Episode 1: What are we doing here?

Existing Together podcast is building a culture of belonging, to help us feel less isolated while living on planet earth. Join me, Sarah Fontaine, as we ask questions together about the complexities and confusions of being a person.

In this first episode, I asked my sister Katherine Fontaine to join me to talk about what I’m doing in this new podcast zone. I also ask Katherine questions about her intuition and how it shows up in her chart and life. (See her fascinating take on building and construction at @actuallydesignbuild and actuallydesignbuild.com.)

Episodes come out on Mondays while in season.

Transcript:

[0:14] This podcast exist to build a culture of belonging to help us feel less isolated while living on planet Earth we're asking questions together about the complexities and confusions of being a person.

[0:27] We cover spirituality politics parenting astrology whiteness and especially the spaces where these overlap.

[0:35] Music.

[0:46] It's just going to be like an hour of us kind of laughing like what's going on.

[0:52] Okay I'm here on Zoom with my sister we live two blocks away but we're on Zoom to record this and I asked her for her help because I'm having this sort of block about the first episode or just feels challenging I feel like there's so many ideas and anyway—so I'm welcoming my sister Katherine Fontaine Virgo Earth sign magic person and architect and contractor here with me to just talk about the podcast.

Hi Kev! I also call her Kev by the way just a nickname or Auntie so you can know that.

Katherine: Hi

Sarah: Thanks for coming to do this with me.

Katherine: I mean this is a real podcast so we just need to have that energy about it.

Let's get rid of the block. It just makes sense in my mind it feels like the kind of the perfect evolution of what you've been doing which is the astrology piece and the writing and Interviewing of people that you've been doing for a long time and this is like a new medium but with all those same elements that are there.

Sarah: That's great for people who don't know my sister and I used to, we used to publish a magazine together called actually people and we did events together, but what else did we do? We did so many things for a period of time in our lives when we were had a different arrangement of work and family.

Katherine: Yeah we've published a lot of like everything was kind of more print, actual paper print publishing writing and drawings and all sorts of different things, versions of print but then hosting events, like bring all those things together. Yeah really just trying to make the event we wanted to go to. Again it's like I think maybe what we've been trying to do ever since it was like let's make the job we want, let's make the event we want, let's make the thing we want to read.

Sarah: Yeah and that thank you for saying that because that is exactly still my business model today, my very unprofessional one with existing together is having a desire for something or a need for something and then wanting to create it, not that it can really be that for me necessarily, but just bet that, kind of trusting that there's some some other people who maybe want that thing too. And the other thing that happened with us doing all of that—it felt like it was so much more before the time where social media is saturating everything and that's another reason I'm excited about this, is just to have a space that I can have conversations and community and interactions that are not on social media even though I am there sometimes too. But it feels like in so many ways like maybe a lot of that might not have even happened.

[3:38] In this era I mean it doesn't now because of many things but I think part of it is social media like a lot of that kind of impulse to share in the way that we were sharing gets fulfilled—less fulfilled I think—but a little bit fulfilled through social media and so then there's something missing anyway and I don't want the whole thing to be about that, but yeah I am excited about the podcast in that regard.

Katherine: And I was thinking about that like I feel like a lot of those projects came out of the whole joke not joke of like we just want to ask questions, which is so much of your current existing together project, and the style of your writing has always been like, I don't have answers here but I'm studying thinking about these things and asking these questions so join me in that process. And that's why I feel like the podcast makes a lot of sense in my mind as a different iteration of that same thing, which is bring people into “What are these questions?” And we're thinking about inviting community where it is now and finding community that have those same questions,

Sarah: yeah thank you, that's good.

[4:52] Sarah: Okay so maybe I'll just share some of the specific things that I'm thinking about that I want to address or have it be kind of threads throughout the podcast, and also just to go back to that thing you said about we were creating events that we want to create know we want to go to—

Katherine: Events that we want to attend.

Sarah: Hahaha This is another thing for people listening that you can know—I say shit like that all the time and then Katherine just actually says what I meant it's very generous and slightly embarrassing but I'm grateful that you're here because now people will know what that meant.

Sarah: Okay so the first thing is just that I've had this feeling, this desire, of been listening to podcast especially when I take my child for a walk for his nap. There's this feeling that I've been having that I want to have when I listen to a podcast that sometimes I can kind of touch, but I don't know if it's possible to even know if anyone else could have this feeling. I'm making this podcast so I'm inside of it so I can't know that but it's just this feeling of I mean like communion are belonging or….something like that. Belonging is the word that comes to mind and I don't know if a podcast can do that. Usually I have ambitions or sort of vague feelings like that about something that I want to do that is like—is it even possible to do this in this space—I have no idea, but that's the feeling I want so that's what I'm going for and so that was sort of the impetus for this. Just this feeling that I want to have when I'm on a walk listening to a podcast so we'll see if anybody,

even wants that and or has that when they listen to this and then kind of from that feeling was like okay what does that look like? I also love thinking about the form of whatever medium that I'm working in, so I love the idea of the podcast season as a form, and so that's sort of just how it appeared to me as a question that we're asking through the whole season. Asking different people to kind of like give their take on it so the first one for this season is “What is intuition and what gets in the way of it or what interferes with it?” This is feels like a big relevant question for existing together in astrology readings especially. People ask about that all the time, I think about it a lot, it's like what role does it have in a reading what role does it have in our future and how we make decisions—all those things. So that's that's the question and then there's just some threads that I was saying I wanted to talk about. These are things that I find myself talking about a lot or that are interests ongoing concerns.

One of those is astrology and this is another goal of the podcast which you're always talking about with me is like I don't talk about astrology as much as I think I should in some public way. I do readings one-on-one with people or a couple people but then talking about it in a more general way I'm just less interested in that or it really comes alive for me when I'm talking to individual or a few people.

[7:36] Sarah: And there's a lot of people doing that that work of talking generally about astrology like what's happening in the sky that kind of thing really well and that's not as much of my inspiration or I think what I'm as good at but I'm excited to alk about it a little bit more and especially in individual cases with people I'm interviewing and where I can just even point out some of the things about their their astrology

chart, and then also ask them you know how they see it or how they experience it depending on their knowledge of astrology. That's one of the goals.

[8:07] Sarah: And then another one is I'm a parent as people probably know of a three-year-old and I want I talk about parenting and I want to ask people about parenting and so that may or may not be relevant to everyone. Although I do think that and I'm interested in the places where parenting, relates to everyone, or you know is relevant to everyone, in terms of their own re-parenting themselves and just thinking about themselves in a relationship with their parents and with children in general.

[8:37] I think that the ways that our society breaks down so much of the time is we’re separate and more separate when we become parents and I think that that's to everyone's detriment. Not just to be with more generations in general ,so that's part of just having it be a part of this. But it's not like specifically a parenting podcast but that will come up.

Katherine: I want to say, when I hear “parenting,” there can be this kind of immediate like ,oh I'm checking out because I’m not a parent or whatever it is, and I feel like again how the podcast in my mind is the continuation of different writing you have whether that's on social media or all the different places and that's been

because you're making these connections. What I see is you're making these connections all the time of like where are the overlaps in all of those things.

Sarah: Yeah thank you for pointing that out because I think that that is such an interest of mine and,

just like how all these things relate that's always what I'm thinking about which I think contributes to my sense of overwhelm sometimes. Like in this instance of this episode where it's like it also connected how do I even describe it. It's everything it's like these 45 questions and so getting to that place of like—this is the question for this period of time—

Katherine: I think it is such a good approach or you know a nice way to, a nice starting point.

[9:51] Sarah: God yeah and it’s been such a tool an essential tool for me because it's always how I experience things—this feeling of there's so much it's all related and then just like how to break it down. Just like yeah this season or this time you know that the structures really help. For an astrology note just to bring it in right now, have a lot of air in my chart and I think this is an air thing where it's like it really loves making connections and wants everything to be connected but then there's this feeling of like it can kind of just get abstract or kind of lost in the ideas and not bringing them down to earth like an earth person, like you to help me with! Like how do you apply it or how does it show up or what does it actually look like mmm so…..

Sarah: One of the other threads is politics and to me this is really intertwined with spirituality or I kind of use those words in similar ways and what I mean by politics just how one lives like one’s… how do I even describe that? Maybe ethics, but also it's a bigger than that like some sense of the way that the political is personal in the personal is political and just not having this disconnect between the public and the private in the sense of,

how we're living and how we're thinking about how we're living. Making those connections and I think that that's where it feels really related to spirituality for me because it's like… Spirituality that has to be for it to be like truly healing or truly hopeful it has to be really grounded in the every day, it has to be really grounded in

what is our actual lives, so we're not bypassing or skipping over or deluding ourselves. All that feels really connected to whiteness and that's another piece of that I want to be talking about through the whole podcast whiteness as sort of a synonym of for white supremacy or just this delusion of the invention of whiteness like, the way that that's been you know a constructed thing that has caused so much damage, I see that through that lens all the time and think about our ancestry and our family level as so many of our pathologies and struggles are related to that, or that's a thread of them—this unconscious violence and harm of whiteness.

That's something that I just want to be bringing in and making a space where it's like it's not a podcast specifically about that only. But that's such a pervasive part of things especially in healing and wellness and culture I think, that it's such an invisible piece or often invisible piece of the way that we bypass or sort of you know ignore things. So it just feels to me like I can't do much, especially a podcast, without that just being a part of it. We'll be talking about that and especially in this season specifically, the ways that whiteness interferes with Intuition or distorts Intuition or you know for everyone for four people, and different races different ways. Anyway those are some of the other things yeah.

[12:54] Katherine: I mean it's funny to hear you talk about that because it's like getting to a place of one question or one theme, and then you're bringing in these super big concepts which I agree kind of have to be part of it mmm but it's like going back to that—going from one question to bring in everything—

Sarah: Yeah I know well I'm going a little bit back and forth right now in my descriptions because it's like I'm thinking about things that I just want to be threads throughout, however long the podcast lasts, and then the question is of this season.

[13:38] Music.

[13:49] Sarah: One of my ongoing pieces that feels really important in my life is just how we culturally, societally, relate to children in general, and that was the case before I was a parent. And that continues of course because I'm a parent, but feels so much bigger than that. I'm so invested in how we treat children, because there's this weird separation that we think children aren’t people. We forget like—when do they become a person? There's this disconnect and I think that that shows up and how so many people talk to kids or sort of just dismiss them, or don't even register the humanity of kids in some subtle ways. It's not like they're being jerks on purpose usually, but it's just this feeling of—do you even notice what you're saying, or would you say this to another adult? That's another piece where it's about the parenting but it's also bringing awareness, and thinking together with people about how are we relating to children. With that sort of consciousness in mind that, if we're lucky we'll be all the ages, all of us are children, if we get that far. Just trying to kind of dissolve some of that differentiation to bring more humanity and a sense of belonging and how are relating to people.

I'm interested in the ways that that sort of parenting lens or angle can invite that curiosity and questioning in that realm.

Katherine: yeah it's interesting you say that because when you were talking about the parenting piece earlier I almost kind of interrupted to say. that I'm not a parent and of course I'm around you all the time yeah, but having conversations with you about parenting has been so, I don't know what the right word is revealing or something for myself even. Obviously how I interact with kids, in particular your kid, but also, there is so much connection I think, when you start actually analyzing that we are thinking about it a little bit it, brings up lots of like, how do I interact with other adults and all different ages. I think that's what I was trying to say earlier— there's these ways in which maybe you're talking about a really specific subject like parenting, but then the way then I'm engaging with you when you're talking or writing or whatever medium you're using, I feel just as part of that conversation as anybody else that would be engaging with that, even though I'm not a parent.

Sarah: That's good! The other thing I just occurring to me to say something about is, picking guests or how that happens, the editorial decisions I’m making here. It Is definitely mostly an intuitive process just to go back to that word. This connects to the kind of things that we've done together, coming from this curiosity of and love of people. And seeing something or someone and being like, Oh I want that I want there to be more space for that. Some of the people don't have as much of a public-facing life, and I'm excited for them to have a space in this podcast to share. And some people do really have a public facing life, but again I'm excited for the podcast as a form, as different from social media, where it's more time to have a conversation and have there be longer sentences, a longer attention span on something so that we can go a little bit deeper.

And that's where the question comes in as an organizing principle, and then it's like, oh who are the people

who can do this, first of all—who are willing—and then who I'm interested in like oh yeah, I think that person would really have something to say about that. Something that I want to hear, and I want to invite whoever might listen to this to hear this person's take on intuition and how they relate to that and how that shows up.

So that's sort of the thinking about who who who I'm inviting to talk, I mean it's so connected to the publishing work we used to do, that part of the process.

Katherine: Yeah, I feel like the joy of that work was like wait we met this person, we had this conversation, it was so interesting, we have to invite other people to see also why this is so interesting or what they have to say. And that has nothing to do with who is the most public or who has the biggest following on instagram or whatever, the thing is—oh wait no, this, somebody else has to hear or see this person also.

[18:24] Sarah: Yeah and I really feel like so much of my work the last few years has been with Existing Together—I mean it is collaborative in the sense that I'm meeting with people all the time and that feels collaborative, but not in the same way. And I really missed that like that feeling that we had doing that. And getting to celebrate and just give people space to share their wisdom and their humor and all the things. I'm excited for this for that reason, feeling like I really miss that. It’s probably like the most fun fulfilling thing to me is to ask questions and get the sense that other people get to hear what they're saying. And so along those lines I feel like maybe even I should ask you about your life, which I didn't tell you I was gonna do this… But yeah, what do you think intuition is do you even feel like It's a thing that you think about, or use, or like, where does it show up in your life?

Katherine: I mean that's such a big question for some reason but I mean—

Sarah: It's impossible—this is the thing, as soon as I'm asking the people I think, this is so unfair because I have no idea what it is! That's another thing I like to do

Katherine: yeah yeah yeah I think that the only place that immediately comes to mind is just this kind of intuitive read on people. Particularly in my work just because that's the time I'm engaging with people I don't know all the time and often times having an immediate intuitive feeling of like, okay this is how this is going to go, or, this is going to be good ,or these are going to be the hard places. And hopefully less now, but oftentimes kind of shutting that down, or ignoring that, and then coming back to it later, with this realization of oh I felt that, and kind of knew that at the beginning, and now I’m watch this play out in whatever dynamic I have with somebody. So I yeah that intuition definitely feels like something that I'm feeling or thinking about is present in in those kind of interactions with new people, but otherwise I don't really identify with that word. You know I've watched, my wife for instance, make kind of business decisions or ways in which you move through the world, it feels like almost from this intuitive place, and so confusing to me. When I'm making any decisions I'm like, where are the facts, where are the spreadsheets, or how can I got to sit here and do this work to get to this answer or something. It yeah it doesn't feel as pervasive to me in my life. But definitely with a feeling around people, feels very much intuitive and important, and like the more I listen to that sense of that feeling, the better the outcome seems to be. y

Sarah: Yeah god I mean it's just making me think about so much of our childhood things, and and also you and Dalia (Katherine’s wife), and there's differences and stuff, but just to bring in the astrology again, Katherine has a lot of Earth in her chart and so, that makes a lot of sense to me especially as a Virgo. Looking at the numbers, or being like how do I analyze this in a mental way, in a tangible way, so I can make a decision. But then more socially there's this intuitive sense, and that I would say is like connected to having Scorpio in your chart, being able to kind of tell, to get a sense of people. But yeah, how do you make big decisions in your life, do you feel like intuition is a part of that or would you not see use that word to describe it?

I think in the moment I would not use that word to describe it, but in hindsight looking back I'm like, oh I had a sense there then this would work, yeah. The way that I give myself permission to make a big decision, a big change or whatever is happening my life, is by getting to like the most the tiniest detail of it like okay, I'm going to do this tiny thing, and I think Intuitively or deep down somewhere I know, then that's like the first teeny step to the big decision or big change or anything like that. But I can't kind of like zoom out to that scale and just have a feeling and go with it. I have to find another way, and yeah, even though the outcome might be the same, if that makes sense.

[22:46] Sarah: Yeah that's the totally it's a perfect description I think of like your Chart and all of your gifts and it makes so much sense. The other question I have is, what do you think gets in the way of it, when you're talking about that sense that you have with people where you're like, oh I have this read of something and then later I was like oh I was right, but I didn't listen or something like that. Not listening—what do you think that is from or can you trace that at all?

Katherine: The tracing feels hard—I just had this the last few days with work, not to get into any details, but had this experience where I had this intuitive feeling about this person many many months ago. And didn't really have any confirmation that it was going to be this difficult exchange. And in my head I kept saying, you're just being dramatic, like whatever that feeling that this is going to be hard, or this is going to be difficult, you're just being dramatic. That's not how it's going to go with this person, so that's what the voice says when I'm ignoring the intuition. Then it proved itself to be right, it was a very challenging interaction, and I was thinking, why didn't I—I knew this all along. I don't know what how to trace that, or what that means. The person in my head saying you're just being dramatic maybe it's just like, my intuition is to kind of keep the peace at all times and don't rock the boat, and everybody is like coming to the table with the same intentions I am, it's all fine, and if I think anything other than that I'm being dramatic or, not giving people the benefit of the doubt or whatever. Not that this always has to be a negative read on somebody, but yeah that's just example that I'm using. Yeah so so to like listen to that intuitive voice maybe sometimes would like rock the boat more or there would be discomfort or you know some something like that and then.

Later being like well, I should have, if I just listened to that intuition, maybe I could have taken a different path to this point versus kind of trying to shut it down in my mind.

Sarah: Just as astrology nerd moment, it really feels like what you're describing could also be described through this the combination astrologically of Libra and Scorpio so I think the Libra part is so interested in keeping the peace, and being diplomatic, and making sure everybody's happy and is okay and it’s almost offended if you assume someone's behavior has a negative motivation or something. It really just wants to see the best, and the pleasant. And then the Scorpio part is like, but I can see under the surface and I know. I'm intuitively sensing something's not right. It’s not verbal right, it's not mental. The Libra is very mental and and processes and understands the world through thinking, and the the Scorpio is through feeling.

There is this tension there, between those two things, so there's this voice that’s like, you're being dramatic and then there's this voice that's like, that's underneath language really, but that's kind of giving you this sense of, something you know. And culturally there's such an emphasis on the air and the Earth in terms of what we prioritize and listen to and count as real. Like there's no specific way I can point it out, so it must be that I'm just being “crazy,” or must be me right, it must be, which is also—there's so much family stuff in there, and so much societal stuff, and being raised as a girl in all that.

Katherine: Yeah yeah.

Sarah: Anyway thank you for sharing all that a super interesting and I'm excited to like hear more about other people, and perhaps the ways that people listening can reflect on their own process of what their relationship to intuition is.

Katherine: Yeah and I know I always say this to you, and then laugh when you're like I'll try to bring some astrology into it, like you have astrology business so let's hope there's some astrology in there. But that's what I'm excited about to listen to too, because when you give like what you just gave, talking about me those little quick references to astrology, to me it's just been such—I've yelled about this before, just been so helpful. Because for so long, which I think is maybe also, being young, was just like everyone orients to the world the same way I do, right? These are the the ways in which we all have decided to move through together, right—and then astrology is one way of looking at some filter of how people approach things differently. Or, so many ways in which their viewing and orienting to the world that are different than me, that has been so helpful in my life. Rather than like oh my partner's doing this thing which is, maliciously against the way that things should be done, and then realizing like oh no absolutely not, that's just the way that she moves in the world. So that piece I'm just excited for you to not totally lose the astrology piece, to keep bringing that in, because it is very interesting to me, and so helpful, even just hearing you talk about it with other people has been very life-changing for me.

Sarah: Yeah that's cool. I was thinking about that with the water people the Pisces in our lives and, I think to somebody who is a water person—the intuition feels like the most—I don't know if they would use that word right, but it feels like the most real thing.

Katherine: Mmm.

Sarah: And maybe there is a need for numbers or something, but that's more of a leading piece. Then the other things are like, well you just figure those out or something, but it's so foreign or so different feeling yeah,

when you have a lot of Earth but then that's like why you end up in close relationships with people who are different. So you can learn about that.

I don't really think I have anything else at the moment, do you feel like there's anything else you want to say or ask…

Katherine: No, just very excited.

Sarah: Thank you thank supportive sister and doing this with me.

As an aside, this was not the purpose of this at all, but I do want to share that Katherine has a business and she shares about it on instagram, and her business is called Actually Design Build. I just find it really interesting on so many levels, even if you're not interested in building, she talks about the social dynamics and gender and race and a lot of things on there ,so feel free to check that out if you want.

Katherine: thanks for the plug hahaha.

[29:17] Music.

Sarah: Thanks for listening to Existing Together, you can find resources and links in the show notes at existingtogether.com slash podcast or wherever you are listening to this. If you did experience any sense of belonging or connection to yourself or others while listening to this podcast I invite you to subscribe rate and review it, in apple podcasts or spotify. Those verbs are they actions that help me share this conversation and I thank you in advance for doing them. If you're interested in exploring the themes of this podcast more deeply with me you can learn about the astrology readings and group circles I offer at existing together.com.

Thanks for existing here together on the planet with me.