Happy Autumn Equinox!

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

But our long-ago ancestors understood cycles very differently, in part because they observed the seasons - they practiced noticing the subtle shifts and transitions. And they viewed cycles as spiral or more circular. This allows us to be in a rhythm, rather than feeling ourselves at the mercy of extremes.

If we can reclaim these practices and seasonal celebrations, perhaps we can notice the seasons of our own lives with more richness and complexity… and catch the signs it’s time to rest before burnout has to take us out completely.

This episode uses the story of The Descent of Persephone, to muse about shifting from linear pendulum arcs to spiral cycles. I also offer some self-inquiry prompts to perhaps hold lightly as you attend to the seasonal themes of clearing space and harvest.

Although most of the episode is geared towards the Northern Hemisphere, I offer some brief thoughts for those in the Southern Hemisphere at this point of your Spring Equinox, too.

Many blessings for this harvest season and the shadow of the eclipses,

Kate

P.S. If you’d like more info in working with me 1:1, you can email me - that webpage is under construction. And if considering joining Sanctuary, you can find that info: www.wildsarecjourney.com/sanctuary.

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

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

• is curious to hear how I understand it;
• struggles with feeling hijacked by younger versions of you seemingly out of the blue;
• can’t quite seem to bridge the gap between knowing better and doing better;
• wants to know how soul retrievals and codependency are linked;
• or feels deeply empty and can’t figure out why a few days of rest don’t seem to be enough to bring you back from burnout…

this is an episode you may want to tune in to.

What stood out to you most in this episode? Did any of it “ping”?

If so, I’d love to hear.

And if you’d like to explore 1:1 work, I’m in the process of updating that page on my website so best right now is to email me and we can discern if we’re a fit.

If you think you’d like to join Sanctuary, we start Sun Sep 29th and you can find more info: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/sanctuary

Blessings for this time of change,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

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

In this episode I share what I see as being the case in those moments, the nervous system and whole soulful-human context, and what I believe the best next step is so you can set yourself up to engage with the gifts of this crossroads, this realignment.

What do you think? Is this accurate to your experience? Does creating space make sense? Does it leave you with more questions? If so, I’d love to hear.

And if you’d like some more direct coaching or engagement with me around this topic - Wisdom Wednesdays happens the first Wednesday of each month and you’re welcome there.

And in September 2024, we’re enrolling our second cohort for Sanctuary - six months of spacious, low-urgency monthly gatherings. It might not move the needle on getting you more space, but it offers a place to connect in low-pressure, come-as-you-are ways… which might feel like a really significant little bit of nourishment. Find more about both of these through my website.

With appreciation,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

“Am I doing enough?”

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

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

But there’s a beautiful invitation hidden in that question, once we get past the fear and the truth that we might not be.

So this episode is my take on how we can let that question bring us home to ourselves and back to more aliveness.

I cover:

• what’s happening in your nervous system when you find yourself asking it;

• how you can use the discomfort of the question for good;

• a simple (and maybe even kind of fun way) to stop measuring your answer with outside metrics and instead start playing and exploring;

• and why this might actually help you create the world you want to see - in the life you already have.

Did you give the steps/ reframe a try? If so, I’d love to hear how it went.

With appreciation,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

Answer: You don’t. Not really.

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

Much of our scientific and academic knowledge pursuits are based around the idea of being an impartial observer. As though we could somehow separate ourselves from the world we are observing. As if we aren’t all innately and intimately interconnected. As if we are somehow a problem or a contamination of Life, rather than a piece of it. As if we don’t belong.

How exhausting, to try and maintain that level of separation between ourselves and our environment. How lonely, too.

Could this be part of our modern epidemic of burnout?

And what might happen if we let our observations of a plant or an animal bring us a message or some wisdom? Would that leave us feeling emptier than we were before? Or more alive?

In my experience, it’s almost always the second.

Today’s podcast episode is an example of how beyond-human kin, science, and folk tales can be teachers and inspire curiosity and insight into how to be alive.

Note: I’m no scientist, although I feel deep love, wonder and curiosity for the natural world. So please be patient with any misspeaks that may be present in this episode. I’m relating to the natural world in the way most natural to me. It’s not the only way, and it is valid.

I’ve always loved moss and recently I’ve been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, “Gathering Moss”. So you’ll get to hear my current moss-prompted musings on burnout, feeling somewhere between death and life, surviving, thriving, and little glimmers of nourishment.

Woven in with the book-inspired musings is a synopsis of the old English tale “Mossycoat” - a Cinderella-like story of initiation, but with the magic of moss at the center.

Anything that particularly stood out to you from this episode? Anything you’d like to hear more on? I’d love to hear.

With appreciation,

Kate

P.S. If you have questions, want to chat about this more, or had an aha come up you would be interested in processing a little further, you might want to consider joining me for Wisdom Wednesday (next one is August 7th). It’s a PWYC ‘office hours’-style gathering just for your questions. You can find out more or register: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

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

I muse on what the practice of these holidays, the themes and perspectives they invite, might have to show us about burnout. And I share some agricultural context for the season and some questions you might want to sit with to guide your decisions about how and where to dig deep and spend your energy in preparation for fallow cycles in your own life.

Although most of the episode is geared towards the Northern Hemisphere, I offer some brief thoughts for those in the Southern Hemisphere, too.

Did this illuminate anything for you? If so, feel free to share.

With appreciation,

Kate

P.S. If you have questions, want to chat about this more, or had an aha come up you would be interested in processing a little further, you might want to consider joining me for Wisdom Wednesday (next one is August 7th). It’s a PWYC ‘office hours’-style gathering just for your questions. You can find out more or register: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays

_______________________

You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

This episode marks a shift (at least for now) in the format of these podcast episodes.

Instead of sitting around the fire, we’re moving through the world.

Instead of longer and deeper, we’re aiming for more bite-sized (hopefully without losing nuance).

And, at least for now, you’ll mostly just be hearing from me.

These changes are prompted in part by the needs of my own life, and in part as a response to the world and what it seems like we’re all needing in these times. We need more movement, more time outside (walk with me as you listen, perhaps?). And we need less of pretty much everything else when it comes to consumption and taking in.

As you’ll hear me share in the episode, part of my post-pilgrimage integration has been continuing to reflect on burnout - the causes, cost, and antidote. I started my trip depleted, I ended up alive. And I’ve been curiously tracking that within myself since to see what the causes were, how our lives seem to predispose us to burnout, and what the possibilities might be if we can end that cycle.

While there’s a lot I could say on the subject (and you’ll continue to hear me explore), in this episode I focus more on:

• burnout vs aliveness as questions of energetic balance;
• my suspicion that burnout is a modern ‘ailment’;
• noticing and responding to a cycle of burnout before it gets too bad;
• linear progress vs cycles as two rhythms - and only one allows for aliveness;
• and why this matters for the world.

Let me know if this stirred any thoughts. I’d also love to hear initial impressions on this new format.

And if you know another sensitive, soulful human who struggles with burnout from trying to fit into the middle when they belong on the edges, and you think they might like this episode, feel free to share this.

May we stay human. May we create worlds of vibrant aliveness.

With care,

Kate

You can find me:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

If we assume that because we’ve been born and are not yet dead, we’re alive… is there a cost? What is aliveness, after all? And how many times will I eat soap?

This is an episode about aliveness. An episode about cycles of rupture and repair. An episode where I share a silly story about me eating soap (multiple times, to date!) and some of my own journey from being unaware to being more in rhythm with life.

A few months shy of this podcast’s second birthday, and inspired in a few ways by my conversation with Tad Hargrave (ep 38) and work I’m doing in his Marketing for Hippies Membership, this is an episode where I tune back into the question these conversation coalesce around: what does it mean to be human… and what if being human, being alive, isn’t inevitable?

You’ll hear:

• how decreasing aliveness and interrupted rupture-repair cycles seem connected to me;
• the way I see aliveness trying to manifest itself through us now;
• the three planes of existence and the three main alchemical ingredients I see as necessary for repair after rupture (and in any attempt to align ourselves again with life);
• why certain modalities may only take us so far… and more.

• 
  

Since much of this conversation seems to land squarely at the heart of how I see the world (and my work within it), I would love to hear from you: what pinged? What do you disagree with or have more questions about? Any thoughts/ impressions? You can email me: kate@wildsacredjourney.com. I’d love to hear.

May we find again our rhythm in the cycles of rupture and repair - in moments when that’s easy and in moments when we have a lot of skin in the game. May we see our aliveness as a precious gift to be stewarded with care. May we remember Love as the necessary ingredient in all things. And may we learn our lessons so we don’t have to keep eating soap… or at the very least, eat less of it each time.

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts.

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