Transcript: DeeplyRooted: Remembering Back into Ourselves with KAILEA FREDERICK /173
Ayana Young Welcome to For The Wild Podcast. I'm Ayana Young. You're listening to Deeply Rooted: Grounding Practices to Weather the Winds of Uncertainty, a series devoted to inviting stillness, balance and abundance into our lives during these troubled times. Today, my sister-friend, Kailea Frederick will take us deep into our own breath and root us.
Kailea is a mother and First Nations woman dedicated to supporting individuals of all cultures and remembering their ties to the Earth. She was raised off the grid in Maui, Hawaii, which forever imprinted in her the importance of quiet spaces. She feels raised by and intimately tied to Hunua, our Island Earth, a graduate of the International Youth Initiative Program, and a spiritual ecology and boards and commission Leadership Fellow. She has also served as you delegate twice to the United Nations Climate Change conferences. Currently, Kailea is a Co-Executive Director with Black Mountain Circle, the Editor for Loam and a Climate Commissioner for the city of Petaluma. Last year in tandem with Kate Weiner, she released her first book, Compassion in Crisis, a primer on learning to live in the anthropocene. You can contact her through earthisohana.com.
Kailea Frederick My name is Kailea and I'm grateful to be sharing a little time with you today. I so appreciated receiving this invitation from For The Wild and because I'm a mother with a toddler who has big energy, I decided I wanted to create something in honor and in solidarity with other parents who have young children. That's what really got me feeling inspired to do this little recording.
I know for a lot of us, the balancing act pre-pandemic was already hard enough. And now I'm seeing parents, including me and my partner having to hold every facet of our family life together with no outside support. It's overwhelming most days, especially for those of you who are doing this in tiny homes and apartments with little or no access to outside spaces. The act of staying steady in order to create an atmosphere of love and safety amidst loss of income and any clear way forward can most days feel out of reach. Yet I know we do it. We drive deep into our wells in order to hold and to soothe and to feed. And for the single parents who hold it down completely on their own, I just wanted to say that I see you. I am so humbled by you. You can do this. You are doing this. This is for you. Thank you.
I'm going to be reading to you as a simple act of thanksgiving and acknowledgement for what I know is an endless stream of outward energy that you produce every day., the poem "Remember" by Joy Harjo who is the 23rd US Poet Laureate and the first Native person to receive this title has really been helping me move with and through all of the anxiety and fear.
We will begin by lying on our backs as though we're just waking up in the morning. The body and breath are soft while the eyes remain closed. It's the first moments of waking before the stimulation of light, sound, and thoughts begin to register.
Bring the palms of your hands together and start by rubbing them back in fourth. We're bringing blood flow and warmth all the way into our fingertips.
Once you feel heat generated, bring each palm to gently cup and rest over your eyes where they will remain for this first reading of “Remember”:
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
Let's take a deep breath together. Inhale and exhale.
Keeping your eyes closed, bring the palms of your hands back together and we're going to repeat the motion of generating heat.
Now bring your left palm to rest over the middle of your chest and your right to rest over your lower belly just below the belly button. We're going to practice deepening our breath through presencing with the placement of each hand. Start by inhaling into the base of your belly and feel how it naturally expands into your right palm before letting your breath travel up the middle of your body to meet your left palm. Pause here at the top of your breath before beginning the descending exhale back into your right palm. Pause here before starting your inhale feeling how your belly rises to meet your palm before letting the breath up the center of your body to meet your left palm. Pause here, and then start your slow exhale down.
You're going to keep with this cyclical and soft breathing while I read remember to you for the second time:
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
Let's take one last breath together. Inhale and exhale
Thank you for joining me in a few moments of remembering back into ourselves. I see you. I'm so humbled by you. You can do this. You are doing this. The poem remember was again written by Joy Harjo and that's spelled J-O-Y H-A-R-J-O and can easily be found with a quick search online. Her website is joyharjo.com
Be well, friends.
Ayana Young You've been listening to Deeply Rooted: Grounding Practices to Weather the Winds of Uncertainty. I hope Kailea's offering reminds you of the power housed in your own body and spirit that is inseparable from Earth.
We invite you to experiment with more poetry, art, and music that ignites your being. How can you embrace daily rituals that awaken your body while stimulating your mind?
You can follow Kailea Frederick on Instagram @earthisohana and @blackmountaincircle and check out her book Compassion in Crisis: Learning to Live in an Age of Disaster.
Stay connected with our community on social media and sign up for our newsletter by visiting for the wild dot world slash subscribe. If you've enjoyed today's offering, please rate us on iTunes and consider supporting us on Patreon. Our theme music is the song "Home" by Pura Fe and you also heard music from Lea Thomas. The poem "Remember" was written by Joy Harjo.
I'd like to thank our podcast production team, Aiden McCray, Andrew Storrs. Carter Lou McElroy, Erica Ekrem, Eryn Wise, Francesca Glaspell, Hannah Wilton, and Melody Younger