How do we say ‘yes’ to life, without saying ‘no’ to death? How do we “rise to the occasion” and “wrestle something good” from the heartbreak of a terminal diagnosis? What does it look like to “become familiar with grief and uncertainty in intimate ways”?

Today’s virtual fire-side conversation about being human and being alive is with Duncan Passmore - husband, father, writer, and woodworker of 20 years - as he shares his story and the story of his son, Torin, diagnosed at a young age with Pearson syndrome, a rare and incurable mitochondrial disorder.

It’s a story of life and death, grief and beauty; punctuated with the power of story, the mystery of ceremony, the practice of craft and community… and the building of boats.

It’s also a way of inviting you, if you feel able and called to, to weave into the community Torin has inspired and contribute to Duncan’s family’s GoFundMe; raising the funds to support them spending six months with Torin’s presence and his memory as they build a boat and sail it on Lake Windermere - a request of Torin’s he didn’t live to see fulfilled.

As someone grappling in my own ways (as most of us are) with fears, griefs, and the way life laughs at plans; as someone who believes in the power of community, of cultures devoted to full-spectrum aliveness, mystery, story, and ceremony; this feels like a deeply worthy story to share and a deeply worthy endeavor to support.

Join us around the fire? You’re most welcome here.

May we shed the armor which keeps us trying to hold off what is. May we become vulnerable enough and brave enough to share our stories so community might find us and, when the time comes, hold us. May we use our hands and heart to craft beauty from grief so we might fully embody at least some small part of what it seems to mean to be human and to be alive. May Torin’s presence and memory live on through the ripples of his story and the way it disarms us and invites us to rise to the occasion of our own lives.

You can find out more about the project and become a part of the prayerful building of the boat through Duncan’s GoFundMe:

https://gofund.me/9983ec87

Please also consider sharing the GoFundMe so we can continue casting the net wider and weaving more people into this story. They’re at 50% as of the recording/ publishing of this episode and have until June 9th to make it the rest of the way.

P.S. My Zoom seems to have finally caught up to the version with the floating reaction videos - so please excuse the random thumbs up and balloons which seem to pop up at strange and slightly inappropriate times.

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And if you've come for Duncan, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts.

To further support the podcast and conversations that aim to awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts:

1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review.

2. share widely

3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠

What if the very things which challenge our ability to ‘fix’ or ‘produce’ in the ways we’re used to are the things which bring us closer to sacredness?

I recorded this episode a month ago, right after I recorded the ‘Sacredness: Part 1’ episode and while grief and uncertainty were right under the surface of my skin. Like with Sacredness Part 1, I ended up adding in some updates and edits as I was prepping to release. Like with Sacredness Part 1, my wonderings are raw and full of prevarication. You won’t find many sound bites or clear-cut answers here. Instead you’ll hear me drawing threads of understanding and insight together in real time, while being a mouthpiece for something that might be wisdom (or maybe not?) to come through.

You’ll hear me muse further on:

• What we should perhaps be looking for in our guides and mentors;
• A saying I heard in a yoga class and why I think it’s short-sighted as far as a spiritual and cultural approach goes;
• My understanding of the term ‘shaman’ and why it might help us to stop thinking we all can or should be one;
• How language can affect our ability to be in right relationship with ceremony, with the sacred, with the medicine we each carry;
• The language of energy as our birthright;
• The role of the messy and uncomfortable in our initiations and becoming;
• Ceremony vs navel-gazing;
• And a part of my journey I don’t speak about much, but which seems to be pointing me to…. something.

When the road of words and doing and fixes runs out, may we arrive at the profound and terrifying silence. And in this silence, may we meet ourselves stripped bare. And when we find ourselves stripped bare, may we hold the present of what really matters in our hands and heart. And may we realize we were only ever beautiful and worthy. May we finally realize what it is to be alive.

You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

And I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts.

To further support the podcast and conversations like this:

1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review.

2. share widely

3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠

If we held up a laugh-meter (like the one from Monsters, Inc) what would our laugh levels be? and Why do we just feel drawn to certain places? and Do our ancestors matter? and Is it possible to befriend crows while being a nomad?

These are the types of questions (serious and silly) you’ll hear around today’s fire where I’m joined by the ever-optimistic, comedy-loving Kate Graham - a shamanic oracle and creator of the Empath Energetics intuition development and archetypal healing program. With training in hypnotherapy, yin and restorative yoga, thai yoga massage, aromatherapy, reflexology and shamanism, Kate uses her experiences to teach people how to trust their own bodies and hearts. She has also worked on an alpaca farm, lived nomadically in a van, and moved to manage a retreat in the Scottish Highlands, all in the name of intuition.

So for those of you familiar with my story (goatherd turned organic farmer turned yoga teacher turned shamanic practitioner turned nomad… etc) you can imagine that we have a lot of shared conversation topics… and they will wander through territory deep, wise, irreverent, visionary, and most likely sort of meaningless, too.

Topics like:

• tuning into the energy of lands and locations;
• how we might be selling our long-ago ancestors short;
• the beauty of it taking all kinds;
• why did we put structures which hold us in place into place?;
• moving from hopelessness to optimism;
• what remembering ancestral ways of meaning-making, healing, celebrating, and integrating have meant for us personally;
• the balance of light and dark;
• the role of tricksters, crows, and comedians in society;
• the difference between healers who put things back together and healers who walk the edges with you;
• why healing work can feel so hard and exhausting sometimes and some shifts in approach which might make it easier;
• how love and abolition are teaching us right now…

and more.

This is a longer conversation because we just kept riffing off each other. But watching it back as I was preparing these notes, I kept finding myself laughing and wondering about things all over again.

Join us around the fire? You’re most welcome here.

May we each find the gift of our part in things and the places, people, and rituals to nurture those sparks. May we laugh more than we think we should and be free to flow where our medicine is most useful and our hearts feel most alive. May we have the courage and trust to come undone and rediscover something of even greater beauty. May we love our boundaries and therefore be able to love everyone. May we befriend the crows.

You can find Kate G:

Heartsfrontier.com

YouTube @heartsfrontier

Instagram @shamanicoraclekate

And if you've come for Kate G, I hope you'll stick around for more conversations to access, repair, inspire, and evolve our humanity and serve the wild, tender aliveness of our personal and collective hearts.

To further support the podcast and conversations that awaken, inspire, repair, and evolve something deep within us and serve as good medicine for our wild, tender personal and collective hearts:

1. Please ‘follow’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’ where you listen so you stay up-to-date on all our conversations and help others find them, too. On Apple Podcast, please consider rating and leaving a review.

2. share widely

3. consider joining the new Patreon community! For as little as $1/ month, patrons get access to community gatherings and get to play a more interactive role in the growth of the podcast. ⁠https://patreon.com/wildsacredjourney⁠