Nouveau Shamanic Cinema

We watched this on the same evening as The Lion King. Both animated movies are about a mystical experience that was catalysed by the death of a parent, and we enjoyed the contrast of very different expressions of similar themes. This Studio Ghibli animation felt much more yin in its depiction of the mystical, and we enjoyed discussing the themes of undefinability, moral ambiguity, and strangeness....

We enjoy the imaginal richness that explodes out of this Disney classic and discuss how it depicts the weaving of the mystical and the physical in a timeless and beautiful way.

Life emulates movies emulates life emulating movies in this multi-layered reality-bending episode. We watch the film I Saw the TV Glow, in which two characters get deeply absorbed into a TV show, and it starts to spill over into their lives, leaving questions about what is real. For the episode, we also watched two TV episodes and wove together themes and resonances from them all, including discon...

The 2024 version of Nosferatu transformed Joost when he went to see it last year at the cinema. We discuss this and how connecting to your darkest desires as a shadow work process can open up more ease and groundedness.

For the second episode of Imaginal Gaming, we played some of the game Animal Well and talked about living in an alive Universe and Awakening as a giant interactive puzzle game. If you haven’t played the game you can watch  this short review video  to get a flavour of it. If you want to learn more about Rosa’s approach to awakening (that resonates with Animal Well), you can  find out more here .

In this double header we discuss the richness of connecting with sovereign energy and how this relates to time and non-self. We spend most of the time talking about the famous scenes from each of the movies. If you haven't seen the movies, or you haven't seen them for a while, it's worth watching these two scenes beforehand to get the context and the vibes. ⁠Avengers: Endgame Portal Scene⁠ ⁠Inters...

We watched Rosa's favourite film – the ever-magical, soul explosion Moulin Rouge! We discuss the power of love and sincerity, romantic love as an opening force and falling in love with the whole of experience through the imaginal realm.

Once again we are joined by guest David Lassiter, this time to discuss the short film that he wrote and directed – The Opportunist . We also discuss Tár and the common themes that both films portray, of psychopathy and predatory behaviour. I mention an imaginal meditation exercise from this retreat, by Ken Mcleod .

We went to watch Francis Ford Coppola's latest film at the cinema, with guest David Lassiter, and reflected on the creation of the movie as an imaginal journey.

We host an episode of a new podcast that looks at the deeper resonances that are in video games. For this episode we discuss Shadow of the Erdtree and the way that it feels like a collective soul realm. Music by Sunlight Altar

We talk about all the mythic resonance that overflows from this film and its archetypal depths. Some short videos that we discuss: Galadriel's evil mode Gimli destroys the ring Introducing characters as threats

The Nouveau Shamanic Cinema season one wrap-up, where we reflect on the 14 movies we watched in season one, the paradigms they immersed us in and the revelations each one inspired.

In Paprika a machine that allows you to enter people’s dreams goes missing and everyone starts dreaming and living in the same dream world. The film inspired amazing conversations about emptiness and form; creativity and boundaries; dream work and the animistic roots of experience. We mention Steve Aizenstat's dream tending , and River Kenna's dream return practice.

We watch the Hollywood epic, the Last Samurai, and reflect on the themes of warrior energy, psychedelic therapy and full masculine power.

We discuss evil feminine power, the many ways that it can manifest and how those ways are depicted through the horror film Suspiria.

We watched the Green Knight; we start by introducing the concepts of phenomenal opacity and transparency and discuss getting your head cut off as a metaphor for being in a non-dual flow state with meaning. We engaged with this film as a soul-realm transmission about letting go of control and finding the courage to step into the flow of life.

We watched Sunshine, with guest David Lassiter, and resonate with the themes of life and death, opening to the full raw intensity of experience and the importance of staying in touch with humanity on the spiritual path.

We watched the Witch and explored themes of how religious beliefs can shape experience as well as evil and the many different forms it can take.

In the podcast where we watch movies as if they are dreams or imaginal practice, we watch Annihilation.  We discuss its themes of reality unravelling, refraction of experience, naturalness and the Goddess journey as an alternative frame for experience. 'Dreams and imaginal practice allow the body to speak the language of the mind,' Rosa & Joost

For this episode we watched Dune; it inspired conversations about contrasts of realities, the Dune Universe being less sci-fi than consensus reality in some ways and working with mythic content and visualisations. Some of the things that resonated for us were walking through the fire and staying with the pain to ignite a mystical connection, exploring what the core of humanity is and existential t...

We watched Midsommar, a horror film about a cult, after a day of retreat and practice together and explored the themes of community, toxic cultures, the risks of collective hypnosis and, of course, love as the antidote to all these things.

For this episode we watched IT - a classic from Joost's childhood that has visited him in many nightmares since.  Engaging with it as if the movie is a dream or imaginal practice opens up discussions about alternate realities, loneliness, empowerment of the feminine life-force energy and separation as a fuel for individuation and ultimately connection

We watch Aniara with Odile Strik, in which a spaceship carrying settlers to Mars is knocked off course, causing the consumption-obsessed passengers to consider their place in the universe. We explore how the different themes impacted us and open up the topics of emptiness, meaning and who we'd like to get stuck in space with.

For this episode we watched Event Horizon. We discuss how it evokes and resonates with experiences of the depths of hell. We also recorded a shared meditative journey where we travelled into the void together, which you can listen to at the end.  Here's a link with instructions for shared journeying if you'd like to explore that topic more.

We watch the very dream-like Upstream Color, which evoked conversations about interconnection and how the imaginal and shamanic realms intersect with human connection.