The Passing Through Podcast

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...

Right now the world feels like it’s unraveling—politically, ecologically, spiritually. We’re at a time when love can feel naive, beauty can feel fragile, and the word empire is painfully alive and present. In this episode, I’m honored to be joined by Indigenous scholar, scientist, musician, and activist Dr. Lyla June Johnston . We explore love as resistance, beauty as a moral force, and what Indig...

This week I'm down with the sickness (Oh, ah-ah-ah-ah). I'm ill! Part man, part exotic virus. Join me for a very quick and delirious update from the non-ordinary state of consciousness we collectively call sickness.

In this solo episode, I reflect on  stillness, resistance and the use of force, as well as what it means to live through times of ecological and social crisis . I talk about the pressure of weekly creation, the value of slowing down, and the tension between offering something out of obligation versus presence. I speak about what’s unfolding in the United States — state-sponsored violence, authorit...

What if learning to love a forest could change how you see responsibility, courage, and your place in the living world?  From trees that sweat clouds to foxes guided by invisible forces, today’s conversation invites us back into a world alive with wonder. Joining us today on The Passing Through Podcast is Ethan Tapper, author of the award-winning book How to Love a Forest . Ethan is an internation...

This week I'm passing through the snowy mountains of southwestern Poland. Join me for a meandering ramble that begins with dissolution and letting go. What does it mean to let go of everything and dissolve? In this episode I ask questions like: ​What is this podcast about? ​Who is it for? ​What's the point? ​Should you pull the mouse from the maw of a feral beast? This is an episode for new listen...

Hello and welcome to 2026! Join me for a quick current events update at the start, followed by a deep dive into some of the environmental, socio-cultural and cognitive impacts of artificial intelligence and social media and how these things have been passing through my existence recently. Here's a quote from Vanessa Andreotti that I share near the end of the episode: "Algorithmic modernit...

This week we're passing through the winter solstice; perhaps our most ancient human holiday. What is the winter solstice? What is nature doing in the winter time? What is it asking of us? What can it tell us? What does letting go of your leaves look like? Step into the darkest day of the year with me for a festive ramble where I ruminate on questions like these, tell stories about feral pigs a...

My dance partner today is the lovely and soulful Sara McFarland. Sara is a storyteller, ritual performance artist, an improvisational singer, a soul initiation guide, a wild mind mentor, and a death doula for The Great Dying. Sara’s views are rooted in an animist understanding of the world where story and myth and music and poetry are held dear and near to the heart. Sara helps people initiate int...

Some people dedicate their lives not just to imagining different futures, but to deliberately, courageously crafting and inhabiting them — long before the mainstream catches up. This week on The Passing Through Podcast , I’m very excited to introduce Anna Kovasna. Anna is a systems thinker, creative convener, and passionate weaver of local resilience and kinship with all life. She works with commu...

This week, in this special 100th episode, I’m passing through Laski, Poland with a bunch of ancestors; living and dead. Join me (and a few special guests) for an episode dedicated to giving thanks and honoring those who’ve come before us as we explore gratitude and reciprocity as possible doorways through which we can unchain ourselves from modernity’s shackles of violence, isolation, alienation,...

We live in a world consumed by code, and advanced by algorithms. For all of our technological prowess and alleged progress, we’re still haunted by the oldest questions; about love, meaning, loss, suffering, and what it means to be human creatures in times of precarity and collapse. My guest today — returning to The Passing Through Podcast to contemplate these questions — is our friend Douglas Rush...

Beneath the noise of harrowing headlines and persistent propaganda, I suspect there’s a deeper movement growing: people remembering their collective power, refusing erasure, refusing silence and, choosing instead to tell their stories.  My guest today is Rolla Selbak — a Palestinian-American filmmaker and storyteller whose work is rooted in resistance, solidarity, and the imagination of freedom. A...

This week we’re passing through with the lovely Grace Rachmany where we’ll take a look at the relational, emotional, and ecological connective tissue that binds us to every living thing on this planet. Grace is a field representative dedicating her energy toward addressing the metacrisis. She’s a pioneering thinker, writer, consultant and coder whose work bridges decentralized technology, digital...

This week I'm passing through Berlin, Germany! Back in September my partner and I attended a 5-day training in Portugal, on Peace Building. Since then I've been meaning to record an episode about the experience and discuss the topics we explored. As you might imagine, distilling five days of training down to less than 60-minutes means I won't be able to cover everything we learned abou...

This week, Josh Schrei is Passing Through! Josh is the creator and host of The Emerald Podcast — one of my own personal favorite podcasts. Josh isn’t just an educator, storyteller, music-maker, writer and pioneer in the field: in terms of podcasting he’s one of the best to ever do it. If you’re curious about spirituality, Buddhism, the collision of Western consciousness with eastern animist cosmol...

This week, Diarmuid Lyng is Passing Through! Many of us simply speak. Others load their language up with love, respect, humor, humility, kindness, poetry and play. Today’s guest, Diarmuid Lyng, is one of the latter. Diarmuid is an educator, former Wexford hurling captain, facilitator and lover of nature with a great passion for the Irish language. His work is rooted in a deep commitment to helping...

In this episode I’m joined by someone whose life is steeped in sound: musician and creative, Dan Barracuda.  Dan is a passionate musician with a gift for peeling back the layers of music we thought we knew, offering illuminating breakdowns of classic songs that reveal their hidden textures and timeless beauty. He brings both heart and craft to his work, reminding us that music is not just entertai...

This week Doctor Patricia June Vickers is Passing Through! Dr Vickers is a poet, artist, writer and internationally respected psychotherapist specializing in trauma of first nation peoples. She is a member of the Eagle clan from the village of Gitxaala, British Columbia and carries a traditional name from her village as well as from the Nuxalk Nation in Bella Coola, British Columbia.  Dr Vickers h...

In this episode, the phantastic Gabriel Durham is Passing Through — for the second time! Longtime listeners will remember Gabriel as the meticulously learned Buddhist meditator and martial artist from episode 24. Gabriel is now a dad and we teamed up for a discussion as part of an upcoming publication called Outside The Center , which explores the topic of non-duality.  In our conversation we talk...

This week I'm passing through Lake Balaton, Hungary. Join me for a brief sweaty ramble after the Global Eco-village Network Gathering, musings about being beset by a biblical swarm of midges, murmurating starlings, animacy, and whatever else I was talking about when I recorded this episode. In loving memory of the one and only, Mitch the Midge.

Not all heroes wear capes.  In this episode, we go straight to the streets of central Gaza where I speak with Khalid Qadas : photographer, medical student, and humanitarian volunteer with the Gaza Soup Kitchen .  Khalid is heroic and unwaveringly human — full of hope, heart, and determination to help — even in the face of incredible loss and genocide. Khalid moved from the United Arab Emirates to...

In times of genocide, when silence is complicity, some courageous people are stepping forward to take action, and empowering others to do the same.  This week, I had the honor of speaking with Ahmed Bashbash, a Palestinian developer using his skills to build tools that help people around the world take a stand against atrocity. Ahmed is the creator of No Thanks , a free mobile app designed to supp...

This week Manda Scott is Passing Through! Manda is not only a bestselling author, podcaster and teacher, she’s a lovely and passionate human championing values like integrity, compassion, and generosity of spirit in a quest to envision the kinds of emergent futures we’d be proud to leave behind.  In our talk we explore the power of story, the myth of separability and powerlessness, the importance...

This week, the lovely Lydia Schamschula is Passing Through! I had the privilege of meeting Lydia in April during my first experience with Holotropic breathwork. She organizes and facilitates events with the team at Holotropic Breathwork Berlin, and has spent over a decade deepening her practice. Her background includes other modalities such as Zen and Osho meditation, Qigong, and yoga, which all i...