Finding Space for Ritual, Grief and Stillness with Yarrow Magdalena

“Grief doesn’t have to eat us alive.”

Today's guest Yarrow Magdalena shares practices of ritual, finding ways to be with grief, moments of forced stillness, getting off of Instagram, cocooning, embracing the idea of “enough” in a world that encourages constant production, and the gift of looking from the margins.

Yarrow is a queer craftsperson living a soft & slow life in Scotland. They help folks find creativity & belonging in nature through ritual, the creative nature podcast, and art and group programs.

we discuss

(9:47) How ritual doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be small, simple acts that remind you of what it means to be alive
(10:23) A short summary of their book “Rituals - Simple & Radical Practices For Enchantment In Times Of Crisis”
(12:08) Mary Grace on ritual as a way of honoring the embodiment of her experience
(16:07) “Grief doesn’t have to eat us alive.” Yarrow offers a small grief practice
(18:49) Water as another medium to work with grief
(20:00) Maybe comparing our pain to other’s pain is not the most constructive way to interact with it in the moment
(21:17) On how beautiful stillness can be; how ritual widens and deepens our capacity to deal with stillness
(22:17) On their experience with Instagram
(29:39) “Technology can sometimes facilitate consumption without digestion.”
(34:42) Cocooning allows for sacred transformation
(39:04) Yarrow on living cyclically, making space for contraction and stagnation and then the joyful spring of building
(39:30) On cultivating the value of not knowing, taking breaks
(39:51) To accept that endless growth is a capitalist illusion
(40:00) “Human bodies are not made to be in endless growth.”
(44:49) Queerness and seeing from the margins