The Numinous Podcast

It makes sense that a very unique and special person would have a very unique and special upbringing. Today's guest, L'Erin Alta, is a soul guide, shadow diver, and spiritual teacher, and she gives a great interview because she's willing to go there right off the top. It was inspiring for me to hear about the special village that raised her and also find connections between our histories – I also come from a small family and know nothing about my paternal ancestry. I also have had to reclaim lineage and walk the spiritual path in a very self-directed and intuitively guided way – a way that at times has been cocky and arrogant. In other words, a way that has been humbling. One of the teachers L'Erin mentions in this interview is the recently deceased, Sonbonfu Somé. Sign up for L'Erin's newsletter to learn more about workshops, retreats and one-on-one intensives at her website: sisterfire.com Follow her on Facebook for insightful and provocative posts about the important things in life.

I have been thinking about shame for a couple of years now. Mostly, I have socially unacceptable thoughts about it. But since reading Jennifer Jacquet's book, Is Shame Necessary? New Uses For An Old Tool, I have been both relieved and emboldened. So I'm releasing my shame around championing shame. I'm thrilled to welcome Jennifer to the show to expand on her ideas around effective uses of shame when dealing with large-scale cooperation dilemmas like climate change, over-fishing, and racism. In this episode, Jennifer mentions high profile examples like Justine Sacco whose life was ruined by a single tweet, and Walter Palmer, the dentist who shot Cecil the Lion. She also makes a distinction between shaming corporations versus individuals. As such, it is a form of punishment that scales well. If you would like to see the tour de force example of the public shaming of the Dow Chemical Company by The Yes Men, here is the video. The response is detailed in this video. Here's the manel-shaming featuring David Hasselhoff, plus the article that did the math on statistical proof of sexism with regard to the issue. In the Rubenation segment, Ruben mentioned our friend, J.B.MacKinnon and his excellent book, The Once And Future World. If you love the planet, you should read it. This interview goes well with episode TNP67: Confronting Whiteness with Rachael Rice and Marybeth Bonfiglio. Check out more of Jennifer's work at jenniferjacquet.com

Bees! Some of my favourite beings! I'm so excited to give sacred beekeeping some airtime on the podcast today. My guest is Nikiah Seeds – another of my favourite beings! – who is a priestess, shamanic practitioner, and ceremonialist. As a teacher at the College of the Melissae - Centre for Sacred Beekeeping, Nikiah has a tremendous amount of technical and spiritual knowledge about bees. In this episode, Nikiah recommends we check out the book, The Honey Trail: In Pursuit of Liquid Gold and Vanishing Bees, to learn more about sustainable beekeeping. I would also like to recommend you check out Nikiah's book, Moon Mysteries, co-created with Nao Sims and Eyan Myers, if you're interested in learning more about connecting lunar rhythms with your menstrual cycle. I really enjoyed that book. Nikiah also leads drum-making workshops. I've personally experienced it and can attest to the specialness and wealth of spiritual teachings that Nikiah so generously provides. Gather a group of women together and bring her to your town if you can. *** Footnotes: To learn more about Boudicca, start here. Learn more about the excavation of the bee priestess on Crete here.  

I'm absolutely thrilled to have Charlene Spretnak on the show today. Charlene is a prolific author in the fields of feminist women's spirituality, environmentalism, and the interrelatedness of social change movements. A summary of each of her books can be found here. The book initially that inspired her to write research into the lost goddess myths of pre-patriarchal Greece is called The First Sex by Elizabeth Gould Davis. The philosopher Charlene mentioned is Luce Irigaray. Charlene has provided me with so much material to research and study. If you'd like to hear the speech I gave inspired by her book, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, check out TNP64.

I'm so excited about this show! Alexis P. Morgan is an artist, activist, pan Germanic heathen, and sorceress. In this episode we talk about cultural appropriation in spiritual practice, Alexis gives us a year's worth of witchcraft study references, and we learn what the heck a pan Germanic heathen is. Here are the resources Alexis recommends: If You Want to Be A Witch Sarah Ann Lawless Mastering Witchcraft Evolutionary Witchcraft Jailbreaking the Goddess The Chaos Protocols Starships Jason Miller Brianna Saucy Josephine McCarthy You can purchase candles, temporary tattoos and t-shirts from the Church of St Felicia through the online store.

Let’s talk about the connection between “conscious marketing” and Pick Up Artist culture, shall we? You may be surprised to discover that there’s actually quite a clear and direct connection. If you’re an entrepreneur in the personal development or spiritual space, this episode is for you. If you’ve ever been had by a Pick Up Artist (PUA), a narcissist, or experienced buyer’s remorse after a major purchase that involved a charismatic salesperson or coach, this episode is for you. Kelly Diels is a writer and feminist marketing consultant who has articulated a severely problematic phenomenon she’s named the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand, (FLEB), the effects of which can be seen all around us. FLEB is basically this: a marketing approach leading with beauty, wealth and privilege, constructed as empowerment. In other words, empowerment – which is supposed to be a collective experience of liberation – is presented as an individual experience of wealth and privilege. In business, spirituality, politics, parenting, and beyond, the FLEB effect is pervasive and harmful. But we can stop supporting it and stop perpetuating it if we know what to look for. This episode is meant to educate and inoculate. Read Kelly’s essays on the FLEB and sign up for her newsletter for weekly evolution. If you’re seeking to transform the way you do business, consider joining Kelly’s Facebook group, How To Sell To Women Without Selling Them Out. The book Kelly mentions – a big favourite on the podcast – is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

Today on the podcast I’m speaking with Sewit who goes by the English name, Thomas Jones. Sewit is a scholar of linguistics and I had the opportunity to learn alongside him at a language revitalization workshop called Where Are Your Keys. As I mentioned in the previous episode, WAYK is a comprehensive method for revitalizing endangered languages and skills. It uses games, tricks and sign language to essentially “hack” second language learning. It was develop by an American fellow named Evan Gardner as a response to the imminent crisis of language loss that so many indigenous communities across North America are facing as elders and conversant speakers die and forget and culture slips away. In this episode, Sewit introduces me to the concept of "the borrowed child" as a form of intergenerational connection, a concept I personally find fascinating coming from more of a "latch key kid" kind of upbringing. He also tells a beautiful origin story from the Snuneymuxw people and shares his thoughts on communal living. Sewit also mentions two other language learning resources you might want to check out if you're interested: Chief Atahm Total Physical Response (TPR) There is a real urgency to language revitalization because the fluent speakers are dying. Sewit is one of only a small number of latent speakers Snuneymuxw. In the past four years, of the ten fluent speakers he could go to for teaching, six have died. Sewit does voiceover work and you can hear him speaking hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ in the show, Warrior Games. Other resources mentioned in this episode: First Peoples' Language Map of B.C. American Indian Language Development Institute Endangered Language Fund

In this moving and memorable episode, I'm talking with Tiffany Joseph about indigenous language revitalization, sense of place, and navigating settler-indigenous relations with an aim towards Reconciliation. Tiffany is a language scholar and also an astrologer, multi-media artist and blogger. Full disclosure: I cried fragile white lady tears through pretty much the whole thing. I can't quite describe how acutely I felt Tiffany's words, how true they felt in my body, how deeply they pierced through my insides. Give yourself some time to listen carefully to this beautiful offering from Tiffany. You can read the follow up to this interview on Tiffany's blog: https://netsnetseol.wordpress.com Follow her astrology work on Facebook. If you appreciated Tiffany's insights in the episode, you can support her directly through PayPal: PayPal.Me/TiffanyJoseph *** Click here to learn more about Where Are Your Keys? It's not overstatement to say that their method is truly revolutionary and actively helping to save languages from extinction. Check them out, support them and spread the word.

In this free ranging conversation with artist, poet and playwright, Janet Rogers, I have an opportunity to learn about some of the iconic female artists who've inspired some of Janet's work. We also talk about "feminism" as a concept and a word, and "reconciliation" as a concept and a word, and the notion of land-as-body. We get down and dirty about land, reparations, equality and activism. Also notable (for me, anyway), is how my privileged, possessive, white supremacist language which keeps slipping out – I can't seem to stop myself from referring to everything and everyone as "our", as in, the colonial "our". Ugh. Anyway, I do my best. I receive feedback. I apologize. It still pains me to hear it, though. It's what I suppose they call a "teachable moment" and I appreciate Janet for pointing it out and for being patient. Eden Robinson, mentioned by Janet in this interview, is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations and a prolific author. You can follow Janet on Facebook and purchase her books online at Indigo. In this interview, Janet read from her newest work, Totem Poles and Railroads. Yes, I cried.  

I'm so pleased to welcome to the podcast, Aftab Erfan, Director of Dialogue and Conflict Engagement at the University of British Columbia. Aftab is an experienced facilitator and longtime trainer of the Lewis Method of Deep Democracy. When you watch the video clips at the top of the DeepDemocracy.ca website, you can see me standing behind her business partner and co-facilitator, Sera, who is speaking animatedly. She's "amplifying" Jeremy - one of the tools used in this facilitation method to quickly get to the heart of a matter. My face is cropped, I'm wearing a white blouse, hands in pockets. My posture pretty much says everything about what I think of "hope" in the context of the Is Hope Bullshit? Civic Dialogue they convened. My feelings about hope have evolved a bit since then. It was a life-changing day. Myrna Lewis, (co-developer of the Lewis Method), is just to the left of screen wearing taupe, hand on her necklace. The book Aftab references in this episode is called Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman. Sounds like essential reading. Along with Jessie Hemphill (my guest on TNP65), Aftab co-facilitated a Civic Dialogue I convened in my hometown called Yes, I'm Privileged. Now What? I received a lot of feedback from that event, all of it positive. Since then, I've seen it galvanize members of my community around social justice in a way they didn't before. Many have told me it was the experience they needed in order to show up and speak up and put their privilege to work on behalf of marginalized populations. If your organization has the funding and desire to tackle hard topics in order to move forward together, you should definitely reach out to her.