Hints And Guesses

Psychedelics is the hottest topic in spiritual and therapeutic circles.  Are we ready?  What are the dangers and opportunities?  Ryan Meeks and I have been wrestling with these questions for the last few years.  This podcast is an unscripted conversation about drugs between two friends, not an authoritative final word on the research, or a formula for what's best for each individual.  Ryan has a lot of experience in this world, I do not.  I hope you enjoy our back and forth, as we search for hints and guesses about what's going on.  

Here's a conversation about rituals in the modern world with my friends at Eastlake Community Church, outside of Seattle. We talk about meaning in Target, our human craving for transcendence, the Starbucks holiday cup, the Vatican, and wonder together whether or not new rituals can be created and how much of what's still available might help us.  Special thanks to Jordan Gilliam for the original soundscape, In This Together.  Find him on Instagram @jordan_tyrone78.  

Turning to the archetypal patterns of Advent, the birth of the Soul, the Christ, and the forces that try to cut us off from our radiant center, our possibilities, our creative incarnation.  Special thanks to Jordan Gilliam for the original soundscape, In This Together.  Find him on Instagram @jordan_tyrone78.  The main quote, and a few of the ideas used in this episode, comes from Trauma and the Soul, A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Human Development and its Interruption, by Donald Kalsched.  Enjoy!

Here are a few ideas, images, stories, hints and guesses, about the Feminine and Masculine, as sacred, as archetypal realities, as something we all carry in the psyche, and as something to be honor and respected.  Enjoy!

This episode is about the religious instinct, our proclivity to worship, the fact that we bow down to something, and what might happen if we consent to the inner compass which seeks ultimate meaning.

Merton, Nietzsche, Buber and a few thoughts on the opportunities when we no longer know what we mean by God.   

I'd like to turn to Thomas Merton's writings on the True Self.  I find his mystical understanding of identity to be counter-cultural, challenging and ultimately hopeful.  I hope you hear a hint or guess from Merton, as I am, for your own descent beneath the ego's demands and stances.  Enjoy!

Some reflections and an unorthodox reading of an old parable of Jesus.  Enjoy!

What is deconstruction? Or the Dark Night for that matter?  And what is it that we are being invited into, during certain seasons of life? These are only hints and guesses.  

This week is about the sacred, the holy ordinary, trees lit from within, Annie Dillard, Moses, and a few suggested practices for deepening our quality of attention.  Enjoy!

A podcast about the golden calf, the absence of God, the center which has no center, and the nutrients left in the compost heap of our spiritual ancestors.

The first in my Monday series on ancient texts, Biblical images, and the compost heap of the wisdom tradition.  This episode is a musing on Babel, power, greed, pride, Putin, borders, invasion and the Wind.  Enjoy!

Hopefully I'll step on everyone's toes, including my own.

Excited to chat with Brie Stoner.  We chat about courage, art, motherhood, divorce, unknowing, mentors and geography.  Enjoy! 

This episode is about the mysterious relationship between our wounds and our gifts.  Perfect for the holiday season.  Enjoy!

What stories are we carrying about human purpose, or destiny, or about the how any of us are actually here, right now, in this life, in this era?  Are we mere accidents, among countless accidents? What needs to be remembered for us to really flourish, or find some sense of deeper meaning? Just a few questions I'm wrestling with on this podcast.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoy our unscripted conversation about surprises, form and creativity, what is currently speaking to us, and finding a life-giving pace in the madness and anxiety of our age.  

In this wide-ranging chat we talk about Tony's story, being canceled, the Emergent Church, epistemic humility, not losing faith, finding wild places, hunting, contact with death, Israel, and whether or not the Jesus story still has power.  I hope you hear a few hints and guesses for your own unfolding.  Enjoy!

Abraham Heschel, unflinching awe, Yellowstone at night, sublime grandeur, and what happens when the only value system we have is the market.  Enjoy!   

More in my series, Stuff That Helps! This time, Iron John by Robert Bly.  In this episode we explore the opening of the myth Iron John and what it has to teach us about growing up.  It's very challenging right now to talk about the masculine, much more what I call the Sacred Masculine.  I hope you hear something that helps.  Enjoy!