A Millennial's Guide to Saving the World

After an incredibly meaningful and successful five years, I’ve decided to end the podcast. Thank you for all of your support, time, and trust. I’m off to begin a new chapter, and I’ll hope you’ll continue to follow along. To stay in touch, subscribe for free at anyakaats.substack.com . Song featured: “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley Sign up for the MGSW book club here. How to support the show...

Ian MacKenzie is a new paradigm artist who’s been tracking the global emergence of imaginal culture for the past 15 years. From the desert of Burning Man to the heart of Occupy Wall St, Ian has amplified the voices of visionaries, artists and activists who have been working toward planetary system change. He is the co-director of The Village of Lovers , as well as the host of The Mythic Masculine...

Peter May is an alchemist, a Grammy award-winning musician, a tree whisperer, a firefighter (and firemaker), an athlete, an architect, and an all around fascinating human being. Peter and I discuss how his love of ecology first developed as a kid living outside Detroit on Lake St. Clair, and how this passion later influenced almost every aspect of his life. From his multiple careers in natural bui...

Sarah Jones and her husband Michael are fourth generation potato farmers in Hooper, CO. Their farm, Jones Farms Organics , is paving the way in the San Luis Valley (the nation’s second largest fresh potato growing region in the U.S.) for regenerative and sustainable farming practices. In addition to helping manage day to day operations at the farm, Sarah has also recently transformed a local gas s...

Kelly Moody is a critical ethnobotanist, philosopher, teacher, writer, and podcast host. After growing up in rural southern Virginia on her grandmother’s tobacco farm, Kelly’s interest in plants and ecology never left her. She received a B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies, and then left Virginia to travel cross-country, studying herbal medicine, land tending, ecology and botany. In the summe...

Jules Evans is a philosopher, journalist, and author, whose work centers around the interplay between rational and ecstatic states of consciousness. Currently, Jules is leading the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project - researching psychedelic harm reduction, ethics, and integration. Jules and I speak about our shared disillusionment with Western spiritual wellness culture, the role discern...

George Whitten, along with his wife Julie, own Blue Range Ranch (also known as San Juan Ranch) located in the high desert of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Originally pastoralists, George and his family have been ranching on the same land for well over a century, and have been practicing regenerative agriculture and holistic land management since 1893, long before either of those terms even existed....

Erin is a professional writer who’s currently studying to get her Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology. Erin is also one of my closest friends, and my former Whore Rapport co-host. Since ending Whore Rapport last fall, Erin and I both felt that there was more to say about our decision to stop the podcast. We speak about the animate, sacred nature of identity, the challenge of overcoming projections and i...

Jenny is a certified astrologer, holds a PhD in Modern Languages and Literatures, a B.A. in Classical Philology, and has studied ancient civilizations and languages for over 25 years. She’s also a trauma-informed coach, spiritual guide, and one of my dearest friends. Jenny returns to the podcast (for the fifth time!) to discuss the upcoming ingress of Saturn into Pisces. From learning how to manif...

William Keepin and Cynthia Brix are co-founders of Gender Equity and Reconciliation International . William, a climate scientist and physicist who also trained in clinical psychology with Stanislav Grof began GERI thirty years ago under the name “Gender and Ecology” in an effort to expose and heal the hypocrisies of working to end the exploitation of Mother Earth without simultaneously addressing...

For the past few months I’ve found myself in a deep internal dialogue exploring the nature of my desires, my relationship to will, and my capacity for action. In the face of difficult choices, divergent interests, or upon reaching a fork in the road, how do we decide which path to take? How do we tell the difference between “trusting the timing” and rest/reflection vs. laziness and avoidance? How...

Michael Ridge has spent the last decade living and traveling nomadically on horseback, mostly in the Pacific Northwest. He is an expert in primitive skills and wild foods, and possesses a level of bravery and commitment to core values that I find extraordinarily impressive. In our conversation, Michael shares about the events that led him to his current life on horseback, and outlines what his day...

Johanna Hoffman is a designer, urbanist and strategist exploring the ties between design, planning, fiction and futures. She’s the founder of Design for Adaptation, a studio using strategic planning, interactive storytelling and speculative design to survey the impacts of potential futures and spur proactive adaptation. Her new book is called Speculative Futures: Design Approaches to Navigate Chan...

Téo Montoya is a Human Design Analyst, Metamodern Myth Mender, Indigenous Futurist writer and multimedia artist. His work focuses on synthesizing cosmological and spiritual systems, myths, archetypes, and modalities to find ways of supporting an emerging world in crisis through human development, ecological literacy, and reciprocity with our communities and more-than-human kin. In other words, Téo...

Van is an educator and practitioner in dance, healing and spirituality with over 20 years of experience. He integrates Eastern and Western modalities to create a holistic dance education, centering on how dance can enlighten our perspectives on life and how we interact with society. Van reaches beyond dance and choreography by focusing his work on human development through fusing dance, spirituali...

Deborah Eden Tull (who goes by Eden) is a Zen meditation and engaged dharma teacher, public speaker, author and sustainability educator, as well as the founder of Mindful Living Revolution . She trained for seven and a half years as a Buddhist monk at a silent Zen monastery and has taught engaged dharma for over 20 years. Her new book, Luminous Darkness , explores what it means to embrace, navigat...

Whitney returns to the podcast to discuss how paradox, polarity and nuance show up in astrology, and how to best utilize concepts of “good” and “bad” to provoke self-awareness. How can nuance be used to both invite and prevent growth? How can we assess when duality is helpful vs. when it isn’t? Whitney and I provide an overview of concepts such as malefics & benefics, sect, dignities and debilitie...

Kimberly Ann Johnson is a somatic experience practitioner, sexological bodyworker, author, podcast host, and doula. She returns to the podcast to speak about the turmoil of the past couple years, and recounts the journey that led her to co-author Reckoning with Stephen Jenkinson. We speak about our mutual experience feeling alienated from the “wellness” community during Covid, and the great loss a...

Stephen is a culture activist, teacher, author, and co-founder if the Orphan Wisdom School. His work centers around grief, elderhood, community, and is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, and working for a time we won’t see. Stephen and I speak about how a lack of generational connection and transmission has provoked deep rupture and brokenness. We discuss the difference between...

Mónica Guzmán is an author, journalist, and bridge builder. She is the Director of Digital Storytelling at Braver Angels , a nonprofit working to depolarize America, and author of the book “ I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times ”. Móni and her parents immigrated to the US from Mexico when she was a teenager. Móni is a liberal, bu...

Lenore Black, a fan favorite of the show, returns for a second episode. It’s an understatement to say that a lot has changed in the year and a half since Lenore and I first connected, both personally and collectively. We speak about Lenore’s move from New York City to Joshua Tree, which was as much an inner journey as an outer journey. Lenore shares why she decided to reevaluate her career, her co...

Chris and I had the pleasure of spending ten days with Elia on our trip to Tanzania last month, and sat down to record a podcast with him at Lake Eyasi. Elia is half Maasai, and spent much of his childhood being raised by his Maasai grandfather. He has a great deal of knowledge and insight about the complexities and conflicts between the Maasai and the “modern world,” because that complexity infor...

Sophie is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. We speak about personal and collective mythologies and how so many of our stories have been deracinated from their roots in ways that perpetuate harm. We discuss the importance of rerooting and rewilding these narratives by listening with our whole bodies, and becoming aware of...

Chloé is a writer and entrepreneur whose company, Theory of Enchantment, offers an alternative to conventional anti-racism training. Instead of focusing on dualistic thinking and division, Chloé’s company embraces and promotes love and compassion. We speak about the importance of accepting and embodying our own individual complexities and polarities as a means to accept others. We discuss the West...

This episode has been a long time coming. If you’re a regular listener of MGSW, you know that I’m incredibly interested in exploring power dynamics, shadow, and spirituality, especially when all three become interwoven. I share my reflections about the podcast Cover Story , which uncovers abuses of power within the growing industry of psychedelic therapy. I also discuss Power in the Helping Profes...