The Grief Glimmers podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

This episode is dedicated to my mum Marina, who passed away suddenly at the end of July. She was incredible - resilient, creative, full of life and hands down the most loving person I know. She taught me how to live a good life full of pleasure and connection even in late stage capitalism. I had 38 years with her and am so proud to call her my mum. 

The wonderful Narinder Bazen joined me for this conversation to talk about grief after sudden death, saying goodbye in the best way we can and staying connected to the present moment in a mammal body while we have one foot on the other side. 

The title of this episode is a nod to one of my favorite books - The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Frances Weller. 

Thank you for listening and sending some love to my mum,

Yarrow

The world is a lot, but then what's new? In this episode I wanted to share a few ways in which I am staying grounded this summer, including excellent book selection, gentle rituals and activism that is doable and kind on my nervous system. I hope it's a helpful space for you to think about your own summer and orient towards the pleasure & joy that is available to you.

Here is info about the tech day I mentioned: https://pinkwellstudio.com/magic/

Thank you so much for listening!

Love,

Yarrow

Perhaps an odd day to publish a new episode, but I thought this might be nice to share today for anyone who also feels a little overwhelmed with the festivities at a time of so much uncertainty and upheaval.

Finding and exploring one's creative voice is something I have been thinking about a lot this year - I explored stripping back the media overwhelm, identifying core messages and symbolism and, as always, unraveling perfectionism.

I hope this episode gives you something interesting to think about too!

Here is more info about the Stitching Together community: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/stitching/

Love,

Yarrow

Hey sweet listeners, thank you so much for joining me for another episode! It's my honour to bring you a conversation with Adrienne Sloan, who spoke so beautifully about things that really matter to me right now. I hope this episode will bring you some joy and comfort as you go about your day.  I also want to say that I am in full support of the protests against police violence and that I hope 2020 will be a year of lasting change beyond what we can imagine right now. I know my work as a white person isn't done by just naming my solidarity and I'm committed to showing up in better ways now and in the future. I'm currently completing my book Rituals and am therefore taking a break from social media, but I'll be back soon.  Here is some of what Adrienne and I talked about:  

• Small rituals for daily connection with our ancestors  
• Staying present with our grief  
• De-centering human relationships as a way to deepen our sense of belonging  
• Cultivating practices for times of quarantine 
• Finding comfort in uncertainty  
• How Adrienne understands animism  

Adrienne Sloan is a child of the 70’s, a wanderer between worlds who holds space for visionaries and creatives to embody connection with their ancestors and their deep-time kin. She is dedicated to the unraveling of human-centered narratives through exploration in the imaginal realms. Adrienne is the granddaughter of Jean Lorraine, Elizabeth Ann, Dorothy, Netta, Jenny, and Paloma. https://adriennesloan.com/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, I hope this episode with the wonderful Emily Cross finds you well and safe. I really, really loved talking to Emily about her work as an end of life doula and a facilitator of living funeral ceremonies. Our conversation covers things like fear of death, natural burials, living with embodied death awareness and what it's like to participate in one of her living funeral ceremonies. If you feel curious and open to thinking about your own mortality and are in the right place to engage with thoughts around death I think you might really enjoy listening to this episode. If you like you can also consider joining the next virtual ceremony on June 5th, the link is below and here is a video that will give you a better idea of what to expect: https://youtu.be/da_NJjqwGtw 

Emily Cross is an end-of-life doula, musician, and artist living in Austin, TX. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where her visual artwork centered around mortality and loss, she moved to Austin and quickly became integrated within the arts and music scene. In 2015 she decided to pursue a career serving the dying, and earned professional certifications from the University of Vermont and from Quality of Life Care. She established Steady Waves End of Life Services in 2017 and brings her unique set of skills to her work with the dying and their families. You can sign up for the virtual living funeral ceremony on June 5th here: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=15983494&appointmentType=14314217 https://steadywaveseol.com/ https://www.virtuallivingfuneral.com/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey friends,

I hope you are safe and doing as okay as you can <3 I loved listening back to this episode with Alexis J. Cunningfolk – their work is so comforting to be around and continues to inspire my own practices. We recorded this last year, which now feels forever ago, and so much of what Alexis shared feels extremely  immediate and important today. Here is some of what we talked about:

• Centring re-enchantment in our work and our lives
• Remembering ourselves back home
• Working with plant allies and tarot archetypes
• Self-care practices for difficult times
• Embodying interconnectedness

Alexis J. Cunningfolk (she/they) is the intersectional herbalist and witch behind Worts + Cunning Apothecary. She is dedicated to the re-enchantment of the world and helps folks to re-member themselves back home to their magick through herbal healing, magickal arts, and sound therapies both ancestral and modern. Her work is informed by her queerness, mxd ancestry, and the fact that they’re a young hag just waiting for time to catch up. They host online and in-person courses for starry-hearted healers as well as offering in-person services grounded in building communities of inclusivity and justice. Connect to free resources and more at wortsandcunning.com.

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Happy Beltane & May Day sweet listeners!  I recorded this episode with the wonderful Lara Veleda Vesta quite some time ago and felt bad for publishing it so late, but listening back to our conversation just now made me realise that the timing is just perfect - Lara has so much wisdom and beauty to share around rites of passage and working through really difficult times. I love her work and am honoured to be one of her student and to share her message. Here is some of what we talked about:  

• - What it means to be a Dís-ability Witch living with chronic illness  
• - Myth as healer 
• - Living in ceremony in big and small ways  
• - Leaning into ancestral support and creative practices through difficult times 
• - The magic of naming yourself  
• - Rites of passage as death transformations  

Lara Veleda Vesta is an artist, author and educator transforming chronic illness into a path of healing and reclaiming. She is the author of The Moon Divas Guidebook and The Moon Divas Oracle Book, illustrator of The Moon Divas Oracle Cards and The Runes Revealed, and is currently working on two books exploring death transitions: Dark Goddess, a handwritten, interactive rite of passage guide, and Coven Invisible, a memoir in myth. She has a patron community supporting this work, and to thank them she offers rituals, circles, mentoring and other gifts. Lara also teaches classes by donation at The Wild Soul School, where explorations include folk magic, ancestral connection, self-initiation and ritual practice. To learn more and weave/create: laravesta.co 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

I hope you’ll enjoy today’s episode, which is a really interesting conversation with the wonderful Benebell Wen. If you’re into tarot and would like to hear a different perspective grounded in deep research and wild curiosity this might be for you <3 Here is some of what we talked about:

• Making friends with the tarot and experiencing it as an ally for decision making and growth
• Psychology in tarot, seeking proof and engaging our rational mind
• Writing a book and staying committed to the creative process
• Sigil making and the tao of craft

Benebell Wen is a practitioner of various metaphysical arts. She studies tarot, feng shui, the I Ching, numerology, and both Chinese and Hellenisic astrology. She is the author of Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth and Tao of Craft: Fu Talismans and Casting Sigils in the Eastern Esoteric Tradition. When not lecturing, teaching or writing on metaphysics, Wen practices law in California and New York. She is of Taiwanese descent and currently lives in Northern California with her husband James and their beloved cat.

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey friends,

how are you holding up?

As promised I am publishing more episodes for your isolation enjoyment <3

This one is a beautiful conversation with Jessica Uys in which we talked about the following:

• The joy if ignoring common life and business advice
• What it means to live an uncompromised life
• Working with the enneagram to better understand our patters rather than getting into a box
• Intentionally creating community culture

Jessica is a Coach, Facilitator & Researcher who believes in living an uncompromised life.

After 15 years in the corporate world of Consumer Insights, she’s spent the past 7 years as a “thinking partner”, helping people tune into what they really want,  look at themselves through a different lens and design their lives through conscious choice.

Jessica works intuitively, integrating her business experience alongside her work as an Enneagram Coach, BodyTalk Practitioner, Eating Psychology Coach and Breathwork Practitioner. Her corporate work includes both Enneagram team facilitation and research into organisational culture, diversity & inclusivity.

Website: https://www.jessicauys.com

Monthly Life Letters: https://www.jessicauys.com/life-letters

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicauys/

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//

Hey everyone, I hope you are safe and able to stay home. As promised I am sending more podcast episodes your way so that we can least connect through the cosmic internet vibes. This Sunday I am also hosting a donation based grief circle - we'll do some gentle breathwork, meditate together, journal and do some self-massage to ease the lack of touch. You can learn more, sign up and invite your friends here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/grief-tending/ I really loved talking to Kathleen for this episode and have received several tarot readings from her that I still treasure and listen to lots (they are currently on sale for $25). Kathleen is truly magical, very real, very creative and very wonderful. Here is what we talked about:  

• - Tracing our journey through life with tarot journals  
• - Transforming harmful patterns in our lives  
• - Creating a tarot deck and being in creative flow 
• - The reality of building a small business under capitalism and worrying about money 
• - Working with the memories we carry in our bodies 

Although she thinks of herself as an eternal student, Kathleen has been working with the tarot for the past 19 years. Her father was a tarot reader in the 1970s but kept it secret from her until she bought her first set of cards at the initiatory age of 13. He refused to teach her the language of the cards, so she spent many years finding her own way with them. She has taught herself plant medicine and astrology over the course of the last 7 years, and now weaves her love for tarot, astrology, and plant medicine together in her work to support transformation in herself and clients. She is also trained in IET (Integrated Energy Therapy) and Reiki to nourish the space she holds for others. By learning to find the voice within after all these years, she now teaches others how to find their own inner wisdom and that we can be our own healer. https://www.daughterofwands.com Kathleen's tarot readings on sale: https://www.daughterofwands.com/offerings-1/recorded-tarot-reading https://www.instagram.com/daughter.of.wands/ 

//If you enjoy listening and would like some support for your practice please consider joining my Patreon. In the Practice // Space community you’ll get access to recorded workshops, ritual guides, journaling prompts and movement & creative practices to explore in your own time. I also host monthly intention setting sessions and quiet co-creating sessions on Zoom around each new moon. Join here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/practice/

Thank you!//