Steph Jagger

LeAnn is joined by author Steph Jagger for an insightful, vulnerable conversation around Steph’s heartbreakingly beautiful new book which explores the repercussions of her mom’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, along with discussions around our relationship with nature and the feminine. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes is a production of I
Heart Radio. Welcome my friends to this very special episode
of Holy Human. I mean they are all very special
to me, but this one is one of my favorites,
and I say that with every new episode. Writer Steph

(00:22):
Jagger burst onto the literary scene with her adventurous two
thousand and seventeen memoir Unbound, a story of snow and
self discovery. In her latest work, Everything Left to Remember
My Mother, Our Memories and a Journey through the Rocky Mountains,
she navigates the emotionally rocky landscape of her mother's battle
with Alzheimer's disease. Today, Steph joins me for a wide ranging,

(00:46):
intimate and vulnerable conversation about her mother, mother, Earth, female archetypes,
and so much more on this very special episode of
Holy Humane. Now, before we start, always just reading it

(01:26):
on your website, just about you, and I love that
you said I'm scared often I do we get comfortable?
They're right, I don't know. I'm still trying to figure
that out. I'm always scared going into interviews, and especially
with your book, because there's so many things that are
very specific that I wanted to touch on and things

(01:47):
that you've written that were so incredibly poetic and stunning.
It's such a beautiful book. So thank you for joining
me on this podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm
I'm really deeply honored to kind of co create something. Yeah. Absolutely,
I love that both of your books, Everything Left to

(02:08):
Remember and Unbound are both about the adventurous journey. You know,
I travel all the time, of course, and I just wondered,
what do you think it is about travel that helps
us discover ourselves? I think for me, starting with a
very early travel that I did kind of right out

(02:30):
of university, really, um, I discovered that I was no
one but me. There was no role to play other
than me. You know when you travel, and a lot
of traveling I did was traveling on my own. And
so I wasn't someone's sister. I wasn't someone's daughter. I
wasn't I mean, I grew up in a place that

(02:51):
my grandparents went to the same high school that my
parents went to that I went to. So so I
wasn't anyone granddaughter or little sister, etcetera, which allowed me
to then I think, practice showing up as me as
as authentically me without having to fulfill those roles, and

(03:12):
I think I was. You know, some of the people
that I've met on my travels have been people that
have had sustained relationships with over time because I think
they probably had a clearer sense of who I was,
just based on me being made, me feeling the freedom
to show up as you know, a naive traveler in

(03:33):
the world. I love that I have never had that
experience of travel. My travel has been very, very different.
When you say that you get to basically be more
of yourself and you could be whoever you want to be, really,
you know, and for me it's been so interesting because
I'm showing up as me or what people it's probably

(03:54):
it's probably completely so interesting. I love hearing that, though
maybe I just need to put on a wig and
completely different. I think some of it is is maybe
there's a broader question of travel or not. Where is
it that I feel I have the deepest access to

(04:15):
my own internal world and can kind of like pull
that forward, and and that maybe travel for some people
that maybe inside of their families, for other people that
maybe in in kind of more private inner sanctums for others,
And I think that's the kind of largest question is
where did I feel as though I was encouraged to
access a larger internal landscape and kind of bring that forward. Yeah?

(04:41):
Absolutely for me, that is for me, that's nature. Like yeah,
And I know you talk a lot about nature. In fact,
I'm going to just jump to this question because I
one of the things that I um, one of the
things that I've been exploring is more nature and being
in tune with animals and just exploring what that brings
out in me. But I find myself so resistant to it. Um.

(05:05):
And in your book you said the truth meets you
in nature, which is why it's sometimes hardest to go,
which like brings me to tears. I I just wondered
if you had any words of wisdom on the resistance
to her, because I feel like there's some resistance there
for me. Yeah, I think, um, certainly that line, like

(05:27):
the truth meets either there's there's probably a couple of
things I would think about. Number one would be I
think it is hard sometimes for us to go because
nature can't be anything other than it is. A cedar
tree can't one day wake up and be like you
know what, I feel like I need to like put
on a bit of a mask this morning and like
play the role of an alder like it just can't
do that. Um. Really the only you know, raven or

(05:50):
maybe the only exception they can throw their voice, um.
But outside of that, you know, I think I think
one of the most confronting things is we're not used
to that as humans, as as walking up to another
human being and kind of going, this is exactly the
essence of who this person is, and they can't change it,
and they can't mask it, and they can't be something

(06:11):
they're not, and they can't pretend and they can't. So
I think it's really confronting sometimes to go into nature,
to go it is going to show me its rawest,
truest identity and essence, and it's going to ask me
to do the same. And there's very very few places
that were asked to do that. In fact, most often
were asked to do the opposite, Like most often were like,

(06:33):
could you just play this role for me? You know,
I'd really prefer that if you just play this role
for me. So I think that's confronting. I think the
other part of nature and wilderness that is confronting, and
I think especially so for women, is you know, we've
been taught that nature is a wild, scary, dark place,
and and that things there are feral and untamed, and

(06:56):
there's beasts in the woods, etcetera, and so we shouldn't
go there. And I think that's just a direct example
of what we've been told about our own bodies. Oh yeah,
I was thinking our nature, our nature is that's exactly
what it's been, that's right. And so I think actually
what we're more scared of is meeting the kind of internal, feral, messy, wild,

(07:22):
kind of howling parts of ourselves that we've been told
we have to tame. And so when we go into
nature and again we're kind of confronted by that, I
think it's easy for us to mask and say that's
the scary thing, that external thing, when in fact, I
think it's our own interiority that we haven't been encouraged

(07:44):
to explore and trespassed. Like it feels like trespassing, which
is ridiculous, right, because it's our own bodies and our
own selves. And I think that's you know, one of
the reasons that nature has been so so so powerful
for me is kind of to go am I scared
of that noise or am I scared of the feeling
it brings up inside of my body that I am

(08:05):
so deeply uncomfortable? Why and why is it that I'm
so deeply uncomfortable with feelings in my body? Yeah? Yeah,
when I go into nature, even if it's just during
the daytime, like out in our backyard, I find that
that's where I'm not with my phone, I'm not with anything,
and it's I think it is. I think you're right.

(08:25):
It brings up whatever comes up at that moment in time.
Um can be really confronting and uncomfortable because I'm I'm
just being with nature and and my own nature, and
that can be Yeah. Sometimes I just sometimes we all
want to run away from that, but it is, it's
it's a it's a beautiful dance. Thank you for that.

(08:48):
That really jumped out at me, because I know sometimes
it's hard for me to just get myself outside and
just be with ultimately me. Yes, that that's exactly it.
I mean, it's like, are we scared of a nature
out there? Are we scared of our human nature? You know,
that's a big that's always been, you know, a big
question for me, and I think you know, to use
nature as a guide, a guide for that you know.

(09:11):
You also referred to um, you know in your question
like what is it about her? Right as in mother nature?
And and I think there are so many of us
that when we think about mother, that can be a complex, scary, negative,

(09:33):
um kind of fraud relationship. And so if that's been
the relationship with our own mother, why on earth would
we want to have a relationship with the mother who? Yeah,
when you put it that way, UM right, I mean
this this is what you know if you if you
flip this quite often if you think about this in

(09:55):
a religious context. This is why many people, many men,
I think, have have deep issues in religious because because
you know, priests are called father. So if you've had
a negative relationship with father, why why am I How
on earth am I going to get to a place
where I could trust the Big Father? Oh yeah, so
these are questions I asked myself. Yeah. Yeah, So I

(10:15):
think that's a that's a learning and a you know
for me, really the question is whether it's whether it's
remothering or continued mothering. There is a question thereof how
do I if there wasn't trust inside of my own
relationship with my mother or inside of my own relationship
with my own mothering of self. How do I get

(10:36):
to the place with nature where there can be trust
between her and I? Wow, that's you just broke that
down for me. Really, I feel so seen because I
I've been going through that with my own self. Of like,
I did some work the other day where I was
revisiting my my inner child, and and what came out

(10:58):
was that I don't that peace of me, didn't trust me,
and and so yeah, and then tying nature into that,
and then trying my own mother's the relationship with my
mother into that where I don't I don't run to
my mother for solace and comfort and so yeah, And
and I think I've had a lack of trust around

(11:20):
mother nature of like you know when people say, you know,
let the earth hold you like it it could hold
every I'm like and so but I recognize that I
so deeply desire that, And I think sometimes sometimes I
think what's coming up for me around nature is grief
because I recognizing that I so deeply desire to be

(11:44):
held by the mother and and starting to starting to
hold my own child, starting to be able to be
held by nature is a journey. Yeah, you know, there's
something coming up for me just as we're talking about this,
which is um and I don't necessarily want to get
into like like individual pathology, but um, you know, there's

(12:05):
something to be said for visiting nature being in kind
of wild spaces in broad daylight, which which feels to
me intuitively like very confronting as opposed to night. Now,
a lot of people would say, well, like nighttime is
when you're like, are in a tent and you hear
all the noises and you're like, you know, there there's
a there's a more visceral like fear with that, right,
But you know there's a thought when you ask, like

(12:26):
what is advice about getting into nature? Like you know,
for me where I live, I could open a window
at night and it could be pitch black, but and
I could hear frogs, and that might be the first step.
Like there's an intuitive hit here for me. That's like
I wonder if the first step is actually kind of
in darkness, if that might feel more comforting and less

(12:48):
confronting than kind of broad daylight. Like what if there
wasn't as much light so that I couldn't see at all,
Like if it was just a little bit more sense
based as in, what am I hearing, what am I smelling?
What am I feeling myself touch, you know, et cetera.
And and i'd be I'd be curious about that as

(13:08):
a as an entry way and for people that it's
also really reminiscent then of what is the womb like
I was gonna say, Yeah, that feels very would Yeah.
I I get up fairly early in the morning and
I let the dog outside, and that's my favorite time
because there is something very womblike about it. And I
love hearing the owls of owls that come visit, and

(13:30):
it's my favorite. So, yeah, there is something about the
darkness that feels very womblike. I love that, you know.
I want to I want to talk about your latest book,
Everything to Remember, which is so stunning. It chronicles this
epic camping trip that you took with your mom after
her Alzheimer's diagnosis, And I just wanted to know a
bit about your mother and how you would describe your

(13:53):
relationship with her before her diagnosis. Yeah, Um, my mother
is a wonderful woman. Um she My relationship with my
mom was was good. That we weren't like best friend
mother daughter. We didn't have that kind of tightness um,
but we also didn't have kind of a palpable kind

(14:16):
of tension that a lot of mothers and daughters have.
And I didn't feel really kind of pressured by her
to fulfill any of her dreams and hopes, and you know,
maybe that of her life that went on fulfilled, et cetera.
I had from my mother. She was, she was and
still is demonstratively warm. That was her primary mode of

(14:40):
mothering was too. Like I have countless memories of just
her body like a hug, a hand, a touch of
petting on the head, like all through my life. So
there was this kind of physical availability and demonstrative warmth
through my life. And there was a lot of consistency
and a lot of a lot of safety woven into that.

(15:03):
And I think what that gave me right from the
get go was maybe what I'd call like nervous system
privilege in a lot of ways. Yeah, that that being said,
there was I was a little one, and this is
this is really in the book, that that felt a
lot of emotion in rooms and felt a lot of

(15:24):
energy in rooms, and no one, including my mother, especially
my mother, was able to help me create language for that,
and that there's a lot of confusion for me, and
why am I feeling all of these things and nobody's
talking about it, and nobody's helping me name it, and
nobody else is feeling it, you know. So there was
a lot of shutting down of of different physical feelings

(15:48):
for myself, energetic feelings, emotional feelings, etcetera, in order to
kind of fit that mold. And and I think that
created over time, Um, why aren't you blaming a bunch
of things to me with words? Uh? That created over
time a large kind of gap for us. I think
there's two other things. Is that just in general, what

(16:10):
I was seeing in society and certainly inside of my
parents marriage, which was quite a traditional masculine feminine roles
inside of marriage, was a devaluation of the feminine. And
so I simultaneously like devalued her um because I saw
everybody else kind of doing that with the feminine, and
and so it kind of pushed me in the direction

(16:31):
of the masculine, which is a lot of what the
first book is about. Um. And then everything left remember
is like kind of coming back to that feminine. And
so I think there was a large devaluation and really
are not seeing her now. That was kind of no
fault of her own. That's more societal kind of systemic
um view um. And I think the final piece with

(16:55):
that is that there were and this has kind of
talked about in the book, there was her own lived
experience that that created deep, deep shame for her all
around the feminine. And so she didn't have access to that,
Like she didn't give me access to that, but she
also didn't have access to that, so there was an
even further kind of pull for me to move away

(17:20):
from her, like to separate from her like a maiden
does we we we do that archetypeally we we have
to separate from our mother's But there was there was
a real kind of devaluation, and I think I think
she also was taught to devalue and carried a lot
of shame around around the feminine, and so that that
created a kind of chasm for us that that eventually

(17:42):
through the book there was a much deeper exploration of.
But that was you know, there was a demonstrative warmth,
steadiness and safety on a multitude of different levels, and
a deep, generation long rejection of the feminine. Yeah, I mean,
don't you think we're the first generation that's actually even
recognizing that that shut down and the Yeah, I mean

(18:06):
when you talked about you also kind of pushing that
part of your mother away and turning towards the masculine.
I mean, I relate to that so much, and it
it made me very sad. Your book is so beautiful.
It's really brought me to questioning so many things and
so much grief with it myself. But I'm like, oh,
I can see where I've done that with my mother

(18:27):
and how I've I've definitely been more masculine driven in
my life, and it's it's now for the first time,
I think I'm recognizing how much I've denied my own
feminine and how much the world, especially right now, is
denying and has denied the feminine. And it's enraging. Yeah,
I mean absolutely. This was such a huge part of

(18:51):
the journey for me, and this is like was a
real kick off. There was I was therapist I was
working with who said straight up to me, you know,
you think you're bigger than your mother, And I didn't
know what that really meant. Cognitively, I was like, what
is it? Do I think I'm smarter. Do I think
I'm more important? Like what does that even mean? But
but my body clear, I mean it was like my
entire physicality was like uh huh. So I had to

(19:13):
really reckon with that and a lot of this for me.
I think about this with my mother. I think about
this with archetypal mother, and I think about this with
mother nature, this kind of right sizing of she came first,
and there were burdens that that generation had to carry

(19:34):
that I think sometimes our generation doesn't always see. Now,
that doesn't mean that there weren't hurts, that there weren't
things that were mistakes made, that there weren't um there
wasn't pain caused. But you know, I often think about
it when I think about my mom's generation and her
mom as well, what they had to bury just straight

(19:55):
up barry to make it through and and what our
generation now has to unearth to kind of bring that
back to life. Now, when I think about that in
regards to just my individual mother daughter relationship, there's a
lot of anger, right, Like, as you said, like I
just I get enraged at that, and I get enraged

(20:15):
a society now. But when I pull that out in
a time frame, and look at that from a lineage
standpoint long term, I actually think there might be kind
of like a mystic technique of Okay, this generation is
going to bury the treasure, and that is their job,

(20:36):
and they're kind of sacred contract and it is going
to be painful, and their daughters are going to be
very mad at them for that, and their daughters have
a sacred contract of unearthing that, and that's going to
anger some of the previous generation who had to kind
of keep their mouth shut for a long time. What
what do you mean You're the generation that can now

(20:57):
talk about this and what you know? I mean, that's terrifying. Mhm. Alright,
on that intense note, we're going to cut away for
a brief break, but we'll be right back with more.
Step Jacker, Welcome back, my friends. Steph was just breaking
down the multigenerational, multifaceted and multi layered concept of the

(21:20):
mother daughter bond. But when I think about it from
that lineage kind of what am I looking at over
two d and fifty three hundred years, I actually think, gosh,
I have a lot of gratitude for the generations before
for what they buried in a kind of mystical, unconscious

(21:41):
attempt to keep safe. I love that. I love that perspective.
I've never thought of it in that way. And yeah,
I definitely have been able to find the gratitude for
for my mother and for everything you just said of
the burying. Um, but it's sometimes along with the anger,

(22:01):
it's sometimes really hard to rest in that gratitude. Of course,
of course it's like a both. And this is where
all this nuance comes over, right, Like there's lived experience
and then there's like, you know, the mytho poetic version, right,
and it's like, Okay, some days I'm if I've had
too much coffee, I'm probably in the lived experience version.
And if I'm like, you know, have meditated all morning,

(22:22):
I'm the mytho poetic and you know we dance, We
dance in those spaces. Yeah, totally. I want to talk
about your mother's Alzheimer's for you know, people out there
who may have relatives that may be experiencing this, Um,
maybe they might be experiencing some things themselves. What are
what were some of the signs the signpost I guess

(22:42):
along the way. Yeah, yeah, there, Um, there's there's a
lot and they're very different. You know, there's there's there's
Dementia is kind of the larger umbrella. Alzheimer's is one
of the um kind of spokes underneath it, and there's
multiple other forms of cognitive decline. And you know, for
for my mother, there was a lot of early things

(23:04):
missing names, um, you know, for just general forgetfulness about
certain things, etcetera. But the real you know, when you
walk across the street and there's a there's a hand
flashing that says if it's like green, you can walk,
and there's a person walking and then it starts to
flash a hand like she started to get confused about
those types of things, which is, you know, we know

(23:24):
this stuff from when we're preschoolers. So there was there
was a general confusion general forgetfulness, really forgetful with names
and dates and places, that type of thing. The main
tip off for me. I remember I was driving with
her in a car one day and we were having
a conversation and I asked her a question and she
said something that immediately enraged me. Like I was kind

(23:46):
of like I cannot but I was so mad, and
I got into the car. She was dropping me off
at a friend's place and I got into the car
and it was my best friend and I immediately start
launching into this story about how awful my mother is,
right like, I'm just like I can't believe my mother
just said that about And part way through the story,
I stopped and I was like, wait, that's not my mother,

(24:08):
Like that's not something she would normally do or say,
Like that is so far outside of the realm. Like
my mom was a very like if you don't have
anything nice to say, you don't say anything at all.
And she was quite silent. She wouldn't really express kind
of an opinion, especially an opinion that it was harsh
or blunt. You know, that was just her. So when
she said that, I I just remember thinking and I

(24:31):
turned to my friend and I said, something's wrong with
my mom. And in that moment, just all of the
puzzle pieces, the forgetting, the names, the general forgetfulness, all
the things that I mentioned before just kind of click
click click click click click click, and I went, Okay,
what was something's wrong? I think that shifting in personality

(24:51):
is a very interesting sign, and it's this is it's
often confusing because this is we're talking about, you know,
the two thirds of the people diagnosed with Alzheimers or women,
And so we're talking about a lot of women who are,
you know, in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, which is
also you know, menopause. And there are a lot of
shifts in our personalities and in our moods and in

(25:13):
our you know, and so sometimes it's really tough to decipher,
Like am I am I feeling brain foggy and forgetful
and a little bit off and more moody because I'm
going through a massive hormonal change And how am I
talking to my doctor about that or you know, something
going on with my brain? I mean, that's a that's
a tricky kind of thing. So those shifts in personality

(25:35):
in general, forgetfulness, I think are really really important in
that age to pay attention to that. I mean, to
be honest, Like, I'll be forty in August and I
have I have a lot of those symptoms because my
hormones are changing and having to learn to work with that. Yeah,
it's have a lot of brain fog and a lot
of like I'll walk into a room and forget why

(25:55):
I walked into the room. And so when I was
reading about this, and I have had concern until I
started to recognize that these are these can be hormonal
changes and this is what happens. Um I I did
have concern. I was like, what's happening to my mind?
I used to be so clear and so yes, um
I totally. When I was reading this book, I was like,

(26:17):
oh yeah, And sometimes I wonder if that feels like
a precursor to something that could be going or it
could happen in the future. So it's definitely something as
we go through these years to keep an eye on
big time. Yes, absolutely, And you know our hormones play.
There's a lot of research coming out that are that
hormonal uh support and you know through the ages of

(26:40):
forty and fifty can make a can make a big
difference on our long term brain health. So that's an
important um I just really think like I've thought that
a lot this year. I turned forty last year, and
I it's it is top of mind. You know what
can I do now for any inflammation, for cognitive health,
for hormonal health, etcetera. As I look it, really what

(27:00):
is a lineage Because you know my grandmother had dementia
as well, lived lived well into her nineties. But um,
you know this is this is inside of our our
family for sure. Howld your mom? Now, my mom is
going to be seventy this uh this August? Okay, I
love that August birthday. Um, so you did just mention
your your mother's mother had dementia, and so what was

(27:24):
what was your mom's role in taking care of her?
And did she did your mom ever look at her
and think this could be me? Ever? I, you know,
as I said earlier, my my mom was a woman
of few words, and so there was not a time
where I ever heard her say, oh shit, this this

(27:46):
is I'm feeling these similar things. But as I look
back at the timelines, I just think how absolutely excruciating.
So my grandmother had, as I said, old age dementia.
She lived on her own, um, you know, well into
her eighties and was then moved into a care facility
in her nineties. My my mom and her sister's um

(28:06):
played kind of rotating roles of care. They would go
and visit her. You know, there was one sister in
basically daily you know, one helped more with groceries, one
helped with walking her beloved dog, one helped with you know,
balancing the checkbook, you know, various different things. And my
grandmother died uh six months after my mother's diagnosis, So

(28:30):
there was most definitely a year or two year period
of time where my mother was showing signs and knew
she was showing signs. We were having active conversations about
it while her mother was in a steep decline. And
I can't imagine. I mean again, these weren't spoken. But

(28:51):
I look back and I think, no wonder there was
such a huge resistance to go to the doctor to
get any sort of diagnosis because you're just you're just watching.
It just would have been excruciating. And I think also
for her sisters um to kind of you know, to
see them, to see the two of them at the

(29:12):
end of my grandmother's life, you know, in those six
months to a year before my grandmother passed, to see
the two of them together was just it was awful.
They just their conversations were just nothing, they were it was.
It was really excruciated. So I can only imagine that
my mom uh found that to be difficult, and I

(29:32):
know my mom used to get um very frustrated. I
do remember one time we went I went with her
to help balance my my grandmother's checkbook. My mom started
to get very frustrated, very bossy, very domineering, kind of
like just kind of shut up and do this, you know,
And and my grandmother turned to me and and said

(29:53):
she doesn't like taking care of me. And my mom
was kind of like, it's not that mom, it's you know.
But there a lot of moments of high frustration in
that relationship. And I that also wasn't my mom. I mean,
I can only assume that was because she was also
a kind of looking locking eyes with what was going

(30:13):
on in her own body. Yeah. Yeah, And when there's
no words spoken about that, that's got to be a
deep internal experience, very very confusing. You know. It's so
interesting when you started to talk about the change in
your mother's personality. One of the things you talk about

(30:34):
in the book though, was the picture that you took
of your mother by the horse, And there was this
like beautiful change in her personality too, where she was
standing in a different way that she would have never stood,
and I just found it. It started to bring up
a question to me of like does does also do

(30:54):
you think Alzheimer's actually gives or brings out some of
the shadowy or pieces of things that we've repressed and
actually gives it an opportunity to speak in some way.
That's what That's what came to me when I when
I read that, it's just interesting. Yes, absolutely, I think
for better or worse. I mean, there's there's a lot

(31:16):
of stories of people who maybe have spent a life
repressing anger where where Alzheimers there's a period of time
where then there's you know, really large outburst of anger. Um,
I think, you know when I think about Alzheimer's and again,
you know, I I moved from the lived experience of
the excruciating you know, day to day and the grief
and the loss, and then I moved to a lens

(31:38):
of kind of something that is more that I try
to do this more expansive and kind of lineage based
in maybe mytho poetic is to kind of think, this
is a disease that is allowing this person's or changing
this person's time space reality constantly, and so in one
moment she might be a hundred and seven and in
one moment she might be seven or seventeen or you know,

(32:00):
and and if I can actively grieve and move like,
move into the center of grief, move into the kind
of eye of the hurricane, and allow her reality to
her time space, reality to shift instead of trying to
force her to share mine, like to correct her and
say no, mom. It says that's going to cause frustration.

(32:22):
And this is for anybody with any sort of neurodiversity,
by the way, that then if you're allowing that person
to have that reality and you're doing your own grief
work to kind of meet them there, I think what
you're shown in that place is nothing short of of magic.
There's a there's a quote this isn't an interview I
heard with Brandy Carlyle. She said, mysticism is the most

(32:44):
practical thing in the world. The only thing about is
is it found smack in the middle of grief. And
I think, gosh, if we if we can summon the
courage to grieve what we're losing, to say, she is
losing the reality of her being able to recognize me.
I'm going to grieve that, and I'm going to walk
further in and then what I'm going to see in
that place is this woman in this coquettish stance, with

(33:06):
this horse like, with this this grace that I had
never seen her have before, all those times that I
would have said, like I wish I knew my mom
as a sixteen year old. Okay, you know, if you're
willing to move past your own grief and you're own
ego and your own identity, you will get a glimpse
of that. And so there are a lot of I
think gifts. I mean, I've seen more of my mother

(33:29):
in her disappearance, and again it's it's the relinquishing of
the roles, right, Like, she doesn't have to be my mother,
she doesn't have to play the role as my mother.
So who will I get to see. I'll get to
see a friend, I'll get to see a sixteen year old.
I'll get to see a flirtatious woman standing in the
horse pasture. I'll get to see, you know, all of
these different things which inside of the mother daughter role

(33:51):
there's a constriction there. Yeah, I mean when I hear that, like,
I wish that for every woman, not that the Alzheimer's piece,
but the wish that every woman could experience the presence
of themselves and the playfulness of being all of these
complexities and that we are because we are such complex

(34:12):
creatures that do carry around um, such a one dimensional
version of ourselves that we think we have to present.
And that's what I heard. For me. It's like, oh,
there seemed to be a beautiful gift if we can
find the gifts in these horrible situations of she got

(34:33):
to be whoever she wanted to be, because it was
in that moment. It's just very present. Absolutely. I mean,
one of the things I've been fascinated by before all
of this, before my mother was diagnosed, as I was
fascinated by shape shifting, you know, the idea of of
shape shifters within mythology, et cetera. And then all of
a sudden she's diagnosed, and I'm like, I've got a
slow motion shape shifting. It's like I can watch a

(34:55):
hummingbird's wings move slowly, Like I have this gift of
being able to watch this. Now, there's going to be
parts of it that are absolutely excruciating that I do
not want to endure, that I do not want to see.
But there's also other parts of it that I'm like, oh,
you were fascinated by shape shifting, Well here you are
you if you want to if you are able to

(35:15):
say yes to this. You can witness kind of a
slow motion shape shifting and that takes some courage to do.
But there are gifts inside of that. Yeah, that seems
like a life lesson of like where do we place
our focus because that seems like, you know, that seems

(35:36):
like that could be in any kind of situation of
the rough parts of things, and then there's all of
these beautiful gifts that we will miss if we're completely
stuck in the negativity of the situation. And when I
hear you talk about that, that's like, that's a big
life lesson of where you're placing your focus. That's exactly it,
and we usually place it where there's pain or something

(35:59):
pinched exactly. Yeah, and this is exactly what We're gonna
pause for a brief break, but we'll be read back. Hello,
Agan loves Steph was just breaking down the profound and
beautiful lessons that come from painful and uncomfortable situations. I

(36:22):
think we we actually do need to place it there
to kind of get through. But but can you as
you're focusing on the initial pain or pinched area, can
you add in a curiosity what else is here? Why
is this pinched? How can I how, how does this
need to be loved or tended to or nurtured so

(36:42):
that I can move into the center of it, as
opposed to kind of walking around it and saying you
shouldn't be here, I hate you for being here, you know,
and and never kind of touching it. You know that
there has to be that there's gonna be a kind
of a curiosity that's including that which is which is hard.
That's a hard thing. Yeah, it is a hard thing.
I find myself walking around things often until I until

(37:05):
I finally do land in the middle of it. And
when you do, it's like, oh, the finally not resisting
it is what allows things to move, as allows things
to open up. And you know, you mentioned grief because
grief is It's funny. We've been touching upon grief on
every episode of this podcast the season, and of course, yeah,

(37:28):
I mean, you can't be alive, I think right now
without feeling some level of grief. And for those of
us who feel so deeply, I feel like I wake
up every day with it so heavy on my heart
and try to find ways to be able to not
ignore it, like to allow it to move because it's there,

(37:49):
you know, like with your grief around this, like, how
is how is your understanding of grief change through your
mother's diagnosis. Yeah, that's a it's a beautiful question. I
think of grief as a suite of emotions. It's not
a singular emotion. It feels to me like a many

(38:10):
of them at once. There might be pain, There might
be sorrow, there might be sadness, rage. There also might
be relief and gratitude and hopefulness and love inside of it.
I think, um, this might sound stranger, I you know,
maybe even like unattainable, and certainly can feel that way

(38:32):
a little bit to me, But to be quite frank,
I think it's one of the most beautiful things in
the in the human experience because there's yeah, because there's
a there's an ache to grief that is not unlike
a thaw. And you know when you when your fingertips
are frozen and they there's this just a searing pain.

(38:53):
There's like a searing kind of thumping pain in the
in the in your fingertips and it's not it feels
not dissimilar to that for me, that that that there's
this great thaw happening. And when I think of something thawing,
and I think of it moving from a state of
firmness into fluidity. I am hopeful. And so if we

(39:16):
are able to actually step into grief and surrender kind
of to it, then I think we're capable of of
the whole range of all of the other human emotions
involved in the human experience, which means we can live
life in a state of kind of aliveness. And I
think you know, when we when we think about grief,

(39:38):
I think we we often we we mostly pair it
with death, right, and it is paired with death, but
it could be death metaphorical, all different kinds of loss
of a job or loss of a parent, for example.
And I think inside of our society we that that's
that's the master initiation is life, death, life right. So
in our society we try to push grief and death off,

(40:00):
thinking we will just have increased, ever increased, capitalistic kind
of life, moving in a linear direction, more and more
and more life. Now that doesn't happen. What that does
is it suspends the initiation and it moves us into
living death, which is the freeze. Oh well, we'll wait
to say that again. Right, So if we push death

(40:23):
and grief off and say, we don't have time for that.
I don't want to feel that. We think it's going
to lead to more living, but what it does is
it suspends an initiation and causes living death. That's the
freeze state. I'm concretized. I'm frozen. There's metastasization that happens
in that place, and we think it's more life, but

(40:45):
it is not. And so for us to kind of go, okay,
let's look at nature like that's like saying, okay, fall, winter,
you can't exist exactly, not allowed, and so things would die,
things would actually die. And so we've I think we've
got to get more and more comfortable. And I think
one of the I mean, obviously the relationship with grief,

(41:06):
like ongoing with my mom um. But I think one
of the things that's been most helpful for me with
this is Um. I believe his name is pronounced Martin
pratchell Um, and he wrote a book called Rain on
Dust and it is about grief and praise and really
how so many cultures outside of the Western world have

(41:28):
an element of grieving that is that is praise. Is
how we sing hallelujah, you know, how we wail and
chant and there's quite a sound to it, actually, and
you know, you you know this as a singer. There's
times where you're singing, right, there's times that you're singing
about love, but there's this pain that's that's parallel, you know,

(41:53):
in a voice, and and to me, that's grief. It's
not just love. It's the combination of grief and praise,
like thank God, I felt this person had this person
had this thing, and you know, maybe they're gone, but
there's there's something so beautiful there. And I think it's
a quintessential human experience that we we really try and

(42:15):
push away. UM and I and I think it's it's
time for us to start. And as you said, it's
it's wonderful. I love you know that that all of
the conversations this year have been around grief. We're seeing
this in the literary world. We're seeing this in so
many different places that it's really time for us to go.
Like this is you know, Catherine May's book Wintering. You know,
I think this is why it's been so successful, because

(42:35):
it's like, right, when do we rest, When do we
go dormant? When do we say goodbye? When do we
you know, gather and sing and be in ceremony and
really honor uh and be in awe of what we
were able to have in this season of our life
so as to allow it to come to a conclution
and then you know, move into a stage of of

(42:57):
renewed life of rebirth. Yeah. Wow, Yeah, that was a
beautiful app Is there anything that any practice or anything
that you have felt has supported you in your grief
and to be able to get in touch with that
piece of you more absolutely? Um I would say that

(43:20):
ceremony and ritual are a really really important part of
my grieving process, and I want to make this as
accessible as possible. This is not some formal thing where
there's a you must do it this way. I think
when people hear about ceremony, which they're like okay, like
what are the ten rules, and it's like, no, this
is this has been a very um uh free, kind

(43:43):
of made up process for me. So so, as an example,
my mother was moved into a care facility in the
summer of in Canada. I live in the US. I
couldn't go, and in fact nobody could go because of COVID.
She was just kind of dropped off outside and then
one could go in with her, you know, so I
couldn't be there, and I thought, this is a this

(44:04):
is a this is a day full of grief. What
do I do? And so I said, I'm going to
cancel everything. I'm gonna move into ceremony. And I just
I walked around my property. I grabbed a big branch.
I had a couple of raven feathers that a friend
gave me. I poured some tea. I you know, I
basically kind of used nature all around me and had
music playing, had candled like any ceremony and ritual to

(44:27):
me is like all of my senses. You know, how
am I? How am I? How am I embodying this?
That's what I'm trying to do is I could try
and think my way through this, but that's that's not
what my brands made for. That's my BRAINDS made for taxes.
That's about it. I need to I need to feel
my way through this, and so I need to recruit
all of my different senses and have them be present

(44:48):
and let me make something, let me create something, let
me offer something. And it's made up it who knows,
you know. And I love to talk about that because
it's I want to make that kind of process really
accessible for people to be. Like a ceremony could be
you lighting a candle, jumping up and down ten times
and lying on the ground right, could be whatever I think,

(45:11):
which I think is really interesting. I love that you
just brought this up because this has been something that
I've been playing with, is this sense of play in
my life because I didn't have it as a child
very much. I was forced into working and so play
for me, and when I was really young, like ceremony
and being with nature and that was such a huge

(45:32):
part of of my world. I was an only child.
I made up stories all the time like it was
just such a massive part of my world. And I've
been starting to find a return to that in some
way once again, that resistance to nature and and and ceremony. Actually,
I love ceremony. And it's like you just said, I

(45:52):
want someone get to give me the ten steps. I
don't want to have to make things up because it's
I feel like I'm quote unquote doing and it's yeah,
and it's it really is this form. I know that
it's asking me to play. Yeah. I mean most of
us know if we do know of ceremony and ritual.
We know about it in religious contexts, and first of all,
most women weren't allowed to be in those types of ceremonies.

(46:14):
If they were, there was a way to do it,
and you could mess it up and get it wrong.
And so to really remove it from that and say
like no, you can't play, and I love I love
that you've said play because this this kind of ties
back to the nervous system, This really embodied kind of
way of processing grief or processing a moment in our lives.
Play is a kind of nervous system blend of fear

(46:37):
and curiosity. Oh right, Like there's how do you why
fear in play? Because because you're doing something unknown, risky,
there's excitement, you know, there's that pendulum of excitement through fear.
We're kind of right on, Like I've never gone on
a swing that high before. I've never I don't know,

(46:58):
I've never like jumped into pool and done a cannonball.
I've never played in a sandbox before. Am I going
to get it in my underwear? Like you just don't know?
There's a little bit of like it's it involves a vulnerability,
and anytime there's a vulnerability, there's these little elements of
fear and so adding it, making it and moving it
to play is let's get curious about this, right, so

(47:20):
as little kids, you know, you imagine a little kid
maybe nervous to what I mean, you read about this
in the book nervous to walk into school, right, nervous
too nervous to be the one to do the sports
day race, or to sing a song, or to paint
the picture or whatever. There's nervousness. There's a little element
of vulnerability and fear. And often times, you know, our
nervous system doesn't know what you know, that's a that's

(47:42):
a scary day. I could shut down, I could freeze,
I could you know, a whole bunch of different things.
But the minute I add in wonder, awe, curiosity, what's
going to happen here? Et cetera? Is is a really
really beautiful state for for nervous systems to find safety

(48:03):
within some of those bordering on fear moments. Yeah, I
love that that. I'm just about to embark on a tour,
a new tour, and I've had so much anxiety around
it because there's so much unknown. We're still putting everything
together and it doesn't really come together tilast step, but
you know we all on stage. Yeah, And so there

(48:26):
is this I've been really trying to because there's you know,
it's the both end. It's like, I know, I trust
and know myself so well and I know that everything
will work out for its highest good, and I also
have this complete fear and anxiety around it. And you
just described that so perfectly for me. I'm like, that

(48:46):
is my nervous system, not know we want to do
with it exactly? And where's the slip stream between those
two places? Right? Absolutely? Yeah. I would love for you,
you know, to discuss you know, losing losing your mother
while she's still alive, Like, how is that? How has
that affected your relationship with her? And when I look

(49:08):
at my own parents, you know, I went through a
lot with my parents have been through and we don't
have very close relationships. And I've often think of how
much grief I've had around them already, um, and how
I don't look forward to them passing away because it's
like the second round of grief. Yes, And so when

(49:30):
I think of your situation, I relate in a lot
of ways, not that you know, I don't have the
daily death and grief with with them, but I totally
relate to that feeling of the grieving before the grieving.
That makes sense. And before we explore that thought any further,

(49:50):
we're going to take a quick pause, but we'll be
at back Welcome back leaves. Steph and I were just
diving into the multiple layers of grief that come with
our parental relationships as we age. There's current grief, there's

(50:13):
anticipatory grief, um and I think also for a lot
of us with our parents, especially if relationships have been
fraught or tense, is then when we think about them dying,
there's there's there's a there's a grief of the actual loss,
but there's also a grief of I think if parents

(50:35):
are still living and there's been attention in the relationship,
there's always some internal part of us that's hoping it
might change, like one day they might be able to
do this, one day I might be able to have
this relation. And then and then if and when they go,
there's a grief of like, oh, I actually never I
am going to get that. I'm gonna grieve this person

(50:56):
and I'm going to grieve the fact that I was
holding out hope maybe in some way shape and form,
so um for me, you know, the the experience has
been again, how do I, I think maybe this is
all of us, like, how do I allow myself to

(51:19):
move through and mature through life? You know, Maiden, mother, Autumn,
queen Krone? How do I? How do I move through
those things with some sort of like grace? And if
I am going to move through those things and come
into mother and kind of ask the quintessential question of
archetypal mother for me is what will I allow to
be created through me? And that could be human lives,

(51:42):
so that could be creative projects, or that could you know,
lots of different things, But what will I allow to
be created through me? Now? I also have to understand
it as I move into that role, I have to
release her from archetypal mother so she can move into
her next stage of life. I think what we try
and do is demand that they stay there, and especially

(52:06):
if there's been things that are incomplete or we feel
are incomplete. Instead of saying I'm going to move into mother,
I'm going to mother myself. I'm going to mother my
creative projects, I'm going to mother children, et cetera. And
I'm going to allow her to move into Autumn queen
Krone and that may take different shapes and forms. And
so for me with my mother, there's really been a

(52:26):
question of how do I allow her to go on
this journey which is going to be the disappearance, slow
disappearance of her, and and what will my relationship to myself?
Like she's going to kind of drop the mirror of
my own identity that she's reflecting back to me. Some
people had that mirror dropped when they were fourteen years
old and their mother is still around, right, But then

(52:48):
there becomes a question of am I going to pick
it up? Who am I going to ask to hold it?
How do I hold it for myself? How do I
use nature to hold it with me? And so that's
an ongoing question for me of how am I actively
mothering remothering self and how am I actively surrendering and
allowing her, you know, to move into different roles. I

(53:11):
think there's also something really interesting, you know, as we
talk archetypically kind of about made mother Autumn Queen Crone,
I talked to a lot of women in their forties, fifties, sixties,
etcetera that have you know, pretty big mama wound right,
And I always like to reflect back, like I'll ask

(53:31):
them like, so, how it's okay you're talking about the
situation when you were ten. How old was your mom
when she had you? Okay, she was twenties, so she
was thirty five at the time. Like here we care,
you know, maybe like everyone like yeah, yeah, we're kind
of going like, oh, I'm a I'm a forty fifty
sixty seven year old woman, and I I really have

(53:52):
got to learn how to step into remothering because I'm
talking about the wounds that happened and occurred with me
when she was twenty to thirty five, like younger than
I am now. Like I don't I don't know about you,
but I don't feel like a fully formed human yet. No, no,
fort Like I can't believe that I'm going to be

(54:12):
forty soon. And it's like wait, I don't. And then
what's really interesting about age is like I remember being
really young and forty years old, and now like at forty,
I'm like forty is so young and sixties not even old.
Like we're still making mistakes, we're still learning how to apologize,
we're still learning where our egos are at we're still
like all of these things. And so I often reflect

(54:34):
back and I'm like, oh, my gosh, right, like my
mom was only thirty two then, or she was only
thirty four then, like or she was twenty eight, like
when she made that horrible mistake that impacted me. Okay, again,
we've got to have people take responsibility, and we've got
to have boundaries, you know, appropriate boundaries for ourselves inside
of those relationships. But but there is this kind of

(54:54):
perspective of, oh, we've got to we've got to really
let women and move also into these autumn queen and
kind of crone archetypes um and and I mean I
could go I could talk a lot about archetypes. I
won't go into it, but I think that's a that's

(55:14):
been one of the ways, as you ask about, like
what's my own grieving processes I moved through this is
to allow myself to fully fully land inside of the
archetype of mother, so that as I lose her, I
gain my own mothering of self. Yeah. Wow, that what
a journey. That's a that's a definite journey. And I

(55:35):
know I'm I'm definitely stepping into mother more for it
for myself. Um. You know, I don't have children of
my own, I have two stepsons. But I have learned
that the more and more I step into mother myself, like,
the more I am feeling like the wholeness of womanhood. Yes, yes, yes,

(55:57):
which is really beautiful. Um. And it is such a jernie,
such a journey. You talk a lot about in this
book about the splitting off of self, which I mean
I think every woman, I think everybody can can you
can relate to that, but every woman especially you know,

(56:17):
your mother's lack of emotional, lack of words around that, uh,
really played a huge part in that piece for you
as a child, Like how how has finding your own words?
Like how has that changed your life? And how has
that created more wholeness for you? Yeah? The main way

(56:37):
I would answer that is that it's helped me remember.
And I often like to use the word remember spelled
r E dash member as in remember oh wow. Yeah,
Like if we moved through our lives and we split
off from ourselves, we we reject say the feminine, or

(56:58):
we we reject our the personality that's too much or
part of us that might be direct that as little
girls were told that's bossy and rude. Okay, that's got
to be rejected and split off from we we dismember ourselves.
And so I think for me there's always been this
is just part of who I am, a real thirst

(57:20):
for a translation of of those experiences in a translation
through felt sense and words. And that's I think having
those words and having an ability to kind of like
walk into those wordless spaces an attempt to translate something
there has kind of helped me move through that process
of remembering, of bringing those dismembered parts kind of back

(57:44):
to self. And this is this is I mean, I
could talk about um, you know, mythological examples. This is
the story of original creation, the myth of isis and
osiris um. This dismembering and remembering of self, and it's
a divinely, divinely feminine act to go and gather the
dismembered parts and say they belong back together, and to

(58:06):
create this is womb like to create a spaciousness even
though it might be dark or chaotic or confusing m hm.
And to kind of create that spaciousness and a translation
for that remembering of self. Yeah, I mean I love
that you said, even though it may be dark. Yeah,
there's a messiness to it that can Yeah, that we

(58:26):
have to be able. It's like I think about, you know,
looking at grief and then looking at our own mess
and how we have. Both of those seem very similar
to me in that we have to go into the
darkness in order to bring those pieces back into wholeness.
And I think it's not pretty sometimes exactly. I think
this is a feminine gift. I think one of the

(58:47):
most harmful things, I think from a patriarchal standpoint, is
to tell women to be neat and tidy, like you
have to be this way, you have to look this way,
you have to be this way, you have to behave
this way this you have to be clean and neat,
tidy and perfect because there is a very natural this
is the womb, a natural um kind of place of

(59:09):
pure potential that is only sense based. It's dark and
all you can hear is a you know, heartbeat is
a drumbeat. And so where is the dark cavern that
I can descend into? Where am I allowed to descend
and get messy? And you know, all of these things,
but that's you know, there's so much inside of that
that We're often told we should be afraid of that,

(59:30):
we should be afraid of that kind of woman. That
kind of woman is evil, that kind of woman, you know,
all of this type of stuff. So to to a
this is where it kind of circles, does a full
circle into nature. It's like, ah, that's where I'm mirrored
the frality. You know, that the wilderness of my own interior,

(59:51):
of the messiness of the parts of me, that howell,
of the part you know, all of those parts that
society kind of deems is not an acceptable woman. M
uh is really actually our gift that we've been kept
from and and the people who can who can descend
into that place and who can surrender to that glorious

(01:00:11):
mess are often the people that come out with a
new creation, with new life. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I
don't I don't think the new life is possible without that, right,
I would think, what is what is this journey with
your mother? You talk about surrender? What is it taught
you about surrender? Like, what is it? What is it

(01:00:33):
look and feel like to you to be fully surrendered
into something? Mm hmm. It feels very out of control.
It feels I mean, you know, I think about my
mom should should five children in total? That's a lot
of creation, and there's a lot of creation. And I
think about, um, you know, I've been thinking about this

(01:00:54):
a lot. This this I just for this beautiful essay
about about mother or type of mother is really kind
of an annihilation of self that you have to You
have to be both visible and invisible at once as
a mother. And I think about that again. I don't
have children, so I think about that in the creative process.
How am I both visible? So so for you, for example,

(01:01:18):
you are you, and you're standing on a stage and
it's your name, and and there you are. You're visible,
all eyes on you, and and you're embodied and you're there.
And what part of you is invisible enough to allow
something else to come through you? What part of you

(01:01:38):
have you been able to kind of get spacious about
and move. It's like a flute, you know that that
you can turn yourself into that that you're like, I
am here. I can feel my button, this seat, I
can feel a guitar in my hand. I can feel,
you know, I'm typing something out as a writer. And
I can also feel there's like an invisibility of me
that that something else is pouring through m and you

(01:02:00):
could call that a flow state. Sure. Um, to me
that is that is a surrendered act of creation and
it's archetypal mother. Wow. Yeah, I never have thought about
how much surrender I guess it takes to allow for
creativity to flow through, to be that, to be on

(01:02:22):
the receiving end, to be penetrated by, to be a vessel. Yeah,
because it it feels like, yeah, there are so many
pieces of myself that I have to move slightly out
of the way right in order for that to come through.
That's the question. And if you move, if you move
too much of yourself out of the way, then it
could be a kind of disembodied or um, you know,

(01:02:46):
you're not there. You annihilate too much of yourself and
then it's like, you know, that's that's a tough thing.
And so how do we continue to grow the capacity
from a nervous system standpoint, from an audiment somatic standpoint,
to be in our flesh, to occupy our bodies at
the same time as disappear ourselves and perhaps I mean

(01:03:12):
mostly like the mental self enough to have to actually
use the instrument, the human instrument to run enough energy
to create things. I love it. I just have a
couple more quick questions I wondered. I just wonder, what
do you want people to take away from your book
and your story? M hmm. It's it's a tough you know.

(01:03:34):
I don't know if I have any specific like I
want you to get this. I want people to find
something for themselves inside of it, I suppose without it
being dictated by me. I mean, I think that's a
quintessential mother like. I want you to have your experience
and I don't want to put my hopes and dreams
over top of it. I'm gonna I'm gonna hold those

(01:03:55):
for me and that feels complete within the creative process,
and then I'm going to release you to go in
the book, to go and be what you are going
to be. Um. I do know that my mom's energy
is in this book, and so there there is I
think for some people they're going to feel that as
a kind of her demonstrative warmth comes through. I think

(01:04:16):
there's a like, how is it that you break something
apart so much but I still feel held? You know?
That's I think that energy is inside of the book.
I also think, you know, our world right now is
pretty hell bent on on talking about all the things
that are falling apart. Our political systems, are environmental systems
or business systems. You know, there's a lot of things

(01:04:37):
that we're watching crumble. It is terrifying. It's really it's
very scary. All of the things that we thought, this
is the thing that's going to hold me, that's going
to keep me safe. This financial system, this job, that's
all the stuff. And I think as we watch things crumble,
including the natural world, and this is for me with
my mom, I'm watching her fall apart. This is the
person I thought, you know, hold me safe and be there.
I think it's important for us to point that out,

(01:04:58):
those things out, this is happening, was just going on,
and for us to create plans and actions and all
of these different things. But I also think we need
to be held. I think we need to be told
and whispered to and sung songs to that that say
we're gonna be okay, you know, even when we're not.
And I feel that in this book. Um yeah, And

(01:05:21):
that's that's very much for my mother, that's that's that's
very much her. I love that. I love that you
honor her in this book and her energy and then
it comes through. It's so stunning. I have one last
question about music, because of course, yes, I I asked
you every guest what they're holy five songs are? They
can be from It could be from right now in
your life, where it could be from forever, whatever moves you.

(01:05:44):
I would love to know, you know, we And I
was thinking about this because I know you're gonna I
know it's so hard. It's so hard, I you know.
I was like, Okay, I'm gonna make this. And you
know what, I'm a Canadian. I'm a Canadian, true and true,
and so my list is Canadian. My my five songs are.
They're both Canadian. But Katie Lang's version of Hallelujah, especially

(01:06:07):
live Hallelujah, Hallelujah, hallelu that's quite something. Joni Mitchell Both

(01:06:29):
Sides Now is a big one. That song breaks my
heart's glove Illusion Hill breaks my heart in the best way. Uh.

(01:06:51):
Sarah McLaughlin Angel is a big that's and that's like
high school. I don't know from this stopcossness that total

(01:07:15):
high school, right. I could not have a list of
Canadian music if I didn't have the tragically hips, so
Boots are Hearts is a big one for me. I
don't know that. Oh my gosh, I have to go
look it up. But even Babies is by Wolves and
no exactly when they big Shee when it's part man

(01:07:40):
really Ba. There's a lot of amazing hip songs, but
that's a big one Um and a more current one
um Lee Fullback into the Ether. I love that song.
They're the fans something you can dance to it, hold
on to something, your nose, you slip into the h

(01:08:11):
I love that song. Yeah, it's so that's like heaven. Yeah.
Thank you, Thank you for sharing, Thank you for sharing
your heart. Thank you. It was so nice to finally
see your face and me right, I know, And thank
you for just traveling on this journey with me for
this last hour so eloquently. It was stunning. I learned
so much from you, So thank you for being here. Well,

(01:08:32):
you were very good at this and it is my
honor and privilege to be witnessed too and participate in.
Thank you, And that wraps up this episode of Holy Human.
I want to thank Steph Jaggers so much for joining me.
It was such a beautiful conversation, and I highly recommend
her hauntingly beautiful and moving it new memoir, Everything Left

(01:08:55):
to Remember. I found it profoundly moving, and I'm sure
you all will do, especially after this conversation. And please
leave me your thoughts about today's episode or anything else
in the comments where you're listening, because I love connecting
and hearing from you all, so send me a thought.

(01:09:18):
On our next Holy Human, I will be joined by
Brie Malayson, a spiritual facilitator with a surprisingly practical approach
to tapping into the transformative power of your true potential
by tuning into your intuition, into your soul. I think
you'll find her way of viewing our spirituality and purpose
really unique and refreshing and very insightful. So until then,

(01:09:42):
please take care of yourself and each other, and I
love you. Holy Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a
production of I Heart Radio. You'll find Holy Human with
land Rhymes on the I Heart app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you get the podcast that matter most to you.