Season 4 - Episode 7 - Interview with Natalie Griffith Robichaux Wise Not Withered

I really feel like our inner work, doing our inner work is the way to change the world and how we have an impact on the outer world. And I so, so deeply believe and know in my heart that embodiment is the way to freedom, and connection, and joy… And all of those things that we long for. So now, I’m moving into building a coaching business, but also writing a book. I feel like some of it is gonna be exorcised from me in the form of public speaking, or teaching, or possibly performance… That’s the way I’m going to disseminate the experience to other people. So that is in the works! And I’m still constantly working on—and this has a place in all of these things that I’m mentioning—I’m still working on a solo performance piece that I have been working on for years. I’m performed it along the way in its different iterations at different places. It’s called Bicycle Face. In my body and heart and mind, it’s going to end up being in an anthology of sorts with other women and folks who identify as women.
That’s a thread that’s through all of this too, and I don’t know how all of these things are coming together, but I tell you what! At this time in my life, when I’m rounding the corner to 50—comin’ in hot on 50—it feels like all of these things are being braided together in this sort of glowing… Golden braid.
—
Thanks for joining us on the podcast! So… Natalie Griffith Robichaux.
Yes.
Cool. Got it. Yay. So what is your age?
I am 49. Gonna be 50 in January!
Amazing. When’s your birthday?
January 18th!
Okay cool! That’s a little less than a month after mine! Hehe.
Ah, all right!
Are you a Capricorn?
I am a Capricorn. I’m very much a Capricorn.
Yeah? Are you into astrology?
Totally! I have been my whole life. It just makes sense to me. It always has.
I’m a Capricorn too! What about the Capricorn sign do you resonate with? Like what comes to mind when you think, “I’m a Capricorn!”
I’m fiercely loyal. Can be very… Systems-oriented. Like I kinda get into the organizational, ambition behind organization, making systems work… I’m super passionate, I’m grounded. I can be a little… Jealous… At times? Stubborn! What else… I mean those are the things that come off the top of my head. I have three, including myself, Capricorns in my house. My daughter’s a Capricorn, and my husband’s a Capricorn. And then my son is a Virgo. So, very different. He’s living with three Capricorns in the same building, so it gets interesting!
I’m just picturing all the rams butting heads. Is it like that? (Laughs)
Sure! (Laughs) There’s some of that. But I think we’re all very passionate in our own ways. Yeah.
Cool! Yeah. So you mentioned you’re a mother. What other roles do you currently carry? Like, how do you refer to yourself, and what do others refer to you as?
I’m an artist, a performing artist, a teacher, a coach, a guide… I’ve been shifting the sort of roles and names as I’ve gotten older. I’ve become more comfortable with taking up roles that I would’ve been more timid about taking up before, when I was younger. I like to refer to myself as a witch, in the way that… I read this definition of a witch that an artist made, I don’t remember who said this. Maybe we could find it. But it was in the New York Times, this artist that said, “A witch is a woman with unconstrained relationship to her power.”
Ooooooh.
And so I was like, “I wanna be a witch! So I’m gonna start saying, ‘I’m a witch.’ I’m gonna invite that in.” So I guess “witch” would be a role that I would like to embody, that I try to embody. Definitely mother, friend, partner, sister, daughter—those are all very important to me.
And you mentioned roles that you are becoming more comfortable with now as you’re becoming older. Is that specifically the witch one, or are there others?
The witch one, and some friends of mine… A particular friend of mine, who I consider a spiri