The Womb of Love: Feminine Wisdom & Embodied Islam

Awakening Through Partnership: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Love with devon + nico hase

Welcome back to the Wild Heart Podcast with Willow Brook where we explore divinity in daily life with themes of love, mysticism, grief as a spiritual path, and sensual embodiment. In this episode, I’m joined by married Buddhist teachers nico + devon hase who help couples face—and blossom in—the truth about long-term romance. nico lived in a monastery for six years before earning a PhD in counseling psychology and becoming a full-time Insight Meditation teacher. devon has practiced intensively in the Insight and Vajrayana traditions of meditation and teaches at Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, and more. They are co-authors of How Not to Be a Hot Mess and their new book This Messy Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781649634375/thismessygorgeouslove/] coming out April 14th, 2026.  In their community Refuge of Belonging, they support the living Buddhist traditions in ways that feel accessible, inclusive, and deeply relevant to our complex times. For more, visit devonandnicohase.com [http://devonandnicohase.com] Preorder their book here: This Messy Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781649634375/thismessygorgeouslove/]  If this conversation opened your wild heart, we invite you to join an upcoming event with our community at ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] Holy Lament: The Transformative Path of Loss & Longing with Mirabai Starr A spiritual container for those ready to turn toward loss and reclaim it as something sacred in a community of companionship, creativity, and soul-deep transformation. Through the alchemy of reflective writing, poetry, shared witnessing and sacred song, we invite you to explore the healing landscape of grief in a circle of loving presence.  Learn more at wildheart.space/holylament [https://www.wildheart.space/holylament] Links: Connect with devon & nico: devonandnicohase.com [http://devonandnicohase.com] IG:  @devonandnicohase [https://www.instagram.com/devonandnicohase] Order your copy of This Messy Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781649634375/thismessygorgeouslove/] today! Connect with Wild Heart: ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] IG: ⁠@wildheartspace⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/wildheartspace/] Connect with Willow for 1:1 sessions focused on love: ⁠ [http://soulinvocation.com]willowbrook.love [https://www.willowbrook.love/]  IG ⁠@willow__brook⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/willow__brook/] Teen Mindfulness Camp [https://www.lamafoundation.org/teen-mindfulness/] with Willow at Lama Foundation July 9-12, 2026 Connect with Mirabai: ⁠mirabaistarr.com⁠ [http://mirabaistarr.com] IG: ⁠@mirabaistarr⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/mirabaistarr/] Thank you to the amazing Manny Fassihi for editing the Wild Heart Podcast! @themannyfesto [https://www.instagram.com/themannyfesto/] playmultitudes.com [http://playmultitudes.com]

The Womb of Love: Feminine Wisdom & Embodied Islam

Welcome back to the Wild Heart Podcast with Willow Brook where we explore divinity in daily life with themes of love, mysticism, grief as a spiritual path, and sensual embodiment. In this episode, I’m joined by Omid Safi, beloved teacher and scholar of Islamic spirituality. Together, we explore feminine wisdom at the heart of Islam, embodied spirituality and the role of sexuality, and the way love rises to meet us, especially in seasons of grief and collective unraveling. We speak of women as carriers of spiritual lineage, of radical love as taught by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and the intertwined nature of love, spirituality, and the human experience. Omid Safi is a professor at Duke University specializing in Islamic spirituality and contemporary thought. A leading Muslim public intellectual, Omid is committed to the intersection of spirituality and social justice. Omid has published extensively on the foundational sources of Islam and Sufism. His Memories of Muhammad is a biography of the Prophet Muhammad.  His most recent book is Radical Love:  Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition (published by Yale).  Omid is also deeply committed to liberationist prophetic traditions in the legacy of Martin Luther King, Rabbi Heschel, and Malcolm X.  He has been invited by the family of Dr. King to speak at Ebenezer Church on the relevance of Dr. King for today’s America, and has delivered the Martin Luther King keynote in the annual national MLK service. Omid often appears as an expert on Islam in the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, BBC, CNN and other outlets. He is a recent columnist for On Being, and now has a podcast (“Sufi Heart”) at Be Here Now. His Illuminated Tours [https://www.illuminatedcourses.com/tours] have taken more than a 1,000 friends from over twenty countries to Turkey and Morocco since 2002, and he is now offering Illuminated Courses [https://www.illuminatedcourses.com/] for online offerings on spiritual traditions open to seekers of all backgrounds. If this conversation opened your wild heart, we invite you to join an upcoming event with our community at ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] Holy Lament: The Transformative Path of Loss & Longing with Mirabai Starr A spiritual container for those ready to turn toward loss and reclaim it as something sacred in a community of companionship, creativity, and soul-deep transformation. Through the alchemy of reflective writing, poetry, shared witnessing and sacred song, we invite you to explore the healing landscape of grief in a circle of loving presence.  Learn more at wildheart.space/holylament [https://www.wildheart.space/holylament] Links: Connect with Omid: www.illuminatedcourses.com [http://www.illuminatedcourses.com] IG:  @brotheromid [https://www.instagram.com/] Radical Love:  Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition [https://www.illuminatedcourses.com/books] Translated and Edited by Omid Safi Omid’s books [https://www.illuminatedcourses.com/books] Connect with Wild Heart: ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] IG: ⁠@wildheartspace⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/wildheartspace/] Connect with Willow for 1:1 sessions focused on love: ⁠ [http://soulinvocation.com]willowbrook.love [https://www.willowbrook.love/]  IG ⁠@willow__brook⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/willow__brook/] Connect with Mirabai: ⁠mirabaistarr.com⁠ [http://mirabaistarr.com] IG: ⁠@mirabaistarr⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/mirabaistarr/] Thank you to the amazing Manny Fassihi for editing the Wild Heart Podcast! @themannyfesto [https://www.instagram.com/themannyfesto/] playmultitudes.com [http://playmultitudes.com]

Grief's Wild Invitation with Naila Francis

Welcome back to the Wild Heart Podcast with Willow Brook where we explore divinity in daily life with themes of love, mysticism, grief as a spiritual path, and sensual embodiment. I am so excited to welcome grief coach and poet Naila Francis to explore honoring loss as a pathway to living with more depth, authenticity and daring. In our conversation, Naila shares about her personal grief journey and we emphasize the importance of community support, embracing joy amidst sorrow, honoring all forms of grief, including the loss of relationships and pets, and the necessity of resourcing ourselves when tending grief.  Naila Francis is a certified grief coach and death midwife, an ordained interfaith minister, a poet, and an accomplished writer.  As the founder of This Hallowed Wilderness [https://www.thishallowedwilderness.com/], she helps people transform their relationship to grief and loss through one-on-one coaching, workshops, presentations, rituals and community grief tending. Naila is also a co-founder of Salt Trails [https://www.salttrailsphilly.com/], a Philadelphia collective normalizing grief through community rituals, and a recipient of a Leeway Foundation Art + Change Grant, as well as a Joyful Abundance Emerging Artist Commissioning Award. A former journalist, Naila profiled dozens of artists and entertainers such as Brandi Carlile, k.d. lang, Pink, Bobby McFerrin, and Yoko Ono during her career. She found her way to the vocation of companioning others through grief and dying after suffering several personal losses in her own life, including the death of her father in 2012. Since the death of her father, poetry has been a steady companion in Naila's life. A longtime writer who had penned her own poems and delighted in the words of other poets for years, she discovered that with this gaping absence in her life, poetry became a vital balm. Whether writing or reading poems, this creative practice allows her to open up to parts of herself, and to emotions, that can be challenging to access in a world that turns away from grief. Her poetry album, "Wonder Unsung [https://paulitomuse.hearnow.com/wonder-unsung]," a collaboration with guitarist and producer Paulito Muse, is available on multiple streaming platforms. We are honored to have Naila woven into our Holy Lament offerings with Naila’s Poetry Cove where she offers selected poems, personal reflections, meditations and writing prompts and to have her beautiful presence in our world! Subscribe to Naila's newsletter: https://nailafrancis.substack.com/ [https://nailafrancis.substack.com/] If this conversation opened your wild heart, we invite you to join an upcoming event with our community at ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] Holy Lament: The Transformative Path of Loss & Longing with Mirabai Starr A spiritual container for those ready to turn toward loss and reclaim it as something sacred in a community of companionship, creativity, and soul-deep transformation. Through the alchemy of reflective writing, poetry, shared witnessing and sacred song, we invite you to explore the healing landscape of grief in a circle of loving presence.  Learn more at wildheart.space/holylament [https://www.wildheart.space/holylament] Links: Connect with Naila: thishallowedwilderness.com [http://thishallowedwilderness.com] IG:  @thishallowedwildnerness [https://www.instagram.com/thishallowedwilderness/] Connect with Wild Heart: ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] IG: ⁠@wildheartspace⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/wildheartspace/] Connect with Willow for 50% off 1:1 sessions before 2026: ⁠ [http://soulinvocation.com]willowbrook.love [https://www.willowbrook.love/]  IG ⁠@willow__brook⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/willow__brook/] Connect with Mirabai: ⁠mirabaistarr.com⁠ [http://mirabaistarr.com] IG: ⁠@mirabaistarr⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/mirabaistarr/] Thank you to the amazing Manny Fassihi for editing the Wild Heart Podcast! @themannyfesto [https://www.instagram.com/themannyfesto/] playmultitudes.com [http://playmultitudes.com]

The Body's Story of Grief & Trauma with Monika Denise Burkholder

Welcome back to the Wild Heart Podcast with Willow Brook where we explore divinity in daily life with themes of love, mysticism, grief as a spiritual path, and sensual embodiment. In this episode, trauma specialist, art therapist and soul medicine guide Monika Denise Burkholder explores themes of belonging, the intersection of grief and trauma, and ways to expand our capacity to be with big human experiences. Monika shares her insights on trauma integration, the role of witnessing in emotional processing, and she and Willow investigate the significance of embodiment and pleasure in the context of grief. Their deep conversation dives into cyclical living, nature's influence on our emotional states, and the concept of soul medicine as a pathway to authenticity.  Monika Denise is a medicine woman of the soul—an art therapist, trauma therapist, somatic practitioner, grief tender and songcatcher at the intersections of stone and river. With her basket of intuitive wisdom and practical skills, Monika Denise founded Four Moons Howl LLC where she offers Soul Medicine for the Souljourner. Women who are navigating inner and outer life transitions, overwhelmed with grief, or experiencing the impact of trauma are drawn to her grounded presence and empowering, transformative medicine as an ally on their journey. She offers 1:1 sessions and group workshops as well as collaborates on community offerings with other soulful practitioners. Monika Denise has tended the community for Wild Heart since its inception and co-facilitates embodied grief rituals and retreats as co-founder of Medicine For Our Times. As an artist, Monika Denise sells art for ritual, including pottery, earrings, and My&Moon, a lunar calendar for cyclical living. Twice a year, Monika Denise can be found co-guiding soulful canoe trips on the Green River in UT for The River’s Path. Throughout every thread of her offerings, Monika Denise is in service to living with access to the authentic self—empowered and free.  Learn more at: www.fourmoons.earth [http://www.fourmoons.earth] @fourmoonshowl [https://www.instagram.com/fourmoonshowl/] If this conversation opened your wild heart, we invite you to join an upcoming event with our community at ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] Holy Lament: The Transformative Path of Loss & Longing with Mirabai Starr A spiritual container for those ready to turn toward loss and reclaim it as something sacred in a community of companionship, creativity, and soul-deep transformation. Through the alchemy of reflective writing, poetry, shared witnessing and sacred song, we invite you to explore the healing landscape of grief in a circle of loving presence.  Learn more at wildheart.space/holylament [https://www.wildheart.space/holylament] Links: Connect with Monika: www.fourmoons.earth [http://www.fourmoons.earth] IG:  @fourmoonshowl [https://www.instagram.com/fourmoonshowl/] Connect with Wild Heart: ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] IG: ⁠@wildheartspace⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/wildheartspace/] Connect with Willow for 50% off 1:1 sessions before 2026: ⁠ [http://soulinvocation.com]willowbrook.love [https://www.willowbrook.love/]  IG ⁠@willow__brook⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/willow__brook/] Connect with Mirabai: ⁠mirabaistarr.com⁠ [http://mirabaistarr.com] IG: ⁠@mirabaistarr⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/mirabaistarr/] Thank you to the amazing Manny Fassihi for editing the Wild Heart Podcast! @themannyfesto [https://www.instagram.com/themannyfesto/] playmultitudes.com [http://playmultitudes.com]

Love Through Rumi's Eyes with Haleh Liza Gafori

Welcome back to the Wild Heart Podcast with Willow Brook where we explore divinity in daily life with themes of love, mysticism, grief as a spiritual path, and sensual embodiment. In this episode, the inspiring artist, poet, performer and translator of Rumi’s poetry,  Haleh Liza Gafori explores love, ecstasy, and grief found in Rumi's work, as well as the transformative relationship between Rumi and his teacher, Shams of Tabriz. Haleh shares her personal journey with translating Rumi's rhythmic Persian poetry and what it has to share with us in these times. Haleh Liza Gafori  is a translator, performance artist, poet, vocalist, and educator born in NYC of Persian descent. Her acclaimed translations of poetry by the 13th century sage Rumi have been collected in two volumes, Gold (2022) and Water (2025). With ears tuned to the music of American free verse as well as to the subtleties of the Persian lines, Gafori aims to transmit the whirling movement and leaping progression of thought and imagery in Rumi’s poems into contemporary American poetry while uncovering how urgently and tenderly his poetry dialogues with our times. Sharing her passion for Rumi’s poetry and the liberating messages that pulse through them, she performs her cross-media performance piece in which she weaves recitation in English, commentary, and songs featuring Rumi's poetry in Persian, giving audiences glimpses of the astonishing rhythm and wordplay that pervade his original text.  Learn more at www.halehliza.com [http://www.halehliza.com] @halehliza [https://www.instagram.com/halehliza] Order Haleh’s ecstatic translations of Rumi: GOLD [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/665303/gold-by-rumi-translated-from-the-persian-and-edited-by-haleh-liza-gafori/] WATER [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/773526/water-by-rumi-translated-from-the-farsi-by-haleh-liza-gafori/] If this conversation opened your wild heart, we invite you to join an upcoming event with our community at ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] Writing Across the Veil: Use Your Imagination to Connect to the Ancestors with Mirabai Starr [https://www.wildheart.space/writingacrosstheveil] Oct 24-26 Early bird rates before Oct 7 A spiritually embodied writing practice to deepen our relationship with those who have passed  Links: Connect with Haleh: www.halehliza.com [http://www.halehliza.com] IG:  @halehliza [https://www.instagram.com/halehliza] Connect with Wild Heart: ⁠wildheart.space⁠ [https://www.wildheart.space/store] IG: ⁠@wildheartspace⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/wildheartspace/] Connect with Willow: ⁠ [http://soulinvocation.com]willowbrook.love [https://www.willowbrook.love/] IG ⁠@willow__brook⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/willow__brook/] Connect with Mirabai: ⁠mirabaistarr.com⁠ [http://mirabaistarr.com] IG: ⁠@mirabaistarr⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/mirabaistarr/] Thank you to the amazing Manny Fassihi for editing the Wild Heart Podcast! @themannyfesto [https://www.instagram.com/themannyfesto/] playmultitudes.com [http://playmultitudes.com]