Animacy

In this episode, Zack Geist and Bayo Akomolafe engage in a dancing of words around the constantly changing issues of these queer times of Spring 2020. Akin to flies they find themselves tangled in the spider's web, a sensation both uncomfortable and familiar, they attempt to feel their way towards something just out of reach. Energized by the exhausted common narrative Zack and Bayo explore the realm that is inhabited by the invisibles as though they may have been listening all along. They invite you to join them on the edge of where fact and fiction breed and birth the myths that shape the lens of our times. 

Bayo Akomolafe is globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, counterintuitive, and indigenous take on global crisis, civic action, activism and social change. He is an international speaker, poet and activist for a radical paradigm shift in consciousness and current ways of living. His readings of ‘knowledge’, ‘development’, ‘progress’ and ‘truth’ as Eurocentric metanarratives led him and his wife, Ej to develop the first International Workshop on Alternative Research Paradigms and Indigenous Knowledge Promotion (WARP, 2011). Bayo is a member of the advisory board of the Real Economy Lab (UK). In 2014, and was awarded for Global Excellence Award [Civil Society] by Future Shapers (California). He is the Chief Curator for The Emergence Network (A Post-Activist Project) [www.emergencenetwork.org], and host of the online writing course, ‘We will dance with Mountains: Writing as a Tool for Emergence’. He hopes to inspire a diffractive network of sharing – a slowing down, an ethics of entanglement, an activism of inquiry, a ‘politics of surprise’…one that does not treat the crisis of our times as exterior to ‘us’ or the ‘solutions’ that conventional activism offers as discrete or separate from the problems that we seek to nullify. Bayo has authored two books, We Will Tell Our Own Story! and These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home.

Tricia Eastman is a medicine woman who works with the plant medicine Iboga. Tricia has spent time with the medicine people of Gabon Africa and the Bwiti Shamans in initiation through this extremely powerful and deeply healing medicine. Having lead thousands of healing journeys in the West, Tricia helps explorers of consciousness open up to the medicine and integrate the profound insights that are shared through the experience. 

Zack and Tricia speak about Iboga's potential for helping heal addiction of all kinds and how through this healing expanding our states of being and our understanding around God and the sacred. Zack speaks about how it was through Iboga that he moved from white knuckling sobriety towards an understanding of what the root cause of his addictions were and what they were masking that Iboga helped reveal to him. Iboga is a messenger that cannot be ignored, you can't "do it wrong" if you have the right intention, Iboga will show you the truth about yourself. We also talk about lucid dreaming and explore whether the state of Iboga takes you to a similar world to that of a highly lucid state in dreams. 

Jennifer Dumpert is an "oneironaut", an explorer of dream consciousness, who has spent many decades working with the liminal dream space. Liminal Dreaming is the space that we often don't pay attention to and hence barrel through it from waking consciousness all the way to REM sleep. Jennifer teaches us that there is a whole world available in these spaces, a world full of insight, creativity and healing, and the same very real dimension where Salvadore Dali and Thomas Edison would use to create works of art and genius. Nicola Tesla would often inquire with his assistant to whether he was dreaming or not because he was so often in this liminal dream space. Zack explores with Jennifer some of the possibilities available to us in the Liminal Dream space and how it can help us with nightmares, creativity, healing and becoming comfortable with the unknown and even death. You'll become acquainted to the "Bardo" state referred to by the Tibetan Holy men and referred to by different names by other mystics. 

Jennifer is the author of the book "Liminal Dreaming" and teaches workshops at many transformational festivals. She has been known to say that one when cultivates liminal dream states, one can open themselves up to psychedelic experiences without any of the negative consequences that can be associated with those medicines. There is a world alive within us all that begs to be witnessed and explored in her depth and beauty. 

This episode was recorded at the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic when uncertainty regarding the CARES act was even greater than it is now. Student Loans had been put in 6 month disaster forbearance with interest rates dropped to 0% on Direct Student Loans. The tax deadlines had been extended to July and memorandums to stop evictions had been rumored. 

Now nearly 8 weeks have passed and we are only beginning to see and feel the economic implications of Covid19, with middle income citizens having some of the fears that the lower income citizens suffer with as a way of life. 

In this episode Derek Tennant and Zack speak about debt, capitalism, gift economy, student loans and taxes. Derek is an enrolled IRS agent and has worked for many years with Lynn Twist's work, "The Soul of Money." Derek works helping tax payers pay less to the IRS and offers his services 100% in the Spirit of the Gift. 

In this episode Zack Geist holds a dialogue with depth psychologist and founder of the Jung Society of Utah and the Jung Platform Machiel Klerk. Zack and Machiel speak about the COVID19 virus and its effects on the the psyche both individually and collectively. They also dive into the realm of dream work, Jungian depth psychology, lucid dreaming, shamanic and ecstatic practices and how to integrate those experiences and share meaning with others. 

Zack and Machiel talk about a course that begins April 2nd featuring mythologist and elder Michael Meade, and depth psychologists James Hollis and Robert Bosnak where they will be exploring the Corona Virus both mythically and psychologically. 

If you'd like to participate in the Corona workshop with Michael Meade, James Hollis and Robert Bosnak, you can find it here at this link: https://www.jungplatform.com/partner/EcstaticDance

Ben Sessa is a medical doctor and child psychiatrist who specializes in treating PTSD arising from incidents of childhood trauma. In this episodes Zack and Madeleine speak about how the medicine MDMA may essentially be psychiatry’s antibiotic when taken in the medicine’s pure form, in a therepuetic setting, with proper intention and integration with a trained professional over a 12 week cycle. Zack shares of his healing journey that was catalyzed by this “miracle” medicine that he first discovered through one of Ben Sessa’s Ted Talks. Ben Sessa is one of the founders of the world’s first legal and licensed psychedelic therapy clinics located in the UK, which opens its doors in 2020.

Yaegon & Eve, better known as the prolific duo both electronic music producer Kalya Scintilla , founder of Merkaba music, with theatre director/storyteller Evoke founder of Evokation Sacred Art, join Zack and Madeleine to discuss their new album Gaian Code.

Gaian Code invites the listener to feel deeply, to come alive to the fact that we are all connected and that there is no separation.

In the Yakut language, OLOX means life, and their mission is just this, to serve life and bridge the ancient wisdom with the troubles facing today by surrendering to the Ecstatic through music and dance, and connecting to nature through Ecstatic states of being.

Zarina was born in a small village of 800 people in Yakut Siberia, the coldest place on earth where it gets -94 degrees in the winter. She was born and raised in a Shamanic culture and was initiated to share her music and culture with the world by her Tungus Shaman.

Shamanism originated in her part of the world and still lives on today. In this episode Zarina and Andreas speak to tapping into the Shamanic in our nature and that a portal to the Ecstatic and Divine is always alive within us all, when we remember and understand how to look.

Zack and Madeleine speak with Tyler Blank Founder of EcstaticDance.Org and co-founder of the Ecstatic Dance Oakland which many refer to as the “Mothership,” of the current international Ecstatic Dance Movement. The history of Ecstatic Dance and the amazing transformation that can occur from dancing and experiencing ecstatic states of consciousness are discussed. If you love Ecstatic Dance, if you have no idea what Ecstatic Dance is Or if you are fearful of experiencing Ecstatic Dance, this episode can be illuminating, enjoyable and helpful to you.

Kathryn Dixon founded the Clarity Coaching Institute of Salt Lake City Utah in 2003. She did this to share and expand upon the beautiful work of Byron Katie. In this episode her and Zack go deep into what it means to be “living the gift”.