What I experienced and I'm sure what you experienced with your mom's loss and

getting pregnant with Nixi shortly thereafter is how intertwined the connection of

birth and death are. Those experiences are so, they're so linked in a really

beautiful and spooky and magical way, I think.

Hello and welcome.

I am Amber Magnolia Hill, and this is Medicine Stories, where we are exploring what it is to be

human upon the earth through interviews that center on ancestry, herbalism, myth, mind, and magic.

And sometimes we dive into motherhood as well,

as in today's podcast, interview with Alela Diane and music,

Myth Mind Magic, Motherhood, and music.

Aleila and I talk about her unique name, her feral childhood and her deeply rooted

familial musical inheritance. The Painful Life Experience rooted familial

the painful life experiences that led her to start making her own music

songs that come in dreams or that contain

premonitions or for knowledge of the future.

And then we move into talking about motherhood

and the intersection of motherhood and work and creativity.

We talk about touring as a mom, taking them with and leaving them home.

And our experiences of weaning our daughters.

We both have two girls.

And Lila tells the whole story of how she almost lost her life, bringing her second daughter into the world, giving her second daughter her life. And then we close with a little story about how she knew when her grandmother had passed, even though she was an ocean away.

She had the sense that it happened.

...