#13: Transition as Initiation with Lara Veleda Vesta

It is with great pleasure and pride that I share my first interview on Moon to Moon. My intention with this interview has been to honor and celebrate the work of a teacher I greatly admire and respect, and I was thrilled and grateful when Lara Veleda Vesta said Yes to my request for her conversation.

I begin with a contemplation on teachers, and what makes for a great teacher. This lasts about 14 minutes if you want to jump straight to hearing Lara. 

During the interview, Lara shares her incredible story as a way to ground us in understanding how she came to the key phrases, healing frameworks, and teaching methods that have been profoundly shifting for me and so many others. We go really deep, and we discuss difficult, "scary" topics. Please review the themes below to be sure you are in a mental-emotional place to listen without too much triggering. I recommend listening on a walk or in a safe space, so that you are able to receive without distraction. You might enjoy lighting a candle to signal your preparedness.  

Topics include: embracing surrender and non-linearity, de-colonizing one's spiritual practice, letting go of who we once were and loving who we are now, living in a culture without proper rites of passages, anchoring through illness and disease, learning to trust our "unverifiable personal gnosis" while still holding deep respect for academic standards and primary source evidence, embracing animism as a way of life, healing the "witch wound" and how it affects everything and everyone on this planet, loving the idea of teachers as portal-openers, and much more. We close with the question: what does it mean for you to live "moon to moon?" I love her answer.  

You can follow Lara on Instagram at @veledavesta. Check out her website laravesta.co and her deeply nourishing Patreon community. I also encourage you to check out her Moon Divas Guidebook and her learning space The Wild Soul School. I encourage all listeners to check out her upcoming Ancestral Connection class.

To work more intimately with the themes of our conversation, please order my Living the Signs: Scorpio workbook. Similar themes are covered in different ways in this podcast's namesake workbook: Moon to Moon.