Birthing New Worlds

Kate Hopkins

Healing, Culture, and Change seen through the lens of someone who attends birth, holds space for healing, and loses her keys regularly. k8hopkins.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 11 Sept

    Your Quest is My Quest: a convo with Kate Hopkins and Audrey Fritter

    This week, I’m sharing a conversation I had with the lovely Audrey Fritter of Cadence Consulting in her Summer Speaker Series. This convo happened in July, and it was SO MUCH FUN. Audrey interviews Kate, and we get into: 🪭 The Heroine’s Journey, as an alternative narrative meaning-making structure to the Hero’s Journey. 🪭 Animism and real relationship with the nature in your immediate vicinity: even if it means turf wars or grumbly neighbors. 🪭 The gifts and pitfalls of each phase of the menstrual cycle. 🪭 What to do when your nervous system feels like ‘a live wire.’ 🪭 The symbolism of squirrels. And so much more! Mentioned: Ankylosing Spondylitis Hands of Light by Barbara Brennan The Two Caskets (via Lisa Marchiano) For the full tale of the Heroine’s Journey and the Two Caskets: Birthing New Worlds, Episode 2: The Heroine’s Journey: Thrown Down a Well 🪭🪭🪭 Check out Audrey! She’s @byaudreyfritter on IG and Threads. You can get her freebie, Touching Grass & Shaking Ass: Empath Boundaries & Energy Hygiene Rituals for Hot Little Rebels (SEE I told you she was funny!) OR book a reading. AND THEN! Come see me for Befriending the Cycle, ten weeks of group process around the menstrual cycle: creating accomodations in difficulty, harmonizing with the changing reality of life, and leaning into a life fully expressed. Need a warmup? Start with Thinking In Cycles, a free workshop where YOU are a force of nature and your menstrual cycle is part of the magic. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit k8hopkins.substack.com/subscribe

    Your Quest is My Quest: a convo with Kate Hopkins and Audrey Fritter
  2. 26 Aug

    7. Building Blocks: Mineral Nourishment with Liz Bowden

    In this episode, I’m sitting down with Liz Boden, a breathwork facilitator, microdosing guide, and HTMA (hair tissue mineral analysis) facilitator and integrative coach. In this conversation, we discuss 🪨 how psychedelics can play a role in what I call the ‘hamster wheel of healing’ where you just need one more ceremony to feel better. 🪨 how minerals nourish us and what the body hangs onto in their absence: (spoiler, it’s a yuck)🪨 how minerals may affect relationships and the uncanny effect it can have on unhealthy relationships to replete something that’s chronically depleted.🪨 the body as mirror to the earth: as the soils that produce our food become chronically depleted, we too become depleted over time. 🪨 the relationship between estrogen, serotonin, and psilocybin, or why a microdose might knock you on your ass from time to time. 🪨 miscarriage, postpartum without a baby, supporting the process of pregnancy loss, and navigating that process supported. Mentioned: Ionic mimicryCharles EisensteinSena MariaSusan CachayLauren- Rooted. Postpartum MassageTami Lynn KentThe Psilocybin Handbook for Women (affiliate link via bookshop.org) Find Liz at her website, wildmarrow.org and on instagram @lizbwildin Book her for HTMA and mention this podcast for a special discount! 15% at time of recording. :) AND while you’re at it, check out my work at katehopkins.co, especially my free workshop replay Thinking In Cycles, and Befriending the Cycle, a ten week group program exploring the menstrual cycle with a lens that is animist, relational, sensory, and neurologic, so you can stop grappling with your changing capacity, and start to enjoy the company of your menstrual cycle. You can also find me on IG + Threads @katehopkins_holistic send me a dm tell me what you are thinking about after this episode! Befriending the Cycle Starts Sept 28th! and Early Bird pricing lasts til Sept 1. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit k8hopkins.substack.com/subscribe

    7. Building Blocks: Mineral Nourishment with Liz Bowden
  3. 22 Jul

    5. Have you heard about Emptiness? Buddhism + a Spiritual Care Hotline with Jackson

    Season 1 of Birthing New Worlds continues with the next installment of conversations with people working in + thinking about healing, culture, and change in Central Virginia. This week we’re sitting down with my dear friend, Jackson, a Buddhist chaplain and practitioner of 12+ years. Jackson just earned his Masters in Divinity and practiced a whopping 300 hours of on-call spiritual care with the San Francisco Night Ministry’s anonymous Care Line. We get into: 📿 working with people seeking anonymous spiritual care, including those dealing with suicidal ideation, (CW) trauma, neurodivergence, and psychosis. 📿 learning to hold presence without diagnosis or fixing. 📿 insight from his own years of practice, and how to microdose his practice in a way that subverts typical Western approaches to care work📿 Mardi Gras as ritual, magic, and endurance.📿 the choice to turn towards the present, even in life-or-death moments Find Jackson on Letterboxd (!!) as ChoyingZopaSupport the San Francisco Night Ministry, and call the Care Line at (844-HOPE-4SF) AND if you’re someone with a menstrual cycle, and you’re wanting to practice the brave and subversive work of turning towards the present moment in ever-shifting identities and capacities, Thinking in Cycles is for you! It’s a free workshop where the menstrual cycle lands in context with the rest of the world, on Aug 7 at 1 PM EST. Register here! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit k8hopkins.substack.com/subscribe

    5. Have you heard about Emptiness? Buddhism + a Spiritual Care Hotline with Jackson
  4. 1 Jul

    4. Autonomy and Cycles of Care with Midwife Sylvia Boudali, CNM

    Gang I almost trashed this one bc I was having trouble with the audio! Go easy on me! Love you! Episode 4! Join me in this episode for a conversation with my friend Sylvia Boudali. Sylvia is a mother, lover, midwife, doula, and reproductive care advocate and educator. Her practice and perspective are so unique and refreshing, and she is doing incredible work in our community. in this conversation, we talk about… 🌺 Motherhood, and the variety of associated experiences🌺 The weaponization of guilt and shame, especially concerning women and motherhood.🌺 The Menstrual Cycle! including how the menstrual cycle is like Bourbon Street. 🌺 Finding ways to think about abortion beyond the two extremes of abortion bad’ and ‘no big deal’🌺 Who can and can’t or should and shouldn’t touch your cervix. 🌺 Rad feminist DIY anatomy education that started in the 60’s and 70’s🌺 How Olympians (and regular degular people) bypass menstruation for their big days. Check Out Sylvia’s work at www.cyclescare.org!!!! Come to BEACH READS summer book club kickoff call and pick up a copy of the book. (affiliate link!) Check out my work at katehopkins.co MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: for your rabbit hole purposes. ✤ Simone de Beauvoir- Sylvia’s final paper is in conversation with her rejection of motherhood✤ Rivka Cymbalist- Sylvia’s doula teacher✤ Enheduanna- ancient babylonian authoress (worlds first author was female!)✤ The Chalice and the Blade By Riane Eisler- (book club with us!) hosted by myself and the lovely Ines Tielas✤ Adrienne Rich- a reading from her book Of Woman Born✤ Madison Morrigan- Kate’s teacher on shame + shame alchemy✤ Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project: one of RVA’s most beloved org. Give them ur monies. ✤ Carol Downer and Lorraine Rothman: 70’s DIY feminist anatomy and education This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit k8hopkins.substack.com/subscribe

    4. Autonomy and Cycles of Care with Midwife Sylvia Boudali, CNM
  5. 15 Jun

    3. Octavia Told Us

    This is the third installment of the preseason series that comes before Season 1, where I'm giving you some LORE on the IDEAS that make me who i am and make my work what it is. TODAY we have an ode to Octavia Butler, badass Black ecofeminist SciFi writer. If you’re already an Octavia Stan, sit back, relax, and listen to some Earthseed verses. If you’re not, prepare to be wowed, as we stick one tiny toenail into the lush pool of her work and its ripples into the world. Here’s what’s inside… 🌺 how Octavia Butler wrote a fictional US president whose motto is ‘make america great again’ in the 1980’s(!!!) 🌺 how the fictional religion she wrote has become an actual religion, at least on the internet. 🌺 her response to the question, what do we do about all these problems? she was writing about. 🌺 her intersecting identities and how they let her see her present time crystal clearly and speculate about the problems of the time becoming disasters, and write a chilling version of life set in California in 2024. 🌺 AND an invitation to practice worldbuilding, practice imagining, practice tuning into the collective, and creative writing in my workshop, COLLECTIVE WORLDBUILDING, coming up June 18th! THANK YOU for being here, rate the show and subscribe! It's brand spanking new, cone-headed and taking its first swollen, squawky, awkward breaths, so cute and helpless. Your support is so appreciated! Sign up for COLLECTIVE WORLDBUILDING! It's an insane amount of fun for being totally legal. Peep my work and my world at www.katehopkins.co and connect with me on IG or threads at @katehopkins_holistic This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit k8hopkins.substack.com/subscribe

    3. Octavia Told Us
  6. 12 Jun

    2. The Heroine's Journey: Thrown Down a Well

    Episode 2! another preseason bonus episode before we kick off season one. It today’s episode we’re looking at a Scandinavian folk tale, and exploring ways of understanding the difference between the Hero’s Journey and the Heroines Journey. the TLDR is that the heroine’s path with ask of us a little more depth, a little more ego unwraveling, and a lot more reciprocity, friendship, and love. What’s inside: 🌺 how to ‘un-disney-fy fairy tales, and approach as cultural instructions rather than moralizing 🌺 Jungian reading of fairy tales: the anima/animus, the alchemical marriage, and the pot of gold as psychological symbols 🌺 pregnancy, a non-linear healing journey, and other rock bottom initiations 🌺 arguing that transformation comes through connection, kindness, and persistence in dark times. ✨🔮 PLUS an invitation to COLLECTIVE WORLDBUILDING, a virtual creative writing workshop where we imagine other worlds, practice tuning into a shared wavelength, and sharpen our collaboration skills. 🔮✨ Time Stamps 00:00 Welcome and Intro 00:54 Heroine’s Journey Intro 02:00 Lisa Marchiano’s work 03:03 Fairytale Reading Lens 05:01 Jungian Symbols Explained 07:21 Two Caskets Begins 09:45 Impossible Tasks and Help 11:40 Caskets and Consequences 12:51 Meaning of the Well 15:42 Collective World Building Invite 17:35 Closing and Where to Find Me THANK YOU for being here, rate the show and subscribe! It’s brand spanking new, cone-headed and taking its first swollen, squawky, awkward breaths, so cute and helpless. Your support is so appreciated! Peep my work and my world at www.katehopkins.co and connect with me on IG or threads at @katehopkins_holistic This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit k8hopkins.substack.com/subscribe

    2. The Heroine's Journey: Thrown Down a Well
  7. 23/09/2025

    The Sun, Moon & Wind Went Out to Dinner

    Hello gnarniacs! Welcome back!From the eclipse muck/vortex/whatever it was for you. And from summer! from heat, hopefully some slowness, some frolicing, some relief from an inflamed world that’s boiling over just a bit. This week’s installment is an audio experiment! Just a little goofing around, and reading you a fairy tale. We are pro-fairy tale here. We, as in, me and the fairy tales. Here’s a closer look at the art I chose for the background of the audio. Love that it appears to be pure conjecture. If you’d like to, there’s always the way of working with fairy tales where each character represents a part of the whole person. I believe it’s a Jungian way of working with fairy tales and dreams. Recently found out Jung was more of a POS than we’d bargained for but I can’t remember in what way. So what I’m saying is, can’t vouch for the guys every move, but I do like to play around with having my subconscious play every part in the play, and see what turns up. I hope the change of season finds you well, cool, soft, and beautiful. I hope the moon shakes you up a feast you are able to digest. I hope your offerings are well-taken, and your harvest is abundant enough to share with your moon, your mother, your earth, your petulant siblings, and all the stars. I hope somebody makes you a plate. other, related & unrelated thoughts. on Pangea: that India detached and reattached again. What are the odds? The hot wind and brutal sun have their sweetnesses too, and maybe they’ll need our love. Maybe after all this time, they need somebody to make them a plate. Maybe curses lift. Maybe. I’m so, so grateful to switch into the cool, soft, beautiful moony subconscious half of the astrologic year. I needed a break from my hot sun, hot wind sibling selves. I also really like the line, “hear your doom.” if you’re ever looking to like maybe really scare someone, by cursing them, or making them think you’re cursing them (which i think may be all a curse is, to make them think that they’re cursed?) it could come in handy. Not that I’m endorsing any such behaviors. Highly outside my area of expertise. I just work here. Happy Rapture! Jk. I was raised Catholic. We don’t have that. my work. No more fucking around, the balanced day and night has passed, and before we know it, it will be dark at 4:30. Time to take care of our bodies and minds. Craniosacral therapy promotes a deep rest state, where you’re awake, but deeply dropped in, and all of your natural systems of repair can come on board uninhibited. It’s dope for creativity, and for the restoration of that full-on aliveness after trauma or burnout. In addition to the private studio I typically work out of in North Side (book here!), you can now find me in Manchester and the beautiful new space, Wildfire Wellness- book here. Prenatal Playground is where a customized alignment-based movement plan supports a more comfortable pregnancy, smoother birth, and easier recovery, all with a light heart and a sense of curiosity. There are still a few spots available in the pilot version of the program. Gnarnia with Kate Hopkins is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit k8hopkins.substack.com/subscribe

About

Healing, Culture, and Change seen through the lens of someone who attends birth, holds space for healing, and loses her keys regularly. k8hopkins.substack.com