
The Numinous Podcast
The Numinous Podcast is a show about intuition, spirituality and the mystery of life. The host, Carmen Spagnola, is an intersectional witch and clinical hypnotherapist who has smart, soulful conversations with interesting people. The lineup is diverse, the topics are eclectic, and the people are down-to-earth (mostly).
Latest episodes

Jan 31, 2023 • 58min
TNP190 Celtic Embodiment with Jen Murphy
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.

Dec 16, 2022 • 1h 9min
TNP189 Recovering Towards Mothering with Taryn Strong
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

Dec 3, 2022 • 1h 16min
TNP188 Fumbling Through...All Of It with Kael Klassen
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

Nov 25, 2022 • 51min
TNP187 Sinking into Sacred Truth and Giving it Voice with Velda Thomas
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

Nov 17, 2022 • 1h 11min
TNP186 Time As A Tool of Empire with Desiree Adaway
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.

Nov 16, 2022 • 20min
TNP185 Tutorial with Carmen on Trance, Dreams and the Collective
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.
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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!

Oct 26, 2022 • 43min
TNP184 Art and the Moon with Dana da Ponte
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

Oct 25, 2022 • 41min
TNP183 Journey From Maiden to Mother with Sarah Durham Wilson
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

Oct 22, 2022 • 49min
TNP182 Reimagining Elderhood with Sharon Blackie
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

Oct 18, 2022 • 1h 23min
TNP181 Takeover Episode: Andrea Sexton Dumas Interviews Carmen on the Making of The Spirited Kitchen
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.