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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Episode #100: The Women’s Circle with Anoushka Florence

Episode #100: The Women’s Circle with Anoushka Florence

Anoushka Florence is a teacher, an author, a circle-tender, and a mother. She is the Keeper of the Mama’s Village, the Mama of The Goddess Space, and the author of The Women’s Circle. Her work is based on ancient spiritual feminine practices that are grounded in the...

Past Episodes:

Episode #99: Keeping Grief Weird with Tracy Benjamin

Episode #99: Keeping Grief Weird with Tracy Benjamin

Tracy Benjamin is a food photographer, stylist & blogger based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this episode, we have a tender conversation...

Episode #98: Being Alone in Nature with Nicole Antoinette

Episode #98: Being Alone in Nature with Nicole Antoinette

Nicole Antoinette is a writer, podcast host, and community-builder who is super into long-distance hiking. In this conversation, she tells us the...

Episode #97: Writing as Pregnancy & Publishing as Postpartum with Asha Frost

Episode #97: Writing as Pregnancy & Publishing as Postpartum with Asha Frost

Asha Frost is an Anishinaabe (Ojibway) Medicine Woman (member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation), Healer, and Spiritual Mentor. Last time she...

Episode #96: Friendship deserts, creativity floods, and ancestral mothering with Megan McGuire and Ariella Daly

Episode #96: Friendship deserts, creativity floods, and ancestral mothering with Megan McGuire and Ariella Daly

Have you been craving a deep, expansive conversation about creativity, burnout, postpartum, paying for the village, and raising children in...

Episode #95: You have a right to feel good in your clothing with Dacy Gillespie

Episode #95: You have a right to feel good in your clothing with Dacy Gillespie

Dacy Gillespie is a personal stylist who intuitively guides us to discover the clothes we feel best in — uncovering and releasing what society says...

Episode #94: Re-writing the story on motherhood with Lisa Olivera

Episode #94: Re-writing the story on motherhood with Lisa Olivera

Lisa Olivera is a writer, therapist, and creative who shares work centered around radical acceptance, cultivating compassion, and integrating our...

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Dear Becca of May 2021,

You’ve heard so many mothers who’ve gone before you say it gets better, and I’m here to tell you that it’s true for you too.

I know.

I know how annoying it felt to hear those words “it gets better” in moments of your suffering - the moments when you thought the sleep deprivation would kill you, when you would put the baby down for the night and feel the anxiety and rage bubbling out of you like a volcano, when the despair and grief would overtake you and it all felt so wrong and shameful. I know you needed relief in those moments and July 2022 was too far away to even consider.

What you are experiencing is deeply sacred. You are in an 18 month long ceremony, and our culture isn’t providing the witness and care you deserve right now.

And.

And you make it out the other side, beloved one. You acquire the tools and the language to traverse the rocky paths before you. Your voicing of your pain in your circles and to your community is deeply important. Please don’t stop doing that.

What is felt by you is felt by millions. You are at the root.

Feel me whispering prayers at your back. Feel me calling you forward as you crawl through the mud. Feel me laying in a hammock, breeze on my face, nervous system soothed, crying with gratitude and deep love for you.

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New episode alert:
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The Women's Circle with Anoushka Florence
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Anoushka @thegoddessspace is a teacher, an author, a circle-tender, and a mother. She is the Keeper of the Mama’s Village, the Mama of The Goddess Space, and the author of The Women’s Circle. Her work is based on ancient spiritual feminine practices that are grounded in the belief that the power to heal comes from within.
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Together, we begin with the question what is circle? and spiral out to the importance of women’s circles, rituals, cleaning as clearing, ancestral lineages and more. We also discuss common questions about circle, such as— how do I find a circle near me? what if I’m an introvert? and what if I feel uncomfortable or unsafe in circle?
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At its center, this conversation is about how circles can serve us all well. And it’s an invitation to hear if circle is calling you.
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Have a listen by searching "Belonging" wherever you listen to click the link in my bio 🎧

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My fellow astrology-curious, biz runnin' folks: here's a cool idea I just learned about from my podcast producer, Amelia from @softersounds.studio
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🌟 RUN YOUR BUSINESS BIRTH CHART 🌟
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I just ran mine (birth time is the timestamp on the email confirming my EIN for my business entity back in Nov 2013) and am digesting the results:
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My sweet lil biz is:
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♏ Sun
♓ Moon
♑ Rising
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What am I making this mean?
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My biz is watery with an earthy foundation. It is known for its intensity and staying power. It is dreamy with deep compassion and love. It is deeply giving. It is unmistakably serious when it wants to be - also hardworking and all about the family it serves.
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For non-biz-owning folks, you could run birth charts for other important thing in your lives. Like your homes, you book clubs, your moon circles, or your relationships.
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FUN :)

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The past couple of years have been hard for a lot of us. My personal experience of it (though dotted with a good dose of joy) was a feeling of existential grief over the isolation and loss and division of our communities. I have felt so tapped into the collective trauma response of our culture and it’s been exhausting. And as I find myself emerging from the fog of it all, I'm yearning for something to make meaning of it all - to say "that happened and I'm changed because of it."
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We need ritual to honor this moment. We need to pause and be witnessed in our grief and in our clarity and in our longing.
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Have you thought about how you can craft meaning for this moment? How can you bring a sense of witness and honoring to your heartbreak and loss and the newness that is emerging from it? Even the unexpected joys?
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If we don’t pause, we continue the unhealthy and traumatic patterns.
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This Saturday, I’m leading a workshop to help you do just that - craft ritual to bring meaning to this moment or others you have experienced. If you can make it happen in your schedule, I’d love for you to join me.
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The Details:
Saturday, June 25th
10am - 12:30pm PT
Virtual Sacred Zoom Space
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More info on our time together and financial exchange at Passagecraft.com or head to the link in my bio. 🕯️
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photo credit: @sophiastudio.co

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I’ll never forget that day I was bundled up with my scarlet colored scarf whipping in the cold Irish wind - my crown wrapped in ivy - as warm tears fell down my cheeks.
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Underneath my thick parka, I had wrapped a red string around my belly - with 3 black glass beads tied on to honor the pregnancies I had lost (Atlas was still a dream in the stars yet to come into my womb), and one red heart-shaped plastic bead in the center to honor this very moment I was inhabiting.
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I looked into the wise eyes of @drkarenwardtherapist who was tapping two stones together as she led the ritual to re-play and honor the moment I started bleeding as a young girl. All of us there on that hill (from our twenties to well into our sixties) drew up memories and feelings of being our little girl selves. We were asked to bring two other women into our little ritual space with us and have them take on the energy and words of loved ones we wanted to celebrate that moment. I had my friend @stephaniemburg stand in as my mother and someone else stand in as my maternal grandmother. What transpired there next is something I can’t totally describe to you, but I can tell you it felt personal and healing and important.
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This concept of re-honoring a meaningful moment in your life with ritual is what we’ll be covering in the Passagecraft workshop.
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During this 2.5-hour workshop, we’ll come together – leaving behind the worries and to-do lists for a few precious hours – to connect and regulate our nervous systems to each other. We’ll drop in to a sacred gathering – offering up our tender hearts, vulnerable stories, and deep truths in service to the rituals we will each craft and carry out to provide healing and completion.
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Saturday, June 25th
10am - 12:30pm PT
Virtual Sacred Zoom Space
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--> Sign up at Passagecraft.com or click the link in my bio 🕯🖋

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I need you to know what doesn’t work.

In my Human Design reading yesterday with @nadialast_ (10/10 would recommend!) I understood how vital it is that I share with you what doesn’t work as much as I share what does.

My trial and error process informs my teaching, my relationships, and my life path. It all makes sense now why I originally started this business 10 years ago as a DIY blogger called The Dabblist. I needed to give myself permission to blow the lid off the aging paradigm of perfectionism and use my hands to somatically work through that.

That’s still my process. Keeping at it, trying new methods, curiously following the excitement and sharing my results. All of this in the name of a new and different way of being. All of this in the name of belonging and returning to our innate ways of interconnection.

That is what I can promise you here - the unvarnished truth about what’s worked and what hasn’t.

And my ideas tend to challenge the status quo. They can be uncomfortable. If you’ve been here awhile, you likely have had a moment of cringe or judgement over some of the things I share. That’s ok. I trust us doing this transformation thing. I trust life.

*And if you’re HD curious, I’m a Manifesting Generator 3/5 Martyr Heretic born under the Cross of the Unexpected and Gate of Influence

**If you’re necklace curious, I’m wearing @ageofsailstudio Sun + Moon + Rising charms

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This list is just the beginning 🕯🖋

At last year’s Passagecraft workshop, we had women creating rituals for everything from navigating parents’ divorce at the age of 9 to getting a professional license to retirement from a lifelong career. All of it deserves pause and witnessing and sacred care.

This concept of re-honoring a meaningful moment in your life with ritual is what we’ll be covering in the workshop I’m calling Passagecraft.

During this 2.5-hour workshop, we’ll come together – leaving behind the worries and to-do lists for a few precious hours – to connect and regulate our nervous systems to each other. We’ll drop in to a sacred gathering – offering up our tender hearts, vulnerable stories, and deep truths in service to the rituals we will each craft and carry out to provide healing and completion.

There will be journaling, there will be reflection, there will be sharing, and there will be planning (with provided worksheets) so that you can design your own personal ritual or self-ceremony to bring the much needed honoring to the life moments you wished had felt more sacred and seen at the time.

So many of us are wishing and waiting for someone to enter into our lives and have the recipe, book, prayer, or instagram caption to help us navigate these complex life transitions we naturally move through. This workshop helps to empower you to do this for yourself.

The Details:
Saturday, June 25th
10am - 12:30pm PT
Virtual Sacred Zoom Space

If you are like me and feeling like you want another chance at honoring the meaningful passages of your life, then join me for this sweet and powerful workshop and head over to passagecraft.com(or link in my bio).

#ritesofpassage #bringbackthevillage #revillaging #rootandritualbook #simpleritual #revillage #ancestralways #sacredlife #reenchantment #seasonalliving #livingwiththeseasons #sacredfeminine

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New episode alert:
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Keeping Grief Weird with Tracy Benjamin
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Tracy @shutterbean is a food photographer, stylist & blogger based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this episode, we have a tender conversation about grief, and all the ways she’s experienced it since her mom’s sudden death in 2017.
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Together we explore how loss can encompass our full range of emotions and impact every area of our life. Tracy shares what it feels like to be the only woman left in her family and the joys and struggles of becoming her family’s keeper — hosting their gatherings, their values, and their grief stories.
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We also talk about parenting our children and our selves, normalizing death in our society, grieving our dreams, letting our creative work evolve, and keeping grief weird through it all.
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Our conversation is hard, heartbreaking, and so, so honest. If you’ve lost a parent or someone close to you, what Tracy says will resonate deeply. And if you haven’t felt that specific grief, this episode is also a balm for the collective grief the past few years have brought us all.
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To listen, search "belonging" wherever you listen to podcasts or click the link in my bio

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Some thoughts to consider for the judgey parts of who we are.
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Shared with compassion for all parts of ourselves - even the shadowy bits. 🫶
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✨ Interested in reading more of my words? This is an excerpt from an email I sent out to subscribers of my newsletter, called Slow & Seasonal. You can sign up to get the next one at beccapiastrelli.com/subscribe (or link in my bio). ✨

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❤️‍🔥 Marriage, Babies, & Outdated Gender Roles - a wee chat with @sarahjenks and @jonathanbrajtbord

Loved this conversation with Sarah and Jonathan about how to reinvigorate an outdated marriage based on antiquated cultural values. I especially wanted to grill them on marriage after babies!

Their course, Modern Marriage, is open for enrollment. I have a link in my bio if you’re curious. Doors close 6/14 ❤️‍🔥

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Announcing:
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Passagecraft: A workshop to help you reclaim the meaningful moments of your life and craft the ritual you crave to honor them.
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During this 2.5-hour workshop, we’ll come together – leaving behind the worries and to-do lists for a few precious hours – to connect and regulate our nervous systems to each other. We’ll drop in to a sacred gathering – offering up our tender hearts, vulnerable stories, and deep truths in service to the rituals we will each craft and carry out to provide healing and completion.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
There will be journaling, there will be reflection, there will be sharing, and there will be planning (with provided worksheets) so that you can design your own personal ritual or self-ceremony to bring the much needed honoring to the life moments you wished had felt more sacred and seen at the time.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So many of us are wishing and waiting for someone to enter into our lives and have the recipe, book, prayer, or instagram caption to help us navigate these complex life transitions we naturally move through. This workshop helps to empower you to do this for yourself – for anything from navigating divorce to retiring from a lifelong career to a first sexual experience to moving across the country.
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The Details:
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Saturday, June 25th
10am - 12:30pm PT
Virtual Sacred Zoom Space
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More info on our time together and financial exchange at Passagecraft.com or click the link in my bio.
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If reading this invitation makes your heart flutter and your head tingle, then I invite you to clear your schedule for just 2.5 sacred hours and sign up to join us. You’ll be so happy you did. 🖋🕯🌀

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✨ The way of the earth is the way of our bodies and the way of the future ✨

It seems like a lot of us are trying to figure out how to align our seasonal and cyclical values with the needs and requirements of our day to day lives.
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In my Slow & Seasonal email I send out to my subscribers, I talk more about this theme - particularly when it comes to managing our expectations of ourselves. I am someone who spent yearrrrrssss thinking I could do more than my body was ever able to and the consequences of that were exhaustion, pain, anxiety, and and and (you get what I"m saying here).
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So I'll say it again here:
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We are collectively tired of ending our days chastising ourselves for either "not getting enough done" or racing the clock trying to do as much as possible and crashing hard. The way of the earth is slower. The way of the earth is spacious. The way of the earth is the way of our bodies and the way of the future.
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Interested in reading more of my words? This is an excerpt from an email I sent out to subscribers of my newsletter, called Slow & Seasonal. You can sign up to get the next one at beccapiastrelli.com/subscribe (or link in my bio).