Are you a compassion warrior, culture worker, and rebel who cares deeply about humanity; who's tired of doing all the “right things” and still getting what you’re trying to avoid; and who feels trapped between burning it all down or dying but would rather be wildly, and sacredly alive? I'm an animist and ancestral wisdom guide; ceremonialist, and empath. And I love guiding other humans who want to use their burnout and purpose anxiety as a jumping-off point to journey into their shadows and the shadows of modern society in order to de-armor their hearts; remember a deeper, wilder sense of belonging to the world; and reclaim the rich and sacred spark of their aliveness. This newsletter contains wisdom nuggets, podcast episodes, and invitations to paid and free offerings from my business. All in support of remembering a more animist and land-based culture; holding firm to our humanity in a dehumanizing world; and living with compassion, vulnerability, and reverence.
i've been trying to put words to this for a while...
Hello, dear one!For many years, we (at least in the U.S.) have operated on the assumption that health, wellness, healing are individual endeavors. Where we experience pain, suffering, disease, we (whether consciously or not) assume or apportion the full blame, burden, and responsibility for our experience and its repercussions to ourselves and our immediate relationships, often failing to account for inherited, systemic, or cultural wounds. It wasn't always this way. While self-responsibility is always ours (and should be); we are each a living, breathing environment in constant relationship with the wider living, breathing environment. Our experiences and their ripples are rarely solely ours. We belong to each other - past, present, and future - in deeply interdependent ways. Our ancestors knew this and built this knowing into their cultures. As epigenetics proves that ancestral trauma and its inherited effects are a thing, the notion of 'ancestral healing' is becoming increasingly mainstream. Recognizing and naming an ancestral pain when a pain I'm experiencing feels bigger or more 'charged' than proportionate to my lived experiences has unlocked new levels of wholeness and possibility for repair in me. I'm all for ancestral healing. I'm also all for the more titrated and sustainable school of healing which says that while we're busy removing, releasing, transmuting, transforming the things we don't want, we also need to be building up what we do want. For a while now, as my personal journey and some of the focus of my work has been shifting in the direction of being ancestral work, work to shift inner and outer culture, I have been sitting with the 'why' of it. Given that nothing in the past was perfect and we're faced with a future that feels pressing and urgent, why look back? Why seek elders and their rememberings? Why seek to revive endangered languages? Why learn to farm, to weave, to cook, to sing, to drum, to craft? What I'm landing in for now: these are old ways which still hold the vibration, the encoding of old wisdom - the wisdom of slowness, of reverence, of relationship to land which is also relationship to story, song, culture. Turns out, as we stop running from the wounds our ancestors experienced, the displacement and disconnection, we become available to remember the wisdom and the gifts. Ancestral rememberings are the salve, the balm, we can apply to our ancestral traumas to help ease their transmutation. Ancestral Songs and Stories of Scotland begins this Thursday, May 18th (live class times are at 1:30pm ET). 8-weeks of learning from elders, culture bearers, story and song carriers (one of whom played the bard in Outlander!) - people dedicated to holding the link to our remembering so the wisdom of those who came before us, so dearly earned over thousands of years, doesn't get lost in our modern quest for perpetual newness and youth. You do not need to be a singer or storyteller to join - this is not about performance or 'getting'; but rather about allowing yourself to be moved and awoken through receiving the ancestral transmissions. You do not need to prove or even have Scottish ancestry to join - only feel a calling to, respect for, or resonance with these wild, sacred lands and the wisdom and culture encoded within. I can't make any promises about what this journey will offer you or where it will take you. It's too deep and too responsive to you and your own calling and engagement with it for that. Nor are guaranteed, measurable outcomes a particularly ancestral way of discernment. All I can say is, if you feel the call - this is an amazing opportunity and totally worth it. Join us? I'm so excited to be learning and acting as community support for this round and would love to share in this experience with you. Much love, Kate P.S. The links I share here for Ancestral Songs and Stories of Scotland are affiliate links - if you do feel called to join, using this link lets them know I sent you and something comes back to me in a beautiful web of support. Weaving Remembrance programs seek to build ancestral wisdom into the very structure and systems of the programs. I do the same in my own business, to the best of my ability, and love when others are seeking to walk their talk as much as possible, too. I would also never back a program I didn't fully believe in and where I hadn't felt the value. <3 P.P.S. We're halfway through May already and the June 4th day-long retreat at Shine Yoga in Winchester, VA is fast approaching. Join us (in person!) for a day of communing, of slow and caring exploration, of wisdom transmission - a day that will feel like gathering around the village fire to experience Divine Love. Early bird pricing is here until the end of the month! |
2923 Pine Spring Rd, Falls Church, VA 22042 |
Hi! I'm Kate - an intuitive, medicine woman, and guide for embodied Presence
Are you a compassion warrior, culture worker, and rebel who cares deeply about humanity; who's tired of doing all the “right things” and still getting what you’re trying to avoid; and who feels trapped between burning it all down or dying but would rather be wildly, and sacredly alive? I'm an animist and ancestral wisdom guide; ceremonialist, and empath. And I love guiding other humans who want to use their burnout and purpose anxiety as a jumping-off point to journey into their shadows and the shadows of modern society in order to de-armor their hearts; remember a deeper, wilder sense of belonging to the world; and reclaim the rich and sacred spark of their aliveness. This newsletter contains wisdom nuggets, podcast episodes, and invitations to paid and free offerings from my business. All in support of remembering a more animist and land-based culture; holding firm to our humanity in a dehumanizing world; and living with compassion, vulnerability, and reverence.
Hello, dear ones - Happy Spring Equinox! We're at the balance point of even days and even nights. And that got me reflecting a bit on balance and how a machine-oriented understanding of balance is something akin to "everything working consistently, as it should, and requiring no maintenance." Yet if we look at myth, at ancestral skills, at animist and land-connected worldviews; we see an understanding that life is maintenance. Relationships require maintenance. Harmony within this...
Hello, dear ones - We're approaching Spring equinox and the half-way point between the solstices. In true Spring form, we've been having winds, extreme temperature changes, and more rain. But the crows are still sassy and silly and I'm grateful no huge tree branches have fallen on the house or cars. In many old stories and myths, Spring was characterized by battles between the forces of Winter and the forces of Summer. You could also think of this moment as the five card in a tarot deck - the...
Hello, dear ones - In the Gaelic tradition there are stories of epic battles between the Cailleach (the old woman of winter and creator of the land) and Bride (youthful goddess of summer and the love the fosters all growing things). It's part of how the ancestors of those lands were in relationship with this Spring period where the weather swings back and forth between icy snow and howling winds... and warm sun, moist soil where green shoots start appearing, and the smell of decay and new...