Hello, listeners! Goodbye, Redeeming Disorder.

I’m ready to fully focus my creative energy in one direction, which means it’s time for my first major creative project to end. Worlds of thanks to Tamar — legend in my life, lead producer of Light & Shadows, and the woman for the job of turning the page.

We talk herbalism, Kambo medicine, medicine at large, creative flow and beginner’s mind. We also talk about our personal growth through this past year of knowing each other. This past year… these past months, weeks, days… What a time.

As great swathes of Latin America burn, the Vilcabamba valley has been filled with smoke these past seven days since the Light & Shadows team returned from filming in the jungle, and we’re slowing down our pace of releasing videos. Forty-nine days after beginning our Friday releases and planning to release a pilot episode on December 20, we have to say that the pilot will come in 2025, and that no plan is surefire in these fiery times. Nonetheless, we’ll continue doing our best.

I’m grateful to have already filmed some beautiful places that have recently burned down. In right time, I’ll be grateful to bring you “Epic 1” (“episodes” are so legacy-TV) of our genre-bending docureality series. And, in the meantime, I’m grateful to uphold our commitment to bring you at least something every Friday.

As many of the world’s unnatural orders break down, and as we go through personal breakdowns (breakdown-breakthroughs, more aptly), life can feel entirely chaotic. Upholding our true commitments can feel challenging. Maintaining order in our lives can feel impossible. Our plans are jokes to God-Goddess, paradoxes to the reality of the present moment, which is all we can ever know for sure. Yet, we make plans to bring our intentions into being, and we return to our truest intentions.

Creating Light & Shadows is a calling for us — an intention to which we’ll continually return, an order from God-Goddess themself. Our pilot epic won’t adhere to the order we had in mind, but Light & Shadows will continue. We will continue to create for you.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

Venus and Her Lover: buy the book here, visit the site here.

Rebecca Tzigany returns to Light & Shadows as she says goodbye to Vilcabamba and as we begin releasing our content regularly, every Friday.

We hope you continue to get to know us every Friday, leading up to the release of our Pilot Epic (episode) on 20 December, 2024.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

Nykia Herron Ash is a U.S. expat living in England who decidedly answers the call to help people, whether through reiki work or in the nail salon. We discuss the unlearning necessary for relearning authentic ways, Nykia’s empowering perspective on anxiety and our perspectives on fear and faith.

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Links:

* Wayra Vibra Instagram

* Catherine’s Instagram

* Please Pass the Bliss

* People of the Sun

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

Links:

* Zeus the Husky channel and video:

* Hofstede Cultural Analysis: the three countries discussed, the general tool.

* The Authentic Observer youtube channel.

* Cultural Map of the United States.

* The book that the map is based on.

* Documentary called Quantum Communication / Mind Science Kept Hidden:

* Autobiographical stuff.co.nz article series by New Zealand author Catherine Dolan about the toxicity and brutality of NZ society.

* Global Innovation Index 2022 global map visualization.

* Mark Passio's Presentation Playlist on his youtube channel.

* Nick’s youtube channel.

These links are included per Nick’s request; I endorse nothing, and trust you to make your own judgments.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

Please enjoy this (possibly final) episode of Redeeming Disorder, featuring my first friend in my new home (Vilcabamba, Ecuador), Maya Choi. Maya has lived quite an adventurous life, growing up in Korea, spending over a decade in New York City and living now in Ecuador, where she’s also been for over a decade. Her experiences shifting between cultures have taught her how to relate to the identity of the self, as has extensive meditation, through which she’s always maintained a “beginner’s mind.” From her exposure to Zen monasteries as a child to her personal practice today, meditation has always been a way for Maya to, rather than escaping or merely transcending the world, relate to the world with more joy, gratitude and generosity. That spirit and those qualities are reflected at the site of our interview — the Sukkha Wasi cultural center she started — as well as in Maya herself.

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Video of Our Conversation on YouTube

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

On this World Mental Health Day, I'm joined by my partner Kailey to reflect on anxieties, bad habits and True Love.

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Links from the Episode:

Video of Our Conversation on YouTube

Video of Our Conversation on BitChute

Rapper Played in Background for a Minute

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If you have a story or perspective you’d like to share on the podcast, feel free to tell me a bit about it using this form!

Support Redeeming Disorder by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/redeeming-disorder

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

Phil Larstone has always felt a deep calling to steward the earth, and it's here in southern Ecuador that he ultimately actualized that calling, renewing a hectare of land into fertile, biodiverse and beautiful permaculture. In this interview he takes us through his journey of mental health and connection to nature — from suicidal college student, to Hawaiian permaculture student to creator of "eternaculture" (and AirBnB host extraordinaire!). Not only that, but in the video content linked below, Phil shares his inspirations and shows us his creation visually.
 
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Links from the Episode:

Video Tour of Phil's and Suzannah's Land on YouTube

Video Tour of Phil's and Suzannah's Land on BitChute
 
Eternaculture at Canción del Corazón (the name of Phil’s and Suzannah’s center, which translates to “Song of the Heart”)

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If you have a story or perspective you’d like to share on the podcast, feel free to tell me a bit about it using this form!

Support Redeeming Disorder by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/redeeming-disorder

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

In this special Summer Solstice + Father’s Day solo-cast, I ramble (on and on) about permaculture, my Ecuadorian digs, my life purpose and my spiritual path. Feel free to tune out of this chronicle of unwieldy personal musings, or to stop listening at any time! For those who are interested, I delve into some of the particular challenges, vulnerabilities and neuroses of my individual psyche — especially the content that arose in my January 2021 work with Ayahuasca in Ecuador.
 
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Links from the Episode:

Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
 
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If you have a story or perspective you’d like to share on the podcast, feel free to tell me a bit about it using this form!

Support Redeeming Disorder by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/redeeming-disorder

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

Ṣadé Kammen has struggled with neurodivergence all her life, but what she now identifies as depression, anxiety and autism spectrum disorder weren't taken seriously by her family. Though she struggled to feel understood growing up, she went on to become a strong mental health advocate at Yale, and today fights for those dealing with mental disorder as well as those dealing with social injustice. The latter has unfortunately been predominant in Ṣadé’s experience as a black queer woman facing racism and gender biases, and she views Survivor — the medium through which we connected to have this interview — as a powerful lens into these shadow sides of our culture. Shadows (at least large cultural ones) don’t disappear overnight, and Ṣadé's struggles with some strained relationships (being currently estranged from her mother) persist. Nonetheless, she has developed coping strategies as well as learned how to live in the present moment, in her body (which keeps the score — great book by the way). The Body Keeps the Score is just one and the Harvard implicit bias test is just another of many great resources in the show notes this week.

My interview with Ṣadé marks a point of pause for Redeeming Disorder. I’ll be back later this summer once I’ve set myself up to podcast from southern Ecuador! There, I’ll be practicing, writing and learning about regenerative farming and permaculture.

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Intro Music: All is Well by Austin Basham

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Links from the Episode:

Harvard Implicit Bias Test
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The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
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The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown
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Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown
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Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Ted Talk Ṣadé mentions
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Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Journal Article Ṣadé Mentions
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Social Baseline Theory: The Role of Social Proximity in Emotion and Economy of Action by Beckes and Coan
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Cognitively Based Compassion Training (CBCT) at the Emory Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics with Lobsang Tenzin Negi
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Trailer for Kiss the Ground

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If you have a story or perspective you’d like to share on the podcast, feel free to tell me a bit about it using this form!

Support Redeeming Disorder by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/redeeming-disorder

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com

Frank Ferrare’s mental health struggles began in adolescence, but a combination of stigma and confusion extended them well into adulthood. The death of a close grandparent led to depression, which began a chain reaction of one ramification leading to another — depression medication, shame around medication, misuse of medication, shame around mental disorder, shame around self, and ultimately the construction of dense emotional walls. Frank wound up socially isolated and misunderstood, but in the end, his story if a hopeful one. Outlets like watching Survivor formed a bridge back to human connection for him, and the human connections he made in his everyday life formed a bridge to self-acceptance. His is a story of learning to become comfortable with himself, coming to peace with his mental health challenges and letting down his emotional walls.

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If you have a story or perspective you’d like to share on the podcast, feel free to tell me a bit about it using this form!

Support Redeeming Disorder by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/redeeming-disorder

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reiman.substack.com