Check out The Emerald podcast
Singing To the Beloved In Times of Crisis (most recent episode and super timely)
For the Divine Mother of the Universe (this is a foundational one—I listened to the original; this is the reissue)
How Trance States Shape the World (also fascinating)
Here’s how Josh describes the podcast on his website:
Founded in May of 2019, The Emerald podcast explores the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, music, and imagination. Brought to life through the wise, wild, and humorous vision of Joshua Michael Schrei, The Emerald draws from a deep well of poetry, lore, and mythos to challenge conventional narratives on politics and public discourse, meditation and mindfulness, art, science, literature, and more.
At the heart of the podcast is the premise that the imaginative, poetic, animate heart of human experience — elucidated by so many cultures over so many thousands of years — is missing in modern discourse and is urgently needed at a time when humanity is facing unprecedented problems. The Emerald advocates for an imaginative vision of human life and human discourse as it questions deep underlying assumptions about societal progress.
As likely to source from the Wu Tang Clan as the ancient Indian Vedas, and featuring guests such as anthropologist and award-winning author Wade Davis, philosopher Bayo Akomolafe, award-winning author Ann Wroe, noted indigenous author Tyson Yunkaporta and more, The Emerald offers a green glint of wonder in a world that needs to be reacquainted with its own beating heart.
So curious to hear your thoughts
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Hello again! So my third gift, my gift for today, is The Emerald podcast, which is created by Joshua Schrei, I think, is how you say his name. And, you know, a friend sent me one of his podcasts called “The Revolution Will Not Be Psychologized” last year. And, it both radically shifted my mindset about several things, and had this quality of feeling like it was speaking to something that I had kind of always known. And that's something I find a lot with his podcasts and his work.
And so, you know, I think the tagline for the podcast is, “Currents and trends through a mythic lens.” So he's really…my understanding, which is actually fairly limited—I actually just signed up for his Patreon, it's not like I've done a deep dive on who he is—but you can tell from his work that he has studied very, very deeply, I know primarily in the Indian subcontinent, but, you know, mythic, mystic, shamanistic, and, primarily, oh, what's the word? Animistic. That's his big thing, animistic traditions really throughout the world.
And he pulls together sort of unifying threads from so many different indigenous and wisdom traditions, ancient religions, and mythologies, and weaves them into these, sort of prose poems, which are the podcasts. Occasionally he does interviews, but more often they will be these incredibly beautiful, long, yes, sort of thought journeys about a topic. But weaving into his really beautiful, almost poetry that he's speaking, is music, original music and singing, and so many quotes and references from different lineages and different thinkers and different practices.
And, for one thing, what I really appreciate about it is, you know, having a business called Leading By Example, I really, really deeply believe that the only way that we create change, or just, be in the world in a healthy way, is to be actually, really doing the things that we believe in, and that we would want to tell other people to do. And so, I really love the way that he, you know, his whole thing is bringing mythology and animism and poetry really back to the world. And so, that's actually, the way that he's sharing it is through these very tools that he's very passionate about. And there is a way where I find that it goes into my system much more deeply than things that feel like they come from more of just an intellectual, informative place.
And so, you know, I would, I would honestly just encourage you to go to the podcast and sort of click on anything that looks interesting to you. And I'll say there's one recently called, I think it's called “Mindfulness Is Not Enough,” that I found really salient for where we are now. And a piece of it that really connects to kind of everything else I've been talking about is around this idea that, that some current, at least in the sort of modern, western world, ways of conceiving of “mindfulness” is that it's this sort of, being like a blank slate or sort of, being, you know, cutting yourself off from everything else, right? Like, quieting the mind and being sort of your lone, you know, sort of like disconnected transcended self.
And that there's actually some interesting history and other ways of thinking about it where mindfulness is actually very deeply rooted in a lot of ritual and devotional practices and context and place. And that, that might actually be more of what we need now, is like, how do we actually connect and root into each other and to where we are, into our communities, rather than the sort of individualized sense of healing or progress or growth?
Which he also really speaks to in that one about, “The Revolution Will Not Be Psychologized.” Also thinking about how, a sort of psychologization of things, prioritizes a kind of individual healing and growth rather than looking at us as connected to a whole web of life that we have to, kind of, you know, work with all those parts together. And that has really resonated with me and some things that I'm thinking about and working on. And so that's a place to start and I'll share links to some other episodes of his that I found really resonant and might be interesting, but I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think.
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