An Interview with Priestess Deepshikha Sairam How moving beyond fear and connecting with your intuition helps every area of your life. Are you someone who is drawn to growth, transformation, and living your most authentic, soulful life? If so, you’re going to LOVE this week’s guest.  Her name is Deepshikha Sairam, and she’s a Priestess of the […]

An Interview with Sam Gleaves This week I’m continuing my chat with musician/songwriter/educator/Appalachian Artivist Sam Gleaves about a bevy of subjects dear to our hearts and our work in Kentucky and beyond. He talks about how his work with cultural organizations such as the Appalshop, The Highlander Center, and Berea College have deepened his activism […]

An Interview with Sam Gleaves Part 1 Our interview guest for this week is multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, and Appalachian Music Professor Sam Gleaves, who was born and raised in Wytheville, Virginia. Rooted in Appalachian sounds, Gleaves’ songwriting sings of contemporary rural life and social issues. In 2015, Gleaves collaborated with Grammy-winning producer Cathy Fink and […]

Change Your Mind to Change the World Whether or not you believe that our thoughts create our reality, I think we can all acknowledge that our attitudes and habitual thoughts can affect our quality of life. I have had a lifelong fascination with the ways that our everyday thoughts, especially the ones we think over […]

(And Why I Love Them!) This was a hard episode to record, because there are SO MANY songs I love.And, full disclosure, this list might vary on any given day–just as yours likely would! Some of these you will likely have heard, and I hope that others will be a delightful discovery.I tried not to […]

How I Gave Up and Found Love I love a good love story, so I decided to share the improbable story of how I met my true companion a bit later in life. (Even though we’d met as kids when my search for baklava in a town we’d both just moved to landed me in […]

Growing Up Dancing in Appalachia So many dances in my childhood began with the caller shouting, “All join hands and circle to the left…!”The community of loving hearts and lively music that I grew up in anchored my love of the art forms, and I enjoyed sharing with you some of the elements of how […]

Appalachian Herbalist Andrew Bentley (Part 2) In this episode, I interview longtime friend and accomplished Appalachian Clinical Herbalist Andrew Bentley of Lee County, Kentucky. This is part two of two, where he shares more about what it’s like to visit his clinic or have a tele-health appointment, opens up about projects on the horizon, and […]

Appalachian Herbalist Andrew Bentley (Part 1) In this episode, I interview longtime friend an accomplished Appalachian Clinical Herbalist Andrew Bentley of Lee County, Kentucky.This is part one of two, where he shares his earliest experiences learning about herbs from his Irish-American family, and talks about his childhood in Appalachia. You’ll learn about all the components […]

Flatfooting & Clogging & Bluegrass & Old-Time As an artist who performs traditional Appalachian music and dance, I get lots of questions about the styles of music and dance that I play.“You play banjo–does that mean you play bluegrass?”“What’s the difference between flatfooting and clogging?”And, quite often, “Will you play Dueling Banjos?” In this episode, […]