August 13, 2024 • 61 mins
What is your Earth Archetype? Take the Quiz!
https://quiz.eartharchetypes.com/
Each episode has a unique journey to get to you. This one required some gestation. For you. For me. For Kawenniiosta. For the season. For tech. For a life force of its own.
When Earthmates was still just an idea, some potential partners guided me to a video of Kawenniiosta Jock speaking at the Waterfall Unity Festival where she emphasized the power of embodiment.
Her power, compassion, humility, and curiosity struck me, and I feel so fortunate this episode is now ready to share.
Drawing from personal life experiences ranging from ancestors to hawks and water to blood, Kawenniiosta encourages us to go on a journey to self - one that asks us to both commit and surrender. One that opens us to intuition and reciprocity.
Listen in for guidance on how to tap into your own connection to the elements and start feeling like a wizard.
Learn more about Kawenniiosta and her return to her ancestral homelands: https://www.waterfallunityalliance.org/
If you like this episode, you’ll like episode 8 with Embodiment Natalie Cutsforth.
Discover how the Earth Archetypes came to be. Check it out right here.
Connect with the Community:
Watch episodes on YouTube
Check out the Website
Take the What is Your Earth Archetype? Quiz
Follow Earth Archetypes on Instagram
Or how about Earth Archetypes on Facebook
Pick Your Favorite Way to Join
Direct with Earth Archetypes
Through Patreon
Via Buy Me a Coffee
iHeart’s Supporters Club
Apple Podcast’s Subscription
https://quiz.eartharchetypes.com/
Each episode has a unique journey to get to you. This one required some gestation. For you. For me. For Kawenniiosta. For the season. For tech. For a life force of its own.
When Earthmates was still just an idea, some potential partners guided me to a video of Kawenniiosta Jock speaking at the Waterfall Unity Festival where she emphasized the power of embodiment.
Her power, compassion, humility, and curiosity struck me, and I feel so fortunate this episode is now ready to share.
Drawing from personal life experiences ranging from ancestors to hawks and water to blood, Kawenniiosta encourages us to go on a journey to self - one that asks us to both commit and surrender. One that opens us to intuition and reciprocity.
Listen in for guidance on how to tap into your own connection to the elements and start feeling like a wizard.
Learn more about Kawenniiosta and her return to her ancestral homelands: https://www.waterfallunityalliance.org/
If you like this episode, you’ll like episode 8 with Embodiment Natalie Cutsforth.
Discover how the Earth Archetypes came to be. Check it out right here.
Connect with the Community:
Watch episodes on YouTube
Check out the Website
Take the What is Your Earth Archetype? Quiz
Follow Earth Archetypes on Instagram
Or how about Earth Archetypes on Facebook
Pick Your Favorite Way to Join
Direct with Earth Archetypes
Through Patreon
Via Buy Me a Coffee
iHeart’s Supporters Club
Apple Podcast’s Subscription
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Learn to work with whatever element it is that calls you
(00:04):
because for me it's water, it's wind and you know I when we're afraid of anything
we're really just afraid of ourselves
like there was times where I was woken up in the middle of the night high wind storms
(00:27):
like densely it just woken up and a voice saying you need to go outside
and the level of fear that I would feel because like no I'm not going outside it's you know like
there was like this this like it's gonna take me it's gonna take me someplace right
but that is also one of my elements and that part of me I was still struggling with
(00:51):
I was still afraid of myself you know and that's another lesson that I've learned
and come to realize is how much I have been running from myself
welcome to the earthmates podcast together we explore how to find your path from climate
anxiety to community action by asking who are you because just like any relationship that matters
(01:21):
so get ready to be raw and real but also playful and silly with me Chief Relationship Officer
Amber Peoples as we discover what's possible through the lens of the five Earth Archetypes
curiosity and subscription buttons highly encouraged
(01:45):
welcome friends today as we record this podcast session the sun rose just a couple of hours ago
uh after the longest night of the year the winter solstice here in the northern hemisphere
and what's interesting about tapping into that energy is during this tipping point there's this
inertia that has to shift as the earth moves on its axis so for example today we get one
(02:12):
extra minute of sunlight tomorrow we'll get five and then the next day we'll get 10 and it's this
really amazing sensation to be a part of that and and be embodied within that energy of changing
inertia during this time of the solstice and so as we sit with that as I plant that seed you could
(02:33):
be listening to this maybe at a totally different time of year so I'm going to count to five silently
in my head and during that time I would like you I encourage you to um tap into what's around you
at the moment and so starting now
(03:04):
thank you now I am delighted to introduce you to our Embodiment Earth Archetype today uh her name is
Kawenniiosta Jock and I are new to each other's worlds but one of my colleagues at Better
Worlds shared videos of her work particularly with the waterfall unity festival and I was really
(03:30):
excited to have this conversation because in those videos I was enthralled by how much she used the
word embodied to describe life so within a short little call that we've had together we agreed to
talk today because embodied conversations are the ones that she feels is so important to be having
right now so welcome Kawenniiosta I'm so delighted to have you here I'd love you to introduce yourself and
(03:57):
to hear more about uh what compels you to talk about embodiment
(Kawenniiosta intro in her language)
Hello my name is Kawenniiosta to to all the listeners to all the viewers
(04:24):
thank you for having me here today Amber
you know my actually my my journey to embodiment um started on the winter solstice three years ago
um growing up in Onkwehónwe which is Kahnawake, people of the Flint Nation territory up in
(04:50):
upstate New York near the Canadian border um we're very much still in tune with our with the
natural world we are still in tune with our festivities of given thanks to an express in our gratitude
to all of creation unfortunately the five remaining minutes of Kawenniiosta's beautiful and personal
(05:13):
story about her people and herself was not salvageable for broadcast so the podcast picks up where I
reflect on her response and ask her to share more you can access the deleted clip by signing up for
the Earth Archetypes membership links are in the show notes and now back to the episode so some of
(05:36):
the some of the jewels that I I heard as I was listening to that description of embodiment
is uh journey to self i also heard true to self uh which is an interesting
combination uh and then one word that i don't think you specifically said but what kept coming to
(05:58):
mind was a sense of surrender um when you were talking about um kind of your um prayer or your
intention up to creator of show me please show me what you want me to see yeah felt like a level of
surrender in that yes and then another word that i heard was commitment
(06:20):
we talked about committing to going back to that water uh every month uh every moon cycle
and i'm curious if there's anything within that that you want to talk more about uh that feels like
it intertwines together or by hearing a reflection of what you just said and bringing those things to
the surface of that helps clarify or give insight on anything that you just shared
(06:47):
well i i really learned to work with my life force and you know this is something that i've been wanting
to kind of speak about um i i i i'm seeing it a little bit more here and there um and you know it's
it's really i've really had to work on being comfortable even just around the topic because it's
(07:13):
become so um you know when we're talking about our menstrual blood you know we're we're uh because of
like i don't know if it's just our people but um because of like residential schools and the
generational trauma that's come down um you know those are things that were like we were told to hide
(07:39):
you know like we were i remember there was a time in our history that we weren't allowed to
go outside and be grateful for things we weren't allowed to do our normal um you know i don't like to
say ceremony i'm really trying to like use other words as i'm learning about english definitions of
(08:02):
words right and words are spelled so you know i'm still trying to get out of it but i'm still programmed
and you know that was another part of this journey was the unprogramming of a lot of things a lot of
deep-rooted beliefs i had to let go of um kind of like great integrate i i had to reintegrate back into
(08:25):
nature you know as much as i thought i was connected this was like so much deeper and um
i used my i used my blood as as an offering and i mean my life has changed since
(08:46):
you know i i never included anybody in none of these things that wasn't like used i always had
intention and i think intention with everything we do is so important it's also hard sometimes for
me to remember to have any tension with certain things that i'm doing or you know but
(09:10):
i am a mom of six and i am beyond beyond busy so you know but just trying to learn that and then
trying to teach my children um but yeah i mean just learning to work with that again and know that it's okay
(09:36):
yeah that that piece of of its okayness it it almost feels like i took a big deep breath
when i heard you say that that gift of i don't know if it's permission
or or what the the feeling is um but this this gift of um reintegrating into nature as you described
(10:04):
it and one of the things that i thought was really interesting is that you talked about words being
spells um and yet also i know that with embodiment one of the key pieces of it is that
words are almost perhaps a kind of a a pale translation in comparison to the experience of it the
(10:27):
embodiment of it and so i wonder what your thoughts are around language when it comes to this i know
one of the things that you talked about at the waterfall unity festival was the difference between
english and the language of your people and that there's a pretty distinct difference between those
two in regards to their ability to communicate this this felt sense of embodiment and i'd wonder if
(10:52):
you're able to talk a little bit more about that well i am an alumni of the oekwzasna freedom school
which is an all immersion um gonyak gahaga mohawk language elementary basically in middle school
and um so i grew up only speaking my language uh that was the that's what i learned uh how to read
(11:14):
and write in my language uh everything i i was taught was in my language and um but when i got out of
middle school and went out to high school and then i moved away um as an young adult i kind of lost
a lot because i didn't have anybody to speak to and so once i started having children it started
(11:34):
coming back to me and um my children are students of the school now um so i
do all the everything that i do do is in my language to the best of my ability
so it does make a difference because our language is not um literal translation of the english
(11:59):
it's more descriptive
yeah i find that interesting because that's that's the word that you used at the at the festival was
english i believe you described it as direct uh and then your language you talked about it being
descriptive and i wonder about when you when you're having these experiences with nature
(12:21):
when you're doing the journey back to self do you feel like that's a key piece of it is that it is
so much more of a descriptive journey compared to a direct journey
well for myself it makes it that much more um i don't know uh real i guess because our everybody's
(12:47):
language is especially uh um what went uh anything that's not english you know it all carries a vibration
and they say that our language is vibrate at the highest frequency which is love frequency right
and so it definitely does make a difference when we're speaking our own language and doing these
(13:07):
types of things you know because that's the vibration that we're we're carrying forward we're putting
forward that's part of the intent
yeah i love that i love the the imagery of of these experiences these embodiments as uh as
(13:31):
that vibrational piece because you know that's that's what our bodies are doing anyway um
they're constantly vibrating to different energies and tones and emotions do you find that you work
with sound when you're doing these embodiment practices well stuffinantly yeah
most definitely yesterday for instance while i was at the water um acknowledging you know the
(13:59):
the winter solstice the sun the moon was all it was probably um two o'clock in the afternoon um you know
it was standing by the water and it was like a really big fall stew and uh i kind of went downstream
and uh i had my eyes closed and i was standing there and even you watching your do you reminded me of
(14:21):
like when you're you're going like this right and i was standing there with my eyes closed really
just trying to listen and tune into the the water um just the wind everything around me
and i was kind of moving my body like that and so then what i started seeing within my body was like
the figure eight you know and i was just kind of like going back and forth and then i was listening to
(14:47):
water to the water coming up to the you know like the um what would you call that the the tide like
you know hit in the rocks going in and out and i've and through all this like i've connected that to
our breath and and how the breath's you know when we're breathing like that and think of the ocean
(15:07):
right how the tide go in and goes out in and out and what i see in through meditation was our breath is
like when we're breathing oh and in it's the same thing it's like connect it to the moon and the water
just going like it's pulling right and that's her breathing that's our mother breathing and so
(15:31):
it's like you know that's what i mean when i talk about um working at a cellular level i work at a
cellular level like those are the things that i'm in tune with those are types of things that i
that i see and then i get that i get out of this work that i'm doing just making those connections
just on a little bit deeper level i guess and more and more like all of the different senses
(15:59):
keep coming up in the conversation the sound the the visuals that you mentioned we talked about
the the physicality of the movement and that's our you know our peripheral sensations
and uh what i what i wonder about then is you know you you talked about this experience of you
(16:21):
you got to grow up in a way that did attune you to it in some ways and then you had kind of a teenage
time frame where you were removed from that and then especially in the last three years you've
returned to it and and i'm so curious about that that moment that you talked about three years ago
(16:44):
especially for somebody that may be listening that hasn't really felt that before
and and they wonder how do i how do i tap into that what do i do where do i start and so i'm wondering
about for you that that moment that happened three years ago that led to this sense of asking the
(17:04):
creator the creator to show you um what it wants you to see and and committing to that is there some
description about that experience that might be able to help people that are are trying to figure
out how how to make a similar commitment oh well i mean i would say that i know we all have our certain
(17:28):
elements that were really connected to and to maybe just explore all elements you know some people
like like to build fires and then they feel something around the fire right and and if you're
around the fire and you're feeling something i would really suggest that you you ask you you kind of
(17:54):
like tune into that if you're you know if you feel something when you're around water like a lot of
people will say it's so calming when i i have to be in water like it just calms me like i don't know
what it is but there's just something about water if that is your thing then work with that learn
to work with whatever element it is that calls you um because for me it's water it's wind
(18:24):
and you know i i when we're afraid of anything we're really just afraid of ourselves
like there was times where i was woken up in the middle of the night high wind storms
like deadly it just woken up and a voice saying you need to go outside
(18:44):
and the level of fear that i would feel because like no i'm not going outside it's you know like
there was like this this like it's gonna take me it's gonna take me someplace right
but that is also one of my elements and that part of me i was still struggling with
(19:05):
i was still afraid of myself you know and that's another lesson that i've learned
and come to realize is how much i have been running from myself um
like i i've spent there wasn't really um too much of a gap between like being like that that little gap
(19:29):
that we're talking about um from when i was a young adult to now that was like my early 20s
and then you know um still like out in nature still doing gardening and still like picking
medicines in the woods still forage and um still growing food um like all of those things still doing
(19:52):
that but three years ago when i started this journey it was just so intense and it was just on
another level that i had never experienced before and so i just wanted to make that clear
and am i gonna choose self this time and follow my intuition or am i gonna run and block it
(20:13):
you know and at that point in my life where i was at what else do i have to lose you know i was really um
i had left my relationship um and i didn't want to hurt anybody anymore i didn't want to be hurt
i i just didn't want to keep repeating cycles and i just really wanted to learn about myself
(20:41):
and that's what really sparked is for the first time when i walked away from my relationship i
felt like that was the first time that i chose myself because i was so used to well and everybody
out just needs before mine as a mom you know um i'm heavily engaged in my community um community where
(21:06):
so it was like the first time that i actually just chose myself and every time you choose self it's like
you just shoot off you know into like the next level and so especially when you really
embody it and really mean it you know you just you level up
(21:28):
that is easier that sounds but it's worth it you know yeah i think it's almost maybe an example of a place
where english is a really tough language to use to describe this because kind of the dichotomy i
heard you say was choosing self compared to running from self and running like i can see like i can
(21:53):
see this visual almost of this actual action and i think choose is such a harder word to figure out
like what's what's the action there uh and so i'm wondering for you like you use that really great
example with the windstorm and for you the choice was to i don't think it was not be afraid i think
(22:14):
you were still afraid but you still went anyway no i didn't i didn't no i didn't okay
i didn't and um and that's that's where our blockages comes back comes in that's where we get held
back right and those are all the things that we have to unlock within ourselves um what were you
(22:39):
just saying before that well it was this idea of like trying to imagine what the action is in choosing
to face yourself to go through all the emotion to go through like everything matter if it's
going or bad to just face yourself to experience yeah like all of you
(23:04):
like in that moment with the windstorm to go experience that windstorm yeah because i i can like
the way my life's been going now i'm pretty sure that wind had something for me you know it was a
lesson or something that i needed to be shown or taught or something um but i it happened a few times
(23:27):
and it was in the middle winter so you know in winter when those really strong wind storms come
yeah you know i was born in the middle of a of a blizzard in minnesota so i came in with that energy into
this and just planet yeah so no i didn't and you know i i think about that and i've been working with it
(23:53):
though learning to work with that part of me and and also recognizing how you know it kind of like
kind of slows you down a little bit yeah and and i think it goes back to that word that you said before
that commitment to making that choice because it does take energy like it was probably
(24:15):
cozier and less energy to stay warm and and cuddled up inside compared to going out into that cold wind
storm so there is the energy that's requested in that process and and making the commitment to use
the energy that we have as as energy beings to to walk into those experiences well the way that i
(24:42):
had started um this whole thing three years ago was um because of you know around choosing myself right
the clarity i started to gain and the the clear instructions that i was being given
and even learning to accept that and to say like okay i'm not crazy somebody is speaking to me
(25:08):
and in in learning to that's your intuition you know and then learning to accept that part of you
learning to follow it learning to trust um
and that's really how i started because i was getting clear instructions on what i needed to do
(25:30):
and for six months prior i ignored those instructions i did um it was just so like like yeah right this
is not happening to me you know all that kind of thing and then it got to the point where
every month the same thing i was being told around my moontime and i'm just like okay i mean like
(25:56):
what else you know all right i'm let's do it then you know and then really but then when i get when
i got out there i realized what was happening you know and so i that's when i decided to make that
commitment and here i am three years later um i'm back on my ancestral homelands which is four and a
(26:23):
half hours away from the reservation this is where our people were prior to the wars prior to the
United States government come in and enforcing our people to relocate i am back on an ancestral
turtle clan village literally on the land of my people
(26:46):
and i am doing that the same work here and so it's just it's really a deep work that has been happening
and the gifts that i've been given and shown um in all aspects have been i mean i really don't even
(27:08):
have the words like it's just it's incredible
it hasn't been easy but you know there's a reason for it
yeah and for since we haven't talked a whole lot about what you do uh what can you share with
(27:31):
with uh with our listeners about um that this transition to my understanding is you're farming
this land but it sounds like there's a bunch of other stuff going on too like is that where the school is
as well or is that back at the reservation let's let's kind of catch people up a little bit on
on what it is that you're doing on a daily basis because i think that's another question people have is
(27:53):
if they start listening to these messages in whatever way they get them maybe you know some people
maybe hear a voice some people maybe see an image some people maybe have a sensation i think there's
lots of different communication routes um and i think some people may wonder well how do i do that
and live a daily life at the same time and and i'm wondering if you can kind of speak to that about what
(28:18):
your daily life looks like well um so the alkwazasna freedom school that i was talking about is
back home in alkwazasna which is four hours away um you know my thing is i want to build a healing center
and based on the journey back to self and these are the things that i do want to teach um this farm
(28:46):
came up for sale and i am also the the cold executive director of the waterfall unity alliance
which is a nonprofit organization um that you can find us at waterfallunitylines.org
and you can hear or let's or read about you know the things that we're doing here um
(29:07):
but the fact that this was on a turtle clan village uh we knew that we had to we had to buy this land
it the farm came up for sale it was an established um you pick berry farm
been in operation for you know 60 plus years um
(29:32):
this is our homeland and so somebody had to come somebody had to come here somebody had to establish
and i was just at that place in my life where you reach a you were you reach a place with self where
you have worked so hard to get out of the toxic environment that's your end that it's hard sometimes
(30:00):
to stay out of that when everything around you is still very much still living in that you know and like
constantly being pulled back and it was just like really hard for me to be there at this time like
i became super sensitive um and so i i packed up my children and we came and we moved to the farm
(30:26):
and we've been stording the land here all summer we we've only been here since springtime um
and we've just been spending our time just being on the land and singing our songs because i think
about my ancestors that were here and i think about man they must miss these songs they must
(30:53):
miss these dances they must miss these things you know and so let me just sing so that they know that
were here so that they know that we're still carrying on what they left for us and um you know
there'd be times where um i'm mowing or i'm like you know um weeding but the bushes that berries are
(31:18):
in the greenhouse and it's like you need to go meditate like something would come to me and i just drop
everything and just go and sit and be and listen and that's what i've spent my summers this summer doing
and making my offerings and you know my whole nervous system has like regulated and i've become
(31:41):
even more sensitive now um i guess getting on a survival mode um but i also believe that because this is
my ancestral lands that um you know most of all who have people across our mother's back have been
removed from their innate environments they have been displaced and so when you displace a
(32:11):
people from their natural habitats the disruptions that happen within their bodies is what we've
been experiencing for the past 400 years so to be back here on my ancestral home lands
it's just been a whole new type of embodiment and re-remembering who i am as a kanyaka haga woman
(32:39):
and taking note and trying to change the energy of the land um you know getting into a regenerative agriculture
remediating the soil um you know having two great houses for my children a grow food
um and nobody's on a time schedule right now and it's great like just learning to be
(33:04):
on our own time not the night to five not you know you know they're it got to the point where i was like
you just need to get the bed because um you know we and then i'm like wait
what do you expect to wake up early for the you know like
you know it's not like we have to go anywhere you know like i it was a lot of deep programming
(33:29):
and learning to just be and it still feels wrong sometimes i still struggle like like i'm not
i'm not i don't know like my kids are so free and i and it just sometimes it doesn't feel right even
though it's totally right you know yeah i find that that word that you said at the end is kind of an
(33:53):
interesting uh kind of conclusion to what you just talked about that that term free with you know the way
that the the u.s. government is uh designed we use that word a lot um but i i think you know the way
that you described we don't actually live that way um all that much um and so i'm wondering when
(34:15):
you when you talk about free it sounds like it sounds like there's there's this rhythm that you're
talking about you know you compared it to the nine to five which is it's a pretty prescribed
um rhythm to it and your speaking of is would you say it's a more natural rhythm would you say
it's uh it's uh you know you talk a lot about self-rhythm too when you talk about journey to self
(34:42):
it feels like there's a self-rhythm um uh and also uh i i i've been looking a lot at the
the seasons of the Celtic year uh and they they talk a lot about how there's kind of these certain
energies with the different seasons like uh uh my understanding is this time from uh
(35:04):
solstice to what's called symbolic within that tradition it's this energy of receptivity uh and so i've
been tapping into what is it what is it like to just receive right now and when how does that feel
and what lessons might there be there so i'm wondering about when you when you talk about freedom
(35:24):
especially since we are still part of you know certain things that we don't have within our control
i think maybe that's it maybe within the way that our culture um overall on turtle island has
developed is is we think of freedom as the ability to control something um and i'm hearing you
(35:46):
advocate for something different uh and i'm wondering if you have more words to describe that
well as far as the advocating you know it's um we like we would be outside working right and
it would get to the point where it's known it's really hot uh the kids are hot and to have the
(36:13):
freedom to just say okay let's go swimming and then walk to the pond walk to the creek jump in swim
you know and then come back to the farm in the evening when it's cooled down and and finish up work
you know that that was a really that was a real sense of freedom just to be on our own time um
(36:40):
no pressure pressure but no pressure yeah because there's still whatever you were doing outside with
the gardening whatever phase that was whether it was planting or weeding or harvesting that's still
um a piece to be done that's what we as you know humans have the opportunity to be a part of and
contribute uh and so there's still an element um perhaps with and maybe this is a good transition into
(37:07):
one of the things that i really like to look at is this idea of reciprocal relationship yes
now so i think there's within this freedom that you're talking about there's still i don't know
duty is the right word but and maybe it's going back to this reciprocity and and perhaps there's some
insight you can share around this embodied way of of reciprocity well the whole journey back to self
(37:32):
and reconnecting is reciprocity you know and going back to what i said is the love that we pour into
our soil and our mother is the same love that we get back and we get that back in other ways
we can get that back in all kinds of ways we have to be open to receiving
(37:52):
and to know that we are worth it right um
but i guess to go into that like i remember um late summer i had to write um i had to write a few letters of
(38:14):
thank you thank you letters to some some organizations and i really wanted this letter to be impactful
and so i put a lot of thought into it then i meditated on it um you know i made some offerings
just just to have the right words right and and i wrote this long impactful gratitude letter and i
(38:42):
sent it out and within 10 minutes i'm driving down the road and there is red top hot clay in there
and to me that is a gift especially knowing that i work with them they are one of my guides
(39:03):
but to receive that bird you know and i was so grateful and there was just so much gratitude
and so much beauty in that moment so i think it goes back to that idea of um
when you said that it's okay to listen to you once again you've you've never used the word permission
(39:26):
but that i for some reason i keep trying to insert that even though i don't think it's the right word
um but this this idea of um a variety of gifts are okay and learning to value those maybe that's
the word yeah because they come in alt forms it could be a rock it could be a feather it could be a
(39:48):
bird or an animal or it could be um food it could be like you come across a new plant or something that
you can forage or you know it's it's stuff that you can't put money on because money is fake money is
an illusion you know and and it's just it's real stuff you know it's real things it's it's real value
(40:14):
you know like you can have all the money in the world but that doesn't make you rich
you know rich is being able to um receive those gifts to be open to receiving to be in that moment
to recognize when you're you know being given something
(40:39):
yeah it seems to harken to another term that we use for money which is currency and it seems to be
tapping into more of the the essence of that word of reciprocity creates perhaps this current
and it's and it's acknowledging and valuing the many different pieces that are a part of that current
(40:59):
do you feel like you're in that right now especially i know you talked about water being
an element that you really tap into do you feel as you step more and more into this body sense of
being that it is the sense of current that you're a part of does it have that feeling or that energy to
it yeah i you know i've really been feeling like a wizard lately
(41:20):
just like you know just last week i was coming around the mountain at you know 12 30 at night
driving back home and i thought man it would be really nice to see a meteor you know and i come
around the corner come around the mountain and there's this green you know meteor just sailing
(41:43):
across the sky and i'm like whoa that was really quick but thank you you know wow
so i i wonder about um this sense of one of things that i kind of i i feel like is
i i use the term superpowers and shadows with these different types because it kind of helps us see
(42:06):
find our place within this dichotomy and and it's we're talking a lot about these amazing superpowers
um like the and i i think the one that we've talked a lot about is navigating mystery
do you feel like that's that's a word that describes kind of this this flow that you're in as well
is there a miss quality to it yeah i would say so because you know it's like usually we do fear the
(42:32):
unknown right yeah fear of the unknown is a real thing
yeah that was highlighted in your story about about fear you know that being afraid of anything
is being afraid of self um yeah when it really comes down to it like well i but i
(42:56):
believe we are all reflections of one another in some way shape or form
and within this mystery i think another superpower of this embodied feeling is that these
experiences can can create pretty big change within people when you've talked about how
(43:18):
i'm forgetting the language that you used but there was there was kind of this gesture that i
remember of kind of this up and down feeling of um as as you've tapped into this energy
how it's changing you but also changing those around you there seems to be that impact as well
oh yeah like the ripple effect of it all yeah because as you're you know changing your vibration
(43:45):
and that's like rippling out to everybody who's around you and so it they it's almost like
they have no choice but be but to be hit by that force as well you know yeah it's up to them whether
they're gonna accept that that mission you know their own mission their own journey back to self
(44:06):
yeah they get to you know we talk a lot about either role models or representation or even the
science of it would be what's called the mirroring effect on how when we when we see somebody else
experience something we we can our brains are somehow programming almost the experience within
(44:28):
ourselves and you know you talked definitely about that that affect with with your kids but it sounds
like there's also it almost feels like there's when you talked about returning to the land of your
ancestors it almost seems like there's this quality that is a back and forth even through space and time
(44:52):
when you talk about your ancestors as well yeah you know we had we had this field where
I know last year that there were sunflowers there but this year they they killed it up and they
planted buckwheat and it was just like it was probably let's see maybe nine acres maybe nine acres
(45:18):
of buckwheat but what had happened was thousands of sunflowers grew in this little field
and they were I mean from the from the start of the field they were just really you know kind of
I don't know kind of small and then as you went to the back of the field they just start getting
(45:41):
taller and taller and I spent a lot of time out there talking to them because I didn't have
my community like that's another part of the project is is um
um having a sustainable community built here for for all my people to come back home
(46:04):
to their ancestral lands um and to begin this journey so anyways was sitting with all these sunflowers
you know I didn't really have my people to talk to in the physical right so I would go out there
and you know the the smaller ones reminded me of the children and then they got a little bit
(46:25):
taller which reminded me of like the younger people and then the mothers and the grandmothers
and then the men as they got taller you know and I really um believed that they were people
and that's how I treated them and that's how I spoke to them and I will talk about the visions
that I was having and the visions that I see for for this valley and for the project that I'm working
(46:50):
on and um I grew really attached to them um I've never been so attached to plant life like this before
and so I you know I acknowledged them almost every day um was out there every day I'm almost
(47:13):
talking to them singing you know just being and um when fall came it was time to cut them down
and I start crying like it would it just made me so sad and I'm like why am I so
sad about this you know like and people would say well they're just sunflowers they're gonna come back
(47:37):
it's not a big deal it'll be all right and I'm like yeah I know but like it's hitting me different
and at first I didn't really fully understand um like I felt it at the core of my being like like a big
like just as ball of grief and um I realized that me connecting to those sunflowers and then
(48:03):
becoming my council that was all my ancestors that were there all my ancestors that lived on
that land before I got there that's who those sunflowers represented and so because of the wars
and the things that happened here they didn't have a chance to live out their natural
(48:24):
cycles they were killed and slaughtered and murdered and so to cut them down it was almost like doing
it all over again to them and so I I didn't allow it to happen I we waited until they dried
and then um I was gone back home and they ended up getting cut down but
(48:49):
I I uh there was only like a few stock standing in the whole nine acres so I collected the seeds
and I plan on planting those seeds every year someplace I haven't picked my spot yet but
I plan on just plan those seeds and just going you know like because those will always represent
(49:10):
our ancestors that were here so even making those connections um connecting time from now
to back then you know hundreds of years to now and almost healing that generational trauma
and um you know that's what I've been doing um and again just following my intuition like
(49:36):
so as as uh people begin this process or deepen into this process of embodiment
um there can be some pitfalls there can be some challenges along the way and that's kind of that
shadow side um and certain ones that I've kind of feel like I've identified that I would love to
(50:03):
hear your reflection on either as perhaps you've experienced them or you see them and others or
you're like actually Amber I don't think that's quite it uh whatever whatever your response you
would have but I'm curious what you think about if you're not rooted in this embodied experience it
can feel like a detached place and you act and people may actually not even care about connecting with
(50:26):
people anymore because there's this feeling or the sensation that's almost a drug or a high
and so they they they separate um or perhaps there is some side stepping of a sense of responsibility
that comes with that like you talked about that reciprocity and and perhaps there's the danger of
of not being part of the of the currency but still just taking from that feeling um and I'm wondering
(50:52):
if that's something that you've witnessed or experienced or you're like um let me let me give you
a different view of that um I think that is definitely something that I've experienced
I think more so within my parents because you know there was a lot of um top behaviors um deep
(51:19):
rooted beliefs that were taught to me unconsciously through them and a lot of healing that I had to do
because of it and so because I've worked through so much of that being present with them just was like
to to really look at my parents and the different things that they would be going through or
(51:41):
you know different behaviors um I I guess I yeah in a way I did understand them more like okay I know
I know what this is because I just had to work through that you know or I know what that is because
I just spent the last six months just trying to like get out of that and now I understand it um
(52:04):
and then yeah also like I guess being back in community back home or with anybody in general um
recognizing that we can only meet others as far as they met themselves
and to not take things personal and to just know that they just haven't found that place within
(52:30):
themselves yet and that's for them not for me
yeah and as as you mentioned you said that there were some of those that you felt like you
had to journey through you had to take you know months to to identify and and retrain yourself
(52:57):
perhaps in a way that felt more rooted or more healthy and so I'm wondering if you have anything that
you can share to to use as as a source of wisdom for people perhaps going through that same journey
of trying to um make sure that these places of embodiment that they're inhabiting are are within
(53:18):
more of that superpower realm I'm not sure um I'm sure I do
Fair enough you're like I did it but in this moment yeah and and maybe it's just going back to
(53:41):
things that you shared at the beginning because many perhaps in many ways your story is your
journey because it is the experience that you now have to share with people as a potential route and so
you know you you shared with me at the very beginning that this idea of journey back to self is
really the crux of what you're you're sharing so perhaps uh maybe another way to ask the question is
(54:06):
is as you went through these journeys of letting go of some of these shadow aspects like the inability
to connect or the side stepping of responsibility is there's something about this journey back to
self that particularly helped you with those challenging aspects I guess being able to show up
(54:27):
differently um being able to show up for others differently but that's I guess you know and this
might be jumping back a few moments ago but another thing that just come to mind is I realize how much I
(54:50):
am able to detach from others and then even questioning like is that like okay like is that kind of
rude or that kind of mean like my ability to detach from others um it's even like family I guess that's
(55:10):
when I really um think about it is when I catch myself um being detached or detaching from family um
friends and like is this healthy like is this okay you know and I'm still trying to figure that out myself
(55:31):
I've grown up with um and uh no emotionally neglect for home and so I kind of go back and forth like is
it because of this or is it just because of this knowing now that I have of self like you know and
just still trying to navigate and figure that out and balance um yeah so it sounds like part of it is
(56:00):
the willingness to stay in the question because you have you have this question and you
you found at this stage you found one particular way to articulate it and um and just saying I
don't have the answer yet but I do feel like if I continue to commit to showing up in these ways
(56:24):
there's the possibility of more clarity or an answer of some kind yeah for sure yeah
beautiful
well we are reaching the point of the hour mark and this has been such a beautiful
current of a conversation as we've moved through a lot of different topics and ideas and sensations
(56:52):
so I want to express a huge amount of gratitude for your time especially today I know it's a special
day with your family it's your son's birthday and so the fact that you were willing to share that
with us uh just makes me feel so incredibly uh special and gifted so thank you so very much
and there's one final question that I ask everybody who comes on this podcast and it's a bit of a
(57:17):
twisty question it's a bit of a surprise question so let's see what you got uh and the question is
what's something that you wish I would have asked that I didn't
and does everybody give you an answer? They do
and what's what's fun is that it often everybody's answer often surprises them
(57:42):
um
um
I feel like we covered so much
we did we really did yeah
okay and we're not gonna follow through it the question though right or the answer
uh like are you saying are you gonna have to answer the question that you're thinking about?
(58:09):
is that what you're wondering? Yeah it's up to you I will leave that decision up to you
I think going into the topic of menstruation
uh yeah and so what would be uh let's let's pretend that it is you the listener
what is the question that they could ask themselves whether they're male body or female body
(58:33):
about menstruation that they could ask themselves and we can we can leave it there without you
having to answer it but perhaps leaving it as a question for the listener to ask themselves and
reflect on how comfortable are you with your own blood and with others especially like if you're a
male like with your wives or your partners or your girlfriends um around her time um and women like
(58:59):
how comfortable are you with yourself and your relationship to your own time
hmm
oh yeah that's a big question it's a deep
important question and and I think the the key of it is that word comfort
(59:22):
mm-hmm how comfortable are you and then what is yeah and what is that entail
I mean because that was a big thing for me is the comfortability level of my own menstruation
being taught that you know you don't talk about that you get that hidden like you know that's yeah
(59:43):
thank you so much for joining us today Kawenniiosta it was such a pleasure i'm so delighted to be
connected with you in this current uh that is being here on turtle island and i'm look forward
to our next connection and conversation thank you so much yes thank you for having me it's been
(01:00:03):
it's been a great conversation and i love these conversations they totally feed my spirit so thank
you so much for your time um gratitude always gratitude will take us far
and with that until next time. Hey Earthmate how did that episode resonate
(01:00:25):
did it stretch you inspire you or perhaps irk you. i'm here for it so please reach out
besides the socials we have a community to practice with on our website eartharchetypes.com
where more Earth Archetypes can guide your path and become dear friends a great place to start is
(01:00:47):
the quiz to discover your type oh and on your way i'd love for you to hit the subscribe button
see you again soon
Learn to work with whatever element it is that calls you
(00:04):
because for me it's water, it's wind and you know I when we're afraid of anything
we're really just afraid of ourselves
like there was times where I was woken up in the middle of the night high wind storms
(00:27):
like densely it just woken up and a voice saying you need to go outside
and the level of fear that I would feel because like no I'm not going outside it's you know like
there was like this this like it's gonna take me it's gonna take me someplace right
but that is also one of my elements and that part of me I was still struggling with
(00:51):
I was still afraid of myself you know and that's another lesson that I've learned
and come to realize is how much I have been running from myself
welcome to the earthmates podcast together we explore how to find your path from climate
anxiety to community action by asking who are you because just like any relationship that matters
(01:21):
so get ready to be raw and real but also playful and silly with me Chief Relationship Officer
Amber Peoples as we discover what's possible through the lens of the five Earth Archetypes
curiosity and subscription buttons highly encouraged
(01:45):
welcome friends today as we record this podcast session the sun rose just a couple of hours ago
uh after the longest night of the year the winter solstice here in the northern hemisphere
and what's interesting about tapping into that energy is during this tipping point there's this
inertia that has to shift as the earth moves on its axis so for example today we get one
(02:12):
extra minute of sunlight tomorrow we'll get five and then the next day we'll get 10 and it's this
really amazing sensation to be a part of that and and be embodied within that energy of changing
inertia during this time of the solstice and so as we sit with that as I plant that seed you could
(02:33):
be listening to this maybe at a totally different time of year so I'm going to count to five silently
in my head and during that time I would like you I encourage you to um tap into what's around you
at the moment and so starting now
(03:04):
thank you now I am delighted to introduce you to our Embodiment Earth Archetype today uh her name is
Kawenniiosta Jock and I are new to each other's worlds but one of my colleagues at Better
Worlds shared videos of her work particularly with the waterfall unity festival and I was really
(03:30):
excited to have this conversation because in those videos I was enthralled by how much she used the
word embodied to describe life so within a short little call that we've had together we agreed to
talk today because embodied conversations are the ones that she feels is so important to be having
right now so welcome Kawenniiosta I'm so delighted to have you here I'd love you to introduce yourself and
(03:57):
to hear more about uh what compels you to talk about embodiment
(Kawenniiosta intro in her language)
Hello my name is Kawenniiosta to to all the listeners to all the viewers
(04:24):
thank you for having me here today Amber
you know my actually my my journey to embodiment um started on the winter solstice three years ago
um growing up in Onkwehónwe which is Kahnawake, people of the Flint Nation territory up in
(04:50):
upstate New York near the Canadian border um we're very much still in tune with our with the
natural world we are still in tune with our festivities of given thanks to an express in our gratitude
to all of creation unfortunately the five remaining minutes of Kawenniiosta's beautiful and personal
(05:13):
story about her people and herself was not salvageable for broadcast so the podcast picks up where I
reflect on her response and ask her to share more you can access the deleted clip by signing up for
the Earth Archetypes membership links are in the show notes and now back to the episode so some of
(05:36):
the some of the jewels that I I heard as I was listening to that description of embodiment
is uh journey to self i also heard true to self uh which is an interesting
combination uh and then one word that i don't think you specifically said but what kept coming to
(05:58):
mind was a sense of surrender um when you were talking about um kind of your um prayer or your
intention up to creator of show me please show me what you want me to see yeah felt like a level of
surrender in that yes and then another word that i heard was commitment
(06:20):
we talked about committing to going back to that water uh every month uh every moon cycle
and i'm curious if there's anything within that that you want to talk more about uh that feels like
it intertwines together or by hearing a reflection of what you just said and bringing those things to
the surface of that helps clarify or give insight on anything that you just shared
(06:47):
well i i really learned to work with my life force and you know this is something that i've been wanting
to kind of speak about um i i i i'm seeing it a little bit more here and there um and you know it's
it's really i've really had to work on being comfortable even just around the topic because it's
(07:13):
become so um you know when we're talking about our menstrual blood you know we're we're uh because of
like i don't know if it's just our people but um because of like residential schools and the
generational trauma that's come down um you know those are things that were like we were told to hide
(07:39):
you know like we were i remember there was a time in our history that we weren't allowed to
go outside and be grateful for things we weren't allowed to do our normal um you know i don't like to
say ceremony i'm really trying to like use other words as i'm learning about english definitions of
(08:02):
words right and words are spelled so you know i'm still trying to get out of it but i'm still programmed
and you know that was another part of this journey was the unprogramming of a lot of things a lot of
deep-rooted beliefs i had to let go of um kind of like great integrate i i had to reintegrate back into
(08:25):
nature you know as much as i thought i was connected this was like so much deeper and um
i used my i used my blood as as an offering and i mean my life has changed since
(08:46):
you know i i never included anybody in none of these things that wasn't like used i always had
intention and i think intention with everything we do is so important it's also hard sometimes for
me to remember to have any tension with certain things that i'm doing or you know but
(09:10):
i am a mom of six and i am beyond beyond busy so you know but just trying to learn that and then
trying to teach my children um but yeah i mean just learning to work with that again and know that it's okay
(09:36):
yeah that that piece of of its okayness it it almost feels like i took a big deep breath
when i heard you say that that gift of i don't know if it's permission
or or what the the feeling is um but this this gift of um reintegrating into nature as you described
(10:04):
it and one of the things that i thought was really interesting is that you talked about words being
spells um and yet also i know that with embodiment one of the key pieces of it is that
words are almost perhaps a kind of a a pale translation in comparison to the experience of it the
(10:27):
embodiment of it and so i wonder what your thoughts are around language when it comes to this i know
one of the things that you talked about at the waterfall unity festival was the difference between
english and the language of your people and that there's a pretty distinct difference between those
two in regards to their ability to communicate this this felt sense of embodiment and i'd wonder if
(10:52):
you're able to talk a little bit more about that well i am an alumni of the oekwzasna freedom school
which is an all immersion um gonyak gahaga mohawk language elementary basically in middle school
and um so i grew up only speaking my language uh that was the that's what i learned uh how to read
(11:14):
and write in my language uh everything i i was taught was in my language and um but when i got out of
middle school and went out to high school and then i moved away um as an young adult i kind of lost
a lot because i didn't have anybody to speak to and so once i started having children it started
(11:34):
coming back to me and um my children are students of the school now um so i
do all the everything that i do do is in my language to the best of my ability
so it does make a difference because our language is not um literal translation of the english
(11:59):
it's more descriptive
yeah i find that interesting because that's that's the word that you used at the at the festival was
english i believe you described it as direct uh and then your language you talked about it being
descriptive and i wonder about when you when you're having these experiences with nature
(12:21):
when you're doing the journey back to self do you feel like that's a key piece of it is that it is
so much more of a descriptive journey compared to a direct journey
well for myself it makes it that much more um i don't know uh real i guess because our everybody's
(12:47):
language is especially uh um what went uh anything that's not english you know it all carries a vibration
and they say that our language is vibrate at the highest frequency which is love frequency right
and so it definitely does make a difference when we're speaking our own language and doing these
(13:07):
types of things you know because that's the vibration that we're we're carrying forward we're putting
forward that's part of the intent
yeah i love that i love the the imagery of of these experiences these embodiments as uh as
(13:31):
that vibrational piece because you know that's that's what our bodies are doing anyway um
they're constantly vibrating to different energies and tones and emotions do you find that you work
with sound when you're doing these embodiment practices well stuffinantly yeah
most definitely yesterday for instance while i was at the water um acknowledging you know the
(13:59):
the winter solstice the sun the moon was all it was probably um two o'clock in the afternoon um you know
it was standing by the water and it was like a really big fall stew and uh i kind of went downstream
and uh i had my eyes closed and i was standing there and even you watching your do you reminded me of
(14:21):
like when you're you're going like this right and i was standing there with my eyes closed really
just trying to listen and tune into the the water um just the wind everything around me
and i was kind of moving my body like that and so then what i started seeing within my body was like
the figure eight you know and i was just kind of like going back and forth and then i was listening to
(14:47):
water to the water coming up to the you know like the um what would you call that the the tide like
you know hit in the rocks going in and out and i've and through all this like i've connected that to
our breath and and how the breath's you know when we're breathing like that and think of the ocean
(15:07):
right how the tide go in and goes out in and out and what i see in through meditation was our breath is
like when we're breathing oh and in it's the same thing it's like connect it to the moon and the water
just going like it's pulling right and that's her breathing that's our mother breathing and so
(15:31):
it's like you know that's what i mean when i talk about um working at a cellular level i work at a
cellular level like those are the things that i'm in tune with those are types of things that i
that i see and then i get that i get out of this work that i'm doing just making those connections
just on a little bit deeper level i guess and more and more like all of the different senses
(15:59):
keep coming up in the conversation the sound the the visuals that you mentioned we talked about
the the physicality of the movement and that's our you know our peripheral sensations
and uh what i what i wonder about then is you know you you talked about this experience of you
(16:21):
you got to grow up in a way that did attune you to it in some ways and then you had kind of a teenage
time frame where you were removed from that and then especially in the last three years you've
returned to it and and i'm so curious about that that moment that you talked about three years ago
(16:44):
especially for somebody that may be listening that hasn't really felt that before
and and they wonder how do i how do i tap into that what do i do where do i start and so i'm wondering
about for you that that moment that happened three years ago that led to this sense of asking the
(17:04):
creator the creator to show you um what it wants you to see and and committing to that is there some
description about that experience that might be able to help people that are are trying to figure
out how how to make a similar commitment oh well i mean i would say that i know we all have our certain
(17:28):
elements that were really connected to and to maybe just explore all elements you know some people
like like to build fires and then they feel something around the fire right and and if you're
around the fire and you're feeling something i would really suggest that you you ask you you kind of
(17:54):
like tune into that if you're you know if you feel something when you're around water like a lot of
people will say it's so calming when i i have to be in water like it just calms me like i don't know
what it is but there's just something about water if that is your thing then work with that learn
to work with whatever element it is that calls you um because for me it's water it's wind
(18:24):
and you know i i when we're afraid of anything we're really just afraid of ourselves
like there was times where i was woken up in the middle of the night high wind storms
like deadly it just woken up and a voice saying you need to go outside
(18:44):
and the level of fear that i would feel because like no i'm not going outside it's you know like
there was like this this like it's gonna take me it's gonna take me someplace right
but that is also one of my elements and that part of me i was still struggling with
(19:05):
i was still afraid of myself you know and that's another lesson that i've learned
and come to realize is how much i have been running from myself um
like i i've spent there wasn't really um too much of a gap between like being like that that little gap
(19:29):
that we're talking about um from when i was a young adult to now that was like my early 20s
and then you know um still like out in nature still doing gardening and still like picking
medicines in the woods still forage and um still growing food um like all of those things still doing
(19:52):
that but three years ago when i started this journey it was just so intense and it was just on
another level that i had never experienced before and so i just wanted to make that clear
and am i gonna choose self this time and follow my intuition or am i gonna run and block it
(20:13):
you know and at that point in my life where i was at what else do i have to lose you know i was really um
i had left my relationship um and i didn't want to hurt anybody anymore i didn't want to be hurt
i i just didn't want to keep repeating cycles and i just really wanted to learn about myself
(20:41):
and that's what really sparked is for the first time when i walked away from my relationship i
felt like that was the first time that i chose myself because i was so used to well and everybody
out just needs before mine as a mom you know um i'm heavily engaged in my community um community where
(21:06):
so it was like the first time that i actually just chose myself and every time you choose self it's like
you just shoot off you know into like the next level and so especially when you really
embody it and really mean it you know you just you level up
(21:28):
that is easier that sounds but it's worth it you know yeah i think it's almost maybe an example of a place
where english is a really tough language to use to describe this because kind of the dichotomy i
heard you say was choosing self compared to running from self and running like i can see like i can
(21:53):
see this visual almost of this actual action and i think choose is such a harder word to figure out
like what's what's the action there uh and so i'm wondering for you like you use that really great
example with the windstorm and for you the choice was to i don't think it was not be afraid i think
(22:14):
you were still afraid but you still went anyway no i didn't i didn't no i didn't okay
i didn't and um and that's that's where our blockages comes back comes in that's where we get held
back right and those are all the things that we have to unlock within ourselves um what were you
(22:39):
just saying before that well it was this idea of like trying to imagine what the action is in choosing
to face yourself to go through all the emotion to go through like everything matter if it's
going or bad to just face yourself to experience yeah like all of you
(23:04):
like in that moment with the windstorm to go experience that windstorm yeah because i i can like
the way my life's been going now i'm pretty sure that wind had something for me you know it was a
lesson or something that i needed to be shown or taught or something um but i it happened a few times
(23:27):
and it was in the middle winter so you know in winter when those really strong wind storms come
yeah you know i was born in the middle of a of a blizzard in minnesota so i came in with that energy into
this and just planet yeah so no i didn't and you know i i think about that and i've been working with it
(23:53):
though learning to work with that part of me and and also recognizing how you know it kind of like
kind of slows you down a little bit yeah and and i think it goes back to that word that you said before
that commitment to making that choice because it does take energy like it was probably
(24:15):
cozier and less energy to stay warm and and cuddled up inside compared to going out into that cold wind
storm so there is the energy that's requested in that process and and making the commitment to use
the energy that we have as as energy beings to to walk into those experiences well the way that i
(24:42):
had started um this whole thing three years ago was um because of you know around choosing myself right
the clarity i started to gain and the the clear instructions that i was being given
and even learning to accept that and to say like okay i'm not crazy somebody is speaking to me
(25:08):
and in in learning to that's your intuition you know and then learning to accept that part of you
learning to follow it learning to trust um
and that's really how i started because i was getting clear instructions on what i needed to do
(25:30):
and for six months prior i ignored those instructions i did um it was just so like like yeah right this
is not happening to me you know all that kind of thing and then it got to the point where
every month the same thing i was being told around my moontime and i'm just like okay i mean like
(25:56):
what else you know all right i'm let's do it then you know and then really but then when i get when
i got out there i realized what was happening you know and so i that's when i decided to make that
commitment and here i am three years later um i'm back on my ancestral homelands which is four and a
(26:23):
half hours away from the reservation this is where our people were prior to the wars prior to the
United States government come in and enforcing our people to relocate i am back on an ancestral
turtle clan village literally on the land of my people
(26:46):
and i am doing that the same work here and so it's just it's really a deep work that has been happening
and the gifts that i've been given and shown um in all aspects have been i mean i really don't even
(27:08):
have the words like it's just it's incredible
it hasn't been easy but you know there's a reason for it
yeah and for since we haven't talked a whole lot about what you do uh what can you share with
(27:31):
with uh with our listeners about um that this transition to my understanding is you're farming
this land but it sounds like there's a bunch of other stuff going on too like is that where the school is
as well or is that back at the reservation let's let's kind of catch people up a little bit on
on what it is that you're doing on a daily basis because i think that's another question people have is
(27:53):
if they start listening to these messages in whatever way they get them maybe you know some people
maybe hear a voice some people maybe see an image some people maybe have a sensation i think there's
lots of different communication routes um and i think some people may wonder well how do i do that
and live a daily life at the same time and and i'm wondering if you can kind of speak to that about what
(28:18):
your daily life looks like well um so the alkwazasna freedom school that i was talking about is
back home in alkwazasna which is four hours away um you know my thing is i want to build a healing center
and based on the journey back to self and these are the things that i do want to teach um this farm
(28:46):
came up for sale and i am also the the cold executive director of the waterfall unity alliance
which is a nonprofit organization um that you can find us at waterfallunitylines.org
and you can hear or let's or read about you know the things that we're doing here um
(29:07):
but the fact that this was on a turtle clan village uh we knew that we had to we had to buy this land
it the farm came up for sale it was an established um you pick berry farm
been in operation for you know 60 plus years um
(29:32):
this is our homeland and so somebody had to come somebody had to come here somebody had to establish
and i was just at that place in my life where you reach a you were you reach a place with self where
you have worked so hard to get out of the toxic environment that's your end that it's hard sometimes
(30:00):
to stay out of that when everything around you is still very much still living in that you know and like
constantly being pulled back and it was just like really hard for me to be there at this time like
i became super sensitive um and so i i packed up my children and we came and we moved to the farm
(30:26):
and we've been stording the land here all summer we we've only been here since springtime um
and we've just been spending our time just being on the land and singing our songs because i think
about my ancestors that were here and i think about man they must miss these songs they must
(30:53):
miss these dances they must miss these things you know and so let me just sing so that they know that
were here so that they know that we're still carrying on what they left for us and um you know
there'd be times where um i'm mowing or i'm like you know um weeding but the bushes that berries are
(31:18):
in the greenhouse and it's like you need to go meditate like something would come to me and i just drop
everything and just go and sit and be and listen and that's what i've spent my summers this summer doing
and making my offerings and you know my whole nervous system has like regulated and i've become
(31:41):
even more sensitive now um i guess getting on a survival mode um but i also believe that because this is
my ancestral lands that um you know most of all who have people across our mother's back have been
removed from their innate environments they have been displaced and so when you displace a
(32:11):
people from their natural habitats the disruptions that happen within their bodies is what we've
been experiencing for the past 400 years so to be back here on my ancestral home lands
it's just been a whole new type of embodiment and re-remembering who i am as a kanyaka haga woman
(32:39):
and taking note and trying to change the energy of the land um you know getting into a regenerative agriculture
remediating the soil um you know having two great houses for my children a grow food
um and nobody's on a time schedule right now and it's great like just learning to be
(33:04):
on our own time not the night to five not you know you know they're it got to the point where i was like
you just need to get the bed because um you know we and then i'm like wait
what do you expect to wake up early for the you know like
you know it's not like we have to go anywhere you know like i it was a lot of deep programming
(33:29):
and learning to just be and it still feels wrong sometimes i still struggle like like i'm not
i'm not i don't know like my kids are so free and i and it just sometimes it doesn't feel right even
though it's totally right you know yeah i find that that word that you said at the end is kind of an
(33:53):
interesting uh kind of conclusion to what you just talked about that that term free with you know the way
that the the u.s. government is uh designed we use that word a lot um but i i think you know the way
that you described we don't actually live that way um all that much um and so i'm wondering when
(34:15):
you when you talk about free it sounds like it sounds like there's there's this rhythm that you're
talking about you know you compared it to the nine to five which is it's a pretty prescribed
um rhythm to it and your speaking of is would you say it's a more natural rhythm would you say
it's uh it's uh you know you talk a lot about self-rhythm too when you talk about journey to self
(34:42):
it feels like there's a self-rhythm um uh and also uh i i i've been looking a lot at the
the seasons of the Celtic year uh and they they talk a lot about how there's kind of these certain
energies with the different seasons like uh uh my understanding is this time from uh
(35:04):
solstice to what's called symbolic within that tradition it's this energy of receptivity uh and so i've
been tapping into what is it what is it like to just receive right now and when how does that feel
and what lessons might there be there so i'm wondering about when you when you talk about freedom
(35:24):
especially since we are still part of you know certain things that we don't have within our control
i think maybe that's it maybe within the way that our culture um overall on turtle island has
developed is is we think of freedom as the ability to control something um and i'm hearing you
(35:46):
advocate for something different uh and i'm wondering if you have more words to describe that
well as far as the advocating you know it's um we like we would be outside working right and
it would get to the point where it's known it's really hot uh the kids are hot and to have the
(36:13):
freedom to just say okay let's go swimming and then walk to the pond walk to the creek jump in swim
you know and then come back to the farm in the evening when it's cooled down and and finish up work
you know that that was a really that was a real sense of freedom just to be on our own time um
(36:40):
no pressure pressure but no pressure yeah because there's still whatever you were doing outside with
the gardening whatever phase that was whether it was planting or weeding or harvesting that's still
um a piece to be done that's what we as you know humans have the opportunity to be a part of and
contribute uh and so there's still an element um perhaps with and maybe this is a good transition into
(37:07):
one of the things that i really like to look at is this idea of reciprocal relationship yes
now so i think there's within this freedom that you're talking about there's still i don't know
duty is the right word but and maybe it's going back to this reciprocity and and perhaps there's some
insight you can share around this embodied way of of reciprocity well the whole journey back to self
(37:32):
and reconnecting is reciprocity you know and going back to what i said is the love that we pour into
our soil and our mother is the same love that we get back and we get that back in other ways
we can get that back in all kinds of ways we have to be open to receiving
(37:52):
and to know that we are worth it right um
but i guess to go into that like i remember um late summer i had to write um i had to write a few letters of
(38:14):
thank you thank you letters to some some organizations and i really wanted this letter to be impactful
and so i put a lot of thought into it then i meditated on it um you know i made some offerings
just just to have the right words right and and i wrote this long impactful gratitude letter and i
(38:42):
sent it out and within 10 minutes i'm driving down the road and there is red top hot clay in there
and to me that is a gift especially knowing that i work with them they are one of my guides
(39:03):
but to receive that bird you know and i was so grateful and there was just so much gratitude
and so much beauty in that moment so i think it goes back to that idea of um
when you said that it's okay to listen to you once again you've you've never used the word permission
(39:26):
but that i for some reason i keep trying to insert that even though i don't think it's the right word
um but this this idea of um a variety of gifts are okay and learning to value those maybe that's
the word yeah because they come in alt forms it could be a rock it could be a feather it could be a
(39:48):
bird or an animal or it could be um food it could be like you come across a new plant or something that
you can forage or you know it's it's stuff that you can't put money on because money is fake money is
an illusion you know and and it's just it's real stuff you know it's real things it's it's real value
(40:14):
you know like you can have all the money in the world but that doesn't make you rich
you know rich is being able to um receive those gifts to be open to receiving to be in that moment
to recognize when you're you know being given something
(40:39):
yeah it seems to harken to another term that we use for money which is currency and it seems to be
tapping into more of the the essence of that word of reciprocity creates perhaps this current
and it's and it's acknowledging and valuing the many different pieces that are a part of that current
(40:59):
do you feel like you're in that right now especially i know you talked about water being
an element that you really tap into do you feel as you step more and more into this body sense of
being that it is the sense of current that you're a part of does it have that feeling or that energy to
it yeah i you know i've really been feeling like a wizard lately
(41:20):
just like you know just last week i was coming around the mountain at you know 12 30 at night
driving back home and i thought man it would be really nice to see a meteor you know and i come
around the corner come around the mountain and there's this green you know meteor just sailing
(41:43):
across the sky and i'm like whoa that was really quick but thank you you know wow
so i i wonder about um this sense of one of things that i kind of i i feel like is
i i use the term superpowers and shadows with these different types because it kind of helps us see
(42:06):
find our place within this dichotomy and and it's we're talking a lot about these amazing superpowers
um like the and i i think the one that we've talked a lot about is navigating mystery
do you feel like that's that's a word that describes kind of this this flow that you're in as well
is there a miss quality to it yeah i would say so because you know it's like usually we do fear the
(42:32):
unknown right yeah fear of the unknown is a real thing
yeah that was highlighted in your story about about fear you know that being afraid of anything
is being afraid of self um yeah when it really comes down to it like well i but i
(42:56):
believe we are all reflections of one another in some way shape or form
and within this mystery i think another superpower of this embodied feeling is that these
experiences can can create pretty big change within people when you've talked about how
(43:18):
i'm forgetting the language that you used but there was there was kind of this gesture that i
remember of kind of this up and down feeling of um as as you've tapped into this energy
how it's changing you but also changing those around you there seems to be that impact as well
oh yeah like the ripple effect of it all yeah because as you're you know changing your vibration
(43:45):
and that's like rippling out to everybody who's around you and so it they it's almost like
they have no choice but be but to be hit by that force as well you know yeah it's up to them whether
they're gonna accept that that mission you know their own mission their own journey back to self
(44:06):
yeah they get to you know we talk a lot about either role models or representation or even the
science of it would be what's called the mirroring effect on how when we when we see somebody else
experience something we we can our brains are somehow programming almost the experience within
(44:28):
ourselves and you know you talked definitely about that that affect with with your kids but it sounds
like there's also it almost feels like there's when you talked about returning to the land of your
ancestors it almost seems like there's this quality that is a back and forth even through space and time
(44:52):
when you talk about your ancestors as well yeah you know we had we had this field where
I know last year that there were sunflowers there but this year they they killed it up and they
planted buckwheat and it was just like it was probably let's see maybe nine acres maybe nine acres
(45:18):
of buckwheat but what had happened was thousands of sunflowers grew in this little field
and they were I mean from the from the start of the field they were just really you know kind of
I don't know kind of small and then as you went to the back of the field they just start getting
(45:41):
taller and taller and I spent a lot of time out there talking to them because I didn't have
my community like that's another part of the project is is um
um having a sustainable community built here for for all my people to come back home
(46:04):
to their ancestral lands um and to begin this journey so anyways was sitting with all these sunflowers
you know I didn't really have my people to talk to in the physical right so I would go out there
and you know the the smaller ones reminded me of the children and then they got a little bit
(46:25):
taller which reminded me of like the younger people and then the mothers and the grandmothers
and then the men as they got taller you know and I really um believed that they were people
and that's how I treated them and that's how I spoke to them and I will talk about the visions
that I was having and the visions that I see for for this valley and for the project that I'm working
(46:50):
on and um I grew really attached to them um I've never been so attached to plant life like this before
and so I you know I acknowledged them almost every day um was out there every day I'm almost
(47:13):
talking to them singing you know just being and um when fall came it was time to cut them down
and I start crying like it would it just made me so sad and I'm like why am I so
sad about this you know like and people would say well they're just sunflowers they're gonna come back
(47:37):
it's not a big deal it'll be all right and I'm like yeah I know but like it's hitting me different
and at first I didn't really fully understand um like I felt it at the core of my being like like a big
like just as ball of grief and um I realized that me connecting to those sunflowers and then
(48:03):
becoming my council that was all my ancestors that were there all my ancestors that lived on
that land before I got there that's who those sunflowers represented and so because of the wars
and the things that happened here they didn't have a chance to live out their natural
(48:24):
cycles they were killed and slaughtered and murdered and so to cut them down it was almost like doing
it all over again to them and so I I didn't allow it to happen I we waited until they dried
and then um I was gone back home and they ended up getting cut down but
(48:49):
I I uh there was only like a few stock standing in the whole nine acres so I collected the seeds
and I plan on planting those seeds every year someplace I haven't picked my spot yet but
I plan on just plan those seeds and just going you know like because those will always represent
(49:10):
our ancestors that were here so even making those connections um connecting time from now
to back then you know hundreds of years to now and almost healing that generational trauma
and um you know that's what I've been doing um and again just following my intuition like
(49:36):
so as as uh people begin this process or deepen into this process of embodiment
um there can be some pitfalls there can be some challenges along the way and that's kind of that
shadow side um and certain ones that I've kind of feel like I've identified that I would love to
(50:03):
hear your reflection on either as perhaps you've experienced them or you see them and others or
you're like actually Amber I don't think that's quite it uh whatever whatever your response you
would have but I'm curious what you think about if you're not rooted in this embodied experience it
can feel like a detached place and you act and people may actually not even care about connecting with
(50:26):
people anymore because there's this feeling or the sensation that's almost a drug or a high
and so they they they separate um or perhaps there is some side stepping of a sense of responsibility
that comes with that like you talked about that reciprocity and and perhaps there's the danger of
of not being part of the of the currency but still just taking from that feeling um and I'm wondering
(50:52):
if that's something that you've witnessed or experienced or you're like um let me let me give you
a different view of that um I think that is definitely something that I've experienced
I think more so within my parents because you know there was a lot of um top behaviors um deep
(51:19):
rooted beliefs that were taught to me unconsciously through them and a lot of healing that I had to do
because of it and so because I've worked through so much of that being present with them just was like
to to really look at my parents and the different things that they would be going through or
(51:41):
you know different behaviors um I I guess I yeah in a way I did understand them more like okay I know
I know what this is because I just had to work through that you know or I know what that is because
I just spent the last six months just trying to like get out of that and now I understand it um
(52:04):
and then yeah also like I guess being back in community back home or with anybody in general um
recognizing that we can only meet others as far as they met themselves
and to not take things personal and to just know that they just haven't found that place within
(52:30):
themselves yet and that's for them not for me
yeah and as as you mentioned you said that there were some of those that you felt like you
had to journey through you had to take you know months to to identify and and retrain yourself
(52:57):
perhaps in a way that felt more rooted or more healthy and so I'm wondering if you have anything that
you can share to to use as as a source of wisdom for people perhaps going through that same journey
of trying to um make sure that these places of embodiment that they're inhabiting are are within
(53:18):
more of that superpower realm I'm not sure um I'm sure I do
Fair enough you're like I did it but in this moment yeah and and maybe it's just going back to
(53:41):
things that you shared at the beginning because many perhaps in many ways your story is your
journey because it is the experience that you now have to share with people as a potential route and so
you know you you shared with me at the very beginning that this idea of journey back to self is
really the crux of what you're you're sharing so perhaps uh maybe another way to ask the question is
(54:06):
is as you went through these journeys of letting go of some of these shadow aspects like the inability
to connect or the side stepping of responsibility is there's something about this journey back to
self that particularly helped you with those challenging aspects I guess being able to show up
(54:27):
differently um being able to show up for others differently but that's I guess you know and this
might be jumping back a few moments ago but another thing that just come to mind is I realize how much I
(54:50):
am able to detach from others and then even questioning like is that like okay like is that kind of
rude or that kind of mean like my ability to detach from others um it's even like family I guess that's
(55:10):
when I really um think about it is when I catch myself um being detached or detaching from family um
friends and like is this healthy like is this okay you know and I'm still trying to figure that out myself
(55:31):
I've grown up with um and uh no emotionally neglect for home and so I kind of go back and forth like is
it because of this or is it just because of this knowing now that I have of self like you know and
just still trying to navigate and figure that out and balance um yeah so it sounds like part of it is
(56:00):
the willingness to stay in the question because you have you have this question and you
you found at this stage you found one particular way to articulate it and um and just saying I
don't have the answer yet but I do feel like if I continue to commit to showing up in these ways
(56:24):
there's the possibility of more clarity or an answer of some kind yeah for sure yeah
beautiful
well we are reaching the point of the hour mark and this has been such a beautiful
current of a conversation as we've moved through a lot of different topics and ideas and sensations
(56:52):
so I want to express a huge amount of gratitude for your time especially today I know it's a special
day with your family it's your son's birthday and so the fact that you were willing to share that
with us uh just makes me feel so incredibly uh special and gifted so thank you so very much
and there's one final question that I ask everybody who comes on this podcast and it's a bit of a
(57:17):
twisty question it's a bit of a surprise question so let's see what you got uh and the question is
what's something that you wish I would have asked that I didn't
and does everybody give you an answer? They do
and what's what's fun is that it often everybody's answer often surprises them
(57:42):
um
um
I feel like we covered so much
we did we really did yeah
okay and we're not gonna follow through it the question though right or the answer
uh like are you saying are you gonna have to answer the question that you're thinking about?
(58:09):
is that what you're wondering? Yeah it's up to you I will leave that decision up to you
I think going into the topic of menstruation
uh yeah and so what would be uh let's let's pretend that it is you the listener
what is the question that they could ask themselves whether they're male body or female body
(58:33):
about menstruation that they could ask themselves and we can we can leave it there without you
having to answer it but perhaps leaving it as a question for the listener to ask themselves and
reflect on how comfortable are you with your own blood and with others especially like if you're a
male like with your wives or your partners or your girlfriends um around her time um and women like
(58:59):
how comfortable are you with yourself and your relationship to your own time
hmm
oh yeah that's a big question it's a deep
important question and and I think the the key of it is that word comfort
(59:22):
mm-hmm how comfortable are you and then what is yeah and what is that entail
I mean because that was a big thing for me is the comfortability level of my own menstruation
being taught that you know you don't talk about that you get that hidden like you know that's yeah
(59:43):
thank you so much for joining us today Kawenniiosta it was such a pleasure i'm so delighted to be
connected with you in this current uh that is being here on turtle island and i'm look forward
to our next connection and conversation thank you so much yes thank you for having me it's been
(01:00:03):
it's been a great conversation and i love these conversations they totally feed my spirit so thank
you so much for your time um gratitude always gratitude will take us far
and with that until next time. Hey Earthmate how did that episode resonate
(01:00:25):
did it stretch you inspire you or perhaps irk you. i'm here for it so please reach out
besides the socials we have a community to practice with on our website eartharchetypes.com
where more Earth Archetypes can guide your path and become dear friends a great place to start is
(01:00:47):
the quiz to discover your type oh and on your way i'd love for you to hit the subscribe button
see you again soon
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