Not dead! Nope!
We’ve had a lot of folks asking if the show is dead…no! it’s not. Michelle and I have had a very busy time of it lately, but we are planning to have a new show out in time for early February. We’re sorry about the lag time, but between Michelle’s writing and lecturing schedule and my working insane amounts a week, it’s been hard to get together.
Soon, folks! Soon!
Shadowdance 010: Vampires and Otherkin and Therians, Oh My!
You’ve been asking for it, and here it is. Chris interviews Michelle about the Vampire history, culture, and her own Awakening, then we veer off into the realms of the Otherkin, Therians, and…more? More, indeed.
Shadowdance 009: Out of this World: Conventions as Pilgrimage
Anthropologist Victor Turner made his career observing and analysing the rites of passage and the process of pilgrimage as special, liminal experiences within a culture. Traditionally, these processes are connected with religious experience, but according to Turner and many other thinkers in his field, experiences that take us beyond our ordinary reality so that we can reframe our relationship to our everyday world are a crucial part of our society and our development as individuals. In a secularized society, do we still have pilgrimage? What experiences do the people in our generation seek in order to achieve that transformational state of liminality? Do we find it in gaming, in fantasy conventions, on the Internet? How does the nature of these places impact the overall experience? Can pilgrimage happen completely removed from the context of a religion?
Shadowdance 008: Fitting the Profile
On Wednesday, September 13, 2006, a 25-year-old gunman walked onto the campus of Dawson College in Montreal and started shooting. Wearing a trench coat, all black clothing, and sporting a Mohawk haircut, the suspected shooter Kimveer Gill also maintained an online blog at a site called vampirefreaks.com that expressed his hatred and rage toward the human race.
Who can we hold accountable for influencing Gill’s actions? His social circle? The alternative websites he frequented? The heavy-metal music he preferred listening to? And what does this say about those of us who also listen to dark music, dress in dark clothing, or even rant about our dislikes online? Are we all time-bombs waiting to go off? Who should draw the line between healthy personal expression and troubled warning signs? Chris and Michelle tackle these hard questions and more, taking a sometimes brutally honest look at dark subcultures and the lines the rest of society draws between them and people like Kimveer Gill.
Shadowdance 007: Polarized Deities & Changing Concepts of Gender
As we move into the 21st century, we are starting to accept that gender is not a black and white issue. Medical science has taught us that not even biological sex is as simple as either male or female — 1 in 100 people is intersexed, meaning that either physically, hormonally, or genetically, their bodies combine male and female characteristics. However, modern neo-Paganism tends to retain a polarized approach to deities. There are gods and there are goddesses, priestesses and priests. How can we adapt to changing concepts of gender? Are there precedents that have been set in past traditions that allow for something more than just male and female? How much would it change our view of the world to encompass more than two gender identities in our approach to deity?
Shadowdance WTF?
Chris explains just what the hell has been going on.
006: Magick on the Edge of Conciousness
Many traditions speak of the Higher Self as the real seat of our magickal abilities as well as the repository of our past life knowledge. Does this concept of the Higher Self have a corollary in psychology? Can we relate concepts like the Higher Self with notions like the unconscious mind? What about Jung’s “Collective Unconscious” or Freud’s “Super Ego?” What about left brain/right brain schemas — given that the right brain is accepted as being the non-rational, intuitive portion of the mind that “speaks” to us in abstracts and symbols? How much do magick and psychology intersect? Are we comfortable with that line? How can we better harness it to understand what’s really going on when we perform this elusive thing called “magick”?
*Heavy Sigh*
So. I sat down to record last night. Fired everything up. And as I finished the show and went to mix it down, the laptop died. Blue Screen of Death. w00t. Not.
Restarted, Fired it up. All data from my recording was gone. Recorded AGAIN. Mixdown. Crash. BSoD.
“Hm,” I said. “This bodes not well.” Not really. It was much more colorful.
My computer is dying. I ordered a new MacBook, and it should be here next Wednesday. What does this mean to you, good listener? Well…I got no show until then. Sorry about that. Clearly I’ve pissed off the Micro$oft gods or something.
Hold tight, folks. Coming back soon. I promise.
Meanwhile…if you like to donate toward the equipment fund…*sigh*
Episode Delayed
Yep. The Memorial Day weekend has delayed the episode. Sorry about that.
As a side note, this next episode will NOT be Magick and Conciousness. For reasons of schduling and the hopes of bringing in an expert, we’ve delayed that Episode until early June.
005.5: Listener Essays! Yay!
In this show:
- Kate brings us an essay called Lover as Divinity
- Candace (Vampire Kitten) of Vampires of Eternal Night brings us an essay called Therianthropy 101 (which Chris cannot seem to pronounce. Beware the idiot man-child).
- We hear from the Dragon Ritual Drummers with their song, Papa Legba, courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network
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