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

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

Anne shared her story of starting with yoga and then moving further down the spiritual growth and development path through training after training (in yoga, energy healing modalities, life coaching, cacao ceremonies, etc)... and how she ended up feeling more burned out, alone, and lost than ever before. At the time, she hadn’t heard of the idea of integration. And she admits that though she’s beginning to suspect it was the missing piece for her, she feels mystified about what it actually is, how to know it’s happening, and what signs might signal it’s complete.

So we get into it.

Along the way, you’ll hear us explore things like:

• the cultural rootlessness and lack of true mentors which leaves us with an immense inner hunger (and how capitalism wants us to feel that and why it can get us into trouble);
• reclaiming curiosity, depth, enoughness, our own power and self-responsibility, and the permission to do things differently;
• what wisdom actually is;
• the costs of coercive capitalism, prizing youth over older age, and punitive justice systems (and how those tie into integration, burn out, feeling lost and overwhelmed);
• setting boundaries (even with spirit guides and the things we love, partly as a way to maintain a sacred sense of connection);
• the relational dance of encountering Spirit and untangling ourselves over and over again;
• “peak experiences” as ruptures of our timeline;
• riding the “down wave” after a peak experience… (hopefully) without feeling like we’re having a psychotic break;
• how we might find who we are and what our purpose is;
• and at what point in our spiritual development journey transformation actually happens (hint: it might not be what you’re used to thinking it is)

…and more.

As you can probably tell from that list, this is a deep (and lengthy) conversation. This might be one you want to listen to in chunks. I listened in for if there was a good place to edit it into two episodes, but decided to leave it intact as one. I leave it to you to find your right pacing for listening.

And I do hope you’ll listen. And share if it resonates.

From where I stand, integration is one of the key (often missing) pieces to navigating the spiritual and wellness world with more integrity - whether we’re there to deepen our own journey, or as a guide/ teacher/ facilitator for others.

We need more conversations like this.

Join us around the fire? You’re most welcome here.

And thanks, Anne, for reaching out with your questions, sharing your story and hard-earned wisdom, and joining me in this conversation.

(P.S. If you’re a listener and find yourself with questions, musings, etc after an episode - feel free to reach out. Maybe we can have a conversation, too)

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email –kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

And if you want to connect with Anne, feel free to pass a message through me by my email above.

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

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

You’ll hear us chat about:

• titles and roles like “oracle” or “shaman” in modern times;
• why I think the practice of animist kinship might have kept our ancestors from experiencing burnout;
• how our disdain for our pre-industrial ancestors might keep us disconnected from wisdom and possibility;
• the call of these times to reclaim our humanity and what practices might bring us there;
• what forces are shaping us and how they leave us feeling broken and flawed;
• our purpose individually and as humans;
• the one practice I’d like to suggest or invite people into in these times;
• some more of my own “healing journey”

…and more

OracleFest Online will be happening Jan 31-Feb 2, 2025. You can still join us if you want to: https://oraclefest.com/?aff=kate_wildsacredjourney

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Otherwise, you can find me:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

Perhaps you do, too.

In fact, I’m quite confident you do.

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

Set a timer. I’ll get you started.

Let’s rest more.

With love,

Kate

P.S. If you’re interested in Insight 2025, you can find more info or purchase yours here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/tarot-for-2025 (It’s available for purchase until Jan 16th, 2025).

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

There’s a lot that feels confusing and overwhelming at this time of year. So here, on a new moon at the beginning of a new year, I talk about the rhythms of planting, tending, harvesting, evaluating which are available to us at many points throughout the year.

I also muse about hunger and desire and some of the pitfalls we can fall into when we’re manifesting from our modern ways of perceiving and relating to the world, as opposed to more ancestral and animist ways of perceiving and relating (and how that can affect our burnout and purpose anxiety).

And I share a method that seems to be working well for me (hint - it’s not a word-based theme and I’ll also tell you why I suspect that didn’t work for me).

Whatever your way of honoring this moment in time, may you find a way to wield your desires on behalf of more beautiful and meaningful relationships with the world. And may you move in the direction of a most honest and loving aliveness, expressing itself through you.

With love,

Kate

P.S. If you’re interested in Insight 2025, you can find more info or purchase yours here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/tarot-for-2025

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

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

If you do want to join us in the virtual roundhouse for an experiential exploration and re-imagining of how our longer ago ancestors would have gathered for ceremony and story; as a way to keep themselves human, whole, connected, and alive at this time of longest night and the return of the sun… we’ll be gathering on Dec 20th (tomorrow from when this episode actually goes live). You can find more info or save your spot: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/winter-solstice-in-the-roundhouse

Here’s to rest, the fruitful darkness, and the blessed return of the light.

With love,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

Tad Hargrave, one of our guests in today’s episode, likes to reference this quote. And seeing a need to call people back into their humanity, finding ways to help them go about their days with more goodness and beauty, is something at the heart of both of our work. We also both love stories and myths. In fact, we talked about those very things in episode 38.

Recently, he’s been teaming up with Kakisimow Iskwew (aka Natalie Pepin) - a Metis Cultural Educator who helps guide Indigenous people reclaiming their culture to connect with their living teachings around art, food, language and connection to spirit. And together, they’re offering deep spirals into the story ‘Briar Rose’ as a way of beginning to access indigenous cultural memory of Mother Europe.

I jumped at the chance to have them both gather with me here to spiral around some of the big, important questions many of us who want to live as creatures and want to do something about the ugliness which seems to be everywhere in the world today seem to be grappling with and wondering about.

Questions like:

• • What is culture? And if we’re ‘white’ or of European descent (particularly if we live in so-called ‘North America’), do we have ‘culture’?
  • How are we defining indigenous - as an identity or something else?
  • What does it mean that stories hold memory?
  • How do we navigate the hunger, the thirst, the grief and shame which seem to be in so many of us these days as we reach for something meaningful and nourishing? And if we find some deeper roots, and they feel like their ‘ours’, how do we go about honoring them in a good way?

• 
  

  Since we recorded the conversation, I attended a three-hour online version of their spiral into Briar Rose and the story is still resonating within me and moving me in ways that aren’t ready to be articulated yet; but are inviting me into deeper relationship, into protocol, with the story itself and the living culture it’s carrying.

  May this conversation be a way of growing more culture - may it offer you some soil, or perhaps the glimpse of some roots, an idea of where to dig to find something which invites you back into deeper humanity.

  And if you’re feeling the call, I highly recommend their work with Briar Rose. You can find more about it here: https://meetingmyancestors.com/briar-rose/

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  As always - if this conversation moves you in some way, please help share and pass it on to others you think might also be moved. This type of sharing helps feed these conversations and the work we’re up to in the world.

  Find Tad: https://tadhargrave.substack.com/

  Find Natalie/ Kakisimow Iskwew: https://meetingmyancestors.com/

  Find Kate: www.wildsacredjourney.com

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

Along the way, we also explore:

• spirituality;
• plants as friends;
• ancestral ways and animism;
• women’s life cycles and seasons;
• how being a woman is often framed as a negative thing and other ways we might be able see it;
• pain avoidance, mindset, and how that affects our ability to find pleasure and our own rhythms;
• community and living counter-culturally;
• travel and how it opens us to other ways of seeing ourselves and the world;
• possible benefits to loneliness;
• self-trust;

…and more.

Join us around the fire? You’re most welcome here.

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And if you've come for Tamy, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations exploring the question: in dehumanizing times, what might help us stay human and be more fully alive?

You can find Tamy:

Website: wholisticwomantea.com

Instagram: WholisticW

Facebook: Wholistic Woman

YouTube: WholisticWomanTea

You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

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

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Your desire to contribute and make a difference is a genuine and beautiful thing… and when it gets entangled with (often unconscious and unexamined) societal conditioning around the evils of laziness and the glories of productivity… we end up primed for burnout.

But we need our fire. In these times, perhaps, more than ever.

We need to be able to face challenges in less exhausting, more pleasurable ways. We need to work rest into our cycles of efforting so we can keep going.

Tune in to hear me share these thoughts and some exercises I’ve found to be helpful. Try them with me and let me know how it goes?

I’d love to hear.

Here’s to climbing our mountains,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp