The Fire They Tried To Quiet

The grandmothers are particularly present in this season.

This week, the storm arrived in the middle of an ordinary conversation. Not dramatically. The way the grandmothers always work in the smallest moment. A face. A silence. The music turned up.

And I sat there and recognized something older than me moving through my chest. The wound that was passed down without words. The belief that your fire makes you unwantable.

This episode is about that fire. Where it came from. Why we learned to turn it down. And what this season of life, perimenopause, the storm, the grandmothers arriving loud is asking us to do instead.

After photographing and interviewing over 2,000 women from age 14 to 101 for my project Real Beauty: Uncovered, I witnessed something I couldn't unfind: every decade carries its own distinct worldview about worth, about fire, about who gets to take up space. The maiden years. The threshold years. And then — the years where the body stops cooperating with the performance and calls forward the woman who is done asking permission.

That is the abuelita. The elder woman. The one your grandmothers were always trying to become.

In this episode:

• What 2,000 women across every decade taught me about how we carry our fire — and when we finally stop turning it down
• The Mapuche understanding of the chuchu, kuku, and papay — and why the grandmothers are not behind us, they are moving through us
• Why perimenopause is not a medical inconvenience — it is an initiation
• The wound that gets passed down through silence — and how to finally see it clearly enough to set it down
• A Grandmother Fire Ceremony three flames, for the women who came before you, the belief you inherited, and the fire that is yours to carry forward

What you'll need for the ceremony: A candle if you have one. Your hands on your heart. Your voice even a whisper. If you didn't have a relationship with your grandmother, that is okay. We are working with the invisible. The energy of the grandmother exists in you regardless of whether you ever sat at her table.

This episode is for you if you have ever turned yourself down so someone else could be more comfortable. If you felt your fire rise and then watched yourself quiet it. If you are somewhere in the threshold years and something in your body is burning away what no longer fits.

The grandmothers are here. They have been waiting.

One question to carry this week: Where am I still turning down my own fire so someone else is more comfortable?

Free guide: Slow Living as a Way Home: A Guide to Remembering Your Natural Rhythm → https://antupewma.kit.com/3f81139283

Scottish Highlands Retreat, June 17–24, 2026 — seven days of ceremony, slowness, and the land. The grandmothers are loud there too. Learn More Here.