Clean Your F*cking House B*tch
Our minds are like houses. When they're new, they're empty. As we live our lives we acquire treasures that eventually turn into shit that creates clutter. Some of this stuff is useful, while some of it is simply junk which just creates obstacles for us. What if we could eliminate the nonsense we don't need, and create more room for useful things? Join us on this podcast where we discuss removing what we don't need, implementing beneficial changes to our minds, bodies and souls, to create a life of abundance and fulfillment.
Clean Your F*cking House B*tch
Ep. 107 - From Grass to Galaxies: Finding Wellness Where You Are
Ever felt that inexplicable sense of calm when your bare feet touch grass or when you glimpse a star-filled sky? That's not coincidence—it's your body remembering its most fundamental relationship.
The healing power of nature doesn't require grand wilderness expeditions or expensive retreats. As our conversation with integrative wellness coach Mae Marooney reveals, connecting with nature can be as simple as mindfully cutting vegetables, growing a small plant, or brewing a cup of herbal tea. These seemingly small acts create powerful bridges between our modern lives and the natural world our bodies inherently understand.
What makes this approach revolutionary is how it combines ancestral wisdom with cutting-edge science. The growing field of ecotherapy is increasingly validated by research showing measurable benefits for conditions ranging from depression and anxiety to high blood pressure. Meanwhile, the fascinating science of epigenetics suggests that our attraction to certain landscapes might actually be encoded in our DNA—a form of ancestral memory guiding us toward environments that feel like "home."
Throughout our discussion, we explore the profound disconnect many of us experience in our screen-dominated, indoor lives, and how simple practices can help us reclaim our place within the natural world. Mae shares insights from her work with diverse communities, demonstrating how nature-based healing can transcend economic barriers and become accessible to everyone, not just those who can afford private wellness services.
We also venture into deeper territory, examining how traditional healing systems worldwide have relied on plant medicines for millennia, and the responsible, respectful approaches needed when working with powerful natural substances like psilocybin. The conversation highlights the importance of cultural sensitivity and proper guidance when exploring these ancient practices.
Whether you're struggling with mental health challenges, feeling disconnected from your body, or simply seeking more balance in a chaotic world, this episode offers practical wisdom for rediscovering nature as your most accessible healer. As Mae beautifully reminds us, nature is always there—hand extended, waiting for you to grasp it.
Ready to experience this fundamental reconnection? Listen now, and discover how the medicine you need might already be surrounding you.
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Hello and welcome to Clean your Fucking House, bitch, with Nancy, kevin and Lou. In our program we get real about the challenges of life and living. Your mind is the most powerful tool you have to ensure you are on your desired path for success and satisfaction. Yet from the day you are born, you gradually and subconsciously fill it with tons of useless shit that gets in your way. Why is that? How can you clean that mess up? We'll show you how. Get ready to clean your fucking house.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're going to start just like that. Welcome listeners and welcome to our guest today. So a friend of mine, mae Marooney, is joining us today, and Mae and I connected, working locally for a nonprofit who has this great mission that we both felt inspired by Through that time before that time. Since that time, may has worked in the community as an activist, as a community organizer, as an integrative wellness coach which is kind of what brought Lou Kevin and I together as an integrative wellness coach which is kind of what brought Lou Kevin and I together doing clinical social work and as a therapist, and all of this gave her a platform to work on social justice and collective liberation, which really helps both the individual and well-being's self heal and feel right from the inside out.
Speaker 2:Maybe you would say hame um. She has studied both traditional medicine and a lot of methods from the elders of indigenous um or groups. I'm not even I'm tripping over that people's right um, but in the the reality connects to that. Where we get the best healing energy comes from nature, and finding ways to provide methods for people to connect with nature that's holistic, that's integrative, that's accessible to everybody so that we can all have physical, emotional and mental wellbeing is the overall mission. So there's so much wrapped up in that, but may if, if you were just thinking about how any one of our listeners would begin a process like that. How do we, how do we connect emotionally with nature? How do we find healing? How do we start?
Speaker 3:well, thanks, nancy, for that introduction. And first off, that's a really big question. Um, although it doesn't have to be, doesn't have to, yeah, no, it doesn't have to be. I think the thing is is a lot of times people think we have to go to the wilderness. You know, we have to be. It doesn't have to be environments and they might not have access yeah, they might not have access to get to, like the sequoias or the redwoods, and there's people living in food deserts who are areas that there's not local produce, there's not vegetables, there's not a lot of healthy and whole foods around them.
Speaker 3:And so what I really work on with a lot of my clients in therapy is figuring out what is accessible. And for some people that might be creating relationship with the grass in their front lawn, it might be buying a cactus and it also could be seeing, even if the grocery store doesn't have many fruits and vegetables, what are available. Even if the grocery store doesn't have many fruits and vegetables, what are available. And when cooking with them, how can you, you know, turn the TV off and really be present with the cucumber you're cutting? And so there's a lot of different ways that we can not only go to nature, but we can bring nature into our home. It can look as simple as drying out flowers and holding them upside down and, you know, putting them in your room. Or buying an ear of corn and drying that out and then creating a place in your room where you put the dried corn or the dried beans and start building relationship of nature within the home that you're living in.
Speaker 2:I love that because it has senses beyond the thing, it's sight. But the sight ties to memories and or tastes, which then incites you know flavor, and like all the body gets involved in something. There you go See. It was really a simple answer, in that there are things that are close to us that if we connect to, really tactile, they're really touch oriented.
Speaker 3:Some people are really psyched to what they see, other people it smells, and so it's really also important, um, when it comes to nature, is to see what, what sense do you feel really connected? Is it? Is it touching the soil? Is it smelling mint tea? Is it, um, is it having a beautiful flower in your window seal? And so it's also to see what of the sensory inputs, the relationship with nature, do you feel strongest that can help kind of bring that the aliveness from the plant into aliveness in your body yeah, yeah, yeah cool.
Speaker 1:Can we take a step back for a moment?
Speaker 2:oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I am more or less the science guy on the team, the numbers guy.
Speaker 2:So my question Science and numbers are different, but we'll accept you as you are.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you can use numbers in science. So have you done or are you aware of any kind of research on this topic that helps us, and certainly our listeners, understand more about, say, the reason why this is important, like studies that show outcomes, results, things like that? I'm very curious to learn the why.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, thanks, thanks, lou, for bringing that in. So, especially as a lot of therapists, some people that are working in this space, call themselves eco-therapists, so environment, eco or they'll call themselves nature-based therapists and as we're trying to bring nature-based therapy out of only private practice so when it's in private practice, then only those that can afford it, that have the privilege and the money, the economic means to pay for private nature-based therapy. It makes it so it's not accessible for all. So, as we're trying to take it out of the privilege and the economic privilege and bringing making it accessible to everyone. Part of that is making it evidence-based, making our interventions is actually bringing in the research, bringing in the numbers, bringing in the science you're talking about.
Speaker 3:So there is a movement that's been going on that is definitely getting more funding, more government funding, more research, backing what we're calling nature-based or ecotherapy, seeing not only, you know, taking it out of like the woo-woo, like oh, we say, this feels good, and actually getting to what is happening to people's chronic blood pressure? What is happening to people's chronic blood pressure? What is happening to their depression? What is happening if someone my friend is actually working right now with an initiative that is supporting from 17 to 26 year olds who are in their first stages of psychosis, bringing them into nature-based therapy and seeing how that can help become preventative, where the psychosis doesn't get worse, and actually can help create where to lower the symptoms of psychosis.
Speaker 3:So there's a lot of studies going on right now in the mental health field, getting the numbers backing it so that we can start providing this type of therapy, that it can be billed through Medicaid. Well, we'll see where Medicaid is in the next few years, but for whatever we have, that is government based and that is health care for all. We are really trying to get the research. There is research that's been happening, that is happening. There are journals. There are so many research out there. Once you start getting into the world of psychology and therapy, that is happening so that we can legitimize it because it's been.
Speaker 2:I'm totally interrupting, but that makes me think of one about green and how much green is or isn't in people's environments. And green being plants, grass, trees, it could even be weeds, but if they're growing and providing you know, some sort of all the elements that they do in people's living environment, it it does have a physical impact on their body and their mental wellbeing. And I know, I know there was one done locally in Oakland and I I don't remember the results dang it. I didn't think about that ahead of time where I might have gone looking, but there is evidence, lou, and more of it coming as May is alluding to.
Speaker 3:that's really showing the need for yeah, and after our podcast, I'm happy to send resources. It's not something I've like collected, uh, tonight before the podcast, but if there are, I am like happy to send resources of organizations, studies, to show that there are a lot of evidence-based research and interventions that are coming out of this field, to not to help legitimize it and so that we can get the funding. Um, and the last thing I just want to say to like close at least this piece up on my side is everything I'm talking about has been being done since the beginning of time. When I'm talking about ecotherapy, I'm talking about nature-based therapy.
Speaker 3:What I'm really talking about is us coming home to our ancestral ways of healing. So all of our ancestors knew that, their feet on the ground, their hands in the soil, you know, swimming in the rivers that this was how they kept their health and wellness, this is how they kept their community well-being. And so there's a movement. Now, in our modern day, where a lot of us are on a lot of screens, we're inside, we're sedentary, we're sitting, and we're not outside, we're not moving our bodies as much, we're not gardening, putting, growing our food there is a lot of movement right now, coming back. This isn't new. This is just new words for the oldest type of healing and there are many indigenous communities that are still very active today who are reclaiming their ways of healing and also supporting and the sharing of it help heal all of us I was at a concert last week, actually um several concerts over the past couple months.
Speaker 1:Kevin probably knows about Ravinia. It's an area north of Chicago where we live May, and I'll say, at Ravinia it's a very large open field, kind of modern woodstocky thing, where it's just a bunch of grass. There's a pavilion with the regular wooden seats where people can sit on that. But I always get lawn tickets because I just put my blanket out there, my chair, I take off my shoes, my socks and I just let my feet touch that grass. I got to say it just brings me back to as a kid going to the beach, having your feet in the sand, on the grass and all that. And it's so true we don't get to experience that as a. I thought, well, I'm a grown-up, I shouldn't be doing not that I shouldn't be doing that, but just feels like it's, you know, less opportunities it's harder for you, lou, because you live downtown yeah, what I have is fake grass a lot of around me, not real grass, which, if you know what.
Speaker 1:That's a great segue, if you don't mind well, I actually have questions.
Speaker 4:oh sure, if you don't mind. Yeah, can I actually have questions? Oh sure, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3:Can I say one thing to what your concert?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:And then I want to hear Kevin's questions. I just want to say I don't. I believe that what you did literally is nature-based therapy. I don't believe I, as a therapist, is the only one that holds this idea. Every time you go to a concert and you put your feet on the ground, you take off your shoes, you sit on a blanket, that is nature healing you, that is you healing with nature, that is you getting back in relationship with nature, and that, to me, is literally nature-based therapy.
Speaker 3:So I think what you just described is exactly what we're talking about I can't wait to go back I saw a video recently and it was a kid holding like a meter.
Speaker 4:his dad had him do it and he was standing on a sidewalk and there was nothing coming from the meter, like no reading of energy. He stepped on the grass immediately the meter starts reading energy. Hey, this is awesome. Lose the science math guy. I'm like the woo, woo freaking universe guy.
Speaker 4:Couple questions when you like what you were talking about when you opened up and like connecting and giving examples. I'm wondering how you work and this is more, I guess, for our listeners like a practical way. It seems like I would imagine a lot of your clients have a difficult time tuning into that because it's like a lack of stimulus that we're used to having around us all the time. So what practices do you promote to help people become more present and like tuned in to these things? And then, secondarily, we talked kind of like I would say, high level about stuff. But do you work with your clients on high level about stuff? But do you work with your clients on like grounding in earth's frequency, lunar cycle, lunar cycles, seasons and what those represent, like all that type of stuff?
Speaker 3:high level stuff. Yeah, those are great questions. So first off about I think the first thing you're asking about the bringing in, like the presence you know. So the first thing is I, because I have been working in Medi-Cal clinics, so Medi-Cal is the Medicaid of California, where I used to live. I just moved to Kentucky but for the past two years when I was working in those clinics because of HIPAA and where I was working, we had to do our therapy in a room, so not in nature, and that's why I say I don't believe I was working, we had to do our therapy in a room, so not in nature, and that's why I say I don't believe you have to go to nature to do nature-based therapy.
Speaker 3:And so what I would do to help bring presence into our sessions before we started is I would bring nature into the room. I would have a conversation with each of my clients and see what they connected with Some people connect with water, some people connect with seeds, some people connect with flowers and I would curate it to what actually excited my clients, what interested them, and I would bring those things into our sessions and we would ground in with the nature that they felt resonant with before we started the session. I would a lot of times do some somatic practices, which are body-based practices, to help get us out of the like monkey brain that we talked about the talking brain and kind of help regulate, get into the system. It can be through tapping, which is like touch, like clients, like tapping on their body, breath, work, be through movement. So we'd always start the session with some type of somatic or meditative practice to help kind of drop into a field that was a little bit more regulated and we talk a lot in our field about co -regulation. So clients can co-regulate with the other person in the room, like the therapist, but they can also co-regulate with nature, and so I was really putting nature, bringing nature into the room to be the co-regulation for the client and I would bring the nature that they felt connection with, that calmed them down.
Speaker 3:Sometimes people are really aromatic, so I would bring in essential oils. So I would bring in, like lavender, peppermint, you know, uh, melissa, which is lemon balm, so different things that, once again, depending each kind is different, and so we'd have a lot of conversations to figure out what they, what helped them feel joy, what helped them feel peace, what helped them feel joy, what helped them feel peace, what helped them feel calmness, breath. And then to the second part of your question, which was, oh, lunar cycle, things like that. So I'm interested in all those things. I could talk about the moon all day long, but for me I could talk about the moon all day long, but for me, the most important part of therapy is figuring out where is my client, at what, where, and I'm not going to introduce something that they're not interested in just because it interests me. So I'm going to ask them, I'm going to talk to them about, I'm going to I talk to them. These are all the different things that we can that I've seen, you know support and healing when it comes to depression, when it comes to bipolar disorder, when it comes to anxiety, when it comes to disordered eating, and what are things that actually you feel connection with.
Speaker 3:And so I always am client centered first. I'm person first. I never, ever, create any type of treatment plan that is for everyone or that comes from me. It's always from asking a lot of questions and saying where's their spark, where's their interest? Some clients don't want to talk about astrology, so I'm not going to talk about astrology.
Speaker 3:Some clients want to talk about Cacao because I work with a lot of. I speak Spanish, I'm bilingual and I work with a lot of Latino immigrants where cacao is the basis of Mesoamerica, where their ancestors come from, and so when I brought cacao the seed of cacao is the plant of all chocolate that comes from Central and South America when I brought it to sessions with people from those countries, they get grounded back into their home and they feel this resonance and I'll give it to sessions with people from those countries. They get grounded back into their home and they feel this resonance and I'll give it to them to bring home to their home so they can sit with it and they can be with this seed, and the cacao is also a very heart-centered medicine, so it's a really good medicine to work with, not only for people who have ancestry to Central and South America, but for people who are feeling really disconnected from from the heart um, who doesn't like chocolate?
Speaker 3:and who doesn't like chocolate? And and the actual cacao plants is one of the most beautiful plants, like the actual cacao pod.
Speaker 1:So yeah, okay, back to a little bit of science. I think Not sure. Let's see, you mentioned costs, say and more from the cost of, say, ecotherapy meeting with an actual ecotherapist. Nancy kind of talked about grass and weeds and all that you know, which is all free kind of. My question is a bit of, say, manufactured nature. Is there a benefit to have it, which would be a bit of a cost savings, if you will? Um, something in terms of manufactured nature. What I mean by that is playing rain sounds, having plastic plants or maybe even a plastic fruit bowl. I don't know if those still exist. I know those were around when I was a kid. I'm probably dating myself, but, um, always are those?
Speaker 2:you know, they, they're the visual.
Speaker 1:They seem like there'd be a benefit there in terms of a visual um. Can you share, oh, anything?
Speaker 3:about that yeah, so I, I, I'm, I deeply believe in bringing rain sounds, bringing in recorded sound for people who, yeah, might not always be around thunderstorms and but like the like the sound of rain, rain is is a very soothing sound for many people, not for all, but for many. And the second thing you talked about I have edging around just because plastic and plants, just like, crushes my soul. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be a good intervention for some people, but I have never approached it because I also don't normally bring in interventions that are against my own values. So, unless there's like, yeah, there'd have to be.
Speaker 2:There's probably some it's hard for sure, right.
Speaker 4:But yeah there's.
Speaker 3:So and the thing is, what I also do for folks that might not have access to nature, I do. I'm so blessed I do have access to nature where I live and I go hiking a lot, and when I go hiking, I pick up seeds, I pick up acorns, I pick up seeds, I pick up acorns, I pick up dried leaves, and so if other people don't have access to these things, I also bring them and gift them to my clients. So I think that's my way of circumnavigating the plastic plants is I'll bring in nature if my clients seem to be living in a place that they don't have as much access and they're desiring it. But if my client said, hey, I really like these plastic succulent plants and I'm going to go buy them, I'd say, great, go for it. Like my clients, the people I work with also, they can love something that's not for me and I'm so excited for them to go after it If that sparks them, makes them feel some type of joy, some type of connection with nature. Like I am a thousand percent supportive.
Speaker 1:I've tried the real plant thing and they've just all died.
Speaker 4:So that's why I had to lou, where are you getting your weed for free dude, oh that's ancient secret.
Speaker 1:It is legal here, by the way, in the state I live in.
Speaker 2:In case there's, any authorities listening in on our episode. You don't care?
Speaker 1:no, I hope although I will say there is a group that sells in front of a starbucks, right down at the bottom of my building, to a group yeah we used to talk gangs in chicago whenever, yeah, whenever the cops aren't rolling by, because when they do, they scatter yeah, and, and then lou for you.
Speaker 3:You know, but I do. I have a lot to say. I can't take care of a plant and it dies, and then that makes me feel like I'm a bad parent yes like, yeah, and it's the opposite.
Speaker 1:I don't want my clients and it seems like it would have a negative impact on exactly what you're sharing I'm like now I feel like I'm, you know, not successful and you know, killing things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I've had, I've, I've had that, and so I've, I've. At times, if clients have interest, I work with them and I've said like, hey, do you want to bring your plant in? And we can actually spend some of our sessions talking about, like this specific plant, what, what light it needs, what water, what, how does care look like for this plant? Cause it's just like humans, every plant's different, you know, and so, and if they're like, nah, it just makes me feel bad, then I'm like, oh well, you know, there's also, like you can go to the secondhand stores and there's like a lot of beautiful, like paintings of flowers that are like $1, you know, and and and there's.
Speaker 3:So there's a lot of ways to get nature visually into our home. It does not have to be nature itself. Um, yeah, so, yeah, a photograph, like you said. Yeah, like having fruits and vegetables like out on the counter, that's also a way to as, like your avocados are ripening or your bananas. That's nature. So there's a lot of ways. If you're not gonna, uh, want to take care of plants, that's okay, or?
Speaker 2:if you're downtown chicago like lou and some of what you mentioned location nancy
Speaker 1:yeah, definitely, and some of what you mentioned certainly gets to what appears to be something of a cultural thing, like certain folks will resonate with certain types of nature because of how they grew up and so forth. So that made me kind of wonder how much of this is even like when you talked about how different things resonate with different people, not just from a cultural perspective. But someone might like seeds and someone else might like leaves. I don't know, I'm just stretching here, but does it, does that kind of link also to something of a say, upbringing or events during our childhood that you know because I'm?
Speaker 1:I brought up the beach earlier in the conversation, my feet in the sand, and I haven't actually felt as a child, and I know I shared this with both kevin and nancy. As a child we would go to the beach every summer. I grew up in the northeast so we only had two months out of the every year to make it to the beach. It was so short-lived so my mom would literally bring us every saturday or sunday, and so it's sand between the toes for me yeah, I think it brings sound too, like the idea of the sound of the ocean.
Speaker 2:you know, comes back to the sound of water of a river, or the sound of rain, and, and it can be, nature can be had in so many diverse ways.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What about?
Speaker 3:I'm going to answer your question, but I want to hear, kevin, what about you when you think of your childhood? Is there something that you do? You get brought back to being a kid uh-oh there is wait for it embarrassed to say it bring it. You don't have to, you don't want to I just want.
Speaker 1:No, he does unpack it yes he does actually I I'm not sure if you, we all, nancy and I are more aware of of kevin as a young adult, not really as a child well, she was asking you, lou no, I love you kevin
Speaker 4:oh you asked me what was it?
Speaker 3:yeah, talking about the sand and the water and nancy. You know they have that northeast connection. I don't know if you do too, but, kevin, was there something when you were a kid that when you are in the forest you get brought back to like hiking as a kid or at the beach like what? Yeah, is there any nature that kind of?
Speaker 4:what comes to mind mostly for me, like, yes, nature, I love going for hikes. Whenever I'm in the forest, like it seems like my stress and anxiety just reduces, it melts away, like I just feel very connected, more so than when I'm downtown, like I don't like going. I live near Chicago, also, not downtown downtown, um it's, it just causes me so much anxiety. Um, but I would have to say like, uh, the night sky has always just drawn my attention, like even when I leave the house, uh, going to the gym in the morning when it's dark and I can see all the stars, and it just, I don't know, it just calls me and it's I don't know. It just makes me realize that there are things bigger than me, bigger than my troubles, bigger than my stresses, and no matter what I'm going through at the time, it's like probably pretty insignificant when it's all said and done. Right.
Speaker 3:I forgot the question. No, that was great. That's exactly it. You know, and it's like my favorite thing listen to people because you're right, the night sky right there, no matter where you live in the world, there is a sky.
Speaker 3:Some of us, have more light pollution or more pollution, but we all have a sky and clouds and stars and moons, you know, and so that's a great reminder. Thank you for bringing that in, and Lou to, you know, and so that's a great reminder. Thank you for, yeah, bringing that in, and, uh, lou. To go back to your, this is, like my, one of my favorite topics, so I'm going to try to be concise, which nancy knows I'm not great at, but when you're asking you know, like, do we have connection to our childhood? I'd say yes, but I want to take a step farther. There's this amazing area of psychology and science that's been getting bigger and bigger in the last five to 10 years, called epigenetics. Have y'all heard of epigenetics? Yes, okay, yes, yeah, y'all, yes. So for folks that aren't as familiar, and feel free if anyone else wants to chime in but epigenetics is the idea that not only are physical traits passed down from our grandparents, parents and us, but also emotional traits, mental health traits, and so a lot of times people will talk about this field in trauma. I work a lot in grief and trauma, and so what we have learned is, for a lot of people that are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder or trauma in general, there's times that the trauma is rooted in something that happened when they were a child, but also what we have found through epigenetics, which is the passing down of genes through the institute, through your maternal or paternal lines, your mother or father, their lineage, paternal line, so your mother, father, their lineage is also when our great grandparents, grandparents, parents, what they went through as people and if they did not process and heal the trauma, it is actually passed down to the next generation. And that's when we talk about intergenerational trauma. So when you have friends who are Black or African American and they talk about actually feeling the impact of slavery, it's actually real If their parents, if their great grandparents or great grandparents experienced slavery here in the United States and they were not able to process and heal that catastrophic, violent harm that was done to their bodies and their beings, that was then passed down to their bodies and their beings, that was then passed down to their grandparents and their parents and to them. And so we have actually found through science, through the combination of science and psychology, that it is a real thing that many people are not only having to heal the trauma that they've experienced in their lifetime, but they're actually healing what was passed from from former lifetimes through their family lineages. That's why people that also a lot of my friends who are Jewish like have collective grief and collective trauma from the Holocaust because of their lineages and these are real things that have been studied and are showing that there's actually differences in their epigenetic makeup and the way that they can also experience anxiety, depression, leading to addiction.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of there's, I mean it's a lot but. But what I'll also say on the flip side through epigenetics is we're also passed down resiliency. We're also passed down joy, and so sometimes you might go to the ocean and you're remembering your childhood and your feet in the sand and the water and that is real and you might also love it because your father loved it and your grandfather loved it and your great-grandfather loved it or your great-grandmother. This might not only be a sense memory from your childhood. It is actually could be a memory if your parent or grandparents also had the same experience and they loved it and they evoked joy and safety and other like positive feelings. That can also be passed down epigenetically and that's why, also for a lot of us like I've been working the last maybe five years in deep work around my own ancestry, my European ancestry, my ancestors coming from Ireland, germany, scotland and Wales, and my many generation disconnection from my ancestry.
Speaker 3:And growing up I've always loved the mist, like I've loved like redwoods and wet places and cold forests, and I've always loved when it's rainy and misty outside.
Speaker 3:And then I started deep diving into my Irish ancestry and my ancestors come from West County, clare, ireland, where it's always misty and it's like full of like walking in the fog and the misty mornings.
Speaker 3:And so when I do this work and I think about epigenetics and I think about my ancestors that that is what they lived in and that was their surroundings and that was the nature that they grew up around and they related with. It makes me believe there's a reason why when I walk into a Redwood forest and it is misty, I feel rooted, I feel calmed, I feel like there's a grandparent on my back and I believe it's because my ancestors that is, that they were deeply relating with nature in Ireland and that is why I believe I have so much resonance with that type of nature. Yeah, and that's my belief. But there's also the science of ancestral connection and epigenetics to back up why there are some natural environments that maybe we did not grow up in, but when we go to we feel home in a way that we can't explain. It's because it was a home of our ancestors before and that was passed down to us through our bloodlines.
Speaker 2:I believe that. I think there are feelings sometimes where you do like you said home. You just feel this sense of ease and safety and you don't understand why.
Speaker 1:And certainly explains a lot about my family.
Speaker 3:I'm always talking about my family on this show and you know we're all crazy as hell so I'm like I know my ancestor probably passed on a lot of that stuff, but we're always the life of the party, so there's the joy exactly, and that's the thing, that's the beautiful thing, I believe, about emotional mental health is like I don't believe anything is good or bad, I don't I don't talk in those binaries, I think, any type of challenge or difficulty. There's also the other side of it, I think, when people people have a lot of opinions about mania and depression, but there's gifts in all the ways that we express mentally and emotionally. And yeah, like you said, I'm I don't know your family, but you know, yeah, I get it. I come from a big Irish Catholic, loud, you know, wild family, but we also have a lot of joy. Yeah, there's a lot there and a lot of joy.
Speaker 4:So everything has those two sides the gifts and the challenges there's a quote that I heard that really stuck with me and resonated. It was uh I had to look it up because I couldn't remember it word for word.
Speaker 3:Uh, trauma is passed down through generations until someone is brave enough to feel it oh, yes, wow, yes, yes, and on that note, lot, so a lot of my friends are are brief workers and brief tenders, and it's a field that I'm studying right now where people are literally creating ceremony, day long, day long ceremony, bringing in sound, bringing in safe containers where people can actually come and, in community and collectivity, they can express their grief through yelling, through crying, through movement, through literally emoting and getting it out and processing it out, feeling it, having a safe place to feel it. And the practice comes from West Africa, the practice that a lot of my friends are studying. I can send more information through a tribe in South Africa, and Sabamfu was one of the in his tribe. In West Africa they tend to grief, they emote grief, they feel their grief and the tribe supports people through drums, through sound, through dance, to really hold people when they're going through individual and collective grief.
Speaker 3:And um, a man named saban who was uh told by his elders you are meant to bring this practice to the West, to the States, and so he left Africa, he left his tribe, he left his people and him and his partners, sabampu and Maladoma, they came to the United States and they started teaching people about how to grieve, how to come together, how to feel their pain, how to do it where we're not alone and how to feel our pain.
Speaker 3:So we don't pass on exactly what you're talking about and I can send more information about this. But, um, and then there's one other person I'll say that an amazing author in this space. His name is francis weller, he also worked with sabanfu and maladoma and he's an elder um and he wrote a book called the wild edge of sorrow, where he talks about gates of grief and how we can come together in ceremony and ritual and support each other in feeling our grief and processing it and healing it out so we don't pass it on to future generations. So there's a lot going on in this space around grief and it's new here in the West, but it's ancient in so many places around the world may speaking.
Speaker 3:That was a big answer to a little thing you're talking. No, that's awesome.
Speaker 4:Um, on the same topic of like natural healing modalities and things passing on to the west, like, do you have any input on like psilocybin and ayahuasca ceremonies and the healing nature of that? Because my opinion is that these things grow from the earth. They have, we're studying them now. Right, lou's gonna want some scientific literature to read, but like ptsd, anxiety, depression, right, not just treating it but curing it. Um, so just kind of wanted to pick your brain on that a little bit. What are your thoughts on those?
Speaker 2:I did not preface them.
Speaker 4:May.
Speaker 2:Those real medicines.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of thoughts on those things. I'll say. Sosilocybin is being widely used now to help support in healing trauma, in healing depression, in healing many things, including PTSD. I have seen it personally, community and clinically. I've seen people who have been in, who've been on all the type of psychiatric medication, have been in talk therapy for decades and not being able to feel their trauma and their reactivity. It has um impacted their lives into a way, into a point where they're not able to to be alive in the way they want to. They're not able to walk in the world the way they want to. And I have seen, through um, a lot of care around this. Because the first thing is, I do believe that a lot of these plants are getting misused right now. I do believe a lot of people are working with them that don't have the knowledge, experience or lineage to be working with these plants. So I'm seeing a lot of like misuse of these plants, I wanna say, but for those that are holding them with experience and care and also have the background around mental health. So I think it's twofold To work with someone around PTSD. You not only need to have worked and studied with plant medicine like psilocybin to understand how to work with it. But you also need to have a background in psychology, social work and therapy so that you can really hold the mental health piece. I see too many people take a one week course and then they become psilocybin guides and then they try to work with people around really serious mental health and I think that's dangerous and I'm not okay with that. So I want to say in this I am very much here for using plants to heal. I think plants have a massive amount of healing potential, especially psilocybin. Psilocybin is one of the most incredible plants, I think, in the world and I think it needs to have the utmost respect and I think it needs to have the utmost care and the people working with it and it is not something to hold lightly. Um, it is very deep healing, very serious deep healing. So, and then around other plants. So around other plants such as ayahuasca um, there's a vast amount of different opinions in the world.
Speaker 3:I me personally I've worked with a lot of, a lot of elders in Central and South America. So in Mexico, one of the native plants is hickory. Some people call it peyote. That's the Spanish word. Hickory is the indigenous word for the Wira people, who are the people of the desert, who hold the cactus, who hold the plant. It's mesclun.
Speaker 3:I personally believe that if a plant is not native to where you are, that I believe that, personally, the people that should be holding the plant and working with it it should be people from the lineage or that you have studied with them long enough, that elders have given you the permission to work with the plant. So it is. You're in deep relationship with the community, with the people, with the lineage and with the plant. If it's not a plant that grows where you're from, not part of your cultural ancestral lineage, I personally believe that there's too many people who are commodifying and monetizing really sacred plants that have nothing to do with their cultural lineages. So I'm not for people just buying ayahuasca and pouring it. I think that is really out of integrity. I think that's a way of modification of a sacred plant and I also think that's a way of cultural appropriation violent cultural appropriation.
Speaker 3:There are people who work with ayahuasca in the Amazon. So in many countries in the Amazon, that's where the vine grows, that's where the plant grows and the elders that work with them they start raising their elders, who become the elders that hold the medicine. They start being raised when they're kids, working and sitting and working with the other traditional healers, and so not even in their own tribe and community that everyone pour medicine. It is a specific person who, that is their role, and they're educated and pass down the medicine and so it's a very sacred gift. I also don't actually believe in selling medicine, so that's a whole other topic.
Speaker 3:But to me, none of the medicine. When I, when I've worked've worked with psilocybin and I've worked with folks, I never charge for the psilocybin because to me, the second I start charging for the medicine, then I am commodifying the medicine and I I don't believe that my relationship with the medicine can stay pure. So that's me personally. Um, so yeah, that. So I guess guess the two big points are one we have a whole frontier right now where we're like exploding around mental health and plant medicine such as peyote wachuma, which is San Pedro, another cactus mescaline that's in South America.
Speaker 3:Ayahuasca is really big and I believe that if you're going to sit with these medicines, go to where it's native, go to the people that have been holding it for generations and been caring for the plant for hundreds and hundreds of years go, support the communities that are are raising these plants in the communities that are are caring for it, that it exists because they've cared for it for hundreds of years. Um, and some people don't have access to go to central america and south america. I do realize lots of things. Um, there are many people bringing elders from amazon to the united states to hold ceremony. Many of my friends do that and, um, there's also a lot of like sliding scale and tickets that are gifted to those to make it accessible for those that cannot pay.
Speaker 3:So there are different, many different ways, but I think we need to hold, uh, medicine that that is powerful, such as ayahuasca. I think we need to hold the plant it's. It's called a grandparent for a reason. Some people call it grandmothers and people call it grandfathers. Some people don't put a gender to it, but it's known as one of the the most ancient plants because it is so powerful, it is so healing, and I think it's just like we give our elders our respect, our grandparents the respect I believe these plants deserve that too, and it is not to um, it's not to be charging hundreds of dollars to become rich or become a guru or become a shaman.
Speaker 2:It's about to take it lightly, it's not recreation.
Speaker 3:It's not recreational, it's yeah, and it's. It's a deep, the deep medicine that is profound and I think can heal things that we can't. That is very hard to feel otherwise and I just hope form of nature that's another form of nature that we can.
Speaker 2:We can internally and externally expand our knowledge. That sounds weird, but you know what we feel safe and comfortable with and where we can um learn to interact and engage with others. It can change that experience, and so we've named a number of things that can be very deep and intense ways to heal with nature, and some very simplistic ways to heal with nature and some very simplistic um accessible ways where everyone can layer more into their daily life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that the last thing I'll say is, if people are thinking of sitting with plant medicine like psilocybin, mushrooms or ayahuasca, I always tell people don't just do it because you want to or you think it's going to fix you. Wait till you're called. Wait till the plant calls you in, sit with it, listen to it. It will tell you when it's your time to sit with it, and if you rush in or you force it, it can have some really harsh lessons, and so it's not always the time, even if you have a desire or want. It's about patience and listening to letting the healing be in its own timing.
Speaker 1:So how close are we to having another kind of a science-based question how close are we to having nature-based healing help from a physical perspective, implications or manifestations of negative emotions and negative, um, you know, anger and and things that, uh, can cause stress and strokes and heart and all that stuff? So is there any research out there or anything that now speaks to the positive side and how kevin mentioned, like from a curative perspective? I don't know like if you literally even said cancer or anything like that but how close are we to having ecotherapy, say, even help with some of these serious physical conditions?
Speaker 2:I don't know where ecotherapy is and I'm not prepared to speak in depth about it this evening, but we, it exists around us. It exists around us today. All levels, for different kinds of peoples, have faith that supports them in the ways that you're talking about, and so it's there. If you want it now, it can be found, it can be used. It's happening. Good point. I speak from a truth of thanks, kevin. I speak from a truth of thanks, kevin. I speak from a truth of being raised in a religion that was founded on belief and trust and really an internal strength. But that internal strength comes from an external source, which is that which is bigger than us. Whatever that is right than us, whatever that is right it's not my own strength, um for healing that doesn't have to rely on the traditional medicine, world, right. So it's out there now.
Speaker 3:It's out there now yeah, and then say yeah, you go kevin sorry, I just wanted to like a big takeaway for me.
Speaker 4:Um, if there's anyone listening that thinks similar to how I do, but, like, the main point I'm resonating with is like being able to tune in.
Speaker 4:So even your message about waiting for psilocybin to call you, I feel like there's an element of being able to tune in and listen and pay attention to things around you, which then makes me realize that's what really the message is with connecting with nature and tuning into it, and it's something that I feel like for most people in most societies and most cultures nowadays it takes so much intention because all there is around us is distraction and we're fed a bunch of bullshit our whole lives.
Speaker 4:We're never taught about real medicine and here's a bunch pills and I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole, but like being able to tune in to what really matters and ground yourself and pay attention. And if you're able to accomplish that and I've talked about this a million times but you almost get guided right, whether it's a higher power or Mother Nature or the herb, whatever it is like there is something bigger than us I agree with you, nancy like that is willing to guide us to where we need to be and put us on the right path at the right time. If we open up and accept that right. Open up and accept that right, give up trying to control every element and just trust in yourself, trust in love and just go with the flow.
Speaker 3:And tune in. You're so right what you just said there. It's about not seeing us separated from nature. It's not that we are people and there's nature. When you're talking about tuning in, it's that we are people and there's nature we're. When you're talking about tuning in, it's that we are all relations. We are in relations with other humans, we are in relations with trees, we are in relations with the wolves and the coyotes, and that's what's happened is we've gotten disconnected from understanding that all the plants are brothers and sisters, and grandparents and parents, and all the the, the squirrels and the cockroaches, any you know insects that were all actually in relationship. And once you tune into that and you, when you're walking and you're not just seeing a flower but you're seeing it as like, oh, this is my relation, this is my, my brother, this is my sister, this is my sibling, you know, is the whole world changes. Once you start recognizing that that not the non-separation, the connection and the family that we're in that you're never alone. You don't need humans to feel companionship and to feel connection.
Speaker 3:And and to go back to what you're asking lou, there's so much research around using herbal medicine, using traditional medicine, using plants to heal most of our pharmaceutical medicine at its basis actually are plants and then and then it's a lot of other things added in. But when you look like, if you take advil and you look at its face, it starts with plants and then a lot of other things. So, and when you look at two of the oldest cultures in the world, india and china, india has traditional medicine called ayurvedic medicine and they have an entire system from when you wake up, when you go to bed at night, about how to take care of your body, and they believe that we have three different constitutions that they call doshas, pitta, which is like your fire. Some people have a lot of fire in them. Kapha is earth, water. Some people are very watery or very sturdy, very earth, or like metabolisms go slower and they're steady. And then kapha, or sorry, pitta, is the fire, katha is the earth and water, and vata is the air. So some people are like always cold and their bones are brittle and they're usually kind of light in their bodies and this is going a little deep. But they have an entire system of ayurvedic medicine, of of turmeric and ginger, and how you wake up in the morning and drink lemon water to like literally flush out the toxins that actually accumulate when we sleep because we're not moving our bodies. And and in china also, as traditional chinese medicine with herbs and needles and acupuncture and acupuncture and um, and you know so and we have in every culture has traditional medicine.
Speaker 3:A lot of us have gotten disconnected because we're diasporic, meaning we don't live where our ancestors came from. So I am a diasporic person because I do not live in ireland or germany. Um, and I'm guessing probably all of us on this are diasporic. And if you go back to your ancestral cultures, every ancestry before modern medicine used herbs, used the thesans used different plants of their villages to cure. They'd make poultices and they'd make teas and they'd make elixirs and they'd make things based on alcohol to heal everything, to heal colds, to heal jaundice, to heal cancer. And still today there's many people who are working outside of what we call, like you know, western medicine, pharmaceutical medicine, and they're healing everything.
Speaker 3:I lived with a tribe in Ecuador, the Canary people up in the mountains. I lived with a tribe in Ecuador, the Canary people up in the mountains, and I worked with an elder who was 94 years old. He has never touched a pharmaceutical medicine and he hiked the mountains with me every day, teaching me about the different plants to help with kidney stones, to help with high blood pressure, and he knew all the plants and all the names and he was one of the healthiest people I've ever met in my life. He was fine. I'm very, I hike all the time and he was out hiking all the mountains.
Speaker 3:He was 94, you know, and, and he and he, when people were sick in his village, they came to him and he healed, healed everything, the plants, and he heals himself too.
Speaker 1:We could probably have a whole episode on this.
Speaker 3:Definitely, this is fascinating and I I'll say right now, I've been interested in traditional medicine for I don't know at least 15, 20 years I've been self-studying and ayurvedic and traditional chinese and herbalism and I've worked a lot with uh, curanderos, which are traditional medicine people of Mexico, um, my partner's from Oaxaca. So I've spent a lot of time in southern Mexico where there's a lot of traditional medicine workers, curanderos, and yeah, they go to the market and they and they get the herbs for diabetes, for cholesterol, for cancer, for all these elements that we go and get pills and we get chemo. They have other ways. My partner, uh, had pneumonia and he went. He was home in Oaxaca and his mom literally healed pneumonia through heat and wrapping and herbs and baths and he went to the hospital and they said no, it's too far gone. And he went home and they cured him with herbs and baths and he went to the hospital and they said no it's too far gone and he went home and they cured him with herbs and steam and water and blankets.
Speaker 3:So it's so. It's not only, and there's not only research, but there's thousands and thousands of years once you go into different cultures, including our own. I'm right now in a six-month western herbalism course, meaning herbs from united states and europe, and I'm learning about healing everything from the nervous system to depression to high cholesterol. This week we just talked about adaptogenic plants for healing the nervous system and uh and um yeah. So anyways, there's a lot of a lot. There's a lot out there and a lot of people, I'll say, that know a lot more than me. So please get if you're interested in healing, traditional healing. There's a lot of people that can provide a lot of information.
Speaker 4:May. On that topic, before we wrap up here, do you want to give an email address, website, anything to share with our listeners? I can put it in the bio also, but if you want to shout it out here now, if someone's interested working with you, oh, that's so sweet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can give my email. I don't have a website, I'm not a tech person. Yeah, so it's May, maroney, it's M-A-E, and then my email is maroney. So my last name is m-o-r-o-n. As in nancy e-y, may, m-a-e, one, the number at gmailcom. So maroney, may one at gmailcom we'll include it yeah, nancy, I always say nancy, even before I met you, but it's more fun.
Speaker 4:Now, just so you know that I haven't just read it.
Speaker 3:I don't know why it's always been nancy love that listen, we could talk forever.
Speaker 2:We've always felt that way the three of us and with you, we could go, we could just continue, because there's so much more to discuss, and I think what was really most amazing about having you with us tonight is that we really touched on some very intense, deep, heartfelt ways to embrace nature, but also found some ways to keep it simple, that are right in front of us, that we forget about and that we need to remember because it brings nature back into our life every day.
Speaker 3:Is there anything that you want to share before, before we wrap, and in that, just yeah says it all for you, which is you can't say it all, but you know yeah, I think the two other things I just want to say before we leave is, if you have the time or can create the time, cooking is a really good way to connect with nature Chopping vegetables, putting in herbs, smelling, tasting that's nature-based therapy in your home.
Speaker 3:And if you don't have access to water, and you do have access to a shower, a bath, getting in there a hot shower, cold shower and really being with the water can do wonders. And the last thing I'll say that to me is my daily practice. That sustains me and lifts me up when I'm in deep holes and brings me joy is tea. There's all different types of herbal tea, all different types of different tea that'll help lift you up if you're feeling sad, calm you if you're feeling anxious, and so tea is a really good way to start the day, through the day and in the day and chocolate and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate is also really great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes. And so, yeah, find your thing. But nature is everywhere and it's always just waiting. It has its hand out, just waiting for you to grasp it. Nice Love that.
Speaker 1:Lou wrap us. Okay, well, mae, thank you so much for joining us. I know I enjoyed this episode very much and listening to you much for joining us. I know I enjoyed this episode very much and listening to you. I'm sure all of our listeners have as well. We hope you'll come back to join us in the future, because I know there's just a lot more to unpack. Thank you all for joining us. Bye for now.