Deepen Your Roots & Remember Your Belonging

I am currently on maternity leave and will be back at the end of November.

Follow me! @beccapiastrelli

Busy hands * Quiet Mind * Open Heart

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We had a quiet equinox, filled with diaper changes and swaddling and never ending swaying from side to side. But the sun stood still and the chickens have started laying and the roses survived 2 weeks of forgetting to water them and we were able to open the windows and breathe in fresh air, so I’d say it’s a good harvest.

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I've got a much-anticipated conversation to share with you today with @tokopa Turner, author of the bestselling book Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home which explores the themes of exile and the search for belonging. I named this podcast Belonging before I came across Toko-pa's book, and then once I learned of it and as more and more folks shared her work with me, I felt more of a love and resonance for Toko-pa and I knew I would have her on the podcast someday.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Toko-pa is a Canadian author, teacher, and dreamworker. Blending the mystical tradition of Sufism in which she was raised with a Jungian approach to dreamwork, she founded the Dream School in 2001 from which hundreds of students have since graduated. Sometimes called a midwife of the psyche, Toko-pa's work focuses on restoring the feminine, reconciling paradox, and facilitating sacred grief and ritual practice.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Together we talk about initiations by exile — specifically as it relations to isolation during COVID-19, false belonging, the wound of isolation when you need community support and cannot get it, intergenerational displacement of belonging, learning to show up for others in a sustained way, the grief of living with a degenerative disease, receiving dreams at an early age and how they parented Toko-pa when she was in the foster system, dreams as living creatures, and using "belong" as an active verb.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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You can listen in on our conversation by searching "Belonging" wherever you listen to podcasts or click the link in my bio!

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Scenes from my matrescence - my becoming of mother. None of it can be summed up in a single word or emotional state. It is joy, it is grief, it is deep love, it is anxiety, it is time slowed down, it is milk and honey and poop and spit up, it is dropping out, it is tuning in, it is losing track, it is perfect smells, it is deep trust. Baby Atlas is showing the way.

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I know this work of returning to belonging can be challenging.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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We live in a time where we feel such pressure to prove our value by working hard and rarely resting (even in the midst of a global pandemic). We have so much information coming at us on a daily basis, it feels impossible not to feel utterly overwhelmed and exhausted at the end of every day.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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We want to build meaningful community and have sisterhood in our lives, but life as an adult is so hard when everyone is busy and already has friends and might judge us for wanting to talk about our feelings and deepest desires and toughest truths.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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We’re working to overcome our conditioning about what we believe we are deserving of when it comes to taking space for ourselves, investing in what brings us deep and lasting joy, and finding a circle of beloved trusted ones we can rest into.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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We are ready to feel a sense of home in our bodies. We are ready to have meaningful relationships in our communities. We are ready to feel connected to all things wild and alive. We want to feel the bright and well ancestors that came before us whispering in our bones and cheering at our backs.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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We are ready to claim a different way of being and remember what it means to belong.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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We've just passed the one-year anniversary of my Gather ‘round the Hearth free video series. I've had so many great comments on it over the past year that if you didn't watch it the first time around, I want to make sure you knew about it!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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It's where I share the practices, rituals, and ways of remembering that have changed the game for me, so that you can find belonging with yourself, with community, with your ancestors, and the wild as well.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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You can sign up for this free video series at the link in my bio.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Photo credit: @sophiastudio.co

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The sweet and faithful apple always re-enchants me during the early autumn days.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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The apple is such a quintessential representation of autumn to me. It’s around this time that I start seeing so many of us wearing our best plaid flannel outfits and wanting to go apple picking, drink apple cider, and bake apple pie.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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...and there’s a very important reason for that.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Take yourself back to the darkening days of pastoral life, when apples weren’t available year-round in a grocery store.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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The apple was one the sweetest fruit often left to eat during these darkening days towards winter.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Did you know that apples are in the rose family? So their connection to sweetness and love is deep. Old folk medicine tales say that one should always share an apple with those you love — it keeps the bond strong and healthy.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Apples also provide a great source of fiber and are a valuable digestion aid during these days of eating heavier, fatty foods to keep warm during winter. They provide quick energy (great to eat before a workout) and soothe inflammation in the body. Old folk remedies recommend eating warm baked apples for a sore throat and fevers.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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When you cut an apple crosswise, it forms the shape of a pentacle (a 5 pointed star). And we humans are also shaped like five pointed stars when we spread our legs and stretch out our arms and count our heads.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Apples remind us that we are sacred and whole in our bodies, here and now.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Photo credit: @sophiastudio.co

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✨Postpartum Glam Shots✨

A couple of hours after I gave birth, my midwife whisked me into the bathroom to help me shower and pee, then dried me off and put these glorious mesh underwear and the biggest pad I’d ever seen on me. Meanwhile my doula and @nishamoodley busied themselves with putting puppy pads and towels down on my bed, adjusting the lighting, and setting up my side table with snacks, water, herbal afterbirth pain support, rescue remedy, and flowers. Then I was gently tucked in with my little one for our first night together, and I haven’t really left the bed since. I’ve been breastfeeding, night sweating, crying, laughing, texting, taking a million pictures and *sometimes* sleeping in my little cave. The things they don’t tell you about having babies...🤷🏻‍♀️

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