The Remembering Way

Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson

5.0 (1)
Religion & Spirituality
Updated Weekly

Maybe your ground has given way — slowly, or all at once. The Remembering Way is a podcast for the breaking and the becoming: an invitation to turn toward what we fear, to rethink the unthinkable, and to find the luminous hidden even in the dark. With contemplative teacher and Episcopal priest Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson. Not answers — a wondering. You are not alone. elizabethjameson.substack.com

5d ago

Living Inside a Name (Ep 4)

Maybe you’re carrying a name that was never really yours. Not only the one on your birth certificate — the whole story that came with it. Who your family needed you to be. What you had to become in order to belong, or stay safe, or survive. A role you’ve worn so long you’ve half forgotten it was ever a costume. What would it mean to set that story down, and claim instead the name that was waiting underneath all along? Welcome to The Remembering Way. This episode goes through my family — the house in Lynchburg with a stage on the third floor, the name I met in my father’s lap, and the three-by-five card he left behind. But it isn’t a story about my family. It’s about the rule book yours handed you: the one nobody said out loud, that you learned by watching what was accepted, what people did, what they didn’t do, and what happened when someone colored outside the lines. The question underneath it: how many generations died soul deaths — or actual deaths — rather than rock the boat? Everything I say about my father is what I pieced together over fifty years out of fragments. It’s a story I made so I could live with what happened. It’s given me a great deal, and it may still be wrong in places I can’t see. I don’t want to take a man who was so much more than his final act and turn him into an explanation. Hold it lightly. Take what is yours, and leave the rest. Not answers. A wondering. Before you listen This episode speaks openly about suicide — my grandmother’s father, my father, and my kiddo Bee. Three generations, named plainly. Check in with yourself as you listen. You might listen with someone. You might set it down for another day. Or it may be that this one isn’t for you. All of those are wise. If you need support: * 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 (US), any hour of any day. Chat at 988lifeline.org. Videophone service for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and use ASL. Veterans press 1. * Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741 (US) * Alliance of Hope — for those bereaved by suicide — allianceofhope.org * The Compassionate Friends — for families after the death of a child — compassionatefriends.org * Outside the US: findahelpline.com There is always help. There is always someone. In this episode 0:00 — The Names and Stories We Inherit 6:14 — My Father, Depression, and “Rethink the Unthinkable” 11:20 — The Family Rulebook: Grief, Perfection, and the Wound Beneath 17:40 — Breaking the Pattern and Reconciling With Yourself 19:05 — The Stories Hidden Inside Our Names 22:01 — Claiming Elizabeth Lightfoot 27:13 — Changing the Family Legacy 32:06 — What Will You Carry Forward? Mentioned in this episode * Stephanie Kallos — Broken for You, the novel about inherited china and the mosaics made from it * A. E. Housman — A Shropshire Lad — “many a rose-lipt maiden and many a lightfoot lad” * Upper and Lower Slaughter, Gloucestershire — the villages named for a muddy place at a crossing * The surname Slaughter has more than one origin. One line traces to the sloe tree — the blackthorn, a fruit tree, from Old English slāh (”sloe”) and trēow (”tree”); sloes are the fruit in sloe gin. Another traces to Old English slōhtre, a muddy place or mire, sometimes a deep valley or ditch — the derivation behind the Cotswold villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter, which sit at a crossing of the River Eye, sometimes called Slaughter Brook, and appear in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Sclostre. Lynchburg, Virginia takes its name from John Lynch, a Quaker and a ferryman who carried people across the water - some say he was an an abolitionist as well. A fruit tree, a muddy crossing, and a ferryman. The names held all of it the whole time. This is a conversation Whatever stirred in you today — let it stay. Don’t rush past it. That’s the remembering at work. And I mean conversation. We’re beginning to build episodes around your questions — the things you’re actually sitting with, the ones that don’t have simple, easy answers. So ask. Write to me at elizabeth@therememberingway.org, or leave a comment at elizabethlightfootjameson.com. I read them all. And if this landed in you, share it with someone who might need it. That’s how this travels. Ways to walk this together The podcast is free. It always will be. You’ll find it at Broken Open — elizabethlightfootjameson.com — and wherever you listen to podcasts. The writing there is free too. If you’d like to help this work keep going, you can support it with a paid subscription. But nothing sits behind a wall, and nothing will. Second Sundays — a free gathering, in person and online, once a month. Come as you are. Becoming Love — the community gathering around this work. New offerings this fall. Dedicated with Love This is for my dad — every part of him, and all of it more than what happened at the end. And for my family, origin and chosen, whose love grounds me. For Bee, who knew how to claim a name long before I ever did, and whose continued presence even in absence is such a gift. And for everyone carrying a name, or a story, or a weight that was handed to them before they had words to question it. There may be another story in it. There usually is. Until next time: keep rethinking the unthinkable. Keep noticing what you are noticing. You are not too much. You are not too little. And you are not alone. With love always, Elizabeth Lightfoot Jamesonelizabeth@therememberingway.orgTheRememberingWay.orgElizabethLightfootJameson.comBecoming-love.circle.so/c/welcome-circle Credits Creative direction by John Harrison. Original music by Jonny Rodgers. The mosaic is the work of Patrick Raymond. And with deep gratitude to all who have been walking this way with me — especially my family and friends, the Inner Alchemy of Wisdom Core Circle, those in soul coaching, and all who have joined me in other offerings. You have shaped this more than you know. Transcript The Names and Stories We Inherit Maybe you’re carrying a name that was never really yours — not only the one on your birth certificate, the whole story that came with it, who your family needed you to be, what you had to become or believed you had to become, in order to belong, or stay safe, or survive. A role you’ve worn so long you’ve half forgotten it was ever a costume. What would it mean to set that story down, and claim instead the name that was waiting underneath all along — to claim your very own self. Welcome to The Remembering Way. I’m Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson. This is a podcast about rethinking the unthinkable. I know something about inherited names, the ones that weigh you down, and the ones that set you free. This episode does speak openly about suicide. If today isn’t the day for that, please attend to your own well-being first and foremost. And if you’re struggling right now, there are resources and support listed in the show notes. How many generations died soul deaths — or actual deaths — rather than rock the boat? That question is at the heart of this episode, because every one of us carries an inheritance we didn’t choose. Stories handed down to us before we had words to question them. Patterns that belonged to someone else’s survival before they became ours. Dreams to carry that were never our own. For generations, the heirlooms handed most of us were some combination of sweet, beautiful stories, alongside pain, buried and transferred forward. Unhealed trauma nestles as comfortably among unpaid bills as silver spoons. Abuse, meanness, expectations that no longer fit and had to be met anyway, at the sacrifice of the person meeting them. And most of the time, we don’t even know we’re carrying them. They just feel like who we are. I remember as a small child sitting in a car in Lynchburg, Virginia, the grown-ups all talking about a huge mansion that had clearly fallen on hard times. My grandmother grew up in that house. The dining room sat 24. Her father was the local physician. He built a house three stories tall with a stage on the top floor, so that his five children would write and enact plays. But no pressure. She was 20 when he went upstairs and died by suicide. Decades later, her own son, my father, died by suicide. Decades later, my kiddo, Bee, died by suicide. My grandmother and I both had a parent and a child who died by suicide. That is a terrible lineage to stand in. My grandmother’s family had a certain status in society, one my dad’s dad never quite seemed to live up to, according to what I understood. As the eldest son of four children in a southern family, my dad carried a particular weight on his shoulders. He was sent off to the Episcopal boarding school in Alexandria, Virginia. From there to Georgia Tech, to Harvard Business School, eventually a senior vice president at Ford Motor Company. My dad’s best friend, who had grown up with him on the very same block, mourned not only my dad’s death, but how much had been put on him, even as a young man. But my dad was so much more than what happened at the end. Dad loved those Virginia mountains. Whenever we’d drive back — or anywhere in the mountains — he’d go woohoo! He’d whoop it up with joy. And he was one of the most tender and sensitive of people. At a big party, he’d find one person and really listen to them, and they would feel totally heard, because he was all in and present. Almost every night, he would tuck me in, stretching out on my bed, asking about my day, and sometimes falling asleep before I did. He had a gravelly, distinctive voice. He’d had polio in the throat as a child. In the evenings, when he sat in his favorite chair, I would climb into his lap so he could read to me from the old family storybook of the Bible. And that is where I first heard our name. I remember how excited I was. There it was, right in our own Bible, our family name — Slaughte
Aug 2

Remembering The Light We Are (Ep 3)

What did you love to do before anyone was watching? Who were you before you learned who you were supposed to be? Before you figured out what earned love, and what didn’t — and quietly became that instead. Maybe you can feel that one still. Maybe you’ve forgotten them entirely. This episode is about the one you were before the world shaped you — the one you still are, underneath all of it. Welcome to The Remembering Way. This isn’t really a story about my childhood. It’s about yours — and about a question so many of us have carried since we were small: is it safe to be me? Am I welcome here too? I’ll tell you about a vision I was given, a sanctuary of light, and what I found waiting there. But the vision isn’t the point. The point is the radiance it revealed — the one that was never mine alone, and isn’t yours alone either. It came to me in the language of vision; it’s my telling, not fact. Hold it lightly. Take what is yours, and leave the rest. Not answers. A wondering. This episode touches on the death of my child, Bee, in 2021 — gently, but it’s there. If you’d like the fuller story, and support resources if you need them, Episode 1 holds both. In this episode * 0:00 — Before anyone was watching (welcome · the radiant child) * 1:19 — The easy baby, and the nurse who said “let her cry” * 2:16 — The stories we make to earn love * 4:13 — Bee, the somatic work, and the stuck place: a vision comes * 5:06 — In the vision: the mirroring & the mirror that leads to the sanctuary * 8:00 — The trinity — Bee, little Bethie, me — and inviting the shadows in * 11:32 — The scared old man, and up and down the stairs * 13:28 — Two weeks later: the vision completes · living from the center * 14:41 — We are all beings of light: Michelangelo, Eckhart, the aperture * 16:50 — Still human · dancing as who I am · the frame we can’t see * 20:04 — Is it safe to be me? Room enough — free together Mentioned in this episode * Somatic experiencing — the body-based practice of turning toward the stuck place with tenderness (developed by Peter A. Levine) * Meister Eckhart — “not that I’m God, and not that I’m other than God… both at once” * Michelangelo — the figure freed by taking the stone away This is a conversation Whatever stirred in you today — let it stay. Don’t rush past it. That’s the remembering at work. And I mean conversation. Some episodes will be given over to your questions — what you’re wondering about, what’s sitting unresolved, what you’d want to ask if we were sitting together. So ask. Write to me at elizabeth@therememberingway.org, or leave a comment at elizabethlightfootjameson.com. And if this landed in you, share it with someone who might need it. That’s how this travels. Ways to walk this together The podcast is free. It always will be. You’ll find it at Broken Open — elizabethlightfootjameson.com — and wherever you listen to podcasts. The writing there is free too. If you’d like to help this work keep going, you can support it with a paid subscription. But nothing sits behind a wall, and nothing will. Second Sundays — a free gathering, in person and online, once a month. Come as you are. Becoming Love — the community gathering around this work. New offerings this fall. Becoming-love.circle.so/c/welcome-circle Dedicated with Love This is for Bee. My kiddo, my teacher — radiant, powerful, whole, and full of light, then and now. And it’s for the radiant child in you: the one who was there before anyone was watching, who is there still, waiting to be remembered. Until next time: keep rethinking the unthinkable. Keep noticing what you are noticing. You are not too much. You are not too little. And you are not alone. With love always, Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson elizabeth@therememberingway.orgTheRememberingWay.orgElizabethLightfootJameson.comBecoming-love.circle.so/c/welcome-circle Credits Creative direction by John Harrison, assisted by Izzy Fischer.Original music by Jonny Rodgers.The mosaic is the work of Patrick Raymond. And with deep gratitude to all who have been walking this way with me — especially my family and friends, the Inner Alchemy of Wisdom Core Circle, those in soul coaching, and all who have joined me in other offerings. You have shaped this more than you know. Transcript Before anyone was watching (welcome · the radiant child) What did you love to do before anyone was watching? Who were you before you learned who you were supposed to be? What did you love? Maybe you can feel it still. Maybe you’ve forgotten it entirely. Either way, this is what this episode is all about. Welcome to The Remembering Way. I’m Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson. This is a podcast about rethinking the unthinkable. Today, the radiant child, the one you were before the world shaped you, the one you still are underneath all of it. Welcome, so glad you’re here. The easy baby, and the nurse who said “let her cry” There’s a story in my family that was always told about me, the youngest of three. I was such an easy baby. No one ever knew when I was awake because I never cried. I was just up there playing with my toes, apparently. And when they told it, they told it with love. But underneath was another story. And that was the story of the nurse, Miss Mack, who was assisting my mom. I was literally just a few days old. And Miss Mack, who said to my mom that you have to let her cry. And so I learned not to cry because no one was coming. And yes, I was happy and played with my feet until someone realized I was awake. But underneath, I’d already decided that reaching out simply didn’t work. The stories we make to earn love We learn, we adapt to the situation that we’re in. And therefore, even as an infant, I coped. I made a decision on some deep level that the way to live in this world was to be what other people needed me to be. And throughout our lives, as young children, over and over again, we may not get what we need. And so we make up stories because we don’t fully understand. We figure out a story that makes sense to us. We’re not enough. We’re too much. Really, it doesn’t matter exactly what the story was of what happened to us. It’s what we did with it that matters. It is the way in which we created a story and a pattern, a way of coping that came out of what happened to us or didn’t happen. And we think that that is what love is. And so we tell these stories about who we are and about how we have to be in order to earn the love or secure the resources, the ways in which we’ll be taken care of so that we become what the environment teaches us is necessary. And then we hope that we’ll be OK as a result, but we don’t realize the many, many ways and times that we have given up something important about who we are in order to be there for someone else. Bee, the somatic work, and the stuck place: a vision comes As I mentioned in episode one, in 2021, my youngest, Bee, died. And about a year later, I was doing some somatic work and somatic experiencing is based on the premise that our emotional wounds are caught in the body itself as scar tissue. And you bring your attention toward the stuck place, toward the place in your body that hurts with tenderness and presence, and you stay with it. And over time, it begins to soften and open and reveal its story so that you can let go of whatever it is that’s been trapped there. And I knew there was this hard stuck place in my core that had been there a long time. In the vision: the mirroring & the mirror that leads to the sanctuary And as I was in this process, a vision came. In the vision, I was a toddler down in the basement, the parish hall of the church I grew up in at coffee hour. And there was so much holding, so much fear, so much panic and desperation. I was looking around frantically, trying to read everyone else, these big people towering above me, trying to mimic them, to reflect them so they wouldn’t be angry or scared or unpredictable. It was exhausting. But even when I got it right, they could move at any moment in a way I didn’t anticipate, and while I was mirroring one, another would shift and I couldn’t keep up with all of them anyway. Vigilance and shame and fear, my cloak and my noose was hard to breathe, hard to relax, and I was just a toddler in this vision. I was terrified. And then I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, in among the legs of all the big people at coffee hour, and something in me woke up. I was curious, I was bold. I started to follow where the mirror was, although it disappeared and reappeared a little further away. On and on this went until I was led into this sanctuary, this beautiful Gothic sanctuary of the church where I was baptized. And suddenly it was quiet, extraordinarily quiet. Even if there was noise, the organ was playing or people talking underneath it. It was endlessly quiet. And it was spacious, opening out in every direction, full of soft, warm, filtered light, where the darkness wasn’t dark and the light wasn’t harsh or demanding. There was nothing there to hide anything scary. It was all just soothing and warm and safe. And there was a stillness, a stillness deep within and beyond. It was safe enough to let down my guard, safe enough to play, safe enough to dance. I was dancing in the wholeness and the enoughness, coming home to myself as if for the first time. And there was all the time in the world. The trinity — Bee, little Bethie, me — and inviting the shadows in And then I noticed Bee. And Bee was both a little girl, as I remembered Bee, and a soulmate, a playmate right there, easy to be with. And also somehow radiant, powerful, whole and full of light, who Bee really is. And I was there too, as an adult self, so little me, Bethie, and Bee, and me. And there was this trinity, the three of us, of light and love and joy and delight and laughter. It was extraord
Jul 26

The Wilderness Between the Stories (Ep 2)

The old story has come apart, and the new one hasn’t arrived yet. You know the place. Something you counted on has broken — a role, a body, a certainty, a whole way of life — and what comes next hasn’t shown itself. Every instinct says to hurry through it. What if the wilderness in between isn’t the detour? What if it’s where the clarity comes? Welcome to The Remembering Way. This is the story of my own wilderness — my father’s death when I was twelve, and decades later a brain bleed that took the life I’d built. But it isn’t only about me. It’s about the passage we’re all making together — the great collective breaking of so much we took for granted, and the choice it keeps putting in front of us: to grip what’s ending, or to midwife what’s being born. It came out of my own living, and it’s my telling, not fact. Hold it lightly. Take what is yours, and leave the rest. Not answers. A wondering. In this episode * 0:00 — The wilderness is essential (the collective breaking · incomplete, not wrong) * 1:55 — Welcome · loving wilderness · cairns as wayfinders * 3:53 — Not every cairn is yours: discernment, and trusting the ones before and beside you * 5:06 — The wilderness between the stories · the wound (Dad’s death at 12 · Nouwen · Chiron) * 7:11 — The 50s: rector at St. Simon’s, and the Living School * 9:03 — The fall, the brain bleed, the ICU * 10:36 — The year of trying, and letting go of the role * 11:30 — The functioning cliff · learning to live with it * 14:07 — Kenosis: the tomb that is also a womb * 16:09 — Loving what is · the “I am” at the center * 19:48 — The mosaic: Broken for You, and the image of the podcast * 23:53 — Victim or midwife · inner sovereignty * 26:01 — We don’t do this alone · the circle, the ripples * 27:55 — “The Unbroken,” by Rashani Réa · where are you learning to sing? Mentioned in this episode * Henri Nouwen — The Wounded Healer * Chiron — in astrology, where the wound and the gift are one and the same * The Living School (Center for Action and Contemplation) — with Richard Rohr, Jim Finley, and Cynthia Bourgeault * John of the Cross — “the dark night of the soul” * Kenosis — the mystic practice of letting go, of not clinging * Stephanie Kallos — Broken for You * Jett Psaris — Hidden Blessings * Rashani Réa — “The Unbroken” This is a conversation Whatever stirred in you today — let it stay. Don’t rush past it. That’s the remembering at work. And I mean conversation. Some episodes will be conversations with others who are walking this way. Others will be given over to your questions — what you’re wondering about, what’s sitting unresolved, what you’d want to ask if we were sitting together. So ask. Write to me at elizabeth@therememberingway.org, or leave a comment at elizabethlightfootjameson.com. And if this landed in you, share it with someone who might need it. That’s how this travels. Ways to walk this together The podcast is free. It always will be. You’ll find it at Broken Open — elizabethlightfootjameson.com — and wherever you listen to podcasts. The writing there is free too. If you’d like to help this work keep going, you can support it with a paid subscription. But nothing sits behind a wall, and nothing will. Second Sundays — a free gathering, in person and online, once a month. Come as you are. August 9th Second Sunday Becoming Love — the community forming around this work. New offerings this fall. Becoming-love.circle.so/c/welcome-circle Dedicated with Love To the people of St Simon’s Episcopal Church, Arlington Heights and to my family For everyone standing in the wilderness between the stories — in the time before the breaking, in the thick of the density, or just beginning to feel for the shards. You are not walking it alone. Until next time: keep rethinking the unthinkable. Keep noticing what you are noticing. You are not too much. You are not too little. And you are not alone. With love always, Elizabeth Lightfoot Jamesonelizabeth@therememberingway.orgTheRememberingWay.orgElizabethLightfootJameson.comBecoming-love.circle.so/c/welcome-circle Credits Creative direction by John Harrison Original music by Jonny Rodgers. “The Unbroken” by Rashani Réa — shared with her permission. The mosaic is the work of Patrick Raymond. And with deep gratitude to all who have been walking this way with me — especially my family and friends, the Inner Alchemy of Wisdom Core Circle, those in soul coaching, and all who have joined me in other offerings. You have shaped this more than you know. Transcript ELIZABETH Every wisdom tradition knows the wilderness not only exists, but is essential. Actually, both kinds are the beautiful wilderness — one you set out for on purpose, and the one you stumble into, or more often that stumbles into you, unbidden and unwelcome. The in-between, where the old thing has come apart and the new thing hasn’t emerged yet. We can’t escape this season in our lives, and maybe we shouldn’t want to, because this is where the clarity comes. We are living one of those times together — a great collective breaking of so much that we’ve taken for granted, so much that was good, even if it wasn’t really good enough. This life is both beautiful and heartbreaking, and the sheer volume of suffering unfolding across our planet right now is devastating. And the breaking is showing us the cracks in the foundations that never held well enough to begin with. What we inherited wasn’t wrong; it was just incomplete, and the breaking is how the incompleteness finally becomes visible, and how we get to see it as clearly as it needs to be seen, so that we can start over, so we can choose again. ELIZABETH Welcome to The Remembering Way. I’m Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson. This is a podcast about rethinking the unthinkable, about navigating the crucibles of our own lives, and the larger breaking and birthing we are living inside — not alone, together. ELIZABETH I’ve always loved wilderness — rock scrambling, camping, hiking. Being in and around it fills me with joy, even as it grounds and anchors me into the preciousness of the present moment. Some trails are marked by cairns — piles, small or, on occasion, even very large piles of rocks that strangers before us have left along the trail to help guide others on the way. These wayfinders remind me we are never alone, nor do we need to make something out of nothing. There are incredibly wise ones who have walked before us, who have gifts to share as we seek to find our way in new and uncertain times. Much of what we’ve inherited simply no longer works. The rate and scope of change is too massive. Our landscape looks nothing like the ones that others have walked, and at the very same time, it is well worth our while to find the gifts hidden for us, often waiting for just this moment to reveal themselves as not just trustworthy, but life-changing. And here’s something easy to overlook: not every cairn is for you. Some cairns lead to incredible new expanses. Others lead to a rock scramble that may be right for someone, but perhaps not you. The cairn itself cannot tell you whether the path it marks is yours. That’s a discernment only you can make, but your body knows, and deep down you know. And sometimes the one walking beside you can see more clearly than you can — the friend behind, watching the slope, seeing what you cannot from where you are. Trust yourself. Trust the ones walking before you. Trust the ones walking beside you. We are guided by what has worked and what hasn’t, but in each of us, we have to choose every time we come across something new. What do I inherit from the past that works in this new context, and what is no longer helpful? And what is new and emerging? ELIZABETH The wilderness between the stories is hard because you’re neither here nor there. The old patterns, the ones you’ve known, no longer work. They’re broken. They’re not enough, and yet you’re not really clear on what’s coming. There’s a disorientation, a discomfort that most of us wouldn’t choose, which is why it often takes things breaking, or losing things, or having the ending of things to propel us into that wilderness, because we wouldn’t go there voluntarily. ELIZABETH I went to seminary to become a priest, in part because of a wilderness that I experienced when I was 12. My dad suddenly and tragically died, and I was left with all kinds of questions. My wrestling with those broken pieces became something I realized that I could transmute. I could take that pain and that reworking of a life that had happened in my journey, and offer it in such a way that others could see their own pain and their own way forward. Early in my ministry, I learned about Henri Nouwen, the wounded healer, and it intrigued me and really spoke to my own journey — that our wounds can be what heals. Decades later, I learned there’s a name for that same dynamic in astrology. The centaur Chiron is the place in a chart where the wound is, and it’s also where the gift that we can share with others happens to lie — the wound and the gift for healing, one and the same. By the time I reached my 50s, I had lived such an amazing adventure. I’d worked in a parish for a long time. I’d been in leadership at the seminary that I had gone to for a number of years. I had learned so much and grown so much, and eventually I was called to lead a church, St. Simon’s Episcopal Church in Arlington Heights. I was so excited and honored to become their rector, and we had an extraordinary journey together. I loved being their rector, and I loved them. I love them still. In the midst of loving these people and growing together, I was able to go to the Living School. A friend of mine calls it God School. It’s really a program about the mystics and the mystic path, taught at the time
Jul 13

You Can Do This Hard Thing (Ep 1)

Maybe there’s someone you love that you cannot fix. A child. A parent. A lover. A friend. Someone whose pain you would carry in your own body if you could — but you can’t. Maybe you’ve worn yourself down trying. What if love was never meant to be a rescue? What if the deepest love doesn’t save someone — it stays with them? Welcome to The Remembering Way. This first episode is the story of the person who taught me that. My kiddo, Bee. But this isn’t a story about me. Bee is my particular. Yours will have another name — a diagnosis, a leaving, a door that closed, a life you thought you’d have. The losing is not rare. It’s the most ordinary thing there is. The question underneath is the same for all of us: how do we live from a center that doesn’t depend on circumstances? This is a podcast about rethinking the unthinkable — about how the very things that break us can also break us open. About the courage to go toward the heart of things rather than away. And about the radiance that turns out to be hidden in the very darkness we most fear. Not answers. A wondering. Dedicated with Love This is for Bee. My kiddo. My teacher. Whose light did not go out. It’s for everyone who loved them — who still carries them, still hears them, still catches them out of the corner of an eye. And it’s for you, whoever you are and wherever you’re standing: in the breaking, in the long dark that never tells you when it will end, in the ordinary Tuesday where you’re just trying to keep going. You are walking this way too. You are not alone in it. A word about how to hold this This is my story, and my telling of it. It’s the meaning I have made — and am still making — out of what happened. It isn’t fact, and I don’t offer it as one. Others who loved Bee carry a different version, and theirs is not less true than mine. So I offer this as a wondering, not a verdict. Rethinking the unthinkable was never about arriving at the answer. Hold it lightly. Take what is yours. Leave the rest. Before you listen This episode tells the story of my kiddo, Bee — their life, and their death by suicide. It holds grief, and it holds love, and it doesn’t look away from either. You will hear Bee’s own voice in this episode. Check in with yourself as you listen. You might listen with someone. You might set it down for another day. Or it may be that this podcast is not for you. All of those are wise. If you need support: * 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 (US), any hour of any day * Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741 (US) * Alliance of Hope — for those bereaved by suicide — allianceofhope.org * The Compassionate Friends — for families after the death of a child — compassionatefriends.org * RAINN — sexual assault support — 800-656-4673, rainn.org * Outside the US: findahelpline.com There is always help. There is always someone. In this episode * 0:00 — Before we begin (content note · 988 · you are not too much) * 2:07 — Bee, in their own voice: why they wanted to make movies * 2:54 — Welcome. Meeting Bee: the thousand-watt smile, Selma, the moon ritual, the river that ran deep * 6:53 — Bee at thirteen, speaking in church at their confirmation * 7:30 — Little Whiskey Mountain: ten feet at a time, and what it taught us both * 11:03 — “You Can Do This Hard Thing” — Carrie Newcomer * 11:37 — When it got harder, not easier. The locked unit. Byron Katie, and the night something broke open in me. * ~19:00 — Center-to-center loving. The river. The blackbird. The puzzle with one piece missing. * 25:42 — A message from a stranger, on sacred land * 28:21 — We are always in the river — and the river extends before and after * ~31:30 — Gratitude, unbidden * ~33:00 — Mary Oliver, At the River Clarion Mentioned in this episode * Byron Katie — Loving What Is * Beatrice Bruteau — center-to-center loving * Pierre Teilhard de Chardin — the transformation of consciousness * Ann Voskamp — One Thousand Gifts * Mary Oliver — “At the River Clarion,” from Evidence * Carrie Newcomer — “You Can Do This Hard Thing” * Sarah McLachlan’s version of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” * The films Selma, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and I Am Sam This is a conversation Whatever stirred in you today — let it stay. Don’t rush past it. That’s the remembering at work. And I mean conversation. Some episodes will be conversations with others who are walking this way. Others will be given over to your questions — what you’re wondering about, what’s sitting unresolved, what you’d want to ask if we were sitting together. So ask. Write to me at elizabeth@therememberingway.org, or leave a comment at elizabethlightfootjameson.com. And if this landed in you, share it with someone who might need it. That’s how this travels. Ways to walk this together The podcast is free. It always will be. You'll find it at Broken Open — elizabethlightfootjameson.com — and wherever you listen to podcasts. The writing there is free too. If you'd like to help this work keep going, you can support it with a paid subscription. But nothing sits behind a wall, and nothing will. Second Sundays — a free gathering, in person and online, once a month. Come as you are. August 9th Second Sunday Becoming Love — the community forming around this work. New offerings this fall. Becoming-love.circle.so/c/welcome-circle Until next time: keep rethinking the unthinkable. Keep noticing what you are noticing. You are not too much. You are not too little. And you are not alone. With love always, Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson elizabeth@therememberingway.orgTheRememberingWay.orgElizabethLightfootJameson.comBecoming-love.circle.so/c/welcome-circle Credits Creative direction by John Harrison, assisted by Izzy Fischer. Original music by Jonny Rodgers. Also heard in this episode: Carrie Newcomer, “You Can Do This Hard Thing” — used gratefully with permission · Sarah McLachlan’s “Blackbird” · Kanye West, “Ultralight Beam.” The mosaic is the work of Patrick Raymond. With gratitude to M, who helped The Remembering Way — and me — find our voice. And with deep gratitude to all who have been walking this way with me — especially my family and friends, the Inner Alchemy of Wisdom Core Circle, those in soul coaching, and all who have joined me in other offerings. You have shaped this more than you know. Bee’s voice appears with love. Transcript ELIZABETH Maybe there’s someone you love that you cannot fix — a child, a parent, a lover, a friend — someone whose pain you would carry in your own body if you could, but you can’t. Maybe you’ve worn yourself down trying. What if love was never meant to be a rescue? What if the deepest love doesn’t save someone — it stays with them? Before we begin, I want to share that the Remembering Way goes toward hard places. It doesn’t look away. There are episodes that speak about suicide, about sexual assault, and about things that break your heart. And so I ask you: please check in with yourself as you listen. You might listen with someone else. You might set it down for another day. Or it may be that this podcast is not for you. Above all, I want to remind you of something many of us forget in the hardest moments: there is always help. There is always someone. In the United States you can call or text 988 any hour of any day, and a real person will answer. That, and other resources, and ways to connect with me and with the community gathered around the Remembering Way, are all in the show notes. You are not too much. You are not too little. And you are not alone. BEE (archival) You know, there’s this moment in really good movies where the main character — they’re in kind of a tough spot, and so they just do what they can. And you really see that character grow as a person, and that moment is so important. And maybe it’s something that I just look for. But the real reason that I want to make movies is that I want to inspire someone someday. And that’s what really matters to me. ELIZABETH Welcome to The Remembering Way. I’m Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson. This is a podcast about rethinking the unthinkable — about how the very things that break us can also break us open. And I want to tell you about the person who taught me that. I want to tell you about my kiddo, Bee. Bee, B-e-e, non-binary, chose the pronouns she/her and they/them, and you’ll find I refer to Bee as both. [Bee, age 13, practicing Spanish] Bee was about 13, and needed to prepare for a Spanish dialogue at school. I don’t know Spanish, but I was trying to help — butchering my way through a beautiful language — when we just started laughing and couldn’t stop. Bee lights up a room whenever she walks in. She literally has a thousand-watt smile and a bubbly humor that is engaging and a little bit snarky, particularly in those teenage years. And Bee was a river that ran deep — on the surface bubbly and light and playful, and down below, a depth dimension of meaning-making. At 14, Bee was moved by Black Lives Matter, so present in the news then, and then watched the movie Selma. It went deep — and completely self-taught, Bee put together a video weaving back and forth between Black Lives Matter and the civil rights movement with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She set it to Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam.” It mattered so much to her — that’s what Bee spent her time on. She was supposed to study for exams, but she knew what mattered, and this mattered. Bee loved the moon. We had a little moon ritual almost every night — a little round face like a moon, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a chinny-chin-chin — but then Bee would say, “but you forgot the eyebrows,” so I’d do it again with the eyebrows, leaving out the nose, and then, “but you forgot the nose”… and we’d do this little ritual until I got everything in. One night, afte

4 Episodes

Creator

Elizabeth Lightfoot Jameson
Years Active

2026
Episodes

4
Rating

Clean
Show Website

The Remembering Way

The Remembering Way

Episodes

Living Inside a Name (Ep 4)

Remembering The Light We Are (Ep 3)

The Wilderness Between the Stories (Ep 2)

You Can Do This Hard Thing (Ep 1)

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