We Do It For Joy

In this final episode of the Winter season of the show, I share my experience at the Sea on February 24th and the message I heard from the depths. We unpack this community ritual and what it is we're being shown about aliveness, joy, and the power inherent within Life.

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Welcome to A Wild New Work, a podcast about how to divest from capitalism and step into the soulful calling of these times We live in. Which includes the call to rekindle our relationship with the earth. I'm Megan Leatherman, a mother writer, amateur ecologist and vocational guide. I live in the Pacific Northwest and I'm your host today.

Welcome, friend. I'm so glad that you're here. This is the final episode in our winter series in which we have been learning directly from the sea, and I'm so delighted to be here with you today. It's a cloudy, rainy morning. The crows are. Being very boisterous, right above my little greenhouse office where I'm recording, I've got the candles lit, the mug wart incense is burning, and I'm ready to, uh, share with you today, and I hope it is deeply of service to you.

If this is your first time tuning in, there have been four other episodes in this series so far. Each of which have contained a message that I received from the ocean, and today is the final one. A beautiful one, a true gift that I have had the pleasure of sitting with and that I'm excited to share with you today.

So far in these episodes, there's been a through line about power, and I think today is still about power, but in an unexpected sort of different way, meaning that our topic today is really the power of life. The power of life to live and to live joyfully the power of joy. And so often we see the power of destruction and death and violence, but that power in the great arc of time.

Is balanced out by the powers of creation, life, and love, and those forces are equally powerful and they are just different facets of the great cycle that we are all inside of the cycle of life. Death and rebirth repeating again and again in tiny cycles in our own lives and bodies and in massive cycles that are beyond our ability to comprehend.

So today we study the power of life, the power of things to grow and to grow, not because of fear or force, but because of joy. And we'll talk about what the ocean's message could mean. Uh. For all of us, but especially for you and the cycles that you're in at this time.

Before we dive in, I wanna share that one of the things that has been really joyful in my own life is reconnecting with the power of my ancient ancestors who are here and have been immensely supportive to me since I began calling them in specifically, and I wanna make sure you know that this April I'll be teaching a class called Weaving with the Ancestors.

If you would like to learn how to connect to your long ago dead who are wise and well and ready to support you and how to understand the gifts of your line and understand how to bring deep healing to those in your lineage who perhaps have not found peace or resolve and who. Perhaps are not in their ancestral village yet.

So if you would like to learn more about that, uh, we start April 7th. We'll do this work together over eight weeks and you can learn more at a wild new work.com/ancestors. Everything else, including other resources, journals I've written upcoming classes, all of that can be found at a wild new work.com.

And at the end, I'll share a little bit more about Eagle Creek and how you might get more deeply involved in this work if you would like to. With that, why don't we begin with our opening invocation, so if you need to take a deep breath, I encourage you to.

You might notice how your body's feeling in this moment. Are there any little glimmers or sparks of joy in your belly or your chest or your pinky finger?

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 and their ancient gods, 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 Multnomah, Cowlitz, Bands of Chinook and Clackamas nations, among many others, who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on. May this episode be one small stitch in the great reweaving of right relationship that so many indigenous teachers are calling us into.

Okay, well, I wanna begin today by telling you the story of my trip to the ocean on February 24th when I went to ask for the message that would be shared in this episode today. And just for a little bit of context, this was one of two day long pilgrimages that I made specifically to receive messages from the ocean for this podcast series, and the first was in January and I shared that in depth in episode 164.

So these are day long rituals essentially, and everything that happens inside of ritual space is meaningful, even if it doesn't seem related to the question that we've asked or what we're trying to put down or create in ritual. It's all meaningful and it's all part of the learning and transformation that is in process.

So in the first ritual that I did in January. The message that came through and that entire day, that 24 hours around that ritual, it was very intense. It was a wonderful day and I'm so grateful for what we received through that day, but it was very sharp. It was confrontational, it was hardcore, it was uncomfortable, and I knew early on as February 24th approach and my second pilgrimage was nearing.

I knew that this ritual was going to feel very different. It just already had a different kind of vibe about it, and that's one of the reasons why it's nice. To do ritual or to do to listen to the land all throughout the year, not just once or once each season, because the medicine of each ritual of each journey, each time you go out, it's different and it's adaptable and it meets you exactly where you are.

I think so. Before I went out for this ritual, I slept really well the night before. I didn't have any scary dreams or nightmares like I did last time. The morning flowed easily when I arrived at the beach, the same place as last time, Arcadia State Park. The wind was very mellow. It was overcast but not really raining, and it just felt really sweet.

And the last time I was there, there was no one there. I think I saw one or two people from across. Way down the beach. But uh, this time there were other people around and I just had some really sweet little chats with other beach visitors. There was a cute dog that came up. It was just a really kind and welcoming sort of energy, and I took note of that.

And I felt called to walk in the opposite direction this time. So instead of going right, I turned left and I walked with the ocean to my right and I walked for a long time all the way to the end of the beach, to the point where you can't walk anymore. There's a great stone cliff that juts out. Right before I came to the end where I was gonna stop and do the heart of this ritual, I got the sweetest little gift.

I right in my path there was this bright orange and purple clam shell on the sand, and it immediately caught my eye and it looked like a sunrise. It was just so sweet, and I felt like. This was, uh, a really special gift and sweet sign of what was to come. And when you're out on the land, there often will be times, not always, but you will often be offered something that feels like a gift, like.

It's like, you know, walking on the beach, there's all these lovely shells. It's all a gift, you know, it's, there's just so much beauty. But you'll come across something that feels like it was placed there, especially for you, and it has meaning. It's showing you something about the ritual that you've undertaken that day.

And this little shell was exactly that. It was just like a sunrise. Even the beams, like the lines of the clam shell, moving upward felt like. The beams of sunlight and I'll put a picture online. So I said, thank you for that gift. I picked it up, I held it and kept it with me. And I came to the end of the beach to this great stone cliff.

And the, the outermost part of that stone was like reaching out over the water almost. It was like a podium kind of lifted up over the water, like a stage almost. And. The tide was out enough that it was possible to climb up there and to be there standing with water. On all three sides, my left front and right, and, uh, deep waters, not just the shore.

And so I felt a nudge to go up there. And it was a little dicey, but mostly safe enough. And I climbed up there and it was like I was in the sea. Like these rocks were still wet. There was seaweed and barnacles and mussels growing sea enemies everywhere. It was the perfect place to begin the heart of this ritual.

And so I made offerings First. I said, hello. I introduced myself. Here's what I'm here to do today. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here. I made offerings of salmon, spring water, and homemade bread. I offered my words of praise and gratitude and just. Felt this like effusive kind of love and joy to be there.

And I wanted to share that with the sea and with my ancestors and the gods that I was asking to come and help us with this ritual. So I started with that, and then I spoke your prayers. You might remember that, uh, if you've listened to the last episode and, uh, or if you're on my newsletter list, I offered to take your prayers with me for this ritual.

And so some of you did share yours with me, and I was so grateful to carry those. And so I took your prayers out to the sea and. Immediately when I began speaking them, the wind picked up, not in a scary way, but it felt immediately like the sea was hearing your requests, that there was a resonance that something happened.

So I prayed your beautiful words. I prayed for my own beloveds for myself, and I prayed for all of us. I prayed for our ailing world, our aching hearts for the human community, but also the more than human community. I invoked the old gods of my ancestors, and I asked them to come and to bring healing to these lands to help us remember how to relate, how to channel power, how to be good stewards of the power that we have been given.

And so I spent a while in prayer, and that's one way that if you have a land practice or if you do ritual, that's one way that your spiritual work can be a gift, not just for yourself, but also a gift that extends to the communities by either inviting people to share their prayers and you will take them out for them, or offering you a ritual.

To the good of all, and I encourage you to play around with doing that if it feels genuine and like you're, you're being filled enough yourself as well. So as I concluded these prayers, the wind kind of died all the way down again, and I knew it was time to get really quiet and to listen. But I kept worrying about the tide coming in and getting stranded on that rock, so I couldn't really relax and so I felt ready to climb back down.

I kind of explored a little and finally settled myself on the beach right nearby this other great rock that I was on, and I love that so often in these rituals or when I'm out on the land, it's like. The ancestors or the gods, or the land itself creates this great barrier of invisibility. When I arrived at the beach, it was quite busy, but in this, in the space of this ritual, this like the heart of it, I saw no one.

There was no human interaction. No one permeated my sort of bubble, and it felt really supportive and supported. And so again, everything inside of ritual is meaningful. If someone had come across my path, I would've been paying attention for whether or not there was. Thing in there that was related to this ritual.

Um, but for me it felt very like protective. Like the land was just clearing space and making sure that no one interrupted me essentially. So I sat and I got quiet and I watched the waves for a while and I felt encouraged to lie down. I was up really early to get out to the beach that morning, and I was tired, so I laid down and Raven began croaking, and raven was croaking for the remainder of this ritual.

I never saw them, but I heard them quite a bit and that felt really sweet, and there was a light mist falling on my face, and I just relaxed and I felt very, very calm, and I rested for quite a while. And eventually I felt ready to sit up and I took a deep breath, and right away I felt that familiar wave of nausea deep in my belly.

When something old and deep comes, I felt it traveling up my core. Through my throat into my mouth. I felt my mouth need to open, and then I received this message. We do it for joy, we do it for joy, and this time an image came as well. I saw a great blue sea creature of old swimming joyfully right at the surface of the water with the sunlight shining down on them.

We do it for joy. I wanna unpack this day a little bit and talk first about why I am unpacking it. I was taught that it's sort of taboo to speak about what happens in ritual because if you do a ritual and then you are. Analyzing it and talking about it with people who weren't there, who may not be able to understand it, can really dilute the energy that you have created in that ritual.

And I understand that, and I agree with that. There are many rituals that I do that I don't talk about. Not that it's a secret, but you just, you don't need to talk about it. The ritual work you do is happening on an energetic level, and we don't need to pick it apart. That's not. A helpful thing. We just trust that what happened needed to happen.

We let it germinate. But these rituals that we're doing here in this podcast series, these are a different kind. And I wanna share a little bit about what I mean. So I believe that the land is the first and best place to go to receive guidance about what's coming up in our lives. That's something that people across time, across cultures around the world have known and have done and continue to do, and in case it's helpful.

I've shared before like some of the spiritual practices and perspectives that I'm taking, and I've shared a little bit about this path of save that I'm learning about this. Sort of north shamanic path that has been really helpful to me and has been a way to connect to my ancestry and the spiritual practices of the Nordic and Germanic peoples, and.

One aspect of save, and if you wanted, if you're like, what is she saying, it would look like S-E-I-D-R, but it's pronounced save and one aspect of save, which is a form of pre-Christian nor and IC mysticism, a shamanic practice of a kind. One aspect of it is something called uta. And UTSA means sitting out and it was a practice.

It is a practice of going to the land to inquire about something, of going in an intentional way. It's a right, it's a ritual in which you go and you ask. For the guidance that you need. Traditionally, it was often done overnight to go and seek answers, to seek the input of the spirits of the land or the ancestors.

Often people would do them on top of grave mounds where they're dead, were buried, typically could have also been done in a sacred area. And one of the best known examples where we learn about Uisa, the one I've heard about the most was in the year 1000 when Iceland was under pressure to convert to Christianity, and on the brink of some internal conflict around that.

Someone named Thor Gear, who was a law giver, used UTSA to go and inquire with the ancestors and the gods about what to do about this crisis of conversion and the people's ancient practices. And so it's written that he laid under his cloak on the ground for a full day and night, and that he came back with.

A knowing with the message that for political reasons, the country did need to officially convert to Christianity, but that people could continue their pagan practices freely and without repercussion. So that's just one example from like written history that we can look to, but there are many other examples and other cultures of going to the land to receive and.

We see it across the world and we see it consistently because it works. When we go to the land in an intentional, ritualized way, we can hear and see and feel and sense things differently. And I believe it's been my experience that the land itself, the spirits of the land, the ancestors and the gods can come through more easily.

We can hear them. We can receive their messages more clearly than if we're trying to do it indoors or in the midst of our day-to-day sort of mundane life, which is also sacred and holy. So our work here in this series, these rituals that I've been doing are a very humble form of utsa and it feels a little bit arrogant to claim that that's what I'm doing when the way they were done long ago was more involved, was a longer STA ceremony.

Typically done overnight, which I've done before in a different context. Um, but they had specific songs, special clothing or talismans. They used techniques that were learned that were beyond, are beyond me. But that is what I believe. I've been called to do this winter and have been doing for a long time without knowing.

What to call it really. And I am still trying to do this in alignment with the old ways. There are certain tools and talismans that I bring and use special songs that I sing when I'm on the land and other things that have been shown to be effective to me and, and help me to hear the land and hear what's needed that day.

So while we're not doing these rituals. Together, like in person, in synchronous time, they are still absolutely community rituals. I am going alone, yes, in my physical body, but I am asking my ancestors to come guides the land and I'm going on behalf of all of us to, to ask for a message and bring it back to you.

And so my prayer is that in sharing the nitty gritty of these rituals with you that you feel. The aliveness of the wild world that you feel what's possible by going to the land and asking and being with and listening. My prayer is that your own magic and giftedness your own ability to hear and see what's needed, that it grows, that it awakens even further, and that what we hear from the sea.

Is worked into your life that, that these messages are made manifest in my life and in your life. That they are used, that it grows, that they benefit our community, the human and more than human community. So all of that to say, normally I would agree that we don't want to do ritual and then pick it apart or analyze it or talk about it a lot.

But these rituals are specifically for learning. I'm offering them up as a learning tool and they're for sharing with the community. So I have been unpacking them and will continue to do that today, and that feels right to me. The next place I wanna go with you today is to talk a little bit about who it is that is speaking through this ritual.

Who are we in conversation with? Who was I in conversation with that day? And I am really grateful to Joshua Schrei of the Emerald Podcast, and I'll put that link in the show notes. I am really grateful for his work in helping me to learn about. The mythic threads of knowing that are woven among indigenous cultures around the world.

Um, of the mythic Knowing that my own pre-Christian ancestors carried and his work came in at a very special moment. I happened to tune into his latest episode immediately after this ritual that I'm telling you about on February 24th. It's an episode titled Enter the Dragon - Terrifying and Beautiful.

And as soon as I started listening to that, it was like a big puzzle piece that clicked because I have been carrying an awareness. I had an experience in October that has been meaningful, but I didn't really know how to make sense of, and I wanna tell you about it. So on October 30th, which is right before and around Samhain, which is a really important holiday in the wheel of the year, about halfway through the season between the the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, it's an auspicious time.

I had a vision in one of my journeys. I met my ancestors and I was taken out to one of my kin to, I call her whale mother, and I was out in the sea near this beautiful whale, and she tipped over my boat and I floated down, down, down with her until we came upon a massive sea creature's skeleton. It was as big as like a huge ship.

It had huge skeletal flippers, a long neck, and this whale kin said, great creatures used to live in these seas. Great creatures used to live in these seas. I just felt awe in this, in the presence of this being. And while it was a skeleton, that's what I was seeing. It still felt alive, like there was flesh on it, but I just couldn't see the flesh clearly or something like it was sleeping more than dead.

And then I was taken back to the shore and that was it. When I asked my ancestors about what I saw, they told me that this old, ancient being is like an animating force behind everyday life. That they are this deeper current of energy that we have lar largely forgotten about in modern culture, but that is still here and keeping things intact.

When I listened to this episode on the Emerald Podcast, it sounded very similar to how he described cross cultures and across stories, how he described the dragon, the water dragons of the deep. I don't know for sure if that's what I saw or encountered in that vision, but that is the energy that has felt most present in the ritual that I talked about from November in which I heard the ocean speaks power.

It was present in my ritual in January when I was inquiring about Empire, and that is the energy that spoke in this ritual and said, we do it for joy. So what I know today is that this being is a great animating force that has been speaking in these ocean rituals. And the way I feel when these me messages come in is different than anything else I have felt before, and it has its own unique texture.

I'm choosing to believe that this experience is real and that it's safe and that it can be of service to this community. So in this series, I do believe that we have heard from my guides that I've worked with, we've heard from the waters of the sea directly. We've heard from the gods who still dwell in this land.

And also we have heard from this ancient sea being of the depths. And I'm very humbled because when I look at this and look at these last many months of this journey, it feels like there is this immense, immense conversation underway that we are all hearing in different ways. I feel so grateful for this wisdom that has come from so many different powerful sources.

And I wanna talk now about this final message that we received from that great being of the depths. We do it for joy, we do it for joy, not I do it for joy, not you do it for joy, or they do it, but we do it us together. This is an invitation into a profound togetherness with this world. Even after all that has been broken down and broken and lost between the human community and the more than human communities, there is still this invitation to be together, to be in this together.

That many of us have actually become convinced of one of the most destructive lies of capitalism and empire, which is that things are too broken. The relationship between us and the world is too broken to come back into right relationship, that things are too far gone to be in intimate, loving relationship with the land, with your ancestors, with the old gods.

These are lies that say that those relationships either aren't real or that you are too bad or too inadequate to be loved by the land or your ancestors. These are lies that say that all that exists now is you an isolated unit that is condemned to a life of thrashing survival. Those are all lies, and that is not what I hear from the land ever.

When I go in ritual to the land or to the sea, what I hear is a welcoming. I hear and feel a loving invitation to lie down. I hear forgiveness and understanding. I hear that we have all been hurt by this, that my aching and longing is not an experience I have alone. My aching and longing is shared. By the other beings on that land.

I am completely convinced, I have no doubt that the land loves you exactly as you are, that the earth longs for you, that the earth longs to feel your heartbeat on the ground. To feel the weight of you taking a nap to revel in your laughter, your joy, or to be hydrated by your tears. Of course, there are places on this earth where pain is still stored, where tragic things have happened and the land is still holding that energy.

That's true. There are places like that, but for the most part, and even in those places, you are not anonymous. You are not an unwelcome guest. You are welcomed by the land, and it doesn't mean that colonization hasn't happened or that repair is not needed, but you are always welcomed by the earth. And the earth longs for you.

The sea longs for you to see you, to feel you, to hear your songs, to hear your prayers. The powers of empire. Make life seem so brutal and violent that we have become convinced that anything out there, the wild world, that it's scary, that real safety remains in staying still or staying in our homes or only being around humans.

We've been caught up in these stories that there are monsters at every turn. It's not safe to go out to the land. And there are monsters at some turns, of course. And death and destruction are natural forces that are needed here. They're essential to life. They're part of the life, death, and rebirth cycle.

But these other facets of empire like cruelty, torture, abduction, terror, that is not us. That is not the land or the beings on the land. That is not how humans truly are. That is not the true fabric of this world. Death, destruction, decay, certainly pain. Grief, of course, but some of these other things that we're seeing, they are not natural or normal.

You are not a violent enemy of the earth. You are not a parasite that the earth is trying to buck off. Empire is yes. Civilization. Capitalism is, yes, I believe that, but not you. You are a creature of the earth. You are the earth, and you have been just as harmed by empire as any other being on the earth.

Just as harmed as the waters that have been polluted, as harmed as the animals who have gone extinct or who can't give birth to live young ones. We have all been harmed. And still we are all reaching out to one another. Many of us trying to weave things back together in the loving, caring, joyful manner that is natural.

So we do it for joy. All of us who are alive here in this time, all of us who have bodies who are made up of the stars, the soil, the salt of the sea, you are a part of that. We, and if you haven't felt that deep in your body for a while, then I ask that you go and you listen to the land. That you go and you listen to the sea, that you ask them, am I a part of you?

Is it true that we're in this together? Ask and listen and listen. Not to the part of you that was conquered by Empire and Domination, the part of you that fears that you are unwelcome. Listen with your body, the part of you that still looks for the sunshine on your face, the part of you that still feels the joy of picking berries or playing with sand in your hands, the part of you that is alive, that is the earth.

Listen with an open heart and I bet you will hear a resounding yes, you are one of us. Welcome. Welcome. We need you come and weave with us. Weave the new fabric. We do it for joy. What is it? We do it well. What I saw was that great water dragon swimming, living joyfully existing. So what I felt was that the message is really, we exist for joy.

We live for joy. We eat, we drink, we swim, we sleep. We sense, we reach out for joy. All of it is for joy. This life is for joy. Death is for death, and we have grief and life as well. Joy and grief always go together, but in this conversation we're centering this experience of joy. Your life is for joy. We do it for joy.

Joy as in aliveness. The right of alive beings to be fully alive, to swim, to dance, to sing, to fly, to move as they are meant to move, to be animated by aliveness. So much of our aliveness is dampened constrained, commodified in this modern way of living. We are thoroughly domesticated, bridled forced into the gray, into the machine.

Machines are not alive. Artificial intelligence is not animated by the aliveness of which I am speaking. The aliveness that I am speaking of it is primordial. This aliveness is primal, original. It is Arrows, the great animating force that moves through this world and sparks creation and beauty. It is the upward reaching movement.

It is not something you can fabricate in a lab or in a data center. It is not a hologram. It is the realest thing on this planet. It is as real as death. This energy is alive. It is the essential aliveness. It has hunger, it has feeling. It's hairy, and it's clawed. It's soft, and it's precious. It's all of it.

And we are severely undernourished when it comes to joy, when it comes to aliveness. True aliveness, true, deep, original joy. One of the things that my spouse and I have been talking about a lot this winter before I undertook this ritual and received this message is this realization that at least in our experience as descendants of Europeans who were conquered themselves and at the very beginnings of capitalism's, emergence and descendants of people who then colonized others, we've been talking a lot about.

Our capacity to feel and express joy and how limited it has been inside of white supremacist culture. The range of acceptable expression of anything really, feeling self-expression, the expression of art, of grief, of joy, all of it is very narrow, and I am so grateful that so many people across time have continued to push those boundaries to try to widen that range of.

Expression, expression of aliveness. But many of us are still feeling the boundaries of that constriction, that restriction, and that's not an accident in the emergence of empire and capitalism especially. Joy was specifically attacked. Common lands were enclosed. It became illegal to trespass on private property.

You could not just go out and do ritual on the land. There were fences Now. Dancing was outlawed gatherings outlawed magic, certainly outlawed and made scary and taboo, massive experiences of grief that were not given places to be processed that we still carry in our bodies today. Religious reform and Puritanism and Protestantism.

The harshness of it. The unprocessed grief. It's no wonder that we have now this diminished. Capacity to feel and express joy. And so here we are, those of us in the quote unquote Western world, with all the comforts of the world with incredible convenience and ease at our fingertips. And we still find it challenging to sing, to dance, to express our love, to laugh freely, all for fear of appearing weird or rude or childish, or out of our minds.

And maybe no one tells us explicitly to dampen our joy that the range of your feeling is too big. Maybe no one says that, but it's like this scaffolding in our beings, in our psyches that we were born into that, or that was established perhaps at a young age that cuts off and restrains that joy before it can even come up and out of us.

And I wonder if you have felt this as well, if you feel your own capacity to feel and express joy as being quite restricted. And if you do, I wanna say there is still absolutely hope for that to change because the truth is that we are made for joy. Joy is a very important facet of the human experience and not just the human experience.

We see joy all throughout the world. Again, this is the great animating force of life, and Christianization and capitalism have tried to turn all of that energy into utility and discipline and morality. But we know that it is our right. It is our natural state to express joy simply for the sake of it.

Because we are alive, we see the birds singing, the squirrels chasing each other, calves frolicking across the meadow, dolphins, swimming flowers blooming the incredible colors and shapes of fungi. Joy is the animating force. It is not just there to produce offspring. Or to produce value for an economy. It is inherent to this place.

It existed long, long, long before civilization and capitalism. It is what creates life and it's almost spring and it is time for joy. There has been time, I hope, in your life for grief, for the mineral experience of death and decay that we went through in the autumn. I hope you felt that, that you did grief, ritual, that you expressed the full range of your grief as you needed to.

We have been through the winter of great, quiet, the inward turn, the integration period, and now it is time for joy. All of this is essential, and if you walk the wheel of the year, all of it is given the time and space that it needs, and your body evolved to carry both grief and joy and a wide range of expression of that.

Even if your capacity to do so has been harmed through our culture, it is still possible to do it for joy to come into a greater experience of joy this spring. I wonder what would change, what it would be like if you did whatever it is you're doing for the rest of this day. If you did it for joy, what if you let yourself be filled more and more often with your own aliveness?

With the aliveness that courses through this earth? Even if it's just a little drop here and there, a little sliver of aliveness. What if joy was the very thing that gave you the energy to live? Not obligation or scarcity or fear, but joy, what would you create or say or choose if you did it for joy? Your ancestors know and knew that joy is not frivolous.

Joy is the force of life itself. It is foolish to hold only grief and decay and destruction. We're missing the entire other part of the spectrum, the entire other part of the cycle. So life, joy, aliveness. It's not the only force in this universe, but it's a very important one, and it has too long been denigrated, dampened, spat at ridiculed, thrown off as frivolous, but deep.

Abiding of the earth of the sea. Joy is not frivolous. It is the point. It is the power. It is what you are called into. Will you let it move through you now will I? I really hope we will. We do it for joy. My friend, I am so grateful to have been with you in this practice, to have had this place to share it with.

Thank you so much for hearing these words, for being with me and telling me how it has landed for you. I have inquired with my ancestors and the land. About what is next for this podcast, for this great conversation that I believe we are in, and I have been told to or not told, I've been invited if I choose to take up a land communication practice in a new place this spring.

To go to a very magical but troubled place near where I live in Portland called Oak Island, and many of you listening have been at Oak Island with me or on your own or may know of it. It has a much different vibe than the sea, but is no less profound. It's an incredibly beautiful place, but there are layers of troubled there that I'm curious about working with again.

And this land is closed to people from October to April. It's closed to people who aren't hunting duck or other waterfowl, and it opens to the public in April. So beginning then, I will. Go and do more uisa in this place. And I will be sharing another journey of hearing from the spirits of that land of the oak there, the fungi, the great birds, the waters there, uh, sturgeon Lake and Steelman Lake that have been really harmed through, uh, farming practices and being cut off from the great source of the Columbia River.

So it's a really complex place and I'm not surprised. I'm being called there and I'm really looking forward to preparing for and undertaking those rituals with you. If this podcast series has been a blessing to you, if you would like to support me continuing to listen to the land and share what I am hearing, I welcome you into Eagle Creek, which is a membership for people who want to support me and this show financially.

I encourage you to join. It's $45 a month and we share a private, quiet space online together, and I share a monthly behind the scenes update and other things that come through monthly classes, meditations, resources to help you in your own seasonal and land communication work and your own vocational journey.

So it's a fluid space. It's immensely hydrating to me and to this work, and I welcome you there. You can learn more at a wild new work.com/eagle Creek. If you can't afford $45 a month, but you would still like to pitch in here and there, I welcome your dollars at buy me a coffee.com/megan leatherman.

It'll put all of this in the show notes. But also your sharing of the show with your beloveds, your reviews on Apple Podcasts, uh, your messages about how this has touched you. I'm very grateful for that and it's all very welcome. If you would like to go deeper with the ancestors this spring, I want to just remind you again about weaving with the ancestors, which starts on April 7th.

I know many of you feel a longing to connect to the power of your long A go dead, but you may not know where to begin, and I would like to offer you a way in. Also the spring edition of The Living the Seasons Journal is out. If you would like to track what the land is doing and what is being worked through in your own heart this spring, you can learn all about each of these things at a wild new work.com.

I hope you take such good care between now and when we see each other again in April, and I will see you on the other side.

PodcastMegan LeathermanWinterComment