Nitsa Citrine shares her journey of transforming her path from living in a state of survival mode to turning her creative projects and passions into work on this episode of Tub Talks. Nitsa chronicles her experience of building an herbal supplement brand: from landing the first organic market accounts to growing a social media presence and direct-to-consumer business. She enlightens us to how life and death cycles are all a part of growing businesses and ourselves. Nitsa is also my earliest friend and the first inspirational feminine entrepreneur and creative director I looked up to. So please, take a seat in the bath with Nitsa Citrine and me, and our stories of Esalen childhood.

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In the fourth generation of a Big Sur family, Emily Birmingham knows her experience of growing up in Big Sur deeply and, specifically the culture of Nepenthe, the iconic oceanside restaurant and shop that her great grandmother created so many years ago. We discuss the Big Sur Arts Initiative (her parent’s program), within which ‘Stage Kids’ was born. We talk about how Stage Kids provided a shared environment for our creativity and childhood interactions, and I discover how Stage Kids was an inspiration for what is now Secular Sabbath. Emily details her passion for exploring Big Sur in her own way, experiencing life to its fullest potential, while preserving Big Sur culture and her family’s heritage.

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Aska Matsumiya is a celebrated composer, known for film scores such as After Yang, I’m Your Woman, Bruised, Skate Kitchen and Spike Jonze’s, ‘I’m Here’. However, her journey through music, motherhood, mixed cultural identity and friendship, is what has inspired me to get her in the tub at nearly 9 months pregnant, and talk. Raised as a classical pianist in a Japanese household, Aska has been expressing herself musically across a vast landscape of genres: from punk to indie rock, classical, and electronic. Aska became a mother for the first time as a nineteen year old, and embarks on her next motherhood journey within weeks of this episode airing. Finding her voice through film composition, motherhood, and trusting in her intuition, Aska forges her own path into a life well-lived – inspiring us to follow the clues, and do the same.

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Lead singer of the band Magic Giant, Austin Bisnow shares how manifestation has created monumental moments in his life: meeting his life partner, creating a band, and even writing a pop song for one of his biggest inspirations. From chasing his future wife Dina around the world in pursuit of ‘the one,’ to stumbling upon a performance of a band at a music festival that made him realize the need to build his own band, Austin seems to be “in the right place at the right time.” He takes moments of inspiration and runs with them in order to pursue the things he wants in the world. Austin details how drive, dedication and inspiration are the motivating forces through which he engages with life, and his ultimate success of being truly happy show us that his recipe works. 

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Secular Sabbath collaborator and multi-disciplinary artist, Elena Stonaker shares her process of expressing her whimsical inner landscape through her many modalities of artwork from making paintings, drawings, to sewing clothing, and her signature large soft sculptures of ‘big mamas.’ Through creating art in various mediums, Elena strives to portray a childlike space where we can experience feelings tangibly. Elena recounts a live drawing class she hosted in her home that would later go on to be an inspirational part of Secular Sabbath. Elena details how flow and cycles are a definitive part of nature, life and her creative process. Tune in to learn from Elena and her inner world, externalized.

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Esalen and Big Sur elder Vicki Topp shares her experiences as a bodywork teacher and practitioner, while highlighting the metaphorical parallels of the practice to life. Vicki details her life in Big Sur and beyond: from being the first women to be offered housing at Esalen and working with Stan Grof, to navigating natural disasters and rattlesnakes. Vicki explains how bodywork is her way of touching and reaching the world. In this episode, Vicki shows us how to live in a state of presence, take in our surroundings, and touch others from that state. Her wisdom and creativity permeates this conversation in the bath.

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Lindsey Ross, also known as, The Achemistress shares her journey into a photography career through an antiquated technique: 19th Century Tintype Photography. Lindsey details the specific process, in which she revives a fading art form. Tintype is a sensory experience that allows her and the subject to be reminded of patience, as she captures a moment in time.

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Our friend and collaborator Mars, of Dose of Diosa, shares how sickness and healing from the Earth, led her back to her heritage. Outlining her journey on becoming an herbalist, Mars explains how coming back to her inner landscape and remembering, has helped her become whole again. Mars discusses how she creates community through cacao, tea and plant medicine ceremonies, while bringing others into states of consciousness and awareness.

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This week we sit in the tub with George Augusto, co-founder of fashion brand: STAUD, and Los Angeles restaurant and cafe: Kitchen Mouse. He met his two co-founders in the midst of a multitude of other ventures. Ventures that eventually failed, and whose failure led him to where he is today. George discusses how these experiences of failure gave him moments to discover his gifts and strong suits. Failure is a source of success. 

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This week we soak in the bath with our close friend and co-founder of FriendsWithYou,

Sam Borkson. He started the art project FriendsWithYou with Tury many years ago, in order to help people open their creative channels. He shares about how they use elements of fine art to bring cuteness and a smile to people’s faces. He sees art as a unifier: a way to impact others through storytelling. He creates art as love letters. In this episode, he does it all through even just this conversation. We will learn about his deep desire to save, touch and heal the world by using his influence as a writer and animator to alter the narrative of children’s stories in a way to promote unity for the planet. He exists in a nonstop pursuit of friendship, kindness, and art! Making stuff is not easy. It is perseverance that gets us through. Being stubborn and committed to doing is not to be taken for granted and Sam shares that wisdom with us.

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This week we are joined under the oak tree for a soak with DJ and artist, Mia Moretti. A Bay Area native, Mia grew up in an alternative household in Northern California where creativity flowed. Her childhood was colored by her parents’ culture of freedom and exploration, encouraging Mia to follow her dreams of moving in the big city rhythm. In her childhood home, there was always music and jamming, but as someone who didn’t play instruments or sing, Mia had yet to find her place. Moving to LA at 18, Mia found herself fully immersed and comfortable in the music scene at clubs, where tracks ran wild into the night and she explored sound in her own way. This is where the story begins, as Mia thrust herself into the nightlife, absorbing the energy of the space and people around her. This is where she learned to embrace DJing as a means to transform people through the power of musical storytelling.

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This week we are joined under the oak tree for a soak with DJ and artist, Mia Moretti. A Bay Area native, Mia grew up in an alternative household in Northern California where creativity flowed. Her childhood was colored by her parents’ culture of freedom and exploration, encouraging Mia to follow her dreams of moving in the big city rhythm. In her childhood home, there was always music and jamming, but as someone who didn’t play instruments or sing, Mia had yet to find her place. Moving to LA at 18, Mia found herself fully immersed and comfortable in the music scene at clubs, where tracks ran wild into the night and she explored sound in her own way. This is where the story begins, as Mia thrust herself into the nightlife, absorbing the energy of the space and people around her. This is where she learned to embrace DJing as a means to transform people through the power of musical storytelling.

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This week we warm up in the tubs with our new friend Sophie Hawley-Weld. One-half of energetic and colorful duo Sofi Tukker, she’s a creative mind who interweaves culture, identity, and fun into her musical journey. On today’s episode, we dive in deep about our connection to community, mental health and rituals on the road, and the development that happens behind the scenes within her music projects. She is thankful for growing up with a life full of opportunities where she could mix and mingle with an international community. The expectation at school was always to become a diplomat or leader, so the concept of artistry as a form of giving back to the world was an eye-opening realization.

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This week we cozy up in the bath with Austyn Weiner, who we finally had the pleasure of hosting at her first Secular Sabbath earlier this summer. Austyn found herself fully immersed in our sensory soundscape on shabbat. Now, she’s back for a more intimate conversation where we get to know her: a deep-thinking, witty-humored, large-scale oil painter. We dive into her thoughts on art, philosophy, and self-exploration. We discover what elements of connection have an impact in her life. From refining her creative practices to reshaping her outlook on the intricacies of familial relationships, this moment in time is full of change as Austyn realizes she’s entering a significant new phase in her life.

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This week we squeeze into the bath with Hayes Bradley, known musically as B. Hayes, to discuss his new ambient record “1-9”, his journey into his musical career, and the intimate moments in between it all. Growing up in the Palisades in Los Angeles with his mother and three brothers, music has always had an influence on his life. Hayes is the first in his lineage to actually work in music. He shares how this career path has been a series of trial and error for him, pushing him to consistently take creative risks. He has always explored the edges of music scenes from warehouse and noise parties in Chicago, to Berlin, New York, LA undergrounds. This exploration has led him to discover some of the world's most interesting groups of people and places, experiences that shaped his view on music culture. While touring with his dance music project American Dance Ghosts, he continues to explore real, raw underground scenes in each city. Hayes explores many genres within music through different experiences. But the heart and source of it always comes back to his family. There is a strong sense of family connection woven throughout his process, if even subconsciously, which he shines a light on throughout his many stories of home life. They range from collaborating with his brothers for spontaneous punk collaborations over the holidays to recording his sounds at his mother's piano, and inspiration from his mother’s tape collection.

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This week on the Tub Talks podcast, the innovative chef/baker Loria Stern joins us in a thoughtful soak. Synthesizing her talents in the world of aesthetics, culinary arts, and nature, Loria explains her journey into forging her own career path over the last eight years. We get into the nuances of growing up as children of the hippie generation, the impact of that generation on their offspring, and how it ultimately shaped Loria’s food artistry and business for the better.

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This week on the Tub Talks podcast, I soak within the creativity of artist Scout LaRue Willis. Scout just released her first musical album and went on her first tour. Growing into ourselves is at the heart of our conversation, an art that many spend decades trying to decode. Scout has found that while the journey is never easy, the path to self-acceptance and growth lies in pushing through the discomfort of looking at the tough parts of ourselves.

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In this episode, I converse with Sarah aka Krotchy aka Yonk: our multi-named, multifaceted creative friend working in animation, filmmaking, music, modeling, and acting, who in her words, makes art for ‘out-there’ kids that want to be inspired. Throughout this conversation under the oak tree discuss the battles we have with our virtual presentation of ourselves vs the physical and how wellness can play an important role in reshaping our own perception of self. Krotchy’s own inquisitive nature brings us full circle to our own Secular Sabbath roots, leading us to explore why we built this community that continues to grow every day.

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In this conversation we take to the baths with Mia Maestro, who hosts many of the tea ceremonies held over the years at Secular Sabbath in between her full-time acting career. While she has always been a lover of tea, her journey really started over a decade ago when she was surprised to find a deeper practice in the art of tea meditation. This philosophy of slowing down to regain focus, or set a new tone in one's body, has trickled into many facets of her life. Especially in both her career as an actress and her intense work in activism.

Mia shares what it was like growing up in Argentina during an age of terrorism, where she lived through an inverse world to the one she has created for herself today. Acting has always been a part of her life, launching her big screen career as a teenager in Tango. Even as a little girl, acting was a means to play, and take on new personas. As an adult, she’s learned to develop empathy, process emotions, and open a space for healing through acting. Bringing tea ceremony her ritual has opened a portal to explore deeper connections to her childhood self.

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In this introspective and wise conversation with Kassia Meador, she takes us through her background as a professional surfer and into her passion for healing: through sound baths, retreat experiences, and polarity therapy. She duck dives with us into her waves of education and continued learning: both inside and out. Learn from her sage wisdom of years spent pioneering her way through professional surfing and creating sound experiences with her newfound love for tactile healing modalities. Get ready to soak in with one of our closest friends and frequent collaborators, as she shares her unique story with us from inside the bathtub.

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