Packing for Crazy Town

It's been 2+ weeks since Andrew Yang “suspended” his campaign and promised that “We are just getting started.” Whether you're hard core Yang Gang and were about to sell your couch to keep feeding the Humanity First movement, Yang Curious, or, just desperately wanting to believe in an America where a guy like Andrew Yang could come out of nowhere, shock the political establishment, and rewrite the rules of the 21st century economy to work for US, you’re likely moving through the stages of grief and attempting to pivot with grace to the new normal - one where Andrew is a CNN correspondent and two Billionaires and Bernie are still in this.  Do I believe we will eventually all be dancing on the Washington Mall, listening to President Yang delivering on his promises and uniting a nation that is getting stranger by the second and terribly divided? YES, but: Until that day, here to preach the GOSPEL OF YANG and offer us some much needed THERAPY is Reverend Wendy Hamilton(@revwendy3), ordained minister, education professional, Mother, Twitter Goddess, and someone who dishes from the heart on all things YANG, shedding her unique light on the toll the Caucus chaos and underwhelming results in New Hampshire did to the campaign’s psyche, epiphanies from the trail, her journey from  seriously OG supporter (February of 2018!) to riding the bus as his Director of Spiritual and Cultural Outreach, and SO. MUCH. MORE. While its been 850 something days since the 12th and final podcast of season one of Packing for Crazy town, and I'm a little rusty, when I came upon Reverend Wendy on Twitter, I resolved I would do my part to promote Andrew’s message through Wendy’s voice and story. Thank you for giving me a little slack on the overall quality of the podcast. This is a DIY operation:) This conversation was recorded on the day of the Nevada Debate, and after spending many hours editing it, I realized that it's not my role to decide what issues are important to the Yang Nation, so I decided to #letwendyspeak:) and put out the UNEDITED CONVERSATION, complete with my ums and ya knows, since every word out of her mouth is GOLD and MATTERS.   I’m not sure if this is the beginning of season 2 of Packing for Crazy Town which I launched in 2017 as a way to "Magnetize conversations around positivity in the “clown care pileup era of America,”' or merely a one-off gift to to the Yang Gang. Either way it’s two hours of pure love, revelation, and fire from someone who I have come to think of as the embodying the essence of “Humanity First.” Contact me: spella2020@gmail.com For Reverend Wendy's full bio and more Packing for Crazy Town Posts: https://packingforcrazytown.com/ Find Reverend Wendy: @revwendy3 revwendy3@gmail.com       

With our national conversation waist deep in water, wind, fools, and bullets, in Dr. Dianne m. Connelly's world, everything and everyone is an occasion to wake up.  "None of us is getting out of here alive," as she is fond of saying, so, without knowing what will be asked of us, without knowing what comes first - "our death or tomorrow," how do we wake up every day, and transform those "kick the dog moments" into: "AND, WHAT ELSE?"  There is just nobody better than the author of Medicine Words: Language of Love for the Treatment Room of Life  to remind us that life is not a pathology or a parking lot, and every day is a chance to design a way of being big enough to cradle everything we have to bear and still language a world that chooses to presence joy, gratitude, love, and laughter over misery, worry, and complaint.  She coaches me through my #firstworldproblems (clueless yoga neighbor) and reminds us why it's so not ok to say just any old thing.  STAY IN THE WOW UNTIL YOU HAVE SOMETHING GOOD TO SAY  www.packingforcrazytown.com for full show notes  

If you feel like you've been dumped out of the boat into some class 3 rapids, you are not alone. The practice is to put yourself into position to enjoy the ride. In this class 3 rapid of a conversation, Shamanic therapist Shonagh Home shows you how to manifest your own badass protection against those who are threatened by your light, and manifests for me - my very own fabulous spiritual manager, Lance, who loves to shop, pack, and get me free upgrades on airlines. Sarah wonders if - in the same way we couldn't have imagined how the eclipse would make us feel, could a coup just feel like an oozing normalization of bad behavior?  The Earth has joined in the class action crazy, and there's never been a worse time to be all aw shucks about your gifts. This is IT. Call your dragons and limber up for the black humor Olympics.  Time to go big AND go home.   For full show notes go to www.packingforcrazytown.com    

This is not the podcast I had meant to upload, but when you talk to Shonagh Home, Shamanic Therapist, Author, and Poet about what she thinks this "boulder in a puddle" energetic ripple is illuminating, it's like capturing water from a fire hose into a dixie cup: It's not for sissies or people who just want to check into a motel on the River Denial for the duration of this MASSIVELY ANTICIPATED and yes PROPHECIED morning event plays out.  While the Coup Energy of the Totality of the eclipse parts the Red States, it's totally fine to check out, but you do know the days of running and hiding are over, right? And the dishes are going to be there in the sink when you get back. It's about ancient Maxims of Law, and the education that the Status Quo does not want you to have. It's way better to rule over traumatized sheep than free thinking folk. Love ya mean it.  See www.packingforcrazytown.com for show notes and links.   

I'm HOPING Aliens will Land on the White House Lawn a Week from MONDAY_but if not, at least the ECLIPSE is going to shine some dark light on some Major players, and provide those with the intention to use it as a big reset button, with a moment to remember.  Robert Phoenix has been dubbed "the Anthony Bourdain of Astrology," and as Shamanic Therapist Shonagh Home says, someone who also understands THE GAME.  He also says things like: "McMaster's Uranus is right on Trump's ascendent," so there's that.  I pose the question: WHAT'S UP WITH AUGUST 21st (?) to somebody who has done the Math, and he in turn wonders if the real lesson is to remember to have fun with it. I hope you're packing that Go Bag, or at least wrapping up rehearsals, and preparing to take your places. The Eclipse is headed for Trump Country, and something needs to give. Don't forget your laminate to the back stage pass that is the clown car pileup era of America.     Learn more about Robert http://www.robertphoenix.com/content/ and the podcast at www.packingforcrazytown.com 

For the Mayans, Native Americans, and Aborigines, synchronicity was a food group. They were beyond mindful of the moments. They understood that the combination of an internal readiness to act, or to be moved to a richer place - and an external sign ( what Jung dubbed Synchronicity,) and the resulting breakthrough in consciousness and explosion of deep meaning infused their lives with direction and made their days more meaningful, richer, and freer.  The Holy Web has got our back.  Even as the national smoke and mirrors show swings into cartoon head shaking form, In this IV drip of Ancient Wisdom with Shonagh Home, Shamanic Therapist, Author, and poet, we explore packing our go bag for crazy town with ancient, ancestral and flat-out practical mindsets, rituals, and regimens to offset the national crazy.  July is in the rear view mirror.  Whether you went for it, or it went for you -  today we reset for August and remember how to unhook from broken things, from the narrative meth lab in the sky - and how tune into the time of Late Summer like our Grandparent's and their parents did.  Practice looking up from the screens and into the faces of our children and friends, and elders.  Let's  fill ourselves up to the brim with as much good food, good friends, laughter, and the beauty of late summer as possible in preparation for a Fall to remember.   Welcome to the backstage pass that is the clown car pileup of America.  We've got this.   www.packingforcrazytown.com for show notes                    

“Give me a fever and I can cure anything" Hippocrates    "And that’s just what bee venom does," says Shonagh Home.  “It activates the body’s healing mechanisms on many levels. Nature has a cure for all our ills, and illness is big business. You just have to be open minded.  Way back in the day, it was obvious."   Shonagh Home, Shamanic Therapist, Author, and Poet expounds on the profound healing powers of bee venom WHILE I sting her with 8 bees.   We had a really good time last week doing a little IV drip of Shamanic Wisdom, so we're doing it again, and it's the conceptual pilot of a new podcast: "The Shaman's Tech Support," which will be ancient wisdom to offset the national crazy launching in August.  Why not? It's 2017. We can do anything that we feel like   What does normalizing manifesting experiences that are better than you can imagine look like?   Medicine is whatever helps us live                         .    

The future is behind us. The energy is unprecedented, and If you don't do it, it'll do you. Enjoy thus, this 20 minute spontaneously acquired IV drip on breaking spells, remembering that your MIND is the ORIGINAL MAGIC WAND, that your prayer can just be: "Surprise me baby,"and how to not curl into a fetal position at the thought of dinner with your parents with Shonagh Home, Shamanic Therapist, Author, and Poet.   www.packingforcrazytown.com for a video of us getting our off road water on.    

PLEASE DON'T LISTEN TO the beginning of this episode OUT LOUD with Kids around because I say "fuck you" 1:45 into the podcast  and I uploaded this a couple of days ago, but didn't listen until now.  In the moment, it felt appropriately to scale, and i thought kind of funny, but I think I underestimated how much - for someone who is clearly getting some enjoyment out of the turn of events - it annoys me to be taken for a fool by the "Narrative Meth Lab" in the sky. I could re-edit and re-upload but fuck that ha ha, so, I was going to upload a short addendum to this episode exploring the nature of that moment,  but, do you ever feel like you've just fallen out of the boat on a class 3 rapids, and the best you can hope for is to grab a stick or a tree branch?  Ya, so - that tree branch is now in the rear view mirror, so, while I find it jarring coming out of my mouth, (and nobody needs jarring, especially tender ears) everything after 1:45 is pleasant as apple pie, so let's leave it at that, and have a relaxing and happy as possible 4th of July.   Back to our regularly scheduled podcasting of part 2 of my "conversation (it's really more like two long-time friends and collaberators poking each other with sticks in between declarations of mutual admiration and mockery)" with "MORE ALIEN THAN DUDE OR BRO ANDY ROO FORREST"  And BTW, after considering why I was so mad in that moment, I'm doubling down on the "Fuck you" at 1:45 and adding a "you fucking fuckwads."  ________ Breathing in 2, 3, 4.  Hold 2, 3, 4.  Exhale 2,3.... Andy's highest self takes our call,  and we get into that time in 7th Grade where he had a drug-induced speed date with God to mixed results until a chance meeting with one of my sorority (wait, I can explain!) sisters in a pool in Phoenix.   I find his Spirit Animals (hint - one of them is extinct,) and we spin them into a Saturday morning cartoon.  I dish on his whiteboard content,  We ruminate on Jesus as a Toddler, Tin Tin, Life Coaches, disconnecting, and how I/Sarah can't get out of bed in the morning without KNOWING that there is a squad of unseen beings, pom poms in hand, ready to go go go, Andy discovers he prays after all, I share the the proper salutations to conclude a passive aggressive email to Catholic School Teachers, how to BE LOVE, no nonsense prayer, and good parenting advice on how to raise children who can cry if they need to.  Go to www.packingforcrazytown.com for full show notes.           

The ability to lean into the unknown and make it your home is at the heart of the first of two episodes wtih Andy "Roo" Forrest, my first boss out of college, vocalist for the underground Bay Area improv band, "Chained Down Cheese," and co-founder of the hottest board game design company on the planet. Andy gets into how being the descendant of Holocaust Survivors is informing how he packs his GO BAG for Crazy Town (super charged Winnebago's, Guns, Gold in the walls of his Grandfather's booby-trapped Palo Alto Home,) and how to stay out of the national crazy by focusing on doing good work. We get into why practicing NEGATIVE CAPABILITY in uncertain times feels right right about now, and why the J curve is a good jumping off point for a musical about Overpopulation and consumption.  Also, ignore it when I say, "I hate Bob Dylan." I just find his son, Jacob, way more listenable.  The Wall Street Journal called the  interactive playpen/nightclub ENTROS that Andy and his partner, Stephen Brown founded in Seattle in the 90's: "The Future of Entertainment." Like most mid 90's prognostications, they were totally wrong, but unless you were across town discovering Nirvana, it was the most fun you could have with your clothes on in those days. Andy is a songwriter, a taiji practitioner, and a serial entrepreneur. He was all of 23 when he hatched Pearl's Oyster Bar in his home town.  Now, Forrest Pruzan Creative, the board game design company he started with Alan Pruzan spawns 50 games a year, invented most of the early Cranium games, and is responsible for many of the games on the shelves at Target, Wal-Mart, and your favorite game store.  I think this conversation, above all, will remind you about those friends that you have in your life that maybe you don’t see very often, but when you do – it’s a soul connection of love and respect run through a $h!t flipping machine nestled in a holy web.* www.packingforcrazytown.com for full show notes.  

Dianne m. Connelly, Author of Medicine Words: Language of Love for the Treatment Room of Life intends that, in her presence, we will all know ourselves as a loving, glorious, hot-shit possibility.  And that's without us lifting a finger. The map is definitely not the territory in this deep dive of a conversation with Dianne, co founder of the Tai Sophia Institute, and an acupuncturist for almost 50 years who reminds us how to "Leap into the unknown and make it our home." Go to “www.Packingforcrazytown.com” for more about Dianne and the podcast.              

  If you don't have a Shaman on speed dial, episode 2 of Packing for Crazy Town is for you.I met up with Shonagh Home, Shamanic Therapist, Author, and Poet at her home in the Wilds of Suburban Seattle. A friend for a decade, Shonagh has talked me off many a ledge and pulled me out of a few holes, and in return, I do things she finds mysterious: connecting printers to WIFI, editing audio files...thus the title of this podcast. Ours is a friendship that works. And, as a "Medicine Wheel" student of hers for two years some years back, she also taught me how to find people's totem animals, and do soul retrieval, so there's that:)   NOTE ABOUT THE AUDIO: NEVER AGAIN WILL I RECORD A PODCAST DIRECTLY INTO AUDACITY BECAUSE AS YOU'LL HEAR, IF THERE IS A SPACE, IT CLIPS IT OUT... This podcast starts out with a conversation about the benefits of bee venom therapy (the beauty secret you're in denial about,) and moves into the power of intention, affirmation, healing original wounds, words as wands, keeping your eye on the prize and staying out of the national crazy, healing the gut with ancestral foods, and staying close to the divine, and skipping the NY Times and TV in favor of Ancient Wisdom. We work through dark nights of the soul, shadow selves, the awesomeness of mid-life face slaps, and how to stay on your feet in whackadoodle times. Along the way, she recites two poems from her recent collection of channeled works ‘Poetic Whispers from the Green Realms,’ which all flowed out of her in one take, straight up rhyming. And finally, because looking good while getting our go-bag for crazy town ready is not nothing, I say: Shonagh, as exhausting as it will be to hear your daily regimen: let’s have it, sister. One thing that attracts me to people, is a fascinating life arc, and in that regard Shonagh is no exception. The short version is "Wall Street Wife to Martha Stewart on Mushrooms." My personal favorite of her five books is: ‘Ix Chel Wisdom: 7 Teachings from the Mayan Sacred Feminine,’ a bite-sized (you can read it on a two hour flight ) chronicle of her transformation that occurred through her work with a Mayan priest and shaman. She is voracious researcher and prolific writer with a fearless social media presence, not to mention a fantastic Mother to two of my favorite girls, and an effortless gourmet cook, with an ironclad adherence to only the freshest, most organic ingredients brimming with cell-plumping probiotics. And she uses fuck as a modifier more than you might think, which I find endearing. More about Shonagh: Her specialized private sessions and retreats are probing and revelatory, assisting clients to break chronic, self-defeating patterns, and move into empowered personal sovereignty. Shonagh is an international public speaker on the subject of visionary shamanic-spirit medicine, a voice for stewardship of the honeybees, and a teacher on the subject of Traditional Foods. She is author of the books, ‘Ix Chel Wisdom: 7 Teachings from the Mayan Sacred Feminine,’ ‘Love and Spirit Medicine,’ ‘Poetic Whispers from the Green Realms,’ and ‘Honeybee Wisdom: A Modern Melissa Speaks.’ You can find out more about Shonagh here:www.shonaghhome.com  And show notes for this at https://packingforcrazytown.com/              

 "I hold the human privilege of wording the world as a sacred honor, and so it is not okay to say just any old thing about being."  Dianne m. Connelly, Medicine Words. For the first Packing for Crazy Town podcast, I knew I had to track down Dianne m. Connelly, author of Medicine Words: Language of love for the treatment room of life, to begin a conversation BIG ENOUGH for all of us to turn around in." She applied a pumpkin enzyme peel of ancient chinese energetics to the way I look at how I am in the world, and took 20 years off of my speaking.  I predict she'll be the wake-up culture's new go to voice of possibility before long. Dianne doesn't walk her talk, she embodies it. She and I laughed our way through being beginners at this podding thing...She got me to Donald Trump as holy aspect of the Great Oneness...and reminded me why she was one of the most influential teachers I've ever had. She quotes RUMI "Be a lamp, be a ladder, be a life boat.  Waking up to the gift that it is to be here at all...Life is serious, and it's not a given that we will continue to be here, and none of us is getting out alive so, what am I giving my life for between now and when we're  not here anymore. A note about the Audio Quality of Ep 1. Once you hear Dianne you'll understand why tying her to a computer and to Skype was not an option, so this was recorded via What's App. Creation is messy, and being transparent about that gives me a lot of pleasure for some reason.  "Can I, will I, allow you to be just exactly as you are? In my every interaction, my every conversation, will I practice opening to you as phenomenon, as Divine showing, or will I draw conclusions, tell stories, make commentaries too small to let you show as “a radiance, a shining?" From Medicine Words. About Dianne: "Dianne M. Connelly, PhD, MaC (UK), co-founder and chancellor of Tai Sophia Institute, an accredited graduate school in the fields of health and wellness, holds a doctorate in the philosophy of medicine. She taught in the Institute’s Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, and Transformative Leadership and Social Change master’s degree programs. A practitioner of acupuncture since 1973, she is the author of Traditional Acupuncture: The Law of the Five Elements, All Sickness Is Homesickness, and co-author of Alive and Awake: Wisdom for Kids, and Medicine Words: Language of Love for the Treatment Room of Life. buy Medicine Words:  Connelly https://www.amazon.com/Medicine-Words-Dianne-Connelly-ebook/dp/B0082RGA3Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1490061016&sr=8-2&keywords=medicine+words By the end, you might - as I do - believe that we can language our way to something better than we can even imagine. Practice Radical Vulnerability.   xos  (I'm still figuring out the whole hosting thing, but you can reach me at heysarah@packingforcrazytown.com and see other stuff at packingforcrazytown.com)