There is a weight to modern existence — perhaps you've felt it. In a world in which social and environmental crises only seem to be deepening and our familial, communal and spiritual support systems are steadily crumbling, individuals are buckling under the weight. This weight is not simply metaphorical. When the web of relationships that traditionally hold human culture together is fractured, then sociocultural, ecological, and even cosmic burdens are funneled to individuals to carry. We often try to tackle these burdens on our own — but they are far too big for one person to bear. Traditional cultures, by contrast, tend to be constructed around networks of support — not only in their sociocultural and spiritual systems, but in their understanding of a cosmological and ecological mandala of animate forces, gods and goddesses and spirit helpers that literally bear weight. So animate traditions invoke various weight bearers, from turtles to elephants to the great mother goddess herself — who is known as the 'support' of everything that is. Such figures invite us into a deeper vision of support that is not generated or borne by us alone and that requires that we rethink the human role in the web of life. In such relational visions, people are not gods. They have responsibilities to the web of life, but they are not responsible for bearing everything. The tendency of the modern individualist mind to put itself at the center of the cosmos and try to bear universal burdens on its own has roots that go back to the creation story that lives at the heart of western history, a story that imbues individual beings with the greatest burden of all — the burden of salvation. If we look closely this unconscious burden is still at play everywhere, across the social and political spectrum, in wellness narratives and psychotherapeutic narratives, and even in the stories we tell about how it's our imperative to 'save the world.' Perhaps it's time to unpack this deeply rooted burden and regrow it as something else. Featuring a beautiful telling of the story of Sky Woman by Mohawk Chief Beverly Cook, and original music from Beya, Balladir, Olivia the Bard, Hummbbugggg, Victor Sakshin and Marya Stark, This episode dives deep into the roots of the cosmic burdens that individuals in modern culture bear, and explores what it means to redistribute the burden as we find cosmic, ecological, and communal support.

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In times of rising frustration over the state of nations, times of personal, ecological, societal, and planetary impasse, when cycles of senseless suffering seemingly repeat themselves over and over, and all the global upheaval still isn't bringing about change... in times when stuck energies need to move and forces that have been restrained for generations long to break free, the myths offer visions of roarers, bellowers, trumpeters, and conch-blasters. These movers and shakers do more than release pent up energy. They awaken, they transform, and they announce the transition from one world to the next. So the howling storm gods of the Vedas "move the immovable" and the Goddess herself trembles the worlds with her cosmic roaring laughter and ushers in a new age. But the roar of the goddess is not just the roar of speaking truth to external powers — it is also an internal reckoning, a moment of reconciliation that takes place within us — a recognition of all those places in us that have gone dormant and need waking and all those old patterns that need to be shaken free. As bodies try to somatically process and metabolize the times we are living in, sometimes we need a good mother roar.... and we can learn much from traditions that harness the power of uttered sound to invoke help, to guard against intrusion, to dispel negative forces, and to carry us into states of deeper connectivity. Ready yourself for roars and bellows, trumpets of judgement, announcing angels, and a deep dive into the Norse Ragnarok myth with Rune Rasmussen of the Nordic animism channel. Because sometimes you gotta go full apocalyptic to meet the energy of the times. Featuring music from (and an interview with) Sakha songstress Snow Raven, songs, yelps, bellows, and shrieks from Marya Stark and Travis Puntarelli, appropriately doomy guitar from Sunny Reinhardt, and angelic calls from Jeunae Elita, this episode is designed to MOVE STUCK ENERGY, and then ultimately to channel it in creative and life-affirming ways. Listen loud and shake it free.

Support the show

In times of rising frustration over the state of nations, times of personal, ecological, societal, and planetary impasse, when cycles of senseless suffering seemingly repeat themselves over and over, and all the global upheaval still isn't bringing about change... in times when stuck energies need to move and forces that have been restrained for generations long to break free, the myths offer visions of roarers, bellowers, trumpeters, and conch-blasters. These movers and shakers do more than release pent up energy. They awaken, they transform, and they announce the transition from one world to the next. So the howling storm gods of the Vedas "move the immovable" and the Goddess herself trembles the worlds with her cosmic roaring laughter and ushers in a new age. But the roar of the goddess is not just the roar of speaking truth to external powers — it is also an internal reckoning, a moment of reconciliation that takes place within us — a recognition of all those places in us that have gone dormant and need waking and all those old patterns that need to be shaken free. As bodies try to somatically process and metabolize the times we are living in, sometimes we need a good mother roar.... and we can learn much from traditions that harness the power of uttered sound to invoke help, to guard against intrusion, to dispel negative forces, and to carry us into states of deeper connectivity. Ready yourself for roars and bellows, trumpets of judgement, announcing angels, and a deep dive into the Norse Ragnarok myth with Rune Rasmussen of the Nordic animism channel. Because sometimes you gotta go full apocalyptic to meet the energy of the times. Featuring music from (and an interview with) Sakha songstress Snow Raven, songs, yelps, bellows, and shrieks from Marya Stark and Travis Puntarelli, appropriately doomy guitar from Sunny Reinhardt, and angelic calls from Jeunae Elita, this episode is designed to MOVE STUCK ENERGY, and then ultimately to channel it in creative and life-affirming ways. Listen loud and shake it free.

Support the show