season 4, episode 11 - boundaries & bravery with sarah corbett

our guest for episode 11 is sarah corbett! sarah is a clinical herbalist, non-diet nutritionist, and traditional astrologer who is passionate about helping others come into relationship with the natural world. she is the founder of rowan + sage, where she shares handcrafted astrologically-aligned herbal products, works with clients in her clinical practice, and guides others on their plant path through educational programs and mentorship. sarah’s work weaves together the old ways with the new to create powerful, evidence-based offerings that bring forth ancestral herbal wisdom with a touch of magic and mysticism.you can find her online at rowanandsage.com and on instagram @rowanandsage.

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transcript

snort & cackle - season 4, episode 11 - sarah corbett

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] Hello, and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast where every day magic, work and ritual intersect. I'm your host, Ash Alberg, a queer fibre witch and hedge witch. Each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub with a book review by me and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. Our book this season is Babaylan Sing Back: Philippine Shamans and Voice, Gender and Place by Grace Nono.

Whether you're an aspiring boss witch looking to start your knitwear design business, a plant witch looking to play more with your local naturally dyed color palette or a knit witch wondering just what the hell is a natural yarn and how do you use it in your favorite patterns, we've got the solution for you.

Take the free fiber witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz and find out which self-paced online program will help you take your dreams into reality. Visit ashalberg.com/quiz [upbeat music fades out] and then join fellow fiber witches in the Creative Coven Community at ashalberg.com/creative-coven-community for 24/7 access to Ash’s favorite resources, monthly zoom knit nights, and more. [End of intro.]

Hi, sweet peas. Just a heads up that this episode is coming out on June 29th and was recorded earlier today, so we do talk about what is currently happening in the world slash in the States, specifically about the overturn of Roe v. Wade during this podcast episode. And while we always talk about pretty big and hard things on Snort and Cackle episodes, this one's going to potentially be more activating for some of you, and so feel free to either skip it or listen to it at another point when your nervous system is feeling better prepared for that.

We have a really great conversation but I do want to just give you a heads up that this is a fair amount of the conversation topic for at least the first part of the episode, and so if you need to take a break this time around, that is totally fine. We understand it. Take care, sweet peas.

I am very excited to bring my guest here to you today. I'm here with Sarah Corbett. Sarah is a clinical herbalist, non-diet nutritionist, and traditional astrologer who is passionate about helping others come into relationship with the natural world. She is the founder of Rowan and Sage, where she shares

handcrafted, astrologically aligned herbal products, works with clients in her clinical practice and guides others on their plant path through educational programs and mentorship. Sarah's work weaves together the old ways with the new to create powerful evidence-based offerings that bring forth ancestral, herbal wisdom with a touch of magic and mysticism.

Hi Sarah.
sarah corbett: Hey Ash, it’s great to be here.

ash alberg: I'm so glad to have you here. We tried doing this before and then shit went a little sideways from neither of our doings. And now we're here again, so I'm excited to have ...

sarah corbett: And then shit also went a little sideways.

ash alberg: Fuck, I feel like that ... so this is, this is something that I think we'll dig into a little bit more, but you are one of the herbalists who I admire and respect the most just in terms of the way that you do your work, how rooted in like ethics you are, which I feel like, especially with online world a lot of herbalism can get a little fluffier than is actually safe and, but also as a small biz owner who works from like very strong values and has very strong boundaries. I just, I appreciate all of that.

And as we are recording this, we are actually recording on the day that the episode is coming out live, which is abnormal for Snort and Cackle. And so it is the end of June, 2022, and the States has gone extra crazy. And, but also like the world in general is a dumpster fire. And I feel like every time we're trying to do stuff, like I'm about to head into launch mode, the world is a dumpster fire. But also when I think back over the last two and a half years and before that, the world is just consistently a dumpster fire if that's where we focus our attentions.

And so how do we run businesses that are rooted in ethics, rooted in values, rooted in boundaries, rooted in giving a shit about the world. And also recognizing that we don't have the financial privilege of being like, we're just gonna hit pause until shit sorts itself out because probably it won't. There'll be something new all the ...

sarah corbett: And yeah, that's, it's all, it depends on the lens that you're looking through. Of course, if you ... it's hard to look for good news ...

ash alberg: Yes, but it's necessary.

sarah corbett: ... but there's always good news. There's always good people doing good shit out there. And at this particular moment in time where we're recording this, the States just overturned Roe w. Wade, and we knew it was gonna happen. Like we, we knew it was gonna happen and activists have been warning about it for decades, that it was going to happen.

And I'm not saying that people's gut punch feeling of actually seeing it happen is invalid, ‘cause I was taken out on Friday. And I'm laughing, but I'm like laugh-crying, I'm not trying to ... [Both chuckle.]

ash alberg: It's like the laugh just to force it out of your body.

sarah corbett: Yeah. It's, I'm not trying to say oh yeah, I'm all on peachy keen and everything's fine over here. No, it's terrible. But we knew it was gonna happen and there's, there was a little bit of preparation for it and so many ... I think a lot of people are very taken and blindsided by this situation. And that is showing me that they didn't have, they weren't networked with community that's been preparing for this moment for a really long time. And the best time to get connected was yesterday, but today's just as good.

ash alberg: Yep.

sarah corbett: So I'm really trying to not stay paralyzed whenever crazy stuff happens, but also trying to be reactive and responsive in a way that is responsible and that is consistently keeping me in my values and my ethics. Like with this particular scenario, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I wouldn't take up so much space talking about it if I didn't do reproductive-focused work.

I think a lot of people are just taking a moment to get quiet and tap out a little bit and do whatever they need to do, especially business owners. And I know maybe a year or two ago, a lot of people would be screaming at them online saying where, why aren't you performing outrage?

ash alberg: Yess.
sarah corbett: And I think we're starting turn a corner on that.

ash alberg: I, yeah, I hope so. I agree with you. I feel like there's starting to be a bit more ... I think of back in 2020 when everything was happening with the George Floyd trials and the, there was this whole like push to post black squares, which then it was very quickly oh wait, that's not the right thing to do.

But then it all, it was literally happening within a 24-hour period of a small section of the internet deciding, okay, this is what we're doing. And then that rolling into and snowballing into a much larger portion of the internet and then realizing, oh wait, this wasn't actually helpful. And now we have to like, turn it all around.

And it happened in such a short period of time. And the amount of just like outrage that came from, I think, [audio cut out]-meaning people honestly, for the most part.

sarah corbett: Yeah, but that, that, like that particular moment movement got extremely co-opted in a capitalist way by organizations, which like, okay, let's look at Pride month.

ash alberg: Exactly. Fucking pink dollars. Oh my ...

sarah corbett: Like the second June 1st happens in corporations that are straight up lobbying against queer people make their profile pictures rainbows? Okay. At this point I hope people are really starting to see through this type of performative activism and are feeling less pressure to engage with it, and instead are taking their energy and getting networked with people who were doing this work.

Like all of the people who have been yelling over the last several days, whatever emotion they're having about this particular situation in the States is entirely valid but it can get quite volatile. And I've gotten in the line of fire a little bit because I do repro work and the people yelling about this and just being very reactionary on the internet, I'm like I really would love if you could get to a place of being able to take the outreach that you have and funnel it into networks that are already doing this work and humble yourself.

And instead of saying, “I need to fix this,” say, “What do these people need from me?” Because the, I don't think that there's going to be a short turnaround solution on this particular scenario. I think it's gonna take years of ongoing organizing and getting people on board for us to see a change. And that's just because I've been like, that's my own experience watching this unfold for the last few years.

We've been fighting. People have been fighting trigger bans and all sorts of stuff preventing abortion access throughout the United States for years. The reason why I got into reproductive work in the first place was because of the trigger bans that were coming up in Georgia in 2018 and 2019.

That was when I was really like, okay, I'm, I don't wanna do this on just a community level, but I wanna bring it more into the work that I do. And that's my values. That's not everyone's values and it doesn't need to be everyone's values. I really think that people can only ... you can only care about so much.

ash alberg: Yeess! And you also can only be like, versed in so many issues in a way where you actually become very helpful to those, where like you can actually speak well to those things. Like the other part of it that I hope we're starting to realize is not helpful online is when you demand of every single person or of ... particularly I see that there's always a lot more pressure.

Zoe Frost and I talked about this a few weeks ago about how there's always an extra pressure when you're like a small biz person online, who has a presence, is like vocal about what your values are, but then you end up getting extra pressure to speak out about every single thing. And meanwhile, it's okay, what about the folks that have way more power than we do and also have a lot more awareness about that particular issue than we do? As just because you can speak very well to one thing doesn't mean that you can speak as well to, to everything. And also doesn't mean that you are the appropriate person to be speaking to everything and/or that if you don't speak ...

sarah corbett: [Indecipherable, both talking at the same time.]
ash alberg: Yeah. And also that if you don't speak about it, that means that you

don't care. It's like, there's so many ways ...

sarah corbett: And that means you're bad. And I think that's a reflection like I hate to see the infighting in communities. I think you, you can ... so let me rephrase my initial statement of, you can only care about so much. You can care about a lot of things, but you can only take that care and transform it into action in a very narrow way.

ash alberg: Yeah. You have to focus your energy.
sarah corbett: There are so many things that I care about personally, but for my

business?

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: As an herbalist, the areas in which I have the most potential influence are like environmental justice, protecting the actual plants that we work with.

For me, reproductive healthcare is important because I primarily work with people on the reproductive continuum, so that is something that I feel like ... when it became apparent that was going to be my work, I had to get involved and literate in the activism that was surrounding that particular work. But like every systemic issue in the world, I cannot completely fight for on my own.

The good news is that everything that we're fighting for is interconnected and if you're doing some work over here on environmental justice, or you're doing some work over here on systemic racism, or you're doing some work over here on reproductive access, like we're all actually working together.

ash alberg: Exactly. Yeah. And I think it's also an important moment for folks to recognize like, it's ... even if you have like really well meaning desires to help, recognizing what your limitations are, both in terms of energy and then also in terms of like actual skillset and training.

So like in particular, right now with repro healthcare and herbalism, like that is such a specific portion of herbalism that even if you're a clinical herbalist, which like, I am not, I have no desire to get into that shit because it's so big and there's so much. Like you're, you basically are training to be a doctor as far as I'm concerned in terms of what you need to understand and know about the body.

sarah corbett: Well, we cannot diagnose, treat, prescribe.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. And so this is part of it, right? Like you have to train ...

sarah corbett: ... [inaudible] requires us ...

[Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: Yes. Like you have to know the knowledge, but you also can't like, you, you can't actually be a doctor. You can't be like ...

sarah corbett: Yeah, and there's systemic oppressive reasons for that too. All ... and I, yeah, this is, to me, the fine line between what do we learn as herbalists? What do we say as herbalists? What can we say? What is the legality? If you sell, it's really comes down to if you sell products.

If you sell products, the FDA and the DSHEA guidelines in this country require you to basically act like herbs don't work. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yep. Yep.

sarah corbett: And for some, it's not all, some people will be like, oh, all government authorities are evil and terrible and trying to suppress the people. And like some of that exists, but the FDA laws and DSHEA laws are there not to just oppress herbalists, they're there for good reason, because there are bad actors.

There have been lots of adulteration in the field over the last several decades. The laws that are in place are there to protect people, but it, what it puts ... it shifts the burden away from the practitioner to educate and more for the individual who wants to engage with a certain project to self educate and advocate.

And unfortunately, we do not live in a culture where people are taught how to vet their information, unless they like took a university class on research design and stuff like that, which I did ‘cause that's, that was integral to my degree program. But for all intents and purposes, herbalists, I can't say all herbalists, but like folks who go down certain types of clinical tracks are trained to be what someone would've considered a traditional family doctor, 150, 200 years ago.

Now we can't act like that and we can't talk like that because that will get us sued for medical malpractice, unless you have a license. If you're a doctor, you can work with herbs. There's nothing in your licensure that says that you can't prescribe herbs if you're a physician, but I'm not. So I'm never gonna use that language.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: And yeah it's hard, but I understand and value some of the reasons why this type of legislation has been put in place. I also am very acutely aware of the racist history in the early 1900s that got us to the point where that legislature was, or that legislation was put in place.

It's very much a both/and.

ash alberg: Yes, exactly. And in this moment where I think at ... also, I live and I'm assuming you also live in, we live in like pretty specific portions of the internet, social media world, where at ... we see a lot more herbalism content than perhaps the general person would, but I'm definitely seeing a lot of folks come a little bit out of the woodwork and start talking very specifically about specific plants.

And I'm like, that's not like the, it's not safe to say shit like that. Like partially for legal reasons, but also because just because it's a plant doesn't mean it can't hurt you. [Chuckles.]

sarah corbett: Yeah and what they're really doing is they're shifting ... they're expecting herbalist and traditional healers to save them. But they aren't gonna fight for us.

ash alberg: No.

sarah corbett: And what they're really doing, especially in repro act-- in repro healthcare, who's been holding down the fort for reproductive access for communities who've never had reproductive access or at least equal access under the law with Roe v. Wade? Black and Indigenous doulas and midwives and herbalists.

We've got a lot of people who've never talked about an herb ever in their life just being like, oh, let's rely on the herbs, but what they're really saying ... they don't know this, but what they're really saying, I don't think they're think, thinking it through, but what they're really saying is let's just rely on the labor and the work of these traditional healers who have been maintaining this knowledge and serving their communities in these ways. They'll save us.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: And ...
ash alberg: And take all the risk in the process. [Chuckles.] Like ...

sarah corbett: And I don't really care if some person who's got no stakes says something stupid on the internet because the FDA is not gonna find them. Like they're gonna fly under the radar. Unless they're coming out here saying that like they're curing cancer with nettles or something, they, the FDA is not going to find them.

But those of us who have established businesses who are already taking on the risk of some pretty muddy waters, legal wise, of what we are doing with our clients, because they're, it's assumed that if you sell products, you really gotta be careful. But if you're just working with people in a one-on-one capacity, it's muddy.

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: It's very unclear and we've just been, as clinical herbalists, living through the precedent of, “They likely won't sue us.”

ash alberg: Yes! Which is terrifying.

sarah corbett: So we're already taking a massive risk in doing this work, not to mention the, in the world that you and I are in, people love herbalism so we don't experience any type of ostracization by being herbalists. But I am largely the social pariah my wider community.

No one, when I tell people I'm an herbalist, they're like, oh, that's bullshit. We are already taking a lot of risks and doing what we do, and if you compound folks who hold various marginalized identities who are already at risk of being impacted by state violence, and then you're gonna come and demand them to save you in this moment ...

ash alberg: Yep.
sarah corbett: I don't know about that.

ash alberg: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I don't like, I don't wanna spend the whole episode talking about this specific thing, because it's also one of those things where I'm like, because I'm in Canada and so this is not ... like there, I was saying to you earlier, there's a little bit of an emotional distance. It's not that it's not impacting up here, it's not that it can't happen up here, but because it's not directly happening, then there's a little bit more emotional distance.

And so for me, looking at what's happening in the States, I'm like, wow, that's super fucked. It can absolutely happen here. There's barriers to access here as well. And also, there's a lot of countries around the world where this has been the case for an extended period of time, including like countries where my ancestors hail from.

So, it's also one of those things where like there's so much happening in the world all the time. And I like, there's I feel like there's these moments of potential paralysis and so how do we like deal with those moments? And then also figuring out like, how do we navigate our practices and being of service in a world that is ... could, if you allow yourself to just focus on the negative, that there is always terrible things happening.

Like I don't, I don’t really know.

sarah corbett: Regardless of this particular situation in the States or every other potentially terrible situation that's happening around the world, the resistance that succeeds always comes from grassroots community efforts.

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: So if you want to make it through paralyzing times filled with

crisis, you have to get to know your community. ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: And people are really resistant to that. I don't think a lot of people know how to be in community.

This is something I've been reflecting on for weeks and having lots of conversations with different people. My background is very different. I'm mixed. My mom is an immigrant. We come from what would be seen as a very ethnic kind of old-world culture type of family.

It's not uncommon for people in our culture to live in like multi-generational homes. My family doesn't, but it's not uncommon. We have a different idea of community. My mom lived under communism her entire life, she's from the Soviet Union. So that type of collectivist idea is very different than what we experience here.

Not that we're pro it, it was terrible, but this just needing to care for one another is much more instilled in my upbringing and my culture. And it's been really wild watching people flail.

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: And then say, I say, you gotta get to know people in your community. And then people say to me, I shit you not, I don't wanna have to do the legwork to be accepted into a community and have to earn their trust.

And I'm like, well you wanna be serviced, not ...
ash alberg: Oh my god. Yes. Like the privilege attached ... sarah corbett: ... be in community with people.

ash alberg: Yeah. That's, I just think of, because ... I just think of, being in queer community where we, if we're lucky, then we can choose to be in community because we love our queer community and not because our family has thrown us out, but there are so many people whose families throw them out, and so you are forced to build community and forced to rely on each other, and there's so much gift in that.

But it like, and it's not easy, right? There's infighting that happens. There's clashing of like ... no family, blood or chosen, is gonna be happy all of the time. There's work that is involved in being an honest communion with others that doesn’t really ...

sarah corbett: That familial unit ...
ash alberg: ... [indecipherable, both talking at the same time] ... be doing.

sarah corbett: And my friend and I who used to teach queer theory as a Masters, we were talking about like the applying queer theory to all community organizations. And they were saying to me the other day that they think that the fundamental disconnect for people that we don't necessarily experience in queer family or experience it in a different way is that the nuclear family orientation is around obligation.

So, when people say I just wanna be automatically accepted into a community, it's, I want the automatic obligation that I have with my blood family, where I am just generally accepted by them. And a lot of us don't have that orientation with our nuclear families, so how could we expect to have it with any other community, not expect there to be work done?

In my own family, I've been saying for decades, like we, we, don't just, we aren't a family because you gave birth to me. Like, we have to work to know each other and to support each other and to care about each other's interests and have relationships, not obligations. But I don't, I think people really struggle with that.

I think people who've succumbed, whose families have succumbed to white culture really struggle with that is more of a complete statement. Whether they aligned themselves with white culture because of the pressures of assimilation or to keep them themselves safe, that's their own context. But regardless the anti-culture of white supremacy pulls people out of community with one another and focuses on just individualism.

And we see that in these waves of crisis where people are trying to just focus on their individual activism and recreate things that already exist when what they really need to do is maybe read some queer theory and go hang out with people and understand the difference between obligation to people and like being in a village that cares for each other.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. And it is ...
sarah corbett: And you have to network that before crisis happens.

ash alberg: Exactly, because otherwise you're just reacting. And reacting is obviously a normal thing, but it's not as helpful as proactively searching things out, establishing things and having those threads being strongly woven together ahead of time so that you're not trying to toss some threads in the moment of hopefully something catches.

sarah corbett: And if that's a lot of people right now, or with whatever crisis happens in six months, like react and find the people ...

ash alberg: Exactly.

sarah corbett: ... and then stay connected with them. I feel, because I started getting into more, some reproductive justice work, four, four or five years ago. That was my reactionary moment. I was like, oh, these bands are coming. Shit, I gotta organize.

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: I gotta do something. And so I really listened then, but of course I was reactionary then. Now I have people that I'm in relationship with that I can rely on and talk with and get connected with and continue to support.

Everyone has to have their moment of, this idea of, let this radicalize you. Like get radicalized, but then stay that way.

ash alberg: Exactly. Don't just be like, oh, I need this thing and now it's done, and so I'll move on. No, you're gonna need it in the future.

sarah corbett: That’s why lots of, that's why lots of organizing efforts burn out is people get together and they're like, okay I want the thing, let's fight for the thing. And then it just collapses ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: ... over time. And we can't afford to do that. And as business owners, depending on your values and what you do, going back to your original question of how do we actually continue on when the world seems it's on fire? We use our businesses as tools for justice and value-focused work.

ash alberg: Yeah. And figuring out how do we do that in a way where our businesses and ourselves don't collapse under the weight of it. I think that's something that I'm grateful that these moments are happening at a time where I feel established enough in my business and in the way that I have been like, using my business to act out my values in a sustainable way, because it's ... I'm not questioning the way that I am going about things.

And it's okay, this shitty thing is happening. I know that the way that I can help it in this moment, this is what amount of energy or resources I have to give in this particular moment, and so I can direct them in that direction right now. But it's not so much that I am going to completely collapse underneath it. But that took years of figuring out ...

sarah corbett: Yeah, I was gonna say ...
ash alberg: ... and like working on it and like almost failing multiple times and

burning out like countless times.
sarah corbett: Constantly. Like I'm burnt out right now. ash alberg: Yeah. Hundred percent.

sarah corbett: So when people are like, but how do you do that? You can proactively sit down and consider what are your values, what do you wanna be known for? If there's one thing in the world you could change, what would it be?

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: If when you are long gone from this world, how would you be remembered? I don't really care much for legacy. Like I don't want a headstone. I don't really care to be memorialized forever.

ash alberg: OK, yeah, yeah, yeah, like that definition of legacy. Yeah, yeah.

sarah corbett: Yeah. That's not really important to me, but I would like people to remember me as a kind and generous person who cared about X, Y, and Z, and was someone you could count on. Like how do you wanna be remembered and then try to structure your life around that.

It's never perfect and it's gonna change and twist and turn. And it took me ... [chuckles.] Four years of running myself into the ground, being doxed twice, being harassed online for years, being forced to take six months, quote unquote off. [Ash cackles.] And really sitting and consistently revisiting my values and what I can care about, what my capacity is as someone who is disabled and sometimes chronically ill and who does a ton of work to keep my business alive.

Like it took me going through some really terrible trials to get to a place to be able to confidently say, yeah, that's a no for me on that. [Ash laughs.] And not because I don't care, but just like I genuinely can’t ...

ash alberg: Yeah, yes.

sarah corbett: right now, or to even also reasonably give people deadlines. I have some folks in my email right now who really want me to collaborate with them on an article that's ... it'd be great. It would be great exposure. It's something I really wanna do.

And, but I had to tell them, I'm not gonna be able to do this for another six, eight weeks. And like having the courage to not just fawn and people please, and just be really grounded and honest with, these are the limitations that I have. And I would love to work with you within them.

ash alberg: Yes. And if that works great. And if it doesn't, we'll see if we can do something in the future, like yes.

sarah corbett: But we live in this culture, there's that joke that always goes around about European out of office emails versus American out of office emails where it's like the European one is, “I'm camping for the summer, email me in September,” and the American one is, “I am currently in kidney surgery, email me and I will attempt to get back to you within 24 hours.”

ash alberg: Yeah, that's definitely the Canadian one I feel like is definitely more the American version as well. And it's so not fucking helpful. Like I was literally last night thinking about, oh, okay, I'm gonna have to travel for the first time since COVID started in about six weeks and I'm gonna be at like the ... it's gonna be a fucking massive yarn festival.

I know that I'm going to be like tapped out emotionally and was thinking to myself okay, so for my auto response, should I maybe tell people that I'll try to get ... and I'm like, fucking no, I'll be gone for a week. People can calm the fuck down. Most of the time, I don't respond to people within a week anyway so like, why does this need to be different right now? But yeah.

sarah corbett: It's changing our conceptions of time. ash alberg: Time doesn't exist to begin with, but yes.

sarah corbett: As someone who, I'm a gardener, I grow most of what I use in my work. This is a time that's very frantic in nature itself, it's ... I always teach my students about combating burnout in the summer because it's so easy to get caught up in the fast paced nature of things. But then like in the wintertime, I'll spend whole days just sitting there and staring at the window, ‘cause that's the pace of the time of the season.

We live in a world that is very afraid of the passing of time. We try to speed everything up. And I'm at an age and at a place in my life where I have ... like I honor that I used to do that and like really rush. And I would work 16-hour days and there was a time where I was working multiple jobs.

And for the first two years of Rowan and Sage, I had a whole other business that I was running at the same time. And it was wild. And I, she was bad for me, but like I respect the person that I was then. And at this point in my life, no, thank you.

ash alberg: Right? Yes.
sarah corbett: That's exhausting. And I know that if I exhaust myself to that

capacity, I will never be able to actually show up and help people.

There's a reason my books have been closed for a year. I just don't have ... I could stretch it, but I just don't truly have the capacity for, to show up for people in that way and so I'm not gonna force it.

And I know that all of us have different financial situations and we're having to live under capitalism and survive in whatever way we need to survive. I'm not trying to ... I understand, I have privileges in being able to say, I'm not gonna force that. That's real.

And also we all have to have rest. We all have to have joy. We all have to be able to engage in pleasure in order to continue to survive, and not just survive, but have a good time.

ash alberg: Yes, fucking thrive. I am so tired of survival as being like, this is what we're aiming for. I'm like, fuck that shit. I have no interest in ... Surviving, yes, is like necessary obviously. But why are we accepting that's the best that we can have?

That's, especially when I hear people talking about ... capitalism just generally pisses me off, but I, the number of folks that like to reiterate the part where more of us are closer to being bankrupt than to having a million dollars. I'm like, that's not a helpful message to continue pushing whether or not it's accurate ...

[Both talking at the same time.]

sarah corbett: It's true, but it's the same kind of thing when ... so my father is in his sixties and voted for Nixon and Reagan and believes in trickle down economics. [Ash laughs.] And I say, capitalism is killing us, but there's no other way. What, you want socialism?

I'm like, I don't think anything we've done in the book so far works. So ... [Laughs.]

ash alberg: No, doesn't.

sarah corbett: It's just what we got. And when we get to this fatalist nihilistic viewpoint of this is it, I, that's where I start to break. That's where I start to get very frustrated with people because capitalism is like a 500-something year old construct.

We haven't had it forever. It hasn't always been the way. I don't, it's clearly not working. We just, the base factor of this endless idea of exponential growth does not work on a planet with finite resources. We have all of the evidence to show us that this is not a viable economic strategy, which that's what it is. It's an economic strategy. It's not like a modus operandi of how we're supposed to be living our entire life.

ash alberg: It’s also not the way that the universe was originally structured. There's nothing about it that’s like a natural thing.

sarah corbett: It just doesn't, it just doesn't work. If someone's like really challenged by that listen to, I can't remember. I think it was Emergence Magazine had Robin Wall Kimmerer read her essay on the abundance economy of serviceberries. That will help you understand ...

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: ... the alternate way of looking at this.

You say capitalism doesn't work and someone says, but it's all we got. And it's it's gonna take us naming that it doesn't work. Or they say, it's all we got and what's the solution? What's your grand idea? And I'm like jumping from naming that this is shitty to solutions is very wide.

ash alberg: Yes. Also like the solution need, I feel like also they're like what's your solution? And what's that ideal world look like? And then I'm gonna pick apart how it's too far away. And it's fucking yes, of course it’s too far away.

sarah corbett: Yes, it's too far.
ash alberg: It’s not gonna change in our lifetimes to that ideal world. That

doesn't mean that we don't work towards changing the model.

sarah corbett: But then why did I suffer so much? I have people say this about student loan forgiveness. Hey, they just forgave $6 billion worth of student loans and you think they could just forgive all of it. They're starting and they say, but if they forgive all of it, what about all of us who paid all for all of our college and paid all of our student loans off?

And it's so you think everyone should just keep suffering the way that you did. You like don't want there to be a future for people where they don't suffer like that, how fucking selfish.

ash alberg: Yeah, yeah.

sarah corbett: I'm at a place where, when I have these conversations with people, I just have to constantly reiterate, it's gonna take massive amounts of imagination ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: ... and visionary thinking to move us to a different place.Please don't just shut that down. Like I, my generation and the generations after mine should not be continuously punished for your lack of imagination and your inability to see things in any different way, even ways that might not work.

ash alberg: Yes, exactly! Like at least try. The other thing that pisses me off is this false concept that capitalism does absolutely work to end the kyriarchy in general, work to keep and play of the, this false concept. That there are not enough resources for everybody on the planet. There actually are.

sarah corbett: Scarcity isn’t ... ash alberg: It’s a ...
sarah corbett: Yeah.
[Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: It's a false thing. Like working with plants teaches you true abundance and scarcity, and also teaches you resilience in the face of that and how to like, navigate, oh, okay. This harvest didn't happen this year. This is what we can use instead, or this is who we can speak to who did manage to have a good harvest.

Like there, there's so many things that we can learn through plants about that, but it's also it's a lie that there's not enough resources. The problem is that they are so massively distributed unevenly. That's the actual issue. And so ...

sarah corbett: Yes, and that has to do with, again I feel like that meme of Charlie from It's Always Sunny [Ash snort-laughs.] But like white, it's white supremacy, but it's white supremacy culture of ...

ash alberg: Yes, yes.

sarah corbett: ... for gener--, for like hundreds of years, this construct of we have to protect, white people have to protect ourselves through this imaginary scarcity.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah.

sarah corbett: Like all of these different constructs, like the entire American populace right now is being held hostage by a minority group of people.

ash alberg: Yep.
sarah corbett: And their fears of scarcity.

ash alberg: Yep. It's so fucked. And it's yeah, it's that, and that is the thing though, right, is that it is consistently this minority, whether we are looking at what is happening right now in the States with Roe v. Wade, whether we are looking at like corporations and the like multinational conglomerates, or we are looking at the 1%, like it is a teeny tiny fraction of people and systems that then are holding everybody else captive.

And we need ... it's not that you can just like magically like wave a wand and that'll go away. But there's also, there, there is enough. And if we work together, we can figure out ways of making things easier collectively, and it's not gonna make it perfect collectively, but there are ways of making things more enjoyable, at least, in the interim.

sarah corbett: And I don't ... we need a revolution, yes. But can we please not be pushed to the point of a complete civil war to get there?

ash alberg: This is, this is the other thing, is where people are like but the only option is revolution and the revolution must be a bloody war. Like, we can point out multiple places ...

sarah corbett: I’m like, I don’t know.

ash alberg: ... in the world right now where that is happening. And it's not good. It's not ... like this, I feel like also the idea of a coup or a revolution in Canada and the States, both countries that like are, have many problems, obviously.

But also, relatively have been like fairly stable nations for many generations, comparatively to what is happening elsewhere in the globe, that it's become almost like this romantic idea of what a revolution actually looks like and there are many other countries in the world where it's that's happening right now. It's not a romantic idea.

sarah corbett: You don't want that. Yeah. Americans and Canadians haven't seen war. Well, okay, white Americans and Canadians haven't seen war on their

soil and generations people of color, Black people, Indigenous people, Asian Americans have experienced mass amounts of state violence in that kind of capacity in living memory.

I don't wanna discount that at all, but the last time people in the U.S. at least got real, real upset about violence was Vietnam. And I, you can talk to some ... our friends' parents were there. You can talk to people about that experience and they talk about the mass amounts of organizing that they had to do, and the people having to run away to Canada and, like all ...

ash alberg: Yes, I was talking with my mom about how what's happening in the States right now. She was like, it's gonna be like Vietnam. There's gonna be a bunch of people who move up here as a result of this.

sarah corbett: Yeah. And it's the, there's an inherent risk in putting yourself up against these systems.

ash alberg: Absolutely.

sarah corbett: And this is all really big stuff we're talking about and yeah, it does feel fatalistic sometimes and hopeless. But I know that I can't start a, I can't spark a revolution in my living room, but I can help people through my work to have a little bit of a better time ...

ash alberg: Yeah. Mmhmm Yes.
sarah corbett: ... navigating it. I used to feel really hopeless and like guilty

about continuing to share my work when crisis would happen. ash alberg: Yeah. Mmhmm, yep.

sarah corbett: And when I really reoriented my values and got clearer on them, I was like, my values are like reciprocity and integrity and liberation. I'm not taking advantage of people by sharing things with them that are gonna help them feel resourced and supported in times of crisis.

And oh, a lot of people on Instagram will yell at me. They'll say that I'm, when I'm selling my programs, I get all sorts of messages from people. Like, “I can't believe you're pressuring people to buy your programs in this recession.”

ash alberg: [Scoffs.] This is also ...

sarah corbett: ... like, “I can’t believe you're doing this.” I'm like, dude, if it ain't for you, it ain’t for you.

ash alberg: You’re not forcing anybody. This is also the thing that like people need to understand is that you're not for ... there's a difference between being completely tone deaf about something and operating a business that is your source of income during a time that is, feels extra like blehh, which honestly right now has been the last ...

sarah corbett: Forever?
ash alberg: Yes, exactly.
sarah corbett: My whole life, I don't ... my whole life? I don't ...

ash alberg: Yes. There's actually no time ... right now, and I feel like especially because of the pandemic, the way that so much has shifted online in such a specific way, our nervous systems were not built to be bombarded by the amount of messaging that they receive. But that doesn't mean ...

sarah corbett: I don't think we know the difference. When I see war on my Instagram feed ...

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: I don't think my body, I don't think my nervous system is capable of telling the difference between witnessing that and actually thinking it's happening to me right now. So I have had to remove myself from certain messaging.

I've in the last couple of years, I've switched to reading news rather than viewing videos and it's been so much better for me. I'm actually much better on Twitter than I am on Instagram because I can just read stuff. I don't get, like I can't do TikTok.

ash alberg: Oh my god, no.

sarah corbett: I feel like my nervous system is being assaulted. But yeah, I, growing up Middle Eastern in the United States, I haven't had a moment, a peace of my life since 2001.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's this thing of like people being like, how dare you. And it's there's a difference between ignoring things entirely and figuring out how to navigate the realities of needing to operate your business and existing on platforms that also are not separating out these multiple things.

So it's not, we can't control the fact that with all of these platforms, they are mixing together our messaging along with news messaging, along with ... like you, you can't change that part of it. And you're also by off, like putting your offerings in front of people, you're not forcing them to pick them up.

sarah corbett: But so give ... I, I think this might help people understand their agency. For the last 15, 20 years in marketing and like the whole history of sales ...

ash alberg: Yep.
sarah corbett: ... people have used abusive sales tactics and manipulative sales

tactics to make it feel like you are forced to buy something. ash alberg: Very true.

sarah corbett: So in my own work, I have made a very conscious decision to approach sales from a much more trauma informed place.

One of the ways in which I've done that is I offer, I offer online programs that are self-paced. I'll release content throughout the year, but it's generally self-paced. And there's no reason for some of my programs for me to put a time limit on it, for me to say that enrollment is open for this week only.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: Buy now. Buy.

ash alberg: Will disappear forever after the fact. Like those false scarcity tactics.

sarah corbett: There's actually no scarcity with some of my programs. [Willow’s collar jangles.] I can accept as many students in them forever more, as long as I like, continue to stay alive on my, in my business. And I keep wanting to do this, but there's no scarcity with them.

So I took, I did no time limit. I didn't, create a false sense of scarcity and so with that means I make less money because it is psychologically proven. Like these sales tactics didn't come outta nowhere.

ash alberg: Yeah, they work.

sarah corbett: They're using your psychology to sell things. When you tell someone selling this for $40 and it's gonna expire tomorrow, and then it's gonna be $60, whether or not you actually want the thing you might be like oh shit, that sounds like it's a really good deal. I should take advantage of that, ‘cause it's gonna be $60 tomorrow.

And I live under capitalism and that means three more hours of my labor, and I don't want to do that. And that 20 bucks gives me a lot at the grocery store. So yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna buy that class right now and I'm probably never gonna open it again.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. All of those things.

sarah corbett: I didn't get to give an embodied yes to this is what I want and I need and what I wanna engage with. So I removed that. So that means that I have to consistently sell my programs all the time and always be telling people about it. And so people who are used to abusive sales culture receive that as me trying to convince them.

ash alberg: Yep.
sarah corbett: And instead I have to be like, no, I actually really want you to be

able to make this choice for you.

ash alberg: Yep. At the time that it is best for you.

sarah corbett: But because I know that the majority of messaging you are receiving in marketing from other people who are selling their programs is pressuring you all the time, I'm gonna have to help, I'm gonna have to help you feel safe in giving this yes whenever it feels good for you.

So I have to use a lot of trauma informed language when I'm talking about my programs, but I always have people who are attacking me. Everyone's hurting from the recession. I'm like, yeah, me too. I ...

ash alberg: [Chuckles.] Yeah, exactly. [Sarah laughs.] This is the other thing that I love where people are like, this is really hard. I'm like absolutely. The fact that inflation has impacted basic like groceries and utilities and mortgage rates is super fucked. And also, folks who have a regular paycheck and are getting paid and know how much money is gonna be in their bank account, even if that money is now being stretched further, have a lot more stability than those of us that rely on inconsistent income with products and offers that are not like necessities.

And yours, I would say that your work is more necessity than like yarn for my business.

sarah corbett: Okay. But I know people who are like, so who legitimately knit all of their clothes. Talk about necessity.

ash alberg: Exactly. So it's ... and if I wanted to get like shitty in my marketing, could I could do that right? Where it's this ... you know, like ...

sarah corbett: Yeah, but it's gonna, so it's gonna take a, some people being willing to make, and again, this goes down to everything. It's gonna take people being willing to make some sacrifice ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: ... to push a new way of doing things forward. So that I ... there are lots of people doing trauma informed sales. I haven't really seen much in herbalism. Granted that, I don't really pay ... I don't look at my [indecipherable, Ash cackles] paper very often.

ash alberg: [Cackles.] Yeah.

sarah corbett: I see what other people are doing. I try to uplift the people I really know and trust are doing good shit. I'm not in competition with anybody. Not really. I'm doing something very different in my work. I don't feel like I'm in competition with any of my peers.

We all, there's space for all of us. But if there's truly space for all of us, then I have to consistently act like there's space for all of us and operate from a place where there is, I create space for all of us. But it's gonna take some people doing, making a little less money by not using abusive sales tactics to show that it can still work.

And I'm still making fine money. My programs have taken a little bit of a hit because of the recession, which I'm, that's just across the board. It's not any one offer in particular. My lower budget offers are not making more than my higher ones. I'm still maintaining the same conversion rates, just like slightly less all across the board because the people who sign up for my work, the feedback I consistently get is that my values are clear.

They know that this work is meaningful and they like supporting teachers who are doing good work. It does not actually pay to be apolitical or X, Y, Z. You might get a little less harassment for, which shoot, I would love that.

ash alberg: Yeah. That makes your life a little bit easier, but it's also, I think something that I've always really valued is growing slower, but growing a more invested audience so that like when shit hits the fan in your personal life, people are a lot more understanding of it and it also makes them more invested in you and everything that you are doing.

As opposed to just like, when I think of several of my friends and colleagues who went viral at much earlier stages, when we started our careers at similar times, and I knew that like personally, they were, they were just as values-based as I was just as political as I am, have similar political leanings and all of that stuff. And then they went viral and then it would take them years to claw back. And losing followers left and center as they were trying to realign, because ...

sarah corbett: That happened to me. Yeah. Like I went hard in my first two years with marketing because I used to be a marketing person.

ash alberg: You had that skillset.

sarah corbett: Like I was a digital marketing strategist for worldwide brands. I had the skillset to build a following. I did good at it. I played the game. And I was younger and I was still getting clearer on my values and what really mattered to me.

So of course, there's that element of growing and changing. And I changed my mind on a lot of things.

ash alberg: Yes!

sarah corbett: People aren't always receptive to you changing your mind. I've experienced more harassment online than I think the majority of my peers have based on the conversations that I have with them.

And I think it's really been evident because I have always been very open about my process of change and like where I'm at in the current moment and how that has shifted. And so now, and I was reflecting on this last night after I ... I got a massage yesterday and I got so high on endorphins for a couple of hours that I finally felt some joy for the first time in the last week, which is great.

ash alberg: Oh god, so necessary.

sarah corbett: But I had this moment last night where I was like looking at the people I was having conversations with, and they were all like queer, ethnic, very diverse people like Roma, Jewish, witches, trans, and like just like super cool people that I wish I had known 10 years ago when I was feeling super alone and isolated, and just thinking, wow it took all of that, like clawing and being open about who I am and my values to find, I wouldn't say like true community, ‘cause they're not here, they’re my online friends, but like some semblance of people surrounding me who truly believe that there's space for all of us and they leave space for me.

And it took years to get that. And I think some people would hear this and be like, but I just want that from the get-go. I don't know if that's possible.

ash alberg: I, yeah. I don't know if it's possible either. And I do think that if it is possible, you have to be aware that you're gonna grow a fuck ton slower. And that, that also involves making different financial decisions. So it's, if you want that from the get go, you need to be prepared to have your work and your business be a side hustle while you have other income coming in.

sarah corbett: And maybe you are someone ... you can't pre-plan for every disaster, but if you're someone who has the financial resources to have a crisis PR person from the get go,

ash alberg: Yeeahh.
sarah corbett: That's something I wish I had. I'm the first year in my business

where I have a lawyer on retainer and I feel like I'm hot shit. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Oh gawd, that feels ... Also, especially in the States that's like a thing that you actually need. Right now I'm like navigating insurance quotes. And it is, because I have customers in the States, it is impacting the quotes because even though I am not in the States and I don't operate in the States, like they will adjust quotes depending on how litigious ...

sarah corbett: Other people are? [Chuckles.]
ash alberg: ... customers are in other ... yes, it's so fucked. And the fact that

the states is as litigious as it is like wildly impacting the rates.
sarah corbett: I’m sorry we're ruining the rest of the world sometimes.

ash alberg: Well, we joke about it up here, but it's also honestly a pain in the ass. We're like who the fuck sues because you were dumb and slipped on somebody else's sidewalk because you couldn't look where you were going?

sarah corbett: All the time.

ash alberg: What the fuck is wrong with you?

sarah corbett: Yeah, we live in an extremely litigious society and I have a lawyer for helping me with my trademarks and copycats and stuff like that ‘cause I have a lot of people just will purchase my programs and then rip them off and sell them as their own.

ash alberg: I'm sure that exists for me. And I've just decided to not focus on that because I honestly, I think ...

[Both talking at the same time.]
sarah corbett: ... here's, I don't look for it. ash alberg: No.
sarah corbett: I don't look for it.
ash alberg: Just people bring it ...
sarah corbett: It always finds its way ... ash alberg: I just ...

sarah corbett: I will literally like, okay, one time it was wild. There's my craziest copycat story. [Laughs.] I was doing research for a monograph for one of, for my program. I was writing a plant profile about a plant and I was looking

up a plant and someone's website that like I knew popped up in the search results, but I saw, like the Google shows you like the preview of the text.

And I saw in the text and I was like, I wrote that.
ash alberg: [Laughs.] What the fuck? Straight up just like copy/paste.

sarah corbett: And I was like, oh, maybe they quoted me. No, it was like complete copy/paste.

ash alberg: Oh my god.

sarah corbett: And I wrote to them and I was like, you're my student. And you haven't for six years almost, what the fuck are you doing? And it ended up being a fine conversation, but that was one of the times where I was just like, dang man.

ash alberg: That is fucking ...

sarah corbett: I wasn’t even looking for it.

ash alberg: ... wild. Oh my gawwdd.

sarah corbett: I think that's where my ancestors are really like, we aren't gonna let people fuck around ‘cause you will find out.

ash alberg: I love that. I think like for me, I think part of it is that because it's so common in knitting world where people will just like either download a pattern and especially where our patterns are sold for such little money, it, if somebody really wants to be an asshole about it, they don't need to spend much money to then like print, buy a pattern or get a copy from somebody else and then release it.

And it's fairly common in, actually in Russia where because the patterns like, they're not translated, then they'll buy English language patterns and then translate them. And everything else is kept the same. Like photos are the same, all of this sort of stuff. And I remember it was probably about four years ago where it was like really fucking rampant and every indie designer I knew had it going on, people were telling them left right and center.

And people were like up in arms and I was just like, this is not worth your fucking time because these patterns ...

sarah corbett: And it’s like in Russia.
ash alberg: ... are being offered for free. And yes, in Russian. These are people

who are not gonna buy your English pattern program, pattern.

And also if somebody like, there's no way that you're gonna be able to get anything out of the person who stole it, like good luck with that legal situation. And also the people who are downloading those free patterns that have been roughly translated are not your clientele anyway. So stop wasting your fucking energy over there and just focus on your own shit.

And that's just been the way that I've shifted everything where I'm like, no matter what, like I'm just gonna keep on doing my own shit. Keep my eyes on my own paper. Nobody else has Willow. Willow has become basically my brand.

So it's I, and I don't think that's the answer for everybody. And especially like when it's like really malicious or intentional or where there's a really massive power shift ...

sarah corbett: That's what I, that’s the issue.
ash alberg: That's where I, yeah. That's where I have problems.

sarah corbett: So like in that particular example, this person had ripped many of my monographs.

ash alberg: What in the ...

sarah corbett: I include a section in my monograph, like a psychological profile of the plants of how I find that it helps to support us on a psychoemotional spectrum. And this particular plant was burdock.

ash alberg: Mhm.

sarah corbett: And, I am just, my great-grandmother was imprisoned in Soviet Gulag at six years old and lived there until she was 12 and lost the majority of her family there. And lived in major, like with a lot of starvation. And with like

intergenerational trauma has trickled down from that, it's like when COVID first hit. I wasn't so worried.

I have a chronic illness. I have been quarantined for a large period of my life. I am, I have not, I've been quarantining this whole time. I still haven't gone out into the world because I'm immunocompromised and people around here just don't seem to give a shit about people. But my first response to COVID was I wasn't that worried about locking down, but I like stocked the house up with food. And it was very much like a trauma response of, gotta make sure we have enough to face the future famine type of thing ‘cause my people were starved to death.

ash alberg: I absolutely have a similar response [Chuckles.] sarah corbett: Because you’re Irish ... ?

ash alberg: Scottish on one side. And then the other side is Polish, who still like ...

sarah corbett: Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: ... from the war. So yeah, similar and like the Scottish side is very like working class Nova Scotia. We stock the pantry, keep the bread ties, all of that stuff.

sarah corbett: Yeah, so in my relationship with burdock, which is this plan that really helps to support like deep nourishment, burdock really helped me to metabolize some of the familial trauma around fear of not having resources. Like very material resources, like food and scarcity with food and things like that. So I wrote about that in my monograph.

And this white ...
ash alberg: That’s a really specific fucking thing.

sarah corbett: And it's like very personal, like personal, informed by my family history and this white woman stole it. And that was, that is the stuff that gets me. It's the, I like, I've had people like make fake names and join my programs and they've written my shit off and posted on their social media.

And it's, the thing is that it's always white women. I don't know why they fear ...

[Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: I don’t understand why you can’t just be like, I learned this really incredible thing and at the very least, like credit you, like ...

sarah corbett: If, and that's the thing, if people ask, if they can cite me, I will help them form an APA citation. Like I, yeah, no problem.

ash alberg: [Laugh-snorts.] Yes.
sarah corbett: But my own intersectional marginalizations ... that make it feel

really icky.
ash alberg: Hundred percent.

sarah corbett: Like every person who's ever stolen something from me has never reached the kind of success that I have as far as I'm aware. I know sometimes that happens, really skeevy people build their businesses off of other people's labor. And that's how billionaires ...

ash alberg: Yep.

sarah corbett: But I've never seen someone like in my field take something from me because what I often see people are taking content from other people is they're pulling from so many different people that they have no cohesive voice. And it's very apparent to the people they're trying to sell to.

Also, we, I'm pretty well known in herbalism at this point. If people try to steal my shit, my brand is recognizable enough where people are like, hmmm ...

ash alberg: That looks like Sarah's work. [Laughs.]

sarah corbett: And that's why I often also find out about stuff it's because someone else will tell me. I usually just let it fly or I'll kick them outta my programs, at the very least.

ash alberg: I don't understand these people who like join your program, pay you for your program ...

sarah corbett: They think I won't notice. I have over 40,000 followers on Instagram and several hundred people in my programs. And they just think I'm not paying attention, but what they don't know is I'm literally a one woman show. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yeah, exactly. [Chuckles.] Like literally all of the ... that’s my favourite, when it’s like ...

sarah corbett: I see every name,
ash alberg: Yeah, it’s like, I recognize ...

sarah corbett: ... come through my email. I'm paying attention. I have an assistant and I have contractors. But I don't, I'm not hands off. Like I'm still, I'm in my community forum every day. I'm talking to people and I do that because I, when I attended other herb schools, they didn't offer that kind of one on one support, and I never want my students to feel like I'm just taking their money and abandoning them.

So I really spend a lot of time engaging with people as much as I can. I will spend hours in my community forum, that not that everyone uses it. You guys should. I’m there. Versus Instagram, I'm not paying attention as much on Instagram, but if you purchase something from me, I have a pretty good memory recall.

I, I will, if I see something where I'm like, oh, that looks familiar, I'll go and look through my email and see if you purchased something from me. And I have really good contracts that I have people sign when they join my programs for these purposes too. But yeah, it's, it is a long, slow journey in this oppressive society towards success.

I don't think that trying to bank off of other people's work helps you there. I haven't seen that to be true in practice. And I really think that, and like the way that I mentor other people who are building their businesses in this way is, you gotta know your values. You have to consistently enact them, live through them. Every action you take has to be rooted in them.

You have to be consistently yourself, even if you're changing. And people are going to resonate with that. People really resonate with me because I never strip away my humanity from my brand. I think. Like I'm very much just this what I'm thinking about today. [Ash chuckles.] Hey guys, just being a person versus like Rowan and Sage, the brand.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah, totally. I think. Yeah. And I honestly, I think it's something that, you know, especially when you look at like traditional business models, it's absolutely not what they recommend.

sarah corbett: Oh, I never wrote a business plan. I ain't got no business plan. It's just ... [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Also, everyone I've spoken to who writes business plans, they are like immediately not useful. Like the only reason that they write them is to get loans from banks.

sarah corbett: Yeah. For an incubator or something like that. Like you can't, I don't, I think if you're really running a values-based business, especially in like healing or arts or something like that, can you really plan anything? Like I can maybe plan six months in advance.

ash alberg: No. I can, I can plan out my ... I would say like my design work at this point, I've got like the next, like four books planned in my head and I'm extremely aware that they are going to shift dramatically by the time that I'm working on them. And I have a plan of like how I envision the business growing in the next 10 years, and I'm also extremely aware and have recently been spending a little bit extra time being reminded by the universe that the way that it will actually look in 10 years is going to look dramatically different.

Whatever I think it's gonna look like, it will not. And the thing to be focusing on is how do I want it to feel, what are the values? What are the goals of it? And if we're in 10 years still aligned with those, cool. If we're not, did we want to stay aligned with them? Have we lost something along the way? Or did we just shift course?

I think, I've been thinking recently and talking with folks recently about how COVID, it's been fucking exhausting and I'm tired of fucking pivoting, but also, I never, pre-COVID, I never thought of my business as being able to offer me the kind of life that I am now envisioning with it and to ...

sarah corbett: I have some relief actually. I'm not gonna say that like COVID was good ...

[Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: I think that there were parts of COVID that could, that, that we learned things as a result of. COVID was shitty and is shitty, cuz it's not gone away. [Chuckles.]

sarah corbett: Still going, yeah. ash alberg: And also ...

sarah corbett: Everyone I know has it right now, but they're still going out to brunch. I don't ...

ash alberg: Oh my god. Why? Why?

sarah corbett: I don’t know. And I'm not shaming people, but so what I was gonna say is the relief that I found was, when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, I was 16. I missed ... there’s 180 days of the school year. I missed like 95.

ash alberg: Oh shit.

sarah corbett: I wasn't allowed to graduate with my graduating class because I couldn't run the mile. That was what it was. I couldn't run the mile because I was too sick. They wouldn't believe my doctor's note. They held me back and made me take gym in summer school to graduate. It was crazy.

ash alberg: Wow. What? That was the thing that they were like, this is what we think is the value?

sarah corbett: That was the thing. Yeah, that, that was like that's what we're gonna, that's what we were gonna take time punishing this person on. But yeah, I uh, from 16 to 24, I was very chronically ill intermittently, and I lost years of my life and socialization and all these things by being like locked in my house, sick.

And then COVID happened and I was like, ahhh.
ash alberg: [Chuckles.] I don’t have to worry about missing things. sarah corbett: It doesn't feel taboo anymore.
ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah.

sarah corbett: It's not ... now when people don't invite me to stuff, it's not because they know I'm not gonna come it's because they can't invite anyone to anything. And I'm not gonna feel the, oh, I would still like to be invited even if I can't come kind of rejection. And so when COVID happened, I was like, I have been ready for this for so long.

And I, I felt a sense of relaxation around my own needs. I felt like I didn't have to claw at the world to respect my needs anymore.

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: And now I'm starting to have to again, a little bit, and I don't love that, but it, finally my needs were not being met, but they weren't being challenged. And so, for COVID I was like, oh, online, I can just do it now.

And no one's gonna question me and pressure me and push me to do things I don't wanna do. And so I, I definitely had to look ...

ash alberg: And teach an in-person class instead. Yeah.

sarah corbett: And like I theoretically would like to, but I'm also someone who has a really hard time not working off of notes, which is my own neurodivergencies. I really, for my classes, I pre-record them and I prep them and I like heavily prep, nearly scripted notes to reduce my stress.

It's really hard for me to be on camera. I get very anxious. This type of podcast conversation where we're really just shooting the shit feels good, but I really need like some solid structure to feel okay. And so in person classes just really freak me out.

I'll probably do it at some point just to see if that's still true, ‘cause I think it's worth challenging yourself and saying, I had these needs then, do I still have them now?

ash alberg: Yes. I would also say that if it's something that feels like you want to put more energy into it and there's anxiety that is like holding it back that is not specifically related to like either neuro divergencies or like medical concerns, theater is a magical thing, and taking like a couple of improv classes is honestly super fucking useful for just feeling more comfortable with being on the fly in a situation.

sarah corbett: Yeah. See that still just like totally freaks me out. [Both laugh.] Like ...

ash alberg: That's, it's honestly, I spent years, like my, I thought I was gonna ... I went to school, I got two acting degrees. Like I thought I was gonna be in theater for the rest of my life, but ...

sarah corbett: I'm someone who's very much like I want to shine, but also do not perceive me.

ash alberg: Yeah, a hundred percent. sarah corbett: Don’t look at me.

ash alberg: It's also very different. Like I always, it's funny ‘cause like, I get, I'm, very Scottish in that I get really red a lot of the time, like I get blotchy and I get blotchy when I am presenting, but I don't get blotchy when I'm performing on stage as a different character. It's ... but if I'm talking to, giving a, giving a speech or like doing something like that, I get really blotchy.

And it's quite funny that with all of my years of training, like I did theater for more than half of my life and I haven't done it for years now, that still is like my body's physiological response. But it is a really useful skill set. Like I, now with teaching, I don't care how big or small a class is because theater taught me how to navigate a space and rely more on energy than on specific individuals or specific numbers needing to be present.

So I'm always like, if that's like a thing that people are interested in and there's, it's more like mindset that is getting in the way than other specific things, theater is very helpful just to release a little bit of that pressure and give like a couple of extra tools to make it not quite as terrifying, but your ...

sarah corbett: Yeah. I think the last time I was like, chorus girl number five in Fiddler on the Roof in fourth grade.

ash alberg: Oh my god. [Laughs.]

sarah corbett: No, I was first chair of violist for 10 years of my life. And I've been playing piano. I've been performing since I was like five, but again, it's different, the notes ...

ash alberg: Different. This is why I say specifically improv, as opposed to, because it forces you. Like that's, to basically to get out of your own way a little bit and when something doesn't work, pick it back up and try something else. That's, I feel like almost like performing with viola would be like almost the opposite of what you need, ‘cause that's very structured. [Snorts.]

sarah corbett: It's very structured.

ash alberg: If you were doing like jazz, then that would be ...

[Both talking at the same time.]

sarah corbett: That’s how I, I was like a ...

ash alberg: ... different.

sarah corbett: I was the first chair violist horse girl.

ash alberg: Oh my god. Yeah. No, that's like extremely ... you needed like to be doing like jazz classes.

sarah corbett: Oh god, I can’t even, like mm mm. ash alberg: And like scatting.

sarah corbett: Not, I'm like a, I'm a classically, I'm a classically trained pianist. So yeah, I have a lot of Virgo in my chart.

ash alberg: Yeah, this makes sense.

sarah corbett: I'm a Virgo moon. I like structure. I like clarity. I like lots of things that make you go to business. I like spreadsheets. I like color coding things. [Ash laughs.] I like organizing stuff.

I got on a call yesterday and she was like, oh, your notes are so organized. I was like, yeah.

ash alberg: [Laughs.] I love ... sarah corbett: Yeah, they are!

ash alberg: ... the sense of pride. Yes, they are. [Both laugh, Ash snorts.] Oh, I love it.

sarah corbett: I’m very particular and I think that's helped me succeed in my work in various ways. But, and it's hard for me when stuff does happen and I can't plan for it.

I feel like this particular crisis with Roe v. Wade, I've been responding, I'm actually very proud of myself in the way that I've been responding ‘cause I felt very okay, this is what needs to be done, versus a, I'm freaking out. I don't know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I feel like, I’ve got it.

ash alberg: I feel like all the stuff I've been seeing from you has been like, very structured and thought out and much better responses than I'm seeing from most other folks right now. Everyone else's nervous systems are like ...

sarah corbett: I’ve responded to it before, and like I wrote an email last night saying, here's some abortion resources and I was like, I'm gonna get 500 angry emails from people. I got six of people being like, this is so helpful. Thank you. You know?

I didn’t get a single ... I probably have a shit load of unsubscribes I will see in my MailChimp account next time I open it, but I’m really trying to just not open it.

ash alberg: That’s okay. But also like, those people can fuck off anyway, like ...

sarah corbett: It's just, and that's the thing. People will get really upset when someone comes and yells at them or says something shitty in your Instagram comments or unsubscribes to your email list. And it is a good thing.

ash alberg: Yes. Oh my god. You are not for everybody.

sarah corbett: If someone responding to you being strong in your values is, “I don't like that,” then they don't need to be in your space and they're not your customer, and you're not gonna get anything from having them there besides ongoing annoyance. So ...

ash alberg: Exactly. And especially if they're on your newsletter list, you are literally paying for them to be there. So no, they can fuck right off. Like ...

sarah corbett: Yeah, it's just, it's hard to receive rejection and that's very much how I perceive it because of my own traumas and histories, but like ... there, there are people out there who will absolutely support what you do. In the five years, almost six, that Rowan and Sage has been around, there are like 25 people who have supported everything I've ever done.

ash alberg: Mmm.
sarah corbett: No matter what they're like yeah, Sarah made it, it's the shit.

Like ...

ash alberg: Bless those people, they are the best. [Laughs.]

sarah corbett: Yeah, they are just so on board. Yeah. They're so on board, they tell all their friends about my work. They buy all my products, they buy all my classes. They Venmo me money when they know I'm stressed.

ash alberg: These are like, I've got a similar thing of that small core group and it's so funny ‘cause like, I was recently reminded of there ... like those being the people that are your true customers and are your true audience, because I did something with ads for the first time and it worked, I like doubled my newsletter list.

sarah corbett: That’s great.
ash alberg: And then in theory, it also doubled my newsletter bill and then ... sarah corbett: Oh yeah.

ash alberg: ... they are, like the one good thing is that all of my messaging still does make a point of bringing in an audience that is a little bit more discerning in the way that they do things. They're not super reactive to like, here's a flash sale, you should make a purchase. Yeah. Okay.

Like, my people are like a little bit more measured in the way that they respond to things, which I appreciate. But it has also now meant that I've got this double size list that is not resulting in double size sales because those people ...

sarah corbett: They are your people.

ash alberg: Not yet. Like I still need to nurture them in the way that my other core group that has grown much smaller over a much longer period of time, have been with me through many more experiences at this point and seen many different iterations of my business. Those are the folks that now I'm still seeing the same names coming in with orders.

It's not really the new people yet. sarah corbett: And same.
ash alberg: And that's OK.

sarah corbett: An so then that, that comes down to all right. If you don't wanna burn out in times of crisis, live your values, know your limitations. If you wanna reach the people that are gonna support you and that you can be supportive of in times of crisis, live your values, know your limitations.

Of course in your community, that means on a business level as well, what relationships are you investing in?

ash alberg: Yes. Yep.

sarah corbett: This is another thing with community. So people, and I've been having this conversation for a long time as well. People think, and this actually came up from me getting this, the surrounding events to our last podcast conversation and why we couldn't publish it.

ash alberg: Yep.

sarah corbett: Shared identity, affinity, interest does not community make.

ash alberg: No, it doesn't.

sarah corbett: Community requires agreed upon shared value and action, like a agreement on how you're going to address when values become incongruent.

ash alberg: Yes. Yep.
sarah corbett: And that requires collaboration. ash alberg: Mhm. And dialogue.

sarah corbett: Like for in my own business, I have space agreements on my website that say these are my predetermineds. Like I, we're an anti-racist, pro-abortion, pro-sex worker, like we will not tolerate all these things. Like these are my values. This is what I believe in. This is what I care about.

I'm not compromising any of that.

ash alberg: Exactly.

sarah corbett: But if you have any other values you would like to add to this in discussion, like a one on one or a group container to help support the space, let's have a conversation about it because I want to be in agreement with you on how we're gonna treat each other.

And that's what these like outlines of values and agreements and guidelines are all about. They're about, this is how we're gonna treat each other. And when we fall out of treating each other that way, how are we gonna deal with that conflict?

And I think this is why we see so much infighting in various affinity spaces because there isn't that agreement of how we're going to handle ...

ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: ... conflict. And when things break, like relationships have

fractures.

ash alberg: And you have to decide, are you willing to put in the work to fix them? And if you're not then how do you separate? I think also this is where capitalism and white supremacy are at play where, where our nervous systems are so frazzled.

And everybody should go to therapy. Everybody needs access to therapy because when our nervous systems are like not responding properly and you're just reacting to everything out of a trauma-based space, that's not helpful. It may be extremely valid, but those are not moments to be engaging. And unfortunately, when you're in different marginalized communities, then the risk of those trauma rates being higher is definitely more.

And so you have more people that are reacting from those spaces. And then scarcity comes into play of, we only have so much because we don't have

enough to begin with. And now I'm having this like fear-based response that is rooted in scarcity. And so, and it's just this like vicious little cycle.

sarah corbett: And it's the, it's not like social media spaces were built for co-regulation.

ash alberg: Fuck no.

sarah corbett: The good news is that we can co-regulate our nervous systems together, but that also requires a commitment to being vulnerable with one another. And so, I have moved away from language around safe spaces.

There's a statement on my website, in my space agreements that says that this ain’t a safe space. It's a brave space. It is a space where we have created the kind of container where you can be brave to be vulnerable.

ash alberg: Yes, yep.

sarah corbett: Because I, after the experiences I've had over the last several years, I've just become very painfully aware that no one can promise me safety when safety is an inner felt sense and needs to be embodied.

And while of course there are various characteristics around us that can create an incongruence of us feeling safe internally in our external environment, me having a online class that's pre-recorded in 45 minutes long that just teaches facts shouldn't necessarily confront someone's safety.

ash alberg: But it might.

sarah corbett: If someone feels a lack of safety in response to what they're hearing, literally cannot have any control or say over that, in that particular scenario. But if we're in like a conversation with one another and something gets said in the wrong way, or it's received in the wrong way, if we have created an agreement with one another that we are gonna treat each other a certain way, just like you would with your lover or your best friend or your parents or whatever, then we can have that space for repair.

And that takes bravery, not just this expected idea of safety. And like, when I put that policy in place, cause that's what it is, it’s a policy, it’s a boundary, I was very, I felt so relieved because when you start to, when you try to manage the nervous systems of other people before they ever even have a response to you,

you not only are you practicing saviorism in action, but like you're setting yourself up to degrade ...

ash alberg: To fail.

sarah corbett: To ... well, to fail, yeah. And to like degrade aspects of yourself because you're afraid. You're policing yourself in fear of how people are going to receive you. And I'm not giving people license to go be a dick, but it takes a lot of self awareness to do what I'm talking about. [Chuckles.] But it's worth it.

ash alberg: Yes, completely.
sarah corbett: And I think that's why so many people like my work.

ash alberg: Yeah. I think it's also, it's, it's like a benefit for everybody to see that modeled more so that even if this is the very first time you're encountering that being a boundary in a space that you are engaging with, whether it's online or in real life, if that is not something that has been modeled elsewhere in your life and this is the first time that you are being given an opportunity to work on that skill, that is a gift. And it is like a blessing in your life to be able to be learning that skillset, even if it's fucking hard. Like ...

sarah corbett: And I'm very much learning that skillset as I'm trying to share it in the way that I run my business too. I took a program a couple of months ago about holding trauma-informed space and the program was taught through a lens of holding trauma-informed space. So not only were we learning about trauma-informed space, but we were being held in a trauma-informed space.

And I was like, wowww. And that, that made me change a lot of the ways in which I do things ‘cause I, you don't have to have it perfect to be like trying. And that's another thing why, or another reason why I think it's so important to codify your values and how you wanna deal with certain types of conflicts, because you will likely not be able to do it perfectly when you're activated, but if you have a reference that you've created for yourself of what you're aspiring to be, ‘cause it's really what it is. Values are things that you are aspiring to consistently hold.

ash alberg: And you might, you probably will fail or forget or mess up at various points because that's part of being human and that's also part of growing. And that's part of the fact that the world is constantly changing around us. And especially when it's identity-based things, those are always constantly changing around us and we need to create more space for ourselves and also for

others to be in that flux and to be able to grow and part of growth is failing at times. And learning from those failures.

sarah corbett: It requires constant flexibility. I think we're in a moment in time where people are really starting to get language about like trauma and boundaries and values and things like that. We're seeing a lot of psychotherapy bleeding into social media so I think a lot of people are getting access to language in some ways that are productive and in some ways that are very unproductive.

ash alberg: Not at all and where they're being co-opted and the languaging had a specific definition and it is now being watered down in a way that's not actually useful for anybody. I think for gaslight, whenever I hear that.

sarah corbett: Yeah. Yeah. And like boundaries is becoming one for me too, because I'm seeing more and more people who maybe had their agency taken away from them at some point in their life so they didn't have an opportunity to set boundaries, and then getting to a point in their life where they are able to set those boundaries, but being very hyper-rigid with them.

And I'm not talking about boundaries, like no means no, I'm talking about oh, you're having an emotion that's inconvenient for me. My boundary is that I'm not responsible for your feelings regardless of how I, what I did or whatever, like that kind of stuff.

ash alberg: I think of the trans misogyny of that with the ... [verbally shudders.] I have many stories of that from much younger in my youth.

sarah corbett: And again, coming from a culture where like one of our like colloquial sayings for someone is like, you are my liver. Like when we really love someone, it's like, you are my liver, it's like ... [Ash snorts.] I would, or I would ... it's this idea of I would sacrifice one of the most important things if of me, for you.

Even in like Persian culture, if you're in someone's house and you say, I really like that. They'll be like, oh, do you want it? And it's a test. It's not generosity.

ash alberg: Oh, that’s interesting! That is good to know.

sarah corbett: They're like, oh I really like your watch. Oh, do you watch it? Trying to give it to them, and it's a test of you say no, I couldn't possibly, and they're like, okay if you want it, it's yours. And it's like this taboo thing that

people do that's definitely testing their guests all the time, but it's also hearkening back to the actual spirit of generosity in the culture.

And so for us, like boundaries are constantly rubbing up against each other. You're ... they're, boundaries are again an ideal and they can be an agreement, but if you hold no flexibility on them, if I say I will not work after five and there's an emergency and I need to tend to someone and am I gonna sacrifice that boundary for that particular circumstance?

If I have it codified in my mind that this is an immovable boundary, then I absolutely won't and that person will suffer for it. If I can be flexible without self-abandoning, I think that's the thing that people have a hard time is being flexible without abandoning their needs.

ash alberg: Yeah. I think we see this quite frequently within romantic relationships in particular, I'm thinking, and then also in like very close friendships where people have had shitty experiences with either past friend groups or with past exes, and then they come into new relationship with a new person and they have such strict boundaries that cannot flex.

And I've experienced this myself.
sarah corbett: So there’s no vulnerability.

ash alberg: Where ... exactly. And it does become this like thing of trying to figure out, okay, are, am I holding too tight to something? Am I letting go without articulating that I'm letting go, and neither of us acknowledging the fact that I'm actually compromising those boundaries? Which is, there's no perfect solution here, but I think, it's, it becomes this thing of, can we feel safe enough with one another to have that bravery, to be vulnerable, to try releasing some of those boundaries in a way where it still feels good?

There's a difference between like that vulnerability and that kind of rawness of letting a boundary that we have had in place for good reason in the past, that we're letting it relax a bit. And there's rawness in that, and that can feel scary, but it doesn't mean that you are unsafe. It just maybe feels uncomfortable.

There's a difference between that and actually compromising on the, your boundary and it not feeling good. Like those are two different things, but they can be hard to recognize. And especially when we don't have enough practice with it, then it ends up, it takes us a lot of practice of those things.

And I think a lifetime of practice to know whether or not ... like where we're falling in the continuum of am I just feeling uncomfortable right now versus am I feeling unsafe?

sarah corbett: And I don't think people necessarily think about business in this realm of interpersonal relationships, but you very much have to.

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: You're bringing all of your baggage to your business too, you

know?

ash alberg: Absolutely. Yes.

sarah corbett: And even though it often doesn't feel like it in the, in person, in the in personal aspect of social media and email newsletter lists and things like that, which are still very highly individualistic, like I hate that everyone's like Instagram could go away any moment, be in community by supporting me individually on my newsletter.

ash alberg: There's only so many newsletters that we all have energy to be engaged with.

sarah corbett: And also, it's they're still just supporting you. Not like ... [indecipherable, both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. Actually in community. Yeah, exactly.

sarah corbett: And it feels very impersonal. Doesn't feel like business is relational, but if you ask anyone who has a word of mouth, mom and pop, business is all about relationships.

ash alberg: Yes. I find that what has worked really well for me, I always joke that I'm a bitch up front and that has served me really well. And I am not totally a bitch, but I have my ability to be a bitch. I honed my bitch face in London and that's like the front face that I do, where it's I have very strong boundaries front basically to set the bar of this is what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the way that you interact with me and the way that you interact with my business.

And then once people are actually in the fold, I don't know if I like that analogy, but that's the analogy I just used. Then my boundaries actually relax quite a bit,

but it's that first thing of, I don't know you, don't know me. We're gonna see whether we're aligned with each other.

If we're not, that's cool, peace out. But if we are, maybe there's a little bit of getting to know each other stages of oh, okay. I responded to this a little bit too quickly or you like sent me an email and a tone that I don't appreciate, but we're still getting to know each other. So once we've established that, now we're good, but it ...

sarah corbett: It's the difference between when I get a DM on Instagram that's literally I got yesterday: “I have a question about this plant. How do I grow it? How do I take it? How do I work with it? Do you have any answers?” [Ash scoffs] versus, “Hey, Sarah, we've never talked before, get your work. And I've learned a lot from you. I have a question about this plan that I'm having a hard time finding information on. I know we've never really conversed, so I don't expect anything from you, but if you have capacity to send me a resource, that'd be great.” And I’ll be like, yeah, here's 10 books!

ash alberg: Exactly. It's like, I will be overly generous if you are just a basically good human being. [Willow’s collar jangles.] Entitlement, fuck off.

sarah corbett: Yeah. And then for the other person, I'm like, you just got restricted and removed as well. And it's just, it's all about relationships. And when people, because my values are reciprocity, when people don't treat me like a person willing, who's worth being in relationship with, that's where I'm like, okay, my boundary, there is no thank you.

ash alberg: Yep.
sarah corbett: But otherwise after that, this is another thing too, people think

I'm really mean because I'm boundary.
ash alberg: Yes. Yep. That's also my experience.

sarah corbett: Then they hear me on a podcast and they're like, oh, Sarah's just like a normal chill person who says fuck a lot. And I’m like, yep.

ash alberg: Yes, exactly. But I also feel like the it ends up drawing in mostly the right people because the people who are like, oh, I don't appreciate those boundaries. It's oh, you can fuck off because I don't want you as a customer.

Sorry, Willow just brought a toy and shoved it in my face.

sarah corbett: Especially when my boundaries are like, be nice.

ash alberg: It's actually just being like a good human being. Be kind. Don't just come at me assuming that you're the only thing in my life and that your like pseudo emergency is at now at the ... [Chuckles.]

I like how all of our animals are like, excuse us. You guys have been talking for long.

sarah corbett: They're like you need to ... the answer is yes. But yeah, it's, again, it's just, it's all about the relationships and enacting them. And if I like, I'm, I don't need to be in spaces where everyone agrees with me. I don't need to be in spaces where everyone's just like me. I've never met anyone who's just like me so I don't know, where like my cultural background and all of my identities and things like that.

It's just, is this person going to recognize my humanness and recognize how messy it's about to be, because it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be solid all the time. And going through the experience that I had over the winter where I was forced to take time off.

I did not go on sabbatical. I told everyone I went on sabbatical ‘cause I didn't want to deal with questions. So I was on sabbatical, on sabbatical. I was doxed and then someone close to me died. And then I had to tell my students.

ash alberg: Fuck. Yep.

sarah corbett: I had to be like, I don't know about that content I said I was gonna get for you. And I had to take the risk. It came down to a, my wellbeing is very not good right now.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: And I could push. I absolutely could. And it would be a sacrifice. Am I willing to make that sacrifice for other people right now? And am I capable? The answer was in some ways, yes, in some ways, no.

And so I had to make the choice to be really vulnerable with my students and say, this is what's going on, in very closed words. I ...

ash alberg: Yes. Still curated around ...

sarah corbett: Yeah, it's little boundaried. ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: But I disclosed. I forwent professionalism and I disclosed to my clients what was going on and that humanizing of myself strengthened our relationship.

What's been often hard for me in business is I've, I always have been open to being vulnerable and then experiencing rejection from people that you think you're close with, who can't do vulnerability for their own reasons. That's what's been really hard for me, but I don't think it was ever not worth it to be ... not ... like, to be vulnerable.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: I wouldn't have not been vulnerable if I'd had to do it again. I am ... I want to always be humanizing people, and what I went through last fall was very dehumanizing and it, I wish I hadn't gone through it, but I certainly did learn a lot about how I wanna move forward in my relationships and how, what types of checks I'm gonna put on my relationships and how flexible I can be in certain boundaries versus others.

Like if someone's going to erase my entire ethnic identity, that is a boundary I cannot be flexible in.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: But if someone said something to me in a little bit of a rude way, I, and I will, it is in accordance with my preferences that I will say, hey, that didn't land. Would you be willing to talk about that?

And if they say no, then that tells me about the type of relationship I can have with that person, but it's not about their, them being human or inhuman.

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: I think there was a moment in my business where I started to get lost on the human part of it. It was just like, everything is shitty. Everyone is shitty, but because the world was terrible.

But in every, like I said, in every crisis, the way people get through is by coming together and supporting each other. And that requires radical vulnerability, that a lot of people may not feel comfortable doing, and we have to learn and support each other through.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: I'm really glad that I get to do that through Rowan and Sage in

certain ways.
There's layers. Like someone buys a product for me. We're not ... ash alberg: You're not in like ...
sarah corbett: ... a relationship.
ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: But like someone, like the 10 people in my forum who are active every week, who I know their kids' names and I know what they're going through and the health issues their mom just had and like that kind of stuff.

I'm like, I feel like I have some semblance of a relationship with you. You're not my best friend ...

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: ... but if I saw about the grocery store, I'd say hey.

ash alberg: Yes, exactly. And I think this is the thing that like it's, sometimes again, we come back to boundaries, like there, there are sometimes where it's especially with the online world, people can create more intimacy with one another than necessarily either exists or is reciprocated. That's the way to say that word.

But also there's just because a relationship begins either transactionally through business exchange or as like somebody follows somebody else, that doesn't mean that a biz, that a relationship that develops from it is not real or is not, does not have value just because it began in a certain kind of a way.

sarah corbett: I've become friends with my clients. I know people would say that's bad practice.

ash alberg: I do too. [Laughs.] I think it's a good thing. It's more fun, I think.

sarah corbett: It's like I get, if you're like in a therapeutic relationship with someone, I get it. I, if I like worked with you two years ago, and then we just stayed in touch and naturally became friends, I'm like, yeah, okay.

If I can maintain the professionalism and you can maintain the professionalism where it's needed, then great. I'm good with that. I'm friends with someone that I mentor.

ash alberg: Nice.

sarah corbett: There's a power dynamic in that they get a certain amount of advice from me about their work, but we have a friendship outside of that and there's been no conflict in it. But again, that's like being flexible with boundaries. So letting things to blend together in ways that require a lot of self awareness.

Like I'm not saying that this is for everyone and I don't know if everyone can have relationships like that. It took a lot of work for me to be able to get to a place where I could have those types of relationships. But I mean that, I would be an absolute hypocrite if I didn't focus so much on relationships with people and my work when my entire work is built off of relationships with the more than human world. Like ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: I know we didn't really talk about my work as much here, just more of our ethics, which is great and important for the work. But my entire work is about like getting people in relationship with the world.

ash alberg: Yes. Okay. So we've been talking for a really long time and I feel like if we go into the exact formal structure of the podcast episodes, then we're gonna, it'll be like a five hour episode. But let's briefly work our way through the questions, just so that people do know what that is.

Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do in the world. [Both laugh, Ash snorts.]

sarah corbett: Two hours in.
ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: [Laughs.] If y’all didn’t get it by now, I’m an herbalist.

ash alberg: I think like you have a really specific way of presenting your herbalism, especially with the Astra herbalism, which is super fun, that I think does ma-- yes, the way that you run your business makes you stand out, I think, in the herbalism world, especially these days, but I think also the way that you approach herbalism and the way that you teach it is very unique.

sarah corbett: Yeah. The herbalism that I ... okay, so I'm a clinical herbalist and non-diet nutritionist, and fertility awareness method educator and yoga teacher. And I've given up the need to like niche down. I like a lot of different things and I like learning about lots of different things and they all come together to create a holistic practice.

So I do lots of different things with the primary goal underneath all of them to be, like I said before, getting people in a relationship with the world, because I think if more people were in relationship with the world, like the ocean wouldn’t be on fire and ...

ash alberg: Yep.
sarah corbett: ... systemic oppression wouldn't exist because people would

give more shits, basically. ash alberg: Yes. Yep.

sarah corbett: I really want people to care and I think people do care. But I often find that people are under resourced or unsupported in their ability to care without burning out. So, a lot of my work is focused on re-enchanting the world.

When I think back to myself as a kid, I basically grew up as an only child. My brother is nine years older than me, and so when he was in college, I was like a child and I grew up on four acres of land in the forest of the Piedmont area of Georgia, which is like Southern Appalachia, just below the mountains and about 45 minutes north of where I live now, so I'm still very much in the same type of bio region, but I grew up like very much in untouched type of woods.

Untouched, relative to ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: There's no pristine landscape, but I lived in a neighborhood with a really vibrant bioregional intact ecosystem and I spent all my time just like talking to trees and there was this like big stump that was hollowed out naturally and I would use it ... like, near the driveway of our house under this beautiful birch tree that I would use as my caldron. It would ... I was really into magic and fantasy and I wrote my own little spells when I was little and I really loved the romantic aspect of being alive, the magic of being alive.

And then at some point as a teenager, it got crushed outta me. [Ash cackle-snorts.] And it's like childlike and some people would say naive, like the world is so magical. If you pay attention to the world for five seconds, you will see how absolutely incredible it is. And I think a lot of people then connect that to religion, but there's so much just like mystic wonder in the world and I wanna help people reconnect to that if at some point along the way they never got to, or they lost it or whatever.

So like, I love herbs as medicine and they have so much to offer us in terms of helping us heal, but they’re are also these really incredible beings that have their own communities and personhood and aren't just things that we take to help us feel better, but are like people we can be in relationship with.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yep.
sarah corbett: So that's like really the core of my work. [Both giggle.]

ash alberg: I love that a lot. I would like to ask you still ... I keep saying briefly, but the I love, and I don't know why this is like the first time that I've heard you speak about it slash I feel like it's the first time I've heard anybody speak using this language around it, but non-diet nutrition, because that, to me, I'm like, yes, fucking, exactly that, where it's ... I have so ... like I'm a smaller bodied human and I also have disordered eating, but like I have so many feels around the way that the herbalism world consistently is rooting.

sarah corbett: Oh, the diet industry?

ash alberg: Yes! Fuck. I like when I was pulling together, I was pulling together resources for the Sanctuary Hub about aphrodisiacs and then like reproductive healthcare but like most specifically, just like here are resources around herbs that are going to be like helpful for your cycle.

If you want to be pregnant, here's like how to make your body healthier. Not me telling you, but like here's a book that tells you specifically about that. But the number of books that I ended up just like researching and then taking off of the list, because they very explicitly were talking about weight loss and then still needing to put a caveat of like, heads up, any of these books that are structured as like “women's,” I put that in quotations, ‘cause that's how they're gendered, that if they're hormone balancing, they end up talking about weight loss, like heads up that you are likely to see that in at least some of these resources, sorry.

sarah corbett: I have some good resources for that. My mentor, Clara Bailey. I can send you this later. She has a whole preconception pregnancy prep resource.

ash alberg: Oooo, that would be super cool to add. I would love to add that in.

sarah corbett: Yeah, she's great. And she’s someone who I had two years of mentorship under. And right now she's in Bali! She lives in Australia and that's just where everyone vacations.

ash alberg: Oh my god. Can you imagine? It's like when I lived in London and was like, I'm going to Paris for my birthday. Sounds really fancy. It was a 90-minute train ride. It was really not that big of a deal.

sarah corbett: But she's got a lot of really great resources about that and is not explicitly like anti-diet, but doesn't really work with diets in her practice. So yeah, non diet nutrition in the herbalism world, there isn't a single herb school that I know of that has like a large budget and does large scale classes in education that doesn't have a nutrition section in their program.

And that nutrition section is, if you have any of these 45 symptoms that could be associated with a lot of different conditions, you should do a whole 30 or eliminate gluten, dairy and sugar. I just like inwardly cringe ‘cause I, I have celiac disease. I have a medically necessary diet, so like I have had to differentiate between medically necessary and orthorexia, which is something that I struggled with.

I initially went to university to become a dietician and I had to leave my program ‘cause I ended up getting an eating disorder from the education that I received.

ash alberg: That's super fucked and actually not at all surprising because orthorexia is also like what I deal with. And it's, it's literally how our society at this point is functioning.

sarah corbett: Yeah. So for people who are aware, orthorexia, it's not, I don't think it's codified in the DSM yet.

ash alberg: I don’t think so.

sarah corbett: But it is basically obsession with the perfect way of eating. It's the idea, these are good foods and those are bad foods and this is what's healthy and super foods.

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: Yeah, so ...
ash alberg: Clean eating and all of that.

sarah corbett: Clean eating. Yeah. All of that stuff is orthorexic behavior. Tracking everything so that you hit your macros just perfect. That's orthorexic behavior and it's not necessary, and it never has been necessary. Nutrition science itself is not sexy. It's like calories in, calories out in terms of how much fuel. A calorie ...

ash alberg: Is a form of fuel. Yeah.

sarah corbett: It's a heat measurement. It's like, how much heat does your body generate to burn that fuel? That's all that a kilojoule or calorie is. And I can't remember what the statistic is. I used to know it off the top of my head. I should find it again, of a large percentage of RDs are straight sized, very thin white women who have eating disorders.

And it's no surprise. If you look at the history of nutrition science and some of the voices that were writing some of the initial books, they were extremely like pro-eugenics.

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: And racist. And there's major problems with the culture of nutrition, but nutrition science itself is your body needs fuel. And this is the kind of fuel your body uses for these different processes. It's basics. We have to have carb sugar, like carbs, fat, and protein to survive. That's just it.

ash alberg: Cutting them out is going to make you ill in most cases.

sarah corbett: If you cut out any one of those, it ain't good. ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: Now the balance of those is truly by individual. ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: And cultural. And the ... all nutrition guidelines in the Western world were based off like the 50 kilogram man. And like RDAs and stuff are not necessarily actually accurate to an individual's needs. So my approach with nutrition, I've always been into nutrition, I have to obsess over it a little bit because of my medically necessary diet, and I always had, but I definitely got into a place with nutrition where I was like, if I eat the right way, I can heal my disease, which is not true.

I can't eat gluten. That's like my one restriction. ash alberg: That will actually make you very ill.

sarah corbett: That will make me very ill. And I'm fine with that. I've been gluten free for a long time and it doesn't bother me and I can make sourdough bread now, and everything's fine. But I was like afraid of bread for years and now I eat it all the time.

But yeah, nutrition is a really important part of your daily life, but food is so much more than just a calorie. It's also like a connection with culture and joy and pleasure and experiential. And I can't get around ... again, when you're doing herbal work, you're gonna learn about people's food choices and habits and their relationship with food. And it became pretty evident early on in my practice that I, because I work with folks who are primarily women ...

ash alberg: Yep.

sarah corbett: ... or queer, who have menstrual cycles, they have experienced a onslaught of diet culture messaging for their entire life, especially like us who grew up in the 90s and 2000s.

ash alberg: Ugh. Also like I've been rewatching shows like Buffy and Angel and just remembering how, and also I watch a lot of reality TV, which is like its own super fucked up thing. And it's fascinating to see like, a) the actors that were being cast in the late nineties and early two thousands and how like truly stick

thin they were and how the vast majority of them were not that size in a healthy way, because there's not that many bodies that can maintain that in a healthy way.

And then in the reality TV scene, how that has also slowly begun shifting in the last few years, but also the difference between white reality TV stars and then people of color and then seeing how, okay. Yes. If you weren't already aware, so much of this is cultural and ...

sarah corbett: Body diversity is real. ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: And there was very much a time when we were younger ... do you feel personally victimized by Buffy's low-rise jeans?

ash alberg: Yes. I also, like I recently made a pair of pants that like hit at my hip bone instead of ... I wear everything at my high waist these days, ‘cause also it lets me bloat without needing to worry about what my clothes are doing. But like I put ... again, I'm a smaller body person. I am like naturally pretty muscular.

My body doesn't shift dramatically other than I bloat more when, at certain points of my cycle, but like my measurements themselves don't dramatically change. And so like when I put on clothes and also like being in slow fashion world and being like a person whose life is in textiles, being like, no, your clothes are supposed to fit your body, not your body to fit your clothes.

And like when I put on pants that like cut in and I'm like, this looks like my pants don't fit. And yet it's just because of where they are hitting on my body, where there is like naturally like hard bone with a little bit of extra flesh around the bone. And these pants are cutting in tight in order to stay at that particular part of my body because if they aren't that tight, then they are going to fall down.

sarah corbett: And what you just said is, your clothes are supposed to fit you, not you fit in your clothes. It's so important to the anti-diet framework. So yeah, with nutrition I also, I would see in my cases, I never, ever once saw a client that was eating enough.

ash alberg: Wowww!

sarah corbett: And every single one of them felt a lot of shame. ash alberg: Around the amount they were eating. [Whistles.]

sarah corbett: And so the thing is when your body ... and there, we've had studies about this since the 40s.

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: At any point your brain, think ... if you establish any form of

restriction ...
ash alberg: Yeah. Your body thinks that you are starving. Yep.

sarah corbett: Your body thinks that you are either starving or going to be starving soon. And so you, it will trigger binge-eating like behavior and it's a physiological response. Like it's a totally normal, there's no morality associated with that at all, is that your body is trying to get the resources that it needs.

And so, I would see these folks who were not eating enough to like ... I, I'm not gonna name calorie amounts or anything, but like just barely eating the amount their body needs to survive. And thinking they're overeating because every now and then they would hit a craving. And it's like babe, you haven't been eating, like you're hungry. You are hungry, eat!

I feel like my mom, who force fed every friend I've ever had. “I'm full.” “No, you eat!” But, yeah, it's I never saw a client that was eating enough and I never saw a client that was truly overeating. And so my approach to nutrition had to drastically change.

And so for me, I don't recommend diets. Ever. Diets are unkind. They don't work, also. If your primary goal is weight loss, it will like, it will not work. And we have the research to back that up as well. And so my work really focuses on intuitive eating and building awareness of what your body needs and like really connecting again.

So back to relationship now, building a better relationship with yourself, connecting to yourself. Like right now, I am aware that I need to eat a snack.

ash alberg: [Laughs.] I’ve been sitting here thinking about this all this time, these almonds, chocolate covered almonds. I’m like, I’m going to eat these as soon as we’re off this call.

sarah corbett: I probably, after this call, because I've gone a little while without eating, I might overeat a little bit and I'm gonna be kind to myself, because if I had eaten an hour ago, then my cravings might be different, but I like, am hungry. I know that I need to eat and I need to eat something that's really nourishing.

And so a non-diet approach to nutrition is often very additive versus restrictive. It's saying, what foods are gonna bring you more joy? And like also thinking about healthful foods, but not attaching any morality to it. Your body doesn't know the difference between a synthetic chemical and a natural one.

There's ... this is another issue I have with the herb world, where people are very anti-medication and things like that. And antitoxins and anti-chemicals, and it's like, everything around you is chemicals.

ash alberg: Exactly. Like when we actually like, oh my god, plants are full of chemicals. That's work.

sarah corbett: That's how they work. ash alberg: Yeah. Yes.

sarah corbett: And it's rich in these constituents, but they'll be like, don't eat those chemicals. It’s like, what?

ash alberg: Literally what they are.

sarah corbett: It's like all the same stuff. And so removing the fear from food and instead saying, oh, what is, what do I need right now? Like right now, I feel like I could really go for some protein, ‘cause I know that's gonna be really satisfying and like a Greek salad with a lot of feta and olives, which has a ton of delicious fat in it and like olive oil and greens and tasty foods.

When you start to really connect with your body will tell you what you need. And we know that's true, but it can take a long time, especially after you've experienced a lot of restrictive behaviors and learned restrictive behaviors, ‘cause everyone's born an intuitive eater, but when you've lost your connection to yourself, it can take a very long time to heal that and to get to a place where you trust your hunger and satiety signals enough to honor them.

So yeah, when nutrition, my work is, I really work with the intuitive principles. And I'm in supervision with Evelyn Tribole right now, actually, to be certified

and like to become an intuitive eating counselor. But it's really just all about honoring your needs.

ash alberg: I feel like that's what everything is coming back to. [Audio echo.]

sarah corbett: And even if, and my, some of my colleagues, my herbal colleagues have been like, well, does it work? [Ash scoffs.] And I'm like, are there ... since I've made the shift, ‘cause I used to recommend diets every now and then, ‘cause that's what I was trained to do.

ash alberg: Yes, exactly. Like it's not people's fault when that is what you are trained to teach.

sarah corbett: I haven't had, since I made the switch, I haven't had a single client who hasn't, by experiencing nervous system safety, because that's what this is, hasn't seen a drastic improvement in their gastrointestinal symptoms.

ash alberg: Yess. See, this is the thing too, that people need to get. It, like it's not about what does your outer body look like. It is what is the interior of your body like feeling? And is it functioning?

Like for me I, again, my body doesn't drastically look one way or the other. I am also keenly aware of the fact that for the last several days, I'm eating a lot of refined sugar and that, that does not feel good for my body and that I need actually a lot of bitters to be counteracting it.

So I'm thinking of a lot of greens that I'm gonna be eating over the next little ...

sarah corbett: That’s great. All we have to do is remove any moral judgements from separating foods into good or bad.

ash alberg: Exactly.
sarah corbett: Like sugar, we’re, we were biologically, we evolved ...

ash alberg: I, my body does not function without sugar. I like fully shut down. The sources of that sugar is usually where we ...

sarah corbett: We have to have carbohydrates. It's our main source of fuel for short term fuel. I prefer to eat regular sugar than anything synthetic and actually, but people are like, okay what about candida? Research has shown that a high

sugar diet actually doesn't fuel the growth of candida. It's high saturated fat. [Chuckles.]

So I don't like, and this is the thing about nutrition research is you can cherry pick any outcome you want. There's enough small studies to be able to point to anything being bad. What's worse? Being so damn stressed out all the time that your nervous system is keyed up and you can't enjoy anything and have any pleasure with anything.

And I promise you, eating a cheeseburger and enjoying the hell out of it and having a great time with your friends is gonna be so much better than restricting yourself because you think something is more healthful.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, I was about sneeze.

Okay. I feel like we've talked a lot about, we've talked a lot about magic in general and practices and ritual in general, both in our businesses and in life. Is there anything specific that you wanna touch on in terms of how magic or ritual or witchcraft play a role in your personal or your business life at this point or things that you've shifted as your business has shifted over time?

sarah corbett: Yeah, definitely used to do more of what people would consider as quote unquote, like traditional witchcraft, which is wild because traditional witchcraft only came out in the last century.

ash alberg: Yeah. [Laughs and snorts.]

sarah corbett: Which I didn't know until Althaea Sebastiani, who's incredible and everyone should know, they talked more about the history of witchcraft. And I was like, oh, it's not as old as people think, but magic is. Cultural practices of enchantment are.

But yeah, I used to do lots of like candle magic and I ward the shit outta my whole life, like every week. I have, after all of the harassment that I experienced I have very strong protective magic practices.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: And I do some candle spells every now and then, but I'm

actually a reactive witch, it's bad. [Ash laughs.] But the reason why I do ... ash alberg: I’m totally the same, like yes, yeah.

sarah corbett: I do more reactive witchcraft at this point because I think that I have actually genuinely cultivated such a strong embodied relationship with the old land spirits that I feel like a lot of aspects of my life are genuinely just like magical on their own.

And I don't, I don't really have to work to weave it. I just have to work not to ... I have to be mindful not to work against what's already there.

ash alberg: Yes, ugh, yeah. It's whenever you're like, oh, I'm actively blocking that thing and I can feel that I'm blocking it. Shit, sorry about that. [Chuckles.]

sarah corbett: Like a lot of things in my life just tend to work out. I have fundamental trust.

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: Which I think is, aside from actual genuine action in witchcraft,

is also required. If you don't trust your magic, then ...

ash alberg: There's no point. Also you need to have some patience, like that's ... I have come to really value road opening spells and also have to just like, like I use basically I like do road opening spells, and then spend a bunch of time with my tarot cards each day being like, where are we at this waiting period?

Are we getting close? [Snorts.] Are we there yet?

sarah corbett: Rowan and Sage was opened on a road opening spell. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Ooo, there, that's ...

sarah corbett: I think I could put some more protective boundaries around it though. [Ash cackles, both laugh.] But you live and you learn.

ash alberg: That’s pretty funny.

sarah corbett: I work with a lot of talismanic material, also like planetary material at this point, which I didn't always before. Like I just got my first actual Venus talisman, which I just haven't had the time to consecrate because on fri-- I got it like, oh, the last Venus day before Friday, and I just didn't have time that night to work with it.

And then Friday happened of last week and it's, I feel like Venus isn't having a good time

ash alberg: Yeah, I think this is the day to consecrate that. [Chuckles.]

sarah corbett: I'm just gonna wait till next week. When you invite a talisman into your life, it already starts to make shifts. So I have a lot of planetary materia that I work with. I have my own devotional practices with various gods and spirits as well, which I keep outta my work ‘cause you know I share so much of myself in my work that I keep that for me.

But the most enchanting aspect of my magical life is growing a garden. ash alberg: Yeaahh.
sarah corbett: Like you really just like midwife life.
ash alberg: Yes. Woo. I like that analogy.

sarah corbett: You don't really, I don't really do that much.

ash alberg: They just do their own thing. Yeah, exactly.

sarah corbett: Like, I kinda help.

ash alberg: I'll facilitate this. You need a little bit of extra assistance. Okay. I'm supposed back off right now. Noted.

sarah corbett: I take part in their magic. So yeah, I don't have, I don't do any ceremonial stuff or it's, it is very intuitive for me and I could probably do more, but I feel pretty good, and I really just like follow the vibes. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yes, exactly.

sarah corbett: Like my, like right now I really need to reset all of my protection wards. And I, I feel that, I'm very aware, but it's because I've been cultivating this type of intuitive awareness for over a decade. So if you're like a baby witch, you might have to create a more ...

ash alberg: More structured ... yes.

sarah corbett: ... structured practice. But for me, it's like my witchcraft is like doing really human stuff and looking at the stars, laying in the grass, talking to the trees, like again, just finding that enchantment in everyday life.

ash alberg: I like that a lot. It also makes me feel a lot better about forgetting to do shit until it's oh, I need to clean the ghosts out of the house because I've been busy talking to the crow over the last few weeks and not paying attention to the accumulation.

sarah corbett: A lot ... my, my practice was different when I was having to work through a lot of ancestral stuff or like my ancestors were yelling at me all the time. And so I was doing a lot of different type of spirit work at that point, but now we're at a place where they'll just throw something off a wall when someone's trying to do something stupid to my house, or do something stupid to me.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: And I'll be like, okay, thanks, and then just put another protection thing up. But I feel very held by my spirit community. And I don't think that I would have the kind of ease that I have in my practice if I wasn't such an animist, so every aspect of my life is being in good relationship with the many spirits and communities around here which is an ongoing practice and it's like never perfection, but yeah.

ash alberg: Yeah. There's something ... like now I'm thinking about it. I'm like, oh yeah, there's been like less magic structure, like structured magic that needs to be happening because there's been so many like plants that have needed watering and tending and repotting and like all of these. And it's oh yeah, that's different kind of wards around the house.

sarah corbett: Yeah. And like our, our plants offer so much protection and our ancestors also, I think people have this idea of living the ceremonial life and truly, if I lived in any other time, I would've loved to have just been like the keeper of a temple and that be my life, just be the priestess and be responsible for the community's spiritual needs, that ideal community role.

And I do that, in a way. But our ancestors also petitioned gods when they needed stuff. It wasn't always ongoing practice.

ash alberg: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

sarah corbett: It was hey, some fucked up shit is happening and oh, glorious one who has governance over this thing me humble comes to beg you. Help me out. You're so great.

ash alberg: But they're not doing that every single Tuesday. Sometimes they are, but ...

sarah corbett: And that's been like the structure of a lot of people's practices culturally for a long time. And so I also give myself some ease when I'm reactive. Like there are established relationships with various spirits that have told me that I have to build a relationship with them before I ask them for anything.

But there are others that are generally willing to help. Yarrow.

ash alberg: Yep.

sarah corbett: Literally willing to help.

ash alberg: Always a general little buddy. Generous little buddy.

sarah corbett: Yarrow’s like, oh yeah, you need something? Cool. I’ll help you out.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: I’ve never had yarrow say no to me.

ash alberg: I feel like same with lavender for me. Roses are like, we've had a longer time of building relationship with each other. Same with lilacs, which is interesting. I've noticed that my nose is starting to shift with some of the florals. Okay, we're buddies now, this is good.

So what's something that you wish somebody had told you about magic or witchcraft or ritual when you were younger?

sarah corbett: Can I say this? Trying to find a good way, ‘cause I know this is gonna make someone mad, so you probably know what I'm gonna say. Wicca isn't all that, I guess?

ash alberg: That’s the polite way of saying it. I don't think we have too many Wiccans that listen to this episode.

sarah corbett: Ok, cool. Yeah, I respect what you have ... ash alberg: Or this podcast.

sarah corbett: ... as long as you're staying in the actual truth of the history of Wicca, which is a very [audio cut out] development and there was no witch cult and ... [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Also like very appropriative, all of the time.

sarah corbett: Yeah. If you're, I'm not gonna dismiss anyone's truth, it's just, are you like lying to yourself about it, is more of my question. Every single witchcraft book at Barnes and Noble is filtered through a lens of Wicca. And so of course, when you're like 15 and going to Barnes and Noble and finding that one little shelf of occult, that's all you're gonna get connected with.

And I just never resonated with it. And I felt like I was wrong because I didn't, and while like, witchcraft benefits from structure, there really aren't any like rules.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sarah corbett: Or there are in certain traditions, but that doesn't mean that

they're the end all, be all. ash alberg: Yeah, exactly.

sarah corbett: Like what's taboo for you, like a lot of people are really against necromantic magic, but like other cultures, like that's their whole magical practice.

ash alberg: Yes, exactly. And it's also really interesting when you look at the like, culturally and historically, and like region-wise, who connects which portions of their like practices and magic and is this is okay. And this is not. Like when I think of the Scottish side of my family and that history, it was very much like healing magic is good. Any divination connection with spirit work or cursing or hexing is bad.

Whereas on the Slavic side of my family, that was just together. It was all just one, two sides of the same coin.

sarah corbett: You can't do ancestor veneration without doing necromantic spirit work.

ash alberg: Exactly.

sarah corbett: Yeah. And how much of that came from colonization through Christianity and those types of things? Even though Christianity is literally next necromantic.

ash alberg: [Laughs.] You are literally a zombie. Your core person.
sarah corbett: You worship a dead guy and you eat his flesh. I don't know what

to tell you.
ash alberg: Vampires, like ...

sarah corbett: Yeah, I don't, I don’t know. So again, like I'm not gonna dismiss anybody's truth. It's just when we start to get in this ideology of this is what's right and this is what's best.

ash alberg: I think that's the thing, right? When it becomes this like way of judging others and way of identifying this is good and bad in these very like binary ways of identifying things, that's the problem.

sarah corbett: Yeah. There's, there's truly no one right way, and to believe there is a structure of white supremacy culture.

So yeah. I just wish that I had known that then, because I tried to get into some stuff that just absolutely did not resonate with me at all, which now that I understand more about my culture, it makes sense, but yeah. There are a lot of books that I bought that I wish I hadn't bought. [Ash cackles.]

That didn't really actually gimme anything, just like more correspondence lists. And my, the way that I have learned, quote unquote, witchcrafts ... I don't even know if I would like actually describe what I do is witchcraft, ‘cause that's a very specific tradition. Like everything that I've learned came from being in communion with spirits.

Which then I talk to other people who are like very well known in the pagan community and they're like, yeah, that's how I did it too. And I'm like, okay, great, then I'm good. I feel good. I feel confident now. Yeah. And just like really cultivating discernment, I think, has been the most important part of my own practice as well. Like when is this a sign versus this is just the environment?

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. When is a [audio cut out] telling you a thing and when is your anxiety making up stories for you?

sarah corbett: Yeah, like I, there's a pomegranate tree outside my window and that was like, actually a sign for me because they're not native here. And they're like a plant of my family and my culture. And we had such a hard time finding a house and this house had so many different issues, but there were so many different like plant kin that were here that shouldn't be here, but were here.

And like that to me was more of a sign that this was a good place for us to be. Like, this was a welcoming space for us. Maybe not the space, but like a welcoming space. Versus people who are like, whenever I post a video of the hawks that live in my backyard, they're like, oh, the hawks are bringing you, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I’m like nah dude, they just have a nest in the tree next to my house. You know? [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yep. There was, I saw a bunch of coyotes this past winter and people were like, what's the Trickster energy telling you? I'm like, I don't, fuck, they're just hungry and they're stuck, coming further into the city than they wanna be. Like the snow's too high for them to hunt this year.

sarah corbett: Like sometimes it’s just nature and sometimes it legitimately is a sign, but you have to learn how to cultivate discernment between the two.

ash alberg: Yes. And I'm still gonna be in relationship with all of them, right? Like I talk to the crows whether or not they're helping me because I don't wanna piss them off, but ...

sarah corbett: But yeah, so ... yeah.
ash alberg: Love it. What's next for you?
sarah corbett: Someone else asked me this today. Like in my work overall? ash alberg: Whichever you feel like answering.

sarah corbett: I'm really trying to get to a place where everything is just running on its own.

ash alberg: Yes. Oh, that's a magical space. sarah corbett: I can just chill and write a book.

ash alberg: Ooo, oh, I would love whatever book you read. I would read whatever book you write. That's, there we go.

sarah corbett: And I've been approached by publishers and I just don't have spaciousness to be creative. That's really a space that I'm in right now. I had almost gotten there and some things didn't go my way, and so I'm, I had to pivot and make some changes and I'm having to do another like solid years’ worth of work to get to a place where I have spaciousness, but creative people need time to not make things. So ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sarah corbett: I'm trying after my six months not sabbatical or my five month, whatever it was, there was some time in there where I really just did nothing, but ...

ash alberg: That’s such a useful space, but also not for good.

sarah corbett: Well, it’s hard to get, but I, it was so good. I, that's how I ended up coming back and like completely revolutionizing my education platform and rebuilding everything and did my whole website. And I had gotten enough spaciousness to be able to be very creative. So what's next for me is to do nothing.

ash alberg: I am so on board with this. [Sarah laughs.] That is also what I'm trying to fucking cultivate. And I think that people don't, like people who aren't creative don't realize that this is actually how we, like we need downtime. And if we're in like the capitalism hamster wheel there ... the lack of downtime just makes it so much fucking harder to actually create shit.

sarah corbett: Then the question is, are those people not creative or have they just not had the chance to step off the wheel?

ash alberg: Both. Absolutely both and yeah.

sarah corbett: I think everyone is creative.
ash alberg: Completely. Yeah. It's a muscle. And like are, have you had the

opportunity to work the muscle?

sarah corbett: Yeah. And so I really am trying to find a system that allows me to create spaciousness. So cuz like I could write a book, but again, it's one of those things of, oh man, like I'm talking to a publisher next week, I think, just to chat and get connected. And it's like I could push and I could do it.

ash alberg: Yeah. [Crows cawing in the background.] Or they could pay you a fuck ton of money so that you could actually take time off and not think about paying bills.

sarah corbett: But even then, writing a book, so you get in advance, you gotta pay it back. You, it's not just like money they give you.

ash alberg: This is why I self publish things. Like the publishing world I'm like, no, thank you. I will just keep control of all of the things and it's hard, but like at least I don't have to deal with this bullshit.

sarah corbett: Yeah. And so, it's not ...
ash alberg: You have to pay the advance back? How did I not know this? sarah corbett: You pay off your royalties, so yeah.
ash alberg: Royalties are pennies on the dollar.

sarah corbett: So you, okay. You get an advance ... [Laughs.] This is my understanding, I could be wrong, but you get an advance that essentially they're paying, like ...

ash alberg: They're paying you for your writing time.
sarah corbett: Yeah. But you have to sell X amount of books to then make

money on top of that. ash alberg: Right.

sarah corbett: And then you have a time limit. So if you don't sell all of those books, you have to buy those books back from the publisher.

ash alberg: This is why I’ve seen, I have literally seen people with like thousands of books that end up being delivered to their ... this is again why I self publish and I am in a realm where that's an option and also physically in like a location where that’s an option.

sarah corbett: To self publish, and you have to completely do your manuscript. ash alberg: Yes!

sarah corbett: It’s, is it more of something I could do when all I have to do every day is sit in my garden. Yeah, that sounds more ... ‘cause also publishing, I think this is something that people in the witchcraft world really need to learn, is that publishing offers people who ... there are plenty of people who have written books who had no business publishing books.

ash alberg: Yep, yep. Yep.

sarah corbett: We have this idea that publishing is like the peak, like you build a business and you write a book and oh, you've reached it. You've ... the pinnacle of success!

ash alberg: You never have to do anything ever again because now all of the people come and buy every single offer, every single time.

sarah corbett: And, but that's the thing. Books are vanity projects. A lot of them. You can get a lot of value out of a book, for sure. But like why would I turn my program that generates me money enough to feed me and my family and pay other people to work for me, for a book that's gonna be $25?

ash alberg: I was literally just thinking $24.95. [Laughs.] sarah corbett: Yeah. So it's ...
ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: Is it ... and also with relationships, I know a lot of people who like to write books because it lets them step back and just say, you go, take the materials I gave you and figure it out.

But for me, I really value that co-regulation space. And I don't think books are actually a good technology for that. So I'm also sitting here thinking, I wanna write a book. I feel like it'd be great. At some point, maybe I'll do it when I'm 50. I don't know.

But for now it's, I have so many people that I'm tending to. How can I get this to a space where I can just go and tend, but I'm not having to like plant and weed and ...? [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yes, totally. Yes. All of the perennials are happily coming up themselves.

sarah corbett: In my garden, I'm in year three of this space and now it's finally starting to just kinda take care of itself.

ash alberg: That's so nice. I've got a couple of plants that are doing that, but it's still, yeah. My gardens are also still too early. My elder this year is now no longer looking like a twig. That's literally the progress we've made.

sarah corbett: Ours are only two years old and they're massive. And I got like tons of flowers from this year, and I have a lot of berries on them now, but yeah, I'm looking at my life, like the garden. I'm really trying to cultivate something very regenerative right now, that it will just take care of itself and I can either hire the people I need to keep things going or I can just step in every now and then.

I don't think you can completely have an automated business, but ... ash alberg: No, and I don't think that's fun, honestly, like ...

sarah corbett: Yeah, I don't have any, I don't wanna sell my business either. Yeah.

ash alberg: No, my goal, I feel like it's like similar where like, when I think of what's my 10-year goal? My goal is to have grown the business to a point where I've bought back a lot of my time by hiring other people to do the things that keep it running. And that I have kept my fingers in the pies that I really enjoy, which involves growing my garden every year and having an annual harvest collection and continuing to connect with the farmers and create specific yarns and keep my fingers in the sock design.

And I, I think honestly my ideal situation would be to like have the rest of the business running and to just keep on pumping out books. Because for me, they're like, they've become my new theater production. So I'm like every couple of years I'm like, I wanna make a new production and put it out into the world.

sarah corbett: I wanna still write monographs, but I don't need to write them every month.

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: Like I want to be able to say, oh, I have a really great idea for a

class and have all the time I need to put it together. ash alberg: Yes. Yeah.

sarah corbett: Then I, we've gotten to a place where this year I've hired guest teachers and we have a lot of people coming in and sharing stuff. And I feel like it's trucking along towards that direction, but in 10 years, where would I like to be? On a beach.

ash alberg: Yeeah! [Laughs.] That sounds delightful.

sarah corbett: My dad would say the same. It's funny. Yeah. My dad would be like on a beach with a pina colada. [Laughs.] And like you know, same. That sounds great. I wanna be near the, I wanna be near the ocean and the mountains, naked in a hot spring, in ...

ash alberg: [Laughs.] I know, I saw a thing on Pinterest the other day that was this like beautiful Airbnb in Sweden. I was like, I wanna go there. That's where I would like to be.

sarah corbett: Yeah. That's really what I'm thinking about is I just, I wanna feel held and secured and nourished, and I don't wanna be of service to people. I don't think my purpose in life was to serve. I think my purpose in life was to like, have a good time and survive as an animal.

But I wanna be helpful. ash alberg: Yeah.

sarah corbett: And I've had the privilege of learning about a lot of stuff and I love getting to share it with other people.

ash alberg: I love that. I'm sorry ...
sarah corbett: But mostly I just want to have a good time.

ash alberg: This is a really long episode, which I honestly, I kind of love that, especially where the podcast is wrapping up this season for an indefinite break. And so I'm really glad that we managed to put this in and that also it's one of the last conversations because I adore you and your work and what you're doing for, just the whole everything.

So I'm glad that other people also get a chance to hear you if they've listened this long and if they haven't, then it doesn't matter, ‘cause they're not hearing what we're talking about at this point. [Laugh-snorts.]

sarah corbett: I mean, I’m a fan of longer episodes, but hope whoever's listening is just like sitting in the garden, with their plants, having a cup of tea.

ash alberg: Yeah. That would be lovely. And they can hear us tomorrow too, ‘cause we're gonna be hopping on Instagram live and then catch the replays. So that'll be available. But this has been absolutely delightful. We could literally talk all day and also both of us need to do other shit. [Laugh-snorts.]

sarah corbett: Really just take care of basic needs, eat a meal.
ash alberg: That's literally, I'm like, Willow needs to pee. I need to eat some

food. We need to take a walk.

sarah corbett: We could just have a podcast over lunch.

ash alberg: Oh my god. Can you ... also I'll I hate the sound of people chewing things though. So if I was listening to that podcast, I'd be like, what the fuck did these people do? [Laughs.]

sarah corbett: Yeah. Great. And I'm glad that we've gotten to just talk in a really relaxed way and just share about really how we're coping with the moment. Every time I talk to a friend this week, I'm like, how are you coping? And everything we've been talking about is how we're coping.

ash alberg: Yes.
sarah corbett: Yeah. So it's been really great to chat with you. Thank you for

talking with me for three hours.
ash alberg: [Laughs.] I will happily talk with you for three hours anytime.

You can connect with Sarah and learn more about her work and check out her programs by going to her website, rowanandsage.com or on Instagram @rowanandsage. And like we mentioned in the episode, if you are listening to the episode today, tomorrow we will be hopping on Instagram Live as part of the kickoff for the Sanctuary Hub’s launch, and so we will be chatting at 1:00 PM Winnipeg time.

So feel free to join us over on Instagram Live, where we are going to be chatting about all things Sanctuary. And if you miss it, then you will be able to catch the replay, assuming the tech gremlins don't get us. So hope see you there.

[Upbeat music plays.] You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at snortandcackle.com. Just click on podcast in the main menu. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram @snortandcackle and join our seasonal book club with #SnortandCackleBookClub. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast by your favorite podcasting platform.