#141 The Final Episode (A Conversation with Chris Ryan)

Anya Kaats podcast

Anya Kaats podcast

After an incredibly meaningful and successful five years, I’ve decided to end the podcast. Thank you for all of your support, time, and trust. I’m off to begin a new chapter, and I’ll hope you’ll continue to follow along.

To stay in touch, subscribe for free at anyakaats.substack.com.

Song featured: “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley

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How to support the show:

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Chronicles of the Collapse

chronicles of the collapse Anya Kaats

chronicles of the collapse Anya Kaats

In 2018, a teacher of mine told me about a book called The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse by Dale Pendell. Pendell was a poet, ethnobotanist, and novelist, who died in early 2018, just months before I heard about his book.

I spent most of 2017 and 2018 in isolation. After getting divorced in late 2016, I moved into a cabin at the top of a windy road in Topanga Canyon, California, in hopes of starting a new life. This new life did eventually arrive, but not as quickly as I would have liked. First, the universe insisted I confront and transmute everything that had led me so far off my path. This took some time.

While I scoured the depths of my subconscious, confronting years of self-delusion and grief, the world around me seemed to be doing the same.

Trump’s election had only been the beginning. From the Women’s March and #Metoo, to the white supremacist rally in Virginia, Kaepernick’s taking a knee, raging wildfires (one of which forced me out of Topanga for nine days), devastating hurricanes, and the deadliest mass shooting in US history, the world seemed to be forcing us to confront everything we’d hoped to avoid.

To continue reading, and to get access to all future writing via email, please subscribe to my Substack page.

#140 Catalyzing Wider Organisms of Belonging with Ian MacKenzie

Ian MacKenzie podcast

Ian MacKenzie podcast

Ian MacKenzie is a new paradigm artist who’s been tracking the global emergence of imaginal culture for the past 15 years. From the desert of Burning Man to the heart of Occupy Wall St, Ian has amplified the voices of visionaries, artists and activists who have been working toward planetary system change. He is the co-director of The Village of Lovers, as well as the host of The Mythic Masculine podcast and co-founder of The School of Mythopoetics. Ian and I speak about masculinity, community, elderhood, Eros, trust, and the vital, yet challenging work of turning ideas into action.

Find Ian at ianmack.com, and on Instagram and Facebook

Songs featured: “Mountain to Move” by Nick Mulvey and “Feed Your Horses” by Gregory Alan Isakov

Sign up for the MGSW book club here.

How to support the show:

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Living Life and Not Making Content About It

From the looks of my podcast episodes and Substack posts over the past six months, it would be easy to assume that not much has been happening, and/or that I’ve become incredibly lazy. In reality, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. My life has actually been busier than ever, it’s just that very little of it has made it online.

Living in Crestone full-time for the past year, my day-to-day life has changed in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated. One major shift is that for the first time in seven years, instead of writing and podcasting about the life I desired, I am now actually living it.

Inevitably, my interest in coming online to share big ideas about “saving the world” has taken a back seat to volunteering at local gardens, helping to organize community events, and writing for the local paper.

A note from my 2017 journal reads, “Start as local as possible, and go from there. The ripple starts at the center and radiates out.” I always wanted to believe this was true, but up until recently, I had my doubts. Deep down I still assumed that “saving the world” had to be more complex, more flashy, more radical. For a long time I resented people who moved to the middle of nowhere in order to live an alternative life; People who seemed disconnected from meaningful interaction with the rest of the world.

What about global activism? What about speaking out against worldwide inequality? What about influencing and inspiring others to fight back and resist the status quo?

Without broad-based recognition, could I really claim to be making a difference? Without “saving the world,” did I really deserve to live a happy, simple, and pleasure-filled life?

To continue reading, and to get access to all future writing via email, please subscribe to my Substack page.

#139 A Holistic and Intuitive Approach to Life and Ecology with Peter May

Peter May e3 ecologic Crestone

Peter May e3 ecologic Crestone

Peter May is an alchemist, a Grammy award-winning musician, a tree whisperer, a firefighter (and firemaker), an athlete, an architect, and an all around fascinating human being. Peter and I discuss how his love of ecology first developed as a kid living outside Detroit on Lake St. Clair, and how this passion later influenced almost every aspect of his life. From his multiple careers in natural building, native permaculture, sustainable landscape design, and land management, to helping produce and create a Grammy-award winning album with Paul Winter, to the creation of E3 Ecologic, a Crestone-based ecological nonprofit, it’s hard not to be inspired by Peter’s dedication to following a path dedicated to holism, intuition, and shameless curiosity.

Find Peter May at windhorsealchemy.com, and e3ecologic.org

Songs featured: “Awaken and Allow” by Shannon Lay and “Woods Rose and Evening Primrose” by The Sonic Apothecary

Join myself and Christopher Ryan + Cameron and Melayne Shayne in Montana this summer for the 2023 Sex at Dawn Retreat, August 20-25. To apply, click here.

Sign up for the MGSW book club here.

How to support the show:

  • Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!
  • Join me on Substack and get access to newsletters, exclusive writing, a community book club, and more: anyakaats.substack.com

Listen to this episode on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts.

#138 Taking Advantage of Everything That Makes Life Worth Living with Sarah Jones

jones farms organics orisons art San Luis Valley potato Sarah Jones

jones farms organics orisons art San Luis Valley potato Sarah Jones

Sarah Jones and her husband Michael are fourth generation potato farmers in Hooper, CO. Their farm, Jones Farms Organics, is paving the way in the San Luis Valley (the nation’s second largest fresh potato growing region in the U.S.) for regenerative and sustainable farming practices. In addition to helping manage day to day operations at the farm, Sarah has also recently transformed a local gas station and café into a neighborhood whole-food eatery, and helped to bring Marguerite Humeau’s 160-acre earthwork “Orisons” to life by convincing her in-laws to donate an unused/fallow circle-pivot to the project. Sarah and I discuss the unexpected and humbling path life sets forth for us when we stop getting in our own way, and how fulfilled and grateful we feel to live in a place where dreams can so easily become a reality.

Find the Jones Farm at JonesFarmsOrganics.com, and on Instagram

Songs featured: “Without You” by Sjors Mans, “Appaloosa Bones” by Gregory Alan Isakov & “Happiness Does Not Wait” by Ólafur Arnalds

Poem that I read in the introduction: “To Be Of Use” by Marge Piercy

Sign up for the MGSW book club here.

How to support the show:

  • Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!
  • Join me on Substack and get access to newsletters, exclusive writing, a community book club, and more: anyakaats.substack.com

Listen to this episode on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts.

#137 Critical Ethnobotany and Reimagining Our Role in Ecology with Kelly Moody

kelly moody podcast critical ethnobotany

kelly moody podcast critical ethnobotany

Kelly Moody is a critical ethnobotanist, philosopher, teacher, writer, and podcast host. After growing up in rural southern Virginia on her grandmother’s tobacco farm, Kelly’s interest in plants and ecology never left her. She received a B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies, and then left Virginia to travel cross-country, studying herbal medicine, land tending, ecology and botany. In the summer of 2020, she hiked the Colorado Trail documenting plants on foot and made notes on wild food and medicine gardens found along the old Ute pathways. Kelly and I discuss what it means to approach fields like ethnobotany, archeology, and anthropology both holistically and with a critical lens, rethinking relationships between people and plants, and questioning the ways we’ve explored, preserved, and defined “ecology”, “nature”, and “wilderness”. We also speak about the limits of capitalism, and reimagine a future in which infrastructure and capital could work toward ecological regeneration instead of against it.

Find Kelly at OfSedgeAndSalt.com, on Instagram, on Substack and listen to her podcast The Ground Shots Podcast, available on Substack and all streaming apps.

Songs featured: “Feet Keep Moving” by Natural Self & “Desert Dove” by Holly Arrowsmith

Sign up for the MGSW book club here.

Join myself and Christopher Ryan + Cameron and Melayne Shayne in Montana this summer for the 2023 Sex at Dawn Retreat, August 20-25. To apply, click here.

How to support the show:

  • Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!
  • Join me on Substack and get access to newsletters, exclusive writing, a community book club, and more: anyakaats.substack.com

Listen to this episode on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts.

#136 Critical Spirituality, Ecstatic Literacy & Psychedelic Harm Reduction with Jules Evans

Jules Evans podcast psychedelics

Jules Evans podcast psychedelics

Jules Evans is a philosopher, journalist, and author, whose work centers around the interplay between rational and ecstatic states of consciousness. Currently, Jules is leading the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project – researching psychedelic harm reduction, ethics, and integration. Jules and I speak about our shared disillusionment with Western spiritual wellness culture, the role discernment plays in realm of mystery, and why it’s dangerous to be overconfident about ones “truth”. We discuss how Western religion has always been both a belief system and a business structure, inexorably interwoven with wellness, medicine, and an individualistic approach to self-improvement and healing, and explore how the burgeoning industry of psychedelic therapy may be following in those same footsteps.

Find Jules at PhilosophyForLife.Org, on Twitter, Instagram, and on Substack

Songs featured: “Meet Me In the Woods” by Lord Huron & “I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers

Sign up for the MGSW book club here.

Join myself and Christopher Ryan + Cameron and Melayne Shayne in Montana this summer for the Sex at Dawn retreat, August 20-25. To apply, click here.

Attend the Orisons art opening on July 29th int he SLV! Get the info here.

Come hang out at the Crestone Energy Fair September 16th & 17th! Here is the link for more info.

How to support the show:

  • Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!
  • Join me on Substack and get access to newsletters, exclusive writing, a community book club, and more: anyakaats.substack.com

Listen to this episode on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts.

#135 Making a Living From Sunlight and Soil with George Whitten and Sam Schmidt

George whitten sam Schmidt blue range ranch San Luis Valley Colorado San Juan ranch regenerative agriculture Crestone Eagle

George whitten sam Schmidt blue range ranch San Luis Valley Colorado San Juan ranch regenerative agriculture Crestone Eagle

George Whitten, along with his wife Julie, own Blue Range Ranch (also known as San Juan Ranch) located in the high desert of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Originally pastoralists, George and his family have been ranching on the same land for well over a century, and have been practicing regenerative agriculture and holistic land management since 1893, long before either of those terms even existed. Sam Schmidt, a New York City-area native, joined the ranch in 2020 through an apprentice program, and is now the Assistant Ranch Manager, alongside his partner Noelle. George, Sam and I speak about the rise and fall of industrial agriculture, the challenges of making a living from land stewardship, what it means to bridge the divide between environmentalism and agriculture, and how taking a regenerative and holistic approach to the land also means applying those same principles to our relationships and communities.

Find Blue Range Ranch at bluerangeranch.com, on Instagram, and learn more about the ranch’s apprenticeship program here.

For those local to Crestone and the SLV, check out my article about Blue Range Ranch in the June edition of The Crestone Eagle.

Songs featured: “El Jardin” by Hermanos Gutiérrez & “The Universe” by Gregory Alan Isakov

Sign up for the MGSW book club here.

Join myself and Christopher Ryan + Cameron and Melayne Shayne in Montana this summer for the Sex at Dawn retreat, August 20-25. To apply, click here.

Come hang out at the Crestone Energy Fair September 16th & 17th! Here is the link for more info.

How to support the show:

  • Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!
  • Join me on Substack and get access to newsletters, exclusive writing, a community book club, and more: anyakaats.substack.com

Listen to this episode on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts.

#134 To Worship at the Altar of Life, Death, Sex, and Love with Erin Ginder-Shaw

Anya Kaats erin ginder-show whore rapport

Anya Kaats erin ginder-show whore rapport

Erin is a professional writer who’s currently studying to get her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Erin is also one of my closest friends, and my former Whore Rapportco-host. Since ending Whore Rapport last fall, Erin and I both felt that there was more to say about our decision to stop the podcast. We speak about the animate, sacred nature of identity, the challenge of overcoming projections and idealizations, and the dangers of leaning too far into intellectualization to the point where it becomes a defense. We also talk about our evolving and deepening relationship to the archetype of the Whore, and discuss what it means to live and love from a place of sacred devotion.

Sign up for the MGSW book club here.

Learn more about advaya and their courses here.

Join myself and Christopher Ryan + Cameron and Melayne Shayne in Montana this summer for the Sex at Dawn retreat, August 20-25. To apply, click here.

Songs featured: “Path 5 (delta)” by Max Richter & Grace Davidson and “You Want What You Can’t” by Natalie Tate

How to support the show:

  • Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!
  • Join me on Substack and get access to newsletters, exclusive writing, a community book club, and more: anyakaats.substack.com

Listen to this episode on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts.