My guest this episode is writer, scholar, teacher, and astrologer, RONNIE PONTIAC. I've been impressed and informed by Ronnie's esoteric work for awhile now, and finally, we got to have our first conversation. And it's a profound one...

We talk about the need for a spiritual path in our moment, and how the alternative is... well, quite grim. We talk about how spirituality can lead us into a path of hatred and personal gain. We talk about my suspicion about astrology, how I think it works, how I think it does’t work, why so much of it is wrong (and why Ronnie is so often right!). And there's so much more on this episode (Including my extended intro on the esoteric aim of being a Friend To Humanity.)

Ronnie was a key figure at the Philosophical Research Society founded in 1934 by Manly Palmer Hall. The PRS is still around, and promotes, teaches, and offers research opportunities into the esoteric & philosophical of all societies; with the values of freedom, community, objective study, and inclusiveness at its core. He's the author most recently of American Metaphysical Religion: Esoteric and Mystical Traditions of the New World. His forthcoming book, which can preorder now, is The Rosicrucian Counterculture: The Origins and Influence of the Invisible Society.

I talk with spiritual teacher and author Lisa Romero about the challenges that are facing us today and an unlikely key to progressing through them: the esoteric mysteries of Ireland.

This is the is the sixth and final episode in a series of episodes on How To Live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop,  create, and resist. In other words, tools that don’t merely deaden us in the frantic pursuit of survival, but that assist us in nourishing ourselves, each other, and the world, all together.

This time, the theme is READ
and my guest is ALEXANDER CHEE.

At the end of this episode, the exercise is a little different. First we do a reading for you, the listener, in the world and its anxieties and challeneges. We consider what they are, how to approach them, and how not to approach them. Then, Alex and I do a reading for what you could be reading... We draw a tarot card and let it give book recommendations.

Alex the author of three books, most recently his essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, and also two novels, Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night.

This is the fifith in a series of episodes on How To Live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop,  create, and resist.In other words, tools that don’t merely deaden us in the frantic pursuit of survival, but that assist us in nourishing ourselves, each other, and the world, all together.

The theme isPEACEKEEP
and my guest isCHEYNEY RYAN.

Cheyney works withThe Oxford Consortium for Human Rights. He's a a researcher; professor; founder of the Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict at Oxford; and author, most recently, of the excellent book,Pacifism as War Abolitionism and also ofThe Chickenhawk Syndrome: War, Sacrifice, and Personal Responsibility, as well as many articles on peace activism, pacifism, Marxism, and nonviolent action (you can find links to plenty of the here).

PEACEKEEP was a word I had to invent for the show because we have such an undeveloped language of peace. While the lexicon of war is extensive, the act of creating true peace in the world doesn’t exist in an active word. 

That is in part because thewar system - as Cheyney calls the autonomous, seemingly inexorable network of war activities, sites, motivations, and contracts - has instead on the articulation of its own anatomy. It's entranced us into detailing its every contour so that we become more and more convinced of its reality and density.

This is the third in a series of episodes on HOW TO LIVE IN 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about.

This episode’s theme is DIE
and my guest is bestselling author and host of the Ask A Mortician YouTube channel, CAITLIN DOUGHTY.

This is the third in a series of episodes on HOW TO LIVE IN 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about.

This episode’s theme is CONNECT
And my guest is organizer, activist, and writer, DEAN SPADE

Our disconnection from each other is the negative space that power thrives in. It's a void that threatens to overtake us with its heavy unfeeling emptiness.

Connection is the remedy, but more than that: it's the great meaning we all seek.

The connections we form with each other can create networks of mutual aid, solidarity, safety, love, pleasure, and happy engagement with the challenges of our time.

Dean's new book, Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together offers a powerful look at connection. And it gives everything its title promises: a wealth of practical steps you can take to learn how to live well in this world through what you learn in relationship with others.

It’s a book about relationships that takes nothing for granted from the dominant narratives that rule our lives.

Rather than trying to fit society as it is, the book asks us what it would look like if our relationships were built out of our desires, including our desire to create a better word through better relationships.

This is the second in a series of episodes on HOW TO LIVE IN 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop,  create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about.

This episode's theme: PRAY
and my guest, ⁠BASTIAAN BAAN⁠.

Bastiaan Baan is a teacher, author, and was a Christian Community priest in the Netherlands. His many books include the just-released ⁠Trust in the Future: Facing Uncertain Times With Confidence⁠; his book on the relationship between Christianity and the elemental beings, ⁠Lord of the Elements: Interweaving Christianity and Nature⁠; and his exploration of christian paths of meditation, ⁠Ways into Christian Meditation⁠. He also speaks around the world on spiritual topics.

This is the first in a series of episodes on How To Live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop,  create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about. That way, you won’t only be participating by listening, but you can actually bring some of the vitality of the conversation forward.

The theme and action of this episode is ENVISION.
And my guest is ROB HOPKINS.

Rob is the author of From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want and the forthcoming Falling in Love with the Future. He's also the host of the excellent 100-episode podcast, From What If to What Next which features a different conversation with big thinkers on each episode. He's also a founder of the Transition Network, which works via multiple initiatives (planting trees, local food sufficiency, alternate modes of transport, mental health support, and more) to usher towns and communities out of their entanglement with cultural, political and economic death, and into thriving and healthy sufficiency.

The task ahead is daunting: We must totally recreate economy, politics, and culture. How can we move forward with help from the three gifts of the magi: gold, frankincense, and myrrh?

I talk with money teacher and listener favorite PILAR LESKO about the spiritual realities of making, spending, and gifting money in challenging times.

Our inner lives do matter, more than ever, in this moment. But how do they matter, and how can we offer them up to the tasks of our time? And what if some of us get those inner conditions properly oriented to the spiritual work of the world we're in, but most people don't? Will any of it make a difference?
To discuss this, I welcomed author and teacher Lisa Romero back to the show.Lisa and I talked about these themes before on the show, on AEWCH 257, but now we develop them more deeply here, particularly in relation to how the world is unfolding.