The Numinous Podcast

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!