“We need to be shocked into beauty.”

Welcome to the Temporary Autonomous Zone. 

In this episode, we discuss being “stuck” in the body, and Hakeem Bey’s concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones: an artistic means of transcending the rules of our current realities. We delve into our relationships with our bodies, their wisdom, and the dangers of overidentification with them. We discuss liberatory tactics such as Poetic Terrorism to disrupt the mundane and shock people into beauty – as well as the burdens that come with being the disruptor. We discuss when to stay and fight, the love and freedom in letting go, and the role forgiveness plays in it all.

Chapters

00:00 Feeling Stuck in the Body

03:01 Exploring Temporary Autonomous Zones

07:42 The Concept of Poetic Terrorism

12:44 Body and Identity: Personal Journeys

18:57 The Wisdom of the Body

27:15 The Role of the Disruptor

35:20 Navigating Family Dynamics, Ideological Differences, Erasure, and Harm

40:34 The Burden of Being a Change Maker

43:27 The Freedom in Letting Go

55:17 Creating Space for New Beginnings

"Sometimes we discover what something is by subtraction. So you're actually shaping a new reality by removing things that obscure that reality."

Pedro is newly employed, Mercedez is lost in the present, and Katerina is becoming famous... and the rapture still hasn't hit, yet. In this episode we explore:

• Navigating our professional coming out
• Finding out where all the "No's" go
• Growing like bamboo
• Staying your soul's course
• Social media's role in society and the artist's life
• Disappearing to be found and the art that emerges from that place
• Using obsession as a gift and precision in where we aim it

"I have this vision of myself for a reason." PERIOD. Namaste, friends.

Hey y’all. It’s been a minute, and we’re questioning reality and our place within it. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Are we NPC’s?!

• The repetition of history

• Is the Universe constantly responding to our thoughts or are we making meaning out of random chaos?

• Non-linear time, predetermination, and multiple dimensions

• Heightened spiritual experiences + the dangers of belief

• What are we doing when we are not fighting?

• Emergences from non-doing and silence: the concept of Wu Wei

• Christianity vs Scredianity 

• Butoh & The Art of the Grotesque

• Buck Minsterfuller, Dynamic Maximum Tension, & creating at the edge

• Knowing the truth of life and trusting

  
  

Buck the fuck up, everybody.

We're back after a short hiatus with LOADS on our minds.

We start our conversation with money, revolution, and consciousness:

• Gentrification and homeownership in upstate New York

• History, karma, and the repetition of patterns

• The role of money in activism and community

• Navigating wealth and consciousness

• The material world vs inner reality

• Healing and presence amidst suffering

• Compassion and material wealth

Then, we get into stories of Crack Angels and other deities. We explore:

• Personal encounters with crack angels and unexpected blessings

• Drugs as a way to sneak into heaven
• Innocence without ignorance

And, ripely on the cusp of pride month, we close with a little bit about gender and queerness:

• Lessons from gay ducks
• The restrictions of gender roles

• Queerness as an antidote to traditional norms

• The inadequacy of identity and labels

• Beyond words: the essence of existence

• Future Informed Indigeneity

This episode was fun! And perhaps contains some of our hottest takes yet. We discuss:

• Is the Devil real? 
• Exploring the Enneagram… and dark forces
• Christian conspiracies
• Self authority vs God vs external systems of information
• The nature of life and our part in it: flourishing, chaos, and change
• The effects of being guided by our collective fear of death
• Embracing the Infinitude - we’re seeds.
• Thought experiment: What IF this life was really IT? O__O
• Getting back to awe, wonder, and curiosity
• Neutrality as a liberating concept

Stay Spicy :)

Happy New Year!

In this episode, we reflect on the conflicting symbolism of the winter and holiday season, we realize that America is an abusive partner, and we laugh through the confusion, dread, and ridiculousness of it all.

We talk about taking a step back from alarmist attitudes, releasing fear over death or destiny, and saying "enough" and meaning it.

We vibe over theories of non-attachment as a path to freedom, indigenous languages without nouns, as well as ALIENS, the CIA, psychics, and other other immaterial things we don't understand.

We go all over the place, and get nowhere - right where we belong.

Knowing nothing is the beginning. Laugh through it all with us.

November is usually a sweet, mellow month. Except when it's an election year. In this episode, we share our post-election reactions, and offer some shifts of perspective.

Topics to discover:

The Communion Podcast went live!

For the first time in Longmont, Colorado we gathered with a live audience to discuss all things embodied and disembodied spirituality.

In the conversation portion of our night, we vibe and discuss:

"At the end of this, we all die. So I'm so glad we're spending our brief time on Earth doing this." - Katerina

The Communion Podcast went live!

For the first time in Longmont, Colorado we gathered with a live audience to discuss all things embodied and disembodied spirituality.

We first kicked off the night with poetry, featuring special guest poet Almina Hodek.

Embodied spirituality is a practice that integrates the mind, body, and spirit, emphasizing that spiritual experiences are not separate from the physical world but are deeply connected to and expressed through the body. It rejects the dualistic notion that the body is a mere vessel for the soul, instead advocating that our bodies are sacred sites of wisdom, identity, and transformation.

Through the creative and spiritual expressions of poetry, art, and ritual, embodied spirituality encourages a reclamation of the body as a central means of engaging with divinity and the world around us.

This concept is poignantly explored in *This Is My Body*, a live poetry and podcast recording event featuring Mercedez, Katerina Jeng, Pedro Senhorinha Silva, and special guest Almina Hodek. Each of these artists brings their own experience of navigating the intersections of identity, trauma, and joy through their bodies.

Almina Hodek, as an immigrant to the US, brings an awareness of how being grounded in Place, being grounded to the Earth influences and impresses upon us as spiritual beings having an embodied experience.

Katerina Jeng reclaims their body in a political and healing context, exploring the pain and liberation of inhabiting a queer, neurodivergent Asian femme body.

Mercedez, a interdisciplinary artist, uses her own body as a canvas to explore the collapsing and rediscovering of identities and God.

Pedro Senhorinha Silva reflects on the struggles and awakenings of being in a Black male body, ultimately creating space for freedom and self-definition.

Together, they express a spirituality that is grounded in the lived experience of their bodies. Their poetry becomes a medium through which they speak the sacred, exploring the relationship between the personal, collective, and divine in a world that often imposes limitations on how bodies should be experienced and understood.

Embodied spirituality, in this context, is an act of resistance, healing, and communion—an invitation to reclaim and celebrate the body as an intrinsic part of our spiritual journey.

"What does it feel like to feel safe in our bodies?"

TW's in this episode: brief references to sexual violence & sex-trafficking

This mini episode is a preview of the topic we'll be discussing in our first live event: This Is My Body!

We discuss:

Our first live event will be in Boulder, Colorado on October 24th. Follow our instagram to stay updated! @communionpodcast