“Grief doesn’t have to eat us alive.” Today's guest Yarrow Magdalena shares practices of ritual, finding ways to be with grief, moments of forced stillness, getting off of Instagram, cocooning, embracing the idea of “enough” in a world that encourages constant production, and the gift of looking from the margins.
We also discuss
If you enjoyed the episode, check out:
Episode 45 w/ Makeba Dixon-Hill
Episode 36 w/ Alkistis Dimech
Free Resources/
FREE prompts for February's astrology
~free~ class on the Moon in your Natal Chart
LINKS /
Yarrow’s website
Yarrow Digital (small business web design)
Yarrow’s Book Rituals - Simple & Radical Practices For Enchantment In Times Of Crisis
Daydreaming Wolves Podcast
DIY Business Podcast
/
Stay Connected
Join our online ~private~ community
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“Grief doesn’t have to eat us alive.” Today's guest Yarrow Magdalena shares practices of ritual, finding ways to be with grief, moments of forced stillness, getting off of Instagram, cocooning, embracing the idea of “enough” in a world that encourages constant production, and the gift of looking from the margins.
We also discuss
If you enjoyed the episode, check out:
Episode 45 w/ Makeba Dixon-Hill
Episode 36 w/ Alkistis Dimech
Free Resources/
FREE prompts for February's astrology
~free~ class on the Moon in your Natal Chart
LINKS /
Yarrow’s website
Yarrow Digital (small business web design)
Yarrow’s Book Rituals - Simple & Radical Practices For Enchantment In Times Of Crisis
Daydreaming Wolves Podcast
DIY Business Podcast
/
Stay Connected
Join our online ~private~ community
/
My name is Mary Grace and this is the homebody podcast. And here we're exploring the home as a body and body as a home.
Unknown:I host spiritually
mary grace allerdice:and artfully minded conversations on embodiment on approaching life is practice artistic collaboration and experiment. We'll talk about healing, art, aesthetics, magic, the practices we can bring to hone our intuition and live our life fully awake
Unknown:with our power and tact.
mary grace allerdice:My hope is to encourage and enliven you, and to also cultivate awareness and freedom. We're here to develop wisdom and self trust and to be dynamic agents of beauty. We're here to design and be more intentional with the creation of our life. And we are here to make room for inquiry, sensitivity and joy. Thank you for listening.
Yarrow Magdalena:Grief doesn't have to eat us alive. I think that hesitation can be sometimes that when we sad, allowing ourselves to cry, or allow ourselves to really name what we're grieving, will never stop and we'll never kind of touch joy or pleasure again. And in my experience, really the opposite is true. Like the more I allow myself to name things and really say, Okay, that was higher like that was in real life, the more my capacity to be with joy and pleasure, growth at the same time.
mary grace allerdice:Hello, everyone. Welcome to the homebody podcast, I have a really lovely guest to share with you today that I'm very excited about. I adore sharing conversations that I am also delighted to be in and this definitely is one of them. Today, I have a conversation with Yarrow Magdalena, which is I feel like I smiled and nodded my head in agreement the whole time that we talked, which is just always delightful to feel that kind of resonance with people. We cover topics from the practice of ritual and everyday life, finding ways to be with grief, and also how we both got off Instagram and the past couple of months. Before we jump into the conversation, if you're new to this podcast, welcome. We talk about many things over here. But if you would like some updates on the February astrological transits, or some deep dives into them, the past three episodes go into them in more depth, including this past week's Aquarius New Moon, which was last Thursday, which is a whole lunation cycle that we're in right now. And also, yesterday, we had Saturn square, you're honest Exactly. And that is a narrative that we will meet and greet a couple more times this year, so it can be helpful to have some more clarity on some of those dynamics coming up. We also talked about the sun and Venus moving into Pisces, which is happening today while the sun is moving into Pisces today. And those are a couple of transits that I'm personally looking forward to. And you can also grab the free prompts that I make for each month at the link below. And these are designed to help you navigate and have a tool for relating to these transits more personally and reflecting on them in your own life without necessarily feeling like you have to necessarily understand all of those specific astrological aspects. So I also have a free workshop below where you can grab a free webinar on the moon in your natal chart and how it can help us appreciate impermanence and more cyclical everyday approaches to time and also some of the dynamics that it's holding in your chart in different phases and signs. So some of those are some topics that we dive into more today and if those feel resonate with you feel free to grab that below. And now to our guest who is truly so enchanting, and I don't use that word all of the time. But sitting in a conversation with Yarrow feels like someone's just like gently like pouring sweet water on you and also wrapping you up and flowers at the same time. It is the best and I am so happy to share it. Yarrow Magdalena creates rituals, writes, has a printmaking practice and also does web design. Yarrow is the host of the daydreaming wolves podcast and the DIY business business podcast and their book rituals simple and radical practices for enchantment in times of crisis is out now. And I highly recommend that you get a beautiful copy for yourself. You can find links to all of their thoughtful practices and creations below in the show notes. So be sure to check them out, track down what they're doing and get a copy of the book for yourself. And I think Yarrow has a very simple, grounded, but nevertheless very disenchanted and beautiful way of approaching day to day life. And we dive into some of that in this episode. I think I originally became aware of their work when I was still on Instagram. And then a few weeks ago, they were super strongly on my mind. And later on that day, I looked at my inbox, and I had an email from them. And it was just such a perfect synchronicity that couches this conversation. And we talked about ritualizing our approach to embodiment and processing grief and cocooning moments of force stillness in life that are not necessarily fun. And sort of the different ways that they navigate that we talked about getting off of Instagram and why that felt important. And also letting things be enough, which is something that I really need to hear. And it's just medicinal in and of itself. This conversation is very grounded and beautiful. Please enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, please share it. And I will see you next week for a solo episode where we talk about the verbal Virgo full moon to the end of the month and lean into the more celestial March weather. So enjoy, share, and I will see you more next week. Would you mind kicking us off by just introducing how you would like us to know you Your name? What do you do in the world? Where are you in the world in
Yarrow Magdalena:this moment? Yeah, thank you. That's such a sweet way of phrasing this intro question. Thank you. So my name is Yarrow Magdalena. I live on the east coast of Scotland with my two little dogs. And that is Yeah, it's interesting. How do I want to be known? I think the thing at the moment in my work that I care the most about is ritual. And I was I was kind of anticipating question. And as we all know, it's kind of difficult right to just find a few words that really sum it all up. But I think I've always been really into rituals, and that is a thing. I think that brings all the different things that I do in the world together. I love writing. I love swimming in the sea all year. I'm quite an aging and hillwalking as we call it in Scotland often, I love reading really thinking into books. I recently got into printmaking. I'm excited about expressive art, and just reclaiming playfulness. I also am a web designer and support people in building small business businesses, which I love. And yeah, I'm I'm trying to live slowly and intentionally as best as I can, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I
mary grace allerdice:think all of those intersect really beautifully. How let's talk about ritual. I think that that's like a really beautiful place to start is that you know, you have a book called rituals that I would love for you to tell us about. And then also like, how do you we know what is the place that ritual holds in your life, but also in your work? Like, how does that manifest on the daily as far as you how you approach your time and your embodiment? And where you are?
Yarrow Magdalena:Yeah, I think rituals have been really important for me in my life in difficult times. I remember when I was five, my parents got divorced. And I made these little altars from like stones that are found outside or those shiny things. And so that's my first rememory are feeling ungrounded and kind of in chaos and seeking the rhythm and the depth of ritual to kind of ground myself. And this year or this past year, of course, it's become really important than different than new ways of trying to stay in earth and body in some way, even though we spend so much time on screen and how do we remain intentional with all this time that we spend on indoors and how do we get to the landscape and the seasons changing? And I think ritual has really helped me for that and the kinds of ritual that I'm into actually not that bayko complicated, I think, again, this past year has been a refinement towards simplicity and presence as actually way more important than forms. Or complexity. And so, yeah, I'm really noticing how just eggs really remind me of what it means to be alive and how to engage with these times and what's happening and try to avoid shutting down or concerning hours as best as we can. And yeah, my book is called rituals, simple and radical practices for times of crisis. And I think it is hopefully really simple. It's not a massive book. It's a imagine that it's like a small, intimate book that you can take into bed and you just open any chapter that speaks to you in the day. And it has a bunch of ritual suggestions, really easy things that I love doing. And then also a bigger introduction on general different aspects of ritual that I care about, like mental health and living in seasons and cultural appropriation and kindness and inclusion and all those kinds of things. So yeah, there was a joy to write I voted last spring, and relatively quickly, I think, three or four months. And I was part of a a book writing program that really helped me again, which I saw as a virtual space as like a commitment that I made at the time. And I think having that stability of writing 1000 words a day, that's what I promised to do at the beginning of the program, as part of a ritual really carried me through these first waves of shock and confusion about what was happening was kind of like, really like a rock for me. So I'm so happy, I got to write that book, and so excited that people get to receive it now. So yeah,
mary grace allerdice:I like that. I like the idea of ritual use talked about it being a rock. And then when you were five years old, it was literally your altar was built out of rocks. And this way, that ritual is a place for tethering or like being accountable to ourselves or for something about that. I've always definitely think of ritual for myself as a way of honoring like the embodiment of my experience. And a way that we potentially kind of re enchant or bring our sense of re enchantment or like, re enlivening to like our every day. Our everyday tasks and things like that, or any of those buzz words that like make sense for you, or things that you feel like you interact with.
Yarrow Magdalena:Yeah, I love what you said, basically, totally, I think there's so much beauty and the ordinary things of day to day life. And I think sometimes it can feel kind of too simplistic or vague to say, Oh, we can just reframe that. Or maybe let's put an affirmation on it. But actually, I think, if he was really true that looking at the day to day things differently, and really seeking and settlement makes such a big difference in how we experience life, even if we're more limited and what is available, or what we can engage with or how we can be stimulated. And that's just just medical, isn't it? I love it.
mary grace allerdice:Oh, great. I was thinking that I can't remember where this story is coming from. And hopefully by the time we release this episode, I will have tracked it down. But I remember they were talking about you know, their grandmother teaching them how to cook a certain recipe and their grandmother saying like, you know, whenever you make it, like put all the love that you have into the food. And as an adult, they were reflecting on that. They're like, that's magic. Like she was teaching me like that was my first lesson in magic. I was like, yeah,
Yarrow Magdalena:just like simple with the simplicity, like what you're saying that can turn into something that we have to do into something that is a ritual. Yeah, yeah. And I think nourishing our bodies have such a beautiful access point. You know, I have this big wooden spoon that's so beautiful and witchy and I just love cooking my vegetable stews or my soups with with this big spoon and it's almost like a cauldron. And I'm just pouring out my love and oh, my hopes and my intention for healing into it. And it just makes no dinner so much better. Yeah, 100%
mary grace allerdice:I cooking is not my favorite thing to do. I love to garden. I love to grow the food
Unknown:and
mary grace allerdice:the lamps, the food, but I don't necessarily love
Yarrow Magdalena:to cook the food. So I'm trying
mary grace allerdice:to make sure that I'm not approaching my cooking with any negative feelings. I'm just putting into that soup. But I want to ask this for some of the listeners because it's a topic that's come up in some different ways. And I think that it intersects with some of your your knowledge in a really beautiful way. But we've had some questions lately about structures for holding and processing. grief in a way that feels honest and, you know, deep like we can able to like really kind of hold the capacity of the grief that we feel and some of my thoughts around that are like, you know, creating structures for ritual or something that can help us hold these, they can serve as containers for these warlike, difficult emotions. And I know that you also trained as a death doula a couple of years ago. And so I imagine that you have an interesting intersection of how you would answer that question.
Yarrow Magdalena:Yeah, I love that question. So much. I think grief work is really important, especially right now and has so much to give to us. And I'm seeing so much more curiosity all around me, which is really exciting. But also some hesitation, which totally makes sense, because we don't have a lot of grief literacy. We don't have a lot of kind of community engagement around these more difficult feelings, I guess. I mean, we do of course, we because we seek them out and we live in this bubble that we're in. Outside of that, maybe less so. And I think something I would love to offer is that grief doesn't have to eat us alive. I think that hesitation can be sometimes that when we start allowing ourselves to cry, or allow ourselves to really name what we're grieving, we'll never stop. And we'll never kind of touch joy or pleasure again. And in my experience, really the opposite is true. Like the more I allow myself to name things and really say, Okay, that was high, like that was a real loss, the more my capacity to be with joy and pleasure, growth at the same time. And I think one thing that I always invite people to consider is like, maybe like an intro practice, or a way to get a feeling for where you're at with this is to build a really small grief avatar. So this could be like a small space on your windowsill or a corner for you. Maybe not a space, it's very busy, but like a calming place. And you could just place a little tea light or a candle there maybe a stone that you found, it can be really simple. I think what matters much more again, than the form is that you bring intention to it. And as much as you feel able to you can commit to spending some time that doesn't have to be every day, but maybe every week or so. or whenever you feel like it, or whenever you feel there's some chairs that are stuck inside, you know, that feeling, you can just sit down and light the clutter and light the candle and, and see what comes up and just kind of, I think when we, when we haven't been in touch with our tears for a longer time, they can really take a little bit of practice, you know, to do this more often. And eventually, maybe they'll come or maybe you'll be able to name something that you've lost that you are really grieving. And it can be an individual thing, it can be a collective thing. Maybe you'll say I'm really grieving, not being able to help people right now, or really grieving the freedom to travel. And I had hoped to see a new place this year, or I really grieve, having more certainty around what this coming year will look like. And I think the other thing, maybe that's interesting to look at in that practice is, is any shame that comes up, do you allow yourself with that loss? Or is that immediately a voice that's like, oh, but I don't have it that bad? Because I have x y Zed? And is that constructively looking at privilege in a good way maybe? Or is that just an avoidance? Maybe? And both can be true? You know, like Who am I to say? I don't know, I'm just asking questions, basically. But yeah, I love that simplicity or sitting with our grief. And I think water is an element are so is such a beautiful thing to work with. One of the practices that I share in the book, for example, is to use a wizard a body of water, be that a river or a lake or the sea, and to find a rock and speak your grief to it just naming what you've lost and what you're missing. And to offer that back to the sea. So I feel like that or you know, the river or the lake because I feel like bodies of water can hold our feelings in this really beautiful way. And it's just such a simple thing if you're near body anyway. You know, it's not like a massive operation where you have to buy fancy things or dress up or find the right astrological tie which of course if you can go for it. I love these things. But I really want to make sure that those practices are available to us any time when we feel we need them. So yeah. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I love that.
mary grace allerdice:I was definitely thinking like water is definitely been something very instrumental in helping me personally heal from really intense moments of grieving for sure. The The way that we sometimes look at our pain, and we try to put
Unknown:it on a scale.
mary grace allerdice:It's not as bad as this other person or whatever. And again, I think there's ways of constructively looking at our lives in relationship to each other, and seeing, you know, where we have benefits or where we don't. And I also think that like, maybe sometimes our moments of like, pain or grief, like maybe that's not, I don't know that that's necessarily the moment where that is most constructive. Or at least that's been my experience. It's like something about, can I just allow myself to, like, feel what this is like, let it move through me ritualize it or collaborate with the earth around where it's going to be held now? And then as potentially, like a process with healing, like, that's when I can really look at it and be like, okay, like, what do we do with this?
Yarrow Magdalena:How does this
mary grace allerdice:serve someone else? Or where am I in relationship,
Unknown:I don't know if that
mary grace allerdice:is an offering of any kind. But it's something from my own experience that I see when I'm in sessions with people that they're just, they're kind of busy. They're in such a place of like, narrating and comparing their pain that they
Yarrow Magdalena:can like, get to it. And I was like, I think we need to get to it first. Yeah. And I think the narrating is also reminding me of how beautiful stones can be and how ritual might really help us to widen and deepen our capacity to be with stillness. Which is, which is a big thing. If we've been on social media for a long time. And we, you know, we want to come back to ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, let's, let's dive into that. So you mentioned that you
mary grace allerdice:deleted your Instagram. And I have also recently, a big shift away from that being what I realized that was just such a big part of my life. And I'm interested in I don't know, what are your? What were some of the things that led up to that decision? And potentially, like, what have you noticed since you made that transition?
Yarrow Magdalena:Yeah, good question. I, I have been on Instagram for about six years in total. And I want to say that had really good times, I think, especially in the early days, it felt much more open and exciting to me less competitive and overwhelming. I found it really sad when the algorithm wasn't chronological anymore. I think to me, that was the beginning of the end, in a way, because it kind of, you know, produce so many other dynamics that I didn't love. And I am also received, aware that it allowed me to empathize my businesses the way it connected me with people, but it also drained a really great deal of my attention span. And my ability to engage with things I care about in depth, my ability to be present with things. And it just took a long time. Honestly, I am. I used this info. No, what's it called? I think it's called zenscreen app in the summer of 2019, and told me that at the time, I was spending 10 hours a week on Instagram, which was absolutely shocking, it really blew my mind. And it's not even done that unusual. You know, like that was, I think, on average, we use our phones kind of four hours a day. And anyway, so it was shocking and not shocking at the same time. And I made a commitment to get get a really big break and kind of reset. So I was away from Instagram and had kind of archived my page for six months that year. And I came back at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic, kind of, to dip my toes back into the water and missing people and mainly kind of missing seeing what my friends were up to and what their cats are doing. And I identified the pandemic and I really got sucked back deeper into using it much more and kind of doing schooling was a big thing for me last year and I want to give myself grace. I mean what what as what we're supposed to do. Yeah, it made sense. And you know it I think it was a crutch kind of in a way it provided a little bit of comfort and a sense of connection. And then as the year progressed, I just kind of increasingly felt like I was really missing. Thinking into books and just exchanging voice messages with friends is actually a way of connecting digitally that I enjoy much more than being on Instagram. And I am I took another break over Christmas, I was planning to just kind of deactivate for two or three weeks and in no time I was really feeling like Actually, I don't want to go back. And I think I need to put this to rest for good and really delete my profile rather than deactivate or just archive and log out and delete the app or something because I had done that before. And I think there was also something around kind of evolving into another stage in my business where I'm, I'm refining what I'm doing, I'm coming closer to myself, I'm allowing myself more boundaries and creativity, but I'm not reinventing the wheel, or needing to shout from the rooftops every day. I wanted to get out of that space of competition. And I don't feel that anyone in my space with the people that I connected with on Instagram was being competitive or, or at you know, there is nothing specific kind of that upset me. But I think it was more the way that the the app is set up was inviting me into competition and into scarcity thinking around attention and how, how do I have to show up and I have been podcasting for many years. I've two podcast ones. This one is called danger wolves. The other one is called the DIY small business podcast. And that's a way I really actually love expressing myself. And I found that in that six month break that I did, in 2019, I podcasts a lot more, and I wrote a lot more ziens. And then last year, I wrote the book, and I think it was just time to shift my attention and energy towards something that feels more meaningful to me. And yes, that is a privilege in a way because I have these established podcasts, and I have my newsletter. So I have other ways of kind of sharing my work right now. But I'm not even sure if I was starting out right now, if I would begin on Instagram to get to that point, if you see what I mean, this is maybe a weird way of saying it. But I think I think we're ready for other sort of connecting and making media and sharing knowledge and building communities. And I'm excited for that. Yeah.
mary grace allerdice:I agree. And it makes a lot of sense thinking about, you know, not necessarily feeling like I am interpersonally in competition with someone that I like or follow, but that there's a positioning that is just inherent in the algorithm that it's like, yeah, you're competing, like you either got to post more you got to love, you got to talk more
Yarrow Magdalena:you like to talk that much. Or Yeah,
mary grace allerdice:that was I've had some very, very similar transitions lately, which these people have already heard about. So I will not take the dead horse here. But definitely feeling really resonant with a lot of that and just feeling like, for me, I was feeling increasingly dissociated, like I was feeling increasingly out of body, or like avoiding difficult emotions or feeding a sense of like, I was feeding my own discomfort. And it was just getting really, really big. And I was feeling very reactive, which is
Yarrow Magdalena:not.
mary grace allerdice:So my good zone, when I get into that was just not it wasn't making helping me be the person that I wanted to be so similar here just like wanting to invest more energy and things like podcasts, which I really love, where I can go deep form and kind of do whatever I want.
Yarrow Magdalena:And things like that. Yeah. And I think it's also about listening, isn't it? Like, I feel there was a hesitation in me around leaving? Where else? Is this gonna mean that I'm kind of missing out on cultural moments or, you know, I recognize that I have learned things, especially around politics on Instagram in ways that were very bite sized, and kind of made me aware of certain things and maybe wasn't aware of in the same way and kind of like a split second. It was all made immediate. And and I think there was definitely good for a time. And like I said, I learned a lot, but I'm now really trying to redistribute some of that time to listen to long form podcasts, or read books and really go deeper into stories that are of experiences that are mine, from people whose identities I don't share. And I think I'm hoping that I'm still engaged in conversations and learning more things and becoming kinda that way and without depleting my brain so much. That makes sense.
mary grace allerdice:Yeah, and something I've been talking about with my people is, technology can sometimes facilitate consumption without digestion. And I think giving like engaging in information or stories or just new ideas in ways that also allow us to digest and I think we all have different digestion times like that looks different for everyone. I think is really helpful. And I think it kind of gives us the opportunity to come back into our bodies to like, integrate stuff instead of just
Yarrow Magdalena:think it, I think Yeah, yeah, totally.
mary grace allerdice:Yeah. And I think I don't know about for you, but was there a sense of, like, for me, I had, I had been having the feeling that I was like, I need to get off of this, which is not a mandate for everyone. We're all different for months, but I was just scared. I was like, I'm gonna be invisible. And it's like Mary Gray's 20 people are saying this, like, you know, but there was just like, a deep fear around like disappearing or being invisible and, or this pressure these stories about like, well, you have to be on Instagram, if you have a business or there's just a lot of stories around that. Did you run into that? Or were you like, no, I
Yarrow Magdalena:feel good about what I have set up for myself. I think I feel good about it, because I'm having this strange timeout of time at the moment. Anyway, so I fell on New Year's Eve and broke my leg several times. And it was really strange and disorienting. And I traumatizing in some ways, and I got into hospital on New Year's Eve. And obviously, it's really, it's really tricky to be there. Right now. It's overcrowded, there's a lot of kind of tension in the air. And I was really missing kind of seeing faces. And, and also I'm English is not my first language, I was having a hard time understanding Scottish accents here. So it was really a strange experience to be asked for life at this time. And I had never broken anything, I was really naive, I thought that I will get a cast and be sent home, but I was waiting for surgery and then had a really complicated operation that, that required a lot of metalwork to piece things back together. So I'm kind of in this like really time out of time, which was the case anyway, as the pandemic you know, by a few even more removed from my day to day life and invited into stillness right now. So I'm cocooning. And it makes sense not to be seen so much right now. Because I'm God, it feels weird to say no, but I am very vulnerable in a way I can't run away, you know, I can't even walk, I'm not going to be walking for a few more months, probably until the summer. And so just really sitting with myself and my feelings of wanting connection and wanting to not be abandoned and wanting to be seen. And I think, if I had Instagram right now, that would help me into trying to meet that need in a way that isn't construct, if that makes sense. And I think it would have been tempting when I was, you know, just lying in the hospital bed, I don't have a smartphone anymore. I just have a user a button phone with a really small screen. And I think, definitely there was the temptation to call a friend and be like, Hey, can you drop the phone at the reception, or one could come and visit me anyway. But I could have asked to have my old phone dropped so that I could, you know, we log into the log back into Instagram, and yeah, but I think that just didn't feel true to me to come and say, Oh, this bad thing happened to me Look at me, I'm so poorly, you know. And I just want to welcome what this time has to offer me and I think that has to do with not being seen and stepping back a little bit and enjoying the spaces I've created for myself and the communities that have in my business and just valuing the people that have invited me into the inbox already. And giving myself time also to be a bit more behind the scenes and, and write and reflect and do all these things. And I will reemerge in some way for sure. In the summer, I hope but it will be different. And I'm really excited to see what that will look like. I'm excited for other forms of media. Yeah, so I'm definitely into, you know, I will always want to serve Express. I think that's important for all of us. And I'm a Leo rising so then that too, but yeah, so I don't miss it. And I feel really glad that I left when I did. I think that was all it was. It was really interesting, be creative, but letting go of Instagram, celebrating the winter solstice, flipping on New Year's Eve and being kind of suspended in time right now. Yeah,
mary grace allerdice:I think it's really brave space when we allow ourselves the moment that we're in. You know, like when we really let ourselves like you know, these will we're talking about grief earlier. These You know, when we're injured or if we're sick or or whatever. depressed or we just were really kind of pulling back from all of these like external things in life, I just feel like it makes it can just make such a sacred little bubble and at least in my life, and this, you may not relate to this or you might. Those are just times of such profound change of like, where I just really come out, like seeing the world so differently and feeling like, like something in me deeply shifted or valuing life in a different way. And I think, when we try to or for me, I'm just gonna say that I, when I try to, like, build little Bridges out of the cocoon, or I'm like popping the bubble, like I'm leaking the energy or something, and the alchemy is now different. Like, I think there's something about having the the strength or the definition of that container to really like, allow ourselves some side some kind of like sacred transformation.
Yarrow Magdalena:Yeah, for sure. And I'm really open to that and excited for that as well. And I also want to name that it's hard, and I'm not perfect with it. I, for example, those 10 days that I spent in hospital, there was this awareness of exactly what you're describing, like, Oh, I have a really interesting time ahead of me, I wonder who I'll be when all of this is over. And also, I was meditating at all, I was crying a lot. I was really frustrated and pain and like, angry that this has happened to me. But I think those moments where I can hold what you described is now becoming much more frequent now. And that's really nice to see. So yeah, both can be true, right? Yeah, I
mary grace allerdice:agree. Yeah. 100% I'm definitely never I've never like peacefully being like, acquiescing to it. You know, I'm always like, thrashing around. And then once I realize like, the, your thrashing is also sacred. It's fine. Yeah. Or it's like after you've cried so hard that like, there's nothing left. And then you just get to that, like that stillness.
Yarrow Magdalena:I
mary grace allerdice:think that Tibetan Buddhists where they talk about like the Bardo place, kind of when you get under the feeling, or under the death moment, I think of that a lot where you like, okay, now I'm under it.
Yarrow Magdalena:I'm there. Yeah. Yeah.
mary grace allerdice:I'm really, I was delighted to see that you're, like super obsessed with like living and working cyclically, because I'm obsessed with
Yarrow Magdalena:that. Yeah, I'm really
mary grace allerdice:obsessed with it. And it's one of the reasons that I love astrology is part of my practice, because it's like, we're just looking at lives in circles. And I'm interested in some of your perspectives, and some of the ways that kind of philosophically or practically really lives into your life.
Yarrow Magdalena:What does that look like? I think there's different things that have taught me so much around this, and one of them is moving to Scotland, which has really pronounced seasons. So around the winter solstice, we have just six or seven hours of daylight. And then this summer, we don't have quite Midnight Sun where I live, but it's a little bit further north, that is Midnight Sun. And there's just this really embodied feeling of seasons and, you know, going outside and pulling back in, which I love and, and do winter can be very long and harsh. And you have to, I think you have to be very good at homing, and, you know, being being inside and getting cozy and, and utilizing all these tools that you have available, which is a beautiful imitation, I think. And then I'm learning some of them for my body, of course, which is I haven't always been listening, I think I've really overworked in my 20s I was having all these silly jobs that I can really relate to, and then really feel joy. And that took me a long time to figure out. So now in my business and really allowing myself much more spaciousness and a changing pace throughout the month and my cycle. And I think that's the one thing that I would also say, feels the most powerful in the work that I do with my clients to make space for contraction and being stagnant and, and then running with this creative joyful spring energy where we're building again, and, and moving ideas forward. And I'm really trying to cultivate in the spaces that I facilitate the sense that it's okay to not know and it's okay to take breaks and to really develop a deep trust and that being worth it. So even if we want to look at it from a productivity point of view, which I don't recommend, or particularly invite, but I understand that that might be an impulse. And even then it's so worth it to take this and to really consider what ideas we want to bring forward and to accept that and just grow is an illusion that we will, you know, that we're living under under capitalism and human bodies and human minds and our spirits are not are not made to, to be an endogenous growth is not good for anyone or anything. And I think that has to do with grief as well, I feel when we're beginning any new project, it's okay sometimes to say, Okay, I'm letting go of an old identity. And first, I'm going to make some space for that grief, or I'm transitioning out of a day job. And I will grieve that stability in a way that has given me at a time and now I'm opening this up to something new. And that creates really fertile soil, I think in the most literal sense of the word. Yeah. I agree. I've been,
mary grace allerdice:yeah, I realized there's a book that's on my to do list that I have not gotten to, am I ever mutating to do lists that I never follow all the way, but it's called patriarchy stress disorder. And I was realizing how I had a business that I built that was more of like a brick and mortar kind of in a non digital based business, and that it did not make it and now I'm realizing that was probably a gift from the universe. And how embedded in me, this idea that we don't have time, was that like, I've always got to be hurrying, I've always got to be leaning forward, I've always got to be one step ahead, or in order to, like, be successful and like, and for me, like the idea of being successful as is like having enough resources to go to the grocery store. And I think it's been really something that the process of 2020 has helped me. Access is just like really committing to my, I don't even want to use the word committing really allowing myself to, like, live into what I believe about how my energy works, and to allow myself to like, Oh, I feel creative today. Let's follow that. And like, do that or like, I don't feel creative today, I feel shut down. And like, I need to go outside and be in my garden, or whatever it is. And just giving myself permission. Yeah, it takes up more time. Yeah, you're gonna look, are we? I'm gonna look less productive. Like, yeah, you didn't get 10 things done. Why did I even have 10 things down? You know? This isn't these are not coherent thoughts, but they're all things that have been kind of coming up as I as I keep trying to integrate more and more this idea of circling, like, if I know, I'm gonna have to come back to the same point, what kind of energy do I want to be able to show up with? Yeah.
Unknown:Yeah. I think
mary grace allerdice:this kind of comes back to the idea of ritual a little bit, too. We've been talking about attention in my community that we've been working on and something I was noticing this idea of endless gross that you were talking about, like, we're just on a straight line, and we're just go, you know, and we're just like, do which goes to do which goes to something else. I'm doing something else I'm doing as opposed to, which leaves me feeling like strung out and overwhelmed. But this idea of like, thinking of it in a circle of just like, I prepare to do something, I do something, and then I complete it. circling around, which is a very ritual way of doing something.
Yarrow Magdalena:Yeah. Yeah. And it's also giving us permission to give to let things be enough, right. Like, that feels so important to me, I think, especially now that we're all working from home a really nice ritual to do at the end of the workday, I think, is to like, really raise your hands towards the air towards the sky and say, I've done enough. I'm letting this be enough. Okay. Yes.
mary grace allerdice:I love that. I just got goosebumps. I'm like, Yes, we are going to start practicing.
Yarrow Magdalena:I love all of that.
mary grace allerdice:I feel really open here. I feel like we could go into a conversation about a queer approach to time and co creation. Which sounds like that might be fun for you. Or if you're like, I'm tired, we can wrap it up. How do you feel what like, huh?
Yarrow Magdalena:Interesting. I feel very tickled by these words that you've just said. I don't let me just have a moment to think about what I could share in this area. But I love it. I just had never considered that. I think Yeah, what does it mean for us to create things right? I am definitely creating so many aspects of my being and I think one gift and being queer is kind of being able to see things from the past rather than from the center of things. And I don't doesn't feel like, to me, it doesn't feel like a wick demising thing and not like, Oh, I'm so marginalized. And it just feels like, oh, I've been kind of liberated from a lot of expectations in my life, such as getting married to a man and having kids, two and a half kids and, you know, having these milestones that we often think of as normal and add quotes. And so that gave me a chance to question a lot of other things, including putting time away, and spending my time and how I'm observing time passing. And that feels exciting and querying to me. And I love that, and I wish that for everyone. Yeah.
mary grace allerdice:I love that I just, I sometimes feel very insecure. When I when I'm because I only I have an undergraduate degree from a college but I like got a BFA in dance, you know, like, like, studying, like feminist theory, or reading all the fancy books, and I feel insecure about that a lot when I'm talking to people sometimes, to me, too. But I just that being said, I am. So I often am finding out like, these are things that are sitting in my brain, like have names and people have already written lots of things about. And I was talking to a friend about this yesterday. And it has been a very like core thing in my life of kind of being on the margin of the thing, like even just like standing on the side of a room where you can see better or I love to stand like in the back on the side, you know, and just thinking about that, like spatially or how we're living our lives, like, do we like to stand where we can see better? Or do we feel like we always want to be seen? Or do we go back and forth probably in different ways. But it's called standpoint theory, or there's a way of doing that. It's part of what think like second wave feminism, it's an actual theory that has a name, which maybe I would have known if I got a master's degree, but But yeah, my friend told me this yesterday, I was like, that has a name like that. As a name, right? Yeah, you can see like, you can see there and then. And I thought that that was like there's a gift in some way of also, not being afraid of the margins, and being able to stand there. And like what that perspective is, was really the only place I was trying to get to Yeah, and
Yarrow Magdalena:valuable. It is. And yeah, that's really cool. And I just want to echo also what you said earlier about academia and how difficult that can be, I feel exactly the same and so full of imposter syndrome. Sometimes I was heartbroken when I found that there's typos in my book. And I still I think sometimes now I'm kind of exploring our educational programs, or going back to unity or taking this cause of that cause from a place of thinking that on some level, I'm just not good enough yet. And I should just self improve a little bit more until I can really do what I want to do in the world. And so yeah, just naming that. I guess that's what we're all feeling in some way or another. And I'm curious to see how being away from Instagram over the years my change that for us, I hope that that's maybe going to do some healing in some way.
mary grace allerdice:Yeah, I'm thinking of what it is to really. Like, there's a lot of pressure. I think a lot of times like in especially if we think in like a formulaic, entrepreneurial sense, where it's like, well, you, you're an expert, and you position yourself as an expert. And like all of this talk about being an expert. And I'm like, like, do we have to be experts to lead things or curate things or facilitate conversations? Do I be the one who knows everything? Do I need to be in charge? Even like, do I need you know, I think yeah, these are things that I've just been sitting with, and I noticed the more I lean into them, the less pressure I feel if I like that feeling.
Yarrow Magdalena:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, power questions are super interesting. I feel like one of the beautiful things of being home alone with a broken leg in the moment was like, really allowing myself and, and judging in my power to have things to weigh Exactly. And to be in my house. You know, like, I feel it is lonely and isolating sometimes, but, man, my color coordination is on point. And I know where my special things and no one is eating my snacks. And I'm just also having this time of like, really holding this, you know, you gave me this beautiful heroin meeting when I just got out of hospital powder, which was the king of the queen of pentacles. And I'm really holding that like, this is my space and I'm really ritualizing the shit of this period right now. And I'm spring rosewater, maybe Every night and I love it. And I allow myself that power. And I hope that, you know, that's gonna allow us to show up in healthy ways and other power dynamics. I think so too.
mary grace allerdice:I'd love it. As I'm looking at your picture on zoom right now it literally looks like the queen of pentacles. And like, it's like they just put that picture on the card. How would you tell us about the things that you make, where we can find them, where we can find you where we can get your book, you're on the
Yarrow Magdalena:internet do we navigate on the internet. So my book is called rituals, a simple and radical practices for times for enchantment in times of crisis. And you can get that almost anywhere and you bookshop can order it for you, you can support in the book shops on bookshop.org, for example. And then my website has a lot of links, as well as the embodied ritual community that I ran, and magazines and other things. They also make handmade prints, which I love. And that's all ad yarn, magdalena.com. And then everything related to business mentoring, the embroidery business community they offer, and my web design packages is on Yahoo, digital, calm,
mary grace allerdice:beautiful. I'll make sure I'll track all those down and I'll put them in the show notes of your very clickable for everyone. Is there anything that you feel like you would love to say our offer that we didn't really have time to
Yarrow Magdalena:go to just been really beautiful to talk to you and I so appreciate your work and this media man that we get to talk to each other, and then share these conversations. I think podcasting really is one of the most helpful things for me right now. So I'm really excited we got to target I'm excited to interview you very soon and to share that as well. And just feeling very grateful. Yeah.
mary grace allerdice:Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the conversation, please leave us a five star rate or review, subscribe to the show and share the episode with someone else who would enjoy it. Be sure to check out the links below the episode and the notes for more information about anything that we talked about on the show, free resources and also how you can join our free group where you can talk about the episode with other like minded folks. Thank you for being here. Peace.