Human beings need ecstatic trance. Trance states have played a vital and necessary role in human culture and in the shaping of human history, causing some anthropologists to label the attainment of these states the 'main need' of the 'ceremonial animal' that is the human being. Trance states traditionally help communities reinforce shared bonds, establish values, gain insight into the nature of reality, establish reciprocal relation with the natural world, and even heal. Yet in the modern world, trance states have been pathologized by both institutionalized religion and science, and ecstatic ritual has lost its centrality. Finally, anthropologists are recognizing what many cultures have known all along — that trance states are essential for human thriving, and that when we lose access to these states we seek ecstasy in darker, more destructive ways. This episode goes deep into the trance states that have defined cultures and traditions for thousands of years. We look at trance in India, Ancient Greece, Africa, South America, and beyond and explore what it means when a culture loses its ecstasy.Support the show

Join musician and activist Peia Luzzi as she delves into the heart-wrenching topics of social and environmental injustices in this podcast episode. Explore themes of grief, sorrow, and longing for a world free from devastation. Through mythological references and original music, embark on a journey of healing and renewal, embracing universal love and sorrow through art and music.

Traditional mythic, animist, and astrological systems have long told us that the moon is more than a distant, detached object in space, but rather plays an active role in governing the daily rhythms of life. The moon — in its repetitive pulse — gave early humans the first systems of measurement and the first calendars. So the word 'moon' is directly related to the words meter, measure, and memory, and is tied to all human endeavors that repeat. Repetitive ritual enactment — humanity's primal means of remembering — is something we learned from the moon. Poetic meter, in its repetitive cycles, is similarly lunar. But the influence of the moon goes far deeper than this. Scientists now find this lunar influence in all bodies, aquatic and terrestrial. "It is plausible that… the first life forms adapted to the different rhythms controlled by the moon," says one new study published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, and it is becoming increasingly clear that living bodies — all of which are made of liquid — have fundamentally tidal, lunar structures. Our somatic ancestry is lunar. The pulse of the moon lives in the valve structures that formed the very first sea life, and the very fact that cells pulse and breathe at all can be attributed to the moon. Within human bodies, the tides of hormones, neurological signals, and the feelings and thoughts of consciousness are built around the lunar rhythm. This lunar structure to consciousness has implications for everything from how we align our lives around ritual, to how we navigate cycles of thought and feeling, to the 'hard problem' of consciousness itself. In diving into lunar mythologies and Tantric understandings of lunar goddesses, we start to see consciousness not just as an isolated function of individual biological units, but a billion year agreement between bodies across time and space. The moon begs the question — if an 'inanimate object' is the source of so much animacy, is it really inanimate at all? Come, let us build a ladder to the moon. Featuring music by Sidibe and Robby Rothschild.Support the show

How many myths and stories and fairy tales take place in... the forest? The forest in these stories is more than just setting or backdrop. It is a character of its own, alive, awake, animate, both treacherous and beautiful. The forest doesn't 'represent' something abstract in the myths, it is exactly what it was for our ancestors — a place of beauty and peril, of life and death, of food and devouring, of danger and wonder. To step into the forest is to step outside of linear, organized time and space into the liminality of trance. In the forest, sounds are different, everything is immediate and up close, and every choice matters. To navigate the forest well — like the protagonists of so many fairy tales show us — is to use discernment, to cultivate sensory wakefulness and a deep respect for protocols of animacy. Animism, therefore, is not simply about acknowledging nature's beauty. It is about cultivating a deep relationality with the varying forces of the forest — some of which are perilous. Traditional forest-dwelling cultures recognized the danger of the forest, while the modern world tends to flatten the forest into something either to be destroyed or to be adored from a distance.  But to deeply know the forest also means knowing how to navigate unfriendly forces.  It's easy in the modern world to view traditional understandings of malevolent forces as 'primitive,' or 'superstitious.' Yet for cultures who actually navigate the forest and its intricacies, knowing how to navigate these forces means survival. And so — if we value animism, it means not looking at the forces of the forest as an 'illusion', or as something to 'move beyond' but something to be treated with deep discernment and respect. Take a step into the forest, this time on The Emerald. Featuring music from Rising Appalachia, Charlotte Malin, and Nivedita Gunturi. Support the show

The podcast explores the connection between war and ritual ecstasy, discussing the prevalence of war throughout history, the transformation of consciousness in combat, and the significance of ritual in ancient cultures. It delves into the deep connection between humans and animals, highlighting the symbolism of animals in rituals and warfare. The speaker reflects on the weight of explaining war to their child and advocates for the creation of alternative rituals to express emotions and foster peace.

Shapeshifting is nearly universal to global mythic tradition. The myths of the world feature shapeshifting gods, shapeshifting animals, shapeshifting spirits, and, of course, shapeshifting people who assume the forms of tigers, bears, wolves, eagles, and more. The prevalence of shapeshifting in myth challenges our assumptions about the static nature of selfhood. Yet even from the scientific view, we are shapeshifters. We contain multitudes of beings within us — we are at once fish, bird, mammal, reptile, and more. Understanding and connecting to this permeable, malleable self was key for our ancestors for many thousands of years, as we learned about things primarily by becoming them in states of conjunctive trance. Shapeshifting, accomplished through the animal dance, through the assumption of the animal form in states of ecstasy, formed the foundation of  how we learned, communicated, and cultivated empathy for the world. In a world that has turned its back on the sensate animal body, shapeshifting is more important than ever, as it offers a way back to a deep relationship with the living world. Simon Thakur of Ancestral Movement and Biblical Scholar Dr. Natalie Mylonas join us for this episode on shapeshifting, conjunctive knowing, and the sensate body. Support the show

There’s a lot of cultural clutter these days around 'The Goddess.' She appears everywhere, her many names are invoked free of context in a hundred thousand ways. She’s what? An empowerment tool. An archetype. A self-help course. A political symbol. Something that is invoked to bring more creative energy or material abundance into our lives.  Something that, in an individualistic modern world, always seems to have a whole lot to do with us. Yet the goddess, traditionally, is much more than this. She is the animating power of the universe itself, felt in bodies, realized in states of deep conjunctive rapture, accessed through ritual protocols, alive in trees and stones and living geography, alive in song, alive in the myths and stories of her, alive in sound, alive in longing, alive in trance, alive in the states of consciousness realized by those who feel her. This devotional episode honors the goddess as the animating power of creation, drawing on her texts, her myths, her songs, and on personal experiences of journey to her sacred seats to evoke her as a living presence rather than as a conceptual abstraction. With songs and slokas from special guest Nivedita Gunturi. Support the show

Modern culture increasingly encroaches on unknown, uncharted space, both geographical and mental. This primordial space is accessed during times when we unplug, slow down, and allow ourselves to incubate and connect to a deeper rhythm. Traditionally, this space was accessed in trance rituals, in journeys to underworlds and otherworlds and in festivals which exist outside of mundane time. Access to this space is the true intention of the holidays — the holy days — that are meant to be time outside of time and so serve as portals to the eternal, to true unknown wild. Yet in the modern vision, this unknown space must be quantified, categorized, mapped, and regurgitated into a commodity at all costs. Why? Beyond the obvious monetary implications, the want to colonize these imaginal slow spaces stems from a deep-seated fear — the fear of nature, of an order that exists beyond our control... and the fear that if we succumb to this larger order we may experience the annihilation of our mundane concerns and encounter instead a world that operates in slow, spiraling, billion-year cycles that have very little to do with us. Yet we vitally need these unknown spaces. Defined, articulated access to unknown space is essential to maintaining our alignment to the greater rhythms of the world around us and is therefore vital to the process of planning for and creating lasting change. In a world that is facing the consequences of its own addiction to urgency and anxiousness, access to such spaces remains essential, even in the midst of all that needs to be addressed right now. Special guest Leah Song from Rising Appalachia chimes in for this episode on the ongoing necessity of access to the deep, slow, primordial and wild.Support the show

Science fiction writers and tech enthusiasts have long spoken of a digital Metaverse — a virtual otherworld that, as the narrative goes, is the logical next phase in human technological development. This Metaverse serves a deep mythosomatic function — it satisfies our collective need for otherworlds, for trance, for mythic narrative, for journeying, and even for shapeshifting. Yet it does so removed from all somatic context — without the accompanying ritual, without any somatic sacrifice, without the sweat of the dance or the fast or the vision quest and without providing any larger contextual purpose or individual/cultural renewal. The brokers of the new digital Metaverse seek to sell us a shamanic otherworld, while traditional access to such otherworlds takes place through the simplest of all vehicles — the body. Traditional trance practices harness breath, movement, vocal invocation, and artistic visioning as portals to otherworlds, whose ultimate purpose is not escape, entertainment, or distraction but to re-invigorate our relationship with this world. And so the magisters of tech veer into what, according to the myths and fairy tales, is profoundly dangerous territory — misusing the power of the otherworld, harnessing mass trance-induction techniques for profit rather than for communal transformation and renewal. Tech dystopias, shapeshifters, plant beings, Tantric meta-anatomies, fairy woods and more... on this episode of The Emerald.Support the show

This podcast explores the role of festivals in providing communal and individual focus, the split between sacred and profane, the significance of ancient Greek festivals, the loss of initiatory moments in modern festivals, and the importance of cultural mechanisms such as grief and group bonding. It also discusses the rise of alternative and transformational festivals.