Episode 222

Choosing Freedom with Catherine Bonadin

Cat Bonandin is known as the founder of The Homestead Guru website, where Lily Forester and others share articles about how to grow and cook food, and take more control over one’s own sovereignty. Cat is also recognized for her work as the organizer of Anarchapulco 2021, and likely future years as well.

In this interview, Cat tells us the story of coming to the realization that she has a toxic environment in her marriage, her business, and personal boundaries. She had a health crisis in the form of a brown recluse spider bite, and with the change in the family dynamic, she started to see that, perhaps she had been trying to be a mother to everyone.

Eventually a friend perceived the situation and offered to lend Cat the money to go to Peru and meet Grandmother Ayahuasca. Seeing herself as a child with an unusual health condition, treated by a barbaric medical practice – bound with a bar to correct her pigeon feet – she noted that, perhaps being bound at a young age had led her to seek freedom in all kinds of external ways. Finally she decided to look inside for freedom.

Content warning: shamanic substances