Podcasts about mark thank

How Australian Martial Arts Academy's head instructor turned chronic fatigue into a leadership edge - driving growth and retention at a top-tier school.IN THIS EPISODE:The Belt-By-Belt Recovery Story That Changed Mark's Life (And His Students')Walking Away From Medicine To Pursue The Martial Path Full-TimeThe Hidden Energy Technique That Helps You Show Up Big—Even When You're Running On EmptyHow Teaching On Crutches Inspired A Wave Of Black Belts To Keep GoingThe Sales Strategy That Works As Well In A Kids Class As It Does On The PhoneAnd more*Need help growing your martial arts school? Apply Here.TRANSCRIPTIONGeorge: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another episode of the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. So, today I'm speaking with Mark Loughran from the Australian Martial Arts Academy.So, episode 156—155—I'd been chatting to Hakan, Hakan Manav, and Mark's name dropped in there quite a few times. So I thought I'd bring the man on himself to have a chat about 18 years in martial arts. He's also one of the head instructors at the Australian Martial Arts Academy, and one of our featured speakers at the Partners Intensive that's coming up in June, depending on when you listen to this.But with that said, welcome to the call, Mark.Mark: Thank you very much. Great to be here. George: Good stuff.We've only just recently met as well. So I'm going to take this as a blank canvas and a conversation just to tap into your genius, the things that you do. So if we had to start from the beginning, who's Mark, how did you get into the industry? Let's go from there.Mark: Yeah, that's a really interesting story, actually. My journey into the martial arts industry started as a recovery piece. Flashback to 2005, I was graduating high school.So, that makes me feel like I'm starting to get old now, everyone I'm teaching was born after that year. Flashback to that time, I graduated high school and got presented with a couple of opportunities.One was from my parents. They said, “If you want to go further and study at university, you can do that,” because my dad worked as a Deputy Vice Chancellor at James Cook Uni. I grew up in Townsville, in Far North Queensland.And they said, “If you want to go to university here, go for it. Stay at home, it's free, all good.”And they said, but if you want to go away, pay for it yourself. And that was the deal. My brother had the same deal.He was a couple of years older than me. And he got himself a full scholarship to Melbourne uni. And he was like, Townsville was too hot.I did the exact same thing, except I went to UNSW. So I've got a scholarship to study medicine at UNSW and went down there, started that journey and ended up getting really sick towards the end of my first year with glandular fever. And there was a whole piece of trying to identify what was going on there, because I was really sick for quite a long time. I ended up with chronic fatigue syndrome, which I still have now, 19 years on.And I still battle that every single day. My sort of path into martial arts started about a year after I got really sick with that. I ended up bed-bound for one to two years.Part of my recovery, actually, I should backtrack a little bit. I was doing high-level athletics at a national level at that time as well. I used to play A-grade tennis and represented Queensland in different sports when I was in high school.I was always an athletic person. And then, for someone to go from that to completely bed-bound, it was a big change and a big struggle. So part of my recovery...

The RISE-UP project is a transformative initiative to revolutionize rehabilitation services for underserved populations, focusing on racial and ethnic minorities. Dr. Mari Guillermo and Dr. Mark Tucker, Project Directors at San Diego State University's Interwork Institute, highlight how this project seeks to drive systemic change through state agency partnerships and tools like QA Advisor Plus. RISE-UP strives to reshape vocational rehabilitation and improve employment outcomes nationwide by fostering equity, inclusion, and access.   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music} Mark: QA Advisor Plus, a tool that agencies can use to check their RSA 911 data for errors and to help facilitate or expedite analysis of their own data.   Mari: How do we close this gap? Where are people not being served, what populations specifically are not being served? And the emphasis is on systems change because we can't improve these outcomes without really looking at what needs to change within that system.   Mark: So we hope that when you see information about the survey coming out, that you take a few minutes to fill it out and can provide us with information both about what they see as needs related to serving underserved populations. But also, we're asking folks to identify any promising practices that they're aware of with respect to providing effective services to underserved populations.   Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute, Dr. Mari Guillermo and Dr. Mark Tucker, are co-project directors with San Diego State University Interwork Institute. And they are joining me in the studio today. So how are things going in San Diego, Mari?   Mari: Uh, well, it's warming up. It's going to be in the 90s by tomorrow, but it's also the start of the semester at San Diego State University. We're in our second week, so things are still trying to settle down, but it's been quite a good busy two weeks for sure.   Carol: Oh, good for you. Well, I was in San Diego back in June and I'm going, okay, why isn't it warm here now? It was warmer in Minnesota than it was in San Diego. It was so crazy with that kind of, I don't know, marine layer or whatever hangs out. Yeah. How about you, Mark? How are things going for you?   Mark: Going well, yeah, That marine layer in June we that's like a typical thing June Gloom we call it. And then we pay the price in September. September is usually warm for us, but we'll get back to our normal San Diego weather in October.   Carol: Nice. I do love your fair city though. It is really awesome. Well, I thought, and I'm so glad I could get you two because I've been trying to snag you. I think I've been talking to you since last December, but now is finally the sweet spot. I thought it was super timely that we talk about the project given you're at the end of year one. October is also National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and I really think the project that you guys are embarking on could have a significant impact on the employment arena for underserved populations. As a little side note, we're super happy as part of the George Washington University team to be a partner on this project. So I want to give our listeners just a little bit of background. Over a year ago, RSA competed a discretionary grant, and the grant was specifically related to section 21 of the Rehab Act, as amended by WIOA, which requires RSA to reserve 1% of the funds appropriated each year for programs under titles three, title six, and seven to provide grant, contract or cooperative agreement awards to minority entities and Indian tribes to carry out activities under the Rehab Act. Secondly, minority entities and Indian tribes to conduct research training to or a related activity to improve services provided under the act, especially services provided to individuals from minority backgrounds. Or thirdly, state or public or private non-profit agencies or organizations to provide outreach and technical assistance to minority entities and American Indian tribes to promote their participation in activities under the Rehab Act. I learned a whole bunch. I know for our listeners, you're getting a whole history lesson, but I thought this was cool. And so under this priority, the department provides funding for a cooperative agreement for a minority entity or an Indian tribe to provide training and TA to a minimum range of 5 to 15 state VR agencies over a five year period of performance, so they are equipped to serve as role models for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in the workforce system by implementing policies, Practices and service delivery approaches designed to contribute to increasing competitive, integrated employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities from underserved populations. And the other cool part is that you also need to contribute via our research and really good practices that promote access, and this will be really of great benefit across the whole country. So I'm super excited. Let's dig in. So, Mari, typically our listeners like to know a little bit about our guests, your backgrounds. So can you tell a little bit about yourself and your background?   Mari: Yeah, I'm originally from Hawaii, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. I moved to San Diego in the late 80s to as a graduate student in the rehabilitation program at San Diego State University. So since moving to San Diego, I haven't moved very far from San Diego State University and our rehab counseling program. I'm currently faculty in our graduate program, but I've been with the Interwork Institute since its beginning, when it was started by doctors Fred McFarlane and Doctor Ian Champion, and just worked with some incredible number of leaders in our rehabilitation field. And upon graduating from the master's program, I started working with Doctor Bobby Atkins. And for those of you who few of you who are not familiar with Doctor Atkins, she is a leader. When we look at all diversity initiatives and in fact, when we look at section 21, that was started with her groundbreaking research looking at the involvement and participation of African Americans in vocational rehabilitation. But I worked with Doctor Atkins upon graduating from the program in the capacity building projects funded by this same pool of money. And Doctor Atkins was the national director for the Rehabilitation Cultural Diversity Initiative, which then morphed over into the Rehabilitation Capacity Building Project. So I worked with her from the 90s. All the way up to like 2015 I think is when the project ended. So a lot of the work that we are doing in Rise Up really builds on the foundational work that we did with Doctor Atkins back in the 1990s. So it's an incredible honor.   Carol: I think that is very cool. You've come full circle. Oh my gosh, I love that. I had no idea. And for our listeners too, I just want to say a word about Doctor Fred McFarlane. Fred had passed away this summer. Fred has been a good friend to many, and many of our listeners have benefited from Fred's work with the NRLI and the Leadership Institute. Fred was the founding person developing that and really did such an amazing job touching so many VR professionals over his career. And his legacy definitely lives on. So I just I needed to say that because Fred is definitely missed. So, Marc, how about you? Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background.   Mark: Sure, I've got a Master of Science in rehabilitation counseling, and I'm a certified rehabilitation counselor. And in fact, you know, when I was applying to the graduate program in rehabilitation counseling, Fred interviewed me. Uh, that was a few years back. But that...   Carol: Yeah, 1 or 2.   Mark: Yeah, but he was there right at the start for me. And then kind of in the profession, I got my start in community based non-profit agencies and then from there joined the Rehabilitation Continuing Education program for region nine at Interwork and SDSU in the early 2000. And when I was there, was involved in all kinds of different technical assistance, training and research projects, while also kind of teaching in an adjunct capacity in the Rehabilitation counseling graduate program at SDSU. And then eventually the Rehabilitation Continuing Education programs transitioned into the Technical Assistance and Continuing Education centers. So I continued doing that same type of work with what were called the TACE centers, and then in 2014, joined the Rehabilitation Counseling Program faculty at SDSU full time. So that's sort of where I spend a lot of my time. But I still continue working with, you know, Interwork. The two are just so intricately joined. It's really difficult to be part of one without being part of the other. So I continue doing work at Interwork. One of the recent projects that Mari and I were both involved in a few years back was the California version of the Promise Projects. It was a 5 or 6 years of work with transition age youth who were recipients of Supplemental Security Income. Presently, I'm the coordinator of the Rehabilitation Counseling program at SDSU, and do that while maintaining connections to a variety of projects at Interwork.   Carol: Yeah, you're always wearing about 40 hats. I always think of you, Mark, as being the data guy though, too, because you love the data. I mean, everybody likes data, sort of but you love the data. I mean, you've done some really amazing things with our national data.   Mark: Thank you. I enjoy that. I appreciate being able to bring that to a lot of the projects that I'm involved in. Yeah, you're right. I think I find it fun maybe at times where other people are like, oh, we'll leave that to somebody else.   Carol: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh. So why don't you guys tell us a little bit about your project? I know it's called Rise Up. Maybe you can tell our group like what's that stand for? Everybody's got their fun acronyms and what you're trying to accomplish.   Mari: The name really captures the overall vision for this project, and we have to give a shout out to Doctor Chaz Compton because after several failed acronyms, as we were writing the proposal, it was Chaz who came up with the name. And RISEUP stands for Rehabilitation Improvements in Services and Employment for Underserved Populations. And so that really captures what we're aiming to do, improving the services and in the process of improving services, improving the outcomes for underserved populations, in competitive integrated employment, in careers, in academic achievements and accomplishments now underserved populations. There's many ways we can look at that, but RSA has defined it for us and it concentrates on race and ethnicity. So it encompasses individuals who are black, Latino, indigenous, Native American persons, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and other persons of color. And so that is the specific focus for this grant and the population that we hope to impact ultimately with the work that we do with the state agencies. An important component of the project is the partnerships that we aim to build with ten state agencies. And that partnership is really important because while we think about this work is okay, we'll do training and technical assistance and all these different topics and how it intersects with these different populations based on evidence based practices and promising practices. But we can only do so much with training and technical assistance. We really have to look at, okay, how does this then translate into the work that goes on in the agency and not just in the agency? How does that look at the different levels within the agency? How a director would translate the training will look different than how a counselor or a technician would translate. We hope that it complements each other, but everyone has a different role in this process. And that's the other part of the project, is that we want to really look at the whole agency and all the different levels, and being able to provide that support to them where they need it. And really looking at how do we close this gap? Where are people not being served, what populations specifically are not being served within a state or a section of the state? And the emphasis is on systems change, because we can't improve these outcomes without really looking at what needs to change within that system. And there's different components that we're going to be incorporating into the project in our partnerships with the state agencies to look at what are the strengths and weaknesses within your agencies and what are the opportunities and gaps. And while there are big challenges that we all are aware of, there's also some great things going on and we want to highlight that, and we believe we'll be able to find that also within each of the state agencies.   Carol: I like a couple of things about what you just said. Well, I like it all, but a couple things stick out to me because holistically, we've seen it as we do TA and as people put in new initiatives in place. If you really get the whole agency going in the same direction, it is the rise or fall of that project for sure, because maybe the director is all in, but the mid-level managers and the counselors are like, I don't even understand what's going on. You're asking us to do this other thing? I don't get it. It seems weird. It's extra. I don't want to. I'm not going to. And then it doesn't happen. And so you really have to get everybody in sync. So I think you're smart to look at the whole organization and how everybody interprets the information and the training and how it actually gets implemented, because it isn't the director implementing it. It's the boots on the ground folks, it's your counselor. You need your line folks engaged and involved and giving you feedback and understanding what's happening. So that I think that is brilliant. Secondly, the data I think it's been interesting and I think Mark, it's some of the work that you've done over the last couple of years that I've known you as well, that as people start to get better about looking at their data, I think folks were looking really high level, not getting into the real intricacies and seeing the maybe the disparities that are happening in employment as you start looking at different races and ethnicities and who's getting what kind of work and what those outcomes are. And then we've seen states be completely shocked, like we didn't know we have a huge problem in this area. So I think getting at the data is super important. So I know, Mark, you and I had spoken to and you talked about this special wrinkle, and we're not using wrinkle in a bad way. It was in a good way. But you have a contractor called Encorpe and they're bringing something special to the project. Tell us a little bit about that.   Mark: Sure, and this relates a bit more to the data aspects of the project that we were just talking about. So Encorpe is a partner on the project. It's an organization that's headed by a couple of individuals with considerable experience with the public VR program, and they offer a tool that's known as QA Advisor Plus. So this is a tool that agencies can use to check their RSA 911 data for errors and to kind of help facilitate or expedite analysis of their own data. So users of the tool can run custom queries on their data. They can do things like track changes from quarter to quarter in things like population served on a variety of measures that might include things like applications or eligibility plan services, competitive integrated employment outcomes. Those are the kinds of things that are of interest, particularly to us as part of the Rise Up project and built into this project is that Rise Up will pay for one year of QA advisor Plus for participating agencies if they elect to use it. So agencies aren't required to use QA Advisor Plus if they don't want to. We have other strategies for helping and assisting with data analysis if they elect not to use it, but that's there as an offer. Rise Up will cover one year of the cost of that service. And I think one of the things that we're trying to get at is that through the project is to kind of help facilitate kind of long term attention and ongoing attention to things like population served and differences in services and outcomes, and to use that for more data informed planning, in our case, particularly around underserved populations. But agencies can certainly pretty easily extend that out to other groups of interest or other aspects of the rehabilitation process. That may not be maybe the central focus of what Rise Up is doing. And one of the things I sort of want to underscore here is that the project is intentionally designed to make considerable use of data that the state agencies are already gathering and reporting to RSA anyway. So if agencies are interested maybe in participating in Rise Up, but they're like, oh, I don't want there to be like an additional heavy burden on my data folks or my direct service folks. Our intention is that things will be fairly light with respect to those kinds of demands, because we'll take advantage of existing data that's already being gathered, and then we'll either use QA Advisor Plus or some of our own staff to assist with the analyses.   Carol: That's the beauty of this project really, I love that because it isn't like you're going, okay, state, we're knocking on your door to like, come and do this thing. And then you need to add like ten positions to pay attention to this. And I think it's great because I got a chance to look at that QA Advisor Plus. I saw the Encorpe guys at, CSAVR and they were like, hey, do you want to see a little demo of this? I was like, oh my gosh, I know as being a small blind agency director, we had one data person who's doing a million things, and so we were very surfacey. We got a little bit of stuff, but it was really hard. You have one person there doing a million things, and so that tool, I liked how it kind of rose up little things. It had that cool feature and it would just flag something for you to go like, hey, what's going on in this particular area? That would have been so lovely because I know a lot of our programs are small, so you might just have a half a position or one position that's working in this area. They don't have a whole team that's got all this really developed deep skill set in there. I just think having that added resource is amazing and could really take that level of sort of your data analytics to a whole different place than what you've been able to do so far and not, you know, not disparaging anybody's current skill level at it. It's just that people don't have time because there's so many demands. So when you can add like a feature to help with analyzing that data, it really is a great gift. So who are your agencies that are currently participating in the project?   Mari: So we've had initial conversations with a number of agencies, and certainly there were a number of agencies who had written letters of commitment when we wrote the grant, and that was really important. I don't want to mention the states yet until we have agreements in place out of respect for the agencies, our goal is to have by the end of year two, our goal is to have six agreements in place and by the end of year three, another four. So that will be a total of ten. But we've already started to have that conversation and people are at different starting points, right? And trying to map out how will this make sense and be of value to your agency and mapping that out in an individualized agreement with each of the states? So maybe we'll be invited for a second visit a year down the road, and I can at least give you a few more names more specific than what I'm giving you now, Carol.   Carol: No,  that's totally fine. Absolutely. I wasn't sure if, you know, like, are you needing some people? Because sometimes our listeners are like, hey, I want to be part of that project. I want to be in.   Mari: No, absolutely. And we're more than happy to talk to agencies throughout this whole process, because really the intent is we targeted ten agencies because we want to make sure that with the resources that we have available to us, that we use that in a way to really make that impact, to really try to get to that systems change because again, change doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't happen on a zero budget, right? But the hope is the lessons that are learned from the ten agencies in this work will be relevant to the rest of the country.   Carol: That's what I've loved about all of these different discretionary grants that RSA has put out, because I've been talking to people for the last year, and there is such cool things being done and demonstrated that now they're sharing out, you know, with other people and just that wonderful plethora of ideas. It makes it super fun. And everybody gets really excited planting the seeds of a different way of looking at things and doing things. So you are at the end of year one, and I love it when I talk to all our grantees that have gotten these grants, like, what have been your challenges this year?   Mark: I would say some of the challenges that we've encountered are things that it's not like they're not doable. It's just that they're the time and process demands are, you know, things have sort of taken longer, I guess I've started to come to kind of expect it. But still, when you're anxious to kind of get going and get rolling, these things sort of surface as challenges or frustrations. And so some of them are, I think, very predictable things like fleshing out the project staff, developing and executing subcontracts. I think Mari, she's nodding her head often. It's a little bit more complicated or involved than you think it might be. We've been working on things like establishing the technical infrastructure for the project, information management, information sharing systems, and we have a website that's in development that will ultimately use to share information coming out of this project, with many more than just the ten state agencies that we work intensively with. So there will be kind of dissemination of project learning far beyond those ten. We've been comprehensively surveying the literature related to underserved populations in VR, and it's not really just a challenge. It's just kind of a time consuming thing that we're kind of working our way through. We are going to be implementing a national survey of state VR staff around both challenges and opportunities related to serving underserved populations and the instrument development process is always a little time consuming, and you get a lot of feedback and you make revisions and there's several feedback and revision stages. So that's something that will be surfacing in the near future. That's just it's taken time, but we'll get there. Or going through things like the human subjects institutional review process, just to make sure that everybody's, you know, treated well and treated ethically. So those are all, you know, just things that have moved along or are moving along and we're squaring them away. But for those of us who are like, would like to just get going, all of that process stuff at the beginning is a little bit of a challenge. One thing that I think the team is wrestling with a little bit, and this is something that I think were a challenge that we will contend with going forward, and I've got confidence that we'll be able to address it, but it's just going to require some thought is that, you know, as Mari indicated earlier, the underserved populations of interest are defined by race and ethnicity. And we know already from looking at our data over a long period of time that our clients, like everybody else, often are multiracial, and they check a whole bunch of boxes So we're not going to necessarily be able to look at clients who are folks don't fall neatly into very convenient categories, right. So I think we're going to have to be very sensitive to that dynamic in the process and probably develop multiple ways of looking at race and ethnicity, so that we don't kind of miss any really important lessons that are coming out of this project.   Carol: Absolutely. And regarding that national survey, is there something our listeners can do to be of help in that or something they should be looking out for?   Mark: We're still in the process of piloting it like we want to get it right before it goes out, but we will be working with one of our project partners, which is CSAVR, to disseminate this national survey. It'll be an electronic survey, and it's really designed to go to VR staff at all levels. Like we talked about earlier, involvement of folks, feedback from folks at all levels in VR system really important. So VR staff at all levels, folks like SRC members will be disseminating it through CSAVR. And we would encourage everybody to, you know, I know we survey ourselves all the time in society here in the US. But this one is important. And to me and I think to the overall intent of the project. And so we hope that when you see information about the survey coming out, that you take a few minutes to fill it out and complete it. It will be anonymous. It won't be linked back to you. So we hope people will respond candidly and provide us with information both about what they see as needs related to serving underserved populations. But also, we're asking folks to identify any promising practices that they're aware of with respect to providing effective services to underserved populations. I think both of those types of information can be really helpful to us in terms of planning out the future of this project, designing effective training, effective technical assistance efforts. So we see it as one way of kind of triangulating that information. We will look to triangulate it with other forms of information, but really critical to kind of building some of the key infrastructure to the project.   Carol: Good.   Mark: Yeah.   Carol: And we definitely can be a help to in passing out the word when the survey comes out. I know Chaz, he'll be like, Carol, can you get that out in our email groups too? We have lots of different ways. We communicate out. We have different COPs. We've got lots of mailing lists and such, so we can help kind of promote the word to get at the different groups of folks. So you get kind of a wide range of participation. So I know, Mark, you've alluded to a few things that really you've learned so far this year. One, because always year one's a learning year because people don't fall neatly in boxes. Are there any other kind of learnings you've had from year one so far, or Mari, too. either of you?   Mark: Yeah, I'm going to defer to Mari on this one.   Mari: We've learned a lot. And when you say, what have you learned so far? It's almost what has been confirmed. The whole reason why this funding opportunity is available because there's a gap there, right? And so what the conversations that we've had with agencies is just confirmed that there's a lot of work that we need to do and that we need to do better. But every agency is at a different starting point. Who they consider underserved will vary from state to state, or even from city to city within the same state. Right And where those gaps and inequities occur will also vary. For some states, it's just getting the outreach to communities to that door exists in their area, to certain populations dropping out before they even reach the point of developing an EIP, and other agencies are seeing where the EIP is developed. Things start to roll out and then for different reasons that we want to dig into, we lose people, you know, in certain populations compared to the overall populations being served. And so one of the things we are learning is that we really need to direct the training and technical assistance to where each agency wants to start, but also helping them and working together using that data that Marc talked about to confirm or not confirm whether these actual inequities at different points in the process are occurring. And then of course, the environment and the climate that agencies operate under impacts what they're tackling, something that we've heard repeatedly. And I'm sure, Carol, you've heard often, is the staffing challenges that our state agencies are experiencing upwards to 40% of unfilled positions, and that will certainly impact the work and the progress and the impact when we start to work with the agencies. Some agencies are further along in the process where they've really looked at the data from their comprehensive statewide needs assessment and saw a hole there and actually started to develop a goal to address that. And so they've already have that beginning understanding and now are at the stage of, okay, what do we do with this information? What kind of training and technical assistance can we provide our staff, and how can you help with this. And getting us to move the needle, at least move the needle forward, right? And I know we're going to get a lot of new information or confirming knowledge from the national survey, but also using that national survey to start the conversation with each of the individual agencies. You know, how does this national data look for you? Is it true or how different it is? And so I think we've learned a lot, and there's a lot more that we're going to unravel in this process.   Carol: I love it. The CSNAs, you know, I think states for a long time did it as a check the box. We have to do the thing. We're going to contract to somebody to do the thing. Here's the thing. It's 300 pages. All right. We put it on the shelf. It's in the electronic folder. But I have noticed this over the years we've been doing the QM work. People are really taking the CSNA and actually paying attention to it and starting to put all the dots together, linking that as the basis for then what flows into the state plan flows into goals and priorities and really connecting and spending more time. The thing I've been very hopeful of is spending time with direct staff so that they understand the whole process, because staff will hear about this stuff, but they don't really understand it or what is that about? And now people are linking like, here's why we're doing all of this. We're actually finding out what's the situation in our state, and we're taking this and we're putting together goals and priorities within our state plan based on this data, this information. So it all links together, because I think people feel like everybody's just doing these random activities, but they actually all come together.   Mari: Yeah.   Carol: So that I have seen as a change, definitely in the five plus years I've been doing TA work now, I've seen a big swing and I've loved it, because now people are digging down in the organization and including not just your executive leadership and middle managers. They're including the line staff and having them have an understanding of what's going on so that they can understand their contributions to this overall big picture. So I love that.   Mari: Yeah, and we learned that from the Cal Promise Project We had this whole large, comprehensive database and our team were able to put together, I guess, reports of here's what the data is looking like, here's how your region is being impacted, and the transition specialists, the people who are meeting with the families and with the students, like we've never seen this before. We're always feeding data to our supervisor. Our boss is always asking for data, and so we give it to them. But we never know what happens to it. And now it makes sense. This is how my work is impacting people.   Carol: Absolutely. It's mind blowing to the staff because when you go out, you're talking and you're like, okay. They're like, well, why is Congress doing all this crazy stuff with our money or whatever is going on? I always tell them, I go, the only way your story can be told because they don't know all your anecdotal, really neat. You got Joe, a job like this is awesome and it's a great career and you know, all this great things are happening. They don't know any of that. They only know by the data you put in the system. And when you put data in the system, that isn't very good. That's the picture, the story that your agency is telling. This is the only way for other people to make decisions. You just see this. Aha. Like people are like, oh well this stuff actually does matter. And it is being used for something and then they can figure it out. And I love it when you get down in regional levels because then they go like and they'll know what's going on. Sometimes up here the management's like, oh they're trying to figure out what's happening in that region. Talk to the staff. They see boots on the ground, what's going on. So the data confirms what's been happening in that area. And then the whole agency having that conversation, it's really exciting and super empowering and energizing. I feel like for their customers and what's going to happen for their people, I love that. The other thing I was going to say, Mari too, is we've been seeing a slight improvement in staffing levels. Now it seems like things for some reason, because we work with a load of states and we talk a lot about this particular issue, the staffing levels, it's been leveling off with that whole people leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving. And now I've had a couple agencies in the last year where they were sitting at 25, 30% now. They're at 5% and 8% turnover. Like there have been significant changes because of all of the things they put into play to not only get staff, but to keep them, to retain them. So we've been trying to do some efforts on our end and we can't say it's all us, you know, but people have been putting a lot of strategy into this, and it's really fun to see on this other side, this more encouraging landscape for the staff out there.   Mari: Wow, that's great to hear.   Carol: Yeah. So I'm hopeful for you guys as you're carrying this out. So now what are your plans for year two as you go into year two? What are you guys hoping to accomplish this year?   Mark: I think it'll be a busy year for us. I think one of the major efforts, you know, we've already kind of alluded to a little bit, which is get the national survey out there to get that information back, have our team kind of start analyzing the results. We'll use that data. As I said before, we'll triangulate that with other information sources that we have our team working on. You mentioned comprehensive statewide needs assessments and state plans. Our team is doing an analysis of that specifically through the lens of underserved populations to see what can be gleaned from those statewide reports. And they're triangulating that also with kind of other forms of published literature around underserved populations. So there's a lot of kind of building that kind of database of information will be focused on executing agreements with the first of the agencies that are going to be involved with kind of the intensive phases of Rise Up, while at the same time kind of establishing the groundwork for agencies that we will add to the Rise Up group, you know, to as we work towards our goal of getting to up to ten state agencies. And then I think as we work with each of the agencies, kind of to begin to identify the populations that they want to focus on for, you know, kind of sustained efforts to enhance getting folks in the door, getting them into plan, getting them services. The outcomes will also begin to kind of roll out. You know, one aspect of Rise Up will be training. Some of it will be technical assistance. That will be kind of systems change focused efforts. We'll begin to roll out initial training. Some of those will focus on topics like cultural humility And then we'll be using the literature search, the national survey, consultation with the agencies that we're working with to lend direction to the development of additional trainings that will be kind of targeted towards all levels of the organization. And then within the agencies that we begin to work with, we'll also begin kind of identifying the targeted and specific areas of need for technical assistance that will be unique to each of the agencies. So I see those as kind of the major tasks that will be kind of getting into in the beginning of year two and then kind of sustaining through the next year.   Carol: That is super exciting. I'm really excited about this. I would love to talk to you guys too, again at the end of like next year to see where things are at. Now, I understand you to, I believe, or somebody coming to CSAVR and people may want to chat with you. Is there a way folks could reach out to you if they are interested in talking to you about the project?   Mark: Sure.   Mari: Yeah   Mark: Yeah, so we will be at CSVAR, our project coordinator, Letty Vavasour will be there. Mari will be there. I will be there. So we're certainly kind of approachable there. As we mentioned before, CSAVR is a project partner of ours, and we mentioned encore. I think they're going to be there as well at CSAVR. And one other partner we haven't mentioned, but we should give them some credit, is a major partner with us is the George Washington Center for Rehabilitation Counseling, Research and Education. They're also a project partner with us and will be instrumental in kind of our efforts. So CSAVR is one place where folks can connect with us. Our team is working on a website, so we should have that up kind of in the near future. That's another way to get a hold of us. Email is always a good way to get a hold of us. I'm easy to get a hold of by email at MTucker at SDSU.edu and Mari is MGuillermo@SDSU.edu. So those are kind of really easy ways to get Ahold of us. And then of course Interwork Institute and the VRTAC-QM, we're sort of housed right there and involved in a number of those projects going on there so folks can track us down through Interwork or the QM.   Carol: Excellent. And, Mari, would you mind, Mari, would you spell out your email address? Just in case, because like me, it's like, how is that spelled?   Mari: And for those of you who know Spanish, my last name is Guillermo, which is William in Spanish, but it's m g as in George. U I L L E R M as in Mari o at SDSU.edu.   Carol: Excellent. Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time. I'm super excited. And I wish our listeners could see like, the excitement on both of your faces about this project because it makes me like, super happy. I mean, the project couldn't be in better hands. You guys always do really good work out of Interwork, and I'm really excited to see what comes. So let's definitely chat again down the road.   Mark: That would be great.   Carol: Thanks for joining me.   Mari: Absolutely. Thank you Carol.   {Music}   Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Mark Erlichman is in the studio today, Deputy Director of the VR Employment Division with the California Department of Rehabilitation.   Learn how this DIF Grant innovates by aligning services with industry needs, not location, and creating targeted support in tech and more. They also combined the Career Index Plus with the artificial intelligence program SARA to create customized Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) portfolios. Operational in just three months! #Innovation #DisabilityEmployment #SectorStrategy.   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music}   Mark: You know, we can continue to complain about all the additional reports and data, but if the payoff is worth it because it's something you want and need it to do, it becomes a much easier grant to write and a much easier effort to justify and support. I think the counselors and their staff should drive the program. They're the ones that work with the consumers in our businesses. They're the ones who understand what's going on way better than I would sitting in my office on the third floor in Sacramento. I'm happy to be a conduit and connect people or anybody or has any questions at all about our project. We know collectively, the VR program is so much smarter than any one individual State.   Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Mark Erlichman, Deputy director, VR Employment Division with California Department of Rehabilitation. That is a mouthful. So welcome Mark. How are things going in California?   Mark: Well it's going well as always. We have interesting times when the state budget comes out. So we're looking forward to the next week. But all in all, I think we're very proud of the work that we're doing. And I think we're really where we need to be as a program.   Carol: Well of course, and you're working with Joe and I love Joe, but Joe is like, go, go, go, go, go. So I'm sure you guys are running on that treadmill at top speed.   Mark: Yes, you know him very well, and it's exciting to work with Joe because it's never a dull moment. And the more progressive we can get, the more supportive he tends to be. So it does give us an awful lot of incentive to continue to be creative and push the envelope.   Carol:  That's very cool. Well, I want to give you a little nugget of what has happened since February of 22, when you recorded a podcast with me. It was our very first one we did in the series on Rapid Engagement, and I have to tell you, it was our most downloaded podcast we've ever done by like triple. It was wild, and I feel like that podcast was the beginning of a little bit of a revolution. On the rapid engagement topic. I was super excited about that, and so I wanted to let you know that when I think about California VR, I always think about how innovative you guys are. And I'm really excited to talk about the Disability Innovation Fund Career Advancement Project. And so in the fall, I did a series of three with three of the other programs, and I couldn't get you. I kept trying, and Karen Grandin, project officer at RSA, is like, have you talked to California yet? I've said, I'm trying to get Mark, so thanks for being on. I really appreciate it. I just want to give a little recap to our listeners, because they may have forgotten a little bit about kind of why this particular DIF grant came about. And the grant activity here for the Career advancement is geared to support innovative activities aimed to improve the outcomes of individuals with disability. And these were funded back in 2021, and they were intended to identify and demonstrate practices supported by evidence to assist VR eligible individuals with disabilities, including previously served VR participants in employment who reenter the VR program to do the following things. They were looking at advancing in high demand high quality careers like science, technology, engineering and math. All that STEM stuff. Entering career pathways and industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships and registered apprenticeships, improving and maximizing competitive integrated employment and reducing reliance on public benefits. And I remember at that time too looking at when they published the announcement, they had some really kind of disturbing data on what was happening with our VR program. So the timing was perfect. And of course, you all jumped right on the bandwagon and put something in. So let's just dig in and talk about your grant. So, Mark, would you remind our listeners about your story and how you came to VR? People are always interested, like, where'd you come from and what's your role there?   Mark: Thank you. And I appreciate the summary of the innovation grant. So we did see these as a phenomenal opportunity to look at work we wanted to do and then just expand on it. And it really was up my alley. I actually started my career back in the mid 90s, 1994 to be exact, as a rehab counselor, and I worked as a rehabilitation counselor in a fairly rural area working with migrant farm workers with the transition age, population supported employment and individuals that were exiting the prison system and were still justice involved. And I really got the opportunity to learn to love my job and to recognize and realize how complicated and how wonderfully difficult doing this job correctly can be, but how rewarding it is, particularly when you see individuals who did not believe in themselves, begin to believe in themselves, and to really build themselves up and move themselves forward. So as I moved up, for some reason, I kept getting other opportunities and got promoted a couple of times and worked my way up within the Department of Rehabilitation here in California. Since 1994, I think I've had nine different jobs, most recently June of 2019. So six months, kind of before Covid was even a thing, I took on the role of the Deputy Director responsible over our field operations. So I work with our 13 regional districts, and we work with all individuals, with the exception of the blind/visually impaired who were served out of a different division. But everyone else, including our business services and our student services, are served out of our division here and very fortunate to have this opportunity. And like you mentioned, lots and lots of pressure, both from above and from below. I have about 1400 staff who have really done a remarkable job in continuing programs and services. Even through the Covid pandemic. We actually served over 134,000 people last year, which is 30,000 more than we served even before Covid. So people came back. And our staff have done a remarkable job in serving them. And then pressure from above, with Joe really saying, if we don't step up, if we don't do a better job in customer service, and serving the public, then we don't really deserve to exist as a program. And so we take that seriously as well. So I've been very fortunate that I've had a good career here in the department, but I'm also very grateful to work with the teams that I've been able to work with.   Carol: It's very cool. I always knew you guys were part of the big four, because I always think about California and Texas, Florida and New York as the four biggest VR programs out of the 78, so there's a lot of added pressure to that. The numbers are just exponentially so much bigger. That is wild. But I think your experience leads you to what you did with writing this grant. So give us a little bit of overview about the grant, the proposal you wrote, and what you were hoping to accomplish.   Mark: The premise of the grant really was that expertise in careers and understanding sectors can be just as valuable as their expertise in disability and in other areas. As a counselor, one of the things I mentioned, I have a variety of consumers that I work with and a variety of ages, disabilities, ethnicity, gender. There are a lot of variability. The main thing they had in common was their zip code. They all lived in the proximal area that was near my office, and that's how I got to work with them. And I began to notice is that being able to work with a lot of different individuals, with a lot of different vocational goals, I had to start learning about how a teacher or a butcher or a nurse got a job, which is widely different. How a teacher gets a job is nothing like how a butcher gets a job. So each time I had to try to figure out, well, how do I get information? This is pre-internet, but I think it's still applicable now. I actually had to go talk to teachers and talk to nurses. And I went to talk to a butcher at a grocery store because the only butchers I knew were at the grocery store, and they told me, no, don't have your consumer come here, apply for jobs here. So 60 miles away, we have something called Harris Ranch, which is one of the largest beef providers in the country, and they hire somewhere between 50 and 60 new butchers every year. And if you get a job there and you get trained there, you can really work anywhere else. And I go, wow, if I wouldn't have asked, I wouldn't have known. And the other thing that I realized is I had two consumers who wanted to be teachers, forget their disability, they had way more in common with each other because of their vocational goal and their career goal. Then somebody with the same disability, same age and same zip code. And so it really made sense. So it maybe makes sense to align our expertise and our caseloads based on something other than proximity. So the premise behind our grant application was, let's align our caseloads and have staff and dedicated teams that are specific to industry sectors that can work with individuals regardless of where they are in the state, regardless of their zip code, regardless of their disability, but that have the same vocational goal because those counselors in those teams, they can work with the industries and understand how industry hire and recruit and retain people and help our consumers mentor them and support them in getting jobs in that area. The other reason behind the application was the feedback we got from our businesses, and I don't know how many of our VR programs have had business satisfaction surveys for our business customers, but the feedback we've gotten regularly and that we had three in-person sessions, focus groups with our business partners, and we have an employer or business survey. Almost universally what we hear, we hear two things. One, you don't understand our business, and two, you're not sending us consumers that are ready for employment. And so understanding that we can align other than by zip code, and we need to better understand our businesses. That's how we arrived at the premise for this grant. And really the grant application that we work with our partners at San Diego State to put together what apparently turned out to be a competitive application was that we were going to create sector specialist teams that included a counselor and a business sector consultant that would be located in areas where there's a high concentration of that sector, for example, information technology in the San Francisco Bay area, biotechnology in the Los Angeles area. And so they would have contact with those industries and work with those business leaders and go to industry events, learn how those industries hire people, and then come back and provide that information and support to individuals that are seeking careers in those fields. We have five teams that are supporting six different sectors. They're working with people all over the state. So we have a lot of remote work with our consumers. We use Zoom and other technologies to keep in touch with our consumers. We use local resources because we still have local offices, but their primary counseling and guidance comes from people who really, really, truly understand the needs of the industry and how people get jobs in those industries.   Carol: I love this idea. In fact, Jeff, my producer for the podcast, we talked after we visited with you yesterday a little bit and we went, this is cool because when you think about that, and I never was a counselor, but I could empathize with our counselors. They would talk about it. You know, you have to understand all of these occupations. And it's difficult because there's all these nuanced things that you aren't going to necessarily always remember, because maybe you place somebody in that industry a year ago, so you're not remembering all the little fine points to it. But if you keep within those sectors, I would think that people could really feel good about it. And I was curious how your staff are feeling about these sector specific teams, because I would think for me, you'd have a rich level of knowledge, you'd feel super competent, you would really have this great perspective and ability to help people in a very deep way. So how are your staff responding to it?   Mark: They're thrilled. There's 1400 staff that work in our division, and we have very small cohort working on this. So we have five counselors. We have three business sector specialists and a manager. And they push the envelope. They ask for things that I wouldn't even have thought of a year ago that based on their experience, they want to try out. This team is so enthusiastic about their jobs that I'm hearing from business leaders that are saying, we're so glad they think that the counselor that they're working with is not just a resource, but they feel like that's somebody that they want to steal away from us because of the conversation and the understanding. They get to go to industry events. And we went to a biotechnology conference and everybody's wondering why we were there. And by the end of the conference, the stack of business cards and business contacts that are business specialists and the counselor came back with was incredible. The opportunity to create work experience, work sites and internships, do some career exploration, and some informational interviews for our consumers. It's almost unique. I think every one of our consumers has an opportunity to do a paid work experience, because the businesses are saying yes to us, because we're asking them based on a personal relationship that these business consultants are developing. They're really enthusiastic and energetic, and it's so much fun to talk with them because, like having a conversation with our director, Joe, they push me and they push us to think differently and to move in a different direction, which is, I think, the way it should be. I think the counselors and their staff should drive the program. They're the ones that work with the consumers in our businesses. They're the ones who understand what's going on way better than I would sitting in my office on the third floor in Sacramento.   Carol: Yeah, I love that. I have to back up, though. I want to ask you a question about I know when you approached this grant, you've written another DIF grant before. So you've been around the block a little bit. I know when I talk to our other folks from the other states, everybody seemed to struggle with year one. You know, RSA is like spend the money, you know, and everybody says, oh, I'm trying to hire and I'm trying to do all these things. You were smart, though. What did you do differently with this DIF grant than you did before that helped you with that year one start?   Mark: I don't know if it's smart or if it's experience based on experiencing the same problems. I think we do learn from past efforts when we wrote this grant. So part of the grant, and I think many of the grants that were written and that were awarded included staffing. So you wanted to hire staff and put staff on this effort and have dedicated staff to work with the consumers and to run the project. So and we did. We got eight I think, we got nine allocated positions to manage and to implement this project. So what we did was we identified what skills and talents we were looking for and what experiences we were looking for in those nine staff. We went out and talked to our district administrators and some of our managers and said, okay, which one of your existing staff have this experience and this knowledge? And we just assigned existing staff, incumbent staff, who were well trained, had demonstrated knowledge and skills in that area and were enthusiastic and energetic. We assign them to this grant, and we just use the funds and the resources that we got from the grant to hire nine new staff to backfill. Whether they were regular generals, counselor, or they're a counselor for the deaf, we just backfill behind them. We didn't have a runway. We just started right from mid-flight. And that made a huge difference because we didn't have to train people to be counselors. And we didn't have to recruit. We didn't have to wait for announcements or advertisements. So we actually started working with consumers. I think almost three months in, we already had started enrolling consumers.   Carol: That is awesome because I know every single other group I talked to this long lead time for getting people on. And so year one kind of ends up being a little bit of a bust. You hate to say it quite that way, but. And it depends your state processes, it can take you almost nine months to get the people on board, and especially training them and doing all of that. So I thought that was super brilliant. Can you remind us of all the sectors you talked about a couple, what are they?   Mark: Yeah. So we have six sectors within five teams because we kind of split up our advanced manufacturing and transportation. There's a lot of money that's going into infrastructure around transportation, and some of it is different than advanced manufacturing. So those two sectors, advanced manufacturing and transportation were kind of combined. But we also have biotechnology. That's another one of our sectors. It's very well paid and things that you wouldn't think of like phlebotomy lab. That's Biotechnology, Genetic engineering is Biotechnology, manufacturing medications is Biotechnology. That was one of our sectors, another one of our sectors. Health care, and that's predominant in all of our local planning areas in California. So health care is another one. And our information technology communications is the other sector. And so those are five. The sixth sector actually is our green industries. There's a lot of effort, particularly in some of our regions in California around green industries, green energy. So those are our six sectors split among our five sector specialist teams.   Carol: I think that's pretty cool. And it's diverse. It's like a diverse type of work. So you're crossing all of it. I know there was another piece too, in your application where you talked about you were going to link Career Index plus that labor market tool. So for folks that may not be aware of it, it's awesome. And I love the Career Index Plus. We used it when I was in Minnesota. I think very highly of it. But you were going to pair that with Sarah to create, which is another AI tool that people use, but you're going to use it to create customized and comprehensive IP portfolios. Talk a little bit about that. Like what are you doing with that?   Mark: Well, we were very fortunate we actually wrote that into the grant. And you know, to bring those experts into the conversation and to help us adapt the TCI Plus for California and for what we were looking for. And the same thing with SARA. SARA is like a digital assistant where you can program it to send reminders and messages to consumers and then get messages back from consumers and have that information uploaded to our case management system. And we're in an aware state. So we actually had APIs created that allowed us. So when SARA sends a note out or we get a response that actually becomes kind of automates that, communication chain into case notes in our system and TCI Plus as well. We worked with TCI Plus that actually can upload information into our plans. But for us, what I think is the beauty and really the fortunate part about having us incorporate this as part of the grant was that our staff and I mentioned this, you know, the really, really creative and very enthusiastic staff, those staff helped inform the design and the contact and the connections and what was needed. It really was a very good partnership that allowed the staff to work in the way they needed and wanted to work based on what they were learning from the businesses and what they were learning from our consumers and what our consumers needed. And the best results are when the people on the ground, the boots on the ground, the staff that are working can influence and help design the tools that they're going to be using themselves to support our consumers.   Carol: Do you think some of the work that you guys did with this part of the project can be replicated for those other states that also use SARA, and they may use Career Index Plus? Do you think there's some things that are transferable to other folks that might be interested?   Mark: I absolutely think so. If nothing else, having a conversation with the staff that are using these and how these were adapted, including the TCI Plus staff and the SARA team and those conversations, there isn't anything that really reinforced in this grant and or other grant as well. There's nothing that we've done or design in here that we can't continue to do after the grant period ends. For me, the most unfortunate thing and a hint or a tip from somebody working on these grants is make sure that if you're doing something that turns out to be really valuable or a tool that becomes really, really useful, that it doesn't expire, that you can then continue it, because the worst and most unfortunate thing you can do is find out something is great, and then have to stop doing it, even if down the road you can bring it back. And so that's how we design in our work with TCI Plus and SARA really was designed in the fact that this can then be scalable up across our whole organization once it's proved efficacious, and once the design and the systems are in place that work for our consumers and staff.   Carol: See, I like that about the DIF grants because they are the gift that can keep on giving. Somebody does it. You know, you're trying out this stuff in your state and then you can get this out to other people and they start going, oh, we can do something like that here, because there's nothing that would prevent them from trying a sector specific strategy right now. For some of the other folks, it just gives you that like, oh, that's a different way to think about it. I really like it. And since you're talking about tips, do you have any other tips for our folks that may be wanting to apply for a DIF? You know, sometimes people are on the fence. They're like, ah, is it going to be too much work? I don't know if I want to do it. We get a lot of calls. People are like, what should we do? It's like, well, you got to decide that. But do you have any advice for folks?   Mark: The way we approached these last two and we applied for two of the last three, we identified things that we wanted to do and we would likely would do anyway had we had the resources to do so. So I would start with, what are some things that you had put on the table that you weren't able to do in the past? Because almost always what you've been working on or what you want to do is almost always designed or thought of to address an existing problem or take advantage of an opportunity. And so when we look at the DIF grant opportunities, we know we read what was in there. And in there it talks about, you know, preferences and what the interests of the grantor in this case are saying. We want to focus on careers or the next on subminimum wage. It's more flexible than you think it is. And what the tip is, look at what you wanted to do anyway. Look at the priority in the grant and say, okay, how does this align with what we want to do? And then write a grant for something you want to do anyway, and you would do anyway, but that this gives you the resources to do that. It's much easier to write that way, and you get a lot more organizational, institutional buy in, because these are things that people have either been pitching or been trying to do all along. And now this is an opportunity to do that. We hear a lot about administrative burden, and there's a lot of reporting, and we provide feedback that there's a lot of reports, a lot of meetings, a lot, but in perspective, the value that you get from it, and, you know, we can continue to complain about all the additional reports and data. But if the payoff is worth it because it's something you want and needed to do, it becomes a much easier grant to write and much easier effort to justify and support.   Carol: That's an awesome tip. I love that because I have not heard that yet. And I just think that is really, really smart. So what are you guys seeing for results? Because I think, aren't we going into year three of this.   Mark: Yeah, we're just in the very beginning of year three.   Carol: Yeah. So what are you starting to see like what's happening.   Mark: So we applied for and we got $18.33 million for the five year period of performance. And like we mentioned like I mentioned earlier, when we're talking about we were able to start pretty much in the beginning or towards the beginning of year one. And we'd split up the funds over five years. And one of the things that really comes up is, are you expending your funds and RSA they really interested, you know, don't send anything back. So we're actually we're well on our way to expanding our funds. And it's not because we're frugal or not frugal, it's because we actually have enrolled over 615 participants already. And so our goal is 1400 over the five years, and we're actually able to enroll people even in year five because of the extension that we're able to get. So yeah, we are right on track to enroll the 1400, even though a lot of people are just starting, as you noted, our sectors, they're all high wage. Almost all of them are in STEM occupations. They are in highly skilled jobs. These are jobs that we believe lead into careers and into long-term, family sustaining wage employment. And that is because even though we're just starting year three, so and people are most of them are in college or in some type of technical training or vocational training. Already seen 52 people go to work. So we've had 17 closed successfully. So the not only do they go to work, they spend the 90 plus days they were satisfied with their employment and they were closed successfully. We have 11 more that are just have gotten their career placement. So it's not a job placement we have, we're doing 52 placements. We're not considering a job placement to be an employment outcome unless it's in their final terminal career position, because almost all of these participants are offered paid work experience along the way and when they needed, we do some interim employment because people also need to support themselves. And so we have 24 of our consumers are working in their field, but not in their terminal job. But what we're really proud of is out of those 52 people that are working their average wage at the time that they started work, or at the time that they were, their case was closed for the 17, their average wage is $29.76 an hour.   Carol: So it's a little higher than the average we usually see on the chart. You know, RSA comes and they show the chart across the country. And what is it like 12 bucks or something that people are making or maybe 13. So it's significantly more.   Mark: Yeah. And for those that are not still in school or in training, I think that our average hours worked, which is another thing that comes up. It's not just how much are you making, it's, you working full time? Do you have benefits? I think our average hours work weekly for those individuals in their career was over 40 hours a week.   Carol: Wow!   Mark: So when you multiply full time plus about $30 an hour, that's family sustaining wage. And I think that's what's really, really exciting about this is individuals are successfully employed in a career that can support themselves, even in California, which is really a high cost state.   Carol: But your participants in this, it's a wide variety. You know, people think, oh, what's the characteristics of the population that you're serving?   Mark: Yeah. When we wrote the grant, we wanted to make sure that individuals from underrepresented communities, and when we're talking about underrepresented, not just individuals from brown or black communities, but individuals who historically aren't directed into STEM occupations or high wage occupations. And we do that where there are individuals, have an intellectual developmental disability, behavioral health, disability, and women are not directed or encouraged to get into engineering or STEM occupations either. We wanted to make sure that we're not just directing people who are going to ask for these careers or are directed these careers anyway. We want to make sure that individuals that were Hispanic, African American or Black Native American individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities and women that we were focusing in on our recruitment and directing and writing plans for these high wage, high skilled jobs. And so right now, even though we're still kind of early on, of the 650 consumers, 70% of the participants are either Hispanic or Black, African American or Native American. And so that's 70%. 43% of our participants are female. We want to get to at least 50%. But when we look historically in these occupations, if you're looking at IT typically we are seeing, if you're lucky, if you approach 20%. So we really are proud of the efforts to make sure that we're fully inclusive and we're not leaving anybody behind. These jobs, these careers, they should be available to everyone.   Carol: This is super exciting. I'm always excited about what you guys are doing, but I love being able to share with our listeners across the country because I don't know when you all get a chance to speak at CSAVR and say all your really great things you're doing, but I like getting those seeds out to people early because it's cool stuff. So are you willing? I know you've been in the past. I know what the Rapid Engagement and number of people said, Oh, I reached out to Mark, I felt really bad. But again, if there's folks that are interested in reaching out about what you guys are doing on this, are you willing again to take an email or something? Or how should people best contact you?   Mark: Probably email would be the best because that way I will definitely see it. I think I probably spend 80% of my time staring at a screen, so the email probably be best. I try to get back to people right away. Any information, or if somebody wants to be connected with our business specialist or one of our partners, we actually have some really, really exciting partners that are working with us on us as well, and I'd love to connect people with them as well. We have our Stanford Neurodiversity Project is helping us in ensuring the individuals that are neurodiverse get the services and supports that they need, and the businesses that are employing them get the training so that the same thing with our UCLA Targin center, they're working with us to make sure individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities can benefit from the training and the supports that are available. And we also working with San Diego State University and like you mentioned, TCI Plus and SARA. So I'm happy to be a conduit and connect people. Or if anybody has any questions at all about our project or want to share some other, again, if people have ideas or you have other sector strategies out there also, we'd love to hear that because we're absolutely willing to steal and to take other people's ideas and incorporate them into our projects, because we know collectively, the VR program is so much smarter than any one individual State.   Carol: Very cool. So could you give us your email address?   Mark: Sure. It's. Mark dot erlichman e r l i c h m a n at d o r dot ca.gov again. So that's Mark.Erlichman@DOR.CA.gov.   Carol: Awesome. Mark, I really appreciate your time. I know you're one busy guy. I was so glad to get you for a few minutes. I really appreciate it and I'm hoping to circle back with you all, you know, closer to the end of the project. I'd really love to get an update and I'm sure you'll be like, we are like 1800 people and I know you guys, you're going to blow it out of the park. So I appreciate that. Thank you so much.   Mark: And we appreciate the compliments, appreciate the confidence, and as always, we really love your podcast. Love the resources and supports that you provide out to all of us. And I'm looking forward to hearing about the other projects as well. So thank you.   Carol: Well thanks Mark. Talk to you later.   Mark: Take care. Bye, Carol.   {Music} Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Welcome from Chad, Jon, Chris, Brad, and Mark Thank you Travis B, Wes N, Florian S, Hiemad E Annual Song! Chad-o-Fax We say nice things about Chad for awhile AMA  Farewell!

In this enlightening and comprehensive interview, we sit down with Mark Kreitzman, the General Manager of Ifani, to delve into the critical and often overlooked world of mobile security. Mark shares his personal journey into the realm of cybersecurity, providing valuable insights into the challenges and solutions in protecting our digital lives. Don't miss!

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. Buy the audiobook of ATHEOPAGANISM: An Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science at https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9798368952246-atheopaganism Preorder ROUND WE DANCE at https://llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738775364   S4E22 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca. Mark: And I'm Mark. Yucca: And today we thought that we'd come back to some of the practical, we've been talking a lot about philosophical ideas and things like that, and we thought, let's do something that is really more kind of hands-on. And it's been a long time since we've talked about creating sacred space. Mark: Right. And that. It's kind of the precursor to everything that we do in a ritual context, right? Is to set the table emotionally and psychologically for us to do the work of a ritual. So we thought that we'd come back to that and talk about it some more. Because it's kind of an elusive concept until you experience it and then you know what it feels like and it's easier to do the things that are needed in order to experience it again. Yucca: Right. Yeah, it is, it is really all about your experience of it and your experience of it's probably gonna be pretty different than somebody else's. I mean, there are some things that are fairly universal to us as a species but a lot of the associations, the things you're gonna be working with will be very personal. Mark: Right. When, when we talk about some of the things that are universal to us as a species, some of the things that contribute to that feeling of a sacred space are low light conditions, which tend to lead us to want to speak in hushed whispers which is probably a remnant of our desire not to be eaten in the dark, Yucca: Yes.  Mark: Flickering light like candlelight or firelight. Light. Yucca: Go on. I was gonna say rhythmic noises or the white rushing noises of water or things like that. Mark: yes, like the surf or waterfall or any of those kinds of things. The sense, particularly kind of rich the sense of incense or burning herbs can be associated with those kinds of things. So it's very sensory and historically, I mean, many of these techniques have been developed, cultivated, and really refined by, for example, the Roman Catholic Church and the, the Eastern Orthodox churches. They, they really know what they're doing. That architecture that leads your eyes to gaze way up and statuary where you're, you feel very small in relation to it. And the low light conditions and the incense and the, the Gregorian chanting going on that's got those beautiful rhythmic, trance inducing kind of qualities to it. All that stuff. And then Protestantism threw all that out. And I don't feel much when I go into a Protestant or say a a, a Mormon church, but I'm sure that people who follow those traditions do. Yucca: There's certainly been some experiences that I've had as a guest in some Protestant churches that, that felt like, like, yeah, wow. They're, they're, they're getting this ritual thing. Especially one that I think of as a, a Christmas Eve, one that I. Went to several years where they turned the lights down and everyone had a candle and was holding the candle up together and singing. I think it was like silent night that everyone was singing together and some of those real kind of iconic ones. So I, it's, it's not as common with the Protestant groups as we see with the Catholics, but, and I don't have. Any experience with Eastern Orthodox. A lot of experience with Catholics, so, but, but that's still done, right? I think it's something that humans want to do. Whatever our particular background is, we, I think we seek that kind of experience out. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: to a certain extent we do that with sporting events as well. I'm not a big sports person, but it, you know, when I watch other people involved in that and the rituals behind that, I go, oh wow. I recognize what you're doing. This is familiar. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. What, what I think of this as being like, is the creation of an emotional framework, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: That makes it possible for transformation to happen, right? Because ritual is a transformative process. we go into this trans state when the conditions are right, and then we do something that either feels like. You know, recognizing the seasons and connecting with nature or healing some wound that we've suffered previously, or aspiring towards, you know, confidence and competence as we pursue some goal. All of those are the kinds of things that that ritual can do for us. And of course in the case of theism, there's just that worship thing, right? You know, just getting into that state and then feeling very worshipful towards your, your God or gods. Which we don't do, but my guess is that the feeling is very, very similar to what I feel about the cosmos and the earth. The same kind of humble. Awe-inspired reverence, Yucca: Yeah, that would be my, my guess as well. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about how to create this space. Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. There are a lot of different pieces. That can go into this. I mean, we just threw out a whole bunch. There's actually a document, it, it's in my book as well the Ethiopia Paganism book that describes many of the different attributes that can go into the creation of sacred space and a ritual. The, but the primary ones to me in terms of. Moving into that state are a sense of safety and privacy. Yucca: Right. Mark: You're not gonna have people come barging in who aren't a part of the process. You're not gonna be mocked. Or attacked or any, any of that kind of thing. You, you, you feel a solidity in your place which enables you to open yourself up and become emotionally vulnerable. Yucca: which means that depending on your living situation where you're creating this space may be very different. Right. If you live by yourself in a three bedroom apartment, maybe you have a whole room that you dedicate to this or you live with a whole bunch of other people. You live in a family situation or a dorm situation, and maybe it's something that you do privately in the bathroom. Because that's the only place that you can have a little bit of time and space to yourself. And so how permanent or not the, your setup for the space is gonna be, is gonna depend on that kind of situation, Mark: Right, right. And places in nature are also very good for this. You just have to make sure that they're secluded enough that you're not gonna have people stumbling across you while you're doing your thing.  Yucca: And that you're safe with the other inhabitants of whatever that place is that you're in, right? That you've checked around. There's, there's no snakes hanging out that are right under the rock there, or you know, this isn't bear territory or something like that. Mark: Right. Yeah. So I mean the beach or the woods or the desert or You know, a, a mountaintop, all of those are wonderful places to do a ritual. And we do that, it helps us to do a symbolic declaration of the space, the most common one in Pagan. Spaces is the, the casting of the circle, right? Where, you know, there's actual movement. You go around the outside of the circle some cases with a knife or a sword, or a crystal or a feather or something, Yucca: Right. Sometimes you literally sprinkle people like to sprinkle like sands or salts or things like that as well. Mark: Right to create the psychological impression of a barrier Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: that protects your privacy and safety. Yeah. So those are, those are things that you can do to, to, to help to create that circumstance. I've, I've had experiences, well, I had one experience of this ritual group. This was when I first got involved with Paganism. It was probably like the second or third time I ever went to a ritual. And they, they were, they were way out in the country, but they actually tried to do a ritual on land that wasn't theirs. And I didn't realize this until later. And everybody was looking over their shoulders all the time and, There was no sacred space. There was no ritual state. There were, it was terrible because there was not that sense of safety and privacy. Yucca: So they were concerned that the, it was private land and that the. That somebody was gonna come and, and ask him, what, what are you doing here? Mark: Yeah. Hoo them away or, you know, shoot at them. Who knows? But so, so don't do that. You know, use public land or, Yucca: Just out of curiosity, was it like a really, like special spot in terms of like Mark: it was a, it was Yucca: like what. Mark: of a, a rise of a, of a grass covered hill that commanded a, an incredible view. For 360 degrees you could see for miles in, in all directions. Yucca: is curious, what would in, what would get somebody, what would inspire somebody to risk that Mark: Yeah, I'm, and, and, and how did the person that organized this discover it in the first place? I don't know. But yeah, it was a weird, it was a, a weird experience and it taught me a lesson that you can't do these things if you don't feel safe. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And so I think that reminds us when we are organizing Ritual to be really mindful about that kind of thing and the different needs of the participants in the ritual, right, because you're talking about feeling safe in terms of, you know, not knowing if you're gonna get kicked off or not, but there's also other forms of safety. There's the emotional safety that plays that, that is just as important when it comes to our experiences and how, how effective our rituals going to be to how do we actually feel about this. So if I don't, if I'm trying to do a ritual about self-healing or something like that, and I think I'm gonna get mocked, Or I'm worried about being judged by the person next to me, it's probably not gonna be as effective. I'm probably not gonna be able to get into that space. Mark: Right. Or if you're non-binary and all the invocations are gender essentialist, Yucca: Right. Mark: right? I mean, there are a variety of kinds of inclusion that we need. There's multiple axes of inclusion that need to be addressed as well as the kind of physical safety and emotional safety in relation to what's outside the circle. There's also what's inside. And we, and we wanna make sure that that is also facilitating of people feeling at ease and, and able to open themselves. Yucca: Right now in, in most cases though, it's probably gonna be just you on your own right? Or in a small group. But I think that we can, you can still kind of take that idea and think about it with yourself and how you might be feeling once you're in that space. Mark: Right, right. And there are techniques that you can use to bring yourself into a state of radical presence. So you're not thinking about, you're not worried about the future, you're not thinking about things that are going on elsewhere. You're not, you know, Obsessing about something in the past. You're just very, very present in doing what's right before you. And we were talking before we started to record. The use of the senses Yucca: Right. Mark: can be very helpful in that. Yucca: Yeah. So using that as a framework, thinking about the classical senses of, alright, so what, what am I seeing? What am I hearing? What am I smelling? What am I feeling? Perhaps maybe not in every case, but what am I tasting? If there's something involved with that, if you're drinking something or, or if there's a component that you're bringing in. And that's a really nice framework to use for setting up the space, either if it's a permanent space that you're setting up. Or if it's going to be a, a temporary moment, right? And just taking a moment to take those into account and then be a little bit more aware of them. That really just helps bring us to being really present in our, in our bodies while we're doing the ritual. Mark: Right, right. So let's say you're going to do a solo ritual and you go out in the woods and you find a place that's. Isolated enough that other people are not gonna be coming out there and you find a stump and you put a cloth over it and you build a focus, an altar, right, with symbols of the things that you want to do in this ritual. And it's aesthetically pleasing to you. You're looking at it, it's in the woods, which are beautiful. So there's this whole kind of drinking in with the eyes component. And you can hear the wind in the trees. Maybe you're near water so you can hear some of that babbling brook sound as well. There's the smell of the, the warm pine needles or oak oak leaves or whatever they are. You can augment that by lighting, maybe some frankincense and that sweet kind of temple incense scent. Begins to transport you into a more intentional, kind of focused space. I've, one of the things that I've used in group rituals is either a single sip of wine or a single semi-sweet chocolate chip for a taste in vocation. Sometimes in group rituals, they, they do what's called a purging, which is sprinkling with water, sometimes scented water. And what you usually do is you use a sprig of some kind of herb like rosemary to flick the water onto, Yucca: it in flick, dip flick. Yeah. Mark: right. And that sensory feeling on the skin. As well as the scent that comes from it also gives you that feeling of immediacy and being in your body and being right there present in the moment. Yucca: Right. And if you have the opportunity to taking your shoes off there and just feeling the forest floor between your toes or. Or leaning up against the tree and feeling the bark and the texture of that and just noticing the wind on your skin. And maybe, you know, tasting, we were talking about tasting with food, but you can taste the air too. Be careful about tasting plants that you don't know. Mark: Yeah. Don't do Yucca: Don't. But maybe if it was like a pine needle or something like that, that you're pretty confident about, you could get that intense taste there. But yeah, don't, don't go eating or putting random plants in your mouth. They're, the vast majority of them will not make you feel good. So, Mark: Right. So that is, those, those sorts of techniques are the things that we use to create what we call sacred space. It's a very It's a very pleasurable state to be in. I find it to be very reverent and anticipatory in a way. Like, you know, there's a, there's a sense that something wonderful is about to happen. It just lends a richness to ritual practices that that I just really treasure. So, I would invite you to experiment with different ways of inducing that sense of sacred space. Personally I like to live in a context that's very much not, not kind of the full on implementation, but. My room is decorated in a way that, you know, when I light candles, it's this very kind of, sort of place. And and I, I just enjoy that. It, it helps me to feel more of a richness in my life. You may feel the same, you may want to do something similar or you may have a little box that's your portable focus kit. You take that to wherever you create sacred space and do your work there, and both of those are perfectly great, Yucca: Right, and you don't need objects either. You can do all of it just with your, just with yourself, right? The, the tools are nice, but they're just that, they're just tools, right? Mark: And you have tools built into your body. You you have breath. Yes. Right. I have seen and experienced creation of sacred space just with a deep inhale and then blowing it out like a bubble. Just, and then there you are inside that, that bubble space safe and protected and, and and cared for protected. Yeah, I said that. So, you know, be aware of that. You don't have to have a lot of stuff. This, these techniques are really about working with our psychology and our bodies are able to do that on their own. Yucca: Right. Well, I think this is a good place for us to wrap up for today. But we do have a couple of announcements. So your book is ready for pre-order, right? Mark: It is my book round. We Dance Creating Meaning through Seasonal Rituals, which will be released next April, is now available for pre-order on the Luellen website. We'll put a link in the show notes. And I'm really excited about it. And apparently they are too. They say they really love the book. So I'm I'm psyched. It's kind of an outlier when you look at the the Luellen page. It's full of all kinds of supernaturalist stuff. But they're publishing mine too, and I'm delighted. I'm, I'm just so excited to be working with them and, and having this book come out. So that's one thing. Yucca: And we had a. Ethiopia, pagan Society Council meeting recently. And there will be a, what did you call it? A changing of the guard. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So I have been the chair for three years at this point. And I'm gonna be passing that on at this point. Still be on the council, but gonna step back from that chair position. So, Mark: Right. And John Cleland host has graciously agreed and been elected to take over that chair position. He was the vice chair, for those first three years. So he's taken that over. Michael O'Hara is our our vice chair now, Yucca: Who's been on the podcast several times, Mark: yes, he has. And Rachel, w and c went, are the other two officers? The the sec, the treasurer and the secretary, respectively. And then there's several other others of us like me who are members of the council but are not officers. Yucca: Right, But stay busy doing lots and lots of stuff. We have a lot of projects. There's lots of volunteering in different capacities and all of that, so, Mark: it's so exciting and every time somebody new comes on board as a volunteer, I just, I'm reminded all over again. Wow. What a great group of people. These are just so, they're so fun to hang out with and they're interesting and the conversations are great. And they're just so kind of Yucca: Just discreet people Mark: good-hearted people. Yeah. Yucca: and we always talk ourselves into more work. Every time we get together, here's a new idea that we, we've gotta do. Mark: That's true. Yucca: Yep. Mark: Well, since I am working now, I'm having to put some boundaries around that from what I've been doing before. But so far everything seems to be working out okay. I'm doing a rework right now on the Ethiopia and hymnal. Which is downloadable from the blog site. I'm adding a bunch of sheet music in and a bunch of new chants and songs. Yucca: Oh, and the audio book. Mark: Oh, right. Yucca: I think that that would probably be of interest to our listeners. Mark: I, in the last weeks before I started my new job. I realized that I wasn't going to have a big block of available open time anytime soon once I started the job. So I took a back burner project off the back burner, which was the recording of an audiobook of my first book, op, paganism and Earth Honoring Path Rooted in Science, and I recorded the audiobook and it is now purchasable from everywhere you get audiobooks except audible. Because Amazon, Yucca: Alright Well gimme a link and I'll put that in the show notes for people for your preferred location. Mark: I should let you know the main reason that I didn't go with Audible as well is that they have extremely restrictive licensing requirements that give them exclusive right to distribute the audio book for something like three years or something.  Yucca: Seven. Mark: is it seven? Could be. Yucca: yeah. Unless they've changed it recently. Mark: Well, I wouldn't imagine them changing it to improve it, so, yeah. Anyway, it's, Yucca: That might have been if you created it through the, their platform where you can hire a voice artist Mark: Oh, right, acx. Yucca: that might be what I'm thinking of, but, Mark: Yeah. But in any case, I wanted, I. Chirp and Libro FM and you know, all those different outlets to be able to sell the book. So now you can go to any of those kinds of places and find it online. Yucca: Well, that's great. Mark: Yeah, it was, it was a fun project to do. I had to lock myself in my room for several days and read the thing into a microphone, but now it's there. Yucca: Yep. Well, and that'd be great to have it in your voice too. I always really appreciate when the audio books are read by the author because you really get the, the meaning a little bit more just in the way that they say the sentences. Mark: I, I agree. And in this case, the whole story about how I came to Ethiopia, paganism is all in the first person, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: so it really wouldn't make any sense to have an some other narrator. It really kind of had to be mean. So anyway, it's in the can, it's up on the web, it's all, it's available now. So if you have a commute and want to read the book but don't have time or while you're working, whatever that's an a resource that's now available to you. Yucca: Yep. All right. Well, thank you, mark. Mark: Thank you Yucca. Always wonderful to talk with you and we'll see you next week.    

https://linktr.ee/nordicanimism https://shop.nordicanimism.com/shop/9-books-and-calendars/   Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E21 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we are excited to have Rune Hjarnø with us who is a thinker and podcaster and pagan animist Norse Animist coming to us from Scandinavia. So welcome Ro Rune: Thank you very much. Super happy to be here. Mark: Rune was suggested to us by one of our listeners who had been listening Toro's work and said that we could have a very interesting conversation. So we are here to have a very interesting conversation. Rune: Totally. Yucca: Yeah. Thank you for coming on. I'm really excited. So. Rune: thanks for having me. It's gonna be super interesting. Yucca: Yeah, do you wanna go ahead and start by just, you know, letting our listeners know a little bit about who you are and what your background and interests are? Rune: Yeah, let me, let me try yeah. My name is Rune I'm a Danish anthropologist of religion. And I, what I'm trying to do on my general platform, which is called Nordic Animism is that I'm trying to use indigenous knowledge scholarship and new animist thinking to look at our own cultural heritage as Euro ascendants because there's this weird assumption in our time that These are ways of thinking about our own culture that are only available if you belong to an indigenous colonized groups. And that assumption is there seemingly in popular culture and in scholarship and, and in all kinds of ways, in spite of the fact that what a lot of indigenous peoples are actually doing is that they're encouraging us as majority populations to start thinking like this about ourselves. But it's a difficult, for a number of reasons to do with cultural politics. It's a diff difficult step to take. So a lot of, not a lot of people are doing it. It's spite of the fact that indigenous knowledge is becoming a big thing. Anyway, so yeah. So that's basically what I'm doing. And I also feel that when I'm doing that I'm, I'm being brought through dealing with a lot of these problems of cultural politics because when you. When you look at, for instance, our culture as euron and people, and also the ways that our traditional culture has been sometimes co-opted then you are necessarily faced with issues such as well, racism, whiteness, the construction of whiteness, the rejection of animism actually as a part of construction of whiteness and these sort of things. So, and therefore it becomes a very, I think a very intersect intersectional work that is basically becomes a form of, of decolonizing. So yeah, and I'm then trying to do this to sort of bring this into popular spaces because one thing is that, you know, I can sit online and I can go blah, blah, blah in my highbrow, you know, academic language and nobody's gonna understand the stand a bloody thing, but what what actually. Or to come out of something like this is popular culture stuff that can be communicated to real people. Stuff that that can also attract actually real people. So, I've launched symbolism of totemic kinship with the world around us. I've written a book about the, the turning of the seasons and I've, yeah. Different, different projects like that. And then I'm continuously communicating on my channel. Yeah. Did that kind of sum it up or did I speak too lo too long? Yucca: No, that's great. And I have to say, I'm so excited to hear you talking about indigenous European cultures because so often the ideas that, that there isn't. And that that's the, that European is the opposite of indigenous, rather than seeing that there's indigenous all over the world, not just from specific groups. And I think that that's really valuable that you're bringing this to light. Rune: Thanks and I, I'll just add one little. Have it at there. And that is that when I'm talking about traditional European culture, I actually don't use the word indigenous. And the reason is that when we talk about indigenous peoples, we mostly talk, or we are generally talking about people who have been exposed to colonialism. That means that if you are in Wyoming and there's a group of Shoshone living there, you know, then when they can then the word indigenous, that to them, that's also a legal category. That it, it means access to fishing rights and land rights and hunting and access to funding, to first language teaching and all these kind of things that we don't need as majority populations. So what, so what I'm basically. This is just, I'm, I'm just saying this as, because this is an important little addition that, that is important to not actually when we talk about indigenous knowledge I mean, and I give you at some level you could call it indigenous knowledge, traditional knowledge, and in majority traditional knowledge and indigenous knowledge are basically the same kinds of knowledge, but the word indigenous is just a little bit touchy. And it's touchy for the indigenous people. So it's important to sort of, move around it a little bit. But like, I, I, I definitely get you a sentiment. We need to be able to speak about our our own heritage in exactly the same, or with those categories that, you know, authors like Robin Kimara and these kind of people are using to understand their culture. Mark: Yes. Yes. I, I think the, the first thing that strikes me as, as you speak is that we are definitely on the same page from a value standpoint. You know, we're, we're very, very adamant about the need for decolonization and the the importance of indigenous and traditional understandings of the nature of the world of development, of reciprocity in our ecological relationships, all of those kinds of values. So, I, I think maybe that's a good place to start from. Our work has been in building community around a science rooted. Understanding of the nature of the world, but a transformation of the value system that informs the way society operates. And it sounds like at least the transformation part of it is very similar ru to what you, you are focusing on. Rune: Totally. And I think I would probably also say the science routing. I'm, I'm not a natural scientist. I'm, I'm, More of a historical religion, anthropologist type. But but I don't perceive and this may be where we differ, I'm not sure, but I don't perceive necessarily a contradiction between, for instance religious languages or animist mythologies, a way of understanding the world and a scientific way of understanding the world. If you look at how an animist mythology, for instance, is typically structured, then you'd find that there are, it's. It's not one package, it's not one worldview that some people kind of buy into. And then to kind of adopt that whole thing as if they're in installing a new operative system on a computer. It's more like a, a, a jumbled up toolbox with a lot of kind of stuff lying in it. And, and then you can use it in different ways and it's kind of combined in different ways for different purposes. And some of these different tools can be contradictory and they can be radically contradict, contradictory. So the same, for instance, animist way of talking about, say, deities can be contradictory from one ritual situation to the next. And this also count, this counts on many levels in religious practices. So if you have a scien, a scientific perception of the world, then in a sense that's also just one toolbox. So if you move out of the, the, the monolithic. Ways of understanding the world that have characterized Abrahamic traditions particularly Christianity where, you know, there's ki there's kind of one worldview and you have to buy into that if, if you, when, when, and I think that would be a pagan step to move out of that. And then science just is just this incredibly beautiful, powerful, deep knowledge system, which in itself is like a web of, of, of roots that, that come from all kinds of different places in the world and kind of come together in, in Occidental science. And then, then that, that does not necessarily need to be in any conflict with creating tali talismans and seagulls and stuff like that, for instance. Yucca: Absolutely. Yeah. Mark: and we do all that stuff. Rune: Yeah. Mark: yeah. And I mean, we understand it as influencing ourselves at a psychological level and transforming our perspective on the world. We've been talking about animism and throwing the word around a lot, and I think it might be valuable for us to visit what we mean by that. I just wrote a blog post this week about naturalistic animism, and I think that one of the things about the, the traditional western colonizers view of animism is that it is a supernatural idea that there, that a rock has a soul in it. And I think that's a very dualistic, very Christian informed way of understanding animism. I see animism as being about what are, what is my relationship with the rock? Do I relate to the rock as a person or do I relate to the rock as an inanimate thing that I can exploit? And that's, that's kind of my take on, on a naturalistic approach to animism. What, what do you think animism is and how does it Rune: I agree and with some of what you say, but not all of it. I think the relationship is absolutely foundational to animism and in a sense, I think that the relating with the rock is more foundational than if there is any sort of faith or belief in whatever figure that lives inside the rock. Like, be and, and that's because the relationship is important. So if you, if you look at how, for instance, new animist theory and, and also the philosophers who are doing panist thinking and all these things. When, when you look at these ways of thinking, then being becomes predicated on relating, I, I relate where, where Decart, the kind of quintessential modernist thinker would say, I think therefore I am. So the world is enclosed in the human thinking space. The, the animist position would, would be, I relate or we relate, therefore we are, and that means that, so that, but, but if, if I should tie that to what you say with supernatural, then in a sense it's, it's extremely sort of, mundane. Like we are we are in a relation right now and we're trying to understand each other and we are sitting in different continents and, you know, we, we have different positions and it's interesting and blah, blah, blah, that defined, but there's also an exchange of value between us. You have a podcast, I'm coming on your podcast. Perhaps some of my followers would go over there and the other way around. And so there's an exchange going on in that, in the relation that we are in right now, our subjectivities are defined in that, in this encounter that we are in now, our subjectivities are defined by that, right? So the con the current perception of a lot of anthropological scholarship would be that, that this relation is inhabited by subjectivity. So subjectivity is not only inside our minds or inside our brains, it's actually in our relation. Now, that means that when the inu eat are relating with the C, which is an all life defining factor in Inuit life, then their relation with the sea is inhabited by subjectivity. That sub subjectivity, that inhabits, that relating, that is the, the, the sea mother sna, the inwar, they would call it the inwar, the relational subjectivity of the sea. So, and whether that should be called supernatural or not, I'm not really sure, but like. I'm not, actually, I'm not really sure about the word supernatural, if it's because it, it, I think it has a heavy, heavy baggage somehow. But an Inuit shaman can actually interact with Sedna, the sea mother, and thereby engage that subjectivity that inhabits the the relation between a group of Inuit and the sea. And that's the same with a stone or with, if, if you have a farmstead in Northern Europe 200 years ago, the stone could be kind of a relational hub for the way that the people in that farm state relates to their land. So it becomes inhabited by, I'm not sure what the word would be in English, but these sort of g like or elf like beings that would typically work as a patron spirit protecting specific farm. Or ensuring basically the positive and mutually giving reciprocal relating between that group of people and the agrarian life sustenance that they are living with and living from. Yucca: So that that spirit would be the relationship itself. Am I understanding correctly? Rune: Yeah. Or the subjective, the the subject, the subjective relationship. Yeah. So, and this is sometimes called the individual. So we are individuals from a moderna's perspective that there's an inside us with. But if you take away the, the, the in Yucca: Mm-hmm. Rune: then we are evi right now because we are producing relating with each other from Yucca: delightful word. Rune: Yeah, it's a lovely word, isn't it?  Yucca: that. Rune: And. Mark: Yeah. Rune: And then what many animists would would say, or animist thinkers would say that that that divi is a central purpose of religion, basically. And that it individuates a relation. So if you have a Santa Priestess who's being possessed by the storm, gods ysa and she's dancing around, then that human being is dividing ysa in a number of ways. One of them is portraying Younga. People see younga in front of their eyes dancing. Another part of the dividuation is that she's initiated, she's crowned as a San Priestess, so, so there's deep mystical individuations that are connected with that and that whole thing. But it's basically about producing. Relating and, and ch challenging that subjective relating into the world. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Rune: that make sense? Am I, Mark: it. It, oh, it absolutely does. Yeah. It, it, it absolutely makes sense. And that this, this focus on, on the relationship, as I said, I think is very core to the at least to my idea of animism. And so the, the question about the reality of the, the gnome elf figure doesn't really even enter into it. It's, it's not, you know, because this is all subjectivity. It objectivity is not, is is not a part of that model. It's all about what do you see? What do you think about it, and how do you feel in relation to it? Rune: Yeah. Something like that. I would say that the reality or the what, what, you know, post-Christian, it's called the belief in the el that that is it's secondary to the relation. Like if, if you, if you say you have a shamanic perception and you could and you, you bring yourself into a trance and you speak to the elf and you ask the elf so what would you prefer the most? Would you prefer that I cultivate an abstract transcend belief in your transcendent existence? Or would you prefer a ball of porridge? The, the elf is gonna prefer the ball of porridge because that is act that is an actual exchange of of material. And the what, what you could almost call the revelation of that relationship is. That is core, I think, to producing an animist way of being in the world. So that's not only you giving the ball of porridge to the stone that is perhaps inhabited by a stone ina or an elf or what we can call it. But it's also then perceiving the gift being given back from the world now that then you are in a reciprocal relationship with the world around us. Mark: Yeah, and, and it's that, you know, a as you say, as with Robin Wall Kemmerer and you know, writers like that, it's that reciprocity that is so important the. And, and the hardest, I think for us, as, you know, modern Westerners to get our minds around because we are taught as Christianity teaches that the world is essentially inanimate and it's a pile of resources here for us to mine. And that is the diametric opposite of what we're talking about here. Rune: Exactly. Mark: you know, the, the idea that, that we can't just dig a hole in the ground and take minerals out and then leave the hole is completely foreign to the way capitalism works. Rune: exactly. Exactly. And. If you look at how traditional knowledge and tales and traditional knowledge and folklore and the like they actually express and analyze the rupture of these relationships in euros and populations. So, and you see this in a, like, in a wide kind of array of tales, like the most monumental in northern Europe is the Ragner rock, which is the, basically the collapse of the relational cosmos in this kind of e eco cosmos, social complete crashing. Now, some of the scholars who have been working on the Ragnar Rock, they say that this. Myth may have occurred or may have, may have been inspired by the experience of climate change in Northern Europe in the, the mid sixth century. And often when people are relating mythology to natural history events, you should always be a little bit cautious because sometimes it's just like weird, oh shit. But but this exact example the, the emergence of this myth and this event, they're actually historically very close to each other. It's a couple of hundred years, and the event was cataclysmic. It ba in Scandinavia populations collapsed. And there would've been complete social breakdown. So it was a very, very violent event. And what happened was basically that it was a global cooling that lasted I think four or five years and. In Northern Europe, that global, global cooling just meant that summer didn't come for a, a, a, a short period for, for a couple of years. And if you're living in an agrarian subsistence, agrarian community, then that just means that everybody's gonna die. And which is what you see that happened in some areas of Scandinavia. So, so anyway, so, so, when you look at the Ragnarok myth, what you see is that it's, it's very much a myth about loss of connectivity. So the main spark of the myth is a, a divine FRA side. There's God brothers who are killing each other. And then what happens is that the relations between the guards, kind of the forces of order and social coherence and the yna, the giants, the. Forces of nature who are related in all these problematic and crazy and fertile ways, and Nordic mythology, that relation crashes completely. And then they start behaving like Christian angels and demons and basically going into like the state of cosmic total war. So that's perhaps the most iconic tale of losing animist kinship. But you find them by all the way down to today. You see that fairy tales and different stories are sort of this struggling, but also people's experiences. Some farmer, you know, walking up a home from his fields and then he meets a little, meet a little group of elves and they're leaving. So he asked them, why are you leaving? And he, they say, there's too much noise here and too many church bells, so we are moving to Norway. Something like that, you know? And and that is of course a traditional knowledge perspective of basically ruptured relation because this relational subjectivity, which are these Ls that are, that is sub subjectivity, inhabiting human being, human relating with the land, that when that is torn, then that can be experienced as the elves packing, packing their bags and, Mark: Or, or as the magic going away, Rune: Yeah. Mark: which is another, you know, repeated trope in many, many stories about how there used to be magic. You know, we, we used to have, you know, this relationship, right? And now it's drained away, it's gone. And many of those stories are actually specific about Christianity driving the magic away, Rune: Yes. Yes. There, there there's a tension. There's a tension. Like I, I'm not, I'm, I'm generally, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to not, you know, go into this sort of Christianity bashing and all those  Mark: Uhhuh.  Rune: but but there is a tension. The, there's a tension between and sometimes it's, it is pretty intense, like, churches in the landscape in Northern Europe, the, if they're big stones lying in the landscape, then typically people, local people would say it was trolls who were throwing the stones at the churches and all when they were building the churches. So there's almost like a conflict between the, the churches and the, and the landscape itself. Mark: Hmm. Hmm. Yucca: So one of the expressions that I've heard you use a few times is new animism. So how does new animism differ from our understanding of some of the traditional forms? Or what does that mean when you're speaking about new animism? Rune: animism that is a little bit of. It's a scholarship position more than it's a kind of a religious position out in the world. May, but things are also related. But when, when I say new animism, it's because anim, like animism was invented by actually the guy who invented anthropology and cultural scholarship. A guy called Edward Burnett Tyler, who was this sort of Victorian British armchair scholar. And he. Invented cultural evolutionism in which people are first living in these barbers, state of superstition, where they are animist, infantile animists. And, and, and, and that was, that was, that was what he thought of animism. And then you then he kind of developed how humans would develop on gradually improving stages until they became almost like, Victorian, England English people of his own time. Exactly, exactly. That, that was a paradigm for, for the end of history. So, so, so that was, and, and at that point, the idea of animism was just that everything is sort of animate. However up through the 20th century there was the, the, the most progressive anthropologists were the American School of Anthropology, who were at a very early point starting to be permissive to other other cultures, cultural realities and saying, okay, so there are different cultural realities and perhaps they're equally good. And there was a guy named, oh shit, I forgot his name right now. Oh damn. Really important guy whose name I should be able to remember at any given point of time who went and, and learned from the the Jiwei Irving, hallow Hallowell was his name. Yucca: Okay. Rune: So he went and and started learning the philosophy of jiwei indigenous Americans in, in the Great Lake areas. I think he went into Canada a little bit. And he, I think he was the first who was kind of saying, well, he was looking, he was looking at their, their language and saying that they have different grammatical categories and some of these categories indicate animated personal beings. And some of them are like what we talk about. If I talk about this book, then the word book is in, in English is, is just an it, you know. And he noticed that what was called animate and inanimate by the Ojibwe was different. So Stones, for instance, and thunder and number of different things were adamant to the Ojibwe. And he started developing this language where he was like, okay, so these are people, they have a different philosophy about what, where, where there's personhood and where there isn't. So from that came. New animist thinking, which is kind of relieved from or dealing with the this bigoted evolutionist heritage of seeing animist as a animism, as as something inferior. And today, the, this has then become the whole position where where the, the, the understanding of what animism is and how it works is, is then updated. For instance, animism is incredibly complex. It's not infantile at all, and it's certainly not primitive. It's many societies that have animist knowledge systems in them. not something necessarily that children practice, it's something that elders practice. It's something that it takes lifespans to, to understand that at, at a, at a very high level. So, so, so yeah. So that's sort of what's in, in new animism. Yucca: Mm. Thank you. Mark: Thank you for explaining that. Yeah, that's good. So, you mentioned before we started recording that that you sort of take issue with the atheism of our movement or that you have questions about it or whatever that is. So I thought that I would raise that topic and we could discuss it. Rune: I've been sort of thinking about it, kind of atheism. Atheism. No, I, it, it ki I think my, sort of, my, my question. Kind of springs from the whole idea of decolonizing if we have what is called the modern epistemology, like the, the epistemology is the perception, how we perceive the world. Then the modern fundamental to the modern epistemology would be a seclusion between human subjectivity and personhood. An agency which is inside our skulls, and then the, the dead outside. And I can't help seeing an and i atheism as perhaps related to that and that therefore co like actual actually practicing a a decolonizing would be. To say, okay. But subjectivity and agency is not only inside humans goals, it's also, it is something that inhabits the world in a, in a wider in a wider sense. It's something that inhabits our interactions and perceptions in a much wider sense. And yeah, I just had, I just had tr part of my, my problem was to that I have, I have tr, I have trouble reconciling that with, with an, with an atheist position. Mark: Hmm. Yucca: I can certainly say that for my part, my perception of the outside world, I. Is, I don't think that that necessarily reflects my idea that there's this dead outside world, the living me, but rather seeing self as part of this larger system. I'm coming from the perspective of, of an ecologist looking at, you know, my body is an ecosystem that is an open system and things are coming in and going out. I don't see the need to have a, a, a deity or a God or a conscious spirit that needs to be there for me to be part of a, of a living vibrant world. Rune: Makes a lot of sense. Mark: Yeah, that's well said. I, I feel very much the same. Yeah, because yeah, that hard line between the, the inner living world and the outer dead world is definitely not something that I embrace at all. To me it's all living. Right. But because, but just because it's living doesn't necessarily mean that it's conscious or that it's animated by something that one could actually at some point identify and measure. You were talking about toolkits before and I think that it's, it's y part of what we do as Ethiopia, pagans, and, and naturalistic pagans is we understand that in the context of the symbolic world, we suspend whatever disbelief we might have in, in the, the literal reality of supernatural phenomena in order to have a symbolic, metaphorical, psychological, emotional, impactful experience. And that is what brings me into deep relation with the rest of the world. Did that make Rune: Cool. Yes, it does. However, when you are focusing on psychology, then psychology is a space that is characterized by being. Inside human human minds and, and what I would, I don't know fear or my, I think my, my question would then be, if it's psychology, I, you then actually extending that perception of, of personhood to the world, or, I does. Because like when you speak to a lot of, say, scholars today, often psychologies would, or psychology would be a language where, for instance, mythology can be given a space. But that actually maintains the, the the the enclosure. Try to compare this with. With I had this debate with, with a friend of mine who also he was criticizing the literalist idea of mythology. So he was saying, he was talking about, I, I believe Irish mythology, and he was saying, but who, who, who would believe such an grotesque idea as if Ireland were literally plowed with the, the fertility guard dog does penis in a right. And yeah, innocent. But what if you, if we think about relation, if we take relationships as our, our fundamental way of thinking about these things then, and we understand if we understand the plow that the farmer is using when he's plowing his land as imminent with. Dha. See then, then when, when it's imminence, if we understand the the materiality of the plow as n n not as culturally imbued with, but in the materiality, DDA is there right then, then we have actually, then we have crossed out of the modern paradigm and into a this enchanted perception of the world. And I think we, like, I think that is the step, the, that, that's where it becomes real in a sense. And, and there, there, there's a number of co contemporary philosophers and, and, and thinkers who make that, that, that enchanting possible. Bruno Laur the sometimes they call it the ontological turn thinking or the Cambridge School, and they're so difficult to read that it's almost, it's almost impossible to understand what they're saying, but which, which is part of a I think it's, I think it's part of a safeguarding strategy because if you wanna say that ELs and g nos are real, then it's, it's, it's then, you know, scholars are gonna, you know, it's much, much better to say, well, relational ontologies are possible on the basis of you know, concatenated hops of individual re networks or something like that. You know, then people get, get busy nodding and looking like they are trying to look like they look clever, right? But but the idea of imminence that, for instance that that objects act chairs, Invite us to sit on them balls do hold strawberries, they act. And the, the example with plow and DDA would, in that sense be a, a imminent in that sense. Damn, it's, it's difficult for me to to, to get to these things. But does, does it make sense my, Mark: It, it, it Rune: questioning. Mark: it, it does make sense. I do see it somewhat differently, and some of that is because my understanding of the way humans relate with the world is that we create a model of the world in our minds. And we re and we relate to that. We, we perceive, we receive perceptual input, we filter that and massage it, and in some way invent it to some degree. And then, you know, so, all right, I receive all this input and I filter it and I decide what it is. And okay, there it is. There's, there's the bowl, right? And so I can relate in a, in an I vow sort of way with the bowl whether or not the bowl actually has any sort of supernatural el or metaphorical, symbolic, literal nature. Rune: Yeah, Mark: And it's, it's about what's on me to enchant the world. And us as a culture to develop the habits of enchanting the world. So that's, that's how I look at it. And I, I, I mean, I think the way that you look at it is, is perfectly legitimate and useful. It's just, I don't look at it quite the same way. Rune: but I think, I think, I think what you say there makes a lot of sense. Like, and it's important to, to, I might also be hashing it out in a little bit extreme. Terms here, because of course, humans do create models of the world, and we are imaginary beings that we have this capacity of, for instance, imagining stuff that doesn't exist already. And then by this insane capacity of projection, we are able to, to create stuff in the world that, that no other creature is, is capable of. And, and that capacity is in a sense, I think related to also the story of Dhada and all this. However, when you are then talking about the bowl and you're talking about. What its literal external nature is then what you're doing, I think, is that you are actually, you're reaching across the divide and you're talking about it in this, what can't would call the ding, the, the, you're talking about it in itself as, as completely detached from human perception. And and I I would say that that is probably so difficult to talk about that, that we almost can't. So perhaps there only is a cultural reality available, and then enchantment becomes then it kind of becomes a, a question of do we want a boring, interesting a boring uninteresting reality? Or, or do we want a reality where, you know, We have sex on rock car rings and dance around meadows and wear their elves and trolls and, and stuff like that is enchantment. It becomes more of, of a kind of enchantment or no enchantment than a, a question about that. There isn't exterior truth that defies in. Gentlemen, oh man, I feel I'm have trouble speaking in state terms here. Mark: No, you're, you're absolutely making sense. The place where I think we may differ is that, I find the world as revealed by science to be utterly enchanting. It is miraculous the nature of the universe. It is so inspiring and wonder and humility and awe and inspiring that I feel that without that, even without populating it, with those kinds of figures, I can still just be in this kind of open-hearted wondering, loving relationship with the nature, with the world itself in a way that demands that I have reciprocal relationships with things rather than rather than object, defy relationships with things. And so, you know, that may just be the path by which I got here. Which was through a lot of science. But yeah, I mean that's, that's the world that I inhabit is just, you know, that this world is just knocked down, drag out amazing. And I still want to dance around stones and have sex on beaches and all that kind of stuff. Rune: No, man. Thanks for that. That, yeah, that's, it's, it's, it's beautiful. And I totally, I totally follow what you're saying. I think, I think science is, is an incredibly beautiful and powerful way of looking at the world. And, and it has. And part of, I think part of what I'm, what fascinates me with science is that it, it has a trickster nature. Science, that thing about always questioning things. That thing about always being critical and being inherently critical of power, for instance. And also being playful proper science. Like a lot of contemporary scholarship, you know, a lot of contemporary cultural, cultural and social scholarship. It isn't playful for shit. It's just boring ass. They should, they should, yeah. They should do something else, like pick strawberries or something. But but but, but scholarship when it's real science, when it's real, it has a playful or in it. And and that's something that, that that yeah. But I then what I also think is that if we talk about atheism then I would say that if we look at research, history, history, It's probably a very fairly brief bleep in the history of science that science have understood itself as particularly atheist. And today with, for instance, new animus scholarship and these things, it's kind of, we're kind of, we're kind of moving theves back into the beauty of the scientific perception, so, Mark: Well that's, that's interesting. I mean, one of the reasons that. I mean, science is young for one thing, science other, other than just sort of the standard trial and error that leads to discovery, which all people have always done the  Yucca: in our instinctual way of understanding the world. Right. But  Mark: but formalized, the scientific method is only a few hundred years old and during most of that time, there has been a domination by Christianity mostly in the West, such that you couldn't actually say that you were an atheist, whether you, you whether your work pointed in that direction or not. So I think that, you know, the liberty, I mean, to be honest, it wasn't really until Richard Dawkins and the, you know, the four horsemen who I have many problems with, let me. Say to start with many problems. But it wasn't until they started standing up and saying, yes, we're atheists at the end of the 20th century, that it really became sort of more acceptable for a part of the population to start to express that. So it's new. It is. It's, it's a new thing. But when you look like at ancient Greece, there were people that were questioning whether the gods existed in any meaningful sense. Yucca: And I Rune: you, and you. Yucca: oh, I was just gonna say that I think that the, the common perception of what atheism is, is dominated by that very recent, very vocal and kind of, very negative kind of, no, no, no take on the world instead of a, a yes. Embracing take on the world. Mark: Yes. Rune: I wanna add one specific perspective to the to the understanding of history of religions in relation to this. And that is that if you look at the history of religions of Europe, then you have what you call like, normative knowledge forms. And and then what you also have is a. Considerable space of rejected ways of knowing all kinds of ideas that have been there through history, and they gone in all. And, and that's what's sometimes called esotericism. So Esotericism is this label that basically sort of gives an umbrella term for all the weird shit that's been happening for the last 2000 years outside of the normative knowledge hierarchy. So all the Astrologies and the Kabbalah and the spiritists and the, the philosophers and all that stuff, that, all that stuff is, is esotericism. And when you look at European history, a lot of a a lot of is, people are always like when we talk about intellectuals, that there will always be this sort of at least a kind of a consciousness that. Esoteric, non-normative ways of knowing are there, but sometimes also direct practice. I think that Darwin was an esoteric I think that a lot of the and I don't remember, I think he was Alchemist or something like that, and practicing some  Yucca: Newton certainly was. Rune: Newton new. Sorry. Yes, you are. You are, you are right there. That was the important name I was looking for. No Darvin yeah, that was a different story with him. But I think that that part of the, like if you look at the last 150 years is that, that I think in the eight late 19th century, you started having positivism. If I remember correctly. And that's sort of where you get the very strong split between or where science starts to see itself as in some sort of opposition to other ways of of thinking. And yeah, like, the there, there was an old Icelandic professor at the University of Coing in and my old professor remembered him from his student years. And he had, had, he had had this this Christmas lecture about gnomes and that was early 20th century. And as these sort of learned, super white scholars were sitting there and they were listening to him and he was talking about gnomes, at some point, they, it, it dawned on them that, That he he believed in grunes and he told about how he had met them when he was a, he was a child and these kind of things. And so that was sort of the, a, a clash between an early 20th century scholar from ICE Iceland, which is a bit of a particular story in these things. It's a little bit of kind of a insular bobble in in some respects. And in Copenhagen they were like, but, but about, about this Icelandic professor talking about G norms. But yeah. Yucca: Well, one of the things before we started recording that you had mentioned was that I'm trying to figure out how quite how to word this but you're very interested in to today and some of the political implications of some of the work that you're doing. Is that something you wanna speak to a little bit? Rune: Yeah, it's, I mean, when, when I started working on Nordic animism, I well, I knew all the time that it was important and that it's something that you can, like, you can never, you turn your face away from it, you have to look it straight in the eye, just all the time. I just, the word these words, Nordic Norse, Viking stuff, you know, all that kind of stuff, it just has a load of having been co-opted by all kinds of, Horrid political movements and, but it's actually deeper than not just that, like, it's not just hillbillys who are, you know, driving around in pickup trucks with guns and calling themselves some militia and waving Thor hammers and these kind of things. It, it's, it's, it's on, I think it's on deeper layers of our self image and, and self perception as people racialized as white and and yeah, and, and I, I, I feel that I'm getting new realizations of this more or less all the time. No, not all the time, but, but often reckon with a certain regularity that that when you are thinking with Euro traditionalism, then. Then it's just there. For instance, I, I think that today I think that that whiteness is almost like shaved, like a ball just talking about balls. It is almost as if whiteness is shaped a little bit like a ball. So if you wanna move out of it, then you come close to the borders and then it intensifies and scares you back in. So if you wanna if you wanna basic, yeah. Basically move out of the, the whiteness complex, then you're gonna have to start looking to Euro traditionalism. And as soon as you come in contact with that, you, you will start seeing ruins and. May Pires and stuff that has been co-opted by Nazis or other nasty people. So, so that, and that is sort of a, an inherent paradox, which is a condition for working with these things if you're a white person. And realizing that that paradox, realizing the nature of it and, and starting to cope with it, is an important feature. So that's one rea fairly reason realization. I also encounter policing actually where most non-white peoples would be like, well, decolonizing white people. What's not to like and what took you guys so long? Then scholars, white scholars, they, they often have this sort of they, they, they don't like that whole idea. And and, and then they often frame it as, oh, there's an inherent potential for nationalism in what you're doing. Or something like that, you know? And which there might be, there might be, and I'm fucking dealing with that all the time. And, and in the dealing with it, That's when the stuff becomes very applicable actually for, for thinking about how to be a respectful, kind, contemporary human. So today there are actually I'm familiar with two, perhaps perhaps even three, like systematic programs that use Nordic animism thinking for Deradicalizing right. Extremists in, in prison systems and, and these kind of things. So, so, so, so you see that, I think that when you're moving close to some stuff that feels dangerous and feel problematic, then you're also finding the solu, you're finding solutions on that path. Mark: Hmm. Hmm. It, it's, it's interesting as, as I listen to you, because what you say makes absolute sense to me in the context of Europe. In the United States, it's a little different because here we are in this completely colonized place, and many of us, like, you know, I've, I've had my d n A study done. I'm English, English, English, English, English. Nobody ever stepped out of their lane. And actually, you know, even married an Italian for God's sake. And, but my people have been here for 400 years. I have no ancestral or familial memory of any kind of tradition from England. And so my approach has been I need to create this anew. I need to, I n I need to start from values. Values like inclusiveness and kindness and you know, those compassion, those kinds of values reverence for the earth. And then from there, build a practice which can draw on some of the symbols and and, you know, folkloric practices like maypoles and things like that, but is fundamentally about not stealing from the indigenous people of this place. And instead creating my own understanding of a sacred landscape that I inhabit, that I can share with other people that derive from the same kind of lineage that I do. And with everybody else who wants it. I mean, you know anybody who wants it, but I understand that people who have been marginalized, they probably want to reach back to their ancestry, right. And pull that forward. I really don't, I, I don't feel a kinship with England. So it, it, it's just, I, I'm just struck by the difference. I don't have any firm fast conclusions about it. I just, it, it is a d a different experience. Rune: No, I think, I think what you're doing is probably very important and, and give like, like I. I'm kind of operating in this field where, where as an old world, I sometimes feel a little bit like a target for sort of old world nostalgia and these kind of things. I'm probably wearing a kilt and speaking all Gaelic all the time and all these things. But but what I actually think is that, that over there in Turtle Island, the cultural situation is such an intense mix of and, and it's as if the, the problems of our age are intensified on your side of the pond. The fact of, of living on genocided land in a highly cre and cre realiz culture. With the, the, the descendants of, of victims of colonization in your living space, probably every single day. Maybe not for all of you, but for many of you probably, right? And also immersed in, I I I perceive Americans as very immersed in ideological structures that are that are sort of connected with the problem. Now, that means, I think that means that, that the, the real answers in a sense are, are, are, are gonna probably come from, from America and, and, and stuff like what you are doing when you're thinking like this, mark. I think it's beautiful and, and it's, and I think it has an aspect of. Playfulness in it to say, Hey, I've been listening a little bit to your, your, your podcast and how you are thinking with different things, and you also like playing with seagulls and, and, and have been working on wheels of season like me and these sort, sort of things. And I think that playfulness will be an important voice in producing the answers that will bring us to a to a a decolonial future. I also think that one question that I meet a lot and which you also touch a little bit here is the question of cultural exchange. And I think that the ways that people have been talking about cultural exchange in American spaces in the last couple of years have a, have a problematic aspects. When we are not allowed to or when, if, if all cultural exchange is universally cri criticized at as cultural appropriation for instance, that is an essentially nationalist idea, which I've tried to criticize it which is difficult because you also have minorities. Who have been sitting there and their traditional culture has been completely overrun with like swarms, like locusts of white hippies. And they've been giving statements like, please stay away from our traditional spirituality. And of course, when that is the case, then that makes things fairly easy. You stay away. That's the respectful thing to do. But but there's also stories that, that I'm hearing a lot and I'm hearing 'em sort of in direct personal ways and that I'm not seeing so much in public space. And that is stories about mors who are perhaps in very, they're perhaps white Americans or Canadians, and they're in very deep and respectful rela learning relationships with, for instance, indigenous elders. Now, if that's the case, then that transfer of knowledge, if there is a teacher present, Then that knowledge is legitimate. Because if you wanna challenge that knowledge, then you're challenging the legitimacy of the teacher. And that is a, is, is a that can very easily be a colonizing practice. If you say, no, no, no, that Arapahoe elder there, he doesn't have the legitimacy to teach a white kid how to give tobacco to a stone because that's cultural appropriation or something like that. Then you're actually challenging the, the, the author, the ownership of the Arapaho elder. See what I'm saying? Mark: Yes, Rune: So, so, and, and I, I think, yeah. So anyway, I just wanted to mention that because you mentioned appropriation now. I think it's, it's important that, that the, the way that we are thinking about cultural exchange is, is is relieved from. What I think is, is a bit too unambiguous condemnation in, in the appropriation discourses. Mark: I, I really agree. It's, it's nuanced and Americans are not good at nuance. We, we just, we really are not, we're very, very black and white thinkers, most of us. And you know, a lot of good and bad, and usually we are good and somebody else is bad, and it's, it's an unhelpful way to approach the world. But certainly, I mean, if I were welcomed into a space where an indigenous person wanted to teach me some aspect of their culture, I would feel given permission absolutely entitled to incorporate that into my practice. I wouldn't feel entitled to teach it but I would feel entitled to incorporate it into my practice. That hasn't happened to me yet. So, Rune: But if you, if you, if you were part of that practice for 25 years and and then the person said, now you are a teacher. Mark: well then, yeah, Rune: You see? Yucca: But we run into the tricky problem of the outside perception and other people trying to gate keep that. And, and it's just such a very, it's a very raw, it's like when you, when you've been wounded and it hasn't healed yet. And there's just so many feelings and the nuance and it's, it's really, it's something that we, you know, we are just grappling with all the time. And I think that there's in certain directions that, you know, the pendulum swung really far in some ways, but it's not just one pendulum, right? There's so many pendulums going in every single direction at once, and you're just trying to sort through all of this generational trauma and guilt, and it's just a really heavy topic. Rune: No, thanks for that. Thanks for that. You okay. That was, that was really well said. And, and I sometimes also feel a little bit like an elephant in a porcelain shop when I'm, I'm, I'm talking to Americans about these things because I'm sitting on this side of the pond. And when you're interacting with Americans specifically, you, you get the feeling that, that, because these things are so intense, then you're talking to people where every single individual is on an MA level in, you know, critical race studies. Be because it, because, because it's so intense. Or, and that also means that, you know, I need to be a little bit careful when I'm kind of throwing out my state. Ah, come on. You guys need to calm down a little bit on the, on the, on the critical,  Yucca: it's good to have an outside perspective too, though, right? It's very valuable to hear that. And just hear w you know, what it looks like from the outside because we don't see ourselves from the outside. We just see ourselves in the midst of it going, oh, my ancestors murdered and raped my other ancestors. And you know, I don't know what you are feeling. And you're feeling and everybody's angry at each other. And you know, sometimes it's good just to have that outside perspective going, Hey, this is what I see from the outside, you know, Mark: and particularly in the United States, we have been so adamant about denying our responsibility for the Gen, the American genocide, the enslavement of Africans. We're still denying those things, and to the degree that in right wing states, they're banning teaching about them. And what that means is that because we won't acknowledge the wound, we can't heal it, and. And so the, the subject becomes very, because it's an open wound, it's very sensitive, you prod at it at all. And immediately people have these really vehement reactions. Rune: Yeah. Mark: And my hope is that as we go forward, I mean, this younger generation seems to have more comprehension about these issues. My hope is that as we go forward into the next generation, we'll start to come to grips with some of that horrible history. But it's very difficult to come to some kind of reconciliation with people who have been horribly colonized and abused when you won't even admit that you did it. Rune: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think also like with these sort of processes, I think the, the kind of cultural spaces that we are inhabiting today, primarily the internet cultural spaces I think they're probably also doing some unfortunate things to us, like, A tendency such as narcissism on social media platforms, speaking as a person who has a social media platform. Mark: me too. Yucca: that's all of us here, right? Yeah. Rune: it's like, it, it's, Yucca: double-edged. Yeah. Rune: it's a very dominating feature about how how people are reacting and or how people are, are interacting. And, and, and like I feel that, that, I almost feel that if we have the, the modernist subject here, the modernist idea of the subject that I spoke about before where, where humanity is inside a case, and if you, if you move into a if you move back in time where people would meet a group of elves that are moving away, that's because. Their subjectivity is not as encased as ours today. It's a little bit more fluffy like that then it is as what has it is as if what happens today is that these, these shells, they become hotter. They become like crystal, they become brittle. And it's as if I, if they touch each other, then it just goes. And, and then we have these, the, these so it's almost as it's almost as a kind of an in intensification of the, the modern subjectivity. And I don't know what's gonna happen, but I hope that what's gonna happen is that it's gonna open somehow again and hopefully in a way where it doesn't explode and then everybody just go mad. Which actually sometimes I feel that's what you're seeing. I, I've, sometimes I feel there's quite a lot of madness going around, like rather crazy reaction patterns. Mark: Mm-hmm. Rune: And unfortunately not only on the right wing, I mean, of course the right winging is like supreme when it comes to madness. Like, I mean now here in 2023, it feels as if, if it's such a long time ago that Donald Trump was the president in the us. But when I think about how, how was even, I'm not living over there. I'm living here, and it just feels like, oh fuck, you don't know if there's gonna be a civil war in America and what's that's gonna do to the world. Like the, eh, it was such a madness dominated situation, such a madness dominated situation, and it just felt like. It just felt like, it really felt like madness had had just taken up this gigantic space in the world that, that it, it, it didn't use to have and like, yeah. Anyway, you, you probably Yucca: Absolutely. Yeah. Rune: agree even. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Rune: And I thought it was something I wanted to say about this whole thing with yeah. But, but I also think that like, with these strong reaction patterns and these intensifying subjective borders Then I also think it, that it's important to be a little bit like, okay, so now I'm just gonna say it, you know, all cultural exchange is not cultural appropriation. And sometimes when people shout cultural appropriation, it's actually not legitimate. Yucca: Yeah, Rune: they, there are many cases where, where it's super legitimate, but there are also cases where people are shouting it, where it's not legitimate. And there are legitimate cases of cultural exchange even within, between white and indigenous groups. You. Mark: Sure. And, and there are, there are over claims. I mean, I read a rant by an indigenous man who argued that no one should be allowed to use feathers in any kind of religious or ritual context except for indigenous Americans. People have been using feathers and seashells and pine cones and other  Yucca: we were humans. Mark: since, since before we were humans. That is a birthright of every homo sapiens. And I mean, I, I mean, I understand the person's outrage about cultural appropriation, but that's just a little much. Rune: yeah. It becomes, it it like I spoke on my channel to this Irish, amazing Irish guy called Monan. Magan who and he was telling about how his ancestors was a Phyla, a a poets an Irish poet. And that, that he was the last person to legitimately carry a feathered cloak, a specific cloak with made with crimson feathers that were part of their tradition, their and and I later I heard Monon there, he spoke with an. Aboriginal Australian author that I'm quite fascinated by, Tyson, young Porter. I really recommend his book, sand Talk. And Tyson, he was telling him, Hey man, you should go to you should go to New Zealand because the Maori, they have actually feather cloaks. They make feather cloaks. And that is a specific it's a specific sign of, of specific status among the Maori. So if you want to. Recover this ancient Irish symbol of a specific cultural status as a, as a poet, a speaker of which, which is also cosmologically super important in, in moron's tradition there. Then he might be able to learn some of that from or he might be able to learn something about it or rebuild it with inspiration from the Maori. Now I think that something like that would be an that, like if something like that would become possible, that would be very, very good. Very, if people are ha have wounds that are too deep for it to be possible, then of course, you know, Respecting people's feelings is it's a condition of building positive relations, which is the whole thing is about. Mark: Right? Rune: So, but but if stuff like that could be possible, that would be, I think, very beautiful to reach that point. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And so, can we talk about your book for a moment? Because it seemed your book is something that you have Done digging into the literature in many different languages and, and brought forward some some traditions to that people might be really interested in. Rune: Yeah, I don't know if I've been digging in literature in many different languages, Yucca: well,  Rune: I, but like, I'm a  Yucca: least two and it's in English, so we got three languages Rune: yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm a, I'm a Skiddish movie and so, so, so I read read Danish and Swedish, and, and that's, that, that's an advantage of course, because a lot of the re and I'm a scholar, you know, I'm a nerd already, so, so that means that reading these kind of old, weird folklore compilations is, is available to me, but it is, or more available to me than for perhaps to you. Right. So, so what I did with this calendar book here, which is called, it's called the Nordic Animist Year, was that yeah, I was in, there was a couple of different Cal Calend traditions that I was interested in communicating. One of them was the ROIC calendar, where every day, around the year used to have two runes attached to it. And these runes, like from a, from one perspective, they just place the day in, in relation to a week. So if there's one specific room and in a given year, then it means it's a Tuesday and next year, perhaps it, that same room would be a Monday. But then you can look at your room staff and you can see if, if it's a Monday tomorrow, right? And the other then marks. There is a line of ruin that where one of the ruins marks the new moon. So you know when the lunar month begins and those two. The weeks they're fixed on our year. So that means that it represents a solar and the lunar moons then represents the lunar cycle. So that was a beautiful, beautiful example of an animist tradition that nobody, it seemed to me that nobody really sort of was so aware. Yeah, yeah. You know, you could meet scholars who knew that it was there and a couple of nerds here and there, but it wasn't really communicated into, into public space that that system even existed. So, so I took that system and then I sort of worked through also a number, a bit of scholarship on on all the different holidays around the year because the The the traditional animist year used to be actually rather dense with all kinds of traditions. And and so, so I was, I was also kind of inspired again by indigenous scholarship where these people are often, they at least in North America and also in Australia they sometimes work with calendars as a way of getting back or maintaining or getting back into, into connection with traditional ways of knowing. And that partic I think it's just a very strong intuition and like you've done it yourself. Mark and I, you know, you can see on your podcast that you were talking a lot about sewing and Belton and, and, and all these different holidays. So, so I basically, yeah, did, did this, this little book as a, as a. Kind of a cursory introduction to the the entire year in the, in the Nordic in Nordic area. Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Wonderful. Mark: Well, we'll definitely put a link to where people can buy it in the show notes for the, for the podcast. I wanna read it myself. It sounds, sounds great. Yeah. Yucca: And so where else can people find you? Rune: Oh my God. Yeah. I'm on, I'm on, I'm on all those social media platforms that I can't be bothered to mention. But, but, but particularly, particularly look for my, for Nordic animism on my YouTube, because my YouTube channel that's kind of the, the backbone, but then I'm also on, you know, Facebook and Instagram and even on TikTok and Yucca: well, we'll include the links in that then in the show notes for everybody. Yeah, and thank you so much. This was really amazing. You gave us so much to think about. I'm gonna be thinking about this for a long time, so really, really value you coming on and spending this time with us. Thank you. Rune: Thank you very much. It was so nice to meet you guys. And and, and have a chat here. Mark: Yeah. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. I. Rune: You're welcome.    

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Welcome from Chad, Jon, Chris, Aaron, Ben, and Mark Thank you Hayley L, Heather H, Perry R, Markus O Random Review Redo: OF PAIN! Announcements and News  Con of the Rings 2023! New LOTR games in the wild! What's the deal with MTG LOTR? Caleb was on Nerd of the Rings! AMA  Farewell!

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E8 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Mark: Welcome back to the Wonders Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca, Mark: and today we're talking about being a solitary practitioner of atheopagan or non theist naturalistic paganism. Yucca: right. And. I think a, a really good place to start here is to start with, well, what does it mean to be solitary? Mark: Right, because that's kind of a moving target, right? I mean, back in 1985, there were practitioners who literally only got information from books and. Had no connection with anybody else who was practicing. They were just kind of out there on their own. And there are still people that are out there on their own, but at least they have the o option of the internet to connect with people of like mind. I like, oh, go ahead. Yucca: of in, in many pagan groups, especially Wiccan groups the coven had a really important role and that now, you know, I wasn't around to remember this, but my understanding was that that was kind of the default assumption that people would be part of a coven or a group, and Mark: Yeah, that's, that's how I remember it, was that there was an assumption that you would gather a, a group. who would be a ritual circle of some kind, whether it was organized as a wicked coven with, you know, the high priestess and high priest, and this sort of teaching model, which is very common in sort of tradition, traditional British witchcraft, garden witchcraft and Wicca generally, or it was a more egalitarian model where the circle or the coven was. Equal group of people who weren't there to be teaching people who would then calve off to create their own circles. They were just there to do rituals with one another. That's the kind of thing that I've been involved with for 32 years with the Dark Sun's Circle. We are just deeply connected family now who do rituals together and. you know, we have no intention of hiding off people or teaching them to be priests or any of that kind of stuff. It's just, it's a different model. But I think that the point is that there's kind of a spectrum, right? You've got people that are really super alone and they're the only people they know that do this kind of practice at all. And then you've got people on the other end who are fully engaged in social. Ritualizing and they don't do stuff on their own. They only do things with groups of people because that's what works for them. Yucca: Right. And there's another element now that's very different than in the. Eighties or the nineties is that we've got this internet thing where, and media is very, very different now. I mean, there's things like this, like podcasts and there's social media groups and Reddit and Facebook and Discord and YouTube channels and all of that stuff that that just didn't exist. and that really changes the ways that people can interact. And I think that changes the way that we, we look at these terms solitary and I guess on the, what would be the other side of the spectrum? Mark: Communitarian communal, community oriented, something with a calm in it. Yucca: Yeah but, but I think I really value what you've been saying about it being a spectrum because it, it's not just like a, you know, you're on your own or you're in a group, that it's, there's a whole range of how people can interact and how they see their practices and, and that's changing over time as what's going on in the world changes too. Right. A lot of people Were doing a lot on their own during the shutdowns. Right. Mark: Right, Yucca: and yet many people were doing more with others. That's when we saw a lot of growth in the atheopagan community was during the time where people were searching for that connection and it, we figured out how to do stuff online that we would've never considered before. Mark: right. Yeah, exactly. The other thing that the internet has done is it has caused an explosion of. Ways to do things. What I remember from the late eighties and early nineties was, well, there's a way to do things. You draw a circle and then you call the quarters and elements, and then you call the gods and then you do a working, and then you unravel all the things that you just did. And you know, that kind of wicked structure was the structure. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And. There was not very much, there was a lot less understanding of the nature of ritual and the, the subtle skills associated with ritual. Generally. I mean, when you look at early neo paganism, you're looking mostly at kind of white, middle class college educated people at that time and. They had no idea of how to conduct rituals. They were just figuring it out and using the map that was presented to them with 40 years of additional ritual experience. Now we are well on into pe. There being people, a lot of people that have a lot of experience with creating ritual states and altering their state of consciousness through ritual activity and So there are a lot of different ways to do it. And now that we have the internet that can disperse that information, people are informed by a wide range of different things. It's not just Scott Cunningham's, you know, solo practitioner's Guide to Wicca. Yucca: Yeah. And, and a much broader range of people involved as. Mark: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember, Well, this has something to do with the community that I was in, which is part of the reason why I left it. But there were debates about, you know, whether gay people belonged in in these gender polarized rituals. Right?  Yucca: Where it was like every other, like male, female, male female and like the structure of the circle Mark: Yeah, stuff like, stuff like that. And, and it was like, I mean there was just this, this severe lack of consciousness about a lot of stuff. And as there has been better thinking about that, at least in the circles that I move in Obviously, you know, people have felt a lot more welcomed, right? Gay people feel more welcomed, neuro divergent people, disabled people people of color. One hopes, and it's not that that is a solved problem by any means, Yucca: Right? We Mark: a long way to go, but at least in the circles that I'm moving in, in the Pagan community, there is. To move in a better direction. And that was not really true when I first engaged with there, there. And it wasn't that that people were bigots necessarily, they just were clueless. Yucca: Right. Mark: They didn't think about this stuff. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So anyway, going back to solitary practitioner nurse what we have now is the situation. Simply with access to the books that are out there. And let's be honest, the number of books has exploded since, you know, since the publication of D of drawing down the moon and the spiral dance, which happened on the same day, Halloween of 1979. The number of available books on ritual and paganism has probably grown 10,000 fold at least. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And what that means, and then there's the internet, right? So the, the, the faucet for information is the fire hopes. It's, it's endless. You will never collect all the information there is. These topics. So you have to pick and choose and you pick and choose what works for you and what appeals to your values and your sensibilities. And so the solitary practitioner of today, I think, is much better equipped in some ways to build their practice and and, and get a lot of different choices. Rather than just, oh, well, Scott says I should do this, so I'll do it. Yucca: right? Yeah. So I, I mean, I find that very encouraging. I think that's, yeah, I think that's lovely and I think that there's more opportunity as well to to connect with community when it, where it works for you, and then step back into. Your own solitary practice and your own day-to-day daily practice. Mark: Sure, sure. Because there, I mean there are some people who are very, very introverted and they may not want to engage with a group at all, or they may wanna go to a Hallows event at Halloween, the height of the witchy time, and that's kind of their hit of. Communal experience for the year. Right? Or maybe they go to a, a built-in mayday thing and a Hall saan thing, Yucca: or participate in online discussions. Mark: right? Yucca: Maybe they're not doing ritual with other people, but they're discussing these ideas and you know, sharing the cool images that they have of their garden with the morning dew on it or something like that. Mark: Yeah. Or their focus, their alter or you know, some piece of art that they created that's thematically along the lines of of what their practice is about. Yeah, all of those things are very true and I mean, obviously that's why we have the Ethiopia, pagan, Facebook, and Discord so that people have opportunities for those kinds of discussions and that kind of engagement. and the, the Zoom mixers that we have as well, so people can come together, see one another's faces and be in a space. Yucca: Right. Mark: And just because you do some of that doesn't mean you're not still basically a solitary If you, if you aren't meeting with a group of people that you do rituals with on a somewhat regular basis, even if it's only every two, three months, you're still basically in a solitary practice. And so that's what we're talking about today. What's, what's useful for that kind of practice? What kind of approaches are helpful? What are some things to keep in mind? Yucca: Right. So let's talk about, let's, we've got a lot of different directions to come at this, so let's talk about some of the possible topics. So I think a good one to start with is the daily practice. And that's one that we definitely have talked a lot about here on the podcast. But it's always worth coming back to Mark: Yeah, because being a pagan, other than the fact that nobody can really define what that is, other than that it means, you know, that we self-identify as pagans. But being a Pagan is a, it's a state of being. It's not a. You know, it's not like you, you pay for your membership card once a year and now you're a pagan, like belonging to the aaa. It's about what we do. And so having a daily practice or a weekly practice or a monthly lunar cycle practice, something that's Yucca: regular practice of some kind. Mm-hmm. Mark: practice. Where you are acknowledging the passage of time and what that means to you and, and doing stuff in a ritualistic manner, which can be all kinds of things. I mean, it can be everything from kind of formally working in an alter focused sort of setting. With tools and symbols and elements in order to bring yourself into a contemplative flow sense of, of mind in order to transform your consciousness. Or it can be planting seeds under the full moon in your garden because that's meaningful to you and it's how you would like things to grow. You know, and saying a little chant over them or implanting a, a figure or a symbol next to them to give them sort of a magical quality, right? The range of options is really broad but you, but you really need to have, so, Yucca: Right, and I, I think a good place to start with that would be what? Really observing and thinking about what your goals are, right? What are you trying to achieve with your daily practice or your regular, whatever your practice is. So that's going to influence what particular practices you'd actually do based on what it is that you're trying to achieve. Mark: Right, and I think it's fair to say that there aren't really any. Off limits goals for a practice like that. If your goal is, I want to feel witchy, Yucca: Awesome. Right? Mark: awesome. That, that, that is totally cool. Great. Yucca: I'm on board there with you. Yeah. Right. Mark: your cauldron out and light some candles and burn some incense and do the thing. I like that a lot. I enjoy it. It's very ple. And when I'm in that state, I find I can transform myself in ways that are really powerful. So go for it. That's great. If your focus is primarily around self-healing or around growth or around philosophical contemplation of big questions like. What am I doing here and what's the universe for? And that kind of stuff. All of those totally lend themselves to a Yucca: you get through, get through a a day that, you know is, is really busy. Right. Mark: Yeah. Assembling, assembling skills that help you in times like that and practicing them. Yucca: Right. And it can also, you know, the skills that help you be a better, whatever your profession is, or a better student or a better parent, or whatever it is that you are, that matters to you. It's, it's about you and your life. Not, you know. Does Mark and Yucca prove of it? Does it match their life, right? Like, Mark: right. Yucca: yeah. Or, you know, God's sitting on clouds in a heavenly throne or anything like that, Mark: Right, because remember, everything that we're talking about is within the context of a naturalistic framework to paganism. So we don't believe in the supernatural stuff. Yucca: right? Mark: We believe in the psychological stuff, but not in the supernatural stuff. Yucca: right. This is all, these are tools that we're choosing to use in order to live the kind of life that we want to live. and each person decides for themselves what that life is. Yeah. And it's not like if you make a different choice than someone else, that you're a bad pagan or a good pagan. That's, that's just not part of the framework that we're operating with. Mark: Oh, this actually brings up a, an interesting and controversial topic, which is hexing. Yucca: Ah. Mark: The reason that I don't do that is because I don't want to be a vindictive person. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I don't want to be the kind of person that that lusts for revenge, Yucca: right? Mark: and that's why I don't. You know, wish harm on people. For one thing, my understanding as a naturalistic pagan is that my wishing harm on them isn't harming them at all. It's, it's harming me, but it's not harming them. Yucca: that's my experience too. The more I dwell on it, the more I just feel bad about the whole thing. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Right. And you know, wishing harm on someone else. I think that when I am doing what we might call magic in, in quotes, is really changing how I. So if I am, if I'm texting or cursing or somebody, I think I'm just doing that. To me, I don't think I'm doing it to them doing it to me. Mark: Yeah. That that is. That is my experience of it. The reason that I mentioned this is that, you know, we talk about how, what motivates you to have a practice can be many different things. Well, within Paganism generally, there are some people who just lust for power. You know, they want supernatural power and they like to play around with supernatural power that they believe they have. So it, it helps them to feel powerful to do, you know, what they think of as hexes on other people curses. Right. Now I don't believe that any of that stuff works, so I just want to keep in mind that everything that we say here is about a naturalistic science, consistent reality-based. Practice. So when you think about, you know, what are you in this for? If you just want to feel witchy and powerful, that's great. Don't hurt yourself with it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You know, it, it's, it's a good rule for life. Don't hurt yourself. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: We, we try teaching that to kids when they're really young to, you know, that hurts. Don't. Yucca: Yeah. So. How about staying motivated? Mark: Yeah, that is a big one. Yeah, because and that, that dovetails with that whole issue of the critic voice, the internal voice that says, this is stupid. You're making an idiot out of yourself. You know, none of this has any effect. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which can sap your motivation. You know, and there's another voice right behind it that is the sort of defeatist voice, which is, oh, what's the use? Yucca: right. Mark: Well, the use is, it, it adds sparkle to your life, right? It adds color and magic to your experience of daily living to do these things. Yucca: Right. Mark: That has intrinsic value. It's not, it's not extraneous and it's not self-indulgent. It helps you to be a happier, wiser, more together person, and all of those things are important. Yucca: Yeah. and you're building skills, those things that you're choosing to focus on every time you are doing them, you're, you're building your ability in that. And even if you miss, right, oops, oops, I forgot I missed it yesterday. Oh, I missed it for a whole week. Right. You can always just do it again. Just start again. Right. Mark: We learn things through trial and error and. The things that are hardest to learn, we have the most errors while we're in the process of learning them. Right? Hard stuff to learn takes practice. So if you wanna have a daily practice and you've got it planned out for one thing, make sure you're biting off as much as you can. Chew at a. So maybe an hour of grand opera ritualizing every day is not the thing.  Yucca: You wanna work towards that, great. Right. But if you're, if you're starting that from, you've done nothing. Regularly and you're trying to build that into being a habit, it's a lot to to jump into. Right? So we're not saying if that's something that you wanna do to not do it, but think about whether that's a realistic thing for you, where you're at right now. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But if you, if you construct a daily practice for yourself where simply lighting a candle or two, or, and maybe saying some words counts as your daily practice, you can always add more stuff in later, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: right? But the fact of doing it on a daily basis, becomes really important. Yucca: right. Mark: and what will happen is your understanding of yourself as a practitioner will strengthen as you do that, because that critic voice that says, ah, you're just kidding yourself. You're, you're, you're not a, you're, you're not a witch. You're a, you're an idiot. Yeah. That voice. That is gonna inherently get weaker and weaker when you can look back on six months of, no, I do this every day and I pay attention to the turning of the seasons and the faces of the moon, and I'm aware of my interstate and I, I navigate that interstate and I use psychological tools in order to ground and calm and get myself through difficult situations. I, I am a practitioner. I, I am a pagan, I am an atheopagan or a naturalistic pagan. And so that voice that says that you're faking, it gets weaker over time, and that's the way that you wear it down until after a while it just shuts up. I don't get that anymore. I go, I go to my focus and I, you know, start to do ritual stuff and I don't get that. That voice at all anymore, but it took a long time to get there. Yucca: Right. And we did do, it's been a couple years now, but we did do a whole episode on dealing with the critic voice. Mark: Yes, Yucca: so certainly it's still a presence in my life. Not for ritual. Something that I'm very confident in with ritual, but other places it's still, it's there, right? It's something that, that we all deal with, so, yeah. Mark: And that's, I mean, to be honest, that's part of the journey. It is. That is just part of the journey of life. And when I look at where I was 20 years ago, that voice was stronger than it is now. And that means I'm steadily chewing away at it getting, you know, getting better. And it, I. In many senses, just getting better is kind of the point of living, isn't it? Ex having wonderful experiences and getting to be a better and better person. Yucca: Yeah. what about ritual for the solitary. Mark: Yeah. This is something I haven't really written about on the blog. , but I think about writing about it on the blog now and then because, you know, in the, in the atheopagan book and on the blog I presented a, a five part, well, six part really structure for a ritual, right? Starting with preparation, which is the sixth. So preparation, arrival. Qualities, working, gratitude benediction. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Those are those, those six pieces. But when you're working and, and those work very well for structuring group rituals it's not, as I always say, it is not the only structure that works. It's just a structure that works. So if you're getting started, it's something that's reliable, but you can always improvise and. In different directions, depending on what you feel Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: when you're working with yourself and you don't need to kind of coordinate a bunch of people's experience together, you can be a lot more fluid. Yucca: Right. You can pivot and go in a different direction than you were going to do. And you know, you can suddenly stop talking or stop singing and just sit if that's what you need, or get up and dance or do something different than what was planned. But when you're reading, when you're leading a ritual for. 10 other people, that doesn't always work. Right, because you're considering their experience as well as your own experience. Mark: Right. You have to consider where you can take them with you when you're leading a group ritual, but when you're by yourself. Whatever your impulse is, is where you can go. Right? So if it's picking up a deck of Terro cards and doing a quick three card reading, or if it's, as you say, you know, breaking into dance or breaking into song, or grabbing a pen and a pad of paper and scribbling down a poem or ideas or. Or even what the, the critic voice is saying to you at this moment so that you can get it out and get it onto paper and then crumble it up and throw it in the trash. Whatever that is. Over time as you become a more practiced practitioner, you'll learn to follow your instincts on this and. Really rich, rewarding, personally tailored rituals that follow exactly what you need to do. Yucca: Right. Mark: And they may last three minutes, they may last two hours. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Just depends on what you need and what you want to do. Sometimes I just like to kind of marinate in the magical world in the the witchy feeling. I just, I like to be in that. I like to contemplate the, the things on my focus that remind me of that light candles in my room and look around at my witchy space and go, yeah, this is really a cool place to be. I like this. Other times I just wanna call any anxiety I have about going forward. In the day and do that real quick and then move on with my day. Yucca: Right, and I wanna assure people who are just getting into ritual that, that, even if it doesn't come, Naturally or quickly at first. It is, it is a skill that can be built. And so it, when you're first starting out, y you might not feel comfortable yet just changing the plan and going with the feel and just adapting. And that's okay, right? You just, it's okay if what you need to do in the beginning is work with a particular structure. Everybody. There isn't an end goal that everybody's going towards, that we're all moving towards. It's gonna be a very different journey to different places for different people. So you can, if you hear somebody describing something like you hear Mark or me talking about our experiences with ritual and you're not feeling that same thing, that's not a failing on your part. , right? Like you just have a different experience and over time you're gonna build different experiences and, and skillsets. Mark: Right, right. And, and bear in mind, an awful lot of the schools and practices of pagan ritual or religious ritual generally, honestly, are about helping you. To go into that ritual state of inner calm and focus and presence. And so use them right light incense. Read a poem that takes you into a particular vibe. That's where you want to go. You know, be in candlelight because it's a lot more conducive than electrical light. As you become more practiced, you may find that simply stepping in front of your focus and contemplating the things there allows you to kind of downshift into the ritual state because you're so accustomed to going there and you're so accustomed to having that experience in that spot, right? But that's something you learn to do. The incense. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: why they use it in, you know, Catholic churches, in orthodox churches. Yucca: All across the world. Mark: yeah, all over the world. There's there's reasons why things like dragon's, blood, and sandalwood were among the most valuable commodities that were transported all over the world during the Middle Ages, well, all over the Eastern Hemisphere during the Middle Ages because they had that psychological impact on people. So, you know, avail yourself of those kinds of tools. Music put on music that helps you feel a particular way that, that, you know, kind of connects you into your body and gives you a feeling of your animal nature and the power of that. There are, there are so many sensory things you can do. One of the things that I do sometimes that helps me is I'll have a glass of wine, just one, but it's enough to sort of lessen my inhibitions, quiet that critic voice, and make it possible for me then to go into my thing, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: whatever that thing might happen to be. Honestly, it, it's just about, and, and the reason that I choose wine rather than some other kind of alcohol is that, first of all, when you drink a glass of wine, you know exactly what you're getting. I mean, it, they vary from like 11% to 14% alcohol, which is not that big a variation. You, you, it's a pretty carefully titrated dose, right. But the other reason is that red wine is so explosively delicious in, in all those different flavorful ways. There's just a way that sipping a good red wine makes me go, oh, life is good  Yucca: you find the thing that works for you, right? Yeah, I'm not a wine person. That's, that's why I, I chuckle at that because I appreciate your appreciation of it, but I have a very, very different experience when I drink it. Mark: I think I would have to move away from where I live, if I didn't like wine. Because it, it's all that we grow around here. I mean, we grow some apples most of which end up cider actually. But generally it's, it's one country. So you were saying. Yucca: I love the idea of it, but I just, I just don't like it. Mark: have you had good wine? Yucca: I've had wine that people have claimed is good when they've given it to Mark: Ah, well Yucca: but I don't, I Mark: didn't like it. Okay. Yucca: don't particularly, you know, Mark: Well, the definition of good wine is wine that you like. So you've, you know, however, Yucca: haven't, Mark: However cheap it is, however, you know, disrespectful It is. If you like it, it's good. I, I do not truck with the snobbiness around wine.  Yucca: That's a whole world. That's Mark: it, it is and it's, it's everywhere where I live and and it's pretty annoying to be honest. the the self importance that people can get around rotten grape juice. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and it's certainly. . You know, I think it, it goes without saying, but we're certainly not saying that you need to have any sort of substance to help you with a ritual or something like that. But, but that this, this is one particular tool, right? This is, and, you know, find that, again, find the tool that's gonna be the thing that, or the things that help you, right. Mark: You can have a similar taste experience maybe with a, a perfect peach or a couple of dark chocolate chips, you know, the same kind of that, Yucca: cup of thick broth or something Mark: right? Yeah. Something that gives you that, that deep sense. You know that your body is being nourished and you are. Your senses are being pleased just by the simple fact of existence in doing this thing. There's, there's just so much to be said for that. And there's a reason why pagans are thought of as being hedonistic. Because we embrace pleasure, we embrace joy, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And, you know, joy can be a portal into a ritual. Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So what else? Anything else that you wanna touch on? For solitary Mark: I, I'd like to say a little bit more about, I mean, we, we talked about kind of unstructured ritual time. I really want to encourage people that are primarily solitary practitioners or who are just. Building a daily practice or a, a regular practice create that environment Yucca: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark: you see in your mind as being the magical place. You know, do that. If, if you don't have a, a space, a personal space right now that enables you to do that, see what you can do about fixing it up to make it more that. Yucca: Right. Mark: I know, you know, some folks are in the broom closet and they don't wanna reveal that they have a practice to other people around them. And that's fine. And I totally respect that. Maybe you have some things that you can take out and set around the room when you do your ritual Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: that will help communicate that vibe. Yucca: right? Or a. Right. If a journaling book or, or even something like a picture book that has just that feeling to it, right? That the artwork has, that particular feel that you're going for, looking for you know, there's a lot, a lot to do. Mark: Right. You mentioned a journal and that's a really useful thing for a lot of solitary practitioners is capturing. What they did ritually, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: you know, whether it's tore readings or whether it's just lighting, some candles or anything that feels like it was special or different, you know, keep it, keep a a, a nice leather bound, cool looking magical book and write the dates in and, and capture that stuff because if you do that for a long time, you'll find that when you, when you skip. And look at your earlier entries, you've evolved. Yucca: Yes. Mark: You, you will have changed things that used to feel kind of hokey to you or like they weren't really working, are now really effective. And they, they, they feel effortless. So, Yucca: you found this new thing through that process that you know you found the thing that really helps you just enter that state, you know, right away or something. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, as we always say, pay attention and keep going. That's, that's the way to a, a richly lived life. And it's, it is the pagan life, I believe. Pay attention. Know what's going on in the world around, you know, what's going on in the world inside of you and keep going. Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Mark: So I'm really glad we did this episode Yucca, because we did another one a few years ago about solitary practice, but I feel like there really was a lot more to say. And I know that so many, especially new practitioners who join our community through the pod, through hearing the podcast or hearing about it from someone else and joining the Facebook or Discord communities or seeing a YouTube video in many cases it's kind of mystifying. They, they almost feel like they need permiss. You know, to do ritual stuff, you don't need permission to do ritual stuff. You can do it all on your own, but if you need it, you have mine. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You have my permission to gather what cool stuff is to you, whatever that means. I know what cool stuff is to me around yourself and start doing ritual behavior. It'll feel good and it's a starting. Yucca: Right. And it really. It opens up so many doors, right? So many possibilities and, and as such a tool when we really need it in life, and having practiced it. When you practice, then when you really, when the time comes that you actually need the skill, you've got it right? Mark: And I think, I mean, that, that is true in the ultimate sense. Like when we're dying, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I have a feeling that having learned to navigate my inner world and, you know, calm or disregard or overcome or whatever the, you know, the demonn voices that we all have within us, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I have a feeling that when I'm dying, it's gonna be kind of an. Road, I, I, I don't have to be terrified. I don't have to be filled with remorse. I mean, there are a lot of, there are a lot of experiences that people have in their last moments that I think could be pretty terrible. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And. I, I think that becoming familiar with working with your own psychology is a means to easing that process. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: I can't prove it It's Yucca: It's, it's a, it's a feeling you got. Mark: yeah, it's a, it's a supposition. Yucca: Well, I hope you're right on that. Mark: I hope I am too, but I hope I don't find out for a long time. Yucca: Yeah. . And in the meantime, it's what we got every day, right? Mark: every day, every beautiful day. Yucca: Yeah. Well, thanks, mark. Mark: Thank you, Yucca. It is always so great to talk with you. Yucca: Likewise, and we'll see you all next week.    

Darren wraps up our 21 Days of Seeking through the Book of Mark Thank you for listening to our podcast! We hope you have been encouraged today.Check us out on social media, or to learn more, you can visit our website at www.freedomcanyon.com.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E40 TRANSCRIPT:----more----     Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca,  Mark: and I'm the other one Mark.  Yucca: And today is very exciting cuz we are actually going to be interviewing you, mark, about a project that you've been working pretty hard on and has just passed a a  Mark: m. Right. I've been writing the, the second atheo paganism book. And, or, or, well, I'll get into details about exactly what it is, but I've been writing that for a year and I just completed the manuscript and I'm ready to submit to Llewellyn the publisher. Mm-hmm. . Which is good cuz it's due on November 30th, so it needed to happen pretty soon. Hey, you're. Yeah, a little bit. Yucca: That's, that's impressive. Yeah. . So let's start with you know what, well, first of all, this is your second book, right? It's  Mark: actually my third. Your third, okay. I have a collection of poetry that I published in 2020 called A Red Kiss. Mm-hmm. . But this is my second nonfiction.  Yucca: Okay, so can you tell us a little bit about what it is? Does it have a set title?  Mark: It has a working title. Okay. I, I hope that Llewellyn will find that to be an acceptable title. It's called “Round We Dance: Joyous Living Around the Year and Throughout Life.” Mm. Okay. And so it's a little bit different than the first AOP Paganism book. In the first book, there were essentially two sections, and the first one was kind of about my exploration of what a religion is and what it does for us and the science behind that and kind of leads up to. Leads up to the question of, okay, well if we were gonna create a a religion tomorrow, what would that look like? How would we incorporate all scientific knowledge and critical thinking and still have those beneficial effects, those good feelings that come from rituals and celebrations and community and all that stuff? So that's the first section of the first. And then the second section is about an implementation of those ideas, which is atheism. Mm-hmm. . So it explains about the principles and the four sacred pillars and the wheel of the year, and a ritual format and all that kind of stuff. So that's the first book, the one that's already out and that I'm sure a number of our listeners have this book is a little bit more general in its audience. Okay. The i, the idea here is that, You know, there's this flood of people who are leaving institutional religions. Mm-hmm. , the, the number is just climbing with every passing year. The number of people that self identify as Christian in the United States plummeted by 12% over the last 10 years. Wow. So, and, and what most of those people are becoming is not some other religion. They're becoming what are known as nuns, n o n E S. Mm-hmm. , not, not nuns, like Catholic nuns, , nuns. Like, I'll have none that, yeah. Right. And. The nuns subdivide into several categories, some of whom are kind of hardcore anti theists. Many of them feel very burned by their religious experience and angry and heard about that. You have other people who are just disinterested and feel like the values of institutional religions like Christianity don't resonate with themselves. They don't, they're not into the, the biases and the mm-hmm. . Shaming and all that kind of stuff, and many of those folks are looking for something else. They're looking for something that adds meaning to their life, that builds community that they can share with. That's something that they can share with their families. That gives them a sense of purpose and focus and the kind of pleasure that comes from having rituals in your life. Right? Mm. and Atheopagan is an answer to that, but this book is more about, the book talks about Atheopagan is a lot, but, and it explains the Atheopagan ritual format and the Wheel of the Year. Mm-hmm. . But it's really meant for that broader category of people who. Feel something's missing and are working to find something that will infuse their life with more of that sense of meaning and specialness and wonder.  Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Okay. So do you feel that it would be something valuable to people who do identify as Aio Pagans as well? Mark: I do, because it's a much more how to kind of book. Mm. The the first book was much more theoretical. This book has sections on, you know, examples of different kinds of healing rituals and different kinds of rites of passage and different kinds of ways to celebrate the holidays of the Wheel of the year. And A, a section on ritual arts, which includes things like making siles and talismans and spell jars and handle magic and all those kinds of things as well. So there's a lot more sort of practical roll your sleeves up stuff in this book that I think will really be of use to people in the Atheopagan community. Hmm.  Yucca: That sounds like so much fun to write.  Mark: It was, it was, and that section that I just mentioned was particularly fun. Mm-hmm. , all the, the different, you know, the, the different sorts of witchy, ritual arts that people use in the course of implementing their, their ritual practice. Right. Because they're fun even when they're even when. Meant to observe something very solemn. There is a pleasure in implementing those kinds of practices. Mm-hmm. , which is part of why we do them right, and why I offer them to people that don't have a ritual practice now as an example of things that they could do. Mm-hmm. .  Yucca: Hmm. So you mentioned that Atheopagan is mentioned quite a bit in the book. Yes. But do think this is a book. Somebody could give to a relative or a friend who has a religious practice that isn't necessarily agonism, but still benefit from your  Mark: book. Sure. So long as that person's religious path isn't one that is exclusive mm-hmm. , there are a lot of religious paths out there that say, you have to follow our path and no other path, but that, right. Mm-hmm. and, you know, it's sinful or wrong, or, Erroneous or whatever it is. If you do anything else. I think there's a lot of activities in here and a lot of ideas in this book that can add to people's enjoyment of life. Mm-hmm. , and I think anybody who is interested in kind of a deeper inquiry in living as a human. Could enjoy this book.  Yucca: Mm. Okay. So maybe the, the friend that is a Pagan, but you know, they're kind of into the God thing or the fairies or that sort of thing. They still have a lot to to get out of your book. I  Mark: think so. Yeah. You know, there may be a couple of parts where they kind of bristle a little bit because I talk about critical thinking and, you know, I have my own position on that. Right. But but by and large, you know, The, the tutorial on how to make a si that'll work for anybody. Whatever they believe about Gods. So, yeah. You know, I, I think all that stuff could, it, it, it'll still be a, a helpful compendium of information for people, I think, to kind of a one stop place to go and look at how to do these things. Yucca: Hmm. Okay. And so was there a favorite section of  your.  Mark: You know, I have to say that ritual arts section was really fun to write. Just all the different cool witchy things that we like to do, you know, making potions and working with You know, with written messages and ceiling them with ceiling wax and, you know, or burning them in a cauldron, cauldron, magic, things like that. That you don't have to believe in anything supernatural about. And I'm very clear, like in the section on divination, I, I say at the outset, we have no evidence that fortune telling really exists. Right. But we do know that our subconscious minds exist. Mm-hmm. , and we can learn a lot more about the current situation, the present by using complex symbol systems to sort of tease out what the thinking underneath our thinking is through the process of using these divination tools. And once again, it's a really cool, evocative aesthetic thing to do. But it also can have a. A real emotional and spiritual value. Mm. So writing that section was a lot of fun.  Yucca: Nice. Well, it seems like a pretty, a pretty big process to write. Not just that section, but all of the sections. Was there, were there any insights that really ended up surprising you that you had in your process of creating this  Mark: book? Yeah, I'm, I'm wondering about that. One of the things that I realized is that in talking about the Wheel of the Year mm-hmm. , you know, there's a, there's a little section at the bottom of the discussion of the Wheel of the Year for people in the Southern Hemisphere mm-hmm. , because everything's flipped by six months. Right. Their winter solstice is in June. Right. And what occurred to me is that in the course of describing the names that I've given to the stations on the Wheel of the Year for, if you're in the Southern hemisphere, it really doesn't make any sense to call the 31st of October Mayday. Yeah, that's, that doesn't work very well. So, so I renamed it Summer Tide for the Southern Hemisphere Summer Tide. Okay. Which I think can work a lot better. Yeah. and I also renamed in, in the first Atheopagan book and in, in the writings on the blog and all that kind of stuff, I've referred to the winter solstice as u mm-hmm. , which is a no word meaning wheel. Mm-hmm. and I decided that, you know, I already made this decision that I'm not gonna draw stuff forward from other various cultures. Maybe it would just be better to call that mid-winter. Mm. In this book, I've called it Mid-Winter instead of ull. It's a small chain. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, there's not, there's brief descriptions of the principles and the four pillars, just so that people understand what Athe Paganism is. But this is really a book about rituals and so it's much more, you know, implementation. How do you do this stuff? How do you get yourself in the right mood? What is the ritual state? How can you cultivate the ritual state? What are the various phases that we go through in implementing a ritual? How do you prepare yourself before and, you know, ground and, and reestablish yourself after a ritual? , lots of, of those kinds of things. It's a very practical book.  Yucca: Mm. And what was your process like writing it? Did you, did you use any ritual to write or create the book?  Mark: Well, it, it's, it's kind of funny. We were talking about this in the Saturday Zoom mixer this morning we're recording on Saturdays. We usually do. What I ended up doing is I have a drop front desk an old antique secretary that you, you drop the, that you lift it down? Yeah. That, yeah. You just, you lower that down and then it becomes the shelf that you write on. Mm-hmm. and I was writing there with my laptop on the shelf. So what ended up happening was that opening, that desk became the ritual beginning of my writing periods. There were times it was very hard to make myself, you know, barricade myself in my room for four hours at a pop and just write right? But that was what was required. The book is currently at something over 56,000 words and the specs for. Turning the manuscript in were between 55 and 60,000. So getting there required a lot of effort. Right. A lot of just sitting for hours and writing things, and then editing and editing and editing and editing. Yucca: Mm-hmm. , tens of thousands of words. I mean that's,  Mark: yeah, that's a lot of words. It's a lot of words. Yeah. It really is. Yeah. I mean, this, this is, this is a book so that that ritual opening of the desk became the, the symbolic moment when I clicked into, okay, now I'm a writer, now I'm writing mm-hmm. mode. Now that the, now that the work is done, I haven't opened the desk since . I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to recalculate my my thinking. About what opening the desk means.  Yucca: No. Now you haven't worked with this particular editor before, right? So you don't really know, you know how much they're going to revisions they're gonna want, or, or things like that. Mark: I have no idea and I'm nervous. You know, for all I know, I'm gonna get back, you know, 300 edits and I'm gonna have to read through everyone, decide if I agree with them or not. Fight over the ones that I'm really willing to fight for and so forth. Yeah. I, I honestly, I just have no idea of what that process is gonna be like, but the book is projected to come out in the second half of 2023. Mm-hmm. , so there is plenty of time yet, which. I mean, that sounds like a lot of time, but it's really not that much time when you consider, you know, that we've gotta get cover art together and finalize the whole manuscript, get it all laid out properly and then start the marketing process. You know, because promotion starts before the book actually gets published. There's pre. Re release sales and all that kind of stuff. Right. And because I self-published the first book, I'm really not familiar with those parts of the process at all. I'm really interested in finding out how that all works.  Yucca: Right. Yeah. So that's exciting cuz it's a very different process than, than what you've done before. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. ,  Mark: yeah. Mm-hmm. . I, I think I've talked about this maybe, maybe on the podcast before. I'm not sure. I will probably not make as much money on this book as I did on my self-published book. Sure. And the reason for that is that I actually get eight bucks for every copy of my book that gets of my first book that gets bought. I'll probably get something like 80 cents . Mm-hmm. , from these, but hopefully the, the promotion and marketing and all that kind of stuff that the publisher will do will mean that a lot more copies get sold. Right. I made a deliberate decision that I wanted my ideas to get a lot broader distribution. This. And,  Yucca: and there's a prestige that goes along with being published through a traditional publish.  Mark: Yes. Right. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And now I'm kinda locked into them because in my contract is that they have right of first refusal of my next book. So , they'll, they'll get to decide whether they wanna publish that one too. I can't get myself out quite that easily.  Yucca: do you, so that was gonna be one of my questions was what's next? Do you have another book on the.  Mark: Do not have any idea about another book? Can  Yucca: you even think about it right now?  Mark: I mean mm-hmm. No, I mean, my guess is that if I were gonna write another book, because this one has been really exhaustively practical. Mm-hmm. probably be much more of a mythopoetic book. Mm-hmm. that would be poems and stories and you know, kind of. Kind of a walk into an atheopagan world. Mm-hmm. of wonder and joy and experience and meaning. But that's a long way off. And I'm, I'm certainly not going to open my desk now and start working on that I'm I'm taking a break for a while and, you know, dealing with these edits, I, my work is by no means finished. I'm still gonna have a lot of work to do, but this phase at least has been completed, so that's exciting. Yeah. I'm so, I appreciate that you were willing to, Do this kind of prequel, promotional thing on the podcast. Yeah, it's I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about the book again as it comes closer to publication time. Yucca: We will, it will let everybody know, you know, when that, when that's happening and you know where to, where to pick it up when it happens. Do you know if there will be an audio component? Was that part of your discussion or contract?  Mark: I know Luellen does do audio books, and I think it's probably a function of how many copies they sell. Of a given book to see whether they would do an audio version or not. I know that they do that for some of their other better known authors. Right. I don't know. I, I think they have the option to do it in my contract, but it's not guaranteed.  Yucca: Would this be a format that would work very well with audiobook since you have a lot of instructions? Kind of recipe type  Mark: things. Yeah. And actually there are a bunch of recipes. There's a whole section in the appendices on, you know, with recipes for the different seasonal holidays. Mm-hmm. , you know, things. Would go well at that time of year. Yeah, I'm not sure. I, I don't know that that's necessarily the, the best way to absorb this information because listening to someone reading recipes is probably not the best  Yucca: well, I ask most motivating kind of time. I love books and I suspect a lot of our listeners are on a podcast right now, you know, may enjoy that as well. So it's always interesting to see if that's, If that's a possibility, if that's standard, you know how that works. Right,  Mark: right. Yeah. I would still very much like to get my first book in audio book form. Mm-hmm. . I don't know how I can do that. I mean, I don't know. Maybe that's my next project. Maybe it's just I. You know, me, me sitting with Audacity reading my first book and getting that into shape where it can be released as an audio book. I do know that there will be digital versions of this book released as well for the Nook and the Kindle  Yucca: and all that. It's available as an ebook then. Okay. Yes. So people don't have to get the physical book. They can just. That's right. Get it on whatever device they're more most comfortable with. Uhhuh. That's great.  Mark: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm pretty excited. Two months ago I was sick of it, , I was just, oh, I was so ready to be done with the writing, but I, I got another spurt behind me and And now it's done. So I'm pretty excited about that.  Yucca: Well, congratulations, mark.  Mark: That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. And I want to thank everybody who's encouraged me to write it too. You know, a lot of folks from the community have really urged me to write a followup that's more hands on. Mm-hmm. . And that's this book. So I'm, I'm excited about that.  Yucca: So, so the book is no book on the, no book on the immediate horizon. No. Fourth book. But what else? Cuz you're, you're a busy person.  Mark: What's, I have a job, which is kind of scary because when I do get a job and it is a, when it's not an if the Then I'm, I'm really gonna have to be very careful about my time management in order to juggle everything that I've taken on. And of course, you know, in the Atheopagan community we welcome volunteers to help with stuff. You know, the volunteers we have are wonderful people and they're really, really helping things. Sort of blossom in our, in our community. What we, what we're doing on the Ethiopia Pagan Society Council coming up in January cuz we meet quarterly, is we're going to do a strategic plan for the organization for the next three years or so. Years. Mm-hmm. . And I think that's really gonna focus down the priorities. I need to work on and what other people need to work on. In order to advance the goals that we set. Yeah. And I don't know what those goals will be yet. I imagine a lot of it will be about, you know, reinforcing various kinds of support for the existing community rather than a lot of focus on expansion. Mm-hmm. ,  Yucca: We've done a lot of expanding in the last few years. We really grown so  Mark: much. Yeah. Yes. And I wanna make sure that people have. The training, the classes, the materials, the resources, the the stuff Yeah. All that support. Yeah. That, that will help support them as they develop their practices. So, so that, that's my idea of a, of a main goal. But we'll talk about it in January and see what we all come up with. Yeah.  Yucca: Which is just, Just around the corner.  Mark: It it is. Yeah. I sent out an outline about how the strategic planning process works to the members of the council maybe 10 days ago. Mm-hmm. , something like that. Yeah. And hoping everybody gets a chance to take a look at that before we start in, so we don't have a five hour meeting. Yucca: Yeah. And so here on the podcast, we have a few more interviews coming up, and then we're right into the solstice season, so we'll have a lot right about that.  Mark: We're gonna have interviews with members of the a Pagan Society Council, sort of, they'll be interspersed amongst. Episodes. Mm-hmm. . Next week we're talking with Michael Hallon, which should be a great conversation. I'm really looking forward to that. There are other folks who are too busy until after the holidays, and so, you know, we'll be talking with them probably in January. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, stay tuned. We'll, we'll, we'll get around to, to most of the council members at one point or another. Just give it a wait. Yucca: Yeah. And of course, along with all of the seasonal and holiday and Yeah. Yeah. Dark and cold themes of the year and all of that Good stuff. So, Uhhuh.  Mark: Yeah, so the book is called Round We Dance. I always, I, I changed it. Early on, joyous living around the year and throughout life. So round we dance, joyous living around the year and throughout life. A book about spirituality and rituals by Mark Green. That's, that's what the book will be. Beautiful. . Yeah. I'm, I'm excited. It's I can't believe it's my third book. Yeah, that's  Yucca: just, that's in a very short period of time you've been. Right. Yeah,  it's  Mark: true. I started in on the first book in 2018. Mm-hmm. . So, yeah, not so long. I mean, the poetry book was easy to pull together cuz I'd already written all the poems. Nemea had already taken all of the photographs that we used to illustrate the book. Mm-hmm. . So it was basically just a matter of doing the layout and then the self-publish. But the other two have been quite a lot of work and yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to working with Luellen and seeing how that process goes. Yeah. So, shorter episode this week, folks. But thanks for listening and I hope that you're sufficiently interested to, to anticipate this book being released. And we'll be back next year with no, next year. We'll be back next week. It feels like .  Yucca: And it does . Yeah. , we'll be back next week. Yeah. To talk with you more. So thank you every. Thank you, mark.  Mark: Thank you.  

Mike Isaacson: Reproductive rights are inmates' rights apparently. [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Welcome to another episode of The Nazi Lies Podcast. I'm joined today by Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Michigan State University, Mark Largent, who is with us today to talk about his book Breeding Contempt: The History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States. This slim volume tells the story of the historical enthusiasm for depriving certain classes of people the ability to reproduce and the efforts towards making that a reality. Really happy to get to read this book a second time for this podcast. Welcome to the show Dr. Largent. Mark Largent: Thank you for the invitation and for your kind words. Mike: So I want to start today by talking about what you start the book talking about, which is a discussion of your historical method of storytelling, your historiography. So you make a very deliberate choice of vocabulary that really does have a powerful effect in exposing, kind of, the grittiness of the whole issue. Can you talk about that and what effect you intended to have? Mark: So I was trying very hard to work in an anti-presentist mode. Presentist mode is most commonly what's used in exploring issues like eugenics, things that have become recognized as problematic for a variety of reasons. What often happens when you take a presentistic view like that is you fail to understand how something that seems so obviously problematic to you could have been acceptable to large numbers of people in the past. The danger, of course, is that you fall into the trap of becoming an apologist. So it's a fine line to walk between being a presentist and being an apologist when you're dealing with issues like this. You don't want to explain away past people's beliefs and assumptions and actions as merely products of their time because that doesn't treat them fairly; it doesn't treat them as equals; it sort of lets them off merely because they lived before you. On the other hand, you need to understand the world as it was understood by them. So I think in graduate school is where I first heard the term “doing violence to the historical subject”. That is if you view them through your own eyes, you are doing violence to them. If you view them in such a way as to not hold them to any real standards simply because they came before you and therefore operated in a space of naivete relative to what you think you know, you're doing violence to them. You're treating them as somehow less than you and your present day colleagues. So to walk that line really requires that you use their language and you try to understand and discuss the world the way that they may have understood and discussed it. Now, the problem, of course, when you're dealing with something like this is that many of the things that they held true, many of the assumptions on which their work is based, are deeply problematic to us today, or we at least on the surface claim that they're deeply problematic. Because one of the real dangers of presentism is that it allows you to imagine that you're somehow better than the historical subjects were, that you're above whatever it was that they were dealing with, when in fact, you may simply rationalize some of the very same problematic assumptions that they held differently, holding them in a different way. So as a historian, I feel like it's my responsibility to treat the historical subjects fairly, and that means holding them to the same standards that I hold present-day people to, but also respecting the fact that their contexts were different in some ways. Mike: Right. So one of the interesting things that you do is you also use the terminology that they were using at the time, and I think it gives a really good sense, not only of, I guess, how distasteful it is today, but also it gives a good sense of the logic that they're working with. Mark: Yeah, their language matters. I mean, I really do think words matter, and unpacking words so that you understand what is within them is critically important. And one of the big ones, I address it right from the very start, is the concept of eugenics itself. Eugenics to us is by and large a slur, that if you call a person a eugenicist, you are by and large disparaging them in some way. And that was not held to be true by the subjects that I look at, which the story runs from about 1850 to about 1950, with the most intense period being in the first 25 years of the 20th century or about 1900 to about 1925. And the idea here is that they didn't have a slur in mind when they said eugenics. In fact, eugenics as a slur didn't really even emerge until about the 1960s, I tried to show in the book. Mike: Okay. So let's get a little into the terminology and the procedures involved. What kind of sterilizing interventions were physicians making, and what were they called at the time? Mark: So at the beginning of the story, so from about 1850 to about the 1880s, they were what they would've called “desexing.” They were performing castrations or orchidectomies [Mike's note: they're actually called orchiectomies] as they came to be called. For men, a complete removal of the scrotum and testicles. So, neutering would be the closest concept that we have. These were not widespread, it wasn't common. It was sufficiently brutal that it was considered problematic. But by the time you get into the 1880s and 1890s, a progressive new surgery, the vasectomy, had emerged. Vasectomization had first developed as a rejuvenating activity, a notion that you could rejuvenate a person by eliminating the pathways for sperm to leave the body, so by tying off or cutting the vas deferens. But it was seen from its original holders, and these were by and large the heads of psychiatric hospitals, as a way of managing a couple of complex problems. One of them was what they called chronic masturbation. They thought that the vasectomy would somehow reduce the urge of the men in their charge to masturbate. There was also the notion that it would somehow calm them and be a management tactic. But there'd been a broader effort both before the vasectomy and after it to cut off the inherited characteristics from one generation to another so as not to pass along what were largely seen as problematic traits that followed family lines. So all the way back to the 1850s, you have physicians, the first one that I can identify is in the 1850s Gideon Lincecum in Texas, who brings out in public conversation something that he said physicians widely discussed. And that was that there were families that were just no good, and that they produced children who themselves were no good who would grow up and have children who were no good. And so this notion of good breeding was well aligned with notions of artificial selection and plant and animal breeding. So this is pre-Darwin or pre-Darwin's Origin of the Species, which is published in 1859–this notion that you could artificially select for different traits in plants and animals being applied to the reproduction of human beings. And so what Gideon Lincecum, and other physicians like him, began talking openly about first castration and then by the end of the century vasectomies was intended to sort of stop these problematic lines of parenthood and then eliminate the problematic social behaviors and poverty that they believed were somehow rooted in the very biology of who procreates. At near about the same time near the end of the 19th century in the 1880s, the operation of hysterectomy came into being and then vogue. The idea is that you could, by removing a woman's ovaries or fallopian tube or uterus or all of it, control reproduction with potentially a positive therapeutic effect to women themselves by removing these usually described as diseased organs, the women themselves would be healthier, happier for it. But more importantly or at least equally importantly, you could prevent the passage of these deleterious social traits from parent to child, they believed, by preventing the parent from having children. So you're sort of removing from a community whatever deleterious social traits they believed were associated with the very biology of the parents who would otherwise have children. Mike: Okay. So I tried to get Daniel Kevles to talk about this a bit when we had him on, but he didn't seem familiar too much with the pre-eugenic history. So your story of coerced sterilization doesn't start with the eugenics movement, and you briefly mentioned that. So talk a bit about the origins of the movement for sterilization in the United States. Mark: Well, it really was focused on this analogy to plant and animal breeding which really did preceed both Darwin in 1859 and the emergence of the eugenics movement, which is a progressive era movement shortly after the turn of the 20th century. People generally associate coerced sterilization with the eugenics movement, and they certainly were closely aligned. The eugenics movement began in the very late 19th or early 20th century depending upon which historians you're looking at. But the movement for coerced sterilization had begun much earlier. And in fact, there were even common calls to it being pressed all the way back to Aristotle and his discussion about how certain traits seem to follow in family lines. And so by the mid-19th century when there was widespread interest in artificial plant and animal breeding, the application of it to human traits became an interesting element. And there were advocates for sterilization to prevent the passage of these deleterious traits that even preceded the invention of the word eugenics by Francis Galton in the 1860s. But this pressure had really been focused around thinking about therapy for deleterious traits, that you could avoid them if you could somehow prevent the people who would possess them from coming into existence or from them being passed from a parent to a child. There also was no really hard line to biology proper. And in fact, there was a lot of discussion all the way through the end of the 19th and 20th century about not just eugenics, but also a thing called euthenics, which was the study of the effect of the environment on the development of certain kinds of traits. And so in the same way that you could have a biological transfer of traits, you could have a social transfer of traits. And the thing is you can't separate. We talk about nature and nurture, you can't separate. You can't have nature without nurture and nurture without nature. The widespread analogy that was given was that seeds grow in the soil, and you can have a plant only if you have both seeds and soil. You can't have a seed that grows without soil, and you can't have a plant that grows without a seed. So these two, nature and nurture or eugenics and euthenics, were entwined in most of the conversation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We tend to really focus on the latter, the eugenic issues, but euthenics was an important part of it. And that's the same way, if you prevent a parent from having a child who they might pass along either biologically or socially some deleterious trait. You prevent them from becoming a parent, you prevent the passage of that trait. It's really only the eugenics movement and a real narrow focus on the biological transfer of these traits that you lose that nature-nurture symbiosis. But in the 19th century, they were talked about both really hand in hand, there wasn't this sort of hard line of nature over nurture. The place that it started to fall apart was when they began discovering genetic diseases. So Huntington's was the first genetic disease to be identified, and it was Charles Davenport himself who did some of the work to help identify that. And then you realize that that's a purely genetic trait that a parent passes along to a child, and if you prevent a parent from having a child, then you prevent the passage of that trait. So you could actually get rid of diseases if you prevented everyone who's a carrier for that disease from passing along from parent to child. And so there was a kind of either curative or preventative medicine notion in play in this early part. But the idea of genetic disease really helped create some distance in between the people who were thinking about eugenics and euthenics as hand in hand and those who began to think primarily about just eugenics. Mike: I do want to deviate here. So one of the things that you mentioned in the book was that even at the time they recognized that there was a flaw in the eugenic program insofar as, because they didn't have access to genetic testing, when you try to eliminate bad traits, you don't eliminate all the carriers, you only eliminate those that have dominant expressions. So they said it would take about a hundred generations to actually eliminate any of these traits, right? Mark: Yeah, and of course mathematical geneticists came to help us understand why it was that as traits became less and less frequent it became harder and harder to reduce their frequency because they showed up so infrequently. So I think from being fair to the historical subject's point of view, I think there's sort of two responses to it. One is, “Well, if we can substantially reduce the amount of disease by reducing the number of carriers that we know of who carry genetic disease, that's progress. So if you go from some number to a smaller number from one generation to the next of people who are likely or probable to have a genetic disease, that's progress. So you can't say, ‘Because we can't do everything, we shouldn't do anything,' that's a foolish position to take.” So that's one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is that, “While you're correct that lacking genetic testing we can't see the genome in an individual, we can infer a great deal about a person's genome if we have elaborate family histories.” So that's why the real burst of activity in and around eugenics is with Davenport's and Laughlin's Eugenic Record Office and the establishment of this elaborate effort to build very sophisticated family trees, because that was the way that you could infer a genome with some accuracy. Mike: Okay. So one thing that you point out about the early physicians that were sterilizing people was that their reasons for sterilization were not necessarily eugenic, and early on they often weren't. So what were the other motivations of these physicians in sterilizing their patients? Mark: Yeah, they run a gamut, and I'll start with the darkest motives: clearly punitive. There's a significant punitive aspect to it, especially when you're doing something as brutal as castration or as invasive as a hysterectomy. I mean, you have to keep in mind the relatively crude state of surgery in the late 19th and early 20th century. So these are pretty significant things. There was one person in the state of Washington who had argued that a vasectomy was really not much worse than having a tooth pulled. And to imagine that without anything like sophisticated anesthetics makes you realize that having a tooth pulled is probably a pretty miserable experience in the early 20th century. So you're not comparing it to something that's not that big of a deal, but you were probably comparing it to something that was relatively common in an era before fluoride and dental health. So they were trying to sort of normalize it as something that could happen. The use of castration continued well into the 20th century for decades after the vasectomy was invented. So when I looked really closely at the state of Oregon, for example, they were using both castrations and vasectomies. And when we looked at why they were using one rather than the other, what we found was that when people were convicted of offenses that were associated with what we would today consider homosexuality, they were more likely to be castrated. But for men who were in prison for crimes of rape against women, those men would be more likely to receive vasectomy. And so you see this interesting difference in the application of which surgery is used, and it clearly has a punitive aspect of it in the use of castration. When you get later into the 20th century, you'll see this applied increasingly to women. And there's some very ugly stuff that happens in the 1960s and 1970s around women in poverty in which they are coerced to either have their tubes tied or to receive hysterectomies. There's a great book Fit to Be Tied by Rebecca Kluchin that is really the complement to my book. She takes it to the next set of decades, to the fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties, and looks really closely at the ways in which there's punitive aspects of it all the way through the 20th century. But it's not just punitive, there were also therapeutic measures that were in place. There were clearly people involved who sought access to control of their own reproduction because they didn't want to pass something along or because they didn't want to have children. So keep in mind, especially with the more recent decisions around abortion and privacy rights that we're dealing with right now, until you get to the late 1960s, the guaranteed access to birth control is not a fundamental right in the United States. And so how do you control your own fertility without access to reliable birth control? There are cases, and Christine Manganaro has written about one such case with a physician in Washington State who was using eugenic arguments to justify and get through the bureaucracy necessary to sterilize women, and the women themselves wanted that sterilization and were collaborating with him to do the things necessary to get access to be sterilized. And so in control of your own fertility, there was some of that that you can find examples of. You also find examples of where it has therapeutic uses for people who are suffering from mental or emotional trauma. And again, Christine Manganaro does a nice job in this with looking at women who suffered severe postpartum depression. If you suffer from postpartum depression, what is the only real way in a relatively crude medical environment, what's the only really effective way to avoid postpartum depression? Well, avoid postpartum. Don't get pregnant and have a child. And so that same physician was using sterilization as a way of preventing the postpartum depression that would then follow birth being given by women who had suffered from this previously. Now, I will tell you those cases are relatively rare. By and large, the history of coerced sterilization in the United States is one of either eugenic justification or punitive measures or it's in order to allow for easier control over people, that there's a manipulative aspect of it. So it might be if you sterilize them you can release them because you believe that they will no longer commit the crimes or no longer perpetuate whatever genetic shortcomings those people are believed to have, or a notion that if you sterilize them you can release them because they have paid for their crime, that it's cheaper to sterilize them and release them than it is to keep them incarcerated. But what I think is important to understand here is that it's not a single simple answer to this. It's a pretty complex set of things that are all based on a pretty simplistic notion, and that is that somehow located in the testicles and ovaries of these citizens is a problem that you could surgically remove, that it could be excised from society by taking it out of these people's bodies. And lots of different people were using that to promote lots of different notions. Mike: Right. To me, it was interesting that it wasn't just about like doing things to prevent them from reproducing, but it was also sometimes used as a behavioral control method, they thought sterilizing people would actually change their behavior. Mark: Yeah, I mean, Harry Sharp, the guy who invented the vasectomy, firmly believed that he would reduce the problems of the young men in his mental hospital and their masturbation, what you call chronic masturbation problems. Mike: Right, okay. So now obviously a major factor of the movement for sterilization of the so-called unfit was the eugenics movement. So, like I said, we had Kevles on, so my listeners are familiar with the general history of the eugenics movement as far as its kind of intellectual development. So talk about some of the ways that the eugenicists were instrumental in turning sterilization practice into sterilization policy. Mark: Well, the biggest was what now is pretty normal in American politics, and that is what the founders referred to as states as the laboratories for democracy. The idea that the founders had all the way back to the Federalists was a notion that you had a federal government, but then you also had originally 13 grown to 50 states, each of which was a kind of individual laboratory for democracy. So an individual state could come up with new legislation and enact it, and the other states could see how it went. They could see what value there might be in that legislation. And then you'd have all of these different little experiments going on, and the good ones would spread to other states. And the early proponents of eugenics in the United States seized on this structure of governance that we have to individually, state by state, go to the legislatures with model legislation. And that model legislation came out of the Eugenic Records Office, and this is really Harry Laughlin's push to get states to adopt very similar eugenic laws. And you could state by state use these sort of models for it, so that legislators wouldn't even have to do the work of writing these things. Rather, the bills could be handed to them as a model bill that could be debated and put into place. And the promise on all of them is that if you adopted this legislation, you would have a healthier body of citizens. You would have a safer community of people who live there, that the state would save money because it wouldn't have to put so many people in prison or mental health facilities, and that by and large the public good would be advanced. And it was all leveraged on a set of prejudices against people who were not seen as sufficiently fit, that they didn't meet whatever kinds of standards that there were for human goodness. Mike: Okay. So on the subject of model legislation, so you talked about that and you also talked a bit about how court arguments were replicated across state lines as well. So how early was the eugenics movement to this game of pre-fabricated policy? Mark: Well, I can't find anybody who is earlier. I mean, this really seems like one of the real novel contributions of the proponents of this. And it's because it leverages certain characteristics of the way in which federalism works in the United States with the very nature of eugenics itself which is operating at this intersection of human biology and education and public health and medicine and the punitive aspects of mental health facilities or of prisons, and all of these things are under control of the state, individual states. They are powers that either explicitly or implied in the US Constitution are of state import. And it really only is until you get Buck v. Bell in the mid-twenties that you have any kind of federal sanctification of this. But prior to that, it had been going on at lower and lower courts, the big advance being made in the Michigan case two years before Buck v. Bell. And that Michigan case, everything that ultimately would be tested in the Buck v. Bell case was all sort of laid out and sorted in a much more complex case. But Buck v. Bell was the Supreme Court's sanctification of it. Mike: Okay. So one of the things I liked about your book was that it's rich with data, but it's not bogged down with it. So what are some of the key statistics about sterilization in the US that people should know? Mark: Well, I think one of the biggest is that it peaks in the 1930s and begins to fade prior to World War II. Another one is who is it that's advancing it at any given time? So what you see are really interesting lineage of professions who are advancing first sterilization and then eugenic sterilization in the 20th century. And one of the things that I find most fascinating is one of the last groups to get on board and one of the last groups to get off of this train are American biologists, and that American biologists really used this as a way to help professionalize them in the early 20th century because it allowed them to demonstrate the public value of basic scientific research. And then really are among the last ones off. You don't see biologists turn against eugenics until the late sixties and early seventies, which is really late relative to other professional groups. I mean, the psychiatrists, psychologists, anthropologists, many of the other social scientists, they are beginning to turn against it in the thirties. But American biologists sort of continue replicating a set of base assumptions that were first made in biology textbooks in the teens and twenties. They continue restating those assumptions all the way through the sixties. Mike: So for a while, the eugenics movement was largely unopposed in it's crusade to sterilize the so-called unfit. I mean, there were parts of the Catholic Church that were opposed and individuals here there, but there wasn't any sort of organized resistance. Now you claim that all changed with Buck v. Bell, so talk about that ruling and the reactions to it. Mark: Yeah. And again, it's funny to talk about this, funny in a like slow down and look at the car accident funny, funny weird and a little scary funny, it's funny to look at this right now in the context of, again, recent Supreme Court decisions about abortion because I do say in the book and I have said elsewhere that there really is no pro-life movement in the United States until Roe v. Wade. And in that same way, there really was no organized opposition to eugenics in United States until Buck v. Bell, that these court cases represent pivotal moments in the emergence of opposition because they crystallized something that until then really didn't have full state sanctification. And so in both the case of eugenics in Buck v. Bell in the twenties and Roe in the seventies, you have the crystallization of something to push against. And Buck creates for an increasingly large number of professionals and social commentators something very specific against which they can push and they can begin leveraging their sets of arguments. What I always find interesting is that the original arguments against eugenics in the 20s are very different than what are made later. That is, they often are rife with many of the same prejudiced assumptions that proponents of eugenics had. The issue for many though becomes the notion of whether or not the state has the power to do it and has the authority or is smart enough to know how to do it well.n ot really addressing the underlying civil liberties issues, which I think by the late 20th century are much more prominent in our minds. Mike: Okay. So eugenics began to decline starting in the 30s, as you said. The Pope came out against it, there was organized resistance to it, and advances in biology were beginning to unwind some of its core claims. But according to your book, eugenics took quite a while to finally lose public respect. So talk a bit about the decline of eugenics and what sort of documentation you used in the book to gauge support for the theory. Mark: Yeah, so that's actually my favorite part of the book, was the part that I found most interesting. For years, I had collected biology textbooks, hunting bookstores for them and libraries. And in every time I would find one, I would record if it talked about eugenics and how it talked about eugenics. And the thing that we see very clearly is that there's no systematic turn against eugenics in biology textbooks until you get into the 1970s, and then you start seeing this sort of shift in the discussion of it. First you see a decline in any discussion, you start seeing in the fifties eugenics falls out of the textbooks. And then as you get into the sixties, seventies, and really into the eighties, you start seeing some criticism of it emerge. But up until the 1960s, there's almost no textbook published that doesn't include eugenics, and there's almost none of the ones that do talk about it are critical. You don't see the real explosion of criticism until you get into the early and mid-sixties, and then by the time you get between the mid-seventies and 1980, it's overwhelmingly critical and overwhelmingly common to talk in negative ways about eugenics. So I used the textbooks as a marker for the state-of-the-art sort of received wisdom. And until the sixties, the received wisdom that every college kid is taught is that eugenics is good and possible, and biology can tell us how to do it right and well. Mike: Okay. So sterilization laws did start to also be repealed or overturned at the state level in the latter half of the 20th century with the decline of eugenics. Can you talk a bit about the decline of sterilization policy? Mark: Yeah. So a couple of things happened, and again, I point you to Rebecca Kluchin's work which I think is very good in this regard. So my story is mostly a story about white people and disproportionately a story about men. And so from the late 19th century through the first third of the 20th century, the majority of people who were targeted for sterilization were white men. And my argument was that this was a very racist activity because these men were being sterilized because they did not meet the ideals of white masculinity. That is, they were involved in activities that we associate with homosexuality; they were developmentally delayed; they stole or were violent. These are all unacceptable expressions or unacceptable activities of white masculinity. Violence or thievery or lower intelligence are acceptable for other races, but they're not acceptable for the white race. And so these people had to be cleaned up, they had to clean up the white race. And I talk explicitly about how racist it was and how it focused almost entirely on white men. That began to shift first with an increasing emphasis on women, and then by the mid-20th century, an increasing emphasis on people of color. And that shift happens at the same time that eugenics itself becomes increasingly problematic. And again, Kluchin does a much better and more thorough job of looking at that latter period. But my earlier work or my work in the earlier period makes clear that it's no less racist, that is, that targeting white men because they weren't upholding the expectations of white masculinity is a racist activity. And the latter work looks at what happens to minoritized communities and women, especially minority women, which by the time you get to 1970s, the vast majority of people who were being targeted for compulsory sterilization or coerced sterilization are minoritized women. Mike: Okay. Now despite the general revulsion of the public to eugenics programs, the ghosts of the movement for sterilization still linger in many ways reflecting the origins of the movement. In particular, you point to legislation that was passed in four states authorizing the sterilization of certain classes of criminals in exchange for more lenient sentences as well as sort of vigilante judges who attempted to implement these sort of schemes in their own rulings. So where is sterilization still policy? Mark: You see interesting popping up in interesting and problematic ways in certain either court cases or legislation that seems to get at the same underlying assumptions. And I guess if you were to ask simply, “What do you see as an overall historiographic trend to which you want to contribute?” One of the things that I want to argue, because I try to work very hard to not be either an apologist or a presentist, is that many of the same assumptions that led to things that we would consider deeply problematic are still present in our public discourse or our underlying assumptions today. And so making the people in the past make more sense to us isn't an effort to apologize for them. It's an effort rather to show that today we still have some deeply problematic underlying assumptions in how we look at people and we think about issues like equity or equality that future historians will look back on and perhaps point out our own shortcomings. So ways in which you may look at how it is that, for example, we would be much more inclined to be motivated to invest in sex ed or in birth control opportunities for people of poorer means, making investments in communities where we would allow for greater access because of a recognition that poor people should be encouraged to use birth control in ways that wealthier people don't need to be encouraged to use birth control. And I think as you're challenging some of those assumptions, you start confronting awkward concerns about what we think is happening in poorer communities, why they have larger numbers of children, and why that might be bad or problematic for us. You certainly see it now in an increasing set of conversations about pedophilia and about how you might need to have some biological intervention in men especially who are convicted of pedophilia, and that's in some strange segment of our popular discourse right now out there. But I think the biggest place for it is in the way in which we can very easily dismiss people in the past as merely eugenicists and oversimplify their views. Well, we would say when we are challenged for our own views that, "Oh, well, it's complicated actually," and you try to unpack it in more ways. Mike: Right, okay. So one interesting thing you pointed to was the involvement of these private sector non-profit activist organizations in kind of a new movement for sterilization. In particular, you point to this organization called CRACK, so tell us what CRACK was doing. Mark: Well, CRACK, and there's been others that have emerged like them that are philanthropic organizations or privately funded organizations that seek to provide access to sterilization in poor communities. Now, on the surface, there is undoubtedly both inequity in access to medical care between wealthier and poorer communities and a greater capacity for a person to have control over their own fertility if they have greater access to medical care. So you really can't deny the benefits of it. CRACK is interesting because not only are they providing access to medical care, but they're providing stipends to people. They were offering economic payments to people in order to be sterilized in addition to the sterilization procedure. And an economic incentive like a hundred dollars means something radically different to a poor person than it does to a wealthy person. So it would've a disproportionate impact on swaying a person's decision to be vasectomized or to receive a tubal ligation if the hundred bucks mattered to them in ways that it didn't matter to a wealthier person. But this is part of a larger movement away from state-sponsoredred eugenics to what Diane Paul talks about as a neoliberal approach to thinking about human reproduction. And this moves away from state coercion to social coercion or away from state coercion to economic coercion. The issue here is if you sort of turn this over to the marketplace and you're allowing for social coercion or economic coercion to take the place of government coercion, are you any less coercive? That's why when I use the language in the book, I talk about coerced sterilization, not just compulsory sterilization or eugenic sterilization, but coerced sterilization, the idea that a person could be offered a shorter prison sentence or offered money or offered access to something if they were willing to be sterilized. And that coercion, whether it's in the hands of the state or in the hands of a philanthropic organization, is equally coercive and is equally problematic and is based on some of the very same underlying assumptions that there are good people who have good genes and there are bad people who have bad genes and we can figure out which are which and that we are somehow morally empowered to encourage the good people to have more children and discourage the bad people from having children. And so that commonality, whether you're on the philanthropic side of this coercion or the legal side of this coercion, shares too many similarities for me to be comfortable. Mike: Okay. So somewhere in the book you state that while it hasn't been directly overturned, Buck versus Bell was essentially overruled by other rulings such as Griswold versus Connecticut and Roe v. Wade. So now your book was published in 2008, since then a lot of has happened in the courts. So how do things look now that we have rulings like Dobbs versus Jackson's Women's Health Organization on the books? Mark: Well, I tell you, I'm extraordinarily happy that people understand that the recent abortion decision undermines the foundation for things like Griswold and all the way up through gay marriage. And recognizing that the legal foundations on which Roe was decided while weak–undoubtedly weak, I think any careful scholar on this is going to tell you that simply a privacy argument for Roe was liable for being overturned–but not only does the overturning of Roe on the basis of privacy threaten Roe, but it threatens all of these other things that we take absolutely for granted right now like access to birth control, like interracial marriage, like gay marriage. This is deeply problematic.  But it also tells us that we were relying on something that was not sufficient and perhaps not trustworthy. That is, there was work to be done to more carefully explicate why it is that in progressive modern society access to birth control, access to the legal recognition to marry the person you love regardless of their sex, gender, race, or ethnicity, and access to control of your own reproduction, those are all critical to a modern progressive society. And we had founded it on too tenuous a basis with Roe, and so we have good work to do, critical and important work to do to really further solidify these rights. I think the fact that these appear so important to the election of 2022 and to the election of legislators suggests that we're no longer willing to rely on just the court to preserve and protect these rights, but that we want a deeper and more binding commitment of legislation. Mike: All right. So finally, one thing that you say in the book which I liked is that history exists to teach us about ourselves. So what can we learn about ourselves through reading this book? Mark: So I'm a rather pessimistic historian. I like a quote attributed to Mark Twain, almost every witty thing is attributed to Mark Twain. There's a quote from Mark Twain that says, "History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme." And I've always really liked that because I think people who study history know that to a certain degree we are doomed to repeat the past, that there's a certain similarity with things that seem to happen over and over and over again. But like that movie Groundhog Day, the act of learning over and over and over again does change you. And we know that reading history and reading fiction generates in a person a sense of both empathy and a broader sense of why and how people do things. And so I think these kinds of histories are critical for us to look back at the ugliest, most challenging aspects of our own society's histories so that we can do a little bit better as we confront the same sorts of things generation after generation after generation. Mike: All right. Well, Dr. Largent, thank you so much for coming on The Nazi Lies Podcast to talk about coerced sterilization in the United States. The book again is Breeding Contempt, out from Rutgers University Press. Thanks again. Mark: Thank you, Mike, I appreciate the opportunity. Mike: You missed Breeding Contempt with us in The Nazi Lies Book Club. Join us weekly on Discord as we discuss the books of upcoming guests of the show. Sign up on Patreon or shoot us a DM. Thanks for listening. [Theme song]

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E37 TRANSCRIPT:----more----     Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark, Yucca: And I'm the other one Yucca. Mark: and welcome to the Halloween season. This is the season when we celebrate Hallows, or whatever you choose to call it. It's a wonderful witchy holiday that we, pagans really enjoy. It's both fun and and kind of wacky and creative and as well as deep and meaningful and solemn. And it's just a really good time all the way around. So, this is our episode to talk about how we celebrate that holiday and what it means to us. Yucca: Right. So welcome. So there's a lot to this. Mark: There is. Yucca: Yeah. So I guess we should start with what and when is this holiday? Mark: Ah, right. Okay. Well, you first, what do you think it is and when? Yucca: Well, I, for me, it's, it's a little fuzzy on both levels. So there are two holidays that overlap with each other. For me. There is Halloween and then there's Hollows or second Autumn or sowing. I'm not really sure. What name? It's a little bit fluid there. But there's the, the kind of secular Halloween, which is just a celebration of the autumn spooky candy, you know, family fun stuff. And then there's also the, the season that we're in, which is this time. Remembering the ancestors honoring of death of the sunset of the year. Really this going into truly going into the cold, dark time of the year. And I know that when we were at Solstice, yes, we kind of flipped over or the Equinox is, is getting closer, but now it really is the cold of. In my climate, we almost always get our first snow as the kids are trick or treating That's what it happens, right? Is the kids are out trick or treating and it snows on them. So it, it's, it's a, Halloween is the 31st, but the other holiday is kind of around that time when it feels. When it feels right for me, right When we, we kind of do the holidays at the closest day, that works for us. We're not too worried about getting the exact moment because it's not like the solstice where the solstice I set an alarm for, right? The moment of the solstice and you know, sometimes that's gonna be two 15 in the morning. I'll just wake up, see some solstice and go back, sleep or, you know, that kind of thing. But with this it's a little bit more wiggle room. So what about for you? Mark: Well, I, I think we have some similarities, but some differences. I have a little bit more formal definition of when the holiday is. I consider this holiday to be a week long. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it extends from the 31st through the seventh of Octo of November, which is when the actual midpoint is between the Equinox and the solstice. Yucca: It's my littlest birthday actually. Yes, he's our little saw and Mark: so, so official sown is, is is when your little one's birthday is. That's great. So, and I agree with you. On Halloween, we celebrate the secular holiday, which is the candy and the costumes and the, but it's still got all those thematic pieces wrapped up in it, right? It's all the death imagery all of the sort of scary monsters, most of whom have to do with coming back to life after being dead, which is something that we have a, a real aversion to apparently. Yucca: Discomfort. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, there, that's, that's just not supposed to happen. Yucca: Yeah. There and there's that transformation both in like coming back from the dead, but the Halloween, the costumes and stuff have this, You get to be somebody else as well Mark: Right, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. You get to be somebody else. And often the way that that expresses itself is as. Kind of the darker side of your personality or the sexier side of your personality. Things that you don't feel necessarily comfortable to express all the time, but there's this day when you're given permission to be able to do that kind of stuff. And that's really important. I mean, I feel like we need more days like that. And people can dress up weird and not be judged for it. So. The, that's the secular part with the, with the candy and the decorations and all that kind of stuff. But then the rest of the week is the more solemn, kind of contemplative part where there's time to think about those that have died and are gone. And there's time to reflect on my own mortality and update my death packet, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. Do all that. Mortality oriented work that that I just feel is necessary and this is the right time of year to do it. And then on the first weekend of November, which is typically, I mean, it's typically like the sixth, seventh, fifth, somewhere in there is when my circle holds its sound ritual. we've, this will be our 33rd so, and Ritual in a row one of which was online because of Covid. But other than that, we've done them in person. And and I'll talk about that when we talk about rituals, but that's the more solemn observance really kind of encounter with death. Yucca: Yeah. And this doesn't seem to be for either of our practices, but for many pagans, this is also the new year. Mark: Right, Yucca: So there's different points at which you can start the year, and for some this is, is that that point? Mark: Right. And, and I think that from. I mean, certainly from the standpoint of my orientation to the Wheel of the Year, there's a real logic to starting there because, you know, the, the process of decomposition and then reassembly of new life is metaphorically represented by the the Hallows holiday, right? So this time between now and Yule is the time when the decomposition and recomposition is happening, and then Yule is. Yucca: Right. Mark: So there's a logic there, but for me it's just too hard to try to address new New Years in November. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: so much easier just to say that my new year is at the winter solstice, which is only about 10 days before the the secular. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Calendar New year. It just is a lot easier to deal with. If I have a New Year's Eve party on November 6th, everybody's gonna look at me funny. But if I have a New Year's Eve party somewhere, you know, in the neighborhood of the solstice, then that makes a little more sense. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and, and I can also certainly see the logic that people have for us, it, it doesn't feel like that as much because this is the time of the year where we've been getting ready for this time of the year. We have the. It doesn't feel like we're starting new yet. It's like this is what we've been preparing for, right? This is, we've got all the harvests, this is stored up, and as we keep going through the months, well then, you know, we get to, to using up our stores of wood and our stores of food and, and that's quite on the literal side, but we could use that metaphorically as well. And so for me, starting anew when things are kind of bare. You know, either the calendar year or even more towards spring really starts to feel like a new year to me. Mark: Mm. Yucca: So, Mark: Yeah, I, I can see that. And of course the thing is time is time is linear, right? Time just goes on. So, you know, we, and the earth, because of our seasonal cycles, it moves in cycles. So there's any point that you put down on the, the 365 and a quarter days that we have in a given revolution around the sun and say that's the beginning has, is inherently arbitrary. Yucca: sure. Mark: I mean, it can't be any more arbitrary than January 1st, which makes, Absolutely has no astronomical relation or anything. I'm sure there's something about the conversion from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar that moved New Year's Eve from Yucca: Well, that's why Christmas and solstice aren't on the same point. Right? And then, and then the way that the months shifted, right? Because the astronomical months, like in terms of lining up the zodiac with our months, they don't quite fit. And then we have to remember. You know, Earth's orbit isn't actually circular in terms of how much we spend in each of the constellations and so I don't know why, but Mark: Yeah. I mean, it's my point being that it's all kind of arbitrary and so, you know, whatever works for you. That's great. For me, doing New Years now just doesn't make as much sense. Especially because this holiday is so much about endings, you know, And I, I think it's a little, it's a little abrupt and peremptory to say, Okay, we're done with endings. Happy New year. I think this, this season is important enough and the processes that it commemorates are important enough that having a whole, what is it? Seven weeks, between seven, eight weeks between the holiday and you'll Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: to really kind of let this, the meanings of this season settle in, you know, to reflect on them, to write about them, to think about them. You know that that miraculous process that's happening in the soil right now, which is all of the decomposers are going nuts with all the leaves, the leaves they're being fed, and the water they're getting that they weren't getting before and all that kind of thing I think speaks to a level of being appropriate to recognize decomposition as really what? What's the main gain happening at this time of year in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere? Yucca: Right. And I'm glad that you that you bring that up, right? Because we are speaking from, even though we are from different climates, we're still from this closer to each other. So we're both in temperate, northern hemisphere. Whereas, you know, life is gonna be very different and tropics or southern hemisphere, or if you get farther towards the poles, like it, it really changes over earth. So every place that you are is going to be d. So, Yeah. Mark: Yep. That's, that is so, so that, that's when, and and what we call it I mean, I've heard some other names for this season, but, and I prefer halls because it's not, it's just an English word. It's not Halloween because Halloween is kind of the secular holiday with trick or treating and all that kind of stuff. And Hallows sounds much more sort of solemn and goy, I guess. Yucca: Yeah, but it still is similar enough that there's the, those same sort of themes going on. Mark: Right. And I don't use the, the Celtic word because I'm not of that derivation, and I'm trying not to, in my particular practice, I'm trying not to draw on any particular cultural frame. So I'm not I'm not appropriating I'm just. Just doing something that started in around the, around the turn of the 21st century with some old folkloric practices kind of drawn in and one item of appropriation, which is the Wheel of the Year, which was invented in the 1950s. So I don't feel too badly about it. Yucca: well invented, but but heavily drawing on multiple. Different cultures, traditions, right? They, they took you know, some of the Celtic festivals and Germanic and you know, and they, and the names themselves. You look at their, their mixes from lots of different languages. So, and then that was just sort of stuck together. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. And, and that's all, you know. Fair enough. I mean, I, I think, I think the success of the Wheel of the Year as a kind of near universal, I mean, I can't speak to North Heat folks or etic folks or whatever, but in my experience of the Pagan community of North America, the Wheel of the year is a near universal cycle of holidays that are celebrated Yucca: Well, I think because it's so grounded in. What's happening with the Earth? Mark: in reality. Yeah. Yucca: it's not just arbitrary, right? We don't just pick a day, you know, this day it's, well, why we've got the, the solstice, we've got the equinoxes, we've got the transition between them which is, John has talked about often about it being, you know, the, the temperature shifts rather than what's going on with. Tilt Mark: Right, Right. Yeah. And so that's why I think it's so successful because it is grounded in reality. And I wouldn't have adopted it for AOP Paganism if it wasn't grounded in reality because my whole thing was, let's do a paganism that's grounded in reality, Yucca: Hm. Yeah. Now there's wiggle rooms though, right? When you talk about the particular dates, right? When we are saying May 1st or October 31st, you know, those aren't necessarily the actual midpoints and which midpoint are we using, right? Are we using the, the midpoint in the orbit or are we using the midpoint in the days? Like how are we doing that? So there's, you know, there's wiggle room. Mark: Right, For sure. So having established that the whole thing is kind of fuzzy. Let's talk a little bit about kind of themes and practices and all that good kind of stuff. Yucca: Yeah. So looking at Halls in particular, are we gonna talk about Halloween first? Mark: Well, I suspect that our listeners probably have a pretty good grasp on what Halloween is about. Yucca: I think so, yeah. Mark: And I'm, and I, I mean, I love Halloween. I just, I think it's wonderful. I love all the decorations and the, the, the imagery and all that good kind of stuff. So, and I love dressing up in costumes and I love, you know, playing characters and all that kind of stuff. So it's, it's definitely been a holiday that resonates a lot for. But I think it makes more sense to talk about the, the more solemn and kind of reverential side of this holiday season. You know, we, we just had an episode about ancestors and recognizing ancestors and and about death, about confronting mortality and You know, remembering those that are gone. In our, and we've, we've talked about this before in our naturalistic approach to cosmology, we don't see compelling evidence to believe in an afterlife, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: so we don't believe in one. And what that means is that that death is it's the. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: a very serious thing to contemplate. You know, we have these lives that are so precious to us, and knowing that they're going to end sets the stage for everything else, it creates the context for all the decisions we make. Yucca: Hmm. Yeah. So as we've been talking about for the last few weeks, these. Themes that we're thinking about both our own death, the deaths of others, the those beloved dead that, that are gone already, right? Mark: Right. Yeah. And so, You know, this, this is the time. Like, and not, not necessarily just in the last cycle. I mean, certainly if you've had losses within the last cycle that the, the herd of that is most vivid because it's most recent. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And so, you know, lighting a candle or lighting candles, you know, for those that you've lost is, it can be a very meaningful thing, you know, reviewing the pictures. Of of the, the people that you've lost and remembering the times that you had with them together. And in this case, I'll say people in a, in a very general and vague sense, people, you know, including cats and dogs and, you Yucca: Yeah. People, not just humans, but people. Yeah. Mark: I mean, I have a practice that includes some recognition of that on an, on an ongoing basis because of my evening ritual where I light a candle on my underworld focus and say the honored dead every night. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And that is as much to remind myself that I'm going to die as it is about anyone else who. It's, it's really just about keeping me grounded in the fact of my mortality and that I need to, if there's stuff I want to do, I need to get going on it because time is short. Yucca: Right, And as we said so many times, we don't know how much time we have. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: We know that it's limited, but we don't know if it's tomorrow or if it's in 20 years, 50 years, whatever it is, Mark: Yeah. I have an acquaintance who three months ago, Suddenly got a diagnosis of stage three pancreatic cancer, Yucca: Wow. Mark: and so he's gonna be gone really soon. Yucca: Yeah  Mark: barring, barring an extremely unlikely Yucca: it's, It's very rare. Yeah. Mark: Really rare. Yucca: That's how my father-in-law went. Mark: Oh Yucca: It was just, it was a matter of months. Mark: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So, And, you know, I mean, he had some, he'd had some dietary complaints and some you know, kind of abdominal discomfort, but nothing particularly serious and went to the doctor and next thing he knows he's dying. So these are things that can happen to us. They, they happen to people and we are people. You know, one of the things that is really important to try to get your head around in contemplating your mortality is that you're not special indifferent when it comes to mortality. I know you've been the protagonist of your, your movie since the time you were born, but the truth is that life will kill off the main character. That's just you. Yucca: all, all stories end. Mark: Yes, con consider life to be, you know, the, the process of life to be the George r r Martin of of your personal movie . Just, just cuz you're an important character doesn't mean you get out alive. Yucca: So that's one of the really big themes here, right? And that and remembering our own and the one and the people close to us that sometimes feel almost like us. At times, right? Mark: Yes. That it's unimaginable that they could ever be gone. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And my encouragement at this time of year is well imagine it, you know,  Yucca: that won't make it happen sooner. Mark: won't make it happen sooner, and it won't, and it probably won't make it any less painful when it does happen. But it will make you more able to grapple with it when it does happen. I mean, I've known people who have been impacted by the death of a parent, and they've just been so crushed, just so devastated that like inconsolable When the truth is, if you live to be a decent age, this is something kind of to be expected. You know, we, we, we all run outta time and they do too. So, you can help yourself by by these contemplations. I know the, the Tibetan Buddhists have elaborate meditations. your own death about the death of those around you, about I mean the impermanence of your society. They, they're nothing if not thorough.  Yucca: I think that, that all of this just for me highlights just how precious life is, the moments that we have and, and helps to, to act as. It's almost like a filter to help us filter out what matters and what doesn't. What am I wasting my time on? And so, and also having some comfort in the memories, right? Thinking about the, whoever it was and the, in the wonderful things of that, right? So there's, there's the solemness to it, but there's. There's also a little, this, this quiet joy underneath it. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think about the Irish tradition of the wake and there's a lot of laughter at awake, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: you know, because people are telling stories of the the one who's dead. And a lot of those are funny stories, happy stories, Yucca: What happened at the pub, right? Mark: exactly. So you remember that time when and and that's. That's all very very much to be embraced and encouraged because grief, I, I heard a great synopsis of grief once, which is grief is love with nowhere to go, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: and I think. When we revisit those stories about the people when they were alive, we're able to feel some of the love that we have for them, you know, there for, for an instant there because we're living in a memory rather than in the current moment. There is a place for the love to go and I think that that is very helpful when we think about funerary rights. Which we talked about when we did a right, A Rite of Passage Yucca: Oh, it's been a couple years at this point. Mark: been a long time ago. We might wanna revisit Yucca: I think so. Yeah. Mark: of passage again. Yucca: I think that probably is still in 2020, Mark: Oh Yucca: right? This has been quite a while. Mark: that is quite a while cuz we're numbing up on 2023. Yucca: Yep. Wow. Mark: yeah. So, Yeah, when you think about that and we think about funeral rights, those are for the living. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Hopefully they're conducted in accordance with the wishes of the one who has died. But in some cases, you kind of have to overrule the dead person. In my opinion, particularly when the dead person says, I don't want any ceremony, I don't want any memorial, I don't want, you know, any, anything. You know, the reality is the people who survive you, they need that. And whether or not you wanted something or not, it's probably a good idea that somebody organized something like that. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: So,  Yucca: funny thing is at that point, it's not actually about you anymore. Mark: that's, You're the subject or you're the object, but you're not the subject. Right? You're, you're no longer capable of being a subject. So it's it's important, you know, that we, that we revisit those memories. And one of the things that we can do at this time of year is to revisit memories of those that we've lost and what we've lost in the way of relationships. Career steps things that we loved in our life that are no longer there, or that we feel like it's time to put down and move away from. Th this is the time to do it. And so there are lots and lots of pagans all over the place. Casting casting what they are finished with into fires, either metaphorically or. Yucca: Or quite literally Mark: Written on paper or Yucca: in a cauldron. Mark: in, in, in a flaming Cauldron. Yes. And, and there will be during that week between Halloween and the first weekend in November, all over North America. Certainly. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: It's good to have a time of year that is for that. Because so much of the rest of the year is really focused on growth and goals and Yucca: Doing, doing. Mark: and then harvesting, which is a bunch more doing, and, and all of that is so important because right, we need, we need to do things in our lives. But there also comes a time when, you know, you recognize that the crop didn't. Or it basically failed and you cut down what is there and you composted. Yucca: Yeah. And that it's okay to rest it's time. To rest, and that's the other half for us, is in my family's tradition, is that we look at this as the, the beginning of night, the end of the year, the sunset. Right. It's the end of the year, but it's not the beginning of the new year Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Right. It's okay. The, the annual season is, is gone now it's time. The, the plants are dying back many. Our annuals and they die back, and the perennial ones are going dormant, and it's just time to go, Okay, the day is done, the year is done. I accept what was and what Mark: Mm, mm-hmm. Yucca: here I am now. Mark: Right? Right. And that, that. Corresponds exactly to my way of viewing the year as mapped along the arc of a human life. Right. You know, middle age is at the autumnal equinox, and then, or I'm sorry, Elderhood is at the autumnal equinox and then deaf at Halls. And then there's this period leading up to Yule, which is the part that we never see of the life cycle, cuz we're not alive during it. Or if we're alive, we're in a, you know, a zygote form. And not conscious enough to be aware of anything going on. But but there's all kinds of amazing stuff happening there. I mean, we're going to, we're, we're gonna talk about decomposition here, coming up I guess in our next episode. Yucca: Yep. Next week. Yep. Mark: And the disassembly of what used to be alive and the reassembly of it by life into more of itself is it's this astounding trick that life does here on earth. It's, it's, I mean, you know, we think of, you know, the, the incredible scientific leap of Dr. Frankenstein, right? Who's able to, Take what's dead and turn it into something living again. Well, that's what life does all the time, Yucca: Yeah, that's what it is. Mark: all the time. That's, that's, that is life. That's what the process is. So it's, it's a great time to recognize that, you know, death comes and, you know, then it's, it's time. It's the end. Time, the, the day is over and it's time to either go dormant and wait for another cycle, or it's time to be disassembled and created into something else. And so going dormant and taking that rest time is really important. I think about all the Scandinavian countries that have these traditions of, you know, huddling up and putting on a fire and reading books. I, I know Christmas Day is a day of reading books in Iceland. Yucca: Hmm Mark: it's traditional to give one another socks. So you have nice, warm feet and there you are, and you sort of huddle up and read books and it's, and that just sounds like a great time. Yucca: That's, that's what we do with the whole Yule season. I love it so much. Every day is about warm, fuzzy socks and hot, you know, nice hot bone broth and the fire crackling and Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: cuddling kitties. So yeah, looking forward to that. There's always that, that bit of looking forward to the next season to. Mark: Yes. Yes. Yucca: enjoying this one, but going, Oh, put just around the corner. We have that, That wonderful. The snuggle season. Mark: Right. Right. Yeah. And so that's another thing that sort of sweetens the bitter pill of, of the Death Sabbath Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: is knowing that, well, yes. Okay. We're facing some very, very hard realities right now. Which we need to because we are mortal beings and you know, if we're gonna have a reality based practice, I go back to that again, then we're gonna acknowledge that we're temporary and that this is gonna happen to us. But just on the other side of that season is this wonderful celebration of family and connection and friends and loved ones. You know, eating sweets and eating too much and drinking too much, and just having a, a lovely, a lovely time kind of stowing in the last calories that we possibly can before the super cold arrives, Yucca: Right. Hmm. And if your, if your climate gets it, the snow, Mark: right? Yucca: so yeah. Mark: We get a little bit of snow on top of this. The, the peaks around. Every four or five years. But that's it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Who knows what's gonna happen with global warming now? Yucca: Yeah. We get, Yeah. Go on. Mark: so why don't we talk about rituals cuz we haven't actually talked about what we do specifically at this time of year. And I, I was gonna tell the story about my circle sow and, but I was wondering what do you do for your, for your hallows ritual or sown ritual? Yucca: Yeah, well, I have a, a personal one that I do, and we haven't really developed a full family one yet. And that, that I think is developing, you know, as, as the kids get older, they get to a point where they can. Different parts of life and reality kind of start to, to set in. And so we'll, we'll see what happens this year. But it's also an extremely busy time of year for us. Lots of birthdays and, and following itself and, and all of that. But so in, maybe in next year or the year after, I might have something different to say about what we do with the kids. But for me, I choose an evening around this time, and this is really the, the, the big one for me where I go out and I sit outside in the garden. And at this point it's crispy. Right. The guard. There's, there's not, maybe there's a few of the leafy greens kind of trying to peek out. But I leave, I leave it all. I haven't cleared it out. And I leave a lot of the, the plants till the spring anyways because of, that's where a lot of the insects will over winter. Right. And I wanna, you know, leave that habitat for them. But I'll sit out and I do not like to be cold . I'm one of those people, you know, if you're seeing the, the recording here I am sitting in my sleeping bag with a little hot water bottle at the c at it with my sweater on. But I'll go out without my big coat on. And so that I am cold. And I will feel that cold on my skin and sit down and, and have a, you know, a personal kind of meditation or journey and just allow myself to feel that cold as the sun setss and just be out in the that cold. Brown crinkled garden, watching the very first stars come out as the sun sets away and just let myself, let all those things go, all those things that, that it's time to let them go from the year. Those fights that I had, that, you know, I've been holding on to and the things that, that didn't work out, the dreams, that didn't work out, the, you know, all of that stuff and just. Let it go. It's, it's gone. It's going. It's dead. It's going to bed. Whatever's happening to it, I've released it and accept it. Yeah. Mark: That's wonderful. That reminds me a little bit of a thing that we do at UL every year, which is to sit out with a cup of something warm, but. To, to sit out in the cold for about a half an hour or so and just feel the air temperature feel, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: feel the cold and dark before we bring the light back into the house. So my circle, as I said, has been getting together for since 1991, this will be our 33rd. Sow and ritual, which is just shocking to me. I don't know how that ever happened, but everybody who was in the circle to begin with is still there. And plus a couple more. Three, three more. And this, we've done some variety of this every year for many, many, many years. The circle started on, on Halloween night. In 1991. So it's, it's also, Yucca: work for that? Mark: Yeah, because I mean count, count 1, 2, 3, Right? It's like this will be the first, Yucca: I was born in 89 and I'm 33 now, but I guess it's because this is the final anyways Mark: is the, this is the next Yucca: year. Yeah. So this is the next, Okay. Mark: Right. This is, this starts the next cycle. Yucca: Okay. Mark: Yeah. So it's 33. The, and what we do is we build a focus, a big altar next to a, a fire circle where there's a fire laid but not lit. And the, the focus has jackal lanterns on it that are. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So it's glowing and there's all these symbols and bones and skulls and things all over that. And previously we, it was just a raked circle that we made. This is, this is at the home of friends of ours who have forested land, Redwood land. And this is an open clearing where we do this behind their house. And, and previously we just, you know, raked the circle and set it up that way. In recent years, it's a circle of chairs, Yucca: Sure Mark: Because we've gotten to the point where many of us really need a chair and are not gonna stand up for Yucca: Well, we had an episode about that recently, right? About thinking about who is part of your ritual and what are the different needs of the people in that Mark: Exactly. Yeah. And it I mean, I have to say it did feel like somewhat of a concession at some level. To me it was like, Oh boy, we're getting old, but we're getting old . So there's not a lot to be said about it. Yucca: Didn't you say you were the youngest or Mark: I am, I'm the, I'm the youngest. I'm the youngest in the group. And the oldest is 86, 85, Yucca: Okay. Mark: something like that. So, yeah, I mean, and most of the folks are in their sixties or seventies, but you know, we, when we first got together, I was in my twenties, so it's just been a long time. So we get together and then we we do a ritual that's about kind of letting go. Letting go of the things that we no longer need. Letting go of life, letting go of letting go of our physical, you know, letting, letting go of, of, be, of existing in essence. And then, Yes. And we sing a couple of songs and we love to sing together and we harmonize together really beautifully. So it's really an enjoyable thing that we love to do. And then we, when we're ready, march down to down through the forest and it's very dark down to a dark place that we've designated as the land of the. And there we call out to those that we've lost and want to communicate with, and we talk to them. We, we tell them that we're sorry to lose them, and we tell them that we miss them and we tell them that we love them and all those kinds of things. In most cases, when my father died, it was a little different. We do that for quite some time until the, the cold starts kind of seeping into our bones and it starts to feel a little too comfortable being there in the land of the dead. And that's the cue that we need to get up and get out of there. Because otherwise we might stay and that wouldn't be good. So, we make our way back to the, to the fire circle and we light the fire. I use a sprigg of U Tree that I've gathered from a cemetery nearby on Halloween the previous year. So because you know, if I use this year's it would be too green and it wouldn't actually light. So the last year's U Spri is sitting on my focus right now drying and that's what I'll use to light the. And then we share chocolate and wine and pomegranate and sing some more and sing about how happy we are to be alive. And we come back into the joyfulness of this existence, temporary as it is, and how glad we are to be with one another. And then, you know, after, after a while that all kind of peters out and we go inside and have a great big, huge. And enjoy each other's company. And we do that as a, as a stay over event. So we all Yucca: drive home or Mark: right. Exactly. We can, we can hang out and get in the hot tub or whatever and just have a really nice time with one another for that whole, that whole weekend. Yucca: Oh, that's amazing. Mark: It's so lovely and so transformative and you wouldn't think that after doing it so many times that it would be. But every year there are different losses, there are different things to speak to, different circumstances, and we change right from year to year as people we change. Yucca: Yeah. Well, thinking three decades of change. Mark: yes. Yes. So it's, it's a really profound thing and it's not a complicated ritual. And you can, you can, you could do this ritual without having a dark place in the forest to walk to. You could do that as a visualization. Do it as a guided meditation instead. So just, you know, if you, if the space you have is a living room, you could do it right there. You could do it, you know, start in total darkness. You know, do your early, you know, except for maybe, you know, a jackal lantern lit with an l e d candle or whatever. If you don't wanna set off your smoke alarm and you could then do the voyage to the land of the dead. And you could, you could embellish that much more than we can in real life. You could row across the river, sticks to the island of apples and, you know, meet your ancestors and stuff. There's all kinds of cool things you can do in a mental journey. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So, there's nothing proprietary about what we're doing. If this ritual sounds like it's appealing to you, go ahead and. Yucca: Yeah. And really anything that we share on the podcast, that's, that's, if it's works for you and it sounds like it's something that you wanna try out, please do. Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the reason we produce this podcast is for you, the listeners, to provide ideas, resources, thinking opinion. Take it or leave it, you know, whatever, whatever value you can get out of what we're providing, you know, we're, we're happy to, to provide it. So that's, that's hellos, that's, that's the, the Halloween sew hellos sab it season. Yucca: Yep. Mark: And we hope that you have a, Happy, cheery, spooky, goofy, sexy, solemn, reflective Yucca: chilly. Mark: silly, meaningful passage of the season because it is and can be all of those things at one time or another. Yucca: Yeah. Well, thank you everybody. Mark: Thank you. We'll see you next week.  

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E20 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host Mark.  Yucca: And I'm Yucca  Mark: And today we are going to ask one, another questions about our practices. What have they been like in the past? What are they like now? What are they likely or how would we like for them to evolve in the future? Basically just do sort of a Q and a back and forth between one another, to learn more about the details of how our spiritual practices go.  Yucca: Right. And how there can be very different approaches. I think that you and I share a lot, but we also come at things from, from pretty different perspectives as well. Mark: We do we do. I mean, particularly in the way that we envisioned the wheel of the year, I think is, is, you know, markedly different  Yucca: And also just one of the things I love about our conversations is that there's a, there's a pretty big age gap between us is a pretty big just family style, lifestyle gap, you know, gender differences. So I've really valued these conversations. Thank you. And I, I hope that that is interesting to, to all of you listeners as well. Mark: yeah. I hope it is. And I hope that it's worthy of spending the next half an hour, 40 minutes of your time. And I really value these conversations too. This is a, this is something I look forward to every year.  Yucca: Yeah, likewise. So, I mean, I think this is a really interesting chance to see how practices can kind of change and evolve over time with the person. So we've, we've talked about it a little bit before, but how did you get into this pagan thing?  Mark: Oh,  Yucca: went from, from an atheist to a pagan, right? Well, you're still atheist, but you know, to an atheopagan  Mark: Right, right. yeah. I was raised in a household that Just didn't have any religion and it was never discussed. So it's not like we decided that we were atheists. It's just that we were never anything else? Yucca: Just we're okay. Mark: my father was a scientist. My mother was a nurse. Science was the way you, you learned things. The universe was interesting and full of stuff that was knowable and discoverable and and it was really prized to learn stuff and know stuff. So. In relation to all matters, kind of spiritual and religious. I became one of those sort of snotty atheists because I thought that, I mean, every religion that I encountered was filled with nonsense, utter nonsense, talking burning bushes and resurrected people and parted oceans and. You know, 11,000 virgins in heaven and just crazy, crazy, crazy stuff to my mind. And excuse me So I dismissed that entire aspect of human behavior and culture out of hand and had nothing to do with it. My only encounter with it was when I sang in a church choir when I was in high school, which was basically because all of my music. Gang friends also saying in the same choir and the, the brilliant director of music at my high school was also the director of that choir at the church. So I just went there on Sundays and sang and that, and then a subsequent experience with seeing early music taught me a lot about. Christianity and Christian theology because of the words of all the songs and particularly translations from the Latin of medieval and Renaissance music, you learn a great deal about kind of the mentality and all that. As well as the study of history, because this, the study of Christianity the study of European history is in large part, the study of Christianity and its various fractions. Competitions and all that sort of thing. So really wasn't interested in any of that. And out of the blue, a friend of mine who had been, he'd been a roommate when I was in college and we'd stayed in touch. He was considerably older than I still is considerably older than I am. Invited me to a, an autumnal Equinox circle. That was being held by his coven  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and. I don't know why he invited me to this thing. I honestly, I don't have to this day, I have no idea why he invited it to me. I guess he just thought that I might get something out of it. And I don't know why I went, but I did. And it was really weird in the one hand. I mean, with people standing in a circle, holding hands and drumming and chanting. You know, speaking to invisible presences and, you know, like gods and elements and directions and things like that. And that part was all pretty weird. But there was also something that was very compelling about it. I realized it's the autumnal Equinox. That's a really important milestone in the year. I'm a deep environmentalist. I am really, really committed to. To nature and to the biosphere and to the health of the biosphere. Why don't, why am I not aware that that's happening? Why don't I know what phase the moon is in all the time. And I realized how disconnected I was in many ways, and this was a valuable way of observing these things that would. Bring me into a closer alignment with the cycles of nature and that's how it started. And from there I went to I was invited to go to the reclaiming, the big reclaiming spiral dance in San Francisco which I've attended several times, but this was the first time it was a long time ago. It was in the eighties when it was still held at the women's building in San Francisco. And so I had an experience of a ritual of hundreds of people as well as experiences of smaller group rituals, I went to a UL ritual and there was kind of a vigil all night to wait until the sun came up and watched the sun come up. And by that time I was kind of hooked and set up an alternate. Started doing observances on my own. And within a couple of years, I was leading rituals and writing chants and being a leader in my local community. To some degree I think because that's the sort of a natural trajectory. And also, cause I have some leadership capacity and  Yucca: Sure. That's part of your personality. Mark: Yeah. it's just kind of how I'm built. And that, that's how I got. That, that honestly is how I got here. And I, it never crossed my mind to actually believe in the invisible presences that they were talking to in the circles. And I didn't really discover until much later that people were literally believing that those were invisible intelligence self-aware beings out there in the universe. Well, how about you? Why don't you talk about your. Rival into paganism, which was very different.  Yucca: Yeah. So I, I grew up this way pretty much my, and I'll be a little bit vague for the privacy of the people who are alive today. But it, my family, my parents were different. Deeply loved each other got along great, but you know, had different religious beliefs there. My mother was a Christian and that her, her faith was really important to her. And that was something that she definitely gave to the older siblings. So my family has a pair of older siblings, a big gap, and then younger sibling. But she ended up dying when I was fairly young. So the younger siblings, we were raised more by our dad, whereas the older ones had been raised, by, by both of them. But my dad had arrived at paganism. From Catholicism with a little bounce into Quakerism you know, kind of stepping stone there. And we just, I also I grew up in Santa Fe, which is kind of a new age Mecca. There was just grew up around lots of lots of everything, right? A lot of the kind of traditional Wu stuff. But there's a lot of different people there and just an interest in that kind of stuff. So that was just normal. That was around me. There were pagans around me. There were there were all the Tibetans stuff and then way G shops and and then also. Heavily very, very old Catholic communities as well. And the, the Catholicism of Northern New Mexico and the rural Southwest is very different than the rest of the world. Because if you just, it's a really interesting history to get into. But the church was kicked out. For awhile. And the people continue to practice and kind of developed their own just continue to practice. And so there, there are little non church legs in this big church, sanctioned little sun patios and things like that. So I know this will be kind of offensive to some. People, but the Catholicism here is very pagan and a lot of ways, very, very earth centered and very kind of into the land. But we. Rural and paying a lot of attention to what's going on with our land that we were living with. My father was really careful about the types of words that got, you know, we don't live off the land. We live with the land and paying attention to th the solstice is we're having a lot of the words whenever really used. Right. We weren't calling it Yule. We weren't calling it the Equinox, but, but we'd joke about, okay, well, if you know, the, the light, the sun is going in the right direction now, right. As it starts to get sunny again and, and all of that. And it was really important to him that we be raised also with tools with mental tools and emotional tools that could help with. In the world. So being able to meditate, that was just something that we were taught grounding. I remember doing like the visualization, practicing, breathing, and practicing the, the bubble or the egg protection and, and those sorts of things. W just were really important that they'd be passed on to us kids. And at some point, I don't know where I picked the words up, but we're talking early teens. I just started using the word pagan. I don't know. I just, that, wherever that came from was how I, I mean, there were other people who were pagan, but that was just, I started to use it. If I was ever filling out a form of. Wicked down. I never really considered myself wicked, but that was the thing that I thought would get closest to what I was on a, on a list. So it's like, okay, that'll kind of represent what I am, cause I don't want to put down other, right. I guess it could put down other, but, or, none of the above. So I put that down. And. The same with, for you? I, it never, it never occurred to me that people literally believed in like the God stuff. Like I was kind of into, like, I liked some of like the goddess stuff. I thought that was really cool. I liked like the image, you know, some of those like old, like, Like figurines, like the Venus figurine and those sorts of things. I thought that was really like interesting. And I had read the all like the mist of Avalon series and, and all of that stuff. And it was just an enjoy that, that quite a bit. And again, it really wasn't until. In my, probably early twenties when I had been doing the pagan perspective for years and just reading people's comments, that it just dawned on me that wow, these people are literally taking these. It was like actual beings. Like I thought that's just like, Like the Christians did. And like I thought that was, I thought that pretty much the only people who did that, and I know this is quite naive, but I thought that was really the Abrahamic religions and that nobody else really took it literal. And then of course being educated more, I found it. Oh, okay. So actually there are other religions too, that, that think of their gods as literal beings. But for instance, the Hindus that I had been exposed to. Talk to me about it being metaphors. They hadn't talked about them as being literal beings. And I also grew up around permaculture and all of that sort of thing. And so I actually ended up as a teen six, I think I was 17. Probably. I went out to your part of the world and did some. Permaculture stuff with star Hawk that was of course blended in with the paganism and activism stuff and and came back home. And there's a lot of that happening here in Northern New Mexico as well. And it just was this really good fit, this natural fit. And then I went into the life sciences and just kind of hung out in there and Continue to just have that as being part of my, yeah, this is my identity. This is, who I am or what I like to do, how I view the world, but it's always been very interesting because there is kind of that split in the family where there's like the half that is definitely quite Christian within the like immediate family. And then the half of my, my closest sibling and father and stepmother and like that side. That's sort of pagan and we just don't ever talk about it at family meetings when we're all together, just don't say anything. So that's since it's very, it's evolved very organically, I've never have really seen a separation between where there was a moment where I'm like, yes, I'm pagan. Now just kind of always was. Mark: Well, so let me see would you describe. How would you describe the evolution of, well, actually it's your turn to ask me a question that just occurred to me.  Yucca: Hmm, I think I'm going to steal your question. So, mark, how would you describe the evolution of your practice from when you. Entered into it to today because you've got quite a bit of big journey between there and here. Mark: Yeah. Okay. I should have thought more about my answer to this question before figuring it out for you. The, I was always a kid who wanted to live in a museum. I made my rooms like museums with displays of minerals and seashells and feathers. And. Other natural objects. Right. And as I got older, that turned more into kind of the museum of ethnography and natural history where I have various kinds of ethnic art that I find just so alive and so compelling. As well as the natural objects and artifacts and all that kind of stuff. And so it became very natural for me to put together an altar with precious objects that had meaning to me, the idea of objects that tell stories. When I look at them was just something that I got very instinctually. And so. that that's my understanding of what a magical item is. Right. A magical item is one that has a sentimental value to you because it has a story behind it. So it kind of started there and with going to these rituals, which were all group rituals, it, it bears saying, because. Paganism has fragmented a lot, even as it's grown a lot in the time that I've been involved with it, most of the practitioners are solitary and there are reasons for that, that we can get into. But at the time that I got into it, it was a group activity and You know, I, I went to this belt teen festival on this sacred land, up in Mendocino county, and we ran around naked and raised a maypole and danced around it and danced around a fire and had all these wonderful experiences. There were, there were problems with that community that came to the full. After a while, but my early experiences with them were transcendently freeing and beautiful. So that is kind of where my experience started from. So after I took on more leadership responsibilities, I started to settle into more of a sense of myself as a, as an active exponent in a community rather than. You know, somebody that just got invited to events and was a participant. I, I participated more in organizing events and just started to see myself in a somewhat different context that way. And my circle of friends grew and grew and grew because one of the things that I saw in the local pagan community any way was that they were some of the most amazing and interesting people I had ever met. They were creative and thoughtful and growth-oriented, and generally speaking had really you know, progressive and kind politics. Were just lots of reasons to, to, to way deeper into this, the subculture. And my practice began to change around the time that that climate began to change in the, in the mid to late nineties, was a big influx of folks into paganism that were former Christian. And it changed the culture. They brought a lot of their frameworks with them. I, they didn't intend to,  Yucca: but like the idea of.  Mark: yes. The idea that,  Yucca: like practice versus faith.  Mark: right, right. The idea that you had to have faith in the, in literal gods was something that I had never been confronted with in the whole time that I had been practicing and. Suddenly there it was. And there were these debates about, you know, the nature of the gods, whether the gods existed at all, all this kind of stuff. And I withdrew from attending so many group activities. And particularly, even though I went to Penn via con the big convention every year, I worked there as a volunteer. So most of my time was taken up with my volunteer duties and that was okay because I was there to visit with my friends and go to parties after hours and all that kind of stuff. The workshops themselves were almost entirely just stuff that I didn't believe.  Yucca: Right. Mark: Just things I didn't believe in. And it became increasingly clear to me that a lot of what people were doing in the pagan community was stuff that I just didn't think was real. It didn't seem reality grounded to me. And so, and I've told this story before, so I'll kind of skip over it. I, there were some unethical things that happened that were excused as the will of the gods in around 2005. And I quit the community and that's when I, about six months later when I was missing it and really seeing that there was a lot of value that I was getting out of religious practice, even though. I wasn't a believer that got me onto this whole investigation about what is religion? What does it do? What's it function for us as humans? How can we get that function without having to believe in a bunch of stuff for which there's no evidence. And that led eventually to my writing, the essay that became the book. Atheopagan so much. Practice has been much more solitary in recent years, but it's starting to turn again with the advent of the Northern California affinity group for atheopagan ism. We're, we're having in-person rituals and we're planning another one for the summer solstice. And it's exciting. It's a really cool thing. They're wonderful group of people and. It's feeling like a really exciting new chapter.  Yucca: Have well, and you have had your ritual circle many years as well.  Mark: Yes. That's true. Yes. I've been a part of dark sun for 31 years. This this coming sewing Hallows and  Yucca: And y'all usually do the, the wheel of the year, right? You aren't getting together, every weekend, but you get together typically eight times a year. Mark: About eight times a year. Yeah. And they, they generally focus around the time of the wheel of the year holidays. The most significant rituals That we do though, are for Hallows and annual. And it's a lot more free form around the rest of the year, which I've always wanted to change, but I never have changed. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: That does sound very similar to many other picking groups as well, but it kind of seems to be the most excitement around those two particular holidays. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So. So that's how my practice has evolved up until now. And there's some glimmers of things. Th there are things that I really miss about the paganism that I first encountered in the eighties that I want to say. There were things that were really screwed up about that paganism that I wasn't really aware of at the time. There were real problems with with lack of consent. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Particularly in behavior of men, towards women there were, there were problems like the ethical one that I encountered that caused me to leave the, the community. There were people who had set themselves up as a high muckety muck of some pagan church or organization. And then. Be charismatic narcissists who are shitty to other people and there'd be financial mismanagement, and there'd be no preferential treatment for people who are young and pretty and just, just  Yucca: All that. Mark: stuff. But that. said there was a beautiful freedom in being able to go out into the woods and. Maybe take some mushrooms and just be free and alive in nature and celebrating these rituals with other people of like mind. It was very beautiful. And I, I miss that and I, I hope to go back to it maybe without the mushrooms. But but I hope to go back to more of that kind of practice because that's really what got me into it in the first place. It's not an intellectual exercise. It's something that feeds something much deeper in me. And those beautiful experiences are what I treasure from my memories of my pagan life.  Yucca: It's beautiful.  Mark: Thank you.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So how about you? How, how have things evolved since, say since, since you were out on your own.  Yucca: Yeah. It's interesting to think about because a lot of it, I mean, has. Just changed with me as my particular needs have changed. Right. What's and I think that's this, everybody's doing that to a certain extent. It wasn't a lot of it. Wasn't me sitting down and saying, I have a practice. What can I do for my practice? It was what's going on in my life. And what are the tools that I have to try and be living the life that I want. And so that's, at various times certain things would be more or less important. And I definitely experimented a lot with things like. We actually were chatting a little bit before the recording about things like elements. Right. I think we both said that, we had both kind of tried using the classical elements at some point in our practice and kind of moved away from that. And, had sort of tried out using, you know, the goddess or the triple goddess, things like that in practice. And just been like this, this isn't really working sort of moved away from that. I've had something very interesting over the last, I guess, about more than 15 years now, I made my first YouTube channel. I guess it was 17 years ago at this point and started sharing things. And I'm a very, a lot of my practice has been very solitary and telephone. Having my family and then it's become more of a family practicing for awhile. It was a little partnership practice and then adding in, the kids. But because I did get online and start sharing, I had originally started sharing on YouTube is just kind of a. There was a very different YouTube community at the time. It was its own company. Actually, it didn't even belong to Google or any of those things. And there was like this interesting little pagan community there where like, we would just kind of share things back and forth. And then, I started building the channel and then eventually I got onto the pagan perspective. And then I was on that for about. Well, until it shut down, like, I guess it was 10 or 11 years. And Th that was, it was kind of in the way that we, you know, we, you and I talk about different topics every week. It gave me a nice like point to come back to every week and think about this new topic. But almost every week was just a challenge because they were like, so what do you think about ghosts? What do you think about this? God, and heck a tie in that. And, and, I'd want to try and come up with like a very diplomatic way of, of saying. And like, I don't buy that, but, but still have something of value to say. And it was, it was definitely challenging to be on the, the channel. I had a lot of conflict in the background and kind of felt, kind of picked on and attacked by a couple of the, you know, the more strong, like vegan fronts and stuff. But I felt it was really important to be on there because I mean, that's actually how we met. You made a comment on one of the. Videos that just, said, no, you don't have to believe in God. That's cool. He can be a pagan and I don't believe in gods. But I just had so many people make comments. They're like, I'm so glad you made this video. Like, I, I felt so alone. I didn't know that that was a thing I'm so glad that like there's other pagans like me. I kind of felt, although I enjoyed that, I felt like a little bit of an obligation. Right. And I had like this one wanting to serve to be like, I want to provide. And get this word out here. Even though. You know, it might not be the best kind of emotional thing. But there was that really wonderful, the value of the thinking and the connecting with people which is another reason I'm just so grateful for what we do here, because there's no like secret tension. no like mark and I are not arguing and fighting in the background. Right. That's not happening. And, but still get to feel like. Contributing to a community and, and offering to a community and sharing to this kind of wide world. That's, that's been really important in that in the last, I guess, decade and a half is to be able to contribute that way. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, but it's just been very interesting to be a very kind of private person with a very. Kind of solitary practice and yet be talking about it to the world all the time.  Mark: Yeah, that is, that is interesting. Yeah, so your, your practice has been solitary, but there's been this kind of public window into it, but by your own descriptions of how you practice and what you think, and those kinds of things.  Yucca: Yeah. And I think that helps. Well, I understand that I really want to be part of a larger community and that's, I guess, kind of what we could maybe go into is, where do we think we're wanting to go from here, but as my own kids grow and as I'm in a very different life stage than I was before just feeling like. More community. Right. I want to open up to the world and, and be not just, I haven't felt like my twenties, right. I'm 33 now my, my twenties were about. Oh, goodness. Get some feet under me, survive, get through this, just kind of this scramble and now I'm feeling like, okay, no, and I, you know, put some roots down. I want to start to grow and flourish and of course the, my practice is part of that. Cause that's just the, the practices is how do I live my life?  Mark: Sure. Sure. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. So what's your next question for me?  Yucca: Well, you started to touch on it a little bit. But you know, what, what do you think right now that, that you're. Maybe missing and working towards, you know, where do you see? What, what are the things that the places for growth that you see. Mark: there are a lot of different dimensions to that because the atheopagan community is a growing community. And as, as the founder of the path that presents challenges and opportunities to me. A lot of which at this stage have to do with finding ways to get out of the way, finding ways to let go and let other people take on. Significant pieces of, of what needs to be done. I'm in communication with a woman who is interested in taking over the editing of the atheopagan voice newsletter, for example, which would be wonderful. I mean, I would still contribute content and stuff, but I wouldn't have to do all the work of pulling it together every month. Yucca: You put, I want to interrupt you for just a second. Mark does a tremendous amount. Of work for the community. It's really, I'm really grateful. There's just so much you worked on putting, helping with the retreat. You're on the council, you do the atheopagan voice. You've been on multiple different subcommittees and getting the Facebook group going and this podcast and everything. So it's just really, really amazing.  Mark: Well, it's a, it's a labor of love and I, I appreciate your recognition. And at the same time, it's like, When I first created this path that I called atheopagan ism, it was just for me. And I didn't really expect that it was gonna take off, but it turns out there's So. many people out there who are, you know, science grounded, and they don't want to believe in a bunch of superstitious stuff. What they still want to celebrate living. They still want to celebrate the magnificence of the cosmos and the world. They still want to have community and meaning, and to live a good life, according to some virtuous values. And I just kind of came along at the right place at the right time, I guess. But the community is growing and, and we're doing more. So part of what my hope is to do is to. Divest myself of some of those responsibilities so that they can kind of, you know, fly on their own. And then to sort of rededicate myself to my personal practice a little bit more Without falling into the fallacy of the good old days. There is a lot that I miss about the sense of wonder and beauty that I had when I first arrived in paganism. Because it was beautiful. It was a beautiful vision for the world. It was a beautiful way of interacting with one another. There was an openness of heart that the people that were attracted to it generally speaking, really brought and all of that was. Back for me by the century retreat, because I saw it once again, you know, people being vulnerable people being courageous and, you know, doing the work to grow people just generally being really good. Good, amazing, interesting, fantastic people. So I would like to continue building this community by finding new ways to connect people. And, you know, so that's fostering the affinity group program. That's, you know, we're, we're talking about the possibility of maybe doing a, an online conference at some point so that more people could access it, that weren't able to come to the century retreat. And of course, we'll do another century retreat in 2024. Community building and then turning back and taking a look at myself and saying, okay, well, who am I now? How has this changed me over the last, what, 12 years now? Something like that, that Ethiopianism is benefiting. And where do I want to grow next? Where, where do I. What what's the next piece for me. And if some of that ends up pointing back to running around naked in the woods, I wouldn't mind observers might mind, but I wouldn't mind. So. How about you? What, what do you see happening in the future?  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And I should also say Yucca also does a lot for our community. She chairs the atheopagan society council. She's our media cleric. So she's directing the The revitalization of our YouTube channel and our Instagram account. There's, there's a lot going on for a mother of two young children. So I'm super, and of course this podcast, so I am super appreciative of everything that you do. And I so value our relationship.  Yucca: Thank you. Yeah, well, this is definitely, this is a big component. It feels really good to have that, that community piece. Right. A lot of my focus is there. I know with my practice, another component is bringing. Back in, we talk about this one a lot, but the self care component, I know that that's one that, I talk a good talk, but you know, I'll get into it for a while and then it'll kind of slip out of it, and, and being better about there's some things that I'm really, really, you could say religious about right. Getting outside every day by. Taking time to myself and doing a little meditation, you know, that that doesn't always happen. And when it does, I feel just so much better and I'm just like a better person, a better, I work better. I'm a better parent, all of those things. So. I'm looking, looking towards growth and looking towards towards the balancing in that area and more effectively. Right. And so, being able to. Let myself not just be the care giver because that's a role that I've really been in my whole life. Really, even as a kid, I was always the, the person in the background who was, doing, taking care of everybody else and I'm comfortable there. Right. I prefer again. Do this weird thing where like I talk to people on a podcast on YouTube, like I actually prefer to be in the background. I actually prefer to be doing that background work. And just taking care of everybody else, but working on, Hey, maybe I could be one of those people I take care of. And, so that's, really the, the directions that I see that kind of growing out and the growing down into the ground to that, that rooting. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I can, I can see that for you. Yeah, that's good. So do you have another question for me?  Yucca: I do have a question for our listeners.  Which is what topics all of you would like to hear? Because we, before we know it, we're, we're coming up on solstice already. So we're going to be talking about the solstice soon, and we've got topics that we want to be discussing, but we also really love hearing from you. What topics that maybe even if we've covered it before, I mean, we're in three years now of topics of what are the things that are really meaningful to you that you want to. So we'd really invite that. Any of your comments or questions on that, that area? Mark: Yeah, that would be great. You need to understand that from our standpoint, we've been doing this for more than two years now on a weekly basis. That's a lot of subjects. That's a whole lot of subjects, even though eight of them every year are taken up by the wheel of the year holidays. And we always do an episode on each of those holidays. Yucca: There's another 47. Mark: Yes exactly. That's, that's just so many different topics. And we are creative people, but we are not infinitely creative people. So there are times when we, you know, arrive at the time to record the podcast and it's like, Hmm, what are we going to talk about? So your help with this and letting us know what you would like to hear our thoughts and input about would be really helpful. And you can of course reach us@thewonderpodcastqueuesatgmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, Q s@gmail.com. And we hope to hear from you soon. It only takes a second to shoot us an email. And so please do that.  Yucca: Yeah. And do we, do you know, really appreciate you being here? This is, it's been, it's just amazing to see. And, the downloads and listens and the emails that we get from all of you. So you're a real big part of our lives. So we appreciate that. Mark: Absolutely. I'm, I'm always, I'm always So thrilled when I, when someone says to me, oh, I heard you on the podcast. And it's like, oh yes, they heard me on the podcast. Yucca: So thank you all.  Mark: Yeah, thanks everyone. And thank you, Yucca. Great conversation.  

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E7 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca  Mark: and I'm Mark, Yucca: And today we have a really special episode. We have, what was it that you called it? A.  Mark: Literary interlude.  Yucca: a, a bit of storytelling, dreaming and poetry for the spring, which a lot of us are in that place. And here in the Northern hemisphere where we're going into spring, where, Ooh, we want to get going. We want to, we want to just get out there, but it's still, still a bit nippy, not quite there yet. And so it's still that time of dreaming and storytelling. Getting ready for all of it.  Mark: Right. Yeah, it's that in between time and, and we, we were a little bit at a loss to know what to talk about today. So. We've, we've fallen back on on poetry and stories and that kind of thing. These are. The poems come from my book a red kiss, which is my second book after the atheopaganism book and is a collection of poems of mine going all the way back to 1993--selected poems, not all of them just the good stuff. So I'm really happy to share. I write on a variety of different kinds of themes. So these are these sort of go all over the place. So settle in and we'll, we'll start out with an atheist prayer :  AN ATHEIST'S PRAYER Praise to the wide spinning world Unfolding each of all the destined tales compressed In the moment of your catastrophic birth Wide to the fluid expanse, blowing outward Kindling in stars and galaxies, in bright pools Of Christmas-colored gas; cohering in marbles hot And cold, ringed, round, gray and red and gold and dun   And blue   Pure blue, the eye of a child, spinning in a veil of air, Warm island, home to us, kind beyond measure:  the stones And trees, the round river flowing sky to deepest chasm, salt And sweet.   Praise to Time, enormous and precious, And we with so little, seeing our world go as it will Ruing, cheering, the treasured fading, precious arriving, Fear and wonder, Fear and wonder always.   Praise O black expanse of mostly nothing Though you do not hear, you have no ear nor mind to hear Praise O inevitable, O mysterious, praise Praise and thanks be a wave Expanding from this tiny temporary mouth this tiny dot Of world a bubble   Going out forever meeting everything as it goes All the great and infinitesimal Gracious and terrible All the works of blessed Being.   May it be so.   May it be so.   May our hearts sing to say it is so.   Yucca: Mark. That was beautiful. Mark: Thank you. That's the one that I ended the atheopaganism book with actually there's a little one page chapter called what it looks like, and that's that's what's on that page. Yucca: The, the imagery, I just, just closing my eyes and listening, as you said that, and could just, just feel my. Changing perspective and flying through coming down from the galactic of you into the eye of the child. Just, just amazing.  Mark: Thank you. so much. This is one called "Blessed". And it's got a dedication: for my people. You know who you are.  Yucca: Hm. BLESSED I am among the blessed.   I am of the kind who leaves the glaring tube, remembering And goes to watch the moon rise silver through the trees Breathing purple and chill, stinging pine.  I am Among the blessed:  I know the acacia, the first daffodil, The irises unsheathing cream and violet labia in the green wet of May. I tune for the new music on the radio:  I turn it up.   I am among the blessed:  I drink wine by firelight, clothes rank with smoke, Bright silver twisted through my lobes.  I know secrets; They are tattooed on my body where the sleeves can cover them, They read   Blessed, and only if we are lucky enough, you and I, courageous enough To shed our clothes together will you read them.    Seeing scarlet leaves drift down, Perhaps, with ice around the moon, or the steel bones of the oaks against Orion, Knowing we are among the blessed, that we miss nothing, that we will eat this life Like a chocolate mango, like Beethoven ice cream, Moaning our joy with each sweet bite. This next one is dedicated to my friend, Ellen Lewis. And it's about getting older. It's about how maybe it's just because I'm very, I'm a very sort of skeptical person, but I always find it a little hard to believe that somewhere, 1975. Isn't still out there; that I could, that I could go to that place again. And those people would be there and it would be that place again somehow. The, the passage of time is kind of baffling to me in a way. So this is called A FAR COUNTRY. It comes in moments, thinking: Oh, that year is still out there somewhere. We could drive Far into the night and come upon it, A world of remembered fashions and faded devices.   But then your bones confirm: no. Those days are gone for always, lost In the strangeness that is the passing of time. We are older now.   Remembering, there is always the will to bring What has been gained on this roadworn way back On that trip: strapped to the roof like campers' gear, Waiting to unfurl and make a new home.   We would have our wisdom and our youth besides then. No aches and infirmities, and optimism bright as peaches, Innocence without inexperience. We would have all We have won by endurance, and cost free.   The far land of the past would take us then, unmake The failures and embarrassments, take The work and sorrow from us, the mistakes, Leaving gold, and we young and beautiful to spend it.   Oh, if it were only so.   But we are not passengers--nor drivers, really: We calve like ice from floes laid down in bygone snows Jagged and dangerous, mostly unseen And float down the currents, rounding Softening Learning our depths as we diminish until Blue with history, curved and scalloped With knowing this great ocean at last We are melted into the vastness of things.   Yucca: Hm. Mark: That's one of my favorites actually.  Yucca: I love that last line melted into the vastness of things.  Mark: Yeah. Cause it's what happens Right? Yucca: Right? Mark: When our time comes, we get disassembled and melted into the vastness of things.  Yucca: Yeah. Well, and that's, that's what, I mean, we weren't anything, but that's what.  Mark: right.  Yucca: And we're just a piece. We're a ripple in that basket for this time. And then the wave dissipates and returns back to just being part of the whole ocean.  Mark: Right,  Yucca: Hm. Mark: right. So this is something for the season. This is called SPRING LAUGHS. It begins with a giggle: The tiniest white tendril reaching from the secret soil Like a child's laugh, the purr of a cat and then Raising, greening leaves and flowers peal across the meadows, Carpet even what was once severe, sere, Frowning brown in summer's dry thatch, A deep belly rumble of soaring chlorophyll Spreading wanton leaves, dangling perfumed sex Climbing to nod and wave come and get me, These meadows, Brazen to the skip of children gathering posies Bees lumbering slow in the crisp morning air You, and I, perhaps, gone down to the stream To lay down in that place, screened by waving rye And the laughter of the stream gurgling out like a baby's delight Playing with our playthings as we do, exploring The whole world green and gripped with the howl of it: Spring come at last. Yucca: That makes me want to get out and be in the spring. Come on spring, be here already. Oh, beautiful. Thank you, mark. Mark: Thank you so much. And the last poem that I'll read, and then I'll tell a story is a Christian heresy poem. This is called MARY MAGDALENE IMPENITENT.   And so I have become an object lesson to these old, dried men. A cautionary tale.  They know nothing, these friends, these hangers-on, They have only their dreams of what was given them, the longed-for balm, Freedom from their secret lusts as seen In the mirror he was for each he met, As Pilate did.  And I.   What they do not tell you in their book fills chests of scrolls In the library of my heart, will die with me.  His sorrow, his rage, his agony They embrace, they exalt, the old men who think this fire in their eyes is his —When it is their own— But his sweetness, his passion, his humanity they choose to forget, confounded That a whore held his confidences, that we shared what they could not, Who would consume him, tear him to pieces and eat him to have what he was.   Who will tell that his skin smelled of honey in the sun?  That his mouth was red As berries, filled with juices, alive on me, how long his fingers were, and gentle,     How his back arched when he spilled into me?  Who will say that he laughed often, And at little things?  That he snored?  Loved figs and pomegranates, But did not care for dates? Who will remember his fear, his questioning?   I cursed the corrupt old men when they took him from me. I cursed God.   And I repent nothing.  Not even this.     Highly maligned and unfairly treated character. Mary Magdalen. Really doesn't get her props.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So now along the lines of something completely different, here is a campfire story. This is called POTOK AND THE HUNDRED-THOUSAND YEAR FIRE. And it's for all my pagan friends out there, because it's really about us. There was a night—long, long ago—when we had captured fire. This was many years before we knew how to make it. We found it in a tree which had been struck by lightning, carried it in a gourd to where we made a camp. And that night, we gathered around where the fire was fed to grow fat and snapping. We saw one another's faces in the flickering light, and felt the warmth even in the dead of night. It was a miracle. No predator would dare come near. And we were all together, in a circle, about the dancing, magical fire. One night, meat was plentiful. A man named Potok had killed a cave bear after a fierce battle. Our bellies were full and grease hissed in the fire, and when we had eaten, Potok stood and told his tale: how he had lured the bear and crept upon it, how his spear went deep, and then he leapt upon the bear with his flint knife. The bear's fangs hung, fresh and bloody, from a thong about his neck. We cheered and ate some more. The next winter, Potok died. We buried him with the bear fangs. But that night at the fire, and many nights thereafter, we told the tale of Potok and the bear. And the tale, as tales will, grew in the telling. There followed many fires. We took fire into caves. We drew the bear, and the cave lion, and the aurochs and the bull. Again and again we returned, our torches flaring, to blow ochre against our hands, flattened against the wall, signifying, we were here. And we told the tale of Potok. We spoke his name over our weapons before we hunted. Before long, we were asking Potok to help us in the hunt. As if he were still alive. As if he still existed. And the tale, as tales will, grew in the telling. There were fires, and fires, and fires. We brought them into our houses. We built cities and learned to plant crops in rows. Circles became lines. And Potok was joined by warriors and heroes and lovers and queens and kings and demons and angels and devils and djinn and ifrit. Until at last they all rolled into one. One hallowed name. And the fires dwindled to tiny candle flames. But still we gathered. Still we whispered the sacred name. Even as we gathered to kill one another. Until—gradually, very slowly—we didn't. We learned. We brought our fire into laboratories and harnessed it for engines and turbines and rockets. We found that they flew just as truly, even when we did not invoke the name of Potok. And so many of us left him behind. In growing numbers, the people no longer spoke the name of a Being who had once been Potok. Which brings us to this night. This fire. At a time when we are finally forgetting the name of Potok. This fire is a place for us to remember the look of each others' faces in firelight. To gaze upward to the Moon, remembering: we went there. To celebrate anew our humanity, our lives on this generous world, now that Potok no longer distracts us from it. One day, generations in the future, the tale may be told of this fire. Of this gathering. Of the People Who No Longer Needed Potok. It is unlikely that our names will be remembered, but the fact that we gathered at this fire may be. The fact that we began to build the culture of those who celebrate living, who revere the Sacred Cosmos, who bind to one another in community and family…all without Potok. And that tale, in all likelihood, will grow with the telling. For that fire will burn not here, no. Look up. To the stars. That fire may well burn up there. Where people will tell their tales of how we sallied forth, armed with knowledge and filled with reverence, to the sky.   Yucca: Thank you mark. Mark: You're welcome. You're welcome.  Yucca: I hadn't heard that one before. I like it. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. It's got a happy ending.  Yucca: It does. Yeah. And, and we, we still gather around our fires.  Mark: we do.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's it's hardwired in--the fastest way to make new friends on a beach is to light a fire. People will just look like a magnet. People just come on over.  Yucca: Yep. Yeah. And there's that? There's just something deep. So deep in human to sit around a fire and look up at that sky. The stars, the moon.  Mark: Yeah, there sure is.  Yucca: And the quality of seeing their face lit by that fruit, that flickering dancing flame. Mark: And the smell, the smell of the smoke, all it is just really primordial, just. Gets to parts of yourself that are way below the thinky parts.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: Well, I hope that everyone gets to have. Many fires this year, right?  Mark: But no wildfires.  Yucca: No wildfires.  Mark: No  Yucca: Let's, let's, avoid those. Let's do safe fires that,  Mark: Well controlled domesticated fire.  Yucca: yes. That put out well, and, but, but you know, that, that experience right in it in a safe way, I'm sure that our ancestors. Accidentally and often purposefully caused quite a few. But if we could skip that one today, the purposeful, an accidental war wildfire, but the sitting around and, and even if it isn't, sometimes we can't go outside and have that outside, but there's something that the candle still reminds us of that. Right.  Mark: Yeah,  Yucca: It's. Mark: well, and we're going to get to do that because we're going to century retreat in may.  Yucca: That's all right. Mark: be leaving there three months from today.  Yucca: That's right. And one of those nights weather permitting. We should be having a fire under the, a lunar eclipse. Mark: Yeah, full lunar eclipse. It's just we, And this was an accident we didn't, we didn't plan for it We got that retreat center for the only weekend it was available for the entire year. Yucca: And it happened to be a total lunar eclipse at an, at an hour that most people will still be awake for.  Mark: Exactly. So.  Yucca: So there will be lots of late evening activities during the retreat. But for those of us who can't quite stay up that late, there will also be the option of going to sleep. But the rest of you, I hear are going to have lots of fun in the evening. Mark: Well, that's, that's certainly the plan. Yes. And you can go to atheopagan ism.org and the pinned post at the top of that is all about how you can register to go to the century retreat. It's in Colorado Springs, from the. I want to S w is it The 13th, through the 16th or is it the 16th through the 19th of Yucca: The 13th, let me, let me double check that. But  Mark: so, so I'm wrong about our leaving a month from today? It's actually, it'll already be over.  Yucca: Let's see, let me, I'm pulling up my calendar right here. I remember that it's the beginning of may. So let's see. It is the 13th through 16th.  Mark: Okay.  Yucca: Yep. So it'll be that it's the second weekend of may. And we still have a few. So there's a, there's a few spots left for people who are interested in and we'll both be there and we'll be doing an episode from there. Mark: Yes. Over, over the lunch hour, we'll be interviewing people.  Yucca: Yep. And hopefully we'll be able to be depending on a wifi, hopefully blue people to be publishing that live. But if not, we'll, we'll do it as soon as wifi permits.  Mark: Right, right. But supposedly the wifi is quite good in the dining halls. So. if they're correct about that, then we'll be able to do a live broadcast and that'll be fun.  Yucca: That'd be exciting. Yeah. Well, I have to practice and figure out how to first, but we'll do it. We'll figure it out. So yeah, that's, that's coming up and we would love to tell poetry, tell stories, and read poems and do all of that around the, the campfire with you. Mark: Yes.  Yucca: Yep. Mark: I am. So looking forward to it. I mean, it's, it's just this stacked up layer of wonderful things. First of all, seeing people at all,  Yucca: Yes. Mark: it doesn't even matter who they are, but then seeing these people around a fire in, you know, you know, a wilderness area, it's, just, it's going to be so beautiful. I really can't.  Yucca: you know, it's Ponderosa pine forest, just beautiful. Just wonderful. I haven't been to that specific place yet, but I know the, you know, it's the Rockies. I know the Rockies and they're just. They're amazing and great time of year, you know, we'll have the full moon and it'll be so wonderful to see people in person that we've been hanging out with over zoom and doing meetings and all of that for, you know, two years now. Mark: Yeah. More in some cases. Yeah.  Yucca: Right. So it'll be great. And I'm bringing a couple telescopes too, so we'll have that. Yeah. I think that this is a little bit of a shorter episode than the normal, but mark, thank you for sharing those beautiful poems with us in the story and  Mark: Well thank you for suggesting it. It hadn't occurred to me, but it's, it's nice to get my stuff out there. All right, everyone have a wonderful week and we will see you next week on the wonder science-based paganism.

Joining Carol Pankow in the VRTAC-QM Studio is Mark Erlichman, Deputy Director, Vocational Rehabilitation Employment Division, California Department of Rehabilitation. In this episode of Manager Minute, Mark covers the idea of Rapid Engagement. The idea behind it is to get customers in and move as quickly as possible to succeed. The California DORS Team has a variety of initiatives that they are working on. Mark and Carol will chat about a handful of those projects.   Learn about California's expedited enrollment process, resource navigators, and the sector-based service teams.   Listen Here   Full Transcript   You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at: https://www.vrtac-qm.org/   Please stay up to date by following VRTAC-QM on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @VRTAC_QM   About VRTAC-QM Partnering with State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies (SVRAs) to enhance service delivery and maximize outcomes through quality program and resource management. The purpose of the VRTAC-QM is to provide training and technical assistance that will enable State VR agency personnel to manage available resources, improve effective service delivery, and increase the number and quality of employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. The VRTAC-QM provides TA and training in VR program and performance quality management, fiscal and resource quality management of the VR program, and general quality management of organizations. You can request technical assistance from the VRTAC-QM by contacting your TA Liaison directly, contacting any member of the Center you wish, or by filling out the information on our main websiteand clicking on submit. While on the main website, join our mailing list to receive updates on training and new activities occurring within the Center.     Full Transcript   VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Get in and Get er' Done! Making VR Processes Work How California Makes VR Work for Customers!   Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Welcome to the manager minute, joining me in the studio today is Mark Erlichman, Deputy Director, Vocational Rehabilitation Employment Division with California Department of Rehabilitation. So Mark, thanks for being here. How are things going in California?   Mark: Thank you so much for the invitation. Things in California are going about the same way they're going across the country. We're coping, we're managing, but I'm excited that we're continuing to look at improving. So in spite of the pandemic, we've been able to stay open and we've been able to sell, serve our consumers.   Carol: Glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear that. Well, today's topic covers this idea of rapid engagement, and the idea behind that is to get customers in and move as quickly as possible to succeed. You'd spoken to me a couple of weeks ago about the saying you like to go by. Our customers are and must feel more important than the process. And I hear a lot of Joe Xavier in that statement and eager to talk more about the variety of initiatives that you have in California. I believe that you have a list of over 20 projects that you and the California DOR team are working on, and so we're going to just chat about a handful of those today. So Marc, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about you, your career, the agency, like how many customers you're serving?   Mark: Sure, thank you. As you mentioned, I'm the deputy director and our employment division here. So we provide services to the general consumers when you have a blind field services division that worked with individual or blind, but we work with pretty much everybody else. And so in any given year, we probably serve somewhere between 80 to 90 thousand participants. So that includes our potentially eligible students with disabilities. So we have about thirteen hundred staff. We work out of about 80 dedicated offices and dozens of other locations, including one stops now called American Job Centers. So I started my career as a counselor way back in nineteen ninety four the dark ages pre-internet and it was right out of college, got my degree in rehabilitation counseling. But since I started, I've been very fortunate to move up within our department and I became a supervisor, a manager, then a district administrator. And then I joined the executive team in about 2012 as an assistant deputy director. And since 2019, I've been the deputy director and like I mentioned and responsible for VR Student Services and also our Business Services team.   Carol: I love to hear that I love it when people are kind of grown up through the system, and I think it's really cool. We've got that good opportunity working with Joe Xavier. I think a lot of him and his really awesome leadership style and his innovativeness.   Mark: Yeah, he's great. It's actually kind of fun working with him because typically I felt people try to be cautious and push back when you're trying to be innovative. Joe actually pushes us in the other direction. If we're not being innovative enough, we hear it.   Carol: Oh yeah, that's Joe for you. He pushes all of us, even if we don't work for him, makes the whole country better. I love it. So you told me when we were having our conversation before that consumers never more motivated in their life than the first moment that they engage us. So can you talk a little about your expedited enrollment process and what that entails and how that's impacted your data?   Mark: Sure, absolutely. And you're right. Our approach to customer service really starts from day one. When I was a counselor working with consumers, I realized, like you mentioned, that there never really are going to be more motivated than that very first time they make the decision to go back to work or return to work. They look us up or they find a department, they make an appointment, they make arrangements for transportation. They may need to make arrangements for childcare. They may take two or three buses to get to our office. Then they sit in the waiting room. They may sit through an orientation and then they're given a stack of forms to fill out and told to come back later. And they go through all of that just on faith alone because they don't know where there's actually anything in it for them. And we did ask that question is when is that individual ever going to be more motivated than at that point? So rather than putting them off by telling them we have 60 days to find you eligible, so don't expect to hear from us, what we do is we actually try to do everything we can that very first day. So we really look at what a consumer or an applicant wants. They really want answer to the three questions, which is how can you help me? Can you help me at all? And when can we get started? So what we decided to do, recognizing that we want to keep that momentum going is that we wanted to make an eligibility determination and start the process, keep that forward progress and keep their momentum going from the very beginning. So about three years ago, we began rolling out what we call expedited enrollment. This process supports our train rehabilitation counselors and they are all trained. All our counselors have master's degree. We use their professional judgment to make a determination about somebody's eligibility, and we started with the understanding of the federal regulations. Support this, then there's never, ever been a requirement for medical or school records to be put in the case file. There's never been a requirement for additional evaluations or sending somebody for testing. So what our counselors do is whenever appropriate, and it's almost quite frequently appropriate, our counselors make a determination based on a readily apparent decision. Ability that they have a disabling condition and through a skilled interview that they can benefit from services for us, one of the things we took a look at is what is the inherent risk in doing that? We found out that less than two percent of our consumers have ever found not eligible for services due to the severity of their disability. In those cases, we would have to do a trial work experience anyway. And the vast majority of individuals come in and are great historians about their disability. So we did a statewide rollout to all of our offices that included staff training and set the expectation that expedited enrollment or finding somebody eligible based on counselors observation is our standard method of determining eligibility and requesting lengthy records or ordering testing or further evaluations will always be the exception here. So we did statewide training. Like I mentioned, we included Joe and we conclude our directorate. Many of US executives went participate in the training, and we even had a staff attorney come out to assure staff that this is consistent with the regulations and nobody's going to get in trouble. We reinforce the message and continue to reinforce the message through a couple of things. We changed our services application form to reflect the enrollment process, recognizing the consumer is the best historians. So we asked them How can we help you? We generate reports of utilization and expedited enrollment, so we see how many individuals are found eligible using this process throughout the state. And we're also going to be updating our regulations to clearly and unmistakably reflect that this is the process that we use. As I mentioned, the counselor has always been able to make that eligible determination on relevant professional judgment. And if they have a readily apparent disability, we just help define that. So how are we doing? You asked.   Carol: I did ask, How's that going with the data?   Mark: All right. So even though cultural change and changing old habits is really difficult, we are actually in that as of the end of December of 2021. So as of this last December, about two thirds of all of our applicants are being determined eligible for services using expedited enrollment, and we're defining that as being found eligible within five days of application.   Carol: Wow!   Mark: In fact, 40 percent of the consumers that apply for services in December were found eligible on the actual same day of application. So they're actually everything was put into the system, including their eligibility determination. And for us,   Carol: that's fantastic!   Mark: Again, from where we were to having two out of three consumers are found eligible within the first five days is tremendous and we did look at the data. I do believe that that's fantastic. But for me, that really isn't enough because a consumer doesn't really care about eligibility determination. That's our process. And like we mentioned, the person should always be more important than the process. It really is about how quickly can we get somebody from interest to services? And so we've also been keeping track of planned timelines, how quickly somebody gets from eligibility to plan, and we've seen a reduction in that as well. So not only people have been found eligible more quickly, but their plans are also implemented much more quickly as well.   Carol: Well, I want to underscore what you're saying because I know a lot of agencies are really struggling with this area. There's a lot of old practices and I remember it even being at Minnesota Blind and people were requesting this medical report and all of that. I'm like, Listen, like you are a trained professional rehabilitation counselor. You can see this impairment as individuals coming in the door. You're going through that skilled interview, you're being able to assess that. We're able to benefit them. Like, why are we running people through these other paces? Because I think sometimes in VR, we're almost exhausting. Like it's exhausting for the customer, right?   Mark: And I don't think any one of us would want to go through the process that we put our consumers through. To me, that's always the best test of where you need to go. Would you accept that for yourself or a family member?   Carol: Absolutely. So how staff have they embraced this? Like, are people really like they're seeing what a change this has made?   Mark: I mean, universally, no. But the vast maj ority of our staff are seeing this as a tremendous boon to their jobs. I mean, they really like making that consumer feel like they're the most important person that they're working with. And really those individuals that are hesitant in this counselor and sometimes have been hesitant. It's been really around habit and it's been around fear. And so as we address those, we're seeing more and more people embrace this, and we did learn some lessons from the very beginning. We thought that everybody would be excited. And after a while when we recognize that there are some counselors that weren't, we went back through and generate a report. Change your application to really got communicated clearly that it's the expectation so people should feel comfortable.   Carol: That's excellent. And I feel like it's putting back kind of that professionalism into VR that counselors may have felt was stripped away from some of the more case management aspects of WIOA and all the data entry and all of that. It's like, this is a classic example of using your skills and what you learned in your graduate degree and making something awesome happening and making such a connection with that customer right off the get go.   Mark: Absolutely. And would also really help was communicating to the counselors that we're trusting your professional judgment and the operative word here is trust, and you're not sure that you can still request. Records, you can't still work with the consumer and do further evaluations. You don't have to and you shouldn't have to. But once councilors understood that it's their judgment and so for us, two out of three is great. I'm looking for more than that. We don't know what the exact right percentage is, but we do know that whenever possible, that momentum that we talked about, that momentum should continue for all of our consumers.   Carol: That's awesome. I love it. So let's shift a little bit to talk about another project you have cooking with your councilors, and that's the councilors getting in and working immediately with those customers at risk of losing their job or needing to retain their employment. So what does that look like? Are you seeing some success with this?   Mark: A great question, actually. I think what you're referring to is what we call our Rapid Engagement. And so I think that's kind of the theme of this, and we just try to find a catchy name for it. But in simple words, it's kind of keeping with Jo's message and Jo's message to us and we've ever heard, and it's been very, very clear that we need to meet our participants where they are. It doesn't matter where we are, we need to meet them where they are. And we're not just talking about physically because that's important too, but we're really are talking about where they are in their lives and in their job search and or in their employment. And so recognizing that not all applicants are at the same place, some could be employed right now. Others may have been unemployed for a long period of time, but they're all in a different place. We wanted to stop making everybody go through the same linear sequential process, which is again, process shouldn't Trump person. And so our pilot involves assigning a specialist counselor within a district to what we call a Rapid Engagement Caseload. So their primary responsibility is to assist individuals that will meet at least one of the following criteria. There were a former QR consumer. We still have available that information from their former case, so we're not starting over or is a referral from a public or private organization that serves individuals with disabilities like a kind of behavioral health program or a rehabilitation hospital or an agency serving the Blind or the Deaf and Visually Impaired? Clearly, they've already been determined that they have a disability or they have a readily apparent disability, which is that we have then go through Expedited Enrollment. So it's one of those conditions, and they either require assistance in regaining employment because they just recently lost their job due to a reduction in work hours or to a layoff. They require some type of job retention services because their personal conditions have changed or their employment conditions have changed. They may have an exacerbation or they may have gotten promoted, or the job duties may have changed and they need some assistance or that there require some services from us to promote within the same business. And so they clearly are eligible for services and they need services immediately. Why wouldn't we treat them a little differently and really expedite their services? And so what the counselor does is using Expedited Enrollment, they are found eligible and typically at that same time, they write the plan because what do you really need to know if somebody wants to keep their job? There's not a lot of planning involved. The effort in the it should be OK, what services do you need? But you're not doing job search. You're not doing research into the occupation. Where you really are doing is you're helping somebody, as you know, if you need to keep your job, you probably can't wait two weeks, three weeks or three months.   Carol: Right. Process shouldn't Trump, person? I love that. I just have to say that statement.   Mark: Absolutely.   Carol: That's awesome.   Mark: And the consumers have been extremely grateful. I mean, the feedback that we've gotten from the counselors and the notes and the thanks not just from our participants, but some of the employers have reached out as well that to thank us for how should I put it in a nice enough way because I'm government, we didn't act like government,   Carol: Which should be the goal of all we are. We don't want to be that bureaucratic government, even though we're in the government. Very cool. So are you seeing some good success from that then with people as far as your numbers, then with helping individuals to retain employment or regain employment, is that playing out in your data?   Mark: Well, we're not seeing anybody drop out pre-plan, which is always fun because it's always so discouraging when you see somebody who comes out to request for services and then before anything even gets started, they change their mind or they go away. So we don't see that for somebody goes online right away. And we're not seeing people drop out of their plans due to lack of contact or which is typically the most common. And so the success rate. And again, this is relatively new, relatively new pilot. So I can't say, look, we have a 65 or 85 percent success rate, which is I'm guessing that's where we're going to end up because of what we're seeing. But what we're seeing is the consumers are much more engaged and the services are getting at the consumer much more rapidly. So we're hopeful. And from what we're seeing, this isn't going to be a pilot for long.   Carol: Well, that's half the battle. I mean, I think the whole country is struggling with this because artists say they will hold up their statistics in a fall or spring CSAVR conference. And you're like, Oh my gosh, you know, all the people exiting before playing and people closing because you can't find them unable to locate and all of that. And so how do you get at this piece? I think there's going to be states definitely clamoring for your number later to try to talk to you about what you're doing because I know I've talked to many people and they're really. Struggling around this area,   Mark: And we continue to as well, that's where we're trying, and we don't expect that out of the 20 plus efforts that we're trying to modernize, that they're all going to work and I hope they don't because if they all work, then we're not trying hard enough and we're not being creative enough and we're not pushing the envelope. We're hoping that some of these do stick for us. It's important to keep data and to track these. In the past, we would try these efforts and never ask the question, is it working? And we're trying to approach these projects totally differently. They all have project charters, they all have evaluation plans, and the expectation is that we do more of what's working and stop doing things that aren't.   Carol: I love that. I love that. I think that's the message right there. Underscore VR, end of our conversation. Listen to Marc, let's do this. I like that you guys are trying a lot of things. I think sometimes people are really afraid and they've been stuck. You get stuck in patterns of doing things. It's taken that step back and taking a look and going, Why are we doing it that way? It is not working. It's not working out. So that's really cool. I know you have another newer pilot, you have a million of them, but this one with some positions that you added to your five districts, I think you called them Resource Navigators as part of a response team. So how does that pilot work?   Mark: We're calling it our Community Resource Navigator position, and we've got 14 districts in the state, and so we're piloting in 5 of them. And these are 5 districts that were particularly hit hard by 1 of our many or a couple of our our many disasters in California, particularly some of the fire impacted counties. And so these Community Resource Navigators and gauge applicants can eligible participants really early on the process. And again, that early engagement, we may not be able to do a Rapid Engagement in terms of providing them plan services because there's still some planning that needs to occur. For us, it's important for the consumers to continue that momentum. And so when our staffing engage with our applicants and our or eligible consumers, the plan is to help them gain the support and assistance that they may need down the road. It's not just telling them, here you need to go. Apply for financial aid if you want to go to school or here's the county welfare program. Or here's the Medicaid office apply for health care services or here in Snap or Food or Nutrition Assistance Program. These are the things you may benefit from. These are the supports that we think would help you matriculate into your employment program. There's no reason to wait to apply for them. And by the way, we're not just referring you there. The Sierra has actually walked the individual through and help them with the application process, and so they get to know your local welfare staff. They get to know the nutrition, the food stamp. When we call our peer the Snap program and they get to know the housing authority staff and they work with our consumers or applicants to help them apply for those services, they'll connect them with Independent Living Center. And so the idea is if somebody is coming to us because they absolutely have immediate needs and we know the hierarchy of needs, you know, if you don't have shelter or food, employment seems really far off. So we have some consumers that'll come. We'll help them. They'll actually get get on some financial assistance, then we'll get some housing assistance and they'll say, OK, let me stabilize and I'll come back so they don't start a plan, then decide that they're not ready for employment. They get the support they need right away. And those individuals that continue with us will have the support and the wraparound supports. And really, it really is what we call the application that whole person approach, which is it's not just about employment, it's about the whole person. So when we're talking about evaluation for us, we're evaluating the crowds by the number of individuals that are closed unsuccessfully. We want to see a reduction of applicants that go through the process just to drop out. And we are we're seeing, I think for us started this about a year and a half ago. So we're starting to see some of the first evaluations. And what we're seeing is there is a dramatic reduction in the number of individuals that were closed out successfully that received the CRN services because they didn't drop out because, well, they didn't have a place to stay. They didn't drop out because they had an exacerbation to their health and they became dependent on family support again and they connected them in the living services. So we are seeing that and I think we're optimistic that that's one of these things that we're talking about and say, Yeah, we'll do more of that.   Carol: I think that's going to be exciting. I think when you look longitudinally at that data and you go, you take it out now you're out a year and a half, you start taking that data out two and a half, three, four, five years. I think you're probably going to see some probably amazing results because like you say, the person doesn't have food. It's hard to worry about. Like, I'm going to get this job, but I don't even have anything to eat and I'm starving, and I have to go to an interview and try to be on my best foot. Or I didn't have a place to wash my clothes or I couldn't take a shower or do any of that. It's getting back to that. Yeah, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like you said, very important. That is super interesting. You also have staff that are embedded in business. I thought this was really cool and you were talking about some staff embedded within an HR department. Can you tell me a little more about that?   Mark: Absolutely. Recognizing that business is a customer of our system, again, that was have been, but it's really emphasized through WIOA. We reached out to employers and said, OK, ask them, what do you need? So we. And one of the things that came back is that they wanted our assistance, they wanted to ask questions, but they wanted a single point of contact because they don't have to call a new person every day. They don't want to hear from multiple people reaching out to them. So we said, Great, will for this business, here's a single point of contact, and that's where we're talking as we were brainstorming. One of my managers pointed out saying, Well, we really are looking at more outstations and we really are looking at more of a mobile workforce and this is pre-COVID. So we actually were meeting people in person. And so the single point of contact and approach that employers saying, would you be interested in having a person come out and spend time with you? And they said, Yeah, that would be great. I mean, would you be willing to give them some office space and say, yes, we would be happy to do that and give her some office space in their HR shop. And this is a really, really very large employer. It's a military contractor. They've got thousands of employees in their facility in that county. And for us, that's ample opportunity to kind of make a difference there so that started with two days a month of office hours. And it's kind of quiet start because nobody knew she was there. And then when she introduced herself, they have a disability affinity group.So she started attending that and talking about rehab and rehab services. And so their employees with disabilities or family members of employees with disabilities became informed about what we did and why we were there. Managers who had issues or questions about disability or accommodations, they would have started approaching her. And so in the first 3 months after about the first 6 months, then COVID hit and then now we've been providing that same support virtually like the rest of the world. But in the first 3 or 4 months, we got six referrals from that employer. There are other self-referral or they're referred by one of their managers. All 6 were found eligible. Developed 5 plans within just within a few days of application because we just met them there at the employment side there, right and the 6th applicant that we didn't write a plan for or we worked on a plan, but we didn't actually implement. The plan was because their supervisor and the employee said, Oh, we can do that. We don't need you. We don't need your help. Thank you for the information. And they went ahead and provided the accommodation as the employee and that employee didn't need our services and the other 5 were serving. And really, we offered them services, job retention, job promotion, but really marketed in two ways. One, we can help them with their hiring needs because this counselor can also set up hiring events, and we want to help your employees remain productive for you as the employer. And so they really appreciated that.   Carol: Everybody's looking for that. I mean, they're looking at ways to retain their employees. And if they're struggling, you may love that where your counselor is able to go in and maybe they're struggling, they don't know the right thing to do. And even though they might have like a disability specialist on staff, sometimes I find those folks really aren't, you know, the people that are kind of charged with that role. So you're bringing this other lens in and really helping support those individuals so they can keep their employment. That is excellent, really awesome.   Mark: You're totally right because we found that most of the time where their disability expert is typically somebody who is a diversity person, and so they've got a wide range of responsibilities. And for us, we like our niche. We are really good with disability and they don't have to be experts because they have access to that expert and really become a really good partnership. In fact, that employer has several other sites in California, and they're asking for the same. There was another really large employer in the Southern California area that we started talking with right before the pandemic, that we have a follow up meeting later this spring to do that as well and were literally looking at having somebody there every week.   Carol: That is super cool. I bet that has to be really rewarding for that counselor again, looking at ways of developing work differently so the counselors they feel engaged in and excited about their work and want to keep working for VR and not leaving us for the VA or whatever else. But that's gotta be super Rewarding.   Mark: And absolutely anybody is thinking of this for us. Just bringing in the employer was really enthusiastic and we actually had to sign non-disclosure because the military contractor, there's a background check. But just offering that free, you know, free service to them and free support to them, they're extremely grateful. And if you want to change an employer's culture, make it really easy for them to hire, promote and employ and recruit individuals with disabilities because that's what changes it isn't wanting to be more disability accessible and more disability friendly. It's actually having the experience and having the employees that reflect the world for us, the rest of the state.   Carol: Yeah, you're spot on. I know when I talked to joe on a previous podcast, I love Joe because he was telling me the microscope and the telescope, you know, be looking down and looking ahead. But he mentioned something really cool that you guys were looking at Sector Based Service teams. So how do we learn a little more about that and how that works? Do tell.   Mark: Really excited about this. We have this concept. We've started working on identifying how we would roll something like this out, and we actually applied for one of the Disability Innovation Fund grants and we got it this year. And so we have a five year grant. And so this allows us to not just take the concept we wanted to try out, but actually create a real research study and bring technical assistance and tools to bear on to see how this may impact really our. And our consumer success, the grant name is the Pathways to Success program, but it is that Sector Based strategy.   Carol: Are you doing it alone or are you in a collaborative with another state?   Mark: Oh, we're doing it on our own.   Carol:  Ok.   Mark: We figured we had ample consumers to work with in California.   Carol: Yeah, that's awesome.   Mark: And we started laying the foundation because we started working on the process. But having the ability to have this a set aside with a study and web have the university partner with San Diego State University and we have other partners as well. We got 15 letters of support across the state, including from our labor agency and our workforce partners, so we're really excited about that. The way I explain the sector based strategy is this typically a consumer is served by somebody from our program based on their proximity. So it's a consumer zip code that typically dictates who they're working with and sometimes through specialization. So you may have a counselor for the deaf, or you may have a counselor that works with supported employment caseload, but typically that's it. If I'm your consumer is because you're my zip code or because you're specializing in the school caseload. And so I remember working as a counselor and I had a transition aide, youth caseload of some migrant farm workers, justice involved individuals and those in support employment. So I had a variety of consumers in my zip code. So I was expected to be a disability expert. So, you know, went to school, you know, got that and learned that the consumer is the best expert in their disability. So, you know, so I didn't have to be an expert in every disability, but it was also my job to help the consumer prepare for employment, and I needed to then know about all these occupations. So at one time, I think I had a butcher, a teacher, a janitor, a software technician, a security guard, dental hygienist and a bank teller. And I think maybe even a line cook. Those are all plans that I had. And so I was expected as a brand new counselor to figure out how a cook gets a job and how a teacher gets a job, or what does a dental hygienist have to go through to get a job? And what is the security guard need? And I did it every time we had to do research, and I was never, never became an expert in anything. I became a generalist but never became an expert. And so writing a really, really good IPE with someone really is a challenge. And so we said, what have we have rather than the proximity? Because that's not really that important, particularly not nowadays, because you can work with people remotely and that's part of our sector based program.   Carol: Absolutely.   Mark: So we said, OK, what if we look at what are the high wage, high demand sectors in California? There were employers are clamoring for employees and why don't we prepare them a workforce by understanding exactly what they need, developing relationship with the sector employers and then having everybody that is interested in those specific occupations work for that same counselor. And so since we can use technology that can be located anywhere in the state because, for example, we have a health care specialist who's working with consumers across the state and helping guide them through how the Irvine Medical Center hires or how Kaiser Permanente hires. But actually doing it because they know somebody for Kaiser. They know somebody at Irvine Medical Center because they've told them this is how we hire. This is how if you want to get in the door, this is the credentialing or this is the training that you need. And here are some programs. So they become experts. So this pilot or this actually this grant now, so we have five specific sectors. One is health care, advanced manufacturing and green energy with information technology and communications and with biotechnology. Those are high demand, high wage sectors in California, and we have one specialist counselor that works with each of those sectors. We call our sector the business consultants that actually work with the employers and develop paid work experience. And we wrote in a component that almost everybody, if they don't have experience in the field already, they're actually all going to get paid work experience in their field. And the employers are willing and we set aside funds to do that because there's nothing better than try it before you buy it on both ends because we know how great our consumers are. We want our employers to find that out as well.   Carol: I love that. I love that. So that's only probably been going a few months now.   Mark: This summer, we put a framework together. We got the grant started October one. We're actually working on our contracts for some technical assistance because we want these jobs to be available to everybody, regardless of disability. So we're working with some specialists that are going to provide technical assistance and training to work with individuals on the spectrum and also individuals with intellectual disabilities. Because we believe skilled manufacturing is skill. I mean, that high wage here in California, we want to make sure that everybody has that opportunity. And it was really interesting. Even though it's been a few years, a few months, we're already seeing quite a few exciting things happen. They've really built up their reputation with the employer. So we're actually seeing some of the employers referring people to us to prepare them for that employer so they know somebody. And so one example is there's actually we actually got a consumer who wanted to go to medical school but didn't have the resources she was working. And so she going have the resources to go to medical school. She heard about us and actually, it's really fun because the question we're getting now is we understand that you're looking for people to work in health care or a nurse and not have a disability. I want to go to work. I hear you're preparing people for these types of jobs. And so when that consumer or that, well, now she's a consumer. But when she applied to us, she didn't really know about it, except. For we prepare people to get into the medical field. She has a significant disability, so clearly right in our wheelhouse, and we wanted to work with her, so we actually found her eligible virtually. They have never physically met. They met virtually through Zoom. The counselor worked with the consumer and actually wrote a plan for a doctor. And so she's actually a medical school now. She wrote a really nice note to her accounts. They're saying for the first time, she actually feels like she belongs somewhere.   Carol: Oh man.   Mark: I got chills because that's exactly what we want. We want people to feel like they belong.   Carol: And you're talking professions, too, that are not food, filth and flowers. You know, it's you're talking above that and really family sustaining wages careers. That's what VR is all about.   Mark: I can't think of a more fantastic role model if going to a physician with a significant disability and recognizing yourself in that physician because, well, I've been going to doctors for a long, long time and I've never really seen somebody who reflected the people that I work with. Absolutely. That's really cool. This cancer, her experience now she can work with anybody in the state, is interested in medical school, nursing a school or other careers in the health care sector. Because not only does she know about it, she also has the connections now. And one thing that's really cool about this when we talk about sector based, if you align all these consumers by their vocational goal in their sector, there's another thing you can do that's kind of fun. And for us, part of the project part of the grant is we're developing some electronic tools, and one of them is a web based online learning management system where the consumers that are, you know, let's say, health care consumers, they're all we've got twenty five individuals looking for nursing jobs and they're nursing. They can actually sign up, become a cohort and like a classroom, and the counselor can share information and job leads with them. But they can also speak with each other and kind of create their own network because we know that's how people get jobs. They can voluntarily put in their own name and communicate to the degree that they want. They can share resources, they can share their experiences and hopefully they build their own network and we're going to allow them to continue to be on that forever. Even though a case is closed. If you're somebody who worked through that and you're a nurse, maybe you can be a mentor. Maybe you can be a reference, maybe you can be a resource, or maybe some day, maybe an employer, one of the consumers that is going through that process. So we're going to roll that out this year. We're going to try that as well as some other things, and we have five years to try this out. We're hoping that over the five years that we're going to serve these 13, at least 13 other individuals that we're going to see if this makes a difference and we really believe it will.   Carol: I know we'll see you at a CSAVR conference down the road talking about all of the outcomes from this very cool project. I do want to get to one other thing because I know you have like maybe 14 more, but I wanted to talk about how you are opening up your operations to serve customers seven days a week and you're looking at outside of kind of the normal eight to four or nine to five type of hours. Tell me a little bit about that.   Mark: Yeah, thank you. And now it's great because we're looking at some of our future initiatives and we've actually started having the conversations and looking into and putting together the proposal to roll this out. And really, this is just one of our continuing initiatives to improve our customers experience with us. And so since we have now through October, we had this force evolution where the world of work has changed and we have technology and we have a great percentage of our staff works at least part time from home. For us, there's no reason to believe that that concept won't allow us to do something else. And even though we are huge state and we've got hundreds of miles in each direction where consumers could live and interact with our staff, the ability to work virtually allows us then to cover the whole state for somebody that could be located in the middle of the state or in the north part of the state. And so currently we're serving participants predominantly between eight and five p.m. a Monday through Friday. Sometimes, you know, there's some wiggle room. We have some offices may start at seven or seven thirty, but typically it's between eight to five. But we know that people who are in school or they're working, that's probably at the same time as they're in school or working. And so it's really hard to connect. And we also know that emergencies, they don't keep an eight to five schedule either. And so using technology and recognizing that people are able to work from home, they can text, they can use FaceTime and Zoom. We want to expand the availability. So we're putting out the option for our staff, for counselors and for our support staff to change their schedules, to work Saturday and take a weekday off so they can work Tuesday through Saturday, or they can work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So for us to start with opening Saturday and having five or six or seven, depending on utilization, we'll figure out what the right number of staff are. And through our website and through what we're building our portal out and through our portal or through our website. Anybody who has a need or a question can actually connect with a counselor and actually get services on Saturdays as well. And so we're going to take a look at that Saturday in terms of getting the technology and the systems to work and see what the utilization is. Plan is, whether it's seven or seven thirty in the morning to seven o'clock in the evenings, and again our staff would be able to work from home. The idea, again, is that if somebody needs something that they should be able to get a hold of somebody, an actual person next month. Actually, we're rolling out our consumer. Payment card is instead of having checks or other processes to get services to consumers, they'll actually going to have their debit card that we issue them. And the way we set it up is that upon ordering it, we can refill that card within 30 minutes of us requesting it from our vendor that if somebody needs books, supplies transportation or they're starting to work on Saturday and they need their work boots, or they need to get something for a work uniform that they can contact us, the counselor, like our counselor of the day, would during the regular week would be able to do the authorization, work with our office technician and then sponsor the card so they can get services on Saturday as well. And the goal for us really is and all these efforts is to both modernize and to improve our customers experience with us because we need to meet them where they are. And this is another one of examples of where we're trying to do that.   Carol: Well, I'm sure many of the things that you talked about today are going to pique some of our listeners interest. So I just wondering what is the best way for someone to get a hold of you if they just want to get a little bit more information about one or more of the things that you've mentioned today?   Mark: I'd be happy to connect with anybody. I mean, we started meeting with several other states, both we're taking information from them and we're sharing with them about some of our initiatives. If anybody else has any questions, probably the best way is, you know, just shoot me an email and I'll be happy to respond. And likely I will connect you with the experts in this because I'm talking like, I'm doing all this hard work is really my team and my team is phenomenal, and I connect with the experts and people are actually living this and be happy to participate as well. Anything I can do and any information I can provide or answer any questions. Really happy to do that. And we recognize that even though we're California, we're all one family. So across the country, we share resource information and we hope successes with all our other programs.   Carol: I've always appreciated that about California. You guys have always been really willing. I know I reached out many times in my time when I was Minnesota. I would reach out for different ideas and just to get more information. And I've appreciated that you guys have been super open and really responsive because I feel like when we lift each other up like it lifts up the whole country. So can you give us your email address?   Mark: Yeah. So it's mark m A r k period Erlichman e r l i c h man at D as in dog o r C A dot Gov.   Carol: Well, I appreciate that Mark. I really appreciate you spending time with me today. I know you're super busy, so thanks for being on the show. I'm definitely going to check back to see how some of these new initiatives are going down the road. You'll have more metrics and fun things to share, so I hope you have a great day.   Mark: Really appreciate it. Thank you. And have a good  day.   Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VRtAC for Quality Management, catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

The Inner Critic: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/ The Body: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-body-1627969025/ Beyond Misanthropy: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/beyond-misanthropy/ Decomposition and You: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/decomposition-and-you/ Pagan Families: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/pagan-families/   Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E47 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host Mark. And today we are doing our end of the year. Wrap up. Episode we're going to look backward and forward and talk a little bit about things that we can do to prepare for the coming new year. Setting some vision for where we're, we're all going to go. And just sort of also really reflect on everything that we've put out this year on the podcast is there's been a lot of content.  Yucca: Yeah, they're really, as this'll be this looking at it now, this will be our 47th episode for this year. Mark: That is Pretty close to every week.  Yucca: close. Yeah. Mark: a few weeks that we had to cancel for one reason or another, but boy, 47 and this. Wow.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Okay.  Yucca: be our third year two. We're going into, we started back in the beginning of 2020, and we're going into 2022. course. I can't believe that we are. It doesn't feel like 20, 21 has happened. Mark: You know, we talked about this before. It is the weirdest thing. 2020 took about seven years. It went on and on and on. And I mean, there was the, the, the lead up to the election and there was the. The pandemic. And there were just all these horrible things that kept happening. Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and, you know, just all these awful things,  Yucca: from fires  Mark: all that stuff. Yeah. And, you know, floods and hurricanes and, oh my goodness. and. then 2021 came along and it was lickety split. Okay. We've got a pandemic, but it seemed like. January six was kind of the last, the last crisis of 2020. I sort of counted that as part of 2020. But things have gotten much more quickly since, and it really is hard to believe that 2021 is over.  Yucca: Yeah, so, but there's been, as we were just saying, you know, almost 50, almost 50 episodes of this getting together and talking about a lot of really great topics and we've had a few interviews and which hopefully we'll be having more of next year as well. That's been really lovely to have guests on. So.  Mark: So. We decided that we would spotlight five of our favorite episodes from this past year. And that obviously that's a trick in and of itself. If you've got 50 episodes, then you've got, you only get to pick one in 10. Right. But we went over them. And so these are the ones that we that we've decided to to highlight for you. And if you haven't heard them, you may consider going back into the archive on the podcast website and listening to those, Yucca: And we'll put links as well in the show notes. So yeah, whatever you're listening on. Just go ahead and look below and you can click on that and go right to them. Mark: Yep. And even if you've heard them before, you might want to give them. a listen again. I mean, we, we agreed that there was a lot of content that we think is really valuable in these episodes. And So. These are, these are keepers.  Yucca: Yeah, well, the first one is one that we've actually referenced quite a bit. It's one that way back, we're looking at February 1st, we talked about the inner critic. Mark: Yes. And this is such a, such a big issue for humans generally, I think, but especially steeped in the over culture of, you know, shame about the self and feeling constantly judged and questioning our value. The inner critic. becomes a real, a real stumbling block to being able to do the things that we want to do or to feel free enough to express ourselves. And as ritual practitioners, it particularly can get in our way, because it's really hard when you're there and you've got your focus all laid out and you're going to light the candles and the incense and the. Shrill voice in the back of your head is going, this is stupid and you're making an idiot out of yourself. And what is this stuff all about? It's not reasonable. And we all have to find a way to calm that voice, to meet it and calm it and push through it so that we can be as alive as we really want to be.  Yucca: Right. There were, there was a lot that we talked about in that episode, including what the purpose of the critic voice is, where it comes from. And then I think my favorite part though, is that we talked about ways of dealing with that  Mark: Right.  Yucca: and brainstormed some fun, different kinds of rituals you could do or just strategies. And it's something that I found myself thinking back. When my own critic has been very loud throughout the year and going well, we talked about this idea. Re-purposing, you know, giving it another job to be doing and all sorts of things like  that. So, Mark: It's, it's kind of interesting. I do, I do the same thing sometimes I'll, I'll run up against some kind of an issue and then I'm like, wait a minute. I seem to remember we had something good to say about that. Maybe I'll go and listen to it and take our own words to heart. So, that was the first. And I really encourage people to listen to that, that, that episode, because this really is something that we all contend with and it's a very human struggle and you know, I think many of us may know people who seem to have actually pushed past the point where the inner critic has a real control over their lives. And they're larger than life people. They're just sort of amazing, you know, filled with laughter and energy. And you can really see that at some point they've given themselves permission to be the fullness of who they are. And it's a beautiful thing to see.  Yucca: Yeah. So again, the link for that is in the show notes. If people want to check that out, we do really invite you to. Mark: So what was our next episode we picked?  Yucca: So our next was the body. Mark: Oh yeah, the body,  Yucca: Yes. The body. And so this is probably one that we said, oh yeah. And we talked about the inner critic for this one. Yeah. this is one that I think we can come back to again and again, there's so many layers. Mark: indeed, indeed. And there are. I mean, I think that there are different issues for people that have different living experiences. I know that for people like you and me Jaco, where our emphasis has very much been on learning and education and reason, and a lot of cogitating it's much harder to. Kind of get away from that very thinky state and immerse more in the body as, as a part of ourselves, right? As, as, as ourselves, not, not just a robot that we use to walk ourselves around, but truly an integrated part of who we are as being.  Yucca: And we talked to about some of the, the pressures coming from the over culture and what we grew up with. And that, by the way, is the topic that we're going to be coming back to soon as a full episode, talking about the over culture. You know, just some of those pressures and the shame and all of that, and really being able to get into ourselves and, and about how the body isn't really separate, you know, we're even talking about right now is being separate the body versus the mind. But those aren't really different things. Mark: Right, right. It's all, it's all one integrated system. And even our language won't let us talk about it. You know, we are, our language is so. Immersed in the idea of the the dualism of Mind, and body that we, we don't have a word for. The self that implies all of that. Even when we say the self that sort of implies the mind, the personality, the  Yucca: whatever soul  Mark: ghost, the ghost in the machine. Right. Whereas the machine is seen as less important and as this sort of dumb rule, And that's not what's going on here. It's an entirely different thing. So, that I think is a really interesting episode and I'm sure we'll be revisiting, you know, a number of those issues because it goes to, goes to self-image and body image and sexuality and everything.  Yucca: Right. Mark: No, it really does go to all those different places. And what was the date on That  Yucca: That was August 2nd.  Mark: Okay.  Yucca: Yeah. And then not long after. So in September, September 20th we talked about misanthropy fact it was called beyond. Mark: Yeah, that was a kind of a solemn conversation. Most of it, as I recall, because it's really a sad thing, you know, we were living in a time that many see as a district. And one of the things people tend to want to do when they are unhappy with how things are going is they want someone to blame. And so blaming humanity is, and just having kind of a, a dim view of humanity as a whole is one way that people come to grips with. The Anthropocene and the sixth extinction and climate change and, you know, massive plastic pollution everywhere and all the, the many, many problems that we see. And our conclusion was that that's neither accurate nor helpful. Really.  Yucca: not very productive. Mark: It's not that humans are not responsible for these things. We're fully cognizant that we are responsible for these things, but just kind of throwing all of us in the trashcan and saying, well, I I'm, I'm on team trees rather than teen humans. It doesn't, it doesn't really do much for us. And it's an angry. Stance and anger can be a powerful motivator. It can drive activism that can help make things better. But underneath that anger, there has to be love activism and, you know, revolutionary activity and all that kind of stuff. That's only been rooted in rage has never led anywhere. Good.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It just has. So wanting what's good for the biosphere and for humanity is really an important piece. And we talked a little bit about ways to kind of move yourself in that direction. It was a good conversation about.  Yucca: Yeah. And there definitely were some, some kind of hopeful sparks in there. And that's really the takeaway that I would hope people would have is that, oh, you know, just. Hating us and just giving up and throwing up your hands about it. Isn't going to help anybody, but, but look, you know, there's these, we can actually, all these things that we don't like about humans. There's a flip side to that. It really depends on how you frame it and what you then choose to do with it. Mark: Right. You know, we were talking about the over culture a minute ago. One of the things that we tend to do is we assume that our experience of humans is the way humans are that we're just built that way. We are cultural animals and we are driven by the culture that we absorb as we are raised. I was, we, we had dinner with friends last night and one of my friends was saying, you know, more and more, I'm thinking that. The only way that I can get my mind to the right place around issues of equity and equality. And the earth is to re indigenize myself to, to go to a radically different way of understanding the relationship between humans and the natural world. And I think that's what we've been saying. In, you know, in the podcast in the wonder repeatedly is that really, you know, we, we can't just keep stumbling along through industrial capitalism and hoping that we're going to come up with a, a magic widget that's going to solve the problems. You know, it's going to take. More fundamental and substantive change than that. And that changes not only in the systems of the world, it's in the individuals of the world. And so it's incumbent on us to, to be that change  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and you can't get there by hate. You just can't so beyond misanthropy check it out.  Yucca: And our next one is, be my favorite episode. To date, which is decomposition and you,  Mark: Oh, yes.  Yucca: yeah. So this was October 11th. And this one, this was looking at this is kind of our getting into our death episode. We did last year, we did a death episode, which I think would be. I would have loved to put on this list, but we were only doing it for this year. But we talked about the, the role of decomposition both on a metaphoric level, but also on a really literal level. And what does that, what is it in our world? Because that's fundamental to reality to nature. Mark: Yeah. I I particularly love this episode because it, it goes straight at. A topic that even within the pagan community gets avoided a lot. Because a lot of the pagan community believes in reincarnation. And so there's this death and rebirth thing and the end is not explained, right? It's like there's death And rebirth, and then you're there again. And you know, there you are being a happy, jolly creature again. And You know, in our science-based orientation, we don't see any evidence for that sort of an afterlife. And so really diving into, you know, here's what happens and here's why it's so important. And here's what happens to the component parts of us after we are disassembled. And then we become reassembled into other things and. Yucca: And so there is birth in there. It's just not ours.  Mark: Right. It's just  Yucca: our birth is coming from the death of others, but the, that self isn't continuing. Mark: Right. And that's the other important point that gets made in that episode, I think is that we live by dent of the death of other creatures. It's just, it's inevitable. It happens inside our bodies as well as outside of our bodies or, you know, right at the threshold of our bodies with our mouths.  Yucca: I mean, that's what you look outside. You look at the soil, you look at the trees, everything around, remember 4 billion years ago. That was all. That was all love. It just drying. Right.  Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: But what we see, the life that we see is. Trillions upon trillions of individual deaths. So. Mark: And that's not a sad thing. It's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing that those deaths happened so that more life could continue. And that that reframing of our understanding of mortality, I think, is so important. The pagan community does a pretty good job. I think of, you know, accepting mortality, but it still kind of hedges its bets a lot with this reincarnation or afterlife or summer land or Valhalla or whatever it is. And for those of us in the science based realm, Really confronting the fact that this life is this amazing miraculous improbable gift and it starts, and then it ends. And if that's okay and it's part of a beautiful process that unfolds so really encourage you to listen to that episode, that when Yucca: It's a lot of fun. Yeah.  Mark: Yeah. What do we have next?  Yucca: Well the other one and of course, Right. We had almost 50 episodes this, this year, but the most recent, well, one of the most recent was our episode on pagan families from earlier this month on the sixth. So December six. And so we had little lift and John join us and we got to talk about a lot of, a lot of great stuff in there. Mark: We did. And and it was, it was fun for me to be in kind of a different role since I don't have kids to be more of the interlocutor and ask the questions. And then have the three of you answer them. Lilith had to leave early because her daughter hit a deer. And needed help. So we we should. have her back on at some point to talk more about this stuff.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So, because I know that she has, you know, very different ways of approaching things than John does and, you know, we want that diverse voice. But yeah, you know, for, for a lot of us who are raising families in these traditions and working to create the traditions as they go along, you know, it's not the same thing. Doing, you know, even secular Christmas is kind of handed to you as a package and you know, what all the elements are and what you're expected to do. We are, we are creating a cycle of observances and holidays with deep personal meaning for ourselves and our families. And we're doing that largely from scratch. And so hearing from other pig and families about how they do that, I think, you know, it was really helpful.  Yucca: Yeah, and it was just fun to have fun to have that group and just get some different voices there and yeah.  Mark: yeah. I I'm always struck You know, we've had several interviews over the course of the past couple of years, and I'm always struck by the enthusiasm. You know, people are, they're excited to be there and talk about their thing and what they're doing. I'm I'm, you know, when we had Daniel strain come on and talk about contemplated traditions, he was all pumped to talk about contemplate of traditions.  Yucca: And we had said no Wu, and that was just fantastic. She was wonderful. Yeah. Mark: Yep. And we have a list of some other folks that we'd like to invite, to do interviews on the podcast in the coming years. So, you know, look forward to more of that happening. Yucca: And while we're on that topic, one of the things that we are looking for which you listeners might know somebody, or might be someone who'd be interested. So mark and I are both from the Northern hemisphere and we don't have any experience with a Southern hemisphere or with a tropical perspective. On the wheel of the year. And so we'd be really interested in bringing someone on who that is, their framework. Mark: Yeah. absolutely. So, I'm especially fascinated to think about what you would do in the way of a wheel of the year for the tropics, because the C w they just don't have four seasons. It's not, that's just not how the world works there. So. Yeah. If you have suggestions of someone that we can interview or you know, please drop us a line@thewonderpodcastcuesatgmail.com. The wonder podcast, all one word Q s@gmail.com.  Yucca: And of course, any other suggestions for the coming year, things that you would like to hear, things that you'd like to hear more of that we've talked about already. Please let us know. We really love hearing from you. Mark: Yeah. We've had some lovely messages lately that have just really been just thoughtful and warm and just so nice. And people have questions or requests for particular kinds of subject matter, but they're also just, they're just really nice about appreciating the podcast and, you know, getting value out of this. So. That helps to keep us going that in the, you know, exorbitant paychecks that Yucca: No, it's all, as he fell, if you know, this is, we don't,  Mark: it's all  Yucca: we don't make any money from this. In fact, we pay money to host and do all that stuff. So,  Mark: right. yeah,  Yucca: yeah, but it's worth it. That's very much so, well that was our five, but mark, you were mentioning when we were talking about the families, how. A lot of us as pagans and as pagan families, we're making this up as we go, right. And we're forming these new traditions and kind of dreaming and an acting how we want things to be. And I think that's a great place to jump into the second half, which is the looking forward part because we are on the cusp of a new calendar. And we've talked about before, how people look at the calendar in many different ways. For some people, the calendar, the new year starts at, and, and for some people at the solstice and some people do, you know, just the change of the calendar year or spring as being the beginning. But right now we are where the calendar year is switching. And this is a time period where a lot of people independent of religion are looking at, okay, there's this new year. What, you know, what did I do this past year and what do I want to do in the future and how, you know, how, how am I going to be different this year? How are things going to be different? Mark: Right. Right. And so that brings us to the topic of new year's resolutions and, and, you know, goal setting and, and all, all that kind of stuff. And of course, Both of those goals, setting in new year's resolutions are very sort of Protestant, Calvinist kinds of approaches to this sort of thing. Right. I mean, what's, what's always bothered me about new year's resolutions is that they're like they're like, You know, a crystal glass or something. What if it gets, if it breaks, then it's gone. And so you're done. Okay. I'm going to go to the gym every week. Well, you go to the gym every week for three weeks, but you miss week four, then it's like, oh, well, forget it. I, I failed in my resolution. So what I like to do is to set themes for the coming year. And some intentions, but the intentions aren't an intention is something that you can fail at and then try out again. Right. So it's less self-critical and it's less kind of task mastery. It's more like this is something I'm going to do for myself. And, you know, if I have a miserable cold in week four and I don't go to the gym, well, that's fine. Then go, go next week. Yucca: Yeah, and the framing would be different perhaps, right? Instead of I'm going to go to the gym once a week, every week of the year, it might be I'm going to prioritize my health. Right. And then how, you know, I'm going to this year, my theme is going to be prioritizing me and my health and how do I work towards. Right. And so that staying home and staying in bed, when you have a cold, if that's, that could be woven into that theme. Mark: Right. I mean, the, the whole, the whole element of self-improvement, rather than becoming this sort of miserable set of tasks that you have to complete becomes an exploration of how you can best take care of yourself. And I mean, this is particularly important. I think for people who have the, the, the sort of non Western culture, idealized body shapes, because you may not need or want to lose any weight. There may not be any reason for you to lose any weight because you're, you know, you're shaped the way you're shaped, but you can still do. Yucca: not necessarily,  Mark: An indicator of health.  Yucca: yeah, it, it can be a symptom of some things, but it isn't itself. You can't look at just the weight and talk about health from that.  Mark: Right. So having, Yucca: picture. Mark: so having the intention of, of improving your health. I mean, it might have something to do with weight, but it might very well not. Whereas many of these new year's resolutions are like, well, I'm going to lose 15 pounds and that's not, that's not really caring for yourself in the kind of way that, that really having more of a, a high level goal for what you're seeking to achieve. The other important thing that I want to say about that is that It's really important not to try to set a theme or an intention, which is heavily dependent on stuff. You have no control over. Which I failed that last year. I, last year I set a FIM for myself, a prosperity and at the beginning of the year, things looked pretty good. I had a well-paying job and things looked. And then in the space of a month, we were told that we had to move, which consumed all our savings. Our cat died and our and then I lost my job. Boom, boom, boom. And you know, none of those were things that I had any control over. They happened. For reasons that were, that were beyond my purview. So, this year I want to be more judicious about the theme that I set I've I haven't really thought about it yet, but I'm going to do that. And I really encourage you to take on. Which you can control in the context that we're in. We know we're going to be dealing with COVID for at least the first half of 2022. So maybe, you know, setting a goal of having a house party once a month with 40 of your closest friends is not the thing to do  Yucca: Right. But even think about how, what you can control is how you respond to things. Right. So how are you going to respond to. Whatever the particular theme is that you have you know, what are the, what might your ritual life or paying more attention or things like that, that, that those are things that even if your life gets totally turned upside, And who knows what, what this next year is going to bring that what you do have control over. And I'm thinking about this as we were mentioning Daniel earlier, thinking about, you know, taking a page from the Stoics, right? Thinking about what do, what can you control? And it isn't, what's going on with world politics or whether there's a fire or a S or a hurricane or a drought, or whether you'll have a job. Or frankly, whether you'll be healthy or not, you know, there are steps you can take, but ultimately there are things that you can control and things you can't. And, and if you base your idea of success and your self-worth and happiness and those things you can't control, then you're setting yourself up for failure, no matter how good the year is. Right. Mark: right. And, and remember, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll insert this at this point. Remember the whole point of what we do as science-based pagans is. to be happier and more effective people and to help the world be a better place. Right. It's it's very simple. So. You know, if, if setting yourself up for that failure is not going to contribute to your sense of, of efficacy and your, your happiness, then it's time to rethink that, you know, because that's, that's what we're working to build.  Yucca: Yeah. Another thing that this has been a theme that I've noticed for quite a few years 2016 was a pretty rough year for a lot of people. 2017 was a rough year, you know, on and on. And it's, it's very popular and I suppose it might be a little cathartic, but it's very popular to be very negative about the year that happened and very, very pessimistic about the next year. Right. And be like, oh, well, you know, 2022. It's just going to be a repeat. No, everything's going to get worse. And and I, I would caution away from that because I think that, that the way that we frame things affects how, how we experienced them and not that hard things aren't going to happen. A bunch of terrible stuff's going to happen. Right. But a bunch of, of wonderful things going to happen as well. And, and which thing we're looking at and how we're focusing on what we're looking at is going to change how we feel about it and perceive it. And I think that we also have a little bit of responsibility in the way that we talk about things, to how it frames the story and the experience for other people around them. As someone who works with, with children and the youth a lot, I noticed that it's rough for them because the adults around them are all talking about how terrible this world is and how there's nothing left for them. And there's never going to be anything. Right. And, and that's, that's really, that's, that's a choice that we're making of what we're giving you. So this is an opportunity to go, okay, I don't have control over. What's going to happen, but I'm going to choose to look at the positive. I'm going to choose to look at the beautiful and whatever I perceive as being beautiful and, and support that in my language and into my attitude. Mark: That's very well said. Yes. I mean, we're not encouraging people to be Pollyannish.  Yucca: Yeah,  Mark: we, we do need to look. We have to look at the world and, you know, be aware of everything, but that's not the same thing as letting yourself fall into bitterness because that that's a really profound kind of personal defeat. It's very, very. hard to have a happy and fulfilling life if you're fundamentally bitter about the nature of life. Right.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: There's a lot changing in the world and there's, there's a lot of wrong. That's been done. But that doesn't mean that we can't be exponents for something better and also find the joy and the sunsets and the sunrises and the first flowers of spring and the Moonrise and the rainbows and all those things. Because those are very real too and ignoring them because the news, the nightly news was, was disturbing, is not a formula. For living well.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So we really invite you to sit down and think a little bit about, you know, what, what did you learn out of 2021? And What sorts of themes and intentions do you want to set for for 20, 22? And I should say, cause we haven't said it yet. You don't have to, I mean, you can just cruise right into January and you know, not worry about it. But if you want to, if you do mark this calendar transition then it would be a good time to do. Some of that thinking and, and making some decisions for how you'd like to frame the upcoming year.  Yucca: Yeah, Mark: And in the meantime, we wish you a very happy new year. Thanks for spending time with us over 2021.  Yucca: and we look forward to 2022 with you.  Mark: Yes.  Yucca: Thanks so much everyone.  Mark: Thank you. 

First of all Merry Christmas ⛄

Samhain Mediation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RjNTyI4xTs   S2E40 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host, mark.  Yucca: And I'm Yucca.  Mark: And it is Hallows seasons, Samhain season, Halloween, so many happy returns of the holiday to you. Today we're going to talk about all things related to those holidays, that constellation of holidays, and talk about themes and activities and how we celebrate. So it's hard to believe that we've come all the way around the wheel of the year, again, to, to this time. But here it is Yucca: Yeah, here we are. And personally, I'm thrilled. I love this time of year  Mark: me too. Yucca: it's a fun one. And right now, so we're recording the 24th, so a week ahead. But mark, you have another reason to be celebrating happening right now, right?  Mark: I do it is pouring rain where I live and we've been in a really serious drought. So I'm, I'm, I'm in a really great mood today. It's the sky is dark and gray and we're probably getting about an inch, an hour of rain, maybe a little less. And,  Yucca: a  Mark: we have flash flood warnings and I couldn't be more pleased Yucca: Yeah. So sounds like the land has been really, really thirsty. This is early for you to write.  Mark: very much so. Yeah. I mean, we typically get one rainstorm in September or October, and then it stays dry again until like December But this is the second rainstorm we've had. The first one was very weak and about a week ago. But this is a class five atmospheric river, so it's huge. And we're expected to get as much as 13, 14 inches of rain in the next 24 hours. So it's pretty exciting. Yucca: That's amazing. Yeah. So I hope everybody stays safe during this time as well though. Cause you've had fires. So after fires, there's often the mudslides and flooding that comes from the areas that were burned.  Mark: Right. The other reason why it is such a relief to have this huge rainstorm for us here is that this marks the end of wildfire season. Everything is getting a good wedding down and we're we're even if we have a lightning storm now, which is what set off the last couple of rounds of fires were lightning storms. The ground is just going to be too wet for anything to take off. So we're, we're good  Yucca: be that sponge, just that store to get you through the next few months. Hope, and then hopefully your rain will come, so, oh, well that's great.  Mark: Yep. They're excited. Yucca: yeah, 13 inches. That's amazing. So, but why don't we let's jump into Hallows and Halloween and all of that. And let's actually start by talking about. Different holidays because like Blake, when we get to the winter solstice, there are quite a few holidays that are all clumped together. And sometimes we treat them sort of as one, sometimes we don't, but there's different themes. There's overlapping themes. So I think that'd be interesting to get into the differences  Mark: Sure. Yeah, at the winter solstice, there's a, I mean, a literal blizzard of holidays, starting, starting with Krampus knocked on December 7th and then extending all the way until.  Yucca: Mid January.  Mark: January when you've got, you know, the end of 12th night and you know, all those three or three Kings day, and there's all kinds of stuff going on in there for, for various different religious orientations, but here in the United States. Anyway, we really only have one conventionally recognized holiday that is celebrated by the predominant culture. And that's Halloween on the 31st, which is a week from today. And  Yucca: I my area also DIA de Los Muertos is really big here as well. Yeah. cause we're, my account is about 80% Hispanic. So that's a big, but for the, for the majority of the country, I think you're right. That, that Halloween is the primary celebrated holiday.  Mark: We do have some celebrations of DIA de Los Muertos here. And, but I mean, the area where I live is predominantly Anglo. And so, it's really more for the Latino community and and in a very gracious and welcoming way, the leaders of the Latino community welcomed the rest of the community to come and visit the public or friend does and all that kind of stuff. Very aesthetically beautiful holiday. It just, you know, the orange and black and the, the beautiful, beautiful altars. They're just so stunning. So anyway, we have this day Halloween, and for those of us who are pagans, then there's this other thing which is called Sowan or we call it Hallows in atheopagan ism because we don't use the Celtic names for things. Yucca: Or last harvest is another one that gets used.  Mark: Right. The last of the three harvest Sabbaths. So, we, we thought that we would differentiate between those a little bit because for one thing, we're pagan, so we'll take any opportunity to celebrate things that have a holiday. So we'll, you know, we grab all of them and we don't have to crystallize our favorite time of the year down into a single day. In fact October is kind of eerie month.  Yucca: Yes.  Mark: We get out all the decorations and we watch scary movies and just do all the, you know, read ghost stories and do all, all the things,  Yucca: And eat, pumpkin so much pumpkin  Mark: eat so much pumpkin. Oh my goodness. Yucca: and the sweet potatoes and the all that nice warm, all that good stuff.  Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about Halloween first. I mean, this is going to be pretty familiar, I think to almost all, if not all of our listeners it's obviously a holiday that has become very commercialized in the United States. More money is spent on Halloween than on any other holiday, except for Christmas. And that's in the form of decorations, candy, party supplies, and costuming generally. It's a big deal. And so there are these, there are themes that go along with Halloween. And the biggest one is death, mortality and scary stuff, stuff we don't generally cuddle up to, or want to look at so big, hairy spiders and you know, lots of cobwebs and imaginary, supernatural beings that scare us a lot and psychotic people who will kill you because they're deranged and all those sorts of kind of narrative themes. It's a, it's a time for looking at the darker side of life. And I wouldn't say. In the mainstream culture that's done in an entirely healthy way. For one thing, it's very commercialized and it's also highly sexualized. A lot of the costuming, especially for women is it's like sexy nurse, sexy air air, traffic controller. Yeah. Yucca: I was looking at it and my kids are very young, but I was looking at costumes for them. And we ended up making them, which was way more fun for the kids, but looking at what would fit my five-year-old daughter and going, whoa, whoa, wow. Like, you know, we're not like super like modest, tight, strict people, but like that's uncomfortable. Like that's for a, five-year-old that's a barely more than a toddler and you know, the, the skirts and the low cut things and just very sexualized already  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: I was quite disappointed actually to find that  Mark: Yeah, it's disturbing. And I mean, to me, part of that is just not letting children have childhood,  Yucca: yeah,  Mark: You know, sexual, especially girls, you know, sexualizing them early and kind of encouraging them into that sort of, you know, demonstrative sort of dress and, and behavior. And as you say, you know, as pagans, we're not, prudes, we're all about the sex. We think it's great, but not for five-year-olds.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: That's that's, that's inappropriate and there's no reason for it. And unfortunately there is that factor that happens with children, where they try to emulate what their parents or the older people are doing, because you know, learning to play adult is a part of how they learn to become adults. Right. And so I think then there's that fosters this demand for this kind of costuming that just really isn't appropriate. Yucca: And to be fair, it's not all of them, there are plenty of other ones out there, but a lot of those are the ones that get on the front page of this search. You know, when you're on Amazon or they're the things that are at the front of the store, if you're going into a physical store, like that's, what's being presented and you have to search to do something else that you've got to put in this, this time and mental effort.  And just to use some of your bandwidth to make a conscious choice to not do that.  Mark: right, right. So that being said, it is a very commercialized holiday and because it is a mainstream over culture holiday, it is steeped with the values of that culture. Two very big aspects are a very uncomfortable and often inappropriate relationship with sexuality and a deep phobia around death, which sometimes manifest itself in morbid fascination, especially at this time of year. So you will see people going for the bloodiest most disgusting look they can possibly come up with because. That's cool that the rest of the year, they have to kind of keep their fascination with that stuff bottled up. But on this one day of the year, they can, they can let it shine. So, we were talking about fiends and I think that and we've talked about this before. There's a, there's a sort of Gothic aesthetic. That's very popular with with goth people clearly. But with pagans in which generally because we, our value system is somewhat different. We kind of, we embrace the dark, we don't reject the dark. And so being associated with spiders and snakes and bones and skulls and. That's and all that kind of thing, black cats that doesn't freak us out at all. In fact, we like it. We, we, we gravitate it is it's kind of fun and there's a, there's a power in it. I think, you know, that, that we, we take to ourselves, these, these objects of fear on the part of the mainstream culture and say, Hey, we're not scared of it. You know, to us, these are powerful allies and friends. And so, you know, we, there there's some, there's some weight that goes behind that. Some, some power that is implied by our not being phased by stuff that the rest of the culture seems to be intimidated by. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So. Talk, still talking about Halloween before we get into hellos. And so, and what are some of the activities that we associate with with that holiday? Yucca: Well, clearly the trick or treating that's a big yeah. The trick or treating. And then sometimes the Halloween parties as well, but, but really the trick or treating is the first and foremost part.  Mark: Right. And. You know, especially now that's really kind of a remarkable thing when you consider how encapsulated people are in their little homes, most of the time and the kind of paranoid relationship that we have with one another. Now, I mean, violent crime has been dropping steadily and crime against children has been dropping steadily for decades, according to all the available statistics. And yet parents, I mean, the idea of parents actually letting a band of trick or treaters go around on their own without parental supervision. That just doesn't happen anymore. And it used to, when I was a kid, it was like, go have a good time. We're going to stay here and hand out candy to the kids. And, you know, we'll see you back here at nine o'clock or whatever the time is. Yucca: Yeah. but that was already, by the time I was a kid in the nineties that was already fading. Right, That you might see a few, maybe the older kids you'd be maybe the kids that were just on the edge of not of kind of being a little too old for trick or treating, like they could do it, but, but you know, any of the younger kids, they were always, there was a parent, but maybe the parent was like staying back in the car on the side of the road or just sort of like watching, but yeah. You couldn't do that anymore.  Mark: So I think that at the stage that we're at now where, I mean, I don't know about you, but I get bombarded with advertising for, for like home alarm systems. It's ridiculous. It's like, I don't need a home alarm system. Sorry.  Yucca: Or they have it so that you can then check it with your phone and then I'm like, yeah. But then someone can just hack into that. And now your phone, like now you can, you've got cameras all over your house and anybody could hack in and see what's going on inside your house. That's creepy to me. That's way more  Mark: super creepy. Yeah,  Yucca: All the smart, the, so-called smart gadgets really creeped me out. Not in the fun Halloween way, but in the like dystopian future creeped out way.  Mark: yeah, me too. Me too. We have one smart thing in our house. It's a smart plug  Yucca: Okay.  Mark: that the mayor can control from her phone to turn lights on and off that I can live with. It's not connected to the, well, I guess it is connected to the internet by some sort of means, but all that it can do is turn on and off. That's all that it's capable of doing.  Yucca: It's not voice command.  Mark: There's no voice command there's no he, oh yeah. Don't even get me started on Siri and all those things. They're just really, really disturbing. So. Leaving leaving the actual scary stuff in the world, going back to the stuff that isn't really so scary, but which people get creeped out about. So the trick or treating of course is a really big deal about that. And that has two elements to it. One of which is, you know, bands of small bandits going from door to door, demanding protection, candy,  Yucca: Yes.  Mark: The the other is is the costuming right on Halloween. We get to pretend to be somebody else. Yucca: Yeah. We get to play with.  Mark: Yes. And that is. Incredible really. I mean, to me, that's the most attractive part of the whole Halloween, the, the mainstream Halloween holidays that I like to dress up as different kinds of people. I, I enjoy that. I, and, and when I do it, I do it in this very method acting kind of immersive way where my character has a name and they have a backstory and, you know, it's a very Dungeons and dragons sort of, way of approaching things. Yucca: And is the listeners you already know, we're both, you know, big, big into Dungeons and dragons in the role-playing tabletop role, playing games. So  Mark: yes. Yucca: even another excuse, but this time it can be LARPing even better, right?  Mark: Yeah. So you should tell them about your game that you do this time of year. Yucca: Oh yes. So. So we do a lot of gaming but around Halloween we'll do a horror game. So my partner and I, and neither of us particularly liked to play for, but enjoy running the game. So we'll actually code DM a game and in here's where we can get together and there's not, you know, pandemic going on. We still don't have people coming into our home because our children are too young to have the vaccine yet. Although hopefully pretty soon the older will be able to, but we still have the youngest. So we still have all the precautions. But when we, when it's not a year like that, we actually use a system called dread. So instead of rolling dice, it's a Jenga block tower. And that just adds to the tension and the atmosphere and we'll do different themes, but it's the one time of year that with the people we play with that it's. Instead of doing a power fantasy, we get to play with those horror themes. And again, I'm not a big fan of playing the horror, but I'm pretty good at figuring out the things that are really kinda gonna get my friends and feel like, Ooh, this is, this is what's going to really, really make you uncomfortable just for that one. Just for the one night. And there's just something really nice about being able to, to play quite literally with those different uncomfortable, those that whole different side. There's just something very, very I guess cathartic about whore.  Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's, there's some good science on this, actually. I mean, you know, what, what horror movies do is they build tension and then they give you a big dopamine flush and then they do it again and then they do it again. And you know, that's rather like winning frequently at the slot machine. It's the same, you know, the same sort of intermittent reinforcement principle that works so well for human motivation.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So it's it's a kind of a natural thing for us to be attracted to doing.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: so the dressing up, that's a, that's a big deal. I, we have tons of costumes stuff, Noumea, and I do tons and tons of it. I'm not saying it all fits anymore. But we have. And I haven't decided what I'm going to wear on Halloween itself. And I'll be getting into what my weekend looks like next weekend in a little bit, but we're going to be the new neighborhood that we live in now, I believe probably has quite a number of kids that are going to go trick or treating. And so I'm going to get home from my other commitments early enough that I can change into a costume and hand out candy. And that'll be fun because we haven't done that for years. The places where we've lived before have not had children come by. Yucca: Well, where we live, there will be no trick-or-treaters, but we will be going into town to their grandmother's place, which is actually where my family would drive us to town. I had lived very rural as a child as well to go trick or treating. But my children have informed me that I'm going to be the wishing tree. So anyone with young kids right now might be familiar with true in the rainbow kingdom show from Netflix. But they are going as true and Bartleby, and I am going as a very large tree that grants wishes. So, but it's good. I think it's going to be really cute.  Mark: It sounds adorable. Yucca: yes. And they got, they got to choose what everybody was going to be. I was, I was going, how about we all be cats? No, I don't get to dress up like a cat. I'm going to be a big tree.  Mark: Lumbering tree.  Yucca: yeah. With a little smile on it. So yeah, they were also voting, they also number blocks. So basically going as numbers was pretty high on their list too,  So,  Mark: well,  Yucca: yeah.  Mark: And you have, you have a week to get that costume together if it's not together already. Yucca: It is not, I don't think it's going to be terribly difficult because it's a tree. So I'm just getting, I get to be great. there's, a little bit trickier. I mean, the, the littlest ones could, it's going to be a black cat, basically talking black cat. So that should be good. Cute, cute photos for the future to get to look back on. And that's, I, I remember, and it's, it seemed like it's been the same thing with my kids. Just being the anticipation. there's something so exciting about it. I was woken up this morning to a little voice going seven days to Halloween. So she's been doing that since day 20. Very excited. Mark: I mean, there's so much to love about it when you're a little kid, it's like you get, it's a different day. It's different than all the other days of the year and you get to dress up and you get to go and get candy, and there's all this sort of wonderful imagery around you. That's really interesting and, and evocative. I mean, I, I, I loved it when I was a kid and I, well, I didn't stop  Yucca: you still, Right, A lot of the other holidays that we have, like, there's a kid component to it, but it's not really about kids.  Mark: right. Yucca: Like we're going to be coming up on Thanksgiving. And so yeah, you get to like eat stuff and that's great, but there isn't really a kid you're just sort of there for Thanksgiving. Halloween is really about kids and a lot of ways for the kids, right. Still adults who don't have kids do plenty of Halloween things, but,  Mark: Right. Yucca: but just from their perspective,  Mark: Yeah. Being the center of attention. That's, I mean, that's, that's an attractive prospect for most people and especially for children.  Yucca: And getting to put a mask on piece, someone else and get lots of sugar, lots and lots of sugar.  Mark: Lots of sugar. You bet.  Yucca: So  Mark: So, the, the other side of this holiday season is the pagan side, the Salan or Hallows as some of us call it or the third harvest. And that is not necessarily. October 31st fact, the actual midpoint between the autumnal Equinox and the winter solstice lands, typically on the sixth or 7th of November. So what that does is create a nice tidy week of festivities through October 31st through the 7th of November. When you can do all kinds of cool fun, spooky, great Erie stuff. So why don't you talk a little bit about your thoughts and feelings around this time of year and. Yucca: Yeah. So, so for us, it's this time of year is really about our ancestors, about the, our ancestry and yes, about our immediate, you know, our parents and grandparents and their parents. So our, our human ancestry and maybe our cultural ancestry. But it's also a time that the magically we're really interested in our non-human ancestors, looking at our. At evolution, right? And the, the looking at going back, you know, to reptiles, back to fish, but way before we were even, you know, court dates and going back through and, and really looking at that and just bringing that back into our normal awareness, because we can get so focused in, on our, our daily human life in are extremely urbanized separated from the rest of nature reality, even though, as we've talked about before, you never really can separate from that, but we can, we can put our blinders on and pretend that we are right. And so this time of year is really about being in touch with that. And also the, those that went before the, to make us to allow us to exist that were our ancestors, but also the. That whose deaths allowed us to be in a, in a way they are also our ancestors. So the, the beings that we ate, right. And all of us, again, no matter what your diet is you, because the like thing, that's not really, like, that's not really a thing. Like we all eat. That's just part of being an organism. And we ate somebody in somebody, in somebody. And those, I think honoring those beings is, is honoring our ancestors. So we think a lot about that. It's we were always, you know, reading books and watching documentaries and things like that, but we try to theme w we try to choose things that match with the theme of the time of year So we've been milling a lot on on human evolution and things like that. So the, we have the, the family practice and then my personal practice and the family practices evolving as the children are growing older and getting into different phases in their life on a personal level, I will do like a kind of a meditation or where I will just step out, do a private ritual, usually outside sometime around dusk. And just. Take a moment to really, really think about and remember, and. be really present with those ideas. On my YouTube channel, a couple of years back, I actually did a guided meditation version of this. If people are interested in checking that out.  Mark: Great. Let's put a link to that in the episode notes. Yucca: Yeah. So I'll go ahead And put a link there for everyone who wants to check that, out. And you know, that's like a 20 or 30 minute version for me when I'm guiding myself through that it would, it's maybe a longer process. And it's really nice when I finished. I don't like being cold, but I'll usually go out and do this so that I am a little bit cold afterwards when I go in and there's, and now it's dark and there's just this, this quiet feeling afterwards. Mark: And that, that ties in with the idea of Hallows or sell and as the third harvest, the flesh harvest, but not just the, the late vegetables, but also the time when you're thinning the herds. So that the, the, the animals that you keep are your reproductive stock and, and what you need to get through to the net, to the following spring. But you're not keeping everybody because all of those will eat and food that they're going to eat his food you need. Yucca: Yeah. Or, or like, you know, with cattles, we don't even sustain food as them typically, but they need a lot of it. And is it available? Do you have it stored up? Right. Do you have enough of it or not?  Mark: Right, right.  Yucca: yeah.  Mark: Yeah. So, that whole idea of. The ancestral value of the creatures that we have consumed becomes really pertinent at this time of year. I think there's a tradition that is pretty common in the pagan community which I like to call a silent supper. There they're more frequently called a dumb supper, but I don't like using that word for being unable to speak. So I'm a silent supper and that's a, a silent meal contemplated meal where an empty space is set for the dead. Or in some cases, if it's a ritual for a particular funeral, then that place is set for that particular person.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And then the foods that are offered to them, which are always the best, the best cuts of whatever you have, the nicest vegetable, the prettiest piece of cake, all that kind of stuff that gets offered to wildlife afterwards, so that it goes back into the cycle of everything as we all do that there are at some of them that I've been to there have been sort of thinking prompts that have been printed on a little card next to the place settings and thinking about ancestors and then also about the animals and plants that we've eaten over time are among those prompts. That can be a very profound ritual. Actually. It's a. There's this, something about creating a special feast for the dead and, you know, having the food be very special and using the good dishes and you know, all that kind of stuff. It can be, it can be very moving actually. Yucca: And, and the silent aspect to, it seems like it would create would be create a space out of the normal, because we so often are filling things with conversation, with our phones, with our, you know, everything. But when it's silent, you are there. You're really there. Right? Where else can you be? If not there.  Mark: Yes. And it reminds you of the profound silence or silent equivalents. The death is no stimulation, no awareness. Just. Stillness. So that's a thing that sometimes people do for Sowan hellos celebration in honor, of their ancestors or of the people that have passed over the course of the last year. I'm going to back up the people who have died over the course of the last year. I really don't like those euphemisms for Def prefer not to use them. What are some other activities that you do? I know that there are some things that I do in the lead up to Hallows that are a value to be. I update my preparation documents for death every year at this time of year in October. My will, my Advanced directives for health decisions. My you know, just lists of phone numbers of people to be contacted and biographical details for an obituary and a farewell letter. And about a half page description of my wishes for the conditions under which I'd like to die. You know, I prefer to die at home. I prefer to see my friends as my health allows. I'd prefer to listen to this kind of music and have these kinds of sense around me. And Yucca: So your death plan in the same way, someone might go to the hospital with a birth plan.  Mark: yes.  Yucca: your, your death plan. Yeah.  Mark: And so I update all that stuff and then I take it to my ritual circle, dark suns Annual cell and gathering. And then we sign the documents and I have members of my ritual circle service, the witnesses for the things that require legal signatures. I believe very strongly that doing this kind of preparation is a profound gift to the people who survive you. When people are grieving, their brains are fogged and it's very hard to pay attention to details like, you know, how do I find the life insurance account number or the phone number for the the bank or the password to the Facebook account, or, I mean, any of those things and having all of that in a packet of information that can just be given to the loved ones. Is a huge weight off them. And it's something that I feel strongly we should do. Not only for them, but because having an annual think about the fact that you're going to die and making some choices about how you would like that to go, I think is very healthy for us.  Yucca: I  Mark: It helps. It helps remind us that this life is finite and that it's precious. And so that means that if there's something that's missing in your life, well, you better get to it. Yucca: Yeah. And I think that in our culture, we're, as we've talked about before, we're really scared of death and. W we like to not, we don't want to think about death because of some sort of idea that somehow if you think about it, it's going to make it. happen. Right. It's it's going to happen either way.  Mark: Right, Yucca: so, so, you know, make the best of what you've got right now. And being aware that you are going to die, you can make those, hopefully, you know, sometimes there's accidents and you're just gone. Right. But you might be able to have the chance to make those last moments more like you want them to be like you were describing in the, in like the death plan. And also a moment to step back and just be able to see is what I'm doing, what I want, because I am going to die. I've only got these, how many ever decades. Assuming everything goes great. Well, is this how I really want to be using it?  Mark: right, right. Yucca: So it's kind of that you hear the stories about people on their death bed, looking back at their life and going, I wish I had done XYZ, but this time of year is an opportunity to have a mini little deathbed each year. So you can look back and see, did I do what I want? And it's your second chance it's it's giving yourself the second chance before it even happens.  Mark: Right, right. That's very well put the, the flip side of refusing to look at the fact that you're going to die out of the fear that that's somehow going to accelerate the process is that instead what it actually does is it tends to give you clarity. Clarity about the fact that your life is going to end and that the you've got a limited amount of time. And then you can make real choices about what you want to do with the time that's allotted to you. And you don't know when you're going to die, because accidents do happen. And people get terrible diseases at young ages and lots of, lots of, you know, bad things can happen to perfectly good people. There's, there's, there's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just luck fortune.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And, but at least you will know for yourself and your loved ones will. How you wanted it to be, and it also gives you a chance to write a farewell letter that says the things you want to say to the people in your life. You don't have to leave anything unsaid if you don't want to. Because I think that a lot of people on their death bed really regret that they didn't say a thing to a person whether it was an expression of love or an expression of anger or an expression of acceptance and forgiveness, whatever it is, those are important. And they can give you, I think, a sense of peace. As you pass into the death experience, knowing that that letter is going to be read and people will receive the messages that you wanted them to. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So that's something that I do leading up to the hellos holiday. The other thing that I do is I steep myself in the mood of the season as much as I possibly can. So we have been watching all of these Halloweeny movies many of which are just terrible hammer, horror movies, and really schlocky kinds of things. But some of them are pretty good. I mean, there's a, there's a wonderful movie with Nicole Kidman called the others, which is very eerie and, and creepy without being gory at all. It's just very, very creepy and it's, it's worth, worth seeing. There's another with Kate Blanchett called the gift, which is a sort of psychic power, supernatural things set in the deep south. Great cast in that. And then there's some of the other more standard things like the fog and and practical magic, which I watched this year, every, at this time of year, every year, because it's just so delightful. Yucca: Hm. Hm. Yeah. And depending on the place where you are too, I mean this, the time of year just outside is just really fun, right? Especially for those folks who live somewhere where you might be in a next to a maple tree or something like that, where you get to skip the amazing amounts of leaves and the beautiful that crackle when you step on them and the little and the little that chill in the wind and the spell of autumn, there's just, every place has its own really special. It's special ambiance.  Mark: Yes. Yes. Sometimes in October can sometimes be very warm where I am, because it's before the storms have come. And so sometimes we have these sort of spookily warm evenings with kind of a light breeze sort of whistling around the eaves and wind chimes tinkling a little bit. And it's all just very, very evocative. Oh, that's another movie that we always watch, which is the Halloween tree which is the animated version of the Ray Bradbury book which is a wonderful book about the season and ultimately about mortality. Yucca: yeah, these are. Good suggestions. So  Mark: So that's the kind of thing that I, and of course we decorate outside so that we can attract tricker traders and all that good kind of stuff. And I bring in a bunch of colorful leaves and use those and gourds and dried corn cobs, and so forth to decorate around the house.  Yucca: For us, we're stacking firewood. This is our better have it all stacked. Which is nice because we were in the city for years where we didn't have a stove and I grew up with a stove and we we've got one again. And it's just so wonderful to have that smell and going out and getting the wood and attempting to split it. I've got weak over the years. I've got to get strong again, to be able to split that wood, but it's gotta be done. So it gets strong over the winter.  Mark: So that did so Yucca. Do you have any activities that you do as you lead up other than splitting firewood? Yucca: Well, there's just so much happening in this season that has to get done. There's just that it's mostly enjoyable. But there's the re winterizing the house that we still have warm days. The days are quite pleasant actually, this time of year we're in the sixties and we might crawl up into the seventies, but at night it's freezing almost every night now. So there's just a lot that it's all that stuff you've been putting off all summer just has to get done. And it really is for us. November is not autumn. November is when. Right. Maybe the first week or so is still autumn, but then boom, we, we just transitioned there's autumn is super, super short. But a lot of it really is that harvest stuff. It's a pumpkin's and the, you know, taking the little animals out because this time of year, all the little spiders and little stinkbugs and all of those, they're trying to come in the house because it's getting cold out there. So that seems like maybe some sort of that's a tradition, a very necessary tradition, but here's the cup. Put it on. Nope. Out you go. I'm sorry. I don't know if I was telling you about this one. On as we were recording last week or not, but we had a Wolf spider come in to visit us that we had quite an adventure trying to get out without letting the cat see that it was there because we didn't want the cat going and getting its nose bit or pulling it apart. So we had quite an adventure there. But, but you know, other than that, it's really, we don't have a lot of specific rituals that have developed yet. And when we circle back around to this next year, you know, when the kids are older, things might shift, right. Because you know, a lot is about their wonder and excitement and, and building that foundation for them. So yeah.  Mark: but that absolutely makes sense to me. And so that brings us then to the Hallows, Sal and rituals themselves. And when you practice those in my mind is kind of a moving target. What I tend to do is the first weekend in November. And then in this particular case, one of our circle members had a conflict that weekend. And so we're doing next weekend, the weekend of Halloween instead, but usually it's just the first Saturday and we do an overnight. So it's the first Saturday and Sunday of November. And sometimes that's the sixth or seventh, but if not, it's close enough.  Yucca: Will you be in person this year? Cause I remember last year you did a, a virtual version, right?  Mark: we did this year, we are going to be in person. We're all vaccinated and we're all old enough to be we're all old enough. Not that I want any of us to stop getting older. I'm just to be clear. We're I'm, I'm the youngest person in the group. So, you know, take that for what it, what it is. The, we are doing it in person. This will be our 30th anniversary. The circle started on sell and of on Halloween actually of 1991. And so this will be our 31st ritual, our 30th anniversary. So that's pretty exciting. It, it really is And everyone who was in the circle to start with is still there. We added two more members three more members later. But everybody that, the original six they're all there. We've had people get mad and go stomping away, but they come back. It it's a family you know, it has, has the dynamics of a family. So what we do is we go to the home of two of the members of our circle and we hold th for the ritual part, we build a focus and alter at the fire circle that they have down below their house. And we lay a fire, but we don't like. The only light we wait till after dark and the only light that's coming from the circle is from the lit jack-o-lanterns that are on the alter. So we proceed down to there. And then we do a sort of upper world ritual, which is a gratitude for the things that we've had, the harvests that we've had over the course of the year. And acknowledgement of the losses that have happened over the course of the year. And then when we're ready, when we've kind of put everything down and we're ready to go, we precess into the woods to a very dark place that we fancy as the land of the dead. And then we speak to those that have died in the previous year that we miss. And we tell them that we miss them and we love them. And we're sorry that they're gone and all that, and thank you for what they gave us. We leave things in the underworld that we no longer want to keep with us stuff that is just not serving us anymore. We leave tokens of that down there. And then when we're done, which in a scary sense tends to be when we start getting comfortable, when you start just kind of, well, I don't, we can just sort of stay here. Then we browse ourselves and we marched back up, light the fire, and then we pass around pomegranate and chocolate and red wine and then sing songs and. Being alive because we've come back to life where we were we're returned from the land of the dead. It's a ritual we've been doing for decades and it's always very moving and I love those people very much. So it's a, it's a, a great, pretty simple ritual, but it's, it's a really, really profound one for us.  Yucca: It sounds amazing.  Mark: It is. It's really cool. How about you? What are the sort of ritual things that you do for Yucca: Well, the one that I do is, was mentioning it earlier is the going out for that, that private recognition of all those that made me that unbroken line of ancestors back to Luca and of all of the, the beings. Whose lives, whose lives ended for mine to continue and, and just sitting with that awareness and just thinking through each of those, the ones that I can think of. And there's always more, but I'll, I'll begin at, I usually do a circle. So cast a very simple circle and be in it. And when I do have a garden that I have an annual garden that I have done through the, the year where we are now, I didn't do an annual garden here because this is our first season, but in the future, I'll do it there where I'm in the. The plants, the dried up vines and get the, that little pokey sensation of the like the dried pumpkin buy-ins against the skin and things like that. And just hang out in that crispy, in that crispy, dead garden, right. That has produced and has been, and also, I mean, always remembering for me, there's the always remembering that, that all this death does eventually lead to more life. Like we were talking about in the decomposition episode a few weeks ago that it leads that, that we ate the plants. We ate the animals, we, and it brought our life and our life. I will be, I mean, it's, I'm an ancestor already, which is weird to think about, but, but I will be an ancestor in more ways. One day. And just that memory, that, that awareness of that mortality, just sitting with that mortality  Mark: That's great. Do you and your partner do anything to celebrate the holidays? Yucca: in the years where we can have gatherings, we usually have a like a holiday feast. So we do the, we'll do the Halloween game, which is really as Halloween, but then we'll also do like a get together feast. I don't usually call them Sabots but a Sabbath feast. because actually half of my family's Sephardic, so for us, Sabbath is preferring specifically to the Jewish holidays. So we don't call the pagan holidays. The Sabbaths like just as some people do some people don't, but for us, there are two separate things. So we, we don't have any sort of ritual you each do together, but we do have the community, if the bring people in. And a lot of those people, some of them are pagan. Some of them are not, it's more of a community thing of it. It works really well. This, this eight holidays a year with the changing of the season just works out very, very nicely. right. It kind of has a familiar feel, but it's not so often that people are just worn out by it. Like, oh, it's not special because we do it, you know, every couple of weeks. No, it's, it's longer. It's not every month. It's a little bit longer. Right. So, we look forward to being able to go back to that. But you know, we're still, we're still not quite there yet.  Mark: Sure. Yeah. I mean, we all just trying to. Get your head around the sheer magnitude of the losses from COVID it's, it's a big deal. And I know that's going to be a huge subject for our ritual in the upper part of the ritual. Getting ready to take the walk to the land of the dead, because  Yucca: There's  Mark: you can imagine you're waiting through crowds of people that just go on and on and on and on in order to get there. Yucca: yeah.  Mark: It's, it's, it's almost 5 million people worldwide now and that's just staggering. Yucca: Yeah, It's, it's been a rough couple of years. Mark: Yeah, it really has. Yucca: And to be here, I mean, we at least sort of knew that we'd still be here last, last year when we were doing this episode, but there's just been so many more people sending. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: I don't want to get sidetracked into that too much because there's a lot to be said about it, but I think it's all been said before by someone. And even though this is a solemn holiday, I mean, Halloween and Halloween is a sort of a sparkly, glittery fun holiday, but hellos Sowan can be a very fervent, solemn, serious holiday around the contemplation of mortality and how all things must go in time and become something else. And I feel like I feel privileged to be a part of this practice, this, this tradition in process of developing itself. To have a time of the year to contemplate all those things, to not turn my back on mortality and on suffering on the reality of, of the dark things for want of a better term in life. And we, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, we don't mean dark in any kind of a racist sense. We just mean the kinds of things that are in the shadow, less conscious hidden, less visible, hidden. And besides that, I, I like a good, scary movie. Yucca: Yeah, I really appreciate that there are so many sides to it. I appreciate the Halloween and hollows aspect of this time of year. Because I think both are really valuable and that, that it can all kind of be true at the same time. Right.  Mark: In fact, I liked that so much that I really wish there were, there was more dimension to some of the other Sabbaths around the year. You know, this one and you'll, which of course is deeply informed by all of the mainstream Christmas stuff. They have a lot of, they've got a lot of weight. There's, there's a lot there. And when I think about some of the other holidays around the course of the year, there, there isn't quite as much there. And I, I hope over time to build rituals and traditions that, that add to the, the overall weight and sense of dimension to those, those holiday. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Which is part of what this podcast is for. So then all of us can, you know, figure out the rituals that are going to work for us and help us to celebrate life more because this is life and it's. It's good. Yucca: Yep. This was so much fun. Thank you, mark.  Mark: Thank you so much, Yucca. And I hope you have just the most wonderful, spooky, evocative, thoughtful, memorable, meaningful a week coming up. Yucca: Oh, likewise. And we will see All of you next week. Mark: All right. Yep. See you on November 1st.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com Suntree Retreat: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2022/ ----more---- S2E34 TRANSCRIPT and Recipe: Reconstituted Yule Metheglin Recipe Ingredients Montrachet yeast (1 packet) Yeast nutrient, 1 oz. 12 lbs. high-quality honey (thyme, thistle, or wildflower honeys are nice for this recipe) Zest of four large or eight small oranges 5 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces 12 cloves, broken 10 large slices fresh ginger, bruised with a hammer to release flavor 5 gallons water   Equipment Large cooking kettle Candy thermometer Jar Muslin Rubber band Food-grade five-gallon fermenting bucket Brewing airlock Glass carboy, 5 gallon Champagne bottles Caps and capping press Method Start the yeast 2 days ahead. Take a sterilized jar and add a tablespoon of honey. Pour on a ¼ pint to ½ pint of boiling water and stir to mix. When cooled to 20°C or below, add the yeast and yeast nutrient. Keep covered but not airtight, a muslin cover affixed with a rubber band or string is ideal. Put the spices, zest and ginger into a large cooking kettle. Add about 2 gallons of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes, covered. Put all but 2/3 cup of the honey into a food-grade fermenting bucket and strain the herb liquid through muslin cloth onto it whilst still hot. Stir the honey until dissolved. Top up with water to four gallons total. Allow to cool to 20°C and then add the prepared yeast starter A fierce fermentation should begin quickly. After a few days to a week the rate will have slowed and the must can be poured into a carboy and topped up to five gallons with cooled boiled water prior to fitting the air-lock. Keep in a warm place until fermentation stops. Move the carboy into a cool place and when ready to bottle, stir in 2/3 cup additional honey. Rack off into champagne bottles, and cap.   Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark.  Yucca:  And I'm Yucca.  Mark: And it has rolled around to this time of year. Once again, we are at the autumnal Equinox.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Which is sometimes called Mabon, although there's great debate. And in some cases scorn about that term. And I prefer to call harvest. Yucca: Mm. So it's for me, at least it's amazing that here we are all around. It's this year has flown by, but also just seasonally what's happening doesn't quite feel like we're there yet. It's still, the summer has just been really, really dragging. We're still having our hot days. The nights are, you know, you need sweaters and whatnot, but there's that chills just not there yet. And we wonderfully, still got some rains recently. I just haven't quite turned that corner. Although I suspect in the next few weeks, it'll be like the snap of a finger and it'll all of a sudden it'll be autumn, but it just really isn't here yet.  Mark: You know, here in California, where I am coastal Northern California we're in really kind of a Mediterranean climate cycle. And. I agree with you this year, that the things that I look forward to kind of signal the change into autumn are still not really happening. There's a particular kind of hard blue that the sky becomes because the angle of the light is different. And I know the angle of the light is still different, but I'm not seeing that blue. And it may be because of smoke in the air or something else, but could be, yeah, could be. Moisture as well. But I'm just, I'm not seeing the signals. People's gardens are still pouring out tons and tons of vegetables. And although the nights are coming sooner, it's still feels as though summer really has kind of got its talons in and it's holding on. Yucca: Yeah. So of course it's, it's going to be different everywhere, but that's interesting that that's happening and in both of our climates,  Mark: Right because they are so very different.  Yucca: they are Yeah. so it's always fun to see where we line up and where we're very different. Mark: Yes.  Yucca: Tom.  Mark: So let's talk about this holiday that has a controversial name and all that good kind of stuff. Yucca: Luckily it is one. We can just simply call the Equinox, right. So the in-between ones are a little bit trickier, but this one is easy. We can say it's the Equinox. And everybody knows what we're talking about. And of course mentioning that the two hemispheres are different. So for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, we're moving into the dark part of the year. And those in the Southern hemisphere are moving out of it Right. Going into their spring. Or of course, anyone in there. The tropical areas is having their wet and rainy, rainy, and dry cycle instead of the temperate four seasons. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Yeah, so it's getting to be time to celebrate again. And before we started recording, we talked about whether to save this episode for next week with when this episode would be released on the Equinox. But it seems like it's a better idea to talk about the Equinox this week, so that if there are any ideas that you have for how to celebrate you can plan for those and, and be ready for it coming up next month. Yucca: It's kind of get  Mark: Monday. Yeah, Monday is the is the actual Equinox and that may not be true worldwide. I think it's Tuesday in Australia and Japan and the far east.  Yucca: To check what the actual time is,  Mark: yeah. Yucca: there abouts usually ranging from the 20th to 22nd. They're around in the month is usually when we have the, the Equinox.  Mark: Right. Right. So, when we talk about celebrating the the solstices and equinoxes and the points between on the wheel of the year we, we talk about what's actually happening, happening. Our natural environment. And we also talk about the metaphorical meanings that these holidays can have for us. So maybe we should start with the first one. Yucca: Do you want to cover that or should I  Mark: why don't you go ahead  Yucca: oh, Okay. Yeah. So  Mark: Okay.  Yucca: we have, we've inherited the, the view of the world or the frame of reference of the world with where we think of earth being. Circled by these other objects. Right. And it makes it a lot of sense. You go outside, you look at the sky and it looks like the sun rises and goes around the earth. It looks like the moon rises. It goes around that case. It does, but it looks like the stars. Right. And so a lot of hours. When we talk about solstices equinoxes, it's based on that former geocentric view. We now know though that we are on a planet, that's orbiting a star, not the star orbiting us. And so sometimes our language is still a little bit confusing about that, but what's happening is. Earth is going around the sun and it's going around the sun on a plane, which we called the ecliptic. And this is confusing because the path that the earth is taking is the ecliptic, but also the apparent path of the sun and the sky is the ecliptic as well. But then we have earth is tilting. It's not straight up and down in that plane. That's our 23 and a half degree tilt, which changes over very, very long time period. Not within the human time period or the individual lifetime. So for us, we can just think, Okay. it's to say that's not changing, but we have basically, you can think of the, the plane coming out from the equator, the equatorial plane, or the celestial equator. And. We have earth going around the sun and then we have that plane and twice a year, those two planes, there's a node where it appears to us that they're crossing over each other. These are both imaginary lines. They're not really there, but that's what the Equinox is, is when the planet is passing through that plane. Now what that ends up doing for the equator is on the equator. It seems like there's equal night and day length. That's not the case for the rest of the world, though. It's pretty close. The closer you are to the equator, but that's where Equinox equal night. That word actually comes in.  Mark: Right. And so as you get farther from the equator, The proportion of day and night shifts. And so you will have a slightly, somewhat longer day than night or a somewhat longer night than day, depending on whether you're in the north or in the south.  Yucca: And if you happen to be at the south pole station, then it's a you have your six months of day, six months of night.  Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So, that's what's happening in the natural world. That's, that's, what's causing this apparent effect of having these roughly equal days and equal nights and metaphorically speaking, what that often inspires people to think of this holiday as being about, is about balance is about. The, you know, looking at our lives and understanding the need for, you know, the, the proper proportionality of the different things that we are doing in our lives, whether it's our relationship with ourself, our relationship with a partner or partners, our relationship with our family, our relationship with work, our relationship. Friends and with creative endeavors and so forth. I find this a really useful time to take a look at my life and say, well, okay. What am I not putting enough time into right now? That is That's working to my detriment. And because I am unemployed at the moment, the obvious answer this year is I'm not putting enough time into work. Although I'm putting a lot of time into trying to get work. But that said, I've also noticed some other patterns. You know, I, I want to invest a little more time in my relationship now than I have been. I think I've been neglecting that a little bit and so forth. So, that's an exercise that you can do for this time of the year. You know, really kind of try to get the 20,000 foot view of your life and see where's the energy going and ask yourself. Is that really what I want is that, does that feel balanced to me? Yucca: Yeah.  And so, because Equinox has happened twice a year. There's a really nice opportunity to return to that. It's just, it's not just once a year, but it's a Ooh, every half, half year, right. We have the, the fall or the autumn, and then also the spring time for looking at that balance. Although it's a good practice to do it anytime of the year, but it's nice to have a place on the calendar that reminds us to do that.  Mark: Yes. Yes. And another layer of metaphor that I use in thinking about the, the wheel of the year around the, the course of the calendar is mapping the human life span onto that calendar. So for example, well, the spring Equinox becomes a time to focus on the very young on. Toddlers and children that are maybe up to 10 or 11 years old. I'm not preteens that comes a little later or teenagers comes a little later. But yeah, pre-teens and young children time to celebrate them and really kind of do some activities that are really focused on them. This time of year I considered to be about the elders. The, the matriarchs and patriarchs and other arcs, I haven't heard a gender fluid term yet for, for what that would be. But if somebody does, please email us@thewonderpodcastqueuesatgmail.com and let us know, because I I'd like to be using the right terminology. Yucca: And it's just fun to learn new words like that, too.  Mark: Yeah, you  Yucca: we could. If there isn't a word, there should be.  Mark: Right? Right. So you know, those folks who have lived the, the great, the greatest proportion of their lives are coming towards the end of their life. And. One would hope they have learned something. They have gained wisdom in the course of passing through their lives because this is after all a harvest festival. This is a time when in, in the Northern hemisphere anyway. Gardens and so forth are pouring out. Tremendous agriculture is just producing tremendous amounts of food right now. And it's very traditional to have a kind of late September. Harvest feast of some kind celebrating the end of the harvest and there's and there are many ways and traditions of people doing that all over Europe, certainly. And I'm sure here in the Americas as well among indigenous people. So. It's a time to understand the harvest of your life in a way as well too, to celebrate those people who have lived long lives. And our experience who's experienced brings us a harvest of memories and lore and knowledge and wisdom and to celebrate them for that, that they bring to us. Yucca: Hm, that's really beautiful. I love hearing your take and perspective on the holidays and the wheel of fear  Mark: Thank you Jaco. So you have a a different way of, of mapping the wheel of the year. Yucca: We do. Yeah. So instead of mapping the lifetime of an, of an individual human, we look at the wheel of the year, more on a what's happening on an ecosystem scale. Right. So what are the different components of ecosystems? What are the different roles and also the whole biosphere. So not just an individual specific biome, but, but the whole thing. Right. And we then relate that a little bit to, Okay. What's going on in our own environment. So here, although it's running a little bit late this year, this is the time when the shift between. The warm and the cold part of the year is happening even though with the light and the length of days. Yeah. That happened at the solstice. But really it's not until now that that we're going to start leaving summer. And for us summer is the that's. When we have moisture, it's a very dry climate, but that's when the moisture comes. And so if one's to go out and take a walk and look around, that's when you might notice. There are in fact mushrooms that grow here, but they only come up when there is that moisture. They only come up when the temperature is shifting. So we have those cool evenings, the days aren't so blazing and what's happening is that the, the phase of decomposition. Is starting to really get going. That's always happening, but in the temperate regions and whether a year in an arid or a humid temperate region,  Mark: Hmm. Yucca: The decomposition really takes over during the cold part of the year, especially in the forests, in deciduous forests, underneath all of that litter of that organic matter. And underneath the snow and the ice that's when the fungus is working away, breaking down, the soil is alive. The soil is an incredible system and everything. Might look dormant and asleep, but underneath it's active and it's, you know, fun guy are like, some people say that they're all mouth, cause they really are. They're digesting on the outside, eating up, eating up. And it's not just the fun guy, but it's also many other organisms. The bacteria. Of course, not all bacteria, not all, all fungi are decomposers, but many of them are, and there are decomposers who partner with our microbes and fungi, like the termites and other insects that are animals, but really there's this whole other part to nature that we don't notice because they aren't happening on our scale. It's the normal scale. We're weird. We are abnormally giant compared to most life. And what that life is doing is it's breaking things down. It's taking it apart. It's eating and we think of it as death, Right, When something's decomposing, when it's rotting, we go, oh, it's dying and death and all of that, but it's actually feeding its life. It's both at the same time.  Mark: right. Yucca: So this is the time that we really are looking at compost. We're looking at the decomposition and seeing that happening in the natural world, but also thinking about how that can apply to our own life. So I think this connects in a little bit with what you're talking about with the balance, where we can look at our lives and go, what's serving me. What's not, what can I put in the compost? All Right. What is not working that needs to be, take that energy, take that focus and use it as feed to transform into something new. So that's, that's what this whole kind of autumn. Transitioning towards the cold. That's what it really feels like along with, of course. Wow. Look at all the food that's coming in, look at all of the bounty, but what happens to the scraps that zucchini Bush that you have, you're getting loads and loads of the zucchini is that you have no idea what to do with, and you're sick of zucchini, bread and Columbus cheetahs, or whatever else you're making of it. But that plan. Is eventually dying down. And what happens to that? The plant that bore those fruits, it's going to get eaten, consumed. It's going to become part of the soil and on and on that cycle goes,  Mark: Right, right. We would certainly notice it if it didn't because we would be buried in leaves. The, when you consider the sheer volume of, of vegetable detritus, that's consumed by the decomposers every year. It, it allows us to live really because.  Yucca: vegetable, but animal as well, the flesh and Yeah,  Mark: Absolutely. And you know, we consider it kind of normal while you go to a forest and it's got a few leaves on the ground and you walk around and you enjoy it. And then when you go there the next year, Has a similar amount of leaves around there, on the ground? Well, if it wasn't for the decomposers, there might be six feet of leaf accumulated there and you wouldn't be going anywhere in the forest. Yucca: Yeah. Well, we had a really interesting period during earth history where plants figured out this strategy called trees and they started making these compounds, which were much more difficult to break down. And the decomposers at the time. Hadn't figured it out yet. So breaking down those ligaments and things like that, and it took fun guy a while. They've they? They got it eventually, but we have this big period of time where we had this buildup of lots and lots and lots of Woody material, which eventually what caused huge fires. But a lot of it ended up getting buried and that's where our coal today come.  Mark: Hmm. And that's why coal is full of fossils. It's full of leaf fossils and insect fossils, and all kinds of, you know, imprinted remnants from all of that detritus that was then compressed and fossilized into the call that we have today. Yucca: Yeah. So just unimaginable amounts of. Vegetable matter. Right, Just huge. So we call that the Carboniferous because there's so much carbon during that time period. Yeah.  Mark: right. The, when, when you were talking about thinking about your life and what needs, what needs composting? You know, what. What harvest can we take from what we've been doing? And then what do we kind of give up on and fold back into the earth and hope will bring up something else. That's very much like my approach to to the harvest season as well, because, you know, we make plans early in the year. We start new initiatives, at least I do kind of. Annual schedule where during the deep of winter, it's, it's less, it's less a doing time and more of a kind of planning and getting ready to do time. But by the time the Equinox, the autumnal Equinox rolls around. I know pretty well whether a project has succeeded or not. And in some cases, you know, you plant stuff and it just doesn't. It's the nature of cultivating a garden. There, there are things that just fail. They either don't thrive in the conditions that you've given them or the seeds were defunked or something. Yucca: Or you realize that that's not what you want growing there. Mark: Right,  Yucca: Right, And you know, that's, that's great. Mint is delicious, but maybe you don't want it right. there where it's going to take over everything.  Mark: Right. Yucca: Okay. Maybe it's time to pull that up and put it and put it in a pot or just say, sorry, man.  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Maybe a different garden, maybe a different time. But right now this isn't, this isn't what I want to be working on.  Mark: Right. So that's a, that's a place where our approaches kind of overlap in terms of the decomposers. Because I do think about, you know, With the metaphorical harvest of the year, what is it that needs to go onto the compost pile?  Yucca: Hmm.  Mark: What is it that didn't work out or that maybe did work out and turned out? Not to be what I wanted. All those kinds of things. So that's, that's another, another exercise that you can do at around this time of year, as you're looking at your life and thinking about, you know, how's the energy balance working there in terms of the energy that you invest in different activities, you can also be thinking about, you know, what what am I. What am I pouring any energy into that is not thriving. And maybe I need to pull the plug or maybe I need to put in even more energy, but you gotta sort of figure it out. If it's not working now, Yucca: Yeah. And, and one thing that you could do is actually physically compost. While making those decisions and there's, you know, there's a million, one different ways to compost that are going to be appropriate in different situations. If you're in a, an apartment you might think of like a little worm bin underneath the kitchen sink, or if you've got more space, you might do a traditional pile in the backyard. Or if you've got lots and lots of land, of course, there's always the trench and trench and, and. Let the existing soil, microbes and worms And all of those get at it. But, but it's the sort of thing that you could be physically doing and having that, that metaphoric meaning as you're doing it. Mark: And then the last thing that I think of when I think of. Holiday is just the straight-up harvest feast.  Yucca: Hm.  Mark: It's a thing that I really liked to do with friends at this time of year. And of course COVID has pulled the plug on all of that recently, although we did, we did have a gathering at our house of a small group of people yesterday, which felt like an early harvest celebration. They were the people who helped us to move. You know, loaning us trucks and helping us pack and helping us move stuff over and all that kind of stuff. And everybody was vaccinated. So we, you know, it was, it was reasonably safe and it just reminded me of how much I really enjoy being around other people and sharing their company and having conversations and all that good kind of stuff. If you're in a place where you. No of people who are your friends and loved ones who are vaccinated  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: and, you know, can gather a small group for a harvest feast. It might be really good for your, for yourself at this point, because we've been so isolated for so long. If, if that's something that works for you and you feel comfortable with doing it you know, even, even just a group of like six people for a dinner party can be awfully nice. And it'll give you a chance to get rid of some of that zucchini. Yucca: Yes. And depending on what your climate and what the weather is like this year for you, this can be a really lovely time to still be outside. Right. So have that back porch or park gathering, or, you know, let's go to the national forest or something like that. And, you know, it's still a time that you could do a, kind of a, more of a picnic feel. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: but you know, the, the idea. Of sitting around a table in the backyard, or even a campfire or with friends and a good cider or, you know, just that, that nice atmosphere is, that's one of my favorite things about autumn. I just, that all that kind of cozy,  Mark: right. Yeah. And it's it's, I mean, we know that at least, you know, where we are, we know that the elements are going to get more. In hospitable soon. Right. But there is this sort of last hurrah that happens in September into early October sometimes where you can, you can just really enjoy being outside and Celebrating with, with friends. So I, I really commend that to you. If you can. I know we've been protecting ourselves, protecting our health for so long that people have kind of developed this kind of knee jerk, get away from me, impulse because of COVID. But if you know people who are vaccinated and you know that they're safe, then that can be a great thing to do. Yucca: Yeah. And, you know, I don't know how it is for you, but there's also something about this time of year, which has that kind of excitement and anticipation for being done with the summer, done with the heat done with that part of the year and ready for the like, Ooh, I'm ready for the chill chilly. I'm ready for the sweaters. I'm ready for the, you know, whatever it is. The Halloween. Yes. Halloween. please. The pumpkin's  Mark: The month long Sabbath. Yucca: Yes. Yeah. this, the pumpkins and the cloves and cinnamon and all of that. Just, yeah, we're getting there Mark: Yeah. Yucca: It's going to, Ooh.  Mark: There's another thing that I used to do. And I'm, I'm thinking about doing it again this year, which is that I would brew a , which is a spice to Meade around this time of year, so that it would be ready in bottles to give us gifts that you'll.  Yucca: Mm.  Mark: And I think, you know, we can probably put this recipe in the. Yucca: Yeah, we could  Mark: In the notes. Yeah. In the show notes, it's really, it's not very difficult. The most important thing to recognize about it is first of all, sanitize everything, because that's how you, you know, you don't get weird bacterial infections in your in your liquid and you must use champagne bottles. This, this is sparkling need. It is high pressure. The bottles will explode if they're not champagne bottles and it'll make a big sticky mess and it can hurt people if they're around when the bottle goes up.  Yucca: I can,  Mark: please use champagne bottles. Yucca: I'm laughing right now because do you know what a Winogradsky column is?  Mark: No. Yucca: So, really beautiful, but if you live anywhere near a salt marsh or something like that, there are these bacteria. A lot of them are actually Kia that, that live in these different kinds of mud and all kinds of. Environments. That would be very difficult for us as large aerobic creatures, but you can get the mud and put them into jars and they, and, you know, maybe give them some hard-boiled eggs or some, you know, their sulfur eaters and that sort of thing. So, over time, these, these columns or these jars develop these unbelievably beautiful colors because you're looking at. These colonies of microbes? Well, I have several of those and we also moved recently and someone helping us move, tightened the lids onto some of my  Mark: Oh, no. Yucca: And luckily it, this only happened to one of them, but. They are of course releasing carbon dioxide. And when you have that inside of a glass bottle and we heard from the other room and. Mud and sticky bacterial colonies all over the walls and the, you know, and it was just like, oh, good thing. Nobody was there because that was shards of glass. And that's the same thing which is going to happen with with your, when you're brewing. Right.  Mark: right, right. Yeah. I had a direct experience of this once. I used to do two batches of Mead every year. I would do this spice champagne. that we're going to provide the recipe for. And then I did a straight, dry Mead that would come out around Mayday or bell team. And I was at a belting celebration weekend and I brought this need out to donate that I had put it in 22 ounce beer bottles because it was supposed to be a dry need. It apparently got a little fuzzy. Apparently there was enough sugar to do a secondary fermentation in the bottle. And one woman grabbed a bottle of this and started to run up a hill with it, to her campsite. And it exploded in her hand.  Yucca: Oh, wow. Was she okay?  Mark: She got some cuts, but nothing very serious, but it was really a reminder to me that you just don't want to take a chance with this. Even, even if what you're doing is supposedly going to turn out still, rather than sparkling, it's just so much safer to use champagne bottles. Yucca: Okay. Now I should say we're, we're talking about. The dangerous part of it. But for people who are interested in getting started, the means insiders are. really great places to start. They're much. They're very simple in comparison to beer, right? You really, a lot of times it's well clean all your equipment and put your ingredients, but the Easton, you know, you've got your special lid on it and that's and wait. Right.  Mark: Yeah, pretty much. So, I mean, and the equipment that you need is not all that much. This, as I said, is a spice needs, so it has, you know, orange zest and ginger slices and cloves and cinnamon sticks and things like that. And it  Yucca: give us the recipe, but do you put those in later on or do you  Mark: No, I start,  Yucca: with them? Okay.  Mark: well at first I do a yeast starter just to, you know, get the yeast population up so that when I pitch it's it's really raring to go. But other than that, what I do is I simmer all of those ingredients with a little bit of honey in the bottom of a big. Like a four gallon or three gallon kettle. And then I taught that all with the remainder of the honey and water, and then stir that all up and then rack it over into a five gallon carboy and top it off with water so that it comes up to five gallons. So this is this is a a recipe for five gallons of need. Which is enough to keep you for awhile. Yucca: That's a lot. Yeah.  Mark: it is it's enough to, you know, give away his presence and have some for yourself. And it's, it's, it's  Yucca: It depends on how many adults are in your household, right? Yeah. But That's still five gallons is a lot. Mark: That's a lot. It is. It's a lot. And for those of you who don't know, for some reason, meat is just honey wine. It's wine that's made where the fermenting sugar is from honey, instead of. Typically grapes in the case of most wine. And it's good. It's very good. And it, at least if it's made well, it's good.  Yucca: It's, it's one of those that I've found that most of the inexpensive stuff at the stores is not very cheap. Cheap meat is not.  Mark: really  Yucca: find cheap beers that are good. You can find cheap ciders, but cheat, Mead tip meat is like cough, syrupy  Mark: Yeah, it's the, the problem is that both the yeasts and the honey are somewhat more expensive if you want to get good quality stuff. And so if the meat is cheap, that means they went cheap with the ingredients. And so it doesn't taste very good. Yucca: Yeah, but there are some really, you know, it's, it's worth spending just a little bit more to get the better meat when you are buying it. And then of course, when you're making it yourself, it's, it's one of the much easier ones to make.  Mark: Yes. And it's, you know, it's a wonderful sort of out chemical process. It's, you know, it's life bubbling away in there making the, the alcohol and the CO2 and it's. It's a science project as much as anything else. And and then you have this product at the end of it. It's actually nice to drink. Yucca: And if you're going for that witchy aesthetic, It fits in real nice there. Mark: It does it absolutely does. You've  Yucca: got your, own BS even better, right. You get your BS and make it with your own. yeah,  Mark: yeah, yeah. That, that, that would be really exciting. I've I've never kept bees, but I have friends who have in there. I, in fact, I, I have a friend who used to keep bees. He doesn't anymore, and we did exchanges. You know, he, he would give me the bees, the honey that I needed to do a batch of meat. And then I'd give him half of the need that I made. So pretty.  Yucca: like a great deal.  Mark: Pretty good deal all the way around. Yeah. So anyway, today's tangent is about is about Mead making and brewing. And if you're, if you're interested in getting into that and you haven't been doing it so far this, this is a, an easy recipe that is really delicious. So it's, it's well worth giving it a shot. And the good news is that once you have the equipment to do it, then that's, that's the expense. Right? Other than the honey, that's really the expense. Yucca: Okay. And that, and for the most part, you can use all of that for your site or two, so yeah.  Mark: Yep. Yeah. Basically anything with romantic sugar, you can make wine that way too. It's just that wine. I mean, modern wine generally tends to be blends of several different vintages that are all kind of made to balance together and adjusted for flavor. And so.  Yucca: Mm.  Mark: I've never gotten into winemaking cause I live in the wine country and I can get a really good bottle of wine for 10 bucks. So it never struck me as making much sense to try to get 30 years of experience so that I could get as good as the guy that made the wine that costs 10 bucks. Yucca: Oh, you did mention, did we, did we talk about this while recording that that's another association that you have for this time of year?  Mark: I did mention that briefly, but yes. This is the time of the grape harvest in my area, which is called the crush. And when you drive the rural roads in the Western part of the county, everything smells like. Fermenting grape juice. It just everywhere you go, it just smells, it fermented grape juice. And there are giant trucks on the roads that are overflowing with bunches of grapes. It's really a pretty dramatic thing. It's a huge industry here. Yucca: How has the harvest deer to Sierra heard? It was a little bit of a rough year.  Mark: Yeah, because of the lack of rain. I know that there are actually a number of vineyards that have been taken out of production because. I mean, ordinarily what, the good thing about a vineyard, there are a lot of bad things about vineyards in terms of diversity and stuff. But the good thing about a vineyard is that once it's established, you generally don't have to water it. You can dry farm.  Yucca: Okay.  Mark: In our, in our local environment, there's enough ambient moisture in the air and enough moisture in the soil that the grapevines will persist, but they have to be established for a couple of years with irrigation first. And we're in the middle of a drought now. So I know that there are some vineyards that have been abandoned and aren't because they, they won't be able to survive without irrigation. And there's no water. Yucca: Yeah, you have to have water to put out. So.  Mark: The, the other factor though, is that the very best wine grapes are highly concentrated in flavor because they grow on hillsides. And so they have access to less water. So it may very well be that some of the flat land grapes are similarly high in quality this year, because with less water, they've grown berries that are smaller, but much more concentrated. Yucca: And it works that way with the with Chili's too.  Mark: Does it? Yucca: Yeah. So there, there's all, there's a whole art to when you withhold water and when you give water to get the, to really get that wonderful spice and the flavor and all of that.  Mark: Hmm. Yucca: But unfortunately chilies are annuals, whereas grapes are perennials. And so when you're mono cropping, annuals you're destroying the soil  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: single year. Whereas your grapes mono crops of any kind is a, is a big problem, but less so than that happened to till every year.  Mark: Right. And we do have more and more people here who are trying to do integrated agriculture, where they'll grow other kinds of crops in the rows between the, the rows of grapes or you know, minimal pesticide use that kind of stuff that are trying to be more in balance with the natural world. Yucca: Yeah, it seems like there'd be a lot of opportunity for that with a vineyard.  Mark: Yeah, there is. It's just that there's a lot of expense involved and some of the things that you really need to do in order to be friendly to your local environment, welcome the birds to come and eat all your grapes. Yucca: Yes. Well, and sometimes your trouble with, if you're growing things between then you're harvesting becomes challenging and yeah. So it's, you know, it's, it's great in principle and I think we need to work there. You know, it's things haven't shifted for a reason. There's there are challenges that we have to work through to be able to make those shifts.  Mark: Yes. Yes. So that was your second tangent an exploration of the environmental impacts and opportunities for improvement of the wine industry.  Yucca: Yes.  Mark: And with that, I think we probably want to go into our final piece of discussion for you, which is that the atheopagan community is holding an in-person event. Next year. We've mentioned this before. It's called the century retreat and it's going to be from May 13th through 16th. Of 2022 in Colorado Springs, Colorado at a retreat center.  Yucca: Okay.  Mark: And we are trying to get a handle on how many people are coming. So we're going to put a link in the notes. In the episode notes where you can go and you can register. If you're, if you're planning on going you, what you do is the, the event itself for the three days cost $215, and then you select your lodging choice. And that's an additional amount, which can be anything from 15 bucks. If you're camping too, if you want a private room in a cabin, it can be quite a bit more than that. Yucca: Or not if you're local, Right. If you're in the area, Mark: If you're local then. Yeah,  Yucca: It's great. Yeah.  Mark: It's going to be a wonderful event with workshops and rituals and socializing and just all kinds of great stuff and Yucca and I are both going to be there  Yucca: Who knows. Maybe we'll record an episode there.  Mark: we might very well. W yeah,  Yucca: In person.  Mark: wouldn't that be amazing? Yucca: Yeah. At the same table.  Mark: So. You know, if you, if you really want to hang out with some, you know, non-ferrous pagans and do some non theist pagan stuff really consider coming and joining us, we would love to have you be a part of that event. And as I said, we'll put a link to the the registration page with all the information in the episode notes. So we hope we'll see you there. Yucca: And it, it feels like a long time away, but it's really not. So, and that's why we're trying to get that handle on the numbers and see how many people are coming, because it's going to be here before we know it. Mark: that's right. That's right. Well, happy Equinox, Yucca. Yucca: Likewise, mark. And thank you for another wonderful discussion. So I can't believe we've we're already, already at the Equinox yet. Another one.  Mark: yeah. In fact that makes, that means we've been going here for more than a year and a half yeah. Something like six weeks, more than a year and a half. So it's kind of amazing.  Yucca: it is.  Mark: Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much and we'll see you next week.  Yucca: All right.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E32 TRANSCRIPT: ----more----Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. My name's Mark.  Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're talking about nature based paganism. What is nature-based paganism? What the point of nature-based paganism and how are, how can we, pursue a nature based practice as a part of, practicing our science-based pagan approach?  Yucca: That's right. And we'll get in a little bit to what is nature and why is that important as well? Mark: Right. Yeah. always the best first thing to do when you're talking about anything is to define the terms. So, we'll, we'll jump into that right away. when we first. Conceptualized this podcast, the idea was, you know, we are we're Earth oriented pagans. there are some folks who self identify as pagans who are not as focused on the Earth, who are focused on gods Or particular pantheons of bygone cultures that they're working to reconstruct or.  Yucca: magical practices or things like that. Mark: kinds of magical practices, certainly, or,  Yucca: The occult in general. Mark: yes, or work with, spirits that they. I believe they have influence over and can, you know, make arrangements with there's a lot of different ways of coming at this sort of broad umbrella of, practices that we call paganism. But we're very clear that we, like, I believe most pagans are really oriented towards the Earth, which means nature.  Yucca: Okay. Mark: The, the difference in our approach is that we are rooted in science and critical thinking. And therefore, rather than sort of a romantic kind of Bambi,  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Disney-fied sort of orientation to nature. We're really about the real nature. That's, that's here and out there and in our own bodies and very excited about all the, the manifestations of life here on Earth.  So that's, that's where we start from that. we are products of, and participants in. This tremendous complex, interesting, amazing, beautiful fabric that occupies planet Earth's biosphere sphere that comprises planet earth biosphere, really. and of course, therefore is also supported by the substrate of the rest of the universe. Right? All the, all the amazing physics of the rest of the universe.  Yucca: Yeah, we're part of a solar system. That's part of keep going up and up and up, you know, go past Laniakea to Cosmic Web and on. But I think that you said something really, really important that is that we are part of nature. I think that's a really, really important place to start because in our language we often talk about humans and nature. And we talk about things being natural versus human-made. And we create this line in this distinction, in our minds, which doesn't always serve us. And certainly in today's world, where many of us are living in. An urban centric society. Even those of us who aren't in an urban environment who live in a rural environment, our culture in our society is still very urban based in which we have really tried to strengthen and define that line of human versus nature. Now we've built a concrete wall and reinforced it with steel to try and say this were two different things. And yet we really, really aren't. And when we can start recognizing that our lives are very enriched. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. There's a lot to be said about where that line came from and where the romantic ideas of nature stem from. I mean the whole, the romantic movement of the late 18th into the early 19th century. Has a tremendous influence over not only our understanding of our relationship with the natural world, but also particularly the, the, the eventual development of modern paganism. You know, the idea of wild, beautiful nature outside of the city, as you know, something to be exalted. And, in many cases, emulated, if you look at some of the big romantics like Byron, for example, he thought that being kind of a rude, irresponsible, abusive wild man was, a way of reflecting his net, his natural state. Right. The truth is that even the modern environmental movement has been, has been rooted in a lot of that romanticism. And it's only in the past 20 years in my experience. And I've been working in environmental stuff or longer, much longer than that. Has begun to climb out of this kind of romantic idea of, of nature with a capital N equating to this sort of romantic good. And instead understanding it as a set of complex living systems that are interpenetrated with one another and whose. behavior and manifestations may be very beautiful and very interesting. they can also be very terrible and destructive and, still very interesting.  Yucca: Yeah.  And really all of that at once nature, isn't all. What is it? Red in tooth and claw.  Mark: Right,  Yucca: And, but it's also not all rainbows and butterflies, right? It's a, there's a combination going on there. so we feel that, I mean, I guess that it would be a little bit more pugnacious to say it this way, but we could have called this podcast. Reality-based paganism.  Yeah. Mark: Because that is certainly our intent. Our intent is to root our spiritual understanding and practice in the empirical objective nature of reality of the world that we live in of our nature, the nature of ourselves as homosapiens organisms, as the, observable phenomena that take place around us, that we are a part of the fabric of. And so even though it's really easy to get sucked into the romance of planet earth, because boy, you look at that, that blue marble photograph hanging out there in space. And it's pretty easy to want to cry. You know, it's just so beautiful, but it's important for us to, to, to go beyond that. You know, we can hold that in our hearts, but to go beyond that and really do what we can to encounter nature, to, to understand it as best we can and to find not only the big wonder in, you know, That pale blue dot hanging in a Sunbeam from as viewed from Saturn, but in the, the tiny miracles, the, the, the never ending list of tiny miracles that comprise nature and earth, nature and life here. honor.  Yucca: Okay. Mark: So that's what this episode is about. This episode is about, Kind of getting a handle on what do we need? I mean, when we say that we're a nature based religion and then how can we best make that more real, make that more true for ourselves and for the way that we live our lives, because I can say for myself, it's enormously satisfying to do so. it brings, just a deep abiding sense of, of joy. to feel so connected to what we are and where we come from and what makes us.  Yucca: Yeah. And in addition to that joy, also some very practical health. Differences when we are connecting in with the, with what our bodies are built for, so that fresh air and that sunlight and all of that stuff that now is getting, we were talking about before we started recording is actually getting prescribed to people, right? You go for your forest bay, they ignore your time on the beach or whatever it is. Mark: right, right. Which to, some people sounds really silly. There's a reason why people go to the beach. There's a reason why people go for wa for hikes in the woods. I mean, when you think about it in, in the true abstract, why would any organism do that? Burn calories for no reason, other than to be in a particular place and then burn more calories packing up and going home. And the answer is. that it does real stuff for us, real beneficial stuff that we can feel in our bodies. And that's why we go hiking. It's why we go to the beach. It's why we go to beautiful places in nature on vacation, because that natural beauty. Means something, it has an impact on us, organically, not just, not just on our minds, but on our actual physical beings, which remember, as we've said over and over again are the same thing.  Yucca: Yeah. Okay. Mark: So another thing that I can say about this is that. Getting connected in with nature also kind of helps us with our, our value priority. when we understand ourselves as part of a greater whole and as part of concentric circles of greater wholes, meaning not just families, but societies, not just societies, but entire ecosystems, not just entire ecosystems, but systems stretching out beyond the plant. All the way to those, you know, very, very large structures, beyond the galaxy, beyond the supercluster, part of what that can do for us is it can help us to get our priorities straight around what we think is important and what's worth fighting for. one thing that the atheopagan path that I follow is very explicit about is that we consider activism to be. An integral part of what we do because we have responsibility to one another. And so whether it's as little as simply voting when the time comes to do that, or whether it's a lot more in terms of contacting representatives that are going to make decisions, talking with other people about how we feel about things working to make the world a better, kinder, more sustainable, more, More happy place, becomes something that is not arbitrary, but he's a natural outgrowth of our understanding of where we are And who we are. as humans. Yucca: And that can come from or be supported by the relationship with our environments.  Mark: Yes.  Yucca: So, and. On the one hand, you know, learning on a very intellectual level about how these things work and what we're finding out. And the latest research that is that's powerful on the one hand, but just having the actual relationship, the experience with, with our environments with nature. So to say, can. Really strengthened that. Mark: Yes, because you look with some with, with markedly different eyes, when you have that, that understanding, and you look at a tree, for example, and I hate even to say a tree because it's so generic, I'd rather, you know, stipulate some particular kind of tree, like a maple tree. Right? Well, here's an organism. Rooted in the ground, where, from which it's drawing water and nutrients, and it's doing kind of a dance with a whole bunch of microorganisms in order to get its needs met and to meet the needs of those microorganisms as well. And then it, it deploys solar panels all over itself. And charges itself up every day. Turn in many cases, turns those panels in order to follow the sun, as it moves across the sky. I mean, this is a remarkable thing. This is something that humans have figured out how to do in a, in a limited capacity only in the past 20 years.  Yucca: And in working with its neighbors can actually literally change the weather  Mark: Yes.  Yucca: it.  Mark: Yes.  Yucca: So releasing VOC that ended up becoming cloud condensing, nuclei, and increasing the rain and changing the temperature on the ground, which then changes the way that the local wind patterns are working. Like all kinds of just incredible interactions. Mark: Right. Right. And the more we understand about that, the more remarkable it becomes. And so it's not just the, the romantic appreciation of the fact that it also happens to be breathing out pure oxygen, which is something that we find useful.  Yucca: Yes. Mark: And, and also, processing carbon dioxide, which is something that we find less useful. but that it's, it's going through all of these extraordinary processes at every level of its existence, underground above ground, and then kind of in the canopy, above the surface of the ground, and its relationship with the atmosphere. And that's just a tree. This is one tree.  Yucca: Yeah. Now let's start talking about the lichen growing on that tree. And the mycelium connecting it to another one and on and on and  Mark: communities of animals that depend on. its seeds, for nourishment and its branches for various kinds of shelter and nesting opportunities. And, Yeah. the. There's a reason why there are certain kinds of species in different biomes that we refer to as Keystone species, because they are so essential to the living creatures that live in those areas where I am. It is the California live Oak. because if you removed all the California live Oaks from this place, we would have an ecological crash. Unlike any that we've seen so far in this local region, because of the dependency of so many organisms on that particular species of tree.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So all of this is very cool and, we should not undersell the, The overlap between the spiritual impulse and the very cool factor, you know, part, part of the reason why we feel moved spiritually by things is because they're amazing. They're just, they're so extraordinary, that they, they give us a big emotional. Jolt just by realizing them. And that's true of every religion. I mean, if you believe that Jesus died to what, whatever to, you know, mitigate our failings, then that's kind of amazing. I mean, if you believe that you have these inherent sin and that you've been accumulating more of them ever since you arrived on the planet. but that this death 2000 years ago, wipes it all out. As long as you say the right words and believe them in your heart. That's amazing. I mean, I don't believe it at all, but if it were true, it would really be amazing.  Yucca: Well, and it still has the same emotional impact if you believe at whether it's true or not in terms of the emotional impact, right? Mark: Yes, exactly. So, but the reason why I said we could have called this podcast, reality-based big aneurysm is that nature is real  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: nature exists. We are nature. There isn't anything that isn't nature and,  Yucca: So even when we put in the roads, even when we build our foundations and our buildings and all of that, that's not locking the nature out. nature is still, I mean, it, it is what it is, we're changing it, but that's also what we do as animals that are part of this.  Mark: Yes,  Yucca: And we're not the first ones,  Mark: no.  Yucca: architecture, farming, warfare, all these things that we like to think of as being only human, we might do it in a very unique human way, but these things have been around for millions of years. Mark: Yes. mostly by ants. Yucca: Yes. And so I've been doing all of those things, some other kinds of creatures too, but answer, just answer amazing.  Mark: They are really, They're really amazing. And so one of the. Approaches one of the orientations that can be really useful as we pursue nature-based paganism is to understand ourselves as part of nature. And so if you do live in a big city, look around, look at all the structures that have been constructed by this particular kind of organism and these amazing machines and, and communication devices and all this stuff. It it'll give you a renewed appreciation for just how amazing humans are in the romantic view. It's often nature versus humans, right? And you have to pick a side. You either you're either with nature and therefore kind of anti-human or you're with the humans and nature is always trying to kill you. And so you want to control it and tame it and. reduce its its power, which good luck with that. but a, in a more factually correct approach, Yucca: Integrated. Mark: an Integrated. it's an integrated approach and all of it is nature. And so understanding ourselves as natural creatures can help to fill us with wonder at the Marvel of what we are. Because humans are extraordinary organisms,  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: extraordinary organisms. They're they're unlike anything that we are familiar with anywhere in the universe, in terms of what we do, what we're capable of, we are just these really, really remarkable critters.  Yucca: Yeah. And there's some pretty incredible creditors and other life forms that we partner with on, without even realizing it. Talking about the urban environment. I don't recall the professor's name at the moment, but put forth the idea where basically he was looking at the urban environment and this species that tend to come along with us in an urban environment. So thinking about your, rats and pigeons and Dan D lions and things like that, and noticing that these are almost all species that come from. Caves or the entrances to caves  Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: and noticing that there's a, there's a lot of parallels there between our architecture and who comes along with us and what systems we end up building that, that create environments for these other creatures that we actually live symbiotically. Right.  Mark: Hm.  Yucca: And the symbiosis doesn't just have to be mutualistic symbiosis, right? We've got parasitic and commensal relationships if commensal actually even exists. the idea that one organism isn't effected by the other organism as a, as a hard sell.  Mark: Yes.  but that, that our urban environments are these really special. Yucca: Environments and some of the functions might be a little bit broken compared to other systems where you might the resource cycling. When I say broken, that's what I'm talking about. Not that any moral judgment on it, but on its functional. what is it actually doing? Some of those systems might be a little bit broken, but they're still, there's still a beauty and wonder in that and we're still. Part of it. All of our biological functions are still going on whether or not we acknowledge them. Mark: Sure. Sure. I mean, the disadvantage that humans have is that because we do things so quickly. We don't have the advantage of thousands or millions of years of slow evolution in order to balance the efficiencies of the system. Right? So we have huge mounds of waste that we. Have any real way of processing, right? We have, pollutants of various kinds that, can cause various impacts that we find, disadvantageous not only to ourselves, but also to the natural world. And we don't, we haven't figured out how to solve them.  Yucca: we as individuals live for such a short period of time. From an ecosystem's perspective that we don't clock that, that something's not right.  Mark: Right.  Yucca: Right. Many of us are living in incredibly degrading ecosystems that are very, very sick, that are missing huge pieces that they evolved with. But to us it's just normal because we don't remember. Right. We don't remember the megafauna or we don't remember whatever it is.  Mark: You know, I,  Yucca: don't yeah. Mark: you know, I can say though that in my own lifetime, I have seen the crash of the insects and I've seen a dramatic decline in the number of birds. Just just from the time when I was a child to now observationally, I can see it. when I was a kid, when you traveled your windshield got covered with insects and you had to clean it off every couple of hundred miles, and that's just not the case anymore. the sheer density of organisms of that sort is, has crashed.  Yucca: Yeah. And we're worth different ages, but even within my lifetime, I've recognized that in my area. Mark: Yeah, so. You know, one of, one of the problems that humanity has is that, in many ways we're not very grown up, but, I have a friend who's,a land conservation professional. Who's worked in various kinds of environmental protection for a long time. And she refers to, to humanity as a toddler with a gun. not really understanding the capacity of the damage that we can do, and just sort of staggering around and shooting,  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: but all that uplifting stuff said, are still pretty incredible and we are also many of us. Inclined to try to repair the damage and to reach new balance with the, the, the balance of the natural world that we are a part of. And that is very much to our credit because. It's entirely possible that we could be intelligent creatures that just didn't care and would just drive our way into extinction. And maybe we are that may, maybe, maybe that is going to happen, but I don't believe it. Yucca: I don't either. Mark: I think humans are far too adaptable And nature is tough. Yucca: And I, I understand the impulse to throw up one's hands and say, oh, humans were just to cancer where it's just terrible. And I'm going to, I'm just going to bury my head in my phone and look at my tick talk or whatever, and just ignore it and just hate on humans. But that, to me, that's not. Rewarding. Like, it might be easier in some ways, but,  Mark: Okay.  Yucca: but it's missing out on a lot. It is missing out on a lot on the one hand, particularly because misanthropy means that you're, you're throwing out all of the amazing stuff that humans do, that, you know, the art and the dance and the music and the architecture and the technology, and just all, all of The extraordinary, extraordinary things that we do that are really worthy of appreciation. The friendship with, with your dog? Mark: yeah, well, there's a 50,000 year relationship.  Yucca: Yeah, Mark: that's that one's been going on for a long time. people, well, wonder why there are so many different kinds of dogs? Well, it's because we've been breeding them for various particular purposes for a super long time and continue to do so for various appearance traits. yeah, Yucca: yeah. Corgi just means short dog. They are, Welsh and there's a lot of sheep and whales and they're hurting dogs and they got short so that they wouldn't get kicked in the head. Cause you know, you don't get to breed quite as much and have pups when keep getting kicked in the head. But if you're just underneath the height being kicked by sh by, some sheep, then you survive longer. Mark: That's funny,  Yucca: why we have, and now of course, people like the look, so they make them even shorter and longer and all of that. But originally short dogs were just because they were short, they didn't get kicked. Mark: Sure, sure. Yeah. and You know, you look at Huskies and Newfoundlands and stuff like that, or. Dragging dogs and you know, the various kinds of border terriers and border collies that are used for various sorts of. You know, hurting, and then you've got all the terriers and other sort of rat catchers and kind of pest control dogs. you know, none of that happened by accident. All of that happened because there were particular needs that humans had and dogs were able to fulfill that role in humans, worked to make the dogs as adapted to those particular needs as possible. I mean, you think about a doctor. DocSend means Badger hound and they were designed to dig into holes in the ground. Mark: So they're long and skinny and go in and get badgers. Yucca: You know, as we're talking about this, I wonder we were talking about it from this very human perspective of, you know, how did the dogs change to fit us? I wonder if anyone has ever looked into, how did we change to fit our canine companion? Mark: Well, there are certainly several, human traits that. Strongly lean towards attraction to animals that have, you know, big brown eyes and they're sort of, you know, positioned mostly on the front of their heads so that it looks more like a human face. you know, we, we have, we have this whole off factor that we, that we have when it comes to babies, puppies, kittens, baby seals, raccoons, there's all kinds of. All kinds of that. And I'm sure that some of that was strengthened as we built relationships with dogs over time.  Yucca: yeah. Which that, that attraction to the, I can tell you as a parent that exists so that we keep taking care of the, of our offspring, because. Sometimes they're really real tough to take  Mark: Oh yeah.  Yucca: right there. I mean, you're just like, oh my goodness, you will not stop screaming at me. Why am I risking my life? Because you're just so cute. I can't help it.  Mark: Right. Yeah. And there's this  Yucca: our ancestors who didn't have that, well, their offspring didn't make it.  Mark: right, right.  Yucca: That's gotta be way prehuman. Mark: Sure. And there's this cascade of, of hormones and neurotransmitters that reinforces that whole. Sense, which is why other people's kids can be infuriating, but your kids are the most wonderful thing in the world. Yeah. Well, you know, this is, this is the way of things and this of course gets us into trouble when you have mixed families, because you have, you know, the so-called evil stepmother phenomenon, right. Because. The one that is not an actual blood parent of this child, doesn't have that cascade of hormones and neurotransmitters, and doesn't feel the same way about the child that, that others do, some do some don't. And So that, you know, can create, a sense of abandoned mentor or a hard relationship. Yucca: So it's going to say that we went a little far afield from our topic, but we actually didn't. This is all talking nature. Yeah. Mark: it's, it's all it. Well that, that's the thing about talking about nature is that there's nothing you can talk about that isn't dead,  Yucca: Yeah, except for the fictitious or purely theoretical.  that's, what's one of the things just vocabulary. That's always bothered me about the supernatural. What, how could supernatural possibly exist if nature is everything that is  Mark: Right,  Yucca: right. That just means we don't understand. Or, you know, beyond the laws of physics. Okay. Well that just means that our laws are wrong. Mark: Yeah, or incomplete.  Yucca: Yeah. and this is actually an argument that's made by fists and, and so-called supernaturalist pagans within the pagan community is, oh, no, no, it's not supernatural. It's just stuff we don't understand yet. I always come back to Ockham's razor, which is that the simplest explanation is, the most likely one to be true. Mark: And so if you heard a God say something to you, the odds are much better than that generated inside your brain, then that an actual disembodied intelligence with magical powers said it to you. but that's an argument for another day. Yucca: that is, yes. Why don't we circle back and talk about some things that people can do too, to build or strengthen that relationship with Nick. Mark: Okay, that sounds great. I mean, we did an episode back in may called pay attention. And I think that that's really kind of the core principle of all of this. And in order to pay attention, you need to not only paying attention is it's actually a very well-crafted term because there's an expenditure of effort and the bandwidth of your consciousness. That's required in order to successfully pay attention. If you're just cruising along, looking at your phone or listening to the radio and driving, and you're not carving out, at least part of your sensorium to be paying attention to what's happening in nature around you, then. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, you're always going to miss some of it anyway, because a lot of it's microscopic a lot of it's happening at timescales that you can't really perceive, but Yucca: you're saying one thing, you might not be able to be seeing the other thing. Yeah. Mark: yes. So there are always choices, but the easiest way to be better at paying attention to nature is to make time for it. Don't try to split your time between doing, saying, well, I have a beautiful drive on my commute home, so that's my nature time. Well, that's great. And if you're really appreciating the aesthetics of nature as you drive home, that's a, that's a good thing. That's food for the soul, but that isn't the same thing as actually just sitting for five or 10 minutes and. Watching the sun go down or  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: observing one of those trees or an anthill or, raccoons nesting under your house, which happened to me once or, or whatever it happens to be pigeons, pigeons, wandering around on the sidewalk, interacting with one another and, you know, looking for, for food. There's a lot to be seen and you'll be surprised at how there's a, there's, there's a sense of joy that can come from that kind of observation, just, just from taking the time and paying attention for a little while.  Yucca: Yeah. And, and really making it about that. Taking out the headphones, leaving your phone either in your pocket or better yet in the house. You know, if you're not needing to be on call for an emergency or something like that. And, and really, really setting that time aside to, to be present. So not as, not as a moment. That's important too, right? Taking that time to close your eyes and go in yourself and really self-reflect. But, but to open your eyes and look around and maybe let that transition between what you're experiencing is self and outside. Let that start to blend in your mind a little bit in your awareness as you take it. What what's around you and reserve the judgment. If you're seeing the, the ants moving around on the driveway or whatever, it is, just, just hang out with that. and, and you were touching on this as well marked, but, but making it, That dedicated time, maybe even literally scheduling it in, makes it more part of the routine. So part of the routine to tune in, to opening our eyes, to pay attention, and this could take different forms we've shared on here before some of our own practices. I do a star time, and. So at least twice a day, going out and being present. and of course, sunset and sunrise, the time is always changing every day, but that's also really amazing if he can build that into your schedule and then you're, and then you're noticing those changes. If, when, you know, where's the sunsetting and rising from and the, how is the moon different each day? And, oh, look, you're seeing it. It's the middle of the day, because remember the moon's out in the daytime half of the time. It's not just at the night. Can you, when, can you see that? Or when did the birds start talking in the morning before the sun comes up for most of them, but not all of  Mark: it is.  Yucca: Right? Listen, who's talking. Before Dawn and who's talking after it. Mark: If you have. Like a bird feeder sitting and watching the bird feeder And watching the interactions of the birds at the bird feeder, is amazing. It's really cool. And, if you're interested, you can get, a guide and learn what the different species of birds are that are coming to your, to your bird feeder. but that isn't, that isn't obligate Tori. you can just appreciate them as birds. Without knowing the particular details of how they operate, which is a broad range of different sorts of behaviors. that, that bird species have, I mean, think about it. The difference between a hummingbird and an emo,  Yucca: yeah. Yeah. Completely. This wildly different. Mark: right? I like emos they're dinosaurs.  Yucca: Yeah. They're all dinosaurs.  Mark: Yeah.  we were looking at pictures of. Hummingbird nests and hummingbird hatchlings. So if you're looking for a little like emotional, pick me up at some time at some point, just look up how adorable this little, absolutely tiny little naked hummingbird chicks are.  Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: little ITI creatures. huh.  Yucca: Anyways, but yeah, and the different species have their different behaviors, but different individuals do too. And even though a lot of them look very similar, if you're coming back to the same spot with the same population of birds, with enough observation, you can start to. You can start to recognize individuals based on their behavior. How are they interacting with each other? Is there that one that is always just a little extra aggressive, you know, it was always pushing them off and the birds do that anyways, but you know, or is there the one that trusts you a little more, that doesn't care that you're nearby or all of those things. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And, in some really interesting cases, you can, You can develop relationships with some of them. my friend Lexi, has crows. They kind of follow her around and they bring her tiny things. that's pretty cool. I mean, you've, you've, I need them for a while and they decide, well, all right. You're one of us. And a part of what we do amongst ourselves is we bring shiny things. So here have a piece of glass.  Yucca: Corvids are amazing.  Mark: They are.  Yucca: There, can be stinkers too.  Mark: Oh  Yucca: good memory. And if you piss them off they'll they'll remember.  Mark: Yes, they will.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, I guess, to sort of wrap this episode up, the thing that we're encouraging is first of all, that you build a relationship with nature nature, as it actually is nature, as it encompasses the entirety of what we experience, because we are part of it. And our works are a part of it, as well as, all the extraordinary. Examples of what is not human that move through our lives all the time, even in the city. Yucca: Mm. and in order to do that, you have to make. You have to decide that as a part of your practice, you're going to carve out that five minutes a day or 10 minutes a day or whatever it is. And it is immensely rewarding to do so. Mark: Sometimes at first it seems like, well, nothing happened and I'm not sure why I'm going to keep going with this. some of that is because you haven't really learned to see. And some of it is because, you know, you may just not have had luck that day. There may not have been a lot going on. So if you keep a journal  Yucca: Okay. Mark: of what you've observed,what's the word for that? A phonology journal, I think, Yucca: Okay. Just to see what you've observed. Just jot down what you've observed. Okay. Mark: Three candidate geese flew across the sky. there's a trail of ants across the sidewalk. the grass is turning brown. even, even just those simple, simple kinds of things. You'll find that if you continue with this practice, the list will get lost. You'll be noticing a lot more things and over time you'll notice. Well, Okay. The grass, the grass got really, really brown, but then after the first rain, all this new grass started coming in  Yucca: Hmm. Mark: and you hear a part of that process. All of a sudden, you, you are an observer of, of this change. That's happening, the changing of the guard among the ground. Individuals, the individual, the individual organisms may have died, but they germinated in their new seeds. And now that there's some water to feed them, uh they're they're now replacing the ones that died. and that's a profound thing. When you think about it, the, the generational change of a whole set of organisms.  Yucca: And also how our small little actions that we might not think anything. Might influence that and be a part of that. Right. Did you leave a chair out and did the grass not die under that chair where it was a little bit shaded as to sun was the summer sun was beating down on it or all of these different things that, that are little, little actions to us that just help highlight our connection to the whole community. Mark: Right, right, exactly. Because feeling connected with everything is the root of the spiritual impulse, you know, having an understanding of what our place is in the universe, what we're doing here, what we're a part of. All of that is really all inspiring and it can come through little moments, not, it's not just, you know, the sort of earth shattering coming around the corner and seeing the grand canyon for the first time kind of experience. It's also the little things, the little changes over time. And being aware that we are a part of all of this, and we were evolving eater internally, as well as, you know, in the same way that everything external to us is going through its process and changing and dying and growing and reproducing and doing all that stuff.  Yucca: So we hope you have the opportunity to set that time aside. Mark: Yes, I think you'll find it really rewarding if you, if you give it a shot. and I know how it is. We're all very busy, but five minutes is five minutes, you know, it's, if we choose not to take five minutes, it's because we choose not to take five minutes. It's not that we don't actually.  Yucca: And if you're too busy for the five minutes, you probably really need those five minutes. Maybe take 10. Mark: Exactly. Exactly. If you don't have time for five minutes, take 10.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Cause you really, you get, you know, get off your feet and,  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: look around.  Yucca: Once again. Thank you, mark.  Mark: Thank you. Yucca wonderful conversation with you. Thank you so much. We'll see you next week on the wonder science-based paganism.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E28 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. My name's Mark.  Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about the August Sabbath, the midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumnal Equinox, which is celebrated by many pagans as one of the eight stations on the wheel of the year.  Yucca: It's also one of those tricky ones in terms of what is it called?  Mark: Right. That's the first thing we need to talk about. What do you call this thing? How do you pronounce that? And so forth and so on from there.  Yucca: Yeah. Well, I often use Lamas because it's the one I can spell of the ones that other people might know what, what I'm talking about. I also think of it as the Second Summer and It's just that, that beautiful, wonderful holiday, which we'll get into the meaning for it later. But I almost don't even think of it having a name. I just associate it with what's happening during the season for us. So it's our monsoon holiday. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Llamas comes from the middle English meaning loaf mass.  So in Europe it's very associated with bread and the green harvest, which happened right about now in the course of the year in the countries that had that kind of agricultural cycle. And so it's also associated with all of the products of green, like beer and bread and you know, all the associated things that you can make with grain. Another word that is commonly used in the pagan community is Luna SSA, which is spelled with a variety of extra consonants.  Yucca: Pronounced Luna, Luna, Luna said neither of which. Correct pronunciations for Irish. Mark: Right. And I choose not to use that name because when I was naming the Sabbaths around the course of the wheel of the year and just generally conceptualizing atheopagan ism generally I didn't want to be drawing from any particular culture. I want it to be very clear that this was a modern interpretation of paganism that didn't stem from Celtic culture or Norse culture or Germanic culture or Greek culture or Egypt culture. You know, for, for a number of reasons, one of which is that I feel strongly. My spirituality being a forward-looking spirituality about living in the world today and our vision for the future. And also because I wanted to avoid a cultural appropriation. So  Yucca: name also is in reference to a God. Is it not? Mark: yes, yes, Lugh, who is a God that I don't know anything about.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So what I have been calling this, I, I, for a while, and in the book I call it Summer's End, but. Really, it just isn't the end of summer here. If that doesn't work very well. So I've moved from that to Summer's Waning. And also just to the term Dimming, because this is the time of year when it begins to become clear that the days are getting shorter again. It's been long enough since the summer solstice that you can really tell. You're not getting those very little. Nights anymore. It's the days are still long. They're just not as long.  Yucca: yeah, that's getting noticeable. Hmm. I love the waning that connects it back to some of the. The lunar term terminology that we use as well, even though it's a solar holiday, it's, it's connecting those two just with the language.  Mark: Right, right.  Yucca: Although in my, my climate, the sun is, the days are getting shorter, but the summer itself, definitely not coming to an end, but this is the height of summer for us. You know, summer solstice is.  Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: Still it's summer, but it's still spring ish. It's really the end of spring, but this is truly summer for us at this point.  Mark: What'd you say it was high summer where you are.  Yucca: really sure. How to, what that word would really mean to be high summer.  Mark: okay. Okay.  Yucca: Because I would associate high summer with being like the very middle of summer. And I suppose it is, but the way seasons transition is not nice and smooth the way that it looks in the picture books. Right. It's just us often. It's okay. Boom. Sees it as changed. Whether it's changed, it's all different or it just kind of like. Slogs along, just like, okay. Not making up its mind, which season it is.  Mark: right.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Where I am in California. We have the buffering effect of the ocean and that tends to sort of smooth things out. I've I've lived in places and been places where. The changing of the season is like the slamming of a door.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you have these relatively warm, but kind of wan days in October and then bang and it snows and it's winter time and it stays wintertime for months.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So it really just depends on where you are. And as we've so often said, paganism is. At its heart. At least we think a spirituality of place. It's a bit being aware of where we are in the course of the year and where we are on the planet and in the cosmos and paying attention to that and incorporating that into what we celebrate spiritually. So What we're describing in terms of what we practice and what we choose to do and so forth you know, can all be thrown out the window if that's not what is going on, where you live. You know, the, the, the paganism of where you live should be the spirituality of that place.  Yucca: I suspect someone listening from Samoa is going to be in a completely different situation than either of us.  Mark: Yes.  Yucca: So, yeah. Well, before we go too much, further, and mark, there was a poem that you wanted to share.  Mark: Oh, yes. Yes. I, I completely forgot that. And now I'm remembering, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: so I have a cycle of eight poems about the wheel of the year. And this is the one for this season which is called Gifts of a Problem Sabbath which is for Dimming or Summer's Waning: Hidden, you spring upon us from the calendar: ah! The Marblemouthed Holiday is upon us again! What shall we call it? Lammas, or Lughnasadh how on Earth Do you pronounce that, but worse, what does it mean?   Behold the midpoint, the blazing furnace of August. Ritual? Indoors, perhaps, but not under that Sun.   Rather, let us go to the places of water to bask, To where berries hang heavy among the thorns, Knowing it all starts now the cascade of food pouring From the good Earth. Break A stalk of barley, saying this is my heritage this Is emmer wheat is einkorn is the tough grass of the Fertile Crescent Bred to bake my loaves. And bake one then, a crusty yeasty rosemary Dome for tearing with the hands. Eat warm with butter or oil, Feel the Life milling in your teeth, and swallow: This good life sprung abundant from the collision of Earth's magic, Time and art and science. We are a making people. Our hoes and lore Midwife the coming of apples and squash, peppers, tomatoes. The Great Gathering begins now.   Yucca: It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.  Mark: Thank you.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah this is traditionally the time of the first harvest and where I am. We've been having stone fruit and and garden vegetables and so forth, kind of pouring out for a period of months now. But. In many places where it's colder and further to the north and the angle of the sun is not quite as strong on the, on the leaves right about now is when you start being able to get some food other than like butchered lambs and eggs and things like that. And so it's kind of an exciting time, but it's also a time that's really associated with work. I talked about the summer solstice as Conceptualized as I see it as kind of a holiday of leisure because all the, all the plants are in the ground and all the work to foster them has happened. And other than keeping critters for meeting it, you just basically have to wait until it's ready to harvest. Well, now it's time. And so I associate. This holiday also with work and vocation, and also with technology with tools because You know, there there's a, a real charming quality to the aesthetic that's associated with modern paganism, the sort of medieval Europe, Renaissance, medieval Europe kind of aesthetic. But if you route all of your. You're framing in that you miss out on the many benefits of modernity and technology is amazing. It's done incredible things for us. It has, it has caused our quality of life nearly universally throughout the world to rise at least to some degree.  Yucca: Not equally,  Mark: no, not at all. Not at all, but, but still it has enabled us to create a great deal, more food than we were able to otherwise, and to communicate over vast distances and to explore space and to process information in, in such rapid, incredible ways and to develop medical technology, to expand our lifespans and  Yucca: Go to the bottom of the ocean and all kinds of things. Yeah.  Mark: Right. All kinds of  Yucca: Do this. We, we pointed out a lot, but just how amazing this is. So as we record, we're looking at each other's faces from, we should actually figure out how many miles apart we are, but  Mark: we should.  Yucca: far yeah.  Mark: yeah. pretty far.  Yucca: Recording this and then putting it on the internet and then you, the listener are downloading it and you might be listening to it in your car or your pocket or wherever it is that you are just so boggling. Right? Mark: My, my partner in the was saying this morning, the 21st century is amazing. We're old enough to remember when the 21st century was really going to be the future. And that was, you  Yucca: cars  Mark: in 2001, a space Odyssey and all that kind of stuff. So It didn't quite work out that way, but there's still a lot. That's really remarkable about where we have arrived as humanity. And so I think about technology at this time and technological advance and, you know, I do stuff like defragment my heart drive and, you know, make sure that everything is backed up to the cloud and just some sort of maintenance things that this gives me a point in the calendar to focus.  Yucca: Yeah. just good to have those scheduled in there or else they just don't happen until your hard drive crashes. And then you're panicking. Mark: And then, then you're crying and you're sending your hard drive off to Texas to have the data pulled off it and buy some very expensive service, which I had to do once. And it was no fun.  Yucca: Hmm. Yeah. Well, I, I love that. Take that you have bringing the, bringing a recognition and celebration. Yeah. To our practices on things that aren't thought of as traditionally pagan and yet are so important to our lives. And when our paganism is about our lives and our experience with the world, it's really important to include all of it. Not just the pretty romantic stuff, but you know, the whole picture, that whole cycle. Mark: Exactly. Exactly. So, and we can do that while not glossing over the many negative impacts that the advance of technology have caused. You know, we can certainly, I mean, it's not exactly the time of year for grieving, but we can certainly, you know, mark. Those impacts in our recognition, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore those accomplishments. You know, very much like this was the traditional time of the Olympic games in ancient Greece. And so many people associate athletic contests and sort of feats of athleticism with this holiday as well. And there's, there's sort of a mod modern equivalent to that because it's, this is the time when people go to the beach and play volleyball, and there's a lot of sort of outdoor recreation happening,  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: but I feel like the sorts of. Achievements that we can most celebrate in this time are much more cerebral achievements than they are athletic achievements. I mean, athletes do amazing things and that's wonderful and records continue to be broken over and over for how fast people can be and how strong people can be and all that kind of stuff. But the transformative nature of some of these technologies, can't be under spoken. There, they simply have been game changers for humanity. And it's, it's important for us to, you know, raise a glass door, scientists and engineers who have who have brought these things to us.  Yucca: Yeah, definitely. Mark: So how are you planning on celebrating this, this season, your monsoon season?  Yucca: Well, first of all, this is the first real monsoon we've had in probably near a decade. I haven't.  Mark: Well,  Yucca: Yeah, so we're still, so I'm in the Southwest. I'm in Northern New Mexico high desert that's 7,000 feet. Not sure what that is and meters, I can look that up, but we're in a very dry, somewhat extreme environment. And this is the time of year that we get rain. And the whole region, I think pretty much the whole half of the continent has been experiencing drought recently. But we've gotten some rain and traditionally what happened will be dry. All your dry, dry, dry. We might get a little bit of moisture, snow storms in the, in the winter, need that for the, the mountains to get that snow pack in there, but then months of dry and then the monsoons come and there's storms that come in the afternoons, the, the mornings are clear and cool. And then we'll start to creep up, get hot. And then the monsoons come and they rain down. And this is the only time of year that things are green and they haven't been green in years. So it's amazing right now I'm looking out the window and there's little. There's new grass. There's grass, seedlings, grass has sprouted up in just the past few weeks and there, most of that grass is not going to make it. Unfortunately we can, you know, as land managers do what we can to try and, you know, put a little bit of mulch down and try and imitate the biology that was lost that this land needs. But this is the time of. This is the time of the, of the grass, the grasslands, the Rangers just blooming back, popping up. So we see this as our monsoon season, but it's, it's the celebration of the grassland. our, our approach for the wheel of the year is, well, there's, what's going on in terms of the Earth's position with the sun and the temperatures and all of that. But we also associate each season with some part of the biosphere that humans are intimately connected with and dependent upon. So. You'll or winter solstice is the time that we celebrate the forests. But this is the time of year that we celebrate the grasslands, the brittle environments. So a brittle environment is one like this, where you might get moisture, but it's not uniformly distributed throughout the year. And so different types of life have to exist in systems like this are our recovery processes are different than the non brittle environments that. moisture, whether it's a lot or a little, they get regular, so they can have very different decomposition processes than us. So we celebrate that grass. And for me, it's very special as my first degree was okay. Range ecology and management and working in restoration. So that's something that's just an eye that I have for anyways. I just love it and I'm fascinated by it and work in it. But it's the celebration of the grasses.  Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: we're doing lots of playing outside, mostly in the mornings in the evenings because the middle of the day is rough. When the storms are coming, running out and playing in the storms And we get it. So seldomly that it's like, oh, kids go get muddy to get as muddy as he possibly can. And as the adults, we will be cheering with with some beer, which we aren't big drinkers. We might have maybe a bottle or two a month of either beer or cider, but it's the celebration of the grasses. And that's, you know, that's where it comes from. So that's, what's going on on our side.  Mark: Great. That's great. I honestly don't know what I'm going to be doing this year. Sometimes I have invited people out to the coast because we're, we're like 25 miles from the Pacific ocean. Maybe 30 and the Pacific ocean is pretty impressive. I mean, I've been living relatively near it all my life. That's an awful lot of water. And and it's very fierce. It's it's misnamed. The Pacific ocean is, is definitely misnamed. The Atlantic coast doesn't get nearly the kind of ferocity in terms of waves and so forth if the Pacific coast does. But this time of year, it's a nice time to go to the beach and barbecue something. And. Play around and just be outside because we've been moving. And because of all the tumult that's been happening in my life right now, I haven't been able to put anything like that together yet, but I I'm still considering putting out feelers to some friends and seeing if they'd like to go out to the coast for for a little gathering and ritual next Saturday or Sunday. So that would be, and, and I should say that the actual midpoint between the solstice and the Equinox is around the 7th of August. So you've got, you've got a while in there to find a time that works for you and do something that feels appropriate to the season. Obviously. In a modern context, weekends tend to work out better for a lot of people. So that's what I tend to focus on. But Yeah. so that's, that's the sort of thing that I'm thinking. And also on the atheopagan isms, zoom mixer that we do on Saturday mornings, we're doing a ritual as well on zoom.  Yucca: Nice. Mark: Yeah. So I had something else also that I wanted to read that I had forgotten about, but now I remember which is that this is also the point in the season that the earliest of the gray it's tend to happen. And it may not be that may not be true this year because we've had so little in the way of water that everything is, is behind. But  Yucca: And intense heat and your area as well,  Mark: intense heat. Yes. We've. We've had a lot of reasoning and, and I mean last year, pretty much everybody's crop was lost because of smoke taint because of the smoke from the wildfires. Now this year, the question is, is there going to be anything that isn't turned into raisins to harvest? So pretty rough on the, on the grape industry right? now. But anyway because the, the traditional song, John Barleycorn must die is associated with this holiday. And it's also frequently the time when the harvest of the grapes, which we call the crush happens around here. I rewrote John Barleycorn Must Die as Joan Zinfandel Must Die. Zinfandel is a variety of grapes. That's grown around here quite a lot. It's a rich red wine and it's, it's very delicious. So I will read this redone version of John Barleycorn must die called Joan Zinfandel Must Die. There were three menne of the West County, their fortunes for to trye And these three menne swore upon an Oaken Tree Joan Zinfandel must dye   They've planted, trellised, and shorne her limbs And left her bare abed And these three menne swore a solemn vow Joan Zinfandel was ded.   They let her lye for a very long time, 'til the rains from heaven did fall And little Dame Joan sprowted out bright buds, and so amazed them all They've let her stand 'til Harvest Day 'til her arms were greene as grass And little Dame Joan's borne some full round fruit: a fulsome, ripened lass   They've hired menne with their knives so sharp to cut her fruit from her arms They threwe her into a wagon then, and rolled her unto the barn They brought her to the crushing floor where they crushed her to a mash, Squeezed her blood into fermenters, and added yeast: a dash.   They racked her to a barrel of oak, where dark and coolness dwell And there they made a solemn oath on poor Joan Zinfandel They've hired men to load her high with mighty lifts of forke And the bottler he has served her worse than that For he's bound her behind a cork.   And little Dame Joan in the crystal cup and she's brandy in the glass And little Dame Joan and the crystal cup proved the bravest lass at last The good folk they can't cook nor serve, nor live this life so well And the merchant he can't seal deal nor debt without a little Zinfandel   Yucca: great. I love your reference to the forklifts in  Mark: Yeah. The mighty lifts of forke...  Yucca: Well, yeah, there's something just charming about taking the kind of old timey language and tunes and applying it to the modern world.  Mark: Yeah. I agree. I agree. Yeah. So. As always, we hope you really enjoy this holiday that you, you take time to celebrate this moment in the year and look around and see what's happening in your local environment and with your local your local, agricultural and, and biotic cycles. And And as always seek happiness, seek joy because this, this is all too short Yucca: Yeah. Mark: we need to celebrate it as we go.  Yucca: Yes. Mark:  Thank you for this Yucca. It's been really a great time to have a conversation.  Yucca: Likewise, Mark. 

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com An Atheopagan Ritual Primer: https://atheopaganism.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/an-atheopagan-ritual-primer-v4.pdf S2E27 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome Back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark.  Yucca: And I'm Yucca.  Mark: Today. We're going to talk about sacred space. What it is, how to create it and how to, to build sacred space into your own home. Yucca: Exactly. And we'll also get in to a little bit, building that in, in shared spaces. Because we know that a lot of people are in situations where they share space. First of all, but might be with a roommate, a dorm mate, you know, parents, spouses, anything like that. And they may not be in a situation where they're one, their aesthetics, but also their beliefs are shared.  Mark: Right. And so, it becomes sort of a threading, the needle process of you know, how do you get your needs? While also accommodating the needs of the other people in your household. So we'll be talking about that some as well, but let's start with just what sacred space is because that's, it's a little hard to define. In my experience, sacred space is the environmental conditions that facilitate my moving into a ritual state of mind.  Yucca: Okay.  Mark: And that typically includes things like low lighting levels like candlelight aesthetically pleasing and metaphorically, symbolic objects and decor might include music that is facilitative for that. And personally, I, I like to live in sacred space. I, I decorate my room in a manner that is. It's kind of like a temple in that way. It has, you know, amazing sort of masks from all over the world on the walls and various, you know, pieces of art and symbolic objects and candle sticks and cauldrons and stuff like that. Yucca: Mm. Yeah. So I, I think I share your, your idea of sacred space as a space that can help move you into that ritual space. And that really just influences the way that we feel. It's something that I'm very aware of because one of my parents was an architect. So I grew up on job sites and building and all of those things. And so the shape of the space, the feeling of the space is, is this something always present and. The awareness of just what it feels like to walk into one room versus another room or one building versus another, or to step out, it really, really changes our moods and just our awareness of the world.  Mark: Yes. Yes. And I think this is something that we often don't pay much attention to. We just kind of slide on through our passage from space to space without really acknowledging how it's influencing our our psyche and our emotions. But. As we've said over and over again, a big element of being a science-based pagan is learning to pay attention and being aware of our environment. And that includes the built environment. It doesn't just include the natural environment. It includes the built environment. You know, we live in houses and apartments and, and, you know, various places.  Yucca: RVs. Yeah. Yeah.  Mark: And in some cases, tents.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Still we live in constructed spaces and our ability to make those spaces feel good to us is  Yucca: True.  Mark: something we have choices about. Most of us have choices about. And so over the years I have collected various pieces of artwork and Furniture items and so forth that speak to me of a particular aesthetic. And I deploy those in my room in a way that kind of augments the alter that's sort of the centerpiece of it, the focus And so at night I can put on some music and light some candles, and I'm really most of the way there into the ritual state before I even do any breathing exercises or visualization or any of that kind of stuff. Yucca: Yeah. So it sounds like you're, you're describing. Space that that you're stepping into. Well, sometimes some people are lucky enough to be in a position where they get to actually design and build the physical space. But most of us step into spaces that were built by somebody else for many different reasons, but we can then. Do things with those spaces, like creating the alter, changing the lighting maybe changing the color in the room may not be a possibility in terms of wall painting, but, Mark: but it might be  Yucca: but it might be right. You might be able to paint the wall or put a temporary wallpaper up or. Color of the bedsheets. Right. All of those things have a huge influence on getting you into that space or whatever the space is that you're designing for.  Mark: Yes. And you can be playful about it. For example, I like to hang a couple of led crystals in my window because when the afternoon sun comes in, suddenly I have little dancing, rainbows all over my room and it's cool. You know, it's just a little, a little trick of physics that that is pleasing to me and has a magical sort of quality. Yucca: We we actually got those for the kids for solstice, just passed the summer solstice. And the next morning they came out, I have it in the east window and the light and it was just all over the house. And both of them came out with the cute little groggy eyes. Wow. And then went around, try to touch it, the opening, their mouth to eat them. And so every morning it's an excitement of coming out and saying like, oh, you know, where are the rainbows? Are they on mom? And dad's head while they're trying to drink their morning tea. So we've got those same things and that they're just sudden catchers is another word for them. They're just amazing.  Mark: Yeah. And I mean, there are so many things that we can do. We, we talk about ritual technologies and, you know, a lot of those ritual technologies are active things that we can do when we're in the process of designing or. Or conducting the ritual things like chanting and singing and drumming and stuff like that. But there are also these sort of passive things we can do. In terms of, you know, lighting candles or putting on some particular kind of music. That's very evocative for us burning incense or herbs that creates a particular scent that takes us into a deeper more present. Kind of space.  Yucca: Hm.  Mark: And what I find is that because I pay attention to shaping the built environment around me, my, my house home and my room become more of a sanctuary to me. More of a place where I feel held and safe and in my power than I would otherwise. Yucca: so for you, do you bring in plants and living things as well? Is that something that really helps you get in that, into that space? Or is that something at a different part of the house?  Mark: Yes, we have a lot of plants. Noumea particularly has a whole lot of plants. I have two here in my room. A spider plant, which has little babies kind of dangling down from it that runs down the side of my focus. And then a , sort of a. Broad leaf looks a little like an Ivy, but it's not Ivy. And yeah,  Yucca: To both low light tolerant.  Mark: Yes. And very helpful. It's helpful to have living things, you know, as a part of that, that structure. I know that for some people their, their magical aesthetic isn't necessarily as intersected with the natural world as mine is. You know, if you look on my focus, you find pine cones and seashells and sea urchins and lots of natural rocks, of course, bones, feathers lots of natural things because they all remind me of just how incredible it is out there. Yucca: Hmm.  Mark: So, how about you? Yucca? What, what are your approaches to creating a sacred space within the home? Yucca: Yeah. So yeah, it depends on. Which space. So this is something that I'm very, very intentional about before moving into a new space. And we've just been moving finally, completely moving into what we plan to be a, you know, our forever home and see the Pope for that. So, No we're not, we have a lot more freedom in terms of changing things than we've ever had as renters before. But I really sit down and plan out the spaces and think about the flow of the spaces and how people would be moving from room to room and what are the feelings that we really want to have in those spaces. And  Mark: right. Yucca: for me, Those most kind of sacred moments. There are small daily ones, and so I want to create a space in each of those places that set aside for that, but kind of the big moments, the holidays throughout the year, things like that usually are actually going to be outside. So I don't make a. A major house focus or alter, but I have little ones throughout the house. So the bathroom space is one that's really important. The bathroom is a really big one actually, because that's where I think a lot of the refocusing happens. That's where a lot of that's the, for most people, that's the first place we go in the morning and it's the last place we go in the night before. Right. So th that's the start and the end of our days. So the, the actual shape of the room is very important, but how the lights coming in through the window and. Bringing little items, little rocks, or like you were saying, shells, bones, those sorts of things. And then the kitchen is the other really big one. And that's where our plants are. Our kitchen is just full of plants and greenery. The bedrooms are just for sleeping. That's it? I mean, the bedrooms just basically bed, nothing else. I mean, that's the only room in the house where I don't have plants just to have beds and sleeping people. So. And then, and then also the spot in the morning to drink the coffee or tea. I gave up coffee, but my, my little morning tea drink. So Yeah. Mark: Nice. Nice. Yeah. I've moved recently also. And so I'm in a new place and that was why I was thinking about this subject recently, you know, the, the, the creation of sacred space and why, why I felt so. Sort of disconnected and disoriented while all of my things were in boxes and why it was so important to me to, to create a space in my room as soon as I could after moving. So. I'm still in the midst of making decisions about the rest of the house.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Nehemiah and I are, are kind of working out what the living room is going to be like. And it's mostly there, but we have a sort of blank space that we know is going to be an altar ish space, but we don't really know what that's going to look like. So. And, you know, we have we have a handfasting broom with dozens of ribbons tied around it. That we're going to Mount over the back door. It's a sliding glass door, so we'll Mount it over that and it'll be visible there. But yeah, other than that really haven't thought it out very much yet. And so there's. You know, over the next couple of weeks, I'm sure we'll put that together, but it's not, not quite there yet. Yucca: So are you more of a. Live in this space, kind of feel it out for a while or  Mark: Well not.  Yucca: ahead of time. I mean, because there's so many different strategies, depending on the person of like, how to deal with that.  Mark: Yes. That's true. Well, this is a small space and. So like places like the kitchen, there's not really, I mean, there aren't even windows in the kitchen because it's double pane glass and that just takes up more room in fitness so that the sills are only about two inches wide. So there's very little in the way of locations where we could put things that would create. That would tie in with that theme happening throughout the house. But that said there is this it's, it's generally an open plan townhouse with only the bedrooms and the bathroom being kind of closed off. So. You know, the art on the walls makes a big difference. The the, what we finally decide is going to live on the dining area table in terms of visibility. So there's a lot of, a lot of things to think about little things to think about. And I haven't thought about them all yet.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Our big challenge right now is that we have several large glass fronted cabinets with glass shelves in them that we use for displaying cool stuff. We call it the museum and we have not yet put all the cool stuff into the shelving units yet. So that that's kind of a bit. Task that's ahead of us.  Yucca: Hmm.  Mark: And that will inevitably involve making decisions about which cool stuff gets in and which cool stuff doesn't make it and all that.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So, but my, my living spaces have always been kind of female as, you know, welcome to the museum of natural history. So,  Yucca: Sounds so much fun.  Mark: Yeah. Oh God, we have such cool stuff. I have a whale vertebrae whole bunch of different kinds of cool fossils. Just cool stuff. Yucca: Mm, before I forgot to mention the books, we have a lot of books. That's the thing that's always been the hardest when moving is just boxes and boxes of books. And. We can't bear to we've, we've gotten rid of them as we've moved from place to place. And yet there always are more than when we started when we moved. So Yeah. Mark: I think that's particularly hard when you have small children, because if they're, if there's a book that you really value, you want to be able to share it with them as they get older. We have, we had 37 boxes of books, 37 banker's boxes of books  Yucca: That's a lot.  Mark: in our storage unit. We went through and mercilessly called and now we have 26. Boxes of books, but it's still 26 boxes of books and we just can't bear to give any of it away, but it lives in a storage shelf, storage unit. It's not like we have any access to any of it. There may be three shelves of books here. And you know, they're mostly sort of coffee table style books of physical anthropology and cave paintings.   Like that, you know, Yucca: well, we have a wall that I am. And fantasizing about one day building a ceiling to floor bookshelf up against, and actually making the bookshelves the same size as the books themselves. most of the time with the art book shelves, there'll be several inches between the top of the bookshelf and the books, and that's where the cat goes, but that's where absolutely everything else ends up going to, and then it's just completely stuffed with non books in the bookshelf. So I want to make them fit perfectly because trim sizes are pretty standard. You can get, you know, all the books that are textbook size and all the books that are. Mass market paperback and all of those. So that's the dream, but that takes a lot of that's a lot of time. So working on the, all the other things of daily life and work and raising families and all of that. So there's, there's always a prioritization when creating space is. about what.  Can I do now? And what's going to make the biggest influence in, in my life and my practice right now.  Mark: right. Yucca: Also what's seasonally appropriate both in the life season, but the seasons of the, of the year as well.  Mark: Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I think, you know, people generally the earliest decisions that they make when they enter a new space are strictly logistical decisions. You know, how's the kitchen going to work, that kind of stuff. The, Yucca: I don't want to move that couch upstairs.  Mark: oh, Yucca: I don't want to try and go up those stairs or, you know, choices like that. Right.  Mark: Those, those kinds of decisions where it's like, you know, where is the couch going to live? You know, all, all that kind of stuff. But for us a second layer then is this aesthetic piece in which we, so some sacredness into the, the layout of the house And it adds a lot of richness. It really does. There is something that is deeply what's the word I'm looking for? Comforting or content full? I don't think that's a word about. You know, being in a space that feels as though kind of the essence of my spirituality, suffuses it. The objects that I see are my friends in a way, if they, they it's almost as if they have personalities, because all of them have stories to tell about where I got them and where they come from. And The sorts of rituals that I've done with them and all of that sort of stuff. Yucca: Yeah. Well, we've been doing a lot of examples of, of our own lives which makes sense of where both of us have been for the past few weeks. But why don't we talk about some ideas or examples for situations in which you don't have a partner on board with you for this or you, you don't have a whole house or something like that.  Mark: Well, I think if you don't have a, if you have a partner and the partner's not on board with you sacred icing your whole space, I would hope that at the least you could negotiate for a space where you can build a focus or alter to experience your own spirituality. I mean, I think that that's a very problematic issue. If someone refuses to allow you to do something like that, that's denying a very essential part of you. And it doesn't bode well, in my opinion But beyond that beyond, you know, a simple space for for an altar or focus I think, you know, you don't have to completely sort of goth up here your, your space in order for there to be. A sense of meaning folded into the way that it's decorated. I was talking a second ago about how the objects in my room have story fees. Well, everybody has objects that have stories, right? If there are stories that are about your relationship or about your, your ancestry or about your fondness for a particular place in nature. If those objects can have a place out in the living space, then you'll feel more like you have a space in the living space. Those, those kinds of things are very helpful. Yucca: Okay.  Yeah. I think as non theist pagans there's a slight advantage that we have sometimes with sharing space. Some of the theist pagans might have, because although there are some non theist pagans who do enjoy the symbology and the metaphor of deities and just don't literally believe in them. Most of the time we aren't putting up statues of pagan gods and things like that, that might stand out immediately to a mother-in-law or a. Very conservative roommate or something like that, where the, the, the symbols that might be important to us might be that dried sunflower, or might be the bone or the seashell or the bottle of pretty river rocks or whatever it is.  Mark: Sure feathers, you know, stuff like that.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Yeah. I, I really agree with that. I, I think that, and, and to be fair, the, the roommate or housemate doesn't need to know what that object means to you. You don't have to communicate that if you don't want to, you can just say I'd like this to be out in the living space. And you know, presumably they are reasonable and you can negotiate with them around, you know, what is out in the living space and what is not. And and you just go from there and, you know, they may. You know, they, they don't have to know that this beautiful rock was found when you were on a mushroom trip. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: They you know, what it reminds you of isn't important. It's, it's just the fact that it's there in your space. So, yeah, I think that that's real. That really is an advantage because certainly some of the symbology of pagan gods can be Can make people that aren't pagans uncomfortable, especially because they tend to have a lot of nudity and in our culture, you know, which has so much body shaming and so much just stuff around the human body. Nudity is a no-no. You can't do that. So. Yucca: Yeah. And sometimes nudity a long with being part goat or part something else or, yeah. but just statically know. I love it. I love a lot of the aesthetics of, of some of those deities and statutes and hope that right. I have some man with the leaves and the beer and, and all of that. And in my own home, although I don't, again, believe that there's actually a guy walking around who is the embodiment of the forest or any of that. It's beautiful. It reminds me of some of my ancestry. But that certainly was not up in my dorm  Mark: Okay. Yucca: in undergrad. Right. That was not a, it in a dorm room situation. That's been years since I've been in one, but I had my little box and I opened up my box and it had everything decorated. So it was like a, it wasn't quite a shoe box. I don't really know where I'd even found it, but it, it, it just like opened up and there was the base and then the lid to it that created this kind of stage. And I had it open when I, when would want to be in my space. And then I closed it and it was private and very safe though.  Mark: Hm. Yucca: then for anything that I wanted really overt symbols, and then everything else was like, we've been talking about the, the colors with the dried flowers or things like that, that matched with what was happening with the season or what we found outside or any of that.  Mark: Right, right. Yeah. And I, I think that tuning. The degree of overtness of your symbolic placements is really just a matter, you know, of your particular situation. And you know, hopefully, hopefully you don't have deep philosophical divisions with the people that you live with, but some people do and. You know, it's just, it's a matter of asserting your, your own entitlement to commonly shared spaces. Common space is really what we're talking about here. If you have a room of your own, you should be able to do whatever you want with it. But in common spaces, the decoration can be kind of up for grabs and you just assert yourself and say, Hey, you know, I'd like this rock to be there. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So, was going to recommend that along the course of kind of thinking about how to create sacred space. People might want to go to the atheopagan and some.org blog and go to the resources tab and download the ritual. Because the ritual primmer talks about a lot of different ritual technologies, ways to help, to induce that. Very present liminal ritual state everything from stained glass to candle light, to incense, to, you know, just lots of different approaches. And so that might be a useful guide for people helping to. Make decisions about decorating their spaces. Yucca: Yeah, I'll go ahead and put a link in the show notes to that fender. One wants to go ahead and click on that. Yeah. So I hope that your space continues to unfold and that you have wonderful sacred spaces that, that grow out of that. And yeah,  Mark: Thank you. And and likewise, as you move into your new, your new home that's very exciting and I know you have a lot of, kind of major logistical things that have to be in place for that all to happen. But of course the, the mytho poetic layer is really important, too.  Yucca: we're, we're almost there. We're so close. You know, just a couple of minor things like electricity, but you know, rest of it's there. yeah.  Mark: Oh, well, that's good. Yucca: So, but this has been great, mark. Thank you.  Mark: Yeah. It's always great to talk with you Yucca. See you next week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E24 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host Mark.  And today we're going to talk about relationships, big topic, lots to say about it. We expect this will only be kind of a first. Crack at what could be ongoing conversations on this subject, but particularly because relationships in the pagan community can be significantly different than mainstream kind of over culture driven relationships. We wanted to talk about that and what the differences are and some of the things to watch for. Yucca: Right. And also since we do enjoy talking about seasonal topics for many people, we're going into what's sometimes called wedding season. And this year there are a lot more than there were last year. There's people are still kind of holding off, but you might be going to a wedding or you might be having one yourself or.  Mark: You might be officiating at one. Yucca: exactly. Right. So not only for that seasonal reason, but also because this is such a human thing, relationships, whether it's a marriage or a partnership or a, I don't know what you would call a, a relationship with, not a partnership, but a  Mark: Well, because social  Yucca: social. Yeah.  Mark: you know, it's a sort of a social circle of friends, right. You know, we're, we are social animals. We evolved in packs and we rely heavily on the fact of the existence of other fellow people around us. And of course there are exceptions people who. You know, who are antisocial and don't really want to be very connected with other people. Humans are very diverse, but as a species, we did evolve that way. And so. And we're the way that we're built. When we reproduce, we have what is essentially a larval human, which is completely incapable of taking care of itself. And that requires ongoing relationships in order to support that child until they can care for themselves. And that requires many years of those relationships being attacked. Yucca: Yeah. So, so when we talk about relationships, We have many different levels, right? We can be talking about our romantic sexual relationships, but we also have the relationship between parents and children, friends, extended family work, all of those things. And the word relationship encompasses all of that.  Mark: Yeah, we have lousy terminology in English. I think I've talked about this before. We've got this one word love, which is supposed to encompass the emotional experience of all these different kinds of relationships. And then we have one word relationship, which is used to fill in the, the explained connection between people who are friends, people who are coworkers, people who are family, people who are lovers, people who are. Siblings, it just goes on. Yucca: so let's get into that. And let's also talk a little bit about. Why we wanted to talk about this topic, because this is a podcast about non theist paganism, specifically science-based non theist paganism. And sometimes it might seem like our topics are a little far off from that, but they're not right. This is all really connected. So, so let's get into that a little bit. Why this is so important.  Mark: Sure. Well, as I mentioned at the top of the episode, one of the things that I think about a lot, when I think about relationships with. Within the pagan sphere, is that fine? No, mentally we are a different kind of religious tradition and then the Abrahamic, right. Religions that drive the over culture, Christianity, Judaism, Islam. Those are authoritarian religions. They're hierarchical in nature with God at the top of the pyramid and they are filled with. Inherited rules revealed dogma doctrine, which is told to you for how you're supposed to behave. And that includes in your relationships. There's all kinds of stuff about, you know, first of all, there's very, very kind of siloed gender roles. So there's men and there's women and that's it. And then. There's a set of rules for how men are supposed to behave and what they're supposed to do, and a set of rules for how women are supposed to behave and what they're supposed to do, which is usually worse. And all of that is sort of handed to you and built into the assumptions that you have as you develop relationships with people at any level. Paganism is fundamentally different than that because it's not an authoritarian framework. It's a framework that's built around agency and empowerment. So relationships can become partnerships of discovery and evolution over time, and they have the opportunity to be negotiated in any terms. You know, the, the insulin. In a given relationship. Dad wants to be the caregiver and the, the, you know, house husband and do that and, well, great. No problem. It doesn't give anybody the willies the way that it does in, you know, some corners of, of the overall culture. The The things that people can choose to do can be much better adapted to who they are as individuals, rather than dictated to them because they are expected to behave a certain way. Yucca: Yes. Yep. And, and as always, this comes up in a lot of topics. When we talk about the over culture and pig and approaches, we are still steeped in the overall culture. And it's in so many ways that it's usually completely unconscious. And even though we may be coming from a different perspective, sometimes. We don't even realize what we're, what expectations we're bringing with us from society about gender roles or relationships, or, you know, what, what the, the expectations within a relationship, what those expectations even are and right. So, so think about. What constitutes cheating. So thinking about a romantic relationship, what's cheating and what's not cheating. Well, there's an answer on a societal level of what's cheating and what's not, but if your rules are slightly different than the expected rules, then it may or may not be, but that might not even be a framework that exists within your relationship. Mark: right. Exactly. So, because by definition, cheating means to break the rules, but if you invent your own rules, That are different than the over cultures rules. Then you can do things which the over culture might consider cheating. You don't because that's the agreement that you have with your partner. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: That's, that's the big difference. And so, for example, in pagan circles, we see a lot of polyamory. A lot of people who are having either open relationships or relationships with more than one partner and that means forming family units. You know, raising children together, the whole nine yards which on the face of it has a lot to be said for it in terms of attention to children and just the sheer available number of hands to do the work of a household, earning potential, lot of things like that. But the over culture will tell you that that's wrong. It can't tell you why it's wrong. It just tells you that it's wrong because it's sinful. It violates that that revealed dogma, that doctrine that was handed down and now suffuses our culture. Yucca: Yeah. So I think it's, it's really interesting to look at where we have those discomforts. Right. Like if you were listening to this and you had that discomfort of oh, oh multiple right. And examining where's that from is that leftover from the one man and one woman and they have to look the part and all of that, or, you know, perhaps there's somewhere else, perhaps you had a negative experience in your, or something like that, but, but often it comes from that from the Abrahamic religions. Being government.  Mark: Yes. And it's, it's challenging to conduct a relationship based on negotiated agreement. many ways, it's much easier to sort of lie back and kind of go with the model that everybody else is doing or nearly everybody else is doing. And the reality of course, is that as with all so-called normals, People are doing all kinds of stuff that isn't particularly normal, but they aren't admitting it. And they, and they are still, you know, keeping themselves looking respectable for their fellow  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Yes. Whoever's observers.  Yucca: Facebook friends and mother-in-laws and all of them.  Mark: exactly. So, but when you're in a situation where you don't subscribe to that, Revealed handed down doctrine instead where you say, well, okay, you know, I wanna, I want to connect with you and now let's talk about how that's gonna work and everything can be on the table. Now, some people run screaming from the prospect of that. I find it to be very engaging, interesting, and much more Much more acknowledging of me as a person in the relationship, because it says, okay, I'm willing to look at you. You yourself, you're a real person hood. Rather than I'm going to look at you as an example of this role model, and I'm going to relate to the role model. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. So it, it takes more vulnerability. It takes that communication, that the true communication. It's vulnerable because you have to, you have to be looking at the actual person and looking at your ex at you too, not just looking at the role, looking at your partner or the other person as whatever role they're supposed to be filling, but looking at yourself, not just the role you're supposed to be filling and supposed tos with these big quotes around them. Mark: Yes.  Yucca: Yeah. And so it. Sometimes it can be painful to be, to really look at, have that presence and self-reflection to be able to really come to the table with that authenticity in that honesty and what you need, what you want and the difference between those and.  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Where you messed up. Right. Being able to go, Okay. Yeah, I messed up, Mark: Okay. Yucca: right?  Mark: we, we agreed on this and I didn't do it. And whoops.  Yucca: Yeah. Or I, I put a little knife in the end of that statement and I really I'm sorry that wasn't okay. On my part.  Mark: yeah. Yeah. So, So we're, we're talking, w what we're really talking about now is kind of the, the beginning part of a relationship, which, and it evolves over time because you can renegotiate agreements, but what tends to happen when people first become connected with one another in, in some way, there are all these implicit agreements that they make about how they're going to engage with one another. And some of that has to do with sort of. Category of relationship. You're we're lumping the person into, right. It's like my friend, Gary is a dear dear friend of mine. I'm not having sex with him. I'm having beer with him. And we get together on about a monthly basis and enjoy one another's company and talk about things that matter to us in the world. And that is kind of our understanding of what we're going to do, you know, together with one another. It can be. Very helpful and healthy early on in a relationship, especially a deeper, more intimate relationship to really explicitly have that conversation about what the agreements are. In fact, you can even write them down. It can be very helpful to say, okay, we agreed that we're going to relate to one another this way. And of course, then you're kind of accountable. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Okay. Yucca: and it may be helpful to have that over several conversations. Right to, to not be putting yourself on the spot and let yourself feel through some of those things, because you might be talking about, okay, well in a romantic relationship, how okay you are with, you know, how open in terms of being able to see other people or not, or, you know, feel through what that really is for you, because what's happening in a conversation. In the moment, there's all the social contracts and the, you know, agreeing with the other person and not upsetting them or those sorts of things that when you step aside and really feel through it, it might feel different than what it did at that moment. And making sure that you have a way to come back to that and go, okay, so this is what we talked about and you know, I've been really reflecting on it and these have, this is what's come up.  Mark: this is.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And I think that it cuts both ways. I think that on the one hand, it's important to step back and reflect on your own so that you understand what your, your true feelings are about, what has been suggested or proposed or asked for by a person who you're connected with. And, but the flip side of that is that sometimes, you know, you hear something and just go. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And then have this terrible reaction and the reaction can be loud and explosive and inconsiderate. And and I, and I don't mean you podcast person listener that I'm talking to, or even myself necessarily. But a person, you know, sometimes when, when people feel very threat. They will, they will swell up and bark as that's what primates do when they feel threatened. They, they make themselves large and they bark and Part of the trick of maintaining an ongoing relationship is the ability to come back to that table and have a calm conversation afterwards about the thing that's really scary. And some people are more able to do that than others. But it's a really valuable skill to cultivate the ability to disconnect behaviourally from. A strong emotion that you're feeling.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: and you can say, you know, I'm feeling really scared and really angry right now, but I'm going to talk in a calm tone of voice. And I, I, I want to know more about this and I want to know what you're asking for. Okay. Yucca: I think it's, it's really valuable. You mentioned that it's a skill to cultivate  Mark: Hm. Yucca: this. Isn't something that. For born with this is this is practiced. It's, it's something that, that we stumble with and that we can get better over time. But just because it's hard now, doesn't mean that it's always going to be that way. Right.  Mark: Right. Right. And. You may find is that it gets easier with time because the outcomes end up not being the scary picture that your mind has presented to you when, when it was scared, the outcome turns out to be something that's more benign. It's, it's something that you can either embrace or at least you can live with. And that's just what, when you have those experiences a few times, it makes you less likely to go into that panic because you're not, your experience has been that when that triggered, since happens to you, It doesn't necessarily result in the disaster, the catastrophe that you've you've imagined it might. Yucca: Okay.  Mark: So a lot of what we're talking about here is we've been talking about agreements and one kind of agreement that people make implicitly or explicitly is about boundaries. Boundaries are really important in relationships because when we violate them, people feel violated. They, they feel that they've been treated badly in some way, and that can be. I mean, it can, it can be small things. It doesn't have to be big things. It can be small things. But if someone finds, you know, a turn of phrase, a tone of voice, something to be threatening or off putting to them, then they're going to feel like, Hey, you know, you crossed a line that I didn't want you to cross. Yucca: Yeah, well, and, and remembering that what is small to one person. Can be huge to another and vice versa that we are all different with very different experiences. And so our boundaries are going to be different as well. There may be some that are fairly universal, you know, don't hit. me with a car guessing that that's pretty universal  Mark: Don't hit me with anything  Yucca: No hit me with anything. Yeah. And then even then let's, let's have some very specific understandings around that.  Mark: Yes. Yes. Yucca: But yeah. So, so, but, but beyond something like that, there can be things like you were, you're saying the tone of voice or the type of language used the, you know, is it okay to follow someone? If they leave the room during an argument, things like that can be really, really key to work out because if we aren't emotionally and physically safe and our bodies don't really know the difference between those two things,  Mark: That's Right.  Yucca: we respond the same way. It's. I mean, it comes back to, what's the point of the relationship for you? If the point of the relationship is to be mutually nurturing? Well, that's not going to be a nurturing situation for any party involved, Right,  Mark: right. And once again, when we talk about boundaries, there's this whole template that gets provided to us by the over culture. And Yeah. Some of it is really pretty toxic. Like the idea that an angry man doesn't have to follow any boundaries that the fact that he's angry gives him justification and authority to do whatever strikes his fancy is as an action. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: That is, that is a subliminal rule in our existing culture. And it leads to a lot of violence, particularly against women also against children. And it's, it's a problem.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: So those inherited templates around, you know, how to be, you know, for women, you know, do you just swallow it all in and not say anything about how you're unhappy because you're afraid of,  Yucca: Or internalize it as your fault.  Mark: yes, yes. Very much.  Yucca: shouldn't have made a mad.  Mark: Right. Yeah. And that's, that's a whole other episode right there of, you know, just the, the terrible mind games that people can get into with themselves to rationalize abusive behavior towards the in the context of a relationship where you are freely negotiating your boundaries, there are opportunities. There are great opportunities to get your needs met. I mean, one of mine is I don't like to be yelled at, I do not want to be talked with in a really, you know, sharp, critical tone. And I just don't. It shuts me down. I don't want to listen to it. And this is a challenge between myself and Amanda, my partner, because her impulse is to yell when she feels upset about something. So, having a, a conversation about, you know, how, what kind of communication style are we going to agree on? That's going to make everybody's needs. Is a really powerful thing. And in the context of a pagan framework where it's about agency and self-empowerment rather than following the rules, we can develop agreements for ourselves around what those boundaries are and how we're going to treat one another. Yucca: Yeah. And again, it's going to look different for every, group.  Mark: Right, right. It is. It's going to look very different. And of course, one of the things that, that, that does, as we said, you know, you can put everything out on the table. And discuss what we're agreeing to, what we, you know, what we reserve to ourselves as individuals, what we see as a part of the relationship, what we you know, how we're going to support one another in, in having that relationship. And, but some of those things can be very scary for people. You know, the idea of sexual openness in relationships is terrifying to a lot of people because they're convinced that it means that they're going to lose the person that they love.  Yucca: Or that it's a reflection upon their value or worth,  Mark: yes. Yucca: Right, That, oh, somehow if my partner is looking at or attracted to, or has feelings for someone else that that somehow means that I'm not enough. And that's something that we really get taught from, from a tiny age.  Mark: Yes. Yes. The whole idea of the one, the soulmate is a terribly toxic toxic idea. For one thing, there are a lot of people out there that can be compatible with anybody else in there. There is nobody on earth for whom there aren't multiple possible compatible partners.  Yucca: And if there were, if there really was only one, that's quite depressing. Because your chances of inner of there's a lot of humans, your chances of encountering that one. I mean, they're what 8 billion, I  Mark: Yes, exactly. You know, here, here I am looking for the one and unfortunately she was born in Thailand and I will need her. That's the end of the story. So that whole thing, that whole. And, you know, mostly what people mean when they talk about a soulmate is somebody that they really feel that deep resonance with a deep connection of shared commonalities as well as real appreciation for the beauty of the person, for who they are. And that's a wonderful thing, but the idea that that person therefore has to be all of the things that we want in our lives. Pernicious. I mean, if you have someone who, as a partner is everything you want in your life. Good for you. Great. Terrific. But if not then in a pagan framework, it's possible to have a conversation and say, well, these are needs that I have, that aren't getting met. And I'd like to talk about how I can get them in. Yucca: Yeah. I think it's an awful lot of pressure to put on one person,  Mark: It is,  Yucca: right?  Mark: it's a tremendous amount of pressure to put on one person and people break under it. And what you w w but you end up with is a lot of divorce, which is what we have a lot of divorce. Yucca: Yeah. Or just unhappiness  Mark: Yes.  Yucca: And  Mark: a lot of people who are unhappy. Yucca: And an acceptance of that, that well, that's just the way it is, right? Well, of course you're, you know, that's just what marriage is. That's just what a partnership is. Or, you know, those sorts of things.  Mark: oh, in that whole awful genre of jokes about wives and husbands and you know, those sort of, you know, denigrating, you know, the old ball and chain kind of, They're just terrible. And it starts from the very beginning in the, in the over culture. I mean like the whole idea of stag parties, you know, is the idea is okay, you get to be sexy with, with other people for the last time before we close the gate on you forever. It's, it's silly and it's kind of gross and desperate and really unconscious.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And what I, I dunno, I have mixed feelings about it, but the fact that bachelorette parties are becoming more and more like that I think is on the one hand, a good thing in that women are being able to own their sexuality more, but on another it's like, but it's a crappy model. Why would you know, why would you want to emulate men? Men are some of the most unhappy. You know, be knighted creatures in our, in our culture. They're only allowed to experience one emotion, which is anger and  Yucca: But even then Only sort of,  Mark: right. Only sort Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. Not really. It only in very certain circumstances. Yeah.  Mark: So, you know, the, the turning, turning, the available roles of women into the available roles of men is not necessarily a step forward. In my opinion, in all cases certainly the entrance of women into the workplace and into professional spheres and, you know, all that kind of stuff is really a tremendous step forward. Feminism ultimately was about choice. It's always been about choice. It's about women's abilities to make decisions for themselves about how they want to live their lives. And  Yucca: right.  Mark: well, yes,  Yucca: just right, because if it isn't everyone. then it's going to be no one  Mark: Right? Yucca: fundamentally. Right, And, and it's, and it. off on a tangent again, but it's one of the areas where I think that there's some times some missed understanding that people have that it's not just, we call it feminism because that's where the big problem was and how women and femininity and females and all of that is related to, but it's not the only challenge in society. right.  Mark: No, Yucca: You know, it's not, it's not, it's not saying that that's the only thing that matters and men don't matter and males don't matter. And all of that, like, no, no, no, no, no, No, no, this is less, but we've got a problem here. Let's take a look at this problem. And if it upsets you, that people are talking about the importance of women that's might not. be part of the problem.  Mark: Yes, you might want to, you might want to take a look at that, Yucca: yeah. Why is, why is that, So why is that? So triggering.  Mark: right?  Yucca: And, you know, we can tie that to, to stuff happening today with, you know, racial tensions and things like that. It's, you know, it's the same idea.  Mark: Right.  Yucca: But, but it sounds like you were talking about the, the roles that many of the roles that we have are very limited and toxic  Mark: Yes. Yucca: that it's on the one hand it's, it's a positive thing. That more people are able to be in different roles, but that maybe we also need to start breaking down some of the toxic roles that, and opening up  Mark: That's. Yucca: for people to be what they want without it being poisonous.  Mark: Right. That's really what I mean. And that ranges everything from being a sexual and a romantic all the way, you know, to being hyper-sexualized and, you know, highly, you know, I don't like this word because it's got a, you know, it's got a negative connotation to it, but highly promiscuous or, you know, relating with other people. Yucca: Can be highly engaged,  Mark: yes.  Yucca: might be.  Mark: Hi, highly having a highly diversified portfolio of, of, of humans.  Yucca: Oh, yes.  Mark: So, and, and once again, it comes back to agency and choice, and I really do think that this is the profound difference in terms of understanding human relating between the over culture and the pagan framework. At least as I've seen it practiced in the United and states Yucca: Well, cause we're doing it in other places too. So I think it's easier for us to. To look at everything that way, right. We're already kind of going against the grain when it comes to what our thoughts about nature and what are thoughts about divinity and all of these things.  Mark: right, right. Yeah. And. It seems pretty clear that the rise of the Neo pagan movement in the United States, because it was rooted, it was definitely bound in with the sixties counterculture. It was a movement of people who were going against that grain of people who were rejecting institutional doctrine, who were questioning Sort of Axiom of how the culture looks at the world. Certainly, you know, pulling up the floorboards and looking at all the bigotry that underpinned everything. So the pagan project has, has been one fundamentally of giving people. Personal autonomy and authority and agency to make their own decisions and then supporting them in, in doing that, at least in its idealized sense. That's what it's been now. Pagans are human. Like everybody else, people get scared. People have negative reactions, people, you know, discover that they really don't like the wife's boyfriend. They. They don't like him and it's not because he's the wife's boyfriend. They just don't like this guy. He's not, you know, he's just not the kind of guy that they like. So now what do you do, right.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And that requires a lot of work and it requires a lot of processing and maybe things work out and maybe they don't. But the point is you got to make those decisions for yourself rather than just being told you can't even experiment in this realm because it's not allowed. Yucca: Yeah. It's not whatever, it's not natural. It's not moral. It's not legal, you know?  Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: Now one interesting area that I personally don't have very much experience with within the pagan community is that there. And I think this is, is somewhat falling out of fashion. But in, if we go back several decades, when there was much more focus on the God and the goddess duality, especially within WCA in particular, I think some of that did have influence on the, the communities that we're practicing in that and how relationships should look. But in a lot of ways, though, some of those representations of the God and the goddess were really. Based in the preexisting gender  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: constructs, right? Those gender roles.  Mark: Yeah, very much so. And that's why there is so much controversy now. And there are so many people working within WCA to, to dissolve that gender polarity and look at divinity as much more fluid. And as we do, as science-based pagans, understanding that gender and sexuality exist on spectrum. That that can be very, very nuanced and that's true throughout nature. And it's true for humans too. And that that's all great. Yucca: And it's only a tiny minority of nature that even does that.  Mark: Right,  Yucca: right. It's pretty new, very, very new. And, and it's, you know,  Mark: We're still ironing the bugs out. Yucca: oh yeah. And we'll see you in a million years, what happens with, well, we won't humans. We'll see you in a few million years. If we're still around, what happens with us? See how that goes.  Mark: Right. Yucca: So,  Mark: I we're, we're getting towards the end of the podcast now, but I'm I'd really like to invite people who are experiencing what they feel are actualized kinds of relationships, you know, where you have a good. Communicative. Negotiating collaborating kind of relationship with your partner or partners be really interested to hear about your experience with that in a pagan context and how your paganism informs you know, Your relationship. It's a whole other thing to talk about relating to family that aren't pagan when you are, we did an episode on that a while back. But I'll at least touch on the issue here just to, you know, so, so you can see that there's representation. Yes, we see you. We know that that's a challenge. It's really hard. Yucca: Yeah. I see the topic come up quite frequently about having a spouse with a very different religious view.  Mark: Yes. Yeah. That can be really hard. I would think. I, I don't know. Yucca: I would imagine much more so than having parents or children with different views.  Mark: Yes, yes. Yeah, that's a really tough one and, you know, For me where I am, my spirituality is important enough to me that I don't know that I could do that.  Yucca: I think for me, it's so entwined with my world view, right. That I don't know if that could the person that I'm with that. Our worldview. Have to match enough, at least that we are able to, to interact and have that, that we can come to the table and work out whatever's happening with us after week after week, because it's not like it ever stops. We've we, we keep growing, we keep changing. The world keeps changing way faster than we can keep track of. right. And so, I, don't know if, if. I don't even know how to separate out my religion and spirituality from the rest of me. It's so I don't see it as these separate boxes. He doesn't know who to talk about the physical, emotional, spiritual, like, no, no, no, that's all, that's all just part of me. That's all related and that's part of my relationship. Right.  Mark: Okay. Yucca: So it's, it would be. Yeah. There's just so much to, every relationship has so much to navigate because it's not just every single person does, but then when It becomes a relationship, the emphasis so much it's exponentially more complex. Mark: It is, it's a multiplier effect. It's not additional, it's a multiplier. And where people you add, the more of a multiplier it is. I mean the Emirates are famous for lots of processing, lots and lots and lots and lots of processing. And Yucca: And in that case, I would imagine that, and this is a topic to come back to at another point, but that some sort of formal structure for conflict resolution might be incredibly valuable. In a case like that, again, depending on the group, but, but even having a structure for two people for conflict resolution. But once you're starting to add more people in and then adding on layers of, of, if they're a household together, there's finances there's, there may be children. There may be all kinds of levels that get added on to that.  Mark: sure. There's just scheduling time for people to be together.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Which I mean, if you add children into the mix and everything, it can just get all very, very, very complicated. And then what time is available, you may end up, spend up end up spending processing instead of like enjoying the presence of your partner. So it, yeah, it it's, it's challenging, but the people that practice it find it very rewarding. And what I want to say is, I'm not advocating any particular style of relationship. What I'm advocating is that people have the styles of relationships that they want.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And if that is a very traditional look, getting men and women in a household with children, that's terrific if that's what you want, but there's a range of what people can want and they should have what they want. Yucca: Yeah, exactly. And that, if that is what you want. that's what works for you. There doesn't need to be the shame around it. Right,  Mark: right.  Yucca: and, and there's, and my personal opinion, we got way too much shame going on. Right. You're it's always the damned if you do damned, if you don't, you know, you, you wanna. Be a homemaker and shame on you for doing those old fashioned, you know, not sticking up for your gender or whatever you want to be out in the world then. Oh, shame on you for not spending enough time with your partner or children or, you know, and none of that is helpful.  Mark: No. Yucca: Right. And It's hard to get rid of. Right. I feel it, everybody deals with it. Mark: It's been the primary enforcement weapon for the over culture for centuries, you know, the, the, the use of, of shame and not, not just like social shame, like the Scarlet letter, but internalized shame the sense of doing wrong because you're violating that doctrine that has been, you know, kind of. Beaten into you by the fact that you live in this culture, that you've seen it over and over. You've seen it in a million movies Noumea and I have a joke that polyamory would destroy most movies.  Yucca: Yes.  Mark: Because all the tension, all the conflict, you know, all the, all the love triangles, all the, it would just destroy the plot of many dramas, almost all the romantic comedies. It just,  Yucca: just, honest communication. Just say what you're feeling, you know, or common sense. Right. You know, put a drop of common sense in there. And that whole thing dissolves  Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: we have. Well, it, and the shame about the shame thing is that it doesn't serve anyone.  Mark: No. Yucca: It's not like there's someone winning. So to say out of any of it, we're all just suffering from it.  Mark: Right. Well, I mean, if you really buy into the, the mainstream framework, then the idea is that the shame is driving you to walk the straight and narrow so that you can go to that. But we don't buy any of that at, we just, you know, we don't buy any, any single part of that.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: and if you do well power to you enjoy that. If that's the path you want to walk, but what we're doing here is really key that happiness. Here in this world, but that we know that is here and Yucca: I personally doubt that there's anything after words. Right? I  Mark: yeah. Yucca: that we are a beautiful, wonderful collection of atoms that. Breaks apart and becomes part of another beautiful, wonderful collection of atoms at some point. But I could be wrong. I highly doubt that there is something, but I don't. But what I do know is that there is now  Mark: This is  Yucca: me. I'm here. This is all I know that I get. And I don't even know if I get tomorrow.  Mark: Right. So pursuit of practices and and values that foster happiness become very important because what else are we doing here? And it's not just our own happiness, it's the happiness of those around us. It's the happiness of the ecosystem. It's the happiness of the future, as well as our own Honestly, if this is all there is what other possible value set would make any sense, because accumulating lots of stuff, you're still gonna die. Accumulating a lot of power you're still gonna die. If you accumulate power and you use it for good, well, I can see some rationale for that. So, you know, I have a couple of friends who were in Congress and they're good people and they're doing good work and I'm glad that they're there. But I don't know. I just it's. Unfathomable to me, why people would clean to the guilt and the shame around their desire and around their wish to connect with other people and around their doing the things that they love.  Yucca: Okay.  Mark: it's just, it's not helping anybody.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: It's certainly not helping the people that are feeling. Yucca: And this, this relationship. I again, everybody's going to come into it with a different approach, different hopes from it. For me, it really just always comes back to it's about nurturing each other and supporting each other in that beautiful, happy, meaningful, joyous life. That's that's what it comes down to. And it's, it's not easy all the time. And the whole, the love will carry you through happily ever after. I don't really believe in that. I think that it takes work. It takes commitment. You're going to be pissed off. Right.  Mark: Right. Yucca: gonna do something that is just, what the hell were they thinking? And frankly, you're going to too, because we're humans.  Mark: Hm. Yucca: Right. And, and everything changes and, and being, being able to come back just to always being able to come back to that table with that honesty and that self-reflection and re evaluation is what lets us. Take this journey together, then help each other through it.  Mark: Right. Right. And not be alone  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: to feel truly seen and connected and valued. Over a long period of time, which, which will be an evolutionary journey. It will not be the same as when you started. So if you do decide to write down some agreements, I suggest you revisit them every few years, tear them up and start over because people change. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: And, you know, one of the things that we've seen with the Abrahamic religions is that once you write things down, they don't change their, you might reinterpret them, but they're really locked in on the page and you don't want to be locked in. You want to be having agreements that fulfill who you are at this time. Yucca: Yeah. They keep growing and changing like that river, Right. It's the same river or is it love that? Right. And you keep, it keeps readjusting itself. Okay.  Mark: Yeah. One of the really cool archeological. Fines in the American south is a steamship, a, a river steamer that sank with all of its cargo and was rediscovered in an Arkansas cornfield, something like a mile and a half from the Mississippi river, because that's where the river used to be.  Yucca: That's great.  Mark: It is really cool. They. Th all the stuff was there. And so there's now a museum and, but yeah, the river moved Yucca: So we'll come back to this topic again, but this was our kind of our intro, our thinking about relationships. Wedding season or reevals or all of that stuff.  Mark: And if you're doing those things, our fondest wishes to you and best of luck, and we hope you have a beautiful day. Yucca: Thanks, Mark.  Mark: Thank you. Thank you.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com White Wine in The Sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q   S2E22 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark.  Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And it is time for Midsummer. It is the summer solstice coming up and we're going to talk about that today. Yucca: Exactly. So. What it is to us in our particular bioregions and our particular practice. And just about it in general.  Mark: Yeah. I mean, this is one of those holidays that doesn't actually exist in the over cultures calendar of holidays. The, the, the winter solstice is pretty well-represented by all of the various winter salts to see holidays that happen around that time. But with the exception of the American Memorial day, we don't really have anything that  Yucca: Cool. 4th of July, sort of.  Mark: Yeah. Okay.  Yucca: Yeah, I think 4th of July. know it's a little bit later, but it's still kind of in that same time of year summary, holiday  Mark: Yeah, enjoy, enjoy the long evenings. That kind of thing. Yeah. You're right  Yucca: but it's still a stretch  Mark: right. It's not  Yucca: I mean, Christmas and winter solstice right there. Right.  Mark: And it's not like in some European countries where Midsummer is a big deal and you have all kinds of traditions that go along with that. Yucca: Who is, is it son, Juan they're in primarily Catholic countries. There is a St stay which involves a bonfire. On the solstice. And sometimes there's a tradition of the students burning their old papers and things like that at the end of the year to celebrate that the, that. the semester, the year's over.  Mark: Okay. I wasn't aware of that, but that's very interesting. Yes. I mean, this is another fire holiday very closely associated with building a big fire, which frankly I think is just an another excuse to build a big fire. I mean, people. People don't need much of an excuse to build a fire and have a big party around it. But this is another one of those. So we're going to talk about how we conceptualize mid summer or the summer solstice what we call it, how we envision it in the cycle of the year, the wheel of the year and the various cycles that we track. How that may vary from bioregion to bio region what kinds of rituals we do in our practices and that we're aware of that other people might do and stuff like that. So let's dive in. Yucca: Yeah. So question number one. Is it actually mid-summer for you?  Mark: Yes,  Yucca: it is. Okay.  Mark: It is, I consider the beginning of summer to be the Mayday holiday. And yeah, that's just so that the names Midsummer and mid-winter will otherwise they don't work. Yucca: But in terms of, in your bioregion region, your climate, has it been summer for awhile?  Mark: oh, yes.  Yucca: Yeah. Okay.  Mark: Yeah. For quite a while. And the, the transition in my region is very noticeable because all the Hills go from being green, to being gold, all the grasses die. And so, you know, you have this kind of golden brown color instead of the green of the winter growth. And that happens right around may day. So, it begins right around may the eighth. So that's kind of the beginning of summer and it extends and it's completed. The Hills are completely brown except for the green Oak trees. By the time we get to the summer solstice.  Yucca: Hmm.  Mark: How about you? Yucca: Well, definitely not. Mid-summer as in the mid point of summer for us, this is the beginning of summer. We, I live at a very high elevation, so dry, dry desert, but high desert. So 7,000 feet, I think that's a little over. 2100 meters somewhere in that range. So very high up. So really summer press doesn't begin until June to beginning of June is the beginning of summer feel. The last week of may, may be may is one of those months that can really go either direction where it's literally freezing the night before. And then it's very hot the next day. So this is the start of summer. And we've got a very, very short growing season, but this is when things really are getting into their groove in terms of the life coming back from the dormant period from the new life emerging. And it's a very brief period that we have in the middle of the year where we might have some green. We don't, we're, we're gold most of the time of the year goals and lots of red earth and all of that. And if we're lucky, it has not been the case for a while now, but this is the beginning of our monsoon season two. So the monsoons, really will pick up a little bit more, you know, fingers crossed in, in the coming months of, so June, July, August, it's been being pushed back a little July, August, even into September. But when the rains come is when the life that's just been hiding in gray and down below, just pops up into existence just into visibility. And so. There definitely isn't a sense of maturation yet, but everybody's still, everybody's getting into the groove. Right. And finally we're out of the, the freezes. So, but you still got to take a sweatshirt with you wherever you go, because it'll drop being high up. We'll drop back down into the fifties or so at night, usually. Mark: And you consider that cold. Yucca: Well, if your day was 90, Mark: Well, that's true. Yucca: right? If you were at 90 and then you went down to 50, but no, in the winter we get down into the teens, we get freezing and very cold in the winter, but it, but it's a pretty big drop between, you know, you're in a tank top during one part of the day and then putting your sweater on for the rest of the day. So.  Mark: huh. Huh. So, how do we understand this holiday in terms of the cycles of the wheel of the year? What is, what is its place? In our, in our. Symbolic understanding of it in the, the ritual celebrations that we do. Yucca: Hm. Yeah. Well, one of the things we've talked about before is our different approaches to. The wheel of the year. And for me, that approach, I'm looking at the seasons and then the holidays being the midpoint of those seasons is kind of the celebration as a representing different ecosystems or types of life, which are really, really critical for our own survival and for our, our experience of. The biosphere, which of course is much huger than, than we can even begin to imagine. We just live on this very thin little layer and we only occupy a very small part of that layer anyways. But the first summer is about. The arthropods for us, it's about the insects and   arachinids and myriapods and all those little jointed legged beings with their armored shells and lots of celebration, especially for the honey bees and the ants and all of those little creatures. It's that time of busy work that they are doing.   Mark: I, on the other hand tend to, I tend to think of the wheel of the year in two different dimensions. The first of which is the more kind of Wicca consistent, traditional understanding of the wheel of the year as the agricultural cycle. Right? So the holidays reflect food production at different times of the year. And. In the case of this particular holiday that makes this the holiday of doing nothing. This is the holiday of leisure because everything's planted, everything's growing. Nothing's ready to harvest yet. And it's time to just kind of sit around with friends and drink some beer and have a barbecue and, and go to the beach and just enjoy those long, comfortable days. And I consider those to be sacred activities at this time of year. It's it's important to have a time when, you know, you're just taking it easy. And, you know, storing up some energy for when you're going to have to work like crazy to bring the harvest in later on  Yucca: Mm.  Mark: the other dimension that I think of the wheel of the year along is kind of mapping the arc of a human life. So I think of birth as being equivalent to the, the birth of the son, the coming back, the return of the sun, starting at the winter solstice. So what, by the time you get to the summer solstice, you're kind of in the fullness of adulthood, right? I'm not. Not the sort of urgent, energetic learning, still kind of wide-eyed young adulthood of, of Mayday or bell Tane, but established, you know, building a family building career the, the kind of adulthood where you can enjoy agency. Right. You're, you're fully empowered to do all the things, you know, because you're well past 21 and now you get to make choices and you have to make choices and it's a time to just sort of reflect on, you know, what's it like to have power. What's it like to be able to make those decisions for ourselves and to plot out what we're going to plant, what we hope to harvest so forth. So, this summer solstice is a time of year when I honestly have fewer kind of formal rituals because the rituals are things like lying in a hammock with a Mohito.  Yucca: Sounds like a great ritual.  Mark: yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I think it's a very good thing for you. And so that's, that's the sort of thing that I look to do at this holiday. How about you? Yucca: Well, I think partly because what's happening in our climates is so different. It definitely is not a leisure time for us because it really is still that beginning. You're still getting. In the annual cycle, you're still getting the plants in the ground, right. You're still working it's that there and in the agricultural cycle. I mean, our cycle, our growing season is so short. I don't know. Perhaps people who live in a longer season might have more time, but there's never a time that you're not doing anything except the dead of winter. Right. That's but the rest of the time of the year, you're busy as can be with what's going on. But when it comes to the celebrations, it's for us, one of the really big times of the year. So it's up there in, in the celebration and awareness around it, as much as the winter solstice is. So it's like these two halfs of the year for us, the winter solstice and the summer solstice which we have playfully Called Hafmas. So there's Christmas and then Hafmas, which is, haf is Welsh for summer. And we use a lot of Welsh in the, in the home, but when you write it in English, it's H A f because the F is just, just a single V it's only if it's two F's. So it looks like half, like half the year. the split of the year and half. So the, the half year celebration. And so there's, it's also the time of year that we're outside at night a lot, even though the night's short compared to other times of the year, it's just so much more pleasant to be out. In the middle of the summer, around a campfire, looking at the skies and, and in the next few coming weeks, we're going to have some wonderful meteor, shower opportunities and all of that. And then we also do gifts this time of year as well. So we do gifts both sides of the year and the kids are really into that.  Mark: I'm sure. Yucca: yeah.  Mark: Well, that's great. So it does seem like there are some commonalities. I mean, it was interesting. I. I was reflecting when you were talking about how other than the dead of winter, you really don't have a dormant time in, in terms of planting and agriculture. And it occurs to me that where I am is so benign that people actually grow gardens through the entire winter. They they'll grow winter squash and leafy vegetables and stuff like that. And you know, maybe you get tagged by a freezer too, and you lose some stuff, but certainly in a greenhouse you can grow stuff all year round with no problem. Yucca: Have we talked about it before you and like a zone nine or.  Mark: I don't know what zone I'm in, honestly.  Yucca: You mentioned, you could get away with what most people would call a fall garden or a spring garden  Mark: Oh, for  Yucca: during the winter where you've got your, like you're saying your leaf fees and your, all your brassicas and things like that.  Mark: Yes, absolutely. And people do and you know, they're, they're putting in tomatoes by April  Yucca: Hmm.  Mark: and Getting tomatoes by July, right. You know, the early tomatoes. So, you know, the kind of a traditional meal for us around this time of year is the caprese salad response Sorella and the really good, fresh heirloom tomatoes and the basil leaf. And then you drizzle it all with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and it's just awfully good. Really really good. And just super, you know, fresh that's, that's kind of the quality of everything right about now, you know, peaches are coming into coming into ripeness right about now. And there's, there's nothing more than the taste of a peach. That is the summer to me. Yucca: Yeah. Oh, oh, that just makes me hungry thinking about it. And I like the texture on the outside, the little, little bit of fuzz as you bite into  Mark: Yeah. Everything about  Yucca: underneath it. Yeah.  Mark: Perfect. Peach is about the ultimate food. If there really were a thing that was the food of the gods, I think it would be a perfectly ripe peach. Yucca: Yeah. Now they're in the, for us, they're in the grocery stores, but none of our, our fruit trees are bearing yet.  Mark: Okay. Yucca: Right. There's some that survived are late. Frosts have got their little, little green fruits just starting to grow that are about the size of a gumball right now, but we won't get those fruits for another month, at least on the earliest of them.  Mark: Wow.  Yucca: So  Mark: Wow. And, and, and that's, that's probably like plums and cherries, like those kinds of fruit or. Hm. Yucca: Well, we get a lot of the stone fruit do fairly well.  Mark: Oh, good. Okay. Yucca: The apricots are the ones that do the best and in my particular area, in fact, there'll be so many, we get those little tiny ones that people are asking you to come take them away because they drop and they make all those, the little squish. Yeah. Everywhere. Yeah. And then we, you know, apples and some Of those ones do very well. But everything has to be adapted to being in a very dry condition, dry, and then the very cold in the winter. So it's kind of both extremes.  Mark: Sure. And I imagine you you have a lot of competition from birds and other wildlife for the fruit. Once it becomes edible Yucca: Yes, certainly. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that you can do tricks the, the birds aren't so bad. Depending on where you live in, in the area where we are now the biggest problem with having an orchard is that it attracts bears and the bears will try and climb into your tree and they'll break your tree to get to your  Mark: Right, right. Yucca: the birds, you can usually you discover like a branch or two, and then they're pretty good at sharing, but the, the bears not so much  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: havoc. Yeah.  Mark: So how about rituals? Why don't we talk about some of the rituals that we might do at this time? I do have one that I do every year. There's actually an article about it on the atheopagan ism.org blog. I have a broom that I call a sun broom. And it's a handle made from Oak, a piece of Oak that I found in a nearby state park. And I bind, I cut wild oats, long, tall, wild oats every year and bind them onto this handle to make a broom. And they leave that out in the. Summer solstice sun all day long until sunset. So it soaks up all the sun. Right. So then if in February, when I'm feeling really kind of discouraged by the darkness and lack of light and all that, I can take that out and wave it around and feel better. Yucca: Yeah. that's great. Hm. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Well, we don't have any specific rituals like that quite yet. I think that maybe over the years, those might start to develop some for me, it's always been just this moment, taking a moment for the awareness. And of course like to S to set my alarm just for the moment of the actual solstice which of course could come at many different times of day, depending on the year. But, but long walks if you have a labyrinth or can make a labyrinth nearby, I think that there's just something about being out in the middle of the hot. If you're taught where you are, but the middle of the long summer solstice stay and taking that, that moment set aside, just to be aware of the, the continual cycle that conduct continual progression. We also Put up and it's evolving every year, getting more and more complex. But kind of like a summer Garland that has the big looks like a honeycomb almost cut out. So it looks like so instead of having like a, like a tree that we put up the celebration and put, you know, B related art and big cutout, The arthropods and spend some time studying the, the, just watching, like, if you've got a nearby little ant mound or big outman Mount, those are just hanging out with them for a little while.  Mark: That's great. I was just remembering something and now it has left me again. What was that? Yucca: it was a Garland related. Or  Mark: It wasn't either of those. Probably my ADHD brain went just somewhere else on something that only, that must be related in an associated way, but I could never track down what the path was.  Yucca: Was that moment? solstice.  Mark: I like to do that too. I like to know exactly when it's going to be an observed that that's happened as well. Oh, I know what I was going to say. This year is actually going to be a really special celebration for the summer solstice on the 20th because my ritual circle is going to get together in person. For the first time since COVID and I'm really looking forward to that. It's going to be just amazing to see everybody.  Yucca: How wonderful. That's great.  Mark: Everybody's vaccinated. And  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: over to my circle. Brother's house in Napa, and we're going to drink a bunch of wine and eat seared meat.  Yucca: Sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. That, that the community and this sense of, and that in person ness of the community is really that's wonderful.  Mark: So meanwhile, elsewhere in the world on, on the other half of the world it's coming up on the winter solstice. And we thought we'd talk about that for a minute. Maybe contrast what's happening there. You know, for our friends that are in the Southern hemisphere Yucca: just a reminder on that. There's often a missed perception that the summer solstice is when the earth is closest to the sun. And that's not the case. There are some planets that have very elliptical orbits in which their seasons. Are caused at least in part by the distance from the star, but that's not the case with ours. Ours is caused because of the tilt of our planet relative to our orbit around the plane of our orbit around the star. So it's going to be reversed depending on which hemisphere you're on for one hemisphere, it's going to be the summer solstice for when it's going to be the winter and the other way around.  Mark: right, right. Yeah. So, because the earth has now tilted the Northern hemisphere towards the sun where we get more direct sunlight and longer days. The opposite is Yucca: our position is such that we are tilted in that way, the earth isn't within a human timescale, wobbling back and forth.  Mark: no, not at all. It's it's processing around around a tilted axis. Yeah. So meanwhile, in places like south America and South Africa and Australia and New Zealand they're coming up on the winter solstice. Which is I would imagine a little frustrating for those that follow more traditional pagan paths because they get bombarded with all this stuff about you know, it's summer, it's summer solstice. It's Letha, it's, you know, in, you know, here's all this, here's all this, this stuff about, you know, Holly Kings and goddesses and Kings and all that kind of stuff. That makes no sense for where they are at all. But if you strip all that stuff out Yucca: I was going to say the folks in Brisbane, I think they've been having a really cold snap for what they typically have this time of year that, you know, they're putting on sweaters and that's quite unusual for that area.  Mark: huh. Yeah. Yeah. So,  Yucca: And of course, the other side of the year, too, when, when the Santa clauses out and yet it's the middle of summer,  Mark: Right. Yucca: summer solstice was Santa Claus and reindeer.  Mark: Which in gendered, my favorite Southern hemisphere Christmas song, which is called White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin. And it's a very moving song and it's also a non-theistic song. Not just in the sense of not having any gods in it, but it's, it's like goes into his disinterest in in theistic stuff. He's, he's very funny, but also very moving it's. We'll we'll put a link to the YouTube video in the, in the notes. It's a wonderful song. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Let me see. Yucca: So mark, have you ever spent any time in the Southern hemisphere?  Mark: I haven't, I've never been south of the equator. Yucca: I have not either. It's it's a dream. I want to go and. And see the other half of the sky and the other half of the earth.  Mark: yeah, me too. I'm particularly interested in Africa and south America. For some reason, I don't know, Australia has always struck me as being so similar in many ways to the American west that I just haven't. I mean, culturally, obviously not, it's obviously totally different. But in terms of the geography and the land shapes and the aesthetics and that kind of thing, it just looks very similar. So it hasn't drawn me as much.  Yucca: You know, interestingly, it's one of the places I'm very drawn to. I'm very, you know, I am very happy with where I live and it's home, but that's, you know, and when people ask, oh, well, if you had to move somewhere, right, where would you go? And even never having been there, there's just always a, well, well, I Really loved the look Of the Outback and of course. there there's a lot of different areas, but there's just something about it that just calls me  Mark: Oh,  Yucca: and weirdly Greenland as well. Very, very  Mark: Really, really attracted to Greenland Greenland and on, up into Cape Breton and those kind of far Northern Newfoundland, those far, far Northern areas in Canada. I'm also very attracted to along the Atlantic seaboard. But I think that some of that may just be, because there's so much contrast from where I am here, you know, I, I just, I like to go somewhere where things are really different,  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: and experience what that's like. Yucca: Well, I talked about this before, but we do have an invitation out to folks who anyone who'd like to come on and talk about their wheel of the year. That is, you know, from a Southern hemisphere perspective or a tropical perspective or, or, you know, maybe a polar perspective that would just be, be amazing.  Mark: It would be so  Yucca: will be interested in that.  Mark: We would, we would love to do that. Also, I wanted to announce because it's on the blog and we've been talking about it in the atheopagan Facebook group, but we are having a non-fixed pagan gathering in 2022. It'll be in Colorado Springs, Colorado in the United States, which is quite central for people who are Canadian or Mexican or from the U S and it's on March. I'm sorry, May 13th through 19th, 13 through 1913 through 16th.  Yucca: I think, Yeah. Let me Mark: Yeah. 13th through 16th.  Yucca: So that's a Friday through Monday.  Mark: yes, it's at a retreat center called love 40 and It's going to be beautiful. It's just, it's really amazing. We've raised enough in deposits in tickets so far to put down the deposit for the retreat center  Yucca: Just tucked into the Ponderosa Pines and. Mark: Beautiful view of, of Pike's peak and some national registry national historic building registry buildings on the site that are in the kind of classic rustic style including one called the Ponderosa lodge, which will be our meeting place for our activities. So it's pretty exciting. And there's all the details about it or that we have so far are on the atheopagan ism.org blog. And we, if you're interested in meeting other people of like-mind and gathering around a fire for rituals and doing workshops and just hanging out.  Yucca: and we'll be there.  Mark: Yep. We'll be there. We will be there. So don't let that frighten you though. We, we, we aren't harmful and it'll, it's actually going to be great. It'll be the first time we've ever met.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: so that'll be exciting. So, if you're interested in that at all, do go to the blog and find out more about it and keep watching that space because as we know more about what the event is going to entail, we'll be publishing that stuff there. So, I'm really excited about this. I think it's just going to be so much fun. Yucca: Yeah. And I feel, you know, Giddy just thinking about it. It's very,  Mark: Huh. Yucca: Yeah, it's, it's, it'll just be amazing to see people and especially after the year and a half or at that 0.2 years, that we'll all have had and,  Mark: right, right. I mean, especially after all of the, the shut downs of COVID and all that kind of stuff, and we have nearly a maid to plan for it. Well, yes, everything else. it's it's not  Yucca: What a year,  Mark: Yeah, at least the election worked out. Okay.  Yucca: Just need to get worried about midterms.  Mark: yes. Yes, but let's not. Go there right now. So this has been a great conversation. thank you Yucca, thank you so much. And to all of our friends out there listening wherever you are, I hope that your solstice, whichever one it is is wonderful and enjoyable and that you have a lot of wonderful things to eat. Yucca: exactly. And if there's anything that you want to share with us about your traditions or questions, suggestions that you have for the podcast, you can find us at. Mark: thewonderpodcastqueues@gmail.com. So that's the wonder podcast. All one word Q S. At gmail.com and we welcome your feedback and your questions and any input that you have so that we can make this thing better. Yucca: Well, thank you, mark.  Mark: Thank you, Yucca. Have a great week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com If you enjoy the podcast and would like to help us reach more ears, please consider leaving a rating or review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wonder-science-based-paganism/id1501228156   S2E21 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca. Mark: The other one, Mark. Yucca: And this week we are. Continuing our conversation on the atheopagan principles. So we talked about the first four last month, several weeks back, and we're going to get into the middle ones into the next five now.  Mark: Yeah. And to start with, we should give a little background on where these come from. As we mentioned in the previous episode that we did addressing these principles, these are principles that I developed based around the four sacred pillars of atheopaganism, which we did an episode about a little while back They are basically guidelines for living well for being a good person and having a good life. And There are non theist pagans who don't consider themselves atheopagan and they may subscribe to other ethical structures, but generally these are pretty common sense. Pretty progressive modern values as opposed to say bronze age values that you find in the Bible. Yucca: Exactly we, and as always, we certainly are not presenting these saying, you should believe the way that we do or anything like that. But, but th this is really talking about these values is really important and brings up the opportunity to really think about what we believe and how we want to be and behave and act in this world.  Mark: Yes. Yes. The. I've talked about this before, but I'll, I'll touch on it a little bit. Now, one of the things that has always struck me about modern Neo paganism generally is that it is a little scant on ethics. There's a lot of emphasis on I have my rights and I I'm free to do whatever I want. If it's my will, I'm going to do it. But there isn't very much on associated responsibilities or on guidelines for what to do and what not to do. And a religious framework really benefits it's practitioners by having that kind of guidance. Now we're all free beings. We can all make decisions for ourselves in any given situation about what to do and what we think is right. But these guidelines, I think provide a useful illumination of what's most likely to work out well for ourselves and for the people around us.   Perspective  Yucca: exactly. So let's, let's get into these, the first we'll be talking about today, but the fifth on our list of 13, I mean is perspective, one of the things that you did that I really appreciated was you wrote a little sentence, a little explanation afterwards, and for perspective, you have have perspective. I laugh a lot. Including myself.  Mark: Yeah, because. There is such a danger in taking ourselves too seriously. I mean, life is both a comedy and a tragedy, but more than anything else, life is absurd. The, the various ironies of things that happen to us and the, just the general weirdness of, of. Of living this life is something that we can either weep about or we can laugh about. And I think that it's a part of that fourth principle of humility to be able to look at ourselves in our behavior and get a good chuckle out of there I go again, meet me doing the things. And it's just funny. It's funny. And I don't mean that in a mocking way. I mean, it, in a kind way, I think that the ability to laugh at ourselves and to gain some perspective about the human story, the human condition is really important as a part of our, our ethics as we move through life. Yucca: Yes. Yes. And also another. Another way to come at. This is being aware of different perspectives. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, being able to recognize that somebody is coming from another perspective and that perspective can also be valid. Now, this may be humans to humans. This might be your romantic partner or a family member, but this can also be perspective between different species and why certain creatures are going to act a particular way around us And why they aren't. I was having a conversation with my four and a half year old this morning about why the birds would fly away when we'd go near them. Yeah, she keeps telling them, we're not interested in eating you. We're not going to eat you. We're not going to hurt you. And they still fly away. But being able to recognize that, oh, doesn't matter what we say. Their perspective of the world is a very different perspective of the world. They have to fly away, right? They, they live in a world in which things do want to eat them. Mark: Yes. Yucca: this is a very cute example of it, but we can apply this to anywhere in our life and being able to step back and have that perspective can be really very, very helpful in avoiding a lot of, of stress and worry that could build up on us. Mark: Yes. And I think also it there are times when we're interacting with other people and we see them carrying out a repeated pattern that they may or may not even be aware of. And there's a certain amount of generosity and compassion that goes into saying, well, okay, That's that's Doug doing that thing that Doug always does. And to be generous about it, to be kind about it rather than, oh, there it goes, Doug again, and, and, we, I hate that. It's just. Better. I think that we try to see things from different points of view and that we have a healthy dose of humor as we do so. Yucca: Yes. And not saying that we have to agree with someone just because we can see it from another perspective. Doesn't mean we have to condone it or accept it, or, but, but understanding it and having that. That generosity that you're talking about.  Mark: Right, right. I mean, one of the things that strikes me as uniquely characteristic of the dominant religions of the world is how humorless they are, how unwilling they are to poke fun at their own rituals and their their theology. You start doing that and you start getting accused of blasphemy. It's all so damn serious. Yeah. Yeah. As, as people who are pleasure positive, which means that, which is a later principle that we'll get into in another episode, as people who are pagans, who are celebrating this life, I think being so sour faced about it all is just really a mistake. And it really encourages people to to put on airs and kind of think more highly of themselves in their practices than is really necessary. Yucca: And it's that seriousness is also a way I think of maintaining control over power over because, because humor can be a great equalizer, but if that is forbidden, then. Then you can maintain your superiority of whether it's moral or financial or whatever it is.  Mark: right. None dare laugh at the, the great high priest, because that's blessed for me and we will throw rocks at you. Yeah, that, that, that doesn't fly with me. I don't think it's in any way appropriate to how we live in our world. The, the, the capacity for laughter I think is just such an important thing in humans. Obviously we all have it. We evolved to be able to laugh. It's a universal experience and the idea of banning it in certain cases, really just, just doesn't fly. Certain, certain people or certain ideas are not allowed to be laughed about. Just doesn't sit well with me.   Praxis So shall we move on to the next principle? This one is one that has some controversy. This principle is principle six Praxis and Praxis means that we practice our religious path, that we do rituals. As a part of the expression of our spirituality. And the reason that this is in here is because it's the difference between a religion and a philosophy. A philosophy could contain a cosmology of a description of how the world is. It can contain a value set, but in philosophy generally does not include a set of practices. Whereas the religion does and practices are essential for us to be able to do the kind of deep psychological work that the path of atheopaganism is about. Now what those practices are, is wide open. What, what you find effective in working with your psychology in that way can vary every everywhere from, running up mountains and having transporting experiences at the top of them to doing sort of traditional a cultish wicca ask rituals with candles and knives and chalices and bells and all that kind of stuff. Incense.  So there's no prescription about what the ritual needs to be, but having a practice is a part of what we do is atheopagan having a personal practice. And so Yucca: And that's a big theme that I don't think an episode goes by that we don't talk about ritual and practice because it is, I mean, all of these are really central, but the, the actual enacting is, as you were saying, that's what makes it a religion, but that's what, that's how we can really grow and embody these other values and the principles that we're talking about. That's how it happens. That's what practice is. We practice it and strengthen that pathway.  Mark: Right. Right. And By doing that, we repeatedly touch back in with the values and the worldview and the. The principles that really matter to us the, by having a daily or weekly, or every, every eighth of the years, Sabbath around the wheel of the year, having some sort of a regular practice, we touch back in with those things. We remind ourselves, yes, this is the path that I'm following and it's meaningful for me. And it's doing good things for me. And here's why. So practice is very important. And I know that there are some people in the atheopagan Facebook community who are like, well, I don't really do rituals or I'm an atheist and I've never done rituals and I don't know what that's about. And that's fine. But I really encourage people to explore what personal rituals could be like for them. And I know that a lot of people in that community have started out kind of at loose ends and have used some of the instructional tools that we have available on the website and are starting to explore what doing rituals feels like. And they're getting a lot out of it. Yucca: Yeah. And again, it can be so different for different people. Different people are gonna have different associations. And I would offer that we have places in our life where we are already doing ritual in the sense that it is a pattern that we repeat over and over again. Right. We've talked about ritual being used in different ways and the word meaning different things sometimes. And that those are rituals, but what, but when we're talking about Praxis that has the intention added into the thing that we are practicing. And when you, when you have a ritual in terms of a thing that I repeat over and over again, that's a place where intentional ritual can come in as well and start to have that usefulness and meaning in your life.  Mark: Right. It's the difference between nightly lighting, a candle with pictures of your to see ancestors around it and nightly brushing your teeth. One of them clearly has a, a spiritual, psychological intention behind it. And the other one is there to clean your teeth. They're both ritual behavior, but when we talk about a religious practice, what we're talking about is the, the candle burning kind of the, the kind of the kind that's meant to transform you psychologically in a way that's beneficial.   Inclusiveness  So that's Praxis and that's principle number six, principle number seven is really important and it's a topic that is really up in our. American society anyway right now. And that is inclusiveness. We're all equal on this planet. Folks. Nobody is any more special than anybody else. And it doesn't matter what color they are or what kinds of people they like to have sex with or how they identify their gender. If they do. We're all fundamentally no better than anyone else. And inclusiveness in our communities, in our behavior, in our practices is just so important.  Now I want to make a distinction between inclusiveness and cultural appropriation, because that doesn't mean, well, I can grab symbology from this culture in Africa and that Pueblo and tribe in the Southwest of the U S that I can use all that in my rituals because I'm being inclusive. That's not what it means, what it means is being inclusive towards people and, and embracing their difference, celebrating their difference, rather than expecting them to conform to some kind of norm. Yucca: and this is one of those places where I, I think that we always have more, to grow. We always have, it's very easy for us to see ourselves and to see what we're used to, to see the particular differences that we are exposed to. And there's a lot of humans. There's a lot of humans, a lot of cultures, a lot of everything. And there's just really a place to be, observant and mindful and back to that, that perspective that we were talking about earlier, being able to kind of step back and look and take feedback when we haven't done as good a job as we might like to.  Mark: It's always a work in progress. And yes, the people that are most different than us are the ones that we have to do the most work to be inclusive towards. Because we may, we may not understand them. We don't understand their experience  Yucca: well, we may not even recognize that there is a difference. We may be blind to that difference or how important that difference might be.  Mark: Right. Like with the so-called invisible disabilities, who are neurodivergent people who have conditions that aren't readily apparent. When you look at them, we still need to be aware and sensitive and welcoming to folks that are in those kinds of situations. I mean, I'm, neurodivergent myself and I, I hope that I'm not that I'm not viewed as scance by anyone just because I happened to be that way. I'm, I'm pretty insistent in my life actually about being out about being depressed, being mentally ill. And I, and I intentionally use that term mentally ill because I want to normalize the fact that people can have mental illness and not be seen as dangerous or crazy or any of that. But that's a, that's a work in progress, trying to normalize that people live with depression and anxiety, they're on the spectrum. They have, various different kinds of challenges. Yucca: another thing to note in here is that in being inclusive and trying to really honor that. To not be dismissive of the differences too. right. So that's, that's something that I see with people with very, very well-intentioned to go, oh, it doesn't matter. We, I don't see, I don't see color or I don't see what, whatever, but, but that is that's disempowering. Great. That's dismissing the experience. And as if it just because it might not be important to you doesn't mean it's not really, really important to someone  Mark: Right. And that you're pretty much erasing their experience as someone that is living with a different set of circumstances than you are by saying, oh, it's all the same because it isn't all the same, people, people who are black are living with a set of challenges in our society because of racism that people that are colored like we are, do not and saying, well, I don't see any difference is to ignore that fact. And it's inappropriate. It's just wrong. Yucca:   I'm so happy that in today's world this is a conversation that we can even start to have. It's one that I think we need to continue having.  Mark: yes. Yucca: but that this is something that we can come back to and in each of us really look at and, and be very, very mindful around because it benefits all of us. Mark: it does. Yucca: All right. We're talking about this in, in, the responsibility level, but it's also, I mean, it's just a net positive for everyone. So.  Mark: Yeah, I agree. I think, saying that you don't identify the differences between people is kind of like saying you don't identify the differences between flowers. They're very, they're all very, very different and you can't really enjoy them or celebrate them if you don't recognize all those ways that they're different. Yeah, Yucca: it's like, why are you actually even seeing the person then? Or are you just seeing this idea of them?  Mark: exactly.  Yucca: Right. It's is it them really? Because if you don't see these things about them that are really meaningful to them, are you, what are you seeing then?  Mark: Yeah, more likely you're seeing the generic construct of a person that's in your mind. And that generic construct of a person is almost certainly going to be very, very much like yourself.   Legacy Yucca: So let's talk about our next principle, which is legacy.  Mark: Yes, we are responsible not just to ourselves and to those who are around us now and to the Earth, which is which we are a part of. We are responsible to subsequent generations. That's what legacy means. We have obligations. And this is, this is an observation that was made by a name, an indigenous person whose name I don't remember, but it's a powerful quote. They said, white people will go to a place looking around and say, well, I have rights. And indigenous people will say, I have responsibilities. I have obligations. I have obligations to this land and to to what lives here. And I have obligations to subsequent generations that will also be on this land. And that is a piece that is completely lost to Western capitalism.  Yucca: yeah.  Mark: Completely lost. There's just, no, there are no boundaries on the rapaciousness that you can exhibit right now in order to benefit yourself and your immediate family. And it's just, it's not right. Legacy is important. We should be working to make the world a better place for subsequent generations, not chewing up whatever we can so that we can have a great life and leave a mess for someone else. Yucca: So in another framework, there's permaculture and in permaculture, there's the three ethics, which are the guiding ethics for when you're making decisions. And it's a design science with an ethical framework. And the third one, the name is, people are really kind of trying to work it out, but. The one of the modern interpretations, which I really click with is Future Care. Earth Care, People Care and Future Care. And this really sounds like it's getting at the same idea that we're taking care of us now, but not just, not just us. However, you're going to define us as in. Yourself, your household, your community, your species, but also everybody. Right. Everyone into the future. So these future generations that you're saying, Mark is not just the future generations of humans, but the future generations of those birds we were talking about earlier, or the future generations of coral or so plankton. Right. And so it's not about whether you've got children or not. It's the future of the biosphere, which we are part of. That's something else that capitalism that our form of, of, of Western capitalism misses, which is that we aren't on this Earth where we are this Earth.  Mark: Right. As we've said so many times yeah, the, the principle of legacy to me is not limited to it expands in many different directions. So for example, I'm a strong advocate of social programs that provide things like childcare and food programs and healthcare and those kinds of things, so that children don't grow up and education. Of course. So children don't grow up malnourished neglected, mal educated or uneducated,  Yucca: In pain.  Mark: in pain, all of those things, because that directly impacts on what the next generation is going to be like and its relationship with one another and with the earth. So there are, there are very real world implications of this legacy principle. It's not just, I like kids.  Yucca: Yeah.  And in a selfish way, how well are they going to take care of you when. When you are no longer able to take care of yourself,    Responsibility  Mark: well, yes, but I actually consider that to be somewhat different. I, I do feel that that is an important consideration, but I'd actually say that that's a good segue for the last principle that we're going to talk about today, which is social responsibility.  As I mentioned before my experience of the pagan communities, that you have a lot of people with these very sort of a knee-jerk libertarian kind of ideas of don't. Tell me what to do. I can do whatever I want. And they don't really have any sense of corresponding responsibilities to, to the rest of humanity and to the planet. Yeah. This principle social responsibility states. Yes, you do. You do, that's a part of the deal. A part of the deal of being a social animal, living on planet earth is that you have responsibility to others. And that means that their welfare is something that you need to look out for. It's not just grabbing your own and let everybody else sink or swim. It's doing what we can so that all are able to live fulfilled, happy lives. Doing what we, and that, that includes taking care of people when they're old. That includes just doing all of those things personally, and as a society that make it possible for people to live in a, in a state of fulfillment. and I feel very strongly about this. In fact, I would say this principle was sort of the driver behind the beginning of my thinking that led to these 13 principles, because I had seen so much, really irresponsible, unethical, just poor behavior. On the part of even people who are supposedly leaders in the Neo pagan community and just really not being good humans. And I feel like being good humans is kind of incumbent on us. It's not optional. It's one of the things that we ought to be doing. Yucca: Yeah, well, and thinking about what about these principles? These are ways to inform what it means to be a good person, right? That's you're going to have different takes from different religions and different cultures and really examining that has a lot of value because how do you know what your responsibilities are? If you don't stop and look around. And if you don't stop and look in as well.  Mark: Right. Right. One of the benefits that comes out of living by these 13 principles in my experience is that I'm comfortable looking in the mirror. I can look at myself and say, I am making a good faith effort at meeting these standards. That doesn't mean I do it all the time. Doesn't mean I'm perfect. Doesn't mean I don't have things that are, that I wouldn't wish were much better, but. This is the code I'm trying to live my life by. And it's a good one. It's a responsible one. And it's one that is considerate of what is around me. Yucca: Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. The, the idea of that we're making a good faith effort. And that we aren't perfect and we're not going to be perfect. And that's okay. But the point is that we're trying.  Mark: Yes. Yes, Yucca: Yeah. And that brings us back. I mean, that's full circle back to the perspective part.  Mark: Yes. Yeah. One thing that I noticed as I get older is that I'm more and more able to see that even people who do things that I really disagree with, not people who were hateful or sadistic or vindictive, that kind of stuff, but just people who do things out of their own damage that  Yucca: Okay.  Mark: could be kinder, could be more conscientious with, with the addition of some perspective, I'm able to look at that and not take it personally, not and not have to react to it. Yucca: we're going to wait a few more episodes. We'll give us, we've got a lot of stuff to talk about, but we're going to come back to our final four, which have some really fun ones in there. Before that though next week is somehow already going to be the Summer Solstice episode.  Mark: Right. So we'll be talking about all things Summer Solstice, and that'll be really fun. Rituals that you can do and ideas for themes and what it means for us and what's happening, astronomically and all that good kind of stuff. And of course, if you have suggestions or input or would like to give us feedback, we're at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. So the wonder podcast, all one word. Q s@gmail.com and we really look forward to hearing from you. Yeah. Yucca: Thank you Mark. Mark: Thank you so much, Yucca. Pleasure talking with you.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S2E19 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- [00:00:00] Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder: Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca  Mark: and I'm the other one, Mark. Yucca: And this week we are talking about slowing down, centering, paying attention, really valuing that stillness.  Mark: Yes, because if we are, if we, as nature-based pagans are going to build a relationship with the world, we have to be able to see it. We have to pay attention to it so that we're not relating to an idea of the world we're relating to the actual world as it's going on around us. Yucca: Exactly. And when we say, see, we don't just mean sight, we don't just mean physical sight, but experience the real world  Mark: Yes. Yes. Yucca: and in a way that allows us to be present with the biosphere, with what's actually going on around us, but also with the symbolic meaning with poetry and art and all of that richness of existence.  Mark: yes. So I'm going to start out today's podcast with a poem, which is actually called invoking a book. But I'm going to call this Invoking a Podcast today, Bathe with vervain. Walk naked, counting 13 steps, 13 more, Cool feet padding to the circle place. Turn three times around, Place a pinch of dried Oak leaves there on the brazier Soft plumes of sweet autumn scent and the memory of a forest.  A tiny bead of Dragon's blood for mystery, and just perhaps frankincense to call what threadbare gods there may be left. Now the cauldron: odd for such a particular art, no liquid is defined, Only double and bubble and herbs resembling creature bits, but we know: wine. Alchemy of soil and rain and sun Gone stiff and wild in the barrel. Pour it in, brew, fumes rising and stir saying earth, air, water, fire, burn, and cauldron bubble.  And then add the particular things. A twig, a button, salt, and oil of Cedar. Place left hand on your sex. Whisper the wish three times and stir, saying Earth and sky. Let it be so. Let it be so. Let cool.  Tomorrow you will pour into cool dark earth saying it is finished. It is finished. It is magic. It is done Repeat. Yucca: so beautiful.  Mark: Thank you. Thank you. I wrote that because creativity requires a jumpstart sometimes. I do a lot of writing and various other creative things. And sometimes the pump is just definitely not primed. You know, you sit there and you confront the blank screen or the blank page, and then there's nothing there. And so becoming connected. With what's around us becoming present in the moment becomes a process that can lead me to tap my creativity and celebrate those things that I'm feeling in the moment. That's my experience of poetry a lot actually is moments of hyper presence that I then captured with words. So we've been talking about paying attention and we've alluded to this in the podcast before, but we live in a world wherever everything has been speeded up to unnatural rates: the world of the screen, where you get instantaneous gratification after clicking on a mouse. And of course we want faster and faster internet don't we? Yucca: And it's not even mouse anymore for most folks. It's the screen in our pockets.  Mark: yes.  Yucca: Hey, it's your thumb?  Mark: it's just a finger touch. That's all it is. And that can be and that swipe can mean everything from ordering a refrigerator to be delivered to your house. To agreeing to a date, to any of a wide variety of different sorts of things that are now mediated by these screens. And the natural world moves both faster than that and slower than thatt i At its smallest scales, it moves much more quickly. But at the scale that we live at here in the world, There's a cycle and it's about a year long. And every day is only about 3% of that, that long annual cycle that, that passes around. And so it's really incumbent on us to slow ourselves down and do what's called the phonology, which is paying attention to the phenomena around you. Yucca: Yeah. And not just reaching at that first moment of slight discomfort, Mark: Right. Yucca: to get to that place where You can really pay attention, you've got to get. Past that initial. Oh, what am I supposed to be doing?  Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: to get  Mark: I'm impatient. It's not happening quickly enough. So I'll pick up my phone or go to a screen or something like that. That anxiety of not getting instant gratification is something we have to learn to breathe our way past so that we can notice the trail of ants on the sidewalk. We can notice that the Stellar's jays are back. We can notice that the flowers on the fruit tree are mostly gone now, but they've been replaced by little, teeny, teeny tiny fruit. Yucca: The feel of the different pressures of the wind on the different parts of your face, that the wind isn't the same everywhere. It's slightly different from centimeter to centimeter.  Mark: Yes. Yes. And. Learning to develop both the pacing and the sensitivity to be aware of all of those things is a profound in lifelong learning process. In my opinion, is as a pagan, I want to embrace the world as much as I possibly can, even the bad stuff. I want to be, I want to mourn and grieve and be angry about things that deserve mourning and grieving and being angry with the same kind of completeness that I want to embrace. What's beautiful and joyful and creative and moving. Right. Yucca: Yes. Yeah.  Mark: So, Learning to slow down and pay attention becomes really important. And this is not a skill that we are taught in our culture at all. There are other cultures where it is taught in cultures that have more meditative kinds of religious practices. You see a lot more emphasis on calming the chatter in your brain and turning your perspective from parsing out all those internal conversations to being present with what's around you in the moment. But here in the west, we are not encouraged to think that way  Yucca: And in fact, we've been moving even farther away from that, as we've been talking about where it used to have more of a presence in our culture and less as we reach more and more for the screens and that instant gratification and the way that we experienced the world is through what we do over and over again, it's a practice we practice and reinforce the screen instead of practicing and reinforcing the patients and the presence. And we can choose which one. We're feeding, which one are we practicing and doing again and again, what patterns are we strengthening? So this is another example of something where it's not, you learn to do it once, and then you're an expert. Oh, you figured out how to be present and know it's something that you choose every day. And when you slip up and you fall off that wagon, then you can get back up and get back on.  Mark: Yes. Exactly. One of the things that is very frustrating to me about the Overculture is that it really tends to frame everything in terms of achieving and winning. And that always implies that there's an end to the story. Right. And they lived happily ever after. Well, that's nonsense. It's a lie. There's always more after the story they lived happily ever after until they had a knock-down drag-out fight, didn't speak to each other for two days and then made up and had fantastic makeup sex, and then life went on and on until death. Right. There's always more. And what that means is that the journey is really the point. Right. And experiencing the journey is a function of how much we can pay attention, because I'm here to tell you, you know, in six months I'm going to turn 60 and I can't believe how fast the time has formed. I, where did all that time go? And it's not that I haven't had many wonderful experiences, but honestly, There were years when I was just kind of working and phoning it in and having a routine. And I feel like I lost that time. I wasn't paying enough attention and I lost that time. So, you know, you have this life, you have this one precious, amazing life. How many discrete, incredible moments can you have in it? I mean, that's. If you want to talk about this, you know, in game terms, the way that we team tend to do a lot right now, that's the game of life. How many amazing, incredible moments can you have in the time that you're allotted? Yucca: Yeah. And thinking about your entire life might be a little overwhelming. So you could even just think of the day.  Mark: Yes. Yucca: this week or this season, we're big on thinking about the seasons of the year and talking about the wheel of the year. So what about now? What about this second spring or this late spring or the entering into summer, or for folks who are in the Southern hemisphere entering into the dark cold side of the year? What are all of those moments? In your own internal mind, but also that's happening around you. That you're part of that subtle shift in what insects are you hearing when you go out at 2:00 AM in the morning? Mark: are there frogs? If, so what kind of frogs are there where is it? The sunrise in the morning? I say good morning to the sun every morning. And I am noticing that it is now moving steadily further north, as we get closer and closer to the summer solstice. And I have a tree in my backyard that serves as kind of a measuring stick. So that I can see the movement of the sun across the horizon, but that's a wonderful thing to notice. Yes. Today is different than yesterday. Yes. This is a unique day that the sun rose at that particular position at this particular time. And now I have this basket of minutes to do good in the world to be good to other people, to be creative and effective and to be happy to be joyous. And all of that requires slowing down and paying attention. Yucca: Exactly. And it doesn't matter where you are. You don't have to be out in some pristine wilderness, which is a myth anyways. But you don't you where you are is, part of the world. You are part of this world, right? I feel like one of the hobbits on Treebeard's shoulder shouting that when they say it right, we're part of this world too. So even if you are in a high rise or you spend most of your days working in front of a screen and a basement office or whatever it is, you can still practice that   awareness and noticing.  Mark: Yes. You certainly can. So with that, I'm going to read another poem. This one is about. Anger. It's about a very particular kind of woman's experience of anger. Actually. I've always been surprised that this poem arrived for me, but it did.  This is called Mary Magdalene Impenitent.  And so I have become an object lesson to these old dried men, A cautionary tale. They know nothing, these friends, these hangers on, they have only their dreams of what was given them. The longed for balm, freedom from their secret lusts that seen in the mirror, he was for each he met  As Pilate did, and I. What they do not tell you in their book Fills chests of scrolls in the library of my heart, will die with me. His sorrow, his rage, his agony, they embrace, they exalt, The old men who think the fire in their eyes is his, when it is their own, but his sweetness, his passion, his humanity, They choose to forget Confounded that a whore held his confidences That we shared what they could not, who would consume him, Tear him to pieces and eat him to have what he was. Who will tell that his skin smelled of honey in the sun, That his mouth was red as berries Filled with juices and alive on me. How long has fingers were and gentle? How his back arched, when he spilled into me? Who will say that he laughed often? and then the little things: That he snored? Loved figs and pomegranates, but did not care for dates? Who will remember his fear, his questioning? I cursed the corrupt old men when they took him from me. I cursed God. And I repent nothing. Not even this. Not my mythology, but my response, I guess to much of the Christian mythology and how it's been used by dried old men. Yeah. Yucca: Well, this is a topic which we might come back to that just because we are non theists and don't believe in any of these things, literally doesn't mean that we can't find meaning in myths and stories and tales of gods and other worldly beings and Heroes. and things like that, that we recognize that those are, that the telling of such stories is something very human.  Mark: For sure. We I heard some anthropologists once said that arguably the defining characteristic of humanity is that we are the storytelling creatures. We invent stories about the nature of the world. We invent stories about how things work. Science is a storytelling process. It fundamentally assumes that there is such a thing as causality. And then it tells a story about this causes, this which causes this. And that's what the evidence tells us, right?  Yucca: And it's a collaborative storytelling process,  Mark: is indeed.  Yucca: sort of like tabletop RPGs.  Mark: Very much like tabletop RPGs, which both of us are very fond of. So, yes, I think that would be a great topic for us to explore at some point because myth is very powerful. There are quite a number of people in the atheopagan non theist pagan  community who use the symbols of gods or heroes. In their ritual work, in their, you know, in their they're working with their own consciousness, because the image of a particular deity is a shorthand gestalt of the qualities that they embody, whether it's fierceness or courage or the creation of a safe environment, a safe home. Yucca: or compassion.  Mark: or compassion or lust or, yes, all these or war or death, these fundamental visceral human experiences given a human face. And there's nothing wrong with, you know, working with those ideas. I just don't do it myself. I kind of prefer my. My qualities, not having human faces, because I don't think of them that way. But to me, it's very clear that these myths serve a purpose for both believers and for nonbelievers who choose to work with them. And there's nothing wrong with that.  Yucca: Yeah,  Mark: So where were we? That was a tangent. Yucca: well, we have been sharing the poems as part of the presence and awareness, the stillness that allows us to be present with both the world around us, but the internal world and poems, I think are often an expression of that internal world and the experience, the internal experience of the external.  Mark: I really agree. The, in the forward to this book that I've been reading from, which is my second book, a book of poems talk about these works as being captured moments, snapshots of expression, of a complex mix of emotions that I'm feeling at a given instant and that. You know, you don't capture those things. If you aren't paying attention, once again, you need to be you need to find a stillness within yourself in order to write a poem. I find. At least a good one to the degree that I write. Good ones. I like to think I do. The but that's not limited just to poetry. The ability to enjoy paintings, for example I find when I go to [00:20:00] art museums, now, there are these clusters of people with phones in front of their faces. You know, looking at the painting through the phone or listening to the little podcasts that they have for the walkthrough of the gallery. And they don't seem to be able to just stand in front of a painting and absorb it. Just let the experience of that graphic image kind of tank you into itself. And to me, that's the joy of art. I, you know, there are still many pieces of art that I find really moving. And in some cases I couldn't exactly tell you why they just are. Yucca: Yeah, certainly. My experience with a lot of art is I have strong feelings and response, but trying to communicate that feeling, I mean, it's, that's how you commit to communicate the feeling is through the art. That's the only way there's the, we can try, but, you know, we don't have the, we can't just touch a person and transfer that feeling through.  Mark: Right. Yucca: So what can we do to express that? And that's what the art is.  Mark: Right, right. And once again, you need to slow down enough and actually look at what you're seeing and in some cases, it's pretty explicit what the artist was trying is trying to communicate. In other cases, it's very obscure. And so you're, it's sort of a, kind of an inkblot test for yourself. You know, what do you see in this image? What does that mean to you? What what emotions does it stirring you. And that's part of, what's marvelous about art. I love it.  Yucca: Yeah,  Mark: Music, similarly, you know, the ability to really moved by music involves paying attention. I mean, many of us work with background music. I tend to have music going most of the time when I'm at work. But it's relatively quiet music and it's the kind of thing that I can sort of tune into and sort of, not maybe a little bit of a beat. So then it kind of keeps me going through the day. But that's not the same thing as when I put on headphones and listen to something really intensely so that I can experience every moment of it. Yucca: and maybe we should talk a little bit about ways to, to practice to get into that slowing down since it is something that isn't taught and often not valued in our culture of waste, just to, to start to practice it and take this moment to remind folks, if you haven't listened to our episode on the inner critic, that this is the time when the inner critic is likely to start talking to you. And it's useful to remember what function that critic has and how to ask it. to step back for a moment while you start learning and practicing this new thing in your life.  Mark: yes. Yes, because what'll happen is, and what I would recommend, just sort of, as a starting exercise is find a place. Hopefully with a view of something natural, a tree, a yard, something, and sit there for five minutes. It is a lot harder than you would think it is because this growing sense of anxiety about I should be doing something, or this is boring, nothing is happening. So where's my phone. There, there can literally, I mean, this increasing sense of anxiety can build up in you. If you're anything like me about, I should be doing something else. This is stupid. All those critic, voice things, nattering in my ear and the ability to just sort of breathe and let that go and wait for whatever it is because something will come along. Something will always come along. That is worthy of note. That is interesting. Oh, look a snail. Oh, look, I never noticed that there's water trickling down that wall. Yucca: Yeah. Or if you've got soil start looking at that soil because it is full of life, even dry soils, even when you're in an arid environment. We're just looking around so quickly, most of our life that we don't see what's there. And of course we can't see in the majority of it, but [00:25:00] even on the scale that we do see, and just a square meter, you might find hundreds of little creatures moving around, doing their business, and there they are.  Mark: yes. Yes. And that's nature. We talk about ourselves as being a nature, religion, and that doesn't just mean polar bears and Eagles and whales. And you know, the charismatic macrofauna life is this incredibly tightened, woven tapestry of the activity of literal billions of kinds of organisms. And being aware of that B is being in relationship with it and being in relationship with it, for me as a pagan is very profound, very moving. Yucca: Yes. Likewise. One of the things that you mentioned suggesting just that sitting for five minutes, finding somewhere sitting, you mentioned breathing. And that breath, that breathing is really key in so much of what we do. So sometimes that's a wonderful place to start is just starting with the breathing. Now, when we're trying to be present and aware with the world around us, it may help to actually not close your eyes. We're often told, okay, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, you know, go into yourself center. But instead of maybe keep those eyes open, start breathing, calming down, bringing all of that, releasing all of that tension, letting that breathe out of you and start noticing, and maybe just notice one thing at a time like that snail. Or looking at just that little patch of dirt on the ground. We're noticing how high up in the sky or the clouds, and just be present with that breath, using the breath as the framework, that's keeping you centered, keeping you calm as you're expanding your awareness, the bubble that is you  Mark: that's very well put. Yes, exactly. And of course there are disciplines, traditions, which have gone into how to use contemplating the breath in order to become more present into a very elaborate and codified sort of system. In Buddhism there, this is what they do. But all of us can benefit from learning the simple skills of mindfulness. So that we can be present in the moment and therefore reap the benefits of having those experiences in the moment. It's I've often said that even though I don't buy into a Buddhist cosmology, I think the tools are incredible. The skill set that you're taught is really marvelous in, in Buddhism. And I,I know that there are people who practice Buddhism, who are also active in the non theist pagan community. And I think that's great. Yucca: Yeah. So there's a lot of resources, this with different flavoring and then different costumes. But like you're saying you don't necessarily need to follow one of those. Right. You can just find what is feeling, practice, test it out with yourself, play with it, see what starts to fit for you, what doesn't fit for you. But I do encourage pushing through a little bit and not giving up just because it doesn't work right at the beginning because it is a skill. It is a practice skill. It's probably been a long time since most folks here learned to ride a bike. But if you gave up the first time you fell over on the bike, you wouldn't be able to, you'd never learned to ride that bike.  Mark: right. Right. Yeah. And you know, to be honest, and this is sort of a tangent, but it does relate one of the things that we are not taught to do certainly in the United States and in the over culture is to be uncomfortable to be willing, just to be uncomfortable for a [00:30:00] while. And if it's uncomfortable for you sitting that five minutes on that bench facing that tree and that little patch of dirt, it's probably good for you to learn how to sit with that. Right? I mean, one of the things that I was a backpacker for many years, until my back couldn't take it anymore. And one of the things that you learn is that there is almost a joy in discomfort. Under the right circumstances. You know, it's like, oh, I brought the light sleeping bag and the temperature has now dropped to 15 degrees. And I have to put every item of clothing that I brought with me on in order to get through this night. Right. And you're still cold, but it's an adventure. It's a story. It's a memory. Of that very cold night and even things that are very uncomfortable can make for great stories. You know, for women having babies, they've always got the story and it's, it wasn't a picnic, but it was an adventure, right. A big moment in their life. So, you know, just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn't mean you should stop. In fact, it might be a good indicator that you should do more of that. And in any case, what does it cost you? Five minutes, five minutes out of a day is not very much time. So it's really worth taking that five minutes just to look around and say, hello world. What have you got to show me today? Yucca: Yeah. And really, it's probably a fraction of what you're doing with doom scrolling or social media or checking the email. 20 times in five hours.  Mark: Right, right. Yucca: And which is going to feel better at the end of the day to have done.  Mark: Yes. So give it a shot. It's having some pay attention. Time is really. It's really worthwhile and arrive. You can arrive at a state of a sense of tremendous bliss in relation to the world. Just by realizing that it's all going on out there, that it's happening all around us and inside us and that we are part of it. And it's miraculous. And I have a poem that is on that note. This is called Dea Gratias. Open, ever more open Arms flung wide, let the warm wet wings of your chest be spread Until barehearted the,re only the longing of the joy of this living is with you: the sweetness of its unfolding generosity. They are all there, the great and tiny miracles daily given: a breath, A golden pebble, a scarlet cloud at sunset, The voice of creation, singing out to cold space, Even which is life as well out to blackness and beginnings, All whirling and singing and spinning and changing Omnipresent, The glory of the world in your heart's red petals there Where first it placed a red kiss in your mother's womb saying Welcome. Yucca: Well, thank you, Mark. This has been a really wonderful conversation.  Mark: I've enjoyed it a lot too. Yeah. Thank you. We'll see you next week.  Yucca: Take care.

In this episode, Anna Jordan meets Mark Wright – entrepreneur, TV personality and winner of The Apprentice in 2014.  We talk about work-life balance and maintaining a strong online presence for your business post lockdown. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on the pros and cons of business education. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode and subscribe over on our YouTube channel! Would you prefer to read Mark Wright's podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Mark Wright – entrepreneur, TV personality and winner of The Apprentice in 2014. Born in Armidale, Australia, Mark’s entrepreneurial family inspired him to go into business himself. He was backpacking when, with £172 in the bank, he decided to get to an English-speaking country to start earning. After coming to the UK, he found a job selling digital advertising services. Unfortunately, he was unable to secure a bank loan to start a digital marketing agency of his own, so a friend suggested he entered The Apprentice instead. Since winning the show, he’s launched five businesses and is the only winner to turn over in excess of £1m within one year. We’ll be talking about stress management and maintaining a strong online business presence post lockdown. Anna: Hi, Mark. Mark: Hey, how are you? Anna: Yeah, I'm really good, thank you. How are you? Mark: I'm really good. Thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate it. Anna: Of course, of course. How is it down where you are? Mark: Listen, it's pretty good. We're pretty lucky considering everything that's going on in the world. I mean, not compared to my family in Australia. They think we're like aliens over here in the UK. Anna: Oh, I know. I’ve got a lot of family in Brisbane and they were just going about like everything's normal and I'm just going, ‘I’ve forgotten how that how that functions.’   Mark: I'm so jealous. People always say to me, ‘Why are you living over here? I've always had a good answer, but I'm not so sure right now! Speaking of you coming over here, there's a little bit I wanted to know. In the intro, we've talked a bit about you backpacking and you coming to the UK to start work. I know that this backpacking adventure has been pivotal to where you are now. But I'm wondering, what was the intention of it when you set out? Was it part of your broader plan to become a business owner? Mark: Well, it's a bit of a sad story really. I was dating a girl in Australia, and I had sort of found my passion for digital marketing, had my self-discovery of what I was going to do in life. And then I got my heart broken. I decided the best revenge was to go out and get out in the world. I got my backpack, packed it up with like three pairs of jeans, a couple of shirts, and off I went around the UK and around Europe, as a backpacker. And it started off as a well-intentioned holiday, with the view of being a tour guide, having some fun, seeing the world, seeing some different cultures. I loved it. I visited London, I fell in love with London, I love the UK. As I continued my travels, and started to run out of money, I decided I loved London, so why not go back there? I felt pulled, it had some good energy. I'm a big believer in getting those feelings. The best book I've ever read in my life in my career is called The Alchemist by Pablo Coelho. And there's a big thing, three set themes throughout the book, which is follow the omens. If you feel something, if you feel a pull towards something, if you get energy towards something, just go with it. You technically might not know the answers at the time but if you go with it, go with the vibes and you never know what's going to happen. And as they say, the rest is history. I got here. I was living in a hostel, a backpacking hostel, I had no money, I started door knocking for jobs, I got a job, worked my way up in the digital marketing community, thought I could do it better and took my idea on The Apprentice – and one thing just led to the next. I sit here today, and all these amazing things have happened. It kind of just feels like the click of the fingers or a blink of the eye. I'm Lord Sugar's business partner and I own all these companies. It's hard work, having goals, and almost it was preordained to a certain respect. Anna: You've talked about being a real goal setter, knowing where you're going to be 5-10 years’ time, but that seemed like quite a spontaneous move. Mark: Yeah, I think, how they say the biggest things happen outside your comfort zone? I think the biggest killer of people's success is comfort, staying in their mediocrity, getting comfortable doing things that don't necessarily challenge them, but make sure they stay safe. It's really easy in our society today. Particularly, what, in Australia, where I come from and in the UK and America, it's really easy to stay comfortable in the middle part of society. Every time I've gained any success in life, whether that's leaving Australia with no money and backpacking, giving up my job and my flat to go on The Apprentice, taking loans to start companies, whatever it might have been. Every time I've achieved something in my life, it's been from pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Just reflecting on that, Steve Jobs, who's the photo behind me, who I am in love with, basically. He always said you can – it's easier to connect the dots looking backwards and it's so true in my life, when I look back at any success I've had, yes, it's from setting goals and knowing where I want to be in life and focusing on who I want to be and what I want out of life, but also pushing myself to do things that I’m not necessarily comfortable with. With your jumping in and doing things attitude, where do you stand on things like MBAs and business education qualifications? What role could be play in somebody becoming an entrepreneur? Mark: It's an interesting question. I would much prefer the people I employee to have MBAs and the infrastructure and theory of growing and scaling and managing a business. As an entrepreneur, what I've found is that it's more the risk-taking the big-thinking and the strategy of the company that I'm responsible for. The funny thing is, most of the great entrepreneurs haven't written courses, they haven't written MBAs, and you can't teach what it takes to be a great entrepreneur, because a lot of it is instinct. A lot of it is huge, unsustainable risk-taking that wouldn't make sense if you saw it written in a course. I've never been to university, I don't have any formal education or degrees, or any of that sort of stuff. Listen, I haven't done it, but that's not to say that it doesn't work. I think knowledge is power and information is really key to success. Now, a lot of people do have degrees and have been successful, a lot of people don't, it's more just what's inside you as an entrepreneur: are you driven? Can you work consistently? Are you prepared to take big risks? Do you understand the industry or the business that you're in? That's the key – doesn't matter about what degree you've got. You can have a degree, you cannot have a degree, that's not a dictator of success. What is, is are you an expert in what your field is. If you are an expert, and you've got good work ethic, and you will stay in your industry long enough, you will eventually be successful. Great. You've said in the past that it's your bullish attitude that helped you get through The Apprentice. I wonder how your level of bullishness was at the beginning when you applied versus at the end of the show. Mark: I've always had a healthy distribution of confidence, I would say and that confidence, some would describe as arrogance. I would say healthy confidence has given me a bullish strength and approach in business generally, throughout my whole career, whether it's been in interviews, on The Apprentice, in business deals – and that confidence in either negotiating a deal, winning The Apprentice, is so powerful. I believe the key to higher performance is high self-confidence, high self- belief. Before you start working on other things, you need to really work within yourself to be confident. If you believe in yourself, and what you're selling and what you're doing, other people will buy into that, whether that's your employees on the journey, whether that's a banker to give you a loan, whatever it might be, that self-confidence is so important. I think I carried this air of confidence in from day one of The Apprentice through to the final and Lord Sugar and the other judges could sense it and I think also the other candidates could sense that and it's a pretty powerful tool in The Apprentice, but in business as well. And in your profile, when the series was broadcast, and under ‘what are your worst business skills?’ it says, ‘I have no bad business skills’. Would you see those still true now, with hindsight? Mark: Haha, you've really done your research. I mean, you do say some things on there that you look back and you get a bit of a tingle of embarrassment because you say some crazy stuff to be entertaining on the show. But, do I have any bad business skills? Listen, there's always things I can improve on. But I would say my gift in life is business. I'm passionate about business. I love business. I've studied every facet of it from small, medium, large, great entrepreneurs of all time. Listen, some people can play a musical instrument like you've never heard, some people can run 100 metres in ten seconds and under. My gift that I got was being brilliant at business. And that's my thing. I'd like to say I have no bad attributes – I'm sure other people would challenge that, but it's the thing I love in life. And I believe as well that you took forward this absolute commitment to business, to your business and to creating it and making it a success. But it reached a point where you were extremely stressed, burnt out, even to the point where one of the Lord Sugar’s aides approached you and said, ‘When's the last time you took a break, went to the gym. Tell us about getting to that point and how you felt. Mark: Listen, I think when you create a start-up business, I think the start-up journey is the hardest area of business. I own businesses at all different levels of turnover size, staff numbers and investment levels. For me, the hardest journey was that ‘zero’, starting a company, registering at Companies House, and going from zero to whatever. It's so tough. In the first two years of my business, I pretty much didn't have a day off. I wasn't sleeping enough, I wasn't eating well, I was drinking too much. It was because the work that was required in terms of stress levels, hours and just general demand of creating systems and processes in the business, signing up customers, keeping those customers happy, employing staff, getting equipment, getting investment. It was a very hard process. I gave up my life for the first three to four years for the business. The first two I wasn’t in existence to people who knew me. And I was working every hour that God gave, and it was tough. It was really tough. It wasn't good for my health. It wasn't good for my relationships. We talk a lot about work life balance, okay? You can love business, you can love what you do. But you do need to find time. It’s no good – as Lord Sugar's advisor told me – being the richest guy in the graveyard, and just dropping dead at work one day. You need to be able to create a life that you can live healthily. That was that was hard-hitting advice from a billionaire’s advisor. They’re saying that so it must be true, I thought. So, I've made more time to have a bit of balance in my life, so that the success is sustainable. Anna: I suppose it can be a cultural thing, especially in the UK. I mean, there's this real pressure from various different places, very much social media included in that, you need to keep going, keep hustling all the time. So I'd imagine that's not exactly helpful. Mark: You're right, we live in a culture of Instagram, of social media, where you go on there and you hear that if you work 100 hours a week, that's the way to get a million pounds and all of this stuff. A lot of the people that are saying this don't have a million pounds, point 1. Point 2 is you can work 100-hour weeks, but for how long can you do that? Oh, and Sugar is very proud of telling people that he is a multi-billionaire who is only at work Monday to Friday. He's never worked a weekend in his 50-year career. And I think that is really powerful because he's got the proof of the pudding. He is successful, he is famous, he is wealthy, but he has work life balance. And he'll tell anyone who listens. ‘I don't work weekends, I work Monday to Friday, and I work harder than anyone Monday to Friday.’ In my head, I know on Friday evening, as I'm driving home, that is it, my brain switches off, I spend time with my wife and my family. Then on Monday morning, I'm back to it. I think giving yourself in your brain that time to recharge, to relax, to create ideas, but also to spend time with your loved ones and just switch off. Burnout is a is a real thing. It's the same with a light – if you leave it on all the time, it'll eventually burn out. Your mind, your brain and your body are exactly the same. Sleep debt and all of those things are real, legitimate causes for business owners not making it. One of the things that we've noticed in this lockdown, and one of the things that's been key to many small business owners – often by necessity – is that when their physical buildings have closed, they've really amped up their digital marketing and their online presence. But now, as trading restrictions are beginning to ease, they're moving back into their bricks and mortar businesses. How would you recommend that they keep up that momentum of their online presence with their existing resources as they move back to bricks and mortar? Mark: Well, there's been a lot of good lessons in the pandemic, and I'm speaking purely from a business perspective. On the health side of it, it's been terrible, there's no doubt about that. But from a business perspective, it has shown us the good industries, the good businesses. It has also shown us areas where we can improve our business. It’s because a business that is reliant on a singular location that cannot trade because of something like a health pandemic, probably isn't a great business, so we need to be online.   Yes, having a shop and a store is a great customer experience, and something that we should never lose. But we need to have a blend of both. And when, if you've got good systems and processes, you can have the best of both worlds: a customer in-store experience, a high street experience, and also an online 24 hours, seven days a week business. You should actually be more profitable and more dependent with your business. But it comes back to systems and processes. The problem with online is that it never switches off. And that means as human beings where we can go in and check out an ecommerce store 24/7, we can check the Google Ads 24/7 and all of this stuff, but you've got to have people, processes and systems so that you still work normal hours. Anna: Absolutely. What kind of things do you have in mind? What kind of systems? Mark: I use tools for social media posts, scheduled tools, I use software to check all my marketing campaigns, suggest changes and do low-level stuff automatically. All my email marketing campaigns for my econ businesses are done weeks in advance, and it's all just scheduled into software. So rather than sitting there at eight o'clock, ten o'clock, nine o'clock on a Saturday or a Sunday, it's all done on the Monday ready for the Saturday. It's just using tools and technology to make sure that we're actually working. I hate this phrase, but I'm going to use it now: working smarter, not harder. Just making sure that we're doing stuff, just not working 24 hours a day because the internet allows us to. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we before we go? Absolutely not. I think it was it's great that there's podcasts like this. All I would say, to any business people out there that are listening to this is get yourself a mentor. If I've learned anything through my process of business, it is surrounding myself with great businesspeople that has enabled my success. Deals and success falls off other successful people, but to knowledge falls off them. And generally, when a business owner or an entrepreneur is failing, it's not through a lack of resource or finances – it’s lack of knowledge. And it's podcasts like yours and having a good mentor that really help people get over the goal line. So yeah, that's really it. And I think it's going to be a good time ahead. Where would you recommend finding a mentor? Mark: Well, there's this amazing tool called LinkedIn. Anna: Ah, yes – I’m familiar! Mark: And what I recommend is a good mentor is someone that's been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. And I always recommend someone that's either business or industry specific. You can go on to their LinkedIn, follow them on social media, see where they're speaking next, where's their next event, where's their next conference and go there, track them down and ask them to coach you, mentor you, even if that's through giving them equity in your business or paying for their time. Knowledge really is the key to scaling up a successful business. And if you've got the right people at board level of your company, it's very hard for that company to fail. And it's been a big lesson for me on my journey, and I hope that helps other business owners as well. How much equity would you suggest? Mark: It depends how great the mentor is. I mean, I've got Alan Sugar, and I gave him 50 per cent. I mean, the most amount of equity you'd want to give any shareholder is probably 50 per cent, 49 per cent, and you probably want to come back from there. For someone that's just going to attend board meetings, you're probably looking at five per cent-ten per cent. If you're looking at someone significant, that's going to be, taking an active role, 30 per cent. But it depends on the size of your business and the size of their input as well. Anna: That sounds like a good place to wrap up, so I will leave it there. But thank you for coming on the podcast, Mark. It's been fab. Mark: Thank you so much for having me. You can find out more about Mark at climb-online.co.uk. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more on digital marketing and the pros and cons of business education. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lower case) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving us a rating or review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wonder-science-based-paganism/id1501228156   S2E12 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about families, about approaching your family with your non theist. Science-based paganism, about how to negotiate the conflicts or mutual incomprehension that may arise from that about how we integrate our personal spirituality into our families and just other issues that have to do with relating to families as a part of our life and our practice. Yucca: That's right. And this is one of those topics that is huge about a year ago. At this point, we did talk about family and we talked about what is the role of family and blood versus chosen and all of that, but there's no way that we can cover all of it in one go. So we're back again, to look at it from these different angles. Mark: Right. And it bears saying that today when we're recording is the day before Easter. And so there's a lot of kind of confrontation of family that happens at around Easter time because at least in the United States where the Christian holidays have become secularized and made normative for people to practice, even if they're not Christians. Or if they're just very nominally Christian. People get expected to go to Easter dinner or to come over for an egg hunt or to do something with the larger body of their family. And that may be uncomfortable if all of the symbology and the supposed meanings around the Easter holiday are things you don't believe in or support. Yucca: There's going to be a huge range of what of listeners are going through. But I suspect that some of our listeners are in the position of this being something that the being a pagan is something new in their life or something that perhaps their family that they come from doesn't know. And they don't know how they, the family might respond or maybe they do know. And it's it. Isn't what they're looking for. Mark: Right. Yeah. And there's kind of a double whammy in our particular neck of the woods, because it's not only by the way, I'm, you know, a godless heretic. It's also, I'm a, you know, wild heathen I'm doing both of Yucca: Best kind of combination though, in my opinion. Right. I like it. Mark: I'm right there with you, but especially when you consider how propagandized some people in some sects of especially Christianity, but also Islam and even the very conservative Jewish traditions. You know, they can have heard all kinds of horrible things about people that are atheistic about people who are witches or pagans, and it can be a very difficult bridge to cross when trying to get all that stuff out of the way and actually meet your family and say, Hey, look, this is who I am and it's good for me. Yucca: I think that the, that approaching this, I mean, there's again, so many directions to go, but one of the first places is to think about the different roles that families can play in people's personal lives. And this, a lot of this depends on the larger culture that people are from. And then the family culture and personal beliefs in terms of what is the role of the individual and what is the role of family and where does authority lay within that? And how much does everybody's should be or not be in everybody else's business and there's not a right answer. This is a cultural answer. Whether family or larger culture. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, there are some, some cultural traditions, like, Greek and Italian traditions, for example, where you have, you know, kind of matriarchs and patriarchs of the family that have tremendous influence and power. And, you know, if you're on the outs with them or they've decided that you're somehow you know, a bad person for choosing the path you choose, it can cause difficult situations for you in your life. So, and I mean, I'm not targeting those particular groups, I'm just pulling those out of the air. There are certainly plenty of families from, you know, the UK that are similar, Yucca: And varying degrees from many different cultures and it's a spectrum. Mark: yes, very much so. So, you know, these are situations that that get asked about in the Facebook group. The atheopagan is some Facebook group that I administer and that we're members of pretty frequently, you know. " I'm I've I found this path. It's really moving to me and it's really, you know, lighting up in ways that I never really expected. It feels so right. It's so good for me that I've found this. I have no idea of how to talk to my husband slash mother's slash father's slash you know, grandmother who has been my closest family person children." And. It is it's difficult to talk about because there really is no one size fits all. Every one of those individuals that people are concerned about is an individual. They have their own personality and their own value structure. And so there's no simple prescription for how to address this. That said, I do think there are some general principles that we can encourage people to follow. And I need to be really clear up front that the circumstances of my life, not having to do with religion at all, have forced me to completely disengage from my. Birth family. I don't have any engagement with them at all. And so, you know, it may be a little glib for me to hear me saying, Oh you should do this. And so I asked people to kind of take the things that I say with a grain of salt that way. I haven't had to, I haven't had to climb this particular Hill because my family was really bad for me. And it was a pretty easy call to get away. But for people, for whom you're getting, you know, mixed measurements of sugar and poison, which happens in families a lot. It can be much more difficult to make decisions about how to draw boundaries, how to communicate clearly and how to assert yourself as an individual within that family system. Yucca: And for my family situation, I'm also coming from a place where that might be a little bit different than some of our listeners in that my family, or at least part of my family is pagan. So I've never had the situation of going back and saying, Hey, I'm different or I'm doing a different path. I'm breaking from the tradition of the family. I have these new beliefs or anything like that. But I do have a couple of family members who, siblings, in fact who are not pagan and who are Christian and pretty uncomfortable with the pagan side of things. So there's, we'll talk about a lot of different strategies, but what we do is we just don't talk about it. That's just one of those things that we just don't touch on. And we know that if we go there, there's going to be conflict and we just don't see each other often enough for that. We don't want to waste our time with the little time we get to be together, having that be conflict. And what we do instead is try and focus on the places where we do have a lot of common values. And there are other things too, that we differ quite strongly on in the realm of politics and things like that. So we just really focus on what is it that we have in common that we all appreciate and can really love and just steer away from those other things. But again, that's not, that works for my family style that I come from, but that may not be a possibility for someone else. Mark: I think it's really different to have a number of people in your family who are pagan. Because then the stakes are much higher. If somebody decides to draw a line in the sand and say, I'm not connecting with any pagans, then they're jettisoning a whole bunch of people in their family. I think it's much harder for someone who's an individual to say "I finally found the path that's working for me and it ain't what you folks are doing." Yucca: Yeah. Especially if what you folks are doing believes in things like damnation and things like that. Yeah. Mark: Yes, ironically, some of the most hellish circumstances, one can find themselves in are in a family that doesn't actually support people in their journey. So, you know, maybe they're right about damnation, but they're creating it in the process. Yucca: So, so given our backgrounds What are some things that we can suggest or speak to for the listenership? Mark: I think to start with, you need to have a clear sense of personal boundaries. One of the things that's very hard about family is that when we start in them, we're very small and we don't have much personal authority. We don't get listened to very much in most cases. And so there are these habits that get formed, especially by our parents and by family members who were older than we are to think that they can just sort of dictate to us and that we have to follow whatever it is that they have prescribed or whatever their impulse is. And this is multi-generational. I mean, there are plenty of people out there who have kids of their own, who still feel dominated by their mother or their father, or both even in how they're raising yes or a sibling. In how they're raising their own kids. So the assertion of personal autonomy becomes very important. And that sounds, I mean, that's a very nice phrase, the assertion of personal autonomy, but it sounds a lot easier than it is having boundaries about how you will allow yourself to be treated and talked to is something that every autonomous self-loving person needs to have. And. The context of the family can be one of the hardest places to do that. But the workplace is the same. I mean, I've had bosses who talked to me in ways that were simply unacceptable and I've told them, you can't talk to me like that. I'm your boss. Yeah, you're my boss. But that just means that I do work for you and you pay me a paycheck. It doesn't mean that you get to treat me like some kind of a whipping post, and this is unacceptable. And I am walking out of this room now until you can talk to me like another human being. And I didn't get fired at that moment, actually. I was kind of amazed. But the behavior didn't improve much and I left shortly thereafter. I think it's necessary for all of us to be able to stand up with our shoulders squared and say I'm deserving of respect. I'm deserving of honoring who I am, even if it's not the same as who you are. And that's, that honestly is the biggest step when it comes to dealing with family who may not understand, we can be very gentle about it. It doesn't have to be in your face, sort of, you know, combative tone but it can be, you know, not aggressive, but assertive. You know, this is what I'm doing. I'm happier now. I'm more effective in my life. Now the world makes sense to me now in ways that it didn't make sense to me before. And I would hope that you would be happy for me about that, even though it isn't the same way that you look at things. And I know that you have beliefs about people doing and believing things differently than you do, but I don't share those beliefs. And I'm asking that in the name of our familial relationship, you will honor me enough to let me be me. And, you know, that's also a very pretty speech and there could be a lot of different responses to that. I mean, you know, there can be people flying off the handle into hysterical, screaming, and there can be people sitting back and thinking, you know, that kind of makes sense, even though I don't like this at all. It's not really my place to tell you how to live your life. Yucca: Now, there are some pieces that depending on the personalities that you might want to warm up to, right? That speech there might not be something that, you know would, they would be able to hear yet. Or that you would Mark: Oh, to lead with? No. Yucca: Right. You know, maybe starting with working in some of the things that are major values to you, that they might not be quite as threatened by and kind of starting to work some of those things up, as long as you weren't feeling torn up and horrible about feeling like you're lying or hiding parts of yourself or something like that. But, you know, work towards Hey, this nature thing, it's really cool. Like this is really helping me feel great. Like let's connect with this, let's go on a walk together or share our appreciation of birdwatching or whatever it is. Know and work towards some of those things so that it makes a little bit more sense when you do have more of the formal coming out, out of the broom closet, or as some say. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. I mean, it's always tricky when. I mean, you, we liked the idea. I think of our family as people that we can just go to and say anything. And certainly with my chosen family, which is my ritual circle, I feel that I can tell them anything. If there's a conflict we're having, I can talk with them about it. If there's a disagreement, we can discuss it. If there's something, you know, really personal happening in my life, I can bring that to them. But it is also true that there are times with family. When you need to be strategic, you need to be aware of what the personality types are that you're dealing with. And have a bit of a plan. You know, I'm going to lead with the fact that I'm much happier now. And that happiness is a value that I really embrace and presuming that my family members love me when they see that I'm happier, they should see that as good. They would presumably see it as good. Right. I'm going to lead with the good stuff that this has done for me. The details don't matter so much. You know, the collage trickle details. We talk about this in science-based paganism all the time. You know, we're always being kind of grilled about what we believe and what we believe is the least important. aspect of what we do, it's our values and our practices that are really the kind of rich, interesting, exciting stuff. What we believe is just a worldview, a framework for understanding the nature of the universe. And it reveals lots of very cool stuff to us, but we wouldn't know it was cool if we didn't embrace happiness in all and reverence and all those things as values. I'm not sure whether that qualifies as a tangent or not. Yucca: I think that's pretty on subject. Mark: Okay. All right. It was an edge call. Yucca: Tangent or not. It's a good reminder. Right? Just bringing it back to what is it that we, what is it that we're really valuing? And what's the goal. Right. And I think maybe that's another thing to keep in mind when communicating with the family is what is your goal? And not in some like manipulative way, but what's the function of a family. What are your emotional needs from these people? What are their emotional needs from you? And the communication, what you are communicating, why are you communicating that? And what are you hoping to be the result? And how can you do that in a way that is going to set up, set that situation for that result being more likely? Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah, because. And you need to kind of check yourself as well, because one thing that can happen when people find something new and they get really excited about it is they can kind of cross the line over into everybody should do this. And so it's important to be aware that as much meaning and joy as you're getting out of your rituals, other people. May want to participate and if so, come, but if they don't want to, then they don't have to. So, You know, I would not go so far as having a big sort of pagan spring celebration at your family's Easter gathering that may not go well. But you may be able to incorporate some aspects of your practices into that gathering. And some of that can be as simple as, you know, the symbols that that we share with with Christianity around flowers and eggs and bright spring colors and all those kinds of things that are so associated with the springtime. Yucca: Yeah. And also those activities that people might want to share together. Taking a walk or going to the park with the ducks and or whatever it is for you. We'll be talking about soon, going out for a beautiful stargaze. Okay. Mark: For shadowing. Keep that in mind. There's more on that coming. Yucca: We want to go ahead and start to, to shift gears towards talking about our practices as it relates to maybe not the families that we came from, but the families that we have created in our own households and chosen families as well. Mark: Sure. I think that's great. I mean, we've talked about those things a lot in the course of the podcast over the last year. I guess where I'm interested in going with this right now is more of the, the creative process that leads to those practices and rituals. What's the thinking behind it? You know, how do we conceptualize the things that we'd like to do with our families chosen or other and you know, how do we collaborate with others to make those things happen? Yucca: Sure. Yeah. Some of this is going to really come back to worldview and. What we think of our roles as individuals and community members. The approach that I have is that my first responsibility is me. I can only control my actions. I am responsible for me. And how I behave and how I respond in the world. And as a family member, as a partner, as a parent, my job is to be there and support those people. And not just as a parent and a partner, but as a daughter and a sister and all of that, but that it's not my job to choose for someone or to make someone be a certain way, but to try to support and nourish them as best I can while really respecting their autonomy and their agency and person. And that's the place that I try to. I don't always succeed, but that's the place that I really try to come from when participating as a family member, when making decisions as a family and creating our family habits and culture. Mark: Okay. Yeah. I think that's a really good point and it becomes a little more complex with children because, you know, we're so responsible for creating experiences that they then engage in, you know, they're not. Although it's not the children, aren't perfectly capable of creating their own experiences. I mean, that's what imaginative play is. But if we want to have some kind of a family gathering that involves some sort of ritual behavior or tradition that we want everybody involved with them. We have to think about, okay what are they going to want to do? What will they find interesting and exciting, and that's actually somewhat easier in relation to children early on than it is in relation to say grandparents who are very stuck in their ways, by that point, most of them And want things to be a certain way and may not be very comfortable with the addition of other elements. Yucca: Yeah. So it's. It becomes a very tricky balance, especially with the children, between creating the environment, making choices for the family, but also respecting them as people and as decision makers as well and different families come down in different places with that. Mark: Right. One of the things that I've seen in many pagan circles is that it's generally considered until, until a child is entering their teen years. You know, becoming a young adult, generally kids are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want in relation to a ritual, they can run around and they can, you know, play by themselves. They can do whatever, or they can hold hands with the adults and, you know, conduct the, you know, participate in the circle, activities, whatever they feel like. And there's no judgment around that. That's what I've mostly seen. I have seen some online discussion of people who don't have children kind of complaining about children being a distraction and that sort of thing. And as far as I'm concerned, it's like, you know, welcome to the human family. That's just the nature of kids. And even if you don't want to have any, you can't expect a community, a communal event includes people that have children to somehow exclude them. That's just. Not reasonable. Yucca: And the children themselves, right? Th they're part, they are just as much a part of the community as anyone else. Mark: They are. Of course they are. Yeah. Yucca: I think though it's also very important that children learn about boundaries as much as any other human and understanding that there's developmental differences. But if there's a situation in which they're not developmentally able to respect those boundaries, then sometimes then yeah, they shouldn't be there. Right. If your toddler does not listen and is in the, I'm going to bolt and run away from you, then maybe there, the bonfire situation is not an appropriate place for the toddler to be right. Mark: Maybe not. Yucca: I'm not going to take my kid into the butcher shop in the back either. Right? Like that's just. You know, so understanding the limitations of some people, but also not, you know, but not going too crazy with it. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: on the personality of the individual. And like, no, don't stop that ten-year-old from being at the bonfire and less like they've shown time and time again, that they're going to shove and push people or, you know, not listen or that sort of thing. Mark: Right. Yeah. So I, I think once again, it's all about you know, as we think about how our personal practices, and this is much easier with a partner who shares those practices, because then you can, you know, present a collective front of, you know, here's how we want to do this. And here's here are the boundaries that we're going to set around behavior and here's how we're going to cooperatively work with say kids that can't follow those boundaries, that kind of thing. But once again, it has to do with serving up that, which is palatable to the participants that you hope to be involved in. That principle applies to family members as well to family members who aren't necessarily a part of the tradition that you've chosen. I've heard so many wonderful stories of, you know, we had a May Day celebration and set up a maypole and, you know, and I invited my mom and I was terrified, but she had a wonderful time, you know, that, that sort of thing. And. It's I don't know. It's hard to talk about how you thread the needle that way. This actually brings something to mind that is sometimes very challenging for people, which is weddings, because weddings are so sacred to people that they want, their wedding rituals, their way, not their parents' way you know, or their grandparents way. It's they want the celebration and the ritual that works for them and finding a way that can somehow be palatable or even tolerable to people who have radically different religious traditions is really a challenge. I know some people who are really very good at it and to some degree that depends on how much are you willing to stick your neck out? I know there are some couples or, you know, people who are going to get married and they're just going to do it the way they want to do it. And if somebody goes stomping away in a Huff, they're fine. But that, and I know others who do the sort of secret pagan wedding where it looks like a kind of standard wedding, but it's got all these little symbolic elements in it that turn it into a pagan ritual. And it just depends on what kind of person are you Do you feel offended by having to kind of fold your symbology in underneath more traditional stuff? Or do you or do you not want to be as in your face about your path? Yucca: Yeah, I think that's another place where it comes back to really reflecting upon what is the purpose, of the wedding ceremony, you know, what are you, who is it for? And there's not a right answer to that, right? Is it, are you doing it for your family to represent you? You know, there's a whole lot of ways to approach it, but who's it for? What are your values around it? And really working through that because that's one of those things that there are so many expectations in our culture that you can just go along with it because you've seen it that way a million times and the movies and the shows. And by the time you were two and a half, you already knew how it worked. Right. So, but what do you actually want? And then how do you work towards a way that will make that comfortable for people. And each person's going to, or each couple or group are going to have their own answers to that. One tip that I have is whatever you choose. One thing that can sometimes really help is to give people a heads up ahead of time. If it's going to be different than the step-by-step process that we've all seen in the videos and the movies a million times. That's what we did, actually, we wrote just like a little one page, like here's what's happening. don't be surprised we're doing things a little bit differently than the normal order. Just so you know here's what we expect. And that's that can help some people who might be uncomfortable with a lot of the other stuff that you're doing. Just give them a little bit of sense of reassurance because it's emotional for them too. At least they know what's coming next. What's happening next. I know what's going to happen, even if I don't like it. So. Mark: that's a really great idea. And and it works kind of in both directions, it works to help ease any hesitation or discomfort that someone might have in coming to participate in your ceremony. And also sort of insurance on the back end. If somebody gets all bent out of shape, it's like, look, you didn't read it the label. We, you know, we gave you a very clear disclosure or about what this was going to be. I'm so sorry, but. That's what it was going to be. We're not sure why you were there, if that's the reaction you were going to have. Yucca: Yeah, you came, you agree? It's like you consented to being here, knowing what, what was going to happen? Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So I would be very interested in hearing from our listeners about. What their engagement with with particularly non-pagan and family has been around their path and their disclosure, if there has been any of their path. I mean, I know that there are people in the atheopagan ism, Facebook community who haven't even disclosed to their spouse that they are, that they're following this path. And I think that's sad. Yucca: It's rough. Yeah. Mark: It is. I th I think that's really a difficult position to be in. But nobody knows the situation better than they do. And I certainly can't judge their decisions from the outside. So anyway You know where to find us listeners we're at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. The wonder podcast Qs. All one word. @gmail.com and drop us a line. Let us know how it's gone with you in introducing your science-based non theist pagan stuff into family gatherings. And your interactions with members of your family. Yucca: Yep. Both young and old. Mark: Yeah, very interested in all of that. Yucca: So, thank you so much. Mark: Thank you. Yucca. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. Yucca: All right. See you next week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   Content warning: Brief mention of drug use.  S2E11 TRANSCRIPT: ----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca Mark: And I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And this episode, we are talking about personal growth. So both, or all three of the past, present and future. Mark: Right, right. Because one of the things that is incumbent on us as science-based pagans is to recognize that a personality is a process that life is not about arriving somewhere. It's about. Taking an ongoing set of steps forward. And we as pagans choose to pursue those steps in the pursuit of being better people, being kinder, being more effective being more competent in being happier. And so those are places you never completely arrive. There's always more that can be done in order to teach yourself about those things. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Yucca: Exactly. So the journey is never done, right. There's always more to learn more, to grow more, to change. Mark: So frustrating for those of us that are oriented towards perfectionism. The idea that you never actually can get there is incredibly frustrating, but I kind of made my peace with it a while ago. Yucca: You can make tremendous changes. You can really change your experience of life. Mark: Indeed. And you can change your experience of yourself. I mean, one of the things that many, if not, most of us are saddled with is harm. That was either intentionally inflicted upon us or accidentally inflicted upon us through processes like neglect from our earlier years. And we benefit by growing to heal from those experiences and taking what wisdom we can from them, but no longer laboring under the messages that they send us it's about who we are and how valuable we are and so forth. Yucca: Yeah. And no matter how wonderful of parents or families we might've had, they're still human. And we're still part of larger societies. And there's a lot of work, at least for my perspective, that our societies have to go. And lessons that we pick up about ourselves, value judgments about us. That probably aren't very healthy and not very helpful in the long run for living a happy and fulfilled life. Mark: Yes. And this to take one of what I'm sure it will be many trajectory, side trips. This is a gift that was given to us by the humanistic psychology movement of the 1960s, because until then, at least in the United States and in Europe, people were living to role. The idea was that you were to fit into your expected role as best you possibly could. And that was supposed to give you fulfillment. And of course it didn't, and that's why the societies were filled with alcohol abuse and kind of quiet misery of people feeling in a trap, but in the human potential movement and humanistic psychology movements of the late 1960s into the early seventies, the idea of. Really fleshing out and living in the fullness of our individuality became something that was celebrated. And that is now something that many of us see as the worthy pursuit of a conscientious life. And. So we're here to talk about some of the ways that we can help ourselves and one another to be happier and freer and less in pain than we have been because if our spirituality isn't for that, then what exactly is it for really? We don't believe in deities that are going to judge us. We don't believe that we are involved in some kind of a great cosmic balancing act. That's going to measure our quality and then make a determination about whether we reincarnate as cockroaches or not. We have this life. It is the life that's given to us. And so being ourselves as fully as possible and doing that in a way that's as joyous and as beneficial as possible, becomes the obvious answer to the question. What is the meaning of life? Yucca: That's beautiful. Mark: Thank you. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Thank you. Yucca: Well, let's dive in. Why don't we talk a little bit about doing work for healing some of that stuff from our past and forming new patterns for things that really aren't serving us anymore, even if they might have at one point, if they're not what we want, now we can choose to change that we can choose to work on that. Mark: Indeed. And we talked about that a little bit when we talked about the inner critic in a previous episode. So we won't necessarily go into that a lot. Right now the inner critic is sort of the enforcer of the injuries, the hurt places get reinforced by the inner critic voice. All of us have some kind of place where we felt put down, less than inadequate, unloved. Some of us like myself come from a really pretty, not so great background and had a lot of, a lot of growth to do. And I guess. I guess when we start this conversation, where I would go is to say that really the best place to begin is with humility because there's a lot of pride in clinging to your damage. This is just who I am. It's how I am. This is how it's going to be. That's fine if that's what you want, but it doesn't sound very happy to me. There is a tremendous letting go that's required in order to humbly acknowledge that you're damaged and that you need to get better. Interestingly, the Humble Moon, according to the atheopagan calendar is tomorrow night, the full moon of the Humble Moon. So if you want to do some kind of ritual around humility I invite you to do that. I'm certainly going to be putting out bottles of moon water to capture the Moonlight and give me humility that I can pour out onto my alter my focus all year. Yucca: That's. I like that. The Humble Moon. Yeah. Well, I love that. That's the place that you started with that, with the being humble around that. And the recognition of that. I would also a place that I think is starting at the same time is the self-reflection, is the taking the time to really look at yourself and observe. What is going on? Where are you hurt? What are these patterns? Why do these certain things trigger you so much? What is it? That is, what is it that really riles you up or is getting in the way and trying to trace that back backwards, see where it's coming from. And that can be a really painful process. And it's one of those places where the critic comes up a lot and the voices of all the people who shamed us and all of those hurts to can, you can, it's a very raw and vulnerable thing to do, but it's so critical, right? How do you dress a wound without looking at it? Mark: Yes. Yes, exactly. That's so well said. The willingness to look in the mirror in a really unflinching way without letting that critic voice take over. But just to be very dispassionately aware, you know, what keeps happening in my life over and over. And what's my part in that. What do I do that keeps facilitating that thing again and again. Because it's not about destiny. It's the. Actions cause reactions. And if you keep getting the same sort of phenomenon in your life again and again, the odds are good that you did something that contributed towards that kind of reaction. Now, I want to be careful here because I'm not saying that people are responsible for their abuse. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if there is a repeated pattern, Of something that you find damaging in your life, getting a handle on how you participate in that is an important step towards stopping it from happening further. Yucca: Yeah, that's a, it's really empowering, right? Because when you figure out what your role is, what the actions that you are having, those are the things that you can change. Those are the things you have influence over you can't change that you, what happened to you 20 years ago, that's done, but little by little today, you can start to change the patterns that grew out of whatever that was. Mark: Indeed. And it's important that as we do that, we always bear in mind that everybody has blind spots. We can work hard and therapy is actually a great framework within which to work on some of this stuff, to become aware of those things, those patterns, and to do it in a way that's contained within a loving, helpful environment without the critic voice going crazy. But we should always be aware that however self-aware we get, however wise, we may become there's stuff. We miss. There's always stuff we miss. Was that your phone? Yucca: That was my phone. It's a frog. I'm sorry. I forgot to silence it, but I said it to, the phones are so disruptive. Right. They disrupted the conversation right now. Mark: Yeah, I liked the ring tone. That was great. Yucca: Yeah. I have the frogs and birds and things. I put birds that aren't for my area. So I'll go huh? What is it? But it is, it doesn't bring that BEEP BEEP or the electronic thing into. Mark: Huh? Yucca: Into the environment. So Mark: Haha Yucca: it's on silence now. Sorry. Mark: I did an a, I did an ADHD thing, which is common for me cause that's a condition that I live with. So we were talking about blind spots. And the hope over time is that we become more and more aware of the complex of personality traits and impulses and responses that encompasses who and what we are. There's a reason why older people are associated with being wiser. It's because they have more experience. They've had more time to figure this stuff out. And the work of being a younger person is often not about that. You know, it's about finding your place in the world and, you know, working out survival and those kinds of things. So as we talk about personal growth, I just want to put that, put a pin in that idea that there's always something you don't know about yourself, which means there's always something new you can learn or that someone who isn't, you can reflect back at you and just because you didn't see, it doesn't mean you should reject it. Yucca: You don't have to try and tackle everything at once. Just because you are aware of these patterns does that mean that you can snap your fingers and fix it? All right. This is, these are things that take time and depending on your personality, you might want to grab, to find one and really work on that one, focus on that one and then come to another. Or another personality might be okay, I'm going to do a few of these and gradually work on all of them, little by little, but there isn't really a right, the right way to do it. It depends on you and what these things are and what your comfort is. And what are the other stuff that you're dealing with and doing in your life right now? Mark: Right. Yeah. Because especially when you're talking about really kind of root principles, core beliefs that you have, deep seated axioms that reside within your personality, that color everything that you do, you can take that one thing and you can explore it in terms of how it works in your social life, how it works sexually, how it works in your work life, how it works in your relationship to power in your relationship to money, all of those different things. And it's still just one thing. But it can play out in all those different aspects of your life. And so identifying something that is a truly deep wound is a gift that can keep on giving for a good long time as you, as he worked to figure it out. Yucca: Isn't that funny, right. Finding the wound can be a positive thing. Seeing that it's there. Right. Because we think about having the wound we think about, Oh, that's bad, but then the awareness and the knowledge that it's there, that's power Mark: It is. It is, and it is kind of paradoxical. I agree with you. It's you know, you would think that discovering this would be something that would be sorrowful, but instead it's more like aha. Okay. Now I understand why I respond to this particular thing in this particular way. Now I have power to make different choices. Now I have the power to say, Oh, I recognize this situation. This is the same situation again. And it's provoking that same wound again. Now, what do I want to do in response? And it gives you the option for new choices. So yes, it is paradoxical that identifying the wound is kind of a gift, but honestly it really is. It really is. I remember. I had a hallucinogenic experience with ayahuasca one time. Which is a very powerful shamonic drug that's used by Brazilian tribes. It's made of the Banisteriopsis vine and another plant that serves as an MAO inhibitor. So, what it ends up doing is delivering dimethyltryptamine to your frontal lobes, but then suppressing the enzyme that digests dimethyltryptamine, which is something that we actually naturally produce in small amounts. And so instead of having this momentary sort of experience of awe and wonder and connectedness, it goes on for six hours. And in my particular experience this time, I was having a hard time in my life at this time. And to be honest, I probably shouldn't have done this at that time. But what I came to realize was that one of my deepest axioms was a sort of baffled, sorrow at humanities, in humanity to other humans. And I hallucinated watching Joan of arc burn. For hours. Okay. She's burning, she's screaming. She's burning. And it was horrifying. It was a terrible experience. But what it taught me was this is one of the things that I just wrestle with internally, constantly. How can people do that? How to torturers managed to live, how do, how do people that make policies that cause people to starve or how do they rationalize that? And I don't have answers to it. I'm just baffled by it. And so I've worked with that piece for many years. And what I've discovered is that when you pull up the carpet of that, what's underneath is a tremendous kindness and generosity. I really want what's right for people. I want people to be happy. I don't want them to have those things happen to them. And so this went from being a wound to being something that I felt really good about. Something that I could feel, something that I could own instead of constantly being in a state of rejection. I think those kinds of experiences and I'm not saying that they necessarily need to involve hallucinogenic substances or any of that, but those kinds of experiences, those moments when we have that aha discovery about ourselves are incredibly powerful and they help us to grow into better people. Yucca: So that's a lot of the kinds of work that we have for self-growth coming from the past, but there's other angles that we could take a look at it. We can talk about what we want to become. So looking really honestly, at where we are today, which you can't really do without seeing where you came from as well. What caused that? But then looking forward and going, okay. I really want to cultivate these particular parts of myself. Right. I want to change those patterns that aren't serving me and build ones that are. And once again, one of those first steps is the awareness and the honesty with ourselves about where we are now and what we really want. And getting that, you know, there's things that we can say, Oh, I want this but do you really want it? Mark: Is it, you that wanted it or is it your mom that wanted it or is it the culture that wants it? Yucca: yeah. And try to piece that together. Before you can even start making those changes, why? And then the, how can start to come into place. Mark: I think that this is part of what the Buddhists talk about when they talk about beginner's mind, because Buddhism is very focused on being in the present, not being burdened by the past, or by hopes and aspirations and fears of the future. And there are. There are many great aspects about that. I think, you know, Buddhism offers kind of an amazing toolkit for working with consciousness and parsing out of the different voices in our heads and dispassionately looking at them and not necessarily just acting on them because they're talking. But particularly in this beginner's mind piece, the idea is let's try to approach this situation as if we never been here before. As if we were like an infant observer, what would we do? I love those birds. I hear them. That's wonderful. Yucca: Bird gatherings and squabbles and all kinds of things. It's wonderful. Mark: Well, we're look, we're pagans. We're going to take time out nature. So anybody that's that has a problem with the flow of the podcast. We'll just have to deal. Yucca: We have various different flocks out there that have a lot to say in my background. Mark: Nice. So the beginner mind to the degree that we're able to get dispassionate about our injuries, about our wounds and past that frees us then to approach situations with new eyes. So we can walk into that same meeting that you have at work every week, but you can say. You can approach it differently. You can talk differently, you can listen differently. You can observe the other participants in the meeting with new eyes and see new things that you never saw about them before. And that I think is another piece that personal growth can give us is the opportunity to be more observant. And to have more options in behavior in the moment, because one of the things about being really driven by your wounds is that you're kind of asleep reprogrammed to follow these behaviors that were programmed in order to defend yourself from the wounds that you've suffered. And that means you're not entirely awake and alive. And I think being awakened alive is something that. Yucca: This we've talked about quite often. Once you're gone, you're gone. So it's a pretty great it, frankly. Mark: It's a fantastic it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So we don't want to sleep through it. And we don't want to be kind of robotically, repeating the motions over and over, or in situations where we might choose to behave differently. And so when it comes to the question of personal growth in the context of the present, I think that beginner's mind piece becomes really important. And it can even be so much as, okay, I'm going to go into this meeting and I have a habit of feeling like I'm small and I ought to not say anything because of past stuff, but what if I didn't have that? What if I was just here in this meeting at this moment? And when I have an idea or a thought, I just said it? And you might find that when that happens, suddenly people respond to you differently. Suddenly there's a different dynamic in the room. And that kind of brings us to the future. Yucca: Yeah. Now, before we go too far into the future, there is a practice that I want to bring up. We've talked about it before, but it's the idea of grounding. And this is something that I think can be a really helpful tool to work on that, that, in moments like that. Okay. Before stepping into that room, And having that shift of, okay what if I was instead, what if I behaved this way? Right? That, that taking a moment to refocus, to become very present. And calm yourself is, could be really powerful too, to experience that what we often call grounding. And that's a thing that you cannot do without practicing it. But it's something that we can develop and become really good at. In the beginning, it might take to get yourself into that state might take 10 minutes of dedicated, close your eyes, breathe, focus there. But the more that you practice, you can shorten that length to the point where with enough practice, you can go, okay. And it just takes a breath and it can be really life-changing and it sets you up to be able to then make those choices, make those observations. Pause for a second. All right. It's like hitting that pause button and then you get to press play as soon as you're ready. Mark: Yes. It's an incredibly powerful skill. And what it does is not only sort of. Banish the demons, but it also brings you back to your deep understanding of who you are. You know, when you ground, you know, that you're worthy, you know, that you belong in any room you walk into, you know, that you can do the thing, whatever the thing is, and that you will to the best of your ability. And that's good enough. All of those things come when you practice this grounding technique. And it's really something that's worthwhile doing for people. It's what pagans do at the beginning of rituals all over the world and some of them better than others, but as a, as an ongoing practice, something to have in your toolkit, it is definitely something we recommend. Yucca: Yeah. So sorry to have interrupted the flow there, but I just thought that was a really important thing to pause and mention when we're talking about being present, right. Is the practice of grounding, is that stepping into presence. So, but let's step to the future. Mark: Yeah let's do that because the future is kind of an interesting topic to talk about. For one thing, we have no idea of what it is. We can project the trajectory of our current movement. Presuming that we're self-aware enough. We can kind of say, all right, this is where my behavior is going and where I'm likely to be. If I'm not hit by a train, if my partner doesn't get pregnant. If right, there's so many variables that we have no control over, but what we can do with the future is we can say, this is the kind of person I would like to be in five years. I would like for these kind of squealing hurts that I have inside me to have calmed down. By that point, I would like to be more generous. I would like to be more outwardly compassionate. So, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to be doing some sort of charitable work. For example, that's an expression of my compassion. That kind of goal setting can be very powerful for your personal growth because growth itself is sort of a morphous, right? It's just well getting bigger growth bigger. And then Yucca: Bigger. I'll get better, better, better at what? Bigger how, what, yeah. Mark: I'm just going to get bigger, which is an easy ideology to buy into in the capitalistic framework. Let's be honest because growth, right. On the other hand, if we actually frame that in terms of tangibles, I want to be this kind of person. Well, You would be amazed at how much of a choice you have about what kind of person you will be if you make decisions about being that kind of person. And that's where the personal growth of the future comes into play rather than saying, Oh, I'll never get out from under the terrible thing that happened to me when I was eight, you can say, I can heal that. And it can teach me compassion and it can motivate my efforts to make sure that never happens to another child again. And that is a growth agenda that you can be proud of, that you can feel solid about, that you can build a life around. Those kinds of agendas of growth agendas are very powerful. And I really come in to our listeners to be thinking about, you know, where do I need to grow? Where and what would I like that to look like on the other side of it? Because, as we said once, as we said, at the beginning of the episode, you don't ever get there. Right? There's no, there's just better than now. And then you can go for even better than that. Depending on how much time you have. Yucca: Yeah. And there's a lot of different frameworks to approach this, but, one thing that you can think about is looking at the person that you want to be, right. Or the thing that you want to cultivate. And I already started using the language that we start, that we use often in our is growing. We want to grow, we want to cultivate. So if you think about it like a garden, what do you need to do? What kind of environment would you need to grow, whatever your plant is that you're growing? How can you take care of the soil now to start to make sure that when you plant those seeds in the spring, that they're going to have soil that can hold moisture? Do you need to put some compost in there? And compost is something that you make from the past. Right. Sometimes you take the dead, the old stuff, you compost it and it gets eaten up by all those little microorganisms and transformed into the substrate for the future. So what are the steps today to create the environment that would allow for you to be that person? Mark: Very well said. And in many cases, for people who are particularly suffering in many cases the first decision is I've got to get out of this toxic context, because what happens with people that are really suffering from old injuries is that they tend to settle for situations that aren't very good for them. And so becoming self-aware and looking around and realizing this is toxic. I got to go is a first step towards either making that context less toxic, which is great, or getting out of there and moving on with life in a way that enables you to grow and be the person that you want to be. Yucca: Yeah. So working with that metaphor. Instead of trying to grow on asphalt to find a little patch of dirt to grow in it. And it might not be the, your lush forest soil. But it's dirt. You can dig in it, Mark: Right. Yucca: Right. Mark: And it's good that it's not the lush forest soil, because then you have to compete with all those trees. Yucca: Yeah. And where is the sunlight coming from? Yeah, exactly. And it depends on what you want to grow, your pH might not be quite right for your lettuce and carrots. Right? Mark: Right, right. Well, I feel like I've pretty well wrapped up everything that I have to say about this topic right now. I mean, obviously the whole subject to personal growth is both fascinating to me and really personal to me because I like to tell myself that I'm doing it myself. I like to believe that, and when I looked over the arc of my life so far, I believe I have. But it's an interesting thing, you know, sometimes words can come out of your mouth and then the rest of you can kind of go, Hey, you should listen to that. Yucca: Exactly. Yeah. Well, that's one of those things that you can do in those quiet moments, because. I really do think that we have a tremendous amount of wisdom and it's just setting ourselves up to be able to hear that and then to be in a position to act upon And, Mark: I so agree. Yucca: you know, we really do have so many tools to help us move in that way. And we've, and on this podcast, we talk about those tools a lot. We talk about ritual. We talk about things like grounding and meditation and these journeying, and just perspective changes and taking the moment, taking that moment out. And also a really important thing to consider too, is often talk about it from the spiritual or quote unquote magical side of things, but there's also the really practical, mundane things of your physical environment, making sure that your circadian rhythm is functioning healthily, that you are getting the nutrients that you need. You're getting the sleep. You're not getting toxins in your body. All of those things, those play into our emotional state, just as much or more than all of these other things we're talking about. They really. They're not separate. We talk about these, all of these as if there's two different categories, you know, there's the mind and the body but not really. They, I mean, the body creates the mind and the mind then tells the body how to be. And it's just this back and forth. Is this interconnected, cyclical, jumbled, beautiful mess. Mark: That's pretty much the size of it. That's as good. A way to end is I can think of actually. So we invite you to explore your own jumbled, beautiful mess and identify the places where it's not serving you and where you can be better. Identify some ways that you would prefer to be, if you do the work to get there. And I'm in the moment, look around, look with new eyes. Don't don't let that critic voice tell you what you're seeing. Yucca: Yeah, enjoy the journey. Well, thank you Mark. Mark: thank you so much Yucca. Always a pleasure.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com http://atheopaganism.org The Critic Episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/   S2E08 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca. Mark: I'm Mark. Yucca: And today we are returning to the important topic of ritual. So we're going to talk what, why, how and why we've come back to this topic. Mark: Yes. And I think we should probably start with that last one. First obviously rituals are really central to pagan practice. They are a really essential part of what makes us pagans and what makes our practices into a religion. We did the second ever episode, of the wonder about rituals more than a year ago. And we just have more to say about it. We'll probably repeat some of it cause neither of us have heard the episode in a year. But that's fine. One of the things about paganism is that it's iterative. You come back around to the same time of year, every year. And so you repeat themes and we're going to repeat themes here on this podcast as well. Yucca: That's right. And it's the sort of thing we've touched on in so many of our episodes. There's very few. I think that we haven't mentioned ritual in because it is just so central. Mark: Right, right. I mean, in, in many ways being a pagan is I mean, it's certainly far less about what you believe than it is about your value set and what you do. And there's the sort of passive ritual behavior of observing the world around you and stopping for the sunsets and the flowers and paying attention. And then there's the active rituals, which are the more formal symbolic behaviors that we do in order to put ourselves into a ritual state of kind of trancy hyper presence which is a state in which we can reprogram our brains. We can heal our wounds, we can focus our intention. We can make things easier for ourselves as we go forward into our lives. Yucca: So we're going to be focusing a little bit more on that second type of ritual that you were just talking about. Yeah. The daily, small rituals, the habits, those are also incredibly powerful. And I think those deserve their own episode, frankly. Mark: Yes. I agree. Yucca: but let's go ahead and start with really what is ritual? Mark: I have a definition. Do you have a definition? Yucca: Well, your definition is probably going to be a little bit more succinct than mine. So let's hear yours. Mark: I believe that ritual is symbolic behavior rather than practical behavior for purposes of spiritual expression. And there's a lot of words in there that are very fuzzy. Spiritual is a very fuzzy word. Expression is a very broad term, but generally speaking the difference between brushing your teeth every day and going to your altar and lighting a candle every day is that you do one of them for these spiritual purposes. And the other one is strictly a matter of practical maintenance. Yucca: So for me, ritual has an element of intention without there you're intending to do something, not necessarily your trying, that it's an intention of, you're trying to cast a spell or do something like that, but you don't go into ritual, you don't go into that space without a reason. And that reason is often an emotional reason, often a quality of life reason, or a reason where you're trying to figure something out or contemplate. There's a purpose to it. It's intentional are choosing to do it. It's not something that is happening to you. It's you doing it? Mark: Right. One of the things that is often said about pagan ritual is that there are no spectators. Everyone is a participant. And that if you have people that are in the circle who are being spectators, your ritual has a problem. Because it hasn't engaged them in a way that makes them participants. So I really, and I really feel that's true. Part of what makes group ritual really amazing is that everyone is engaging kind of in their highest self in co-creating this amazing moment in time. Yucca: Yeah. And that, that brings it to a very different experience than it would be otherwise. Just amazing. Mark: Yes. I mean, there, there are varying degrees of the amount of satisfaction that one gets out of performing a ritual. I have daily rituals and it's just sort of a little bump of dopamine, right? It's just a little feeling of satisfaction and reward that I've done my daily rituals again, and there are the candles burning on my focus and isn't that jolly. It looks very pretty, very witchy and cool. And I have a good feeling about it. Then there are other things which are more elaborate where I might set up a special altar just for that day and have activities planned that are supposed to be a part of the ritual. And that's all. You know, because it's a special day, it's a holiday, right. Rather than, or either that, or I have some very specific need that I need to address either in my in my mental health or in my life and my capacity to grapple with the issues that are in front of me. So those are the. So there's this big spectrum of sort of small commonplace rituals, all the way up to sort of grand opera, amazing costumes and music and incense and stained glass and, you know, whatever it is. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So why don't we talk a little bit about you know, we were talking about the, what about what a ritual is? Why don't we go more into examples of the why? Because I've done rituals for a lot of different purposes over the years, and I'm sure you have too. And it would be interesting. It'd be good. I think, to sort of compare notes on that, about the different kinds of things that we've done. Yucca: Sure. Yeah. There's such a huge range. There's the kind that you were just talking about with that those daily rituals. And those can be the ones that are really your quality of life rituals. Those are the ones that are how you enact, what you decide you want your life to be like and where you want your focus to be, because where that focus is determined so much about what you experienced and how you feel. And we spoke about this recently in the episode on manifestation. Right. That what you are aware of and where you are, what patterns you are enacting and feeding is what's going to determine so much of your experience. Mark: Right. Exactly. I think, for example, about house-warming rituals the sort of house cleansing slash blessing rituals that people will do, and they're all different kinds of them, but they tend to have certain shared characteristics like going into every room in the house and doing some kind of activity that helps demark the space as having been cleansed of whoever else was there before. And now marked as yours belonging to your family. And you know, now being your space and the, I mean, th the reality is that there's no physical change happening there. Right. But how you feel about the place can be radically different. You can go from, you know, Oh, I'm moving into a stranger's house too. Oh, this is mine. And that's where I want to put the furniture and, you know, here's where I want to keep the canned goods and A much more comfortable kind of way of being Yucca: Yeah. And then there's also those rituals which are for the big rites of passage. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So the weddings and deaths and births and separations and coming of ages and all of that, that are those moments that there's only a few of them in your entire life, whatever your particular path is that you're going on with that? Mark: Right. And honestly, I mean, I feel sort of cheated that I missed a couple of them. You know, I've done. I didn't ever get a passage into adulthood. I didn't ever get you know, that kind of recognition. I've done. Marriage ceremonies, I've done a dissolution ceremony. I've and now I'm kind of pressing onward toward elderhood. And I'm definitely going to do something for that. That one is very problematic in our culture because nobody wants to admit that they're old. You know, we've got this incredible culture of youth going on, but Yucca: Yeah. How do you decide that? Mark: you have to pick an age and I was thinking it was going to be 60, but I'm going to be 60 next year. And I'm thinking maybe 70. Maybe more like 70, because 60 just doesn't seem that old anymore. It used to when I was a kid people died in their mid sixties typically, but life expectancy has jumped so much that it's just, you know, 60 is the new 40. Yucca: Well, and that's not where I am with my life, but there's just from people I know. They can be at so different places, at least from the outside, because some people who are 60, not only physically, but just seem to be much older than some people who are the same age. Mark: Yes. Yes. Yucca: And that happens to a certain extent with younger folks when they're coming into adulthood. But the window is a little bit more narrow for that. Mark: Right. Right. And they have greater plasticity too. I think, you know, people become less flexible as they get older. And so even if someone is, seems very kind of, you know, bitter and world weary at the age of 22, they can get out of that again. Whereas if you're bitter and world weary at the age of 60, you're probably stuck there unless you have a really radical transformation. Which is possible and ritual can be a big part of that, honestly. But it takes a more a less organic process and more of a a deliberate intervention in order to make a shift like that. Yucca: Yeah. And so with something like that, there might be a big ritual. The one that has all the bells and whistles and cloaks and candles and all of that, which is then supported by many smaller ones Mark: Yes. Yes. In my experience the most transformational rituals that I have been associated with have involved homework. It's not only the big grand dramatic thing that, you know, kind of blows your emotional socks off afterwards. If there's a thing you gotta do every day or every week or whatever it is you have to keep up the momentum of what has been started and that's the way that you reaffirm to yourself again and again, that the meaning of the ritual is true and that it's happening. Yucca: So we jumped into this very quickly, but why don't we talk a little bit about what's going on? Brain-wise with ritual. Mark: I love this stuff. Yucca: Because there, there really is a lot, and there's a lot that is. That can be understood from a perspective of modern science and our understanding around that. So, yeah. Is that something you want to start with? Mark: One of the big mysteries, I think. In looking at humanity is what's up with this religion stuff. There are certain things that people do that on the face of them appear to be just baffling as to why we should, music is one of them. Dancing is one of them. Art generally is sort of baffling as to why we're inspired to do that. And religion is another one. Why does every culture documented on the earth have a religious tradition? Now some of them have secularized over time, but they started out with religious traditions. Yucca: And just to jump in there, the idea that religion has to have a deity, and if it doesn't, it's not a religion is a very Eurocentric not very representative of the rest of the world. Mark: Right. And we're here living examples that it's simply not true. You know, we are living spiritual paths, which by any reasonable definition are religious in nature and we don't have deities, so, you know, there it is. So when I started researching this stuff, because the whole question of. When I left and community, after being there for about 25 years, 27 years, I think I left because I had experience of very unethical behavior that was excused as the will of the gods was like, Nope, I'm not going to be part of a community that, that believes that, that accepts that you can do these shitty things and excuse it as being the will of some invisible, probably imaginary beings. So I left, but within six months I really missed it. I, my altar was all dusty and I wasn't doing my seasonal observances and I missed the community and it, my life was just impoverished relative to where it had been before. So I started exploring this question, you know, what's, what's up with this religiosity thing. And how does that map to the brain? Because if all cultures have this, there must be some hunger within us that is fed by these religious activities and practices. Right. And what that led me to was the triune brain model, which was first published in 1958. And it posits essentially that there are three that of the conscious parts of the brain, not the cerebellum that runs the machinery of the body and so forth, but of the conscious parts of the brain. They come in three sort of bursts of evolutionary activity, mounted a top one another. The first is what's called the R complex, which the R stands for reptile. So it's the fish brain essentially. I like to say that the the fish brain is about the five F's, which are flee, freeze, fight, food, and mating. And that's all that the, our complex cares about that's all that it cares about. It wants to be safe. It wants to reproduce and get its genes into the next generation. And that is all that is concerned with. But as we became mammals, this new system grew over the top of theR complex. It didn't replace it. Bare in mind, that's, it's still very much in play. But in addition to that, we now have what is called the limbic system or the mammalian brain. And the limbic system is about feelings, connection, relationships sense of right and wrong of whether we are in harmony or disharmony with those around us. And that is what enabled mammals to nurture their young, developing social groups so forth. And then there is the third portion, which is the frontal cortex of the brain, the prefrontal neocortex, and just the cortex generally there that's the thinky part of the brain. It has language, it looks for patterns. It asks about meaning it once answers to questions. And it's, it has all of those intellectual aspects. Now I believe that the both the most intriguing thing about the human condition and maybe the most tragic is that we have all three of these brains operating at once and they can get into conflict with one another. They frequently get into conflict with one another and when it becomes severe enough, we call it mental illness. PTSD, for example, is where the art complex is going crazy with fear. Just crazy with fear and all that it can do is flee, fight, freeze, flee, freight flight freeze, over and over again in response to stimuli that may be kind of animal really, and it's a tragic circumstance when that happens. So there are these three parts of the brain and religiosity happens to really scratch the itch of all three of them. The R complex loves that it builds community so that you're safe in numbers. It loves that it, that in some cases it tells you that there's an afterlife, so you're not going to die. It loves that. By being in a community, you have more access to food and security and all that kind of stuff. Right. It tells you that you're safer in the mammalian case. It's, you know, community and love and all that, you know, wonderful connect the stuff that we are so fond of as mammals. And then the thinking part gets answers to big questions. Like why should I be living? How should I behave? What's important in the universe? What does it mean that I'm alive? And because it's a pattern recognizing it can create metaphors where a symbol comes to represent something else. And that is the rich playground that we work in when we create rituals. You know, when I. When I do my Hallows ritual and I walk around the circle with my human femur to draw the circle. It's not just about a human femur. It's about the presence of human death. Right. And that, that visceral powerful sense that we are in the presence of that all inspiring force, that is such a presence in our lives. I've been talking a lot, but obviously I'm really kind of hyped about Yucca: Oh, this is great. Mark: But I think I am going to stop now for a little bit and let you go. The I truly believe that non-fee is paganism is an answer, maybe not the only answer, but an answer to the conundrum of how science and religion co-exist in a meaningful and truthful way. Yucca: Yeah, so wonderful. So it, it sounded like if I was hearing what you were saying, you gave a great explanation about the way that the human brain works. Or at least some of the parts of the brain and why that has led to ritual. Which works in the symbols, why it's led to that and why it can be really powerful, a, another direction to take with that, which has really connected. We're really talking about the same thing in a lot of places is the idea of neuro-plasticity where like plastic, meaning it can change. It can move. It can adapt. And there is a myth that we stop learning after a certain age. That's not true. Organisms continue to learn and learning happens on so many different levels, but one of the primary purposes of learning is to take care of us, to, to protect us and make sure we can do those survival things, make sure that we can get the food that we need, that we are safe, that we are all of these things. And so learning often happens when there is something novel when there's something new in the environment and your brain has to really pay attention and it may not necessarily be the part of you that is explaining it with words logically, but you're still really paying attention. And so in ritual, you can create the environment in which you are learning. You are relearning, you're learning new pathways, you are creating that new place. So that a new pattern can come out of that and, or it's enforcing, reinforcing a pattern that you have been creating because you've got to travel that same path over and over again, because the most travel path is the one that you're going to go down when you're not thinking about it. Mark: Right. Right. So ritual in some ways can be said to be the creation of a novel experience. That's freighted with meaning, So, I mean, it's no surprise that the stuff that people use for their rituals is all really cool stuff. It's bones and pine cones and seashells and chalices and, you know, knives and just, you know, cool stuff, right. Staffs and they wear cloaks and robes and it's just all really interesting stuff that draws the attention. Yucca: And really works for the individual. Mark: Yes. Yeah. There's no standard set of ritual tools. People use whatever works for them, right? So you're creating this moment of attention to some sort of transformative event that has a metaphorical meaning to it. I'm thinking of, I don't know whether I've ever told this story. My my ex had a terrible nightmare and was, she was having a really hard time in her life and had a nightmare in which a teacher of hers a Zen teacher was dead and buried in his hand was still extending from the grave. Did I ever tell this story? Yucca: I am familiar with the story. I don't know if he told it to me or if you told it on the recording, but I think he probably told it on the recording, but go ahead, because we have a lot of new listeners who may have not heard it before. Mark: Okay. Well, Yucca: So the hand was coming up from the grave. Mark: Right. And it was a little alive, but not very much. And she was just in this terrible state of grief and upset and real loss in her life at that time. And without letting her know about it, the members of her circle of the Dark Sun Circle that I'm a member of, we dug a grave. And filled it in again with loose dirt, with various things, items in the dirt for her to find. And I had a hand, a rubber hand from a Halloween store that I set in the grave kind of sticking out and. The transformation of course, was that she had to physically dig through this grave and find these items, find the gifts in the grief, right. Find the transformative elements that could help her to move on. And of course it involves kind of large muscle motion and the smell of wet earth and, you know, the candles that were flickering around the grave and, you know, all of these, you know, very potent symbolic States. But I mean, when she came around the corner and first saw it, she burst into tears. And and was crying during most of the digging until she got near the bottom of the grave and found one item and I don't even remember what it was. And then she started to laugh and said, that's great. That's just so great. So that's an example of how you can craft a ritual with these symbolic items. That puts someone through a transformational experience so that they are changed by the end of it. And that really is the point of a ritual. It's not just to have a, an experience it's that the person would be changed even if just a little. Yucca: And that person could be you, right? Mark: Yeah. So yeah. Yucca: right? You're sharing a story from a group ritual, but these are the things that we can do individually in private as well. Mark: Yes. I mean, when I stand in front of my focus, my altar every morning, I I draw that one tarot card and I know that it's random, but I still take it as kind of a lens to view the day through. And I lean it up where it can be seen on the focus. And I take a moment. And I just sort of drink in the symbology of all of those things that are there. And I am changed. I am grounded in the richness of my life through that process and it helps me it helps me to be happier. Yucca: So we've been jumping around a lot, kind of dancing around. Are there other types of rituals before we transitioned into some of the hows? Right. We talked about the daily ones. We talked about the big events in life. Mark: Well, they're the holidays. Of course. Yucca: Oh! Yeah.. Mark: The holidays of the Wheel of the Year. And those can be big rituals as well, or they can be small ones depending on how many people are involved and just how elaborate you want things to get. But the, just as a Rite of passage celebrates a person's transformation into a particular phase of life, the wheel of the year celebrations acknowledge the transformation of the year into a particular stage in its life. Okay. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: And, you know, as I said, some of them are really big people. Do, you know, 14 foot maypoles with ribbons and people dancing around and it's all very cool. And others are very quiet. Yucca: And that depends on the person and the community. And. If there's a global pandemic on and all of those details. Mark: Speaking of, I got my first jab on Friday. I am delighted to announce, Yucca: Oh, congratulations. That's good. Yeah. We're on the list here. But we probably won't be getting it until May most likely cause we're but that's okay because there's other people who need It. Before us. Because we're not really public facing, so, and not in any high risk groups, but our parents have gotten it. So we're super grateful for that. Mark: That's good. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, but it's, I mean, it's starting to happen. You know, it's not just a dream on the horizon anymore. It's that the shots are getting into people's arms and that is really going to change the dynamic of this disease. And the numbers are way down. The COVID numbers are already way, way down, which is just such a relief. Yucca: Yeah, it's been really encouraging. So yeah, Mark: It's amazing. What a little leadership will do. Yucca: So I let's. Let's start talking about some of the how, and knowing that what we're going to do from our perspective and what has worked for us and what we've been exposed to. But we are by no means the end all be all on this. There are thousands or probably millions of other pagans out there each with their own way of doing ritual and things that have worked and haven't. But why don't we talk about the. At least for you, Mark. What is the basic structure? Is there a normal structure in your ritual? Mark: There is. And I think it's kind of a generic structure and I'm always very careful to caution that this is a structure that works. It's not the structure that works. It's just one that works. And it's a five part five, stage system of structuring the ritual. The first phase is called arrival. And that is where you create a safe, secure space where you declare that this transformational work is going to be happening. You ground yourself in the moment. So you become very present. This is the moment where you invoke that ritual state of brain, right? You're not worrying about the past or about the future. You're in the moment now. And what that does is it makes you very open. So you're more psychologically influenceable by the events of the ritual. The next phase is called qualities. And this can be done lots of different ways, but essentially it's invoking the qualities that you want associated with this ritual, like courage and perseverance or sensitivity and love and compassion, or you know, any of those. Any of those qualities, it's sort of like invoking deities in a theistic ritual, except instead of invoking the deities that stand for particular qualities, you just go straight to the qualities. And that can be done with people calling out these different things, or it can be done. Very formally with people having, you know, individual speeches that they short speeches that they make about each quality that we want involved. It just, it varies. The third phase is the hardest to describe because it's most varied and that's working. Which is the process of doing the transformational thing in the ritual, whether that's digging out that grave or tying knots into a cord with a particular focus, as we tie the knots in the cord, or adding things to a cauldron to boil to make, you know, like a magical soup, which can then be shared amongst the participants to get the benefit of the ritual. It can be any sort of creative, crafty thing. It can be dancing, it can be singing and it can be multiples of those things. It doesn't have to be just one. The next phase is gratitude because I find that incorporating gratitude into all of my rituals just makes the more effective. It helps me however down I might be, it helps me have perspective about all the ways that I really enjoy that I enjoy privilege that I enjoy wealth. Even though I'm not in the context of. This country wealthy by any means, you know, I have enough to eat. I have a roof over my head. I have a meaningful job for me. You know, I have a community of people who love me. There's so much to be grateful for. And and so I express that and then the last phase is called benediction, which literally means a good word. And what it is the declaration that the ritual is now ending. And that we are all to go forth in the world and be happy and make it a better place. Thank you. How about you? How about the way that you structure rituals? Yucca: Yeah, very similar pattern. I think a lot of the similar things happening. It's a little bit more simplified. It's the sandwich. There's a the core structure and I might make it a little bit more fancy depending on the time, but there is an entering phase. Which is a stepping out of normal awareness into this special awareness, into this different state. And that is definitely a practice. So there's. Because it's something I've been doing a long time. It's something that just sort of happens that I have to really stop and think about what are all the steps that are actually going on. But there's a there's grounding that happens. Okay. Let's be present in the moment. There's the breath of it. And then something that is symbolic of changing into this new space. And sometimes that may be the doing a small circle casting, which for me is really usually just taking a moment facing each of the cardinal directions and taking a deep breath and then also acknowledging the center space. And then there's the, the meat of it, which is where the, whatever the the ritual is. And then the reverse of the entering, which is the stepping out back into the normal awareness into our regular awareness. So there's always an entrance and an exit, and the main work. And that can be taken in a lot of different directions. There's this very simple moment. That is those moments throughout the day. The thing that I do when I first wake up, you know, it's the greeting the Sun and the stars, and, or more complex with a seasonal celebration or a Rite of passage or something like that. But the structure is always. Enter, the work as you called it or the play, and then the exit. Mark: Yes. Yes. I like that a lot. And one thing that you pointed out that is really true is that these things get better with practice. They become easier. When you've been doing ritual for a long time, you can just sort of click into that ritual state as long as you feel safe and in a reasonably good place. It's pretty easy to just sort of downshift into that very present state without a lot of that, a lot of work, other people who are just starting, they might need more of a methodical grounding process, mindfulness and breathing in order to bring them into that present state. But as they say, practice makes practice. Yucca: Okay. I felt like that version better practice makes practiced. Yes. Yeah. So it bark at it. I was wondering as you described the stages that you go through, is that something that you do in your daily rituals as well? Or is that something reserved for the more formal or larger rituals. Mark: it's really reserved for the more formal rituals by my daily rituals are very brief. And they're just dropping into that space. So there's the arrival piece and then drawing the card, lighting the candle whatever the little piece of work is to be done. But part of the reason that those rituals are powerful for me is because of their consistency. You know, when we talk about ritual, another word for ritual is repetition, right? Repetitive. And one thing that's wonderful about pagan religions is that in most cases, not all, but in most cases, You can be very creative about the kinds of rituals that you can create. And so there's always this sort of a liveliness and newness and surprise, but there's also something to be said for doing the same thing every year or every day. There's a comfort in it and a feeling of momentum that has accumulated over the long time that you've been doing this ritual. I recommend some of both. Yucca: It's that shoe that's been worn in just the right way that it fits your foot perfectly? Mark: Right. Exactly right. Yucca: So why don't we get it to some of the things that folks could play with a little bit with their ritual. And before we do want to remind folks about the episode that we did on the Critic Voice. Because this is one of those times where the critic, we talked about ritual a lot in that episode, that the credit really raises its its head to, to tell you everything that it thinks and it's all bad, so don't worry about it. Mark: I would encourage people that are new to ritual to listen to that episode before before embarking on a ritual practice, because I think it'll help give you more permission and a little more freedom from that Critic Voice, and also kind of give you all the warnings about the sorts of tricks that it might try to spring on you. Yucca: Yeah. So given that Let's talk about some of the things that folks can try. So both from people who are just starting a practice and maybe people who want to experiment and add new things into their already existing practice. Mark: Well, it all starts with intent, right? The only unsuccessful rituals that I have ever been associated with have been, I mean, fully unsuccessful. I've been to some rituals that were pretty unsuccessful, but the only ones that I've ever been to that were fully unsuccessful were ritual simply for the point of doing a ritual, they didn't have any intention behind them. Not even as simple an intention as to. Back up a little bit. There was a friend who would have parties and there was always a ritual at the party. Everyone dreaded it. And these rituals were never really much of anything other than that, they were rituals. And I always wondered why she didn't at least focus on having those rituals be about bringing together the people that were at the party. You know, some, something that, that was doable within the context of those humans. So intention is very important, I think, you know, and if you're new to ritual work, maybe you don't bite off, you know, dealing with your childhood abuse, like Yucca: Right away. Mark: As a first thing, you know, the ritual is very psychologically powerful, but that cuts both ways. If you open that stuff up, it can really knock you over. If you're, if you are not prepared. And and you know, ready. So you determine what it is that you want to do. Is it, I want to feel more magical. I want to feel more of a sense of magic in my life. That alone is enough to start a daily practice. And if you build an altar and have a daily practice, it will add to the sense that your life is this sort of magical journey. That's cool. So why not do it? We've talked about this before, but I'll go back to it again. We are pro pleasure here. We say, if you're not hurting anybody, things that feel good are good. There is no guilt to be had. Yucca: So something with that, you could start with that intention, build a focus or an altar. And maybe just play with, entering into that ritual like space, find a, you create one yourself or try out a structure that has been used before, like the circle casting or something like that. And then experiment with what you can do in that. In that ritual space. Are there symbols that, that mean the magical life to you? Right? Is there something that you could bring into that space, which is a physical object. The thing is you don't need to use physical objects, but sometimes they can be really powerful having the thing to hold smell, touch, taste. Taste is big. Mark: And you can see it around, you know, if you have a physical object that you've put on an altar, you can see that. And it will remind you once again, of all of the meaning that you have loaded it with. So it's. I mean, my experience of the first few times that I had ritual by myself was that I was basically playing with the toys. I had, I had a bunch of sort of cool witchy things like chalices and incense burners and candle sticks and knives and all these sorts of things and lots of cool things from nature. And basically I just lit incense lit candles and just sort of moved stuff around and it felt really cool. You know, it felt like I was casting spells, even though of course I wasn't doing anything out there in the world. It was doing a lot to me. And it was bringing a lot of joy to a very childlike part of me. So, you know, don't. Undersell the value of just that kind of work of, you know, becoming accustomed to the idea of going into a ritual space to do play because ritual is really kind of an elaborate meaning freighted aspect of human play. Yucca: And when you were just starting out, when you came back to those same tools later, was your relationship different with them having then played with them in ritual space? Mark: Sure. Yeah. They came to have particular meanings and and over time, of course my altar accumulated, fossils that I had found on trips or, you know, bottles of water from high in the mountains, in the grand Tetons and, you know, various sorts of just sort of special things that I'm able to now use in conducting rituals. I mean, I used some of that water from high in the grand Tetons, which is now more than 20 years old. Just recently because I wanted I wanted something that was about purity and. That water is incredibly clean. It, you know, it comes from 12,000 feet up and it's really super, super clean and snowmelt so, anyway, you know, I wanted something that symbolized purity, and so I, you know, put a little dollop of this water in and then sealed my bottle and put it away. There are just so many cool things that you can do that have meaning you'll find that you start collecting cool containers. I have incense in all these marvelous jars and boxes and, you know, carved wood boxes and, you know, things like that. And, you know, all that sort of wizards, laboratory stuff. It it has a particular feeling to it. That's really cool. You know, it's really, it's fun to play with and it's okay to be an adult and play with things. That's fine. Yucca: I think it's more than fine. I think it's, I think it's really important. It really feeds a part of us. It releases so much of that judgment intention that we have that, that often really isn't serving us. But play so often does really serve us and improve, just improve what it feels like to be us. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And we really don't have a lot of time. So enjoy it while you got it. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. I mean, as we get older we're taught various things about dignity and shame and I mean, there's a time for, to be dignified in a time to, you know, be upright and responsible and all that kind of stuff. Of course. But if you can't let go of it to pursue joy, then that's something to work on. You know if honestly, if that is who you are, you probably want to get free of that to have a better life, Yucca: And ritual, as we've been talking about can be a great place to do that in. I may have shared this before, but one of the things I do when I'm start to catch myself and you know, that feeling at least, so I feel as too serious and uptight and all of that, I just stick my tongue out and, you know, blow through my tongue and make farty weird sounds with my tongue and that just loosens my face up. And I'm not going to do it into the mic here cause I don't want it. That doesn't sound great. And Mike, for the anyone who's got headphones in. So out of respect for you, I'm not going to, but you know the sound I'm talking about, just the, let it out, let it all out and just you know, get your face moving. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It reminds me a little of the spring rituals that we've done at the spring Equinox, the Vernal Equinox that are all about kids and playfulness and, you know, coloring eggs and playing childhood games and playing tag and things like that. It's it is amazing. You have not seen competitive tag playing until you've seen a bunch of adults playing tag. They will. I mean, they're having fun, but they will take it very serious. Yucca: I'm a huge fan of capture the flag Mark: Uh, uh Huh. Yucca: Yeah. Those are great. Mark: Yeah. I've never done paintball. I don't know about that, but. Yucca: Have to not mind the sting. And Mark: of course. Right. Yucca: but yeah. Mark: So, I would encourage people to go to atheopaganism.org and look for some of the ritual outlines that are there. If you look in the tag cloud there's a tag for rituals and so you can look over some of the rituals that are there and get some ideas, but it's a pretty blank slate. There's. You can do almost anything as a ritual, as long as it's meaningful to you and transformative. Yucca: And Mark, speaking of the blog, congratulations on 500 posts. Mark: Oh, thank you very much. Yeah. When I saw that was coming up, I was really sort of amazed. That's a lot of posts. Yucca: That's a lot of posts. Yeah. Mark: Thank you. Yucca: Yeah. Oh, one other shout out is to the folks who successfully landed Perseverance. That was amazing. And the other missions that are there as well. So going, gonna be. Seems like this is going to be a great year for the space sciences. We've got three Mars missions. Hopefully we'll have James Webb launching and all the stuff Parker probe's doing. So this is just a fantastic time for exploration right now. Mark: it is I'm concerned about the militarization. I mean, it certainly seems that the Chinese and there, and then Trump really wanted to militarize space and I'm hoping that can be avoided, but we'll see. Yucca: Yeah. There's a lot. There's a lot there. But yeah, we'll see how that goes. But in terms of the Planetary exploration and the solar exploration, it's just you know, wonderfully exciting for what we're going to learn. Mark: It is, it really is. I can't wait to see the James Webb Yucca: Oh my goodness. Mark: going to be, it's just going to be outrageous. We thought Hubble was good, but this is just going to be an order of magnitude better. It's just so exciting. Yucca: Literally that's not an exaggeration in terms of yet. So yeah. Well, anyways, that's something to be looking forward to and we should come back and do an episode about the night and astronomy and all of that stuff pretty soon. Mark: Sure. Yeah. Pig and stand to have a lot of affinity with the night. We we like to go out in the night under the trees and light fires and, or not light fires and just be there in the dark, under the trees. It's nice. Yucca: For those of us in the Northern hemisphere, we're going to be going back into the warm weather where you won't freeze your butt off while you're out there watching. So. Mark: Right. It's such a trade-off because the winter sky is so much clear, Yucca: Goodness. Yeah. Mark: So clear, but it's cold. Yes. Yucca: Some of my favorite stars this time of year, but we had negative five Fahrenheit last week, which is pretty unusual for us, but we got hit by that that storm that, you know, have the continent got hit by. So not much star watching last week, maybe next week. Well, Mark, thank you so much. Mark: Thank you. Thank you. Yucca I really enjoyed talking with you as always have a great week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E07 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Mark. Yucca: And I am Yucca. Mark: And today we are going to be talking about the association of paganism with making things crafting and cooking and baking and just all these kinds of amazing alchemical and crafty things that it seems like everybody in the pagan community does. So we're going to talk about that and its association with ritual and then talk a little bit about the things that we do and why it's, why it's so good for us. Exactly. And this is a pretty good time of year to be doing that. This is a time of year where lots of folks in the Northern hemisphere, that is, are starting to get a little bit fidgety, wanting to get going after the winter and keep their hands busy. Sure. Especially this year when we've been cooped up for, you know, pretty close to a year now with the pandemic trying to find ways to occupy ourselves productively is is a really important for just for psychological survival right now. You can only sit around and mope for so long. Yucca: Recently, we mentioned that. The seeds selling out early this year. And last year, there was actually a shortage in Mason jars. And there still is right now because so many people took up all kinds of activities that needed Mason jars, including canning or jarring, as I think they call it in Britain. Mark: Sure. Yeah, that's very interesting. I wasn't aware of the shortage of Mason jars, but it totally makes sense to me. There's this sort of cascade effect where many, many more people than usual put in gardens. Last year because they were stuck at home and it was something to do and it, it feels good to garden. And, you know, you've got this productive you know, these vegetables coming out of the ground. Yucca: And I've been meaning to do it for years anyways. Mark: Right. And then of course, the problem with that is you have all these vegetables coming out of the ground and they're doing it all at the same time. So what do you do with all that? Well, you can it or, or you pickle it and all of that involves a lot of Mason jars. So that's, that's not a surprise to me. Yucca: Half of everything on Pinterest involves Mason jars too. Mark: Oh, does it? Yucca: Yeah. Mason, jars, everything. Your fairy lights, everything is Mason jars. Mark: Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. I'm not on Pinterest. It's one of the social media I don't do. So Yucca: I had to delete it from my phone. Otherwise I'd be on all the time. Yeah. It's well, all those, all those things are designed, literally designed to keep you sucked in and on them as long as possible. So my productivity and everything else in my life went way up as soon as I got rid of those things. Mark: I'm sure. Yucca: but Hard to quit there. I mean, harder than a lot of things that we traditionally think of, difficult to quit. Mark: Well, sure. Because social media gives you positive feedback. It's not just a little hit of dopamine. It gives you these constant, ongoing little sips of dopamine from interactions and seeing how people have reacted to what you post and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, they're very clever. Yucca: And they, and your people pressure you to get back on, Mark: Well, I'm sure. Yucca: Yeah. It's a. It's an it's an ever present siren. So anyways, we're talking about crafting, which yes. Mark: We are. And one of the things that, one of the reasons that this topic occurred to me as a good one for us to talk about is that there is a particular mental state that people get into when they do crafts it's very present. They're not thinking about the future or the past or anything. They're very focused on doing what is right in front of them. And there's this very pleasurable state of flow that goes with working on a project, being creative using your hands in that way. And then at the end, achieving a goal, having actually completed something. And that is very, very similar to the same kind of mental state and arc of a ritual. For practical purposes, it can be considered to be ritual. You know, recipe is really a ritual when you get down to it. Or, you know, if you're well enough versed with cooking, you don't use recipes. It's the same thing. Once again, you're drawing on your knowledge and pulling pieces together to create that alchemy, that results in a, in a product. Yucca: Exactly. Yeah. So there's a lot of different kinds of crafting and doing things with our hands that can get us into a place like that. Everything from, as you've been talking about cooking or more artistic things, Not that cooking isn't artistic, but maybe painting or making a sculpture or something that we would think of more traditionally as an art or as a craft. Mark: Yes. And, and actually the, the kind of the, the working section, the meat of many pagan rituals are built around those kinds of crafty activities. I just did an Imbolc. Ritual on Saturday, a virtual ritual with the atheopagan mixer group that meets on Saturdays on zoom. And and I created a little baby out of corn, shucks, a little rain baby for that will preside over my, my focus, my altar around the course of the year until Hallows, when it'll burn in the fire, go up into the sky and bring the rain back metaphorically. Speaking of course So those kinds of activities, you know, they, they give you that, that good feeling of, of achieving something. And many of them can be done in a way where there's that sort of folding the magic in quality. And, you know, as science-based paganism, science-based pagans, we don't believe in literal magic, but we certainly believe in psychological magic. And so having your intention there has you're working to put something together, can be very, very powerful. And then you have an object which is associated with particular meanings and outcomes. And that can be as simple as tying knots on a string, or it can be knitting something, crocheting, something, weaving something sculpting, as you say, a painting or drawing various kinds of writing projects, whether they're poetry or even, even kind of word maps that aren't, that aren't written prose, but instead just sort of a scatter of important words that are associated with whatever it is that you're working to do. The point is creativity. And what that means is that the, the potential is endless. We couldn't possibly list all the different things that people could do in this way on this podcast, Yucca: And some of those things that you were mentioning are. Things that are consumables that you might come back to later, like a, like a bread or the scarf, I guess you don't consume that, but you still might wear it later. And so that is a touchstone it's something that you can bring with you bring that intention with you into the future and be reminded of that. Mark: Yes, absolutely. Whether the intention that you're working with is simply to create, you know, comfort and wellbeing , and food for your family and friends. I know that I've taken a great satisfaction in making bread that can be used in in a ritual circle because it. You know, it has my love in it, right? It has, it has my attention and my skill and my caring that I, I went to the effort to do this. I have a beautiful scarf that was made by a circle sister of mine, who does it. It actually doesn't anymore, but she used to do a Japanese silk dying technique called Shibori where silk velvet is bound on a dowel and kind of crumpled down, slid down to crumple until the whole thing is wrapped around this dowel. And then it's dipped in dye. So it makes a sort of a tie dye kind of pattern. The whole thing is dyed, but there are these kind of waves of density in this beautiful silk velvet, velvet scarf. And every time I wear it, I think of her and I think of my circle and it's kind of, kind of bringing them with me. So those kinds of associations are really enriching to a life. So why don't we talk about some of the things that we do or have done? I mean over time, you know, I've a lot of the kinds of projects that I. That I work on are very computer-based. But I still count them. You know, whether it's putting right now, I'm putting together a PowerPoint presentation. I'm presenting to a UU church on the East coast next Sunday. And then later in the day, I'm presenting to the Seattle atheist church also on zoom. And so I'm putting together the presentation that I'm going to show to them, and that feels creative. It's fun. There's graphics and there's design and there's color schemes. And there's, you know, the, the written content, it's all, it's fun to do. So written things are a lot of what I do, obviously. I mean, I write books and I write poems and stuff like that. How about you? What are some of the things that you do. Yucca: Oh, well, so much. I, first of all, I love that you brought in the presentations as a, as a craft. I hadn't really thought of it that way. That's something that I spend a lot of time since I teach online. I create a lot of presentations. I'm always bringing in images and all kinds of things. And that is, it's a whole, it's a performance, it's a whole art and you're communicating on so many different levels and there's so many different stages of that. So I do that a lot. But I'm, I am always working with my hands. Although my favorite thing in the world is to just sit and just be there in, outside, somewhere in nature under the stars. But I always, my mind is always going and creating something new. So there's all the household stuff of the creating the food for the family and, and working on the garden and the home and building things. I grew up on job sites. My father was an architect builder, and so I was just always around tools. And even when we lived in little city apartments, all my power tools and annoy the neighbors with the loud noises. But also got little people right now who love the arts and crafts. And there's a lot of stuff that we just want to have that isn't available commercially. And even if it was, I just like making them anyways. So I mean, there's just so many different directions to talk about with, with what we do. Mark: Sure. I mean, particularly when you get into the area of food, the it's, it's literally infinite. And when you, when you really start to explore all the kinds of different preserves and pickles and sauces, and you know, all those different sorts of things that you can put up and save. It really makes the grocery store seem very impoverished by comparison. The available choices are really very narrow there and very you know, mainstreamed to the, the ones that are going to sell to enough people. But if you want your particular kind of pickled beets with onions, then you, you gotta make them yourself or know somebody who does. Yucca: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. In that vein, my four and a half year old daughter has requested that we not have the same breakfast twice. She's challenged me, but she wants pancakes every morning now. So, and we don't really eat grains. So I have a whole variety of all of the different, like types of flour replacements that we have got sunflower seeds that have ground up and pumpkin seeds and cassava and tiger night and all of that. And then coming up with each day of how do we make it different enough that the four-year-old accepts that it's different. So earlier it was chocolate, orange ,tigernut was what we came up with. Mark: I'm sure that went over pretty well. Yucca: it went very well. Yes Mark: The chocolate days. Those are good days. Yucca: Yeah. So that's one of the directions. But there's also kind of the, the seasonal little things that are a lot of fun to do. One of the things that we've gotten into the habit of doing is we receive boxes in the mail. More than I'd really like when I think about it, we should pull that back. But during the pandemic, it's been so much easier to get things shipped than to venture out. So we get a lot of boxes and we ended up cutting those boxes into shapes and painting them and we'll do things with whatever's happening with the season. So in the fall there were lots of, you know, Two foot long Oak Leafs and pumpkins made out of cardboard and paint and wonderful. It feels good to be thrifty in that. Because your acrylic paint doesn't cost very much for you know, one of those big tubes and all you need are the primary colors in black and white, and you can make pretty much everything. And then you just cut all those Amazon boxes up and swap them out. And the snowflakes are still up right now, but they're starting to get replaced with little springy things. like, you know, little green buds and it's just every now and then we'll just make a new one and then it gets added to our wall. So yeah. Mark: Yeah. We had a, a garland that we made of little, little wooden stars, which we interspersed with desiccated fins slices of lemon. That ended up looking like stained glass, you know, the way that they dry that way. And so we had alternating kind of lemon, suns and stars in this garland that was hanging on the piece of furniture that has now been supplanted by the new piece of furniture that we assembled. And that was, I think the last of the Yule decorations to come down. Everything else went up in a bin in the garage a little while ago. Yucca: You know, I think that you mentioned the furniture, the new furniture before we started recording. Mark: Oh, did I? Yucca: Yeah, I think that was right before we hit record. Mark: Well, my, what I was talking about there was that sense of satisfaction of, of working, you know, and assembling something and then having it be there. And I, I really command all of these sort of crafty and creative modes to people because there is a tremendous sense of. Of satisfaction and accomplishment when you've worked on something for a while and then it's done and it's there. I mean, I know that there are people that are basically religious about knitting. You know, that for whom it's something that is, is not just a pastime, but is, you know, something literally woven into their lives. So. And the same is true. Of course, about all the various artistic endeavors, people who are sculptors or painters or any of those things. Yeah, it's. I think that one of the things about being pagan is that because the archetype of the witch, right, is a crafty person the kind of person with, you know, herbs hanging in their kitchen and jars of dried herbs or panes of pressed dried herbs in frames, hanging on the walls of their house. You know, that all of that sort of crafty largely women's work is associated traditionally women's work is associated with the archetype of the witch. And I think that being a pagan gives us permission to explore a lot of these disciplines that most people don't. I know when I first got into beer brewing, itwwas because I wanted to replicate medieval style. Grew it Ailes from before the time that Cromwell took over England and mandated that all beer have hops in it. Yucca: I didn't know about that. Mark: Oh, yeah. The Puritans were appalled by beer generally because a lot of the beer that was made contained various kinds of hallucinogenic herbs. And so the Puritans decided, well, we're going to make, we're going to require all beer to have hops in it because hops are bitter and it makes you go to sleep. So. This the whole, the whole profile, the sort of psychological profile of what the experience of beer became changed radically. And now we're normalized to the idea that hops is a standard feature of beer, but it wasn't originally. Yucca: that's fascinating. Mark: There were, there were beers that were made out of things like sweet flag and bog myrtle and stuff like that that are definitely, you know, psychoactive kinds of plants, Yucca: And just want to say. Mark: bog myrtle. Yucca: So I'm sorry. I took you off track there. You were saying that you had gotten into the beer making as a way of exploring. Mark: Yes, as a way of exploring these old style beers and to see, you know, if I could make kind of ritual concoctions that would affect people psychologically and take them into a way that they could have a shared experience together. I didn't experiment with beer all that long, probably only a couple of years. And the reason in the end for that was that there is so much terrific beer available now, commercially just top notch, craft beer to be had, you know, from going to a store that I didn't see spending the 20 years to learn, to get that good. When I could just spend 10 bucks and have a six pack of something really delicious. So I switched to Mead. I switched to making honey wine of which the commercial stuff is generally terrible, Yucca: yeah. Mark: Because they they're kind of caught in this market vise where in order to make beer that's in order to make mead that is affordable enough, that it will sell at the price point that they can sell it at. They have to use really cheap, honey. And the cheap honey doesn't make very good mead. So if you want good meat, generally, you're getting it from someone who is home brewing it. And that I experimented with for many years and I made sparkling Meads with champagne, yeast and spiced Galanes and all that kind of stuff. Very, very delicious beverage. Yucca: Yeah, we do meads and more ciders than medns as well, but we'll do those The beer is intimidating to me because there's so much. But the other one that I do very regularly is kombucha and kombucha is so easy and saves you so much if you like kombucha because the, the ciders and the Meads, you have to wait a long time, your kombucha two weeks in the, or there. So it doesn't of course have the same effect as.your actually fully alcoholic drinks, but that's one that if, if people are interested in venturing into those realms, kombucha is a great starting place. Mark: Okay. Yucca: And really you don't need much more than buying one from a plain one from the store and, and getting some teabags and some sugar and you're off to go. It's that simple. Yeah. Mark: Nice for folks that don't want an alcoholic brew of some kind, but they want to experiment with these kinds of things. I should mention shrubs. Shrubs are vinegar based brews of various kinds. And so they're non-alcoholic, but they, they have a very complex flavor profile and you can make them with everything with pomegranate and thyme and you know, all the fruits, all the herbs and.they're, they're just, they're very interesting. I only learned about them a few years ago, but there's a whole kind of Renaissance of people making shrubs. Now I've seen them in restaurants and it's worth looking into. Yucca: when you say shrubs, you mean S H R U B S Mark: Yes. Just, just like a bush, but for some reason they're called shrubs and they're these drinks that are, that are based in in vinegar rather than an alcohol, you can do many of the same things as you do. You can make many of the recipes that go into cocktails using hard alcohol. Instead, you can use a diluted vinegar. And you'll get these complex and wonderful flavors without any of the alcoholic effects. So it's something that folks who don't drink often find a really interesting vein to explore. Yucca: Well, and the exploration of making vinegars. As well as your sauerkrauts, we love those. And for an even shorter period, we want to get into yogurt making. That's just your, that's your overnight, your other ones. You still have to wait several days or weeks for your other ones, but yogurt, you set that out overnight and it's ready for you in the morning. Mark: that's right. And it's, and it's yogurt. Absolutely. And people can do Keifer which is another fermented milk product. There are just all kinds of interesting things. Cheesemaking of course, which is an entire universe of exploration in and of itself. I know that one of the moderators of the atheopagan Facebook group, Rose, is a cheesemaker and she posts these pictures that have just the most delectable looking cheese. I'm really kind of a cheeseaphilic person. So Yucca: Yeah. Oh yeah. I've haven't, that's one of those dreams of one day. I want to get into the cheese-making I've never done much more than just your basic farmer's cheese. But, but one day I can imagine getting into the hard cheeses and Oh Mark: Wow. Yeah. I mean, it, it, a lot of it depends on how many steps you're willing to do. A simple clotted cream can be almost as easy as a, as a yogurt, Yucca: Okay, well, I've done those. I just didn't. Wasn't thinking of those as cheeses, but. Mark: Yeah. You know, the the sort of mascarpone cream she's sorts of things. They're very, very simple to do. But then when you get into cheddaring and you know, the age to dry cheeses and all that kind of stuff, or the other direction, the super buttery, triple crems and, and, you know, Bree kinds of things. And I could go on name-dropping cheese for a long time, but I'm going to stop now. Yucca: Yeah. So the kitchen, the kitchen is a wonderful place. And you know, the, there's a theme of a lot of the things, the foods that we've just been talking about are foods in which we are partnering with other life. And that is of course, nothing's universal with pagans, but one of the themes with many pagans that I see is a willingness to engage with the rest of the natural world. Mark: Yes, that's very true. And, and there is something, you know, I make little air quotes magical, right? About that engagement of those bacteria or those you know, or that yeast or whatever it is that causes that transformation into a new texture, a new flavor, a new. A new nature to what it is that you're putting together. So yes, it's, it's kind of natural that the kitchen become this magic place because there are all these transformations happening there all the time through the application of heat or through any of those other kinds of processes. You know the rest of the house has its, its ways of being amazing and magical itself, you know? There's this sort of stereotypical picture that I have in my mind of, you know, people sitting in chairs around a fire, just kind of working on their stuff, you know fiddling with whatever it is and talking. And that was one of the things that was wonderful about this ritual that we did yesterday Because we're on zoom. So it's more of a challenge to create that sense of connectedness, but there was this very warm glow while we, we took about 45 minutes to work on our craft projects. And then we did show a nd telln and then talked about what we were grateful for and then closed the circle. Right. And there was this just very sort of companionable feeling of everybody working on whatever their projects were in. They weren't all identical. We were working on our own things. There was lively conversation going on in the chat as well as talking verbally. And it, it, it felt like sitting around with a group of friends doing craft projects and I've missed that sort of thing a lot since the pandemic, it was really, really very special. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So what else, what else do we have? Yucca: Well, I mean, there's certainly more things to share of little ideas. But that, that sitting together thing I think is really special, whether you're doing it over zoom or in the home with your household, we, we do it over documentaries a lot. We put on documentaries in the evening. And that's fun cause they kind of go with the theme of the year. But we get to go through a lot of documentaries, cause there's a lot of nights of the year. And the kids are also getting old enough that they can start to listen to stories. We'll listen to little podcast stories and hang out and do and do things with our hands. That isn't just the screen. But one of the other ones that I wanted to share that we've been doing recently, and I think I actually sent you a photo of these. But we started, the, the kids are really interested in stars right now. So we've been doing constellations and we've been making clay figures of what the constellations are and then painting them on. So Taurus, we made a bull and you know, for Ursa major and minor, we made little bears and then painted the constellations. And we're working on orion right now, but Orion's limbs are kind of tricky. So we're going to have to figure out if he keeps falling apart. So we're going to have to figure out something else for that. But little things that, that we can do that are just little crafts that are, there's something nice about being able to accomplish something like you were talking about. And so something small that can be done, that's simple, but ties in with everything else going on in the world. Mark: Yes. Yes. And that, that then becomes another little touch point for your practice, right? It becomes another reminder that we're in a particular season and that has particular meanings to us, and nature's doing something very specific at this time. And we're, we're celebrating and connecting with that. So for our listeners, I, I guess, The two things that I'd like to say about this is first of all, don't trivialize your so-called hobbies. You know, they're not frivolous. They're not just, Oh, I'm, I'm a. I I'm, I'm just nuts because I'm so invested in doing this particular kind of craft. No, it's it adds to the happiness in your life. It adds to feelings of accomplishment and it's worthy work. So you know, that I think is, is something that. That people should really take heat of. And then the other thing is, if you don't feel like you have a lot of creative stuff going on, just try something, anything in the, in the case of. Of being sort of lost at that. Is there a particular kind of food that you really like figure out how to make that and preserve it figure out, you know, whether it's spaghetti sauce or Alfredo sauce or any of, you know just a ton of different kinds of things that you can do. And you can vary that by your diet. It's entirely possible to eat Alfredo sauce on top of spaghetti squash. You don't have to eat carbs if you don't want to. So Yucca: And if the critic shows up, listen to two episodes back. Where we talk about some strategies for dealing with that voice that shows up not just in ritual, but when we're trying to do things for ourselves that are creative, that are new. Mark: absolutely very good point. Very good point. Yeah, I, I, yes, go listen to that. That will help. I hope. So yeah. I don't think that it's a surprise that people have a pig in persuasion or perceived as being crafty or cunning, you know, clever with the hands. I, I think that there's all kinds of. Ordinary miracle making that happens every day, that these amazing transformations, I mean, when you think about it, it's sort of remarkable that when you put heat under water, it starts bubbling like mad after a while. That's kind of magical in a way. I mean, we understand why it happens. It's not mysterious, but it's still kind of magical. And that's just the very simplest kind of thing we can do. I know people that are really into tea, all kinds of herbal teas and, and actual black and green teas and aged teas and all that kind of stuff. And it's this whole world they can explore and all that's required is that you be able to heat water to a particular temperature. And to know what you like and what you don't like. So Yucca: And then, Oh, what a community you can encounter now that we have the worldwide web. Mark: yes, believe me, whatever it is that you're into. And that really goes a long way, various somebody on the internet that is also doing the same thing and probably wants to talk with you about it . So Yeah. So, so figure out what your particular, what your particular cunning is your particular set of crafts? It always seems a little sad to me when I hear from people. "Well, I'm just not creative" because honestly, I, I don't buy it. I think everybody's creative. I think it's baked into the human organism and if we're. If we're not being creative, I think it's mostly that we're not letting ourselves be creative. Yucca: And it also might just be a little bit of a, a perspectives switch. Like you started this by talking about the computer side of things, the writing and presentations. That's creative. We've talked a lot before on the podcast before about gaming, right. Are you really into D&D are you In the kitchen? Are you creating crafts? Are you gardening? Are you all of these things that we might not always think of as being crafts or creative? They really are. Mark: Yes. Yeah, indeed. They really are. And and part of the point is to celebrate that, not just to let it be. Oh yeah. Well, I went out and I fixed my car today, but. Yeah, there was a problem and I tracked it down. I figured out what it was. I went, I got the part, I removed the old part, which came out in pieces. I installed the new part, cleaned everything out, wiped it down. It started it up and everything is fine. That's, that's a good feeling. And there's every reason why you should allow it to be a good feeling. We believe in good feelings were, were for them. Yucca: Yup. Well, please continue. Mark: Well, I was going to say I think that's about all that I have to say on this topic right now. Just having the conversation inspires me to want to look into some things that I used to do and haven't done for a while and, you know, maybe. Maybe play around a little bit with some new things that I haven't done before. So especially at this time of year, when the lights are starting to come back on a little bit and we can plan for the future. It's a, it's a time to take on the idea of maybe learning something new, trying something new this year. Yucca: Exactly. Well, thank you, Mark. This was a great conversation. Mark: Thank you, Yucca. I really enjoyed it as always. We'll see you next week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E06 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca. Mark: And I'm Mark. Yucca: And this week we are talking about manifestation, about creating your own reality and luck. Mark: right. So a lot of big topics all rolled into one discussion. Yes, Yes, because if there is any one thing that it can be said that humans all over the world seek to accomplish through magical or ritual practices, the cultivation of luck is probably number one, whether it's luck in love or luck with money or luck with health, those are the big three. But. Luck in politics, luck in, aspirations to better jobs or just so many things. Yes to win lotteries all that kind of thing. And so we'll be talking about our understanding of what luck is, and also talking about the whole concept of manifestation and creating and this idea that we can create our own reality. So let's get started. Yucca: So to start with this idea of the being able to manifest or create our own reality is one that is very popular in the pagan community and adjacent communities, as well as in many other modern religions. It's a very strong idea in many types of Christianity, for instance, where it might manifest more as praying rather than whatever your ritual practice or magic practices. Of course, another topic to get into is that magic? It's just depends on what you call it, but but there's a lot of layers to this in terms of what we have direct influence over and what we don't. Mark: Right, and we should say at the outset that this desire is a very natural human desire. We live in a world that has all these different factors and there's. It could seem like a lot of chaos going on around us all the time, because the world is constantly evolving with new emergent phenomenon happening all the time, including in our lives, new people come along, new situations come along. Some of them good for us, some of them not so good for us. So the desire to have some control over that, it's very natural. It. It completely makes sense that humans tend to want that that level of control. And that certainly has driven much of the development of Western occultism among, other systems of magical effort. And there's so there's no doubt that this has been a great focus for for many of the people going back many centuries who have tried to influence reality through ritual and religious practices. Yucca: And it's a really tricky area because there are some places where there's very strong evidence that we do have influence. For instance, in medical studies, there's a very strong correlation between the patient's general outlook and belief about the outcome and the actual outcome. This is very well-documented. Mark: Now it's not. Documented that the belief or practice or prayer or whatever of anyone else has any impact on the health of the patient that's been tested pretty thoroughly. And there really is not good evidence to suggest that. Yucca: Yeah. Now I'm aware of a study in which the patient had someone praying or practicing over them and that improved the outcome. But I don't know of any in which they did not know whether it was happening, whether it was blind, if they were unaware of the person praying or practicing for them. But once in which it's someone else was doing it over them, there was definitely an improvement Mark: Sure. And this goes to the power of laying on of hands and practices like acupuncture and Reiki and things like that, which probably mostly in terms of their effectiveness have to do with the giving of attention. To the patient and the and the physical contact, the beneficial nature of physical contact that we as mammals experience we're very social creatures and this is why we like to pet cats and dogs. Yucca: well, and the belief that it will do it right. The placebo and the playfully named nocebo are really very well-documented. So the belief that it will do it, if you believe that pill you're taking is going to harm you or whatever that food item is, if you truly believe it's going to harm you, then it's very likely that there will be actual harmful effects whether or not that substance itself would be harmful to the general population. This is to say that there's definitely is evidence for our own bodies being influenced by our minds. Mark: Yes. Yucca: There's also a strong belief and much of the pagan community that our beliefs can influence reality in a more fundamental way. And in a very, in that the secret kind of way, where if you believe or want something hard enough, then it's going to happen. And that Mark: is problematic in our view, not only because there isn't any really tangible evidence that it's true. But also because Yucca: It becomes very victim blaming. Mark: Yes also because it, it tends to state that people that have bad things happen to them somehow deserved it or asked for it. Yucca: It badly enough to not happen. Mark: The idea that you're poor because not because you were born into poverty, but because you didn't want not to be poor badly enough. And no this level of magical thinking is so deeply sewn into our society, not just these alternative religious communities, but it. The American attitude towards poverty in many ways is rooted in exactly this idea that somehow you can magically pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make something different for yourself, starting with no resources. It's demonstrably false, but millions of people in this country believe it. Yucca: And that particular one ties in to the luck aspect of this, where a lot of folks who are wealthy have had incredibly lucky things in their life, they were born in a time period that wealth existed. And on the level that it does. The country, that they were born in the particular sex, that they are, the family that they were born into, all of these things that they didn't get hit by the train or something like that. And it's very easy for us to not notice the lucky things, but notice the hard work that we did. So it's very easy to go: I worked really hard in school and I got my perfect grades. And so I got my scholarship and was able to, so I pulled myself up by the bootstraps. But, and it's very natural to notice the things that we did and not necessarily notice the things that other people did or just the circumstances that allowed for that. And I think it's easy to then think, Oh I believed in myself and I worked hard and therefore it worked out. So why doesn't that person do the same thing? They're poor because they don't believe hard enough or, my grandpa, he was poor. He didn't have a penny when he got off the boat. But not taking into account the reality for other people. Mark: And one of the things that people tend not to acknowledge in the course of this context is that in the past 50 years, things have changed in American society dramatically in the economy, the opportunities for people to move up in terms of their income and their standard of living have collapsed while tremendous volumes of wealth have flowed to the people who are already very wealthy. Yucca: And mobility only really existed for a small group of people anyways. Mark: That's true. Yucca: for most of modern American in history. That mobility was possible if you were a white man and not for everyone else. Mark: Yeah. And there was a short period of time when that started to open out into other groups a little bit, but then. Shortly thereafter came, trickle down economics, and that was the end of it. With a great deal of the messaging going along with that being about blaming the poor for their condition. So this idea of creating your own reality in terms of making lucky things happen for yourself. That's not real. In the same way that you don't see psychics collecting on lotteries pots all the time. It's just not real. That said, what we do have control over is ourselves. We have control over our way of viewing the circumstances that we're in and the situations that confront us and. There are more empowering ways to do that and less empowering ways to do that. And before we go further, we should definitely talk about toxic positivity. Because we're not saying, Oh, just put on a happy face and be positive about everything. Oh, it was great news that I got cancer because it brought me closer to my family and yada, yada maybe it still, wasn't such great news that you got cancer, toxic positivity is a real thing. And it can be used to shut people down who have experiences that they're suffering under. And it can be used in abusive ways in relationships and in families. And it's really not a great thing. Yucca: I see it towards children just constantly. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. What do you have to cry about? Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. Or their children in name, whatever the country is at the time. Yeah. Why aren't you happy? You should be happy. Look at all these things that I'm doing for you. And . Don't cry. Don't cry. Be happy. There's all of these different directions and levels to it. And the toxic part of that is the not acknowledging what's really happening. Things are not always positive. They arent. And it's not fair to say that they aren't, it's not fair to force to just because somebody else might have it worse. There's always going to be someone who has it worse. But that shouldn't be something to shut down somebody else's experience. Not to say that there can't be value in providing perspective, but as long as it's not shutting them down and oppressing them and in the process or yourself. Mark: And the key thing to keep in mind in all this is that our perspectives can be mixed. We can have real regret or anger or unhappiness about something that's happening in our life. And at the same time, have a great deal of happiness and enthusiasm joy about. The things that are happening in our life at the same time Yucca: They're both true. Mark: Authenticity is the key here. It's engaging with the world as it really is. And with the entirety of your feelings acknowledged and embraced now that said. Some of us learn simply to look at the glass as half empty. And we learn very disempowering messages that make it hard for us to achieve or to grow or to have our lives improve. And. We talked in a previous episode about the critic voice. And one of the things that the critic voice will often say is you can't do that. It'll never work. So don't try. And that is a very disempowering element of our own psychology finding ways to avoid that so that we can. Take a chance on something working try something new that we haven't tried before is a really important aspect of being mentally healthy. So as we talk about this idea of luck and manifestation, one thing that we are able to do, we aren't able to do our magical hookah Boga, and then have and then magically get a phone call that's offering us the dream job or or when a lot of you know, win a lottery ticket or something like that. But what we can do is we can calibrate our own way of looking at our life in a way that says empowering as possible. And that's not to say as positive as possible. It's as empowering as possible, which acknowledges all the feelings, not just the positive ones or just the negative ones. Yucca: That's a really important distinction. Mark: So what are some things that we can do that will help us to have an orientation to the world that might feel a little more lucky? It doesn't mean it is more lucky because luck is just the degree to which the probabilities are not playing out exactly in the short term. If something unlikely happens to you that you like then that's good luck. And if something unlikely happens to you that you don't that's bad luck, but in both cases, it's just something unlikely happening and unlikely things happen. Millions, billions of times every day. Yucca: That's our very existence. Mark: Yes. What were the odds that, that these people were going to meet and their genetics would combine in just this particular way. And then they would raise you in a particular context so that you would become you, the odds are astronomical, but Yucca: and then just follow that back for every single generation that has been, yeah. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: just mind boggling to even go there. Mark: it is Yucca: think about that. Mark: So So the idea of trying to cultivate luck is one that as science-based pagans, we don't really know brace that, trying to make things more likely or less likely through a ritual practice that works on us as the ritual practitioners. But it really doesn't work beyond that. Yucca: But what we could do. Might not be able to make yourself more lucky, but you may be able to change your behavior in a way that you behave more kindly towards someone. And that improves the way that they think and feel about you. And in turn the way that they treat you. Mark: Yes, our behavior. Really keys a lot of the interaction that we have with the rest of the world. And so if we are rude or mean, or condescending or any of those other kind of negative character traits, then you know, people are not going to be positively impacted by that. And they're not going to want to spend any interaction, energy on us. Yucca: Or worse they will, but not the kind we want. Mark: yes, exactly. Even worse. So that can make it harder to get jobs. It can make it harder to advance What you want to do into the surrounding culture. If you have a great idea and you really want to build some community around it, but nobody wants to spend any time around you, then you've really got a challenge ahead of you. This brings a conversation back to one of the fundamental principles of science-based paganism, which is that we can affect ourselves. We can affect ourselves and it is, it's not trivial. It's not extraneous. It is core to being able to have a generally happy and effective life, which is what I think of as the goal of living. We get to take this ride. We only get to take it once. And we should cultivate as much joy and as much improvement to the world around us as we possibly can. Yucca: Yeah that's a shared sentiment. So we can improve our luck by changing the way in which we are interacting, but we could also change the way that we are responding and what our takeaway and how we frame what is happening to us. Mark: Oh, I see where you're going there. Yes. Yes. When I was living with when I've had deep depressive episodes. The, my memories of those times, literally, there's this sort of gray, dim filter over every image that I can remember, like a literal darkness over my eyes. And what I do when I'm in that condition is I look for reasons to be unhappy. And I ignore reasons to be happy. I just felt my filter is set to negative and all that I let in is all the bad stuff. And that then confirms my depressive brain for being depressed. And then it makes generalized world pronouncements about the nature of reality and humans and society and life and all that kind of stuff that are all negative. And it leads me to lying in bed and not doing anything. The. So I have a really deep personal experience of how that kind of filter can profoundly impact not only mood, but also just your ability to function. Because if there's no point in anything and it's all doomed and it's all hopeless and it's all pointless and it's stupid even to try then you don't do anything. And you become more and more socially isolated and more and more unhappy. So being able to open those filters so that you can look for reasons to be happy as well. It gives you a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of your life. And that is a sense in which we do create our own reality. Yucca: Because we do create, we do choose what we are focusing on. And it's got that, it's that positive feedback loop that you're talking about, not positive in terms of positive. Like it's a good thing, but positive and it's reinforcing. So the more of those negative things that you are noticing, the worse you feel, the more negative things you're noticing and so on, but it works the other direction as well. And those are patterns. These are things that we have learned. Truly learned in terms of as how we are wired to look at the world. And it's a practice to shift that it's not like you just say one day, Oh, I'm going to snap my fingers. And I'm going to look at the positive side of things, right? It's you have to relearn those patterns, but in the process of relearning, then you are shaping your reality in that way. Mark: Yes. And it is indeed a learned practice. I had no examples in my family growing up of anyone actually going out of their way to appreciate. Anything flowers, sunsets, anything. They just didn't do that. They were miserable people and they conducted themselves the way miserable people do. And it wasn't until I was in a relationship in my mid twenties with a woman who really went out of her way. Wow. Look at that color. Hey look, the crocuses are coming up. All those. All those little moments that add to our lives and help us to feel that there is that there's reason for happiness, that there's reason for being glad to be alive. And it took me a long time, but I feel like I've gotten pretty good now at, looking around for the reasons to be happy and embracing them. Yucca: And then when you do that more pleasant person to be around Mark: Yes. Yucca: People smile at you more often, and then you feel better in general. And so there is some truth to this idea that we create our reality, but it's often taken in a, I think in a too literal way that twists the meaning to a point that is a falsehood. Mark: Yes. Yes. And certainly new age theories, like the secret and prosperity gospel Christian sects and all of these various kinds of what I think of as rackets that hook people in, by telling them that they are going to have everything that they desire just by wanting it really badly in the form of prayer or in the form of intention setting or affirmation. There are lots of these different sorts of behaviors that are supposed to gin up your level of luck. Yucca: You're just doing it wrong or you just don't want it enough, Mark: it's your fault. And that is so pernicious. It's just a terrible thing. Those kinds of exaggerated claims tend to drown out the more realistic claims about how we can influence our experience of our lives through changing our judgments, through changing our filters of what we pay attention to and through just becoming wiser just becoming more, more accepting of that reality is as it is, and we now, must contend with it, whatever that is. And that at some deep level that's okay. That it's the nature of the ride on planet earth. Yucca: And that it's not drastic or sexy or exciting because it's a process. It's not this thing that you suddenly decide and you say the right chants, or you say the right, whatever that it's built on habits. And skills that are developed and continual process. And it's something that gets reinforced because we learn new behaviors. We never stop learning and changing. We continue to change over time. Mark: And the reason it's called a practice is because that's what you have to do. You have to do it again and again, and it becomes easier. And then after awhile it becomes automatic. And when you've gotten to the point where it's automatic then you're in good shape. Because the stuff that is beneficial to your psychological health is now. Folded into your normative behavior patterns? Yucca: And that's not to say that bad things are going to happen. Mark: Nope. Yucca: still, Hey, you might get a global pandemic. That no matter how happy or balanced or whatever you were that doesn't stop the rest of what's happening. But what it does do is influence your resilience and your ability to respond and to be able to then think and feel clearly in those situations. Mark: Yeah, it gives you a leg up when something bad happens to you, because you can understand that in context and instead of going, why me, or what did I do to cause this, instead, you just look at the situation and realize, okay, this is really a challenge for me. And, in a methodical sort of way how do I adapt to it? How do I approach this? What would be helpful? What would be less helpful? It just gives you a much more grounded and nuanced way of navigating the events that happen to us in life. Yucca: Exactly. So why don't we get into some actual practices? People could try some strategies to maybe try out for the first time or build on what they're already doing, or just as food for thought. Mark: Okay. Okay. I think various kinds of journaling practices are very helpful for this sort of thing. Listing a listing, the good things that are in your life, listing the things that you're grateful for listing the things that you find really challenging and understanding that that both of those lists are true that all of it is true at the same time. But particularly if you're really beset by a negative filter, it's very effective and it will set your critic voice off to chattering, but you can push through that. And writing down, all the things that you have to be grateful for is a great way to start the process of opening that filter up a little. Yucca: Yeah, and that could be something that's done in ritual. That could be something built into your daily practice. And both are both a really very powerful in their own rights. I've shared before on this podcast, the practice that I have with my young children of going outside first thing in the morning and greeting the sun and saying hello, and just sing some things that we're grateful for. And. With the little children, sometimes it's adorably cute. This morning it was the color red. Mark: Okay. Yucca: That's a great thing. Wonderful thing to be grateful for. It's a great color. Yeah. But just the thinking for looking for things to be grateful for, Mark: Yes. Yucca: just that act and as adults for, most adults in North America coffee is a normal part of the morning routine. That's a great place to add in things in that you want to get done in the day. And to just from the very start, just start the day you start the day with coffee and thinking about those things that you're grateful for or trying to do a little bit of a perspective change there. Mark: Uhhuh. Yeah, I love that ritual that you do with your kids. That's fantastic. But I think that the main point is just start to be aware of how you're, where are you focusing your attention and the kinds of judgments that you make about the events in your life, how they color your emotional expense? Just starting to notice, because being self-aware is really core to these pagan paths. In my opinion, I think that, coming to know yourself is a core piece of being able to work with yourself in ways that help you to be happier and more effective. Yucca: We're going to come back to it again soon. But we're saying about a year ago at this point, we did an episode on ritual and there's a lot of ideas in there for any, anything that you're working on in ritual, but bringing some of those creative ideas into your life to bring some of that perspective change. Now we've been talking in a sort of a general way in terms of a change of our outlook on our experience, what we're aware of, what we're present with, but there's also specific behavior patterns and events that we can focus in on. It doesn't have to just be general. We could focus in on particular conflicts or challenges we might be having with individuals or after doing that noticing you might notice that there's a place that there's something that really triggers you. And then you can go back with ritual and with thought and planning to address, okay, how do I address that particular issue? Mark: Yes. Yucca: And. Sometimes the ritual aspect can be really powerful, but I also want to suggest that there are, that there's the physical reality environmental side as well. Sometimes there are environmental inputs that we have that shifting those can just make a huge difference. Are you overwhelmed because it's a really loud environment? So you'd need to step out of that loud environment. Are you angry, right? Are you hangry during these environments? What are some physical things that you can do that may not be necessarily ritual, but just practical things that you can notice in your life that can make a difference. Mark: Yes. Yes. As we've mentioned so many times on this podcast, we're monists in that we believe that the body and the mind are the same thing and caring for your physical self has a profound effect on your mood and on your perspective. And that always needs to be kept in mind. As always we welcome comments on this. Would imagine that there are a number of people that would be pretty unhappy with our characterization of manifestation magic and the secret and so forth. But we're happy to hear from you at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. We're always glad to hear from listeners and welcome your suggestions for future podcasts. Yucca: Thank you everyone. And thank you, Mark. Mark: Thank you, Yucca. It's always a pleasure to talk with you.

Listen in to Huia and Mark: dear friends who share a profound connection and rare emotional intelligence. The respect that underlies their relationship showcases a unique friendship that isn’t without its challenges, but these two display an impressive forthrightness that you can hear has served them both well. Huia serves as a living example for all of Mark’s greatest aspirations and they drive each other to continue growing while focusing on the need to prioritize “what truly matters” when it comes to their time together. If you’re looking for a new, humble perspective on friendship, their conversation illuminates a beautiful connection that warms and welcomes you. FROM THE EPISODE: HUIA: How am I most like you and how does that scare you?  MARK: It’s very simple. You are indefatigably honest. You reek of integrity and that scares me, because that's a holy grail for me. I talk about masks. I cannot abide people who hide constantly and spend a lot of time hiding…and the lack of integrity that often accompanies that. So with that comes—talk about us not needing to talk a lot—there is an innate trust. And that trust comes from that place within you. Why do you think I'm in your life? HUIA: I think this wasn't the first lifetime, so I think this is a lifetime I’ve often met in my lifetime. It's the lifetime of common soul intention. And I feel like there's all these souls that I've had experiences with in other lifetimes. And we've come together with a certain intention to *shift*. We're transitioning paradigms, social consciousness paradigms, and I think that's why we're in this life together. It's to share that innate common knowledge. So that sense that we don't have to talk much, but somehow we know something about each other without having to communicate. So it's just an incredible blessing for me to have you in my life, because I can certainly listen to your bullsh*t and have a cup of tea and coffee and cake. But the subtext is always we know that we're here to do something really important. So it's precious. MARK: Thank you. HUIA: If this were to be our last conversation in this life, what would you want me to never forget?  MARK: You are enough. You’re more than enough. You know no doubt I'm starting to attend increasing numbers of funerals. And I think that it’s important that we share with each other what really matters because you never quite know what might happen.  HUIA: Yeah, you are enough.  MARK: So are you.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E04 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca. Mark: I'm Mark. Yucca: And this week we are already talking about this February holiday Imbolc or Candlemas River Rain. Is that right? Mark: Yes. Yucca: Or for us Second Winter, Nos Gwyl Fair. It's got a lot of names. Mark: Yes exactly. It seems that the cross quarters always accumulate this big pile of names, whereas the solstices and equinoxes just usually have one or maybe two. But this is this is a pretty important holiday for many pagans. And so we'll be talking about what it means and what kinds of ritual practices we have associated with it and what our metaphorical associations are with it. And this marks, the last of the solar holidays that we are doing a podcast about For the first time, this is the eighth. We started at the Spring Equinox last year. And so we've come all the way around the Wheel of the Year to the February Sabbath. So that's pretty exciting. And thank you for taking this journey with us. We really appreciate our listeners and we're glad you're here with us. Thank you. Yucca: Yeah, thank you. And. the emails that we asked for some last time and got several responses from all of you. And that always is just incredible and wonderful. And we really appreciate that. Mark: Yes. Yes. And your ideas are really helpful to us. So keep them coming. Yucca: Yep. So we've got several that we've been able to put onto the list for that. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So let's start. What's going on in your climate? Mark. Mark: In my climate, what I have, I've usually named this holiday River Rain, which is the festival of water. And the reason for that is, is that it is usually raining torrentially at this time of year . January and February are the wettest months of the year. And all of the Hills have turned green. Occasionally we'll get a cold Arctic storm and there'll be a little dust of snow on the tops of the mountains. But it's generally about rain, everything greens up and the creeks are all fendering then there's just that sort of inward cozy staying in at home kind of feeling, but not the same as at Yule because. It's evident now that the light has returned quite a bit, the days are definitely longer. The the sunrise is definitely earlier. So. It's a time to notice, Hey, the years getting on. And even though it may be a little early for say, planting a garden or something like that, because we're still likely to have freezes it's a time for planning and getting your tools together and learning whatever skills are necessary to approach the work of the coming year. How about yours? What's happening in your environment? Yucca: For us, this is the coldest time of the year. I am in a desert, but we're a high desert right at 7,000 feet. And so we get real extremes at every night is freezing. And most of the days will come up above freezing, but it's still pretty bitter and we're moving towards the wind. There specially in the next couple of months, there'll be a lot of wind that we'll get that really accentuates that feeling of coldness and bitter. is Second Winter for us. It's not spring. Spring is not in the air. There's nothing springy about it, except that change in the light. So there's a beautiful quietness. There's a sense of waiting a little bit what you're talking about with the planning. It's still winter. We've moved away. It's not Yule anymore. But. But there's still a restfulness this time of year. And I think in some ways, this is perhaps the only restful time of the year for what's happening in my climate. All the other times, there's always this growth happening in the rains coming and the harvest and the planning and all of this stuff. But now it's just quiet and cold and waiting. And actually it's probably not picking up on the mic, but it just started to hail here. It was snow a moment ago. We'll get hail all the way until June actually, but not much will stick we'll get a little bit. And then, because we only get about 12 inches of precipitation total throughout the whole year. So, so I hear the night, the wind and the hail coming down and it's chilly it and cozy. So, yeah, Mark: Nice. Yeah, it's like, this is actually the coldest time of year for us too, in that it, we do get some freezes at night occasionally but what that means, I mean, the days are still. I mean even the cold days are in the high forties. And the warm days. I mean, especially now with climate change, we just had a week ago we had a day in the seventies. It was ridiculous. And of course people love the warm weather, but at the same time, it just feels really creepy. It's just so wrong for this time of year, but finally this week we're getting some good rain. I don't know if I mentioned this. We're supposed to get about nine inches this week. Yucca: Good amount. Mark: It's yeah it's a good amount. Yeah, rain and so Everything is greening up. All of the fresh green grass is springing up and the bare dirt. So the Hills are all turning green from the gold that they were with the brown grasses. It's still not quite time for wild flowers which this is where I actually see real spring starting. I consider this to be the beginning of the spring season. But it's usually a few weeks into it that we started having the wild flowers come up, which is when I start looking towards the Spring Equinox. And I don't know whether you know this, but California, when it was first encountered by white settlers, was this dazzling display of wild flowers before the European grasses were introduced. And what was here were bunchgrasses rather than carpet, grasses and. Yucca: Than your sod formers. Mark: Yes. And a tremendous volume of different kinds of wild flowers. So there are tons and tons of native wild flowers here, and there are still places where you can go that are carpeted in California, poppies or paintbrush, or, other plants like that. So it can be a very beautiful time of year as you get into March and April. So. We've talked about this before. Besides the metaphors and symbol systems that I associate with the Sabbaths that have to do with the climate and the agricultural cycle. I mean, traditionally, this holiday is the holiday of getting your tools together, sharpening your agricultural tools and figuring out, how your garden's going to get planted this year and laying in seeds and all that kind of stuff. But beside that, I also map the Wheel of the Year on to the cycle of a human life. And so this sabbath. I associate with infancy, kind of the infant toddler sort of range of human life. And because this is the time when you're accumulating lots of knowledge and skills that you're going to then use later on in the cycle. Just as babies do with this incredible, information flood and figuring out how to use their bodies and just how to navigate this world. So that's really interesting too. I mean, I know that a lot of pagans associate this holiday with the Irish goddess Brigid. And they, there's a tradition where you make a little baby Bridget and put it in a cradle as a part of your ritual for the year. And I do something very similar. Although what I call the little corn Dolly that I make rain baby and the rain baby is a witness. To all of the Sabbaths going forward from this time until we get to Hallows or Samhain. And when the rain baby is burned in the Samhain fire to call the rain back. And then the cycle begins again at at River Rain or the February Sabbath. Right. So that's, those are the sorts of things that I associate with this holiday. There was someone in the Ethiopian Facebook group who termed this holiday Brightening. And I really like that term because it's so much more universal. I mean, anybody in the Northern hemisphere is going to experience that the days have gotten longer since the winter solstice. So I may start using that more, but for my own local regional celebrations, it's still all about the water for me. How about you? What do you associate in, how do you celebrate. Yucca: Another name that you'll often hear is Imbolc, which. I don't speak Irish, so I'm probably not pronouncing it correctly, but that's how I hear a lot of the other folks with pan American-ish accents pronouncing it. And that I believe comes from the lambs milk. This is the milk of the sheep. But for us, there is a parallel there because we celebrate along with what is happening seasonally in our land. So this is Second Winter for us, but we also look at each season at some part of the larger ecosystem that really influences our life. There are some of the holidays in which we celebrate the main terrestrial biomes, like Yule we look at the forests, specifically, the pine forests and those evergreens and on other side of the year, we've got the grasslands that we're celebrating. This is for us, the time of a celebration of our hooved companions. So of our bovine and caprine companions, who we rely on so deeply. For so many things, not just us as a family, because as a family we have a bovine based diet. But also as as the connected back to the grass biomes, they're such an important role. Whichever, whatever part of the world, whether you're looking at your Buffalo or any sort of wherever you are that those large grazers have such an important role. And this is a time when we're really honoring that role, but also honoring that they are, that there's, that, that exchange that we get. The milk and dairy and everyone in my family were all lactose and casein tolerant. So that's a thing that we consume a lot of it and enjoy, and the meat and the furs and all of those products. And so this is a time of honoring that. This is a time of year to just these past weeks where we order our animals for the year. They won't be ready until later, but thinking about that relationship and that tie that we have on this very on a symbolic level, but also on that just really down to earth exchange of body. So that's a big focus for us. Mark: Sure. Sure. And that falls again into that theme of planning for the future, of looking forward to what the need is going to be and anticipating that need and then planning for it so that it will be met at the time that you encounter it. Yucca: And a lot of ways, this is the pre-dawn. Hours. It's still night. kinda, it's almost morning. I mean, it's the, we call it the am, but I'm someone who gets up before dawn and has a few moments before the Sun gets up and that quiet period that planning and this time of year feels like that. And it also is similar because that's the coldest time of the day. And for us, this is the coldest time of the year as well. Mark: Sure. Sure. So the Equinox then would be dawn. Yucca: Yes, I think so. That would be dawn, but still it's not time for annuals to get going yet. Annuals do not come until after may day for us. Our last frost is the average is the 15th. Annual season is short and get at it. Mark: I I did a backpacking trip in grand Tetons once way high elevation. And obviously much wetter than where you are, but you know, very high elevation. And I was there in August and it was spring. There were wild flowers everywhere. It was just spectacular. But it was very clearly a place that had been slowed way down by cold temperatures and high elevation. So, and, there were still many patches of snow on the ground and so forth, so a wonderful trip. And it reminded me that the window for wind spring is very short for some places. Yucca: My my brother is a Yellowstone ranger and the last few years we've gone back and forth about, he's got this little postage stamp of a yard to work with and he wants to grow things, but not only does everybody eat it, but there's just no time. I mean their season has even, especially cause they're in between those mountains. So. Mark: Right, right. Yucca: so much shadow the folks farther North at, in higher elevations. There's just so little time. Mark: Yes. Yeah. He might be able to do root .Vegetables. Yucca: that has been radishes pretty much been all. That's been working out Mark: maybe potatoes. Yucca: potato maybe. Yeah. I mean, potatoes take, it depends on your kind take awhile, but the radishes I think have worked out too, because fewer animals eat them because they've got the space to them. But yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So petty ways. Mark: Yeah. So one of the things that I associate with this time is the ring of a sledge hammer on an anvil. I've done back when I was, still not believing, but basically circling with people in a kind of wicked esque sort of way. This festival was the festival of Bridget. And she is also the goddess of the hearth. She's got us have a lot of stuff. She's got us a fire and the forge and poetry craft childbirth. It's yeah, it's pretty, all inclusive actually. Yucca: I suspect that there were more figures that got folded in. Mark: Probably so, but I have a little anvil maybe eight inches long. But it's in the shape. It's in the traditional shape of an anvil and a small, like two pound sledgehammer. And we've done wonderful rituals where we've hammered out like hammered chains together. We had chains with an open link and we've hammered those together in order to seal the magic in right. Of what we were doing. One year we threaded colored ribbons through the the chains to symbolize the different things that we were planning for the coming year. And we did that all together so that everybody was connected by the ribbons. And then we cut them. So everybody could take their own little loop of chain with ribbons home. And I still have a couple of those. There's something very potent about that ringing sound and that, that action of the hammer on the forage. And so I like to do something at this time of year that involves that. I talked about making a corn Dolly for the rain baby this year, and I think I'm going to try to make her a little miniature key for her belt on the anvil, which is the key to the future. So that's what I'm planning on doing with that particular piece? I just, I like the way that it echoes back to sharpening sides and hammering out agricultural tools and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's there's something very visceral about it about, that, that work with the hammer and the anvil. I highly recommended if, I mean, you can get one of these little anvils for quite cheap, actually like Harbor freight hardware or something like that. They come from China and they're not very good, but but they worked for ritual purposes and actually my partner Nemea was taking an art class for a while and did some jewelry-making and the the instructor got all excited about our anvil and polished up parts of it to make it work properly and all this kind of stuff. So it is a functional tool. So the other piece that I'm thinking about in terms of Brightening is, and of course this is a complete accident, but it just happens to be true that we. have a new administration now in the United States. And it is not made up of petulant tantrum, throwing resentful children. It is made up of adults who appear to have the public interest in mind and to have competencies in the jobs that they are being appointed to. And that's a huge change. And of course it's less than a week old. And I know that there are things that are really going to make me angry over the course of the next four years. But Yucca: and that we can't get lazy. We've got to keep on them. Mark: yes. Yucca: you. Yeah. Mark: Yes. If there are things that you want to see, I mean, at least we know that there are open ears now to hear. That are willing to be convinced that something is in the public interest. If we can make that argument effectively and who are willing to do things that are in the public interest. So. I have felt a tremendous lightening over the course of the last week. I did not realize what appal the past administration had really cast over me every day, looking in the paper, I would flinch. Over, ho what are they doing now? And I'm not having that experience now. And it makes a huge difference. So that's another form of Brightening that's happening in certainly in my life. And I think in the life of many others right now, Yucca: I've certainly been experiencing that. It's similar to, if you've been next to a really loud noise for a long time and you've tuned out their consciousness, you're not consciously aware that it's there, but when the noise goes away, like there was that truck that was sitting next to you next to your house for hours. And there were the fumes coming out and the rumble of it, and then it drives away and it's quiet all of a sudden. And your shoulders drop about two or three Mark: inches. Right, right. This whole stress thing, just flushes out of your body. Yucca: Yeah. So definitely share that. And it's a big relief. It's. Mark: it is. And I mean, it's not like we had four years to spare in working on issues like climate change, we, we needed every instant that we can possibly work on it. But rejoining the Paris climate accord, and re-engaging with the international community around this issue and making it one of the top four priorities in the administration is it's just such a shift and it's. .. Know that what we're going to get are going to be half measures because that's what our system is designed to deliver are half measures. But even those half measures I think could be profound. Yucca: That's the part that, that I found myself getting teary the other day, looking at it and going this isn't. Yeah, everything that's in here is an everything I wanted, but my goodness, somebody is doing something Mark: Yes. Yucca: it's something's happening. Mark: And science has returned to its rightful place as the authoritative voice for how to direct our policies. Yucca: Yeah. I liked that. That was the symbolic reason behind putting Franklin of painting of Franklin up in the oval office. Mark: Yes, exactly. So Yucca: I found it very interesting. What was picked for the symbols of what was, what's going to be in the backdrop of all of those press releases and shoots and all of that. Mark: right. Yup. And he got rid of Andrew Jackson and Winston Churchill and that's all fine by me. Yucca: So yeah there's a lot of real interesting parallels right now between the season that we're in on the Wheel of the Year and some of what's happening in the world around us Mark: Yes. Yucca: that, not just around us, that we are a part of. Mark: this time of year. I've always found this time of year to be a very hopeful time. It's like, if Yule is the time when you dream of the new. Then River Rain or Brightening is the time when you plan for it and hope for it. And then you start to implement it after it warms up enough that's practical and you can start to work your way around the cycle. And Yucca: Seed catalogs are going out. Mark: the, certainly our seeds are selling out left and right. Yucca: are. Yeah. Mark: My my organization that I work for is going to do a plant sale in April. And so we have volunteers who are going to be growing starts for us, and we had to rush to get our seed orders in for those plants. Because so many things are just being sold out. So many people who are stuck at home now are gardening, who weren't gardening before. It's actually noticeable in the market for seeds. Yucca: And just a quick note for folks in most places you can buy your seeds with EBT. Mark: That's right. Yucca: they're set up to do it, you can get your seeds that way. Which makes sense, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: that's to help you with food and that's what seeds are for. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, you can't buy seeds for like Dahlia's, but but for food crops, he certainly can. And And it's actually a super efficient way to generate food for yourself. Yucca: And is efficient. So cost-effective efficient and gets you a little bit, probably healthier in most cases and gives you a little bit of that connection with the rest of nature, which is something that in our modern lifestyles, we often struggle with having that connection. Mark: Just getting your hands into the dirt and breathing those microbes, getting that feeling of wellbeing that comes from engaging with soil in that way. All of that I think is super beneficial. Yucca: I have several large flower pots when I say large, they're like, Two foot flower pots that we brought in to the, we brought our other house plants into the kitchen for the fall, but I just brought some that were just soil so that the kids can actually get their hands down in and dig around. And the day they were showing me that they had found the little roly polies. Pill bugs are so bugs and that they're just a little itty-bitty and getting their hands in there and smelling that. And, that's a trick by the way of something that if you, especially, if the winter's really tough for you bringing some soil in and keeping that soil alive throughout. The winter, you just water it. Like you would water a plant just a couple of times a week, give it some water and then you've got something to stick your hands into and smell that yeah. Smell and Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of that is good. Very good. There's such anticipation at this time of year. It's all coming, but it's not happening quite yet. And There's something that's very wonderful about that. I mean, on the one hand, you can plot your schemes and, draw your diagrams and, pull all your tools together and all that good kind of stuff. But as you say, there's also an opportunity for a lot of rest. You can do that. And then you can take a break and there's nothing that suddenly demands that you go running off to work a 12 hour day under the Sun, because there is no 12 hour day under the Sun. And actually in my work, this this fits very well with that model. I'm a fundraiser I'm in charge of fundraising for a food bank and January and February are the they're the fallow times in the fundraising season. People do lots of giving at the end of the year. And so you don't ask them for awhile and you do your planning and you do your analysis of what your numbers were last year and what all that tells you about what's happening with your programs. But it's once again, and once again, it's a time to just assess and plan based on that. And so it all tucks together very neatly in my world. And I have to say that, especially since last Wednesday I'm feeling good. Life is feeling good. Yucca: Yeah, that's so interesting that it follows the agricultural year so well Because this is the hunger gap time, right? This is when you might still have a few of your winter squash leftover, but. They're going pretty quickly. Right. And you're not making your spring greens yet. For the most part. There's a few lucky climates that are, but most of us are not getting anything fresh from the garden yet. Mark: Sure. So you're looking for that. Ewe's milk Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and waiting for the chickens to start laying again, which is why eggs are associated with the Spring Equinox. Yucca: Yep, exactly. Which we'll talk about in a few weeks. Mark: Yes, we will. Yucca: but yeah. Mark: Yeah. It's a little bit different in the fundraising cycle because it culminates in December, whereas the agricultural cycle, really the big harvest time is September-ish. Yucca: That's true but you're still feasting into that Mark: Oh, yes, Yucca: Right. There's lots of get together. It's dark. Goodness. What else do we do? Mark: Let's eat everything before it goes bad. Yucca: that's right? Yeah. That thing with those, the the squash, you gotta eat those, right. That's. We were talking about eggnog a few episodes back, Mark: right. Well Yucca: use up those eggs Mark: Yeah. Pile in those calories because you're going to get skinny by the time March rolls around. Yucca: yeah. And alcohol is a good way of preserving things. So add alcohol to everything. Right. That was the thought. Mark: Right, right. So what else. Yucca: So other traditions this time of year is a time where we do maintenance on things like our going back to the bovine and caprin connection. Like we brush out our lambskins that we have. Right. Brush those out any of the furs the big bedding things that we have, our quilts and blankets and all of those things, getting those cleaned up and that you were talking about the sharpening of the tool, Mark: right, right. Okay. Yucca: And if you are doing management on forested properties and you're in a wetter area, This can be a good time to be getting in there when you're starting to get more light, but the ground is still frozen. So you're not going to do as much damage if you pull your truck in there to out a particular stand or do some sort of maintenance. So there are some outdoor activities that are really well suited to this time of year where it's cold, but you still have light to actually work by. Mark: Sure. Sure. Yeah. Although, I mean, where I am construction has really pretty much ground to a halt by now because of sediment, runoff. Every, everything has to be weatherized and. hardened against rainy erosion by the 15th of October. And I believe it's the 1st of May, when those regulations then. Turn off Yucca: So it's actual regulations. It's Mark: Oh yes. It's not just best practices I'm here. And I'm proud to say that I had a lot to do with this in my County. We have a vineyard development ordinance and that got expand it into an overall erosion control ordinance. That affects everything because we have endangered salmon bearing streams here. And sedimentation is one of the worst things that can happen to a salmon bearing stream. They just, they choke to death. So yeah, so th once again it's another case of, there are people with their blueprints and their plans and their budgets and all that kind of stuff, but they're probably not going to get going very much until later in the spring. Yucca: Strategize, what orders things are happening in. And Mark: Right. Exactly. So that is the February Sabbath, whether you have a name for it, of your own, or whether you call it in bulk or ewe milk, or Bridgid or Brightening that is that's our overview on what it is and how it works and what the metaphors are. And of course, all of this is to the point of leading richer lives better connected with nature. Having more of a sense about the profound slow changes that happen around the course of the year that color everything about our existence and yet which somehow we're able to ignore a lot of the time. So it's about being more aware and more connected. And therefore more happy and more wise, and able to spread that out into the world to make the world a better place. So it's a, it's an ambitious agenda, but this is the time of year for ambitious agendas. Yucca: And it's worth it. Right. Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. It is. Yucca: Thank you, Mark. Mark: Thank you, Yucca. Great conversation. Thanks so much.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E03 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I am your host Yucca. Mark: And I'm Mark. Yucca: And this week we've got a bit of an interesting one. This is a year anniversary for us working on this project and there's a lot going on in the world right now. So we'll be talking a little bit about that and also about hope about its role, about the things to be hopeful for and our duty to be hopeful, Mark: Right? Yeah. I'm excited for this show for a lot of reasons. It's, we're recording on the 10th, so it's a few days after the riot at the Capitol and things are very much up in the air. This won't actually go live until the 18th. So who knows what will happen over the next eight days? But we do want to acknowledge how people have been feeling about this and somehow in there to carve out a little moment for some celebration, because this has been a really fun interesting project to work on with you Yucca. I feel that having pulled it off for a year is an amazing milestone. Yucca: It is. Yeah, it's been great. It really has become truly one of the highlights of my week and something that I look forward to every time and just to have these conversations and also to see the response. All of your listenership is just beyond what, at least on my part, far beyond what I was even imagining or dreaming even daydreaming about. So it's amazing. I'm so very grateful for all of this. Mark: Me too. And and particularly I'm grateful for the listeners who have discovered non theist paganism, or, have discovered a community of non theist pagans through the gateway of this podcast. There've been a number of people who have joined the Atheopagan Facebook group. Who have said, yeah, I was listening to this podcast the wonder, and they mentioned this and I thought that I'd come by, and boy, this really seems like my kind of people. And that's just really exciting to me. I like building community in that way. People of common mind and values. So that's, that is really a cool thing. Yucca: It really is. Yeah. And I should note that we are saying that it's a, for us, this is our, we started recording before we released the podcasts. We had this grand vision that we would be three or four episodes ahead before we published, which of course is not what ends up happening. We're usually recording the podcast the night before it goes live, or this week we're quite ahead a whole week ahead. But we started working on it a little bit beforehand to see what are we doing? What is this podcasting thing? And then we didn't actually go live until the very beginning of March. But this was a year ago was probably about the second time Mark that we'd actually been talking. Face to face. Mark: That's right. We hadn't actually met one another other than through. Messaging and that kind of stuff. And so the first time that we got together to talk about the idea of this podcast before, long before we were even considering recording was really the first time we met one another face to face. And so it's been a relationship building process as well as a creative podcast creation project. Yeah. And and I'm just so delighted. I'm really pleased. Yucca: Yeah. I'd like to say that a year in, you're one of my dearest friends. Mark: I really feel that too. I do. And And it's remarkable to be able to say that when we've never been, I've been in the same room together. Yucca: but different lives Mark: Yeah. This technology really allows us to reach across not only miles, but all different kinds of divides and to meet one another. So that's really a great thing. Yeah. So we're excited. We our initial goal, I think was seven weeks. Yeah, the, I, the idea was that Yucca had read somewhere that that if you make seven weeks you're actually up and running as a podcast. And so that was our initial goal. But here we are a year in. Yucca: We were looking at some of the topics before hitting the record button and seeing that we've gone through a lot of different topics. Mark: We really have. Yeah. And of course that always there's this push pull with the calendar because when you're a pagan and you're the kind of pagan who celebrates the wheel of the year. There's always another holiday coming up. And so there's a theme for a show there and there's ideas for rituals and practices and themes and all that kind of stuff. But then there's all the other stuff. They're all the other topics that don't fall neatly into those calendar buckets. And we've really explored quite a number of those Which doesn't mean that we can't go back to some of them. I'm knowing me, I probably have more to say. Yucca: I think everyone does. Yeah. But it's definitely been interesting with fitting in the, those evergreen topics and balancing between things that are going to be welcoming to people who are newer to. Paganism. And then also being interesting to people who have been part of the community for years or their whole life. So we, of course, always really welcomed suggestions. If there's something that you want to hear about that you want us to dive into a little bit deeper, we've always welcomed those suggestions. Mark: Yes. It's very helpful to us to get feedback from the folks that listen to the podcast, what are the things that you like about it? What are the things that you would do differently? What are the subjects that you'd like to hear about? We we really encourage you to email us at TheWonderPodcastQs@gmail.com and let us know what you think. Having celebrated a little bit and I'm sure that we can come back to that throughout the show. What else have we got in our grab bag of topics today? Yucca: I did want to say looking at the list, so wrote out the list. Our fourth topic was” Love and the Time of Corona Virus.” That has been a, that's been huge for everyone over the past year. It's been... I don't know anyone who has not been deeply impacted. And it's been the background for a lot of our conversations. Mark: Yes. This obviously was not a normal year. By any stretch for anyone, in my case, it was more of a normal year then than for many others, because I've continued going to work as an essential worker. But for so many, locked in place at home only going out to get food and prescriptions and things like that. Life has in many ways, ground to a halt or at least turned inward. And so that's the context within which this whole this whole podcasts so far has been produced. It'll be interesting to see what happens as the vaccines take hold, and we're able to come back out and do things together. I know that I'm very excited to get back together with my ritual circle and do things with them and hug my friends and just all the simple human things that we love to do. Yucca: Yeah, I know my kids are just waiting to get to see other children just to be around other people. Mark: That's really hard too, because a year is so long in developmental time for little kids. It's just, really profound space of time. They're just very different people at the end of that year than they were previously. Yucca: And for adolescents too, it's a time is different for them, but so is a big chunk of the development in terms of sense of self that many of the teenagers are going through right now. And the young adults who are just not that there's any sort of competition between generations, but as millennials, we thought it tough coming of age during the Great Recession. Imagine just having come out of college and you're looking for your first job and then everything's shut down. At least you have an excuse for a big blank spot on the resume at that point. Mark: Yes. I don't think anybody is frowning on people who are still living with mom and dad in 2020 and 2021. That's going to be pretty ordinary, I think. So you know, that, that's one thing that we really do need to call out is that Corona virus has loomed large in all of our conversations over the course of the last year. And I just, I imagine that there will be this whole new fertile landscape of things for us to talk about as the pandemic fades and we're able to return to in-person activities and in-person gatherings. Yucca: While bringing some of the positives that have come out of this experience Oh, absolutely. To that, right? This is, this was our composting time and a lot of ways I'd like to think of it. Mark: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's very interesting to me. I don't know. I could go off about this for a while, but I don't think it's entirely coincidental that the so called roaring twenties followed the 1918 pandemic and World War One. There was a kind of devil may care quality to the culture then. And I think that some of it is because the culture had seen so much death, that there was this sense that you better get your living in now because you don't know how long it's going to last. And I wonder whether we're going to see something similar. I really don't know. Obviously we're in the era of modern medicine now. There was never a vaccine for the so called Spanish flu. So it's a really different kind of situation, but I'm really curious to see what happens with culture worldwide over the course of the next 10 years or so. Yucca: Yeah. I'd be amazing to watch and be part of an experience. Mark: Yes. And we'll be talking about that later on in the show. So let's talk about the elephant in the room for a moment. There was a violent seditious riot at the United States Capitol this week. And that has never happened before. And it was encouraged by many elected officials, including the president of the United States. And so people all over the world are feeling uncertain concerned, confused, worried. And we just felt that we needed to address that a little bit, because it is what's going on internationally right now. Even if you're not in the United States it's the largest economy in the world and the biggest military power in the world. So if it goes crazy, there are serious repercussions. And I just hope that those of us that are sane and kind hearted and generous and have good values, don't feel that we need to pull into our shells in the face of this blast of hatred and hostility that has come out from the radical right. I feel that the time is now more than ever for us to be living our values and doing it visibly and standing for equality and standing for justice and standing for a reverence for the earth and for critical thinking and for the things in, for science and for all of those core understandings that drive a considered in conscientious and heartfelt love. Yucca: Yes. Mark: If you who are like me really thrown by this, Wednesday, the sixth was a crazy day. The The Georgia senatorial elections gave control of the Senate to the Democrats, which means that Mitch McConnell will no longer be standing in the way of all things. Good. And just, and then came this riot Yucca: Just a few hours later after that news. Mark: Yeah. Yes. So it was a whiplash event. It was entirely impossible for me, at least as somebody who follows and cares about the public affairs of my country and of the world. I just felt pulled all over the place and I couldn't sleep well and felt very unsettled. And it's still not all calmed down and I am under no illusions that there isn't going to be more of this before the 20th, when Joe Biden is inaugurated. Yucca: Yeah. It's a, I feel almost like in this limbo place right now of just waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop what's going on. By the time our listeners are listening to this, maybe things have maybe more things have changed. Maybe they haven't, maybe we're still in this what's happening place. And that feels that's characterizing right now in a huge way. But I think that's happening on a larger scale as well, not just these particular events that are happening with the country, but just how is the world? Where's the world going, how is it going to respond to these many challenges from so many directions? Mark: Yes. Yes. And even though I don't agree with them at all, and I have no patience or tolerance for the kind of hatred and bigotry that characterizes the Trumpist. I do have some compassion for people who are so overwhelmed by modernity that they just retreat into this sort of knee jerk opposition to it. Because let's face it, there are vectors of good happening in the world. Now, despite all efforts to the contrary tolerance. And inclusion and equality as values are on the rise. They've got a long way to go. But they are on the rise and there is increasing recognition of all the ways in which people who are disadvantaged are held down and especially the younger generation doesn't approve of that does not feel like that is a way for a society to conduct itself. This is part of why the white supremacists particularly have come unglued because they can see that the societies that they live in are becoming increasingly multicultural and that there's nothing they can do about it. It's demographics and it's the mobility of humans around the globe. Both of which are impossible to stop. Having said that, having said I'm. I'm sympathetic when the world that you grew up in is gone and there's something new coming. But to my mind, we, as curious people, as interested people, as people who are thoughtful and analytical, We can welcome the new, we're able to to open ourselves to the new possibilities of the changes that are happening in our societies. And all of that is to the good I look at those trends that That white supremacists are upset about. And I cheer because I just think it's fantastic. I am not in the least bit invested in white supremacy or in the idea that there are only two genders or in heteronormativity or any of those things. I say, bring it on. Yucca: I think it makes it a much more interesting place to be, frankly. Mark: It does. And it's not only that it makes it interesting to be because there's just more different kinds of people. It's that people as individuals can live in the fullness of themselves and for many people in this world, historically, they've never been able to do that. They've always had to pretend to be straight or pretend to be male or female or pretend, or, suffer under the boot of bigotry, Yucca: Or not get to do the, not get to pursue whatever their particular passion or genius was in. Mark: Yes, exactly. And that, that has to end, it has to end in the cultural direction, slow and halting and stuttering as it is. Is in the direction of improved conditions that way. I really believe that. And I know that there's a long way to go, but I do believe that there are movements in the direction of people being more mutually tolerant and inclusive. And to me, that matters a lot. Yucca: One of the themes that we are talking about today is the theme of hope. And to me, it's incredibly hopeful that these struggles and issues are being talked about. So it's an intense period. There's a lot happening when we talk about things like racial justice and the environmental issues, but the fact that they are on the public's mind that it's something that we can have a cultural wide discussion about means that we can actually admit that it's happening because these things are happening. Whether we admit it or not. But now that we admit that they're happening, we can start to do something. Yes. Where so many of these challenges we were just talking about have been under, have been pushed down and hidden and you couldn't talk about them, but now at least we can start that process. Mark: Right. And it may seem very daunting when you look at. The huge body of work that has to be done in order to make things just in order to make them equitable and in order to make them sustainable. And it's easy to look at that and just say, Oh it's impossible. Or things will never change. But we look at history and things have changed. Things have changed a lot. The whole idea of the value of the individual really only arose in the enlightenment, which was in the 18th century. That's 300 years ago. It's very little time. Honestly. It's only nine generations. And we've seen such transformation along so many axes. We know now that the petrochemical industry deliberately suppressed information about climate change for more than 20 years, but the cat's out of the bag, most people understand and know that human caused carbon emissions are causing climate change. And that is having a seriously harmful effect. On the planet. The first, it's been said many times the first step in solving any problem is admitting that you have one. And we're now at the point where most of us, maybe not the squeakiest wheels of us, but most of us are aware that we have a problem and that it's something that we're going to need to work to solve. So all of that gives me hope. I see people working hard. I see people putting their lives on the line in movements like Black Lives Matter. And to me, that kind of heroism. Bodes, I think most decent minded people want fairness. They want to believe that they live in a society. that's fair. And as it becomes more and more visible to them that they're not in a society, that's fair. I believe most of them will move in a direction of wanting to correct that. And that gives me hope. Yucca: Me too. Mark: So I go back to the 13 principles of Atheopaganism, which is the particular path that I practice. And I look at some of those principles and they are about social responsibility and about curiosity and about critical thinking and about reverence for the Earth. All of those, are not only for me in my own personal conduct. They're also about my agenda for societal transformation. They're about, what I hope to see in the world as history unfolds. And I believe that non theist paganism has a lot to offer people who want to see that happen. The kinds of work that we do with our psychologies, through ritual, with our relationship with life on Earth, through celebration of holidays. All of those things that we do, they help to strengthen us to go through these hard times and to remain diligent about pursuing that vision of a better world. So if you're just starting to listen to the podcast, I really welcome you to look into what non theist paganism has to offer you and what it really means to carry that as your identity or your sets, your sense of values. Yucca: Yeah. And I think this as many times throughout the year, but particularly as we stand in this really uncertain time and place in history, that self-reflection is so important and going in and saying, okay, what are my values and why? And are these things that I am, are they values to the point where I am really willing to work for these in the world? Mark: Yes. Yes. And also bear in mind that this is a group effort. It can be really overwhelming to look at all of the problems and think I must do something about all of them. You may need to pick your battles. You may need to work on a particular thing that you feel very strongly about. I feel very strongly, for example. Well, I feel strongly about a lot of things in terms of my activities. I'm involved with a diversity equity and inclusion initiative at work. That's one piece of what I really care about and I do work about, and I do a lot to reduce my carbon footprint. In fact, I am now driving an electric car that we least no. Good. Yes. I'm excited about that. That happened over the holidays. Yucca: Oh, congratulations. Yeah. Mark: Thank you. Yucca: That's wonderful. Mark: It is, it's a great car actually. It's it's plugged into my garage right now. Yucca: Wonderful. Yeah. But coming back, none of us are superhuman. None of us are. So choosing something that, or a group of things that you can really focus on, for us, it's that relationship with land and food production. That for us is the one that we've really focused in on and going, okay. Do we see this as something that all these other issues play into and connect with our fundamental relationship with the rest of Earth. So that's where we're focusing, but we also know to be gentle sometimes with ourselves, right? We value these things. We work on them. But sometimes we need to step back and rest and not beat ourselves up when we aren't perfect. And recognizing that we are part of a society and a team. And that, that just because we do this thing is not going to solve the whole problem for everybody. And I don't say that in a discouraging way, but in a way of releasing some of that responsibility in the sense of that one person has this responsibility, that none of us are the chosen person, the chosen one from the story who's going to solve everything. It's the community, it's everybody. And we have a part to play. Which is empowering, but it's also empowering that we don't have the only part to play. Mark: Yes. Yeah. Yes. And one of the things that is true, one of the larger. Larger forces that is beyond any one individual that is weighing in on this is that we are at a demographic tipping point. The the average age of a Trump supporting white supremacist type person is in their sixties and they're on their way out. And The next generation is not in that same place. You can't say that universally. Of course Yucca: there are individuals, but as a large group. Mark: As a large group. That kind of mentality is on its way out. And that is part, I think, of the why they are so desperate right now to try to remake the world in the image that they see in their minds as being a value. So yes. Yucca: that's another one of the things that gives me hope. Just looking at those general trends, not to say that we should not pay attention to the bad things that are happening and that we shouldn't respond to them. We very much should I believe and there's, that should word, but that's my belief that we really have a responsibility and a duty to to stand up for the values that we have and to really try and guide the world in that direction. Because if we don't, then what's the point of having those values? Mark: Exactly. They aren't meaningful if they're just theoretical. Yeah. The only thing that I see as a downside of. That generation fading away to a more tolerant and inclusive one is that I'm going to go with them which is disappointing. But so it goes we'll see. Yucca: Well, hang in there for a while, how about? Mark: That's my plan. Yeah, my, my plan, I just entered my 60th year. I don't know if I mentioned this on the podcast before, but I turned 59, so I'm now in my 60th year and I honestly can't believe it. I just don't know where all the time went. I can remember lots and lots of events, but how did it ever happen? That I'm 59. I, last time I turned around, I was 30. Yucca: Happy birthday. Thank you. Mark: Thank you. I feel like one thing that we might want to talk about a little bit more is self care. In times like this, we actually did a whole episode on self care, especially in the context of the disasters of the pandemic and the disasters of 2020 generally a while back, but I do feel that now is a time when, while you're feeling the urgency to do something about these terrible things in the world, you also need to make sure that there's fuel in the tank. And that means you need to rest. You need to eat, you need to just lie around and do nothing of any particular importance, you need to have social interactions, however that's possible for you, that feed your sense of self and your joy in living. You need to have creative time to do those things that feel expressive for you. Because the, to, to use a terrible analogy because I don't like war analogies, but what you don't want to be as cannon fodder, what you want to be as a leader who can repeatedly make efforts in the direction of your values rather than just burning out and getting discouraged and then dropping out, because then there's one less voice for those positive values. So really folks I'm feeling it too. We are we're right there with you. Take care of yourselves right now. Make sure you're getting enough sleep. Make sure you're drinking enough water. If you have, if any, your Yucca: And let your self set boundaries too. Yes. It's important to know what's going on, but doom scrolling is not good for your health. No. It's okay to say. No to, to being asked for things that you don't have the energy to give at the moment. Mark: Yes. And this is something that we are not taught in English, speaking cultures, at least we're just not taught to take care of ourselves very well. In fact, we're taught that certain kinds of not very productive or healthy. Practices are what constitutes self-care like drinking, for example. Okay. I'm under a lot of stress. I'm going to have a drink. On the one hand, that can work on the other hand, if that's your go-to strategy, not so much, Yucca: it stops working after a certain point. If you take the melatonin every night, then it's not going to work for you. Mark: Yes, right? Yes. Yucca: Yeah. And then we also have certain things that we've glorified that are very harmful. Like never sleeping the, Oh, I'm too busy to sleep, I'm, the workaholic aspect and for women we're particularly taught to not take care of ourselves and that establishing some of those boundaries makes you a bad, makes you a bad wife or a bad mom, or a bad whatever you are. And I just don't think that's very helpful. Mark: No. And that gets to the larger question of the ridiculous bar that women are expected to get over in terms of having a full life, which is this. Monstrous combination of career and family and creative outlets. And and you're expected to do all of these at this super high level that demands all this time. Yucca: But if you do you get criticized because you're not doing the other things, you're being selfish. For what, whatever you're doing is selfish. And speaking of tough this year has been particularly tough on women. When you look at the numbers of the having to leave the workforce and the inequalities within the home, and yes, it's been there's, it's been a rough one, really hopes that it, that a light is being shined on these areas because of this year. Mark: I certainly hope so. Yeah. Yeah. That's really what I wanted to say to folks. There is there's reason for hope and you can be a part of it, and I hope you will. You need to take care of yourself in the meantime, too. In order to be effective at that. And in order to have your life feel good, which, this is the life that you get. If you're waiting around for your life to feel good until something else changes, it's time to make those changes now. And also finally, thank you. Thank you for listening to us over the course of the last year. Yes, it's. It's really an honor to know that we're, in people's cars, on their commute to work and in their headphones when they're going for walks and doing dishes and all that kind of stuff. And I hope that we have that we continue to fulfill what you hope for from us. And once again, really we encourage you to provide us with feedback about what subjects you'd like us to talk about, how how you'd like the podcast to proceed all that. We really welcome it. And that once again, is that thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. Yucca: Thank you everyone. Mark: Thank you. Be well.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E02 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. And today we are going to be talking about holidays. What they are, how they fit into our human experience here in the world. A little bit about the Wheel of the Year as celebrated by pagan folk, many pagan folk, and then some tips on inventing your own holidays and some fun holidays that have already been invented that we want to make sure you're aware of. Yucca: So that's one of yours coming up. Mark: Yes. Yes. Slogg is coming up in January and we'll tell you all about it. So holidays much. That this is an important topic for pagans, because for many pagans much, if not all of their celebration of their religion is focused on those eight days around the course of the year. You know, some people like me and you have daily practices and other things that we do on a more frequent basis, but for an awful lot of pagans, I know it's really those eight holidays, the four solstices and equinoxes, and then the points in between the solstices and equinoxes to create eight equidistant spokes to a wheel around the course of the year Yucca: and some- it doesn't seem to be quite as common, have a, a lunar observance as well. Mark: Oh, you're right about that. I completely overlooked it. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yucca: But it, at least from what I have been exposed to, it seems like the, the solar wheel of the year is more, it seems to be more universal. Mark: And that's of course there are, you know, there are folks following Norse traditions and Greek traditions and Roman traditions and so forth, which are not in any way oriented that way. The wheel of the year was originally created as a Wiccan idea synthesizing folk traditions from throughout Europe and kind of pulling them all together into this system. But it works very well for nature-based pagans because it's rooted in reality and the reality of where the Sun is in relation to the Earth and what the axis of the earth is relative to the sun. And so over the course of the year, we go through these seasonal observations that have direct correlation in what's happening in the physical world, outside us. Yucca: Yeah. Well, let's, let's pause on the Wheel of the Year and talk about holidays first. Just holidays in general. Mark: We've just got a whole bunch of them Yucca: we have, right. And we're not talking about the holidays as is in the cluster of a bunch of things that often happen in December, but. Holidays as in moments set aside throughout the year that have special meaning and that have special behaviors around them. Mark: Yes. This is one of those things that is ubiquitous, so it must have some inherent human need. In every culture throughout the world, there are special days where you don't just do your routine of food gathering and processing and, you know, making shelter and doing all those various kinds of things. Instead, you suspend all that stuff and you do things that are often cultural, religious, freighted with symbolic meaning, right? And so so holidays become one of those interesting topics like laughter and music and dancing, where you have to ask yourself how and religion. Of course these things are universal. So what does it say about the human organism that we have these things and that we value them? Yeah. So what is a holiday then? Well, we've just described it as a day that you take when you do something cultural or religious, instead of doing instead of doing your ordinary routine, and that can even be true of holidays that are highly secular. I mean, 4th of July is it doesn't really have much in the way of a kind of deep metaphorical content to it, but there is the tradition of fireworks and there is the tradition of barbecues and there's tradition of football, all these things that people associate with that day and find very important. Right? Yeah. Yucca: And then there are points throughout the year, which ties back to the Wheel of the Year that many cultures have. Some celebration around and sometimes they have other meanings also added on with the birth of gods or particular saints that are being celebrated. But there are certain points where it seems like people are recognizing that there is something going on within our environment that is again, shared throughout well, the whole planet. Mark: And in some cases, some holidays are, are extremely specific only to certain people, for example, with a particular name. So you've got in, in the Roman Catholic church calendar, for example, they've got more saints than there are days in the year. So in some cultures you are, you have a sort of birthday like celebration on your saints day. That you were after. And until very recently in countries like Spain you were only allowed to name your children names that were on the list. Right? So everybody had a saints day as well as a birthday, and that was a time to celebrate. Right. So all of these are pieces of. Incorporating culture into the flow of daily life. Right. I mean, I can see particularly how effective it would be to do the St state thing, because. Somebody will be having a saints day every day. And it will continually remind you that you're Catholic and that you need to do the Catholic rituals and, you know, follow the dogma and all that kind of stuff. So that's very effective. Other holidays are much more universal, right. And. One of the things that I find very strange about American culture is that we have holidays that have virtually nothing associated with them other than not going to work. President's day, for example, I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't have deep and abiding rituals for president's day. Yucca: No, and frankly, I work on that day too. Mark: usually haven't because it's, the banks might not be the banks aren't open and Pantheon was usually over president's day weekend, but that's not happening anymore. So So anyway these holidays are a way for us to, sew our cultural and religious experience into our living. And that is something that is really worth looking at for people who are pagans and who are seeking to make sure that they've got everything represented in the calendar of the year that they want to see represented. And if they don't see it in one of those eight kind of guidepost holidays, well then maybe it's time to make up another day to celebrate and observe whatever it is that you think is important enough to deserve that. Yucca: That's right. Yeah, because we, we are choosing to curate our own experience and that's one of the things that we we get to do is say, this is, this is what I want and how do I make this work? How do I make this be part of my experience? Mark: Right. And as we've talked about before, don't worry if it's made up. Cause it's all just made up all of it. Yep. All of it. Every last bit of human culture is made up by somebody at some point, it's made up so you can make stuff up as well as anybody else. And it's just as valuable as what anybody else made up. So Yucca: go on. I was going to say, why don't we talk about the Wheel of the Year as the sort of standard. It's hard to say that there's a standard, but this sort of standard modern Neo pagan temperate approach. Okay. That's a pretty long list of descriptors Mark: A lot of adjectives. Yeah. I thought you were going to say template, but then you said temperate Yucca: template, temperate template. Mark: So yeah for one thing, the, the conventional descriptions of the Wheel of the Year holidays are rooted in the climate of great Britain. Because they were originally described by Gerald Gardner in his publications of the 1940s into the 1950s. And so the climate of that time and that place were kind of what set the standard for what any given holiday would stand for. But. I'm in the Americas. I know you are too Yucca and it's very silly for us, like where I am, for example, you know, the idea of the holiday at the beginning of February, being about the little shoots coming up through the snow and casting seed out on the snow for the birds that are beginning to return. And you know, the earliest, earliest, earliest, beginning of spring makes no sense to us at all because in terms of shoots coming up, that just happened when it started raining two weeks ago, all the green stuff is coming back up again. I've got a nice green grassy yard behind my house now. That was all just Brown and dead before, but. This is the time when the growth happens, because it's when the water comes Yucca: Well. And for us, it's the most cold bitter time of the, it is the true dead of winter for us. There's there's not a lot of new growth happening. It's. It's cold. Mark: Right? Right. Yeah. And then of course there are people that are, you know, truly in the tropics people in Hawaii, for example, I mean, it does actually snow on the big Island. Of course that has to do with elevation 13,000 feet, obviously. But it, but it's true that they still, they do get temperatures cold enough to actually have snow on the ground up at those high elevations. But you would not, you would not describe the beginning of February in, in Hilo as being the, the frozen winter. It just, it isn't. So yes, we, we have this overall model that comes out of Western Europe. And some people are just really firm about that. You know, these, these are the metaphors that were taught to us for all of these different holidays, and that's what we're going to follow. And, you know, it's very, you know, sort of rigorous and traditional. My approach is much more of a what they call an eclectic pig and approach, which is that I am using pagan, symbols and structures as adapted to fit my personal circumstances so that they actually make sense as a way of understanding my world and celebrating my life. And that means that for me, that holiday at the beginning of February is River Rain, which is the festival of water because it's pouring down rain. It has been for weeks and it will be for additional weeks. And that's the only time of year that that happens, but everything is green and lush and the creeks are full and the waterfalls in the state parks are all running and all that good kind of stuff. And so we celebrate water and all the wonderful things that water means to us. Yucca: And of course just well, quite a few hundred miles away, for me it's Second Winter. It's a very different holiday and we're going to come back in just a few weeks and really talk about what this holiday is for each of us. As we, as we go through the Wheel of the Year on the podcast, we, each time we come into a holiday, we talk about it. One of the Wheel of the Year holidays. Right. But I also very much have the same approach that the holidays, my understanding of them is based upon where I live, what's going on here in my ecosystems, in my climate, and also incorporating in some ideas, some themes that are universal themes. Decomposition. Everybody's got that. Yes. Wherever you are on earth, you've got decomposition going on, got points of new life and, you know, different biomes, things like that. Mark: Sure, sure. Yep. Another thing that I do that I know you don't do so much, Yucca is I map the, the cycle of a human life onto that calendar. So for example, when the, when the year begins that you will, I consider that to be the birth, the birth of the new sun, the birth of the new cycle, the new year. And then the beginning of February holiday is sort of an infancy kind of holiday as well as being a celebration of water. And then kind of elementary school level at the height of spring, and it's all very fun and we color eggs and do all those childlike things. And then young adulthood at May Day, full adulthood at Summer Solstice. Middle-age in the, at the beginning of August, elderhood at autumn Equinox, the harvest, and then finally death at Hallows. And decomposition and recomposition between Samhain and, and Yule again. So it's a way for me to reflect on the different stations of my time here on earth and other people's time, and to celebrate people that happened to be in that particular age bracket at the time that they're, that the holidays being celebrated. So it's a way for everybody to get their, their sort of cheering on, you know, we love you as a community. You're good. People go forth and be you. Cause you're cool. And so I've found that very meaningful as well. I know that you have a really interesting wheel that is more focused on the different kinds of creatures different kinds of organisms that you associate around the course of the Wheel of the Year. Yucca: That's right. Yeah. And so, and we'll, we'll get back into that more, but it's the different types of beings that we are in partnership with as humans and the biomes that we have major terrestrial biomes. There isn't as much recognition of the aquatic world for me, but that's because I'm many hundreds of miles inland in a high desert. And although I appreciate it on a, on an intellectual level, have very little daily relationship with the ocean. Sure. But other folks at let alone water in general, we have a lot of that here. You know, sometimes I feel like we're on Arrakis. But why don't we touch for just a moment? I know this is probably very familiar to people, but a lot of our language when we talk about the sun and we talk about holidays, is leftover language from before we really had a good grasp on what was actually going on. We talk about the sun rising and setting, and we talk about the sun's position in around earth and things like that, where that's not what's going on the sun doesn't set and rise. We turn towards it and turn away from it. Our planet is tilted. We've got about right now a 23 and a half degree tilt as the earth goes around the sun. And it's too bad. This is only an audio format because it really helps to have a little bit of a visual, but a common misconception is that the earth is actually wobbling back and forth as it goes around the sun and that's not what's happening. The tilt that's staying the same. It's actually moving slightly. We're talking about several inches a year, but for our lifetime, essentially, it's staying the same. But depending on our position around the sun, what your place on the globe is going to receive more or less light. The proximity to the sun, how close we are to the sun, or how far away has very, very little influence on our seasons. It really is that tilt. And so people who are in the mid and higher latitudes, whether that's North or South, we experience more extremes in terms of the amount of light that we're getting, which is what's causing our seasons, but there's still a shift in that, in the tropics as well. So the tropics are not the area around the equator is always going to get a lot of light, but not as extreme difference in temperatures. So someone in the tropics, the Wheel of the Year set up with our eight holidays that celebrate snow on one hand and long, long days and summer on the other, that just doesn't for that location, doesn't make sense. Somebody might choose to celebrate it for other reasons, but it doesn't match with what's happening in the climate. And if on more extreme levels as well, if you're near the poles, the also don't have the same. Wheel of the year. It's even more extreme in terms of you've got night and day, right. Or summer and winter. And instead of having that be nine and 14 hours or whatever, or a 15 it's six months and six months or whatever you have. Yes. So since I don't live in the tropics. I don't know what a wheel of the year would necessarily look like, but for folks who do or live in, say the subtropics where you've got a rainy season and dry season, aren't two rainy seasons and two dry seasons. There's an opportunity for a lot of creativity in, in designing and creating your own wheel. Mark: Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, I think of the tradition in Canada of celebrating the first snow and, And I could very well see something similar, you know, a wheel of the year that isn't set up on dates so much, but set up on when the first rain comes to start, you know, a first monsoon season. And then when the rain stops for the dry season and then when the second rain comes and once again, for those places that have two cycles but to be honest There are so few changes in the course of that cycle that I don't know that a wheel of the year is necessarily even the best kind of model to use Yucca: the waves of the year. Or there may be some type of tree or some sort of. Symbol that would, that would better fit depending on what that climate is. I mean, there's still, but we're still dealing with the same cycle of the rain. The rainy season and dry season are still being caused by the same, It's the same mechanism that's causing the seasons and the temperate environments. It's still the apparent movement of the sun and the sky, which of course is not the movement of the sun. Sun's moving, but. That's not really relevant to what we're talking about. Mark: Ocean is relative, but let's go down that rabbit hole. Well, yeah, Yucca: I would, another interesting one is we could do a wheel of the sun cycles with the sun going into our 11 or 22 year cycles, but then it really doesn't obey years. It kind of does 11 years. 22, 11ish. So we could Anyways, that's just kind of a fun thinking about on maybe a society level of what would a unified Neo pagan wheel be for an interplanetary society Mark: probably end up looking like the Mayan calendar with wheels within wheels, within wheels of all these different cycles that all interact with one another. Yucca: Well, one of y'all should write that book and let us know. Mark: Yes, please. Please do. I would love to read it. I wouldn't want to do all the calculations necessary in order to write it, but I would love to read it. That'd be the fun part. Okay. Yucca: It's different strokes, but, so, so it might be really an actually it might, if we find someone who does have a tropical wheel of the year or wave of the year. It might be really fun to get them on. As a guest, I would love to talk about what that, that experience is because it's so different than my experience. And it sounds so different than yours. Mark: Yes. I mean, I've been to the tropics for a total of about a month out of my life.So it's not really enough time. Yucca: Yeah. I lived in Costa Rica for a period when I was a child, but I don't remember a tremendous amount. So you know, the, the temperate zones are really are my, my main experience. And nobody ever explained that there were different seasons in different parts of the world. when I was a kid that was not a, you know, everybody taught about the the standard, and even in the, in the desert that we would always have these pictures of maple trees with their, you know, red, the orange leaves and. We've got like little shrubby junipers and pinions. We don't have any of those fall never looked the way that it, that it does in the picture books. And I suppose that's also a good thing to think about in terms of the different hemispheres that some, some folks will follow the Wheel of the Year, based on the Northern hemisphere while in the Southern hemisphere. And some folks in the Southern hemisphere will base the holidays based on what's happening in their climate, two different approaches. Mark: Right. Right. So why don't we talk about some. Do it yourself holidays. What do you do when there's something important for you to celebrate or there's, some milestone that you really feel needs to be marked on a regular basis? Not, not like a one-time Rite of passage, but something that you want to Mark every year, because it's important to you, but it's not enough. Yucca: Yeah. It doesn't match up nice and pretty with your particular date. Mark: And now we can talk about the example that that I have come up with, which is Slogg. S L O G G slog is the, the Demi Sabbath of, of miserable winter. It's the third Saturday in January and Slogg is the point at which it's been long enough since all of the holiday parties and Sweets and cakes and cookies and presents and drinking and all that festivity. It's now been more than a month since then. And it's, it's been pouring incessantly ever since then. And you just really, really, really need a holiday. So I invented this Deming Sabbath called Slogg. And in it you drink mold, whined Swedish globe made with port wine and spices and stuff like that. And play board games and generally grumble about the rain or the snow, either one. And it's just an excuse to get together with a bunch of friends and have kind of a mini Christmas with that isn't with presence or anything. It's just about huddling together as community and enjoying one another in the cozy safety of shelter. Yucca: That's great. I love it Mark: Sounds like you need it more than I do Yucca: Well for us though. It's we, it. We're almost at Second Winter. So it's our, it's two for me that time of year has already transitioned in to that, but I'm getting real ready for, for spring. At that point. Spring, you could be here already. That would be just great, but it is one of the only times of year. that's a very, also restful time for us. Mark: Yeah, we, we have a similar sort of situation that I haven't come up with a holiday for. Cause I don't think a holiday is really the solution in September. It's blazing hot, the fog cycle that works during the height of summer, that pulls coastal fog in over the land and cools down the temperatures by this point, the sun is now the, the axis has turned far enough away that the sun doesn't have enough power to drive that cycle very well anymore. And so we might get a fog blanket every three days or four days, but it doesn't happen daily as it used to. And so the days are just 105 hundred and 115 this past year. Yucca: Well into the forties. Mark: yeah. Yes. For those outside of the U S it's yes, hot, very hot. And so we need something, some kind of holiday that would allow us to sometime around the 10th of September. I think, you know, little, little while before before the harvest celebration, just something. The swimming holiday or a mass Exodus to the beach or something. I don't know. Yucca: Right. Digging burrows and hiding in them. Mark: Time for your annual replenishment of your sunglasses. Yeah. Yucca: So the idea is that you can just make one up. Mark: Yes. You can make it up. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, Wolfenoot. I haven't heard of wolfenoot it was made up by a seven year old and it's a time to celebrate wolves and dogs. All that I know about it is that you're supposed to have cake that's shaped like a moon, and you're supposed to give meat to your dogs as presence because that's what they like. And the motto is no hate only snoot boops. Yucca: And we don't have any dogs. So we bring treats to our neighbor dogs or our, you know, family members who do have dogs. So, and we were joking that cats needed a holiday too, but then realized that that's every day. Mark: a cat. It's a holiday domesticated cat. Yes. Is living the life of Riley. Yucca: So. But we also have others. One that we enjoy is your East night. So we'll celebrate Yuri's Night. And that is basically a celebration of all of the space technology and exploration and all of that innovation, Mark: To, to clarify that that is the anniversary of the first human entry into space. When Yuri Gagarin was launched into an orbit around the earth, Yucca: If you can be near any of the NASA centers on a non pandemic year. Then there's a lot of great parties to be at. Mark: Yeah. And they're similarly at observatories and air and space museums. There are often events that happened on Yuri's night. And I just think it's a great, very optimistic aspirational kind of go science go. Yucca: Yeah, just that celebration of curiosity and achievement and just how cool all that stuff is. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's April 12th. Mark: Yes. April 12th. Before that, the month before that is PI day, which is 3.14. So it's the 14th of March. It is also Einstein's birthday. So it is often observed by atheist particularly is kind of a special day. Another one of these, you know, yay science kind of celebrations. But as far as I'm concerned, it's just an excuse to eat pie, Yucca: eat pie, big pie. Maybe do some competitions on how many digits you have memorized. Mark: I think I have only got 10 or so, Yucca: where you're way ahead of me. I'm woefully few. Like I could make it to five maybe. I can write it symbol though. Okay. Very impressive. Right. Some folks do then the little bit later, May the Fourth. Mark: nerdy ones. Yeah. The star Wars holiday may the fourth be, would, would be with you. Yucca: And in those that same sort of delightfully nerdy veins later on in the year talk like a pirate day. Mark: Yes, 19, 19. Okay. September 19th, international talk like a pirate day and yes, we've observed it for many, many years. We, we think it's a really great thing. Yucca: I think we did on the show last year, Mark: too. We did, we recorded on September 19th and I talked a little bit like a pirate. Which is, you know, the only one, the reason that we think that pirates talk that way is because the actor who played a long John silver in a 1940s production of treasure Island had this broad West country accent from England. And he happened to talk that way. And now, now everybody thinks that pirates talk. That way. Our entire concept of pirates is not very historically accurate, Yucca: It is not, we have been as a parent struggling with how to handle that one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Mark: I mean, both in positives and negatives, I mean, you know, they were horrible and bloodthirsty and did terrible things. On the other hand, they had more of a direct form of representational democracy than representative democracy than pretty much anywhere else in the world at that time. So. I mean, there, there was something about Liberty in it. They were just rotten people. Yucca: Yeah. I'm just not so down with the raping and pillaging part, you know? And the issues with modern pirates Mark: modern piracy is horrific. Yucca: Yeah. So, yeah. But tangent let's come back to, so those are kind of some fun ones that are, that are all about. Are there any others? I mean, those are some of the ones that you might find on a calendar like your mother's day and grandparent's day and all of those. Mark: Well, and then there are culturally significant holidays, like Cinco de Mayo, for example Bastille Day You know, holidays that are, that are of meaning to people in other countries or other cultures that have been brought over here. And, and Yucca: we'll celebrate St Patrick's and St. David's day. We're not Catholic clearly, but those are days that are, that are kind of heritage appreciation days. So for our Irish and our Welsh respectively. Mark: The one that I'm always surprised didn't get translated over to the United States is guy Fawkes day. I always would have thought that we would have taken on guy Fawkes day because we were colonized by the English. But I guess not. Of course we were colonized by the English before the gunpowder plot. I don't know, it just seems odd to me, any excuse to blow things up seems to be really kind of American in nature. So, well, we did Yucca: We do that twice a year and that's true. Yeah. Well, and it also kind of depends on, so yes, the, the, the origins of the country, but it's really a big place and where I, where I live, we're in New Mexico. We don't think of that part of American history. I think that the kids probably have to take it once in middle school or something and learn about that, you know, Boston tea party and, you know, 13 original colonies and a few things like that, but it's not really, you know Not a big part of the cultural awareness here on the cultural identity. Our cultural identity is much more about Spain and Mexico and the Pueblos and, and all of that. Mark: Well, that completely makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is that here in California, I had a real minimum of education about anything having to do with Mexico, even though this was all Mexico. Either about Mexico or the Spanish colonization of the Americas or or of course about California Indians. Who of course were here before, before anybody came colonizing. So yeah, hard to, hard to identify a rationale for that, but there it is. So, I guess the point of all this is holidays are good. They're a human thing that we all kind of need and do. And if you are finding yourself in need of one create it. Okay. You'll find in some cases that many others will have the same need and we'll jump right on it. Or it'll just be too adorable, like Wolfenoot, and nobody will be able to leave it alone. Yucca: Right. How can you, how can you not, that's just too cute. It Mark: really is. I mean, it's holiday invented by a seven year old about dogs and wolves. It's just Yucca: there. Their mom just shared it and it just, you know, it's one of those things that went viral. Mark: just took off. So we welcome comments or questions@thewonderpodcastqueuesatgmail.com. W do you, are there any special holidays, unique holidays that you celebrate? And what are your, what are your cultural practices for those where we'd be really interested to hear Yucca: And if any of you had more information on the tropical wheels or waves of the year, we'd love to be pointed in that direction as well. Mark: Very much so. Yeah. Yes. So thanks Yucca. This has been a great conversation. Yucca: It has. Thank you. And I look forward to very soon getting back together to talk about this holiday that's coming up. Mark: Yes. Yeah, well, in the meantime, have a good Slogg. Yucca: Ahh, likewise! All right. Thank you, Mark. Mark: Thank you. Bye-bye.  

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com!   Mark's Mulled Wine 1 (375-ml) bottle of red or tawny port wine 2 (750-ml) bottle red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon (cheap! Don't do this to the good stuff!) 1/2 cup honey 2 cinnamon sticks 2 oranges, zested and juiced 8 whole cloves 6 star anise 4 oranges, peeled, for garnish   Combine the red wine (not the port), honey, cinnamon sticks, zest, juice, cloves and star anise in a large saucepan, bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Add port wine. Pour into mugs, add an orange peel to each and serve. Serves 8.   Yucca's Winter Broth Short version: Simmer bones in a big pot (or slowcooker, instantpot etc) for 12 to 48 hours. Add vegetable scraps for the last hour. Strain into mugs and enjoy.    Detailed version: Save the bones from your other meals in the freezer. Once you have several pounds of one kind of bone saved up, add them to a big pot of water or large slow cooker. Add a dash of something acidic like apple cider vinegar or wine. If you have small bones break them open to release more marrow-ey goodness.  Bring pot to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 12+ hours. The longer, the better. Check water level periodically and add extra water if it gets low.   About an hour before your broth is done add in vegetable scraps. If you are going to add herbs, wait until the last half hour to add.  Strain the broth directly into mugs to enjoy or into glass containers if you plan to save it for later.  Do not be surprised to see your broth gel up if it cools. But be aware that if you simmer it for a long time the collagen may break down into its constituent amino acids and not gel, and that's still perfectly fine and delicious!      S2E01 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about, about food. Big topic really important for all of us. Nobody gets out of here alive without food. Of course, nobody gets out of here alive at all, but, there are a lot of things to say about our relationship with food and what it is and how it fits into our spiritual practice. And then we'll round out the podcast with a couple of, recipes for you for the winter holiday season. Yep. Yucca: What we're doing right now and moving into 2021. Mark: Oh, Oh Yucca: Haha Mark: Thankfully. Yucca: Okay. Well, the first thing I want to say with food is that we are all part of the food web. That's just the reality of being part of this earth being alive is that we are eating and we are being eaten. And we don't typically think of ourselves as being eaten, but we are, and eventually we'll be completely eaten. But at the moment, the skin that you are shedding the hair, our waste. That's all somebody else's food. And even though we may be currently in the history of humans, we're apex predators, there's still plenty of folks eating us and we're eating plenty of other folks. No matter what your dietary strategy is, we're eating living things to be alive. Mark: Yes. Yes. We talked about this a little bit. In the Solstice Episode and the episode about darkness, we are, we are by our very natures, the takers on of the component parts of what has died to reconstruct ourselves. And we don't necessarily wait around for those things to die. We kill them. We cultivate them to kill them. And we have been doing that as humans for, at least, well, in the case of animal husbandry, at least 9,000 years. And in the case of agriculture, probably seven-ish something like that. So relatively recent in recently in human experience. Yucca: We aren't the first, I'd like to note, that agriculture came about- it has been around for hundreds of millions of years. It just hasn't always been humans. There's a lot of ant species who are farmers, both with crops, if you consider fungi in the realm of crops and with livestock, with their aphids and yeah, amazing examples of that in the arthropods-fungi relationships. There's lots of them, but we've been doing it for a long, long time life. Sometimes we partner in a [mutualistic] symbiotic way and other times we simply are the predator of whatever our food is and predator. Isn't just something that eats meat, but the rabbit is the predator of the grass; the wolf is the predator of the rabbit. So it doesn't matter what type of life we're talking about. If you're eating something else, you're it's predator. Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: And we all eat at somebody else because we are part of a complex ecosystem. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Maybe way back. When life first started on earth, it might've been a simple enough ecosystem that we didn't have those interactions, but that's not the case anymore. Now we're part of world that the entire surface is just covered in life and not just the surface, but all the way up into the atmosphere, deep down into the ground and the caves and the ice. It's, it's how we are. How we relate to each other. Mark: And so that ongoing negotiation between, you know, the, the forces that are eating on us and our desire to stay, to maintain integrity in our current form, is this ongoing push pull that happens throughout our lives. And we, we're familiar with certain conditions, for example, where we're starting to lose the war like gangrene, for example. Well, what that means is that other organisms are eating you a lot faster than you can reproduce cells to reestablish the form that you want to be in. And it's a very serious condition. Various kinds of staph infections and, you know, all those sorts of, opportunistic parasites, right. Ringworm and, various kinds of internal worms Yucca: intestinal Mark: Yeah. So, this is, this is the reality. The reality is that we are food sooner or later. And, and in an ongoing sense with skin mites and eyelash mites and all that kind of stuff, there are literally little tiny microscopic creatures that you can't even see that actually have behavior programmed into them, just like we do. They managed, they managed to eat and excrete and mate and lay eggs and do all that kind of stuff. And they're smaller than you can see with the naked eye. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, we are ecosystems. Yes. And those mites are, when you look at the pictures of them with the microscope, they're both terrifying, like monster movie terrifying, and also adorably cute. Mark: They're really cute. Yucca: They're just, they're just so cute. And they they're part of us. They are they're commensal with us. They don't make a difference there. They're on us and it doesn't matter. And. And then there's all those folks that are on us, that are helping us that are our defense that are protecting us. And then they're the ones who are on us, that aren't so good. They're the vast, vast minority though. Mark: Right. Yucca: But they're still on us because while we're providing them with food and habitat. Mark: Sure, sure. Yucca: When we get rid of them, we get very, very sick. When we get, Mark: when we get rid of the beneficial ones. Yucca: Yes. That does. Yeah. The, the commensal doesn't make a difference to us and getting rid of the pathogenic ones. But, well, maybe when we get into ‘hygiene hypothesis' with that, but that's a, another question. We're talking about food though. Let's come back to what you're saying. We got onto the microbiome because we are food for others, but we can also address food in terms of our daily relationship with meals. So we were talking about it kind of on this big scale of what is food, but, but what about the food that we purposefully put into our bodies and have such an emotional relationship with? Mark: Well, I think that, that the first thing that I'd like to say goes back to what we were talking about a second ago, which is about the disconnect. Both at both ends, we are completely disconnected from our food illness. Our food seems to arrive from nowhere. And then our waste seems to go away somewhere. And none of that is really informative of the fact that we are creatures in a food web. Right? Yeah. The, those connections are not visible to us. They're blocked off. So one of the things that I try to do, and I've resolved to do a much better job of it this year, and I'm getting better slowly. It's so hard when I'm hungry. I just want to tear in, but I'm getting better at doing, meal acknowledgements. In which I acknowledged the power of the sun on the soil that brings forth the life that I eat. Whether it's in plant form or whether it's in animal form. And all of the various hands that contributed to bringing that to me, whether it's, you know, the person who tended and pick the crops, the person who drove the truck, the person who loaded it in a grocery store, all of those, all of those workers whose efforts need to be honored because that supply line is what keeps me alive. And so I try to do that before every meal. And so far it's more miss than hit, but it's much better than it was a couple of months ago. Hm. Yucca: we, have a freezer, well, two big freezers actually. And so each year we'll get a steer, a hog and a couple of cabritos. And we actually, if the, the rancher we got them from, didn't have a name for them, we actually give them a name and make reference to. So, you know, that's, that's basically more than half of our food. The more look at our caloric intake. That's more than half of our food for the entire year. And we, we make reference to them by. Those names that it makes it a very personal experience for us. And then we do, we do a lot of growing, but not all of our food. There's a lot of things that I like to eat that are not going to grow very well in my climate. I do have a banana tree as a houseplant, but it does not make bananas. And I still like bananas. And coffee and chocolate are also on those lists of things that I like. We buy that we don't grow one day maybe, but even then a greenhouse could never grow enough to have more than a few cups. So maybe something very, very valuable to trade when the, the supposed zombie apocalypse comes or whatever. But that's, that's a big thing for us. The food every day. Trying to be connected with that is, is huge for us, but that trick of giving the name to the animal, because we get, because we're eating the same one, right? It would be a little bit different if we were going and, and buying cuts from the grocery store or something like that. But that's a, if you do do a freezer, that's a really lovely trick. And then knowing the folks who, who raised those animals and going to, I like to go to the ranch that they're from, because my background actually is I am a agro and range ecologist. So if I go to their ranch, then I have a pretty good sense by just walking onto their land, whether they're doing a good job or not. And I really it's important to me that they're doing a good job taking care of their soil and their land. And if they're doing that, then I'm pretty sure that they're taking really good care of their animals, too. Mark: Yeah, we, we buy mostly from a commercial outfit called Harris ranch, which is all grass fed beef. They do grain finish, which is not my favorite, but, they have very good range conservation practices. And that's part of why I'm interested in that. One of the real challenges with food in the modern era is that we are basically strip mining our top soil, the billions of years of accumulated soil. Are being steadily, depleted and rapidly, especially in, in, in heavily agricultural areas. And we, we try to pour fertilizers into them and all this kind of stuff in order to, increase their Yucca: productivity. It's the problem. Mark: Exactly. That's precisely Yucca: it's yeah. It's, it's killing the soil life, which is what allows plants access to the nutrients in the first place. Mark: Yes. Yes. So food choices, become really important. And for some people, this is just not, it's not the battle they're going to fight and I have no business telling somebody else that it has to be. Yucca: Yeah. We're not here to say, eat the way we eat or make the choices we are making, right. Yeah. Mark: Right. For some people it's a very, what they choose to eat is very important and a part of their identity. And they are, you know, very clear about the value set that drives them to choose, to eat certain things or not to eat other things. And that's fine as well. Food is so personal to us, you know, we put it in our bodies. It's very, very personal. And so, and we're all genetically different, which means that things taste differently to us. Different things will appeal to different people based on what their genetics and their microbiome are like Yucca: And our cultural backgrounds too. Yes. Cultural and our regional. That insisting somebody, people in different areas of the world eat the same way as I think is not appropriate to insist that other people eat in a certain way. Mark: It's not only not appropriate, it doesn't work. I work for a food bank that provides healthy food to people who live with serious illnesses like HIV and COVID-19 and things like that. While they're recovering and, we have learned, we, we have, about a third of our clients now are latinx families and we have to provide them with culturally appropriate food or they simply won't eat. Yucca: Sure. Mark: And I mean, it's a very serious problem. It's like, you know, if you give people a bunch of food that is not recognizable as food by the people you give it to, then they're not going to eat and they're not going to get better. So, You know, there, there are some organizations that are really kind of beating the drum. You know, you must eat the kale, you must eat the kale. And, that's, that's just not realistic about the way people behave. Yucca: Yeah. That's very much like the suggestion. If you're first starting to grow a garden, one of the biggest pieces of advice that people give us grow the things you like. Because if you grow a bunch of zucchinis, you'll have a million of them and you don't like them, then you're going to have a million rotting zucchinis. Right. That's just the, if they're not appropriate for you Mark: and you're going to feel really bad that you wasted all that food. Yeah. Which we've touched on this before as well, feeling bad about pretty much anything is not very helpful. It doesn't make those you've harmed feel any better and it doesn't help you any either. You know, if you have something to feel bad about take action in order to try to resolve that issue, don't just go around feeling guilty. Yeah. Yucca: So of course, this is not to say don't try new foods, right? This isn't, we're not trying to say, but, but that, that culturally appropriate personally appropriate that, that food sovereignty is a really, really important issue in terms of culturally appropriate food, but also access to food. As well. Mark: Yes, indeed. And there are, there are certain things, for example, that I won't eat either because the cruelty involved in creating them is just unacceptable to me. Or because the industry that has sprung up in order to sell them has been damaging to others. I think of quinoa particularly, quinoa is now expensive and hard to get. In the areas of Peru that it's native to because it's being exported so much to the US it is a staple food for those Peruvian people living up in those mountains. So to me, I just don't think I personally, I'm not going to eat it out it, and I'm not going to eat it. So Yucca: we, don't eat seed oils. Because I have yet to come across a seed oil that was - industrial seed oils - that was produced in a way that is not incredibly damaging. There are some crops that are done that can be done, very damaged and talk about almonds. But I don't care if my neighbor's got a backyard with an almond tree in it. I'd love to eat their almonds. But we have yet to find any industrial seed oils that have been made in a, in a way that I would feel good about. And I'm not great on the health aspects of those. Mark: pretty much they aren't so good. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of an olive oil guy. Anyway. I'm, I'll go with olive oil. The,, where was I last, wherever I was. Yucca: Oh, there you were speaking about quinoa or certain foods that you don't eat because of the, the practices around them. Mark: Yes. But that said, you know, I, I buy fair trade coffee, for example. Right. Because the people who are being. Subjugated in order to create coffee, actually get the fruit of their labors by fair trade. I don't want to buy those big plantations sort of slavery driven, coffee products, but I don't give up coffee entirely either. So, and I I want to take sort of a left turn here and acknowledge that individual behavior is not going to solve the challenges that we have in order to come into sustainability and balance with the natural world, the overwhelming majority of energy consumption, the overwhelming majority of pollution waste creation, all that kind of stuff happened through industrial processes. So yes. Do your bit, if you feel called to do so, but let's not kid ourselves that by eating the right diet, we're, we're going to solve everything. We also have to be activists and really push for the destructive practices to end Yucca: because it's systemic. Yes, right. We're looking at how to whole systems work. But, but certainly the individual behavior, our behavior is what's going to, in many ways, lead to the ability for us to make those changes. Yes. So it's, you know, it's not, it's not a hopeless thing, but it is important to keep it within context and perspective. Mark: Sure. I mean climate free or, you know, climate neutral energy was something that ended up becoming a huge movement because consumers wanted it. Consumers didn't want to be. Depending on coal fired power plants and nuclear plants and so forth, you know, they demanded something better and the industry turned around and realized that it could make more money, by using these renewables rather than, you know, with extractive processes. And that's the transitional moment that we're in right now, but consumer choice had a lot to do with it. Yucca: Yeah. And on our everyday life, I think it's, it's a place where we can really feel empowered and make really important differences in our daily lives. So feeling good about what you're eating, feeling good in terms of the health of what you're eating, that works with your body and your lifestyle, because that's another aspect we didn't really touch on the nutritional needs of people's going to be very different based on what are they doing? Someone who works an office job is a totally requires a totally different type of nutrition than your top athlete or your person who's on their feet all day or whatever these out in the sun, all these different things. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. And. As with all creatures, one size does not fit all. It's true of humans and it's true of every other organism that's out there. We may not be able to detect the subtle differences between two ants, but they're, there, there are very definitely there. And just as that is true, it's true. That has we humans, we all have our own individual dietary needs. And there are no universal prescriptions which will magically solve all problems and, and satisfactorily nourish the whole human population. Yucca: And they change at different times in our life, at different life stages. And I think that they also change seasonally, especially when you're in an area that has extreme seasons that are very different. Mark: for sure Yucca: So that's one of the things that we do that I get a lot of joy from is eating in a seasonal pattern, because that helps me with my sense of the connection with the seasons connection with my land. But it also makes it fun that there are certain foods that I eat certain times of year. And then I don't other times. And I have that to look forward to. It's just, that's when it's available and it's, and it's exciting and it's enriching in that way. Mark: So, what would we like, would we like to talk about a couple of things that people could make for themselves if they choose to? Yucca: Sure. Yeah. So. I guess it's sharing. Well, why don't before we go there, why don't we talk a little bit about food within our own practices? Oh right. Jumped over that a little bit. We've been talking on this really sort of broad area of let's talk about food of what is it and the importance of it within the grand scheme of things. But, but how about, is it something that plays a role in your ritual practice and your daily life? Mark: Particularly in group rituals, food and drink do play a significant role in my ritual life. My, my ritual circle, I mean, we, we laugh about it. We eat so well. You know, everybody kind of goes all out to bring something wonderful when we get together and we haven't been able to do that this year, of course. But, even in our. Even in our Yule ritual, which took place on zoom. We had a segment for when we could drink toasts and eat chocolate or some other kind of, you know, yummy snack, and just, virtually break bread with one another and, you know, visit with one another in that kind of way. And, I think it's a very humanizing thing and it's, it also makes, Biological sense. Being in ritual space can be very energy consuming. Your brains really whizzing and your brain is what sucks up more calories than anything else in your body. And so if you go through an intensive, ritual, transformational experience of some kind and you then come out of it, the last thing you should be doing is then just totalling off to get in your car and drive somewhere. It's not healthy. It's not safe. Yeah. It makes a lot more sense for you to have some grounding. Food that will renew replenish the calories that you've lost and can get you more of a sense of having your feet on the ground, before you operate heavy machinery. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: How about you Yucca? How does food fit in your practice? Yucca: Yeah, so food. Food is a very daily, I mean, hopefully a very daily thing for me, with my, a lot of my practices around the family experience right now. Providing food, growing food- the, the little ones are getting old enough that they can be involved in that process of the growing and harvesting and preparing it to some extent, with lots of supervision because toddlers at knives are not typically a good combination, but it's important that they do learn to use them respectfully and safely. And so, I think that if it's something's taboo, then they're more likely to, when they do experiment with it to experiment in a less safe way than understanding the rules around it. So it's very central to the daily experience that we have. Not as big a role in terms of directly with ritual, but that's, I think a big part is because they really just don't do a lot of group ritual and that's been the different places and phases that I've been in my life. My hope is that when we are on the other side of the virus and the social distancing. Requirements are at a different level and the children are getting a little bit older. My dream is having more of that community around us. We used to do for the, the, for the equinoxes and solstices. We would do feasts with our close family and friends. And that's something I would like to bring back, but on another, a little bit scaled up of a level when that's possible. So that's just one of those dreams for the future then that I would love to do. Mark: Well, yes. I mean, it sounds as though the circumstances of your life enable you to be much more plugged into the food cycle. Than I certainly am, which is why constantly reminding myself at every meal, you know, that. Where this came from, what it's a product of, who, who got it to me, is so important to me. Because living on a suburban cul-de-sac, a block from a grocery store, Yucca: what's, what's this, the population of your County, Mark: about a half a million. It's a million acres, so it's a big County, but I dunno, relative to, New Mexico, I'm not sure whether that's true. Oh, Yucca: we're about 2 million for the state Mark: 2 million acres. Yucca: No, 2 million people Mark: population Yucca: population for this state. I'm not sure what we are in acres were damn pretty big. Yeah. But yeah, Mark: so, That's just something that I've come to grips with. I mean, I've, I, I think as I mentioned before, you have to pick your battles and a lot of where I've really focused my effort to minimize my impact has been around energy consumption and transportation. And that kind of thing. We've talked about this before. So yeah. Why don't you explain one of those seasonal things that you make for your family? Yucca: Sure. Well, we are in winter now. This is for us, this, we've just had the solstice. This is First Winter, it's cold, it's dark. And we've really been into broths right now. Stews and broths and those heavier things. And we will do broths in the evening. A few episodes back we talked about light and darkness and, and all of that. And one of the things I shared was that we have orange colored lights in our home. So when we're getting ready for bed in the evening, we switched the lights over to those red lights instead of our white bright lights. And we'll usually have some broth and it's just this really wonderful- it's warm and a mug, just a very well wonderful little ritual of calming down. And the way that I cook and the way that I bake too is by, I don't really use recipes. I just kind of look at what do I have and because I've experimented enough, I kind of have a sense of how it'll work. If I get a new ingredient for the first time, I'll look up and I'll go to maybe the first. So you pages on the search engine and read each person's recipe and just kind of get a sense of, Oh, how are people using this ingredient and then experiment with that. But with the broths, what we do is we save the bones and I'll keep it easy, keep it separate depending on, you know, the bone versus the beef versus lamb or something like that. And I'll do a long, long boil to get a real good bone broth going and then whatever vegetables that we have that we've got the ends of. So the top of the carrot that we didn't use and, some of the turnip peels and the. Onion peels and garlic peels and all of those, whatever those vegetables are that are more of the wintry style ones at the end. And that last hour will go in. So making the broth at first, and for people who don't eat meat, you can even do a broth just as well by taking all your foods, your vegetable scraps, giving it a nice long simmer and, yeast at the end, right. At the end, you don't want to put it in at the beginning, but like a nutritional yeast, and that can give it that real nice, kind of mouth texture to it and that umami taste. But we'll do that. And then, usually I'll skim out the, spent vegetables and put those in the compost and then salt, a little pepper. And it's the most delicious, wonderful sensation to drink at night in the cold of winter with the little flickering lights, and then with cozy little people and fuzzy blankets with stuffed animals. You got to watch out though, they like to spill it on stuffed animals. So that's what we've been doing a lot of right now. Mark: That's great. Sounds delicious. Yucca: What about you, Mark? Mark: Well, yes. I mean, it is, it is midwinter time and it's, you know, the, the souls to season and so forth. So I thought that I would present my recipe for mulled wine or cider. You can make this with, like sparkling apple cider, or actually still Apple cider is fine. It doesn't need to be sparkling, because you're going to, you're going to heat it so it would lose any carbonation. So, I do work with recipes because otherwise, unfortunate things happen. So, I will just kind of go through this. What you do is you start either with your, like a gallon of Apple cider, which can be, I prefer the unfiltered kind, the kind that's cloudy, because it's much more, it's just much more robust and has a lot more of the quality of the apple in it. Yucca: yAnd when you're saying Apple cider, you're talking about, soft for folks with, okay. So you could do this with wine for your alcoholic option, or you could do non alcoholic, apple cider Mark: Apple juice, Yucca: Apple juice. Mark: Okay. What I mean is unfiltered Apple juice. Okay. So, I'll, I'll go through it once for the, non-alcoholic option and then I'll go back. So in this recipe, you have two cinnamon sticks, two oranges that have been zested and juiced ate whole cloves, six star anise, and then four oranges peeled just for the garnish. You just want the peel. So you combine the, all the ingredients except for the orange peel for the garnish in a large sauce pan, and you bring it to a boil and simmer it low over the heat for 10 minutes. Then you let it cool. Pour it into mugs and add a twist of orange peel to each one. So you twist the orange peel to spray the orange oil over the top of the, the mug or glass. And it's delicious. It is really good. Yucca: Did I miss, did you say the volume? What was the volume of Mark: a gallon? Yucca: A gallon. Okay. Mark: Yeah. Now the alcoholic version is pretty much the same stuff, except that you also add a half a cup of honey. So what you need is a 375 milliliter bottle of red or tawny port wine. And then two bottles to 750 milliliter, regular bottles of red wine. A darker red wine, like Cabernet Sauvignon is really good for this. Don't buy expensive wine to do this. Use the cheap stuff. Trader Joe's two and a half bucks chuck is fine for this. So then you add half a cup of honey to that. What you do is in the process, you combine the red wine, the honey, the cinnamon sticks, zest juice, cloves and star anise, and you bring that to a boil and you simmer it for 10 minutes. And then you add the bottle of port wine afterwards. And then you pour that into mugs and use the orange peel to garnish each one. And it's delicious. It's really very good. Yucca: It makes me cozy just thinking about it. Mark: Yes it's with all those spices, it definitely goes right to, all the parts of you that may make you sort of get sweaty. I'm very fond of mulled wine. I wrote a poem about it. I really, I just like mulled wine a lot and I only of course do it at this time of year. So it's one of those special foods that I think about. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Leading up to this season. Yucca: Well, thank you for sharing that with us. Sure. Thank you. I have to listen back to this and write it down. Mark: Well, I can email it to you. You, you have an inside track Yucca: to, yes, that's right. Mark: Actually we could put these recipes in the. Yucca: Oh, yeah, let's do that. So you all have probably already seen that it's in the show notes, but just click down below and you will find these recipes right there. Great. Oh, wonderful. Mark: Right. Well, this has been a meandering exploration of food, paganism, science and recipes. Yucca: Yep. Well, thank you. Mark: Thank you. Hope you enjoyed it.

I chat to Mark about THE FISMITS, Before The Hindsight, recordings, 2021 plans, covid survival, getting on radio, Rebel Rock Radio, the genre of, influences, being an 80's child, rig rundown and more. As always a shout out to our patron RSA Rock 'n Metal Fans Facebook page for the continued support. Shout out to Devo for the hookup to chat to Mark: Thank you for watching and listening, please remember to like, subscribe and hit that notification bell to be kept up to date with our releases. #TheFismits #BeforeTheHindsight #Talk2Trev https://youtu.be/6rUocWlPnf4 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/talk2trevpodcasts/support

How do you handle the haters? When you’re the face and voice of your company there’s going to come a time when someone’s going to talk trash about you. But when you put yourself out there, whether it’s on video, a podcast, a blog, a webinar, social media, there’s going to come a time when it happens to you. I came to a place where I started to think differently about the bashing and untruths. Want to know how to deal with the “haters?” Want to know how to turn the dirt into a castle? Then don’t miss the 4th and FINAL part of my interview with my first mentor Mark Joyner. ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. And welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, hear a story. This is part four of four of the interview from the Mark Joyner show. And I hope you've enjoyed the series so far. I had so much fun sharing this interview with Mark, and I hope that you get a ton of value and benefit out of it as well. With that said, I'm going to ... No further ado, we'll cue up the theme song when we come back. You have a chance to listen to the exciting conclusion of my interview on the Mark Joyner show. And now it's funny for me because then I feel like now are the team has been doing good, now the next phase is this crossing the chasm. So I've been having my core team, I'll read this right now, we're all geeking out on it because it's fascinating as you start learning. And I pulled that. If you just Google crossing the chasm graph, you'll see a graph of the five phase, the innovators, the early adopters, and there's this big chasm. And on the other side is the early majority. And that's the majority of business, that's where you go from 100 millions to billions is getting the early majority. But there's a chasm because you have to shift everything. It's hard for me because it's the art that we use to get the innovators and early adopters repels the people on the other side of the chasm. It's like the funnels don't work over there, the messaging doesn't work over there, how we structure. And it's like, "Oh, do we really want to do that thing?" But it's like, "Yeah, that's the next phase. Otherwise we're just going to hang out where we're at forever. Right?" And we always say good is the enemy to great. Right? We're doing good. Oh yeah. There's perfect example of the graph right there. Yes. Yeah. He uses the big scary chasm, yes. And so for us, that's the next stage. The early majority, if you look at my business, right? The innovators were the people, the internet marketers who understood funnels. They were the first group. Next were the early adopters. These, for me, are the influencers, the creators, the experts. Those are the next phase where they're the people that are already, they're creating stuff and we're saying, "Here's how to get your creative message out." And so they've been really easy to become early adopters. But the early majority are the business owners. It's the chiropractors, the dentists, the LASIK surgeon. That's where the majority of existing businesses need funnels. How do we make this mainstream? How do we get to that next tier? And there's some that's bled into that, but for us to make that strategic move, it's hard because the dentist doesn't build their own funnels. Right? The person on the book or does the course, whatever's, typically ... They're the CEO and the marketer. And it's like they're loving this stuff because they'll spend the time to learn the strategy, do the thing. Over here, their dentist wants more dental clients, right? Or they're the restaurant who want ... They're not marketers, they're not going to learn marketing. They just want the tool. It's like we have to restructure so much of how the software alone needs to be rebuilt differently to be able to handle that next phase. The marketing, it's literally like it's a big rebuild. So there's fear, there's excitement, there's kind of that thing. And we're testing a lot of things on a small scale to kind of figure out pieces of it. But that's the next phase for us. Mark Joyner: That's beautiful. Dude, that was a fantastic example or a fantastic answer. I don't think you could give a more concise, better answer to that because you don't know. You don't know. It is a big, scary chasm and you guys are about to cross it, but you have some clues though. You know what I mean? Looking at just going back to good old fashioned Eugene Schwartz and looking at the tools that he gave us for changing the messaging. I think that a lot of your answers are going to be found there. Listen, do you have a couple minutes for a few questions? We got tons of them, but I know we've been going a little while. Russell: Yeah, sure. Mark: All right. So a lady here named rise of truth, she says, "Dan Gable coached at my alma mater. Have you ever listened to him talk about the letter to his mother wrote to him while he was attending college? Pretty awesome." Russell: I have not, but now I'm going to look that up. That's fascinating. Yeah. Far as I know, Dan Gable's like the Michael Jordan of wrestling. He is a legend. And I took a snapshot because I'm going to go look up the letter now. That's actually really cool. Mark: Yeah. I'm kind of curious about that too. What's funny, it reminds me of how when Edison was a very young man, his school wrote his mother a letter saying, "Hey, your son is basically not teachable. He's not smart enough to be in school." But then she said, "Oh, I got a letter from school. And what I read to them was that you're too smart to be in school so you have to be homeschooled." And then later on in life, after he had achieved all of this, he saw that original letter. And it just ripped him to shreds because he realized how much his mom sacrificed and how much of her belief in him changed his own perception of himself. And that's such a profound lesson, man, because if we could all just change our belief in ourselves a little bit, we're all capable of so much more than we're taught to believe. And while we're opiating ourselves with all this crap on TV and we're all involved in all of our different distractions, these things are also subtly weakening us and programing us with the message that, "Hey, there's this wonderful life that other people are watching or are living on the other side of the screen, but that's not for you. You're meant to be in this little box where you're the observer of everything on the screen while you stuff your face with Haagen Dazs and take more fentanyl. I mean, that's literally what's happening to a lot of society right now. And I think what we've got to do to to kind of turn society around before it destroys itself is to get people to understand that we're all capable of so much more than we've been taught that we're capable of. And the more people we can reach with that message, I think the better hope humanity has. Kenneth Kern Sanu had a really interesting question. He was talking about basically, I'm not going to phrase it the way he did. He phrased it in kind of a slightly rude way. No offense, Kenneth. But I don't know what you meant by the way you phrased it. But the question you asked at the end was very important. But he's talking about how you're getting out there all the time. You don't see this on the queue here. This was from another thread I started where a couple days ago, I asked people to just say, "Hey, tell me what your questions are for Russell." And basically his question was with you being out there so much and being so visible now, how do you deal with online haters? Russell: Oh, man. Man, when I first got started, back about the time I met you initially, that's the first time I started getting hate. So it's been, man, whatever, 15, 16 years ago when that first started. And it was really hard back then, man, I would see something and it'd put me out for three or four days while I sat there just depressed or upset or whatever. And it was really, really hard. And I remember a couple things that helped me. One thing I remember Dan Kennedy said, if you haven't offended someone by noon each day, you're not marketing hard enough. And that was a weird release to me. I'm like, "Oh." I don't know if I really believed that, but it gave me a little permission. And the more I've seen the hate, the more I realize it's people that aren't happy with themselves. I try not to look at it because it does, if I read something, it'll mess me up for awhile. But for the most part, when people, especially on ads, I mean, you get beat up in the ads, the more you're visible, the more that stuff happens. The hard thing for me is when there's people that you've helped or you love or you respect or whatever. And that doesn't happen often, but those are the ones that are more brutal. You know what I mean? You're just like, "Oh." I've had a couple people that I've spent a lot of time developing and helping find success, and then they seem like sometimes they're the ones that come back the hardest. And you're just like, "Seriously?" Mark: Yeah. Especially when you help them for free. Right? You know? Russell: Yeah. Those ones hurt the most. For the most part, people that are just posting stuff, I think it's funny at this point. It doesn't bother me at all. But I know my wife just started her first podcast, which is so far out of her comfort zone. She's very keeps to herself. And so she's getting to have people commenting and things are happening and it's the first time. And I'm remembering, I'm like, "I forget how hard that can be." In fact, it's interesting. Oh yeah, we talked earlier. I have a podcast, the Book of Mormon podcast. And it's funny because I tell people all the time, "Go and publish, go and publish." But I started publishing that and I had all sorts of things. I still do. I don't publish that near as much as I want to because I get the fear again because it's like ... I don't know, on the marketing side, I can take it, go for it. Take your best shot. But on other things that you're not as comfortable talking about or things you really hold sacred or dear or whatever, it's a little harder. But when all is said and done, I think that God's created these platforms for us to share and if we're not willing to share, then he'll give the ability, the gifts, the ideas, whatever, to other people. And so I think it's just we've all been entrusted with a lot so it's just like be willing to share it even if you get beat up a little bit along the way. So anyway. Mark: That's right. Well, yeah. Oh, dude. Well you know I have many, many stories along those lines I should share. That's something I've had to learn the hard way. But you have to give up and you have to trust a little bit. I mean, having so many things, I took it very personally along the way when a lot of people that I helped even straight ripped stuff off or even turned around and did nasty moves behind my back and stuff like that. And then I was kind of like, "You know what?" Well, here's the thing. I can look at this through another lens. I can say for whatever reason, I've been gifted with the ability to get these ideas and to be a conduit for these ideas. And I'm grateful that that conduit is still open. And I think that if I keep that channel open and keep giving it, it's going to keep coming. And what I need to focus on is the infinite abundance of that source of that inspiration rather than like, "Oh man, if I had patented the tracking pixel ..." I mean, these people come up to me, they're like, "Mark, how come you didn't patent eBooks or the tracking pixel? Doesn't that make you so mad?" And I'm like, "Not really. Because think about it, right? Let's say I patented the tracking pixel, right? They would have probably came up with some other very similar technology, called it something else, now everybody's still, even though it's a JS file, they still call them tracking pixels. And I get to be known forevermore as the inventor of the tracking pixel. Right?" So, I mean, maybe it wouldn't have worked out the same way had I patented it. Right? Maybe it would have gone a totally different way. Maybe it was actually the best possible way for things to turn out for me. You know? So I'm learning how to change my orientation about that, but I want to ask you something about this. Do you ever give online haters a little sass? Because I've experimented with this a bit over the last couple years. I got to say, normally, for awhile, I was just like, "All right, just be kind to everybody." But then I was like, "You know what, man? Some of these people need a little bit of a slap back every now and then." And I started getting a little bit more sassy over the last couple years. And how about you? Have you experimented with that? Russell: It's funny because I would say since ClickFunnels' come out, there's been probably three or four times where I just ... You just snap and your thumbs are flying on your phone. You're like, "Ah," and you post it. And I can honestly say every time I've done that, I've regretted it. And it's now, I look at this, with ClickFunnels as well, it's not just me. Everything I say is an extension of my partner, Todd, and my other partners and my employer. So especially there was this one dude, I'm not going to say his name, but somebody who I had a lot of respect for. We've never had any ... It's just weird. We'd never really communicated and I thought we were ... I mean, we communicated a little bit. I assumed we were friends. We're peers. And he starts going off on his own personal wall about aggressively tearing me down. So confusing. And anyway, so I said some things I probably shouldn't have. So it's tough. Especially the wrestler me. Because man, if you say it to my face, we are going. Please come at me. Mark: Yeah, right. Russell: It's not posted publicly for everyone to see the fight, but we can have that fight right here, anytime. Mark: You’d rip their limbs off their torso. Russell: I know. Yeah, it's frustrating. But when all said and done, it's just, it's hard. Mark: I'll tell you the distinction I have on this. Right? So if I reply out of anger, I always regret it. But sometimes, if I come back with just a really like an IDGAF attitude zinger that just puts them in their place, that one, I'm like, "Nah, I don't regret that because you totally had it coming and they shut up." Right? And it teaches them like, "Okay. Man, if- Russell: You get to punch back. Mark: Yeah. I mean, whatever people think, I know I'm going to say something very divisive here and I'm not going to get into politics or anything, but whatever people think about Trump, whether they hate him or love him, and it seems to be a completely divisive thing, nobody's in the middle. I think I'm the only guy on the planet who's like, "I don't really have an opinion." I can look at him through a million different lenses. You know what I mean? There's so many ways to look at what he does. Right? But one thing that you have to recognize about the guy is that when somebody punches him, he punches back hard. Right? And fast. Yeah. And it makes people hesitate. They're like, "I don't know if I can tangle with this dude." Right? So it's an interesting thing to observe. I don't know if there's any one right way. All right. We've been going awhile. I'm going to… go ahead. Russell: I love your Facebook comments because you always post these questions that you can tell you're stirring the pot a little bit like let's just see what both sides are going to say to this question. Mark: Yeah. Russell: I always read them, but never comment because I don't know if I have strong enough opinion one way or the other to defend anything, but I love reading. Mark: Same, same. And by the way, I'll just say, people misunderstand. They think I'm doing this for engagement bait. And it's like, "Dude, if I was trying to gain Facebook for marketing, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing on Facebook." I mean, I see what I do as more or less of a public service. I feel like what I'm doing out there is kind of like trying to teach people like, "Man, stop being so rigid about your view of reality because you don't know, man. You don't know." And I'm trying to get people to be okay with disagreeing with other people. And I mean, that's been sort of like my whole mission on social media is to create an environment where people can be like, "Hey, let's see if we can actually look at things dispassionately and look at them through somebody else's eyes and maybe say to ourselves, 'You know what? I see this completely differently from that other guy, but I don't have to hate this dude. He sees it differently from me. We can still get along.'" This has been a quixotic battle for me. I don't think I've succeeded in this mission. I don't know how much longer it's going to last. I think I'm probably going to change up my approach on it. Hey listen, let me end on one last question. I don't know if this is one you're going to want to ask, but it's from a mutual friend of ours. You remember Brad Callen? Yeah? Russell: I love Brad. Yeah. Mark: I love Brad too, man. He is a great dude. And he asks a question that I don't know if you're going to want to answer because it's a very personal questions about numbers. Russell: Okay. Mark: Okay? All right. So he says, "Posted this earlier and also mentioned directly to him, but having him give you some tangible numbers on ClickFunnels. Things like total number of free trial users. And by the way, I don't think I would answer this question if I were Russell." Okay. If somebody were to ask me this about Simpleology, I don't think I would answer. I don't think I would answer. And guys, if Russell refuses to answer, do not fault him because he is under no obligation to answer this question to anybody. And I'm kind of- Russell: Especially Brad. Just kidding. Mark: Yeah, especially Brad. No, we love Brad. Brad is an awesome dude. All right. "So things like total number of trial users they get per day. What percentage of those stick and are billed at least once? What the average member link there is, what the churn rate is, what the refund rate is. That would really help those of us building software businesses to know what numbers we need to hit monthly to reach Clickfunnels' level revenues and valuation. Assuming Russell wouldn't know exact numbers off the top of his head, but maybe some broad guesses. The more actual data of any sort of numbers metrics he can give would be great for those that have been at this for awhile and also help broaden the mindset and goal setting on what's possible." And then he said, "PS, anything not covered in his books would also be ideal." I'll answer the PS. Wait for the two sequels coming out here pretty soon. Russell: I mean, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head. I'm not a big data guy. I'm more the creative side. So some of my partners can answer a lot of it better than me. But I'll share some stuff I think will be helpful and motivating for people. Because I remember when we launched ClickFunnels, the event I told you at the very beginning where I did the first presentation, I was like, "Oh my gosh, we got the message right." It was kind of a funny event because you could buy a booth. And it was a hallway half the size of the room I'm in right now. And there were only four people that bought booths. ClickFunnels had our very first booth ever. And then Leadpages had a booth, and two other people. And this side of the hall was Leadpages, and this side was ClickFunnels. We were almost touching. And that was our big competitor when we first got started. And I remember I was just like ... It was really funny because our banner ad said, "Can your landing page software do this?" And it had a picture of a funnel. And then right there, it was like, "Landing page software." Anyway, it was really funny. But at that event, I remember Clay Collins, who I don't know if he still owns Leadpages or not, but at the time, he owned it. I think he still ... Anyway, but he told Mike Filsaime, I think, I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think he said something like there's 200 or maybe 300 signups a day that were happening. And I remember he told me that and I was like, "There's no way that's possible." And I sat home thinking forever, I'm like, "How do you get 200 to 300 signups a day consistently every single day?" And I just, that number drove me crazy. But then it became my KPI. Like, "Okay, how many do we get a day? I need to know." And it was three and then it was five. But because anything you track, it starts to grow. And so we kept looking at it, looking at it. And so for me, that became the number to look at because I couldn't figure out how he was doing it. And so I can give you some, again, basically right now we get about 1500 people a day that go to clickfunnels.com and start the trial, which is step one, which basically pick a name and a username. And then from that, step two is where they put in a credit card. And about half of those will put in a credit card. So we're getting, I don't know, 700, 800 paid, or not paid, but credit card trials a day that are coming into the platform. Some days are higher. Some days we get 1000. Some days it's 500 or 600. But pretty consistently, it's around 1500 free leads a day and then you get a little more than half actually finish credit card. And that's about all the numbers I really know off the top of my head. I know that it's interesting. At this point in the game, those people come whether we're buying a lot of ads or not. The game now on our side is the churn stuff. Because every percentage of churn, we drop churn right now by 1%, that’s an extra $20 million a year revenue to the bottom line by 1%. And so that's the game right now. It's like, how do we simplify the software? How we change the lead flow? How do we pre-frame it better? There's so many things that it's a fun game. And that number is always fluctuating. And we're always chopping it down by a fourth of a point, half a ... And so I don't know what it is right now off the top of my head. But I do know that's the number. That matters more right now than new leads because, like I said, a half percent, 1%, it changes, it's a big deal. Mark: And by the way, so to wrap this up, I just want to tell Brad, the answer Russell just gave you is actually better than specific numbers that he could have given you. Why? Because he's teaching you the secret formula for what to look at, right? It doesn't matter how your numbers stack up to some other company. What matters is the improvements that you make to your numbers right now. That's the only thing that really, really matters. And sometimes competition is a good way to motivate yourself, but it's not the best way to improve yourself. Because if you're looking at the other guy, you're not watching your own lane, right? You need to be watching your own lane. You need to be improving your game. Yeah, check out the other guy's numbers from time to time to kind of see how you're doing, but really 99% of your focus needs to be on how do I improve me? How do I improve what's going on inside my company? And usually, by the way, how to improve what's going on inside in your company comes down to improving what's going on inside you. All right. Listen, Russell, I know I've been keeping you up late and I know you got kids to take care of and you got a company to go back to tomorrow and it's getting late and we are way past your bedtime here. I want to encourage everyone, go to simpleology.com/clickfunnelsfree. At the very least, check out the free trial Funnel that they have there because Russell has honed that through thousands upon thousands of split tests now. And you guys will see their marketing structure, how they're doing that, how they're retargeting it, how they get you guys back on email, all of that. And also, the software itself is absolutely amazing. And I want to encourage everybody as well, if you enjoyed this tonight, if you appreciate the fact that Russell here spent almost two hours now giving us some pretty amazing inside information on a business that is actually right about to cross that chasm and start to reach that billion dollar mark, and I can almost guarantee you guys they're going to make it, knowing Russell and knowing how they're doing, if you appreciate what he has delivered tonight, I want you guys to share this far and wide with as many people as possible. If you think this has helped you, let's get this message out to more people. And any comments you guys can put underneath all of this to say thank you to Russell as well, I'm sure he would be very, very appreciative to get that. No matter how well we do, we always want to be appreciated for our contributions. And Russell, I appreciate you very, very much, man. Man, I'm so proud of what you've done. And you have become an inspiration for me. You make me want to be a better person and you have set a higher bar. And at 51 years of age now, I feel invigorated watching you being so successful. And I'm now inspired to take my company to a higher level as well because of what I see you doing. So thank you for that, man. Russell: Thank you. And thanks for having me on. I had a really good time. I haven't had a chance to do something like this for a long time. I mean, we're always in the thick of it. And with this late night, it would work for me. And I appreciate you letting me do that. But I was going to kind of wrap with just saying it's interesting, in your life, your life's a timeline from you're born and then over here, you die. And there's different people that, as you're on this journey, that shift your direction a little bit. And a little shift in direction can be a huge different outcome in different spots. And I'm just honestly so grateful for you, man. I started this journey 17, 18 years ago and I was floundering, trying to figure things out. You were the guy who literally grabbed me and shifted my direction and completely transformed the projectory and the future of my life. And anyway, I'll always be grateful for you for that. And anyway, so just wanted to let you know that. And just grateful that you put in as much time as you have. I think, again, I always talk about it with my own tribe, but I feel like business is a calling from God and that we're being called to serve a group of customers. And if we do it right, we change their lives. And you definitely changed my life. And so thank you for hearing the call and putting forth the effort and the time. And I know from experience it's not easy, it's not painful. It's way easier to go sedate and go watch TV and do whatever. And through those times I'm sure were hard for you at the beginning of the internet, before Facebook, you were out there killing yourself and learning this stuff and trailblazing for people like me so that we could get on your shoulders and learn from you and set our own path. So always be super grateful eternally for you. So thanks for all you've done for my life. Mark: Thank you, man. I'm humbled. All right. Everybody, you guys have a beautiful night. I enjoyed this immensely. And Russell, I will see you actually very soon. Russell: You’re coming to Boise! Mark: That's going to be awesome. That's going to be awesome. Russell: I'm so excited. I appreciate you coming. Mark: See you in Boise, brother. Russell: See you, everybody.

As some freedom returns to society following COVID-19, don’t miss out on potential opportunities to implement property management growth strategies. Today’s guests are Mark and Anne Lackey from HireSmart Virtual Assistants (VAs). Mark and Anne are broker-owners that manage almost 200 doors in Atlanta. You’ll Learn... [03:47] Trends: Property management pivots and changes during economic downturns. [07:10] Hire Virtually: Save money, get better employees, and increase productivity. [08:22] Wake Up: Don’t resist remote work; realize office space may be unnecessary. [11:14] DIY vs. Professionally Managed: Ramp up sales/funnels to serve customers. [15:26] Problems are always opportunities to grow business by offering solutions. [21:11] Customer Service: Don’t disconnect. Focus/follow up for retention/satisfaction. [27:02] Professionalism: Set expectations. Don’t badmouth landlords via vendors. [28:29] BDM: Do you need a business development manager? [31:33] Time, Energy, and Effort: Resources required to rent properties to tenants. {32:28] Referrals grow businesses. No referrals represents customer care problem. [35:29] Gamechanger: Save time and money to get things done or do more yourself?. [38:30] Wrong Person, Role, Tool, Time, and Money: Hire based on owner’s needs. [40:57] Off-the-Shelf vs. Customization: How to hire and build teams takes time. [46:50] Remote Challenges: Communication, operations, and management problems. [48:22] Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Get work done based on expectations. [50:15] Think, Invest, HireSmart: Know avatar to grow property management business. Tweetables Opportunities are available to make sales and buy, manage, and invest in more properties. You don’t have to have your employees in an office. You don’t even have to have an office anymore. Property managers are immune to guilt and the heroes of the rental industry. Referrals grow businesses. No referrals represent customer care problems. Resources HireSmart Virtual Assistants (VAs) DGS 69: HireSmart Virtual Assistants with Anne Lackey NARPM Lehman Brothers Airbnb DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason: Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers, to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it, you think they’re crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change the perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I’m your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show. My guests today are Mark and Anne Lackey from HireSmart. Welcome you two. Anne: Hey, good to see you. It's been a while. Mark: Hey, it's good to see you. Jason: It's good to have you back. I noticed you're displaying that beautiful logo in the background. Mark: Isn't that wonderful? Anne: Yes, that is of course a DoorGrow special. They helped us with that on our website. Mark: The logo, the renaming, all of that was a DoorGrow impression that was right for us and is great for our clients. Jason: Yeah, I like it. Cool. We're going to be talking about property management growth strategies after COVID-19. This Coronavirus is just starting to clean itself up. I just rode a road trip from Pennsylvania to Austin over the course of multiple days. People were not wearing masks anymore. We were eating at restaurants. It was awesome. It was like we are back to having freedom again. Most places are open here in Austin. I went to the hardware store yesterday, though. Everyone was wearing masks and I felt like I was in trouble. I thought we were over this already, but apparently not at Home Depot. Anne: Some places are, some places aren’t. Jason: I think the national chains and the national stores have to accommodate the lowest common denominator nationally. They got rules in place for everything. What are we chatting about today? Anne: First of all, I want to make sure everybody understands we are broker-owners ourselves. We manage doors in Atlanta. Mike: Nearly 200 doors in Atlanta since 2005 for other people and for ourselves, since 2001. Anne: We've been talking a lot to our friends who are in the property management business. We are, of course, NARPM members, affiliates, and affinity partners with them. We hear a lot around the nation of different things. Just like your trip from Pennsylvania. You saw different parts of the country where things were more open than others, so we want to talk about a couple of different things as we see them. For property managers that are thinking what's the next thing. I want to back up just a little bit and talk a little bit about historical trends and changes. Mark, why don't you get us started on that? Mark: This will show my age. That's one thing if I've mentioned this. In the 70s, we had lines to get gas. Not everybody out there remembers that, but there was an oil shortage. There was a gas shortage and at that point, everybody said we're going to run out of oil in a couple of years. It was a crisis, so out of that came what? We got into solar energy, more on to hydroelectric. Things pivoted, things changed. In the 80s, the savings and loans went down. Things pivoted on how we got mortgages. The dot-com buzz, the 90s, the tech blow up. All those things and what most everybody remembers is the meltdown that we had in the economy and mortgage market that occurred just 10–12 years ago. At that point, it required pivoting and Anne and I are really good at our business about looking to see what the trends are going to be. What's going to change and how to pivot. That's what we want to talk about today. It's not the end of the world like everybody said, March 15th or whatever date it was when everybody went to hibernation. It's like, it's the end of the world. Anne: Nobody's going to pay their rent. Mark: We thought that 12 years ago when Lehman Brothers shut their doors. It all seems like it's the end of the world, but it's not. It's an opportunity. It's learning to pivot. Look at where the puck is going. Anne: We wanted to talk about some of the trends that we see and the opportunities that property managers should be looking at in their business. You obviously don't hop on every trend and everything that comes along, but it is always good to put it in perspective. Mark, let's talk about some of the trends that we've seen in real estate in general. We're going to talk about how you can take advantage of that. Mark: In the last few months, we had property managers and friends that were investors that had Airbnb. They were making 5–10 times the amount of rent I was off of a property. Suddenly, they made nothing because all the bookings shut down. They’re looking. A lot of them said hey, let's sell. Let's go long term. A lot of things changed there. Through them and through those changes of people not having as much disposable income at this point because there's a slow down in jobs, second homes aren’t popular right now. Two, with all the laws that are coming about with the changes to protect the renters that are coming out of state legislators and the national, there's a lot of change and as property managers, we keep apprise to that. But these DIY (do-it-yourself) landlords don't. So, we're going to talk about some opportunities to make sales, to get some additional properties, to manage some opportunities for investing, too, if you're into that area. Jason: When COVID hit and it was March, March was brutal for us at DoorGrow. Sales stopped. Every property manager just tightens their purse strings, freaking out, there's this cash crunch. We experienced a serious cash crunch so we had to get lean. I think a lot of businesses had to get lean and in the long run, that is a really healthy thing for business. Everyone was trimming the fat and [...] was effective. Anne: We saw that in HireSmart because now everybody is a virtual employee. This is a perfect time to write stuff. People that have been hesitant to hire virtually have been in our doors now because they are like, wow, we can save some money. We can have better employees. We can have different strategies and approaches. Now, it was no longer important because it wasn't allowed to have people come into the office. Actually for us on HireSmart, it actually expanded our business. Mark: There was resistance before from property managers that wanted to walk down the hall and lean over Joe or Joan's shoulder and see what they’re doing, see what they're working on—literally, not figuratively—to be there, to have that conversation face-to-face. They were very hesitant about working and they didn't have the resources to figure out how to work remotely. With what’s come out of COVID-19 has become the realization that you don't have to have your employees at an office. You don't even have an office anymore. Jason: I've known this for well over a decade. Interesting to see that mass transition of people realizing they can use tools like Zoom and move away from having somebody right there in their office. I did some polls online asking people during this. I asked how many people would renew their business lease at the end of the term and a lot of them said they're going to, at the very least, downsize, maybe to a smaller office base, or they may even not renew. I also did some polling on what people have noticed as a result of people working from home. Some of my clients were saying that they've noticed that they were surprised that their team members became more productive. They're getting more done. I guess because there are fewer interruptions they were saying. There are fewer distractions. Maybe they're more comfortable. But some of my team members are doing better. I have heard some people say I hate it. My kids are there all the time. I'm going crazy. But in general, I think the world has to wake up and realize when you have to get work done, you can try this. Then they tried this and they're like, hey, this works. Why are we spending so much money on this brick and mortar location that is outrageously expensive to have all these people in it when we can eliminate that crazy expense and it's unnecessary. Mike: Yeah. It was shocking, like you, we immediately drew into our shell in March, and let's save. We don't know what's going to happen. People are going to let people go. But in April and May, we had the most requests for information about our services. The most orders we've had in five years. Jason: I'll bet. Anne: Without any [...]. That's the funny part for us [...] Mike: We’re not traveling. Anne: It's been interesting and we do a lot of community teaching and speaking even online. We always have to help people understand what opportunities are there. A lot of things that we're promoting or that we're seeing right now, specifically in property management, is now’s a great time to ramp up your sales and funnels. Again, because the DIY's are so lost. We already know that there are so many DIY landlords compared to professionally managed. Mike: Eighty percent of the US are do-it-yourself landlords. That's a lot of opportunity. Anne: That's a lot of opportunity. I know you talk a lot about that, but how do you reach them? How do you engage with them? How do you attract them? Of course, they outgrow a platform, obviously, as a key component to that, which is wonderful, but you have to have the human-to-human or human automation to back it up. I think where we're coming to as a society is if you don't have a physical office where people can walk in anymore because you're closing your doors. We've had a closed-door policy for 19 years. I think people are very surprised that we've never let anybody in our office ever. Mike: We have a small office of three. Anne: We've never let anybody in our office even when we had seven people in our office, we didn't have people in our office because it's a distraction, that interruption. What happens is you need to serve your customers. You need to be talking to them. You need to be serving them. Now, the residents and owners don't just want to be served 9–5. We're seeing that they want answers seven o'clock at night, eight o'clock at night when they're online. When they have questions they would like to have some interactions with someone from your office. How do you do that cost-effectively? Of course, we have the solution. A full-time dedicated virtual employee that works as the second shift or the split shift is there to take care of chat. They're there to answer the questions and help people guide them on applications. Mike: Then guide the people that are coming in to bring you properties to manage. Anne: Right, and to talk to owners about how I work with you. Because here's what's going on in the marketplace. Again, in a lot of places, you do have people that aren't able to pay their rent right now because they have lost their jobs. Do you have owners that are concerned about what I do? How do I do this? We've had an increase in our inquiries for property management recently as well because they just don't know the rules. They don't know the laws. Mike: It's not the time to withdraw. We're all sheltered in our business in place, too, and when we withdrew that opportunity to find new business went away. The companies, the far-sighted future thunking property managers, business owners, and the brokers that are now looking at making some investments. Not just sitting on their dollars, but actually making some investments in the right people, the right tools, business development people to help grow the business, doing outreaches. One thing we were talking about just the other day was—we haven't done this yet—we should have a seminar that we invite all the DIY landlords to share with them all the fears of all the new laws that have come out. [...]. We have that seminar and some of them are going to come out and say, okay, now I can do things differently because I have information on what I can and can't do. A lot of them are going to come out and say I just can't do this anymore. I'm tired of doing it. I'm going to hire—in case—us because we've been in that seminar. Making those types of investments, and granted that those seminars aren't always live, they're maybe at this point virtual but reaching out to those. Those are the ways now to grow your business for tomorrow because over the next six months until we get to the end of this year, there's opportunity abound for forward-thinking. Jason: That's what problems do. Problems are always opportunities. Let's talk about the problem. Here are some of the things I noticed. I won't say who it is, but I got a call from one of my business coaches and he has rental properties. He was like, what do you see in the market place right now because I got a small portfolio of properties and only 50% of them are paying rent. I said at least 98% of most of the rent is being collected by my clients. That's what I'm hearing. Also, what I noticed happening is my clients are saying that their owners were calling them and saying if tenants don't want to pay rent this month, we'll let them not pay rent. They're like no, they're going to pay rent. The thing is people felt guilty. They're almost ashamed but feel guilty, but property managers, you guys are over that [...]. You guys are completely over. You've heard all the excuses. You've heard all the stories. Some residents right now, due to the unemployment benefits and stuff that are going around, are making more money, especially the low rent markets. They're making more money than when they were working. But some of them are still trying to use the excuse that they need to not pay rent or whatever. The news kind of made it look like that. It made it look like people trying to collect rent are evil, bad, sick, or wrong. A lot of homeowners are just feeling guilty. Property managers are immune to guilt. Anne: That's because we've heard it all. Jason: We've heard it all. We heard all the stories, the excuses. You know how to help people. You know what programs are available because you guys are on top of this stuff. You guys aren't having trouble collecting the rent. In general, I haven't heard anyone in the single-family residential space or even multi-family having real trouble collecting rent. Rents have gone down just a little bit. You got people that most would have heard it's the same people that we're always troubled paying rent. We just couldn't evict them, but that's coming. Mike: Your coach needs to reach out to a professional manager. You see that, but he doesn't. Seminars, webinars, something. Jason: They don’t see the problem. That's the challenge I've always experienced in DoorGrow. I'm selling a solution to a problem that most people can't see. They can't see the leaks on their website. They can't see the challenges that their branding is hurting word of mouth. I have to educate people to see the problem. The same thing is what you're talking about. If you can create the gap and show the contrast between what challenges and problems they're dealing with and what they could be experiencing, what successes your clients are having, they're going to see this gap and that gap is what creates pain. People want to solve pain. People want a pain killer, not a vitamin. People will pay even more money to get out of pain. They want a solution, but they don't know a lot of them that there's a solution out there. I do think there is a massive opportunity. There's no scarcity in property management. There's no shortage of people that are in pain or have problems or challenges they are dealing with. Not only that, but I think property managers can hold their heads up high because good property managers, I really do believe as I said before, can change the world. There are millions of renters. Even here on my own property, I'm renting (I just moved to Austin), my kids were without a water heater for two weeks. The landlord sent out two different plumbers because he didn't like the feedback that the 13-year-old water heater should be replaced even though the pilot kept going out. I didn't even know my kids were taking cold showers because they got it before me and they can't get on Xbox until they take their showers, so they 're just doing it. All they're thinking about is can I get on the Xbox now? I'm like, yes, go ahead. But then my daughter's like, I haven't taken a shower in four days because the shower's freezing. I didn't know this and the younger ones, I went to them. That doesn't make sense because they've been taking their baths and their showers. I went to my son, Hudson, and I'm like, how's the shower been lately? He's like, cold. I'm like, what? Why didn't you tell me? Mike: It’s virtually a summer, right? Jason: Then I said to my daughter, she likes taking baths, you've been taking baths? She's like, Yeah. How are your baths been? She's like, they're really cold. I'm like, what? But you guys protect families. You guys also protect owners. You guys are like the middle person that makes everything okay and you take care of people. It lowers the pressure and noise. Property managers even do things like increasing the number of pets that families are able to have because you guys recognize that usually, it’s the kids that are causing more damage than the animals. [...] to get more rent because of pets. There are so many benefits to property management that positively impact families, homes, and lives. You guys are really the heroes of the rental industry. Property managers are the heroes of the rental industry. Mike: And unlike your property manager there that evidently has trouble with customer service. Jason: He's not the property manager, technically. He's just a landlord who doesn't want to do anything. Anne: You got a DIYer. Mike: Yeah, a DIYer. Anne: Sounds like a great lead. Mike: But that gets into the consideration of customer service. As property managers, we worried over the years about customer service to our owners but we haven't worried as much about customer service to our tenants. For retention and to continue to have tenants that want to refer people in, raising your level of customer service at this time specifically because I know I ordered something that didn't come and it was then delivered to Valentine, Nebraska instead of here where I am in Georgia, so I sent a response online and I got an auto-reply that says call this number. I call the number and it says we're too busy. We're not answering phones now. Just send an email. Customer service has failed specifically right now. Anne: I'll actually tell you something that we did on our property manager which I think has really impacted our renewals and we are getting increases in rent even now. Mike: On everyone. Anne: Let's just talk about it. Again, people pay for when they feel taken care of. One of the biggest gaps that we saw, this is probably two years ago, in our business was exactly what you're talking about. Tenant isn't taken care of, it's taking too long, the contractor is giving all kinds of excuses as to why they can't get there, tenant's going here, contractors going here. There's this big disconnect. Our virtual employee, Bonnie, is charged literally with every day every work order that comes in, she's calling the vendor and saying vendor, did you get it? Because we want to make sure it didn't get— Mike: Lost. You know how emails are. Anne: That's the first thing. Then the next day, she's calling the resident and saying resident, we assigned your work order to contractor B. Have you heard from him? Well, no. What happened? Jason: That's better than being ghosted and then eventually not having your calls answered, then eventually maybe getting a text or response half a week later. Anne: She says okay, you haven't heard from contractor B. Here's contractor B's information. We have already approved them to go out. Then she calls contractor B and she says contractor B, I heard that you haven't connected. Why haven't you connected? Oh, they haven't returned my call. Okay, I just got off the phone with them. They are available. Call them and they are expecting your call. She closes that loop, that hand-off because we assume contractor B is doing his job and we assume tenants are never wrong, they never change their phone numbers or anything else. Mike: Then the contractor goes out like he did to you and assesses the work. Many times there's not a follow-up, so what does Bonnie do then? Anne: Bonnie, as soon as she gets the date it was supposed to be scheduled from either the tenant or the contractor B, she follows up the next day and says my understanding is that contractor B was supposed to be there yesterday. Did they show up? Mike: Jason, did they take care of the water heater for you. Anne: Are you satisfied with the repair. Mike: And Jason says no. Anne: No, I still have… Now, we have another feedback loop. This is a maintenance process that we never could have done without having a virtual employee do this. It's too time-intensive and we have other work to be done. Mike: Then the flag goes up to tell the owner, owner, you got to provide hot water. You want an ACH or do you want us to loan you the money at an 18% rate? Anne: Yeah, put it on a credit card, however you want to do it. The reality for us is our tenant satisfaction has gone through the roof because we showed that we care, we're not letting it go, and literally, I as the broker get the list of not only what the outstanding work orders but where they are in the process and what she's done to move it forward. If we have a resident that we haven't been able to get in touch with, the contractor hasn't been able to, we have an escalation process. I don't manage, Bonnie manages. Again, total game-changer. Mike: The benefit out of all of that, we don't get pushed back when we're raising the rent. We started with our process in the middle of March. We do it in the middle of every month with notification of our rent increases and property. Most property managers that we know said you're crazy. We're either going to hold it. We'll tell them they don't have to pay an increase. We went out there and we got resistance from one tenant over the last, March, April, May, June. We got four months into our belt of increases and we have one pushback. Anne: Of course when you have rent increases, that increases our profitability, too. The owner makes a little bit more money, we make a little bit more money. It's still very reasonable. One of the things I'll say about rental rates is we don't do it arbitrarily. We do a full competitive market analysis. We make sure it's on the market. We don't raise all the way up to market if it's a significant jump, we'll do it at the average appreciation rate. Mike: We want to stay just below the top of the market. Anne: Correct because we don't want to give them a reason to leave. Mike: But we got happy tenants that don't want to leave. They go oh, I can't rent down the street for what I'm paying here because we always stay right below that. Jason: There's another hidden killer, too, I noticed in the scenario because when these vendors came to my property here and talked to me, they were basically bad-mouthing the landlord. They were like this guy is cheap. I've told them he needs to do this. In your scenario, the vendor is going to feel like they are getting taken care of. They are going to feel like they are on your team and on your side, and they are working with you, whereas these vendors feel more loyalty to me because they know the landlord isn't' doing the right thing. Anne: That goes back to having a contract with our contractor of standards of professionalism. Our vendors actually sign a document that says these are our expectations to be a vendor for us, and one of them is to not bad mouth as part of that. Mike: All these things combined, give us opportunities to shine. We get referrals every week. People come to us and say we hear great things about you as a property manager, and we're forward-thinking. We have opportunities there where we reach out to try to bring in business. Like what we're talking about earlier, a lot of the property managers are just sitting back. They are scared. They are afraid to do anything. That's the wrong thing to do. Anne: A lot of them are looking to bring on a BDM. Remember last year was the year of the BDM. Do you need a business development manager? Okay, maybe you do, maybe you don't. We tend to be our own. Mike: We are our BDMs. Anne: But again, we are high salary people like if you are paying somebody. Our time is very valuable, but we are seeing the smart property managers are supporting that sales effort through follow-up with the virtual employee, a virtual assistant that is literally a full-time doing this grinder follow-ups because we all know in sales—I don't care what industry you're in—you have to reach out seven, eight, ten times. Sometimes, property management specifically, it's pain point-related and some of the pain points only come up once a month. Some of the pain points come up once a year. Some of the pain points only come up periodically, so if you don't have a system to reach out to them, again it can't just be an email anymore. I think people are tired of tech, tech, tech. You need to have tech. You need to have a chatbox on your thing that's manned by a live person, in my opinion, but you also need that human-to-human automation. You need somebody that actually shows that they care a little bit about not only your company but the people involved. Having that sales support, a virtual employee to do that, really allows your BDM to be their most successful self and to do the things that they like to do. People don't realize that. BDMs don't want to do a whole lot of phone calling. They want to be in relationship management. If you can get them in front of the customer more times, if you can keep prospects warm and in the hopper so that when the prospect is ripe and ready, and your BDM can come and close, you are maximizing your ROI for that person. Mark: Yeah. They actually go to our website and ask for some of our tools or some of our information. It auto delivers but then they get a phone call, I want to make sure you got 21 questions or our technical information, and when they get that phone call, they're shocked. Anne: I'll tell you one other thing where people are going to have some issues. We all know about the Zillow. Zillow and they're charging for leads. That’s always been a hot topic. Zillow is rerouting leads. They're rerouting them to their call center in some areas, not to all areas, but into some. You don't have somebody actually calling those leads proactively when you get the email because even if you syndicate them, specifically if you syndicate them, you still get the email that says so and so is interested and they give you the phone number. But if the person proactively calls, Zillow is going to try to give them to people that are paying them, not necessarily to those of us who are syndications. If we're not actually outbound calling those leads as they come in, we are missing opportunities for tenants. This has been a big change probably in the last three weeks. This is fresh information that again if you don't have somebody in your office that has the time, energy, and effort to be calling in addition to responding back via email, you are missing an opportunity to get your properties rented. Again, we have literally five properties come on the market on June 5th, all but one are occupied now. That's how quick we are to get these things done because we have a dedicated resource and our virtual assistant. Literally, that is her only job to focus on. Jason: I want to touch on a couple of things you mentioned that you threw out that I think are important. One, you were talking about referrals. This is one of the number one ways to grow any business generally. I talked to a client I think yesterday, I was coaching a client and they were like our business is so great. We’re great. We got all this process dialed in and they said, but we're not getting any referrals. If a business is not getting any referrals, it's probably not as great as you think it is. Property managers have blind spots. We all do. For those listening, if you're not getting referrals, you got some customer care problems that are likely going on. You should be getting referrals. You should be getting referrals from your vendors. You should be getting referrals from your real estate friends. You should be getting referrals from your property management clients. You should be getting, maybe referrals from some of the vendors, but people should be talking about you. If they're not, there's some sort of blind spot that needs to be shored up. The other thing you mentioned (I think) is really smart. A lot of people, yes, they're like, I need a BDM. I need somebody to do sales, but they can't afford it. A lot of people can't just go out and afford to get some high-grade wonderful salesperson. But most business owners are not willing to also acknowledge that they are a part-time shitty salesperson. The time they're willing to dedicate or have sometimes is maybe an hour or two a day. That’s part-time. it's 10, maybe 15 hours a week, maybe they can dedicate up to 20 hours, but if you really want to grow and scale your business, there probably needs to be a little bit more time or you need just business being referred to you all the time, so it's super easy. One of the easiest hacks I implemented when I was a solopreneur and was doing all the sales, the web design, branding stuff, and everything myself, I got an assistant. I had that person operate as a sales assistant and an appointment setter. It immediately multiplied, not just doubled probably, but it multiplied my capacity to close deals. All I did was show up for appointments. I just met with people and sold. I wasn't doing any of the follow-ups. I was a solopreneur and my assistant was calling—she had a British accent—and saying hello, this is Helen, the assistant to the CEO Jason Hull of DoorGrow. He was wanting to get back together with you. It also set me in the mind of the prospect as something higher than maybe I actually looked like at the time being a solopreneur, sitting at home, trying to work in my living room. There's power in having a team. A lot of people say I can't afford to hire anybody. Maybe you just need somebody to start, just somebody that you can start with and they could be full-time or part-time, but they can start doing a piece of that thing that you need help with. They don't have to be able to do everything. Maybe it's the piece that you least enjoy. Maybe doing the follow-up, the cold calls, and whatnot. Anne: That's the great thing about virtual assistants and personal employees. You're looking at less than $20,000 a year for full-time dedicated help. That's a game-changer. You can't afford not to do that. I think that that's where people get sideways. Where we really help our clients in helping them define their staffing needs, and what's the best ROI for them to bring on board first. We’re talking about trends and the things that we see, but that's one of the services that we provide, helping them figure that out because sometimes it's like you said, sometimes this is a generalist. Somebody that can do a little bit of everything. Sometimes it's a sales support person. I know I need leads. Sometimes it’s accounting, sometimes it's leasing line, sometimes it's in marketing. A virtual assistant through HireSmart, because we're full-time, dedicated, and we specifically recruit for our clients. We don't have a room full of VAs that we go, here you go. I actually go and curate the contacts for you, and then I personally work with them for 40 hours afterward like that one-week job interview to make sure that they're amazing. Anybody that has hired and day two you're like, ugh, they just aren’t amazing. I take care of that for the clients. Mark: It frees up so much time. If it frees up 10 hours a week, how many deals can you close, how many new properties can you bring on in 10 hours? You invest maybe two hours where somebody else is making all the calls, set the appointments, you got that two hours invested. Your return on that is tremendous because you're going to make an offer that’s equivalent to $100, $200, $300 an hour for your investment of time. It goes back to, you've got to make those investments. You can't not hire now, you can't put your head in the sand or pull back in your shell and say, I'm going to do it myself. Especially if you're not happy doing it because if you're not happy, you're not going to get it done. Jason: Therefore, a lot of people that have been shifting to doing more themselves. I have to lay off team members now, I'm doing everything myself. Now I'm doing stuff that I don't even want to do. Let's touch on one thing that you just mentioned. I think this is really important for everybody listening to understand. I've seen this in hundreds of property management businesses and businesses in general, but one of the most painful or dangerous things I think a business owner can do is hiring the wrong person, the wrong role, spending the wrong money at the wrong time. A lot of people hire based on what they think the business needs instead of what they need in order to create more space and eliminate the number one bottleneck in the company, which is you the business owner, it's the entrepreneur. You taking the time to figure out what they actually need to get the best ROI is huge for them because they've seen lots of people, they hire the wrong person they didn't need. Now they're spending this money, or they just hired a bad person in general which not just cost them the money they spent on that person and the time they spent to get that person, but they're now losing money in secret places. I've had team members that stole from me. I've had team members that stole time. I've had team members delete and stuff after I fired them. These are problems that entrepreneurs learn painfully over time trying to build a team. A lot of property managers are in that first trap. They're the 50–60 door mark, they don't know how they can afford to hire that first person, and this is a solution for that. This is a very obvious solution for that. You can help them figure out who they really need right now and to take the next step forward, because if they spend the money on the right person, they make more money. It makes it easier. They then can reinvest. If they spend it on the wrong person, or the wrong tool, at the wrong time, it could be the right tool but it's at the right time, or they're getting software prematurely that they didn't really have to have at that point, or whatever it might be. If you spend money at the wrong time even though it might be the right tool for the future, you're hurting your ability to get to that future. Anne: I totally agree with that. Jason: Cash flow. If you run out of cash flow, the business dies. It’s like the Indiana Jones boulder rolling after you is the cash monster trying to get to you. If the boulder catches you, the business is game over. You’ve run out of money, run out of cash, you're dead. People started to feel that in March. You have to always be outpacing that boulder. If you spend, the boulder gets bigger and faster, but you can get faster if you spend it on the right people. Anne: One of the things I tell a lot of prospects that I'm talking to is most property managers (specifically) were never trained on how to hire or how to build teams. That’s not something we learn at school, it's only by trial and fire. A lot of property managers have fallen into it. Mark: There's not a hiring 301 class in college. Anne: One of the things that I tell them is, just like you're the expert in finding the right tenant for an owner because you've seen enough applications, you've gone through the process, you've done all that, you are the expert there, we’re the experts in hiring. I know I have a profile for hiring, I know what's successful, I know what's not successful. I save my clients from hundreds of hiring mistakes because it's not that they can't do it, a DIY landlord can do it, but they can't do it as well as a property manager. I say the same thing. You can hire. It’s going to take you more time, you don't have a process, you don't do it enough, I have done thousands. Just in the last six months alone, I have evaluated over 9000 applications. You say that gave me some data points. Jason: You know the BS, you know how to spot the scammers, you know which people are gaming the system, you know which people are feeding you a story, you know what questions need to be asked. In the Philippines, you got to ask about their internet connection. You got to, you can't just trust that they have one. You got to ask about where they're working. Where are you working at? Where are you working from? That was part of the thing that I really enjoyed working with you guys. I always look at everything through a certain filter, and I'm skeptical, and I want to see how I can help people. As I went through your process, I'm like, they do this. They already do this. This is stuff I've learned over a decade in my own painful experiences hiring in India, Bangladesh, Russia, the Philippines, Bolivia, and of course the US, which ultimately most of my team are in the US now. But I have Filipino team members. I can personally vouch for your hiring process making a lot of sense. It’s solid and it works really because it's very similar to my own. There are so many similarities. Okay, they've got this down, but you have some advantages. We talked about this in the previous episode. You guys should go listen to that where we talked about their processes and some stuff they do, but you have vetting, background checks, and stuff that people don't just have access to if they're just trying to DIY this. Mark: It’s like the difference, if you're getting married, you got the bride and the groom, and the bride wants a custom-made dress, not one off the rack. The groom really wants a tux that fits them. We are the custom dress, we are the custom tux for that couple versus walking into Neiman and pulling one off the shelves, this looks good, or getting a dress off the hanger and putting it on like, this almost fits, let's go get married. Jason: It looks like your dad handed you down a suit or something. Mark: Right. That’s the difference in what we do. We are custom for our client. We are not off the rack. Anne: Right, and outside of that is it takes time. It takes us 3–4 weeks to literally curate the right people. I always say if you need to hire somebody just the first person off the street, good luck. Jason: You guys are bespoke. It’s bespoke hiring. Anne: We have a guarantee and all of those things, and we can back up what we're saying. But again, if you're trying to grow your property management business right now, you need to look at your staff. Here’s the other thing. Not all staff members are coming back. You may think they're coming back. They're not coming back. You’ve got to look at who are your top liners? Who are the ones that you’ve got to keep? You need to be investing in a relationship with those people first of all. If you're not talking to them on a regular basis, if you're not feeding them, if you're not taking care of them, you need to take care of them now. Who’s part of your med tier? The kind of people that are like, if they come back, great. If they don’t, what's the impact that’s going to happen? What are the people that you really know you just need to not have come back, and you need to deal with that pretty quickly. Mark: For our best person, we got a VA to assist that person so that they can do even better at the best that they were. That’s the important thing that people need to take away from changes that are coming out of COVID. It’s supporting your staff and letting them work at the highest and best use. Maybe that's taking away some of those phone calls and emails by hiring an assistant for them and to give you the opportunity to grow. It’s an assistant to you for the business development to make those calls and to set up those appointments, so that you can just close. Doing those things is the job that Anne enjoys so much is finding the individual to match. What does Jason need exactly? Even though Jason doesn't know exactly, she'll draw that out of you, and I'm just picking on you on that. Anne: That’s a puzzle for me. There's nothing better than when I see my clients six months in, years in, we have our clients for five years now and seeing them and they’d say, Mitch has been the best thing ever in my company. She's really allowed me to be amazing and do what I want to do. Literally, these are comments that we get when we survey our clients. It has been a game-changer. If you're open and able to change. I don't know how much time we have, but there are a couple of things that you need to look at, regardless of whether you use virtual assistants, employees, or whether you are looking at that which are some of the challenges that come from working with a remote team, because remember, even if you're planning to go back to an office, your staff is going to want to have more flexibility. Let’s just call it what it is. Not everybody wants to commute anymore. There are some that miss being in that environment, there's a lot of guys that are like… Mark: We’re happier. Jason: Yeah, why should I spend time commuting? Why should I spend time driving to this? I think there are a lot fewer people doing face-to-face appointments, and they'll just do it through Zoom or they'll do it through Google Hangouts, Meet, or whatever. Anne: Whatever works. What we're finding is it is truly illuminating management problems. It’s illuminating communication problems. If you had a communication problem in the office, now you have a tremendous communication breakdown outside of the office. Mark: If you have an operations failure in the office, boy, the failures are even bigger. Anne: As managers, we need to look at what tools do we have on our tool belt. We help our clients with some of that because we understand years ago that we needed to equip our people to be good at this so that they would keep our people. Mark: It is in software, it’s tools, it’s technology. There's a lot of different pieces that go into that. Anne: Looking at your management style and we like to manage personally using key performance indicators (KPIs) because that takes [...] work out of it. I don’t have to worry if they're working eight hours as long as the KPIs are done and they can get their job done in six, I'm happy to pay them for eight and let them do what they want to do, as long as my stuff’s getting done to a level that I expected. That's the easy button for management, if you don't know about key performance indicators, I certainly encourage you to learn what that is, and how to do that, but it’s one of the things that we teach our clients to do very easily. There are some easy methodologies to do that, but we are seeing some communication breakdowns from people that don't use us. We’re seeing some issues with management. The manager that was the nice guy, that was able to get people rah-rah-rah in the office because she was able to see them, that’s now changed. Now, work is starting to do great. Mark: They can't hide behind the curtain. Anne: They can't hide behind that personality anymore because work’s not getting done. That’s one cautionary tale that I will throw out to your listeners. Jason: Results don’t lie. Anne: They don’t, but it’s difficult to have conversations if you don't have data, and a lot of times, people don't want to track data because they think it's too difficult. We teach our clients how to do it very simply, very easily, and very quickly. That's the other thing. You’ve got to be able to get feedback daily to keep on top of it. If you wait for weeks or months, you are now in this huge hole of garbage that is very difficult to get out of. Make sense? Jason: Makes sense. It's been awesome having you here on the show. Maybe we can take just a few minutes, let's talk about some opportunities right now and ways you think property managers have an opportunity to grow after COVID. We’ve touched on maybe doing webinars, I think you threw out there, the Airbnb. I think I have one client that added 24 doors in a month just from former Airbnbs by cold calling them and reaching out. Obviously, you got to convince them probably to get the furniture out of the place, and make sure that these are good opportunities to manage, and that it’s going to rent effectively compared to what they're paying because some of them were making a lot of money. Mark: They were. You can offer a turnkey for that. I know you've got furniture and all, I'll take care of making the donation, or I'll get the local company that buys furniture and resells it. I don't know if there's a market for that right now, but I'll get it picked up by Salvation Army or the kidney people, and you'll get the receipt. I'll take care of all of that and make it easy for you to let me manage your property long-term. The property managers that think that way are the ones that will be successful. We’ve been seeing that happen in Airbnb and a lot of them are coming back out of service. Anne: One of the things we always recommend when we're consulting with clients just in general is know your avatar. If you're a short-term rental person and that’s your avatar, then you need to create a different marketing strategy around that, like how are you going to deal with that. If your avatar is long-term rentals and you want to gain business by going after short-term to convert them to long-term like Mark said, have a package, have a system, get your relationships put together. Right now interestingly enough, we have investors that are scared to death and are selling, and we have investors that are super excited and are buying. Mark: [...] sales transaction. Though the property manager doesn't have a sales component in their business, they need to have an alignment with the referral program to somebody that does sales. I mean I'm selling two houses a month this year. Anne: Without trying, without marketing. Mark: Yeah, these are my investors. They just say I want to sell, and I’ll say I want to make the commission. No problem. Anne: It's about having a strategy, being able to implement that strategy. and figuring out what are the resources that you need to create that strategy. We think using virtual employees and virtual assistants is a great way to maximize all of that because right now, it is kind of intense. If you're going to do research for short-term rentals, there's not a database you can necessarily easily pull from. You’ve got to go search for them, talk to them. Having that marketing strategy based on what it is that you want to do, having a value proposition that speaks to the pain that the person is dealing with, all are very important. Having a website that actually can capture those leads and make you look professional which is what you guys do is also part of that. You have this well-rounded marketing plan. Mark: We have our VA do all the research. Maybe it’s calling everybody that's on Craigslist or ads out there and saying, you may be tired of being a manager, you should go to this webinar we have coming up. It’s how to be a better manager and how to deal with the current [...]. We can do all those invitations to get people into our webinars that are going to show them they don't need to be doing this anymore. There's a lot of different ways that property managers can grow their business right now, but they need to think smart and make those investments. Anne: And HireSmart. Jason: And they need to HireSmart. Awesome. It's great to see you guys again. I'm glad you guys are doing well there over near Atlanta. Keep me apprised as to your next idea. Anne: We always have them. Jason: You always have them. That’s as crazy entrepreneurs. We always are coming up with new stuff. I'll let you guys go and I appreciate you guys coming on. Your website is? Anne: www.hiresmartvas.com Jason: All right. Thanks, Mark, thanks, Anne. Mark: Thank you very much. Anne: Welcome. Thank you, Jason. We appreciate you. Jason: Awesome to have them on. If you are a property management entrepreneur, and you're wanting to add doors, and you're wanting to build a business that you actually enjoy, that you love, that is built around you, this is what we do at DoorGrow. Reach out, I guarantee that we’re going to make your business better in some way, shape, or form, and you're going to love it. Even if you feel like you hate it now, maybe you're thinking you want out of it, you're feeling like it’s uncomfortable, you're probably just doing the wrong things in that business, and you may need some VAs that might be a solution for sure. We can help clean up the frontend of your business and help you get the business in alignment with you. Reach out, check us out at doorgrow.com, and make sure you join our Facebook group. We've got an awesome community there, and people that are helpers, that are givers, and you can get to that by going to doorgrowclub.com. Mark and Anne are in that group. We've got lots of other really cool property management entrepreneurs that are willing to contribute and help you out. Until next time everyone. To our mutual growth. Bye, everybody. You just listened to the DoorGrow Show. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet, in the DoorGrow Club. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead, content, social, direct mail, and they still struggle to grow. At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today’s episode on our blog at doorgrow.com. To get notified of future events and news, subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you’ve learned and start DoorGrow hacking your business and your life. April Fools Day is coming. Prank your friends opening a never ending fake update screen on their computer. Sit back and watch their reaction.

Victoria: Hey everyone, it’s Sensei Victoria Whitfield here, your journey partner in business, welcoming you back to episode 135 of the Journeypreneur Podcast. This is your source for channeled holistic stress management techniques, guidance, inspiration and motivation to stay on your path to rapid financial ascension and massive impact as a conscious entrepreneur. The title of today’s podcast episode is Surrendering to Guidance. I get the honor and the pleasure of introducing you to my dear friend and client, Dr. Mark Morris. His website is NJOsteopathic.com, and he is an incredible osteopath here in New Jersey. I'm so excited to get to share what he has to say with you because he's here to revolutionize the field of Osteopathic Medicine, especially with his concept of Evolutionary Osteopathy. So welcome to the podcast Mark, my dear friend, welcome! Mark: Thank you so much, Victoria. Victoria: So good to see you. I'm so happy to get to share you. So I'm curious. This may be the very first time that someone is meeting you or hearing about you or anything that you do, so in your own words, could you please tell us what it is that you do, but especially what are the three things that you're known for? Could you tell us? Mark: Okay, I can, I can make a crack at that. I am a, what is called a traditional osteopath. We are... we are not excellent marketers, but we are very much clinicians. And so a lot of people don't know what an osteopath is. There was a physician in the Civil War days, named Andrew Taylor Still, who was a physician and a preacher and he came up with a new model of medical care that focuses its treatment on using the inherent tendency toward health in the patient as the guiding principle, as opposed to the knowledge of the practitioner as the guiding principle. And so, that is the sort of medicine that I practice. I'm a fully licensed physician and surgeon, and a pediatrician. And as a traditional osteopath I diagnose and treat with my hands, and with history from the patient. And oh, I see a lot of patients, and the patients who come to me, come to me as a physician of last resort. Since osteopaths don't market themselves well people find everybody else first. The average patient who comes to me has seen 11 doctors, this is quite crazy, but they get to me as not having their problems solved, and they've already seen 11. So, as the as a physician of last resort I get to be in the position of restoring hope, which is really nice.   Let's talk about it! - Are you blocking your next business breakthrough? Take the assessment at http://www.victoriawhitfield.com/quiz to find out, and apply for a Breakthrough Call with me!

Welcome to Finance and Fury, The Say What Wednesday Edition. Where we answer your questions. I'm Louis Strange and today's question comes from Mark. Hi Louis, I just heard about IBC (INFINITE BANKING CONCEPT) and I would like to know your input on it. They are saying you can be your own bank by setting up a cash flow whole life insurance policy. Then you are able to borrow against your liquidity, I would like to hear your thoughts on it.   Spoiler – this probably can’t work in Australia – run through what this is first and then go through reasons why   The concept isn't that new – History The first large-scale attempt to market this concept came about in 1980 – the concept of LEAP - The Lifetime Economic Acceleration Process – since then had IBC with Be Your Own Banker and then also Bank On Yourself more recently  But the concept dates back further than 1980 - roots of this strategy go back generations — at least prior to the American Civil War – how did it work in practice? Started with Farmers - struggled with extreme seasonality of cash flows So farmers would generally have to borrow money to buy farmland, to plant, and to have money to live on while they paid their mortgage, paid their laborers – all while waiting for the harvest if harvest went well - used the money to pay off the debt But back then the risk was that someone died before the mortgage was paid off – as back in those days, people frequently did not live beyond their mortgages – rather than risk losing the family farm, the family would buy life insurance - If the farmer died before the mortgage was paid off, the life insurance company would pay the death benefit, and the farmer finally ‘bought the farm’ from the bank — which is where the term comes from. Keep in mind that this was in the days before we had index funds, and before we even had mutual funds as we know them. Or even Super accounts The system worked well for farmers - If they saved aggressively within a life insurance policy, they got a death benefit, and a ready source of liquidity from loans from the life insurance policy. And since the policy was ultimately secured by the death benefit, it was a safe loan from the point of view of the insurance company and a bank Once the farm was paid off, the next generation didn’t have a mortgage anymore - so they could use this policy to buy more land, or to buy a new tractor or combine, build a new house, or anything else they wanted to do. IBC evolved from this concept - Here’s the pitch, in a nutshell: Over the course of your life – a lot of people pay interest to creditors on all manner of loans - most mortgages, but also cars to credit cards to even HECS repayments – these interest repayments compounding over time represents a tremendous drain on individual wealth. Instead – if you aggressively saved money within a certain type of life insurance policy, you could fund these purchases from that policy — and pay the policy back, rather than the bank Technical issues with this phrasing – it is the functional equivalent of paying yourself for the loan, with interest – essentially - you are retaining the interest within the cash value of your own life insurance policy, rather than paying off the bank So how does this work and what is Infinite Banking? Infinite banking claims to be the process by which an individual becomes his or her own banker – I do use claims here Go through definition of a bank later - But Infinite banking is a concept created by American Nelson Nash – wrote a book called “Becoming Your Own Banker” Nash talks about the use of whole-life insurance policies that distribute dividends and how owning such policies allows individuals to dictate the cash flow in their lives by borrowing against/from themselves instead of depending on banks or lenders for loans Practical terms – uses the mechanics of Whole Life policies - which is the platform on which IBC is implemented – First - how does this work compared to a term life? Term Life Insurance - A term life insurance policy operates like other types of insurance you may be familiar with You take out Life cover at a set level and pay premiums based around your risk factors – age, occupation, etc. Most term life insurance policies expire without the insurance company having paid out any death benefit claim – at 99 if owned personally or 75 inside super – but most people don’t hold it to then as the premiums get too much Whole Life Insurance - a permanent life insurance policy never expires and is set up to pay into It is a hybrid form of policy – has investments which you contribute into along with an insurance component Unlike Term insurance on stepped premiums – most WOL policies have fixed premiums – pay more now into the policy - effectively “overpaying” for the pure insurance coverage in the early years, while “underpaying” in the later years – but the life insurance company takes the incoming premium payments and “puts them to work” by buying financial assets, such as conservative corporate bonds. Over time, the life insurance company builds up a stockpile of assets effectively “backing up” a Whole Life insurance policy that it has issued in the past Cash Surrenders - Now consider that as a customer with a Whole Life policy gets older, he or she is a ticking (financial) time bomb from the insurance company’s point of view, because the moment of death — though uncertain in any particular case — is getting closer and closer. That’s why the life insurance company would be happy to pay such a customer a cash surrender value to “walk away” from the policy, and this amount increases over time – also can come from a residual of what is invested Policy Loans - the owner effectively builds up equity over time, as the cash surrender value increases. As part of the contractual arrangement, if the owner wants cash but does not want to surrender the policy, he or she has the option of borrowing money directly from the life insurance company, with the cash surrender value serving as the collateral on the loan. This occurs “on the side” as it were; the money doesn’t “come out” of the policy. What this means in practice is that someone who has built up a well-funded Whole Life policy can obtain financing from the life insurance company at a predictable interest rate with no questions asked. For these WOL polices – the insurance companies normally won't asses a borrower’s credit score, annual income, the purpose of the loan, etc. the way a conventional lender would – as the money is coming out of your own policy It is all about using a WOL policy loan and paying this back – so if you need to buy a new car or you don’t borrow money from conventional lenders but, instead, take out a policy loan from your life insurance policy Had a look at the old AMP policies – rate of 5% is the current offering – but these are mature products – don’t think they offer them anymore Digging Deeper into the Infinite Banking Concept - In Nash’s infinite banking concept (IBC), the cash surrender value(s) of whole-life insurance policies act as collateral for a loan. The individual simply needs to call the insurance company and ask to take out a policy loan. A whole-life insurance policy is meant to cover the entirety of an individual’s life, not simply to assist family/friends in the event of the individual’s death – Also due to the nature of the policy – where you over pay now – there should be returns on this to generate an increase in the cash value of the policy Advantages of Infinite Banking – Liquidity of the loan - loan can be taken out quickly and the individual can secure cash in hand faster – allows for emergency funding Disadvantages of Infinite Banking - The costs of the policy can be high and you need to aggressively put money into it for the cash surrender values to grow - so if you have a large financial commitment already with a family, then it can be hard to make work   The money you borrow is essentially your own money – just being lent to you by the insurance product   Firstly – this is a USA strategy – don’t think it would work so well in Australia for a number of reasons - Whole of life isn’t offered here – Why? - In short, superannuation was viewed as a replacement, or alternative for, a permanent/whole of life insurance policy The government made superannuation compulsory to all workers in Australia in 1992 to ensure all Australians would have enough money to retire on Both employers and employees contribute to the super fund by depositing money which is kept aside and used later in life when the individual reaches retirement – when you pass away – family gets the benefit as well Similarly to Whole Life Insurance, Superannuation now can include a death benefit insurances which is paid out in the event that the fund member dies before reaching retirement – Term life insurance policies Superannuation and term life insurance policies work hand in hand to deliver a very similar function to what whole life insurance can provide alone – minus the lending side of things - Therefore, whole life insurance is no longer available for purchase. Mostly in America – IRS has different treatments to the ATO of recognition of dividends for insurance companies Also – access to funds by APRA and the ATO is reliant on preservation ages – Even SMSFs you can do in house asset loans – but only for around 5% of the value of the fund Problem with borrowing against the existing whole of life in Australia – most people either don’t have these policies or don’t have enough cash balance to be able to borrow against their available funds Summary – Technically not being your own bank - Definition of a bank – ADI - You deposit funds in your own account – with a ADI – The equivalent of setting up a loan agreement with yourself – which you can do from a company Self-insurance strategy – not be your own banker – For example – say you need $600k borrowings to buy a home? How are you going to buy a home if you don’t have $600k inside of a WOL policy to borrow from the insurance company? The concept in the USA could work on smaller borrowings – like a big purchase on a CC or car loan – if enough is inside of the policy But since Super and Term life now replaced the strategy of the WOL – IBC may not work here In modern times – just be aware of a lot of these concepts are heavily marketed by those selling these products for a living - and are designed for more affluent investors with lots of free cash flow and who have long term liquidity needs – which don’t meet the needs of most everyday people Thanks for the question Mark Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to get in contact you can do so here: http://financeandfury.com.au/contact/  

Mark (here on LinkedIn) talked at the DMSS 2019 and he is a professional outreacher. His presentation was called Building a lean, mean, lead generating machine with outbound prospecting. And he knows how to help others do it. He is the CRO at TaskDrive. We have his whole presentation here: Building a lean, mean, lead generating machine with outbound prospecting from Mark Colgan   Here is the transcript of the talk we had: Mark Colgan: HubSpot is the biggest advocate of inbound marketing, yet they spent over 60% of their budget in the first few years on outbound. Really, the answer is that inbound alone doesn't work, and you need to support it with outbound prospecting or outbound marketing. Intro: This is Time For Marketing. The marketing podcast that will tell you everything you've missed when you didn't attend the marketing conference. Peter: Hello, and welcome to the Time For Marketing podcast. The podcast that brings you marketing conference speakers from all around the world, and takes their presentations, smoosh it up into five minutes, and you have a small package of knowledge. My name is Peter, and I'll be your podcast host. If you would like to check out the previous episodes, timeformarketing.com, or you can also subscribe to our newsletter, and of course find all the links to the iTunes Google podcast, Stitcher, and every else places where you can listen, and review, and rate, and do all of the great things that you do with podcasts. Today with me is Mark Colgan. Mark is the chief revenue officer at TaskDrive. Mark, hello, and welcome to the podcast. Mark: Hey, Peter. Thank you very much for having me. I'm really looking forward to sharing the presentation. Peter: Thank you for being here. Mark, you are a chief revenue officer. What does that mean? Mark: Yes, that's a great question to start with. A chief revenue officer has a few different definitions, but in my understanding and interpretation, it's somebody who aligns the different departments within a business in order to achieve revenue. Those departments I look after at TaskDrive are marketing, sales, customer success, and product. I make sure there's no silos, and I make sure that our customer is first in terms of our priority. We do everything we can to increase the quality that the customer has with us, which helps us reduce churn, and also helps us increase new customers through the sales and marketing activities too. Peter: What is TaskDrive? What are you doing? Mark: Good question. TaskDrive is a service-based business. Our mission is to help b2b sales and marketing teams focus on high-value activities. We do that by offering an outsourced lead generation and data enrichment service. We help companies build new lists of prospects. We also help them enrich existing datas, then we also help companies that sell into enterprise with their account-based insights to helping them expand their reach and increasing their sales velocity by giving them a detailed view of the stakeholders within the decision making process. Peter: This was a complicated way to say you help companies with their prospects, with their leads, is that right? Mark: Yes, but it's not just leads because we help them-- A lot of companies are faced with the fact that they have a lot of data that they've amassed over the last few years which has gone fairly out of date, so we also help them with data enrichment. Yes, one of the use cases is lead generation for prospecting. Peter: Your presentation comes from the Digital Marketing Skillshare Conference that is organized every year in Bali. You were there this year. How was the conference? Mark: Yes, it was fantastic. A really great conference. They originally started out with an SEO focus but over the last few years, have broadened that out to other tracks. There's people talking about marketing, pay-per-click advertising, as well as email marketing. I covered the outbound sales and prospecting through the presentation there. Peter: What was your favorite presentation at Bali? Is there one? Mark: I personally really enjoyed Mark Webster's presentation. He's from Authority Hacker, and he spoke about building and selling online courses, or online IP, basically, your knowledge as a personal interest of mine. I really enjoyed that talk and got a chance to speak with Mark after the event as well. Peter: Of course, Mark is a big podcaster in the marketing world. I think we should go directly to the presentation. Mark, you spoke on building a lean mean lead generating machine with outbound prospecting. Here are your five minutes. Tell us what your presentation was about? Mark: Thank you for having open mic, Peter. This presentation was actually around 50 minutes, so I'm going to do my best to bring everything into 5 minutes. I spoke about outbound prospecting, and throughout the presentation, I covered a number of different sections. I started out with what outbound prospecting is, what the four stages of building a lead generating machine is, how you can then scale that outbound prospecting. Then I gave some bonus tips and additional reading, which are all in the slides for those who are listening. I'll start with outbound prospecting. It really it's a direct channel where you can identify and target customers and directly reach out to them, and introduce them to your company its products and services. The goal of this is to start a conversation, and it's also to position yourself as a trusted adviser. You're not going to sell- especially in the b2b space, you're not going to sell directly to consumers in a cold email, so you need to remember that. Also, you need to remember that it's just one lead generation strategy, so you've got search engine optimization, social media events, webinars, side projects. Outbound prospecting just fits into your lead gen strategy. It's not the be-all and end-all. It's part of the sales process. It's the beginning part because once you generate leads, you then need to convert those leads by sales calls, or from demos, or free trials, and close them into paying customers, and then you need to fulfill those needs. Fulfill those customers and deliver the value that you promised, nurture those customers, and ensure they're successful, and hopefully, they become advocates of your business. Outbound prospecting works for most companies who have achieved product-market fit. They have an average order value of over a thousand dollars per year, and you can also scale the delivery of your service or product. It's really important to distinguish those. Also, as we approach 2020, there's a couple of things that I believe personally you need to do in order to succeed with the outbound prospecting. These are, you have to come from a attitude of offering value and giving without expecting anything in return. You need to understand the buyer's journey of awareness consideration of the decision, and people within your prospects are going to be at different levels of that journey. Also, only 3% of your market are actively buying at any one time, so that means 97% of people aren't looking to buy right now. If you're selling and pitching to a hundred people, only 3 are actively looking and 97 aren't. You need to make sure that what you're sending in your messaging is building value, and position yourself as a trusted advisor, and not just sending a sales pitch. For the sake of time, I broke down the lead generation machine into four different steps. I'll just go through those in a bit more detail. The four steps are planning, research, message, and launch. Planning really comes down to understanding who you're trying to target with your ideal customer profile, as well as the individuals within those companies. Those are your buyer personas. The best way to create these is to look at your existing customers and any sales or prospects in the funnel and just identify what they have in common. What pain points do they share, what characteristic characteristics they share as a company? You then need to move on to understanding what their pain points are, what problems are they trying to achieve or overcome from a account level as well as a personal level. In their role, what are they trying to overcome? Then you want to split out your ideal customer profiles and buyer personas into different campaigns. That might be via location, by industry, by job titles or seniority. Then you also need to prepare your email for outreach. One of the most important things to do is not use your main domain to send out these emails because you run the risk of hitting the spam traps, and then blocking your email deliverability in the future. You also need to research, spend a lot of time personalizing the outreach, so you can research on an individual persona. On an account level, make sure that your outreach is personalized, and you can use merge tags for the outreach. You put those things that you find in your research into the emails which builds relevance with the individual, and also it encourages them to reply. You then need to find those leads. There's a number of places you can look at. LinkedIn, you can go to directories, you got to the podcast, you could use paid databases like-- discover. There are hundreds of different sources for the data, but you'll only be able to know where they are when you've done your ideal customer profile and buyer persona research. Again, skipping through quite a lot here [chuckles] to try and get it into five minutes. Then we're onto your messaging. Here, you need to understand what your strategy for cadence is. That is, how many touchpoints, how many times are you going to try and attempt to contact people, over which media or channels, what the duration of the outreach is going to be, how much time in-between each of the messages, and what that content is. There's a number of ways to select media channels. The easiest way is the cheaper or smaller. The shorter the cell cycle is, the less effort you want to put in. The more longer the cell cycle is, and the more expensive your product is. You'll want to use channels such as Direct Mail, personalized video, and personalized experiences because the effort is worth the reward. Then the final element after you've got the messaging is to-- Sorry, then the messaging comes on to these four elements of the cold email. The subject line whose job it is to get the email opened. An opening sentence, which shows that you've done your research and it's a relevant email or message for the person who's received it to read. The main body, which connects your opening sentence to the value proposition that you offer. Then a call to action. The simplest call to action can be, "Would you be interested in finding out more?" The last thing you need to think about is the launch. This is where you select the right technology that you can use to send out these emails. The most simple technologies for email outreach where it's just email, you could use outreach.io, Lemlist, Amplemarket, or Reply.io. If you're combining your outreach with other channels, like direct mail, phone calls, and voicemails, you might want to use a tool like SalesLoft or outreach.io. Once you have that technology in place, you just need to set up your outbound sequence. All of the tools out there will help you do this. What you can typically expect is if you're doing this right, you can get an open rate of 60%. A reply rate of 45%, a conversion rate of 20%. If you're good at closing those deals, you want to be aiming for 50% close one. Obviously, you want to aim for 100%, but it won't always happen. That really is the key to building a lean mean lead generating machine and how you scale this is that you learn, you iterate, and you repeat. Once you've effectively done this for one fiscal or one campaign, you can launch multiple campaigns at a time and add more leads to the top of the funnel. Peter: All right. Thank you, Mark. A couple of questions. Outbound versus inbound prospecting. I feel that we're mostly, in the last couple of years talking about inbound. What is the difference and even more important, how should people decide which of those two channels should be more important for them? Mark: Great question and one that I like to usually back up with a fact which is escaping me right now. HubSpot is the biggest advocate of inbound marketing, yet they spent over 60% of their budget in the first few years on outbound. Really, the answer is that inbound alone doesn't work and you need to support it with outbound prospecting or outbound marketing. That's really key. I think when it comes to inbound, you're relying on the fact that your content is going to be picked up. You've got the right keywords and you've got the right audience segmentation that they're going to read your content and then convert or contact you. `Whereas what you can do with outbound prospecting is because you know who an ideal customer is, and you know the particular triggers and signals that you look for or you can see when somebody is right for you. Say for example, one of your buyer personas has started a new role and you offer a product or service that would help that person in their new role. You could actually reach out to them at the time where they're starting a new role with a bit of content or with some value that you can share with them to start the conversation. That you can't really do with inbound because you're not controlling the process, whereas with outbound, you can control the start and the initiation of a conversation. Peter: All right, you said that outbound is for companies whose customer value per year is around $1,000. How did you come to that number? Why? Mark: It's a rough rule of thumb. I'm not saying it wouldn't work for customers who have a smaller lifetime value, but the more the better. The reason being is that there's often costs associated from a tools and technology process. Some of these tools can cost 70 or even hundreds of dollars per month, and that's to send the emails out. You need to spend time doing the research. You also need to verify the research and you probably want somebody doing it for you because it may not be the best use of your time as a founder or even as a marketing or sales director. You've also got to be prepared to play the long game because not everybody converts on the first message. Often you see that sequences have over 30 touchpoints. In addition, because email alone may not work, you might need to include phone calls and voicemails, videos and direct mail. There's just a lot more labor costs in it. If your unit economics don't work out, it may cost you more to acquire a customer than it does if your average order value is low. Peter: Do you have any tricks to write email subjects? Mark: Yes. I would say the best subjects are short. They invoke curiosity, you could potentially use humor, definitely personalize with an account name, the company name or the person's first name. Those would be my main tips. Also, I shared in the presentation on the day that the best performing subject line for open rates is, I've got your wife. That will always get a lot of opens,- [laughter] Mark: -but you will have a lot of angry and annoyed people because you've tricked them. Never trick, be honest, be sincere. Use humor only if it's right with you and your audience. Some audiences you'll be able to get away with more humor than others. Peter: I like that idea of not using the main domain for the email outreach, could you briefly speak about that, why and how that works? Mark: Yes, sure. The best practice really is to pick a domain which isn't your main one. Let's say that your domain is companyname.com. Try and find a domain which is very similar, but it's .io or .co or whatever variation it may be or you might want to say getcompanyname.com. What you want to do is, even if you're doing everything right, you're taking time to research your ideal customer profiles and understand your buyer personas, you really understand their pain point and you have a fantastic product or service that can solve their problem and you're not spamming people and you're sending small volumes out at a time. You've warmed up your domain, you can still get triggered as spam. You can do everything right, but send the message to somebody on the wrong day and they mark you as spam. Also, if you're not personalizing your outreach and you're taking a very template shotgun approach, you will also be sending the same message out over and over again. That's what the spam filters are looking out for and it reduces your chances of delivering emails in the future. The main reason why we say to use a spare domain is because whilst you be able to do the right things, you still might be marked as spam on your cold email outreach domain which means that it can affect the deliverability of your main domain if you're not using a separate one. That means that your internal emails to each other, to your team members, may not even be delivered because you've been marked as spam so much. I've seen personally, companies who have really struggled with this in the past. Peter: All right. One last question, everyone who is from the European Union and you being from the UK, still count. They would ask, of course, how does that work with the privacy laws with GDPR and others? Mark: What I'd always, first of all, is to say get professional legal advice. This isn't legal advice, but if you can find the email address and it's publicly available and you have legitimate interest to message them, then you should be okay in using their email address to send. Also, you could do the research on LinkedIn and connect with individuals on LinkedIn and not even have to do email for the outbound prospecting. That's what I see some of our European clients doing with the data that they're using. However, the majority of our customers are in the US and not affected with the same privacy laws. Peter: All right. That was very very interesting and a lot of great info. We will be able to attach your presentation to the podcast notes so that everyone can go into to check out for the whole presentation. Is that right? Mark: Excellent, yes, that's perfectly fine. Peter: Excellent. All right, Mark. What are your future conference plans and where can people find you on conferences or where can people contact you online if they would like to talk about everything that you do? Mark: Great question. We're planning our 2020 conference plans at the moment. There's still a bit TBC. I'll certainly be speaking on more podcasts and online summits, but if you'd like to speak to me in the meantime, the best place to find me is on LinkedIn, where you can search for Mark Colgan, that's C-O-L-G-A-N or you can email me at mark@taskdrive.com. Peter: All right, and I will, of course, add all of those links to the show notes so if you're listening to just open your podcast app and find all of the links to Mark. Mark, thank you again for being on the podcast. Have a great day enjoying the sun and hope to see you around. Mark: Thank you very much, Peter. It's been great. Thank you. Peter: Bye-bye.

A brief mission update from PMc on-field director in Italy. Included in this episode are some prayer points for this month. We also share an Italian worship song. We give some updates on how the Lord is working at the Punto Luce church plant and how you can play a role in supporting this work and the work in Mestre. "They were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." -- Mark 1:22In addition, we share a variety of ways to serve Jesus in Italy with PMc.Links to things mentioned in this Podcast Episode:10-Day Update with photos: Prayer Points for DecemberTeaching on Holy Spirit 01 - sermon by Caleb BunchTeaching on Holy Spirit 02 - sermon by Caleb BunchPMc Short-term Cohort Info for 2020Punto di Luce church plant in UdineBlog Post: Roman Catholic Views on BaptismPMc Vision Trip Info PMc Job Opportunities: ESL Director, Italy AdministratorServe: Long-term, Intern, Short-termAsk a MissionaryChurch Plant in Italy: Vera VitaPreachings through the Gospel of Mark Thank you, enjoy and God bless! For more info visit www.practicalmissions.orgTo contact us in order to organize a Vision Trip to Italy, or to ask a question about PMc and missions in Italy, send us a message at info@practicalmissions.org or call us at 484-294-3784."Like Jesus driven to His cross, so we drive ourselves to the singular task of church planting in Italy, exclusively."Support the show (https://www.practicalmissions.org/donate)

Hey this is Mark- Thank you for listening to this podcast of MISTERDOCTER music. I am so delighted to have made this show and I am proud to have made 45 of them. I am giving you guys the credit. I am so grateful for this endeavoring ear worm and it's willing wormfood that wiggle it. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/Mrdr/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/Mrdr/support

I was emceeing a function the other night when this fellow suggested I have a couple of cheeky G&Ts before going on-stage. “Thanks, but no thanks” was my response, as I never drink when working. Refusing to take no for an answer, he tells me the Gin is completely alcohol-free and tastes exactly like Gin. And in fact, if I didn't like Gin, there were 12 other flavours to choose from! “Show me the bar!” was my response. That guy was Mark Living's and he's cracked the code on a range of alcohol-free spirits called Lyer's that's taking the global beverage world by storm. A little bit more about Lyre's co-founder Mark Livings ... Mark Living's is the co-founder of a portfolio of businesses across marketing and advertising, logistics and fulfillment, print and merchandise production as well as brand incubation. He's also an active and successful venture capitalist. His current project is Lyer's - a non-alcoholic range of spirits that caught my attention at an event I was emceeing. Not only was the visual branding of the range absolutely beautiful, the Gin tastes like Gin and the Bourbon tastes like Bourbon … yet there wasn't a hint of alcohol in either! You're going to love this chat as Mark is an absolute expert on branding, launching new products, story-telling and so many other aspects of this dark-art we call marketing.   “In this age of social media, it's critical to create a social narrative and that's where our key brand ambassadors have a huge impact on the success of the Lyre's brand.” - Mark Livings, Lyre's Here's what caught my attention from my chat with Lyre's Mark Livings: As small business owners we can move incredibly quickly, so make the most of your agility. I love how Mark's built the Lyer's brand from the ground up. From the story behind the name (the Lyrebird is nature's greatest mimic), to the visual branding, to the stories that live on each bottle. Check out Lyres.co to see what I mean. I love his use of employing Brand Ambassadors to evangelise the Lyer's brand. Mark Livings Interview Transcription Tim Well Mark Living's of lyres. Welcome to the small business big marketing show. Mark Thank you Tim. Great to be chatting Click Here To Download Full Transcription Resources mentioned: Lyre's official website Last week's interview on Last week's episode with Sendle's James Chin-Moody This week's Monster Prize Draw winner is Jamie Ross of Premium Property Care   Please support the following businesses who make this show possible:   Authentic Education Learn highly effective marketing strategies directly from the co-founder of a BRW Fast 100 Company at events that are happening around Australia in June and July 2019.   American Express Business Explorer Credit Card Let your business expenses reward you. Every year.   Yellow Partner with Australia's #1 online business directory for all your digital marketing needs.   Switchnode Australia's Internet isn't great. That's why Switchnode exist. The solution is here and it's wireless.   If something in this episode of Australia's favourite marketing podcast peaked your interest, then let me know by leaving a comment below. May your marketing be the best marketing. [For more interviews with successful business owners visit Small Business Big Marketing] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Mark, I see you have beautiful pictures of your child up here. I didn't know you had a baby!Mark: Yeah, baby Roy is about 1 year and 4 months old now.Todd: Oh wow, that's exciting!Mark: Yeah I mean everyone said there would be lots of changes in your life, but it's probably changed my wife's life more than mine. But I still enjoy giving him his bath and helping put him to bed and playing with him in the mornings and at the weekend.Todd: Oh, that's great. So, what's it like being a father?Mark: A lot of fun. As I said, I think my wife has a harder job looking after him during the day. The father can have the good jobs in the evening and the early morning and at the weekend.Todd: So is your child speaking yet?Mark: Not quite, but he understands English and Japanese. So if we tell him off in either language he runs away and starts crying. He's just started walking.Todd: Ok, oh that's got to be tough.Mark: It's getting tougher. We just have to childproof the house more.Todd: So how do you childproof the house?Mark: Make sure that all breakables are above the level where he can reach, that's the most important thing.Todd: Now, when you have a child, like, first of all how much does the baby sleep?Mark: Well he's a good sleeper. He's basically always slept from about 9 in the morning, 9 in the evening until 6.30 or 7 in the morning. He's waking up a little bit earlier now because it's lighter earlier.Todd: Oh, wow, so what does your child like to do? Do you play special games with your …, with Roy?Mark: He's into dancing at the moment. He really likes the beat of the *** world music so he looks forward to the *** news at the hour. He likes going to the sandpit and playing with the other children from the neighborhood.Todd: Well, you have a lovely child.Mark: Thank you.

Mark E. Green is a strategic advisor and coach to mid-market CEOs and executive teams worldwide. Driven by a relentless passion to liberate human potential, he has addressed, coached and advised thousands of business leaders across a wide range of industries. Mark deeply believes every CEO has the ability to unlock more of their own potential and, in turn, to help their people do the same. Mark has helped his clients overcome major obstacles, deal with tough decisions and generate breakthrough results. His integrity, direct style and powerful intuition accelerate team performance, distribution of decision-making, productivity, revenue and profitability. Importantly, Mark's clients report significantly lower stress, reduced time consumed by the business and vastly improved life balance. He is a Core Advisor to Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches (formerly Gazelles International), a Mentor to coaches worldwide, and an active contributor to programs and content for their global ecosystem. Enjoy the insights with Mark. Let's get started… Show Notes Episode 161 dailystoic.com/new-start-here/ https://performance-dynamics.net https://www.linkedin.com/in/time4change/ How to hire a coach http://performance-dynamics.net/how-to-hire-a-coach/ Books: Presuasion Influence Transcriptie: Erno: Today, I am talking with a special guest, who I met in New York where Mark gave a workshop. This was part of the book he is about to release. It was very intense and good. Welcome Mark. Mark: Thank you Erno, great to be here. Erno: You'll be releasing your book in September 2018, I think you all should read it. The book helps you get clear on points that you are not reaching. How did  you come up with the idea of the book? Mark: It came after many years of living my own life and working on my own. The evidence that there was something missing kept on growing. It stopped me and my clients from getting the succes we wanted. I knew how to do things and did not learn new things and how to do those. I had a hard time asking direct questions. I knew how to ask them and that I had to ask them, yet I was unable to do it. There was something missing, preventing me from doing it. The clients I have today have the same issues. they know how to do it, the have the strategy, but they are not doing it. The premis of the book is the missing parts, why you are not doing them and tools on how to do them. Erno: Can you name some examples of direct questions? Mark: A direct question to a CEO could be pointing out a contradiction. This is pretty common. A CEO can say one thing and then say something else a minute later. I have to them there. It's the ability to operate with high confidence without worrying about respect or being liked. Erno: If you have respect, are you then also liked? Mark: Not necessarily. I have plenty of clients and I am not the favorite everywhere. I may not like my docter, because he causes me pain. But I respect him and the next, I like him just fine. Erno: How long have you  been a coach? Mark: I've had my own practice for 15 years. The last 10 have been in the current format of meeting with the entire executive team. Erno: How many clients do you have? Mark: At the moment I have 11 clients. It is considered full at 12 clients, which depends on the circumstances. Erno: That might not sound as a lot for some listeners. Do you spend a lot of time with them? Mark: Haha, this cuts right into the core of my business, to create a lifestyle for myself. Have a dramatic impact on clients while maximizing my lifestyle and flexibility. I see each client once a month. Half day monthly, full day quarterly. I have much time to make the coiches I want and to keep on learning. I also spent a lot of time on the book. Erno: A beautiful but intense way of spending time. You have a lot of time to develope yourself. What coiches did you make to be able to do that.

Mark E. Green is a strategic advisor and coach to mid-market CEOs and executive teams worldwide. Driven by a relentless passion to liberate human potential, he has addressed, coached and advised thousands of business leaders across a wide range of industries. Mark deeply believes every CEO has the ability to unlock more of their own potential and, in turn, to help their people do the same. Mark has helped his clients overcome major obstacles, deal with tough decisions and generate breakthrough results. His integrity, direct style and powerful intuition accelerate team performance, distribution of decision-making, productivity, revenue and profitability. Importantly, Mark's clients report significantly lower stress, reduced time consumed by the business and vastly improved life balance. He is a Core Advisor to Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches (formerly Gazelles International), a Mentor to coaches worldwide, and an active contributor to programs and content for their global ecosystem. Enjoy the insights with Mark. Let's get started… Show Notes Episode 161 dailystoic.com/new-start-here/ https://performance-dynamics.net https://www.linkedin.com/in/time4change/ How to hire a coach http://performance-dynamics.net/how-to-hire-a-coach/ Books: Presuasion Influence Transcriptie: Erno: Today, I am talking with a special guest, who I met in New York where Mark gave a workshop. This was part of the book he is about to release. It was very intense and good. Welcome Mark. Mark: Thank you Erno, great to be here. Erno: You'll be releasing your book in September 2018, I think you all should read it. The book helps you get clear on points that you are not reaching. How did  you come up with the idea of the book? Mark: It came after many years of living my own life and working on my own. The evidence that there was something missing kept on growing. It stopped me and my clients from getting the succes we wanted. I knew how to do things and did not learn new things and how to do those. I had a hard time asking direct questions. I knew how to ask them and that I had to ask them, yet I was unable to do it. There was something missing, preventing me from doing it. The clients I have today have the same issues. they know how to do it, the have the strategy, but they are not doing it. The premis of the book is the missing parts, why you are not doing them and tools on how to do them. Erno: Can you name some examples of direct questions? Mark: A direct question to a CEO could be pointing out a contradiction. This is pretty common. A CEO can say one thing and then say something else a minute later. I have to them there. It's the ability to operate with high confidence without worrying about respect or being liked. Erno: If you have respect, are you then also liked? Mark: Not necessarily. I have plenty of clients and I am not the favorite everywhere. I may not like my docter, because he causes me pain. But I respect him and the next, I like him just fine. Erno: How long have you  been a coach? Mark: I've had my own practice for 15 years. The last 10 have been in the current format of meeting with the entire executive team. Erno: How many clients do you have? Mark: At the moment I have 11 clients. It is considered full at 12 clients, which depends on the circumstances. Erno: That might not sound as a lot for some listeners. Do you spend a lot of time with them? Mark: Haha, this cuts right into the core of my business, to create a lifestyle for myself. Have a dramatic impact on clients while maximizing my lifestyle and flexibility. I see each client once a month. Half day monthly, full day quarterly. I have much time to make the coiches I want and to keep on learning. I also spent a lot of time on the book. Erno: A beautiful but intense way of spending time. You have a lot of time to develope yourself. What coiches did you make to be able to do that.

Mark Hattas has, amongst other accomplishments, started, built and sold a $20M/yr tech company. He was later diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder and told there was no cure.  Mark didn't believe the prognosis and through study, faith, and practice, Mark lived into his faith that he could be well.  He is so thankful to all who have helped, and to God.  He is committed to help others and give them hope and paths to success as well.  This inspiration in 2012 led him to pursue and eventually co-found HSI and Journey's Dream.  The dream will be realized when all people can find hope and well-being. More information at http://journeysdream.org Transcript of the Interview   Hugh: Welcome to this edition of The Nonprofit Exchange. We always have special people, but these people are really special because they invited me to participate in the foundational strategy building for their vision for bringing amazing resources to others. I want to introduce these two people. Russell, say hello from Denver, Colorado. Russell: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood and a beautiful day to be here with Mark and Mitzi. I look forward to a wonderful chat today. They are doing great work here. Hugh: Russell and I co-host this, and we have some fascinating conversations with people that are doing amazing things. This particular chain of interviews is about people who are doing real things in the real world. The ones we have done previously have been organizations that have been in existence for a while. This one is a young organization, but they are really making some traction. They are doing some really good stuff. I wanted to interview them about how they got started and what kind of traction they are making and what their plans are and how they impact lives. Mark, let's start with Mark Hattas. You tell us a little bit about your journey, who you are, and why you're doing this. Then throw it to Mitzi and let her introduce herself and her role in this. Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange, Mark. Mark: Thank you so much. Great to be her with both of you, good friends, and Mitzi. *audio cut* My revenue stream, or one of them, one of the things that I had the pleasure of doing early in my career is I built and sold a tech company. About nine months after that, I had a very unique experience where I started experiencing the world much differently than I had previously. I went into what is commonly called mania. I was diagnosed bipolar I, and I was in and out of the hospital three times over a three-year period. I was told right away that I would not get well, and I would be on medication the rest of my life. Most of what we know about the brain we learned in the 1990s, and the world of psychology was still navigating what was really going on. The hospital with that kind of prognosis. It was inspired maybe two months after that, after I had an unusual experience where I was terrified that I was going to have to live my life with my brain in the mode that it was in. So I started to seek solutions, and thank God there were solutions out there. There are amazing practitioners, amazing resources, and I applied them, I practiced them, and I got well. For over three years, I have been off all medication and have been very healthy. Over that course of a period of time, I met Mitzi and her husband Rex and her daughter Brea and learned about what was happening in their lives. We joined together to start what's called Hattas Shay International Foundation, which its project is called Journey's Dream, to help those with mental health challenges find resources and get to a place where they could really believe again that they could get well and then have the strength and the tools to start to go out and navigate their health and well-being with the best support mechanisms that can serve them. We are a hub that creates that environment. We are still building, but we have had some great traction so far. Mitzi? Mitzi: My name is Mitzi Montague-Bauer. My son Journey is symptomatic in his senior year at University of Michigan. At first, we thought it was his quirky behavior or something. We didn't really understand the magnitude of what was happening until he graduated and came home. There were several diagnoses as they didn't present the same way each time. The first doctor thought he had schizophrenia. After that, he was diagnosed with bipolar and depression and manic disorder and a lot of them actually. He was told the same thing that Mark was told: that he would never get well. There was no cure. The best we could hope for was to manage the symptoms and that would be a lifetime of medication. I didn't want to believe that. I didn't believe it. It seemed that the more he heard it, the more he began to believe it. During that time, I spent countless hours looking for the solution that we now know is available, but they were difficult to find. I spent a lot of time searching for any solution that had a different prognosis. By the time I felt confident with the solutions and the collection of modalities that I had collected, Journey was no longer interested. In the beginning, he was open to help. By the time I felt like I had the answers, he had isolated himself, and didn't seem to trust anyone. It became apparent to me that if we had had these solutions in the beginning, perhaps there would have been a different outcome. Journey, after three and a half years of struggling with his mental health and being told he would not get well, he stepped off of a building and ended his life. Because of the lack of- Well, the solutions were there, but they were difficult to find, and there wasn't really one place to find them. The vision that we share is that there would be a place, if a family member or a loved one or someone who is struggling landed on our site, that they would have a whole collection of solutions, possibilities to meet them where they were. Those solutions could be medication. There is a place for medication. A whole slew of other opportunities. Hugh: Thank you for sharing that. That is an important message. Mark, to declare that SynerVision has been working with this project from the onset. We started putting together the pieces in Mitzi's basement with Mitzi, her husband, her daughter, you, and me. We worked really hard for a couple of days getting our heads around what this looks like. That was not really the starting point, but it was the launchpoint where you were able to then say we are doing this for real and we are moving ahead. Why did you decide to put this in the framework of a tax-exempt charity? Mark: I'd built the for-profit organization. When I started to learn about the power of the tax-exempt organizations, it allows for people to give to a cause that they believe in and the way that they can and have tax benefits. It gives an opportunity to donate funds, provide in-kind services—for example, there is an organization helping us with our technology for the practitioner network. They are donating all the framework and developing even. That would have cost us quite a lot of money otherwise. Because it is for the greater good of the broader population, we didn't really see a need for any one of us or any group to own it. We wanted it to be available for all, and we are the stewards of it. So we really looked from the beginning at this organization being something that is a gift to all of those people who were in a situation like Journey's situation, or my situation, and the many that exist out there. Tax-exempt has made a whole lot of sense. When we spoke with Sherita Herring, she helped us set that up and reeducated me, retooled my brain, along with you, on what the power of tax-exempt is and how much funding is actually out there and available, and support. We took advantage of your expertise and knowledge to set this up right from the beginning. Hugh: There is a lot of power in philanthropic giving, both in individual donors. We were on a call with Sherita last night. She is one of our partners in SynerVision. Actually, she helped me create my foundation years ago. She is a queen of nonprofit information. She knows the right stuff. We have been on a journey equipping the culture to then step up to where you need to be. I have been impressed with how systematic you have been. You have tried not to short-cycle everything. You have taken things in stride, in sequence, and really let the different stages of this play out and mature without cutting it short. I commend you for that. So many people starting organizations like this want to get there and want to get it done. They leave a lot of stuff in the garbage on the side of the road on the way. You have been very systematic in developing this. I commend you for that. Russell, I know a little more about this because I have been involved with him for a year and a half. We decided we worked together for 365 non-continuous days. It's been a pace that's been very logical. Mark, you've created some programs, and you have done some beta tests on the programs. Talk a little bit about who those programs are for and the impact that program has had and will have on people's lives. Mark: The intent long-term is to have a whole hub of many programs. We have a few through affiliate partners, but we also- One of the things that we co-created with Rookha Group is a program called the Optimal Being program. The Optimal Being program is absolutely by far the core of what I did to navigate the brain dynamics that were spinning around in me and get to a place where I could start to navigate the world in a more healthy way. There are three things that occur in the Optimal Beam program. One is the awakening of the inner guidance system. It's really incredible that every human being innately has an inner guidance system, but so many people have conflicts within it and their programming that has them doing things on automatic decision-making that is not really constructive for their lives. What this does is help to soften that, release those beliefs and ideas that aren't really serving us anymore, and get to a place where the inner guidance system is listened to and it comes alive in us and it really leaves us to what's optimal for us. Mitzi mentioned sometimes medication is the optimal thing for someone in the beginning stages, so go for it and do it. Listen to those doctors. Believe the diagnosis they give you, but don't believe the prognosis if they are not telling you you can get well. Allowing for that inner guidance system to come on gives people confidence. It gives them courage. It's a healthy courage. It realigns their personal code of decision-making from one that could be negative and destructive to one that is always constructive. That is a key thing with the Optimal Being program. Another thing that happens there is community. Here is people that come together who are also going through life's challenges. To learn these tools together and to come to a community where people are in a like situation or like-minded, they are seeking solutions, that accelerates everyone's health and wellbeing. Ideas are shared in there that the facilitators may have never thought of. One of the people who are participating is contributing as well. People are both giving to the group and receiving from the group. It's a combination of self-instructional programs as well as a weekly online part of the program. The other thing is there is metrics. At the beginning of the Optimal Being program, we allow someone to go into ten categories of their human behavior. These are things that are like self-love. How is that going for someone? If love of self is really low, maintaining love while thinking about themselves is really low. There are some tools that we teach to support increasing that. Maintaining love while thinking of others, maintaining love while actually approaching truth. There is ten of these categories. We measure them in the beginning, and at the end of the 13-week program online, we measure it again. It is fascinating to see how dramatically people change. These are core human development skills that could be taught to a fifth grader or even younger. When someone integrates them into their life, whenever they face something that is a challenge, instead of going to historical patterns of coping mechanisms, they start to have tools that are foundational human tools to start to realize what potential lies within them and have it start to come out in the world. The transformations we have seen in corporate leaders, people who thought they were actually doing fine but wanted to get to the next level, and people who have challenges is profound. Hugh: It's not just for people who are having—I forget how to title it—severe emotional issues. It's not just for people in that profile. Mark: No, it could be someone who is going through a breakup from a relationship and they are sad. It could be a loss of a loved one, and they are going through that grieving process. It could be any number of things that creates in someone the desire to seek something where they are going to feel better. When people feel better and they get to a joyous, and Mitzi knows well about this, place in life, one of the things that starts to occur is their life self-perpetuates in a positive direction. We want to help people navigate through that, so we teach the opposite of the way they were taught in the world when they were growing up. It's like a rewiring of some of the processes they had been using. Mitzi, I don't know if you want to ask anything to that part. Mitzi: I thought you did a beautiful job summarizing. Hugh: Mark, what is the name of that program? The Optimal Bean program? Mark: It's called the Optimal Being Program. Hugh: It's my age and mental condition. Mark: We have tools and technologies. There is an app online that is actually free. People can go download- If they do a search on their phone on “Rookha Group,” they will find the Optimal Being app. It is a powerful app that helps to heal relationships with the commitments tool and to practice maintaining love and the breathing properly as they face a challenging situation. That alone is healing. Hugh: Spell Rookha. Mark: R-o-o-k-h-a. Hugh: R-o-o-k-h-a. Mark: You might be able to type in Optimal Being and get it at this point, too. It's been up there long enough I think you could type in either one. Hugh: Optimal Being. O-p-t-i-m-a-l B-e-i-n-g. So Mark, this is not coaching. It's not counseling. It's not therapy. What is it? Mark: We're like a group of people who have been there and have navigated this. We are educated mentors. I am someone who has gone into it and out of it. When someone does that, they develop a certain set of skills and support others in getting to a place of hope. I don't think anybody in our organization—Mitzi, correct me if I'm wrong—but I think every single person in our organization sees the human beingness in a person. Never have we seen any kind of diagnosis or some kind of illness. It's not the way we look at it. We look at it more like- There is a great analogy of the caterpillar to butterfly. Imagine that the caterpillar goes in to the chrysalis, and then everyone starts to say how awful they are because they don't look like a caterpillar anymore and they are stupid and can't do this and can't do that. The caterpillar is transforming. If we suppress that transformation, we are going to have some funky-looking caterpillars. If they didn't allow the chrysalis process, they are going to be angry, frustrated, grumpy, and eventually fall into depression because they are denying that natural, innate, transformative state. When somebody actually goes into who it is they truly are and they do it with the tools that exist in many different forms, we happen to give them in the way that we learned them. It supports someone having the courage to do what they are innately guided to do. That is why when I was mentioning inner guidance systems it's like listening to yourself, but letting go of all the noise that was in the way, creating conflict within a person. Hugh: I love it. Mitzi, I have appreciated you on our team calls and live work together. You ask really good questions when everybody else is letting it fly by and wondering what that meant. You say, “Wait a minute.” Your attention to detail is very acute. But you always ask it in a very generous and kind way. Instead of putting anybody down, you say, “Would you explain that again? Is it this or that?” First off, talk about your son. This project is named Journey's Dream. Why did you step up to want to be in this core team of four people? I guess it's four people. This core team of champions that are really making it happen. Talk about yourself, and then talk about the other two that aren't here, Rex and Brea. Mitzi: That inner guidance system that Mark was just talking about was what led me to be one of the founders. I again saw a deficit when I looked at the mental health situation on the planet. The suicide attempts and the actual suicides and the message that people hear when they get a diagnosis is one that we wonder why is a stigma. When you get that diagnosis, if you get a diagnosis of schizophrenia and went home and Googled that, that would put you right in the depression, I think. You probably wouldn't want to talk about it. The prognosis is awful. I would love to see the core messaging changing around mental illness. What would have happened with Journey if he was told that he was in a transformational process or that he could get well? That is a different message. A lot of people who are experiencing these states of mania are brilliant. They are on a genius spectrum. They are navigating different things than we are. I think if they had these tools that are available, it would be a different outcome entirely. I was motivated by that, and this is what I was being guided by, too. The other two founders are Rex Montague-Bauer, my husband and Journey's father. Rex and I have been students of these principles that are a lot of the core principles of the Optimal Being. We have been students for a while of that and do our best to practice those in our lives. Our daughter Brea is the fourth founder, Journey's sister. She is a brilliant human being, compassionate. We are all inspired by the same thing: to see a different outcome for people who receive a mental health diagnosis or who are just challenged in general. Hugh: This is a high-functioning team. You all work really well together. That is not the case for every team. Russell, I met Mark at the very first ever SynerVision Leadership Empowerment Symposium. I think it was called Leadership Excellence then. It was in Chicago. Mark met me at a CEO Space gathering the week or two before, and he decided he'd sign up and come. We got connected there. We had conversations. He checked me out for about a year before he- He wanted to make sure I wasn't a flake and was there to stay. Then we started working together. We have had some very deep conversations over time. I am really a fan of Mark and Mitzi and the team as well as what they are doing. So we have been on a journey ourselves. Mark, thank you for inviting me on the journey. It has been a pleasure to be there with you. It has touched me in many ways I hadn't realized I could be touched. It has been an important journey for me just to watch and participate. Russell, what do you see and hear that you want to comment on? I'm sure you have found a couple questions you'd like to throw back at our guests. Russell: I'd like to thank you both for coming here and sharing your story. We have powerful why's, and that is critical to everything. The idea of paying it forward. What we are talking about is raising our level of consciousness. This is something that everybody can do. There is a lot of power in interacting with people who get it. There is a lot of fear and stigma around the idea of a mental diagnosis, but a diagnosis does not define you. Just looking at the alternative complementary types of solutions is critical because it's not all about poppin' a pill. It's about a mental and emotional and spiritual connection and going within and finding that thing that is inside you that can make all things better. To be fair, I think Hugh scared you off with- Mark is probably in earshot when you let loose one of the age and mental condition things. He does that every once in a while, but he is a brilliant man. I know that you had a long journey to figuring out that the idea of raising your consciousness and being around other people who experience the same thing, how did you come to the conclusion that this was the actual solution? Tell me about how that journey took place. Mark: First, I don't know that it would be fair to say that it was the actual solution meaning if you are referring- Are you referring to my own health or the creation of Journey's Dream? Russell: The creation of Journey's Dream as a way to move forward is really- That is my term for raising your level of consciousness, connecting with that is strong and valuable. Mark: I apologize. I misunderstood the question at first. With regard to- How did we discover that Journey's Dream was the solution? It goes back to trusting that inner guidance system and listening. One of the things that we discovered along the way is we want to be very collaborative with other organizations. We want to be inclusive. We believe that there is a place for medication, and there are many organizations who have gone through mental health recovery processes who are against the medication. If I didn't have the medication, I'm not sure I'd still be here. It served me well while it served me. It was more that there was more, and it stopped serving me at some point in a way that I felt like I could really achieve my heart's desire. We wanted to give people access to programs like the Optimal Being program, where they could tap in and tune in and get to that higher consciousness that is going to optimally serve them and give them other tools that could meet them where they are today. They may not be seeking that today; they might just be feeling really miserable and not want to get out of bed. They would like to wake up one day and feel a little better. They are not seeking some lofty thing, but to them, that is very lofty. To get back in touch with who is it that they really are and what is it they are really here to do? We had a belief that if we as a group take care of the stuff that was in our system that was not going to serve Journey's Dream, that we would always know the optimal next step and the optimal step we were in would have the proper attention and focus to be executed optimally. We just did an event in November at Soldier Field. Our first event ever was at Soldier Field in the Midway Room there. There were a couple hundred people there. More than that, it was the BDSA, the Bipolar Depression Support Alliance was there supporting this. Nami Metro were bringing in- They do stuff with the arts. I am not a big art kind of person, but to see what they are doing to give people who are struggling with mental health the opportunity to sing and play music and explore what it is that is going on inside them in a different way, that is extraordinary. There was a faith-based counseling organization that came and supported called Sumeric Care. I am not going to remember them all right now, but they all came together and collaborated to realize a vision. There is a VA organization in Illinois, Joining Forces, and the Illinois Department of Human Services was even there. That is unheard of in my world before that to see these groups come together and say, “You know what? We are going to stand for something, which is we believe that there is a path for all people to get well.” We may not know it today. There might not be a cookbook recipe that is on the shelf. But when we start to bring resources together and collaborate, that is when solutions can be found. That is when the optimal support can come out. We had a half dozen practitioners that committed to come. They spoke and changed people's lives, just by letting people know that these doctors who see patients every day were telling them something different than what they had heard in the hospital, which is you can get well. Just to hear that from another doctor, all of a sudden, all the belief systems around what their condition is collapsed. They had to walk out of there with a remodeled and reconfigured belief system. If they say I can get well, then I can. That is a huge thing. Then we had a few celebrities there who were extraordinary, too. David Stanley, who is Elvis Presley's brother, was there sharing his story and the story of Elvis and the opioids and that process and giving people hope that they can get to the other side of that, and his own depression and stuff he has been going through. The founder of Make-a-Wish Foundation talking about how he had PTSD early on in his career, and his partner who had taken his life. Because Frank Shankwitz dealt with it in a different way and found a solution for him, Make-a-Wish Foundation exists today, one of the most successful not-for-profits. That was another reason we wanted him there, to let people know that there is hope for people struggling, but also we wanted him to express that Journey's Dream might be at the beginning just like Make-a-Wish was after he was going through his recovery process and had the opportunity to do something pretty cool. These not-for-profit organizations can be run like real companies and provide real services, real value, create income streams that produce impact that is huge. Make-a-Wish is doing a few hundred million a year in their overall umbrella. That is the kind of organization we see building. A global organization that can have that impact. That is why we hired Hugh. If we are going to build a sustainable, real organization, we waned someone who has been there and done that. Hugh Ballou helps not-for-profits all over the planet to do and set up for success. If you have something that you really believe in and you have a passion behind it, trust yourself and hire the resources that are truly going to help you in your situation set up for success. Hugh: Thank you for that. I certainly have had enough rehearsal doing this. Mark and Mitzi, tell people where they can go to find out more information. Mitzi: You can go to our website, which is journeysdream.org. That would be the place to begin. Hugh: Journeysdream.org. What will people find there? Mitzi: They will find our website, which we are going through the process of making some changes to now as we have grown in the four months since we first launched the website. They will find a beginning of a practitioner's network. They will find the Optimal Being and other resources we are offering. There will also be a place for practitioners where we are inviting practitioners to join us if they see fit. There is a place for practitioners, and there is a place for family members or people who are struggling looking for solutions. They will see what solutions we have, and they will see the vision for what we have for our future. Hugh: Did you think when we were in your basement putting stickies on the boards that this would go here in this period of time? Mitzi: No, sir, I did not. Mark: One more thing. From a context standpoint, we have grown within a handful of weeks to over 600 followers on Facebook. If you go to the Journey's Dream page on Facebook and follow us, you will not only be getting things about Journey's Dream, but things about mental health and innovative approaches and solutions over time. Encourage people to do that as well. Hugh: What's next, Mark? What's next in your radar of accomplishments for 2018? Mark: In a week, December 4th, we are launching another Optimal Being program. Anyone who is interested in that, it's a 13-week program. You can go to the website under Educational Programs and click on Optimal Being. You can read more about it and sign up and register if you like. That's one thing. 2018 is going to be a year of automating that program so we can get it to a lower cost; forming additional partners and building out the practitioner network; and building a fund so that people who can't get the kinds of care that insurance doesn't cover that they can get some additional support in paying for those services. Some of those services that I have had the benefit of don't take insurance, so we want to educate people about those but also be good stewards of funds that come in so that part of those funds get allocated to address one of the biggest issues in mental health, which is it's really expensive to get the good care that is going to help someone navigate their own life to a healthy state of being. Hugh: Awesome. Journeysdream.org. There is resources now, and there is resources that are coming. The Facebook page is also called Journey's Dream? Mark: Yes. Hugh: Russell, what are you thinking? Russell: I am thinking I love what you're doing. It's wonderful. I'd like to say that I have looked at the website. There is something there for everyone who has been touched in some way with a diagnosis of a mental illness. Having to face that fear, there is a lot of fear, a lot of stigma around that. But it's important to connect with people who get it. Mark and Mitzi get it. If it's you, if it's a loved one, go to Journeysdream.org and get connected. Talk with somebody. Happy Giving Tuesday by the way. It is Giving Tuesday. Take a few minutes after this broadcast and go to that site and plug in. If you do nothing else, subscribe to the email list, get the information, and give it a listen because a lot of the things that can be seen as solutions here are not the conventional things. They are not the things people tell you, things like mindfulness. Some of this stuff might seem like it's touchy-feely, but it saves lives. Take a minute to consider something a little bit different than what you have been taught because your life's on the line. These are folks who have been there and they get it. It's facing that fear and knowing that yeah, there are some other solutions but they are only solutions if you take time to plug in and do it. Go to Facebook. Go to the web. Get plugged in. Make a donation. Sign up. This is a gift to give yourself and maybe a loved one for Giving Tuesday. That is my two cents. Again, thank you so much Mark and Mitzi for what you're doing here because you're saving lives. This is going to grow beyond anything you've ever imagined. Mark: Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Hugh. Mitzi: Thank you. Hugh: That is really good. I'd like to ask you to think about a closing thought. I'll ask Mitzi to go first, then Mark. As we wrap up here in this really good story that you guys have shared, Mitzi, what is your closing thought for our listeners? Mitzi: I guess I would like for everyone to challenge themselves when they see a homeless person or someone who looks different than them on the street or on the bus or in your community, don't make an assumption that you know anything about that person. They may have a Ph. D. My son had a degree in economics. Mark, who is brilliant. Extend compassion. Look them in the eyes as a fellow traveler who is sometimes on a challenging path. Offer some compassion. That would be my thought. It is something that has changed in me since Journey's experience, and I would love to see more of it. Hugh: Great. Thank you. Mark? Mark: If you could think of one person in your life who is struggling now or who has struggled in the past, I would say just reach out to them and give them the URL. Say this podcast, this Facebook live, it looked interesting. Let them know it exists. One of the things that I experienced early on is people don't know how to talk to people who are going through a challenge. We want to change that. We want to give them those tools. Whether it's a mother or a father or a son or a daughter or a friend or spouse, what is it we can do to support? One thing you can do is let them know you are thinking about them, whether it's saying Journeysdream.org website or Facebook page. That is not the point. The point is let them know you're thinking about them. Send them things that can be constructive, that could really help them. If they deny that they are able to be helped, they may not like it. But you know what? Someday they will remember it because all people can find a path to health and well-being. Allow yourself to be in the face of those experiences. Be the presence of love. We are all called to be. If someone does come at you and say, “Hey, you shouldn't have done this or that,” and they are triggered, recognize what is going on inside them, but do it from love, not because you want to heal them or get them better. Do it from love. As you think about them, think about what it is you could do to really be of service. Hugh: Awesome words. Awesome words. Russell, thanks for being here. It is such a consistent supporter. Mitzi, Mark, thank you for sharing your story. It has been powerful indeed. Mitzi: My pleasure. Mark: Thank you so much for having us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carolyn: Welcome to Circulation on the Run, your weekly podcast summary and backstage pass to the journal and its editors. I'm Dr. Carolyn Lam, associate editor from the National Heart Centre and Duke National University of Singapore. Have you ever wondered what the clinical implications of very brief episodes of device-detected atrial tachyarrhythmias are? Well, we will be discussing this with novel data from the RATE registry in just a moment. First, here's your summary of this week's journal.     The first study provides the first evaluation of the Sweden nationwide abdominal aortic aneurysm screening program. Of almost 303,000 men invited for screening, 84% attended. The prevalence of screening detected abdominal aortic aneurysm was 1.5%. After a mean of 4.5 years, 29% of patients with aneurysms had been operated upon with a 30-day mortality rate of 0.9%. The introduction of screening was associated with a significant reduction in aneurysm-specific mortality. The number needed to screen to prevent 1 premature death was 667, while the number needed to operate on to prevent 1 premature death was 1.5.     Furthermore, the authors showed that their screening program was highly cost-effective in the contemporary setting in Sweden. These findings confirm results from earlier randomized controlled trials in a large population-based setting, and may be important for future healthcare decision-making. This and the diverse requirements for efficient population screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm, from program management to maintaining skills in open repair are discussed in an excellent accompanying editorial by Dr. Cole from Imperial College London.     The next study looks at thoracic epidural anesthesia and suggests that caution may be needed in patients with or at risk for right ventricular dysfunction. You see, thoracic epidural anesthesia involves blockade of cardiac sympathetic fibers, which may affect right ventricular function and interfere with the coupling between the right ventricle and right ventricular afterload. Dr. Wink and colleagues from the Leiden University Medical Center therefore used combined pressure volume conductance catheters to study the effects of thoracic epidural anesthesia on right ventricular function and ventricular pulmonary artery coupling in 10 patients scheduled for lung resection.     Thoracic epidural anesthesia resulted in a significant reduction in right ventricular contractility, stroke work, dP/dt max and ejection fraction. This was accompanied by a reduction in effective arterial elastance such that ventricular pulmonary coupling remain unchanged. Clamping of the pulmonary artery increased right ventricular contractility but decreased ventricular pulmonary coupling. These effects of increased afterload were the same before and after thoracic epidural anesthesia. In conclusion, therefore, thoracic epidural anesthesia impaired right ventricular contractility but did not inhibit the native positive ionotropic response of the right ventricle to increase afterload. These findings are clinically relevant for daily practice in cardiothoracic surgery because pulmonary hypertension is frequently encountered, and right ventricular function is an important determinant of early and late outcomes.     The next study suggests that the use of point of care hemostatic testing may have a place in the management of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Dr. Karkouti and colleagues of the Toronto General Hospital hypothesized that point of care hemostatic testing within the context of an integrated transfusion algorithm would improve the management of coagulopathy in cardiac surgery, thereby reducing blood transfusion. They therefore conducted a pragmatic multi-center stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial of a point of care based transfusion algorithm in 7,402 consecutive patients undergoing cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass in 12 hospitals in Ontario, Canada. They found that the trial intervention reduced rate of red cell transfusion with an adjusted relative risk of 0.91 and a number needed to treat of 24.7.     The intervention also reduced rates of platelet transfusion and major bleeding but had no effect on other blood product transfusions or major complications. These findings that point of care testing improved management of coagulopathy in cardiac surgery support the consideration of their broader adoption in clinical practice.     The next study provides experimental evidence that brings us one step closer to therapeutic targeting of arterial leukocyte recruitment in the context of atherosclerosis. In this study from first author Dr. Ortega-Gómez, corresponding author Dr. Soehnlein and colleagues from LMU Munich, authors focus on cathepsin G, which is stored in neutrophil and azurophil granules and discharged upon neutrophil activation. They studied site-specific myeloid cell behavior after high-fat diet feeding or TNF stimulation in the carotid artery, the jugular vein, and cremasteric arterioles and venules in APOE E and Cathepsin G-deficient mice.     Their studies revealed a crucial role for Cathepsin G in arterial leukocyte adhesion, an effect that was specific for the arteries and not found during venular adhesion. Consequently, Cathepsin G deficiency attenuated atherosclerosis but not acute lung inflammation. Mechanistically, Cathepsin G was immobilized on arterial endothelium, where it activated leukocytes to firmly adhere, engaging endocrine clustering, a process of crucial importance to achieve effective adherence under high-sheer flow.     Therapeutic neutralization of Cathepsin G specifically abrogated arterial leukocyte adhesion without affecting myeloid cell adhesion in the microcirculation. Repetitive application of Cathepsin G-neutralizing antibodies really allowed the inhibition of atherogenesis in the mice. Taken together, these findings presented evidence of an arterial-specific recruitment pattern centered on Cathepsin G adhesion, thus representing a potential novel strategy and target for the treatment of arterial inflammation. Well, that wraps it up for the summary of this week's journal. Now, for our featured discussion.     Our feature paper for today discusses the clinical implications of brief device-detected atrial tachycardias and really novel findings from the RATE registry. I'm so happy to be here with the first and corresponding author, Dr. Steven Swiryn from Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Hi, Steven.   Steven: Good morning.   Carolyn: We also have with us Dr. Mark Link, associate editor from UT Southwestern. We all know that prolonged episodes of atrial tachycardia or atrial fibrillation are associated with increased risk and that if we anticoagulate those with a high CHA2DS2–VASc score, we can lower the risk of stroke. Now, the European Society of Cardiology guidelines also say that recent data reinforced the assumption that even brief episodes of silent atrial fibrillation may convey an increased risk of stroke. We also know that prior studies have looked at device-detected atrial fibrillation. Steven, I'd really love if you could start by telling us what makes your study different. What was the main thing you were trying to look at?   Steven: Well, one reason it's attractive to use the device population, patients with pacemakers or defibrillators, to look at these issues is because devices have a very high likelihood of detecting episodes of atrial fibrillation whereas symptoms or single 12 EKGs miss a lot of atrial fibrillation, so the sensitivity is much higher, although not perfect. The problem is that very brief episodes of atrial fibrillation are very poorly detected by devices. The specificity of automatic detection is very low, such that all previous studies until the RATE registry have excluded any episode of atrial fibrillation detected by a device less than 5 minutes in duration because they're unreliable. A lot of them turn out to be false positive detections. Our study was designed to evaluate whether even very brief episodes of an atrial tachyarrhythmia might also be associated with risk of clinical events and might or might not warrant anti-coagulation.   Carolyn: Ah, that's interesting, so you really helped to answer how brief is "brief" when we need to talk about device-detected atrial fibrillation. Could you expand on how you actually defined "short episodes" here?   Steven: Right. A short episode for the purpose of the RATE registry was defined as an episode where the electrogram that we scrutinized had both the onset and the offset of the episode within the same electrogram tracing, so although we can't put a specific time duration on it because that wasn't part of the criterion, it's typically less than 20 seconds or so, although not always, whereas a long episode was defined as an electrogram where either the onset and/or the offset was not captured by the device memory and therefore we don't know the duration. Some of those may not have been very long, and some of those may have been extremely prolonged episodes. That allows us to actually scrutinize the electrogram. We looked at 37,530 individual electrograms using 8 teams of adjudicators, each with a physician and a field clinical engineer from the device company so that we could actually say definitively, "Yes, this was atrial fibrillation," or, "No, it wasn't."   Carolyn: This is the first study to really look under that 5-minute limit of atrial tachycardias. What did you find?   Steven: Well, we found that in contrast to prolonged episodes, short episodes of atrial tachyarrhythmias were not associated with an increased risk compared to those without atrial fibrillation of pre-defined clinical events, including death from any cause, heart failure, stroke, hospitalization for atrial fibrillation, and a few other smaller events.   Carolyn: This was over a 2-year follow-up period, is that right?   Steven: The median follow-up was slightly less than 2 years, that's right.   Carolyn: What I really was struck with was also the second finding, the propensity to develop longer episodes. Could you expand on that?   Steven: We reasoned that in the clinic, one might be faced with a short episode was we defined them, and then you don't know what's going to happen for the next 2 years to bring to bear the results of our study. We looked at if your first episode was short, what was your likelihood over the full follow-up of the study of progressing to longer episodes. About 50% of patients who had their first episode as only a short episode progressed to a longer episode over the full follow-up and therefore were in the long category for the rest of the results. Half of them never got a longer episode.     It was, as one might imagine, if you had your first short episode very early in the study and had a longer follow-up, you were more likely to end up in the long category, and if you had very frequent short episodes, you were also more likely to end up in the long category by the time the full follow-up was over with. Having an initial short episode is not a guarantee that you're never going to get a long episode and that you'll never acquire a consideration of anti-coagulation.   Carolyn: That was a very important message to me as well because it meant that although I can be secure or reassured by these data for very short episodes, I needed to look out for the development of longer episodes, at least that's what your registry showed over 2 years of follow-up. I'm curious, Mark, what were your take-home messages because that leaves us with a bit of a conundrum. What do we do about anti-coagulation in these patients?   Mark: I think this study is a big help to the practicing electrophysiologist and practicing cardiologists. It's a very ledger number of patients with a lot of episodes of afib. It's reassuring to me that the shorter episodes of afib as defined by the study, the individuals did not have a higher incidence of stroke compared to those with no episodes, so it's reassuring and very important clinically as I go through my practice.     I do look forward to more analyses and more data from this study because although now we know that episodes less than 20 seconds are in all likelihood not going to need anti-coagulation, we still don't know about those from 20 seconds to 5 minutes. Hopefully with more analysis of this study we'll get that answer also.   Carolyn: Steven, do you agree with that?   Steven: We would love to have that. At first glance, you would think that devices would give you all of the data you needed because after all, they're monitoring the patient 100% of the time, but there are difficulties with that because device memory is limited, and you don't get electrograms that go on until the termination of atrial fibrillation even if the device were accurate in determining when that termination was because depending on how the device was programmed and depending on whether it was a more modern device later in the trial or earlier and had more or less memory, it cuts off after a limited amount of time, and you don't see necessarily how long the duration is.     Now, you can use device-based data. The device gives you its estimate of how long the episode is, but those are not as reliable as adjudicating the electrograms and actually looking at them. Those data would be a little softer than the main results if we get there.   Mark: That was the data that was used for all of the other studies, was [transassert 00:14:51]. It would be comparable to those other studies. I still think it would be very important data that I'd love to see.   Steven: Okay, well, I agree. I think it would be very interesting to look at that and a number of other things. We have a number of other things we could do with this database. There are a number of substudies that are in progress. For example, one interesting one is there were some instances we found, because we actually looked at these electrograms, there's something that we termed "competitive atrial pacing," where the device will pace at times when we as clinicians would not want to pace. For example, pacemaker-mediated tachycardia would be an instance of that, but then you can pace in the atrium inappropriately. There's a rhythm called repetitive non-reentrant ventricular atrial systole, which, although it's exotic to all of us, actually turned out to be fairly common where there's pacing in the atrium that occurs for various reasons when we want it to.     We actually saw instances where the device itself induced atrial fibrillation. It wasn't that common, but we did see it. We have a substudy that we're working on about the subjective competitive atrial pacing to see how much of that there was and of what, if any, consequence that was. That's one of the things that's been done. Because we scrutinized these so carefully, we tracked morphology and atrial rate at least as a crude estimate, and we have those data, so we could actually evaluate whether if something looks very, very rapid and disorganized as opposed to more organized electrograms at a slower rate, did that make any difference. We don't have any results for those analyses yet. I agree with Mark that the intermediate durations would be interesting to look at.   Carolyn: I agree too, and I'm really grateful for you sharing those thoughts. Very grateful for both of you for your time today. I just have to congratulate you. I completely agree this paper fills an important knowledge gap, and congratulations once again.   Steven: Thank you very much.   Mark: Thank you.   Carolyn: Thank you for listening. You've been listening to Circulation on the Run. Please tune in next week.      

Budget-loving finance nerd Mark Butler returns. Mark and I discuss underearning or overspending and what s the difference. Should I say no to a customer? ~Mark Butler, on How She Really Does It In this conversation we discuss: Pricing Revenue as a Goal Customer needs vs Self Needs Is this something I want to do? ~Koren, on How She Really Does It LISTEN HERE Mentioned in this Podcast Mark s website Conversation with Mark on Money + Shame The Ego is the Enemy (book recommendation) The Obstacle is the Way (book recommendation) I appreciate the iTunes reviews. Thank you! If you find How She Really Does It makes an impact on your life, please leave a comment or a rating for the show at iTunes. Your review helps spread the word about the show + is always appreciated by me. Thanks for listening to How She Really Does It, the place where inspiration + possibility meet. I so appreciate your emails about the show + it s impact on your life. I look forward to serving you with this show! Thanks for Listening! Mark Thank you for the conversation and the ability to rumble on the show! smiling, The post Integrity as an Entrepreneur appeared first on howshereallydoesit.com.

Heyang: Is piracy going to raise its ugly head again in China? As China’s TV watchdog state administration of press, publication, radio, film, and television, which I’ll just say, SAPPRFT, has released tougher regulations, saying that all foreign TV shows must be viewed scrupulously before being made available online. So what is this new tougher regulation? John: A lot of it is just part of SAPPRFT’s increasing influence and it’s been playing for a long time on what is actually broadcast or what types of content are available online. For a long long time, the Internet is been seen as a bastion of perhaps more cutting-edge material. Mark: I was quite interested by your use of the phrase “cutting-edge.” What are we talking about? Is it things like particular types of content, for example, maybe scenes of drugs-taking, or some sexual scenes, and violence and that kind of thing? John: I think that’s the concern. Because right now, China does not have a rating system for any cultural or entertainment product. Nothing for movies, nothing for TV or music or anything. Heyang: Yeah, for these imported shows, there are just of a wider genre. But in the Chinese scene, it seems to be a lot more boring, I would say. There’s less choices. So do you think that there is a supposedly at least 6 month delay for these imported shows to be shown in China mean that this would give more room for domestic-made shows? This seems to be what our very loyal and lovely listener Draco thinks. Mark: Thank you Draco. The thing is that Chinese viewers are extremely resourceful and perhaps impatient to watch the next season or what it might be. And I don’t think they are going to wait 6 months patiently before they can watch them. I think they might seek them out and try finding them elsewhere or trying get round it. So it could make the piracy situation worse possibly. John: Yes, it could. That’s what manager of the copyright department of Aiqiyi is saying, and I think this is the argument that we gonna hear. Maybe not made publicly, this is probably the argument that streaming websites are making to the regulatory authority as well, because it is going to raise quite a few issues about IP protection. On the surface, people are saying this is about SARFT maintaining control, and things like that. Administration of Culture and making sure nothing unclean is allowed to be broadcast so on and so on. But the secondary fact perhaps the primary purpose of these types of regulation is to ensure a space for Chinese entertainment products. Because shows like Big Bang Theory, shows like the Good Wife, and things like that, they have become so amazingly popular that people, especially younger people, will choose to watch those over things like Japanese war dramas. But looking towards the piracy comment here, I think that there is quite a bit of validity to that. However it’s a landscape that right now in terms of privacy and in terms of authorized or licensed content. It is very different for what it was five or six years ago when streaming online was not as popular. And the only way you could get it was buy pirating. But if you look at it along the traditional places where people got pirated content, or they are shut down, or they’ve got legitimate. The avenues for piracies are going to be a bit more challenging, so you have to be a bit more tenacious s to actually find the pirated content. And also I think the technology behind video streaming and things like mobile devices and applications and things have become so mainstream already that people are just going to continue using those to access entertainment. So I think piracy is a concern, but it is not going to be as big of a problem as it was five or six years ago. Heyang: I think that is a good point and I also agree with what Mark said a bit earlier about when you so used and hooked to watching these shows, you want this form of entertainment, you don’t want to give it up, despite the fact that it might not be as that convenient for you to get it in the future because it really reminds me of back in my days in middle school, there was this really popular TV drama called Meteor Garden and all the girls are crazy about it. And back then, there wasn’t really much Internet either. So we all went to get pirated DVDs. The whole class got it, just because we couldn’t get it from legitimate avenues. So, here, I think you can find the information you want if you really want it that much. John: I think that if it is popular enough, you will be able to find it, either online or offline. But this reminds me of Game of Thrones, which is a fact it has clocked records in terms of the number of times has been pirated. I think it has been downloaded legitimately more than any other TV series in the history of online TV piracy. One of the reasons is because HBO does not make it available to enough people and enough ways for them to consuming. Heyang: But what quite interesting is also from some of these streaming websites, this might have a limited impact on their service and business because watching these imported shows are still those people who were probably considered as the niche market. When you check the clicks, it’s one out of ten of those who actually watch these imported shows. Mark: Which amazes me, because you know I think perhaps for most people I know, their only source of TV viewing would be watching stuff online. Heyang: But you are talking about a huge consumer base. So I don’t think percentage really matter as much here. You have to look at the numbers, right? John: But also we need to wait for this rule coming to full-effected. Mark: Well time will tell. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen before the currency of Homeland is finished.