Between the Moon - 12. Deep Time and the Sacred Feminine with Liz Childs Kelly

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

Today's guest is my dear friend and colleague Liz Childs Kelly. Liz is a writer, host of the Home to Her podcast, Sacred Feminine researcher and educator, community builder and initiated priestess in the 13 Moons Lineage. This episode celebrates the 1 year anniversary of the release of Liz's first book: Home to Her and the recent launch of the Home to Her Academy.Together we discuss our relationship with time, the moon, lineages, praying the rosary, creativity, trust, the sacred feminine... and so much more.Liz speaks to the challenges of using the word "feminine," which has many negative associations due to gender stereotypes and historical marginalization of female-identified bodies.She also reflects on how yoga and mantra practice has helped her connect with the sacred feminine, despite upbringing in conservative Christian tradition.We examine the irony of decontextualizing spiritual practices from our own lineage, acknowledging the complex history of conquest, trauma, and genocide that exists within this European heritage.We also share about our relationship with self-study in relationship with cycles and the importance of developing a subtle awareness through lunar tracking on the New Moon Calendar Journal. You can purchase you copy of the 2024 edition in the shop: https://themoonismycalendar.com/Links and mentions:Liz's website: https://www.hometoher.com/ Honoring the Wisdom of the Sacred FeminineHome to Her Academy: https://www.hometoheracademy.com/Way of the Rose: https://wayoftherose.org/The work of Lynne Twist https://soulofmoney.org/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themoonismycalendar.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome, dear listener, to Between the Moon, a podcast about self-study in relationship with cycles. I'm your host, April McMurtry, founder of The Moon is My Calendar. On today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Liz Childs-Kelly about her work with the sacred feminine and how she defines that and how it's changed over time. This episode is the start of season two of Between the Moon, and it's also a celebration of the one-year anniversary of the publication of Liz's first book, Home to Her, and the recent launch of the Home to her Academy. So you'll hear Liz share about the distinction that she draws between the words and the concept and the lived experience of divine and sacred. This weaves in the world. into her journey of how she's come to dedicate herself to working with the sacred feminine.

Liz also shares two things that she's embarrassed to admit having not known about the moon, which I love hearing, and also how working with the New Moon calendar and journal and practicing lunar tracking, what that has shifted in her life in both very subtle and powerful ways. So this conversation explores our connection through the moon and also through the rosary and how these have helped to connect with deep time, deep time, right timing and right action. So listen in as two friends share this journey of curiosity, of self-study in relationship with cycles and tuning in to the subtlety that arises from these practices. You can find Liz on her website, which is home to her.com.

And there's a tab there for courses if you're interested to see what's coming up. So please enjoy this conversation. Thank you so much for being here. So this is season two of Between the Moon podcast. And I'm here with Liz Childs Kelly. And for those of you who don't know Liz, she's a writer of the book, Home to Her, and also the host of the podcast, home to her. And Liz researches the sacred feminine. And she's also a teacher and community builder around the that exploration and relationship with the sacred feminine. So we have many, many connections and many conversations that we just wanted to put into a format and a place that we could share. So this is a conversation then to explore time, relationship with the moon, relationship to our own creativity and expression, relationship with the sacred feminine and seeing where else this conversation wants to take us.

So welcome, Liz. I'm so glad that you're here. Thank you. It is a great joy to be with you. I wanted to actually start. So when your book, Home to Her, came out in 2022. Yes, about at the time that we're recording this, it's almost a year ago. Yeah, very close.

Congratulations. One year anniversary. How does that feel in just in this time of of birthing that work to have it out in the world and places, maybe if you even want to share some places that it's taken you? Yeah, so interesting. I mean, the process of writing is in a book. This is the first book I've written. And it's so much bigger than anything I've ever attempted to do. You know, writing articles is something that I've done for a long time.

and was really comfortable with, but the size and scope of a book trying to wrap your arms around it. It took many years and way longer than I thought it was going to do. And then when it enters the world, it's, I think maybe if you're someone super famous, it's perhaps not anticlimactic. You know, you've got like a massive book tour in front of you or something like that. But for me, like the process of like having the launch that was beautiful. It was supported by so many people that I love. But then it's sort of like you've surrendered it to the mystery. And so there are the immediate, their interviews and things you're doing like that. But then you just don't know where it's going to go, how it's going to impact people. And so that has just unfolded over the last year in some expected and also

unexpected ways, you know, whether that's a message that I get through social media or email is somebody telling me that they read it and what it meant to them, which those are always just really get me in my heart, you know, because writing is such a solitary process. You don't know, you don't know how it's going to be received. And then you put it out there and you're like, is anybody listening? Hello? So that has been really amazing. And then like just opening doors and doing things that I wouldn't have expected that I would do. And some of those have been around speaking about the book, which I find it just brings me so much joy to be able to talk about the subject, especially with people who care about it. It's wonderful. I could do it all day.

Yeah. Well, maybe let's even like step back and into that connection relationship of what you call the sacred feminine. And I was, I told you, I think I was like playing with this idea of when you match that word with anything, like what's the sacred feminine? Some people refer to like the divine feminine. Or I was even thinking like, well, what's the mundane feminine? Like, where there's a certain elevation that certain words give to that. And then where does that come into a daily, like, lived experience? And I know you explore this a lot in your book. But I'm wondering just in terms of, like, for you being someone who's so, like,

closely connected to language and words and the choices that you've made with words. Yeah. And it is a very intentional choice. and I struggled with this for many years. And I still struggle with it for actually different reasons than when I first started. But when I first started trying to use this language, it really bothered me that when I thought of feminine, the first association I came up with was hygiene products, like feminine hygiene products in the drugstore, because we can't even say like menstruation or anything like that.

Ooh, that's a dirty word. And so I had this kind of negative association with. the word feminine that it meant girly that it meant um i don't know like just connected to a whole host of gender stereotypes and this was before i really you know as a cis you know straight woman like none of this was on my um radar screen in terms of gender fluidity and non-binary experiences and all of that that puts the lens on the feminine like what are we actually talking about in a whole different way. And so I acknowledge this in my book and I acknowledge it now. Like that, that word is challenging for us in a lot of ways. And yet I have not wanted to let it go because I think the word

feminine. So if you think about female identified bodies, and I use that language very specifically and intentionally female identified bodies and experiences and emotions and attributes that we have attributed to the feminine, whether that's accurate or not, we can have a whole different conversation about that. But historically, we've done that. And historically, those things have also been repeatedly seen and labeled as lesser. And so for me, reclaiming that word feminine and using it is really important. And I know that it doesn't have the same resonance for other people. And I think that's okay. Like part of the work with the sacred feminine to me is multiplicity. You do you. I do me. as long as we hold space for many perspectives.

But for me, that's why it's important to use that word. And the sacred versus divine, I think you hear divine feminine more often. And for me, growing up in a conservative Baptist church, divine, it's just, it's very connected to a monotheistic, like Father God, who is completely separate from creation and lives up and above and outside of it, whereas sacred, to me, feels much more approachable. It takes us out of the realm of deity specifically. And there's a lot of deity and divinities and, you know, goddesses within that sacred feminine framework. But I think it also roots the sacred and the holy in our personal experience. It roots it in nature. It roots it into our own intuitive

experience. And so that's why that word sacred to me really works. And when I put sacred and feminine together, that feels really powerful. Like for me, it's like screw you, whatever you've said about, you know, the lesser of the feminine. It's not. It's she, we are all sacred. And that's a powerful thing for me to feel into personally. You know, anything I say, it is personal, you know, So it's a relensing of my own experience as sacred too. And then the last thing I want to say about the sacred specifically is really for me, if I think about my purpose in life, it is at least in part to re sacralize everything, to find the sacred in our everyday lived experience.

And I think in this context and who I am being in this lifetime, I'm lensing it through the feminine is what I feel like I was given to do. But the idea of re-centering the sacred in our everyday conversations, in our ordinary lives, like, in all of it, that that feels like deeply purposeful and meaningful to me. So beautiful. I love hearing you talk about it. And really, and having that way of a framing of something that's the overculture gives us a certain. even unspoken, but often spoken and very explicit way of desacralizing. Is sacralizing a word?

I'm pretty sure. Okay, sacralize is a word. I'm not sure if sacralizing is, but I have used it. So even in the way you've described it too is like, is bringing it into the daily experience that it is not outside of our lived daily experience, like somewhere else up in the clouds, but bringing that relationship and as your work is called is like bringing that relationship home. Like where does that live and where does that live in our lives?

Yeah. I looked back because you gave me an advanced copy of the book and I looked back to the like the words, the review that I had written. I just want to read those because it was, it was so beautiful to, you know, I met you before even knowing your full story in how you've come. to be in relationship and how this has become your life's work. So getting to know you through the book was just really, yeah, really special. And so what I wrote was reading home to her is like sitting down to a feast offered in

reverence to the sacred feminine, known by many names. Author Liz Kelly, that's you, writes a refreshing, reflective and well-researched account that illuminates the origins, the surprise. and diverse expressions of that which connects us with the flow of life, also known as, in language that's in the book, Mothers of the Deep. Liz shares her personal journey with uncovering ancient wisdom while highlighting a variety of voices and perspectives, and a lot of those come from your interviews on the Home to Her podcast, and ultimately inviting the reader to deepen their experience with an imminent

presence of creative power, imminent presence of creative power. And then for me, having the pleasure of praying the rosary with Liz for many moons, which may be going on three, three years. At least, the book is like a field guide for anyone who longs to have a meaningful relationship with the many forms of divine mystery in daily life. I was very grateful for that. endorsement of the book and it's in the final copy you can get in this door, which is pretty great. Wonderful. There was a part in the book and I've mentioned this to you because it is kind of this like it's even just in passing almost as part of this journey and I felt like I was in a similar place with my experience of I need to pray to something, bringing that presence into

daily life. And I think having just having the sort of the availability of the availability of of yoga studios and my early yoga practices also involving chanting, but Sanskrit not being necessarily like, yes, there is the sounds that are there, but it's like, who were my ancestors praying to? What were they chanting? What were they saying? And feeling like there was this, yeah, this disconnect or, you know, it has come to be like just acknowledged as appropriation when it's out of context, right? I mean, there may be a connection and a really beautiful connection, just wanting to find context that was meaningful. And there's a part in the book that just in passing of talking about trading in the Mala for the rosary. And you were really the person

who I was like, how do you even like do the rose, but how does it work at the simultaneous time of finding the way of the rose and seeing like, oh, this is also ancient. This is also something that connects us with the earth and the mother and beyond the church, before the church. So I'm wondering if you would like to just even describing that kind of that shift in finding a way to connect with the sacred feminine and how the rosary has been a part of that. Yeah. And I can say too that when I, even before I understood this concept of the sacred feminine, I was interested in Eastern philosophy and traditions. And so I had explored Buddhism and I had certainly explored yoga.

And yoga is still a really big part of my personal practice. And I think it is for a lot of people and a lot of women in particular. And I cannot speak for a lot of Western or American women, right? I can only speak for myself. But I think if you are raised in a conservative Christian tradition that has, really suppressed the feminine as well as any sort of wisdom of the body and body intuition, then it makes total sense to me why you see a great number of women gravitating towards the gifts of yoga. And there are so many. There are so many gifts to it. And that practice has radically

changed my life. So I will always be deeply grateful for that. And, you know, even the practice is a mantra that has come into my life and chanting. I still greatly enjoy doing that from time to time. Sometimes I do it on my own. Sometimes I just do it in the car when I'm driving because it makes me feel good. And I can also say that from a lineage perspective, there's a great appreciation for the sacredness of the words and the understanding that the tonation, that all of that creates something special. And there's always an awareness that this isn't my lineage. This isn't mine.

And there's a resonance thing that I think that goes with that. There's an appropriation thing that you spoke to that I feel like culturally we seem to be much more aware of than when I started practicing yoga in my 20s. And so, you know, I was not really big on the rosary. Like I didn't want to make that swap necessarily because of my experience with Christianity. And also as a Protestant, I had no context really of the rosary. And my family has been in Protestants for many hundreds of years, I think. And so for the people who are not deeply steeped in Christianity, Protestants, like the rosary is definitely a Catholic practice.

And it would have been one of those things that the Protestant probably just stripped out of the Protestant Reformation, probably because of his connection to me. Mary and they want anything to do with anybody except Jesus and God. That's it. So I started praying it. I got introduced to the way of the rose people too. I got introduced to Clark Strand and he gave me this, you know, suggestion to check it out. And I didn't really like the suggestion. Like, I don't know. I just felt like I associated with Christianity and I had a very at the time like, I don't want anything to do with this religion that has caused so much harm. And that has also, I think, really harmed me and my own lineage.

But I started, well, I actually had an experience where my grandfather came to me during meditation. He's been gone for many, many years. And he put a crown of thorns on my head and basically said to me, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like if you do that, you were cutting yourself off from your lineage. I was like, damn it, granddad. I think he's right. But I didn't know how to do that. And so the rosary when it came into my life was kind of like my connecting thread to do that.

Even though my grandfather was a Baptist and would have been like, those Catholics are not, they don't count. I think that he would understand. Like, yes, this is my three line. And I did. I had a mala. I didn't have a rosary. You know, April has a beautiful story about, you know, rosary from her grandmother. It's so special.

I didn't have any of that. So I've like got my mala. and I'm just sort of making it work, praying on it. And I think the thing that you're referring to is in the book, I talked about how the rosary practice started to stick. Like, you know, I did it for a long time, and the prayers felt kind of wrote. And then it started to stick.

And it started to stick during really scary experiences and realizing that having something to hold onto literally, physically in your hands that goes along with the prayer, those two things together are very powerful and soothing. And that got further cemented during the pandemic. But in this particular moment, there was a fire that was a mile and a half from my house. And we were going to evacuate and we're trying to move very quickly. And we were also having a forced power outage in California.

So we're doing it at 3 o'clock in the morning when it's pitch black. So we can't see anything. And I was in charge of notifying a couple of my neighbors on our cul-de-sac. We, you know, we all had assignments. They were like two or three of us that were going to wake up the whole neighbor, you know, all of our neighbors on the street. And I ran down the street and I was banging on my next door neighbor's door, like screaming and yelling to wake her up.

And I wake her up. Success. I'm running back to my house to get my kids and everybody in the car. And I feel something banging me in the leg as I'm running. And I realized that I was running holding this Mala turned rosary the whole time and didn't even know I'd done it. I, you know, I sleep with it under my pillow. And I apparently had grabbed it run down the street with it.

You know, and then I'm holding it in the truck as we're driving away, and they got the fire out. Everything was all right. But it really cemented that practice for me. And then I think I realized during the pandemic that it was one of the few things that could settle my nervous system enough to rest and to face whatever needed to come next, especially in those early days. And there's research that the same as with mantras, praying the rosary, slows your breath down to, this optimum six breaths per minute works exactly the same as praying, you know, or doing like Hindu mantras. It's the same thing. And so it actually has these physiological

benefits for you as well. And then there's a whole connection back to your to the lineage, which I feel like, because as I've done this over the years, it's just gotten stronger and deeper. Yeah. Just even what you're saying is like finding that through line and something to hold on to. Yeah. That could be, you know, for people who are listening. that resonance of naming like I'm looking for that what is my through line, what is my connection? And especially in that description of like what if that is a lineage that has also caused a lot of harm, how to connect in a way and, you know, whether it's reviving something or through

practicing repairing it to have something to hold on to. Yeah. I think that we as humans, our whole, a lot of our. story. Well, okay, I'm going to speak for me as a, as a white woman of European descent, a lot of our story, my story, going back thousands of years is conquest, trauma, genocide, war. There's a lot that is well documented that you go backwards and you find. And so if you're trying to find something pure and untainted, like you're you're not going to get it. Like it doesn't exist, right? And so I think that, and there's almost an irony to this, April, thinking of

about this, like the very thing that you're saying about taking a mantra or something out of the context, those rich spiritual context of Hinduism or whatever, you know, whatever offshoot of that that you're working with, there's something ironically, however, for me, that feels appropriate about doing that in my own lineage and especially taking the rosary and saying, I think your roots are older than Christianity. I think Christianity actually co-opted you. So I'm absolutely going to pull you out of the context of organized religion because I think there's something bigger and more powerful there available to me. And I will change the prayers to the ways that work better for me. And I honor, you know, April does you do a different prayer that is so beautiful too. And, you know,

or some people pray it in this, this kind of inspiration, Aramaic inspiration. I know it's not a direct translation, but there's different ways to do it. And you're in reclaiming it, I think, is sort of, returning the power to the people, to the individual, which I think goes right back to that conversation of divine versus sacred and is, are we trying to connect with this God that's like way up here and like win his favor through moving through formal organized channels that let's be honest, we're just created by a bunch of men. Or are we claiming the sacred in ourselves and doing it in a way that says this works with me and my relationship with however you want to frame that bigger source? Yeah. Wow.

that gives a lot to think about just in terms of, right? Yeah, the context of when something is decontextualized and then in this case, like, consciously removing from a context of the church. I didn't grow up in a church. I grew up going with my granny, who was Irish Catholic, to church on Sunday when maybe like we had to sleep over at Granny's house. And so then we had to go to church. And I was young enough that like even the word church, I felt I called it torch like torture. Like we just had to sit there and be quiet and not move. And we didn't even get to eat the little wafers and have grape juice because, you know, we were the only grandkids that weren't baptized. So then after my granny passed and I connected with you.

And that was that story that you alluded to of like, I didn't have a rosary. and I was like, maybe I'll find a plastic one at like the 99 cent store. I don't know or I'll figure out something. And the box of her rosaries hadn't been somewhere that nobody could find. And maybe it didn't exist. But the first day that we were going to meet and have a Zoom during the pandemic, my aunt texted me and said, do you still want Granny's rosaries? And I'm coming over, you know, I can drop them by.

And I was like, actually, yeah, I'm going to pray the rosary for the first time in an hour. So that would be perfect time. this connection. And so two, sort of two places to go with that is one, since this, this, wanting to explore this conversation of time and our relationship with time and connecting with some past of like how many generations back to a time where it's hard to even, at least for me quite imagine like what that lived experience was, that now erring forward, how that's like what's being enacted or reenacted or bringing to life now. through, you know, through something like saying these prayers are long, these beads,

just that relationship with time then of going in a circle and what it is to like, again, because it is sound, its voice, but it's also something physical and tangible, that moves in a circle as this reminder of like, we end up where we started, but in a different place. So it's not the same. Something has changed. Something has changed along the way. But when we go in a circle, that end really is, that's the beginning and then we start over.

Yeah, I think I just wanted to even just reflect on that of where else that exists in our life because that feels like the thing that's the most real. The most real ends when time gets flattened out into a line, then there is no connection with endings and beginnings. Yeah. Well, and what's coming up for me as you're saying that is I was also thinking about when you're going in that circle over and over again. And I say this is true with, you know, working with the moon is my calendar too is, um, you're right. It's not the same. So it's like the spiral in the, in history is right that you see associated with the sacred feminine going

back, you know, 30,000 years. Same grounds you're covering, but you're coming back to it the slightly different way over and over and over again. And there's something also really powerful about treading that same ground. There's like a depth and a complexity that can get there. And in terms of the rosary to me, I pray the mysteries along with it, the joyful and the sorrowful and the glorious mysteries. Every three days, I go through those. And so there's something about that being able to deepen into the, the,

message or the ability to interpret it in a different way, depending on what's going on with my life, but that idea of moments that offer us joy, inevitable, moments that offer us sorrow, inevitable, moments that offer us the context for those things, the glorious, like, ah, now I get it, are also inevitable. And, you know, so moving in that circle is so, it creates meaning in a way that I think, you know, the linear story only works if you've got some sort of mythical thing that you're going to get to later as opposed to the meaning is right here in every moment going around and around. And there's the re-sacralizing, you know, find the sacred and all the things like right there again. Yeah. So many parallels with the lunar cycle of

revisiting each time, like each phase as something to revisit. And the, two foundational questions that early on for me, you know, in creating this, in creating this tool to have to, how do I connect with myself and how do I connect with something that's the bigger mystery of life? How do I connect with that finite experience? This is this moment, this is today, and all of the cycles of eternity of everything that's come before and everything that's yet to be is how to have that daily practice really illuminate like, oh, I'm in this phase again. It's not the same, but I can acknowledge and maybe I have language for it or maybe I just have a felt sense that paying attention to whatever it is that goes in cycles. And the

moon is one opening, like one window or door into that vastness of these, cycles, it's like stepping into this river that's in motion and maybe that river really is, maybe it has a destination sort of like what you mentioned of like it's flowing to the sea, but then the sea becomes the rain again, becomes the river again. So there's no way to separate even water from from a cycle, this movement. But these two foundational questions of where am I right now? Like how do I even locate myself within maybe emotional cycles or physical cycles or maybe like life cycles or chronological age or

what are the ways that we have to name or locate where am I right now? Even like who am I or how am I, any of those kinds of questions, but having a reference point to then say, where is the moon right now? Then is there something there's a relationship because there's the individual that for many people may feel separate from all of creation and all of life and as a part of nature. There's that individual. And then I'm connecting with something that is more universal, that the moon has that, that presence and is available in a way that has these great fluctuations.

So it is that kind of the steadiness and the fluctuation and, a full moon is not going to be the same each time around. And so what are that? It's a development. It's that lunar tracking helps us to develop that subtle awareness. For sure. And there's so many ways that I think that, you know, because I think I don't know. I can't remember if I've been working with the calendar for as long as we've been praying

the rosary or if I had it before that. I can't remember. I feel like they're kind of intertwined, but I'm not exactly, like not exactly synced up, but close. And there's also, for me, there's the reinforcement of impermanence. And I think, and that has been reinforced to me in so many different ways in working with the calendar, too, is just the impermanence of the moon cycle. Like, it moves fast. It really does. It's like and so you're aware of the impermanence of our own situation, right, as human beings on this planet is moving fast.

And then even committing to a practice of like, how am I feeling today? Like I'm going to track my emotional state, right, relative to the moon. And noticing that even in some days at the end of the day, it's hard for me to to make an assessment on that because I've moved through like five emotional states in a day. It's not, it's just it just moves. it shifts and so I think yeah the lunar cycle has really taught me that the other thing that is interesting to me and it feels almost silly saying this now what I want to say it is that I started I started working with the journal before I actually started looking at the freaking moon like like where is the moon like just walk outside like do I know when it's going to be in the

sky and where like can I even figure out when it's going to rise and now I know all these things which is wonderful and I know to look for it. My kids and I have a practice of looking for the first, the first sliver of the new moon. Like they know that they're not going to see it before day three at the earliest. And usually where we are, it's going to be day four or five. And then also noticing I've moved to Virginia now. And California felt like it was a little bit more consistent.

But here it's very seasonal. Like we get a lot more cloud cover in the summer. And the fall is just spectacular. It is so clear. The skies are just unbelievable. And so it is the absolute best moon sighting. And so just becoming aware of all of these. And I think you've got this in the beginning of the calendar,

the cycles within the cycles to like the seasonal cycles. There's the lunar cycle. It's your own personal cycle. There's a cycle of your emotions and rhythms that go up and down during the day. You know, it's such a beautiful practice, not just of self-study, but to your point, where am I in relation? with the rest of this beautiful, like, humming mass of creation that I'm a part of. So beautiful.

I love when there's an ability to kind of mark that, like, I didn't know where the moon was. And now it's like a practice that I have with my children, that it's one of those, as we talked earlier, that sacred connection as a part of a daily life and in relationship. Yeah. I remember I can't remember because we had, there's two episodes that we recorded together for the home to her podcast. And in one of them, I think I narrate kind of narrate the lunar cycle of where the moon is. And to know that rhythm, there's something that opens up in knowing ourselves. I know the steps of the dance of the moon.

So I can get into this sync and rhythm with myself because I'm learning more about. like what are my my steps that I take in my own dance? And when do I know when I'm sort of like stepping out of, out of whatever those bounds are and what calls me back in? Yeah. Well, and there's also, to your point, the subtle awareness. I think that word subtle is so important. Like there's so much in our daily lived experience that is just loud.

Like I just feel like culture in general is designed. I'm not going to go all conspiracy theory. theory is on us, but it's just designed to be loud, I think, and sort of drown out the, like, subtle signs and awareness of, like, how am I in rhythm and relationship to the movement of the moon, for example, or even my own cyclical rhythm, or there's so many ways that we are sort of just, it's kind of reinforced casually and repeatedly that it's not important or don't pay attention. And so it may not be true for everybody, but for me, it has really been like a multi-year process. And every year it gets deeper.

And every year I start to notice more and more how I am affected by the rhythms of the seasons, by the lunar cycle, by my own cycle, in ways that are now. I'm like, oh, wow, you know, like just sort of the equinox portals, for example, have a big effect on me. And I didn't really, that was like a realization this year. I'm like, wow, what is happening to me energetically? I'm like, oh, well, it's the spring equinox. I'm feeling alive and I want to go conquer like 50 million things. Like, this makes sense, you know? But it's taken time to kind of create the quiet space to pay attention to those rhythms.

Yeah. And I don't think it's too far like conspiracy theory to say that technology is designed for distraction. Like it's designed. It's designed for distraction and that kind of distraction and the loudness and the never ceasing onness. That doesn't allow space for the dark, the stillness, the quiet, that what could be sometimes linked to the unknown, like, what do I do if there's not something I'm watching or responding to or whatever? That it's designed that way so that we're not necessarily like it's against the grain and upstream. to connect to more subtlety. And I do feel like through personal experience

and with this practice and with the New Moon Calendar and Journal and the self-study and relationship, like that starts to become the teacher and the teachings that's just really just invites us to show up and be curious. And even if you don't know where the moon is, like just the curiosity alone of like, oh, there's something that I don't know. I actually don't know. And I wonder if I'm, you know, if I'm curious and what is it that I would need to pay attention to to start to like come,

come closer to that knowing. Yeah. You know, as we were talking, I'm remembering, this is a little bit embarrassing, but I'm going to share it. I think I was in my late 20s, honestly, late 20s before I heard anybody use the term day moon. And it was a writing teacher who referenced something about the day moon and I remember being like what? You can see the moon during the day. Like I literally had not really paid enough attention up until that point to look up and see the moon during the day, which is just shocking to me now considering where I'm at at this moment in my life.

But that's how I think distracted, disconnected, like cerebral, like really plugged into, you know, whatever, everything except the natural rhythms of the world. that's how deep that was well i think there's i mean two things one is that all children's books i feel like are like the sunset and the moon rose and so there's this like early exposure to something that's not true and then it's reinforced in many ways that the moon is associated with the night and that there there is an element of that but that's it's only half the story and because the moon is such like there's this mirroring that happens that the moon is in the day sky and there's a day moon just as much,

like equally as much over a lunar cycle as the moon is in the night sky. And it goes from these extremes, right, of like the new moon is a complete day moon that's also invisible because of being so close to the rays of the sun. To the other extreme of the full moon being a complete, that's when the sun sets and the moon rises. But that's only one day the entire 28 or oh my gosh, now I'm saying 28, 29, 30, you know how I feel about that, the 29 or 30 days of the lunar cycle, that one day is the night moon completely. And then it's a little, little beach, and then it's at the halfway moons, the quarter moons, then it's a half and half day and night. So it's just, there's such a beautiful

mirroring that's within the cycle. And I just wonder, you know, this is my wondering about this work and like how to have that feeling of why this work matters, like, why connect with the moon, why show up in times of crisis and be like, you know, practice self-study with a lunar calendar. I think there is something that helps us be in relationship, you know, and that helps us to, yeah, just to be able to move. through life and move through time with an awareness and a sense of being inside of larger cycles, what's sometimes referred to as deep time, being in relationship with something that's like beyond one lifetime.

You know, as somebody who's like, I want to create work that matters, that has an impact, that has some significant change that all of life somehow is better than before. And, you know, what is that, where does that come from? I think there can be a sort of questioning of like, yeah, the things that really do matter and possibly not being able to see the results of that. I know that you have just in your own exploration of like creative cycles and meaningful work and this concept of deep time have explored some of that. And I'm wondering how that, you know, and even the time,

timing of things of how that relates to when the time feels right for something and when something is ripe and ready and when it's not do we start something before we're ready or do we wait for the timing to feel right all these kinds of things that's a whole i mean even in itself a whole conversation of exploration but i'm wondering if like if there's a thread from there that you want to yeah there's a couple of things well these are the words that were we're floating into my head as you're speaking where this phrase like right right timing and right action And I think that I feel like I notice, and I'm not sure whether or not to use the word, it's like the internalized patriarchy or the internal colonizer.

Maybe they're the same. Like, you know, in this context, they might be the same. And those things are so deeply connected that it's hard to separate them. But this, I really feel like our understanding of time has been colonized. in a way that also gets expressed through like capitalism and the march towards like profits and making money or being seen or being successful. And so, you know, with the idea of right timing, I have noticed for myself that concepts, ideas, things that feel authentic and correct sometimes show up well before I'm supposed to

act on them. And I don't like that because I think of this colonization of time. I'm like, well, it showed up. That must mean I got to get out there and do it like next week or whatever or no, this is taking too long. I was going to finish my book in two years. It took six years to get it published. Six years. Six years. It's way longer than I expected. And I wasn't literally sitting down and writing every day for six years. But that's how long it took for the idea to come in for the living to occur for the wisdom to land for the opportunity to write it and then rewrite it and then for a publisher to meet me in that space and say, yeah, this is it and now is the time. It took that long. And even in the classes that I'm teaching now, I worked on the first one for five years. And it's

not that it's that complicated. It's, you know, I mean, I just like, I couldn't get the ideas to gel. And then I'd feel really insecure about them. And then I'd be like, why am I so insecure about this? what's the matter with me? And then when I started teaching this year, I finally realized, oh, it just wasn't, it just, it just wasn't the right time. Like now that the information is effortless and the flow of it through me feels really effortless. And how wonderful is that? You know, so there's been this whole practice of understanding that right timing, it's really hard to to label it on my linear lifespan that I understand, you know, like that I can see through this human form that I've got in this frame. And then like laying that against the idea of right

action. And to me, that's where the deep time comes in. Because the other way that I think my understanding of time gets colonized is like, well, what difference can I make? Like, what small action if I take it is going to have any impact on war and genocide and, you know, injustice and economic and social injustice. And like what, what difference is that? I don't have a giant platform. I'm not going to, how do I fix these things? And that's also denying, like, that just the idea that every movement is, is moving things. It's just, just like the idea of the moon constantly, like it's not staying in one place.

Time is not staying in one place. So every action that we take or we don't take matters. It matters. And again, freeing ourselves from the idea, well, I need to see it. I got to see proof that this thing that I did made a difference

or I'm not going to do it. That just like a patriarchal, colonized kind of thing too. Right? Like we're only going to do something good or something positive. if we have proof that it makes a difference. You know, that's really, I think that's worth, that's worth questioning as well.

Yeah, having that thread of the time that things take. And I have that similar experience of like something, this flash of insight will come. And I think I'm supposed to act on it right away. And the times that I've done that, I ended up burning out or just moving too, too quickly that the pace of my own life wasn't able to support that. And so I've become very mindful of those times where I was like, this is the seed. So I'll give an example, the collection of art that's in the 2024 lunar wall calendar that's based on the pomegranate cycle, the lunar harvest cycle.

That's been at least six or seven years in the making, the early signs. Like when I find those little breadcrumbs of the early signs, I'm like, okay, it's more than that. it's probably 15 years. But it was really like, oh, I want to create something visual that expresses this development and kind of the magic of how does a seed become a fruit? And how does that relate to the lunar cycle? And so all these ideas that were there, they had their own way that they needed to unfold through many seasons, through visiting many pomegranate trees in my neighborhood

and just sitting with things in a time where it was like, where it didn't want to be rushed. And in my own self, like, I'm like, okay, let's do this. It's like, let's move forward because there's something, whose voice is it? And I like how you're saying, like, it's worth questioning. Things can change quickly. And some things take like the geological time,

a mountain to turn into sand. That doesn't happen. overnight. Yeah. And the human mind, I don't know the ways that it gets tangled up in whatever the story's about worth or enough. It can be, in my experience, like debilitating or just kind of create a kind of a confusion. Yeah.

And at the same time, you know, I'm thinking of I had a guest on my show, Lynn Twist, who wrote a wonderful book called The Soul of Money and has done some amazing work over. She's founded the Pachamama Foundation. And in her most recent book, which name, I'm sorry, is escaping me. But she quoted having a conversation with the late Buckminster Fuller who had told her that our children should be our teachers because they are emissaries from the future. They are inhabiting a kinder, kinder, more gentler world because of the efforts that people before us have made. And so the best example that I have of this is when my kids were little,

I think my daughter was five and my son was two. They love to watch this show Doc McStuffins. They loved it. And I don't know anybody who's a parent of a young child might have seen Doc McStuffins. It's about a little girl who her mother is a doctor. Her dad is a stay-at-home dad and she is a doctor to stuff toys. So they have problems and she feels. fixes them and dolls and things like that. And they love that show. And my son, after watching that one day, said, I want to be a doctor when I grow up. And my daughter said, you can't be. Only girls can be doctors because she'd only had female pediatricians. She'd watched this show with a little girl who was a doctor. And the mom was a doctor. And so she had drawn the conclusion that only women were doctors. That's just the

way it was. And so here I am in a position that I never thought I'd be. As a mother, I spent a lot of time pregnant thinking about, oh, boy, how am I going to prepare my daughter to live in this world? You know, that's patented unfair to women and still is in a lot of ways. And here I am having to explain to my two-year-old son that boys can be anything they want to see when they grow up. Like, wow, things do change, you know? And that kind of thing is directly attributed attributable to many small and large actions that happened even before perhaps I was born, you know, and that all kind of culminates in a place where we are starting to see change. And I think sometimes, again, if we use only our individual perspective, we can't see it.

Yeah. And that story just shows to how much for anyone who says that representation doesn't matter. Right. What we see, we draw, that's our bias. and what we see we draw conclusions from. Yeah, the deep time. So you talked about your book and just in the time of that unfolding and that taking. And you just started home to her academy.

And at the time of this recording, there's a program and a course that's about to come out. And so even for people who are listening in the future, just to get a sense or a taste of the kind of courses that you're offering and inviting people into, into this exploration, if you want to share a little bit about the one that's coming up. Yeah. Well, and the one that's coming up is, it's called Returning to the Well, which is sacred feminine wisdom for your motherhood journey.

And I'm working with a wonderful woman whose educator used to be run a nonprofit dedicated to menstrual rights activism. and she's based in New Zealand, so that's fun too. And yeah, so the whole idea is helping think about, and this is a big area of passion for mine. For me is how do we take this concept of the sacred feminine, which can be kind of nebulous and apply this to our lives in the way that we're living.

Like, what does this actually mean? And so the whole idea is to take some of the sacred feminine, both the history, some big geek on the history, but also more embodied, ways of understanding the sacred feminine and apply it to the ways that we want a parent with intention. So it's a lot around understanding, taking a look back at our own, like, messages that have shaped us, our journey towards motherhood, our journeys through girlhood and, and thinking about how that shaped our motherhood, the way we mother now. And if we want to continue

that, bringing in some of the creation myths and the stories about motherhood, which I think is really fascinating, because if you go far enough back in history, like, it might surprise you. You know, it doesn't necessarily look the way that we imagine like perfect mothers are going to look now. And then thinking about like, how do we want to introduce ritual to our children and intention and things like, hey, guys, let's go out and look for the moon. Where is it in the sky and when are we going to be able to see it? These are all things that I think that we can offer to our children, small, but can have a huge impact, I think, for them. and then anybody that's descended beyond that. So that is the whole idea.

And then with the Academy, it's in general, it's bringing forward classes like that that are rooted in the historical record that are deeply embodied. So they're asking us to use multiple ways of knowing that are intersectional, that are not going to shy away from these messy conversations about the intersections of spirituality and colonialism and racism

and all of that. I think it's really important that we include that. And then they're practical too. And to your point about time, you know, like I can say right now, I have visions in so many courses that I want to bring forward in 2024. And those conversations are happening behind the scenes. And you don't always see that right now on the website. And so I really am trying to practice exactly what I preach to and trusting in these natural cycles and that it will all come forward in the way that it needs to.

Yes, may it grow and bloom and blossom and being held within spaces of ritual. And I think really like this work with the moon and working with the sacred feminine, I feel like all of it creates these containers for us to be held in. Yeah. Even that weaving and that crossing over for us meeting on the new moon to pray the rosary, like it weave some of those things together. that creates that container and a place to come home to. Yeah.

And I think even that, you know, so much of, like with the piece of motherhood to me is, is recognizing if you are not part of an organized religion, but nonetheless are finding deep meaning, whether that's in lunar cycles, like natural cycles or what sacred feminine or whatever it is, like recognizing that that is a very important role that you've, are and can play in your family's life. And I know for me, it's been an interesting dance over many years to understand that this isn't just for me, but it is for me. And so making the space because, you know, an adult experience of that is important. It's really important for me to have that, like our New Moon Rosary Circle, but also where are the touch points that I can bring

this meaning into my kids' lives? And, you know, to your point, at some point, probably pretty soon for me. Not quite there yet, but, you know, I'm going to, I'm shrinking in significance in my children's lives probably every year going forward. But hopefully, you know, there's the foundation there and the witnessing and the participating that will give them some kind of grounding at some point in their lives, even if it's not something that they stick with through their whole childhood journey, you know, as they find their way to adulthood.

Maybe they'll come back to it. Yeah. I'll just share. And maybe this is a way to kind of wrap up and close the conversation. Just again, weaving these threads together of something that intentionally, my hope of connecting my own children, not just with me, but with something greater in terms of a loving presence. Like, sometimes I'm cranky and I'm like, I don't have anything to give you right now. but to feel loved and to feel that unconditional love when I would take my kids on moonwalks

and moon hikes and let's go see the moon and like, Mom, again. I want you to know every time you see the moon, like look to the moon and you can feel my presence and just to try to offer them something in this knowing because I remember when both of them when they had this realization of, oh, we don't live forever. This human life thing, we were with my granny as she was passing, and both of them had to, why do we die? Like, what is the point of, like, being here and, like, having this life and making what meaning we can of it, trying to make sense of that, to help them at least connect with

something that goes beyond a lifetime? And for me, that's been the moon. There's been a lot of healing that's come through understanding or making peace with or something that loss and death that comes from connecting with the cycles and the cycles of the moon. And so I remember when my oldest was on a, what is it, like outdoor ed through school doing an overnight in the woods. And they had the kids do a night hike of like, you start here and then you see the place where you need to go, but it's all dark in between. And coming back from that, I remember, I think either another parent, someone had mentioned a story and so I asked about it. And my oldest said, I was really scared. I was terrified.

I was frozen. Like, I couldn't move forward. And then I looked up and I saw the moon. And I thought of you and I felt encouraged and I kept going. I was like, so I just, I share that both, you know, to you, to anyone listening. and just even if for somebody who, you know, who's, even if your mother or somebody, whoever it is, is no longer present in physical form, define that, you know, what we talked about earlier, something that you look to or hold on to or have a connection with that helps to bridge that.

And for me, it has been, it has been the moon. It's so beautiful. So I'm so glad we got to have this initial exploration. me too it's just a joy to talk to you and yeah i'm like oh yeah there's so many more things we could cover right well you remember you and i when you came on the home to her podcast it's too much for one we had to do another so totally right and if we need a part two then then we can have a part two all in due time ha ha ha ha like right well thanks again for joining and you can find liz's work and I'll put all of the links in the show notes.

The website is home to her.com. And for somebody who's interested in the academy, where should they find that? You can get there through home to her.com, but if you want to go straight to it, it's home to her academy.com. Okay, so there's a tab on the website that's courses, and that will take you there.

Yeah. Beautiful. Okay, thank you so much, Liz, for being here. Okay, until next time. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with a friend, all the things to help it reach more people who will benefit in some meaningful way. I'm April, and I'll be with you next time on Between the Moon.