The Passing Through Podcast

Is a zombie just a mindless reanimated corpse cursed with an insatiable hunger for warm brains? Or are their pained groans an attempt to tell us something real about consumption, imperial extraction, plantation capitalism and the loss of bodily autonomy under oppressive settler-colonial regimes? Modern audiences may have forgotten this, but zombies, in their proper cultural context, didn’t eat fle...

Mary-Jane Rubenstein is a philosopher of religion and science, and the author of numerous books, including Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters . In this episode, we discuss her work on pantheology, the idea that the world itself is divine. We talk about how certain ideas and bodies become monstrous. Not only is the title of this book absolutely wicked, it’s one of those books I couldn’t put down...

Listen to this episode with caution. The themes are more explicit than usual; they concern the Cornell 7 rape allegations and the larger societal forces which enable sexual violence and harm. There are two corrections I wanted to make since recording the audio. First, that not every one of the students had to write an essay as punishment. It appears only some students did. Additionally, I mentione...

I'm leaving Spotify, and I've setup a Patreon. This is the last and only episode of this show you should see listed here. If you want to find this podcast, search for it wherever you listen to podcasts, or check it out at www.thepassingthroughpodcast.com. You can find it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Castbox, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, iHeartRadio, and most other places you listen to po...

I'm back after a bit of time away. Join me for a chat about what I've been up to, where I was, and what's next for the podcast. I also talk about some of the things I've been reading, and share a few thoughts on the state of the world. This episode is brought to you by Defecation Desecration.

I'm leaving for a little while for a brief adventure. I'll be back again in about a month. Enjoy the down time!

When you think of plant medicine, one of the first things you think of is probably ayahuasca. An Intensely psychedelic kaleidoscopic weekend of hallucination and vomiting hopefully accompanied by profound shifts in consciousness. You may know someone who’s attended an ayahuasca ceremony, you may have even attended one or more yourself, but you probably haven’t heard the stories of someone who’s st...

On July 12, Funkadelic's Maggot Brain turned fifty-five. Mommy, what's a funkadelic? Join me for a very quick reflection on this enormously influential psychedelic funk rock album. Frontman George Clinton and guitarist Eddie Hazel are musical heroes, and to commemorate this special anniversary George Clinton landed the mothership in New Orleans at the Essence Festival. If you too share vis...

This week John Seed is Passing Through. A pioneering environmentalist, musician, activist and writer, John has played a formative role in shaping Deep Ecology globally. Beginning back in 1979 he began putting his life on the line to defend rainforests and would later found and direct The Rainforest Information Center to continue this important work.  Since then he’s initiated projects protecting r...

There's a heatwave passing through, and we're passing through it. At least here in Europe. I was delighted to ramble through part of it with the lovely Dan Burgess . Earthling, father, partner, and brother, Dan is a regenerative practitioner, creative strategist, action researcher, co-designer, un/learning guide, facilitator, activist, writer, speaker, podcaster and DJ working at the inter...

My guest this week is pioneering psychedelic researcher, Dr. Louise Hecker. Under her guidance, a team of scientists made shocking clinical discoveries for the first time in history. Studying a group of elderly mice, the scientists observed that administering heroic doses of psychedelic mushrooms conferred geroprotective benefits to their cells and appear to slow down aging. Her research is paving...

This week I'm passing through the space between your ears! Join me for a liminal stream-of-consciousness ramble into the unknown, as I hunger for your wax and comb the murky depths of what's bubbling up through my mind.

This week I had the chance to speak with Tristan Gooley — a man who’s been called The Sherlock Holmes of nature by the BBC. Tristan is the author of a series of books exploring the topic of natural navigation. Now, you may not have heard this term before. What is natural navigation? Well, to answer that question we'd have to ask, what did people do before maps and compasses were invented? Curi...

This week Francis Weller is Passing Through!  How do we work with grief? Why is it important to metabolize our sorrow in a group setting? How does grief work and grief ritual differ from group therapy or support groups? What is grief asking of us? To help us answer these questions, I’m honored to have passed through this space with someone who’s been a teacher and inspiration to me, Francis Weller...

This week I’m passing through southern Poland with a little preamble about grief (stay tuned for a more thorough investigation to come).   This episode is a short, stream-of-consciousness exploration of the difficult emotions that we cast aside into liminal space in modern culture: inadequacy, anger, resentment, fear, uncertainty, humiliation, loss, sadness, grief. Inside any living thing there’s...

Did you ever get the feelin’ you was bein’ watched?  This week I’m passing through a network of Flock Safety cameras that are all watching my every move and making me wonder what my Fourth Amendment rights are for. This is the surveillance episode. This episode is all about how the most powerful surveillance apparatus in human history was built — not by a government, or a dictator, but in plain si...

This week I’m passing through remembering the past couple of weeks. Join me for a chat about time spent with my father in Portugal, reflections on child-parent relations, Community Building, and Asia and I's first time on our own as facilitators.

Jeremy Lent, visionary thinker, founder of The Deep Transformation Network, and author of books like The Patterning Instinct , The Web of Meaning , and most recently, Ecocivilizaiton: Making A World That Works For All , joins us this week on The Passing Through Podcast. He takes a systems-thinking approach to assess our collective unraveling, which is, by definition a systemic crisis, and he empha...

This week I'm passing through with some news! We've got a website! Now you can stream episodes, search content, watch animated transcripts, comment, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts without having to use Spotify or pay for any apps. Check it out: https://thepassingthroughpodcast.com I'm also on Substack now. If you want to check out supplemental writing-based content, you...

Filmmaker, writer, and philosopher Werner Herzog is Passing Through (he's always passing through) for a conversation about the state of the world — oil, artificial intelligence, borders, and what lies underneath all of it. He discusses H.P. Lovecraft, the moth that drinks from the tears of sleeping birds, a jar of crude oil he has kept sealed for many years, and a specific frog who he may or may n...

What does it mean to build a new world when you haven't figured out how to leave the old one behind? Grace Rachmany returns to The Passing Through Podcast for the second time, this time calling in from Malaysia, where she had been living inside a crypto-bro utopia not entirely dissimilar to the eco-villages where we first met. Different tribe, same restless hunger for something better. We talk...

In this solo episode of  The Passing Through Podcast , we dive deep into the ancient meditation practice of  Vipassana . After completing my third 10-day silent retreat, join me for a talk where I unpack what really happens inside a Vipassana course: the intense physical pain, the psychological unraveling, and my confrontation with an unfocused mind. Before we start I'll lay out some core Budd...

This week I’m joined by biologist, author, educator and deep listener David George Haskell. David is a contributor to publications such as the New York Times, Scientific American and The Guardian, he has produced sound projects with Emergence Magazine, and he has a brand new book coming out later this month, titled How Flowers Made Our World . David’s work is perched in the wonderful place between...

Join me for a different kind of episode this week, and it's a long one. Lots of people are talking about Epstein—not enough, in my opinion, considering it’s quite possibly the biggest, most disturbing scandal in modern history—so I’d like to share some thoughts. I’m going to explore this with a "straight from the horses mouth" approach, using sometimes graphic multimedia throughout t...

In this episode of The Passing Through Podcast, entomologist, ecologist, educator and author Doug Tallamy reveals why insects are the foundation of life on Earth, and what happens if they disappear. From caterpillars and chickadees to invasive species, deer, and global insect decline, we explore how biodiversity underpins our food systems, ecosystems, and even social stability. Doug explains why n...