Part one in a short series on figuring out - from a spiritual rather than materialist starting point - how to live in our moment.

Friends,

How does music become meaningful? How does it become meaning? And what can we learn about reality from music without reducing music to its function?

Rudolf Steiner said “The music of the spheres is a reality. As soon as we come into the spiritual world which lies beyond the soul-world, we are in a world which lives altogether in sound and song, in melody and harmony, and harmonies of spoken sound. Out of these inner relationships of sound the human ear is formed. “

I invited guitarist and songwriter BEN CHASNY AKA SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE on the show to discuss all of this. Ben last appeared on the show way back on AEWCH 45 when we talked about Rudolf Steiner and the spiritual aspects of intervals. Well... sort of. Ben's actually been on every episode for quite some time because we recreated the AEWCH theme song (originally co-composed with AEWCH guest, Jeb Havens) together. On this episode, he plays the song live and we discuss writing it together. We talk about the essential aspects of music, if there are any. And we look at the spiritual influencer culture of podcasting that has eroded its credibility over the years.
At the end, Ben plays "The Mission" from the recent Six Organs of Admittance album Time Is Glass, which is, as it turns out, about me and my boyfriend.

Why is transforming time the most urgent task? I examine this through the works of Jean Gebser, Rudolf Steiner, Byron Katie, Jeff Vandermeer, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Emmanuel Swedenborg, and more.

I talk with legendary experimental pop musician and philosopher TOM KRELL, AKA, How To Dress Well, about art, spirt, and connecting with each other in the vast distances between us.

Hope is dead. Long live hope! Whereas once hope was simply an audacious wish that we turned over to representatives of power, hope now can be a radical act through which we erode power.

But how? How do we leverage hope to help us direct and engage rather than simply wish and spectate?

To investigate this, I asked one of the most exciting and influential political thinkers of our time, JOHN HOLLOWAY.

John is the author of many influential and internationally recognized books, including Hope in Hopeless Times (the last in a series of books about how to find new strategies of flourishing and living away from capitalism, starting with Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today and its sequel, Crack Capitalism.) He teaches sociology in the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, and has worked with the Zapatista movement.

In this episode, we talk about hope without delusion. Dreaming big without forgetting to act, acting small without forgetting the big vision, how and why we need to get rid of money, and more. I'm so happy to have spoken with John and to share this with you!

“The study of movement is a science of the imperceptible...” In the final episode of my series on scientific concepts, I talk with historian of science and culture, Janina Wellmann, about the mystery of motion, movement, and stillness.

I talk with author of The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt's New World and Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self, Andrea Wulf about the meeting point of science and art... and why it matters so much. Episode six in my series on how science intersects with our lives!

I talk with Predrag Slijepčevic, biologist and author of Biocivilisations: A New Look at the Science of Life about the radical potential of biology and symbiosis! This is the fifth episode in my series on how scientific concepts intersect with our lives.