Ep 6: Moving Through Life After Loss: Emily Hanger on Acupuncture, Mediumship & Grief

In this powerful conversation, Lindsay and Scott sit down with Emily Hanger, a dancer, acupuncturist, Holistic Pelvic Care Practitioner, and psychic medium whose work bridges embodiment, intuition, healing, and the wisdom of the natural world.

Emily shares how dance quite literally saved her life more than once. From a young age, movement taught her embodiment, body confidence, and how to read energy in the people around her. After earning her BFA in Dance and Choreography and spending four years immersed in New York City's modern dance scene, a life-altering injury brought her career to an unexpected halt. What followed was a period of depression, a pregnancy loss, and ultimately an acupuncture treatment that changed the course of her life.

That first acupuncture session sparked a calling. Emily went on to earn her Master's in Oriental Medicine from the National University of Natural Medicine and has spent the last twelve years supporting clients through her private practice, where she continues to witness the profound intelligence of the body and the healing process.

The conversation takes a deeply personal turn as Emily reflects on the stillbirth of her daughter Josephine in 2017. Through grief, Emily found herself reconnecting with psychic and mediumship abilities that had been present since childhood. Guided in many ways by Josephine's spirit, she began developing her gifts more intentionally and now helps others strengthen their own intuition and spirit connection through her In Service to Spirit Mentorship.

Emily also shares her experiences receiving messages from ancestors during treatments, her relationship with the powerful plant ally datura, and her emerging work with intuitive voice and sound healing. Through spontaneous songs and tones, she helps clients access deep states of nervous system regulation, emotional release, ancestral connection, and embodied healing.

This episode is a beautiful reminder that healing rarely follows the path we expect—and that some of our greatest challenges can become gateways into deeper purpose, connection, and trust.

In This Episode

•  Growing up connected to nature, spirit, and intuition
• How dance shaped Emily's relationship with embodiment and energy 
•  A life-changing injury, pregnancy loss, and discovering acupuncture 
•  The healing power of Chinese medicine and emotional release 
•  Grief, stillbirth, and the loss of her daughter Josephine 
•  Reconnecting with psychic and mediumship abilities 
•  Ancestors, spirit communication, and intuitive messages 
•  Plant wisdom, including lessons from datura 
•  Voice healing, sound, and nervous system regulation 
•  Following curiosity as a guide toward purpose and healing

Connect with Emily: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taproot.healing.arts/

Website: https://www.emilyhanger.com/

Connect with Lindsay & Scott: 

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

Don't forget to subscribe, and leave us a review/ rating! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Welcome to Homestead and Heal. I'm Scott.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

And I'm Lindsay, and we live with our three children on a farm in Vermont. Our lives revolve around growing food and medicine, working with the body, and trying every day to live in deeper relationship with the earth. And now we're welcoming guests to our farm for intimate retreats where they can slow down and feel deeply into this earth-body connection.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

This podcast is about remembering something many of us have forgotten: that we're not separate from the natural world. Our bodies are part of it. Our healing comes through it. And when we reconnect to both, our purpose often begins to reveal itself.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Through conversations with herbalists, farmers, body workers, and people walking unconventional paths, we explore what it looks like to step outside the modern paradigm and build lives rooted in connection, healing, and reciprocity with the earth. Welcome to Homestead and Heal. Today we are welcoming Emily Hangard. Emily is a friend of mine for at least the last four years or so. We met in the online Instagram world a long time ago. We were both selling Healy's. I don't know if we want to really admit that, but that's what was happening. If you like full transparency, my best. Meeting you was probably one of the best things for me that came out of that experience. Connection with you and maybe a couple other people, but really I've loved getting to know you over the years. And I've loved talking with you about women's health. And then more recently, Emily has become a mentor for me in honing my psychic abilities, which has been really fun. I've loved doing this mentorship and starting to do psychic readings just as part of that mentorship. And it's just been amazing to yeah, just own that really we all have those abilities and if we tune into them. So that's been really fun for me. Emily, we would love to have you just introduce yourself and tell everyone a little bit about your work and your life and and then we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Perfect. Thank you. First and foremost, I'll just say that I have absolutely loved getting to know you as well. And it's been really fun to see how our lives have, I don't know, it feels like they ebb and flow in a very similar pattern, which I really appreciate. And um it feels it feels so organic and it feels perfect for hopefully the conversations that we'll have. And this interview button. For those of you guys who don't know me, I'm Emily Hanger. I am a Tawinese medicine practitioner and an acupuncturist. I'm also a holistic public care practitioner and I studied with Tammy Kent in Portland, Oregon. And then I'm also a psychic medium. As Lynn, she said, she started to study with me. And that has been a really interesting aspect of my path and practice that I was not really expecting to come forward. But as life would have it, you get led in these certain ways. And I feel like that's a perfect dovetail into where I am in the world. My husband James and I and our daughter Lily, we live in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. And when I was in high school and growing up, I was like, oh, I can't wait to get out of here. It's like a small town. We're in the south. There are things about that are not always awesome. Um, and when we both finished with grad school, I had come back here because Janice was still finishing up in Northern Virginia. And we were like, yeah, we'll go to Pittsburgh, or maybe we'll end up in Charlotte. We're still very much in that big city zone. But again, like we just life led us to stay here. And I'm so grateful that we did. We really have this balance of we have a beautiful little community in our neighborhood, but it's a really small town. And we played with this idea too of do we want to move out into the county and have our own land and more like what you guys are doing. But just for our lives right now, it's so beautiful to we can hear the other kids in the neighborhood. And we don't have to schedule everything. Do you know what I mean? We can hear Lily's good buddy Annalise. The kids are so loud. Like, all right, why don't you just go up and like very obviously outside yelling? So it's been a thrill of beautiful balance, yeah, to be where we are. And you had asked me also what is happening in the natural world right now. One of my favorite times of year is when the peonies start to bloom. They're just so magnificent. They're so balled up in this little beautiful, like perfect circle, and then they just they just explode into yeah, just this multi-layered beauty. So yeah, that's really what's lighting me up right now as far as the natural world.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

So are they blooming yet, or the buds are just like still balled up?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Oh no, they're blooming.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Oh wow, yeah. You're so far ahead of us. Ours, our peonies are like some of them are up maybe six inches, just emerging out of the ground, but we've got to wait still before they'll be blooming quite a while. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

I did smell the first lilac today here in Rutland. The ones at our house are not blooming yet, but as I walked by earlier, I was like, oh, I love that scent. It's just the best.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

That is like a core childhood memory, is like smelling the lilacs. That was about a month ago for us. So we are we are definitely like ahead of you. But yeah, we're lilacs are kind of like crack. I'm always like, lilac, you know, I'm that crazy lady who's face, faith in the lilac.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Best way to be that's how we are too, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, I totally am like that. That is one of those scents that it's like when the lilacs are blooming, you just have to get as much as possible during that span of time.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

It's a short, that's a short window. Like the ephemerals, they really don't last for very long. But it's they're so fragrant and it's so exciting. And I feel like I just get so hopeful. But I also get like really hopeful. I'm curious if you guys feel this way too, because we get hellebores in February, and I'm always like, yes, they don't like smell, but they're like such hearty, like strong little flowers. I don't know if you guys have any of those guys.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

I know we have false hellabores. I'm not sure about the true one. I don't know, I don't know it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

We have no flowers in February, like certainly not, not even the snow drops are out yet.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Yeah, we're at icy world in February. I know. As we've planted more stuff around our place, I just I feel like there's as soon as spring arrives, there's one flower after the next that kind of keep us going that we get to look forward to. So I love that. You were starting to mention, I think, like lilacs, the like a childhood memory, were you saying? You can leading us into our next question. So the next question about your childhood. Can you see the makings of yourself? What do you remember about your childhood that might be interesting to share?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, I spent a lot of time outdoors when I was a little kid. We grew up on a dead end street and we had a big backyard that was surrounded by woods, and then all the other houses around us, they backed into our backyard. So it was like a big open space. We would spend so much time in the woods. Another childhood memory, other than the lilacs, is that we would have I'm forgetting the name of the flowers, but they're also a springtime flower, and they would grow tall enough that I could literally hide in them. You know what I mean? And it was so lovely. But we got a lot of free time to just roam to because we lived in a small town, and yes, and I felt this sort of sense of freedom and even safety in the natural world just because it felt friendly, it felt welcoming. It was just a place that I wanted to be.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

I'm curious if you have specific memories of connections with parents or family or ancestors around the natural world where that was handed down to you, that appreciation of nature.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah, definitely. My maternal grandmother and my mother are big gardeners. They spent a lot of time and a lot of joy. Do you know what I mean? I definitely just remember either that like watching them come in from being outside gardening for hours and hours, and you can just feel it on someone. You see the rosiness of their cheeks, you can just feel how open that their energy is. But a lot of the same flowers that my maternal grandmother loved, like the peonies, for instance. Yeah, like I love to. And so it's fun to kind of remember back to the things that she would get excited about cultivating or growing herself, or even bringing in sod. And she didn't arrange quite as much as my mom does. My mom is a really incredible flower arranger. Yeah, she's always, I want another blue ribbon. They because this is the funny thing with this garden club that she's in. The ladies get kind of competitive. It's kind of like heist. Linda got mad at me because I got another blue ribbon. That's amazing. Yeah, kind of fun though. She takes a lot of pride in it, and yeah, and again, that's her creative kind of connection with the natural world. So I feel like I I definitely come by it even through, yeah, just through lineage. And we've all had sort of our own relationship with it. We grow more like vegetables and things like that. Mom didn't really grow food, she's more of a flower lady. So that's always fun. Because my husband is a landscape architect, so he's a total plant nerd. He's the one who knows all the Latin names of all the plants. And the only thing that we had growing in our backyard when we first moved in was this old dog wood. And he's just completely grown the whole backyard, has done a lot of he does stonemasonry, like a jack of all trades. And we really have this incredible privacy now, but in a beautiful way.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

A little oasis in your backyard.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

And it really is. And you will see because he's very much about the native plants. His business is called Virginiana Landscape. And Virginiana, a lot of times when the plants have Virginiana in the Latin name, that's because they're native to this area. Yeah. So like we have milkweed for the butterflies and like little things like that. He's really woven in. So we love, yeah, we just love through the seasons to see even like the bugs that come and hang out.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

I'm wondering if you have any specific I I what we've been asking guests is around connection to your body, like memories as a child. And I guess for you, I'd also ask really specific memories of connection to spirit, because you're working with spirit so much in your medium ship and psychic psychic ship. That's not the word, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

I'm with you.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, actually, it's interesting. The first thing that comes up, I have this really distinct memory. I'm a cancer zodiac, and so I love water. And we have these window boxes in the front of our house. And my favorite thing was to be naked in the summertime. And there was this one little way, there was this like one side of the window box where the rain would fall. And it wasn't like intense waterfall, but it was like just enough that if you got it like right in the center of your head, which is actually an acupuncture point called Bibeway. And I remember going other places, you know what I mean? I would stand underneath the window box and let the water fall on Bible. And I was like in a zone. That's cool. Yeah. But it was like just like somatically or like sensationally, like the warmth of the water, like feeling it on my body. And there were so many pictures of me naked or like half naked running around that time of year. But I loved it when it would rain because I would just go like beeline for that one window box. There, I feel if I can find it. I've I should ask my mom. I feel like there's a picture of me that I'm remembering where I'm like literally underneath this window box. So to go into connecting with spirits, I feel like I would go into an altered state pretty easily in the natural world. But when I was growing up, we also had a spirit who was, I didn't understand it at the time, but who is very much connected to the land that my house is built on. So it's an interesting house. It's built into the side of a hill. So it's the front of the house, the house is here, and then it comes off the back, and we have a really long, big, like we have screened in porches on the back side of the house. But where my room was growing up, my room is like right up against the earth. It's like right up against the land. And so this spirit would hang out outside of my room. And I was like terrified when I was a little kid because I just didn't know who he was. Like I could feel him, I could see a little bit of this sort of white cloud, and I would fake nightmares so that my parents would actually have to walk through him to move the energy. And it hadn't been until I have started to really develop my own psychic abilities and intuition that I finally actually created kind of a different relationship with him because I was so scared of him when I was younger. But I actually think he not only is he a protector of the land, but I actually think he had that protector energy for me. But it was like I was unable to understand it or talk about it. Cause that was one thing. I didn't necessarily have parents or grandparents or anybody in the community that I could talk to about that kind of stuff. I think a lot of us probably have had a similar experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah, I'm thinking about actually, I've never, I don't think I've mentioned this to you, but I had like it's interesting for me to think about my childhood and like the things I was maybe picking up on that I didn't realize at the time. But I did have a sort of like recurring nightmare, I guess I would say, with a large cat outside my at my dad's house, which is the house I grew up in in my one to four years old, and then spent weekends and summers and things like that, like this huge cat coming outside the door, outside like a big sliding glass door. So it was like very much there when I remember being really afraid when I had these dreams. And then when I was pregnant with my son, Remy, so you know, like eight years ago or something. I did a, I went to with a group of women. My friend Nicole was leading this group of women, and she does a lot of dream work, and we dreamt with the maple tree on her land. So we tied a red, a red piece of yarn around the maple tree, and we brought it all the way into the house where we were sleeping, tied it around our wrist, and dreamt asked to dream with a maple tree. And I had that same dream of the cat coming outside the glass door, but I also had this word come in, which is only it's one of two dreams where I've had a very specific word come in that I was like, I don't know what this means. And in my dream, I heard the word and then could also picture it, what it was spelled like and things like that. And in this dream, there was some healing shift that happened where this big cat, it suddenly wasn't scary for me anymore. It was either, I don't know if I've entirely made sense of it, but it's more it was me recognizing my own power or there was something in there for me with it. And I don't know, I'll be curious if that ever comes for me again. But the word that came up was Fjordan, and I was like, I don't know anything about this word. And I told Nicole in the morning, and she's I'm gonna do a little research and see if I can find it. And then when she looked into it, it was like the Norse god of the earth. It was just like, that's the name of the Norse god of the earth. And I was like, okay. I've the I had another crazy dream while I was pregnant with Serena, where a word came in like that similar. That one was ILAC, which is I talk about it on another interview because it was around this Irish word of a stone circle for worshiping the sun. And I'm just like, okay, if these words want to come in while I'm pregnant, that's so cool. But I think that must happen a lot for people that as children, you're having these experiences of picking up on the subtle energy. And I actually wonder about this a lot with our son, Remy. I don't know, just he is such an amazing little kid and and he's got really intense big emotions. And I feel like he is really sensitive to energy and probably is picking up on so much that he can't even put into words or explain to us or feel like he can explain to himself. So I feel like we have a little work to do of really cultivating that within him. He's a very natural hunter.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

Yeah, I was gonna say the big cat while you're pregnant with him just makes me wonder about the his native hunter. He just that's what he exudes.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Like and his almost like a spirit animal. He's kind of like one of those big cats.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

He's fierce and he is a protector.

unknown 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Well, yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

It makes me think too I'm I get curious, especially because I think that when women are pregnant, you're just so open energetically. Oh, yeah. And when I think about that, then I automatically am like, pussy, that's your like like your whole reproductive space. Yeah. And I think that felons, if you watch them, like they're so sensual, like they move in this incredible way, like they are really so connected to the earth. It's like when they prowl, like their bellies are like connected to the earth. So that's so fascinating. I love that you've had these dreams.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yeah, and I'm curious for you, like real specific, besides that, the water dripping on your head and the touching in with spirit. Do you I know you were a dancer, so I'm wondering like your relationship with your body, like over, I don't know, from like childhood into getting into adulthood, and when you decided you wanted to do healing work with women's bodies.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I feel like dance saved me when I was younger just because it gave me an opportunity to continue to be embodied and feel empowered by my body. And I didn't have a childhood that overtly looked like bad. Do you know what I mean? But my dad was an addict, and my mom, and then they both worked a lot, but my mom had to work almost like doubly hard to take up the slack for what was going on, and they never thought about stuff. So I think I could just feel I could just feel that something wasn't right and could feel the tension. And so I think that having the opportunity to not only express but move things through my body, through dance, were literally, I think, saved me. And it really has informed my practice in this beautiful way because I didn't realize when I was younger, you're watching people all the time and tracking them to memorize movement. And so basically, I was reading people's energy from age four on through dance. I was doing it in a hyper-vigilant way with my family, but I was also then doing it in a non-charged, just curiosity way with dance. And I remember being in Chinese medicine school, and we would start practicing on each other, and we had a class called palpation and perception. And I would put my hands on people's bodies and I could just feel energy so quickly and so easily and couldn't move it a bit. Not only because it's like I knew how to ground into my own body and connect to the earth, but it was like just second nature. And there were all these chemists or people who had come from biology or had studied religion and things like that. And they were like the really smart ones who could memorize all the things, but then you put them in a classroom and you try to get them to feel energy, and they're like, it was like I even remember one of my classmates, how are you doing this? And I'm like, I'm not totally sure yet because I've never had to put language to it. So yeah, it's really, I feel like it's been a huge way that it's informed my practice. And even with the Chinese medicine, like with the Qigong practice, we had a whole Qigong and Tai G track in our school. It's part of the reason that I chose the program because there aren't a lot of programs where you actually have to do the self cultivation techniques as well. So yeah, that's actually been really helpful as far as being able to sit with patients and read them. So that's super cool. That is cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I'm wondering, do you remember times in your life when you felt more disconnected?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

There, I feel like after I left New York, so I after I graduated college, I moved to New York and danced for four years. And I actually injured myself there. And so it really shifted my idea of what my life was going to be. I had this very naive idea that I was going to be a dancer for the rest of my life, and that's what it was going to be. And so I ended up moving home and I was like super depressed. I was like a 25-year-old who was like, I had this plan, it didn't work out. I feel like a failure. I've moved back home. I'm living with my mom. There's just a lot that came up. And yeah, I that was a time that I felt really disconnected simply because I think that I mean, I felt lost. I was depressed. That that was definitely a time. I feel like it's important to share that James and I actually ended up getting pregnant then because we were both, he had kind of had the same situation. He had lived in Chicago. He had tried to fit into this box that was not him. He was like trying to be a finance bro, and he is not a finance bro. We don't have that hustle energy. We talk about this a lot. We're just not type A people. And so he had come home and he was struggling because he was like, I went to this really good school for finance, and I tried to work at the Chicago Board of Trade and I hated it. So he literally went and lived out in the county with his grandfather and grew heirloom tomatoes and started landscaping. So neither one of us were like in the best place. We were both, we were definitely both numbing ourselves with alcohol. And we ended up getting pregnant, and neither one of us were ready to be parents at that time, just simply because we were young. We still didn't know what we were doing. So I did end up having an abortion. And that really kind of threw me into this grieving process. And that's actually why I ended up seeking out acupuncture in the first place. Because I just knew that conventional kind of talk therapy wasn't going to be enough. I actually knew I needed to move something through my body. And so that was that. And the first time I had acupuncture, I was like, what is this? Because it opened something up for me as far as almost as those places that I would go when I was a kid with the water pouring on my head. I had just like visions and crazy sensations. It really felt like it was marrying lots of different aspects of me that I had been looking for a way to connect. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Did you have, I'm curious if you had a lot of emotion move ever in an acupuncture session? Cause I think one of my first or somewhere in the first five acupuncture sessions, I remember crying a lot. And I feel like my acupuncturist was like not sure what to make of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

No, I was kidding.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Um yeah, no, I had a ton of emotion. I'm a crier. I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm angry, I cry when I'm sad. I just had a lot of teeth. Yeah. Yeah. Literally every time I would get on the table. And it would change. At first, I was like just a mess, ugly tears. And then slowly, as I was like moving through the process of the treatments, I would still have some tears, but it's like that different tears when it's almost like a tears of I'm coming home to self. You know what I mean? That sort of recognition of I've missed, look, I'm like getting emotional about it right now. I've missed this part of me. I'm coming home to me. And it's more of a oh, welcome back. Those kind of tears, not just like total, ugly crying, blubbering mess, tears. So yeah, it really went through this beautiful process. And I had a great acupuncturist. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

I'm curious, do you remember having much kind of earth connection through all of that time or like when you were in New York City? Or do you feel like there was a stretch where you were a little bit less less connected?

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yeah. I think that was what was really hard living in New York, specifically, because it's a concrete jungle, and that's legit. And again, I would say thankfully, like dance saved me because at least I was like in my body. And when you're embodied, like I do think there's still this opportunity. Like you can connect to the earth and the sky energies no matter where you are, depending on what practices that you're doing. I remember I had this one of those like profound moments when I was dancing in New York when like literally I was I was in this combination that I was turning and Tom slowed down. And I had one of those like profound moments where I was like, I understand why I've been put on this earth in this body at this time. So you I feel like you can still have very connected moments, but as a whole, like New York was just pretty much total debauchery. Like I am happy that I've literally survived that time. Like we can't, these are things we cannot talk about on your podcast. We'll save that for another time. So I would say yeah, I felt less connected to the earth like when I was in New York. And that's probably why I think when I came home too, like I was depressed because I'd spent four years like not being connected to like the earth and sky. So, but really since then, I if I'm really honest, I feel like that four years is like the only time that I've really felt disconnected. Cause when I lived in Charlottesville, I dated a guy who lived out in the county. So I spent a lot of time out there, and he was building like a timber frame cabin. And we lived in this like wood shop in the winter, and like we were chopping our own wood, and you create a completely different relationship with the earth, like when you have to chop the wood to create the fire, which heats the stove, which you cook your meal on when you're outside peeing and pooping, and that's just like a totally different experience. So I feel like the only other time I've had a little bit of a disconnect, and it's more because I think I lost faith in spirit is after our daughter Josephine died. And I just think I was like just angry. Like I was angry at Spirit. I was like angry at the earth. Like, how can I be this like earth mama who's trying to have this like natural birth and I do everything right and my baby dies? Do you know what I mean? So I think that I was really angry at the earth, like really angry at spirit for a while until I got brought back to the earth. There was a, do you guys know the plant Datura? She just started growing in our yard. And it wasn't even that we had turned up the soil that much. Do you know what I mean? She just came up, and I feel like again, it was like one of those moments where it was like, if you can recognize what this is, then you'll be able to come back to your relationship with the earth. And I really feel like Datura saved me again, like after Josephine done, because it was so much about coming back to just that beautiful kind of darkness. Because Datura, she blew that night. Her scent comes to you at night. So I feel like it was this opportunity for really for me to sit with the darkness, to sit with the moon, to sit with this plant, even be outside at night. I feel like it helped me to create this different relationship with the sky because I feel like the sky is a little bit different than the earth. The sky loves to be like witnessed. And I don't think that we go outside and just lay down and watch the stars that much. I feel like the earth loves to be touched and smelled, and that that's just a different relationship. And so it was interesting because it was like Dr. Turik helped me to almost like bridge the light in the darkness. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Yeah, it's such such a striking plant. It's like I have to approach it with so much caution that what you're talking about, like the darkness in the light, like it just I'm like, I'm not scared of it, but it's like it just commands such uh I don't even know how to put it into words, but I'm like power. Yeah, it's just so powerful in its appearance. The flowers are just so striking in a way that just like really evokes something deep that I can't even quite articulate.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

And even like the seed pot, you don't fuck with the seed pot because it's super spicy. Honestly, you do ingest the seed, so you can die. You don't fuck with Tatura.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, I'm just it's the first time that we or did you know about it before was Scott and I woofed.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

We like stayed on a farm in New Mexico and I remember I think I knew of it from like old, like some old like psychedelic book that I had that mentioned it as like a powerful delirient, I think is the way they like dangerous. So I think I had some awareness of it, but I don't remember uh Kenny's Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 31:43

I feel like I remember him telling us stories of someone like oh yeah, downwind of it, camping downwind of it and having an experience.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Oh yeah, because the fragrance is really strong. And if there's enough of it that blooms, yeah, it's a really a powerful dream time plant for sure, but really opens up the third eye. There were like indigenous cultures that would use it's also called Gimson Weed, would use it and mindfully because they knew how to, because they had relationship with the plants. They could take Gimson weed and have incredible visions, and you can have them without ingesting it as well. Like I've had so many powerful plant connections just by tapping into the spirit, like the spirit of the plant. And that's really what happened. Like Dr. Ra and I just started to have, she was like, I want to be your friend. I want to teach you some things, I want to remind you that you're like not alone and that it is this is a real time to come face to face with some of your darkness. And I was like, okay, well, as long as you're gonna be here with me, then I'm cool. So yeah, she actually still grows in our front yard. We don't keep it in the backyard just because I don't want the animals or Lily to get come into contact with seeds, but there's a little one that just popped up in the last couple of days in Lily's fairy garden, which I'm like, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

I wonder if you and it's fine either way, but I wonder if you want to say anything more about your story with Josephine. Cause I know that I've heard you speak about it and how powerful that experience has been for you. Just if there's anything more you want to add about that, or if she wants to come through and say anything.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah, I it's important for me to talk about hers, I think, for that opportunity. I think the one thing that I do want to say is that I really had this idea that, or I'd gotten into this belief system that Western medicine is bad. The one sort of downside of Chinese medicine school, and it was also a naturopathic school, a lot of the people that had come there had really bad experiences in Western medicine. And so that's why they had sought out either Chinese medicine or naturopathic medicine because they hadn't had anything work for them or they hadn't had any positive experiences. So there was also this real like overculture of Western medicine and like a lot of fear around it. But you have your baby in the hospital, like they're gonna force you to do this, they're gonna force a cesarean on you and all this kind of stuff. And so I will say that I went into the pregnancy with Josephine being like, I'm gonna have a natural birth. I don't need any anything, I don't need any help. And unfortunately, I also chose a midwife who was like really hands-off, but that was also the energy that I was running because of the way that I grew up, like I was really hyper-independent. I was very much in that like mindset of if I'm gonna do something, I have to do it on my own. I don't need anybody, fuck everybody else. Do you know what I mean? And so when you run that energy, like when you run that in your body, then you're of course you're gonna draw the people to you that also have that energy. And so our midwife was like really hands-off, and that's actually not what I needed at all. And I didn't realize until many years later. And again, like this is that story of like you gotta look at your fear, you gotta look at the dark side of things, really helped me to switch my view on a lot of things because I don't know if I really would have been able to say, Oh wow, I really have this bias that's not serving me at all. And also, I think the thing with Josephine is that it was like the a similar thing that I feel with the natural world. Like, all I feel from the natural world is unconditional love. Like every single time I come into a relationship with a plant, they're just like, I fucking love you. You're amazing. Here, let me mirror this to you. And I feel like Josephine really helped me to finally feel that from a human. Like, in order for her to make the choice to know that it wasn't or almost like that she could better be in a relationship with me as a spirit daughter because of the lessons that we both needed to learn to really truly from a deep place feel into what unconditional love feels like was a was really shifted things for me because I got to this place where really to make the sacrifice to not come into the world was a big choice for her. I don't blame her. Like now I I get it, but it was like a really beautiful realization to finally to like really truly feel this unconditional love that she would make this kind of choice and sacrifice like for me with me. So yeah, yeah, it's not easy. I feel like nine years out, you know, I can talk about it and not always cry about it, but I think I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It would be like the worst thing.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Thank you for sharing with us about it. And I'm curious, I don't really know the timeline, like how that kind of affected either your work working more with spirit or working more with women. I'm curious if that I know that was a part of your path. Yeah, if there's anything else to share about that, like how that kind of moved you in any direction, or any other experiences or people that you met that really moved you more onto your path.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah, I think having abortion really moved me in that direction. And I think losing Josephine was another aspect. If anything, losing Josephine actually really tuned me into spirit in a different way. Yeah. Because I could feel her sense, her, communicate with her after she passed, then I would sit with patients. And oftentimes we get into that really quiet meditative place after the needles are in, and I always do body work. And people's people would start coming in and I'd be like, Who the fuck are you? And I'd be like, Okay, look, if you're here in five minutes, I gotta do some stuff on the body, but if you're still here in five minutes, maybe we can talk. And then they would stick around and I'd be like, damn it. Okay, I'm gonna go work on their head for a minute. If you're still here in another five minutes, maybe we can talk. And they'd always they'd always stick around. And so I just had to get to this point where I was like, look, this is gonna sound crazy, but there's this individual here, and I'm just curious if you would be open to receiving a message. And people were always really receptive.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Do you remember one of the first times that happened? And can you tell us a story about it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

So I had this patient, and he has issues with his left leg. And I was like, there is this old dude who's really intense, and he's energetically connected to your left leg. And I was like, it feels like a grandfather. And he was like, it's probably like my paternal grandfather. And come to find out, like his paternal grandfather had this injury to his leg. And so he didn't end up going and doing the same thing like in the military. And then it was like literally like a mirrored story for my patient. He also had this leg injury because he had gone into the military. He'd not been in active combat. He ended up, I mean, it really both of these things connected them to like life purpose, but then also it connected them to each other. And it was like they were still, there's like an epigenetic kind of like thing. They were playing out these family stories, but it was like wild, like literally energetically, like his grandfather like was connected to that leg, to that knee, and stood there. So yeah, I remember that just simply because his grandfather was like really intense. That was like really very kind of pushy. So it was not a forgettable experience. Yeah, but I even have had like wild experiences where, you know, and this might push the boundaries for some people's comfort level, but we would get into really meditative states, and I had experiences of like my own sort of past life experiences or even past lives with patients. And then I've done something not exactly the same, but that I was a person who would almost like oil and clean and cleanse people's bodies after they had passed, and that I would actually move their energy out through bifurc. I know my favorite fucking thing, bify keeps on coming up, but I would like literally as I was like oiling and wrapping and tending to their body for the two days like after they had passed, I would, it was almost like I was doing energy work and I would continue to pull the biplate, the energy out of by play. And so yeah, yeah, I've had some like fascinating and surprising experiences, just like working on people. But I don't think I would have been open up to the psychic in the mediumship quite as much if it hadn't been for Josephine.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

That totally makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing more about that.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

Yeah, that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Yeah, thanks for asking. I'm curious just where you feel like you're going and what you're most excited about in your work moving forward. And our thought with this podcast is really to just inspire people that are listening who might have an inkling that there's this paradigm shift or kind of alternative path, if they can just listen to the little bits of their intuition and yeah, I'm just curious what you're feeling most excited about in your life moving forward or in your work.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Yeah, I feel like this meeting with you guys is perfectly timed because I just finished teaching this class, and for the first time, I shared something that's really vulnerable because another aspect that I don't talk to a lot of people about is that another sort of nudge from spirit that came through is that I was supposed to use my voice to help people when they were on my table. And Scott, I feel like you'll I'm I would imagine you would resonate with this because you know what you feel like when you sing and when you play music. I it transports you to a different place. And I feel like that's a way to open up to spirit. And I started hearing these, I call them songs. People have these songs that are within them, within their bodies. And it's not words like we're speaking now, but it's more like tones and sounds. For people, it's if you've ever taken yoga, it sounds more like the own sound. But then I started to realize that there, if you can get out of your own way, and this is such a big part of qigong. It's like the universe is a part of me and I am part of the universe. If you can get out of your own way, and literally it was like almost being in universe dance, whether it was like I was sitting down or standing up, if you can especially move your ego out of the way, the there are songs and sounds that come from the earth, and there are like songs and sounds that can come from the sky. And they can really be helpful for people not only to think you can. Flip them right into parasympathetic. They go right into rest and digest. I have never felt anything soften tissue more than maybe when you're in the water. The voice and the sound, it's like tissue begins to melt and dance. It's fucking phenomenal. But it's really it's it's vulnerable because it sounds weird as hell. It's not a familiar thing. I think for indigenous cultures, it's very familiar, it's very natural. But for humans who are like, I must articulate and speak well with these big words all the time, it is not that at all. So it doesn't come for everyone because it really depends on how open and receptive that a person is. And it was the same with the psychic and the mediumship work. And I'd be like, oh motherfucker, there's that sound again. I don't I don't want to do this. But it's yeah, if you and I feel like if you give people permission too, like you can make a choice. Can I use my voice? And on the other side of it, when I would actually step into that, then the results, do you know what I mean? And what you feel and where people can go. I had this little Thai woman, like Thai American woman come in and she was like, I fucking found my ancestors. Like I literally felt them walk in the room. So you can have experiences like that, and so you can set aside fear and just trust.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

And you mean that like she voiced something and then found her ancestors, or you voiced it and then she felt that way? I was like singing to her body, okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Yeah, like working on her, and she was you know, she had lots of emotion, big tears, and lots of even physical release, people will twitch and move around.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

You're just channeling what you're hearing in her. That's so cool. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

That's amazing, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I just last week taught it for the first time. And so it was kind of scary because it's like, what are people gonna think? Like, how is this gonna land? Can I actually do it online? And so I really do want to start weaving that more into the classes that I teach and even working towards teaching in person, also. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Yeah, spin me up. I feel like I do feel like that's like something that I've started to tune into a little bit, but I haven't had the courage to just explore it that much. So that sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

I've felt that way with music my whole life, like things that hit me, it's not necessarily stuff that's emanating from me, but like I love a lot of really old music. There's this, there's this podcast called Music from 100 Years Ago. And it's just all of these early recordings and interesting history of these forgotten musicians. And so much of that music just moves me so deeply. A lot of especially old, like old gospel and spiritual music is just just hits me in a place that is, I don't know if it's connected to ancestors. I sometimes think that it is. I got to hang out with my great-grandmother a bunch, and she had this organ that now lives in our barn. It's not working currently. I probably should go to the dump, but hated to get rid of it. Because I have these memories of sitting with her and she would sing all of these old like country songs and like Hank Williams stuff. And I always think about like my dad always, I remember my dad plays piano and was always interested in me learning music, and that he loved it was something that I was interested in and wanted to pursue. And I remember being in a music shop with him one time, and I was like looking through sheet music, and I pulled out like a Hank Williams book or something, and he was like, for him, there was this whole like hillbilly thing, like country, and was like, What? He was confused as to why I was into that. His side of the family didn't seem to have any interest in that type of like old country music. But my great-grandmother, like that really was something that was part of she sang with her sisters. I've heard from people that they like sang beautifully, and she was in her like 80s, and I would sit next to her and she would hammer out these songs and this really shrill, high voice, but it was so beautiful. And my singing voice, I used to aspire to maybe try to sing, and now I just I feel like lately I've been thinking maybe I'm like it was cool to me that she was willing to just belt it out in her old frail, squeaky voice.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:49

That I have reservations about certainly doing that in front of people, even doing it with myself. I'm oh, that's not really a voice that people want to hear.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Maybe I feel like Scott has a great voice, and it's really personally, I think, just a confidence sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 49:06

Strength of voice is something that I feel like I don't know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Voice is so interesting, and I feel like I want to just check out your class because I used to hate my voice. I hated hearing myself speak all through growing up, and like when you would hear a recorded or something, even just hearing myself talk. I just did not like my voice. And now speaking and using my voice is such an important part of my medicine in the world and my path. And I actually love my voice. I never have that feeling anymore. I do feel like it's there's some medicine and some maybe a little healing there for you.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

Yeah, for sure. For all of us, I totally resonate with that, Scott. And I think that for a long time I thought I had to have the perfect sounding voice. Do you know what I mean? And I think that that letting the songs come through the earth or come through the sky or the folks that I'm with, it doesn't have to be perfect. Sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, it just it just is. Yeah, and so I'm like, why don't you put your hands on your own body and sing and see what the fuck happens underneath your hand? Prove to yourself the beauty of what you're doing. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

Yeah, thank you. I will try that for sure. I also appreciate having that I can play instruments because it allows me to like channel that openly without that sort of reservation of my voice.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Yeah, but you're really doing the same thing. Sure. With the instrument.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Yeah, because you do, Scott does just improvise a ton on the piano and the guitar. And yeah, I love hearing you play and sing. Thanks. And I think your grandma's great grandma's organ, I think should become like a art installation somewhere, like in our woods, or like just become like we should just see how the earth could be fit. I don't know. It's just a thought.

SPEAKER_03 51:01

I love that. You're open to that because I don't want to better than I think in our barn it just feels sad.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

But if we could create like a little shrine, I think it could be a really cool it's heavy. Okay, you can get a friend to do it with you.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

But I was like, yeah, your great grandma's gonna haunt the fuck out of you. You get rid of that thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Yeah, I think that's not a possibility. I don't think so either.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

I think she does smile upon me, knowing that I've put up with some some pressure to get rid of it. And it there it stands.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

Oh, it's been years since I've given you any pressure, maybe even almost a decade.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

It's because you never you never go in there, you don't really see it. It's true. It's true.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Um like sometimes you think you're procrastinating on something. It's actually because spirit's kind of guiding you towards something different. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

Yeah, I think it's I'm excited maybe about finding a permanent spot for it.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

I'm just picturing, I don't know if you know the book Katie Caboose, but it's um it's like a kid's book about a train that a caboose that like longs to just be part of nature. And then at the end of the book, she goes flying off the rails and ends up between two trees. And the birds and the squirrels become her friends, and it's like her dream situation. And I'm just picturing the organ maybe can have its moment of just being appreciated in nature and it's such a good book.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

She's she hates the smell of the of the train yards and it's an old book. The the rattling, and she just wants yearns for the fresh air, fresh air, and simpler life, and she'll see these spots along her cross-country travels that she just yearns to that sort of life, and then yeah, she gets her chance.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

I've never heard of that book on that though. I think it would still interest you and Lily. It's a kid's book, a picture book, but it's yeah, it's really sweet.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Cool. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

I'm really excited for everything that you share. And just as we're finishing up here, I would love to just know is there any advice that you wish you would have gotten earlier on in your life, or what advice would you give someone who's let's say in that potentially like early 20s, you don't know what's gonna happen in your life and you're feeling a little down about it, or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Yeah, I love that question so much. And really, I would just say that when the plans that you have become so attached to, or maybe even the plans that other people have had for you, you know what I mean? When they don't work out, that there's a reason why it's not working out, and not to bypass having to give up dreams or being sad that something isn't what you expected it to be. But yeah, for my 20-year-old self and for anyone who might be in that sort of quarter life crisis place of what am I doing with my life? Yeah, it's okay to trust. It actually makes me let me think of something that Liz Gilbert said. She talks about like when she writes books, sometimes she'll get really stuck. And that what she'll do is that she'll just focus on is there anything that I am like even remotely curious or interested in? Even if it's a completely different thing than what you think you should be interested in, or what maybe you've been doing with your life. Because she tells a story about how she was completely stuck, couldn't write a book, and she just let herself start to garden. And she got really obsessed with bulbs and like where they came from. And then she went into this whole path to figure out oh, the Dutch brought them here, and then they made their way to America here, and it ended up creating this whole fiction book for her that she never would have even imagined writing. And so I love that. So maybe if you're feeling lost, then is there an inkling of anything that you are remotely excited about and to follow that inkling?

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Yeah, just following that one little thread. I love that so much.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

The tiniest thread can be like your whole life. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

Yeah, that's awesome. Is there anything you would like to share as to where people can find you, learn more about your work or work with you?

SPEAKER_01 55:31

So you guys can find me at emilyhanger.com. Just like Lindsay, I have uh like a catalog of classes that are available from over the years, but yeah, I'm currently thinking of creating like a wound class, like a reproduction class. And yeah, I feel like I've wanted to be more playful. So I was looking up words or phrases that we use. And I don't know if you guys know this, but the name Myrtle, because I was thinking about calling the class like fertile myrtle. Myrtle is actually it's a tree, and that it really is connected to like fertility and yeah, so it's just fun. I think when we I don't know, like get curious and creative playful, yeah. So love it. It's like already can somehow that's like how can we honor the earth while we're connecting to our pussies?

SPEAKER_00 56:29

So that's awesome. And how about on Instagram? You want to share?

SPEAKER_01 56:34

Yeah. So I am, I'm like, what the hell is my handle? I'm I've changed it so many times over the years, but I'm Taproot Healing Arts. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

Um taproot.healing.arts.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

I just looked you up to make sure. Okay. Thank you so much, Emily. This was such an amazing conversation. I'm just loving when I get to bring someone on I know who I've talked to Scott about, but now he is just fully gets the evidence of how cool you are. So I'm appreciating that a lot.

SPEAKER_03 57:11

It's nice to meet you and talk with you.

unknown 57:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Absolutely. There's both ways. I love Lindsay and I have by proxy. I feel like the people that I love, like it's inevitable that you love their people. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

Thank you so much. Thank you all for listening, and we hope you have a great day. Thank you for listening to this episode of Homestead and Heal. If you loved it, please help us spread the word by subscribing to this podcast and leaving us a review. For more information about our work, visit homesteadandheal.net.

SPEAKER_03 57:42

We're wishing you the life of your dreams, one that feels deeply rooted, fully alive, and connected to the earth beneath your feet.