Jada is our Queen

In this episode, we talk about the freedom to enjoy pleasure in one's own way and what that might look like. Chas talks about the devotion that her younger self gifts to her older self given the fact that in any present moment, she is the youngest she is going to be for the rest of her life. Her older self likes that the bed is made in the morning so it’s a pleasure to get into at night and that her socks are folded right side out. Small pleasures compound.

Julia reiterates that it is almost impossible to give from empty having extracted energy from ourselves via work, family and childcare.

We agree that we can only give from full and discuss our ways of ‘filling up’. These can take the form of writing steps, practices and pleasure. We discuss the advantages of taking small sustainable steps with discipline and patience which in turn brings freedom and, of course, more pleasure!.

How Low Can You Go?

This week, we set out to create a podcast based on lighter material, but weightier subjects to hand would not allow it.

Chas, still shocked from experiencing extreme and unwarranted verbal abuse at work, brought that experience to the pre-recording table. That microcosmic incident came at a time that Meghan Markle was being strongly censured by the British press for speaking out about her treatment by them and members of the extended British royal family. The first news reports regarding the murder of Sarah Everard was breaking, with women paying their respects to her being strong armed by the police. And the attack and vilification of female leaders around the world was on the agenda of many discussion panels and talk shows.

In our podcast, Julia questions the aggressive shouting down of women or poc who dare to put themselves in the public sphere right in the face of the construct that dismisses their worries, fears and concerns. And we dare to come up with a possible solution to uphold these courageous people in solidarity and support.

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In an attempt to focus on the positive and not get dragged into conversations about the emerging New World Order, Brexit or anything else depressing and potentially even frightening, Chas and Julia speak their use of gratitudes in life and practice.

They contemplate how gratitudes can be used as a bypassing tool too, taking us away from the fruits of skilfully navigating the down. And they suggest ways as to how we can skillfully navigate down turns in life and use them for increased personal power. They explore the everyday grit of how gratitudes can work person over time and how it is one of their favourite tools for inspiration. And how it is always the small, baby steps in a good direction that move us forward.

Chas gets up close and personal too - gratitudes are not just fluffy new age platitudes. She cites them as one of the main practices that brought her out of a suicidal depression.

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Chas and Julia talk around the houses and ask difficult questions such as is the digitisation of life the penultimate act of colonisation? Is it leading us into a whole new era of slavery? Chas mentions how she has never really seen any of this go away, and how annoying it is when people who are accustomed to comfort are always shocked when episodes of racism are publicly aired. She was taught to efface the more jarring parts of her personality as a black woman in order to survive, and warns us that we really cannot walk quietly into darker times. Resistance and grace are paramount. We can at any point withdraw our consent.

Why is the feminine seen as being so dangerous? And what happens when we take a descent into that realm? Julia and Chas talk again around their favourite subject - desire - and hit some emotional depths with what it's meant for them in their lives. Why is feminine desire so feared and shamed? What does it take to suppress desire? Plus we also talk about the size of our collective bosom. Just because.

This week Bernadette is still missing in adventure action. But nevermind, as Julia and I talk about what has kept us on the sane side of stir crazy in 2020. We continue our travels, virtual and otherwise, by doing our version of Room 101 - namely by nominating the tools for survival and thriving we’d put into our adventure backpacks.

We talk about reconnecting to our indigenous spirit in a time of growing automation, dispossession and trans-humanism and we pay more than a passing reference to the importance of the arts.

Julia reads us a poem about desire, something we’re committed to exploring in future podcasts. What’s your view on all of this? We’re loving your comments yay or nay so do keep those coming.

Do enjoy this week, we look forward to seeing you when we’re back next Friday with a new episode.

EVERYTHING CAN BE A MAGIC ADVENTURE – YOU ONLY HAVE TO DECIDE THAT IT IS SO...

Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road. Dag Hammarskjold

On the first day of Brexit, Julia and I discuss the changing nature of the traditional idea of adventure in our lives. We talk about how the ebb and flow of how our travels and our environment affect how we operate minute to minute. Talking of commodities, we now know that data is the new oil, and that humans, as the source of data, have become the new commodity. Arguably perhaps, data has become the new colonisation and we see if we can turn that to our advantage by going on the adventure of learning this data inspired new language.

In this episode we look into entitlement as a block to receiving. Chas tells us how she used to do this in a big way and how she finally saw through her entitlement and - in her words - grew up and out of it. We also explore how uncomfortable it is when people throw their entitlement at you and why that means they will sometimes get the thing, but it never means they get the deeper thing. Ie - connection.

We meander into the concept of social activism vs personal responsibility - whether the two can ever meet and whether perhaps they should? Like in an ideal world, we might work towards marrying personal responsibility within our lives, with identifying and overthrowing limiting/harmful social contexts.

We end our discussion, as we often do, by centering into the power of our desire to circumnavigate all of this.

Oh and we also tell you some news about Bernadette - who is given to disappearing into the jungle every now and again.

Today, whilst Bernadette is away on a pretty epic quest in a jungle somewhere in South America, Julia and I talk about the need to adventure - both the inner and outer kind - and how we can keep having them so that we can feel alive and stay curious.

We talk about the spell of disparate realities and how we break out of that so that we can navigate difficult or curtailing circumstances in order to test our perceptions of a reality that is supportive of our vision, dreams and adventurous spirit. How audacious do we have to be to break out of conformity?

(Words by Chas Hines)

This week we cover all sorts of terrain - literally. From London to Switzerland to Mexico and back again. And we discuss what makes us move, whether politics is relevant, and how losing the fear of death is really the key to everything. We talk about the spell-like quality of Covid. And Bernadette helps by telling us how her parents were so scared to go grocery shopping because of the virus, that they ate a rotten chicken and nearly died of food poisoning. 'Cos you gotta laugh really, in times such as these.