EP75 - Wild Living: Dancing with Paradox with Elka Wilder

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Have you ever imagined yourself living off grid? What if i told you wildness is actually about dancing with paradox, about holding the tension between chaos and control, life and death, joy and sorrow?

Our guest today, Elka Wilder, spent 23 years living off-grid in a New Mexico canyon, and she's got a take on wildness that'll make you rethink everything.

In this episode, Elka is going to help us explore how living close to nature can teach us to navigate different paradoxes, heal our relationship with ourselves, and tap into the power of our own voices. 

In today’s podcast episode, we’ll take you through:

- A unique definition of "wild" that embraces life's paradoxes

- How living in nature can heal body image issues and transform self-perception

- The power of voice activation and sound healing in personal growth

- Insights into writing a memoir and cookbook based on off-grid living experiences

- Practical tips for incorporating rewilding practices into modern life

- Honest discussions about mother-daughter relationships and physical limitations

- Inspiring ideas for creating intentional communities and becoming an elder

And so much more!

Elka Wilder lived completely off-grid in a New Mexico river canyon for 23 years, where she found her voice, taught wild foods and ReWilding workshops, led sweat lodge ceremonies, wild women's gatherings and vision quests, taught homesteading skills, and held compassionate space for hundreds of people from all over the world. 

Her mission is to support people and especially women, in accessing and expressing their full spectrum selves through connection to Earth, Other, and Cosmos. She believes that this work has the capacity to alchemize grief, nourish our bodies, homes, and communities, and heal the wounds of generational trauma.

You can check out her offerings at: http://www.elkawilder.com/

and visit her Substack at http://elkawilder.substack.com/

She currently works as a private chef, Singing Sound Bath facilitator, and voice activation coach and is soon to be embarking on a quest to co-create the Eco-Village of her dreams.

Follow Aimee Takaya on: 

IG : @aimeetakaya 

Facebook : Aimee Takaya 

Learn more about Aimee Takaya, Hanna Somatic Education, and The Radiance Program at www.freeyoursoma.com

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A: Hey there, Heart-led One. What would it be like to live wildly? And what does wild mean to you? Today, I'll be interviewing Elka, who lived in a canyon in New Mexico for 23 years. She'll be sharing this incredible story and will explore the power of nature to bring us back to our true somatic self and the life-changing practice of freeing your voice. So stay tuned. I can't wait to show this incredible story with you. 

Every day there is a forgetting and every moment there is the possibility of remembering. Remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world, to the experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy, and here is where you free your soma. I'm your host, Aimee Takaya. I'm here to help you move from pain to power, from tension to expansion and ultimately from fear to love. 

A: Hi, Elka. 

E: Hi. Thank you so much, Aimee. I love that introduction. That was great. 

A: It was my pleasure. Yeah. We met each other last year. I think it was at Joshua Tree Music Festival or maybe before that in April at the little, it's from Joshua Tree Kids Theatre production. And then, we just kept bouncing into each other. I was doing a retreat this May and I thought I really would love to have Elka and her beautiful food there because you're also an incredible wild foods chef. 

We got to spend more time together at the retreat and in general. I'm very inspired by you. I'm very inspired by your journey. I'm inspired by the messages that you are bringing forth into the world. I'm very excited to share your story with everyone today. 

E: Thank you so much, Aimee. I'm so happy to be here. 

A: Yeah. Let's start off with that question. What does wild mean to you? 

E: It's such a great question and I have like a million different ways I could answer it. And I actually had three other different ways I was going to answer it. But right now, what I want to say is to me, wild is about paradox and it's about really being with the paradox of all of life and all of death and all of nature and being with all of the paradoxes in ourselves and finding ways to really dance with paradox is what wildness means to me. 

And my whole life has been an exploration of that dance of kind of between chaos and control. And I feel like all of my life lessons have been around really having to hold paradox and having to learn from it and having to recognize it in myself and in other people. 

A: Wow. That is, I did not expect that answer, but I absolutely love it. Yeah, I can absolutely relate. I think that there is so much paradox even in just a single moment that we might be experiencing where something is incredibly sad or maybe heart wrenching and then at the same time, there's also something really beautiful that is existing simultaneously alongside this wretchedness and how do we be with both of those things without feeling insane? 

Or even just let ourselves feel insane for a moment and allow that to be versus a lot of times when we're having an experience that feels like that pulling against ourselves, that paradox, or that kind of insane feeling, we tend to reject it instead of allowing it to exist in us for a moment. 

E: Right? Right. And it's in those breakthrough moments of like something cracks open and we're able to see something from a different perspective and see a way through by just allowing what is and can be really hard sometimes. 

A: Yeah, I would imagine that living off grid for so many years, there would be a lot of having to kind of accept what was happening in front of you, like when it comes to like what the environment is doing, right? 

What nature is doing around you, you know, but also like, and, you know, we've talked about this a little bit, but that communication that you might be getting from your body, you know, could get louder when you don't have all of these distractions around you, right? 

So maybe you can answer this question. When did you first feel like your body was communicating with you? 

E: I mean, really, really, really young. I mean, so young. But the moment that I that I really wanted that is maybe most significant to me happened when I was, I think about 11 years old. And I was sitting in Sunday school, and they were teaching us about original sin, and something in me just freaked out, and I couldn't deal with it. 

And I, I like, raised my hand and asked to be excused. And I ran to the bathroom, and I just like, knelt by the toilet, like trying to throw up, because I felt so physically ill at the thought of like, that we're born evil. And that was a very important moment for me to really realize that my body had a wisdom and my body had its own truth. And when what was being told to me, when I couldn't physically swallow that, my body was going to tell me when that wasn't okay. 

A: Yeah, wow, like, it was a pretty strong like rejection of that kind of like, judgmental perspective. 

E: Yeah. 

A: Yeah. And how do you feel like that moment has kind of carried on into other moments in your life, like that kind of body wisdom of saying no to some particular kind of influence? 

E: Well, I think as a young adult, I spent a lot of time in the paradox of both really wanting to fit in, and also feeling all the ways that I didn't. And I became a long distance runner at a pretty young age at 11, I started long distance running. And I feel like that was my body's way of being like, the suburban reality is really not for you. You kind of need like a little bit of a way out. 

And running actually gave my body like a way to feel my wildness, my freedom, my bravery, and just in my just my embodying this, I remember this weird little detail of like, when I started to run, this thing would happen when I would would sweat and where I would just instinctively like lip lick my upper lip, because I liked the salt. And I just remember like as a really young teenager, like how much joy that gave me. 

And I don't I didn't know why, but it was just like something. And when I think about it now, it's just like, Oh, it's because it was just this instinctive thing that connected you to your animal self that made you happy. And so yeah, that's that was something at a young age. 

And then I think all through college. And I mean, I struggled a lot with my body. I went through periods of time where I wasn't what you would call exactly anorexic, but I had serious like, I call it anorexic brain, I had a lot of like difficulty around food and accepting my need for nourishment. 

And I actually convinced myself at one point in time that like food was disgusting. And this is I mean, you know, me now, like, it's so crazy to imagine me in that kind of frame of mind, because this was one of the main, like, pivotal things that happened when I moved to the wilderness was my healing around my body issues. 

And not to say like, they're completely gone. But I did so much, I think just being away from like all the societal expectations and the images that were bombarded with all the time was really huge for me. 

And being able to feel like just away from all the judgments and all of the, you know, I just got I got away from my own self judgments a lot by just being like dancing in a field of clover and feeling like, you know, belonging in that kind of, you know, in that kind of environment of like, mirrored by all these other beings that are just themselves. 

And, you know, not come and getting away from comparisons of like other human bodies, you know, because I was pretty isolated a lot of the time. So I didn't have other people to compare myself with. 

A: Did you have mirrors? 

E: Yeah, I did have mirrors. And I do actually like enjoy looking in the mirror. And I kind of always have, except for actually, this is another really interesting like childhood story that I thought of when I was thinking about your question. 

Because it ties into voice to like a really interesting moment that happened to me when I was about five was my mother cut my hair. And she gave me this haircut that I absolutely hated. And and I remember looking in the mirror and thinking that I looked horribly ugly. And it didn't look like me to me. 

And I was having a really time hard time just accepting that this was being the mirror. And in order to like process it and like self regulate, I made up a song like on the spot. I just and I still remember the song that I made up. 

It was it was just like this really silly little ditty that was just look at me. I'm busy as a bee. And I just kept repeating that over and over. And it's somehow like, soothed me to think of myself like as I'm just like a bee, you know, like I'm not, you know, I'm not ugly. I'm not this or that. I'm just, I'm just a bee. 

I don't know why I picked a bee, but it was a busy as a bee. Like it makes no sense at all. But it was just this really interesting moment of like processing that like absolute terror and disgust that I felt at something that happened to my body that I had no control over. And I had to like, regulate myself. And I used my voice and my imagination. 

A: Yeah, to come up with like, you know, something that sort of like broke the spell that you were in or something kind of broke through. And I think that singing, you know, and our voices have a really powerful way of breaking up that judging mind that like mental energy that we get caught up in sometimes, right? And when we can kind of break through that with a sound, right, or even some kind of imaginative, it sounds like play in this case. 

And, you know, speaking for myself here as well, it can be very challenging as an adult to remember that playful child that you once were, that would just make up a song to break through that, you know, spell of judgment that you're in about yourself and become a little bee for a moment, right? Like, it can be hard to get back there, you know, because we have all of the social things around us all the time and the conditioning that we're under. 

And I can see how just even that little bee song that you're describing really is, it's a rewilding. So you've used this term before for people and you teach classes on this as well. And since we're, you know, kind of exploring this and, and also this paradox of, you know, what does it mean to rewild when I've been living in suburbia or I've been living in a culture so far from that for a long time. Can you kind of describe what rewilding is to you? 

E: Well, I mean, yeah, I can. Rewilding to me. I mean, it's basically, you know, what I embraced by living in the canyon, which was embodiment and, and all the things that come with it, all the, like, it's not just Disney, you know, it's not just Disney. It's not just like floating along with the, you know, dancing in the clover. It's not just that. 

It's also dealing with the realities of death. And, you know, in the, in the canyon, we had to deal with, like, all kinds of weird shit, you know, infestations of rodents. And we ate wild meat as part of our diet. And I was harvesting plants. And, you know, and a lot of those things like sound, some of them sound like harvesting plants sounds kind of, you know, it can sound kind of idyllic and Disney-ish. 

But, you know, when you're actually like harvesting a good portion of your food from the wild and hauling like, you know, huge amounts of it on your back or, you know, some kind of position and hauling them up giant hills and stuff and, you know, doing this all and then processing, you know, stinging nettles and stuff for hours on end, you know, it's not just idyllic, you know, it's there's hard work involved. 

And but it's all like, it's living from the heart and it's living from the sense of like, what are my values and where do I feel connection. And in the canyon, I felt connection to the elements and to all things elemental, you know, my life revolved around building and tending fires and chopping wood and gathering kindling and paying attention to what was going on with the water and tending to the water, you know, we harvested our rainwater as our drinking water and our wash water. 

So I had to like monitor, you know, which barrels were getting ash from the wood smoke and stuff like that. So it's all about like being in very deep relationship with nature and with with the self too. And paradoxically, you know, when I when people ask me, I'm writing a memoir right now. 

And when people ask me to try and sum up what my memoir is about, I often say that it's about like the story of finding myself and losing myself at the same time. And for me, my re what my personal rewilding story was was that it wasn't just about like finding myself in nature. It was also the paradox of like the ways that I also gave myself away and betrayed myself in the context of nature. 

And not due to, you know, there were some personal relationship things that, you know, I got kind of like swept up in too much, and didn't stay centered enough to be able to like see actually what was happening and find my own power and all of that. And let's see, where am I trying to go from here? There's a point that I was trying to get to. Can you help me? Yeah, yeah. 

A: Well, you were talking about the memoir and you were talking about what it means to have gone through this experience, right, and losing yourself and finding yourself, and that that went on in your interpersonal relationships. But it also was an identity of, you know, how, how am I letting go of who I once was and stepping into a new version of who I am. 

There's some of that going on, but also ways in which we can, you know, betray ourselves inwardly on our own without needing to be a catalyst of a relationship. Although oftentimes it is a relationship, but that relationship is mirroring something that we are doing with ourselves internally, right? 

E: Absolutely. 

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A: Let's bring it out into a macro context for a minute. Maybe that'll help you narrow back down in. How can rewilding help our culture heal the wounds of generational trauma? 

E: Yeah. I think the more that we can let go of our cultural conditioning and really do the work of finding that center, even when it's messy, and even when we may have to go through a process of finding ourselves and losing ourselves at the same time, or looking silly, perfect case in point like me in this conversation. 

I didn't come in here with perfectly prepared notes, and I'm just that kind of person where I have to just trust the whole process. I feel like rewilding is about that trust. It's about just surrendering to what the eternal center, trusting that we can come back to that eternal center. 

From that place, we're going to, the more that we can open to the gifts that we really receive when the heart is open and when the chakras are open and we're tuned into our creativity and we're tuned into our sexuality. 

We're tuned into the elements. We're going to be oversensitized to things sometimes, and we're going to be feeling things deeply and feeling things a lot, but we're also going to be incredibly alive. The more alive we are, the more we're actually going to be a force of nature. 

That's what I believe that the earth wants and needs us to be on the planet right now is allied with her. I think of Gaia earth as a female-ish entity. Of course, paradoxically, she is not just that, but it helps me to think of her that way, mother earth. I love to feel myself as an ally of the earth in the messiness that I am, in the sometimes the confusion that I am. I don't have a clear path ahead of me. 

I'm 54. I have things that I'm good at. I'm making my own living. 

I'm living independently. There's lots of wonderful things that I'm creating in my life and a lot of things that are solid, but there's a lot of unknowns also. I think that that's half of what the gift that I am right now as a being is being able to say, hey, there's a lot of things I don't know about the future and where I'm going to be and what I'm going to do. 

That's part of rewilding, is being able to say, oh, I like to think of the tarot card, the wise fool, or the fool actually, who I think of as the wise fool. The fool has got one foot going off the precipice, but the fool also got a giant smile on their face. They're just in this position of absolute trust and faith in the universe. 

Even if they fall off the cliff, there's something there for them. Even if they die, we have to be willing to risk everything sometimes in the service of life, in the service of truth to the self and of absolute alignment to our gifts and our purpose. 

A: Yeah, it's amazing. As you were talking, and you gave me so much there, there's these, as you're speaking about the turning over of things and you even mentioned our sexuality and then the age that you're at now and there's all these things that you've accumulated in this wisdom you've developed and there's also all these unknowns. 

I was thinking about the word revolution and I was thinking about how it is the same as revolving. So it's a revolving. So, and what is a revolution? It's a time of great change where there's this burst of some kind of activity that overtakes the previous activity of whatever was going on. 

So even in the case of say like the shift of the seasons, as we revolve through, you know, as the planets revolving and the shifting of the seasons is occurring, there's these dying off of certain things and then an awakening of other things. And then there's these different circles that we're kind of moving in and it's the same way like with a woman throughout her fertility cycle. 

Or if we look at kind of like the maiden mother crone or like that life cycle and there's an immense amount of trust that we have to have in that revolution process that this what I'm experiencing now won't go on forever. It's going to shift. It's going to change right now. It's summer. It's going to change to fall. It's going to change to winter. And I'm going to have to let go of these beautiful sunny days or whatever it is. 

E: Totally. And my personal story is such an incredible example of that. You know, I was in this river canyon 23 years. I was absolutely sure that I was going to be there forever and that I was going to be the old woman of the canyon. And that was my role. And I was like, yep, I know what I'm doing. 

You know, this is if there's if there's anything that I can, you know, like I was just absolutely sure about this. But as things went 11 years into my 23 year long marriage, we ended up welcoming another woman into our relationship. And so the last 12 years of the marriage, it was actually a three way marriage. 

And because of how things went with that, it ended up feeling like I wasn't really needed in that relationship anymore. And I would have never expect I never expected that to happen when we brought the other woman into the relationship. But now when I think of it, I'm like, I'm, and at first, I was actually, you know, I don't want to just pretend that it was easy. 

And, and it wasn't, it absolutely wasn't. I went through tons of turmoil around that it probably I probably knew that I needed to leave for at least like five to seven years of that 12 year three way marriage. 

But now when I think of it, and I think of like the process of like healing through that grief of like losing what I thought was my forever home, I'm just so incredibly grateful that that's the way it rolled because I know that if she hadn't come into the marriage, I would still be there and I would be completely devoted to this man that I had so many illusions around like what our relationship actually was. 

And they would have never actually come to light without her coming in. So it was like this incredible like revelation of truths that happened through the through the process, the natural process of like, okay, I needed another woman in my life. 

And, you know, he made the suggestion of like, um, well, you know, if, if you want a woman to stay because I would get really upset, you know, because we'd have sometimes women would come stay for, you know, weeks or months or there were a few that stayed for years, helpers that would come and just like really fall in love with the life that we were living. 

And I would just like love having them around. And then they would, you know, decide it was time to leave and I would get so grief stricken. And then one time that that happened, my former husband said, Well, you know, if you want a woman to stay, you might consider marrying one. 

And I was like, Oh, my God, my first, my first thought at that was like, no way, you know, I was absolutely not going to go for that. And he just totally let it go like years past after he made that little mention. Yeah, that was probably like five years into our marriage that we had that conversation. And he just totally let it go. And then, you know, it cropped up again several years later. 

Yeah. And so anyway, that was just such a great example of like a natural cycle that played out in my relationship and how being open to that happening, being open to like a strangely kind of tribal situation it was, you know, I ended up raising doing a lot of the work of raising her daughter, which I absolutely loved and loved homeschooling this amazing child that grew to be an incredible young woman. 

And yeah, so it was an incredible gift to me the whole thing, even though it was also paradoxically incredibly difficult and, you know, traumatizing at times. And but I wouldn't, I mean, when I think of like the story that I got to live through having that experience and how much it's enriched me as a human and how much I feel like I actually got from that, like I can't have any regrets, you know, it's just amazing that I got to live that. So, you know, and what is, you know, there's no purpose in regrets anyway, you know. 

A: Right, right. They can, maybe alert you to what your body is telling you to focus on in the present. 

E: Right. Like, but I want to take that back. Because there's no I'm not going to say that I don't have regrets. I do have regrets of things that I've done in my story. 

I absolutely do. So it's good to remember that. But but the whole, the whole story as a whole, I it does not, it feels like it does not serve me to see the story as a whole as a regret. Right. 

A: And also, even that moment here where you're sort of like, Oh, I actually do have regrets. It's demonstrating again, that paradox, which is also this flexibility of we may feel one way right now. And then, as we are shifting and changing, and the world is shifting and changing around us, we could feel some other way in a different moment. 

You know, and there are moments where we may be filled with regret. And then there may be other moments where we're full of triumph and victory. And we can see how all of those pieces that, you know, we were feeling shame or sadness about are actually part of, you know, the bigger, more, you know, profound picture of things. 

So we get to be both the, you know, petty moment, you know, and the sad moment, and the big picture visionary moment, we get to be all of it. Yeah, totally. Wonderful. Well, I'm curious about, you know, this memoir that you're writing, how do you feel that writing a memoir has helped you on your personal journey? 

E: It's been amazing, actually. And I recommend it for anyone that feels like they need to process their life. I mean, I feel like it could help everyone in the world to write a memoir of their life, because all of us have lived incredible stories that I, I want to backtrack from the memoir subject just for a second and mention, at one of the Wild Women's gatherings that I led in the canyon one year, we spent a day and a half just everyone having as much time as they felt they wanted to tell their life stories. 

And it was an incredible journey just to sit and listen, be present with like 15 women sharing incredible things that had happened. And some of them, you know, through really mundane circumstances, you know, it's just, it's just amazing to me that everyone, every one of us has, has stories to tell. 

And, and I think that writing memoir is incredibly helpful to process everything. And part of what has helped me is being able to be a witness to everything that happened and being able to, because I think sometimes when we're in the moment when things are actually happening to us, we sometimes act from a part of the self that's so deeply easily triggered or acting out of general generational trauma wounds and all this stuff that, that it's harder for us to see like a larger, more like integrated perspective. 

And when you're writing memoir, you can have, you can give yourself the perspective that you didn't have then, and it can be extremely healing to kind of being able to bring in the witness to all of those circumstances. 

In my particular story, as I'm writing it, I've realized that bringing in the imagination has been really fun. And I've actually created a character that I call grandmother fire that like lives underground. And she's this wise woman that is like this eternal being. 

I don't even really know her entire story yet as, as she's kind of come into the story. But bringing her in, it's really interesting, because she's kind of brought this, she's brought this deeper element of truth to me about the whole story, even though she's a figment of my imagination. 

And that's been really fun too, to kind of see where the, where like the womb, creative energy, where that chakra, like as it opens to the, the story in the body, like what wants to be rebirthed, what new thing that may not have actually happened, can like come in and like help heal the story in a way, like bring more perspective and more, more wisdom to the story. I'm not sure if I answered your question, but. 

A: Well, I mean, I think that the way that you're saying that this helps you on your personal journey is a way that it can help many people on their personal journeys. And I absolutely love that idea of giving people the, you know, full attention to tell their story, you know, and tell the story of their life and be witness to that. I think that's a really amazing experience for everybody involved to get to go through and to see and hear, you know, especially oral storytelling. 

I feel like that is a lost art in so many ways. And there is something about literally being heard like speaking, and we can even get into singing now, making sound, being invited to make sound or being witnessed making sound. 

And that sound could be speaking about the things that went on in your childhood, speaking about the people in your life who impacted you the most for better or worse, right? And having other people hear you, right? That feeling of being heard is such an essential human need that we have, you know, and then beyond that, to be able to express and make sound, right? 

So I want to just in, just give you like this little piece of my story here that maybe you can play with as you talk about voice activation. So I practiced a very strict form of yoga where we didn't make any sound. It was not like a humming singing, you know, kind of shrewdy box yoga that I practiced. 

It was very yang, like yang up the wazoo kind of yoga practice, right? And so I was very tight-lipped. I literally, you know, would keep my mouth closed so that I wouldn't breathe out of my mouth either because we didn't breathe out of our mouths. 

We only breathed out of our noses, right? Some people already know what yoga I'm talking about. But basically, when I went to India and I went to this yoga ashram, and they had this yoga that was wild, was wild by comparison to what I had practiced, and they had us do these sounds, they would ask us to vocalize during a yoga pose. 

And the first time that I did, it was like I heard my own voice and I was like so sad. I was so sad because it was like a whimper. It was like a little shaky, sad, you know, kitten or something that like was trying to get help. That's what my little voice sounded like. And it took time for me to relax my throat, relax my jaw and relax myself enough to let the sound come out without wavering and without that like clenching fearful noise. 

And you know, I've talked to some other people about it. Sometimes people who are very nervous about singing or nervous about like letting their voice be heard, it's because they hear their own hesitancy and more than that, they hear their own pain in their voice. And it's very difficult for them to hear their own pain and then to also know that other people are going to hear it. Yeah. 

E: All right. We have such a hard time being witnessed in our paradox in the, in, because we feel like if we show our pain, people are going to think that we're just that and, and they can't, because as a culture, we have a hard time holding a bigger truth. 

You know, we have, it's either you're a victim or you're a perpetrator, you know, we can't be like both things and or none of them, you know, it's, and yeah, it's, it's really interesting. Oh, wow. That's really powerful about the, the whimper and the kitten and the. 

A: Yeah. Yeah. When, you know, when you have, I mean, you work with people now and I've gotten the awesome opportunity to like do some vocal play and, you know, witness your sound baths and just kind of the breath of what you offer. But when, you know, you're working with people and doing voice activation, what do you notice comes up for people when you're inviting them to make sound? 

E: A lot of generational trauma, a lot of fear of being seen, a lot of fear of not being accepted for who we are. Fear too much, fear of being not enough. Those are, you know, both extremes are huge for voice. 

A: Yeah. I've definitely had the fear of being too much. And I think we've all had that fear of not being enough. And I almost feel like they're kind of the same thing. 

I've been thinking about this a lot, how, you know, being too much is like, I'm not quiet enough, or I'm not timid enough, or I'm not ashamed enough, or whatever it is that I think that I'm supposed to be less of, you know, less big, less proud, less ferocious or whatever, right? Yeah. 

E: I mean, we, it's like, there's so much pressure for us to be like cookie cutter versions of each other. And it's like, it's like, and it goes to me, I think of it like we judge ourselves around voice. 

I think of it like as kind of like Instagram filters, you know, like, like, everybody these days is like trying to look like an Instagram filter. I mean, I'm making huge chin, but, but voice is kind of similar, you know, we all think that we should sound a certain way. 

And if we don't sound in the some, you know, like narrow little frame of what a voice is supposed to sound like, especially if you're a woman, I think, somehow our voice is not pretty enough or not, you know, palatable enough. And when I work with people, I really try, I really encourage them to sound not pretty before we even, you know, try to be harmonies or anything like that. 

I really want people just to open to their full, the full expression, you know, and to feel like the beauty of even when our voice sounds completely loose and almost gravelly, how that like that openness that we can feel in feeling like the earth energy coming through those like, what's it called the the the word is escaping me, but when you go like, guttural, the guttural sounds and yeah, how went just by making those sounds which which can be judged as ugly by whoever, when we actually make those sounds, how does it feel in the body? 

It actually feels really amazing to do that. And especially if you're like lying down on the ground and making that sound into the earth, it's like, it's like getting I personally, I feel like I'm like becoming a rock or something. I'm becoming tree roots. And I'm feeling like my oneness with the ancient beings of the earth and like, feeling my oneness with dinosaurs and like all all this like power and and amazingness. 

So yeah, I feel like through voice, we really can tap into the energies of like deep earth and also like expansive cosmos in a way that's so incredibly powerful when we can let go of like, oh, I need to sound like, you know, a pop singer or whatever, you know, and it's not like it's it's like a bad thing to also want to play around with saying it was sounding like a pop singer. 

That's totally fine too. As long as you're like, actually finding your authentic voice through whatever, like, melting or whatever you want to play around with doing or singing like through whistle tones or whatever, you know, it's just there's so much authenticity to discover by playing with with voice. 

And I want to bring back myself back to the canyon. And the very first night that I came into the canyon, I was hearing all of these melodies kind of like layered on top of each other. And I was like, what the hell is going on? And the next day, I went down to the river. 

And and it was like, they kind of unlayered themselves. And I was able to hear just like one melody coming up through the earth into my body. And I just started singing with this voice that I never had before. And it was this very expansive voice that was so loud that I could hear it like echoing, like, long ways down the canyon, it was like bouncing off the cliffs. And I was like, whoa, where did that come from? 

Like, I've never sung like that before. And I think it was because I was in a place where there was nobody around at all. You know, I mean, the man that eventually became my husband was there. But nobody else was in the canyon. 

You know, they were surrounded by millions of acres of natural national forest, you know, seven river crossings from the nearest road. And and I'm just completely unfettered. And, you know, nobody judging me for miles around. And just the power of that and the power of just like opening to the sound of what I felt like the earth was giving me and just allowing it to come through was just a phenomenal blessing. 

And then, you know, almost every day after that first day, I would go down to the river and like sing with the canyon is how I like to think of it, like I'm singing with the earth and with the cliffs, like bouncing my voice back to me. And yeah, did I did I totally lose like whatever? 

A: No, no, it's a beautiful train. I'm glad we're on it. Because I think that like, you know, your description of, you know, singing out into those millions of acres of nonhuman ness, right? And the way that you're being received so fully by nature with zero judgment, right? 

There's nobody there to compare you to anything else you just are and your voice just is in this space, you know, and that's that it's a kind of witnessing that I think we crave as human beings that being in a way it's like being completely unobserved by anything that is going to examine us. It's like this soft focus of our beingness, right? 

When we get that kind of like openness kind of I think people probably feel that when they sing in their car, you know, like they feel or the sing in the shower, they feel like nobody can hear me, I can sound however I want, I can sing as loud as I want, I can be, you know, trying to make Whitney Houston's voice right now, even though like I would never do that in front of like another person, but I'm doing that in my car right now, you know, yeah, but that's sort of powerful like visual of that sort of space around you to allow your voice to come out exactly as it was like ready to come out. Yep. 

E: I had a really powerful experience, a group experience just last weekend with this that happened really spontaneously. I was invited to come in on this vocal activation session that this woman was leading and she was like, and if you want to take over, like she was just really excited to see what I did. 

So I did, I kind of took over and I got everybody singing, there was like six of us in this really cool little bell tent thing. And it was this really beautiful experience of everyone singing at once. And because of the power of it and because of the way I was kind of leading and supporting everyone to feel kind of unheard in their fullness, it was like we were all rising and falling like together, you know, that like I would support everyone in like crescendo and then like release and then crescendo and then release. 

And in that group, like building of energy, everyone I think kind of like loses self-consciousness of like what does, what does me the individual sound like? And we just become this one force of like sound together and nobody's like, oh, that's not like perfect harmonies or whatever. This is just like release and expression and fullness. And, and then it's like the beauty of like letting that like die and feeling like, oh, we're also, you know, able to like slow that down. 

and come into quiet together. And it was really beautiful to feel how freeing it was. Oh, there was this couple that weren't part of it in the beginning and they were standing outside the tent and I could see them and they were standing there for like five minutes or something, like looking really intrigued. And then I just kind of sang to them like, come on in. And they were like, oh, really? 

We can join? And they were so happy just to be welcomed into the bubble of sound and to be freed. And at the end of it, they were like, oh my God, I've never experienced anything like that. 

That was incredible. And they had heard us from a great distance. There was a party happening at this house. You know, it was like this speakeasy thing happening at the main house. And then, you know, they heard this like sound happening in the distance and they like followed the sound and found us in the tent. It was super cool. 

A: Yeah, well, I got the honor of being part of one of your group voice journeys, so to speak, where we just, it's very interactive and so much improvisation. But there's also this really lovely way that you kind of, like you said, guide the energy of the space and encourage and support people. And, you know, I know you also work one-on-one. Can you describe a little bit of how, you know, all of these gifts and ways of being that you've garnered, you know, during this 23 years you spent in the canyon and so on. 

Like, how does that translate into, like, what you do now for people and with people, like, especially maybe in a one-on-one setting, what would that be like to work with you? 

E: Well, it's really different over Zoom than it is in person. And I feel like both are equally valuable. I feel like I prefer to work in person when I can because there's just something so amazing about getting to actually, like, be in the presence of the vibrations of the other person and, you know, do some hands-on stuff. And I have them actually, like, laying down on the floor while, you know, things are happening. 

And, you know, it's very... I mean, that happens also over Zoom. Sometimes I have the person lie down on the floor and I just kind of coach them what to do. But it's different in person. And, you know, and also in person we can do things like, you know, we can, like, put our heads together and create, like, a sound tunnel when we're, like, sounding into each other. 

There's this, like, there's this... I call it a sound tunnel. There's this vibration that you can create. And anyone can do this with a friend. You get a friend together and you put your foreheads together. And if one person is, like, good at holding, like, one tone, it can be extra powerful that way. And if you have, like, one tone, like, really strong and you, like, invite that other person to just come in and join that tone with you, it creates this, like, resonance that's just, like, whoa, it's amazing. 

So that's something in person that's really, really fun to play with. But there's a lot of, like, deep healing that happens through... I mean, honestly, a lot of it is very in the moment, like, intuitive stuff. But there's things that happen with, like, singing to different parts of ourselves and supporting those different parts to maybe make up a chant in the moment. 

And I'm just maybe just, like, singing the person's name in the back or whatever my intuition is telling me about what that person most needs as far as, like, support vocal... But it's often, like, vocal support that I'm giving the person. Like, sometimes it's just a hum, like, just a very, very, like, low hum, depending on, like, what person needs. 

And sometimes they need something louder, you know, to kind of, like, lift them up. But it's a lot around, like, dealing with the different voices of the different parts of ourselves. And kind of coaching those selves to kind of release and let go and speak, be given the voice to, like, parts of ourselves that have not been able to be heard and witnessed. 

So I'm there as witness and support for these parts to kind of come up. It's very related to, like, IFS work. If you know anything about, like, internal family systems, it's about, like, being able to experience the self as, like, a conglomeration of voices inside the self. 

And the voices that kind of, like, war with each other, giving voice to those voices and giving those voices support to be released and expressed, like, helps, like, the larger voice of the witness, the larger self, to kind of come in and have the knowing of, like, oh, I am whole. I am valuable. I am not too much. I am willing to be seen and heard. And then, you know, and once that kind of, like, integration starts happening, we can work more with, like, harmonies and things like that. 

Like, if a person wants to, like, develop their ability to, like, create their own chance, you know, affirmational chance that they wanna, like, get up in the morning and sing to themselves, you know, we can create things that can help someone with their daily routine around, you know, motivation and body image and whatever the personal issues are, you know, voice can be used as a tool to help kind of be, kind of, like, become your own coach, basically, through using voice. 

And also through using silence, too, and listening to the, like, the quality of the silences that are created after a release has happened, you know, that that's- The space. This is important as the actual sound is in receiving, like, the echoes that follow that sound. 

A: Yeah, the vibrations that continue to, like, expand inside of us. Yeah. It's so interesting. I think there's, you know, what you're describing is so somatic, you know, and I'm even thinking about how it compares to the way that I work with movement, you know, where you're using sound. I'm using micro movements in tiny ways that someone's moving their body. 

And just as you were describing, like, for some person at this moment, what this part of them needs is like a big sound, you know, or what some part of them needs is like a small sound. And it's that same way with movement. Sometimes we might need a big movement to, you know, release a muscle contraction or free up some part of ourself. 

Sometimes we might need a very small movement for it. And then the other thing that's so similar and very somatic here, I think, is that you're kind of speaking to a process that involves excavation of what's buried inside of us, what's been suppressed, right? Another way to say that is kind of like, what's been habituated, what we've just made normal, this belief that I have about myself, this conditioning, this voice of my father, I've just made that normal, I've made that me, right? 

And this is like, again, I think about how it compares to the somatic work I do. It's like, we've made that contraction of my stomach normal. That's just how my stomach is. 

That's just how I breathe. And there's an excavation process here of unwinding and reconnecting with those spaces. And that part of the journey that you're describing can be kind of like messy. And it's not always, you know, fun, but it can be really powerful, especially when you have a facilitator. Like I'm just imagining you here, and like, because I know you're your energy, I'm just imagining you kind of dancing around the person and exploring and having this space of curiosity and openness, right? 

As they're excavating and they're pulling out like all these, you know, for lack of a like, softer term like carcasses, you know, from like their life, you know? And it's like that sometimes. And then once things are more clear, like, you know, like you said, you've made that space, then that's where the refinement starts to arrive. That's where like you said, you could play with harmonies, you know, or like I would say, now we can move into experiencing functional movement patterns. 

Now that we've moved out like all of the, you know, the dysfunctional patterns that were your norm, now we can start exploring what it means to kind of come back into like, you know, a certain level of like sophistication that we've always, it's always been there. We've always been capable of it, but there needed to be that like excavation process first. Yep. Yeah. This is... 

E: Although even from the beginning, actually, I give people tools just to have like some basic structure just to use the voice very easily, like every day, you know? There's very simple exercise that I give, a couple of very simple exercises that I give to that are just daily, you know, five minute practices that can just like establish that like relationship and just simple and simplicity with the voice too. Totally. So it doesn't be like this complex thing all the time, you know, there's the hangout. Like it is, but it's also simple. 

A: Totally, totally. And I mean, that's, I mean, for me, it might just be like how I offer people just like arch your back a little bit and then slowly release and it can be as simple as that. And you know, because the thing is, is that we, it takes a really unusual kind of person to wanna do that deeper excavation work on their own. 

Usually what I'm describing is like you're facilitating something for someone and there's that safety container that you're creating for this person or for this group to kind of go through, go through that excavation process in a way that feels safe for them, you know, that feels possible for them, right? Yep. 

Yeah. And what do you think as you're kind of putting, getting ready to put out, well, I don't know when it's coming out, but this memoir that you're writing, you know, what do you intend for people to receive from your writings? 

E: I love that question. I intend for people to receive how amazing it is to really be in the sensual body and the experience of that. So that just to kind of support the ways that we crave that because I feel like there's so much in our culture around self-denial and, you know, my relationship to food is very much like a celebration of the senses and my relationship to fire and water and earth, all these things that I got to be with very deeply. 

And I also want them to get the teaching from my story, my personal story, my personal experience was that there were ways that my sensual body became in some ways like a way that I also was like kind of spiritually bypassed to myself, you know, and that was part of the paradox of my story. 

So it's also like a cautionary tale. Like it's so, it is possible to be so in body that you're out of your mind and not really like able to see what's actually going on. And that's part of what happened in my story was that I kind of used my sensual body became a way that I was in and also a way that I was out. 

And, you know, in the way of like the way that addictions can be and, you know, and one of the things that happened in my story was that I was smoking cannabis on a regular basis through most, you know, pretty much my whole 23 years. Not like I was like a all day smoke or anything. I'm extremely sensitive. So I could have just like, you know, the tiniest little puff and I would just be like stoned for hours and hours and hours. 

And that, you know, made it like really easy for me to be like in La La Land and like in my sensual body, but also it like kind of kept me out of reality and in some ways and kept me like a little too like happy in this sort of false way because I wasn't really dealing with some things about my reality. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot more than that, but that's some of the basic things that I work like. 

A: Like, yeah. I think that's a wonderful and important point that you make about, you know, we try to escape maybe if we're living in, this is more about modern people living in a more modern way probably, but like if there's a lot going on with our mental, you know, body and we're thinking a lot and we're anxious, we may try to escape to our sensual body. That's a place people go to get out of their head and then what if that's not in balance? 

And then we're, you know, we're either in this state of panic and frenzy and this mental way or we're detached and kind of dropped out of, you know, what my responsibilities might be or things like that, you know. Or what's really going on inside of me by just escaping into, you know, feeling good in my body and whatever form that's taking at the moment, you know. 

I'm sure a lot of people do that through, you know, food on the couch, watching a TV show, you know, and it's not like there's anything wrong with that. It's just like you said, it can be a way that we bypass what's really necessary in us, what's really going on. 

E: Yeah, yeah, what really needs to be healed and dealt with. Yeah. The deep stuff, yeah. 

A: Yeah, the stuff that maybe we're having a hard time doing alone. 

E: Yeah, yeah, and I mean, I guess another thing that I want people to get is that community, like the importance of community and true community and what I feel like that means. And I feel like I haven't entirely accessed what I feel like true community means and that's something that I intend to create in some way or another, because it's something that I want to experience before I die. 

And I have had like glimpses of it. I have had some emergence, semi-emergence in ways that community has been real in my life and even like the community that I live in right now. I live outside of Joshua Tree, California and there's an amazing community of artists and super cool people that I'm very much a part of that I love but I really want to live like someday like on land with people caring for land. 

I want to be around children. I want to be around water and plants and be able to be tending fires again and to be like immersed in my central body and also like grounded in myself, in my center, in my wisdom, in my intuition. I want to be like fully integrated on land and I really want to become an elder. Like that's my goal in life is to be like a true elder with like kids around and get to watch and be a part of like bringing up the village. 

A: And I think what an incredible asset you would be, what incredible gifts you have to bring such a community. So I hold that for you. I hold that dream and that possibility is just something that's just right around the next corner for you. Thank you. 

Yeah, you know, it was really, we shall see. Yes. When we started this interview, you had some very sweet idea that I enjoyed, which was the idea that you were gonna maybe turn the tables and ask me some questions, which I'm open to. 

But before we do that, I want to ask two more questions of you that I think are pertinent to some of this discussion. So not everybody has been able to enjoy your beautiful food, but definitely the people at my retreat did and many people in the Joshua Tree community do. So I've heard that people have been bugging you for decades to publish a cookbook of your recipes and is that ever going to happen? 

E: Best answer is I really think so. Not promising it, but I certainly intend to finish a cookbook someday. Hopefully, like I actually have a goal of finishing my memoir and some version of a cookbook in a year, a year and a half, like, you know, giving myself a year, a year and a half, I would really like to have both those things done. And I think it's actually doable. Discipline is my toughest piece of that whole equation because there's no other reason for it not to happen. 

I just need to really be disciplined about making it happen and saying no to things. But yes, I really, really do want to write a cookbook. I have already written a couple cookbooks actually, but there's a couple reasons that I'm not going to get into now where I haven't published either one of the cookbooks. I actually had a publisher for one of my cookbooks way back in like 2003. 

And yeah, for reasons I won't go into, that didn't happen. But yes, the cookbook that I think that I'm going to put out first is going to be called, I believe, the elements of a feast and it's going to talk about like, what is a feast and how can we actually make everything we eat a feast of sorts? And what is a feastly attitude? 

And then like, what is a feast where we actually like, invite people in and celebrate, you know, fire and water and air and all these things. So I'm going to have a few different ways that I talk about like, what a feast is to me. And because it's a very rich topic for me, feasting. And I feel like my whole being is kind of like made to feast. 

A: I love that word. I think it's a perfect word and it's a wild word, but there are elements of sophistication to it. Like it has a few different octaves you can kind of play with there, you know? Yeah, so I'm down, that sounds delicious, right? It's going to be okay. The other question that I have for you is, what is the most meaningful compliment that you've been given lately? 

E: Okay, let's see. The one that I'm going to pick, there were a couple of really great ones recently. The one that I'm going to pick, I think, is this one around somebody after one of my sounds, that I'm a midwife, and that really touched me. And it really meant a lot to me that just, because when I do a sound bath, I'm singing with the sound bowls and I'm harmonizing with them. 

And I'm just traveling where my voice wants to go. And the way that I feel, what I feel like I'm doing is I'm being a mirror of everyone's parts, everyone's insides, universal and earth consciousness. And we're all, we are one. 

So I'm just giving voice to that oneness of all things and all dimensions and to earth energies also. And I feel like through using my voice that way, I'm helping other people give birth to parts of themselves that are submerged. And in that way, I do feel very honored by that sense of midwife, that people feel that initiatory energy and that safety with me and that bringing them through something. And that meant a lot to me to hear that. Yeah, thank you. 

A: Yeah, and it speaks to skill, that there's a lot of skill that you're bringing in. Midwife is someone who's experienced in this process and is skillful in their delivery, you could say, or their facilitation. And so I can see how that would be a very meaningful compliment, it would say, this is at this level bringing in new life into me is like that's your skill level. Which I love that, that's awesome. Cool. Well, I'm down for some questions if you have some things you'd like to hear from me. 

E: I do, I do. One thing that I'm always curious about, especially with my women friends, is about our relationship with our mothers, because I feel like it's very, there's a lot, it's very rich soil for exploration. So I'd love to hear about like your relationship to your mother and like significant gifts and challenges that you've found in yourself through that relationship. 

A: Well, yeah, so my mother just had her birthday. She's a Cuspian, she's a Gemini cancer Cusp and she's very Gemini, but I think she has a Capricorn moon, so there's like a little edge to her too. And I kind of had the experience growing up of feeling very responsible for my mother's feelings. 

And I don't think she ever intended to make me responsible for her feelings, but at some point in my childhood, I'd kind of decided that I was. And so there was a lot of, you know, inner turmoil I felt at not being able to make her happy, of not being able to meet her needs fully, right? 

And in the circumstances she was in, as a single mother, she worked night shift, as a nurse in a hospital, you know, she had needs that like I likely couldn't really meet and that weren't really my responsibility to meet. 

But nevertheless, as you know, kind of the story went for me, I ended up feeling a lot of that desire to help her and to take a load off of her, take pressure off her, especially being like the eldest, you know, in my family. And so I'd say for a long time, I had this relationship with my mother that was wanting to please her, but then simultaneously like an anger at feeling responsible for her. 

And so then there was also like the dark side of that was like, you know, resenting her, resenting her emotional states, resenting how I felt like those emotional states were like put on me, where, you know, whether or not they were, whether that was ever her intention or not, I experienced it that way, you know? 

And it took quite a bit of deprogramming on my part. And I even on my mother's part too, for whatever part she played in that dynamic that I experienced in kind of coming to a place now where I don't have that same feeling of responsibility. If my mother comes to me with a sorrow or a complaint, I am not immediately feeling burdened by that. 

I can actually simply be present to her emotional state, whatever it is, and not feel this, you know, squirming, crushing need to do something to make her feel better, you know, that I felt a lot as a child, you know? And my mother in so many ways is also a healer. And so some of the gifts that I've received from her are that, you know, real tender attention that she is capable of giving people. 

My mother's also very interesting on a spiritual level. She considers herself to be a Rosicrucian, which is a mystical form of Christianity. So Rudolph Steiner was a Rosicrucian, a guy who created the Waldorf schools. And the Rosicrucians believe in kind of layered realities. So they kind of believe in the multiverse, right? And like timelines, and they talk about those kind of things in their writings, they have these descriptions. 

I mean, these are written like hundreds of years ago, but they're describing basically like a supernova or like the death of a star or like quantum mechanics, but they're explaining it in like this kind of, you know, ancient old English kind of structuring. So my mother is that and a Buddhist. So she spent several years listening to a lot of Pima children, like hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of everything Pima children ever recorded. 

Amazing. And I swear in that period of time, like I witnessed my mother go through like a deep spiritual transformation just by constantly listening over and over to Pima children. 

E: Talk about a midwife that all our mothers could use. 

A: Yeah, so I'm so grateful that for Pima children and for my mother to put herself through like a total like Pima children download for like, I'm talking years, you know, and she will even admit that. She'll be like, I went through a transformation listening to Pima children for two hours a day for years. 

Yeah, so I mean, I'd say my relationship with my mother now is quite beautiful, even though I don't see her as often as I'd like to. When I talk to her, I feel like we're both able to hold space for each other and we're not, you know, putting things on each other like we used to once upon a time. 

So yeah, I'm very grateful for my mother. She now works in hospice and she works it with end of life care and she has that flexibility in her presence to be able to speak, you know, in the kind of Christian language with someone if they need that or she can also invite them into other ideas about what might happen with their soul or their consciousness or other ways to process and think about things that might be outside the box. So she kind of has that flexibility. Yeah. 

E: Well, super cool. Thank you. Okay, next question is, what do you grieve most when you feel in the space of grief? 

A: Yeah, I think that I grieve my innocent little girl. Yeah, because I didn't really get to have her as long as I wanted to have her for. And I, you know, even as kind of the world started coming in and letting me know that I, you know, at that time in my like little, you know, child body was not safe, right? 

Was kind of the experience I had of it. You know, I held on to my innocence in different ways, you know, and I still do, I still hold on to the truth of my innocence in so many ways. But I do, I grieve the loss of my little girl and also my little girl body because I felt like that was also taken from me too early in my life, around seven. I went through early onset puberty, which I've talked about before, you know, on this show a little bit, the first podcast episode, if you go back and listen to that one, it's got more of that kind of story in it. But yeah, I grieve that. I grieve my little girl body and my little girl innocence that I didn't get to have as long as I wanted it. Yeah. 

E: Have you worked to allow that little girl to come forth and be little? 

A: I work on it. I work on it. Sometimes it just comes in the form of dressing how I wanna dress, even if it's a little zany or a little weird or, you know, even just like, you know, a little revealing or whatever. Like I think that sometimes wearing, you know, something that's too short or not covering all of me, there's an innocence to it, you know, and I don't necessarily need to be like seen by everyone wearing that, but around my house or something, you know, to walk around and just like a big baggy t-shirt with like, you know, my butt hanging out or something feels innocent. 

It feels like I'm a little kid again, you know? And I like that. So that's one way that I play with that. But there are deeper ways that I try to be with my little girl and give her that freedom back that she felt like she got taken from her. 

E: Beautiful. Thank you for sharing my next question for you. Where do you most often have to face the feeling of lack and or frustration in your life and in your soma? And how do you alchemyze that feeling? A feeling of lack. Or frustration or both, you know, whichever you feel most called to address. 

A: Yeah, well, I've been working on this internal project inside my body for a while now. And, you know, that is that my sacrum is out of alignment and it's out of alignment because of a few different things, but there's a series of very hard falls on my butt that I experienced. 

And so there's this discomfort and, you know, I'm gradually slowly getting it aligned and I have some really great, you know, mentor, a mentor in my life in the last year who's been helping me with that. But there can be a lot of frustration that I experienced that my body slowing me down with the discomfort that will arise when I am too overstimulated or not getting enough sleep or not getting enough rest. 

And I'm sure other people can relate to this even if they don't have a twisted sacrum. But I can feel this frustration that my body's slowing me down in some way, you know, or maybe I want to go do, I mean, the mood for like vigorous exercise or like something like that. And then I go to do it and my sacrum starts talking to me or telling me, ah, not quite that much. 

And there's another part of myself that's like, no, but I want to, I want to like, you know, whatever kickboxing or something crazy like that and my body is like, you know, that's not really where we're at. 

E: So how do you alchemize that feeling? 

A: I remind myself that like the lesson here in my life has been responding with tenderness to my discomfort and not getting ahead of myself, but staying present with myself and what's actually happening. 

And that that's how I go, oh, instead of resenting my body, like I used to be frustrated and I do get frustrated at times and resent my soma, resent my somatic experience for not being what I want it to be, how can I instead redirect myself to what is it giving me right now? What is this feedback actually redirecting me to that may be actually more important to my spiritual, karmic evolution than whatever I think I want right now? Beautiful. 

E: Yeah, that's perfect. I love that. Yeah, great. And my next one is what really pisses you off and why? Besides your body not doing what it wants to do. Yeah, you know. 

A: Something more external. Yes, I'm looking for that. Cause I just recorded actually a solo podcast on something that has pissed me off and I'm thinking about talking about that, but I might let that one just like write it out, but it's a good one. Let's see. Yeah, I guess it, let's see what really pisses me off. I really hate when people are so quick to assume that they know what you are and what you're up to. 

That is something that will really piss me off. If somebody, you know, I don't know, I've had men or you know, there was a few different people early on in my life where like I'm talking, I'm behaving, I'm interacting, I'm just being myself and then someone says something like this, like, oh, I see what you're doing. Oh, I get this, I have you figured out. I hate that. 

E: I hate that little box and they're like, yeah. 

A: Yeah, no, oh, like, yeah, just like when people do that, it's like, oh really? Okay, yeah, good for you. I don't have myself figured out. So I don't know how you did and just, you know, 15 seconds of observing me or whatever it is, you know, that the assumption that we make that we know what someone else is experiencing just because we have some idea about them and when people just like without questioning themselves or without checking themselves, just roll with that and then project whatever onto somebody, I hate that. 

It's like really, really obnoxious when it's directed at me or when I see it happening to other people, you know, like I'm proud to say that I can be friends with a wide variety of different kinds of humans in the world and, you know, I've had friends sometimes who are, you know, on the spectrum or neurodivergent in different ways. And so, you know, the way that they show up in the world is very unconventional in terms of how they express themselves. 

And when I see, you know, those people in my life get judged harshly or get treated a certain way because someone assumes they know how intelligence this person is or how capable this person is, I will get very upset on behalf of those people as well. Yeah. 

E: I love it. Our anger is so powerful sometimes and we're so conditioned to not be pissed off about anything, you know, we're supposed to be all yogi-like and zen and, you know, nothing ruffles our feathers ever. Oh, yeah, I wanted to turn that compliment question back on you. So what's the most meaningful compliment you've been given lately and why was it so meaningful to you? 

A: Yeah, I think, you know, any time, and this has happened, you know, just last week with a client in a session, that they thanked me for being able to receive their story or being able to receive their pain or being able to receive them. 

And yeah, and I got that also this weekend. I was with a friend and we did some somatic work together and I got that same compliment from her. I felt so safe to go there with you and to share with you what was really going on with me and let you see all of it. 

And that is such a huge compliment because first of all, when I was younger, I think I did like have that sort of energy where people wanted to open up to me. But my internal experience of it sometimes was being incredibly uncomfortable receiving that stuff from people. 

Like even if they were coming at me with it and I was holding space and I was doing my best, there was a part of me that was like, oh, this is too much, this is a lot, you know? And I think it actually goes, circle back to that question with my mother, that sense of feeling like responsible for their feelings, responsible that I needed to fix it or do something about it, right? 

And so it was like really uncomfortable, like, oh, wow, there's so much pain here, there's so much upset and now I have to do something about it because you've shared it with me versus how it is now. 

And this is why that's such a huge compliment. It shows me how much work I've done to release myself from that expectation that I need to somehow manage or control someone else's experience. And that's part of what allows me to actually receive their story or receive their upset or receive their emotional pain and truly receive it and let it come in and not be squirming in my seat or feeling like I need to do something with it, but let it be. 

And so that's why it's such, I always feel, you know, my response when people thank me or, you know, appreciate me for being that safe space, I let them know it's my honor. Like it's absolutely my honor to be held in that regard by you that you're willing to open up at that level. Yeah, so it's a meaningful compliment to me. 

E: I have gotten to witness so many people in your presence, just have so much profound depth of opening and healing. It's just, it's been so inspiring. Like every time I'm at one of your retreats, I'm like, and I get to witness it, I'm just like in tears, you know, just feeling the blessing of what you're able to give to people. 

You are just such a true like earth angel of what you give. And it's like bringing tears to my eyes now. It's really, you're such a deep healer. You're so beautiful, Amy. And I'm so grateful you're here on the earth. 

A: Thank you, thank you, Elka. I feel you, I thank you so much. And, you know, I think the paradox here is that, like, I'm also kind of just this like goofy girl, you know, at the same time. 

E: I also adore that about you as you are a total baseball. And I love that, cause I am too. And we have fun that way together. 

A: Yeah. And it's been, sometimes it's been hard to like, feel like I'm allowed to be both, you know, like that I can have that like depth and go there with you. And then also, you know, be lighthearted and silly, you know, too. Like I feel like I've, I'm still learning to allow myself to be both of that, to be the paradox, you know. 

E: Well, I cherish our friendship in the way it's growing. And this conversation has been so great for me. Cause I was actually like really nervous. Cause I only been on like one or two other things like this before in my life. 

And the last one was like many years ago. That's really, you do create such a safe space. And thank you for all of your, oh wait, no, there was one that was less than a few. Yeah, never, never mind. 

But it has been a while anyway. And I felt really safe and held by this whole experience with you and also in just so much joy and playfulness with you and I always enjoy our conversation so much. Thank you so much. 

A: Thank you. And I look forward to, you know, future conversations. I know there were some different subjects that we kind of danced with at the retreat, you know, around food and stuff like this. And, you know, also kind of carries all these interesting fun paradoxical kind of, you know, playful and also radical vibes of like, you know, alternative ways of viewing, you know, our world around us and food. And so I know that we kind of considered having more interviews like this between each other, more conversations to share with people. 

So I look forward to that. Is there anything that, you know, if people want to reach out to you, if they're curious about, you know, working with you or learning more about your memoir, you know, where would people find you and where would people start? 

E: Well, one thing I would say, I would suggest that they do right away is go to my sub-stack and I think all you have to do is type in sub-stack forward slash Elka Wilder and my sub-stack singing the bones should come up. And that one I've been writing, I have two sub-stacks. That one I've been writing on for quite a, you know, half a year or something. 

And so there's a lot of posts there. The other one I just started aging wildly. So that's gonna be a diff, that one is gonna be mostly conversations or at least that's how I'm envisioning it. And I'll be like, the singing the bones one is focused mostly on my memoir and cookbook stuff. And aging wildly is mostly conversations. 

And I think I'll probably do just some like talking with the camera about whatever's going on in my wildlife too. So those would be, and you can sign up as a free subscriber. It's super easy. Just you don't even have to download the sub-stack app. Just go to the website and find me and sign up as a free subscriber. Or if you wanna just follow me, you can do that too. 

But I really suggest doing the free subscriber thing because then you'll be alerted when I have a post. If you don't sign up as a subscriber, you won't see when I have a new post come up. And they're not like super frequent at the moment. So you won't be like inundated with them or anything. 

So there's that. You can also go to my website, which is elcowilder.com and see my offerings around personalized retreats and some of my private chef experiences. I do blindfolded meals. I do a package where you get a blindfolded meal and a singing sound bath. Or you can hire me just to come do a singing sound bath or a vocal activation for a group. 

I don't think I have my vocal activation for a group thing up on my website yet. So you can just use the contact form that's on the website and get to me through email that way. Or you can just email me at elcowilder at gmail.com for anything you might wanna check in with me about. And yeah, so those are the easiest ways to get ahold of me. I'm probably forgetting something important, but that's some good ways right there. 

A: Yeah, and what an adventure that would be for anybody who's listening to this, who might have been wanting to have a desert experience for them to come and you could be their incredible guide for the outer world of the desert, but also the inner world that they're carrying. I could imagine that be a really powerful way to journey. 

E: Yeah, and I wanted to also mention something that's not on my website that I really intend to be offering right away actually is a guided vision quest too, cause that's something that I've done for many years, that I did for many years in the canyon. And there's no reason why I can't be doing that here also. Yeah, if anyone feels like a need for like solitude in a supported kind of way, I have a way to do that. 

And a really lovely spot that I have picked out or have like this stash of stuff already there on like BLM land actually. Yeah. Nice. And yeah, what else? Oh yeah, and I didn't mention the vocal activation. 

Oh, I did I zoom sessions or I'm also available. That's on my website also, but I can't remember if I mentioned that. And there will be recordings happening in the near future. Also that I'll have up on Spotify, but that will probably not be for several months, but look out for me on Spotify. I'll be on there eventually. 

A: Fantastic. Yeah. Well, all of that will be in the show notes, some links to all the things mentioned. And I really look forward to catching up with you again super soon. And thank you once again for coming on and sharing so much of your story and yourself with us. And also for asking me some really juicy questions. 

E: Such a joy. Thank you so much, Aimee. It's been really fun. 

A: I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Follow me on Instagram at AimeeTakaya and send me a DM about this episode. I'd like to thank you for being part of this somatic revolution. And if you'd like to support the podcast and help more people learn about somatics, consider leaving a review or a rating. And finally, if you'd like to have the experience of relief in your tight hips or back and learn to understand what your body is really saying to you, visit YouCanFreeYourSoma.com. I can't wait to share with you what is truly possible. Bye for now.