The Numinous Podcast

Dive into the deep-seated effects of abandonment wounds and the primal fears they evoke. Explore how trauma and addiction intertwine, with insights from groundbreaking research like Bruce Alexander's Rat Park experiments. Discover a structured five-step healing process using hypnotherapy and learn how cultural influences can lead to chronic dissatisfaction. The journey unfolds as spirituality intersects with trauma, emphasizing holistic healing and the importance of understanding intent versus impact.

Lindsay Rose is a Reiki Master and intuition development teacher who has experienced more than her fair share of loss and tragedy in her life. In this episode, Lindsay shares the intimate story of her healing journey along with a host of techniques and tools that helped her cope when the sadness, pain and anxiety was overwhelming. This is an excellent episode for anyone who's struggling with the pain of death, a break-up or any form of abandonment. Learn more about Lindsay Rose at her website or on her blog. Find out about Love School at Locate Your Soulmate.

I chat with living occult encyclopedia, John Michael Greer, author of popular blogs, The Archdruid Report and The Well of Galabes. John is Past Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America and current head of the Druidical Order of the Golden Dawn, and the author of more than thirty books. (Makes you wonder what the heck you do with your time, doesn't it?) In this second conversation with John, we talk about why ritual sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I ask him about the placebo effect in relation to ceremony and healing. He tells me about a Druid communion ceremony (???) in more detail, including a description of the use of solar and telluric currents of the cosmos. We talk about the impact of reclaiming the gods of nature. And then he schools us on "decensus" and genetic drift. It's a broad, sweeping and thought-provoking conversation about how and why the universe works the way it does and how humans behave in relationship to the greater realms. Whew!

My marketing crush, Carrie Klassen, shares the story of a heart-wrenching experience that occurred while she was volunteering at a shelter for abused girls and women in India. How We Met I first came across Carrie's work some time around 2009. When she released her workbook, How To Write a Loveable Homepage, she became the go-to adviser that I recommend to any entrepreneur who feels icky when it comes to sales and marketing.  

When she was 19, Shayla Logan was homeless and suffering from severe depression with suicidal tendencies. For six months, she lived on the street while working her way through the court system to take control of her life. A near-death experience changed everything.

What is the size and shape of the wound of absence? When she was 11 years old, Sheila Webster's mother died of cancer. With tender open-heartedness, Sheila shares her story of navigating her mother's death and the impact it had on her life as she became a woman and a mother. This show was created in response to a previous episode on the Mother Wound. Sheila commented that she couldn't really relate and I was intrigued. How We Met I'm not sure I remember exactly how I met Sheila - I think she saw me speak at a conference and then booked an appointment with me. I know it was about four years ago and we've since woven in and out of each other's paths. When I think of Sheila, the word "alignment" comes to mind. She's one of those people you meet and instantly know she's a good, solid, dependable person with a strong moral compass. Considering her story, that seems quite a feat, no?  

International energy and finance analyst, Nicole Foss, breaks it down for us: what is really coming down the road in terms of systemic financial collapse and how do we personal prepare and cope with it. Can we talk for a minute about the escalating consequences of debt? How about the unsecured loans we're making to the banks (ie: keeping our savings there)? We run some scenarios.   We also talk about the importance of social capital in the midst of a long drawn-out crisis. This conversation is definitely thought-provoking. For more in-depth review, read the cited post, How To Build A Lifeboat.

How do we cope with personal and public debt in an age of global markets and possible Econopocalypse? We're talking with international energy and finance analyst, Nicole Foss, about how we manage global financial insecurity at a personal level. How do we manage our personal finance, investments and real estate to secure our future when globalization makes us so vulnerable to systemic collapse? I'm asking Nicole to expand on financial concepts because she's such an intellectual force of nature. Here's just a sample of her background: Nicole ran the Agri-Energy Producers' Association of Ontario, where she has focused on farm-based biogas projects and grid connections for renewable energy. While living in the UK, she was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where she specialized in nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and conducted research into electricity policy at the EU level. She earned a BSc in biology from Carleton University in Canada (where she focused primarily on neuroscience and psychology), a post-graduate diploma in air and water pollution control, and an LLM in international law in development from the University of Warwick in the UK. She was granted the University Medal for the top science graduate in 1988 and the law school prize for the top law school graduate in 1997. So, yeah, she's pretty well informed.

In a universe that's at least 13 billion years old and at least 13 billion light years across, how is it possible we've never had contact with intelligent life from other planets? In this episode, Astronomy Educator and Librarian, John Reid, discusses the Fermi Paradox, space debris and what the heck is happening with those crazy lights shining on the asteroid Ceres right now. How We Met John and I went to high school together. One of the most memorable and terrifying experiences of my high school life was a late study session in the creepy old wing of the main school building. John told a group of us, in chilling, expressionless detail, all about this book he was reading called The Shining by Stephen King. Episode We start by tackling The Fermi Paradox, the contradiction between the extremely high likelihood of intelligent life in the universe and the extremely low probability of our never having come across it yet. We also muse about what might be happening with those brights lights on Ceres right now. I get irate about space debris and John gets moony about the moon. He slips in little side notes here and there about things can could instantly end all life on earth like gamma ray explosions, supernova explosions and asteroids hitting us. (We saw what happened to the dinosaurs, he says casually.) This is one of my favourite episodes and I'd like to thank my patron, Charlene Lo, currently hailing from Hong Kong, for her support in making it happen.  Yay, Charlene!

Graphic designer, Emrys Miller, has worked as an artistic director for both a yoga magazine and a skeptic magazine - what the??? How does he, and how do we, make sense of the world using both reason and intuition? How We Met I mentioned our origin story last time Emrys was on the show. You might also find it interesting to know that Emrys is the father of twin girls just entering their teen years. (Each, in my opinion, is a genius in her own way.) Emrys and his family usually spend an extended vacation every summer at an ashram in the interior of British Columbia. Cool, right? Also perhaps a little unexpected. Episode Required reading for this podcast: Anomalous Events That Can Shake One's Skepticism to the Core by Michael Shermer. And I simply can't recommend the book by Barbara Ehrenreich that I mention in the show highly enough. It's called Living With A Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search For The Truth About Everything and it was so deliciously exciting for me that when I read the last line, I slammed the book shut and literally squealed. Also, take a look at Emrys' site www.rocketdayarts.com. If you're interested in humanism, check out the book he published, Voices of Humanism. It's an anthology of 35 articles by 15 humanists. My copy has a lot of underlines and dog ears.