Grief House - Portals

In this episode Sascha and hop into and out of control, peer around both places and report our findings. 

We discuss the sneaky forcefulness of the prey faced, our parallel 3rd grade power moves, dog packs and our friendship. 

We hope you'll come climb under and above and all around control with us.

In this recent Portals episode, Sascha talks with Tina Tau, a dreamworker and Portland Grief House board member. They discuss deep listening to dreams, looking for the message you do not already know, and do some dream processing together. 

Tina has recently written a book called Ask for Horses: Memoir of a Dream-Guided Life, and she loves to listen to people's dreams. We hope you will check it out, join us for some dreamwork here, and consider a dream journal or dream group if that speaks to you.

In this episode Sascha and I discuss our brave ventures out into the land of disappointment. 

We share tales of heroism from encounters with needs we cannot meet and valor from wanting things that might not want us back. We discuss my father, Sascha's mother and how they might be the reasons we are broken or might be the exact medicine our souls need to turn themselves smooth.

We would love to share our disappointed, disappointing hearts with you.

In this special episode I talk with my good friend and Portland Grief House-mate Hannah Hillebrand about our creature-y-ness. 

We talk about comfort and need, the price of delayed mortality, the joy of giving things up, and how we might integrate our wildness with modernity. We come up with plans to lean our animal bodies further and further away from human-made notions of good and successful, we hope for a day when we know the people we love by their smell and that we are beautiful by the way they light up when they see us.

In this episode Sasha and I interview each other's bodies. We ask about how they feel being in relationships with our brains and personalities, consider the good old days of swingsets and makebelieve, and hope for futures where we live together more honestly, tenderly and completely.

In this episode Sascha and I discuss the patterns that exists within the mysterious, swirling everything, how we orient towards them, what we risk in that turning and why we turn despite the risk. 

We review Atlanta, Hypochondria, partnership and gossip. 

We are, as always, grateful for each other and for all of you.

In this episode Sascha and I decide to sit shame down and ask her if there's anything she needs that we can offer. While not committing to provide full board and lodging,  we extend the offer of a warm bowl of soup on a cold night.

We discuss abandoned accents, the mystery of asparagus, the shock of 9th graders talking about college plans for fun and joy and sorrow of ham in every meal. 

We let each other's shame lie down with her head in our laps and pet her quietly. I cry a little bit and in the end feels deeply grateful for Sascha and friendship and limitless chances to revisit past selves with kindness in hand.

In this episode Sascha and I talk about shame.

We agree that it feels terrible, contemplate the devastating effects of its deployment, ponder its kinship with creeping infestations and howling caves and wonder about how it can be transformed. After aspiring never to ride in trucks with shame we spend some talking about how great it feels when it lifts, how friendship can work as a lifting agent and how lucky we are to have remedies for our shame in each other. In the end we come to a place of tenderness for the fear that lives in shame's heart. 

In this episode which was meant to be about the joy that comes with accepting the present moment as it is, Sascha and I explore the hysterical misery of present moments that actually suck quite a lot.

We talk about how it feels to see the right-ness of something while also wishing it would be completely different. We ponder possible culprits for downturns in enlightenment levels including the horizontal posture often assumed for sleep and decide to maintain our periods of hopeful outlook by sleeping upright always.

We hope you will enjoy our hilarious romp through mazes of uncomfortable feelings.

In this episode I talk with Moe Bowstern about her project which asks the question: What does it mean to do community magic in a bar?

We discuss the magic of asking questions a whole room of people answer from their unique place of expertise and whether a person needs special shoes to come play along (you don't). We explore the difference between intentional magic and common magic, our different experiences of childhood magic and how magic changes as it's handed down a shredded lineage. I cry a little bit about my dog Matty and Moe and I offer thoughts on how to find our way to trust.

I love Moe and this episode. I hope you will too.