Wild Sacred Journey Podcast

Back in mid-October I received an email from long-time listener and spiritual development devotee Anne Ruel, sharing some thoughts and questionsep 49 had sparked for her as she considered questions of burnout, purpose anxiety, and integration in her own life and journey.

I thought about responding in a solo episode but had a suspicion a real-time conversation between the two of us would be richer. So in early December, we sat down a...

Back in November, Kate Graham (who you may remember from episode 40) interviewed me as part of her Oracle Mountain Chats - a series of conversations with the speakers and visionaries of the first ever OracleFest.

I really enjoyed our conversation and thought I’d share it with you all here.

You’ll hear us chat about: 

• titles and roles like “oracle” or “shaman” in modern times;
• why I think the practice of animist kinship...

I had plans for a different podcast episode today. But I need more rest and spaciousness in my day.

Perhaps you do, too. 

In fact, I’m quite confident you do.

So this episode is not just about rest and why it’s probably so key at this moment in the year… but also an actual invitation to rest. 

Set a timer. I’ll get you started. 

Let’s rest more.

With love,

Kate

P.S. If you’re interested in Insight 2025, you can find more info or p...

Are we manifesting? Are we practicing unattachment to results? Are we trying to create a new us, a better us? How do we even know what a better us might be or look like? Are we good enough as we are? If so, what’s the point, what drives us into any kind of action?

There’s a lot that feels confusing and overwhelming at this time of year. So here, on a new moon at the beginning of a new year, I talk about the rhythms of planting, ten...

A quick bonus episode with some thoughts around burnout and the holiday season and what we might consider in order to honor a more ancestral rhythm.

First conceived in late November, then recorded a week or so ago, the rhythm of bringing this episode to you demonstrates my own honoring of this rhythm. No rush. Everything in its time.

If you do want to join us in the virtual roundhouse for an experiential exploration and re-imaginin...

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.” - Wendell Berry

Tad Hargrave, one of our guests in today’s episode, likes to reference this quote. And seeing a need to call people back into their humanity, finding ways to help them go about their days with more goodness and beauty, is something at the heart of both...

Back in late August, I sat down to have a flowing, juicy conversation with the wise, down-to-Earth Tamy Roloff (herbal tea seller, coach, midwife, mother and grandmother) around aliveness and aging; and more specifically the question: is it inevitable that we settle in to die with little excitement or joy for the future beyond retirement prospects? 

Along the way, we also explore:

• spirituality;
• plants as friends;
• ancestral ...

What if your fear of being seen as lazy is wasting your fire and contributing to your burnout?

And what if what we’ve been taught to consider as laziness is our body and brain trying to recalibrate back to more sustainable cycles of efforting and rest?

__________

Your desire to contribute and make a difference is a genuine and beautiful thing… and when it gets entangled with (often unconscious and unexamined) societal conditioning ...

Last weekend I made a hat. I took a pile of wool fibers and turned them into something functional and beautiful for my head.

And since then, how wool fulls and felts has been popping to mind as a metaphor for relationship and community building. In the wake of the US elections, I felt drawn to share some of these musings with you and go a little deeper into why I believe these ancestral skills practices, alongside more animist and ...

What distinguishes a pilgrimage from everyday life?

Did our long-ago ancestors suffer from burnout or purpose anxiety? And, if not, why?

These are two main questions I’m exploring at the one month mark of being back in Scotland after my epic ancestral pilgrimage here (and in Ireland) last year.

You’ll hear me muse about:

• what being on pilgrimage means and whether we can practice it even if we can’t leave home;
• connecting wit...

Have you heard the expression: “the veil is thin”?

And do you have an experience of what that means?

This bonus episode is in honor of what the celtic culture would call Samhain (though plenty of cultures around the world have other celebrations at this time of year honoring the ancestors and marking this moment of the thinning veil).

In this episode, you’ll hear me muse on 

what I think a “thin veil” means;

where this particular s...

Have you experienced the grief of wondering whether your life, whether YOU, have any purpose? Only to try thing after thing while seeking your purpose; ultimately ending up more uncertain and confused? And burned out now on top of it?

You’re not alone.

This episode is in response to a listener who wrote to me after listening to my Episode 49 on Wellness World Pitfalls if we’re not including shadow work. She was drawing some connect...

Holding feet to fire here. With compassion, of course...

This episode is in response to many of the pitfalls I see on social media and in real life spiritual/ wellness circles.

Things like:

• how much harm still gets perpetuated in spiritual spaces;
• how much burnout and long-term ineffectiveness is still prevalent;
• finding a space or group which seems to be doing things differently, only to realize it’s the same ol’ better...

Happy Autumn Equinox!

Our modern cultures often view things like progress as being very linear. One of the side effects of this is swinging between extremes like a pendulum - in the case of cycles of burnout, we swing between being full on and being shut down… with very little space in between.

But our long-ago ancestors understood cycles very differently, in part because they observed the seasons - they practiced noticing the subt...

As a shadow moves across the moon today, I offer you my perspective on shadow work - what it is and how it connects to burnout. 

The term shadow work is getting thrown around a lot these days, so if you’re someone who: 

• is curious to hear how I understand it; 
• struggles with feeling hijacked by younger versions of you seemingly out of the blue; 
• can’t quite seem to bridge the gap between knowing better and doing better;
• ...

Have you found yourself thinking, “I can either burn it all down or die,” yet both of those options feel too costly?

While that may feel like an incredibly uncomfortable and desperate, or even hopeless, moment (I know, I’ve been there); I offer it’s actually a pivotal and precious one. It’s aliveness inviting you back.

In this episode I share what I see as being the case in those moments, the nervous system and whole soulful-human ...

“Am I doing enough?”

How often do you find yourself wondering that? As you look at the pain of the world, in moments of challenges in your close relationships, about your own growth journey? And how does that question leave you feeling?

If you’re like me, or a lot of the clients I see, or many of my friends… you probably ask this pretty often. And it probably leaves you feeling more stressed, paralyzed and overwhelmed, burnt out.

B...

When people are skeptical about “animal guides” or “plant teachers,” part of the criticism usually revolves around the question: “how do you know you’re not just making it up to justify things?”

Answer: You don’t. Not really.

But we are meaning-making creatures. And we are observant.

Much of our scientific and academic knowledge pursuits are based around the idea of being an impartial observer. As though we could somehow separate ...

This bonus episode explores the ancestral harvest holidays, like Lammas and Lughnasadh, generally celebrated on August 1st, and marking the beginning of the harvest of storage crops and the subtle shift towards Fall.

I muse on what the practice of these holidays, the themes and perspectives they invite, might have to show us about burnout. And I share some agricultural context for the season and some questions you might want to sit...