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Rowan Mangan

Writer. Mom. Wild Inventurer.

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welcome!

Hi there! Thanks for popping by.

I’m Ro: a writer, a podcaster, a mom, a food enthusiast. I try to live in a way that feeds my heart and soul, even when that goes against the norms of our culture. This can look weird but it feels like total freedom. I call this way of living “Wild Inventures.”

If you’re interested in freeing yourself from norms—or just want to watch the spectacle of me doing it very imperfectly—please feel free to become an inventurer yourself.

Subscribe to my Substack newsletters. I write here every week about my own inventures.

Listen to the Bewildered podcast, which I make with my wife, Martha Beck.

Follow me on Instagram.

So glad you’re here! Let the wild rumpus begin!

  • Health inventures

    #health

  • Loving Inventures

    #loving

  • Parenting inventures

    #parenting

  • Work inventures

    #work

read more on the blog

Recent Posts

Busting Our Creativity Myths

Filed Under: Parenting inventures

The Ani DiFranco Wormhole

Filed Under: Parenting inventures

Our Own Private Era

Filed Under: Parenting inventures

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Do you ever feel a little self-centered about your Do you ever feel a little self-centered about your creativity?

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about something we call “filling the well”— replenishing ourselves so we can be inspired to create. ✨

Sometimes we can lose track of the fact that creativity is for nourishing others, not just ourselves. At the same time, it has a beautiful run-on effect where we can be creatively replenished by someone else’s creative work.

It may sound so obvious, yet we can often lose sight of it. That’s because in our culture, we’re supposed to always be making things: produce, produce, produce. 🏭

Yet receiving someone else’s creativity is the completion of the creative process—because creativity is always made to connect. Sometimes it just connects the artists with themselves, but it’s most often meant to connect different people.

Creating is the coming together of emotion and experience, so if it’s not received, it’s not complete. That means that receiving someone else’s creativity—deeply appreciating another person’s creative work—is part of the creative act and one that we don’t value enough.

To hear more about receiving others’ creativity to stay replenished, connected, and inspired, join us for the full conversation! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 112: Filling the Creative Well, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Culture is not “out there.” Culture exists bec Culture is not “out there.” Culture exists because our psyches have certain tendencies, and we tend to create in macro what we are in micro—it’s born from us.

The patterns in our psyches turn into the patterns of society—we scale up what we are on the inside—and even our productivity “hacks” and rigid rules start as personal habits and ripple out into culture.

In other words, culture is living inside us, shaping and reshaping with every choice we make.

🎙️In this episode of the Bewildered podcast, we explore how to catch those patterns—and instead design lives in alignment with our deepest yearnings, our natural energy, and the rhythms of nature. Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 111: Mapping Life by Rhythm, Not by Rules, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Have you ever had a shocking birthday milestone mo Have you ever had a shocking birthday milestone moment? 🎂🤯

Ro has suddenly realized very recently (too recently) that she’s about to turn 45 years of age.

(One would think that if she’d applied her well-trained mind to this issue, it could have been predicted earlier…)

Somehow, Ro’s managed to get to age 44-and-three-quarters stuck in the mentality of “I’m probably about 22, so I’m probably fine to not really prioritize my health for anytime soon.”

But the age of 45, for some reason, is making her face her mortality and think about checking her bone density and muscle mass. 🩻💪

It’s a big disruption, but as we discuss in this episode of Bewildered, disruptions can be an exciting opportunity to reset old habits and redesign your life.

Tune in to hear how you can learn to map your life, not by following a rigid cultural checklist, but by listening to your own inner yearning and the rhythms of the natural world. Plus we’ll share some laughs about our existential dread. Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 111: Mapping Life by Rhythm, Not by Rules, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Resistance without anything else is about holding Resistance without anything else is about holding a line. Like you’re on a front in a battlefield and all you can do is resist an incursion. It doesn’t change anything. You’re just holding the enemy at bay—for now. 🪖

If our vibe is “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” it can begin with resistance, but it can’t end with that because that is stasis. And stasis is status quo.

Instead of simply trying to resist what’s terrible, there are more effective ways to make positive change, and these ways include creativity, beauty, and joy. 💫

Tune in for this episode of Bewildered to learn how you can actively change the world without being consumed by what’s wrong with it—and how creativity can be more revolutionary than resistance alone. ✊🏽

You can listen to Bewildered episode 109: The House of What We Pay Attention To, access the show notes, and find links to resources on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Ever suffer from burnout? 😵 We have, and we’ Ever suffer from burnout? 😵

We have, and we’re talking about it on this “Best of” episode of Bewildered!

Burnout often feels like repeatedly bobbing to the surface, grabbing a breath, and going back under—without ever getting enough oxygen on any given breath to actually sustain life.

In Bewildered terms of culture vs. nature, burnout is often the consequence of your nervous system being exposed for too long to the impact of a culture that doesn’t really fit it. It’s that point you reach where you feel like you just can’t go on.

To find out how to rescue yourself from burnout—and prevent it to begin with—be sure to tune in for the full conversation! 🛟

You can listen to Episode 105: Best of Bewildered: On Burnout and Reset, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
I usually avoid posting pics of my kid online, but I usually avoid posting pics of my kid online, but I couldn’t help bragging on this cute former blastocyst today. I’ve been clearing out some stuff because we’re moving, and I found this—the very first photo we have of Lila. 

On transfer day when we all came in visibly trembling with anxiety and hope, our angel of a doctor looked at this live image on the screen and just said, “Beauty, beauty, beauty.” Then he took this photo and got to work reuniting us. 

She will turn five in September. Yesterday she asked where her water bottle was and I told her it was probably on the kitchen table. She thrust a fist into the air and called, “Then the table is my DESTINY!”

Beauty, beauty, beauty. 

#ivf #ivfsuccess #fertilityjourney
“Down beneath the impossible pain of our history “Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath the unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage systems and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water mains
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all, beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel.”

- @anidifranco
It’s my last night in New York before we vacate It’s my last night in New York before we vacate and move to a new HQ. If I wasn’t sure that we were doing the right thing, the past 36 hours sure have confirmed it. 

But I love this city like a maniac stalker and always will. I love all its smells and the sense of belonging in the streets that makes me both invisible and invincible. Love how I’m always on the brink of the next surprise smile from a stranger and meaningful dog encounter. Every walk is an adventure.

Until the next adventure, NYC. ❤️‍🩹
There’s nothing like real connection—face to f There’s nothing like real connection—face to face, heart to heart. 💛 Building connections in an isolating world is part of why we created the Pure Wild Self retreats. 

We come together each year in the Costa Rican jungle to remember what it feels like to be truly seen, supported, and part of something bigger. To wash off the culture and remember the sound of our deepest inner voice.🌿

Most of last year’s beautiful crew is coming back (yep, it’s that good) and there are literally only four spots left for the January + February 2026 retreats. 🌞 If you’re feeling the nudge, this is your moment. 

Come find your village. Link in the bio. 🌀💫

#PureWildSelf #RetreatWithUs #ImiloaInstitute #CostaRicaRetreat #SoulCommunity

follow me on twitter!

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find me on instagram!

Do you ever feel a little self-centered about your Do you ever feel a little self-centered about your creativity?

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about something we call “filling the well”— replenishing ourselves so we can be inspired to create. ✨

Sometimes we can lose track of the fact that creativity is for nourishing others, not just ourselves. At the same time, it has a beautiful run-on effect where we can be creatively replenished by someone else’s creative work.

It may sound so obvious, yet we can often lose sight of it. That’s because in our culture, we’re supposed to always be making things: produce, produce, produce. 🏭

Yet receiving someone else’s creativity is the completion of the creative process—because creativity is always made to connect. Sometimes it just connects the artists with themselves, but it’s most often meant to connect different people.

Creating is the coming together of emotion and experience, so if it’s not received, it’s not complete. That means that receiving someone else’s creativity—deeply appreciating another person’s creative work—is part of the creative act and one that we don’t value enough.

To hear more about receiving others’ creativity to stay replenished, connected, and inspired, join us for the full conversation! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 112: Filling the Creative Well, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Culture is not “out there.” Culture exists bec Culture is not “out there.” Culture exists because our psyches have certain tendencies, and we tend to create in macro what we are in micro—it’s born from us.

The patterns in our psyches turn into the patterns of society—we scale up what we are on the inside—and even our productivity “hacks” and rigid rules start as personal habits and ripple out into culture.

In other words, culture is living inside us, shaping and reshaping with every choice we make.

🎙️In this episode of the Bewildered podcast, we explore how to catch those patterns—and instead design lives in alignment with our deepest yearnings, our natural energy, and the rhythms of nature. Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 111: Mapping Life by Rhythm, Not by Rules, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Have you ever had a shocking birthday milestone mo Have you ever had a shocking birthday milestone moment? 🎂🤯

Ro has suddenly realized very recently (too recently) that she’s about to turn 45 years of age.

(One would think that if she’d applied her well-trained mind to this issue, it could have been predicted earlier…)

Somehow, Ro’s managed to get to age 44-and-three-quarters stuck in the mentality of “I’m probably about 22, so I’m probably fine to not really prioritize my health for anytime soon.”

But the age of 45, for some reason, is making her face her mortality and think about checking her bone density and muscle mass. 🩻💪

It’s a big disruption, but as we discuss in this episode of Bewildered, disruptions can be an exciting opportunity to reset old habits and redesign your life.

Tune in to hear how you can learn to map your life, not by following a rigid cultural checklist, but by listening to your own inner yearning and the rhythms of the natural world. Plus we’ll share some laughs about our existential dread. Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 111: Mapping Life by Rhythm, Not by Rules, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Resistance without anything else is about holding Resistance without anything else is about holding a line. Like you’re on a front in a battlefield and all you can do is resist an incursion. It doesn’t change anything. You’re just holding the enemy at bay—for now. 🪖

If our vibe is “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” it can begin with resistance, but it can’t end with that because that is stasis. And stasis is status quo.

Instead of simply trying to resist what’s terrible, there are more effective ways to make positive change, and these ways include creativity, beauty, and joy. 💫

Tune in for this episode of Bewildered to learn how you can actively change the world without being consumed by what’s wrong with it—and how creativity can be more revolutionary than resistance alone. ✊🏽

You can listen to Bewildered episode 109: The House of What We Pay Attention To, access the show notes, and find links to resources on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Ever suffer from burnout? 😵 We have, and we’ Ever suffer from burnout? 😵

We have, and we’re talking about it on this “Best of” episode of Bewildered!

Burnout often feels like repeatedly bobbing to the surface, grabbing a breath, and going back under—without ever getting enough oxygen on any given breath to actually sustain life.

In Bewildered terms of culture vs. nature, burnout is often the consequence of your nervous system being exposed for too long to the impact of a culture that doesn’t really fit it. It’s that point you reach where you feel like you just can’t go on.

To find out how to rescue yourself from burnout—and prevent it to begin with—be sure to tune in for the full conversation! 🛟

You can listen to Episode 105: Best of Bewildered: On Burnout and Reset, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
I usually avoid posting pics of my kid online, but I usually avoid posting pics of my kid online, but I couldn’t help bragging on this cute former blastocyst today. I’ve been clearing out some stuff because we’re moving, and I found this—the very first photo we have of Lila. 

On transfer day when we all came in visibly trembling with anxiety and hope, our angel of a doctor looked at this live image on the screen and just said, “Beauty, beauty, beauty.” Then he took this photo and got to work reuniting us. 

She will turn five in September. Yesterday she asked where her water bottle was and I told her it was probably on the kitchen table. She thrust a fist into the air and called, “Then the table is my DESTINY!”

Beauty, beauty, beauty. 

#ivf #ivfsuccess #fertilityjourney
“Down beneath the impossible pain of our history “Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath the unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage systems and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water mains
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all, beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel.”

- @anidifranco
It’s my last night in New York before we vacate It’s my last night in New York before we vacate and move to a new HQ. If I wasn’t sure that we were doing the right thing, the past 36 hours sure have confirmed it. 

But I love this city like a maniac stalker and always will. I love all its smells and the sense of belonging in the streets that makes me both invisible and invincible. Love how I’m always on the brink of the next surprise smile from a stranger and meaningful dog encounter. Every walk is an adventure.

Until the next adventure, NYC. ❤️‍🩹
There’s nothing like real connection—face to f There’s nothing like real connection—face to face, heart to heart. 💛 Building connections in an isolating world is part of why we created the Pure Wild Self retreats. 

We come together each year in the Costa Rican jungle to remember what it feels like to be truly seen, supported, and part of something bigger. To wash off the culture and remember the sound of our deepest inner voice.🌿

Most of last year’s beautiful crew is coming back (yep, it’s that good) and there are literally only four spots left for the January + February 2026 retreats. 🌞 If you’re feeling the nudge, this is your moment. 

Come find your village. Link in the bio. 🌀💫

#PureWildSelf #RetreatWithUs #ImiloaInstitute #CostaRicaRetreat #SoulCommunity
All you fascists bound to lose #NOKINGS All you fascists bound to lose 
#NOKINGS
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end “We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.”

TS Eliot

@londolozi @boyd_varty @chloe.varty @northpridemale @bron_vartylaburn @themarthabeck
Ten years later, this feeling never gets old. #Alw Ten years later, this feeling never gets old. #AlwaysHeadedHome
The perfect paradox in the title of Amie McNee’s The perfect paradox in the title of Amie McNee’s beautiful book, We Need Your Art.  New episode of Bewildered out now! 🎧🎨🫶
You know the story that the culture tells us about You know the story that the culture tells us about art—that it’s only something to do if you have spare time, or it’s only for the idle rich? That’s not actually the culture’s agenda… 

We’re talking about what’s really going on with art in the culture on this episode of Bewildered, featuring our very special guests Amie McNee and James Winestock.

The culture’s real agenda is to get you to stay in the left hemisphere of your brain. 🧠

Why?

Because if you do, then you continue to give your life for cannon fodder and give your labor for billionaires—you aren’t questioning the status quo. 

And as soon as you get out your paintbrush or sit down at the piano, you open up a way of thinking that creates where there was nothing before—that creates everything from amazing art to solutions to climate change. And that’s revolutionary. 👊

To hear more about unlocking the true power of art and joining the creative revolution, tune in for the full episode and find out why making art might be the most important thing you do for yourself—and for the world. 

You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very speci Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very special episode for you today as we’re talking with our friends and fellow creative revolutionaries, Amie McNee and James Winestock. 🎨

Amie is a writer, author, and creativity coach whose new book, We Need Your Art, is out now.
Her goal with this book is to remind you that you are here on this earth to make things and to use your incredible brain to create—and that art isn’t just a hobby, but vitally important work.

As Amie describes her work, “I basically just bully people to make them create things.” (Spoiler alert: It worked for Martha!)

If you’ve ever doubted your artistic worth, this conversation will remind you: The world truly needs your art, now more than ever. Listen to the full episode and let Amie’s contagious passion help you take your art seriously—and help change the world. ✨

You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧 

@inspiredtowrite
Did you know that true kindness is a superpower? ✊🌼

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about the way that true kindness—starting with kindness towards ourselves—is actually a deeply subversive force in our culture.

Kindness has the power to disrupt systems of cruelty and division, and it’s a rebellion against the scarcity, everyone-in-it-for-himself mentality that’s pedaled so widely (never more than now in this culture).

So if you want to be a rebel against the culture of domination and extraction and overwhelming force, be a rebel first by being kind to yourself.

You can listen to Bewildered episode 101: Out-Kind the Culture, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

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