Apricot Jam

Robert Coons is a resident of Toronto where he teaches Tai Chi, Meditation, and Tea Ceremony. He studied with secular Daoist disciple Hai Yang, and various teachers in China such as Yin Qin (Yang Style Taiji), He Caitong (Taiwan Cha Dao), Yu Jiang (Xin Yi Liu He Quan), and others. Today he continues to cultivate the Golden Elixir and is very happy to talk to you, so send him an email or visit his substack Immortality Study. You can also buy his tea at tcmsix.com/shop/ And check out his newest online class: https://courses.qigongmeditation.online/tea-mastery-course Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037 theapricotjam@gmail.com

Lisa Rohleder has been a licensed acupuncturist in Portland, Oregon, since 1994. She founded Working Class Acupuncture (https://workingclassacupuncture.org/) in 2002 with the goal of providing low-cost acupuncture to the community through a cooperative, grassroots, financially self-sustaining model. She’s currently one of the executive directors of the POCA Technical Institute (https://pocatech.org/), the only accredited acupuncture school dedicated to training community acupuncturists. She writes about the overlapping topics of acupuncture safety, acupuncture regulation, trauma informed care, and community acupuncture at https://acusafetynerd.com/ Tyler Phan received his Ph.D. from University College London (UCL) in 2017. Before his Ph.D., he earned his M.A. in Religions of Asia (now M.A. in Buddhist Studies) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) in 2013. His research focus is in medical anthropology and science and technology studies (STS) with a relationship among religion, ontology, bodies, post-colonialism, and race in Asia and North America. His previous research included a cross-country ethnography of Chinese medicine in the United States, examining the historical marginalization of Asian/Asian Americans through policy and legislation, which resulted in his Ph.D. dissertation called "American Chinese Medicine" and finishing his monograph called When White People Took Our Medicine as well as the comic book series A People’s History of Acupuncture in America. Tyler's Dissertation: American Chinese Medicine Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037 theapricotjam@gmail.com

LoAn Guylaine TRAN is a 24th generation disciple of the Daoist Complete Reality Dragon Gate Pure Yang lineage of Mount Wudang, under the name Sincere Phoenix 誠鳳. First an activist and professional project manager for humanitarian organisation with a focus on women’s rights in the context of anti-trafficking and prostitution, her spiritual quest took her through year-long immersions in Buddhist and Yogic practices throughout Asia, before leading her into a 9 years Daoist apprenticeship at the Five Immortals Temple, Wudang, China. She now teaches Daoist arts of Energy and Spirit and practices Chinese medicine and Daoist healing, with an ever-renewing interest for the interactions of the form and the formless. www.featherbeings.com Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Isaac Saul is an independent political journalist and the founder of Tangle, a politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from the right and left on the big news of the day. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Lindsey Wei, Daoist Name -Wei Cheng Ling, 魏诚灵, is a 24th generation lay disciple (俗家弟子sújiā dìzǐ) of the Chun Yang Sect of Wudang Daoism. She trained Traditional Chinese Gong Fu in a remote mountain temple in the Wudang Mountains, Hubei Province, China under her master Li Song Feng for over 9 years before returning to the US in 2010 to start her martial teaching career. She is a practitioner of Tai Ji Quan, Qi Gong, Ba Gua, Double Edge Straight Sword (Jian), as well as other weapons arts. Her passion is combining ancestral skills and indigenous world views of how to steward the earth, exist and thrive in wild places, with the life way of internal martial arts cultivation and health practices. She leads martial training camps in wilderness settings as the context of studying the Dao as it follows Nature. Wei is the author of The Valley Spirit —A Female Story of Daoist Cultivation, a personal memoir published by Singing Dragon in 2012. Her second book is a biography of one of her martial mentors, Path of the Spiritual Warrior –Life and Teachings of Muay Thai Fighter Pedro Solana, published through Purple Cloud Press in 2020. Lindsey teaches online courses as well as in person camps at varying locations in southern Oregon on Takelma and Klamath native lands. Her website is: www.wudangwhitehorse.com You can also follow her work on Youtube, IG @lindsey12wei and FB @lindsey.wei Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Ken Crouse is a native of Wilkes County, NC where he has lived formost of his life. He grew up working on a farm that raised cattle,tobacco, corn, other grains, and a large vegetable patch. Havingalways had a love of plants, he went on to study horticulture andmycology and got involved in the nursery and landscaping business.Twenty-five years ago, Ken and his wife Cindy bought a place in themountains known as Peaceful Valley. At about this time, Ken wasintroduced to the concepts of permaculture and decided to adoptthese principles whenever possible. Living and working on the landallowed him to bring together his plant knowledge and more than fortyyears of study devoted to the field of mycology. Peaceful Valley isnow a botanical collection, garden, and food forest where he liveswith his wife Cindy, two cats, and a small flock of chickens. Ken oftenteaches classes on mushroom identification and cultivation as well aspermaculture topics. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Scoutleader Wiley is a semi-nomadic theory and ritual artist. She does not like touching slimy things, and her favourite food is potatoes. She was raised by two artists amongst the underground hip-hop and house dance community in Brooklyn, NY. She now plays freak-folk guitar music for her friends and writes systems poetry for the internet. She is the Maestra Magica at Metamodern Magick, a collaborative education platform that seeks to integrate the wisdom traditions of pre-modernity into the post-conventional world. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Henry Andrews stumbled into interactive theater and performance in 2015, and became enamored of its ability to invite people into meaningful authentic experiences. He performed with Barron Scott Levkoff’s Mystic Midway over the next several years and became involved with several other interactive projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. These experiences eventually combined with his interests in metamodern philosophy, Gravesian developmental theory, and Batesonian warm data in the form of HELLAMETAMODERNISM, an experiential approach to metamodernism. With an intentionally ridiculous name derived from an art project for an interactive theatrical party, HELLAMETAMODERNISM is a still-emerging set of concepts that brings our attention to the power of shared experience, while reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously along the way. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Amba J. Sepie works in the realm of cultural ecology, soul medicine, and decolonisation. She is also a research fellow at the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand, teaching, writing and collaborating on projects grounded in traditional knowledges and respect for Earth’s sentience. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

We're back at it with Josh Paynter, diving deeper into his specific Taoist lineage. It's an incredible and wild ride. Please enjoy responsibly. Josh has been dedicated to Chinese studies for nearly thirty years. He received a B.A. in Chinese Studies from Bard College with a focus on Daoist traditions, including studying at Yunnan University in Kunming, China. His Master’s Degree in Traditional Oriental Medicine is from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. He haa also completed training at Memorial Sloane-Kettering in acupuncture for the treatment of cancer patients. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Dare Sohei (they/them/cat) is an animist artist, practitioner, facilitator. Their work dances with the integration of animist/indigenous lifeways with liberatory anti-oppression principles and non-dual somatics, which can be pithily summed up as Death Practice.They are based in Chinook Lands aka Portland, OR, USA.www.bodyaltar.orgwww.patreon.com/animistarts Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Bringing an infectious warmth and playful levitywherever she goes, Monica Rodgers is a tirelessadvocate for the full actualization of women,inspiring women everywhere that saying “YES tothe MESS” is the missing link to self-love andpersonal awakening. From Monica: Patriarchy impacts all people, regardless of gender, all over the world. This unjust construct is defined by the dictionary as a "system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it” has caused inestimable harm throughout the centuries, and yet we learn almost nothing about it in school. Deconstructing patriarchy in our minds, relationships, and communities benefits everyone because in doing so, we stop perpetuating the unconscious generational cycle that keeps the system in place. Manbox: A term that researchers use to describe the dominant form of masculinity in the United States at this time is known as Hegemonic Masculinity, which Mark Greeneand others have described as the “Man Box.” The term implies a rigid set of expectations, perceptions, and behaviors of what is “manly” behavior. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! Become a Patron! theapricotjam@gmail.com

Hello audience! (Lukas here) I just wanted to apologize straight away for the sound quality of this episode. We will do our very best to maintain better standards in the future. It's a great conversation with someone I've admired for a long time so I think you'll enjoy it regardless. Thanks for listening! Some background from Kathy herself: I have been practicing Chinese martial arts, Tai Chi, and Qigong for over three decades. I began training at the age of six under the guidance of my father Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. I received my Master’s degree with distinction in Chinese Medicine from Middlesex University in London, UK with a joint degree from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. I also hold my BSc in Clinical Exercise Physiology from Boston University and was honored with the Scarlet Key Award, one of the University’s highest academic honors. I bring a wide range of clinical experience and knowledge working in a Beijing hospital and in neuroscience research at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. I created TCM Time as a resource for you to discover Chinese medicine through videos, online classes, blog posts, podcast, and much more. With this platform I will introduce you to some of my favorite topics such as: Stress relief and pain management Acupressure massage and meridian health TCM body clock: How to regulate your lifestyle Food as medicine Medical Qigong I specialize in a mind-body approach to achieving health and wellness. I am trained in Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment modalities such as: Acupuncture Chinese herbal medicine Tui Na massage Tai Chi & Qigong Diet & lifestyle therapy Send me a message if you are interested in learning more about private lessons, personal health consultations, classes and workshops. Subscribe to my mailing list for the latest news and announcements. Kathy@tcmtime.com Also we mention ways to inquire about purchasing the YMAA Retreat Center Please follow the link for more information. It's absolutely gorgeous! Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our

Zoey Gong is a Traditional Chinese Medicinal (TCM) chef and nutritionist. Born in Shanghai, China, she grew up with the wisdom of medicinal cooking. She now resides in New York City, where she hosts pop-up medicinal dinners and educates the public on TCM food therapy. With a background in both western and eastern clinical nutrition, she founded Five Seasons TCM in 2021, a boutique wellness brand that shares and modernizes the knowledge of TCM food therapy. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037 theapricotjam@gmail.com

Artist and philosopher Michael Garfield helps people navigate our age of accelerating weirdness and cultivate the curiosity and play we'll need to thrive in it. As host and producer of both Future Fossils Podcast & The Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Podcast, Michael acts as interlocutor for a worldwide community of artists, scientists, and philosophers — a practice fed by and and feeding back into his fifteen years of synthetic and transdisciplinary "mind-jazz" performances in the form of essay, avant-guitar, and live painting. Bearing the standard for a new generation of mystic-scholars and refusing to be enslaved by a single perspective, creative medium, or intellectual community, Michael walks through the walls between academia and festival culture, theory and practice — speaking and performing everywhere from Moogfest to Burning Man, SXSW to Boom Festival, the

Like many guests we had so much to talk about we had to have a part 2. Tyler Phan received his Ph.D. from University College London (UCL) in 2017. Before his Ph.D., he earned his M.A. in Religions of Asia (now M.A. in Buddhist Studies) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) in 2013. His research focus is in medical anthropology and science and technology studies (STS) with a relationship among religion, ontology, bodies, post-colonialism, and race in Asia and North America. His previous research included a cross-country ethnography of Chinese medicine in the United States, examining the historical marginalization of Asian/Asian Americans through policy and legislation, which resulted in his Ph.D. dissertation called "American Chinese Medicine" and finishing his monograph called When White People Took Our Medicine as well as the comic book series A People’s History of Acupuncture in America. Tyler's Dissertation: American Chinese Medicine Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037 theapricotjam@gmail.com

Bio: Carrie Melmoth is based in Southampton (UK). She generally tries to elude definition, but the following statement are nevertheless true. She sometimes writes about Philip K. Dick (with particular empahsis on him as a neoplatonist). She spends much of her time reading and walking parks and meadows and by the sea (sometimes at the same time because audiobooks exist). She is fascinated by tarot, and by signs and symbols in general - metaphors are moreish! She is in a (very protozoan) band called Venn. Websites are a faff but she has a tumblr that performs the same function: https://carrie-the-scrivener.tumblr.com/ The daily practice I find most nourishing is nidra yoga. I have struggled with anxiety since I was little, and a couple years ago at a writing retreat I discovered nidra yoga and it's been really transformative. While knowing that there is a way to soothe my mind and sink into a perfectly peaceful featherbed of calm is a relief, it's also increasingly deepening the sense of peace there is in other sources (sitting in the garden meditating listening to classical music, for instance), and in ... tuning into to Source (is the best way I can think of putting it). So that's an unexpected bonus! There are lots of nidra yoga videos online, and I'd recommend Tanis Fishman's videos. I'm *always* reading 'The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick' (the 2011 edition predominantly). It's tantamount to being my bible. It got me much more deeply into philosophical questions than any book ever had before, and continues to be a book I have an ongoing dialogue with. Do I agree with everything Dick writes in there? No, and neither does he. But the core concepts are sound. This is basically neoplatonism in the 1970s, a (hefty) footnote to Plato, and as good a lamp as any to lead the way out of the cave. 'Cromwell and Communism: Socialism and Democracy in the Great English Revolution' by Eduard Bernsein (1930) is both really interesting in terms of how Britain could theoretically have become a very early uptaker of (neo)communism à la Gerrard Winstanley, and just historically fascinating because it includes sizeable quotes from the seventeenth century from people who were considering (when it come down to it) the same political questions that we're considering today. It's all surprisingly relatebale. 'The PDA Paradox: The Highs and Lows of My Life on a Little-Known Part of the Autism Spectrum' by Harry Thompson (2019) is about something that I ... I wouldn't say have so much as am. The whole autism discourse, however well-intentioned (and it isn't always), usually annoys the life out of me. It's a very important subject, particularly at a time when there is a lot of debate, even within "the autistic community", around whether autism is a disability/pathology, or whether pathologisation can itself be a form of disablement/discrimination. For one thing, the statistics are that in the UK 22% of ("diagnosed") autistic adults are employed. The vast majority of the rest have to subsist on a benefits (welfare) system that the UN has said violates human rights obligations. So clearly there's a lot to be addressed and written about in terms of autistic rights (and maybe I should write something). But this is just a memoir by someone who is quite a lot like me, talking about a way of being that is very like my own, and that's really refreshing. There are lots of books about autism, but not very many specifically about PDA. And last but by no means least The Red Boo

Bio: Sophie Strand is a poet, historical-fiction writer, and essayist based in the Hudson Valley with a focus on the intersection of spirituality and ecology. Her first book of essays The Flowering Wand: Lunar Kings, Lichenized Lovers, Transpecies Magicians, and Rhizomatic Harpists Heal the Masculine is forthcoming from Inner Traditions. She has three chapbooks: Love Song to a Blue God (Oread Press) and Those Other Flowers to Come (Dancing Girl Press) and The Approach (The Swan) Her writing has been published by The Dark Mountain Project, www.poetry.org, Unearthed, Braided Way Magazine, Creatrix Magazine, and Your Impossible Voice. And you can continue to follow her work and poetry on Facebook or Instagram: cosmogyny. What daily practice do you currently find most nourishing? Every morning I call on every being - ancestor, plant, mushroom, type of stone, animal, geological formation, river, bird, invasive species, weather system - in a twenty mile radius of my home. I gather around me the beings that "constitute" me so that when I make decisions throughout my day I know my choices include more than just the "fiction" of an individual me. What are you reading? As much or as little as you would like to share. The list is insane. But currently I am enjoying a return to Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality paired with Bayo Akomolafe's These Wilds Beyond Our Fences. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037

Brandt Stickley is an Assistant Professor in the College of Classical Chinese Medicine, National University of Natural Medicine, and a Visiting Professor at Dragon Rises College of Oriental Medicine, Pacific Rim College, Five Branches University, Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences, Yo San University and Maryland University of Integrative Health. As a Senior Instructor and Board member of Dragon Rises Seminars he teaches Shen-Hammer Pulse Diagnosis. Brandt is a graduate of Cornell University and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He has worked closely with Dr. Leon Hammer for 20 years, and is considered an authority on the model of Chinese medical Psychology developed by Dr. Hammer. In his own development of this school of thought, he has relentlessly pursued a synthesis of Classical Han and Tang Dynasty herbal medicine and acupuncture, Chinese magical medicine, philosophy and religion, with concepts of psychosomatic medicine, body-oriented psychology, neuro-phenomenology, process-oriented philosophy, imaginal, integral, and consciousness studies. He brings all of these disciplines to play in striving to intend the impossible as a clinician, teacher, writer and speaker. In theory and in practice, Brandt's work seeks to establish Classical Chinese medicine as a vital psychosomatic and physiosemiotic current in the evolution of consciousness and the alleviation of suffering. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037

Bio: Wes Tasker has been practicing various martial arts since 1981 and is currently focused on Baguazhang, Xingyiquan, Qilinpai and Pekiti Tirsia Kali with some supplementary training in Boxing and Catch Wrestling. He also studies Chinese Medicine in relation to martial arts training, traumatology and orthopedics. His philosophical and spiritual areas of study include but are not limited to Buddhism, Neidan (Daoist internal alchemy), and Western Philosophy. Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove! Eternal gratitude to Bart Matthews for our amazing intro music! Check out our FB page if you roll like that. For books! https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037

Jeremy Wolf, along with being one of the host's older brother, is a lifelong learner and educator. Jeremy has been a high school teacher, pre-service teacher trainer, college professor, little league coach of nearly every sport, and has had a side-hustle in nearly every industry. As a part of a multi-generational family of educators and helpers, Jeremy's world view has been focused on community and mind/body health. His current areas of research/interest are neurobiochemistry, the connection between the brain and mind, homebrewing beer, and the universal connectivity of mythology. https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=59079037