Welcome to Season 4, Episode 10 of The Becoming Podcast!

I am thrilled to bring you this conversation with women’s rites of passage guide and mentor Kamya O’Keeffe.

Kamya tends the thresholds of life’s transitions by creating handmade transformative rites of passages for girls, women, mothers, and elders that acknowledge and celebrate the significant cycles and stages of our lives.  She is the head of women’s programmes at the Rites of Passage Institute and is a Motherhood Studies practitioner, Trauma Informed Space holder and certified Youth Mental Health First Aider.  Kamya is the daughter of courageous Celtic women, and a mother of 2 sisters.  Her work is based in animist, feminist, earth-honouring values.

I just loved this conversation with Kamya.  I felt like I was being eldered by her as we spoke, and in fact the “outtakes” from our time together are probably longer than the actual podcast recording I’m sharing with you today!

We talked about:

> the complexity of the catalyzing moments in our lives, and the idea that there is a benevolent, participatory universe (that we have no control over!) that nudges us into and through rites of passage

> what a feminist lens on rites of passage means, and what it might look like to decolonize our concept of what it means to traverse a rite of passage

> the rite of passage into motherhood, as well as how mothers are called to support their children through their own rites of passage

> how liberating it can feel to tap into the crone energy that lives within all of us that allows us to question societal expectations and finally figure out who we really are and what we need

 ….and, at the risk of being cliché, we talk about SO MUCH MORE, including the perfect mother myth, the loss of community to support us through times of radical transformation, ancestral reverence, and what it means to become an elder.

I also share a vulnerable realization that I’ve been having recently in my own mothering journey, and Kamya beautifully supports me in the tenderness I feel around it.

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode!  Kamya is a true treasure and I am so happy to be sharing her and her wisdom with you all.

Listen to the episode on iTunes

Show Notes…

Kamya’s Website

Kamya’s Instagram

Arnold Van Gennep’s “Le Rites de Passage”

Rites of Passage Institute 

Dr. Sophie Brock + her work on the Perfect Mother Myth

Also, while you’re at it, if you enjoy The Becoming Podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate and review, and even subscribe to it on iTunes.  That goes a long way to helping more and more people find and benefit from hearing these interviews!  Thank you so much!