The Numinous Podcast

TNP325 {Dispatch: July 3, 2026} Mona is an Ancestor Now

Content Warning: pet death. Also, Dispatch episodes feature the background noise of me doing chores around the farm which may cause aggravation for folks with sensory processing sensitivities. Please look for a transcription within your podcast player.
Madonna (Mona) Spagnderson (2013 - 2026)
This is the story of how Mona was promised to me in return for not leaving my husband.
This is the story of Mona's trauma recovery.
This is the story of how our dog required us to become better people, more healed people.
This is the story of how Mona told us she was ready to go.
This is the story of how we grieve.
This is the story of the fundamental role of ritual in our lives and how we do it when the time has come.
This is the story of how to do it when my time has come.
This is the story of our good girl, Mona, who became an ancestor on June 30, 2026.
Click here to see Mona's In Memoriam video on Instagram
Click here for my sad songs playlist on Tidal

TNP324 {Dispatch: June 25, 2026} Let's Talk Business (and Marketing)

Let's go on a farm tour and talk business! Today I am choring, checking the horses' water, the kunekune pigs' water, and saying hi to the chickens, then on to the fields to harvest wheat and barley to dry for wheat weaving kits this fall.
I'm sharing quite transparently about my income, my debt, my marketing and my foundational business philosophies.
I do want to note:
- As with all dispatch episodes, the background noises may not work for everyone. The pig grunts may get tiresome and the chickens may cause a startle response. Please search your podcast player for a transcription!
- I say several times in this episode "you have to do events", but I want you to hold that term, "events", very lightly. I don't mean you HAVE to host workshops. But, I mean, at least a 45 minute lunch-and-learn/webinar or SOMETHING, know what I mean? You have to make yourself available to the public if you want the public to fund your life. That's what I'm trying to say. It doesn't HAVE to be hosting events, that's just one example. It could also be your incredibly helpful or entertaining Substack, or your edutainment podcast or whatever. You just gotta MAKE is what I'm trying to say...you gotta DO stuff, otherwise all you have left to talk about is yourself and your boring credentials LOL 😂
In this episode I reference:
My NuMethod Facilitation Training – now taking applications for the fall cohorts
The 1000 True Fans Theory 
Dunbar's Number
Several times I mention a resource available with membership in The Numinous Network
(For example, "Teach Well: Course Design for Healers Who Want to Teach", our Small Business Chat sessions, Peer Supervision, etc.)
I mention how I built my business on 8-10 newsletters a year (for years) and how I maintained a high engagement/open rate. (You don't open 80% of the time in a year? No worries - I've unsubscribed you!)* Sign up for my newsletter here!
*I actually haven't stayed on top of this since 2022 but I may resume soon! I love a good purge of my list!
**I didn't mention this, but I also have registration now open for my Trancework Practitioner Mini Certificate, a microcredential to boost your confidence and provide support for your therapeutic work.
***I also didn't mention that I have another book coming out soon! How to Connect: Build Strong Bonds and Deep Connections Through Contact Nutrition (No Matter Your Attachment Style, Trauma History or Neurotype). Your pre-order means so much! Without it, I can't do the size of print run that will properly stock stores ahead of the holiday gift season - please pre-order and thank you in advance!
 

TNP323 {Dispatch: June 17, 2022} Contact Nutrition is the Glue

Storytime! This one is about how I won a trip to Greece through Contact Nutrition. I was a wine rep trying to sell relatively expensive bottom shelf wine to Greek restaurants that did not want this wine. Here's what made the difference.
Join us for a mellow summer of Contact Nutrition in The Numinous Network!
Thanks in advance for pre-ordering my next book: How to Connect: Build Strong Bonds and Deep Connections Through Contact Nutrition (No Matter Your Attachment Style, Trauma History, or Neurotype)

TNP322 {Dispatch: June 10, 2026} What Are You Willing to Do Under Capitalism that Preserves Your Dignity and Your Joy?

A little more "Common Sense for Collapse Times" for you today with something I learned after my business was washed away in the Great Recession of 2008 and I experienced bankruptcy and some deep, deep shame.
I'm talking about navigating capitalism and managing terror and desperation - somehow in 12 minutes I manage to make myself both laugh and cry, while also feeding the horses and sharing, like, 3 different stories and multiple partial tangential thoughts with you. It's an authentic hang-out session. 😅
Come hang out with us in The Numinous Network for some gentle care and deep connection, as well  as some entrepreneurial support!
 

TNP321 Mothers of Magic with Perdita Finn

I'm so honoured to welcome back to the podcast, one of my favourite conversations partners ever, Perdita Finn!
Perdita is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors, and with her husband Clark Strand The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary. She teaches popular workshops on connecting and collaborating with both the dead and the animate everything. She lives with her family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains.
She is on Facebook and Instagram and writes a popular Substack, Take Back the Magic. Her website is takebackthemagic.com
Buy Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of our Ancestors from your favourite bookseller now!
Referenced in this episode:
Bitch: On the Female of the Species, by Lucy Cooke
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TNP320 {Dispatch: June 7, 2026} Common Sense for Collapse Times: 10 Rules to Live By

10 Rules to Live By (for Collapse or Any Other Time)
This episode features the best bangers of cowboy logic, farm wisdom, and collapse tips that are getting us through some tough months here on Faulder Farm on Syilx Territory.
Pre-order my book: How to Connect: Build Strong Bonds and Deep Connections Through Contact Nutrition (No Matter Your attachment Style, Trauma History or Neurotype)
🙏🏻 Thanks in advance! 🙏🏻
Join us for collapse support in The Numinous Network

TNP319 Moss, Molt, Murmur with Nadine Nakagawa

Today's guest, Nadine Nakagawa, is an organizer, activist, intersectional feminist, clinical counsellor, and two-term city councillor. She is also the co-founder of Feminist Campaign School which supports underrepresented people to run for and serve in elected office. 
She is also the author of the forthcoming book, Moss, Molt, Murmur: Contemplations on Nature, which is now available for pre-order from 9th House Press!
This conversation was recorded over a month ago and we were still using the working title "Imaginal Discs” which is just one of the essays in this little book. I say “essays” but they’re not exactly essays…
It’s more like a compendium of prose poems and musings and tiny immersions into an animist, anticapitalist, interconnected world.
I know this book will resonate with activists, environmentalists, animists, artists, pagans, witches, people developing secure attachment with beings and places of the natural world.
It’s a book for people trying to find their way out of the narrative of a white capitalist imperialist patriarchal overculture. It's for those people who are looking for the exit by entering into communion with the natural world.
And when you hear more from Nadine today, I think you’ll see why I think this book is going to be wildly popular when it arrives.
 
Referenced in this episode:
Kai Cheng Thom
Indiginews 
Eden Fineday
 
Follow Nadine on Instagram
 
Pre-order now from 9th House Press
⭐️ Check out the Power Reader Bundle ⭐️
 
Join us in The Numinous Network

TNP318 Farm Stand News with Marianne Unger

If you are in the mood for something soothing, cozy, wholesome, and heartwarming, this episode is for you. If you are craving some quality time with a neighbour who is grounded, good-hearted, generous and genuinely curious about you and life in general, this episode is for you. If you need a comfort listen, this episode is for you.
And so is the forthcoming book from today's guest, Marianne Unger. It's called Farm Stand News: Letters to the Neighbourhood and it's now available for pre-order from 9th House Press.
It's about neighbourliness, baking, gardening, place-making, heritage and chosen family, the gift economy, and turning capitalist colonialism on its head. And most of all, it's about love. 
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Check out the Power Reader Bundle!
Join us in The Numinous Network to participate in more conversations like this.

TNP317 Literature, Hip Hop and Healing with Dionne Grayman

Author and educator, Dionne Grayman, is here to talk about her new book, I Call My Own Name: A Homegirl's Lyrical Memoir of Hip-Hop, Healing and Holy Reclamation, now available for pre-order from 9th House Press.
In the 90s, Dionne was just 20 years old and pregnant when her baby's father was killed. Now in her late 50s, Dionne recounts how literature and music helped her "remember herself whole", her whole story, with herself as lead not victim. With a warm voice and engaging storytelling, Dionne rewrites the story of how this MC saved her own life.
Pre-order I Call My Own Name from 9th House Press
Best Savings: the Power Reader Bundle
More show notes with links to all of Dionne's references and recommendations coming soon!
Check out my next book, How to Connect: Build Strong Bonds and Deep Connections Through Contact Nutrition (No Matter Your Attachment Style, Trauma History or Neurotype)
Join us in The Numinous Network
 

TNP316 Matrescence in a Time of Ecological Crisis with Dr.Allie Davis

New from 9th House Press: Mother Juniper: On Matrescence in Ecological Crisis, by Dr.Allison Claire Davis, explores the question, What happens when a woman becomes a mother during the slow emergency of our ecological crisis?
Matrescence is the developmental transition of becoming a mother. As far as I can find, this is the first book published that focuses exclusively on the unique psychoemotional context of becoming a mother during a time of climate crisis.
Dr.Allie Davis is a licensed therapist, researcher, and educator who coined the term maternal ecodistress. Her research has been published in journals including Ecopsychology and Women’s Studies International. She teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute, directs the Maternal Ecopsychology Certification program for clinicians and birth workers, serves as associate editor of the Journal of Mental Health and Climate Change, and runs Southwest Perinatal Counseling.
Mother Juniper draws on the juniper’s pioneer species carework as a developmental framework for supporting the Earth-Self that awakens in matrescence. It is grounded in attachment theory, ecopsychology, feminist theory, and depth psychology. Throughout the book, Davis holds Indigenous ways of knowing and Western science in relationship with each other and reframes maternal climate distress as accurate perception rather than pathology.
Along with a developmental framework for moving through ecological crisis, Mother Juniper supports mothers in building earned secure attachment to Earth during matrescence. Therapists and healthcare providers will also benefit from this book as gives clinicians language and a framework for the ecological dimensions of maternal care.
⭐️ Buy the book ⭐️
www.dralliedavis.com
Follow Allie on Instagram
TikTok
 
Learn more about 9th House Press
 
Come join us in The Numinous Network

TNP315 Strategies to Address Caregiver Burnout with Carmen Spagnola

Production Note: I used a different recording program than usual without any background noise dampening so you get to hear the summer storm roll in, my dog, Mona slurping her water, my movements as I shuffle stuff on my desk, etc...So real! So high def! So intimate and interactive!
Trigger warning: Discussion of suicide and brief non-specific mention of sexual assault, overall a bummer of a topic but I try to keep it moving along fairly briskly and we end with some good coping strategies.
On this Mother's Day weekend, I'm taking about some grief-y things and some tough things, and also some funny things and some empowering things. If you're a caregiver nearing the end of her rope, this is for you.
 
International Crisis Lines
Quality of Life assessment: https://qli.uic.edu/
Professional Quality of Life Scale (Satisfaction, Compassion Fatigue and Burnout):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vzvQVeakBzCbjDCaypwZ_dEy3vHs-37K/view?usp=drive_link
 
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide
 
https://sprc.org/about-suicide/suicide-data/suicide-by-age/
 
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3603326/
 
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791161
 
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7292717/
 
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/9/12/e032391.full.pdf
 
https://www.explorationpub.com/Journals/ei/Article/1003241
 
Come join us in The Numinous Network for some structured social interaction! 💖
 

TNP314 The 14 Grandmothers and The Friendship Bench with Dr.Dixon Chibanda

If you've enjoyed discourse on this podcast about the barefoot doctor approach, community-based and culturally-relevant mental health initiatives and disability justice, as well as how ritual and spiritual literacy helps weave a stronger collective nervous system and increases community resilience, then you need to read, The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution by Dr.Dixon Chibanda. It's about a mental health program of elder lay counsellors who deliver mental health support from neighbourhood park benches, and the 100+ published studies on its efficacy in measurable improvements to individual patients and public health.
Dr.Dixon Chibanda is a medical doctor, a practicing psychiatrist, and a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as at the University of Zimbabwe. He is also director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI). His TEDx Talk about the Friendship Bench has over 3 million views.
 
Referenced in this episode
The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution
FriendshipBench.org
Friendship Bench-in-a-Box
Dixon's socials and podcasts:
Instagram  and FriendshipBenchGlobal InstaFacebookTwitter  YouTube/Podcast  TikTok  LinkedIn
 
Join us in The Numinous Network for some Contact Nutrition
Sign up for my newsletter to be notified when pre-orders open for my next book:
How to Connect: Build Deep Connection and a Strong Bond Through Contact Nutrition (No Matter Your Attachment Style, Trauma History or Neurotype)

TNP313 POTS and Ehlers-Danlos Care with Dr.Diana Driscoll

Welcome to your new hyper-niche comfort listen, my fellow disability nerds! Today we're talking with Dr.Diana Driscoll about some of the recent research on Inflammatory POTS as well as promising treatment approaches.
Diana Driscoll, OD, FAAO received her Doctoral degree from The University of Houston College of Optometry, and began studying idiopathic autonomic dysfunction through the ophthalmic examination of affected patients. Her work extended into abnormal vagus nerve function, vascular endothelial health, Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension, premature aging associated with connective tissue disorders, the genetic traits involved, and the reversal of symptoms.
She has published in The Journal of Vitreoretinal Disease and is a peer-reviewer for retinal journals. Dr. Driscoll created Genetic Disease Investigators, LLC in 2011 to conduct formalized research into autonomic dysfunction. She is the recipient of five patents to date concerning the enigmatic autonomic nervous system, including dry eye disease. She is the author of The Driscoll Theory which details the role of intracranial pressure, vagus nerve function, fibrosis, and inflammation in connective tissue patients.
She also authored Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome: Your Eyes and EDS – the only publication of its type.
Dr. Driscoll is the Clinical Director of POTS Care, the owner of TJ Nutrition, and the President of Genetic Disease Investigators.
Referenced in this Episode:
Download The Driscoll Theory: The cause of POTS in Ehlers-Danlos and how to reverse the process
Learn more about Dr.Driscoll's work and offerings:
POTS Rebels on PatreonPOTS Care ClinicMore on Inflammatory POTSVagus nerve support supplementwww.drdianadriscoll.com
Related Past Episodes of The Numinous Podcast:
TNP169 Sophie Macklin on Antifascist Folklore and Ungovernable Bodies
TNP205 Sophie Strand on Mary Magdalene + Miracles
TNP210 RCCX Theory of Complex Illness with Carmen Spagnola
TNP215 Before Capitalism (from a European Perspective) with Sophie Macklin
TNP267 The Body Is A Doorway with Sophie Strand
 
Past episodes featuring Numinous Network Members and Guides who live with disability, chronic/temporary/dynamic or episodic disability:
TNP281 23 Dates with My Dead Dad with Corey MacAuliffe
TNP275 Community Building in Tough Times with Asteria Elzea
TNP270 Art, Pleasure and Consent with Marisa Sullivan
 
Join us in The Numinous Network – sliding scale rate of $50, $75 or $100USD per month for 50+ live support calls, including weekly sessions for people with Sensitive Systems & Long Covid. (Camera optional, verbal or non-verbal participation a-ok, no forced sharing, slow pacing and lots of mini breaks to reset, calibrate, and discern the goldilocks amount of connection in the moment).
Notes
Apologies: I misspoke in the intro of this episode and said "RCCX syndrome" which is definitely not a thing. I meant "RCCX Theory", the work of Dr.Sharon Meglathery.
I also misspoke in the outro when I said that pre-orders are now available for my book, How to Connect: Build Deep Connection and a Strong Bond Through Contact Nutrition (No Matter Your Attachment Style, Trauma History or Neurotype) – PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE MAY 8! ✨🎉 Sign up for my newsletter for the announcement.

TNP312: Assembly: A Call for Liberatory Words for Revolutionary Times with Taraneh Erfan

Today's episode is part announcement, part request, part inspiration, part call to action – I am delighted to welcome back my dear friend and colleague, Taraneh Erfan, in her role as Editorial Director for 9th House Press. Regular listeners will know that 9th House Press is a worker co-op founded by Taraneh, myself and our colleague, Thérèse Cator, and we are bringing you world-building books that are a response to the question, How then shall we live?
We are pleased to officially announce that our debut catalogue arrives May 8, 2026!
Check out our Submissions Guidelines and send us your work to be considered for our upcoming anthology of poetry and prose by marginalized and equity-denied voices, Assembly: Liberatory Words for Revolutionary Times. On November 4, 2026, our title will be on bookstore shelves, and your words could be within the pages!
Sign up for accessible group or self-paced expressive arts therapy with Taraneh Erfan
Become an Associate Member of the 9th House Press Co-operative today! (Entries prior to 5pm PDT on May 8, 2026 are automatically entered into our Grand Prize Giveaway.)
Get a 30-day free trial of The Numinous Network when you use promo code FREE30 before April 30, 2026.

TNP311{Dispatch: March 25, 2026} Are Territorial Acknowledgements Necessary or Ritualized Awkwardness?

This episode features my very special guest, Alysha! She's here for her third work-stay on the land, learning construction skills as she helps my husband, Ruben, build a livestock shelter. Alysha has been an amazing role model, resource, and thought partner for me around anti-colonialism for many years. Once again, here she is, advancing my thinking on the subject. Come grapple with us as we do morning horse chores!
I know that as a settler, a Land Acknowledgement isn't for me.
But as a participant in settler colonialism, it is about me in a way, and it does impact me in that it has been and continues to be  a learning process.
I hope that, since we're trying to have a holistic, nuanced, and relational conversation about Land Acknowledgements, I'll be forgiven for saying that I believe having moral ambition benefits me by improving my self-esteem. I believe awkward participation in Land Acknowledgements is a pro-social, collective good. I don't know where the line is where it becomes a social detriment or we become numb to it, but I do think it's important they are not limited to formal events and those involving people who move the levers of institutional power.
Again, this process is of course not about making me, as a settler, feel good. But it does make me feel a lot of things, and not all of them are bad.
UPDATE March 26, 2026: I'm realizing that I threw the term "moral ambition" out into the conversation via the show notes and it perhaps lands a bit out of context. I recently published an episode, TNP306 {Dispatch: Jan 30, 2026} Lively v. Baldoni, Avoidant Attachment, and Moral Ambition, in which I grapple with, and ultimately endorse, that concept. The way I feel it relates here is that I tend to think that the way we ought to address numbness to the challenges of life is not to curtail our engagement but rather to become more present, to cultivate more maturity (emotional and spiritual), to stick with the trouble. There is a risk we fail, but it's honourable to try.
And that's all I have to say about that. 😅
Note: Dispatch episodes are recorded en plein air with all the sounds of farm life and chores in the background, (and sometimes a bit loud). We tried not to sniff too much but it was a cold morning, and sometimes the feed bags make a big tarp-in-the-wind-like sound. If auditory sensitivity is part of your experience, please consult your podcast player for a transcript.
With gratitude for the article of note to the writer, Khelsilem: Understanding the Purpose, Limits, and Misuse of "Land Acknowledgements": On symbolism, substance, and the limits of public ritual
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TNP310 {Dispatch: March 14, 2026} How to Make Decisions in Collapse Times

Today we're engaging in thought partnership around critical impact ratings, mental models, and reaching for what we care about in a risk assessment framework.
Note: Dispatch episodes are recorded while I'm doing farm chores and feeding the horses in the morning, so people with sensory processing challenges may not find this episode enjoyable. In this episode I'm walking in snow, jostling with metal chains, shovelling hay and packing it into hay nets. Lots of background sounds! Apologies for that – please check your podcast player for a transcript.
Referenced in this episode:
Born to Run, by Bruce Springsteen (book/autobiography)
So Sinopoulous Lloyd of Queer Nature who appeared on ep.93 of this podcast
The actual 2025 StatsCan data on small business longevity in Canada: About 22% of small businesses fail in the first year and only 50% survive after five years.
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence Gonzales (Major trigger warning: Story after story of smart, well-equipped, experienced people dying by accident because this is actually really common)
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TNP309 {Dispatch: Feb 23, 2026} Lessons from the Barefoot Doctors

This episode is actually only 24 minutes long if you subtract all the parts with me managing the fact that the horses broke the fence and got stuck in a pasture they're not supposed to be in. Skip forward to minutes 9:30 - 35:00 to hear about what we can learn from 1970s China about navigating dictatorship and collapse and orienting to a more collectivist world.Note: I record dispatch episodes while doing my horse chores in the morning so there's lots of background noise that folks with certain sensory processing issues may not appreciate. In this episode you'll hear rain, my laboured breathing, the metal bin opening and closing, scooping and pouring out feed (beet pellets), plastic bags rustling, horses chewing...I also speak with some pretty stern vocal prosody when the horses try to push me or get too assertive mouthing me. This may be slightly startling since you have no visual cues to anticipate I might do that and you might be used to me having a more soothing speaking voice – you're not the one trying to bite me, though, so it's all good! Please check your podcast player for a transcript option if this doesn't work for you. 
In this episode I reference:
Barefoot Doctors and Western Medicine in China, by Xioping Fang
my Facilitation Training (next Level 1 intake will be Fall 2026)
 

TNP308 {Dispatch: Feb 18, 2026} About That Past Life Regression Last Night...

This is an episode about Past Life Regression but...
CW: This may be a tough one to listen to (or a validating one, depending on your situation) because I'm sharing some high-level details about my history of sexual trauma. Non-specific mentions of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and a bunch of patriarchal bullshit. I've kept it pretty non-specific, but if you care about me, it may be hard to hear. 
Please note: If you don't want to hear the background trauma history that motivated this regression work, please pause at minute 30:00 and skip ahead to minute 41:00. 
It's not lost on me that I, and many others in my orbit, are having lots of emotional material arise in the wake of the release of the Epstein files. If it feels good to be "in it" with me, great. If you're at capacity, then give this one a pass or take it in small doses. I'm not going into detail, and it's woven in with other related information about trancework, past lives, autoimmunity and dysautonomia symptoms, but please exercise caution and care.
Please listen while you're tasking so you can easily zone out of parts that you relate to a little too much ❤️‍🩹 🫂
 
Note: Dispatch episodes are recorded while I'm doing farm chores and feeding the horses in the morning, so people with sensory processing challenges may not find this episode enjoyable. In this episode I'm walking in snow, jostling with metal chains, shovelling hay and packing it into hay nets. Lots of background sounds! Apologies for that – please check your podcast player for a transcript.
 
Let me tell you about the past life regression I experienced last night! One of my students needed a practice buddy to be their "client". It gave me clarity around some triggers I have that I really must take more seriously as they have serious health ramifications for me. (The rammies 😫 Can't forget about the rammies, bro.)
In this episode, I reference:
• my Trancework Practitioner Mini Certificate
• my Facilitation Training
• sign up for my newsletter (I'll keep you posted about future trainings!)
• the seminal research of Dr.Ian Stevenson
• Dr.Jim Tucker, The University of Virginia School of Medicine, Division of Perceptual Studies
• Carol Bowman and her kids on the Oprah Winfrey Show talking about children's spontaneous past life recall
• underlying causes of autoimmunity and dysautonomia
• bell hooks' quote from her book, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004), “The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.”
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TNP307 {Dispatch: Feb 4, 2026} Speaking Truth to Power

This dispatch is a response to a lovely listener's question about how to avoid being bullied by those who respond to moral integrity with aggression.
Note: Dispatch episodes are recorded extemporaneously during the morning feed of the horses, (Beau, Skaha, and Reverie). If background noises, or me sniffing, or scooping beet pulp pellets, or moving buckets around, or filling hay nets, or walking in mud are irritating sounds, these episodes may not be pleasurable for you. Please see your podcast player for transcript options!
Learn more about the Lewis Method of Deep Democracy, a facilitation method that emerged in post-apartheid South Africa, aspiring to support social integration by getting to the root of harm, resentment, grievance, and vengeance in large collectives, communities and organizations. Myrna Lewis was was present and actively involved in holding space at the Civic Dialogue that Ruben and I attended. Here is a short video about the Civic Dialogue we attended that day. (Catch a glimpse of me and Ruben at 1:25, back row to the left of Sera, (speaker/co-facilitator), where our body language speaks volumes about how convinced we were that hope was the key driver of social/environmental change. 😂)
The facilitator I speak of, the marvellous Aftab Erfan, has been on the podcast a couple of times.
✨If you like the topic of this episode, you may find comfort and support in The Numinous Network, both the live calls such as Attachment Jams and Contact Nutrition Drop-Ins, as well as the on-demand video courses like Contact Nutrition 101, and Secure: The Magical Art and Subtle Science of Attachment.
 

TNP306 {Dispatch: Jan 30, 2026} Lively v. Baldoni, Avoidant Attachment, and Moral Ambition

Note: If you don't like the background noise of feeding horses, (opening plastic bags, pouring water, stirring, packing hay nets in a metal bin, belaboured breathing), then Dispatches are not the episodes for you. Sorry! Please see your podcast player for transcript options.
Here are my hot takes and broad strokes thinking on the Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, and Wayfarer Parties lawsuit, and how it intersects with:
• avoidant attachment tendencies• profound shame• patriarchy, misogyny, and pick-up artist culture• contempt for religious minorities
I also share what I know off the top of my head, and from personal experiences in my youth, about the Bahá'í faith. Please do your own research into Bahá'í principles and its founder, Bahá'u'lláh, for a more correct and precise accounting. Same with the Quakers: I meant what I said, I'm a bad Quaker and should not be trusted as a role model or information source! 😂 I have enjoyed this little book by anarchist-turned-Quaker-turned-professor-of-Quaker-practice, Ben Pink Dandelion, if you're seriously curious about understanding the diversity of Quaker faith and practice worldwide.
To understand the fascinating legal maneuverings behind the Lively v. Baldoni case, I recommend the podcast Allegedly Golden podcast.
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