The Book Serenity Podcast

What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You: Wisdom Beyond Western Medicine

Book Serenity Podcast

Do you ever feel tired, tense, anxious, or “off”—even when tests say everything is normal?

In this episode of the Book Serenity Podcast, Dr. Guadalupe Vanderhorst Rodriguez explores why symptoms are often messages, not mistakes. Drawing from holistic and traditional wisdom, she explains how the body communicates through fatigue, pain, diges...

Ancestral Stories That Were Never Written Down

Book Serenity Podcast

Have you ever searched your family history and felt the silence where stories should be?

So many ancestors lived full, meaningful lives—yet their stories were never written down. Women, Indigenous families, enslaved people, immigrants, and everyday ancestors were often left out of official records, leaving generations wondering where they truly come from.

In this ...

In a world moving at relentless speed, many people feel disconnected—from their health, from their sense of purpose, and from the stories that shaped who they are. They search for answers in fragments: a symptom here, a record there, a memory half remembered. What is often missing is integration—the understanding that healing, identity, and legacy are not separate pursuits, but deeply intertwined.

Dr. Guadalupe Vanderhorst Rodrigue...

A Woman Who Would Not Be Forgotten: Sarah Ellen Yerby Speaks

So many women lived full, courageous lives—yet history barely remembers their names. What happens when their voices are finally heard?

In this moving episode of the Book Serenity Podcast, Sarah Ellen Yerby speaks across generations, sharing the story of the Yerby family—from their Georgia roots to lives shaped by faith, resilience, and quiet leadership.

Through Sarah’s ow...

Who was Robert Sweat of Colonial Virginia—and was he one man, or two?

In this compelling episode of The Book Serenity Podcast, we explore the life of Robert Sweat (c.1577–1642), tracing his origins in Devon, England, and examining early Virginia records that reference his presence in the colony as early as 1618, as well as a later 1638 indenture record aboard the ship Guiding Star.

Through a first-person ancestral narrative, this e...

 

Much of Indigenous history was never written down—it was renamed, erased, or forgotten. The Kikotan Nation of Virginia, a small Algonquin-speaking tribe who lived where Hampton, Virginia stands today, is one of those stories nearly lost to time.

In this powerful episode, you’ll hear an ancestral narrative told in the voice of the Kikotan Chief, born around 1540, whose life and lineage endured despite violence, renaming, and colo...

Elizabeth Wilson (1655–?): A Bonded Woman’s Journey from England to Colonial Virginia

Born on September 5, 1655, in Bremhill, Wiltshire, Elizabeth Wilson lived a life that history nearly forgot. Bound as a young woman to service in England, her name survives only in fragments—yet her journey shaped generations.

This powerful historical narrative reveals what life was truly like for a bonded woman in 17th-century England—the labor...

Her name appeared only once in the records. Born in 1679 in Whitkirk, Yorkshire, Elizabeth Jeffreys lived at a time when women’s lives were rarely written—and often forgotten.

In this episode, Elizabeth Jeffreys tells her story in her own voice. Through quiet moments of daily life in 17th-century England, she reveals what it meant to live as a woman whose experiences were never meant for history books—yet whose bloodline would one...