Soul SiStories
Soul SiStories was born out of a mutual desire to bring forward hope and healing through sharing our lived experiences. Hope is embracing life despite adversity. Hope is our reason.
Soul SiStories
Finding Your True Voice: Heather Wolf's Journey Through Music and Sacred Wisdom
From childhood wonder to professional musicianship, Heather Wolf's journey embodies the essence of authentic expression. Growing up with a profound spiritual connection to nature, Heather recounts the transformative moment when she felt unconditional love emanate from a maple tree in her backyard—an experience that shaped her lifelong devotion to folk wisdom and ancestral traditions.
What makes Heather's path remarkable is her courage to overcome deep-seated vocal shame. Just five years ago, she transitioned from business owner to professional musician, driven by a mission to help others reclaim their voices. "Folk arts can be regular," she explains, challenging our culture's obsession with expertise and perfection. Through her True Voice work, Heather guides people to connect with their authentic expression, recognizing that the voice is a powerful instrument for healing and transformation.
As we navigate what Heather calls a "poly crisis" era—with ecological collapse, social division, and cultural disconnection—she offers a refreshing perspective on hope. Rather than turning away from our planetary challenges, she finds solace in the regenerative cycles of nature. "Hope through the more-than-human world" means reconnecting with wisdom beyond human constructs and remembering that "we are the more-than-human too." This understanding bridges the false separation between humanity and nature, offering a path toward healing our collective wounds.
Throughout our conversation, Heather weaves together insights on authenticity, the wisdom of Indigenous women, and the power of community circles. Her work with Teen Talking Circles, founded by her mother nearly 30 years ago, creates spaces for young people to navigate the natural rites of passage with integrity and support. As she performs her song "Wolf Woman" from her upcoming album "Midnight Hour," Heather's message resonates deeply: it's time we believe we have the right to be our full, wild, embodied selves.
Ready to reconnect with your authentic voice and the wisdom of the natural world? Follow Heather's work at heatherwolflove.com and catch her on tour this July from LA to Vancouver.
Heather Wolf (@heatherwolf) • Instagram photos and videos
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Welcome to Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 2:Sis, that was amazing. I am so excited to let our listeners meet Heather Wolfe, where we got to talk about you know kind of hope through her voice really and others finding their voice. And I'm just going to share with the audience that if you stay tuned you get to hear a little concert while we're together.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's so gorgeous, so incredible, so soul. Sisteries, this is some good stuff here. Everybody Can't wait for you to listen, join us, for you to listen, join us. We're thrilled to be talking to and meeting the lovely Heather Wolf, who has agreed to spend some time with us and share with us her journey.
Speaker 1:Heather Wolf is an artist for the Remembrance of Folk Wisdom, bruess, true Voice, vocal Guide, singer, musician, storyteller, facilitatorator and sacred circle practitioner from the islands of the Salish Sea. Heather is devoted to the study of folk wisdom, traditions and the remembrance of our ancestral heritages. Running through her work is a conviction that these arts and practices, carried by the collective, belonging to the whole and forming the vital foundation of every healthy culture, can help us embody our sacred relatedness to other humans and to the living world. Heather leads private sessions, retreats and workshops worldwide, gives mythopoeic ritual performances of folk song and story with the Mountain Dulcimer, who we hope to hear a little of, and performs with her bands Witch Pop and Wild Revival. She's also the lead trainer for Teen Talking Circles, which we understand she originated as well, and welcome, welcome, heather. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3:It's a delight.
Speaker 2:It's wonderful to meet you and have you spend some time with us and I know, just talking a few minutes before this, we kind of talked about some things you have going on in your life and kind of where we started on our journey and creating this podcast, and really what we love to do is just kind of hear from guests and having them share with us kind of what got them to where they are in your life, in your world. And so listening to that biography of you, holy cow, I mean there's a whole lot going on there. I mean this folk wisdom and I was reading online about your sacred circles and the work you're doing with, you know, teen girls and just all this amazing, all these amazing paths you're taking, and I would love for you to just kind of share, like, what got you starting down this path and then how you've kind of veered into all these different things you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, I got to grab this. I almost want to like give you a peek of my, my altar. That would really explain a lot. But I just found this old picture of me as a little girl and this, um, oh my gosh, assignment that I did in seventh grade. I was just like, wow, I am the exact same person that I was in seventh grade.
Speaker 1:Authenticity hello.
Speaker 3:A lover of butterflies, the wind and rain and trees, who finds happiness in friends, family and music. Who needs music, the wind and trees, who gives happiness, friendship and strength. Who fears insects and war, who would like to sleep in the clouds, who would like to grow her own wings, who would like to dance in the light of a full moon with the fairies? Oh, I, I, that, I. I love to wear rainbow scarves, skirts and dresses, and flower garlands.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes to all.
Speaker 1:And for everybody who's listening and you're not seeing, the photo that Heather shared with us is a beautiful, wide eyed little girl standing in the trees and all the foliage, just looking out with wonder and definitely looking as one with a tree and those branches.
Speaker 3:Maybe that should be my bio. That should be my bio. I love it, I just feel yeah, I remember. You know.
Speaker 3:I don't know what your earliest memories are, but I think really around eight years old is, I felt like a certain awakening of my consciousness on a spiritual level, where I experienced a tree in my backyard, a maple tree that I really loved. I felt I was walking by on one sunny day and I felt love reach out to me through the leaves and branches of the tree, like it was a human being that just reached out and put her arms around me and I felt this bodily experience of what I would call God or the divine, unconditional love. Yeah, I don't know, it's actually making me almost want to cry right now, and it's just. It was this awakening moment of something that I think children are born close to, that divine, unconditional essence of life, which to me is love and grace and wisdom. And for me, I just recognized in that moment, through my whole being, that the living world is a source, is this rich, unconditional, vast source that's always pouring love out to us and to life. Yeah, I think I've always felt very close with that kind of magic, the magic of the living and unseen realm.
Speaker 3:To me, this magic, it's not paranormal or supernatural, it's very deeply natural and um, one of my dear friends and mentors and david abram, is a his work. David abram wrote spell of the sensuous and other books, and his work really encapsulates this, um, but just that magic is natural and that we are all of that magic. So I, all my life, the, the, these are the things that drew me nature, music, um, and I think it's funny that the bio, the, the list that I of titles, it feels so silly, I just laugh every time. I think it's funny that the bio, the list of titles, it feels so silly, I just laugh every time I hear it. But I think it is coming out of a place of recognizing that life is relational and life is multidisciplinary by nature, in truth, by nature, in truth, and that we have a lot of modern over culture, human constructs around expertise and separating, separating um subjects, separating uh, relational relationality in all ways and I stand for moving.
Speaker 3:I would say moving back, but it's also moving forward, because we're never actually returning to the right, returning to a remembrance of a more earth-based, original way of relating with ourselves and life and um, and so my wish in the so it's like, being a folk artist means we don't have to be the greatest at everything we do.
Speaker 3:We do it and we embody it and it can be simple and it can be regular, like I have had a hard time. It was a little over five years ago that I had a huge career shift. I left a business that I started co-founded with my last husband, and I decided I wanted to become a professional musician and it was really scary because I felt I was pretty old in the scheme of things to begin. You know, throughout my whole life have dealt with shame and unworthiness around my voice and expression, which has brought me into the work that I do with the voice, because it's been, it is and has been my own healing path. Yes, and then continues to be.
Speaker 3:I'm just, but, um, I just remember the what got. What got me on stage was just wanting to grant more permission for more people to embody what is theirs, to express, to embody their voice is imperfect and regular, which, like no voice, is actually ever regular, but folk arts can be regular. They're the earth, they're of the people. They don't have to be an expert, institutional master. You know, master, to do it.
Speaker 3:It's a birthright and me carrying our songs, carrying our stories, carrying our own personal, embodied knowledge of how to heal our all these things, that that our folk arts, the songs, the stories um our own personal relationship with herbs and rituals all these things are birthright and they are in our lineage they are in each of our ancestral lineages, which many of us, especially in white culture, have lost. In white settler culture that is so much of America, as well as all the harm that has been and continues to be perpetrated on Indigenous people and people of color, and I will add, our trans and queer communities, even more so now.
Speaker 3:So all of this cultural loss is to me it's a deeply spiritual loss, but it's not spirit that's disembodied from matter, it's spirit that's deeply embodied. So to me it's a wildness. Yeah, oh yeah. It's being in touch with a wildness. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, it's being in touch with a wildness that is wise. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I just want to say, Heather because this is the first time that we are all sitting down together You're speaking our language, so just know that we are right there with you.
Speaker 1:You are among soul sisters for sure, yeah, right, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking back to, like our own childhood and Donna's a few years older than me and we grew up sharing, you know, a bedroom and at night she would sing to me and I thought she just had the most amazing voice. And I think you're still there. I'm still here.
Speaker 3:Okay, perfect, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:But she just had the most. Could you start the?
Speaker 3:story over though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I sure can, yep. So we grew up together and shared a bedroom and a bed and you know whether I was scared or not Donna would sing to me and there was one song in particular. I always loved her to sing, but she would always sing this song to me and as we grew up she would discredit her own voice and say that she didn't know how to sing and that she couldn't carry a tune, and to me it was just the most beautiful, soothing thing always, and I think as an adult she's embraced her voice through singing and acting and writing, but certainly allowing herself to sing loudly and proudly. And so I just I love that. You share that it's. We all have this God given right to use our voice and I absolutely love that.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love that. I want to hear the song now.
Speaker 1:I sing all the time. I sing all the time and, believe me, I do not have that, that to sing well, you just need to be willing to sing out and to use, you know, use your instrument in whatever capacities and play with that. So it's become part of the kind of inner knowing and the teaching of that one aspect of my life. I so relate to so much of what you're talking about here, heather. So many things, and one is just that multi expression of all as source moves in you and through you and outward. You can choose manifestation or it manifests, and in such a myriad way, and they're endless, the endless possibilities. And what can you talk a little bit about? Like, what is that? Oh gosh, what am I even getting? Like, what is at the heart of that for you? What's at the root of it? Where do you determine in which way to move, in which way to experience or grow? However you want to take that question, yeah, such a good question.
Speaker 3:There's like I want to take that question. Yeah, such a good question. There's like I want to respond to something you said earlier and I want to respond to that?
Speaker 3:um, both okay, so I might ask you to re-ask the question, but in terms of the of a folk song and music, I just wanted to tag that we think of folk song and music, as you know, not well-trained or regular, not very sophisticated.
Speaker 3:But if we look into the traditions of the people's music around the world I mean Africa, just as an example, but also Indonesia, like all over the world we're talking about, just like mythology or folklore or ritual, all of it place that, the, the complexity and the um delicacy is actually astounding. And when it, when people are able to grow up in cultures where we'll just use music and dance as an example, but it goes into all the different art forms where music and dance is broad, where we grow up, as where music and dance is broad, where we grow up, as where music and dance is part of life collectively, that we are all constantly in a polyphonic song of existence with humans and beyond, with so much more than humanity, and the more that I mean, and that's where so many of our languages of the world have emerged out of communication with animals and forces of nature, elementals.
Speaker 3:right, it's actually through this. There's a word in Sanskrit word called yukti, and it's like the specific coming together of so many different forces and factors and beings.
Speaker 3:That creates the specificity of form, and we can think of language or folk song, folk tale and myth as these yukti convergences and so that's why it's also so exciting to me is that I'm part of that are so much bigger than me that are happening right now of people recognizing the importance of folk practice and re-engaging and re-reviving, and then our skill set starts to grow it's fermentation. I started a fermentation company with my former husband and third, a third partner, iggy, about almost 10 years ago now, and ferment. You know, the birth of fermentation, um, is a perfect example of that, the rebirth of the firm of home fermentation practices. So I just wanted to, I just wanted to asterix that it's a very, very exciting potential.
Speaker 1:yeah yeah, absolutely. You know, and, as you're, it reminds me, because I had asked you prior to this discussion about your hope through. We generally have a little tag here of hope through whatever it is that our guest wants to talk about, and you had to but one of them speaks directly to what you were just talking about, which is that hope through the more than human, and I love that. You just led to that very naturally. Is there anything else you would like to say about that? I feel it's so rich.
Speaker 3:I will, yeah, and then I want to answer your previous question so potent, so I would say hope, through the more than human world, um, in that, uh, we, we can live most of our lives and if we're not careful it can swell the amount of our lived, our car, the um, the civilization and um metropolis, towns, cities, and, and, and then our consciousness as well, what we think about, how we interpret um, our whole psychology, right, everything can be very human centric, and I would say that that's at the root of most of our problems collectively, yeah, and we, we lose touch with, with one, what really matters, and two, with just all the wisdom that is here for us, and it's wisdom on many levels. You know, I just moved to Portland recently and I found a house with friends that's in Forest Park, so I get to go out walking on trails almost every day and it's changing me. It's so important um step out into nature, our balance, our wisdom, our grace, our well-being starts coming back yeah and then beyond that.
Speaker 3:So there's, there's ineffable, there's ineffable, um, I would say like setting us right, yeah, ineffably, that happens. And then there's also very tangible ways that nature teaches us by the. You know the work, um, uh, the work of biomimicry. Oh, my gosh, her name is on the tip of my tongue. Well, anyway, it's not. It's not with me right now, but if you're, janine Benning, okay.
Speaker 3:So I had the privilege of becoming friends with Janine Benning last year at Bioneers conference, and her work on biomimicry is so important and essentially looking at how we can mimic bias, we can mimic the living world, um, to create healthier, more intelligent systems of doing things as humans. So I really feel like, for me, hope is in the immediate sense. And then the last thing I'd say about that is being in this moment that we're in, which, to me, feels like a crisis, of a poly crisis I heard that term recently and I don't know who coined it, but the crisis on so many different dimensions, poly crisis yes and you know in the anthropocene, the, you know the era of of human centricity that is causing the next mass extinction, like we are in an era of endings of the world.
Speaker 3:We don't know what that will look like, but there's no denying that we're in an era of dying and death, and yes massive species and life loss and systemic collapse. This feels like the ending era, dying you know, yeah, mass extinction.
Speaker 3:And so when, for me, within the realities of this, I find hope through the life, death, life cycle of the living world yes and, yeah, recognizing that, even though we're living in human made catastrophes, we are also living in a world and an existence where life is the larger story, like spring is still happening, yeah, in full magnificent bloom. That when you get outside, your whole being is enveloped and overwhelmed by that truth. But if we stay inside with our human-made devices, our whole being is enveloped and overwhelmed in that truth and, at the end of the day, that is a big truth that affects all of life. But it actually isn't the end of the story.
Speaker 3:I do believe that humans will probably kill ourselves off before we destroy life, like before the world stops living. There's ways, there's mass, massive power of regenerativity, that that the living world has the ability to consume and eat death and bring it back into her body and give birth again to life through the material death. I mean fecundity. Really that word encapsulates that, that truth. The fungal realm, you know flora, fauna, funga, the kingdom of funga, and and microbes teaches us that on such a fundamental level.
Speaker 1:So to me, yeah, and that's my closest understanding of God, and we could talk for hours and hours and days on just these few sentences here, because everything you're saying here for for me, this is where all depth and all life and all truth and all the all exists and move through through this um, it was good, sit around the campfire, talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it let the fire talk to us and let the fire talk it's interesting mentioning all of this just a little quick, little aside.
Speaker 1:Yesterday I was speaking with somebody who's going through some real pain physical pain experiences right now and is um doing a lot of release of some old stuff, and I was encouraging him to get out into the world and go connect and he did. He went for a walk and reminded, like you know, and talk to the trees while you're there and see what they have to say for you, and he came back so rejuvenated and energized in that conversation in that short time but, my goodness, much um healing um possible and actually I do want to, but I there's one more thing I want to say on this, which is, I think, part of the wounding, that part of the the remembrance is recognizing that we are not.
Speaker 3:We are the more than human too yes we are. We are human, and we are so much more than human as well. We're nine tenths non-human cell, right you know? Yeah, we are colonized by colonies of cultures, and then also, um, you know, in a non-biological sense too, and so, for me, hope through the more than human world also means to me that I and that we are, we are, we have a living relationship with what is more than human in us.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, amen to that. Yeah, yeah, I'm thinking that can get us a way down another path too, if we wanted to go there. So there are so many things that you're talking about, heather, I'm like, okay, let me ask you about that, let me ask you about this. So I'm going to backtrack a little bit, because you had talked about, I guess, finding yourself and through your voice, and really I think you said it was like five years ago where you stepped into this kind of new world of just using your voice in any way that you could. And then you've also started this your is it called the True Voice series where you help other people find their voice and use their voice, and I think you said you don't have to have like a musical voice to find your voice, you don't have to be skilled at the scales and all of that, right? So can you share a little bit about what that is, because that to me sounds very hopeful to find my voice and be able to use my voice in, maybe, ways that I haven't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to talk about that Also. I don't know where you'd edit this in, but if you'll excuse me, I still want to answer that question.
Speaker 2:Oh, stop.
Speaker 3:Yes, let's go back to it and then let's tag that one Cause. I would really love to talk about this. Yes, um. So I think, donna, you asked where do I source? Yes, what. How do I find where to the purpose? Yeah, yes, what. How do I find?
Speaker 1:where to it's the purpose, yeah, and and that, that calling at that moment and that direction, absolutely yes.
Speaker 3:And that was just such a powerful question, and I feel like that is a question my friend asked me recently. She asked me how I'm so curious. She said what your soul asks of you and and do you respond? How do you respond?
Speaker 1:Boy, there is a potent question. There's such a beautiful question.
Speaker 3:I'm blessed to know some pretty incredible people, and so she asked me this question and I think it's very related with yours how do I shape the work that I do in the world and or just how I live my life? And I would say that, going back to the very beginning of sharing the story of myself as a little girl, my wish has been from a pretty young age. I have felt very connected with authenticity and integrity and courage.
Speaker 3:I would say those are values that I have consciously held to from a young age and even I think early influences were like the Dead Poets Society, that great film or the DM and growing up in talking circles where we were really invited to share on a deep level in an authentic space, and for me, the whole idea of conformity as I was a young person growing up and socializing, realizing the play of social pressure and pushing to conform, I mean I think I always felt different and weird and I felt a kind of rebelliousness around it too, like a righteousness, like no one's going to make me conform. As I became an adult, it shifted more towards. My prayer is may I incarnate fully in this lifetime.
Speaker 3:And really bring forth what's mine to live forth and to express and to embody. May I incarnate in this lifetime. That is a scary prayer, yeah that is a powerful one. That prayer has pushed me and compelled me to take huge steps yeah my comfort zone it's. It's required immense amounts of courage um and loss. There's this great line someone told me recently your, your new life will cost you your old one isn't that the truth?
Speaker 3:yeah, and damn, do I feel that. Yeah, and so for me it has been a lot about having the courage and the honesty with myself to answer my soul's call. Yeah, but it's not an easy thing to do and I even like, to this day, it's like it has required me to continually meet my loss of vision, my grief, my doubt, my questioning, like, well, was the choice truly made from a soul, truth, or was the choice made from some other karmic knot that I have to work out? Like we're all so fools and we're going to be, we're going to be jumping off cliffs thinking that we're doing the wise choice, and maybe we are. Maybe we aren't like it's just like the zen, the zen truth of like.
Speaker 3:We don't know. We're in a lived experience at any moment. I wish I could tell this story just off my tongue, but I'm sure you know the zen koan, where it's like he, he, you know this. This fool jumps off the cliff, he's headed down to the bottom, he gets hooked on a on a branch. There's a lion that's like roaring up about to bite him, but then there's like just within reach is a perfect berry, and you know, it's like. We are just always sort of in this space of not knowing, did I? Is it good, is it bad?
Speaker 1:is it right?
Speaker 3:wrong like that's. That's the fool, that's the divine humor of it all. We really don't we can't take ourselves too seriously to think that our lofty visions are infallible. Right where I feel deeply fallible, deep fool um right but.
Speaker 3:But. So when I put together, though, what is of? What is my joy, what is my, what passion? What lights me up? What? Where does my love and joy flourish? Where does my vitality rise up? Where is my pleasure and delight, you know, and what I care about most? And how does that meet service to a greater vision of wholeness? And how does that meet my love for others, my love for life, my love for the collective and a sense of vision and and values? And so where? Those where those things meet, uh, my own fulfillment and joy, and calling um and in alignment with values for what's greater than myself?
Speaker 3:you know, and for me that really is a well what I think, because I've I've asked a lot. What is my specific incarnation, then? And it is so much around embodiment of relationality, the delicious delight of sensuous existence that I feel is actually the kind of food for the soul that we need to live a good life. And it just so happens there's a lot of healing and repair work that needs to be done collectively from the overcultures that most of humanity not all of humanity, but a lot of humanity is certainly the dominant modern world. There's a lot of undoing and unconditioning that, I think, keeps us from the very simple truths of how to live in right relation with life, how to make a living, how to make a living.
Speaker 3:And I just want to name that some of my greatest inspirations for the voices to listen to at this time are Indigenous women. I had the privilege to be at Bioneers Conference last year and to listen to a panel of indigenous women speak about rematriation rematriation of the land, rematriation of culture, and so I have my tiny little voice and my tiny little being to contribute. But I feel that the leaders that we need to be listening and following the guidance of are Indigenous women and they hold, these women especially hold wisdom, the sense of like, good sense, which ultimately is quite simple, but one great line that Karina Gould, simon of the bay area, for example, was on the panel. She said if you want to know how to make sure that everybody gets enough, ask the mothers, no matter how limited the resources are yep oh, my goodness, and I feel that in my soul yeah, we're, we're not doing that collectively.
Speaker 2:We are discounting the mothers, we are discounting the Indigenous women, we are trying to silence their voices. And I love, though, that there are people like you, heather, and I'm going to say like Donna and I also, and kind of the people we try to associate with as much as possible in raising those voices. So, you know, for me, it's not through singing, because that's not, although I do love to sing but it is certainly helping others find their voice and being able to speak up, and, if not, speaking up for them, yeah, yeah, what?
Speaker 5:I mean by voice, is all-encompassing, yeah, speak up and if not, speaking up for them.
Speaker 3:So, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. What I mean by voice is all encompassing. Yeah. As you are referring to. Yes. Yeah, and that is the. To go back to your previous question, that is the root of true voice for me, is really what happens when we are. We are connected with our own authentic voice. That comes from that central column of our being and we feel it.
Speaker 3:Yes, we feel those moments when we are speaking from our body, our being, our truth, and we know, we feel it when we're not. Yeah, and I do believe that in speakers and but also in singers, the singers that move us, at least move us the most, are ones where the heart and the soul is, it's coming from there and it doesn't necessarily need to be the most perfectly operatic. Right Again why folk music can be so transcendent, just as transcendent and powerful as the most, uh, incredible classically trained music, which I don't want to to put down either. I have such great respect for classically trained and created and highly skilled musicianship and something song in the work that I do. It came out of, honestly. It began 20 years ago, consciously, although I clearly from my little poster. I've loved music and song my whole life. But when I was in my around 20, I just I became very aware that I had a karmic, that I had a karmic, a spiritual, emotional wound in my throat center around vocalization and singing.
Speaker 3:I would often cry when I sang didn't feel like I had a good voice, I just didn't, I just had a bad voice or something. And I realized that that was actually something that I needed to heal on a spiritual, emotional level. And I yeah, I was. You know, I'd been in choirs, musical theater, western singing, training and for most of my childhood and I, that form for me of learning brought a lot of headiness, like approaching the expression from my mental, intellectual state, a lot of anxiety and control in my body.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I knew that that was not what music was supposed to feel like. Creation was not supposed to feel that way, and so I studied with a lot of different other modalities and really some of the most powerful song practice that I've ever experienced studying and practicing is in the Vedic yogic traditions. So chanting chakras, sanskrit mantra, and the time in India was very important for me on multiple levels. I studied Drupad, classical Indian singing, which is one of the oldest forms of classical Indian singing. Singing, which is one of the oldest forms of classical Indian singing, and it's just in the form itself.
Speaker 3:The divine and the body are not separate from the music. They're inseparable. So they're at the foundation and the core. So now the work that I do with others, it's continuing to morph and grow, but it comes out of just walking this path myself and I I feel that the voice is one of our most powerful instruments, tools, uh, that we've been if we have vocal cords, um, you know that we've been given this immense, magical, powerful capacity and tool for healing our own bodies and a lot of the practices I do.
Speaker 3:I would call it like say that they're like in the realm of shamanic they're primal practices that are inseparable from our energetic body and our physical body, our emotions. All of it right and and so it can be utilized to move and heal and clear energies, and then also the capacity to heal others or to heal collectives or bring joy and well-being. There are times when words just don't do. We need a song.
Speaker 3:Times of birth, death yeah love loss like these times, and and there's something, there's some way in which, when we sing and when we vocalize in general, I think that's why it is so vulnerable for so many of us, because it's a direct self. People can say one thing, but if their energy and their emotion is in a different place, you feel it.
Speaker 1:Yes, you do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. And then that goes on from there into song and form of music, right. But even when we're singing that we're beginning in that foundational understanding of this power.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, heatherather, the profundity of what you're saying absolutely gorgeous, thank you my goodness well, would this be an opportune time? Would you be willing to play? Or sing a little at this moment so I'll do.
Speaker 3:I was thinking of doing a song that, um, a piece of a song that's going to be on the new album that's coming out in July. Oh, I love it that, um, I'm releasing the first single next week and then succession of singles that it's very exciting. And I'm doing an album release tour this July from LA to Vancouver, where I'll be opening for an incredible artist named Cosmo Sheldrake, who, if you don't know his work, he's you must check him out, um, because we can put him in the notes yes, gorgeous truly a living legend, and he's yeah, he's remarkable.
Speaker 3:So Cosmo is an old dear friend of mine, like a brother to me and we've been singing together.
Speaker 3:Actually, he and his brother Merlin have been a huge part in my becoming a singer around that age that I was really recognized that I loved to sing and I wanted to develop my voice and we began teaching each other folk songs and singing in harmonies. So it's really a joy and a special privilege to be opening for him and it feels like a full circle. Yeah, my life and I'll be releasing the album midnight hour for that tour, beautiful awesome this july.
Speaker 3:So this is a song, wonderful, called wolf woman that I wrote, beginning to turn towards music and it really me to get through a hard time, but rich of wolf women and all the wolf women of this world, all genders. Yeah, yeah, you're a wolf woman, you know you're a wolf woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, claim it Uh-huh. Wolf woman so strong.
Speaker 5:Think of all this time you've been holding on. It's time you believe you've got the right to be.
Speaker 5:This life, it's so precious, she's got to be the protectress. This life, it's so sweet. She tended with every heartbeat. Sniff, sniff, sniff. She'll catch your drift, no matter how high you are, she lives Sniff, sniff, sniff. She'll catch your drift, no matter how clever you are. She lives On the high line, on the low line, on the side line, on the high line, on the low line, on the side line, up from the inside. She pulls it up from the inside, up from the inside. She pulls it up from the inside. Wolf woman so strong, think of all this time you've been holding on. It's time you believe, got the right to be.
Speaker 3:Night Queen, priestess, supreme, don't she look just like a teeny?
Speaker 5:little thing. Well, her power runs so deep. She whispered to you when you're asleep Shhh, so strong. All this time you've been holding on, it's time you believe you've got the right to be me beautiful oh heather gosh.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that oh no beautiful, it was gorgeous and uh, my goodness, that could be. Um, that could be a theme song for yes yeah, for what we're doing we.
Speaker 2:We call us soul sisters, right, but we're definitely wolf women. So, yeah, definitely, yeah, I am. I am claiming that.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it Truly beautiful.
Speaker 1:I could feel that. I mean that just came right from the belly that was.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Yeah, it's so funny. I've been in editing mode for all I hear when I play it is my other. I have five part harmony with myself, so I'm like wait, where are the other parts? What am I going to do All the parts at once?
Speaker 1:Well, your through thread was gorgeous. Truly, that was moving, and thank you for sharing that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, I just want to ask because I know we're talking for a while and I don't know how much time you have, heather, but I want to make sure that we get to touch on your, the teen talking circles also, and then I know we have our rapid fire questions and some other questions to ask you on whatever else you want to share. But I want to make sure that you get to share a little something with that, because I know I think that's been running for quite a while and you're the lead facilitator and I know you train other people to facilitate these groups and I would just love to hear kind of how they started and how they've grown as you stepped away for your instrument. We were just talking about, like you know, so many people trying to silence women's voices, but certainly teen girls' voices, and um, and to give adolescents their own voice that they learn to use when they are much younger than all of us, like how powerful that is. So if you can share a little bit, Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And I will say I've had the privilege lately of working with some preteen girls in my true voice work, their songwriting and first performance, and it's just, I mean, I could just cry. It's so fulfilling and in terms of TTC it's so fulfilling um, and in terms of ttc team talking circles.
Speaker 3:I really owe it all to my mother. She began the project oh, about 30 years ago now, um, wow, and she really out of you know. I'm sure she spoke on her podcast a bit about it. But she really wanted to create a better teen experience for her daughters myself and and my little sister, genevieve and it began as a focus group that was supposed to run I don't know a few months of teen girls and they were going to use it as a research to write a book for teen girls and it ended up turning into the book daughters of the moon, sisters of the sun, which is, and a later a book called global uprising, about youth activism around the world, and and some of the most of the youth in the circle wanted to share their story in their own words.
Speaker 3:so that's what the first book is, along with interviews with incredible female leaders in the world. So that happened. It ended, they wrote the book and then all the girls were like well, we still want circle, can't we need?
Speaker 3:this and a lot of their boyfriends at the time were hearing about circle. We're curious, and so they started to. They continued it. It transformed into a nonprofit organization and I grew up in talking circles, in gender talks, which were special days where at that time it was a pretty binary world but where boys and girls got together and shared what it was like and also took a look at the gender box. What are we taught? It means to be a boy, it not means to be a boy and not means to be a boy, a girl, not a girl, and so it actually was pretty ahead of its time, in that regard as well, of really breaking down gender norms.
Speaker 3:So I grew up in the talking circles. I didn't really want anyone to any of my peers to really know about it. It was again another thing that made me weird. Until one of my peers to really know about it. It was again another thing that made me weird until one of my best friends, nora um.
Speaker 3:I invited her to circle and she got so excited about it that she told everybody. You know, she told all her friends don't tell yeah and um yeah. And it's amazing, she and I grew up in circle together. Talena, who's the executive director, is like a sister to me and one of my best friends from a preteen, and she was in the first book, first Circle. So around five or more now, years ago, my mother was really ready to hand it over and Talena stepped up as executive director, I stepped up as lead trainer and I wrote the first curriculum for the virtual trainings, along with Nora Harrington and Emmy Kellogram, who was a facilitator when we were teens.
Speaker 3:And Emily Kello has started Teen Talking Circles for Vashon Island from Montessori to elementary, middle and high school youth Intergenerational mentorship programs. It's just incredible what she's done and we built out a team of incredible trainers Alexandria Arungare in Utah, who works with restorative justice and circle work, and this is just what we've created in the last five or more years since my mother left, but during the life of talking circles before that, when Linda was running it, it it was it's always been a small but mighty organization and places that the circle has gone, the different um identities and social groups that have received its benefits are great and I feel like the power of teen talking circles is the simplicity yeah actually, but it's a foundation of, of skill set and an approach that's based in simplicity and based in formatting the work to fit the individual facilitator and community.
Speaker 3:So there's not it's not meant to be a top down. It really is around power with and really respecting that the roots of.
Speaker 3:Circle are indigenous from all over the world. Yeah, again, it's a lineage, it's a piece of our lineage and heritage and I think it's a craving that we have to communicate in deep authenticity in a collective space that's held with integrity and care and kindness from the heart and deep listening and I and there's a power to being heard and received and witnessed by a trusted collective. That's distinct from the healing we get from one-on-one care with a therapist, which has its role, I believe as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, part of this relational fabric, and especially as young people yeah, when it's that age when so much social relational breakdown with other generations is happening, like yeah and youth are teens are so stigmatized and misunderstood. It's where some of our biggest traumas can happen, because it is. I mean, they can happen much earlier, of course, and often do, sadly, but it is a natural rite of passage. It's a natural time of initiation from one consciousness and way of being into another.
Speaker 3:And so it bears a presence of wisdom and it bears a presence of caring um adults, not to control and lead the way, but to be present with and hopefully be able to cultivate contexts where where the alchemical initiatory process can happen in a healthier way, whereas oftentimes I feel these rites of passage, youth create them for themselves, the the edge experiences because there's a craving and a need for them. Yeah, um, and although circle does not, the teen circles does not focus on specifically rites of passage, work or rituals which are in and of themselves part of my work and the longevity, the regularity of relationship through a span of time, uh, which I would say that we all just really desperately need lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Heather, it's so interesting, there's so much that you're talking about that. Uh, we you and I have so many parallels in our journey, like I did years ago, started into the process of working with ritual and rite of passage, particularly with young people, and just because, for me, my understanding of these types of experiences, that we meet them, they meet us, at a place that lives below the level of language. It's something deeply primal and why things, as you know, commonplaces, you know, walking across the stage at graduation or going through whatever those ceremonies are, they have so much meaning and import because of what they do at these deep, these very deep levels. Anyway, I'm fascinated by what you're saying and I think you and I could talk endlessly, but, yeah, we need to. We need to move to our next phase, our next phase of questions.
Speaker 2:Yep, do you want to jump in? I think so, heather. This section, what we do is just kind of we call it rapid fire and it's not really rapid and there's no fire. We just ask you questions and it's kind of like, don't think about it, just the first thing that comes to your mind. If you're willing to share, oh, painful.
Speaker 3:What you were sharing was so beautiful oh, yeah, yeah, yes completely well, that's what I feel about everything you've shared here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, heather, and I'm so grateful that you came to talk with us today. These are um beautiful wisdoms, beautiful learnings and sharings and and just thank you, gorgeous gorgeousness for having me.
Speaker 3:I really feel very blessed to be able to share use my voice yay wonderful, wonderful.
Speaker 1:You jump in. You jump in with a question, you go for it well our silly little rapid fires. Okay, they're fun I.
Speaker 2:I will ask the first question then. So you know, walking into your ted, talk to your concert, you know what would be your walk-in song, oh my goodness I mean, I think it's now wolf woman, yeah I'm drawing a blank, so.
Speaker 3:So let's just go with Wolf, go with.
Speaker 1:Wolf a little bit Yep, yep, yep. And if you know, I'm claiming it because now it's my book, yes, that's right Claim that, yeah, I will definitely play it.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:All right. So what book changed you?
Speaker 3:Oof. You know, I really will credit the Color Purple.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness really changed my life as a young person yeah, wow, the story, the craft, the, the language, oh my god, that one passage about god and the color purple and the color my entire spirituality in a page that's alice
Speaker 2:walker. Okay, yeah, do you remember how old you were when you read that the first time?
Speaker 3:I mean I was probably a preteen or early teen. I was 13, 12.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing, I didn't come to about 18. I think, yeah, transform oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I was in high school. Okay, what movie lives rep free in your brain?
Speaker 3:What movie yeah?
Speaker 1:You know that you can quote endlessly.
Speaker 2:Probably princess bride Great one Also a great book, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Oh the book is just lovely. Okay, so I think and you've already answered this, but we'll readdress it what did you love doing as a kid that you love doing to this day?
Speaker 3:yes, wearing long flowing dresses and flower garlands and playing in the woods oh, that's just beautiful meadows and beaches with friends yeah, oh yes, please yeah, I know I'm like can we all just go do that right now?
Speaker 2:that sounds amazing.
Speaker 3:So yes, we can.
Speaker 2:Yes, one word frolic I like that, but I also like it with the log flowing dresses. That's just as fun. So, yeah, um, what in your world is lighting you up right now?
Speaker 3:You know creating this album is really lighting me up right now. It's my first true solo album, so I've been putting most of my effort for the last, really just just in this 2025. I had made a choice to shift and focus on on myself as a solo lead artist and it's been it is continues to be extremely scary and challenging and bringing up all the juicy yeah, stuff um, but it is exhilarating, now that it's really coming yes, and how, how nice to finally.
Speaker 2:It's almost out there.
Speaker 3:You know, like you said, next everybody gets to start hearing it next week which is amazing, that too, it feels so good to have two songs I've been carrying for years that I just finally I'm releasing to the world. It it's like the river is just flowing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, beautiful. Bravo you just taking a second here just to hold space with you and just own that truth of what a beautiful, powerful, potent moment this is, and bravo you for pulling this forward and living. That's some beautiful stuff. That's some beautiful stuff.
Speaker 3:that's some beautiful stuff right there okay, so bravo to all the hands and beings that are helping me yes, yes to that, yeah, yes, yeah what color is hope?
Speaker 5:oh, green, green yes, yeah, green green green, yep.
Speaker 2:And what does hope sound like?
Speaker 3:oh gosh, the first thought that came to mind is bird song yep gorgeous yep, gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Uh, finish this statement, if you would. Connection is finish that statement.
Speaker 3:Connection is the food of the soul.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, it is Nice. Okay, here's another fill in the blank.
Speaker 3:The meaning of life is oh my goodness, this is one my mother and grandmother used to always ask me as a little girl. It's like that's just so intellectual of you. How do you expect others to know that I do feel that the meaning of life is to share love in all forms, in all the different ways and forms of that.
Speaker 2:Yes, so agree.
Speaker 1:Yes, so agree, yes, music is music. Magic.
Speaker 2:It is, it is and finally, hope is. Hope is what?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, you know I'm gonna honor one of my best, dearest friends in the world, jenny ray. We were talking last night and I asked her this question because I knew we were gonna ask something today and I know I gave you my answers. Yeah, um, but I asked her what would you answer and she said hope is action, and she got it from. Well, she was inspired to that conclusion, which is very shared by many, I know, through reading James Baldwin and what he had to say about hope.
Speaker 3:That hope is something to paraphrase her last night. So forgive me, james, but um, essentially that hope, hope, uh, is chosen that he he shared that he, he chose to have hope in the face of uh total illogical. Yeah. Yeah, and that he felt hope is created yes crafted and I I find that's such a powerful yeah, exactly why we're here in the first place.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, okay, heather, this has been just a true joy talking with you, getting to know you. We're so grateful for your very open and honest sharing with us and also sharing your beautiful, beautiful video and your music with us Just just lovely people listening I. We would love for them to be able to find you, to learn more, to explore what you do. You want to share anything about, um, any more about where they can find you and what, to follow your album's name all of that good stuff um, first of all, yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:It's been very joyous for me as well, and meaningful and I love meeting new kindred spirits. When we didn't, we had no idea nope, we're so lucky um. So to stay connected with me, my website is just heatherwolflove, wwwheatherwolflove, and there's tabs to my music, to true voice work, um, to get sorts of things. Uh, events, events, upcoming events. I workshops. Make sure you get on the mailing list through the website so you can hear about retreats, workshops.
Speaker 3:There's also on the true voice page you can, if you feel inspired to learn more or this is something that you think you want. Um, I do a lot of my work virtually with the voice. Um, and then make sure, yeah, Heather Wolf is my Instagram and my artist's name on all the streaming platforms. Just, Heather Wolf, like the animal, like the flower. Yes, yes, the show will be July 16th.
Speaker 3:I believe it's at El Rey Theater, but I think, he might have sold out of that, so we might be upgrading the venue, but it's the 16th of July this year in.
Speaker 2:LA Awesome, and you said July. You said starting in LA and going up to Vancouver.
Speaker 3:You said yeah, july 16th to the 24th LA.
Speaker 2:San Francisco Portland okay, wonderful.
Speaker 3:And also, if people want to book me um for the fall and winter and ongoing for workshops for um shows. I really love doing house concerts and events. I find it to be just a wonderful way to bring in both storytelling, myth telling and music and and conversation among people to facilitate, and then it could also be a workshop on the voice.
Speaker 2:Wonderful Beautiful.
Speaker 3:So all of that, so and.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 3:LA fairly frequently.
Speaker 1:Heather. I feel like she's already thinking more. There's more stuff in our future. I feel very certain of that. Thank you again for your time and for the sharing of your heart. We're so grateful.
Speaker 2:And for the concert that I did. Thank you for being such powerful recipients and for the concert that I didn't know we were going to do yes.
Speaker 3:Thank you for being such powerful recipients. I think that one thing is that the receiver, the listener, is just as important as the giver, because you can only really give to the capacity that it's being invited and that can be felt, thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Thank you. We so appreciate you being.
Speaker 3:I know we got delayed but glad you got to make it today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us today on Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 1:And thanks for sharing stories with us. We'd love to hear your stories as well and keep the conversation going, absolutely keeping the hope going. So we're really hopeful that you'll connect with our guests as well, who have great stories to share. Go ahead and follow them in various social media platforms or live venues, wherever it is that they're performing and sharing what they do.
Speaker 2:We would love to have you follow us on all of our social media platforms, subscribe and rate, as that will help us get our message of hope out to others. Thanks for listening to Soul Sisteries.
