What Is Our Wild, New Work?
It’s late Spring, life is busy, the fruits are on their way, and I’m wondering how we can use the momentum of this time to stretch further into new futures for ourselves. In this episode of A Wild New Work, I explore what “A Wild New Work” could mean for us right now and share some updates for the podcast.
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Introduction
Welcome to a Wild New Work, a podcast about how to divest from capitalism and the norms of modern work and step into the soulful calling of these times we live in, which includes the call to rekindle our relationship with the earth. I am Megan Leatherman, a mother to two small kids, coach, writer, and amateur ecologist living in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm your host today.
Hi friend. Welcome. I'm so glad that you're here that we get to share this time together. It is Gemini season. The sun is in the sign of Gemini. This corresponds to the lover's archetype in the tarot. Gemini's an air sign, we're in late spring, there's a lot to talk about!
There's new energy. The light is continuing to grow as the sun strengthens all the way up until the summer solstice. And I have found myself lately wondering, "is it okay to want to be busy right now?" What do I do with this extra energy that I have, which is so rare? And where does it go? Is it, is it okay to want to be doing a lot right now?
And that got me thinking about some changes I've been wrestling with sort of internally and with the work that I do. And curious about what "wild new work" even means and how it is changing for me. This guidepost, this name that sort of encapsulates the work that I do in the world right now. And I wanna share a little bit about how that came about, how that's evolving and what it has to show us about how to engage with the energy and color and scents of this time in the cycle of the year. So I will also share a couple of podcast updates at the end of the show, um, just because I want to. So before we dive in, I will read our opening invocation and you can just take a big deep breath. Notice where your body is in time and space. You might notice the sounds around you. May each of us be blessed and emboldened to do the work we're meant to do on this planet. May our work honor our ancestors known and unknown, and may it be in harmony with all creatures that we share this earth with. I express gratitude for all of the technologies and gifts that have made this possible, and I'm grateful to the Cowlitz and Clackamas tribes among many others who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on.
Orienting to Late Spring
So I'd like to start by sort of orienting us to this point in the cycle of the year, although what I'm gonna share today is applicable at any point in the cycle. But I wanna kind of ground us in where we are in this moment, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. So the sun is in the sign of Gemini. Gemini is a mutable air sign.
It comes to us at the end of the spring season. It's carrying us into the summer. Every air sign, water sign, fire sign, earth sign... you know there are three of them each in the Zodiac. So there's Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius. They're all air signs, but they each have their own different kind of, flavor, or type of air.
You know, Libra is a Cardinal air sign. It's at the beginning of the season. It's this initiation. Aquarius is a fixed water sign. It's in the center. There's this stability to it. Gemini is a mutable air sign. So again, it's at the end of the season, it's transitioning us into something else. And I sort of like to think of it as the air that's coming off of all of the pollinators' wings right now. Or the birds that are migrating. Just think about the amount of air that they are pushing through, moving, transforming, gliding on. There's a lot of movement right now that we may not be able to see or even perceive, but it's happening all around us. Gemini is often symbolized by the twins.
And you know, I have twin sisters who are younger than me and they are very similar. They're identical twins. So to someone who doesn't know them, they look like one person, they look the same. But once you have a relationship with them and know them, you can see that they are also very much their own people. They do not look the same to me. And so I sort of think about that in terms of Gemini, that sometimes what we perceive as one thing is actually multiple things. That there is a duality and a complexity to this universe, to us, to all living beings. That things that we might think are one way, it's either a yes or a no, or it's this, or it's that, Gemini kind of comes in, all these pollinators are moving all of this air, the twins are here, and it's obviously more of a both / and kind of time - that this can be true and this is also true. And it's really important at this point in the cycle, and all the time really, but especially now I think, to pay attention to the messages that we receive through the ether. To really trust the symbols and signals that we get throughout our days. To pretend if we have to, that we have this radio frequency that we're tuned into and it's our unique channel, our unique conversation that we're having with the universe and life around us.
And that there's a lot happening on the airwaves right now, and that can be overwhelming. But if we can sort of balance all of the activity with a lot of centeredness and coming back into that little hive or that little quiet pocket in the flower and sort of rest our wings, then we can discern what messages are meant to be acted upon and what is just part of the vibrancy of this time.
Gemini, of course, also corresponds to the lover's card in the major Arcana. It's the point in the fool's journey when we begin to see ourselves through the mirror of relationship, where we begin to learn differently about ourselves by how we are perceived, how we show up in relationship to another, learning what it means to be in those relationships, to be a mirror for someone else and being diligent about what we're both receiving from others, and I'm including the more than human world in this, but also what we are putting out and what is the exchange, what is the conversation, what is the, what is reciprocity like for us right now, and can we see that I am both myself and I am also all of life around me. And bringing in that both / and again, and letting the seemingly rigid sort of separation between us and the rest of the world kind of fall away or get fuzzy right now and feel into how this massive journey of pollination and migration and all of the change and alchemy that's happening right now - it can also be happening, is happening in us, to us, through us, that we are a part of that.
And so alongside Gemini and the lovers, we're of course in the late spring time, the light is growing, the days are getting longer, there is more energy, and you might find yourself breathing that in and wanting to be more active, and there's nothing wrong with that. You know? It's a wonderful thing that many of us are finally talking about slowing down and doing less and focusing less on what we do, but more on just how, what it is to be in this world. And that's beautiful. And if you have done the work of the fall, And the winter, if you really shed your leaves, if you really rested and integrated, if you gave the seeds in the soil time to rest and germinate and alchemize, then go for it.
If you have this extra vitality, let yourself have it. Enjoy it. Be busy. Be out in the world. Stay up late. Meet new people. Go for sunset walks, or get up early. Wear yourself out in different ways, but do it for the right reasons. Do it in a way that honors this late spring time. And that's what I wanna offer today: some ways that you can do that so that it's not just about being busy, like culture tells us to be busy, but it's about being busy in the ways that the natural world is inviting us into. And if you find yourself sort of shirking at the idea, then this might be a great time for you to learn different ways to be active and to honor the energy that you have that might be in excess right now in ways that actually create more of it and sort of build up your energy stores rather than deplete you.
How “A Wild New Work” Came About
I wanna tell you a little bit about how this term "a wild new work" came to me. It was 2016 and I had been doing mostly HR consulting, and by this time I had started coaching and seeing people one-on-one for career work. But a lot of my work had been centered around more how to like survive or make the most of, or just how to be in like traditional workplaces while also honoring people's need to grow and change, and I had decided I wanted to do this four week workshop where I would start to experiment with some of those ideas in more earnest, but stepping a little bit farther away from kind of the HR talk and more into kind of soulful, earthy language. I was very pregnant with my first child, Wyette, my daughter, and my therapist, who is wonderful, offered me a space in her office. She let me rent it out for these four Saturdays, and I know some of you listening were at this workshop series, which is kind of mind blowing, but this was where I started to step into this different cycle. And I, I remember I was preparing for the workshop - I had, you know, the outline, I had what I wanted to talk about. I was working on the workbook and I knew that I needed a name for it, and I was kind of brainstorming and just trying to stay open. And, you know, naming programs - if you don't work for yourself - is like so hard and annoying and it's like important, but you can really get yourself into a tizzy trying to come up with like the perfect name for a thing. And I remember, I, I don't know where it landed, but I remember I was just not doing anything, not trying to find the name, I was just going about my day. I might've been at the grocery store and this term, "a wild new work," just plopped right in as they so often do.
And I remember thinking, "oh!" It sort of surprised me because at this point I hadn't like, Super identified a nature kind of theme in my work. It was definitely bubbling and coming up, but it wasn't like the primary focus. But that term just like really landed. It was like, oh, okay. Yep. So that's what I named it.
We did the workshop. It was lovely, lovely people there. And I think I offered it one more time as a workshop and then by 2018, it just felt like the term wanted to be bigger. It wanted to take up more space in my life and in my business. It felt like the right guidance or anchor for my business as a whole.
And so I adopted it as that. I filed an LLC under that name and a new cycle begin where I was explicitly working with these themes of wildness and nature and whatever new meant at that time in terms of like the edges of work, and for me it really has always had that vibration of being at an edge, being close to what we have forgotten as humans, but still very much have inside of us. It's a guidepost for me. It feels more aspirational than concrete, you know? And it's changing again. What I love about this term, which again, I don't feel like I created, it just came to me. It just landed. But what I love about it is that it's so big that I can change inside of it. And I think that's really important for any of you and your work - that it be large enough that you can evolve inside of it. Whether it's a business that needs to be big and spacious enough for you, or an art practice or a job title or a construct you have about your career or who you are, it just needs to be spacious.
And if it's not, then you might be bumping up against the need to find something that is, that is big enough for you. And so for me, right now, I feel myself more and more drawn to the big work of reconnecting to the earth. Of really learning how to live differently in the face of climate change, how to cope with collapse in ways that lift us up instead of hurting us.
How to be inside of capitalism and have our bills, and have all the things that we have, and not have great access to healthcare, and be in this place that is disintegrating called the United States and how to be in that in a good way, but also continue to pull away and divest from what so often keeps us disconnected, which are these jobs or this pressure to work or this just insanity of putting all of our life force and energy into this thing that can't actually feed us.
It might give us an income, but it's not enough. And so I know that that won't happen overnight, and I know that might not be everyone's path or their story, but I'm really interested in exploring how we can do that, how we can do the work that is right in front of us right now, the work of becoming adults who can live soulfully, who answer our souls' callings and those nudges. How we can be adults who can live in community with the discipline to really transform capitalism and make space for something new, and that has been an underlying theme for a few years now. These are all things that I have talked about, but I want to make it more explicit. I want it to be more front and center, and I'm really excited to explore that with you if it resonates.
So I want to take a little bit of time to talk about what "a wild new work" as a term, as an aspiration even means, and then sort of tie in the themes of this late spring season and how you can meet them in a good way that can, I think, really nourish you. So we can just break, I'm just gonna break this phrase down.
Breaking It Down, Piece by Piece
So it starts with "a." A wild new work. It's not the wild new work. There are many options, many pathways to doing this. There is no one singular way for any of us to rise up to what we're being asked to rise up to right now. There's no one way for us to be inside of collapse. There's no one way for us to do our work or listen to our soul or make our art. There are a multitude of ways and it will look different for each and every one of us. So I'm more interested in what is feeling wild and new for you, what work means to you and how that will change, how that's evolving and growing for you, which is wonderful. You don't have to become a conservation expert. You don't have to move out into the wilderness. You don't have to do anything in order to rekindle that relationship with the earth or be with these times in a good way. You just have to follow the threads that are already inside of you and that are resonating with the outside environment that you're in.
So that's "a." A wild new work. Wild. What does wild mean? Of course, we have a lot of cultural constructs that say that wild means like manic or out of " control," or just totally destabilized. And when I tune into wild, and especially what it means as sort of this guiding light in my work, it means rhythmic, it means original, it means instinctual, intuitive. Changeable, mutable, cyclical, reciprocal. It's all the things that you already know about. It's the, it's the heart of you. It's the heart of this planet. It's the way that you feel when you feel safe, when you feel connected, when you feel a part of something bigger. That's wild. Wild is just sort of the essence of what feels most natural to us, which is very simple and quiet and sweet often, and we can see it mirrored in the natural world.
Yes, there are disasters, there are floods, there are big predators that kill. There's gore and blood and sadness, and there's big stuff. But if you really just go out into a wild space, away from the city, away from all the noise, you'll probably notice that it's a lot more peaceful and quieter than over - culture might tell us that it is. So that's what I mean by wild is following the things, living out the things that feel natural and rhythmic and original to you as a wild creature.
So "new," a wild new work. When I think about new in the terms, in terms of this construct, it really just means what is uncomfortable, what is the edge, what is unfamiliar. It is both what we're bringing from our past and our heritage and what we once knew as human beings living in community with each other and with the earth. And it is also what we have now, right in front of us. We will have to create something new. I can't go back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle. I wouldn't last very long. And also the way that our earth is sort of chopped up and put into segments and sort of organized right now would make that very, very difficult. There's not the range or the openness or the health, you know, that the land needs in order to support a lifestyle like that. So I can't go back to anything that once was, because the world isn't like that anymore.
But I certainly don't wanna stay here. We can't stay here, we, we aren't going to stay here, just the way that the planet is changing. So what is the new mixture of those things? What does it mean to have a job? Maybe we need another job. Maybe we will work in a, a normal job for our entire adult lives until we're elders. What does it mean to run a business, to be inside of capitalism, but also holding space for and co-creating what is actually new? What has never been done before? Both inside of us as our own personal edges, but also collectively, as our collective edge work.
A wild new work. For a long time, that just meant like work, like you, just what you do in order to earn an income. But the more I sit with it, the more I'm realizing that this is really about the big work that each of us is being asked to do right now. It's the work of divesting from capitalism, from fossil fuels. It's about living with a much lighter footprint. You know, I'm on board with electric vehicles. I have one myself, but it's not, our issues are not gonna be solved if we all just buy electric vehicles. That's not the issue. The issue is the level of consumption, the way that we relate to the earth as both strangers and exploiters and the way that we relate to each other. This is so much bigger than any one, you know, light bulb or type of car. We can't just buy our way differently out of this.
It's also the big work of healing the trauma that we came into this lifetime with, that we inherited from our ancestors and healing the trauma that we have accumulated since being born. It is also, I think, about putting down roots and learning how to do that. How to live more locally, how to really care for one another more than we care about our convenience or our comfort or even more than we care about our work. Little W work.
And, you know, divesting from capitalism really isn't complicated. It's just placing care and relationships at the front of your life. When those are at the front, when those are what matters or are at the center, and what you do is a blooming from that, then you're already divesting from capitalism and this culture of domination. You're already transforming something. So Just keep going in that direction. What feels like you can care more? What helps you to care? What do you need in order to care more? Who are the people that give that back to you? Can you build upon that? That's what this big work is.
The Wild, New Work of Spring
Now, how does this tie into, relate to, guide us in this late spring period? And the seasons can lead us into this wild new work at any time. The landscape around you will show you, whenever you want to tune into it, what your wild new work is. Right now, I have been kind of blown away by how much my life has changed as a result of drinking in the wisdom and energy of each season. When I pay attention to what's happening in the natural world, when I am outside enough, when I'm working with the Wheel of the Year, which is sort of the Celtic holidays that guide me and my family, when I'm doing that, and it doesn't take much... but when I'm doing that, my internal world really closely mirrors what's happening in the outer world. For a while I thought like, maybe I'm just forcing that - like, "oh, it's, it's Beltane, so I'm just gonna make myself feel this way," or I'm gonna, you know, feel more vitality. Or I'll fake it till I make it.
But it's not fake, it's genuine, and I really am feeling the rebirth of the spring all throughout my life right now. And I'm not saying that I've got it perfect or I've figured it out, or that that's how everyone should be, but if you're into the idea of syncing up with the seasons and living alongside the landscape that you inhabit, I encourage you to just keep learning from what is happening in this part of the cycle and notice how it wants to teach you. How it resonates with you right now. And again, this can be true at any point in the cycle of the seasons. And I'm not saying that you'll always feel perfectly attuned, but if you can sort of live into that archetype of the lovers and pretend that the earth right around you is your lover or is a mirror reflecting back to you what's happening on a soul level, I think you'll get some pretty interesting insights.
So let's work with the late spring season that's right in front of us. Now, what is our wild new work in this late spring period? We can start with what's wild, what is happening in the natural world around us, and how can we work with it.
We start by just noticing what the plants and the animals are doing. You might notice that a lot of birds have made or are making nests. You might notice a lot of sexuality happening. You might notice that the flowers are blooming right out there with their sexual organs facing the sun, inviting the pollinators in.
The pollinators come in. There's this cross pollination, this exchange, and then this transformation that is starting to happen. These first early fruits, especially the strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, these plants have created these beautiful flowers, the pollinators come and enjoy and do their thing.
And then somehow, and I know scientifically we might say we know how, but this is still just like kind of a mind blowing magical act... somehow that flower that had a few petals around it and a yellow center is gonna transform into a completely differently colored, differently shaped, differently compiled fruit, right?
How does this little white flower become a strawberry? That's wild. So in this, that's sort of the energy of what's happening right now, and we are in this vast conversation with life too. We are a part of this. What pollinators are coming to bring you messages right now? Can you trust them? Can you work with them?
If you hear about the same thing a few days in a row, can you sit with that and ask what it wants to show you? Unpack it. Be in this conversation. Be in this exchange. Can you take the messages that are coming to you through the wild world, which includes your own heart and mind and body, and take them seriously?
And also, what are you putting out into the ether? Are you that pollinator, sort of flitting about trying to find what's beautiful and life sustaining to you? Are you that plant wanting to just be still and bloom and let things come to you? Is what you're putting out into the world the most true, authentic, genuine version of yourself? Is it changing? And if you wanna think a little bit more about how to work with messages that come in, messages that wanna come out, I would encourage you to check out the last episode number 88 in my interview with Jessica Snow, where we talk about how to do this. I think it has a very sort of Gemini theme to it. And I encourage you to listen if you haven't already.
So that's what's happening in the wildness of this time that we can sync up with. New... what does it mean to do new work right now? This is an excellent, like maybe the best point in the cycle of the year, to experiment more. How can you push the edges of your identity, of your art, of how you show up at work or whatever feels soulful to you right now? Can you consciously choose to put yourself into more discomfort, into new situations, around new people, into new conversations so that you can transform just like the fruiting plants as summer approaches?
Something can fruit within you - some new level of mastery in your work or in the way that you show up in the world. Some new insights that can help us to do the work that we need to do right now. Some new idea for your life can come and become ripe. The best way that you can accelerate that is by openness and activity right now that is truly meaningful and guided by beauty.
That's really the work of right now, a wild new work. The work is to let yourself be guided by beauty, to let yourself be drawn to the conversations that do something for you in your physical body, that feel enlightening, exciting, feel like a relief. Be around the people who feel that way. Spend as much time as you can enjoying what is blooming, to smell the lilacs, to collect flowers, to work in your yard or on your balcony or in your outside space, to be out in the sunlight until it goes down.
This is not frivolous work. This is not unrelated to the big work that we need to be doing right now, or even the little work that we do day to day. It's a mandate. It's what you as a human being on this planet at this point in the cycle of the year are being invited to do. And yes, you can ignore it. You can shut the blinds at seven or earlier. You can stay inside all day on your computer. You can refuse to even look at the flowers that are blooming or the butterflies that cross your visual path. You can shut all of that out if you want to, but it's gonna really deplete you and it's gonna make things pretty wonky for the upcoming summer.
Jupiter in Taurus
And this is extra true right now because the planet Jupiter has just moved into the sign of Taurus. It's spent the last year or so in the sign of Aries, and it's shifting now to be in Taurus. The sun was just in the sign of Taurus, and now Jupiter is there until May 25th, 2024. And Jupiter, you know, there's a lot of myth and symbolism around Jupiter being a planet of expansion. It's a big planet. There's this sense of abundance that comes with it. If you pay attention to your own astrology, you might notice that when Jupiter transits a certain area in your chart, that area in your life kind of lights up and grows or gets bigger. And so, Taurus being a sign of mid-spring and blossoming and beauty and sensuality, this is all getting bigger right now. You're invited into this larger conversation around beauty and what it means to live a beautiful life to you.
Busy But Discerning
And so I encourage you to be as busy as you want to be right now, but to be disciplined about using your energy for the things that are pleasing to your senses, that are fun, that are pleasurable, that are meaningful to you, and when you can, to try not to use the extra vitality you have right now on things that absolutely suck the life out of you.
Can you do the bare minimum to not get fired or to keep your job or to do well enough inside of a modern work construct, inside of capitalism? Can you earn what you need and not, not a lot more, but just what you need to be safe and okay and to enjoy your life, and can you keep the rest of your energy to devote to the things that are really alive to you right now? That are vibrant, that have color, that have growth, that can turn into something that could feed you even if you can't see that right now.
And I don't mean to imply that the things that are alive right now are always going to feel good. It could be that you're close to someone who is dying. That is a very alive place to be. You're very attuned to what life is and what it's not and what it means for it to end. It could be that you're in a new relationship that is setting off all these attachment alarm bells. You're very, you're in a heightened alive state. You're feeling your heartbeat. Maybe you're feeling what it means to have emotions and the wide range of the human experience.
So I'm not saying that it will always feel fun or comfortable, but can you offer up your effort, your labor, your work, to the things that want to grow and really bless your life right now?
Finally, I just wanna remind you that you are a co-creator in all of this. It is not all up to you. The flowers need the bees. They need the bats, the birds. The bees, and the birds and the bats need the flowers. We do our part. We take the step, we make the action, we show up in a different way. We say yes to the thing or no to the thing. We feel our heartbeat. We breathe in the, the air right now and the light, and then we see what meets us.
Every experiment that you do, every stretch that you make, every new thing that you try right now is like a little seed that you have planted for your future self. And I encourage you to be prolific in that regard right now. Keep going. Plant the seeds, do all the new things you wanna do, stretch yourself.
Be uncomfortable. And then come in when the sun has set. Take a big drink of water. Center yourself. Notice what messages came through in that day and what's important for you to keep and what wants to stay behind and just keep going in that way. And I think you'll find that life could look pretty different for you in about a month, when the summer solstice comes and we enter into the sign of Cancer and things continue to shift and transform.
So keep going, and thanks for sharing this space with me today. I really hope that it has been a blessing to receive.
Podcast Announcements
Okay. A couple podcast announcements before I wrap up and say goodbye. Like I said earlier, I'm really feeling this extra vitality of the spring and I have been kind of banking these really amazing interviews with guests, and I've been feeling like I have a little bit more to say right now. So I'm gonna play around with a weekly podcast cadence for a bit, and we're just gonna see how the energy flows. I'm really excited to share these conversations with you that I've had with some delightful people who are gonna help us do our wild new work, and I also want to have those conversations with you in my solo episodes.
So yeah, stay tuned for some weekly shows. I hope you love that. I hope that they continue to just really enrich your life. If you have things that you wanna hear about or things you wanna hear more about, you can always reach out to me, I'm easy to find on my website or on Instagram @ awildnewwork .
I love, love hearing from podcast listeners, so don't be shy. Speaking of which, I want to grow the podcast. I feel my own energy around it growing and I want listenership to grow, too. So if you have a moment right now, please rate and leave a review on Apple. Please subscribe on a different platform if that's an option. Please share the show if it enlivens you with your, you know, friends or coworkers or family members. I don't do any paid marketing. It's just me and you and we're co-creating this together. So as much as you can sort of help the work get out into the world, I'm just so, so grateful. So yeah, those are my two little updates and we'll keep going and we'll just keep planting these seeds. Take such good care over the next week or so. I'll see you on the other side.