The Numinous Podcast

WE WILL NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT PERIMENOPAUSE. WE WILL NOT STOP ADVOCATING FOR UPDATED INFORMATION, GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE, AND A SERIOUS OVERHAUL OF FIRST LINE TREATMENT TO CURRENT MOST PROMISING PRACTICES IN MENOPAUSAL SUPPORT.  Lasara Firefox Allen, MSW (they/them/Mx.) is an author, educator, and certified menopause doula and coach specializing in gender-affirming menopause care . As Founder and...

Content Warning: pet death. Also, Dispatch episodes feature the background noise of me doing chores around the farm which may cause aggravation for folks with sensory processing sensitivities. Please look for a transcription within your podcast player. Madonna (Mona) Spagnderson (2013 - 2026) This is the story of how Mona was promised to me in return for not leaving my husband. This is the story o...

Let's go on a farm tour and talk business! Today I am choring, checking the horses' water, the kunekune pigs' water, and saying hi to the chickens, then on to the fields to harvest wheat and barley to dry for wheat weaving kits this fall. I'm sharing quite transparently about my income, my debt, my marketing and my foundational business philosophies. I do want to note: - As with all dispatch episo...

Storytime! This one is about how I won a trip to Greece through Contact Nutrition. I was a wine rep trying to sell relatively expensive bottom shelf wine to Greek restaurants that did not want this wine. Here's what made the difference. Join us for a mellow summer of Contact Nutrition in The Numinous Network! Thanks in advance for pre-ordering my next book: How to Connect: Build Strong Bonds and D...

A little more "Common Sense for Collapse Times" for you today with something I learned after my business was washed away in the Great Recession of 2008 and I experienced bankruptcy and some deep, deep shame. I'm talking about navigating capitalism and managing terror and desperation - somehow in 12 minutes I manage to make myself both laugh and cry, while also feeding the horses and sharing, like,...

I'm so honoured to welcome back to the podcast, one of my favourite conversations partners ever, Perdita Finn ! Perdita is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World , Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors , and with her husband Clark Strand The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary . She teaches popular workshop...

10 Rules to Live By (for Collapse or Any Other Time) This episode features the best bangers of cowboy logic, farm wisdom, and collapse tips that are getting us through some tough months here on Faulder Farm on Syilx Territory. Pre-order my book: How to Connect: Build Strong Bonds and Deep Connections Through Contact Nutrition (No Matter Your attachment Style, Trauma History or Neurotype) 🙏🏻 Than...

Today's guest, Nadine Nakagawa , is an organizer, activist, intersectional feminist, clinical counsellor, and two-term city councillor. She is also the co-founder of Feminist Campaign School which supports underrepresented people to run for and serve in elected office.  She is also the author of the forthcoming book, Moss, Molt, Murmur: Contemplations on Nature, which is now available for pre-orde...

If you are in the mood for something soothing, cozy, wholesome, and heartwarming, this episode is for you. If you are craving some quality time with a neighbour who is grounded, good-hearted, generous and genuinely curious about you and life in general, this episode is for you. If you need a comfort listen, this episode is for you. And so is the forthcoming book from today's guest, Marianne Unger...

Author and educator, Dionne Grayman , is here to talk about her new book, I Call My Own Name: A Homegirl's Lyrical Memoir of Hip-Hop, Healing and Holy Reclamation , now available for pre-order from 9th House Press . In the 90s, Dionne was just 20 years old and pregnant when her baby's father was killed. Now in her late 50s, Dionne recounts how literature and music helped her "remember herself whol...

New from 9th House Press: Mother Juniper: On Matrescence in Ecological Crisis, by Dr. Allison Claire Davis, explores the question, What happens when a woman becomes a mother during the slow emergency of our ecological crisis? Matrescence is the developmental transition of becoming a mother. As far as I can find, this is the first book published that focuses exclusively on the unique psychoemotiona...

Production Note: I used a different recording program than usual without any background noise dampening so you get to hear the summer storm roll in, my dog, Mona slurping her water, my movements as I shuffle stuff on my desk, etc...So real! So high def! So intimate and interactive! Trigger warning: Discussion of suicide and brief non-specific mention of sexual assault, overall a bummer of a topic...

If you've enjoyed discourse on this podcast about the barefoot doctor approach, community-based and culturally-relevant mental health initiatives and disability justice, as well as how ritual and spiritual literacy helps weave a stronger collective nervous system and increases community resilience, then you need to read, The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revo...

Welcome to your new hyper-niche comfort listen, my fellow disability nerds! Today we're talking with Dr. Diana Driscoll about some of the recent research on Inflammatory POTS as well as promising treatment approaches. Diana Driscoll, OD, FAAO received her Doctoral degree from The University of Houston College of Optometry, and began studying idiopathic autonomic dysfunction through the ophthalmic...

Today's episode is part announcement, part request, part inspiration, part call to action – I am delighted to welcome back my dear friend and colleague, Taraneh Erfan, in her role as Editorial Director for 9th House Press . Regular listeners will know that 9th House Press is a worker co-op founded by Taraneh , myself and our colleague, Thérèse Cator , and we are bringing you world-building books t...

This episode features my very special guest, Alysha! She's here for her third work-stay on the land, learning construction skills as she helps my husband, Ruben, build a livestock shelter. Alysha has been an amazing role model, resource, and thought partner for me around anti-colonialism for many years. Once again, here she is, advancing my thinking on the subject. Come grapple with us as we do mo...

Today we're engaging in thought partnership around critical impact ratings, mental models, and reaching for what we care about in a risk assessment framework. Note: Dispatch episodes are recorded while I'm doing farm chores and feeding the horses in the morning, so people with sensory processing challenges may not find this episode enjoyable. In this episode I'm walking in snow, jostling with meta...

This episode is actually only 24 minutes long if you subtract all the parts with me managing the fact that the horses broke the fence and got stuck in a pasture they're not supposed to be in. Skip forward to minutes 9:30 - 35:00 to hear about what we can learn from 1970s China about navigating dictatorship and collapse and orienting to a more collectivist world. Note: I record dispatch episodes wh...

This is an episode about Past Life Regression but... CW: This may be a tough one to listen to (or a validating one, depending on your situation) because I'm sharing some high-level details about my history of sexual trauma. Non-specific mentions of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and a bunch of patriarchal bullshit. I've kept it pretty non-specific, but if you care about me, it may be hard to hear....

This dispatch is a response to a lovely listener's question about how to avoid being bullied by those who respond to moral integrity with aggression. Note: Dispatch episodes are recorded extemporaneously during the morning feed of the horses, (Beau, Skaha, and Reverie). If background noises, or me sniffing, or scooping beet pulp pellets, or moving buckets around, or filling hay nets, or walking in...

Note: If you don't like the background noise of feeding horses, (opening plastic bags, pouring water, stirring, packing hay nets in a metal bin, belaboured breathing), then Dispatches are not the episodes for you. Sorry! Please see your podcast player for transcript options. Here are my hot takes and broad strokes thinking on the Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, and Wayfarer Parties la...

This dispatch covers some far-reaching terrain, from Clarissa Pinkola Estes to Luigi Mangione, from horse hoof trimming to the Harvard Law Review, from elderhood to eccentricity, imagination, and a triumphant orientation to life. Content Note: If you don't like the background noise of feeding horses, (opening plastic bags, pouring water, stirring, packing hay nets in a metal bin, belaboured breath...

Dispatch episodes are short and off the cuff, recorded while I'm doing horse chores. If sensory inputs like crunching hay, chewing animals, or occasionally laboured breathing and sniffles aggravate you, this episode may not be for you! Please see your podcast player for transcript options. In this episode, I talk about the deeply rooted defaults of Eldest Daughter Syndrome and how being heard and...

Thoughts on William Morris, enshitification, and seeking friction. Correction: William Morris wallpaper was actually block printed, not silkscreened as I said in this episode. Seeing how it was produced actually made me cry, it's so beautiful and care-full. Watch how it was made!   Note: If you have certain sensory processing issues involving background noises like hay nets being stuffed, or horse...

{Dispatch} I'm experimenting with a new, more candid format for shorter episodes called "dispatches" where I share the thoughts I have while I'm out feeding the horses. This is my first one! 🎉 I will try to make them 15 minutes or less. (Apologies in advance if they go longer because of my rambling thought trains.) They will be about current events and interpersonal issues...probably a lot of the...