Cauldrons — cooking vessels — have been part of the human experience and have captured the human imagination for a very long time, from the ancient Celtic cauldron myths to Shakespeare's archetypal vision of three crones and their bubbling brew to the cauldron cults of the African diaspora.

But far more than a simple vessel, the cauldron becomes in many cultures synonymous with larger internal and external processes — with the alchemical journey of the transformation of the soul, with yoga, with consciousness, and ultimately with the universe itself. Today on The Emerald, we look at cauldrons, inner and outer.

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In this episode we take a deep dive into the abyss — the seemingly unbridgeable gap that exists between science and spirit. Are there places where science — which sees the universe as something that, to quote physicist Stephen Hawking, doesn’t need God in order to exist, and spirituality, which sees an animate universe created with consciousness and perhaps infused with consciousness — can find commonality? What are these places, these commonalities? How far do they go? And are these two worldviews in their heart of hearts ultimately more similar than we think?

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The active practice of imaginative visioning has been utterly central for many societies. Far from being fantasy, such practices reinforce a deep understanding of the cosmos in which the active cultivation of imagination relates directly to tangible actualization — the ability to do, to see and understand, to shape one’s mind and therefore one’s life, to reap the benefits of spaciousness, luminosity, and calm in the mind, to bridge the inner and outer worlds, to understand oneself, the place of the individual within a community and cosmos. Considering its prevalence, it’s quite possible that ultimately for human culture to survive we need to actively imagine and seek visions.

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The word 'enchanted' is used a lot, from old fairy tales to modern pop culture. But enchantment is not something reserved for fairy stories or for vague tingling feelings when we encounter something mysteriously wonderful. What if I were to tell you, for example, that enchanted land is an actual thing, a very real thing. I’ve been to dozens upon dozens of places that are enchanted. You’ve probably walked unknowingly across enchanted land yourself. There is enchanted land on at least six of the seven continents of planet earth, and for a very very long time, among very very many people, land was not considered to even be in its full expression, to realize its full potential as land unless it had been deliberately enchanted. In fact, the enchantment of land has been considered by many cultures their ultimate duty as human beings. And the implications of increasing swaths of unenchanted land are very real for both us and the planet.

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He’s stirred the imagination of poets and writers and artists for 30 centuries. Rilke wrung his pale heart out to him. He finds his way into Shakespeare and Nietzsche, into the librettos of Stravinsky and Lizst. He’s the subject of ballets and sonnets and even avant-garde films.

I’m speaking, of course, of Orpheus. In this episode of The Emerald, I speak with author Ann Wroe about her remarkable book Orpheus: The Song of Life.  In the book, Wroe explores Orpheus from his Thracian shamanic roots into the modern era, finally coming to the conclusion — as many poets have — that Orpheus is not simply an abstract figure from the myths of old, but is the animate force itself, the force of song and poetry so timeless and so necessary in our modern world.

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It’s easy to dismiss the practice of sacrifice as brutal, but the fact is that sacrifice, enacted in varying degrees in both external and internal ritual, has dominated human traditions for thousands of years in cultures around the world. Today on the podcast, a look at humanity’s relationship with sacrifice — its prevalence, its permutations,  and how modern culture, without ritualized forms of sacrifice, compensates for what has been a driving force for humanity for thousands of years. Perhaps, we discover, the act of ritual sacrifice is so inherent to the human experience that our modern culture inevitably finds ways to enact this cycle over and over again, whether consciously or not.

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In the modern western understanding of consciousness, certain states are afforded the status of more important, or real, than others. The visionary state of meditative trance, which has been critically important for many cultures, takes a back seat to 'Normal Waking Consciousness.' Yet is the visionary state really less important than what we call Normal Waking Consciousness? And how have we historically treated those states of consciousness that veer from what has been termed ‘normalcy?’ With a modern lifestyle that is drastically different from how our ancestors lived, does what we call Normal Waking Consciousness even bear resemblance to how humans experienced the world for most of our history? Today on the Podcast, Sei and Her Soul Are Separated: The Colonization of Consciousness and Reclaiming the Visionary State

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Modern yoga has put forward a vision of the whole human being that revolves around comfort, ease, freedom from pain, and the healing of trauma. Yet in many cultures, what we call discomfort is actively sought out as a portal to the state of spiritual revelation. In fact, almost all traditional rituals that lead to the revelatory state of trance involve deliberate discomfort or some form of ritually induced trauma.

In this episode, we journey to what can be a very uncomfortable place — the cremation ground — to discuss notions of comfort and discomfort, death, and surrender in practice. And along the way we find that true comfort may not always be found where we normally think it is.

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In his classic novel Slaughterhouse Five, about four-dimensional alien beings and a protagonist that has come unstuck in time, Kurt Vonnegut describes death as 'violet light and a hum.' The state of absorptive consciousness has been associated with the color violet, and with the sound of the hum, in many cultures around the world for many thousands of years. In this episode, we look at the relationship of the trance state to this place of the violet hum, exploring Zen koans, Greek myths, and Tantric visions of consciousness to get there. Features interview clips with mythologist Joseph Sansonese, author of The Body of Myth.

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This week on The Emerald, a conversation with author Robert Tindall on Homer, Tolkien, Paleolithic cave art, Zen koans, Shakespeare, sacred song, and the visionary, animistic consciousness that connects all of them — a 'once universal mode of consciousness' in which 'reality is understood to be pervaded and structured by powerful numinous forces and presences that are rendered to the human imagination as the divinized figures and narratives of myth'.  You don't have to be a Tolkien or Homer fan to appreciate this episode. Our conversation goes deep into the worldview that was the normative vision for human beings for most of our history and looks at how we lost this worldview and what can be done to help reclaim it in challenging times, when an imaginative vision is increasingly necessary.

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