I'm excited to share that the next round of The Mythic Body course by Josh Schrei of The Emerald Podcast has just been released, with some key changes that will allow for more folks to join and to provide communal continuity beyond the initial year-long format that it's had these last 4 years.
I've had the great joy and privilege of being a course assistant and community manager since its inception and a co-facilitator of the course material for the last two years alongside the amazing Eve Bradford and Portia Richardson.
When facing the realities of our world, the urge to drown in grief or shut down into apathy is becoming more and more common. As we are flooded with information and global predicaments outside of our control, overwhelm can set in, affecting our energy, efficacy, and even our ability to care. But what if facing our grief is actually the pathway to increasing our capacity to stay connected to and work on the things that matter most to us? What tools, practices, or rituals could we use to help us begin to metabolize our grief?
This first series, Attending to the More-Than-Human World, explores the ethics of attention –why it matters when we unhook our minds and attention from human privilege and ground in the perspectives of Animals, Plants, Rivers, Seas, Forests. Six incisive thinkers discuss ways to pay deep and loving attention to Animals and Plants. Through various approaches – empathy, shared embodiment, animism and holism – they offer thoughtful and practical guidance on how the well-being and self-determination of our fellow earth-beings can be supported and revitalized.
Skye Cielita Flor will be joining us on March 14th to share a titled: Reawakening Animate Relationship – Attention, Feeling and the Dreaming Mind
Kinship: exploring human-nature connections.” Guest speakers from around Australia and around the world, will share their insights into how they connect with and celebrate ‘nature’. Human beings are (of course) part of nature, but by reflecting on the cultural, bioregional, linguistic and practical ways that humans engage with, celebrate and care for ‘nature’, we can enrich our understanding of what it means to be part of the Earth community.
A powerful and intriguing tribute to Earth Poet, Animist and Herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner, featuring the magnificent Skye Cielita Flor. In this episode, Stephanie and Skye discuss the potency of SHB’s works, their impact on their own lives and teaching styles, and break some of the key points he covers in his book ‘Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realms’.
I'm feeling overjoyed to share this wonderful conversation I shared with John Seed on one of my favourite podcasts, Embodiment Matters 💚 Carl and Erin are long time inspirations of mine and I am fortunate to have received their wisdom pretty much weekly for nearly two years when they co-facilitated in Francis Weller's "Soul Convivium" and then again during his 5 month "Grief Ritual Training".
ReGeneration Rising is a specially-commissioned RSA Oceania podcast exploring how regenerative approaches can help us collectively re-design our communities, cities, and economies, and create a thriving home for all on our planet. In this episode, Daniel and Philipa discuss the practices that can help us reconnect with the living world with renowned author and activist, John Seed, and deep ecology practitioner, Skye
In the face of relentless ecological crisis and existential threat, there pervades a profound sense of shared grief. It is a grief born out of witnessing our forests burn, our ice melt, our sacred sites desecrated, our fellow species perish in exponential curves of diminishment. It is a collective fracture in the human mindscape, an anguish echoed in the rising inequality, rampant pollution and existential uncertainty of this moment.
Yet, this grief is not merely a personal emotional response. It speaks to our deeply entrenched ties to the world, an intimate sense of belonging that anchors us within this interwoven matrix of life.
Growing the capacity to be with and metabolise our sorrows, in community, is how we come back to life, and remember how to tend to it again.
Miraz and I recently had a beautiful conversation with Jaime K Lehner of Wankawi Wisdom of the Earth for her upcoming Summit "Living the Sacred".
We spoke about our Curanderismo apprenticeship in the jungle with our Shipibo maestros and our many years facilitating Ayahausca retreats, about our past and current relationship with the plants, about our journey of integrating that profound depth experience into our current context, some of the ways that we have woven Deep Ecology and Plant Medicine together and some of our views on the unfolding Psychedelic Psychotherapy movement
"Stephanie Hazel interviews Folk Herbalist, Deep Ecologist and traditionally trained Shipibo Curandera Skye Cielita Flor. In this episode, we explore questions such as:
What does it mean to take a plant out of context?
What do we leave behind when we extract a single active chemical from a medicinal plant?
What do we lose when we take a single aspect of Shipibo culture, like ayahuasca ceremonies, but leave all of the cultural nest of animistic relationships with plants and land behind?
Deep Earth Dreaming 