The Numinous Podcast

Welcome to the final episode of my Witches New Year Podcast Retreat! As you likely know by now, I have a new book coming out in January 2025 called Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times. In this episode, you'll get all the tea on how this book came to be, learn what advanced readers like Colette Baron-Reid and Asha Frost had to say about it, and hear excerpts from two chapters: a ritual on facing Fear, and an invocation for Wholeness.

Referenced in this episode:

The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling, James Hillman

Colette Baron-Reid's Enchanted Map Oracle Deck

You Are The Medicine: 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Asha Frost

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🎉 This episode is for all the collapse nerds! 🎉

🛑 Content warning 🛑: Frank discussion of near-term scientifically accepted and expected climate crises. For all the folks who feel fragile and might be tipped into a downward spiral, maybe skip this one, yeah?

I've invited collapse astrologer, Hummingbird Star, from @astrologyfortherevolution to join us for Witches New Year to do our year ahead overview. 👏🏻 

Given where we're at in the grand scheme of things, I asked Hummingbird to scan the medium-term horizon to help us understand what the Hermit year might be preparing us for on a collective scale. We're not only touching on topics we may want to contemplative in our collective Hermit year, but also the personal question of what role we wish to play in the revolution.

In this episode, we touch on the Neptunian shifts we should be tracking and much, much more.

Check out Hummingbird's website: www.astrologyfortherevolution.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/astrologyfortherevolution
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@collapseastrology

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NOTE: In this episode, we talk about the potential failure of the AMOC (Atlantic meridional overturning circulation) and since I was speaking off the cuff, there's a danger that this could be spread as misinformation.

So to be clear: Here's a really nice, succinct and digestible explanation of what the AMOC is, and a nice, succinct, and conservative interpretation of what the shutdown would do, from The Guardian (Oct 23, 2024):

"AMOC, or the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, is a system of ocean currents that brings heat into the northern Atlantic. Warm surface water from the tropics flows north and releases its heat in the subpolar Atlantic, south of Greenland and west of Britain and Ireland. Then it cools and sinks to a depth of between 2,000m to 3,000 metres before returning south as a cold current. Amoc is one of our planet’s largest heat transport systems, moving the equivalent of 50 times the human energy use, and it has a particularly strong impact on the climate in Europe, affects the ocean’s CO2 uptake and oxygen supply, as well as rainfall patterns in the tropics."

"The effects (of a shutdown) include a cooling of the northern hemisphere, particularly northwestern Europe. There would also be a shift of the tropical rainfall belt to the south, which is bad because the rains will move away from the rainforests to regions that are not used to so much rainfall. So this will mean droughts in some regions and floods in others.

AMOC collapse would also have a major impact on the northern Atlantic sea level, which would rise by half a metre or so, in addition to the rise caused by global heating. It would also reduce the CO2 uptake of the ocean because AMOC sinking in the northern Atlantic takes a lot of CO2 down into the deep oceans where it is safely locked away from the atmosphere.

AMOC collapse would also change the nutrient supply and reduce the oxygen of the deep oceans. This would have a massive effect on marine biology and the entire ecosystem of the northern Atlantic."

Generally speaking, what climate scientists in the past had predicated would not happen until after 2050 is happening now, 30 years earlier. It's not that much of a stretch then, to say that what they predicted would happen *before* 2050 will occur a decade earlier. So the possible range of hitting a tipping point to an AMOC shutdown was predicted to be somewhere between 2030 and 2075, or the end of the century as the very outside possibility of it taking that long.

So that puts the tipping point to shutdown right around... now.

Learn more about the AMOC shutdown from collapse expert, Sharon Astyk

We're preparing for a soul-searching kind of year with the Hermit card overlighting our path. In the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck, Key 9 (in other words, card number 9) is the Hermit card. In numerology, next year is a 9 year (2+0+2+5). So we look to the lessons of the Hermit card for clues about our developmental task on the spiritual level for the year ahead.

In this episode, I share a brief overview of the Fool's entire journey through the Major Arcana, using Rachel Pollack's Three Cycles of the Majors before I dive deep into the lessons of the Hermit.

Plus we'll notice some patterns when it comes to some intensely disruptive historical events that occured the last time we experienced some of the major outer planet transits that will be happening again in 2025, (which, when taken altogether, are really giving Hermit vibes).

Plus! I offer a 5-card spread to help you interpret the Hermit card and how you can apply its lessons in 2025.

Referenced in this episode:

Red Tarot: A Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy by Chris Marmolejo

Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen

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{Witches New Year Podcast Retreat} In this very special episode, we're doing a deep dive into the Eleusinian Mysteries and the cults of Demeter and Persephone, including a special trance journey to walk the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis, as the ancient initiates did.

Referenced in this episode:

Eleusinian terracotta figurine

Dr.Cyndi Brannen

Jean Shinoda Bolen

Marija Gimbutas

Charlene Spretnak

Dr.Mara Keller

Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries

The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries by R.Gordon Wasson* (I have concerns about super shitty and extractive research methods here - not sure I recommend but am citing for proper attribution of research I accessed for this class and subsequent podcast)

Present-day Eleusis from Google Earth

Present-day Athenian Agora

Trance music: "Adrift 2" by Christopher Lloyd Clarke

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We're back with another class from The Numinous School archive: Trancework Fundamentals. Here you'll learn:

• what is trance?
• how does it work?
• what is it good for?
• is it safe?
• what qualities should we look for in a guide to signal that we can trust them with this process?

I'm giving you this information now so you're well prepared in advance of the next episode which will feature a richly evocative trance journey to participate as an initiate in the Eleusinian Mysteries, a 9-day rite of devotion to Demeter, Persephone, Hekate and others, one of the most famous rites of the Hellenistic world performed annually in the autumn.

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Check out my Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy program in The Numinous Network

Prism Magic Mushroom Tea from Sero (affiliate link - Canada only)

The ritual craft for this year's Samhain Wheel of the Year is a perennial favourite: Witch Ladders! I never get bored of them. And I rarely get rid of them, but when I do you'll learn in this episode what I do with them when the magic is finished. You'll want to consult your copy of The Spirited Kitchen for help in deciding which Magical Correspondences will fulfill your intention and make this an effective spell for you. Or simply listen to this episode in full and let the spirit move you towards the materia magica that intuitively works for you!

Mentioned in this episode:

Witch ladder inspo 1

Witch ladder inspo 2

Witch ladder inspo 3

Witch ladder inspo 4

Witch ladder inspo 5

Witch ladder inspo 6

Somerset Witch Ladder: Witches' Ladder: The Hidden History

Knot of Isis

Gordian Knot

Trinity Knot/Triquetra

Buddhist Endless Knot

Constrictor Knot

In the Bath House at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia by W.F. Ryan

The Power of Words in Miracles, Visions, Incantations and Bewitchments by Klaniczay Gabor

Carmina Gadelica

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Check out my Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy program in The Numinous Network

Prism Magic Mushroom Tea from Sero (affiliate link - Canada only)

In this essay I will show how Thomas Aquinas, due to his early life attachment ruptures and abandonment wound, and under the influence of the violent toxic masculinity of the Inquisition and Aristotle's writings, became a 23 year old incel who went on to drive an 800 year wedge between intuition and the mind for people of European descent.

Enjoy!

Mentioned in this episode:

Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition with Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Why Evil Exists with Professor Charles Mathewes, Ph.D., University of Virginia

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Check out my Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy program in The Numinous Network

Prism Magic Mushroom Tea from Sero (affiliate link - Canada only)

Happy 49th birthday to me! Here's my gift to you: This is the first episode of a personal retreat podcast miniseries! Half of the episodes help you prepare for the season of the witch, the other half offer a guided day of ritual, trancework, self-care, and divination for 2025. It's a party at your own pace! A party for introverts! We're all doing similar things but inside our own homes on our own time. Huzzah! 🎉 🥳 🎂

I'll be honest, I've got a lot going on right now so this is probably the most off-the-cuff episode I've ever produced. But if you can put up with all my side quest, stories and tangents, there's a lot of good instruction here, especially for folks who are new to working with altars or ancestors.

Here's a shrine I made for Isobell, my grandmother

Mentioned in this episode:

Crafting Personal Shrines: Using Photos, Mementos & Treasures to Create Artful Displays, by Carol Owen

YouTube: AirDry Clay Shrines by CraftyChica Kathy Cano-Murillo

TNP99: Monsters and Magical Beings with John Michael Greer

AstroMagic Miniseries

Try the Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy program in The Numinous Network

Prism Magic Mushroom Tea from Sero (affiliate link - Canada only)

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Did you know that matrescence – the process of becoming a mother – takes approximately 2-3 years? It's far from the 3, 6, or 12 month process we've been made to believe. In fact, 20 years after giving birth to my child, I'm still grappling with how it changed me, how I want to mother, and what this identity means to me.

My guest for this episode is Jessie Harrold, coach, doula, educator and author of Mothershift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage. We're talking about:

• Who goes through "matrescence"? Who is a mother?? What is mothering???
• Should postpartum depression (or postpartum anxiety) an expected part of matrescence?
• How do we manage the grief, rage or ambivalence that often comes with motherhood?
• How are mothers specially equipped to disrupt social norms like capitalism?

Please do pre-order Mothershift before November 11 – get your own Mothershift journal as a bonus gift!

On November 20th from 6-7p.m. Atlantic Time, Jessie will be hosting a virtual launch party with Q&A, giveaways, and practices. Sign up for her newsletter to learn more.

Follow Jessie on Instagram

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Get 10% off all purchases from Sero, my recommended microdosing retailer in Canada (affiliate link)

Learn more about The Numinous Network

Jordan Pickell is a Vancouver, BC-based a trauma counsellor. Issues centred in her work include boundary setting, making friends and building community, and the impacts of trauma, violence and oppression. She's our hype woman today for building better boundaries with our parents.

I happened to see on Instagram that Jordan is once again offering her 2hr online workshop, Build Better Boundaries, on Friday, November 15, 2024. It's recorded in case you can't make it live, and it’s less than $40 Canadian!

In that workshop, you’ll map your current relationship dynamics, you’ll uncover your personal boundaries blueprint, and craft a personalized boundaries action plan. In other words, you’re going to get yourself out of the freeze response, and lay the critical groundwork for success so that when you actually do the thing, you are mobilized and confident and ready to handle whatever happens next.

Enjoy this conversation as a warm-up: You'll hear me share about my own journey of setting boundaries, more than a decade of estrangement from my mom, and repair with impacted family members. Jordan shares about her family's style of "enmeshment", the experience of being a first daughter, and cultural factors as a person of mixed race. 

It's an honest and tender conversation, and I'm happy to hear how it lands for you: Click here to leave me a voice note or written message!

Follow Jordan on Instagram and sign up for her newsletter

Check out The Numinous Network

🍄 Learn more about Prism Social Spice Mushroom Tea from Sero 🍄 

Welcome back to the second of this teensy tiny Tarot miniseries. Remember, we're continuing our Tarot journey in The Numinous Network throughout the fall and into the new year. Join us for this deep dive! All classes are recorded and archived with no time limit for viewing.

📣 Click here to leave feedback for this or any other episode. 📣

Learn more about the SSP

Learn more about The Numinous Network

This is actually an excerpt from a now-retired course I used to have called Intro to Tarot. You'll get all the backstory of that in this episode, but the main content here is about the history of the Tarot going all the way back to a syncretic figure called "Hermes Trismegistus" who was not a singular person but rather a collective of writing by powerful magi, like how Homer is not actually one writer but ratherthe combined works of several bards over centuries...It's mysterious and fascinating and I hope you enjoy this sweet lil artifact from my archive!

Stay tuned for part two on the proliferation of decks across the globe and through the ages, from the Sola Busca deck of the Renaissance to the icon and groundbreaking Rider Waite Smith, to today's artist-driven marketplace of Post Modern decks! Subscribe to this podcast to get that episode automatically in your podcast player.

Thanks to folks who write helpful honest reviews! They help the right listeners find a sense of belonging and resonance - I super appreciate you taking the time to write a few words.

📣 Click here to leave me some direct feedback 📣

Learn more about the Safe & Sound Protocol

Learn more about The Numinous Network

We're not afraid of grappling with the tough stuff here on The Numinous Podcast! In this episode we're engaging with high stakes violations of values and betrayals that lead to Moral Injury.

Moral Injury can occur when you do or fail to do something, when you witness something, or when you hear about something after the fact, that violates your deeply held beliefs and values in a high stakes context.

Certainly healthcare practitioners and mental health professionals will be interested in this discussion, but also anyone who has grappled with moral emotions like outrage, shame, guilt, and remorse.

Moral injury is a social wound that helps the collective stay co-operative. Grappling with Moral Injury is a civic responsibility – a moral obligation as our guest says – and a sign of a healthy pro-social individual.

Our guest on this episode is Dr.Robyn Walser, a licensed psychologist and co-author of 7 books on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (commonly known as ACT). She has most recently written a book entitled,The Heart of ACT: Developing a Flexible, Process-Based, and Client-Centered Practice Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.  She’s an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the Director of TL Psychological and Consultation Services, and works at the National Center for PTSD. Dr. Walser has been offering ACT workshops since 1998.

Referenced in this episode

Case Conceptualizing in Acceptance and Commitment therapy for Moral Injury: An Active and On-Going Approach to Understanding and Intervening on Moral Injury, by Jacob Farnsworth, Lauren Borges, Sean Barnes and Kent Drescher and Robyn Walser

The Moral Injury Workbook: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Skills for Moving Beyond Shame, Anger and Trauma to Reclaim Your Values by Robyn Walser, Wyatt Evans, Kent Drescher, Jacob Farnsworth

The Heart of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A Talk by Robyn Walser (YouTube)

The Moral Injury Course

• Become a member of The Numinous Network and begin a supportive somatic practice ahead of the live sessions. Group somatic practice sessions happen Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.

• If appropriate, begin The Safe & Sound Protocol (included in membership) to support nervous system resilience.

• Attend the live sessions, starting in June. Live Sessions form a sequential series of psychoeducation and progressively layered activities:

Friday, June 28, 10-11am PT

Saturday, June 29, 9-9:45am PT

Sunday, June 30, 10-10:45am PT

Monday, July 1, 10-10:30am PT (optional for additional or catch-up work)

Fridays, July 5, 12, 19, 26, 10-11am PT

Live sessions will be recorded and archived for later viewing at your convenience.

• Optional: Stay on with us for aftercare! In August, we're streamlining the calendar and focusing on somatic practice and weightlifting. (Discharging anger by lifting heavy shit!) In September, the full calendar of events is back up and running, with additional SSP co-listening sessions to support nervous system regulation ahead of the American election season.

The Moral Injury course is included in Numinous Network membership which is offered at a sliding scale from $45 - $75 US per month, providing access to over 30 live events and over 50 hours of video on-demand.

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Learn more about The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year

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This episode is going to be a very special one for all the listeners who live with chronic illness and all the listeners with Indigenous heritage. These stories and experiences are interwoven in my conversation today with Anishinaabe medicine woman, Asha Frost. 

Asha Frost (she/her) is a member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. She’s a longtime healer working with homeopathy, plant medicine, and ceremony. She’s also the author of the bestselling book, You Are the Medicine: 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Ancestral Connection, and Animal Spirit Guidance, as well as the Sacred Medicine Oracle Deck.

This is real talk about living with chronic illness, and about white supremacy and colonialism in the wellness industry and the medical field.

In this episode, we explore the perennial paradox of any health diagnosis: the tension/balance between accepting the reality of chronic illness while also reaching towards healing.

Throughout, Asha shares some of the medicines that can be helpful on this journey.

Connect with Asha

Follow her on all the socials: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok

Pre-order her new oracle deck, The Animal Elders Oracle

Visit her website to sign up for her newsletter

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Mental health professional and somatic coach, Aurelie Richards, is back on the show and we’re talking about secure attachment in movement work – community organizing, workplace unionizing.

How can we do this in a way that's sensitive to the realities of interpersonal neurobiology? In a way that recognizes the value of presencing secure attachment in an environment that naturally brings up unresolved trauma, lack of safeness, perhaps even hostility?

The topic of our show today is very aligned with the energy of the Beltane season, particularly the weaving of the labour movement and other liberatory movements with the energies of spring, collective mobilization, and ecstatic, creative union. 

We get into the nitty gritty of working with a disorganized attachment field within movement work.

We dive into astromagic as part of our organizing strategy.

We discuss the intricacies of power mapping in groups and organizations.

It's a juicy case study of Aurelie's labour organizing experience in a German context with lots for us to learn!

Connect with Aurelie

For resilience coaching, somatics, and burnout prevention visit Aurelie's website. 

Aurelie's resilience workshops, team building, and wellness in the workplace offerings 

Her anarcho queer feminist health collective is actively seeking new members in Berlin!

Folks can direct questions or reach out for support to [email protected].

No socials, but sign up for Aurelie's newsletter 

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Content note: Specific, sometimes graphic, discussion of death.

Shawn Leonard is a Mi'kmaq psychic medium. Gifted and accurate, his television show on APTN called 'Spirit Talker' depicts him travelling to Indigenous communities across the country, learning about their culture and spiritual teachings, and connecting them with their Beloved Dead.

Along the way, he brings hope, healing, and closure, and deepens his connection to his own Mi'kmaq heritage and the medicine of his Indigenous name, White Eagle Spirit Talker.

Connect with Shawn

Follow on all the socials: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube

Get Shawn's book Spirit Talker: Indigenous Stories and Teachings from a Mi'kmaq Psychic Medium (I enjoyed his reading of the audiobook version!)

Join his online course starting in September 2024, Spirit Talker Tribe

Find his oracle deck

Watch Spirit Talker on APTN's streaming service, Lumi

(Also check out Indians and Aliens while you're there!)

Visit Shawn's website to sign up for his newsletter

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Check out Sero for psilocybin support at HeySero.co

If you're a 35 - 55 year old woman, you grew up in the very particular cultural landscape of the pre-#MeToo era. You grew up with boy-centered stories like The Outsiders, Stand By Me, Goonies and The Lost Boys, the  everyday male violence and misogyny of entertainers like Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kinison, and hypersexualized movies and music like Porky's and "Me So Horny" – LOTS TO UNPACK THERE. Time to revisit and tell our own stories.

Emelia Symington Fedy's memoir, Skid Dogs, is a brave, bittersweet coming-of-age story about a group of high school girls in the '90s navigating friendship, sex, and parents from the retrospective view of a now 30-something woman supporting her mother's cancer journey.

Content Warning: We're talking about rape culture, sexual assault, and gender-based violence in this episode, the impacts still felt decades on, and the process of sexual healing as middle aged women.

We also get a little explicit with the language so…headphones highly recommended!

This is a raw and riveting coming-of-age story about the wild love of teenage friendships and the casual oppression of 90s rape culture, and to be honest it was so searingly accurate I had to wait a minute and gather myself before I invited @emeliasf to come on the show to discuss it.

Publisher's Weekly describes it this way:

“With plenty of Juicy Fruit, padded bras, and pot smoke, the narrative begins as a nostalgia-tinted reverie before evolving into a devastating portrait of the pre-#MeToo era from someone on the other side of it. The author’s candor and courage will move readers regardless of when or where they came of age.” 

Buy Skid Dogs at your favourite local bookseller or the alternative.

Sign up for Emelia's newsletter on her website.

Reach out to a Crisis Line to debrief:

Canadian mental health resources

American mental health resources

International Suicide Hotlines

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Content Note: This is a very honest and frank conversation about our topic – modern dating. You may want to listen to this one through headphones! We’ve got a really FUN episode ahead with Canada’s Dating Coach, Chantal Heide, who has some great advice for all the women who are trying, so far unsuccessfully, to date men.

Honestly, I think this might be my new comfort listen. It's so soothing to hear someone preach about sovereignty and self-love and high standards!

Chantal is the author of several books on dating and relationships, among them the notable title, No More Assholes: Your 7 Step Guide to Saying Goodbye to Guys and Finding the Real Man You’re Looking For. 

Chantal's approach to dating is at once more conservative and more radical than most. From a neurobiological attachment perspective, I have no notes. Very sound advice. I never did it this way, but if I was single and wanting to date a man, I'd do it this way.

Check out CanadasDatingCoach.com and follow Chantal:

TikTok

Facebook 

Instagram 

Twitter

YouTube

iTunes

Podbean

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When I tell you that a tarot book is one of the best antiracism workbooks I’ve ever come across, I hope you take note. I honestly think if anyone, whether an adept or a newer student of antiracism, were to pick up Tarot for the Hard Work, it would keep them busy with exercises and practices for the rest of their lives. And, not incidentally, forge a deeper relationship with their tarot practice.

The author and my guest for this episode is Maria Minnis, a tarot reader who teaches about blending spirituality with liberation work. 

Tarot for the Hard Work is a provocative exploration of the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana that re envisions these archetypes as beacons that illuminate the various ways racism takes root both in ourselves and in the world. With exercises and thought-provoking recommended reading and resources, readers are guided to use Major Arcana themes to dismantle internalized racism, racism in relationships, and racism in communities.

This book exceeded my expectations and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Buy the Book

Follow Maria on Instagram

Referenced in this Episode

I’m Embracing the Term ‘People of the Global Majority’, by Daniel Lim

"Global Majority" Wikipedia entry

Who Are People of the Global Majority and Why It Matters, by Britt Hawthorne

My Grandmother's Hands, Resmaa Menakem

They Called Me Number One, Bev Sellars 

I Am Woman, Lee Maracle

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TNP222 Podcast Playlists for Special Interests 10 Years + 14 Themes

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YouHaveToLiveYour.Life

Percentage of Asymptomatic Infections among SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant-Positive Individuals: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Face Masks and Respirators in the Fight Against the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review of Current Materials, Advances and Future Perspectives

The People's Public Health Education Campaign is a project of the People's Oracle, Dayna Lynn Nuckolls - follow her on Instagram Twitter or Facebook for more!

I am a huge fan of Wayne McCrory's book, The Wild Horses of the Chilcotin: Their History and Future. Wayne McCrory is a registered professional biologist specializing in the study of wild horses, bears and western toads.

Wayne is a leading expert on bear conservation and human-bear conflict. He was a driving force in the creation of the Khutzeymateen/K’tzim-a-deen Grizzly Sanctuary as well as the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservancy, and for 30 years he worked with many others to end B.C.’s grizzly bear trophy hunt.

Wayne has published more than ninety scientific reports on wildlife and conservation, including two technical reports on wild horses in BC and Alberta. With horse genetics expert Dr. Gus Cothran, he has coauthored two reports on the genetics of wild horses in the Chilcotin.

In Wild Horses of the Chilcotin, there’s also kind of a low key mystical aspect to the book too - through the sharing of his dreams and experiences on the land, you get the sense that there’s an underlying subtext around a scientist encountering his spiritual self and seeking to defend and protect something bigger, something ineffable yet essential to the human spirit.

Buy the book: The Wild Horses of the Chilcotin: Their History and Future

Learn more about the Elegesi Qiyus (Eagle Lake Henry) Wild Horse Preserve of the Xeni Gwet'in

Watch In the Valley of Wild Horses on YouTube about the Xeni community 

Friends of the Nemaiah Valley

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The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be, JB MacKinnon

Sharon Astyk re: collapse

Yvonne Owens

Recent mask effectiveness research and NIOSH citation by Consumer Reports

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Looking back and looking forward, standing on threshold with a full decade of The Numinous Podcast behind me, I share 10 Qualities of Leadership, 3 secrets about the show, plus a bonus secret and another extra special bonus secret, a clip of my favourite 15 minutes out of the 10,000+ minutes of the show, and I cry a few times, of course.

So it's a pretty full episode with a good dose of edu-tainment!

Thank you so much for your support over the years.

Mentioned in this episode:

Barefoot doctors

Mirabella Ponders the Mystery

Grieving Susan and Civilization with Michael Phillips

Pollution is Colonialism, Max Liboiron

Thank you to Thanh Mai K'Taaya of SpringUp for language around self-harm and self-determination.

The People's Public Health Education is a project led by The People's Oracle, Dayna Lynn Nuckolls, that seeks to create art and belonging around staying Covid-Safe during the on-going SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. Join us for the organizing meeting on April 3, 2024 (or receive the materials if you can't attend).

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This episode is for people who are seeking guidance about how we shall live and work and be joyful together in the face of on-going pandemic. Our guest is Dayna Nuckolls, known online as The People's Oracle, creator of the Divination For Liberation Framework of Sidereal Astrology and The 7 Essential Needs™️. Dayna is a multi-oracle diviner, musician, writer, speaker, and teacher. I'm so excited for her new project: The People's Public Health Education Campaign.

We're talking about the pandemic, we're talking about liberatory astrology, we're planning for a future that includes a grassroots collective care renaissance.

I hope I'll see you at the organizing meeting! 

Nature Medicine: Higher health risks associated with each Covid re-infection: Acute and postacute sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection

My guest today is Efu Nyaki, a healer born and raised in Tanzania who works internationally facilitating trainings and workshops on trauma healing. I first heard about Efu through my friends, Patricia Petersen and Thérèse Cator who were each members of the inaugural BIPOC-only cohort of Somatic Experiencing (SE) Practitioner trainings. They recently graduated from that multiyear program and I couldn’t be more delighted to congratulate them on this tremendously wonderful achievement! 🎉 Finding a BIPOC practitioner of SE is getting easier in great measure because of the trailblazing work of today’s guest, Efu Nyaki.

Efu is a faculty member at the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute and also a professor of Systemic Family Constellations Therapy at the Hellinger Science Institute, and is also the founder of AFYA, a women’s holistic healing centre in Brazil. I’m delighted to welcome Efu to the show.

Find Efu's book, Healing Trauma through Family Constellations and Somatic Experiencing: Ancestral Wisdom from the Snail Clan of Tanzania

Follow her on Instagram

Referenced in this episode

BIPOC-only SE training in January 2024

Blog post on epistemic privilege and humility

Patricia Petersen Counselling (incl attachment-informed couple counselling)

Thérèse Cator - Circle of Reclamation

Sign up for my newsletter to be notified when my Level 1: Multidisciplinary Facilitator Training and Level 2: Metaskills for Trauma Sensitive Care training is offered in spring 2024

Tell me your thoughts on this episode!
Leave me a voicemail or note at this link.

This episode is a short retrospective of highlights from nearly a decade of The Numinous Podcast!

Below, I've sorted ten years of episodes into 14 playlists. If you don't see 14 categories below in your podcast player show notes, click here to view them on the podcast website. Enjoy!

Intuition, Spirituality, and the Mysteries of Life

TNP4: Love and Angels with Robin Arnold

TNP5: Nature, Mind and the Mystical with J.B.MacKinnon

TNP7: Spirituality + Recovery with Trinity Donnelley MacRae

TNP9: Meditation, Channeling and Connection with Dr.Jonni Gray

TNP11: Public, Private and Political with Louise

TNP13: Spiritual Self-Esteem and Professional Integrity as an Intuitive Practitioner with Judee Gee

TNP14: Carl-Greger on Spontaneous Spiritual Awakening and Direct Experience

TNP16: Jenna DellaGrottaglia on Art + Intuition

TNP17: Shakti Roumagoux: Catholic, Quaker, Engaged Buddhist

TNP18: Arthurian Legend Leadership Lessons with Kent Osborne

TNP22: The Vision Quest with Sparrow Hart

TNP25: Findhorn and Facilitating Inner Knowing with Kate Sutherland

TNP27: Shamanism and the Corporate World with Agneta

TNP30: Kate Sitka on Intuitive Communication with the Animal Kingdom

TNP32: Sex, Spirituality and Intuition with Lesley Stedmon

TNP35: Carmen Answers Listener Questions, Part 1- Trusting Your Intuition

TNP36: Carmen Answers Listener Questions, Part 2 - Trusting Your Pendulum

TNP37: Carmen Answers Listener Questions, Part 3 - Common Questions About Intuition

TNP41: Elle North on Tarot + Intuition

TNP42: Mark Silver on Sufism and the Heart of Business

TNP44: John Michael Greer on Mystery Teaching from the Living Earth

TNP46: Mirabella Ponders the Mystery

TNP50: Carmen & Ruben on Badass Backyard Spirituality

TNP52: Humanism, Atheism and Optimism with Emrys Damon Miller

TNP53: Astronomy's Mysteries with John Reid

TNP59: Ritual + Magic with John Michael Greer

TNP61: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 1

TNP62: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 2

TNP63: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 3

TNP64: {Special Episode} Learning to See in the Dark

TNP72: Alexis P. Morgan on Witchcraft, Magic, and Liberation

TNP73: Charlene Spretnak on Reclaiming Pre-Patriarchal Goddesses

TNP74: Sacred Beekeeping with Nikiah Seeds

TNP76: L'Erin Alta on Lineage and Legacy

TNP77: Digging Deep with Forensic Archeologist Juliana Kabal Xoc

TNP78: Niana Hierlander on the Uncommon Marriage of Celtic Shamanism and Catholic Mysticism

TNP79: Layla Saad on Perspectives of a Black Muslim Woman on the Priestess Path

TNP81: {Numinous School Tutorial} Your Intuition Questions Answered

TNP82: The Eclipse, The Gleaners, and Ruben and I

TNP85: Thérèse Cator on Shadow Alchemy and Life as Ceremony

TNP89: The Journey of the Psychopomp with Cat Webb

TNP90: The Celtic Golden Dawn with John Michael Greer

TNP92: Sufism, Dreamwork and Belonging with Toko-pa Turner

TNP96: Secrets of the Temple with John Michael Greer

TNP98: Priestess, Shaman, Mystic, Scapegoat with Sarah Kerr

TNP99: Monsters and Magical Beings with John Michael Greer

TNP101: Layla Feghali on Plantcestral Medicine

TNP102: Sarah Selecky and Radiant Shimmering Light

TNP103: Witchcraft and Parenting Wisdom with Beth and John Threlfall

TNP104: Magical Cookery and EcoFeminism with Danielle Prohom Olson

TNP124: Elizabeth Brown on Dowsing and Causative Diagnosis

TNP126: Controlled Remote Viewing with Laurie Lambert Williams

TNP127: Moon Magic with Sarah Faith Gottesdiener

TNP128: Scottish Folk Magic with Scott Richardson Reid of the Cailleach's Herbarium

TNP129: Palm Reading with Helene Saucedo

TNP130: Sigil Witchery with Laura Tempest Zakroff

TNP131: The Twelve Faces of the Goddess with Danielle Blackwood

TNP136: Maia Toll on Working with Plant, Animal and Crystal Allies in Troubled Times

TNP140: Darius Mills on Hoodoo Manifestation Magic

TNP141: Eric Tyrone - Get Woke in Your Dreamtime

TNP144: Mimi Young on Intuition and Pandemic Plant Medicine

TNP149: Spiritual Hygiene for the Holidays with Carmen Spagnola

TNP150: Hekatean Witchcraft with Dr.Cyndi Brannen

TNP158: Beyond Crystal Basics with Nicholas Pearson

TNP159: Norse Ritual Animism and Seidr with Maris Bergrune

TNP162: Entering Hekate's Garden with Dr.Cyndi Brannen

TNP169: Sophie Macklin on Antifascist Folklore and Ungovernable Bodies

TNP170: Flower Essences from the Witch's Garden with Nicholas Pearson

TNP173: Creative Witchcraft with Natalie Rousseau

TNP174: Sovereign and Supernatural - Manifesting Beyond Capitalism with L'Erin Alta

TNP175: Ancestral Reverence and Seasonal Traditions with Thérèse Cator

TNP176: Mimi Young on Animism, Numerology and Chinese Astrology

TNP180: What Makes a Witch? with Carmen Spagnola

TNP183: Journey from Maiden to Mother with Sarah Durham Wilson

TNP184: Art and the Moon with Dana da Ponte

TNP185: Trance, Dreams and the Collective with Carmen Spagnola

TNP188: Fumbling Through...All Of It with Kael Klassen

TNP190: Celtic Embodiment with Jen Murphy

TNP191: Entering Hekate's Cave with Dr.Cyndi Brannen

TNP205: Sophie Strand on Mary Magdalene and Miracles

TNP209: {Special Class Recording} Connecting with Plants with Carmen

TNP212: Shauna Janz on Ancestral Veneration in Child-Free and Queer Lineages

TNP216: Success and Spiritual Leadership with Colette Baron-Reid

TNP219: Take Down the Patriarchy and Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn

TNP230: Spirit Talker Shawn Leonard on working with Your Guides

TNP232: Be the fire, Be the Medicine with Asha Frost

Attachment, Human Relationships, Parenting, Families, and Cults

TNP19: Monique Gray Smith on Ceremony and Sacredness with Children

TNP29: Conscious Parenting with Colleen Adrian

TNP31: Creating Community with Carolyne Taylor

TNP33: Community, Autonomy and Forgiveness with Michael Phillips

TNP39: Rachelle Lamb on Relating, Language and Poetry

TNP40: Bethany Webster on Healing the Mother Wound

TNP46: Mirabella Ponders the Mystery

TNP49: Carolyn Baker on Grief and Love During Collapse

TNP50: Carmen & Ruben on Badass Backyard Spirituality

TNP51: Love in the Apocalypse with Carolyn Baker, PhD

TNP56: Motherless Daughter, Mother: Sheila Webster

TNP61: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 1

TNP62: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 2

TNP63: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 3

TNP69: Tiffany Joseph on Language, Land, and Everything Important

TNP76: L'Erin Alta on Lineage and Legacy

TNP82: The Eclipse, The Gleaners, and Ruben and I

TNP83: Nora Samaran - The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture

TNP84: Honouring Ancestors with Rachael Rice

TNP86: Channelling Change with Jenn Richardson

TNP88: Monique Gray Smith is Speaking Truth

TNP103: Witchcraft and Parenting Wisdom with Beth and John Threlfall

TNP115: Solara Goldwyn on Edible Landscapes, Sustainability, and Climate Dread

TNP116: Matthew Remski on Attachment, High Demand Communities and Yoga's Culture of Abuse

TNP118: Patti Elledge on Attachment, Grieving Together, and Mobilizing Outrage

TNP121: Alexandra Stein on Disorganized Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Regimes

TNP138: Mara Cur on Hide Tanning and the Orphan's Journey

TNP151: Oliver Choquette on the Intersection of Gender Diversity and Neurodivergence

TNP153: Parenting a Trans Teen with Paria Hassouri

TNP166: Cultivating Sisterhood at (Trans)Midlife with Aurelie Richards

TNP172: A Love Note to Grievers with Angela E Morris

TNP189: Recovering Towards Mothering with Taryn Strong

TNP194: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 1

TNP195: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 2

TNP196: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 3

TNP197: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 4

TNP208: {Special Class Recording} Attachment + Contact Nutrition 

TNP213: Parenting Beyond Power with Jen Lumanlan

TNP218: Take Down the Patriarchy and Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn

TNP223: Efu Nyaki on Healing Trauma through Family Constellations and SE

TNP228: New Rules for Dating with Canada's Dating Coach, Chantal Heide

Voices of the Global Majority (BIPOC - Black, Indigenous, People of Colour)

TNP19: Monique Gray Smith on Ceremony and Sacredness with Children

TNP47: Indigo Ocean Dutton on Saying Yes to Happiness

TNP57: Homeless and Hopeless, to Unbounded Joy with Shayla Logan

TNP65: Jessie Hemphill on Walking Between the Worlds

TNP66: Aftab Erfan on Safe Spaces

TNP68: Janet Rogers on Art, History, and Strong Women

TNP69: Tiffany Joseph on Language, Land, and Everything Important

TNP70: Sewit Thomas Jones on Language and Belonging

TNP72: Alexis P. Morgan on Witchcraft, Magic, and Liberation

TNP76: L'Erin Alta on Lineage and Legacy

TNP77: Digging Deep with Forensic Archeologist Juliana Kabal Xoc

TNP79: Layla Saad on Perspectives of a Black Muslim Woman on the Priestess Path

TNP85: Thérèse Cator on Shadow Alchemy and Life as Ceremony

TNP88: Monique Gray Smith is Speaking Truth

TNP93: Queer Nature with Pinar and So Sinopoulos-Lloyd

TNP95: Preparing with Quest with Patricia and Ashley

TNP97: Ancestry, Funerals, and Writing at 4:30am with Leesa Renee Hall

TNP101: Layla Feghali on Plantcestral Medicine

TNP105: Tending the Threshold with Tannur Ali

TNP106: Tending the Threshold with Aftab Erfan

TNP107: Tending the Threshold with Aaron Ortega

TNP110: Tending the Threshold with Desiree Adaway

TNP111: Tending the Threshold with Bayo Akomolafe

TNP114: Jessie Hemphill on Indigenizing Urban Design and Collapse Awareness

TNP117: Monique Gray Smith on the What, Why, and How of Territorial Acknowledgements

TNP120: Tiffany Śwxeloselwet Jospeh on Adaptation

TNP125: Stephanie Papik on Inuit tattoos and Cultural Reclamation

TNP137: Sharon Ross (Afrovivalist) on Emergency Preparedness

TNP140: Darius Mills on Hoodoo Manifestation Magic

TNP141: Eric Tyrone - Get Woke in Your Dreamtime

TNP144: Mimi Young on Intuition and Pandemic Plant Medicine

TNP152: Conscious Grieving with Taraneh Erfan

TNP153: Parenting a Trans Teen with Paria Hassouri

TNP154: Fuck Capitalism – But Wait, What is Capitalism Exactly? With Toi Smith

TNP156: Elaine Alec on Calling Your Spirit Back from Trauma

TNP174: Sovereign and Supernatural - Manifesting Beyond Capitalism with L'Erin Alta

TNP175: Ancestral Reverence and Seasonal Traditions with Thérèse Cator

TNP176: Mimi Young on Animism, Numerology and Chinese Astrology

TNP186: Time as a Tool of Empire with Desiree Adaway

TNP187: Sinking Into Sacred Truth and Giving It Voice with Velda Thomas

TNP201: {AstroMagic Miniseries} The Magic of Mercury with Thea Anderson

TNP211: Taraneh Erfan on Processing Anger

TNP219: The Metaskills of Healing with Thérèse Cator

TNP223: Efu Nyaki on Healing Trauma through Family Constellations and SE

TNP224: Dayna Lynn Nuckolls on Sidereal Astrology and the People's Public Health Education Campaign

TNP227: Tarot for the Hard Work with Maria Minnis 

TNP230: Spirit Talker Shawn Leonard on working with Your Guides

TNP232: Be the fire, Be the Medicine with Asha Frost

Collapse, Dismantling Systems of Oppression, and Revolution

TNP21: Culture, Colonialism and Spirituality with Josiah Neufeld

TNP24: Grieving for Susan and Civilization with Michael Phillips

TNP28: Communism, the Beatniks and the Guru with Michael Phillips

TNP43: Miss Rosie Bitts on Feminism, Burlesque and Self-Expression (Or, Learning to Love Your Jiggly Bits)

TNP49: Carolyn Baker on Grief and Love During Collapse

TNP54: Nicole Foss on Navigating the Perfect Financial Storm

TNP55: How to Build a Life Boat with Nicole Foss

TNP64: {Special Episode} Learning to See in the Dark

TNP65: Jessie Hemphill on Walking Between the Worlds

TNP67: Confronting Whiteness with Rachael Rice and Marybeth Bonfiglio

TNP66: Aftab Erfan on Safe Spaces

TNP68: Janet Rogers on Art, History, and Strong Women

TNP71: Kelly Diels on the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand

TNP73: Charlene Spretnak on Reclaiming Pre-Patriarchal Goddesses

TNP75: Jennifer Jacquet Asks, Is Shame a Necessary Tool for Social Cooperation?

TNP82: The Eclipse, The Gleaners, and Ruben and I

TNP83: Nora Samaran - The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture

TNP85: Thérèse Cator on Shadow Alchemy and Life as Ceremony

TNP88: Monique Gray Smith is Speaking Truth

TNP93: Queer Nature with Pinar and So Sinopoulos-Lloyd

TNP104: Magical Cookery and EcoFeminism with Danielle Prohom Olson

TNP105: Tending the Threshold with Tannur Ali

TNP106: Tending the Threshold with Aftab Erfan

TNP107: Tending the Threshold with Aaron Ortega

TNP109: Tending the Threshold with Rachael Rice and Bec Stupak

TNP110: Tending the Threshold with Desiree Adaway

TNP111: Tending the Threshold with Bayo Akomolafe

TNP114: Jessie Hemphill on Indigenizing Urban Design and Collapse Awareness

TNP115: Solara Goldwyn on Edible Landscapes, Sustainability, and Climate Dread

TNP117: Monique Gray Smith on the What, Why, and How of Territorial Acknowledgements

TNP119: John Michael Greer on The Long Descent

TNP120: Tiffany Śwxeloselwet Jospeh on Adaptation

TNP133: Permission to Grieve with Francis Weller

TNP134: Decolonizing Scottish Highland History and Radicalizing Gaelic Folk Culture with Michael Newton

TNP137: Sharon Ross (Afrovivalist) on Emergency Preparedness

TNP139: Colonial Influence on Hide Tanning Past and Present with Mara Cur

TNP143: Bear Hebert on Unlearning Oppression

TNP145: Holly Truhlar on Tending the Threshold of Collapse

TNP146: Carmen + Holly on Collapse Psychology and the Importance of Grief, Ritual, Accountability and Play

TNP147: Tom Hirons Tracks Collapse and Meaning Through Poetry

TNP148: Seeing Yourself Through the Apocalypse with Lindsay Tunkl

TNP154: Fuck Capitalism – But Wait, What is Capitalism Exactly? With Toi Smith

TNP161: Collapse in a Nutshell with Carmen Spagnola

TNP168: Somatics for White-Bodied Folks Recovering Ancestral Wisdom with Marika Heinricks

TNP169: Sophie Macklin on Antifascist Folklore and Ungovernable Bodies

TNP171: Crystie Kisler is Connecting Land and Food

TNP186: Time as a Tool of Empire with Desiree Adaway

TNP193: How Much is Enough in Collapse? with Carmen & Ruben

TNP207: {Special Class Recording} Fascism 101 for Collapse Times

TNP215: Before Capitalism (from a European Perspective) with Sophie Macklin

TNP218: Take Down the Patriarchy and Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn

TNP219: The Metaskills of Healing with Thérèse Cator

TNP221: Waking Up to the Dark with Clark Strand

TNP224: Dayna Lynn Nuckolls on Sidereal Astrology and the People's Public Health Education Campaign

TNP227: Tarot for the Hard Work with Maria Minnis

TNP234: Unlearning Fatphobia + Embracing Pleasure with Dawn Serra

Grief, Death, and Mortality

TNP24: Grieving for Susan and Civilization with Michael Phillips

TNP49: Carolyn Baker on Grief and Love During Collapse

TNP77: Digging Deep with Forensic Archeologist Juliana Kabal Xoc

TNP84: Honouring Ancestors with Rachael Rice

TNP86: Channelling Change with Jenn Richardson

TNP89: The Journey of the Psychopomp with Cat Webb

TNP97: Ancestry, Funerals, and Writing at 4:30am with Leesa Renee Hall

TNP122: Pashta MaryMoon on Accompanying the Dying, Hospice Singing and Preparing for our Death

TNP123: Sarah Kerr on Being a Death Doula and Coping with Loss When a Pet or Plant Dies

TNP133: Permission to Grieve with Francis Weller

TNP138: Mara Cur on Hide Tanning and the Orphan's Journey

TNP152: Conscious Grieving with Taraneh Erfan

TNP172: A Love Note to Grievers with Angela E. Morris

TNP219: Take Down the Patriarchy and Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn

TNP230: Spirit Talker Shawn Leonard on working with Your Guides

Midlife/Perimenopause

TNP165: Embracing Sovereignty at Midlife with Nikiah Seeds

TNP179: Navigating Creative Drought and Change with Nikiah Seeds

TNP164: The Astrology of Midlife with Danielle Blackwood

TNP166: Cultivating Sisterhood at (Trans)Midlife with Aurelie Richards

TNP182: Reimagining Elderhood with Sharon Blackie

TNP191: Entering Hekate's Cave with Dr.Cyndi Brannen

TNP216: Success and Spiritual Leadership with Colette Baron-Reid

TNP197: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen and Ruben (Part Four)

TNP173: Creative Witchcraft with Natalie Rousseau (this one is maybe indirectly related - I can't remember specifics but it feels aligned!)

TNP217: Burnout and Recovery at Midlife with Annie Bray

TNP220: Empower Your Menopause with Dr.Kristin Schnurr, ND

TNP228: New Rules for Dating with Canada's Dating Coach, Chantal Heide

Creativity, Business, and Practitioner Skills

TNP5: Nature, Mind and the Mystical with J.B.MacKinnon

TNP8: Better Living Through Metaphor with Sarah Selecky

TNP15: Lauren Bacon with Tools to Diffuse Imposter Syndrome and Comparison

TNP18: Arthurian Legend Leadership Lessons with Kent Osborne

TNP38: Brooke Semple on Culture, Design, and Authenticity

TNP42: Mark Silver on Sufism and the Heart of Business

TNP45: Emrys Damon Miller on Graphic Design and Shamanism

TNP58: Kindness and Goodness, in Business and Life with Carrie Klassen

TNP60: How the Healer Heals Herself with Lindsay Rose Turner

TNP65: Jessie Hemphill on Walking Between the Worlds

TNP68: Janet Rogers on Art, History, and Strong Women

TNP71: Kelly Diels on the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand

TNP77: Digging Deep with Forensic Archeologist Juliana Kabal Xoc

TNP91: Emelia Symginton Fedy is Trying to be Good

TNP97: Ancestry, Funerals, and Writing at 4:30am with Leesa Renee Hall

TNP102: Sarah Selecky and Radiant Shimmering Light

TNP109: Tending the Threshold with Rachael Rice and Bec Stupak

TNP114: Jessie Hemphill on Indigenizing Urban Design and Collapse Awareness

TNP115: Solara Goldwyn on Edible Landscapes, Sustainability, and Climate Dread

TNP167: Lessons Learned from Ira Glass, Roxane Gay, and the Making of The Spirited Kitchen

TNP173: Creative Witchcraft with Natalie Rousseau

TNP177: Journal as Altar, Pages as Portals with Erin Fairchild

TNP178: Eliza Robertson on Writing with the Stars and Magic with the Muses

TNP181: {Takeover Episode} The Making of The Spirited Kitchen

TNP184: Art and the Moon with Dana da Ponte

TNP216: Success and Spiritual Leadership with Colette Baron-Reid

TNP219: The Metaskills of Healing with Thérèse Cator

Land, Nature, and Animism

TNP5: Nature, Mind and the Mystical with J.B.MacKinnon

TNP22: The Vision Quest with Sparrow Hart

TNP30: Kate Sitka on Intuitive Communication with the Animal Kingdom

TNP44: John Michael Greer on Mystery Teaching from the Living Earth

TNP65: Jessie Hemphill on Walking Between the Worlds

TNP68: Janet Rogers on Art, History, and Strong Women

TNP70: Sewit Thomas Jones on Language and Belonging

TNP93: Queer Nature with Pinar and So Sinopoulos-Lloyd

TNP95: Preparing with Quest with Patricia and Ashley

TNP101: Layla Feghali on Plantcestral Medicine

TNP104: Magical Cookery and EcoFeminism with Danielle Prohom Olson

TNP115: Solara Goldwyn on Edible Landscapes, Sustainability, and Climate Dread

TNP117: Monique Gray Smith on the What, Why, and How of Territorial Acknowledgements

TNP136: Maia Toll on Working with Plant, Animal and Crystal Allies in Troubled Times

TNP144: Mimi Young on Intuition and Pandemic Plant Medicine

TNP155: Growing Great Pumpkins with BC Record-Breaker Dave Chan

TNP162: Entering Hekate's Garden with Dr.Cyndi Brannen

TNP170: Flower Essences from the Witch's Garden with Nicholas Pearson

TNP171: Crystie Kisler is Connecting Land and Food

TNP205: Sophie Strand on Mary Magdalene and Miracles

TNP206: Alexa Linton on Interspecies Relating and Healing with Horses

TNP209: {Special Class Recording} Connecting with Plants with Carmen

TNP221: Waking Up to the Dark with Clark Strand

TNP226: Wild Horses of the Chilcotin with Wayne McCrory

TNP232: Be the fire, Be the Medicine with Asha Frost

Astrology

TNP12: Georgia Nicols on Astrology and Patterns of Knowing

TNP23: Making the Most of Mercury Retrograde with Georgia Nicols

TNP164: The Astrology of Midlife with Danielle Blackwood

TNP178: Eliza Robertson on Writing with the Stars and Magic with the Muses

TNP198: {AstroMagic Miniseries} Eliza Robertson and the Sun

TNP199: {AstroMagic Miniseries} Bronwyn Simons on Moon Magic + Lunar Consciousness

TNP200: {AstroMagic Miniseries} Mars Magic with Carmen Spagnola

TNP201: {AstroMagic Miniseries} The Magic of Mercury with Thea Anderson

TNP202: {AstroMagic Miniseries} Maeg Keane on Connecting with Jupiter

TNP203: {AstroMagic Miniseries} Kristin Mathis, Venus and the Orphic Hymns

TNP204: {AstroMagic Miniseries} ET Shipley on the Power of Saturn

TNP224: Dayna Lynn Nuckolls on Sidereal Astrology and the People's Public Health Education Campaign

Somatics, the Body, and Healing Journeys

TNP32: Sex, Spirituality and Intuition with Lesley Stedmon

TNP43: Miss Rosie Bitts on Feminism, Burlesque and Self-Expression (Or, Learning to Love Your Jiggly Bits)

TNP47: Indigo Ocean Dutton on Saying Yes to Happiness

TNP57: Homeless and Hopeless, to Unbounded Joy with Shayla Logan

TNP60: How the Healer Heals Herself with Lindsay Rose Turner

TNP91: Emelia Symginton Fedy is Trying to be Good

TNP94: Mapping Reclamation with Rachael Maddox

TNP132: Somatic Mentoring with Patti Elledge

TNP156: Elaine Alec on Calling Your Spirit Back from Trauma

TNP168: Somatics for White-Bodied Folks Recovering Ancestral Wisdom with Marika Heinricks

TNP169: Sophie Macklin on Antifascist Folklore and Ungovernable Bodies

TNP187: Sinking Into Sacred Truth and Giving It Voice with Velda Thomas

TNP190: Rooting the Myths of Celtic Embodiment with Jen Murphy

TNP210: RCCX Theory of Complex Illness with Carmen Spagnola

TNP211: Taraneh Erfan on Processing Anger

TNP217: Burnout and Recovery at Midlife with Annie Bray

TNP219: The Metaskills of Healing with Thérèse Cator

TNP220: Empower Your Menopause with Dr.Kristin Schnurr, ND

TNP223: Efu Nyaki on Healing Trauma through Family Constellations and SE

TNP232: Be the Fire, Be the Medicine with Asha Frost

TNP233: Understanding Moral Injury with Dr.Robyn Walser

TNP234: Unlearning Fatphobia + Embracing Pleasure with Dawn Serra

Poetry

TNP20: Llynne Phillips and Sacred Poetry

TNP39: Rachelle Lamb on Relating, Language and Poetry

TNP147: Tom Hirons Tracks Collapse and Meaning Through Poetry

TNP221: Waking Up to the Dark with Clark Strand

Elder Wisdom

TNP12: Georgia Nicols on Astrology and Patterns of Knowing

TNP20: Llynne Phillips and Sacred Poetry

TNP24: Grieving for Susan and Civilization with Michael Phillips

TNP28: Communism, the Beatniks and the Guru with Michael Phillips

TNP33: Community, Autonomy and Forgiveness with Michael Phillips

TNP49: Carolyn Baker on Grief and Love During Collapse

TNP73: Charlene Spretnak on Reclaiming Pre-Patriarchal Goddesses

TNP122: Pashta MaryMoon on Accompanying the Dying, Hospice Singing and Preparing for our Death

TNP132: Somatic Mentoring with Patti Elledge

TNP155: Growing Great Pumpkins with BC Record-Breaker Dave Chan

TNP216: Success and Spiritual Leadership with Colette Baron-Reid

TNP219: Take Down the Patriarchy and Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn

TNP221: Waking Up to the Dark with Clark Strand

TNP226: Wild Horses of the Chilcotin with Wayne McCrory

Carmen & Ruben / Rubenations

TNP50: Carmen & Ruben on Badass Backyard Spirituality

TNP75: Jennifer Jacquet Asks, Is Shame a Necessary Tool for Social Cooperation?

TNP82: The Eclipse, The Gleaners, and Ruben and I

TNP83: Nora Samaran - The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture

TNP100: Cocktail Pairings for Your Listening Pleasure

TNP133: Permission to Grieve with Francis Weller

TNP155: Growing Great Pumpkins with BC Record-Breaker Dave Chan

TNP193: How Much is Enough in Collapse? with Carmen & Ruben

TNP194: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 1

TNP195: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 2

TNP196: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 3

TNP197: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen & Ruben, Part 4

Just Me Talkin'

TNP1: Becoming Your Own Spiritual Advisor, (Premiere Episode, March 30, 2014)

TNP2: Becoming Your Own Spiritual Advisor

TNP3: Becoming Your Own Spiritual Advisor

TNP35: Carmen Answers Listener Questions, Part 1- Trusting Your Intuition

TNP36: Carmen Answers Listener Questions, Part 2 - Trusting Your Pendulum

TNP37: Carmen Answers Listener Questions, Part 3 - Common Questions About Intuition

TNP61: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 1

TNP62: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 2

TNP63: Healing the Abandonment Wound, Part 3

TNP64: {Special Episode} Learning to See in the Dark

TNP81: {Numinous School Tutorial} Your Intuition Questions Answered

TNP149: Spiritual Hygiene for the Holidays with Carmen Spagnola

TNP160: The Bruce Springsteen Soundtrack

TNP161: Collapse in a Nutshell with Carmen Spagnola

TNP180: What Makes a Witch? with Carmen Spagnola

TNP185: Trance, Dreams and the Collective with Carmen Spagnola

TNP200: {AstroMagic Miniseries} Mars Magic with Carmen Spagnola

TNP207: {Special Class Recording} Fascism 101 for Collapse Times

TNP208: {Special Class Recording} Attachment + Contact Nutrition 

TNP209: {Special Class Recording} Connecting with Plants with Carmen

TNP225: 10th Anniversary Episode! 3 Secrets + My Thoughts on the Mystery of Life

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Today, we welcome Clark Strand to the show to talk about his book, Waking up to the Dark: The Black Madonna's Gospel for an Age of Extinction and Collapse. Clark has written numerous books and articles, his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and he is co-author with previous podcast guest, Perdita Finn, of the book, The Way of the Rose.

In this episode, we go back to the beginning, in more ways than one. We explore the Deep Time of our neolithic ancestors, and even just how distant the world of our ancestors of less than 100 years ago seems, as we discuss the ways in which electric light has shaped our lives and our psyches. We discuss how electrification has led us to the climate crisis we’re in today. Waking up to the Dark is an urgent message from an apparition that Clark calls Our Lady of Climate Change about the challenges to come. 

Get or gift a copy of Waking Up to the Dark

Learn more about the Way of the Rose Fellowship

Monthly Tricycle Haiku Challenge

Follow Clark on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarkstrand/

Perdita Finn's episode of The Numinous Podcast

Sophie Strand's episode of The Numinous Podcast

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Learn more about The Spirit of Yuletide

Join The Numinous Network

Review this podcast!

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{NEW!} Leave a comment or question for me – I may respond in a future episode!

I have been a student in the most life-changing class about perimenopause for the better part of this year. Actually, it’s a telehealth group – a group of patients meeting monthly for online sessions – under the care of Dr.Kristin Schnurr, a naturopathic doctor who specializes in complex endocrine concerns including perimenopause and postmenopause.

In this episode, we explore:

• how long perimenopause lasts
• how to know which stage of perimenopause you're in
• why vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats) can be more serious than we think
• the connection between ACE scores and perimenopausal symptoms

and so much more!

Referenced in this episode:

Read Dr.Kristin's full bio here.

Follow her on Instagram.

Get on Dr.Kristin's newsletter by visiting her website here: www.drkristinschnurr.com

• Empowered - Navigating the Perimenopausal Transition - This group would be a good fit for those of you still menstruating or if it has been less than one year from your last menstrual period. Sign up for her newsletter to be the first to know when registration opens.
  
  
• Emergence - An Exploration of Life After Menopause - For those of you for whom it has been 12 months since your last menstrual period. Sign up for her newsletter to be the first to know when registration opens.

• Self-Paced Course: Empowered - Navigating the Perimenopausal Transition (Coming Soon! Visit her website and sign up for her newsletter for the announcement)

Resources

International Menopause Society

The Menopause Society

Daily Record of Severity of Problems tracking sheet

ACE Studies information and quiz

Perimenopause Playlist of relevant Numinous Podcast episodes

TNP165: Embracing Sovereignty at Midlife with Nikiah Seeds

TNP179: Navigating Creative Drought and Change with Nikiah Seeds

TNP164: The Astrology of Midlife with Danielle Blackwood

TNP182: Reimagining Elderhood with Sharon Blackie

TNP191: Entering Hekate's Cave with Dr.Cyndi Brannen

TNP216: Success and Spiritual Leadership with Colette Baron-Reid

TNP197: Portrait of a Marriage with Carmen and Ruben (Part Four)

TNP173: Creative Witchcraft with Natalie Rousseau (this one is maybe indirectly related - I can't remember specifics but it feels aligned!)

TNP217: Burnout and Recovery at Midlife with Annie Bray

Does this material resonate? Join us live!

Check out The Numinous Network and come to the Peri/Meno Jams and AMAs

Come hang out with us for The Spirit of Yuletide

Like what you heard? Give a little love to the podcast with a nice review!

Wow, this is a juicy one. My dear friend, Thérèse Cator, is back on the show in this special replay of a session we co-led as a warm-up event for my Witches New Year Gathering happening on October 28, 2023.

Thérèse Cator is a trauma-informed embodiment practitioner who specializes in helping people develop a connection to their bodies that promotes wellness and healing. Cator’s work provides an intersectional and decolonial lens that is rare in an overwhelmingly white and ableist somatics field. Thérèse is also the founder of Embodied Black Girl, a global community that stands for the embodied liberation of Black women and femmes and women of color everywhere. Embodied Black Girl is devoted to creating a safe space for to heal from intergenerational trauma, racialized stress and colonial conditioning in service of our individual and collective liberation and healing. Thérèse has been featured in Forbes and MindBodyGreen, and she has delivered workshops to major tech companies while maintaining her focus on Black women's and femmes' health.

We've been friends since 2017 and over the years have been in trainings together as students, as well as co-facilitated and collaborated on projects. We often independently come up with new directions we want to take with our work, only to find the other was planning the exact same thing. And that's what happened here! We are each offering facilitator trainings in 2024 and we're here to give some insight into our shared philosophical approach.

Referenced in this episode

TNP85: Thérèse Cator on Shadow Alchemy and Life as Ceremony

Sign up for Thérèse's newsletter on her website

Find out more about Thérèse's background here

Can academic reading be healing?, by Katherine Firth (the Routledge article based off Sedgewick's concept of "reparative reading") 

Sedgewick's original essay on "paranoid reading" versus "reparative reading"

TNP161: Collapse in a Nutshell

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Learn more about the Metaskills of Collapse in my Collapse 101 course in The Numinous Network, or join us to experience our manner of approach for group facilitation. 

Last call to get your ticket for Witches New Year! Recordings available to stream until Nov 7, 2023.

Sign up for my newsletter so you'll know when my facilitation training opens in Feb/March 2024.

Like this episode? Give it a review! As you can tell, I read them and they matter to me!

My guest today is Perdita Finn, co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the non-denominational international fellowship, The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book, The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary. Her newest book is called Take Back the Magic:Conversations with the Unseen World. It's part spiritual memoir, part ancestral veneration how-to, part takedown of the patriarchy through correspondence with her deceased father who was a doctor. 

I absolutely loved this conversation and could listen to Perdita for hours. I highly recommend you seek out her book, Take Back the Magic, and spend some time communing with your Beloved Dead.

Follow Perdita on Instagram

Join Perdita's Substack

Referenced in this episode

TNP73 Charlene Spretnak on Reclaiming PrePatriarchal Goddesses

Like this episode? I'd love your review! 🙏🏻💖

Check out Witches New Year 2023

Learn more about The Numinous Network

Check out my book, The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year

Author photo by Juliet Lofrado.

I saw a meme that said, "If I am googling symptoms and the treatment says "mindfulness", I know there's no treatment for my condition". I laughed but...for real, can't we do any better than this??

Let's have a real conversation about the pervasiveness of burnout and the gaslighting of the wellness industrial complex. If you're a regular listener, you know we have a clear line of sight on patriarchy and capitalism and we have long been well aware that they're the underlying cause, as with white supremacy, ableism, all of it. Clearly self-help and meditation isn't enough.

And yet, there is something to it, isn't there? It would be awfully ignorant of me to not recognize that a millenias-old practice probably has some merit. The benefits of meditation on our overall wellbeing and to support restoration of the nervous system are clear, (experientially if not always empirically).

Here to muddle through this with me today is my friend, Annie Bray, a longtime meditation teacher and bodywork practitioner. She's also a somatic coach and one of our Guides in The Numinous Network leading monthly Polyvagal Theory-informed meditation sessions. Annie also studied with Joanna Macy, root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, and we invoke her as a muse in this conversation, reflecting on her spiritual leadership as a woman in later life. It's nice to reflect on those who've inspired us as we navigate our entrepreneurship in the wellness space.

Annie has 20 years' experience as a manual therapist, plus deep study in trauma recovery, applied polyvagal theory, meditation, yoga and trauma-informed coaching. In her work, she aims to support folks to feel reliably well-met, relatively safe and free to engage with life meaningfully.

Check out Annie's website here

Learn more about Annie's 1:1 Somatic Coaching

REORIENT: a 12-week meditation program for midlife caregivers, based deeply in both WTR and in attachment and polyvagal theory, set to run again in January, with increased focus on midlife caregivers dealing with burnout.

Follow her on Instagram

Referenced in this episode

Joanna Macy

Work That Reconnects

Recent studies on burnout

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

Donald Winnicott's Good Enough Mother studies

Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time, by Laura Khadouri

Check out The Numinous Network to try Annie's class and more!

Review The Spirited Kitchen on Amazon

Like this episode? I'd love your review!

(Thanks in advance for taking the time 💖)

🚨Alert! 🚨 Alert! 🚨This is a very special episode where my life comes full circle! I am unspeakably thrilled to welcome Colette Baron-Reid to the show.

Colette Baron-Reid is a bestselling author of 15 best-selling Oracle card decks, with over a million sold worldwide and 7 books published in 27 languages. In fact, her iconic deck, The Enchanted Map, is the #1 oracle deck I've recommended for the past decade for people to develop their intuition and card reading skills.

This interview is candid, it's intimate, and it's a very frank reflection on the lessons learned over a 30+ year career in spiritual leadership. We talk workaholism, we talk intergenerational trauma, we talk menopause... We talk about diversity, equity and inclusion in the spiritual self-help genre, and humility in the face of public scrutiny. We talk about diving deeper into shadow work and real, authentic repair. Join us for a fascinating portrait of a wise woman just getting started at 65...

Colette is an internationally acclaimed Oracle expert, spiritual intuitive, personal transformation thought leader, business strategist, artist, and educator. She's the founder of The Oracle School Experience®, OraclePalooza®, and host of INSIDE THE WOONIVERSE, a weekly podcast series. She's a former EMI recording artist has been living clean and sober for the last 37 years. Colette provided numerous in-depth resources in this episode:

References

Visit Colette's website

Oracle School

Colette's membership site

Inside the Woo-niverse podcast

Know Justice, Know Peace by Dr. Deborah Egerton, Enneagram + Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility specialist

Mindful of Race and Healing Rage by Ruth King

Like this episode? Review the podcast! 🙏🏻

This is a conversation about capitalism, and therefore about whiteness and supremacy culture. There is a bit of a record scratch moment when I say something that sounds pretty obliviously white, then correct myself. I like to leave the mistakes in because it's good reconditioning from perfectionism/whiteness. Enjoy!

Sophie Macklin is an anarchist mystic who lived in California for fifteen years but recently returned home to England. She practises brythonic polytheism, antifascism, and devotion to an animate world, and specializes in topics related to radical history, anti-capitalism, antifascism, reclaiming the commons, anti-ableism, and exploring different ways of knowing. She’s an educator whose work has deeply impacted my own.

I've invited Sophie back to the show to talk about capitalism and its accompanying attitudes around productivity, disability, and land use. In this episode, we’re talking about a period of history in England when we saw the end of access to common lands to the system of private property and land ownership which we now think of as normal. If you want to jam on Caliban and the Witch and the work of Silvia Federici, this one's for you!

References

Sophie is a presenter at my annual Witches New Year event – hope you'll join us!

Silvia Federici

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, by Silvia Federici

Horse Power and Magic, George Ewart Evans

Follow Sophie on Instagram @sophiemacklin

Join us at Witches New Year 2023

Review the podcast!

Emily Rose is a content creator from Montreal who hosts a pop culture and reality TV recap podcast called It's Become a Whole Thing. She's also an herbalist and an astrologer. After the death of her mother in the start of the pandemic, Emily needed an outlet to disconnect from the heaviness of life and she found it in pop culture and a whole new world on TikTok where creativity and smarts meet niche communities and a swell of support on social media.

Emily can usually be found glued to her couch, on a quest for a new brunch spot, or on a troll stroll (the antithesis to the hot girl walk: no minimum distances, just taking your bad attitude and bad outfit to get some air and Vitamin D).

References

The Stuff I Hate Journal: Trends I Hate. Foods I Loathe. People Who Annoy Me. And Everything Else That's the Absolute Worst, by Emily Rose

It's Become A Whole Thing Podcast

Emily's TikTok: @itsbecomeawholething

Meredith Lynch, writer and pop culture deep dives

Molly McPherson, public relations and crisis communications 

The Zen Blonde, pop culture deep dives

Friday Things, Stacy Lee Kong

Colleen Emery, Emery Herbals

Letterkenny, Canada's second best ever situational comedy IMHO

Bridget Casey, financial coach

KikiMay, feminist analysis, smashing the patriarchy one ding dong at a time

Review this podcast now!

My guest today is Jen Lumanlan host of the popular podcast, Your Parenting Mojo, and author of the book Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection and Collaboration to Transform Your Family - and the World.

After attending Berkeley and Yale and following a traditional career path in sustainability consulting, Jen found that parenting was her toughest challenge yet. She went back to school for a master’s degree in psychology focused on child development and another in education, and trained as a Co-Active coach to share what she learned with other parents.

In the book, she shares about her own struggles as a child and a content warning here for bereavement and discussion of disordered eating.

For my listeners who are people of the global majority, the book is written from the perspective of a white parent grappling with unlearning the use of dominance and other more subtle aspects of white supremacy culture. In this conversation, it does take a minute to get around to stating explicitly that white parents do not have the same parents as parents who are Black, or Indigenous or Asian or other oppressed identities. I want to assure you we do get around to that and also that it is front and centre throughout the book, and it’s handled with nuance. It’s an excellent book for folks who are actively seeking or maybe just starting to be curious about how to dismantle systems of oppression and unhook from supremacy culture and the use of dominance and coercion at the family and relational level.

Here's how you can get Jen's book through a gift economy approach: https://yourparentingmojo.com/book/

References

Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication, Meenadchi

Needy: How to Advocate for your Needs and Claim your Sovereignty, Mara Glatzel

My Collapse 101 course is included with membership in The Numinous Network

Stacy Lee Kong of Friday Things explains the coercive control at work in the Jonah Hill/Sarah Brady text exchange

My social media post/explainer on coercive control

Why Giving Choices Doesn't Work And What To Do Instead, Your Parenting Mojo Podcast

Dismantling White Supremacy Culture in our Families, Amanda Gross

White Supremacy Culture, Tema Okun

Zawn Villines on Facebook and their substack, Liberating Motherhood: For mothers who are pissed off about sexism, household chore inequality, and endless misogynistic bullshit, and for the allies who want a better world for all of us

How to Get Away with Parenting with Malaika Dowler

Pervasive Drive for Autonomy, Tomlin Wilding

No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism, Chris Niebauer

Like this episode? Review the podcast!

Shauna Janz is a facilitator at the crossroads of grief, trauma, ritual and ancestral healing. She is a queer cis-woman of northern European ancestry who has been facilitating trauma-informed workshops since 2008 to a wide range of audiences including within education, non-profit, hospice, business, government, and Indigenous settings, locally and internationally.

The intersection of being childfree and ancestral veneration is fascinating to me because when we talk about lineage there’s an implication of continuance. I personally did have a biological child, but I doubt my child will have a child. So it’s interesting to cast my net a little wider when I ponder the question, Who am I becoming an ancestor for? And when I think about my spiritual practice of ancestral veneration, it’s interesting to think about whether I’m giving enough attention to ancestors I’m not directly descended from - the aunties, the uncles, the chosen family that my wayback people were connected to, the ones who supported my direct ancestors so I could be here now.

Shauna is exactly who you want as a conversation partner to ponder these questions!

Notes

ShaunaJanz.com

@sacredgriefshaunajanz

Learning Through Loss, based in Victoria, BC

***

Review The Spirited Kitchen on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Goodreads or Indigo

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This is a question for all the woman-identified listeners: What really ignites your rage and how much more than 100% is it patriarchy?

I’m delighted to welcome back to the show, my dear friend Taraneh Erfan to dish on what it’s like to: 

1. A) recognize the amount of anger is simmering under the surface of our lives living under white capitalist heteropatriarchy 
2. B) reconcile with that anger given we don’t want to be miserable all the time
3. C) mobilize and reclaim agency in "a world that doesn’t want us" (to quote Sophie Strand)

Taraneh Erfan is a registered clinical counsellor and a writer with a degree in expressive arts therapy. She was previously on the show when her book came out, Conscious Grieving: The Path of Awakening Through Loss. you may have seen her poetry or pick-me ups on Instagram through her account @mindonspirit and she is one of the presenters at this year’s Witches New Year, an online retreat happening on Saturday, October 28, 2023.

Sign up for my newsletter here.

Learn more about the Woman Life Freedom revolution in Iran here, here, here, and here.

This episode is for all the folks who are, for whatever reason, familiar with chronic illness, rare disease and/or autoimmune disorder. The Network was inspired by my work with clients living with chronic illness and rare diseases such as Sjogren’s disease, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, PCOS, and MCAS, specifically.

RCCX Theory is a theory proposed by Dr. Sharon Meglathery that may explain overlapping syndromes associated with chronic illness. This mutation creates a stress vulnerability.

In other words, a brain wired for danger and a body primed for stress.

Co-inherited gene mutations of the RCCX module lead to overlapping “rare” genetic diseases and syndromes in families and individuals. This have catastrophic consequences in settings of severe acute, chronic, or prolonged stress, resulting in medical and/or psychiatric illness.

Listeners who may find this episode particularly validating may have experience or be familiar with:

• Post-Covid / Long Covid syndrome
• Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)
• Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS)
• Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME)
• Sjogren's Syndrome
• Lyme
• Vasovagal Syncope
• Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)
• Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome (IBS) including Crohn's and colitis
• Fibromyaligia
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS)
• Multiple Chemical/Mold/Electrical Sensitivities
• Chronic Pain
• other dysfunction involving the nervous system including gut biome

Deep gratitude to Dr.Meglathery for her research on the RCCX module. We hope her work is carried forward by fellow scientists and advocates.

Notes

https://www.rccxandillness.com

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/rccxandchronicillness

https://medium.com/@elizabethnickson/reading-this-might-save-your-life-rccx-theory-the-vagus-nerve-and-the-end-to-43c9431a8df7

https://www.gro-gifted.org/rccx-theory-and-giftedness-a-promising-new-line-of-research/

https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2018/08/09/rccx-chronic-fatigue-fibromyalgia-eds-pots/

https://me-pedia.org/wiki/RCCX_Genetic_Module_Theory

TNP151 Oliver Choquette on the Intersection of Gender Diversity and Neurodivergence

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What are the steps to spiritual communication with plants?

Do we need to know a lot about horticulture?

How do I know if I'm just making it all up?

In this session, I'm sharing a lightly edited recording of a recent Enrichment session I led within The Numinous Network on connecting with and communicating with plants. I'm offering this sneak peek because it's free Week in the Network from Sept 17-23 - listen in to find out more!

Notes

Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness, Pam Montgomery

Communicating with Plants: Heart-Based Practices for Connecting with Plant Spirits, Jen Frey

Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive, Martin Prechtel

Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: The Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Collin Varner

Luschiim’s Plants: Traditional Indigenous Foods, Materials and Medicines, Dr Luschiim Arvid Charlie,  Nancy Turner

Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings, Mary Siisip Geniusz

TNP202 Maeg Keane on Connecting with Jupiter

Review The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes and Rituals for the Wheel of the Year

Ask your plant friend what they’d like. Maybe they want to be tended a certain way, maybe they want you to draw them. Stay with the question – at first they might say something like, I want you to take care of yourself, I want you to relax. That’s all good to know, but stay with this question of what you can do for them or offer to them until you get an answer that is truly something they want just for them. When you have the gift, present it to them. Spend time in this space, speaking aloud your gratitude. What do you notice in the days after?

Plant bathing: It can be as simple as placing the plant in water, then sprinkling water on you. After you've cleansed yourself, keep a portion of the water and add to it an equal portion of vodka. Place in a spray bottle to cleanse yourself whenever you need to release energetic build-up (spiritual hygiene) or when you are preparing yourself for ritual (purification). Could also infuse a plant in water that is at least 100F, strain, then keep in the fridge until you want to use it. Add it to your bathwater at particularly meaningful times or whenever you’re in need. (Make sure it’s not made from a plant that can cause contact dermatitis).

This is a way to really meld with the energies of a plant over an extended period of time. It will take several days or perhaps even weeks just to prepare all of the items you can with a single plant. Then, once all of the your preparations are ready, you would have a retreat day with that plant, ingesting it in all the ways. You will need to source a good beginner's herbalism book to learn how to make tinctures and oxymels, etc. Some recommendations would be:

Rosemary Gladstar's Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide: 33 Healing Herbs to Know, Grow, and Use

Ava Green and Kate Bensinger's The Comprehensive Guide to Herbalism for Beginners: (2 Books in 1) Grow Medicinal Herbs to Fill Your Herbalist Apothecary with Natural Herbal Remedies and Plant Medicine  

To undertake the ritual of plant dieting, first as your plant ally for a good date to enter into this day-long ritual. When the time comes, begin by eating some of the plant, then make a tea from leaves and drink. Then enjoy some tea made from the roots. After that, perhaps later that day, ingest a tincture. After that you might put balm or oil on your body, followed by some essence on your tongue, perhaps some medicine made of honey infused with the plant, then have an oxymel drink or other fermented version of the plant. Finally, do a trance journey to connect with the plant spirit in the Otherworld. Complete your ritual by thanking your plant ally and following any instructions they gave you.

Flower essences carry the energetic imprint of a plant and are meant to be ingested. They address emotional symptoms, not physical. 

Below are some basic steps to making a Mother Essence, Stock Essence, and Dosage Essence - some simple basic herbalism so you can work with a particular plant all month and notice how that not only deepens your understanding but also expands your intuitive awareness of this plant and others. 

Begin by asking your plant ally when is the best time to make an essence with them.

Mother Essence: Sterilize a two ounce bottle in boiling water. Fill a small clean glass bowl with about a cup of non-chlorinated water and place it on the ground beside the plant. Collect a few pieces of the plant and place them in the bowl. In order to preserve their pure essence, do not allow the plant parts to touch the ground. Ask the plant for guidance - is there any additional information they'd like to provide about how to make this essence with them? When the plant informs you the essence is ready, fill your two ounce bottle 40%-50% full with good quality brandy* (consisting of 40% alcohol by volume - ABV). Top it up with the essence water, using a fine mesh strainer to ensure no plant material enters the Mother Essence bottle. Your remaining essence water can be poured back into the ground at the foot of your plant, (and you can also take a sip of it, if you feel it's safe and the plant is edible). Label your bottle as Mother Essence and the name of the plant.

Stock Essence: Fill a half-ounce bottle with 60% plain non-chlorinated water and 40% brandy, then add 3 drops of the Mother Essence. Label this bottle as Stock Essence plus the name of the plant. you can use the Stock Essence as a daily point of connection with this plant, trying a single drop on the tongue the morning of one day, noon on another, and night on the next. Journal anything you notice over the weeks, particularly your dreams and coincidences relevant to this plant and its teachings. This stock level of dilution will last at least a year, (some say up to 10 years if stored in a cool, dark place and in a dark glass bottle).

Dosage Essence: Fill a clean, sterilized half-ounce bottle with 70% non-chlorinated water and 30% good quality brandy. To this, add 3 drops of the Stock Essence. Standard dosage is three drops on the tongue three times a day for a month. Notice any changes, synchronicities, messages and dreams. The dosage level of dilution will last for about 2 months. After that, gift the liquid back to the plants and soil.

*If you would prefer not to use alcohol in your essences, you can use vinegar.

This episode is one of a series of recordings of live classes that I’m publishing on the podcast so you can have a preview of how I teach ahead of Free Week, which is happening in The Numinous Network from September 17-23, 2023. Get on my newsletter to receive the link when it's sent on September 17.

What is Contact Nutrition and why is it so critical to develop secure attachment in a relationship?

Are there socio-cultural components to secure attachment that might be missing from the popular literature?

Are you wishing you could have the Cole's Notes on attachment theory and just skip right to the practical doing part?

Let's get into it!

Referenced in this episode:

Diane Poole Heller

Stan Tatkin

Amir Levine

Resmaa Menakem

Check out the class schedule for our live events, plus a listing of on-demand video courses available with your Numinous Network membership.

Let’s talk about fascism today, friends. Why is it important? Because in collapse, authoritarianism always increases. Of course we don't like strong man dictators, military coups, or religious fundamentalism – we hate all the different forms authoritarianism takes. But the especially chilling thing about fascism is that doesn't just happen in the political sphere; it happens at the dinner table.

Average people live under authoritarianism, often for generations, without it altering their daily reality much at all. The power struggles of dictators and regime changes might hardly make a difference. But fascism uses the populace and populist movements as part of its social control. 

Fascism goes deeper and far beyond fear and military might to secure its stranglehold. 

This episode is an excerpt from my online course, Collapse 101, which is accessed as part of my monthly membership subscription program, The Numinous Network. We have a Collapse 101 class lecture, followed by an AMA a week later, almost every month.

In this session, I'm sharing about the hallmarks of fascism so we can be alert to some of the sneaky ways it wends itself into our lives.

Referenced in this episode:

TNP161 Collapse in a Nutshell

TNP193 How Much Is Enough In Collapse? with Carmen & Ruben

The Rewilding Podcast with Peter Michael Bower, ep. 30: Collapse Care with Carmen Spagnola

End Times/New Times: Numinous Podcast Episode Round-Up for Collapse

Recommended Reading:

Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience, by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier, published under the title, "Fascist Ecology: The "Green Wing" of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents" (1996)

On the Rise of the Right-Wing Mass Movements, (2014)

The Undying Appeal of White Nationalism: Neofascism is the cultural, Artistic, and Ecological Movements (2014)

The Return of Fascism in Contemporary Capitalism (2014)

Economic Collapse and the Rise of Fascism, 1920-1933, A People's History of Modern Europe (2016)

The Pagan and Occult Fascist Connection and How To Fix It, by Amy Hale (2019)

Note the difference in tone regarding America in just one year in the following three articles:

Fascism Is Spreading — And It’s a Sign of Civilizational Collapse, Umair Haque (2022)

How Many Collapsing Societies Does It Take to Teach the Same Lesson?, Umair Haque (2023)

America’s Battle To Save Its Democracy From Trumpism, Umair Haque (2023)

If you want to end on a more upbeat note, here's a classic:

Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein

or

Punching Nazis: Spiritual or No? by me, Carmen Spagnola

In this episode we grapple with the questions,

Can you ever really be in a consensual relationship with a being who depends on you for food?

How do white supremacy culture and patriarchy show up in horsemanship?

What does non-coercive horsemanship look and feel like?

If you’ve read my book, The Spirited Kitchen, or you’ve been around my work for a while, you know that I come from a long line of horse people - a lineage that wends its way from southern Alberta and rodeo culture to the Scottish Highlands in the late 1800s where my wayback people bred, trained, and worked Highland ponies to labour in the coal mines and to build railroads. It’s been a long and complicated relationship between my family and horses. I am the first generation in as far back as we can remember to not have horses in my life on an everyday basis. It’s a profound source of grief for me.

What has also been a source of grief is that for many of the problems I've supported my child through, (if you don’t know, I have a 19 year old with autism, ADHD, and mental and physical health challenges), the thing that seems to work best is time outside the city with horses. 

And this is where my next guest comes in…

Alexa Linton is an osteopathic practitioner with 15 years of manual therapy and energy work under her belt. She also works with animals using kinesiology, cranial sacral therapy, and intuitive communication. She also helps humans navigate pet death. As a horse steward, trainer and healer, Alexa has seen and experienced a lot of changes in the industry over the years but there is much further to go in uncoupling from systems of dominance. Her course, The Whole Horse Apprenticeship, and her show, The Whole Horse Podcast, are places of refuge for horsey people who no longer feel comfortable with coercive horsemanship.

Check out Alexa's book:

Death Sucks: A Straight-Up Guide to Navigating Your Pet's Final Transition

Follow her on Instagram

Equine Cranial Therapy Certification

Referenced in this episode:

The Whole Horse Apprenticeship with Alexa and 25 guest instructors, including myself! (6 month program for horse lovers starting September 15th) 

The Whole Horse Podcast 

Taming Wild documentary created by Elsa Sinclair 

Freedom-based Training with Elsa Sinclair 

Emotional Horsemanship with Lockie Phillips 

Relationship Horsemanship with Josh Nichol 

Nahshon Cook Horsemanship 

Balance through Movement Method (Pillar one mini course) 

Horsemanship on Vancouver Island - Shannon Beahen (Humminghorse) 

Sophie Strand is a poet and writer with a focus on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and
ecology. If you love Mary Magdalene and fondly remember Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, you are in for a real treat! Sophie's new book, The Madonna Secret, is a passionate retelling of the story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, rewilding the Gospels with the forgotten voices of defiant and oppressed women, the nature-based storytelling of oral communities, and the embodied eroticism of a lovable rabbi with appetites and desires, doubts and shame, and a playful sense of humor. Plus, his awesome mom – aka The Virgin Mary – is a raucous and wonderful surprise, giving big time Baubo of Greek myth vibes, (who in my mind could be played wonderfully by Shohreh Aghdashloo of The Expanse fame).

In this conversation, we talk about what it's like to write about miracles while living with an incurable disease, (Sophie lives with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder - something that many members of the Numinous Network are all too familiar). We also discuss animism, magic, patriarchy, and the realness she brings to the landscape and the characters of her novel.

Sophie's poems and essays have appeared in numerous projects and publications, including Spirituality & Health, Atmos, Braided Way and Art PAPERS. The author of The Flowering Wand, she lives in the Hudson Valley
of New York.

Purchase The Madonna Secret anywhere
(and please do leave a review!)

Follow Sophie:

SophieStrand.com

Her Substack

Instagram

Facebook

References in this episode:

older Dev Patel

Louis Garrel 

Golshifteh Farhani (Oh now that I see who she is, I LOVED her in that dystopian show, Invasion)

young Javier Bardem

article about Bruce Chilton

Bruce Chilton wikipedia

Honi the Circle Drawer

Hanina ben Dosa

Contemporaries of Jesus who were miracle workers

Mary Renault

Mary Stewart

Learn more about the Numinous Network

Sign up for my newsletter and join us for Free Week, Sept 17-23, 2023

***

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Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

Et Shipley is a consulting professional astrologer, creative writer, and ritual strategist. She weaves astrology with other tools to talk about collapse, social justice, relationality, death and culture. Last year, I asked Erin to be a Guest Guide in The Numinous Network offering astrology workshops to help folks manage key moments. That has morphed into a seasonal offering we call the AstroJam - people gather with Erin to jam about the cosmic weather and all things magical and ritual to do with that. When I had the idea for an AstroMagic Miniseries, I immediately thought to ask Erin who she would recommend as guests - in many ways, you can thank Erin for working her magic there to make some very special connections and episodes happen for us!  

Erin’s writing about astrology is always poetic and profound, gentle but unflinching, and always very useful. She has just the right vibe to help us really understand what it is that Saturn is trying to teach and to not be afraid of those lessons. Even if you’re still not quite ready to engage directly with Saturn after this episode, I know you’ll find it to be good preparation for the time when, eventually, Saturn calls you and you don’t have a choice anymore.

Referenced in this episode:

Erin's approach to astrology

Erin's Instagram: @etshipley

Book a session with Erin or get on her newsletter

Idola Stellárum talismanic adornment for devotion

Kristin Mathis' new translation of the Orphic Hymn to Kronos (Saturn)

Audio of the Orphic Hymn to Saturn

Maeg Keane's podcast interview on Blackberry on the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast

Rate this show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen - thanks in advance!

My guest today is Kristin Mathis - truly a multi-talented individual - and we are all so fortunate that she’s dedicated herself to the translation of the Orphic Hymns which overlight this conversation about Venus, Aphrodite, and AstroMagic! She’s a writer and poet, a teacher and advocate. (You really must read her fascinating bio). But what she's really doing is quietly revolutionizing the English-speaking world's relationship to the Orphic Hymns with her unique perspective as both an academic and a magical practitioner-animist.

In this episode, Kristin helps us understand Venus and Aphrodite as The All, helping us to link love and grief, love and rage, love and justice.

Referenced in this episode:

Mysteria Mundi, Kristin's Substack where you'll find:

Becoming Children of Earth and Starry Sky

Revealing the Mysteries, or, My New Translation of the Orphic Hymn to the Moon (Selene)

A New Translation of The Orphic Hymn To Kronos/Saturn

Audio Recording of the Orphic Hymn to Kronos/Saturn

Kristin's Translation of Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite

Her Podia site with her courses

Star: An Orphic Initiation for Earth-Borne Souls with Drew Levanti

Check out The Numinous Network for more on Planetary Magic & Propitiation

Meag Keane is here to expand our understanding of Jupiter in this, part 5 of my 7 part miniseries on Planetary Magic and Propitiation.

Maeg is an astrologer and herbalist, connecting soil and sky. Many of her teachers are people I’ve also followed and admired, and she wrote a really excellent blog post on Jupiter and Being Too Much. (It's so good! Make sure you check out the footnotes!)

To go deeper with your AstroMagic, consider getting a plant and planet reading from Maeg - it’s a two session package with email support for a month where she guides you on a deep dive with one of the 7 traditional planets and a plant based on your specific chart and what comes out of your first session with her. So good!

Sign up for Maeg's newsletter so you're in the know about all upcoming offerings and current writing.

Website: third-sister.com

Twitter | @maegkeane

Instagram | @maeg.thirdsister

Review The Spirited Kitchen on Goodreads, Amazon or Indigo

Check out The Numinous Network - all classes on Planetary Magic & Propitiation are found in the archives of The Numinous School in the course area of the Network.

In this episode, I’m speaking with Thea Anderson about Wednesday’s ruling planet, our old pal, Mercury! Thea is a writer and astrologer, as well as the Director of Production for the CHANI app. She works very closely with our previous guest, Eliza Robertson, to make sure that all of the content for the app gets out on time, at the right time. (A very Mercurial type of job, indeed!) 

You can find Thea's fiction and poetry in print and online in a variety of places, most recently you'll find a story of her in the book, Infinite Constellations: An Anthology of Identity, Culture, and Speculative Conjunctions.

We're lucky to have Thea here to decode and interpret Mercury for us and explain how we can work collaboratively with this quick, mutable, exciting planet.

References in this episode:

Harriet Tubman as a Magical, Mercurial Figure

Book a session with Thea: TheaNichelle.com

Follow her on Instagram: @theaastrology

Review The Spirited Kitchen on Goodreads, Amazon, or Indigo

Check us out in The Numinous Network

Content Note: At the end of this episode, I mention "ritual scarification" – this material may remind people of the ritual abuse mentioned in a fairly recent television broadcast, The Vow, a show about the NXIVM cult.

I am not talking about that. I am referring to a cultural practice of scarification, quite common with peoples of darker skin, and other instances where scarification is woven into society, (for instance, some LGBTQ+ communities and other examples).

In this 200th episode of The Numinous Podcast (🎉hooray!!!🎉), I'm flying solo and sharing my experience working with the planet Mars. Known as the lesser malefic, Mars can carry some intense energy. But I really believe that there are valuable lessons to be learned from this powerhouse planet.

In this show, I will talk about what Mars can help us with, when we might use caution, appropriate offerings for propitiation, and how Mars can support us in our grief and our rage.

References in this episode:

Georgia Nicols

PlanetaryHours.net

Thérèse Cator

Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Agrippa, translated by Eric Purdue

Letterkenny

Sphere + Sundry

Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen

The Orphic Hymns

Many Moons Lunar Planner by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener

Pagan Otherworld Tarot by Uusi Design

Woodland Wardens Oracle by Jessica Roux

The Spirited Kitchen - leave a review on Goodreads!

Check out The Numinous Network

Sign up for my newsletter 💖 instantly receive a little love in your inbox 💖 (and about once a month thereafter)

Welcome to Part 2 of our 7 episode miniseries on Planetary Magic and Propitiation! We began on a Sunday with Eliza Robertson talking about the Sun. Here we are on a Monday and I’m speaking with Bronwyn Simons about Moon Magic and wisdom.

Here, Bronwyn guides us through the phases of the moon and why it's a safe place to start with our planetary magic.

Check out Bronwyn's signature program, Light Of The Moon, for immediate access to recorded modules, plus a live round of four weekly calls starting on the New Moon, July 17, 2023.

Those who sign up for Bronwyn's mailing list get a beautiful moon journal for 2023 with all the lunations, journaling prompts, ideas about celebrating the new moon, and a moon calendar! Opt-in here: https://astrologygoddess.mykajabi.com/2023MoonJournal

If you share this episode on social, please tag us!

@moon.wisdom

@carmenspagnola

Join us in The Numinous Network this summer for more planetary magic!

Today we’re welcoming Eliza Robertson back for her third time on the show - she was here as part of Kosmic Tonic with Jasmine Richardson in 2020 when we discussed the key transits that would affect the second half of that wild year, and she was here again in 2022 talking about Writing with the Stars and Magic with the Muses. Clearly, she’s a favourite conversation partner of mine and I’m delighted that she’s the one to shepherd us through the gate as we begin a 7 part miniseries on Planetary Magic and Propitiation for the days of the week!

Since about the time Eliza first appeared on the show in 2020, I have been taking a closer look at AstroMagic and paying more attention to cultivating relationships with the planets that rule the days of the week. I find it grounding, centering, resourcing and supportive. Over the next seven episodes we'll go deeper into relationship with each planet that rules that day of the week, beginning with Sunday and moving through the week to Saturday.

Referenced in this episode:

I Got A Name by Eliza Robertson

Picatrix translated by Attrell and Porreca.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy by H. Agrippa (the cheaper option)

Three Books of Occult Philosophy translated by Eric Purdue (the splurge option)

Sphere + Sundry for materia magica

Join us for more AstroMagic in The Numinous Network

The final episode featuring Ruben and me as we dissect and update my 2017 Medium article, Portrait Of A Marriage (Yes, It's Mine.)

In this episode, we're talking about fighting and conflict, with tips to navigate inevitable relationship ruptures. 

Referenced in this episode:

Rachelle Lamb has an unconventional approach to Non-Violent Communication that I find more helpful than most

bell hooks' books on love have been integral to making our marriage work, in particular The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love

YourPersonality.net

Stan Tatkin: runs a signature couple's retreat called the Wired For Love Retreat, also has a new book called, In Each Other's Care: A Guide To The Most Common Relationship Conflicts And How To Work Through Them

Clue period tracker app

Check out my course, Contact Nutrition 101

The Numinous Network

***

Have a question or comment?

Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

In this third part of our Portrait Of A Marriage Miniseries, we go a little deeper into how we started healing trauma within our marriage, patriarchy and sexual trauma, epistemic privilege, and how poetry helped us reconnect in intimate but non-sexual ways.

Resources cited in this episode:

YourPersonality.net

The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love, bell hooks

Tobar Phaidraic, by David Whyte (found in River Flow: New and Selected Poems)

The Queen, by Pablo Neruda (found in Love Poems, translated by Donald D.Walsh)

***

Have a question or comment?

Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

This is the second episode in our miniseries revisiting my 2017 article, Portrait Of A Marriage. (Yes, It's Mine.)

In this episode we talk about top-down and bottom-up processing and how communication is not the magic cipher we have been led to believe!

I share my story of how the stress of our relationship somatized into physical symptoms that required us to call 911. And we get into tender territory about what patriarchy looked like in our marriage and how it's related to Ruben's current experience with severe burnout.

The key resource we recommend to everyone trying to bring feminist cultural analysis to relationship building:

The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love, bell hooks

Shauna Janz' work:

Sacred Grief with Shauna Janz

***

Have a question or comment?

Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

Welcome to a special miniseries of The Numinous Podcast: Portrait Of A Marriage where we revisit a seminal blog post I published in 2017 on resolving the traps of an Anxious and avoidant Partnership, in other words a relationship where one partner, in this case me, a cis white woman, tends to have a more avoidant attachment style, and the other partner, in this case, Ruben, a cis white man, tends to express a more anxious attachment style. We're going to read through that blog post and give you updates on all the strategies we tried to earn the more secure attachment we have now, what worked, what didn't, and bring the article up to date to let you know where we are in the marriage now. Spoiler alert: it was all very, very worth it.

Notes:

The original article, Portrait Of A Marriage. (Yes, It's Mine)

Carmen's CV

The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love, by bell hooks

Stan Tatkin

Sue Johnson

Journey From Abandonment To Healing

YourPersonality.net

***

Have a question or comment?

Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

Something a little bit different today – a clip featuring myself and my husband, Ruben Anderson. We're teaching a course this year called Collapse 101, hosted in The Numinous Network, and each month there's a 1 hr live session followed a week or two later by an Ask Me Anything session.

A lot of people don’t see the through-line from attachment to somatics –> trauma healing –> co-regulation –> folk magic –> ritual –> animism –> socialism –> collapse resilience, but I do.

And I bet you do, too, at least partly, when I lay it out in that sequence. And if you don’t see it, but you want to, then stick around! Everything I teach about is a collapse skill, from recipes and rituals for the wheel of the year, to dowsing with a pendulum, to attachment parenting, to Contact Nutrition and Polyvagal Theory in trauma recovery - these are 100% all collapse skills. 

Of course at the root of everything I do, I’m trying to help people live richly connected and meaningful lives, but even more fundamental to me is that I’m trying to help shape the social discourse and collective thinking around collapse. I attempt that through compassionate and holistic and accessible adult education. I’m trying to help shape social thought around how we’re going to live in these times.

This episode is a brief response to a Numinous Network member’s question about how much is enough when prepping material or financial resources as a safety net or a lifeboat for collapse. Ruben and I offer our very pragmatic answers along with some scaffolding for how you might approach this challenge in your own life – how you might shape your thinking so you can come up with what feels like enough for you.

If Crisis or War Comes - Swedish government Emergency Handbook

The Numinous Network

Carmen's newsletter

This is a really lovely conversation with Mara Glatzel, author of a new book coming out Feb 28 called, Needy: How to Advocate for Your Needs and Claim Your Sovereignty, which was recently selected by Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant for the Next Big Idea Club’s book of the month. 

Mara says she is an intuitive coach, writer, and Needy Podcast host who helps humans stop abandoning themselves and start reclaiming their sovereignty through embracing their needs and honouring their natural energy rhythms. She’s also a queer, femme mother of two, recovering control freak.

We talk about being multi-passionate when so much prevailing marketing tells you to niche down, we jam on balancing the need to feel safe in an overculture that is just factually unsafe in so many ways and especially so for more oppressed people, and we get into how we might approach reclaiming needs like rest and saying no, depending on where we’re at in that healing journey.

Buy the book

Find Mara on Instagram

Harsh review on Goodreads!

Dr Cyndi Brannen, one of the world’s foremost Hekatean experts, is here to talk about her most recent book, Entering Hekate’s Cave, now available in stores and online. This is Cyndi’s fourth book and her third time on the Numinous Podcast. We're talking about how Hekate can guide us on the journey through darkness to wholeness, and also about Cyndi's own evolution as a scholar and author. 

Cyndi's other books on Hekate include

Keeping Her Keys: An Introduction to Hekate's Modern Witchcraft

Entering Hekate's Garden: The Magick, Medicine and Mystery of Plant Spirit Witchcraft

Make sure to get on her newsletter list to find out when the doors next open to the Covina Institute!

Jen Murphy is the founder of the Celtic School of Embodiment  where she fuses the ancient wisdom of Irish Mythology with Feminine Embodiment Coaching. Jen has a degree in Medieval Irish & Celtic Studies and a masters in the Anthropology of Development. She specializes in critical pedagogy - empowering learners to critique the power structures at play in their own learning experiences. I've enjoyed taking Jen's courses, particularly the Non-Linear Movement sections, and am thrilled to have her on the show today to share how she weaves land, mythology, embodiment, and music into her coaching and healing practice.

Website

Jen on Instagram

Facebook

Sign up for Carmen's newsletter here.

Taryn Strong is one of the Founders of SHE RECOVERS® Foundation as well as a Coach, Herbalist and Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher. Taryn’s courageous and passion for recovering out loud has made her an influential voice in the global recovery movement. Taryn creates and curates transformational experiences online and in person through her group and private mentorship offerings. As a certified Trauma of Money Facilitator, she currently specializes in financial empowerment and money healing. She also mentors entrepreneurs in recovery who are seeking support to take up space, find their voice and expand their business through aligned impact.

Taryn is also expecting her first child and I was curious about how she is navigating that rite of passage, not only spiritually and creatively, but also in the context of recovery.

TarynStrong.com

SheRecovers.org

Mentioned in this episode:

The Roots of Addiction in Free Market Society, by Dr.Bruce Alexander

Rat Park studies

In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, by Dr.Gabor Maté

Kael Klassen moved from the corporate world into motherhood before fumbling, fortunately quite quickly, through a series of well-meaning-but-problematic-white-lady spiritual endeavours. Since extracting herself as much as possible from that, she has grounded her work in the modality of trancework, along with writing and creating. Here we talk about missteps each of us have made on our spiritual paths as white settler folks. In this confessional episode, we cover topics like culty yoga teacher trainings, ancestral healing and appropriation, mental health on the healing journey and how it intersects with the creative process. Kael shares intimately about coping with grief and rage, and the rituals that help her to root into winter.

In this episode we mentioned the art and philosophical approach of our esteemed colleague, Rachael Rice.

You can find Kael's offerings on instagram @kael.klassen or @liminalrootsbotanica or online at www.liminalrootsbotanica.com

This episode gets us back to the roots of this podcast: the mysteries of life...

In this episode Velda Thomas, author of Blended: Perspectives On Belonging, engages questions like, What does it take to be human? How is a cultural bridge created between people? How are you transactional with yourself?

Velda Thomas was born and educated in England with biracial family ancestry sourced from Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. She is a creative, author, healer, and artist.  Her love of plants, herbal remedies, sound practice, somatic and ritual experiences weave passion with grounded human experience. Velda has worked as a kindergarten teacher, adult educator, birth doula, and massage therapist. In this episode, we learn more about her work with voice, sound, and energy healing.

Find her book here: veldathomas.com

Follow her on Instagram: @veldathomas11

Engage on Patreon: www.patreon/veldathomas.com

Desiree Adaway is here to share with us how time has been constructed as a tool of oppression and how we can resist becoming complicit with supremacy culture through time pressure, and instead become aware of different ways to be in relationship to time. 

Believe me: she understands time pressure, my friends! Desiree has over 20 years of experience creating, leading and managing international, multicultural teams through major organizational changes in over 40 countries. As the Senior Director of Mobilization for Habitat for Humanity, she was responsible for planning the strategy and training for hundreds of membership organizations, totaling more than 50,000 members. She was responsible for the overall strategy and DEI plans for 1,600 US affiliates and one million volunteers globally.

Desiree is an expert at teaching others how to handle complex, charged conversations (particularly around identity and power) with grace, assertiveness, and transparency.

Her program, Whiteness at Work is a one-of-a-kind primer in intersectional race equity work. To confront white supremacy, racism, institutional inequities, and power dynamics in our organizations we must learn a new set of skills. It requires shared language, a historical and cultural analysis, a nuanced understanding of our own identities, the ability to have difficult conversations across difference, and the capacity to imagine and create new ways of being.

The Whiteness at Work program is Five modules containing 30 lessons, and over seven hours of training content. Each Lesson is accompanied by a comprehensive resource guide and an extensive debrief and activity guide to help solidify learnings and apply them to your organization.

Follow Desiree on Facebook and Instagram.

Something a little different today: a clip from a recent Tutorial call in The Numinous Network where I answer a question from Marissa of @riverinehart.hidetanning about the connection between trance and the collective. It's a great question that speaks to a through-line that touches on dreams, trancework, somatics, large scale cooperation dilemmas, death literacy, awe, the vagus nerve, and emotionally taking care of ourselves and each other as best as we can during collapse times. 

***

Free Week is happening in The Numinous Network again from November 27 - Dec 3. Get on my newsletter to receive the link for your Free Trial on Nov 27!

My friend, Dana Da Ponte, is here to talk about art journaling with the moon! Dana is a professional intuitive, artist, witch, and certified MAP Practitioner. She helps highly sensitive people reach their goals with the moon and the power of their subconscious mind. She believes play is a portal to the Divine and you don’t have to be serious to own a paintbrush. 

She is the creator of the Moon Mapping Year, a collection of recordings that rewire the brain in rhythm with the seasons and lunar cycles, and the private MAP Your Mornings podcast where she shares daily recordings that work with your subconscious mind and the astrological energy the moon is reflecting down to us. 

She also leads a community that loves to art journal with the moon and every new moon she shares a Creative Moon Cycle Guide to help you use the energy of the new and full moon phases to heal and manifest.

And she’s here to jam with us and share more about the intersection of creativity, the moon, the subconscious mind, the body and disability (Dana has Mast Cell Activation Syndrome), and art.

Follow Dana on Instagram and check out her blog and offerings on her website.

Support the women of Iran.

Email your Canadian MP

Sign the Amnesty International petition

Content Warning: Mentions suicide, substance use, bereavement, language.

Sarah Durham Wilson is the author of Maiden to Mother: Unlocking Our Archetypal Journey into the Mature Feminine.

Her own mother died when Sarah was just a teenager and life sort of spiralled from there for a while. She came to professional success through journalism and her stints writing for the likes of Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Spin Magazine. She also found her voice on social media a decade ago as Do It Girl, a popular blog-facebook presence for young women seeking a spiritual experience. But it was hitting rock bottom, struggling with substance use and just kind of chaotic dysfunction that Sarah came to understand the trauma of being an Unmothered Woman.

She has since deepened her studies, diving into the works of Marion Woodman and apprenticing to the myths of Inanna and Ereshkigal, devoting herself to the work of elevating the Mature Feminine as well as her activism work, intersectional feminism, decolonization, divesting from whiteness, and eradication of the patriarchy.

Check out Sarah's website, themotherspirit.com

Plus her Instagram and her book.

Support the women of Iran.

Sign the Amnesty International petition

Email your Canadian MP

Sharon Blackie, PhD, is a writer, psychologist and mythologist. In her most recent book, Hagitude: Reimagining The Second Half Of Life, Sharon explores the inner life of women over 50 and women who’ve experienced menopause and invites us to challenge belief systems and rewrite the elder years as a time of great flowering. In this conversation, we explore what Sharon describes as the "incandescence" of menopause and the spiritual purpose of women's elderhood.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has taught and lectured at several academic institutions, Jungian organisations, retreat centres and cultural festivals around the world. Some of her work, particularly her two previous books, If Women Rose Rooted and The Enchanted Life, are considered by many to be among the classic psychospiritual and mythic texts of our age, sitting comfortably on the shelf alongside other greats such as Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Jean Shinoda Bolen.

Her highly acclaimed books and courses are focused on the development of the mythic imagination. She likes to explore the relevance of myths, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, cultural and environmental problems we face today. 

Find Hagitude wherever you buy books and check out Dr.Blackie's many programs at sharonblackie.net

This is a super fun episode based on a genuine conversation between friends. In this episode, death doula and fellow animist, Andrea Sexton Dumas, asks me some excellent questions!

• What is the personality of The Spirited Kitchen – if it was a person, what would they be like?

• As a collapse-aware person, what was it like to write about cooking and gathering during the pandemic?

• What rituals did I do to petition the Greater Powers to support this book?

• Which deities and spirit guides pressed upon me during the writing of this book or came to me in dreams?

Check out more of Andrea's work here: andreasextondumas.com

Follow Andrea on Instagram and come to Candle Hour!

Support the women's revolution in Iran.

This is a mini-episode where I talk about the two fundamentals that I believe are required in someone's practice for them to be a witch: animism and activism. If these two things aren't present in someone's craft, I am dubious. They are playing around. They are not being serious. I would not claim them as a peer or fellow practitioner of witchcraft.

Learn more about Witches New Year.

Pre-order The Spirited Kitchen.

Nikiah Seeds has been working in the realm of ceremony and healing for the past 20 years and is the creatrix of the Red Moon Mystery school and co-author of Moon Mysteries: Reclaiming Woman's Menstrual Wisdom.

She offers ancestral healing work and spiritual mentoring along with her creations as a weaver, and drum maker and teacher. Among her offerings are sacred drums, rattles, and shawls/prayer cloaks, as well as online courses.

In this conversation, Nikiah and I talk about changing our identities and adapting language as we grow and evolve. Once again we touch on the topic of being a witch at mid- or later life and the lack of intergenerational spaces for exchange and transmission amongst witches. Nikiah shares when and where she feels most creative and what she does when she's blocked.

www.redmoonmysteryschool.com

Sacred Path Apprenticeship and Certification

Learn more about Nikiah at:

https://www.redmoonmysteryschool.com/about

and

www.nikiahseeds.com

My astrologer, Eliza, is here! Eliza Robertson is a published author, researcher, and astrologer based in Montreal, Canada. She holds a PhD from the University of East Anglia and has published two books of fiction, one of which was selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice. She

began formalizing her astrological studies at the Faculty of Astrology in the UK and has

gone on to study Hellenistic and Electional Astrology with Chris Brennan and Horary

with Nina Gryphon at Kepler College. She co-hosts an astrology and occult podcast under the banner, Kosmic Tonic, and is currently the Director of Content for the CHANI App. You know the CHANI app - Chani Nicholas, another beloved astrologer - that Chani’s app.

Learn more about safer sex work at PEERS Victoria.

Listen to the podcast she co-hosts under the banner Kosmic Tonic.

Come to her session at Witches New Year!

I'm delighted to welcome Erin Fairchild to the podcast! Erin is founder of Journal As Altar, as well as a social worker and (not currently practicing) therapist with expertise related to childhood trauma, attachment, and preventing violence in systems, communities, and families.

In this episode, we talk about the ritual of journaling, and about coming back to the practice if you've experienced a betrayal, conflict, or violation of privacy with your journal.

In addition to Journal As Altar, Erin continues to work in the fields of equity-centered trauma informed care and violence prevention over at Collective Action Consulting. I have wanted to have Erin on the podcast ever since I took her Journal As Altar workshop and received the care package of supplies in the mail - and we're so lucky to have her presenting at Witches New Year this year!

Find Erin on Instagram @journal.as.altar

Erin's Workshops

Erin's Substack Community

Munro's Books - 20% off pre-orders of The Spirited Kitchen 

Mimi Young is here again - in 2020 she was here and we talked about intuition and tea and plant medicine and working with ancestors. Today we’re talking about animism, numerology, her relationship to the word witch, and what we might have in store as we move through the second half of a Yang Water Tiger Year into a Yin Rabbit year in early 2023.

Mimi Young is a Taiwanese Canadian animist spirit medium and the founder of Ceremonie, an esoteric brand focused on imparting practical ancient wisdom so folks can actively receive support from spirits, break negative patterns, and celebrate their path.

Mimi works at the intersection of animism and wu shamanism, ancestral wisdom, dream work, and other Chinese mystic practices to communicate with the Unseen. She offers private readings, education and mentorship, and made-to-order skin and aura care.

Find Mimi on Instagram: @shopceremonie

www.shopceremonie.com

Thérèse Cator is an artist, performer, leadership coach, embodiment practitioner, and founder of Embodied Black Girl, a global community that stands for the embodied liberation of Black women and femmes and women of color globally. Part of that work is realized through the Global Healing Festival, an annual online event featuring over 20 inspiring presenters.

Thérèse has been a coach for 13 years, has been practicing energy work since her teens and performing and writing since childhood. We’ve been friends since Therese first appeared on the podcast in 2017 when we spoke about Shadow Alchemy. Since then we’ve been fellow students more than once and we’ve collaborated professionally by co-facilitated small groups together. Thérèse has held me in some of my most vulnerable moments, at other times she’s given me really stingy feedback when I needed it. I love hearing about her upbringing and family traditions and this conversation about how she celebrates the Wheel of the Year in her Haitian tradition has been a long time coming. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Seattle native, L'Erin Alta, is a mystic, medicine woman, and spiritual mentor with more than 20 years of experience helping women + femmes live their soul's purpose by being their most authentic selves. As creatrix of Black Girl Mystic, she leads masterclasses, workshops, retreats and 1:1 mentorships guiding Black women, femmes, and gender queer folk to embody wealth, ease, and freedom from a deep place of soul alignment.

Her work as a masterful healer, magical facilitator, and transformational space holder began over 20 years ago in the Women's Research and Resource Center of Spelman College, one of the historically Black colleges and universities in the US . It was there that she started SisterFire, a monthly all-women's open-mic / spiritual ceremony / healing space. From Seattle to Spelman to powerful spaces near and far, healing and liberation has always been L'Erin's purpose and she's embodying it everyday. 

L'Erin first appeared on the podcast in 2017 when we spoke about Lineage + Legacy.

In this episode, we're talking about manifestation without spiritual bypass, healing the money wound|mother wound and releasing any conditionality placed upon our self-worth, and finding joy and pleasure in unexpected places!

Go to Black Girl Mystic to learn more about L'Erin's courses and mentorship.

Follow L'Erin on Instagram @lerinalta

Natalie Rousseau is here and we’re talking about her relationship to the word “witch”, how we feel about creativity and self-expression, feeling stuck, the books we long to write, and the stories we love to hear again and again. Natalie is a woman who wears many hats. She’s taught yoga and meditation since 2002 and is currently in school studying somatic therapy. She lives in Hul'qumi'num territory, also known as Salt Spring Island, BC. She’s a great listener, an excellent writer, and a gentle teacher and I know you’re going to love this conversation between two very like-minded women of great mutual respect. 

In this episode, we mentioned the newer feminist edition of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson (and here's a Vox article on why her version is an important piece of work.)

Also Circe by Madeline Miller

Follow Natalie on Instagram 

Sign up for her newsletter to stay informed about her 13 Moons program and other offerings.

Pre-Order The Spirited Kitchen now!

Gather in for a tender talk today about love and loss and friend breakups and grief and how all that impacts the creative process. I’m speaking today with Angela E Morris, author of Love Notes to Grievers. 

{Content Warning for mentions of death and suicide.}

Angela is a writer and massage therapist who offers people a soft space to land as they navigate their grief. She provides reflective writing on grief and relationships impacted by grief, pushing against how the dominant culture reacts toward death and loss and mourning. She encourages her readers to take time to process their pain and be with their loss, carrying their loved ones with them, not leaving them behind. 

Today we share an intimate conversation, itself a love note to all the grievers out there. We see you. You’re welcome here. Grab a cup of tea or head out to the garden with your headphones on – maybe don’t listen while you’re driving cuz the tears will make it hard to see the road. Whatever you’re doing right now, pull over and let’s have a minute together, shall we? We’re stepping onto sacred ground now.

Find Angela on Instagram at:

@angelaemmamorris

@ange_morris

Find The Spirited Kitchen here:

Canada

Everywhere else

It’s wonderful to have a genuine friend named Crystie Kisler with me on the podcast today. Crystie Kisler is the co-founder of Finnriver Farm & Cidery, (@finnriver) and is a mother, farm wife, and community networker in the Chimacum Valley, on an organic farm located along a salmon stream on the north Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Her partner, Keith, is farming heritage wheat at @finnrivergrain

I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing Crystie’s warmth and generosity in circles together, workshops together, and could feel it in the atmosphere when I visited Finnriver on a trip for my son’s 16th birthday. If I had a farm-based business, I would use Finnriver as the model and template.

Where Crystie and I could spend probably forever talking and visioning and activating dreams together is where land-based spiritual connection and social justice meet, where business ownership and equity and advocacy intersect, where dismantling supremacy culture meets building a worthwhile and beautiful and delicious future.

This is a conversation between two white ladies grappling with what it means to connect to land you don’t come from, and how we might try to learn how to belong there.

Here is the poem that Crystie wrote and read to us:

I’m thrilled to welcome back to the podcast, Nicholas Pearson - longtime listeners will remember him from episode 158 (Beyond Crystals Basics). Nicholas is an author, healer and teacher and today we’re talking about Flower Essences and how they can be so safe yet still effective, and how to work with them if you’re new to this as a healing modality or ritual tool, including some really unique methods I haven't seen anywhere else. 

Check out Flower Essences from the Witch's Garden: Plant Spirits in Magical Herbalism

Nicholas has recently announced some very exciting new offerings including an expanded pocket version of Crystal Basics with over 450 gemstone listings – follow Nicholas on Instagram @theluminouspearl to hear when pre-orders are available.

Plus he’s co-leading a pilgrimage to Glastonbury in spring of 2023 to visit sacred wells, stone circles, and ruins, and to meet the crystal and gemstone guardians of the landscape. Amazing! Find out more here.

To join my 7-week psychoeducation course, Contact Nutrition 101, simply sign up for The Numinous Network. 

Here's a transcript of this interview.

Sophie Macklin is an anarchist mystic living on Tongva land, near the Los Angeles river. She’s lived in California for fifteen years but comes from Canterbury, England.

She practises brythonic polytheism, antifascism, devotion to an animate world, and anarchist living. She specializes in topics related to anarchism, mysticism, radical history, communication with the human and more than human world, anti-capitalism, antifascism, reclaiming the commons, anti-ableism, and exploring different ways of knowing.

Sophie is the person I chose to be the first reader of the manuscript for my book, The Spirited Kitchen. From the very earliest kernel of thought I had about potentially writing a book, she came to mind as the person I wanted to give me the first pass of honest feedback. Why? Because I think she might be the smartest person I know. Her cultural analysis is tops and I have learned so, so, so much from her way of teaching and of being in business.

And at the time, I still had some things to unpack in my own mind about what to valorize and what not to valorize in a book about ancestral veneration, as a white settler under capitalism, in a time of increasing fascism. I knew there was nuance needed and also some firmness and boundaries so that my work couldn't be pressed into the service of white supremacy. I’m so grateful for Sophie for helping me see how I could improve my manuscript.

Here we are jamming on anarchy, antifascism, ableism, and ungovernable bodies.

Check out Sophie's work here:

Beyond the Blood

Ungovernable Bodies

Radical Well Tending: Living Folkways of Care with Sophie & Becka

I also mentioned RCCX Theory. This is a model we often use when we discuss sickness in The Numinous Network, particularly within the Sensitive Nervous Systems + Long Covid Connection group.

***

Have a question or comment?

Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

Marika Heinrichs is the granddaughter of German Mennonite, British, and Irish settlers to the part of Turtle Island colonially known as Canada. She is a queer, femme, somatics practitioner and facilitator whose work focuses on the recovery of ancestral wisdom through body-based ways of knowing, and challenging the appropriation and erasure of Indigenous knowledge in the field of somatics. Marika resides on Attawandaron, Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe territory (a.k.a. Guelph, Ontario). 

Kai Cheng Thom

Susan Raffo's Piece on the origins of craniosacral therapy

Susan Raffo's piece on acknowledging the lineages of healing practices

Bear Hebert on quitting yoga

Michael J. Morris

Prentis Hemphill

Don Hanlon Jonhson

Camille Barton

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Resmaa Menakem

generative somatics

NeuroAffective Touch

Focusing

Marika's blog post on Bealtaine

Marika's course for practitioners

***

Have a question or comment?

Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes and Rituals of the Wheel of the Year is now available for pre-order! (Check it out here.) In this episode, I'm sharing how and why I wrote this cookbook – the stories, friends, mentors, and supports that helped me navigate the fear, creative blocks, and emotional paralysis that came up in the process. 

Resources In This Episode

Sarah Selecky

Nerys Patterson's Cattle Lords and Clansmen

Michael Newton, HiddenGlen.org

F.Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough and The Scots Kitchen

Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch

Quaker Committee of Care 

Sophie Macklin's courses: Ungovernable Bodies and Beyond the Blood

Lauren Bacon: Curious For A Living

Cyndi Brannen, PhD.

Ira Glass quote about having killer taste that exceeds your skill level

Roxane Gay's writing Masterclass

Check out the pre-order bonuses! If you place a bulk order, or have a group of Spirited Kitchen fans who'd like me to visit your bookclub, please reach out to: [email protected]

Come hang out with us in The Numinous Network where I'll be doing cooking demos in Carmen's Cookbook Club and holding online Wheel of the Year rituals for each solstice, equinox and halfway point in between. 

The book hits stores on October 18, 2022. Pre-order today and save $10 per copy!

Aurelie Richards is a writer, educator, beekeeper, witch, performer, community builder, gardener, wounded healer. She's a Jewish woman with trans experience, living in Germany. She's long been an advocate for queer rights, trans community building, and domestic violence prevention, especially in rural and small-town contexts. And she's the manager of The Numinous Network and very dear to me.

Aurelie had feedback for me about something I said in my last episode with Nikiah Seeds, so we've continued the conversation here. Listen in as we work through differences and bring in more context and practice repair skills like the soft start up, balancing power, and dropping in to deep listening.

Check out her work at AurelieRichards.com

Hang out with us in The Numinous Network

Welcome back to the podcast, Nikiah Seeds! Nikiah has been a ceremonialist and teacher of ritual, myth, and ancestral veneration for a couple decades now since her early years as a doula. She’s founder of the Red Moon Mystery School and co-author of the book Moon Mysteries about connecting with your menstrual cycle, and she’s been leading sacred drum-making retreats for years and years.

Nikiah was last here in 2017 when we talked about sacred beekeeping. But we’ve actually known each other since about 2007. We've witnessed each other grow and our careers evolve over the years so it’s fun to be able to have a visit and talk about the thresholds we stand upon now as women at midlife. Originally we were going to talk about ageing and elderhood and Embracing the Crone and how that archetype speaks to us, but actually…it turns out there’s still a lot to figure out about this in-between phase of becoming the cunning woman who stands between maidenhood and cronehood. 

Danielle Blackwood last appeared on the podcast in 2019 when we talked about her previous book, The Twelve Faces of the Goddess. Now she’s back with a fabulous book that I highly recommend to people aged 25 to 55 especially - it’s called A Lantern In The Dark: Navigate Life's Crossroads with Story, Ritual & Sacred Astrology.

We're talking not only about the famous (infamous?) Saturn Return (age 28-30), but also about the lesser known major Midlife Transits:

• the Pluto Square (age 36 to 48)
• the Neptune Square (age 39-43)
• the Uranus Opposition (age 41 - 45)
• the Saturn Opposition (age 44 -45)
• the Second Saturn Return (age 58 - 60)

Learn more about Danielle's work here.

Sign up for my newsletter to get the link for Free Week in the Numinous Network happening June 16 - 22, 2022.

A preparatory episode as we approach the midsummer solstice. Let's check-in with ourselves and our goals, self-regulate, and recalibrate, so we can hit our stride mid-June. I offer a brief and simple somatic practice, plus a really cool (time-sensitive) announcement!

Cyndi's Brannen's most recent book, Entering Hekate's Garden: The Magic, Medicine & Mystery of Plant Spirit Witchcraft, is a rich and enchanting journey with 39 plants, along with 39 ways to work with botanicals in your daily life and deeper rituals.

Learn more about Cyndi's online programs at KeepingHerKeys.com

Listen to her podcast, More Than This: At the Crossroads of Modern Life and the Deeper World

What is "collapse awareness"? How do we navigate collapse without losing our joy? What skills are needed in times of prolonged periods of overwhelming stress? This episode is an overview and recap of a topic I've talked about every year (multiple times) since the start of this show in 2014. Here, once again, is my annual report on the state of collapse.

Find a round-up of past collapse episodes here. 

Preparing For A Beautiful End, Geez Magazine (Winter 2014), Utne Reader (Summer 2015)

Join us in my course, Collapse 101, in The Numinous Network

The Spirited Kitchen

***

Have a question or comment?

Looking for life advice?

Need some witch wisdom?

Maybe I can help – listen for my response in an upcoming episode!

Click here to leave me a voice or written message.

Today, I’m going to make a few people really happy because this is the Bruce Springsteen Niche Episode that more than a handful of you have been waiting for. The episode where I explain the long-lasting appeal of Bruce Springsteen as told through select Springsteen tracks arranged in order of progressive maturity of narrative voice. The journey takes us from frustrated youth in a small town, to emergent adult getting into trouble, an adult desire for love and reconciliation with the past, deepening radicalization as the hardships of life are revealed to be so often caused by oppressive systems of class and hierarchy, and finally a swell of hope and resilience as a more mature voice of elderhood emerges. Features 15 of his 60+ albums.

I have created this playlist in Tidal but I’m going to add a list of each track and the specific album it appears on - because the specific recording matters. This is a musician who is known for tireless touring having played over 2,600 concerts since he signed with Columbia Records in 1972. But of course, he had a career before that - Bruce Springsteen has been the front man of a rock and roll band since his first gig as a 17 year old with his band called The Castiles in 1965 and he’s never had any other job since. Never had a workin man job. Not a day. But his dad did. His dad had lots of jobs, it was hard for him to keep jobs. Partially because of declining industrial jobs around New Jersey intensifying in the mid-60s, but also because Bruce’s dad struggled with alcoholism and undiagnosed depression and schizophrenia, and that became a defining feature of Bruce’s life and his music, wrestling with intergenerational demons and the mirroring of one family’s life in the larger decline of America as a country and an idea at the end of the 20th century.

Follow along with the songs with a free trial on Tidal (credit card required) or search the following recordings wherever you get your music, (possibly even YouTube).

Playlist

1. Growin’ Up, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
2. Born to Run, Born To Run, (1975)
3. Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985
4. The River, The River (1980)
5. Working on the Highway, Born In The USA (1984)
6. Johnny 99, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985 (1985)
7. Badlands, Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
8. Dancing In The Dark, Born in the USA (1984)
9. I’m on Fire, Born In The USA (1984)
10. Human Touch, Human Touch (1992)
11. Brilliant Disguise, Tunnel of Love (1987)
12. My Hometown, Born In The USA (1984)
13. Born In the USA, Born In The USA (1984)
14. Bring ‘Em Home, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006)
15. The Ghost of Tom Joad, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
16. Devils & Dust, Devils & Dust (2005)
17. Shenandoah, We Shall Overcome (2006)
18. Blood Brothers, Greatest Hits (1995)
19. O Mary Don’t You Weep, We Shall Overcome (2006)
20. Pay Me My Money Down, We Shall Overcome (2006)
21. We Shall Overcome, We Shall Overcome (2006)
22. This Land Is Your Land, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975 - 1985 (1986)
23. Reason To Believe, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975 - 1985 (1986)
24. Better Days, Lucky Town (1992)
25. Hello Sunshine, Western Stars (2019)

References

Covers and Springsteen Songs by Other Artists

1. Blinded By The Light, Mannfred Mann's Earth Band (1976)
2. Because The Night, Patti Smith (1978)
3. Because The Night, 10,000 Maniacs (1993)
4. Because the Night, Co.Ro (1992)

Movie: Blinded By The Light, Gurinder Chadha (2019)

Netflix: Springsteen on Broadway

Album: Traveling Wilburys, Vol.1

Pete Seeger on the Johnny Cash Show: Bring Them Home (1970)

Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live at C.W.Post College, Greenvale NY (1975)

Autobiography: Born To Run (2016)

Maris Bergrune is a ritual animist, a spirit worker, a sound medium, and singer/musician. I’ve taken two of her programs - one on Norse animism and one on seidr mediumship and we’ll talk about them in detail today. Maris teaches skill development in intuitive perception, boundaries and discernment, and offers a very good foundation in animist ritual and relational practices with the Other Than Human worlds. She focuses on developing healthy relationships with spirits and ancestors and also on accessing self-sovereignty and voice.

As you’ll hear in this interview, her practice is characterized by this very clear intention to partner with only the most compassionate aspects of spirit. I find her approach very grounded and practical; and she’s clear that this approach is not a way to bypass the challenges of humanity but are rather offers ways to be deeply resourced while facing these challenges. 

Here's her website: https://livingvoicemedicine.com

Click here for her program, Gather at the Well: Norse Ritual Animism

Resources Mentioned:

Betsey Bergstrom

Tom Kenyon

Annette Höst

Seed of Yggdrasill, by Maria Kvilhaug

I'm thrilled to welcome to the show Nicholas Pearson, author of several books including, Crystal Basics: The Energetic, Healing, and Spiritual Power of 200 Gemstones. Nicholas studied mineral science in university and worked for several years at a museum featuring the largest mineral collection in the southwestern US. In this episode, Nick explains the science of why and how crystals work including concepts like entrainment, amplification and coherence. 

Check out his website and links here:

www.theluminouspearl.com
www.linktr.ee/theluminouspearl
www.facebook.com/TheLuminousPearl
www.Instagram.com/theluminouspearl

My guest today is Becca Piastrelli, author of the new book, Root & Ritual: Timeless Ways To Connect To Land, Lineage, Community and the Self. It’s a charming, full colour, illustrated guide to fundamentals of creating connection with spirits of place and ancestors. I’d describe it as a fresh update on modern self-directed spirituality because it foregrounds how white feminism of the past and today has a tendency to appropriate spirituality from anywhere and everywhere. Becca’s book clearly aims to recognize white privilege, give credit, and walk humbly on the spiritual path.

Find out more about Root & Ritual here.

Find out more about Becca and her podcast, Belonging, here.

Find out more about Constellation work here.

Elaine Alec is a co-founder of Alderhill, an Indigenous-owned-and-led company of leading experts in the area of Indigenous Community Planning. She’s led comprehensive community planning and engagement processes, been a political advisor, and recently the bestselling author of Calling My Spirit Back which links a personal examination of her lived experience to a much broader overview of serious sociological concerns of national importance for people in Canada and beyond, along with tangible steps to address them. I also know that Elaine and her family share the same strong commitment to co-parenting and secure attachment in a blended family as I do, and I wanted to jam on that a bit. Content warning: Discussion of cultural genocide and the legacy of Indigenous residential institutions in Canada.

Learn more about Elaine and the book, Calling My Spirit Back, here.

Find out more about Alderhill for Indigenous community planning and engagement here.

Today I’m speaking with British Columbia record-breaking pumpkin grower, Dave Chan. Dave has grown the heaviest pumpkin in BC’s history at 1,911 pounds! Dave has been growing for many years and finally achieved his dream and I’m thrilled to have him on the show today to share all his secrets. Stay tuned for a Rubenation at the end.

GiantPumpkinsBC.com (to see Dave's pumpkin!)

BigPumpkins.com

The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth

Master Carver, Scott Cully, who appeared on the Johnny Carson Show in 1985, inspiring Dave's lifelong passion for pumpkins

Toi Smith is my guest today! Toi is a business and growth strategist, a writer and teacher.  She's also host of an online community called Business For The People for entrepreneurs, creatives, healers, and guides trying to do business differently. Toi also works with mothers who desire to return to themselves, and Black women who want more joy and pleasure.

toimarie.com

businessforthepeople.com

Sylvia Federici's books

Combahee River Collective Statement 

American Capitalism: A History (Cornell University podcast)

RAVEN Trust is the place where I give a percentage of my income every month if you're interested in helping support legal challenges to fight for Aboriginal Rights & Title in British Columbia.

Reciprocity Connects is where I've pledged to make payments to the local nations whose territories I live upon.

Today’s episode is especially dedicated to all the parents out there of tweens and teens who are exploring their gender identity. Paria Hassouri is a pediatrician, mother of three and writer whose work has appeared in the NY Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Huffington Post.  She and her family live in LA, where she practices pediatrics at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. And she’s the author of the book, Found In Transition: A Mother’s Evolution during her Child’s Gender Change, a very frank, sometimes painfully honest account of parenting a transgender teen. Paria chronicles what amounts to a dual transition: as her child transitions from male to female, she navigates through anger, denial, and grief to eventually arrive at acceptance. Blindsided by her child’s gender identity, Paria is also forced to examine how she still carries insecurities from her past of growing up as an Iranian-American immigrant in a predominantly white neighborhood. 

Follow Paria:

Taraneh Erfan King is a registered counsellor with a specialty in expressive arts and a broad background in psychology, body-centered practices, and mysticism, including her hereditary lineage of Sufism. Born in Iran, she immigrated to Canada as a child with her family, and has lived and worked in several parts of the world including Guyana, France, Switzerland, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka. Her book, Conscious Grieving: The Path of Awakening Through Loss, is a compassionate companion for all grievers and a source for poetry and prayers you'll return to again and again.

Visit Taraneh's website mindonspirit.com for more information about her programs and services, and find her book online at major outlets as well as your favourite independent booksellers. Follow her on Instagram @mindonspirit

Check out The Numinous Network for all my current offerings.

My guest today is a trusted friend, Oliver Choquette. Oliver is currently a Psychology student at the University of Victoria. His training and expertise comes from various sources: college, university, and private classes. He has been working in clinics as a support person for over 10 years. He is a passionate reader and researcher of many topics: history, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. And at the end of the day, I have trusted him with my child as a skilled helper providing emotional support for a number of years. As the parent of a 17 year old trans son with ADHD and autism diagnoses, who struggles with both anxiety and depression, I wanted to talk to Oliver about the intersection of gender diversity and neurodivergence. And because it’s not just my son – I literally don’t know an LGBTQIA+ youth who does not present with some form of neurodivergence or at the very least some diagnosable mood disorder such as anxiety or depression. I hope you enjoy this candid, non-expert, real conversation.

Accounts I follow on Instagram for psychoeducation:

@neurodivergent_lou

@sensoryhuman

@the.autisticats

@fidgets.and.fries

@pixiesbigwhy

@autism_sketches

@iampayingattention

@the_mini_adhd_coach

@lifeinautismworld

@adultingwithautism

@drdevonprice

@the_queer_counselor

@autism_unmasked

@busybeingdisabled 

Oliver's Research Links

Carter, B. (2021). Impact of social inequalities and discrimination on vulnerability to crises.

Kia, H., Robinson, M., MacKay, J., & Ross, L. E. (2020). Poverty in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) populations in Canada: an intersectional review of the literature. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 28(1), 21-5

Executive Skills Questionnaire- Peg Dawson & Richard Guare

Giovanardi, G., Vitelli, R., Maggiora Vergano, C., Fortunato, A., Chianura, L., Lingiardi, V., & Speranza, A. M. (2018). Attachment patterns and complex trauma in a sample of adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 60.

Strauss, P., Cook, A., Watson, V., Winter, S., Whitehouse, A., Albrecht, N., ... & Lin, A. (2021). Mental health difficulties among trans and gender diverse young people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Findings from Trans Pathways. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 137, 360-367.

Rommelse, N. N., Franke, B., Geurts, H. M., Hartman, C. A., & Buitelaar, J. K. (2010). Shared heritability of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 19(3), 281-295.

Schnarrs, P. W., Stone, A. L., Salcido Jr, R., Baldwin, A., Georgiou, C., & Nemeroff, C. B. (2019). Differences in adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and quality of physical and mental health between transgender and cisgender sexual minorities. Journal of psychiatric research, 119, 1-6.

Craig, S. L., Austin, A., Levenson, J., Leung, V. W., Eaton, A. D., & D’Souza, S. A. (2020). Frequencies and patterns of adverse childhood events in LGBTQ+ youth. Child abuse & neglect, 107, 104623.

Cuevas, A. G., Ong, A. D., Carvalho, K., Ho, T., Chan, S. W. C., Allen, J., ... & Williams, D. R. (2020). Discrimination and systemic inflammation: A critical review and synthesis. Brain, behavior, and immunity.

Today’s fantastic guest is Dr.Cyndi Brannen, one of the world's preeminent scholars on Hekatean Witchcraft.

After a successful career in academia and healthcare, Dr.Brannen transitioned to focusing on reclaiming the sacred feminine after she became convinced that mainstream psychology was not sufficient to lead to personal wholeness.  Her work focuses on personal healing through depth psychology, herbalism, rituals, meditations, and exploration of the deeper self. She founded The Covina Institute, a soul school dedicated to the pursuit of wholeness through structured programs of study and transcendent experiences. Dr.Brannen is the author of the bestselling books, Keeping Her Keys and Entering Hekate’s Garden.

Mentioned in this episode:
• Dr.Sarah Isles Johnstone's Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate's Roles in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature
• Thomas Moore
• James Hillman
• Erich Neumann

Check out Hide Tanning 101 with Fern + Roe!

This special episode includes a 30 minute trancework exercise. I stack 4 different spiritual hygiene exercises, one after the other, to connect with earth, water, air and fire.

This episode is a complement to my Yuletide Stocking Stuffer program.

Inspiration for some of the techniques in this exercise come from:

• Diane Poole Heller (Competent Protector terminology and trauma-informed pedagogy)
• Philip Shepherd's Radical Wholeness work
• Laura Day, intuitive coach
• Dara Silverman and Amanda Ream, Somatics For White Racial Justice Organizers
• The Strozzi Institute
• generative somatics

And of course my nearly decade-long experience as a Clinical Hypnotherapist.

Hope you enjoy it and find something in there of use to you!

Lindsay Tunkl is an artist and the author of "Origins & Endings: Seeing Yourself Through the Apocalypse". It's a divination deck and self-reflection inkblot kit that helps us grapple with the most pressing questions of our time. In this conversation, we explore the intersections of art, healing, therapy, intuition, fear, collectivism, divination, and living in choice during apocalypse times.

Find the Origins & Endings Divination Book and Card Deck here.

See some of Lindsay's artwork here including some of the PreApocalypse Counselling installation here.

Connect with Lindsay for coaching at intothedeepcoaching.com.

Follow Lindsay on Instagram to learn more about her magic and Tarot work, as well as her current adventures.

Sometimes A Wild God is a powerful poem written by storyteller, author, wilderness vigil guide, and poet, Tom Hirons. In this episode, I ask the poet the impolite question, "What is your poem about?"

It leads to a conversation about collapse, grief, wilderness vigil, the wyrd, the loneliness of modern masculinity, the lifetime work of wholeness, and the prospect of hope as a deity.

Find Tom's writing at tomhirons.com

Purchase stacks of his poetry and prose at Hedgespoken Press hedgespokenpress.com

Adorn your abode or altar with Rima's art by visiting her site: rimastaines.com

And learn more about their life in the off-grid storytelling theatre run from a 1966 Bedford RL lorry, converted to be a home and go-anywhere stage. (For real.): hedgespoken.org

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Dark Mountain Project
On Poetry, by Glyn Maxwell
In The Skin Of A Lion, by Michael Ondaatje
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart

Learn more about The Numinous Quest Online here.

Learn more about the Threshold community here.

In Part 2 of my conversation with Holly, we explore collapse grief and death rituals in COVID times, and share fairly extensively about why Transformative Justice and community accountability is such an important aspect of collapse preparedness. We get into some detail about concerns we have over being two cis white women leading a diverse community, and, some ways we are hoping to mitigate that and reduce possible harm. We also share about the importance of play and creativity in collapse work.

In the first minutes of this episode, I make a reference to a Netflix action series that perhaps many will not have heard of: Altered Carbon. I super love the show, for so many reasons not the least of which is the incredible fight choreograhy that features incredible women of colour as lead characters – so badass!

I also reference Sarah Kerr at soul passages.ca as one of my teachers.

Find out more about the Threshold community here.

Register for my Numinous Quest Online here.

Holly is a psychotherapist and a lawyer, and what she calls a “collapsitarian” – she’s spent a long time tracking collapse from multiple perspectives and coalesced her observations into a framework she calls collapse psychology. You can get a sense of that framework by visiting collapse psychology.org

Holly approached me in early 2017 and our relationship since then has blossomed into friendship both online and in physical presence, we’ve witnessed each other in grief and pain, but also had a chance to stay up late drinking and laughing. And whether we’re crying or laughing, the topic always somehow comes around to the collapse of empire and large scale convergent emergencies.

Find out more about the Threshold community here.

Learn about The Numinous Quest Online here.

I'm talking with Mimi Young about clairolfaction, wonderful plant allies for pandemic times, and how to work with tea in a magical – even ancestral – way.

Mimi is a shamanic intuitive and founder of Ceremonie (@shopceremonie), an esoteric brand focusing on in-person and online core shamanic and occult education, Remote Shamanic Readings, and plant potions for skin and aura. Mimi works with a blend of modalities including core shamanism, plant spirit healing, chao magick, and Chinese esoterics, with a focus on healing through shadows, dream work, divination, ancestral connection, and psychic development. She is also a neurofeedback practitioner (@openmindsperformance), where she supports others in accessing their peak via neurological resilience.

Check out all of Mimi's offerings here.

Follow her on Instagram: @shopceremonie

Find out about doing neurofeedback with Mimi here.

Learn about joining the online Mystery Mentorship Program here.

The book she referenced is For All The Tea In China, by Sarah Rose. 

Follow me on Instagram @carmenspagnola

Check out my Intuitive Business (And Life) Planning Workshop

Bear is a life coach, artist, and social justice educator who helps socially conscious humans align their actions with their values. In their coaching and teaching, they apply a feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist lens. In this episode, I ask them about their gender journey to using they/them pronouns, and we talk about interlocking systems of oppression, call out culture, and wanting healing for people who cause harm without necessarily wanting to be a part of that healing. 

Content Warning: We do touch on sexual violence, capital punishment, and more, but we also take stretch breaks and pauses for breath as we do so. Remember to pause the recording if you feel yourself tensing up or becoming very activated.

Bearcoaches.com
Undoingpatriarchy.com

Caliban And The Witch by Silvia Federici

Combahee River Collective and How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Alternate ROOTS alternateroots.org
Info about the online version of ROOTS Week

Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni

Killers Of The Dream by Lillian Smith

The Farm: Angola, USA

13th, Ava DuVernay

bell hooks on “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”

Whiteness At Work, Desiree Adaway with Jessica Fish and Erika Hines

Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?  on diversity as an aftereffect of a lifelong commitment to the self-named struggles of people of color

Philly Stands Up zine

Beyond Survival book

"The Opposite Of Rape Culture Is Nurturance Culture" and Turn This World Inside Out by Nora Samaran

“No one enters violence for the first time having committed it.” -Danielle Sered, quoted by Mariame Kabe

Jasmine Richardson and Eliza Robertson are an astrology team who make their home online at KosmicTonic.com. Today we’re talking about what the astrology looked like leading up to 2020 that might have revealed something big like a global pandemic was coming, and looking ahead to the outlook for the rest of 2020 and beyond. How did we get here and where are we going?

We begin with a resource round up of highly recommended modern astrologers to follow and learn from:

ISAR
Kaitlin Coppock at Sphere and Sundry
Nina Gryphon
Demetra George
Chris Brennan - The Astrology Podcast 
Gray Crawford
Barbara Hand Clow - Journeys Through Nine Dimensions
Fortune’s Wheelhouse Podcast
Wesly Feuquay - Psylogia

We also look at what stands out to be aware of for Fall/Winter of 2020/21. We look at Mars Retrograde (Sept 9 - Nov 13), possible advancements in science, America's progress on its' Pluto return, and eclipses at the end of 2020 (Nov 30 and Dec 14) which set the tone for 2021. 

Book consultations with Jasmine and Eliza at kosmictonic.com and follow them on Instagram @kosmictonic and on Twitter @kosmic_tonic 

Register now for my Intuitive Business (And Life) Planning Workshop on September 26, 2020.

Eric Tyrone is the founder of Soul Dreamers and the creator of the "Get Woke In Your Dream-Time" Masterclass. In the past, Eric ran a non-profit called "Awakening Through Art", founded a mindfulness App, and was a co-facilitator of a nationwide meetup called EcoTuesday. In this episode we talk about the purpose of dreaming, how to interpret your dreams and heal through dreamwork, and we even do a little on the spot interpretation of a slightly anxious dream I had about a tarantula and my son.

Listeners can save $100 off his 4-Week “Get Woke In Your Dream-Time” Live Group Masterclass by using the coupon code: DREAMS333

Find the next start date at www.soul-dreamers.com 

Follow Eric on Instagram @_Soul_Dreamers

Find out more about the Threshold community here.

Darius Mills is a Conjure Oils expert and to be honest, probably the one of the most charming guests I’ve ever had. In this interview, Darius shares how he used hoodoo conjure magic to manifest a fully paid international move. We touch on Jesus, quantum physics, intergalactic beings, ancestors, and how to make a honey jar. 

Follow Darius on Instagram @dariusmills91 to find out when his next Conjure & Create program begins (at time of posting, Sept 2020).

This is the continuation of my conversation with Mara Cur , a hide tanner, hunter, wildcrafter, herbalist and wilder punk extraordinaire. In this episode Mara talks about the history of hide tanning and the important role that women and femmes played in this vocation. We also circle back to the question I posed in the last episode about how she approaches redress with Indigenous communities as she returns the teachings of hide tanning that were eradicated by colonialism.

The resource that Mara recommends to learn about White Saviorism is NoWhiteSaviors.org.

Mara credits visionary Cree artist, Kent Monkman, for his teachings on the early history of the fur trade.

I’d like to lift up Bruce Alexander’s essay, The Roots of Addiction in Free Market Society, as a formative document in my collapse awareness that relates quite directly to what Mara was saying about the first 250 years fo the fur trade. It uses the experience of the Orcadians – that’s Scottish folks from the Orkey Islands, previously renown for their sobriety –  employed by in the later days of the fur trade by the Hudson’t Bay company, as a study in how cultural dislocation and attachment rupture were direct causes of alcoholism.

If you really want to geek out on that particular historical niche, you can read my other teacher, Michael Newton’s book, We’re Indians Sure Enough: The Legacy of Scottish Highlanders in the United States.

Check out Mara’s online offerings at liminagathering.com and her own website Crowsnest wildcraft.com 

This season of the podcast is brought to you by the Threshold community. If the topics engaged in this episode appeal to you, check out our programming at www.thethresholdcommunity.com

Mara Cur is a hide tanner, hunter, wildcrafter, and herbalist. She is a teacher of mine that I’m excited to share with you because I love her thinking and articulation on so many topics like settler colonialism, attachment, trauma and radical politics. In this episode Mara shares about growing up an orphan in a high demand community (cultic religion).

Check out Mara’s offerings on her site, Crowsnest Wildcraft, and follow her on Instagram @woodland.cur

Continue the conversation in Part 2 here.

This season of the podcast is brought to you by the Threshold community. If the topics engaged in this episode appeal to you, check out our programming at www.thethresholdcommunity.com

Sharon Ross, aka Afrovivalist, is an African American woman, huntress and survivalist in America here to teach city folks how to prepare for any and all emergencies – not just coronavirus but any natural or human-made disaster. I think you can hear in my voice in this episode that I've got fan fever.

Her online retreat, DeCamp Outdoors, is happening August 21-23. You'll learn how to prepare for the second wave of COVID-19 and beyond. Hunting, soapmaking, ham radio operation – learn from experienced guides in the field.

What does Sharon say in brief about the second wave?

1) Get your water sorted out
2) Food stores
3) Shelter in place improvements
4) Get a food dehydrator!

Go follow @afrovivalist on Instagram and Facebook, and get your ticket to DeCamp Outdoors – I'll see you there!

Note: This show is rated E for "explicit". Cover the young ones' ears. We are using our grown up words for this topic, people!

This season of the podcast is brought to you by the Threshold community. We look forward to welcoming Sharon as a Guest Guide in September! 

Today I'm speaking with Danielle Dulsky, author of Woman Most Wild: Three Keys for Liberating the Witch Within. Today, we’re focused on Daniells’ second book, The Holy Wild: A Heathen Bible for the Untamed Woman.

We talk about ancestral inheritance and its influence on our spellcraft, mothering as witchcraft, and we touch on the effects of whiteness, capitalism, and patriarchy on our spiritual practice. She also tells us some awesome stories about the Mother of Babylon and other dark goddesses. It’s a toothsome conversation and I found Danielle very relatable and I suspect you will too!

Be sure to check out her newest book, Seasons of Moon and Flame: The Wild Dreamer's Journey of Becoming, due out March 10, 2020.

In this conversation, Danielle mentioned The Atlantis Bookshop in London, and recommended the book The Witch of Portobello by Paul Coelho.

Check out all of Danielle's website for all of her excellent offerings including online courses, workshops and her Patreon page.

Maia Toll is with us today speaking about creating kinship with other-than-human friends. Maia is the author of The wild Wisdom series which includes The Illustrated Herbiary, The Illustrated Bestiary, and the forthcoming, Illustrated Crystallary. I wanted to have this conversation through a lens of climate change and dynamic social transition. How can we have a conversation about working with plants and animals and crystal without discussing climate change and over-extraction, amirite?

In this episode, we also mentioned the Archetypes Deck by Kim Krans.

Find me on Instagram @carmenspagnola

Learn about Wet'suwet'en solidarity:
@takaiya.blaney
@gidimten_checkpoint
@smogelgem
@strikingstick

#wetsuwetenstrong
#youthforyintah
#indigenousyouthforwetsuweten

I’m speaking with Celtic studies and Gaelic scholar, Michael Newton. He’s a researcher and teacher with a history of recovering and interpreting original sources of Scottish Highland language, literature and tradition. He’s written multiple books and even produced and performed on an album of songs in Gaelic, and that’s how I discovered Michael’s work on my journey to learn to sing Gaelic laments and blessings, and learning about the tradition of keening, (which is a thing I do on certain occasions).

Michael has a folk school called The Hidden Glen where he offers online courses on topics in Gaelic culture and folklore. I’ve taken two of the courses:

Reclaiming the Roots (6 classes, new intake January 2020) is about deepening the understanding of Scottish Highland heritage during the era of the clan systems and the importance of the relationship to land and relationships with the more-than-human world. 

Stories of Scottish Highland Immigration is about the experience of Gaels in the New World as told by Gaels themselves – we learn about the complex reasons for mass migration through their songs and remnants of the Gaelic bardic tradition.

And a new course in 2020 I’m excited to be taking is called Radicalizing The Roots: Deconstructing Whiteness Through Gaelic lenses and Decolonizing Scottish Heritage. This one feels like a natural extension if you're doing social justice or ancestral reclamation and healing work. (6 classes, new intake January 2020)

Resources for deeper inquiry:
Decolonization Is For Everyone, Especially White People (Part 1)

Decolonization Is For Everyone, Especially White People (Part 2)

Decolonization Is For Everyone, Especially White People (Part 3)

Books:
Warriors Of The Word: The World Of the Scottish Highlanders (Kindle)

Seanchaidh na Coille: Memory-Keeper Of The Forest: An Anthology of Scottish-Gaelic Literature of Canada

A Handbook Of The Scottish Gaelic World

Papers:
Academia.edu

Michael's Patreon Page

Francis Weller is a psychotherapist and author of The Wild Edge Of Sorrow: Rituals Of Renewal And The Sacred Work Of Grief. In this episode we talk about the Five Gates Of Grief, men's circles, patriarchy and our infatuation with mythopoetic white men at the mic.

We also welcome back my husband for a "Rubenation" where he tells about his experience in a program for men about learning how to make friends as an adult male.

Also in this episode, I share the promo code provided by our sponsor Hollyhock to get a 15% discount on all meals + accommodations packages in 2020!

Resources cited in this episode include:

Joanna Macy
Toward Psychologies of Liberation, Helene Schulman
Carolyn Baker
Finding Beauty In A Broken World, Terry Tempest Williams
Jeannette Armstrong, Okanagan wisdom keeper and elder

Would you like to sponsor an upcoming episode? Please fill out our application form. Thanks!

This episode is part case consult, part psychoeducation, part storytelling. I'm so excited to share with you a conversation with my Clinical Supervisor and mentor, Patti Elledge, and to announce her new 3-month online program for like-minded therapists of all specialties!

I'll be assisting Patti both behind the scenes and in-class, as well as making myself available for one-on-one participant support through the program which runs January through March 2020.

You may have heard Patti's interview in TNP118: Patti Elledge on the Neurobiology of Attachment, Grieving Together, and Mobilizing Outrage.

In this episode, we talk about principles and techniques for managing Global High Activation States, the difference between "going global" and numinous unity experiences, and why working with the body to release trauma is so critical – especially in this time of increasing collective trauma.

Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Accessing The Healing Power Of The Vagus Nerve: Self-Help Exercises for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma and Autism,by Stanley Rosenberg

We-space practices

This is the drawing by Patti's 9-year old client, illustrating a Global High Activation state:

Patti is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) who has specialized in therapeutic application of neuroscience for more than 40 years, and teaches Diane Poole Heller’s groundbreaking work, DARe, which treats adult attachment wounds. She has a broad clinical background in treating developmental and attachment based traumas, offering somatic strategies to access healthy bonding and co-regulatory processes.

She worked directly with babies, children and families for more than 20 years prior to her SE training in the late 90s, and weaves strategies from the fields of interpersonal neurobiology, sensory processing, developmental differences and neurodiversity, coherent narratives and embodiment through movement and creativity. Her blending of a variety of somatic and body-mind techniques helps to treat and resolve over-coupled elements of survival energies (fight-flight-freeze responses) that become so seemingly intractable with the essence of loving/bonding and “belonging.”

Registration for the Somatic Mentoring programis capped at 25 spots.

Nov.26: just 8 spots left!

Danielle Blackwood is the author of The Twelve Faces Of The Goddess: Transform Your Life With Astrology, Magick And The Sacred Feminine. In this episode, we talk about strong archetypal goddesses for each astrological sign. Danielle also tells the amazing story of her incredible grandmother's survival in a Siberian work camp and escape after nine years, eventually finding and reuniting with Danielle's mother after nearly a decade of estrangement. It gives me chills to hear it.

Danielle mentions astrodienst.com as a resource for discovering your own astrological chart.

Read Danielle's monthly Cosmic Weather Report here. You can connect with her here on her website and make sure you follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

The world of sigil witchery can be both fascinating and intimidating depending on your relationship to your artistic side. I was happy I mustered up the courage to try my hand at sigil craft with a little help and encouragement from Laura Tempest Zakroff, author of Sigil Witchery: A Witch's Guide to Crafting Magick Symbols.

Ask for Sigil Witchery and all of Laura's books at your local independent bookseller.

Check out Laura's artwork and upcoming workshops here, also at her sigil witchery site, and also on Instagram via @owlkeyeme.arts

Tag Laura and @carmenspagnola on Instagram – show us your sigils!

This episode is sponsored by Thérèse Cator's new program, Embodied Manifestation. Thank you, Thérèse!

Handful of Stars is the new book from Helene Saucedo about the ancient art of hand analysis common known as palm reading. It's a tool for self-discovery and divination that is cross cultural and widespread, but palm reading is often quite confusing and shrouded in mystery for those of us who didn't grow up in a culture that widely embraces the practice. Helene has created a book and handprint kit for those of us who are curious about how much our hands can tell us about our life path and purpose.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Handful Of Stars: A Palmistry Guidebook and Handprinting Kit

Helene's website

Richard Unger's Life Prints and Hand Analysis Institute

And a final thank you to this episode sponsor, Elate Clean Cosmetics. Check out their new Rise:Together collection on Instagram.

In this episode we are joined by Scott Richardson-Reed author of the popular blog, the Cailleach’s Herbarium, where he writes about Scottish Folk Magic, witchcraft, folklore and herbalism.

I’ve followed Scott's blog for a few years now and have thoroughly enjoyed the depth of research and frank discourse he brings to topics like cultural and spiritual appropriation, reclaiming or reimagining ancestral practices and animism in Scottish myth. I'm thrilled for this opportunity to dive deeper into his excellent series, The Good, The Dead and the Faery: Scottish Folk Magic And The Dead.

I’m delighted to share with you a long awaited conversation – long awaited by me anyway – with Scott Richardson-Reed, the conversation in which I learn that…I have an accent! Who knew? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Links to topics in this conversation:

Tales of the Taibhsear concept album- limited edition on sale now!

skyrie stones - "colourful stones" divination

Amanda Edmiston, Botanica Fabula Storytelling

Debbie Armour, Burd Ellen music

Survey of Scottish Witchcraft

Saining Not Smudging: Purification and Lustration in Scottish Folk Magic Practice

Sarah Faith Gottesdiener is an artist, tarot reader and educator, and witch. She is also the creator of the very popular Many Moons journals and Moonbeaming program. Sarah is also co-host of the Strange Magic podcast.

You can find Sarah's readings and courses at: visualmagic.info

Buy Sarah's art here.

Finally, sign up for Sarah's excellent Moonbeaming newsletter.

I'm thrilled to be speaking with Lori Lambert Williams today about Controlled Remote Viewing – a protocol to access the subconscious and determine information about any location, person, or thing anywhere at any time.

Remote Viewing is a technique commonly associated with intuition, but actually has its military roots both in Russia and the US. Much research around Remote Viewing has been funded by the Pentagon and developed by the Stanford Research Institute.

Lori has been a professional remote viewer and teacher since 1996. Her classes and trainings are available online at intuitivespecialists.com

Stephanie Papik is an indigenous Inuit woman, experienced facilitator and program manager, current Director of Indigenous Relations and stakeholder Engagement for a division of the government of British columbia, as well as fibre artist and entrepreneur.

What strikes many people upon first meeting Stephanie, probably second after her big warm smile, are her beautiful facial tattoos.

I was so pleased she agreed to come on the show and talk about what these tattoos mean to her and to her Inuit culture.

Check out the show notes at carmenspagnola.com for links to all the resources mentioned in this episode.

Elizabeth Brown is a master dowser and author of DOWSING: The Ultimate Guide For The 21st Century. Her storied career includes the co-founding and running of a geopathic stress consultancy, she has studied with two former presidents of the British Society of dowsers, and has trained in remote viewing and more. Plus, she comes from a family lineage of water dowsers.

In this episode, Elizabeth helps us understand the history and science behind dowsing including the sometimes surprising involvement of the Catholic Church. We discuss whether pendulums are as effective as rods, and the importance of finding your niche as a dowser. (We can't all be experts at everything, right?) She also explains what a session with her entails and helps me get a sense of what's affecting my nasal congestion.

Sarah Kerr is a death doula and ritual healing practitioner. She work with dying people and their families, as well as families navigating the death of a pet, and also lectures and teaches about death care and the healing power of ritual. Sarah perviously appeared on the podcast in episode 98: Priestess, Shaman, Mystic Scapegoat.

The most incredible thing happened during the taping of this episode. Precisely what I was asking Sarah advice around happened...to her. This episode is dedicated to Sarah's deceased cat, Luna, and all those who are suffering grief over the death of a beloved animal, or tree friend, or natural landscape. Sarah generously wrote about her experience on her blog.

In this episode, we talk about the nuts and bolts of dying well, (are there things you should or shouldn't say to a dying person?), being a death doula (how do you manage your energy being in such intense environments?), and ways to honour the death of animals and trees.

How do you know if you're in a cult? And, how does an open society confront propaganda, brainwashing, and the rise of fascism? That's the undercurrent of this conversation with noted cultic studies expert, Alexandra Stein, PhD.

Alexandra Stein is a writer and educator specializing in the social psychology of ideological extremism and other dangerous social relationships. She brings an extraordinary lens to cultic studies with her attachment-based approach, which helps us understand how an average person – privileged and educated, even – can fall under the influence of a high-demand group.  

Pashta MaryMoon is a death doula, a Wiccan, a Quaker, and a longtime fan of Jesus. In fact, before we get to our conversation on death and dying, Pashta gives us a revealing tour of her early spirituality – a syncretic blend of earthy paganism, deep devotional relationship with Jesus as brother/lover/son, kinship with Mary Magdalene, and Wiccan god/goddess themes. To say she's a singular presence is understatement.

Pashta has been a compassionate radical her whole life. She is a longtime grassroots organizer including anti-nuclear activism in the '80s, and frontline support worker during the HIV/AIDS crisis in the '90s, with a current focus on death care alternatives in Canada.

I'm delighted to welcome back to the podcast, Tiffany Śwxeloselwet Joseph, to talk adapting to catastrophic collapse. Tiffany tells us stories about bees, salmon, orcas and humans, and her main strategy for collapse resilience: cultivating beauty inside and out.

Go here to read and share the story of SEMSEMÍYA 

Learn more about Tiffany and how you can work with her or invite her to your gathering.

Welcome back to the show for the sixth time, peak oil expert and author, John Michael Greer. In this episode, we're celebrating the tenth anniversary of John's seminal book, The Long Descent: A User's Guide To The End Of The Industrial Age. 

John explains the concept of Catabolic Collapse, why apocalypse scenarios are problematic and the hopium of political will and green utopias just as much so. I ask him about useful viable professions in collapse scenarios and how to choose where to live. Finally, John gives us three steps for personal preparation to face the deindustrial age.

Read the full article: Peak Oil Advice From German Poets

Patti Elledge is a Trauma Healing Specialist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner with a private practice in Asheville, NC. She's my supervisor and mentor and I'm here to tell the world: I love her and I think everyone should have more Patti in their life. I want that for you. You deserve some Patti.

In this conversation, Patti explains what Attachment is, what different Attachment styles look like in babies and how that translates in adulthood, the role of Evolutionary Biology in our Attachment systems, and how we can heal attachment wounds in a world of persistent precarity, climate change, and social turmoil.

I particularly enjoyed hearing Patti's thoughts on grief, rage, and how Attachment shows up in our spiritual lives.

Here are the resources Patti noted in this interview:

Mary Main

Mary Ainsworth

John Bowlby

Joanna Macy

Peter Levine and Somatic Experiencing

Stephen Porges and the Polyvagal System (YouTube)

Allan Schore and the Good Enough Mother

Portrait Of A Marriage: Yes, It's Mine (the article mentioned that I wrote)

Learning To See In The Dark Amid Catastrophe: An Interview With Deep Ecologist Joanna Macy

Patti specializes in somatic healing techniques via organic, instinctual ways of the body and psyche, allowing for more connection with self and other and the emergence of creativity and spirituality. Patti credits her training by Peter Levine, Diane Poole Heller and Raja Selvam.  She has assisted more than 40 trainings worldwide and now teaches Diane Poole Heller's pioneering work DARe, (Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning Experience).

Patti has specialized in therapeutic application of neuroscience for 40 years and has a broad background in early development (interpersonal, social/emotional, language and cognition), sensory processing disorders, self- and co-regulatory processes and the neurobiology of stress and trauma.

While Patti's work is grounded in current day research on the neurobiology and physiology of the human stress mechanism, it is also infused with embodied intuition and a compassionate heart.

You can reach Patti at:

www.pattiatlarge.blogspot.com

https://dianepooleheller.com/teachersproviders/

https://sepractitioner.membergrove.com/member-details.php?id=1388

My guest today is author, speaker and consultant, Monique Gary Smith. We're talking about Territorial Acknowledgements, a small act of Reconciliation that is spreading beyond the borders of our province and country.

When I committed a few years ago to incorporating acts of Reconciliation into my personal and professional life, I began inviting elders (of all ages) to open all of my retreats and workshops with a Territorial Acknowledgement. When I was invited to give a speech, or lead a networking event, or any kind of circle, I would also verbally acknowledged the traditional occupants of the territory, wherever I went. And if I travelled outside of my region to go on Quest or a spiritual retreat, I would reach out to the local band or tribal office to find out more about the land and the ancestors from that place.

But I only learned how to do this because my friend, Monique, guided and re-directed me again and again.

In this episode, Monique shares some ideas for how any person wanting to incorporate this small act of Reconciliation into their life or work might begin in a good way.

MoniqueGraySmith.com

Truth And Reconciliation Commission Of Canada: 94 Calls To Action

In this episode, I'm thrilled to talk with Matthew Remski about how one finds oneself in a cult, how to get out, and what high demand groups have to do with social justice, climate change and collapse.

Matthew is a writer and cultural critic who published an explosive article in The Walrus called, Yoga's Culture Of Sexual Abuse: Nine Women Tell Their Stories.

Since then, I've followed Matthew and especially appreciated his real-time critique of the unravelling of the Shambala meditation community.

Resources cited in this episode include:

Alexandra Mann, Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment In cults And Totalitarian Systems

Dr.Cathleen Mann

Steven Hassan

Dr.Michael Langone

This Is Not your Practice Life

My guest today is gardener, landscape designer, teacher of permaculture, and business owner, Solara Goldwynn of Hatchet & Seed.

Known for bringing lush, edible landscapes to forgotten private corners and under-used public spaces, Solara is not only a champion of sustainable values but I consider her a strong role model. But I also know that folks who live with such conviction also shoulder more emotional burden than most; I wanted to know how she copes with her own eco-grief and climate anxiety.

We talk about her work, what she thinks the future of the planet will look like when her daughter grows up, reconciling with having children in an age of overpopulation, and how she seeks joy in spite of these dire times.

For eco-inspiration, follow Solara and Hatchet & Seed on Instagram.

I'm delighted to welcome Jessie Hemphill back to the show to talk about Indigenizing Urban Design and also what we can learn about collapse and crisis preparedness from an Indigenous perspective.

I'm so excited that Jessie is attending our retreat, Ritual + Practice For Urban Homestead this fall because we are both pretty serious peppers and like to talk shop about our emergency preparedness plans and kits.

To learn more about Jessie's work in Comprehensive Community Planning, and to read her Master's Thesis summary, visit: alderhill.ca

To learn more about our Hollyhock retreat, visit our event page.

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Holly Truhlar, MA, JD, is a grief practitioner, ritualist, and community builder. She has a Masters degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University and a law degree from the University of Denver. Combining her experience in justice work and relational psychology, she created an intellectual, emotional, sociological, and spiritual approach to activism called Radical Attunement Work (RAW). Her writing and workshops dance with the topics of planetary grief, cultural trauma, oppression and inequality, restructuring power, environmental justice, conscious collapse, and subversion of the dominant system. She's deeply committed to transforming our culture of exploitation into communities of care.

http://hollytruhlar.com

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.) is a renegade academic, lecturer, speaker, and proud diaper-changer. Bayo curates an earth-wide organization, The Emergence Network, for the re-calibration of our ability to respond to the civilizational crisis--a project framed within a feminist ethos and inspired by indigenous cosmologies. He considers this a shared art--exploring the edges of the intelligible, dancing with posthumanist ideas, and dabbling in the mysteries of quantum mechanics. In short, Bayo has given up his longing for the "end-time" and is learning to live in the "mean time." In the middle, where we must live with confusion and make do with partial answers. He speaks and teaches about his experiences around the world, and then returns to his adopted home in Chennai, India - "where the occasional whiff of cow dung dancing in the air is another invitation to explore the vitality of a world that is never still and always surprising." Bayo has authored two books, ‘We Will Tell Our Own Story!’ and ‘These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home.’ 

http://bayoakomolafe.net

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Desiree Adaway is a Principal of The Adaway Group, a minority and woman owned consulting firm that brings together multi-racial teams to work on projects related to racial equity and social justice. With over 20 years experience creating, leading and managing international, multicultural teams through major organizational changes in over 40 countries, she is uniquely qualified to partner with talented leaders to successfully navigate through integrations, reorganizations, and all stages of organizational evolution. She works from an intersectional perspective, which believes that organizations thrive when they build cultures that are inclusive of wide ranging ethnic, racial, gender, sexual, religious, and national identities and abilities.

http://desireeadaway.com

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Rachael Rice is a full-time artist, musician, writer, educator and death doula. Her work lies at the crossroads of grief, radical togetherness, creative expression, death, learning, and magic. Her background is in critical pedagogy and constructivist theory where she specialized in differentiated instruction and educating for democracy with concentrations in Art and English. She spent over 20 years in the classroom as a certified, licensed public school art teacher, as well as in after-school and out-of-school community-based arts programs that serve primarily at-risk youth, folks with disabilities and low-income communities. She also worked in the social enterprise non-profit startup world implementing systems to support communities our current systems have failed. 

http://rachaelrice.com

Bec Stupak is an artist, musician and videographer who's work is based on visioning, magic, ritual and ecstatic play. Her focus has been on depicting liminal spaces and transporting the viewer into the non-ordinary through the experience of her work. She was a Deitch Projects artist, exhibited at the Whitney Biennial and has been a primary member of the Joshua Light Show. Most recently she has been exploring expressions of gratitude and the experience of ceremony through a series of drawings that are transformed into wearable prayers.

http://www.becstupak.com

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Donnie Maclurcan, PhD, is an author and social entrepreneur. He is passionate about all things not-for-profit. Originally from Australia, he moved to the U.S. in 2013, from where he runs the Post Growth Institute, exploring how we accelerate the shift to a thriving, prosperous society within ecological limits. As a consultant, Donnie has helped more than 400 not-for-profit projects start, scale and sustain their work, while his own initiatives include developing: Free Money Day, the Post Growth Alliance, the (En)Rich List, the Offers and Needs Market process, Cascades Hub, and Project Australia. Affiliate Professor of Social Science at Southern Oregon University, Donnie holds a Ph.D. in social science, with his research having explored nanotechnology’s implications for global inequality. He is currently completing his third book: How on Earth: Our future is not for profit.

https://www.postgrowth.org

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Aaron Ortega is a Pacific Northwest Native who has spent 25 years facilitating educational and experiential forums for the reclamation, preservation, and integration of Indigenous insights. Ortega is one of the founding members of 'Inside Circle', the recent subject of the award winning documentary 'The Work', a film about the benefits of skilled confrontational inquiry for men within a maximum security prison. Aaron co-created cross-cultural rites of passage with Dallas Chief Eagle for the 'All Nations Training Center.' Recently, he has been offering consultations, special one-day events, and a two day 'movement' course for Women, 'Way of the Luminous Warrior'. He lives in Southern Oregon.

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Aftab Erfan, PhD,  is a scholar-practitioner working in the areas of community engagement, conflict resolution, strategic planning, intercultural diversity, and leadership development for social transformation. Her facilitation approach is based in various methodologies including Deep Democracy, the Art of Hosting and Harvesting, Theory U, Action Inquiry and the Expressive Arts field. She is often called in as a facilitator when there is a large degree of complexity, when there are divisive issues within a group, or when a group simply needs help to connect on a deeper level. She has facilitated large group decision-making and conflict resolution in high-stakes situations, including in the Middle East.

http://wholepicturethinking.com

Tending The Threshold is an event happening in Ashland, Oregon, on May 26 and 27th, 2018. Tickets can information can be found at tendingthethreshold.com

It is a gathering of Change-makers, Bridge builders and Edge Dwellers, with no agenda other than to practice being together, and to learn how to take care of each other and the world, in these challenging times.

The container at this un-conference will be held by a group of ten co-facilitators from three countries and many walks of life. The group includes:

Poet and spoken word artist, Tannur Ali
Conflict Engagement and Resolution practitioner, Aftab Erfan
Equity and Inclusion Consultant, Desiree Adaway
Clinical Psychologist and Author, Bayo Akomolafe
Social Entrepreneur, Donnie Maclurcan
Artist and Death Doula, Rachael Rice
Educator, facilitator and Indigenous rights activist, Aaron Ortega
Videographer and artist, Bec Stupak
Therapist, ritualist and conference founder, Holly Truhlar

And myself, Carmen Spagnola.

***

Tannur “Shewrightz” Ali is the emcee and story weaver for our conference. She's a poet, workshop facilitator and vessel of divine flow. She has been featured in every region of the country, as well as in Europe, stunning audiences with the insightful power of her words and voice. Tannur’s "Dancing Between Realms National Tour" visited 25 cities throughout the U.S. during 2016-17. The tour came on the heels of her winning the 2016 International Poetry Slam in Bled, Slovenia. A prolific writer and relationship-builder, Tannur uses her poetry and poetic spirit as a force for engaging creative energy and power, and as a rallying cry to build artistic and civic community.

https://www.shewrightz.com

***

https://tendingthethreshold.com

I’m delighted to share with you this vibrant, passionate and also at times very tender conversation I had with Danielle Prohom Olson of Gather. Danielle is a wildcrafter and herbalist, and Gather is her creative collaboration with Jennifer Aikman, where they teach, write, and host events dedicated to ancestral foods, magical cookery and seasonal celebrations.

Thousands of people around the world follow and appreciate their work through their website and newsletter, as well as their Patreon and Facebook accounts. But for me, what really comes through their work, is that Gather is about more than just events and recipes and articles.

Check out Danielle's essay, The Magical Herstory of Food.