind of natural childbirth birth books and getting deep into the realm of Ida Megaskin and the kind of like natural birth movement that emerged in the 60s that happened to emerge at the same time as the psychedelics renaissance and the environmental movement. 00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:50.720 So I think there's something happening there. 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:55.519 Yeah, right natural birth, natural healing, nature itself. 00:22:57.119 --> 00:23:10.880 And um there was this thing that I just kept coming up with a lot of Ina May stories, which is one of the only repositories of deep stories of people giving birth and telling their story, was just like how far out in psychedelic the experience was. 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:19.039 And so I got really curious of like, okay, well, what are the things that we define as an expanded state and would these be applied to these experiences? 00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:29.440 And so I really leaned on the studies of psychedelics because it's the most robust because it's in the process of professionalization, it's in the process of medicalization. 00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:41.200 Um we can see the overlap of how the sacred is trying to be stripped from it with, you know, giving people the trip without the like the experience without the hallucination, the how without the hallucinations, quote unquote, right? 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:42.160 Right. 00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:46.799 Um taking out the shaman and replacing them with the with the MD. 00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:47.359 Yeah. 00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:48.880 No one there to hold my hand. 00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:55.359 I'm gonna I'm gonna patent the the iPad and the or the eye cover and the earring and the musics or whatever. 00:23:55.839 --> 00:24:00.240 And so there's these parallels of like, oh, something is here, something is important here. 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:04.559 And we want that, we we're gonna have access to it, but we need to control how you get access to it. 00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:05.359 Yeah. 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:30.720 And what I found in looking at the ways that they were able to break down, like, okay, what are the defining features of an expanded state in which transpersonal experiences are available, in which people are able to access a broader sense of self, where their spirituality is enacted, where their sense of belonging, their sense of connection with the divine, their sexual uh sense of connection with themselves, with nature are amplified. 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:49.680 What are the changes of and the changes are changes in our perception of sound, our perception of our visual perception, so auditory and visual perceptions, um, expanded sense of self, connection with more than the more than human world, connection across across deeper timelines, all of which I had. 00:24:49.759 --> 00:25:07.119 And so my my research is actually just deeply looking at my own birth experience, the way that animals showed up to show me how to push, the way that I heard different things, the way I was visited by different energies and different um support beings that are non-visible in ordinary realms of consciousness. 00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:07.680 Wow. 00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:14.319 Um that enabled me to come through the portal as well as birth a child. 00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:15.119 Wow.

00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:16.240 Wow. 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:34.559 And the more conversations I've had, or sorry, circle shares that I've had, the more it's like, oh yeah, I've never actually told anybody, but I heard this voice or I saw this image, or I felt this energy at my back, but I was all alone, or fill in the blank. 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:46.559 Um, in which like it's it's very obvious that there was a portal opened and there was a deeply spiritual, transpersonal experience that people were having that linked them to all of creation. 00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:56.079 And by that deep link, have a deeper understanding of their sense of self that allowed them to move with more surety about who they were. 00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:06.160 Um when they had non-traumatic uh or were able to recover from the trauma of their birth experiences if they had trauma in their birth experiences. 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:07.119 Wow. 00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:09.200 Oh, thank you for sharing that. 00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:16.079 That as someone who has not birthed a child into this world, I've heard some stories and I I've imagined possibilities. 00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:31.119 And so this is really I'm really grateful that you shared this and that you've also created the safe space to allow other women to share their stories with you as well because it's it's it's all right there and and talk about potentiality and opportunity. 00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:42.880 Um these are almost untapped spaces that we could enter into and emerge from and and create this new portal to to bring life into this world. 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:51.359 And um, so how did you how did you get interested in natural childbirth and and what did natural childbirth look like for you? 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:53.680 That was a great question. 00:26:54.799 --> 00:27:06.960 Um the story has to start like way, way before, like in my mid-20s. 00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:18.160 Um there was a period in my life where that was really dark. 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:36.000 You know, I was in the midst of a very pretty severe mental health crisis, I was in process with a with an eating disorder, I was in process with substance abuse, I was in just like a very yeah, extraordinarily dark place in my life. 00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:53.279 Um and at that point, I'd kind of tried a lot of things to kind of figure out what was going on with my mental health and how was I gonna like navigate and get out of the mess that I felt like I was in. 00:27:53.759 --> 00:28:01.839 Um and I just can like I can just visualize this. 00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:12.000 I worked, I lived in Los Angeles and I was working at a visual effects company and it was all super fun and wild for being 20-something and whatever. 00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:30.240 And um and I just remember I went, I walked past like a vitamin shop or something, you know, like a health food store, very Santa Monica, and I and I went in and I was just like, I need something for like depression or something. 00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:31.440 I need something. 00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:35.359 And so they gave me just like three tinctures. 00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:41.680 And I remember having them on my desk at work. 00:28:42.960 --> 00:29:13.039 And I got into the practice of taking them, and that just kind of like spurred me into my healing journey that then like led me into yoga and then led me to like leave the job and leave LA and move back to move to the North Bay or excuse me, to um the Bay Area and teach yoga eight hours a day and um found CIS and you know, here we are. 00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:14.720 Totally. 00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:32.880 And I am not like uh, you know, I I I think that they're like med like the medical system is is an incredibly um important emergency response system to respond to medical emergencies. 00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:50.960 And through that process of kind of grappling with some of these darker demons and things that I was struggling with in my grief and my childhood trauma and just like really working through I came to like feel less like an emergency myself. 00:29:52.480 --> 00:30:13.839 It kept feeling less like a liability, less like an emergency in myself, and like really learning how to take time with myself to care for things that hurt, to care for things that scream, that are loud, that feel like they won't stop bleeding, you know, metaphorically speaking, you know, all of these different ways. 00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:22.480 And so I wanted to when I when I got pregnant, I really wanted to like orient toward it as not a medical emergency. 00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:36.240 You know, where you're put on disability for childbirth, the induction process, the you know, there's so many hookups and things like this in our medical system that really signal this is a medical emergency. 00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:48.400 Here's all the tests, here's all the things, like you're gonna die, the babies could die, and like the leveraging of kind of threat, vague threats that, like, oh well, if you don't do this testing, then you're gonna hurt your baby kind of feeling. 00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:54.880 And just kind of in that I am not a medical emergency, yeah, not in a medical emergency. 00:30:55.039 --> 00:31:04.160 I want to have the discernment so that I know if I actually am having one, I can respond appropriately, but I don't want to treat myself like a medical emergency anymore. 00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:04.559 Yeah. 00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:16.240 I want to be in, I have to be in moving at the pace of care, moving at the pace of of love, moving at the pace of my nervous system, obviously. 00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:16.640 Yeah. 00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:21.759 Where I can actually bring my body along for every single decision that I can process. 00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:33.680 And so for me, natural childbirth was really like how do I grapple with all of like the internal structures that have made me not trust myself over my

history? 00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:38.640 Can I surrender completely to this process? 00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:41.519 Can I just be here for this adult? 00:31:42.400 --> 00:31:50.240 Um and you know, the birth of my son, it was 40 hours, and I did have an emergency medical transfer. 00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:56.319 Um, I labored at home for 30-ish hours before having to go to the hospital, and he was born in the hospital. 00:31:56.640 --> 00:32:05.200 Um luckily I was able to, I'm very grateful I was able to like avoid any surgical intervention and was able to like spare him myself. 00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:17.599 Um but I did hit a medical emergency situation and was able to trust that, like, okay, this is what is actually necessary for my body to do this. 00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:18.160 Right. 00:32:18.319 --> 00:32:24.319 Um but still didn't treat myself as a medical emergency, didn't treat it as a situation as a medical project. 00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:26.720 It's like, oh, I need I need medical assistance. 00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:27.200 Yeah. 00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:38.799 Um and so for for my orientation, it's just like a natural childbirth is the one in which as much of me is in the the process as is possible. 00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:39.920 Yeah, yeah. 00:32:40.160 --> 00:32:42.000 That I'm at consent and at choice. 00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:44.240 Back to the consent, yeah. 00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:47.920 Yeah, I had consent and choice with with how this is unfolding. 00:32:48.079 --> 00:32:48.880 Yeah, yeah. 00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:53.839 It's not just that you like are off in the woods having your baby in the river. 00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:55.680 Like bless you. 00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:56.880 That's cool. 00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:00.880 But I don't think that defines natural childbirth. 00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:03.839 Like way to break the stereotype. 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:12.160 Like a definition comes with like, am I consenting to what feels like my whole body is saying, yes, that is the choice I want to make. 00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:16.480 I am fully present for this, I am here and available for what I am deciding. 00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:24.720 And that feels in alignment and in integrity with who I identify as and who I identify as, who I will become on the other side of this process. 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:44.559 I love the way that you describe this process because it's not creating these kind of dualistic categories of like this is natural childbirth and this is unnatural, but the natural part is foregrounding you trusting yourself and not acting treating yourself initially as an emergency, which I think is a really important distinction that was really well articulated. 00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:53.599 And in that natural process, you're like, wow, I'm sure there was a moment you're like, my body's on fire, everything's saying go to the emergency room and things. 00:33:53.680 --> 00:34:01.680 So you're still trusting the process and not just saying this is natural, this is unnatural, it's still you're foregrounding your consent. 00:34:01.839 --> 00:34:37.679 And you know, of um work in wild women is to create spaces where women get to tap into some of those repressed dynamics of themselves where they get to foreground their voice, they get to tap into their body, and they get to strengthen this inner wisdom, which which I think gets repressed in heterometer patriarchy, um, because of just how whether it's because of how we're birthed in this world or how we're trained to survive by just being cogs in the machine or going to work and not saying anything, or you know, we're not even getting into the way that religion, Western forms of religion. 00:34:40.159 --> 00:34:41.440 That's for another podcast. 00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:44.639 Easy, you can find those. 00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:56.639 Um this idea of really, you know, foregrounding intuition and and women's ways of knowing and and this type of rite of passage, I think you laid that out really, really elegantly. 00:34:56.719 --> 00:35:04.719 So and also I really love your moment of connecting with plant medicine because I couldn't help but imagine. 00:35:04.880 --> 00:35:10.320 So you're looking at these tinctures and and they become a part of your world, and then you ingest them. 00:35:10.639 --> 00:35:14.320 And part of plant medicine, you know, I'm not super well-versed. 00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:27.760 I'd love to welcome more people in the podcast who are more well-versed in this, but they have an energies, they have intelligence, there are living beings in these tinctures, and so those become conversation partners as your inner guides in this work. 00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:30.960 Oh, absolutely. 00:35:31.199 --> 00:35:48.400 I think that there is this huge, like one of the biggest teachings I think that I've gathered in my personal healing journey has been what it is to develop relationships like wholeheartedly. 00:35:49.679 --> 00:35:57.840 And one of the things as someone who lives with chronic uh depression is that like depression's best friend is silence. 00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:04.960 It is isolation, it is that way in which there's this just like I don't get to say, I don't get to be seen. 00:36:05.039 --> 00:36:21.679 And you're right, there's this this deep, deep uh requirement of isolation in order for the depression to do what it does so well, which is still still still, still, still, still, still still voice, it's still stills the eye, stills the tongue, stills the gut, stills everything. 00:36:21.840 --> 00:36:23.360 It just wants everything to freeze. 00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:26.000 And so at least that's my experience of it. 00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:48.719 And also, you know, like how then how do I actually develop the capacity to be in conversation, the develop the capacity for a relationship, for conversation, um, when when sometimes when that pattern is so thick and because it's it's had to be essential for survival. 00:36:50.719 -->

00:37:05.039 And plants and land and water have been and remained some of my biggest teachers in what it means to have meaningful conversation and practice, willing to practice. 00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:16.320 Okay, I don't know. 00:37:16.639 --> 00:37:20.400 Totally fine because it's still recording, so you can just kind of pick up where you left off. 00:37:20.960 --> 00:37:24.239 Totally just wasn't even a glitch, it just went off and then back on. 00:37:24.559 --> 00:37:26.480 Okay, thanks, Kremlins on the internet. 00:37:26.639 --> 00:37:28.639 Um Yeah, they don't want this out there. 00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:30.800 They're trying to control it. 00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:32.559 It's too powerful. 00:37:33.840 --> 00:37:55.840 Um But uh yeah, like the the way that place and the more than human can have been really essential and willing participants um when I ask for that consent and am able to meet them in humility that they are living beings and they might not want to hear my trash. 00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:59.360 Um they might not care about my feelings today. 00:37:59.840 --> 00:38:10.320 But the when they do, they offer me that place to actually hear myself and the things that are stuck and been rattling around and and lodged in there. 00:38:10.639 --> 00:38:26.400 Um and so at that time with like the tinctures and then learning, I was I moved into like the practice of yeah, going and actually just being more intentional, finding some places to go sit and be quiet in nature. 00:38:26.639 --> 00:38:34.000 So when I started actually speaking to trees out loud and like actually just like, hey, can I just share what's I'm struggling with? 00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:55.679 Um and that has been like a a major kind of like um fulcrum point of change and direction in my my inner world and inner working is how to actually develop and care for meaningful relations with all of creation. 00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:08.159 And that casting of attention and the feeling of attention of a place, of a tree, of a bird, of the water back on me, knowing that I'm also being seen and experienced and witnessed. 00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:11.039 And what is the what is the dialogue? 00:39:11.199 --> 00:39:12.320 What is the exchange? 00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:14.159 What are you available for? 00:39:16.400 --> 00:39:32.480 And yeah, like being in those textures of relations really allowed me to then recover my sense of place, not only in the more than human world, but really also reorganized that I have a place inside the human world. 00:39:32.800 --> 00:39:40.239 And I can actually like unsilence myself relationally in that way, which for me personally is a lot harder. 00:39:40.639 --> 00:39:44.960 Um relating to humans is a is a very difficult thing. 00:39:45.519 --> 00:39:58.320 Um when I look at the long history of you know human activity since colonization on Turtle Island, like it makes very very obvious sense that we wouldn't be very good at it. 00:39:58.559 --> 00:40:11.440 Um when we look at like what we call culture, what some people like my teacher Rezma Menicum calls a trauma response that's lost its context. 00:40:11.760 --> 00:40:19.440 Um when we look at like the overstory, it's like why would we think that being together would be easy? 00:40:19.599 --> 00:40:23.119 It's like been made to be inherently difficult. 00:40:23.360 --> 00:40:23.599 Yeah. 00:40:24.159 --> 00:40:24.639 Yeah. 00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:53.039 And so that was really like a a really critical part for me to be actually able to like re-enter into myself was finding those companions and finding those um yeah, plant allies and and those that I could develop relationships with that allowed me to one, be incredibly honest um and vulnerable, and also be impacted directly. 00:40:53.199 --> 00:40:53.440 Yeah. 00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:53.920 Yeah. 00:40:54.880 --> 00:41:04.960 So yeah, you you do relational education, so it's almost like practicing this relational um building mutually beneficial relationships with the natural world. 00:41:05.119 --> 00:41:23.840 And so you've uh spoken earlier um about this tendency in ecopsychology, which I was so grateful that you um verbalized, this tendency in the field of ecopsychology where we're kind of stuck at this, okay. 00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:37.360 Yes, we awaken to going into nature's healing, but I'm going into nature to heal my problems, then where is that consensual piece? 00:41:37.679 --> 00:41:41.760 Are we missing that consent and are we still dumping on earth or so? 00:41:41.840 --> 00:41:48.000 In your experience, how have you built mutually beneficial relationships with the natural world? 00:41:48.159 --> 00:42:23.679 Because it does sound like it was a huge part of your healing process and healing journey and return to self is having these conversations with these trees, which as you were speaking, I was imagining, oh yeah, because you know, in certain cultures there were fairies that were part and parcel to the culture, but those myths had to be cut out because for fear of um, I mean, for survival purposes, because colonizer mentality, it was, you know, cutting out these pagan traditions or these local mythologies or traditional ecological knowledge, everything that was seen as you know, what the devil was how they were orienting people. 00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:37.360 And the devil is literally just you tapping into intuition or body or the wisdom of women or the wisdom of earth or the wisdom of our ancestors or the wisdom of indigenous people rather than this top-down colonizer mentality. 00:42:37.440 --> 00:42:41.920 And so anything that had this emergent property was seen as threatening. 00:42:42.000 --> 00:43:07.440 And so, back to your concept, what you were talking about, when something has that level of potency, that's when this kind of colonizer European dominator force comes in and and and either shushes it, stomps it out, or creates a new context for a very limited dimension or experience

of this powerful this power to emerge. 00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:10.079 So I don't I don't know if that's a question or anything. 00:43:10.159 --> 00:43:12.400 It's more of just conversing. 00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:15.920 I mean, but that's it really, right? 00:43:16.079 --> 00:43:25.599 It's like, oh, how like our our recovery of belonging is so multifaceted and so deeply like it it's so deep. 00:43:25.679 --> 00:43:29.599 It's so it's so many relations. 00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:35.280 Yeah, it's so many contexts, it's so many forms of connection, it's so many possibilities. 00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:43.280 Um and like the thing that I think dominator culture does really well is oversimplify, right? 00:43:43.360 --> 00:43:47.039 We have monoculture farms, like yeah, we oversimplify. 00:43:47.119 --> 00:43:53.760 That's the definition is just like like let's get it all down to one, let's get it all down to one, let's make it all as simple as possible. 00:43:55.119 --> 00:43:58.480 But the principle of nature is to complexify, right? 00:43:59.199 --> 00:43:59.840 And diverse. 00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:00.559 Diversify. 00:44:00.639 --> 00:44:10.800 And I always think of like the ecotone or those edge zones or riparian zones in which only certain things thrive because it's the meeting place of two others. 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:23.679 And that's part of like my my the my obsession with the nervous system as well is like that when I get a sensation when you when I get goosebumps because you say a thing, right? 00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:31.119 We're in that riparian juiciness of, oh, this is only possible because something came from one and arrived to the other. 00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:31.440 Yeah. 00:44:31.599 --> 00:44:32.639 And now it lives here. 00:44:32.719 --> 00:44:34.400 It actually lives in my body. 00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:51.519 And it's that firing across synapse, whether it's across bio, like, you know, ecotones, whether it's across mycelium, tree roots, whether it's across bird song, you and I having conversation with this this buttery butterfly flying behind you, coming in and going out. 00:44:51.760 --> 00:44:56.559 There's this way in which we're in a persistent dialogue. 00:44:57.280 --> 00:45:11.760 And that it's not ever just a simple you and me in this kind of narrowed, simplified way, but there's this complex way in which all of our life is constantly pulsing and interacting and giving feedback and and responding over and over. 00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:23.440 And that is in some ways that like the the the unpredictability of that is I think what terrifies folks. 00:45:23.599 --> 00:45:30.159 It's like there's no way for you to know that the thing that you're gonna say is gonna be the thing that gives me chills, or vice versa. 00:45:30.800 --> 00:45:41.679 Um but inside of that, like oh, something new wants to come, something more possible, something more more connected, more complex becomes available. 00:45:41.920 --> 00:45:42.159 Yeah. 00:45:42.320 --> 00:46:06.960 Um and yeah, these these ways in which we can invest in our capacity for relationship and really dive deep into what it means to be in a you know, inner species connection has been a really like such a guiding ultimately a guiding force um in my day-to-day, in my life. 00:46:07.199 --> 00:46:27.920 Um and what it and living inside of lands that have been violated, lands that have been extracted from, lands that have experienced violence at a human hand or are experiencing violent contact with humans. 00:46:28.239 --> 00:46:39.199 Um yeah, the the kind of process of my understanding of ecotherapy is definitely the like, okay, well, we'll just go into nature and then nature will regulate you. 00:46:39.440 --> 00:46:39.760 Right. 00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:43.280 And sure, sometimes that's true. 00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:44.079 Absolutely. 00:46:44.239 --> 00:46:48.079 Like, and I hope that that remains to be reality. 00:46:48.400 --> 00:47:07.760 Um and that these places have been decimated, that these places have been harmed, that these places that I often find myself wondering is like if I enter into a place where there has been say a clear cut, I feel like I can feel the land brace at my presence. 00:47:11.760 --> 00:47:16.079 I can feel like brace for your for your presence. 00:47:17.039 --> 00:47:31.599 Um and so like there's this way in which it's like we understand right that human beings experience trauma largely relationally and that we heal relationally. 00:47:31.840 --> 00:47:39.119 Like that's a major kind of anchor point in trauma therapy is like this happened relationally and we heal relationally. 00:47:39.679 --> 00:47:45.440 Um, and so it just doesn't make sense to me that we would think that that only applies to human beings. 00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:52.639 But that like our healing with the land is a mutually developed process. 00:47:53.199 --> 00:47:53.440 Yeah. 00:47:53.760 --> 00:48:10.000 And that in order for us to heal our trauma that is so deeply rooted in our extract, our like being stolen from the land, the land being stolen from us, the land being violated and extracted from, the land of our bodies being violated and extracted from. 00:48:10.400 --> 00:48:17.199 Um, there's a mutual trust building, there's a mutual relationship building, there's a mutual care process that needs to happen. 00:48:17.280 --> 00:48:26.960 Um, and places also have to recover um not just from what has happened to them, but recover a sense of of re-engagement with us. 00:48:27.280 --> 00:48:27.599 Yeah. 00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:29.519 As trustworthy. 00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:30.880 As trustworthy. 00:48:31.360 --> 00:48:31.599 Yeah. 00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:34.800 And so how do we prove that trustworthiness, I think? 00:48:35.440 --> 00:48:36.239 It's reminding me. 00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:38.480 It's part of our work. 00:48:38.800 --> 00:49:15.519 There's a so part of part of our care work here in northern Michigan is my spouse

and I have 46 acres of land called We the Earth, um, that we are transitioning from an old hunting camp that used to be a chicken farm for the logging operation that used to go down the river um over a hundred years ago, abandoned, and we're transitioning it to a gathering grounds and like rewilding institute where we can have gatherings and do this work and be weird and talk about possibility and get our hands in the actual soil and I love it, drink wild water. 00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:27.360 And um when we we went out to like have a conversation with the land before we, you know, went all in to try to acquire it. 00:49:27.519 --> 00:49:37.440 And um I just remember this very clear moment where I was just like, I was I've met the land many times, but I was just like, okay, this is my intention here. 00:49:37.519 --> 00:49:38.159 I want to come back here. 00:49:38.239 --> 00:49:39.760 I want to and I want to heal with you. 00:49:39.920 --> 00:49:41.280 I want to heal with the land. 00:49:41.679 --> 00:49:47.119 And I just heard very clearly this very ancient apathy of like, you do whatever you need to do. 00:49:48.159 --> 00:49:53.519 And this kind of indifference of like, I don't need your help, I don't need your help healing. 00:49:53.760 --> 00:49:57.519 And I could feel the long timeline, and then I was like, you're right, you don't need me. 00:49:57.679 --> 00:50:00.079 You definitely don't need me to heal, right? 00:50:00.320 --> 00:50:02.960 Um, you've got deep time on your side. 00:50:03.119 --> 00:50:06.320 You've existed well before I did, and you will exist after. 00:50:07.039 --> 00:50:12.159 Um I was like, okay, uh great. 00:50:12.320 --> 00:50:15.360 I was really open for like, yes, that sounds thank you so much. 00:50:16.239 --> 00:50:18.159 Small human, let's do that together. 00:50:18.239 --> 00:50:19.920 And I was like, whatever. 00:50:21.039 --> 00:50:24.159 I was like, okay, I guess we'll do that then. 00:50:24.320 --> 00:50:25.920 Uh it doesn't care. 00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:28.639 Ancient apathy is the perfect. 00:50:29.440 --> 00:50:35.440 They're like, yeah, I've I've seen you like hundreds of thousands of years and multiple forms of you. 00:50:35.599 --> 00:50:36.480 You think you're different. 00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:37.599 Congratulations. 00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:39.039 Okay, honey. 00:50:39.360 --> 00:50:40.719 Real cute, honey. 00:50:40.880 --> 00:50:42.480 Yeah, okay, pat on the head. 00:50:42.559 --> 00:50:43.519 Off you go. 00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:54.800 Um and then last summer, so summer 2025, we we lived out there and um as a family, and we spent the entire year or season cleaning. 00:50:54.960 --> 00:51:06.239 So pulling out old barbed wire that had been embedded in trees and in the soil, digging TVs out of the hillside, digging tar out of the ground, um, countless to the dump. 00:51:06.400 --> 00:51:09.760 We got an old logging machine that had trees growing through it. 00:51:09.920 --> 00:51:10.880 Pretty poetic. 00:51:11.199 --> 00:51:11.840 Wow. 00:51:13.039 --> 00:51:17.199 Like a, you know, a semi-trailer get pulled off of the property. 00:51:17.360 --> 00:51:24.719 Um, the cabin, unfortunately, will have to come down because it's in disrepair, but we don't have the capacity to take it down yet. 00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:31.039 And so I hand washed and painted the whole cabin um because I wanted it to feel cared for. 00:51:31.280 --> 00:51:50.960 Um and we just like, you know, cut back the trees, pulled a lot of dead stuff out, and got, you know, just like really deep found feral asparagus and strawberries and recovered the garden beds and all of these different things, just like deeply loving the place as best as we could. 00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:51.440 Yeah. 00:51:52.320 --> 00:52:10.480 And in the fall, I was out there and it was late at night and I was with the stars, and I was just like in my gratitude practice of like how it had held me through the summer and how changed I was feeling of what it is to like clean land and care for land. 00:52:10.960 --> 00:52:15.039 Um, and I had said something along the lines, I'm so grateful for this healing. 00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:21.199 And I just heard the I heard the trees whisper back, I didn't know that when you said that, that's what you meant. 00:52:23.440 --> 00:52:29.760 And this way in which it was like you wanted to heal back with the land. 00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:30.639 Wow. 00:52:31.280 --> 00:52:31.599 Wow. 00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:32.800 We're in this together. 00:52:33.440 --> 00:52:40.079 Like together, yeah, not like use the land like lotion to like use the lotion with my skin kind of thing. 00:52:40.239 --> 00:52:41.599 So use the what? 00:52:42.079 --> 00:52:43.119 Like lotion, you know. 00:52:43.199 --> 00:52:46.159 I'm not gonna use this to like heal me. 00:52:46.400 --> 00:52:48.719 I'm gonna heal with this cream, you know. 00:52:48.960 --> 00:52:51.119 I'm going to just me. 00:52:51.280 --> 00:52:54.880 I'm gonna participate, and together we might find more. 00:52:55.039 --> 00:52:57.039 Um wow, wow. 00:52:58.079 --> 00:52:59.519 I love that story. 00:52:59.920 --> 00:53:01.440 That's such a good story. 00:53:01.760 --> 00:53:07.039 And that was like that's been that's been an anchor point for me in the last year. 00:53:07.199 --> 00:53:11.039 It's like, right, this is what we need. 00:53:11.280 --> 00:53:11.920 Yeah. 00:53:12.320 --> 00:53:17.119 This is ecopsychology, this is healing, this is This is true. 00:53:17.519 --> 00:53:18.400 Participation. 00:53:18.639 --> 00:53:20.239 Participation, yeah. 00:53:20.559 --> 00:53:26.559 This is rejuvenating those ties to the land is not just this concept, but an embodied practice. 00:53:27.679 --> 00:53:34.960 I, as you were talking, I've been getting these ideas, so I'm hoping that this isn't our I can't even say it out loud. 00:53:35.039 --> 00:53:36.559 I'm like, it's not our final conversation. 00:53:36.639 --> 00:53:48.880 This is just a first conversation because I'm uh as you were talking about these synapses, I'm like, yep, well, the audience doesn't know that I've had so many chills running up and down my bodies on this whole conversation. 00:53:49.039 --> 00:53:52.960 So new synapses are performing, and I hope that's the same for the audience. 00:53:53.119 --> 00:53:57.519 And I also um hope that we can do more collaborative work. 00:53:57.920 --> 00:53:58.880 I would love that. 00:53:59.119 --> 00:54:00.239 Awesome very much so. 00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:06.239 Yeah, thank you for all that you pulled together and the voices that you weave in the spaces that you hold. 00:54:06.400 --> 00:54:18.800 Um, it's just so deeply essential, and I'm glad to just be able to speak into your field and be part of the collective synapse that that is our possibilities, you know. 00:54:19.360 --> 00:54:20.559 Thank you so much, Taylor. 00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:30.800 Well, this is the after uh reading Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree, it was this epiphany moment where you know you're wandering around being like, how can I be effective in this world with the skill set that I have? 00:54:31.039 --> 00:54:37.119 And then that metaphor helped me be like, Oh, I don't need to be any certain particular person. 00:54:37.280 --> 00:54:49.920 I can be a synapse to create new networks and pull different, seemingly de separate communities and ideas and um generate this more connected and healed world. 00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:51.519 So so thank you for what you said. 00:54:51.840 --> 00:54:52.800 I really appreciate your time. 00:54:52.880 --> 00:54:55.920 Is there any last things you want to say to our audience before I let you go? 00:54:56.800 --> 00:54:58.159 No, thanks for your attention. 00:54:58.400 --> 00:55:04.960 I know how valuable it is, and yeah, for you to consent to to hear us speak is quite a gift. 00:55:05.039 --> 00:55:06.639 So yeah, likewise. 00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:11.760 Well, thank you so much for your time and your sacred attention, and thanks to the audience members for yours as well. 00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:16.079 Uh take care, and until the next time, uh be wild and be well, everyone. 00:55:16.239 --> 00:55:16.719 Bye-bye. 00:55:21.599 --> 00:55:28.800 This podcast has been brought to you in collaboration with the Loose Foundation, the American Academy of Religion, and the Wild Women Nonprofit. 00:55:29.039 --> 00:55:30.320 Thanks so much for joining us. 00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:33.039 Please follow us if you keep returning to the fire. 00:55:33.119 --> 00:55:35.679 And in the meantime, be wild and be well.