The Heart Is a Cauldron: Recent Episodes
Kathryn Fink
Personal and collective healing through radical relationship with the animate world. Mythic archetypes, the wisdom of the more-than-human world, animist ethics and enchantment, and earth-honoring folkways across time and place. Visit @ Kathryn.a.fink on Instagram or kathrynfink.com for more magic.
This season’s guest at the cauldron, Olivia Pepper, tenderly directs our gaze simultaneously upward and inward—to connect with the stars but also our own inner tides, and the liminal places where these intersect and communicate through the poetry of our lives.
Whether you’re someone who looks to astrology as an old friend on your journey, or you’re like me and have a curiosity but no real working knowledge of the stars, I hope this conversation will offer unexpected invitations as we reflect on both personal and collective destinies.
|| 0:00 || Intro || 2:40 || Opening visualization of the body as a star || 6:01 || Olivia’s story of healing through relationship with the animate world || 10:15 || A common pitfall when discussing astrology || 17:11 || Considering how much of a person’s fate is influenced by external systems and influences, and how much of our path is open to personal desires and actions and agency || 25:20 || Astrology as collaborative storytelling || 32:35 || The story of Hildegarde von Bingen and her influence on olivia (and me) || 40:15 || Tending our own path alongside tending the wider web of being, and the anticapitalism of shedding the heroic fate || 51:50 || How to connect with Olivia and their offerings || 53:28 || An invitation into amor fate (loving your fate) and gratitude
MORE ON OLIVIA PEPPER olivia is first and foremost a poet, storyteller and writer who also dabbles gleefully in astrology, the pursuit of justice, gardening and nondenominational clergy work such as attending births, deaths, and sickbeds. a mixed heritage practitioner of multiple forms striving to walk lightly on stolen land. all pronouns acceptable.
Website https://www.lunariamysticism.com/ Instagram: @ oliviapepper
Background image: Portrait of olivia pepper hand-tinted by dominoe farris
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Rather than resolutions that we project onto ourselves and our lives, what shifts when we listen to what we’re being invited into, and who’s doing the inviting? This season, we sit with ideas of Fate—beginning with today’s episode, when we meet with the Fates themselves, those beings with unceasing hands who work deep within the recesses of our hearts.
January 2022 opens up the next window of spots to work privately with me through 1:1 coaching. This is a three month journey to connect with yourself and your sacred place in the wondrous web of being, whether you’re feeling lost or you have a bold vision but you’re not certain how to get there. Learn more here (kathrynfink.com/coaching) or book time for us to chat here (kathrynfink.com/connect).
|| 0:00 || Opening prayer-spell-poem
|| 0:58 || Intro
|| 3:40 || Three month coaching opens up January 2022—learn more here or book time for us to chat here
|| 5:18 || Meeting the Fates——but first, a caution about discussing destiny
|| 9:02 || Manāt
|| 10:24 || Moirai
|| 12:20 || Norns
|| 14:19 || Reflections on the Fates: Weaving as complexity and collaboration; cyclical time; self and selflessness; meaning through tending community and the earth; leading a wyrd life
Musical interlude: "Home" by Hannah Mayree from the record label HOMHOMHOM http://hannahmayree.com
|| 29:35 || My personal views on destiny
|| 35:15 || A story of fate
P.S. Looking for winter solstice content? Check out "The Heart Is a Hallowed Night" https://bit.ly/3FlwJrW
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Cited in today’s episode: Bader Saab “Manat” bell hooks About Love Lara Veleda Vesta Pema Chodron The Wisdom of No Escape
Background image: “Die Nornen” by Alfred Agache
Transcript here: https://kathrynfink.com/the-heart-is-a-cauldron/2021/12/21/episode-26-the-heart-is-a-loom-weaving-with-fate
We complete our journey through the underworld by connecting with our ancestors through the soil of day-to-day life, the mundane stitched through with the mythic.
Woven into this episode are also moments from my own path into relationship with the beloved dead, both human and more-than-human.
Song interlude: “Ebb Tide” sung by my grandmother Lorrayne Song closing: “How Deep Is the Ocean” also sung by Lorrayne
Time stamps coming first week of Dec
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Cited in today’s episode: Kofi Piesie “You Can Not Mention Libation Without Mentioning The Ancestors” Sophie Strand "Your Body Is an Ancestor" “Kutoven Stevens Chases His Running Dreams with a Bigger Purpose”
BIPOC teachers in ancestral remediation and decolonizing Layla Saad Dr. Rocío Rosales Meza (podcast ep with Saad and Dr Meza) olivia pepper
Transcript available first week of Dec.
Background image: Jan van Kessel the Elder “Vanitas Still Life,” ~1665
We turn to fungi as a teacher and ally in cycling through the underworld, being with death and rebirth, poison and medicine, personal and collective movement—and what it means to dance through all of it, not as a dance of binaries but a dance of interconnected layerings and crossings and sporulating clouds. To guide us, we welcome to the cauldron neo-troubadour animist and myco mythologist Sophie Strand.
|| 0:00 || Intro
|| 5:42 || Opening poem from Sophie called “Prayer”
|| 7:19 || Sophie’s story of healing through relationship with the animate world
|| 10:03 || One of Sophie’s favorite tales of the underworld
|| 14:05 || How fungi kaleidoscope understandings of underworld narratives, and myth more broadly, as stories of collaboration rather than tales of solitary, conquering heroes
|| 20:40 || How fungi exist outside of linearity, and how we can let them welcome us even deeper into spiralic ways of being
|| 33:40 || Poison and medicine
|| 33:40 || “Make my healing a party everyone is invited to”—collective liberation and personal revolutions
|| 33:40 || A practice to allow magic to be “an escape from this world, into this world”
MORE ON SOPHIE
Sophie’s preferred blurb to include in my intro/show notes/elsewhere: Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. Her first book of essays The Flowering Wand: Lunar Kings, Lichenized Lovers, Transpecies Magicians, and Rhizomatic Harpists Heal the Masculine is forthcoming in 2022 from Inner Traditions. Her eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels The Madonna Secret will also be published by Inner Traditions in 2023. Her books of poetry include Love Song to a Blue God (Oread Press) and Those Other Flowers to Come (Dancing Girl Press) and The Approach (The Swan).
Website www.sophiestrand.com Instagram: @cosmogyny
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The realm of transformation as well as treachery, mystery and magic, and ultimately, the dual medicine of death and regeneration… Journeying into the underworld brings as many trials as it does rewards.
No matter where you find yourself in cycles of transformation, take heart from three tales of those who have ventured—both willingly and unwillingly—into the darkness, and returned bearing treasure for themselves and their communities.
Timestamps coming soon
Musical interlude: Scottish folk ballad “Tam Lin,” recorded by the American banjo artist Mary Cox, from her album Chickens Crowin' At Midnight. Explore and purchase Mary’s music here https://maryzcox.bandcamp.com
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Image: Queen of the Night relief of the goddexx Inanna, from 19thc - 18thc BC, ancient Sumer/present day Southern Iraq
Transcript available at kathrynfink.com
What if foraging is, at its heart, about connection? What shifts when we approach relationships with plants as we do humans—and vice versa? What happens when we shift away from the idea of wild spaces that are magical because they are untouched, to living spaces that are magical because we are part of them?
We visit with wildcrafting customs and beliefs in order to glean wisdom for belonging, discomfort that can sometimes arise from connection, and the giving and receiving of genuine kinship.
Help keep The Heart Is a Cauldron alive through 2022 by joining the Patreon https://bit.ly/3fYJ5sG
II 0:02 II Opening spell-prayer-poem II 1:19 II Intro II 4:32 II Hearthtending II 7:17 II The ethics of foraging and the honorable harvest via Robin Wall Kimmerer II 12:52 II How humans have learned the who and where of foraging II 18:24 II How to approach and gather plants ways that honors their divinity, and our own II 28:01 II How to treat what we harvest after the gathering in, so the entire process becomes a sacred act II 30:07 II "O viriditas digit Dei" composed by Hildegarde, and recorded by the group Canty, with thanks to Sono Luminus https://bit.ly/3yGWiR0 II 36:35 II Intro to wildcrafting our personal and collective healing journeys II 37:32 II Our innate ability to connect and belong, and the importance of lived experience II 43:33 II Culpability vs. communion and feelings of guilt that often arise within relationship II 46:57 II When we fully awaken to all the aliveness and magic that is woven into true relationship, we can’t help but want to give back
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Honorable Harvest quote from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Hua Tuo tale adapted from https://bit.ly/3m9pzQK Slovenian tale of plant speech from The Blessing of Herbs on Bonfires by France Kotnik Background image: “Village girl at a wayside shrine” by Antoni Kozakiewicz
Transcript available at https://bit.ly/3AB0JNM
In this season that invites us to lean on one another, we remember old ways of care, honor living ways that never stopped evolving, and dream new ways, all rooted in togetherness, and the present moment.
Through visits with flower eating apes, communal bathhouses, and indigenous sovereignty movements, we learn that the medicine of us is empowering, holistic, and relational.
II 0:02 II Opening spell-prayer-poem II 2:30 II Intro—the season of leaning on one another II 8:10 II Summarizing the medicine of us II 9:04 II The medicine of us is empowering II 17:34 II The medicine of us is holistic II 22:25 II The medicine of us is relational II 28:43 II How did we shift away from the medicine of us into the medicine of empire? II 32:43 II A tale of dreaming the medicine of us into being, now
Transcript available at https://bit.ly/3hIjfgR Photo of macaques in a hot spring in Japan via iStock.com/undercrimson
For moments when we are asked to hold powerful and even conflicting energies at the same time, snake and willow teach us to dance between poison and medicine, grief and healing, death and rebirth.
If we can practice this dancing deeper and deeper into our center, abundance——of the spirit, of the home within ourselves, of our sense of communion with the wider world——awaits.
This midsummer, we delve into the magic of water spirits, who help us navigate this time of year when it feels like we’re asked to contain multitudes, when the fullness of summer seems to conflict at times with undercurrents of grief or fatigue—a tension which feels especially heightened this year.
Water spirits teach us that complexity is divine, that leaning on each other is the oldest and strongest prayer, and that our emotions can be deep wells of motivation, rather than a hindrance.
As a special treat, this episode's musical interlude is sung by yours truly, and there were some unexpected tears while recording as well—both of which I blame on the water spirits being at work in the making of this episode.
|| 0:02 || Spell-prayer-poem
|| 1:17 || Intro and hearth-tending: Each June, I pay forward the abundance from The Heart Is a Cauldron Patreon to BIPOC-led orgs committed to earth-honoring practices + decolonization. This year, 100% of the proceeds from June’s Patreon memberships will go to the National Black Food & Justice Alliance as well as the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance. Join any time in June 2021 for your membership to be added to the total that will be given.
|| 6:05 || Meet water spirits, found throughout the world, and appear in as many forms as there are homes for them.
|| 9:05 || Deeper dive into lore and rites of the Slavic rusalki, the njuzu of Zimbabwe, and the Well Maidens from Arthurian legends.
|| 17:52 || A siren song, sung by yours truly.
|| 21:26 || Embodying complexity by dissolving binaries of the mundane vs. spiritual, mind vs. body, us vs. other.
|| 28:27 || Togetherness, and the magic of filling each others’ cups.
|| 31:20 || Diving into our wells of deep feeling.
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in praxis www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Background image: Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse, 1892
What better way to celebrate the one year anniversary of The Heart Is a Cauldron than a conversation about belonging as a radical, living, and collaborative practice?
Becca Piastrelli of the Belonging podcast and I had a heart-to-heart on the many layers of this topic, including:
- Personal tales and understandings of belonging
- Belonging as a radical antidote to Empire
- Toxicity in community
- Being with grief
- How to find belonging in a time such as this
(No time stamps for this episode)
MORE ON BECCA
Becca is a writer, coach, and host of the Belonging podcast. She holds space for women to explore ancestral wisdom, connect with the earth, and find meaningful and inclusive community. In the age of loneliness, Becca shows us how to feel like we truly belong - to each other, to the earth, to a lineage, and to ourselves. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner, child, two cats, and five chickens, where she gardens, cooks, mothers, and gathers with the ebb and flow of the seasons.
BeccaPiastrelli.com Becca on Instagram: @ beccapiastrelli Belonging podcast: belongingpodcast.com
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE PATREON
Each June, I pay forward the abundance from The Heart Is a Cauldron Patreon to BIPOC-led orgs committed to earth-honoring practices + decolonization. This year, 100% of the proceeds from June’s Patreon memberships will go to the National Black Food & Justice Alliance as well as the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance.
Join any time in June 2021 for your membership to be added to the total that will be given.
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
The World Tree is a mythic map of the universe, an atlas of the soul, and a sacred cosmogram of community and interdependence.
In this episode, we meet world trees that have been born out of diverse cultures, and sit under their boughs to learn about emergence and contraction, engaging in cycles of soul-level change, drinking from sacred waters, and remembering reverence for our communities.
|| 0:51 || Introducing the axis mundi
|| 4:54 || An embodied reflection as a way of intuiting your own experience of this mythic ally——plus, I share my own dreaming of the World Tree
|| 10:39 || Meet the World Tree in Slavic Europe, Africa, Mesoamerica, Northern Europe, Turtle Island, and in the maypole
|| 19:08 || Summarizing the medicine of the World Tree
|| 19:34 || Emergence and contraction
|| 22:34 || Engaging in cycles of soul-level change
|| 25:52 || Freedom and sacred vision
|| 26:40 || Drinking from sacred waters
|| 28:22 || Centering the community
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Background image: “Yggdrasill, the Mundane tree”, Baxter’s Patent Oil Printing, from the Prose Edda by Oluf Olufsen Bagge (1847)
We carry the spirit of May Day down from the mountain and the maypole, and into the streets, delving into the world's biggest annual magical ritual—International Workers’ Day. We then use this as inspiration to understand how emergence and contraction show up in our personal lives and our movements.
|| 0:02 || Spell-prayer-poem
|| 2:00 || Intro, hearth-tending, and a shoutout to Folklore for Resistance, which you can get inspired by/support via folkloreforresistance.com and instagram.com/folkloreforresistance/
|| 9:19 || An introduction to the May Day of flowers, witches, and ring dances, and the May Day that is International Worker's Day
|| 15:28 || Exploring if there was any connection between May Day and the start of International Workers’ Day
|| 19:55 || Why International Workers’ Day (and any act of resistance) is indeed magical, and belongs in our conversations about wheels of the year and other seasonal spirals
|| 22:30 || "Chardi Kala" by Sonny Singh. Sonny Singh is a musician and social justice educator, whose upcoming solo album is inspired by Sikh kirtan with boundary-defying Punjabi anthems to uplift & ignite. Sonny’s music is a reminder that hope, love, and devotion are crucial to our struggles and our collective survival. More at sonnysingh.com and instagram.com/iamsonnysingh
Learn about the Indian Farmers’ Protest bit.ly/2Rx2yKy
|| 28:37 || Emergence and contraction in our personal cycles of change and growth
|| 35:00 || Emergence and contraction in communal movement making, including a lesson from subterranean fires
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Background photo in podcast cover image twitter.com/cpimspeak/status/1380786946448982017/photo/2
Spring rites of renewal invite us into the twinship of death and rebirth, the power of the present moment as ritual, and finally, the necessary magic of repair and regeneration... all—as ever—within the context of life as a spiral.
|| 0:03 || Opening spell-prayer poem
|| 2:53 || Hearth tending: April marks the start of the new window of openings for 1:1 coaching. This is for folks who are yearning to connect more deeply with themselves and their purpose within the wondrous web of being. Last round was fully booked, next window will be in July. Visit kathrynfink.com/coaching to learn more and schedule a quick chat if you're interested.
|| 4:43 || Introducing the vernal equinox and today’s rites of renewal to farewell winter and welcome spring
|| 7:01 || Rites of blessing and arrival: The mountain descent of both the katsinam and the vesnas
|| 9:28 || Rites of death and rebirth: Holi and Holika’s burning, the drowning of Morana
|| 15:26 || Reframing into renewal, recognizing the realities of the past and choosing the future
Sophie Macklin’s Beyond the Blood course https://www.sophiemacklin.com/btb
|| 24:17 || “Marzanna” by the bank Lelek, by permission of Karrot Kommando https://karrot.pl/brzaskbogow
|| 28:12 || Intro to how the spring rites teach us about spiralic living in a way we can apply to the rest of the year, and really our whole lives
|| 29:49 || The twinship of death and rebirth
|| 35:02 || The power of the present moment, and the present moment as ritual
|| 39:02 || The necessary magic of repair and regeneration
Interview on transformative justice between Mariame Kaba and adrienne maree brown and autumn brown https://www.endoftheworldshow.org/blog/2018/11/7/the-practices-we-need-metoo-and-transformative-justice-part-2
|| 47:22 || Love letter to the land
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Bibliography available to all in the Patreon—I’m a wee bit behind on these, thanks for your patience as I catch up on the backlog!
Image: Vintage photo of Morana’s springtime effigy, artist unknown
Today we explore the rich terrain of embodiment, liberation, play, and queerness, all through the intertwining of the personal and the communal. And there’s no better soul to invite on for this conversation than Langston Kahn, shamanic practitioner and teacher, and author of Deep Liberation: Shamanic Teachings for Reclaiming Wholeness in a Culture of Trauma.
|| 3:44 || Opening prayer from Langston
|| 6:16 || Langston’s story of healing through relationship with the animate world
|| 18:40 || Body as the site of transformation
|| 30:50 || Freer futures through play and dreaming
|| 34:25 || Queerness within the journey of “reclaiming wholeness in a culture of trauma”
|| 44:39 || Interdependence as mutual nourishment rather than obligation
|| 51:00 || A practice from Langston, to play within the heart
|| 54:17 || More about Langston’s offerings
|| 57:22 || Closing wisdom
MORE ON LANGSTON
Langston is a shamanic practitioner and teacher specializing in radical human transformation, ancestral healing and the restoration of an authentic relationship with our emotions. He stands firmly at the crossroads, his practice informed by somatic modalities, contemporary shamanic traditions, initiations into traditions of the African Diaspora, and his helping spirits and ancestors weaving it all together. He gives workshops and lectures globally in person and online and is the author of Deep Liberation: Shamanic Teachings for Reclaiming Wholeness in a Culture of Trauma.
Website https://langstonkahn.com/ Energy Body Mastery http://lastmaskcenter.ontraport.com/t?orid=3691&opid=10 Shadow Transformation Protocol lastmaskcenter.ontraport.com/t?orid=805&opid=14 Instagram and Twitter: @ LangstonKahn
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Carnival might seem to add up to nothing more than a raucous party, but in fact this is a liberatory rite that can allow us to reconnect with our exuberance and resilience, speak back against imbalances of power, and envision freer futures.
In this episode, we meet some of these customs and characters from carnival and its related winter rites in Central and South America, Europe, and the Caribbean, and then in the second half of the episode, we play within the medicine of carnival, its insights and invitations into embodiment and queerness.
|| 0:00 || Opening spell
|| 1:02 || Hearthtending—news about reduced cost of the Patreon patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
|| 4:00 || Introducing carnival and today’s episode
Correction: I edited and reuploaded this track to reference Lunar New Year rather than giving an example of Chinese New Year only. More on why this is important: https://www.instagram.com/p/CK_wZKHnVD5/?igshid=2psnpzflj906
|| 10:03 || The many beginnings and histories of carnival, beyond the usual euro-centric story
|| 14:11 || Carnival customs
|| 27:32 || MUSICAL INTERMISSION “Federation” by the band Small Island Pride, from the album Calypso Awakening on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. To purchase the song or album, or access liner notes: http://s.si.edu/3d3JLPD
Please note: The singer frames the West Indies Federation movement in cheeky language, comparing communal organizing in terms of romance and socialization across diverse cultural groups, including Chinese immigrants who originally arrived as indentured servants. While he references them in solidarity, the term used is outdated and offensive, and so I added a silent bleep.
|| 30:13 || Carnival’s medicine of embodiment
|| 38:38 || Carnival’s medicine of queering realities and futures
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Instagram post with examples of carnival creatures: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLM8xnJHr9O/
Full quote from QueerNature referenced in the episode: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJjYt9wgk_7/
"Day Dreaming Yourself Into Existence" by Alok https://www.alokvmenon.com/blog/2021/1/12/day-dreaming-yourself-into-existence
Bibliography available for free/to all via the Patreon (no membership needed)
Image by Charles Fréger, from his incredible carnival character portraits https://www.charlesfreger.com/portfolio/wilder-mann/
“To say that one is longing for darkness is to say that one longs for transformation, for a darkness that brings balance, wholeness, integration, wisdom, insight.” - China Galland
The Dark Mothers are goddesses of death and rebirth both, fertility and winter, fear and survival. We’ll meet with several today, beginning with an homage to the African origins of this lineage, which have long been erased or repressed through colonialism and racism.
As we sit with the Dark Mother's medicine of profound transformation, we'll consider what that means for us as we crave radical shifts within ourselves and our communities.
Included are historical prayers to the Dark Mother, my own offering in honor of Mother’s Night, and, at the end, a personal tale of devotion.
|| 4:02 || Mother’s Night prayer || 6:00 || Invitation to open yourself up a kaleidoscopic view of darkness || 8:18 || African origins of the divine feminine || 10:21 || Isis || 13:31 || The Virgin Mary and The Black Madonna || 18:56 || Holda, Frau Holle, and Perchta || 23:34 || Green Tara || 25:49 || The Dark Mother’s medicine of profound transformation || 34:35 || The Dark Mother’s medicine of collective survival + justice || 39:01 || Personal tale of devotion to the Dark Mother || 43:24 || Parting words for you at the turning of the wheel
Books referenced: Dark Mother: African origins and godmothers, by Lucia Birnbaum Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna, by China Galland
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In the expansiveness of deepest night, we reconsider the binaries of light versus dark, unfoldment versus resolution, and progress versus sacred pause.
We visit with solstice customs sprung from the rejuvenating blackness of winter as much as the rebirth of the sun, and appreciate how the magic of both can foster a more collaborative, heart-centered, and complex transformation of the spirit, in place of typical New Year’s resolutions.
||0:03|| Prelude prayer-spell
||1:39|| Opening notes, field diary, invitation to rethink the binaries of light and dark
||7:17|| The dark helps us to see: Saturnalia, Kalends of January, Burusho Thumushelling, Alpine/Slavic spinning bans, Makahiki, mock kings and cross-dressing
||13:33|| Beholding the light: Inti Raymi, Chaumos of the Kalash, Yaldā, Yule logs, Lohri
||19:06|| MUSICAL INTERMISSION “Gloomy Winter’s Noo Awa” from the album Highlander’s Farewell on Culburnie Records. To purchase all Fraser & Haas albums, including Highlander’s Farewell: https://culburnie.com/alasdairandnatalie.html And to support their current “SYZYGY” project: https://culburnie.com/support.html
||25:19|| Eschewing typical New Year’s resolutions and sense of timing, in favor of a more collaborative, heart-centered, and complex transformation of the spirit
COMING SOON: This lunation's companion episode, where we’ll join the wild hunt and their mistress who rides at the fore, the Dark Mother.
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Bibliography available to all in the Patreon, usually by the end of the current lunation.
Image credit: Alphonse Mucha, “Star”
Tumble into a winding dialogue about decolonized time, the magic of body and place, and right relationship with the living world in this swapcast between myself and Gordon White, author of the upcoming Ani.Mystic and creator of Rune Soup.
Gordon and I decided to do something a little different, and much more mythic timey, so instead of a traditional interview, we had a long and circuitous chat with one another.
|| 3:58 || Get to know Kathryn
|| 8:18 || Get to know Gordon
|| 33:40 || Animism, whiteness, empire
|| 44:10 || Introducing mythic time
|| 52:13 || Defining mythic time vs. colonized time
|| 1:10:22 || The role of time in magical practice
|| 1:23:33 || Mythic time as anti-empire
|| 1:35:33 || Reviving vs. revivifying and conservation vs. relationship (please also refer to additional context and reading below)
FURTHER DELVING re: the conversation around climate crisis
Since this was a fairly quick and impromptu part of our conversation, and because someone listening might not have the context of knowing Gordon or myself well, I want to state clearly: Sustained individual and collective action is required to address the crisis our planet faces, including climate collapse. And I hope we do so in a way that dismantles rather than replicates racism, capitalist frameworks, or supremacism worldviews.
Interview with Rowen White, Seedkeeper and activist for Indigenous seed sovereignty: https://bit.ly/3lSHAzf Quick intro to racism in the environmental/conservation movement: https://bit.ly/36RAIO5 Medium read: https://bit.ly/39Oset1 Long read: https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr534.pdf Also check out many of the relevant interviews on the For the Wild podcast https://forthewild.world
FURTHER DELVING re: Mythic Time
The Heart Is a Veil, Lifted: Feasting with the ancestors in mythic time https://bit.ly/2K4hziY Check the bibliography from that episode https://bit.ly/33UqsCX
MORE ON GORDON
To watch today’s conversation in video form: Link coming soon! RuneSoup https://runesoup.com Gordon’s episode on Pattern Logic: https://bit.ly/36UyqxG Stay tuned for Gordon’s new book Ani.Mystic, coming from Scarlet Imprint scarletimprint.com Gordon on Twitter: @gordon_white
Please keep this offering alive
Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Artwork: Unknown artist, vintage illustration of nautilus
Dirt forms the body from which all life springs, and to which all life returns when it dies. Dirt feeds the people, dirt creates the crossroads, dirt cradles our dead. Dirt remembers.
Humans have long honored our sacred relationship with soil. While this relationship has manifested in countless enchanting ways, today we’ll focus on the magic of dirt in holding space for grief and other challenging emotions, through the alchemical unfolding of witnessing, transformation, and rebirth.
Included are tales of the creation of the first human, burial mounds, and the awakening of the Buddha.
|| 3:20 || The wonder of soil || 5:42 || Dirt as witness || 10:54 || Dirt as transformation || 14:41 || Dirt as new life
Companion podcast episode, "The Heart Is a Cocoon: Mourning to live" https://kathrynfink.com/the-heart-is-a-cauldron
If you’d benefit from additional support in turning this lunation’s inspiration into practice, the the Patreon now includes an immersive practice of body and soil, bridging somatic awareness and calling upon the earth as witness, ancestor, kin, and lifegiver. You can access this and all past content, no matter when you join. www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Bibliography available to all in the Patreon.
Artwork: Thangka from Traditional Art of Nepal traditionalartofnepal.com
Each of us will mourn, and folk traditions have long modeled radical ways of being with our grief in a way that nurtures our resilience, wisdom, and even joy.
We sit in circle with mourners from diverse traditions that encourage us to come close to the exact things that empire teaches us to run away from: our bodies, our pain, and our resilience. And we re-member three kinds of magic that colonized ideas of funerals and mourning have mostly suppressed: the sacred container of time, space, and community; the body as ally; and radical intimacy.
Finally, we explore how mourning bolsters our personal resilience and our collective resistance.
||0:03|| Prelude prayer-spell
||1:40|| Opening notes and introduction to the lunation’s energies
||7:07|| Visit with the funereal rites of the Torajans and Warlpiri
||15:46|| MUSICAL INTERMISSION “Arevelyan” by Armen Stepanyan from the album Armenian Highlands (Licensed from Hollywood Music Center) Find on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3nICDue Find on Apple Music: https://apple.co/3kR5RoT Donate to ArmeniaFund: https://www.armeniafund.org Learn more about what’s happening in Armenia: https://bit.ly/2ILFaoF
||20:16|| Three kinds of magic that colonized ideas of funerals and mourning have mostly suppressed: the sacred container of time, space, and community; the body as ally; and radical intimacy.
||38:22|| Questions for personal reflection, and mourning as personal resilience our collective resistance
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Bibliography available to all in the Patreon, usually available the week after the podcast episode is posted.
Image credit: Artist unknown, vintage botanical illustration of Death’s Head Moth
Today, we invite into our cauldron the magic of mugwort, goose, and the psychopomps, or mythical conductors of souls, Baron Samedi, Anubis, and Hekate.
These more than human kin are especially potent friends right now, as we walk through the gateway into the dark half of the year, but they can be called upon any time we long to come close to our ancestors, enter into powerful transitions, or shift our sense of possibility.
For each ally, I’ll share some lore as well as my own reflections on how they show us the way to cross thresholds, assist us in navigating the spirit world and spirit flight, and teach us what it is to live from a sense of time that is cyclical, non-linear, and centered on the eternal present.
At the end a deeply personal tale from my own healing relationship with these allies, full of the wonder and synchronicity that often arises when we step more fully into the web of being.
|| 3:20 || Goose
|| 14:10 || Mugwort
|| 21:00 || Psychopomps: Baron Samedi, Anubis, Hekate
|| 28:48|| Personal tale about mugwort, Hekate, and ancestral healing
A few related links...
Companion podcast episode, "The Heart Is a Veil, Lifted: Feasting with the ancestors in mythic time" https://soundcloud.com/the-heart-is-a-cauldron/the-heart-is-a-veil-lifted
olivia pepper https://www.instagram.com/oliviapepper/
A couple fave mugwort crafters (no paid promotion, just sharing the love): https://bloomcoshop.com/products/mugwort-bundle-protect-cleanse http://www.sisterspinster.net/shop https://banefolk.com/shop/
And if my tale of the ancestral grove touched you, take a look at the Patreon. Folx in the Fruit Bearer level are receiving a guided journey this month from me that will lead you to your own sacred space for ancestral healing. www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Please keep this offering alive
Subscribe / like / rate / review
Share with friends + on social
Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/
Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Bibliography available for free to all via the Patreon, usually posted the week after the podcast episode is released.
Artwork: "Hekate," pastel on paper by Maximilian Pirner, 1901
Walking through the gateway into the dark half of the year, we are invited to come close to our ancestors, to death, and to living in time that is cyclical, non-linear, and centered on the eternal present.
We find our way through the veil with traditions of illumination, celebration, and most importantly, feasting with the beloved dead. Get to know other holidays of the season besides Halloween, Samhain, and Día de Muertos—you’ll get a taste instead of Poland’s Dziady, Haiti’s Fet Gede, and Jewish Sukkot. Then, face death through a liberatory lens, explore how to live from mythic time, and call on the ancestors for support in transitional moments.
||0:03|| Prelude prayer-spell ||1:50|| Opening notes and introduction to the lunation’s energies ||10:45|| Visits with the celebrations of Dziady, Fet Gede, and Sukkot
MUSICAL INTERMISSION ||20:55|| “Soul Cake” by Allison Crowe from her album Souling, which you can find in full here https://allisoncrowe.bandcamp.com/album/souling-bonus-tracks-edition Learn more about Allison and her music at https://allisoncroweband.com
||23:40|| Facing death through a decolonizing lens, living from mythic time, turning to ancestral support in transitional moments
PART TWO COMING NEXT WEEK! As usual, we’ll visit with deities and helping spirits who can support us in working with this lunation’s themes.
Please keep this offering alive Subscribe / like / rate / review Share with friends + on social Follow Kathryn on Instagram www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/ Join our Patreon to translate this podcast in practice https://www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Bibliography available to all in the Patreon, usually available the week after the podcast episode is posted.
Abundance has been hijacked and perverted by capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. But every one of us descends from ancestors who understood what abundance truly means and how it is maintained for the entire community.
In this episode, we go deep into the lessons of the first fruits rites, a particularly rich harvest tradition that teaches us about a deeper sense of gratitude than most of us are raised with, as well as the magic of reciprocity and connection, rooted in ethics and relationship.
PART ONE ||0:03|| Prelude prayer
||1:08|| Introducing harvest traditions and, specifically, first fruits rites, with three examples from Africa, Europe, and Asia
||10:13|| Nourishing our emotional and spiritual journey by exploring the lessons from these first fruits rites
Dark Mother: African origins & godmothers by Lucia Birnbaum https://bit.ly/3lgZ2OX
Geshe Tenzin Zopa http://www.tenzinzopa.com
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer https://bit.ly/34mf18c
INTERMISSION ||21:10|| The Song the Sea God Sang - An Ainu legend that perfectly demonstrates today's themes of gratitude, reciprocity, and true abundance. Learn more about Chiri Yukie and the project to translate the Ainu yukar at okikirmui.com [All mispronunciations mine, and not reflective of the team translating the tales.]
PART TWO ||29:00|| We visit with three teachers who can aid us in understanding this lunation’s themes of gratitude, reciprocity, and abundance. Today, we lay our sickles at the feet of earth goddesses, cow, and wild fruits.
The Heart is a Cauldron is a podcast and Patreon community for personal and collective healing through relationship with the animate world.
Released around the new moon, each episode of The Heart Is a Cauldron podcast explores the nature-based rhythms and energies of the month as inspiration for healing praxis. (Think astrology forecasts for personal and communal growth, but inspired by dirt rather than planets.) Along the way, we visit with plant and animal wisdom, mythic archetypes, animist ethics, and earth-honoring traditions from around the world. Visit @ Kathryn.a.fink on Instagram or kathrynfink.com for more magic.
Please help give this podcast wings by sharing on social media and subscribing Tag me so I can say hello and thanks! www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/
Bibliography for The Heart Is a Divine Dreamer is available for free on the Patreon
We reckon with the tension between the summer’s energetic current of ripening and maturing, alongside the fatigue many of us are struggling within right now—and not just because of the heat. For support, we look to traditional rites of rest, Poppy, dreaming gods, and Bat.
PART ONE
||0:03|| Prelude ||4:35|| Intro and diary ||6:49|| The tension between summer’s energetic current of ripening and maturing, alongside the fatigue many of us are struggling within right now—and not just because of the heat. We look to traditional rites of rest, then take a moment to explore what’s going on in our mind-body systems when we rest, and when we don’t.
People mentioned: Tricia Hersey & the Nap Ministry bit.ly/3eQF2hq Angela Martinez Gómez abcn.ws/2EaRVq3 Dr. Pooja Amy Shah drpoojaamyshah.com Dr. Saundra Dalton-smith bit.Ly/3frzgir Mary Helen Immordino-Yang bit.ly/2CWzlBu
CORRECTION: I incorrectly described Angela Martinez Gómez as a trans woman, when Angela is actually Muxe. https://bit.ly/31pbT9G I apologize for this and will take additional steps to make sure I don't cause harm through misidentification in the future—gender identity is sacred and I always want this podcast to reflect that.
||20:55|| "Sen Bir Güzel Meleksin" sourced via the Turkish Cultural Foundation bit.ly/2WLPjp2
PART TWO
||22:41|| Learning about sacred rest from Poppy, dreaming gods, and a particularly beloved animal kin of mine, Bat.
The Heart is a Cauldron is a podcast and Patreon community for healing through relationship with the animate world.
Each episode will be released around the new moon, and we’ll explore the nature-based rhythms and energies of the month, then use those as inspiration for healing praxis. If you’re listening after this particular lunation—fear not, most of the themes are universal and timeless I'm Kathryn Fink, and I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you.
Please help give this podcast wings by sharing on social media and subscribing Tag me so I can say hello and thanks! www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/
Heart is a Cauldron Patreon community where I will lead journeys and Q&As, provide exclusive mini-classes, create ways to interact with and support one another, and open up a few spots to work with me 1:1 on this month’s focus. www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
All proceeds from June and July will be doubled by myself and invested into three orgs committed to earth practices and decolonization Weaving Earth, Queer Nature and Soul Fire Farm.
Bibliography for The Heart Is a Divine Dreamer is available for free on the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39809537
Pausing in the electricity and climbing heat of this lunation, we learn about rainmaking rituals that have occurred throughout history, up through today—a particular kind of magic that waters the seeds of our personal and collective healing. Our allies are weather deities, the sacred reed, and a microscopic being who is actually neither plant nor animal.
PART ONE ||1:16|| Prelude to honor the current uprising for racial justice ||6:10|| Intro and diary ||10:00|| Pausing in the electricity and climbing heat of this lunation, and learning about rainmaking rituals that have occurred throughout history, up through today ||19:46|| "Oj Dodole Mili Bože" by Vrelo, from the album Used Na Belo, published Serbia 2002. Discover more of their music here: https://bit.ly/2YGuVap ||22:36|| Tying the magic of rain rituals to our personal and collective healing ||33:40|| "a prayer to call the rain" by brontë velez. Read brontë's prayer and witness the accompanying dance here: https://bit.ly/31kGDJj Support Lead to Life here: https://www.leadtolife.org
PART TWO ||37:10|| Weather deities, the sacred reed, and a microscopic being who is actually neither plant nor animal.
Black leaders and creators to follow and support Mariame Kaba http://mariamekaba.com Lama Rod Owens https://www.lamarod.com brontë velez https://www.leadtolife.org adrienne maree brown http://adriennemareebrown.net Resmaa Menakem https://www.resmaa.com/ Rachel Cargle https://www.rachelcargle.com serpentwithfeet www.instagram.com/serpentwithfeet/
The Heart is a Cauldron is a podcast and Patreon community for healing through relationship with the animate world.
Each episode will be released around the new moon, and we’ll explore the nature-based rhythms and energies of the month, then use those as inspiration for healing praxis. I'm Kathryn Fink, and I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you.
Please subscribe and give positive ratings for this offering, and, most importantly, please share on social media Tag me so I can say hello, thank you from the bottom of my heart and give you a shoutout. www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/
Heart is a Cauldron Patreon community where I will lead journeys and Q&As, provide exclusive mini-classes, create ways to interact with and support one another, and open up a few spots to work with me 1:1 on this month’s focus. www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
All proceeds from June and July will be doubled by myself and invested into three orgs committed to earth practices and decolonization Weaving Earth, Queer Nature and Soul Fire Farm.
Bibliography for The Heart Is a Call for Rain is available for free via the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38882276
This month, the natural rhythms of flowering, fire, and fullness will help us explore our healing journey with ecstasy and shame. We visit with rose, goddexxes of love, and salamander.
PART ONE ||3:50|| Energies moving through the earth at this time, as evidenced by what’s happening with the flora and fauna, and we’ll take clues too from global folk celebrations too. ||14:30|| This month, the natural rhythms of flowering, fire, and fullness will help us explore our healing journey with ecstasy and shame.
PART TWO ||25:53|| Specific healing allies for this lunation—rose, salamander, and the goddess Venus. ||39:25|| Suggested ritual that ties all of this together, for your personal spiritual and healing practice.
The Heart is a Cauldron is a podcast and Patreon community for healing through relationship with the animate world.
Each episode will be released around the new moon, and we’ll explore the nature-based rhythms and energies of the month, then use those as inspiration for healing praxis. I'm Kathryn Fink, and I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you.
Please subscribe and give positive ratings for this offering, and, most importantly, please share on social media Tag me so I can say hello, thank you from the bottom of my heart and give you a shoutout. www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/
Heart is a Cauldron Patreon community where I will lead journeys and Q&As, provide exclusive mini-classes, create ways to interact with and support one another, and open up a few spots to work with me 1:1 on this month’s focus. www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
The Heart is a Cauldron is a podcast and Patreon community for healing through relationship with the animate world.
Each episode will be released around the new moon, and we’ll explore the nature-based rhythms and energies of the month, then use those as inspiration for healing praxis. I'm Kathryn Fink, and I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you.
In this Invocation episode, I’ll introduce the podcast four ways: || 2:30 || Voice my intentions for how I hope this podcast will nourish you || 5:13 || Talk briefly about the core concepts this offering is founded on—what is healing? what does "relationship with the animate world" mean? can you benefit from this podcast if you don't believe in Spirit or god? how do you enjoy this podcast if you listen at a different time of year? || 13:18 || Share who I am || 16:37 || Honor my lineage in spirituality, healing, nature, and magic
Please follow and, most importantly, please share on social media Tag me so I can say hello, thank you from the bottom of my heart and give you a shoutout. https://www.instagram.com/kathryn.a.fink/
Heart is a Cauldron Patreon community where I will lead journeys and Q&As, provide exclusive mini-classes, create ways to interact with and support one another, and open up a few spots to work with me 1:1 on this month’s focus. https://www.patreon.com/theheartisacauldron
Special thank yous mentioned in this episode: