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No One Here Gets Out Alive (The Death Episode)
Death is universal, an undeniable fact of existence that every single one of our ancestors faced, just as we will. So mythic traditions around the world are full of stories of death. Many initiatory rituals directly enact death, taking the
Reissue: How Trance States Shape the World
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 'cerem
I Wish It Could Have Been Another Way (A Lament w/ Peia Luzzi)
Not easy listening, but possibly necessary listening — this episode of The Emerald dives deep into the heart of the grief many are feeling over the social and environmental ills that are plaguing the planet. The consequences of ecosystem de
Your Consciousness Comes From the Moon
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 pul
Awake in the Forest of Dangers and Wonders
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
War and Ritual Ecstasy
The horrors of war have been part of the human story since the beginning. While there have been differences in how different cultures have done it, war is so widespread that it is impossible to see it as anything other than a primal human d
Neck Hairs of the Shapeshifter (w/ Simon Thakur)
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, wolve
For the Divine Mother of the Universe (w/ Nivedita Gunturi)
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
Snail Juice & Bear Fat & Werewolf Moons (w/ Leah Song of Rising Appalachia)
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. Trad
The Body is the Metaverse
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
Festivals! Initiation and the Brilliance of Eternity
Just in time for Holiday season, an episode that dives into the deep role of festivals in providing regular, ritualized access to states of rapture and initiation. For thousands upon thousands of years, the festival formed the drumbeat of c
On Resonance: Caves, Hooves, Hearts, Harps... and the Birth of Culture
The word ‘resonance’ is commonly used these days to convey agreement with a point of view or perspective. But resonance is much more than this. ‘Resonance’ implies a universe that is sonorous and reverberatory and that operates according to
Becoming a Ruin: Decomposing and Regrowing the Mythic with Sophie Strand
Sophie Strand describes herself as a writer, an animist troubadour, and a giant pile of composting leaves. Her lyrical, eco-centric vision of the mythic has gained her a wide following, as she blasts monomyths wide open into swarms of glitt
Mapping The Mystic: Geographies of Ecstasy in Consciousness and Culture
Modern studies of mystic states focus on the 'ineffability' of the ecstatic experience — the impossibility of explaining what the experience was like. Yet mystic experience might be indescribable in modern culture simply because we’ve faile
The Shape of Stories: How Myths Move Through Bodies and Worlds
Author Kurt Vonnegut once proposed that stories have shapes — that there are a few common wave-trajectories that underlie all of our stories. This episode builds on Vonnegut's thesis and explores the energetic shapes and trajectories of myt
TRA is for Trance: On the Linguistics of Crossing Over
Trance, traverse, transformation, tradition, transcendence, transgression — all come from a single Indo-European linguistic root TRA, which signifies some type of crossing over. Crossing over is something human beings have always been incli
On Trauma and Vegetation Gods
Modern discussions on healing individual minds, cultural wounds, and painful societal histories now revolve around the word ‘trauma.’ Yet addressing trauma is nothing new — traditional cultures across the globe have historically had their o
Tyson Yunkaporta on Pattern, Kinship, and Story in a World of Decontextualized Minds
In his book Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, author, teacher, artist and Apalech clan member Tyson Yunkaporta presents a model of five minds — kinship mind, story mind, ancestor mind, pattern mind, and dreaming mind —
Semele, Kuṇḍalinī, and the Path of Interiorized Lightning
Stories of lightning and lightning-bearers pervade global mythology. With so many tales of mighty gods who punish mortals with lightning it can be easy to view the presence of lightning in the myths as simply a metaphor for power or brute f
Trickster Jumps Sides: Disruption and the Anatomy of Culture
Tricksters and culture disruptors populate global mythology. From Loki to Coyote to Èṣù and Hermes, they bend rules, cross boundaries, commit deliberate and unintentional offenses and generally mess with established orders. Yet they are oft
The Many Voices of Water, Part 2: Imagining Water Beyond Lines
With the announcement that water futures have begun trading on the stock market, it's time to take a deeper look at our relationship with water. Water challenges us to ask how we are in relationship to something that is both continuous and
How Trance States Shape the World
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 'cerem
The Many Voices of Water, Part 1: Oceans of Melancholy and Bliss
Water is life — all life on planet earth depends on it. So it is no surprise that in the mythic visions of all peoples, water teems with personhood and agency and speaks with many voices. The Ancient Greek world was populated with water bei
Give the Drummer Some: Trance, Danger, and Rapture in the Oldest Instrument of All
The link between music and trance is so deep that many ethnomusicologists will say that every single culture on the planet has some form of musically-driven trance tradition. Right at the heart of these traditions sits the drum. Far from be
When Exactly Was the Age of Reason?
Telling people to 'just listen to reason' or 'just look at the facts' in a post-fact world mired in addictive consumption is akin to telling an addict 'just stop using.' Well intentioned, but not ultimately addressing the root of the issue.
Animism is Normative Consciousness
For 98% of human history, 99.9% of our ancestors lived, breathed, and interacted with a world that they saw and felt to be animate. Imbued with lifeforce. Inhabited by and permeated with forces, with which we exist in ongoing relation. This
Giving Thanks
Spontaneous expressions of gratitude on this Thanksgiving Day, and a look at the role that gratitude plays in consciousness, community, and cosmos. Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/theemeraldpodcast)
Seeking the Luminous in an Age of Manufactured Light
Light, within nature, has always drawn us in, held our attention, and revealed marvels through its variegated displays. Coleridge said that the “eye is to light like lover to the beloved.” Light and human attention share a very deep relatio
Medusa and #MeToo: How Modern Narratives Miss the Heart of Myth
Who remembers Medusa? Hair of snakes, gaze that can turn to stone, beheaded by Perseus… that Medusa. She's in the news again, because a sculptor has re-imagined the story of Perseus and Medusa as a tribute to the #MeToo movement — and this
When Bread is No Longer Bread: The Importance of Context in Consciousness, Community, and Cosmos
The defining characteristic of the postmodern capitalist world is a cycle of decontextualization for the sake of monetization. It happens everywhere — with the products we buy, the food in our grocery stores, and the spiritual traditions we
