Grief House - Portals

In this special episode two of my favorite Portland women, Jenny Serna and Moe Bowstern,  talk about their magic.    We constructed this episode in a universe's grab-bag/Stir The Pot sort of way - I made a list of questions, Moe and Jenny took turns choosing numbers and we trusted the swirling everything to turn up what wanted considering. It was perfect as they are perfect as this whole beau...

In this special episode Sascha talks with our friend Rachel the space where magic meets intensive care.  Rachel is a ICU nurse and a student of paganism and traditional Earth Magic from the British Isles. She and Sascha talk about the intersection of these two aspects of her life and work, how one might protect magic while embracing modern medicine and allow both to be alive and protected during p...

In this episode, Sascha and I talk about Trust and Risk - by which, I think, we mean love; because there's no way to untangle them. Love is risky. It's trustworthy in a devastating, heartbreaking, generous, way that makes no sense at all and is the only thing that makes any sense.  We discuss tigers, rabbits, shadow girls, flaming garbage, safety and fear.

In this episode about risk Sascha and I explore the varied ways we gage the danger of any given situation. We talk about mothers, swings, logs in the woods. We make note of the ways our sure and imminent death plays into our calculations and  how grateful we are for the hard, brave work past versions of ourselves have done in service of our current selves. Come join us on this friendly romp throug...

This month on the podcast we're feeling deeply into numbness.  In this our second episode we explore strategies for thawing - should the desire for sensation arise. We offer hot cocoa, secret audio messages, moaning and proximity to lakes as methods to more toward more feeling. We also spend a lot of time talking about how thawed isn't better and frozen isn't worse. Thaw if thawing...

In this feelings episode Sascha and I discuss numbness. We decide it is useful and problematic, a path to deeper feeling and a worrisome defensive move. We ponder surgical numbness, numbness brought on by waterfalls, and times when numbness leads to far too many vacuum cleaners. we hope you will enjoy our romp through numbness.

In this special episode my best friend Emmy Garr and I discuss everything in the bowl; memories from our friendship, our trip to the casino, gross things we love, the time I made her room mate very mad and more.  We offer a glimpse into friendship that can't possibly be ranked below any other kind of love. Plus you get to heat Emmy's voice - which is the most lovely voice. Don't pas...

Q: What's happening in that picture with all the plaid? A: Sascha and I are dancing the Salty Dog at our high school pep rally. Q: But, why? A: Because we started a bowling club. Q: But...why? A: It depends on who you ask. More questions? Listen to this bonus episode!  Still more? Become a patron and we'll answer any question you dream up. https://www.patreon.com/PortlandGriefHouse

In this episode Sascha and I discuss the trouble of just and more than friends.  We offer hues that fall outside the spectrum as we were raised to understand it, try to see each other shake in love we can't make into easy labels and feel grateful for our perfect, wonderful only/more than friendship.

In this episode Sascha and hop into and out of control, peer around both places and report our findings.  We discuss the sneaky forcefulness of the prey faced, our parallel 3rd grade power moves, dog packs and our friendship.  We hope you'll come climb under and above and all around control with us.

In this recent Portals episode, Sascha talks with Tina Tau, a dreamworker and Portland Grief House board member. They discuss deep listening to dreams, looking for the message you do not already know, and do some dream processing together.  Tina has recently written a book called Ask for Horses: Memoir of a Dream-Guided Life, and she loves to listen to people's dreams. We hope you will check...

In this episode Sascha and I discuss our brave ventures out into the land of disappointment.  We share tales of heroism from encounters with needs we cannot meet and valor from wanting things that might not want us back. We discuss my father, Sascha's mother and how they might be the reasons we are broken or might be the exact medicine our souls need to turn themselves smooth. We would love t...

In this special episode I talk with my good friend and Portland Grief House-mate Hannah Hillebrand about our creature-y-ness.  We talk about comfort and need, the price of delayed mortality, the joy of giving things up, and how we might integrate our wildness with modernity. We come up with plans to lean our animal bodies further and further away from human-made notions of good and successful, we...

In this episode Sasha and I interview each other's bodies. We ask about how they feel being in relationships with our brains and personalities, consider the good old days of swingsets and makebelieve, and hope for futures where we live together more honestly, tenderly and completely.

In this episode Sascha and I discuss the patterns that exists within the mysterious, swirling everything, how we orient towards them, what we risk in that turning and why we turn despite the risk.  We review Atlanta, Hypochondria, partnership and gossip.  We are, as always, grateful for each other and for all of you.

In this episode Sascha and I decide to sit shame down and ask her if there's anything she needs that we can offer. While not committing to provide full board and lodging,  we extend the offer of a warm bowl of soup on a cold night. We discuss abandoned accents, the mystery of asparagus, the shock of 9th graders talking about college plans for fun and joy and sorrow of ham in every meal.  We l...

In this episode Sascha and I talk about shame. We agree that it feels terrible, contemplate the devastating effects of its deployment, ponder its kinship with creeping infestations and howling caves and wonder about how it can be transformed. After aspiring never to ride in trucks with shame we spend some talking about how great it feels when it lifts, how friendship can work as a lifting agent an...

In this episode which was meant to be about the joy that comes with accepting the present moment as it is, Sascha and I explore the hysterical misery of present moments that actually suck quite a lot. We talk about how it feels to see the right-ness of something while also wishing it would be completely different. We ponder possible culprits for downturns in enlightenment levels including the hori...

In this episode I talk with Moe Bowstern about her project which asks the question: What does it mean to do community magic in a bar? We discuss the magic of asking questions a whole room of people answer from their unique place of expertise and whether a person needs special shoes to come play along (you don't). We explore the difference between intentional magic and common magic, our differ...

In this episode Sascha and I talk about how panicked my body is about my mother's body dying. We talk about how to survive in a culture that doesn't have a plan for how to help our bodies integrate this kind of loss. We explore things that might help and what it will be like if nothing really helps. We talk about other bodies that have left us and also how they've stayed.

In this episode Sascha and I talk about how the longest, soundest stays are sometimes born from many departures. We discuss the nature of death and rebirth in every phase of evolution and how building relationships that move with that cycle might offer a deep attachment we both want.

This month Sascha and I are talking about staying.  We discuss how staying with the hurt bits and the fears is not passive; it's muscular. It burns calories.  We notice how it feels, to us, like an endeavor for which a person requires a support crew - to wave and shout encouragement and offer snacks and flashlights when the sun goes down.  It also doesn't feel intuitive - it feels like s...

In this episode Sascha and I talk with each other about how it felt to talk with our sisters about how it feels to trust our parents.  We discuss rocks and rivers, how it might change a sentient river to watch swimmers play in or flee it, and our hope of some day becoming sentient rivers at peace with the elements that made us.  We talk about different kinds of commitment and sign our names to a k...

In our second sister episode, Sascha talks with her sister, Isadora, about trusting their mother, Teresa. Sascha and Izzy discuss the complexity of trusting someone who lived in a reality they couldn't quite fathom, how that effected their ability to trust their own perception of reality and how it shaped their ability to trust themselves and each other. Sascha and Izzy offer a glimpse into t...

In this bilingual episode about family, I talk with my sister about if and how it could be possible to trust our father, Gerardo. We talk about how it feels to be people who have been set aside, the particular pain of being let-go-able.  We explore how gratitude and sadness live together in our bodies, and wonder if there's a way to trust our father as a gift bearer and to trust the gifts  -...