WOW: Wise Older Women
“Wisdom That Grows Louder with Time.”
Welcome to WOW: Wise Older Women a podcast dedicated to raising the status of ageing women and dismantling the narratives that silence them.
Here, older women speak with authority, beauty, depth, and fire. Their stories challenge, inspire, and illuminate.
In a world that too often ignores, isolates, or diminishes older women, we choose to listen. To revere and celebrate the brilliance, courage, humour and tenderness they bring along with plenty of high‑vibration wisdom carried in their words.
These conversations aren’t just stories, each one of them is a teaching. A personal map from the past, forging the way ahead, full of magic, medicine and momentum.
This storytelling series presents ageing not as decline, but as ascent. It’s a platform where older women don’t need to hide. This is where they are honoured, uplifted, heard and held; with reverence, respect, and wonder.
Their voices are powerful, their wisdom is vibrant, and their stories are a gift to us all.
Welcome to the podcast. Settle in. Let their voices guide you.
WOW: Wise Older Women
S2 Ep1: Kathryn Roberts
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Kathryn Roberts grew up in Perth as the youngest of three, wandering gardens as a toddler, talking to nature, and asking questions most adults couldn’t answer. Questions like: Where do we come from? Where do we go? Is there something more than this human experience?
Her parents were socialists, activists, the kinds of people who encouraged her to think outside the square. But life had its own lessons in store for her. Family breakdown, loss, illness, spiritual searching, a two-year "Blues Brothers" around Australia in a decked-out Ford Falcon, and a path that led her from London to the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
Here she lived off‑grid, restored taro patches, and learned the foundational teachings of Kumu Pa’a, part of a Lineage of over 50 generations from Halawa Valley of Molokai.
Today, Kathryn’s a cultural bridge. Someone who carries the teachings of Ho’oponopono, Hula, Lomi, and Hawaiian philosophy into the modern world, with integrity, humility, and lived experience.
To find out more about Kathryn's work head to her Facebook Page OR Instagram
Series 1 & 2 were made possible with assistance from the Community Broadcasting Foundation
Support future episodes of WOW: Wise Older Women HERE
Contact Host & Executive Producer Rasela Torise HERE
Music generously provided by Purple Planet Music
S2 Ep.2 Guest: Eliza Rix COMING SOON!
Welcome to Wow Wise Older Women, wisdom that grows louder with time. It's a podcast dedicated to raising the status of aging women and dismantling the narratives that silence them. Here, older women speak with authority, beauty, depth, and fire. Their stories challenge, inspire, and illuminate. In a world that too often ignores, isolates, or diminishes older women, we choose to listen, to revere and celebrate their brilliance, courage, humor, and tenderness. They bring along plenty of high vibrational wisdom carried in their words. These conversations aren't just stories. Each one of them is a teaching, a personal map from the past, forging the way ahead, full of magic, medicine, and momentum. This storytelling series presents aging not as a decline, but as a scent. It's a platform where older women don't need to hide. This is where they're honored, uplifted, heard, and held with reverence, respect, and wonder. Their voices are powerful, their wisdom is vibrant, and their stories are a gift to us all. Welcome to the podcast. Settle in. Let their voices guide you. Today's conversation is with someone whose life has been shaped by curiosity, disruption, and a deep commitment to understanding what lies beneath the surface of the human experience. Catherine Roberts grew up in Perth as the youngest of three, wandering gardens as a toddler, talking to nature, and asking questions most adults couldn't answer. Questions like, where do we come from? Where do we go? Is there something more than this human experience? Her parents were socialists, activists, people who encouraged her to think outside the square. But life had its own lessons in store for her: family breakdown, loss, illness, spiritual searching, and eventually a path that led her from London to the Hawaiian island of Molokai, where she lived off-grid, restored tarot patches, and learned the foundational teachings of Kumu Pa', part of a lineage of over 50 generations from the Halava Valley of Molokai. Today, Catherine's a cultural bridge, someone who carries the teachings of Ho'oponopono, Hula, Lomi, and Hawaiian philosophy into the modern world with integrity, humility, and lived experience. I'd love to introduce you to my guest Catherine Roberts and take a moment to thank her for joining us in this CBF grant-funded series Wow, Wise Older Women. How does it feel to be part of the Wise Older Women podcast series?
SPEAKER_00I feel very privileged to have been asked. I've always seen the older woman as a source of wisdom, of experience from life to be shared, so to be recognized as being part of that demographic is humbling and a great honour.
SPEAKER_01You grew up as the youngest of three sisters with quite an age gap. What do you remember about that little girl who wandered through the garden talking to nature?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, I was definitely the outside child. And nature was a great source of connection to everything around me. It was like my family. It was like a deeper connection rather than just the everyday things that were going on in our lives. So it was a place of refuge, it was a place of love, it was a place of enjoyment and great joy for me.
SPEAKER_01From a very young age you were asking big questions. Is there something more to the human experience? What do you think sparked that kind of curiosity at such a young age?
SPEAKER_00I think because I spent quite a lot of time on my own, that there was always a sense that there was something more going on outside of this internal human experience. I was always wandering around with an inquisitive way of engaging with the world around me, you know, following the gardener around and asking him questions or going off, you know, into the uncle or auntie that was playing a musical instrument and and wanting to know why and and where did it come from. And it was always that sort of wanting to go deeper and ask, of course, you know, where do we come from before we're born and where do we go after we die? And nobody could seem to give me any definitive answers. So from a very early age I was always inquiring or wanting to know more, and I had a deeper sense there was something else outside of this human body that I was inhabiting at the time.
SPEAKER_01Did you recognise it in any other members of your family, even your siblings?
SPEAKER_00No, not directly. It wasn't like a family there where we sat around and had discussions like that. It was a very much, in my memory, very day-to-day, go to school, come home, watch some television, do your homework, go to bed. On the weekend you might do some activities like sports or something. I tended to disappear into the world of books and uh adventuring and playing outside. I think also because of that age gap with my sisters, I was spent a lot of time on my own. And so I would find activities that would engage me, and a lot of that did involve outdoor environment, and I was very fortunate to grow up in environments where I could go outside and engage with you know the ocean, with the river, and spend a lot of time outside.
SPEAKER_01Your parents were socialists, activists, your mum was a community worker and a counsellor for about 11 years or so, and your dad was a doctor who really embraced other cultures. How do you think their worldview helped to shape yours?
SPEAKER_00Wow, great respect for not only other cultures but other demographics of social groups. Uh, they were always exposing us to different people. They would bring international foreign exchange students into the home. And they would really make an effort to expose us to different cultural influences and almost celebrate the differences with the people that were surrounding us or lived in other parts of the world. And that was always just wow, there's a big, exciting world outside, you know, outside of this small community environment that I grew up in. You know, generated a great wonder and excitement of engaging with with something more than just our everyday environment.
SPEAKER_01At around 16, the age of 16, your dad left and your family went through a major breakdown. What was that period like for you?
SPEAKER_00It was very lonely. I was at home with my mum and I trying to finish my last years of school, and my mother had been struggling with alcohol, and at that time it was something that was within our culture, hidden, so you never spoke of it. So I was sort of living in these two worlds, the world at home, trying to deal with a situation that I was struggling with, and then trying to go out into the outside world and just be the normal teenage person. So it was a really tumultuous time. And I think because you know, I saw how much pain my mother went through, my father, and what I was experiencing, that I was having this question, well, if we come from nothing and we go to nothing and all this pain, why would you bother? Like, why would you even bother living this human life? And so there was a lot of anger and frustration and emotional reaction to this situation and a lot of despair.
SPEAKER_01How did it affect your relationship with your mother and the her struggle with alcohol?
SPEAKER_00I would become very frustrated with her, I would get very angry with her. She was wasn't always drinking, sometimes, you know, because she was doing such great work out within the community. There were times when she would be really focused and out there doing really good things, and then bang, she would fall back down again. And so I was seeing these two different women, you know, I'd get very frustrated because I knew what she was capable of. I knew what she was able to do. And then she would go down the other road. So yeah, it was a very frustrating, angry time, and I was very confused about the value of life at that time.
SPEAKER_01Did you feel any responsibility for your mother when she was in those down times?
SPEAKER_00I took on the responsibility of being sort of I suppose her carer or parental role. Practically in the day-to-day, I would cook and clean and uh get myself off to school and be a responsible teenager and then come back home. It was a time where I took care of her when she was unable to take care of herself.
SPEAKER_01Was your dad around still for you? Was he aware of this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he was. He'd found a relationship, he had a new partner, and it was a confusing time because I know that he wanted to take care of me, but then he had this new relationship. I didn't want to leave my you know environment where I had my friends and my school. So it was very difficult and and just because of the family dynamic where we never really would speak very deeply about things. So I offered an opportunity to either go to boarding school, to live with him, or to stay with my mother. I chose to stay with my mother because I had my friends and my school and and the ocean where I lived, and I loved living there. So I made that choice at the time to do that.
SPEAKER_01And you described a moment of hearing let it be on the radio and feeling something like a message maybe from the ancestors. Can you take us into that moment?
SPEAKER_00During this time of, I'd call it a breakdown, all of the situation with mum and dad leaving and I was there on my own. And that's when I would throw myself down in despair onto the bed. Um, and I remember there was this radiogram that we had in the room where I was staying. I was crying and I was being angry and frustrated and basically, you know, why do you bother doing this life when this is all there is, this is bullshit, you know. And the radio was on, and the song came on the radio with Mother Mary came to me, whispered words of wisdom, let it be, and it was the Beatles' classic song, Let It Be. In that moment, the words completely spoke to me, and I had this full-body experience of an energy rushing through me. And it was like Mother Mary was there speaking to me, although I had no idea who Mother Mary was at the time. The words came into my head that said, You may not understand everything that's happening right now, but one day you will. Let it be. And in that moment, it was like it was like a huge sigh of relief, and this what I call a you know, if you're going to label it, a God experience. It was like there was some energy power reassuring me that was not in the physical, that it was coming from some other realm. But it was very reassuring, very loving, and it enabled me to continue and actually started me, I suppose, in that moment to seek whatever it was that that came from.
SPEAKER_01You explored church and Sunday school, even Ouija boards, searching for meaning, whatever that meaning was. What were you looking for that you couldn't find in the world around you? Was it an answer or was it a way of life? What did it mean to you?
SPEAKER_00I don't think I was ever conscious of what it was I was looking for. I suppose I had this inquiring mind. And maybe there was a deep sense of this is this there's got to be something that makes us happy, or is there something that's gonna give me some sense of fulfillment because I was feeling I suppose frustrated with what I'd been experiencing. And the church thing was quite amusing really because there was a church that was across the road and every Sunday I would notice these people going in and and it never got used any other time of the week and I was like, Oh, I mean I said to my mum, What is that? And she goes, Oh, that's a church. And she said to me, If you want to go see what it's about, why don't you go over and investigate? So I did. I went over to the church and I must have only been like eight or nine, not even. And I remember becoming quite elated, you know, like there was a lot of singing and I remember the talking in tongues. I think I even might have been speaking in tongues and having these kind of quite exalted experiences through going to the church and and became then quite evolved and part of the Sunday school children's group and then I remember leaving this beautiful experience where we talked about love for everyone and non-judgment. And then going back to the home of one of the pastors and and listening to the adult conversations where they were speaking completely different to what they were in the church and lots of words of judgment coming on about other people in the church. So then I was just like, oh well, this is bullshit too. So like there was just all these little moments in my life where it was like I'd be led to believe something and it's like, oh that doesn't feel right. And oh no, that doesn't feel right. So yeah, there was must have been still an inquiring part of me that was like there has to be something more. So even though then at that point I rejected the whole God thing, and I think I even did the sort of God if you exist, then you'll make an ice cream appear or something, or you know, something very childlike to try and get God to prove to me that it exists he existed, because of course it was spoken of in Christian terms of he. There was a lot of testing going on, and again, this was an internal journey. It wasn't something that was done with my family or anyone else in the community. It was very much my own journey.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of journeys, traveling is also a way of exploring other worlds and worlds within yourself. And at age 19 you brought a one-way ticket to London and you were pursuing photography at the time. But what were you hoping to find there?
SPEAKER_00Well, I wasn't pursuing anything at that point. I was wanting to get out of the structure that I'd been living in. The family that I grew up in, it was very much, you know, you did your education, you went to university, and you studied and you had a career. And I remember finishing high school and the expectation from my father was, you know, you you'll go to university. And I'm like, oh no, I'm committed to the last 13 years of institutionalized education. I want to go out and see what the rest of the world is. And thankfully, you know, my mother had always encouraged me to go and explore the world. Photography was just an avenue within which to go and work in London. And uh I think I was pursuing my myself. I'd eventually got into a codependence course through my mother's alcohol and trying to help her. And I remember this woman saying to me, Katherine, what is it you want? And it was like it almost took me by surprise that someone was asking me what what I wanted and that I was able to choose. And so at that point I said, I want to travel the world and and go and see what's out there. And then she said, Well, why don't you? And then it was at that point that I went, Okay, I'm buying a ticket. And I didn't have much draw to stay in Australia. At that time, a lot of people that I grew up with would head to the east coast of Australia. And I was like, No, I don't want to do more Australia. I want to go into a completely different culture, a different part of the world. And I was fortunate to have a UK grandparent visa that I could use. So yeah, I went to London and photography was what I did for the year after I left school. So that was a a skill that I could just drop into a big city and and earn money, and and that enabled me to be able to travel and explore the world over there.
SPEAKER_01Four years later, you returned to Perth for a bit of a shorter spell. What brought you home?
SPEAKER_00My mother passed away whilst I was in London. It was always on the cards that she would have some sort of mishap because of her alcohol and the the toll that it had taken on her body. I remember when I first left to go overseas and I said my farewell to her, there was a sense that that might be the last time that I would see her in the flesh. But she was always such a part of my journey to London and my time there. She was always so encouraging and supportive and excited to hear about what was going on for me in my life there. But whilst I was in London for four years, she passed away quite suddenly from an accident. And I yeah, I decided to come back to Australia for her funeral, and um I ended up spending a bit of time in Australia just to really allow myself to experience the grief of losing my parent. I was only 23 at the time. So it was a big shift in my life at that point, and probably what then spurred me on to my next part of my journey.
SPEAKER_01You went back to London and your body began to break down. What was happening physically and emotionally?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that a lot of the emotion that I had stored away within myself and had never really let out or investigated. I started to have, you know, a lot of physical expressions of it, I suppose is the way of describing it. So I had like rashes and I was feeling unwell, lots of flus and colds, and never really feeling I was getting on top of my physical well-being. And as my father was a doctor and I'd tried all the antibiotics and trying to treat things that way, I had a very dear friend who said to me, Well, why don't you try something more alternative? I know of a really good acupuncturist. So I thought, okay, I'll give that a go and went to this acupuncture session, and it was just amazing. And I could feel the energy flowing through me. I really responded well to it physically. And then what started to happen after a few sessions was that then the emotions started to come out. And I was come to see the acupuncturist, oh my god, I can't believe that this anger at this guy who just pulled out in front of me was completely over the top. And she's like, Oh yeah, well that makes sense. You know, we've started to balance the body out, and because it's so connected to your mind and your emotions and your body, now that we've got the body in balance, it's trying to balance out all the rest. And it was like this light bulb moment going, What? What goes on inside my head affects my body. So that was like one of those moments, like, why hasn't somebody told me this before? Like so many things of being a woman, our hormones, our cycles. It was another one of those, like, really? Oh my god, this is just such an invaluable piece of information. And I said, Well, what do I do with this? And she goes, Well, you could do the conventional, you know, go and do the talk therapy. But she says, I think because you're so much in your mind, you might benefit from something else. And she said, I've heard about this thing called rebirthing, which this is back in the nineteen eighties, was in its infancy, I suppose. And she said, You just basically lie down and breathe. And yeah, I was like, Oh, okay. Willing to give anything a go at this point. And because I trusted her, you know, because I'd had such great response from the alternative experience of acupuncture. So yeah, I signed up for the rebirthing. Again, it was another one of those pivotal godlike moments where I remember the first session where I had this huge emotional release, and then at the end it was just like, oh my god, peace and love and connectedness and the greater joy of feeling connected to everything and everyone and to feeling such love that I'd almost forgotten existed. But that sent me on the journey of, okay, I want more of this. And at that point I spent the next two years diving deeply into the rebirthing community and becoming a professional rebirther and really, you know, clearing out a lot of the mental and emotional baggage that I'd been carrying in my life.
SPEAKER_01And you also became a bit of a sounding board for others, didn't you, in those workshops? How did that shape your understanding of people and their stories?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, I mean in any work that you do with a group or with human beings where you realize that we've all got our stories and we've all got our reaction to experiences that we have and the baggage that we carry with us and and the understandings of life and the beliefs. It was just fascinating to see, like even going back to our birth, that we can make a decision or have a thought about life and then carry that throughout life and it affects us. What started to happen was, you know, after spending four years of being sort of in the London party having a great old time, all of a sudden it was like, oh, this is way better than any of that partying. And then my friends started to notice that I was, you know, looking so much happier and freer and light that they then started asking me questions about what I was doing. And of course then they all started doing the rebirthing and clearing out, and when we were sitting around and all the conversations were always about what we were processing, what it was we were letting go of. So it was fascinating up until the point it was like, oh, I think, yeah, enough now. Can we just get on with living life rather than constantly processing because it I mean it was the eighties, it's what you did in the eighties.
SPEAKER_01Eventually you felt called to come back to Australia. What was pulling you home?
SPEAKER_00I suppose it was a sense I needed to integrate the last two years of the deep work that I'd been doing. I was also missing that nature of Australia. The big city of London was so great for culture and indoor activities, but I noticed I was more and more wanting to go and find ocean and beaches and natural spaces to just be in. So yeah, I got to the end of the eighties and decided it was time to Come back to Australia first off. I think I wanted to come back and see my family, and my sister had had her first child. So it just seemed like the logical place to come and just get out of the city and integrate all that had happened to me in the last couple of years since my mother had died.
SPEAKER_01So you spent a couple of years travelling around Australia in a Ford Falcon station wagon, which I would love to hear more about. On the Blues Brothers tour. What did Life on the Road teach you? Tell us about this tour.
SPEAKER_00Oh well, you know, I went from the big city and wanting to just really connect more deeply. I suppose I'd connected in with what I would describe as the realm of spirit, the realm of some people call it God. But there was this connection to something that could guide me that I felt a very deep connection to. And I wanted to really spend time out in nature with myself, strengthening that bond, and really being led by that rather than just from my mind. So when I came back to Australia and after seeing my family, I decked out an old Ford Falcon station wagon with the big bench seat in the front and roof rack on top, and decked it out as my home and yeah, headed north in Western Australia and stopped along various different places and was really just led by my intuition at the time and and by this said this guiding force, which I didn't even have a name for, but it was just a real deep connection to. And I would find that I would end up in places where the God force wanted me to go and spend time on a farm with a woman who needed just someone to talk to, or I'd end up with a family on the south coast who needed a hand with um not only the salmon run or putting in crops, but to have someone that they could talk to on a deeper level about what they were going through and all their experiencing. So I became, I suppose, just a safe person that these people in remote areas could talk to, and and then sometimes I'd just help someone to set up a cafe or to do some work in their garden. So I was really just following the inspiration that was coming to me, meeting and connecting with people, and I did that for a couple of years and had friends that would join me along the way too, and had some very special times with that. So it was a really incredible time of just really free-flowing and allowing myself to be guided by that that more of an inner knowing.
SPEAKER_01It sounds like you were born for something like this, already creating some form of bridge between these small outback towns and someone that appears that they can share their deepest, darkest secrets with.
SPEAKER_00Well, there's a couple of things there. I think one of the things is having always sought a little bit outside of my family structure for another family being a child that's younger than the other siblings. I was always seeking other families out to play with or to engage with. There was a skill within me that I could go in and please, I'm a really nice person, you want me around, I can have very helpful, I'm nice to have there. So there was that kind of side of things. And then of course having parents who were always encouraging us to engage with other cultures and different demographics of people. So I think my natural curiosity of the world that they'd fostered within me with looking for engagement with people, I mean, you know, I'd been fortunate enough to have grown up in a middle class environment where I had good education, meant that I could talk to anyone from all sorts of levels, as well as I was happy to go and dig in the garden or catch a fish or light a fire. So I could go across a lot of different demographics and feel quite at ease.
SPEAKER_01Did it come to a natural end, the Blues Brothers tour, or did you have a two-year plan mapped out?
SPEAKER_00No, I I didn't have a plan of how long it would go for, but it was after two years of living in a car and and travelling around and I would stop in different places for different periods, but it was like I'm tired now. I want to get out of the car and I want to sleep in a real bed in a house and have a kitchen. I actually stopped and rested down the south coast of Western Australia in a little place called Hopetown. Spent some time down there. And I could have quite easily have just disappeared into that beautiful natural environment, but there was something again that was speaking within me, was going, No, you know, there's something more for you to go out and do. So it is time to make your way back out into civilization again. So yeah, I slowly made my way back up through, you know, the southwest of WA and then ended up eventually on the East Coast in Bahram Bay where we are now.
SPEAKER_01Yoga played another really pivotal chapter in your life. What did you discover through the physical practice?
SPEAKER_00Again, that was a suggestion by a friend who said, Oh Catherine, I think you'd really enjoy yoga. So when I came back to Perth and I was fortunate enough to find a really great yoga class not far from where I was staying, and a really great yoga teacher who had healed himself from um some severe physical disabilities from a car accident. He was one of those great teachers that might have 30 people in the class, but he could name anyone clenching their jaw or not standing right, and I was just like, wow. He was very uh intuitive. The classes I found again through the physical were really profound in revealing different parts of myself emotionally and mentally. So that became something that I took on the road with me when I travelled around, and then when I came back to Perth and I was again at that decision point, what's next? What am I going to do now? Someone made the suggestion of this is Ashram, perhaps you should go and live in the ashram and do yoga for a while. I went and became involved with a Shivananda ashram, dropped into the Hindu yoga teachings, and they had a really excellent classes, and they also studied the Bhagavad Gita, and we did lots of little rituals and ceremonies and fasting, and ended up moving into the ashram, and that was you know another dive into that realm of connecting to something deeper than the human experience.
SPEAKER_01Your first introduction to Hawaiian teachings came through Sandra Ray in London. The opportunity for you to go to Hawaii arose, and you did. What happened on that first trip?
SPEAKER_00Sandra Ray at a rebirthing workshop that was going to be held in a conference actually in Hawaii, and I was still in London at the time. And I just remember getting this very clear message of like, well, go to Hawaii. I'd never even considered it as a place to travel to. It was wasn't on my radar, but I got quite a clear message, a bit like the Mother Mary message. Go to Hawaii and I was going to go to this conference thinking it was all about the conference. Anyway, I got there and it was on the big island, and I was staying in this hotel. I was sort of going along to the conference meetings and wasn't really getting a great vibe from it and ended up getting a little bit bored with it. And so my boyfriend who was travelling with me at the time, we decided just to go rent a car and just let's go look at around at Hawaii. We ended up in this plantation town, which was just very, you know, beautiful. We were heading to go look at a waterfall, um, the things that you do as a tourist. And I was just standing outside, and you know, of course I was involved in photography. I like to take photos, and I was just standing outside these beautiful buildings, and these two locals came out, and I was like I was actually photographing their really great car and buildings and whatever. And I had this sarong on that I'd picked up in Africa years before, and they sort of go, Oh yeah, girlfriend. They were like complimenting my sarong and my pareo. We started chatting and having conversation and they were like, Oh, we're heading fishing, you know, you want to come join us? And we're like, Yeah, sure. So anyway, ended up going fishing with them, and you know, long story short, I ended up moving out of the conference hotel and moved in with them and spend our next week that we had left on the island uh hanging out with these two beautiful locals who toured us around the island and took us to all these amazing places. I remember they had an old Ute and we would sit in the back of one of those car seats with the cooler with all the food and drinks in it, and they would tour us around and take us to all these really what I know now were very sacred places, including walking out on the lava to where Pelle, the volcano goddess, was flowing into the ocean. I think it was one of the first eruptions for many, many years, so there was no fences or any structures, and we could just walk straight out. We were giving offerings to her and they were doing chants, and they were sharing stories about their armakur, their guardians, and what I know now were quite precious moments and deep teachings that had been passed on to them by their ancestors. So that was my first introduction into the Hawaiian spiritual teachings and the way of thinking and the way of being, and I suppose that's where I share my first true experience of Aloha that came through these beautiful people who lived in these quite ramshackle houses with holes in the walls and and only one tap with running water and with very little but they gave us everything and it was such a humbling experience of these beautiful people would take us in like family members and be so generous and so unconditional. It was quite a shock to my system where uh I'd been educated and shown that it was all about looking after yourself and um an individualized culture rather than a culture that was of we and community.
SPEAKER_01Some ten years later, you found one of their phone numbers in your old phile of fax and flew back to Hawaii. How different was it from that first experience?
SPEAKER_00Oh, it was like I'd never left. I mean I randomly came across a phone number and I just picked up the phone and they answered and when they heard my voice they were like, Hey girlfriend, you're at the airport, we'll come pick you up. And I said, Wow. You know, A, they remembered me, and B, it was just like, you know, I just been away for the weekend. So yeah, I jumped on a plane and went back, and again they were just so beautiful and showing me around the island and these places. And I actually got to spend time with them sitting on their front lanai on their front porch and just witness the community that would come to them and sit and talk story and share. And the amount of support that they all had for each other again was another humbling moment for me to to witness.
SPEAKER_01Round about the same time you're also working in a law practice in Ballinar here in Australia and the Northern Rivers. How did that structured world sit alongside your spiritual searching?
SPEAKER_00Well, there was always this dilemma in my life of what's gonna make me happy, you know, what's gonna bring me a sense of peace and contentment. So I would go into what I would think, you know, my Western educated social structure would tell me would make me happy, get a job, get some education, get a career, get a partner, have a house, have a car, all those kind of things. And then there would be the rebellious part of me that's like, no, I want to go in search of something with greater meaning, and so I'd disappear off in on these other journeys. And it was at this time, I suppose I was in my 30s where it was, okay, I'm getting to that point. I should grow up and go back and be the responsible person because really that's the only thing that's gonna make me feel safe and ultimately bringing me happiness. I was very fortunate to actually meet a very beautiful man who provided this experience for me of ah, exhale, I could feel safe on that very much material Western culture. I could really see how that could be very deeply satisfying. Until the part of me that was searching for something greater and deeper started to niggle away at me, going, Okay, this is all really nice, but what about the other? What about the other?
SPEAKER_01You also met uh another Hawaiian, a Hawaiian teacher, an auntie, somewhat by chance in Byron. How did that come about and what was that connection like?
SPEAKER_00That was actually when I was coming to that niggling point of it's a bit like going into a spiritual experience and diving deep and then coming back out into the Western culture. And so it was at that point where it's like, oh the spiritual needs a bit of feeding, you've been doing the Western way too much, and I was flying back from visiting family, and I've picked up this free health magazine, and it's had this photo of this Hawaiian teacher, and they were coming to Bahrain Bay, and I'm like, oh my god, a Hawaiian spiritual teacher, and they're gonna be in Bahrambay. I have to go, like, come on, you know, Hawaii's calling to me. So yeah, I went along to this workshop and um connected with Auntie Mahi Alanif. She was from the Big Island. She was just so full of light and joy, and she was bringing through the Hawaiian wisdom with a combination of kind of more of a Californian-style new age flavor. But she was a lot of fun, and it was just what I needed was a lot of lightness around the spiritual and living it in a day-to-day way. So not something that was separate from the world that I'd been brought up in, something that was definitely to be lived.
SPEAKER_01And then came the email. Kumu Lawrence was coming out of the Halava Valley to teach. You cried when you read this. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
SPEAKER_00So, through the connection of working with Auntie Mahailani, the woman who had brought her to Australia brought out my Kumu, my teacher, Lawrence Kalayanea Kamaniaki, and his number one student, Kavika Foster, at the time, to Australia. And I received this email, and it was interesting because I'd been to just about all the other islands in Hawaii, but I hadn't been to Molokai. And Molokai was the small known more as the more traditional cultural island, and I always had this thinking that you had to be invited to go to that island. So I'd never been there or made any effort to go there. So when I saw that advertisers, these three men, so it was the three generations, this lineage of 50 generations that was coming out from Molokai, I was like, whoa, and they're coming to Brisbane, it's only up the road. I just went, okay, I'm I'm gonna go check it out. And I contacted Auntie Mahialani and said, Hey, do you know about these guys and this lineage? And she goes, Oh, Molokai, old school. And it was like, oh, what does that mean? She goes, Look, they've got a lot of protocols, they're very deeply connected to the old ways. Just go along and see how it feels and don't get too caught up in trying to understand all the protocols, just go and feel like what it's like. So I rock up and from the first conch shell that was blown to the first chart that was spoken, you know, it was that chicken skin that hairs on the back of your neck standing up moment. And then there was a certain time during the weekend when Lawrence spoke the words that he was coming out of the valley for three years to teach and then he would not be leaving the island again. And that's when the tears started streaming down my face. And I had no conscious recognition of what that was. It was just a completely somatic experience of something deep within me was stirring or had spoken. So that mysterious moment led me to wanting to investigate more, and so I asked to meet with him, and uh, long story short, he invited me to come to Molokai. And so yeah, I went.
SPEAKER_01You left a partner of ten years, you packed a 23 kilo bag, and you flew to Molokai. What did it feel like to take that huge leap of faith?
SPEAKER_00Oh, it was incredibly exciting on one level, very sad on another because I was leaving behind not only the partner, but he had two beautiful children that I'd become quite connected to. But there was something within me that was was driving me deeper. It was um crushing to the wind and again another Blues Brothers tour moment, I guess you could call it, because it was just packing myself up and I had no idea how long I was going for. Initially it was only going to be a few weeks just to go and check it out. What had happened is that I I had spent some time alone before I met Lawrence and I was kind of calling out, going, okay, uh maybe it's time I I I need to find a teacher or something that can take me deeper. And I remember speaking to Lawrence when I met him and he's asked me that awkward question that I'd always felt uncomfortable with. Catherine, what is it you want? Uh and I said, Wow, the words came out of my mouth, I'd love to find a spiritual teacher and travel the world to share the teachings. So he asked me, Well, is it me? And I said, Uh I don't know. And then he said, uh, is it Auntie Mehalani? And I said, Oh, I don't know. And he says, Well, look, there's only one way you're gonna find out, is you need to go in search for your teacher and you need to spend time with whoever it is that you're drawn to and see what happens. That's what I did. I packed my bags and I started off with him and Auntie Mehalani, and the moment I dropped into the valley of Halava where he was living at the time.
SPEAKER_01Can you describe it?
SPEAKER_00Oh, look, it's like something out of Jurassic Park. This huge valley with multiple waterfalls. I didn't do any research on Google or anything before I got there. And I remember he picked me up at the airport and we went and did a bit of shopping at the supermarket and went and filled up the water bottles and met his brother, who was a real character, and and then we started driving out to the valley. Kanakakai, which is the town that you land in, is like something like out of the Pilboro. It's sort of red earth and quite scrubby and dry and not sort of the classic picture of Hawaiian tropical lushness. And we got in his old truck and we're driving, and we start driving out to Halava, and slowly the road gets narrower and more windy, and takes about an hour to get out there, and then all of a sudden we turn around this corner and boom, it's this huge, big, majestic valley which is just green, and waterfalls, and two bays, and so surprising and shocking and awe-inspiring. Yeah, there was a few tears, and uh we just kept driving down into the valley. It's kind of like people use the word portal, but it's like you drive down a section of the road and everything goes a little bit liquid. Like you've just entered into this completely different realm. It was like that, you know, he was in there, he'd returned to was his place of birth and where he spent a lot of his life growing up and taught by his ancestors and his teacher from from the valley. It had been a place of one of the first sites of arrival for the Hawaiian migrations because of the water and the fertile soils. Uh, and there used to be thousands of tarot patches and thousands of people there, but when I arrived there was probably, you know, a dozen people living there, and he had just returned a few years earlier, maybe ten years earlier, and had started to clear the land and restore the tarot patches as a way of preserving the culture and the traditional ways. And so, yeah, when I dropped into the valley and saw what he was doing, it was like so many parts of my life and the skills that I'd had just fell into place, and it was like, wow, yeah, this is this is incredible. I spent a couple of weeks there and learnt some chants and some dances and some protocols and some very deep ways of operating in a Hawaiian cultural context, and then went and spent a couple of weeks with Auntie. But I knew from the moment I dropped into that valley that that was the place for me to be.
SPEAKER_01And those protocols and those teachings were probably something that you did expect, but there was also a lot of time that you spent in silence with the weeds. Can you tell us about those moments as well and what they taught you?
SPEAKER_00Well, look, I had no idea what I was gonna learn, but I remember dropping in the first thing that he did, Kamu Nui Pa, Lawrence Kalaine Kamaniaki, the fiftieth generation of this lineage, did was he sat me up the back of the house to weed the lawn, and I was there for like about two or three weeks, and he said, and I'm gonna say it politely, shut your mouth. That was the first thing that he had me do, and I remember sitting up the back, and because for me, a good old Aussie person growing up in nature, sitting out under a tree weeding the lawn is not the worst thing that could possibly happen, but of course I was sitting there in my mind going, okay, so I've only got this amount of time here, and and what's he gonna do? Is he gonna you know when's he gonna start teaching me something? When am I gonna start learning? Is he gonna share anything with me? And it was like days after days of going and weeding and not being able to speak, and it took probably a week until my mind started to quieten down, and pretty soon the worms and the soil and the plants were talking to me, the sun was speaking to me, the wind was speaking to me, and I started to have these deep, meaningful experiences and and teachings, I suppose you would call them, insights, aha moments, just from sitting there and being quiet. I think once you saw me having a nice time out there, he was like, right, in the house, cook, clean, do what I tell you. And that again was the next level of learning was could I humble myself down? And was I committed to doing whatever it is that he had required of me in that time to let my Western ways of thinking and being uh fall away so that I would be able to learn something new.
SPEAKER_01You lived off grid for quite some time, restored those tarot patches that you spoke of. You ended up travelling as well with your teachers and learned the foundational teachings behind many of the deep Hawaiian, particularly Molokai cultures. You can help us out there and tell us what those were and also just what it meant to live the teachings rather than just study them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, wow, what an opportunity. I mean I spent three years in and out of the valley because of the visa restrictions. I c I wasn't there full time, but thankfully at that time he was still travelling quite a lot around Europe and Australia, so I was able to go travel and then come back and spend three months in the valley, go travel, come back. It was probably the closest experience you could get to old school training in Hawaii because, you know, traditionally as uh someone who was a cultural practitioner and they would in the old school days they were called kahuna, you would live within the halal, the school, and you would live with your teacher. You followed them around, and day-to-day life was the school, and you would learn, as he would say, whatever comes into the valley that day is what we learn to respond to. Of course, the every Westerner that would come in would go, What's the plan for today? And he would plan is there is no plan. You would just respond to what would happen and unfold in the day, and of course, that would include times he would get us to learn a chant because we needed to have certain chants that would help us to, you know, protocol as everything within a culture like that. So asking permission, giving thanks, being able to acknowledge the spirits and the ancestors that surround us. There were certain things that I had to learn in order to do protocol, and of course the dance, the hula was another way of preserving not only stories and culture, but also training us on all levels of spirit, mind, and body to be in alignment and being able to communicate with the ancestors and everything around us. The title of Kumu Pa'a, Pa'a means to build an unshakable foundation. And this is what really appealed to me. A lot of people who came to Hawaiian teachings were either a massage person who wanted to learn about lomi lomi or they wanted to learn about hula and dance. My reason for wanting to come and learn was to be a better person and for the teachings, for the spiritual teachings. And the kumu pa' means to build a foundation that would go behind these other cultural practices. My teacher had put together what he calls the pillars, intrinsically cultural ways of being, and that he would use the words of different Hawaiian terminology to describe what a lot of spiritual teachings are out there, such things as believing in a higher being, akua, puli, prayer, communication with everything around you and with the higher being. Aloha, the true essence of unconditional love for all things, and ponel being in right alignment. To master those teachings to have a solid foundation would then allow you to be able to do any of the other cultural practices. But that had to come first. Traveling, learning, and being a support to these two teachers. Well, to my my kumu and to his number one student at the time. You know, I was the classic Western-minded, educated person that would come to the teachings, and I think as I spoke, I had to unlearn before I could learn. That was quite a uh an interesting process, but I also started to witness as we would travel that there were others like me who had been brought up in an educated world, a Western way of thinking, and were grappling with how do you integrate this indigenous way of living and and being and thinking into our lives. So just through my experience of living with them and learning probably the the hard way in in being tripped up and falling over myself and having my ways of thinking exposed, I was able to empathize with those people who were just coming into the teachings and I could share stories of how I learnt and how I managed to understand and incorporate the way of thinking into my life. I became a bit of the liaison or the bridge between the Hawaiians and the Western people who had invited us to travel. So it was like, wow, why are they doing it that way and not that way? And could it help explain and support the Hawaiians, bridging the gap between the the Westerners and then the Westerners? I could bridge the gap with the Hawaii. And so I became, I suppose, a roadie.
SPEAKER_01Well, you eventually became a kumu pa'a yourself, firm, steadfast, unshakeable. Can you tell us about your initiation and what that meant to you?
SPEAKER_00Oh well, that was not something to be taken lightly. I'd yeah, it's probably a couple of years after I'd studied with Kumu Lawrence. I could see it coming because he was nudging me towards it, and I was part of me was a little reluctant because I understood the commitment that it meant to the lineage and to perpetuating and enabling the teachings to continue to be shared. To be initiated, there's a certain process to go through, there was certain chants that I had to master, there were certain offerings I had to do, and the ceremony had to take place under the full moon in the bay and the Valley of Halava. Eventually I I took part in that and then I went from being that was as a Halmana, and then from then I went to become a Po Pawaha, which is the it's almost like the the apprentice, and then um finally given the title of Kumu Pa back in 2012, 12 years later.
SPEAKER_01What does it mean to carry those teachings that are not from your culture but entrusted to you through your own lived experience?
SPEAKER_00Well, I can only speak to that from an i my own personal journey. I was never a practitioner that was seeking to become a kumu. However, I can now see that the learnings that I've have embodied and that have become part of my way of being is shared through whatever it is that I do. I mean, that's all part of any spiritual teachings. It's something that needs to be embodied in into our everyday lives. And a lot of my work did involve assisting and being a support to people, not only through the Hawaiian cultures, but also through this Western environment, through helping people in small businesses, being a personal assistant. To find the expression of those teachings and to share those teachings not only out through our Hawaiian classes that we eventually started doing online as well as holding retreats, but also in my day-to-day work. I noticed that the teachings were starting to be shared and that people were actually coming to me with their questions, particularly as I was, I suppose, in a lot of their eyes, the safe person to ask those awkward questions about the teachings, that I wasn't the Hawaiian and some of them would feel a little bit more comfortable coming with those questions to me.
SPEAKER_01And do you think that was part of Kumu Lawrence's master plan that he knew that you were that person? He could sense but it wasn't only a Kumu Lawrence, was it? He needed to also have permission from ancestors beyond his lifetime.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well that's the thing, isn't it? You know, you wouldn't get to the stage of being a Halmanna and a Kumu without the ancestors giving what they call a ho'ailna to uh to the kumu, the sign. I was always the more reluctant kumu within the lineage. So he kind of, you know, let me be, he let me find my expression of the teachings, and he's focused very much on the other kummus that he's also initiated, and have been others who are like me who uh did not grow up in the Hawaiian culture that come from the uh non-Hawaiian background.
SPEAKER_01So, what's it like coming back into the real world or this mainstream Western world after Molokai? Do you ever face or did you face any struggles, or did you tap into your teachings and learnings and embodiment of that culture to help you through?
SPEAKER_00Definitely initially, when I used to have to, you know, because of the visa situation, I used to have to come back and spend some time here in Australia before we travel back out or go back to Hawaii. And very much at the beginning stages, there was a definite struggle to not just think that it was just a dream world or something that could only be lived or experienced within a certain environment or around certain people. It really took a while for me to be able to embody the teachings as a way of thinking that can be applied to wherever we are, whatever part of the world we're in, whatever it is that we're doing. Well, it just took a while, and I guess that's why it took twelve years before I was given the the title or the permission to actually start sharing the teachings. So I got to a point where I had embodied the true deeper meaning of the teachings and was able to share that and incorporate it into everything that I did.
SPEAKER_01How do you help other people integrate these teachings into modern life? I mean there's so much distraction and pressure and noise. Do you have any teachings within those teachings to help people deal with bringing that into the modern world?
SPEAKER_00The first thing that sprang to mind was you never really share or give anyone any advice unless it's asked for. There has to be an invitation. So thank you for the invitation. One of the brightest things that I see within myself and with others is the need to slow down. The need to take time and space out of our busy lives and busy thinking to allow ourselves to really connect in with everything around us and allow the ancestors, the higher being, whatever you want to give a name to, that to inspire and lead us in our lives to do good things and to live with that unconditional love. So nature is a huge part for me particularly. I mean, everyone is different, but I think there is definitely a sense of communication that can be had with the natural world that is from that deeper place and to declutter the mind and allow true inspiration to come through.
SPEAKER_01You have become known for bridging cultures, cultural teachings with really practical tools as well, including decluttering work. So how do these and other teachings show up in everyday life? What is it that you're doing that you're bringing into the world these days?
SPEAKER_00Well, look, one of the key factors for me even being drawn to the Hawaiian teachings was their practicality. It was a way of life. It was working in the tarot patch, catching the fish, gathering the water, being with family, cooking food, you know, those kind of things. And I think that's why it really spoke so deeply to me. I was learning through the doing and learning through the very practical, hands-on experience. The investigation of how I could share the teachings came by actually people approaching me, asking me questions and seeing me as a source of information and and knowledge and and wisdom, being able to ask questions about their lives and what was happening for them, and particularly around the teachings being embodied in in whatever they did. What's then evolved is through me bringing my work and the teachings together was I started to notice, and this is goes into the decluttering work, that when we would travel and we would stay with people who would host us, that um we're on a deep spiritual path, I started to notice that a lot of the houses and the and the environments that I was staying in were very cluttered and untidy, and and I remember making comments with fellow Halmanner students and saying, Wow, they call themselves deeply spiritual, yet this physical level it just doesn't look and feel that way. Got to the point where I was able to discuss this with a few of the people and we would go about this clearing of space on the physical level. And it became part of a doing of a very practical way through the decluttering work, which was the emptying out of those things that would stop the light from shining, and and that leads into the story that is shared, the deeper meaning behind hooponopono, which is one of the cultural practices for making things very right.
SPEAKER_01Who's most drawn to this kind of work and and to your work?
SPEAKER_00Well, like most spiritual teachings, you'll find that there's a large demographic of middle-aged women who, for one reason or another, whether they don't have children and families or they're at a stage in their life where they um looking for a different path. But a lot of them, you know, are middle-aged, looking for something with more meaning for their life, or to add to a practice or a healing modality that they'd been practicing for a while.
SPEAKER_01And so how does it work? People are inquiring about what you do, you declutter their homes or businesses or personal lives or minds. Where does it where does it start and stop?
SPEAKER_00In the Hawaiian teachings, there is this process called Ho'oponopono, and it is a story that goes behind it. It is that we are all born with a perfect bowl of light, and it allows us to do all things. And through our experiences, we pick up what they call pools or stones that we then put into our bowl of light, and these are things that come from experiences such as anger and fear and hate and jealousy and worry, and that causes our light to dim. And then in the process of hooponopono is to empty our bowl of those stones so that our light shines again. This is where I see the decluttering in Hooponopono. The teachings are always on all levels, spiritually, mentally, and physically. And the decluttering can happen on all those levels, but what I saw is that there was a lot of people that needed to start with the physical, and whether that was decluttering from their homes, decluttering their bodies, or decluttering their minds of the things that were blocking them from being happy and allowing their light to shine. The challenge for me was always how do I share these teachings. The responsibility that Kuliana had been given to me that I needed to find a way of sharing these teachings. And I never felt very comfortable being a non-Hawaiian to share the culture and and the dance and the practices as a Hawaiian culturalist. So I was looking for an expression of how do I share the teachings which for me was so important to be part of my everyday. I was really praying and putting this out to the ancestors to show me. And then it came through people asking me for help. One of them was this beautiful woman who actually said to me, I see you as a wise older woman, and I would really like to have the opportunity to have a regular conversation with you and ask questions and share what's going on for my life and for you to help me see, you know, how I can approach life through the lens of the teachings. So that was one way. And then I was also just, as I said, I'd noticed that people's lives had become cluttered on not just a physical level but a mental level and an emotional and spiritual level as well. So to be able to incorporate the understanding of the teachings and hooponopono and that realm of spirit can be brought into what we do on an everyday level. Enabled me to bridge the gap between a very practical service of the decluttering. And it's interesting, ever since I've mentioned it to people, decluttering, they immediately understand what it is that I'm doing. Whether they're talking about it on just a purely physical level, or whether it be on a mental level or an emotional level, people understand ah, it's clearing something or letting go of something to enable something else to arise or some sense of peace or happiness to be present. So I'm very excited because I've got one of those really great logical solution finding brains, and I really get excited by going into a unique situation with a unique person and discovering what it is that we can make change or shift or release or rearrange. Sometimes it's not even, you know, having to get rid of something. Sometimes it's just moving things around and tidying things up and putting things in place to allow their life to flow, to allow uh their light to shine again.
SPEAKER_01And why do you think people become so cluttered? What is it about this modern Western world of consumerism and greed and need that actually people are finding doesn't make them happy?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've got lots of little different theories and thoughts about that. I think on a very primal way, we were, particularly women, were hunters and gatherers. And so part of our everyday activity was to go out and gather things to bring back to nurture the family or to support the community. On one level, we definitely have that programming in us or innateness in us to provide. The way it's expressed in this modern world is to go out to the shop or to go shopping to satisfy that. But also there's a lot of shopping that goes on to feel or distract, to feel safe or to feel happy, to distract us from maybe what is going on very deep inside. Really comes back to personal responsibility of what kind of life do I want to live and where do I want to put my time and energy. And if people are getting to that point where they realise like, wow, there's something that needs to change in my life, there's something that needs to shift, we can start with a very simple process of let's tidy the house up, let's clear out the cupboards, let's check the use by dates in the fridge, and simply by shifting those things can not only free up and feel feel ah sense of relief, it can then move into other areas of your life. And a lot of people I know, I at clients I have their tax or their invoices and their paperwork. You know, there's there's a certain amount of clutter in the mind simply because you haven't addressed those things. So a lot of the times it's just like, ah, let's make a list, let's just start going through what is it that's cluttering your mind, what's cluttering your spirit, and what's cluttering your home to allow things to flow and move with more ease.
SPEAKER_01Do you also hold group workshops and and teachings through gatherings?
SPEAKER_00Well, we do retreats every year to Hawaii and we do retreats in in Europe and in different parts of Australia. Now I'm just about to move into offering once a month a conversations with Kumu, which is really about people being able to come and bring whatever questions they may have, whether it be about the teachings or about the decluttering process. You know, it's time for me to make myself available for for people to come and have a conversation. In a very relaxed, very safe environment. So that's one thing I'm doing. I also travel around Australia and overseas when people invite me to come into their homes and do the decluttering. I get very excited by that. You know, I go and spend time with these people in their lives. And it is, it's like visiting family on one level, and it's also just gives them such a sense of relief and to move on to whatever it is that they need to declutter their life from, but also it just allows me to remember that we are one big global family, and that for me is I I love that opportunity to be able to travel and move.
SPEAKER_01Every step of the way has ultimately led you to this point. Who knows where it goes from here? We never really know. But your mum used to say, we come from nothing and go back to nothing. What does that mean to you now, those words of your mum?
SPEAKER_00Well, interestingly enough, in the Hawaiian culture, the source for where we all come from and we all return to is called Paul. And it is said that we come from nothing and we return to nothing. So, in her wise response, not only was it in that moment led me on this path towards questioning whether we came from something or went to nothing, but that I actually did, I did find the answer of, oh yeah, we all come from the same place and we all return to that place.
SPEAKER_01Wow, Catherine Roberts, thank you so much for your time sharing.
SPEAKER_00Oh Mahalanui, thank you so much, Rosella, for all that you do and all that you share and all that you allow to come out into the world.
SPEAKER_01My heartfelt gratitude to my guest, Catherine Roberts. Her story is such a powerful reminder that learning isn't always about adding more, is it? Sometimes it's more about unlearning what you know, stripping it all back, listening to how all the pieces fall and then reform, allowing ourselves to be guided by something much deeper than thought. Catherine's journey from Perth to London to Molokai and back. Well, it's geographical. It's what she journeyed through on the inside that shows what's possible when we stay curious, open, and when we remain willing to step into the unknown or maybe even leap. I hope you're able to take something valuable away from this story, as I have. Each of the episodes in this series have moved me so deeply and left me with a renewed view of the world and my own place in it. What would your story be about, I wonder? As we continue along the podcast path of life, you can hear five more exquisite episodes in this series, full of stories that each one of us will resonate with because your story's my story and mine is yours. We're more connected than even we know. Contact details and more information about the work Catherine does can be found in the episode description. Episode 2 features Eliza Ricks, a herbal rebel who helped spark a cultural movement. It's the exquisite mushroom growing from the compost. You can find it where you found this one on all the major platforms. Series 1 and 2 was made possible with the support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. If you'd like to support future episodes of WoW, all the links can be found in the episode description. I'm your host and executive producer, Rasella Torres. Until our voices meet your ears and land in your heart again, alofa atu. Much love and thanks for listening.