The Numinous Podcast

Taraneh Erfan King is a registered counsellor with a specialty in expressive arts and a broad background in psychology, body-centered practices, and mysticism, including her hereditary lineage of Sufism. Born in Iran, she immigrated to Canada as a child with her family, and has lived and worked in several parts of the world including Guyana, France, Switzerland, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka. Her book, Conscious Grieving: The Path of Awakening Through Loss, is a compassionate companion for all grievers and a source for poetry and prayers you'll return to again and again.

Visit Taraneh's website mindonspirit.com for more information about her programs and services, and find her book online at major outlets as well as your favourite independent booksellers. Follow her on Instagram @mindonspirit

Check out The Numinous Network for all my current offerings.

My guest today is a trusted friend, Oliver Choquette. Oliver is currently a Psychology student at the University of Victoria. His training and expertise comes from various sources: college, university, and private classes. He has been working in clinics as a support person for over 10 years. He is a passionate reader and researcher of many topics: history, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. And at the end of the day, I have trusted him with my child as a skilled helper providing emotional support for a number of years. As the parent of a 17 year old trans son with ADHD and autism diagnoses, who struggles with both anxiety and depression, I wanted to talk to Oliver about the intersection of gender diversity and neurodivergence. And because it’s not just my son – I literally don’t know an LGBTQIA+ youth who does not present with some form of neurodivergence or at the very least some diagnosable mood disorder such as anxiety or depression. I hope you enjoy this candid, non-expert, real conversation.

Accounts I follow on Instagram for psychoeducation:

@neurodivergent_lou

@sensoryhuman

@the.autisticats

@fidgets.and.fries

@pixiesbigwhy

@autism_sketches

@iampayingattention

@the_mini_adhd_coach

@lifeinautismworld

@adultingwithautism

@drdevonprice

@the_queer_counselor

@autism_unmasked

@busybeingdisabled 

Oliver's Research Links

Carter, B. (2021). Impact of social inequalities and discrimination on vulnerability to crises.

Kia, H., Robinson, M., MacKay, J., & Ross, L. E. (2020). Poverty in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) populations in Canada: an intersectional review of the literature. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 28(1), 21-5

Executive Skills Questionnaire- Peg Dawson & Richard Guare

Giovanardi, G., Vitelli, R., Maggiora Vergano, C., Fortunato, A., Chianura, L., Lingiardi, V., & Speranza, A. M. (2018). Attachment patterns and complex trauma in a sample of adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 60.

Strauss, P., Cook, A., Watson, V., Winter, S., Whitehouse, A., Albrecht, N., ... & Lin, A. (2021). Mental health difficulties among trans and gender diverse young people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Findings from Trans Pathways. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 137, 360-367.

Rommelse, N. N., Franke, B., Geurts, H. M., Hartman, C. A., & Buitelaar, J. K. (2010). Shared heritability of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 19(3), 281-295.

Schnarrs, P. W., Stone, A. L., Salcido Jr, R., Baldwin, A., Georgiou, C., & Nemeroff, C. B. (2019). Differences in adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and quality of physical and mental health between transgender and cisgender sexual minorities. Journal of psychiatric research, 119, 1-6.

Craig, S. L., Austin, A., Levenson, J., Leung, V. W., Eaton, A. D., & D’Souza, S. A. (2020). Frequencies and patterns of adverse childhood events in LGBTQ+ youth. Child abuse & neglect, 107, 104623.

Cuevas, A. G., Ong, A. D., Carvalho, K., Ho, T., Chan, S. W. C., Allen, J., ... & Williams, D. R. (2020). Discrimination and systemic inflammation: A critical review and synthesis. Brain, behavior, and immunity.

Today’s fantastic guest is Dr.Cyndi Brannen, one of the world's preeminent scholars on Hekatean Witchcraft.

After a successful career in academia and healthcare, Dr.Brannen transitioned to focusing on reclaiming the sacred feminine after she became convinced that mainstream psychology was not sufficient to lead to personal wholeness.  Her work focuses on personal healing through depth psychology, herbalism, rituals, meditations, and exploration of the deeper self. She founded The Covina Institute, a soul school dedicated to the pursuit of wholeness through structured programs of study and transcendent experiences. Dr.Brannen is the author of the bestselling books, Keeping Her Keys and Entering Hekate’s Garden.

Mentioned in this episode:

Check out Hide Tanning 101 with Fern + Roe!

This special episode includes a 30 minute trancework exercise. I stack 4 different spiritual hygiene exercises, one after the other, to connect with earth, water, air and fire.

This episode is a complement to my Yuletide Stocking Stuffer program.

Inspiration for some of the techniques in this exercise come from:

And of course my nearly decade-long experience as a Clinical Hypnotherapist.

Hope you enjoy it and find something in there of use to you!

Lindsay Tunkl is an artist and the author of "Origins & Endings: Seeing Yourself Through the Apocalypse". It's a divination deck and self-reflection inkblot kit that helps us grapple with the most pressing questions of our time. In this conversation, we explore the intersections of art, healing, therapy, intuition, fear, collectivism, divination, and living in choice during apocalypse times.

Find the Origins & Endings Divination Book and Card Deck here.

See some of Lindsay's artwork here including some of the PreApocalypse Counselling installation here.

Connect with Lindsay for coaching at intothedeepcoaching.com.

Follow Lindsay on Instagram to learn more about her magic and Tarot work, as well as her current adventures.

Sometimes A Wild God is a powerful poem written by storyteller, author, wilderness vigil guide, and poet, Tom Hirons. In this episode, I ask the poet the impolite question, "What is your poem about?"

It leads to a conversation about collapse, grief, wilderness vigil, the wyrd, the loneliness of modern masculinity, the lifetime work of wholeness, and the prospect of hope as a deity.

Find Tom's writing at tomhirons.com

Purchase stacks of his poetry and prose at Hedgespoken Press hedgespokenpress.com

Adorn your abode or altar with Rima's art by visiting her site: rimastaines.com

And learn more about their life in the off-grid storytelling theatre run from a 1966 Bedford RL lorry, converted to be a home and go-anywhere stage. (For real.): hedgespoken.org

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Learn more about The Numinous Quest Online here.

Learn more about the Threshold community here.

In Part 2 of my conversation with Holly, we explore collapse grief and death rituals in COVID times, and share fairly extensively about why Transformative Justice and community accountability is such an important aspect of collapse preparedness. We get into some detail about concerns we have over being two cis white women leading a diverse community, and, some ways we are hoping to mitigate that and reduce possible harm. We also share about the importance of play and creativity in collapse work.

In the first minutes of this episode, I make a reference to a Netflix action series that perhaps many will not have heard of: Altered Carbon. I super love the show, for so many reasons not the least of which is the incredible fight choreograhy that features incredible women of colour as lead characters – so badass!

I also reference Sarah Kerr at soul passages.ca as one of my teachers.

Find out more about the Threshold community here.

Register for my Numinous Quest Online here.

Holly is a psychotherapist and a lawyer, and what she calls a “collapsitarian” – she’s spent a long time tracking collapse from multiple perspectives and coalesced her observations into a framework she calls collapse psychology. You can get a sense of that framework by visiting collapse psychology.org

I'm talking with Mimi Young about clairolfaction, wonderful plant allies for pandemic times, and how to work with tea in a magical – even ancestral – way.

Check out all of Mimi's offerings here.

Follow her on Instagram: @shopceremonie

Find out about doing neurofeedback with Mimi here.

Learn about joining the online Mystery Mentorship Program here.

The book she referenced is For All The Tea In China, by Sarah Rose. 

Follow me on Instagram @carmenspagnola

Bear is a life coach, artist, and social justice educator who helps socially conscious humans align their actions with their values. In their coaching and teaching, they apply a feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist lens. In this episode, I ask them about their gender journey to using they/them pronouns, and we talk about interlocking systems of oppression, call out culture, and wanting healing for people who cause harm without necessarily wanting to be a part of that healing. 

Content Warning: We do touch on sexual violence, capital punishment, and more, but we also take stretch breaks and pauses for breath as we do so. Remember to pause the recording if you feel yourself tensing up or becoming very activated.

Bearcoaches.com

Caliban And The Witch by Silvia Federici

Combahee River Collective and How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Alternate ROOTS alternateroots.org

Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni

Killers Of The Dream by Lillian Smith

The Farm: Angola, USA

13th, Ava DuVernay

bell hooks on “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”

Whiteness At Work, Desiree Adaway with Jessica Fish and Erika Hines

Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?  on diversity as an aftereffect of a lifelong commitment to the self-named struggles of people of color

Philly Stands Up zine

Beyond Survival book

"The Opposite Of Rape Culture Is Nurturance Culture" and Turn This World Inside Out by Nora Samaran

“No one enters violence for the first time having committed it.” -Danielle Sered, quoted by Mariame Kabe