Head On Fire

Do you want to see a dead body? How about two? Would you like to see 1-2 dead bodies every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the next 20, 30, 40 years? If you said yes, you might have what it takes to do the job of my guest on today's episode of Head On Fire.  The preparation and care for our dead is not just a sacred rite, or a taboo subject, but for folks like Temple Ruff it's a job. One t...

How much does the marketing industry know about you? You, specifically. Sure, you've heard all the horror stories - or maybe you've lived it - in which you're thinking about Pop Tarts and suddenly you see an ad on social media for Pop Tarts. That's freaky, right? But marketing existed long before the advent of modern technology and still seemed to somehow catch the pulse of what we all wanted to c...

"Grief is a feeling made of feelings," says Mahlakai Rose, a death doula and co-founder of The House of Grief. We are all thinking about death lately. How we want to die, where and with whom we want to spend our final moments, and what we'd like to happen afterwards. But given how much our lives have changed in the last few years, we're also becoming clued in to the fact that death and grief happe...

There’s this urge to turn yourself into a brand online. No matter how specific your interests are, no matter how tiny you think the niche is, social media compels you to believe that if you want to participate in that culture you must become a copy of those who came before you.   If you come online hoping to research anything - how to be a writer, how to organize your home, how to exercise - you a...

The last two years of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic have forced a lot of people to take stock of what is important to them. For many that has meant assessing whether they're in the right career or whether it's time to take a chance on forging a path for themselves. That's what Nikk Alcaraz - an actor, food artist, and DIY craft maker - did. He created Practical Peculiarities, a content creation...

What’s important to you? What do you value? What makes you happy?  No matter how you answered I want to know: would your answers change if you were telling your significant other? A work acquaintance? Your boss? If I were there right now with a microphone and camera asking you on the record, would any of those answers change?    The answer is…probably…yes. Right? Yes, of course, we don’t tell our...

An all too common problem for anyone in a creative field is other people's opinions. The folks who look over your shoulder and tell you that you should've painted something blue instead of red. The folks who take years of your life's work and turn it into bumper sticker commentary for easy engagement on social media. The alleged fans of a show that seem to take glee in tearing apart the thing they...

A promotional trailer for Head On Fire.  "Seek illumination the way a man with his head on fire seeks water."  That's the ethos behind Head On Fire, a new podcast featuring deep dive conversations with experts in interesting, often overlooked fields. It's a search for meaning and answers to life's biggest and smallest questions. Join me, author and host Don Martin, every other week as we discuss e...

Goodbye.    Today is the very last episode of Inciting A Riot.   And the last time I'll be speaking to you as Fire Lyte.   Sometimes growth means putting yourself back together, and in 2022 I am going to embark on a more personal, more authentic journey. As myself. I hope you’ll come along with me.    The antagonistic, pointed energy of Inciting A Riot is going away as it no longer serves me. In i...

Queer as Folk's Peter Paige on the legacy of his career, stepping behind the camera to craft queer-centric television shows and movies like The Fosters and The Thing About Harry, casting cishet actors in queer roles, and where Hollywood goes from here. Connect with Peter Paige here . If you like this show and want to support it, there are a number of ways to help. Consider liking and sharing it on...

The witch is a curious figure, existing in a uniquely liminal space of both fact and fiction, this world and the next. Many practitioners of magic walk a path that carefully stays in that middle ground, but a few heed the call to peek beyond the hedge, to walk amongst ancestors and spirits and gods and beings for which we don’t yet have names.  It can be daunting, to leave that comfortable middle...

  When I wrote an article for Writer's Digest about witches in stories , I said that the best stories aren't about the magic but about the power. In science fiction and fantasy writing, I've found that a superpower or access to magic or a special tool that grants an ability - whatever it is - isn't nearly as interesting as the power that it grants the user. The ability for magic to level a playing...

The Day of the Dead, El Día de los Muertos, is a celebration originating in Mexico. It's been gaining visibility and popularity in the United States and beyond thanks in part to films like Book of Life and Coco. However, a lot of misconceptions surround this cultural event, such as it being a "second Halloween". Too often elements of the celebration are taken piecemeal by those from outside the cu...

Every year around Halloween, I gather together a collection of stories, poems, and songs from around the magical world to help bring a bit of magic to your Samhain season. This year's Hallowed Riot features the following works: The Lockkeepers's Door - original short story by Vinna Harper Dawn of Maw - an excerpt from Taylor Narváez Claman   Love Letter to Hades part 2 - a poem by Lauren Theresa t...

Being a femme presenting person in an online space is to constantly walk a minefield of harassment, intimidation, and abuse. To have your authority questioned and your opinion overlooked in favor of a man's. Things aren't better behind the screens either. Earlier this year a lawsuit against one of the world's biggest game makers, Activision Blizzard, brought to light a long-standing "frat boy" cul...

Recently I was asked to define some important rules to remember when writing about witchcraft, especially in fiction. My response was to keep in mind that it's never about the magic but about the power that magic provides. For many of us who are drawn to the witchy characters in fiction and folklore, we're often drawn to the witch's ability to level the playing field in an otherwise unfair society...

  Being an author shares a lot of similarities with being a witch. Much of the work we do is alone, toiling away at improving skills or deepening our knowledge about obscure topics. Should we work in groups it's typically in very small circles of trusted peers. The other way that witches and authors are alike is that the general public has a lot of very wrong opinions about what it's like to be on...

In recent days a new law went into effect in the state of Texas prohibiting access to an abortion after 6 weeks. 6 weeks after what, though? Conception? Your period? Something else? And why so restrictive? And why are so many organizations setting up websites to gather tips about patients, providers, and those that aid them? This conversation requires an expert to guide us through the nuance, and...

Shadow Work is a trend that seems to have come out of nowhere in the last two years. One cannot explore much of witchy social media these days without seeing recommendations to “do your shadow work”, which seems to mean anything from “go to therapy” to “meditate more” to “write your feelings in a journal”. As with many trends, plenty of people are trying to commodify it with spiritual advisors sel...

  Have you ever seen those food videos on YouTube where a chef or a food scientist tries out a series of “food hacks” found in those viral videos by places like 5-minute crafts or Blossom? The “hacks” as they’re commonly called showcase a new, easier way of cooking in well-edited videos lasting only a few seconds per recipe. Ostensibly, this is to help folks who don’t have a lot of cookware on han...

The International Panel on Climate Change - otherwise known as the IPCC - just released their Sixth Assessment Report  and it is pretty much all the various news outlets, politicians, and talking heads can discuss. But, it's a big report. The full report is thousands of pages long with hundreds of authors and well over 10,000 source citations. When all the headlines seem to say is something like I...

Paganism isn't immune to any number of societal ills. While the same issues that plague the culture at large exist in all parts of our community in some way, it is groups associated with Norse Paganism - and all its related and parallel names, Asatru, Heathenry, Germanic Reconstructionism, and more - that most often come under scrutiny. White supremacy. Transphobia. Homophobia. Xenophobia. When on...

The element of fire has a long history in myth and magic. Fire transforms whatever it consumes, turning it into something new. Yes, of course, wood into charcoal, but it also cooks our food and warms our home. Metaphysically, it is the energetic spark that burns away the parts of us that do not serve our growth and makes way for what should be. Of course, it's a personal favorite of mine.  Josephi...

The magical tradition of brujería  is shrouded behind a veil made of assumption, colonization, and entitlement. We assume quite a lot about it. One common assumption is that it’s simply the word for witchcraft in Spanish and therefore anyone practicing any kind of magic is, indeed, practicing brujería.    Learning about this tradition is difficult and confusing for a newcomer. If you don’t already...

Almost everyone at some point looks around at their lives and asks why . We wonder why our family believes in the politics we do or eats the foods we eat. We also wonder about where our beliefs come from. Oftentimes those questions and the subsequent journey after lead people to interact with the magical community. But, what if you are already here? What if you were raised in a magical household?...