🌺🌎🧚‍♀️ Unpacking If Women Rose Rooted 🌿✨📚 by Sharon Blackie 🌙💖

🌸 In this episode of the Miss Adventurous Podcast, Tiffany Rouge unpacks the powerful, eye-opening book If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie 📖🌿. Part memoir, part myth, and part awakening, this book shook Tiffany to her core  reminding her of the sovereignty, wisdom, and deep connection women hold with the earth 🌍✨.

Through raw reflections on motherhood 🤱, synchronicity 🔮, and rewilding 🌳🌊, Tiffany shares how this book cracked her open to the stories we’ve been missing and why reclaiming women’s voices, myths, and roles as custodians of the earth is more urgent than ever. 🔥

🎧 Top 3 Takeaways:

1. 🌿 Women as Custodians of the Earth – Our connection to nature is sacred and essential for healing the planet.
2. 🔥 Sovereignty Over Power – True change comes when women reclaim their voices and choices, not just “power” in old structures.
3. 📚 Stories Matter – Whose myths get told shapes whose voices are valued — and it’s time women’s stories rise again.

✨ This is a good listen if…

• You’re craving a deeper connection with nature 🌊🌳🌞
• You want to explore feminine wisdom, sovereignty, and myth 🌙🕊️🌸
• You’re ready to question the stories society has fed us and rise rooted in your own truth 🌹✨

Content Warning: There is mention of sexual assault in one of the stories Tiff Tells in the book, she does give a warning before telling the story FYI. You can then skip to the below timestamp if you don't want to hear it.

21:40 - After the mention of assault

Buy the Book If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie Here

Grab the The 🌅 Morning Breathwork Bundle 🎧 here

Tiffany Rouge is a 🌸 mum, coach, and breathwork guide sharing raw stories, lessons, and real-life conversations about what it actually takes to grow, heal, and live on your own terms ✨💛. Through her workshops, coaching, and digital practices, she helps people reconnect with themselves, breathe deeper, and create lasting change 🌬️🌱.

She hosts powerful breathwork sessions in Adelaide & around Australia 🇦🇺, shows up at festivals & gatherings, and connects with open-minded souls online through her sacred coaching containers + digital practices 💻🌿

👉 Wanna dive deeper into her world?
🪬 Book in your in-person 1 on 1 Breathwork with her
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📸 Instagram @tiffany_rouge

The wisdom of the Miss Adventurous Podcast is free but putting the podcast together takes time and effort. If you took something from this podcast, all that we ask is that you share it with a friend who might find it helpful too. By sharing what inspires you to make your life different can help make the world a different place.

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) I am a big believer of synchronicities, that everything happens for a reason, and if you've been listening to the Misadventures podcast lately, you will have heard this compound experience theory theme that tends to be going on for my life, and it's been going on for a very long time. I've just kind of put the words together for it by finding the words to it, but it's something that poked its head up again while coming across a brand new source of information, which is just a woman's truth, right, and an invitation to wake up, open our eyes, and see things for what they are. And as someone who I believe was in the wasteland and had my eyes closed for a very long time, thank you society, this was a very eye-opening piece of literature that I came across, and I really do feel like I have to share it with you, particularly with the female listeners, but also with my male listeners, if you are an ally and you are someone who believes deeply in gender equality and not just, you know, feminism, but actual equality, this is a very, yeah, beautiful, interesting piece of text that I just felt the need to share with you. And content warning, there is talk within a story of sexual abuse. It is an old mythological tale, but if you're someone who does get triggered by those sorts of things, I do preface it, I mention the story that I'm going to tell, that it has that kind of context in it, so you can listen to it up until that point. But yeah, this book, If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie, just very influential at the moment, would love to have a conversation with you about it if you've read it. It's, well, I'm coming up to my second listen of this because it is so, yeah, there's so much of it and I just couldn't not share it with you, so here goes. This is the Misadventurers podcast, hosted by me, Tiffany Rouge. Life is one big adventure, and it all starts from taking that one teensy tiny step outside of your comfort zone. Since having my son, I've been feeling a certain kind of way, and I think it's got a lot to do with the fact that I wasn't aware of my own power as a young woman and, you know, a woman by birth. I grew up living in a male-dominated society, I mean, like we're still in one, and I think I was blind to a lot of stuff in terms of underlying oppression, gender inequality, and things like that, and sure, I'd witnessed it in places like India and in certain religions, like Christianity, and it never sat well with me, which is a very interesting thing. But since having my son, I've come to understand what it actually means to be a woman, like we are life givers, and I'm sorry guys, but that's a fucking incredible feat, having been through it. There was just this moment for me that when I understood the power and the sheer like incredibleness of a woman's body, my view of the world changed, and it was like I clocked on to a secret that I didn't get told as a woman, like you might have heard it referred to as maybe like secret women's business, but that's actually quite demoralizing of what it actually is, which is the fact that we can create life, and I'm not about to get on like a pedestal of like women are better than men, because that's not what this podcast and that's not what this episode is all about, because I know I have male listeners, but it's a re-understanding or a realizing when all the pieces fell into place for me, and I'll tell you about it because it was after finding a very, very mind-opening book called If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie, and I'll set the scene right, I was on holiday by myself, solo trip to Bali, I realized that I needed something to listen to while I was walking, and I guess I had a bit of a craving up until that point of like I would like to consume something that is going to feed my soul and give me something to care about, because a lot of the books and the content and the media that I'd been consuming up until that point was very like how to build a business, how to be more productive, those kinds of that kind of focus right, and since listening to this book, the conversations that I've had, the interest, the fire that it has sparked inside of me has been incredible right, I found the book and I think it's been mentioned or you know you might be able to liken this book to If Women, The Women Who Run With Wolves, I haven't read that, but there is a like rewilding element that is a central theme of this book, and it was really interesting right, like I talk about compounding experience and how every moment is compounding to lead us or to bring us to the current moment and has led us right, and has influenced our choices like even to the point where I was watching a tv show that I became mildly obsessed with it because there was a Welsh woman in it, and it's a mythical story around fairies in a place called the other world right, and as I listen to this book because I consume most of my books via listening, Sharon Blackie just drops casual mentions of the other world, of which something I you know found that I was mildly interested in, and so it just spurred me to continue listening, like it continued to pique my interest, so I ended up buying the book and listening to it, and it just really opened up this perspective that I am really finding is true for me. It's basically the ethos of the book that women are the gatekeepers or the protectors or the custodian, however you want to call it, like the middle woman between the earth, nature, the living world, because we can create living beings and we are deeply connected to it, and men and humans, because we right now live in a society where we've lost that role in our lives, and if you think about it we've got things like global warming, we're not looking after the earth, the fact that there's a lot of advantage being taken on the earth, and women don't have sovereignty, the capacity to stand up, listen, be heard, and their voices be able to make change. Sure it may happen on a smaller scale, but it's not happening on the larger scale where we can actually make change and make powerful decisions around the way we conduct the energy crisis, the housing crisis, global warming, all of these things. It's a very eye-opening moment when I think, and it's not to say that men don't care about these things, I'm sure there are plenty of men and there are plenty of allies who believe the same thing, but as women do not have the right for their voices to be acted upon, not just heard, because we're hearing women, but we're not actioning what we need, and we're not coming from places of deep connection. And this book just really opened my eyes to this whole conundrum, because I realise that we are in a wasteland, right? The concrete jungle that has been created by society, by structure, by pavement, by goals, by productivity, these are all constructs of men, of masculine, and don't get me wrong, I love the masculine energy, I thrive in structure, routine, goals, and those sorts of things, living in the head, right? But we are so far in this goal structure society that we have completely disconnected ourselves from the real world, and the real world is not in a city, it's in nature, it's in the water, it's in the wind, it's in the soil, it's in the birds, the land, the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the raging bushfires. This is real world stuff, because these cities would not exist if a tsunami came, if a bushfire, you know, was rampant and, you know, overtook an entire city. That is genuinely real stuff, and we have almost like just disconnected ourselves from it. When feminine energy is grounding, and all this stuff is man-made, right? Structures, boundaries, routines, buildings, feminine practices is grounding, is being in the flow, connecting to the earth, truly finding your footing, and being in a place where that matters to you. Honestly, this book is speaking to me so much right now, because the author is talking about women, about the stories of women who have become myth, because it's been so long since women have been in positions of sovereignty, where their voices are heard and carried down through generations. It's not even power, because we don't need power, we need sovereignty. If everyone had sovereignty, I truly believe the world would be a better place. There'd be less war, probably no more, the earth, we wouldn't be in a state of global warming, because we'd have the capacity to choose. Most of the time, particularly for a woman who's connected, and grounded, and rooted with herself, and her belief in her country, and her place in the living world, we would be aware of our responsibility to the living world. And reciprocity is by all means a situation of win, win, win, win, win. Everybody wins. When we think about cutting down a tree, we look at all of the consequences, rather than whose pockets are going to get filled. Where are the birds who live in that tree going to go? How is the whole ecosystem affected when we cut down that tree? And it's interesting that as women, we understand these things inherently, it's the way our minds work, it's in our biology. But when you're living in a capitalist society, we're cut off from that. And it's been a really interesting read for this book, because the author continues to talk about stories that are so old, like centuries old, because all of the tales along history are that of men. Think about Julius Caesar, you think about Napoleon, Edison, Cook, all these men doing incredible things. There were most certainly women doing incredible things at those times around them in different parts of the world. But where are those stories? The only stories of women that we have that are well known throughout history are of women being witches, are of women being temptresses, or the destination, or of women being the counterpart to the male. And that's not very balanced, is it? Like you think even just back to Christianity, right? We've got a male God, who's got a son. Well, how did the male God's son come to be, first of all? But then we've got the tale of creation, the Garden of Eden, where Eve was nothing more than a temptress. She was the one that ruined everything. She was the one that dared to listen to a snake and actually connect with nature and eat an apple. And this is not the best representation of a woman. Sure, it is a story about a woman, but where are all the other stories about the women who are contributing to the well-being of the earth? Because it's easy to say, where are the stories of the women who are contributing to society? It was very interesting that there are no stories of women contributing to society. Yet, we've got myths and legends of women being the custodians and the gatekeepers, the, like I said, the middleman between the earth and society. But that isn't widely talked about, which is such an interesting phenomenon that is really like, yeah, it's really opening my mind and my eyes up to a lot of inequality that's going on right now. And don't get me wrong, right? I have a really hard time witnessing people suffer. Like, it's hard for me to watch something like 12 Years a Slave because it just breaks my heart seeing these characters suffer and just continuously get shat on and shat on and shat on. And I just want to help the characters. Honestly, I had to turn it off because I was like, I feel so bad for watching this because it's really hard for me to encounter stories of such oppression, of the inequality of rights, power and sovereignty between men and women. Like, honestly, I would tune out as if me, burying my head in the sand, don't want to deal with it. But since finding this book, I've realised it's actually really important to hear this. And witness this oppression, this inequality. Because if I don't know what's gone on, then I can't ever talk about it. And we need to be talking about this a lot more. Like, even as I bring this up now, right, and I think about all that's gone on in history, the amount that women have suffered over tens of thousands of centuries, it's bringing up mild levels of anxiety and anger rising within me. And to me, this is why somatic work is so important. It's why I champion breathwork and reconnecting with your body so that you can regulate yourself whenever you encounter tough topics that don't always make you feel good, but are important to learn so you can understand and do something about it. And look, I'm about to share a story that I'm probably going to butcher a little bit from the book, but it's a myth that Sharon Blackie talks about. And it's just so interesting, this story, and how you may find it a little bit confronting. There is mention of abuse, so it may be triggering, and you may want to skip past this if you're someone who gets triggered by that sort of stuff. I love you, but I really do feel the need to share this because it's such a powerful thing. And when I heard this story, I was standing there on my walk around the mouth that was open, and I couldn't remove the shock and horror from this story, right? And it's a story of a beautiful, abundant, fertile land that was living in harmony between the other world, which is like the mythical, legendary world, and the living world, the real world. And there was the mythical Fisher King who provided life-giving waters from the other world to the living world. And the way he provided those waters was through wells. And all the wells around this country that was beautiful, abundant, fresh fruit and trees growing everywhere, towns had popped up, people had gathered because it was such a beautiful, fertile land, people wanted to live there. Almost like New Zealand, like that's what I'm thinking of when I think about this beautiful, abundant, fertile land. And so there were wells throughout the countryside, and there were maidens who would tend to the well, who would give the water to anybody who requested it. They were the ones, they were like the custodians of the well, but they were also the gatekeepers between the other world and the living world. And what became a custom, like a tradition, was if a traveller was to stop by the well, having been on a long journey, they could speak to the woman of the well, they were called well maidens, and they could request their favourite meal, which she would oblige and make, give them a drink, and give them some company, have a nice conversation with them, up until the point they felt rested enough where they could carry on. And as a traveller, that kind of hospitality sounds great. You go there, get your favourite meal, have a good chat, have a nice drink, chill for a little bit, and then you get on your merry way. She didn't ask for anything in return, it was a gratuity as a gift for travellers. And what a beautiful sentiment that was, because abundance must be shared, and that was what was happening with these well maidens. And all the people in the town understood this tradition and respected it, you know, they revered in it because it was such a beautiful, selfless gift that these well maidens were giving. So everyone of the town respected it, except for the king, right? The king of the land decided that he didn't care about traditions and native practices, so he basically went to one of these wells, called the well maiden out, and raped her in front of his men, and then took her as a slave in his court. This is legitimately part of the story, right? So as the men watched their king do, they did the same thing with the rest of the well maidens. And as a result, the surviving well maidens refused to leave their well. And after a while, the wells dried up. And what happened after the wells drying up? Yeah, the towns no longer had water, the land became barren, no longer fertile and abundant, all because men got involved, wanted to have this thing for themselves, and didn't respect the custom, the harmony that existed between nature and humans. And there are so many examples across history, told in myth, of course, of this happening. Men recognizing the harmony of a place or seeing the opportunity in it, taking whatever the fuck they want, putting their dick in it, probably, and then leaving, leaving the destruction. It's like a Jenga piece. They take the Jenga piece, and then before the tower's even full, and they're already out of there. Does that sound kind of familiar? Almost kind of like what's happening today? This book was written in 2014. That's over 10 years ago. And yet, it still is so relevant today. The last time I was so enamored by a book and the content of it, I was reading The Secret. And that was a big, huge change for me, because I was made aware of energetics, and how I could manifest things and turn my desires into my reality. And it's really interesting that I came across this book at around the time of the Virgo solar eclipse on a new moon. Look, I'm not really into a lot of like, there's a few more words associated with this current time, right? But like, solar eclipses are times of rebirth. And apparently, this one is a whole new way of life, kind of rebirth. And apparently, it started at the start of August, and is kind of like ending up now, as I record this towards the end of September. So this whole like six to eight week journey of me being in this solo time for myself, it's almost like been this recalibration to inspiring me to go outside and put my feet on the earth and try and learn the myth and the stories and the tales of the women of this land that I am related to. And let's face it, I'm an immigrant, I was born on this land, but I have no blood connection to it. But growing up here, I have experiential connection to it. But it has inspired me. And I think it's setting me on a new perspective, and a journey to understand the myth in the tales in the countries of my blood origin. So I have Scottish roots. And Sharon Blackie's a lot of her work and the tales that she has found are of Celtic tradition. So I'm finding that I'm connecting with a lot of those tales because my blood runs from Celtic roots. But also, what about the Filipino blood? What are the tales that have been passed down through generations that I am disconnected from? Even though I have Filipino blood, I'm quite disconnected from the Philippines. But who knows, maybe this will be the start of a new journey to understand the myth and the folklore of the Philippines, because I am very sure there is some. And the same goes for understanding the myth and the folklore of Australia, and connecting deep with the roots of this land. Look, this has stirred something within me quite magnificently. And I didn't realize how important this was to me until I pushed myself through the oppression and I saw this for what it is. And that is something that I am going to continue to look for, to seek out and to delve into. As a recent mother, as a woman who is changing and understanding more about her world and her life and the place around her. And if you've ever felt something like this, like you're disconnected from the earth, and when you go out in nature, it severely serves you, it gives you way more than sitting inside a room meditating or in an office doing your work. Then maybe it is a little seed of reconnection planted in you trying to find its way to the light. And look, this is not going to be the last time I share something about this. I haven't even finished the book, but it's just so mind-blowingly incredible for me that I had to share it. I would love to have more conversations about this. Who knows, maybe I'll try and get Sharon Blackett on the podcast, that'd be kind of amazing. But if you've read the book or you want to read the book, hit me up on Instagram. I've put a link to the book in the show notes, but at tiffany underscore rouge. Leave a comment however you're listening to this, because I want to hear your perspective on this. Are you someone who can easily listen or sit through that oppression? What do you feel? I remember explaining this to a friend of mine, and she sat down and said, yeah Tiff, welcome to the party. Look, I'm late, I know I am, but I'm getting there. And it's okay if this is the first time you're hearing about it, and it's you know, sparking, lighting a fire within you. Great, we need more fires lit so we can make sovereignty happen, and make more change happen around the caring and nurturing and reconnection of ourselves to the earth, and re-establishing of women being the custodians of the land, and the middle woman between the living world and man. Well that's almost it from me here on Misadventurous. If you dig what you hear and want to keep up to date with every single episode of the Misadventurous podcast, hit subscribe however you're listening to this right now. And if you want to be even more of a legend and help other wayward adventurers find this path, I'd love it if you head on over to iTunes and rate and review this podcast. Go on, five stars for all that positivity right? So until next time, and don't forget, it's the small choices that we make every single day that build up to that big change that you're working towards, so stay with it.