Welcome to Belonging, a podcast that explores being alive in the age of loneliness.

Becca Piastrelli is your host and guide on a journey of courageous reconnection as we explore topics like ancestral wisdom, cultivating meaningful community, living with the seasons and cycles of the earth and your body, and what it means to be a good ancestor.

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Thank you for listening to the Belonging podcast! If the show has supported you in some way, I invite you to contribute to the tip jar. Your contribution helps me keep it going.

Episode #110: Slow Homesteading & Land Stewardship With Hillarie Maddox

Episode #110: Slow Homesteading & Land Stewardship With Hillarie Maddox

If you have a long-held dream (or even the quietest whisper of a thought) that you want to live on and with the land, this episode is for you. Hillarie Maddox is the founder of Black Girl Country Living and creator of Rewilding Workshops. In 2020, she and her family...

Past Episodes:

Episode #109: Sharing Rituals with Our Children with Waverly Davis

Episode #109: Sharing Rituals with Our Children with Waverly Davis

Waverly Davis a multidimensional twin mama, facilitator of sacred spaces + sounds, artist, and podcaster residing outside of Charlottesville,...

Episode #108: Calling in & Building Meaningful Community

Episode #108: Calling in & Building Meaningful Community

In today’s episode, I reflect on the role community plays in our lives and the stories we share with each other about our yearnings for...

Episode #107: Feeding & Healing Ourselves Amidst Collapse with Carmen Spagnola

Episode #107: Feeding & Healing Ourselves Amidst Collapse with Carmen Spagnola

Carmen Spagnola is a wilderness guide, podcast host, Le Cordon Bleu-trained Chef, rose and vegetable gardener, collapse-aware coach, and witch of no...

Episode #106: Autumn is the Season of Ancestors

Episode #106: Autumn is the Season of Ancestors

In today’s episode, I invite us fireside to connect with our ancestors — the humans, plants, animals, and stardust we come from. Tune to hear me...

Episode #105: Human Design for Parents and Partners with Erin Claire Jones

Episode #105: Human Design for Parents and Partners with Erin Claire Jones

Erin Claire Jones uses Human Design to help thousands of individuals and companies step into their work and their lives as their truest selves and...

Episode #104: Madness as Initiation to Transformation with Clare Foale

Episode #104: Madness as Initiation to Transformation with Clare Foale

Clare Foale is a Mum, a creator, a space holder, a brink walker and an ocean lover, living on Garigal Country in Australia. Together, Clare and I...

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Follow me! @beccapiastrelli

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Where there is flame, you are never alone. 🕯

🔥This Wednesday, Dec 7th at 1pm PT, join @seagrapeapothecary and I for an IG live communi-tea about Hearth Magic. Come sit hearthside with us as we chat about seasonal living, how we can descend into the winter dreamtime when the world is loud and bustling, and all the medicine the hearth (and flame) has for us in this weird and wild time. Bring your questions about hearth magic, seasonal magic, etc. We’d love for this live to be interactive! 🫖

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Today, we exist so much apart from each other.

When you think about the span of humanity — how long humans have been alive and walking on this earth — this concept of isolating from each other in our own homes with fences, gates, and locks is a relatively new one. British environmental activist George Monbiot calls humans “mammalian bees” who have depended entirely on each other since our earliest ancestors walked this earth.

We used to live in tribal units, where the well-being of the greater collective was the measure of health. This modern-day impulse to self-sustain away from your community in a fenced-off house in the suburbs has taken us a long way from the communal mentality.

These days, we’re busy. In all our ambition and effort to be more productive and fill the blank spaces in our calendars with errands and email inboxes and mindless social media scrolling, we’ve lost those opportunities for repeated spontaneous encounters that build connection and friendship. Friendships are things we choose to do, while obligations of family, career, spouses, etc are things we have to do. But we’re here now. We’re alive in this time and space where loneliness and disconnection are some of our greatest struggles.

I know for me, as a mama, I'm tired a lot and crave alone time. I want to go to bed early and read a book or take a bath or watch my shows in peace. And when I get that, I cherish it deeply. But then there is a point I inevitably get to where it tips over into loneliness and I find myself missing community. It is a yearning so deep and so ancient for something I can’t even wholly pinpoint, but I’ve felt it long enough in my life to know that is a core need that must be filled.

And I know it is a frustrating truth that those of us who feel the loss of community the most (mothers, grieving ones, those suffering with illness) are the least resourced and yet the most likely to be community builders. And I have found that it is worth the effort (when you honestly have the capacity) to devote a time to cultivating community in your life.

✨ I talk about cultivating meaningful community in my newsletter. Link in bio to subscribe ✨

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It’s gonna take a little extra time and energy on your part to feel a nourishing sense of community in your life. But I promise it is so very worth it.

Take the time to send a thank you card in the mail to a new friend, text them when you’re on the way to the grocery store to see if you can pick anything up for them, organize a park picnic meet-up with fellow mamas/parents and their babes, or send flowers to someone on a hard anniversary.

I know I know - we are all SO busy. And…the antidote to the madness of life's busy-ness is setting aside a little time and energy to disrupt the status quo and cultivate more connection between you and the folks you are calling in to be in community with you.

✨ I talk about cultivating meaningful community in my bi-weekly email newsletter, called Slow & Seasonal. If you’d like to receive it, check out the link in my bio ✨

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Some words on the art of the invitation from personal experience...

Remember - this is about facilitating a deep and lasting *connection* with another being - as adults - in a busy and hectic world. Stay the course and harvest the bounty.

✨ I talk about cultivating meaningful community in my bi-weekly email newsletter, called Slow & Seasonal. If you’d like to receive it, check out the link in my bio ✨

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I loved chatting with @heywaverlydavis about incorporating ritual into motherhood and what she does with her twins. This little story felt so useful!

To listen to our entire conversation, search “Belonging” wherever you listen to podcasts (or click the link in my bio) ✨

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Having recently been officially diagnosed with tech neck and seen the X-ray showing my skull pushed nearly 2 inches forward of my spine, I’m getting real serious about less time on devices and relieving the pressure they put on my neck and spine.

If you’ve got a foam roller (also: get one) lay on it lengthwise everyday with your arms out and massage the muscles of your upper neck on the edge of the roller. It also helps new mamas who are curled in around babies during feedings and contact naps. It’s really really helping me.

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Some thoughts on cuffing season ❄️🔗

You are not alone in your desire to be near another during the winter months. Follow the natural pull and rhythms of the seasons as the earth intended you to. 💞

✨ I talk about seasonal living in my bi-weekly email newsletter, called Slow & Seasonal. If you’d like to receive it, check out the link in my bio ✨

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Join us for The Rooted Magic Retreat - Jan 5-8 in Northern California 🔥

✨2 spots left✨

All the info can be found at the link in my bio or at beccapiastrelli.com/rooted-magic-2023 🕯️

Video by @sophiastudio.co
Music by @beautifulchorus

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Channeling the seasonal wisdom of my ancestors with this batch of fire cider 🔥🧄✨

Fire cider is full of health benefits from medicinal plants and herbs that are infused into raw apple cider vinegar and sweetened with raw honey. Just a couple of spoonfuls a day will help support your immune system and overall health throughout the year but especially during cold and flu season.

This batch includes:
- 1 orange
- 3 habaneros
- grated fresh horseradish
- half an onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- fresh ginger
- fresh turmeric
- dried nettle leaf

Chop it up, cover it in apple cider vinegar in a clean jar and let sit for a moonth (28ish days). Then strain the infused vinegar and add a touch of honey if you need it. Sip sip sip!

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We know it’s not a healthy mindset and yet….we sometimes find ourselves thinking it. Or justifying our internalized urge to keep going, keep working, keep pushing, keep up with the unreasonable expectations of what? Of machines?

We are not machines. We are living, breathing human animals with ebbs and flows and a range of capacities. As we head into winter here in the northern hemisphere, I beg you to remember this. 🔥

✨ I talk about seasonal living in my bi-weekly email newsletter, called Slow & Seasonal. If you’d like to receive it, check out the link in my bio ✨

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I’ve learned to embrace my forgetfulness as a natural byproduct of both becoming a mother and living in times where there are too many demands of my time and energy. After fighting it and getting too dang tired of feeling like I was failing life, I followed the advice of my fellow wise mamas and dropped my sword. I surrender to being imperfect in an unreasonable system! I reclaim my brain’s limited capacity. I honor my sacred body’s desire to slow the F down and limit what I can respond to. Liberate yourself with me!

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The problem may not be your partner. The problem may be the fact that we’re told to do life alone with just one other person. We are designed to be supported by many. Compassion for the ways we aren’t getting that and courage for figuring out how to get it.

#bringbackthevillage
#communitycare
#revillage