Music. Welcome to a homebody podcast my name is Mary Grace and here we explore big questions in embodied ways, these conversations intersect the mystical the Practical and The Artful, bridging a range of topics such as astrology creative practices what healing can look like and cultivating deep love and care for the more than human world. We not only want to live better but live more fully with more connection courage and creativity in our day-to-day lives and work and this podcast asks what are the ways we can do that. We hope to enliven you and inspire you towards possible regenerative Futures and we hope to encourage you so together we can become Dynamic agents of beauty fully awake Fully Alive to all that life has for us. We want to be here for ourselves and for one another with more grace while making room for curiosity sensitivity. Enjoy if you enjoyed today's episode please take a few moments to share it with someone else and thank you so much for listening. Hello everyone and welcome many of you know as I shared in a previous episode I took a podcast break this summer because I wanted some time to focus on some bigger ideas and bigger projects and during that time I worked really hard on a book proposal for about six weeks and did a lot of writing, which is just always a portal for me and I have many books floating around in my head at one time but when I made a proposal for is a book that's sort of divided up by archetypes these space holders that can help us and hold us through big questions and epic moments of transformation such as we find ourselves in today we are dealing with a lot of uncertainty the ways that we interact with our courage our sense of safety the face of climate change in World politics is you know it's got us all looking for new ways of grappling and finding resilience and. My Hope Is that with this writing these archetypes in the way that I'm leaning into them is that they will help us realign ourselves with a more re wild landscape of ourselves and the Earth so some of these archetypes are you know for connection with the underworld or the Lady or the death bed or the tree or the Transfiguration and back in episode 157 I shared a sample from the chapter on the interstellar and I'll share more from that today as we talked about what it means to be brave and some of these thoughts have been on the podcast before but I am very much trying to grow out of a place where we scroll past things and throw them in the toilet and learn better how to sit with things so that we can stew and ruminate with them and they grow on us and into us in a more, integrated way so I hope some of these ideas and invitations may find a new seasonality here and as always I invite you to share the episode if you happen to know anyone in publishing or and or who is a book agent who works in Creative nonfiction that isn't trying to be self-help feel free to hit me up and send me an email to the address below, and now let's enjoy this tiny sample from the interstellar. What is neutrality for me neutrality is accessing, being able to stand and operate in the space of I am loving awareness as ROM doses neutrality is a perspective that we can try on in order to help us learn to dance with attachment. Sometimes we're not able to see a different way or a better way a more possible way because we're attached to how we think someone should be or how we think something should go there's nothing wrong with these edges or these preferences there's nothing wrong with your opinions we are a garden of them but what if we could feel more free. Alan Watts described how we use these beliefs and preferences often because we feel unsafe and he offered the prompt what if you could temporarily suspend these beliefs and opinions what if you could temporarily give them up, so that you can view what is as if you didn't know how to speak. If you feel unsafe without your beliefs or opinions that something we can notice you can always pick them back up you can always put them back on but what if there are some rooms you can go into with yourself where you practice taking them off. It's quite Brave yes to think of our beliefs as backpacks outfits decisions instead of identities we speak so much about creating safe space our making safe space this is a safe space but safe for whom and safe for what. It begs the question is safety even possible what are we safe from. Sometimes healing work opens us up to notice when and where we are safe that we don't have to worry right now that everything actually is fine that we don't have to keep watch that no one is after us. In an age of profound uncertainty fragility and angst it can seem like there is layer after layer of potential non-safety if we just read the news enough. Instead of safe space Bell hooks asked us to create Brave space, we tend to think in opposites logically we think well the opposite of safe must be unsafe but what if it's not. What if the opposite of safe if there is one what if the shadow if safe is Brave. I began to think that safe space is maybe too big of a promise to offer anyone, unless we make safety more wide unless we remember two things that completely contradict one another and are completely true that we are completely unsafe at all times and that we are profoundly ultimately safe. Because it isn't actually safe Being Human right everyone has trauma everyone has experiences of suffering and difficulty we live in an experience that is full of sadness and grief and pain and lost as humans the impermanence of the beauty and joy and love tends to bring with it a paying of remembrance oh yes this is temporary. It's already slipping out of our fingers as we're noticing how beautiful it is I can't hold on to this moment. These amazing Sensations and feelings and experiences that we can only have in this body at this time, even when everything is going right and perfect safe is not the word that I would use to describe it it isn't safe it's beautiful, it may be perfect right now but it's not safe. Because we aren't safe everything will come and go each Joy has a shadow of sorrow or potential loss in some ways it feels even less safe when we are touched by beauty or held by an experience of love because we're touching that vulnerability on the edge of our humanity and it is gorgeous but it's certainly not safe. When we heal into these moments and through the beauty of life when we heal and to being able to fully show up as our whole selves it's not that we magically become safe, if that we become Brave, it's that we know and touch the impermanence and the pain and yet we show up to the possibility of bliss and joy and pleasure even though it is all going to come and go even though some of it will hurt and some of it will not to show up to life anyway, is far from safe but it is incredibly Brave heroic even. To Have Courage means to be full of heart it has nothing to do with being scared or doing things that you're afraid of, being courageous simply means you bring your heart with you so that life can touch you and you can touch it Courage means you can access your whole heart and live your from your heartfulness which is actually our courage, which is to come through and come to with your heart. And so it is this that healing allows us to do healing doesn't mean we show up to life safely and safe healing means we live with our hearts full. If safety is the ultimate goal then it actually might be more risky to show up with courage with heart and allow life to dance with us and come and go through us. But you needn't worry because the contradiction of this is also true that we are profoundly and ultimately safe. Because we are already in space and we are already everything that the atomic matter that makes up the universe that makes up everything from stars to soil is also what makes up our physical bodies that we are already everything. And we have been so many things and we are already here, and so there's nowhere to go or flee or be banished from because we are here and so is everything. We're already in heaven because heaven is space and we are on a spaceship called Earth and so there is no need to fear because we are already in space. Alan Watts said that. This mutating moving system of transmutation and transformation this never-ending destination of coming and going that is moved and moves with desire to become perhaps generated and held by something we feel as love. So yes we're already in heaven because we're already in space. There is no other magical world we are in the magical world this is the magical world and you are magic. And so is there something more profound we can heal around is there something we can learn about this Brave safety by being alive. Maybe it's that safety and grasping or not the same thing maybe it's that safety and keeping everything as it is are not the same thing. Maybe it's that safety doesn't mean nothing painful happens. Maybe it's a whisper to our bodies and our souls and our hearts which have evolved through lifetimes eons that actually it's safe to be here because we are here and we are already here. Can you have kindness on yourself as you open take a moment to visualize this with me. Picture yourself as a globe a sphere of a spacious and Beautiful World. And inside that Globe your spacious world is a column of light that is a portal and a bridge to every other possible world. This light in the center of your Globe is the channel it's in the center of this planet which is you and there's a part of you that just is this light. And there's also a part of you within this planet who is walking and searching in journeying and backpacking. And if you feel like you're searching all around the globe of you the planet of you for the center of light this channel that is already within you. He feel like The Backpacker of you searching for the portal on the planet of you the part of you that is the column of light in the center. Look with kindness on The Backpacker the journeyer look with compassion on The Backpacker the roaming you who is doing the best that you can. What is it like to experiment with looking out from that Center looking out as the portal of light, I'm to the version of you who is also searching journeying lost sometimes, you beaming your light out on to The Backpacker who is out searching for the center of you. How can you look with Grace upon the you who was journeying and not judge them for feeling lost you're feeling tired or feeling confused for feeling unsure or for the you who is waxing and waning through uncertainty uncertainty. How can we look out from the Gaze of the center light of ourselves onto the seeker and look with Grace and compassion that both are you. Both are your experience these exchanges and these glances of acceptance and kindness are all happening on this landscape that is you, this globe of your energy the sphere of who you are is holding the portal of light and The Wanderer and holding all of this that you are both and that one does not negate the other. You are not just the center of the light portal the channel you are not just the Seeker the lost one on the journey who is figuring it out as you go and you are not just the container. The globe you are not either or you are all. And at times you can look out through the eyes of the Seeker for all the joy in the Wonder the adventure at other times you can look out from the light Center on to that Backpacker. You can look at both through both at once you looking at you and you are also the globe the sphere and the planet holding them. They are who you are is indeed vast and who you are is a network of bridges the connections portals and possibilities. I'll speaking all connecting all braiding in an amount of time in now I'll breathing in and out of different modes and identities and desires and shapes. So can we upgrade the compassion can you be a lesson of your own compassion with which you can then turn and hold others, in this same compassion well knowing that they are also the center and the seeker and the globe they are also all of it as you are all of it, and we are up and we Circle and we gravitate and we danced all around each other and through each other's experiences a great dance. Can we practice looking with kindness as we open kindness as we move. More and more aware of this exchange happening between I and I you and you we and we it and it look with Grace upon yourself look with kindness upon yourself. Is it possible to look with Clarity and with truth and also with kindness, they both need each other just like you need all the parts of you and just like we need us. So do not feel guilty for flailing for falling to not feel guilty for thrashing around or for frustration. Do not feel guilty for feeling guilty look upon yourself with Grace knowing you can change which I as you look out of hold them all. Be with yourself with kindness and in that container of kindness with love. It also breeds compassion for others for the world that we live in for the things that we need for the things our heart wants, and from this place of kindness which breeds compassion is where we can access the courage to show up to life with our backpacks on, the show up to life is the channel of light and the portal and the bridge in the center to show up to life bravely artfully, with courage to show up as the planet dancing around all the other planets the Stars twinkling amongst all other stars this kindness is where courage comes from so be kind to yourself as you open. Music. Thank you for participating in this conversation with us if you enjoyed the episode please take a few moments to subscribe to the show leave us a review and share the episode these tiny tasks help our independent podcast so much, be sure to also check out the links below to learn more about any free resources guests or things we talked about today, our intro and outro music was created by artist Aaron pelvic and Jared Kelly our podcast logo was created by Elaine Stevenson and this show is produced by softer Sound Studio thank you for being here be well, peace. Music.