011 – Jackie Gallo: The Audacity to Follow the Pull

[0:00] Music.

[0:07] Welcome, I’m Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories, about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves.
The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love.

[0:27] Music.

[0:38] Hello, welcome. It is my absolute honor to introduce you to a dear friend, Jackie Gallo, who is a change maker of a woman. She seems to know no other way forward than to follow her curiosity and to take a million little steps to fill in the gaps that are missing, between science and spirituality, education and humanity, and to have the audacity to, follow that pole, to follow her poles, even when she and those around her don’t know exactly how any of these things will come to fruition. Sometimes it seems like a miracle, but as she’ll say, the universe will show up for you, but you also have to show up for you.
She gives many incredible examples of the power of being a witness, of the educated nothing, of building ritual into her life and how we can do it for our community.
She talks about the way that we grow or the way that she had to grow in order to.

[1:55] Offer up the things that she wanted to offer for others. I’m gonna leave it here.
And I’m just noticing this poll, like, oh, I wanna say more about her.
She’s incredible and you’ll get to hear it all.
And here’s the other poll that I’m feeling is, I wanna share that at the time of this interview, I was about one week away from signing a lease to take over the building that we talk about in this interview, the building of which she had for a while for pre and postnatal yoga and for pre and postnatal care in general.
So there were other therapists in there, physical therapists, psychologists, all to add support and to also give rituals for women on the other side of having given birth.
This then changed into the micro school that she’ll talk about that she developed during the pandemic.
And now that they’re growing into a bigger space, she was ready to pass the lease on.
And so myself and two dear friends will be taking over the lease and going back to the original name, Ritual and the Art of Wellness with one of her original partners.
And so it just feels like a full circle moment.
And without further ado, I offer you Jackie Gallo and her amazing stories of how to move forward.

[3:18] Music.

[3:24] Welcome to Threshold Moments podcast. I’m here with Jackie Gallo and before this intro, I was talking to Jackie about her path and her past and I thought instead of trying to do an official bio that I’m actually just really interested in the way that you move through the world, the things that light you up and the way you follow them and the risks that you take and the visions that you have and the things that you’ve created in this world.
I’m very inspired by you and maybe what I will do for the listeners to give a little bit of context is that Jackie and I both live in Cape Elizabeth, Maine and Jackie is the, the founder, can I say founder, of Roots, yeah?
Which is the private school that both of our daughters go to and was born during the pandemic.
And I’ll have Jackie speak more on that, But I’ll also say.

[4:33] When I first moved to Cape Elizabeth, I saw a sign in the middle of the town that said, Ritual Art of Wellness. And I was like, what is that? And it was another thing that Jackie had created for the community, which again seems to be an area in which perhaps you felt there needed to be more support. And so you created something for more support for pre and postnatal mothers and children or perhaps families. I will let you describe all of that way better in our conversation.
So Jackie and I were at a birthday party and I was talking to her about this podcast. And as we were in the discussion, I was like, can we just record this? It was a good one. It was a good one.

[5:19] So this like doesn’t turn out, it will turn out whatever it is. It was brilliant. And I said, yeah, let’s, let’s record this conversation because it felt really rich and really on point.
And at the time I had just described that the podcast is about threshold moments, about times in which we feel pulled to do something and we might not know the next step and about being in the middle and how sometimes the middle isn’t spoken about while people are in the middle.
And there’s a reason for that often, but I feel like you have been in a place in which you’re you’re able to speak about your process while you’re in the middle of a transition or in the middle of a risk.

[6:05] Art is pulling you towards.
Permanently in the middle of a risk, I think. So the beginning of our conversation before this started was asking you about what your journey looked like, towards midwifery, what brought you to Maine, what brought you into that, how that shifted.
I would love to hear a little bit about that.
Sure. Not a lot of people know that the reason I moved to Maine from Pennsylvania was to pursue a path in midwifery.
Prior to that, I was living in Pennsylvania and working in clinical trials research, women’s health specifically, and around fertility and conception, but very different work.

[6:51] And I think in that space, there are things that I appreciated about that process.
I appreciated the ability to look at research and information and process it and be able to discern like what is true, what is factual, but then also witnessing people having a very human process in the midst of all of these scientific facts really started to make me feel like I was a part of it.
Well, my brain never stops moving, but it started it on a different kind of path, And I think that’s what I’m really excited about.
Considering how you take something like an infertility treatment that is very, very medical and scientific. But the success of it, in my opinion, is wholly dependent on like this spiritual place that this individual is in on the other side. And essentially, like the meeting of those two things is the threshold, I just got to chill as I said that. But so I think that that’s a piece like that, as I was like watching this and observing and participating in it in the clinical sense, I was observing and really feeling like there’s a missing piece here.
There’s a part of the human being, a part of the human experience that isn’t being honored.
And then watching people who did make it to the other side of that threshold of becoming pregnant and then having a baby and really feeling like there was often a witnessing that hadn’t occurred.

[8:07] And I say this having spoken to people about this. So it was a felt sense among some of the clients or patients that I worked with that there was a lack of acknowledgement, a lack of ritual around the process. Some of that spirituality was removed. And so I started to get really curious about that.

[8:28] And then when I’m somebody who, when I get curious and I kind of identify an area of lack or need, I dive like wholeheartedly in and like I don’t know how to do it halfway.
So I was like, obviously I’m becoming a home birth midwife. That’s obviously the next transition. And we must move.
And we must move to Maine to do that. So I started that process and I learned a tremendous amount about myself during that program.
What I was comfortable with in the context of like, how much trust can I place in my body? You know what I mean?
Like, if you’re talking about being a home birth midwife, you have to trust.
Big old capital T, and I was realizing how much work I had to do around my, like, how can I preach that to somebody else? How can I hold space for that if I don’t trust my own body?

[9:27] And so, I mean, that was, it was an education in women’s health, but it was really, I was becoming illiterate in my own body in a way that I just, I wasn’t before.
So trusting intuition, being able to sit with people in the in-between space, the middle, as you said, and notice and feel and not need to fill it with action, but instead be present and continue.
It’s like you’re taking in everything. You’re using all of your senses and you’re also doing nothing.
Do you know what I mean? You’re never more engaged, but also you’re still.
So it was really an interesting space to hold. And I learned a tremendous amount about myself.
And also, I didn’t complete the journey.
I did a year and a half, did a solid year of clinicals where I was on call and attending births.
And some of them were really beautiful, and some of them were really hard.
And I just ultimately got to a point where I was like, this is not for me.
And it really, at that point in time, I was like, I am not the person for people who are seeking this.
I think I said, I could be a really crunchy, in-hospital midwife, but I don’t know that I’m confident enough in my ability to be in that space and trust to support somebody at home.
And so I took a step back.

[10:53] I had also just gotten married and you just like, big old identity, like who am I?
What am I doing in this world kind of thing.
And so took a step back.
From that for a little while. I’d become a doula through that process and still utilize that work.
And then I went on to have my first child. And again, that was a huge transformative.
We won’t get into all that. We don’t have enough time. You talked about all those lessons. But, going through the birth of my own, my first child was an integration of what I had learned in midwifery school. There were so many things that I was struggling with that I had learned how to help people support and it was this really like I’m gesturing with my hands a ton right now because it was like the holding of all of these things like here I am having this experience and intellectually I know how to support another person but can I use that information to support myself. And so on the other side of that once I kind of came out of postpartum I sought out.

[11:57] Some more the physical practices. I took a yoga teacher training solely for the purpose of like like no intention of ever teaching anyone yoga, but just feeling real, again, really curious about how to be more in my body, how to be more in my body.
And then of course, while I was doing that training, I was like, well, no one is teaching prenatal yoga around here the way that it needs to be taught.
And so this meeting, this pulling from my past, again, identifying this need, seeing a need and putting these two things together.
And again, it’s identifying a threshold that wasn’t really being paid attention to.
It’s like, okay, you can go and you can move, but can this be more than just moving your body?
Can we hold space for the transition and the transformation that’s happening?

[12:47] And the answer was a big old yes. When you started doing the prenatal yoga, you had your oldest child at that point?
Yeah. And did you have the building downtown yet?
Or were you doing that? Where were you doing that? We were living in Portland at the time.
So I like one day a week rented space in like a collective of other women.
And it was like the exact right amount of risk, right? Because I use this expression, and my canoe, the boat was like full, right?
And so there was a little bit of space to start doing something different with my brain and start exploring something while still.

[13:28] I was like really still recovering too and figuring out how to be a mom and all of those things.
So it allowed me to dip my toe into that work and kind of explore what it looked like and try something on while still being present in my other life.
So I mean, I guess straddling like a threshold in that moment.
I mean, I appreciate you saying that because I think the people listening in there are are gonna be like, there will be a number of new parents or various people in different parts of their life where there are so many stressors or so many demands that if it sounds like this podcast is here to suggest that everyone should take the biggest leap of their life and just like go wholeheartedly into something, to also point out that there are many times, that a small doable piece, something that is a little risk in the direction that’s calling you can be so great because the nervous system can get down with it.
Like the nervous system can be like, I can do that little piece.
And for me, those little pieces are kind of an early motherhood, like a way to remember who I am.
If I feel like I’m getting lost amongst the daily routines or trials of providing so much for a new baby and a new life and a new family constellation.

[14:53] So I actually, I really appreciate naming that you started renting a space one time a week, and taking a risk that felt doable in relationship.

[15:06] To everything else that was going on in your life.
And maybe the one other thing I would highlight is this educated stillness.

[15:15] I think I heard it called something like the educated nothing to be able to hold space to have all these tools.
And instead of trying to give the person a million tools to give them your educated nothing.
Right. And then like building rituals and space around witnessing.
I feel like I heard you say witnessing.
Yeah. Somebody’s process. I mean, I always think of the tissue box when you’re sitting across from, when you’re sitting across from somebody who’s crying and you shove the tissue box at them.
You’re not doing that for the other person. You’re doing it because their feelings, their emotions, this outpouring of what’s inside them makes you uncomfortable.
And you’re like, here, dry it up, stop it. And so in, actually in midwifery school, it was like, don’t do that.
You’re interrupting somebody’s process. It’s not about whether it makes you uncomfortable.
It’s about being able to sit in it and be, and like your job is solely so this person knows that they’re not alone and they’re seen.
And like having your grief scene or having your…
Joy scene or whatever is so powerful right like so much of particularly around like women’s health like we go through it alone, You know we go through loss alone, and we go through.

[16:33] Wanting alone, and there are these things that happen behind closed doors of doctors offices or in our bedrooms at home with with our partner, And we do them alone, and it’s really sad, and it’s hard and so, So it needs to be seen, like the full complement of the human experience, it deserves to be seen.
And when we allow those parts of ourselves to be seen, other people feel held and heard and acknowledged and know that they’re not alone, right?
Very few things are like solely unique to us. There are other people out there having similar experiences.
And it’s, oh, I’m not going to articulate this well, but just like all of our energies are interconnected.
So if we’re choosing to suffer in silence or go through a process alone, we’re not allowing connection to occur.
And so the opposite of connection is disconnection, loneliness, that sort of thing.
So when one person chooses to be vulnerable, because that’s what it is, right, is being vulnerable, you open the door for other people to feel a connection.
And it’s just like, I’m picturing this like web, this network of like growing out.
And really like in any work I’ve done, that’s what it is, right?
Like, I’m going to show up here and be wholly vulnerable.
And like, hopefully that inspires, I’m going to put all of my stuff out there.

[17:46] And like, I’m going to allow, hopefully permission others to do the same, to, to not feel afraid or not feel alone in that process.
I can say my experience of being around you is very much that like today is not a perfect day.
Sienna is home and just feeling really lethargic and I’ll say my microphone didn’t hook up, like all these kinds of things. And I was like, if there’s anyone that I could show up imperfectly with and just be real with, it’s going to be Jackie.
She might actually be the best compliment. but anyone can understand.
Yeah, yeah. I feel like whenever I’m seen by you, I feel held by you without it being a tissue box moment of just like you see and you’re like, oh yeah, I see you. Yeah, right.
And not like I see you and I judge you, but just I see you.

[18:37] A friend of mine studies with a close friend of hers who is Navajo and he described to her that when one person calls a tipi, a gathering, that it’s known by everybody who goes, that the tipi is for everybody.
So whoever called it, knowing that the medicine is there for everybody who shows up.
And I think that this is the work. I think it’s the work that you’re talking about.
I think in my own experience, I’ve been doing a lot of somatic exploration And so much of that is about being witnessed on my way through instead of journaling my way through.
I mean, journals are great and walks in the woods are great, but to actually have the experience of having emotions.

[19:32] And that being safe to have emotions in the presence of another, that somebody else could be stable, that somebody else might be willing to sit there and listen and that I’m not bothering them by being.
It’s not a burden. Perfect, right, it’s not a burden. And I’ve been assisting alchemical alignment and same thing, even in that role, if I don’t show up perfectly, there’s a part of me that’s like, I’m in this role, I must, and I get to experience again and again, that actually they really do want me there just as I am.
And it’s the ability to experience that in my body over and over is very different than hearing somebody say, Come as you are.
Yeah, you know, that sounds really nice, but there is something to the experience of coming as you are, and having a culture around you that will, Stay welcome Oh, yeah, the the culture piece right is is huge Like our our larger culture certainly doesn’t like hold space or feel welcoming to that So like how do we create these communities or spaces in our own lives even within our own homes, right?
Like to our kids or to our spouse come as you are and like really mean that like all parts of you, When you start dating I call that person your representative right the person you send forward.

[20:59] All the best Your representatives like on this date. And so when the representative kind of goes away and it’s like all of you, Mmm, all the messy like are you really?
Okay with that and how do you how do you witness it without trying to change it or or you know?
Manipulate it. And if when someone comes as them whole selves and that feels triggering to you in some way, what is that about? It’s not just about being welcoming and inclusive, but like how being willing to continue to do the work, right? Because somebody’s whole self might be triggering to me.
And like, why? That’s not about them. That’s about something in me, an insecurity or a past relationship or whatever. So like being willing to like, yes, come as you are, and I’m I’m going to show up, continue to do my work over on this so that I can continue to, you know, hold space in the way that I’m claiming I can hold space.
As you say that, I’m just thinking about, so for children, I know that that can be challenging, but it’s easier for me to go, oh, my child’s not trying to be hard, they’re having a hard time.
And I feel like it’s easier to step back.
And in an adult relationship.

[22:17] This is a little bit, I’ll just like, it’s just, it’s a little bit more challenging for me to say, yeah, all parts of you. Um, if some of the parts don’t feel good to some of my parts and then.

[22:31] I appreciate that you changed it a little bit from that. It might not always be welcome.
It might also be like, Ooh, what boundary do I need to be. Yeah. According to myself, if I don’t feel like the capacity to hold all this all the time.
So like what layers of support would I call in?
Right. Which would be another aspect of it is like we were never meant to just do it, in the box of our home.
No, there would be so many layers of support that it would never just be on a couple, to be the only other support for the other one.
And I really think that that would be wildly helpful.
This were another part of the culture of like how many variety of outlets and inlets did we have weaving into our lives that were supportive?
I also think, circling back to like the theme of the podcast, you know, in a relationship, like you might, there’s some ceremony coming together that people generally come to, like whether it’s a marriage ceremony or a hand fasting, whatever it is, there’s some acknowledgement of the fact, that you’ve chosen to lead this life with this person.
And then what is there?

[23:44] Is that the only threshold we ever cross as people choosing to live together?
That’s a hard no. But there’s no other witnessing of the transition, like the loss of a job, or the start of a new job, or the change of a career.
These are all thresholds.
An illness, a birth, whatever it may be, how do we show up and witness these things?
And these are all things that space was held for in other communities, that there was a ritual around, there was a pause and saying, hey, we see you and know that on the other side of this, you’re going to be a different person.
You’re going to be a different couple. So here, let’s acknowledge that and let’s help you across that.
And also here are all these rings of support full of people who have done this and like have something to share, right?
So I like picture rings of support or like hands at your back.
Like I love that someone signed an email to me like that one time and I just was like, yes, you nailed it.
There’s all these people that like I can’t see that have come before me, that have lived this experience and they’re here, like I’m not alone.
So I think that’s a way actually a tool in which I use to like call in support that actually may not be physically present in my family because I live far away or as a culture we don’t acknowledge these things It’s like, OK, I can pause.
And I can feel these hands at my back or these circles of support.

[25:07] These women who have done this before, or these teachers or whoever it may be.
And I can pause and I can have my own moment of ritual.
And I can acknowledge my process.
That I’m in the middle of something that feels hard and big.
And know that on the other side of this, I am someone different.
And so I’m going to be with who I am now in the mess. And then on the other, knowing that you’re stepping up to this threshold.
So I mean, that’s a tool I use, I guess. So beautiful. I love that.
On the 21 Days of Support program that I offer, the majority of it is how do we tap into resources largely other than people or finances?
The bigger resources were like, I would love a babysitter. I would love family here helping out.
I would love someone to fold my laundry. I would love…
What are the other resources? The resource that I just heard you name was a pause, was remembering that other women have done this before you, that in a wider community, people are doing it now. Right.
And probably since you have seen so many births and walked over so many thresholds, I love what you’re saying that you will not be the same person on the other side.
I mean, on the other side of a birth, like my favorite moment was in that, like, you know.

[26:32] And even like the child moving from like into this world, crossing that quite literal threshold, being born.
And then that pause when the new parents are like totally oblivious to the fact that anyone else is around them.
And the look in their eyes is just, you’re forever changed.
In a million ways, you don’t even realize. You’re like, oh, this child has changed me.
But like the journey to that moment, all the stuff in the middle, not the outcome, which is this child, but like what you went through, like whether it was fast or slow or hard or whatever happened during that process, you’re different on the other side of it.
And like, you can see it in people’s eyes. Like it just, it’s, you know, like there’s a reason when we look at like a picture of someone holding a baby from the hospital.
And there, you can tell that they like haven’t slept for days.
They’re just like depleted, like physically, but there’s like a light, right?
There’s like something in their eyes that you can see in the picture.
And there’s like totally other moments in life that that happens, but it’s like a very obvious, there’s a pause and you can see the change in people. And it’s like.

[27:47] Yeah. Leah at Birthroots. I don’t know her last name. Maybe you do.
Deragon, I believe, maybe. Great. Yeah. I remember being in a prenatal class with her and she said, it’s not unusual that as somebody who’s giving birth, she said, if you can talk, you’re not in full on labor yet. So I just remember thinking like, it couldn’t get harder than this. I asked Steve if he could get my pillow and I was like, oh no, I don’t know.
I don’t know how to use words. It might get harder.
And it did. And she said, the moment when the one giving birth yells, I can’t do this. It’s like, that’s the moment that, that version of them dies.
And the next version of them is born. Yeah. And that felt really true for me.
But I also, when I was like really like, I can’t do this.
I thought, now the baby’s got to come because I said, I can’t do this, what?
You walked into the hospital. I was doing like all the things that mean I’m at the last stage.
As you were saying that, describing it, you know, I’m thinking back on every, I’m like a serial business starter.

[29:04] Kind of every, from that very first toe dip one day a week, renting space from somebody else, into opening up like a center for women’s health.
And then ultimately a school, which I’m like shaking my head because it’s still sort of surreal to me.
It has each, it’s like a leveling up experience each time.

[29:27] And every time in the middle of it, I am like, what am I doing?
What have I committed myself to? And there’s no way out.
And I can’t do this.
And on the other side of that, right, is the threshold you’re about to walk across, but it’s also like a shedding of your skin.
And knowing that on the other side of this, life is going to be different.
And I think that is like, yes, there’s physical pain, but that is what it’s like, I can’t do this.
I can’t let go of this version of myself. I know this person and I don’t know the person on the other side of that threshold.
And that terrifies me.
And I don’t know what my life is going. I don’t know like what is my work-life balance going to look like on the other side of that.
That, to me, is what each time feels so scary. Like, yes, I can run around, and I can move furniture, and I can do all these logistical things. I can hire people to help me.
I can outsource. I can use my resources.
The only thing I don’t know is who I am on the other side of this threshold.
And that is what feels.
Hard and scary, and I think stops people a lot of time from taking whatever level of risk, they’re open or available to. You might not know this answer, but why hasn’t it stopped you?

[30:48] Oh my gosh, I don’t know. I follow my curiosity and my curiosity is peaked when I identify a need. And it’s usually a need I identify in my own life first. So, you know, not, not, not being literate in my own body. Okay. I’ll become a midwife and I’ll learn about my own body. And then I’ll realize, well, like other people are obviously have the same lack of information and access that I had. And then it’s, well, the kind of birth I want isn’t available.
Like, where do I get it? Well, I’m going to do it myself. The, you know what I mean? The, the prenatal care or the connection to other women isn’t available, okay, I’ll create that myself.
And then it was, okay, I have a child, and he’s got to go to school. And this one direction that I’ve put her on feels is so out of alignment with who I am, and who she is. And what am I going to do? And thankfully, I probably the only person ever say thankfully, the pandemic came along.
Because it was like a forced pause.
It was a pause. And so that I think gave me the push for like this last kind of big leap.
Because it was like everything, everything I knew.

[32:09] Was turned upside down. And I was like, well, it’s all going to shit anyway. So like, why not just we’ll give it a try. It can’t be worse, but you can’t be worse than what’s, you know what I mean, the alternative. And so it sort of like was a big old permissioning of forced pause. But I don’t know that I would have been able to take myself. And I just, I follow the need. And I follow when when I identify a need or like in a community, like it’s the way my brain works is to like step in and want to solve it.
And it’s often something like I felt myself. So I guess in a way, like in this journey, these little breadcrumbs, like I’m also healing, like the past me didn’t have support or didn’t have access to what I then ultimately create.
To give a little bit of context here. So you went from renting one studio space once a week.

[33:05] To opening a center in the middle of town that has two possible treatment rooms, a little area for tea.
You completely built it out. It’s gorgeous with wallpaper that we love.
And like a whole studio that you then had yoga classes in Yeah. And you rented space upstairs too for other providers for pre-imposed natal providers like PT, as well as psychotherapy.
Yeah. So really like, again, trying to like see the whole person. So like mental health, physical health, spiritual health. I think everything I’ve ever done comes back to that, right? Like how can we be seen as whole people and not this compartmentalization of our experiences, right? Like these things are integrated and I think problems arise when we segment them.
And I got to benefit from that, by the way, I was like, I went in, yeah, when I was having my second child, ritual was there, then, then the pandemic comes, and, I would say a sector that’s hard to be in would have been live music and yoga studios.

[34:18] I know there were many sectors, but so you had essentially a yoga studio as well. And the yoga studio became your micro school. Yeah. I, um, looked at this space. I had a three-year lease that I was like all of four months into. Um, and I like looked at this space and I looked at this kid I had, who was five years old at the time. And I was like, what happens if I put these two things together? You know, like I have this space that was built to hold people was built to feel safe was built to feel what feel welcoming. And like, I don’t know if she’ll learn anything here next year. But she’ll feel safe, she’ll feel held. And like, what else could I want right now where everything feels so uncertain. And then, coincidentally, behind the scenes, I had been working on like a children’s extension of our brand of ritual called called Roots and Ritual.

[35:16] I had all of the branding and imagery and texts, like all of it done already for like what was going, I was going to do, I was going to start out as like a card deck for kids connected to these like grounding rituals.
And so I was like, oh, I’ve got this like children’s brand, essentially.
And I’ve got this space and this kid, and let’s see what happens.
And I’ve got a child. And I’ve got a child, let’s see what happens.
And I was like, I wonder if anyone will be interested.
And within like, I put up like a single page website and in like under a week, there were like six kids and I had hired a teacher and that was in July for like a September start.
And so that year we had six kids, one being my own and we did school in what was the yoga space and it was just magical.
And it was so.

[36:13] It was like an awakening of seeing when children were given space to show up and be who they were, because there was every parent was of the same mindset too. Everyone like entered that program thinking, I just want my child to feel safe. I want them to be around peers. I want them to play.
And so the pressure on me was very low. It was like, I just need these children to be held.
And guess what? They also learned. And I was like, oh, wow. Look at what’s happening here.
They’re playing, and they’re learning, and they’re growing in ways that I would never have predicted.
And it’s also really fun to teach, to be with children in that process and be present.
And when they’re having conflict, to sit with them in it and hold space.
And what I realized is that our children, just like us, but they’re crossing a million tiny thresholds a day.
And there’s all of these opportunities to either witness that experience with them or to kind of dismiss it.

[37:21] Should decide and be like, I don’t have time for this process.
You’re going through it right now because I need to get to the bank or whatever the need or the perceived need is, right?
A lot of times it’s an artificial like perceived need.
And that what I saw was that when you prioritized regulation or witnessing their experience, they just they showed up and opened up in the most beautiful way.
And just made like, it’s like the opportunity possibilities multiplied when they were seen.
Because they opened up even more. They allowed even more of themselves to be seen, to be even more vulnerable.
And it just was like a fantastic year. And so we decided to keep going and do another year and move into a bigger space.
And then that following year, we had 12 students, one of whom was your eldest.
Well, you had 12 students. You opened a bigger space that also then had a preschool connected.
Yes, that was, yes. So that also happened. And it was like, miraculously in our town, especially at this time, properties are nearly impossible to come by.
And you partnered with another woman.

[38:46] I don’t know how it went down. I don’t know if she bought it, you bought it, whatever it is, like there’s a building. There is a building. And there’s a preschool. And then there was K through, was it two last year? And now it’s K through three. Yeah. It’s so selfish. I continue to add a grade each year. My daughter gets older. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that pattern.
It makes sense. And it’s a beautiful school. So over the course of one summer, You took over a space, completely restructured the playground, completely restructured the inside, came up with Forest Fridays.
So you had someone to help, like, to find somebody who would take kids every Friday into the woods or into the community and who would come on Wednesdays to teach them a lesson and then have time to be outside on Fridays, to find another teacher, to find a music teacher.
Sure the thing is with the things that you do from my perspective, they’re not small tasks and I sometimes sit back and of course I have for a long time been in a pretty deep place of sleep deprivation and so when I see you, I’m like, wow, she’s got two kids and.

[40:00] Is and is creating these incredible things following through on vision and whenever I’ve said that to you, you always like I feel like you always come back and say it’s okay like right now, you’re exhausted and that doesn’t have to be right now.
I wasn’t doing this when my child was 18 months old. I was also, I didn’t have a, my children didn’t sleep through the night until they were three years old. So I wasn’t doing it for a really long time.
And it’s so funny to hear this stuff reflected back to me because it’s not, you don’t like sit, I’m not like sitting on it. We’re in the process of growing again and moving into a larger building.

[40:40] But I don’t sit back and think of the end result. It’s like a willingness to continue to take a million small steps forward. And I think there are certainly moments where like I pull them back and I like, look, I actually, I had one about a half hour before we hopped on this call. And I was like, looking at the calendar, I was like, how am I going to move all this furniture? It’s like impossible. And then my husband, who is my grounding, you know, like, if I’m up here and envisioning and things like he always, like, centers me and like, keeps me rooted. And he was like, Well, look, we have this day off and this day off.
And this is how much it costs to rent a U-Haul trailer. And this is what we’re going to do. And I was like, Okay, it is actually possible. It’s physically possible to do what we need to do. But like, mostly, it’s a willingness to continue to take steps forward without not ultimately knowing what’s on the other side, right?

[41:38] When we had this conversation back in October and you were saying, okay, I want to grow this to be K through eight.
And I just need to find a way to find somebody who will help financially support this venture.
So we can do this thing.
I go, how are you going to learn how to do that? And you’re like, well, I’m going to take a class from five 30 on Thursdays.
It’s like, well, I’m going to, you know, be a mother and run this school and I’m going to take this class and just, and then the next thing I know, I’m sure it doesn’t happen this easily.
It’s like when someone’s pregnant, it’s like, wow, that was so fast, but on the personal side, it’s not that fast. The next thing I know, there’s an email of like, we have this, is it a 4,000 square foot building?
Yeah. Uh-huh. Again, in a town that’s very hard to find space, that, you know, someone did come through and say, like, I want to support this mission. And now you’re growing into a bigger space and, the services that you provide the kids are going to be even more well-rounded.
And it was fun because when we were talking about in October, it was, again, it was like you’re, you’re taking a million small steps and not knowing, like without knowing that a space will actually come about.
Right, so it’s like, there’s like two parts. It’s like one, having faith or believing in what you’re doing.

[43:04] And two, the word when you were like saying that was, you have to be a bit audacious.

[43:12] Have some audacity to, I cold emailed somebody and asked them to buy a very expensive property.
And they did. And that would never have happened if I had overthought it.
And trust me, I overthink plenty.
But in that moment, I was like, I am going to send this one line email to this person and be like, here’s this opportunity, what do you think?
But it was somebody I had developed a relationship with.
By taking a million small steps, by looking at properties that were wrong.

[43:47] By having conversations and making connections and being vulnerable and saying, this is what I’m doing and this is my dream, the same way that I did to you, said to you in October, is I’m going to say this thing and the person on the other side of this is likely going to think, how are you going to do that? But you just speak it into existence almost. And I’m not saying, throw your hands up and the universe will provide because I firmly believe like the universe does provide but you have to on your side take those steps otherwise you know like nothing’s going to fall into your lap it’s like putting yourselves in the situation in the relationships in the process in the middle to circle back to the middle and the mess like you have to be be in it and continue to move forward and be a little audacious you know but no there’s no time for like who am I to be asking this question, right? Otherwise you’ll get stuck in that, whatever, forever.
You just ask for the things. What’s the worst that can happen? If you ask for them and someone says, no, you’re no worse than you were before. Right. I so appreciate that, the audacity.

[44:56] And I don’t know if this is a change in you over time or if it’s simply that the space is bigger, But I do remember when you were moving into Roots at Ledgemere, so this would be the second year of Roots, the second and third year, there was a lot to be done.
And I think I had checked in like, would you need any help? Is there anything I could do?
And I don’t know if you received other help, but I think you had it in some ways.
And then this last email was like, this is a big move.
Maybe we could have a community party and this could be a community effort.
And I was just so appreciative of that, because think of…

[45:40] I feel like it builds so much meaning for people when they’re able to give back to the person who gives to them so much or able to be a part of something that’s so important to their family’s life. It’s empowering and it grows this blanket that’s been woven by mutual support and cooperation, saying, yes, I believe in this vision. Yes, I want to give my time to it. Yes, I want to give of my sweat equity to this.
And of course, I know there needs to be financial support too, but I noticed that in the letter. And I was like, oh, how awesome that that’s an option.
It made me so uncomfortable to write that.
It’s so much easier for me to like say, I’m doing this thing that’s huge and great.
This is what I’m doing. Than to say, might you want to come help me assemble a table?
Could you donate your time to this cause or this vision? And it is definitely a change over time, but like as things grow, and I think what I realized about this school is that I often talk about it in terms of we, because even though it’s like me, I’m the only person on the other side of the email.

[46:53] It’s beyond me at this point, like it’s growing beyond me.
And it’s not just for me, It’s not just, it’s not my career.
It’s not just my kid, child school. Like it’s beyond me. And I know you’ll probably be like, you’re crazy, but I have plans beyond this plan.
Do you think I’m surprised when you say that? You know, and so it’s bigger than me and it feels right to call in other people.
And really it’s like another layer of walking your talk is that like, I’m always talking about calling in layers of support. I hear you use that language, but that building those rings of support so that you have other people around you.
And I can’t do this next step alone. I just, I can’t. I have a lot of resources, but I don’t have enough to do it by myself.
And that’s definitely was a place like, in that very long snow day email, it was, there were like two lines that made me uncomfortable and it was like where I asked, where I implied I might need help.
And those are the two lines that excited me the most.
That’s amazing.

[48:01] How great, we could go help build tables. It’s not the ask that’s scary.
It’s the idea that no one might show up.
That there’s no one, like if you put the ask out there. If you say, witness this threshold, walk across this threshold with me, and no one’s there, what does that mean for that journey, for that process, whatever it is?
So I guess like two lines, but that’s like so deep, right?
Yeah.
And like, thank you for noticing it. It was very uncomfortable for me to put that in there.
I’m glad I could bring up the most comfortable two lines.
I didn’t anticipate being comfortable today while we talked. So that was fun.

[48:43] So I’m wondering, as time is closing up, if you want to say a word or two about roots and if there’s anything the listeners, like if there’s any way that.

[48:53] If there are any more layers of support or rings of support that you would want to ask for.
Yeah, we’ve touched on what Roots is, and I think I’ve given a little bit of an idea of who I am.
But in its next stage, where it’s going is Roots is a K through six independent micro school in Southern Maine.
We’re a place-based education model, which means that our goal is to connect students to the community, to the land, to the practices of the people who’ve came before us in the same area, and to integrate that into their education, to have what they’re experiencing out in the forest be what’s informing their math and their literacy, to have them feel connection to place.
We believe, I believe, that connection to place leads to connection to self, the development of identity, and that when we, when we understand our own true north, our own identity, we’re better able to connect to others. And so, yes, we’re teaching them all the things, we’re checking all the boxes, education-wise, they’re learning to read and multiply and do all of those things.
But I think what makes us different is that they’re also learning about who they are. And so, So we prior in an attempt to help them with that, prioritize things that maybe other places don’t.

[50:16] Nervous system regulation, if they need to move, what type of sensory input do they need, more of, do they need less of, so really honoring the whole child in the process, and that the day is really centered around what they show up at the gate meeting.

[50:35] And so if I were to call in support beyond the physical request to build tables and that sort of thing. As you mentioned, it does take financial resources and I think we will have to do some fundraising in order to build the outside space that supports the type of education that we do.
We’d also love to have a van to connect people, the kids, the places around us. Right now, we rely a lot on, you know, teachers will drive kids to the library or to different places or parents will have been wonderful and get their kids to where they need to be. But I think having our own transportation would open up so many doors for us. So that’s if I never thought I’d dream of a van, but here I am dreaming of a van. So if people were to make a donation, do they go to a GoFundMe or do they just, is it just a check to roots?
Certainly write a check to roots. One thing that is pretty cool is that we’ve partnered with.

[51:32] We have a fiscal sponsor who is a 501c3, which means that any donation to us is tax deductible.
So that you can donate to us through them. So we’re mission aligned and so they help make sure that we’re using the funds in ways that are in line with non-profit usage, but it’s a way to kind of do some good and also receive a tax benefit. Who doesn’t want that? So that information, I can make sure it’s up on our website.
Amazing. Yeah, we can put those links at the end here. And I want to say that my experience with my daughter there is, you know, last year as she was learning to read and write, I just noticed how much her body had to like sway back and forth. And one night she was reading and she was like, doing a headstand. And I was like, how are you? Like what? And I really appreciated at the parent-teacher meeting, how much you guys saw Sophia as a whole being. Like, yeah, she’s, she takes the time she takes until it clicks for her. And at the same time, we see her in these social settings and these things are happening. And sometimes we see her in the garden meditating. And sometimes we see her really embodying the music as she sings.
And as you guys were reflecting back on her, I was like, wow, she’s in a place where all parts of her are seen.

[53:01] And it’s not necessarily prioritizing one thing over the other, but really seeing her as a whole person.
And that has been so great for us.
Well, it’s, I mean, I think the biggest honor or like privilege is when another parent trusts you with their child.
So thank you for, thank you for trusting us.
I can have all the ideas in the world, but again, if like nobody shows up, what good are they?
Before this conversation, I was saying to Jackie, like, oh, I went on the Roots website to read a little bit about your background.
And I said, most parents probably would have done that before signing your kid up for school.
But I had the pleasure of also knowing Jackie outside of school.
And then Sophia’s other first grade teacher also happened to be a dear friend and an amazing human.
And so it was just such a no-brainer for us.
We feel so lucky to be able to attend. We’re lucky to have you.
Thank you so much. Yeah, this has been my pleasure.

[53:59] Music.

[54:11] Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support.
It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com.
And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently it’s wildly useful.
So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom, subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or two.
If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine.
I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.

[54:52] Music.