Podcast appearances and mentions of mark yes

It's been 6 years since we've had TenantCloud join us on the podcast, and a lot has changed since then! In today's episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull welcomes Mark DeHaan from TenantCloud to talk about how it can help property managers collect payments, advertise properties, and screen potential tenants. You'll Learn [03:03] TenantCloud update!  [06:46] How does TenantCloud compare? [09:34] TenantCloud integrations  [12:20] Scaling with your software  [15:56] Starting strong with Rentler  Tweetables “A lot of times when you get into rental real estate… you log into a property management system and you're like, "holy smokes, this is so overwhelming like I can't figure this out.” “A lot of property managers have all of these different tools. They kind of build their own Swiss army knife or stack of different tools and software.” “A lot of property managers have a challenge with financials and accounting.” “We love the rental real estate industry and helping people grow and make passive income and that's what we're all about.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Mark: A lot of times when you log into a property management system and you're like, "holy smokes, this is so overwhelming, like I can't figure this out." [00:00:07] And that's, I think the differentiator that we tried to solve.   [00:00:11] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:29] DoorGrow property managers 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 business owners, and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change 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. [00:01:10] Now, let's get into the show. And my guest today is Mark DeHaan of TenantCloud. So Mark, welcome to the show. Good to have you.  [00:01:19] Mark: Yeah. Thanks Jason. Nice to meet you. Appreciate it.  [00:01:22] Jason: So we haven't had TenantCloud on the show for like six years. Back then, Joe Edgar was CEO. I had to look it up because I'm like, "I know, that they've been on the show before." [00:01:32] So I'm guessing a little bit's changed since then. So why don't we start by getting into a little bit about Mark. Tell us, tell everybody like, who are you and how'd you get into your entrepreneurial journey and then what led you to being at TenantCloud?  [00:01:46] Mark: Yeah, great. Yeah. So I'm based here just outside of Salt Lake city, Utah. [00:01:50] And I was a co founder of Rentler. And we partnered with TenantCloud, merged with them about five years ago with Joe. And when he exited, I ended up taking over as a CEO and running both Rentler and TenantCloud. And it's been a big journey by then, but yeah, my history was rental real estate. [00:02:13] And being an entrepreneur and really sacrificing and so forth. And it's been really exciting, and I love your audience because I think they can relate to, you know, being an entrepreneur and trying to grow in the real estate business.  [00:02:25] Jason: So for sure. I'm looking up Rentler right now, cause I don't know what it is. [00:02:30] What's Rentler? [00:02:31] Mark: So Rentler primarily focuses on listings and filling vacancies for landlords, small mom and pop landlords. Yeah. It does some payments and screenings and a few other tools and syndicates out your leads. And then TenantCloud is a lot more robust. It does the accounting, the maintenance, a ton of things that you can track with service professionals and your owners and reporting. [00:02:53] And so they came, they come together really nicely. And we just try to really focus on. landlords and property managers and using technology to make their lives easier.  [00:03:03] Jason: Got it. So what's what's been going on at TenantCloud since in the last six years? Like what what are you guys doing lately? [00:03:12] And you know, why should people use TenantCloud? Like, let's get into it.  [00:03:17] Mark: Yeah. So the last bit we've been growing tremendously. We're processing over a billion dollars in rent payments a year. Well over that. And TenantCloud really as its core is to help the rental life cycle and help owners, service professionals, tenants, and landlords really come together and leverage technology to run the business and the way we built it was with that in mind to really make things seamless and easy. And you can pay your rent with, you know, ACH, credit, debit, Apple Pay, Google Pay. We have a lot of things that we're working on to just make life easier there. We do screenings, have a ton of different bundles, options for you to do screenings and to protect your investment. And that's been really good to help people with income verification and criminal and background checks and of that nature. [00:04:11] Yeah and we do a lot of accounting. We will even file your Schedule E for you automatically. So the cool thing about TenantCloud is you don't have to have a degree in accounting. You can really log into our software and we're, we'll lead you along that process. And we'll do a lot of the tax reporting team management and you know...  [00:04:33] Jason: Can you explain what a schedule E is for those that might not be familiar with it. [00:04:38] Mark: Yeah, absolutely. So schedule E is you know, to report income or loss on your rental real estate. And that's one thing that you'll have to do. You'll get a 1040 form and, you know, the government will want you to file that. And sometimes that can be tough to do, but with our system we will track all of your expenses and all your income and so forth and help you file that form on your behalf.  [00:05:05] Jason: So for property managers, they're doing this third party for owners, this then becomes a resource for the owners that they're managing properties for. It will do it for them as well? [00:05:15] Mark: Yes, and we do have like an owner portal. So what's great is you can have your owners log in instead of having that back and forth. [00:05:24] We give them a login where they can have some view access to see their portfolio as well. So it just makes it easy for those property managers to work with their owners.  [00:05:35] Jason: Got it. Okay. Now what's different between a property manager using this tool or like owners just going direct and getting TenantCloud and bypassing the property manager? [00:05:46] Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, some owners can do that, but I mean, then they have to deal with a lot of the heavy lifting with the maintenance and managing all the units. And so with the property manager using our system, we make it easy for the owners to have access and you can send your distributions to them and so forth. [00:06:05] But it really comes down to the ease of use and being able to manage all your leads. Manage, you know, all your contracts, all your communications with your tenants and with it, it's such a affordable option. Like our lowest plan is 17 bucks a month and we don't do a lot of unit restrictions like other competitors where you can add a bunch of units on the system. And really make it affordable for you as a property manager. So, yeah, hopefully that answers your question there.  [00:06:36] Jason: Got it. Okay. So you would say TenantCloud's probably a lot more affordable than some of the competition that exists for property managers out there. So how would you say TenantCloud kind of compares to some of the big names in the industry like Appfolio, Propertyware, there's a bunch of these You know, and then I know Bodia just came out with RentVine and then Rent Manager, you know, these tools. So we've got clients using all these different tools. [00:07:03] So how does TenantCloud sort of fit into the mix and how do you kind of stand out among all these different tools because there's so many of them now.  [00:07:11] Mark: Yeah. So we started with the end user in mind where it was more of a business to consumer platform where you didn't have to do a heavy integration and you could just quickly create an account and more of a self service where it would be really intuitive. [00:07:28] If you were, you know, if you had one property up to, you know, 50 units, you could easily log in. And it was way more affordable than those bigger players. They have monthly minimums, and you'd have to spend months to integrate your stuff. Everything we built was to make it so, boom, within a couple days, you could get set up, and we would help you add your accounts, add your units, add your tenants data. And so we really tried to make it cutting edge where we used a lot of the technology to help you get set up a lot quicker. And so one thing that people really, they come over to us is. You know, they're like, "man, your platform is a lot easier to use because of the way you built it. It's just really quick to get it. I don't have to hire an accountant or get an implementation manager to help me use your software" because a lot of times when you get into rental real estate, you're an entrepreneur or you have a day job and then you log into a property management system and you're like, "holy smokes, this is so overwhelming, like I can't figure this out." [00:08:35] And that's, I think the differentiator that we tried to solve is that you don't have to have a professional help you use our software. You can just go ahead and get started and it will help you from day one.  [00:08:46] Jason: So basically, you're kind of one of your unique differentiators is since you started with the consumer in mind, instead of maybe a property manager in mind, you focus really on maybe the tenant and the property owner's experience being you know, really great, which once you started focusing on property managers, probably made a lot easier for the property managers. They're probably getting less questions. Maybe the reports are a little more clear. It's a little bit easier for them to figure out what they need, which has been a frustration. I've heard from a lot of software, you know, the owners find it confusing. They find their statements confusing. The tenants are like feeling things are confusing. Now a lot of property managers have all of these different tools. They kind of build their own Swiss army knife or stack of different tools and software. [00:09:34] How are integrations with TenantCloud or which things do you guys do really well that they might not need? You know, some of our clients might, for example, be using TenantTurner, even though they use Appfolio in order to get properties leased out and, or they might be, or to do self showings, or they might be using we've got a lot of clients getting going on this new AI maintenance coordinator called Vendoroo, or in the past, they might use PropertyMeld, you know, for maintenance coordination. [00:10:01] So they're stacking all these different tools because usually there's better stuff than what the property management software has internally. How does TenantCloud sort of go with this?  [00:10:11] Mark: Yeah, that's a great question. So TenantTurner is an awesome company and we have an integration with them. [00:10:18] Jason: Okay.  [00:10:18] Mark: And so we feel like we're a platform and we're doing more and more integrations with companies like you mentioned with maintenance. There's others out there that solve that problem. I mean, we have a maintenance portal, but we love to integrate other tools and make it so it's seamless and easy that you can do a show in coordination like a TenantTurner and so forth. [00:10:39] And so, yeah, that's a big thing for our users and we love to work nicely with other companies that will help benefit them.  [00:10:47] Jason: Great. So, TenantCloud has an open API that some of these companies can connect with? Yeah. Okay. Awesome.  [00:10:54] Mark: Absolutely. I mean, we have a partnerships team and they can reach out and we can, you know, when our users request certain things, we say, you know, that makes sense. [00:11:04] So absolutely. We love that.  [00:11:06] Jason: Is there a scenario or a situation in which you think. TenantCloud' s maybe not a good fit for certain property managers or certain types of management.  [00:11:18] Mark: Yeah, that is sometimes like multifamily or you're getting really a ton of units. You're going to probably need something a little bit more robust. [00:11:27] Now, we just launched reconciliation and some other features more reporting tools to help as we move up market because primarily we were focused on ones that, you know, had under 10 units and then we started growing. Now we have people that use us that have a few hundred doors and they love it. [00:11:46] They love the ease of use. They love the cost. They love that it's not restrictive, but some of that trade off is like, "Hey, you don't have some of these other customizations that you know, maybe a Yardi or some of these bigger players have." And so I would say if that's the case, you know, you'd have to wait a little bit as we continue to add more of those robust features for the upmarket bigger players. [00:12:08] Jason: It sounds like TenantCloud is a great place for a property manager. And it's small to start, especially when they're getting pushed back from places like Appfolio or Buildium, saying you have to have a 200 door minimum stuff like this. Is TenantCloud something that can scale with them up to maybe a thousand doors? Are they going to run into some capacity issue or some challenges if they continue? Because switching software is hard.  [00:12:31] Mark: Yeah, it is. And we do have some that have a thousand doors and some bigger ones and they love it. And I think it's just the way you approach your business and how you can adapt. [00:12:41] I mean, you'd save a ton of money and the way that every property manager is different. You know, I wish there was a standard in how accounting worked in the industry and how things did with money in, money out and so forth. But so sometimes people say, "well, I'm just so used to how these older systems work," and that's fine. [00:12:59] But if you want to be more innovative and more customer facing and adopt, you know, the latest technologies on how payments are being transferred and so forth, then I think you'll fit in really good, you know, with what we have going on.  [00:13:13] Jason: Got it. Yeah. I know that's been an industry issue for a long time is they're not being sort of a standard in accounting and NARPM then released the NARPM sort of chart of accounts and the NARPM accounting standard that hopefully is starting to get people a little more on the same page. [00:13:30] It has kind of been an adoption challenge, I think, and some people are starting to get going on it. And then there's definitely some businesses that have been capitalizing on it financially to like help businesses get that dialed in and get their QuickBooks like mapped out. Related to that, a lot of property managers have a challenge with financials and accounting. [00:13:51] They've got the accounting they've got to do for the client, right? Which is usually done by their property management software. But then there's their internal accounting, their own books. And some of them try to run that through their software, which I think is a little crazy. Or some of them tried, like, will have QuickBooks or something else. [00:14:07] I've noticed this it is a common problem in the industry is like people having this accounting mess and not being focused on it. Some outsource it and I've had clients come to me that say they found out their bookkeeper or accountant wasn't doing things right for like three years. And then one of my clients was suing their accountant and won and like, but it's still a mess that has to be cleaned up. [00:14:31] And so, maybe you could touch on TenantCloud. I know you help with the owners and their properties and the accounting. I'm sure. How do they help with their business accounting? Is there any connection to like maybe quickBooks, or is this something that the tool helps with or how would this work? [00:14:50] Mark: Yeah. So we have an integration with QuickBooks and that helps. And then everything we do with the reporting and with all your financials, we just try to make it really easy between the owners and the property managers so that, you know, it's seamless, but I do feel like, you know, QuickBooks could help. [00:15:09] And, you know, primarily we're trying to do property management software. But you know, personal finance is a big part of that. We just are launching a cool product with our banking partner where we can now loan some capital to folks that want to grow some doors. And so with our payment system and our banking partner, people can quickly get a loan directly through our system and they could use it to then go buy their next rental property. So we're looking at more innovative ways. That just kind of reminded me on the personal finance, like, "Hey, I really want to go buy this next door, but I don't have some money." We can help loan that money to help you grow your business. [00:15:51] And that's going to be coming out here at the end of this year.  [00:15:54] Jason: Cool. Very cool. So how does how does this relationship with Rentler and TenantCloud benefit, maybe property managers that are looking to use your software. And this, your shirt has on it. So then you've got this relationship going there. [00:16:08] So how did these kind of work together? I'm curious.  [00:16:11] Mark: Yeah. So Rentler doesn't have a subscription. It's free to use. And so if you're just like one unit. And you're just barely getting in. Let's say you're moving and you just need to rent out your basement apartment or you just have one property, you can use our payment system, do screenings and you can list your property, syndicate, get your leads, fill vacancies. And it's like super light. I mean, it would probably be very similar to like a Cozy back in the day, or like a Zillow Rent Manager just something there to just boom, do that. And then as you graduate, as you go, "Hey, I really want to do more accounting or actually property management software." [00:16:51] Then you graduate up to TenantCloud and when you list with TenantCloud, it will post on Rentler, but Rentler was primarily, you know, a listings and filling vacancy. So that's how that works.  [00:17:02] Jason: Is there an easy upgrade path from Rentler to TenantCloud or?  [00:17:06] Mark: Absolutely. Yeah, there is. [00:17:07] Yeah, we have a fantastic support system. Pretty much 24 seven support. We have chat, we have people you can call and we'll help you. Most all of our support have been in property management and ran their own property management companies. And so they're really helpful to. to guide you and what you need for your business. [00:17:26] Jason: Got it. Okay. Very cool. So, well, this is very helpful. Anything else that people should know about TenantCloud if they're working on making this decision right now between all these different software that exist out there?  [00:17:38] Mark: Yeah, I'd say we have a free trial and give us a shot and there's a lot of great things coming down the pipe. [00:17:44] So just ask our team, you know, Hey, if we don't have something that we probably will have it coming soon, but yeah, give us a go and you'll love it and we'll make your life a lot easier.  [00:17:56] Jason: Very cool. Awesome. Well, Mark, how can people find out more about TenantCloud? How can they get in touch with y'all? [00:18:04] Mark: Yeah, they can log on TenantCloud. com. We do a webinar every Thursday and they can learn about our system. And they can sign up for that on our website, TenantCloud. com. They can reach out. We have a great sales team, account management team that will give you a demo. You know, We'll do a consult free consultation on your business and help you out with that. [00:18:25] So we're happy to help we love the rental real estate industry and helping people grow and make passive income and that's what we're all about.  [00:18:34] Jason: Awesome mark. Thanks for coming on the DoorGrow show giving us an update on TenantCloud and everybody check them out at TenantCloud. com. Thanks for coming, Mark. [00:18:43] Mark: All right. Thank you, Jason. Appreciate it.  [00:18:45] Jason: You bet. All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur and you are either struggling to get leads or to add doors to your property management business, reach out to DoorGrow. We might be able to help you and we've been able to help lots of our clients add hundreds of doors to their portfolios to help them scale their businesses. [00:19:09] And we would love to see if we might be a fit for you to help you scale as well. So check us out at doorgrow.Com. And if you are a fan of the podcast or you follow us on YouTube. Make sure to like, and subscribe and make sure you're plugged in and make sure to join our free Facebook community by going to DoorGrow club. com. If you go to doorgrowclub.Com, it will redirect you to our Facebook group so that you can join. Make sure you answer the questions clearly because we're really careful about who we let in. We reject 60 to 70 percent of the people that apply to join that group every month. It's for property management, entrepreneurs, property management business owners. [00:19:54] That includes those of you that are starting a property management business, just let us know that in the questions. So answer the questions. Join that and make sure you're asking questions inside the group and you'll by joining the group. We will also send you a series of free gifts to benefit you including a fee bible and some other resources that I think would be really useful to your business. [00:20:18] And you can also then schedule a call with our team. So check that out doorgrowclub.com. Until next time, everybody. To our mutual growth. Have an awesome week. Bye everyone [00:20:28] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. 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!  [00:20:54] 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 doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2024/   Episode from 2022 Suntree: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/live-from-suntree-retreat/   ----more----     Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we have a really exciting group of people to talk about a really exciting upcoming event, which is the Sun Tree Retreat, which is the second of these retreats that we've held in person for atheopagans from all over the world who can come. Held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and it's going to be over Labor Day weekend this summer. So, I'd like to introduce our two panelists here, who were at the last one Rana and Michael. Michael: Hello. Yucca: Rana, we Mark: I can't hear you at all. Rana: Oh, thank you for having us. Yucca: Welcome. And I think both of you've been on the podcast before, right? So, welcome back. Michael: Oh, thanks. Can Yucca: Yeah. Michael: put that Yucca: So let's, let's start with the, some of the details because that's coming up really soon, right? That's Mark: It is, Yucca: two months, which is not very long. Mark: nope, not very long, especially if you have to get plane tickets and that kind of thing, so, Really encourage folks that want to go to get registered and get organized around it, because it's going to be a really good time. So, details. The event is August 30th, which is a Friday starting in the afternoon through noon ish or one o'clock or so 2nd. Registration includes nine meals. As a part of your, your registration fee you also need to register for lodging, which is very affordable and you can find all the information about it by going to the Athe O Pagan Society website, which is the ap society.org, THE ap society.org, Yucca: And the lodging has several diff oh, Michael: notes as well for this Yucca: absolutely, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes so that people can just go ahead and click on it. I was gonna say the lodging has several different options including tent camping, and yurt and Mark: guest house, you're. Yucca: I think it's dry camping, but you could, if you have an RV and you're in the area, you can do an RV too, is that correct? Mark: Yes, there are no hookups, but but there is parking for RVs. We had a couple of people, at least one couple came last time, actually in a school bus, Yucca: was really cool. Mark: was converted. It was really cool. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: So, Michael and Rana we wanted to talk some about why this event was so cool last time and what we're looking forward to going into this next one at the end of this summer. So why don't we start with kind of golden moments. Michael, you want to go ahead? Michael: I wanted to just say beforehand, you mentioned the meals, and one of the high points of it was the options available. Like, every dietary requirement was accommodated, I think. Mark: Yeah, Michael: The catering team there are fantastic, and I think people shouldn't feel concerned about food at all because the options were great the food was really high quality I think everybody felt really good about the food, so that was an important, that was a real high point so just wanted to make sure we got that mentioned. And, Mark: Yeah, great. Thank you. And, and eating together was really a high point for me. Just sitting down for meals, you know, they had these round tables that I think seated eight or ten or something like that, and different combinations of people would sit together for different meals. And so we got to know one another better in those mealtimes. So that was a high point for me. Somebody want to go with another cool thing that they remember from Suntree in 2022? Yucca: well, I remember Robin led these I'm not sure what you would really call it,  Rana: yeah, the meal acknowledgement. We have talked about them in the group, but it was really different being able to experience it together. And it was things like bringing to mind the history of our food or thinking about the systems that brought it to us today or the hands that it passed through. And we've had some discussion in Mihal's full moon. We were doing like a full moon lunch thing for a little while as well where we kind of continued that conversation and, and thinking about that, which is something that I find really enriching and really enjoy. Also want to strongly second the dietary accommodations that they had. I really, really appreciate it because I have a little bit of an odd diet and I felt. Really good and definitely did not lack for good options for food. Mark: Mihal, you want to go? Michael: yeah, what I found really interesting about the, The whole experience was how quickly we created a community in space particularly when we did our Fire Circle get togethers. And the kind of spontaneous sharing that occurred at those events was really amazing. People really just suddenly kind of created this family. in situ and it was it was great to be part of that. Just sometimes if you go to other kind of retreats it can take a while to kind of break down those those barriers we put up. Just as just as being human but it seemed within a just a few hours we'd kind of already started to create a special Sun Tree community and I thought that was fantastic. Mark: Yeah, I really agree with that. I mean, I've been to a whole lot of various kinds of pagan gatherings and retreats of various sorts. And it seemed as though we just kind of got at this visceral level that we were among, you know, people that were of like mind and similar values. And so that we were safe. Right? We were all, we were all going to play nice with one another, and so we could talk about really deep stuff in our, in our lives, and in our, our experience. And I found that really moving throughout the whole long weekend. It was, it was, it came up over and over again. Yucca: I was also really struck just by the immediate level of respect and consent that was just part of the, Everybody had going in. So I had my five year old with me and in a lot of situations in our culture, people you know, will go up and touch five year old's heads and give them hugs and, you know, all of those sorts of things. And I remember it just being great because people automatically were so great with her about asking for her permission. Like, do you want a hug? And would you like to shake hands? And that was just the culture of it. And it was just so refreshing and wonderful to just be in that space, just from the get go. Like Mark: and I mean, we had, we had laid out guidelines around consent and around conduct because, you know, we wanted to be very clear about, you know, what the expectations are, but it seemed like people read them and were like, yeah, that's civilized behavior. That's how I'm going to be. And the subject Honestly, never came up. There was never a situation where somebody felt like they had been inappropriately touched or or somehow invaded in that kind of way. And I thought that was, that was really pretty amazing. Michael: I just wanted to talk about the actual place as well. The Retreat Center is Really, really phenomenal. There's this beautiful forest. You're kind of just on the edge of Colorado Springs, so it's not too far from any stores or anything that you might need. But once you get in there, you suddenly feel like The outside world has disappeared just in this beautiful forest really a fantastic place just to go for walks just to go into the forest by yourself if you want to go for I think one of the big highlights was that we had a lunar eclipse while we were, while we were there, and being able to all, for the whole, all of us to go out there onto this big lawn and just stare up at the, at the moon together, and people howling at the moon, it was It was just a really fantastic experience as well especially just having that, we, we had the the Ponderosa Lodge, which is this big log cabin lodge that we can use for a lot of our activities, for rituals, and for our workshops. And that's a real, that's, that's a really nice space as well, there are different rooms, so you can kind of break off and do different things with people, or you can kind of come to the main room and have a bigger discussion. We had dance parties there, we had the Carnival of Change, which was a chance to kind of take on a different persona, like dress up. be a different version of yourself for the evening. So I think the whole, the whole retreat center just kind of facilitates that. There's a, there's a labyrinth there as well, which we didn't really incorporate too much into any rituals the last time around, but I think we're going to try and bring that in more this time around. Mark: Yeah, it's a beautiful spot. Rano? Rana: Yeah, the, the shared experience of the lunar eclipse was pretty special and it, it just so perfectly aligned with what we were doing. It was the same night as the Carnival of Change and it just felt like great, like the weather cooperated and we got to see this cool celestial event. It wasn't even at a super late time, like it was, it felt like a Yucca: like eight or nine. Yeah, Rana: Yeah, yeah, it felt like started our evening, kind of, or, you know, it didn't, it wasn't, you know, too far on late night or anything. The Carnival of Change itself was really fun, just to be able to play dress up together and listen to some music and, and just have fun. And I also like, like Michael said being able to split off into other little rooms and areas. It And I think for me, something that I really appreciated was the ability to have these just kind of unplanned moments where so much of our online interactions are very scheduled and it, you just show up at a certain time and there's a group of people and that's kind of mostly how it's gone. But, like, I just remember some folks were up later one night just all chatting and hanging out. And I love that feeling of if you're up late and feeling a little bit chatty or sociable, you can just kind of see who's up and just take a seat and hang out for a bit. And that's something that otherwise has felt like not really something we have access to. So it was particularly nice just to be able to connect in a more organic way, depending on how you're feeling. Mark: hmm. Yeah. Nihal? Michael: Yeah I think we, there was a lot of, there's been some learnings from that event as well, and I think there, we were really concerned about accessibility this time around, because there was a lot of movement between different areas. And so this time around we are definitely going to be making it more accessible as well. There's going to be designated drivers, so we want to make sure that everybody feels comfortable and everybody's able to take part in all the different events that we're having. So, I, I know that there's going to be a lot of more accessibility this time around, especially just in terms of shuttling people around the property. Yucca: Because there were a few hills and we were moving from the bottom of the hill back up to the dining room and then back down. Michael: Yes, yes, yeah, but I think we, Mark: and we were at 7, 000 feet. Michael: that was another, yeah  Mark: yeah one of the things that we learned from the Sun Tree Retreat in 2022 is that we had programmed a lot of the time, but some of the most memorable and wonderful moments were the unscripted times. The, the, The break periods when we could just gather together and socialize, or plan what we wanted to do for a rite of passage during the rite of passage period that we had later on, which was one of the most moving things to me. That was really an experience. So this time we've programmed in more free time. There's still plenty of workshops and, and rituals and experiences to have, but we've made it a little bit looser so that people have opportunities just to hang out and experience the place and one another. Michael: yeah, yeah, I just wanted to I might talk about the rites of passage a bit more because that was quite a unique experience. I guess we didn't really know how that was going to go because it's kind of like, it's a make your own ritual event, basically. You, you just DIY it with some help from some friends. So I think people were, they had various things that they wanted to celebrate or commemorate and or mark the end of a period in their life, or the start of a period in their life. And we all came together and celebrated those those events together. And I think what was really amazing was just the creativity that people brought to their rituals. Really very moving and even though they were very personal, I felt that We all kind of, as a community, came together and it became something for all of us. Mark: Yeah. I felt so included in all of those rituals. I felt like my being there mattered. And even if just as a witness and that. You know, that there was room for everyone to have the kind of experience that they wanted to have. And it, and we, we ended the rites of passage with a wedding, which was sweet. It's kind of, you know, the classic act four of the movie, right? And that was really lovely. So, I was, I was super happy with that, and we're doing that rites of passage process again this summer. Michael: Maybe we could talk about some of the workshops that took, that people liked. Mark: Oh, yeah. Michael: I really, I think one of the highlights was the Cosmala workshop, bead workshop, which is basically making a bead necklace that, with each bead representing an important part of, in the life of the universe, or in your own personal life, or just various different events that you want to commemorate. That's, that's kind of right, isn't it? Or was there any Mark: John Cleland Host, who is our friend and a real innovator in the whole realm of naturalistic paganism, one of the earliest people to write about it in its new resurgence. He has this amazing more than a hundred bead string. Of, that all, it starts with the Big Bang and it works all the way until, at least until the Sun Tree Retreat, because he had special beads made for the Sun Tree Retreat that he distributed to people so they could put them on their own cosmola. That was very, very cool. And some of them are signed by people like Starhawk and Jane Goodall and just really a fascinating, wonderful ritual tool and evocative piece of art. Yucca: so there were a lot of different styles of workshops too. There was a, like a history one and there was a John did another one which was like the Wheel of the Year, which he had some really cool handouts for too for that. Mark: We live the year for families, which I thought was really wonderful. You know, a lot of people in our community have families that they're working to build traditions with together, and so, and John has really, you know, pioneered some of that, you know, working with his, with his wife and his sons. And just had a lot of great ideas about different things he could do at different times of the year and was, you know, freely sharing all that stuff. It was great. Rana: There was also a group guided meditation that we did outside overlooking Pikes Peak on their big, expansive, beautiful lawn with all the ponderosa pines, which I'd never, I don't think I'd ever seen them before. I'd never been to Colorado before. And that was really lovely just to kind of take a moment to be there and be present. And there was also a body painting. Which, I appreciated the, like, especially interactive stuff because it's something we're normally restricted about online. And I really loved Mihal's presentation about virtual meals because I think food is just such an integral way to connect with other people and you can infuse it with all this symbolism. And it gave me a lot of ideas. I need to revisit my notes on that and thinking forward to the next one a little bit too, just that ability to share food and those meal acknowledgements really adds to that feeling of making meaning with other people and making community. Michael: Yeah, we had a food altar as well, which was kind of cool. An abundance of food. People brought stuff to share. And I thought that was fantastic as well. Just, uh, one, one person brought some really good kimbap, which I love. So that, if you don't know what that is, it's Korean sushi, basically. And it was just really good. Mark: Yeah, there, there was there was just a vibe of generosity and mutual support. Mutual affirmation. You know, I came away from it feeling like, you know, I've got these amazing, super cool people in my world, and they feel the same about me, and that's just good for my life, generally. Even if I'm not going to see them for a couple of years, except online, just knowing that we shared this experience together just helps me to feel affirmed in who I am and what I do. And I, I, I think I think that was the general vibe that people got out of the event. Yucca: That certainly was, I felt that strongly as well. I was, you know, riding that for several weeks after coming home. Michael: Definitely an afterglow of, kind of like, hard to come down from the high of the event as well. It took a while because it was so special. Mark: yeah, absolutely. So we want to talk a little bit about some of the offerings we're going to have this time. Some of them are repeats from last time, but some of them are new. Let me see if I can pick one. Oh, go ahead. Michael: I was just going to say, maybe everybody's had a chance to look at the program and if you, if there's any particular highlights you want to, that you'd like to talk about that maybe you're looking forward to. Mark: There's so many things. Um,  Michael: Well, should we talk, let's talk about the theme first. Mark: sure, of course. That's a great Michael: we didn't, we didn't have a theme last time, but we do have a theme this, this time. Mark: Which is Solarpunk, a chosen family reunion. The idea being that Solarpunk being a very kind of optimistic movement for the betterment of the world, the betterment of our relationship with nature rather than kind of the doom and gloom that we, that we see everywhere around us now, Solarpunk is a, It's a genre of of writing and of art that is optimistic and looks to the future as, yes, filled with challenges, but also filled with opportunities for us to grow and change and do better. And the chosen family reunion part is I mean, I certainly felt and I think that a lot of us felt at the last Sun Tree Retreat that these, these people were my chosen family. It was, it felt like, oh, wow, all my cousins and uncles and, and nephews and nieces have all shown up and now we're having this great sort of family hoopla together. It was, it was great that way. Yucca: And one of the workshops is going to be on solar punk and atheopaganism more specifically, right? That's Mark: yeah. Michael: Yeah, Hanna is going to be leading that one. Mark: Mm hmm. I'm looking forward to that one as well. And of course we'll have some some elements that will be around, you know, learning how to organize rituals or to you know, to design them. Or you know, kind of learning the observational skills about getting more in touch with the processes of nature around you. Mm hmm. That was something about the, the lunar eclipse last time that it really dovetailed with something that, that Yucca and I talk about on here all the time, which is just about, you know, paying attention, about being present and experiencing the moment and observing what's happening in nature, and That was such a dramatic event. It really, really riveted our attention for about an hour or so. Michael: We're bringing back the Cosmala again, because that was so popular, and I think, I'm sure that new people are going to want to try their hand at making Cosmolas. Mark: I've never made one. I, I'm, it's an oversight. I have to do it now. Going to do a reader's theater. I'm organizing that of a reworking of the myth of Hades and Persephone and Demeter in Greek mythology. Because, even though that's a very popular myth in pagan, kind of modern pagan circles and a lot of different groups have done reenactments of the Eleusinian mysteries that enact that story, it's a pretty terrible story, really. I mean, Hades, Hades captures the innocent daughter Kore, drags her away and makes her his wife. That's terrible. Not so cool in modern, Yucca: way of putting it, Mark: yes, that is a very polite way of putting it, yeah. So, so I rewrote it. I rewrote it to have a different kind of ending and a different set of teachings than the original story did. And we're going to do a reader's theater where people who come to the workshop can pick up a script and take a part and we'll all read it together. And and it'll be fun and hopefully people will enjoy it. So that's another thing we're going to do. Michael: Yeah, we've occasionally done death cafes online which are kind of opportunities to talk about death and, you know, I think our movement's kind of a death positive movement, and we want to kind of honor that, and so something I'm going to be leading is an Irish wake kind of experience, and, you know, at an Irish wake, it's not just mourning the dead, it's kind of celebrating life. And kind of celebrating chaos and causing mayhem. So we're gonna have we're gonna have a bit of an Irish wake experience and I'm, people are gonna be invited to bury the things they want to bury, or remember the things they want to remember. And then we will also cause some mischief as well. Mark: Sounds great. I'm up for all of that. Yucca: And on Saturday, at lunchtime, we're planning to do the same thing that we did last time. to do a live podcast episode, and that may be an opportunity for folks who can't attend in person to zoom in and connect. Yes, Mark: Yes, cross, cross your fingers for the internet connection at the Retreat Center. Yucca: that's why we say May, we're going to try really hard, technology willing, right, Rana? Rana: So, the last time we had Sun Tree, we hadn't yet started our adult salon. Which we recently rebranded as Adult Forum, and I'm really excited to be able to have that in person for the very first time. I've really valued it as a space to connect and share resources and share a little bit about our experiences and our lives. And for folks that might not be as familiar with what it is, it is a peer support space to discuss adult topics openly, and it is, we consider it kind of semi structured. We usually start with a topic just as a starting point of conversation, and then we let things naturally flow depending on what the participants want to talk about, what's on their minds, can go through multiple topics in one session. It is a confidential and non judgmental setting where we're really there to learn from each other's experiences, share our knowledge, especially if you have a range of ages. There's folks that have just lived different lives or experiences that may have things to share feel less alone. In a lot of things that we encounter in life I know. There's a real epidemic of loneliness, especially in America, and it's something I always have felt really deeply about, but don't really know what to do about it, so I appreciate being able to be a part of this space and have this space together in order to continue that kind of connection and We're going to have a way for people to anonymously submit topics or questions while we're at the event so that the people that are there attending are really crafting what it is that we want to talk about and the topics have really ranged in the past and included things like money, relationship styles, aging, death, altered states, sexuality, and more and Yeah, I've just been really looking forward to it. It is an 18 plus event, and I just, I can't wait to have that in, in person. I think it'll be a great version of it, just because we've always had it remote. Mark: Yeah. Michael? Michael: I know there's one of the FAQs we get around this is that you know, is it going to be recorded? Am I going to be able to participate online? And unfortunately, no, it's just for some of the reasons we discussed. First of all, technology, it's not always reliable, so we can't really do live stuff. I think it's possible that some of the workshops will be recorded. That depends on the presenter. And, but we don't want to, we want to also, honor people's confidentiality as well. So it's possible that we can record some of them, but maybe some of them won't be recorded. But that's why we also offer our totally online conference every other year as well. So if you can't make it in person to SunTree, we will be doing our web weaving online conference next year. So that is just a way of bridging that gap where if you can't make it in person, there is still an online space for you to take part in. Mark: Right. Right. And I, and I should point out the adult forum will not be recorded. It's, it's a totally confidential, just live action space for people to, to have discussions about sensitive stuff. So you needn't worry that you're going to find yourself on the internet talking about personal things. Yucca: Right, and for any of the presenters who do choose to have their, their presentation recorded, it would just be of them, not of the audience. So there'll be the private, privacy for the folks in the audience. Mark: Yeah, because, I mean, there are, in our community, there are people who are You know, in various stages of outness in relation to their non theist atheopaganism, right? Some are out as atheists, but not necessarily the pagan part. Some are completely solitary in, in their You know, practice of their path, and we want to be respectful of all of that. So, it's really important to us that people be able to participate without endangering something that, that is important to them. Mijo? Michael: Something that's New this time around, as well, is that we will be kind of having formal vendors. I will be sharing a sign up sheet for people in the coming days, where you, if you want to, if you've got anything you want to sell, or products or services we will have a space for you to do that. So, if you're, it could be anything, you could be selling, selling your own craft, or, I guess, doing Readings or things like this. We'll just sign up and we'll we'll reach out to you if we need, if we have any further questions about the kind of stuff you're going to be sharing with us. Mark: We should say, though, that, that the vending is going to be during a particular window of time at the event, because what we don't want is for a vendor to be there stuck behind a counter, and for the entire event and unable to participate in the various activities, right? Because they're part of the community and we want them in with us doing all the stuff. So we're going to have a marketplace slot in the program, and that's when you can do your vending and, you know, promote your services and all that kind of stuff. So what else should we say about this? I mean, we know because we've been there, it's really cool. Hope that our listeners Yucca: to just put that out there for that part of the world. It's a nice warm time of year. Last time Michael: Will the swimming pool, Yucca: May, which was a little bit iffy, we got really lucky. last Mark: we did. Yucca: I think it started snowing right after we left, Mark: Yeah, something like three days afterwards it started snowing at the retreat center, but that's not going to happen this time, because we're on Labor Day weekend and it should be pretty temperate and nice. Michael: I think there's a swimming pool there as well. Mark: Oh, that's right, it was closed when we were there before, but there is a swimming pool there. Yes, Michael: We should double check if we have access to that, but I think we will, but we should probably double check that. Mark: yes, that's true. Ha ha ha! Michael: I guess you should definitely get booked in quickly if you are intending to come. Because we're, it's coming up fast. I can't believe it's only two months away, so you really need to start thinking about getting your, making your way there and booking your tickets. Mark: Yeah, yeah it's very affordable especially when you consider that it includes nine meals and the lodging for the, the Yurt guest houses is only 75 for the entire event. So it's you know, we, we, we set price points low because we wanted people to be able to access it and we know that there are travel expenses associated. We if you, if you want to come, but there are, you know, financial issues, we have limited scholarship support, so please contact us. You can use the the Wonder Podcast queues at gmail. com, podcast email address to contact us, and we'll get back to you about that. But we'd really encourage our listeners, you know, if you like what you've been hearing on this podcast for the last five years now come and, come and meet us. Come and, and, you know, meet the community and, and check us out. Michael: It was just, I don't know if I expressed how Amazing it was, but it was just such a unique, a singular event and kind of a highlight of my life, I'd really say. It was just spectacular, and I don't know if I, I don't know if I captured that before, but I just thought it was just an amazing thing to be part of. And I think it's going to be just as amazing this time around. Mark: Me too. Yeah. I, I, I can't wait to see you all. And and other folks that, you know, I met two years ago. I'm just, I'm so looking forward to it rana, I Rana: so for me, it, it really felt like coming full circle, like I'd connected with you all, and we spent so much time together during the pandemic. so much. My personal life was also going through some transition and Suntree was actually pretty emotional for me. It was good But I don't know it's a little hard to explain But it just felt like I did a lot of emotional processing while I was there But I very much felt like I was in community I was able to finally meet these people that I had connected with and So now it just feels like I have something to look forward to You going forward knowing that we're gonna do this with some regularity. And for myself as well, it also gave me some more confidence traveling alone because I'm used to traveling with a partner if I go somewhere, especially airplane travel. And so it helped me feel a little bit more adventurous and confident feeling like I went to a state I've never been to before and met up with some people and everything went great. Like, no, no complaints. Mark: really felt that same sense of just really being able to be myself. And I was surprised by that because as one of the organizers last time, I thought I was kind of going to have to be on and sort of be a host. You know, for the whole weekend. And that really wasn't the case at all. I, I, I just felt like, you know, I was, I was welcomed there, warts and all, and there were plenty of other people to help. And it was great. It was just really a good, good time. Well, listen, thank you. Oh, Michael: Hopefully we can do the, the firewalking this time, because last time we couldn't do it because there was a burn ban, but there is potential for doing a firework walk. So people are into that, that might be available. So we'll see what happens. Yucca: Keep our fingers crossed. Mark: that would be exciting. I've never done that, and I'd like to try it. I don't know why I'd like to try it. I, but I would. Michael: That's the ultimate ritual, I guess. And for anybody who's kind of, their ears are pricking up when they hear that the person leading that has got decades of experience. Mark: Yeah. And, you know, very, very careful rules around, you know, everybody having to be absolutely sober, you know, being, you know, a lot of focus, doing this in a really sacred kind of container, so that's that's That's all to the good. Let me see. So, we're gonna put the link to the the event in the show notes. You can go, you can read the program, you can read about the event, you can see a picture of the Ponderosa Lodge and Atheopagan Society website, there's also a gallery of photos that were taken at the last Suntree retreat. So you can take a look at that.  Michael: Could you add in the show notes as well? Could you add the episode we actually recorded? Yucca: Oh yeah, let's link to that because we, yeah, that would be nice to go back and listen to actually. And what was it like in the moment? So that'll be in the show notes too. Mark: yeah, yeah, I just, I just remember we're sitting there and we're talking and people would cruise up to the table glowing and sit down in front of the microphone for a little while and talk about the experience they were having and then toddle off and somebody else would come by. It was just, it was lovely. So listen, folks Sun Tree Retreat, you don't want to miss it. Please come join us, visit with us. We, we would so love to see you. And we will be back next week with another episode of The Wonders of Science Based Paganism. Thank you, Rana and Michael. Thank you for being here. Michael: Thank you.   

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com ----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 talking about golden ages of the past and as well as turning to look at golden visions of the future. Yucca: Yeah. I think this is going to be a fun one. We were saying right before we hit record, it's it's a right for tangents as well. Mark: yes, yeah, I imagine we're gonna, we're gonna fall down some rabbit holes on this for sure. Where this originally came from was a conversation that we had in one of the atheopagan community Zoom mixers that happens on Thursday nights, and, or and Michael, who is a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, raised this as a topic and he pasted into the chat a sort of semi facetious myth That many in the mainstream pagan community seem to embrace, which is this idea that once upon a time way back before before the Bronze Age, sometime in the late Either the Copper Age or the Late Stone Age, that there were people living in Asia Minor and in Europe who lived peacefully and in an egalitarian society where that were not characterized by patriarchy and where things were very groovy. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: That patriarchy came along with these bronze sword wielding invaders and the result was militarism and class stratification and eventually the snowball that led us to capitalism and to where we are today.  Yucca: Very familiar with the story and the narrative. It pops up in a lot of different forms. Mark: It certainly does. And it's a compelling narrative, right? Because part of what it tells us is it's not inherent in humans to be the way we are now, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: you know, that having a male dominated society is not just a human thing, that it's A cultural thing that took over Yucca: Mm Mark: from something that preceded it. And so it's understandable why that's appealing, because it offers hope, right? It says, well, we could get out from what we're in now. We could move in another direction. So, there's a lot of this backward looking, kind of nostalgic glow in these sort of root myths that inform much of modern paganism. Would you agree with that? Yucca: I think so. And I think that there's also the more recent ideas of the unbroken line of Grandmothers practicing this witchy tradition that was secret, but it survived through, you know, all of the Christian takeover and, and all of this and that, that connects in a little bit with an idea that we have that something that's old is automatically good. Or, automatically has more authority because it's an older idea. Mark: Right, that it's valid, because it's persistent, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: right, because it's lasted for a long time, it must have some kind of validity. Yeah, that's a really good point, and it's definitely something that crops up a lot in arguments about religion generally, not just about paganism or witchcraft. Yucca: Right. Mark: Of course, that was Gerald Gardner's story. Right, Gerald Gardner, the creator of Wicca although he claimed that he wasn't the creator of Wicca, he claimed that he was initiated into a lineage of, an unbroken lineage extending back into the mists of time of this tradition of witchcraft. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: maybe he believed that, maybe he didn't, but it's been pretty well established that it's not true. Yucca: Right. Mark: there's a, there's a book by the, the, pagan and witchcraft scholar Ronald Hutton, called The Triumph of the Moon, which very thoroughly and meticulously goes over all the different threads of this and establishes there's not really much there there. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Great book, great book, highly recommend it. So, so that's another of these, you know, these stories about antiquity. Holding a different way of being that we, that we need to grab onto and try to work our way back to, right? Yucca: Right. Mark: And I was thinking about the Norse traditions, the, the heathen traditions as well. And in that case, what seems to be lionized most is Vikings, right? There's just a whole lot about Vikings. Yucca: Mm hmm. Which I get! Very, very, like, appealing visuals, and Feelings and aesthetics, and yeah, Mark: adventurous, and there's all these sort of macho, warlike values of honor and courage and strength and duty and all that kind of stuff that are all, you know, I mean, they're very macho, but they're, but they're, they're good Yucca: I get the appeal. Yeah, Mark: Yeah, I totally do, too, Yucca: I think that those are, that those can be, can be really good values, right? I don't think we should throw the baby out with bathwater with that, but you know, there's potential with anything for abuse, but you know, those are some pretty, those have their place, Mark: Yeah, yeah. But once again, it's rose colored glasses, right? It ignores the fact that people who went Viking, which was a verb, not a noun you know, you went Viking they were farmers most of the year. I mean, they were just working the soil like everybody else and, you know, getting food. And, you know, they were farmers and they were traders and, you know, all that good kind of stuff. Which is, you know, a much less heroic kind of myth than, you know, paddling an open boat across the North Sea to, you know, to, to strike into foreign lands and, you know, take stuff. And I can understand why that part of the story doesn't really get included so much but here we are, we're on a tangent, right? But still, it's about golden pasts. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, Michael's host, Michael's, you know, quote that he put in the chat was very thought provoking because as we learn more, it becomes pretty clear that none of these golden era of the past myths is likely to be very true. There are kernels of truth Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: them. I mean, have, have there been women that were herbalists and knew natural cures for things in an unbroken line since the time of Arwen? Antiquity? Certainly. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah, of course there have. Now, were they practicing a particular kind of religious framework around that? Probably not.  Yucca: Probably changed with the time as the society around them changed, and their view of the world changed, and, right? Yeah. Mark: I mean, you know, it's like, did it make that much of a difference whether you invoked some goddess when you tied on a poultice or whether you invoked some saint? It, you know, it may, it may have been exactly the same thing. So, There's all this past stuff and that, that led to a very thought provoking conversation about kind of the nature of nostalgia Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: and this, this very human quality that we have of looking back on times in the past and seeing them fondly, even if they were terrible. Yucca: Right. Even if we lived through them, or, but especially the ones that we didn't. I saw a short video recently of she looked like You know, maybe 16, 17 year old talking about how she was born in the wrong era, that she should have been from the 80s, right? And I remember, you know, being a teenager and, and the kids around me going like, Oh, we should have been hippies. We were meant to be hippies from the 60s. And it's, I think people just do that. Yeah. Even if it's, of course, in the 90s, the 60s seemed like forever ago. Right. Mark: Yeah it's, it's very funny. I, I mean, I was born in the early 60s, so I have, and my father was in a PhD program on the UCLA campus, so I have Other than memories of events, which I have pretty vividly, like the assassinations and Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: body counts announced on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the news, and, you know, the riots and, you know, a lot of stuff like that, but I remember going to my father's lab And all of the students that were around him, and they were all hippies, they were all, they were all dressed in that particular way because they were college students in the late 19, in the, you know, mid to late 1960s. And there, there is, a flavor of that era that I can remember and that feels, I don't necessarily feel drawn to it, but I feel almost like it's something lost that I wish I could recapture somehow. the same thing is true of the 70s and the 80s. It gets muddy towards the 90s and later than that, and I'm not sure whether that's because we tend to have more nostalgia for times when we're younger, or whether It's because the internet came along and culture got a lot blurrier. Suddenly, I mean, it used to be like, you can recognize music from the 70s and 80s. By the 90s, I mean, there was a swing music movement, and there was all, there was the world music movement, and there was all this, you know, sort of backward looking. Yucca: I, I'm not sure I agree with that, because I think if I hear a 90s pop song on the radio, it instantly is, I can instantly place 90s or 2000s so that I would, I would guess that it is more of a 90s pop song. the age and how old we were when we were engaging with that, rather than becoming less distinctive. Mark: That may very well be the case. I may simply have not been paying as much attention. Yucca: right. Mark: You Yucca: Well, and just being in a, Mark: career by that point. Yucca: yeah, different life stage, and at least my memory of the way time has worked is, it just keeps speeding up. Right? When I was four, that a year was an eternity. A week was so long, and now I'm like, oh yeah, a year, like, you know, and I'm told it keeps getting worse. It just keeps going faster and faster. Mark: does, and I'm not sure whether it's a function of A year being a smaller and smaller proportion of your overall life and memory, or whether it's that we get into routines that cause months to fly by at a time. I'm really not sure what that's about, but it's a little frightening how quickly the years just start to go. And that's one of the reasons why, yeah, probably so, but that's one of the reasons why I feel it's really important to have a ritual practice to create sort of sublime moments. Either by myself or with other people, of shared observation and celebration of life. So that those, those moments stick out. I don't look at the last year and see nothing but just going to work and doing the tasks and stuff. There are special days that, that I remember. Yucca: I think novelty slows us down a little bit, and makes us pay a little more attention. Mark: Yeah, yeah. That's why traveling is so wonderful, right? Yucca: mm hmm. Mark: everything is new. You're in a place that's unfamiliar. And you point yourself towards experiences that are going to be novel, like experiencing museums and cultural events and architecture and art and, you know, being, being in cafes and hearing foreign language around you and, you know, all the various things. And so we tend to have much more detailed memory of times when we travel than we do when we're at home.  So, it seems kind of natural that these sorts of narratives would, would appeal to people. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And I think that they may have been part of the appeal of paganism for some people. I mean, some people get into it for a vision of a better world. Some people get into it for a desire for magical power. Some people get into it for a desire for connection with and reverence of the natural world, like us. And I think all of those are compelling reasons why people are attracted to modern paganism. And I'm Yucca: combination of those things, too. Mark: absolutely, for Yucca: Yeah. Mark: for sure. Yucca: I think, also, being There's also, for some people, an attraction to being different, right, wanting something that is a little counter cultural, regardless of what the specific values are, but just something different, because whatever it was that they were doing, was not working. And so they're looking for anything that is different than whatever that was. Mark: Yes, and, and paganism specifically works very well for those folks because they tend to be folks that don't fit in very well. And paganism is very, inclusive, by and large. It's very accommodating to people who may be neurodivergent or may be strange or may just be very unique people, right? And what I saw when I first came into paganism was that there was this celebration of the uniqueness of individuals, which is something that I have worked to carry forward in my own pagan work because I think Everybody's amazing, and they all need the opportunity to show their amazingness and to have that affirmed and lifted up. Yucca: Yeah. Well, that's a good lead in to, to thinking about the now, and I guess the golden future, right? We're talking about the golden past. So, what about our visions for the future? Mark: Yeah and, and I should say that I do think that a lot of these golden past narratives, whatever their factuality, I think they're a distraction. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: if they were true, I don't think that matters very much. Because we're not then, and we're never going back then. We're only going to be here, and we're going to go forward into the future. Time doesn't work in a backwards manner, it only goes forward. So, my focus, oh go ahead, Yucca: I, I do think though that there is some value in examining those for looking at what do we value and what do we want to bring forward. So, do we, if we're thinking about, so yes, recognizing that it's probably pretty much a myth about our, our pre Bronze Age egalitarian societies in which, War was not a thing, and there weren't skirmishes and conflict between groups. But seeing that there is a recognizing our longing for that, I think is valuable. I think it's important to, to also recognize that that may not be factual, but that there is value in that. Mmhmm. Mark: certainly, of that we would like to have a world in which there was peace, in which there was inclusiveness, in which there was a better human relationship with the natural world. Yucca: Right. Mark: And, Yucca: hmm. Mm Mark: and one of the things about those myths is that they tell us that it's possible because it happened in the past. Yucca: hmm. Mark: I just choose to believe that it's possible because I think it's, it has to be possible. Yucca: Because we can choose to make it that way. Mm Mark: Yes. And we have chosen as humans to go far afield of that. Even, even in some of the ways that we have really excelled and succeeded as humans, like through science. You know, the newest science is generally applied first to creating weapons. Yucca: hmm. Mark: It's usually applied for figuring out ways to kill people. And that is a very, very sad commentary on the divorce between values and reason. That we have become very effective at applying our reason In problem solving and to understand the nature of the universe, but the concept of ethical constraints around that is, it's very tenuous. I mean, there is a field of scientific ethics, but I haven't seen much example of that actually applying except in the experimental sense. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It's like, you know, no, we're sorry, you, you can't test this weird dangerous thing on live people, Yucca: Right. Yeah, we've got our review boards that we've got to get past to be able to do human or vertebrate subjects, but that's where it pretty much ends. Mark: yeah  Yucca: you want to do anything with an invertebrate or anything that isn't an animal, and it's, you know, there's, there's no red tape. Mark: yeah. Yeah. So, you know, re rethinking these things in a really deep sense is important. It's really important. And immediately that makes you subject to some accusations of being very unrealistic because you're, you're thinking far beyond the bounds of what the currently constructed society can do. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm Mark: And and of course also being accused of being radical, right? Because To make those changes would be a radical shift in the way humanity works. Don't think either of those accusations is very persuasive, myself. Yucca: hmm. Mark: I think people are so adaptable, and we have so many examples of cultures that have not been colonized by, or have only been partially colonized by, the Western mindset that has taken over virtually everything. in the world that operate differently, that I believe we do have choices about the way that we go forward. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm Mark: And it starts with values. It starts with making decisions about what we consider to be sacred and what we consider to be worthy. And where we draw ethical lines around not doing things that we can do, but we really shouldn't. Yucca: hmm. Yeah, agreed. Mark: Because there's an awful lot of stuff that we do that we really just shouldn't do. Yucca: Yeah. Can and should. Those are two different things. Yeah. Mark: And there is a terrible tendency, and I mean, we see this in children. Given the opportunity to make something go boom, Yucca: Oh, not just children. Mark: Yeah, I know, everybody likes to make something go boom. It's it can be really fun. But when the implications are, you know, environmental devastation and, and loss of lives we really need to resist that urge to make things go boom. Yucca: Yeah, we need to maybe get that out of our systems when it's, you know, little pop cans with and vinegar and baking soda and things like that and not do it with, you know, People and buildings and mountains. Mark: And cities, and yeah, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So that's what I think. I think that this vision of the future starts with ideas that are around values, rather than structures. But in order to get those values really to propagate in a mass sense, it is going to take some major structural overhaul of the way humanity operates. And fundamental to that is we have to find an alternative to capitalism that works better for the planet. I think one thing that would help a lot, Would be if there were something, and I am, I'm just sort of spinning and talking while I'm thinking here, so maybe I'll end up in something really stupid, but I think international shipping is a big problem. For one thing, it causes a tremendous amount of of carbon into the atmosphere, just astronomical amounts of pollution. Yucca: Right. And so many other things. I mean, our, I think that decentralizing a lot of that would be really, really helpful. Mark: I agree. Yucca: you know, just the supply chain things that have happened over the last few years is just the tip of the iceberg with that. But if we could, return a lot of our means for survival to be in our own hands, in a more local setting, I think that that would be incredibly powerful because on so many different levels, one, just the practical, if something happens, then so many people are without a paddle, right? But also, it's really easy to control people when you control their ability to survive. you Other means to survive, right? Yeah. Mark: the exploitation of cheap labor facilitated by international shipping because producers can go shopping for the most destitute people they can find, pay them as little as they possibly can in order to produce consumer goods that then get shipped back to rich countries where people pay for them. And I mean, That's, that's not just a horror story, that is the standard operating procedure of manufacturing in the world. That's, that's, that's the way it is. Yucca: That's the origins of most of the objects around you right now. For most people, I don't know, some of you might be actually out you know, sitting in a tree with just your phone and some earbuds in. If so, that sounds awesome. But I'm guessing most people listening right now are probably in a constructed environment. In your car, in your house, you know, in a bus, something like that. Mark: Yeah, yeah. Yucca: So Mark: And there's nothing wrong with that, and I want to be very clear, I'm not shaming people Yucca: we're in the same boat, Mark: Yeah, I mean, we all have to live, you know, we're talking on computers here I've got headphones on that I am absolutely certain were made in China by someone who was not paid nearly enough for the service of having created this product. Myself, as, you know, similarly a wage slave in capitalism If that person was actually paid a reasonable wage, I might not have been able to afford these headphones, right? So the whole system reinforces itself, and no one is innocent, and no one other than the decision makers on this are really guilty. Yucca: Mm hmm. I'm Mark: You know, we, we all, we're all doing the best we can, given the system that we have, but that system needs to shift, unless we just decide we're gonna eat up the world and go extinct. Yucca: not so fond of that, Mark: I'm not either, I, that's just, you know, as, as golden futures go, that's really not one for me. Yucca: this is a topic that we did do several years back at this point. We did talk about misanthropy and I do see a a strong tendency of that in our culture today. Which is, I find, very saddening. But I, other than I don't agree with that from a value perspective it's very, it's very counterproductive. It really doesn't help us solve any of these problems, to be really down on, well, we should go extinct, it would be better for the, for everybody, or for the rest of the world, or, you know, all of that. It just, I don't think that, I don't buy that. I think it's not a very strong argument. It's kind of a, it's a cop out. Mark: Yeah, I was gonna say I agree with you, I, I don't have much truck with that either, and I think it's intellectually lazy. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: I think it's just, oh, there's a huge complicated problem, I don't want to think about it, maybe let's just go extinct. and, and it's a very uncompassionate, non empathetic way of looking at humanity and at, you know, The crises that we confront and I hope to do better than that and I think that we collectively can do better. Yucca: I think so. And I think it relates to our ability to choose what we are going to focus and pay attention to. And I think that's some of what we were talking about before about the nostalgia. When we're in that, we're focusing on just specific aspects of the past. Right? That nostalgia for the 60s in the hippie era. Well, there was a lot of things that really sucked about that, right? But when we're longing for it, we're not longing for the war and the turmoil and all of that. We're longing for the parts that were really positive about it. And so we, we have the ability to really shape the way That we behave in the world based on what we focus on. Not that we shouldn't pay attention to that, we certainly should pay attention to the negative things, but do we focus on solutions to those things? Or do we focus on the misery of how bad it sucks to be human? Yeah, enduring those things. Mark: Right. Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And one of the things that I find increasingly frustrating is, is that tendency to simply say, well, we're screwed. And so let's stop trying. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Now, trying is going to involve some dislocation because capitalism gives us lots of goodies. It's totally unsustainable, but it gives us goodies that if we were to move into a sustainable modality, we probably wouldn't have nearly as many of. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: But the odds are good that we would actually be significantly happier because Instead of filling our desire for happiness and for satisfactions with the purchase of things, we would have stuff like culture and community and relationships and, and, and celebration like Pagan celebrations around the year, that kind of stuff. Spirituality art. All of those things that really are shunted to the side by the capitalistic frame, which is that all of those things, because they can't be monetized very well, aren't very important. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And so the challenge is moving out of that structure in a way that doesn't cause harm as we do it. Mark: Or the, the, the so called soft landing. You know, there are so many indicators that point towards some kind of collapse or crash coming not very long from now between climate change and and various economic indicators and so forth. You know, it is likely that there is going to be some real privation in our future, but Yucca: And there is. There is. Mark: he will, and there already Yucca: future. I think that there's a lot of places that we can point to in this moment and go, right here, here, here, here. Mark: Right, yeah, I mean, any Appalachian town that had the top of its mountains shaved off by a coal mining company, and then, which then marched off to, you know, do its next project in Brazil and left all those people with no work in a destroyed environment, I mean, that's a microcosm right there of exactly what capitalism does. And we need to have a more For want of a better word, holistic understanding about economic development. Economic development needs to be something that benefits people in the ways that most matter, and it is sustainable over time, rather than this endless boom bust thing that we see so often through capitalism. Yucca: Well, I think remembering the root of that word is helpful in this. The echo is home. That's what the word means, is home. So it remembering that everything that we're doing, we are doing, To our home, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: so, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: which we are part of, Mark: Right. Yucca: right? A home isn't just a house. A home is the people and the culture in that house. Right. It's all of the structures that the people depend on, that they're part of. Mark: And a part of the way that we can start pointing in this direction, I think, is through media. Because people need You know, we're so disconnected now. I mean, let me speak for myself and what I see around me in American society, right? People are very disconnected. They're often disconnected from their own families. Because of the nature of the job market under capitalism, families are atomized to the far corners of the world. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: As people seek jobs and go and work it becomes very hard for people to build communities because they're moving around looking for economic opportunities. Yucca: Right. Mark: And they're working themselves to death so they don't have a lot of time to build community and relationships and culture and all that kind of stuff. So I do feel that getting some of those warm, fuzzy, kind, empathetic values out into media is a way to kind of start the process. Mean, I can think of a couple of examples that just sort of reminded me of. Oh yeah, people can be kind to one another, people can, people can love one another, people can accept one another for who they are. And one of them is the Australian slash adults animated series, Bluey. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: Yeah, I mean, as a mom, you, you know about Bluey, Yucca: Oh, I absolutely do. The parents in our household will be watching it, and the kids have left the room. It's a great, yeah, it really hits home. Very sweet. Mark: It's very kind and very thoughtful, and It's the kind of thing that, that moves the sorts of emotions that I think we need to be fostering more. You know, there's so much stuff out there that's all sort of, you know, post apocalyptic, war like, you know, blockbuster drama, and superhero vigilantes, and all that kind of stuff, and I just think people need to be reminded of how good it feels to be kind. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: the other one that I was thinking of is sensate. Did you ever see sensate? Yucca: No, I'm not familiar with this one. Mark: It's the word sense and then the, the letter, the, the numeral eight. Yucca: Okay. Mark: And you have to trust it because you won't understand what's going on until about three episodes into the series. It has Daryl Hannah in it and a bunch of people that I didn't know. But it's beautifully done. It's super queer, so it's very inclusive in that kind of way. And wonderful. It's done by the By Lana and the people who did The Matrix, Warszawski's, I, I, it's a, it's a long, seemingly Polish or Czech name that I, that I believe begins with a W. And both of those sisters are trans. When they made The Matrix they hadn't transitioned yet. So, interesting storytelling, interesting world perspective, just really worth checking out. Yucca: hmm. I've written that one down. I'm guessing that's not something you can watch with a five year old in the room. Mark: Probably not, no, there's, there's some sex in there, and, Yucca: wait for after bed. Mark: yeah and when they announced that it was cancelled, there was such an outpouring of, of rage that they made a movie to wrap it up, so that, there, the, I think it's two seasons and then the movie. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It's either two or three seasons and then the movie, but anyway, yeah, worth, worth checking out because once again, it's like, oh, cool, interesting, unusual people being happy with each other. This is great. And, and it's a, it's a dramatic story. It's got tension. It's got conflict. It's got, you know, intrigue and all that good kind of stuff. It's not just people standing around being happy with one another, which unfortunately is not entertaining. Yucca: Yes. Although I wish that there maybe was some of that out there. Because sometimes that's what I, that's what I need to watch, Mark: yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's yeah, it's a funny thing. It's like, media can be like a companion in some ways, but what it reflects back to us can be really impactful on our worldview and on our feelings. And so getting, you know, getting a lot of the cruelty and, coldness out of what we consume. And building a market for that more kind, inclusive, warm human kind of way of being, I think is one of the things that we can do to start to shift things in the world. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And then of course there's activism. I mean, you need to, you need to just advocate that people not be exploited. That the planet not be exploited. And, Yucca: And of course, our, our everyday, just the way that we move through the world, right, working on ourselves about the kindness that we bring to the world, or don't bring to the world with us, Mark: Yes, yes. And that's particularly hard right now, actually, with the cultural divide in the United States, at least, where the rhetoric is so vitriolic. And Yucca: both sides, Mark: both sides, it really is. Yucca: demonization that happens, it's hard to breathe sometimes with Mark: It is. Well, and, you know, a lot of that is inspired by leader figures. I mean, there's, there's a lot that can be laid at the feet of Donald Trump simply for how abusive he's willing to be to other people. And people see that and say, Oh, well, then I can do that too. Yucca: right? Mark: It's, it's just Yucca: And I don't think it's a conscious process, for the most part. I don't think people actually say those words in their mind, to themselves, but that that is the takeaway, again, across the board, right? Not pointing to one aisle or the other, that that's, you That's a, it's something that's grown, at least my awareness of it has grown in the last few years. I think that it's something that's not just my awareness, I think that's a trend that has really really spread. Mark: Yes  Yucca: and I think some of that is enabled by the systems that we have. Especially with format that social media has right now. And I think social media can, can take different forms, but the form that it has right now is very, is about creating the us versus them mentality, because that's what gets the clicks and that's what gets the advertising dollars. Mark: Yes. Yes, and to be honest, if it were not for the fact that the atheopagan community spaces are online social media spaces, mostly. I wouldn't be on them at all. I, I know that Facebook does bad things to me. I, I can tell that Facebook is doing bad things to me, and I can tell by the way the algorithm curates my feed that it's trying to rile me up, it's trying to get me mad. I get this endless stream of, like, right wing Christian stuff. Yucca: Well, because you look at it. Mark: Well, even if I don't interact with it, it's Yucca: but it sees how long you are, even if you don't click on it, it sees how long you stay over that page. So the, if you just keep scrolling past it, don't look at it at all, it won't give it to you as much. But it sees that you linger for that half a second on it, and then it'll give you more the next time, because it worked. Right? And that, that is a content that, it doesn't actually look at what the content is, it looks at whether you engage with the content or not. Mark: This is why I love groups, because there are no ads in groups. Yucca: You can just go right in. Yeah. Mark: in and you see the posts that people have made in the groups, and that's it. The, the curated feed is something that I try to avoid as much as possible. And, I mean, I used to use Twitter for rapid news, but now that's turned into a cesspool. I'm not, not gonna Yucca: Oh, I would say that it always has been. It's had some rough times recently, but it's It's definitely a model for all of that. Yeah. And of course, I mean, it's, each of the platforms have their, their issues. But, well, this has actually been a huge tangent. We we left the golden golden age topic half an hour ago, right? Mark: Well, what would that golden age look like? To me, the balancing act there, the place where I won't go is the so called dark green resistance. direction. There's a book called Dark Green Resistance and it's, it's very problematic in a number of ways, one of which is that it's extremely ableist. It basically declares that industrialization is, and, and the products of industrialization are things that we're going to have to give up in order to get into sustainability. And so basically everybody who's disabled and needs that support or needs, you know, prescriptions or whatever that is, they Yucca: So the, the folks who rely on insulin or other things like that, too bad. Mark: They can just, too bad. They're, they're, they're washed out. And so I find that very offensive and, and unproductive. I think, and unrealistic, to be honest, because the fact is that people, Yucca: We're not going to do that, Mark: no. People do, they, you know, these are family members, they're people that we love. We're not going to do that, and we're not going to let it be done to ourselves, either. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: So Me Yucca: I, I really dislike the framing of the nature versus humanity, Mark: too. Yucca: right? That's just so unproductive because we are, we're part of, we're part of all of it and we have to take care of us to be able to take care of the whole system. Because, Mark: And, and I have another tangent, which is that our, that that conceptualization of the separation between nature and humanity actually informs some of the early environmental laws that we have in this country, like the Wilderness Act that was approved in 1964. Which discusses in its preamble the idea of lands untrammeled by man, which, Yucca: except that we've been here for 30, 000 years. Thank you very much.  Mark: In a completely racist way erases the presence of native people here for that entire time. Yucca: who have been actively managing that there isn't any news. Maybe some areas in Antarctica. But other than that, there's, there's no land on Earth that we haven't actively been managing for thousands of years. Mark: That's right. Yucca: That's not, yeah. Mark: Yeah, that's right. And there is still a divide within the environmental community between those who. are apoplectic that the National Park Service might allow these little tiny anchors to be pinned into rock so people can climb, because it's, it's inserting human technology into nature. And people who are much more reasonable, who understand, climbers are some of the best environmentalists there are. They love the outdoors, they love the wild, they love the wildlife, they, they, they donate, they, they volunteer, they vote, they do all the things that we need to do for our environment. And you're gonna, you're gonna tell them to get lost because they because you're upset about a totally invisible thing way up high on a rock face? I just, it's, it's, it ain't right. Yucca: Right. And there's a lot of other examples, you know, we can choose different fields for that. But that's definitely one of the ones that's like, really? That's, that's, that's, that's, That's the, okay, Mark: yeah, that's, that's the hill you're gonna die on. Yucca: what you're going to fight with? Okay. Yeah, because it's, okay, full disclosure, I am a climber, so, but but that's not even like arguing about roads, which you could have the argument of if they're improper, if they're not put in right, then you get erosion and trickle down effects from, like, problems with that. But yeah, Mark: there's a lot to be said for roadless areas. When the roadless area policy was implemented under Bill Clinton, it did some very good things for some large, unsegmented Yucca: absolutely, Mark: of wildlife habitat. Yucca: yeah. So, I see a lot of problems that have been created by roads. As a restoration ecologist, when I go in, that's one of the first things that we see is, oh, I haven't even walked up that way yet, but I know that there's a road that way. Right, so it's, it's something that, I just brought that up as something that I could see why people would be arguing against a road, but why somebody's going to argue against the little piece of metal in the, the rock all the way up there, Mark: makes no sense whatsoever. Yucca: most of the time you don't even know is there unless the person is actively climbing, right? Yeah. Mark: Yeah, exactly so. And, I mean, there, as you say, there are other examples of this as well. I mean, the, the terrible wildfires that ran through the Giant Sequoia National Park. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: killed 20 percent of the giant Sequoia trees. And the reason that that happened was because fire suppression practices for a century had built up fuels such that when fire finally went through there, the temperatures were so high that these giant trees were killed. So the Yucca: catastrophic fires. Yeah. Mark: because there wasn't beneficial fire, which is a natural part of the landscape and has been used by Native people to manage land for thousands of years. But that's what happened. Big catastrophic fire, a lot of the trees died. National Park Service decided, okay, well in order to help offset this, We need to plant some giant sequoias. We, you know, we need to propagate and then plant some giant sequoias. The same gang that I'm talking about, organizations like Wilderness Watch, went ballistic. No. You have to leave it alone. Wilderness is, is just that. You, you must, you can't touch it. You can't do anything to it. It must just be left to do whatever it's going to do, which on rangelands means you're going to end up with a whole bunch of invasive non natives, Yucca: You starve, you starve it. That's how you turn a range into a desert, is by fencing it off, because our grazers are gone, Mark: mm hmm. Yucca: right? And if you fence that off, and we don't have any grazers, it can't, you have just disrupted resource cycling. Right? You can't get nutrients into the soil. You're gonna get, you're gonna kill all your grasses, and yeah, you just end up with invasives. And then, you end up with bare, you end up with dirt. Mark: With bare dirt, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, this is, and I'm sure we can come up with myriad examples of this, but these are a couple of examples that have come up in the course of my work. And it's very frustrating because everybody involved in these conflicts wants to be doing the right thing, but some of them have some very strange criteria for what that is. And, Yucca: Well, and Mark: you know, I go back to, let's go with the science, let's go with what's practical, let's go with, let's, and, and particularly, to my mind, when we are still, especially in the West, having ongoing conflicts over whether nature is to be rendered into marketable resources. or allowed to flourish as nature. Surely we need to do something so that the people that care about that will continue to care about it, right? There's, there's a very human component to all of this.  Yucca: That, those of us who are, embedded into these ecosystems as part of them and rely on them for our survival, that we are, that we're not left out of that, right? Because one of the problems that happens in my state a lot is that there's a real disconnect between the urban and rural, Communities, and the urban communities will have louder voices often, and will make choices for how, what they think is good for the land, forgetting that, like, yeah, but then we have no, like, then we're going to freeze to death this winter. If you, if you say that we can't cut any firewood, we're going to freeze. Like, you can't survive in this climate if you don't heat your homes, and great, you've got propane. You don't have to even think about it because you've got natural gas and propane and all that in your city, but, you know, we still need to cut down a couple of trees each year. Mark: Yeah. Yeah  Yucca: so it's a, it's, it gets very, very complex. Emotions get high with that stuff. Mark: for sure. Yeah, so as I said, this is a big, long tangent, and I knew that it was gonna be, but it's, it's important. It's an important topic, and one that, that conservationists, We struggle with, you know, we struggle with one another about it. We sue on opposite sides of, you know, of these issues. And I don't have any, you know, quick simple answer for that, but it goes to this idea about what is the golden future. If the idea of the golden future is that, Nature is a park with fences around it. That's, you know, with, you know, all the abundant wildlife and sparkling springs and all that kind of stuff. That's not a realistic future vision. not how those things work, Yucca: and then we all live in that Wall City Mark: right? Yucca: But yeah. I think that whatever the future ends up looking like, that critical examination and reflection is, is really, I think that that's, that's key. That we not only be able to look at ourselves, but be able to look at our society and look at what, and examine what is it that we want, and how do we work towards that, instead of just sort of, just hitting the ground running and just going with whatever's happening, right? Mark: and especially what produces quarterly profitable returns. Yucca: Right? Because that, I mean, that doesn't take very much thought to realize some of the problems with that. Yeah, Mark: And there are things that we could do, there are policy things that we could do, that would make a huge difference in this. If, if legally you could not sell a stock for two years after you bought it, the economy would utterly transform. Because suddenly, The health of the, of the operation itself, and then of course you layer on environmental responsibility, social responsibility, governance responsibility, the so called ESG that the right wing is freaking out about if, if you put it that way. Corporate behavior in a frame like that, and make sure that people who invest are actually investing long enough that it, that they actually care about the performance of the company, you will have enterprises that actually succeed instead of simply cranking out something and then, you know, people can dump the stock, Yucca: mm hmm. Mark: and they will behave in a much more responsible fashion. So, there's, there are a lot of things we could do, there are a lot of things we could do. And we're not doing them, yet. Yucca: The fact that they're there is something that I find very hopeful, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: right, that there are things that, that's just one solution, right? And if there's one solution, how many others are there, right? So, Mark: Yeah, and far smarter people than me are, are, they're working on this stuff. They're, they're trying to figure out what kind of a, a system we could have. One of the challenges that I have in reading some of that stuff is that it's often very academic and, and Disconnected from the realities of the world because I'm a politics guy, right? I'm a, I'm a, I'm an implementation guy. I, I want to see how does your idea, how does that get traction and move forward in our society? Yucca: mm hmm. Mark: But those are answerable questions in many cases. I think that golden future can happen, and it won't be golden all the time. That's, Yucca: just like everyday life, Mark: yeah, Yucca: right? Yeah, Mark: but we can certainly build a world that is much kinder. Much more inclusive, much more sustainable, and where people are a lot happier than they are under capitalism, because capitalism makes misery. Yucca: For most people. Mark: Except for a very tiny elite. Yucca: Even then, those folks don't look very happy. Mark: They don't. Yucca: They look terrified, and you can see them going crazy. So, it doesn't, it really doesn't, what we've got going on now, and I don't know if maybe there are some elements of capitalism that are things that, there's some positive elements that we could move forward with and other things we don't want to, but what we've got going on isn't working for most people. Mark: That's right. Yucca: So, I think we need to look, to really look at what do we want to move towards instead, and how to build that. And I don't think that we're, personally, I don't like the tearing everything down, because I think a lot of people get hurt in that process. I think it's something that we need to work towards in a, to transform. not to try and destroy and rise out of the ashes because that rarely ever works. There's quite a few countries to take a look at where that, in recent history, where that's been disastrous. That's not how it, you know, people Mark: Usually what it gets you is some kind of strong armed dictator who, It promises people that they'll be safe. Yucca: So, how do we make these changes in a way that supports and nurtures as many people along the way as possible? Mark: That is the problem before us. It is. Yucca: And it's worthwhile. It's I'm grateful that that's something that we get to think about. Mm Mark: you know, I really am too. And we're, we're at a moment in human history where I don't believe it's too late, but we're definitely talking about the big picture now. we're going to make decisions that are going to impact the big picture in a significant way. And it's kind of meaningful to be alive at this time and to have a role in advocating for the kinds of values and, and ethics and behavior that we want to see. Yucca: Yeah, and getting to, to choose that, right? Mm hmm. I Mark: I mean, there are a lot of people that don't have a lot of choice about the circumstances of their lives and they aren't good circumstances, but they don't have a lot of choice about that. And they just have to keep repeating the same thing over and over and over in order to barely eke out an existence. It's a privilege to be able to work at a different level than that where you can hopefully have some traction on the future. So you were right. We had a lot of tangents. Yucca: was gonna say, I loved it. This is great. Lots to think about. So, thanks for a great discussion, Mark, Mark: Yeah, thank you. Really enjoyed it. Let us know what you think, folks. The Wonder Podcast, queues at gmail. com. That's The Wonder Podcast, all one word, and then the letter Q and the letter S. Yucca: and we'll see you next week.   

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com This big eclipse post has nearly all the links:   https://naturalisticpaganism.org/2024/02/24/just-44-days-to-the-eclipse-finalize-those-plans-now-heres-a-ritual-too/#more-23086 Including these links:   *Naturalistic Pagan Spiritual Pilgrimages  *Eclipse timer app *Eclipse parties *Google map *Location idea links *Fully prepared Ritual *How to make a Cosmala **Eclipse Portals + other info at this link:  https://naturalisticpaganism.org/2024/03/25/what-are-eclipse-portals-heres-how-you-can-create-one-yourself/#more-23247   **Cloud cover forecast – check a day or two before the eclipse:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/29/cloud-cover-eclipse-forecast-maps-cities/ ************************ ----more----   Mark: Welcome to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca, Mark: and it's equinox time again. Time for that holiday that's at the midpoint between the dark of the, the dark side of the year and the light side of the year and for many, the coming of spring or the height of spring. And we're going to talk about all that stuff and how you practice rituals around it and what it means to us. Yucca: that's right. So, happy spring! Or autumn, depending on where you're listening from. Mark: Depending on where you're listening from, and as I understand it, Yucca, it is snowing where you are. Yucca: It happens to be snowing today, yep. Mark: happy hope of spring. Yucca: Yes, it has sounded like spring, and it has felt like spring. It's just today it decided it was not. Not quite there. So, but it's a wet snow too, so it's not, it's not gonna stick around. It's Mark: Huh. Yucca: as soon as there's any sun, it'll be gone. But yeah, how about for you? Mark: Oh, it's a beautiful day. It's going to be in the mid 70s today. And clear skies with some nice puffy clouds. We, here, the daffodils are already finished. Yucca: Oh, mine are just poking up there a few inches, starting to grow out of the ground right now. Okay, Mark: different, different climates we're in. Yeah, so it's been, you know, we have a number of fruit trees around the neighborhood that are blooming right now, and Yucca: no more frosts for you at this Mark: no, I don't think so. I'd be very surprised if we had any more frosts. Yucca: Okay, so it's, it's spring for you. You're into spring. It's not hints of spring, it's spring itself. Mark: Right, well, that's why on my Wheel of the Year, I call this holiday High Spring. Because spring, where I am, because we have a climate so moderated by the Pacific Ocean it, we get the earliest wildflowers around the end of January. And, you know, acacia trees bloom in the, in February, and that's when daffodils start coming up. And tulips, which never bloom unless you take them out and put them in the freezer and then put them in. Again and hyacinths and all those kinds of nice things. We have a hyacinth bulb blooming in our living room right now, making the whole house smell delicious. Yucca: Oh, lovely. Mark: yeah. Yeah, that was a score from Trader Joe's, amazingly. They had these little, little jars that had a receptacle in the top to hold a bulb. And the, the bottom part is filled with water, and so the roots grow down into there. So, You know, you take it home and a day later or something, because they've just removed it from refrigeration, it sprouts a big spike and leaves and blooms and it makes a beautiful smell. Yucca: Do you get to see the roots? Mark: Yes, yeah, it's a clear glass, yeah, it's a clear glass container, so you see the roots going down. Yeah, yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Well, this year, the, the Equinox is early. Now, of course, it's not that it's actually early, it's just that our calendar doesn't quite line up with the actual orbit of our planet, but it's, in my time zone, it'll be on the 19th, Mark: Ours too, Yucca: in the, yeah, so for folks who are in Europe and further east, it'll be the early morning of the 20th, but for those of us in North America, it'll It's the evening of the 19th already, so, Mark: right. Yucca: yeah, Mark: and I mean obviously the main reason for that is the leap year. The ex the extra day that got inserted into the calendar in order to make things work out. But I mean, sometimes the Equinox is as late as the 21st.  Yucca: 22nd Mark: yeah, sometimes the early, early hours of the 22nd as well. So this is an early one that lands on Tuesday. But as with all things, I just tend to celebrate about a week of the season. Yucca: around, yeah, and it interestingly is not technically the day of equal daytime and nighttime. Mark: right. Yucca: There's actually another word, which is equilux, Which is great, all of these fun words, right? Equinox is equal night, right? Nox, noche, but lux is for light. And that's going to depend on your latitude, but that's usually a few days before. I actually haven't looked up when it is for, for, okay. Mark: where I am. Yucca: Okay, so Paddy's day then. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: All right. Yeah. Mark: record this  Yucca: so, and that's gonna depend on, and there's, you can look up some of the cool reasons for why that is, it's based on, you know, sunrise starts at the moment that the disk of the sun starts to appear above the horizon, where a sunset isn't until it's all the way, and then your latitude and the curving of the light as it goes through our atmosphere. So. It's not perfect, but what the equinox itself is, when the ecliptic and the equatorial planes, this is the moment that they overlap. So that's why we can have an actual, say that it's night, I don't remember exactly, it was 9. 07 or 9. 08 or something like that, PM. Mark: yeah, I think 9 0 7. Where you are in 8 0 7. Where I am. Yucca: Yeah, where there's an actual moment that we say, ah, This is the moment. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And my family will set, I haven't set it yet, but we'll set the alarm and when it goes off, we'll all put our hands in the air and go, woo! And then go back to what we're doing. So I'm pleased that it's not two in the morning because then it's wake everyone up at two in the morning and go, woo! That happens sometimes with solstices or equinoxes, so, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Mark: yeah, let's, for sure, let's, let's dive into it. What does it mean to us? What are the sort of metaphorical meanings that we apply to this time of year? What are the rituals that we, that we use? What do we call it? I think is a good place to start. What do you call this holiday, Yucca? Yucca: So normally just the equinox for us or its first spring because that's kind of, I mean, that's what it is, right? So we don't have another name for it other than, yeah, it's the equinox, it's first spring. I know that in some, some traditions people use Ostara or things like that, but that name has never really clicked for me. Mark: It's, it's a completely mythical name. It was mentioned by the, the Christian monk Bede in the 9th century, and that is the entire evidence for even the existence of a goddess named Ostara. Much certainly nothing associated with this holiday particularly, so the whole thing is really pretty sketchy. Yucca: hmm. And Mark: So, Yucca: what is it for you? Mark: I call it High Spring Yucca: High spring. That's right. Mark: because for us that's what it is here. You know, what'll happen now, the hills are a really deep emerald green right now. that will lighten up and then eventually all fade to a gold color by about June ish. We had a really wet winter this year, so it may take a little bit longer, but typically by by the, the solstice, it's all gone yellow and it's time for summer. Yucca: And for your wheel or arc of the year, what is this holiday? Mark: Oh, where I map a human life? Yucca: Yeah, Mark: cycle on to the, the wheel of the year. This is grade school kids. It's not infants and toddlers, but children, you know, prepubescent children. Yucca: childhood, kind Mark: childhood. Yucca: right? Because when you get into teens, they're, they're not grown ups yet, but it's not childhood anymore at that Mark: No, they're closer to young adults, really. They're, they're, they're adults in apprenticeship doing, making lots of changes and, and learning how to be adults. and hopefully their brains develop. Vast enough that they don't kill themselves in the process. Yucca: Right. Mark: Yeah, so, so this holiday is typically associated with childhood. And there are a lot of sort of kids activity things that we've done for celebrations of this holiday before. We've had gatherings where we invited people to come and play children's games and drink lemonade and, you know, stuff like that. Yucca: Mm Mark: and And, you know, the association with dyed eggs and, you know, candy and things like that is also a real kind of childlike thing, so we've, we've incorporated some of that stuff as well. Yucca: hmm. Okay. Yeah, so there's, this is one of the holidays that for some people, they do associate with, with Easter, right, because they're, there's some similarities in terms of time of year, they're a little bit farther apart from each other than say, the solstice and Christmas, or Holidays and so on. Samhain, but is there a, or Halloween other than like the dyed eggs and candy, is there any connection for you there? Or are they kind of like two separate things that just happen at the same time of year? Mark: my understanding of it runs kind of like this. I think the candy came a lot later, and it was originally in the shape of eggs. Yucca: Mm Mark: But dyeing eggs is a very, very old practice in Europe the spring. And there are all kinds of folk traditions about it. Have one of the beautiful Ukrainian pysanky eggs that are just, they're so magnificent. I don't know how anybody's hand is that steady to do that incredible. Yeah, Yucca: Nowhere near. Mark: neither. It's, it's really astounding. We have a goose egg, actually, that's a Posanky egg. It's a really, it's a nice big one. The those traditions go back many, many years. And a lot of those designs are spring designs. They're, you know, flowers coming up and chickens laying eggs and birds and things like that that are associated with the springtime. So I think the association of eggs with this time of year is because they were the first real protein source Yucca: Will Mark: come along after the winter, and then you have lambs it's, it's sort of like the February holidays where you're really kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel of what you've got stored for the winter. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and who's being, what animal's being born? It's going to depend so much on the species and your climate. Whereas the eggs have a lot more to do with the light than they do with the temperature. So here, The chickens are starting to lay their eggs again. They did a little bit throughout the winter. But they're probably doing the same thing where you live, even though where you are, it's been warmer for months than it is here. But it's actually about the light signals, not about the temperature signals. Mark: Yeah. And I just learned today, actually, that there are plants for which the temperature is. The, the signal is the temperature and then there are others for which the signal is the light. Both of those exist. I, I, I knew that, you know, with certain bulbs, you refrigerate them in order to get them to bloom and things like that. But I never really put it together that it was about temperature signaling rather than light signaling until today. Yucca: it depends on the species, Mark: Right, right. Yucca: And then, you know, how deep the seed is going to be versus not and all of that. Yeah. Mark: So birds birds do migrate back up north. Many of them quite early in the year. I mean, there's still snow on the ground and stuff for, for a number of them. And And they start building nests and laying eggs. And people, you know, being protein seeking animals went and would find them and would dye them and so forth. And then, of course, we had domesticated chickens and so Yucca: birds for a long time at this point, but I mean, the kind of wheel of the year that we talk about is based on agricultural society's wheel of the year, right? And so we've had, you know, we've had these animals living and partnering with us for thousands of years. And sometimes it, depending on where you were, maybe it wasn't chickens, maybe it was pigeons, maybe it was, you know, Whatever the particular animal was, but that's pretty common across much of the temperate world. Mark: Mm hmm. Yeah, Yucca: yeah. Mark: yeah, so, I mean, my feeling is not that the association with eggs and candy comes from Easter, it's more that Easter glommed on to Yucca: What was happening anyways? Mark: were already happening and they got folded up with one another and so that's what we have now. So that's why I feel, you know, perfectly comfortable with dyed eggs being a part of my, my spring celebration thing. It's also just fun to do and it's really fun to do with natural dyes. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You know, onion skins and cabbage leaves and beets and all that kind of stuff. It's really, really a fun thing to do. Takes longer. You got to soak stuff overnight in order for it really to take the dye. And don't forget that little splash of vinegar that It interacts with the calcium carbonate of the shell and helps to set the dye in the shell. So, so yeah, it's just, it's a fun thing to do, but it traditionally, at least in my life, it's been associated with a childhood activity, something that parents do with children. And so that fits in perfectly with the theme of childhood for, for this holiday as well. Yucca: Nice. Yeah, for us, Easter is a totally separate thing. Like, it just happens to happen sometimes nearby, right? Because it's, it's it's lunar based, right?  Mark: After the, after the first full moon of the equinox, I believe. Yucca: Yeah, so, so it moves around. This year, it, we just looked it up, it's the 31st of March this year. So, anyways, but they will go and they have a grandmother, my kids do, that they will go and do an Easter egg hunt with, right? And I pretty much don't participate in anything Easter other than, Mom, look at the chocolate that we got! Oh, okay. Great chocolate. But, but this time is really about the birds and the egg layers for Mark: hmm. Yucca: So we actually have a lot of feathers that over the years we've collected, you know, dozens and dozens of feathers and we like to string them on thread and then you can hang them up around the house. So we have the feathers that are in the windows and. Mark: Nice. Yucca: And at the moment we don't have any chickens. Plan to again, we had, we had some bear issues in our neighborhood last year, which delayed the return of chickens for us, but our one of our neighbors does so the kids can go over and actually feed them. find the chicken eggs and that's really fun for them. But it's also the, the migrating birds are starting to come back and through. And it just, it sounds, it sounds like spring out there. There's certain birds that are coming back. We still won't get hummingbirds for a few weeks, but we won't get our, our last frost won't come till mid May. Right, we'll still be freezing every night until, All the way into May. So, but there's still birds that are coming back and, and you can start to see hints of colors on some of the males coming in, and there's just so much more activity. So, one of our, I mentioned it on here before, but one of our very favorite things to do is to make comments. Bye. feeders for them Mark: hmm. Yucca: to put seed out and water in particular in our yard. And that's one of, that's my oldest job. She goes out and cleans the water dishes every day and fills up the new water. But what we like to do is take pine cones, and we have lots of different kinds of pines. We've got like the big ponderosa pines, we've got the little pinyon pines, and string them And dip them in, we usually use lard and then put different kinds of seeds on them and maybe some mealworms and things like that and hang it out in the trees. Because this is a, the next few months is the time that they really need that extra support for breeding and egg laying and raising little chicks and all of that. So, and then When they have eaten everything away, we just have pinecones hanging in our trees, and that's lovely. And it's, you know, it's not like having some piece of plastic or something that's Mark: Right. Yucca: but it's a really fun activity to do. And you can use, there's, you know, you can use different options with peanut butter and things like that, but you just have to really watch the ingredients on. What you're actually putting in Mark: Huh. Yucca: for your, for your different area and what, because sometimes there's some pretty sketchy ingredients that they put into that stuff. Mark: Wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. You know, I don't like any of that adulterated peanut butter. I just like peanuts and salt. Yucca: Mm Mark: Um, that's, that's what I always go with, and I think some of that is that the quality of the peanuts is higher. Yucca: Mm Mark: I, I think the, the sort of, you know, organic, natural, whatever you want to call it, peanut butter, is made with better roasted peanuts, and they, they just taste better. Yucca: hmm. That wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, it's not something that we buy particularly often, but I remember you know, reading warnings about, hey, watch out, there's, there's What was it, erythritol, that a lot of them are using now, that that's really toxic for dogs, Mark: Ah. Yucca: that people have often given their dogs, like, their pills or medicines and a scoop of peanut butter and they're saying, watch out because, you know, Like, you're giving them these little doses of this chemical that is, seems okay for humans, as far as we can tell, but not so good for the dog's digestive system. And then, you know, you want to watch out with stuff like that for, for other creatures as well. So, just, you know, do your research on what ingredients you're putting in. Mark: Speaking of which one thing that's very popular for this time of year is lilies. Calla lilies, regular lilies, all that kind of stuff. Very toxic for cats. Very, very toxic for them. Yeah. Yucca: as well, but cats in particular will go up and go, I'm gonna chew on your houseplant. Mark: Right. And no, you don't want that at all. Yucca: Yeah. That's a, yeah, that's a good thing to remember. Because they come in those beautiful bouquets that you get this, and faces and all of that this time of year. Mark: Yeah. I just got a bunch of pink lilies. And none of them had bloomed yet, they were all just sort of in that pod kind of shape Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: but they've all bloomed now, it happened very suddenly, and so there's this big bouquet of beautiful pink flowers, large flowers, and Yucca: cats, right? Mark: yes, so they're up on a shelf and they're away from where the cat can go and all that kind of stuff, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, ritually, what do you like to do this time of year? Yucca: Yeah, this is still in that time of year where there's, things are getting going, starting there's a, You know, they're finally warm enough to kind of get out and do a little bit that we weren't before and I am also right now, personally, this is not every year, but I am in full nesting instinct because I am due with a baby later this year, and the nesting is hitting so strong that, that the normal spring cleaning that people do, like, take that and ramp it up, like, 10 times is what I'm doing right now but normally this time of year is just a very It's got that spring cleany kind of feel to me, and so a lot of the personal work and sort of rituals that I'll be doing have to do with that. But I don't have anything that is set the same way I do for other times of year. Like, I don't have like a A specific holos, like I have a holos, for instance ritual that I do for myself. I don't really have something like that for this holiday. And that might change over time, but it's just, there's so much going on. Mark: Huh. Yucca: Just, it does, it does, it's happening, it doesn't feel like I even need to mark it because it's just so there. Mark: Got it. Got it. Yeah. I like to do the colored eggs and the and things like that. To, you know, put the, Symbolic colored eggs like wooden painted eggs and things like that on my focus. But I don't have a regular ritual that I do for the equinox either. What we discussed in the Saturday Atheopagan Zoom Mixer this morning for our ritual that we're going to do next week, we're going to do the surface tension experiment. Yucca: Ooh, okay. Mm hmm. Mark: because this is a time when there's transition between The dark of the year and the lighter half of the year. So there's this, this moment where the membrane gets broken. And so we're going to have colored water, just sort of like colored eggs, but colored Yucca: yeah. Mark: Yeah. And lay something very light, like a needle or something like that on top of the water for the, for the. Surface tension Yucca: So you're gonna have water in a bowl? Mark: in a bowl or, or in a glass, something like that. Yeah. And then at the appropriate magical time, during the ritual, we will put a little drop of soapy water in and boom, the surface surface tension dissolves, and the needles will hit the bottom of the glass. Yucca: That's wonderful. We did that with paperclips Mark: Huh, Yucca: Those are a good one because they have the, they're narrow, but then they're wide, so you get that nice, Mark: right. That's actually a good idea. Maybe I'll use a paperclip instead. Yeah, because they've got that wide area so they sort of support themselves better on the surface membrane. Yeah, so we're going to do that and then have celebratory food and all that good kind of stuff like you do on days that are special. Yucca: like that. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And it's the kind of thing that you do with kids, right? Is, you know, to do, to teach them about surface tension, you do this little experiment thing. So. Yucca: Another great one is if you have a coin and a dropper, so you can add drops of water onto the coin one at a time, and it makes a little bulb of water on it, and then you get to the point where it can't hold it anymore. How many drops can you get onto the coin before it bursts? You can get a lot. You can get it stacked up real high. Mark: bet. Yeah. Especially because there's that little ridge Yucca: along the Mark: around the edge of the coin. Yeah. Yucca: can experiment with different kinds of, you know, is your dime versus your penny or your quarter, or do you have a euro or some coin from another place that you can try? Those are, I Mark: Yeah. Yucca: could imagine doing something like that with the colored water too. Mark: Huh. Yeah. Yeah you could do like blue water and dripping red, red water so that it turns it purple. Yucca: and mix it? Yeah. Mark: Very, very transformational, yeah. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: I, before, before we close I wanted to announce something for our listeners who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, or near enough to get there if they want to. I have organized a book launching party. Yucca: Oh, great. Mark: It's happening at a community space called Kinfolks, all lowercase k i n f o l x which is a African American owned business and community space in downtown Oakland, California, and this will be on Saturday the 13th of April from 3 to 6 p. m., and I will be promoting it on Facebook and Discord and Thank you. Bye. All that good kind of stuff, but mark your calendar, because you know, I'll, I'll do some readings, and I'll sign books, and all the usual book launch party things, so come and have a glass of wine, or a coffee, or a juice, or something like that, and And come and help me launch this book. I'm excited about it. Yucca: That sounds fun. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: you got a place for it too. Mark: me too. First place I approached. They just, you know, they got back to me right away. They just seemed really nice and really easy to work with. And the space was available that day. Yucca: Fantastic. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Well, wonderful. Well, thank you, Mark. Happy spring. Happy Thai spring, equinox, all of those good things. Mark: And happy first spring to you. Yucca: Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining us. We will see you next week. Mark: Yeah. Have a good one, everybody.   

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com ----more----   Mark: Welcome to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca, Mark: and it's equinox time again. Time for that holiday that's at the midpoint between the dark of the, the dark side of the year and the light side of the year and for many, the coming of spring or the height of spring. And we're going to talk about all that stuff and how you practice rituals around it and what it means to us. Yucca: that's right. So, happy spring! Or autumn, depending on where you're listening from. Mark: Depending on where you're listening from, and as I understand it, Yucca, it is snowing where you are. Yucca: It happens to be snowing today, yep. Mark: happy hope of spring. Yucca: Yes, it has sounded like spring, and it has felt like spring. It's just today it decided it was not. Not quite there. So, but it's a wet snow too, so it's not, it's not gonna stick around. It's Mark: Huh. Yucca: as soon as there's any sun, it'll be gone. But yeah, how about for you? Mark: Oh, it's a beautiful day. It's going to be in the mid 70s today. And clear skies with some nice puffy clouds. We, here, the daffodils are already finished. Yucca: Oh, mine are just poking up there a few inches, starting to grow out of the ground right now. Okay, Mark: different, different climates we're in. Yeah, so it's been, you know, we have a number of fruit trees around the neighborhood that are blooming right now, and Yucca: no more frosts for you at this Mark: no, I don't think so. I'd be very surprised if we had any more frosts. Yucca: Okay, so it's, it's spring for you. You're into spring. It's not hints of spring, it's spring itself. Mark: Right, well, that's why on my Wheel of the Year, I call this holiday High Spring. Because spring, where I am, because we have a climate so moderated by the Pacific Ocean it, we get the earliest wildflowers around the end of January. And, you know, acacia trees bloom in the, in February, and that's when daffodils start coming up. And tulips, which never bloom unless you take them out and put them in the freezer and then put them in. Again and hyacinths and all those kinds of nice things. We have a hyacinth bulb blooming in our living room right now, making the whole house smell delicious. Yucca: Oh, lovely. Mark: yeah. Yeah, that was a score from Trader Joe's, amazingly. They had these little, little jars that had a receptacle in the top to hold a bulb. And the, the bottom part is filled with water, and so the roots grow down into there. So, You know, you take it home and a day later or something, because they've just removed it from refrigeration, it sprouts a big spike and leaves and blooms and it makes a beautiful smell. Yucca: Do you get to see the roots? Mark: Yes, yeah, it's a clear glass, yeah, it's a clear glass container, so you see the roots going down. Yeah, yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Well, this year, the, the Equinox is early. Now, of course, it's not that it's actually early, it's just that our calendar doesn't quite line up with the actual orbit of our planet, but it's, in my time zone, it'll be on the 19th, Mark: Ours too, Yucca: in the, yeah, so for folks who are in Europe and further east, it'll be the early morning of the 20th, but for those of us in North America, it'll It's the evening of the 19th already, so, Mark: right. Yucca: yeah, Mark: and I mean obviously the main reason for that is the leap year. The ex the extra day that got inserted into the calendar in order to make things work out. But I mean, sometimes the Equinox is as late as the 21st.  Yucca: 22nd Mark: yeah, sometimes the early, early hours of the 22nd as well. So this is an early one that lands on Tuesday. But as with all things, I just tend to celebrate about a week of the season. Yucca: around, yeah, and it interestingly is not technically the day of equal daytime and nighttime. Mark: right. Yucca: There's actually another word, which is equilux, Which is great, all of these fun words, right? Equinox is equal night, right? Nox, noche, but lux is for light. And that's going to depend on your latitude, but that's usually a few days before. I actually haven't looked up when it is for, for, okay. Mark: where I am. Yucca: Okay, so Paddy's day then. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: All right. Yeah. Mark: record this  Yucca: so, and that's gonna depend on, and there's, you can look up some of the cool reasons for why that is, it's based on, you know, sunrise starts at the moment that the disk of the sun starts to appear above the horizon, where a sunset isn't until it's all the way, and then your latitude and the curving of the light as it goes through our atmosphere. So. It's not perfect, but what the equinox itself is, when the ecliptic and the equatorial planes, this is the moment that they overlap. So that's why we can have an actual, say that it's night, I don't remember exactly, it was 9. 07 or 9. 08 or something like that, PM. Mark: yeah, I think 9 0 7. Where you are in 8 0 7. Where I am. Yucca: Yeah, where there's an actual moment that we say, ah, This is the moment. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And my family will set, I haven't set it yet, but we'll set the alarm and when it goes off, we'll all put our hands in the air and go, woo! And then go back to what we're doing. So I'm pleased that it's not two in the morning because then it's wake everyone up at two in the morning and go, woo! That happens sometimes with solstices or equinoxes, so, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Mark: yeah, let's, for sure, let's, let's dive into it. What does it mean to us? What are the sort of metaphorical meanings that we apply to this time of year? What are the rituals that we, that we use? What do we call it? I think is a good place to start. What do you call this holiday, Yucca? Yucca: So normally just the equinox for us or its first spring because that's kind of, I mean, that's what it is, right? So we don't have another name for it other than, yeah, it's the equinox, it's first spring. I know that in some, some traditions people use Ostara or things like that, but that name has never really clicked for me. Mark: It's, it's a completely mythical name. It was mentioned by the, the Christian monk Bede in the 9th century, and that is the entire evidence for even the existence of a goddess named Ostara. Much certainly nothing associated with this holiday particularly, so the whole thing is really pretty sketchy. Yucca: hmm. And Mark: So, Yucca: what is it for you? Mark: I call it High Spring Yucca: High spring. That's right. Mark: because for us that's what it is here. You know, what'll happen now, the hills are a really deep emerald green right now. that will lighten up and then eventually all fade to a gold color by about June ish. We had a really wet winter this year, so it may take a little bit longer, but typically by by the, the solstice, it's all gone yellow and it's time for summer. Yucca: And for your wheel or arc of the year, what is this holiday? Mark: Oh, where I map a human life? Yucca: Yeah, Mark: cycle on to the, the wheel of the year. This is grade school kids. It's not infants and toddlers, but children, you know, prepubescent children. Yucca: childhood, kind Mark: childhood. Yucca: right? Because when you get into teens, they're, they're not grown ups yet, but it's not childhood anymore at that Mark: No, they're closer to young adults, really. They're, they're, they're adults in apprenticeship doing, making lots of changes and, and learning how to be adults. and hopefully their brains develop. Vast enough that they don't kill themselves in the process. Yucca: Right. Mark: Yeah, so, so this holiday is typically associated with childhood. And there are a lot of sort of kids activity things that we've done for celebrations of this holiday before. We've had gatherings where we invited people to come and play children's games and drink lemonade and, you know, stuff like that. Yucca: Mm Mark: and And, you know, the association with dyed eggs and, you know, candy and things like that is also a real kind of childlike thing, so we've, we've incorporated some of that stuff as well. Yucca: hmm. Okay. Yeah, so there's, this is one of the holidays that for some people, they do associate with, with Easter, right, because they're, there's some similarities in terms of time of year, they're a little bit farther apart from each other than say, the solstice and Christmas, or Holidays and so on. Samhain, but is there a, or Halloween other than like the dyed eggs and candy, is there any connection for you there? Or are they kind of like two separate things that just happen at the same time of year? Mark: my understanding of it runs kind of like this. I think the candy came a lot later, and it was originally in the shape of eggs. Yucca: Mm Mark: But dyeing eggs is a very, very old practice in Europe the spring. And there are all kinds of folk traditions about it. Have one of the beautiful Ukrainian pysanky eggs that are just, they're so magnificent. I don't know how anybody's hand is that steady to do that incredible. Yeah, Yucca: Nowhere near. Mark: neither. It's, it's really astounding. We have a goose egg, actually, that's a Posanky egg. It's a really, it's a nice big one. The those traditions go back many, many years. And a lot of those designs are spring designs. They're, you know, flowers coming up and chickens laying eggs and birds and things like that that are associated with the springtime. So I think the association of eggs with this time of year is because they were the first real protein source Yucca: Will Mark: come along after the winter, and then you have lambs it's, it's sort of like the February holidays where you're really kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel of what you've got stored for the winter. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and who's being, what animal's being born? It's going to depend so much on the species and your climate. Whereas the eggs have a lot more to do with the light than they do with the temperature. So here, The chickens are starting to lay their eggs again. They did a little bit throughout the winter. But they're probably doing the same thing where you live, even though where you are, it's been warmer for months than it is here. But it's actually about the light signals, not about the temperature signals. Mark: Yeah. And I just learned today, actually, that there are plants for which the temperature is. The, the signal is the temperature and then there are others for which the signal is the light. Both of those exist. I, I, I knew that, you know, with certain bulbs, you refrigerate them in order to get them to bloom and things like that. But I never really put it together that it was about temperature signaling rather than light signaling until today. Yucca: it depends on the species, Mark: Right, right. Yucca: And then, you know, how deep the seed is going to be versus not and all of that. Yeah. Mark: So birds birds do migrate back up north. Many of them quite early in the year. I mean, there's still snow on the ground and stuff for, for a number of them. And And they start building nests and laying eggs. And people, you know, being protein seeking animals went and would find them and would dye them and so forth. And then, of course, we had domesticated chickens and so Yucca: birds for a long time at this point, but I mean, the kind of wheel of the year that we talk about is based on agricultural society's wheel of the year, right? And so we've had, you know, we've had these animals living and partnering with us for thousands of years. And sometimes it, depending on where you were, maybe it wasn't chickens, maybe it was pigeons, maybe it was, you know, Whatever the particular animal was, but that's pretty common across much of the temperate world. Mark: Mm hmm. Yeah, Yucca: yeah. Mark: yeah, so, I mean, my feeling is not that the association with eggs and candy comes from Easter, it's more that Easter glommed on to Yucca: What was happening anyways? Mark: were already happening and they got folded up with one another and so that's what we have now. So that's why I feel, you know, perfectly comfortable with dyed eggs being a part of my, my spring celebration thing. It's also just fun to do and it's really fun to do with natural dyes. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You know, onion skins and cabbage leaves and beets and all that kind of stuff. It's really, really a fun thing to do. Takes longer. You got to soak stuff overnight in order for it really to take the dye. And don't forget that little splash of vinegar that It interacts with the calcium carbonate of the shell and helps to set the dye in the shell. So, so yeah, it's just, it's a fun thing to do, but it traditionally, at least in my life, it's been associated with a childhood activity, something that parents do with children. And so that fits in perfectly with the theme of childhood for, for this holiday as well. Yucca: Nice. Yeah, for us, Easter is a totally separate thing. Like, it just happens to happen sometimes nearby, right? Because it's, it's it's lunar based, right?  Mark: After the, after the first full moon of the equinox, I believe. Yucca: Yeah, so, so it moves around. This year, it, we just looked it up, it's the 31st of March this year. So, anyways, but they will go and they have a grandmother, my kids do, that they will go and do an Easter egg hunt with, right? And I pretty much don't participate in anything Easter other than, Mom, look at the chocolate that we got! Oh, okay. Great chocolate. But, but this time is really about the birds and the egg layers for Mark: hmm. Yucca: So we actually have a lot of feathers that over the years we've collected, you know, dozens and dozens of feathers and we like to string them on thread and then you can hang them up around the house. So we have the feathers that are in the windows and. Mark: Nice. Yucca: And at the moment we don't have any chickens. Plan to again, we had, we had some bear issues in our neighborhood last year, which delayed the return of chickens for us, but our one of our neighbors does so the kids can go over and actually feed them. find the chicken eggs and that's really fun for them. But it's also the, the migrating birds are starting to come back and through. And it just, it sounds, it sounds like spring out there. There's certain birds that are coming back. We still won't get hummingbirds for a few weeks, but we won't get our, our last frost won't come till mid May. Right, we'll still be freezing every night until, All the way into May. So, but there's still birds that are coming back and, and you can start to see hints of colors on some of the males coming in, and there's just so much more activity. So, one of our, I mentioned it on here before, but one of our very favorite things to do is to make comments. Bye. feeders for them Mark: hmm. Yucca: to put seed out and water in particular in our yard. And that's one of, that's my oldest job. She goes out and cleans the water dishes every day and fills up the new water. But what we like to do is take pine cones, and we have lots of different kinds of pines. We've got like the big ponderosa pines, we've got the little pinyon pines, and string them And dip them in, we usually use lard and then put different kinds of seeds on them and maybe some mealworms and things like that and hang it out in the trees. Because this is a, the next few months is the time that they really need that extra support for breeding and egg laying and raising little chicks and all of that. So, and then When they have eaten everything away, we just have pinecones hanging in our trees, and that's lovely. And it's, you know, it's not like having some piece of plastic or something that's Mark: Right. Yucca: but it's a really fun activity to do. And you can use, there's, you know, you can use different options with peanut butter and things like that, but you just have to really watch the ingredients on. What you're actually putting in Mark: Huh. Yucca: for your, for your different area and what, because sometimes there's some pretty sketchy ingredients that they put into that stuff. Mark: Wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. You know, I don't like any of that adulterated peanut butter. I just like peanuts and salt. Yucca: Mm Mark: Um, that's, that's what I always go with, and I think some of that is that the quality of the peanuts is higher. Yucca: Mm Mark: I, I think the, the sort of, you know, organic, natural, whatever you want to call it, peanut butter, is made with better roasted peanuts, and they, they just taste better. Yucca: hmm. That wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, it's not something that we buy particularly often, but I remember you know, reading warnings about, hey, watch out, there's, there's What was it, erythritol, that a lot of them are using now, that that's really toxic for dogs, Mark: Ah. Yucca: that people have often given their dogs, like, their pills or medicines and a scoop of peanut butter and they're saying, watch out because, you know, Like, you're giving them these little doses of this chemical that is, seems okay for humans, as far as we can tell, but not so good for the dog's digestive system. And then, you know, you want to watch out with stuff like that for, for other creatures as well. So, just, you know, do your research on what ingredients you're putting in. Mark: Speaking of which one thing that's very popular for this time of year is lilies. Calla lilies, regular lilies, all that kind of stuff. Very toxic for cats. Very, very toxic for them. Yeah. Yucca: as well, but cats in particular will go up and go, I'm gonna chew on your houseplant. Mark: Right. And no, you don't want that at all. Yucca: Yeah. That's a, yeah, that's a good thing to remember. Because they come in those beautiful bouquets that you get this, and faces and all of that this time of year. Mark: Yeah. I just got a bunch of pink lilies. And none of them had bloomed yet, they were all just sort of in that pod kind of shape Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: but they've all bloomed now, it happened very suddenly, and so there's this big bouquet of beautiful pink flowers, large flowers, and Yucca: cats, right? Mark: yes, so they're up on a shelf and they're away from where the cat can go and all that kind of stuff, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, ritually, what do you like to do this time of year? Yucca: Yeah, this is still in that time of year where there's, things are getting going, starting there's a, You know, they're finally warm enough to kind of get out and do a little bit that we weren't before and I am also right now, personally, this is not every year, but I am in full nesting instinct because I am due with a baby later this year, and the nesting is hitting so strong that, that the normal spring cleaning that people do, like, take that and ramp it up, like, 10 times is what I'm doing right now but normally this time of year is just a very It's got that spring cleany kind of feel to me, and so a lot of the personal work and sort of rituals that I'll be doing have to do with that. But I don't have anything that is set the same way I do for other times of year. Like, I don't have like a A specific holos, like I have a holos, for instance ritual that I do for myself. I don't really have something like that for this holiday. And that might change over time, but it's just, there's so much going on. Mark: Huh. Yucca: Just, it does, it does, it's happening, it doesn't feel like I even need to mark it because it's just so there. Mark: Got it. Got it. Yeah. I like to do the colored eggs and the and things like that. To, you know, put the, Symbolic colored eggs like wooden painted eggs and things like that on my focus. But I don't have a regular ritual that I do for the equinox either. What we discussed in the Saturday Atheopagan Zoom Mixer this morning for our ritual that we're going to do next week, we're going to do the surface tension experiment. Yucca: Ooh, okay. Mm hmm. Mark: because this is a time when there's transition between The dark of the year and the lighter half of the year. So there's this, this moment where the membrane gets broken. And so we're going to have colored water, just sort of like colored eggs, but colored Yucca: yeah. Mark: Yeah. And lay something very light, like a needle or something like that on top of the water for the, for the. Surface tension Yucca: So you're gonna have water in a bowl? Mark: in a bowl or, or in a glass, something like that. Yeah. And then at the appropriate magical time, during the ritual, we will put a little drop of soapy water in and boom, the surface surface tension dissolves, and the needles will hit the bottom of the glass. Yucca: That's wonderful. We did that with paperclips Mark: Huh, Yucca: Those are a good one because they have the, they're narrow, but then they're wide, so you get that nice, Mark: right. That's actually a good idea. Maybe I'll use a paperclip instead. Yeah, because they've got that wide area so they sort of support themselves better on the surface membrane. Yeah, so we're going to do that and then have celebratory food and all that good kind of stuff like you do on days that are special. Yucca: like that. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And it's the kind of thing that you do with kids, right? Is, you know, to do, to teach them about surface tension, you do this little experiment thing. So. Yucca: Another great one is if you have a coin and a dropper, so you can add drops of water onto the coin one at a time, and it makes a little bulb of water on it, and then you get to the point where it can't hold it anymore. How many drops can you get onto the coin before it bursts? You can get a lot. You can get it stacked up real high. Mark: bet. Yeah. Especially because there's that little ridge Yucca: along the Mark: around the edge of the coin. Yeah. Yucca: can experiment with different kinds of, you know, is your dime versus your penny or your quarter, or do you have a euro or some coin from another place that you can try? Those are, I Mark: Yeah. Yucca: could imagine doing something like that with the colored water too. Mark: Huh. Yeah. Yeah you could do like blue water and dripping red, red water so that it turns it purple. Yucca: and mix it? Yeah. Mark: Very, very transformational, yeah. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: I, before, before we close I wanted to announce something for our listeners who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, or near enough to get there if they want to. I have organized a book launching party. Yucca: Oh, great. Mark: It's happening at a community space called Kinfolks, all lowercase k i n f o l x which is a African American owned business and community space in downtown Oakland, California, and this will be on Saturday the 13th of April from 3 to 6 p. m., and I will be promoting it on Facebook and Discord and Thank you. Bye. All that good kind of stuff, but mark your calendar, because you know, I'll, I'll do some readings, and I'll sign books, and all the usual book launch party things, so come and have a glass of wine, or a coffee, or a juice, or something like that, and And come and help me launch this book. I'm excited about it. Yucca: That sounds fun. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: you got a place for it too. Mark: me too. First place I approached. They just, you know, they got back to me right away. They just seemed really nice and really easy to work with. And the space was available that day. Yucca: Fantastic. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Well, wonderful. Well, thank you, Mark. Happy spring. Happy Thai spring, equinox, all of those good things. Mark: And happy first spring to you. Yucca: Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining us. We will see you next week. Mark: Yeah. Have a good one, everybody.   

https://www.llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738775364   Season 5 - Episode 7 ----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 an episode I'm actually really quite excited for. It's going to be a little bit different. Mark, you have a book coming out in less than a month. So, yes, at long last, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. So I'm going to ask you some questions, and hopefully this is something that our listeners are going to be really interested in. So, can you Tell us what, what book. Mark: Well, the book is called Round We Dance, Creating Meaning Through Seasonal Rituals, and it's coming out from Llewellyn. It'll be released on April 8th which is also the day of the eclipse, the solar eclipse that's happening here in North America. And Yucca: Get your glasses, Mark: yes, get your Yucca: of totality, you'll still be able to see it if you're in the lower 48. Mark: Yep. Yeah. I have already gotten my glasses. In fact, I ordered them after the last time we talked about this. So, that's, that's the book. It's kind of a follow on book to the Atheopaganism book in some ways. But it's also meant for a broader audience. Yucca: Okay, so it's not branded specifically as atheopagan, but is it, it's branded as pagan in general? Do you say that's Mark: Well, it's, it's, it's not even really branded as pagan in general. Now, in the text of the book, I talk about Atheopaganism. And it's values and practices and ideas among other things. But the book itself is really intended for anyone who doesn't have a spirituality in their life right now and really wants one. You know, for, for folks, for example, who belong to the so called nuns. The, the people that express no religious affiliation, maybe they've left Christianity or Islam or, um, or they're, they're just atheists or agnostics many of those folks who come into our community, the atheopagan community find that they're, they want something that gives their life a sense of meaning and a sense of connectedness to what's happening here on earth and in the universe. In some cases, they want to have a value set that they can impart to their children, Yucca: hmm. Mark: You know, and ritual practices that they can conduct with their families. This book is for those folks. Yucca: Okay. Mark: You know, basically, it's a book for anybody who wants to develop a ritual practice. Yucca: Mm. And what about people who They already identify maybe as atheopagan and are just getting started or looking to deepen their practice Mark: Oh, for sure. Yeah, this, this book, it'll, it'll serve as a great resource for folks like our listeners. Who you know, they have you know, it's like we have the equinox coming up right now, right? So, you know, you can turn to the section about the spring equinox in the book and get some ideas for themes and ritual activities, recipes, craft projects And that's true of all of the Wheel of the Year celebrations. It's true of all of the Rites of Passage. So it, it really goes into some, some degree of extensive coverage of different ritual techniques and reasons for having rituals. Yucca: hmm. So this sounds a lot more like a how to book than your first book, right? The first book you were really digging into the, the what and the sort of intellectual side of things. What's this all about? And this is the how to practice. Mm Mark: That's right. The first book was mostly an idea book. It essentially told the story of how I had gone through, An internal exploration about, you know, what is a religion, and how can I get the benefits of religion without having to believe in the supernatural? You know, how could that work? And then the second part of the book, the first book was about describing atheopaganism as one implementation of a non supernatural religious path. That was focused on the, on the earth. This book is much more, as you say, a how to. It gives lots of examples and and it also talks about, you know, crafting your own individual rituals, ritual skills, like we talked about last week, a week before last. Talks about you know, personal rituals for your, for yourself when you need them, when you want to be confident or you want to be focused, those kinds of things you know, what, what some folks in the pagan community might call spells as well as the seasonal and rites of passage celebrations. Yucca: Great. So how is this structured? Because I've heard you talk about different holidays. Is it based on the wheel of the year? Or do you have a larger structure around that? Mark: There are sections that are about each of those areas. It starts out with kind of an idea section that's called a primer, and it's, talks about what spirituality is and why people have it and about rituals and then it goes into the basics about developing rituals and developing a practice for yourself. And different skills and art forms and so forth that can be used in the course of a ritual practice. And then the second part is about rituals in practice. Occasions for celebrating. Some of those are on the calendar. They're seasonal things. Some of them are like stations in life, particular passages that we make in our lives. There's a section on working with the dead and dying. Personal and healing rituals, building community for sharing rituals and then about just living a life that's consistent with the spiritual practice that's described here in very broad strokes, because everybody's going to have their own implementation of this, right? It's, this isn't a dogma book this is, this is a book of examples and ideas. To help inform people as they craft their own individual practice. And then the last section is called resources. And that is your craft, your recipes, guided meditations, recommended ritual music glossary, a bibliography, those kinds of things. Yucca: Fun. Okay. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Yeah. So there's, there's, there's quite a lot to it. I'm really very proud of this book. I think it came out very well. And and I've been waiting forever for it to come out. Working with a publishing company working with Llewellyn has been great. Let me say my editor has been great. And, you know, the marketing people and all those folks have been really great. But still working with a publishing company is a lot slower than self publishing. Yucca: right. Mark: know, once you've got a manuscript and you've got it all laid out, you can do a print on demand really quickly and, you know, start to get your book out there in the world. So, I actually finished the manuscript on this more than a year ago and I'm, and we're just going to see it April 8th. So, I've been anticipating this for a long time and I'm really excited about it. Yucca: Yeah. So in terms of the writing process, was that very different for you than when you self published? Mark: You know, it was because the, my first book, the Atheopaganism book, that was an expansion of what started out as an essay. There was about a 40 page essay that I wrote as the concepts of atheopaganism were developing in me, as I was discovering things, as I did research about the nature of religion and the evolution of the human brain and all that kind of stuff. I wrote an essay because that's, that's kind of the way that writing is the way that I have a dialogue with myself. Yucca: Mm Mark: So I wrote this essay essentially to kind of get my own thinking straight about, you know, what am I doing here? And what's the rational underpinning for it? And what does that look like? And so I had that essay already, and I was able to bulk that out with a lot of stuff from the blog and additional writing. It wasn't a sit down, develop an outline, and then write to it kind of thing, which this second book is. It's actually my third book. My second book is a collection of poetry called A Red Kiss. But this third book, Round We Dance. I would lock myself in my room and pound away at the keyboard day after day after day until it was finally done. Yucca: And did you have an editor that was waiting for pieces on a deadline or things like that Mark: No, they, they wanted the whole manuscript. So, we made, yeah, we made an agreement. When was it that I had to deliver it? Actually, no, it was longer ago than a year. I think it was the end of October of 2022. Yucca: Mm Mark: Yeah, it was the end of October of 2022 when I delivered the first manuscript. And then, of course, there's editing and grammatical and, you know, reorganizing various sections. As recommended by the editor, there's, so there's a lot of, a lot of pieces that, a lot of processes that go into that. But we've had pretty much the finished thing since last fall, and it's just been a manner of getting to the point where they can print. Yucca: Right. So, they've got other Mark: And the copyright, Yucca: go to the press and everyone who's test to go through it. And yeah. Mark: and you know, they've got to develop the cover art, all those various things. I collected testimonial paragraphs. For people who read the, the advance copy, the, the advance proof you know, with their feedback on it so that they could print those on the back cover, all those sorts of things. I love the cover art. You listening on the podcast, you will not be seeing it, but it's, it, it's really a very handsome book. I'm super pleased with it. Yucca: Yeah. So, what was your favorite part? If you can choose one favorite out of all of this, Mark: Favorite part. Oh boy. All right. I'm going to look at the Yucca: or maybe two, maybe a couple of favorites. And I suppose we should Mark: you know, Yucca: why, why you wanted to make this particular book, right? Because this is quite a different one than your previous works. Mark: sure, sure. I think, you know, one of the things that I really that I really like about the book is at the very beginning where I talk about spirituality and why that's important. I go into the atheopagan principles there as an example of a value set that people can embrace. for their lives to be happier and more meaningful and more kind. So those things I'm, I'm happy about. And also towards the end of the book, before the resource section when I talk about, you know, living the spiritual life engaging with the community and kind of beyond the ritual behavior building community and embodying the, the kind of practices that, and meanings that, that I talk about in the book. So, you know, both of those I think are, are good sections. I, I like them. But of course I would because I wouldn't have submitted them if I didn't. So, your mileage may vary. I really and, and Yucca, you've read the book because you wrote the foreword. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So you may have your own opinions about these things. But let me, let me read a little bit from the introduction. I'm going to do that. Humans thrive when they feel meaning in their lives, joy in living, and connection in community. These days, those things don't just happen. They have to be cultivated. They have to be created. Too often in our modern world, we fill our time with busyness, acquisition of money or possessions. or pursuit of fleeting pleasures. Those can provide a momentary sense of happiness, but they don't last. They're empty calories that soon wear off, which is why alienation and loneliness are so often cited as top concerns in polls about mental health. I've lived some of those struggles. I grew up in a hostile environment and have suffered chronic depression since grade school. Thankfully, it's been in remission for 10 years with good medication and practices. This book is about finding more sustaining nourishment that brings deep contentedness with our lives. The celebration of moments, large and small, that help us to understand our lives as worthwhile and joyous, to feel connected with our fellow humans and creatures, to feel a worthy part of the magnificent universe of which we are a part. A powerful means to these ends is to have a spiritual practice. Maybe that involves activities you perform daily, if that's what you like. Or maybe just a handful of times every year, but having them, practices and rituals that you bring, that bring you into the sense of meaning and connectedness, can mean all the difference between a rather hollow life and one overflowing with moments of joy. Yucca: Beautiful. So that's right at the beginning, right? Right. Mark: kind of what's, what's the point of this book and who's it for? and and I'm very clear in the book that this is This is, this is a book for anybody that's looking for the answers to those kinds of practical questions about how, how can my life feel better? How can I feel more of a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging in life? And I provide examples from atheopaganism, but I'm very clear on multiple occasions in the book, you don't have to do this. You know, you can, you can use all the stuff about the crafting of rituals here to create something that's very, very different than what I have or what atheopagans are practicing. So it's a, it's a more generalized book, I would say. Yucca: Okay. So people could plug this into different kinds of traditions. They might be a member of another tradition that it's about the tools and resources, not, they don't have to necessarily buy into the non theism component of it or things like Mark: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't talk about theism particularly because that's not my thing but The various techniques, for example, like guided meditations and solo journeying kinds of internal meditations and the various phases of developing a ritual all of those things will work for anybody. I'm actually reading a really good book right now about ritual. called Ritual, How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. That's a great complement to this book, I think. It's by a cultural anthropologist who's specialized in studying ritual throughout the world. And I'm only partway into it, but it provides a real, it and my first book provide a real sort of theory, anthropological underpinning to why the techniques in Round We Dance. Are effective, and why we as humans are the ritual making species, and we're one of the ritual making species. There are a lot of others. And so, you know, we're built for this. Every culture on Earth has ritual practices. And we've lost a lot of that in modernity, and it's good for us to go back to some of it. I don't think it's good for us to go back to it with a lot of supernatural belief around it. That's my personal take but having those kinds of meaningful practices, it just helps people. It helps them to, to live better. Yucca: So is this a book that people could jump into with no background in the area? Could somebody give this to their sister or their cousin or something like that? Mark: yes, yes. And, and that, that is definitely, was definitely at the forefront of my mind as I wrote it. It was not intended to be something where you had to read the atheopaganism book in order to get what's going on in Round We Dance. Which is why I've synopsized some of the material from the Atheopaganism book in Round We Dance, so that it's a standalone volume. My motivation in writing it, other than simply to say to, you know, a much broader audience, Hey, you know, there's something here, there's something here that people are finding of value. You don't have to make that great irrational leap into the supernatural. in order to embrace this stuff in your life in a meaningful way. Um, but also in my mind, there's sort of a, an amorphous idea of kind of an ecosystem of, of informational resources for atheopagans and non theist pagans and so forth. My first book is an example of that, as is this podcast, the Atheopaganism YouTube channel, my blog. The Atheopagan Society, all that kind of stuff and so part of that is kind of a list of books that I, I want to wish into existence for our community that can serve as resources for people and this was the next one on the list the and it incorporates a number of the Things that I think are really important, like it talks about death and dying and working with the dead and the dying and funereal rituals, as well as like naming rituals and passages into adulthood and all that kind of stuff. And so, for example, we've mentioned a couple of times the idea of an Atheopagan Families book. And, you know, that I just think there's a real need for that book. It's just kind of hanging out there waiting to happen. And but this book was the next one. This, this was the the next one that I felt really needed to happen, Yucca: Yeah. Well, that is really exciting that it is. Just around the corner. So it officially releases on the 8th of April, right? But it is available for pre order. Mark: It is. If you go to the Llewellyn website, and we can put a link directly to the page in the show notes you can order it for pre order it's 19. 99. And you'll, you'll get it in the mail in April. Um, I, Yucca: The moment it's just a physical book, right? There isn't an audio version. Okay. Mark: That's right. And to be honest, I don't know that an audio version of this book would be all that useful because so much of it is instructions for craft projects and recipes and, you know, things like that. Where just reading it out loud, probably people are not going to get a lot out of it. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: I don't know, maybe. mean, the first Atheopaganism book had a bunch of that stuff too, and the audiobook is paired with a PDF of downloadable resources that go with the book. that's, that's a way to approach it. What else was I going to say? Oh, I'm, I'm working on organizing a book launch party in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. And I'm planning on doing that on the 13th of April, which is a Saturday. Yucca: So that's the Mark: I don't have a location. It's the week after it comes out. Yeah. And presumably Llewellyn can get me books by then. And I can sign books and sell books and do a reading and know, schmooze with people and talk about what the purpose of it is and all that good kind of stuff. But I haven't found a location yet. I haven't really tried yet. So, watch my blog, atheopaganism. org Yucca: something here on the podcast, too, when you know, right? Mark: great. Great, good. It's it's funny, I've dropped into interviewee mode. So, oh, you'll do that. That's great. Thank you. Yucca: Yes. No, we'll make sure to include that, along with the reminders about the Sun Tree Retreat, and other things that are coming up so very, very soon, because this year is slipping away already. Mark: We are in the last month of the first quarter of the year. It's Yucca: It's almost equinox. Mark: over. Yucca: Yeah. That's amazing. Mark: is coming around. And as we record this isn't true in all places, but tonight, we're recording on Saturday, the the 9th. And tonight is when the clocks spring forward and everybody gets all cattywampus for Yucca: Yeah. Mark: of days while they're adjusting to this completely unnecessary aberration in our plot. Yucca: Which, by the way, does not change at the same time as Europe or Australia. They're all different, which is for when you, I teach a lot of classes online and it's just, this whole month is havoc because this, this country doesn't change and this country does, and it's at a different time, and it's, ugh. So, and then, in a few months we'll have to do it all again. Mark: right, Yucca: Because it's not like it's a nice even six months. So, Mark: No, and I sure wish it was. I mean, one of the things that I appreciate about where I happen to be is that the The daylight savings change back in the autumn happens right on top of the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. So right at hallows time suddenly you're plunged into darkness. And there's It's just kind of cool. You know, suddenly everything, it's like, welcome to the dark time of the year. Boom. There you are. It's dark. Not so much with spring. Yucca: Spring is harder. Mark: I wish that we were, it is. Yucca: Oh, yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: I'm sure people can remember every year I complain about this. I just want us to do away with it. I don't care which one we stick to. Let's just stick to one of the times and knock it off with the going back and forth. And I mean, as a kid, I appreciated the fallback, because for those A couple of days before your body got used to it, it felt like you got to sleep in a little extra before getting up in the cold and getting on the bus and everything, but now I'm just like, no, no, this is just too much of a hassle. Let's, let's all do, like, Arizona. Mark: and it serves no practical purpose. It doesn't increase productivity. It doesn't It doesn't save energy. It doesn't do any of those things. The study on it is, is really assiduous and it does not do any of the things that it was proposed to do when it was first imposed. Yucca: Yeah. But we've got the momentum of it, and changing that is, that's the tricky part, and I think it's hard for one state at a time to do it. I think it just needs to happen on the national level, and then, Mark: Yeah. Well, there are a lot of states that have now passed laws, California is one of them that say that if the federal government changes it and gets rid of Yucca: Then this is what time we will be. Mark: Yes, we, we will go along with that. So, because states can independently change their mind about that. They can make their own time zone rules, which is one of the weird things about our system of government. Yucca: Well, our, our state, every year we have a bill, it makes it pretty far through the legislature, and then it ends up getting blocked by the folks from CRUCIS, because and because they're so close to El Paso, they don't want to be Like, sometimes, like, yeah, they don't want the clocks to, yeah so, Mark: politics is local. Yucca: yep. So, but yeah, I would rather we just stick with Arizona the whole time and then we'd be good. We could just be our little, our little friends. Mark: one of the only ways in which I can think I want us to, like, be like Arizona, but other than the beautiful landscape, I mean, Yucca: I was gonna mention, they have some amazing, yeah, that's a whole different conversation, but some amazing, Mark: we've had our tangent, we've already had our tangent for the for Yucca: I know, I thought we weren't because this was going to be an interview one, but we had it anyways. So, is there anything else that you'd like to let people know about the book, or Mark: You know, Yucca: coming up? Well, Mark: the book, or I closed the kind of narrative section before you get into the resources with a poem called Ecstasy, and I think I'm going to read that as kind of a close. Ecstasy, ever more open, arms flung wide, let the warm, wet wings of your chest be spread. Until barehearted there, only the longing of joy is with you. The sweetness of life's 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 the cosmos singing out to cold space, out to blackness and beginnings, all whirling and singing and spinning, sacred, ever changing. 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. And that's, that's the life I invite people to share, to build for themselves. Yucca: thank you. Thank you for putting all of the time and energy and love into writing this. So I'm really excited to see it come out to the world. Mark: me too. Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate the opportunity. Yucca: Yeah, thanks for joining us. We should do it again. All right. Well, I think next week will be equinox already. Mark: Yeah. Yep. We'll be talking about the equinox. So, so onward it goes. Yucca: On and on. All right. Well, thanks, Mark. Mark: Thanks, everybody. See you next week.   

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!

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com Suntree Retreat 2024: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2024/ Season 5 - Episode 5 ----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 visit the four core ritual skills. Now, obviously, there are a lot of different things that can be useful in leading rituals and in in participating in them, but these are four clusters of activity. That if you're good at them, you're going to have a lot more success both in leading rituals and in submerging yourself into the ritual trance y state, the flow state where you can really have effective things happen in rituals. Yucca: Great. Mark: that's what we're gonna do today. Yucca: And this is more from the lens of a group ritual than necessarily a private ritual because there's a few things we'll be talking about, like the speech part, which maybe you might do in a private ritual or maybe you don't. But when you're, when you have that interaction between multiple people and what we're going to be talking about, you can apply a lot of that to your private rituals as well, to your solo or individual. Mark: Sure. I know people who are who are pagans and whose solo practice involves a lot of dance, for Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: because they're very movement oriented people and that's, that's what they do even, you know, in the privacy of their solo rituals. Yucca: Right. Mark: so yes and, and beyond that, these are good skills just to have in the world, you know, it's, it's helpful to have these. So why don't we start with public speaking, Yucca: Yeah. So, especially when you are leading the ritual, the words are how we communicate with each other and communicate these really complex ideas. We're gonna communicate other things through our body language, through movement, but when we're trying to communicate nuanced ideas, it's words. Mark: right? And this is the, the whole cluster of things that go into verbal communication, right? So it's not only speaking in coherent sentences and, you know, having an interesting modulation to your voice so that you're not speaking in a monotone. It's engaging. People are, you know, want to listen to it, but also the physical ability just to project your voice out, right? So that people that are in that space can hear what you're saying. All of those things are, are, they're learned skills. All of our speaking abilities are learned skills. I mean, we watch little kids slowly accumulate the ability to communicate about complex Yucca: Right? We start with a half a dozen sounds. Words that are instinctual, that are, I'm hungry, I'm in pain, and that's it. Everything else that, how many thousands of words do we know in each language, right? Each language's vocabulary amazing, Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And clearly, evolution has strongly favored our capacity to do this because a whole lot of brain space is taken up by our capacities to learn language and to speak. And then, of course, the whole separate factor of being able to read and write, which is a different set of skills, right? And a set of skills that we're not really talking about so much today. Yucca: right, Mark: Now, not everybody is a natural. Public speaker. I feel very fortunate that I happen to be gifted in that regard and that I can just sort of improvisationally talk about things that interest me not so much about things that don't interest me, but that's an ADHD thing, I think, Yucca: mhm. And I'm the opposite. Speaking is very difficult. I didn't speak till I was four. This is all learned and hard earned hard, it was difficult to learn to do, and I'm not comfortable with public speaking, despite doing it for a living but it's, if I was to be leading a ritual, it would be something that I would do. be practicing ahead of time. And that's just different ways of being, right? You just kind of need to know yourself that, Mark, it seems like you could just kind of go into it, you know, have a little bit of an idea and be able to know what to say in the moment. I'd have to think about that ahead of time. Mark: yeah, often I can just go into it with kind of a mental outline. If I'm giving a long address, like an hour long, Something. I'll work from a, an outline, but that's usually only a page. So it's just, I don't know, it's, it's something that, that I have an aptitude for and I feel really fortunate for that. And I also don't take any credit for it because it's just a genetic die roll. I happened to, to land that. The, so there are a variety of different techniques that you can use in order to improve your ability. To, to do public speaking, it's, it's very, very difficult for people to remain interested in watching someone read something aloud. Yucca: Right. Mark: That's very challenging. So if you can speak from an outline, like on an index card, that can be A much better way to go, but if you need to, like, write out the first sentence of every paragraph or something to kind of give yourself a launching point to go from there are just some practical things you can do that will make it easier for you to do that in a ritual context. Use a binder, for example. It looks a little more formal, and you don't have to worry about pages shuffling all over the place. You can hold the binder, you know, like people do when they're singing in a choir or something like that, and just refer down to it, and then look up to make eye contact with people in the group so that they feel engaged. That eye contact piece is very important. Yucca: Yeah. And the, and it's a practice thing as well, but the length of eye contact is going to depend on how many people you have in your group. But often Your one to three seconds is kind of that sweet spot where it's, you're acknowledging the person, but not, it doesn't become uncomfortable. You're not, Mark: Right. Yucca: having it feel like they're being examined or peered into. It's There's just that moment of connection. Now, if you've got a group of 20 people, you don't have time to make three second eye contact with every single person there. But if you have a group of four people, then that's a, you know, you just gotta have to judge it in the moment. Mark: Right. In the, in the case of that group of 20 people, you can pick individuals out of the group that you make that eye contact with and then maybe use a different set the next time you look up so that eventually everybody feels kind of included. And the, the trick with eye contact, which I know is very uncomfortable for some people, is that you can look somebody right between the eyes, straight between their eyebrows, and you're not making eye contact with them, and they won't know it. Yucca: And it's, yeah, it still feels like it. Rather than focusing on, you know, when you're making true eye contact, you're really looking at one of the pupils, right? But you don't actually need to do that, yeah. Mark: Just, just that little bit of difference at any kind of distance at all, they're not going to know. In many cases in ritual settings, we're working under low light conditions, so that makes it even a little bit fuzzier. And that's a way that you can keep yourself from becoming as self conscious as you might be by looking someone straight in the eyes. Yucca: Right, because if you are, now this is if you're leading it, you are keeping track of a lot of things. in your mind at that moment. But for the eye contact, being a participant in a ritual, there's the eye contact with the person who is leading it and with the others, and that's just a nice, that's a nice trick to have, just a nice tool, not trick in like a manipulative way, but just a nice tool for your social toolbox. Mark: Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a way to self, save yourself from a feeling of, that you're too exposed. Because that's the thing about eye contact is that it feels very exposing to both of, both people who are, who are meeting their gaze. And so if you fudge a little bit, it, it can make you feel a little bit less exposed and more confident. Yucca: right. Mark: Now I, I, oh, go ahead. Yucca: Oh, I was going to say, and it can be something on just the eye contact is something that can be very powerful when it's consensual, right? Like if some of the most powerful experiences I've had with others is just sitting and having a few minutes of just looking into their eyes. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And it can just be really, really moving just a very powerful experience. But it has to be consensual, right? And that's, that's something that we need to mention about everything with ritual, is that there needs to be consent for whatever is happening in the Mark: Indeed. And that's why it's important to give people an overview at the beginning of a ritual about what we're going to do. Now, that doesn't mean exposing every little detail. It can be fine to have things that are surprising not in a negative way, but you can have, you know, surprises along the way that transformative and go, Oh, wow, look, that's what's happening now. But you do want to make sure that everybody has pretty well signed on to going on this ride with you. That's, Yucca: Especially if there's going to be any physical contact, Mark: Oh, yes. Yucca: right? Like, if people are going to hold hands or, you know, put their hands on someone's shoulder or anything like that, that's, it's really important that people know that that's what they're getting into. Because people have very different experiences with that. They don't owe it to us to explain why they're not comfortable or are comfortable with it. That's their business, right? Mark: Exactly so. Um, and I, I referenced a minute ago something, and I'm, and I'm glad that I reminded myself about this because, okay, so, so you're listening to the things that we're talking about here. You've got your, your outline in a binder, and you're, you know, reading that first sentence or getting the reminder of what that next little statement is supposed to be about, and then looking up and looking at people between the eyes so that you don't have to feel uncomfortable about actually meeting their gaze, and then you realize that you can't see what's on the page because you're in low light conditions, and then you get out your flashlight, and And try to hold it in your mouth and read at the same time. And it doesn't work Yucca: for everyone listening, Mark literally put a flashlight in his mouth in that moment that you just happened to have right next to you. Mark: Yes, there happened to be one on my table here. So what you want to do is you want to have some sort of a light source that will clip to your binder, One of those, you know, little, you know, night, Yucca: lamps so that you don't wake your partner up in bed, sort of thing, or yeah, Mark: Very useful tool for a ritual leader to have. They make a, a little light, they've got a little shade on them so that it isn't blinding to other people. And it really gives you the light that you need without being too obtrusive. Yucca: and you can get them in kind of a, an Amber, reddish light, too, and that's really nice because that doesn't spoil people's dark vision as much as like a bright white or blue light might. Mark: Right. I actually saw a park ranger giving a campfire talk using one of those. Yucca: Mm. Mark: seemed like she was new or something, and, you know, didn't quite have the whole wrap down yet necessarily. She Yucca: memorized the entire thing. Mark: Right. She did a great job, but she had to refer to notes and didn't actually use a binder. She used a clipboard, but, you know, same kind of deal. Yeah, and, and she used that amber color. So that people could look up at the stars because part of her part of what she referenced was was stars. Yucca: Right. It was a nighttime activity that you were doing. You weren't out in, you know, the middle of the day, noon, the baking sun. Not in Mark: right. No, we were around a fire and the fire, of course, made some light, but the, but not. I mean, it's going to, that's, that's right. It's going to cast a shadow towards your face, so that's not going to do any good. And it's flickering to begin with, which just makes it very unreliable for reading. So that's a, you know, a little, a little tip that, you know, will actually do you a lot of good if you're doing public speaking in a, in a dark, Yucca: would really encourage people not to use your phones as your light when you're in a ritual setting because just the presence of a phone or a tablet or something like that can really pull people out of the present moment. And the, there's, we, we have a pretty big issue in our society where, with the what is it called? Fubbing? Where people, when their phone is out? In social situations, and somebody's looking at the phone, and then the person who's interacting with them is getting the social signal of, I'm not interested in what you're saying because I keep looking at the phone and so there's a, a lot of people have a emotional, often unconscious, but emotional response to the other person's got their phone out, they're not interested. Mark: right. Yucca: So when we're dealing with symbology and metaphor that, that can be something that's very triggering for people, is to have that phone out. Mark: Great point. I'm really glad you brought that up. And that's another reason why you don't want to have your notes on your phone or on a tablet. I know it's convenient. I know it means that you can just type everything up without printing anything out, any of that sort of stuff. But removing, removing most forms of digital technology from the ritual circle, It helps, and I'm not entirely sure why it helps, but it does. There's something about that technology that is just so riveting for people, it draws their attention so heavily, it becomes much more difficult to be present, and that, of course, is core to what we work to do in a ritual space. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Um, I, I'm reminded, I've just started, I've started game mastering a game for the first time in 37 years. Yucca: Oh, wonderful. Mark: had our we're playing Shadow Dark. And we started week before last, I'm gonna run another session this week. And one of the things that I, I, I told them, this is gonna be the most painful thing that you're gonna have to do all evening. I made them stack all their phones on the table. If you touch them, you take damage. Yucca: oh, that's brilliant. Mark: You, you, you Yucca: But yeah, it hurts. It can be really uncomfortable to be separated from it. Mark: Sure, because whenever people are, are distracted or bored or uncomfortable, their go to is to bury themselves in their phones. And it's, you know, we, we had a very lively, good social interaction throughout the game because people were engaged with one another rather than with their phones. So, you know, waiting for their turn. So, yeah, that was a great thing. Yucca: Mm hmm. You know, I think that there's a lot of parallels between game mastering and leading a ritual. Mark: I Yucca: So many overlaps between those skills, because on both, you're, you're, it's, both things are collective storytelling, and as the ritual leader, or as the game master, you're guiding that experience, but you're not controlling that experience. Mark: Yeah, that's absolutely true. And, and that has occurred to me before as well that tabletop fantasy role playing games or, or any genre of tabletop games are, they're a group ritual. They, they are a thing that we do, we get together, they have certain kinds of cultural conventions, like rolling dice and, you know, waiting for your turn and all that kind of stuff. And they are consensual behaviors to create a group experience, which is what a ritual is, right? Yucca: Right. Mark: Yeah. The goal isn't necessarily personal transformation, it's entertainment. Yucca: Yeah. Although sometimes, there's, you can have some pretty emotionally powerful experiences. Mark: yes, absolutely. Yeah, I've had players weeping, I've had players falling off their chairs laughing. There's, there's, there's, there's a lot there. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, that's, Yucca: Yeah, let's go to our next one, Mark: Yeah, that's public speaking. And the good news about public speaking is that the more you do of it, it will become easier. It won't necessarily become easy, but it will become easier. And that's true of all of these skill sets that we're talking about today. The next one that I want to talk about is singing. Yucca: which shares a lot with much of what we've just been talking about with the speaking, but has, has some additional Elements added onto it. Mark: Right. And it does different things. It taps different parts of the brain, and it's much more accessible to the emotional self than, than linear language. There's something about intoning and making harmony and the kind of poetry that tends to be associated with with the songs that you sing in a ritual state, in a ritual setting, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: all of which, It's just transformative. It moves you emotionally, and that is, of course, a very important part of what we work to do. Yeah, Yucca: And depending on what the song is, it can still be vocal without being verbal. There's many rituals that I've been to that have just had Just had sounds, like, just vowels with the, with the tune and that, that's a nice thing for those of us who aren't really wordsy people or who find lyrics to be difficult to, to catch on to. Some people are really fast with that, right? You put it, my, my youngest, you put anything in a song and he's got it. He's got the lyrics to it. He's got the words. And like, how are you even singing? You know, we'll listen to songs in languages he doesn't speak, and he's singing along with it, right? So some people's brains work that way, and other people, I can, I can get the melody, but what are the words to that? I don't know. So it's a nice opportunity sometimes to have the songs that are just sounds that people can just join in with if they're comfortable with it or not, right? Mark: right. And that raises two really interesting things for me. The first of which is that I like for it to be a convention in the rituals that I do that if someone just can't get the lyrics or doesn't like the lyrics or whatever it is, they can just ah along, you know, they can just sing the vowel ah and still, still get the melody out there, right? So that they're participating, so that they have a role, and that's a perfectly acceptable role. The other Is that there's this wonderful practice called circle singing. I don't know if you've heard of this.  Yucca: Keep going, because it could mean several different things. Mark: it's a directed, like, like a choral director kind of program where The choral director will sing one line and will teach a group of the participants that line, and they'll sing it over and over and over again, and then the choral director sings another part for another three people that interlocks with that first melody, so what you end up with is this, and you can have, you know, three, four, even five parts if you're really good at this what you end up with is this very intricate, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. Sort of tapestry of sound the musician Bobby McFerrin does this a lot. He used to do a New Year's Eve singing in the New Year's circle song event at the Glide Cathedral in San Francisco every year. And it's just, it's a cool way for people that aren't going to do lyrics and may only need to You know, seeing a very simple, repeated line to still be fully engaged in participating in making something that's really cool. Yucca: yeah. Just make sure that there's a group of people for each line, that you don't have one person trying to remember and carry that so that when they do so that they can Use the other person as help for when they forget the line or get a little bit confused because they're hearing the other song and, you know, so don't try, don't put one person on the spot for it who's not, you know, the professional singer. Mark: right. You can also do this with round. There are a lot of, of musical rounds that, you know, you teach one line to one group of people and another line to another group of people or you teach the whole thing to everybody and then you start them off set. So one person sing, you know, one group sings the first line, and then the second group starts singing the first line again as the first group continues to do the second line, and you just go around like that. And rounds can be very beautiful and really trance inducing to sing. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So singing, it's, and I know there are a lot of people out there who are like, I'm tone deaf, I can't sing I can't carry a tune. That is true for some people. It is true for some people. And what you may want to do instead is to learn how to use your voice rhythmically. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So, instead of having to carry tones, you can just bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, kind of along with whatever the, the rhythm of the musical piece is, so that you still have a way to plug in. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: But the other thing is that a lot of people who think that they're tone deaf just haven't tried. They haven't, they haven't practiced. I, I wouldn't, Yucca: And not try, but Mark: try isn't the right word. Yucca: built the skill over that have that it has it doesn't necessarily come natural Mark: Right. Yucca: to build that skill is something that takes time and takes exposure just like we were talking about with the public speaking Mark: Yes. That's, that's, that's what I meant. I didn't like the word try either, so thank you. Yucca: but yeah it may be something that just takes the exposure and time and and really and it's going to take different amounts of time for different people right and we're all coming at it from different emotional experiences Mark: Right, right. Yeah and this actually leads us to our third skill set, which can be something that you can replace singing with. This is rhythm and drumming or percussion of various kinds. Because there are people out there that have a wonderful sense of rhythm and are terrific in a percussive sense and just particularly good at following a tune. And that's okay. That's perfectly alright. Um, the, the evocative nature of rhythm and drumming and what it does in our bodies cannot be overstated. know, a good complex drumming riff almost forces us to move. I'm a very heady person, and I grew up over medicated for ADHD, so I twitched all the time. I had lots of tics. So, you know, my body kind of betrayed me a lot, and I've always had kind of an ambivalent relationship with it because of that. The, but still, when I'm in a ritual circle and there's good drumming going on, I want to move, you know, I, I, I want to go. Yucca: yeah, that's, I share that experience. I'm also very, very much in my head a lot of the time, but it feels like it just pulls my awareness down and into my body and kind of spreads it out to a more body awareness and just brings me down to that connection and I feel much more connected with the ground and the rhythm and the, it's just very powerful. Mark: Yes, very much so, and I've, I have a lot of conjectures about why that might be, most of them having to do with a mother's heartbeat. Yucca: yeah, because we all started out hearing. Hearing it, Mark: yeah, Yucca: her pulse was there. Mark: right, all the time, and it got faster and it got slower and, Yucca: and you got the, some of the, not all of them, but some of the hormones crossing the placenta into you, so you're sharing some of those feelings with her as you're associating what her heart is doing. Mark: right. Yucca: You're also getting to hear all the gurgles of her digesting and all of that stuff too. Mark: Right. That's true. Yucca: But that heart, that ever present heart, Mark: Yes. Yes. And the sort of the, the softening sound of the lungs, breathing in, breathing out. There's probably a little bit of a stretching sound with the diaphragm Yucca: You probably feel that, too, as you're taking up more space. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: And then you probably kicked her in the diaphragm a few times and she went, Right, no Mark: out maybe, maybe not to do that again. Yucca: what your experience later on in life, we all started That way with that very primal experience of being before our minds and brains had really developed the way they are now before, at least I think, I mean, we're human beings, but, you know, even before that, but before we really did. come into being an aware person in the way that we are Mark: sure. Yucca: individuals on the outside, that's, you know, I like thinking about all of that, about thinking about that transition between going from just being a part of her to being our own people, and then, yeah, Mark: And the whole sort of unboxing experience of, you know, turning the lights on in various parts of your brain and, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's really fascinating. Yucca: yeah and just the, I think the development of how we, so this is something, we often talk about you know, growing a baby, right? And as the mothers, we are, sort of, except it's actually the baby that's growing themselves. Their body is telling themselves what to do. We're supplying all, we're supplying the home for that, all of the supplies, but from the moment that, that cell, is following its own instructions and becoming its own person. And it's just amazing the different, you know, what we do know of it and the different steps of, like, when certain things develop. Like, when they start being able to sense light, right? About halfway through, you can shine a light on your belly and they'll start kicking because they can see the light. But a week before, they couldn't see the light. They didn't respond to it because they Physically couldn't see it, and now they can, and I, it's just a, I think it's an amazing process, and we, we've just barely begun to, to scratch the surface of understanding what's, what's happening. And we all went through it. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Don't consciously remember it, but I think it affects us later on, which Mark: Oh, I agree. Yucca: the rhythm, Mark: Yeah. I absolutely agree. Yucca: it's speculation on our part that our connection to rhythm is connected to that heart, but it seems like, this seems like a logical path to take. Mark: Yeah. And I mean, many babies when they're very young will be responsive to rhythmic music. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: know, it's like if there's, if there's a strong, steady beat in something, they will move to it. Yucca: Yep. Mark: So that's all to say that it's coded very deeply in us to be responsive to that. You know, to the pulsing of rhythm and the ability to create that, even if it's just a steady beat, like a heartbeat kind of beat. It doesn't have to be Zakir Hussain playing the tablas. I mean, if, if you're, if you have a good sense of rhythm and you're interested in putting in the time that it takes to develop, you know, those wonderful Middle Eastern or African or Indian or Yucca: Or any, yeah, there's Mark: any culture, you know, Amazing repertoires than, you know, do that because we need more of that in the world. But just the ability, you know, I have a good rhythm sense, but I'm, I have ADHD and it's very hard for me to do things that I'm not good at for a long period of time until I become good at them. So I just have a frame drum, a simple, round. Frame drum. And I use that for creating sort of a drone y rhythm, heartbeat sound in rituals. And it makes a big difference. Yucca: mm hmm, Mark: It's a really big difference. So I really encourage all of you that are developing your, your ritual tool set, you know, to get shakers or claves, you know, the wooden things that hit against one another or Or a drum and just start, play around. It's fun. It's fun to do. Yucca: And earlier we were talking about, you know, some of the caution around phones and technology and things like that, but I do think that there can be a place for the recorded music as well especially when it comes to the drumming and keeping a beat and things like that. When you have a group of people. And you have multiple instruments. I mean, to me, that's golden, right? You have the whole group doing it. But if you're in a solo situation, or, you know, your hands are busy doing lots of other things, or whatever it is, you know, there's a lot of great things recordings of, of drumming and rhythm and things like that. Mark: Yeah. And there's been a resurgence or, or a surg I guess, which is sort of the first thing of of groups that do very sort of ritually trancey kind of music groups like Dead Can Dance and Wardruna and ung and you know, some groups like that, that really, you know, they're really exploring that. That way that rhythm can really influence us at a physical level and that stuff can be great ritual music, can be really useful. There's actually a page on my blog that is musical suggestions for ritual, and there's a long list of different possible things that you can choose from for, with different kinds of flavors and styles. Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. My suggestion would be, though, listen through to what, to what it is before you use it in your ritual. Because sometimes there can be a little bit of a surprise in there that was like, Ooh, that was not, that was not what I was going Mark: That wasn't what I was looking Yucca: this ritual. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Now that, I think. moves really nicely into our final one, which is movement itself. I have a hard time hearing a rhythm and not moving to it. Mark: Huh. Yucca: Because it's just, as we were talking about, it's just so powerful. There's, I mean, they're so connected. The Venn diagram of, of rhythm and movement to me are, they're not quite a circle, but they're pretty close. Mark: They're pretty close. Yeah. And I, I find rhythm to be such an invitation to movement and because I'm so heady most of the time, my body is really thirsty for that kind of activity. So it's, there's a very, there's a liberating quality. To, you know, moving, like moving in a ritual circle and dancing and, and, you know, interacting with a fire and interacting with other people and just all that. That sense of freedom. It feels like flying in a way. It's, it's, it's a very strong, very free, very, very filled with yourself kind of feeling like you're expressing yourself in a really full way. Yucca: and a couple of things to keep in mind if you are the one designing or leading the ritual with a group of people to have options for different levels of mobility. So some people may need to have a chair or something to be sitting in, and may not necessarily be able to do a big spiral dance around the fire or something like that. And so having natural options for them. To be able to participate is really important. Go ahead. Mark: Yes. And what I was going to say is that when you blend These ritual skills, you can give people opportunities to do things that, that are within their abilities, right, that are consistent with their aptitudes, what they're interested in doing and what they can do. So, you know, you can have some people who are sitting and drumming and other people who are up and dancing and singing, you know, or You know, some combination thereof. I remember I was at a Fire Circle ritual. God, it's gotta be seven years ago now. And there was all, you know, we were, we were in this really high point in the ritual and dancing and, you know, the drums are thundering along, you know, very intricate, super talented drummers. And then suddenly they stopped and everybody slowed down but kept moving. While someone did a spoken word piece, and it was beautiful, it was just this, this, this rapt moment, you know, when you could almost still hear the echoes of the drums because it had been so loud and so fervent and so intense and then suddenly downshift and it all went into this other place, Yucca: someone suddenly starts whispering and everyone has to lean in to listen to what is that whisper? What are they saying? Mark: Exactly. Yucca: wow. Wow. Mark: Which is why I like the, the center portion of a ritual after invocations and creation of a safe container to be somewhat improvisational, you know, that there's room for different people to contribute different things if there's time and if that's the kind of ritual that people want to do. But I've had great experiences with that sort of thing. So movement and yes, people can be very self conscious. I, you know, as I described, I had a difficult relationship with my body and I didn't start dancing until I was in my late twenties. And a low light condition helps. Yucca: Right. Mark: You know, that sense that you're not being watched by other people really helps. Yucca: And a timing in the ritual I think can make a really big difference for people because it is something that is a little bit, can be a little bit uncomfortable that. Most people are not comfortable jumping straight into dancing, right? So, it might be something that needs a little bit of warm up to get to the place where people feel like they can can do that, right? So maybe you, you work towards it with some of the spoken and then moving into the singing and then into the dancing. And just, just kind of know your audience, right? If you're working with a circle that you see every You know, every Mark: Few weeks or Yucca: then you're going to have a, it's going to be a very different relationship than this is the once a year summer solstice celebration that you're doing at the Pagan Pride Festival. Mark: Right, right. Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, obviously, making tailorings and adjustments for for whoever it is that you're going to be working with in a ritual is really key and there is a way to work with people of every level of ability, every level of ability. Of uniqueness, in terms of their aptitudes, their capacities there's, there's stuff that can be done that can help people to come into a ritual space. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So, it's, it's, but it, having these four tools in your quiver there's a mixed metaphor, having, having these four arrows on your tool belt, Yucca: Yes. Mark: It's a good way to start because then you have the capacity to pull out whatever seems to be the right thing for that group of people at that particular moment. Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. And these are things that you can incorporate into your solo practice, and that's where a lot of the practice that we've been talking about. We'll start, Mark: Mm Yucca: right, becoming comfortable with the singing or the dancing I'm saying those ones in particular because those ones are ones that I think are really hard for our culture. We have a very, very sedentary culture. We're very much expected to stay still and seated and especially in social situations. We find, we're very uncomfortable with movement overall. Mark: We're also uncomfortable with sound, to some degree. I mean, this varies from culture to culture, but, I mean, British people will tell you how loud Americans are, but having lived in Spain, Americans aren't that loud. Yucca: No, depending on which part of Spain though, right? Even Mark: Well, yes. Yucca: in Basque country, their opinion of the Andalusians, you know, is wildly different, Mark: Oh yes, Yucca: But yeah, so it depends on, on what cultural context but speaking very, very broadly of, of you know, North American, so American and Canadian, we tend to be compared to say, somebody from the Mediterranean, we tend to be pretty, we tend reserved and I'll, you know, we don't talk with our bodies as much and we don't get up and dance and, you know, that sort of thing is very difficult for us. Mark: right, Yucca: And so it might take some time getting used to doing that on your own and then practicing in a group and the more times you do it, you know, the, the The more practice you have, the more skill that you're going to build up in that. And it's okay if it takes some time, but it's worth it, I think, right? Because I think that those rituals can be really powerful and just very enriching, Mark: yeah, yeah, that's definitely been my experience and I don't claim by any means to have fully mastered any of these things even the ones that I'm naturally good at and so it's a work in progress and that's always great because it's not about getting there, it's not about arriving, it's about the process of evolving over time, which is what we're about. Yucca: right? Mark: For as long as we get, we can evolve. Yucca: Yeah, it's kind of like an evening walk. You don't take the evening walk to get to a place. You take it for the enjoyment of going out and, you know, the birds are singing and changing their tune and the air feels cool and, you know, all of that experience. It's about that. Mark: Right. Exactly. So this has been a cool conversation, Yucca. Thank you so much. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and I look forward to, in just a few short months, doing some rituals with you and the rest of the folks coming to the Sun Tree Retreat. So that's coming up. Mark: We're actually releasing the program for Suntree Retreat this week. Yucca: Mm Mark: there's, you'll if, you know, you're in the community in various ways, you'll see various promotions to, to make sure that people can download that and take a look at all the Rituals and workshops and, and things we're going to be doing. So, and shout out to Michael O'Halloran, Michael O'Halloran of our community who's done a lot of work on that program. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: thanks everybody. We really appreciate your listening to the podcast and welcome your, your input and your questions as always. We'll see you next week.   

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com Suntree Retreat 2024: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2024/ Season 5 - Episode 3 ----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca, Mark: And I'm Mark. Yucca: and we are back in another year. To talk about that February holiday and the Wheel of the Year, Mark: Yeah because this is the first holiday after a spate of activity that is reflected in mainstream holidays like Halloween and Christmas and Hanukkah and those sorts of things. And this one, you know, this one we fly solo as pagans, right? Yucca: right? I mean, there is an associated Catholic celebration at the time, but, you know, that's that's not the whole mainstream culture, Mark: right, it hasn't been secularized the way so many other, you know, holidays have been, that have been turned into sort of generic practices that nearly everybody does. Yeah and here in the Northern Hemisphere, there is noticeably more light now. I was noticing yesterday there was still light in the sky at quarter of six. Yucca: Oh. Mark: that was pretty cool, because, you know, at the solstice, the sun goes down at about 425, Yucca: hmm. Mark: so there was, that's, that's a big change, and it's, it's still wet and cold here because this tends to be the coldest time of the year, really, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: But, you At least the days aren't so incredibly short and those long, long, long, long nights that we get in the deep of winter. Yucca: Yeah, well, it's so different in different places, what's going on, right? We've talked about this before, but you know, for some people, for me, this is the most bitter time of the year. January, the beginning of February it's actually quite funny, last night, my kids really wanted to do a campfire. And We've been talking about it all week and we had finally rusted out our campfire bowl. So we have a, because we have to be very, even in the winter like this, we have to be really careful about fire safety. So what we have is we have this Like a, a ring of stones with gravel, and then we have one of those fire bowls that's lifted up that you can put a lid on. But we had finally rusted out the bottom of the one that we had had for years, so we had to get a new one and wait for it to come. And, you know, they wanted to do the, the, the first fire and the new bowl and all of that. And it was a full work day for me, so I get out of work and we go outside. And it starts snowing. Mark: Ha ha ha Yucca: And so we're out there trying to get this fire to start in the snow, and the way we ended up finally doing it was putting a hat of foil on top of the fire to get it to go. So because once the fire started, as the snow would come close to it, it would heat up and melt and evaporate and would be fine. But when you're trying to start a wet fire, it was, it was quite, quite a an event to do so. But I was thinking about how, for us, this is the, we will quickly move into spring in a few months, but this is the coldest, most bitter, you know, we had over the past few weeks, we had single digits in Fahrenheit. So, you know, we're, and for those who do Celsius, we're talking about, you know, negative 15 degrees Celsius, and those sorts of temperatures, the ground is frozen. But for other people, This is a holiday in which they're celebrating, oh look, the little flowers are starting to peek through the snow, and spring is here, and everything is brightening up, and I'm like, it's cold. That's what it is here. It's cold. So, and of course, folks who are in, you know, Florida, it's a completely different experience for them, or Southern California, or Anywhere even closer to the equator is just radically different. Mark: One of our community members was talking about how right around now is when it's most tolerable in Florida because it gets so hot and muggy in the summertime and so this, which, you know, would generally be the coldest time of the year, is actually quite pleasant, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That's the time when you go outside, so it really depends on where you are. Where I am, it's been raining long enough that the hills have all greened up, and so the, and the first wildflowers are coming up. Of course, because of climate change, we've been watching this happen progressively earlier. You know, with the years and Narcissus and daffodils are up. They're they're not fully blooming yet, but they are up. And it's and they're wildflowers like milkmaids and paintbrush and a couple of other of the early ones.  Yucca: Our daffodils won't be till April or May. Mark: yeah, yeah, exactly. So, um, so yeah, I mean, this, this brings to mind, you know, how, how in, in atheopaganism we talk about crafting your own wheel of the year, right? Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Because there is, unlike in a situation like Wicca, where you're kind of celebrating the climate of the Yucca: hmm. Mark: in the 1940s. Because all of that's changed as well. This is more where you craft something that is that reflects what you see around you. And so it's more about connecting with the cycles of nature that are happening where you are. I really like the name that was created by a member of our community for this holiday which is brightening, because that's a little more universal. Yes it may be freezing, but the days are longer. So, there is at least that. Yucca: Yes. Yeah. I think that this holiday really lends itself To that crafting your own wheel of the year, much more than some of the other ones like solstice or hollows might because there isn't the same tie in to mainstream secular culture, where there isn't anything, I mean the closest thing I guess, Valentine's Day? Right? But that really doesn't, that's, that's a few weeks later, that feels really different, I don't know, maybe some people do connect those two things, for me they've been, they've Never had anything to do with each other. That's a totally separate holiday. But there's just nothing else, really, this time of year to, to draw on. So it really is, draw from what's going on in your environment. And, you know, maybe the Wicca influence, which works again for some people who live in a similar climate, but my climate is Very, very different Mark: Right. Yucca: that part of the world, so, Mark: And mine is too, because I'm in a, in a Mediterranean, a quasi Mediterranean climate, more reflective of what like the South, you know, Southern Italy or something like that would be like, Yucca: mm hmm, mm Mark: because of the coastal influence here in Northern California. Yeah, so One of the things that I find about this sort of create your own adventure approach to the Wheel of the Year is that I can take elements that I like from the, the kind of traditional pagan Wiccan model of like the Irish Brigid holiday, You know, at the beginning of February you know, I can adopt some, some metaphorical ideas around that. Like, you know, as we've talked about so many times, one of the things that I do in my Wheel of the Year is to map the course of a human life over the cycle of the Wheel of the Year. And so this holiday is infancy and it becomes associated with with dairy, with milk products. And with sort of nurturing and, and, you know, planning for the future, not that, not that dreaming, imagining, visionary kind of thing that you have at the at the solstice in the deep dark of night, but more like, um, this is like, you know, the dawn waking up early in the morning and going, okay, here's what my day is going to be like. I've got, I've got tools to sharpen and I've got lists to make and I've got seeds to buy and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: So much more concrete planning, can't get your, you can't really get any of those tools actually in the ground yet. Mark: Nope. Yucca: But you can think about, do you have the right ones? What are you going to need? Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: And of course, we're using the metaphor of, you know, planting and all of that, which some you might be doing, but for a lot of people, it's really metaphor about what's going on in the rest of our lives. Mark: yes. And your thoughts about what your aspirations are for this coming cycle, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Those, those ideas that we talked about at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of January you know, those, those themes For the new year well now you're starting to move towards concretizing those, right? And so you pull your tools together and maybe your tools need some maintenance, so you take care of that. And You know, you know you want to plant a garden and the ground is solid, but you can still peruse the seed catalogs and order your stuff and start seedlings indoors if you want to for things that take a long time to grow, like onions and so forth. Yucca: Mm Mark: Um, so, and I've been hearing that from, from gardeners in the community and in our mixers and stuff, we've been talking about, you know, people being very excited about their seed catalogs. Um, so, yeah, I, I think it's just, it, and then there's that other aspect of just celebrating the infants and small children in the, in the community, you know, doing, you know, doing stuff that's very nurturing and very kind. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: to, to them and to that part of ourselves. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It's beautiful. Mark: Yeah, it can be I do have a little bit of dissonance around some of the things that I, that I still maintain from when we used to celebrate. I was celebrating with the broader pagan community around this holiday for example, I have a little anvil and sledge that I love the ringing, the repetitive motion and the ringing of the hammer on the sledge and associate it with this time of year. We used to do rituals because, you know, Brigid was a goddess of the forge among many other things, poetry and, you know, a lot of stuff. But we would. Take a length of chain and have one open link. And at the proper time in the ritual, each person by turn would go to the anvil and pound that link shut, creating a loop of chain that would be sort of a symbol of the magic that they were doing for this year, and they could take that home with them. We usually had ribbons threaded through them as well, so they were colorful and pretty. And I still like doing something with that anvil, even though I'm not quite sure what it means metaphorically. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Um, I just like it, and I associate it with this time of year, so I keep it. Yucca: And things like that might change over time, right? So what does that metaphor mean to you? You know, maybe when you do it, or how you do it, can adapt depending on what, where you are in your life, in terms of what life stage you're in, but also where you are in the world, because people, some people stay in the same part of the world their whole lives, and other people move from very, very different climates and change where they are, and so life changes a lot, and all of those symbols and those things change when you go from You know, Miami to Buffalo, or wherever you're talking about. Mark: Presuming your body survives the shock. Yeah, Yucca: move during the summer. Mark: yeah, exactly. I was just thinking, yeah, if you, if you move from Miami to Buffalo in January, you're really asking for trouble. Yucca: But people do it, right? And so when that does, you know, what does that mean to you? And things will shift and you're still trying to figure out you carry with you what you had from before. And you don't necessarily have to just throw that all out because you're suddenly in a different climate. It's going to take time to adjust. Mark: Absolutely. Of course it will. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: and Yucca: Mm Mark: this is a good time to kind of celebrate that transition, too. You know, this is one of those light at the end of the tunnel sabbaths, where it's like, yes, it's cold, yes, the days are still really short, but they're not as short as they were, and it is going to warm up. You know, by, by the time of the next holiday, the, the spring equinox, it will be noticeably warmer than it is now. So, and that's pretty universal, I think. So It's a, it's an opportunity to sort of contemplate persistence and the repeating of cycles, you know, because one of the things about the winter solstice, of course is that idea of making it through the longest night, you know, huddling together and, and, you know, persisting. Well, this is the point at which you kind of start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And, and so you can celebrate that persistence as well and be kind to yourself as, as a result. Um, you know, a lot of us, we were just talking about this before we started recording, a lot of us have been going through a lot this January. been, it's been very, it's been hard, it's certainly been hard for me, and I know it's been a lot harder for other people in our community. And The idea of a holiday where we, where we sort of look around and say, Hey, we, you know, it looks like we're going to make it. We, it was, it was touch there for a while, but we, we think we're going to make it and, and, you know, persist through another cycle. I think there's a value in that too. Yeah. Yucca: And another perspective on that is This is the time, this is the time that we were preparing for, for all of that other stuff, right? At least in my climate, for us, when we're in the solstice season, we've only really just gone into winter. For many people, it's mid winter, but for us, no, we really, you know, we jumped really quickly from fall into winter. We still have A full stock of, of wood, right? We've got all our fire, we haven't been going through it yet, you know, we still have all of our stores of food, you know, both physical and, and metaphorical. And this is when things aren't quite producing yet. This is when the animals are about to calf. But they haven't quite yet, right? And just knowing that this is the, so this is a time for us when we focus on the things that we depend on. That we are very much part of. You know, we're very bovine based, so we're thinking about the dairy, and the meat from the cows, and the fur, and all of those things that, that we depend on, that are part of the system, of, that without, we couldn't be, right? We need those things. And so recognizing our connection to those, and how important that is, and that, once again, another year. We've been carried through, right? And we can, and we're going to do it again, but there is a place of, of kind of vulnerability and, and surrender to that this time of year. Which, there's something kind of somewhat reassuring about that. I know you wouldn't put the words vulnerable and dependency with reassuring together, but there is sort of, they just actually really do go together nicely. Mark: Yeah. I, I, yeah, I, I really resonate with what you're saying. Yeah, because January, February. Up until the cows and sheep started to give milk are, those are the fasting times. I mean, all, all the stuff that was perishable that you got to gorge on at the solstice, that's all gone. And now what you've got is, you know, root vegetables that are You know, covered with eyes and stuff and stuff like that. All the goodies have been eaten now and now it's just a matter of really kind of toughing it out until nature starts to produce some food in your area again. It's not a surprise that eggs are associated with the spring equinox because, you know, birds are laying then and you could eat them. Yucca: Yeah. The light starts to come back and, I mean, if you keep chickens, that, yeah, depending, your hen might produce a little, lay a little bit during the winter. And unless you're putting artificial lights in there, she's not going to. She's gonna wait till the spring comes back. Or she'll do a few here and there, but really you just don't get, and then all of a sudden there's enough light and it's like, you know, then you hear them making their calls. Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: Egg announcement! Everybody know! So, and same thing with the, with the, the wild birds as well. So, oh, and I love the colors. Look forward to that with spring, the flashy colors that they have. Mark: all the mating plumage and stuff. It's so cool. Yeah and that actually reminds me, this is, this is the time when I do my spring fast. My birthday is January 3rd and I take the, and so from the day after my birthday until the spring equinox, I give up something. and it's not a penance thing, it's more of a what is it like to live without Yucca: hmm. Mm Mark: Um, because I think that's That has valuable lessons in it. And I've done various things in various years, but I usually do alcohol, and that's what I'm doing this year. So, it's just, I mean, it's, it's a healthy thing, for one thing, it's good for your liver to stop drinking for a while. And more than that It's kind of a reminder. It resets any habits you might have had. If, if it's like, okay, work is over, it's six o'clock, work is over, time for a beer. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: That sort of pattern that kind of gets locked in where it's like, some days, maybe I don't really need a beer, but I still crack one, right? So it interrupts that pattern and gives you a chance to reset and then be more conscientious about whether or not you want that beer. Yucca: Right. Mark: So that's a Yucca: is the thing that works for you, but, you know, for other people, it might be something completely different, Mark: Oh, sure. Yeah I did sugar one year. God, that was hard. Um, uh, Yucca: I've quit a lot of things in my life, and I have to say sugar is by far the hardest. Mark: yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Yucca: yeah. You know, and some people might do some things like some, some actual, Like, fasting, as well. There's a lot of tradition, many different religions from all over the world have incorporated that, and there's a lot of really powerful potential with that, Mark: Yes. Yucca: you know, done in a mindful, safe way, of course, Mark: Yes. Yeah. Mind, mind your health. Stay hydrated. You know, you don't have to be fanatical about it. But, Yucca: just do your research on what you're doing beforehand. There's a lot of resources but it doesn't have to be, I know there's a lot of focus these days about it as like a weight loss technique or something like that but it can also be just Really wonderful for the mental clarity and the reminder that you get to choose these things and practicing that I choose right now, this is what I'm doing I'm not having that beer, or no, I'm not eating until noon every day, or whatever it is or if you decide to do a five day or whatever, you know, there's just Yeah, Mark: yeah, I mean, I think it's empowering to be able to make those kinds of decisions. And and there are, let me just say right now, the odds are very good, if you're listening to this, that you don't need to lose weight. There are some people who, you know, may actually have health impediments and, and losing weight might be beneficial for that. But the overall obsession with losing weight is a pernicious lie. And you're fine how you are. So fasting is not dieting. It's not recommending that you, that you deprive yourself in order to get smaller. That's not the point. The point is to understand that you do have choices, as you say, Yucca. And that you are in the driver's seat when it comes to things like what you put into your body. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So why don't we talk a little bit about how we observe this season. If you don't want to listen to this part, you can listen to last year's, or the year before, or the year before, or the year before. We just counted, this'll be our fifth. Oh no, it's fourth. Yucca: So it's our fifth year, but we started right after so I think we were, I was looking back and we started right at the beginning of March. So I think we had just, we recorded, we had this wonderful idea when we started the podcast that we would get together once or twice a month and record multiple podcasts and then go about our business. But that didn't end up working out. I think part of it is that it was just so nice to get together weekly Mark: Yeah, Yucca: and just be like, Mark: enjoy it. Yucca: let's just get together and talk and upload, you know, record it a day or two ahead of time and then upload it. But I think that we had tried to record. A few episodes before we launched, so that's why we were thinking that maybe it had been really, literally the week of, so, but yeah, five years. Mark: yeah, man, Yucca: eventful, very, very eventful years, Mark: very eventful years. I'm, time for a tangent, tangent warning. There are a couple of eventful things that I want people to know about that are happening in the atheopagan community. The first one is, if you go to the Atheopagan Society website, Which is TheAPSociety. org. There's a banner right there at the top you can click on to register for the Sun Tree Retreat. Yucca: Really coming up soon. Mark: it's, it's, it's on Labor Day weekend, it's at the end of the summer, so it's not so far away. The, we're working on the program now. Our colleague Michael is putting a lot of work in on that and people have submitted presentations and workshops and rituals that they want to do that we're going to fold into that program. But just be aware, registration is open, please go, you know, if you can't pay the whole amount now, put down a deposit just so that we know that you're coming and we can reserve a space for you. So that's one announcement and the other one is that at the last At the Atheopagan Society Council meeting, we agreed that we are going to start a scouting program for families and children. Yucca: Mm Mark: Um, this will be through the Spiral Scouts program, which is a pagan based scouting program, but it has a lot of the same kinds of badges for outdoor activities and camping, and Crafts and disciplines and all that kind of stuff we will be able to create our own badges, like we could create a critical thinking badge, Yucca: hmm, mm hmm, mm Mark: um, and families will be able to do these activities together and then we'll get together by Zoom so families can interact and kids can interact with one another as well, or if you live close enough to other People, you can be involved and we're going to open this to people that are not atheopagans so that people can do activities with, with their friends nearby. So that's really exciting and there's a survey open right now that we'll put in the show notes. To to gain information about people's interest in participation, how many kids they have that they would like to be involved, all that good kind of stuff, but it's exciting. I'm, I'm really thrilled that we're doing this and shout out to Robin our colleague on formerly on the Atheopagan Society Council, but who's really active in the community, who has done the heavy lifting on researching this and figuring out how it could work, so. Yucca: yeah. Mark: you. So those are my two tangents.  Yucca: Those are good tangents. Mark: yeah. Exciting. Yucca: are very excited about both, especially the badges. Mark: Yeah, yeah. We get badges? Well, you have to do stuff to earn them, Yucca: Well, that, that is, well, that makes it more special. There actually really is something about, you know, that, that, the effort and the, the earning it part. Like, yeah, I did it. Mm. Mark: Yeah, it's interesting to me that Spiral Scouts designed itself where they don't have rank. Yucca: Mm Mark: don't elevate in rank the way that, like, the Boy Scouts do, where you're a Tenderfoot and then you're something else and something else and then eventually you're an Eagle Scout. There's no rank in Spiral Scouts. There are categories of age groups. I believe we're gonna start and this is still under discussion, but I believe we're gonna start the Sun Tree Circle, which is what the atheopagan scouting program will be called. I believe we're gonna start that at six years old, because it's pretty hard to gain attention, you know, to have younger than six be able to pay attention on Zoom. Yucca: hmm. Mark: But we're, Yucca: I would imagine that there would be an exception for the, you know, the five year old who really is able to do that, right? That it's more about what is the The expectations of the individual's abilities more so than what's the calendar Mark: Right. Right. Absolutely. Yucca: if you're, you know, five year old and eight months is, you know, they're not left out because of, because they're not quite there yet in Mark: Right. And it's really the parent's call, you know, you know your kids better than anybody else. So it's a matter of you deciding, do you think they've got the capacity to focus, to be able to do these kinds of things? And if they do, well, bring them along. So, As I was saying, there are no ranks in Spiral Scouts. Everybody is equal. It's very egalitarian, which we really like in atheopaganism. But you can earn these badges and do activities together so that you all earn a badge at once. Then you can put that on a sash. Or they also have this cool, like, cowl thing. Yucca: mm Mark: it's called a crepuscular or something. I don't remember what it's called. But it's, it's like a, it's like a hood with a sort of a layer of cloth that hang, that's cut in an oval that hangs kind of over, down over your chest. And you can put badges on that too. Yucca: okay, Mark: So it's, it's just a matter of, you know, which uniform piece you choose to, to do it with. Um, I mean, honestly, I've looked over this stuff and a lot of them are like, well, I want to do that, it sounds really fun. Yucca: hmm, Mark: So, Yucca: right. Mark: what do we do for, for this Sabbath? Oh, what do we call it? We didn't talk about what we call it. Yucca: All right  Mark: Go ahead. Yucca: so, second winter, Nosquilváir for us those are usually, I mean, Bridget's Day or Imblic when speaking to people in the broader pagan community, usually second winter. Mark: Mm hmm. I have called this holiday river rain my personal wheel of the year because it really is the holiday of water. This is when all the water in the world is falling from the sky at least in so called normal years because of course we've had drought in the west a lot. In the last 15 years or so because climate is changing. But this year it seems to be pretty good. We've had quite a lot of rain and last year of course was record rain and snow. It was, it was tremendous. So the creeks are all babbling and the hills are green and we get these big tides at the ocean and it's just It's just the time of water, and so I do a lot of celebrating of, of water in, at River Rain. But I also like that term brightening because of its universality. In, in my books, I'm using brightening, and, and then dimming in August which is when we're coming off the summer solstice and it, the days are starting to get noticeably shorter. Yucca: Right. Which is another one of those that I think really lends itself to being really customized and specialized to your environment. Because again, it's one that doesn't have that strong pre existing secular association. Mark: right? Right. Yeah, and climatically it can be so different for people. I mean, where I am you can't see this because we're recording over Zoom, but my background today is the Golden Gate Bridge. In San Francisco, and San Francisco, of course, is very famous for being completely socked in with fog all summer long. And I'm 60 miles north of that along the coast, and we are very, very frequently socked in with fog in the summertime. So, you know, the idea of the blazing sun, you know, of llamas, and it's like, well, where is it? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So it's just, it's different for everybody and you really have to, once again, choose your own adventure. So are there particular ritual things that you do, Yucca, at this time of year? Yucca: Well, we do take all the furs that we have and brush them out and care for them that way because if you're, you know, sleeping up against it or being up against the furs throughout the year, they start to kind of mat and tangle and so it's just a time to take care of the things that we have. Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: so that's one. And for the last few years, we've done painting of pine cones, which has been really lovely. Yeah. So where we are, we have two different kinds of pine cones. We have the, the big ones that you would picture when you think of a pine cone from the Ponderosa pines. And those are, you know, those are big, like the size of your fist. And then we have little Pinyon pines, and they make little pine cones that are about golf ball sized, that look like little flowers when they open up. And so we'll go around and collect those and we're starting to make some of the, we'll focus on this a little bit more as we get closer to the equinox, but we'll make little bird feeders with them Or, you know, you dip it in the whatever your fat is, the lard or whatever, and coat it with the seeds. But when you paint the pine cones, it actually takes a much longer time than you would think, because you have to do each of the little nubs, right? And then you string them together and you get these just really beautiful looking decorations that you can hang about. And it doesn't feel Christmassy. Maybe it's because we're not doing like red and green we're doing more like whites and blues and, and things like that. Of course, sometimes the kids want to do different, you know, every single bit has to be a different color so they've got their rainbow ones or Mark: Huh. Nice. Yucca: those are some of the more craft things that we do. Mm Mark: Cool. Very cool. I have, on my focus, my altar, I have a chalice that I, that is my ritual chalice. I use it for various things, pouring libations. All that kind of stuff. It's, it's blue and white with sort of a grapevine design around the outside. And it sits on my focus, and it's always full of rainwater. Because water is life, right? You know, gotta have it there. But since last year, it has also had a coin in the bottom. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Because I got this idea about, you know, water and hopes and wishes and all that kind of stuff to do a wishing well for ritual for this time of year. And so I was we, the group that were doing it, we were, you know, pitching special coins into a, a cauldron. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Full of water, special water, a little bit of water from Glastonbury Tor, and from Bath, and then rainwater, that kind of stuff. And so I took my coin out and I put it in the bottom of that chalice and it's been there ever since. So that's, that's another kind of ritual thing that I like to do at this time of year is create the wishing well. Yucca: Do you fill it up throughout the year? Or are you so, okay. I Mark: just Yucca: be shocked if you were going to be humid enough that that wouldn't evaporate Mark: No, no, no, no. It, it evaporates all the time. And every once in a while I have to clean, you know, scrub it to take, all of the salts accumulated from evaporation off of the chalice. But it's pretty, and it's, it's there, and I use special coins, I've got a it's a French five franc coin from before the Euros, and it's, so it's, it's silver or nickel or something around the, the out part, and then the inner part is bronze or copper or, you know, something with more gold in Yucca: colors. Wow, nice. Oh, Mark: I have two of these that have an amazing backstory that I won't go into, but I have Algerian coins, are octagonal, and have this amazing Arabic script all over the front of them and they just, to me they look like Dungeons and Dragons coins. You know, they look like exotic loot from some ancient time that you would find in a chest somewhere. So, I use one of those two coins when I do this wishing well ritual. Yucca: that sounds fun. Mark: Yeah. it is. Yucca: Do you get together with your circle for this holiday? Or more the big four. Mark: Used to, but we don't anymore. We engage with one another more than we used to because we do a Zoom call every Friday evening. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So we see one another and check in and stuff on a weekly basis. But as we've gotten older, the distance travel just becomes harder and harder. And so we get together at Hallows and at Yule and and that's, and then usually one other time. Maybe around May Day and, but the, the Live Oak Circle, our Northern California Atheopagan Affinity Group, is getting together more frequently, and we're going to do one of these rituals next Sunday, no, not next Sunday, the Sunday after, the 11th of February, so that'll be fun. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: this, folks. Yucca: Yeah. And they're closer, easier to get to. Mark: Well, it's still a 60 mile drive for me. And it's a little further than that for the folks from Sacramento, but then we've got people from San Jose who are in the south of the South Bay, so the East Bay is a good convening point, and it's only every six or seven weeks, so it's It's not, it's not too bad, and I drive an electric car, so you can feel okay about it. Yucca: Nice and quiet, right? Mark: Yes, it, it, it sings. My car sings. It goes, oh, so great.  Yucca: Mine goes so so so so so so so so. I go over dirt washboard. Mark: yeah, yeah, I Yucca: I think even electric car would go so so so so Mark: I, I think so, and probably worse, Yucca: I would not be very happy. Mark: because they're very heavy. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: batteries are super heavy, so. Even though they have a lot of get up and go, that's just because the torque on an electric motor is so much higher than on an internal combustion engine. Yucca: Mm. Mm Mark: Um, yeah, it's a funny thing, I, I mean, I don't really care much about fast cars, but I do get irritated by rude drivers, and, and they seem disproportionately to be drivers of BMWs and Mercedes and Teslas. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So, what I like to do is to, when the light goes green, I like to leap across the intersection far faster than your incredibly expensive car, sir. Just to kind of make the point that, you know, my car's quite a bit cheaper, but it'll go. Yucca: Mm. Very mature, but Mark: It's satisfying and completely immature. Absolutely immature. Um, you know, there you have it. None of us is perfect. So this has been great, Yucca. Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I wish you the best of the season. Yucca: Likewise. And to all of you, thank you. So, here's to another year! Mark: another year. Here we go. Off we go. All right, everybody. We'll, we'll see you next week.   

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com Season 5 - Episode 1  ----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 talking about what happens after the frenzy of the holiday season. I know for a lot of people it's kind of a relief because it's very stressful and anxiety provoking, but for others the holidays really are kind of a haven in the midst of winter, and when they end there's sort of a letdown of No more parties, no more decoration, no more booze and sugar, you know, all that kind of stuff. And it's hard because it's the coldest, darkest time of the year. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, we're going to talk about that today. Yucca: Yeah. As you were saying that, I was thinking of that feeling that you get when your body, when you've had a bunch of adrenaline in your body, and then it fades, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, Mark: Yeah. Welcome to, welcome to cortisol. Yucca: yeah, now my arms are heavy, now what do I do? Right. Mark: Yeah. I Really resonate with that right now because my work has been extremely busy. I wasn't able to take time, um, in the last two weeks of December. So, really been sprinting and there is that sort of sense now here in, you know, we're recording this on December 30th. On the Saturday, and I, so I get these three days, and I'm in this mode of what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Because I've been so doing for so long, right? Yucca: Yeah. So I guess this is really a good opportunity to talk about the Well, transitions in general, but especially transition out of the holidays, and also the in between time. We'll come back to this in a minute, but the in between holidays, because at least those of us who follow the Wheel of the Year, we have a lot more holidays than most people do, but there's still these big chunks of time that we're in between, and what do we do during that in between? Bye. Period. I think it's a really potent, powerful time period, but in a very different way than holidays are. Mark: Yes, I agree. And then that leads us into, well, okay, well, when you're not celebrating, because you can't I mean, well, at Yucca: day is a celebration in some ways, but Mark: one level, we can be and hopefully are celebrating all the time because there's a lot to celebrate. But in the times that are between the peaks of that, how do we, how do we live as pagans every day? Yucca: Right. Mark: How do we, how do we enact that in our behavior? How do we choose it in our focus? And are what we pay attention to, um, so we'll be talking about that too. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, I'm really happy that this is coming out on the first of the year. Seems like a good welcome to 2024 kind of thing. Mark: It does. 2024. Can you believe it? Yucca: It no. Mark: No. No. Yucca: time, it feels like a sci fi Year. Does not feel like a real, Mark: That's Yucca: we're actually here. Mark: Yeah. 2024 by Arthur C. Clarke. Yucca: starting with the transitioning out we still have our solstice celebration decorations up, but in the next few days, those are gonna start coming down, and it's gonna be, we still have a lot of wintry things out. So. Because at just the time of year we just like having our wintry things, because that's what's going on, but it's not going to be that solstice, right? It's not that, or Christmas, or whatever it is that it that folks are doing, it's not going to be that anymore. And so there's always kind of a, like a bitter sweetness to taking those things down. Mm Mark: It leaves a void in your home and in your sense of the specialness of the time. My Partner Nemea really gets a lot of psychological benefit out of the Yule tree, the solstice tree. And so we will still keep it up for another couple of weeks. Which means that we always miss the window for the Yucca: Pick up. Mark: company coming to pick it up. Which means I have to chop it into little pieces and fit it into a yard waste bin. But and I keep the trunk for next year's Yule Log, so I have to do some chopping anyway. But You know, this is a moment where the hoopla is fading, and then you're left with, well, we're back to school, we're back to work, and it's gray and cold, Yucca: And this particular year, it's fast since New Year's is happening on a Monday. Everybody's back on a Tuesday. If it was in the middle of the week, then usually things wouldn't start until the next week. But it's like, boom, here we go. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the, one of the jokes that I've always made because my birthday is January 3rd is that my birthday is always the day you go back to work. It's, you know, it's always, it's like, okay, the party's over and now it's time to celebrate me. Right. And it's like, well, we're sick of parties and we're sick of sweets and we're sick of booze. And we're, it's like, we don't want to get together in gatherings. We've been doing that for three weeks. Yucca: And I'm guessing as a kid, even though you're not a December birthday, you still probably got the let's just, this is your, this is your birthday present and your Christmas present all wrapped up to Mark: You know, honestly, I don't remember that happening. Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know.  Yucca: And I know a lot of December babies who complain about that. Mark: yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things that's frustrating about it, of course, is that it would be nice to have a holiday some other time through the year because I'm kind of sick of parties and booze and sweets and presents and all that kind of stuff.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you know, and I actually have had half birthday parties a couple of times. On July 3rd. Yeah, so it's like, okay, I'm 46 and a half now. Time to have a party. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: so, anyway, let's talk a little bit about that, that transition, that, that kind of coming down off the peak. Because that's a real thing. I mean, it's a neurochemical thing. It's not just, it's not just something you can necessarily talk yourself out of because there is a change in modality from go, go, go, gotta be festive, gotta be festive, to okay, I have to be able to focus for work now. I have to, you know, I have to take the kids to school all those kinds of sort of more mundane things that get you rooted back into the groove of your, your routine life. Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. I think there's potential in when you, because those things are all things that are things you really actually have to do. There's a physical component to those things. And there's an opportunity to take a moment just to be aware of what you're doing as you're doing that. And there's a moment right there for that intention of recognizing, okay, I'm taking down the tree. Right? Or, I'm getting back in the car, first, first day back in the car in the whole year. Just gonna take a few seconds to close my eyes and think about what this means and be conscious of the transition. Mark: Mm hmm. And because it's a Because it's a shift from the out of routine nature of the previous few weeks, it gives you an opportunity to look at your established routine and decide whether that's really what you like. I mean, there are things you don't have a choice about, you do have to take the kids to school, you do have to do grocery shopping and all that kind of stuff, but maybe there are other things in your life that are habitual that you don't necessarily want to continue, or things that you want to add, Yucca: Right? And that's, we talk a lot about how COVID has shaped and changed the world. I think that's one of the places where it really did so many people. It was like an extended period of out of the norm, and several months, years, rockiness of going back to the routine, but getting to go, is this the routine that I want? And for a lot of people, the very, very loud no, Mark: Yeah, Yucca: And not that we're necessarily able to make all the changes that we would like to, but it gave us the opportunity to be aware that it could be different. Mark: well, and the biggest example of that, I think, is that in order to conduct business at all, many businesses had to go to remote Yucca: Mm Mark: And when they went to remote work, workers found they liked it. They didn't like the expense and the time loss and the stress of a commute. They didn't, they, they'd much rather work at home if not full time than certainly part time. And now employers are sort of strong arming many workers to get them back into the office, and the workers are balking. You know. There are tech workers that have moved out of California to small towns in the Midwest, and they're like, I'm not coming to the office, folks. I'm just, I'm not doing it. I mean, I'll, I'll fly in a couple of times a year for some kind of key thing that needs to happen. But, you know, on a daily basis, everything I do is over the wire anyway. So, leave me alone. Let me do my job. Yucca: I have to say, as someone who's pretty rural, to get into town is about an hour for us. So I love it. It makes there's so many things. I have a doctor's appointment coming up this week that I don't, that I don't need. It's just a consultation, right? They don't need to actually take any vitals. So I'm not going to drive anywhere. They're not going to drive anywhere. We're just going to hop on the computer for a minute. Boom. Mark: Yeah, telemedicine is a big deal, and especially for people living in rural areas. The advent of telemedicine is a huge step up in the quality of their care. So, yeah, it's a good thing. Yucca: And education, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: There's so much stuff, you know, I provide it that way, my kids get it, where we can be rural and have access to people all over the world. So, anyways, that's our tangent from returning to normal life. Mark: tangent number one for this episode. Yeah, I mean, we get to reconsider what kind of life do we want to have within the constraints of the things we don't have a choice about. And that is, honestly, That's, that's the definition of freedom, really, you know. Freedom isn't absolute, I can do whatever I want. Freedom is, there are things that are out of my control that are constraints that I'm going to have to meet like having to eat, stuff like that. And then there are other things that I have choices about, and that's where you have liberty. That's where you get to make decisions. Yucca: Well, and if we go with that, you have choices on how you do the required things. Right? So, just using the, you have to eat, well, okay, but I get to choose what, and when, and, you know, all those sorts of things Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: does a, that element is a choice, right? And we can do that with everything in our lives, Mark: Yes. Although Yucca: well, there's, again, there's certain things we do not have control over as individuals, right? Mark: what I was going to say is that when you're in a family situation and you have kids that you're making decisions for, that's another constraint because it's like, you might not want to eat until nine o'clock at night, but if their bedtime is seven, then you need to make sure that they're fed. They're just things you don't have a choice about, right?  Yucca: But how do you respond Mark: yes. Yucca: to the fact that you have these people who are dependent and they have needs? How do you, how do you then respond, right? While still meeting those needs? You get to, as a parent, you don't have to do it a certain way because grandma did it that way. Mark: Oh, Yucca: You get to, you get to, you know, and there's lots of things grandma did that was awesome and other things grandma did that, oh my goodness, let's, let's not even talk about them, but you get to look at that and say, how does this work for my life? And how does this work for theirs? And get to make those choices, Mark: it's a good time for reflection, the beginning of the year. We talked about that last week some. Just to be really clear, you know, this is my life, it's my artwork, and I'm gonna do what I can within the constraints of what I've got. You know, if I've got a 2x4 canvas, I can't paint a 6x8 painting. That's the nature of the thing. But you still have an awful lot of choices about what you put on that canvas. Um, so, so yeah that's, that's a place to start is feeling some agency. I think that one of the things about the post holiday letdown can often be feeling like you're sort of getting back into the harness and having less choices and, you know, less opportunity to just be happy and celebrate and stuff. And that isn't entirely true. It's just that you have to do it within the constraints of what your life demands of you on a daily basis. So, let's talk a little bit about that. Dark time that we're coming into. I mean, it's not so dark. The light is, well, it is dark, but the light Yucca: depends on where you, yeah, it depends on your environment. I mean, I can certainly notice that the days are getting longer, but there's, there Still really, really short right now. Mark: Yes. And where I am, it's, Yucca: we're going into the coldest time of the year. Even though it's not going to be the darkest, it's the coldest, most bitter, windiest, you know, it really is going to be true winter. Mark: hmm, hmm. Yeah. Here I'm very pleased to report from California that we're getting a lot of rain. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: But that means that it's overcast and gray and we get tule fog in the morning on the mornings when it gets down around freezing. And it's It's, it's rarely bitter because when it does freeze, it's usually because it's clear. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And so the heat is radiated away from the earth and not been reflected back by clouds. But the, the, the time still feels cold and you know, you, you kind of have to bundle up and, and the days are still very, very short. Yucca: Mm hmm. And the shadow's long. That's the other thing that I always think about this time of year. Even when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, The shadows are just still long. Mark: they are. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. So, and we're going to talk more about this time of year, especially in a few weeks we'll talk slog, right? Mark: Slug. Yucca: But you also have the stretches of time period between holidays in general, right? And some, some holidays get more attention than others. sOme of them kind of, and this depends on each person individually but some of them just sort of get, you just sort of glide over them more easily than Mark: Mm hmm. Mm Yucca: I mean, I guess that for most, most people there's a few really big ones that we can pretty consistent throughout the whole community. The winter solstice, hollows. Those are usually pretty big ones. On the other side of the year, what would you think? May? Mark: Yeah, Yucca: and maybe the equinox? But the other ones kinda Those are ones that sort of fall between the cracks sometimes. Mark: Well, the overculture, the mainstream culture, doesn't have corollary holidays at those times. And so we don't get, we don't get the help of there being a day to take off or a set of themes like the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs or, Yucca: Although May, we don't really get that either, but I think there's just such the still the powerful image of the maple and flowers Mark: right, Yucca: That's, that's still kind of hanging on there. Mark: Yeah, um, and another, another tradition that's really embraced in the pagan community is Morris dancing, the season for which starts on May Day where they dance up the sun and then it ends on the autumnal equinox when they dance down the sun. And in some cases, I mean, I've seen people that, I've seen reports of Morris teams that are now like dancing down the sun on the winter solstice, which I think is also very cool, but,  dancing around wearing bells in the snow takes a particular kind of character, I think, not one that I have. Yucca: Right. And again, depends on your climate, right? A lot of that happening in, you know, southern Britain, they don't, yeah, they might get some snow, but it doesn't stick around the way you might have snow in, say, Wisconsin. Right. Yeah. It's very different places. Mark: So we settle into our lives again and start doing the things. And I guess this is what brings us to This idea of being a pagan every day, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm Mark: right? Even when you're not, you know, putting on your, your fancy rags and, you know, going out to a, a celebration on at the beginning of February or at the spring equinox or whatever it is, Yucca: hmm. Mark: you know, there's, there's a way of being aware of what's going on around us in the natural world and a way of looking for the beauty and the opportunities to celebrate and to be happy that. thAt characterizes a pagan life, I think, and it's always a work in progress, but I've certainly found that, especially since my pagan practice became atheopaganism, explicitly, um, I just, I have more happiness now, because, because I'm, I'm making it, I'm choosing it. And of course we have so much grim, dire, dystopian talk in our mainstream culture. I think it's really beneficial to teach yourself, you know, to get wowed by flowers and the shapes of clouds and, Yucca: hmm. Mark: you know, the, the color of the sunset and, You know, that, that new picture from from the James Webb Telescope and, you know, all those. Just cool, cool things. The conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon, you know, pretty fantastic. Yucca: Yeah, and that isn't something that is a switch you can flip. It's not where you can just say, I am going to be a more joyful, happy, grateful person. It's something that you practice and become by doing. And that's where the daily practice really comes in. Mark: Yeah, it's a muscle. You have to, you have to exercise it, and it will become stronger over time. Yucca: Right. Mark: And a daily practice for me is really important, and I don't have a super elaborate daily practice, but it's still something that I go back to every day. And it just reminds me, okay, I am, I'm on a pagan path, I'm revealing the natural world, I'm connected with all this, and this is the lens that I turn on the world. This is, this is how I understand things. And that helps me. Yucca: Yeah. And what that practice is can and will look different for every person and for different points throughout our lives. Mark: Yes. Yucca: I'm guessing that your daily practice is different than it was 10 years ago, than it was 20 years ago, probably even different than it was 5. There's probably some core elements, but there's things that change. Throughout whatever's happening in your life, what are the things you need? And, you know, maybe there are things that really do work. There are certain things that work and we come back to. And then things that become more important at different points.  Mark: And what's lovely about neopaganism is that you are not prescribed rituals, you can design rituals that fit with yourself and your current needs and your own creative aesthetic and what the, the freedom in that. And the, the precision with which a practice can address your personal needs is really amazing. Yucca: hmm. Mark: is. And you can try lots of different stuff until you find something that goes, Ooh, that's really good. I want to do that every day.  Yucca: And there is not shame at all in trying out research. Something that you didn't completely invent, right? If you find something that somebody says, Hey, this is a way to do it, you do this, this, and this, and you try that out, and you do that, and kind of dedicate yourself to being consistent with it for a several week process, or however long you decide is what works for you there's value in that. You don't, because one of the things in neopaganism is sometimes it can be a little Overwhelming for people. It kind of just seems like this free for, oh, whatever works for you, whatever works for you. Sometimes people are like, yeah, but I don't know what works for me. I need a starting point, something. Yeah. And that's not, that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's just where somebody is at that moment. And, and then they get to know themselves better as they go through this process. And that's something that we can come back to, right? Yeah. Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: adding new things in, and you don't have to know from the get go exactly what's going to be the right fit for you. Mark: No. Yucca: You change over time. Mark: And, and. At least in the naturalistic pagan pathways that we talk about here, um, you can do it any way you want that works for you, that's fine, but you can also be inspired by other sources in other traditions, which doesn't mean stealing them, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: but it means being inspired by them because there are a lot of things that are so called ritual technologies. Yucca: Mm Mark: That are very powerful. And, I mean, lighting candles, right? I mean, people light candles all over the world for a lot of different reasons in sacred contexts. So you're not stealing anything from anyone by lighting a candle or burning incense or, you know, that kind of stuff. But it can still be, you know, very evocative and powerful for you. You've talked about, um, the Simmerpot at your house, Yucca. And that's, I mean, that's a ritual practice, right? It's something that you do in order to create scents in the home that reflect your seasonal aesthetic and, you know, and that's another reminder of, oh, oh, it's spring, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: you know, oh, the, the, the smell changed. Mama changed the smell. So, we're in a different time now. Yucca: And they're old enough now that sometimes they get to be involved in the choice. Mark: Oh, Yucca: they're real little, it just happens. But as they get a little bit older, it's, hey! What do you think? Which one today? What do you mean both? Okay, let's try both. That's almost always the answer. I don't know if that'll go, but sure, let's try it. So yeah. Mark: In yeah. Terry PR in the, the BBC production of the Terry Pratchett Novel Hog Father, which is the only holiday movie that I have to watch every year. Yucca: We read the Hogfather every year. Mark: Do you? Yeah, yeah. There's this wonderful line by one of the, the wizards at the the University of Uns, the unseen University of on Mor Pork, where he says, let's just take everything and mix it up and see what happens. And that's, that sounds very much like a five year old choosing what sense to put in a pot. Yucca: Yes. Mark: Don't wanna, you don't wanna miss out on anything, right? Yucca: Right. And so, you know, I try to be good first. Knowing that the everything in might be an option, you know, I limit it down to two or three options to begin with, but they still, it's still gonna be all of them. And if you ask multiple kids at the same time, they, out of principle, will choose the opposite of the other ones. Mark: Ah, okay. Individuation. It's a thing. Huh. Yucca: it was, I wish I had like a, you know, a save button in real life so I could go back and check what would happen if you did. Ask them independently, right? Like in games where you can be like, what if I chose the other dialogue? What would have happened? I wish we could do that in real life. So,  Mark: daily practices. They can be a lot of different things. I mean, a daily practice can be going for a walk in your neighborhood. Yucca: Mm Mark: You know, for a half an hour every day and just looking at what's happening in the gardens or in the shop windows, or, you know, if you're in a big, dense, urbanized city you know, just what's going on with traffic right now you know, what, what are the clouds doing are there, are there wildlife around, are there birds that are, that are around that you don't necessarily see at other times of the year that, That function of paying attention. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And particularly paying attention to look for reasons to be happy is a learned skill, like, like Yucca was saying, and it sure improves your life. Yucca: Right, Mark: You know, one of the things that, that I have a really hard time with the Abrahamic religions about is that they don't seem to put much focus on being happy. Yucca: right. At least not the mainstream ones. I think we could say that they're definitely bran you, you could make that argument for Sufism or Quakers or, you know, there's branches that do bring that in, um, but not as a, that's not really the theme on the, on the big scale. Mark: no well, anyway, Yucca: That's a, another conversation about the whys behind that and Mark: Yeah, and it's not our subject. Yucca: the, Mark: You, you can find another podcast to learn about, you know, what they're going for and what, what their goals are.  Yucca: Context for why it developed that way? Which is fascinating, but I personally don't know enough to actually really comment on that. I can say my guesses on, well, I listened to that, you know, that one podcast, and they said this and that, and that made sense to me, but that's not actually my field. So. Mark: Yep, very helpful when you know what you don't know. Which is, of course, one of the, the banes of the internet is that certain people are authorities on everything. You know, the Dunning Kruger, uh, syndrome, uh, Yucca: ways, right? The less you know, the more you think you do, and the more you know, the less you think you do. Mark: the less you think you do and the less certain you are about any of your conclusions. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Which is why evidence is a good thing. But, just for us, I mean, Yucca: And this whole process that we've been sorting out over, over hundreds of years to try and get closer in and spiral closer and closer into truth. It's pretty great. Mark: it is. Yucca: I'm a big Mark: It is. And it spins out lots of things that are almost certainly true. There, there are things that are nailed down pretty well in terms of the way the universe works, and the way particular organisms operate, and, and that kind of thing. Now, at any given moment, there is an opportunity for some Contrary evidence to come along that shows that we don't completely understand them yet. But the fact that you're in New Mexico and I'm in California and we're talking now Yucca: Feels face to face. Mark: yes, and we can broadcast this for people all over the world to listen to is a reflection of the fact that we've gotten pretty good at predictable stuff in many ways. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: And in other places, we've, we've got a long way to go, but. We've got a process to, a process to be able to approach it with. Mark: Yeah, to get there. Yucca: so, and when we talk about a daily practice, that's a process too. It may not necessarily be the scientific method, but you can actually bring a lot of that into your own life and that can be really helpful. Right, just some of those, the, Your observation and testing and all of that, but having the process is really the first step Mark: Yeah. And when you think about it, a lot of what people call a grimoire or a book of shadows, you know, those are great romantic names Yucca: for your lab book, for your field book, Mark: Exactly. That's, that's, that's exactly what it is. It's like, okay, I did this this time. It felt like this. This is what I would change. This is what I would keep. Onward we go. Yucca: right? And sometimes they even have very specific rules that you're supposed to follow, like writing in pen and, you know, all the things and dating it. Yeah, some, depending on what lab you're in, there's some. The rules can be pretty intense for how you do your notebook. Mark: Really? Yucca: Well, because they, well, again, depending on what the lab is, but you can later use that as evidence for patent disputes and all of that kind of stuff. Mark: I see. Yeah, that makes sense. You don't want that stuff written in pencil. Yucca: Yeah, so there's rules and now there's a lot of them have gone digital. But there's very specific rules about how you do it and even. So, one place that I worked, I had to have the supervisor initial when I crossed something out. They had to initial that it was like a second, a witness, basically, that you were crossing out in the notebook. So, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Yeah, like with a contract. If you cross something out you have to initial it. Yucca: yeah. But, the, when you're doing your Book of Shadow or something like that, you can come up with your own fun rules that you can do for whatever practical reason, but also Just because it makes it feel kind of special and, and, you know. Mark: Yeah. Have a special pen. There's a member of the Atheopagan Society Council who is a fanatic about fountain pens. Yucca: Ooh. Mark: And she has all these amazing fountain pens and ink, including Ultraviolet, sensitive, invisible ink. Yucca: Ooh. Mark: Isn't that cool? Yucca: like Mark: You have to shine a UV flashlight on it in order to read it, but the pages look completely blank otherwise. I mean, and there's, you know, there's all these wonderful inks like oxblood ink and, you know, all this stuff, which isn't actually made, isn't actually made from oxblood, it's just that color. Yucca: Oh, okay. It's gonna say the DM in me immediately thinks of using that pen for a secret message that you have to give the players and they can't decipher it until you give them the right the right prop or something. Mark: Yeah, yeah like a wand that glows UV, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Something like that. That would be really cool. Yucca: You just come up with some fantasy sounding name for it instead of UV, though. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yes. Mark: Well, we used to have ultravision and infravision in Dungeons Dragons. That got turned into darkvision, which is a catch all. Covers You know, so instead of seeing a heat imprint, um, or, you know, seeing at far distance because the ultraviolet is more penetrating you just have this one magical thing that just lets you see stuff that's further away. Yucca: Yeah, you just explain it in different ways, but it makes the The rolling work, the stats work easier. Mark: It does. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not going to talk about Shadow Dark. I really am not. We were talking before the thing, I got a new role playing game that I participated in the Kickstarter for, and it's, it looks really wonderful, and it's very simple. Very simple, modern mechanics, but a real old school kind of feel. So, that's all I'm going to say about Shadow Dark. Yucca: All right, um, well maybe that's one of those activities to do in the long stretches between holidays. Mark: Yes. If it's going to be dark, you might as well be in a dungeon. Yucca: right, yep, well this was great. Any other thoughts for the, for the new year, for our different topics today, of kind of the letdown from the holidays between. Holidays and daily practice. Mark: I, I guess the one thing that I would reinforce is to experiment, you know, really ask, ask uncomfortable questions about the routines in your life that don't serve you, and experiment with different ways to make that feel better, um, and that's, that And a daily practice, to me, really helps. The daily practice should not feel like a burden. Remember, the practice is for you, you're not for the practice. It's, it's not like, you know, it's not like Yucca: There's not some god that you're trying to please. Mark: right, or some religious institution. So this is all about you identifying. What helps you to live what feels like an optimized life. Because you know what? When people are happy, they spread it around. They, when people are happy, they empower other people. They Yucca: Just feel good to be around. Mark: yes, they feel good to be around. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And that's something we can all aspire to, I think. So yeah, this has been great, Yucca. Thank you so much for the conversation and Happy New Year! Yucca: Happy New Year, everyone!   

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com ----more----   Introduction and Welcome --- Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Jekka. Mark: And I'm Mark. Reflecting on the End of the Year --- Yucca: And today we are talking about the end of the year and the beginning of a new year. So once again, here we are at the end of a year, Mark: Yeah, so it's a good time for reflecting on what the, what this round of the cycle has been, and then looking forward into the next year we were saying before we started to record, we're still in that, that kind of held breath in the middle of, of the winter solstice season, at least in the, in the northern hemisphere, where Everything seems to kind of stop for a moment, even though there's this frenzy of activity in your personal life, most, many people are not working. There's just a kind of suspension of ordinariness, and there's this moment of what can be a really reflective still time, as well as a very festive time, Yucca: right? This episode should actually come out Christmas morning. So, early Christmas morning, Mark: always a tranquil and reflective time. Yucca: Yes, very relaxed, there's nothing going on.  Discussing the Timing of the New Year --- Yucca: Before we get into all of that, let's talk about the timing of the New Year. Okay. Because we're talking about the calendar switching New Year, which many people count as the New Year. For me, that's usually what I go with. That's the turning of the calendar. But for some folks, it's actually at Hallow, some people it's the Solstice, some people change at the Equinox, right? When's New Year's for you? Mark: I have two tracks for that, and they're offset by about ten days. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: For me, the beginning of the sacred cycle of the year is at the winter solstice. But then there's the calendar year, which, you know, as we say, when you're dating something, what number do you put at the end of the of, of the date that you're writing, that changes on January 1st, and so January 1st is also a hinge point, a moment when there's a transition, and that gives us the opportunity to do what we're doing today, which is look back, kind of review what that's all been like for the past cycle, and then imagine and dream forward into the new cycle. Yucca: Mm hmm. For me it's very fuzzy because since I don't have, typically I'm not working on the 31st or the 1st. The exact moment there isn't really a switch over, it's just this sort of fuzzy time period where it's like, oh yeah, it's the new year. I think, kinda, now I gotta get used to writing this other date, but it hasn't really happened yet. it Really takes about until February to get used to it being a different year. Mark: Mm. Reflections on the Past Year --- Yucca: So, and some years just don't feel like they happened, especially in the last few years because of how things were so different with COVID, where some years just, like, feel like they're missing. Mark: Yeah, 2020, I mean, when it happened, 2020 felt like the longest year ever. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And then 2021 was like a continuation of the longest year ever, it was just more of the same. anD when the various Restrictions were relaxed, it almost felt like, it almost felt like that hadn't happened at all.  Impact of COVID-19 on the Perception of Time --- Mark: Like, it was just this sort of separate time when we were all indoors and staying away from everyone but it was outside of history somehow. Yucca: It was almost like we went from 19 to 22. Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: Like, those, those years, I mean, they're there, but they're not in some ways. It's very, very odd. And this year So much has happened. It's actually quite difficult to keep track of what happened this year and what wasn't this year. Just thinking about what happened within this calendar year. It's, it's been a very full year. Mark: it really has. I mean, everything from floods and earthquakes and volcano eruptions to, you know, political happenings here and there and wars and humanitarian crises, you know, and of course that's what the news feeds us, which is all the bad news, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: BuT I think it's fair to say that this is a very uncertain time for a lot of people. Yucca: Mm hmm.   Changes in the Work Environment --- Mark: I think about You know, in the, in the business world, in the economy, there's this huge movement of companies that are sort of hanging on by their fingernails to their old model and wanting to go back to 2019, and insisting that their workers come back to the office, and the workers are saying, actually, no, thank you, Yucca: Mm Mark: uh, this works much better for me in my life, and I'm not going. And it's, it's a very interesting standoff, Yucca: hmm. Mark: And it's one that I think the, the labor force, the working force is winning. I, I don't think that this idea about you have to be sitting in a chair in a cubicle in order to do your job is, is gonna succeed over the long term. Yucca: Right. At least within certain sectors. There are certain ones that are in person.  Mark: Oh, service industries, for sure. Yeah, I mean, those people have to be there and doing their thing. I'm thinking specifically of people that were in an office. Yeah, people who were in an office and then were able to leave, which of course is a tremendous privilege.  Challenges of Remote Work --- Mark: I now work fully remotely, and although there are things that are hard about it, like, for example, the fact that you could not register an organization to receive federal funding through, like, a cost sharing agreement or something like that, or a grant with the federal government if you don't have a physical address. Because the Patriot Act regulations consider that dodgy. So I, in order to prove that we really exist, I'm going to have to change the address on our bank account of my employer to my personal address, print out the, the, the bank statement that shows that address, and then change it back to the P. O. box that we have. Because we're a fully remote company and we don't have an office. So, it's just silly. Yucca: Wow. And you're not gonna, you don't have any zoning problems that are gonna come from that? Mark: No, Yucca: Okay. Yeah. Because there's certain areas where you gotta watch out for that, that you're not allowed to have particular businesses Mark: a Yucca: areas and, you know. Mark: I'm sure that that's true, but considering that it's going to last for less than 24 hours I don't really think it's a problem. The primary issue is, I think, they want to know where they can go to find a human being who is working for this company. And has some responsibility if they need to come after us for some reason. And I, there wouldn't be any reason they would need to come after us. I mean, we're a nonprofit organization. We can't even get in trouble with them for taxes. Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. But, but they can't go to a P. O. box. So. Mark: right. That's right. So we have to, I'm going to paint a target on my door and, and invite them to come find me. Reflection on Personal and Global Events --- Yucca: So, this year, though, there's things that have been happening on a big scale, Mark: yes, Yucca: and our personal lives, of course, are interwoven with that, right? But at the same time, a lot of what happens in our own lives really doesn't have a lot to do with the outside workings of, you know, what's happening with floods and hurricanes and wars and, you know, life just goes on. for listening. for regular folk.  Looking Back and Looking Forward --- Yucca: And so each of us, you know, us, you and me, Mark, and everyone listening, we've all had our own years, our own lives that have happened, and I, we were talking a lot about this last week, about the, about solstice being this wonderful time for reflection. I think that's a, we can continue that in, and, and think about the whole year. And what has that meant to us, and what are some of the lessons that we have learned? Because we have learned lessons, right? And what are those? Mm Mark: of those lessons are things that have crossed our minds consciously, right? Like, okay, this is a situation that doesn't work for me, this is a situation that does work for me this is an activity that really feeds me and helps me to feel energized and happy. thIs is something that is a total waste of time that I've been doing for my entire life, and I'm gonna stop, you know, those kinds of things. But then there's also the sort of the subconscious part, the, uh, the reflection on what can be called shadow work, you know, where you look at All right, there were certainly challenges this year. I mean, I don't think I know of anyone who didn't have a challenge this year. Did I ride those out, and what did I learn from them, and what did they tell me about myself, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: right? What do they tell me about who I am? Because I think that one of the things that people are really struggling with right now is that we've been through a bunch of hardship with the pandemic and the Trump years and just a lot of really, Yucca: with the economy, Mark: yes, all that stuff. And you know, people, people still feel kind of beat up in many ways and very uncertain. And so, kind of digging down to find out, well, how do I live with that uncertainty? Am I doing okay? Am I, am I kind of walking, wounded, depressed right now? Not, not in a, in a So much a debilitating sense is just kind of a muffling sense, where you don't feel things as much as you used to, and the kinds of things that you enjoy doing, maybe you don't enjoy doing them quite so much. The Importance of Self-Reflection --- Mark: I think it's a good time for sort of a diagnostic take on, on how our mental health is going, and what in life is really serving us, and what in life is not. Yucca: Right?  Setting Goals and Intentions for the New Year --- Yucca: Yeah, and thinking about that, the choice and intention that we have in that, right? What do we want? What is serving us? And what, what do we want? How do we want to be in this life? Is that something that I choose or you choose to continue to do? Because it is When it comes to how we're responding, it ultimately is a choice, right? It's not a choice whether, to us as individuals, whether who's in office or what wars are happening, right? But, but how am I, how am I going to respond is something that I have some influence over, and this is just a good time to think about that. Yeah. Mark: Yes. How am I going to show up to reality? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And a perfectly legitimate approach to that, by the way, is a nice dash of escapism. You know, play your Dungeons and Dragons and watch your Netflix. I mean, checking out for a little while is something that can actually help support you at times when things seem a little overwhelming or unbearable. I mean, you probably want to curate those experiences so you're not watching super depressing movies. Maybe that's not the road you want to follow. Yucca: Unless that does it for you, right? My, my partner will look at things that are like, will get on Reddit and, you know, see the, the terrible relationships and the like, am I the asshole threads and go, wow, my life's not that bad. Mark: life is good, yeah! Yucca: that to be very, like, helpful. Now, if I look at that stuff, I just get it. so worked up and it makes it worse for me, but for some people that really does help. So it, so, you know, know yourself on that. Does that help? Does that not help? You know, what are you consuming? And is that, is that leading you in the way that you want to be developing yourself right now or not? Mark: absolutely. Yeah, that's well said. So, I think there's an opportunity, I mean, one thing that I do on New Year's Eve is I have a dark mirror. Which is a piece of, a circular piece of heavily tinted glass, which I then painted black on the back and put in a frame. Actually first I put a piece of cardboard in the frame and then the glass over the top of that so that there would be some, some backing so that it would be less likely to break the mirror, um, but then I also drew various sigils and arcane symbols and stuff on the cardboard before I put the glass on top of it, so they're, they're down in there somewhere. Yucca: So there's these layers. Okay. Mark: You can't see them at all through the glass, but they're there. And what I like to do is to sort of, you know, light a candle and contemplate my face in this dark mirror on New Year's Eve. I've only done it for a couple of years, but it's a cool thing. You can see this shadowy outline of your face. And if you just keep gazing into it, it all sort of dissolves into geometric shapes. And you just Then you find your mind wandering to particular places and things and ideas and thoughts and, and it's a It's an opportunity to check in with the subconscious, to sort of dip in a little bit and find out, well, what's going on down there? So, that's something you could do, I mean, by candlelight, you could do that with a regular mirror.  Yucca: And then you get that lovely flickering with that. Mark: right, yeah. So, something to think about, or some other form of, you know, so called divination, like reading Tarot, or whatever those are. I like the ones, for this kind of work, I like the ones where you work essentially with random imagery and then see what your mind makes out of it, right? Like serumancy, dripping candle wax into water, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: and it creates shapes as it, you know, cools. And you can see different animals and symbols and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: Yeah? Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Mm hmm. I like the imagery of that. Mm hmm. Mm Mark: So that's looking back. That's, that's the work of reflection, which I think every person who really wants to be happy and wise has to do some of that. You know, you got to look at yourself. You got to look at the world. And there's, uh, you know, there's, there's a level of simply coming to terms and saying, okay, that's real. Yucca: Right. Mark: another level of going. And I'm grateful for all this other stuff that's going on, right? So, you know, the world is a very complex mixture. It's not like thumbs up, thumbs down, and the same is true of ourselves as individuals. And just coming to grips with all of that and having a level of acceptance and gratitude is very helpful, I think. thAt goes back to that thing about the three big lessons that I talk about. The big Okay, the big thank you and the big wow, Yucca: Right, so there's the reflection component there's the looking back and there's also the looking forward. Now I think the looking back, you've got to be able to do that, I think that really does need to come first, or part of it, to be able to look forward to What is it that you want, right? Mark: yeah, Yucca: And as we talked about last time, we're kind of in this dreaming period. We may not really be planting those seeds yet, but we are deciding what are those seeds that we might want to plant. What do we need to do to prepare? Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And that goes into the ritual things that people do at the New Year around resolutions and all that kind of stuff, right? Because I mean, A New Year's resolution is rooted in an imagined self that has changed. It's like, okay, I picture myself and I do not drink six cups of coffee a day. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And that's great. You know, it's great to have a vision for where you want to go as a person, whether it's something minor or something major. Personally, I don't do New Year's resolutions, and the reason that I don't do them is that the popular framing of them is kind of like the little drummer boy game, where it's like once you lose, it's over. Yucca: hmm. Mark: And if you're really trying to do something hard to change yourself, you have to give yourself some slack. If you're trying to get sober, and you do that for a week and then you have a drink, you don't quit trying to get sober, you just start over, right? Yucca: Right, you get back up, dust yourself off, and keep going. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So I think that one of the things that sometimes we are very good at or don't have a lot of practice in is that, that getting back up part and planning in how, what could go wrong and how am I going to respond when it does go wrong. Mark: Good point. Yucca: And I think that If you are incorporating that into your planning, whatever it is, whether you're planning your financial future, or the process of quitting smoking or drinking, or all of those, any of those things, you are, you're being more realistic, first of all, about the world that we live in, because mistakes do happen. You're, you're building in resilience to being able to better achieve whatever that is. So I think that's a really important step that we forget to do. Mark: Yes. And the self compassion step in there as well. Not excuse making, but recognizing that we're all fallible and that any kind of real personal transformation that's the kind of thing that a New Year's resolution might be made about is not easy, right? It's just not easy. And, um, it is remarkable the degree to which our behaviors as humans are. The Power of Habit and Routine --- Mark: Habitual. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You know, we have routines for our day, we have routines for making our coffee, we have routines for, you know, what we do about lunch, we have just lots and lots of routines, routines, you know, when we're getting ready to go to bed.  Yucca: And there's a very, very practical reason for all of that. So that all of that isn't taking up our space for the other stuff that we need to be doing. For all the other stuff we need to be thinking about. We're not, every time we make our coffee, we aren't going through those steps. We're not giving it the mental energy. Mark: Right. Okay, Yucca: something else. Mark: water. Yucca: Yes, oh wait, when I move my hand, yeah, that's all, that's all just ingrained so that we can do other things and pay attention to the things that might matter more. Now there's today probably not a tiger about to getcha, but we needed the space to be able to be aware for a possible tiger to get to. Now we're thinking about the interaction that we're going to have with our colleague or whatever we're going to tell to our uncle when they say that super offensive thing. But, yeah. Mark: Yeah. And so, because, because so much of what we do is this sort of pre programmed pathway of habit. It can be very hard to reprogram that stuff, because once you start the process, the rest of the steps are automatic. You do this, and then all of those other things just naturally follow. And to be able to be self aware enough in any given moment to say, wait, I'm not going to go any further with this. I'm going to do something else. That is an effort, and it, it requires some real focus, and if you're not able to do it all the time, it requires some real compassion with yourself, so that instead of feeling like a failure or, you know, a moral degenerate, you just feel like someone who is trying to do something hard and is learning how to do it. Yucca: Yeah. And another component is that, that doing those hard things is a skill, um, and sometimes we try to jump to, to a bigger task than we might be ready for, than a bigger change, right? Sometimes we might need to make some smaller changes, get good at practicing. That change before we go to something even bigger. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: And that's just going to depend on whatever it is that you're working on. Mm. Mm Mark: So, having said all that, I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions because, as I said, the idea is that it's like a piece of glass. It's like, if it's broken, then it's no longer of any use. And, So, to me, that's just, it's a very, well, frankly, a very Protestant way of looking at things. It's got a lot of judgment folded into it, and it just doesn't really work for me. Setting Themes Instead of Resolutions --- Mark: So what I like to do is to set themes for the new year that are kind of areas that I'm going to pay attention to and work to foster in my life. Yucca: Mm Mark: So, like, last year, My theme this year, actually, my themes were prosperity and security, um, because I hadn't had a job for a year and eight months at that point. I needed to get a job.  Yucca: Hmm. Mark: you know, and I did get a job and now I'm working in it and it's lively. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It's if, you know, Folks that are listening to the podcast that have been on the Facebook or Discord communities know that I am about to be appointed as the Interim Executive Director of the environmental organization that I work for, and there are crises that we are dealing with that are very challenging, and they're going to land in my lap when the previous Executive Director leaves, which was already planned before the crises happened. So, it's not his fault, but still it's, it's a very lively time, and I'm not getting time off at the holidays that I expected to get because I've got to work through the end of the year when he goes. So, but I got a job, and it's a good job working for The protection of wilderness and, and wild places and biodiversity hotspots. So that's, that's pretty cool work to be doing. Yucca: Yeah, so you like to set themes instead of resolutions. And is that something that you do, um, at the same time as your dark mirror ritual? Or is that a separate thing for you? Mark: That's kind of a separate thing. And it doesn't necessarily have to happen like on New Year's Day. Usually I, I do it in the first week of the year, something like that. Just as things are starting to get rolling again, the, the normality is reasserting itself after the strange, still frenzied window of the holidays. Yucca: Mm Mark: Um, so yeah, that's, that's generally when I do it, and I'm still not clear about what my themes will be for the coming year. Um, but I've started thinking about it. Right? Yucca: hmm. Mm Mark: Uh, I, I do have the, the advantage of not having, I mean, I'm going to my Ritual Circles Yule Gathering today, which is sort of my big social Christmas y, Yule y thing. Um, but, I have no plans on Christmas Day itself, so You know, at least that I get off, uh, and I don't know, I'm, I'm gonna try to pry out some more time next week if I possibly can, but it really just depends on what's going on. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: How about you? What are your New Year's practices? Yucca: It's not particularly formal. I, I do like the resolutions it, as long as it has the what we were built, we were talking about built into it where it isn't like a, oh well, I messed it up and can't try again. But I'm, I'm more of a fan of making choices and resolutions. When I, when it comes up, right? So I think that this is a really important time of year to be doing reflection, but I try and do that throughout the year. aNd I'm a little hesitant about the doing anything where I say, oh, I'll wait till Start it on Monday, or start at the beginning of the month, or start at the beginning of the year, because that stuff actually means you don't really want to do it, right? You're not going to do it. If you're really going to do it, start now. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not Monday, now. So I'm kind of in that camp of just like, if I'm going to do it, yeah, I'm a kind of cold turkey person, right? Or pull the band aid off, where just, I'm just going to do it. But know that sometimes I will slip up. And then I have to be, and I can't do the whole, oh, well, I guess, you know, I slipped up, I'll, you know, I'll just do it again and start better tomorrow. Nope, you just gotta be on it. And that's just my particular personality that I've Mark: Huh. Yucca: Some people are very different with that. But I do like the idea of there being a time where people are reflecting on what they want and actively deciding to make a change. Whether that ends up working out or not is a different thing, but I think that it's really important to have that. So I value that that's something that our culture does. I think we could work on the skills around that. Mark: Yeah, that, that's, that's a good point, too. The, yes, there are skills required to have that kind of discipline and, and self compassion. You know, the other thing I wanted to put a word in for is We tend to think of New Year's resolutions as always being something that's like, you know, taking your medicine. It's some, you know, I'm going to abstain from something or I'm going to Yucca: Well, the classic one is I'm going to go to the gym every Mark: Yes. Yucca: the going to the gym is the classic one, right? Yeah. Or losing that 20 pounds. Mark: Yes. Whereas It's also possible to have resolutions that are about good things that you want to add into your life, right? You know, you, you, you could certainly say to yourself, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna carve out Sunday afternoons and I'm gonna go for a hike every Sunday afternoon. That's what I'm gonna do. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And that's good for you. I mean, that, that, that would be a pleasurable experience that you'd be doing for yourself. You know, something that's additive to your life, you know, it could be I'm going to start having date nights and I'm going to have more sex in my life. It could be I'm going to make sure that I get to that restaurant that I love so much once a month. You know, any of those things. Yucca: And let's, let's take one of those as an example. Let's say it's the going for a hike on Sundays, right?  Planning for Success in the New Year --- Yucca: If that is the thing that you're thinking about, well, you can go, okay, well, What can I do right now to help set that up to be more likely for me to be able to do that? And for me, that would be, I'm going to put it in my calendar right now. It's pretty easy to do that. I have a digital cal I like, I have a physical and a digital, but my digital is my main one, then I copy it onto my physical and go, okay, I'm going to see that on my calendar every day. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: And then I'm going to think about, okay, well, what am I going to do If the weather is XYZ, right? Okay, I'm going to set it up right now that I have the equipment that I need to be able to do it. So if it's raining, I'm not going to go, oh, I guess I can't go out because I don't have a raincoat. I just got myself a raincoat, so I can go out, right? I've looked up places that I can go. So when you're in this, like, I'm, when you're in the moment of deciding that that's what you're going to do, you've got energy around it. Think about how you can set yourself up to succeed in that. Mark: Yeah, I mean, in the hiking example, I think one thing that you can do immediately is go get yourself a pair of hiking boots. Yucca: Yeah, right? Get yourself the hiking boots and figure out some of the places. Maybe find a group, if that's what you want to do. Maybe you don't want to go with a group, but is there a group that That is doing it, that you could, that you could join with and then have the positive peer pressure component to it, right? And we always say peer pressure is like this bad thing, but sometimes it's really helpful, right? Like, we've said it before, if this podcast was just one of us trying to do it, Wouldn't have worked, right? Because each week I know, oh, Mark's gonna be there waiting for me. Okay, I'm gonna do it. Whereas if it was just me by myself, we would have gotten a few episodes in 2020 and that'd be it. Right? Mark: Well, yeah, there is something about being accountable to other people. And creating whatever it is that you're trying to do to build some accountability expectation on the part of other people. I know meetup. com tends to have lots of hiking groups and, you know, people that like to do various outdoor things, so that's a resource that you can look for. Yucca: Right. And of course, whatever your goal is, I just grabbed that one because that was an easy one to talk about, right? But, but the point of it is to think about what's going to help me succeed, what might get in the way, how can I respond when that does happen? Because it, there will be a day that the weather is off. There will be a day that you're feeling sick. There will be, those things will happen. So, what are you going to do when they do? Mm Mark: right. And the good news is that as you start doing the thing and enjoying it, since we're talking about things that are additive, that are, that are, you know, that are pleasurable in your life, Um, it will feel weirder and weirder not to do it, because we are creatures of routine, right? And you can get that routine making pattern on your side if you just build up some consistency. Yucca: hmm. Mark: So starting at least with a social group, and I find that a social group is good for hiking. I mean, I like solo hiking a lot, but One thing that a social group is good for is that interactions with other people will tend to distract you from whether your body is hurting or not. Yucca: Yes. Mark: know, if you're having a conversation on the trail and your legs are starting to hurt, you'll, you'll tend to tamp that down to continue the conversation on the trail. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So, you know, while you're building strength. Yucca: Right. All right, well, Mark, are there other things that you can think about for this turning of the year? Mark: You know, not really. My birthday is two days after New Year's Day, and so the two of them often, you know, they kind of get mushed together. And So the reflection piece tends to be, for me, it tends to be not just the last year, but also, like, life, Yucca: Right. Mark: What have I done? What am I doing? Where am I going? You know, all those kinds of big questions. So I do like to consider those as well, but I think that's really more of a birthday thing. You could do that at any time of the year, Yucca: Right, Mark: but a birthday is a good opportunity for it. Yucca: yeah, I think all of what we've been talking about is great for birthday whatever time of year your birthday is, Mark: Yeah. Even the resolutions, it's like a gift to yourself, right? You're gonna improve something. Yucca: new year, it's not the calendar's new year, but you're starting again, Mark: Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And yep, and mine actually falls on a Wednesday, like the day I was born this year. Yucca: Oh, I was also born on a Wednesday. Mark: Where are you? We're full of woe! Yucca: Yes. I've always liked Wednesday because when I was little, I learned to spell it as Wed nest day. And so every time I write the word, I say Wed nest day in my mind, even decades later. So I've just always enjoyed that day. Mark: That's great. Yucca: So, just the little things to make. Make things fun and enjoyable, Mark: Sure. Yeah. Closing Thoughts and Farewell --- Yucca: Well, we will see everyone again. I think our next episode will be the first. So we won't see all of you until the 2024. Yes. Wow. That sounds like a sci fi date. That doesn't sound real. Mark: God, it's, it's, well, you know, there's so, Yucca: Shouldn't it be like some Book series, or like, sci fi action should be named 20, 24. Mark: You know, there are times when my partner Nemea and I, we look at some of the technological things that are happening and we just say we're living in the future. You know, we remember what it was like in the 70s when a Texas Instruments TI 30 hand calculator was both expensive and rare and, and incredibly powerful, right? And now, you know, now we're doing custom gene based healthcare for people. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: It's like, it's amazing. Yucca: it's a cool time to be alive, right? That's something we should say, it's been, for all the challenges that are world is facing and that we're facing and the crises and all of that. It's also really, there's a lot of cool stuff Mark: there is, Yucca: and just the things we get to learn and the tools we have to study with and, and the opportunities that just didn't exist before. Mark: Right? Right. Yucca: Yeah, there's a, there's a lot, there's a lot to be really grateful for. Mark: Absolutely, and there's, of course, a lot of improvement that needs to happen on many fronts, and that's our responsibility as people who want a better world, um, but I mean, I've known some activists who have fallen into this terrible hole of everything is awful and they're just cynical about everything because it doesn't meet their perfect dream. I don't remember who said it, but something like inside cynic is a frustrated optimist. aNd, uh, no, a frustrated idealist. That was it, a frustrated idealist. And I really work hard not to have that happen, because I think it's such a narrow view of the world. The world is amazing. Life is an amazing ride. And yes, there are terrible things in it, and that's just how it is. The big okay. Yucca: Yep, Mark: Yeah. Well, Yucca, thank you so much. I wish you a Merry Christmas, um, Yucca: and a happy new Mark: a Happy New Year. Yes whatever your celebrations are over the course of the next week I hope that you enjoy them and spend them loved and warm and cozy. Yucca: and we'll see y'all next year.   

Join me and guest Mark Silver in a deep dive into ethical pricing, dissecting models like "pay what you can" and the intriguing "pay from the heart." Mark, drawing from his new book "Heart Centered Business," emphasizes the crucial elements of transparency, balance, and assertiveness in pricing. The discussion explores ethical selling, treating clients individually, and a holistic, heart-aligned pricing strategy for sustainable business practices. In this episode, Patrick and I talk about his 'pay from the heart' price model as well as: His view on what money is (and it's NOT energy!) How to price ethically The elements of a successful ‘pay what you can' approach Who should adopt these models? Why neediness is not a bad thing Client sovereignty And so much more Ep 178 transcription Sarah: Hello, Humane Marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non pushy. I'm Sarah Zanacroce, your hippie turned business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneers. Mama bear of the humane marketing circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you're ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a sustainable way. We share with transparency and vulnerability. What works for us. And what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you, instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane. marketing forward slash circle. And if you prefer one on one support from me, my Humane Business Coaching could be just what you need. Whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big idea like writing a book, I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you, together with my almost 15. Years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. If you love this [00:02:00] podcast, wait until I show you my Mama Bear qualities as my one-on-one client. You can find out more at Humane Marketing slash coaching. And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website at Humane. Hello and welcome back Humane Marketers to the Humane Marketing Podcast. Today's conversation fits under the P of Pricing and I'm so happy to have a returning guest Mark Silver from Heart of Business and we're going to be talking about Ethical pricing. If you're a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven P's of the humane marketing mandala. And if this is your first time here, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your [00:03:00] one page marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven P's of marketing at humane. marketing forward slash. One page, the number one and the word page. And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different piece for your business. So it's not prescriptive, but really reflective. Everything we do here at humane marketing is questioning our. Assumptions, what we assume and what we think we should be doing in marketing and question those assumptions and then come up with our own ideas. So before I tell you a bit more about Mark, allow me to invite you to a special week of events that is hosted by our community, the Humane Marketing Circle. Expo. We're calling it the Expo because we're exposing many different workshops and events that are all hosted by the members of our [00:04:00] community. It really truly is an unsummit, a different kind of experience that is organized and held by our community. And why an unsummit or what is an unsummit? Uh, it's because it's not just about what you'll learn, but how you'll experience it. Really, we decided that for this event, connection is our guiding star, and we believe in a different kind of learning. One where human connection is just as vital as the knowledge gained. So, our expo is about real conversations. It's shared experiences in a participating atmosphere that emphasizes the power of community. So it's not just about getting in as much content as you can and watching hours and hours of recordings, but really attending live. You can expect workshops, discussions, and connection calls that are aimed at fostering a sense of togetherness. And it's not just about [00:05:00] being passive, but an active member. About sharing, learning, and growing together, the activities range from a LinkedIn profile makeover to doodling for stress relief to data analysis, the human way we have grouped the different offerings into four areas that we believe make up a humane business and they are being. Relating, thinking, and doing. So please join us for free at the humane dot marketing forward slash expo E X P O. And while it's free to join, we'll ask for a small donation to attend the workshops because all revenue goes towards the fundraiser of the first ever real live meeting of our community in Sicily in May, 2024. So I hope to see you at the expo. The link again is humane. marketing forward slash expo and humane is with an [00:06:00] E at the end, humane. marketing forward slash expo. Okay. Back to this week's episode with Mark Silver. Since 1999, Mark has worked with heart centered entrepreneurs to help them realize that Every act of business can be an act of love. Mark is one of the pioneers in integrating real spirituality with the nitty gritty of small business. He founded Heart of Business Inc in 2001. A designated master teacher within his Sufi lineage, he has received his Masters of Divinity. As a coach, teacher, and spiritual healer, he has facilitated. Thousands of individual sessions with entrepreneurs and has led hundreds of classes, seminars, groups, and retreats. His weekly writings and teachings are followed by thousands of people around the globe. A fourth generation entrepreneur prior to heart of business, Mark ran a [00:07:00] distribution business, turned around a struggling nonprofit magazine and worked as a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay area. So in today's episode, we talked about Mark's view on what money is, and it's not energy according to him, how to price ethically, the elements of a successful pay what you can approach, who should adopt these models, why neediness is not a bad thing, client sovereignty, and so much more. So let's dive into this conversation with Mark Silver. Hi, Mark. So good to have you back. Thanks so much for indulging me again and, uh, uh, taking another round and another shot at this conversation. We had some tech issues the first time, so thanks so much for coming  Mark: back. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. If I think of all the times I've had tech issues or problems over the last couple of decades. No worries. [00:08:00] Part of it.  Sarah: Thank you. Thanks for being here. So we're hosting this conversation under the topic of ethical pricing. You've been on the podcast on a previous episode where we also talked about pricing, but, uh, a different aspect of, well, part of ethical pricing, which is this, uh, thing that you often talk about, which is pay what you want or pay what you can model. So we'll address that as well, but I feel like we could have easily called this episode the, um, ethical business, uh, episode, because you just wrote a book called Heart Centered Business, right? And so I, I read it and I, I'm going to kind of pick your brain about certain questions that came up for me, if that's okay. Mark: Yeah, I'm delighted. I'm delighted to dig in.  Sarah: Wonderful. So quite in the first pages of the book, you talk about money. And I think if we talk about ethical pricing, well, [00:09:00] obviously we need to talk about money, right? So this idea that often kind of makes it circles in the spiritual realms is this idea of, uh, money being energy and you make a very clear statement that money is not energy. And so I'd love for you to unpack this and explain, uh, yeah, your approach to it and why money isn't energy.  Mark: Yeah, so, um, thank you. It's a, it's a, it's a really good question. So this whole idea that while money's just energy, um, is something that I've seen make the rounds, as you said, in a lot of like spiritual business circles, and it's very often used, I think, as a bit of a, of a bypass, meaning, you know, not really POSITIVE pinpointing. You know, as taking permission to not really look at what's going on. Um, the truth is, it's true. Everything is [00:10:00] energy. Everything is divine at its essence. However, money only exists as money in the physical world. And when something is present in the physical world, it abides by. The, um, constrictions, the restrictions within the physical world, you know, it's like I look out my window and it's, you know, we're moving very close to winter. All the leaves are off the trees. This is not a time to try to plant tomatoes. You know, it's like, it's not going to work. Um, it is a time to plant trees, however. So it's like, Thank you. Because trees need to be dormant in order to over the over the winter. I don't need to get deep into regenerative farming and planting, but I did not know that. So thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You can plant them in the early spring. We could spend the whole episode on trees. I love trees. Anyway, um, so. When we talk about money as energy, it's really important that we're not thinking that that's an excuse [00:11:00] to bypass just being responsible with the, with how it works in the world, you know, it's, you know, there's, we have to pay attention to it. We have to account for it. We have to care for it if we want it to be in our lives. Now, It's also important to say that the economic systems that are in place in this world are extremely unjust there they've been manipulated they've been set up to benefit certain people and to harm others and so it's not like we just want to be. Um, unmindful of questions of justice or ethics or morality when we're dealing with money, but it does behoove us to really open our hearts to dealing with the real world aspects of what is needed to make money work in our lives. [00:12:00] Yeah.  Sarah: What comes to mind is, is the, um, I'm missing the words that, you know, the movement, um, that manifests anything, the, yeah, I can't remember the wording right now, but, but basically this idea of that, you know, if you just wish for it hard enough, then it will appear, um, kind of thing. And I, my. Left brain has just never been a big fan of that idea because it, like, I have a hard time actually understanding it because I, I do believe money is physical as well. So it's like, well, how, how is it just going to end up? And then again, sometimes, yes, you know, it does happen. Some weird circumstances make it, make it happen, but I don't think you can just sit back and. And manifest everything, anything and everything you want.  Mark: Yeah. So, you know, as a spiritual person and someone who's had a wide [00:13:00] variety of experiences in this world, I've witnessed miracles. I've witnessed things happen. Um, you know, You know, the, because the opposite isn't true either. Everything doesn't have to be hard work. You know, again, going back to, um, the land, like, you can set up, um, regenerative agriculture. You can set up permaculture. So the plants care for themselves. You can set up your business. You can set up your money so that it's easier to do. And it's not so much hard work. However, in the physical world, yeah. The physical world is limited and we're asked to care for one another. We're asked, you know, it's like a one person, you know, if we have a pie, somebody takes the whole pie, nobody else gets to eat. Right. We have to, we're here to share and we're here to care for one another. Right.  Sarah: Yeah. So, so if we take this idea of money being physical, so what does that then mean for our ethical pricing? How do we [00:14:00] apply ethical pricing with physical money?  Mark: Yeah, it's a really good question. And I, I looked at it very closely in particular in my industry, um, around business development and business coaching and business training. And I have seen for. For years and years and years and years, I mean, since, you know, 20 years, 23 years, I've been doing this now. I've seen people charge. Very high, very, you know, five figures, you know, 10, 000, 20, 000, um, to offer business training for people that are in the very beginnings of their business building. And when I think about ethical pricing at that level, there is no way that a brand new business just starting to take on. Learning about business is going to be able to generate the kind of income and revenue, uh, that is going to make that kind of investment worthwhile. Um, there's no [00:15:00] way that you can jumpstart. You know, it's like a plant takes what it takes to. To grow i've i've watched you know over the years we've seen really clearly that it takes two to four years for a business to go from creation to momentum if you're really focused on business development it doesn't happen in six months it doesn't happen even in twelve months although you can make a lot of progress and gain. Um, and gain traction there, but so ethical pricing is when the investment is balanced. The price that you're paying is balanced with what a reasonable outcome could be. You know, not, um, the, the home run, you know, people who, who do a variety of programs like to point out the stars. It's like, oh, yeah, they did my program and they quadrupled their income. And now they're making 6 figures easy. And 1, they're often hiding. The background of the person that that got those results [00:16:00] and what we really want to see is but what is the average person because you want someone who's doing a program most people are going to get average results and are those average results which can be great average results are great are they are the average results worth the investment or are you hoping on a lottery ticket that you're going to be the one person that gets the home run. We have to pay attention to that.  Sarah: I think it's all about honesty and talking about results with honesty. Right. And in humane marketing, we talk a lot about this idea of being transparent and honest marketers. And, and so what we usually see is exaggerated pricing with exaggerated results, like the worst of both cases. Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. And, and so, and the sad thing about this is that. Then people start to [00:17:00] expect miracle results, right? And if you as a humane marketer show up and say, I can't promise you 10 clients within 3 months of working with me. Um, then there's like disappointment or they're like, well, this other person promises this and that. And, and so it really feels like we need to have this conversation that there. Is no miracle solution. Yes. I also believe in miracles, uh, Mark, but in terms of business building, especially if you just start out, well, there, you know, the leaps usually happen a bit later, but in the first year, it's very, it's very seldom that you get these leaps. And especially you can't believe that you. Just because you invest 20, 000, you're going to get these leaps, right? That's exactly right. Honesty conversation we need to have. Yeah,  Mark: we do. And the, and the miracles which can come, I've seen people like, you know, they, you know, they, uh, you know, they [00:18:00] suddenly get a slew of clients, but if they don't understand where those clients came from and how to repeat it, then that's not really, you know, that's, that's not really what the, um. That's not really the cause of whatever program you're taking, right? It's like, you can, you can be set up to receive those clients. I've seen people be on the receiving end of miracles, but their business isn't structured to receive people. And then that definitely can create a problem. Like, you know, like, I think of a client, I think of clients who suddenly got big media exposure just because of that. By luck, but then the people that came towards them, they didn't know how to handle that. So, you know, I've worked with clients who say, oh, my goodness, I'm getting this big media exposure happening. It's going to be coming in a couple of weeks. I'm like, okay, let's ABC, like, let's handle these things so that your business is ready to receive whatever comes towards you. But, um, but you, you do need to, um, not. Pinned on [00:19:00] miracles and home runs for your business to work.  Sarah: Yeah. So let's talk about this, uh, idea of the sliding scale. So this, um, kind of accessible pricing in order to serve as many people as possible. That's kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum, right? Um, I do notice myself also, um, after having had discussions with colleagues, Having strong emotions with that scheme as well, because I do feel like, well, if we're selling that as an ideal business model, then that is not necessarily the beginning point for everybody either. Because otherwise you're going to burn out and, you know, if you start by just giving away your stuff for like really cheap pricing, then how are you going to get create momentum? So I'm really curious to, to [00:20:00] hear your thoughts on that.  Mark: Yeah, I think it's really important to understand that most of us. You know, we've been exposed to this, you know, large scale capitalist model, where it's like, we sell a lot for cheap, you know, the, the Walmart or Amazon or whatever model, and it's not healthy, you know, all of the small businesses, micro businesses are boutique businesses, you know, you can't, you can't. You can't sell 10, 000 or 100, 000. It's not realistic that you're going to get there very quickly. It takes, you know, if that's your business model, there's other things that we need to put in place. And we should talk to make sure that's really where you want to go. However, I'm very actually against sliding scale. And my pay from the heart model is significantly different than just a plain sliding scale. What I observed years ago with people using sliding scales was that there were, uh, Two things generally going on. [00:21:00] One was that there was this genuine desire to make their work accessible. Beautiful, beautiful. It's really important. There are people who can't access services, and it's wonderful to see people make attempts to make services available to them. However, what most people who were using sliding skills weren't doing is facing their own money issues. And so. Instead of facing their own money issues and coming up with something that works, they were unloading their money issues on somebody else and saying, Oh, I'm struggling to name a price. So you name a price. And when that works, when that happens, one, people do tend to go to the bottom of the scale. Um, just because. You know, struggling on their own in whatever ways, but, um, what also happens, which people didn't really realize till I started pointing this out to some of my clients was that if someone is struggling with money [00:22:00] issues themselves and everyone in this culture. Is if they have to choose the price they might choose not to buy it all because it's such an emotional struggle between i want to i want to care for myself i don't have a lot but i want to pay what they're worth it's too much to decide i'm just going to leave right yeah exactly exactly and overwhelmed so when we talk about pay from the heart there's a whole structure around it because, you You do need to, you know, I encourage people to really get clear on what your own business needs are and make that really clear to people. You know, we, we've just opened up a new course and, um. And we have, uh, our suggested price and we have a minimum price, and then we have a way for people to pay less than the minimum. But we make very clear that, oh, this [00:23:00] is for people who are going, who are struggling with food or shelter people that are, you know, like, it would do you a lot of harm. This is not just pay whatever's comfortable. Right? Because we need to be supported also. And so it's, it's much more of a collaborative process than just letting people choose whatever it is they want to, whatever they want to pay.  Sarah: Yeah. And I highly recommend we'll, we'll put the link in the, in the show notes page to the initial, the earlier discussion we had was only about that. And what I remember you saying, and I kind of gave this picture to my client of the, the star yoga pose, you know, take up space. I remember you're saying that I'm like, Oh yeah, that's a good way to put it. It's like you need to take up space as well and take up the space to explain things. You know, usually people just say, pay whatever you want. And then, like you said, they usually pick the lowest price. And if you [00:24:00] explain it well, then they'll understand. Um, And that takes you kind of showing up with, with confidence and space. Yeah. Right.  Mark: And we, and we made a mistake with this, um, in that we had launched it and we were way on the generous side. Going, you know, if you're really struggling, you know, et cetera, um, and people were paying below our minimum way more than was sustainable for us. And we're looking at it going, what's going on? And then we looked at our language. We're like, Oh, we're not taking a strong stand. And ever since we've taken a stronger stand, um, kind with kindness and with love and compassion, but including our business in the compassion with one of our offers, um, people really responded. And we really started seeing a market increase people, people care, you know, our clients are adults. You know, if [00:25:00] someone's paying you, they're going to be an adult, even if you work with kids, even if your business works with kids, the people paying you are the adults somehow, and they know that your business needs. You know, that you need to get paid, like, they know that it costs money to access services. And so you're not going to be surprising anyone when you put out what your financial needs are around and off. Right.  Sarah: So, so, yeah, this idea of neediness also comes up. In the book, and I guess that's what you meant by it, right? This, this are that our business has needs as well. And of course, as individuals have needs, but that in this case, neediness is not a bad thing. Um, is there anything else you want to add to that point of neediness?  Mark: Oh, my goodness. So this is a huge spiritual topic. And it's one of the core [00:26:00] things that we like to help people with. And in fact, our one of our flagship courses, the heart of money and power is really at heart about coming into a relationship with healthy neediness. We're all needy. We're all needy. It's this culture that has Told us that neediness is not healthy or not right, but we often aim our neediness in a wrong direction in a way where we're not going to get our needs met. And I'm, I mean, I'm needy. I can't manufacture the air that I'm breathing. I can't create the water that I drink. I can't force food to grow. You know, I'm needy on so many people doing their part in our culture for, you know, to survive. And so. When we can embrace our neediness, then we can be in a healthy relationship with it. We can be appropriate with it. When we try to [00:27:00] shove our neediness down and not embrace it is when it comes out sideways. You know, that's when it comes out in the sales conversation or comes out in our marketing. And it has this weird feeling of like, Oh, please buy for me or I'm not going to make it. And that feels horrible. To you as the business owner and it also obviously feels horrible to the client, but if we can just slow down and allow our heart to be fed our heart to drink in the love to drink in the care to know that we're cared for deeply. Then that allows us to feel grounded and solid and then we can start to provide a refuge for people and our clients can then lean into us not feeling like we're trying to extract something from them. Yes, we want to get paid, but we really want to care for people at the same time and it becomes a [00:28:00] much healthier interchange and it allows us to get at our marketing and our sales in a way that can feel really good in the heart. Because we're not trying to get something from people in that same kind of twisted way. Sarah: I feel like our, both our work is so aligned. You, you talk about sacred selling. I talk about selling like we're human. I have this visual of having a conversation with your client in the serene garden, right? So this groundedness is very much there. And, and I, yeah, I really hear you with what that means in terms of the neediness. But then there's also this other aspect of the client sovereignty, which you also talk about in the book, right? It's kind of this counter piece almost, uh, where yes, we have needs, but we also want the client to be sovereign and, you know, make their own decision and respect their decision. And their [00:29:00] timing and all of that, which is not what we're usually told in marketing or selling. We are told to push at any cost. So, um, yeah, what's the sacred selling look like for you?  Mark: Well, it's, it's so interesting because when I, when I. If my former career was as a paramedic, or 1 of my former careers was as a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay area, and I did it for some years in pretty intense environments like Oakland, California. And I, um. When I came into business more came back into business, I should say, I found that I was really good at sales and I was like, how does this may even make sense? And I realized that because I was a really skilled paramedic, I was skilled at doing rapid assessments and chaotic, chaotic environments where people were often scared or upset. I was good at. Caring for people and [00:30:00] assessing that that's basically what sales is. It's this assessment that, um, we're trying to get to the bottom of what is it that they really need. It's interesting. Another interesting thing that I discovered was that in, uh. English the word to sell the word cell comes from an old English word cell gen. I'm not pronouncing it correctly. I don't speak old English. Um, but the original meaning is to give something to someone in response to a request. So if you were to say, hey, Mark, can I have that pencil and I handed you the pencil that's selling. I would have sold the pencil to you because you asked for it. That's the heart of what we're trying to do is just get people what they need, not force people to make a decision that's entirely on us. So one of the, one of the keys of selling, uh, successfully is actually, and I. And I, I think this can be counterintuitive [00:31:00] sometimes for people that are hard centered, is that it's a numbers game. Um, you, you want your business to reach enough people that your need to have business and clients, which is totally legitimate. Of course, we need business and clients doesn't put that pressure on any one individual person that you're talking to. You can't really help it so much and it takes a lot of spiritual work and heart soothing in the beginning of business because you don't have such a wide network yet. You know, to not put that pressure, but as a business develops part of what happens is that. You naturally start to gain a larger audience i mean you work towards it you develop it you put things in place that help grow the audience and i don't mean tens of thousands of people i just mean hundreds of people or maybe a couple thousand that your business is reaching. So that when you have an offer, there are people that are naturally ready to [00:32:00] step forward and you're not putting pressure on people that aren't ready. And you can easily in your heart, give people space when they're not ready.  Sarah: Yeah, that's a really good way to, to put into perspective why we, I don't, I'm not a big fan of the word audience, but in this case, it makes sense, right? Why we need our work to reach. Several people, not just the ones that we talk to, and then we feel like we have to push our services onto them. So, so to me, it's always been such a gift when I put out an offer and then people resonate with that offer and come to me, right? That's such a more natural way of, of then having this, uh, humane, uh, gentle sales conversation. Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'll tell you why I. Do you like the word audience? Um, I think that, and there may be other words. I'd be interested to hear what your [00:33:00] language is around it, but audience for me has an element of honesty about it, you know, so for instance, heart of business, we reach thousands of people, you know, our emails. When we send out our Wednesday email, or if I'm on social media, there's thousands of people I don't have, I have a warm relationship and anyone who steps forward to talk to me, we have a warm connection. But I don't have an in, we do as a business. And for me as a, as the, as the head of the business, I don't have a warm, uh, I don't have an intimate. Relationship with each person on the list and, um, I care, obviously, you know, we care. It's not to say we don't care, but until someone steps forward and wants to have a deeper relationship, you know, joins our learning community or joins a course or something, then it becomes 2 way relationship. And until then, it really is a relationship. With an [00:34:00] audience, um, with, uh, you know, that's more or less a one way communication, unless someone chooses to reach out and email me, which I always, I mean, I love to get those messages, but the truth is the vast majority of people don't. So,  Sarah: yeah, no, and I get that. I think it's, it's, it's more the. Again, it's one of those buzzwords that has gotten a bad reputation because once you unpack the word, yeah, that's what the word means, right? And there's nothing bad with that word. But the problem is that, um, the guru marketers, you know, they tell you to scale your audience and grow. And so it becomes this negative thing where, again, we make. People feel like they have to have this giant audience and, you know, not everybody wants to have the same kind of business module like you do, or some of the other, um, marketers do. And so that's why to me, when I work with one on one coaching clients, for [00:35:00] example, they're like, I don't have an audience. What is an audience? Right. And so when I explain it to them, what it means, then. Then they get it, right? So it's all a matter of making sure that we speak the same language and understand  Mark: each other. It's so important because these words do get really twisted.  Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Well, let's come full circle and come back to pricing. Um, any kind of, um, thoughts, actions that you'd like our listeners, watchers to, to take and just to. Go deeper into this ethical pricing.  Mark: Um, I think so. Arriving at a price is a little bit of an alchemical process. Um, you know, you need to have some knowledge. Like, I really encourage people to figure out what are your financial needs? You know, what are the needs of the business? You know, what is it? What is a price that a That you don't [00:36:00] have to be overwhelmed by clients in order to make a living and at the same time we need to be aware of our somatic body of our of our heart resonance because especially when we're newer in business i like to see people prioritize getting energy flowing through their business as opposed to like sticking to their guns and quote unquote charging what they're worth which doesn't make any sense that phrase doesn't even, You Make any sense. Um, and so oftentimes people begin, you know, we encourage people like, what is the price that you feel in your heart, in your body? You can say without shaking that you can put out there and feel really solid about and feel comfortable welcoming people in, even if it's lower than what you really need. Because what happens is, is that yeah. You know it's it's it's never only the price that's keeping people from saying yes [00:37:00] there's all these other pieces that need to be looked at in terms of how are you communicating and are you reaching the right people and you know and a lot of other things and. If all of those things are true, you know, and you get all of those things in alignment, then finding the price feels resonant in your heart. Even if it's lower, we'll start to get the flow going if your business is newer and you don't have a lot of flow. And so, um, and then that builds up your container. You start to go, Oh, I like working with clients. Oh, I've gotten to practice the sales conversation. I've gotten good at that. Oh, I like, I see that my offer is working and I've managed to tweak it. And once those things happen, generally, we start to feel comfortable at a higher price at a price that may be, you know, more sustainable. On the other hand, yeah. There may be people who have been in business for a while, and [00:38:00] they're actually not charging enough. And that's part of why their business is struggling. And, you know, and I'm talking about ethically in terms of being in alignment with themselves. We, I, I've had clients who said, you know, I've learned from this person, they've been doing it for 40 years, they're a master, but they're only charging this much. And so how can I charge more than them? And I, I often say, you know, well, they're, you know, they may be really good at what they do, but maybe they haven't worked on their money, money issues, maybe their pricing is stuck in a somatic memory from the 1980s instead of, you know, present day and, um. And a lot of times people in those positions don't realize how they're affecting everybody downstream. And so there's like an ethical need to embrace sustainable pricing, you know, sustainable pricing for the business owner. I think ethical pricing. We often look at, okay, are we [00:39:00] doing harm to the client? And that we do, we need to pay attention to that. But I also, you know, Notice that a lot of, uh, people that we work with see the systemic injustices, see the ways that people are struggling. And I'm saying, and I like to tell people, you cannot make up for systemic injustices on your own back. It needs to be a collective response and, um, and often our economic, economic system is asking, you know, exactly the people who shouldn't be giving yet more free labor, you know, women, people of color, um, queer folks, people who are disabled. Always the good people, right? Right. The people, the people who are, who are already being taxed by the system, who are already being asked to give more and to do more. And. These folks, and, you know, you need to have, um, sustainable pricing.  Sarah: [00:40:00] Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up this other side, which I, yeah, I truly believe in both sides and I do, I kind of see the same thing happening as in the sustainability field where there's so many good people, you know, putting. Themselves and, and, and their work into making these changes that we need to make, but they're not taking care of themselves, right? They're burning out in masses and, and that is not humane, uh, either. And so that that's not helping anybody. And so it's the same for the, for the humane business owner. Well, we need to actually first have you take care of yourself. Uh, once you are sustainable and you feel like I've taken care of myself without working day and night, right? A humane best business, in my opinion, is a business where you do actually have time to be human. We need to have this. Time to [00:41:00] to, yeah, create spaciousness for being human again, which we have, you know, forgotten how to do. You're talking about, you know, um, uh, plants and things like that. Well, we don't do that anymore because we're working all the time. But, um, so, so, yeah, I could go go on and on about this. This is like. One of my passion topics right now, but it's so true that we need to listen to, to both of these things. Yes. We want to be ethical towards others, but also towards ourselves.  Mark: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and I think it's important for most people to, you know, people come into the field seeing, Oh, Hey, you know, come into their business thinking, Oh, I want to do this. You know, I want to make it accessible. I want to, you know, And I'd like to remind folks that most businesses, the business model that they're ultimately going to be successful with is not a business model that is accessible when they're in the very beginning of their business [00:42:00] and, um, you know, our pay from the heart model for our learning community. I couldn't even even created the learning community back in the beginning of our business. I didn't have the material created. I didn't have the solidity and the knowledge and the clarity that I have now on how to help people without having my hands directly on their business, you know, 1 to 1. And so it's quite a natural progression to, um. Start with getting the business on sound footing and then as you're, as you evolve and as you gain knowledge, and as you get clear on your work and your body of work, then to start to think about how can I shift this business model, not only to make it easier for me, but also to meet some of the goals I have around making it accessible to others. Sarah: Yeah, that's a good strategy. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Mark. Why don't you tell people where they can find. About [00:43:00] you and also your book and maybe tell us about who the ideal reader is for your book as well.  Mark: Yeah, thank you. Well, I mean, we live at heart of business dot com, uh, you know, if you're interested, you know, you may want to just start with our email list and make sure that, you know, I, I'm, I'm actually who I say I am and that the. Stuff that's coming out is consistent, you know, and it make and it makes sense on practical on practical level. Um, you can on our homepage if you scroll down, uh, uh, get an excerpt from the book, um, to read the 1st chapter and to see the table of contents. And, um, again, that's a good way to get it. Get a sense of it. Um, it's interesting when you write a book, it's definitely for, you know, heart of business. We specialize in working with micro businesses, which is people that are self employed up to, you know, maybe a double handful of people involved in the business, you know, from [00:44:00] people that are just trying to replace the professional salary all the way up to, you know, small businesses that might be struggling. Yeah. Making high six figures or low seven figures. That's kind of our range. Um, but I've been told by a lot of people that work with much larger companies, that the book actually applies very beautifully to people working in large corporations. And, um, um, and, uh, and so, yeah, um, we're just trying to get as much support. I'm really grateful. You're doing the work that you're doing, Sarah, because, um. We need as much love in the realm of business as we can get. There is so much healing and so much change that's needed, uh, to, um, undo the damage and to have a much more humane, much healthier, much more heart centered approach, uh, to being in business in this world. Sarah: For sure. Yeah. Thank you. I [00:45:00] always have one last question, Mark, and that's, what are you grateful for today or this week?  Mark: Oh, I am so grateful for where we live. Um, I get to, I know a lot of people don't have access to this and I'm just grateful to have access to, um, the woods and, uh, and the land around our house where we can grow food and where we can walk the dogs and just be in connection with nature. And it's just, um, it's just a, it's a balm on my soul.  Sarah: Hmm. Wonderful. I'm grateful our internet connection worked for this conversation.  Mark: Yes. That too. That too.  Sarah: Thanks so much for hanging out, Mark.  Mark: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Sarah: I hope you got great value and insights from listening to this episode. You can find out more about Mark and [00:46:00] his work at heartofbusiness. com. And of course, go over to heartcenteredbusinessbook. com to get a free excerpt of the book and some other information and of course, also links to buy the book. If you are looking for others who think like you, then why not join us? During the week of December 4th to 8th in our community, we're hosting an expo. We call it the Humane Marketing Circle Expo, and we'd love to see you there. At the expo that is hosted by our community members, we prioritize connection as a guiding principle. This means you'll find engaging workshops, intimate discussions, study groups, and even a walk in nature. We believe in the power of a Collective wisdom, learning together and creating a truly participative atmosphere. The sessions are curated into four themed categories, being, relating, thinking, and doing, and these [00:47:00] are all addressing spectrum of topics that engage both our left and right brain, our masculine and feminine energies. So would you like to be part of that? Well, go over to humane. marketing forward slash expo and join us for this week of Humane Business Offerings. It's free to join, and we just ask for small donations to attend the workshops and the raised funds all go towards our first live event of the community in Sicily in May, 2020. You find the show notes of this episode at humane. marketing forward slash H M 178. And on this beautiful page, you'll also. Find a series of free offers, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free Gentle Confidence mini course, as well as my two books, Marketing Like We're Human and Selling Like We're Human. Thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your [00:48:00] clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers, so go be the change you want to see in the world. Speak soon.[00:49:00] 

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.   S4E31 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 fortunate to have with us Susan, who is a new member of the Atheopagan Society Council, and we're interviewing the new members of the Council over the next... A couple of months or so the ones that, that want to be interviewed, just to get to know them and find out what their thinking is about all this stuff we're doing. So welcome, Susan. Susan: thanks for having me on. Yucca: And some of you who watch the YouTube channel may recognize Susan from there, who's been, who's part of the media team, and has been making excellent videos. Mark: Yes, yes. Susan is the glue on of the media team. She holds us all together. Yucca: which is not always easy appreciated with all of the emails that have been chasing us down to make all our schedules work, and yep, Susan: I try to balance it so that everybody doesn't think I'm super annoying, but helpful, not annoying. Mark: So far, so good. So, Susan why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to atheopaganism and, you know, all that good kind of stuff. Susan: Yeah. Well, the short answer like it seems a lot of people is COVID brought me to atheopaganism. I, and I do have a short video, I think it's the first one that I did on the YouTube channel if anybody wants to check that out of my, my non theist upbringing and, and this kind of channel, so I'll, I'll make it a short version, but I live in the Midwest, in Ohio, and I've lived here my whole life, and I was raised without religion, but also not specifically atheist either. It was just sort of, we didn't talk about it. I didn't know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat until I was in high school because it was just, you know, I was left to my own devices. And I appreciate that for, for some things. There's definitely parts of me where I'm like, well, it'd be nice to have a little bit more direction. And I, we're kind of taking that track with our, with our daughter. I am, I'm married and I have six, soon to be seven year old, and kind of navigating that that space. My husband was raised Catholic, so we're kind of marrying together. He, he likes to call it ethnically Catholic, because he doesn't believe any of the stuff there, but so yeah, we, I, from a, Medium age started dabbling in stuff about the time when I was, you know, I'm an 80s baby. So by the time I was in high school, it was late 90s. And all of the witchy stuff started showing up all over the Barnes and Nobles. I'm like, Ooh, what is this? And especially the tarot card section with lots of stuff to touch and play with. So I I explored that area and the pagan, which at that time, at least, you know, Wicca was the super dominant thing in, at least that was publicly available. And so I dabbled in that for a while, and I kind of got It's like, this is fun, but I also don't really believe in this whole, you know, people try to rationalize it with, oh, it's the energy, and you're affecting the energy, and I was like, yeah, yeah, that, that makes sense, sure, and I, you know, doing the little, the little lie to yourself thing for a while. And then I kind of walked away from it for a while and just didn't, didn't bother with my, my spiritual life for a while until I got married. And we wanted to have a community for our child to grow up in so we joined a UU congregation, Unitarian Universalist, and they have, in our particular one, a fairly decent showing of pagan folks. And so I kind of picked that back up and we had a little bit of a range from full capital W witch to people who I think, you know, if I talked to them long enough about atheopaganism, that would be more up their alley but didn't, you know, know the words for it at that time. So it kind of came through there and then COVID hit and, you know, that community was sort of, sort of gone. But I was on the board and I was doing all of these committees and doing all the, I was doing all the work of being in a community, but not getting the community out of it. It was also right after we had merged. So my, my group went from 40 to 60 members to 200 and some people. And I didn't know all these people I was doing the work for and it just kind of, I kind of drifted away and was I was focusing more on what is it that I do believe in, since I had spent so much time just defining what I didn't believe in, and I found, kind of simultaneously, Druidry, which is something I'm, I'm pretty involved in, is my personal path, but also atheopaganism, and actually found I found out about atheopaganism through a blog whose, I can't remember what the blog was about but there was sort of an about me page and the person was describing, yeah, I don't really, you know, believe in the metaphysical part of this, but I still think it's really helpful check out atheopaganism, I'm like, yes, thank you, I will, and signed right up on the spot and I remember I read the, the principles And I don't know what bits of the, of the pages, but I remember running to my husband and being like, oh my gosh, I found them. I found my people. They're here, they exist. , I found it. I didn't know this was the words I needed, but I needed the word these words, you know, there's the validation of other people Yucca: was that during lockdown or was that a little bit afterwards? Susan: That was, I think, during lockdown 'cause I remember. We had still the the Earth centered group at my UU congregation was trying to do monthly Zoom get togethers, and I remember one of them, I was just, like, very excited to share with people that I had found both atheopaganism and the Druid organizations that I had joined at the same time, so. Mark: Well, that's very cool. I, I always love hearing these stories 'cause people, you know, people come to us through all different kinds of ways and and there is very commonly that I found them. They, they exist. I'm not the only one I am feeling which. I actually share, even though, you know, I, I wrote the essay in the book and stuff, because when other people started showing up, I, similarly, I was like, oh, I'm not the only one, there's more of us. This is great. So, very exciting. Well, it's great to have you with us, Susan. Thank you so much. So, You've just joined the Atheopagan Society Council and and you've been helping with the media team for a while. You're a very organized, get it done kind of person, which is really great.  Susan: Thanks. Mark: so, I don't know, what are your thoughts about this community and where we're going and, you know, what things would you like to see happen? You know, like new programs or any of that kind of stuff, if you've thought about it. Susan: I think my main thing that I want to see is that I hope you're going anywhere soon, but, you know, I want to make, I want to show up so that down the road we don't trickle and fade away when, you know, you, Mark, or, you know, the, the original set of people doing the council you know, are gone or, or, you know, have to be pulled away for whatever reason. I just don't want it to, to fade and be the thing that, that used to be really great for a while and then just nobody could keep up for it, keep up with it. And so that's something I'm interested in is, and I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what infrastructure we, you know, are going to end up with to make that be something that really sticks and stays and has standing. I imagine it'll be Getting a lot of volunteers and getting a lot of structure in place for volunteers so that people, you know, we don't avoid burnout. And that's I know, that's one of the things that we're talking about at the council meeting coming up. But that's, that's kind of my priority. But I am excited about the idea of getting more, not necessarily content, but getting more things in place for people to do in person, even if it's not with other people, but just more of an idea I was in a sorority in college and it was a One of the things that I thought was fun about that is that there were certain things that you did and you're, you know, it's, you know, a secret and secret rituals that everybody does, but you knew that even though you went to a different school than this person that you maybe met down the street and they went to school. different school, but they were still part of the same sorority as you. You knew they had the same ritual as you, Mark: hmm. Susan: and I love that we have so much open endedness of, you know, build your own adventure within atheopaganism. I think it might be fun to get something in place that is something we can all share, or those who are interested can all share, and like, I don't know if that looks like a standard ritual format or something, which is what some other organizations do, like some of the druid organizations, I mean, what they have. Here's our official format, and I don't know that that's something that we would really want, but something that has that feel to it, that essence of, hey, here's how you can feel a part of this, On your own, but still together kind of a feel. I think more of those kinds of things would be. And I think that would help a lot of people who seem to be clamoring for structure, you know, there's definitely the people in the community who are like, I am totally happy to do this by myself and come up with my own thing. And that's great. But then there seemed to be a lot of people who want a little more hand holding with their practice too. Mark: Mm hmm. Susan: So that's kind of, Yucca: of the insights that you have that I've really appreciated is that you're a fellow parent with, with a kiddo in the same age range and it's been nice to have someone to bounce off some of that, you know, how do we make that feeling available for, for kids who are growing up in this community? Because that's something that, for me, growing up as a pagan kid, there wasn't really anything for us. It was like, it was all the grown up stuff, and we were just sort of, you know, put it at a third wheel, right? And I think that it'd be nice for our community to have something a little bit more, more community for the kids as well. And I know that not everybody has kids in the community, but that's something that... There definitely are, there's quite a few of us, so, Mark: hmm. Sure. Susan: yeah. Yucca: something that you've brought that I've really valued, Susan. Mark: Yeah, I mean, I don't have kids, but I, I absolutely support that. I think that having activities for families that that work for the adults as well as for the kids is something that I really would like to see us have more of. Yucca: Mm Susan: Especially for parents who maybe only one of them is into it. My husband is very supportive and so, Mark: Mm-hmm. Susan: I, I know that I'm lucky in getting the amount of participation that I do, and there's plenty of people who are parents who it's very one sided and, you know, they may not get the, the family feel, like we can, I at least can say this is what we're doing as a family, but if you don't even have that, it can, it could be really nice to have. That feeling with other people, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about some ideas for that at the upcoming council meeting on Wednesday.  Yucca: And those are quarterly meetings. Mark: yes, Yucca: We do them after each solstice and equinox. Mark: yeah. So I'm, I'm pretty excited about some of those ideas. Some of them could be a lot of work to implement. But once they kind of got up and rolling, I think there would be so much excitement about... The activities themselves that that there would be a lot of, that that momentum would create the excitement that would create the volunteerism to keep it going, if you know what I mean. So, let's see first of all, I guess, do you have questions for us? Susan: man I feel like I'm trying, I'm trying to think of questions you haven't already answered on the podcast before or things that Mark: Oh, don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. You're, you're, it's okay if it's been asked before, that's, that's perfectly all right. Susan: No, I just mean, I'm like, I feel like I'm like, no, they said they answered that question for me before because I've, I've tried to keep up on it. I don't know that I've listened to every episode, but,  Yucca: we certainly do have folks who've done every single episode, but we have a lot of people who kind of come in for a few episodes, and then out, and then people who just find the podcast, and lots of different listening styles, or people who've listened for every year. But how many years are we at now? Mark: We're in season four, Yucca: Yeah, Mark: so. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's closing in on 200 episodes, I think. So it's, it's a, a chunk of work and time if you really wanna listen to all of them, which is why we, we do an episode for every Sabbath every year. We don't just say, go and listen to last year's, you know, Mayday episode. Instead, we do a new one every year because we've got people that are new to the podcast and you know, the stuff may be new for them. Uhhuh Yucca: Well, and it's a Susan: And hopefully there's something changing. Yucca: I'm curious to go back and listen and be like, did I even say remotely the same thing? Probably. But, Mark: you know, Susan, you were talking about a shared ritual. And what immediately popped into my head is the pouring of a libation, which is a very old, I mean, the Greeks used to pour libations, you know, in honor of their gods and stuff. And I wonder if we might have something like that, that would be kind of a shared atheopagan ritual that everybody would do to do that kind of offering to the earth. That might be kind of neat to put some, put some ritual trappings around and turn into something that we all share. Thank you. Susan: Yeah. And maybe I'm thinking do it on a, have it as a day that's not necessarily one of the spokes of the wheel, if you will. So it's, we're not interrupting anybody's already scheduled programming for this thing, like an extra, maybe it's on Earth Day or something, you know, like a, Yucca: Pi Mark: Huh. Susan: people won't already have their own set Mark: Huh. Yeah. Yeah. I'll think about it. I love the idea. Yeah. The equivalent of an atheopagan secret handshake. Uh Yucca: Hmm. Susan: Another thing I've been thinking about that I would be, I would love to do, at least for myself someday, is there's been a lot of chatter in the community lately about atheopagan saints, and I'm, I recently picked up from my friend who's in one of my druid groups, a Celtic Catholic set of prayer books, and it's kind of like a daily prayer thing, and I know that, I don't know a whole lot about Catholicism, but I know there's like a saint for every day, and I think it would just be fun to have a, like a solid atheopagan devotional kind of a thing, right, with Like, oh, today is, and I was, I started collecting things, so there's a day in February, I don't remember which day, it, of course, because everything, you know, gets mushed around with, over time and history, but I want to start celebrating Fornicalia in February, and for the Thank you. ancient god Fornax, who was in charge of baking bread in ovens. And it's like a day that you clean your oven and bake bread in it. So I'm like, Ooh, this might actually motivate me to do the thing that I don't want to do if I make it into a holiday and say, this is the thing that we're doing. Yucca: Very practical, right? Mark: you said Fornicalia, I went in an entirely Susan: Yeah, that sounds fun. It's less fun than you think. But bread Yucca: that day is in February, isn't it? The 14th? Isn't that day already in February? The 14th? Susan: Fornacalea is like the Like the 28th or something. I'll look it up and put it in Mark: think you may be thinking of Lupercalia. Susan: I'm going to find it. But yeah, it's, I have it as the 17th in my calendar, but you know, Mark: The day to clean your oven and bake bread in it. I love it. Susan: Yeah. Now I just need another one, you know, six months hence, so that I clean it more than once a year, but that's optimistic Yucca: Could there be, could there be one for air filters, too? Susan: yeah, right. That can be our shared ritual is clean your filter Mark: is replacing your, your air filters. Yeah. I love that. I, I love, I love the idea of I mean, I have so many regular observances that I do just for myself, and I never, you know, I'm, I'm very careful, I don't, I don't want to prescribe them for anybody else, you know, it's like, this definitely is a choose your own adventure kind of thing. Thank you. Religious path. It's like build what works for you, but it would be nice to be able to offer to people, you know, here's this compilation of, I don't know, five days every month or something that are special days that are the birthday of some significant, you know, scientist or innovator or creator in history and little bit of history about him and something that you can do, pour out that libation. You know, in honor of, oh, I'm spacing on the name. I just shared on Facebook to my friend group a a biography of this woman who actually figured out that the universe was mostly made of hydrogen. And I don't remember her name, but she's responsible for us understanding what the universe is made of. And she didn't even get any credit for it. Her somebody else published the results. You know, pretty typical for women scientists in the, in the Susan: hmm. Yucca: Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I don't know who that is, right? Which, itch is a problem that we don't know that. Mark: yes, yes, well, I'm going to look it up right now. So this, Susan: yeah, people really liked the 13 different atheopagan principles applied to the moon cycles, and that's great. It's, it's an offering, not a prescription, and, and people are just like, oh yes, thank you, give me, give me ideas. Yucca: yeah, maybe, I mean, when you were talking about those things, like a daily Right? Like a book that you read about, your little paragraph. I know a lot of different religions do that, and things that are totally secular, too. Like just a daily something. You know, I certainly use those in my practice that are just, they're really nice, right? It's just like this little thing, and it's like, oh, okay, cool. Just kind of think about this for the day, Mark: little Susan: Mm hmm. Yucca: right? And you take it or you don't take it, but it's kind of nice to have, to see how it just fits into whatever your experience is. And even if you use the same book more than one year in a row, like, by the time you get back around to May 14th or whatever it is, like, you've had the whole experience of a year and you're gonna see it in a different way, it's gonna fit into your life in a different way. Mark: mm hmm, Cecilia Payne, Yucca: Pain, okay. Mark: Cecilia Payne. Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Really amazing. Susan: Well, that's an idea for if we for, for listeners, one of the things we're thinking about maybe doing is the scout program. If we have that, we can have that as the capstone project for somebody Yucca: Yeah. Susan: her a plaque. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Some kind of a memorial. The person who figured out what the universe is made of probably deserves some kind of recognition. Yucca: Do podcast. Susan: Yeah, I don't know if it's a good idea. Yucca: And I know we have, there's not, like things aren't set in stone, but what, when you say scout, like, what are you talking about? Susan: yeah, well at least it was sort of talked in the community about this. I think it would be fun for adults too, but like, it's hard to, as a parent for me at least my husband was an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scout program, but I know, and I know that they have made some reforms and some steps in the right direction, but for me it's still not enough to feel comfortable enrolling my daughter in it and I have reservations about Girl Scouts for different reasons. Capitalism, and genderification, and just different things that I'm just not, there are certainly troops that I'm sure do a wonderful job, and there are certainly troops that don't but Yucca: A lot to navigate though. Mm-hmm. Susan: It's, yeah, it's a hard thing to navigate and I don't want to start it and have it come crashing down on her. So, and I think we sort of chatted in the community about this being a common thing and I had posted a few things a few months ago asking people about spiral scouts, which is a more pagan oriented group. And so now the, the scuttlebutt is, you know, maybe we can be an atheopagan chapter of that. Maybe we can create our own thing, like what is and what would be a nice thing. But a lot of parents have commented on it and said, Oh, yes, please sign me up. Dude, let's do this. Mark: hmm. Susan: We can't necessarily do things in person, not for logistical reasons. I'm very fortunate that I have A handful of atheopagans right near me. It's really great. I think I'm the only one with, with kids that I'm aware of, but it's not the case for a lot of folks. Mark: Yeah, I mean, we are, we're spread pretty thinly. So, our, most of our opportunity for face to face stuff comes through mediation like this, like Zoom. But that said if there Thanks If Spiral Scouts can be done in a way where there's like, kind of a learning chapter set of activities that get sent to a family, either as a PDF or in a physical package or, you know, however that works, and then, you know, all the different families that are doing it can do that and then come together over Zoom and kind of share their experience and show off their cool thing that they made and all that, I think that would be a really wonderful thing both for kids and for parents. It'd, you know, be a real, you know, wonderful thing to share with, with your kids, I would think. Yucca: I know my kids are definitely excited about the idea of badges , because they see that in, in the media of, there's so many different things where it's like, where it has that setup, like, oh, the comic, you know, the, like lumber Janes for instance, and there's like badges in that and the oh, what's it called? The, there's a Netflix show. Susan: Hilda? Yucca: Hilda, yes, with this, with the I'm forgetting the name of their scouts, but they had, it was named after a bird, right? And so they see that and they're always like, I want badges for that, right? So I'm sure they would be very enthusiastic about anything badge related. Mark: I really like that the Spiral Scouts has kept the badges but gotten rid of ranks. Yucca: Mm. Mark: So there's, there's no hierarchy of, you know, in the Boy Scouts you start out as a tender foot and then you work your way up through all these levels until you're an Eagle Scout, right? And, you know, some of the stuff in there is very useful and wonderful stuff to do. I mean, you have to do a community project in order to become an Eagle Scout, and those are, you know, it builds a sense of responsibility to the broader community, which is great. But the rank thing, I mean, I was big into Cub Scouts. My, my Cub Scout shirt looked like a a Latin American dictator from the 1950s. I had so many pins and badges and medals and it was ridiculous. The thing must have weighed five pounds. And I was really into that. But when I got to Boy Scouts, suddenly it was like paramilitary training and I just didn't want any part of it. It was, you know, it's like lining up for inspection of your uniform and stuff like that. It was, Hmm. Not, not my idea of a good time. So, no ranks in in Spiral Scouts. Just skill attainments. Susan: That's what I think my little one would be interested in too is just the gamification of learning life skills. Mark: Mm hmm. Susan: That's what I would love badges too. I would love a an adult 13 principles and four pillars set of badges and you do, I don't know what it is, like you do a small project for each one and you get a badge or, I don't know, honor system. Mark: we should absolutely do that. Just, just create a, a checklist of things that you do for each of the, the principals and then, you know, we'll have badges made and or, you know, or people could download the the... The software for the patch sewing machines, and then they could go, go to a local producer and have the patches made for them bunch of different ways we could do that. Well, I really have my mind spinning around all this now. It's going to be terribly disappointing if we decide we can't do it. But Yucca: Well, there's also, we can always, you know, spiral back around to ideas too, because we have to, we have to look at what, you know, what can we currently do, and what are the priorities of the community at the time, and see how things go. So, so Susan, if you were talking about the future, right, what would be your fantasy for 50 years from now? What would you hope to see? What would atheopaganism be in, you know, 50 years? It's, it's not us on the council anymore, right? Definitely other Mark: And I'm dead. Yucca: Maybe, hey, you might hang in there. Maybe, Mark: 50 years from now, I would Yucca: maybe medical technology will change. Mark: eleven. Yucca: Oh, that's a great Bilbo, right? Okay. Susan: As my, my daughter says, when you're 100, you're compost. Yucca: so what would you hope? Just, just fantasy, right? What would, what would we look like? Susan: I mean, I would love to see us be at the scale of, like, UU, where maybe, you know, there's not necessarily Church building on every corner kind of a thing like you get with, you know, your Baptist churches and your Catholic churches and all that kind of stuff, but I would love to have expanded enough that we have so much in person opportunity, and maybe it's not, you know, a congregation where everybody comes together on Sundays or that kind of thing, because I don't, I don't know that that's a right fit, but just to have, I don't know, your local atheopagan community center place that everybody comes together for their monthly meeting or whatever it is, but just more, just more. I think I would just love to connect with more people, because I think there's so many, there's definitely people, at least in my life, who are happy just being atheists, and that's fine for them and that's great, they can enjoy that, but I think that there are a lot of people who I know who could benefit from something like this, and anybody that I've talked to for more than two minutes Where I've been had a chance to answer their questions about it because you just say the words and they're like, that doesn't make any sense. Why would you do that if you're an atheist? Right? Then they're like, Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that. I understand. I understand why you would want to do that. And I think maybe a lot of people who are trapped. who feel trapped by atheism or who feel trapped by more traditional religious practices would find peace and joy with us. And I think, I don't know, I'm sure everybody feels this way about their own religious path, but I feel like if there were more of us, then the world would be a nicer place. But Mark: Yeah, I like to think so. We're we're, we're, we're about people being happy and the world being a better place. It's kind of hard to go wrong with those as your touchstones. It's God, it's, you know, we're doing this strategic plan in the Atheopagan Society, which by the way we created so that atheopaganism would have a container that could persist past me or anybody else, any other individual. You know, that's, that's why the society exists. And my book, I'm, I'm willing the rights to my book to the society. So, you know, that will always be available to atheopagans in the future. But I was saying, we're doing this strategic plan for like the next two or three years because it's hard to imagine much beyond that. So thinking about Yucca: So I said fantasy. Yeah. Mark: yeah, 50 is like mind blowing. I can't even, can't even get my mind around that. Yucca: I have a 20, Mark. Mark: 20, 20 years. What would happen? Well, for one thing, we would have enough of us that there would be opportunities for regional gatherings in a lot of places, you know, maybe two, three regional gatherings in Europe maybe one in Australia and so more opportunities for people to meet in person and You know, because that's really the gold standard of relating, right? I mean, it's wonderful that we have these tools to be able to communicate across distance, but there's nothing like being able to actually just sit down next to someone and have a conversation. I'm hoping for a lot more of that. Speaking of which, we have the Suntree Retreat coming up again in 2024, and we will soon start taking deposits to reserve space. Yucca: That is less than a year away. Mark: it looks like, yes, it's less than a year away. It's about 11 months away. And so we're working on what the content of all that's going to be. So that's locked in place. And now it's just a matter of, you know, figuring out the pricing on everything, and looks like the admission prices for, for the event and all the meals combined will be about 250. And then lodging. And lodging is as cheap as, and it can be more if you have a space in a cabin. Yucca: Mark, we're losing you into the robot. Mark: People should be able to do this event. How's that? Can you hear me now? Yucca: We can hear you now. You're frozen. Yes, now we can hear you. If you'll start again with people should be able to. Mark: Okay. Go to this event for less than 400 plus transportation. Yucca: Okay. Than 400 plus transportation. Mark: yes. Yeah, that, that's, I'm sure that that's going to be possible. In fact, it'll be... It's possible to go even less if you tent camp, so it's a good, good time to go tent camping. Tent camping only costs like 20 bucks for lodging for the whole three days. So, you know, if you set up your own tent or we can accommodate I think one RV Yucca: And that should be late summer, early fall weather wise, so that's a good time of year for it. Mark: Yes, yes, and, and unlikely to be, to have any rain. We actually got really lucky in May of 2022 because it snowed at La Forêt the week after we were there. Yucca: Wasn't it snowing several hours after we finally left? Mark: I don't know  Yucca: I know I was, as I was coming, I thought there was snow and then certainly as I was coming down, headed south down by the Rockies, it was raining, which was blessed because it was, we'd been having those horrible fires in New Mexico at the time and it was just raining the whole way Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: But I think that they were getting more rain than I was getting as I was driving down, or I was driving up, but down south. It's confusing. I think. Susan: yeah, Mark: Well, we have the big the big hall, Ponderosa. If it does, that isn't a problem, but the weather should be beautiful. I, I looked up the, the average weather in Colorado Springs that first weekend in September. I think the high average is 75 degrees or something. It's just perfect. So, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: should be really great. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: we're already talking about what all the content of things is going to be, and we'll put out a call for presentations and workshops in a couple of months, and before we know it, we'll be in Colorado Springs. It'll be, you know, with, with, with the gang. Yucca: Ball's rolling. Yep. Mark: Yeah, Susan: excited. I've already planned for it. So Yucca: Will the kiddo be coming? Mark: That's great. Susan: I think it's going to be all three of Mark: Yeah, is your hood Susan: they're not going to do all of the things, but Mark: There are beautiful places to go right around there. Garden of the Gods and Rocky Mountain National Park. Just gorgeous, gorgeous places to go. So if they like hiking in the outdoors there are lots of opportunities for them to enjoy that as well. Susan: yeah, and we might do, we might do tent Mark: Yucca, were you saying something? Yucca: oh, I was gonna say my, will at that time be five, almost six and eight year old will be joining me. Last time it could only be the, the older, but the, the youngest is, is excited for that rite of passage to get to go to, they call it the Ponderosa Pine, so, cause of the lodge, Mark: Huh. Nice. It's so great having her there. That was just wonderful. Yucca: Well, she'll be excited about the idea of more kiddos. I think there were other parents who had, who were there last time who were like, Oh, I should have brought mine. Right? But they didn't know that it was gonna, there were gonna be activities. So we'll have more activities for little people next time. So we'll have a little gang of them running around. Mark: Huh. Yeah, I think for some of the parents, because it was a first time event and they didn't know what to expect and, you know, pagan events can be pretty raucous sometimes, they kind of wanted Yucca: Yeah, we lost you again, Mark. You said they kind of wanted. Mark: to do, you know, reconnaissance first, go in and check out what this was going to be like. Can you hear me now? Yucca: Yes. We can hear you. Okay. So you were saying some parents, sometimes they can be a little ruckus y. Ruck that wasn't the word. Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, pagan festivals can be, you know, kind of uproarious and sexy and, and, you know, lots of, you know, carousing, and I think some parents were kind of leery of that and wondered what the tone of this was going to be like, and, you know, after having been there and discovered that we were able to have a good time without things sliding over into inappropriate conversation. Boundaryless mess that that it's a fine place for their kids to come, and I, I really encourage parents to come. Tickets will be actually, I think we said that Attendance was free for those 10 years old and younger, and tickets are discounted for those 16 and younger, or under 16. So, yeah other than having to get a bed for them if they're, if you're not tent camping kids should be very affordable to bring, Yucca: Was there anything else that you'd like to talk about or share, Susan? Anything you think that people should know about you? Mark: anything you'd like to say to the community. Yucca: Yeah. Mm Susan: I guess I'd like to say, tell us what you want to see, because You know, I think you both have mentioned this before about the podcast, but it's true of the YouTube channel too, is there's only so much creativity, the same, and there's so much overlap with both of you being on the the YouTube media team as well, like, there's only so much creativity we all have, so please tell us what it is you want to know about, what you want to hear about, what kind of content You, you want to see so we can get that out there you know, I, I generated when we first, when first I first got involved with the YouTube channel, I generated this big old list of, oh, here's a bunch of ideas and now I don't know if any of them are in the comments. Not resonating with me, or at least I'm like, oh, I'm not the right person to talk about that particular topic, but I'm like, what am I, I'm supposed to write a video. I don't know what I want to talk about. I guess that's, this is why maybe some of the days, even though I'm the glue on, my things are a little bit late later than they're supposed to get to, to the right people. But yeah, let's, let us know what you want to hear about. I'm, I'm happy to I'm Write stuff or record stuff or be in front of people and but I don't know what it is people want to hear about so Tell us Mark: Yeah, yeah, I really echo that, because after four years of producing these, new topics can be challenging. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It's, when we think of one, it's like, oh, oh, a new topic! We can do that! It's very exciting. It's a little easier in October, because we've got Ancestors and Death and Dying and Decomposition and Hallows and all those things. But for much of the rest of the year, we're... We could really use input on, you know, what kinds of things you'd like to hear about. Yucca: Especially like in July, like, hmm, what do we talk about? Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Because this time of year, yeah, October, and then we're going into solstice coming up, and yeah, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: busy next few months. Mark: Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining us today. It is wonderful to have you on board and to have you be a part of the community. And Yucca: Thanks for all the cool ideas today, too. Susan: Thanks. Yucca: think about. Mark: Absolutely. Susan: I'm good at ideas for fun things and not so much the follow through, so. Yucca: Oh, that's not true! You make the follow through possible! Mark: Even if that were true, it's still a really important role. You know, being, being a creative person who comes up with cool ideas, that's really important. So, we need cool ideas. Susan: I'm hoping that, you know, eventually we're going to hit a critical mass of people in the community that somebody, you throw out an idea and somebody's going to grab it and just run, who, you know, has the skill set and. I hope. I guess that's another thing I want to tell people is if you feel like you want to contribute something, please do. Like, I just showed up one day and was like, hey, I can help with things and now I'm on the media team and now I'm on the council. So don't be scared. Mark: Absolutely. Yucca: Well, thank you so much, Susan. Susan: Thanks for having me. Mark: Yeah. Thanks so much. We'll see you next week, folks.    

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. An Atheopagan Declaration of Policy Values (2022): https://theapsocietyorg.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/an-atheopagan-declaration-of-policy-values-2022.final_.pdf S4E30 TRANSCRIPT:   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, we're talking about religion and politics. Mark: Yes, but don't turn it off. Yucca: Yes, we were saying, what should we call this? What should we call this? But no, this is, this is important. This is what we're going to talk about. And there's a lot to say here. But today it was inspired because, Mark, you just got back from a trip, which you got to do some pretty cool politicking. Mark: Yes I went to Washington, D. C. as a part of a fly in delegation by the Conservation Alliance, and I'll tell some of those stories later advocating for protections for public lands, including the designation of some new national monuments. So, I, as I said, I'll, I'll talk about that stuff later but yeah, just got back from a lobby trip, Yucca: Yeah. So one of the things that... It is very common to hear in pagan circles, and I think probably not just pagan circles, but a lot of new age things and kind of, mini counterculture sorts of groups, is, you know, don't bring politics. into this, right? Don't, don't bring politics into my religion. Don't, you know, we, we aren't going to talk about that. We're not going to be this is separate, right? Let's be, let's be off in our realm or our magical experience and leave that other stuff out. Mark: right? And there is so much to be said about that. I mean, it has a nexus with toxic positivity. This idea that, you know, we should only talk about happy, shiny stuff, and that, you know, we're going to have this nice, warm, glowy, serotonin oxytocin experience by doing our, our spirituality, and we're just not going to engage with anything that doesn't stimulate that. It has to do with the toxicity that we see in the societies around us where the mainstream religions are engaging with public policy and they're doing it for really destructive and antisocial reasons. And so that becomes sort of the poster child for why you wouldn't want you to have politics in your spiritual space. But a lot of it, in my opinion, is simply... We don't want to think about any of those issues because they might bring us down. Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. But, and there's just so much to say because there's, it's going to depend on every different kind of situation but I think that if we think about the values that We often claim to have that we value the earth, that we think the earth is sacred. You know, we may have different interpretations on, you know, whether divinity is involved with that or not, but hey, we're agreeing, we think that the earth is important, we're agreeing about believing that love and freedom and all of these things are important, then I think that... If we really believe that, then we have a responsibility to those things. Mark: Yes, yes, we it's because they won't happen by themselves. You know, there are interests which are destructive interests and are not filled with love and are not about advancing liberty and are not about supporting the biosphere in a manner which is consistent with biodiversity and with the sustaining of humanity. And they're out there advocating for their stuff every day. And if we absent ourselves from the process because we think that it is too negative or too gross or too demoralizing, then we are leaving the field to those who would do us harm. And it's just not, there is no logic to it that makes sense to me, other than at the most sort of Self indulgent, I just want to feel good for me kind of place, where it makes sense to say, I'm not going to vote, I'm not going to advocate for what I care about, I'm not going to be interested in any kind of activism. I mean, everybody's circumstances Yucca: become informed about it, Mark: right. Yucca: right? Mark: Everybody's circumstances are different, and not everybody can be a big activist, right? You know, if you're, you know, you're raising kids, or, and you're, you know, scraping by, and, you know, there's a lot of different, I mean, poverty is a social control strategy. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: So, it is, it is one way that people who have the common good at heart are kept limited in the amount of power that they have. So let's, let's not mince words about that. But even with the limitations that we have, I have always felt that it was my responsibility to do what I can to try to advance the values that matter to me. And I'm pleased to say that the community that's grown up around atheopaganism is very much the same way. We're gonna, we're gonna put a Link in the show notes to the Atheopagan Declaration of Policy Values, which came out last year and was developed by the community with tons of community input and editing and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: There was a lot of back and forth and lots and lots of people participating and, you know, wording things just for, it was quite inspiring, actually. Mm hmm, Mark: the level, level of collaboration with the minimal amount of argument was very inspiring to me. And so now we have this document, and it can be downloaded from the Atheopagan Society website. So we're going to put the link in the, in the show notes so you can download that. But that's an example of the community speaking out on issues that really matter to us, and saying, this is where we stand. This is what our activism is going to be built around. This is, you know, we... We embrace LGBTQ people. We do. And it's not just, it's not just You know, so called virtue signaling, we genuinely do, we want those folks, we want people of color, we want indigenous people in our community, you know, we want them to be safe, we want them to be seen, we want them to be heard as, as an example. And similarly, along the environmental axis, along the axis of personal liberty and autonomy, bodily autonomy, all of those you know, the importance of critical thinking and science all of those pieces are a part of what our movement is about. And so, when we talk with the public, That is, that is core to what we express. Yes, we're here for happiness. We're here for people to feel good. We're all for that. But as one of the atheopagan principles says, you know, responsibility, social responsibility is one of our principles. Yucca: right. Mark: It is an obligation that we have. Yucca: And so those values, they're not just about talking about them, they're about, those are what inform the choices that we're making. Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: Right? And being able to reflect on what those are, right? is really important. Have conversations about that, because we're not, there's going to be nuance, right? We're not always going to see eye to eye on things, and being able to, as individuals, talk about that with each other, and as a community, be able to, to talk about that and, and, you know, have that conversation is really important. Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. And we learn from one another, right? I mean, that's a really important piece because As strongly as I feel on a value level about supporting people of color in the LBGTQI plus community I'm not one of either of those groups. And so I have to listen a lot in order to understand, well, what is an appropriate statement to make in support, right? How do I show up as an ally and as and as an advocate? Or a supporter for their advocacy, you know. So, you know, it's not as simple as just having a laundry list of policy positions. And it has to also recognize that we live in a world of subtle differences. Right? Subtle gradations of change throughout the whole natural world, and that includes humanity. So, I get really kind of bent sideways when I hear the lesser of two evils, or I'm not going to vote for that person because of this one little position, when the alternative is so much worse on every position. The best analogy that I've heard is that voting isn't dating, it's selecting, it's selecting the best possible option off of the available menu. And the available menu only includes people that actually have a chance of getting elected. It's not just some fringe outlier who tells you what you want to hear. Yucca: mhm, Mark: that can actually get into a position to make change in a positive direction. Yucca: mhm, mhm, mhm. Mark: So, we had a bunch of stuff on the outline for this podcast. What else have you got? Yucca: Well, certainly the, the issue of privilege is definitely Mark: Oh, yeah  Yucca: and this is something that I think comes up where people will be unaware of the place of privilege that they may be coming from to be able to say, I don't want to deal with this. I don't want this coming into, you know, my religion or my, anything about that, because that, that isn't the position that most people are going to be in that situation, right? Yeah. Mm Mark: Yeah the, I think the clearest way to express that is that if you have the luxury of saying, Oh, I don't want to vote that just encourages them, or I'm not going to consider any of those issues because I just want to be on my, you know, spiritual path of lightness and joy thing. Is that people that are marginalized and endangered by the way our society operates, they don't have the luxury to do that. If you look at voting rates, for example, African American women vote astronomically in high proportions in the United States. And the reason for that is that the interests of the community that they are in are, are, are stark. The, you know, the threats that certain people like a Donald Trump and the people that he brings with him present to that community are so real. They're not, they're not theoretical. It's not just something where, where as a white person, you look at it and go, Oh, gee, that's too bad. This is life and death for them. And they turn out to vote. They're organized. They're knowledgeable. You know, these are people who are, are leveraging the power that they have absolutely as much as they can. And when I hear people say, you know, oh, well, I'm not going to vote because blah, blah, blah. What I, what I really hear is, I am so cushioned from the impacts of the policies that get made by people that I don't... Agree with in theory that I can just skate on this and ride on, on the, the, the privilege that I enjoy in the society in order to avoid having to deal with something that I might find icky. Yucca: yeah, I'm being served by the system, fundamentally. Yeah. Mark: So, you know, I'll give an example. It's like, an argument can be made that the certain proportion of people who in, in key states who supported Bernie Sanders, And then refused to vote for Hillary Clinton may have given us Donald Trump. It's not that they had to agree with everything that Hillary Clinton said because they didn't, I didn't. But the appointees that she was going to make, the appointees to the Supreme Court, the appointees to the, the cabinet positions, the appointees to federal judgeships. All of those things were going to be head and shoulders above any of the things that Trump ended up doing. And it's painful to say, but those people needed to look at the big picture and go and vote for Hillary Clinton. And they didn't. And it's that, it's that, that sense of privilege, that sense of it not mattering that much that I really think needs to be interrogated on the left. And I am on the left, right, but I'm on the left that seeks to achieve progress because I'm a progressive, and progress happens in incremental steps most of the time. Progress isn't a home run. Progress is a base hit, and electing Hillary Clinton would have been a base hit on the way towards achieving better policies. And instead, we have what we have. So, you know, and I realize that there are going to be people that are going to be fuming when they hear me say this but seriously, look at the playing board, and look at what we got, and You know, think about, well, what does this mean for the next election? Where, where should I be putting my support? Yucca: Hmm, yeah definitely was not expecting that, I was not prepared for that direction of the conversation. That's something that I would have to really think a lot on. I understand some of the sentiment behind it, but I would want to look more at some of the numbers. And some of the assumptions about who is entitled to what vote, and whether those, I think that there's a lot to that situation, and I don't feel comfortable, I mean, you certainly have the opinion that you want, but necessarily agreeing and and um humming without really looking at that particular situation. I think that there's a lot that was going on there. But I've certainly heard that argument a lot, and one of the things that I have been uncomfortable with is, and I'm not saying that you're saying this, but this is something that I have heard often, is the sense of entitlement of those people's votes. That, you know, somehow this party was entitled to people's votes. What about... So, you know, do the numbers actually work out of how many Democrats voted Republican in that situation versus how many Independents voted one direction or the other? I think that there's a lot to really look into there. Mark: Sure, sure. And I have looked into it some. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: I should be clear, I'm not saying that Hillary Clinton deserved anybody's vote, or was entitled to everybody's, to anybody's vote. I'm saying she deserved them from a strategic standpoint. Yucca: hmm. Mark: That when you look at the playing field, And what was the right next move, that that was the right next move. And in certain states like Wisconsin there were, there were enough votes that dropped off. That the argument can be made, but, but let's, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: let's make the whole thing abstract, okay? Rather than talking about that, that election in specific, let's talk about elections generally. When you have a situation where somebody who you agree with 50 percent is running against somebody who is agreeing with you 10%, And then there's somebody out there who agrees with you 100%, but they have no ability to be elected. And it's clear Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You know, I need to go for the 50 percent because, again, I'm a progressive. So I want to see things advance, even if they're going to go a lot slower than I want them to go. Yucca: Right, well I think in some of that case it's going to depend on what are the particular changes that, and what are the things that you are placing at highest priority, right? And if one of the things that you're placing at high priority is trying to do something about the monopoly, then that the two parties have, I can see the logic of making a different choice there. But I think that the point, I think the point where we probably agree is that when you're voting, it's something to be very strategic about. It's to look at what is the situation where you are and what are the possible outcomes and thinking about You know, what are the values that you are, that you are fighting for in that case, right? What are they, right? Mark: and the key takeaway that I would, that I would leave this particular rabbit hole with is that not to vote is to vote. If you don't vote, you are Yucca: is voting, yeah. Mark: It is voting. So it is you know, you, you don't get away with your hands clean just because you don't vote, right? You, you bear a responsibility for election outcomes just like everybody else does. And that's a really important thing for people in democracies to understand. And I'll talk a little bit later on about democracy and the degree to which we have it and all that good kind of stuff. Yucca: And This is just one area, right? This is an area that we happen to be talking about because this is an area where, where this is something that there's some strong opinions on, and this is an area where people do have influence, but of course there's a lot of other things. As well, in terms of you know, commercial choices and lifestyle choices and all of that kind of stuff that we can but one thing I really want to highlight, and you touched on this a little bit before, but I think it really deserves its own section of the podcast as well, is that being able to spend large amounts of time on these issues is a form of privilege itself too, right? And this is not something that everyone has. And you don't have to be guilty and beat yourself up and you're not a bad pagan because you've got to do a 9 to 5 plus your two side jobs to even be able to Barely make rent, right? That's not, so we're not sitting here saying, oh, shame on, you're failing because you're not fighting oil rigs in the, you know, gulf and how come you're out there? Like, that's not what we're saying at all. And I think that it's really, really important to think about and balance in our lives the self care component. And, that sometimes, yes, it's, sometimes it is okay to just have your celebration and to not necessarily be talking about, you know, let's raise money for this, this particular candidate at this time, or something like that, but know that it does, that this stuff does have a place in the community, it is important, but it isn't, The, you don't have to be doing it all the time, if that's not what your, what your mental health needs. Mark: No, no, definitely not. And it's important for those of us that have the privilege to be able to engage the system in that way, either from the outside or the inside, that we recognize that privilege and use it. Right? You know, those of us that have the bandwidth, those of us who have You know, the thick enough skin and that have the energy and sometimes the money even just to travel, to go somewhere. I mean, the trip that I just took, I didn't pay for because otherwise I wouldn't have gone, right? But but it's, it's, that kind of privilege is very visible. It's like, The D. C. is a very, very African American town. It's a very Black town. Lots and lots of Black folks, and, until you get into the Congressional buildings, and there it whitens up considerably Yucca: Mm Mark: with the lobbyists and the, you know, the constituents that are going not, not universally, of course but noticeably, and it is incumbent upon those of us who have been there. The privilege to be able to engage, to do what we can to improve justice, and to speak for the things that we care about so that they can advance. Yucca: hmm. Mark: So, I could talk about my trip. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, you were just talking about D. C., so, Mark: Okay, well. So, I got sent on a fly in with the Conservation Alliance, which is a consortium of businesses which was originally founded by REI, the North Face Peak Design, and Patagonia. And they came together to create a unified voice for speaking up for the outdoors, for for wild lands and outdoor recreation. That was a long time ago, and now they have 270 businesses from a variety of different sectors, and what they do every couple of years is they gather a bunch of the leaders of those businesses along with, and they make grants, right? They pool their money and they make grants to organizations that are doing organizing and advocacy for the issues that they care about, and the organization I work for, Cal Wild, is one of those. Yucca: mm hmm. So that's how you were able to go on this trip? Mark: Yes, CalWild was invited to send a representative, and I was selected to go, and so I went. This is not the first time that I've been to Washington to lobby, but the last time was in the 90s. So it's been a while. And everything has changed, of course. I mean, technology has changed everything, and 9 11 has changed all the security. So, it's, it's just a completely different experience. So, so I went and I was going to speak on to, as a grantee, to speak as a content expert about the positions that we're trying to advance. My organization right now is working very hard. for the creation of three new national monuments in California. My organization is limited to California, so that's why, you know, that. But we're also advocating for some policy changes at the administration level, which would affect the whole of the United States. And I should say, you know, we're talking a lot about kind of American politics in this podcast, but if you have a representative democracy of any kind, the things that we're talking about are really applicable to you too. Yucca: Right. Yeah, we're just talking about our experience with our Mark: the stuff we know about. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the idea here is not to get everybody all plugged into American politics. It's to use that as an example of what citizen participation or resident participation looks like and why it's important. I go on this trip and I go to Washington and I meet with the team and we have a training briefing and all that kind of thing, and my take, we, on the first day, I had two meetings with administration offices with the Department of the Interior and the Council on Environmental Quality of the White House now when we're meeting with staff, we're not meeting with the people that are in charge in those agencies, we probably would have met with the Secretary of the Interior, but it's Climate Week in North Northern New York, so she was away at Climate Week, Yucca: Mm Mark: Um, so, and there was something going on with the Department of Environmental Quality such that we had the staffer that we had. But these are sharp, smart, influential people that we're talking to, and the sense that I got, and then the second day we had meetings with California delegation members both to the Senate and to the House of Representatives, including my congressman which I had a very interesting experience with talking to my congressman's office in Washington, so I'll get to that in a minute. Yucca: hmm. Mm Mark: The main takeaway that I got from, especially from meeting with the administration, was that they want to do what we want them to do. Their, their hearts are in the right place. And they are delighted that we are coming to Washington and talking to people, and organizing on the ground in local communities, because they need the political cover to be able to do what we want them to do. Yucca: hmm. Mark: And in that Yucca: like that's charging them up, right? They want to do it, but they need to be charged with the power of the people. Mark: yes, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Exactly so. And... It gives them something to point to when opponents say, we don't want that, Yucca: Mm Mark: right, they can, you know, they can point to the organizing that my organization is doing and say, well, the people in the community who live right next door want it, you know, the elected officials of the county where the expansion of the National Monument is proposed, they want it. So, You know, those are their representatives and they elected them to office to make those decisions, so why shouldn't we do this? So it's really important to be doing that kind of community organizing and talking to other people about the things that you care about in a, you know, in a focused way. So that was really gratifying to me because, of course, American democracy has taken a beating over the last 20 years, but it's still functioning. Thank you. The elections are kind of messed up, and we could certainly do without gerrymandering and and all the dark money, and I could go on, but as well as the occasional insurrection, which I really, really think we could do without. I walked Yucca: that's not an, let's have that be a singular thing, please. Mark: yes. I walked several times, because the house office buildings and the senatorial office buildings are on opposite sides of the capitol. I walked back and forth in front of where the insurrection took place a bunch of times. And there it is, you know, large is life. And, you know, there are the windows they broke, that's how they got in, you know, there's where they hung their banners, you know, all that. So, that said it was encouraging to see that at least under this administration, There was a commitment to listening to constituents and to hearing, you know, they were very appreciative of the businesses that were represented there, you know, in, you know, speaking up on behalf of protecting public lands so that their ecological values last forever, their recreational opportunities there, all that kind of stuff. Yucca: Actually, is that something you can, I know that we're talking kind of more process here, but for a moment, you were, talking about trying to get more national monuments. Why are those important? Mark: Oh, good. Very, very good question. My organization focuses on conservation of wild lands on public lands. And a lot of Yucca: you keep going, can you define conservation? Because that is a term that has a lot of different baggage attached to it. So what do you mean when you say conservation? Mark: man protection of the land so that it will not be developed in certain ways. And management of the land for the resource, for the benefit of the resources that are there, of the ecological resources, cultural resources in some cases historical resources, and recreational opportunities for people to go camping or hiking or whatever that might be. So, one... One misapprehension that many Americans have is the idea that public land is protected land. And it is not. Most public land in the United States is owned by the Bureau of Land Management or by the U. S. Forest Service. And those have been managed primarily for extractive purposes like logging and mining and Yucca: Oil is big Mark: and oil exploration. Yucca: yeah. Mark: Yeah, very big. So we're advocating for chunks. of undeveloped land to be protected in perpetuity and managed for the benefit of those values. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: That's what a national monument does. Or a National Wilderness Area, which is declared by Congress. We're not asking for a National Wilderness Area in the areas we're focusing on because Congress is broken, and there's no way to get anything through it. the President can use the National Antiquities Act to declare a national monument. He can do that on his own. Yucca: So, by taking , these areas, you're setting aside, you're allowing ecosystems to stay intact, right? So that you can have the populations of these animals and plants or whatever. Particular kind of species you're looking at, they have a place to be, they can continue to play the roles that they would play in a hopefully healthy system and to help manage for that, Mark: Right, and that helps us to accomplish a couple of important things, one of which is, you know, we have a biodiversity crash problem, you know, the, the biodiversity of the earth is the, which is the number of different species and the number of individuals of those species are both on a steep decline. Having habitat is necessary in order for, you know, organization, organisms to live. And but not only that, this is a very interesting one. One of the things that we're advocating for is the expansion of Joshua Tree National Park. Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mark: And the reason for that is that because of climate change, Joshua trees are migrating out of Joshua Tree National Park. Yucca: Interesting. Mark: Over time, they're moving north because it's too hot Yucca: Because it's warm. Yeah. Okay. Mark: Yeah. So, it... Protecting these areas also enables the natural systems of the earth to do what they do in terms of adaptation, right? So, there's a place for the Joshua trees to go as the southernmost of them die because of excessive heat, and conditions become better for them outside of the park to the north. So that's just one example.  Yucca: And may I add that we of course want to protect these for simply the innate value of that being , has any right, as much right to be there as we do. But they also, the functioning system performs ecosystem functions, which is like cleaning the water and the air that we all breathe. So it's, it's not just that, oh, we like there being lots of animals and plants and fungi. It's that there needs to be. these plants and fungi and animals for life as we understand it to continue to function, Mark: right, exactly. And that requires, because everything is so fragmented now, it requires some level of active management in order to protect from invasions by invasive species, for example, which will wipe out all the biodiversity. Yucca: right? Or in my area of the world where we're missing keystone species, so we're missing whole ecological roles, there used to be these animals that aren't there anymore, and if you just take your hands off and you don't touch it, you fence that area off, that area will starve, quite literally, right? If you don't, if humans don't try, because it's kind of like the voting. No management is management. Mark: yes. Yucca: Right? It is a choice that we're making as well. And so we have to really be thoughtful about and understand the systems that we're dealing with. Mark: right. And there is so much science. I'm not saying we know everything, because we don't. There's an awful lot that we don't know, but there is a tremendous body of science about how to manage lands in order to improve biodiversity at this point. Yucca: And we're getting better at it. Mark: One of the things that we who work in the conservation sector, in the environmental sector, actually need to fight against within our own ranks is the group of people who still advocate for putting a fence around things and leaving it alone. Yucca: That's why I asked you a little bit about how you are using the term, because where I am, the term has been kind of changing a little bit, where we have kind of two different camps, which are the restorationists and the conservationists. And the conservationists are the people who, who are, you know, an anti gras, who are like, don't touch anything. Don't just fence it off. Don't know people know nothing. And then you've got the people who are going, well, let's look at the way the whole system works and maybe we do need to, you know, one, let's not keep kick the people off. 'cause you know, It's been here for 20, 000 years. But also, like, what, you know, what about the animals? What do we do for the, you know? So that's why I was kind of asking a little bit about that terminology there. Mark: here's a great example in California. There were devastating wildfires. that ran through Sequoia National Park. And in Sequoia National Park are the giant sequoia trees, these, you know, huge, vast, amazing, amazing Yucca: Amazing. Mark: awe inspiring. Well, because humans had been suppressing fire in those forests for a hundred years, when that wildfire ripped through, it burned much, much hotter than it ever would have otherwise, and killed a lot of those trees. Now, there's a big debate. The Park Service wants to replant seedlings of giant sequoias. in the burned area. And there are environmental organizations, self styled, that are saying, no, you can't do that. You just have to let nature take its course because that's the right thing. But we have been suppressing fire for a hundred years. We have been doing the most invasive, destructive thing that can be done to that ecosystem for a hundred years, and now you say we're supposed to leave it alone? That's ridiculous. You know, reseeding giant sequoias in that area is absolutely the right thing to do in order to keep the species from going extinct. And, I, I don't know, I mean, obviously this is what I believe. Yucca: I'm smiling as you're saying that because I used to work in stand management in the Jemez, and we had very, very similar, like, I can hear the two sides right now and it's, People get, have very, it's very emotional, right, and one of the things that happens, I think, is that people have very strong emotional connections without having some of the background to understand what is happening. And that goes back to what we were talking about before with some of our responsibility, I think, is that we have a responsibility to become informed about these Issues and learn about them and and be able to, if you're going to be involved in making choices about how these If this land is going to be managed, you need to understand the ecosystems that you're dealing with. Because our system, our ponderosa pine systems are very similar in terms of the fire ecology. You know, people become very, people are very concerned about thinning and controlled burns and things like that, and I think that they're coming from a good place. Their hearts in a good place in it, but are very, very misinformed about what the results of their actions will be if we do that. Mark: And there are two big pieces there that I think really are takeaways from all of this. The first one is that they are coming from a good place, but it's a romantic place. And we need to recognize in ourselves when we are romanticizing something rather than basing our decisions on facts. Yucca: Mm Mark: The second is... We have seen a terrible onslaught on the appreciation for expertise over the course of the last 40 years or so. And we need to respect the people who have letters after their names and understand deeply how things work. We need to listen to them. And they don't all agree with one another, that's fine. But in generally, in most cases, there is a scientific consensus. To some degree about what is the right course for these sorts of decisions. And we need to be listening to people that have devoted their lives to understanding these questions, rather than just thinking that because we like trees or we like nature, that we are in a position to make those kinds of decisions. Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Mark: I'm speaking to you and you're in the process of getting letters after your name. Yucca: I have plenty of letters. I'm getting some more letters, but yes. Yeah. . Well, I had cut you off when you, in your story, to ask you to explain a little bit about the monuments, of why that was such an important issue for you to go across the entire continent. to talk about. Mark: That was a really important question. And as you mentioned this, yeah, it's true. I mean, there are a few reasons that I would put myself into an airplane at this point because of the impact on the atmosphere, but this is one that feels like on balance.  Yucca: Potentially for your lungs, too. Mark: yes, yes, that's true boy, although I came back here and oh my god, the smoke, we're, we're really, we're really buried in, in wildfire smoke right now. So, Going to, and, and, you don't have to go to D. C. in order to advocate for things you care about. First of all, a lot of decisions are local, and you can go and talk with local officials, or organize a contingent to go and talk with local officials. But also, your congressional representative has an office in your area. You can go and talk with them and let them know what you feel about things. Yucca: Well, and state level as well, Mark: state level, absolutely. Yucca: right? And it, you know, it's going to depend a lot on your state. The experience in a smaller, population smaller state it may be A lot easier, like in my state in New Mexico, going down to the roundhouses is super easy you just walk in and there's everybody and you just go up and talk to them. I would imagine in a more populated state, it's a little bit trickier, but it's still possible, right? Mark: The culture contrast between, you know, California, of course, is the most populous state, almost 40 million people and the culture in Sac, yes, between Sacramento, our state capital, and D. C. is really stark. When you go to lobby in Sacramento, If you're a Democrat, you almost never wear a tie. I mean, registered lobbyists will probably wear a tie. But if you just go as a constituent or as an advocate for, you know, one of our groovy left enviro positions, You can wear an open shirt and a sport coat, a pair of slacks, I mean, and, you know, you don't have to hide your tattoos and your piercings and all that kind of stuff, it's great. You go to Washington, it's a suit for a man. You wear a suit, you wear a tie. I left my earring in, but that was my one sort of concession. And and you're right, it's very organized and very regimented in Sacramento, just because of the sheer volume of people that are, that are traipsing through there. Yucca: hmm. Mark: But I, I really, I want to come back to this idea that elected officials are there in a democracy to represent you, and they may not know what you think, Yucca: hmm. Mark: so go tell them. You know, get informed on an issue and, you know, go tell them what you think, what you, what you would like them to do. It's more powerful when you've organized more people to be a part of that voice. And that's why the Conservation Alliance exists. And that's Yucca: many other organizations too, Mark: yes, yes. That's why that's why community organizers exist. To gather the voices of... Individuals into a collective voice that's able to make change happen and that's true in any representative democracy, so it's, it's well worth, you know, you know, sticking a hand in, and the people you're talking to are just people. They don't bite. At worst, they will frown. That's, that's Yucca: wrinkle their brow at you. Mark: Yeah, that's, that's about the worst of it. I didn't have any Republican visits this time, so, we were very welcomed and just very encouraged, and I think there are going to be some declarations coming up here in the next few months that will make us very happy. So it's bringing all this back around politics is How we as a collective society make decisions about what's important, what's not, and what's going to happen. And if you care about your world, and as atheopagans and naturalistic pagans, I believe our listeners do care about their world and about their fellow humans then it's incumbent on us to say so, and do things that make things better. Yucca: I keep having the image of Mary and Pippin sitting on Treebeard's shoulder and shouting, but you're part of this world too! Mark: Yeah, yeah, there's, because there are things in this world that are worth fighting for. Right? Yucca: Yep. Well, we could certainly go on for a long time, but I think this is a little bit of a longer episode, so we should probably finish up here. And we are going into October, and we have some fun, and some spooky, and some great episodes coming up. And Stinky, and all of those great things that we love to celebrate, and recognize, and all of those things, and this great Time of year. And happy autumn, everybody. Mark: Happy autumn! Yeah, Yucca: So, thanks, Mark. Mark: yeah, thank you so much, Yucca. It's a pleasure talking with you, and I'm still obviously really kind of jazzed about this trip, so thanks for welcoming a conversation about that into the podcast. Yucca: See y'all next week. Mark: All right, take care.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.   S4E29 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark, Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: and once again, it is time for us to talk about the autumnal equinox, one of the eight stations of the wheel of the year of holidays. Yucca: That's right. It just keeps turning and turning. So here we are. Mark: Here we are once again, you know, looking at The, the the calendrical arrival of autumn anyway. I mean, I I'm pretty clear that I'm into autumn here where I am already, and I think you are too, Yucca but, Yucca: though, because the beginning of autumn and the end of autumn are very, very different seasons here. Mark: yeah. I mean, autumn and spring are the transitional seasons, and they things change pretty radically during the, during their extent. Yeah, so, well, we can talk about kind of what tells us that autumn is coming, but we can also talk about the holiday, and what it means to us, what we call it, how we celebrate and kind of its positioning within the wheel of the year and how that relates to the things around it, and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: Sounds good. Well, let's start with names. Mark: Okay. Yucca: So, for me, the equinox, and of course it's one of the equinoxes, but it's pretty clear which equinox we're talking about during this time of year. And it's also first fall or first autumn, Mark: Mmhmm. Yucca: because here I look at the seasons like there's either eight seasons or there's two seasons. Mark: Mmhmm. Yucca: So there's the Because the traditional temperate four seasons, really as we were just saying, early or first fall and second fall are two very different seasons Mark: Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Yucca: But then there's also really, there's just the hot time of year and there's the cold time of year. And this is the transition between the hot into the cold. This is one of those, those gateway or door holidays. For me it feels like we're going from one season to the next and so it's a very busy season. Very busy holiday, very busy season here. Mark: Sure. Yeah, you've got to get everything prepped and everything buttoned down for, for a cold winter. Yucca: That's Mark: Yeah I call this holiday Harvest. And of course it's not the only harvest holiday, but this, this is the time when kind of the cultural imagery of cornucopias and all that kind of stuff really, you know, starts to pop up in all the media and all of the winter vegetables are producing abundantly out of people's gardens and the earlier vegetables are pretty much petering out at this point. The, the grape crush. The grape harvest and crush is happening right at the point of the equinox, it starts usually in August but it extends, what happens is the whites get harvested first, and then the reds, and then there are what are called botrytis vines, which have the botrytis fungus growing on the berries. And they create so they, they sort of shrivel and they get very, very sweet and concentrated in flavor. And those are used to make dessert wines and ports and things like that. So there's this, you know, there are several phases to the grape harvest and crush. And it's just... It's a lovely time. The leaves are changing in the vineyards and and in some of the trees around here, and there's a feeling of industriousness Yucca: hmm. Mm Mark: uh, you know, people have gone back to school, they've gone back to work, all that summertime playing is pretty much over now so there's just, it's just a, as you say, it's a very busy time, but it's also a very lovely time and so I call it harvest. Yucca: Yeah. And neither of us are in areas where we have lots of broadleaf trees that are churning, but I have a few here and it's just so lovely. to see the, to see them changing and watch that, that very traditional fall look start to, to start to happen. And there's a, there's a smell to it too. There's this very lovely crisp smell that comes with the changing of the leaves. So, do you smell the Like, when the crush is happening, is there a, you smell that in the air, Mark: If you, if you drive around the country roads, it smells like rotting grape juice everywhere. It's, Yucca: you like? Mark: I do. It's a, it's a it's a sort of quasi wine smell. It's not quite there, but it's working on it kind of smell. And you know, and there are truckloads. So grapes going by and, you know, farm equipment all on the roads and all that kind of stuff. We do have a lot of broadleaf oaks here. We have a lot of valley oaks and California coastal oaks and black oaks.  Yucca: Do they change during the autumn? We have a, we only have a few oaks here, we have these little scrub oaks, and they hold on their leaves, really, they, they really hold on to them for a long time, and then it's just, they turn brown, and then they're... They, they don't even drop them really till the spring, till they're growing new ones. We don't, and we just don't really have any other oaks at all. So I Mark: Huh. Yucca: do all oaks do that, or is that's a very special Mark: No, I mean, there, there, there are what are called live oaks. There's California live oaks here, too, and the live oaks, they don't drop their leaves at all and and they're kind of unpleasant to be around because the edges of their leaves are prickly. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, you know, you end up walking on them and it hurts. We had one in the last place that I lived, we had one outside of our yard that leaned over into our yard and dumped huge numbers of those sharp pointy leaves into our yard every year. Yucca: If they don't want to be eaten, Mark: no. Yucca: that, yep, Mark: And they have adapted ways to prevent that from happening. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So, but yes, the, the oaks do change, except for the live oaks, they do change and they do drop their leaves. But they don't turn red and yellow, they just turn kind of a rust color. And that then eats in from the outside of the leaf into the, into the center of the leaf and then it drops. And I particularly love the look of the oak trees in the late autumn and winter. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Because they're so crabbed and Halloween y and, you know, wonderful in the shape that they have. And, you know, there's just such a stark sort of gothic quality to those trees when they've dropped their leaves. Yucca: Mm Mark: Um, So yeah, harvest. And thematically, that really is kind of the centerpiece of how I think of this time. It's, it's a good time for feasting with friends and relations. Sometimes I think of this as pagan Thanksgiving. And, of course, Canadian Thanksgiving is right around this time. They have it figured out much better than, you know, late November. I don't know who's, I don't know who's doing harvest celebrating in New England in late November. That, that just seems a bit off to me.  Yucca: Well, I suppose you have all of your harvest in at that point, right? You're not in the process of harvest, you've gotten everything ready, Mark: historically that first event almost certainly didn't happen in November. It just got declared as a holiday by Abraham Lincoln some, you know, century later. Or quite a bit more than that actually. Fourscore and seven years ago plus. The, so I think about this not only as a time for, you know, coming together with loved ones and feasting, but also to reflect on what the last cycle has been like and what the fruits of that have been, of the cycle of the last year, what I've invested my energy in, and my creativity, and, you know, what I've had hopes for, all those, all those dreams and aspirations and plans, you know, that happened around the February Sabbath and And the, the spring equinox, you know, those got implemented, and there was a lot of work involved, and all this energy got invested, and all that kind of stuff, and then now is the time when it's like, well, how did that work out? What, what actually emerged? Oftentimes it turns out that what emerges as a harvest from your year is not what you planned to, to have happen. And that... That's a very useful exercise, I think, that this holiday really lends itself to a lot of gratitude and appreciation for living, which I think is true of all of the holidays, but this one particularly, I think, is really a life is good kind of holiday but it's also a time to think about what didn't work out, you know, what, what crops did you plant that did not come up you invested OK, And why? What lessons did you learn? Because maybe it's just that that sort of thing is not really the sort of thing for you, Yucca: hmm. Mark: or maybe it's that it was just a bad time for it and you can take another crack at it later. But, you know, Part of learning is assessing how things have performed. Yucca: Mm Mark: And it's interesting that we, we have a society, the economy of which is built around all these performance metrics all the time and annual performance reviews and, you know, all that kind of stuff for, for people who work. Yeah. But we don't do that very much in our personal lives very often, Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Are you still there? Mark: and I think it's, it's helpful to reflect, not in a self critical way, but in just a, you know, sort of transparent and open minded way to take a look at, well, what was I trying to accomplish this year? What were the strategies that succeeded? What were the strategies that failed? What has, what is the result? What is before me now? And what does that tell me about The next cycle, what, what I would consider doing next. Yucca: Yeah, I think that's really important, and having, I think that's something that we should be doing throughout our life, but that it's very useful to have a time that is dedicated to thinking about that in particular, right? And that's one of the really lovely things about the Wheel of the Year. And, you know, next month we'll be talking about the death stuff and all of that, and then, you know, getting into the dark part of the year with the real deep self reflection and it's just lovely to have, to have it sort of built into life that, oh yes, this is when I come to this time and do the reflection upon what did I harvest, right? Maybe literally and in terms of a metaphorically. Mark: Yes. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's one of the things that I find very beautiful about the pagan practice of the Wheel of the Year is that it, it programs for us the kind of good human habits of thinking about certain things at certain times of the year and remembering to be grateful and, you know, all, you know, Remembering to to pay attention and you know, to be frank in our, our assessment of ourselves and, you know, looking at, at who we are and how we behave all that kind of stuff. I, I just, well, I wouldn't be doing this practice if it wasn't very, you know, moving and meaningful to me but it really is and that's one of the main reasons that it is. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And another thing that I do that I should mention because I always. But in a plug for it is that, and I've spoken about this many times on the podcast before, that I think of the Wheel of the Year as metaphorically embodying the arc of a human life. So with birth you know, with, so, sort of, conception at at the winter solstice, and then, you know, birth at the February Sabbath. And then, kind of toddler childhood at the spring equinox, and young adulthood at May Day, and then kind of full adulthood, and then middle age, and now this comes around to the time of the elderly. This is the time when, because that's the time of life when you look back and you realize, you know, what did I, what did I achieve? What's, what, what is the harvest that I... What is the crop that I grew in, in my life, right? It doesn't mean that your life is over, that you can't do anything else, but it's a time when most of your years are behind you and you can kind of assess. You know, hmm, I did that. That was cool. I'm glad I, I'm glad I did those things. And it's also a time to really be appreciative of the accumulated experience of people that are elderly, which we don't do much in our mainstream culture. We don't value old people very much. And I really would like to change that. I, I really, I, I think that elderhood is something that should be honored. Rather than viewed as something to avoid through all kinds of surgical and Yucca: and whatnots, yes. Mark: and exercise regimes and diets and, you know, all that kind of stuff that people do desperately to try to prevent themselves from being old. So, yeah, that's another, another piece that I think of here. I think of you know, toasting the old people in the community when you're having your harvest feast. Yucca: hmm. In fact, I mean, I think it was created mostly as a marketing thing, but wasn't it just Grandparents Day? Actually  Mark: I don't know. Yucca: I think it was, yeah I think that's in mid September. Mark: Hmm. Yucca: I love, I, I really love the way that you structure your Wheel of the Year and the different stages of life. And I really appreciate seeing, sometimes in the Facebook group or in other groups, people will share their different approaches to the Wheel of the Year. And I also assign different meanings. to the different seasons, but I have a slightly different approach. So when I'm looking at the seasons, I look at different components of the ecosystem, or large ecosystems, like the grasslands or the forests. And for this time of year, It is a recognition of the decomposers and the microbes the fungi and the bacteria, because this is the time where, this is the only time of year that you're going to be able to walk around in the forest and see mushrooms, first of all, because it's just too, too hot and dry during the rest of the time of the year. We have lots of types of fungi, but in terms of seeing, like, there's your bright red mushroom, don't touch that one, right, like, that's only going to happen. This time of year and really up in the mountains but this is also when for temperate climates, the, the fungi are just getting going, right? They're really doing their work. We forget that the mycelium, it's all down below the debris, the leaves that have fallen and the old plants that have died down, and they're down there. This is their feast, right? They're getting ready to start decomposing, and they'll be working all through the autumn and the winter into the spring breaking that down, and returning it into a form that then life uses again. And the bacteria, and it, it leads quite nicely into, the next season for us is about, is the ancestors. Everything that came before, and of course we start first. We go far enough back and our grandmothers were microbes, right, and so it kind of is this nice lead into that. So we, we really like to be thinking about that sort of on an intellectual level. And recognizing that, you know, we're making some of our pile, you know, compost piles and things like that. Of course, we do that throughout the year, but this is when it's going to be sitting and doing that. Mark: Mm hmm. Mm Yucca: And then, as I was saying at the beginning, that we sort of see there being two, either eight seasons or two seasons. And this is the, this is the beginning. of the cold time of year. But not quite. The days are still hot, but the nights have a chill in them, right? The wind, we're closing the windows at night and we can kind of, it feels that chilly in the morning, and you might have to, you know, in the morning you've got to, for the first half of the day, maybe have a sweatshirt on, and then you take it off by the end of the day, and you're like, oh, it's so hot. But there's just so much that It's clear now winter is coming and you've got to get ready for winter, and it's lovely to watch. Where I'm sitting right now, I'm looking out, and I'm seeing we have jays and squirrels, and they're doing their, that industrious feeling you were talking about. They're out there right now, getting... Plump, and we've got our, we have a little bear family that lives nearby, and you can see they're trying to get all plump as well, and and so that's what we're doing, too, is going, okay, well, the cold's not here, but what do I need to have ready when the cold does come, because there's just certain things you can do at one time of the year and others you can't, right? So there's some flashing that I need to put on some of my windows. That's not going to stick once it gets cold. That has got to happen before the cold comes. It's time for us to change the angle on our solar panels and to open up the, the shade cloth on the greenhouse to let the heat in. And so it's just a time of making lists. And making sure, okay, before the winter comes, does everyone have hats? Do we all have hats? Because it's a, it's a hassle to need a hat and not have it. What about boots? Because when the mud comes, we're gonna want those boots, right? And it's, there's, there's a, it's one of the two big prep times of the year, right? There's the spring prep and there's the fall prep. And I like to do like a big, lots of people like to do spring cleaning. I like to do a fall cleaning before we're gonna be inside for... Months and months. And so that's sort of the other side of the harvest, right? Like there was this whole year that happened, but now there's the whole half that's going to happen. And how am I going to prepare for that? Not in the the growing way. It's not the starting new projects kind of way that is in the spring, but it's the being ready for and prepared, sure that everything is, is buttoned up and finished up and that there's no, you know, we haven't missed any loose ends or anything like that. Mark: mm hmm, and if you have outdoor projects, you gotta get those finished Yucca: Absolutely, yep. Mark: before, because you can't bring them indoors, and you gotta get it done before it starts to rain and then snow, Yucca: Right. And I mean, and there's some that, there'll be a few projects that are much more pleasant to do when it's cold. But there's things that have to get done to have that prepped to be ready to do it. So there's just a very, it's a thoughtful time of year. It's another one of those pause and think, Mark: mm hmm, Yucca: be prepared times. And, and for us, these are our specifics of the way that, that Our climate is, but each climate is going to be a little bit different and so for some people, maybe this is, right now, that's not when it's happening, because that's not when the seasons are quite changing. For some people, the seasons are changing earlier, or later, or, you know, what you're going to be doing if you're getting ready for a winter in Wisconsin is very different than a, you know, a winter in Southern California. Mark: yes, because they hardly have winter in Southern California, oh no, it's freezing, it's 70 degrees, Yucca: Well, but that's the thing, like there's, that each climate is going to be different, and it's not, it's not less valuable to be in one climate versus the other. What's happening in your climate, some of those themes may be still happening, but what that holiday means to you in Southern California may be somewhat different. different because that, it might be a little bit more appropriate to have that sort of prep time happening at a different time of year. Or maybe it's not quite as intense, right? For me, it's really an intense time period, we've got these few weeks, and it's gotta happen in these few weeks. For somebody in a climate that doesn't have quite as huge swings as mine does, Maybe it's something that you spread out more throughout the year, and you think about a little bit each you know, maybe each full moon or something like that instead of, boom, it's, it's fall, right? Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that, that, that completely makes sense to me, and I even think about how... In a very, you know, very temperate climate like Southern California, you know, if you're, if you're in the coastal area, for example, it may even be like an opportunity to do things that most of us associate with the summertime, because like the beaches aren't going to be nearly as crowded as they were in July and August, right? So, as the weather cools off, you might be able to get a little bit more privacy and, you know, time to yourself and stuff at a beach. Yucca: Mm hmm, yeah. Mark: Yeah, so, as always, we are really interested to hear what how you're celebrating the holidays, our readers. You can reach us, or, sorry, listeners, what am I saying? You can reach us at thewonderpodcastqs at gmail. com, and we always appreciate getting your emails. We are not going to have a show next week. Because I am going to be flying to Washington, D. C. to lobby for wilderness protections so that's kind of exciting. And I've decided that I'm going to wear a Sun Tree button on the underside of my lapel, where they can't see it, but I will still be wearing it on my lapel in the Capitol when I'm going to meet with congressmen and senators. Yucca: that's wonderful. So you'll still, it still has the meaning for you, you know it's there. Mark: That's right. Yeah, yeah, but the problem is, if I wore it the other way, then it would always be stirring up conversations about what does that mean, and it would derail from the conversation we want to have, which is about new national monuments, BLM's new public lands rule, things like that. Yucca: right. So it's one of those things to be thoughtful about is when do you... So, what are you trying to accomplish, and what do you need to do in each of those cases to accomplish that? So, very fitting for the time of year we've been talking Mark: Absolutely. And actually, as I mention it oh, never mind, the public comment period is closed. Yucca: Wow. Mark: There's a Many people don't know this, the largest holder of land in the United States is the Bureau, it's the the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management. And it does not list in its priorities for land management conservation. It, it lists things like mining, and oil and gas extraction, and timber, and grazing, and all that kind of stuff, but It does not list conservation values at all. So there is a proposal that has been launched by the Biden administration to change that, to add conservation into the mission statement of the BLM so that they will make decisions not only for extractive purposes, but also for the purposes of the ecosystem. Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. That's Mark: And that's one of the things we're going to be advocating for. You know, it sounds like a bureaucratic thing, but it's really not. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You know, these agencies are legally bound by their mission statements and and they will make decisions and allocate resources accordingly. So, it's it's an important thing. The, as I said, the public comment period has closed. The public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of the rule. Yucca: That's Mark: They got something like 300, 000 comments, and they were, you know, they ran like 90 10 in favor of the rule. Yucca: That's great. Mark: Yeah, so Yucca: I know my state, I have to look at the numbers again, but my state, BLM is, owns most of my state. Forest Service has a lot of it too. Mark: Huh, Forest Service is the second largest landholder in Yucca: it's more, yeah, it's, it's, the federal government owns most of New Mexico. Mark: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I, I got to meet your senator, by the way, Kurt Heinrich at an event a couple of weeks ago. Martin Heinrich, I'm sorry and wonderful guy very, very thoughtful, very strategic around climate change and You know, we had a good conversation about public lands management and just good. Yeah, great leader. Yucca: Yeah, well I hope you have a fun I guess fun, a very productive and enjoyable time talking with all, all those DC folks. Mark: I'm gonna get to meet a bunch of atheopagans from the D. C. area. I'm arriving on the 17th and on the afternoon of the 17th. If you're listening to this and you're in the D. C. area, I am saying, staying at the Yotel on on Capitol Hill, and you are welcome to come. I'm going to set myself up in the hotel bar at around two o'clock, and people are just going to drop by and we're going to visit. So, I'm really looking forward to meeting some of our East Coast folks that I haven't met before. Yucca: Great, well give them hugs for me, if they're hug folks. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, I'll ask first, of course, because I know you would. I would too, but... Yucca: Yep. Well, wonderful. Mark: All right, so Yucca: you Mark: you in a couple of weeks. Thank you everybody so much. Yucca: Have a wonderful equinox, harvest, whatever you call it. So, Mark: I hope your harvest has been bountiful. Yucca: take care folks.    

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.   S4E28 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're talking about the senses, the other senses in our practices. So, the ones like smell and taste and touch that sometimes we can forget about. Mark: Right. Yeah, I mean, humans are very visually oriented and they're very sound oriented. That, that tends to be the senses that we lead with, those of us who have those senses. And so, Our orientation towards what we do in ritual, what we do in our practices, all that kind of thing, will often kind of lean into those senses because that's what we're used to leading with. But the other senses are also very compelling Very compelling, and can be powerful instruments in changing our consciousness and influencing the effectiveness of our ritual practices. So, today we're talking about that. Yucca: That's right. And before we go much further, we should say that Yes, there are other senses. We're talking about the classical senses, which I think are useful because they are senses that, one, we have a specific organ, which is dedicated to that sense, and it's also about our interaction with the outside world, where we do have other senses like proprioception or things like that, but that's it. Those are a little bit less obvious. Now, not that they aren't important and that you couldn't bring awareness of that into your practice, but for now, we're just going to be talking about those three in the more classical sense. Mark: Yes. Yeah, I think That's plenty. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: We could, I mean, we could certainly dive into other things, but I think, you know, that'll, that'll certainly take up our time. Yucca: which is a fun rabbit hole if you're looking for a research rabbit hole to go down is how do we define senses and all of that stuff is delightful. Mark: Sure. Okay. Yucca: Now, let's start with, with smell, right? I think that's a good place to start.  Mark: Smell is a particularly powerful emotionally evocative sense. Our olfactory receptors are hooked pretty deep in our brains. You know, when you think back to, I mean really back to our earliest ancestors, the single celled organisms, they were able to detect the chemical nature of what surrounded them and move away from what was harmful, move towards what might be food. That is, in essence, smell. That, so that, that sense has been coded into us from the very beginning, and in fact we've lost a lot. Of what we used to have in the way of smell in, in the way of, of the olfactory scents but it's still very powerful for us and it's very influential over our mood. Yucca: It is, and it's one of those that is often hanging out in the background that we're really not conscious of, sometimes if there is a strong, potent smell, but we often start to tune smells out, even though they're there, they're there. And we don't think about them consciously, but they are influencing our mood and our, how we feel about things, and I'm guessing that most people listening, that if you have a sense of smell, that at some point in your life, you've encountered a smell. And all of a sudden you're just, memory wise, just back at some previous scene in your life, right? The smell of walking into a coffee shop or the, you know, cigars and you're sitting on your grandpa's lap again or something like that, Mark: Mm hmm. Yes, exactly. And the, the challenge in some cases with really cultivating that sense and its ability to influence our mood is that we have some social rules around acknowledging smell. There are a lot of smells that we're like supposed to pretend are not there Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: because it's embarrassing for people or, you know, whatever it is, or you're not supposed to be critical of how somebody's house smells, that kind of thing. Yucca: And humans are not supposed to have any smell whatsoever. We're supposed to... Be completely smellless. Yeah,  Mark: unless it's some goop that you apply to yourself, which has no relation to what a human actually smells like. Yucca: Something that vaguely smells like a flower from the other side of the world, but maybe not, because you've never actually smelled what this flower really smells like. But they say on the bottle that that's what it is. Mark: right. There you go. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I have a natural deodorant that I use once in a while when I'm going to be wearing a bunch of layers. And It's it's scented with ylang ylang. I have no idea what ylang ylang actually smells like. There it is, ylang ylang. So, Yucca: enjoy looking at the bit. The names of, like, when you go through the aisle at the store, and, like, how they will name products, because sometimes it's just the name of a flower or something like that, and other times they just, they just give them these really weird names, like, it's like Spicy Night Out or something, and you're like, wow. Yes. Mark: fresh garden scent. Yucca: Yes. Fresh garden. Okay. Compost? I have yet to see that one. That would be a good one. Mark: that would be a good one. Yeah, compost musk. Yucca: Yes. Yeah. Anyways. You were saying that they're, first of all, acknowledging That the, that these things exist that they're a part of our world. Mm hmm. Mm Mark: so, and, you know, I'm not, I'm not recommending that people suddenly start violating all the social rules around, around scent and smell. I'm just saying that it's helpful to be aware of that so that you can suspend those rules when you're engaging with your practice so that you can really let yourself kind of drift away on the associative memories and that the scents bring up for you. Yucca: That you can be aware of them and make choices once you're aware of that, those norms, then you can decide. A lot of them are there for perfectly good reasons, right? Like you're saying, we're not saying necessarily just throw them all out the window, but you have a choice once you're aware of it, that awareness is the first step. Mark: In terms of practice, I not infrequently use incenses and sometimes I don't burn them. Sometimes I just kind of sit them out because they're, they smell good without burning. I'm particularly fond of the resinous incenses, like frankincense and myrrh and dragon's blood. Those, they smell super sacred to me. As soon as that hits my nose, they're just like, wow, here I am in the temple. Yucca: hmm. Frankincense is one that I use in my house on a regular basis. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. So your kids may come to associate that with home. Yucca: They may, yeah. We use a lot of, of... Synths in the house, and I change it throughout the year so there's some that that's just like the frankincense, that often feels more like of a fall kind of wintry one to me but I still use it throughout the year simply because I love it, but we have a little diffuser that I'll put the oils in And then in the winter, we heat with a wood stove. And since we're such a dry climate, I'll often have a little humidifier on top of the stove. So I've got a little iron kettle that is just for making sure that the house isn't so dry that you get nosebleeds from it, because really, we are in such a dry climate. So I'll usually put some drops of different oils into that. And throughout the year, the It is a conscious choice, but there's just certain smells that just... They just feel like they fit the season better. Mark: Huh. Yucca: And I was, I was mentioning to Mark before we started recording that here, it's really feeling like autumn is coming a bit early this year. Like it's the end of summer, but most years this would still be the end of summer. Right now it feels like the beginning of fall. So I noticed the, the choices that I am making in the morning when I'm putting some little oils in, they're more, they got a little bit more spicy of a. You know, I put some clove in the other day and some things like that and it just, it just changes the feel and the mood of the, the house. Mark: It does. Yucca: think the kids really will grow up with that, right? Mark: for sure. Yeah, there's something about kind of curating your olfactory experience that is, I mean, Here we are. We've got these senses, right? And we can either be just sort of buffeted by the winds of whatever comes along in a literal sense or we can we can make choices about what we choose to surround ourselves with in the way of, of olfactory cues. And what I find is that the, the incenses that I use are so specific, each one is so specific in its felt sense. I mean, I wanted to say vibe. I mean, we know what that means, right? That sort of felt emotional sense that comes up when you smell a particular thing. That I'm afraid I have a lot of them and I kind of hoard them. I mean, I haven't bought incenses in years, but I have them all in sealed tubes and jars and boxes and things like that. Actually, this brings up a little story that came up recently. We were having the Thursday night atheopagan Zoom mixer. And I got to telling a story about this one particular incense that I just love which I said was called Five Grandfathers, and it was made by a metaphysical shop in San Francisco called The Sword and the Rose. And a person who was on the call typed it in and the shop still exists. Yucca: Oh, Mark: And, and they, they make, they craft all their own incenses and they do it in the, you know, in a ritual way and all this kind of stuff. They have oils and all that kind of stuff as well. I think it's the swordandtherose. net, I think is their shop. But it turned out it was six grandfathers, not five. I had just misremembered and the label fell off years ago. But now that I know that I can get more of it I burned some the other day. And it is this incredibly earthy, evocative really unusual it has a couple of kinds of pine bark in it and tobacco and some really unusual things that you don't usually find in incenses and it, it just seems super earthy to me and, and very evocative. The story that the man at the shop told me was that his image of it is of the six grandfathers sitting in a kiva. And I can just see that image so well when I, when I burn this incense, it's so cool. Yucca: Oh, that's one I can, I'm just imagining what that smell might be right now. Mark: Huh. Yucca: We don't have a word for it. Picture, we can't, I can't picture it, right? We don't have a, we don't have a word to say that, right? Mark: Right. Yucca: Because when it's a, Visual scene, I can picture it in my mind, but I can't, we need another word for smelling it. Mark: I wonder if it's possible to learn to imagine scent. Yucca: oh, I, I certainly can, Mark: Can you? Yucca: absolutely, yeah. Mark: Okay. I, I can't imagine it. Yucca: to, okay, yeah. Well, different people have different relationships to what they can imagine and what they can't. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: I know my father doesn't see things in his mind, Mark: Huh. Yucca: right? We've talked about it, but he doesn't. He doesn't dream in pictures, he doesn't see things but feel has a very strong physical awareness of how spaces feel, right? I haven't asked him about whether he can smell things, but I can smell and taste things the sensation of a touch of something, right? Like I can imagine petting a big fluffy dog right now, and it's a very strong sensation, right? And I can, I can smell the smell of the dog's breath, right? Dogs have that very distinctive, they're stinky, but it's like you still kind of like it anyways. You're like, oh, you're such a sweetie, right? Like that happy dog breath. Mark: Huh. Yucca: Like, that's just very visceral, and we just, I think our language lacks words to really talk about those sorts of experiences in the same way we can talk about visual things. Mark: Yes, yeah, I, I really think that's true because what smell evokes in us is a felt sense, sort of an atmosphere or a, you know, what some people call an energy or a vibe, right? Yucca: It's a body awareness, but it's not body in the sense of, I don't, it's not something I'm experiencing with my hands it's not something I'm experiencing with my eyes, but there's a, there's something much more primal about the experience. Mark: yes. And I, and I agree with you that we don't have good language to describe those kinds of sensations. Like, like the feeling of shame, for example, when you're suddenly embarrassed by something. There is a very definite felt sense in my chest when that happens. And it's a physical sensation. It's not just an emotion. It's a physical sensation in my body, but we don't have words for those kinds of things. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Yeah. So scent very powerful very useful in rituals for creating a sacred space. You know, and it, and a little goes a long way. I mean, I've, I've been to rituals where there were great fuming braziers of incense and it kind of smoked me out and, you know, had to leave early. Yucca: It can be such a challenge because that's one where people experience it so differently, right? What is a small, a strong smell to you may not be to somebody else. And what emotional state people are in is going to influence how much they can perceive it or not. We'll talk more about this with taste as well, but taste and smell are very connected. When we're a lot around really loud noises and vibrations that can change how we perceive it, right? When, and I'd have to go back and find the original sources on this, but my understanding is that when we are in airplanes, with all of the noise and the vibrations, we don't actually taste as well as we do when we're in a calmer setting. Mark: That's interesting. Yucca: that Mark: That explains airplane food. Yucca: right, that if you eat that same food on the ground when the engines are off, you will have a very different experience of it than when, I don't know how loud it is in an airplane, but it's... Mark: It's Yucca: loud. It's loud, right? Mark: Yeah. And it's kind of amazing that the brain is able to, in many ways, kind of filter that out. It resets your baseline, so you're able to have conversations with people and so forth, despite the fact that there's this very loud noise going on. Yucca: I find I get exhausted. I can sleep very easily on airplanes because it is just so except if I have to sit by the window and then I can't not look out the window the whole time. I do not have the money nor do I want to spend the fossil fuels to do this, but I would be the person that If those weren't an issue, we'd just buy tickets just to sit and look out the Mark: And look at the, look at the landscape, look at the clouds. It's, it's amazing. Yeah, I'm, I'm taking a red eye to Washington, D. C. in a couple of weeks and I'm, I don't sleep well on planes, so I'm really not looking forward to it. Yucca: Well, maybe you'll have to listen to some good podcast or something like Mark: Yeah, yeah. You know of any? Yucca: So some, you're talking about using scents intentionally in ritual, Mark: Right, Yucca: So, so one thing that we can do with scents, and this applies to any of the other senses as well, is we can purposefully associate them with things Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: and be our own little Pavlov's dogs. Where if we want to invoke a sense of comfort or something like that, we can, when we get into that state, bring out the thing that has that smell. Right? Like, I'm thinking, for instance, of like a lavender pillow. Have you seen those little bags that people stuff lavender with? Well, that's something that you, if you wanted to use that scent, you get into that space, you smell the scent, you think about the scent and you experience the feeling that you have, and you intentionally do that several times and just reinforce that so that your body That's just a clue that you use just to do that. Mark: I have an example from the annual hallows ritual that my, my ritual circle, Dark Sun, does and I introduced this, but I use it every year, but sometimes. I got a little vial of cedar oil, and the reason I got cedar was because for some reason cedar reminds me of coffins. Yucca: Mm Mark: seems like cedar would be a good material to make a coffin out of. So there's this sort of funereal solemn quality, I think, to the scent of cedar oil. And we've used it to anoint foreheads and things like that so that that scent is kind of around during the ritual and it's powerful. It's very powerful. I don't use it for anything else. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It sits on my ancestor and underworld altar for the rest of the year. I'm looking at it right now. Yucca: Cedar's one that I tend to use around this time of year, Mark: Is it? Yucca: right? It is one that I associate with a late summer, early fall. Kind of, and then as we get into the winter, I'll definitely switch more into some of the piney, sappy kind of smells. Mark: yeah, for sure, Yeah, and maybe this is a good place to transition into taste. Because taste and smell, as you say, are, are very deeply related with one another. I can imagine tastes. Yucca: Interesting. Mark: So, and considering that taste is other than the, you know, the, what, six, seven types of taste buds that we have, all the rest of it is olfactory. So, maybe I'm just, I need to practice imagining smells. Yucca: Well, what if you start with a really strong one, like walking into a coffee shop that roasts its own beans? Mark: I just, I just imagined a smell, ammonia. Yucca: ammonia, oh, that's a, yep. Mark: Dead. Yucca: say that and I've got, right Mark: there it is. Yucca: I can even feel the part of, of my nose where it is, Mark: Where it burns. Yucca: it burns, yeah oh yeah, Mark: Okay. So I can't imagine since I'm just not very practiced at it. Okay. That's good to know. So taste. I have used taste in rituals where in order as kind of a part of induction into the ritual state, into trance, that very present flow state that That is, you know, what we seek to create in ritual space. I've used cues like a single dark chocolate chip, Yucca: hmm, Mark: for example, you know, you put the chocolate chip on the tongue of each participant because there's, there's a way that that flavor, it kind of floods your sensorium with this. Deliciousness, and it's kind of a full body experience. It pulls you into, into being in, in, in your body rather than thinking about other abstract things. Yucca: right? Reminds me of communion when you say that, right? Like, I think that's probably some of what's going on with that, that, little sip of wine, right? Mark: I've used sips of wine as well. Now, under COVID, it's not so convenient because you're not going to have a single chalice. Yucca: That you can, yeah. Mark: just kind of wipe the lip and, and move on. But it could still be done. You could have a tray of, you know, little, little cups of wine and, Yucca: Well, that's, you know, depending on, different churches have done different things, but ones that I have visited, I've seen they have, like, basically the little shot glasses, that there's just a little sip for each person, right? And then they have, like, the little wafer In fact, I visited one once in which the wafers came pre packaged and they're a little, like, plastic, like, thinking of, like, it would be, it sort of looked like the thing that Like, the flight attendant would give you on the plane, like, one of those little cookies. Of course, that's somewhat wasteful, but it's, it was, I found it quite charming, right? It was like, oh, okay, that's a good solution. This was even pre COVID, like, okay, yeah, so, but that's something that humans, I bring up communion because it's, we've been perfecting this ritual thing for, you Mark: Yes. Yes. There, there is nothing in a traditional Catholic mass service that isn't carefully calculated to create a particular mood, a particular set of emotions, a particular worldview. I mean, it's all very carefully curated. And. And, I mean, I, I find, you know, cathedral architecture and Gregorian chant and, you know, ritual music and the simple incense that they use and, I mean, all that stuff is just really amazing as a kind of sensory experience. I, I don't care for the theology, Yucca: I don't like, I don't particularly care for the theology or the message, but I, I I really do enjoy mass. Mark: mm hmm, Yucca: That, you know, that's something my, our father taught us when we were little, like, how to, you know, he was raised Catholic and obviously did not raise us Catholic, but taught us how to go through the movements and everything so that we could experience it. And I just loved the whole ritual of all of it, and the, you know, the kneeling as you go in, and the water, and the pre like, all of this stuff is just, it's so effective, Mark: It is super effective and that's why I reference some of those things in the Atheopagan Ritual Primer and in my book, my first book, the Atheopaganism book, because Because we've been doing these ritual things, you know, for tens of thousands of years, and we've learned a lot, and it's not, you know, these, these techniques, you know, we're not inventing them now. They've, they've been used for a very long time. We're repurposing many of them to create modern pagan rituals.  Yucca: And they were repurposed before us, too. That's the, you know, they came from other sources as well. Mark: So taste it is traditional in many pagan denominations, I guess I'd call them, or paths that cakes and ale is a a segment of the ritual that takes place after the main working of the ritual. In the structure that I've proposed which is arrival invocation of qualities. Deep working or deep play or working, gratitude and then benediction the cakes and ale or sharing a ritual meal piece happens during the gratitude phase because we're grateful to eat and it makes our bodies happy to food into them. So that, that's another thing where. You know, you pass bread or cookies or, in some cases, meat depending on who's doing it and what time of year and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: hmm. Yeah. Outside of a formal ritual, something that I like to do when I go in my own land, when I'm just hanging out and being like, hey! Friendry. But when I go somewhere that, like on an adventure with the kids a couple months back we went into the Carlsbad Caverns and things like that, is to actually taste the air. Now, that's again mixing in with the smell as well, but there is a very, places have really distinctive tastes, and you can take a deep breath in, kind of, it makes me imagine like the wine tasters and it's kind of the same way that you might taste the wine in your mouth and like move it around and all of that. You can do that with the air and taste it. the back of your, on your tongue, in the back of your throat. And every place is very different, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: right? It's a little, it's subtle, right? Because it's not the same as like putting a chocolate chip on your tongue. But, but the taste of a city and different cities have different tastes, right? And I'm not talking about putting things literally in your mouth other than the air. In some places that might be perfectly safe. If you're in the middle of a forest and you want to taste a pine needle, that's probably fine. Other places you might not want to pick up a rock and taste it because it's got diesel on it or something like that. But experiencing the environments that we're in on a, consciously choosing to experience them on a level that isn't just site, I think, can really help us. Actually, I did a video on the YouTube channel about that a couple weeks back.  Mark: Go check that out. Yucca: but yeah, that's there. So, I think that that really helps to connect with the places where we are and slow down a bit, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: right? Because the more that we're experiencing things, the more new and novel things, the slower the time becomes. Your awareness of that. So a lot of this talk about how, when we were little, it seemed like our childhoods took up so much more time in our lives, and now the older we get, just the faster and faster time goes. But I've found that this is something I've been working very consciously on, is trying to slow that down. and going, I can't actually signif like, I don't really get to choose how many years I actually get to be alive for. I can, you know, make certain choices that will help me to live longer, but, you know, I could be in a car accident tomorrow. But what I can do is I can experience the moments that I have more deeply, and doing things like pausing and tasting the air, or really smelling the environment. around you, I have found really helps to get back a little bit of that stretched out time the way it felt when I was a child. Mark: Huh. Huh. Yeah, I can really see that. And that brings us to touch, which is kind of an entirely different thing. And I, I think the reason it's a different thing is that when we breathe in a scent or we taste something, we do not yet consider it to be a part of ourselves. It's something that's in the process of becoming part of ourselves by being breathed in or by being ingested, but it's not us yet. Whereas touch is very intimate. Because it's engaging with our skin, which is us. Does that make sense? Yucca: Does, I mean, when we, when we're smelling something, or we're tasting something, it's, it literally is going into our bodies. Mark: I know, but we don't think of it that Yucca: yeah like, with smell, it's almost like a lock and key thing happening, Mark: Huh. Yucca: but yeah, there's something different with the touch that, like, I think it's, it's tapping into something a little bit more Like a different kind of instinctual reaction because the touch is, well, first of all, there's a lot of different touch, but some of it is there so that we know, like, get away, don't get eaten so going back to when we were way, way pre pre mammal ancestors, we were just these tiny little worm things we bump into something, oop, don't get eaten by that, go somewhere else Yeah Mark: Yeah, so, Yucca: I think I see what you're saying with that, like there's a Mark: well, there's a question of safety. The immediacy of touch raises the question of safety. You know, am I, am I safe being in contact with this, whatever it is? We, there are ways that things that you breathe or things that you ingest can harm you. They're more the exception than the rule. We, you know, we eat every day, we breathe all the time. We kind of assume that what we're doing in those regards is, is gonna be okay for us. Yucca: right, and the, I mean, taste is there partly to let us know, oh, spit that out, that's poisonous, don't eat that but then we spit it out and it's, it's out, it's gone yeah, but yeah, the safety, and safety in both ways like, are we not safe, and are we safe? Because again, going back to that mammal side, when we're, when we're born, we're we clinging to our parents, right? We hold on to the other animals because we're a social, we're a social animal. And we're held by and we don't wanna be put down. We'll, we'll make that pretty clear. Mark: When people have a traumatic experience, Very frequently, what's done by emergency personnel is to put a blanket around them. And it's not because they're cold. It's because the blanket provides a feeling of safety. The, the, the tactile experience of having the back of your neck covered and, you know, all of that is, it And I've actually done this in ritual circles where if somebody was having a really hard time, they were, you know, going through an experience because the ritual had brought things up for them. I've, I've actually brought people a blanket and put it around them for, for that purpose. And it makes a lot of difference. So these, Yucca: a weighted blanket that is just amazing for that. Mark: Yeah, my partner Nemea has a weighted blanket too and she loves it. Yucca: Another one, this is a little bit more, more extreme than a blanket, but it's a squishbox. If you ever feel like you really, really just, you just really need to climb into a hole you can make a box that is big enough for you to get in, so maybe, you could also do this with a bathtub if you happen to have it, and just fill it with blankets or, you know, pillows and things like that, and you just get in it between all of those things. That stuff, and you just feel squooshed and safe and surrounded. Because sometimes when you feel like, I want to be in a hole, being in the hole is the best thing that you can do for that feeling. So, probably you don't actually have a literal hole, so you can just make one, right? Mark: Well, and, and I've seen memes, I mean both of us are neurodivergent, obviously in different ways because everybody's different but I've seen memes from particularly people on the spectrum where that sort of being crushed feeling is very comforting. It's like it keeps you from flying apart. In some way. And so, you know, just kind of a bear hug from a trusted person can give a similar sort of, you know, squash me until I'm safe sort of feeling. Yucca: yeah. Oh, I just love that name, Bear Hug, too. It just makes me think of, that was something that I remember as being a little kid, is I would ask for the bear hug, I want the bear hug, and they go, rrrrr, give the growl, and the big hug, and with the, you know, the big arms of the parents. So, yeah, those things, those never, you know. Talking about how short, it's amazing how short our childhoods are, but how that never leaves us, right? Even though a lot of times we don't, we don't remember most of our lives, right? We cannot remember most of our childhoods, let alone our adult lives, and yet it influences us so much. Mark: Yes, yeah, so many of the associative memories we were talking about was sent and so forth. So many associative memories that pop into your mind at a random time are from your childhood. They're just, that's, that's when all this baseline stuff was being laid down and we go back to it over and over again. So, so yeah, touch. And I have used. Textured things in ritual like fur or even things like steel wool or like a pet brush, you know, that wire, the, the, the sharp wire pet brush, you know, those kinds of things, you know, if you very gently brush it along the skin or if they brush their fingers along it all of those are, are, Ways of once again, you know, pulling someone into being in their body and being in immediacy and presence rather than the past and the future. Yes. Yucca: yeah. Temperature as well. Temperature's a big one. And you can go either direction with that. And there's some simple things that you can use, like, like those little heat pads, those hand warmers. Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: But there's also the ones, you can get the little cold packs, that they're about the same size, they're for if, you know, somebody hurt their ankle or something like that, but, which by the way, I carry those whenever hiking because if somebody is getting overheated, you can open up one of those packs and have them put it underneath their armpit, or between their legs, and that really helps to start to cool them down faster. Same thing in this. In the winter, do that with the, with the heat pack. Mark: Huh. Yucca: But that's something that you could do in a ritual space as well. Mark: Yes. Yes. All of this stuff. I mean, you know who really specializes in this stuff, who's really, really good at it is the BDSM community. Yucca: Right. Mark: of this is called sensation play. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And, I mean, they have, they've got feathers, and they've got horse whips, and they've got everything in between. They've got thuddy things, and they've got stingy things, and they've got gentle things, and they've got cold things, and they've got hot things, and, you know, this is all, you know, something that they really narrow in on, you know, dialing in exactly what works for people in, in all those circumstances and People that are on the receiving end of that are also exploring, okay, that works for me. Okay, that doesn't, you know, this evokes a particular emotion in me. So it's all, it's very interesting stuff.  Yucca: Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Mark: yeah, Yucca: And I mean, so that could be a really good resource, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a sexual experience. Mark: right. Yucca: So that may be the focus in that particular community, but the knowledge could be applied to, to any sort of sensation that you're, that you're intentionally invoking. Mark: Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, because there are multiple axes of That, that community explores. There are things around power, there are things around shame, there are things around physical sensation. There, as I say, there are these multiple axes that people will explore with one another. And that's all great, but what we're talking about right now is the sensation piece, the touch piece. And yeah, so, I mean, Welcoming a blindfolded person into the ritual circle with a soft caress of a feather on the side of their face. You know, you, you just, particularly if, if they're blindfolded so that they're not depending on visual cues for everything. There's a way that that can really make the body's senses come alive. And then you have powerful experiences of these other sensations that are provided. So, Yucca: the blindfold, sometimes just closing your eyes or having a blindfold is enough to get you to shift to thinking about and paying it to paying attention to the other senses, because they're there. But it's whether we're really engaging with them or not. And then learning to use them, like just a couple minutes ago, with the imagining it when you said, Oh, yeah, I can imagine. I just have to practice it. I think that applies to all these other things, right? We, most of us can physically smell. It's just, do we practice noticing that and refining that? Most of us do have a sense of touch. So how much attention are we paying to it? How much are we not? Mark: Huh. Yeah. And so, I guess, kind of moving towards a summation of all this, this, you know, the senses are kind of a playground. And they, they are very influential over what our psychological state is. And we, as practitioners of paths that we add. Deliberately work to affect our psychological state in ways that benefit us and that enable us to have, you know, experiences. Really, you know, need to look at that. We, we need to be aware of all the different ways that, that our senses can be helpful for us. Particularly those that we don't tend to pay as much attention to, like, like scent and, and taste and touch. Yucca: Right? Mark: Well, this has been super interesting again. Thank you for, for a great conversation. Yeah, this was a good idea. I'm, I'm glad we did this. Yucca: Yeah. Thank you. And thanks everyone for hanging out with us and listening. And we really appreciate you being here with us. Mark: We sure do. Yucca: We'll see you next week.    

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.   S4E27 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 talking about truth and reality. Yucca: Yes. So, there's a lot to talk about here. Mark: There is, there is, and that's, that's why we chose this topic, right? Because a lot of the places where we come into friction with other parts of the pagan community, and certainly friction with other religious perspectives other than atheism, is in the question of what is real and what is true, right? Yucca: hmm. Mm Mark: And I think what I want to start out with... The problem is that we have terrible language for this stuff. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Very imprecise language that uses one word to describe a lot of different things. Yucca: Right. I want to start also with with a little story from something my father used to say when I was little. And I don't know where he got it from, but when he would tell a story, and I would ask him, I'd say, Dad, is this a true story? He would say, Yes. The events didn't happen. But this is a true story. Mark: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, like fables, Yucca: The Mark: Fables that illustrate moral principles. The moral principles may be something that we want to subscribe to, but that doesn't mean that the story about the chicken that was afraid that guy Yucca: sky was falling, or that nobody would help her make bread, or... Oh, there's a lot of chicken ones. Mark: are there? Yucca: Yeah, right? Mark: You would know more than me.  Yucca: But, so, when we say that word true, It can mean so many different things, right? Sometimes we mean it as, is it correct as in, you know, a mathematical problem, right? Is 2 plus 2 equals 5? Is that true or not, right? But we can also mean, is it true in that more, does it have importance, does it have meaning? So, Mark: or even in very broad philosophical senses, like, is it true that supply side trickle down economics benefits everyone in the society? And some people will say yes, that's true. I think the evidence is that it does not, but ultimately it comes down to what you believe and what your, what the underpinnings of that belief are, what your philosophies are, right? So when I see Truth. I used to just mean the objectively factual, the verifiable, right? Yucca: right, so sort of like a positivist approach to truth, right? So what is real can be verified empirically, and the best approach to find it is the scientific method. Right? That would be our positivism, yeah. Mark: that is true of phenomena in the objective universe outside of our skins. The earth is round ish, it's not flat. Doesn't matter what you believe about it, it's still round ish and not flat, right? We have overwhelming evidence that this is the case. And so, it's not 100% sure, because nothing in science is ever 100% sure, but there's so much evidence that it's not considered an open question at this point. It's considered settled science. It's a fact, right? But when you get to truths like... Justice and morality and good. There are truths in there too, but they're much more rooted in the philosophy and belief system of the person that's expressing them in the culture that they grew up in Yucca: Mhm. Mark: than it is about something that can be measured and factually checked. against other alternatives, right? Yucca: Right. And while we're giving things labels that would be more of a constructivist philosophical approach, right? That those beliefs are constructed from the society that you're part of and your experience and your species and that all of those things are building on each other to create reality or to create truth. Mark: Right, right. Your, your familial ideological context, all of those, all of those things accrete to form something that more or less hangs together as a, as a philosophical belief system, right? So, that I think is a part of the reason why it becomes very difficult to talk about what is true. Because as you say, the story, the events, May not have happened, but the story can still be true, and that's why myth is so important to us. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You know, we are the storytelling apes, as we've said before, and telling stories, even science tells stories, science, you Yucca: Oh, absolutely. That's what it's about. There's very strict rules about how you tell that story, but that's what we're doing. Yeah. Mark: it tells, you know, chronological procedural steps, events that take place, where, you know, something becomes something else, or something comes into being and, and so it's important for us to recognize, I think, The value that storytelling has for us in the abstract, Yucca: hmm. Mark: because just because something is not objectively factual doesn't mean that it can't be emotionally moving morally instructive eye opening in perspective, Yucca: hmm. Mark: You know, broadening your, your understanding of the human condition and the life that we live. So, all of those things are, are true, right? And none of them is, you know, can be subjected to a grass, a gas chromatograph. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You can't, you, you can't measure those kinds of things. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, I actually made a little Venn diagram using the wrong tool for making Venn diagrams. I used Microsoft Word earlier today. And I've got four circles. I've got objectively verifiable facts. I've got believed truth, cultural truth, and then what overlaps all three of those is personal reality. Yucca: How are you distinguishing between the believed and cultural? Mark: Well, here's a good example. The cultural truth of the United States is Christian. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It is, you know, that, that is, You know, the cultural truth is what I would call the over culture, Yucca: Mm Mark: whereas the individual's personal reality might vary from that, the believed truth. You know, so we don't subscribe to many of the values or or even cosmological beliefs of the cultural truth. But we do. And so we have our own believed truth. Yucca: Okay, Mark: That make sense? Yucca: does, yeah. So just getting a sense of how you're using those words. Mark: Yeah. And this, once again is where language is just really not very useful. I mean, having to use all these qualifiers for words, words like truth and real and fact and things like that is, it's frustrating. And because I have spoken a couple of other languages, I know that it's not entirely capturing what I'm trying to say. Yucca: right. Mark: We don't have quite the right words in our language to capture what I want to say. Yucca: So I don't know if any language, some might have words that are, that are better fit, but, but language is just something that we're trying to to, to communicate these ideas, but the ideas are, language isn't enough. Right? And so I think that it's helpful for us to try to articulate it anyways, because that forces us to clarify our thinking around it, right? We can't just throw a word on it and say that's, that's what it is, right? We have to really think about what are we trying to actually say. And that's tricky, because we're trying to think about, we're trying to think about our own process of thinking. Mark: Yes. Yucca: more challenging than it sounds like on the surface and then put down, and think about other people's approach to it, and of course we are just these limited, limited beings, right? We don't experience everything, we only get to be around for, exist for a very short period of time, and most of the time that we're existing for, we're not even conscious for. Mark: Right. And our brains constantly edit, massage, invent fill in the blanks. of our perceptual array filter our perceptions in order to create an inner model of the universe that we can interact with, right? And so we can determine that things are true when there's very little evidence that relates to them. Even, even people conclude that things are objectively true, like ghosts and... Spirits and gods and stuff like that with very little evidence, but they will conclude that it's true because they have experiences that are filtered through their own filtration process that will make what appears to be evidence for them. Yucca: Right. Mark: And while I tend to be very, very skeptical about those kinds of processes and skeptical, you know, when I have an experience that strikes me as violating the laws of physics, and I have had a few, Yucca: Mm Mark: um, My immediate question is, okay, you know, what went wrong with my sensorium? You know, how am I, how did I misperceive this and misinterpret what it meant? Others may not do that. Yucca: Mm Mark: And one thing that I also wanted to talk about today is the way that we relativistically value certain kinds of truth relative to other kinds of truth, which is a cultural thing, and I think that, particularly in the West, with with our domination of of science and technology and, you know, the, the kind of linear thinking. What's the word I'm looking for? When you take things apart. Reductionist. That's what I'm looking for. The, we, we tend to, Yucca: reductionism. Mark: yes, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: We tend to place that which can be verified up on kind of a pedestal. As being somehow more important than the other flavors of truth, the other varieties of, of truth Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: that we experience in our lives. And what's weird about that is that in an actual human life, that's not how it works at all. I mean, yes, when you're young, it's useful to be able to determine, you know, what a fire is so you don't burn yourself with it. But as we get older, the questions that we ask ourselves are, what does this feel like? Yucca: Mm Mark: You know, does this feel like the right thing to do? Is this, is this moral? Is this just? Is this kind? Those kinds of questions, and those are things that there is no meter to measure. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm. Mm Mark: So I think, for example, about, like, take the Lord of the Rings, right? This is a semi sacred text to many people you know, there, there are lots of folks out there who read it every year and are, you know, deeply steeped in the whole lore of, Yucca: My family read it every single year. Mark: Huh. Huh, you know, just immersed in the beauty of and the drama of Tolkien's imaginary world. Now, Middle earth doesn't really, I hate to break this to you, but Middle earth really doesn't exist to our knowledge in any material sense. Yucca: Right. It was, you know, loosely based off of Europe, but not in the sense that of an actual book. You can't go and say, oh, you know, Mount Doom is Vesuvius or something, like it doesn't actually line up. Mark: Right. Yucca: It was meant more to be spirit, right, than in physical body. Mark: Right. Right. Right. But it can be profoundly impactful on us emotionally and even in terms of our thinking about Ethical questions, moral questions, you know, what would Galadriel do? So I think that the discounting of the mythological, the, you know, the fictional, but still containing kernels of, of meaningful human knowledge, narratives that we have, And certainly the the the culturally developed principles like fairness and justice and so forth. I mean, these are very important. And what, even though you can't measure them, they're, it's still very important. And I think that we, especially as atheists, we can get accused of over, overemphasizing the, the material positivist verifiably, Extant stuff Yucca: Right. Mark: relative to the rest. Yucca: I think there has to be a balance, too, though. Because so many times we have seen people's that reality that approach being valued over some of what's objectively happening, right? We think in ecology, right, there was a cultural belief about predators being bad. And we went and got rid of the predators. That did not help the ecosystem, though. Objectively, the predators had to be there. Same thing with the grazers, right? We take the grazers out, we take the predators out, the system falls apart. No matter how much you believe about, oh, the poor little deer, Right? Like, the system still falls apart if you take the predators out. Mark: Absolutely. Yucca: so I think that it's a tricky balance when looking at and trying to, to figure out how to make choices how to balance what knowledge we're looking at, what, how are we approaching the, the cultural versus some of the objective, and not saying that one is better than the other, but that there are places for each of those. Mark: Yeah, that, that's exactly where I'm going with this, because what I'm, what I'm expressing is that I think that we need to elevate the value of the mythic, but that's not an excuse for scientific illiteracy. Yucca: Right. Mark: You know, we having a good story about the nature of reality is not the same thing as having good knowledge about the nature of reality. And, unfortunately, there are an awful lot of people out there who simply choose, okay, I'm gonna go with this story, I'm gonna go with this story about, you know, this resurrection and original sin and virgin births and all that kind of stuff, or I'm gonna go with a story about Odin, or I'm gonna go with a story about, you know, anyway, name, name your divinity of choice, right? Yucca: Well, and I and I would like to say that I don't think it's just within believing in deities or things like that. But people will also do things, stories that don't really line up with current scientific understanding, but is they like their version of, and I see this with a lot of like the really a great aggressive atheists who like they get this idea of like, this is what science says. And it's like, yeah, that's That's like an 18th century understanding, like, science has progressed, you know, significantly since then, but you're going with this one story and you're deciding that that's what it is and not deviating. Like, that's not, that's not how science works. Mark: And similarly, many critics of science will point back to scientific thought and statements from a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago and say, well, science is just racist. It's a colonialist, racist ideology, and that's all that it is, so you can discount it. Yucca: Yeah. Which is, no, it, the people who were doing science Existed within a cultural context and sometimes abused the tools to their own end yeah. And that's happening today too, right? But our responsibility as informed citizens and as scientists is to not let that happen Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: we see it, hmm. Mark: Absolutely. And so, as I am so fond of saying, the solution to bad science is more and better science. It's, it's not to throw that whole system out and say, okay, let's just go with the story we made up. That being said, and understanding that You know, deliberately choosing to believe in a world that is populated by invisible beings and has, you know, invisible forces that you can manipulate in order to affect the course of events and stuff like that. I mean, I can understand why that's attractive in some ways. It's very um, romantic. That's exactly the word. But it doesn't really reflect what we understand. And. My paganism, my spirituality, is deeply rooted in the idea that I want to be here. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: I love the stories, I love the movies, I love the, you know, all that stuff, but I want to be connected with the reality of what this life experience is as best I can and to celebrate and be wowed by that. Mm Yucca: Right. And that's something that we've talked about a lot on the podcast, and we should do another Wow and Wonder episode, right, where we share some of that stuff, but that, that our reality is unbelievable. It is amazing. It's whatever scale you look at, it, I mean, just wow. Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: Right? And you can just go down and down into the single drop of water, and all of the complex, incredible interactions and creatures that exist in that single drop of water, all the way up to the scale of the observable universe. It's just, there's so much, and we could spend every moment of our waking life discovering more and more, and still not even begin to scratch the surface. And it's just... It's incredible. Everything that, every day when I learn a new thing, it's just amazing. It's just, wow, wow, wow. This is, so personally, I don't feel like I need the invisible beings. Like, and if they're, if they're there, that's cool. Like, could, I'd love to discover them. But in the meantime, like, I'm, I'm pretty happy with tardigrades. It's pretty amazing, right? Mark: they sure are. Yeah, I feel, unsurprisingly, I feel the same way. The... If there are, if there is a supernatural dimension to reality, Yucca: Mm Mark: or a dimension in which the kinds of things that theists and believers in magic subscribe to, whether or not it's natural, you know, maybe there are other physical laws that apply in that context or something. There's little enough evidence for it that I can ignore it. I, I will cheerfully pay attention to the stuff for which there is abundant evidence. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: You know, I don't, I don't have time in this life to go sifting through all of that, much less deal with stuff that may or may not be there. So, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a very sort of pragmatic decision to make as well as a, as a philosophical one, right? It's just like, well, you know, I wouldn't want to spend a whole lot of time on something that turned out not to be there. So I'm, I'm. I'm just going to look at this gigantic pile of amazing Yucca: hmm. So, pragmatic critical realism? Is that where we're getting into? Mark: something like... Yeah, something like. But I do want to say that I think, I mean, part of the problem that we have, I think, with religiosity at least certainly in the United States, is that people are subscribing to religion and then, and then turning off any curiosity and, and deliberately resisting any curiosity from a scientific standpoint. You know, how does this work? What makes this that, that way? And they just, they've got this. There's a magical wand that they wave at it that said the gods did it, or God did it, and what that enables them to do then is to fill their, their world perspective with stuff that clashes vehemently with the evidence that we have, like people that are climate change deniers and, you know, flat earth folks and, you know, those kinds of things. Yucca: The second one is the one that always just makes, like, I can understand the first one about the climate change one, right? But the flat earth one, like, like, you, you can see it, Mark: Only if you believe that we've ever launched anything from earth. Yucca: but, like, you can see the horizon. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Like, that's the, that's the one that I'm like, well, but you can literally see it with your own, like, the climate stuff, you've got to like, you've got to trust that the data that's being collected is, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But, but you can use your own eyes to verify that the Earth is not flat, that it's not spherical, right? And that's the one that I've just... It gets me. I'm just like, it's just, y'all, this is not, Mark: I, Yucca: that you're saying that you don't want to trust all of these, like, crazy, that we're all in on some huge conspiracy to, like, trick you and make Photoshop documents and stuff, but, like, you can do the trick with a laser and, like, shine it over distance, you can see through the horizon when you're at the sea, like, you can go up in an airplane, like, you know, it's, you can see it. Mark: yeah. I think that what Flat Earthism is about fundamentally is just a rejection of science as a whole. Yucca: Yeah, and getting attention. Mark: yes. Yes. The whole idea of expertise, right? Like, I'm not going to believe those people. I'm going to do my own research, and my own research involves, you know, digging two pages deep on Google as opposed to spending years studying meticulously the, the, the data and the analysis that's been applied by people who are very knowledgeable in these subjects Yucca: For thousands of years, by the way, Mark: For thousands of years, yes. I mean, not, not just in the context of Western laboratories and stuff, but I mean, indigenous people know how all the plants work because they did trial and error and experimented and figured it out, Yucca: yeah, Mark: you know, it's, the, the idea that the scientific method is something that doesn't belong to all people just doesn't hold up very well in my, Yucca: no, the scientific method is a, is based on human, the way that humans instinctually, all humans think, right? It is, it is grown out of that and there are, there's a specific Western tradition, right? But that is one tradition. Out of the thousands, right, that led to, that just gave names, right, like, okay, we've got some Greek names that we're using, but it's not like, you know, here in the Americas, we weren't using those same methods, right? Mark: right, right. And, mm hmm. Now, now we get into the trouble about, well, what do we mean by science? Do we mean the scientific method? Do we mean the accumulated body of knowledge that has, that has been accreted by the scientific method? Or do we mean institutions that that are scientific? And the institutions certainly have been, they, they've had their problems. Yucca: absolutely, Mark: they, they've been informed by cultural biases and, Yucca: And they still are, Mark: And they still are. And in some cases, they've been influenced by where their funding comes from Yucca: yes, Mark: which is another problem. And, you know, I think it's important for all of us to acknowledge that and to apply critical thinking and skepticism to what we see. But critical thinking and skepticism doesn't mean I reject the opinion of all experts, Yucca: yeah, yeah, Mark: or I'm going to find experts who confirm what I already wanted to believe. What it means is Having knowledge about how methodology works, understanding what actually, being able to parse out whether a conclusion that's drawn in a paper or a statement actually has any meaning. Coherence with the, The findings? Yucca: you would be really surprised at how often they don't. Mark: I wouldn't. Yucca: Well you get, Mark: But, but I think many would. Yeah, Yucca: many, and there's certain fields that it's more of an issue in than others, but you read the conclusion, then you look at the data and you go, that's not no If you were my student, I'd fail you. How did you get published? Mark: you didn't, you didn't prove that. And then usually there's a sort of clickbaity headline in the title of the paper or certainly the press release that is sent out about the paper that then further distorts the conclusion that was drawn by the paper. Yucca: So yeah, , the science journalism is an area with some real challenges. Right now and there's so much that goes out there. It's just like, that's just not, it's, they're just falsehoods. This is not what was said in that paper, first of all and, you know, just, so I, I, I understand where some of the frustration with the science as the institution is coming from. But then it just gets, and I think that the way that social media is structured right now doesn't help it because it will, people kind of get wrapped up in this, these groups that are forming identities around objecting to science or othering some particular group or some, you know, kind of extreme position or You know, things that are just not supported by the science or are being represented as science, which really aren't scientific, get incorporated into the mainstream. And people go along with these beliefs about, oh, this is what the science says, and it's not. Mark: Right. Yucca: me a single paper. Nope, you Mark: Well, and, and you, you, you complicate and extrapolate that when you have leaders who are hucksters, who, who articulate these falsehoods, like from the pulpit, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: and encourage everybody to disbelieve in anthropogenic climate change, encourage people to, you know, not to believe science, not to believe in evolution, these kinds of things. Yucca: And then you have got folks using a lot of that for whatever their particular platform is. When it's not, you know, where they're making certain claims or exaggerations that isn't really supported by the science.  Mark: Well, one thing that, one thing that I have thought about recently is that we really need to make a distinction between skepticism, which is a process of inquiry, and cynicism, which is just the desire to tear everything down that isn't consistent with what you wanted to believe in the first place. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And there's an awful lot of people out there including in the atheist community, many of them, who call themselves skeptics, and what they really are is just cynics. You know, they're, they're not even trying to have an open minded inquiry into what's likely to be true, so much as they are just trying to tear down everything that, that they don't like. In our lives. In our, you know, in our entertainments, in our in our politics, in our in our religious rituals, we, we do something that we often call suspension of disbelief. But I think what it is more is suspension of skepticism. We choose to turn off that analytical lens that says, like, have you ever sat next to somebody in a movie and they're like, no, the, that light angle isn't right, this was done with CGI. You know, they're, they're constantly, like, breaking the, the spell. Of the movie? Very frustrating.  Yucca: My partner won't watch sci fi with me for that reason. Mark: oh, Yucca: I have to keep my mouth shut. I'm like, nope! Gravity doesn't work like that! Stop it! Mark: I, I mean, Yucca: not to do it in a movie theater, though. Mark: okay, well, good, good. Then we can still be friends.  Yucca: My lip, but... Mark: all right. So, suspen suspension of skepticism. I do that when I do my, my atheopagan rituals. I certainly do that, you know. In that moment, I, Who am I? You know, I'm a wizard. I'm a, I'm a manipulator of grand forces in the world, you know, who's making, you know, who's expressing wonder and awe and gratitude for this amazing life and putting out that I hope that these things will happen in the world. And that doesn't have to be undercut by all the little niggling voices that might try to cynically suck all the juice out of that moment, right? You know, I don't go to the Grand Canyon and think, well, it's only a hole in the ground. Yucca: Huh. Mm Mark: That doesn't, it doesn't feed me in any substantive way. And so I think that the, the excessive elevation of the technological and the scientific in certain circles anyway I mean, it may not be quite as bad as the elevation of uninformed religiosity, but it's still. Generally, you know, reason, rationality science are, generally in our society, they're viewed by important people, by the, the people that are, that are in the newspaper and are telling us the news and all that kind of stuff as being important. the mythic, and the mythic is not given that as much. Yucca: Right. I think there's irony in that, though, that I think that there's overall very poor scientific literacy within our culture, Mark: Yes, Yucca: right, and so we do elevate that, you know, the science and the rationality, but that I think that we do so in a way that puts it more in that, like, Mark: mythic? Yucca: in the mythic box, right, Mark: Yeah, because we don't understand how it works. Yucca: Yeah, so we just like, you know, switched what the particular thing is that we're being told to believe. And said, oh, it's because it's science, right? But without really understanding, without understanding science in any of the three ways that we just used the term, right? Mark: yes. And certainly there is little effort to foster scientific literacy in the United States, certainly. I think that's less true in some other places. And so we're kind of forced to treat science as this magical black box that answers questions for us and that technologies fall out of that we then get to use and buy and enjoy. Yucca: fonts and colors associated with it, and yes, and you know, beep boops and sounds like that, right? Mark: Huh. Yeah, absolutely. And we insist on that, right? We, there's a particular kind of look and feel to a computer that will sell a computer, and there's a look and feel that will not sell a computer, and the people that make computers know very well what the difference is. Yucca: Right? And if you are... If you're a college kid going into one of those fields, you are expected to look and behave a certain way and, Mark: Right, Yucca: Not another way, right? And that gets taught to us from when we're itty bitty. Mark: Yeah. Yep. Well, and, and this is part of the challenge, because we have accumulated enough knowledge now that no one can Encompass all of it. Yucca: Mm Mark: It's just not possible within a lifetime in one human brain. So you kind of have to specialize, especially if you're really going to go into a subject, you have to specialize. But for a general scientific literacy, it's... It's a work of many years. It's a work of a lifetime, honestly. I mean, you, because there's always new stuff being discovered. So, you know, I'm always reading sciencedailyandnature. com and scientificamerican. com just to kind of keep up with the very tiny crust on the surface of all the stuff that's being done out there. Yucca: Hmm. This is actually the subject that, assuming that they approve it, that I'm doing my dissertation in for my doctorate in STEM education is... Scientific literacy, public literacy, yeah. Mark: cool. Yucca: So there's not as much research in the area as you would think there would be. Mark: Huh. Yucca: When I started looking into it, I was like, oh, this is, this is gonna be a saturated field. But it's not. There's very little. Mark: Well, new paths to scientific literacy would certainly be welcome. I mean, I know that you're a very strong critic of the traditional American education system. I am too. But the question is, how then do people absorb Yucca: Right. And I'm definitely looking at it from the... Mark: Ah. Yucca: So, because we do most of our learning as adults, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: right? Certainly, most kids in this country go through a school system, and there's a lot of people working on that, and, you know, we could do a whole episode on that. critiques that I have of the system of school itself and how we've confused that with education and, you know, what the purpose of it is, but as a, as a scientist, I learned a few things in school, right? I learned some, how to do some processes and things like that, but the vast majority of what I know happened just because I was interested in the topic and just continued to learn it. And I think that most people learn. That way as well. Mark: Yes. Yeah, that's certainly true for me. I mean, you know, it's all been about deep dives into stuff that I, that I'm curious about. I mean, one of the atheopagan principles is curiosity, understanding that there's always more to be learned, right? And learning is a wonderful process. It's a pleasurable process. It's not only that it informs you more, but yeah. It's, it's joyful. Yucca: yeah. Mark: And joyful things are things we're in favor of. So, Yucca: Right. Mark: go out and learn something today. Yucca: Well, learning is something that we continue to do no matter what. We are humans and that's part of what we do, but we can be intentional about it or unintentional about it, right? So Mark: Yeah. So, talking about truth and reality Yucca: you did, before we started recording, you did, we were talking a little bit about quantum mechanics and you said you wanted to touch on the idea that measurement Mark: oh yes, yes, this is, Yucca: how we, I don't know how to tie this in Mark: You can hear the exasperation in my voice as, you know, when this comes up because there are so many people. There are people in the pagan community, people in the New Age community, people in in, you know, various other kind of religious communities for whom quantum mechanics, which they usually call quantum physics, is a Yucca: in for magic? Mark: Yes, yes, it's a, you know, you, you wave your hands vaguely in a gesture at this, and what you mean is we don't understand it and therefore it is the cause of the thing I want to believe in. And one of the, one of the experiments and findings in quantum mechanics that is most misinterpreted is the idea that an observation affects The, the, the decoherence of a superposition particle, particle, wavicle phenomenon, Yucca: Mm Mark: um, and that's not what observation means in physics. What an observation means in physics is a measurement, and a measurement necessarily requires an interaction, and that's what causes decoherence. That's what causes A quantum body to be affected is interaction with its environment. So it's not that your consciousness is changing anything in the quantum world. We have no evidence ever that that is true. It's that in the act of trying to figure out what one of those particles is doing, you have to interact with it. Soon as you interact with it, it decoheres. Yucca: right. Mark: then, you can take a measurement, but You're not measuring the thing that you originally were reaching towards with your measuring stick, you're measuring what it became after the interaction. Yucca: So let me give a kind of an analogy on a larger scale. So I want to know, I want to see where something is, right? Well, in order for me to see it, Light has to bounce off of it, and that has to go into my eye. So it had to interact, that photon had to interact with it in order for me to be able to see it, right? So that's on a bigger scale, but that's going to apply on our small scale as well. Mark: Exactly, exactly. And unfortunately, there was quite a lot of gobbledygook published about quantum mechanics early in its history, which has sort of, Mucked up the waters and created a lot more of this sense of, wow, quantum mechanics is very weird and mysterious. Well, it is weird and mysterious, but it's not nearly as weird and mysterious as a lot of people seem to think it is. We've, you know, we've learned a good bit about it. The big mystery, of course, is where's the theory of everything? How do you get classical physics, you know, relativistic physics, to, to work with quantum mechanics because they clash? Yucca: right. Mark: So, that's the big mystery. There's a lot of very smart people working on it, and maybe someday we'll know the answer to that. Yucca: It's delightful because each of those different approaches are very very good at explaining specific Phenomena, but completely fall apart when trying to explain other ones, so we know they're both wrong, Mark: Yeah, Yucca: right? And that's delightful, that's really fun to think Mark: We know that both of those systems are flawed, and to the degree that we understand them at all, we understand that they don't mesh. Very well, they contradict one another. Yucca: But they are still useful, Mark: Oh yeah, Yucca: right? And this happens in physics all over the place, you know, we're going to calculate the path of the baseball that I throw, and I'm not, like, I'm not including all of the different Little pieces of information. I'm not going to get it exactly, but I'm going to get it close enough to what I need for it to be useful, and I'm just going to use, do what I need for it to be useful, right? Mark: So Yucca: I was going to say, Mark: oh go ahead, Yucca: what you were saying with the, you know, a lot of the gobbledygook that's been published about it, there's also a lot of things That, that I come across, especially when teaching, where there's a lot of confusion between what are some really cool ideas, like when people talk about like multiverses or things like that, that, like those are very interesting ideas, but they're not science. Right? And there's a, you know, and do we know whether string theory is correct, or things like, you know, or a few months ago, you know, the, speaking about the bad reporting, saying that, you know, oh, scientists created a black hole, and it could, like, no, they didn't. There was a computer program that they ran with, conditions that were slightly different than our universe, in which they were able to simulate and show that a black hole would... form under these conditions. Right, like, so, there's a lot of stuff out there that is science fiction that may one day become science, right? But it's not science until it's falsifiable, right? Can't falsify, but it's not science right now, and it gets treated like it is, right? And it's and it, it can be so, so confusing. Mark: yeah, exactly, and when you have a population of people who, to begin with, aren't very scientifically literate, but are looking for an answer. Kind of mysterious forces that might serve as an explanation for things that they choose to believe in. Well, quantum mechanics is a pretty good candidate because it has a little weirdness about it. And it's, it's at a scale that's invisible to us with the naked eye, so we don't actually have to deal with it at all. We can just sort of use it as this placeholder for the magic thing that I wish existed. Yucca: And there are a few things that, when you hear about, they kind of do sound a little... Magick y, you know, quantum tunneling sounds pretty magick y to me, right, when you think about it, or you're like, okay, yeah entanglement, that sounds pretty Mark: yeah, Bell's theorem you know, the, the simultaneous snapping into identical spin of particles that are separated by parsecs, right? So, yes, I mean, there are things that are, that are mysterious and weird, and they, they point in the direction of new learning that we need to do, Yucca: yeah. Mark: If the data's good, because it's possible that our instruments are not perfect, too, Yucca: Or that we're, that we're missing something, that we're really, we're interpreting something in the wrong way, Mark: Ah  Yucca: is always possible. So, something that I think a lot about is are you familiar with the idea of the ether? It's luminiferous aether. Okay, so we used to think, it was quite common to think that there had to be some sort of substance that light was traveling through, because all the other waves that we knew of went through something, right? Sound goes through the air, ocean waves go through the water, so what's light going through? So there was this assumption that there was this something permeating. And I'm trying to remember the names of the two gentlemen who set this up, I'm going to look this up real quick so that I get the name of it right. So, okay. The Michelson Morley experiment. Right? So, it was trying to measure the relative motion of the Earth in the aether. And they did it over and over again, and they kept not finding the aether, because we don't think it exists today. Right? And they said, okay, maybe we need to make it bigger and bigger and bigger, maybe, you know, it's just too small. That experiment is... The setup for it is almost identical to how LIGO works, which is the gravitational wave observatory. So, if we had somehow been able to make it large enough, that it would have been able to pick up gravitational waves, we would have interpreted the gravitational waves at the time as being evidence for the Mark: Or the ether. Yucca: So, who knows, today, what we've found that we're interpreting as being evidence for one thing, which is, is something completely different. And we're just, we're going off in some direction, and we're totally wrong about it. You know, science is a self correcting process, so at some point, hopefully, we'll circle back around and correct it, but I personally suspect that most of what we think we know we're wrong about, but we don't really have a way of knowing that yet, so. But that particular example just delights me that, you know, if we had been able to make it four kilometers long, we would have detected gravitational waves instead of ether, Mark: Huh. Yucca: so. Mark: On a completely unrelated note ether is a very useful trope in steampunk Yucca: It Mark: design and fiction and all that kind of stuff. My partner and I did a an etheric explorer's ball party, Yucca: Ooh, Mark: party that was so much fun. This must be 10, 12 years ago now, but oh, God, what a good time. Yucca: I think I've seen some photos of you in your outfit Mark: Oh yes, Commander Basterton, Yucca: Yes, oh, that's a great name. Mark: conquered Mars for the Empire. Yucca: Mmm, Mark: Yeah, Raleigh Houghton Basterton whose men call him Really Rotten Basterton. Yucca: that's great. Mark: Yeah, pretty fun. I have, I still have some of the business cards. You know, Commander of Her Majesty's Imperial Ship Improbable. Yucca: Mmm, that's a good one. Yeah, well there's a lot of, there's a lot of good material for sci fi out of all this stuff. Mark: Yeah, yeah. And once again, that's the mythic. I mean, one of the things that's great about speculative fiction generally, science fiction and fantasy, is that it, it speculates, right? It it reaches out into the future or into alternate realities that. Put human or human like figures into different contexts and and then conjectures about well, what would it be like? What, what would happen? What, you know, what, where would we go? And those are wonderful rides to take and they're often very illuminating. When you, when you take those rides and you learn something more about humanity itself by seeing it reflected in that kind of a mirror. Yucca: mm hmm, mm hmm. Mark: So I guess, you know, because we've been talking for a while now I guess to sum up, I both feel that we need a lot more emphasis on the verifiably, factually, objectively true in the way of increasing scientific literacy and curiosity, but we also need to elevate the mythic and the emotional and the passionate, you know, there's so much discounting of, I mean, you know, arguably the rudest thing you can say to someone is you're just being emotional, right? Yeah, I'm being emotional, I'm angry! Yucca: yes, which is so interesting when we, because it's one of the things that And of course, other animals, turning out, seem to share most of the, the closer they are to us, the more things they seem to share with us but that's one of the things that we pride ourselves about, oh, that's being so human, right? And then, oh, look at you, shame on you for being so human Mark: yeah, Yucca: but I, I think that we, that it would really benefit us to focus more on thinking about thinking. Mark: yes. Yucca: Whether that, whichever type of thinking or the purpose, but just being more conscious of, what our beliefs are, why we have those, and, you know, learning to reflect upon those. Mark: Well, yes I mean, Socrates, right? Know thyself. Self inquiry is, for one thing, it's an amazing journey. Because each of us really is unique and you will discover unique and amazing things about yourself, right? And since we don't come with an operating manual, it can be very helpful to know what your predilections are, what your prejudices are, what your confirmation biases are and to work Yucca: that you want to change them, You've got to know what they are to be able to make those, to direct the change of them. They may change over time, they probably will, but if you want to influence where they go, you need to be aware of them. Mark: need to know what they are. Yeah, it's, it's the full denial of inquiry that I think is the... Really the pernicious problem that we contend with, and it's not just among, say, fundamentalist, you know, evangelical Christians. It's, it's among some in the pagan community as well, you know, who know what they know and are not asking questions anymore. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: I'm, I don't know, I can't stop asking questions. I'm just too curious. Yucca: Yep. Well, this is fun. I think this is a topic we should circle back around to in the future. And I think it'll, it, it's related to so many things we talk about, but it's important to think about, you know, what is, what do we mean when we say real and true and reality and, and what's all that stuff? Mark: Yeah. Because it's, it's at the core of everything, right? I mean, we act based on what we believe is real. You know, what we believe is likely to be the, the truth of the outcome that we project. We, we get ourselves scrambled and confused most when we do something and we get a completely random response that we can't provide. Doesn't fit our projection of what we thought was going to happen, Yucca: Right, Mark: So knowing what we believe and knowing why we came to believe it becomes very important. Yucca: right. And if we want to change it, Mark: Yes. Yucca: how do we, knowing that it's there so that we can, we can choose and have that, that agency in our own lives, and not just be, you know, being blown along. The path. All Mark: It's a, it's a choose your own adventure, either that or you can just be washed around. Yucca: Just trademarked, by Mark: Is it? Yucca: the way. They yeah, the company goes after people for using that. So it has to be choose your own story, or write your own adventure. So. Mark: Oh, man. Let's not get started Yucca: All right. Well, Mark, this was fun. Mark: that's a whole other topic. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Alright, well, it's great spending time with you as always, folks. It's great spending time with you, Yucca. And we'll see you next week. Yeah.    

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. Inner Critic episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/ The Jewel ritual: https://atheopaganism.org/2015/03/05/the-jewel-a-solitary-ritual/     S4E26 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 are talking about psychological freedom. So, to do your practice, to feel, to be vulnerable, all of that good stuff. Mark: Yeah, because this is so often a challenge for folks who are first coming into naturalistic pagan or atheopagan practice, especially if they're deconstructing from other religions that are much more about conformity and obedience. Yucca: Right. Mark: There's that feeling of being watched. There's this sense of shame about either doing it wrong or that you're doing it all at all. There's Yucca: Just that judgment, all of that. That icky judgment all over the place. Mark: it's just a real minefield, and so we wanted to talk about it and make some suggestions and just normalize that this happens, right? This is, yeah, this, this is a real thing. There's nothing wrong with you if you're feeling it. And maybe there's some things we can suggest that might make it a little better. Yucca: Right. Because this is something that comes up a lot in different words but a thing that people deal with, right? Mark: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when they're first entering the practice, there are a lot of people who are like, Well, I don't do rituals, but I go for walks in nature. And that's fine. That's perfectly fine. If your experience of a ritual is going out for a walk in nature and having that kind of communion, there's nothing wrong with that, and you don't have to do anything else if you don't want to. But there is something about investing a place in a moment. in deliberate psychological manipulation of yourself in order to get freer and happier and wiser. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And that really is what our, our path is about. And there are so many voices in our society and especially in the mainstream religions that discourage you from being freer and happier and wiser. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That we We want to help facilitate movement in that direction. Yucca: Right. So there's a lot of different things that could be contributing to this. One of the things may be the critic voice. And we've, it was quite a few years ago but I think one of our best episodes where we talked about the critic voice, and I'll put the link to that in the show notes if anybody hasn't listened to it before but that critic, that, that voice has a, a function, right? It, it came about trying to protect you and there, there may be some of that happening when you are When it's, okay, so, when you get a wound, let's say you get a cut it, when you need to clean that cut out, you need to do it, because otherwise you're gonna have dirt and sticks and whatever it is inside that wound, but it hurts, and so you have this instinctual response of pulling your arm away, not putting your arm under the water and washing it out, and sometimes that critic is Is the, that instinct to pull the arm away and not let that happen, protect, stop it, don't let it happen. So I think that's going on to a certain extent, and then also, we aren't, we don't really learn in our culture how to really check in with ourselves and be really honest with ourselves, especially when it is the vulnerable. Right? We're taught to just kind of look the other way and, you know, man up or, you know, whatever the particular phrase is for whatever your gender or culture is, but it's, it's like, we are encouraged to be soft and be okay with the parts of us that are soft. Mark: Right, that's absolutely true. Particularly for men, but, but, it's true for everybody. Yucca: Right. That's why I use the man up expression, Mark: Right. Yucca: Which, you know, it happens with women as well, but it, but it seems like the pressure is, looking from the outside, it seems like the pressure on, on men and, and young boys especially is much, much stronger Mark: Yeah, the vice that is applied to those that identify as men is so compressing that the only emotions permissible are anger and the only response that's available is violence. It's just really, really challenging to step out of that and say, no, actually, my feelings are really hurt.  Yucca: And I am a whole human who has all of these feelings. All of these things are human and I, I get to be and have all of these things too. Mark: right. And it's ironic to me because there are many who point to ancient cultures like in the Norse Eddas or in Greek mythology, and there are men who weep in these stories. Right? Who, who are, you know, devastated by events that happen in the stories, and they weep, and somehow that just kind of gets ignored in the modern drawing forth of these, Yucca: Right. Well, I think it ties back around to something that you mentioned at the beginning about the more controlling religions. Mark: Yes, Yucca: are, the religions are part of a larger framework for, of culture and that we, we're, We have a lot of cultures right now that are really on there being a group that controls another group. Mark: yes, yes. The, the largest and most powerful religions in the world, and this is not just Christianity, it is Christianity, but it's also Islam, and it's also Buddhism, and it's also Hinduism, is Orient, are oriented around obedience, Yucca: Right. Mark: around supplication to what we believe is a mythical, supernatural presence, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: and And self flagellation in so many ways, you know, I'm unworthy, I'm a sinner, all those things. And emerging from that, which is, let me just say right now, a tremendously courageous act. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: We see people coming into our, our community who, I mean, we have people that were pastors. They come into our community that were not only, you know, following that, that path, but had all eyes of a congregation on them to encourage them to toe the line. And they said, this is wrong. I'm gone. I'm leaving. Yucca: Wow. Mark: And that is extraordinary. It is just extraordinarily courageous. But it carries a lot of baggage with it. Just because you say, I'm not going to do this anymore, doesn't mean that its frameworks and its mental habits don't come with you. And so, Yucca: got a lifetime of habits and unconscious beliefs. Mm Mark: exactly, exactly. And so, we've been talking in the Facebook community recently about, for example, that sense of embarrassment at being observed while doing your atheopagan practice. And so, You know, even having someone in the house or just kind of, you know, it's like a soap bubble when it's new, right? It's just so fragile and precious and you don't want it destroyed by critical eyes and the critical voice in your head. And that is absolutely a legitimate experience and feeling, and I want to start there. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: you're, there's nothing wrong with you for feeling those feelings. It absolutely makes sense, Yucca: they're there. They're, they came about for a reason. Yeah. Mark: especially if you are accustomed to being in a religious community where everybody watches everybody else to make sure they're conforming, Yucca: Right? Mm-hmm. Mark: which is not ours. That's, that's just not what we're doing. It's radical, and it's different than the mainstream, but it's what we're about, and if that's what you want, then we welcome you and encourage you to, to find your path. Find, find what's meaningful for you. I can guarantee that there is no focus in the world, no alter in the world. I use the word focus that looks like mine and that there is no spiritual practice of athe paganism that looks like mine. And that's great because Yucca: Even though you've literally published books on it. Mark: yes, absolutely, because I want it to work for the people that choose to embrace it. I don't want them to do it like me. I want them to do it like them. Yucca: Right. So starting with the acknowledgement that that, that, that feeling, that soap bubble feeling is, is valid, right? Mm-hmm. Mark: Absolutely real. And so the question is then, well, what do we do with that? Right? And Especially when you're in the context of having had a lot of pain, pain of separation, pain of castigation by former community members who call you an apostate or a heretic or whatever it is, an infidel, whatever they label you. It's really easy to feel like I just, I can't do this either. I just. I just have to wander away and just have this kind of very gray, unexceptional life, because when I try to be me... It just sets off all these alarm bells that are really, really hard. And I think this is certainly true of our marginalized community members. They understand what that is like. You know, our queer members, they understand how hard it is to stand up against the mainstream culture and say, Sorry, this is who I am. I'm going to be me, and you're going to deal with it. And that's how it's going to be. Yucca: Well, and especially when you're figuring out who me is, right? When you, when you got the sense of, I know that's not me, but I also still am figuring out what me is. Is and trying to have that, the, the space to do that and giving yourself the grace for that in the face of this very oppressive trying to, what's the word? Force conform, conforming on you. Mark: Yeah  Yucca: yeah. It's a, it's a challenge, right? Mark: Yeah, and our impulse as humans is to move away from discomfort, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and that's... Natural and normal, I mean, you know, as mammals, our thing is generally move away from the pain, as animals generally move away from the pain, move toward the pleasure, right? But that said, Yucca: 600 million years later because of it. Mark: exactly, it worked really well, but humans are complex, and we have choices that go beyond the simple animal choices that are built into us, right? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and so what that means is that at first, you may have to simply say to yourself, this is going to be uncomfortable. This is, this is not going to be completely, completely okay with me because it's going to churn up all this sentiment that's been laid down at the bottom of my self. Yucca: Right. Mark: that's gonna bring up experiences and pain and memories and all that kind of stuff, and you just have to kind of sit with it. And my recommendation for the first thing to do to address that is ritual activity around self esteem. There's a ritual called the Jewel that I've referred to before that's on the Atheopaganism blog, and it'll be in my forthcoming book. The, and we'll, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. And what it's about fundamentally is looking yourself in the mirror and realizing this is a good person, this is a person of value, who's unique, an absolutely unique snowflake of the universe. There's never been one like you, there will never be one like you, and that's terrific. Everything about that is wonderful. And so, living in the fullness of that, walking through the world with your shoulders back, understanding that you belong here, that's, that's the mindset that we're hoping to get to. Took me a long, long time to get to it, and sometime I'll tell the story about all the things that were necessary for that to happen because I came out of a very abusive, very difficult childhood. But having gotten there, having gotten to the point where there's a core self esteem of just knowing that I am a person of value, no matter what happens around me, no matter what somebody says to me, it changes everything. makes you able to make choices that are in your own best interest. Yucca: Mm hmm. Hm. Mm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And working on that, doing one ritual about that, don't expect yourself to just switch some, flip some switch, right? This is a continual process, this is, this is a lifelong thing but the process itself is worth it. Mark: Yeah. We live in a very instant culture. We want immediate gratification for things. You know, I'm hungry, give me the fast food. I'm bored, give me the entertainment. And so it's easy to just sort of assume that There must be some kind of a magical activity or pill or something that can make everything okay. that's not the world. The world is sometimes things are work. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And if you can just stay steady and love yourself enough to know that you're worth it, and gather community around yourself that you can see yourself reflected in their eyes and know how valuable you are. Then the change can come. Yucca: So, first, doing some work on the self esteem and that, just that recognition that you know what you're doing is, you've got a right to be doing it, right? This is, it's, you get to do the things that are going to help you. To feel better and work towards your goals and visions and, and that's, that's okay, right? Mark: yes. And, I mean, I don't know how you feel about this, Yucca, but I go pretty far with my understanding of what that kind of thing means. I want people to be safe, I want them to make sound decisions for themselves, but sometimes, in order to get where they're going, it involves drug experiences, or periods of promiscuity, or something. Something, right? Sometimes you have to just kind of break the boundaries of your self definition Yucca: Mm Mark: so that you can become the butterfly that you're in the process of becoming, Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. I think Mark: I'm not recommending either of those things. I'm not saying you should go, you should go right out and find some drugs. That's not what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is the moral constraints. Of the mainstream culture that lives around us, they're not built for your happiness. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: They're not built for anything other than your obedience. Yucca: Right. Mark: don't have to do that. Yucca: I think for each person, it's going to be a really, really, really individualized path, right? And so for some people, maybe some of like what you were talking about with some sort of substance that might be really helpful, but it may also for someone else, simply the act of, of stepping out of that obedience is a, is just a radical, Act, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: So I think it's really going to depend on, on each person, but in both of those cases I think it's really important to look at what you need in this situation to make it safe for you, right? So yes, breaking through something on that real emotional level, but also remembering that you are a human being, you are a squishy little breakable animal on the physical side with pretty complex tangled up messy emotions on the inside. And that you've got to take care of yourself and not damage yourself in that process. Mark: And that's, that's why I said safety is paramount. And it's, it's tricky, it's paradoxical, because sometimes being a little unsafe is kind of the thing that you need in order to break out of the boundaries of your solid little life. But, but not, Yucca: your limits, right? Mark: right, right, Yucca: That's just to go on a slight tangent with that as a parent, with kids, letting them make Take risks, right? Because they have to learn to be able to do that. They have to learn what the, you know, if they're gonna climb that tree, or they're gonna do that thing, right? They, they need to be able to figure out where their body's limits are, where they're, all of that. And if you don't take those risks, and you don't get a little bit hurt, then it really stunts you in the process, but at the same time, your job is to make sure they don't die, right? And so, I mean, I think sometimes it's helpful to think about ourselves in the same way that we might want to, we need to parent ourselves sometimes, and that, and recognize that, yeah, we've got to take those risks but we also need to recognize that, okay, if you're going to climb the tree, don't climb it over the sharp, Rocks and the cliff. Like, choose a different tree, okay? Practice off a different tree than the one that's gonna, like, be a 50 foot drop. Mark: I think that's really well put yeah, because as I say, it's this. Walking a knife edge between pushing your boundaries, being a little transgressive, and also keeping yourself safe. And that can be really challenging for people, but, I mean, we're talking about edge cases now, but in some cases it's just... Lighting incense when somebody else is in the house, you know, or playing your ritual music loud enough that your roommate will know that you're doing something witchy in there. And, and getting to the point where it doesn't matter to you anymore, where you're like, yeah, this is something I do. I own this. It's good for me, and I'm proud of it, and you're welcome to your opinion, but it doesn't have a lot of traction with me. Yucca: Right. Mark: Unless you think it's great. I'll let it in if you think it's great. Yucca: Yeah I really, I really appreciate that. And there was something in there that you said about, you know, we're talking about edge cases. I want to circle back and say that another thing that we tend to do in our culture is to downplay our own experiences and say, oh, you know, I don't have it that bad. Right? I've, you know, oh, I'm not worthy of this sympathy because, you know, there are, you know, there are children in Africa or whatever, right? And no, what you are going through is what you are going through. You don't have control over other people's experiences, just yours. Right? And whatever you're going through, it's valid. Mark: It counts. Yucca: counts. You count. Those experiences count. There's not a, there's not a trauma that's too little or a trauma that's too big. It's, it's you. And you got this. Mark: Yeah. And, and people that have repeated to you that you don't really have anything to cry about, those were not your friends. They, they were not your allies, they were not, they were not telling you what you really needed to hear. Because, Yucca: Well, they, they may have been someone who loved you, but was, was deeply wounded themselves as well. Right? That in most cases, people probably weren't trying to hurt you in that, but that, That they also didn't know. That was what had happened to them, and that was how they were dealing with the trauma. Right. Mark: Right. And it bears saying, you know, to zoom out to the 30, 000 foot level and look down, this whole thing about being, being yourself as an individual, it's been evolving steadily since the 18th century, but it really only took off about 50 years ago. Yucca: Mm Mark: And so our generational wounds that we inherit. from the behavior of our parents and our grandparents and all that. They're very real. Yucca: hmm. Mark: You know, those, certainly, parents and grandparents of my generation were not taught to grow. Yucca: Mm Mark: They were not taught to to have kindness with themselves. And so, to the degree that you have suffering around this kind of issue, it's not your fault. You know, this, a lot of this stuff just rolls downhill, and it's slowly, slowly eroding out because we're getting better. Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mark: And that's the good news, right? We're getting better. All of us, collectively, we're getting better. And what atheopaganism is about, in part, is getting better. Yucca: Right. I love it. I'm glad that we're doing this. Mark: yeah, I need to... Me too. It I feel so much freer in this community, even to stumble and fall down than I have in any other context in my life. And, you know, sometimes I, I'm wrong and I get, I get called out for being wrong, and that's great. There's nothing wrong with it. It's... It's fine. But most of the time, what I hear from this community, and what I see other people hearing in this community, and what I keep saying in this community to other people is, You're great. You rock. I want you to be, you just keep doing you, because you are cool. And, I mean, that's how I feel about you, Yucca. Yucca: Likewise, Mark. Mark: It shouldn't be so damn hard to learn to be happy. But it is, and this is the work before us. Right? So, so let's get to it, you know? Let's... Let's take those walks in nature, and do those rituals, and listen to the music that makes us dance, and do the things that make us happy, and kiss the ones that we love, and Yucca: And live. Mark: be those great people in the world, you know? I mean, all of us have met somebody that just shone like a beacon, you know? They just had that glow about them. And if you're truly at peace with yourself, and you truly want the best for others around you, That'll be you, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: you know. As quiet a person as you may be, or as loud a person as you may be. It'll still be you. Yucca: Yeah. And the process of becoming that person is wonderful as well. Mark: stories, oh my god. Yeah, all the, all the adventures, all the, all the internal transformations, the revelations. I remember once... I must have been 25, something like that, and I had terrible self esteem and a critic's voice that was louder than anything else in my head. It was, I mean, I was just chronically depressed and self destructive and, I mean, I cut myself and I stepped out into traffic suddenly and I smoked cigarettes and I just did all these things. And I suddenly had this brain revelation one day that, If I was really a bad person, it wouldn't matter to me that I'm a bad person. Yucca: hmm. Mark: I wouldn't care. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: fact that I was so worked up about whether or not I'm a bad person meant that I wasn't one. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And everything changed. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: It didn't solve everything, but a big piece of weight fell off of me just in that moment because I'd come to understand the insanity of self hatred. Yucca: Wow. Mark: Well, listen folks, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: We really care about you, Yucca and I do. We want you to be happy. we want this path to, or whatever path you choose, You know, whether this is just a way station that you're on your way towards moving into something else, that's great too. But we want you not to be cruel to yourself and to be proud of who you are and bring that out into the world because we need so much more of that, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: so much more of that in the world. And we'll see you next week. Yucca: Take care everyone.    

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E25 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 celebrating Atheopagan Day, which is the anniversary of when our community first started.  Yucca: Online community. Mark: yes the the founding of our Facebook group, which is where most of our engages online was on August 5th, 2012. So as we're recording this, it's the 11th anniversary of the founding of that community. And so we're going to talk a little bit about the history and how things have changed, what we're doing now and what we're looking towards in the future. Yucca: that's right, and it's been a lot, Mark: Yeah, it really has. It's it's, it's been, and it's been such a beautiful ride. I mean, obviously there have been setbacks and frustrations and all the rest of that, but. Mostly, it's just been so heartening to see and feel this community come together in all the wonderful ways that it is. Yucca: Yeah, and it's 11 years is really hard to believe. That's, that's a lot. So, Mark: I was saying before we started recording, in neopagan years, that's even more. It's like dog years or Yucca: yeah, Mark: Because the culture evolves really quickly you know, in, in the time that I've been involved in, in Neopagan Circles which started in 1987, we've had at least three distinct phases Thank you. of development within the community in terms of changes in perspective and paradigm just really transformational things that have happened from the sort of loosey goosey still, you know, not very clueful about things like consent late 60s all the way up to today. Yucca: Right  Mark: pretty, pretty cool. 11 years, a lot can change. Yucca: yeah. And I think a lot, really, in the last four years, five years, at least, that I've been witnessing it seems like there's been such a shift in a lot of, not just within kind of our smaller subset of the pagan community, but the larger pagan community, and also a little bit of the, the general cultural attitude towards something like paganism. There's definitely been a big shift since, you know, since I was a kid, you know, thinking back on, it's just, it's a normal, in a lot of ways, it's a very normal thing now. I know there's a lot, definitely areas of the country that that's not the case, but on kind of a big scale, it's, it really has the, Level of acceptance has grown. Mark: Yeah, and I think there are, I mean, there are certainly entities and figures that that are not us, that we, that contributed heavily to that. I mean, like the Lady Liberty League, for example, which pressed The U. S. military to recognize Wicca as one of the symbols you could put on a gravestone in a military cemetery. Getting them to recognize any pagan religion was really like pulling teeth, and they pushed on it for about 20 years before they finally got it. Yucca: Yeah, right, Mark: And more representation in mainstream media, all that kind of stuff has really helped. Yucca: yeah. So I think it's fascinating to see, or to really reflect on, the changes within our community and how those are influenced from outside sources and, you know, the influence that we've had as well and all of that is, I mean, somebody should do their somebody should do their dissertation on that. I think that would make a fascinating one. Mark: yeah, me too, me too. Yeah, there's just, there's so much to say about it, but why don't we go back to the beginning, Yucca: Right. Mark: And start there, and just kind of, you know, work our way forward. So, atheopaganism started out as an idea that I had for myself. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I had had, I'd been involved with the local pagan community for a very long time, had some really off putting experiences in the late 90s, early 2000s that reinforced to me how much capital B belief had become important Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: in the pagan culture, and which had not been true when I first joined. Yucca: hmm. Mark: And as an atheist pagan, I was feeling really oppressed by this and then it got to the point where I was offended by it because there were a couple of circumstances that I saw where the will of the gods was used as an excuse for some really horrible behavior. Yucca: Right. Mark: And I left. Yucca: Mm Mark: But within six months, I mean, I was depressed. I, I missed my rituals, and I missed my altar, and I missed my friends, and, you know, I missed celebrating the seasons, all that kind of stuff. So I started thinking, well, what is a religion really, and what do they do for us, and how can I get that stuff without having to subscribe to a bunch of supernaturalism? Yucca: hmm. Mark: And I started working on an essay, and this was in 2005. And the essay was done in 2009, and that was what eventually became my book that came out in 2019, Yucca: Mm Mark: about, first of all, about kind of my journey through this and the science You know, the neuroscience and the confirmation bias, the various fallacies, apophenia, and, you know, all those phenomena that tend to make us fooled by our senses. Yucca: hmm. Mark: And then the second part of the book was laying out, okay, well, taking as a given that the value that, for me, is going to be about revering the Earth. How can I practice a pagan practice around the wheel of the year that doesn't involve anything supernatural or culturally appropriated? Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm Mark: And so I wrote all that up, and it was a 40 page essay, and and I was ready to happily go trotting forward, you know, using my little model for myself. Yucca: hmm. Mark: But I had conversations with friends, Yucca: So the essay had been just more of a way of you to, to clarify your thoughts, right? And work through those ideas and you just, just the writing of it was how you worked through these ideas. Mark: That's right. I mean, I'm a writer and that is the way that it's like having an internal narrative, you know, as I explored these ideas on paper or in bits Yucca: as you explored in Mark: in, in, in writing new ideas would occur to me, new connections would occur to me. And so that's just the modality that I use in, in kind of framing my, my thinking about things. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And so, as I said, I was ready to go trotting forward with my, my little practice that was for me, but when I had conversations, and so I re engaged the local pagan community. Understanding that I was going to be myself, and not to be rude about it, you know, if I go to somebody else's ritual and they're invoking gods, I'm not going to say anything about it. Yucca: Sure. Yeah. Mark: But the rituals that I conduct, that I invite people to, were going to be, you know, godless, non supernaturalist kinds of rituals. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And in the course of these conversations, I started having people say, well, don't tell anybody, but actually, that's really kind of what I believe, too. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: and you really ought to put this essay up on the internet and, you know, have, get some comments on it, have, get some discussion started around it. And in 2009, I did that. I put it up on Scribd.  Yucca: Remember that. Mark: remember that? It still exists. But there was a time when Scribd was a place that you went for papers and documents and Yucca: Yep. It was the place for a while. Yeah. Okay. Mark: And started getting some feedback and stuff. You know, having more of these conversations where people were confiding in me that, you know, a non theist or non literal theist way of orienting to paganism was, was theirs. And this particularly skewed towards people who were scientists, who were educators, who were engineers. You know, a lot of folks that had that grounding in the scientific method and critical thinking, they were the ones that were not subscribing to supernaturalist myths so much, interestingly enough. So, what happened was there, there ended up being enough of these people that I started realizing, you know, there's, this thing has legs. It's not just for me. It's resonating for other people, and they should have access to it too. And I need to stop here and say, I had a major research failing during the time when I was researching all the stuff for this essay, because I am not the first Nons, supernaturalist, pagan. There are other people that were doing that and that were on the internet, and I just didn't find them. Yucca: mm Mark: So I kind of reinvented the wheel. And that's an interesting thing about non Theus paganism is that it seems like that happens quite a bit. People sort of come to this conclusion on their own.  Yucca: That was the family, that was what I was raised with, right? But it had never, there was no like, there was no word or identity to distinguish, that was just what we were, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: And it had never occurred to me to, to search that up, something like that, until a little bit later on, which we haven't quite gotten to that the story yet, but, but encountering. That the belief part where, you know, later on I'd be publishing things you know, making YouTube videos or things and having people just, just furious with me that like, how dare you call yourself a pagan if you don't believe in Mark: yeah. Yucca: the gods, literally, and just being completely perplexed because that was not the paganism that I had grown up with. Right, I was just like, what are you talking about? I have no, like, what? Mark: right? Yeah. Yucca: Wait, you're, you're taking this literal? Are you sure? Okay. Right, that was where I was coming from with that because I hadn't, you know, I, I mean, I'm interrupting you a little bit with this, but you talked about like the three different phases or like the epochs that you've seen. And I think that one of them was this influx of a lot of new people into paganism, bringing with them. These expectations from some of the more mainstream religions in which faith is a major component. I think that Christian faith idea was brought in. Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that came in the late 90s, up until around 2000, and that really, really changed how paganism was practiced and conceptualized within the community, at least as I experienced it. Mm hmm. Yucca: And I, and the atheopaganism was... I mean, it was still happening on the internet a lot, and when the group was founded, that was still culture of paganism as a whole, like on the big scale, there's lots of people being really into the literal belief, but I think we're moving out of that to a certain extent. But that's, there's still areas that believe that, there's still... Like, traditions in that way, but that the larger community overall is less worried about that. Mark: Yeah, I think so, and I certainly hope so. I mean, one of the things about paganism is that it tends to be very inclusive and tolerant and pluralistic. And so there are lots of different kinds of practices and perspectives that fall under the pagan umbrella, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And I think that increasingly, especially over the last four or five years, The idea of non theist paganism has become yet another one of those identities that's just accepted as being part of the bigger Yucca: know. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: I mean, there's still people who get very, very upset about it and want to do their gatekeeping, but it, it I definitely saw a shift in the last few years that I was that the Pagan Perspective channel was running. Like, in the first few years, it would, I would get a lot of... of real, like, really upset commenters about it, and then in the later years, more people being like, Oh yeah, that's, I do that too. Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. Mark: huh. Yeah. Yeah, I really think that's so, and, I mean, of the core questions, I mean, maybe we can do an episode at some point about validity and the nature of realness, because this is often the argument that's made, well, it's not real paganism, or it's not a real religion. And to me, those are meaningless questions. Yucca: It just comes down to how you're defining it, like, you're just gonna choose to make it real the way that you, like, Your way of pagan is the real way, right? I remember having disagreements with people going, well, if we go back to, you know, Rome, and this is where, you know, the history of the word pagan, well, the people who were the, the pagans, they believed in, in multiple gods, and, but my argument would be, okay, but why are you making that? Your criteria. Why aren't you making the criteria that they lived in the countryside and spoke, like, Latin? Like, how about, why is that the criteria? I mean, because we've had so many different criteria for what makes somebody a pagan over the years, like, you're just selecting that one specific thing to say that that's what makes somebody pagan. Why isn't something else also valid? Mark: right. Yucca: Well, I mean, the answer is because then they don't get to gatekeep it and feel special, Mark: right, Yucca: you know. Mark: right. And particularly this goes to the The sense on people's part that old traditions are somehow more valuable or more valid or more real, right? Yucca: hmm, Mark: And that's just a principle that I reject. I think humans have been evolving culture and ideas and technology and skills for our entire existence. And there are things that we can gain from modernity that we don't find in ancient cultures that are of value. Thank you. Yucca: right. Yeah, that Mark: So, Yucca: Value isn't inherent in whether it is old or new or whichever, right? Is it relevant to, to us now? Right? Mark: which is one of the reasons why I reject the Bronze Age, you know, Christianity models is that I don't think they fit very well in a modern society, Yucca: yeah. Mark: And the more people try to shoehorn modern society into it, the more oppressed we get, so, you know. So, anyway. This was starting to be a thing. It had legs. And it seemed like the next natural thing would be to find a convening place where people could come and be together and discuss this stuff. Facebook was the natural choice at that time. Yucca: Right. That was the main, there weren't as many of the other platforms as there are now. Right, that was basically the social media platform for being able to have conversation. Other than perhaps Reddit, maybe, but Reddit has its own kind of interesting culture. Mark: it does. It does. And the thing about Facebook was that you could create a closed group, a private group, so that you could have some control over what kinds of folks came in, so you knew that they were actually people who shared your values and were there for a legitimate exploration of, you know, what this practice is, what this philosophy is, all that stuff. Yucca: So you weren't getting trolls as much, or Mark: No, Yucca: coming in from different religions that wanted to prove a point, or something like that. Mark: in the 11 years since the Facebook group was founded, we have had precisely two people who have slipped in and started proselytizing Christianity, and they have been quietly removed, and that's been it. Yucca: Okay, I've never noticed them. Mark: Yeah, they didn't last long because we have moderators and the moderators, you know, our philosophy is to use a light hand and to be encouraging and guiding rather than oppressive. But nonetheless, when somebody comes in and starts proselytizing, that is a hard no in our rules. And off you go. Yucca: Also, just to chuckle it, I've always thought the strategy of let me quote from a book that you don't believe in at you to try to convince you. Mark: As evidence. Yeah. Yucca: Like, okay, cool. Mark: It's so circular and they don't see it. They just don't see it. Well, no, no, this is God's word. No, it's not. Yucca: But if I don't accept your premise of there being a god to begin with, and that this is his word, like, why would that hold any weight for me? Mark: That's right. That's right. So, so, August 5th, 2012, the the Facebook group is created, and I invited a handful of people that I thought would be philosophically aligned out of my friends within the pagan community, and then we started to get knocks on the door of people who wanted to join. And we had application questions that we could review, you know, we asked them why they wanted to be a part of the community, we stipulated what our value set was and said, do you affirm these values, you know, we're pro feminist, pro environment, anti racism, anti fascist, pro environment, you know, those kinds of things that we've listed. And, you know, we make them sign, yes, I, I will affirm these values. I think that's probably kept a lot of right wing trolls out of our group because they aren't willing to sign on to that. Yucca: hmm. Mark: We, it's not infrequent that we get applicants who will answer the first and third question, but not, not the one about values, and they don't get admitted. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mark: That's just how it goes. Yucca: I have to admit, I don't remember filling any of that out when I joined, but I clearly had to have. I think I joined in, like, maybe 16, 20 16 or sometime around there, and I just don't remember. I'm sure I did. I just have no memory of it, like being a, like, I must have just been like, oh, of course, of course. Yes, yes. Because I don't remember it being a thing. Mark: Facebook questions, I think they only allowed one Facebook question for a long time, one admission question, and it's expanded to three now, so there may only have been one. But I'll, Yucca: through it and went like, of course. Great. I'm so excited. This is, this group exists, so Mark: And I knew who you were, so I admitted you right away. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So that, you know, that helped. So, the group began to grow, and it became 100 people, and it became 200 people, and it became 500 people, and it became 1, 000 people, and now it's close to 5, 000 people who are interested in this path, and we have very high participation. In a given month, usually 2, 500 to 3, 000 of those members will do something in the way of reacting or commenting or posting. And of course you've got your lurkers, but it's very common for somebody to jump in and say, Hey, I've been a lurker for three years, but, you know, now I have a thing to say. And it's just a lovely environment. It's safe. People support one another. There's kindness. There's very thoughtful discussion. People post really interesting stuff. It's just, it's worked out really well, and now, of course, we've spun off into having a Discord server as well while growing the movement in a bunch of ways, like this podcast. Yucca: Right which we started talking about together at the end of 2019. We didn't, we didn't get it going Mark: we waited, we waited for the pandemic and then got started. Yucca: We had like a few, we had a few episodes and then it was Two or three or something, but it was, it was Mark: It wasn't many, yeah, it happened really fast. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And, ironically, the pandemic actually forced us to do some good things in the community. We started doing Zoom mixers, first once a week, and now twice a week, and there are other gatherings as well. Yucca: That's when a lot of growth of people coming into the community happened, too, because people were searching online for that connection, because they didn't have the in person things. And then, wow, here was this community, and that's, so much happened during the pandemic. Mark: Yeah, yeah, the population really mushroomed. And, of course at the same time, at that point, I had been working on atheopagan stuff from the beginnings of the... of the essay. And then in 2019, late 2019, my book was published, which was an expanded version of the essay with more Yucca: is when our... Friendship had kind of started, because we'd met before, but do you remember I helped you with the formatting on that? Mark: I do, Yucca: Because I took it out of, they weren't accepting whatever format it was that you had, so you had it in Word and I put it in InDesign and reformatted Mark: yeah, Yucca: it and exported it. Mark: right, yeah, which I Yucca: why we got the connection to then when we started talking about doing a podcast, it was like, oh yeah, yeah, this is a good connection, let's try this. Mark: Yeah, yeah. So the book happened, Then the podcast happened, and by that time it had been almost 15 years of working on this in one way or another for me. Yucca: Mm hmm, Mark: And I was looking at this community that was now thousands of people, and thinking, well, okay, clearly this is something that has some real resonance, and it needs to not be about me. It needs to be... You know, a self governing, self evolving thing, Yucca: hmm. Mark: and so we created the Atheopagan Society, the non profit organization of which both Yucca and I are council members and Yucca: of 2020 was our first meeting, Mark: yes, early July of 2020, and You know, that was approving bylaws and articles of incorporation and blah blah blah. There's a lot of technical stuff that has to be done to create a group like that. But we got recognized by the federal government as a religious organization. Donations are tax deductible. Yucca: Mm hmm. We did all that stuff of so much paperwork and figuring out bank accounts and Mark: Yeah, getting a bank account open turned out to be really kind of a nightmare. Yucca: ridiculous amount of like weird information that they needed. Mark: I think it's Patriot Act stuff. I think they're concerned about non profits fostering terrorism. Yucca: And therefore they needed your social and income and Mark: Yeah. Yucca: All kinds of, you know, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: yeah, it was intense. Mark: just weird. But we did it. We got it done. And the council started doing stuff. There, you know, there were various initiatives. The the library initiative online that Robin did, for example, to create a library of resources for Ethiopia Pagans that they can download and, and look at, and or, you know, lists. Yucca: package as well, Mark: all the, all the clerical and guidance as Yucca: great. Mark: And the system for ordaining. clerics online because we believe that everybody should have the right to conduct marriages and so forth. And so we had an automated system on the website for people to be ordained, which is currently broken because MailChimp changed its system. But if you want to be ordained, you can use the contact form on the Atheopagan Society website, which is VAPSociety. org. Send a, send a message through the contact system, and I will get back to you and get you ordained. Yucca: Yeah, and eventually we're going to have that back up and running as an automated system, but there's just a lot of things that are getting juggled at the moment. Mark: there are. There Yucca: There's a, yeah and just also want to clarify the, this is all volunteer, right? You know, people are, are doing this out of a sense of a desire to, So, we're really trying to, really help in whatever ways we can, and and we'll talk about this in a little bit. I mean, the, the getting everything set up for being able to have more volunteers is one of our major focuses. Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: But just trying to figure out what, what each person's strengths are and how we can best. How we can help the community and how we can best serve the community has been a big focus of what we've been trying to do over the past few years, so. Mark: Yeah. Yeah because it's all about, you know, supporting the people that are within the umbrella of this, this community in being as fulfilled as they can be, as happy as they can be, as self actualized as they can be, as effective as they can be, which is what atheopaganism is really about. It's about being happy, being effective in your life. You know, we don't believe in an afterlife or any of that. Nobody's keeping score. It's, it's all about just joy and joy and service, right? And so, you know, with that spirit, there's a real joyfulness in the work as well. I mean, when we work together, there's a sort of, oh, we're doing a great thing here Yucca: Yeah, I mean every single, so the council meetings are quarterly, and every single time it's just like, wow, it, y'all are amazing, this is awesome. Thank you so much. Oh, I'm so lucky to know such cool people. I can't believe we're doing this like every, you know. Time after time after time and it's just, it never gets old, it's just amazing each time. Mark: Yeah. And when we held the Suntree retreat, the in person retreat in 2022, and there were 50 of us there, that was the same experience. It was like, wow, every one of these people is super cool. I would like to be friends with every one of them. Yucca: yeah, my oldest who came with me to that was like, why isn't it a week long? Why isn't it two weeks long? Can we just live here? I'm like, aw. Mark: So, things have evolved over that 11 years. I've written another book that's coming out next year. I've written in my will that the rights to my atheopaganism book are going to go to the Atheopagan Society, so that it will always have access to that material for future people that want to practice atheopaganism so there'll never be any argument about, you know, who has the rights to any of this stuff You know, we've just, we've done a lot of, we, we launched the the YouTube, Yucca: So we've got the media team working on this, yeah. Mark: right? Yucca: And I want to say the, the story, so you've told your, your thread of the story, Mark: Yes. Yucca: But this is a, this is a community of thousands of people now, and we each have our own thread of this story that's weaving together, right? And together we're making this larger thing. And I really value that, the, the wisdom in going, okay, let's make sure that this isn't just about one particular personality. This is All of ours, right? And again, that's one of the things that the council's trying to figure out how to do is how do we make this something that is sustained, that keeps going, that lives past just any of individuals of us? Mark: hmm. Yes, yes. And, and it's very egalitarian, Yucca: yeah, Mark: where we, we're not going to have, you know, different degrees or levels or priesthood or any of that kind of stuff. When people choose to be ordained and become what's called an atheopagan cleric, that's a service role. That means I've committed to provide particular kinds of service in my community. It doesn't mean I'm a muckety muck now and I get to tell other people what to do. We don't have that, Yucca: right. And same thing with the council, right? Again, the council is just, it really is a service position, just because somebody's on the council and someone else isn't on the council, the person on the council, they're... They're not more important than anyone else, they're just in a position of that volunteer. Mark: right? We don't. Right. So, you know, we've built so much over this time. Oh, and I want to mention, because we have two wonderful volunteers that are doing it, Instagram as well. We've you know, that are part of the media team. We've got a couple of folks that are doing wonderful Instagram stuff as well. And someone created an atheopaganism Reddit, subreddit, Yucca: Oh, nice. Mark: the blue a person who I didn't know. And that was kind of miraculous to stumble across. Yucca: That's great. Mark: Yeah, sort of propagating itself out into the world.  Yucca: And we don't have an official TikTok, but there are some folks from the community who are on on TikTok, and you can find, you know, you can search through the hashtag of Atheopagan, you'll come up with, you know, Robin's channel, and a couple of other folks who have that conversation. Mark: We do have an account, Yucca: we, yes, Mark: but we never post anything. Yucca: and if that's somebody's passion, hey, talk to us on the media team, we'd love, you know, each of the different platforms kind of have their own system and culture and all of that. So yes, thank you for pointing out, we really, we have one, we just don't, aren't doing it on a regular basis at this point Mark: So, Yucca: we have to do is figure out that we are, in fact, human, and have a limited amount of time and space and spoons as they say, and where do we use them. Mark: right. Yeah. And that's actually a perfect opportunity for me to thank you, Yucca, for your three years of service as the chair of the Atheopagan Society Council. You did a tremendous amount of work and modeled a tone and a can do kind of, attitude and a level headedness that I think just really served us so well. And I totally understand that it was time for you to step down and John has stepped up and that's all great. A, a, Yucca: honor, so thank you. Yeah, it's really, and I, and I look forward to continue to serve in different ways in the coming years, so. Mark: Yeah, yeah. So, all these things have happened, all these incredible things over the last 11 years, and now we look to the future. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: The Atheopagan Society is creating its first strategic plan, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And a strategic plan is basically just narrowing our focus down to a few goals. That we're going to pursue over, that we're going to seek to accomplish over the next couple of years. And that's where we're going to invest our time and our energy and our money in order to accomplish those things. Our money, vast. Yucca: yes, our vast resources. Mark: yes, I think we have 5, 000 right now. I think that's something like Yucca: don't think we quite have, that's what we did last time, but I think we've, we've had quite a few expenses Mark: that's true. You're right. Yeah, we have had expenses. So yeah, it's probably more like 4, 500. But it's enough because we, you know, we operate. We operate with volunteers. Yucca: yeah, and donations. And so Mark: Yes, Yucca: who donate on a regular basis and that, that makes doing those things possible, right? So we really, really value that. Mark: Because we do have regular expenses. We have to pay for things like Zoom and MailChimp and, you know, all that Yucca: Hosting for, you know, all of that. Yeah. Mark: for the blog. Yeah. So, the strategic plan is going to be finalized at our Autumnal Equinox meeting coming up. After September 21st, I think it's October 5th, I think is the next meeting. Yucca: We'd have to look at, yeah, it's somewhere around Mark: yeah, somewhere around there. Yucca: Do you want to mention the three? We're finalizing it, but we've got the idea of what our goals are. Mark: we've, we've narrowed the goals down to three things. And they are, first of all, Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. We want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make our spaces feel safe and inclusive and welcoming to everyone. As long as they share our values. If they're Nazis, we don't want them to feel welcome. We want them to go somewhere else. But... You know, certainly for people in marginalized communities, we want to make sure that we're really uplifting those voices and making sure that people feel safe and welcome in those spaces. Yucca: And just being really really conscious about that. And really clear about that, yeah. Mark: So that's the first. And the second is what is the second? Yucca: Well, the steady engagement and growth, yeah. Mark: right. The fostering of engagement between Ethiopia Pagans. So more more in the way of online opportunities like the conference, the vi virtual conference that we held this past spring in person opportunities like the the sun retreat that we're gonna do another one of in 2024. Yucca: which is a little less than a year away. 'cause it's in September this year. Right. Mark: Yes. So it's a little more than a year. It's a little more Yucca: Just a, you know. Mark: Yeah. But Yucca: On another full moon, I believe. Didn't we end up getting another full Mark: We did. So we're going to start working on that, you know, right after Labor Day. The, the issue there is really, and also I didn't mention this, but we have a program of affinity groups now. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: some of which are geographically based, so they can get together in person. Because they, they all come from a particular region. Some of them are interest based, like there's an LGBTQ group, there's a BIPOC group, there's a gardening group, there's a crafting group, things like that, right? So creating opportunities and providing resources to help like Affinity Groups to get together in person, build interpersonal relationships, because, you know, community is a big thing that religion is about. And as wonderful as online community is, in person is better. And we, we'd like for people to have opportunities for that if they want them. Yucca: Right. Yeah, so for both, right? And there being a steady component and we'll talk about this in the next goal as well, but we don't want to kind of explode and spread too quickly and then collapse. Right? So we're really working on how to do this in a way that is sustainable. Mark: Yes. And that's the third big area, which is creating infrastructure and support for volunteers, so that we don't have burnout. We're always, you know, drawing in new leadership and new voices and new participation, so that nobody has to sit in the same position for 10 years and get real tired of it. And, I mean, that's just good for us in all kinds of ways, because You know, having a variety of different perspectives, it just helps our approach to be that much more nuanced, that much more considerate. It's just good for us, all the way around. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So those are the three big areas, and you'll notice that none of them involves some big, huge growth initiative. We have never been a proselytizing spiritual community, and we're not. My philosophy around this is I would like people to be aware of this as an opportunity that they can take if they want to. I would never tell them you should be an atheopagan. Yucca: Right. Mark: I would never say that to any. Yucca: Yeah. Because it's, I think it's a wonderful option, but it's not the only thing out there. Lots of things work for lots of different people and I'm just grateful that we've got a community of incredible people who really love and care for each other and work together and can, you know, share these values and use a similar framework. And yet, as we've talked about in so many other podcasts are also so very different in so many delightful ways. Mark: Right, and we encourage that diversity, right? Like, you know, there isn't this mandated wheel of the year where, you know, the symbols are all the same and the rituals are all the same. No, you create for yourself what's meaningful for you and relates to what nature is doing at a given time of year where you are. So there's, there's a tremendous amount of freedom. Within atheopaganism, it's meant to be facilitative and supportive and kind of informing rather than directive. Yucca: hmm. Yeah. Mark: So that's where we're going. That's, that's the idea there.  Yucca: And it's a fun process. Mark: it is. It is. And fun people to do it with. So that's, that's all to the good as well. I mean, having not had any comprehension of Arriving here 11 years ago, I have no idea where we might be 10, 11 years from now. It's just, it's hard to, hard to imagine what that could be like. Yucca: Oh, we'll be an ancient group in neo pagan years at that Mark: that's, oh, that's true. Yeah, we'll be almost Bronze Age. Yucca: Yes. I guess then we'll be, then we'll be legitimate, right? Because Mark: Right, well, yeah, we'll, we'll be Silicon Age, and by that time it'll all be, you know, molecular computing or or quantum computing, and then we can look back nostalgically at our silicon chips and and yes, we'll, we'll be the old established Version. Yucca: That's quite funny to think of. Mark: It is. It is. Yucca: but yeah. . Alright. Mark: So, yeah I'd like to thank everyone that has played a part in or participated in or joined, you know, for however long, because some people have decided that it wasn't for them and gone off to do something else. All those people who have played a role in where we've arrived and what we've been able to achieve in serving people, in, in really working to help people be happier and help the world be a better place. Yucca: Yeah. Thank you. Mark: Yeah, so thank you to all you listeners, that counts. Yucca: Absolutely. We are so grateful that you are all here and Yeah. Mark: Yeah, it's Yucca: Spending this time with us. Mark: yeah, it's a real honor and we know that Of all the things that people can donate to a movement or a cause, time is the most precious. You know, the number of people that will contribute to an organization, for example, is always much higher than the number that will volunteer for the organization. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So, you know, when you give us 30, 40 minutes a week out of your day that's a very meaningful thing and we, we recognize it and we appreciate it. Yucca: right. Mark: So, with that, here's to the next 11 years! Yucca: And we'll see you next week.    

Here is a very lightly edited transcript of the SuperCrowdHour for July, The Power of a Purpose Round with Parker Clay CEO Ian Bentley, DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba and Renew Venture Capital's Mark Hubbard.Devin: I have just the most extraordinary panel discussion organized today, and I just couldn't be more excited about it. Rebecca Kasaba is the CEO of DealMaker, which is one of the fastest-growing companies in North America. I mean, Rebecca, you're just killing it. You're absolutely crushing it. We're thrilled to have you here to take a minute to be on the show. Ian Bentley is the CEO of Parker Clay, and he's working with help from Rebecca. He's in the middle of a $15 million goal of a crowdfunding campaign. We're excited to talk to him about that. He's got an incredible social mission. I just love what he's doing. And Mark Hubbard, who is the managing director of Renew Venture Capital, he's playing a vital role in putting that together. And so they've created, and they are sort of walking their talk, eating the dog food, as folks in Silicon Valley like to say, they are actually modeling the use of what they've started to call a purpose round. And I'm excited to talk to them about that because their crowdfunding campaign is really centered on fulfilling their mission.Devin: So with that, Ian, let me invite you to just take a minute and tell us about the mission, the social purpose behind and the motivation and purpose for Parker Clay.Ian: Thanks, Devin. Yeah, and doing it in a minute would be a little bit tricky, but I can try. I just got home, back to California, where our headquarters are here in the US. But I just got back from our factory in Ethiopia; I was there for actually about a month. A little bit longer than I'm normally there. But we so as you can imagine, we've got both an Ethiopian headquarters and a US headquarters. And it started back in 2012 when my family and I bought one-way tickets, left California, left our careers, moved to Ethiopia; and we moved there primarily to help women who had been caught in trafficking and really looking for more dignified employment opportunities. That was not that line of work. And we were doing skills training, and job training, discovered the leather industry while we were living there, and saw it as primarily being exported to the world, like Europe. And we thought we could create jobs for women. And really, that was the purpose of why we were there to create opportunities for women to thrive. And we are doing that through business. So really kind of changing the model around even aid that has been poured into the country for many, many years and shifting that to a trade model and doing business at scale. And we'll talk more about the manufacturing opportunities and all that we're doing there. But we've got a team now of about 200 people, 80% of whom are women. And we are proud of the impact and the work we get to do every day through that.Devin: Yeah, it is just really inspiring what you're doing. And I was shocked by the story when I heard it and thrilled and really admire the work that you've been doing. You've been at this for a while now. It's been a decade or so since you, the roots of this effort, began. Is that right?Ian: Yeah, Yeah. We officially started in 2014. That's when we set up the entity. So it's been almost ten years. I have lost all my hair and gotten a few more gray hairs, and working alongside my wife is the creative director of Parker Clay, and we've got five kids, so a very full life as well. But it's been it's an exciting time at the moment really for what we're doing because a lot of the hard work we've put into the foundation over these past few years is now really ripe to scale. So that's why we're doing what we're doing.Devin: Yeah. Well, Rebecca, as you have, you know, worked with Ian, one of the things that I've observed from our past conversations about this, and we've had an opportunity to talk about it a few times, I think you have a real passion for this. I wonder if you tell us a little bit about how you feel about this and how you're working to DealMaker to support Parker Clay.Rebecca: Devin, I'm happy to. Yeah, we're really excited about what Parker Clay is doing. Remember when my team first met Ian, we were so excited about the company and the mission and the way they're having such a transformative impact on Ethiopia that we were like, Okay, this is one deal we've got to get for the system. We've got to win this one. So what DealMaker does is essentially give companies the technology infrastructure they need to raise capital digitally online. And so traditionally, in my background as a capital markets attorney, I saw a lot of paperwork being exchanged in order to get capital raising done. And when the Jobs Act came out, I saw the opportunity for all of this capital raising to move online. And, you know, like Ian, it's been a short ten-year journey where we've watched the legislation transform, and we've really seen digital marketing take a huge foothold now in this industry and give entrepreneurs a way to communicate their message to all the four corners of the Internet, to people who their message might appeal to and build up a community behind them and don't want to get too into it because I know we'll continue to chat about it for the next hour, but it's something I'm really passionate about, the impact that people today want to have with their investments, especially when they see companies like Parker play, and they want to do things, you know, they see what Mark and Renew are doing. And this whole trend of impact investing is something that we're all fortunate to be a part of and get to propel forward, which really just makes the world a better place and gets better businesses funded.Devin: Yeah. Well, Mark, I want to turn to you now for a second. We've it's my sense, and I may be wrong, forgive me if I am, but it's my sense that you played a really vital role in pulling this together for both your capital and your concept. So what I'd like to do is to invite you to talk a little bit about your role in all of this and why it is that what Ian does resonates with you.Mark: Sure. I guess it goes back to sort of the genesis of the term purpose around for us, you know, what we were trying to accomplish. And then Ian became sort of part of the first use case for that, not the total piece, but certainly the proof case for, for why we want to do it. As Rebecca said, everything we do is impact. We have a venture studio and a venture capital firm, and it's all either social impact companies or it's women and historically excluded founders. And those don't have to be impact companies. And we want to, I mean, look, we're part of, as Rebecca mentioned, this sort of global shift and what I sort of call a movement. It's kind of a paradigm shift where more and more people want to align what they say they believe about the world with what their money does in it. Right. Or what their effort does in it. A lot of people will shift professionally in those ways. I mean, I guess I am in some ways, it's taken me 20 years, but in some ways, I'm part of that shift as well. And so, you know, we looked at the look, any time you do investing, you're a two-sided marketplace. Right. So I have investors that I invest on behalf of, and I have companies and founders that we invest in. And so the thing we saw was really twofold, both sides of that marketplace. One, that it was really frustrating that only rich people, you know, only accredited investors, could... I mean, they still, to this day, right in the fund, I can't take anybody who's not accredited. I have to see your tax statements.Mark: So I really can't take anybody who's not accredited. And so that's frustrating, like in and of itself, just sort of from an investing standpoint that you can't invest in early-stage companies; you can't really do VC. When you couple that with the idea that this is an effort to align your values with what your money does, like, that's a justice issue that a non-accredited investor is not allowed to do. We're only going to let rich people do that. You know what? What is the what's the power that we leave on the table and in that dynamic? So that's one issue, right? Then the other was, what do we do about--and Ian will probably be okay with me saying this--there's a whole lot of companies that could be big, huge, successful companies that the founders are dynamic, that people want to support, that people align with aspirationally, that it's not just a product that they buy and that it's really something they want to be a part of themselves. But it's hard to figure out how you put those companies into a venture fund. And because they're too capital intensive, or the timeline is too long, or they're just not in vogue, or they're systemic issues, you know, as it comes down to like a lot of women and historically excluded founders. And so, how do we open pathways? How do we support these kinds of purpose-focused companies to allow them to go raise expansion capital, real, real money? Like ten, 20, $70 million. By being able to tell their story of their purpose and what they're trying to accomplish more broadly and involve a much bigger community in that discussion.Devin: And. I want to just pause here for a moment to say a couple of things. First off, if you are here in the Zoom room with us, please, we invite you to begin thinking about thoughtful questions you have for these extraordinary individuals who are on the panel today. We're going to welcome your questions. You can use the Q&A function in Zoom to ask those questions most readily. And I also want to reiterate the invitation. If you're watching on YouTube and would like to ask a question, just hit on.s4g.biz to register and hop into the call. We'd love to have you join us here in the Zoom room, where you can ask a question. So now, continuing on the discussion, I hate to interrupt the flow, but you know,Devin: It really is, I think, exciting to think about what this means. You know, Rebecca, you've got this technology that you're deploying, and you hinted at this already, that allows people like Ian to begin to connect with people who are not yet part of the community. That's a pretty exciting thing. Tell us about your technology.Rebecca: Yeah. So the way we set up an offering, if you've got a brand like Parker Clay, a really nice high-value brand, you want to allow them to control the buying experience so that an investor coming in has the same high-end experience to buy shares as they would to buy a purse or some similar product from Parker Clay. And so, we allow them to set up a standalone website with an Invest Now button. And our goal is to really make it as easy for investors to buy shares online as it is to buy a pair of shoes. So get them through the securities law exemption, get their payments, their investments funded, get contracts signed, get the securities law exemptions and background checks, run all very streamlined purchasing experience at the click of a button and then allow the companies to have access to their funnel and really to treat their capital raise the same they way they would if they were digitally marketing a product so they can see who their buyers are, where their interest level stems from, and they can really then start to identify the community that is interested in their capital, raise and build a community around that profile and then reach more people. And our goal is to really expand this, to make capital raising global so that we can right now allow people to raise across North America as well as into different other regions so that they can find all the different folks that might be interested in what they're doing and really leverage the power of the Internet to its fullest capacity.Devin: It is exciting to think about this. And Mark, you know, it's I kind of credit you again, I apologize if I'm getting this wrong, but I kind of credit you with thinking of this and identifying the possibility that purpose can be a connector that Rebecca can kind of leverage with her technology to benefit someone like Ian, an entrepreneur like Ian to attract capital. I wonder. How did you develop this idea? Because it got I got to say, the traditional view of crowdfunding is you leverage your community to raise capital. And what you're doing is you've changed the thesis and say, we're going to leverage our purpose to build a community from which we can build raise capital. What where did that idea come from, Mark?Mark: Yes, like, like all my great ideas. I assume it came from somewhere else. Yeah. Look, the history of the crowdfunding world started with a lot of crowd talk, right? That. That, in general, just you want to get to the people, whatever that means. And it's not a particularly strategic idea necessarily, but you just go out to the crowd. And then there became this idea of community. Right. That really, when you look at what happens in a crowdfunding scenario, what happens is really your community for the most part, right? You may broaden it some, but a lot of it is leveraging people that were already in the community or are sort of on the edges and will come in and feel an affinity. And that's all like that's really useful stuff. It's exciting to take a community. I mean, even before you get to any purpose discussion, right? They have this community that is just deeply identified with what they do. And, you know, thousands and thousands of people who would do who would drive anywhere or go anywhere or just, you know, to be associated with their business. And so that kind of crowd or community thing is useful and helpful and can help one of these campaigns be successful. My thought was just as great as that is. If you can take a community and you can activate that community around a purpose, that's a different thing. Like that is maybe it feels like a nuanced difference, but that's there's a power in that's different than the whole rest of the activities. And so, therefore, yes, there ought to be an opportunity to have all kinds of people who would who do want to make an investment.Mark: That's why you know, this is this bespoke landing page thing. Right. That's an interesting animal because, although functionally, it should be as easy as buying a product, right? It's not quite like buying a product. And so but you do want to tell a story about the business and the product, but you do want to tell the impact story. Like, that's a lot of stuff to balance and a lot of needles to thread. But if people can get into that, if people can who do want to invest in something that will be successful, who want this to be part of what they're, you know, money makes possible in the world, can also then connect with this story of transformation. You know, that's really, really powerful. And I do believe that that could be broadened far beyond sort of just your normal customer base. And look, then, the flip side of a crowdfund, right? What's so great about that idea is that if you that every person that you can align with you that wasn't a customer before. Not only do they probably become a customer, but they become the whole process is taking customers and the community and turning them into owners and advocates. And so when they became owners, they become advocates in a way that could really drive sort of the underlying fundamentals of the business going forward. And so it seemed to be for me like the, you know, sort of the perfect storm of possibility there.Devin: Well, it is exciting to think about how this has the potential to work. And of course, now, Ian, you're living in the middle of it, right? You're in the middle of this campaign. You've been you launched this. I'm trying to recall, was it early this year that you launched the campaign or late last year?Ian: It was late last year. Yeah, November of last year.Devin: So you've had enough of a run now, I guess, to see how it's working. Are you seeing actually some people who were outside your community that have been drawn in by purpose to invest? And then the parallel question, and I'm curious about, is, are we also seeing are you also seeing those folks who come in as fresh members of the community, as investors? Are they also becoming customers?Ian: Yeah, we are the, and I think the way Mark was describing it is, is true. The power of community is is is a big deal. And I mean, I'm even reminded in coming back from Ethiopia how important community is for all of us. The word that I kept hearing over and over in Ethiopia was resilient, resilient, resilient. And sometimes, you know, you've got some people that are strong, some people that are weak. How do we help each other? How do we help each other through those challenges and the good and the bad? And it's a beautiful thing that I get to see, perhaps sometimes more when I'm in Ethiopia, but reminded that even here in the US and other parts of the world where we have even adopted this proverb that it's an African proverb that says If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And we're constantly saying that. It's become such an ingrained part of our DNA at Parker Clay, where we look through decisions with the business with regards to whether we go together; what does that look like? And I can tell endless stories of even just these last few weeks in Ethiopia of doing just that. And you know, what we get to do, and I think even just what Mark was saying with regards to how we thread all these stories together, that we are a business, we're a for-profit, purpose-driven business, right? We're a legal public benefit corporation that has the idea baked into it that we are benefiting the public in some way.Ian: And so driving that purpose every day at Parker Clay is essential. But we're also building, you know, an exciting business. And so the question I think that comes up as we approach the community, you know, and it's a little bit more of a newer idea, is can you be kind of can you focus on both profit and purpose? And I think, historically, we have separated these things very distinctly, right? Where we have kind of charitable giving, charitable donations, aid, things that we're doing which are not bad and are needed. But then we have for-profit, right? And then we have businesses that are just purely about profit. And I think that that has been the model for many, many years. And only really, and I would say the last ten or so years, have businesses been looking at more of a purpose-driven structure. And, you know, we've seen that because we've been doing it from the beginning. And so I think that's where as we approach the community, we get to certainly bring that out of more of our existing customers. And we've seen a significant amount of people interested in this round. For many, it might be their first type of investment like this, right? Because this is still a new space. And I think opportunities like this webinar and the education around it are important because, for a lot of people, they just haven't had the opportunity unless they've been, like Mark said in the beginning, more of institutional investors who have that experience. And so for customers who have been buying our bags, this might be the first type of investment.Ian: And one practical way to share that. We had a warehouse sale here in Santa Barbara at our warehouse, and the community came out. They were excited to buy bags and drove from kind of all over California to come. And this one woman came up to me and said, Hey, I'm one of your shareholders. And she said, I'm with a big smile with a ton of excitement, and that just would never be possible before, right? Where she was saying it with pride as an owner, I'm a shareholder in the company. I'm excited not just about your bags, which I love, but also being part of this in a deeper way with you. And so, you know, we have seen both the existing community base, which I think has been a big part of our strength, and that's also brought in some new faces who have then converted to customers, some people who maybe own businesses now kind of come in and go, hey, one of my gifts for my employees or my clients. And so it really has allowed us to stretch that out and the opportunities out with our offering, not only from the investment side but from the product side. And that is a benefit, I would say for sure, with this type of route is if you are a consumer brand, you get to bring in this customer base, and if you have a product, it's also fun to share because you kind of get both investment and customers who are buying your product.Devin: Yeah, it's really exciting to think about the synergy between the investment and the product sales. Of course, I've dated myself just by using the 90s word synergy, but that's where, you know, it was ingrained. It was beaten, I think. You know, many of us in business school back in the day got a tattoo on an arm. Um, so anyway, sorry. I apologize for using the word synergy. But there is some exciting interplay between the investors and the customers. Rebecca, I want to talk to you a little bit more broadly about investing in these kinds of deals. I know you're a broker-dealer, and you have to be careful. You're an attorney. You're smarter than I am. Help us understand. How sort of anyone now can invest as easily almost in a deal like Parker Clay Let's be a little bit nonspecific so you can stay a little bit out of some of the regulatory scrutiny for a minute. So you're not recommending a deal, but tell us a little bit about how people can get comfortable that it's okay to invest. It's a new thing. Ian made it very clear. Right? It's new to people. How do people get comfortable with that as investors?Rebecca: Yeah. Thanks, Devin. And I will disclaim that because I'm not licensed in the broker-dealer. Our broker-dealer helps the issuers' side rather than being the type of broker-dealer that works for the investors. But I think what we're seeing is investors are getting comfortable with the purpose and the mission of the business. And, of course, the regulations are very well designed to make sure that investors have access to all the information they need. So they have fully standardized offering documents that tell them prescriptively about the business and the business plan and who the founders are. And there are bad actor checks run on all the founders before the offerings get set up. And then there are caps on the amount of money that investors can invest in these deals because it is supposed to be for investors to build a portfolio of investments and not, you know, bet the farm on one investment that they're making. And so what we are doing is bringing that awareness to folks so that they can participate in these kinds of offerings and build that kind of portfolio. If you look at it according to Global Impact Investor Network, the impact investing global portfolio stands at 1.2 trillion assets under management. And so there's a lot of capital out there that's looking for deals like Parker Play where people want to be making an impact, as Mark described, with their money and the key trends that we're seeing as part of that impact investing. Ian really described the most important one to me, which is as millennials and the younger generation view the world, they don't view it the same way some of the older generations do with charity and business, and business is out to make a profit, and charity does good in the world.Rebecca: They really see business as a better change agent than charity, and charitable charities need to be able to have a more sustainable business model. And so the two are really blending together in a really interesting way, with Parker Clay being the perfect example of that. We've also seen, you know, statistics like six out of every ten millennials have actually done impact investing, so they know what it is. The people who do it feel good about it. They do it repeatedly. And so we see it really as this snowball that's rolling down the hill where you've now had, you know, ten years ago, the online buying ecosystem was not what it is today. It was almost at zero. People went into bricks and mortar stores to buy everything they needed. Fast forward ten years. That's grown into a $16 trillion industry. And so as we see investing, moving online in the same way, moving out of the boardrooms and the, you know, physical handshakes and online, we've also seen a really nice change in the types of founders that are getting funded with increased female and minority founders because of the way the messaging is being presented. So all of that to say, I think investors are this is resonating with investors. They want to do this. We're seeing the upward trend, and the legislation's been around for over ten years now and has gone through a number of iterations to make sure that it's safe for investors.Devin: Yeah, it's it is exciting to see, you know, in the last, I think, seven or eight quarters, we've seen venture capital decline every quarter. You know, there was some buzz around AI and notwithstanding the buzz around AI, venture capital investment still declined. And uh, but we're seeing Crowdfunding and Reg A plus kinds of deals are pretty solid. We haven't seen the same declines in that space. There's real resilience, and it is exciting to see. And I'm hopeful that as we get a little more confident in markets recovering, we'll see real growth in investment Crowdfunding going on. Mark, I wonder if you would just take a minute and talk a little bit about it. You're thinking about investing as well. I want to make sure that--I know there are entrepreneurs, and we'll come back to that. There are entrepreneurs listening who desperately want to figure out how they, too, can raise $15 million. But all of them are also investors, and others are here primarily because they're interested in investing in Parker Clay or another deal. And your vision, right for this, was driven in no small part by the idea that ordinary investors should have the same opportunity that wealthy investors have. Talk to us a little bit about that.Mark: Sure. Well, I mean, I can do my philosophy of investing, but the two of them just did it. So I'm surprised. I'm surprised they didn't share my deck to make the point. Yeah, there has been historically this two, you know, classically called the two-pocket idea, that in one pocket, I put all the money in the world, and in the other pocket, I give it away to make good things happen. Right? And so that purpose and the context of profit is bad and distracting, and profit in the context of purpose is bad and distracting. Right. And that's just not the world anymore. I mean, it's fine. That was the world for a long time. Friedman messed a bunch of people up. But it's not. I mean, the world now is a bunch of founders who don't see trade-offs, who don't come out of the nonprofit world. We want to build big, giant companies that do really well, that have purpose at the center of what they do, and that the purpose is not a distraction from the profit.Mark: It's that I make my profit via, like, “What are you talking about?” Like, “The purpose drives my profit.” Those aren't competing ideas, and I won't like to give up all my profit because that's business, and that's what makes the purpose possible. Like, what are you even talking about, right? Like, they don't even know how how to put it in that context. And that's how younger investors are, too, right? Like, that's the way they want to think about things. And so so yeah, that's just sort of a new-ish idea. But it's now the water everybody swims in, and everybody better adjust. You know, I always attribute to this, I've always heard it attributed to Marc Andreessen, you know, fellow, fellow purpose warrior who said that impact companies were were like houseboats, right? They're not a good boat and not a good house. And my response was always, that seems kind of weird coming from somebody who spends a bunch of time on a yacht.Devin: So, you know what? There are companies like Parker Clay that are both good houses and good boats, and I don't even know what you're talking about, man. And so, um, so yeah, so that is the future. And I think we're just going to see sort of a massive shift. And although this is new, you know, you know, it's my job generally to, to, to break up assumptions, although this is new and it's hard like I don't you watch any of the meme stock stuff that happened in the last couple of years. I mean, nobody had heard of Robinhood before. And everybody's got mutual funds, and everybody knows what the stock market is, and everybody owns private shares and companies, and people want to go to Berkshire Hathaway's, you know, annual like, no, this isn't new. This is a highly, highly regulated marketplace for people to do what they constantly do all the time. Otherwise, in other places, it just opens up a little slice of the market. Right? It opens up this early stage, mid-stage growth, stage investment in private companies that you didn't have access to before, and now you do so. So take all that comfort you have from all the rest of it, right? And apply it to this new asset class that you just were cut out of before.Devin: Yeah, it's an interesting point. You know, a meaningful part of diversification is to add some private assets to the the mix of things that you're holding. So that's a great, great point. Now, Ian, as you think about your offering, I wonder if you would just take a minute with, you know, we've been kind of talking about the focus on investors, and you, more than anyone, are authorized to speak about your deal. Tell us why you would like why you think it's a good idea for an investor to participate.Ian: Yeah. No. Thanks for that opportunity to share that. Look, one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet right now is in the fashion space. Actually, he is the wealthiest individual on the planet. And it's only been, I would say, in the last 20 or so years that, you know, or 20 plus that that's really kind of launched into the stratosphere with what he's done. The fashion space is really exciting. Africa is really exciting. And when we look at it through this lens when we were living in Ethiopia. It was really an aha moment where everything we were talking about profit, purpose, all those things really aligned when I'm there, and my family and I are working really towards this effort of saying hearing over and over from women saying we don't want handouts, we want jobs, we want opportunities. And when we discovered this raw material, which source--think about ten years ago, we didn't know where things were made or how they were made. We weren't looking at tags. This whole awakening of the conscious consumer was born about ten years ago. And it wasn't just a moment in time. It's a movement. And the movement has been picking up a lot of energy over these last ten years to the point where even, as Rebecca said, with millennials and younger generations. They are investing and spending where their values are. And I think that that is seen today more than ever before in history. And so when we created Parker Clay, we both looked at it and said in order and just to build on what Mark was saying, in order to have the impact we want to see in the world, which we believe women should not have to compromise and choose these really terrible, you know, routes to provide for themselves and their families.Ian: And if we can change that through economic empowerment, then watch out because these women are reinvesting 90% of their incomes back into their communities, into their families, and their kids' lives are going to change. Schools are going to change. These are the next leaders of the world. It's a good investment. And if we can make really beautiful products that, frankly, the world wants, then the combination of those things is so powerful. We're in a space that is approaching $300 billion in terms of the market. So the leather space for fashion brands, both in bags and shoes, kind of become the cornerstone of and building blocks of these fashion brands. And when it comes to Africa. It's an exciting, exciting time. I really cannot stress this enough, for me, spending weeks and months of my year in Ethiopia and in East Africa, the manufacturing world is changing dramatically. If you think about the Industrial Revolution at the peak, it was about 20 million jobs. And right now, there is a shift happening of about 100 million manufacturing jobs that are leaving China and looking for a new home. And when you think about Africa, by 2050, a quarter of the population is going to live on the continent of Africa.Ian: These are incredibly resourced, capable, young, vibrant workers that are looking for opportunities. And so when we look at Africa, we're also, and that's what is exciting about Parker Clay is that it's not just the brand that is selling into a market that is approaching 300 billion. We're also a brand that has taken on the manufacturing opportunity to become vertically integrated. And so we have the opportunity as a manufacturer and as a brand to really press into this market. And we've got the track record. We're 20 plus million in historical sales where we have, again, we've been selling and creating opportunity primarily here in the US and starting to tiptoe into international markets as well. And so there are a lot of very exciting pieces that this raise and why we're doing it. One is to bring the community into it. This would be our typical series A round, and to say, rather than going that traditional institutional round, we want to bring the community to be part of this with us because we see where we're going. We see the potential of building this company into a multinational, really significant brand that can compete on the global level with the other well-known fashion brands in the world who, by the way, might be buying leather from Ethiopia but stamping "made in" somewhere else with it. And that's where we're excited to bring people into that story with us to be part of this with us and truly, again, live up to that value of we go together where you get to be part of it, not just from a financial side with the investment, but also the impact side.Ian: And we are absolutely, and I can tell you that, just literally coming back days from Ethiopia. The way that we are transforming lives is humbling. It's just humbling from my position to be part of that and to see. I'll give you an example. We had a celebration that we've created this called we call it our Center of Excellence, where women can come in with no experience in the leather industry. We can give them job training, skills training along with it. We've partnered with a local bank called Anat, which means mother, and they do financial literacy training. We have a subsidized lunch program. We have a food pantry where we subsidize meals. We have a huge bus that we transport people to be back and forth from home to work because transport is a problem challenge. And we also consistently look at livable wages in the country and are constantly leveling up with regard to that because inflation is a challenge for them. So we take all these impact pieces, and we set that as a priority. We've also become one of the highest-ranked certified B Corps, and we're the top in the world in terms of the leather space. And that also allows us to be third-party accredited with regard to this impact. So it's not just us saying it, it's saying, hey, we're putting our proof through this accreditation as well.Ian: And we're really proud of that. And the vision really for us is to create millions of opportunities, not only through Parker Clay but through the network and showing people that the opportunities here are endless with regards to these women and what can happen in a place like Ethiopia and Africa. Um, so that's, you know, that's where we're at, and we're excited to be able to offer this to the community, to those people that are listening in. Um, and also, you know, I just want to add in with Mark, Rebecca and even Devin, you as well. You guys are part of that community, and really grateful for the contributions that you guys make in lending your voice and the efforts because what we're doing and the power of this whole thing is really we go together. And I think that it is an exciting time where we get to prove that we can do this and put really meaningful opportunities in front of people, not just from the investment side but from the impact side. And I can tell you because I've been in both a nonprofit and a for-profit siloed space, that this space that I'm in now, I've never been more motivated and on fire to work towards the success of this mission and purpose. And I think that we're going to see more people who are aligned with those things motivated and doing similar things as well.Devin: That's great. And we've got.Devin: A great question that came in from Gretchen. She said, Um, do you foresee institutional investors making this mind shift toward purpose investing? Or will it take continuous reg CF and reg growth to lead this new investment world? And Mark, maybe we can start with you, and then Rebecca and Ian, maybe you can close us out on this, but I think it's a great question.Mark: Yeah, I mean, they have–really, if you're old like me, you remember a 2010 research report from JP Morgan back when. Sort of, you know, that long ago, right? So it was sort of a social entrepreneurship, social enterprise. We didn't quite know what the thing was yet. And the argument was that whatever this thing was, this impact thing could potentially be a $1 trillion asset class. That was their argument someday. And you know how asset classes work. Asset classes are like defined verticals of kinds of companies. So small companies, big companies, other kinds of assets, real estate. Right. That's an asset class. And so they said there could be one of those. That's impact, depending on how you define impact. Now, it's something like a 20 to $50 trillion market. And so they were wrong, but they were wrong because what we found out is that it's not the institutional world did not respond to it as an asset class. How we responded to it is as a lens, right? And so it didn't it wasn't like, Oh, I'm going to invest in small-cap stocks and impact stocks. It was, How do I look at small-cap stocks through the lens of impact investing? Because in the institutional world, all impact framework is a risk-adjusted return framework. So they're trying to say, what are the risks associated with this? If I don't look at the impact pieces of it. And so it's become this lens.Mark: Now, what I think is so interesting about CF and Reg A and what I do right early stage investing is that you can do that, you know, on a big global scale. It's just really hard. Like it's hard to figure out how you run a giant multinational corporation in a way that's ethical, and it's just hard, especially if you're trying to turn those around and you have things like ESG and then the backlash to ESG and. Right. And so that's it's incredibly important. Everybody needs there need to be brilliant people working in that world. I just sort of punt on that and say, you know, where it's not all that complicated is in relatively early-stage investing. Look at the kind of control and focus that Ian's able to have right because of this company is what it is. And because it's at the size and stage that it is. And then we can help them build companies that look different in the end than the ones that maybe we have now, even when they're big and giant. And so that's just a meme more satisfying, a more interesting sort of place to play to sort of one-to-one almost what I believe with what I'm making happen. And so, yeah, institutions do do it. It's just a more complicated sort of world in the big high-end, global, national.Devin: Great, great thoughts. Rebecca, do you want to add anything to that?Rebecca: I think Mark covered it well. So the only thing I would add is what we see is typically people really connecting to the specific purpose of the company, and think Reg A gives an investor the ability to connect on a very personal level. And so when you see impact investing in a fund, it's going to be certain high-level defined parameters. Whereas an individual can say, I love what Ian's doing in Ethiopia, and that mission speaks to me. So I want to invest in that company versus like a bucket of companies that have a certain mission. One other thing that I want to add that Ian jogged in my mind that I want to call out. I think it's really interesting how he said it's our series A, but we're about community, and so we're going to choose to do this. There are a lot of companies historically that have similarly made that choice, who think the way Ian thinks. A lot of people don't know that Peloton--huge company today--started out as a crowdfunding campaign. And you've got companies like Substack, you know, going out around a Series B saying we're a community-driven company, and so we want to do this everything down to, you know, the Green Bay Packers, an NFL team who says we're all about our community, we're fan owned, and they're the number one brand in the NFL because they've been doing this for over 60 years. So it is out there. It is a trend that's happening. A lot of those stories we need to just bring to light so people understand that people do think this way and feel this way.Devin: Yeah, great. I think if.Ian: Devin, if I could add to, I think, you know, what's interesting too, is. It's more touchable like it's more connected in that sense. Like I'm available. If anyone has questions, reach out. Right. Like, and I think with these bigger investments and you typically, it feels more unreachable or untouchable. And like the woman coming up to me and saying, Hey, I'm one of your shareholders, that's so exciting. Or I get emails from people saying, I just invested, I respond, and we communicate. I love that. And I think that's another piece that's really powerful because, again, we were just believing also, as a philosophy, we were designed to be in community together. And this is just one more extension of doing just that.Devin: Yeah, that's a great point.Devin: Carl Deacon is asked a great question. And, you know, I'll ask you to tackle this first and then Rebecca and Mark, you may want to jump in and add something. But the question is, how are you attracting people to become investors? Messaging, and communication channels targeting investor candidates. Describe some of the real tactics at the practical level.Ian: Yeah, it's a good question. We've been learning a lot since we started. Having a community is a huge opportunity to start with, right? So we've sold to, like Mark said, thousands of customers. We've been doing this for about ten years. So we've got a really strong customer base that's highly engaged. These are reoccurring customers, people who are coming back, and sharing with friends and family. So that's a huge piece. But what we recognize, too, is that buying a bag and investing in a company, those are a bit different. And so we've had to cater some of that communication that's a little bit different. Right. And I think we've grown one of the one of the most powerful things that you can have is to bring in, I think, a community into that. Think outside of that. One thing that we've been experiencing and expert at is just the way that we do paid advertising and outreach and things like that. And, you know, sometimes we try things, and it works; sometimes we try things, and it doesn't work. And so it's a constant iteration around the types of things we're doing. I think what's most important is setting up a, and if you're a kind of a digital marketer, you have this mindset, but there's also this idea of, you know, broader outreach campaigns, and then you have multiple touchpoints that you continue to follow up with someone. And that's one thing that DealMaker is helpful with, too, is that it's easier to kind of automate some of that communication. But I think email, phone calls, if you have a product, being able to send the product out to people has been really helpful, I think, at its core. And then, on top of that, you can experiment with paid advertising and certain things like that. You just, I think as you mature in any of the campaigns, and that's one of the things that we've seen is as we've brought in more from the campaigns, then we can kind of continue to invest into it and try some more of those things out. So. Those have probably been the core pieces.Devin: Fantastic.Devin: Rebecca, do you want to add anything in terms of those tactics or Mark?Rebecca: I think that that's all through--primarily, it's the website as the main communication vehicle, and then the email really is the primary form of communication to a certain extent or other different, you know, voice mail. I think direct voice-on-voice contact, um, presentation info sessions where people can understand and really get a deep dive on the company and really connect with the founder and understand the founder's mission, all like a Zoom conference. All those are communication methods that folks are experimenting with and trying.Devin: Excellent.Devin: Mark, anything you want to add?Mark: No. I mean, the DealMaker is a good example of believing that that kind of stuff's important. I mean, they bought, you know, what they would argue what a lot of people would argue was sort of the premier marketing firm. Right. To go out and tell stories, to make it part of a vertically integrated approach. I mean, so, you know, for us, the purpose rounds isn't a company; it's just a category we're trying to help define, right? It's if you're a historically excluded founder or a woman founder or you're doing, you know, an impact thing, and you're doing one of these Reg A. We would define that sort of as trying to raise a round of funding with purpose. That's a purpose round. And so, so we chose to engage by saying, look, we have resources, and so why don't we come alongside founders who want to do this column alongside company operators who want to do this? Because one thing about it is that it can be sort of semi-complicated. There's a bunch of vendors. I mean, what DealMaker has done so well, say, well, we'll in-house some of those, right? So it's a much more seamless kind of approach. So they have a transfer agent and but you still have a lawyer, and you still have an auditor, and you still...Mark: So, it still can be kind of complex. And number two, it can be expensive. I mean, you write a check to all those people, and, you know, Ian can attest to you can be a hugely successful company doing really, really well for a long time. And you don't just pull sort of free money out of your ear to make things happen. That's, you know, that can be a real challenge. So we just said, why don't we help try to take those two things off the table? Number one, why don't we try to come alongside and sort of help do some top-level management so it's a little bit easier to manage the vendors? And then number two, why don't we use some of our capital and just fund the whole thing in a model that gets us that money back at some point so we can help somebody out too. But how do we take all the all that, you know, how do I come up with the money off the table and just provide the money? And that then opens up the ability to do things like marketing and focusing on storytelling in a way that you maybe would have a hard time swallowing otherwise.Devin: Yeah, well.Devin: Our time is, is up. And this has just been a fascinating discussion for me, and I'm grateful for all of your insights and for you making the time. I'm grateful to those who joined us today to hear what you're saying. Before we wrap up, let me invite each of you to just take a minute and share a closing thought, a brief closing thought. We just have a minute or two, but why don't we go to Rebecca, Mark and then Ian?Rebecca: Why you're here is to talk about impact investing, and I think the snowball's rolling down the hill.Devin: It's a great message. Great message.Devin: Mark, any closing thoughts?Mark: Closing thoughts? Uh. Um. Invest.ParkerClay.com.Ian: That was my thought, Mark.Mark: Oh, now you got to come up with something. You're the...Rebecca: You're mine too, but I can't say it.Ian: I know it would feel weird about it.Mark: I'm like, I'm the one person who could just come out and say it.Ian: I love that. You'll see if you go on LinkedIn, Mark often will do that on my post in case I miss it. Look, I'm, I'm honored for anyone who is listening or part of this that you would consider investing. We're in kind of the tail end of our last few months of this round. And so we're going to be making a big push to bring in the hopefully the final amounts of what we're hoping to raise. So would love to have you check out the site. Invest.ParkerClay.com, and email me you can email me directly at Ian@ParkerClay.com. If you have any questions, I'm happy to chat more about what we're doing or questions about these types of rounds.Devin: Fantastic.Devin: Well, again, thank you, all three of you. I'm extremely grateful for your time. You know, the insights that you're providing are profoundly important, and it is exciting to think it truly is exciting to think for social entrepreneurs and diverse founders to think about the possibility that the very purpose that motivates and drives them is enabling their success and is not a friction, but it is a tool for accomplishing success and raising capital. To those of you who attended today, I want to thank you very much. Whether you're watching on YouTube or elsewhere or whether you're here with us in Zoom, we thank you very much for being here. I invite you to visit thesupercrowd.com to check out our upcoming future events. We will be holding three in-person events this fall and early winter. Um, we're at the earliest stages of planning, but it looks like we'll be in Salt Lake City in Baltimore and perhaps Northern California later this year, and we will continue doing the super crowd once a month. And so our next super crowd hour will be on August 19th, I think. Let's let me just double-check. August 16th, excuse me, August 16th. So four weeks from today, we'll see you here again. So thanks, everybody. I hope to see you again soon. Get full access to Superpowers for Good at devinthorpe.substack.com/subscribe

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E24 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca Mark: and then the other one, Mark. Yucca: And today we are talking about that, that August holiday. We are here already. And I think we should start with, with what we call it, right? Mark: Right, because this is one of those where there are multiple names out there with varying degrees of pronunciability, depending on what your linguistic background is. And part of understanding what it is, is understanding how we talk about it. So what do you call it, Yakko? Yucca: So usually for me, it's second summer or when speaking with other people, I might use Lamas. That's because it's the one that's easiest for me to spell and I am spelling challenged. So that's usually what it will be. Sometimes the whole season right now is monsoon for us. So it's the monsoons. So yeah. But, you know, I recognize the other names as well. Unasa and things like that. Mark: Sure. I've always had kind of a hard time naming this holiday and because as I've mentioned before, I prefer not to use the Celtic names because that's not really Yucca: It's not your background. Mark: anything that I resonate to. And I, you know, the Catholic holiday llamas, I'm not all that interested in Catholicism either. Yucca: It always Mark: but you know what? Oh, llamas. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yes, the Peruvian holiday. So, So, there was a member of the Atheopagan Facebook group several years ago who suggested that she is using and I don't remember her name or I would credit her that she is using the terms brightening and dimming for the cross quarters at the beginning of February and the beginning of August. And I like that a lot because it's universal. I've always celebrated that February holiday as river rain, which makes a lot of sense where I live, but not. Pretty much everywhere else. So, so I've, I've adopted those terms and I find them useful. You know, the days are noticeably shorter now. The, you know, we've, we've stepped off from the peak at the summer solstice. Still plenty hot, still plenty of light, but there's definitely been a step down from that really blazing peak. And so Dimming, Dimming is a name that works well for me. Yucca: You know, I think one of the challenges with names may be that the, what's happening in each person's climate is, is really very different. And it's not as drastic of a difference in terms of it's not a change of season. We're in the middle of a large season. It's not like in the autumn or the spring, really, when. There's this switch going on, but what summer is for me and what summer is for you is very different, right, and what summer is going to be for somebody somewhere else, and whether it's still summer or, or we're approaching getting into autumn, because for me, it's not, right, this is not, you know, you talk about it dimming, and I do notice that the days are getting shorter, but this really is Thanks. This is the peak of summer for us. Mark: Huh. Yucca: It's not, there's no, this is the point where there is, it is the hottest time of the year. It is the most summery of summer. The, the summer solstice, it's like spring Barely ended and it is just jumped into summer for us. And so a lot of the types of things that people would associate with the summer solstice are more appropriate for us here, like sunflowers and things like that, that like the sunflowers are barely opening right now for us. Whereas I know for other people, they've been going for months. Right? Mark: Right. Yucca: And I think that that's Mark: Yeah. Yucca: You know, kind of across a lot of different places where it's just, there just isn't really a unified, what is this time of year? What is this holiday for many Mark: Right. Well, and it's not just this holiday. I mean, when it comes to summer, the hottest time of the year where I live is September. Yucca: Mm Mark: And the reason for that is that the sun has weakened enough that that fog system that I've talked about before no longer works. And so we're under the full sun rather than under a nice blanket of cooling fog. So we get days in the hundreds in September, and that is entirely uncooperative with any pagan calendar I've ever seen. It just, just doesn't work, right? You know, Oh, yes, the harvest and the, you know, the, the, the leaves and all that great stuff. Well, yes, we're having a harvest, but Not so much the leaves and stuff, cuz it's still blazing hot and it's going to be for a while. It's gonna stay really warm into November. Yucca: Mm Mark: So, so that's one reason why I find this word di dimming appealing because it doesn't refer to what's happening climatically, it just refers to what's happening with the sun, which is more of a universal thing for people in the northern hemisphere. Yucca: Right. Where it's, where if you're at the same latitude, same things happening, sun wise. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So. What are some, let's talk about some of the themes, maybe some of the classical themes, and then how, how we approach those within our own climates. Mark: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Sure. Well, to start with, In traditional paganism, and of course, we always have to issue the caveat that traditional neo paganism was put together 60 years ago or something. It's really not, you know, not something that goes way back, but it draws on folk traditions, which do go way back. And so this is traditionally the first harvest festival, the first of three, and this is associated with the grain harvest. So, the harvesting of barley and wheat and rye and it's associated with bread and with beer making and all of those things that we do with grain that around here, they actually get two harvests of of grain those that grow fodder for cattle. They're actually able to, you know, they get another growth of it that they can harvest before it starts to rain. But I like all those old associations. I like to bake a loaf of bread this time of year. It's the only time I ever do. Yucca: Mm Mark: and, you know, drink beer, which that's not the only time I ever do. And and just sort of enjoy, you know, reflecting on the season and thinking about what it must have been like for people in You know, the pre medieval medieval period, the classical period, you know, finally some real food is coming out of the ground. You know, the, the, the, the core food stuff that we eat, which is Yucca: stuff that lasts, right? That's the stuff that you store for the, you know, it's very different with the food that you're harvesting in the moment to eat. But that is what you're going to be able to store for a long period of time and know that, oh, we've got something. Right? When, when winter comes, I have something. Yeah. Mark: Yes. Yeah. So I enjoy all those associations. And then I have a bunch of other associations that I layer on top of that. But how about you? Are there other sort of the classical associations that you can think of that go with this as well? Yucca: The classical, I mean, there's, you know, there's some of the, like, the, the burning the straw man kind of stuff that happens. But a lot of what I, what I see kind of in the pegasphere the pagan sphere, would be would, a lot of that kind of bread. Association kind of stuff which definitely is not how I celebrate it. We, you know, we don't eat bread. We don't eat that kind of stuff. But it is the grass component is really important for us. That's a big, big theme. It's really honoring the ranges. I'm a range ecologist in particular. And we, we assign different associations throughout the year with different types of ecosystems. And so this is the other side from, even though it's not quite across but it's the other side from the winter solstice. For us where that's the forests and this is the grasslands. And this is when the grasslands are here. The grass is really at its at its fullest at its peak because it's monsoons. So for me, this this holiday is a lot about the monsoons. Mark: Uhhuh. for sure. Yeah. I mean that's a, in the southwestern deserts, that's probably the most influential climatic thing that happens all year round. It's the monsoon rains. Yucca: the monsoons and the snowpack, right? It's the moist, and those are, and that's when it's happening, right? We're hap it's happening, the snowpack is gonna be in that win in that winter kind of, really January, right? We're not really getting that much in December, it's not until January, so January and August. Although the monsoons will last for a few months, August really is the heart of it, Mark: Mm Yucca: we're lucky. Depends on the year. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: The what was I going to say? Oh, but there are other meanings that I have kind of layered on to this time as well. This was the time when the ancient Greek Olympics would take place right around this time. And so, you know, naked men cavorting with javelins and pole vaulting and racing and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: Sounds great. Mark: so I tend to associate this time of year with skill and and I kind of, as our listeners, our regular listeners know, the other thing that I do is I tend to map the Sabbaths of the wheel of the year onto the arc of a human life. And that means that this point in the wheel of the year is for the middle aged. And I see the middle aged as people that are at the height of their intellectual and skill powers. They, you know, they are your senior engineers. They are your you know, your experienced inventors that have been through enough trial and error to know what's likely to work and what isn't. And so I associate technology. With this time of year as well, because one thing that note that I noticed was a glaring absence in the traditional pagan wheel of the year is any place for technology, because it's all kind of rooting this ye olde England the kind Yucca: of nostalgic for the past and yeah Mark: Right. Yeah. But believe me, at this time of year, if you didn't have a mill, you were you were not having a great time as a having a grain harvest. Yucca: Right. Mark: That technology is very valuable. Yucca: Well and and for today a Mark: to assume. Yucca: pretty pretty big fan of fans right now Mark: Yes. Yucca: Yep. Mark: Yeah, you bet. So, you know, technology, invention, skill, middle age all of those sort of I don't know. Summary and later in life kinds of things. Yucca: Mm hmm Mark: Not really elderly, but just, Yucca: mature. Mark: when I think of elderhood, I yeah, mature. When I think of elderhood, I think of people who have either retired or are near retirement or at least near the age when people used to be able to retire back when that was a thing we could do. Yucca: I have heard Mark: that, that I, yes, yes, I have heard the lore of the people that say that. The thing one can do but I associate that phase in life with the harvest festival at the Autumnal Equinox, which I associate with the elderly. And then of course, Hallows is death and decomposition. Yucca: Yeah. Mm Mark: So, so, you know, kind of a list of different sorts of themes to associate with, but I like having A different station in life for each of the Sabbaths because it gives an opportunity to celebrate people in my community that are of a particular age group Yucca: hmm Mark: and, you know, just to appreciate them for being in our community and what they bring and what they've been through, or what they're going to bring forth and, you know, the potential that they offer. And I just, I think that's a good thing for community building. So it's a, it's a thing I like to do. Yucca: And I really like your inclusion of the, the technology in there. I think that that's an important important thing to recognize, right? That it's, and it's kind of having a place to honor it because it isn't it's A bad thing, right? It's not like there's this competition between, like, natural and technology. Like, it's, no, no, this is all mixed in here together and, and, you know, like any tool, it's really just depends on what we're doing with those tools and what are, what's our intention behind the tools. But the tool itself, it's not necessarily, you know, a bad thing. Mark: right. Now, it doesn't reflect well that pretty much every technological innovation throughout history has been initially applied towards warfare. That, that's kind of a grim factoid. Yucca: Yeah, now I've heard that many times. I'm not I have to admit that I feel a little skeptical about that. I, but I don't have enough background to be able to point to something and say, ah, here's an example. But, I mean, it's something that I definitely hear is repeated, and there's certainly plenty of examples of it, but I don't know how, how fair of a representation that really is or isn't. Mm hmm. Mark: well, when you have a military dominated society and most societies throughout recorded history have been military dominated, then it's inevitable that what technologies arise are going to be applied to military applications. Yucca: Right. Mark: Like refrigeration, for example, refrigeration was initially used to transport food around for soldiers and then it got propagated out into various private applications. Yucca: Well, I can think of rockets, right? Or fire Mark: circuit, right, right. The integrated circuit was initially used in ICBMs and things like then fighter jets and things like that. But now we're talking over computers that use the integrated circuit. So there are many applications for technologies. And a part of a part of my, my rap about technology and. Capitalism and human society is that part of the problem that we've had is that the idea of science as this dispassionate value free proposition has allowed us to do research into areas that are very destructive. I mean, you know, doing research about how you can get more of an explosive yield out of a fusion reaction is pretty destructive. And if we had a society that was more informed by compassionate and humanitarian values. we would be less likely to invest money in that kind of research, I think. Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mark: But there's a tangent.  Yucca: Well, we have to have at least Mark: anyway, yes, we do. That's true. Anyway, technology, it does lots of good stuff for us. Keeps me alive. I wouldn't, I'm, I'm sure I wouldn't be here if not for the technology that goes into my pharmaceuticals. So I'm happy about technology. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So, those are themes. How about rituals? What are, what are things you like to do to celebrate the grasslands and and those and the rains, the monsoons? Yeah. Yucca: Well, when the rains come, we go out in them. Because going out in the rain is a very different thing depending on where the rain is. Right, it may not be something that you would want to do if you live in Connecticut and rain is a very different thing there than it is here. But when the storms come it's just we get so little moisture that it's just amazing that we go out barefoot and we watch the, we watch the water just moving across the land. Of course, there's very practical reasons as well, because I want to see where the water is moving to and, you know, how can I slow that down and redirect it and make sure it's not getting into the foundations of my house and all of that stuff. But but it also, we The kids have some clear umbrellas, right? We go out and look at the rain through the clear umbrellas and get wet and muddy like those cartoons where the kid is just completely covered except for their little blinking eyeballs, right? Like, we, we make sure to do that. And Just spending time outside a lot. The other thing that comes up is that this is the, the proceeds are coming up so it's right after, so the per, they usually peak around like the 12th or so. But they're already getting going for like about a week or, and so before and after. So we spend a lot of time outside with that and just Just being out, but being out in the evening times because right now it is really hot in the middle of the day and the sun is very intense because we're so high up that, Mark: Mm hmm. Mm Yucca: you know, there's just, there's no cloud cover. And when the rains do come, the clouds come in the afternoons, early evening, and then they're gone, right? It's not like it's cloudy all day. You'll get the, you'll get that Few hours, and then it's clear again, clear again. All right. Mark: Then you get a great sunset Yucca: Yes, and this time of year, the Mark: the remnants of the clouds. Yucca: Yeah, the sunsets. I mean, we have beautiful sunsets throughout the year, but there's something about the summer and the autumn. And then just the whole sky is just pink and golden and and the light on the, the trees that we have here are mostly. Pinyon and juniper. So they have the needles that the every single needle will catch the light and it looks like little spears of fire and it's, it's just, it's just hanging out a lot. Just being with, with the land and and we got lots of animals this time of year. I was telling Mark some stories about our adventures with, with some very large mammals in and You know, that's what we're, that's what we're doing, so, Mark: That's great. I love that blood warm rain of the monsoons. When we get rain here, it's always cold. But that, that tropical rain is just so amazing. It's lovely to go out and get soaked in it. Yucca: And it's different, right, depending on which, which desert you're in because we say the desert southwest, but there's like five different deserts here, right, and what elevation you're at, where, you know, it's the, the, the rains that we have up here, I'm just I'm not quite on the Colorado Plateau but I'm right now, I'm at this crossroad between like several different major geologic regions, but it's so different than if you go down into the Chihuahuan. Right, the rain, even though they're getting the same weather patterns coming through, but the rain is just it smells different. It feels different. It's just so different each place. And then, of course, this is when the grasses come alive. Right, they're waiting, they're sleeping throughout the whole year and then they. Wake up and here we have, we're on a migratory path. The elk will come through as they're going between these two main mountain ranges that we have. And this is when, you know, we're moving around the, my whole neighborhood. Neighborhood I put that that's again relative for different people. This is a very large area that we have, but you know, we're moving our our herds of animals around and it's just it's just a very alive. That's that's I think if I had to give this name, this holiday name. I say, maybe I'd call it alive, Mark: hmm. Yucca: right? Or awake, alive, awake, something like that. Yeah. Mark: I like that. Nice. So, well, I guess I'll talk a little bit about ways that I celebrate. I mean, I've already talked about making bread and drinking beer and, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: you know, that kind of thing. I do like to get together with friends at this time of year and, you know, kind of center grain stuffs in the meal. So, our Northern California Atheopagan Affinity group is going to get together on the 6th of August and celebrate, and we'll be doing that with bread and empanadas, actually, which will also be really nice. So, it's still a summer holiday and to me that means gatherings. And you know, the opportunity to have a highly constrained, safe fire, Yucca: Mm Mark: because unsafe fires are unpopular in California now. They they, that's a, that's a good way for you to get sideways of your neighbors is to have too big and uncontained a fire. But we'll, you know, we'll, we'll build a little fire in a fire pit and that'll be nice to be around and we'll hang out into the evening and talk about life and enjoy bread and beer and empanadas and snacks and early vegetables and all that good kind of stuff. And it'll just be a good way to celebrate the season. Yucca: Mm. Mark: yeah, I really find that the the, the summer Sabbaths really lend themselves so much more to just kind of general social gatherings than they do to more. formal rituals. I, I tend to do more formal rituals in the fall, the winter, and the spring. But after the Maypole at at May Day or Beltane everything relaxes a great deal. Yucca: Yeah. Mm Mark: Uh, and it, it, it turns into barbecues at the beach and stuff like that as my way of celebrating the holiday because it's a great time to be out, right, to be out. In the world and experiencing it. Yucca: Yeah Because the other half of the year is much more indoor focused, right? And for me, it's often there's a, it's a much more turned inwards. experience where the, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: the warm half of the year is a much more turned out experience, just in terms of where the focus is. It's about, you know, what's going on outside with everything else, with the whole, you know, and then outside of the home and then in the home. Mark: Right. Right. Even even to the extent of other people, whereas in the wintertime, I tend to be more inward and less social. And that's one of the reasons why the winter solstice is important, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: it's this sort midwinter. Now we're going to have a big gathering and we're, you know, we're all going to like look at each other's eyes and realize that we're still alive and, you know, pack in the calories because, you know, who knows what we're going to have to eat come the end of January and that sort of celebration. I appreciate that over the years I have come to feel, to feel the seasons in my body. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: In a way and not just from the standpoint of how much light there is, but sort of a calling towards a particular kind of celebration at a particular time of year. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So this has been a good conversation. This is our 4th. Podcast episode about this particular holiday. So it's Yucca: Yeah. Mark: the calendar. It's like that. It just goes around and around and around. So, forgive us if a lot of it was repetition, but, you know, it's the same holiday. We're not inventing a new one. So, Yucca: about traditions. Mark: of course, Yucca: them again and again. Mark: right, right. And. Of course, we're always interested to hear what kind of things you're doing. You can contact us at the wonder podcast queues at gmail. com or the wonder podcast QS at gmail. com. And we love to hear from you. We always really appreciate that. Anything else, Yucca? Yucca: I think that's it. So thanks, Mark. Thank you, everyone. Mark: Yeah. Thank you Yucca and we'll see you next week.      

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E23 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 talking about individual practice with shared values in paganism. Yucca: Yes. And it, we kind of danced around coming up with this topic because we started with the idea of talking about correspondence, which is something very, very common in many different pagan traditions. And immediately, Coming to, to the place of going, well, in Atheopaganism, there isn't really a shared, there's, we don't have a book, right, that says this color means this and this direction means that. It's kind of, it's kind of up to every person and that's a, a really common theme with how we do our ritual, how we practice, how the wheel of the year looks, all of those sorts of things. And yet, We still are a community that still practices with each other and relates and shares values. So that's where we were coming from with this topic. Mark: right, right. And I mean, a lot of us are solitary. A lot of us, you know, work on our own. And as you say, you know, we really encourage people to do this kind of DIY religion thing, right? Where you create the practices that work best for you. You create a wheel of the year cycle that reflects the natural world where you are and the climate where you are, you know, you create a focus that looks like. The way you want it to and has the symbols on it that you find meaningful. You do rituals. I mean, you may use the format that I put out in my book or not, but you create rituals that are meaningful and symbolic in the matters, in the, the ways that, that are important to you. It's not like. You know, some of the mainstream religions where you the the rituals are predefined. They're in a book. They're a thing that you're supposed to do. In some cases, you're not even allowed to do them. There's a priest class that has to do them for you. It's just it's not like that at all.  So, I was thinking about what kinds of topics we could do and so sometimes I will look to more mainstream pagan which is always an ironic term. Mainstream pagan books, right? And most of those books tends to be filled with magical correspondences like this herb means this particular thing. This, this gemstone or mineral is good for this particular magical practice. This you know, these things are associated with these zodiacal signs, you know. Yucca: directions, Mark: The four directions, all of that kind of stuff. And we don't have any of that because it really is. What does it mean to you? Right? So, in my new book that's coming out, for example, I suggest some colors and symbols that you can use for Celebrations of the Wheel of the Year holidays, but they're entirely optional. And, and so I say, if the winter solstice is all about blue and white for you, then decorating blue and white, it doesn't have to be red and green. Like everybody else does do what works for you.  Yucca: Thinking about the directions because for some people the directions are really important I would imagine that if I live where you do, Mark, I might associate the West with water, but for somebody who lives in New York, they're not gonna, West is not the water, right? East is the water. Mark: That's right. If you live on the western shore of Lake Superior, then east is the water. There's no question about Yucca: Yeah. And, you know, for a lot of, if you're in Tucson, snow might not be something that you really associate with winter solstice. Mark: no probably not. Yeah. Unless you, you know, go up into the mountains to go skiing or something, but Yucca: Right. Yeah. I mean, you go into the north, northern Arizona, that's a different matter, but, you know, not down in the low desert. So, Mark: So all of this is to say that that led us into the conversation about, well, Ours is a highly individualistic practice, and that's by design, because it's not meant to be dogmatic. It's meant to be facilitative of your own spiritual experience and your own discovery journey, right? Of who you are and what, what is meaningful to you and how you relate to the world around you. Yucca: right. Mark: But that said, oh, go ahead. Yucca: but that isn't going to be informed by things. Right? The, the red and green for solstice many people have grown up around that being the color scheme, and that's what they associated with, or the particular family that you come from had associations or whatever your cultural background, regional background, right? Just because it's, Individual doesn't mean you have to remake everything. If something works for you from the background that you're coming from, great, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: Certain colors, certain smells, foods, all of those things, you know, we're, we're shaped by that. And that's not a bad thing, right? As long as we're conscious about that. Mark: right. You can start with a blank sheet of paper and just invent it all for yourself, but you don't have to. And most of us don't, you know, we draw things that come from our life experience of, you know, growing up with particular sorts of practices at a particular time of year, all that sort of thing. And that's all great. Right? Because it's meaningful and it resonates for us and it's, it's, it, it works for us emotionally. But then the flip side of all this is that we are in a community. It's mostly an online community, but increasingly we have people getting together in person as Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And so if all of our practices are super diverse and individualized, then what is it that glues us together as a community? Yucca: Right. Mark: Right? And so what we were talking about is the shared values. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: In atheopaganism, we have the four sacred pillars and the 13 principles. And in order to get into our online communities, you have to endorse the principles. We ask people as, as they, they enter our, as they apply to get into our Facebook group, for example. You know, this is a feminist, anti racist, anti ableist know, pro science. anti fascist space. You endorse those values. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: if we don't get an answer or if we get the wrong answer, which we never do then you don't get in because we want to share community with people that fundamentally have a respect for the individual and a respect for the earth and and a respect for critical thinking and, and science. Yucca: Right. Mark: That's what we're about. Yucca: to be clear, we're not going out into other communities and saying you've got to do it our way, but we're saying that this shared space that we've created here, these are the values that we have. And these are, this is what we expect here that that we share together. And then from there I mean, it's, it's amazing to see what people do share with each other and to see what what things people have in common and different approaches that people take. And it's just, it's lovely, Mark: And the beautiful focuses, the, the altars that they make you know, that are always so unique so specific to that person and, and what their aesthetic is and what their values are all of that. And so, to me, it's this real dance around The celebration and empowerment of the individual, as well as gathering together in community in a shared, a shared ethical and value system, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm Mark: so that when we come together we know, hey, you know we're, we're safe with each other here, we're, we're all, we all care about the same stuff. And, you know, we're, We know we're going to be respected. We know we're going to be appreciated for what we bring. We know that there's room for us, you know, whatever, you know, our, our diverse individual nature might be. All of that is just so important. And so that, that is the, the, the knife edge that we seek to walk. Right. Right. Yucca: well, there's been a, there's a really important key in all of this and that's the communication part. And that's something that we work really hard on both the online and in person community is to, to try to explain and be Open and try to understand when people are explaining the things. I remember when at Sun Tree for the shared ritual, there was explanation, right? There wasn't any, at least there was very little, or if it was there, it was so familiar to me that I didn't notice it. That the expectations were spoken out loud. There wasn't this hidden script that everybody was following that is more common in more established religions, right? If you go to Catholic mass, nobody's telling you what to do. Everybody is doing it and has been doing it that way for hundreds of years, right? But when creating new things and working with lots of different kinds of people with different kinds of practices, communicating between each other is really key so that we, we know it, we're on the same page. We're not working with different expectations, Mark: Right. And, and the collaboration that goes into the creation of a shared ritual becomes a really important part of the process. I mean, there are times when you'll have like a ritual leader and they will either create a ritual themselves or they'll work with a subset of all the people that are going to celebrate it. If you've got a ritual of 100 people, you cannot have a collaboration of 100 Yucca: you know? Mark: to design a ritual. It would just be a big mess. But there's a consent piece where everybody agrees. Okay. You know, these, these are the folks that we have decided are going to do this thing for us. And we're going to go along with the, the practice that. they've designed for us to go through for this ritual. And of course, there's always the opt out possibility. If something comes, I mean, I can't imagine what it would be, but if there's some part of a ritual that someone is uncomfortable with, they don't have to participate. Yucca: Right. Mark: they, and they can say, I'm not comfortable. I'm, I'm stepping out. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, yeah, I mean, when I was writing my new book one of the things that I thought about a lot was this correspondences piece because, you know, the proliferation of Wicca books and, and pagan books generally, often so much of the content of those books is about This color means this thing and, you know, burn a candle of this color with this sigil on it in order to accomplish this effect. It's all very prescriptive. Yucca: A lot of the short form media that gets shared to like the Instagrams and TikToks and things like that, a lot of them are really focused on that as well, Mark: Huh. Yucca: which makes sense because it's a, it's a little bite size something, right? Like it, it kind of lends itself to that, but then that's successful and then more people do it and then more people and then that's kind of awesome. All there is. Mark: Right. So, and, and I don't want to be prescriptive in that way. I don't want to tell people, well, for one thing, because in my worldview, such associations are arbitrary, you know, we, we do ritual in order to affect ourselves psychologically. And if you see red as a color of peace and calm. Then buy gum, use red as a color of peace and calm. It's not up to me. It's up to you, Yucca: Right. Yeah. Mark: So the challenge, you know, part of the challenge in putting the book together was like, well, okay, what's the content of this book going to be? Because this is all about sort of a how to, whereas the first book was much more of a theory kind of book, Yucca: Right. Mark: more of a why and where's the science behind it and that stuff. The second book is much more about how to create rituals and examples and outlines and stuff like that. Yucca: Right. Which is, it can be really helpful, right? Especially when somebody's coming into something like ritual with no prior experience going, what, so this is great. You're all saying, do it your own way, whatever works for you, but I have no idea what works for me. Right? Sometimes people just want, give me something to, to work with and then I can modify it. But like, something, anything, Mark: Exactly. And that's why I wrote the book that I did. The, because that's what I was hearing a lot, especially from folks coming from the atheist side into the community. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Because one of the things that's really great about the neopagan community is that now it has more than 50 years of cumulative. accumulation of lore and knowledge and wisdom and psychological insight into what works ritually. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And there's a, there's just a huge body of accumulated knowledge there that doesn't exist in the atheist community at all. The atheist community has a big, huge accumulated body of lore around skepticism and critical thinking and being less wrong and evidentiary standards and all that kind of stuff. And all of that is very good when it comes to figuring out what's most likely to be true. It's not necessarily all that useful when impactful. Yucca: Right. Mark: So that's one reason why atheopaganism is a marriage of those things, so that you can do both of those things and do them well. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And so that's, that's what the new book is, is basically intended for, is to give people some, some benefit of that. Experience that's been accumulated over all that time that I've managed to learn in my 35 years in the, in the community. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, I was thinking, maybe we could round this out with some like unusual examples of associations that we have like personal associations that might not be the ones that would be necessarily expected by people, but that we have on our own? Yucca: I'm gonna have to think about that. Do you have any off the top of your head? Mark: Well, I kind of do. The, the, the first one is, in creating my wheel of the year the February holiday, which is often in the sort of Wiccan framework associated with snow, and in some cases with little sprouts of green coming up through the snow, or all that kind of stuff. In my area, that's not what it is at all. What it is is torrential cold rain. Just a lot of rain and, you know, refilling all the agricultural ponds and getting all the creeks thundering and the river filling up and all that. So, I named the Holiday River Rain. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And to me, it is the festival of water. And so I associate it with all of those kind of flowy, emotional sort of qualities psychologically, as well as with its more traditional association with infancy and new beginnings, you know, planning for the future sort of envisioning what, what can come later on through the, the harvesting process. So that, that's one that comes to mind for me immediately. Have you, have you found one? Yucca: Well, I suppose maybe the bug association I have with summer solstice. I one that I mean, there's a logic to it there for me, right? Because that's, that's when they're out. That's when all the bees are out. That's dance. That's the you know, that's when they, you see the wing dance coming out. And but I think a lot of times folks kind of, many people are very uncomfortable. With insects and arthropods and that sort of thing. So I think that gets left out of a lot of practices or views of nature. Unless it's a honeybee or a butterfly. People and a dragonfly. People like those three, right? But most other ones, they're like, oh, I don't know how I feel about that weird, like, cricket thing or that. Mark: Jerusalem crickets or tarantula hawks. Yucca: those are what I was thinking. Yeah. Tarantula hawks are our state insect actually. Mark: Huh. Yucca: beautiful, Mark: are wonderful. Yeah. Yucca: but the wasps are very different in their reproductive, their life cycle than ours. It's a little uncomfortable for people to think about sometimes. So I think maybe that might be one association. For us, Mark: Mhm. Yucca: I mean, for me, it's, it's, I'm just so, the experience of my climate is, it's, it's a very distinctive climate. It's one that I'm very in, kind of, and I only really remember that when I travel, right? When I travel and go somewhere else, I'm like, oh, right. Other people are having a totally different experience than I am here in my little, you know, desert mesa. Like, it's a very, you know, so sometimes it's kind of, it's, it's hard to think about, well, what is everybody else's association? Because I don't spend a lot of time with that, right? I don't spend a lot of time with what the, well, the directions hmm. Mark: Right. And I don't actually use directions in my practice at all. And not entirely sure why that is because certainly I'm relating to the landscape. It's just, I don't know, the directions just don't seem to do a lot for me so I don't, I don't do them but, but a lot of people do. And. I think part of it is the association with the classical Greek elements, which is a very old system, but it is a pseudoscientific system. I mean, they, they believed it at the time, but it's, it's no longer valid. We know that there are a lot more elements than that and fire is a reaction. It's not an element. Yucca: Yeah. I mean, it was a useful concept though, right? When I, I I start the, I do a chemistry class and we always start with, okay, well, let's talk about what elements are and how this, you know, this concept and where's it come from. And it's a, you know, it's a, it has some pretty good logic to Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: Our understanding is, has definitely shifted. Over time, though, in terms of what, what are those building blocks? Mark: Right. Right. And, and all the metaphorical associations with the directions like, you know, air with intellect and communication and ideation and breath and all those things. I mean, it's a, it's a pretty nifty system it all fits together very well, you know, with, with the different You know, phases of matter Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: other than the exotic ones, you know, Yucca: The observable states. Mark: yeah, the, there you go. The, the observable states of matter.  Yucca: When I was younger, I did do a lot more with that because I had had a lot of of interaction with reclaiming folk. And they do a lot of the, of the elements and direction work. And so that was a lot of the group rituals that I had done had been Within the context of reclaiming tradition. So, but as I changed over time, I, I really moved away from that. And I still still do a circle sometimes, but I, and we'll sometimes still turn in the different directions just as a way of, of creating the circle, but they don't have for. a really strong meaning to me because they are so different depending on where you are. Other than sunrise and sunset, right? Though, you know, the, the sun coming up in the east, but even then, the sun doesn't come up in the same direction. We say it comes up in the east, but it actually... Mark: northeast or the southeast. Yucca: wildly across my sky, right? It's not the same direction. So it's kind of that, in the same way that the seasons, you know, aren't this clear cut, like lines between the seasons, the directions for me aren't these really clear directions either. It's kind of that. that direction. Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: And the Pueblo folk here use the directions in the same way, different associations, but that was also something I grew up around, was that it's very common, that same, you know, calling in the directions and different aspects and spirits for that. Mark: I have a theory around this, which is that cultures which live in landscapes where you can see long distances. tend to focus on directions like that. If you, I mean, if you live in a jungle, then there's, it's undifferentiated. It's, it's going to be very hard to say, okay, well, this to the north is, you know, associated with X, Y, and Z, because you're surrounded by a wall of vegetation that is exactly identical in every direction you look. But I think you know, especially in the American Midwest and the arid West, you know, we have these. huge, expansive vistas. Yucca: Right. Mark: And so being able to encompass the landscape with an invocation, I think is, is really important, is really compelling. Yucca: Hmm. I can see that. Yeah. Mark: So, it's just a theory, but it seems to kind of make sense to me anyway. Yucca: I wonder too, if when you're next to very When you're on the edge of very different environments, right, being on the coast and then having, you know, your mountains inland and your coast one way, you know, that might also inspire that a little bit, that there is just something very different about these different directions. Mark: Right. Where I am near the coast, there's definitely that gigantic ocean, you know, out to the west, and then there's sort of, two buckets of, land stuff. There's Redwoods, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: which is, you know, the, the primordial forest, the, you know, amazing cathedral like forest. And then there's the Oak Chaparral, the Oak grasslands and Chaparral. And that was, which is just very characteristically California. Landscape. And I've never really figured out how, I mean, I guess getting away from directions and just simply naming those things would probably be a way of invoking the landscape, Yucca: hmm. Mark: and, and the local, the local land and water. Yucca: Right. Mark: yeah, I need to think about this more the more I'm talking about it as, as we're conversing, I'm having new ideas. Yucca: There's also a scale aspect too of when, when you're invoking, what are you invoking and why? Right, how intimate is it? Because thinking about that, or it's very similar where I am, is we have these very, very different spaces that are all kind of close to each other, next to each other. I go up into the Rockies with the Ponderosas, and it's very different than being down here in the I live right on these scarps, this beautiful juniper pignon, and then we go down into the, so I, I'm right at the crossroads between. These vastly different geographic regions. But I, I would only really think about invoking all of that in very specific types of rituals. Most of mine would be very much smaller, much more intimate of just being present with the tree that I'm sitting next to. Mark: Huh. Yucca: Right. Oh, I don't always feel the need to bring it. I'm not to that grandness of let's let me bring in the whole Rio Grande rift, right? Like that isn't what I'm that's not what I'm doing most of the time. Mark: I guess when I do that, it's because I'm sort of inviting. I'm inviting the landscape to witness what I'm doing Yucca: Mm Mark: a way. I'm saying hey, if I could have your attention for a moment, I'm over here doing a thing. And of course, it's all metaphorical in my mind. So I'm not actually asking for any kind of a being out there to focus its attention on me. But for my own sake, I want to feel like what I'm doing is integrated into the systems of the land and water where I live. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And so I'm sort of calling attention to it and saying, Hey, I'm going to do a thing. So, check it out. And I hope this all works with whatever you've got going on. Yucca: Yeah, let's see that. Hmm. I think it might, for me, it might be something where big, bigger moments of the year, mark, when I'm marking a, you know, the change of a year, a solstice or something like that. But if it's a, I'm going to do some self care and work through a traumatic memory, you know, that might not, I might not bring that whole level in. Mark: Huh. Huh. Yucca: I might not want that witnessing, Mark: Right. Right. Yeah. I guess along those lines, and this is a way that we may be very individual from one another, there's something about the patience and the capacity for, for just absorbing whatever events have taken place that I associate with land. There's something about deep time and geology and it just lays down layers of memory. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: But it, it incorporates them in, into itself rather than, rather than suffering through them, if that makes any sense. I mean, I'm, it's sort of poetic, but, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: but when you, when you start thinking about all this stuff, you get poetic really fast. That's, you know, kind of what it's about is metaphor and, and imagery and all that. Yucca: I wish in this moment that this was video, not audio because Mark, your background right now, do you want to describe what your Zoom background is for everybody? Mark: Oh sure, it's a, it's a shot of the Grand Canyon at summertime, at at sunset. Yucca: Right? Mark: with the Alpenglow, the beautiful red Alpenglow along one scarp and the Colorado River down below on the, on the other side, down in blues and, and purples. And that's just that, that particular geological feature of the Grand Canyon is just very, very beloved to me and I've had amazing experiences there, almost died there. And I just, I go back to images of the Grand Canyon over and over again. The Southwest generally is just so beautiful. Yucca: Yeah, and you can see in that picture the layers, layer upon layer and layer, and then just the horizon beyond with it, you know, the little mesas in the background, the glow of the light. So it was just as you were talking about that, that relationship with the land, I was looking at that picture and going, Oh, just like that, just like those layers in the rock carved away over the years and years. So. Mark: Yeah. And I mean, to, to extend the metaphor when those layers are, are carved out or are brought back to light rather than being tragedies or, or crimes or transgressions, instead they're beautiful. Yucca: Right. Mark: Because if there's anything that I've learned through my own life, it's that. The suffering that I've done has helped to make me beautiful Yucca: Yeah. Indeed. Mark: and I think that's true of everyone. Yucca: Indeed. Well, Mark: Well, we've gone a long, yeah, me too. This has been a, just a delightful conversation. We've come a long way from correspondences, but that's, that's all to the good. Yucca: I think so. Yeah. And before we know it, we're going to be at our next holiday episode. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So, yep. Mark: Another one that nobody knows what the name is. Yucca: are we going to call it? Yes, that August thing. So, well, thank you so much, Mark. Mark: Oh, thank you, Yucca. It's always a pleasure.    

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.    

Talismans video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML-sED3fAzY   Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E18 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 talking about talismans and touchstones and things that we do during the course of our day to remind ourselves that we are on a naturalistic, pagan, pagan path and to remind ourselves of our practice. Yucca: Right. And these could be things, we could have objects that help. Remind us but also moments in the day or activities that we're doing that we can use as, as metaphorical touchstones, right? Mark: Right, right. I mean, we've talked about a daily practice before. Those tend to be. In the beginning and the ending of the day, not in the sort of rush of the middle of the day. So what we're really focusing on, on with this podcast is more about what do we do just to bring back to mind that we're on this path and that these are our values and that kind of stuff, while we're in the midst of all the various business that we have to take care of during the day. Yucca: Right. So why, actually, why don't we start with one? You were just telling me about that. This was one of Michael's suggestions who we've had on the podcast before he was on the council. And you were saying it was 13 o'clock. Mark: 13 o'clock. Yucca: o'clock, yeah. So what's this 13 o'clock thing? Mark: Which is one o'clock in the afternoon of course. Michael is Irish and apparently there is something that happens at noon every day in Ireland on the public television stations which is called the Angelus, and it used to be a. Catholic thing with, you know, images of the Virgin Mary and all that kind of stuff. And the idea was that you were supposed to stop and pray or contemplate or just kind of remember, you know, that this is your religious path. Well, it's, it's become much more secularized now. They have images of the Irish countryside and. That kind of stuff instead. But it's still kind of a lovely idea. And so Michael suggested that because we have 13 principles and there are 13 moon cycles, and we just like that Yucca: 13. It's just fun. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, it's, it's a cool prime number. That we celebrate something like that at 13 o'clock every day. And just take a minute. That's all, you know, 60 seconds, that's all that it takes. What I do, I've put it in my phone as an alarm to remind me when it's Yucca: buzzes at you at one o'clock, Mark: Well, I actually get a 10 minute warning so that I can finish up whatever I'm doing right there and have a minute, but at, at, at the stroke of one. What I do is I just grasp my suntry pendant that I always wear, that I got at the Suntry retreat last year, and just imagine that I am floating in space, looking down at the earth. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Watching it slowly turn underneath me and just recognize, you know, as Carl Sagan said, this is everyone you've ever known. Everything that's ever happened in human history, all that you'll ever Yucca: king, every baker, every, yeah, every conflict we've ever had. Right. Every. Mark: event, every birth, every celebration, every cataclysm, all those things are embodied in this little planet floating in space. And so I just sort of meditate on that for about a minute, and then I let go of my pendant and go about my day. But I find it's a really wonderful addition to my practice and it's nice to have a little intercession in the middle of the day. That's about my spirituality. Yucca: Hmm. That's great. I love that idea. That's, that's where noom comes from the term originally, isn't it? Weren't there Mark: I think it, yeah, because it was originally Noce Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Noce, which is one of the. Catholic masses that celebrated through the course of the day. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I don't know what I, I know the first one is Matins and the last one is Vespers. Leys in the middle. Yucca: Yeah. So I think that's where the term is coming from, but I don't know enough about it. I just remember hearing that at one point that that's the origin. So it's a but I, I very much like those. I. And Islam has a, a similar structure of throughout the day having the different, the, just a small ritual throughout the day just to remind us. Right. And I think that there's a lot of, of power in that. Just stop for a moment and kind of have that reset. Right. Mark: Right. Yeah. Because I mean, it's so easy to get caught up in all the busyness of everything we have to do in order to keep the functions of our lives going. But one minute of time just to. Refocus on the big picture I think is really, for me, it's been very meaningful and has kind of contributed to my happiness. So, it's something I'm doing and I really appreciate Michael for suggesting it. Yucca: Yeah, that's fun. Mark: So what are some other things that we either practices or. You know, carrying of objects or keeping them in a, in a, a bag or a purse or putting them in our car. What, you know, other things that we might do to remind us during the day of our path. Yucca: Well, there's one that in my family on my adopted side, my stepmother is having a by the door. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Which is like a the other versions what might be like a Honda Fatima or it's like a protection against the the evil eye, but it's this beautiful, stylized hand. And the traditional belief behind it was, you know, it's protection from the evil eye. But that's something that, you know, growing up we would always have by the door and it would be something that We would just touch on the way out of the door, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Not as a belief literally that that's somehow going to protect us. But just as a reminder of, hey, I'm stepping out of the home. I'm going out into the world and just to be more aware. Right. And just to kind of, you know, shields up, right? So it's almost like the button of like shields up right? Going out, leaving the, the sanctuary of the home. And so having something like that and I actually have the one that, that I grew up with in, in my home now, and it's just by the door and it's. It's just a nice reminder every time of coming in and out of the home space. Mark: And does everyone in your household do that? Yucca: The grownups do, it is too high at the moment for these smaller hands, but as they get older, I think they, they will.  Mark: Ah-huh. Yucca: the one that we have is, If enthusiastically touched, could come down and break, so Mark: Oh, okay. Yucca: get a little bit older. Yeah. It's one that's made from broken pottery. Mark: Oh like Yucca: made from broken. Yeah. It's a mosaic made from broken pottery from Jerusalem. So it's, it's really beautiful and I would rather it not get crushed, but when they're when they're a little bit calmer, Then maybe they'll get, they'll get to do that particular one. Mark: Okay. Yucca: So in the meantime, they're, they've got plenty of other stuff to do. But that's, that's a type of object that's really nice. And I, although I don't drive a lot anymore in my hanging on my rear view mirror, I have a little bead that when I get into the car, it's just a, I just kind of give it a little boop. And just as a reminder of, Hey, I'm getting into the car, I'm taking on a big responsibility with the life of the passengers, my life, the life of anyone else on the c the road. And just take a moment to center and ground and then, then be on the way before just rush. You know? Cause a lot of times we're so tempted to get in the car. You've got the keys, you know, you've turned the car on before your seatbelt's even on and just, no, hang on. Slow down. About to drive this, you know, very, very heavy piece of equipment, very, very fast. So let's take a moment. So those are two that I have on a kind of a very practical level, but they, they really have that special meaning, so, Mark: I, I like that. I mean this, this sort of illustrates that you can imbue anything really with a particular meaning if you associate a practice with it. So, you know, just a little bead. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. It can just be a little something so that you you know, it, it becomes a part of your pattern as you, you know, you put the keys in, you put the seatbelt on, you, you touch the bead, you start the car, and it's just a part of the routine. Yucca: Yeah. So what about you? Do you have any other ones that you do? Mark: You know, what I do is I carry I carry some talismans and I've, there's a, there's a blog post, or it may be a YouTube video actually, because I think I did it while my arm was broken and I couldn't type.  Yucca: Think it is a YouTube video. I think I've a long time. It's been several years, but yeah. Mark: Yes. That would've been 2017 when my, when Yucca: I'll see if I can find the link to that and put that in the show notes. Mark: Great. Yeah, so that's about talismans and the ones that I carry and what they mean to me. And what a talisman is really is just a little. Something a little token of some kind that reminds you of something specific. So, for example, I have an Arrowhead, which was one of the giveaways from. A, an earth honoring ritual that we did at Pantheon a few years ago. And it reminds me of the broader Pagan community and also of deep time being a, a, you know, a found arrowhead. So that's one. There's another, that's a smooth stone. That I got at a fired circle gathering, and it reminds me of that community and the, the people that I have in my life that really love me. So I have fi and there's a little mala bead that looks like a skull that is a memento mori. It reminds me that I'm gonna die and that I need to seize the day. So there are five or six of these little things. And as well as the suntry pendant that I wear around my neck. All of those serve to, kind of, to bring deeper meaning to my daily operation. You know, if I reach in my pocket for my comb while there are those talismans reminding me again that I'm on this path and I'm, I'm doing this, and it's more meaningful than just kind of wandering through life without. A sense of purpose or meaning? Yucca: So do you have a, is it. Is that part of a ritual in the morning, just to stick those into your pocket or are they already in your jeans and when you put your jeans on in the morning? There they are. Mark: They're already in my jeans and when I put my jeans on in the morning, there they are. The only time they come out is when I wash my jeans and then they go in another pair of jeans. Yucca: they're, they're switching pants. Okay. Mark: Yeah. But like for example, I bring them, you know, when I'm wearing dresses, Slacks to like a job interview. I bring those with me because they, you know, they're the, the emotional underpinning for me, right? They, they serve to represent all that community support and enthusiasm and history that I have as a basis on which to be confident and put myself forward. So, Yeah. So, and I've been doing this for a very long time, and of course, once in a while you'll lose one. And that's okay. These things happen. And, you know, I, I do a little ritual to charge each one when I first start carrying it, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: To give it its meaning. To associate it with that particular meaning. And I find, you know, this is a very old tradition. I mean, Roman soldiers used to carry little, you know, rolled up lead tablets with inscriptions on them of things that they, you know, wanted to happen for them, or ways they wanted to be protected. And we as atheopagan and, and naturalistic pagans, we can do the same thing. Yucca: Yeah, some of the ones that you mentioned reminded me of a few things that I have. But they're not objects. They're actually tattoos. Mark: Ah, Yucca: So a few years back at this point, we did an episode on CILs and I hadn't, sigils weren't really a big thing for me at that point but I played with it. Afterwards. Well, we, we did it a little bit before and I had kind of experimented with it so that we could prepare for the episode. And then I ended up deciding one of them after a few months, I went, you know what? This is really working for me, and I decided that I actually was gonna tattoo that on myself. So I did. Now I have on my left hand because I'm right-handed. Well and multiple other reasons as well. Cuz I wear my watch on my right hand. I wanted to access it on my wrist, but I did some white tattoos, which barely show up because I'm, I'm very very pale skinned. So the white just looks kind of like a scar almost. And so I put some marks on. And so I have one on my wrist. Which is for, for fo remembering where my focus is throughout the day, right. And to be paying attention to the things that I actually have influence over and I can control and not stressing constantly about the things that I. I do not have control over. Right. I have no control over what this weather is going to do, but I do have control over how I'm going to respond to that. Right. And another one I have on the back of my hand is a Memento Mori reminder. And throughout the day, I actually touch these on a regular basis. Just to remind, remind myself. It almost feels like pushing a button, like a Oh, right. Okay. Remember, Where's your focus, right? Or hey, this is, this is what you've got, right? Today is what you've got. You don't have tomorrow promised. And you know, that's okay. Right? What are you doing today to, to really live? Because nothing is guaranteed every day, every new day is a bonus. It's a gift, right? So those are. Those are, those are things that I felt strongly enough that I wasn't going to change my mind about whether or not I had that in 20 years. If I'm lucky enough to be here in 20 years, I'm still gonna be thinking about being lucky to be here in 20 years and where I'm focusing my energy on. But if there's certain other things that I'm working on in particular, I actually really like to use Henna. So Hannah's really nice because it, depending on where you put it on your body, right, there's certain areas where it's gonna fade right away. If you put Hannah on your palm, for instance, it's not gonna last, last for very long. But other parts of your body, it might last, you know, or you're not touching things as much or you don't produce as much oils. But you'll get several days to maybe a week out of time of having that symbol literally on your body or that reminder literally on your body. So. Mark: That's a great idea. I, I love that. I don't have any tattoos. I have design for two tattoos that I want to do, one of which is the Sumtry symbol. But I've just never had the free money to invest in having somebody do it. But one day I, I love that idea and I love the idea of You know, of, of recognizing that some of these things are permanent modes that you're, that you want to pursue in, in life. You always want to be aware of your mortality and its implications that you always want to be able to, you know, focus on what you're able to influence and not stress about the rest. Yeah, so tho those are very tallman. And I think. As, when we look at like tsi, the ice, the so-called iceman, the the, Yucca: Yeah, they had lots of tattoos in various places. Mark: right? And they were very obviously magical symbols of some kind. They, they were not, they were not particularly decorative. But you know, that that man had tattoos, which were clearly meant something. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: We will never know exactly what they meant, but we can conjecture that they were protective or for luck and fortune in hunting or, you know, any of those kinds of things. And so I, I think the history of tattoos, you know, really kind of feeds into what you described for yours, Yucca. That's really, really great. Yucca: and I think there's, so I have, I have other ones too that were done by artists. I've got quite a bit on my back and And those were very meaningful and special too. But there's also something about, for the really simple ones, the doing it yourself. There's something very, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: there was, it was very nice to do that. So just the poking stick, the old style, you know, you just have your, you can buy the kits right, and get the right ink. You don't wanna just do any ink. You have to get the right ink to put in your body and you don't wanna be putting in your lead ink or things like that, right? But that in itself can be a ritual. And actually having an artist do it as well, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: you can really make that a really special thing. Mark: Sure. Well, and you've got all the endorphins that are provoked by the pain of the, of the tattooing. That puts you in kind of an altered state. I mean, people talk about how tattoos can be addictive Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and I, you know, I understand that. But that, that trans state, that state of being altered by the tattooing process is. Very much a ritual opportunity. It's you know, it's a, a state where you can, being in that trend state, you can apply a layer of meaning beyond simple decoration. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: To the, to the, the symbol that you're putting on yourself. And, and most of the people that I know who have tattoos, they associate meetings with them. They, they, they're not just decorative, they, they, they're there for a reason. Yucca: Yeah. That seems to be pretty, I mean, I can't think of anyone who I've asked about their tattoo and they haven't had some elaborate explanation about, you know, oh, this is, you know, the pair of sewing scissors because my mother and grandmother and I used to this and that, and you know, there's often, often stories that go along with it or, You know, things like, you know, this is my this is my five years sober tattoo, or my, you know, that kind of stuff, Mark: Or the semicolon for people who have survived suicide attempts, for example. Right. Not the end of the story. There's more to the sentence. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: All, you know, there are, there are a lot of different kinds of symbols like that that are very meaningful to people and that I think are some of which are intended to be communicative. You know, they're supposed to tell a story to someone else, and for others it's just you telling the story to yourself when you see them on your body. Yucca: and that's why for me, I chose white. I wanted them somewhere that I could see all the time, but I didn't want something that was gonna be flashy to someone else. Right. So that's why, I mean, I don't think most people even notice it. Right. But it's about, Mark: I certainly never did when we met at the Century Retreat last year, I. Yeah, I, I never noticed them. Yucca: Well I had, when we, then I had the one on my wrist, I didn't have the one on my hand. But again, I don't think it's showing up on the Mark: I can't see it on the screen through Zoom. No, I can't see it. Yucca: I think maybe it shows like you can barely see it, but I see it and that's what matters for me. Mark: course, of course. Yucca: my more visible, my more like elaborate ones. I do still have them so that I can cover them if I want, but the, the stigma around them is really faded, right? People don't get worried about that anymore. It used to be a big deal, but now it's a I don't know if the statistic is real, but it's supposed to be like a third of American millennials have a tattoo, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: like that. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Mark: Me neither. I mean, you see them everywhere and you know, I, in professional office circumstances, I've, you know, worked with a lot of people who, you know, they have sleeves and and all that. So yeah, it's, it's very common to me. I've just never really felt the opportunity. It's, it's not that I'm in any way morally opposed So, yeah, what we're talking about here really is about how do you create symbolic meaning that reverberates through you in the course of your daily operations as opposed to your daily practice, which might be, okay, I do this formal thing in the morning, I do a formal thing in the evening. That's great. But you know, I, I wanna be reminded of my values on a regular basis, and I want to be reminded of the things that I've learned that help me to be wiser and kinder. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So, you know, having those kinds of practices I think is a good way to have a touchstone to go back. those principles because, you know, the world can frazzle you, Yucca: He can't. Yeah. Mark: you know, really pull you out of any sense of centeredness in yourself. Yucca: As you were saying that it occurred to me. There's other points throughout the day that aren't things that I use, but that would be opportunities for other people if it's something that they do. If you wear makeup every morning, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: a great time. Right to c incorporate some something in there. And just the act of getting dressed too, like you talk about having the items that you keep in your jeans, but you know, is there, is there something when you are dotting your clothing that you are reminding yourself about the, the values that you have or so things like that. Mark: Not ordinarily, but certainly when I'm dressing professionally, like if I'm putting on a suit, I'm putting on a suit of armor. And, you know, I put on a suit to go to war because the kinds of contexts where I need to be dressed that way tend to be ones where I am advocating. Yeah, I'm advocating for something. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm trying to make a change. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And either that or I'm defending myself which is, you know, another, another possibility. So. You know, clothing and costume is another whole conversation we could have. And, you know, maybe we will at some point Yucca: think we should, yes. Mark: I think we should too. Because decorating ourselves in various ways is highly communicative to the people around us. And We make choices about what we wanna say. You know, we, it talks about what class we are, it talks about what gender we are. It talks about what what kind of work we do. It, it, it says a lot of stuff. Our education level. Yucca: views, our, you know, yes. All kinds of things. Mark: Yeah. So let's, let's put a pin in that and, Yucca: Yeah, we'll come back to that. Mark: Yeah, we'll definitely come back to that. But you know, the whole self adornment thing, you know, beyond the practicalities of being warm enough or cool enough I, I think are, are an interesting vein to explore for people that are working to fold meaning into the operation of their lives. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So this is, you know, sort of a. Whirlwind examination of all this stuff, but I, I, I think the, the fundamental point that I want to communicate is that you know, if there's a special rock that you like and it reminds you of something like a beautiful day at the beach or something, don't feel weird about carrying that around. That's, that absolutely makes sense to carry that around. Yucca: That's very human. We've been doing that a long time. Mark: Yes. Yes. And we can do it intentionally and it can become a part of our, of our practice. Yucca: Yeah. Well, this was a fun one. Thank you. A. Mark: Yeah. Thank you, Yucca, and we'll see you next week.    

Book mentioned: “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” by Cal Newport - https://calnewport.com/writing/   https://theAPSociety.org/AWW2023/   Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E16 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 bringing the natural world that's outside where we live. More into integration with the natural world that's inside where we live. Having more of a sense of connectedness between the two of those and kind of a, an approach to worldview that helps to feed us and help us to be happier. Yucca: Right, so really talking about cultivating our environment. Environments, both on an external level and on that emotional internal level as well. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. So I think this is a really fun one, especially as we're getting more into spring and into this warmer kind of time of the year. But yeah, let's, let's go ahead and get into this idea of kind of, Bringing that in, or as you were saying before, kind of blurring the lines between the outside and inside. Mark: Sure, and I really agree with you. I think that springtime is a great time to talk about this because. There's so much that's really beautiful that's happening in the world right now in the, in the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere, and a lot of how much we're going to get out of that depends on our mindset, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and it depends on what kind of habits we've developed for ourselves. We were talking before we started recording about how the, the human sensorium is geared to look for problems. Because problems threaten us. Right? And so solving problems becomes a way that you keep yourself from getting eaten, Yucca: Right. The person who didn't worry about that, Those weird noises that they heard around the campfire got eaten and then didn't have babies. So those people aren't our ancestors. The ones who were anxious and worried are our ancestors, right? Mark: Exactly. So we're already swimming against the current a little bit when we decide that we want to cultivate a worldview that actually reaches out for what makes us happy, for what brings us awe and wonder and contentment, and a sense of hope and aspiration, all those kinds of things. So we're gonna be talking about all that stuff today. But to begin with, there's this nature in nature outfit, Yucca: Right. Mark: and if you're anything like me and all the pagans, I know you've got rocks and sticks and plants and dried flowers and just all kinds of stuff, seashells and. Fossils and just all kinds of things from the natural world inside your house because those things bring you joy. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yes. A lot of those things end up in our pockets and you know, first they end up in the laundry pile and then it all has to come out of the laundry, and then it gets arranged around the house and, and all of that. And I think that's, it's about what are we paying attention to? Right. Because those things are everywhere, the beautiful, I mean, next time you're sitting next to some gravel for a while, right? Gravel seems like it might be boring, but if you are sitting there because you're waiting for a bus to come or whatever it is, just start looking at each of those individual rocks. And just the way that the light is shining off of each of them and thinking about the history of how that rock formed, how many millions of years ago, and how it's been tumbled and all, what has happened to it. And I think that the, the collecting of those things is a reflection of the interest that we have in them and the interest that we have in the world around us. Mark: Right. Right. And that kind of curiosity, which of course is one of the Ethiopia Pagan principles, that kind of interest in the world is part of what engages us with the world, gives us a sense of being connected to the larger whole. Gives us a sense of valuation of. Of all that is right. So, yeah, when you're looking at that gravel, I mean, you'll, you'll see there are stones of different colors and obviously very different derivations all there kind of mixed together in that gravel. And each one of those has a geological story. You know, it's, it's got a chemical story. You know, the reason that they are particular colors is because they're made up of particular chemicals and. Being curious about those things and. To be, to be completely honest, you don't need to have a deep background in geology or in chemistry in order to appreciate this, to understand that, that in the earth, these rocks were formed. And then tumbled in the, the process of erosion, usually by water, but sometimes also by air. In order to form those little beads of gravel that you have before you. And when you have that revelation Sometimes what will happen is the, the, the ground will drop out from underneath you metaphorically, and you'll find yourself falling into this sense of amazement about the whole nature of deep time and the fact that we're here and the fact that we're a part of this wondrous, amazing hole that is planet Earth. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And you'll probably take the rock with you. Yucca: Yes. Now if you don't, right, if you are practicing some form of very strict minimalism or anything like that, no judgment, Mark: That's fine. Yucca: fine. Mark: It makes you happy Yucca: Yeah. Mark: that, you know, we, we as, as we keep saying in naturalistic paganism, in atheopagan, there is no. Cosmic task master that wants you to do things a particular way, there is no Pope who's going to lay down the rules for you. It's about developing a practice and a perspective and a set of personal habits that feed you on a spiritual and emotional level so that you can be a happier and more contented and more effective person, and you can experience more joy out of your life. Yucca: Right. Mark: That's the deal. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: Yeah. It's amazing. It's, it, it's amazing how rarely you hear anybody say anything like that in our society. You know, do what? Just do what feels good. Yucca: Yep. Mark: anybody, just do what feels good. Do that, do that some more. Cuz it's, cuz it's good for you. Yucca: Right, Mark: But we're here to tell you weekly that, that's, that's. That's what we recommend. Yucca: right. So what are some of the things that you particularly enjoy in terms of do you, you know, is it dried leaves or sticks, or, you know, is there something that you really enjoy bringing into your home? Mark: You know, it depends on the season. I live about 30 miles away from the Pacific Ocean, and I don't get out there nearly as much as I would like to because 30 miles is enough to be a little bit of an impediment. I. But and I have to go through all this magnificent redwood country to get there, which kind of sidetracks me sometimes. But when I do go to the beach, I inevitably come home with a bunch of rocks and maybe a shell or two. And it's because. It's a combination of them being polished very to, to a pretty high gloss for nature. And also that they're often wet and so you can see their colors and their patterns more vividly than when they're dry. And so I'll end up, you know, bringing those home I Anne, a participant in our Saturday mixer on a regular basis. Had a suggestion this morning that she says she puts them in potted plants. You know, the, okay, I got a cool rock. Now it's going into potted plant. If you're getting them from the ocean, rinse the salt off first. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: That's important because you know, most plants are not very salt tolerant. They don't like it. Yucca: Right. We actually do that as well for very practical reason as we have a cat in our house. And sometimes he decides that other things will be his litter box, and so we put pine cones and, and rocks and things like that into the potted plants and that prevents him from doing that. Mark: Oh, wow. I, I have not heard of that problem before, but that Yucca: Oh, really? That's a, that's a cat. Yeah. I mean, he's pretty good about not doing it now. But when we lived in a smaller apartment, yeah, sometimes he would just decide that that was gonna be his litter box instead. So, but the shells and the wet rocks we actually, so. Two weeks. But the reason we missed the podcast a couple weeks back is that my family, we went out to Florida for my brother's wedding. And so I took the kids to the beach for the first time in their life and they were, they were delighted. And of course, we came back with several gallon bags of shells because that was, we, I mean, how, how could you not, right? Shells and rocks and little you know, dead. Dried up coral things and, and all of that. And one of the things that we've done is taken a big vase and put some of the water in it and them in the water, in the, the glass vase. Because there just is something about it being in the water, right.  Mark: They're just much more visible that way. That's wonderful. That's a great idea. Yucca: Yeah. And of course we have ones that aren't, and you know, they're, they're being sorted by color over and again and all of that. But that, that's just been my favorite thing so far. And actually we took a few little pieces of dried up seaweed that was left on the, and that's in there too. That won't last quite as long as the rocks and shells will. Mark: Well, that's really great. I am, I mean, I love the desert and I've spent a lot of time in the American desert, but the op, having the opportunity to see a place that's, that has the ocean and is very wet and all that kind of stuff, you know, for your kids, I'm sure was just really magical. Yucca: I have to share just one thing as we were, we flew there. And so this was also their first airplane trip and we went, we. We stopped in, you know, Dallas on the way to get there and my daughter was looking out the plane and she looked down the, cuz I made sure to get window seats for the kids since, you know, they're gonna be first airplane try ride. And she's looking down and she goes, mom, the ground is green because, you know, we, the farthest we'd ever been is, is into Colorado with her, which is very similar. Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico are very similar. So she hadn't really seen anything like that before. And just them seeing that kind of grass, we have plenty of grass here, but it's golden. Right? And it will pop green for like a month during the, the monsoons, but the rest of the time it's just this golden brown. And so they were just fascinated at seeing. You know, grass on the ground and seeing all those kinds of trees. So yeah, we spent a lot of time and there were so many things we, you know, they wanted to bring back, but I had to inform them and we, unfortunately we can't take this on the airplane. And, and those big, giant beautiful leaves are not gonna last when we Mark: Oh yeah, yeah, like the giant monster and the banana trees and you know, Yucca: Yeah, Mark: wonderful things. Yucca: and we have a banana tree plant in our house, but of course it gets to like three feet tall. And the ones that we were looking at, I mean, they were just humongous. The leaves were as big as their bodies and going, you know, we're gonna take some photos, but those aren't gonna come, those can't come home with us. You know, we could take the cool rocks and the shells, those will last. So that's something to think about in your own environment. You know, you know, we cut things and bring them in sometimes, but some things are gonna stay very well in the home and some things aren't gonna stay very well, Mark: Right. Yeah. So you were asking about what kinds of things I bring in, and one example was, Rocks from the, from the coast. For whatever reason, we have very few shells on our coast now, and that was not the way that it was when I was a child. There's been a tremendous die off of of Yucca: acidification maybe? Mark: probably from a combination of warming and acidification. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So I don't see that as much as I did when I was a child. But. But the rocks are there and of course the, the, the California coast is very rugged, that's got these sort of cliffs and bluffs and stuff, and it's really just very beautiful to be there. And even on a weekend, I can usually find a cove on the Sonoma coast where I'm entirely by myself, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: which is amazing. Makes you feel like the last person on earth. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So yeah, bringing in those things. And you asked about dried leaves as well. I actually go on an excursion to get colored leaves for my focus, my altar. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: In the fall there's a particular breed of a tree called a liquid amber, which I believe on the east coast is called a Sweet Gum. Yucca: Okay. Mark: And they, they hold their leaves for much longer than many other trees. They'll hold them sometimes as long as into December Yucca: Okay. Mark: they. Yucca: Is this a broadleaf tree or is it Mark: It is, it's a broadleaf tree. And they go through these beautiful evolutions of color until they're, they're sort of a maroon red when they're, when they're at the end of the whole cycle. But you can, you can pick them in various stages of development. And then you have these. Leaves that are sort of green at the root and then yellow fading into orange and then red at the tips of the leaves. Just, just very, very beautiful things. And I like to decorate for the fall for, for harvest and for hellos with those kinds of things. There's just an awful lot of wonderful nature out there and, and it's, it's hard not to want to bring it all back. Yucca: So do you have a certain, so you've got your focus, do you have certain places in your house where you gather things or is it just sort of spread out everywhere around the house? Mark: we, we have a joke that our, you know how people talk about architectural themes, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: different kinds of architectural styles? Well, In our house, the theme is Welcome to the Museum of Natural History. We have glass cases with all kinds of various interesting things, historical things and natural things. We have you know, bookshelves and all that kind of stuff. And, and to be fair, every horizontal surface has some cool thing on it. And. If it doesn't look like a cool thing, when you've heard the story about what it really is, you'll know what a cool thing it's, Yucca: Nice. Mark: Like here, here's an example. I, I have a piece of obsidian that's about this big, it's kind of, heart Yucca: about a golf ball to your, your whole, the audience can't see your Mark: Oh, that, of course. Yes. It's, it's flat, but it's about as big a round as a golf ball, and it's sort of heart shaped and it's heavily worn and eroded. And other than that, it just looks like a piece of obsidian that's been eroded and worn and all that kind of stuff. But what that is is a dinosaur gastro lift. Yucca: Oh. Mark: You, you find them in the rib cages of fossil dinosaurs and they're, it's from the gizzard of the dinosaur, right. That collects gravel to help them digest their food. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, I mean, it's an amazing thing. My grandfather found it. And I've had it since I was a kid. So even the Yucca: rock swallowed by a dinosaur to help it digest ground up and digest its food. Mark: That's right. Yucca: Wow. Mark: Yeah. Cool thing to have, eh? So, I mean, it's gotten to the point where I actually wrote an interpretive guide for our house so that people know what all the, the various exhibit things are that sense of wonder. Is something that, and we'll talk about this later on in this episode, that's something that I really cultivate Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: that sense of amazement. Like, wow, maybe a hundred million years ago, a dinosaur swallowed this rock. And then it did duty for long enough to get all the edges worn off of it into a nice, smooth pebble until the dinosaur died.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: know, just extraordinary thing to think about. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: So how about you? How about I. I, I didn't really answer your question. We do have other places where we'll put things like colored leaves in the fall and stuff like that, but it sounds like you do more elaborate kind of household changes over the course of seasons. Yucca: Yeah. Our house is constantly moving. Right. And, and part of that is simply the, the age range of the people who live in the house. You can't really have something on a. Flat surfaces that are low down do not get left alone for longer than 10 minutes. So there are certainly, you know, we have got bookshelves and things a little bit higher up that are slightly more permanent, but most things are, are changing very constantly. And there's just. Mark: kids are getting taller. Yucca: And the kids are getting, they're always getting taller and they're climbing, right? No, they're pretty good now about not climbing onto things that they shouldn't, but they've, they've learned, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: And. That the gravity has helped them learn about that. But, you know, things are, are changing and I purposely change things as well throughout the season. It's just something that, you know, ev I, I just start to kind of get that itch of I wanna change things around. And, you know, things are coming into the house and things are going back out of the house, and it's a just a, it just seems. To flow quite a bit. Things are always flowing and moving out. There are a few things that do end up staying for, that are more kind of treasures that'll stay for longer. Like those seashells, right? Those are, some of them will probably make their way outdoors eventually, but those things will probably stay Mark: Sure. Yucca: right. Mark: Yeah. I, I have seashells. I'm, I'm looking at one right now that I picked up on the Costa del Soul in Spain when I was 11, and it's still here with me. Yucca: Yeah. And so, but then there's certain, like most of the windows are full of the, I really like the glass Vs. With things in them, right? So we've got lots of those things and there's a snake skin in the window that we found a couple weeks ago and a, you know, that kind of stuff. And so it's just a very. I dunno, it just feels to me like the house is cha changes with the season so much. And that's. Some of that is just the style of how we live, and some of it was very purposely cultivated. You know, it's, and some ways it's easier for us because we are on this kind of homestead out, away from people and live kind of half outside anyways. But when we did live in a city that was, that was kind of a way for me to try and feel more connected because I, I definitely would start to feel very overwhelmed with the city of everything. So I would try and change the colors. I would bring things in. I don't do this anymore because where we live is so surrounded by creatures and things, but I used to play bird songs, right? I had recordings of water, of water flowing. I'd have recordings of, and birds, and I would just have that going on in the background as just a way to kind of, One to block out the sound of the city, right? Cause I found that very stressful of there's the car alarm and then the police car going off and the this and the that, and the, you know, all of that. But, but just being able to sort of cultivate that. But now, you know, now the bird is like two feet out my window and, and being plenty loud, so. And then certain places seem to collect certain things. There's around the bathroom sink, there's just rocks of all kinds, and I think that's because they get brought in and washed off and then, then they start to live there. And so now it just feels like, yes, of course bathroom sinks is where rocks go, right? Yes. Mark: Sounds reasonable to me. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, I can't think of anywhere else in the house that's more reasonable for rocks to go set maybe in a potted plant. Yucca: In a potted plant. Yes. My four year old seems to think the shoes by the door. But you know, it's amazing how often Legos end up in shoes by the door. Mark: You know, as you talk about all this and and I give my own examples and stuff, the word that comes to mind is curation, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and it seems as though. One of the things about being alive is that there's this fire hose of information that's just kind of blasting us all the time. Right. All the different sensory information and the news and the internet and, you know, the, the community events and scuttlebutt and gossip and what's happening with all the different people. We're connected with all that stuff and it is, so we're kind of being bombarded all the time and. I think a part of the, the life that we, you and I Yucca envision for folks living in naturalistic paganism, and certainly I do for myself, is one where we curate our experience in a way that's empowering and happiness. Producing rather than stress inducing or depression inducing or anxiety producing. Yucca: Yes. Yeah, I love that. I, I think that's a wonderful way of putting it. Because really there's, there is so much around us, right? And, but what do we choose to focus on? What do we choose to bring into focus? That's something that we do have. Power and influence O f R. Right. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: You know, we don't get to, there's a lot of things that we don't get to change in life. There's most things, the vast, vast majority of things we have absolutely no control over, right? But what we're focusing on, what we find important we do have control over that. And that really changes our experience of what it's like to be us. Mark: Right. Yeah. We do have control over those things and. It's, it's one of those situations where you have to make the decision to grab the wheel, right? Because otherwise you're basically at the mercy of two things, which is the randomness of whatever information is flying towards you, and that evolutionary pre predilection for looking for problems and the negative. Yucca: Right. Mark: So if you choose to be in more control around this, if you choose to be a curator of your experience, then you can get in the habit of smelling the roses along the way when you're walking from the parking lot into your workplace. Stopping to look at what the clouds are doing. Stopping to watch tree branches blowing in wind. You know, enjoying those rocks and shells and leaves and seed pods and all the cool things that nature makes. Yucca: Mm-hmm. You know, this reminds me of a book actually that I read a few years back and it was really, really influential and it was, it's called Digital Minimalism. It's by, I believe, Cal Newport. And it isn't what the title sounds like. At first the title sounds like being like anti-tech or like a Luddite or something. But it's actually about really. Being thoughtful about the role that the screen and digital things play in our lives. And he does this a very beautiful job of one he does spell out. Kind of the, the terrible state some of that is in and how the attention that that's all designed to hold our attention as long as possible. And it's not really done in a way that is, that's thoughtful about our wellbeing. It's more about the pockets of the people designing these programs. But it, it does a really lovely job of, of. Walking one through to think about what are the things that they, that you really value, and how do you cultivate that? And how do you create a life in which you can focus on those things? And how do you use tools like the, how do you use digital tools to help you do that? And how do you let go of the ones that aren't helping you to do that? So I just, Mark: great. Yucca: Yeah, so I'd really I, I like quite a bit of Cal Newport stuff, so that's digital minimalism if anyone is interested in Mark: Why don't we put a link to that in the show notes? Yucca: Yeah, let's do that.  Mark: Yeah, because when you think about it, one of the few things that we really have choice about in our lives is our attention. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Right. We, we can make considered thoughtful, informed decisions about where we're going to apply our attention, and that can be on things that. Bring anxiety or bring, or, or help us to, you know, re-experience trauma and we call those triggers. I heard a wonderful term in the mixer this morning from our community member Summer who said that she heard this term glimmers, which are like the opposite of triggers. They're things that fill us with hope and inspiration and a sense of joy in living. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: can, we can look for those things. Right? I had this moment yesterday. I was sitting in a cafe waiting for a friend, and the door to the cafe opens and this little boy trots in. He's on the move. He's, he's, he, he must, he couldn't have been more than four. I don't think he was three Yucca: Okay. So real little, little Mark: Yeah. Beautiful little black kid with this gigantic grin on his face. And his mother comes in behind him and closes the door and he was just, and, and then he stands there with his feet planted and his hands kind of out by his side. He's like, this is a cafe. Wow. And you could just see that he was drinking In this experience of having come into this new space and looking around, you know, what are people doing? What are they doing? This place, what's it all about? And you know, with, with this, this. Just this glow of happiness and I just, I, I couldn't help but smile. I wanted to watch that kid for a while, you know? So that was a glimmer. Yucca: Hmm. That's such a delightful idea about a glimmer. Right. Because, and I, I think that there could be a lot of power in just taking a moment to think about what are the things that, that are your glimmers or could be your glimmers, right? Because we can, we can choose to have those associations as well. That you're taking the time to focus on, okay, what are the things that inspire awe in me and that make me hopeful, or whatever it is? And just taking the, the time to think about those I think is really, is really great. And then finding them throughout the day, right. Mark: right. And, and figuring out maybe some. Rules of thumb for how to keep yourself in that state to as great a degree as possible. Now, I'm not saying never watch the news. You know, I, we ha I feel like as a responsible person, I have to be engaged with what's happening in my society, and I need to make what effort I can to have things go in, in a way that's consistent with my values, but that there's a difference between that and being obsessed. With the news and it's just wave after wave of, oh my God, they can't do that if they're, oh my God, they're doing that. You know, this, this terrible, terrible, you know, wave of feelings. So you can curate that. You can narrow it down. You can tell yourself, okay, I'm gonna log on to my favorite news site once a day and I'm gonna read the headlines and I'll read a couple of stories that seem like they're useful. You know, for me to know, and then I'm gonna move on and I'm gonna do other stuff that feeds me more. Yucca: Right. Yeah. I think that's really important and to create that balance and that by, by choosing to log off after that time, you're not being. A bad citizen, right? You're not being a, like, you don't have to buy into the, the guilt around it because those moments of joy, like you were talking about the little kid coming in that is as valid as. Any of the other stuff, right? That is as much valid part of existence and this life in this world and giving it your attention is something that it's one, it's worth the attention in its own, but also it's good for you. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: are gonna do a better job being a more effective person in the world when you are. More balanced and, and healthy and happy. If you are miserable, you're not going to do it. You're not gonna be able to do a good a job taking care of the things and helping whatever the situation is that you want to help. Right, Mark: because despair is disempowering. Yucca: right. Mark: Fundamentally, when we despair, we throw up our hands and say, well, that's the way the world is. Nothing I can do about it. And it, it just sucks. But that's life, and that's a terrible message to tell to yourself and to anyone around you. I, you know, I, I frequently go back to the deathbed test, right? How am I gonna feel about how I chose to operate in my life when I'm dying? And what I hope is that I'm gonna look back at all this and go, wow, what an adventure. There was just such amazing stuff all along the way with that and just such beautiful times and moments, and what a world this is. Rather than, well, I didn't solve world hunger, so I guess I failed. Right. You know, something like that. Some kind of unreasonable expectation that's informed by a, a situation that's really kind of beyond any one individual's capacity to change. Yucca: Right. Now I think that there's also another part, another kind of side of this is when we're looking for the things that are going to bring us joy and the things that make us hopeful and inspire awe and all of that, that there will be times in our life when we don't feel those things. Right. There will be times when we aren't happy about something. There will be times when you get cut off or in traffic or your spouse says that thing again, or all of those. And that's, those things are part of life and those are things that for the most part, we really don't have control over. Right. And that's okay. But Mark: Yeah. I mean, if you're in Yucca: yeah. Mark: if you're in grief, you should not be expecting yourself to. You know, carefully cherry pick all the, the beautiful things about the world because you are in grief. And the same is the same, I, I have to say, as someone who has lived with major depression since I was a little kid depression does not indicate a failure of what we're talking about in this podcast. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: Depression is a neurochemical condition. It's something you can't help. It's something that's not your fault. It's not a moral failing. And if you find that your world is really dark and gray and and dismal because of it, don't pile on top of it. All the other messages you're getting from your brain that you should be, you know, Looking for butterflies. That's, not fair to you and it's not accurate to the situation That is, that's, that's not a realistic statement. Yucca: Right. It's not a, and it's not a failure on your part. Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yucca: So there's, there's things in the world that we really, we do not have control over. But. But a lot of the things that we're talking about today are the things that we, that we can influence and focusing on which of those things can we influence And, and those are the, those are the places where I think we have a lot of power is figuring out what, what do we actually have power? Over, which isn't a lot, but actually when you really get down to it, it is right. I don't have pow power over what you're doing, mark, but I do have some influence over how I'm gonna respond to whatever you're doing is. And that's gonna take time, right? It's not like I can just magically say like, oh, I'm not, you know, I'm gonna respond this way. Like, no, it doesn't really work that way. It's something that we practice, and that's where I think a lot of the stuff that we talk about on the podcast, like rituals and different kinds of practices can really help because they're a way for us to practice and learn how to change our responses. Mark: Yes. Yes. That's really well said. I'm, I mean, I know, I know some Pagan people, just a few. A handful who's, Ritual practices have fallen way off after years of, you know, religiously, literally religiously observing all the sabbaths and, you know, having a personal practice and all that kind of stuff. And what's happened is they've gotten to the point where they're able to curate their lives. that there is a sense of celebration and interconnectedness and appreciation going on most of the time. And when it's not, it's for good reasons and they have tools for, for working with that. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So, you know, when we talk about having a ritual practice, The point of having a ritual practice is not to have a ritual practice. The point of having a ritual practice is to create moments. Moments when we celebrate, moments when we're joyful, moments, when we're connected, when we see ourselves in the true magnificence of what we are. Right. And. So that, that's why we encourage a ritual practice, right? But, but the point, the point was always the outcome. The point was the happiness and the improvement of happiness in the world. That's, that's, that's where we're going with all this. So if you don't have much in the way of a ritual practice, And you still find yourself feeling very contented and appreciative, and humble and connected and all those things. Well, good for you. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You, you know, if it ain't broke. Yucca: Right. But you know, there's, the great thing is that there's a lot of different ways to, there's a lot of different ways to live, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: right? And each of us is gonna have something a little bit different and our goals are gonna be a little bit different and there's gonna be different ways of, of meeting those goals. And so that some of the things we've been talking about today are, are tricks and. Tools that we can use to cultivate some of that, right? And sometimes that may be really paying attention to that gravel and bringing a little peace home with you. And sometimes it, maybe it's that finding what your glimmers are, and maybe it's having a nightly practice with your focus, right? Or a circle. At the solstice or something like that. So I l I really appreciate mark, that we get to explore some of these ideas on the podcast and that all you folks are here listening and sending your emails in and being part of that discussion. Mark: Oh, me too. So much. And it is so gratifying when I see. On the atheopagan Facebook group or the Discord server, or in one of the Zoom gatherings, when people say, you know, oh, I, I discovered this through the podcast, or you know, that podcast episode two weeks ago really resonated with me and it's changed how I do X and y. I mean, that's what feeds me and keeps me going, right? The idea that you know, it's not like you and I have all the answers. But we can share what perspectives we have Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and collectively we can all get better. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Which is you, you know, the rising tide, right? Raising all the boats And so, you know, that's, that's really what I find moving and, and motivating about, you know, doing this. And once again, I am so grateful that you you suggested doing a podcast and we were able to collaborate in this way. I think it's worked out so well. Yucca: that's, it's been a joy really. So, Mark: This sounds like we're stopping. We're, we're, we're not we're, we're Yucca: oh yeah. Mark: we're just a mutual admiration society. Yucca: Yeah. But we do have something that we wanna mention another venue format for more of this great stuff, Mark: Right. Yucca: that's coming up. Mark: You, you may, if you're in the atheopagan community in one way or another. You have probably heard by now of the atheopagan Web Weaving Online Conference, which is going to be held by Zoom on June 3rd and fourth. And we just wanna remind you that that's gonna happen. If you, and we'll put a link to the, the. The webpage where you can go to register and download the program and all that kind of stuff. In the show notes, the the keynote speaker is going to be Jared Anderson, who also goes by the crypto naturalist. He's this beautiful poet of nature and appreciation for the cosmos. Just really lovely stuff. And I was interested to learn, he's, he's actually got a book coming out, I think in two years which is about his struggle with depression and how that has led him to the natural world which sounds awfully familiar to me. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: So I'm looking forward to reading it when that comes out. But in the meantime, we get to hear him as our keynote speaker. And so really encourage you to register for that and to come to that event. It's over those two days, June 3rd and fourth. Lots of interesting workshops and activities, opportunities to socialize. So, go ahead and click that link down below and we hope to see you there. Yucca: Yep. Mark: So thank you so much, Yucca. This is, this has just been another lovely conversation. I really appreciate it. Yucca: likewise, and we'll see you all next week.

https://atheopaganism.org/2018/04/22/hows-that-maypole-thing-work/   Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E15 TRANSCRIPT:----more----     Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your host Yucca, Mark: And I'm the other one, mark. Yucca: and today we have another holiday episode, so welcome to the next spring holiday for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Mark: Yeah, and of course we're gonna talk about all the different things we might call that holiday. But this, this episode will drop on May day. Which is May 1st and is kind of the traditional day for celebrating this. As always, we view these holidays as more of like, kind of a week window, you know, seven days, give or take. So if you have to do it on a Sunday or on a Saturday, that's all fine. Don't have to be super, super precise about it. Yucca: Right. There's no, you know, cosmic being with a clipboard, keeping track of how on time you were. So, yeah. So, yeah, let's talk about names. So Mayday Beltane is another very common name for it. Mark: Which is a Scottish derivation of what was originally an Irish language word, which is Yucca: Which is the month of May, I Mark: Yes. It's the month of May. Yucca: yeah. So it's the beginning of the celebration of going into, into May what do you call it, mark? Mark: Well, I call it mayday unless you're talking about in the summer, i in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case calling a day in November, mayday is probably counterintuitive. What I call it then instead is  oh, I think it was summer Tide. I think that was it. Yucca: Some are tied. Okay, so you live in the Northern Hemisphere, but if you were in the Southern Hemisphere, that's the name that, that sounds like it Mark: would, that I would use. Yeah. Because obviously it's pretty weird to call something in November, may day.  Yucca: I have. Mark: And the reason that I do that is that I try to avoid all of the cultural names for. The holidays. And the reason for that is that when crafting atheopagan, I deliberately wanted it not to be rooted in any particular cultural tradition. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I wanted it to be something that was modern and belongs to everybody who chooses to practice it. And that didn't have any cultural appropriation in it. Yucca: Right. Mark: that's, Yucca: And of Mark: why I went that way. Yucca: there are plenty of folks who are atheopagan who do have a really strong tie. To a particular culture and do then apply some of the traditional names from their culture to that. But when you were creating it, you didn't have that tie right. And you wanted to make it so that it was, that it was welcome to everybody, right. That Mark: Right, and well, and, and you need to bear in mind that when I was creating it, I was only creating it for myself. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It, it, the, the whole idea that this was gonna turn into a movement was really a surprise to me. And I don't have a strong feeling of cultural derivation from anywhere. My antecedents came here 400 years ago, and any englishness that they had has long since been lost. So I just feel like an American settler who doesn't have a claim to being indigenous to this land. But has a primary relationship with this land anyway. So I didn't want to use words like Beltane and SA and those kinds of words because they're derived from other places that I didn't have a, a connection with. Yucca: Right. Mark: So I call it mayday. And then there are the, the variations of beta or bina. Are there any other names that you're familiar with? Yucca: Were you second spring? Yeah, but I haven't, it's not like some of the other holidays that have, you know, 15 different names. Usually I just hear either Mayday or Beltane. Those are the ones that are pretty common. And I'll end up using those. I'm not a particularly verbal person. Right. So I don't really associate the holidays in a strong way with a name. The, I will use names to communicate with other people, but when I'm thinking about it inside of me, I don't think in words. So it, it isn't, it doesn't have that, which is funny because I talk and I write for a living, but, but inside it's, it, none of it is attached to words. It's attached to feelings and to smells and experiences. It's a, it's a very different ex interior experience and it's but it's really about, it's, it's spring is what it really is for me. Right. There's different, we split the year up into eight seasons in my family instead of four seasons. It's really more like, well, there's different ways. There's also, we also split it into two seasons, right? There's summer and winter. There's the, the the hots and the light side of the year, and the cold and the dark side of the year, and then there's the official four seasons of the calendar. But those don't really match with what's happening in our environment. But the eight seem to work a little bit better. And this is sort of the, the midpoint of the second spring, which really is more like the spring that, that most people would picture for a spring. The spring where you have warm days, but little bits of chili nights and the flowers are coming back and the, there's insects. The hummingbirds have just arrived back. Right. So it, it feels very spring now for us. Mark: Great. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. I, when it comes to, to seasons, I mean there we have something similar here. We have the gold time and the green time from about July through December is the golden time when all of the hills turned gold because all of the grasses have gone to sea, then died off, and then. When the rains come in the winter everything turns emerald green and it stays that way until about June. Yucca: How beautiful. Mm. Mark: so there's the golden time and the green time. That's one way of dividing the year. And then there's the dark side, dark half and the light half, which. They're sort of offset from the gold time and the the green time. When it comes to four seasons, I really prefer the way that they count them in Ireland, which is that this holiday is the beginning of summer. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Rather than being the middle of spring, which is how it's figured in the official calendar of the United States. And the main reason for that is that there's all this wonderful early music about May and, and the beginning of summer because that apparently is how it was calculated back in the 16th century and earlier. And I just love singing that stuff. Yucca: And that's what works for that climate too, right? For he here. It really doesn't make sense to say it's the beginning of summer because it's still freezing at night. Right? Mark: Well, and, and for you, I mean, summer is something that's unimaginable in Ireland. It's, it's so much hotter and so much drier than anyone who's never left Ireland has ever seen. Yucca: Yes. I mean, we we're not too bad in terms of the heat, but compared to what, what they experience, it's a completely, it might as well be a different planet. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right. Just in terms of how different climates are Mark: So all of this goes to one of the principles, well, no, I won't say principles cuz we've got official 13 principles, blah, blah, blah. One of the ideas that, one of the concepts that that we have in atheopagan, which is adapting your own wheel of the year. I mean, you're, you're hearing from just me and Yucca and tho those are two of, you know, millions of possible different ways of parsing the year, depending on where you live and what's happening in the natural world. So in Yucca: are important to you? Right. Which of those things do you focus on and which things don't matter as much? Mark: Exactly, exactly. So and so, really encourage listeners, you know, if you're in the process of organizing your practice and kind of figuring out how you want to do what you're doing you know, be thinking about that for yourself. You, you can decide for yourself when you think spring starts and when you think summer starts. You can decide what to call the holidays. Yucca: And you can change. Mark: yes. Yucca: if you did something, you came up with, you painted this beautiful wheel and you put these labels on it, and now a few years later you're going, mm, that doesn't really match with what I'm experiencing now or what I'm valuing. You can change, Mark: Yes, that's, that's what post-its are for. Yucca: Yeah, exactly. Mark: So, You know, just to put in, put in a word for people doing their d i y spiritual practice, you know, that is something that's really important in, in Ethiopia, paganism and naturalistic paganism generally, you know, we're not doing this to appease any invisible creatures. Were not doing this to be in conformity with some invisible forces. We're doing this for our own wellbeing and our own happiness and our own celebration and our own wisdom and learning. Right? So that's a thing you can do and really encourage you to, to take that up. What are some other themes that we might talk about for this time of year? Yucca: Well, this time of year often has, is a celebration of sexuality, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: The young adult, the sexuality that that kind of beautiful fertility all of that stuff is, is often a theme that people look at for this time of year. Mark: Right, right. There's that old that old poem. Hooray. Hooray. The 1st of May, outdoor Sex Begins Today. Which of course goes back to the old tradition of going a main because it's finally warm enough that you're not going to freeze to death Yucca: Yeah. Mark: in the forests of Europe. So this was sort of a loophole practice where. Young couples could go into the woods ostensibly to be collecting flowers, right? But the reality was that they were being unchaperoned, and so it was giving them some private time to themselves. One. Story that I've heard. I don't know how true it is, but there's a story that children that were born of mayday couplings were named Greenwood or Green, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Which I don't know whether it's true or not, but my name is green. It's an interesting story, so I like it. Yucca: Yeah, I've heard that story as well, actually. Yeah. Maybe that's why there's so many greens in the world. Mark: Could very well be because we're not all related with one another. By any means. There are all these independent, freestanding branches of greens out there. Yucca: Mm-hmm. I've always liked color names. Find it very fun, but there's some that you don't see. I, I've never seen purple as a last name for instance, but White, brown, green. Yep. Gray Mark: violet as a, as a Yucca: first name. Yeah.  Mark: The flower, I think, rather than the color. Yucca: mm-hmm. I've known some Indigos as first names as well and some indies, but I'm not sure if those are Henry's. Or if those are, were Indigos, but yeah.  Mark: Never known a yellow. I've never known anybody who was named yellow, either first or last name, Yucca: I don't think I have either. Yeah. Hmm. Mark: and of course you have William of Orange, and you know all those folks. Yucca: Yeah. But I like color names. I love tree names, flower names. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Yeah. Star names as well. Mark: Yeah. I, I, I like all those natural world names. They, they, they seem, they seem better connected to me somehow. Yeah. So themes, yes. Sexuality is a big one for this time of year. And. It's funny, a member of our community was saying that he was doing Google searches on on Beltane, and he said that all the results that were coming up with were how to celebrate Beltane or mayday without sex. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: this, this sort of overreaction of, you know, and, and I think that some of that is because of the rise of consent culture, that you know, that we want to have comfortable environments where nobody feels pressured to do anything and everything is all, you know, oriented around consent, which of course is what we want. But that Yucca: various ages, right? Mark: right, Yucca: That might not be something that you'd be comfortable bringing your pre-teen to or your, you know, seven year old or something. Mark: Right, exactly. You've got families that are, you know, that still wanna celebrate the holiday and, you know, can maybe incorporate other, you know, sort of quasi sexual themes like fertility, right? Like planting vegetables or, you know, whatever it is.  Yucca: Or flowers, right? Mark: planting flowers, Yucca: Flowers are the reproductive organs for these other beings. Yeah. Mark: explaining how flowers work, why, why flowers exist. Because in the natural world right now, at least in the Northern hemisphere, in most places, it's an orgy going on out there. You've got, you know, all of these, these plants waving their sexy parts at one another and bees busily stir, you know, running around all the pollinators, running around. Yucca: And there's just clouds of pollen. I dunno if this happens where you are, but we'll just see these golden clouds going by of just, and I don't have any allergies, so it doesn't bother me, but I know it makes some people miserable to. Mark: I'm, I'm in. I'm the same way. I don't have allergies either, but particularly when the Acacia here in February and then when the oak trees start to bloom in May, there are people here who are just miserable. Yucca: Yeah. For us it's the Junipers. And then Chaisa, which I think in other areas is called Rabbit Bush. It's this beautiful bush that we have with the golden flowers. Those are the ones that are the worst. And there's isn't really any time of year that in the spring, summer or fall in which there isn't some sort of. Pollen. So it can be kind of a miserable experience for folks who have strong allergies. A lot of people will just be allergic to one particular thing, and then the other ones don't bug them, Mark: Right. So if you are going out to have outdoor sex, first of all, make sure you have privacy. Secondly, take your antihistamine.  Yucca: And maybe something a like a picnic blanket or something like that. Mark: Yeah, because there's all kinds of stickers and bugs and All kinds of stuff. Yeah. So, that's one of the major themes of this time of year. And as you mentioned as I reckon the Wheel of the year, one of the aspects is the, the developing arc of a human life. And so this station on the wheel of the year is that of young adulthood. You know, the, the late teens, early twenties all that sort of passion and juice and fearlessness and cluelessness and and horniness, right? All of those are, you know, things that are right in there with that population of people. And so all of those kind of passionate, creative, colorful, excited kinds of qualities become things that we can fold into our rituals and our celebrations. Yucca: Yeah, it's a fun time of year. Mark: It is. Yeah, it is. It's a great time of year. What else, what are some other themes? I know that you have different sort of families of creatures that you recognize. What is the one for this time of year? Yucca: This is actually the annual plants and the early succession beings. So this really is the, you know, the. Flowers and the grasses and the, you know, things that we think of as weedy species that are coming in when there's been some sort of disturbance that are coming to cover up that bare ground and grow as quick as it can. The dandelions, all of those sorts of things. And that a lot has to do with what's happening in the environment around me. This is when the annuals are That this is when they're starting to grow. This is also when planting is beginning. Right. So for annual gardens it's still, we really shouldn't be putting our annuals out for another week or two cuz we'll still get a frost or so. But you know, this is when the leafy greens can be out. This is when you've got the stuff indoors that, you know, should be our tomatoes are, you know, two feet tall waiting to go out, you know, that kind of thing. So that's, that's the, the big theme for us. And then of course, it's also. There's just, you can finally be all the way out, In the, in the earlier spring you could start getting out, but there'd be days where you couldn't work outside. Now, The wind has died down. We can eat lunch at, we can eat our meals outside every day. It's the back, it's the back outside. It's the, so I guess that is kind of the summer's beginning part for us, even though it's not really summer, but it's the, that part of the year that's the outside part of the year has really begun. Mark: Yeah, and I think that in the historical stuff, that's a lot of what it is. It's like, okay, it's finally okay to go outside again. The weather has eased enough and I mean, you know, you look at Northern Europe and they're definitely still getting freezes at this time of year, but the problem wasn't so much the freezing as it was the snowing or Yucca: The wetness, you know. Mark: Yeah. All that kind of stuff. So, Yeah, I, I think that that whole idea of returning to the outdoors is really kind of bound up in this holiday. We, Yucca: Oh, and all the baby animals are here. Mark: right, right. Yucca: you know, the, the baby animals in terms of the wild ones, but also, you know, the, the calves have been born, the lambs have been born, the little chicks are here. You know, all of that. They're, they're all here. Mark: piglets and all of them. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's definitely, you know, a time of year when, you know, this whole reproductive thing is really kind of up. So. So that whole creativity, fertility thing becomes something that you can really fold into your practices and rituals. Because the, I mean, there's lots of ways to do that, right? It doesn't have to only be like physical reproduction. It can be all kinds of creative endeavors that, that bear some kind of fruit, whether it's throwing a pot or painting a canvas, or writing a book, or, you know, Planting a garden, whatever that is. It's still something that feels like a fertile expression. Yucca: Yeah. I, I really appreciate you bringing that up because, Fertility doesn't just have to be a physical, literally reproducing thing that it's a idea that is, is much broader than that. Now, that's a component of it, although funnily enough, this is not human reproductive or this is not our season, right? Humans can be born any time of year, but humans tend to be born in the late summer, early fall for whatever climate they're in that just Mark: sense cuz that's when all the food is available. Yucca: Right. Well, and backtrack to what was happening during what time of year was it when the baby was conceived, you didn't have much else to be doing at the time. Mark: That's right. Yucca: Right. So it makes sense biologically, but it, that's not, it's just very interesting that it, our reproductive cycle isn't matching up with what we see with so much of the rest of nature. Mark: Right, right. Well, and I mean, that gets you into the whole, you know, the mystery of menstruation versus a heat cycle and. You know, those are so different and why are they different? And you know, there's a lot of unanswered questions evolutionarily about why humans are the particular way they are. But we don't have answers to them. So we have conjectures, but that's about it. Yucca: Just pretty interesting ones. Right? And that a lot of that probably has to do with there being so little dimorphism between the sexes Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: compared to other other apes and other primates in general. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: So it's a fascinating field. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. That was your tension for today. We hope you enjoyed it. Yucca: Yes. But why don't we talk about some of the. Rituals and practices that we have or ones that we've heard that are quite common, kind of give some inspiration for the folks listening. Mark: Sure. Well, first and foremost, the most famous one, of course is the maple. And the May pole is a big phallic pole stuck in the ground with ribbons, depending down from the top of it. Usually there's some kind of a crown full of flowers that's put over the top that has the ribbons flowing down. And then there's a dance that you do around the may pole, which weaves the ribbons around on the pole, and it's, it's really fun to do. It's a very joyous activity and it results in this very beautiful creation. On the, on the pole. I've danced a lot. I made poles in my time and it doesn't get old. It really, it's just, it's, it's like a spiral dance at, at Hallows. It's just one of those things that's really a beautiful old European tradition that is just, it's a Kuiper. It's, it's one I really like. Yucca: Yeah. We were laughing before, right before hitting play. Cause it's saying that we haven't done one of those in my family and I was imagining what would happen where I think my oldest would be able to do it, but my youngest would think it would be so funny to run the other way and just tie everybody to the pole. The way dogs tie, you know, like will run around a pole on the leash and, you know, tie their human up. I'm. Positive that that's what would happen just almost instantly. So we don't do a pole, but we do take colorful ribbons and tie them into a tree that we have, and we see those ribbons blowing in the wind and fluttering around and it's. It's really very beautiful and it's exciting too to go and tie them and probably some of them are getting snatched by the birds too, to incorporate into their nests, so, Mark: Yeah. That is very consistent with an old Irish tradition, which is the may bush, Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: In which ribbons are tied into a bush. And there are, there's, there's a wish or something that goes with it. I, I, I don't remember the specific details, but It's a lot of the, the lore there is fairy lore, so it may have something to do with appeasing fairies or something like that, but it's, it's an old tradition that I know some people are still practicing. I. We, my partner Neman, I have done hanging of ribbons in trees before when we haven't had a maple celebration or even when we do, cuz we have these ribbon things that we can hang in trees. Last year, the Northern California Affinity Group for Ethiopia Paganism which calls itself the live oak circle. We had a, a maple without the pole. Yucca: Okay. Mark: we had a, a ring of metal, which was actually from a mason jar. And then we tied our ribbons onto that with a wish for the year. And then holding our ribbons. We danced around in a circle, so it was like, You Yucca: Oh, cool. Mark: spokes on a wheel. Yeah, yeah, it was fun. It was really a fun thing. And I still have the thing with the ribbons on it. It's on my focus right now. And we are meeting tomorrow actually to do a, a real may poll. The couple of members of the, the group got aole and stand for it and all the ribbons and everything. So we'll be doing an actual may pole tomorrow, and I'm excited about that. Yucca: Now I'm remembering some. Did you have a story about a PVC pipe? As a Mark: Oh, yes, that was a problem. Yucca: is that what didn't work out so Mark: No it, it was the, the maple was constructed of one of those heavy cast iron Umbrella stands, outdoor umbrella stands. So that was the stand for it. And then the pole itself was PVC pipe with a, with a wire assembly crown at the top, which had the, the ribbons coming from it. And the problem was that, The tension as people were dancing around and weaving it around, the tension was stronger on one side of the pole than on the other. And so the whole pole began to band over and I ended up having to kind of stand there and hold the thing upright. While people were continuing to dance around it in order for it to work properly. But the next year, the, the same person that had brought that napole had gotten rebar to put inside the pvc. So it didn't do that anymore. Yucca: Alright. Mark: But you know, one of the things that's challenging a about a maple is not everybody has a place to store an eight foot or Yucca: Or, or greater, yeah. Mark: you know, telephone, pole sized pole. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And so these, you know, using these heavy bases so that the thing doesn't topple over. And then some kind of a rigid e either wood, if you can get a big enough dowel, like a four inch diameter dowel or five inch diameter dow or even P V C will work, but you've gotta put something really solid inside it so it doesn't bend around. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: And it's still fun to dance around. Yucca: I wonder if, you know those basketball hoops that you fill the base up with water? Mark: Yeah. That's a great idea. Yucca: right? You just take the, the hoop off. That might be something. I mean, that's still kind of big to, to store, but it's easier to store that, that you can just leave outside under a tarp or Mark: Well, yeah. Or you put the basketball hoop back on it and shoot basketball. Yucca: That too, right? Mark: yeah, so it, you know, it could be a multi-use kind of thing. Little outdoor exercise and, and then your maple in the spring. That's a great idea. Yucca: Yeah, because there, I mean, it's gonna depend on where you are, but you know. Yeah. Mark: And I wrote a blog post a long time ago called What's Up With That May Poll Thing, or something like that. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. It explains everything you need to know about how to do a May poll ceremony and how the dance works and all that kind of stuff. And trust me as someone who is. For whatever reason, whether it's actually a brain development thing or whether it's a psychological thing incapable of learning dance steps, you can still do this one. All you have to do is just walk and raise the ribbon and then lower the ribbon and raise the ribbon and lower the ribbon. It's, it's really easy to do. Yucca: That's good to hear cuz I am terrible at beats and remembering dance moves and all of that. Okay, well and what about some non maple. Traditions. I know there's giving flowers, baskets of gifts and flowers. Mark: Even just little posey, little bouquets, leaving them on the doorstep of your neighbors is a thing that that is an, an old tradition gathering dew on May morning and washing Yucca: rumor of such a thing. Mark: have you. Yucca: Yes. Do I hear it's moisture or something in the Mark: Oh yes. Well, yeah, you, you, you don't have dew where you are. What you have is very thirsty soil that will suck up any molecule moisture. Yucca: I'm sorry. Continue. Yes. Mark: but anyway, you know, if you're in a place that does have Morning Dew, then you can gather that and wash your face with it. And it's supposed to re pre preserve beauty and. you from aging or something like that? I'm not sure, but it's supposed to be a nice thing to do. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it's traditional for Morris dancers in England to dance the sun up on May morning. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: I, on Monday, I'm actually going at five 30 in the morning for our local Morris team to watch them dance up the sun. Yucca: Nice. Mark: Which is, Yucca: that may be when many of you are listening right now, mark is maybe dancing up the sun right now. Mark: that could be, no, I'm not dancing. I'm observing. Yucca: oh, excuse me. Mark: I, I, I tried learning how to Morris dance and I was as bad at that as I was at waltzing, so just didn't work. So, Those are all, and, and actually that's a really wonderful thing cuz you've got, you know, people with the horns and they're clacking them together or sticks or swords or whatever it is. And it all seems very old. Like an old, old tradition. What else? Yucca: Paper flowers, that's one that we do, right? And we put things in our windows because we have a lot of birds around here. And so we put like kind of sticker things. And so in the winter we have paper snowflakes that the kids make and we will be trading those out for paper flowers. And that's just so that the birds don't. Fly in because they have a, a, I'm sure this happens everywhere, but they have a really hard time seeing the windows. So we put little things into the windows so that they know, hey, this is not an open door. You can't fly through it and, you know, smack yourself. So, but paper flowers are just a lot of fun. For that. And all around the house. And that's another great thing to give to neighbors too, is make some cute little paper flowers. And some people do really elaborate, you know, make roses and things like that. We just cut out petals and blue, stick 'em together and, you know, make our pretty, you know, rainbow flower. And this is our all pink flower and our all blue flower. And how does that flower have polka dots? But it does. So. Mark: Yeah, so generally speaking, flowers, ribbons, and expressions of love. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You just, you, you can't go wrong this time of year with those three things, you know, Yucca: And seeds. Mark: seeds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Yucca: So it was just a fun, fun time of year. Mark: It is. Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoy it. Yeah, so I'm excited actually to have a couple of things to do this year. Last year there really wasn't much to do. The community that I used to do a Beltane ceremony with, well, a whole weekend celebration It's kind of having some problems right now, so I'm, I'm staying away. What else were we, I think that may be about it. Yucca: Yeah, I'm sure we'll think of some things as soon as we hit stop, Mark: Right, of course, Yucca: yeah. Mark: as always. But yeah really encourage you to get out of the house and away from the screens at this time of year. You know, go see some nature, go, you know, smell some flowers. There's a lot going on that's really lovely right now. And you know, I, and I hope that you'll have a ample chance to enjoy it because, Like everything, it goes away and then a new cycle has come and there's new stuff to enjoy, but it's not the same. Yucca: Yeah. Well, thank you everyone for joining us. We hope you have a wonderful mayday Beltane second spring summer tide, whatever you call it, and we'll see you next week. Mark: Yeah. Thanks so much everybody, and thank you Yucca.     

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E14 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 talk about children's activities for springtime. In most places by now spring has sprung and there are green shoots and leafing trees leafing out and flowers and the sweet smell in the air. And the weather has become, if not mild than milder. And it's, it's just a time for celebrating spring and. And we often associate childhood with spring. Yucca: Right. And I wanna say that before we get going, we're gonna be talking about kids, but a lot of these activities can be for kids of all ages, right? Just because we're going to be thinking about children doesn't mean you can't be your. 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever age you are. Right? So if you've got kiddos in your life, that's awesome. And if you just wanna feel a little bit young at heart, then that's great too. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, that's a really important point I think, because I mean, at least as I celebrate the Wheel of the Year when there's a focus on children around the time of the spring e Equinox, and then going into young adulthood around mayday. It's, it's not only to celebrate those members of the community that are at those stages in their life, it's also to celebrate those qualities in ourselves, right? We, you know, we all still have a kid inside us and that playfulness and Astonishment of discovery and kind of wonder and awe that that comes in a childlike view of the world are great things for all of us. Yucca: Yeah, so this time of year we've. The new life or the waking up of life happening, the popping back in a lot of our holidays have to do with this reemergence of life and newness of things. Is there anything else that, that really speaks kid to you about this time of year? Mark: The bright colors. Yucca: Hmm mm-hmm. Mark: You know, the colors of flowers, the, the mating plumage of birds the, the fruit trees leafing out and flowering and we associate bright colors with this. Both with childhood you know, those kind of primary colors that are used in a lot of children's toys and so forth. But also with this time of year with brightly colored eggs and jelly beans and things like that as well. So, that's something else that I associate with this time of year is just really super colorful, bright color palette. Yucca: Right. Yeah, I see that too. And for us also, the getting back outdoors. And our climate, this really is when we can be spending lots of time outdoors again. I mean, we, we do anyways, but it's far more pleasant to do it when it's not literally freezing, right? When you can go out and, oh, you don't have to have the shoes on and you can not worry about bundling up every, you can just go out, right? You don't. Make it this whole ordeal to get them all wrapped up and to get you and the, you know, you can just go, there's just, there's a, there's a freedom, there's a just sort of, what's the word I'm looking for? Like  Mark: Well, there's, there's an exuberance that goes with that, right? I mean, you, you feel that soft air on your skin. Yucca: yeah. Mark: You know, that wonderful soft spring air on your skin and after being indoors for months, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: that's a, a very pleasant change of pace. Yucca: Yeah. Well, why don't we get into some of the things? Yeah. Mark: okay. That's what I was gonna suggest. Let's do that. Yucca: All right. Well, we were brainstorming a little bit before and came up with a huge list of stuff to get into and I'm sure that we'll miss some of the things.  Mark: will. Yucca: but the first thing that really pops into my mind is the spring cleaning. I know you might think of this as more of like a grownup sort of thing. But I think that at least for us, having the kids fully involved with all of the household activities is really important because they're part of our society too. Right. And if you want them to be able to do their laundry when they're 20, well, They need to start doing their laundry earlier on. They need to be part of that process, not have it be this huge ordeal when suddenly they're on their own and Oh goodness, right? Like, no, they just, you know, they're part of the household. They're, they're involved in that. And so same thing with any other activity we're doing. And so the spring cleaning it, there's something about spring. I know it's cliche. There's, I think we've recognized it for a long time, that it's, you know, you're opening up the windows, you're letting that fresh air in. There's that new beginnings happening in the outside world, and so we kind of bring that into the inside world. And I, I think it's really important for the, you know, their agency, their self agency and that, and getting to choose, okay, well, you know, let. Get rid of these things, they don't fit you anymore. Is there one or two that you wanna save as a keepsake? And if so, where are you gonna fit that? Because there's a limited amount of space right there. Right. And just having them be part of that process and, you know, making it kind of a fun thing, I think is, is really powerful. Mark: Sure. Yeah. When you've been closed up inside for months, things pile. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: just, just a lot of junk. You know, you, you put something down and forget about it and then two months later it's still there. Well, it's time to move that thing now. Yucca: With three things on top of it. Mark: well, yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And one thing, you know, kids really like doing adult stuff. They like being involved in things that feel real. Right. So, you know, you'll. You know, kids with like toy razors and, you know, stuff like that cuz they, they want to pretend to be adults Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and so, you know, hey, why don't you help me clean out the garage is, I mean, you know, to an adult that may sound like I don't want to clean out the garage, but to a kid it's like, Hey, I get to clean out the garage. Yucca: Yeah, I mean, it depends on how you sell it. Right. And it depends on what else they're doing. If you're saying, why don't you stop playing Minecraft right now and come do something else, you might not get the buy-in, right?  Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: you, you gotta kind of think about how to do it and have it be an invitation. And I mean, it's such a tricky balance that, you know, every family figures out what works for them with their values and the particular people that are involved. But for me, I, I try and be very careful about not making it a requirement. Right. Not making it this sort of, well, if they aren't, you know, if they don't wanna come work with me in the greenhouse, like that's okay. I wouldn't force my partner to do that. Right? So why would I, you know, force my kid to do it? I don't wanna make it this obligation thing. And so there's a, there's some trust in there, right? That kind of has to be built between the people involved. And, but most of the time I find that it ends up is, you know, if I'm mindful about what space they're in, they often are pretty interested in coming and participating and doing. You know, their share of it. That's not to say that we don't have things that are their responsibility, right? They certainly have their chores and things like that, but when it's inviting them to come do new things and learn new things and participate with, fully, participate in that, like the adult world of running the households making sure that it isn't this gloomy pressure thing I think is really important. Mark: Yeah. And I think as you say, there are ways you can sell it. You know, if it's, if it's like, you know, in the morning at breakfast, The next three days are special days. They are spring cleaning days. We're going to, we're going to, you know, get our whole place together here. It's really exciting. So I'm gonna be working in the garage who'd like to help me? Yucca: Yeah. And ooh. You get to pick out the music when we're in the garage, right? You're working with me in the garage, you're the one who gets to pick the song or you know, that kind of thing. And again, it's just always gonna depend on the particular person, because for some people that's exciting. And for others they're like, I get to pick out the music, so what, like, that doesn't mean anything to me. Right. But, you know, yeah. But setting aside, it's that time. And. This is one thing that this kind of general parenting thing that we found because I know that a lot of other parents really struggle with the, ourselves included. I'm saying this is something that we as a society have is that struggle with the balance between screen and non-screen time. That we try and set an expectation of, well, during the morning time, like that just isn't screen time. Nobody's doing screen. And the hardest thing is just if parents aren't doing screen, kids aren't doing screen. It's just not, that's not, when you do screen. Screen is something that happens in the afternoons and sometimes into the evening, but not at night. Right. Like you just set up the expectation. And just kind of have to stick to it and, and be the, the model for it. And I always find that the hardest part. It's easy for me to like tell them what to do. Be like, you can't be on the screen. It's a lot harder for me to put mine away, but it's absolutely ineffective if I tell them not to do it while I'm sitting here doing it because they're not stupid. Right. They have humans. Humans have a fierce sense of fairness. yeah. So, Mark: Yeah, and you know, the, the, the concept of injustice is something that we developed very early. Yucca: Oh, Mark: Yeah. You know, if you're doing it and I'm not allowed to do it, there's something wrong. Yeah. So one thing that, it occurs to me, because we were gonna talk in a moment about decorating the house for, for the season. Right. And it occurs to me, you can actually tie this to the spring cleaning piece, where it's like we clean it first and then we decorat. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah.  Mark: to get to the fun, crafty decoration part, we gotta clean it first. And so it becomes, you know, a kind of a seamless project where the whole thing, you know, we're decorating, but of course to decorate we've gotta get this stuff out of the way first. Yucca: Yeah, you, you gotta have a clean wall to do that with. Get rid of those hand prints. We all have those hand prints. You know what hand prints I'm talking about, right? Yeah. There's just so many of them everywhere, so I love that. Yeah. And again, just always making it into that kind of fun thing. The point of it is to, is I think of it as to be joyous, right? That this is, this is life we get, you know, why is it that we want our houses to be clean well, so that it feels good to be in them, right? So that we're healthy so that we enjoy being in them so we can be productive. But why do we wanna be productive so that we can be happy, right? It all comes back to, you know, what's to. Just enjoying the life that we have. Right. And, you know, we we're taking care of our loved ones, but again, so that they can be happy because we love them.  Mark: Really well said. Yeah, I, I think it's important to always, you know, root. Root, our actions, our re you know, and our recommendations of actions in exactly that, you know, how is this making your life better or how is this making the world better or both? Right. You know, those, those, those are the, you know, to, to my mind, those are the two edicts that we have being alive, you know, live a really full, joyous, amazing life and. You know, leave something better than it was when you got here. And I mean, that's a very fulfilling kind of life to have. And so, yeah. Exactly. So Yucca: Yeah, so there's the decorating, the spring decorating. I always think bringing some of what's happening in the outside world, into the inside world. I was just sharing with Mark earlier, our daffodils have just start, so we're recording on the 15th. So where I live, our daffodils just bloomed. And Mark, you were saying they were blue for you. It was January, right? Mark: of January. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. But a couple cut daffodils, you know, in, in a little. We don't have any fancy vs. So it's mason jar, right? So we have it sitting in a mason jar on the table and bringing in some of the things. We still have a lot of our feathers up and things like And just bringing some of the stuff from outside in. And of course, my kids love bringing in rocks. We have piles of shiny rocks all over the place. The cat then goes and knocks down cuz they're the perfect size for knocking down. So in the middle of the night, you're  Mark: You got a whole ecosystem going there. Yucca: We do, yes. And then you step on them. And it just reminds you that you're alive when you step on rocks, brought in by children, knocked over by cats and all of that. I think the, that gets at just to re to remember also that, that. When it comes to kids, you just kind of gotta go with the flow with them sometimes. And they're not gonna be perfect at things. They're learning. This is them learning for the first time. And we've had years and years of practice at everything from, you know, how to move our hands to regulating our emotions when we're disappointed and, and they haven't yet. And this is them learning to do that. And so, It can be tricky to let go of some of the expectations of how it's gonna look and how well to get it done and just say it's okay. It, it's really okay. As long as it functions, as long as, you know, nobody's in danger and gonna get hurt and it's healthy. Right. You're not, it's not dirty to the extent that it's unhealthy or something like that. It's okay. Right. You know? so, and I think that's good to remember with ourselves. Coming back to the, there being inner children and all of us just to, to give ourselves that Grace A. Little bit sometimes too. So Mark: Yeah, that's, that's well said. I, I really agree with that. Yucca: yeah. Mark: you can bring in flowers from the outside. You can bring in like bows from a lilac bush that's blooming or cherry tree that's blooming. All of those things make for pretty nice sort of tabletop decorations. You can bring in bright, bright spring leaves. I mean, we tend to think of leaves as being more of an autumn thing. But those bright green spring leaves, you can string 'em on. And hang them up or just use them sort of to carpet the horizontal surfaces in your, your house, whatever, Yucca: Or a little clear bowl, like if a little glass bowl, put those in them. It, you know. Very beautiful. Yeah. So next, why don't we talk a little bit about crafts. So art, there's art and craft, right? And people are gonna, there, there, there's a vinn diagram there and where they overlap people is gonna depend on each person's preferences, right? For me, I think about art as something that doesn't necessarily have a purpose other. Just the, the process of making it and the enjoyment of looking at it. Right. Whereas the craft has a, has another purpose behind it. Like a, kind of, the traditional kid craft is weaving the pot holder or something like that. So you have the process of making it, but then it's also an object that has a, has a, a purpose afterwards. Right. Mark: Uhhuh Uhhuh. Yucca: so springtime, there's definitely lots of the sorts of, you know, making the bird feeder or that kind of outdoor sorts of things. What we look for is things that the kids can do that's important to the. The household where they get to be part of what needs to happen, and that has a real purpose to it. Because again, coming back to they're, they're not, they're smart, right? They know when we're just making something up to give them busy work and they know when it's something that really matters and it's so important for their. Like they're self-efficacy, right? To, to know that they are contributing and they are able to contribute. So when we can come up with things, tasks for them to do that can be uniquely theirs that are kind of crafty sort of things. I think that's a really nice opportunity. Right. And that's just gonna depend on what's happening in your, what your household is like. What are you rural, urban, are you. Temperate, tropical. You know, all of those things are gonna vary. Mark: Right. Although that said, bird feeders are a pretty good choice because there are birds pretty much everywhere Yucca: Yeah. Mark: of one kind or another, and if you put out food for them, they will eat it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: They, they, they will show up and they will eat it. We have a very active couple of bird feeders here at our place. One for hummingbirds and one for PA birds, and yeah, they they sure go through that bird seed. It's amazing. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and that's one of the, the jobs, which is my kids, they go out and they. They take out the bird seed and they clean the water dishes as well, because we we're in a very dry environment. So having water out is almost more important for our wildlife than. The bird, the seed, right? It's easier to find food than it is to find water. But we wanna make sure that that's clean so that we're not spreading diseases, right? So they go out and they swap out, depending on the dish. We have a couple that they bring the dish in and we just swap it out every day, right? So it gets washed every day with the dishes and then it goes back out. And and so that's one that that they know. If they don't do, then the birds. Get their food, the, then the chipmunks don't get their food and the squirrels don't. Now, I could imagine for a kid who struggles with anxiety, that might not be the, a good fit for them, right? Where if they, that might be anxiety inducing. But depending on the personality, you know, for mine, that that's something that is an empowering experience for them and just as, as their grownups, we just need to be kind of tuned into how is this? How is this likely to be received with the particular person that we're shepherding and, and helping? Right. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: But it's lovely for them to be like, oh, I haven't fed the birds yet. The poor things. They're gonna be so hungry. Right. And it's like all the eight in the mornings like, yeah, it's okay. You could go do it. They'll, they'll appreciate it. Mark: they're not quite that fragile, but yes, you, you remembered and it's your job and that's great. Yucca: So, and I think I shared my favorite one. This is not a spring activity, but just for a suggestion of types of activities that we did this year that worked out so lovely. Is our, our house We heat with passive solar and a wood stove. And so we have to light a fire in the cold months of the year. And so in the fall, the, the kids gathered lots of little sticks and made the little Kindle bundles. And that was their job. And so, When every time we lit a fire, we were lighting it with the bundles that the kids made. Right? So that kind of activity, and that was just so lovely because every day it was something they, they're a little bit too young to actually be starting the fire on their own right. We're really big on them doing. Doing lots of stuff in the household, but they're still, my, my oldest is only six and a half, so I th you know, wait a few years till she's lighting fires. But she still got to be part of that really important thing. And the littlest, he got to be part of that as well and get to feel like, wow, I contributed, I'm part of the family. I'm important and. You know, I, I plan to be there as long as I can for them, right? I, I wanna make it to the triple digits if I can, but there will be a time when I'm not there to help them and they have to do it on their own, right? And so I want them to be as, as prepared for that as possible in a way that is as Smooth, right? As, as could, can be, right? Because people, we'll figure out how to do it. Humans will figure out how to survive. But if it can be as painless a process as possible, I think that's nice. Mark: I think so too. Yeah. Yucca: then they can spend that effort on, on something else.  Mark: Mm-hmm. So yeah. So do you want to talk about other kinds of craft activities? I mean, the, the, the classic for this time of year is dying eggs. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: It's a little late in the year this year for doing that. But it's still really cool especially if you use, especially if you use natural dyes. And. There are techniques you can use to put like leaf prints on the sides of the eggs and stuff, really make them beautiful. And it just then, then you have hard boiled eggs you're going to eat. And just a little more color to your breakfast. Yucca: Yeah, and you can also if you're using natural dyes, you can boil your eggs, peel them, then dye them. And then you actually, when you eat your eggs, you have colorful eggs. And that usually goes over pretty well with the kids, Mark: I Yucca: right? It, it won't go all the way through to get that top, you know, few millimeters or so. So you get like the little ring and if you slice the eggs in the like discs, that's really nice. Mark: Okay. Yucca: oh, and doing deviled eggs and dying it different colors. That's really fun. Mark: Okay. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I can't imagine deviled eggs with blue blue yolk mixture. Yucca: yes. Well, and if you, if you dye the the outside of it a little bit too, and this is, and this might be just a little kid thing, but a lot of kids that I've known really like when you, when you play, when you present the food in a more fun way. Right. We, we we'll make little like scrambled eggs and I have cookie cutters and so I'll fry them in the pan in the cookie cutters. So it's the shape of a T-Rex when they eat their eggs. Right? So much more fun. Now you have t-rex eggs, right? So, and you could definitely  Mark: And then, Yucca: the sort of spring themed things, right?  Mark: then they can, they can tell their friends that they had dinosaur eggs for breakfast. Yucca: Well, and they did My, my kids are very fond of telling me that chickens are dinosaurs,  Mark: Oh, okay. There you go. Yucca: yeah. Mark: They sure act like dinosaurs. Yucca: Yep. Well, why don't we talk also about the outside stuff, because since spring, you know, this is when we can get back outside. There's all kinds of fun games. There's all the, you know, the classic childhood games. You're capture the flag. Hide. Yeah, hide and seek. You know, setting up little like scavenger hunts. Oh, speak. As long as we're talking kids. One of the traditions that we have started doing now that, that we're in the losing teeth time period, is we don't do any of the like tooth fairy or Santa Claus or any of that because I'm uncomfortable with. Lying about it. Right. And I know some peop that's just something that is not comfortable for me. So instead of having a tooth fairy come and give the kids money, we do a scavenger hunt every time they lose a tooth. And then there's something like a little prize at the end. Yeah. Mark: Nice. Nice. So there's still a ceremonial recognition of this thing that's happened and a fun activity and a little reward. Yeah. Yucca: For the, my oldest one, they lost their first tooth. They'd been asking for a watch for a while because I wear a watch. And I had been reluctant to give them a watch because the. Pretty rough with their hands and breaking things and all of that. But when they lost their tooth, I got a watch for them and that was their prize. But each of the steps on the scavenger hunt was going to places where they have done things that they've been growing up and maturing in the family. So they went to the greenhouse where they help water the plants and we went out to the wood pile where they help go get wood and out to the bird feeder. Where they feed the bird. Right. And going from spot to spot with a little note about like, How you've been contributing and growing up. And then at the end, they got to get their watch. They were mature enough and that they had shown they were mature and old enough to get their watch when they lost their first tooth and all of that. Mark: Oh, that's love. Yucca: so so I think that they're with families, it's, there's so much. Possibility. And it's just, it's coming up with ideas like that. It's just you get to play, right. Play with these ideas of what, what is it? And, and bringing in some of the silliness to it or the fun, you know, I tried to write as teeny, teeny tiny as I could with that, right? Cuz we were, pretend we were playing with the tooth fairy thing. She's very insistent though that that stuff doesn't exist. She's. You know, we don't believe in God's. They're important stories, but we don't believe in them. And the tooth fair is kind of like a God, but not really. Because I don't have any books about her. And I'm like, okay, well we could give you a book about her. So, but coming back to the, the outside stuff, I think that getting outside, playing outside and something that we don't, it's amazing how much we don't have of this in our modern lives, but just having free unstructured time is just so critical. important for littles and really important for adults too. Just to be able to be out and just do whatever your curiosity leads you to, or notice that butterfly that's going there, or, you know, enjoy. Taking that stick and seeing how many times you can break it in half, whatever it is that coming up with your adventure games, your make-believe stories about how you can transform into a giant snake or whatever it is. It's just so, so important for kids. And the spring just feels like perfect for that because we, you cannot do all, you can do that stuff inside, but there's something very different about being outside out of the physical structure. Right. Out of these boxes that we live in, these literal boxes, right? If you're inside, I'm guessing that there, a few of you might be listening to this on a walk right now, but the vast majority of of people listening, I bet you're inside a box right now. You're inside a metal box, which is your car. You're inside a, a wooden frame box, which is your house, or maybe it's concrete or steel. But we spend a lot of time in these really defined structures that just feel very, very different than being outside with. Messy lines and flowing forms that are moving because there's a little bit of wind going through them in the clouds and there's just so much more, I don't even know the words, but you know, it's, it's outside is messy. Right. Mark: Yeah. There's so much more to experience out there, obviously. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's, it's always moving and changing. The sky is always changing. And it's full of those shaggy fractal shapes, right? The repeating patterns that make up the shape of a, of a coniferous tree or a particular kind of shrub or whatever it is, and having those kinds of patterns. For some reason is very reassuring to people. It's good for our mental health to see those kinds of things and we find them very beautiful which is, it's good for us. The experience of beauty is good for us. So, while you're outside, you might want to have something to drink. So I have a recipe for raspberry lemonade. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And so let me give you this, it's pretty, should be pretty simple. You can jot it down, you know, you can stop the podcast, jot things down, and then continue. It is tasty and refreshing childlike beverage for spring. So, what I'm, what I'm about to, to tell you about serves 12. Yucca: Ooh. Okay.  Mark: So you need three quarters of a cup, and I'm not gonna give the metric conversions. I've got 'em, but I'm, I'm not gonna give them three quarters of a cup of fresh or thawed, frozen raspberries, nine cups of water, two cups of freshly squeezed lemon juice, which is about 12 lemons, and then two cups of very fine or powdered. Which is less than was in the original recipe that I adapted this from. Because I like my, my lemonade kind of tart. I don't like it. Super sweet. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So you puree the raspberries in a blender and strain them through a siv to take the seeds out into a pitcher, and then you add everything else and whisk it together until the sugar dissolves and pour over ice and. It's very simple, but it's delicious. Really, really good. And if you need an adult version of this, it goes well with vodka. Yucca: Yeah. And with the sugar you could probably put less in, taste it, and then just keep adding to taste. Mark: Yes, that's a, that's a good idea because people have different amounts of tolerance for sugar, different amounts of, of taste for sugar, so Yucca: But it seems like it's such a simple, easy recipe that you can just add in as you need. Yeah.  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: Yep. And it's, it's a delicious, tasty beverage to have on one of those warm spring days. Yucca: Yep. Mark: When kids have been running around and running around and running around and running around and they're finally starting to flag, might be time to plunk them down and have something with some electrolytes in it and you know, get some water into 'em.  Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then before we know it, it'll be the hot time of year, right? Mark: yep. Yep, indeed. It's not far off for sure. Yucca: Hmm. Well, is there anything else, mark, that we should touch on in our  Mark: You know, not that I can think of  Yucca: activities? Mark: other than just to encourage everybody to go out and play, you know, go out and, you know, kick a ball around or, you know, do whatever it is that you like to do outside. That's fun. It's this is a great time of year in the Northern Hemisphere to be out under the sky and just really enjoying the great outdoors. So, really encourage you to do that in whatever manner works best for you. Yucca: Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us, everyone. Mark: Lovely to, to have you with us. As always, thanks so much for supporting the podcast. And just a quick reminder, the conference that we're doing in June ticket sales are still registration is still open and will be until a few days before the conference. The. We'll, we'll put the link to how you get the information and register and all that kind of stuff in the show notes. Yucca: And I will be doing a kids activity. So there will be an activity for kiddos if they want to come and join us for this, for that. So, yeah.  Mark: Okay.  Thanks everybody.      

theAPSociety.org/AWW2023/ Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E13 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your host Yucca, Mark: And I'm the other one. Mark. Yucca: and today we are talking about Christianity and Paganism worldviews and really kind of exploring that idea. Mark: Yeah, because when you really drill down into a pagan. Way of understanding the world. It starts to really rub sharply up against the, the models for what's important in the universe and how we should live and all that kind of stuff that are taught to us by the mainstream culture and in the mainstream culture, in the English speaking world that is entirely suffused with Christianity. Yucca: Right. So much so that I think we're very unaware of the extent. It really takes some deep reflection and. And exploring an investigation of other world frameworks to even be able to recognize what is coming from Christianity and what's influenced by Christianity and how what we're doing is different in some ways. Mark: Right, Yucca: Yeah, Mark: right. It's the water we're swimming in Yucca: right. Mark: and so it becomes background to us. We, we don't notice that we're swimming, you know, we don't notice that we're moving through air because air is around us all the time, right? So we don't pay very much attention to air unless it's moving at high speed or carrying water or something like that, or smoke or whatever it, it may be. Yucca: little bit off. Yeah. Mark: Right. So it's a. So let, let's dive in and let's, let's talk about what some of those kind of core Christian beliefs are, and not so much beliefs, but frameworks for how to live and what's important and those kinds of things. Moral frameworks. Yucca: Well, I'm doing a lot of reflecting on this throughout the week because we, we talked about last time, oh, what, what are we gonna talk about next week? And so we had a little bit of time to do some brainstorming and what it, what kept coming back for me is the relationship and role of authority. And I think that this is something that, that in our conversation today, we are stick. To Christianity, but I think this is something that is shared with other monotheistic religions in general, at least the ones that I've been exposed to. And the approach to there being a God or this deity who is the ultimate authority, who is something of a parent role. But parent in a very authoritative kind of way I think is really central to a lot of the other topics that we're going to get into in terms of why you do good things versus why you do bad things and how do you see what is good and what is bad and what your roles are. I think it, a lot of it really comes down to that relationship to a. Mark: Yeah, I really agree with that. That, I mean, we, people talk about. The father. Right. It's, it, it's this patriarchal idea of first of all, male supremacy, which is sown pretty thoroughly throughout Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Christianity. But beyond that, it's this authority figure who hands down the law and you obey it. And if you don't obey it, then you get punished. Yucca: Right. And they know best. They know better for you than you do for yourself, and Mark: Right. Well, in this case, they know everyth. Yucca: Yes. Mark: Right? Yucca: And so don't question it. Mark: Yeah. Cuz they know everything. They're always right. They're, they're not capable of making a mistake. All of those things are true and that is a very powerful model, but to my mind, not a very realistic one. even if you believe in and, you know, the, the medieval philosophers would get themselves all twisted in knots about this, the theologians you know, can, can God create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift. You know, these kinds of questions because there are tons of paradoxes in the idea of something that is infinite, infinite knowledge, infinite strength, infinite power infinite presence, you know, omnipresent everywhere around us all the time watching. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: There are just, you know, kind of rational, logical problems with. But it is a very powerful, compelling set of models, particularly if it's embraced by a society that is similarly constructed. So if you've got a society that's built with an authority at the top, like a king, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And the king is always right. The king can do whatever he wants. Everybody else is subject to the whims of the king. Then having a religion where that's the same model works out pretty well for the king. Right, and for those that are close to the king? Yucca: Well, and for the smaller kings underneath that king, right? You might not be the top king, but you get to be the king in your house. If. You're the guy, Mark: right. Yes. Yucca: the oldest son, you know? Mark: the man as the king of his household, you know, and his home is his castle, right? It, it's not a mistake that the coronation of kings throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance was always done by a religious figure Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: it was basically saying, There is a hierarchy in the world that starts with God, and God is acknowledging that you're at this particular high point in the hierarchy. Yucca: Right, and this is so deeply ingrained that it has, that, it really takes us a moment to step back and think that it doesn't have to be that way. There doesn't have to be that hierarchy of power, but we take it for granted because it's, even in today's world where, you know there are, there's a king in England, right? But it's not the same way it used to be. But even today that that structure is still around. It's still in the back of our minds. It's still how we think about society, even though. That's not politically how it's working exactly anymore, but it really is at the same time. It's not one single king, but we're still basing our whole way of relating to each other with who has more power over the other person. Mark: Sure. Think of a workplace, right? You've got either a sole proprietor who is the king or queen. Or you've got a board of directors who are basically kings or queens and they invest power in a chief executive who is like a regent of some kind and everybody else has, is down below on the authority pyramid and has to obey the directions of what edicts are handed down, or they are punished, they are fired, or they are disciplined, or whatever it is. The same happens even in very benign circumstances. Like, you know, like our education system, we assume that, you know, a kindergarten teacher is a very benign figure, but in the process of going through kindergarten and grade school and all that, children are learning to obey an authority figure that stands in front. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: That's, that's core to what they're learning about how they should relate in the world. Yucca: Yeah. And that's, that is the system of, that is school. Right. Whether you're, whether it's a private school, whether it's a public or a religious school or whatever, that's, that's the process of school. Mark: Right. And it's hard to break that even when you want to. When I was teaching undergrad students when I was in graduate school, you know, you, you try, you move the chairs into a circle and you try to make it more about a sharing of experience and expertise rather than an authority thing. But you still have to turn in grades. You know, you still have to take attendance. You know, these, these things are mandated. You don't have any choice about it. So, and if you just arbitrarily decide that you're going to give an a to everyone in the class, you get in trouble. Yucca: Right. Mark: they don't, they frown on that, right? Because the entire academic model is constructed around the validity of those as, BS, CS, deans, and f. Yucca: Right. Well, and even when you purposely choose to, to use a different model, you're still working with, having come from that model to begin with, and you fall back on what you know and what you're comfortable with and when you're working with adult students. They have a whole, they've got their whole life of experience behind them as well. So you spend a lot of the time working on the system and the process instead of the content for that. yeah, and that's something, you know, as a, in our family we don't use, even though I am a teacher and, you know, working on my doctorate in this and all of that, but we don't use that, the schooling as our framework for education. Very, very consciously, but we find ourselves slipping back sometimes into that. Well, yeah, but I'm the parent and I said so right And have to go, wait a second. Is that I, is that really what we want? I mean, sometimes I do have to like swoop in and be like, Nope. Can't touch the fire. But, but outside of that, it really takes a lot of dedicated thought and self-awareness to step out of that and, and try to, Different because it's, it's how we were raised, right? Mark: And we're not encouraged to be different. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And that is in, in the broadest sense, we are not encouraged to be diverse because a part of what's necessary in order to get everybody marching in the same direction in order to fulfill the desires of some hierarchy, is that they need to submerge their diversity in their conform. And conformity becomes a very important value. And this is true. It's not only true in in Christianized countries by any means. I mean, Yucca: We're Mark: conformity is a big Yucca: it's our experience, right? Mark: Exactly, but conformity is a big value in much of Asia as well. The, so when we ask ourselves, And, and we'll get to what we're talking about with Paganism in a minute. But you know, what, what would it mean to be a person with agency rather than a person who's framed in the world as a servant of some higher authority? Yucca: Hmm. Mark: You know, what, what kinds of choices could we make? What kinds of responsibilities would we have? What sorts of freedoms would we have? think that those are some of the deep questions that becoming a Pagan really asks, being a pagan isn't just about, well, I'm now, I'm doing this groovy stuff with all this, you know, witchy aesthetic or you know, you know, old cultures like, you know, the Norse culture that died out, or the Greek culture that died out kind of, you know, reconstructing that. It really, it's much deeper than that. It's, it's really more about how can I see the world through eyes that are less informed anyway, by that authoritarian model. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: So the, the relationship to authority is a big one. The idea of relationships as possessory is another big one. Yucca: Yes. Mark: The, you know, the idea that children are possessions of their parents, that spouses are possessions of their spouses and that then ties into the whole bodily shaming. Contempt for the material world with the idea that there's this other sort of spirit world that is higher, more elevated. And that's not just in Christianity. Yucca: Yeah. You hear that. Oh, some higher power or lowly and you know, and the things that are, that are earth earthy are the things that are, that are bad. Right. That are given that Mark: Those are the things that are dirty, right? Because they're associated with dirt, which is a bad thing. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, and then, then you start pulling on that thread and you get into all the body shame and all of the the sexual shame and the just all the many, many, many ways that self-hatred gets sewn into. The idea of being unique and individual and fulfilling your desires rather than running away from them Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: suppressing them. All of this stuff is, is the, is the operating system for our, for our culture folks. Even though our culture is rapidly de christianizing, those same paradigms are still very much up and. Yucca: And even for those of us who were not raised Christian, right, even those of us who were raised pagan or were raised in any other religion, it's still. All around us. It's still, I mean, I loved how you called it the operating system, right? That's what it is, Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's it's in the ways that we have to. Edit ourselves when we talk about our lives to keep the stuff that's gonna freak out ordinary people out. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Right? It's in the, it's in the ways we have to tell our kids, well, it's fine for you to do this at home, but don't do it out there Yucca: Yeah. Mark: people aren't gonna understand that they're going to disapprove. There are, there are countless little moments in every day when we ask ourselves, how is this gonna fly with the others Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: in a way that is deeply informed with that authoritarian shame-based earth denying kind of modality. Taken to its extreme, which it is in our modern times, that modality leads to the kind of exploitation of the planet that is causing us such existential crises, right? If, if you denigrate the material to the point that it's nothing but a pile of resources to be mined, which the Bible very clearly spells out, it is according to. Framework how can you hold a pile of resources as sacred instead of, instead of understanding it as a a, a living fabric, an interconnected set of relationships of which we are a part and have both benefits and responsibilities. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: It's just such a different way of looking at the world, and it's not the one that drives our economic system, our political system, or our culture. Yucca: Right. Now there's definitely places in Paganism because we have to remember Paganism is a, is huge. It's a big umbrella. Right. And there's definitely places where some of the things we've been talking about have been brought in and are. Are shared, right? There are some traditions in which the, the hierarchy and that structure is very important. And there are other traditions that, that are purposefully breaking away from that and not embracing that kind of framework or trying not to. So certainly when we talk about paganism and we. We as always, cannot speak for every pagan and every form of paganism, but are talking about the our experiences and our particular flavor of Paganism. Mark: Right, right. Well, and I think that to some degree, that's a generational thing. I think that when. When modern neo paganism really kind of started up again which was in the fifties and sixties, I don't think any many could really imagine a fully non-hierarchical way of organizing anything. You know? And I'm sure that there are some, you know, communes and intentional communities and so forth that we're trying to do something else, but. By and large, an average person, much less an a retired English civil servant, would probably think, well, this is the way things should be organized. You should have things in tier. And people go from one to another tier and they get higher and higher in status and power. Yucca: Because that's just how society works, right? Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, but here we are, you know, almost a third of the way through the 21st century, amazingly enough, and we are able to imagine now alternatives for one thing, our ability to have conversations about something other than Christianity in a religious context. O other than Abrahamic religions, generally in a. Other than in, in that context, has jumped markedly just in the last 20 or 30 years. Yucca: Mm-hmm. And you're speaking about the, the broader community, not just Paganism in this case, Mark: Yes, yes. I, I, I think you know, more ideas about how we can relate with one another, relate to the world, relate to the cosmos are being bandied about now than were before. I mean, Bertrand Russell caused an absolute outrage when he published why I Am Not a. Which I believe was in the 1940s, maybe a little earlier than that. Not sure. That kind of thing just sort of disappears without a ripple these days. There's plenty of people writing stuff like that. Yucca: Right. Yeah. Just it gets a shrug. Yeah. And Mark: Yeah. Yucca: what other percentage of the Mark: Yeah, you and a lot of other people. And so my big question to those folks is, well, what are you then, what are you gonna do? Which is what Athe, paganism was a stab at answering. You know, I'm not just an atheist and I'm not just an an earth revere. How am I gonna, how am I gonna implement that? Yucca: Right, Mark: So, Yucca: and I, I think it's kind of like accents. Everybody's got something. You just don't notice it when everyone around you has the same as you. You only start to notice it when it's different than what you're hearing. Mark: right, right. And I mean, these things continue to be a challenge as. Time rolls forward, even though the level of credulity in authority generally seems to be falling, there haven't been very many alternatives presented to that framework. And so people just tend to drop back into it because it's what they know. Yucca: Right. Mark: So let's talk a little bit more about what. What aspects of Paganism really fly in the face of that conventional paradigm? I mean, certainly the whole relationship to the body and sexuality are very, very different. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And that doesn't mean we're in about a f, you know, a free love, free for all. But we're, we're about responsible relationships, however they work for you. Yucca: Right. Well, and just the idea that pleasure is not bad, right? That just because something's pleasurable doesn't mean that it's a negative thing. I think that's huge because that is a big. Underlying assumption that if it, if it feels good, it must be bad for you somehow. And we don't have that assumption, or we try not to have that assumption. Mark: Yes. Yes. That, that's better said, I think because the truth is, you know, we, the, the two of us and you know, the, the people in, in the English speaking world who are practicing pagans, You know, we were still raised in our society and we're still gonna be, it's like soaking in tea. Even after you get out of the teacup, you're still kind of tea colored, right? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: There's, there's just not a lot that you can do about it, and you can spend time over time, you know, washing that off and can become, Stronger, less shame filled more, more about your own agency and decision making, more courageous, all those things. But it takes time and it is a process, and I don't think anybody ever completely gets there. Yucca: Right, and you're continuously exposed. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: not like you decide, okay, now I'm, you know, I'm a pagan now and now none of those things are going to continue to influence me. It's just everything in the past that I'm healing from. I was like, well, no, you, you read the newspaper, you talk with your friends, you read a book, you listen to podcasts, you watch like all of these things, those are still influencing you every day. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, especially. It's one thing if you've kind of carved out a little economy for yourself where you work for yourself and you, you don't have to plug into big hierarchical structures very much. That's one thing. But most of us have a job and jobs are organized tend, you know, they tend to be organized hierarchically. Yucca: Well, and even those of us who are self-employed, we still are dealing with clients and we're still dealing with banks and you know, that whole, that that's all still there. It may not be quite as in your face as, you know, going and clocking in and having your supervisor who was their supervisor and their bo, you know, but it's still around us. Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. And because it's still around us, I think some people, especially folks who have escaped very authoritarian religious contexts, they often unconsciously drag a lot of this framework along with them into paganism Yucca: I think that certainly happened with the idea of faith. Faith being such a big deal. Belief, yeah. The, the literal belief and in deity and the, the faith in your, in your faith. Right. With a capital F, Mark: Yeah. The, the faith in magic, the yeah. All, all of those things and, and the idea of sort of, you know, driving out the heretics. Kind of goes along with that. It's like, well, if you don't believe the way we believe, then you're not one of us. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Whereas you know, to my mind there are few enough pagans as it is. I mean, I think the estimate is a million and a half in the, in North America, something like that. There's few enough of us as it is that we don't need to be splitting with one another. I'm reminded of the. The scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian, where the Judea and people's front and the people's front of Judea are yelling at one another. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's one of the things that, that definitely got. Pulled in, and that's something we've talked about before on the podcast Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: of how on some levels, some of that is very new, but it's also been around for a long time as well. So, Mark: Yeah. But there was definitely a cultural shift that happened with, with the big influx there. There was a big influx into paganism in my experience in the 1990s and A lot of those folks were fleeing patriarchal, authoritarian, kind of punishment oriented religions, various flavors of Christianity, almost exclusively. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it was only a few years later that this idea about having to have faith and believe literally in Gods as, as actual beings rather than ideas. All that stuff really came to the fore. And, you know, maybe that wasn't a bad thing. Maybe it was, maybe it was okay. You know, for those of us that don't follow that way to get a little bit more organized and, you know, explore the ideas that underpin our way of looking at the world, you know, which is, you know, part of the result of that. That expectation. Yucca: Yeah, it's certainly something that I don't remember from my childhood. Now, some of that might be simply because of the particular style of my family and who were the people that we would, that we would spend time with and celebrate with. But it, I didn't start really encountering that until. Late teenage years, early adult years, finding people who literally believed that way, or at least were vocal about the literal belief, were vocal enough to tell me I was wrong. Be like, you can't be a pagan you. That's not what Pagan is. That's just a philosophy. I'm like, okay, whatever you do, do you. Mark: Yeah. I've heard that one too. That's just a philosophy or I've heard it's it's secular humanism with LARPing or You know, a lot of really kind of insulting stuff. And before, before that arose, we never even talked about theology. We just got toge, you know, it was a doing thing. We got together and we did our seasonal rituals and we celebrated and had our events and all that kind of stuff. But Yucca: I, I do Mark: have their beliefs. Yucca: God talk about goddess, but I don't remember like the goddess being. Like, I don't remember the goddess being the way like my Christian friends would talk about God. Mark: Right. Yucca: it didn't seem like, like, I mean, this is, this might feel a little bit offensive for somebody from a theistic perspective, but my child understanding was that like God was your like imaginary friend that you could talk to, that you could use as your justification to do whatever you wanted. It had never, like when I heard people talk about the Goddess, it wasn't really like, Person that was like your imaginary friend that you like prayed to and stuff. It was, I always kind of understood it as more, they were talking about like the force of nature and life itself, and it was very more of like this kind of metaphorical thing. But again, that might have just been Mark: and the power of femininity, I mean, the whole sacred feminine piece too. And you know, I know a lot of folks are still doing, you know, that that kind of wicked god and goddess thing, but it seems to me that some of that, when it really arose in the 1980s, it was really kind of a product of its time. Third wave feminism was just starting to break and. You know, and with it, the, the sort of hiding off from hardcore secular Marxism of some, you know, earlier generations and there was just a lot of exploring going on. And one of the things that women, especially were realizing is we're not in any of these stories Yucca: Yeah, well, not in the way that, that is very good for us. Mark: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Your, your Yucca: We're littlest. Mark: cautionary tales and you know, object lessons and stuff like that rather than people in charge and heroes and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah. I don't know. I just, it still feels very strange to. When I encounter somebody that is just burning with rage over the fact that I call myself a pagan and I don't believe in literal deity, where is the harm to them? I mean, Yucca: Well, it'd be, it's an identity issue, I think, right. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: That they've built their, their identity around this. I am a pagan and this is what it means to be a pagan, and there's this kind of strength in the gatekeeping and there's like, it feels empowering and in like a very, in that, that righteous kind of anger way. So I understand the, I don't. I don't think it's very constructive in the long run, but I, I can understand where they're coming from with it, but I think it causes a lot of pain in the long run. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, it seems like it would make a whole lot more sense if we could put all that aside and sit down and have a beer and, you know, enjoy one another in a, in a pagan context. And I've seen that a lot. I mean, I see that at, AT conferences and so forth where you know, we're able. I, when I go to a conference, I don't see the devotional Polytheists huddling in one corner. You know, while the non theist pagans huddle in another corner and the Wickens are in another corner. That's not how it works. You know, we, we do, we do big rituals together. We socialize, we go to parties. It's a, it's a generally a very amicable kind of environment. And, you know, bringing that, that burning rage into it, I guess is what I really don't understand. You know, it's a hard enough world out there as it is, and I find pagan spaces to be so much generally, so much kinder and more open and more tolerant. That's what I want to foster. Yucca: Yeah. I mean, I find myself just being delighted to be around other pagans and, you know, just enjoying that. Wow. You're pretty interesting. This is fun. Oh yeah. That's a nice chant. I like that. That feels good. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yucca: Hmm. Well, we had, we had talked about this. Doing this topic this week because it's Easter. And that's one of those, Easter is one of the two big Christian holidays. There certainly are lots of other ones, but those are like the big, Christmas and Easter are like the big ones that even the kind of mostly Christian just by name folks will celebrate. But it is one of those ones that's interesting because it does have a lot of overlap with what many Pagans are doing this time of year with the Equinox. Right. And so it's one of those interesting ones where there's kind of. That Like, Hmm. What is, what's, what part of it is Pagan? What part of it is Christian? It's always very funny to hear the complaints from some of the real Christian folks about, oh, this is just so pagan like, like it's a bad It's like, yeah, yeah. Say it is pretty pagan. You're talking about like, Fertility and Yeah. Yeah. And celebrating fertility and you know, and the springtime and all of that, you know. Ah, terrible. But it is, I do get a Mark: but that said, but that said, I mean, Easter is celebrated by many, many Christians as a, a celebration of sort of the redemptive quality that Spring has, right? The, the renewal of the world, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That comes in the spring, which is lovely. It's. Human sacrifice to, to pay off the debt of sins that we didn't even commit. Things that, it just baffles me. I, I just, Yucca: Yes. Mark: I mean, Yucca: It was Women's fault, Mark: I don't know why anybody would buy into it. What was that? I'm Yucca: It was Mark: Although it was women's fault, of course. Of course it was. Yucca: Yeah, I mean the, the, the mythology behind all of it is very interesting and, and tracking and learning about that is, I find that all fascinating, right? And the, how some of those stories are, you know, far older than Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Judaism itself. And I was learning about Noah recently actually, about how the story of Noah, there's. The, the great flood and the, the hero saving people from the great, like that's way, way older than Judaism is really interesting. So, and there's a lot of, of those in there. Mark: Yeah, I mean, I can't say that I put a whole lot of effort into sort of, you know, biblical history study. It's just never been something that's appealed to me very much.  Yucca: It wasn't for me either, but my kids are really interested in mythology right now. Mark: Uhhuh Yucca: Right? They're, Mark: and I'm sure they're curious about these stories that are driving the society they're in. Yucca: Absolutely. Yeah. And they're very clear. You know, my, my oldest, who you've met several times is, you know, regularly likes to remind me that we don't believe in them. That they're just stories, but they're important stories. That's what she says. They're stories, but they're important stories. And so, you know, they're just Just reading up all the mythology books that we can get right now. It's very, and it's really interesting cuz they'll notice connections between, well this story we're reading about in the Norris mythology, that's kind of like the story that, sort of like the one in the Egyptian or the Greek mythology and the, that's really interesting to see their, them tying together. And I wish that we would, could know, we can't really, but know what relationship there is between those stories. Did Mark: For Yucca: somebody a version that got passed on word of mouth for, you know, hundreds of years? Or is it just coincidence or, you know, all of that is, Mark: Well in sailing trade, you know, overland caravans and sailing trade, you know, for as long as there have been people living in communities, they've been trading with one another. And when you know, you don't just trade resources, you trade culture because you know, there you are after a long day. You know, selling your barley for leather hides or whatever it is. And now you're, you know, sitting around, seated around, abrasion, having a drink with whoever you did the trading with, and you're gonna share stories from your culture and that that means they're on the move. Yucca: Well, and marriages between different groups. Right. Your mom's from one place, your dad's from another. You grow up with both. You know, you grow up with both stories. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, so I, I guess to sort of sum up all this, I mean, maybe there was a time when it actually was an improvement in the lot of humanity for this authoritarian, patriarchal kind of model to come into place. I. Necessarily think that's, so, I think it may just have been what happens when suddenly you've got an economic surplus and people are fighting over it and somebody wins which, you know, came with agriculture. Yucca: Came with end of the ice age. Mark: Right, right. But if there was a time when that served us well, it's well, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: serve us well anymore. And so, you know, a part of what I have been about in my paganism has been wanting to increase the agency and the liberation and the justice for people and for the earth throughout the world. I. It's time for us to start unpacking all these assumptions and making other choices about how we organize our societies, about what life is worth living for. Is it worth is, is life really about the accumulation of stuff? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I mean, honestly, it's a big question because. There's an awful lot of people out there whose identity is deeply tied up in what kind of car they drive. Yucca: Right. So it's a, it's an ongoing journey, right? Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: I'm glad that we're doing it. I'm glad that we're thinking about it and, you know, working on it every day and getting to have conversations like this on the podcast. Mark: Yeah, me too. Because as I said, I do think that it's generational and I think this is a moment, right. And things will continue to evolve from here. I mean, I don't, I don't expect that we've got all the answers or that we've figured everything out, but We're working on part of the big puzzle, and if we can do our our part and kind of figure that bit out, then we will have done our work for the larger whole. Yucca: Yeah, most of Mark: you for a great conversation, Yucca. This was cool. Yucca: yeah, likewise. That saves a good, good talk and enjoyed it. I've got more to think about than I did coming into the conversation, so that's always fun. Mark: a great thing about, that's a great thing about inquiry. It always leads to more questions than you had when you started. Yucca: Yep. Mark: Wanted to remind people real quick. We are doing an online Zoom conference of the atheopagan community, which is called the atheopagan web Weaving. That's gonna be on June 3rd and fourth, which is a weekend, and you can register for that at the link that we'll put in the show notes. Yucca: That's Mark: They're on the atheopagan Society website, which is v ap society.org. So, hope that we'll see you there. And in the meantime, have a great week and we will see you next week.    

theAPSociety.org/AWW2023/ https://www.jarodkanderson.com/   Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E12 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 just going to have a short episode in which we announced the exciting thing that's coming up in June, so let's get into it. Yucca: That's right, which is June is not very far away. So welcome to April, everybody. Here we are. So in two months from now actually, why don't you go ahead, mark. What are, what's happening in two months from now? Mark: two months from now, we are holding an online conference, which is going to be called the atheopagan Web Weaving 2023, and it's an opportunity for us to gather together over Zoom Potentially hundreds of us because we're, we have the infrastructure to accommodate that. And we'll have workshops and informational SEC sessions and classes that will happen in breakout groups. We'll have a keynote speaker. We have a special session of the adult salon, which will be a burlesque class that'll be happening by some well trained professional burlesque dancing people. Yeah. So, and there's just, you know, we're gonna do community acknowledgements of various rights of passage. People who got married or had a baby or got divorced or retired, or. Whatever, you know, whatever those things are. There's just, there's gonna be a lot of really cool stuff at this conference and we'll talk a little bit about some of those offerings today. But the main thing to know is the conference is from zero to $50 to register Yucca: Right. So no Mark: can't afford. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That's right. No, nobody will be turned away for lack of money. We're asking people to shoot for $20 as a registration, and the money is going to be used to compensate the people that are teaching the workshops as well as the keynote speaker. And we're, we're hoping to at least break even on this event. So that's what your money's going towards is actually producing this conference. You can find out all the information about this at the atheopagan society.org, which no, which is the ap society.org/a w w 2023, which is short for atheopagan web weaving 2023. Yucca: and we're gonna put the link in the description so you don't have, yeah, you can just go click on it from your whatever app you're using to listen to this. So you can just go ahead and click right there. Mark: You can download the program there. There's a button that you can click to register on, sign ingenious. The whole thing is very transparent and easy to do. We've got, since we since we launched this morning, we've already got a bunch of registrations. So it's all working and we'd really like for you to come and join. We're gonna have breakout sessions that are just for socializing, so you can hang out with fellow atheopagan and non theist naturalistic pagans and get to know one another. So we're really excited about this. We've been working on it for a while, and hope that you'll come. Yucca: Yeah, and, and it's really exciting to have an online gathering because last year we did have an in-person gathering, which was amazing, and we're gonna have one again next year. But that's not something that's sustainable for us to do. Every year on a large scale, right? Maybe local groups might be able to, you know, there might be the California or Col, Colorado or UK or something like that. Groups that can do it every year, but for bringing people in from all over, and of course we can't all travel. That's not, you know, necessarily a possibility for everybody. So being able to, Gather and connect with each other. Get to see each other's faces, although you don't have to. Right. If you're not Yeah, Mark: video. If you don't want to, or even your audio, you can just sit and. Yucca: Right. So we, we really want it to be as welcoming and open for everybody, right? And so that's why one of the reasons that this is so exciting is it's gonna be a chance for us to connect. And of course, you know, we can connect through Discord and Facebook and all of that, but there's something very different about it being an event, Mark: Yes. And being able to see one another's faces it's, it's, it's not as good as in person and we all know that, but it is still pretty amazing to be able to see people from all over the world who are of like mind in terms of their, their religiosity. Your spirituality and to share ideas and information and get to know one another. So I am, I'm really pretty pumped about this. And you know, as Yucca says, one of the things that was. Kind of a sad thing about the Suntry retreat that we had last year is that inevitably there are people that just can't afford to buy a plane ticket or to, you know, to go Yucca: Take off of work or whatever it is. Yeah. Mark: whatever it is, and this really will enable anybody that can simply get the time on June 3rd and fourth, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Saturday and Sunday. Mark: Saturday and Sunday. Just to log in and, and have this experience with us together. Yucca: Point, and it's nice that there's, there's some just social time, but there's also workshops. So I find, personally, I like to have a structure when I'm meeting new people. So that we have something that, oh, we're coming and working on this together. Right. That's kind of nice sometimes to have that, that structure to. To center the social interaction around. But then also there's just the, for people who just wanna just hang out and just talk, that's an option too. And so throughout the day, different times, different options. So if you work in the morning but you don't in the evening, then there's plenty for you to come and, and do in the evening or vice versa. Or you can do one day but not the other. Or if you wanna spend all day, both days, that's awesome too. There'll be a lot. So, Mark: Yeah, so what I'd like to do now actually, is to read off some of the program offerings that are in the program for this. In the first workshop slot on Saturday, there are three offerings, sarcastic tau which just is very intriguing just for its title the way of the atheopagan cleric, which is one that I'll be teaching about performing that kind of service in the community, and Stardust communion, connecting with our stellar roots through science, observation, and ritual. Yucca: Ooh, I think I know who Mark: Pretty cool, huh? Yucca: Okay. Mark: Yeah. And then in workshop, slot two is reclaiming the sacred, how to heal after leaving Abusive Religion. I know that'll have appeal for a bunch of people in our community. There's a, a workshop on imaginal practice, which is about sort of the inner world of creativity. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and then there's a, a, a sciencey presentation on wastewater treatment and the magical world of microbes because a member of our community is the manager of a wastewater treatment plant. Yucca: That's Mark: that's, it is, yeah. I'm so excited about it. Do a community Bardic circle, which is an open mic where people can read poetry, and you don't have to have your camera on if you don't want to. You could just have your microphone on. You, you can read poetry or spoken word Yucca: camera on and have, and be, have your whole costume. Right. That's an option too. Yep. If you want that, that excuse to, to dress up in that fantastic feather gown and cloaks that you have. Here's your opportunity. Mark: Yeah. And in fact, you don't even have to do anything else. If you're dressed up that fancy, you can just show us your beautiful duds. Yucca: That's right. Mark: Yeah. So we'll have that. We're later in the evening on Saturday, we're having a dance and cocktail party. So, one of, we'll, it'll be in breakout. And we'll have several of them open. One of them will be streaming dance music for people to enjoy. And the rest of them will be social groups. So you'll be able to move from room to room and visit with people that are, that are there in the breakout rooms. And that's just Saturday, so I'm gonna leave it there. So you can, if you're, if you're interested, you can go and look for the program and see what the rest we're offering. But it's I am, I'm so grateful to the folks that have been working on this. I, I know that our community members are atheopagan Society Council members. Rona and Michael have both done a lot of work on this, and it's super exciting. And now we get to talk about our keynote speaker, Yucca: Yes. Mark: pray. We, we just announced this this morning. We are really excited about this. The keynote speaker, which will be during the lunch hour on Saturday lunch hour Pacific time is Jared k Anderson, who is also known as the crypto naturalist. He is a poet and a writer and a podcaster. His material gets shared in the atheopagan Facebook group pretty frequently because his, it's just lovely stuff. At, in one of his pieces, he talks about how we are all part of an explosion and at a certain point, apparently, Adams just get sort of haunted, and that's us, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: The, the, the arisal of consciousness to be able to to look back at the universe and see ourselves and see what's going on here. It's, it's all there. It is. It's all kind of mysterious. Adams sometimes get haunted. I love. Yucca: Mm. That's wonderful. Mark: yeah. So I'm really looking forward to seeing him and actually he has a sale on his audiobooks right now. He has two books of poetry and they're four bucks a piece on audiobook, so go and look for that. We will put a link to his website in the show notes for today as well, so you can go and learn more about. So, Yucca, do you have other questions or things to offer about the upcoming conference? Yucca: Hmm. Well, you said it's two days, right? Those are two full days. So Mark: Sunday. The Sunday is a little shorter. It starts later in the morning and it runs a little bit shorter, Yucca: So you can do those Saturday evening activities, be rested for the morning. Yeah. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And of course Mark did not mention all of the Sunday activities. There's, there's quite a few of those.  Mark: Are, there's more workshops and all kinds of stuff. Yucca: Right. You know, I'm, I'm not thinking of anything else. Of course. Any of you listening, if you've got questions about it go ahead and, and take a look at the link that we've got there. Anything else you can think of sharing, mark? Yeah. Mark: There is a, a question button on that page that I, I said the URL to. So if you have a question, just fill out the contact form and we'll, we'll get back to you and answer your question. Yucca: Yep. And of Mark: So, Yucca: the sooner we know who's planning to come, the better it is for the organiz. So if you are planning to come, it is really helpful just to let us know right away or sooner rather than, you know, the day before. So, Mark: Yeah, that's really important because if currently our Zoom account capacity is a meeting of up to a hundred people now if we have. Of more than a hundred registrants, we will simply buy more capacity from Zoom, but we need to know that they're coming, right? So Yucca: we would be delight if Mark: can register, the better. Absolutely we'd be, you know, over the moon if we had more than a hundred registrants. But we, but we would need some warning on that so we can buy the capacity from Zoom and people don't get bumped out. Yucca: Right. Mark: So please register early and often, just like they say about voting. Yucca: That's right. Well, and hopefully this, we, this will be something that we can do again in the future. I think there'll be a lot for us to learn, and I hope that it, it becomes an ongoing tradition. Mark: me too. And in the lead up we'll have interviews with a couple of the program presenters who who are going to be doing workshops or offerings at the conference so we can learn more about them. And I think that's pretty much about it, but we should talk about what we're gonna talk about next week as well. Yucca: Oh yes. Yeah. So we've got some interesting topics coming up. And we are. In a interesting month, right. We're in April, which is a month where there's a lot of kind of mainstream religious holidays that are taking place. Mark: Yes, yes. It's Earth Month, which is cool. We're, we're all cool with that. But of course Easter is also coming up soon and so it's a, it's a good time and Ramadan is also happening right Yucca: Passover. Yep. Mark: Yeah. So it's a good time for us to talk about the contrasts between Pagan values and our perspective on the world and those other kinds of religious path. Yucca: Right. And I think we'll probably get into a little bit about how some of those other paths have influenced the larger culture within which we live. Right, and even us as pagans, how are we influenced, even though we're not Christian or we're not, whatever those particular religions are, we're still steeped in a culture that has those values and you know, which ones are ones that, you know, we're choosing to examine and step away from and which ones were not, and how do we differ and, and that kind of thing. So I think that'll, that'll be a really interesting conversation. Mark: I think so too. The, well, I'll save it all for next week. That's, that's what I'll do Yucca: Sounds good. Mark: I've, I'm, I've already, I already have wheels turning, so there you go. Yucca: Yep. Well, this Mark: Um, once again, oh, go ahead. Yucca: Oh, I was just gonna do a wrap up. Sounds like you're doing a wrap up though Mark: Let's do them on top of one another and see if people can understand us Yucca: the same time. Okay. Mark: No, no, no. Yucca: No, go ahead, mark. Mark: Well, as always, we really appreciate your listening. Thanks for the emails and comments that we've had recently. We really appreciate it. If we haven't gotten back to you yet, we will. We, we do always respond to our emails except for the ones that pretend to be invoices that we don't actually owe. So, Yucca: of those. Yeah. Mark: yeah, it's a. Yucca: Apparently our crypto wallet keeps getting hacked or something like that. Right. Mark: Yeah. And we don't have a crypto wallet, so that's, that's a, a Yucca: we've had a few Nigerian princes too that wanna give us a lot of money, so, yep. Anyway, Mark: but we have to, we have to Yucca: to. Yes. Yeah. Alright. Mark: Yeah. All right, everybody. See you next week.      

Atheopagan Web Weaving 2023 https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/aww2023/ Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E11 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 this week we're going to talk about dreams. Mark: Ooh. Yucca: Actually can't believe we haven't talked about dreams yet. Mark: It is kind of surprising. We were, we were both kind of mystified as to why we haven't done that yet. Yucca: Yeah, and I'm quite curious because we've never had this conversation. Not only have we not had it on the podcast, but we haven't had it off of recording either. So I don't know what your thoughts, opinions, experiences with dreams are. So I look Mark: Oh, well, I, I, I hope, I hope they're shocking. Yucca: Shocking. Okay. Well, I think a good place to start is def definitely with what are dreams. Right? Mark: Yeah. And I, as you say, I don't know whether we'll have a similar perspective on this. I tend to think of dreams as kind of like the, the brain running a screensaver, drawing on bits of memory and themes of concern, and. Things that are kind of weighing on your mind, whether it's your conscious mind or your unconscious mind, and then putting together these fantastical sort of stories in a. In a very, in an almost random sort of way. There's a lot of random generation in, in dreams that you can see. So that's what I think is the brain doing that and contributes to imagination. It solves problems. You know, we have so many examples of people who have discovered things waking up in the middle of the night going, aha, it out. Right? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So that's what I think it is. How about you? Yuck. Yucca: Yeah. Your, your understanding. It really reflects mine as well. It's something that I haven't dug into research on. Right. I don't have a deep understanding of neurobiology. You know, I certainly have read articles here and there and things like that, but it's not something that I've really done a lot of research in. But, but what you were saying about it being basically our, our brains. Processing stuff, right, our experiences, putting together ideas and there being a randomness to it. But I think there's also sometimes parts of it that aren't quite as random though, because we are trying to figure stuff out. Mark: Yeah. Oh, Yucca: we're definitely trying to figure stuff out, piece it together, and there's definitely. There. I mean, there's different kinds of dreams that we can get into. But that sometimes it's just our brain rerunning through the stuff that we're doing during the day. Right. And sometimes it's working on, you know, particularly difficult experiences that we had, you know, running through trauma or things like that is, but I, I think it's a way that, that our. that our brains are trying to make sense of what's going on. And it seems like there's something in there tied in with the sleep that we don't really understand a lot of the mechanisms for yet. We know that sleep is really important for us. We know that it evolved. Really early on because we see it in lots of other species. We see it in very, very different species than us. I remember a few months back there was an announcement about a scientist suggesting that they had recorded what appeared to be spiders having r e m sleep, which is. Type of sleep that we have dreams in that of course they're not inside of the, the minds of these creatures, but that looking at the way that they behaved seemed to match with what we thought other creatures did at the same time that they were going through r e m. And so if it is so widespread, there has to be a really important purpose for it. Mark: Right, right. Well, there's no. . Well, there's two questions there, right? I mean, the first one is, what's the point of sleep? And we have really not very good answers Yucca: Yeah, we know what happens when you don't get it though. Mark: Yes, we, we know that all kinds of things go very, very wrong when you don't sleep. So apparently it's staving that stuff off, but we're not entirely sure why those things go wrong. So that's still a point of investigation. And then on top of that is this layer of. Well then these dreams happen and, and what's that about? I tend to agree that I think it's the brain. Some of it's just random. Some of it's just sort of, you know, rerunning stuff that it's experienced before or imagined before. But some of it is the brain chewing on naughty problems that, that just. You know that aren't easily solved and that are bugging us, Yucca: Right. And we should say before going too much farther, that not all sleep has dreams and not all types of, so there's different stages of sleep and then there's different types of dreams as well. There's these sort of surface level ones and then there's, we were talking about the REM sleep a much. Deeper, more vivid kind of dreaming, so, Mark: Right. And RM sleep tends to be more narrative as well. There tends to be a story, whereas in lighter phases of sleep, it can literally just be flashes of different kinds of scenes and events that don't really tie together. And even though the story can be very fantastical there can be a kind of a line that you can draw through it, and then you can try to figure out what's going on there. And that's, that's part of the age old human attempt at interpreting what dreams mean. Yucca: Right. So that's a nice segue into the next section, which is, you know, what are they mean to us Mark: Mm-hmm. yeah. My answer to that is uncharacteristically vague. Cuz I tend to have very, you know, kind of concrete opinions about things, but I think sometimes they can be very meaningful in very concrete kinds of ways. They can be telling us something. Our subconscious wants us to do or thinks is the right thing to do or you know, or expressing a fear or an anxiety or an anger, you know, something that, that relates to something real in our lives. And then other times, as I said, it's just screensaver and there may not be a lot of content there. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And part of the trick is differentiating between those categories. Yucca: Yeah. Well, I think. There's a component to dream interpretation that's very popular. You'll find lots of books about it where it has certain symbols mean certain things. And I don't buy that on a universal level. I don't think that when you see a Blue Falcon. Flying through a cloud that to every single person that is going to mean the same thing because that I think that each person is going to have a different association with those types of symbols. And I think there might be things that specific cultural groups might have, certain associations with things that would be more likely that, oh, well if you grew up in this particular, Culture and in this particular religion or something like that. There, the symbology might be very different to you than it would be to somebody else. And so, you know what a snake means to somebody who grew up in a Baptist family. You know, there, there might be some similarities between those people, but not that snakes u mean this, like it's a code that we can translate. Mark: Yeah, I, I agree with you. I don't think that there is a lexicon of. Of things that can be experienced in a dream that have direct correlations, like a dictionary that, that doesn't, has never made any sense to me. And I think it's one of the places where Freud really went off the rails. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: it just, I mean, there were a lot of ways that Freud really went off the rails, but but that was one of 'em, Yucca: Yeah. But with all of that, I think that within our own minds that there's a lot, a lot to be discovered there. And as you were saying, the trick, figuring out which is which there's lots of different tools, but a classic one is a dream. Mark: right. Yucca: And keeping a dream journal can give you the opportunity to be able to go back through some of the dreams that you are having. Now for me and my experiences, dreams fade very quickly unless recorded. Once I write a dream down, I norm, I usually remember having that. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: back through and I reread that journal, I go, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, of course I remember that. But if I hadn't written it down, it would just be gone. I don't know that every dream is worth writing down. I certainly, there were times in my life that I wrote everything down, but now someti, if it, it seems particularly important to me, I'll write it down. Or if, or if I notice that I'm having repeating themes and particular dreams, then I'll write that down and reflect on that. Mark: I don't remember my dreams very much. They have to be pretty vivid for me to remember them. And what that has done among other things, is make a dream journal really difficult for me because I decide, okay, I'm gonna do a dream journal, and then three weeks later when I finally have a dream that I, that's vivid enough to remember I've forgotten all about the fact that I decided to have a dream journal. So, you know, that's just sort of a. Particular quirk of mine. But I say this because many other people also have a very hard time remembering their dreams or they don't dream in a way that's conscious enough to capture very often. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just kind of the way we're built. Yucca: Yeah. And it's, if it's, if it's useful to you, right? It's not, once again, you're not a bad pagan if you don't roll over every morning and record down exactly what it was that you, that you dreamt. There's, it could be useful for you and, and maybe not, right? Mark: Yeah, and one of the things that I try to keep in mind when I'm interpreting dreams is that, Even if the symbols and things that I've captured and I'm trying to interpret were relatively random, that doesn't really matter because a random symbol set can be very provocative of subconscious discovery. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: like a, just like a Toro deck. The cards, the cards are random, but the symbols on the cards will provoke associations for you because of your particular consciousness that will, that can help you to learn things, so, Yucca: act of you trying to interpret it is what's going to help you actually figure out what's going on. Mark: exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it sounds like you have more of an active and available dream life than I do. What, what sorts of things do you do with your dreams in terms of interpretation? Yucca: Hmm. So there's a, there's another piece we're going to get to later on, which is the lucid component. I. Don't do a lot with the interpretation component unless it's something that, that is really reoccurring. Like, and there's certain kind of classic ones that, that people have of like the falling ones or the this or the that. When I noticed there's a, there's a couple of them that I have that are in the reoccurring, and when that starts to pop up, it's part of a pattern in my life that I recognize of, Ooh, that's that particular. Area that I really struggle with, that I have a lot of stress around. And when I start getting the dream about it, it means, at least for me, my interpretation has been that I'm not giving it the attention that it needs by the time it creeps into reoccurring dream territory. I have left it unde with for too long. So that. Mark: very reasonable. Yucca: Yeah, . But when it comes to the active dreaming, which we will come to in a little bit, that's something that's, that's really central in my practice and something, a tool that I've used for my whole life. So, but before we get there, what about for you with the interpretation? I know you said that you don't really remember your dreams that much, Mark: I, I don't very often, and so really more what I reach for. As I'm waking up and remembering bits and pieces of, of these dreams, what I reached for is what was the feeling associated more than anything else, because that tells me what's likely to be going on underneath the surface of my day-to-day operation. If there's a feeling of shame or a feeling of fear, Or a feeling of happiness. Although for some reason dreams tend to be more warning and work on stuff that's a problem than they, than they are just sort of celebratory.  Yucca: Do you think that that's a, those are the ones you remember because we are. that there would be an advantage to focusing on the worrisome, dangerous stuff or do you think it is? Yeah. Mark: it could be. But I think also, What tends to happen is that the, the more joyous dreams that I have tend to be dreams where I'm lucid and I'm making choices. So, you know, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But I do find that I can learn a lot just from kind of the vibe of a, of a dream and maybe some of the more prominent symbols that emerged from that. There have been a few times when I've been killed in dreams Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and those have always been very powerful. And I've interpreted them as meaning, you know, major dislocations or transformations. Sometimes they've come at times in my life when I was in a major transition and so that kind of made sense. Yucca: Was there, did you wake immediately from those, or was there dream after being killed? In the dream. Mark: Both depending. Yeah, there was one where I got killed right at the beginning of the, the dream, and so I had the, there was an earthquake. At San Francisco State University and I was in the Student Union, which is a concrete building, and it cracked and collapsed and killed me and a lot of other people. And we all had to go into the basement of the student union, which didn't have a basement, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: to to stay there then, because we were dead and we couldn't go out in the daylight and we couldn't interact with anybody who was alive. We were still, for all purposes alive, we just had to stay down there because we were dead and some. People were trying to figure out what they could do other than hang out under the student union. And so at night they would go out and explore. And I finally went with one of these exploring groups and we walked to the Pacific Ocean, to the, to a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Big, bright, full moon. Beautiful. And I dived because we were going to live under the sea since we didn't need to breathe anymore. And then I realized as I was diving that the salt water of the ocean was going to be incredibly caustic to me because I was dead and it was just, it was going to burn me alive. And then I woke up. Yucca: Oh wow. Mark: Yeah. So sort of double death dream. That's, that's, that's one that stuck with me. But I woke up before I hit the water. Yucca: Oh wow. of that? Yeah. Mm-hmm. only times that I can remember ever dying in my dreams. I've always been shot. Mark: I've been stabbed, I've been drowned. I've I've a bunch. I, I, now that I think about it, I don't think I have been shot. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But on the other hand, you're in New Mexico, which is one of the most heavily armed states in the country.  Yucca: Yeah. I mean, yes, like, but the, unless you're in like the urban areas, the, there isn't actually the, like statistically the gun violence is not Mark: oh no. I'm not saying the gun violence Yucca: yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, we're all, everybody, you know, I grew up around guns. I, yeah. But no, it's never, it's always been . I think it was more influenced actually by seeing TV with like, Mark: Oh Yucca: like movie type of, yeah. It would be real interesting to look into where that is. But that, I mean, that's certainly, yeah, something I grew up around and it's not. It's kind of a, it's a, it's a normal part of life in the, the rural areas. So, but I've never had any, like the roof collapsing on me or, you know, Mark: Well, I'm an earthquake country, of course. So that's, that's something we think about. You know, whenever the, whenever the earth shakes, we think about the roof coming down on us. Yucca: Right. Well, and I guess that makes sense that different people are going to. . You know, I've also never had dreams about a boating accident, not something we do a lot of out here. I don't Mark: Ah-huh. Yucca: of, you know, boating experience, Mark: open water. Yucca: But somebody who grew up on the coast and, you know, went sailing every weekend during their childhood, maybe they'd have a different experience with that. Mark: right. Yucca: so plenty of flying dreams though. Mark: Me too. A lot of flying dreams. Yeah. Lucid Flying Dreams are my favorite. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Cuz then you can go where you want to go. Right. It's really fun. Yucca: Yeah. Well, let's talk about this lucid.  Mark: Why don't you define that for folks first? I. Yucca: sure. So a lucid dream is when you are aware that you are dreaming and you're still dreaming. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Then there's different levels. You can be lucid but not be. Consciously influencing what's happening, but you can also be lucid and be influencing what's happening. So a lot of times when people say lucid, they mean you can control your dreams, but technically it is just being lucid, being aware of that dream. So there's different levels to that.  Mark: Yeah, the, the awareness is necessary. You have to be aware that you're dreaming in order to be lucid dreaming. The degree of agency that you have may vary. Yucca: Right. So, and this is something that people can just naturally do. It's also something that, that you can learn and train yourself to do. and that's, and people have different levels of comfort with that and techniques for trying to stay in the dream when you realize that you're dreaming, because a lot of people struggle with, once they realize they are dreaming, they wake themselves up. Mark: up. Yeah. Yucca: So for me, I, I've always been a lucid dream. And that's just something that's been part of my life my whole life. But when I was about nine or 10 years old, I started to. Purposefully cultivate it and use it as a tool. And that was something that, you know, I talked, I had interest in and was talking about that with my father and he got me books and things like that. So a lot of what I know about for other, for learning how to lose the dream just comes from having read those books. But I never taught myself to lose the dream. It was just something I always. Did. Which I actually think, I don't know if, if it was something that I always did or if it was taught, because I do remember being very little and having nightmares, and the response that my parents would give me would be about how to change it, right? If I was being chased by the monster, they'd say, okay, we'll go back to. And then you tell the monster that this is your dream, not the monster's dream. And imagine something funny happening instead, right? Like the monster's chasing you, but all of a sudden now you're jumping on the big balls and now you're giggling and laughing together. They were always very specific about, Hey, when you change a dream, don't, don't change it into something hurt, harmful. Right. Don't imagine, you know, the monster getting hurt or blowing up or something like that may get something that is, that is funny or twisted or like in a, in a positive way. Because the implication, they never said this straight out, but the implication was that the monster was me. Mark: Right. Yucca: All of that was just me. Whatever I'm doing in my mind is, is affecting me. So don't make it into like a hurting yourself. Make it into a transformational experience. So I remember doing that, my parents doing that, and I do that with my kids. which is easy because we live in a one bedroom , so anytime they're having a nightmare, I know, I know what they are. And so it's something that, that I think is just really helpful to, to never have the belief in the first place that you can't control your dreams so that you can't influence your dreams because you can't. Right. We're, we're taught that we can't. And the media around it and all of that, it's like, oh no, you, you don't, you don't influence, you don't have control over it, but you do. Right. But do you always want to, is a very, very different pick is a different question. So for me, the dreams that I'm, most of my dreams, I choose to not be con, to be lucid in because I don't feel as rested from. So I will choose, it will, I'll be going to sleep and I'll decide, am I gonna be lucid or not? I'll realize I'm dreaming and go, okay, so let go. I, I literally tell myself, let go and just let the dream happen and let go of that. The lu lucidity. Lucidness Mark: Lucidity. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. But when I do lucid, I, I do a lot of work when I need to. In that dream state is a, is a really powerful state to go into. I will work through problems that I'm having, I'll do actual ritual in that state and I actually do a lot of work in that state too. So I do a lot of so I'm. Trying to take a whole bunch of information and construct a lecture of how do I take these complex ideas and put them together anytime I need something that's creative but builds it. So I'll go to, so I, I teach a bunch of classes and I need to build a class. I'll go to sleep and then work on the actual outline and structure in the dream state, and then wake up and I'll write it down immediately and I've got the structure. but if I do that too much, I don't rest . So it, it's a, it's a, you know, you're not, I don't know what's going on on a physical level there, but I do not feel as rested when I, losed dream is when I just let myself dream. Mark: Yeah, I don't either. It lucid dreaming feels like effort. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: To me some of which is some, some amount of effort to maintain the dream Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And some of which is just to, you know, I'm, I have to pay attention, I have to make decisions, I have to do all that kind of stuff. So yes, my experience as well is that a lucid dream is not as restful. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I also. Do lucid dreaming? It's relatively rare because I'm usually just not aware of my dreams. But not, I mean, not infrequently with the dreams that are really impactful for me. I will realize, you know, I'm trying to read something and it's gibberish and oh, I'm dreaming, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: or Something happens that's impossible. Well, you know, being a naturalistic pagan when something that's physically impossible happens, I go, eh, I think I'm dreaming. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And. I, I, I have a lot of fun in lucid dreaming. I don't really use it for ritual work or even for, I mean, I suppose I should, given that it's kind of down there in the subconscious, but mostly I just use it to have The one thing that I do do that is kind of self-referential is I like to go and look in the mirror Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and I can't really describe what I've seen. , but it hasn't been my face. It's been, you know, deeper layers of who I am. So that's a very powerful exercise. If you find yourself in a dream and you wake up, go in the bathroom and look in the mirror. Yucca: or pull out the hand mirror that you happen to have in your pocket because it's your dream. Mark: Yeah. Pockets in me, in dreams are like pockets in cartoons. You can pull anything out of. Yucca: They're bigger on the inside. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Well, and the, the looking at a mirror, this, that's one where when people are trying to develop the, to be able to wake up in their dream, that's a classic one is to check whether you're dreaming or not look at a mirror. Another one is to look at writing. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Look away, look back at the writing. Has it changed? And. We tend to do in our dreams, the things that we do when we're awake. So if you have a habit in your, like waking life where you always push your, the glasses up on your nose or you have a habit where you look at your phone or your watch, or you do you think something throughout the day those are things that you'll tend to repeat in the dream. And so one of the things that people can do to try and learn to lose a dream is to ask yourself throughout the day, am I dreaming? And check if you're dreaming, but you have to actually do the things so that you repeat that in your dream. Because if it's not actually a habit, you won't actually do it in your dream. But yeah, you check and you go, okay. I look at my watch and right now I look at my watch and there's actually the time on it. I look back and it's the same time, so I go, yeah, I'm, I'm awake. Right? Mark: Yeah. Yucca: But then once you're in the dream state, you mentioned this, this maintaining yourself in the dream is the next challenge, right? Is to not wake up immediately. For me, it feels like when I start to wake up, it feels like I'm almost being pulled backwards through like a gel. The image that I think of is if you've ever watched Stargate, There was a movie for it and there was a delightfully campy TV show for a while. Whenever they go through this, the Stargate is going through this, like this jelly plasma thing. I always feel like I'm getting pulled back through that and I feel like I can't breathe when I'm traveling through that, but if I can just pull myself back. I just like step back into it that I stay in the dream state. But if I let myself go back all the way through, the moment I get through that jelly, I'm awake. But I can go, okay, I'm gonna go right back to the same spot in that dream. That dream's still there as long as I don't fully get up, right? If I have to get up and go do something in the house you know, the cat broke something on the table or the. I go up to go use the restroom like that, then I'm, then I've left the dream. But if I haven't gone that far from it, I can go right back to the same spot. Mark: Right? Right. Well, that's cool. My feeling about being pulled out of the dream is much, it's much more vertical than it is horizontal. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I feel like going deeper into the dream is literally sinking going lower. Whereas I feel like it's, it's like scuba diving in that it's about buoy. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and your natural buoyancy is to go back up and come out of the dream. And so the challenge becomes to make the motions or do whatever the effort is to stay down. Yucca: Interesting. Mark: So that's, that's more of how I experience it. Scuba diving is very dreamlike anyway. Just being down there or, or, or skin diving, snorkeling, same kind of thing. Being down there with all those fish and stuff in that very slow moving language environment because of the density of the water is very dreamlike to. Yucca: and your body being able to move in ways that you couldn't on dry land. Mark: Right. And it's a full body Yucca: twist around and move and, yeah. Mark: and it's a full body sensation. So, which is, you know, we tend, we tend to just sort of experience with our hands and faces and, you know, not, not have the rest of our bodies engaged so much. Yeah. So that's. That's a cool thing that I enjoy doing. The but, and, and this, this struggle to stay down happens when I realize that I'm dreaming. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That's the, that's the crisis point where it arises. And then I either win or lose, you know, I either stay down or I don. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: But if I do, then I feel I have a lot of freedom to just explore and to do thing, to fly and to jump off high buildings cuz I'm afraid of heights and stuff like that. So I have a, a catalog of many impossible experiences that I've had that are as vivid in my memory as my actual memory. Yucca: Right. Well, those are actual memories. But they aren't memories of things that you physically did. They're memories of things that, that your brain still thinks you did. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Yeah. It's, and it's amazing how the, how powerful the feelings. Can be, I mean, probably most of you have experienced, have you ever had a fight with someone in your dream and then woken up and you're still mad at them and you know that they didn't really say the thing, but you still feel it. You're still so mad at them. And it's like they, they would've never done that thing, whatever it was ever. Right? But, but you still experienced that. I think that's just so fascinating with, with dreams and, and I hope we. To learn more about why our brains do that. Mark: Yeah, that, I mean, that's the big question to me, the, I mean, the fact is we do it. There's a lot of descriptive literature about what it is, and. kind of patterns of how it works. But the big question of, but why, what exactly are we accomplishing by doing this? Even though I know in my own personal life that I do accomplish things in dreaming you know, I, I have experiences and I learn things. Yucca: And, you know, as you're saying that, it, it, it makes me think about other places in our lives where we have tools that we use, like meditation, like ritual. These are things that we're, we have some insight into with science. But largely we really don't understand them, but we can still, even though we, we don't yet understand them on that level, we can still figure out how to use them because they still exist. And that's, that's where the art part, that's where the craft part comes in. These are tools that we're using, Mark: I think of it as, Yucca: why. Yeah, Mark: oh, I'm sorry to Yucca: go. No, please. Mark: Well, I think of it as rather like the domestication of fire. We didn't understand what fire really was for. Hundreds of thousands of years, but we were still using it. We were making it, and we were transmitting it, and we were using it to cook our food and to illuminate our dwellings and to, you know, create heat in the wintertime and all kinds of stuff. And you know, I mean, I've heard it said that the most sim, the most mysterious and complex thing that humanity has ever discovered is the human brain. You know, there are the, the range of possible manifestations of behavior that come out of human brains is just astounding, and we don't understand very much about it at all because it's very hard to observe it while it's. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And to translate the experience of it working, which is consciousness into some kind of objective data about what that process is. So, yeah, I mean, I would, I, I believe we will learn more about that. I don't know that it'll ever be completely done and dusted, but Yucca: I don't think science works that way, frankly. Mark: No. Yucca: that the more we know, the more questions we have, and that is beautiful. That is just amazing. Mark: About simple things like how fireworks, you know, we, we, we can get pretty good answers that don't leave. A lot of questions left. Yucca: To on a certain scale. Right, right. We can go. Okay, so we're talking about the splitting of molecules and the recombination of, but let's start talking about, okay, those, but why were those molecules bonded to each other in the first place? Mark: Right. Yucca: What are they made of? Mark: is a molecule and, and what's that made of? And then what are those made of? And then what are those Yucca: Right. And why? Okay, so why so it's doing this because of this particular force. Why does that force exist? Is that force connected to something else? You know, there's all, it just keeps going and going and maybe, maybe there's a simple answer to all of it, but I think we're a ways away from finding that if it Mark: Well cer certainly all the quantum stuff, there's plenty of questions left, plenty of vast. Vast acreage of unknowns. But as you say, within a given scale context, you can understand how something works, and I doubt that we will understand why the human brain works even at its own scale, much, much less at deeper levels. But even at its own scale, there's. When you have trillions of informational connections working at incredibly fast speeds, I just think it's gonna be impossible to ever chase those things down. Yucca: Yeah, well, and each one being, as far as we know, very different The way that the, which connections my brain makes versus your brain. Mark: Well, right. I'm, and I'm just talking about one brain. I'm not talking about brains in general. I'm just talking about one brain. Yucca: but we have, there are things that we have learned, right? Like learning about the different, you know, kinds of connections and neurotransmitters and the, you know, which particular elements do we use in order, you know, all that stuff. Mark: Sure, Yucca: so much progress. Mark: tend to be associated with particular senses or particular processes? Yucca: Oh, but then they go and change on us because that's what we find. That's amazing. When, and not in all the cases, but there's many cases where we found when someone's had brain damage in one area and then another part of the brain starts to perform the function that usually would've been in that part of the brain and wow. Mark: I read a, a fascinating article by a woman, God, where was this? The Atlantic, I think. And she literally has half of a brain. Yucca: Hmm. Okay. Mark: it was discovered in adulthood when she had an m r I, that one in, Yucca: born this Mark: she was born this way and she's of perfectly normal intelligence. She, you know, she has an absolutely ordinary life, Yucca: Okay. Mark: but half of her brain never developed. Yucca: What's filling in the physical space where the other half would be. Okay. Mark: Yeah. To reverse spinal fluid. Yucca: Yeah. Wow. Mark: Pretty awesome, Yucca: pretty popular now. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: a lot of Mark: lots of studies and, and all that kind of stuff, Yucca: yeah. How interesting. Hmm. Mark: and I mean, that's fully coordinating both sides of her body. That's, you know, doing everything that a brain does and it's just doing it with half as much. Yucca: Wow. Have they checked in with siblings to see if they, that Mark: don't, I don't remember honestly, it, it was a while back, but it was a pretty wild article. I should try to find it. Yucca: Yeah, that's, that's interesting. This stuff is fun, Mark: It is, it is. And one of the places where we encounter the mysteries about the brain is in dreaming. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Because dreaming is a mysterious process. Why am I being shown these images? Why am I finding my, yeah, why am I finding myself immersed in, you know, these particular situations and these particular, you know, colors and objects and characters and plot lines, and, you know, what, what is all that? Yucca: Why are those two people actually one person, I don't know how this happens for you, but sometimes characters in my dream are not really, they're rarely one person. There's several different people at once. Mark: I don't have that at all. Yucca: no, you'll have a, there'll be someone, okay. For me, they're, they will be several different people and sometimes they'll think about, so why was it that so-and-so was also so-and-so? Like what overlap am I seeing there? Or did it not really matter for the dream, who the other person Mark: are, these are recognizable people from your life or they are characters that were created in the dream, Yucca: Well, people from my life, but also movie characters and think characters. Either a, a human, there's somebody, whether that's somebody is a real person or not. Right. Like there could, there, for instance, is making up there could be Santa, right? Like there's, you know, never met Santa. There's, as far as I know, no real Santa, but Santa can show up in my dream and Santa can also be my second grade teacher at the same time in my. But that's just, you know, why, right? That's one of those interesting things to think about. What's there's, there's gotta be some connection there, or maybe not, but me trying to figure out what that connection is might reveal to me something about my feelings about my second grade teacher, you know? Or why am I thinking about, why am I thinking about her right now? You know, how many decades later? Mark: right. Yucca: So, Mark: Yeah, it's really fascinating stuff, and I'm sure that our listeners have a very broad range of different kinds of experiences as well. You know, if you want to email us at the wonder podcast cues gmail.com or comment on this Yucca: you're listening to it online? Mark: listening to it on Yucca: yeah. Mark: You can go ahead and comment there. You know, what was your most vivid dreaming experience? What's been your most amazing experience? In the dreaming realm because it really is a pretty remarkable thing that we do. We spend a lot of our time asleep and, Yucca: It's glorious. Love it. Mark: we don't spend as much, I don't spend as much time asleep as I wish I did, Yucca: and that's one that I, that I have looked into the research on, which is very distressing about the sleep deprivation especially in the United States. Very worrisome with, with teenagers in terms of what's happening with their sleep deprivation. It's Mark: my local school districts here just made a ruling that they were not going to start classes until I think, eight 30 in the morning, maybe nine, Yucca: Oh good. Mark: classes had been starting at seven 30 and it's just, that's not good for a developing marine. Yucca: it isn't. Well, and, and then this is one area where there's research as well into chronotypes. And it, this seems to be pretty universal across cultures that the, that teenagers. Will naturally stay up later and wake up later. That seems to be, that's not just coming from our, like our cultural stereotypes that seems to be across cultures. And getting less sleep than we need has a negative impact on so many different levels for us, and it increases risk of all kinds of things. So I, I think it's ridiculous to. To be making teenagers get up and be being sleep deprived because of that. And I know we can go, oh, we're supposed to be teaching them, you know, responsibility and all of that, and it's like, hmm. Not at the cost of their physical and emotional wellbeing and their ability to learn, because you're not gonna learn as well when you're sleep deprived. Mark: Right. Yucca: And what, what are we teaching them that them fitting into? These particular hours that we've for some reason chosen that probably have more to do with like the hours of operation of factories. We care more about that than their wellbeing. I don't know. That's, there's my soapbox. Sorry, I'll Mark: Well, I don't dis, I don't disagree with any of it. It, it certainly, Yucca: frankly, eight 30 is still Mark: I'm just glad that at least. I'm just glad that some of the more progressive districts are starting to pay attention to this research and to think about, and parents complain because parents want the childcare, right? They, they want to get out of the house in time to get to work. And I mean, you know, just the whole system is interconnected. Levels of dysfunction. Yucca: Yeah, that's a whole nother area. Mark: It is, and it's not a particularly cheery area, so let's move on. Yucca: We should. Yes. Now actually there was a very cheery, exciting thing that you wanted to announce. Mark: Yes. We've talked about this before, but tickets for the atheopagan Web Weaving online Conference, which will be June 4th of this year. The tickets will go on sale next Saturday. April 1st. Tickets are from 10 to $50. There are scholarship tickets for nothing to spend anything. Nobody's turned away for lack of funds. We're encouraging giving at least 20 so that we can cover the expenses of the conference, but you can get information about it at. AP society.org/a WW 2023 and we'll put that in the, Yucca: And the show Mark: in the podcast Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And you can download the program there and look offerings of workshops and activities and all that kind of stuff, it's gonna be a really great opportunity. To see other people that are following these paths and exchange information and learn stuff. So I really hope you'll take a look and consider coming. Yucca: and both of us are doing workshops, so. Mark: That's right. I'm doing one on the clerical path. And you're doing one for kids, right? Yucca: I am, yeah. I'm gonna do a kids circle, so, yep. Mark: great. Yeah. Exciting. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: yeah that's two months away, but tickets will go on sale next week and you can look at the program it's downloadable in either PDF or format. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You can look at those, Yucca: And it does always help us to get people to know ahead of time how many people to be expecting. Mark: That's right. If, if all the registration comes in at the last minute, it could be complicated for us. Our current Zoom account, this will be done over Zoom. Our current Zoom account allows a hundred attendees. If we have 98 attendees three days before the event and then another 300 people register in those last couple of days, we're gonna have to call Zoom up at work capacity and you know, all that kind of stuff. So, Yucca: So we'd of course love to have Mark: ask you to get your tickets early. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yes. Yeah, for sure. We would be, You know, arrange for more, more seats with Zoom. But it would be a lot better if we could do that a week in advance rather than two days in advance. So get your tickets early. Yucca: Yeah, and we'll see you there. And as always, thanks for hanging out with us on today's episode, and we'll see you next week. Mark: Have a great one.    

The Re-Enchantment of Life: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/re-enchantment-of-life/ The Inner Critic: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/   Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E10 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 talk about paganism and imagination. Yucca: right? And this is a, this is a really important and key topic in a lot of different ways and it gets approached From many different directions in, again, different ways, but we don't always, we don't always talk about what it it really is, and that that's what we're doing. Mark: Yeah. And particularly in kind of mainstream pagan circles, we. Because what is imagined and what is more likely to be true based on evidence often gets all jumbled together. We, we don't actually acknowledge that we're working with the imagination Yucca: And there's a negative connotation to it too. Like, oh, you're just imagining Mark: right. Yucca: right? Like if you suggest that, that, that's almost, that's an insult, right? Oh, that's just your imagination. Mark: right? Yeah. We say it's just your imagination, right? But when you think about it, why just imagination is amazing. Imagination is arguably the thing that makes humans different than any other creatures that we're aware of. Our, our ability to. Envision the abstract Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: to to have ideation that that innovates, you know, that comes up with novel stories, novel inventions, novel concepts, novel philosophies, all of those things. That's all imaginations. Yucca: Right, and even though things might be imagination, they can still be very, very meaningful to us. , think about your favorite movie or book that you knew that those characters didn't exist. Those things never happened, and yet it's really meaningful and impactful to you, and it had a, as a, a very real response in your body and your mind. Mark: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, there have been a couple of times in my life when I have actually fallen in love with a movie character. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it's been painful for, you know, two, three days until it wears off. Because I really wanted to know that person. I wanted to see that person, and they don't exist. So, and, and you know, this was when I was younger mostly, but now that I'm old and cynical, it doesn't happen so much. , but You know, that's the same physiological response that happens in response to a real person. Yucca: right. Mark: And that, I think, goes to this question of why we can confuse the imaginary with the real because our, our minds are not very good at distinguishing. Between what's imaginary and what's real. We, we react in exactly the same ways our brains fire in exactly the same ways in response to stories or ideas that they do in response to real world events. Yucca: Right. And we rewrite memories, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And each person's interpretation of the same event can be very different, Mark: and it will get more different over time as they reinforce their take over and over again. Every time they recall that memory, they rewrite it and it get e evolves a little bit. Yucca: It's telephone, but that, did you ever play that game as a kid? Right. You one person whispers and then it whispers to the next person and next person and see how it changes by the time it gets to the last person. And sometimes they're close, and sometimes, well, sometimes one of the kids will purposely put something fake in there, but sometimes it transforms, right? Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And our, our minds do that. Our imagination does that. Mark: They certainly do. Yeah. So, one of the things that we do, especially as adults to try to distinguish these things is that we, we identify the times when we are doing what's called suspension of disbelief, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: right? So we go into a movie, we suspend our disbelief for a couple of hours, and we submerge ourselves into the story that's happening on the. And our awareness leaves the fact that we're sitting in a cushion chair in a dark room, looking at a screen and listening to soundtrack it, immerses in the events of the movie as if they're happening to us and. Then when the movie's over, then we stop suspending our disbelief and we leave. And our experience of the movie, in terms of its quality is often a function of how deeply we were affected by that suspension of disbelief. Right? And this is something that is really an issue for those of us who are atheopagan or other non feist pagans. Naturalistic pagans, right? Because for folks that are entering our community from the atheistic side, all this imaginary stuff can be very uncomfortable. Yucca: right. Mark: You know, the we're looking for evidence, right? We're, we're looking for proof that whatever it is that we're talking about actually exists or it's not worth talking about is the, the culture. Yucca: assumption. Mark: Many, many atheistic circles, and I'm here to say, first of all, it is worth talking about because it's core to the nature of humanity that we are these imagining creatures and there's a lot of value that we can have out of our. Experiences and, and in our lives by cultivating imagination and using it appropriately to have experiences like in rituals. Yucca: Right. so there's, it really is something that we can very consciously use, right? And it could be in a ritual, but it can also be there's, we, you know, we did an episode a few years back about bringing the magic into everyday. Mark: Yeah. Enchanting the world. Yucca: exactly. There we go. We'll, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Because that's definitely one of the ways that we can use imagination that really serves us right. When we're careful, when we're not careful. Sometimes our imagination can be harmful to us. Right? We imagine something that, you know, that that person is mad at us and they, they were just tired. Right? Or we imagine. That the shadow, you know, when we're little, that those shadows are actually monsters that are gonna come and get us. But then we can also use it for okay, ritual. We can use it to bring a little bit of enchantment to our life. We can really enrich ourselves. Mark: Yes. Yes. And so for those of us that are naturalistic pagans, a lot of what we're doing is walking this careful line. Where we're not falling over the edge into worlds of imagination and fantasy and thinking that they're real. And I know that there are gonna be people that are gonna be mad at me about saying that, but you know, the evidence at least would suggest that God's an instrumental magic and ghosts and spirits and stuff like that aren't Yucca: realm of ferry or. Mark: Yeah. That they aren't really. They're wonderful stories. And they're tremendous flights of imagination that we can work with, we can do cool things with. But they don't exist in the same sense that rock exists. And so here we are as naturalistic pagans, carefully walking that edge where we say, all right, we value evidence. Right. We value what's provable. That said, we are the storytelling ape homos, right? Some wonderful anthropologist, I don't remember the name. Called us The Storytelling Ape Yucca: I like that better than Sapien sap. Mark: yeah, me too. Yucca: Oh Mark: Yeah, we're super wise, wise, twice. Yucca: Yes. We're wise, wise, we're so wise. Really believe us. Seriously. Mark: Judging by our works, maybe not so much. But we are definitely storytelling creatures and it is essential to the culture making of every society that we tell stories and that we have narratives that inform our values and our worldviews. So Yucca: Well, and we even do that in science, right? That's how we understand. That's and it's just what, where are we getting the information for the story? But we're still telling it all the same and we're still putting in We're still putting in metaphor and poetry and things to help us understand and try and imagine what happened 13.8 billion years ago or something like that. Mark: Right. Right. And we use. We often have used the cultural narratives that dominate our societies, especially in the past. You know, the Newtonian physics, for example. The kind of clockwork universe of everything, you know, working in, you know, neatly meshing little systems that all follow these laws. And a lot of that was true and useful. But it turns out it was a little more complicated than. Yucca: And we do that today when we talk about how our brains are wired, right? We talk about them as, and we talk about long-term short-term memory. You know, we talk about things as if they're computers now. So, and we're just taking those that. Narrative and, and applying it in a way that is useful. But as you're saying, it may not be completely accurate, but it serves the purpose. And we do that with you wanna describe the motion of a ball through the air? Well, you're never gonna be able to actually perfectly describe it, but you can get close enough and that still serves a purpose, Mark: right. A model is a story. Ultimately, a model is a, a narration of. Activity over time, which is what a story is. And so, you know, we, when, when we're talking about what we believe to be true, we use stories that are supported by evidence. But when we're talking about expressing our inner realities, our inner self, our personalities, When we're talking about developing culture or artistic expression, or working with our psychology to transform ourselves in some way, whether it's to transform our emotions or to heal our wounds, or to, you know, do any of those powerful things, the world of imagination and storytelling becomes this powerful. Built-in system that is encoded into the way our human organisms are constructed that we can use to powerful effect. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And that's what we believe as naturalistic pagans right now. It's a little bit different in the mainstream pagan community where all that stuff may be tossed together and you have people that believe that they're elves. There's a lot of wishful think. In the mainstream pagan community, people who believe in things because they really want them to be true, which isn't a criterion that naturalistic pagans use for determining what we believe to be true. Yucca: Right. Mark: and I mean, there's pros and cons to that. I mean, there's, there can certainly be a lot of wonder and magic and enchantment and. You know, fascination about believing in, you know, that kind of fantasy stuff. But I've also seen people really get on the wrong side of it with a lot of fear and paranoia about, you know, hexes and psychic attacks and stuff like that, that they need to do wards against. And, you know, it creates anxiety at the least. And I've seen that actually cross over into real paranoia. You know, kind of textbook paranoia, including the the delusions of grandeur of thinking that somebody, that you're so important that somebody's gonna go to the trouble to try to hex you . But you know, if that's the world people wanna live in and that's, that's the way they decide that they want to navigate their life, then great. More power to. It's just not the way we do it. Yucca: Sounds exhausting to me. Person. Mark: Yeah, so much. So much uncertainty. So much. Always, you know, there, there could always be something mysterious out there that's about to get ya. I, I wouldn't wanna live that way myself. So talking about imagination and we, we implement imagination in our rituals. Many of our rituals are, are keyed to stories, right? Like a healing ritual. Okay? This thing happened to me. I'm wounded by it. Or it embedded something in me. Right. You know, faith healers do that whole thing about removing things from the body. Or traditional indigenous practitioners sometimes will remove darts or other sort of spirit things from the body in order to take the harm away from the patient. Right. Yucca: Right. We can I share real quick an example of one that we did last night? We so we have a wood stove and we still chilly enough that we're using it. And so we took the log that was gonna go in and spat on it. So there was a particular emotion that we were trying to like release, and so we spat on it. So it was something physically, visually coming from our body, and then we wrote on the wood what it was and put it into the fire. So that we could transform that into the heat that was going to support the family and take care of us during the winter. Right. And that was our story of we're taking this thing out of our body, putting it in and using it and transforming it into something else, Mark: Sure, and and I would imagine that that felt great that it worked, Yucca: At least for my part, I feel pretty good about it. ? Yeah. Mark: Whereas if you are like, you know, an atheist coming brand new into our community, you might look at that and go, wow, that's super weird. Yucca: Oh yeah. Go spit on some firewood. What are you doing Mark: What are you doing? But the answer is what you're doing is you're working with your consciousness, you know, and. You know, our consciousness works very well with metaphors and similes. It works very well with the concept of correspondences where, okay, I am going to establish a connection between myself and this piece of firewood by expelling something from myself that is inherent, that is of my body onto this firewood, which means that now we're connected, right? And I'm gonna write a purpose, a goal, an outcome on the firewood. We're gonna put it in the fire to undergo a transformational process, which will radiate energy that I can feel, and that's going to cause a transformation in my psychology. That is actually a pretty logical story. It doesn't have evidential support in the way. You know, the story of general Relativity has evidential support, but it has a coherence which can totally work with our, with, with the human mind. That makes a lot of sense to me. Yucca: Yeah, you just accept your certain premises and then it all logically makes sense from. Mark: mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , and that's what we, oh, go ahead. Yucca: what we do. Like when we watch a movie you were talking about earlier, we sit down to watch that movie. We go, okay, this is a movie in which there are dragons and magic, and there's the like, and we accept that there are dragons and therefore if there are dragons, oh well it would make sense that people would ride on their backs or whatever happens, right? We just, it all makes sense based on those starting assumptions. But we're gonna make up some, we're gonna. In that case, I decided to imagine that there was a connection between me and that wood. Right. And I, there was a conscious choice to imagine that, but it still worked to imagine it. It still had the impact. Right. Even though, okay. Yeah. Literal there. I'm not literally putting an emotion. An emotion isn't a thing that you can put on a piece of wood. Mark: No, an emotion is, but an emotion is a psychological process. And psychological processes are real. They aren't real the way rocks are real, but they're real within the, the ongoing network of activity that's happening in our brains. Right. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And. You know, this may be a whole other episode about what do we mean when we talk about what's real, right? Because the imagined has a reality to it. It's just not, it, it's a, it's a belief reality rather than a factual reality that's there, there's a difference there. You know what I say to folks that are new to the podcast or new to our communities who are coming from atheistic scientific backgrounds you know, rational evidence-based perspectives on the world. This is, this is the tricky, well, there are two things. There's, there are two, there are two tricky parts to get your mind around. The first one. That the use of these imagination tools can have real world impacts for yourself and your life. The second is getting comfortable with using them, because typically what happens is there's a critic voice in your head, which begins to yammer about how stupid it all is, and it really undermines. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Your your confidence in using these tools at first, but that voice can be worked with. We, we did an episode a while back on the critic voice that I really encourage people to go listen to. Yucca: We'll link that in the notes as well. Mark: Great, great. And over time and with experience, you will find that that voice fades and you become. Much more confident as a practitioner, as a magician, as a, whatever you want to call it. As someone who uses these psychological tools to benefit themselves and to benefit others. Yucca: Yeah. Frankly, I think that's pretty inspiring. I think that's a pretty kind of hopeful way of approaching. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, as when I, when I stepped away from the Pagan community, after I had some really bad experiences it wasn't very long before I started realizing how impoverished my life had become because it lost all that inspiring stuff. It all of that, all of those practices, all of those rituals, all of those. School witchy things, all of those psychological helps to myself had been removed and they, and they'd not only been removed from me, but they'd been removed from people that I used to do stuff with as well. So, it was good to realize that, that none of that was necessary. It was just a matter of kind of figuring out what your terms are. Yucca: When you say none of that, you're referring to the Mark: to the departure. Yucca: okay. Mark: Yeah, the, none of, none of that. Leaving it all behind was necessary. I had, I had thrown the baby out with the bathwater and what I needed to do was to go and recover the baby and, you know, dry off the bathwater, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, do we want to give some more examples of kind of differences between the, the imaginal and the Yucca: Yeah. Well, I think, I mean when we talk about ritual, that's what we're doing. We're imagining, Mark: mm-hmm. Yucca: right? But what about, are there some places outside of ritual that you think that is helpful in. Mark: I think there are lots of little techniques that people use that are kind of like mini rituals. You know, they may not go through a set of formal steps, but certainly affirmations, you know, those just, just simple messaging to yourself in encouraging ways. You know, whether it's before, like I have a job interview next week, I have two job interviews next week, in fact, and, you know, I will kind of psych myself up you know, before those meetings. You know, I'm competent. I know what I'm doing, I'm likable, I'm happy. I'm you know, those things that will make me appealing as a job prospect. As a job candidate. I think there are lots of things that people do that are small that give them benefit. In my initial essay, I write about athletes with Lucky Jerseys or. Yucca: TED bands or whatever. Mark: Shoes or you know, a lucky way to tie their shoe laces or, you know, whatever those things are. And you can look at that, you know, from a strictly dry scientific standpoint and say, well that doesn't make any sense. You know, the way you tie your shoes is gonna make you run any faster. But studies, numerous studies have shown, actually it. Because it increases your level of confidence in your capacity Yucca: Right. Mark: and confidence is such a huge arbiter of success or failure. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: when you're talking about fractions of a second in speed, making the difference between somebody qualifying for the Olympics or not, every little bit matters. Yucca: Yeah. Every fraction of a second. Cause that adds up. Mm. Mark: So, yeah, I, I think there's lots of things that people do and they don't even really realize. Many of them don't even really realize that what they're doing is a, a use of imagination in order to give themselves a boost. Yucca: Hmm. There's another one that I thought of while you were talking about that, and that's daydreaming. That's something that I think most of us do. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Some more to other than others, but that, that we're imagining, we're telling stories in our head, and I know for me that the, what narratives I'm telling when I'm daydreaming have a big impact on how I feel throughout the day. Right. If I do a day, if I'm daydreaming and I'm, you know, kind of doing it, something that's like an argument or a conflict or daydreaming about, you know, how am I gonna handle some disaster or something, I don't. Feel the same as when I'm daydreaming about something that feels a little bit more empowering or in which I'm behaving in my daydream in a, in a the way that I want to be. And so there is a lot of influence we have in directing those daydreams to influence what it just feels like to be us as we're going through our day. Mark: For sure. That's a great example. And actually, regular dreams, while sleeping can be very similar. I mean, how many times do we wake up feeling sad or anxious or happy or, you know, just depending on what the, Yucca: What the dream Mark: what the dream was. Yeah.  Yucca: That's a topic we should do soon. I don't think we've ever done a Mark: When I'm dreaming. No, we haven't. We Yucca: really do that. Mark: We should. Yeah. Yeah, let's, let's write that down somewhere. Yucca: Yeah. I think I could just cut you off there. What were you saying? Mark: oh, I, I don't know. Nothing important. The, I think that this topic right here, About differentiating between the imaginal and the literal and being able to walk the line that incorporates both so that your feet are on the ground in a realistic manner, and you're not spinning off into fantasies about stuff that may not exist, but at the same time plunging ourselves into the imaginal within. Within a container that we choose to make changes and improve the quality of our lives. This is really the central operating principle of naturalistic paganism more, more than anything else, I think. Even reverence for the earth. I mean, reverence for the Earth is what makes us pagan as opposed to say Buddhist, you know, working with our psychology. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: But what differentiates us from mainstream paganism is this, I would say, Yucca: Yeah. I see. It's a lot to think about Mark: It is, it is. I, I was talking about this before we started recording. I wrote a blog post about cursing in hexes this last month, which you can find at atheopagan dot org. Yucca: Mm-hmm. , we talked a little bit about it last episode too. Mark: We did. Yeah. I, I think that's what inspired me to write the blog post. But this, this whole question of the imaginary versus the literal and factual comes up again and again and again. And it's definitely the friction point between, you know, literal theists and naturalists. And I think that some of that may have to do with some degree of misunderstanding about what the naturalistic position really is. It's not that we're discounting all of those experiences. Those experiences are really valuable. It's just that we're not, we're not populating our cosmology with these. Figures that appear to arise from the imagination. Yucca: Right. We're, we're framing our understanding of it in a very different way. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Yep. Mark: So I encourage our listeners to kind of kick this around in your own heads and, you know, where, where does imagination play a role in your practice, in your. Kind of day-to-day operations. And where, where does a more evidence-based approach figure? The, because I think coming to be comfortable with this idea of kind of code switching between, between, you know, the world of imagination and fantasy and storytelling and. Metaphor and symbol and myth, all of that incredibly rich, multiple worlds of amazing stuff, and yet remaining tethered to the ground in a, in a factual and evidentiary based way. It. That's really kind of the core of the art in the naturalistic world, I think. Yucca: Yeah. Well this has been a really interesting one. Thanks, mark. Mark: Yeah. Thank you, Yucca. I think it's interesting too, and the, the more I think about it, the more interesting it gets . I, I love talking about this kind of thing, so thank you. Yucca: Yeah, and we really appreciate all of you being here with us, and look forward to seeing you next week. Mark: Yeah. Remember, you can always reach us at The Wonder Podcast Qs or the Wonder Podcast queues short for questions@gmail.com. Yucca: Okay, see you next Mark: you next week.      

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E9 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 it's time to talk about the Equinox.  Mark: Yes, we have arrived.  Yucca: Yep. So I think a good place to start is of course, well, what is this Equinox thing  Mark: right? Yeah, well, the, the, the, the Latin roots of the word of course mean equal night which implies what it is, which is that at the equator anyway. Mm-hmm. , the days and the nights are equal, equal in length. They're both 12 hours long. Now, as you get further up in the latitudes, that changes a little bit, but by and large, the days are roughly the same length as the nights. Right at this point in the year. Yeah.  Yucca: And for both of us, we're in the Northern Hemisphere. Mm-hmm. . So this is going into the spring for us. And on the calendars, the Equinox marks the first day of spring. . However, that's gonna really depend on your climate as to whether it's actually spring or not, right? So for you, it is, right? It's been  Mark: spring. It's been spring for a while. All the fruit trees are blooming. The early wildflowers are up. The hills are all green. The creeks are all roaring with water because we've. Big banner, year for rain here in California, thankfully. Mm-hmm. . So yes, spring has been here for a while, and the February holiday, which has many names that I call River Rain really was a rain holiday this year. So that was the beginning of our spring, right? This is the height of spring for us. But for you,  Yucca: It's, it's the time of year where it can't quite make up its mind, whether it's spring or winter, it feels like spring. Some of the time the, the bird songs have come, the spring bird songs are here, and that's what makes it really feel like spring, but, We won't have in terms of plant growth and things like that, that won't, we're still a ways out for that. We won't be getting flowers. A few of. There aren't many deciduous trees here. A few of them you can start to see just the tiniest hints of maybe they're starting to wake up, make some little mm-hmm. thinking about moving in that direction. But it, it won't be past until past Beltane that we stop freezing every night. Mm-hmm. it won't be till mid May. Really? Yeah. But it, it's feeling like spring is gonna be, . It's like we're almost there. There's more light. There's the birds starting to sing. The, the males are getting their colors back. Mm-hmm. , right? The ones that stay here in the winter of the, the songbirds that get very muted and dull in the winter. which I think is a, just a way of protecting themselves. Sure. They don't, they're not needing to be mating, so it's better to blend in and be a little bit less visible to those coyotes and  Mark: fox. You don't wanna be dancing around wearing red feathers on top of snow. That's a bad strategy. Yeah. .  Yucca: So, but it, it definitely is starting to. like spring is coming, but it's not quite there. Mm-hmm. . So  Mark: do you have the smell of spring yet? Yucca: You know, spring doesn't have a really distinctive smell to me. Ah. Like it, there definitely are smells that are springy, but it's not like, you know, here we have like a very monsoon smell and there's a definitely a smell for winter, but, I don't think so. Not really.  Mark: Well here we have a lot of flowering trees and the chairing blossoms and the apple blossoms and things like that. , they have a smell. Mm-hmm. and there's, so there's a particular distinctive and also a lot of people plant ornamentals like jasmine and things like that around here. So they're these really perfumey beautiful kind of spring. I  Yucca: love the smell of jasmine.  Mark: Yeah. It's So we have. You know, when you start to catch that perfume on the air, you realize, okay, you know, the, the year has started. We are, we're definitely in the active cycle now of, of things going again. So why don't we talk a little bit about what the Equinox means to us, what we call it, what we associate with it? Mm-hmm. .  Yucca: Well, I usually use. Spring Equinox or first spring. And for us it's a time where there's, there's those themes of beginning and, and you know, new planting, although a lot of the planting won't come till later. But some of the things will, will start planting, you know, if, if you want any tomatoes, they actually had to have been plant a couple weeks ago, frankly, to get them to really be ready. But this is a time that we. Often celebrate the birds because the birds are coming back. This is when the chickens, they lay some in the winter, but really it's not until the light starts to come back that they start laying again as much. And it's a really a celebration of those of the birds and egg layers and, and things like that. Hmm.  Mark: Yeah. Nice. For me, it's it's about new beginnings and starting to move again. , you know, the, the earlier holidays in the year have been very much about sort of dreaming and planning and imagining, but now is when we start to actually take action. Mm-hmm. , I mean, it's pouring down rain where I am right now, but you know, generally you, you, you can go outside now and have a pretty good chance of not getting rained on. And The, the soil is all wet, so it's easy to dig and, you know, for gardens and agriculture and things like that, it's just a time to get going. But I also associate this time with the, the passage of the year from the dark half of the year into the light half of the year. Mm-hmm. . And so this transition point becomes the moment of balance. The point of balance, and one thing that I do on the equinoxes is think about the balances in my life. not necessarily to make any changes in them, but just to kind of check in and see what I think about them. Mm-hmm. , how's my work life balance? How's my relationship, personal time, balance, you know, those sorts of things. And if I discover that there's something I'm unsatisfied with, then I take action to make something different. Mm-hmm. .  Yucca: Yeah. That's beautiful. I think that's a really important thing that. for all times of the year, right. To be thinking about balance. Mm-hmm. . But I think it's helpful to have a specific time in which each that is dedicated to that, that's really about focusing on that. And I think that's the case with many of the things that we celebrate throughout the Wheel of the year. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, that's one of the things that really attracted me to Paganism when I first got into it, is, okay, there's a moment for. Morning and grief. There's a moment, you know, for contemplating our mortality. There's a, a moment for celebrating sexuality. There's a moment for contemp as I celebrate it for celebrating children and celebrating older people and, you know, for celebrating decomposition and, you know, all the creatures that do that for us. To me, , that's just such a reality based kind of a spiritual practice, right? Having that time in the year and Paganism isn't, isn't alone in that. I mean, one of the things that Paganism doesn't have the Judaism has, for example, is a Day of atonement. Mm-hmm. , where, you know, basically you're gonna try to square the accounts with everybody who you feel like you may have wronged. And I can see a value in that. It hasn't really plugged into my wheel of the year, but I can see a value in it. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, I mean, I associate this time of year with a lot of the sort of traditional seasonal symbols like flowers and birds and eggs, colored eggs. Mm-hmm. , you know, those sorts of things. But the deep meanings of it are, Moving into action, new beginnings, new hope, really, because, you know, there's that, that aspiration quality to starting a new cycle, right? You know, may maybe the crop will be really, really rich and we'll just have a great time next winter, right? And so I like doing those things like dying eggs and, you know, all. kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. . I do associate this time of year as the children's holiday. Mm-hmm. , not little kids. Infants and toddlers are more like the February holiday sort of thing, but grade school kids. , you know, up to age 10, 11, something like that. Right.  Yucca: Like, like children before, not teenagers yet, right? Not toddlers. There's really that, that time period that we think of as childhood.  Mark: Yes, yes. And so I think of this time as the time to celebrate those members of the community and also a time to let down our. Dignity and stiffness and play like a child, right? Play childlike games dance and sing , stuff like that. It's good for you,  Yucca: I think it is. Yep. I like that. You have a moment in the year that is to connect with that and to focus on that. .  Mark: I won't claim that I'm super good at it because, you know, I tend to live in my head and my childhood was pretty unhappy, so I never really learned how to be a kid very well, but I'm trying to catch up. Yucca: Hmm. . Yeah. We have, well, my life has little kids in it, so every day. Mm-hmm. every day is little kids day. Right. But we'll see as, as they grow. If that's something that we start to incorporate into this time of the year. Mm-hmm. . But for now, shoots and ladders is a weekly, is a weekly experience. Right. , and Candy Land more often. Uhhuh, . So  Mark: yeah. Yeah. Those are actually the games that I own for playing at this time of year. Yep. And you. It's been a few years now because of Covid and other things, but when I've held gatherings around these themes and to play these games with adults, you would be amazed at how cutthroat adults can get at shoots and ladders. I mean, Candyland is fully randomized, so. There's, there's no strategy involved, but shoots and ladders. Boy, . .  Yucca: Yeah. Hmm.  Mark: So, Yucca, what kinds of ritual things do you do at this time of year?  Yucca: Yeah, so for the holidays, . So I have a mixture of what do I do as my individual self and what do I do as the, my part is the family, right? Mm-hmm. , because a lot of my role there is, you know, guiding these young people and their experience and taking care of them on that. So I, I make a point for the holidays to take some time for myself to. Reflection and, and that sort of thing. And kind of just a, a private ritual. But I don't have any, it, it's anything that's really settled in for me of this is what I do every year the way I do for mm-hmm. like hollows or something like that. But this is a, just a very busy time of year for. When we're doing a lot of, of beginnings things like getting the seeds in the ground or swapping out the positions for, so we're on solar panels, so we have to go up and change the position of the panels and roll out the shade protection and you, you know, take down all of these different things. We just make a point of being very mindful in doing those things, even though it's a busy time of year. Mm-hmm. , it's a, Hey, this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it, and. taking moments to notice mm-hmm. , even in the busyness of it. And that's, that's a big part of what we're doing. And I think that that's something that we're always doing all year round, but it feels different now because it's a different time of the year and there's, there's an excitement element to it. Mm-hmm. , which is something that I just notice about this time of year because there's so much that has been being planned. and now we can actually start doing a lot of those things. Or at least we're close to being able to do a lot of those things. Right.  Mark: The warm weather is coming. It's obvious that it's on its way. Yeah. So you can start to anticipate things you can do in the summer. Right.  Yucca: Stuff like that. And there's things that I can go outside and do with just a sweater on. In some of the warm day because we really, we'll go back and forth in this time of year between, we'll have days that are in the thirties and then we'll have days in the fifties. Mm-hmm. . Right. And so if we're in the fifties after a long winter, it's like, oh yeah, this is, this is summer. Mm-hmm. , you know, it's take all, everything off. But it just is so much easier to, to work outside, even if. Even if it's still a little bit chilly, it's. Feels very different than in the dead of winter. So back in February, February and in January just absolutely bitter for us. Sure, sure. Just so, so bitter and now it's like, okay, no, I can, I can do stuff and you know, I can, the ground isn't totally solid. Yeah,  Mark: it's so hard. It's always hard and the sun isn't so weak. Yeah. I mean, to me that's the big thing about December, January is it's like the sun is so long and even when you're sitting in it in full sun, it's just this, this very mild sort of beat on your skin. Whereas where you are in New Mexico in the summertime, it's like a hammer on your head. Step outside in August, it's like, boom, you've been hit by something.  Yucca: We get our, our temperatures are still quite mild because we're so high. I'm at 7,000 feet Uhhuh . But the UV is intense. Yeah, right. The sun is really, really intense because there's, you know, that's seven, that's 7,000 feet of atmosphere that's not there protecting you. Right. So it's very, yeah. We can be out in the middle of the day where in the summer, You know, just don't be out in the middle of the day, even if it's only 85 or 90 degrees. Just don't be, be inside, wait until the morning or evening.  Mark: Yeah. You're, you're below what I call the siesta line . Yeah. Which extends all the way around the world actually, of, you know, when you get to a certain point of that intensity of the sun, it's like, no, from two o'clock to about six o'clock, we're just gonna take a break. Yeah. We'll come back at it later on.  Yucca: Exactly. And so, you know, there's just that excitement of going into that time of year mm-hmm. , because in the winter it's really flipped. Right? We wanna do the most that we can in that time, um mm-hmm. , so it's almost like, it, it always feels like this little puzzle piece that fits together, the winter and the summer. And this is, this is the beginning of the. of the light time of the year, of the bright time of the year. Mm-hmm. . So,  Mark: you know, it hadn't occurred to me before, but another thing that would, as you talk about that, a natural theme that comes up for this time of year for both of the Equinox is this integration. Mm-hmm. , you know, the putting together of pieces in your life which is different from balance. You know, balance, you tend to have things that are relatively separate qualities. They have boundaries between them and you sort of adjust how much energy you're putting into one or another. Whereas integration, I mean, that can be all right. I'm trying to bring my. internal field of study, more into conversations with my friends. Mm-hmm. , or I want to bring these two social circles together and see how they mesh. Or I want to  Yucca: practice a daily life. Yes.  Mark: Right? Yes. Yeah. So I, that just occurred to me, and I don't know, . I think there's something in that. I'll have to think about it more.  Yucca: Yeah. So what about you for this time of year? Do you have particular rituals or practices that you like to do?  Mark: Well, other than, you know, the childlike games, I do like to dye eggs. Mm-hmm. , I just, that's a really, really old tradition that extends across continental Europe. I don't think it ever got to. The British Isles or Ireland? I don't think you  Yucca: know, I don't know one way or the other, I just kind of always assumed it did. But I've never looked into that.  Mark: Maybe , but I know, I mean, the, the folks in Ukraine, you know, the, the, they have the funky eggs. Mm-hmm. that they do with that lost wax process are just magnificent. I have a goose egg from Ukraine that's decorated that way and it's just beautiful. Mm-hmm. . But you know, this is the time when a lot of birds are laying eggs. And so, that was the first high concentration. protein source for people after a long winter for many centuries. So eggs were a pretty exciting prospect. Yucca: Yeah. Oh, eggs are, eggs are wonderful. They're, they're one of my favorites. Mm-hmm. , I really like eggs. Yeah. Yeah.  Mark: The, so I, I like to dye eggs. Mm-hmm. , and. . I don't know. I've done different things in different years. What I would prefer to do, my idealized celebration is to get together with friends who have children mm-hmm. you know, of, of those ages and just kind of build the day around them, play around them, make raspberry lemonade and other sort of non-alcoholic stuff for us to drink and. and just celebrate the season in that childlike, playful manner. Mm-hmm. , I've been able to pull that off a couple of times, but now in post covid, not recently. Right.  Yucca: Well, as you were mentioning the eggs, it, I thought to bring up the Easter connection. Oh, mm-hmm. . So for us, I. I don't really think about the Equinox and Easter together. Like some of the other holidays are a little bit more closely tied, like, solstice and Christmas. Mm-hmm. right. Or Hollows and Halloween, but Easter. So we don't usually dye eggs for the Equinox, but the kids will go to their grandmother's for Easter and then their other grandmother for Passover. So those, like, they happen at a similar time of the year, but because those are Looney Solar, , they move around. Mm-hmm. . Right? So it's not like it's right on the same day or right next, you know, the day next to it or something like that. Right. And then we don't use the name O or what are some of the other, there's some other ones that are very similar sounding.  Mark: Well, there's one that's Ester, which was the Greek goddess of the dawn. Right. And all of. as far as I can tell, all of that stuff about o leading to Easter and all this. As far as I can tell, it's modern and apocryphal. Mm-hmm. , I don't think any of it is really rooted in actual history. Mm-hmm. , but it doesn't really matter to me because not having kids I can get away with simply not paying attention to Easter at all. Yeah, it's just, I mean, usually I don't even remember that it's Easter weekend. I'm just not aware of it in the  Yucca: least. Well, and honestly, I don't either. they just go with their dad to their grandmas and then they come back sugared up. And I do, actually, I mentioned this on the round table that will be published soon as. So on the YouTube channel, oh, we did a round table. Yeah. Yeah. Just a tip for any parents out there, one of the things that we have started doing is to cut back on the just enormous amount of candy that is associated with that holiday. We're putting Legos inside of some of the Easter eggs so that they still get some candy so that they don't feel left out, but they're also not getting. You know, a year's worth of candy in one day. And then they still get the cool thing as they get the Legos that they can put together and then that lasts them longer anyway. Still have the Legos for years. Whereas the candy, they'll just eat and feel sick. Right. Right. So that's just a little, the little tip for that. Yeah,  Mark: it's a good idea. But that, you mean, you mean inside the plastic?  Yucca: Inside the plastic eggs, yeah. Yeah. So they'll, they'll die a few and, and paint them hard boiled eggs. Mm-hmm. , but. Then they'll also find some plastic eggs that, you know, we've saved the same little plastic eggs for every year. They've had the same, the same little plastic eggs that have survived since their dad was a kid in the eighties. You know, so  Mark: Well. That's good. They're not in the landfill. That's, yeah, that's  Yucca: important. I mean, they, they will be eventually one day. That's what happens to, of course, plastic. But yeah. Yeah. So there's, it's one of those holidays that is close enough to one of the the secular or Christian holidays. Christian holidays, yeah. Whereas other ones that we talk about sometimes, you know, there's not, like in August, there's not really a holiday that. ties in very well.  Mark: Not when the, the, the Catholics observe llamas. Mm-hmm. . And that's a, that's a thing if you're an actively practicing Catholic. But  Yucca: well, depends on how, how, how actively practicing. Yeah. I suppose that's, it's different like levels of being a, of how involved you are with those holidays as a Catholic. Yeah. Yeah, because I come from, my community is very Catholic and that's, , that's not one of the ones. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that they say something about it at Mass, but you know, that's not really what happens in the community. So.  Mark: Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine there being a whole lot of hoop law at the beginning of August in New Mexico anyway, because it's.  Yucca: Well, we, we are in monsoons at that point. Oh, that's true. Right. But that's not like the start of monsoons. It's a, again, it's a, my part is because New Mexico is huge, one has to remember That's true. There's, it's, if you're up in the high desert where I am versus the low desert, and then whether you, which, you know, side of the state you're on is very, very different. Mm-hmm. . But it, it's, and I guess maybe it's just what you're used to, like, I don't think it's a very big deal. I guess if someone came to visit from one of the coasts, they might feel like it's particularly hot.  Mark: Well it depends. I mean, last summer we had a week where the daily temperature averaged something like 97 degrees. Mm-hmm. and that included a couple of days that were over 110.  Yucca: Yeah. I can't remember a single time that my regions. Temperature down south. Neither can we, like that's a, a few times a year we, we go over a hundred, but that's it. Oh, I see. And it will be in, it will be in August. But again, it's just because we're so high up. Right, right. I mean, we're higher, we're significantly higher than Denver, so. Mm-hmm. .  Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. In any case talking, we'll, we'll talk about the August before we know it. Yes, before we know it, we will be talking about the dimming holiday or summers waning or lusa or whatever you want to call it. But for now it's the Spring Equinox coming right up. And we hope that you have gotten useful ideas out of our conversation here about this. . It is a very meaningful time and I've been to some very beautiful gatherings that have happened for this holiday in the past. It snowed one year. Mm-hmm. , you know, it has often rained . This is in the mountains of Mendocino County, north of where I am. But we've always had a really joyous get together. . And I hope that our listeners do too, whether it's solitary or something that you do with your family and friends.  Yucca: Yep. And thanks for taking the time to join us here today. And. , we really appreciate, appreciate all of you. We  Mark: do check out that round table on the u the YouTube channel. We're now posting stuff to the YouTube channel every week, and there's new stuff happening also last week. , I mentioned that it would've been great if we were able to have more presence on Instagram. And two very wonderful, very qualified people immediately emailed me and said, Hey, I would like to do that. Yeah. So,  Yucca: It's Fanta it was amazing.  Mark: It, it was, we are so psyched about this ,  Yucca: And within hours of each other, It was like, right? Oh yeah.  Mark: It was boom. It was instantaneous. Yeah. So thank you to Tazi and Zoe for your your volunteering to do that and check out the atheopagan Instagram account. We're we're posting stuff again. Yep.  Yucca: All right. So thanks everybody. Thank you,  Mark: mark. Thank you Yucca. We'll see you next week.    

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.    

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E3 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 going to talk about practices and developing a practice carrying one on keeping one fresh and alive. All those things about having a personal. Yucca: right. And we hope that there'll be a lot of useful ideas and information for people who are just starting, but also for people who have had a practice and are looking for ways to. Continue to develop that or kind of stay in the habit of it. Mark: Right, because a practice is a wonderful thing to have, and it can also, if you're doing the same thing for months or years on end, you can also start. To feel a little routine, a little stale. And there are things you can do to sort of blow yourself out of that normality, get out of the rut, and try some new things that can incorporate into your practice in really enlivening waves. So that's part of what we're gonna talk about at the end of the program. But at first, let's start talking about developing a pro a a practice. When you're first starting. Yucca: right. Mark: When you come to Athe paganism or naturalistic paganism in some kind of sense, and you're like, okay, this cosmology totally works for me, right? I'm a science-based person, I'm a reason based person. You know, this evidence-based approach to spirituality, you know, really rings my bell. So now what do I do about that? Well, okay, I'm gonna celebrate these stations of holidays around the course of the year. That's great, right? That will help you to plug into the cycles of nature. And that's really what we're about, is about having a deep relationship with nature. Understanding ourselves as organisms that are a part of nature. That's a great thing, but what about day-to-day? , you know, the, the Sabbaths are seven, eight weeks apart, right? It's, it's, and at least for me, it's not enough to say, okay, every seven or eight weeks, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna pay attention to Nature I, I need more than that. So, Many people have a daily practice, or in some cases a monthly practice that's organized around the cycles of the moon. Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Right. So I think that a, a really good place to start, and this is whether you're coming in fresh or have had a practice for a while, is to really do some. Some reflecting upon what, why? Why do you want this practice? What, what is meaningful to you? What are your goals? What are you hoping to accomplish? Because it really is about what you are trying to get out of it, right? We don't have any Gods looking down on us who want us to perform this special thing at this special time. It's no what? What is it for you? Why are you doing it for you? And that could be a lot of different things and it's gonna be different for it's different for Mark and for me and for you. And it's gonna be different at different points in our own lives. Mark: for sure, because maybe your primary focus is your family unit, right? Maybe what you're trying to do is to create culture and and values for your family, and so demonstrating those and creating experiences that reinforce them. is sort of the centerpiece, the, the core ethic of what you're seeking to accomplish. That's great. Right. But that's gonna be a practice that's about finding the right childhood stories, right, and creating the kinds of household observances that give you and your children and partners Yucca: household members, whoever they are. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, the, the kind of experience that reinforces the values and, and cosmology that you find really meaningful. So all of that is great. But in, on the other hand, you may be a solitary person. You may either be a solo person or someone who is partnered with someone that isn't interested in your path, and so you're doing this yourself and you're trying to find, how do I do this in a way that continually fuels that sense of meaning Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: that I'm getting out of this. Practice of being an atheopagan or a naturalistic pagan and some of that may be okay. I'm engaging with people in the online communities. I am reading stuff that's being distributed by. The atheopagan Society or you know, various science writers or all that kind of stuff. But it can also be how am I gonna challenge myself to jump over some things that feel like hurdles for me? Yucca: Hmm. Mark: How am I gonna make myself bigger? How am I gonna stretch? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Because one of the things that we're really about as atheopagan or naturalistic pagans is the, the affirmation of the self, right? Yucca: right. Mark: We're, we're not about telling you that you've got original sin and you're small and need to be fixed. , our ethic is entirely different. It's about you are glorious and golden and we want you to bring the you that is you out into the world with as much visibility and vigor as you possibly can. And that's a radically different way of approaching things than the over culture wants you to approach them with. But at the same time, , it's much healthier. Yucca: right. and your practice is also a way that you can build in health into your life, right? That self care, that and, and thinking about how it feels to be you every day so it's really an opportunity for you to, to look at how you want to feel each day or each week or through the seasons, and to work towards that. It's a tool for you to be able to feel the way and experience, have the type of experiences you want in your life. Mark: yes. Yes. We have to remember that unlike many other religious paths, the point of our practice is happiness and self-actualization and to help make the world a better place. It's not about serving the edicts of some other power or some list of rules or any of. . So it's important in building your personal individual daily or weekly or monthly or whatever it is, practice that you keep that in mind. How is this helping me to be happy? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: How is this bringing more meaning into my life when I light those candles on my focus every night? Why do I do that? I don't do it just because it's a habit. I do it because it's meaningful to me, and the things that I say at that moment are moving to me, even though I see them every night. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And if that starts to get really dry or routines such that I lose the magic of it, magic in quotes, right? Then it's time for me to make some changes. It's time for me to figure out how can I make this practice feel like I'm pushing the edge. Yucca: right? Yeah. So why don't we talk about a few things that, that people might consider after sitting down. And really thinking about what it is that they want to achieve with their practice. And last week we were talking quite a bit about the Wheel of the Year, and that's a great place to start, right? With a, with a seasonal a seasonal regional approach. But what about a weekly or daily kind of practice? Mark: Yeah, the thing about the wheel of the year is that it happens pretty slowly and so, and it can take you a year of observing what's happening in nature around you at every given station of the Wheel of the year in order to get a good grip on, here's what I'm gonna celebrate as we go around, right? A year or more, maybe more cycles than that. But what you can do immediately is you can start doing a weekly practice or a daily practice, or if you like, you can follow the moon cycles and do like a monthly practice Yucca: or all of those, Mark: or, or all of those. I mean, if you're really gung-ho and you wanna do lots of ritual practices, then you know, by all means, it's, it's available to you and you're free to do it, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's good for you. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So when it comes to a daily practice, what I think about is what's gonna help me feel better connected. Yucca: Mm. Mark: You know, what I really want is to feel like I'm connected to nature and to this vast cosmos that gave rise to us. I want to, I want to acknowledge that on a daily basis. And so that's what I. that's what I do. And I also want to acknowledge what has gone before because I feel like, you know, if what had gone before hadn't gone before, I wouldn't be here. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So there's Yucca: tiniest little difference and he wouldn't be here and it's so many places. Yeah. Mark: absolutely. So there, there are so many reasons why. I mean, many of us, if not all of us, practicing this path have a lot of data in our heads about evolution and fossils and the progression of animal development over time. You know it, and maybe further back, further back into, you know, the earliest microorganisms all. Understanding of evolution and the development of the planet and the development of the sun and all those things. How do I make that personal to me in this moment? Because yes, it's history, but it's still going on right now, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: The, the, the burning of the sun is happening right now. The evolution of the earth is happening right now, and I am a piece. Yucca: right? Mark: So thinking about how you can develop a practice that acknowledges that somehow is something that's really valuable. And I can't understate the significance of lighting candles. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, it seems, it seems very ordinary because you know, every church you go to, they like candles. Well, why do they do? Yucca: there's a reason for it. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. There is a reason for it, and the reasons to my mind are threefold. The first is there is a magic to creating fire out of nothing. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You got this match, you got this candle. They're both these cold inanimate objects, but then suddenly there's. And that creates light and heat. It's, it's a, it's an inherently mysterious and incredible experience for us. Right. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So that's the first piece. The second piece is that we, Resonate psychologically to low light conditions, especially flickering low light conditions. This is why every bar you go into has low light conditions. Every dance club you go into has low light conditions because they understand that people will feel more free and liberated if they don't feel like they're being stared at, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and bright light makes them feel like they're being stared. So those are two of the big pieces. And then the third is that there's something about the ignition of fire on a focus or altar of symbolic objects that feels like bringing it to life. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And that sounds very woo and okay. but it feels like bringing it to life, it feels like, okay, these were, these were sedentary inanimate objects sitting on a shelf, but now there is a living process happening in the middle of them, right? Yucca: Hmm. Mark: That is shedding light and heat, and is also making all of those objects somehow engaged in an active process. And I think that all three of those things together really contribute to a personal practice. To a daily practice. And there's something very significant about taking that moment, you know, listening to your deeper longing. and saying, okay, you know, we're doing our evening thing. There's kids, there's there's movies to watch, there's dinner, there's all that kind of stuff. But I need 15 minutes to myself. I'm gonna light these candles and I'm gonna sit in near darkness, I'm gonna contemplate the fact that I'm alive. I'm alive and I'm here and it's rare and it's special and it's unique. There will never be another person and never be another organism like me. I'm this unique manifestation of the universe living a life, a temporary, small life, and I'm gonna seize this 15 minutes to really get. that's what I do with my daily practice. That that's, that's the difference that it makes in my life. Yucca: Hmm. That's so beautiful and thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah, for us. I don't have 15 minutes Mark: Yeah, I, I hear. Yucca: And. . I mean, there, there are moments where there are 15 minutes in the day, of course, but but because I have young children that for me to get time to be alone means waking up at three in the morning. And that's what I do to work sometimes when I really need to concentrate. I get up at three in the morning and that's, that's what does it. But. Have a little bit of a different approach for the daily practice. We have a, a morning and an evening, and it's something that brings the kids into it that they have as well. And I find that with, and then I have a lot of little things that I do throughout the day as well. But these are the big, the core and really the morning practices, the main one. It's the first thing that we do and it really sets this, the tone for the rest of the day. So we. . And if it's the summer, we'll actually go outside. And then in the winter we don't go outside for this because it's too way, way too cold. Cuz we live in a, a climate that gets very cold below freezing in the mornings. So, but we'll go to the window and we have a little wooden. Sign that we painted together with just some little kind of morning affirmations that we, that we came up with together that talk about some of the things like remembering that, you know, that we can control how, how our thoughts make us feel and kind of some things like that that are important to us. But we start with saying good morning to the. And just taking a moment to breathe together, three deep breaths, breathing together, looking at the sun, saying good morning to it. And, and I'm very pleased the kids have noticed how each day or over time, not each day, but over time, where the sun is when we do it, has changed. Right? They're noticing that, oh, the sun is over here now, but it used to be over there when it was rising. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: that there are some, we. Always talk about, you know, what are some things that we're grateful for and, you know, what are the kinds of challenges that might come that we might face today? And how, you know, how can we address overcoming that, right? If, if the days that planning is that we're going to go to grandma's house, but then the tires flatten, we can't go to grandma's house, you know, we kind of practice ahead of time, like, oh, how are we gonna prepare for that? And that helps that when it does most of the time, the bad stuff doesn't happen. but when it does, you go, oh, we talked about this. Right? And then talk about what it is that we're gonna focus on in ourselves, practice in ourselves. And, you know, it takes three, four minutes and it completely changes the day. And then Mark: Well, and it can, and it completely changes your kids Yucca: yeah. Mark: doing. Raises them to be very different people than if you hadn't done that. Yucca: Hmm. . Yeah. Well, Mark: significant. Yucca: yeah. Well, I think e everything that we do and that I, we have, there's too much pressure on parents already, but everything that we do, every choice that we're making is influencing their foundation for the world and how they understand the world. And this moment there, there's this, this thing that we do in our culture sometimes is that like childhood doesn't count some. Oh, it's just preparing for real life, right? I remember being at being in school, and it was always about preparing to be in middle school, and then it was preparing to be in high school, and then preparing to be in college, and then preparing to be in the real, and it felt so strange and empty after getting out of school. It was like, well, Mark: Now Yucca: the real life, right? It's like, no, no, no. This is the moment. This is the only moment that we have. Maybe we're lucky enough that there will be, that we will get to be here in five years or 10 years, but we don't know if we. Mark: that's. Yucca: I hope so much. I, I really, really hope and am doing everything I can to try and make sure that my kids will be here in 20 years, but they might not, we might all die in a car crash tomorrow. Right. So what we do today matters so much because it is the only moment that we actually have. Right. So our, our practice is really about trying to. To be really present and intentional Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: because, you know, we, we, as you were saying, we are this special rare being that is just for a moment, just the tiniest moment. So what, so what can I do to feel, to be aware of that? . Right. And then the end of the day practice that we do is, is very similar. We have another little piece of art that we made and and over time we'll probably change out what that piece of art is, but it has another little thing that we, that we read together, and then we talk about the things that we saw during the day, the things that we observed and felt. Also have a little like release ritual where we can release the, okay, the day's done, what happened happened, right? I can't change what happened, I can let go of that, but I can think about how I'm gonna do it differently in the future, but now it's time to rest and to let be what is. And so those are really the very first thing we. when we get up, well, when they get up . And the very first thing they, we do, and when we go to. now as an adult I steal moments out of the day and most of my, my personal that isn't with the, the kids practice actually is in the bathroom because that's the only place that I can lock the door, right? So I think that there's moments in our lives when we're trying to build in habits and practices that are, are placed, things that we're already. I'm sure there's some term for it, but a habit that you have, like every day you do certain things, at least every day. You go to the bathroom multiple times a day, but most people probably have a, a routine when they get outta bed. Yeah. You do this and then you go and you, if you, if you're a coffee drinker, first thing you do is you. The water on for your coffee or something like that. And that's a moment. There's a lot of power in those because you can add something in there. That's where you can add in a moment of, oh, I'm gonna take a moment and ground right while my coffee is brewing. I'm gonna ground every day. and you can slip that in and you can find places. It's gonna be different for everyone. I don't do a lot of commuting any now, any, any more now, but when I did, I had a thing when I got into my car and I put the keys in the ignition. That was a, that was my cue to, okay, what is the, I'd have a little ritual that I would do, so just remind me to be present and, and set intention and that sort of thing. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: So that's where we are right now. And of course, as life changes, those practices change, but you know, it's, people can find in their own lives what their, what do they wanna do, what's the intention that they have and, and how to do that. Mark: Sure. And one of the things that's great about this path and. Living it in a family is that you can go to, you know, you, you can go to your kids at 10 and say, well, we're gonna keep doing the the morning thing that we do, but, You know, you can have your own practice now too. You can have your own daily practice, and I mean, I'm happy to help you with ideas about that, but it's yours and it can be whatever you want it to be, so that as people are being developed and launched into adulthood, they're doing that with not only. A really strong sense of connectedness and a family support and of all those things, but also of of personal empowerment to make choices about what happens with them psychologically. One of the things that I find really a little shocking about the the Christian over culture is that because. Puts everything in the hands of its God. We aren't taught anything about the ritual tools that would help us to be happier, less paranoid, less hostile, more joyous, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: more creative and, and ritual skills will do all those things for. Yucca: Great. Mark: that's a lot of what the atheopagan path is about, is about unlocking your capacity as an individual to express those things in your unique way, which is unlike anybody else's. Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And that's, that's part of what we're trying to do with the practice. So we've just given some ideas for, just shared some of our own ideas for daily practices but that there's also the opportunity for other timeframes, right? A weekly practice or as we talked about, a, a monthly, so a lunar and then seasonal. So are there, there any things that you practice on a weekly basis? Mark: Well, I wanna step back for a second because I really want to appreciate the conscientiousness and the care that you bring to raising your kids in this tradition. I, I think. I mean, I just, I really wanna honor your, your, your carefulness about wanting your kids to have an experience that really unfolds them. And I, I just, I just think that's really great. So I wanted to say, so Yoko. Yucca: Well, thank you. Well, we're, we're really grateful to have an amazing community to be part of in all of that, right? Mark: Yeah, me too. Me too. I'm psyched about it. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So, yes, there are alternatives if you. One of the things that's really important to get about all of this, and we probably should have said it a long time before, is none of this is obligatory, Yucca: right. Mark: right? There's no guilt trip about missing a day in your daily practice or missing two weeks in your daily practice. There's no, the point is to help you be happier and more actualized, right? If, if life gets in the way, well, life got in the way. And when the time rolls around again, when you feel comfortable restarting you there, there are no apologies to be made. There's, there's no shame. Just go back to it, start it again. That's all fine. And the same thing is true if a daily practice isn't right for you. Well then maybe you want to do something once a week. Yucca: right? Mark: I mean, the Christians have their Sunday, right? And Yucca: lot of religions have, Mark: have their Friday into Saturday. There's, yes, there are a lot of religions that have a day that is very special for them. Well, you can declare one if you want, Yucca: Right. Mark: or you can declare an hour one day a week when you're gonna do your. Yucca: right? Mark: your ritual things that help you to feel connected and feel filled with the enormity of yourself and of the universe is the way that I would say that. So don't worry about all that. Find a cadence that works for you and maybe if you work 60 hours a week and have three kids, Maybe that's not very often. Maybe it's just like I'm gonna celebrate the full moons and the Wheel of the year Sabbaths, and that's all I can manage. Yucca: Mm-hmm. , or I'm gonna add. A daily thing in that when I wash my face in the morning, I'm gonna take 60 seconds extra to do something. Right. And I think now might be a good PO place to put in a reminder that a practice is something that when practices, it may not be easy in the. Mark: right. Yucca: right? Just because you decide, oh yes, I'm gonna do this every day. Doesn't mean you're gonna remember every day, but the more times you do, the more times you do it, the better you get at the skill. But it is, it is a skill, right? So if it's something that really is important to you and it's something that you choose to to work on, then that's something that over time, , you'll be able to develop, but you don't have to beat yourself up if it doesn't come naturally. In the beginning, I don't know who it would come natural for. Mark: Yeah, I, I, I don't either. And one of the reasons why we call it a practice is because you have to practice, right? It's, it's not an action. It's not a thing that you do, and then it's done. It's not a destination, it's a practice, which means it's an ongoing process. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And the day when you feel really angry, Fucked up and unable to deal with anything. is as good a day for your practice as any other day, because that's as true humanly as anything else. Yucca: Or perhaps even more important that day than other days Mark: Maybe. Maybe so. Yucca: maybe that is really the day that, that you need to, that you do need the time in front of the candle or the breathing or whatever it is that you do, Mark: Yeah, Yucca: right? Mark: because. . You know, if the world has really beat on you hard in a given day, you know, maybe you need to gather yourself back together and remember your reasons for self-esteem. Remember your reasons why you're doing what you're doing. And remember that no matter what has happened out there in the world, people don't see you for the entirety of who you. they can't, even if they know you for years, they can't. But if they don't, or if they only see you in really constrained situations like a professional office or something like that, they cannot know the enormity of who you are. And you need to, you need to hold the reality of that in yourself, even if they don. Yucca: right. Mark: Even if they aren't reflecting back to you how glorious you are, you still are is what I want to say to you. Yucca: Yes. Mark: Humans are magnificent and you're one of 'em, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: so. Yes, you can do a lunar cycle. That's not something that has appealed to me so much, although I love the moon. I'm always aware of what cycle the moon is in. I always go out and look at the full moon because I just love it. And I'll put out some water in the moonlight to turn into moon water that I can pour on my altar and stuff like that. I have some incredible water that I just got. We had this torrential rainstorm, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: something like four and a half, five inches of rain, torrential rainstorm, and then it cleared off and the full moon rose. This was on January 6th. and so I have storm moon, water. I, I, this is water that fell from the sky during the storm that I gathered and then sat out in the moonlight overnight. And I'm saving that for special rituals. And yes, of course all imaginary, but it's still really cool, right? Mm-hmm. Yucca: Yeah. Right. It's not that if you gave the water to me without telling me that it would suddenly do something different when I used it than if I used any other water. But because you have that memory and that association with it, that. it. Something's triggered in you when you look at it and use it and feel it. Mark: right. I mean, I will be saving this for our Saan ritual. Our hall's ritual coming up in the beginning of November because part of what we do then is pour water onto the dry ground to call the rain back. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: That's a part of the symbolic action that we do during that ritual, and so I brought a big storm with me, lots of rain. Yucca: Come back. All of it, yeah. Oh, wonderful. Mark: So you can do a monthly practice, a, a lunar practice. Some people are really. Connected with and motivated by the moon. I, I don't have that as much, but that's great. You know, if you feel that sort of connection with the lunar cycle, then by all means orient your personal practice around that cycle. You can do something at the new Moon. You can do something at the full moon if you want to. You can do them at the quarters as well. That gives you a weekly practice every seven days. So I think what we're basically saying here is craft the practice that really works for who you are. Yucca: right. Mark: And that leads me, oh, go ahead. Yucca: Oh, please continue. Mark: Well, that leads me to talking about, well, what happens when you have this practice and you've been doing it for five years and it's starting to feel really like you're phoning it. And to me, since spirituality is about growth, it's not only about connection and sense of connectedness, it's about growth. And so I think there are things you can do with your practice to push the edge. And they can be everything from, I've had a solitary practice for a long time. I'm gonna invite somebody else into that. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Someone who I trust, someone who I'm connected with. I'm gonna show this part of my life to them and see if they'll join me in participating in these kinds of activities. That's a big risk, but it's also something. Presents an opportunity for relationship building that could be really powerful. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And I've got others, but Yucca. I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. Yucca: I don't remember . I, I was gonna say something. Oh, it's fine. That's the way conversations go, right? So I think, I mean the, the keeping. having a little bit of the, the new and the growth and the, the novelty, the that in. I think that's one of the ways that keeps us present too. Because when it's just the same, we don't notice as much. Mark: It is amazing how much we can drop into routine mode. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, driving to work, if you do it every day, you can't remember the drive. Yucca: Yeah. Did you, did you stop at that stop sign? You must probably, did you even go through, you had to have gone through the stop sign, right? Cause it was back there. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. It is astounding how much our brains will skip over stuff that seems repetitive, which is why when we travel or take vacations or do creative things, we're really engaged and have very powerful memories because it's all new. Yucca: great. Mark: We remember the novelty. , if your practice is starting to feel routine and drab, it's time to take a step. It's it's time to do something new. Yucca: Right? And we're not saying get rid of the stuff that's working. Right, because if there's something, if you have something where you know, every single evening before you go to or whatever and it, it, it fills a function for you, then, then keep that up. But what is it? What can you add or what can you shift? What can you change a little bit that might. Work better for you and looking at what is it that you want too, because sometimes just making any change might not be the change that that is gonna help you in that moment. Mark: Right, right. And there. There are changes that you can make that are internal changes. There are changes that you can make that are sort of outward facing changes, like inviting someone else or a, a, a community of people into participating in your celebrations of the sabbaths or whatever it is. There are internal things that you can do too. Like, okay, I'm gonna take up a meditation practice. and that can be very hard for a lot of us. I have a D H D I'm terrible at meditating really bad at it. My mind is just all over the place and I understand that at some level that's a deep Buddhistic failing . But honestly, I just, I don't do very well with it. I do great with sitting out in nature and observing things. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: because it's like, oh, bird, oh, squirrel. Oh, you know, I'm, oh, waving trees in the wind. I'm, I'm constantly stimulated by different things that are drawing my attention, but if it comes down to just closing my eyes and trying to have an internal experience, I'm not very good at that. But a lot of people are, and it gives them a lot of feed. It gives them a lot of benefit. from a psychological and spiritual standpoint. So maybe that's the thing that you want to do. Maybe you need some kind of experience that's going to shake you up spiritually, and that could be everything from going skydiving to taking a hallucinogen, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: any, you know, some sort of intense experience that just makes you. Rethink things. Gives you a new perspective. Yucca: Right. And as we were saying before that if things start, if you feel like you've fallen off that wagon, it's okay. Right? You could just, it's not gone. The wagon's waiting, waiting for you. Right. You can get back up because you are the wagon. , we're just gonna play with the metaphors there. So, it, mm-hmm. Mark: Well, I was gonna say the metaphor that I usually use for people's like New Year's resolutions or. , you know, declarations, I'm never going to do this again, or I'm always going to do this again. These very black and white sort of declarations. It's sort of like the over culture's idea of virginity, right? It's like, okay, when it's gone, it's gone. It's gone forever. Well, that's. Bullshit. It's entirely invented. It has nothing to do with reality. The truth is that if you decide you're gonna stop smoking pot and you do that for six months and then you smoke pot, well, all you gotta do is not do it tomorrow. Yucca: Yeah. It's not like it's, it's all over Mark: Yeah. You, you, you haven't ruined anything. You've just backslid. there's probably a reason for that that you should interrogate, because it'll tell you more about yourself. But just, just do it again tomorrow. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: just keep going. You know? It's like, perfection is not the standard. Yucca: Mm-hmm. , but that, Mark: Oh, go Yucca: that you mentioned, that's, that's really important though, right? Looking at, well, why did it. , why did it happen today? Right. And is that something that I can prepare myself for in the future? Right? If, if a similar situation comes up in the future, what can I do instead? Or what can I do to not be in that position or, you know, that, that, that can all be incorporated in Yeah. Mark: or can I just forgive myself because my mom died? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and it was, it was pretty damned intense, and I just went back to the chemical crutch that was most convenient for me, but my mom's only gonna die once, so it's not like I'm creating excuses to keep doing this again and again. This was a really serious, intense experience for me, and, and I, I fell back on my habits. There's no shame there. Yucca: Mm. Mark: you know, there's, there's, there's no, there's no guilt trip and, you know, self-flagellation thing that's necessary there. There's just understanding. Okay, that's why I did that. Now tomorrow, I'm not gonna do that again. Yucca: Yeah. Or for the rest of the evening. Mark: Sure, Yucca: Right. You know, that's just, that's one that that could be a little bit tricky when it, whenever it's something like that, like, oh, well, I'll just do it for the rest of the day. , right? When you're trying to change dietary habits or substance habits, well, it's like, well, I had one bite of the thing. I might as well, you know, I, I had that, Mark: Today's blown. I Yucca: Yeah, I might as well just order the pizza and while I'm at it, get the lava cake and I'll have that Coke too. Yeah, . So this one just, that's, just be careful about that cuz you know, you. getting back on the horse. You can always get back on the horses. Get back as soon as you can. Mark: Right, Yucca: But yeah. Mark: And and I think in the broader sense, it bears saying that our path. Really doesn't endorse the idea of self-punishment as the means to growth, right? You know, the, the guilt, the shame, the self-flagellation, all that stuff, none of that is beneficial. That's just really a nasty model for how people's behavior modifies. Yucca: That's how you get obedience. That's not how you get growth. Mark: Right, Yucca: Right. And even then you only get obedience when you're looking. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: E, exactly. So, yeah, and we're not about obedience. We're we're about you being you. And that's it. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: it. Right? Yucca: well, and, and happy. And part of, you know, this larger context of a, you know, healthy and joyous society, part of this incredible planet that against all odds exists at this moment in time. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. So all that said, this sort of big picture stuff, yes, you can do those less frequent practices you can also shake up your existing practice with something that'll shake it up and, and that is, I mean, really that is down to you what. what will shake it up for you? Will going to a dance club and dancing with other people around is, is that the big hurdle to get over? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Or is it cooking a meal and inviting people to come in and all of them can experience your cooking? It's like, there, there are lots and lots of different ways that it can be. Yucca: or letting yourself do something that is just about you, right? That yes, you are going to get that massage or you are just gonna hang out and. Turn everything off and be by yourself for a couple of hours, or go on that hike or whatever it is that for you is the thing. Mark: right. Or broaching that subject with your partner about that thing that you want sexually that you've never talked about, right? Because it's about owning more of yourself, right? It's like, this is me. I'm okay with me, I'm gonna present me to the dearest person in my world and we'll see what happens. I just think that if your, if your orientation is towards growing and getting bigger and more complex and more interesting and more creative throughout the course of your life, then these things will occur to you. There are. of other possibilities that Yucca and I have not described in this podcast that would work perfectly for shaking up your practice and, you know, bringing that sense of adventure into your life a little more. But the point is to be willing to do it and it takes some gut. So maybe you have to sit for a while in your personal practice. Okay, here I am. I'm sitting with the candles and I'm thinking, well, what I would really like is this. And then there's this cascade in your mind of, oh, but I can't have that because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, some of those things may be true, but you can still assert what you want in the. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: right? You can still do unexpected, you know, go on a road trip. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: It's like, okay, you know, you've been married for 25 years and the kids are all grown and stuff, and it's like, you know what? I want a vacation by myself. And it's knowing insult to you. It's not anything about you, it's just I want to go on a road trip. Get on the road, go do that, and maybe it's only two, three days long. It doesn't have to be, you know, this huge production, but just getting yourself out and feeling like, wow, here I am behind the wheel and I can go anywhere I want. And it's not a problem for anybody else. I can just go there. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and when I'm tired of driving I can stop and I can find a motel or a campsite. That's a great feeling. It's an incredible feeling. It's very freeing and think there are a lot of people out there that could really do with that kind of experience. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Well, there's a lot more things to brainstorm, but I think that's a good place for us to pause and, and leave it to all of you to brainstorm what sort of things those might be for you and if that's what, where you're at with your practice, so, Mark: sure. For sure. More than anything else. I think, you know, the takeaway from this is a personal practice is a means to your personal growth. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: So have one, know, figure out, figure out something that feels like it feeds you in that way. And there's lots of materials out there. There's a bunch of stuff at atheopagan dot com about starting a practice. Ultimately it's down to you. It's down to what you want. And what we want for you is what is most engaging and actualizing and happiness, fomenting and all that. Cause that's how we roll. Yucca: Yep. And we'll be back next week with a holiday episode. Mark: Yes, a holiday episode. Woo-hoo. Hard to believe it's rolled around already, but Yucca: here we are. Mark: here we are. Alright, thank you so much, Yucca. Yucca: Thank you everybody.    

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E43 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 today we are talking about all things related to the winter solstice and youe. Happy Yule, everyone, or whatever you choose to call it. Yep. Happy solstice. Yucca: It's it's amazing that we're here already. I think we say that about every holiday. Really? Yeah. But we,  Mark: we do, we just can't believe we're getting older. Is is what's happening here?  Yucca: Yeah. Well, December thing seems like it just started and yet here we are already. So, yeah. But speaking of that, this is something that we've been doing for a really long. I think that's a good segue into our first section here is let's talk about what this holiday is because it's based on something very real. This isn't just a day that we randomly assigned some random meaning to. It's something that humans. all over the world have been observing as far as we can tell, for thousands and thousands of years. Yes.  Mark: Yes. The, I, I just learned of a new New to me, archeological find in the wheelchair plane, which is where Stonehenge is and so forth. There was apparently a gold plate found with a a v incised on it, a large v, and the V is exactly 82 degrees. The angle is 82 degrees, which is the difference between the summer solstice and the winter solstice on the. Hmm. So apparently this plate was. used as kind of a portable observatory in a way where you could shoot the sun on the summer solstice and say, okay, well it's gonna be over there on the winter solstice. I mean, for all we know, it might have been an engineering tool used to help build stone head . Yeah. Because Stonehenge lines up perfectly with the winter solstice, right? With the sun rising on the winter  Yucca: solstice. Right. And that, that kind of structure, something that we see again all over the world, we see that in the Americas and in Eurasia and, and really all over. That's right. And sometimes it's the winter solta, sometimes it's the summer. But it's the same ideas that we have been paying attention to. What the, the relationship between where the sun is in our sky or the it's apparent position and what that means to the rest of the ecosystem that we're in. It'd be very important to.  Mark: Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, we were talking about this before we recorded. I mean, in the, in the case of the wintertime where food is becoming very scarce, not only that, but there are fewer hours in the day to go look for it. Mm-hmm. so. You know, noticing when the hours were going to start to get longer again would be a really big deal in terms of your survival. As we get later into history, we see that this is the time when all of the, the harvest that had not been preserved in some way by pickling or drying or smoking or salting or, you know, whatever. Had to be eaten because things were starting to go bad. Mm-hmm. . And we need to get all those calories into ourselves so that we can survive the lean months coming up before eggs start to become available. And some of the earliest greens start coming up and the lambs start being born and all that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. , right? Yeah. . So it's a time That is it. It has kind of an internal paradox in it, right? It's the time to have a big party and eat a lot. So it's a time to get together, celebrate with our loved ones, share food, share, drink, share company in, and sort of keep that light alive through the darkest time of the year. But it's also confronting the fact that things are gonna get tough. coming up in the next few months. These, these are not gonna be a lot of fun. So this is sort of the last hurrah in a way. Mm-hmm. , before we get to some very, you know, before the advent of modern supply chains and agriculture, these were times when things, things can get pretty  Yucca: dicey. Yeah. It's what you've been preparing for all. . Right. Really? Yeah. Right. This is what you've been cutting the wood for all year. Mm-hmm. , this is what you've been raising the food for. This is, this is it, right? Yeah. To  Mark: get through this gap Yeah. Of the next couple of months, next three months, you know, depending on where you are, maybe even longer. Mm-hmm. , that. Where the natural world is not going to produce easily available food for you. Mm-hmm. . And you've gotta rely on your stores. And I mean, that's an inherently anxiety producing phenomenon, right? Watching your stores get lower and lower and lower every day as you eat to survive. And trying to kind of eyeball, well, are we gonna. are we gonna make it to the season when the birds are laying eggs and we can start to get some calories?  Yucca: Right? So it has that, all of that around it. And I think there's also a bit of in a celebration of the darkness as well, right? Yes. There's a celebration of the light in the darkness, but also that. Quiet darkness. This is, we haven't done an episode on the dark in a few years. We did a few years back. I think that might be one we should revisit. That's true in the next couple months while we are still in this dark period. And the, in the importance of that quietness and that time of reflection and that time of the waiting and the rest, that really comes with the dark of the year. Right. And that's the. The time around the solstice is quite literally the darkest time of the year if you aren't lighting it up with, with artificial lights, right? Mm-hmm. .  Mark: Yeah. And when you think about it in kind of grand cosmological terms The darkness is the source that the light kind of blooms out of, right? Mm-hmm. , I mean, we start, we, we start with an incredible burst of explosive light, but very quickly everything cools off and we have this sea of undifferentiated particles at first, but as stars begin to kindle, light begins to come back into that darkness, and so it becomes, , it becomes a, a powerful metaphor for how things are born in darkness. Mm-hmm. and, and then evolve into the the waking world. The daylight world, yeah.  Yucca: Hmm. Well, let's talk a little bit about how, what, what that means to us personally as pagans. What is that in our practice?  Mark: Sure. Would you like to go first?  Yucca: Sure. So we use the framework of the wheel of the year in our household and the winter solstice. This is the time where we're, we're thinking about those things that we've just been talking about. But we also, this is when we're honoring the forests as. So there's a lot of, of imagery for us and smells and things like that that have to do with the forest, especially the evergreen forest. And this also happens smack in the middle of just. So many holidays, , there are just so many holidays this week that we're going into. I don't know how my kids are gonna make it through all the holidays because we have the solstice happening right in the middle. The Hanukkah starts . So we're recording this Saturday. So Sunday night, Hanukkah starts. So they'll do that on my side with their softa. They'll do Christmas with their grandmother on the other side. And it's just this, this, all of this activity and bustling and just the celebration and the, you don't have  Mark: an aluminum pole for celebrating Festivus.  Yucca: You know, we don't, but I think that if I suggested that to my partner that it would show up , I'm pretty sure it would, we would have it. But the, the solstice itself in the middle of all of that is a if. , we, we do secular Christmas and solstice is separate for us. Mm-hmm. than that is. Although on the other side of the year we do do presents with summer solstice as well, but the, the presents are, are Christmas presents. But the, the solstice is more of a moment of reflection. Right. It's a, we'll wake up and watch the sunrise and watch the sunset and be. And spend a little bit of time going out. We'll run out if there's snow, we'll run outside barefoot in our little barefoot feet and come back in and sit in front of the fire and, and have that kind of reflective moment that you were talking about earlier. That that reflection that, that comes along with this time of year that I think is something that isn't really emphasized in the secular. Approach to this time of year.  Mark: So, yeah, I agree. I agree. I, sorry to interrupt you. Oh no. Please, please jump  Yucca: in. Yeah.  Mark: I mean, obviously the commercialization of the holidays has meant that. it's become very much around stuff and accumulation of stuff, purchasing of stuff, distribution of stuff as well as lots of, you know, rich food and drink. Mm-hmm. , , and that seems to be MO and family, certainly family is a theme. Mm-hmm. , you know, for, you know, people gathering together, at least in the ideal mm-hmm. Conceptualization. But it is true that the whole. I'll, I'll come at this a little bit sideways. I'm, I'm an, I'm a singer and I'm, I've done a lot of singing of early music, medieval and renaissance music, and a great deal of what that, what the liturgical music of that period is about. And of course, it's all Christian. Mm-hmm. , but it's this, it's this contemplation of the great mystery, right. The. The incredible thing that happened that, you know, where God made Mary pregnant mm-hmm. and, and it's a contemplative thing. It's a, it's, you know, sort of trying to grasp the mind of God in a way. Mm-hmm. , I think we, pagans have something very similar. We, we naturalistic non-theistic pagans since we're not thinking about gods at this time. Right.  Yucca: If some, some people do have this as the birth of of whoever their God is that, you know. Right. That is part of some pagan paths. Yeah. Yes.  Mark: But I do think that in our tradition, This is the time of year when the natural world comes as close as it ever does to stopping. because of the cold temperatures, everything slows way, way down. And what is implicit or potential for the coming cycle is only just starting to be conceived. Mm-hmm. And that's something that we can, can meditate on as naturalistic pagans. As atheopagan, because we can focus on what. Imagining for the coming cycle, what we're aspiring to in the coming year? For many of us, this is the winter solstice is the beginning of the new year. Mm-hmm. , that's how I consider it. And so in many ways it's this sort of birth moment and at births we, we have a lot of dreams. for, for our children. We have a, a lot of things that we hope for for them. We wish them the best and we have pictures in our minds about what that might work out to be. And I think that that can be true of the coming cycle of the year as well. Mm-hmm. ? Yeah. So. . But you were talking about celebrating the forests and the evergreens particularly and the millions of holidays.  Yucca: Yes. So, so  Mark: many, so, mm-hmm. . So at, at a deeper level, what, what does this, what does this holiday mean to you, Yucca? What does it, what does it encourage you to do in your practice? Yucca: This really is, this is a time. of reflection and being and I know you were just talking about the dreaming portion, but for me, that comes a, that comes a little bit later in winter. Oh, this is more of a, just being in the now. Here we are. I'm not, I'm not getting ready for anything now. Right. Got ready for the winter. The winter is here. The wood is stacked. The, the, our water tanks are full. The our pantry's full and now, and in my work cycle too. You know, I just taught my last class for the semester. I'm not teaching well for, I do have some international classes, but I'm not teaching any of the, the North American kids until we're back in the, the new Year. Right. So it's like, uh, no, I just get to be, just to hang out, to be, to exist, to kind of look at what, where, where I am right now, really just take stock, not in a. Planning for the future, because that will come, right? Yes. But how, but I can't really plan for the future until I'm very clear with where am I at right now? And that's just what's mm-hmm. like on emotional level. And of course there's the practical too of, you know, don't, don't go to the grocery store without checking what's in your fridge first, you know, . So, but, so that's on a, but take that and. To for life. But this is like on an emotional level. So that's emotionally what we're doing. But that theme also, you're talking about a family and just, just enjoying life right now. You know, it's really about that. Just enjoying, and here we are and you know, this is what we  Mark: got. That's, that's great. And, and as you mentioned it, it's, you know, I, I, I feel, I guess that I do a lot of the same. I mean, it's a time to enjoy the pretty lights and the holiday traditions and. not particularly to do work. Mm-hmm. or or even much planning for the future. When I, when I talk about dreaming and imagination, it, that's a very pre-planning Yes. Sort of state. It's just really sort of blue skying. Kind of what, what can we imagine possibly happening over the course of the next year? Yucca: Right. think of it kind of like still being under the blankets in the early morning. Mm-hmm. , right? Where you haven't really started to make your list of, okay, what do I actually have to do for the day? But you're kind of in that like, oh, here I am, I'm okay. I'm awake when I'm in the soft blankets. Just thinking about everything. Dreaming about everything. Huh.  Mark: Yes. Warm and comfortable, which is so much a, an aspect of of what this holiday is supposed to be about. Mm-hmm. , , know, so many of the rituals that we do for Yule or mid-winter or, you know, whatever you call it, the winter solstice, have to do with experiencing cold and darkness. Mm-hmm. for a while, just to really kind of rub it in, make sure that we Yeah. That we know, you know, what's really going on out there and just how harsh and and bleak, it can really be out there. And then bringing that light back into the home, back into where it's warm and sheltered and the wind doesn't get to you, and the precipitation doesn't fall on you. And coming back into warmth and comfort again. Mm-hmm. .  Yucca: Yeah. Hmm. So what are, what is it for you? .  Mark: Well, let me see. To start with yes, there certainly is a flurry of holidays and we do have an aluminum pole on the 23rd. On the 23rd, we erect the aluminum pole and air our grievances in, in the time honored tradition of the Seinfeld Festivus. Mm-hmm. . It's just so funny and we happen to have this old floor lamp with. Upright, that's a pole, so we just couldn't resist doing it every year. . But we do a lot of the, the sort of Christmasy yule traditions, like a yule tree and eating well and Let me correct that. Eating, eating richly heavily. Yeah. Heavily. Yeah. Richly not necessarily. Well, although ne mayo's pretty good about making me eat my vegetables. . The, but the time of year, there's a, there's a. It's ironic because for many people this is a very stressful time of year and they feel the tremendous pressure to buy things for everyone and to deal with the financial stress of that and to do all those things. We don't do gifts. . We would, if we had children in our lives, we would give them to children because it's really unfair to ask them to watch all of their peers getting gifts at this time of year and not getting any themselves. That would just be cruel. Right.  Yucca: Oh, and especially if, if the, the peers are doing the Santa thing where like, it's a magical, it's a magical being who's bringing you these gifts, you know? And, and you know why I Marcos next door, get a, you know, this, the. PS five or whatever they're on. I don't know what they're on now. Right. Why do they get that? You know, and, and you know, this magical being can't even bring me anything. Yeah. Or, you know, he brings me socks. Although socks are fantastic. We're big sock  Mark: fans here. Yeah. Boy, I, I love socks. . So, so because we don't do gifts, we're not really under those kinds of pressures and. Work stuff fades away because the whole. Commercial world other than retail, kind of takes a breath around this time. Mm-hmm. . Although that's certainly not true for many of the nonprofits that I've worked for, which are cranking out services like crazy for people who desperately need them. Yucca: Sure. Yeah. Because people, people need housing and food and medical care and all, you know, that doesn't, in fact, much of that when it comes to medical care and things like that, that increases during the wintertime. Yes,  Mark: it does. It does. Yeah. Yeah. So, but we just enjoy doing all of our traditions and having time to, as you say, just kind of be in the moment of the season enjoying our circumstances and enjoying We, we still have a few trees that have beautiful leaves on them. Most of them are bare by now, but some of the very late changing ones are just kind of coming into their colors now. Mm-hmm. , And we've had a few rainstorms come through, which are always a delight to hear on the roof and go out and feel on your skin. Watching the sky a lot. Mars and Jupiter have been brilliant recently. Wow. Yeah. And,  Yucca: So many meteors  Mark: too. Yes. Yeah. I, I heard that there were a lot of geminis. I, I didn't go look for them, but I heard that they, there were a lot of meteors. Yeah,  Yucca: we spotted a couple, but it gets down into the single digits or the teens at night for us here. And Uhhuh, then Fahrenheit, so. We, we limit the amount of outside time at, in the early morning ?  Mark: I would think so. Yeah. I mean, our our low temperatures have been mid twenties. Mm-hmm. . So not, not too bad. Bad for the plants outside, but not so bad for for but not, not nearly as bad as single digits. Yeah. So, and it's also because there is that sort of generalized. Cultural agreement that we're all going to do this together now. Mm-hmm. , what in, in whatever flavor that might happen to be, there are a lot more opportunities to see friends and so forth. I was mentioning before we recorded I have six Yu gatherings this year. We did quite a few Saturday. We did the Saturday Zoom mixer, Yule ritual this morning. I'm going to meet with my ritual circle this evening. Then tomorrow the Northern California atheopagan Affinity Group meets. And then after that I'm going to The, the gathering of the Spark Collective, which is a ritual collective that I used to work with a lot in the East Bay east Bay area, San Francisco region, and then on Wednesday, The Solstice, the local Unitarian, the solstice itself, the local Unitarian Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans group. is doing a winter solstice as well, that I have a roll in and then I'll come home and naia and I will build a Yu log and burn it and do a bunch of our things. So, Six distinct celebrations and I'm, I think I'll feel thoroughly ued by the time it's all over.  Yucca: Yeah, that is, that's quite a lot. So, Hmm. And we were just talking about the actual time of the solstice itself. So in, I'm in Mountain, so on Wednesday, that's 2 47. So for Pacific for you, that's 1 47. 47. Yeah. Yeah. And we like to set the, in our house, we set the alarm. And it's nice when it happens in the middle of the day. And when it goes off, then we'll all cheer because sometimes it does not happen in the middle of the day. Sometimes it happens at three in the morning and you gotta wake everyone up to go, whoa, , and go back to sleep . But that's a fun thing to do, especially if you've got, if you've got kiddos, but I think kids of any age, sure, then enjoy that.  Mark: Absolutely. I think if I were going to do that and it turned out to be three o'clock in the morning or something, I think I would re combine that with the midnight Margaritas tradition from Practical Magic and do that as well, which is a lot of fun. So, mm-hmm. So where are we? What, what else have we got to talk about here?  Yucca: Well, it's always nice to talk about some suggested ri suggested, ah, that's a hard one. Suggested rituals and you know, kind of little traditions that people can try or share things that we do and see what kind of sparks people's imagin. Mark: Yeah. Okay. Sure. Well, I am very fond of the eLog tradition. I, I think for one thing, I think it's very old. Mm-hmm. . I think the idea of decorating a special log and throwing it onto a bonfire at this time of year is probably something that people have been doing for many, many centuries. . If you don't have a fire pit that you can burn something outdoors in, or a fireplace indoors or a wood stove, you can drill holes in the top of the log and put candles in instead, and let those tapers burn down as a part of your tradition. Mm-hmm. . But I really like to use the bottom part of last Year's Yu Tree. Oh. And. and I saved that for all year. Mm-hmm. . And then we bind it to a piece of split Oakwood so that it's big enough because the, the yield trees are only about three inches. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So we used Twine to, to bind that to a, a piece of, you know, a third or a quarter of a log and then. Evergreen branches and holly branches and pirate kaha with all the berries and missile toe and all those kinds of things into the, the twine to decorate the, the log. All with natural stuff that will burn. Mm-hmm. . So nothing plastic. and then we write our, our hopes for the coming year on little notes and tuck them underneath the evergreens and so forth. Mm-hmm. . And then we take it out to burn mm-hmm. and let those wishes go skyward to wherever they will. And it just feels like, it feels like setting something in motion. Mm-hmm. , which is. . Just a really lovely feeling, I think.  Yucca: Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. I've seen some just beautiful U logs that people have done. Mm-hmm. , it's just a mm-hmm. . That's not something that we've done very much, but it's, it's something that we're interested in. Right. ,  Mark: well, you certainly have the circumstances for it. I mean, you, you, you use firewood for your, for your ordinary fuel, and you've got a fire pit outside and mm-hmm. , you know, all that. Or you could burn it in your hearth if. Do you have a wood stove or  Yucca: is it fire? We, we have a wood stove. But it's got a, a glass front to it so we can Oh, we can see. I like seeing the fire, so every day I clean the sit off of it so that we can see the fire in it. Oh, . So it'd be lovely. Yeah. And we do have the, the pit outside, so, yeah. And all of the firewood stuff is a big part of this, this year, this time of year for us. Right. The kids, I'm sure. That was something that getting ready for the year that we had them do is make the little Kindle bundles. Oh. So as we were getting into fall and, and they're, they're so little right now. There's not really a lot of things that they can do yet to really be uh, Significant contribu contributors to the, like, happenings of a house, right? They're four and six. Sure. But they're, they were great at tying these little bundles of sticks together. And every day when we use one of those little bundles because we also have a greenhouse that heats the house, so we don't have to have the fire going constantly. So we do have, but we'll, we'll run it usually at night. So we start the fire up and we'll use the little bundle of sticks. They, their Kindle bundle and they get to go, oh, here's the, the bundle that I made, and, and they get to, you know, help light that up.  Mark: That's great. That's great. Yeah. I mean, engaging, engaging children in, in the industry of the house. I think is a really wonderful thing. I, I mean, so long as it doesn't turn into an endless list of chores that are just drudgery and, you know, sort of child labor. Mm-hmm. ,  Yucca: Yeah, we don't want like Cinderella type of scenario. . Yeah. .  Mark: But you know, giving them an opportunity to feel like participants in all the stuff that makes the house go, I think is just a really wonderful. Yeah.  Yucca: Well, I think that's really important for, you know, just our sense of, of belonging and port and importance. And I think that that's something that we can extend to when we're talking about the holidays, right? Is that everybody get to have something that they feel that isn't too stressful, right? Because sometimes people don't need more on their plates if they already have a lot to be doing. But something that is important that doesn't just feel. That they get to be part of that, that, that they're responsible for and that, you know, they bring this to the table I think is something lovely to do with them. Yeah. With anyone. Yeah. Absolutely. So one thing , you were just talking about the eLog. One thing that we do is we make a lot of sew it for the animals. Oh. And we have little silicone molds, which are they look like little trees . And, you know, you can, you can find recipes online for Sue it, but it, it's really not that, that hard. Right. You. You know, we use lard or tall and you get your fat and then you mix in your seeds and your berries mm-hmm. and all of that. But we'll make these little ones that, you know, they're a few inches across. Mm-hmm. , and then we'll hang the twine from it. And we had tried putting ornaments in our trees. Before, but the birds just so they attacked the ornaments and it didn't work out. Oh no. So now we're making them the little seit blocks and hanging it up in the tree as our decoration, like our outdoor, that's tree.  Mark: That's great. Yeah, I could see they actually use Mylar tinsel in the vineyards here to help keep birds away because apparently they don't like it. Little flashes of light. They, they, they don't like the little flashes of light. So I can understand why they were attacking the ornaments. Get that thing  Yucca: outta here, . Yeah. Well, and, and we have a lot of bird. We're a little like a bird oasis here, but it was the J's in particular, they were like knocking them down and could see they didn't like 'em at all. So, uh, and I didn't want to put anything like tinsel out cuz I was, I was worried they might try and take that and use it for testing or eat it or choke on it. Right? Yeah. Wanna make sure that there's nothing that would be dangerous to them. . Right. And then I don't want the, those little pieces getting in the wind and mm-hmm. Getting, messing all over the place. So I think whatever our celebrations are, it's important that we're being respectful and responsible to, to all the other life around us. Of course. Yeah. And that's another thing we try and do is, is not by a bunch of junk that is just gonna get thrown out, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. , . So, so making little things for the gifts, you know, making little clay things and smell this time of year, I think smell any time of year, but I really associate. Some of the smells of like the Cinnamons and like frankincense is another. The cloves. Yeah. All of those are just so wonderful. And the pine, we'll take we'll actually go and take needles cause we have a lot of, of pinon. Pine is the main tree that we've got here. It's like this little pygmy pine and we'll bring in the, the needles from it and sometimes the sap and you put, put that in boiling water on the stove. And you could do this with your, with your kitchen, you know, your electric or or gas stove as well. It doesn't have to be a wood stove. And that just Fills the house with that smell. You can put other things in as well. If you have a little bit of cinnamon from the kitchen or your clothes, any of those, like pumpkin spice ones, those are gonna work really well in, in that. Yeah.  Mark: Nice. Very nice. Yeah. What was I going to say? There was something that went along with that.  Yucca: Was it smells  Mark: or were we back on the birds? No, it, it was back on the birds. Yeah. We, we have a lot of takers for our bird feeders at this time of year too. Mm-hmm. , the, the birds that don't migrate. It's it's not nearly as sparse here as it is where you are, I'm sure. Mm-hmm. , but still we get a lot of customers this time of year. Yeah. We have a regular feeder that we put sunflower seeds in and then we have No. Is it sunflower seeds? Yes. It's sunflower seed pieces. Mm-hmm. . And then we have a hummingbird feeder as well that we put sugar water in.  Yucca: Oh, so you still get hummingbirds this time of year? Mark: We do. Yeah. We have hummingbirds here that don't migrate. Oh, wow. Because it's, it's mild enough that they can, they can take it through the winter. So  Yucca: yeah. Ours are all in Costa r already. Uhhuh ,  Mark: they're, they're long gone. We have, we have pretty large populations of Canada geese here that don't migrate either. They just hang out. Annoy everybody and eat amphibians and do what they do. ,  Yucca: I love birds. Me too, so much. They, they, they give us so much in entertainment. .  Mark: Yes. That's  Yucca: very true. Yeah. We have birds and, and we've got chipmunks that live around here. And on the warmer days, I think the chipmunks, they don't do like a full hibernation here. They, they kind of wake up and come out in the warm days and, and they have like little wars with the, the birds around here. They'll chase each other back and forth and fight over who gets what, you know, what seeds and Oh. And we will also, we have we'll sprout some seeds for. Our animals too. A lot of bird seeded. You can just take it and the same way you would sprout, you know, anything else that you would in the kitchen. You just mm-hmm. , soak it in the water and change the water out every few days. Or you could put it in a little bit of soil and we'd take that out and give them a little bit of green in the winter. Um hmm. And so now we've got, that's. We've got a whole variety of folks who come to visit,  Mark: so probably gives them more sugar too. Once, once the, once the plants germinate, they start generating more sugar, whereas the, the seed is largely fat.  Yucca: Yeah. You know, it's definitely gonna change what the composition is. We'll, we'll do a mix, so not just the sunflower, but like the millet and the all kinds of things for them. Yeah, we like, we, we spoil our birds. , , so  Mark: I'm sure they appreciate it.  Yucca: Oh yeah. But water is actually the most important one. Oh, I understand. Depending on where you live, where we live, water is, is not easy to get. This time of year it might be a little bit different where you are, you're in a wetter, I mean, you're just coming out of your dry season though. But, but giving them fresh water, that's really the tricky fine thing to find this time of year. So that's another one of the kids' jobs is they go out with the you know, we clean out the bowl every day so that we're not letting any, we're not spreading any. Diseases between the animals. So they go out and change the, they bring out a new fresh bowl of water, and then they take in the old one. We wash it up and get it ready to take out for the next day. So that's something that they can do as well.  Mark: Wow, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a simply a lovely time of year. Mm-hmm. , I, I really enjoy the, the, the yule season. The many, many Solstice traditions that have grown up around it. And of course, we've only scratched the surface of all those traditions, you know, throughout the world that people have celebrated as a part of observing this important moment when the days start to get longer again. And there is some prospect that eventually there will be more food. . Yes. Uh uh and. I don't know. In, in a way it sounds when, when you compare this sort of romantic dramatic story that Christianity has about Christmas and the meaning of the birth of Jesus and all that kind of stuff, the, the idea of describing this holiday as one that's basically about the food supply. Mm-hmm. sounds a, it sounds a little. A little dull by comparison, but a little underwhelming, to be honest. Yeah. But realistically speaking, that's what's going on. We're, we're organisms and we, we like to eat. We don't do well when we don't, and this is the cycle that we're born into. So, I think it's a, a wonderful thing to reflect on years past and the conditions that people managed to survive through, um mm-hmm. in order to bring us here.  Yucca: Right. Yeah. And, you know, that's, that's what our great, great, great grandchildren are. You know, it's just gonna keep, hopefully keep going. So  Mark: hopefully, yeah. Yeah.  Yucca: and it's, it's lovely to think about that connection to all the other humans that have been, right, right. That have gone through something similar. I mean, when you're at the equator, it's a little bit different, um mm-hmm. , but the higher and higher your latitude is, whichever way you're going. The more, the more and more noticeable, the bigger and bigger a deal the solstice  Mark: becomes, Yes, I was watching a YouTube video yesterday by a woman who lives in the north of Sweden and winter winter's intense up there. Yeah. I mean, there's very little light and she, at one point she put a chair outside and sat in the sun and she said, you. . You know that feeling when you're very thirsty and that first sip of water hits your mouth. Mm-hmm. , that's what it's like when the sun hits my skin at this time of year. Mm-hmm. It's. You know, you, your body is just so starved for, for the sunlight. Yeah. And of course she takes vitamin D supplements and all that kind of stuff, which they do as well. But there's nothing quite like sunlight. We're, we're built to like it.  Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. I was actually just talking with one of my students earlier today who's from a same part of the world, and he was saying that that day, is four and a half hours long for them when they get to the winter solstice. It's about nine and a half for us, which feels short. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , but four and a half hour day once. Wow.  Mark: Yeah, it's about nine where I am. I'm, I'm considerably north of where you are.  Yucca: Yeah. I'm just about 36,  Mark: so yeah, I think I'm, I think we're at 42. You're that  Yucca: far north? I think so. Oh,  Mark: okay. , maybe 40.2. I don't know. I haven't looked somewhere that, yeah, . Yeah, somewhere. Somewhere in there. So, yeah. And my hope for all of our listeners is that you have meaningful observances if that, if that's what you want. And if not, that you have a good long break. Mm-hmm. , and a, a relaxing and restorative time because I do think that this can be a restorative time if we don't drive ourselves crazy with busyness. Yucca: Right. If you have cats, make sure to get some cat snuggles in Oh, time of year  Mark: for that. . Yes. My cat is sleeping just over there, just like four feet away from me. Mine's  Yucca: on top of my keys. left the keys on the table. He's right on top of them. So .  Mark: So listen everyone, we have really enjoyed spending the last it's, I mean, we're coming up on three years now of doing this. And thank you for taking this journey with us around the course of the Wheel of the Year for 2022. It's been, it's really been a great cycle and we've had wonderful comments and feedback and input from listeners and we're really looking forward to doing more of this coming up, starting next week. Yucca: That's right. So happy solstice.  Mark: Happy Solstice.  

Mark: Well, look, it's really it's a, it's a long journey. I've read your book, I've read many books, I've been in this game for a long time. It's very difficult to sum it up in literally minutes, I suppose. But after reading a book just recently, and listening to all your podcasts a lot lately, I've delved into a lot of it and taken many, many things out of each person's story, which I can resonate wholeheartedly with. But I probably got into Options back in 2006. And I've probably come and gone with it a lot. I've started and stopped, due to various reasons, obviously, life, I've got kids and family and work commitments and stuff like that. But it's always been, I suppose, a hobby. But trying to make that jump or trying to get into it. Full time is obviously difficult for lack of funds or lack of time and effort. I don't know, there's always seems to be something that comes up that stops me from progressing. Having said that, I'm a pretty committed person. I'm pretty disciplined. I've been doing it now for a long time. But like, if you look through him on the table here, I've got trading stuff sitting everywhere, notes. Mark: I've crunched the wheel so many times I've done the shiny diamond thing. I've gone from one program to another. I've spent numerous amounts of funds on various programs and different services such as yourself. I don't know this Option Genius has been around in my life, I suppose, on and off. So I don't know like I've all I'm a big advocate for what you say and what you do. I've wholeheartedly believe that I've been selling options for a long time I've done credit spreads, I've done strangles I've done butterflies, I've done covered calls, I've done a lot of those strategies, or centered around selling options. And I've been doing it for a long time. But for some reason, I just can't seem to break through the ceiling, I just cannot seem to be there to go from this hobby, like training interest that I seem to be involved with, to getting to that next level. I suppose I when I found out that we're going to do this call. Set last night I sat down I tried to write out things that would be good to discuss or to ask you. And I've got like all this paper sitting you have all these notes that I've made, as you would have seen in my email, it was quite lengthy. I think one of the assistants said all that email is probably the longest one I've ever received, that I really okay then.  Allen: Like, you know, because we get, we get lots of emails every day and some people, right? Some people write two paragraphs, but when somebody goes in deep, and they really share their, you know, their soul pretty much. It's like, Hey, I've been doing this and this and this, and this, and I don't know what's going on, then, like we you can feel it when somebody is really, really wanting to make it work. And so those most of those get passed on to me. And when I read it, I was like, alright, you know, we need to we need to talk about this. Because if you've been doing this for years, then like, I have not doing my job. I've let you down in some way that because you know, you shouldn't still be feeling that way. I know. But it's not uncommon. You know, we come across many, many people that come to us and say, hey, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. But you know, it never clicked for me. But you will.. Mark: Yeah, I can see that. So many people that you talk to, you know, have the same they're trying and trying to trying to find the right system, the right setup the right, whatever it is just can't seem like I feel to break through that ceiling. Like you're stuck underneath the water. You're swimming hard. You're learning this, you're watching that you're reading this you're researching. You're looking at the charts to pair with analysis, paralysis, all that stuff. And I've made lots of trades. I've done lots of trading. I've been I've been I won't say successful because clearly we wouldn't be on this call otherwise, but I've made money, but I've also lost money. I've got scars, I've got all that stuff I've had I've had losses, but still here I am battling looking at all that stuff that you talked about in the book in that book really resonated with me there's a lot of stuff in there that I thought I can do this. I know I can do it. Why am I doing it? Why it's just what why does it elude me so much? Is it just a pipe dream and more and more just a duck on the water swimming and just never gonna get there? I don't know. Allen: So you know, when we when we got the email, when they forwarded to me, they asked me like, hey, what do you think the problem is here? Does he not know enough? And my answer to them was No, I think he knows too much. He knows too much. That's part of the problem. I'm just guessing here and I wanted to try to get to the root of it. But you know a lot of the times when so there's there's different things that you need. Everybody needs different things to in order to succeed in anything. Obviously, you know, you need to know what to do you need to how to do it. You know, you have to practice you have to put in the time. You need somebody Do that can actually has doing it like coach that's teaching you, you need a team or a teammate or somebody to do it with. These are all different things that that can help. But a lot of times we come across people that have been, you know, bouncing around from program to program, like you said, they know all the different strategies, they know everything, they know how it works. Some people come and they know it better than I do. You know, so they're, they're telling me that, oh, the Vega this is this and the Gamma and the theta and the row and all this other, you know, they're touching on the Greeks, and they're managing by the Greeks, and they're doing all these complicated stuff. But they're like, it's still not working, why is it not working? So I think, if it can work for somebody else, it can work for you. And I firmly believe that in just about anything, except maybe sports, you know, should somebody else could dunk the ball, maybe I can't dunk the ball. But in trading, a lot of it is I think, 80 to 90% of it is menta. Mark: I've totally, totally, totally. Allen: So there might be something that is holding you back, or, you know, maybe like I don't know, so let's get into it. So now you've mentioned a couple of times that you haven't gotten to the next level. So tell me what is the next level? What is the goal that you're trying to get to? Mark: Well, I think the goal is the same for everybody's, you know, everyone's trying to make income, like, right, I have a I mean, I'm in I'm a cop. So I work in a profession that I see myself coming to a fork in the road. I've been doing this job now for over 14 years, for 10 years. And before that I was in a private industry, we had a family business. So I understand all the dynamics of running a business, how it operates. We had a family business for over 30 years. And long story short, we got out of that for various reasons. And then I got into the government sector, which is a totally different psyche altogether, which took me some time to try and come to terms with. Having said that, I've forever in my wife, and I've come from a family that has been heavily invested in property, shares, businesses, and stuff like that. So I've always had this belief that I can do something with my life that will be able to produce constant income money have investments, like I've had investment properties, and I've done the share thing now on the option things for a long time. And I'm not destitute, I'm not desperate, I have a house, I have three beautiful children and family sort of stuff. But I want to go to the next level I want to be able to provide, I want to be able to teach my kids trading, I want to be able to show them how to invest all the money stuff, like all that sort of thing. I feel as if I'm promoting this stuff, yet, I haven't really truly succeeded myself. I haven't got to the level where they can say okay, Mark, look at you've got all this great stuff, and that show me how to do it. And when they do ask me, I'm sort of thinking so I will not really, I can talk about it. I've read about it, and I'm doing it, but I really haven't got what you think I have. Having said that. Getting back to the trading side of it. I think I want to have this as a business, I can see the potential in it as you can do from home. It's all in front of you in the net. I don't have to go out I don't have to be injured tree. I understand that. I do know a lot about it. I understand all those things you just mentioned with the Greeks and what not right? And I probably do, I probably do know too much. And I do want to keep it simple. I do say to myself, when I'm doing it, just keep it simple. Why do you need to have this indicator? Why do we need to be having that? I totally agree with what you've promoted and talked about for so long. And I think I was probably watching on Option Genius probably before you even started doing podcasts. But over the years, I've come and gone. I've been involved with and I've been with other things. And I've on and off as we mentioned before, right? All right. Does that help answer the question? Allen: No. So what what what do you mean by the next level? Is it an income? Is it is it a certain amount of money in the account is a certain amount of money every month? Where it is it that you say okay, now I've arrived now I have achieved my goal? What what is that number so that you would be able to be like, Yes, I feel happy though. Mark: Okay, so I've sort of thought about that. And I've put a number down to 10k. Now that's a pie in the sky dream. That's a pie in the sky dream. I know. And that's a long way off being achieved. I would just like to be able to see some consistency, all that stuff that you promote consistent, being profitable, and I can do that. But then as you know, you get one or two trades that wipe you out, wipe it back to zero and then it got to start again. Right? So just not we're just not getting that constant. Right? What do they call it.. Allen: Okay, so 10k is the goal. Now, it's not a it's not a it's not a pipe dream. It's so 10k is the goal. If you got 10k every month, you'd be happy. You'd be like okay, I've made it you know I'm accomplishing And that this stuff is actually working. Finally, this stuff is actually working if you were making 10k a month. So tell me, what is it that you think is keeping you from doing that? Mark: Well, clearly a lack of funds at this stage. But I have had numerous accounts where they've had a substantial amount of money in there, but I've just brought it right back down to just doing one lots, until I can see the consistency and seeing that, the, that my trading works, it's consistent, well, then we can scale up. So I'd rather than that, so I'm happy to do just one month a month, which means I'm not gonna make 10 grand in the near future, right, those types of trades, but we can scale that up at a later date. Allen: But what do you so if you were to say, hey, Alan, give me this one thing, and I know I can make tons of money. What is that one thing? Mark: Well, I suppose it's like a business plan, isn't it, like a franchise to follow a step by step thing, do this, do this, do this, do that put it on, obviously, there's a little bit of, there's gonna have to be a little bit of a thought process and feel for the market. But I suppose I need a plan. Like I know how to put the trade on, I know how to do a credit spin on it, for example, but I suppose I need a set of rules or business plan or like something to follow. So that way, I can just follow the recipe for a particular day, not particular strategy, but it's very hard to identify it or pinpoint it down to one thing. Like I've written all these notes in the book and pages and pages of all these things that you're discussing the iPad and whatnot, and try to answer those questions myself. Like, what am I looking for? What's stopping me I've written here a recipe, a plan, a template to follow rules to follow or to abide by tools, treat it like a franchise, for instance. So that way, I'm not deviating to another thing. So I have it on my wall and write down Am I following those particular plans? Does that is that sort of answer the question?  Allen: So do you not have any trading plans right now? I mean, you said you were in different programs and everything so did you do you have any that you've been using as a guideline as a framework? Mark: The cover I've written things down in the past but I suppose sticking to it, or having it visible is difficult. I suppose someone to write one with me or for me to say right this is a trading plan. This is what you need to have in it to follow I suppose I haven't really been given a choice like if it says write a trading plan, write down this stuff, write it down, but I suppose I just want to try it like this is what's going on my head just put the trades on just put the trades on work with the probabilities. Yeah, it should work out. Allen: Okay, and are you conservative or aggressive? Mark: I believe I'm conservative in the sense where at the moment like with the one loss, so like, if I was aggressive, I'd be going right I'm pretty positive this trades gonna work of two or five, or 10 lot but at the moment, it's like let's just hold back and do one more being conservative. I think I can be aggressive if I need to be but on how Allen: And how much percentage return are you looking to make? Mark: I knew you're gonna ask me that question. And I don't actually have a percentage. I've just I suppose a bad way of saying it but I just keep putting the trades on and hope that the probabilities work out so I don't have a particular percentage amount that I've got Okay. When you ask that question Allen: obviously so obviously you know, just putting the trades on hoping they work out that's not working. So we're gonna have we're have to refine this What strategy do you think most appeals to you? Mark: Well, obviously I've been working on the credit spread that's probably the one thing that I've done the most of the credit spreads like I've done in many others, but that's the one that I've probably done the most so in the last few years. Allen: Okay, and are you keeping track record of all the trades that you've been doing? Mark: No, I don't. I have written them down in the past. I do try to follow that put it in a journal, but over time, it just becomes cumbersome I suppose like it's writing it all down. I don't I don't stick to it. It's probably the kind of problem there. Allen: So what you said is you want to franchise, and in the franchise are going to tell you the first thing is to document everything you're doing. Because we cannot tell what's going wrong if we don't know what you already did. So having a firm plan that says okay, I'm gonna put this trade on and writing down why, why am I putting this trade on? Because it's moving higher because it's got news coming out because it's high. It's, you know, very volatile right now or the IV is off or whatever their reasoning is, you put the rig, you put it there, you write the trade, you record what happened, why or why did not work out. And then after you do a whole bunch of these, you can go back and look at it and say, okay, every time I do a trade that's at, you know, 35 Delta, it works wonderfully. But every time I do any other Delta, it doesn't work. So I'm just going to do that 35 delta. So if you want to find your own trading plan, then this is how you do it. Now, this is a long way to do it, it's going to take a long time, because you're going to have to test different things and try different things and see what's working, what's not working. But it would be one way for you to create your own plan based on what you find you're more comfortable in, because some people they come in and they tell me, hey, you know what I want to do Credit spreads, and I want to do 2025 Delta spreads, some people don't want to do five Delta spreads, you know, so everybody's comfortable with different things. And then based on the amount of credit they get, then we can figure out okay, how do we how do we manage the trade, some people should be not managing the trade at all, they should just be getting in and getting out at a certain amount. Some people, they can go ahead and say, hey, my trade is going bad, I'm going to, you know, adjust it or do something else with it. So depending on what we're thinking, when we get in will dictate what we do when we're in the trade. Mark: So now that I know what I do for trades, there are particular entry signals that I looked for, like I don't just go and find a stock and then look up a chain and then play delta and put it on. I do have, like, for example, I think there's market volume, I use volume. So obviously, when volume is increasing, I'll have them put on a put trade, obviously, when the stocks turning or progressing. And obviously over the three averages, like you say, things like that. So there are particular indicators, and not too many I do try and keep it fairly simple, I believe, before I put anything on, so I do try and put the weight in my favor. And the advocate of that, of course, by using those some small indicators to try and get it on sideways or progressing in the in the direction that we think it's going. So I do look at that I'm not a big person, I'm gonna use a 35, Delta, or 45, or whatever. Right? Okay, I understand the Delta side of things. But it's more about volume, I suppose at this stage and what. Allen: Okay, so that that's good to know. Right? So I mean, what I would do is, I probably have a sheet, kind of like a checklist, you know, so get it out of your head, and onto an actual piece of paper, where every single trade you have to mark it off, you know, the volume is high, yes, you know, movement is this way or whatever, whatever your your things are, you check it off. One, two, three.. Mark: I actually have done that I can attest that I have done that I've written down, like when the bar gets lower than the level of bar, it's time to get in or when a turn when it points up. It's getting. So I have written most things down in the past. Yes. Allen: So that'll be your trade law right there. That's if you do if you have the discipline to do that, before you put in the trade, you'll you'll know at the end, okay. You know, just go back to that journal and be like, Okay, what worked and what didn't work? What are the patterns. And that's kind of the stuff that I was doing originally, when I was first starting to figure this stuff out, is look at every single one. And now I have my my checklist, where if there are two or three things that I cannot mark off, I don't put the trade on, because I know that hey, there's not enough, you know, these things are really important. I want them, I don't want to put a trade on without everything checked off. Allen: Now, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to lose, like you still lose on the trade with everything checked off. But like you said, you know, we're putting the odds in our favor. As many times if you have a checklist, like you said you did. That's your journal right there. And so before you put on the trade, you just mark it off, you know, check, check, check, check, oh, I can't check this one. Then later on, after the trades are done, you do 2030 trades, at least, then you can go back and look at and say okay, I lost on these three trades. What is the pattern I lost on these five trades? What is the pattern? And you might find a pattern, you don't have to but you might find something that say okay, these indicators, you know, they're not working or they are working. The other thing is, I mean, it's, it's really simple, right? You find the strategy that you want. And you said, Hey, I found the strategy. Second step is to find the trading plan, that you think you think will work and then is just test it and trade it and do it over and over over again. But the important part is that you have to stick to the plan. Do you think you stick to the plan, or is it? Is it a discipline? Mark: Tell me, tell me, what got you out? I've read your book or listen to your story. What part got you through that ceiling? Obviously, we're doing the same thing as we all do for such a long period of time. But there must have been something that clicked or something that you did or something did you get into? Was it a program for you? Was it someone that you got? Hold on What, what got you to that next level that we all tried to get to? Allen: It took time, it took discipline, there were a few things that really helped me. One was really sticking to the rules that I had set up. And really, it's about, you know, when it comes down to it, it's about putting the trades on with the odds in your favor as many ways as you can. And I learned about that later on, you know, having different different levels. But what I started to do, and the ones that I really started doing well on, and in the beginning, were iron condors. For some reason, that strategy really, really clicked with me. And I was like, Oh, my God, I gotta work. No, no, it doesn't work right now. But he's like, you know, that strategy really worked. And it was like, Oh, I can adjust it. So I might never lose money in the trades. It's just really awesome. But I still was having trouble following the rules. Because, you know, you have to work that. So there were there were a few ways. Number one is my wife got involved. Allen: So every day, she would, like I would have a list of all of my trades, and I would have all the rules, like when I needed to do what, so every day at a certain time, she would come upstairs because I was working from home and she wasn't she wasn't working. So she would come upstairs. And she would ask me, Okay, let's go through every single trade one by one by one. And so she'd be she'd have her notes. And she's, okay, this trade on Russell. Where is it now? And they go, Okay, this, it's up this much money, or it's down this much money? Okay. When are you going to adjust? Well, when this happens? And they said, where is it now? Say, Oh, it's right here. So do you have to adjust it? No, not yet. Okay, cool. Next one. All right. I did this. Okay. Why did you do this trade? And when are you going to adjust it? Should you have adjusted it? Yeah, I should have adjusted already. Why didn't you adjust it? Ah, I don't know. She's like, Oh, what the hell are you doing?  Mark: All that is basically you got your wife involved? Allen: I mean, not just involved, but she was holding me accountable. So I had to answer because she doesn't need to know anything about trading. But she just needs to look at my rules and ask me the questions like, hey, what's the trade doing? Is it up or down? Why have you not? What are you going to do about it? And if there is something to do about it, what are you going to do? So it's just asking yourself those questions every single day. And it helped. I used to do that on my own. But I would always ignore the answers. Because I didn't have anybody to answer to. It's like, oh, I'm a trader, I'm the boss, I make my I'll make the decisions. But when she came in, I knew I had to answer to her. And if I don't have a good reason, then I'm putting her money on the line as well. Right? I'm putting her future on the line as well. So we would have a discussion about that. So I knew in advance, I knew, Okay, she's coming at one o'clock, I need to make sure I got everything right. I'm doing everything right. Otherwise, we're gonna have an argument. And so I needed her. Like, in the beginning, I wasn't, I was I lost a lot of money. And so the only reason that I didn't have to go out and get a job was because she was patient with me. But it was part of it was like, she's going to be the boss, right? Until I turn it around. And until I break the ceiling, she's the boss. She's going to tell me what I can do what I cannot do based on how I'm doing. And so I call that my one o'clock, you know, fire drill. It's like every day at one o'clock, I still do it. I go through every single trade and I look at it and say okay, is this trade up or down? It's up. Okay, good. Allen: What happens if it goes down a little bit? Am I still going to be okay? Yes. Okay, move on to the next one. And so I don't have time to do that on 100 trades. So that's why I limit the number of trades I have. But every day I go in and I look at it and I monitor it I know where each trade stands. So that before it starts to get into trouble, I know and I can look at it and be like okay, this one I need to monitor this one I need to adjust early or this one I need to maybe just exit it because it's not acting right. It's not acting properly. So It kind of gives me you know, so having that while you go in every day and look at each trade, and everybody does that. But in order to you ask yourself the right questions, and then you have to do what you need to do. So just monitoring the trades, and just checking on them is not enough. You have to know, okay, this is my plan, and I have to do this, then you have to stick to it. And then if you have an accountability partner, or if you have a wife or a child, or whatever, if somebody comes in and asks you, hey, you were supposed to do this, well, why didn't you do it? And then you have to answer to them. So when you have somebody else there, that automatically, I mean, that instantly made me better, like instantly, the first day, second day she came in, you know, I just I just started following the rules, because I knew I had to, I had to give her an answer. So that was one of the things that did it. Allen: The other thing was that I realized that this is a long term game. And so you've read the passive Trading Book. So I wrote that book, because I saw that if you're only selling options, eventually, you don't like the options can go against you. So what I mean by that is, in the financial crisis, when we had the financial crisis in 2008, there was everything was just going up and down. And so if I had options on if I trades on those trades lost, and then I could never get that money back. That's when I realized that, okay, you know, if I want to play the long game, if I want to be in this forever, I cannot let something else knock me out. I cannot let a COVID 19 pandemic knock me out, I can't let the financial crisis I can't let you know, the President making some decision and sending the stocks down, knocked me out. And so I started building up the foundation of stocks, and using those to generate capital on those. And the idea is, hey, I want to own the stocks as my foundation. But I want to use options as basically like a rocket ship, you know, so I wanted to boost the returns. So I'm gonna have conservative stuff in the in the main portfolio, you know, where I have the stocks, and I'm making money. Mark: I totally agree with all right. Yeah. Allen: So, you know, that was now Mark: I totally agree with all that, definitely. Allen: So you can't start off that way. Because it takes a lot of money to own that stocks. So in the beginning, you do have to get good at picking one strategy, getting good at it, just following it and being disciplined, and saying, Hey, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to follow it along. Now, again, long term, picture wise, every month, you're not going to make money, every trade is not going to make money. So you have to have that in your in your mindset that, hey, sometimes it's gonna work, and sometimes it's not. So there's lots of lots of little little things that you can improve on it. But the biggest thing that I'm seeing is that you have to follow the plan. Mark: So Allen, do you think that I would benefit? Like I know you're selling plenty of courses, promote what you promote in the book. And I totally agree with all that, I get it on one side. But if I was to do another course, such as yours, I my fear is, and we're just going down that same rabbit holes, as I've done before, hence why I'm confused as to why I can't seem to break that ceiling. If I was to go into a course such as yours, this one that you're the passive trading and whatnot, I worry that I really fear that a year I am going into it again, I'm doing another course. But I understand the strategy. I think now I need more of a coach, maybe I need maybe that one on one, maybe maybe that's what I need. Or maybe there are things that I'm not happy to admit to that I do that I need to be changed. I need to be molded stead of going down this direction on to be heading over in this little bit direction over here with my trading. I understand the why thing. That's a great thing in my voice. She's a great supporter of me. I am trying to I'm trying to get out of work. She works. I'm trying to get her out, keep trying and trying and time is your course gonna sit me on that path to freedom. Allen: So it's like, you know, I mean, I'll give you an example. Like when people go to college, right? They everybody's told go to college, go to college, some people they go to college, and they just they just party the whole time and they don't get anything out of it. Some people go and they study, study, study, study, study, and they get a good job. Some people go and they make lots of contacts, you know, they they meet, they make lots of friends. They meet lots of teachers so that when they get out, they know a lot of people and they have a good network and then that helps them so it's really up to each person individually. Now I would love to say that yes, every single person that takes my course makes them million dollars. But that's not the reality. You know, people come in, life happens, they take it seriously, they don't take it seriously. And, you know, that's, that's one part I cannot control. So I cannot tell you that, yeah, you know what, it's going to work for you just because it's, I'm amazing. And I'm a wonderful person, and it's just gonna work. 90% of it is on you, I can give you everything I know, I can do it with you. But again, the markets have to cooperate. Number one, and then number two, it has to click for you, you have to do it, and you have to practice it. And you have to stick to the plan. A lot of times when people come into my programs, and they tell me Oh, hey, you know, I'm doing XYZ, I'm like, but that's not what I have in the plan. Allen: That's not what I have in the program. They're like, yeah, no, but I'm changing. I'm like, okay, but have you done it my way? No, not yet. But then why did you join my program, you could do your own way. Without my program, you don't need to pay for my program, right? If you're going to pay for something. And if you believe that, hey, yeah, this guy knows what he's talking about this thing works, I think it works. If you're going to pay for it, then just follow that step by step by step and don't change it. Unless it works.  Allen: When it starts working, then only then would you say, Okay, now I'm going to, you know, change it up, because I think I can, I can be a little bit more aggressive, or, hey, I want to be a little bit more conservative, or I want to change it up a little bit. But you don't do that until it's always working. So the problem is that people that have been doing this for a long time, they know all the strategies, they've listened to many other coaches, you know, they come in, and they're like, Well, you know, I don't like that one thing, I'm going to change, I don't like that thing, I'm going to change. And so they start doing it their own way and they don't listen. And so you can't take stuff from this course and this course and this course and mash it into a Frankenstein, and then tell me "Oh, it didn't work?" Well, because I don't know why that guy told you to do that. And I don't know why that other guy told you to do that. Or the only thing I know is if you do it this way, you'll get the similar results that what I'm doing. Now, if you add and change it, then I can't help. So, you know, like you're saying that we have, I think there's like four pillars that I tell people that people need. So if you want to learn how to do something, you need these four pillars. Number one is you need the right strategy, which you've already said is, hey, that's the credit spread, right? Number two, you need the trading plan that works. So number three, is you need other people to do it with because you're doing it all alone, like you said, you know, you might need a wife, if you don't have a wife or partner like that, then you can have a community or other students that are doing it the same way. Allen: And then number four, you need a coach that can actually show you what he's doing, because he's still doing it. And he's actually doing it right now, instead of somebody that said, oh, yeah, I was a market maker 30 years ago, and I don't trade anymore. So I think those are the four things and depends on which everybody needs. So the coaching part is the one that takes the most time. And that's why those coaching programs are the most expensive. Allen: In my passive trading course. You know, we give you the trading plan. It's like okay, here, this is the plan, these are the rules, you follow it and, you know, good luck. But there's no one on one coaching. There's no group, you know, where we are, where we're doing and looking at the trades. And so when we have that passive trading course, it's a cheaper course. And so people would join it, and they would go through the modules. And some people would have a lot of success, some people wouldn't. So I said, What, what's the problem? Why are they not? Why is it not working? And I realized that it would help if they could just spend a lot more time with me. And so we created that credit spread mastery course, where every week, we get on the call, and we're just looking for trades, we're managing trades, we're adjusting trades, doing it together. So the point of that is, here's the rules. Here's the trading plan. Now let's do it together, over and over and over and over and over and over. And so once you have that habit of doing it the same way over and over and over the other, the other ideas, the other habits kind of die off. So I've seen that that program does deliver results. So we back it up and we say hey, look, if you're in our program, and the program doesn't work, like you don't if you're not profitable in our program, then we keep you in the program. We keep working with you. We keep you in the class until you become profitable. And so even if the markets not cooperating That's fine, we'll learn how to manage it together. And then we'll stay longer in the program, if you'd have to be.. Mark:  So with your target trading alum, obviously, it does take a type of market. And obviously, that's why through the last six months with Covid whatnot, it would be easy Earth to do that type of training, because obviously, it just went straight up didn't keep they're still on put, credit spreads the load of was money for Jim, in a market such as what we're in now, which is up and down, up and down. It's far more difficult, isn't it? Allen: Currently it is more difficult, doesn't mean it's impossible. So we do have to dial back our, we have to dial back our expectations. So last year, the year before, you know, making 10% a month, 7-8% a month, not a big deal, it was pretty simple. You know, put the trades on most of them work out in anybody, and everybody was making money. Like any you know, you could buy anything, and it was going up any everyone is making money. This is a market where you have to be really good at selection, trade selection, and management. So you have to know when things are turning around, and when to get out before they get really bad. Allen: So the trade management, sticking to your stop loss is very important right now. And those are things that most people get afraid of, you know, so it's like, okay, I put the trade on, it should work. And then oh, no, the stocks turning around, what do I do what I do, and they don't do anything. So if your thing is part of, if you're doing as part of a group or in a program, then be like, hey, we need to get out, we need to get out, get out, get out. Some people let people know, Mark: There's that mental component, that's the biggest part. And as I've gone along this journey, if all these years, I've realized more so in the latest year, it's not about the strategy. It's not about all that stuff. That mental side of it, it's 80-20, Mark Douglas, the book, the trading zone, I listened to that over and over and over again, and various other podcasts and whatever other things, but trying to pull the trigger when you're in a loss is it wasn't so hard, we put this trade on, it was gonna work a met the probabilities, it was all looking good, it was under the over the top of the averages. I had volume, blah, blah. But all of a sudden, now I'm underwater again. And here we go again, and then I've got to pull a trigger to get out to take that loss. Mark: And I have taken some big losses in the past, I've had to pull the trigger, just recently with the weekly trading system. And when that I mean, there's Solomon says, I've been there for a couple of weeks, again, I've been on and off over the over many years. And all of a sudden, now I'm having to pull the trigger again to get out because we lose money. Like it's hard. It's another scar, isn't it another scar, not a scar, it's another get back down there. You know, I don't want to see you do any good. It's difficult, you know, and that's that mental side of it is arguments or trading? Allen: Yep. The emotions, you know, the emotions have to be kept in check. So there's different ways that you could do that, you know, one, one of the ways is people say that you divorce or divorce yourself from the outcome. So whether you win or lose, doesn't matter make a Mark: ..difference? Exactly what I totally agree with that. And that skill is very difficult. Allen: Yeah, your job is to just follow the plan and stick to the plan. And if you can do that, eventually, over the long run, it'll work out, you know, maybe you have losing trades, that's fine. But over the long run, it should work out. So too much of it, like you said, you know, like, oh my god, I'm, I'm going to be negative again, oh, my God, I'm gonna have to pull the trigger. And oh, my God, you know, when you have that kind of reaction, that compounds and it just makes it all, it makes it much harder to get out of the trade when there is a loss. The other there's one lady, she told me something that really worked for her. She goes, You know what, this is not my money. This is God's money. And what what are you talking about as God's money? She goes, Well, I use this money. And I use the gains from the money to do good. Because they use it for charity work. So she's like, I don't need the money to live. Because I have enough income I have enough. You know, I have I have money coming in that I live off of. But this is my trading money. And so I take the money that I make, and I give it away to charity, and I do good things with it. So it's really God's money, and I cannot lose God's money. There's no way I can lose money. And so if I'm if I'm going negative, that the trade is losing, I get out right away because I don't want God mad at me because it's not my money. So that's another way you could look at it. That you know, again, it's it's taking yourself out of the outcome, you know, and it's not like okay, it's not under my control. So you've got the wife coming in and asking you what you're doing and why it's working or why it's not working and being accountable. You have you know, not looking at the outcome just getting better as a trader, just hey, I need to do my skills, whether it wins or not, that's not up to me. That's up to the market, I can't control that. But I can follow my plan. That's up to me. The other thing is, you know, not looking at it in emotional point of view, like, Hey, this is not my, maybe this is my kid's mind. Maybe this is, you know, God's money, however you want to look at it, but it's not yours. So if you lose it, it's bad. Like, that's the worst thing to happen. You know. So there's, there's three different ways that you can mentally overcome the different obstacles. But again, I think one thing that we haven't talked about yet is to simplify, right? So you've done all the different strategies, and I'm sure, you know, some of it is creeping in. And, you know, it's like, oh, you know, I got to do this, or I'm going to, I'm going to wait for this indicator, or I'm going to wait for these Bollinger Bands, or the Fibonacci, or the technicals, or any of that stuff, the more you simplify it, the easier it becomes to actually follow through with it. And so I think, you know, just one strategy, not chasing after the shiny object, you know, it's like, Hey, make a decision. If it's spread, spreads, and that's the only thing you focus on, and you get rid of everything else, you stopped listening to everything else, you unsubscribe from all the emails, you know, whatever, whatever service that you choose, like, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to follow this plan, I'm going to, you know, if you've taken a course, maybe you've already taken a course, you have a course that you've tak`en and be like, Okay, I like this course, I'm going to follow this course, we'll get rid of everything else. Just go through it. Master that and don't do anything else until you know what that is, until you get the results that you're supposed to get it. In the beginning, when I started screwing up, like I would learn something, and then I would do good for a little bit and then I would mess up. And then I would do good, then I would mess up. So I was like, What the hell do I do? Well, I would always go back to the basics. I would imagine that I don't know anything. And I would go back to step one. Okay. What is a call? What is the put? What am I doing here? What is the strategy? How am I supposed to put it on? What are the rules and I gotta follow them step by step by step, not like, oh, you know, I'm gonna, I think this stock is gonna go down or or, you know, there's a Fibonacci retracement level, and there's some support here. So I don't have to adjust. No, forget all that stuff. I don't know any of that stuff. All I know, is the strategy and my trading plan. And that's it. And so that was, you know, you go back to the basics. And that will change your mentality of it, like, Okay, how do I manage the trade? How do I deal with this? Allen: Again, if there's other things involved, like stress, you know, if you're under a lot of stress, you're going to make the wrong decisions. If it has to work. If I have to make money this month, from my trades, you're going to make the wrong decisions. It's not going to work out in the long term. So there was a there was something another trick that one of our one of our students taught me. And now everybody can't do this. Most people can't do this. But what he does, is that he takes whatever money he makes trading this year. He will live off that next year. So when he's trading next year, he doesn't have to live off that money. Because he already has the money set aside from the last year. If that makes sense. Mark: You need a big bankroll sounds like a real estate agent. Allen: Yeah, you need Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was. He was a politician. But, um, he has obviously, other people's money then. So I mean, he did have, you know, he had, he had a large account to do that. But eventually, that would be the best thing to do. You know, you have you already know your expenses are covered. Right? Now, you're only focusing on the plan and focusing on on just winning and just trading properly. It's not it takes the emotion out of so whatever you can do, whatever trick you can use to get that emotion out of it, that will make you a better trader. One, one more thing that that that that I've seen is happening to me is, the more you do it, the more of a habit it becomes. So if you do, you know, 50 trades, that's a lot better than five trades, but 500 trades is a lot better than 50 trips, if you do them properly with the right practice. So eventually, you get to the point where Oh, it's just another trade. It's not a big deal. It's just another trade. There's another one coming. So if I get if I hit my stop loss, yeah, it hurts. I hate it. But it's Just another trait, you know, I'm going to move on, move on to the next one, move on to the next one, because every month is a different ballgame. So you start over, you get to start over again and again and again. And so that is another trick that you would help in the long run. But again, you know, you have to, in before all of that happens, you have to have the confidence that this actually works. Mark: So what do I truly do believe in? Allen: Yes, you say that you say that. But then you also say that, you know, I can't do it. It's not working. It's not working. But you, you you've heard it that it works, you want to believe that it works. But I don't think you have that conviction yet that it works. And so the only way to get that conviction is to get it done for yourself. Right? And so it might be that you take a maybe you take a step back, and you go even simpler. And you say you don't want not the credit spreads, how about I do something like maybe a naked put, right, in a naked put, I'm going to make money if the stock doesn't go down. And it'll expire. And then I'll sell another one. And I'll sell another one. And I'm going to sell it far out of the money. So that I just when I just make that 20 bucks, or that $30 or whatever it is that small amount I'm just going to make month after month after month trade after trade I'm going to make and if the stock drops, okay, no fine, I can buy the stock, no big deal, I'll buy the stock. And then I'll sell covered calls on that stock. And so the covered call will expire, and I'll make something the covered call was expired, the next month will expire, and I'll make something so you build up that confidence that you know what, there is a way to do this. That's another option, you know, if you want to go that route, so you really got to figure out like, okay, you know, it's a, it's a personal thing, I wish I could just tell you that, hey, this is the one thing you need to do. But for everybody, it's different. And unless I spent a lot more time with you, unless I see all of your trades, unless I see you know, your emotion, how you handle the emotions, I won't be able to tell you. So that's kind of like in our in our program, what we do is we tell we give everybody a spreadsheet, and we say, hey, look, you have to fill out the spreadsheet, you have to put every single trade on the spreadsheet. And then they shared with me so that I can go in and I can look at them. You know, I could look at the tray. And I'll go in I'll see like, why did he do this trade? This doesn't make any sense to me. And I'm calling this Hey, John, why did you do this tray? Allen: And he goes, well, no, that's not gonna work. And he goes, okay, okay, fine, I'll do it. All right, done. You know, and if they're doing all the trades, right, then it's probably working. And most of the time, it's not working, like if they're not making money, then we can identify, Okay, what are what is not going right? You know, there was one of our current students, he was doing several trades, and he was still negative. So I looked at his spreadsheet, and I'm like, Okay, what's going on? What do I see, and his trade entries were great. You know, he was picking the right stocks, he was doing it properly. But whenever he lost, he would lose a lot more than he should have. He just wasn't getting out early on time. And so that was the biggest thing is like, you're not getting out. This is it, you know, your losses are too big. Doesn't matter how many trades, you win, your losses are still too big, you're still going to be negative. And so we worked on that. And then over time, he got better at getting out earlier and earlier and earlier. But he had, you know, he had somebody to look at that and to point it out, and to hold him to it. So that eventually he did it over and over and over again. And then by the end of the class, he was positive. He was like, Yeah, I fixed it. Again, that's all you need to do. That was he needed that one thing, everything else is simple. The training plan I could give you, you know, you could go do it on your own. But the discipline part of it, that's sometimes where we need help from somebody else. And so whether you know, it might be a wife might be somebody else, it might be a trading partner, somebody you work with, it might be a coach. So I think that might be one thing that you could implement. Mark: So just quickly, what what's the key points in a trading plan make like entry criteria, stop losses or that sort of stuff. Is there anything else that I can many points or rules should be in a trading plan? Like what I try and put a trading plan together, that is doable and simple to follow. To look at rather a complicated bloody list of all this crap, what would be a good trading plan? Allen: So, you want it to be simple and easy to implement. But you don't want it to be too simple, where it's just broad, like anything can happen. So, you know, I've seen people that have a trading plan that says, I'm going to do an iron condor on this stock 45 days to expiration, I'm going to sell a 10 Delta calls and sending out the puts. And that's it. That's my whole plan, and I'm just gonna sit and let it expire. That's a trading plan. It's very simple, right? You know, what you're going to do you know, what you're going to how you're going to do it, you know, what you're going to trade it on. And you know, when. And so now that pretty good plan doesn't work. So whoever's listening don't don't do that one. We've back tested that, and it didn't work. But there are, there are times there are several months where it does work, just because it has, you know, 80% probability, but over time, it doesn't. So that's the basics, you got to know what you want to trade, you need to know the strategy, you got to know what you want to trade. And then you have to know what constitutes a good setup. So when it comes to credit spreads, you mentioned credit spreads. So I like to do that, depending on the size of the of the trade, if it's a you know, maybe a $5000 $10,000 trade, then I'll go into I can go into a stock, or I'll go into an index ETFs are good, too. But they're their strikes are a little bit smaller. So you got to do a lot more contracts. But if I can go into a stock that has, you know, five point spreads, and I do 10 of them. That's a $5,000 trade. That'll work. Allen: So you can, what do you want to trade? And then what's the proper setup? So for me, again, I like to keep it simple. So if I see a stock that's trending, as moving up, or moving down, then I'm happy to trade it. Because I'm, I'm more of a trend follower, you know, so there's people that think, okay, if the stock is gonna go up, it's going up, it's going to keep going up until something big changes, there are other people that think the opposite. They're like, Oh, if it's going up, they just kind of come back down, because it's gonna do reversion to the mean. And sometimes that works. And sometimes it doesn't. So I don't really buy that I just like, hey, if it's going up, then it's telling me that it wants to go higher. So that's basically what I'm looking for. In a setup, I'm looking for the stock to tell me what it wants to do. So if I see a stock that's jumping up and down, no, I don't know what it's doing. I don't know what it's telling me, I can't understand the language, I'm not going to trade it. If it's going up, then I'm going to play it bullish. If it's going down, I'm going to play bearish. And sometimes, you know, it turns around and you get banked, but most of the time it's going to work out. So that's the kind of setup I'm looking for. And then over the years, you know, we've added other things to look at, you know, how do you make sure that all of your trades are not in the same sector? Right now, you know, right now, oil has been doing well. So all of the oil companies were doing great. But then they all turned around and went down all together. So if you have 10 trades on in different oil companies, that's not that's not diversification. That's the same trade. And so if they turn around, I'm going to turn on together. So that would be one way of putting the odds in your favor by having you know, only a small portion of your account in one sector. So you have to separate that. How do you diversify by time? You know, so not putting all your trades on on the same day. That's another way to do it. So you diversify by time. So there's so many different ways that you can do it, some of them might make sense to you some might not. And then, you know, we have other students that come in and say, Well, I do it, you know, I look for this also in my trade, like, Okay, if that's what you want to add to it, then add it. Don't subtract things that I've given you. But if you want to add to it, one student said that he likes to look at the weekly chart, I usually look at the daily chart, see how the stock is doing. He likes to look at the weekly chart as well. Allen: So I'm like, Okay, fine, you can add to it, you know, if it doesn't hit your criteria on the weekly chart, then just means you'll have less trades that qualify, but it's not gonna it's not going to put you into a trade that's going to hurt. So when you're basically you just have to figure out what you think is going to work. And then you have to test it. So back testing, and paper trading are really really, really helpful. Especially back tests, Mark: I find paper trading useless. To be honest. You lose interest very quickly. It's very easy to lose in that type of trading. Yeah, go ahead. I've done a little bit of paper trading and I've just found that I find okay, it's gone the wrong way. But I got it wrong. You just let it go. Because it doesn't mean anything. It has no significance, does it? Start with money trading? Yeah. You've got a connection heavenly with the with the live trading, because actually, it's not your money tied to it. Allen: It's not your money. It doesn't matter what the style of the trade does, you're only focusing on becoming a better trader, the goal is not to make more money, the goal is to become a better trader. Right? It's kind of like playing poker. It's like when you when people go to play poker, right? They'll professionals, they'll tell you that if they play their hand perfectly, and they lose, they're okay with it. Right? If they play, if they mess up, and they still win, they're still mad at themselves. Because I didn't play it right. I didn't play my cards, right? Even though I won, I don't care, because long run, it's going to hurt them. If they keep playing incorrectly in the long term, it's going to hurt them. So that's the goal to become the better trader. And the end results, the profits will take care of themselves. So paper trading is practice. That's all it is. Right? If you didn't need to take that on board. It's slow practice. Back testing, I prefer back testing way better than paper trading. Because you can go really quick. You know, if you if you come up with a plan, like okay, these are my criteria, I got these seven criteria on my trading plan. I'm going to enter when I see this, this and this. I'm going to exit when this happens. I'm going to adjust it this way If this happens, okay, I got that right and down, and that you can even just come up with your you can just guess No, I think this one's good. This one's good. That's my plan. Okay. You pick. You pick a stock, spy. Great, perfect. You go back to yours in time. January 1, put the trade on. How does it do? Oh, it made money. Awesome. Cool. February, how do you do made money? Great. March. Oh, we lost a lot of money. Doing it, huh? Okay. APR, how do you do? And then just do it month by month, I want back testing one month or one trade, you know, might take you five or 10 minutes. And so you can get years worth of practice in just a few days by back testing. And you'll find that Mark: It's something that I've never done is back testing. Is there a particular software that's adequate for that sort of stuff? I've never really looked down that line. I've heard about it. I've listened to it, but I've never actually really done it myself. Is there anyone ticular that would be worthy. Allen: The one that I use, the one that I use is called the option net explore. option that explore? Yeah, and I think I think they're based out of Great Britain. And so basically, it's, it's an options selling platform, you know, so it looks like your broker's platform, you put the trade on, and you go through it day by day by day. And it doesn't do it all for you, you actually have to look at it every single day. And if you want to make changes, you can make changes to it. That's what I like about it. There are other software's that you just put in the strategy, you press a button and it'll tell you "Oh, you made money or you lost money". That's not the point. We want to get better as a trader. Right. And so this one is like, Okay, I put the trade on, click a button. Oh, stock is down today. Do I need to do anything? No. Okay, next stage. Oh, stock is back up again. I don't have to do anything. Next stage. Oh, stock is down again. Oh, no, I'm at an adjustment point. Okay, what adjustment am I going to make? I'm going to do this adjust. Okay, cool. Let's see, did it work out? Go there forward today forward a day forward a day. Oh, expiration day stop. It worked. So it's, it's just, you know, there's no money, right? It's just about becoming a better trader. It's just about getting the practice doing it over and over and over again. So that I think would definitely help you as well. Mark: Okay, so one of the things obviously, we talked about discipline and the mental game, what's probably the best thing to follow, or to train your mental strength, like, as you said, like a paper trade or a live trade, you should be able to make that same decision, then in there without any emotional war. What's the best way to get to that level of trading where you whether you win or lose, it's just business as usual? Allen: Yeah, I've done to you have to divorce yourself from the outcome, whatever, whatever that takes for you. For me, in the beginning, it was getting my wife because I knew how I would have to answer to her. Mark: And scary Allen: I didn't have it. Exactly. It has to be scary. Because if you do it properly, she cannot get managed. Right? It's like, Hey, I followed the rules, babe. I did everything I was supposed to do. It still didn't work out and she'll be like, Okay, fine. That's no problem. But if you do not follow the rules, that's when she gets manage. And that's when it gets scary. So yes, you have to make it scary for you not to follow your rules, because a lot of us a lot of US traders, like, if we lose money, yeah, we don't we get mad about it, we're like, oh, man, I lost money, we feel bad about ourselves. But it doesn't hurt enough. You know, it's kind of like these people that say, Hey, I want to lose some weight. You know, so they make a goal, I'm gonna lose some weight, I'm gonna lose some weight, they tell everybody, and they do it for a few days, and then they give up. But then there's this website, that what, what this website, basically what it does is, you have to pick a, maybe a political party, or a person or some organization that you hate, you actually hate them. And you have to put up a lot of money and say, Okay, if I don't stick to my goal, this organization is going to get $5,000 or $10,000. So that makes you because it's now becomes a different level. It's not about just the money, or about doing the thing. It's like, okay, you know, let's say, for example, I don't want to give my money to anybody like the Save the whale Foundation, right? I don't want to, I don't want to give my money to the whales, I hate whales, I want them all to die. I don't want anybody to save the whales. So if I don't lose 10 pounds, they're gonna charge my credit card $5,000 and give it to the whales, and I hate whales. So I want to do whatever I have to do to lose that money to lose that weight. You know, because I don't want that well to be saved. You have to want something more than what you have. So there's, that's another psychological trick. No, in trading? We sometimes we get used to it, you know, it's like, oh, last? Oh, well, you know, we get used to it. And it just, we gotta it's just the mental part of it. Mark: Definitely, definitely, it's a huge part of it. Something I didn't I didn't realize, until much later down the track of trading, how big a part of mental side of it really is. Allen: I mean, if you find trying to avoid is difficult. Yeah. So if you find yourself having a problem with discipline, make it simpler, cut it down, make it as simple as possible. Find the trade that you know will like you know, the naked call or the naked put the covered call, these are very simple trades, they're really hard to mess it up. Right? On the naked put, if you get assigned the stock, hey, that's great. I just bought the stock much cheaper than it was before. And I'm going to own it. So you want to you want to do it on companies that you're going to own you want to own for a long period of time. That's the only way it really works. You can't you can't be selling naked puts on stocks that are just, you know, going crazy. That's the wrong way to do it. So you know, if you can simplify it, if you can find some way to have somebody else monitor you, and hold you to your fire, you know, hold your feet to the fire like, hey, you need to follow this, why aren't you doing this? Or, hey, it's not my money. Right? I'm doing it for somebody else. This is my kids inheritance, right? I cannot mess it up. So I have to follow the rules. One guy, when I was in, just after high school, I became an agent, a real estate agent. And as an agent, as a brand new agent, they tell you that you have to do a lot of things that you don't want to do. You have to talk to hundreds of people all the time, you have to cold call, people say Oh, Hi, are you doing? Do you want to sell your house? Oh, hi, do you wanna say, Well, you know, they have to keep doing things that you don't want to do. So it was like, okay, in the guy, the guy is like, hey, most of you guys are not going to do it. But if you want to be really, really, really motivated, what you need to do is go out and buy a fancy sports car. Sounds like what you're talking about, what do you do a fancy sports car? Because yeah, you need to go out and buy an expensive sports car so that you have that payment that you have to make at the end of the month. And so that is going to make you work your butt off because you have to make the payment. And as I go I mean, I understand what he was saying. I was like, No, I'm not doing that. But then eventually I didn't make it as a realtor. Maybe if I did do that, maybe I just didn't do the work that he told you to do. I just didn't do it. It wasn't the reward wasn't worth it for me. Mark: It was up to risk, I suppose. Yeah, Allen: I mean, you know, so with your training, you got to figure it out. Is it really worth it? Is the goal that hey, I want to quit my job. Is it I want my wife to quit her job. I want the kids to have this vacation or whatever it is. You have to burning. Yes, just eat you up every single day. You have to really really, really want it Mark: Explain to me how and it's burning me. Allen: Then the discipline has to stick. Because if you want it, but you're not disciplined, and your losses are too big, then it's it's not there yet. So I think, you know, if you don't have a trading plan, I'll just give you the training. You know, I mean, it's not that hard. It's not it's, it's the training plan helps. But it's up here. And it's the practice just doing it over and over and over again and having confidence in the plan. Because then if you have confidence, you'll stick to it. If you don't have confidence, you're going to change it, you're going to you're going to add things to it, you're not going to follow it, you're going to forget about it. Like with the paper trading, that's exactly what that is, you know, so it's not real. So, oh, well, I'm gonna ignore it. I'm gonna forget about I'm gonna do that.  Allen: That really resonated with me Allen's that that point, like, go back to the paper trading, treat it like it's somebody else's money, and then make it work. Don't look at it as just as being as a fake account, that doesn't matter. Allen: I mean, I wouldn't Yeah, I would prefer you do back testing, it'll be much faster. Mark: To look at that I'll get, I'll get onto that particular site that you've made. Yeah, Allen: That'll give you years of experience in just a few days. And so, to me,

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E42 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 we're talking about surviving the holidays as a pagan. Mark: right? Yucca: Yes. So welcome to December . Here we are. There's, there's a lot to go into with this, and later on in the month we're gonna come back and talk about the different traditions and projects and things that you can do. But today we're gonna start with the, the kind. The, the more secular approach to the holidays and all of the family expectations and all of that cultural stuff that's going on. They kind of, everybody shares regardless of whether they're Pagan or Christian or whatever they are. Mark: Yeah, exactly. One of the things that is very weird about the mainstream culture is that it, it seems to load nearly all of its holiday festivity into a five week period or six week period at the end of the year, when historically there would've been. Celebrations around the course of the year, you know, harvest holidays and, and so forth. And there would've been. You know, several days taken out to celebrate those things. And so it seems as though with all of this ology compressed to this very short period of time, it can just be very overwhelming for people and it can give them a sense of never quite doing it well enough, Yucca: yeah. Mark: right? That that feeling of the obligation to make it perfect and that it never is quite Yucca: right? It's supposed to be special. It's supposed to be this magical, but, but, but, but, but, but yeah. Mark: right. Yucca: And whenever I hear people talk about it, There's almost always this underlying, there's this exhaustion behind it, right? There's this, there's an excitement about it and there's so many wonderful things, but people just seem so exhausted just because of what you were talking about. Trying to get all of that in, take a whole year's jolliness, and stick it into those few months or few weeks, excuse me, not months. Mark: Yes. And I think, you know, some of that is this sort of set of unfair expectations that we put on people to, you know, to create this. Event Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: set of events. But I also think that there's other stressors that go into that, into that mix. You know, it's like you're gonna have to deal with your family more if you, if you do that, you know, for most people it's like, okay, I'm gonna have to deal with my family more. Well, there are usually, for most people, there are stressors around that. Yucca: Right. Even if you, even if you dearly, dearly love your family, there's all of those dynamics I find getting back together with my siblings. You know, we're adults. We've been adults for decades, but instantly it's like we're children again with this. Same, you know, picking on each other and all of the ridiculousness, you know, and, and we have a, a pretty decent relationship. But that's even with a decent relationship that, you know, there's still all of that, all of those emotions. Mark: Sure, sure. And I think that, you know, with parents particularly, you know, parents will treat you like a child for your whole life. Un unless they're really pretty together, parents Yucca: Well, Mark: figure out that you've, you've finally grown up. Yucca: but it's hard that all kind of blurs together. Right. You know, it was yesterday. They were changing your diapers. Mark: Right, right. And you know, this brings, you know, it brings you into engagement with philosophies of parenting, right? Because maybe the grandparents just want to indulge, indulge, indulge, indulge. And you as a parent have to put some breaks on that and say, no, I'm sorry. You know, candy for breakfast doesn't work. Yucca: Or enforcing that the kids get to have boundaries. The kid gets to say no, you know, or things like that, you know, Mark: Yes, you do not. Yucca: particular thing is that Mark: do not have to hug Weird Uncle Ralph Yucca: Yeah. So, and then, you know, on top of that, in, at least here in the Northern hemisphere, the weather has changed. We're in a colder time of year. People are indoors. There tends to be more illness, and we're not even taking into account, you know, covid or anything like that, but just people are, there's, people aren't always feeling good this time of year, and we're encouraged to be eating all of these sweets and foods that we normally wouldn't eat. And so, We're putting ourselves in these, yeah, more alcohol. We're just in a more vulnerable place emotionally and physically and asking so much of ourselves at the same time and so much of others, Mark: Right. Right. And that Then, oh, Yucca: buy everything. We're being asked to buy everything and be told about how it won't be magical without it, and you need this and you need that, and you're getting tricked by, by companies that spend millions and millions of dollars to get your attention. Mark: Yeah. And that of, I mean, the, the financial stresses, you know, that's a whole other level of stressor that, you know, that happens with Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And Yucca: And this year particular, right? That's something that happens every year, but there's a lot of challenges right now with all of that, just, you know, on a global level. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. So there's all that. And then if you were of an a. Religion. Then there's the layer of, okay, well how do I then live in a a way that I find fulfilling and meaningful? And not run a ground on somebody else's judgments. Right. Whether it's that you're weird or that you're evil , it's, you know, because either of those are pretty, yeah. Either of those are pretty unpleasant to wear, honestly. And so that's this sort of brew that the holidays is, right? It's all those kinds of things. The long list of. Tasks that have to be done and the decorating and the the buying and the just everything. Plus. You know, wanting to be as a non theist pig and wanting to say, you know, actually it's the winter solstice for me. That's, that's what I consider most meaningful. And here's what I'm gonna do to carve out some time to observe that on top of Christmas or Hanukkah or, you know, whatever, whatever more mainstream holidays you may be going to celebrate. Yucca: And I wanna pause this here for a second and say, it might sound like we're sounding a lot like wrenches right now. We are both Mark and I adore the holidays, and this time of year we're just starting with the, okay, how are we gonna address the, the self care and the balancing? And again, next week we're gonna get into here's some fantastic traditions and things you can do. But, but that we do really need to look at it from lots of different angles, right? And underst. , there is stress and we do need to take care of ourselves during this time period, as well as the, the more joyous side of it all. Mark: That's right because the hope, of course, is that we come out of the holidays feeling fed, right, feeling energized by all of the, the festivity that we've had. Even if it's tiring we can catch up on sleep, but you know, to feel as though we've had these meaningful kind of golden moments in the course of, of going through the holidays. That's, that's really the goal. And in order for that to happen, you gotta take care of yourself in the meantime. Otherwise, the current of the holidays will just sweep you along and That's a very out of control feeling, and it's not good for you. Yucca: Yeah, so why don't we start with the kind of commercialism side, right? How, what are some strategies that people can have to be more aware of that and more intentional with it? Mark: Okay, well the first strategy that I think is really important is to broaden the definition of gift. Because capitalism obviously wants to sell you a product. They wanna sell you a thing in a box. and that thing is made of resources that were carved out of the earth and may very likely end up in a landfill in not too short order. Yucca: Right. Mark: So it may not be the most, it may not be the, the, the best choice to choose a thing in a box. Now let me, let me put a caveat in. When it comes to children, you know, to to smaller children, my philosophy is let them have the equivalent of the, the secular winter solstice, holiday, the Christmas, because they will feel terribly deprived and terribly sad. If they don't have that experience, that doesn't mean they have to be mountain with gifts, but, I, I believe that in the case of children, you give them Yucca: of it. Yeah. Mark: And you give them things in a box. Yucca: Yeah, we do both. We'll talk more about this, but my family, we do, we do both Solstice and Christmas as separate holidays. Mark: right? Right. So, broadening the definition of what constitutes a gift means experiences. Experiences can be gifts. And that can be. Tickets to a concert. It can be a date night. It can be you know, we're gonna go dancing in this particular place. It can be you know, let's just go get coffee and talk for two hours. When do we ever get a chance to do that? It can be, let's go for a hike. There are lot, and, and many of those things don't have to cost much or any money depending on your relationship with the person. It can be. How about a massage or there are just, there are a lot of different things that you can do that will be in many ways, more memorable for people and don't involve the purchase of a thing in a box. Yucca: right? Mark: So broadening the definition of what constitutes a gift, I think is really important. In some cases, broadening in some cases, a gift can be something like, here's three hours of free childcare, right? I'm gonna, I'm, I'll watch the kids. You, you go and do whatever you want to do. Believe me, that's a very, very welcome gift for a lot of people. Yucca: is. I will wash the kids and wash your dishes if you want. Extra. You know, a bow on top there. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, these are things that are tremendously kind when someone, you know, opens an envelope or you can put the, a little gift certificate for whatever it is in a box, right, and wrap it, and all that kind of stuff. People will gen generally be very warmed by the fact that you want to put personal attention and time into your relationship with them. Excuse me Yucca: things that you create. I mean, one of my favorite gifts I ever got was a, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: I mean, brother-in-law wrote us a poem and it was just so thoughtful, and you can tell that he really worked on it. And it, you know, I, I have it up. I don't put a lot of things on the wall. I've got it up on the wall because it just has stayed with me for all of these years, just how amazing it was, Mark: How lovely. Yeah, and people are creative in all kinds of ways. I mean, the handmade gift. Not to be confused with the Handmaid's Tale, the hand hyphen made gift is a wonderful thing. You know, whether, whether it's a piece of writing or a piece of music or a compilation CD of music that you think the person would like or a Or, or something from, from a local artist, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: because I mean, to me there is a categorical difference between an artwork that was created by a local artist that is trying to sustain themselves through their art and something that was manufactured in a factory in China. Yucca: Right. Mark: They're, they're just, they're not the same. You know, supporting your local producers of beautiful objects, right? That's a wonderful thing. If, if, if the kind of person that you want to make a gift for is the sort of person that appreciates that kind of thing, then by all means, you know, do that. And I should say, now, I, I mentioned kind of the, the first part of my formula earlier, which is about making sure that children have. Gift receiving experience. What we do is we don't do gifts as adults. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: We really don't. I mean, when, when we need something, we, we get it. Yucca: Mm. Mark: and so what we have done in the past is we put up a, we put up a yule tree, a mid-winter tree and decorated and all that great stuff, and we put treasures underneath. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Things that we have that we just love, that are really cool. Like I have an antique uranium glass slipper that that phosphorouses under ultraviolet light because it's uranium glass, right? They used to make that and it's just this very beautiful little thing. So it's one of the things that goes under the tree and it gives us a sense of kind of wealth. You know, look, look at the cool things that are in our life. You know, objects from nature to appreciate, you know, antlers and bones and skulls and abalone shells and, you know, all these wonderful things. So we, we don't do the gift thing for adults. And we might make an exception once in a while if there's something that seems like particularly needed or wanted on the part of some adult that we love. But the amount of stress that is taken off of you by not having to buy a thing for this long list of recipients. Is profound. It will make a huge difference in your experience of the holidays. Yucca: Yeah, it really does. And I, I wanted to add on a little bit with what you were saying. You talked about the different types of gifts and then also for the children. You know, giving them the, the traditional kind of box gifts, but that's something that you can do both of, and as time goes on, the ratio of which kind of gift they're getting as they're becoming teenagers, as they're growing into adulthood, it shifts what, what you're doing with them, Mark: Right. Yucca: And so then it's just a natural thing and it's not, it's never. Being deprived. It's about just what this is really about, is about the, the love for each other and the gratitude and the giving and the, you know, to use the to be stereotypical, the spirit of giving, right. It really is. Right. And, and being about that and not the, the object right now there is also, there are a lot of, of practical things that this time of year. You know, coming out of harvest, being about to go into the, to these very cold times of year when there's not a lot coming out of the garden, there's not a lot being produced, of being ready for the cold to come. So there's, there's some practical part about, you know, the giving the socks, the, that sort of thing that just. To being prepared materially for what's to come there. There's an element of that as well, which I think is important just to keep in mind that that's one way that we do show love is to make sure, hey, you've got, you've got your warm socks for the year, right? Mark: Yeah. You're, you're, you're gonna be comfortable. Yucca: yeah. Mark: Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a great thought. In Iceland, it's traditional to give books for Christmas, and Christmas Day is a day of sitting around in warm socks, drinking hot chocolate and reading books. Yucca: Oh, wonderful. Mark: The, Yucca: Cuddling with kiddies too. I, if they've got cats, right? Cat cuddling. Mark: Yeah. You know, those kinds of traditions they make for some very warm memories. They really do make for some super nice times. And having downtime like that in the holidays is another thing that's really important. When we talk about when we talk about self-care that's certainly one thing to be considering is when am I doing nothing? Yucca: right? Mark: know, it's, it's, it's hard to imagine that it's possible, but you gotta do nothing sometimes. Yucca: Or at least. Have nobody else's mind in yours. Cause we've really lost solitude, especially in the last decade or so as, as the social media and smartphones and all of that stuff has just kind of invaded into our personal lives. So there's so little time that we're ever simply alone with ourselves, and I think that that's essential, right? I think we're social animals. We need to be around other people as well, but, , but especially in the dark of the year, Mark: Yes. Yucca: to be alone a little bit is, is just vitally important, Mark: I, I completely agree. And ironically, the inverse is true as well because you, it's a time for gathering with loved ones and for, you know, celebrating the fact that we have people that love us in our lives and, and all that good kind of stuff. But you can go overboard with that. People, people, especially introverted people, or neurodiverse people who get overwhelmed by too much social stimulus really need their, their alone time. And so it's important to, to plan for that and make sure it happens. Yucca: Yeah. And thinking about both, it's kind of like in the dark of the year. We we're celebrating the light as well. I mean, that's a lot of what the Christmas tree with the lights on it is about, is bringing that light into the dark. But we're recognizing and seeing both. It's a celebration of both. So I think that that's one way to look at it with the, with the family, but with self as well. Right. Solitude and company. Mark: So wanted to talk a little bit about a couple of other gifty sorts of ideas. There's always food, know, baked goods. I mean, an incredible gift would be, you know, cook dinner for people and bring it to their house, you know, the week before. Before the big event, you know, something, you know, just when things are going super crazy, you know, give people a meal that they don't have to think about. You know, just, just being aware of what people's needs are and, you know, thinking about your own, you know, your own. You know, where are the places where you get really exhausted and you think, oh God, I wish I didn't have to do X. Well, if somebody else did X for you, wouldn't that be amazing? Yucca: Mm-hmm. right. Mark: Yeah. So, I really encourage that, that the incorporation of that, that personal touch into gifting Either through experiences or through handmade things or through which includes baking and cooking and all that good kind of stuff. And then also because there is there's a guilt factor in in. Commercial acquisition as well. Just really being mindful, you know, of where things come from, who you're buying from. There are, you know, there are tons of Etsy stores, there are tons of indigenous sort of. Internet based stores that you can order things from, you know, figure out who you really want to be giving your money to. Is it some international conglomerate with shareholders, or is it, you know, just somebody who's trying to, trying to get by?  Yucca: Hm. Wonderful. Well, why don't we, why don't we talk about the second part of this which is the family gatherings or the social gatherings. Maybe not necessarily family, but maybe the office gatherings or whatever it is because it's a big one, right? There's a big one in terms of whether you are of the same religion or not, but also just dealing. The various personalities when people are in this kind of heightened place to begin with. Mark: And I, I think a great place to start with that is the recognition that in those circumstances, everybody is under a certain amount of stress, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: except possibly the most garous extrovert, the. Pretty much everybody else is feeling some level of what are people gonna think of me? You know, how this is the office party. How is my boss thinking of me? You know, there's, there's weird Uncle Ralph his weird opinions. How am I going to avoid getting reigned into a long conversation with him? All those, all those things, right? So under having a little compassion for the other people in the room is very helpful in, in my experience. It is, it is so challenging for us as people, and this is a weird thing to really get that the other people around us are fully fleshed out human beings with internal lives and, you know, their, their own. Yucca: story. Mark: Their own journey, their own aspirations and their own internal voices that nag at them and all that kind of stuff. There's a, there's a term for that, that realization called Saunder which when I heard that, I was glad that there was a word for it, because I think it's really important that people have that experience of others. It makes them more compassionate and more humane. Sa, S O N D E R. Yucca: Mm. Okay. Mark: And I'm not sure what language it's in. The, so that, that's a place to start is understanding that everybody may be a little bit on edge, a little bit keyed up because they're. At, at some level, when you're doing social engagement, there's a performance aspect to it, right? know, I, I wanna make sure I'm acting appropriately. I wanna make sure I'm, you know, not displeasing the people around me, all that kind of stuff. Yucca: Right. Reading everything correctly and Yeah. And responding and, and, and just being compassionate for those people. Yeah. And for yourself too, right? Yeah. Mark: Yeah, so, so now you've got these social engagements that you've gotta go to. Well, how do you take care of yourself, especially as someone who practices aio paganism or non theist paganism, or some other variety of naturalistic earth honoring path. You know, as someone who is an outlier. Philosophically and spiritually, how do you kind of stand in the truth of yourself while at the same time not picking fights with others that may have strong opinions about that? And I guess my first answer to that is that if their opinions are strong enough, you don't. Yucca: great. Mark: You, you, there's no point in, in, you know, trying to win an argument with some rabidly, right wing, evangelical Christian who just wants to tell you that you're going to hell. Yucca: Right. So the, so the first step is, is this something that you're going to engage with or not? Right? And in many cases, you may simply choose not to, but in the situation, in the event that you do choose to, right? Then thinking about before you go into that, how are you going to prepare and how are you going to respond for it? You know, you, you might choose something like doing some sort of, you know, shielding ritual before you go in, maybe doing some. Premeditation on role playing of likely scenarios that are gonna come up. Practice, practice some of your deflection techniques or expressions that you're going to use. If it is, if you've decided that it's really valuable and worth it to you to be there for whatever that reason is, right? Cause it's not our. Job here to be telling you what you should or shouldn't do. We're not, you, right? We have no idea what it feels like to be you or the shoes that you're in, but we're just encouraging you to think about how to protect yourself in that situation and still get the, what you're trying to get out of it. But no, at the end of the day, you're, you can't control anybody else, right? You cannot control the outcome. You can work on trying to get the outcome you want, but know that you're not, you can't control. Mark: Right? Yucca: Right? And if you're gonna go into this situation, you've gotta be prepared for that possibility. Mark: Yes. So part of thinking about that, how you're gonna protect yourself is how disclosive do I want to be with this particular group of people. It's your office party, for example. If the subject comes up, you may wanna say, well, my family celebrates the winter solstice. You don't need to go any further than that. You have a right to have your religious beliefs in the workplace, just like everybody else does. But, so you may want to sort of express this is, you know, this, this is what me and my family do. And then there may be questions, well, how does that work? And what's that about? And you can explain as much as you're comfortable with in Yucca: Or not, you don't. Mark: or not. Yes, exactly. Yucca: And here's the thing, depending on how you feel about it, you don't, you don't owe them that. You also don't owe them the truth. Right. Mark: true too. Yucca: That's, that's up to you. If you don't feel like that's something you wanna get into, oh, wonder how was your Christmas? Oh, great. You don't need to say, oh, actually I don't practice, you know, I don't believe in Christmas or Mark: I don't Yucca: like that. Mark: Christmas. Yucca: You know, you don't owe 'em anything, it's fine. It's however you wanna handle that. Mark: Yep. Yep, that's true. And that's, that's an example of where, of where, you know, being literally truthful can actually be a lot more harmful than, you know, applying the, the, the social lubricant of the little white lie. That just lets things keep clicking along smoothly. And of course we have to be very judicious about deciding when those things apply, but it bears saying that A lot of people would be a lot lonelier if they were fully candid about everything in their lives. with everybody around them. Yucca: Mm-hmm. And so, you know, we've been talking about the context of an office party, but that may also be the same, but you have the same things to think about with the family gathering whether you're the one organizing that or the one attending it, or, you know, And again, maybe it's not just one gathering. Maybe you've got three gatherings and you're going to the in-laws and yours and all, and then all of the different sides, you know? So this is something I would encourage kind of sitting down, like literally sitting down and just having a little strategy party with yourself, right? If you do journaling or something like that, it's a wonderful time just to maybe make some, just write down some of the. Possibilities and the strategies that you wanna have and what, what are your values and, and what do you hope to get out of it, and what do you wanna protect yourself from? And, and just be, go into it being aware because once when you're aware, you have a, a better chance of being able to respond in a way that you want to respond when you're not caught off guard. Yeah. Mark: right. Yeah. And the other thing to remember is that. And this is something that may not leap immediately to mind for people that come out of traditions like Christianity that require that you only be a Christian and not anything else, naturalistic, paganism is not like that. You can go through all of the rituals of, of a Christian Christmas gathering and no harm, no foul. You haven't offended anybody or betrayed yourself or hurt yourself or anything. Yucca: Yeah, there's Mark: You can. Yucca: gonna be mad at you about it. Mark: That's right. You, you can, you can have and still do all of your own celebrations and rituals on the solstice or as close to the solstice as works for you. And there's nothing wrong with that. So there's nothing hypocritical about it. So you don't necessarily need to, you know, lead the, the prayer to Jesus. But you can bow your head and just sort of be there. That all that's up to you. And it's, it's perfectly okay to play along in order not to create conflict. Yucca: Yeah. As long as that feels good to you, right? If it, if, if that doesn't feel good to you, then you don't need to be, you don't need to put yourself in this, that situation, right? So, Mark: Yeah. And, and that really is important to say because there are, I mean, I know there are a lot of people for whom it's like, I couldn't not go to my parents' Christmas. Gathering. Right? I couldn't not go to that. Even though they know that they really need to betray themselves deeply to be there. And when confronted with that kind of a paradox you really need to think seriously about whether you're gonna go. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, it might, it might actually be the, the better part of Valor to just say, I, I can't come this year. I, it just, it doesn't feel like it would be right for me. Yucca: Mm. Mark: And you don't have to go into any more detail than that. Yucca: And here's the 10 of cookies that I baked for you, Mark: Yes, Yucca: Or whatever, whatever it is that might smooth it out. Mark: Uhhuh Yucca: Yeah, so we actually last year we did a, a full episode specifically on this. So if this is something that people are, are kind of wanting more of definitely check out our episode from last year on, on this. Mark: was that a year ago? Yucca: It was a year ago. Yep. Mark: Oh man. Yucca: right. We would've talked about this early December maybe, maybe even late November. So it just flies. But why don't we transition now to some of the things that we can do during this. Time period in preparing for the holidays, throughout the holidays in terms of self care. Right. And again, we'll get later into some of the traditions and stuff that you, we can do the specific holiday celebrations. But but is there something that you would suggest to start with Mark? Mark: Well, I start with the body. Yucca: Mm. Mark: I mean there's all the psychological stuff that we, that we go through at this time of the year, and there are all the techniques that we have for working with the psyche, but getting enough sleep, Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: eating, eating some semblance of a decent diet, even if it's a little heavier in sugar than it usually is, it's sugar and fat. Don't worry about that so much, but make sure you're getting protein. Make sure you're getting a vegetable Yucca: whatever it is that, you know, works for your Mark: for you. Yeah, exactly. And get that sleep. Be aware of how much you're drinking. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Because it seems like all of these gatherings in, in many cases, there's, there's alcohol going on. So if you do drink, just really be aware of, of how much you're drinking and if it starts to feel like that's not what you wanna be doing pair it back. You know, tell people, and you can facilitate that for yourself by bringing something to drink for yourself to a gathering. Right? There's wonderful like. Sparkling cranberry ciders and pomegranate ciders and things like that. There are some really delicious things now and I'm gonna put in a plug for my, my local brewery, Lagunitas Brewing Company, which has a great beer called a n a, which is it's, or I P n A. It's like an ipa, but it's na, which is no alcohol. And it's delicious. It actually tastes like a beer, but it doesn't have any alcohol in it. So, it's worth checking that out if you need to. So, you know, enough said about that. If you don't drink, this can be a very challenging time of the year. So, take care of yourself. If you go to meetings, go to meetings do the things that you need to do in order to keep all that in. Yucca: right. And just a little tip with our bodies, if you can get a little bit of sun early in the morning, that just, just even if it's a couple of minutes where you're outside and you. Kind of turn your face towards the sun. It really does make a big difference in terms of resetting your clock and, and kind of helping you out with that, with the sleep patterns and just getting your body to be doing the things that it needs to be doing at the right time, because this time of year it can be really. Really tricky on our bodies and our rhythms as and as we have the lights on all the time and later on, and when is it dark and when is it not? And, and our, we are, first and foremost, we are physical creatures, right? We are animals with, you know, millions and millions of years of adaptation to a certain environment, which we are not living. Mark: Right. Yucca: We, we are animals in captivity, right? We're, we're. And so just trying to be aware of that a little bit is a, is a good start. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So, yeah. Mark: that brings us to the, the psychological things that we can do in order to support ourselves and. To me, the number one thing there, if you're taking care of your, your physical self, the number one thing there is to go back to that first principle of, of naturalistic paganism, which is pay attention, right? If there's snowfall, watch the snowfall for 15 minutes. Listen to the rain on the roof, crack the window open so that you can smell the smell of the rain. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Go for a walk in the snow. Notice what birds are around, if any. Just, you know, notice what phase the moon is in. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: There's so many. There are so many simple things that we can do to keep ourselves re-grounded in the fact that, okay, I'm on a, I'm on a physical planet that's going through a physical set of processes and all this culture stuff is fantastic, but I'm still just on a physical planet doing physical processes and it's all gonna work out. Yucca: Speaking of the moon December has the mites, which is one of the biggest meteor. There's two really big meteor showers a year. And if you get clear skies pretty much for the rest of the month even if you don't get it on the night that it's peaking, you've got some good chances to see some really beautiful meteors. So if you get a chance just to be out there and, and right now, Mars and Jupiter are both really bright up in the sky. Even if you're in a city, those are, are probably gonna pierce through that light pollution and just be really beautiful. Just to take a moment and just take a look, Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So other psychological things and it, I, I put this in the psychological category, even though it's a physical thing. Take a shower. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Especially if you go through any kind of a stressful experience, take a shower, there is something about, and there's literally something physical about it. It's not just the sensations all over your body that create more of a grounded sense of being in your physical self. There, there is a way that splashing water creates negative ions that tend to kind of ground out the the, the kind of zazi feeling, the jed feeling that you can get from having From having social interactions or being in a crowded store or any of those kinds of things. So that's really a go-to as far as I'm concerned. Yucca: I don't know about the ions, but I know that it, that for me, the rush, the sound of the rushing water and that just being able to control those, that that sensory input is just, is really amazing. Like, I'll do a shower and then a bath, right first the shower to kind of wash it to like to, to do like, okay, the feeling like I'm washing it all away and then, The bath of just getting to just feel like melting into that water and Mark: Soaking in the heat. Yucca: And I, I like to actually run to be in the tub while it's filling, so it has that, that sound, that rushing waterfall sound and it's filling up. And that's one of the favorite things that we do in. In the holidays because I don't have a tub where I live. We don't actually have hot water either, so we, we just heat our water up on the stove to like do dishes or something like that. But we go into town to my mother-in-law's. She's got the big bath tub with water heater and it's like, oh yeah, we can do some nice relaxing for a long time. Mark: nice. Very nice. Yucca: yeah. That's a wonderful thing about the holidays, but there's other things too. Like a shower is a really wonderful one. But if you don't have access to that, right, there are other types of things that you can do that feel like you are transitioning, that you're switching between these. You know, you're getting away from some of that stress. You're letting go. I mean, there's the shaking, there's the dancing, there's the stepping into a ritual space, and we've talked a lot about this on, on the podcast. And you can do things like going into a, the dark room, right? Turning all the lights off, and then things like that. Mark: right, right. Coming back to yourself psychologically is very important at this kind of time because it is so easy to get to be what we call ungrounded. You know, it's easy to get your thoughts spinning if you're dealing with family. It's easy to get all the old messages from the family going again, right about ways that they criticize you or that they don't respect you sufficiently, or that they haven't recognized how you've changed. Yucca: And all the things they do that are just so annoying that drive you crazy. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: All those things that you feel about them. Mark: so all that stuff can be going in your mind, and if you just let it keep going, then you can become increasingly stressed and more and more kind of separated from yourself. So. Sit down and just breathe for five minutes. It doesn't have to be a super long time.  Yucca: Off. Take the, the earbuds out of your ears. Mark: yeah. Get, get away from the gadgetry for a minute and just, you know, the other thing that I find is very, very helpful, and this sounds. Like, sort of brute force magic making. But get a big rock you know, a rock that weighs 15, 20 pounds. Sit it in your lap, sit on the ground, or sit on the floor and just sit cross-legged if that's comfortable for you, and just sit that rock in your lap. And. Yucca: just ground with it. Mark: Just wait. Yucca: Wait. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. You'll, you'll be amazed at what a difference it makes, just feeling that gravity pulling you back to the earth. And it, it clears the, clears all the spinning stuff out. It's, it's it's a powerful technique. Yucca: Mm. Yeah. Love that one. Mark: S. I I discovered that, or, or innovated it or whatever it was. My, my former wife was in a really kind of panicky space. She had I don't even remember what the circumstance was, but she was in this very hypermanic. Very anxious space and you know, was telling me about all the reasons that she felt that and that this was so, and she wasn't a pagan. And so I said, well, you know, we. We, we do stuff with things like that. So have a seat, you know, sit on the ground. And I put this big rock in her lap and she immediately began kind of to giggle. It was like, . That's great. That's so great. And sure enough, you know, given 10 minutes or so, her consciousness had really sort of changed. But yeah, so that's why I keep a big rock around. Yucca: It's great. Yeah, so this, this really can be such a lovely time of year and a really, really meaningful time of year and, and, You know, getting ready, ending out this year and getting ready for a new one and, and all of that. And so it's just a time that can also, you know, can be stressful. And so it's a good time to be aware and just really be present with ourselves and, and really honest with ourselves about what it is that, that we need, what's feeding us what's not. And thinking about. You know, what do we value and what obligations do we or do we not have and, and how to handle that. So, yeah. Mark: And if there are things that we feel obligated to do that we really don't want to do, are there alternatives? Is, is there some other way to get at that? You know, is it possible to. I don't know. I, I, I don't know what the example is. If, if the holiday meal with the family is a nightmare, maybe a restaurant, you know, there, there are, there are other ways of coming at this. If, if it's Yucca: Yeah. Just some creative thinking about it. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. So. So we hope that you all have a wonderful intentional holiday season Mark: Yes. And may cramps come, but not take you away in his bag this evening. Because in, in, in Bavaria it's Crumps knocked. So, hope that you don't get whipped with Bert's twigs too much or hauled away in his bag. Yucca: That's great. All right, well thank you everybody. We will see you next week.   

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.  

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 Death and dying workbook: https://atheopaganism.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/death-and-dying-workbook-blank1.docx Freewill.com   S3E35 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Mark, Yucca: And I'm the other one. Yucca Mark: and today we are going to talk about death. Yucca: death. Yep. It's, well, it's October. Although it's a topic which is relevant every day, every moment. Right. Mark: That's right. But particularly we're going to talk about the naturalistic, pagan perspective on death and approaches to death. And talk about some things that we can do to prepare for our own mortality and just about the perspective that it gives us generally. Because death is. Arguably the fact of our lives more than anything else. It's, it's the thing that's hanging out there, setting the context for everything else that we do or, or that we contemplate doing. Yucca: Right? And it happens to us. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right. There's no, Doesn't matter what religion you are, what gender, where you live, what kind of living thing. If you are living, then eventually you stop. Right? Mark: right. And that's why it's been called The Great Equalizer because it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, eventually you are going to kick it. And there's, you know, you can do all kinds of medical things to try to extend yourself probably with a great deal of suffering associated in most cases. But eventually it's going to end. And so at this time of year this is the time of year when pagans often contemplate their mortality and their their relationship with the fact of their death. And so we are dedicating this show this episode to to that, to talking about exactly that. We'll have other episodes later on in the month about sort of other facets. Yucca: Like ancestors and decomposition and you know, that kind of stuff. Mark: right. All those kinds of great, halloweeny wonderful topics. But this, this one is just about the blunt fact that we're gonna die and so are you. And we all have to come to terms with that in whatever manner we can. Yucca: Right now, I wanna emphasize though, that this isn't all a doom and gloom, you know, sad, negative kind of thing. Certainly many of us are quite uncomfortable with the idea that one day we will not exist, right? But as we're gonna talk about, there's actually. Some real upsides to that. Right. And there's some really, I think that there's a tremendous amount of, of beauty in that. But a good place to start actually is how naturalistic paganism differs from some of the other branches of Paganism when it comes to our views on death, or at least on what's after. Mark: Right, right. As naturalists, we use the scientific method and critical thinking to assess what is most likely to be true. And given, given that the evidence is that there is no afterlife, that when we stop, we stop our brains stop maintaining the, the neural net of information that constitutes our personality and memory and all those things. And that heat radiates away from our body that that energy radiates away from our body as heat Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and the body cools and we're gone. Yucca: And the, the pieces that were us, they break apart and become part of other things. Right. Mark: Right? And that's the decomposition story, which is. You know, stay tuned for that cuz it's actually so exciting. Yucca: a Mark: It's so exciting. Yucca: yeah, and it's, and that's the, that's the death that's happening always. Right. There's, there's the death at the end, right? Where like you just stop completely. But the, but the, the little, the little hundred deaths every day are more than hundreds. That just is part of being life is is this a really cool one to talk about? But yeah, we don't, we don't see the body as not us. Mark: Right. This is an important distinction. I'm, I'm glad you brought that up, because the idea of dualism what's sometimes called Cartesian dualism after Renee Decar, who first postulated it in a. In a philosophical kind of way, the idea that there is this spirit or ghost or soul within us that is separate from the body and that persists after the body dies. There really isn't any evidence to support that, that I'm aware of. And. Yucca: But the idea is, is embedded very, very deeply into our culture, into our language and it's, it's, it's all around us. Mark: It is. It is. It's, it's, When we talked about dualism in an earlier episode, we discovered that we don't even really have good language for talking about the understanding of the self as a unified hole. It is the body, You know, we say my body as if it was something different than, My mind. It's, it's all the same thing, but we, the, the way that our language is set up makes it very difficult even to articulate that concept. Yucca: Right Mark: So the body stops working for whatever reason. Maybe a disease, maybe an injury maybe just the accumulation of a a thousand tiny Yes. Or, or a thousand, just tiny errors in cellular copy copying over time. So you know, you're 105 years old and things just finally give up. They just stop and then we cease existing in our, in our opinion, in our estimation, we cease to exist. And that can be a very terrifying prospect for some people. But I don't find it that scary myself because I realized that for 13.7 billion years, I didn't exist either. And it didn't bother me in the least. I wasn't there to be bothered. It was okay. And we were talking about this before we recorded. We've also had some experiences where we've been put under general anesthesia. And that part disappears too. I mean, that's just time chopped out of your life where your body was still there, but your consciousness was suppressed because your body was, you know, under the influence of these chemicals that were introduced to it. And there wasn't any suffering during any of that either. I just was absent. Yucca: Not that I recall. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: And, and that's what, not what was described to me by those who were conscious at the time. Right. But yeah, that, at least for me, those are times that are just like, it's just gone. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Right. Look at the clock. And it's different than when it was when I last remembered looking at it. And that's not quite the same as as sleeping, because with the sleeping, there's a, sometimes there's a missing chunk there, but it's a very different, there still is some sort of awareness there, a very different awareness. But it, it's, it has felt like a very different experience. Mark: Yeah, I've often thought of, of during sleep the, the sort of dreaming process as being kind of like the brain running a screensaver. You know, you get all these images. You, you know, you have these sort of very, you know, strange and magical kinds of na narratives and stories and snips of scenes and things like that. And there's definitely something going on while you're sleeping most of the time. It's not the same as just winking out the way you do under general anesthetic. Yucca: Well, this is maybe a topic we should come back to at another point, because I don't think we've ever talked about lucid dreaming. Mark: Oh, we haven't. You're right. We Yucca: that's something that, that I do. And I don't know if that's something you do, but that would be a really, really interesting topic. So let's write that down. Mark: good. Yucca: maybe that's a good mid-winter topic that kind of, I associate, you know, mid-winter with the dreaming and the dark and, and all of that. So, Mark: a good one. Yucca: yeah. But with death it's, at least it seems like it's, that's it, right? Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: So what's that mean for us now? Right. We're not dead yet. We will. Mark: right, Yucca: this moment we're not. Mark: right. I would like to say one more thing Yucca: Oh, yeah. Mark: the, the way that other. Other religious traditions and particularly other pagan traditions, do approach the fact of death. Many of those are dualistic. In the Buddhist idea, for example, the idea is that we are on this wheel of karma that we're trying to get off of. And so when we achieve enlightenment, then we leave the wheel of karma and there's no more suffering and so forth. Which. So my mind has always been a very dark way of framing reality. It's the, you know, that the world is endless suffering. Well, the world is endless joy too. How, how come, How come we're paying all the attention to the suffering So that's, that's just been Yucca: does it, does it have the same connotation, the the word suffering when said in a Buddhist sense as it does. In a kind of conventional sense. Mark: That's a good question. I believe it does, but I can only speak from my experience having been married to a Zen Buddhist for 10 years. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: I, I can't, I, I have not done a ton of reading in the Buddhist arena and I don't know that much about. But I do know that it is once again, built on that dualistic idea that the body dies. But there is something else that persists that goes forward. And it may not be exactly you as a personality, but it's some intrinsic Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: quality of you that's in the process of being polished up in order to, you know, attain this, this enlightenment. Of course the, the mainstream monotheisms, they've all got. Sort of punishment or reward afterlife idea. And that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either for lots of reasons that we don't need to go into. But it's a pretty cruel framework in my opinion. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, it's, it's extortionary and it, it threatens people and it terrifies little children. It's a, you know, telling children about people going to hell is a horrible. Yucca: Right. Mark: But in the pagan sphere, what we see very often is a more generalized idea of reincarnation. It's very codified in Buddhism where like, okay, you know, if you've done these particular things, maybe you'll come back as a cockroach. Yucca: There's particular, yeah, there's particular levels and yeah. Mark: right. In, in the Pagan sphere, it does not appear to be as well defined in that sense, but there is a broad a broad credulity in the idea that you do come back in some manner. I've been told by people that people that are in their family where once related to them in other ways, in a past life, those sorts of things I don't know where they get that information, but they believe it. So, you know, those are, those are other approaches to the fact of mortality that I feel really sort of skip the important bits of what mortality can give us. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Knowing that we're going to die is actually a tremendous gift Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: approach it that. It, it contextualizes our lives. You know, it's this thing that's hanging out there. We know we've got a limited amount of time, and that means that our time is very precious. We need to be careful with it. We need to make judicious decisions about what we're going to do with our time and what source of goals we're going to pursue. Yucca: Yeah. And really think about what matters. Really What, Because if I've, I have a limited number of days. You have a limited, We each have a limited number of days, Mark: Yes. Yucca: and on top of that, We don't know the number of days either. Mark: Right, Yucca: Right? We hope that there will be many, but this could be the last one, Mark: right, Yucca: or it could be in thousands, right? Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. And knowing that, knowing that they're wheeled on a day when you're not in it really does give it, It gives you pause, it gives you it, it gives you an opportunity anyway, to think very carefully about what matters to you. About what your values are, about what you would like to be left behind in the wake of your life, in the way of legacy. And of course, that's one of the Ethiopia Pagan principles, right? Legacy. The idea that we are responsible to subsequent generations, not only of humans, but of the fabric of life on earth in general. And so. I mean, I very deliberately have made my career around environmentally and publicly beneficial work. That's, that is the, the work that I've chosen. And there have been costs associated with that. A lot of them financial because working in the nonprofit sector, especially for smaller organizations, just doesn't pay as well as a lot of other things. I have never been able to get my mind around doing some of the things that some people do for money, knowing that all that, that's all that's going on. There's just money making happening there. And I, I can't apply my time to something that seems so meaningless to me. I, I. I need to do something that's more substantial and fulfilling than that with my time. And I'm not criticizing anybody else's decisions. You know, they're, they're, well, you know, they're sovereign beings. They get to make their own decisions about what they consider important to do in their life. But for my life the, the environmental work that I've done, the, the social services work that I've done and the spiritual community work that I've done are all really important pieces to me that I hope have persisting impact after I'm gone. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And of course there's sometimes things that we need to do that we would really rather not be spending our time doing, but that That that are things that have to, that have to happen, whether that's dealing with, you know, illnesses or taxes or just, you know, having enough to, to be able to, to feed your family or things like that. But I think that, that the recognition and the, the memory that the, of our death that's coming can help us to. Put all of that in context, right? And think about how we're going to choose to live as we do those things that we don't want to be doing. Right. So we can on, on the big scale, really work towards the things that, that are meaningful to us. But know that every moment, even the moment when you are, you know, scrubbing the toilet, that that's, that's one of your moments, right? Mark: Right. Yucca: And how are you gonna live that, So, Mark: So finding ways to be joyful and finding ways. To take deep satisfaction in living becomes in the context of a, of a life without an afterlife, it becomes essential, Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: right? This is all that we've got. So we must then find ways to, to derive happiness out of it, to derive as much joy as we possibly. In a, in a conscientious way. Obviously not at the expense of others. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Which honestly, I have a hard time imagining how you can have much joy if it's at the expense of others, but Yucca: Right. Mark: maybe, maybe someone can. Yucca: Well, if you are aware of it, Mark: Right, Yucca: right, as long as there's that awareness piece, Mark: right. That's like the the Ursula Ursula Gwen story. The people who leave Oma. Yucca: I'm not Mark: you know that Yucca: that one. Mark: It's a, it's a utopia. Oma is a city and everyone is happy, and everything is beautiful, and it's all magnificent except once a year, every citizen, they're all paraded through this dungeon under the city where there is a poor, neglected, starving child. Yucca: Mm. Mark: Whose suffering is necessary in order for all the happiness above the surface to happen. And there are a certain number of people every year who leave the city. They go because they won't make that deal. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So I like to think that I would be one of those. Yucca: Dr. Hub borrowed that concept for one of their episodes. There was a space whale. Mark: Hmm. Yucca: City of London, I think was based on that, was suffering. So that, so the, the plot there sounds pretty much the, the same, Mark: hmm. Yucca: one of the new ones, not one of the old ones, Mark: Okay. Yeah. Okay. That was your tangent for this week, folks. Yucca: Well, at least number one, we'll see. I don't know, that's all. Maybe we've sort of done a few already. We went into dreams, so, Mark: that's true. Yucca: Yeah. Okay. Mark: okay, we're, we're gonna die and we're going to live well as a result of this knowledge. That's, that's where we've gotten to so far. But there are some things that we can do to prepare for our deaths that are great. Kindness is to those who survive us. Yucca: Mm-hmm. and for us in the process, depending on what kind of death you have, , Right. Some deaths. You don't know that they're happening and some you do. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So, yeah. Mark: So those include things like advanced health directives, instructing decision makers about how they. What your wishes are in terms of do you want to be kept alive on machines in a vegetative state? Do you not want that? If it's unlikely that you will ever recover to a point where you're able to care for yourself? Do you want the machines to be turned off? All those kinds of questions. Knowing that medicine is a for profit enterprise and that end of life is the most profitable part of that enterprise in the United States. They will keep you alive on machines if you don't tell them not to. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it's important to do that if that's not the way you want to go. Yucca: Right? Mark: There are other financial things a will or a trust or you know, some sort of arrangement for what's supposed to happen to your money and your stuff. Yucca: Mm-hmm. And your dependence, if you have. Mark: Yes. Including, you know, what goes to which dependence and, and all that kind of, and, and your dependence. If, if you, if both you and your partner or partners Yucca: If you have, if you Mark: are suddenly killed if you, if you have them. Are suddenly killed, then the question of where your dependence go becomes really important. And that needs to be written down and enshrined somewhere, not just something in your head. Yucca: And this may not just be your human dependence, but if you don't have children and you have pets, that's something to think about as well, so that they, they don't just end up at the shelter. Right? Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: There are other Sorts of things that are very helpful for people when there is a death that can just ease the process a lot. I mean, all of us that have been in grief know the kind of brain fog that descends when there is a painful death. It's hard to concentrate and feelings keep welling up all the time and to be asked at the same time to go digging through someone's desk to find a life insurance policy is, It's an almost insurmountable demand Yucca: Right, And to be on the phone and being told that, No, we can't give it to you because you're not the person and you're going, Yeah, but they're dead. But you know, all. Mark: And then you have to go and get a death certificate and provide that to them. And I mean, there's just so much adminis trivia that goes into the processing of a death. having all of that information together in one place in what I call a death packet Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: is a tremendous gift to those who survive you. Passwords, passwords to social media accounts, to your online banking to your, your 401k or whatever, you know, retirement accounts you might have. All of that stuff is essential in modern times to be able to do the things that you want to do. A list of people who should be notified with their contact information. Yucca: right. Mark: There's, there's a lot of different things that go into this. But the good news is we have a workbook Yucca: Yes. Link in the in the show notes. Yeah. Mark: Yes, you can download a blank of the workbook and fill it out. And it, it has everything in it. It's got a, a section for filling out all the information that would be necessary to write an obituary, for example. You can make your preferences known about what you'd like done with your body. What kind of services, if any, you would like to have happen. To recognize your death. And it, it may sound scary and creepy to do this, but as I always like to say, just like talking with people about sex doesn't make them pregnant, working on the fact of your mortality doesn't make it any more likely to happen soon. Yucca: Yeah. It just means that when it does, it's gonna be an easier process for the, For your loved ones. Yeah. And this is, this is a great time of year to be going through and doing this because we're thinking about death. And it's seasonally and we're seeing it around us, and and it's nice to, to have it on the calendar to be able to go back and review that, right? Mark: Yeah. One of the elements of my death packet is a farewell letter, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and I revisit that every year at this time of year just to make sure that, you know, everybody that I want acknowledged, want to be acknowledged is acknowledged. And that Yucca: If things have changed in terms of what you wanna say or not. Mark: all, all those kinds of things. Yes. So it's. And it, it's a great opportunity just to pull the thing out and review all the information. It's like I noticed the last time I went through it, I had moved and I hadn't changed my address. Yucca: Mmm. Mark: So that was necessary. I had to make those changes. Once again I can already think of some things that I'm gonna need to change for this year as well. Yucca: Right. Mark: so, but once you've done the big task once. Then it's just a matter of updating little bits of information here and there as you go along, and it's not very hard to do. The important thing is that loved ones know where to find your death packet. If you have like, a filing cabinet with legal papers and Yucca: fire safe chest that you have and you Mark: That's, that's a good place for it to live, maybe in especially colored folder so that people know, you know, they can go directly to that folder and pull it out. What I do is I keep a paper copy, a printed copy in my desk, and then I keep the soft copy, The Microsoft Word file on the desktop of my computer. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So it, and it's labeled My Death, that's the name of it. So, with a cute little skull icon that I put on Yucca: Yeah, is your paper one you could put in a little folder, you know, this time of year you can find like the Halloween themed folders and stuff in the school section. Mark: Uhhuh. Yeah. It's a good idea. Yucca: little dancing skeletons or something like Mark: Mm-hmm. , I like it. Yeah, so. I strongly encourage our listeners to, to take on this work. It's it can be a little intimidating you know, to sort of take a deep breath and go, Okay, I'm gonna die. What do I want done with my body? What do I, you know, what? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: What, what, what are the answers to all these questions? There is a tool that's available for download online. It's something called the Five Questions that you can look for and that, that walks you through some similar kinds of planning questions about how to organize your, your death planning. But the workbook that you can download from the link in the show notes is really very thorough and it, it contains spaces for all of the different kinds of information that you're likely to need. Yucca: Right, and, and you could make a little thing of it when you do it. You could make it a little. Self party for the afternoon, right? Pick out, get your favorite drink, get your favorite treat, and carve yourself a pumpkin and sit down at the table with it. And there might be things that you won't be able to do right away, like gathering certain pieces of information, but you could start working through it and starting that process. Or you could do some of it in ritual, you know, make it. Make it an enjoyable thing that is maybe a little bit less intimidating to approach just so that you, that you do it. Because any piece that you do will be better than having not done it at all. Mark: right. Yucca: Right. And so maybe, I mean, I encourage everyone to, to go through the whole packet and do everything, but maybe you just wanna start with, Okay, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna get a will in place. Right. And I'm not, you know, I, I don't have the, the mental space right now to write a letter to everybody, but I can get the, the will in place, or I can make sure that I have beneficiaries on my bank accounts or whatever it is that you need to do. Right. Just starting with so, Mark: I want to tell people about another resource that's available online for free, and it's a, it's a resource called free will.com, and literally that's what it is. It's a wizard that walks you through the steps to create a will for free, and then you can download the. Documents and print them and have them signed and it's legally valid Will Yucca: Do you put in what your state or country is in Mark: you do? Yucca: laws are different about how many witnesses you need or that sort of thing? Okay. Mark: It's only for the US and Canada, unfortunately. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: But. Yucca: I would suspect there's probably similar resources though for different countries. Mark: many other countries. I would agree. I would agree. But it's a, it's a pretty nifty little thing. I, I went through it and I thought, you know what, what came out the other end was, it had a lot of legalese in it, but it definitely included everything that I wanted to, to be included in my will. Yucca: Mm-hmm. , right? So that's a great, a great place to start.  Mark: They also do advanced health directives. There's, there's a wizard for that as well. Yucca: Okay. Right, Because again, many of us probably aren't at the traditional places in our lives where that's something that we would be starting to think about. But as we've said, we don't know. We don't know how many days we have, Mark: Nope. Nope. The odds, the odds may be low that you are going to die soon. But they aren't zero. They're never zero. Yucca: Right. Mark: As long as we're alive, we are subject to death. So we have to be prepared to as great a degree as possible, both for our loved ones but also for ourselves. I don't want to be in a semi-conscious state on a ventilator Yucca: Mm. Mark: for. Days, weeks, years. I, I, I really, really am opposed to that. There's pretty good evidence that there is some brain activity in a lot of the people that are in that condition, and that just sounds like hell to me. I don't want it. And I'm very, very clear in my directives that I do not want that. I, I want you to pull the plug, if that's the state that I. Yucca: Right. or for me, I wouldn't want to be in my last moments worrying who's gonna take care of my kids. Mark: Right, Yucca: Right? Mark: right. Yucca: Oh, how, you know, being, having to be stressed about these things that I don't wanna leave undone Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: for, for others. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I'd kind of like to leave this on a, on an upward note. I feel like one of the things that is very hard about death in, certainly in American culture, but I think this is true in the West generally, is that we're so phobic about the subject that we don't talk about it and get ourselves comfortable with it at all. We don't even try to do. And there is a movement the, the so-called death positivity movement that is happening now that's working to overcome that, that's working. You know, we conduct death salons in various places for people to talk about their feelings, about their mortality, their fears, their their concerns, what they'd like done with their bodies, all those kinds of things. And. I just feel that that's a very important movement. To some degree the denial of death is the denial of life Yucca: Yeah, and that's one we'll definitely come back on when we talk about death on a kind of larger concept. Mark: Right, right. And to me, embracing what this is that we are. Here on Earth is necessary in order for us to honor it, as sacred as it is. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And so I really encourage you to look at this as a great opportunity. You know, when you, when you really sit down, you know, across the table from your death maybe, maybe you have some life priorities that you want to change. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Maybe, maybe there are certain things that you absolutely have have been dedicated to the idea that you're going to do someday, and maybe you need to move up the schedule on those to make sure that they happen, Yucca: Right. Mark: right? Um Yucca: Well, and to think about how you are living today, because how you live today is how you, that is your life, Mark: mm-hmm. Yucca: right? That is your life that you live. And I find it very helpful In my morning ritual, I remind myself, I say out loud that I remember I will die, and that actually is so uplifting and motivating because it goes today matters. This, my experience, this tiny, I get to be this tiny sliver of the universe for this short period, which I hope will be in the triple digits. That's my goal, but that's still tiny compared to the billions of billions of years of the universe. And here we are and we get this moment. And because we die, it is so precious and so special every. Mark: Absolutely. I like that I may steal it. I, my morning ritual does not include something like that at the moment, although it does include a death acknowledgement in the evening. The Yucca: I stole it from the stoic . They have a whole thing about it. Mark: So yeah, look at, honestly, look at this as an opportunity. Folks. Being in denial about our death isn't gonna stave it off. It isn't gonna change when it happens. One second. So, taking a clear look at, taking a clear look at everything generally is a good idea, but particularly Yucca: of this podcast, Mark: it kind of is. Yeah. It kind of is. Let's, you know, let's, let's not gussy things up with, with fantasy. Let's, let's do what we can to know what's true. To look at that very clearly and then make our decisions based on that. That's kind of what we're about. So, especially in this month of October, which is, you know, the, the, the spooky witchy month really encourage you to take that step if you haven't already, or also like to congratulate those of you who have done a lot of that planning. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Good for you because it's, it's generally good for all of us. When people do that, among other things, what tends not to happen is that people tend not to get gouged for thousands of dollars by funeral homes because, you know, people will put much more modest wishes in their, in their declarations, in their death packet. and that's good for all of us because that industry really needs to be reigned in. It's very destructive and it, it, it needs to change. Yucca: Well, and, and whatever your particular wishes are you. You can assure those, or at least you can make it more likely that that's what's going to happen, right? By, by voicing it. So whatever, whatever your particular desires and approaches and, and all of that and if it's something that, that you honestly don't care, let let your loved ones know that, right? Let them know, I seriously, I'm dead. I don't want the casket. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: I don't care. Save the money. Right? If that's your approach or if, hey, it is actually really important to me that there be this coming together of the, of the people in my life and this moment. And you know, you know, you can say that and you can think about that and, and I think that you can learn a lot about yourself too in having that honest conversation with yourself, that exploration. Mark: right. As you explore what the options are, you may find that some things that people assume are true are not. For example, you are not required to have your body involved. And it's a terrible, toxic thing that we do to the Earth that I really don't want any part of. But I mean, you can, if you want to, that's fine, but you are not required. Some states require that an un embalmed body be buried within three days after the death, Yucca: Yeah, there's so different states are gonna have different regulations you're gonna wanna know. Yeah. But that's one of the things that you can do in your October. Death visiting. I don't know what we could call it.  Mark: I like that. Yucca: yeah, and if you mo, if you move states or, you know, you just check up on, okay, so what's, you know, what is it like here in Montana versus Connecticut, or, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. Mark: right? Yeah. So there's a, there's a body of knowledge and there's kind of a world to explore there of how to, how to get exactly what you want out of this, or at least to tell your loved ones what you want. And of course after you're dead, it won't matter to you. So Yucca: Yeah. Mark: they, if they don't do what you want Yucca: You won't know. Mark: you won't know, and the worst thing that will happen is that somebody will probably say, This is not what they would've wanted. Yucca: Yeah, so well, this has been good. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: it's inspiring to, to come back to this each year and think about it and, and just again, remembering this is our little sliver. This is our little moment. Mark: Right. So do what you can to have a good death and as smoother transition as possible for those around you who survive and and live well. Live well and happily. Yucca: Yep. All right. Well thank you everyone, and we'll, we'll see you next week. Mark: See you then.  

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E34 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 we are talking about Cauldrons. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: yes, and welcome to October. We're here all in. The wonderful aut month, the our kind of spooky hollows is coming and here we are. So we're gonna have some great episodes this, this month. Mark: Yeah, I'm really excited about it. We've got a lot of cool stuff to talk about for the witchy month and can't wait to get started. Yucca: Yeah. So speaking of witchy, there's probably three symbols which are most associated with witch broomstick, pointy hat and cauldron. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: No one will make any mistake about what you are trying to represent. If you've got those three things with you Yucca: Yep. And oh please. Mark: Well, I was gonna say, we don't have enough to say about a pointy hat to turn it into an episode, but there's plenty to talk about with a caldron. Yucca: there is, Yes. So I think a good place to start would probably be, you know, the history. What is a coldron, what's the history and why? Why it really matters, why we're interested in this symbol. Mark: Mm-hmm. well. From my standpoint, I, I think you, you really identified the main reason why we're interested in it. I mean, for those of us that gravitate towards Paganism and it's aesthetic and it's iconography in our ritual practice, those. Those standard symbols, like the cauldron become very potent. They become very influential when, when you're, when you're brewing something over a cauldron, there is very much this sense that you're doing magic, right. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and I, and I think that the association with the witch, a witch is a powerful figure. Right. And they're, they can be represented in different ways in terms of the morality of them in stories, right? Depending on who's telling the story, whether they're, you know, the good guy or the bad guy. But they're always powerful, right? They're always, they have agency. But that agency also usually is coming from them and the home. And the cauldron has this association with the home because it's a tool of the. , whether that's an outdoor kitchen around the fire or whether that was your kitchen in the home at the Hearth. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, Among the very earliest implementations of of any kind of cooking equipment that we're familiar with are ceramic pots that were used for cooking. Things in hot stones would be put inside a ceramic pot. And then Cereals or meat or and water or whatever. It could be stirred in that and it would boil which would sterilize it of course, but would also break down proteins in the food to make it easier to digest. And we have evidence of that going back thousands and thousands of years. Yucca: Right. Well, because there's a lot of foods that, There's a lot of plants that you might be digging up that you can't eat. Mark: right. Yucca: Right. It's not gonna, you have to cook them. And so if we were gonna be doing that, then we needed to cook them. Mark: Right, and we've had. Thousands of generations to do the experimentation to figure those things out. I mean, people talk about, you know, indigenous knowledge and indigenous healing. Well, think about all the trial and error that went into figuring that stuff out. It's like, all right, who's gonna eat the mushroom? All right, Bob's gonna eat. Oh, Bob's gone.  Yucca: Okay. Let's remember that measure. Mark: Right, But how did they ever get to the point of feeding the mushroom to reindeer and then gathering their urine? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, it's just Yucca: Well, I, We Mark: scale of Yucca: time, Yeah. The time we've been around. On the one hand, if you compare us to, Crocodiles, we've barely been around. Right. But compared to an individual human or an individual culture's memory, the, it's so, so long. Mark: Right. Yeah. 200,000 years since we really started developing culture Yucca: Or well human, at least our gen, our genius is older and you could quite, there's a lot of argument to be made that that other humans, not just homo sapiens had. Quite a bit of culture as well, Mark: Well, sure. They had the domestication of fire, which in many cases there are a lot of strong arguments to be made that the domestication of fire was. Kind of the, the launching pad for human culture. In many ways it also coincided with a rapid evolution of our brains because we were getting a lot more food value out of our food once we started cooking it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: This is a tangent, but Yucca: Well, but we can relate it back though, because Fire and Cauldrons is that right? So we, This was planned, This was planned tangent. We can say Mark: So, yeah, the, the hearth, the, the home fire and the cooking pot sitting over it are very, very ancient symbols of of power of transformation. You know, you put those ingredients in and they, they, they come out different. They come out edible food, they come. Tasting different Yucca: smelling good. Mark: smelling good. There's, there's just all kinds of wonderful things that happen in the, the alchemy of that, that caldron. So historically, and, you know, we know that this has been a symbol for a very long time because it was already a trope when Shakespeare was writing about it. Right. You know, with, with the three witches and the double, double toil and trouble and all that. So now we inherit it today and it's become sort of a stereotype, but at the same time, a caldron is a really useful ritual implement, and we're gonna talk about ways that it, that it is useful for us. Yucca: Right, and we should say, The image that usually comes to mind when you think of a cauldron that rounded three-legged black, you know, big Iron Pot. That's one version of a Coran, right? This is, that's, we're looking at, that's coming from recent European history, but Qurans are much older and there's, you know, they're always kind of a pot shape, but we don't always see them as that round. Belly kind of shape. Sometimes we see other shapes involved. We're talking about that because that's what we associate with the witches and a lot of the kind of witch aesthetic is coming from a European aesthetic, but remembering that cultures all over the world had versions of this. Mark: Yes. Yes. And we should talk about some some variations that exist for the kinds of formats that people might. Experience as a part of you know, selecting a cauldron for themselves. We're in no way saying you need to go out and spend a couple hundred dollars on, on, you know, a pot beed, three-legged iron cauldron. They're out there, they're really cool, but Yucca: if you're into that, we're not gonna judge you on that, but yeah, you certainly don't need to. Mark: Yeah. And if we, and if we do a ritual with you and there it is, we'll go, Hey, wow. Cool. Caldron, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But my caldron actually is not one of those, It is a Dutch oven that probably dates from the turn of the 20th century. It's got a lot of rust on it that I've never cleaned off because it's. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it has a wire bale that I can pick up and a lid. And I've used it in lots of caldron rituals and it's, it still, it still communicates that sense of antiquity. There's something that's lovely about having a lid for it because it's sort of mysterious. You know, you put the lid on and then some, something magical happens inside it. You take the lid off and things have changed. Yucca: I think that's really interesting because I, mine are also Dutch ovens. So mine are very used dutch ovens because I have a wood stove in the home and, and yeah, I have a little propane burner as well for cooking on, but as long as we've got, cuz we do heat with wood in the winter, as long as we've got that going. I love having things up on top of it and you can also stick it into the ashes of the fire. So we've got several different sizes and kind of different shapes there for them. And there's just something about that cast iron, right? Ours are probably are new Dutch ovens. They're probably made within the last few years, but they feel like something that could be around for a very long. Mark: Right, Yucca: They, you know, they could be passed on. My grandkids or great-grandkids could literally be using these. Yeah. Mark: that is the great thing about cast iron is that. It simply doesn't wear out. We use cast iron frying pans in my house and some of them come from thrift chops where they looked hideous. I mean, they're covered with rust and conclusions and just in the worst possible shape. But you get going on, taking all that stuff off, and then Yucca: take that top layer. Yeah. Mark: And it is a perfectly good frying pan once again, and it will be for decades, if not centuries, as long as you keep it from being eaten up by oxidation. Yucca: Yeah. That's what we use all of our, our pans in the kitchen, our, our cast iron, we've got. A couple of stainless steel for boiling, like a pot or kettle stainless steel. But that's, you know, they're just beautiful. And, and some people get very snobby about the exact correct way to treat them and wash them. And, but I think that they're just super forgiving and if you mess up, then you just it, right? You just re season it again. It's great. And enjoy the things you're eating that you're seasoning it with, you know. Mark: Right. And there are some things that you make that will take the seasoning off. Like if you cook a tomato pasta sauce, for example, the, the acids in that may very well take some of the seasoning off the pan. So you put a little oil on, stick it in the oven, heat it up for a while, and you've gotta see some pan. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, and, and ode to to cast iron. We're big fans. Yucca: Right. Well, and so going back though to the cauldron, so we were saying that we use our, our cast iron Dutch ovens but there's a lot of Dutch ovens that are not iron. Right. And there's other things that, that would, that serve the same function that we use today. As a coulter would traditionally, So your big crock pots, right? Or your stockpot, right. We've got like this several gallon stockpot that, you know, is what I used to heat up the bath water with. And it's just, it's, it, it has that same vibe, right? And it, it's modern. It was made within the last 20 years probably, but it still does that same function and looks beautiful at the same. Mark: Mm-hmm. One of the things that is great about using a Dutch oven actually be is because they do have a lid. And what that means is that you have a little bit more control over temperature. Gradients. For example, if you've got a Dutch oven that is sitting on the fire or in the coals, the bottom of that is gonna get really hot. But the lid, you could put herbs on that to create a fragrance in your home. Or a little drop of essential oil to do the same thing. There are, if you just want to warm things, I mean, I know you can, you can warm bread and stuff like that on the, on the top of, of a dutch oven as well. So it's a very versatile tool for for a variety of uses. Yucca: and you can also put a fire right into it. Right? You could have your candle or something in that, and then. When you put your lid on afterwards, you can feel pretty secure that you're not, that you're not creating a fire hazard with that. Mark: Right, Yucca: So now it will, your lid will heat up too. So you need to be, be aware of that if you're, you are using it on the stove and, you know, not, not touch that with your bare hands, but it just, it, you could just use it in so many different ways. Mark: right. Right. And there is something about just the sight of that Dutch oven or caldron heating in a fireplace or over a stove that kind of says home and comfort and warmth and and magic, you know, the magic of the kitchen. We were talking before we were recording and I was mentioning that, you know, one of the things about about older times is that, you know, you, your, your medicines didn't come from a factory. They came from your kitchen, you know, and the caldron was a, a key. Tool for creating them. You know, you'd, you'd gather the proper herbs, you'd mash them up in a mortar and pestle, which is another classic alchemical sort of witchy, magical set of tools, and then you would brew them. Yucca: today too, Mark: Oh yeah, yeah. We, we use ours all the time. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And then, you know, brew them or toast them or, you know, whatever it is in that hot pot. So it's, It's not an accident that a, that domestic tools like the broom and the cauldron are associated with the power of the witch because that kind of ritual magic, if you will, was really the purview of the home. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That's where it happened. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Very different than, Oh, go ahead. Yucca: I was gonna say, I still think that, I think that's still where a lot of it does, but in our very busy lives, we kind of forget about that sometimes. We're off running around, but when we come back, back home, back to center, then we go, Oh, I actually do have a lot of power from this place. Mark: Mm-hmm. . Yes. So, We've established that this is something that has been a symbol for a very long time, and it's been a, a useful tool for humans even going back into very, very ancient times. I'm sure we were heating things on hot stones long before we, you know, invented pottery or any of that kind of stuff. Yucca: Right. But as long as we've been in the neolithic. We've had something of the sort, right? Every, everybody who's doing that, who's doing the, the whole staying in one place thing, and even nomadic peoples as well could have things that they were, you know, packing up and bringing with them. Yeah. Mark: right. And we've established that cast iron is good. Yucca: yes. Yay for cast iron. Mark: Big fans of cast iron. Why don't we talk a little bit about the kinds of ritual things that you can do with a caldron Yucca: Hmm. Okay. Well I think we could start with the incorporating what you would be doing with it to begin with, just on a mundane level and adding some ritual and meaning into that. So in this case it, it might be your Dutch oven, but it also might be your stockpot on the stove. Right. What are you doing and why are you doing that? Right? So can you add something, Can you have a, a moment when you add in that salt or whatever it is that you're adding in, that you, that you take a moment and have just set an intention with that, right? Mark: Yeah, the adding of seasoning and spices I think is a great opportunity for metaphorically adding magic into whatever it is that you're cooking. Spices are. Spices are kind of magical substances when you think about it. I mean, they are the unique pesticides that various plants have evolved in order to defend themselves from insects mostly. And in some cases from fungal infections and stuff like that. Yucca: and small mammals and Mark: Sure, yeah. If they, Yucca: And us too. It's just, we're so big , right? They're, they're technically poisons, right? They're toxins that they produce because they don't wanna be eaten every, everybody wants to survive and reproduce and they can't get up and run, run away the way an animal can or bite you, but they can make themselves poisonous. Mark: Yes. And they can make themselves taste bad, but Yucca: But we ended up liking Mark: amounts, yes. In small amounts. You're, you're a regno and your terragon and your sage and your onions, and. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: All those wonderful things. Garlic, I mean, they, they give us wonderful, good feelings and very complex flavors that give us a lot of pleasure. So when casting those things into a cooking pot, we can be setting intentions, we can be stirring them in as meaning, you know,  Yucca: It would be lovely if you made your own labels and added them to the spice jars. Maybe not covering up what they are. If you need to know which is, which is your cayenne and which is your cinnamon, you wanna know the difference, right? But if you put your label on that, you know, Oh, well this one is love, right? And this one is creativity. You know, when you're putting in your love and creativity and all of those things that you see that every time. Reach for that spice jar. Mark: I love that idea. That's a great idea. And it would be a really fun project actually, to do with kids to create the labels. Yucca: Yeah. And you could do, You could put them on in ritual too. Mark: Right? Right. Yucca: And even, No even grown up kids. Right. Mark: Oh yeah. I. Yucca: kids of whatever ages. Mark: I would want to be a part of it for sure. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So we can do caldron magic in the course of just using the caldron for the purpose, for an ordinary cooking purpose. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: We can also dispense with anything in the cauldron except fire. We can, we can burn. We can burn fire, burn wood, or you know, whatever it is that don't burn anything toxic because then you're not gonna want to use it for cooking ever again. Yucca: and you wanna be able to be around. You don't wanna breathe and smoke in general, but you wanna be really careful about what it is that you're burning. So you don't wanna be burning like synthetic fabrics or something like that, that really could be very toxic to you. If you get a little wolf of whiff of wood smoke, it's not great, but you know, it's, it's not gonna be quite as much of an issue as burning plastics. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. So, a flaming caldron is something that we, I've used many times in rituals and you can, you can feed stuff that you want to destroy or dispense with in the form of. Little pieces of wood that you've invested your intention on or written the message on what you mean. You can do that with slips of paper. You can do that with Little symbols that are flammable of, of some kind. So that's sort of the destructive approach to a flaming cauldron. But you can also do it with wishes. You can inscribe something hope hoped for, that you want to, The smoke will go up into the sky and inform whatever powers are up there and, and they'll put in an order for you. Yucca: Or thinking of it as this is fuel, right? This is, this is the fuel for the fire. That, that whatever it is burning inside of you, right? What is it that you want to feed into your fire to, for you to continue to grow and do all of these, you know, passionate, wonderful things, whatever it is that you are focused on. Mark: Right, And in the case of a ritual like that, I really encourage people to use low tech methods of actually lighting the fire. So that it, it takes a little effort, right? You know, whether that's a flint and steel or I, I don't recommend lighting a fire with a bow because it's an incredible amount of work. And it, you can have disappointing results while you're trying to light your inspiration. Fire. Yucca: Yeah. Well if, if you do, you might wanna practice that ahead of time and be, and get really good at it. Right. Just knowing that it is a skill that takes a lot of work. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But there is, there is something to be said to something more than just flicking a lighter and . Suddenly there is flame. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and it, and you know, if you don't have access to one of those matches, right? There's something more, I, I find there's something very satisfying about striking the match as opposed to just the lighter. Although there are some really cool lighters. We were given one of those arc lighters. Mark: I have one I use it for, for my alter, my focus all the time. Yucca: Yeah, I feel so sci-fi, whenever I use Mark: Yeah. Yucca: like, yeah. It's just really nice and it's USB chargeable, so we just like plug it in and don't have to, I've got lots of lighters and matches all over the place because I don't wanna ever. Want to be lighting a fire and be shivering and being like, Where are my matches? Where are my lighters? But those are fun, but you know, there's matches. And there's also, I don't know what they're actually called, but you know, the ones we'd use in lab class for bunsen burners? The, Mark: Oh, those little pizza, electric things that, Yucca: Yeah, there's silver and you Mark: spark. Yucca: Yeah. Those are, you know, when you have a more. Just an out of the ordinary or kind of fun way of starting the fire. There's a little something extra to it. Mark: Right, right. There are these striker, they're, they're sort of like flint and steel. They're these sort of striker sticks that you scrape sparks off of onto like cotton or something, which will light on fire. And those are pretty neat for starting a fire too. I don't know what they're called exactly either, but they're you can get them in camping stores. Yucca: Okay. Mark: add to a survival Yucca: Oh, I think I've seen them and they, You can like put them on a key chain or something like that. Yeah, Yeah. Now you gotta be patient with anything like that that doesn't have a sustained flame because you're trying to catch that. Spark, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: like if you have like a little cotton swab from the bathroom, like those are really good and you maybe half of it, you dip into olive oil and the other half you leave open so that then it starts to burn the oil. And there's a lot of, that's another thing that you could do fire related is little fat lamps, little fat, an oil lamps. Those are really fun. Mark: Right. Yucca: This year the kids and I So they're, they're softa. So my stepmother lives up on our, where we do as well and is really into finding the, the clay here and fire making things and firing it. So they made little oil lamps. Yeah, so they made little oil lamps and we've been using lard in them and they worked remarkably well and doesn't smell like a fast food restaurant. I was very happy for that. Mark: That's amazing. Yeah, we've used NAEA uses Tao quite a bit in cooking and Yucca: how, Mark: Yeah, so we've, we've, I've used that sometimes as sort of an accelerant for a fire to get started, but, okay, so that's the fire inside the cauldron. That's one whole set of things you can do. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Then there's the adding ingredients into the cauldron kind of. The, the classic example of that is stone soup, where everybody brings an ingredient and you start with water or stock. Could be vegetable stock, could be chicken, Yucca: Mm-hmm. , b flam, whatever you have Mark: Whatever you Yucca: and whatever matches your, your dietary approaches. Yeah. Mark: Right. And then people add ingredients and the whole thing becomes soup. Which. Is a lot more satisfying than it sounds. There is, there is really something wonderful about the kind of ceremonial, adding by a whole lot of different people of what they in particular have brought to add to a given dish. And then it's all put together, it's cooked, and then it's distributed out to everyone to enjoy. There's something very poetic about that, that process. Yucca: Yeah. Hmm. Mark: And then you can also do sort of magical potions, which aren't meant to be ingested, Yucca: Right. Mark: With whatever ingredients you feel are necessary. Now, bear in mind, cast iron is a little bit porous, Yucca: Yeah. So if you're gonna eat from it again, you don't wanna be putting non edible things in there, Mark: right? Right. You know, no Mercury Yucca: Yeah. Or I, I don't know why this one's coming to mind, but shampoo. Right, because shampoo, like there's really good smelling shampoos that'll bubble up really nicely. Like you could do some really kind of fun smelling and looking things with, with soap shampoos and soaps and stuff like that. But you don't want, you don't want that in your mouth. Mark: No. Yucca: And that's gonna spoil whatever you try and cook in there next. Right? If you get it out cuz you, you're not feeling well and you need that good soup, you know, And then, Oh, shampoo soup. Mark: it's, this is Lemon Sented shampoo. Oh, dear. Yucca: Yeah. But if it's one that you are using only for ritual and decorative purposes, that's very different. Mark: Right? Yucca: Right. Mark: Yeah.  Yucca: I suppose you could put line it with foil or something like that, but it's kind of taken a risk. Mark: You know, if you really want a sort of bubbly, frosty effect I would just go for the dry ice, you know, put a little little layer of water in the bottom of the cauldron set in a block of dry ice. You'll get abundant fog pouring out of it. It'll look really cool. If you want to change the color, you can break a light stick and drop it in there. So that you've got like a green fog coming out or, Yucca: but that you cannot use for food again. Mark: Oh, I. Yucca: a light stick. Mark: I didn't mean to Yucca: Oh, good. Okay. You mean snap it so it activates? Mark: it so it activates Yeah. And drop it in there. Yucca: Well, and with the dry ice, there's nothing to clean up afterwards, which is really nice. Right. If when it come, it billows out, you know, might get things, you know, little damp, but not, you know, you're not gonna have to be mopping anything or cleaning anything up. Mark: right. Be sure you've got good ventilation. Yucca: Yes. Mark: Dry ice is co2. CO2 is poisonous. That's why we breathe it out because we don't use it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you just wanna make sure that you've got good ventilation in the room so that you don't get overcome by CO2 and pass out. Yucca: Right, Because if we, I mean, we breathe CO2 in and breathe it back out, but the problem is it's not oxygen. It isn't the same as carbon monoxide, which is really problematic for us because our bodies confuses that with oxygen and then it basically makes us suffocate. But co2, Yeah. That sort of thing you might wanna be doing either outside or with making sure you have the windows open, but yeah. And also when you're doing, going back to the fire, one being mindful about what size is your flame going to be, Right. If you're lighting a little candle inside of your little cauldron, The kitchen, you're probably fine, but if you're pouring something in Mark, you have a, Don't you have a story about a Mark: Oh yes, Yucca: flame that came out Mark: the flame vortex. Yucca: Yeah. That you wanna be outside for, with, you know, appropriate fire or safety equipment. Yeah. Go. So what happens with your Mark: Well, what What happened was we did a ritual where we burned some intentions for the coming year, and the caldron was sitting on top of. Coals and there was still some flame there. So the bottom of the, the cauldron was very warm. And what we did was afterwards we poured in two bottles simultaneously, two bottles of cheap red wine. And it was hot enough that the wine boiled on contact with the bottom of the pan, which we assumed was going to happen for the first little bit that we poured in. And then, Yucca: you gonna make mold wine or something? Is the Okay? Mark: Yes. And, and mold wide, which included the ashes of the Yucca: beautiful. Mm-hmm. Mark: had, you know, been. Been burning there, and then we could all have a sip. Well, what ended up happening was that the entire pot boiled, it boiled off the alcohol and the alcohol lit on fire, and created this sort of fire tornado that extended up maybe three feet above the, the lid of the, or the edge of the cauldron. And it did that for about 20 seconds. So what we ended up drinking had no alcohol in it for one thing, and it wasn't particularly tasty because it had been boiled also. But it's a pretty cool effect if you, if you wanna do that again, it just don't do it indoors. Yucca: Do it outdoors to have all of your, you know, your fire extinguisher or whatever you need Yeah. To put it out. Right. And maybe not, you know. Not near a bunch of, you know, brush and all of that. Mark: Yeah. Or overhanging branches, which is the thing that people often forget because the picture in their mind is of a fire that is, you know, a nice contained fire that only leaps up about a foot above whatever the container is. But sometimes fires get a mind of their own and they, they get bigger than that and then they can start to. The, the tree branches that are over the top. So you need to be, you need to be careful with fire, Yucca: Yeah. And you know, whatever the safety is in your area, check, check with your county regulations. Is there a fire ban on at the moment and all of that because you don't wanna burn your, your neighborhood down. So yeah, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: of those, those interesting. We have this lovely, beautiful relationship with it spanning back literally millions of years, but it's also extremely destructive. Mark: It's very dangerous. The fact that we were able to domesticate this incredibly dangerous chemical process is really a testament to courage in our, in our ancestry, honestly, because when we first got it, it was probably burning trees that have been struck by lightning Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and you know, I would think you probably wouldn't wanna go near a tree that had been struck by lightning in case it got struck again. Right. Yucca: Yeah, and it's still, you know, can still be hot. The, the kids and I are reading some Greek mythology right now and we actually just were reading about Prometheus and my oldest asked, Well, mom, why was Sue so mad about fire? What's the big deal about giving humans fire? When we had to go through all the things that fire can do, how powerful Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: it made people, they went, Oh, okay. Still doesn't seem like a fair consequence. Mark: Well, yeah, e Eternal torment never seems like a fair consequence. . So, yeah. Yucca: they were very sympathetic to poor Prometheus, so yeah. Mark: So, the last kind of ritual that I can think of is the kind of potion making where. Where you're, you're mixing something up, which you're then going to pour off into jars or into, you know, like if you're making spell jars for example, and there's particular ingredients that you want in all of them. So you mix up sort of a, a formula of what all those different elements are, and then you can pour them off into jars and maybe add material items before closing them and sealing them. Yucca: What would be an example of a type of, of ritual that you would do with one of these s. Mark: I haven't done a whole lot of spell jar rituals myself, but I know of people that have done like spell jar protection symbols for their, for their land, Yucca: So they would bury it in the four corners or. Mark: Right. Yeah. Bury those, you know, at the boundaries in order to, well, realistically speaking in order to help them feel more protected.  Yucca: Well, that's the point of the ritual, right? Mark: that's the point of the ritual. Exactly. I mean, many of the magical rituals that have been implemented over human history have been to try to get control over stuff that we don't have control. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: It just helps us feel better and that's fine. There's, there's nothing wrong with that. There's, it's absolutely a great thing to do. So, for example, if you had You know, water from a particular well and maybe some river water and some ocean water and some wine and some, I don't know. I'm trying to think of, you know, a few drops of blood. Whatever you wanted to put in there. You could stir all that up together. Add in whatever other. Miscellaneous ingredients felt like the right thing to do and then could decant out of the caldron. But you, you get to do that big stirring motion on the caldron, right? That, that wonderful double, double toil and trouble kind of thing. And so you can chant over it, you can sing over it, you can you can do that solo or you can do that with a group. Everybody can get a turn to do the stirring. I've seen that before. And then you pour off into the jars and put in items. I, I know that historically spell jars have been found that are full of nails, Yucca: Okay. Mark: that are sort of meant to protect against stuff, right? Put these sharp objects in to protect people from from what they don't want to contend with. Yucca: Well, brainstorming as, as you were talking about that everybody putting something in. Maybe one thing you could do is if you're with a group or you could do it on your own, having a, a jar that you're preparing for later when you're having a hard time, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: the, oh, you know, here's the, all the, the friendship and joy and, and sense of connection and, you know, there's gonna be a day when I'm feeling alone and I need to, to open that up. To remember that, you know, I have this connection and this appreciation for the community or, or a day where, where you put patients into the jar. So when you're all out of patience, you can, you have a jar, patience stored on that back shelf that you can open up, right? Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Things like that. Mark: Yeah. You could pour what's in there as a libation for a, a plant or just onto the earth as a way of releasing its power. And then you have a jar that you can refill again and do another spell with, I have patients in knots. Yucca: Ah Mark: so when I really need it, I can untie one of the knots on my patient's string and let some patients out. Yucca: hm. Mark: It at least gives me something to do other than reacting angrily in the, in the immediate term, cuz the knots are pretty tight, so it takes a while to get 'em undone. Yucca: Mm-hmm. . And do you have a time when you go back through and retie everything Mark: I haven't had to do that yet. I think I've got four or five knots left on my, on my patient's string. But yeah, we did that in the, in a ritual of the Saturday morning mixer, Atheopagan mixer that we do on Zoom. So. I found it useful. I've actually used it twice but I'm sure there will come a time when it's empty and I've gotta refill it. Yucca: Yeah. Hmm. Well, these have been, these have been fun to think about different ideas to do with Colton, and of course there's, you know, there's so many more that we didn't mention.  Mark: Right. Yeah. The, the wonderful thing about having a, a ritual practice is that it's re it's everything that your imagination can come up with. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And of course, we like to swap our ideas so that we can take advantage of others imagination as well. And I hope that some of the ideas that we've talked about here today are helpful to you. But if you don't have some kind of a. Big cooking receptacle really encourage you to, to consider adding that to your magical tools. It's it, it really is a, a very useful thing both for individual work and for group rituals. Yucca: Right. And beautiful. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right? Depending on your style, I know some people like to. Put their, their ritual tools away and wrap them in the beautiful cloths and things like that. And, and some people like to have them out on display because they like looking at them and they make them feel good when they see it. So it's both completely valid approaches. It just depends on what, what works for you. Mark: Right, Right. Yeah. So there you have. Caldron in non FIAs pagan practice. Pretty cool. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: I'm so glad it's October. Yucca: me too. Well, thank you for another great discussion and we will be back to see or talk with all of you next week Mark: Yeah, thanks everybody. Yucca: I believe. Mark: Oh yes. Talking about death. Yucca: Yes, it's October, Mark: Gotta do it. Yucca: All right. Thanks everyone. Mark: Bye bye.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E33 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 today we are going to talk about cults. Yucca: right. Mark: Of the things that when people choose an alternative spiritual path, one of the things that their friends and family will sometimes start to get really worried about is, oh dear, have they entered some kind of a cult? So we're gonna talk about what cults are and about what naturalistic paganism generally is. And atheopaganism specifically, and then talk about why, what we're doing does not really meet those, those criteria for what a cult is. Yucca: right. Mark: This, we, we were talking about this before the recording. If you have a family member that is really concerned that you've gone off the deep end into some terrible culty situation, you could consider having them listen to this episode. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And at the end, we're also gonna talk a little bit about recovering from some of those kind of religious traumas that, that can come along with having been in a cult situation or things that have happened in, in mainstream religions that we wouldn't necessarily think of as a cult, but still might have some of those really abusive behaviors. Mark: That's right. One thing that you'll notice when we go over the indicators that a group of any kind has attributes of a cult is that many of them apply squarely to various denominations of mainstream religions. So you know, the word cult gets Bandi about to U be used for little splinter groups or for new religious movements, but that's not really fair. The kinds of. The kinds of problematic behaviors and factors that go into Colt behavior really also include some very large institutions that have been around for a very long time. Yucca: Right. And these are things that can come along with groups that aren't necessarily just religious groups. Right? These are any time that you have. A structure in which you can have somebody who has power over dominating over somebody else. A lot of these, these risks come up. So, Mark: There are PTA associations that are dominated by, you know, one or a handful of people who cannot be questioned and run the show. And they're cult-like. Yucca: Yeah. Well, we're gonna get ahead of ourselves a little bit. Why don't we start off with, so, you know, what do we do? What is this? Atheopagan what's naturalistic, paganism or paganism in general, Mark: Sure. Sure. Well, naturalistic paganism is the big category, right? And athe paganism is a single denomination within that big category. So if you think about it, like there's Christianity, which is a whole big, huge thing. And then down underneath that there's Catholicism and Mormonism and all the various Protestant religions and so forth. So that's kind of a similar sort of, you know, taxonomic relationship between naturalistic, paganism and Ethiopia paganism. So that leads us to ask the question. All right, then. Well, what is naturalism? What is naturalistic paganism? So we'll start with naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophical position. It is the position that all things in the universe are made of matter and energy and that they follow physical laws. And there is nothing supernatural. Yucca: right. Everything is natural. Mark: Yes, Yucca: This is all nature, Mark: all nature. And it all follows physical laws and nobody gets to break the physical laws. Now we may. Yucca: of it. Mark: That's right. We may not understand all of the physical laws right now, but to our knowledge, nothing out there is able to break physical laws. And what that does is it excludes certain kinds of supernatural beliefs like beliefs in gods and ghosts, souls, and spirits, those kinds of things. They just really don't hold up in an evidential based evidentiary based critically thinking way of looking at the world, which is what naturalism is. Yucca: Right. Mark: So you were going to say, Yucca: Oh, I was gonna say, well, then we have the pagan side of that. Right. And the pagan side that, that Contras up a lot of different kinds of images. And for some people it brings up the idea of the, you know, gods and deities and you know, all of that. That isn't not all pagans are going to be doing that. And we're not in that group of pagans that believes in God's and deities, because that's not fitting with the naturalist part. Mark: Right. But what we do that is that we have in common with other pagan groups is we have a lot in common in the way that we practice our Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Um, we celebrate the solstice and equinoxes and the points between them, for example. So a solar cycle of Of holidays. We tend to celebrate our rituals in a circle rather than in kind of an audience and performer format. We Revere the natural world. We hold that out as, as sacred. And so, the primary players in arranging for our creation and survival, like the sun and the earth and the moon become very sacred for us. Right. And this is true of Pagan's largely universally. The, the truth is that paganism is so diverse and such a catchall term that the only thing that every single pagan has in common is that they self identify as pagans. Yucca: Yes, Mark: That's that's the only Yucca: that, that we call ourselves that. Yeah. But there are themes. Like you're talking about that we, we tend to be earth based. We tend to do ritual and celebrate the, the cycle of the seasons and things like that. Mark: Right. Right. And we understand ritual practices as being at the very minimum, personally, beneficial. Some pagans believe many pagans believe that rituals can actually enact magical forces in the world to change the course of events or you know, what's happening in, in the world. We don't believe that because naturalism doesn't really allow for spooky action at a distance. If new evidence comes along, we may change that opinion because part of the nature of being a naturalist is that you have to be open to new evidence all the time. So 100% certainty is not a thing in naturalistic worldview. We could be 99.9% sure that the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning, but. There's always the possibility that for some reason it doesn't. And then we have to reconsider all of our thinking about the nature of the world. Yucca: Right. Okay. So that's the umbrella naturalistic paganism. And then we also have atheopagan, which is one form of naturalistic paganism. Mark: Right. Think of atheopagan as kind of like Methodism in relation to Christianity, right? Christianity is the big umbrella. Methodism is a particular movement that was created by particular people with particular values and practices and principles atheopagan is a, a path that I created. In the early two thousands, which is built around some basic presets and naturalism is one of them, but also naturalism and critical thinking are among them, but also reverence for the earth and a set of four sacred pillars and 13 principles, which we've recorded about before, which are ethical principles for how to conduct our lives and not all pagans subscribe to those, not all naturalistic pagans, subscribe to those, but those that are, that are, are practicing athe paganism do follow those. Yucca: right. And something very important to say right up front is that, although mark, you created. The atheopagan you are a founder, you're not the leader. Right. We have a large community of people who each person makes decisions for themselves. We also have the atheopagan society council, which deals with things like putting together events and the nonprofit side of everything. And you are very much involved in the community, but just because mark says something doesn't mean that that's the law. Mark: right. Yucca: And plenty of times people disagree. And one of the things that I really value about the community is that overall people are very respectful about those disagreements, right? Mark: yeah, I mean, fundamentally. It is not really consistent with Ethiopianism to tell other people what to do. The principles are guidelines for how to live a life that is kind and conscientious and a life of integrity and a life that will help you to be happy. Yucca: Right. Mark: If you don't want to be kind and conscientious or happy, you can make other choices, but you, you know, you probably aren't practicing athe paganism at that point, you're doing something else. Yucca: Yeah. Which is fine. Right. We're you know, we, aren't out here to say join, you know, join us and we're not out there, you know, evangelizing or anything like that. Mark: right. We're we're not proselytizing people come to us cuz they want to join. And. We're very clear that everybody has their own spiritual path and they need to define that for themselves. And that's why we encourage people for example, to create their own meanings around the wheel of the year celebrations, because people live in different climates and different things, maybe happening in nature. I, you know, Yucca, you and I have talked many times about how we live in different climbs. And so our understanding of when spring starts, for example, is radically Yucca: This many months different. And then what spring actually is for each of us is quite different. Right. Mark: Yes, exactly. Yucca: And, and also just to say that many of the people who listen to this podcast, we know many of you do consider yourself a pagans and many of you don't right. And that's again, that's also fine, right? Yeah. Mark: absolutely great. And that's why, you know, we've been very careful over time to talk about athe paganism and naturalistic paganism, you know, not to assume that everybody that's listening to this is necessarily practicing atheopagan as a path. Yucca: right. Mark: But, Yucca: real quick say what the, what the pillars and principles are? Mark: Sure. But I'm going to have to pull them up. The, the, the pillars, the pillars, I know by heart, the pillars are love Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: beauty truth and life. Yucca: right, Mark: are the things that we hold sacred. And by beauty, we don't mean individual sort of cultural definitions of a person's beauty. We mean the beauty of nature, Yucca: right. Mark: right? The, the, the way that the natural world can move us Yucca: that? Wow. That wonder, Mark: Yes the wonder. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So those are the four pillars. And I should say, you know, we can find lots of you can find lots of additional information about this at both the atheopagan society website and at the and at the atheopagan blog, which is atheopagan.org. Yucca: Mm-hmm . And also in this podcast, if you just go back through our archives E we've gone, we've done an episode on each one of these topics and we've been doing it a few years. So there's, we've covered some of these multiple times as well. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. There's. Yucca: back through, Mark: There's a lot out there. So the 13 principles and it was kind of an accident that there were 13, but I was tickled by that because there are 13 cycles of the moon in the year. And for many pagans, 13 is a really special number. Yucca: it's just a fun number. Mark: a, a sacred number. Yeah. And of course it's prime and all that. So the 13 principles are number one, and these are not in a priority order, I should say. So they're think of them as bullet points rather than as a numbered list. Yucca: Mm-hmm, sort of like the seasons, right? You don't there isn't really a first season. They just come after the, and before the other ones. Mark: Right. So skepticism and critical thinking. , which is the ability to tell the difference between the literal and the metaphorical, because we work with both in our pagan practices, right. You know, we work with symbolic enactments of things, many times in our rituals, but we understand at the same time that to some degree we're playing, let's pretend we're not, you know, literally talking to an invisible being there or whatever. You know, when we, when we throw our, when we throw our, our fears into the fire, we understand that's a metaphorical behavior. That's not a literal behavior. Yucca: but it still is empowering. Right? It's play, but play is meaningful, right? You can still, you can read a book or watch a show and still be moved to tears in the same way, our ritual. We can still feel those feelings and have that impact us. Mark: Sure. Very psychologically impactful rituals. So the second is reverence for the earth. We are a living part of the earth and and reverence for that source and kin that the fabric of life is to us is really important. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: The third is gratitude for the amazing gifts of life. The fourth is humility, understanding that all humans are fundamentally equal and that nobody, you know, is entitled to Lord and above anybody else, perspective and humor, having kind of a big picture understanding of the world and being able to laugh at ourselves laugh at our religion, laugh at even the tragedies in the world, you know, just in order to stay sane and to maintain perspective you know, it's It's amazing what humor people will find in really terrible, terrible situations. The sixth is practice, which is in enacting regular ritual as a part of the practice of Ethiopia paganism. So a paganism, isn't just a philosophy where it's got a worldview and a set of values. It's also got a practice and that makes it a religion. The seventh is inclusiveness, celebrating diversity and being respectful of difference and and embracing the, the vast diversity of humanity. The eighth is legacy recognizing and embracing our responsibility to future generations, both of humans and of non-humans. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: The ninth is social responsibility, recognizing that our rights are balanced by responsibilities. And this is something that much of the pagan community is often not very good at. People are really amped about their, their personal sovereignty, but they're not so much into their personal accountability. Yucca: Right. Mark: We are very clear that all of the rights that we enjoy are balanced by responsibilities to one another. And that goes into issues like consent. It goes into all kinds of respectfulness requirements on us, including our requirement to participate in our local societies in all ways, from voting to activism, to contributing to the dialogue of the world in a, in a positive way. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Uh, the 10th is responsible con responsible sensuality and pleasure positivity. We think pleasure's good for you. We believe pleasure's a good thing. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's good. Obviously that has to be with people who are consenting. If you're getting pleasure from something you're doing with someone else it has to be with consent. But that consent is there, we say, knock yourself out. We, we don't care what kind of sex you're having. We don't care. You know, what kind of food you're eating, it's entirely up to you. What, what brings you joy? We, we are a, a projo religion which not all religions are honestly many are about shame and original sin and guilt and all that stuff. And that's just not us. Yucca: And the physical isn't bad or dirty or less than below any of those sort. We, we just don't do that. That's Mark: no. In fact, the most sacred thing to us is under our feet. So we, so we don't, you know, we don't have to look up, even though the cosmos is amazing. We don't have to look up to the higher, more spiritual stuff. The higher, more spiritual stuff is right under our feet. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: The 11th is curiosity, understanding that there is always more to be learned and keeping an open mind to learn more about other people, about the nature of the world about our society, about culture, just keeping a lively mind. The 12th is integrity. You know, being true to your word, being, being fulfilling your, your responsibilities and being a trustworthy person Yucca: and honest with yourself too. It not just with others, but with yourself. Mark: absolutely. And then finally the 13th is kindness and compassion. And the little note underneath it says, I practice kindness and compassion with myself and others understanding that I will not always meet the standards of these principles. You know, we all get mad, we all, we all blow it. We all, you know, fail to clear the bar once in a while, you have to be compassionate with yourself, learn from it. So you won't do it again. But we are, we are not believers in constantly flogging yourself for something shameful you did 20 years ago. It's just that doesn't do you or anyone else? Any good? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So those are the 13 principles of atheopagan. Most of 'em are pretty common sensical. But of course I would think that cuz I developed them. It seems like a lot of other people find them common sensical as well. They're like, oh, you know, this isn't painful. These aren't, you know, these aren't terrible strictures that are gonna require me to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to be a, a good atheopagan pagan. Yucca: Yeah. yeah, no, it's, it's great to have them, you know, written down and spelled out and be like, oh yeah, yeah. I agree with that. Mark: I. Yucca: makes sense. Mark: I think most of them are, can be characterized as generally pagan values. The pleasure positivity the reverence for the earth the social responsibility, the inclusivity, you know, all of those are very common in the pagan community. I wouldn't say universal, but they're very common in the pagan community. And so all that I've done is write 'em down and codify 'em Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you know, Yucca: So this is us, right? This is we talking about what we are. Is there anything you wanna say on that before we go into what a cult is? Mark: No, let's talk about cults. Yucca: Yeah. so we actually have a little bit of a list for this one as well. Some behaviors or things to look out for that really characterize a cult that any one of these would be, would be a real major red flag. Mark: Right. Right. And bear in mind, you know, as we were saying before, with new religious movements or with small splinter groups, people are often very concerned about the idea that these groups are a cult, but very old, very large institutions can also be, can also have these characteristics that are very cult-like. You know, we're gonna talk in a bit about the, the recovery the, the deconstruction of reli of, especially like sort of conservative authoritarian, religion that people experience when they leave those religions to become atheist or agnostic, or to become Ethiopia, pagans, or other naturalistic kinds of folks. Yucca: Right Mark: And many of the people that have those experiences are not coming out of little tiny sects, they're coming out of large institutions. Yes, very wealthy, very powerful institutions. Yucca: Yeah. So let's start the, our first one. Which is one that you definitely see in like the movies and shows and things about this. Is there being usually one or more like a small group of really charismatic leaders who cannot be questioned or challenged, right. That their authority is ultimate, right? Mark: And you see this in a lot of sort of charismatic Christian sex. You see this in in Hindu guru sex, but when you think about it, I mean, the head of the church of latter day saints is considered to be speaking for God and cannot be challenged or questioned. The Pope charismatic leader who cannot be challenged or questioned, same kind of deal. Right. One of the, and, and I put that at the top of the list because I think it's, it it's arguably the most important one, but of course these, you know, there are many others that are, are really important as well. I may be the founder of Ethiopia paganism because I wrote first an essay and then a book kind of laying out the thinking of how I arrived at this position and my ideas for implementation of a path of naturalistic paganism. But I, and you, you can debate about my charisma, but I certainly Yucca: got a pretty high Christmas score, frankly. If, if we were in D and D I think you'd be a bar. Mark: okay. Thank you. That's that's very kind. I like it. But I certainly am not someone who cannot be challenged or questioned within our community. That that is not the case at all. And sometimes I'm wrong. And hopefully when I, you know, when I calm down I admit that I'm wrong. And then, you know, and I apologize and try to make amends and we move forward from there. The, when we created the atheopagan society, the nonprofit organization to help support atheopagan worldwide and help provide resources and networking and events and education for atheopagan. It was important to me that the board of directors, which is called the atheopagan society council not have me as an officer. It was really important to me that, I mean, I'm on the council, but I'm not an officer of the council. I'm not one of the ranking people in the council. And I feel that that's important. There are other people who can make decisions without me, Yucca: Right. Mark: and I think that's great, Yucca: Yeah. And, and I think it's important to distinguish in this, that we're not saying that if, if an organization has a leader or has leaders that that makes it culty, the, the problem is the not being able to be challenged, not being able to be questioned that it's that power over everybody else. That's the, the real issue at hand, right? Mark: Yeah. Awful lot of the rest of this. Is really a function of hierarchy. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And in atheopagan we strive very much not to be built around hierarchy, to have a very, very flat power structure. Even our ordained clergy who are called clerics that's a, a service role to the community. It's not a status elevation and anybody. Yucca: with the council as well. It's, you know, people volunteer to do a whole bunch of work, basically. That's what it means to be on the council. Is, are you gonna do all this work for free Mark: yeah, exactly. Yucca: yeah, none of, and, and with, within the society, we don't have any paid positions. This is all people doing it because, because we see it as, as service and something we want to be involved in and that we really value. Mark: That's right. That's right now. I wanna say two things about that. The first one is that as fair disclosure, I, as an individual do have a Patreon. And so I have people that make a monthly contribution to me to support my work in Ethiopia, paganism, like the book that I'm writing now. The blog posts that I make, the resources that I create, Yucca: you do get royalties on your, your book sales Mark: I, yes, I do. Yes, I do. So, so I mean, there is some money that changes hands, but it's not the atheopagan so society is an entirely volunteer organization. Yucca: yeah. Mark: The other thing that I wanna say is that and we've mentioned this before. If you want to be an atheopagan cleric, if you can embrace those 13 principles, then you can go to the atheopagan society website, which is the AP society.org. And you can register as a cleric online. And that is a legally binding ordination. You can perform marriages and funerals and other rights of passage, all that kind of stuff. You can do hospice counseling and all that kind of stuff. And you can do that for free. So, we, you know, we really do believe everybody should be the. The director of their own spiritual path. And if they want to perform those services, they should be empowered to do so. Yucca: right. And if we can help, then, you know, we can provide resources and community spaces and things like that. And that's, that's kind of the role that the society's doing. Mark: right. So there's a lot of, you know, there's an introductory guidebook. You can download, you know, that talks about abuse, reporting requirements, how to organize different kinds of rituals. Working with the dying, working with the family of the dying you know, stuff like that, that will be helpful to you. As a cleric. So let's get back to our list. If you've, you've got these charismatic leaders who cannot be challenged or questioned, that's definitely a problem. The next one is deceptive recruitment tactics, Yucca: Right. Mark: and boy, the church of Scientology really specializes in those. I don't know if you've ever been in the situation where someone on a bicycle wheels up to you and asks you the time. But asking you the time to start a conversation is something that was chronic in my hometown. And it was always about trying to get you to come on down to the church of Scientology and sign up for their classes. Yucca: right. And this'll come in a little bit later, but especially kind of going after people in vulnerable positions, Mark: Yes. Yes. It bears saying that prosperity gospel is one of those deceptive recruitment tactics saying if you pray with us at our church and you contribute a bunch of money to our fabulously wealthy charismatic leader, you too will then be blessed with lots of money is a deceptive recruitment tactic. Yucca: Right. Yeah. Mark: The next on the list is exclusivity members are not allowed to belong to other groups or faiths. This is not true of Ethiopia, paganism. You can belong to whatever other faiths you want. Although if, if you belong to other faiths that believe in literal gods as being out there in the world, how you figure that out with your Ethiopia, paganism is a mystery to me, but if you can do it more power to you, if that works for you as a, as a path, Yucca: right. Mark: The, the whole idea of and we'll talk about this later on as well. The whole idea of trying to, to keep you away from people who don't believe the same thing as the group is very problematic. It's a real red flag. Yucca: Yeah. And so in atheopagan, and, and I think most forms of naturalistic paganism in general, you don't belong to anybody. You aren't owned by the group. Right. You're your own. And nobody gets to tell you what you get to believe or not believe or who you get to associate with or any of that that's, that's nobody's business, but yours. So Mark: Many religious traditions put a big value on submission. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Paganism generally. And atheopagan specifically does not, we, we do not believe that submitting or humbling ourselves before some higher power, any of we yeah. You know, fearing the, the supernatural beings. We don't believe any of that. And what that means is that our path is one of spirituality with personal agency, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: rather than out of submission or fear or domination. Yucca: right. Well, and that leads us to our next one, which is the use of intimidation, fear, shame, isolation that are used to punish somebody for not conforming, not going along. That's, that's something that is. a really classic sign of, of cult behavior, Mark: Yes. Yes. And we in atheopagan we encourage nonconformity in the form of individually tailored holidays and ritual practices. So it's quite the opposite, you know, we, we don't do what I do, do what you do, cuz that makes you feel good. That's that's how we would prefer it to work. Yucca: and we're not telling you that if you don't do it our way that you're gonna be unhappy and go to hell or any of that, it, we're not worried about that. It's okay. You know, you just do you. That's awesome. It works for you. Fantastic. Mark: Yes, exactly. And at that at, at this point, it's probably a good thing to point out that in naturalistic, paganism, generally speaking, we don't believe in an afterlife. So there's this idea of the world as approving ground for some sort of future judgment just doesn't exist. Our life is about this life. It's about how we conduct ourselves in this life. And it's about how much joy we can both celebrate and create in, in the world around us. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, so it becomes really important that people's practices are individually tailored because the point is for it to work for them, the point is not for it to work for an institution. Yucca: Right. Mark: So the next point is religious dogma. That must be followed and. You know, we all know about those that, you know, they can be, they can be dietary requirements, they can be requirements to go to religious rituals or services a certain number of times a, a day, a week, a year. Yes, dress codes, various kinds of sort of shaming behavior to get people, to, to follow what the expectations of the religion are. And, and a lot of beliefs that you have to subscribe to generally, I mean, in various kinds of fundamentalist Christianity, you are required to literally believe the stories of the Bible. Even though they kind of fly in the face of, of critical thinking. You're expected to believe them literally. And if you don't, then you get intimidation, fear, shame, and isolation from your community. Yucca: right. So another really kind of problematic indicator and in any situation which is sexual abuse or manipulation So, especially when there is that charismatic leader and those leaders are sexually involved with lower status members. And that is expected as some sort of cha like as an exchange or for elevation in the group or you know, to be able to stay part of the group, you're gonna have to do these things. Mark: Right. Right. And and of course we see that kind of abuse in religious traditions all over the world. It is rife. In all cases where you see it, the hierarchy is the issue, the power imbalance, because I, you know, in atheopagan we don't care if two members of our group who are Yucca: or more, Mark: or, or more have sex yeah. Have sex with each other. We don't care about that at all. But we don't have any like insider knowledge or special status or initiation into an inner sanctum. We don't have any of that stuff in our religion. So there's no way to hold those things out as kind of allure to try to get people to have sex with you, non consensually. Yucca: right. Mark: There are there, has there have been problems with sexual abuse in pagan communities? You know, we need to, we need to say that. And they have generally been pagan communities where there are charismatic leaders who cannot be challenged or questioned and it's, and there's a hierarchical power dynamic and people get abused and it's not right. Yucca: And I wanna say this is something that happens outside of religious communities as well. You know, there's been over the last few years, quite a lot of talk about that in Hollywood and in different, you know, businesses and moving up and, and, you know, corporate structures, all of that. So wherever you've got that, that hierarchy of the, the power over, there's a, a risk for that. And it's something that we have to be really careful about. And so the, the way that we structure our communities helps avoid that in the first place. Mark: Right, right. And so far so good. As far as we know we have had, you know, no, to my knowledge, we have had no incidences of, of problems with this.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So that's good. But we are new, of course the, the atheopagan community just celebrated a 10 year anniversary. So we're relatively new and we're far flung. So much of our interaction is online, but We do have, we have had in person gatherings and do have in person gatherings. And so far, those seem to have been respectful and conscientious and we have not had any reports of any kind of, of abuse. Yucca: Right. Mark: So the next, oh, go ahead. Yucca: I was gonna say, and I, and I'm, I'm very confident that if we did have something that we did have conflict like that come up, that I've been very impressed by the, the people involved and think that overall people would really try and do their best to resolve the issue in a very respectful and, you know, With lots of integrity and, and really just be very present with that because that's built into our values. Mark: I agree. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, I, I think I'll leave it there. It One of the things that has been so gratifying to me with a Theo paganism, because I did originally develop it just for myself, is that the people that have gravitated towards it have just been these really remarkable, very grown up, very creative. I mean, everybody's working with their wounds. Right. You know, we, we're all, we're all working on our stuff. It's the nature of things. But just a lot of kindness, lot of open-heartedness just really fine, fine people I've been, I've been just delighted. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So, let's talk about the next point, which is that in a cult or a cult-like institution, there is emphasis placed on recruiting, vulnerable people. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: So like people that have recently experienced a loss, like a death or a divorce people who are struggling with survival, like maybe homeless people or unhoused people, I should say homeless is not really liked anymore. And you know, or who have health issues, there's, there's a, an emphasis on trying to find people who are in need and then plugging the religious path into whatever need they have in order to claim that it's some kind of an answer. Yucca: right. Mark: And not only is that very cult-like, but I would say it's really shitty. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That is just truly awful behavior it's predatory. And I just can't imagine. Being a part of anything like that. Yucca: Right now that isn't to say not trying to help people who are vulnerable, but trying to sell them the religion as taking advantage of their situation to try and recruit them into this, whatever your thing is. Mark: Right. I, I think of soup kitchens where people are required to pray for their fed, you know, that's just awful. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: who does that? Well, I, we can name some names, Yucca: that happens. Yeah. Mark: yeah, Yucca: that? You know, the, the example works because that it's so widespread. So yeah. oh, go ahead. Mark: no, go ahead. Yucca: Well, I was gonna say the next one would be kind of this isolating, right? The really encouraging members to only engage with each other. Um right. Even sometimes to the point of excluding and not disowned family members or previous friends just saying, and that no, we've gotta be really insular. Right. It's us. Don't go to an I outside, you know, don't go to a therapist, don't go to anyone else. You know, don't have other friends, so that they're really just wrapped up in this one world view without any outside perspectives. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. That kind of insularity is very widespread in Christianity. I, I would imagine it probably is in Islam and Judaism as well. And I know it is in Scientology as well. But I mean, particularly in conservative branches of Christianity, like, latter day saints, or, you know, some of the evangelical churches, it's like, if you don't belong to our church, we don't want anything to do with you, Yucca: right. Mark: or we're telling you, you shouldn't have anything to do with people that are not a part of our church. And that's just harmful for a lot of reasons, for one things, because it's turning spiritual practitioners into prisoners, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: which is kind of scary. But for another thing, being exposed to the diversity of humanity is a good thing. Yucca: Right. Mark: One of the reasons why we see such incredible narrow mind and bigotry among evangelical Christians, at least in the United States is because they're not hanging out with anybody other than people like themselves. And it's very easy for them to decide that people that are not like themselves are somehow less or subhuman and that their needs concerns and welfare can safely be ignored. And that's just a dangerous, dangerous path to go down. Yucca: right. Well, and, and when they're isolated, it's harder for someone to challenge that unable leader. Right to know that some of these behaviors are not normal behaviors and that they're not healthy behaviors, that that's not just how it is everywhere. Mark: Right. And it creates a tremendous social cost to leaving. Yucca: right. Mark: If you decide this is not okay, and I've gotta go. And what that means is that your entire social circle disappears and, or your family disowns you Yucca: maybe your survival, right. Not just at an emotional level, but the, that that may be you're survival net. Mark: that's right, Yucca: How are you going to feed yourself? How are you going? What are you gonna do when you know, you've gotta go to the hospital and someone needs to take you. And all of those things just evaporate, Mark: right, Yucca: right? Your childhood friend, your dog, your, you know, your kids, all of that stuff. Mark: Yeah, it's some of the stories are just terrible. I mean, it's just as bad where people get ejected because they're gay or they're trans, or they're just different in some way. And they get ejected from the group because the group doesn't approve of who they are and suddenly they have no social resources. It's just terrible. So the next one is pretty obvious, but it needs to be on the list. And that is financial exploitation of members, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: um, requiring tithing constantly strong arming people to be paying for, you know, the, the church fund or the, whatever it is, you know, constantly, you know, pressing on people to be giving money. It's exploitative. It doesn't take into consideration the varying levels of resources that people have available. And honestly, it doesn't let them make their own decision about where they wanna invest their money. Yucca: Right. Well, and, and you could make the argument, oh, they're choosing to, but when this is in the context of all of this other behavior, it can be really difficult to not do that. Right. And they, you know, the suggestion may not just be a suggestion, Mark: Exactly. Because the word will get around that you did not that you're not tithing. Right. Everybody else is tithing, but you're not tithing. And so judgements begin to be made and decisions get start being made about where you sit in the hierarchy. Yucca: Yeah. And finally, we can say the lack of transparency, right? So in, in an organization like this, the decisions may be made in secret, Mark: Mm-hmm Yucca: People don't even know what the decisions are made especially when it comes to finances, but not just finances, social decisions, all of that sort of stuff that there's not a way to track it. There's not a way to know. And it's just, it just comes down. Right? The decision is made. Mark: Yeah, exactly. And. To me. It's just, it's a part of that whole non-hierarchical approach to things that, I mean, you have it because the way that the laws of the United States are organized, they can't even comprehend the idea of a non-hierarchical organization. So we have to have a board of directors in order to have a non-profit organization. Right. But the idea of that group not aggressively soliciting the input of the broader community and communicating out whatever decisions it makes based on those. Just, it's just appalling the idea, especially that these very wealthy institutions could be doing stuff like that is you know, when, when Joel Ostein needs another private plane, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: you know, Basically he and his cronies are making that decision on their own without any transparency with the rest of the community. It's just it's wrong. And it's really culty, Yucca: Yeah. Well, and I mean, the, the reason that we're bringing this up is, again, emphasizing this isn't what fits our beliefs and values, right? There's a lot of groups doing activities like this and this particular list, mark, you would put this together out of several different lists, right? And these are the ones that any one of these is a problem where some of the other lists, you found things that are like, eh, kind of iffy, but maybe it's like, okay, but any one of these, these issues is, is really just a huge, huge red flag. Mark: Right when I was doing, oh, go Yucca: I was gonna say, and they usually don't come. Mark: No. Yucca: you've got the unable leader, then you probably also have the dogma and the abuse and the, you know, those things. Usually you're gonna have a lot of them together. Mark: Yeah. When I was researching to, to first write on this the there were some lists that were, you know, if you score four or more, then you, you may have a problem kind of lists. And I, I just, I just took out the, the sort of iffy ones and compiled them, you know, compiled the 10 worst, most egregious concerns into a bullet list. I think it can be said with some confidence that if you don't have any of these things, you're probably not in a cult. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You know, you're, you're probably in a reasonably health healthy, reasonably open kind of spiritual path. Yucca: right, Mark: So we wanted to talk a little bit about deconstruction and recovery, Yucca: right, Mark: In the atheopagan community. We have an affinity group that meets once a month on zoom of people who are deconstructing from other religions and feel the need for support. You know, people have real horror stories about ways that they've been treated in a religious context. And I really honor those people for their bravery in pursuing a new spirituality, instead of just saying I'm done. I'm, you know, I'm gonna live a life without spirituality because I don't, I just don't trust any of that anymore. Yucca: right. Because the spirituality really can. Can give us so much in our lives. Right. And really can fulfill a very deep instinctual human need that we have. Mark: Yes, and bring so much joy and gratitude and appreciation and such a sense of warm, shared community. I mean the, the danger is that even in very culty kinds of contexts, people still have that sense of community and they will stick around for it. Yucca: Well, that's why they're sticking around. Mark: That's right. Yucca: Right. That's you know an abusive relationship, whether it's abusive relationship with a partner or with. Different family member or larger community or religion, there's still something in there that is feeding you. And that's why it can be one of the reasons it can just be so hard to, to remove yourself from Mark: To let go. Yucca: Right. Because there is that beautiful part. There is that wonderful part. And then there's the not right. Then there is the manipulation and then there's the exploitation and there's all of that. And so, you know, there's, I think that it's, it's really important to have a lot of compassion for people who are in these situations and, and recognize that that it's something that, that we can all relate to on some level or another. Right. Mark: Right. In the, in the development of Ethiopia, paganism as a community and as a, as a. A spiritual tradition rather than just sort of my individual path. One of the things that I remain really cognizant of is that there are people coming into this community who are gonna test because they've been burned before. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: And so they sort of poke with these questions, right? It's like, well, what about this? You know, what about money? Well, we accept donations to the atheopagan society because we do have some expenses. But you don't have to be a member. We don't have members and you don't have to be a member of it in order to be call yourself an atheopagan and practice the, the, the path. Yucca: and we won't announce if you, you, it's not gonna be an, if you decide to donate, we're not gonna announce and give you special status. And, you know, we'll Mark: We, we will, we will list you on the, on the patrons list. On the website, if you want to be, if you wanna be anonymous, then we won't, Yucca: but you're not gonna get like a badge if you're on the Facebook group that says, you know, I'm, Mark: I'm a donor. Yucca: I'm a donor. Yes. I'm a class, you know, a class supernova donor or something like that, right? Yeah. Mark: that's right. Because people have, you know, at times been you know, very sharp in their interrogation of me, you know, what's your role, you know? Aren't you, the final decision maker of all the things the council does, you know, all, all that kind of stuff and no, I'm, I'm not, and I don't want it that way. What I want is to do this right from the very beginning, my vision has been, what if you did, what if you did an earth based reason based. Spiritual path and you did it, right. You didn't step into any of the pitfalls that have plagued other religious paths. You know, if you are really open and really flat power structure and really transparent open your books to the public so they can see, you know, the money and where the money goes, all that stuff. And that's what we're doing so far. Yucca: Yeah, right. And that's, and you know, that's not just, that's not just Mark's vision, that's the broader vision. Right. And that's, that's part of it. So. Mark: Right. I mean, if you can characterize the atheopagan community At all. It says a group of people who have all kind of come together to say, let's do this really well. Let's do it really well for ourselves and really well for the world. And just, you know, let's do this at a very high level of integrity. Yucca: mm-hmm and just very thoughtful. That's something that just comes up again and again is just how thoughtful people are about all of this. Mark: yeah, I agree. Now there are downsides of that for somebody like me, I'm not making a mint on this. But I'm. I'm so happy with how this is all proceeded. The idea of, you know, having to have this be something that I can leverage for a lot of money, just really doesn't cross my mind. And I, to be honest, I think that if I tried the community would vanish, just, just vanish. Yucca: I don't think they could build this kind of community on that. Right. Certainly communities can be built on those types of principles, but this particular community. I think the reason that we're here, the reason that we, that we're doing all of this is, again, it goes back to what we were talking about before with the principles and the pillars is that we share those things. Right. And those aren't really compatible with the list that we just gave of, of red flags. That's not that isn't compatible with religious dogma and with, you know, deceptive recruitment tactics and things like that. That just doesn't line up with what we're searching for and trying to cultivate and grow. Mark: Right. We don't endorse exploitation. We don't endorse exploitation of the planet. We don't endorse exploitation of one another Yucca: Right. Mark: and a willingness to indulge. Various kinds of exploitation is characteristic of the sorts of organizations that get into trouble with things like that are on this list. You know, people in our community, they're, they're pretty quick to say if they feel like they've been treated unfairly or if they if they don't feel hurt or if their feelings are hurt and we talk about it and To the best degree possible, we make it right. Yucca: Right. Mark: It's just a different approach to things. So there are some resources for people who are deconstructing from religion, who don't necessarily want to be naturalistic pagans or whatever. There is the recovery from religion foundation, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: um, which is a great organization and they have online groups and a variety of resources for people who are deconstructing from religion. Encourage you to look into that. And Yucca: Whether you're interested in non theos, paganism or not. Right. Mark: Yes, Yucca: so it could be, it could be useful in both cases. Yeah. Mark: There's also the freedom from religion foundation, which is more of an advocacy organization for separation of church and state. But they do also have resources for people who are leaving abusive religious contexts and are are seeking support. So, encourage you to look into both of those, you know, if that's your situation. And also of course, we invite you to, you know, join our community. If you think that these values are things that are consistent with what you wanna do, and you can be a part of that recovery meeting that happens once a month. I think it's the first Tuesday, maybe first, Monday. I'm not sure I'm in a lot of these meetings. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and also some of the stuff that we, you know, we didn't talk too much about it, but the ritual practice and things like that can really help in healing processes. Right. Whatever it is, whether it was a religious trauma or childhood, or those often go hand in hand actually or whatever it is that, that that you're dealing with, you know, part of what we're trying to do is, is. develop lives and practices that support ourselves and develop the tool sets that help us to be able to do those things in whatever way matches us as individuals. Right? Yeah. Mark: For example I know people that have done full. Funerals and burials literal burial in a hole in the ground of their religion, of their, the religion that they've left. And that sounds like it might be kind of silly, but it's not, it's very serious. And they feel really different after it's been done going through those symbolic activities to, you know, psychologically divest yourself of something that has been hanging over you for a long time can be really psychologically impactful. And those are the kinds of practices that we learn how to do in naturalistic, paganism and that we do for one another and that we share. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So if, if this is the first episode of the wonder that you've ever heard, because you're being, you're just joining us or you're A family member or friend said, Hey, you should listen to this because I'm doing this atheopagan thing or naturalistic pagan thing. And I know you're worried about it. So here, check this out. Welcome. And there is plenty more information about atheopagan at the Ethiopia pagan society website, which is the AP society.org or, and, or at the Ethiopia paganism blog that I do, which is Ethiopia, paganism.org. And there's a YouTube channel. There's this podcast. There's a Twitter feed. There's the Facebook group. Yes, there's, there's a lot of different places where you can meet others and talk and ask questions and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: And as we mentioned before, we're, we're pretty young, so we're just growing, but there are some affinity, local affinity groups, which are starting to form, so for different areas of the world or the country. So there might be, you know, people in your local area as well for, you know, face to face conversations and not just over the keyboard. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. So, thank you for this conversation. Yucca. This has been a good one. I feel like.  Yucca: There's a lot here today. Yeah. Mark: yeah, and, you know, there are so many just sort of assumptions that we make about how we're going to do our business that we don't really talk about explicitly. And I think bringing all of those out is really important. So people see, you know, the kind of people we are and the kind of thing that we're trying to build. Yucca: and yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: yeah. Well thank you for this conversation. So, and next week, we're, we're gonna be in October already and we have a lot of really fun topics coming up Mark: fun topics like death and decomposition. Yucca: Yes, well, and, and cauldrons and ancestors and all of that good stuff. So, yeah. Mark: It's gonna be great. Yucca: All right. Well, thanks everybody.    .

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E32 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science Based Paganism. I'm one of your host Yucca. Mark: And I'm the other one, Mark. Yucca: And today we are talking about transitioning into the autumn or the fall. That sort of nesting and collecting of your acorns, metaphoric and, and all of that. Mark: Yeah, because. I mean, if you're like us, the autumn is a, a really lovely time. It's just, it's a time to be enjoyed for so many different reasons. And as pagans who like sort of the products of nature, right. There's a lot of stuff out there. There's leaves and there's. Pine cones and there's late flowers. And of course there's all the stuff pouring out of the gardens. so there's just, there's a lot of opportunity to decorate and celebrate and kind of button things up for winter around our homes. So that's what we're gonna talk about. Yucca: Right. Well, and there's also a lot of those practical things that we're doing that are a wonderful opportunity to invite more meaning and ritual into our lives as we're doing those things anyways. Right. Mark: Yes. Yes. Yucca: So Mark: Yeah. I mean all that food preparation stuff that, I mean, it's practical, right? Because it's food preparation, but it's, it's pretty witchy stuff. When, when you, when you get down to it, you know, the brewing and the pickling and the drying and all that stuff, it's all very witchy. Yucca: Yeah, well, and, and even things also like you're switching out, you're bringing your sweaters out, right. Bringing those out and, and going through and making sure the moths didn't get into them and putting the there's the heavier blankets on the bed and, and all of those sorts of things, you know, there's, there was an episode we did. Few years back at this point about the kind, bringing the magic into things we talked about. Like, you know, when you're putting the shampoo on your head, it's not just shampoo, but it's your, your magical potion of charisma or whatever it is. You know, there's so much of that, that this time of year, I think there's just a opportunity for, Mark: Yeah. There's at, at least in the temperate zone, there's so much of a sense of transition. There's kind of a magic in the air. The weather is changing. The character of the light is changing. It won't be long before. In most places. Daylight savings thing changes. So the whole sense of the length of the day changes and that's just a really ripe canvas for for doing our creative ritual activity around Yucca: Yeah. So last week we did talk about the Equinox. But there, are there any things that you have been doing? Since then in the, in the last week or so, or things that you will be doing that fit in with this transition theme that we're talking about? Mark: Well, one thing that I did was my Northern California atheopagan affinity group, which calls itself the live Oak circle went camping last weekend. And that was really cool to, you know, to do, to do an Equinox ritual in person with people. And we're still getting to know one another and still kind of feeling our way. So, you know, that, that will, that will mature over time, but it's really a lovely group of people. Very diverse, very interesting. And I just, I had a wonderful time And so that was something that I, I did for the Equinox season that I'm really happy about. Go ahead. Yucca: is, is camping during the winter a, a possibility, or is this really your last camp of the, the year? Mark: It's a possibility, but you're gonna get rained on Yucca: Okay. Mark: and I don't mind snow for camping very much because it's dryer. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: But rain can really be a pain. Yeah. I mean, it's, everything's all muddy and it, it can really be a pain. But that said the I've gone camping in say February, which is the wet month of the year for us. And it's been glorious. It's, I've gone out to the coast. The, the waves are all stormy and there are not many people out there because it's not tourist season. So you can really have a wonderful experience doing that. Yucca: Mm. Nice. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: And I'm sorry. I think I had cut you off. You were starting to say something else as well. Mark: Probably, but I have no idea what it was now. So that's something that I did. And my partner NAIA brought home a an armature for a reef. This made out of grape vines this week that we're going to put seasonal things on and hang on our door. So that's another thing that hasn't been done yet, but will be we have to go out and collect some leaves and pine cones and things like that. Because it's just, the leaves are just starting to turn here. I mean, week before last, we had. We had temperatures from the high nineties to 117 over a space of about seven days. Yucca: so hot. Mark: And so now I think the trees are figuring out that, okay, we're done with that now. It's it's time to start shutting down. Yucca: Right. And some of that is, is cued by the light more than the temperature. It depends on the species, but the, the light can really play a role in, in what they're doing. Mark: Mm-hmm Yucca: Hmm. Well, we don't have a lot of trees that do change in the autumn. We have a few but for the most part, you can still feel it in the air here. But the flowers have really changed. This is the end of our monsoon season. So we had a lot of. Flowers. And this past week, the, the kiddos and I went out and just gathered a whole bunch of flowers. And we had a dear friend with us as well, who showed the kids how to leave the, the flowers and they made flower crowns. And even though that's something that is more associated with spring, On like a larger level for us, it's more of a fall thing because that's when we actually have the flowers, right. We have like some little tiny things in the spring, but they're just, but usually the, the end of winter is very dry for us. Right. When we do get snows, it's more in, in the beginning of win, like more in a January, February time. But by the time we get into March and April, there's not much moisture. So there really isn't a lot in the spring, but in the autumn, we've got these All kinds of MOS and sunflowers and Veria and all of these beautiful things to, to weave in and add. And we were talking about be before we started recording, I was showing mark the, the photos from it. And mark, you suggested, and I love this idea of putting, if you had leaves putting leaves in doing leave crowns. You know, the cone pine cones and, and whatever it is, that's in your environment. That is, that is fall or autumn for you. Mark: Sure. Yeah. I mean, one idea that you could do as a part of your Equinox celebration actually would be to have to crown like an autumn king and an autumn queen or autumn royalty of whatever gender, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: To kind of oversee the feast. Right. And it'd be really cute if those were kids. Yucca: Yes, Mark: so Yucca: the kids with, with flower crowns and leaf crowns is just cute. Just too cute. Mark: you bet. So that's, that's something else that you could do, theoretically. I. I mean, there's, there's so much that's so aesthetically pleasing about this time of the year to bring it into your house and make it clear that there's less of a division between inside and outside, I think is something that can be really valuable for us. Yucca: yeah. Some of that, depending on how far north or how far cold your climate gets. It is a little bit of a last chance this time of year for some of the outdoor stuff, because when the snows do come, when the bitter cold does come, there's a lot more of that. Just staying nestled inside. So I think of this a lot as like a nesting time getting ready, right? Just like that's what I see the animals outside doing the ones that stay here. We still have a few that have not left. I saw some hummingbirds today and I'm going, Hey. Get going get going. You're not gonna like it here. But the ones that, that stay here, you know, all of our little rodents and the Jays and things they're busy as can be right now, just packing away their cheeks, full the Jays. It's so funny. They can have multiple, we leave sunflower seeds out for. Which they've now planted everywhere. But they can fit multiple ones in their beak at once. So you'll see them going by with like three or four seeds in one beak and then the, all the squirrels and chipmunks with their faces just stuffed full of whatever it is that they can find. Mark: Nice Yucca: and so I, I kind of feel like that, right. Just stuffing, you know, it's time to stuff, things in, but it's a good time also for a fall clean. We have a spring cleaning as a Mark: Mm, Yucca: in the larger culture, but it's a good time to do that. Fall cleaning and clean out all this stuff from summer, that's gone. Right? You're getting rid of that stuff. You don't need that anymore. And bring out, you know, bring out the things that you do. What are your, the boots, if you're in a, I'm sure this is for your environment. You probably have some big boots. The rain boots Mark: nice rubber Wellingtons. Yeah. Yucca: You know, maybe put those flip flops away, bring out the wellies. Mark: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I, I think of it this way. We're gonna be spending a lot more time indoors now. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Uh, going forward for the next six months or so. Right. Because the conditions are going to get more inhospitable outside. So let's make the inside a place we wanna be, you know, let's make it cozy and comfortable and pretty and practical and all those different kinds of dimensions of what makes a real home. Yucca: mm-hmm yeah. Mark: And there are ritual things that we can do that can contribute to that, which is, can be fun. I think, you know, assembling that reef and putting it on the, on the doorstep, I think is gonna be a great thing. I. Also getting dried squashes and pumpkins and so forth to, to decorate the front area just. Yes. We, we were talking about this before we started to record. Yes, it's true. Pumpkins tend to be associated with Halloween and Hallows, but they're available now and they're actually pouring out of the gardens right now. So, you know, grab a few. Yucca: Yeah. And there are some, some really fun ones. If you haven't grown them, that's one of the ones I really encourage you to try. Because squash are pretty forgiving for, for being grown. And you can grow in a five gallon bucket and get one of those. You can, you can grow maybe one plant, but you could do something like one of those, those little Jacky littles. Have you seen those little pumpkins? They're about the size of like your fist? Mark: Oh yeah. Yucca: Yeah, those are a great one. And some of the smaller ones, you could grow a big one, but those are ones that you could do in your window. If you don't have any backyard to put it in, if you do, but you gotta have your big container, right. You can get away with one or so, and then they'll just take over. But the smaller, the smaller, the winter squashes, the more of them you're likely to get. If you're trying to grow one of your, like your huge, like fair winning pumpkin. You're not gonna be able to pull that off indoors or on a balcony, but something little you might be able to. And they're usually pretty easy to save seeds from too. So if you go to the, the farmer's market or even the grocery store, and you see that really weird pumpkin with all the like bumps on it and those strange colors and stuff. Just save one or two of those. Right. And see if the next, next year, maybe you can get that to, to grow in your house or on your porch or, and if it doesn't work, then would you lose Mark: Right. Yeah. Yucca: You're gonna, Mark: You, you, you had the pumpkin anyway, so yeah, it's what you lost was one bite of toasted pumpkin seeds. Yucca: Yeah. So, yeah, so pumpkins And depending on how far along they are in your climate, the dried sunflower heads. Mark: Huh? Yucca: those ones. Mine. They're not in my area. They're not quite ready. We need another, another couple weeks. But for the big, like the mamma sunflowers and they're just so beautiful, you see that spiral pattern of the seeds, assuming you can get to it before the birds. Mark: right, Yucca: Yeah, but if you pick it before the seeds have developed, then you're, they're not gonna develop on the, the head. Right? So if you, if you wanna save one of those, let's say you have several flowers, you can put a paper bag over it, as long as it's still attached to the, the plant, but it won't fully develop. It's not like some of those little grasses and things. If you cut those off early, then they'll just ripen really quick. There's just not enough time for those big sunflowers to do that. Mark: that makes sense. Yucca: So, yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So. Mark: and of course, you know, we're talking about produce. And so even if you don't have your own garden, this is the time for the fruit stands and the vegetable stands. And, you know, it's, it's a time, even, even if you do most of your shopping at a market, you know, if that's where you get most of your food, do some exploring, find out what the local varieties are of things. You know, play around with some new vegetables, because there are gonna be weird things that you just don't really recognize or understand how to use. And of course you can pick up things for preservation, which is a big part traditionally of this time of year. As people work to save as many calories as they possibly can for the winter, when. When the food systems are not gonna be producing, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: so, Yucca: And this is a fun time of year to, to try with the pickling and the fermenting. Speaking of those sort of witchy looking and feeling things you'd have those nice jars. That's definitely fun to do. Mark: Yeah, get some local honey and do a quick bead. That'll be ready by hellos. You can do some of that.  Yucca: Yeah. Mead and insiders are really easy. They're not like they're not like beer that is much more finicky and you need more equipment and stuff Mark: and there are so many more steps. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: For for beer. Beer is really actually a pretty complicated chemistry experiment when you get down to it making the, the wart so that the food for the yeast is absolutely perfect to create a particular flavor is really, you know, an art. It is, it's an art and there are people that are very good at it. I'm not one of them because I discovered that. There's all this fantastic beer available for 10 bucks, a six pack and I don't have to learn to be a master. Other people have, have done that for me, Yucca: Right. Mark: but I do like Yucca: gonna be, if it's something you're gonna be consuming a lot of versus something you're making just a small amount for. Just sort of the joy of it, you know, you have different considerations. Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, if you're only doing the five gallon. Car full, then that's a pretty easy project. Yucca: yeah, Mark: So it's something to look into it's and, and there is definitely a sense of pride and accomplishment. When you make a nice beverage like that and people enjoy it and appreciate it, and it gives you an opportunity to be creative about bottle labels and all that kind of stuff. It's fun. Yucca: another one to, to look into if you're interested in making things like that, but you don't want as high of an alcohol content is kombucha. Kombucha is really easy to make. And when you make it at home, it can have a higher content than what you would buy in the store. Still not gonna be very much though. Like if you wanna have an alcoholic kombucha, you've gotta try, you've gotta go out of your way to make it that way. You're not gonna accidentally make it as high content as your CIS or wines, beers, things like that. So you'll get a pretty low amount. That's a really fun one that also, if you're looking for something to feel super witchy with, like it makes this SCOBY on top that it makes is this bizarre, bubbly looking. It's really cool. And if you've got kids, you can, that you can lay on poke it and stuff and it's, it's fun. So,  Mark: another option, which is fully non-alcoholic is to make what are called shrubs. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Shrubs are syrups that you add to sparkling water. They're made with vinegar and sugar and various kinds of herbs and fruits. So like strawberry and basil is, you know, one combination. There's, there's lots of recipes on the internet for making shrubs. I know it's a weird name. I didn't get it either, but that's what they're called. They're called shrubs. And they used to be very popular in the 19th century. They were, they were very, very common. And so you make these concentrated syrups and then you mix it with sparkling water and it, and maybe toss in, you know, another basal leaf or something for some fresh aromatics. And there are these very complex, interesting things to drink, but they don't have any alcohol in them. Yucca: Yeah. That sounds like something I'm sure that somebody is really passionate about and has their, their blog or channel on the boat. Mark: yep. Yeah, absolutely. Yucca: yeah. Well, pivoting away from the kitchen in the home, there's also things that That we might be doing like the buttoning up of the windows. Right. You're making sure that your windows seal properly and that the, the door isn't, isn't letting a draft through or something like that. And so that's, that's really a lovely time to maybe do a, a home. Kind of protection ritual or cleaning ritual or something like that, where maybe you're checking the window for the drafts, but you know, maybe there's something that you wanna be meditating on at while you're doing that or sprinkling some salt as well. Right. You're gonna protect from the drafts, but also, you know, protect on, on just sort of the symbolic level. Mark: Right. And you can be very specific about that sort of thing. I mean, what occurs to me is you can dip your fingertips into some rainwater that you've saved and then sort of flick it at the front door and it doesn't go through. So the, the point being, you know, we're rain proofing the house, we're demonstrating that this. The weather's not going to get inside. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Putting salt at the corners of the house is of course a traditional protection thing as well. There are lots of various witchy sorts of activities that I think can give us more of a sense of comfort and solidity and security in our, in our homes. Even though, you know, they're just symbolic actions and we know that, but that, that doesn't matter. They still affect us. And there's a good feeling about kind of taking care of yourself that way about going through all of the gestures that are necessary in order to feel like you are in a secure and happy, warm, and cozy place. Yucca: Mm-hmm . Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, this is just, this is just one of my favorite times of year. I just wanna say that, right. just, oh, the chill and the it's still hot in the middle of the day for us, but in the mornings and the evenings, it's got that little brisk and, you know, so there's just so many lovely things. And as always, we really love hearing from all of you. And you tell us about some of the things you do.  Mark: Yes, especially if you're in other climbs because you know, there's a, there's a woman who's on the atheopagan council who comes to the Saturday morning zoom mixers pretty frequently. And she was just saying this morning that it's just barely starting to be tolerably. Cool there now it's still pretty hot and she's in Tampa, Florida. So she's actually in the subtropics. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Which is, it's just, it's a whole other deal, right. You know, the, the dreaded season is not the winter. The dreaded season is the summer. Yucca: right. Mark: it's very hot and very humid and just not very hospitable full of bugs. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Um, so Yucca: we're ready for the mosquitoes to take a break. Mark: are Yucca: really ready for them to Mark: I, I see, okay. Yucca: yeah, but I'm sure their mosquitoes are on a different level. Mark: Yeah, well, because of all the moisture everywhere, right? There's just there's enough moisture to support so much growth. So all the plants, all the animals, they really go to town. Yucca: yeah. Mark: What else I'm trying to think of what else? I mean, this is a real season for paying attention, just watching what's happening with the sky. You know, noticing the branches of the trees against the sky as they get more and more naked and lose their leaves.  Yucca: And in some places that's a, that's an overnight. It's amazing how quick things change. Right. And in others, it's a slow, kinda drawn out process that, oh, what are we going through? And it just hap and then others, it just happens. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. To me. The the time change is always kind of slamming the door on the remnants of summer and, you know, really, you know, bringing winter on board. But the time leading up to that, you know, the whole spy month of October and, you know, I mean they're Yucca: have some good topics coming up for October. I Mark: oh, we do. Yucca: October. Mark: Yeah, me too. There's just, there's so much to be said about not only our practices as pagans, but just living a life. You know, the, the kinds of considerations that we have at that time of year are so profound thinking about mortality and about ancestry and all those kinds of things. But this is the, this is the onset of that. This, this moment right here is when we slip from summer into this different transitional kind of state. And I, I just really enjoy it. I find myself even more attentive to what's going on outside and around me, because it's so beautiful. Yucca: Yeah. Hmm. Mark: So I hope that wherever you are, you're having a similar experience of Of wonderful arrival of autumn wherever you may be and feel free to drop us a note about how you're experiencing that or what any of your traditions are for the autumn and going into going into that. October season you can reach us as always at the wonder podcast, QS, gmail.com, and we always enjoy hearing from you. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So thanks everybody. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Thanks. Thanks for being with us. We always appreciate so much that you listen.    .

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E31 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 celebrating the autumnal Equinox, which goes by various other names. I like to call it harvest myself. And the. The holiday is one of the roughly equivalent length of the day and the night around the 20th of September. And so it's a time when we celebrate many metaphorical meanings of that. And we also observe a lot of what's going on in our natural environment. At this time, as in the Northern hemisphere, we moved from summer into. Into the autumn. So we're gonna be talking about that today and celebrating the holiday, Yucca: Right. And as always, it's just amazing that we're here already. Mark: right. Yucca: is just, just flown by. So, Mark: It really has. It's. Well, it's extraordinary. I mean, a as you know, Yucca, I've been unemployed now for almost 14 months. Yucca: wow. Mark: And I mean, on the one hand, it seems like all the time in the world, but on the other hand, it's like, well, that's kind of flown by in a way it's involved a lot of struggle, but it's. leading to some good things. Now that I'll talk about later on. So I'm, I'm feeling like this is the harvesting season. It's the time when I'm, you know, reaping the benefits of stuff that I've had in the ground for a long time and have really been working to tend. Yucca: Hmm. That's exciting. Yeah. So for us, and we should mention being in the Northern hemisphere, this is the autumn for us. Although we do see that there are quite a few of you listening from the Southern hemisphere. So for everybody in the Southern hemisphere, it's the other side of the wheel, Mark: Happy Yucca: So happy spring. But for us to September. We're talking about how fast the year goes, but September seems to just really fly by for, with us starting September. It's still summer by the end of September, it's we're full in autumn. It's winter's right at our doorstep, right? It's a, we get a very kind of short autumn and it's says, Nope, here we are. It's fall. And this is actually one of my very favorite times of the. And I know a lot of people really, really love this time, but let's actually start with what is this holiday often represent in the broader pagan community. And then we can get into our individual practices and, and observances around it. Mark: Sure. That sounds great. Well, traditionally, this is viewed as the second harvest of the three harvest festivals. The first being the holiday at the beginning of August which is. The grain harvest and so beer and bread and all those kinds of things. Well, this is the second harvest and it it's often conceptualized as the overflowing corn utopia of vegetables, right? The vegetable gardens are pouring out all of the winter squash and the tomatoes are still really going. And there's all these Yucca: zucchini. So many zucchini Mark: so many zucchini, same numbers of zucchinis. You've got, you know, people door ditching zucchini to everyone else. And so it's a time of a great abundance of food. Much of which is perishable and is not really gonna last into the winter. And so traditionally it was a time when you ate a lot, right? You, you, you put as much, you stored as much of that stuff as you could, like the winter squashes and so forth, but what you couldn't, you ate, you put on your body as, as much as you could in order to kind of fatten up for the winter. Yucca: Right. This is also the, the time of year where they're the most babies born. So you would think that it would be pretty evenly distributed throughout the year, but we actually see in the August, September, right in this area, right before we're going into the, the season is really switching into that cold time when we see a lot more births. Mark: that kind of makes sense. Because if this is the time of year, more than any other this in the ne into the next couple of months, when food is really abundant, right? So it makes sense that the time when you would be having births would be the time when mothers could be as nourished as possible. And there would be as good a shot as possible for the babies to survive into the next year. Yucca: Right. And when you count backwards to the time when you're feeling horrible and having terrible morning sickness, it's the time of the year when there's the least food. Anyways. so you're okay. Right.  Mark: Never thought of that, but Yucca: the, yeah, it's, it's how it works. It's so, you know, we, we can forget sometimes in our modern world, how part of. The rest of nature, we really are. Right. We really are seasonal creatures that have figured out some clever things in the last hundred years or so to, to help us kind of forget that. But, but this time of year is, is, is lovely because it is a reminder that no, this, whether we like it or not, the season is changing and might as well like it and embrace it because it's happen. And it's it just feels like this tipping point time period. Mark: It, it does. It feels, I was saying before we started recording, it feels kind of like the hinge of the year. There's a lot of preparation that has to happen before winter starts in earnest. For, and for me, This time of year is always a time for sort of taking stock of the last year's cycle. You know, what were my dreams? You know, of my, my dreams from UL, my plans from From brightening at the beginning of February, you know, how did I implement those and how are they going? And is there something to harvest from those now? This year I'm, I'm hopeful. I, I believe I have a job I will know in about a week. but I believe I have landed a job, which was, will be a wonderful position. And I'm happy to talk more about it. Presuming that it happens. I'm also. Most of the way done with writing the second book, the second athe paganism book and Yucca: which is a publish. Mark: which as a publisher, yes, loyal and worldwide is publishing it. And I have to deliver a manuscript at the end of November, and I'm still figuring out what the last 10,000 words are going to be. But Yucca: But you've done a huge, I mean, you've done all the other words, so you've done a huge chunk of Mark: I'm at 45,000 words now. So that's, that's a lot, there's a whole lot there. And it's involved a lot of days of sitting at a desk with a laptop, just tapping away and researching and pulling things in from other sources and synthesizing ideas. In, you know, as, as I see them. So it feels like this fall will be a, a real time of. Of accomplishment. And the, the completion of some, some long held dreams which kind of goes along with my other conceptualization of this holiday. We've talked about this before, how I map the arc of a human life onto the wheel of the year. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Uh, this holiday is the holiday of being elder. so it's sort of the moment of reflection about, okay, well, I'm kind of at the end of this, but What has, what has life been like? What, you know, what have I learned? What have I experienced sort of running your fingers through all those amazing moments of your life. And so I don't think of myself as elderly quite yet, but I still see that process happening for me this year with the, the things that I'm harvesting. So I, I find that exciting. Yucca: Hmm, that's Mark: How about you? How do you celebrate this time of year? Yucca: Well, this season terms of how, how we see the wheel of the year this is the celebration of the decomposers. This is the, the fun guy and the microbes. And of course there are microbes involved in. All parts of the cycle. Right. But, but the, the, the little ones who are just breaking things down and, and getting the, the compost ready and that, again, that shift that we're talking about, and it's really the, the entering into fall or autumn and getting now is time to be getting things. Right. That's a big getting things ready for the winter and it's just, you know, winter's coming, winter's coming. We can feel it in the air now. It's still hot during the days. And the monsoon season is just finishing up, but you can feel that chill and it's okay. Well, do we have enough firewood? Let's start stacking that and. Our, our solar panels, we switch them. Cuz this is there's no, there's no grid out here. Right. We're way too far away for that. And so, you know, we've gotta switch the, the panels, the angle now it's like, oh, okay, let's start. You know, we've had 'em down since the sun has been so high in the sky that, but now it's starting to, we can tell it's it's moving down on the horizon. We gotta move those panels up to be able to catch that light. And. BA all that buttoning up. Right. Okay. Are there cracks that need to be sealed? And what do we have to worry about for this? Not gonna survive the cold? What do we need to bring in all of that kind of stuff? And it's just a, a lovely, it's a lovely time of just shifting and transitioning and, and there's a nice anticipation, but there's kind of a calmness to it. Mark: Mm-hmm yeah, there's a Yucca: Satisfaction like what's done is done. Mark: and there's sort of a stillness, especially to early autumn. In my experience, we don't get very much wind here at this time of year. In the evenings when the heat finally dies down the it's just sort of very mild and there's. There's this kind of it's something in the air. There's. Sort of presence in the air that I feel at this time of year. I'm reminded of it by our wind chimes. There's just something about the wind chimes, faintly tinkling in the little bit of air movement that's going on. That reminds me that it's fall. The other thing that I hear a lot at this time of year is. Single crickets instead of a huge chorus like you have in the summertime, there will be one or two crickets outside kind of doing their thing. And it's in the, the warm late, late, late summer night. And it, it really reminds me of this time of year going back all through my life. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. You say that and I go, yeah. We have that too here.  Right? It's the, and there's a, there's a different quality to their, to their song. Mark: Yeah. Well, almost all their fellows have been eaten by now. Yucca: yeah. So if they're there Mark: Yeah, if they're there although if they still haven't made it, then that, that's why they're, that's why they're doing their, their noise. Trying to find somebody to hook up with at the very last minute. But I mean that deafening chorus of crickets that you get in the, you know, at the peak of summer is long gone by now. And it's just a few holdovers that are, you know, kind of holding down the Fort there every night. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah, I have such a fondness for this time of year. I just, even though we don't. Changing of leaves very much until later in the year, because it's gonna stay warm for us until October. know, we'll have, we'll have days in the high eighties and early, you know, low nineties even into October. But we may get a rainstorm or two between now and say November, Yucca: And when is your, when's your first frost? I mean, not till later, Mark: January. Yucca: Okay. Yeah. So you, you really don't get much in terms of frost Mark: Well, we've got that huge buffering Pacific ocean right near us. So that keeps it warmer. The air has to get very, very cold coming in from the east, from, from landward and, and the north in order to drop us down into those frost temperatures. And really it's mostly at the bottom of valleys most of the time, unless we get an Arctic storm. Yucca: yeah. Mark: The Arctic storms will put a little snow on top of the Hills sometimes. And, that can be pretty yeah, but this time of year is once again it's, as you say, it's an anticipatory time. This is the time when everybody cleans their gutters because they don't, when, when the rains finally come, they don't want them to be jammed up and overflowing and doing damage to their houses. Yucca: right. Mark: All of the vegetation has started to slow down. So, there's much less in the way of mowing and so forth, which I'm thankful for. Not because I do mowing, but because I have to listen to it and Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I, I'm not, I'm, I'm such a non of lawns and all that they represent.  Yucca: We don't have lawns here, but when I have visited them, I quite liked the smell of the cut grass. Mark: it's Yucca: That's a lovely, yeah. Mark: That's the smell of spring to Yucca: Mm. Mark: having grown up in suburbia. When, when the when the lawns are no longer swamps, Yucca: Okay. Mark: And, and can actually be mowed Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: um, long about March or so. That's when you can start start mowing the lawns and it's a wonderful, you know, spring smell to me. So yeah it's a little early for me to focus on decomposition. I do that later in the year around halls and then kind of going into, I, I think of decomposition and recomposition in new form as kind of taking place between halls and But I'm in a very different climb than you are. I mean, we're just, we're not gonna freeze for a long time and when we do, it's not very much, Yucca: Yeah, by the time we get to hollows are we've already been freezing for several weeks at that point. So we, I mean that still, it still has that decomposition theme, but now it's, it's, it likes to get started when it's still warm. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: enough, you know, you've got enough of your mixes of the greens and Browns and, and also for us, we're coming out of, we don't get a lot of moisture. We get maybe 12 inches in a good year, but we haven't done that in the past two decades since we're in this, you know, mega drought. But with, after the monsoons is when we do get the mushroom. And so we'll get the popup of the mushrooms or you'll turn over a log and you see the MyUM and and you know, we get the warnings every year because we have several mushrooms that you definitely do not want to eat. Just a reminder of know what you're doing, everybody, because we've got a few here that, Mark: As Yucca: really don't want to try. You won't make it to the nearest hospital. That's two hours away. Mark: As the late great Terry Chet once said all mushrooms are edible. Some mushrooms are only edible once Yucca: Right. Yeah. But of course, most, I mean the vast majority are, are, you know, not a problem. They're just, there's a few that are, but you know, they're, they're popping up and they're just doing, and all of that is just getting ready to do its thing because we have the moisture, we're getting the chill nights. It's not baking and, and throughout the winter, It'll slowly, it'll slow down, but that decomposition is happening down there in the soil. It's happening underneath the pine needles, you know, it's, it's working away. So Mark: Yeah. Oh, there was something else. What was it I was gonna touch on. Oh this is a big time of year for feasting. Yucca: yes. Mark: Because of all that, all that garden production and all that perishable food that you, you gotta get into yourself and share with your neighbors before it goes bad.  Yucca: Get put up if you're doing drawing or canning Mark: do any of those Yucca: do. Yeah. Mark: preservation processes, this is the time and around here where I am. You know, people are canning apples and, and making apple sauce and apple butter and all that kind of stuff from our apple crop and the the, what we call the crush, which is the grape harvest has started. It's always, you know, right around this time of year, starts in late. August and extends into early October. So that's a very seasonal thing as well. If you drive around the rural roads in the west county, they all smell like, like wine. They smell like rotting grapes, right? So, so it's a good time to have a feast, you know, invite your friends you know, focus on local produce and, you know, local, local food stuffs. I was I was mentioning when, before we started to record that this is when the salmon run. One of the, one of the salmon runs comes up the Russian river in our local area. And so we will have fresh local salmon here available, which is delicious. And sustainably farmed or sustainably caught wild caught. It is part of an industry that is doing a lot to conserve and improve riparian habitat and breeding grounds around here. So I, I feel that's an important thing to support. Yucca: Yeah, that's really important. Mark: Yeah. I mean the salmon runs of north America and they still are in Alaska, but the salmon runs of the California and Oregon and Washington coasts used to be millions and millions of fish. There are reports of tributaries to the Russian river during spawning season where you could walk across the tributary without getting. Feet wet because there were so many spawning salmon in these creeks and of course development and deforestation, tation, and climate change, and all those things have had a huge impact, but they're still living runs. And so this it's something that we like to appreciate this time of year. Yucca: Yeah. Oh, that sounds wonderful. Mark: Yeah, it is. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: So, We wish all of you the, the best of the season really invite you to go out and find out what's growing locally, you know, find out, you know, what does your neighbor's garden have in it?  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: See what, what stuff is coming up, check out the farmer's markets they're overflowing right now. It's a great time.  Yucca: This is also a time where, where folks are often cutting back herd numbers. So that's another one can get as well. Yeah. Mark: right. Yeah. Traditionally that's sort of more associated with, with Hallows, with the October holiday as the, the so-called flesh harvest, but realistically speaking, I think you're right. I think it's probably earlier in the year uh, Yucca: it really? Yeah. Well, and this is when you get, you know, if you, you. Talk to the rancher and you kind of figure out there, this is when they're figuring out, okay, what do we, you know, taking account? What, what do we have? What are, what are we gonna need to get through the winter? Mark: How many, how many of these animals can we get through the winter? Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: if we try to get them all through, they're all gonna starve. So, you know, hard decisions have to be made, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And. You know, cycle of life. So it goes. Yucca: And that's, you know, each point in the wheel of the year there. There's something going on. Right. And oftentimes there's an overlap, right? We talk about the, in the spring, we're often talking about these, this planning and this anticipation. And yet here we are in the autumn thinking about the anticipation. And yet we're planning for winter, right? In the spring. We're planning for summer and the fall. We're planning for winter and then the winter's for the next year. And it's just all overlapping and continuing and continuing. Here we get to be our little moment getting to be part of it with everybody else. Right. Mark: Right. And that's one of the things that I really appreciate about this time of year is that because I think of it as a reflective time, you know, the, the, the time of culminations of harvests it, it does give me a chance to sort of sit back and, you know, look at where I've, where was I? Where was I? 12 months ago. And how has that changed? And, you know, how do I feel about how I spent that time? What did I learn? You know, what would I, what do I wish I had done differently? What am I really glad I D I did that. I didn't think I was going to like all those things, right. A a life reflected on is a life well lived. Yucca: Well, we'd also love to hear from all of you, if there's special traditions that you have this time of year or anything that you wanna share with us, we always love getting your getting your emails and feedback. So Mark: And you know where to find us the wonder podcast cues at. Yucca: Gmail. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And that's QS. Mark: QS, gmail.com. And we would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for your comments and your, your questions and your topic suggestions. We appreciate all of them. Yucca: Happy autumn, everyone. Mark: Happy sol-Equinox! Sorry.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E30 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. We're thinking about rituals and pagan gatherings and how we as organizers and participants can help make those more accessible to the many different people in our communities. Mark: Yeah, this is an important one and it, it kind of rears its head up every now and then when. Planning gatherings or designing rituals because it's so easy to slip into the, the. The comfortable accident of designing a ritual for somebody that's just like yourself. Yucca: Right. Mark: And we have people in our community that have all different kinds of levels of ability and have various different kinds of challenges. And we want to make them as welcoming as possible for everybody. So we're gonna kind of kick around different ways of approaching that and reasons for it. Today, Yucca: right. Yeah. And so I, I love that you talked about it as, as looking at. Designing the ritual just for ourselves or for everybody. Right. And the, the, I think as paganism is growing up a little bit, we are, we have a, a shift in the people and the life stages that are involved. So. A lot of times. I mean, thinking back to, when you talk about when you started in paganism there, it was a lot of mostly young people, right? Mark: It was a lot of people that were in their. Thirties. I, I think that the big pagan up swelling in the late sixties, early seventies, those were people who were kind of college age. They were, they were late teens, early twenties. And by the time I got involved, those same people were still participating, but they were now, they were now in their. Some of them into their forties and they, they were having their own kids and, and so forth. But what's happened now is certainly that first generation they're elderly now, right? I mean I'm 60 years old and I'm, I'm from a subsequent generation. Yucca: Right. You're on the kind of younger. So the, the standing, the standing around in a circle and running around and all of that for 40 minutes is not going to be as possible for some of that generation. Now there's new generations have been entering in. So there still are plenty of people who, who that's a good fit for, but when we're designing, we just need to be aware of, well who's, who's at our ritual. Right? Mark: And bear in mind. There are people of every age who have different levels of ability, right? I ha I happen to have foot issues. I beat my feet to death waiting tables on a concrete floor. While I was working my way through college. And so, although I finally discovered some insults that help a tremendous amount for years, I've really been in agony, standing around in pagan circles. Because it wasn't right to have a chair, right. There was, there was some idea that having a chair out there was disrupting the energy or whatever it was. Yucca: right. Or if you were in the chair, somebody doesn't necessarily know that about you and they look at you. Right that so we can be self-conscious about judgment from people. And then we can, we can, not purposely being unkind, but sometimes we can make those judgements ourselves without being really aware of whatever that person's situation is. Mark: Right, which is why I think we have to be overt about it. I, I think that in the welcoming remarks at a, at a circle, one of the things to do is to say, different people here are gonna have different physical conditions and different different challenges that they contend with. Do not feel that you can't pull up a chair and sit down if that's what you need, do, do not feel like you can't leave the circle because that will somehow break the magic bubble. You, if you need to go take care of yourself, then go take care of yourself. There's nothing wrong with that. And it doesn't cause any harm to the ritual. Yucca: Right. That's always been a big one for me is that there's been circles that I've been in that that's really important, but it rituals can get really overwhelming. Right. And, and some different types of personalities. We need to step back for a moment and just. Beyond the outskirts or step away or that sort of thing. And if, and for having children in a ritual, sometimes you need to step away with the kids, need to step away, or, as the parent or the caregiver that the kids. They're about to lose it and it might not look like it to everybody else, but you need to, to get them to move them away and, and let them be able to process or do whatever it is they need and not, blow up in the middle of everything. And so I think it's important that that be a, be an option that people have and not be judged for taking the removing one's self from the ritual and, and coming back in when ready or something like that. Mark: Yes. I think it's ironic that I, one thing that I've seen pagan circles be rather good. Is about indulging children who are young and running around and, not shushing them, not trying to get them to sit still, just letting, letting them be the kids that they are. But they don't necessarily give the same latitude to the parents who need to sort of shepherd that energy and, keep an eye on when the kids are gonna melt down. You Yucca: And whether they're being safe or not. Right. Mark: Right when they're, when they're getting sleepy, because there can be that burst of manic energy right before somebody's about to kill right over. And so being aware of all those things and making sure that people feel a strong sense of permission to take care of themselves or to ask for help in taking care of themselves, I think is really, I. I know that I've been to some rituals where visually impaired people have had kind of a buddy like either assigned to them or of their own choice, who can lead them around the circle so that they're, they're safe. If moving around the circle is a part of what's happening in the ritual there. And I, I just, I think we can be a lot more conscientious. Accommodating lots of different kinds of folks. As we design our rituals and our, our gatherings. Yucca: right. And I think. It's gonna depend on each situation, but there's gonna be kind of two levels to that. And one is when you know, who is going to be at your ritual and some of their specific needs, but there's also a level of, of just kind of being accommodating any ways when you don't know, you don't know the specifics, maybe you don't know who's going to be at your ritual or you don't know all the details about. Mark: Sure. Sure. And it's not their job to disclose all that to you either because people, people have privacy rights, they, they don't have to necessarily lay their whole medical history out in front of you in order to qualify for accommodation. But I mean, there is kind of a middle ground there where people, should be able to advocate for themselves if they need something. If they're invited to ask for it, then I think they're much more likely to come forward and ask for it. Or avail themselves of it like a chair, for example. I know that in the fire circle gatherings that I've gone to, which is a particular stream of the pagan. Umbrella which is that the central ritual of which is a sort of freeform ritual container around a fire, usually from about 11 o'clock at night or midnight until Dawn. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: And for a long time there was controversy about whether there could be any chairs anywhere in the circle. And as people became older and it became evident that some people just really needed that we started inserting that. At least in the events that I was involved in organizing, we started inserting a little bank of, three chairs in a particular place in a circle. And they weren't meant to be just for any onlookers. They were meant to be for people that really needed them in order to accommodate their needs. And. Pretty soon. Everybody got used to that and they, they knew where the, where the, the accommodation bench was and they could and people used them and it, it worked out fine. Yucca: Yeah. So I know we, we did something similar at the sun with that, and I really appreciated there how there was kind of layers where, of where you could situate yourself physically and how How you were being involved, everybody was involved, but you could be up there right next to the fire in the middle of all of it. Or you could be kind of, snuggled in next to somebody or off to the edge. And there was this, this really, safe kind of beautiful fluidness to it where people could move in and out. And I mean, I remember that as one of, One of the most magical experiences at nights, right. Is, is that experience. And there was a whole variety of, of how people were engaged. And that's a great example of, of having the mix of chairs and standing. And we had a few little blankets out there and, I know my kiddo was there kind of switching between people's laps, right. and all of that. So. Mark: Yeah. And I, I mean, I, I felt really good about that and I felt that it, it really did meet a lot of needs. We did get one piece of feedback about about a, an ability concern that had to do with getting from the main lodge to the dining hall. Which was kind of over a hill and we were at high altitude. And so for some of the people that were there, it was just difficult to, to hoof it from the main hall to the dining hall. And so the next time we do that event in 20 24, 1 of the things we're thinking about is renting a golf course, a golf cart or something like that, so that we can transport people that have a hard time with that walk. Yucca: right. Well, and maybe we can we can build in more time to. the, when we're at each location. So that there's more flexibility in, in, how long you take to get to some place and not needing to be jumping back and forth between the two places. Right. So that might be something that we could work on. Mark: Yeah. So it's just a matter of keeping all of these factors in mind and just kind of putting yourself in the position of, okay. If I'm in a wheelchair, how do I negotiate this? If, if I, if I can walk, but I have, limitate limitations in my walking, I can only do it for a certain amount of time or I can only stand for a certain amount of time, all of those, all of those various issues that confront people. I mean, I'm in, reasonably good condition given my age, but still, I don't wanna stand for an hour on, on my. My 60 year old feet. Yucca: I, I don't wanna either on mine. that sounds too long Mark: it Yucca: I mean, I could do it, but doesn't sound good. Mark: Well, the other, the other thing about that when it comes to ritual design is. Making sure that there are engaging activities for the people that are there in the circle that they're not just standing there watching other people do sort of performative ritual stuff. Yucca: It's not a play Mark: No. Yucca: plays that you go to watch. Yeah. Mark: they're they're not a spectator sport. They are a participatory Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Um, and it's, I mean, you can incorporate a little theatrical production of people playing different roles as a part of a ritual, but if you're gonna do that and nothing else, do it. In theater style seating where people can sit down and watch. If it's gonna be a circle, give people in the circle, something to do, give them something to sing, give them a place to move, give them, snacks that are passed around, whatever it is. A craft thing that they can all do. We, we talk about all the different possibilities in rituals, but engagement is so important. For all of that. Yucca: Right. So a couple that we've mentioned, we've talked about. Being, we've talked about the ability for people to enter or leave the ritual when they need to, and being able to be the one who decides that for themselves. We've talked about having the seating accessibility, what are some other big ones to just be aware of in general, without really knowing who is going to be there, who your audience, or who your participants are going to be? Can you think of ones that would be helpful? Mark: Well, the other one that I can think of is. For people that experience various kinds of overwhelm just from crowds or maybe thundering drums Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: you know, just, they, they just, they get that sensory overload thing where it's like, I've gotta get outta here. And rather than have them kind of blow out of the circle in a really uncomfortable and ungrounded kind of way, it would be a lot more sensible to have a quieter, calmer place. The. To go to, maybe under a tree with some blankets and just kind of a nice, cozy, comfortable place to be. The first fire circle gathering that I ever went to was an event called fire dance in 2002. And They actually had a hollow Redwood tree at this site. That was the grounding zone. And there was a person who was a volunteer who was stationed to be there to just kind of help people to ground. And they had blankets and there was a little chimney there with some, burning some wood so that it was warm. And. Put up some fairy lights and things in on the inside of this tree. So it was this charming, very welcoming little space and people could come and they could just, calm down, just, just, relax. And of course you could hear the drumming off in the distance, but it was far enough away from the ritual circle that you didn't feel bombarded by it. Yucca: right. So you could feel part of it, but not, not overwhelmed by it. If that was. Mark: Right. And as we become more aware of neurodiversity and of just the incredible diversity of people and what their tastes are and what their needs are, Yucca: And how that shifts too, right? Because, we can all be very different. And in each day our needs may be different depending on what is happening in our lives and all of the experiences that we're having. Mark: right. Right. Because someone who is at that very moment able bodied and doesn't have any particular mental diversity or mental health issues. Maybe they just had a loss in their family. Maybe they've, just, become unemployed. And they're really afraid about things. People can become in the ritual context where you're emotionally open. People can become very. Impacted just by being in the ritual container and having a place for them to land and somebody to kind of, sit with them makes a big difference, Yucca: Hmm. Yeah. So this has been kind of for a longer ritual, but, but when you're doing a shorter thing as well, these are types of things to keep in mind, right. Even if you, if you consider. At 10 minute opening, here we are, we're opening this, just, still just sort of looking around when you're designing it. Just thinking about different types of abilities and different people. There can just make such a huge difference. Mark: Yeah. And making people know in advance that they can take care of themselves, that they can bring their camp chair. That that's welcome at the circle because I mean, what I remember, particularly from when I was first starting out, the idea of a chair in the circle was really sort of taboo. Almost. It was, oh, that's gonna disrupt the energy. And if people are dancing, they're gonna trip over it. And well, we don't want people tripping over things, but we need to accommodate people that Yucca: Yeah. Mark: aren't going to be wildly dancing around the circle. Right. Yucca: Typically, we can, if we're aware of that, that's an issue to begin with. Then when you're dancing, you make the choice to, dance two feet over to the right instead, right. Mark: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I have seen in rituals, I have seen people who are seated in a chair. Sort holding hands with someone who's standing up Yucca: Mm-hmm, Mark: kind of, doing a, a, for the person in the chair, they're doing kind of an above the waist dance and the, and the, the person who's standing is doing kind of a full body dance and everybody is engaged in participating and it's a lovely experience for everybody. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: So, all of this is just to say that. changing. Paganism is changing. It always has been changing from the moment that Neo paganism got started up again. It's been evolving and changing consistently and it will continue to do so. And My orientation to this has always been let's do what works for people, let's, let's do what actually affects their minds. Let's do what, what values actually affirm them and help them to live well.  Yucca: Right, Mark: And this is just another example of that. Just to be considerate of those who are differently abled than we are. Yucca: Yeah. And just being intentional about the way that we are growing and changing as a community. Mark: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . And I will say one other thing about it, which is that when you get a concept for a ritual. Design some, some flash of inspiration. Sometimes you can really get married to it. And sometimes it isn't something that's actually gonna work for everybody. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: then you may need to surrender the idea that you're married to in order to do something that's more accessible. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Hopefully you can do some adapted version of it, but just be aware that, Not all good ideas are implementable, right? Much better to, to let go of what sounded like a really cool thing, because it wasn't really gonna work for the group you're working with than to try to force it on them and have people feel excluded and not seen. Yucca: Right. And I think that that's pretty good advice, not just for building a ritual, but for any type of relationship, whether it's a group or, two individuals is, is being really present with what is the reality of your group and what are the actual needs of the group. And sometimes that doesn't line up actually most of the time, it's probably not gonna line up with your, with your visions ahead of time, but. if you let it be, it probably will end up being something amazing. Mark: Yep, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: because if everybody's engaged, then they're all bringing the magic of their personalities. To bear, right? They're bringing their creativity and their particular unique spark to, to what's going on. And that, that just tends to make a very magical kind of environment. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Well, thanks, Yucca. This is been a little bit shorter of a, of one, but I'm, I'm really glad we had this conversation. I think it's such an important issue for our community. Yucca: I agree. Yeah, I think, and I think it's great that we gave it its own episode because it really is that important. Mark: Huh? Yep, absolutely. So, if you have comments or questions, you can reach us at the wonder podcast cues. At gmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, QS, all one word@gmail.com and we look forward to hearing from you. Otherwise we will see you next week for the Equinox issue because we are back in the holiday season. It's September hard to believe, but it's here. Yucca: Yep. All right. Thanks everybody.    .

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E29 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science based paganism. I'm Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're here to talk about a situation that really. Affects many of us in the pagan community generally. And in the nontheist pagan community specifically, which is what do we do about longtime friends or members of our family who are hostile to. Our way of being they, they disapprove of, of atheism or they disapprove of paganism, Or they disapprove of both because as we were saying before we started recording, we kind of get it from both ends. So, This is something that many of us struggle with. And especially those who have left more authoritarian kinds of religious contexts. It's not uncommon for parents or relatives or friends to be to be caught up in this idea that you must be the way that they want you to be, or or there's something wrong with. Yucca: Right, right. Or just the, the programming that you know, in, in some beliefs that, you know, they love and care about you, but they're really worth, you're gonna go to hell. Right. And they truly believe that the stuff that you're doing is gonna make you suffer for eternity or, you know, something like that. Mark: right. Which is in theory, that's a. of generous and charitable thing to think about someone else, but when you really get down to it, Yucca: That's pretty patronizing. Mark: it, it, it is. And it's also I mean, it's something that. I would think, well, okay. I, I have the perspective of having been raised with no religion. So I can't really, I can't speak with any authority about this, but it seems to me that it it's an additive to the health of a person to get out from under that. Extortion right. To get out from under that, the threatening nature of the story of heaven and hell. And I think that there is a lot of resentment that happens on the part, particularly of parents who raised you a particular way. And then you say, well, I'm not that way. Some other way. And. They as, as people that are in an authoritarian framework because they practice an authoritarian religion, the fact that you've rebelled can lead to a lot of anger. It's, it's not just about wanting, what's good for you. It's about wanting them to be obeyed. Yucca: yeah, it's a commentary for them on, on their self worth and, and you know, how good a job they did and, and all of that. Mark: Right. Right. So it's a tangled web and in some cases, more reasonable parents can be talked with parents, siblings, relatives, whatever they are. In more reasonable cases. You, we can talk with them. We can explain that we are following a path that makes us happy and that we see as fulfilling and that we really just need them to let us do that. Yucca: Right. Mark: In other cases, things are so bad that you really need to distance yourself. And that I can speak with, with some authority because my parents were incredibly toxic people, both of them. And I they're both dead now, but my mother, I hadn't seen for 16 years before she died and my father for more than 20. So, I just didn't have anything to do with them. Yucca: Well, and, and you, you split or you cut that off. Long before the, the pagan part of your life began even right. Mark: Yes. Yes. But, and, and I don't know, I mean, going into the specifics of my particular situation, aren't important, but one of the ironies to me is that I was raised in this non. context. And then my father married, my stepmother, who was a devout Catholic, and suddenly he was a Catholic, even though he was a scientist. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: And I don't know, I could go on for some time about hypocrisy and my father, but rather than do that, because it won't be of interest to anyone but me. The, the disapproval of the pagan stuff definitely did creep in late. You know, when I made a couple of sporadic attempts to try to get along with them but there clearly was no interest on their part to engaging me at all. All they wanted me to do was a reflective mirror. To the glory of their narcissism and I wasn't gonna do that. So, so I cut it off and it can be very hard because particularly for parents, because we carry with us a, a societal archetype about mom and dad, we an idealized vision of what mom could be like, what dad. Coming to grips with the fact that, that ain't, what you've got is a long, slow and painful process. Because you know, deep inside us, everybody wants a mother. Right. And if you figure out that you don't really have one, that's super painful. Yucca: right. So I think a, a good place to start and we can circle back around. There's so much to talk about in this, but is thinking about your own needs in a relationship. And being able to really reflect on that and see what your needs and what your boundaries are because we're. And, and I think some of this is, is more, there's a lot of gender issues going on as well. But I know at least for, for my side is, is being a woman that we're not really supposed to have boundaries, right. We're supposed to give, give, give, and a relationship is about what you can give and you're not, and you're selfish and that, I don't think this is true, but this is what we are taught is that we're selfish to, to. And stand by those boundaries. And at the end of the day, I think that's very unhealthy. Right. I don't think that that's gonna serve us very well, and you've got to, to be able to take care of yourself. Mark: right, Yucca: And so that's the first thing to figure out is what do you, what do I need? Mark: And it's particularly challenging in those authoritarian contexts where the parents are very, you know, power over dominant, because what they will tell you is you don't have any rights. You don't have a right to privacy. We, we have the right to know everything about you. We have Yucca: for your own good Mark: Yeah for your, for, for your own good. We, you know, we have the right to search your room. We have the right to read your diary. We have the right to do whatever we wanna do. However, invasive, it may seem because we have the right to own. You. In effect. And especially once if you come out of that context as an adult, it can be incredibly challenging to tell your parents, you know, my religious life, not really your business, you don't need to go into great detail about your non theist pagan, worldview and practice. If you know that it's gonna send them ballistic, you can just tell them. Sorry. I, I'm not interested in talking with you about that. Let's talk about something where we can connect, Yucca: Right. And so hopefully, hopefully they'll be able to leave it. There will be sometimes for some people, the, the case where they, they can't right where the, the parent or, and we're saying parent, but it may be somebody else. Right. But, but often it's gonna be a parent just because of that, that power dynamic there, but that they might not be able to, to let go of that. And that might just be something that, that you'll need to draw firmer Bo boundaries with. Mark: Right. Particularly, I'm thinking about going to church. Yucca: Right Mark: You know, there may come a time when you do now. I mean, you may decide that discretion is the better part of valor, and you'll just kind of suck it up and go to church with them when you visit them or whatever that is. But you can also very legitimately decide. I don't want to put any more energy into this institution that I find toxic. And sorry, mom, I'm not going to church with you this week. I don't do that anymore. Yucca: Right. Or if you've got your own kids, that's gonna especially be an issue with parents or parents in laws that, you know, they have a very strong idea about how you should be raising your family or whatever it is. And you may not wanna put your, put your kids through the same thing that you were put through or that your partner was put through. Mark: Right. Yucca: And Mark: there's harm. There's potential harm there. If you're trying to raise your kids, you know, with body positivity and a sense of gender equality and, and inclusiveness for lots of different kinds of people and sex positivity and all those kinds of good progressive values that will make them healthier people as adults. may very well have to say, no, I'm not gonna let you take my kid to Sunday school. I'm not gonna do it. That's gonna fill their head with stuff that I don't want 'em to have. And you know, maybe, maybe this is a deal breaker for you, but if you wanna see your grandkids, we have to have some agreements about how you will talk with them about these things. Yucca: Right. And that can be a really tricky thing when it is the, your partner's parents and the partner, and you have different approaches to the boundaries with those. With those parents. And that can be a big issue even when there aren't kids involved. Right. As you know, how do you dealing with the other person's family? Mark: Well, that then is a, an issue in your relationship, Yucca: yes, right. And that's Mark: it's not just a thing about your relationship with the in-laws, it's a thing in your relationship, you know, how are you gonna stick up for me? In relation to your parents' disapproval of whatever, because you're my partner and I expect you to stick up for me. Yucca: right. So those are, those are things to, to figure out. Right. And, and it sounds like mark you and I share a lot of views on. Where those boundaries might be, but for the listener, that's a, that's a personal thing to figure out, right. Maybe we seem kind of extreme to you or, or like we're taking it too easy, but really starting by figuring out how do you really feel about it now? How do you think you should feel? How do you really feel and is that what you do want to feel? Right. And if it isn't, do you wanna work on. On practice, a ritual to try and shift that right. And to try and change what, what some of your positions are, but you gotta figure out where you're at and be clear about where you're at, Mark: and what you want. Yucca: what you want. Yeah. To be fair to yourself and to the other people in the relationships, right. To be clear with them. So that it's, you know, they're not guessing about what your boundaries. Mark: Right. Yucca: Today it's okay. But tomorrow it's not. Okay. You know, you gotta be clear. Mark: that sends a terrible signal to everybody. If you're kind of, Kneely mouthed about these things and sort of trying to walk a knife edge for one thing, no one will thank you for it. You know, the people that you're trying to protect will think that you're insufficiently, you know, Viewing to their line and the people whose, whose boundary setting, you know, who need you to set boundaries are gonna see you as weak and ineffectual and not very committed to what you say you're committed to. So it's important. It really is very important to understand, okay, this is my life. What do I want? What do I want out of this relationship? Is that possible? Out of this relationship. And if it's not, then maybe you have to make some hard decisions about ending communication or, or strongly controlling communication. I know people who will not let their in-laws go off with their kids, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: they will only let the in-laws visit when they are present. Yucca: sure. Right. Mark: And. That's just how it is for them and the in-laws aren't happy about it. I, yeah, I Yucca: see the grandkids. Mark: right. Yeah. Yucca: That's the condition. Yeah. Mark: yeah. And maybe that's. You know, and this takes courage. It bears saying, you know, drawing these kinds of boundaries takes courage and, you know, you can end up getting a screening voice on the other end of the phone. You can end up getting long screened emails that tell you what a terrible person you are, because you're, you know, trying to deprive them of their grandchildren or whatever the is. Especially when you're a parent, you have to think not only for yourself, but for your kids. And think about the wounds that, that religious background put in you, that you're working to transcend what a favor you can do for your children by not letting them be wounded that way. Or, or buffering them as much as possible from the, the messages that the society gives them about, about their sexuality, about their gender, about their body shape, about their color, about Yucca: whatever it is. Yeah. And, and we do know that with. With our kids one day, they, they will be exposed to those Mark: mm-hmm Yucca: but but that buffering could give them some time to develop and have some literal brain development and self esteem and all of those things to develop first before some of they have to be, you know, smacked in the face with somebody being racist or sexist or whatever it is to them. Mark: Right. And they know that you're in their corner. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Because you're affirming who they are in all ways. So when they are confronted with that kind of bigotry, they can come back to you for support Yucca: right. And maybe have some tools to deal with it that they wouldn't have had when they were five or when they were nine or whatever it is yeah. That they can deal with. There's another component that I think is really important to bring in, in this piece of the, the self-reflection and the drawing your boundaries is to really be mindful about what is actually in your control and what isn't in your control. And when you're setting those boundaries, are you actually setting boundaries for yourself or are you trying to control somebody else's behavior? Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And just be, just be mindful and clear about that because that's something that can be a little bit slippery sometimes. Mark: And people can use things that are in their control in very subtle ways to make it hard for you to draw a boundary or stand up for yourself. One of the things that my parents did is I had to go to their house. It was the only, the only way that I could ever see them or my siblings cuz I'm the oldest of seven was to go to their territory, a house that ran by their rules, where they were the authorities Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and it became quite clear. That, that was one of the many ways in which they were deliberately disempowering me as well as, you know, bad mouthing me to my siblings and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: Right. Hmm. Mark: So, you know, maybe. You know, maybe you set some conditions on the relationship, you know, if you want, see me, come see me. Right.  Yucca: Or neutral territory, Mark: yeah. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll meet at the aquarium and look at fish. Yucca: yeah. Well, that that actually leads to kind of the second part that I, that I wanted to talk about which we've started with the, what do you do when the relationship actually is very toxic, right? That's what we've been talking about, but there's also, and I hope this is gonna be a little bit more common of a situation than what we've been talking about, the situation where it's just uncomfortable. They have a particular set of beliefs and you have a different set of beliefs and you don't really kind of agree with each other and maybe you don't really wanna talk about it, but how do you still be able? So you've, you've set boundaries and they're respecting those boundaries. How do you then get to still have a meaningful relationship and share things with them without, without this your choices and their choices about. You're religious and, and personal lives being a relationshiper. And when you brought up the aquarium, that was one of the things that I was thinking about. You know, I have some siblings who are not pagan, right? My family's very split. We have half of us who are pagan and the other half who are, are quite Christian. Right. And you know, we still love each other deeply and share things, find things that we both value. And share those particular things. And they are things that I think are, are pretty pagan personally. Right. Let's go look at the fish together. Let's go on a nature walk like to me, like, yeah, that's, that's super pagan, but they're not gonna frame it that way. I'm gonna frame it that way, but I'm not gonna rub it in their face. Right. I, I'm not gonna be like, oh yeah, you know, we're gonna go do our pig, anything. Also speaking of query, you've got an aquarium shirt on don't you Mark: Oh, oh, I do Monterey bay aquarium. Yeah. It's Monterey bay aquarium a collection of sharks, Yucca: Ah, sharks are great. So, Mark: know, that sharks predate trees. Isn't that amazing. Yucca: It makes sense when you say it, but wow. Yeah, we went to the aquarium. I took the kids to the aquarium recently, and this week we went to the zoo. And they, they lost their minds with light, with all of the animals. Mark: Mm-hmm Yucca: So, but their favorite though, were the PFO. So there was a P H with her little chicks following behind. And even though it was like there's lions and polar bears, they got to actually like interact with the, with the peacocks and they just were so happy. So anyways, Mark: Cool. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, yeah. I think really understanding, maybe even drawing a Venn diagram, you know, what, what are we sharing common? What are our common interests and passions? You know, if we both really love gardening, we can do some gardening together and you know, that doesn't, or, or, you know, or hunting. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Um, I'm not trophy hunting. I would hope because that's. Awful, but you know, food hunting going out and, you know, getting, getting stuff to eat what, whatever it is Yucca: That was my brother. Yeah. Mark: Whatever it is that you share an interest in and are willing to kind of meet them in the middle, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: then you can build a relationship around those kinds of things. It's so much harder to build a relationship that's spending all of its time, dealing with stuff where you don't meet eye to eye. Yucca: Yeah. Or trying to prove things to each other, Mark: Right. Yucca: right. I mean, if you both, if, what you're, if what if your Vinn diagram has debate club in the middle, maybe that's different. Right. But , but otherwise, you know, that you can spend your energy, you've got a limited amount of energy to spend on things. So what's it gonna be, right? Is it gonna be those shared things that you, that you love and can you have a relationship with this person without needing to, to agree on. Certain things. And I think that that's a good approach for not just family members or close friends, but also the community at large. Right. Are you in a community that, that generally has a different take than you do? Well, what, what is it that you do share together? Right. And connecting with each other on that really human level makes it so that that's a wonderful experience to have. First of all, but also later on, when you have a disagreement, you see each other as human, because you had that connection about, you know, the park or the gardening or the library or whatever it is. Mark: right. Yeah. And to me that also brings up the, the necessity of finding support for yourself. Yucca: Mm-hmm, Mark: Because when you have these kinds of challenges in your family, finding support from people of common values and views, and also potentially from professional therapists, right. Becomes really important. As you're working to kind of emerge from the shadow of a family that. In most cases has felt like it can tell you what to do and what to believe and who to be and all that kind of stuff. It's really important that you find people that are gonna help you stay strong in your boundaries. Stay clear about your priorities and enable you to be yourself, right? People who affirm you in who you are.  Yucca: We've already been waving it in a little bit, but do we wanna talk about some strategies and activities? Mark: Sure let's do that. Yeah. Why don't you start. Yucca: yeah, so, I mean, we mentioned things like the, the zoo and aquariums and parks and all of that, but For the, the family members that, that you can have that more accommodating relationship with. What are some activities that you would suggest Mark: Well, what comes to mind immediately to me is, you know, finding, finding neutrally. Posed places like a zoo, for example, doesn't really have a whole ideological piece to it other than animals are cool, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: which is something that generally, you know, people can agree on whether or not they're pagans or Christians or whatever it is. What's more challenging is when. There isn't a choice of, of venue. Like, you know, being invited over for Christmas, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: you know, what do you do there obviously? I mean, especially if you have children, the children are gonna be really amped about the presence and probably the sweets and you know, all the other things that tend to go along with celebrating Christmas and it can be very hard. To be in that context, if somebody starts, you know, saying grace over dinner or, you know, going on about Jesus Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: and my take on that has always been it's similar to my take on, you know, going to theist pagan rituals. It's like your house, your rules. I'm not gonna pray with you, but I will sit quietly. I'm not going to protest. And that is kind of the strategy that I encourage. Now, if somebody gets all bent outta shape at you, because you don't close your eyes and bow your head or say amen, then they probably are more controlling than you can deal with in that way. Yucca: Right. Yeah. Then we're kind of back to the, the start of the conversation. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. Another thing to, to consider when you are going to say like the Christmas situation. And especially if there, if there are kids involved is making a list, a priority list, right. Of what, what is your top thing that you're gonna have your boundary? Right. Is, are you going to be, you know, do you have certain dietary restrictions? That is the thing that you need to be just really vigilant about, and then you kind of let the other stuff slide because you're a guest, right? Or, but, or what is it? The, what is the, what are the things and how important are they to you in this situation, right? Where are you willing to be giving a little bit in this, this situation where you. in their space, in their home versus what is the big picture of overall Mark: Right. And the other thing you can do of course, is you can invite people to come have Christmas at your house, Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: and then you can maybe make your statement of gratitude to the earth for all the wonderful things that spring from it and keep us alive. And. Sort of leave it in the lap of the people who have come over as guests, if they feel a need to jump in with a statement about Jesus. Well, maybe that's okay. Maybe you can have both varieties of invocation. It seems as though in many cases, accommodation can be made unless. Unless the primary orientation of the people that you're negotiating these boundaries with is about control and anger at lack of control, because you're an adult, you don't need somebody else to control you. Maybe they haven't got their mind around the fact that you're an adult yet. But it's time, right? You're an adult, especially, you know, you got your own kids, like, come on. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I'm I'm not 10 anymore. It's time. It's time for you to respect that. I can have my own opinions about things and live my own life. Yucca: Right. Well, and this gets into other philosophies, but, and with mine, They don't need to be controlling the 10 year old either. Mark: Mm-hmm Yucca: They, they are people too and get their own opinions. Now, do you need to keep them safe from not burning themselves on that stove or, you know, that's, there's levels there, but, but you don't magically become a person when you turn 18. You've been a person the whole time, right? Yeah. Mark: right. As soon as you're old enough to have. Tastes and opinions, which probably means by the time you're six months old, something like that. Then it's time for those Yucca: before. Mark: tastes and opinions to be respected. Right. And they don't have to be explained, you know, it's like, if you don't like strained carrots, you just don't like strained carrots. We're not gonna feed you strained carrots anymore. And This is something that for, for parents of previous generations, particularly can be very hard to get their mind around because the traditional parenting model in our society is quite authoritarian. And in patriarchal, it's very much about, you know, the man ruling the roost and. being in a power hierarchy where the children are at the bottom Yucca: Right. Mark: and if Yucca: And even a hierarchy within the children based on age and gender and all of that. Yeah. Mark: Right, right. Absolutely. So, so hopefully that's dying out at least in some places. But. Those places are not everywhere, you know, and we certainly see plenty of toxic masculinity around us expressing itself in that same sort of outraged way of, you know, how dare you have your own opinion, how dare you be your own person? How dare you not count how to my wishes. Yucca: yeah. Mark: And so once again, it, it really comes down to this thing where you have to balance out what do I get out of this relationship versus what am I being what's being demanded of me? Because I mean, that was really, that was really what. What settled it for me, all I was getting from my relationship was with my parents was criticism and anger and efforts at control and gas, lighting and mockery. And it had been that way since I was a little tiny kid. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And it was like, you know what? You don't have anything good to offer me. I don't, I'm gonna stop drinking from this particular tap because it tastes really bad. Yucca: Right. And you didn't know him anything. Mark: Nope. Yucca: Right. And that, that's one of the stories that is, well, you know, we, we raised you and sacrificed for you and guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt. But it at really at. They are responsible for their emotions and you're responsible for yours Mark: mm-hmm yeah. Yucca: you know, it's, you don't have to be, and you probably wouldn't have ever been able to make them happen anyways, Mark: Oh Yucca: it's a choice on their part. Right. No matter what you do. Mark: they were miserable people and that, I mean, that's part of. I think what infuriated them so much about me is that I was not interested in being miserable. You know, I just didn't wanna be the way they were. So, you know, getting away from my example, particularly, I think. Especially in, you know, some of the, like really conservative, evangelical versions of Christianity. It's like the default position is sort of moral superiority and anger at everybody who doesn't follow along. That's that's not a particularly healthy. Thing to draw from, if that's, what, if that's what you're getting from your parental relationship, then maybe it's time not to have that relationship. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Or to distance it a lot and say, you know, I'll visit you once a year or, you know, I'll talk with you on the phone every six months or whatever it is. There are gradations of estrangement, right? But what I found was that I came away from every communication feeling, yucky feeling really devalued and gaslit to the degree of being told that I was crazy and all that kind of stuff, it was just like, no, I don't need this. I got better use for my time. Life is short. Yucca: right. Mark: And it doesn't mean that I haven't gone through lots of pain over that loss over time. And I, even though they're dead, I can still, you know, have pain over the loss of the idealized parent. You know, the dad that actually valued me, the mom that actually loved me, you know, I can still grieve those ideas. I'm not, sorry. I don't think I missed out on anything by not communicating with them over all those years before they died. Yucca: Hmm. Yeah. Mark: So remember, it's your life? Yucca: Right. Mark: Yeah, it's your life and you get to live it. You get to make the decisions that seem to be best to you. And some of them are gonna be fuckups, but that doesn't matter, you know, that's, that's the nature of being a human. Having someone else tell you how you're supposed to think and act is not something you need in your life. Yucca: right. Because they're not in your shoes. They're not you. Mark: Nope. Yucca: actually, nobody really knows what they're doing. Mark: yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yucca: It might seem like it. But I think about this a lot. Do you remember being a kid and looking at adults and thinking that they knew what the hell they were doing and now that you're adult an adult. Do you feel like, you know what you're doing? Nobody does. Right. Mark: well, I mean, Yucca: to some degree, but Mark: But, but parents often represent themselves as these competent authority figures to their children, because that's where they get the authority to say, don't do that. Right. And. Yeah, it's all affront. And you, you talk with any parent that will be honest with you about it, and they'll tell you it's all affront it's like, I Yucca: terrified. I dunno what the hell I'm doing? Mark: right, right, Yucca: I'm messing them up. That's what? That, what we all worry. Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Well, In my experience, the thing that somebody needs more than anything else as they're growing up is the sense that there is some adult somewhere who finds them valuable and lovable and is in their corner. No matter what if there's one such person, whether it's an uncle or a grandparent or a family friend, just one such person, it makes all the difference in the world. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So be that for your kids. Yucca: Mm-hmm or your niece or your nephew, or Mark: Right? Yucca: right. And for yourself too, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: right? Mark: Yeah. And that can be the hardest of all of those challenges because we hold ourselves to such impossible standards. And that internal critic voice that we've talked about before, it can be so incredibly cruel. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Just really over the top cruel, you would never talk to another person the way that that voice will talk to you. So it's a good idea to find ways to curb it, get it, to get it to calm down and shut up. Yucca: Yeah, well, you know, this was really fun. We, we went kind of all over the place with this and it was a, it was a great conversation. Mark: Yeah, I think so too. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Yucca. Yucca: Yeah. Likewise. Mark: Okay. We'll be back next week. 

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E28 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 have a really interesting topic. We're gonna be talking about. Religion in general, what is religion? What purpose does it have? And also looking at how naturalistic paganism differs from the, the big three in Western society. Mark: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because these are questions that I've spent a lot of time researching and thinking about parti. When I was first pulling the threads together, that would become Ethiopia paganism. Obviously when you think about, well, why do people have religion, then you have to start asking yourself what is a religion, right. And everything sort of tumbles downhill from there. It's very interesting. Yucca: Yeah. And you'll certainly get different opinions on what a religion is. We were talking about before this, how there are some folks who will say that they'll define religion in such a narrow way that really only Christianity, Judaism and Islam fit into the category. And they'll kind of ignore the rest of the many, many different possibilities that humans have, you know, just today, not even thinking about what we've had in the past and may have in the future. But we're gonna be taking a little bit more of a, a broader perspective on that. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, for those religious scholars and anthropologists of religion who focus down on a very narrow, definition of religion that only slots to those. Kind of major movements throughout the world. To me, that's begging the question. I, I think what we ought to be looking for is what are the human needs that are being met and by what kinds of mechanisms and how can we generalize about that into a definition of all of those kinds of behaviors and needs. And crystallize that down into a definition for what a religion is that that's been my approach. Yucca: Right. Mark: So let's get into it. Yucca: Yeah, we should say before though, that we will be comparing a lot to those big three that we've been talking about and that's, you know, it's not to be picking on them or singling them out or anything. It's just that the societies that both mark and I come from are very steeped in these. These are the Christianity has really influenced and shaped so much of our cultures in ways that we're aware of it in ways that. often, you know, unaware of as well. Mark: Right because we are so. Inured to them. They're so normal to us that it doesn't even occur to us that it's possible to live any other way or to think any other way about the world. Particularly we're going to be talking a lot about Christianity because that's what the really dominant religion in the United States where both of us live, but. A lot of what we're saying could also be applied in areas that are dominated, say by Islam or by conservative brands of Judaism or other faiths that share these kind of general characteristics. So it's not to pick on Christianity particularly. It's it's more to say this is what we're most familiar with and what we see. Creating the subtext for the over culture of where we live. Yucca: Mm-hmm right. Mark: So let's get into it. Where, where should we start? Yucca: Well, I think with, you know, what a religion is and the purpose of a religion, right. And those two are kind of blurred together. Right? Mark: Right, right. And of course, depending on what religion you are, you'll have very different answers for that. Because if you ask a Christian, what the purpose of their religion is, it's salvation, right? You're, you're supposed to follow these rules and. Cate yourself to this God, and that will get you a ticket to heaven with various terms and conditions applying depending on what the faith specifics are. Yucca: The particular sect within there. Yeah. Mark: Right. But when we look at a, in a broader sense not religious specifically, worldwide. And over time we can see that what religion has done is provide certain things for populations of people. It's given them a sense of shared values. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: It's given them a sense of community and connection with one another. It's given them a way of making sense of the calendar in terms of celebrating a, a set of seasonal holidays around the course of the year. And it's answered big questions that That people ask, like, you know, why am I here? What am I here for? What's the purpose of living? What is, what is the nature of the universe even, Yucca: I mean, it's, it's creating the context, right? It's how do we understand our context, us, our relationship to community and the world. Mark: right, right. And. As we look throughout the world, we can see that people's spiritual expression. Does those things for them, no matter what kind of spiritual expression it is, even in monastic communities, their communities, right. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Um, very, very rare to find people who are so monastic that they, you know, essentially go to a cave and do their thing by themselves. Because humans are social creatures and mostly we like to feel connected with each other in some sort of shared. Enterprise, right. Some way of organizing our society so that we can eat and we can be safe and we can be happy as best we can. So. When I was studying all this stuff and, and I really went down the rabbit hole into brain structures and how the brain evolved that I won't really get into now, but the appetites of the various systems of the brain map, pretty, pretty well onto the things that religion provides. Right. And. considering all this stuff. My conclusion is that a religion is basically a combination of three things. The first is a description of the universe or a cosmology, and that can be heaven and hell in purgatory and the, the, the world in between, or it can be a wheel of karma that you're trying to get off, or it can be. The, the narrative described by science, which is the one that we subscribe to the, the description Yucca: shifting and changing. Mark: yes, Yucca: Yeah. But we've got several standard models that we're working with at the moment. Right. And those get challenged and they change slightly. And. Mark: right. But there's. There's a fundamental belief underneath that, which is that science, that the universe is a material set of processes, which are governed by laws and that those laws are consistent throughout the universe. And that we can understand them. and learn to be predictive of what's going to happen in a given situation, based on our understanding of how those material processes work. That's a very, very different understanding than a, you know, super mystical Christian view where, you know, the mind of God is unknowable and we, we just never know what's gonna happen because anything is possible. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Yeah. So. Cosmology is the first piece. The second is the set of values. Every religious movement. Every spirituality, coalesces around a set of things that things that they think are right and wrong, things that they think are sacred and to be protected and revered and things that they, that they think are profane or or worthy of disrespect, not necessarily the last one, but definitely the first one. And that's important because part of the way that you build community is by having people of like mind, right? I mean, we talk about a pagan community and you know, you're not gonna find any group that's really much more diverse than that. But the one thing that we do have in common is that most of us share a set of values around. Independence around personal sovereignty, around consent, around equality around inclusiveness. And of course there are exceptions to these rules, but they are not the rule. They are the exception. Yucca: Right. Well, and, and those particular qualities or properties when there's exceptions. It's usually there's one or two exceptions, but then the others are held, right. Mark: Right. Yucca: Kind of like a metal in chemistry. Right. You have all these properties, you remember in chemistry class that made you memorize, like, oh, it's conductive and it's ductile and all the, you know, there's but there's a few exceptions, right? Mercury is liquid at room temperature, but it's still a metal, but most of the others they're, they're solid at room temperature. Right. So it's like that. Mark: Yeah, exactly, exactly that. So you've got your cosmology, you've got your set of values. And then the last is a set of practices. And this is where a religion differs from a philosophy, in my opinion, UN under my definition, because a philosophy can have a set of values and a cosmology, and you can talk about 'em all day long, but that's not the same thing as a a. As a religion, which has holidays rituals, observances modes of dress dietary restrictions, in some cases, all these kind of strictures around behavior and, and prescriptions of behavior. That go into a, a ritual practice. And so when I was creating atheopagan, this is the model that I used. The cosmology was the easy part because all I had to do was point to science and say, listen to them. The values part, I spent a lot of time on thinking about what the definition of the sacred is. And I came up with the four sacred pillars and then the 13 principles, which are ethical principles for. Best to live our lives. Yucca: Which we have episodes on. We should revisit that soon. Actually. I Mark: We should. Yucca: We really should it's but because I think that would've, we were still the beginning of 20, 21, or we might've still been in 2020 when we did those, but the, yeah. Mark: It's it's been a while. So the idea there, and this, this is something that was a little radical for the pagan world because the pagan world, people tend not to wanna be told what to do. They're very, very. know, reactive to the idea of anybody controlling them. So there's very little in the way of developed ethics in most of paganism at least modern Neo paganism. Yucca: Right. Mark: And I feel like lets us off the hook for having to be ethical people. We do have responsibilities to the earth. We have responsibilities to one another. We have responsibilities to future generations and we need to conduct ourselves in a manner that's consistent with that. And then there are also principles that just have to do with how to be a happy and a good person like Humor and perspective, for example, you know, being able to find the humor in things and being able to laugh at yourself are ways to stay humble and there are ways to enjoy your life and to be able to deal with hardship in a way that that lightens it to some Yucca: Mm. Mm. Mark: So that was the value system, the four pillars and the 13 principles. And then came practices and that's where the paganism part really came in with the wheel of the year holidays daily practices, observances of the cycles of the moon rituals, just for whatever purposes we need them for like a job search or. Recovering from grief or Rite of passage to become, you know, to go from being a teenager, to being an adult, for example. And the pagan community really what's the word I'm looking for? Excels really excels at that aspect of religiosity because we're encouraged to create our own rituals and we learn to be really creative and effective at transforming consciousness through the use of ritual technologies. Yucca: Right. Mark: So. Yucca: We're often described as the religion of doing right. It's about what we do. And there, of course is the belief component. But the, the, one of the things that unites pagans often is what we do. Not necessarily what we believe. Mark: right. What they call an ortho religion as opposed to an oxic religion. Right. Yucca: yeah  Mark: this is very different than many of the. The predominant Christian sex that exist around us because they have prescribed rituals. I mean, the sermon may be different every week, but the ritual itself, the mass, all that kind of stuff. It's the same all the time. And it it's very carefully stipulated. Exactly. You need to do at a given time of year and the priesthood don't have a lot of flexibility in that. Whereas in paganism you may not have priesthood at all, which we don't in atheopagan. Yucca: Right. Well, I mean, anyone can become a cleric if they, if they wanna go to the website and sign up so that you can, you know, perform marriages legally and that sort of thing. But, but we don't have anything where. Anybody is in a higher position or any sort of hierarchy, Mark: That's right. Yeah. The idea there is everybody should have the. To marry other people or conduct funerals or whatever, if that's what they want to do and provide that service to the community. But being an atheopagan cleric is a service commitment. It's not an elevation in status. Yucca: Right. Well, you're not from a different cast. Mark: No. And you're, and you're not a gatekeeper of secret knowledge or, you know, special rights that only you can do or any of that stuff. We don't have that. Some pagan traditions. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: and that's, that's what they do, but it's not what we do. So that's what I think of when I think of a religion. And what I'm always looking for is can you think of any religious traditions or spiritual traditions that don't include those three things? Yucca: No. I mean, I can think of. The one thing that I can think of that isn't, that doesn't usually get listed as a religion, but has, well, no, some of the, some of the philosophies kind of start to. Blur into that with particular practices. Right. But then they don't come along with Cosmo. I'm thinking of stoicism for instance, but stoicism doesn't come along with a, with a cosmology, but it comes a you've got values and practices, not necessarily holidays. So, but in terms of something that is seen really as a religion all of the ones that I have exposure to. Seem like they've got something there. Now many of them don't have, there was something that you didn't say, and that was God's right now that may be included in some people's cosmology, but we don't think that you have to believe in a God or a deity to be, or the supernatural at all, for it to be a religion. That's just one particular flavor of cosmology. Mark: right. And it's the kind that has ended up dominating the religious spiritual space for thousands of years. But that doesn't mean that it's the only way to have a spirituality, which I mean, some people try to debate with, but we've got thousands of people that are practicing this thing. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: tell us that it's not spirituality or not religion? Yucca: Or it's just spirituality at a certain point. Like I, for me, it becomes like a, okay. Fine. You can say we're not a religion, but I mean, we are like, you could say that we're not, but we are in, you know, we have legal status to say so as well, Mark: That's true. Yes. We, we have been recognized by the internal revenue service as meeting the characteristics for a religious nonprofit organization. So,  Yucca: paperwork. Mark: there, there is that. Yeah. I think one of the things. Religion and spirituality that it's always important to bear in mind when we talk about this stuff is that there are no universally accepted definitions for either of those terms. Yucca: right. Mark: And very learned people with lots of letters after their names, who specialize in these things, disagree, vehemently about what they need. So it's. It's not really our job to try to resolve all that. All I know is that of all of the spiritual or religious traditions that I have been able to learn about worldwide. They've all had a cosmology, a set of values and a set of practices. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: And in many cases that cosmology is populated by one or more gods or spirits or sacred powers of one kind or another. I'm thinking about the African diasporic religion with the law and I, I know very little about this, but those, I don't know whether those are considered gods or whether they're considered to be, you know, powerful spirits that we, we create arrangements with through our own ritual behavior and offerings. But all of those are. Stories that we tell ourselves about the nature of the world. Right? And that's what a cosmology is. Science tells a story about the nature of the world. Just like all those other ones do. The difference is that science uses evidence and analysis and critical thinking to, to support the claims that it makes. Yucca: Mm-hmm well, and one thing about the cosmology is that it seems to often reflect the political and social structures that the people. And I dunno if this is a chicken or egg sort of situation, but that the people are in, right. So if we are looking at Christianity and we're looking at the development of it and what parts of the world it came from and what the political structures were at those time periods. Well, you know, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the words even have, have carried over, right. People refer to God as the Lord. Right. And this would've, this is coming from a time period where people, you know, we had very defined. Cast system where we had the peasants and the Lord and you know, different names depending on what culture. And I think that that's probably one of the reasons that it has one of the many reasons that that particular religion has been falling out of fashion the recent time is because our political structures are moving from. That there's the, the nobility and the peasantry. I mean, on some levels we have this extreme gap that's happening as well, but we just don't, but there isn't the loyalty to it. Right. We're not loyal to our one percenters. We have very different feeling towards them. But that in the, in the past, there was, there was a reason to try and keep your, the, your peasants or country people. Having a sense of obligation and loyalty to the nobility. Mark: Right. And I think it bears saying that that's not a coincidence. I mean, the religious systems that have been chosen by ruling classes in order to maintain the the. Their power is not an accident. Constantine chose to convert the Roman empire to Christianity. And in the process, he redefined so much of Christianity into an authoritarian religion that you were supposed to submit to. Yucca: Right. Mark: The and at its root. Almost all flavors of Christianity are still that ENT. They, they poit a ENT relationship with the divine or the sacred that we're supposed to bow down. And there's something wrong with us that has to be cleansed. And we have to seek salvation in order to get this stain off of us. All of that works very well if you're the king. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right. That works really well. If you get to decide who gets the thing that washes off the stain and who doesn't and if you're collecting the taxes, right? Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: So a symbiotic relationship between between religion and political power has existed in almost all places at almost all times. I mean, I would say the same thing about Buddhism. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Because in the case of Buddhism, the entire belief is life is suffering. Learn these mental techniques so that you can suffer less. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: That's great. If you live in a completely authoritarian, totalitarian state, it it's not, you know, stand up and fight. Instead, it's sit quietly and learn these techniques that will help you not to suffer under this, you know, deeply unfair and oppressive system. Now in modern times many Buddhist, especially in the west have adopted strongly political positions and they advocate that out of their values of things like loving kindness. And that's great. But when we look at the history of where it came from, I think it's fair to say that once again, it was a choice that worked really well for the ruling class. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Paganism is very different than that. Paganism is religion with agency. We don't see ourselves as. Sinful or inherently damaged. We don't see ourselves as needing absolution of some kind of sin. Yucca: Right. Mark: We see ourselves as beautiful and luminous and flawed and problematic, and everybody has their trauma and damage that they work to recover from. And we all work to lift one another up as best we can. In order to achieve the, the actualization of ourselves as individuals and as a community. Yucca: right. And we see ourselves as natural and part of this world. Mark: Yes. And this world, is it for us, not an afterlife that you're trying to qualify for, or that you're afraid of. You know, there's, there's none of that extortionary model going on there. Some pagans do believe in some kind of an afterlife, but not to the extent that they're willing to you know, Have a miserable life in this life so that they can go to VHA that that's that's. Yucca: Right. Mark: That's just not the way that we approach these things. And I, I have to say just as a caveat, I'm generalizing about pagans. Now. It's very hard to generalize about pagans. There's probably somebody out there who's suffering for Valhalla, just, just to make me wrong. But generally speaking, what I'm saying here in my experience is what's true. Yucca: That reflects my experience as well. Yeah. So we're making some big, big generalizations. That's it seems to be the general case. Mark: So we really need to talk about this sin thing. It is profound. How impactful and damaging it is to people who live in societies that are dominated by the idea that people need some kind of spiritual washing in order to be okay. Can be I mean, And it permeates so much of our society. I mean, I, I think about Jewish mother jokes. Right. And they're all around guilt and you know, sense of, you know, I'll just sit here in the dark. Well, and then I'm gonna feel guilty because I wasn't sufficiently kind to my mother. Right. Idea that we should be living with guilt and shame and that our bodies are dirty and that sex is dirty. And all of those things, we are just so awash in that, that we can't even imagine a society that where it isn't. So even for those of us that are living our lives, Explicitly not to be that way. We are still inside ourselves, struggling with some of that same shame, some of that same body consciousness, because we were steeped in it, growing up in this culture. Yucca: Right. Yeah. Even, even coming from families that were pagan families or were atheists, right. It's just all around us. Right. Mark: right. Yucca: I mean, I can tell you as a child, how many times I heard someone go, Ew, that's so wrong. Right. That's just wrong. Right. Just about normal, you know, human things, right. Or, you know, you showed your shoulder. Oh, no Mark: Oh no. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Oh God. Yeah. And just because of, I mean, I was raised in an atheist household but. An extremely Sort of sexually phobic household, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: shameful. I mean, I never even got the talk, right. A, a book appeared on the coffee table for a week and then disappeared. And apparently that was supposed to tell me about sex, but I never read the book, so I kinda missed out on all that. I had to figure it out later. But yeah, you know, lots of shame, lots of just the usual kind of Protestant stuff. So that's one way that the pagan approach and particularly the non theist pagan approach really differs from these predominant religious movements that dominate. Our society. Yucca: Right. Is that we're choosing to not use that framework. Right. Although it's something that we have to be conscious about because we're surrounded by it. We are, you know, we, we, it's part of the history that so much, so many of us come from that we can often fall back on it without even realizing that that's what we're doing. Mark: right. And there can be added dangers because if you're sex positive, for example, but you haven't really got your mind around consent. Yucca: mm-hmm, Mark: And you still haven't figured out that you're still steeped in patriarchy. Well, then you become an abuser, right? You become someone who's who assaults people. So it's really important for us to internalize all of these things as a package, you know, recognizing the ways that things are distorted and rendered unfair and iJust. In our culture so that we can be conscious about how we conduct ourselves, even in the context of being sex positive. Yucca: Right. Mark: This I think is, can be said to be. The big failing of the sort of sex free for all of the late sixties, early seventies. It was still very male dominated and the whole idea of consent culture hadn't really rolled around yet. Yucca: Right. Mark: So there were a lot of women who ended up having experiences that they did not want to have. And Hopefully, at least we in the pagan community have learned since then. I've been encouraged to see so much emphasis on consent and and integrity around relation relationships and sexuality in the pagan community. Yucca: Yeah. You know, that was something that I was so delighted to see at the sun tree retreat where consent, and I'm not even talking about sexual consent. I don't know. Maybe people were doing that. I didn't wasn't involved in any of that, but, but it just feel like may people, it was just so normalized where people, you know, asked permission to give a hug. Right. And I had my, my. My oldest child with me there, and nobody touched her without her permission. I watched over and over again, and that's not something that happens in our normal culture. People just think that they can touch a kid without the kid's permission. They might ask me as the parent for my permission, which is somewhat bizarre to me that. I mean, I appreciate asking the parent, but it's actually the kid who it's their body. Right. Whether you can, you know, pick them up or hug them or hold their hand, or, you know, you ask the kid. And that was something that, that just was so normalized at the sun tree retreat was just delightful to be around like, oh, I just feel so safe with all of these people. Like everybody is really respectful of that. And it was just, and it wasn't awkward, right. Because the first time we try and start making changes in a culture, it feels weird and awkward, Mark: It does. Yucca: right. To be like to stop and ask before you touch somebody, if it's okay to do so. But, but we've made that not awkward. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that was lovely. I, I really appreciated that too. You, you touch on a subject that I think is another major difference between the mainstream religious traditions and. Hours, which is the possessory model Yucca: Right. Mark: because in UN under patriarchal religion, children are possessions and women are possessions of men. Yucca: yeah. Mark: And I mean, that's just all very awful, but in my opinion, but that's. The way it rolls and that possessory model extends to the entire rest of the world where life becomes something where of wealth or goods or particular desired things becomes the purpose of living and. And worst of all, in my opinion, land ownership, Yucca: Hm. Mark: I, I have a real problem with the idea of land ownership. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: I, I don't think a human should own anything that outlives that that's, that's going to be around for billions of years after they're gone. And I know that that's the model that we have and, you know, that's how capitalism works. Everything is a possession. Everything is a commodity to be bought, but in my own experience if land is in the commons and we're all responsible for taking care of it, and we have an, an internalized reciprocal relationship with the earth, I think we just end up in a much better. World, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: but of course that's just a thought experiment on my part. They were, they were doing it here in the Americas before settlers got here. But Yucca: It depends on which group, but yeah, right there was, there were, there were and are many, many different tribes. Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a whole nother topic. That'd be interesting. There'd be a lot to, to sort out with that.  Mark: I mean, it's, it's tough because you have well-intentioned land stewards. Right. And you, you want them to be able to be the people that are managing lands because they're doing it well. Right. Or at least they're trying to be doing it well, like the national park service which sometimes does it well, and sometimes does it not so well, but it's Yucca: we're private folks. Right? Right. Like I work with a lot. I mean, myself, I'm a landowner and I have a lot of, and I work with other landowners and in working on restoring our ecosystems and, you know,  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: there's also, there's a. There's also a, a risk when things are sometimes what everybody is doing, may not always be the wisest thing to be. Mark: Yeah, fair enough. Yucca: There's, you know, there's certainly certain, you know, health or so-called health and political movements that are happening right now in certain places and not in others. And some that I look at and I go, whew, I. I think you're off. I think you're really off. I don't think that that's what the sciences is that there really isn't good evidence for that. I think the science is being misrepresented and yet things are being forced in one way or another. The part of the world that I'm from. We, we have had traditions here for hundreds of years and had people come in with very strong ideas about what we should be doing with public lands and not, and, you know, killed very old traditions. Right. You've got people coming in and thinking that that you shouldn't be that cattle on the land is bad. Just universally, no nuance there. Right. And then peop and then the people who've been doing it for hundreds of years, can't do it anymore. And their, you know, their livelihoods and their culture and their traditions have just been taken away because people came in and who were outsiders? Frankly, right. They come in from Northern California and from all these other places and go, you're doing our way now. And then they split anyways, they're gone. Most of the people who made those who made those rules, aren't even here and leave the, the destruction in, in their wake. So I, I hear on the one hand what you're saying that I think that it's a, that it's a very tricky matter, Mark: Well, I agree. I agree. And it's always. Once again, you know, the, the other big aspect of the over culture, other than the religious overlay and all the sort of value pieces is capitalism. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: And it's very hard for us to imagine any other system than capitalism because we're steeped in that too. And it's a fair question. Well, if you're not gonna have capitalism, what are you gonna have instead? Yucca: and how are you gonna transition there Mark: Right. And how are you gonna get there? And that's, it's a legitimate question and I don't claim to have all the answers to that. What I know is that, you know, especially here, you know, watching what happens here in California, where we're so populated, you know, every, every. Get rich, quick developer wants to grab parcels on the edge of cities so that they can throw up some kind of quick, make a buck project and then head out of town. They're not gonna own it. They're just gonna throw it up and sell it. And, you know, we lose a lot of farmland that way. We have whole huge sprawling cities built on top of some of the finest farmland in the world. Yucca: Right. Mark: So. I don't know. Yeah. Yucca: a pretty impressive fault line too. Mark: Yes. Yucca: I might not be the, just putting that out there might might be maybe someplace that you might wanna reevaluate where you're putting large population centers. That's another question looking at well then where, where do you put large populations that Mark: Well, you D well, you don't put 'em somewhere where you don't have any water. That's that is where I would start. Yucca: that's a, and that's gonna be a problem in the area. We are look at it with the developments going up here and going, but there isn't you're you literally will not have water in 15 years. Like, what are you doing? Right. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So, Mark: Yeah. We're gonna see suburban ghost towns. I'm sure. In places that just simply can no longer serve water to the, the people that they're under contract to. Okay. But we're, we're a. Yucca: off the field. Yeah. And, and I should say, I did mention, you know, I. I actually do level folks in Northern California, but that was, that is one of the specific areas where we've had issues, where people come from a very different cultural area, very different attitudes, access to resource and money. And then, you know, come here, make a bunch of changes and then split to the next new, cool place to be in. And. Know, those of us who were just kinda left behind, like, oh, thanks. that? Okay. You just you know, tripled our property taxes and priced out of our own town and destroyed our livelihood stake. So yeah. Mark: Let's go back to religion. Yucca: Religion. But the, the attitude, some of those attitudes, I think. They come out of our, what we've been talking about with the religious cosmology and the political systems, which informed those cosmologies Mark: Yes. Yes. I really think that's so, the, the very concept of democracy struck right at the heart of the domination by Christianity of the west. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Um, the, because of course the. The core principle of political rulership in Europe anyway, was the divine right of Kings, which was a declaration that was made by first the Catholic church. And then, you know, church of England and whoever that the Yucca: Jesus said give onto Caesar. Is that where they were getting it from? Mark: I have no idea, honestly, I don't, I don't know where it comes from, but there was some kind of I rationalization and that, that if your king is cuz God wants you to be king and therefore the structure of our society unfair and oppressive as it may be is God's will. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And the idea of democracy really strikes. The, the foundations of that. And as problematic as the founders of the United States were in so many ways and as Yucca: Even for their own time period at many boy. Mark: yes. In, in some cases, even for their own time period nonetheless. What they chose to do in setting up the United States was really very radical at the time. Now it it's not radical anymore. It needs a refurbish, but at the time and of course it was an inspiration for the French revolution. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Which was also seeking to overthrow specifically the domination of not only the royalty, but of the clergy class the, they, they very much called out the churches as being culpable in the oppression of the people. Yucca: Yeah, it's a really interesting time, period. Mark: Very. Yucca: I mean, I think most time periods are interesting, but there's, there was so much change. Happening in the Western world at that point. Mark: Yes. Yes. And unfortunately what ended up happening was that they ended up with a dictator, but eventually they became a democracy and now Francis in reasonably good shape overall in terms of actually having a functioning democracy, of course, they've got a weird fascist part of their country that wants to vote. Marine Lappen. But other than that, but I, I digress. I digress, Yucca: gone on one tangent already. Mark: right. Let's okay. Let's leave it there. So when we talk about paganism, really what we're talking about is a, a radically different way of understanding ourselves, our relationship to the world, our relationship to our society around us and how. We envision an ideal world, all of those things. And it took me a lot of years to kind of soak up all of those things because you know, a lot of it, it's not like there's a book, there's no secret text in paganism. That'll just tell you, well, you know, here it is, this is, this is how we understand the world. And that's part of the reason why. You know, it's good for us to do a podcast like this to sort of spell out, you know, this is how we have come to understand living as pagans in the United States confronted with the issues that all of us confront. Yucca: Right. Well, and we should, at this point, say we do not speak for all naturalistic pagans. We don't speak for all athe pagans. We're, you know, We can talk about general themes that we see in most people or most atheopagan. But, but again, we're two people, right? And that's a, that's another big difference is, you know, we're mark. You're not the, you're not the Pope of, of atheopagan. Right. Mark: I'm the Nope of atheism  Yucca: And, you know, there is a, there is a atheopagan society council. And, but again, we don't have the that's that's like you were saying, those are positions of service, right? That's that's, those are jobs that we're doing to try and help the community. Not because we're bossing and making decisions for everybody else. Mark: And that's a part of the core values of paganism is that we value diversity. And in valuing diversity, that means that we have to acknowledge that we're not all going to get into lockstep in March. Now hopefully we can agree about some common ideas and you know, proceed from there in order to help improve our world and to have good lives. But we also have to acknowledge that there are gonna be people on the fringes that disagree with us about core stuff. And they're still pagans. Yucca: Yep. Mark: They're still, you know, they're still doing rituals and maybe they're worshiping gods or, you know, observing the wheel of the year, whatever it is. You know, we're not, we're not trying to gate keep people who don't fit our model. Yucca: Yeah, well, and there's, there's a good cautionary tale about being in lockstep. There's a bridge in R. Which is a city in Southern Spain, and it has a very famous, beautiful bridge. And it's the stone bridge. It's amazing. It goes across this huge Gorge, but it's the second bridge that was built because the first bridge that was built, they went across, there was a procession. I think it was Simon. And they, the bridge collapsed because everybody was in step when they went across the bridge Mark: So they hit the residence frequency of the bridge Yucca: it collapsed. Yeah. Mark: it to death. Yucca: Yeah. And so when they rebuilt the bridge, they built the most overdone, its beautiful stone bridge. It's huge. Really look it up. It's just amazing. But Mark: It's gorgeous. Yucca: okay. Yeah, I lived there for a year. So walked across that bridge, you know, every day just stunning, but yeah, the first bridge came down and that's not, you know, there's warnings about other bridges. They tell you don't do that. When you go across, you know, you have to, don't be in step. Mark: The Romans learned this they, they had outstanding orders that their legions had to break step to cross bridges. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and it's still a military thing today. You know, if you're gonna cross a bridge, you do not March across because you never know if you're gonna hit the wrong frequency and knock your bridge down. Yucca: So, bring that back as a metaphor of, you know, I think it's probably a pretty good thing that we aren't all in step with each other because we could, you know, we could hit that wrong frequency. So Mark: Yep. Yep. So what else did we have on our, on our Yucca: You know, Mark: of things to talk about? Yucca: we had to put as a category to talk about specifically how we differ from Christianity. But I think we've really been covering that. We kind of woven that in. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention specifically about that? Mark: Not, not that I can think of except insofar as acknowledging religious trauma. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: A lot of people arrive in both atheist spaces and in pagan spaces, having really been wounded by their experience with mainstream religions. Because they've been told that they're valueless and that they're tarnished and that they're That, that their only value is as a servant of God and that they're sinful and all those things. And in many cases, and particularly people that are marginalized you know, who, who can suffer greatly at the hands of mainstream religion. And I just feel like. It's important for us in the pagan community to acknowledge that this is happening and to do what we can to provide resources for people so that they can heal. When I've attended atheist conferences, what I've seen is a lot of angry people who just wanna argue against religion Yucca: Right, Mark: and, you know, having never been. A Christian or, you know, a member of any of those religions. I don't have that injury. And so my question is always, okay, well, so we're atheist now. What, Yucca: right. Mark: how do we live? How do we be happy? What's important. What, you know, what do we do? Yucca: Right. Mark: So, I really encourage our listeners. If you feel like that woundedness describes your situation, there are organizations and we can put a link in the show notes for people who are recovering from religion to get help and you know, really welcome you to our communities, if you choose to be in them. And Hope that you will find yourself feeling better about that stuff soon and able to move on into a better part of your life. Yucca: Right. Well, and that's also something to emphasize that we don't believe. What we do is necessarily the best fit for everybody, right? We're not worried about converting anyone. You know, we wanna be welcome welcoming and inclusive and invite, but certainly we have no interest in trying to go and. Make you believe the way we do or change your opinion on this or any, you know, this is, you know, this is by, this is a at will thing that we're doing, right. You're invited to join us and we'll love if you do, but if you don't, that's fine. Right? Mark: As, as, as people have sometimes said, if you don't like it, you can't have any Yucca: And so, well, This has been a good conversation. Mark: Yeah, I think so too. Thank you, Yucca. I really enjoyed kicking this around with you and I imagine we'll get some interesting feedback as always you can reach us@thewonderpodcastcuesatgmail.com and thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. Yucca: By everyone.    .