Wild and Precious Conversations

About Wild and Precious Conversations

Wild and Precious helps you make peace with your wild and precious life. Conversations, meditations, encouragements. A podcast by the Underbelly Project. underbelly.substack.com (https://underbelly.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Wendy Kiana Kelly

Category

society & culture · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Nov 2019

Latest episode

24 Feb 2022

Latest episodes

64 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   24 Feb 2022

   Wendy Talks About Benevolence

   Photo by aisvri (https://unsplash.com/@aisvri?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/s/photos/benevolence?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) I wonder. I mean, honestly, this morning, I have an image of Ukrainian grandmas on my mind. As I write this, as I say this, What would a benevolent world actually look like? It's been on my mind all week. This week has been interesting. I think what I came to at least for my own world is that a benevolent world would be moving a lot more slowly. It seems as though it's the actions and thoughts that happen in the moment really quickly without thought that really sort of push forward a world that's less benevolent. I have a tiny story — Yesterday. I did a simple seemingly benevolent thing for one of my progeny. I made them a smoothie. And no, no one was hurt. But in counseling later that day, this smoothie making became the event that helped me unravel what keeps me from benevolence in my own life. So I'm going to try to try to unravel that here. That thing is safety. I made a smoothie filled with lots of really healthy stuff. Also delicious, just sweet enough. They drank most of it, but not all of it. And so what I ended up doing was even bringing that tiny amount with us in the car. So that they could have one more chance is I implored them to finish the whole thing. He very politely said, no, thank you to their credit and stayed relatively calm while I was, I, I think that the voice I have right now, perfectly sort of mimics what my voice was that morning. Come on. Just one more sip. By the time I got back home, I was aware enough to realize that something was going on. I actually forced myself to measure it out and show myself clearly what was going on that what had been left with negligible. If I were really worried about malnutrition, I don't think that that was a problem. So what was this all about? Obviously not nutrition. The feeling in my body when the smoothie was refused, or again, this tiny amount of smoothie was refused. It was one of foreboding and dread. I'm really not proud of admitting this. In fact, I hesitated, hesitated as I was like, come on, just say it out loud. But it's true. As I drove home from counseling and ran a couple errands on my way home. I was unpacking more, what I think was going on. And I think it is this universal feeling that comes up for all of us, but all of us in a slightly different way. Robert Sapolsky, the Stanford. I believe he's a biologist, almost sure of that. He's written a book called Behave and has several lovely videos out there talking about his work and, and in one of them, he explains that the love hormone, oxytocin, amplifies feelings of love for people who are in our “in group”. But it also amplifies feelings of not love or more exclusion for people who are outside our in group that sets up something kind of interesting. Think about it. We all need to create a sense of I'll call it Eden. A sense of safety. A perimeter around ourselves within which we're at ease. I don't really like noticing that I do this, but I think it's key. I think it's really that key to why benevolence is so hard. Sometimes even with people we adore. My castle walls are built around an idea that our family in our family, we are healthy. Yikes. As you may be aware, there have been marauding vandals and thieves and whatnot banging on my castle walls for the past couple of years, past few years. My castle is also built around an idea that we're immune to violence. Violence happens out there to other people. I'm still not really ready to talk about the super publicly, but it's important for this essay to mention that extreme violence at the hands of the system did happen to our family about a year ago. As I say this, my hands are shaking and my heart is racing. The system metaphorically took a battleram and knocked out one of the metaphorical walls in my metaphorical castle. Metaphorically, but also in a well, in a realer way, realer way, my family, my Eden became fragile. And so I can very much understand not being benevolent. It's literally why I'm in counseling. Back to the smoothie because the smoothie drinking episode deconstructed in counseling began to help me unpack all of this. As I drove home from counseling, a police car passed me and as it did, so I literally sat up straighter tensing up because they are that symbol of the system who introduced violence into our family. I've found my body aware and then. I thought to myself, if we're all quiet, no one gets hurt. And then less humorous a flashback to a scene that had come up in counseling, a scene of early kind of violence in my life at gymnastics. I would have been around 11 years old and at least once we had to sit cross-legged along a wall perfectly still for two hours. And then there's another tiny scene I had just finished bars and was moving to floor, which was a brand new spring floor. And back in those days, very few gyms had those Olympic quality spring floors. My hand was bleeding as it would, uh, from the bars they would rip. Um, so I showed my coach out of fear of getting blood on his floor instead though he took my head hand, considered it a moment of weakness on my part. I think he clearly didn't understand that I was worried about the blood on his floor and was thinking that I was upset because I had a little bit of blood on my hand. He took my hand, yelled at me for being such a baby and ripped this skin off the blister, which was common back in those days. The ntold me to rub chalk in it, which again was common. But I think the key there was the importance of remaining, perfectly neutral showing absolutely nothing on my face. So composure and we won't get hurt. Composure as adults raged was definitely how I stayed safe as a child. In the newsletter I mentioned another early childhood memory, my infamous rubber band incident. I clearly remember that teacher — grade one. I was six. I liked her. She was really lovely. This one day we were all quietly stringing rubber bands onto a grid of nails that had been kind of nailed into a little wooden block. It's hard to explain. I was in a progressive school. I think it was math. I'm not sure how one rubber band got loose to this day. I remember the name Allen as the little boy who shot the rubber band. It was an accident. Immediately though, the teacher commanded all heads down and we stayed there for what seemed like an eternity. I know in this case, it wasn't that. But as she admonished us about the dangers of rubber bands, and I remember being also at the same time, really scared and also understanding how funny this was, even at the time, I really can't remember how it was resolved, but all I know is that we all knew then that it was an accident and that none of us could say that because she wanted a bad guy to punish. So these stories taken together. It's why we can't have nice things. I'm only kidding a little. That was another thought that had come up. As I drove home from counseling, all this came together and I realized that I occasionally create little talismans, little incantations. To keep my personal Eden secure to keep my castle walls strong unconsciously, of course. And it's possible that I making too much of this smoothie, a Tempest in a smoothie cup, perhaps, but also I think there's at least a grain of truth here. There's a feeling in the air recently of needing to magically create safe spaces around certain groups where we feel secure. Certain incantations we do to help delineate a perimeter within which our in-group resides. I don't have any answers. As my dear husband always says, when I bring up the unhoused: “Well, as a Christian, shouldn't you invite them to live with us? But he's got a point he really does. Here's what I think is impossible to do without inviting the sacred into our lives. Not the spiritual exactly, but sacred love, the holy. I think it's impossible to do benevolence. Chances are the unhoused in my city would like a house not to live with me. And chances are certain people who are not in my in-group are perfectly happy being, not in my in-group. We don't all have to have a kumbaya moment together necessarily. What we need, I think goes beyond oxytocin, beyond science, beyond politics. What I need, what we need, I think is to inject an acceptance of sacred love into our daily lives. I think it's essential. This comes not only from my admittedly huge bias as a Christian, but also from my recent book. Books that I've read, not written obviously, but the master in his Emissary by Iain McGilchrist and the Dawn of Everything by the two Davids, I always forget both of their names Wengrew and Graeber. And I think we need possibly a little less spirituality. Bell Hooks said “I'm often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement. And so little to the practice of love within the context of community.” She was onto something there. I'm going to leave us here. I think all this needs to settle. I think I need a cup of tea, a long walk. And I welcome feedback about these oral essays as well as the conversations that I've had next week, as I mentioned is likely going to be a conversation that I've worked on for over a year. Now it needed time in contemplate. I am enjoying sprinkling these shorter essays in now. And again, so feedback's welcome. They aren't as amplified as the conversations, but I'm not sure yet if that's because they suck or because they just don't amplify them on social media in any case. Thank you. And please rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts. If you want to rate review. On a podcast platform, but you don't know how just ask and consider subscribing to the Monday morning newsletter too. You can find everything that I'm doing right now at underbelly, which is at U N D E R B E L dot L. I have a lovely week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit underbelly.substack.com/subscribe (https://underbelly.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   17 Feb 2022

   Wendy Talks About Ubuntu

   It’s snowing lightly and the sun’s last glow is obscured by mist. My teenager is practicing cello in a small, quaint cabin nearby while I meander in the woods and along the lakefront, stopping briefly on the dock to see if I can see any stars emerging. I’m listening to a book by Iain McGilchrist called “The Master and His Emissary” and it’s in turns riveting and excruciatingly boring as he describes the dire straits we’re in. Pre cello lesson, I’ve been nursing one of Brene Brown’s “vulnerability hangovers” so bad that all I have wanted to do is dig a deep pit, crawl into it, and hide. Of course, my better senses prevailed and the ground is still frozen here, so here I am, strolling in these woods as I wait for my progeny to finish. As my neck hangs back, my eyes searching for that first star which I am determined should be visible through the light fog, my ears register this: “The philosopher Gabriel Montell speaks of the difficulty of maintaining one’s dignity as a unique individual subject in a world where a combination of the hubris of science and the drive of technology blots out the awe inspiring business of conscious human existence.” I briefly lose my balance. Ahhhh…Science and Technology. Or, Hubris and Drive. A few days prior, and I am bungling as I “help” with the tech in my ongoing Cultivating Humility class. The past couple years seem to have been spent being admonished to head into the woods, value my fellow humans more, and “be kind”. Here I am, taking a year-long course called “Cultivating Humility”. Being the consummate good citizen, I am ticking off all the boxes. I find myself wracked with guilt and angst — zoom meeting after zoom meeting, days isolated and alone in my home where I find myself talking to my cats a bit more often than is likely healthy. Although this last bit likely will keep me from undue Hubris anytime soon, it definitely reminds me of the lack of conscious human existence in my life. We are told to “be kind” and then given herculean constraints that make kindness nearly impossible. We are told to head into nature at the same time that mountaintops are “removed” and “placed” into formerly pristine valleys. We are told how crucial it is to have a supportive group of friends and family and then — well, you know. We need to make a decision to turn toward what is good and right and beautiful and honorable and just. And even when we want to turn away, just for a moment, we need to shore up all our inner strength and steadfastly remain facing that light. Now — what on earth is the word for that? Someone mentioned the Nguni word "ubuntu" this week. At first, I thought, am I bold enough to use a word from a culture I know little about, potentially out of context? And then I remembered the late Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and felt that if he shares the concept with the world, I can humbly offer it as well. Ubuntu, according to Desmond Tutu, means “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours (https://www.thoughtco.com/the-meaning-of-ubuntu-43307)." What if we, all of us who dare to stay connected to each other even as those who admonish us to do so effectively try to rip us apart — what if we dared? What if we dared to remain truly kind to each other, the masses, the vast majority of humanity who is not a billionaire, who is not “in power”? What if we dared to stay connected to each other, to do unseen and unheralded selfless acts for each other? What if we danced daily, played music loudly, listened more? And listened to our odd coworker, not Fox or MSNBC or whichever corporate entity is on your screen? Listened to our ranting uncle? Our crazy neighbor? You get the idea? And not listen to get enough information in order to change their minds so that they also agree with whichever screen is favored on your device but listened just so that other is heard, feels heard and seen? Underbel.li (https://underbel.li) Monday Morning Newsletter — 10 Wild + Precious Things (https://newsletter.underbel.li/) You Tube (https://youtu.be/DV4bJfo43x4) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit underbelly.substack.com/subscribe (https://underbelly.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   10 Feb 2022

   Lisa Richardson Talks About Movement

   Welcome to another episode of Wild + Precious conversations — This week, a replay of our November 12, 2020 conversation with Lisa Richardson. This week I had a chance to speak for the first time with Lisa Richardson, a writer based in Pemberton, British Columbia. Lisa’s writing moves me. It would be wonderful if there were so much strategic planning around this project that I could honestly say that is why I asked her to talk about movement. Alas, no. Movement was our loose theme but perhaps more correctly, we spoke of growth through the metaphor of gardening. And the movement of becoming unstuck, lifting each other up, turning toward light, dancing our messages — I encourage you to listen for the gems Lisa scatters throughout the entire conversation. I felt it was an honour to converse with her and I am excited to share our conversation with you. One simple takeaway: Gardening is a terrible metaphor for parenting. Notes: * Wellness Almanac (https://thewellnessalmanac.com/) — A community almanac from Pemberton, Lil'wat, Area C and N'Quatqua. * Lisa Richardson, Bylines (https://lisarichardsonbylines.com/) — Lisa’s writing portfolio - “Mountain Culture from Everywhere but the Sidelines” Onward. In the next few weeks, we introduce the first in a series of what I am calling “shadow” conversations with Deirdre McClaughlin. In this series, we tackle themes that no one wants to hear about in a way that you will want to listen to... This series was put on hold for over a year because the topic needed that much time to simmer. In fact, I reached out to a few people in order to more fully discuss the topic and no one would engage with me. Stay tuned. Wild + Precious Conversations is the podcast in Underbelly — a project that just keeps growing in often unexpected ways :) And please, if you know anyone who might like to share this journey, share this project. Excited to stay in the arena with you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit underbelly.substack.com/subscribe (https://underbelly.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

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