1:10

Music.

1:30

Tomorrow glatzel and you are listening to the needy podcast.

1:34

Here at needy we are devoted to sharing Frank conversations and true stories about what it means to meet your needs consistently messily and sustainably.

1:44

Needy is a listener funded podcast your contributions and enable us to continue bringing you the delicious conversations you adore without advertisement or interruption.

1:55

To become a member of the needy Inner Circle and to get information about today's episode dance on over to the needy podcast.com.

2:03

Music.

2:09

Everyone welcome back to the needy podcast I am.

2:14

Frankly thrilled to be joined by today's guest Carmen span Yola who I have followed online for a very long time and

2:23

I feel super fortunate to get to share this conversation with all of you.

2:28

Carmen is a Le Cordon Bleu trained Chef turned trauma recovery practitioner clinical hypnotherapist and kitchen witch.

2:37

She is the author of The spirited Kitchen recipes and rituals for the wheel of the Year host of the numinous podcast and the founder of the numinous network.

2:46

And online learning and support portal for people healing from trauma through a cross-pollination of cymatics attachment and nature-based spirituality.

2:56

As a chef author and facilitator Carmen hold space for Renewal amidst turmoil.

3:03

Her work is an invitation to re enchantment Soul nourishment and a deeper and more animistic relationship to the natural world.

3:11

She provides Frameworks and skills to create cultures of collective care and precarious times.

3:18

Yay welcome Carmen welcome to the needy podcast I am so excited that you are here thank you so much for having me this is really exciting for me to feel like this is going to be a juicy conversation.

3:30

Oh gosh it's such a delight I of course the saying to you before we started recording that I have followed your work for a long time and have had the absolute Fortune of seeing an advance copy of your book and I just.

3:43

Well I can't wait to ask you all the things but.

3:46

I guess we'll start with you and really what are you doing mostly why why do you do it.

3:54

Hmm that's a good way to ask that question.

3:57

Well so mostly what I do is I'm an entrepreneur and I don't know if I'm an entrepreneur because I'm unemployable or if I've become.

4:07

Unemployable and therefore all I can do is be an entrepreneur but you know basically well I have a need I have this me to like

4:16

Envision and create and sell stuff that I think will improve people's lives based on what I'm tracking in the culture at large which in this moment

4:25

in time we're in late-stage capitalism late-stage racialized capitalism so I think of stuff I see what I'm tracking I see needs and then.

4:36

When I identify these needs at a cultural or like communal or my own personal

4:42

level if I don't already know how to meet that need then I have a tendency to just go get the best training I can find to better meet those needs so I have training in

4:52

cymatics in attachment in hypnotherapy in various forms of Spiritual Development.

4:58

A certain amount and transformative Justice and so I create.

5:05

Offerings and programs and experiences that I think are going to help people navigate late-stage capitalism and I combined all of

5:14

those trainings and modalities together sort of filtered through that lens of collapse times beautiful in a nutshell

5:22

I love it a beautiful nutshell business cards yeah this we can appreciate that complexity and Nuance here at the new podcast

5:34

so I'm curious what is it look like for you now

5:43

both personally and also as an entrepreneur as a teacher as a writer to meet your needs on like a fairy just normal day

5:55

are you okay on a normal day great because when I am asked something like how do you meet your needs I'm like.

6:04

I don't understand the question like like I can't it's like thought stopping for me I'm like I don't know at what level what does that mean what are you talking about be specific yeah so okay this is it that makes it easier.

6:18

Okay so here's the thing I don't actually get most of my cord he's met I think in certain ways in my day-to-day life it's just not possible for me that I have very strong needs for space.

6:31

Like that is just are defined as a person who is a primary tender

6:37

emotionally spiritually neurobiologically you know I'm a primary person for multiple people so I just can't

6:46

get the need for space met just is not possible so if you haven't figured it out yet as like a recovering avoidant I am a person then who is kind of like a camel.

6:58

Like I can get that need for space met once a year or every couple years like my ideal

7:04

moment of getting my needs met is when I'm on a mountain for four days fasting and there's like no text no phone calls no emails no nothing and I'm like.

7:14

Communing with my kin in a more animist way if I like take it in another step

7:21

if I were to say okay well not in that you know escaping life kind of way what are my needs will have a very strong need for like

7:30

nature but really specifically like a pastoral life like again pretty Alpine with a big Garden

7:37

and Highland cows and Hebrides and sheep and Shire horses and Suffolk punch horses and things like that it's like I get this almost like seasonal on me every spring that I'm not

7:50

looking out the window or like standing on my porch looking at a meadow hearing the bleating of sheep so since I have this visceral emotional need for that and it can't be met

8:00

then I do these other things that I think will ladder me to those same feelings where you know I can meet my needs for

8:09

Beauty for nature communion also self-expression the self expression that comes through work for me like as somebody who is a Quaker there's a saying like let your life speak.

8:22

And so I want my life to be a conversation about worthy labor and Community with

8:30

the more than human world and the other than human world like nature and the spirits of place and so given that

8:39

a partner and a mother and a Community member in late-stage capitalism in an urban environment the way that.

8:46

Do that is by growing roses in the garden and growing enough

8:52

fruits and vegetables that we then have to can it and preserve it being very attuned to

8:58

the seasonal cycles and since I don't have that like large-scale almost like ancestral yearning for like transhumance and like you know going out at different times of year in.

9:10

Mountain Meadows things like that I have to focus very close in so I follow

9:17

lunar rhythms and I follow solar rhythms those kinds of rhythms where I can be

9:23

a wash in what the larger cycles of nature doing and like really let my body and my soul be infused by that just so I can remember

9:32

those larger needs I can't meet them in the way that I would like for them to be met right now anyway but.

9:39

My cells remember so even just last night it's like okay it's coming up on Full Moon so we packed up kind of like silly the Spy bit like

9:49

we've gone three nights in a row to this Lookout that overlooks the ocean.

9:54

So we can see the sunset to our right and the moon rise to the left we actually here where I am on the Klingon territory Victoria BC.

10:03

At the tip of this island we look across the water towards the mountains of Washington State.

10:09

And my husband and I go up there with big wheel burger and we can take a blanket and By Night 3 we were also taking our Back Jack's so we could like sit on something comfortable and we open up the vessel tracker app and we like

10:23

see what shipping containers are coming and going and we drink wine and beer out of our little glass cups and we just.

10:32

Kind of soak in the moment of like what's happening

10:36

with The Byrds what's happening with the grasses what's happening with the sun and the moon what's happening with the ocean what are the people doing so that's like the closest I can get to getting my needs met in like a day-to-day kind of way and since my day as an entrepreneur it's like okay here's all these other needs I wish were being met and since it

10:56

just isn't really possible in capitalism I'm going to

10:59

create work that is at least centering these kinds of needs and trying to like ladder up the skills to be able to create them in more and more people

11:10

I'm so grateful to you for that share because.

11:15

Oftentimes I when I'm working with people about identifying their needs and really figuring out how to

11:23

incorporate more of their needs being met there's always this question of what do I do with needs that I can't meet.

11:31

You know because of the season of life that I'm in because of the kind of work that I do I have myself two small children under the age of 60 which is.

11:41

A lot a lot of my own personal space and auditory sensitivity needs are not met on a daily basis.

11:50

Especially you know coming through the pandemic.

11:53

So sometimes I think we have this propensity to feel despondent or.

12:01

To blame ourselves if we're not able to meet our needs in their fullness.

12:07

And is so generous of you to offer us this middle way for both acknowledging and recognizing and holding the space and the hope for a need while also

12:18

acknowledging the reality of your life and finding finding a way in the middle to be with what.

12:25

Yeah I mean that's a collapse kill isn't it like it's like we try to build the world's that we would prefer but we prepare for the one we actually think we're probably going to get

12:34

like that's that's what I do yeah so.

12:40

Before I even ask you any other questions I know what you mean by collapse but somebody who's listening may not when you say.

12:49

Collapse what are you referring to specifically.

12:52

Yeah so collapse is the result of large-scale converging emergencies so that could be

12:59

ecological emergencies climate change that can be societal emergencies like the rise of the fascist State you know it gave me all these things but we have these large-scale emergencies and they all converge

13:11

and they overwhelm us and the thing about these emergencies is they are large-scale so they are not problems with Solutions.

13:20

They are predicaments.

13:23

They're like impasses it's like we're all trying to get through a narrow doorway call it once anything like there is no

13:30

if there was a solution we would have achieved it by now because these large-scale issues or so pressing and So currently dire for so many so in the face of a predicament we can't.

13:43

Stay in problem-solving mode we have to move towards response mode so it's like given this reality

13:50

how then do I want to show up how then do I want to proceed so collapse is a stage of sort of if I'm talking about it societally I would say deindustrialization where tomorrow is not going to be as bright and shiny as yesterday.

14:05

And we're all going to collapse at different rates at different times but essentially it's like we're all kind of slowly walking down a staircase where we live in 100 years much closer to how we lived 100 or 200 years ago

14:18

so when I'm talking about collapse that's a multi-generational process and we are in it right now.

14:26

Is that how flaw is that depressing for people I don't know I have podcasts on this and people need to like

14:31

it's due on that but that's for a different conversation I don't want to like yeah I jack this Martineau but I think it really is a book of and because something that I find personally so inspiring about your work as somebody who I would say is

14:46

pretty collapse focus at so where is my cellphone yeah.

14:52

Is that you really hold space for both the Despair and the overwhelm and the magic and the Wonder and the awe of the present moment totally at our house we call it the small and delicious life

15:06

it's actually if you think about my needs that's what I'm pointing to right I want like a life that is

15:13

pretty small like it's it's really based on seasons and like what what are the potatoes needing right now like it's not a very complex life

15:23

and for me personally it is very much based around what are we going to eat

15:29

in this drizzly rainy fall that's going to keep us feeling cozy and connected and and nourished at least in our bodies you know what are we going to eat in this really bright hopeful Springtime where

15:43

you know we're not in survival mode anymore and we can start to ideate and envision and you know be generative again and like what will fuel those.

15:52

Creative activities and that self-expression and like same in summer it's like okay

15:58

everything's coming into its peak and it's lushness and its fullness how can I help support that sense of actualization and that will towards expansion that every organism has it some point

16:10

it and then when we come to fall it's like okay here's the reality we need to scale back now we need to pull it in we need to like start preparing because

16:20

The Long Winter is Coming so let's be busy Little Bees working together let's have a pierogi making party let's do this thing and let's have creativity it's not all just like

16:30

what are we going to eat it's like so what would be the ritual that we would do right now so that we can set our hands to this task of moving ourselves and our beloved's

16:40

through this passage of time and I just happened to kind of always filter that through the lens of collapse in terms of like what will make next season even better and when I'm not here what are the skills that my beloved's might find useful to help them navigate when things like don't go according to plan and you know there's surprising disruptions How can I.

17:03

Give them some anchors cultural and interpersonal anchors so that they feel steady enough to meet the moment.

17:13

Yes

17:13

so was this always your outlook

17:21

were you always yearning for a small and delicious life or was there a journey my God from somewhere else oh my God it could not wait to get out of my life for most of my life most of my life

17:34

you know up to 17 when I when I left my home.

17:40

I moved out on my own you know the reason I'm a recovering avoided is because I spent a lot of time alone so.

17:48

I just had these very large inner worlds and I wanted out

17:55

of my very small and lonely life as a child who you know so I was born to my mother who was like just a few weeks into being 19 years old and my.

18:09

Mom so she was the oldest of four girls and.

18:15

I lived with my mom my three Auntie's my grandma and my great grandma in this little house and it was two bedrooms and one bathroom and my grandma had Isabel's Beauty Salon

18:27

in the garage and like the whole world kind of revolved around trying to keep all these mouths

18:34

fed with her huge garden and she is an entrepreneur and you know so this is like the 70s

18:41

and she had been a divorcee there were no men around basically and everybody was busy like my auntie's when they were

18:49

teenagers were like washing hair in the beauty salon and it was like always full of these old ladies smoking with those big dryers on stuff and so like nobody had time.

19:01

Be with a little kid my mom was going through Dental School

19:06

and I just spent a lot of time like singing Shirley Temple songs to myself while I like performed to an audience of zero out in the backfield my aunt had a horse named Coco and I would just like kind of go out and.

19:20

I just I was just like a funeral little kid but you know I would watch.

19:26

Like old-timey movies I watched a lot of soap operas I watched a lot of solid gold I watched a lot of entertainment tonight because you know everybody would kind of like congregate around the TV.

19:37

And there wasn't. A lot of talking there wasn't emotional resonance there is like people who were overworked trying to stay like above.

19:49

Survival level of income and living pretty simply and like growing food also my grandma being an esthetician like she had flowers too

19:59

garden with like you know Revlon red

20:02

claws for her nails she was just like a real glamour puss but there was nobody who is like you know tracking a child

20:09

there isn't a lot of emotional resonance I'm not being met or matched in that way I know everybody loves me but it's very much like.

20:17

Carmen be the model for our Amway makeup stuff we're doing Color Me Beautiful you're going to be the model and like everything was like look how great she does her makeup.

20:26

Or that kind of stuff or like she does great art oh she's known how to read for a long time there was like a lot of praise for performance but there wasn't anybody who's like how are you are you lonely do you want to play should we go to the beach like there was nothing like that.

20:40

So I just kind of grew up with this sense of like everybody's doing their own thing and this thing is not.

20:50

Enough for me I'm not interested in being a beautician or anything like that but definitely the sense of

20:57

yeah there's like a bigger world out there and I got to get out of here was just a very high value for a long time I read Stephen covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in grade 11 and like that became my Bible I was like I'm getting out of here I'm going to be successful

21:12

so that's where you know like I'm in Europe by myself at 17 thinking like okay we'll people who are successful or worldly and they like travel and I had a job and my own apartment at 17 and just kind of figured out like okay this is how you make your way in the world and

21:29

another way I could be more worldly and more successful in the world and have a bit more caches if I had these skills these like aesthetic skills because I didn't think I was smart enough to really succeed I went to University I was accepted at all the

21:43

best universities in Canada but I'd no Community to ladder me nobody in my family had ever been to college half of them hadn't finished high school so like

21:52

I didn't have the community

21:54

support I didn't have people sort of seeing and sensing what I was trying to do and like affirming me so I just kind of thought on this guy have to work my way up and so I went to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris I met millionaires

22:08

I like totally was on that track of like okay so this is how you succeed and then.

22:14

I worked as a sales rep I got out of restaurants I started selling I sold everything.

22:20

So funny I've sold like very Fine Wines like Crystal and all that stuff but I've also sold like

22:26

no name brand dehydrated potatoes like so I have like this sense of being able to like cold call pretty much anywhere and be like hey what are your needs how could I meet those needs that's like a skill that I developed from being pretty Scrappy

22:40

and then there was this huge.

22:42

Financial recession I was kind of at the peak of My Success where I had my own sustainable Goods high-end Home Decor store in West Vancouver and this like very Posh part of town.

22:53

And the thing about a Great Recession is that even if you have very like left-leaning liberals.

22:59

Who want to have an aesthetic of like organic Left Coast kind of Pacific style the first thing that kind of goes out the window in a major economic recession is our

23:11

values like are you glad you go values we go back into kind of like hoarding survival mode so my high end.

23:19

Eco-friendly Furniture Decor store suffered and I went through this bankruptcy and that's when I realized like wow most of my life

23:27

I've been trying to build the safety net and actually it's a myth I am not of the class that has family money that has even like

23:36

relatives who have some kind of house to live in or like asset I don't know a single person with an asset but I'm related to and I just realized like

23:46

oh this is where I am in the social sort of food chain and like where I come from is reality and everything else is like

23:56

something I'm being sold and then once I kind of got through the depression of that I was like oh class analysis

24:03

oh intersectional feminism oh socialist black socialist feminism you know the combahee river Collective this is where this is at because I hadn't

24:14

orientation towards sustainability it wasn't too many steps as somebody like really suffering in a bankruptcy and a recession as a single parent at the time of an infant and a woman

24:25

wasn't too many steps to be like oh this is.

24:31

A peak oil situation that's not going to get better and this is an energy crisis that actually most people are not going to escape.

24:41

Sounds just like a massive reorientation and like 2009 so no

24:46

I have not always had this sense I mean I was already doing quests well then this Quest and stuff in 2007 so I like I did have a very earth-based orientation I am one of those kids who grew up just kind of like playing by myself in the forest making mud pies and

25:02

you know potions from dirt and swamp water and stuff but it took a massive like

25:09

personal crisis for me to go oh my personal crisis is

25:13

is also going to happen in the society writ large and I'm just kind of like tip of the spear culturally speaking.

25:25

Yeah haven't always been like this that's for sure yeah thank you for sharing your story with us I really enjoyed listening to it and.

25:34

I think something that is so interesting about that turning point for you is.

25:42

In some ways that turning towards yourself and for your needs.

25:48

Because when I talk to people about collapse or about those moments where you really have a Reckoning with.

25:56

How you're living and what it looks like and whether it's aligned with your values is that.

26:03

In times of emergency we can tend to think my personal needs don't matter

26:03

it's like

26:13

we need to act we need to do we need to work to change and for people who are my kind of people it's like and also I need to put myself even further on the back burner.

26:27

Yeah I mean there's moments of survival right like there and everything everything in nature is like has the capacity to do that be like oh shit

26:36

the conditions are stressing me all my energy needs to be shunted towards what do I have to do to survive and like that's okay for a while but we can't do that forever and

26:46

unfortunately in late-stage capitalism if you think of it as I said we're like walking down a staircase it means that there's a precipitous drop and then a plateau

26:55

precipitous drop Plateau so when you are in the precipitous drop

26:59

like yelling you can fucking do this just like one foot you just hope you're going to land on your feet right now you're in survival mode but as soon as you hit that Plateau there has to be a recovery period there you you have to be able to like

27:14

collect yourself before you direct your action towards some other step there has to be some kind of recovery mode but I totally empathize with people who are like.

27:23

I am so in it right now that I can't think of one thing I'll say is like.

27:31

Well that's your lot fucking easier if there's a person there tracking you so it's kind of like the less connected

27:38

a person is the more I'm like yeah sure whatever is the like you know easiest survival thing right now I'm not going to give you give you one more thing to do in order to cope if anything we're just going to like take things away and the first thing to take away is the pressure.

27:55

You know like just lift off the pressure and help a person see like oh no you are in a survival moment

28:03

and it totally makes sense that you would go into like deep energy conservation mode and we're just going to try to keep you just this side of

28:12

in you know total freeze or dissociation or like somatic collapse we're just going to keep you very slightly mobilized so you can get to the next step and we're just going to dose the field with as much

28:25

safeness so that you feel like safe and seen and secure and soothed even as you're in free fall and then hopefully they'll be enough safeness that

28:35

this freefall can become more like a falling into a restful.

28:40

Sort of state where you can find some sanctuary and get a little bit of recovery and like hopefully that'll be a need that's met.

28:48

But it's just so much easier if you haven't like I met my

28:51

but we met my partner that I had known for a decade before but we haven't been romantic it was relationships you know my brother at the time was also going through his own personal collapse and so we could

29:02

relate to each other if not get all of our needs met I had a child that I was trying

29:08

model resiliency for I had those privileges but I have a ton of empathy and

29:16

like I almost want to caution people who are very very socially isolated

29:21

who are like really in it and like yes they need to get their needs met but at the same time what's that cliche sometimes the acknowledgement is the healing just being able to acknowledge like wow you are so very under resources and Society is

29:35

bailing you right now you know and your people where are your people like the intergenerational trauma or whatever it is that's keeping you as isolated as you are is a signal of a failure of you you are being failed and this isn't your fault

29:50

very often that is a deep core need is for people to be told this is not your fault and I see you.

30:01

That's what I lead with you know when you're overwhelmed adding a thing to do I just understand that you know what would be good for you but instead you just reach for a box of you know Nerds candy and let it pour into your mouth I just did a tech talk yesterday about that that's why I say that but it's like I get it I really got it

30:18

when people feel overwhelmed at the thought of meeting a need for themselves.

30:23

Well and it strikes me kind of coming back to what you were saying at the beginning even.

30:30

When you're not able to meet the fullness of your needs acknowledging and holding that vision for the fullness of your needs.

30:37

And even naming the feelings or the experience of not having those needs met.

30:42

Is so validating versus the complete refusal of.

30:49

Turned out not allowing ourselves to even know a thing if we can't have it satisfied well can I say like from a

30:57

you know I know that sometimes like when you're a hammer everything is a nail but like as a

31:02

person who does filter things through a lens of like a fairly modern fairly like transformative Justice oriented.

31:10

Lens like I filter attachment Theory through that to the way I think of attachment theory is a I think I'm much more synthesized and like ecosystemic maybe holistic is a better way than anyway

31:23

it's a different way of thinking about attachment Theory but basically what I'm saying is when I hear you say that that like yeah it's so good it feels so good and validating to know what your need is I'm like yeah for a whole bunch of people that's true and for myself.

31:35

As a recovering avoiding the doctor it's like actually if you've grown up in an environment where.

31:43

Just the default is your need is not going to be met either because people are like too busy they're not tracking you or it could be like pretty extreme like abuse or whatever but I just made like the default is that like

31:54

you are not going to be met and matched the people who are supposed to be doing that for you

31:58

do not have the knowledge skills or capacity to do that for you and so what happens is you realize oh if I have a need I'm gonna have to meet it for myself

32:07

and that just feels like another task to do why the fuck would I even have needs if the I just have to meet them for myself like so.

32:15

It kind of is like I'm busy here performing to earn praise which is the substitute.

32:22

Contact nutrition for what I actually need which is like these other psycho spiritual or emotional needs and so

32:29

if you're a person whose default was I don't have time for your needs or I don't even understand them or they're not that important get it together.

32:37

Then eventually you just turn down the signal on your needs so that you don't feel awareness of having these and overtime

32:45

that's Soma ties into other things you're like oh I'm a person with IBS or oh I'm a person with like who's a workaholic or oh I'm a person who's like a high-performance individual and multi passionate person or whatever so you like Channel those needs into something else and maybe it turns up as some kind of physical ailment or turns up as some kind of thing that sort of turns your energy but

33:09

then when a person is like what you need what you need you go to therapy or you go to these workshops and you find me identify yeah have a need it just feels like.

33:19

But what the fuck good is that like I know it's not going to be right that's the default I know it's not going to be met and that's just going to be one more fucking thing I have to do and so I will accomplish tasks

33:29

in order to demonstrate

33:32

love or tracking or Attunement with others and you know and that's how I make myself feel well-regulated is accomplishing tasks that I know are going to make people's lives better or make my life better.

33:46

And so then when confronted with these like deeper emotional needs

33:50

that can just feel really impossible but also pointless like what is the point so you have to develop a relationship first with yourself that it's okay to have a need and that needs aren't like needy right they're not frivolous they're not frivolous to have

34:05

and then once you can like

34:09

really truly feel like Yad needs are not frivolous to have then there is this kind of thought stopping question so what are your needs and then

34:20

you know like again I like really empathize with people who are like I don't fucking know like a wave like this is like a few had a million dollars magic one kind of question I don't think in those terms unless I'm like doing something

34:33

unless I'm tasking in the same building as I'm creating so I guess I'm just speaking to all the

34:39

I don't know if you have very many avoidance listening to this podcast Maura because by now they're like I don't get it I have I have a lot in my very own personal life.

34:50

They'll be like yeah what she said maybe he's just asked but I have to do myself it's just a lad I guess what I'm trying to say is there's this like condition tendency that is like very old and very entrenched and it's like its cellular and and that can just take

35:09

a lot of time and reinforcement and safeness and I use a lot of humor I work with a lot of avoidant type folks and I think

35:19

they like working with me on their relationships like on on secure attachment because I'm like oh yeah no I totally get it I totally understand that like

35:28

this feels like a pointless conversation and that it's just a whole paradigm shift that needs to happen around needs and you know and then after a while.

35:39

You do have to get to the place where you like oh I don't have to meet every need in other people and even in myself

35:47

there are some things that are needs that are so strong that right now our dreams and maybe those are the ones I'm going to work towards and then there are some that probably are never going to happen in my life and then I can develop some grief literacy around that but I don't have to hold everything I can just sort of organize them until like

36:06

what's feasible and realistic what's like really mission-critical what are dreams what our griefs what are things that I want to move towards and reach towards them because I really actually do care about them and I can't

36:18

I can't leave that down and things that are just like oh I have to really grieve that because that you know that thing that I

36:26

really really wanted and didn't ever get that need that I have had since I was born and is never been acknowledged or Mets probably never going to be acknowledged or man

36:35

and so I need to look elsewhere for some soothing for that.

36:41

This is is this a bummer I don't know this is about on your podcast about everything okay here absolutely her mission to bomb people out now it's like I've written this book and it's actually very uplifting but there's like definitely this is where it

37:00

it's being written from well and I think that's part of why your work is so resonant for people

37:07

you know I know a lot of people who are huge fans of your work and I would say that's that's one of the reasons why and.

37:17

As you were talking I was thinking about how

37:17

this idea of when you don't know what you need.

37:24

But you have to eat

37:27

like this idea of feeding yourself both literally and figuratively like this this way of building a relationship with yourself through your kitchen which is something that I very much see you doing and

37:40

I'm curious about that for you as an entry point into your relationship with yourself how that.

37:47

Just how that's blossomed wow that is such a great question because yes I went to Le Cordon Bleu because I wanted to be

37:55

different and better than myself right like I did not grow up with a very strong tradition around food.

38:02

Because what I described everybody was busy surviving and yet I had friends we're eating and entertaining was like a big part of

38:11

their ways of being in the world now I would say identities right.

38:14

And so I was so captivated by that and it was such a different experience my experience growing up the table with like an alcoholic stepdad who.

38:24

Loathe me really he really did hate me like as I got older he let me know more explicitly but I just felt it ever since he was in my life at like 5 years old so the dinner table was like a site of trauma

38:35

for so long and I just kind of knew that I was like oh wow there's this other way of being where people come together

38:41

gather over food it's like really beautiful and so I left home and I got.

38:47

Martha Stewart entertaining it she had this like big like coffee table size like kind of cookbook goes before she had a magazine I think or maybe they coincided but

38:58

it's written in like maybe 87 or 89 and I bought it

39:03

be like you know this is very young like 17 year old who couldn't make grilled cheese and and I was so captivated

39:11

with how she cooked with her daughter Alexis and she had chickens and all that kind of stuff so I definitely did the whole.

39:19

Fantasy thing like a fantasy vision of what it could be like and over time as.

39:27

You know got to see how different people lived I was like oh you know like these like Millionaires and stuff I was a personal chef and they

39:36

no just like the way they were with food seemed now I would call it performative and I would call it contrived and I would call it just kind of like soulless

39:45

you know I'm not saying they weren't like really really lovely people I did have some lovely bosses but

39:50

but it just seemed very soulless to be like eating out on the high seas in this like Hotel on the ocean and so I realized like I needed to find my way

40:01

it wasn't until I had a child that I was like oh I like let me feed you

40:10

like physically emotionally spiritually and then it just kind of clicked that I was

40:17

like oh the diet culture I grew up with all that stuff like I'm just never doing that again I'm just never doing that again so I suddenly had this like very strong other motivation.

40:27

And then as my spiritual.

40:30

Yearning started being I had more agency a little bit older I started to make some money so I was able to go on these quests like Wilderness excursions and things.

40:39

I started to recognize myself as part of an ecosystem that I am an animal.

40:45

Eats I'm an animal that kills I'm an animal also that grows and tens and produces and stewards

40:54

like that was that kind of ancestral peace coming alive of coming from generations of impoverished like Scottish Highlanders who were subsistence Farmers right and so over time that has become more and more of like

41:09

the pulse of my daily life and then I met my partner who knew how to do things like canning which my granny always did but like nobody taught me nobody had time because they were just like doing shit and I left so early.

41:22

So that sort of sense of self prominent ER and the pride in that that has grown over the last 15 years for sure and then more recently my staff around food is like

41:36

you know that. The smallest unit of society I think they used to there's like I don't know in sociology or something else like the smallest unit of a society is a heterosexual couple or fifth the family or something like that and I'm like no the smallest unit of society is the meal

41:50

whether this is like a you know a bear eating berries or cougar taking a rabbit or a human you know sitting with their almond smoothie like

42:01

this is a kinship this is an interrelationship this is an ecosystem

42:07

that you are engaged in and so that is a moment of like.

42:14

Spiritual communion if I let it be and at the same time

42:17

here we are late stage racialized Davalos I'm like I don't fucking have time to always do those things and so yeah my favorite

42:25

snack is pepperoni and like Twizzlers I could like live on pepperoni and Twizzlers you know yeah I'm like anyone else is like oh yeah I just like love an iced latte in the morning and.

42:38

Not everything is curated if I can put it that way but man do I love the experience of bringing people together around a moment in time.

42:51

Very often you know something that is peaking in the garden or or like I said very often around something solar like what is happening with the sun and the season right now and then just like running with that theme it's it really

43:05

meets my need for for self-expression and creativity and communion with with the greater forces like that is what.

43:15

Culture and civilization that perpetuates is built on is coming together over the meal

43:22

so that is that's been a long hard lesson to learn and you know not one that I'm doing like so romantically or with great flourish and Artistry all the time.

43:36

But if I don't get that if I don't get like a really well presented

43:42

steak and potatoes and like glass of wine with at least some kind of like let's say lunar regularity I get pretty cranky.

43:52

Yeah it's so interesting to hear you talk about that curated piece because I mean.

44:01

At distance the impression of you is this like.

44:04

One aesthetic Perfection but that like a part of what feeds you and meets your needs about your work is the aesthetic piece.

44:14

Well I have a very strong sense of what the gaels called the fitness of things it's like a very strong

44:21

like Scottish gallic

44:24

like the Scots are like famous at least before the last century after the imposed starvation by the British colonizers that the Scottish were famous for their hospitality and that there is a very strong sense of the fitness of

44:39

things like how you do a thing how you present the thing and like generosity it's actually pretty close in the clan system pretty close to what we would call here the Potlatch system in North America what's known as North America so I think that runs deep in me and you know.

44:55

Like my grandma was like

44:57

The Beautician who sold the Amway and did Color Me Beautiful and stencil like I have a very strong sense of like yes there are things that like fit and are kind of aesthetically pleasing for sure at this like the shows up very strongly for me with my roses I

45:13

like Martha Stewart entertaining the she has like a whole section she had an early Magazine on with was then being called cabbage roses which we would Now call

45:23

the old English style Rose which is really David Austin Roses I know why so I like and the 20-year romance with

45:32

cabbage roses and in the last 10 years that I've had this like we rent this Urban plot that has enough space for me to keep buying more roses they just become like like a very strong center of gravity in my life and like I have a very strong medicinal relationship with them

45:50

I just love fretting over them and tending them and they are a big part of my aesthetic you know

45:55

you can't have the Roses without thorns and the black spot and the pests and all that kind of stuff you really have to be out there every day kind of like watching a tuning and then when they produce it's just

46:06

endlessly marvelous and just like the aesthetic overloaded so ecstatic I derive a lot of pleasure from a certain kind of aesthetic that it's true.

46:17

Well and there is something that you couldn't possibly know about me which is my partner and I have planted since being exposed to your work and

46:26

your rose love many David Austin Roses and ARA which ones do you have which ones do you have I am such a beginning baby plant tender I could not even tell you except that they're beautiful and I chose them because I thought that they were pretty

46:42

and it is a it's a whole learning curve that we are on did you get them in the last few years because of course the thing about Rose production is they only have so many you know it's a very long sales cycle so it's almost like fashion it's like we have a season and so they'll have these like certain.

46:58

Pieces that come out it's like they only have certain varieties that come out for a certain number of years and so if you bought it in the last few years I'm like

47:05

scanning my mind be like I wonder what they get on the East Coast anyway this is like a whole different thing but I am like over the moon thrilled that based on the Roses you've gotten some and you know it's a whole different Zone growing on the cape

47:18

am I growing in a maritime condition I just really feel for you because wind staking and tying your roses and making sure that you prune especially your standards low enough I just had that problem this year where I didn't prune my standard roses low enough and then they got

47:32

big and beautiful and then the wind came in and they all you know broke like.

47:37

Anyway sorry I'm like taking this in a different direction so it's grateful and for me it's been so much a practice of.

47:44

It's really slowing down and focusing on things and I'm not a Natural Gardener though I do come from a line of very

47:54

wonderful gardeners but yeah like tending to plants especially during these years of tending to small children has been a real challenge but this is but it is an important one to so well and timing is so important

48:07

the thing with roses is timing you have to watch like what's happened with the weather and like that one

48:13

it's like humidity and if you don't get out in this like window of time to tend to them fuck now you're just dealing bigger problems later and that takes so many seasons to learn so like that whole like.

48:25

What is the gravity the center of your world and like if roses are going to be the center of your world you have to have like a very small kind of rhythm of like yes I do

48:34

something takes me out to the Garden every day or every two days no more than three

48:39

or I'll be dealing with problems anyway sorry have me on another time to talk about my business I love it I'm going to have my partner listen to this entire episode because they are really going to get a lot out of it.

48:52

Well we are going very quickly nearing the end of our time and I want to tell people about your book because it's.

49:02

Really magnificent and I said this to you before but you know in looking through it and in knowing your work for a while it is such a generous beautiful.

49:16

Like tangible thing.

49:18

That people can hold to dive into this work and I would just love for you to share a few words about why you created it.

49:27

Sure thank you yeah it's called the spirited Kitchen recipes and rituals for the wheel of the year

49:34

and it is what I was calling it an animistic kitchen which cookbook my publisher was like what is that but and I'm like okay so I mean what I would say is this is a book for.

49:48

Radical which has adventurous Cooks people who are craving maybe they've started with something like 100 mile diet and now they are craving more like they do more seasonal eating and that sort of thing and it's the kind of cookbook that will help you find grounding and joy.

50:07

In these times through this honoring of observing the seasons and so it's essentially.

50:15

Eight micro seasons of about six weeks long based on the wheel of the year which is while I go into it in the book but.

50:23

Would I really want to convey about it is that it's based on both recipes and rituals you could do with these menus and yes I went to Le Cordon Bleu so I wanted to create something that had some very.

50:36

Exciting maybe you'd call them challenging more advanced recipes and also some that are so simple and accessible like pretty much every recipe I'm thinking of a person I know like it's the first one that I know and love

50:48

the reason I created it is because I like to be honest I could say a lot of things about philosophically about like a medicine for the world dot a DOT.

50:56

But actually as a person who consumes a lot of spiritual literature

51:03

and is very interested in ritual and trying to create a tradition that I did not grow up in that is useful in Modern Times And also like works with my.

51:17

Need for autonomy and self expression and my needs for like social justice I don't want to appropriate and all that kind of stuff but also

51:25

this deep aesthetic need you can find a million Wheel of the year books you know the witches where we are the wicked will they are the year of

51:32

blah blah blah and they're all just black and white text and sometimes they have like line drawings of like and now here's how you'll set up your altar and aesthetically I just always found that so unsatisfying and like a recipe that doesn't have a picture

51:46

anyway so like as a person who grew up.

51:49

Pouring over Martha Stewart's like large-scale coffee table books and like Martha Stewart Living magazine I wanted.

51:58

Witchcraft and animism book that was a cookbook that had the aesthetic where you can eat with your eyes and it's that kind of.

52:09

Appeal to my visual cortex was like a thing that is in need that I had that I never found in these books and so if you didn't know what the title was you would open it up and you'll be like oh wow this cookbook actually has some cool crafts in it.

52:23

And that's what I wanted I can think very specifically of all the people that

52:29

helped shape my aesthetic and that I would want to make them proud and I would want it to be really really beautiful and I just have to say my dear friend Stephanie

52:38

Rahal who was the photographer we did like 30 photo shoots in 12 months

52:44

and she just makes my very average Cottage size home look really awesome like really beautiful so

52:53

it actually really is very accessible but she just

52:57

I don't know she just works wonders with light but that's what I wanted I have all these books that are like the Pagan wheel the year the Pagan Rites of Passage and they always just are honestly like a little Dowdy

53:09

and I will I'm like show me I love that's why I love Instagram I love seeing people's Alters I love seeing

53:17

you know what people have cooked I love seeing their Gardens and also like the messy pantries and like shitty you know stuff in the laundry room I love that too and I do try to do my best to like

53:29

not have two curated of a quilt and you know like yeah I show stuff but I like.

53:35

I don't have like really good curls in my hair and I don't always wear makeup that kind of thing but I do love a good Feast for the eyes and so that's why I created this cookbook really

53:46

I just wanted to change that like cool kind of metaphysical spiritual I was like wow this entire section of the bookstore is like unaware of Instagram

53:56

what the hell's Happening Here on these things haven't met and so

54:02

yeah I was like no I want to see it I want to see your Alters I want to see your craft show me your spell jars and so that's kind of what I did I was like here's what I do and let me show you in full color.

54:12

That you're going to go back to again and again and again did you know that the average cookbook people only cook three things out of a cookbook that they buy.

54:21

I do believe that yeah people buy it as it's beautiful yeah yes it's a you know and so you take it off the shelf hopefully again and again and again to do

54:30

you know different recipes I really do hope people try more than three things

54:35

that was kind of the thing that I was like oh wow no that's not enough I mean people to me like this is a book that's going to be useful for them for years that it would take them a lifetime to actually do every single thing because they find a few that they love and they just do them again every year

54:49

that's that's what I want. Well it's funny because hearing you talk about it I'm remembering back to an offering that you used to have where I don't believe you still have it where you would make books for it and there were like sewn in.

55:04

Compartments yes that was for the numinous school I had a textbook for the numinous school and if any listeners remember the Griffin and Sabine series written by Nick

55:14

can't talk so I printed the textbook and then there would be like an envelope inside in the like divination

55:20

chapter and then you would open it up and there'd be an oracle card in there you wouldn't know what it would be in like and there was like little sachets of homemade incense and there was like a feather that had been dipped in aromatherapy that was scented that you could use for your transfer actual stuff yeah that program ran for like seven or eight years actually

55:37

yeah anyway I'm so thanks for remembering that well that's a court that's clearly a core need of mine you know that like

55:47

it's not even just like a curated aesthetic it's it's not even that it's beautiful it's just that it's a so specific

55:54

the vision and the execution and very thoughtful oh yeah it's very.

55:59

Fig is very thoughtful it's very symbolic it's very meaningful that's really my whole Jam I'm kind of like a whole nine yards person that way and I love it you know

56:07

going back to your first question about like so what are you do it's like well basically I build worlds I've been doing that since I was a little kid where I have this like very large inner world and then I try to translate it to others and it's really all just a way of saying like want to come to my party.

56:20

Well they come into my world you know mmm yeah yeah come hang out with me yeah.

56:27

Well I feel like we pee it's so meaningful and I am just so grateful to you for sharing everything that you have today and this episode is going to come out in August your book comes out in October right.

56:40

October 31st and there's really beautiful pre-order bonuses thank you for having me on the show Mara and also thank you for what you do if you know speaking for myself and Legions of recovering avoidance and I imagined for

56:54

you know folks who are a little bit more anxious around needs High me no way of knowing that your needs matter.

57:05

Is just like you just can't say it enough so thank you for letting your life speak and letting people know that their needs really do matter and if their needs matter it's because they matter so thank you.

57:17

Thank you so where can people find you

57:20

where can I find your book tell us that the places you hang out yeah I mean Carmen spend yo Le Duc cam come look at my bangs on Tick-Tock because I'm new on Tick-Tock and I love it it's so fun and on Instagram just add Carmen's been Yola and the book is the spirited kitchen

57:36

and that is available everywhere online awesome and the bonuses are available until October 30th and you know if people are like

57:45

I don't know having a party or if there's people who are hosting Retreats and things and they do like more of a bulk by I want to know who they are because of course I want to thank them and as you

57:55

implied I have like thoughtful things that I would like to thank people so

57:59

you know like comment on my Instagram sign up for my newsletter and then respond to a newsletter like let me know if you love it because I want to connect with you we obviously we are resonant you know so I would I would love to thank people somehow.

58:14

So they have to like identify hi

58:17

work it's like well let me know because I want to I want to thank you somehow so yeah they can just come into my world either through Instagram or my website you know sign up for the newsletter but yeah if you buy the book.

58:31

Then you just come back to my website and you can get the bonuses awesome well thank you so much Carmen.

58:40

Thanks Mara is real honor to be here.

58:42

Thanks for listening to the Nene podcast with Mara glatzel if you want my support and learning how to nourish your needs

58:52

dance on over to the Nene podcast.com to take my quiz to figure out what you need right now and how to meet those needs with a greater sense of ease and confidence.

59:01

If you love Today's Show please leave us a review on iTunes and consider joining the needy Inner Circle where your monthly contribution enables us to continue bringing you the delicious conversations you adore without advertisement or interruption.

59:15

To become a member of the needy Inner Circle and gain access to the inspiring behind-the-scenes treats we've whipped up for you skip to the knee podcast.com.

59:24

And as always permission loves company so if there's a human in your life that you think would benefit from this conversation I will be so grateful.

59:33

Music.