On this episode, I'm joined by Rebe Huntman, a memoirist, essayist, dancer, teacher, and poet who writes at the intersections of feminism, world religion and spirituality. For over a decade she directed Chicago’s award-winning Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music and its dance company, One World Dance Theater. Huntman collaborates with native artists in Cuba and South America, has been featured in Latina Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune, and has appeared on Fox and ABC. She is also the author of a new memoir, My Mother in Havana, about her explorations in seeking not only her human mother, who died when she was 19, but also a deeper relationship with the Divine Mother.

On this episode we discuss:

• How Rebe’s path to the Sacred Feminine revealed itself through her evolving relationship with Latin dance – including how she discovered that the dances themselves were originally invitations to the gods
• Rebe’s transformational journey in Cuba, including her experiences meeting the Orisha Oshun, and Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre
• How Oshun, who originates from the West African Yoruba tradition, and Our Lady, who is considered an apparition of the Virgin Mary, are syncretized – and how this merging can give us a more holistic vision of mothers and women in general
• Rebe’s evolving relationship with her deceased mother, and why it’s both normal and natural to call on our deceased loved ones for support

Notes related to this episode:

• You can learn more about Rebe and her book at her website, www.rebehuntman.com.
• You can also find her on social media: Instagram @rebehuntman; Facebook @rebehuntmanauthor.
• We discussed the books the Chalice and the Blade, by Riane Eisler, as well as Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Other related episodes include:

• Transforming a Paradigm of Domination with Riane Eisler - https://youtu.be/LSk4JRd6B8g
• Healing the Mother Wound with Bethany Webster (audio only) – https://player.captivate.fm/episode/6b4fbdc5-b85a-4dd0-ad63-ea2501eb493c
• Exploring the Divine Feminine in African Traditional Religions with Lilith Dorsey (audio only) - https://player.captivate.fm/episode/89f7cc91-8038-431f-8459-4cf57d172e35

Here are a few more details about this show and my work:

• If you’d like to know whose ancestral tribal lands you currently reside on, you can look up your address here: https://native-land.ca/
• You can also visit the Coalition of Natives and Allies for more helpful educational resources about Indigenous rights and history.
• Please – if you love this podcast and/or have read my book, please consider leaving me a review, and thank you for supporting my work! You can also access the audio version of this episode here, or wherever you access your podcasts: https://home-to-her.captivate.fm/
• For more Sacred Feminine goodness and to stay up to date on all episodes, please follow me on Instagram: @hometoher. To dive into conversation about the Sacred Feminine, join the Facebook group, also @hometoher.
• And to read about the Sacred Feminine, check out my award-winning book Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine (Womancraft Publishing), available on Audible and wherever you buy your books!. If you've read it, your reviews on...

On episode 100 of the Home to Her podcast, I'm joined by Ixchel Munay, who has spent more than 20 years walking the path of plant medicine, conscious living and supporting thousands of people around the world in her immersions and sessions to come home to themselves. Through her work, Ixchel draws upon her initiations with yoga, meditation, tantra, shamanism, magic, somatic therapy, dance, breath work, NLP, non-violent communication, permaculture, natural medicine, neuroscience and more. She’s spent nearly the past 20 years of her life based in Bali, the mystical land of her father’s ancestors. For the past four years she’s been spending half the year in Costa Rica devoted to creating Yacumama ("Mother of Water") - a regenerative community land project that hosts transformational experiences.

On this episode we discuss:

• Ixchel's introduction to the Sacred Feminine via her experience meeting Amma, the hugging saint, and her work with a tantric master in Bali
• Her experience with plant medicines and the value they offer us currently, as well as why it's so important to approach them medicine with respect and via a credible teacher
• Why she believes the feminine is the flow state that athletes describe, and how when we step into it, our divine path unfolds much more easily
• The ways women have been disconnected from our bodies, particularly through birth control and medicated childbirth
• Her work with Yacumama, and her vision for it in terms of land regeneration and as a cultural center to preserve and teach indigenous ways of being

Notes related to this episode:

• You can learn all about the upcoming programs at Yacumama here, including an upcoming wellness retreat for women, here: https://www.yacumama.love/ and on Instagram @yacumamaecovillage
• You can connect with Ixchel via social media via her website, www.livingwisdom.one, and Instagram @ixchel.munay
• Ixchel and I talked about our experiences with Amma, the hugging saint. You can learn more about her here: https://amma.org/
• We also discussed the concept of a guru as a path to the Divine Feminine, a topic I explored with past podcast guest Arundhati Subramaniam: https://youtu.be/9reaJg3iTtw

And here are a few more details about this show and my work:

• If you’d like to know whose ancestral tribal lands you currently reside on, you can look up your address here: https://native-land.ca/
• You can also visit the Coalition of Natives and Allies for more helpful educational resources about Indigenous rights and history.
• Please – if you love this podcast and/or have read my book, please consider leaving me a review, and thank you for supporting my work!
• You can also access the video version of this episode on YouTube
• For more Sacred Feminine goodness and to stay up to date on all episodes, please follow me on Instagram: @hometoher. To dive into conversation about the Sacred Feminine, join the Facebook group, also @hometoher.
• And to read about the Sacred Feminine, check out my award-winning book Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine (Womancraft Publishing), available on Audible and wherever you buy your books!. If you've read it, your reviews on Goodreads and Amazon are greatly appreciated!
• Visit www.hometoher.com to learn more about your host, download a free meditation and sign up for my

On the first episode of 2025, I'm joined by repeat guest Joy Ladin.  Joy is a widely published essayist and poet, literary scholar, and nationally known speaker on transgender issues. From 2003 to 2021, she held the David and Ruth Gotsman Chair in English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University.

Her gender transition and return to teaching in 2008 made her the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. Joy's experience of being poetically mentored by the Shekinah resulted in the completion of a book length sequence, Shekinah Speaks, published by Selva Obscura in spring 2022, which she joined me to speak about on this podcast in 2023. She's published several other books, including, most recently, a new book of poetry, Family, and Once Out of Nature, selected essays on the transformation of gender. And she is the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award for The Book of Anna.

On this episode, we riff about:

• The concept of family, at both the individual and national levels
• How our personal narratives help us make meaning in our daily lives
• How Joy's understanding of the Shekhinah, the indwelling presence of God typically gendered as female, has shifted since our first conversation in 2023
• The role of gender binaries in helping us relate to divinity
• Joy's perspective on the historical need for a transcendent God, and how both Jesus and the Shekhinah were responses to His limitations
• What the Shekhinah can offer us in this particular moment in time

Notes about this episode:

• You can learn more about Joy and all her work at https://joyladin.com/
• You can watch mine and Joy's first conversation here: https://youtu.be/XYi7LUiNHJ4
• You can also listen to this episode here: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/e1b56ad3-b881-458e-a9e3-e9fb1635760c

And here are a few more details about this show and my work:

• If you’d like to know whose ancestral tribal lands you currently reside on, you can look up your address here: https://native-land.ca/
• You can also visit the Coalition of Natives and Allies for more helpful educational resources about Indigenous rights and history.
• Please – if you love this podcast and/or have read my book, please consider leaving me a review, and thank you for supporting my work!
• For more Sacred Feminine goodness and to stay up to date on all episodes, please follow me on Instagram: @hometoher. To dive into conversation about the Sacred Feminine, join the Facebook group, also @hometoher.
• And to read about the Sacred Feminine, check out my award-winning book Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine (Womancraft Publishing), available on Audible and wherever you buy your books!. If you've read it, your reviews on Goodreads and Amazon are greatly appreciated!
• Visit www.hometoher.com to learn more about your host, download a free meditation and sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest episodes.