Practices of Presence and Why They Matter: A Conversation with Erin Geesaman Rabke and Carl Rabke

In this podcast, we (Erin and Carl) dive into one our our favorite topics: practices of presence and why they matter.

This is the first of a series of three podcasts on practices of presence, practices of depth and soul, and practices of reconnection are remembrance, and why they matter. These three interweaving practices are a foundation for the 13-month Refugia mentoring training the begins February 2026.

In our conversation, we weave in some beautiful poetry and guided practices, so we get to experience practices of presence, rather that just talk about them.

We speak of the challenge of modern life and how much our attention is pulled away from presence, with the pace of life, and phones and screens and all the information we digest on daily basis, and how our embodied presence is always right there, as the Zen saying goes, "closer than our own skin." And how important it is to have practices that help us remember and return over and over through the day.

We also speak of growing an embodied ground, and how movement can either deepen the split and objectification, (doing something to our body) or can deepen intimacy with life. We also speak of how when we learn how to learn, and learn how to deepen presence through movemernt, that touches every aspect of our lives.

We speak of the present moment as being vast enough to hold the past and future, to hold the ancestors and future ones.

So many rich topics, quotes and practices in this conversation. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

To find our more about our Refugia training, you can visit https://embodimentmatters.com/refugia/

And to join us in our weekday online embodied meditation practice, you can visit https://embodimentmatters.com/meditation/

In 1994 Kedar apprenticed with Steven Foster and Meredith Little at School of Lost Borders in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the form and process of the vision quest ceremony and eco-psychology. He has also apprenticed for many years with Malidoma Some, PhD, initiated elder and shaman of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, West Africa. Kedar has also had the honor and privilege to learn many valuable insights into healing from his apprenticeship with Cherokee elder and medicine person, Will Rockingbear.

Greetings listener friends!

This is a re-release of a conversation we had with writer, teacher and soul activist, Francis Weller in 2020. We are releasing some of our favorite conversations that are connected with the themes we will be exploring in our 13-month mentoring training, Refugia, which begins in February 2026. Francis will be one of the guest teachers, along with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Alexandre Jodun and Alyona Kobevka.

We recorded this conversation just after Francis released the first version of In the Absence of the Ordinary was released as an e-book. The book was recently published in 2025, and is a beautiful collection of soulful and potent essays about the time in which we find ourselves. There is also an audio version with Francis reading that is lovely.

In this episode, recorded in May, 2020, we jump right into discussing our global circumstances as what Francis calls a Rough Initiation. We explore Francis's suggestions for responding to overwhelm: self-compassion, turning toward our feelings, being astonished by beauty, and having patience. We explore what Francis calls growing an apprenticeship with sorrow, and the possibility metabolizing our sorrows into something medicinal for soul and for community. Francis speaks to a powerful quote from human biologist Paul Shephard, that states: "The grief and sense of loss, that we often interpret as a failure in our personality, is actually a feeling of emptiness where a beautiful and strange otherness should have been encountered."

We explore this beautiful and strange otherness and so much more. We are sure you'll enjoy this beautiful conversation as much as we did. Many thanks to Francis for sharing his words and wisdom so generously.

For more information on Francis and his work, visit francisweller.net

For more information on our classes, grief rituals and Refugia program, visit embodimentmatters.com

"My lifelong calling and work is freedom from the sickness of supremacy and inferiority. Freedom from oppression. Freedom to live a beautiful life. Food, water, and shelter are nothing if the one being fed, watered, and sheltered is immersed in the profound suffering that is poverty of the soul. I am grateful to carry out the humanitarian work of feeding souls the bread and breath of Love, compassion, and hope.

In this conversation, we begin a new sub-series of the Embodiment Matters podcast, Men of Depth and Soul, where Carl and our dear friend and colleague, Alexandre Jodun will be hosting interviews around what is being asked of men in these times.

We begin the series with our friend and mentor, Francis Weller. Francis is a psychotherapist, soul-activist, and author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief.

Our conversation moves through many topics: men and grief, the relationship between power and love, the loneliness and isolation so many men feel, how we can bless each other and call out to each other's gifts, and so much more.

On February 13th, Carl and Alexandre begin an online men's group, Men of Depth and Soul: Rooting into Sacred Activism. Francis Weller will be one of the guest elder/ teachers along with Pat McCabe, Woman Stands Shining. You can find out more about that course here, https://embodimentmatters.com/menofdepthandsoul/

You can find more information on Francis and his work at https://www.francisweller.net

More on Pat McCabe https://www.patmccabe.net

More on Alexandre at https://www.ahealingbridge.com

We are so excited to share this podcast with the amazing poet and human, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

As Erin mentions in the intro, you might want to have some tissues handy, as we dive right into the deep end, and the conversation is filled with tenderness and beauty.

In our conversation, Rosemerry reads some of her gorgeous poems, and we move through many rich themes including grief and gratitude, ways to be with someone who is grieving, holding paradox and the stretch of the human heart, and being opened by life.

The conversation has the same wide range of this experience of being human as does Rosemerry's writing. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives with her husband and daughter in Placerville, Colorado, on the banks of the wild and undammed San Miguel River. She served as San Miguel County's first poet laureate (2007-2011) and as Western Slope Poet Laureate (2015-2017) and was a finalist for Colorado Poet Laureate in 2019.

She performs as a storyteller, including shows in Aspen at the Wheeler Opera House, at the Taos Storytelling Festival, Page Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. Her TEDx talk explores changing our outdated metaphors. For five years, she performed in the Telluride Literary Burlesque.

She has been writing a poem a day since 2006, posting them since 2011 on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. In 2023, her poems can be heard daily on the Ritual app, The Poetic Path. Favorite themes include parenting, gardening, ecology, love, science, thriving/failure, grief and daily life.

You can find more about Rosemerry and her work at wordwoman.com

Friends, we are delighted to share this conversation with two beautiful Earth-loving humans, John Seed and Skye Cielita Flor.

John is a long-time Earth activist, writer, teacher, musician, who, along side Joanna Macy, helped to grow the body of work called Experiential Deep Ecology or The Work that Reconnects.

Skye is a teacher, folk herbalist, plant medicine ritualist, mama, and friend with whom we have connected for several years in online spaces with Francis Weller, Bayo Akomolafe and Josh Schrei.

You can learn more about John and Skye, and their unique stories and bodies of work at johnseed.net and deepearthdreaming.world

In our conversation, we talk about the origins of deep ecology ecology work, we speak of ways to de-center the human, and the practices that help to reconnect us with the living intelligence of the Earth. We speak of the challenges of parenting in these times, along with the difficulties of doing this kind of soul work in what John calls "the religion of economics."

It is a rich and deep conversation with wisdom holders from different generations who hold such beautiful respect for each other's wisdom and insight, and such deep love for the Earth and life.