TONTS. - Tree Wisdom, Connection & Music with Mietta

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Part One of a conversation with the soulful indie folk singer songwriter Mietta - storytelling and creating on Boonwurrung country in Australia's Mornington Peninsula. At 22 years of age, Mietta is in a season of emergence. With deep connection to her home roots and her community she is also an education researcher, learning skills mentor, facilitator and designer of youth wellbeing and expressive writing workshops. Mietta has recently supported the beloved artists Pete Murray and Kim Churchill and has just released her first recorded single with producer and friend fellow indie folk musician Timothy Li. You can find her playing all over the place in her home community and surrounds. For updates find her @mietta.music on instagram.To listen to her beautiful song Slowly head herehttps://www.clairetonti.com/eventsFor more from Claire you can head to https://www.clairetonti.com or instagram @clairetontiOriginal theme music: Free by Claire TontiEditing: RAW CollingsSocial Media: Maisie JG Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, just Tom's popping in before we start this week's episode. I just wanted to let you know I have one Melbourne show this year. It's so exciting. I'm launching a new single called The Beast Into The World. It's brand new music that I've created in collaboration with Jeremy Trois from Studio Chatty. And we are going to be launching it on the 20th of October at the Brunswick Ballroom. Tickets have just gone on sale. Doors will open at 6.30 p.m. It's a Sunday evening. I have some really incredible special guests that are going to be there too.

So in no particular order, I have Jamila Rizvi, beautiful author and friend coming to share about her experiences of mothering with a chronic illness. April the Bodzilla, who's a body acceptance activist. Oh, she's amazing. Musician and disability advocate, Eliza Hull. Comedian and all-round legend, Bron Lewis. Wonderful author of Hard to Bear, Isabel Odeberg. Arian Beeston, author and dancer. Fleecy Malay, spoken word poet. My dear friend Flick Odgers is also going to be reading some spoken word poetry. A local beautiful mum, Moni LaRue, is going to be performing some of her songs.

And then a dear friend of mine who's a contemporary dancer, Bonnie Dulac, will be performing an original work with me to my song, The Beast. All right, tickets are on sale. They're $35. You can head over now. You can also book a table if you want to, which some people are doing. So I would jump on over there. And I know October's quite far away, but worth getting in early before they sell out. All right, that's it for me. On with the show. I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak and write today.

The Rwandan people of the Kulin Nation and pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging. Acknowledging that the sovereignty of this land has never been ceded. I want to acknowledge the people who have given birth on this land, raised children on this land, connected to country and spirit for thousands and thousands of years. Hello, welcome to Tons, a podcast of in-depth interviews about emotions and the way they shape our lives. I'm your host, Claire Tonti, and I'm so glad you are here. Each week, I speak to writers, activists, experts, thinkers, and deeply feeling humans about their lives. Oh, and this week,

I have a treasure of a friend called Mieta to share with you. I met Mieta through her mum in the shower block at Seven Sisters Festival last year while I was performing. And she told me about her daughter who was a singer-songwriter. And when I walked into the silversmith tent, because Mieta's mum is a silversmith, I was looking at this beautiful jury design and then in walked just this glorious mermaid, human ray of sunshine called Mieta. And I immediately could sense that she was a kindred spirit. And then I saw her perform later in the tent during the open mic finale, and I was just blown away. She sings with such depth, wisdom, connection.

Later in speaking to me, Edda, and I could see while she was singing that this was the case, everyone in that tent was in tears and just in awe. She sings, Channeling Source is the only way that I could describe it. And so deeply present. But at that time, she's 22 now, I think she was 21 then, she hadn't recorded anything because she felt like what she does is so connected and truthful. She was worried that I think in recording it, you would lose something in that. And I spent some time with her over the summer talking about what I feel about writing and making songs and how I come at it from the opposite end where I record my songs

first and then figure out how to sing them live, which is really interesting in and of itself because I think the recording space can be a really sacred space and you can create it to be a place where you feel comfortable. And fast forward a little while and Mieta sent me a song that she had recorded with a friend, Timothy Lee. It's called Slowly. It's now out on all the streaming platforms and at the time it wasn't released yet. And I just was in floods of tears. I heard it on a day where I really, really needed to remember to give myself self

compassion and forgiveness. Remember that first we have to love ourselves before we can love anyone else and that we need to come home to ourselves, that we belong to ourselves. And you can tell Mietta has listened to so many women share stories with her over so many years. And in the work that she does with young women as well, she listens to their stories too. And you can tell in this song, because it's a song that I needed, but I actually think it's a song that we all need to hear. And so I'd really encourage you to go and listen to Slowly on Spotify or wherever you find your music after you listen to our interview. I drove down to Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula. Miata was house sitting in this beautiful home with a dog called Blue.

Her friend Cindy had set up the house with all these beautiful nooks and crannies full of cushions and light and her backyard is full of trees and opened out onto a forest and we just had the most magical time. It was such a special interview. I can't really put words around how moving it was for me to sit and listen to this. I want to say that I feel like it's an episode really worth listening all the way through. It's a long one. So I think I'm going to put it in two parts. So this will be part one and then I'll share part two with you next week.

And Vieta takes a lot of breaks when she speaks. She pauses. She deeply thinks, she slows and to me that was a learning process and something really precious to remember that. I think sometimes we rush and we rush and having that stillness and that presence is so special. So I really feel like this is just a gift of a conversation. I'll tell you a tiny little bit more about Mieta before we get started. So she's an indie folk singer-songwriter, an education researcher, a learning skills mentor and facilitator and designer of youth wellbeing and expressive writing workshops. Mieta intends to create spaces for shared heart opening and invitations to slow down,

connect and find inner clarity amidst complexity. At 22 years of age, she's in a season of emergence with deep connection to her home roots and community. Her diverse experiences in the education sector and as an independent musician have emboldened her passions for contributing to the design of education pedagogies and community systems, conducive to creating a more compassionate humanity. It is Mieta's belief that the ability to not only tell our own stories, but tenderly hold and respect others, is essential to walking us all home, humanity and mother. We are all part of a collective weave, a tapestry of story. Okay, here's Mieta's story.

Probably around, I think it would have been around seven, my mum and I moved down to the Mornington Peninsula and we moved in with my grandparents. And that shift and that season of life feels almost like a litmus test for where I feel life began. We moved into this beautiful home that overlooked the bay and so from a life in the city where I was used to lots of cars and people and buildings to wake up in the morning and just see this expanse of blue was such a

privilege and it was this space that was full of Nan's quilts and my pops and artists so we'd have all these paints around and there'd always be somebody popping in from the neighborhood coming to see Nan and it was a very, very special and treasured place and that felt like home, felt like being in a village. Yeah, that was my first memory of home, I think. Why did you move? Why did you move from the city? Yeah, family circumstances changed and my mum sought the support of my nan and pop and yeah mum needed a village so we made one and I could not be more grateful for that decision because my nan and pop are so interwoven into how I perceive my sense of immediate family yeah and it enabled a really beautiful friendship to bloom between between me and both of them yeah can you describe them for me oh uh

nan is this vibrant and emboldening woman when I first moved in with her when we first moved down here the way I would have described her was this woman who walked around in oscillate patterned clothing and she was just fiery and zesty and she still is but now if I was to describe Nan, Nan is just this elegant and graceful gentle yet such a strong and steady energy and I think that was always there through the different iterations of her over time but strong and graceful I think is Nan kind of distilled still has all those fiery elements to her as well yeah she's groovy for for a woman for a woman of her of her beautiful life experience she's just groovy very groovy and graceful my pop is one of the gentlest souls i've met he feels the world and observes the world in such an earnest and and gentle way from the way

that light hits a landscape or from observing someone talking about their passions or reading a poem even just observing people within a space and how they interact with one another. He kind of picks up on all the different intimacies and intricacies of place and people. And when he shares wisdom, it comes from a really beautiful, quiet and still space from within him that, yeah, urges you to slow down too. So to have experienced that as a young woman but especially now coming into womanhood and to still be able to lean into them and learn from them and learn alongside them

they're pretty beautiful mentors and friends to share this life with that's for sure yeah is he a painter he is a painter he's a painter. He paints the Australian landscape. His medium used to be oil and now it's more watercolours. And even to this day, he paints every single day. So they have a deck in their home that we've turned into a sunroom for him. So it's now closed. It's got little kind of plastic blinds that close down on the space and we've put plants all within it and he sits there with

his easel and he watercolor paints every day it doesn't matter what time of the day you rock up he will be painting and I think it's just incredible that a passion that served him so long throughout his lifetime still is how he navigates the world now. And it's that commitment to your craft, commitment to expression. It's just beautiful. It's nice now to be able to go and sit there and draw alongside him and learn alongside him. Very special.

What did that teach you growing up alongside an artist in that way, about art? I think when I was living with them when I was, you know, seven, eight years old, I don't think I fully grasped how impactful it was while I was experiencing it. I think it kind of felt like living in a really cool, colourful playground. And I remember all sorts of little moments of fumbling around and

making mistakes as a kid and things like pop painting in his studio and creating these amazing oil paintings and I would be next to him just outside the door painting and and he'd come out giving little pointers and little bits of wisdom about learning painting and and he'd come out giving little pointers and little bits of wisdom about learning technique and then I'd just start painting the tiles instead and I think being raised in that environment created permission to perceive the world in ways that perceive the world and and how we can walk through the world in ways that weren't necessarily always promoted. So seeing my pop from a young age living as an artist and that just being who he is and how he navigates the world,

no questions asked, it's just what he does. He had a journey to get to that point, obviously, but for that just to be how he navigates the world and that be something that was respected and celebrated among my family, I think that definitely shaped how then I walked through the world because the things that lit me up and made my heart warm and expand, like storytelling and community spaces and cultivating community spaces and that being something that I saw as a fruitful and expansive life.

Being raised in that environment almost provided me the permission to step into what felt right rather than questioning it or trying to pursue other pathways and it also kind of bred a sense of appreciation for seeing that in other people too and seeing the beauty in everyone's we were having a chat about this earlier just seeing the beauty in and the uniqueness and what every single person has to learn and develop within the world and seeing that as a beautiful gift and opportunity rather than trying to confine into something that makes more sense.

Yeah, it was nice to be raised in an environment where expression quite often triumphed over what was sensible. You have to be sensible. Exactly. Life is too short. Life is too short to be sensible. Something I'm also curious about, I met you at Seven Sisters Festival and I saw you singing your songs and, I mean,

everyone in that tent was just blown away by you. It was like watching the sun come out and everyone, every artist on that stage was fantastic. But there was a song that you've written about your grandmother and her garden. I wanted to ask you about that, about gardening and your grandmother. Thank you for the kind words. That was such a beautiful and opening experience being in that space. And still even six months on, it's still opening and revealing new feelings and ways of being and exploring this next chapter of life. But that song that got shared, Eden, is written about my grandmother's

garden. She's always been an avid gardener and tenderer of intimate spaces. I mean, I think her garden is an extension of that. And the of of eden sits around some advice that my nan offered me and she shared with me that in life we have really two options we can either sow seeds or we can let weeds grow and it's our choice how we wish to cultivate life with that knowledge and so eden was written during a time in which I think I chose to let myself be overwhelmed by the weeds rather than consciously thinking about the seeds I was sowing every day with thoughts and interactions and and patterns and behaviors and I think it's a really beautiful invitation from my grandmother and from the wisdom that she's learned being around plants

and watching the ways in which they they can give us so many beautiful directions and invitations in life and it's become part of how I've really tapped into this next chapter of womanhood as a young woman emerging I'm 22 at the moment but emerging onto this next chapter being really conscious of of the garden that I'm creating for myself and what I nurture within it and how I contribute to the gardens of the people I love and whether I'm planting seeds that are going to be fruitful for them or whether I'm letting things grow that no longer serve. I've got something that's kind of coming up but it's sitting in the base of my tummy so I've just got to sit with it for a second. I think what's coming up for me when I think of my nan's garden is the word patience keeps coming up and with what my nan has taught me with her garden

is that patience requires compassion and grace in order for beautiful things to grow and I think that's something that is almost missing in in the way in which we collectively move through the world there's a sense that in nan's garden with this concept of of seed seedlings and and letting weeds grow that when we sow something we almost expect there to be immediate fruit and that's not how gardens work and it's not how plants work and in the same way that we see weeds and we see them as an intrusion that needs to be immediately removed in an abrasive way I think we also forget that weeds were once either seedlings that we'd sown with hope or seedlings that had accidentally found their way into our soils without us noticing

and had grown out of persistence and resilience. And Eden emerged out of a recognition of that patience that Nan showed within her garden. And I think it continues to serve as a really beautiful reminder of intention and waiting and treating with compassion the things that haven't grown the way that we had hoped, but honouring them for what they were and saying farewell to them to enable warmer and more hopeful and more sustaining growth to emerge and that's something I feel I feel as a lesson will continue

to be learned but that's what my grandma's taught me through her gardening in many ways so that was quite a tangent no that was so beautiful and so profound. One of my favourite things about you is this deep sense I have that you're like a tree, like so grounded and reaching upwards but there's a stillness that I think comes when you're someone that notices nature in the way that you do or I can see you do in your work what do you believe about humans and the way they should be with earth and our planet I mean I can only speak from my experience of the world. I think everyone has different ways of tapping into connection

and into forms of source. I know for myself, how I connect to life is by feeling downwards, trying to feel into that sense of deep-rootedness. The way I like to think of who I am as a human or how I perceive the world is that we as humans, we're all threads and we weave into a tapestry and the hold of that tapestry in my heart feels as though it is nature and the trees and country and the lands in which we're on is Bunurong country of the Kulin nation.

And that's the lands in which I've been raised on. And I think we are all part of an intricate weave. And there are many different ways in which we can interact with that weave. There's not one definite path in which you have to contribute to the tapestry. There's so many different ways but I think what a connection to nature does is it enables us to recognize the collective image that we're weaving together and it's one that has to be done alongside nature and alongside its patterns and its ways and its beautiful intricate systems and so when we connect to and we learn from nature and we look up at the trees and the canopies and the and the ways in which even just the little intricate details like the ways in which a tree from the same species they'll create room for one another

in the canopy to enable enable them all to reach sunlight so they don't drown each other out or stunt each other's growth when we look look up, we can learn from that, and we can then move forward as humans and recognize that to give one another space and to hold space for one another like a tree does actually supports everyone to be able to contribute in beautiful ways, or in the same ways that we can just hold our hands to earth for a few moments and sit in stillness until we can feel the swell or feel the surge of what's around us and move

forward with a greater sense of connectedness. And just those little practices, whether it be in tapping in or whether it be in writing in reverie of or wandering among among they remind us of a greater weave that we're all part of and i think that's where the beauty of humans relationship with nature comes from and to realizing that we're part of something we don't have control over this we are part of this and recognizing our role among and within it rather than above it, I think is what nature can teach us. And it's a joy to live life in intimacy with nature, to be honest.

It's the most beautiful intimacy there is, I think. Yeah. Intimacy is the most beautiful word to use in that. To me, this is going to sound very intense it's almost an eroticism which is a really intense thing to say but I I but I just think nature is constantly creating in the business of creation in birthing and dying and the whole cycle. And so that kind of, it's almost a sexual energy and being out there, which I know. Do you know what I mean?

But there's nothing wrong with celebrating the eroticism of nature and eroticism within itself. It doesn't have to be something that is shamed or seen as silly. Like it is beautiful and it is natural and it is, there's a difference between eroticism and something having to be sexual. Yeah. Like it is beautiful and it is potentially, yes, erotic and it's sensual and it's intimate.

And it is in many ways, yeah, it's an interaction of intercourse. You're in intercourse with the world. You're interacting with the world. You're offering and you're receiving and you're creating from what you see and what you observe and what you feel. Yeah. Constantly. Constantly.

Yeah. And, yeah, there is nothing more sensual than a moment with nature it is awesome you get all of the you get all of the senses enacted yeah it's fantastic it's so true there's a great poet that's so funny we've gone there there's a poet holly mcneishaw i love who recently read some of her poetry she's so funny um in the woods in the UK in this beautiful open air theater it's like stone seats in the middle of the trees and she was in the green room and she shared an Instagram she's like I'm feeling so sexy because I'm around the trees and I was like I get that so much because you're right it's all part of it and it's the joy

of it all too and the beauty of it is just overwhelming she has a great poem too about how like different textures and what they how she absorbs the world and touches the world and feels the world and there's so much richness in that as well in that the tiny details of scent and as well and atmosphere around us light the light play like you were talking about with your pop in painting so beautiful it's an invitation into full full felt sense and experience of the world which to touch on i'm not sure how i'm not sure about touching on things that i mean obviously the people listening haven't listened to our conversations but it's it's almost that sense of of to fully embrace life seems and to fully embrace life and senses and all of the beautiful experiences within it is almost something that's frowned upon and it's it's when you fully

immerse yourself in nature and in sensory experience or with an expressive experience and poetry or whatever felt sense it is it's almost feels like it does feel that intimacy in that moment because I think to fully express and feel the world is something that we've become so desensitized to that to recognize it and call it out for the beautiful, luscious, succulent experience it is, seems uncommon. But it's just being. That's what human being can be. Yeah.

And it doesn't cost anything. No. You don't have to do anything else as well. You don't have to do anything in particular. You just go out there and sit. That's all i do you see on the pine needles or like i blame my head against a tree that's it that's all you do and it's the best thing like the thing i wanted to with my life mostly which i think mary oliver wrote some amazing poetry about that. Yeah. About sitting by a river. Exactly.

I know. Tell me where music comes in to that. Music for me feels like the way in which I can, I think, to say make sense of feels a bit too condensing and boxing. Music feels like the way in which I can I think hold tenderly hold the experiences or the experience of being and also honor and create space to fully appreciate and celebrate and hold reverie for the lessons it brings and for the people and the hearts and the souls and the spaces and and communities I get to experience within this life.

Music has always been a form of expression, yes, and it's beautiful to have an outlet to be able to feel through the world and have catharsis and it's fun to perform and it's fun to share stories, but beyond those elements of it, music and whether it's in consuming it and and witnessing other people share their music whether it's writing lyrics and poetry or performing music is really about honoring and holding reverie for all the beautiful and hard and joyful offerings that life brings and I think that's how my relationship even now with music is starting to shift is that I think I used to write the songs that I felt I needed to navigate my season of life because I was like,

oh, I need to write a song about my 17-year-old heartbreak. Yeah, I was going to say it's mainly love songs, right? Yeah, exactly, which is writing lots of love songs, which is naturally what we tend to do because I think it's the easiest feeling for us to tap into or imagine. Yeah. Because, I mean, it's what we all need. Yeah.

We all need connection in some way. But now I think coming on the cusp of what feels like a shift in seasons of life and a shift in understanding why I do what I do and why I'm doing things differently than I have. It feels like music is in service of life rather than service to life, if that makes sense, which could be me at it just pondering in life in weird ways. My favourite thing. Yeah, but I mean the good thing is I guess this can all be cut up.

Sorry to make it a hassle for you to cut. No, because what I love about that idea I think is that you're right you're not kind of in service to even yourself necessarily it's in service of the great the greatness of all things right in making music yeah it's it's yeah I think music doesn't necessarily now like songwriting for me and what I try and tap into when I tap into songwriting. And it can be a song that's just written for me. Like I'm not saying this in like a, I don't want to put it forward as, you know, we write these songs to shift the collective, like at all.

These are songs that you write just maybe for you, but they're in service of life in the sense that it's an opportunity to respect and honor what life has gifted to you in experience it's an in service of that experience and we write to be able to honor what life has offered us so that we can move forward and continue to learn from and move forward with it rather than taking it for granted. I mean, you can have an incredible experience and forget about it two weeks later. You can have a beautiful moment observing a valley

and write a song about it and that song carry you through many moments in life and shift the way in which you interact with the people around you and I think that's the element of being in service of life yeah I love that so much I love that so much can you tell me the story of the first song you wrote do you remember I always wrote little ditties and things like that growing up. But the first time I remember writing a song and really feeling it was probably when I was in high school, maybe around 15 or 16. And I remember my mum had told me a story of somebody that she had come across in life and there was no way in which I was going to come in contact with this person.

It was just, you know, when you meet somebody and they share their story and it really impacts you. And this person really impacted my mum and I think my mum just needed to share it with her daughter so that it didn't land as heavily as it was landing on her. And so mum shared this story with me and it was a beautiful story, a really heartbreaking one but a beautiful one. And I remember sitting with it as a 16-year-old, and I didn't know where to hold it.

I couldn't figure out where to hold it in my body, and I didn't know how to move with it. And so I sat down, and I started writing poetry, trying to feel through what this person may have been feeling, and trying just for a moment to tenderly and compassionately occupy their world. Not with assumptions, but more so from a person to another person, let alone their narrative being their narrative, how might they feel and how might they wish they could be supported or held. And so I wrote this song and it was called Flood. And I remember the hook of it was, and I'm not sure if I'll make it through this flood. And that was wrote this song and it was called Flood. And I remember the hook of it was, and I'm not sure if I'll make it through this flood.

And that was the first song I think I really ever fully wrote through. And I remember I felt really insecure about performing it or singing it anywhere because it almost felt revealing. It felt like I was concerned that if I sung it, people would think that something had happened in my life and that they'd start probing me when it was somebody else's story somebody's story who I didn't even really know and I think that's what's beautiful about music is that it invites us to to explore explore feeling beyond having to know the intricacies of somebody's story every single

time because we can find parts of ourselves in all songs and we can find parts of the people that we love in all songs and that's what this opportunity i think revealed to me in that moment in time and it's still something that i do hold really close to my heart and feel a lot of want for and this person still i still don't know them but I think music and storytelling provided an opportunity to feel that much closer to even a stranger where did you go from there with that with music so when did you start performing I started I mean I was always kind of singing throughout school I was a choir kid for a while the best yeah absolutely me too yep there's always a choir kid hiding somewhere totally um yeah I was I was probably for the

first for the first part of school I was a bit nervous to perform and then I met some really beautiful mentors who opened up music as a form of artistry rather than just performance um so I remember some of the most beautiful things that in those spaces where I wasn't sure whether to perform they'd just go why not just share it doesn't have to be perfect just share all it is is an act of sharing or or they'd say if you can't find a song that you want to sing write one like just things like that which was really cool and it it opened me up to to feeling freer to to contribute to spaces and that's what performing felt like it just felt like a way I could contribute to a beautiful space and so the first performances I did they were were charity events. I was very fortunate.

It was quite pivotal, I think, in bustling up the courage to share. There was a local initiative that was moving through my local community that was raising funds and awareness for breast cancer, and they held all of these gorgeous community gathering events over a series of months. And I got to perform within these little intimate spaces just singing songs in the background but I think performing in spaces where the intention was on community and giving were such warm spaces to have your first experiences of performing because everyone was in a space to just give and support and care.

And we were in celebration of people coming together in service of something that was so deeply interwoven within their hearts. But the first time I ever got to perform my stories, I think it was actually, it was the first time I got, so I'd been playing gigs at that point based on those experiences. I started to gain more confidence and I had fun and I was going and I was playing local venues and I was playing around the campfire at a friend's home and my friend's mum asked me if I'd sing one of my songs around the campfire and it felt like this beautiful vulnerable leap and it felt like almost like a like a stepping stone and, maybe this is another way in which you can contribute to story and people and spaces. And I remember in that space sharing a story and from that noticing

how when we share our stories it opens the people that we love up to sharing their stories. And I think that's when I really fell in love with performing in that capacity. I think I'd always feared it and held this sense of like oh you'll be judged or or you've got to be this kind of person to be able to perform and to be able to be an artist in a musician sense and I think just noticing the ways in which it deepened connection among the people I loved it shifted why we why I perform and my philosophy around why we as humans perform which is really just to connect more

I think that's what I hope I can do through my stories now is just cultivate spaces so I don't say like-minded but like-hearted people to slow down and be able to feel through another person's story into their own worlds and into the worlds of the people around them. I think we've got this really beautiful opportunity when we sit in space and share stories. Music is such a universal way for people to be able to do it. you don't even have to know the language to be able to feel it you don't even have to have lyric to make to make it feel but in those spaces it's almost like you can see the threads between people start to interconnect and it's that it's a pretty effervescent beautiful bubbling feeling when it happens and like you do so beautifully in in the work that you offer within the world and

and the art that you create the stories you share when we perform we show to the people that we love and the people that we're yet to love that it's safe to do so that's so beautiful can you tell us the story of slowly slowly is the simple way would be to say it's a love song but slowly for me when I wrote it so the story of slowly was it was a really vulnerable moment or series of moments that led up to writing slowly I remember I had the home to myself and I was moving through some big feelings and some big shifts and I really struggled to reach out and ask for help. And I messaged a really beloved friend and I sent him a message and said, hey, can you please come around tonight I just I need to be held and I need I need someone to care for me because I I don't think I can do it for myself tonight and that

felt really hard to do and even when this person rocked up I remember them rocking up and they were they were ready to cook me dinner and I'd already made us pumpkin soup and I'm just going you said you needed to be cared dinner and I'd already made us pumpkin soup. And him just going, you said you needed to be cared for and you've already cooked dinner. And this very, very, very cherished friend, which I'll say their name because they're awesome. Their name's Gio and I love them with all my heart. And after dinner, Gio had been playing guitar and he's an incredible musician as well

and he'd been a beautiful storyteller and he had been just improvving and I was watching him in awe just going oh I wish I could improv like that like I haven't tapped into just free flow of expression in such a long time and he sat me down put a guitar in my hands and said you're going to sit here until you can write yourself the song that you need to move through the feelings that you're holding in your body now and he's like I don't care if it feels uncomfortable I don't care if it hurts let it be tender. Just feel through it until you write something that you need for you. And so I sat down and I wrote the chorus of Slowly,

which was, well, I wrote the pre-chorus, which is, it's hard, but I'm trying to give to her and slowly I forgive the old me and sitting in that moment it honestly felt like it felt like coming face to face with all the parts of myself that I'd been giving so much harshness to and just wanted to give warmth to and give a hug to and it felt like it felt like in that space in which I was being held by a friend, I actually took a moment to hold myself and give myself the love song and the song of compassion that I'd been wanting for such a long time and that I wanted to offer my friends and that I did offer my friends whenever they needed support and love but I wouldn't offer myself. So Slowly is a song, it's a song of love but it's a song of compassion

and grace and forgiveness and acceptance. And the continued writing of it came from recognizing that I didn't know how to love myself. And I still don't fully know how to love myself, but I'm learning slowly. And that's okay. And it's been such a pivotal song in my life because it's helped me connect with the women that I really love who have experienced the same thing

and constantly do. It's opened up the connection I have with my mum who is slowly learning how to love herself too. We all are. I think that's why singing it at Seven Sisters felt so opening and it felt like it just cracked open so many parts of my heart because it was the first place I'd ever felt safe to perform it because it felt so tender.

And it's just beautiful because it feels for me it's just a constant reminder it's a constant invitation to open and to trust in being opening of yourself in your heart and and leading from your heart and learning from your heart and experiencing the world from that and having compassion for all the highs and the lows and the in-betweens and recognizing that in the fellow souls that you experience life alongside because we're all slowly learning how to navigate this together and we've all got to give ourselves a bit of forgiveness and one another some forgiveness.

Yeah. I'm just crying. You absolutely feel that when you sing it and i i'm so privileged to have heard it at seven sisters and then to have heard the recording of it too which i know will be out in the world now um when you say so come out and be out there for people to listen to. You're absolutely right. And I think it's a human thing in the culture we're in to not love ourselves. I don't know what it is. And for women, I think it's even deeper. But I think it's actually humans in our particular culture

where there's this deep sense of like not enoughness. And for women, I think there's a particular sense of like not enoughness. And for women I think there's a particular sense of like not being perfect and that inner voice that I don't know where I heard it first, but I feel like my mum has it too. And it's so mean. It's mean. And so hearing your song that the love that we give to others so freely and I know I can see in you you're someone that gives love so freely to others and cares so deeply

for others but the accepting of help the accepting of love when you're that sort of person, it's so hard. It's really hard. And actually, interestingly, I'm starting to learn that it is just as much of a gift to allow other people to care for you as it is to care for them because actually everyone feels better being the person that can offer. Often it's easier. And when you open yourself up in that way, a dear friend of mine became really sick and a friend of hers organized a roster and I watched her with so much grace say exactly what she needed. And then everyone turned up and it was

scheduled. And watching her do that, I saw everyone who had been frozen, who were like, well, I'll make a lasagna, you know, or something, actually feeling so proud and able to help. So for Gio, who's your friend, what a gift you gave him to be vulnerable enough to allow him to help you. You know, I think that that's such a beautiful story. And that song, Slowly, has given me such a gift. I heard it on a day I really needed to hear it.

And I'm, what am I, 38? So you think I've worked a lot on that inner voice, but it doesn't matter. It comes back in because we're just humans and we make mistakes when we don't mean to and we hurt people when we don't mean to. And when you live a heart-led, something I'm just thinking out loud and saying now because that's how I live too, it doesn't automatically mean you still won't hurt people or you won't make mistakes or you won't live up to what you wish

you could be or get it right all the time and that's okay and actually it doesn't mean you've got it wrong by living heart-led and open. That's part of it too. It's something I'm just sort of saying out loud for the first time because I live like that and then when I make mistakes or I do something where I've hurt someone or in parenting said the wrong thing, I think, oh, why am I so heartless or why am I so open or I've done the wrong thing? But actually that's part of it.'s part of it and that is the the wound is where the

light gets in right that cracking open it is such a gift you have given with your vulnerability to put voice to that song and in that moment so thank you really thank you you've been listening to our podcast with me claire tonte and this week with the wonderful mieta so her song slowly is out on all streaming platforms and the second part of our conversation will be out next week i really recommend you going to find her on instagram at mieta.music that's m-i-e-t-t-a dot music. For more from me, you can head to claretonte.com forward slash events for all my events that are upcoming. I'm heading over to Ireland and the UK very soon for the Matrescence Festival.

I cannot wait for that. And I'm also over on Instagram. That's my storytelling platform of choice at claretonte. You can email the show at hello at clairetonti.com. And as always, thank you to Rob Collings for editing this week's episode and to Maisie for running our social media. Okay, go gently, go slowly. Lots of love. Freedom, we want all of it

Spent so long being good girls, can't breathe through it We're gonna rip it up, we're gonna tear it down This cage you want us in no longer fits our crowns Cause we are fire and we can be free We can unlearn all the things that they told us we should be Cause we are fire and we can finally breathe We can unlearn all the things that they told us we should be We can be free

We can be free. We can be free. And don't forget that bodies can break. They want us hungry and humble, thinking our worth isn't our weight. Thought if we starved ourselves to fit their box and fit their mold, we'd lose our fight, stay small, wait to be told That we are fire and we can be free We can unlearn all the things that they told us we should be Cause we are fire and we can finally see

We can unlearn all the things that they told us we should be. We can be free. We can be free. We're gonna rip it up. We're gonna eat it whole. Hear my voice now. We're gonna eat it all Hear my voice now We're gonna take it all We're gonna rip it up

We're gonna eat it all Hear my voice now We're gonna take it all Cause we are fire And we can be free We can unlearn all the things That they told us we should be Cause we are fire

And we can finally breathe And we can unlearn all the things That they told us we should be We can be free We can be free We can be free We can be free We can be free

We can be free We can be free