A New and Ancient Story: The Podcast

Charles Eisenstein in conversation with Orland Bishop

Eivind Skjellum is the creator of Reclaim your Inner Throne, a training program for men. In this conversation we talk about masculine and feminine archetypes, leadership, elderhood, and stories of transformation in this time when the old story of what a man is and how to be one are dissolving.

Severine von Tscharner Fleming is a kind of farming savant and a super-dynamic agent of the revolution in agriculture reuniting us with soil, water, and life. She is the founder of the Agrarian Trust, which connects young farmers with land they otherwise couldn't afford. We talked about the evolution of farming, its planetary healing potential, issues of ownership and the commons, and how to bridge our ideals and best practices to present-day economic realities.

This conversation with the amazing Gigi Coyle was recorded with a small live audience on a houseboat, where Gigi was recovering from knee surgery. Gigi is a source of valuable wisdom for activists and change agents today; a veteran of 1970's feminist and environmental movements, she has turned to deeper levels of activism. We connected on topics of ritual, surrender to a path, the importance of water, community, ambivalence and paradox, living our songlines, myth as a conveyor of truth, and more. I wish more people would have the chance to learn from Gigi, someone who is, in my eyes, a true elder.

In this episode, Charles talks with author, podcaster, and life-long seeker Joanna Harcourt-Smith.

This is a conversation with the political thinker and activist Helena Norberg-Hodge. She had a huge radicalizing influence on my political thinking through her film Ancient Futures. By "radical" I don't mean the usual leftist politics. Helena is a tireless advocate for re-localization, the reclaiming of the commons, and the importance of direct participation in community. She is deeply insightful in linking these to global issues. Having spent decades in Ladakh, she is also one of the first to integrate traditional and indigenous world-views into a coherent critique of techno-industrial society, finance, and politics. Her work has been a great source of nourishment to me in unfolding a vision of a more beautiful world. I hope you enjoy this conversation we recorded in the fall of 2016 in England.

Satish Kumar is, in the truest sense of the word, an elder in the peace and ecology movement. To me personally, he is one of those deep allies who confirms that the most radical ideas I work with are not in fact crazy. It was my honor to weave this tapestry of conversation with him. We spoke about gift culture and the natural order; value, values, and the standardization of everything; the perils of over-reliance on metrics; speaking to power and preaching to the converted; gratitude and contentment, and much more.

Martin Shaw is a mythologist and storyteller from the area of Devon, England. He and I share a deep appreciation for the way myth and story shape the world. Martin starts our conversation with a story about Fox Woman Dreaming that is still with me months later, working inside me. We go on to talk about exile, the nature of magic, stories and relationship, decolonizing the imagination, and lots more. It was a really heady and passionate conversation.

This podcast is a public conversation between me and Orland Bishop, recorded in Santos, Brazil. Even though the audio quality isn't perfect, I want to release this recording anyway in hopes of transmitting to you some of what Orland has transmitted to me. He draws from a deep pool of wisdom that is carried not only by his words, but by the voice beneath them. I don't use phrases like "deep pool of wisdom" very often, and in this case it is not a cliche. We talk about gift and relationship; the power of word, story, and intention; money and the financial system, and other topics. You might sometimes find Orland hard to understand. That's OK. Just let the words reverberate in you.

Kelly Brogan is a psychiatrist who made a radical break with pharma-centered orthodoxy to pursue holistic approaches to mental health, with extraordinary results. We recorded a conversation that started with psychiatric drugs and visited many perennial topics: working inside versus outside the system; the importance of community, the blunting of consciousness in our society and the power of grief to restore it; and the recovery of our power as agents of planetary change. I hope you enjoy this deep and playful conversation as much as I did. Note: Here is the link to Kelly's online program for anyone who is intrigued by what Kelly shares about it in this conversation. http://kellybroganmd.com/vitalmind/

This podcast is a recording of a second conversation between me and Rupert Sheldrake, one of my favorite renegade scientists and the number one target of the defenders of scientific orthodoxy. He hardly needs any introduction, but I'll say he is prolific author and researcher with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Cambridge University. I see him as an elder or a pioneer in the liberating of science from its metaphysical dogmas of reductionism and mechanistic materialism, and a true practitioner of the Scientific Method in its original humble spirit. I hope you'll enjoy the intellect and refinement of this man as much as I did.

St.JamesTalk by Charles Eisenstein

The Fertile Ground of Bewilderment was the title of a speech I gave at St. James Church in London. I'm sharing it with you all because it was such a high-energy event and I ventured into territory I haven't brought into public speaking before.

This interview with the filmmaker Marietta Schürholz is on ritual -- a topic about which I've thought a lot and written very little. We tend to think rituals are vestiges of an earlier, more superstitious time, or perhaps elements of indigenous cultures that we need to learn from. We think we live in a society bereft of meaningful rituals. But in fact, we are immersed in rituals that are invisible to us. Medicine, law, and even technology can be understood as a highly elaborated system of ritual, whose legitimacy and efficacy are based on an underlying mythology that tells us what is real and how the world works. As we transition into a new mythology, our old rituals become unsatisfying, and impotent to address the crises of our time. This podcast episode originated as an interview for Marietta's film, Reinventing Rituals. You can watch the trailer at www.reinventing-rituals.de. The depth of understanding embodied in her questions, and her wide open heart and vulnerable listening to my responses, makes me think this will be an extraordinary film. If you resonate with our conversation, you might consider donating to her crowdfunding campaign too.

This conversation I recorded with Rex Brangwyn was originally part of my online program "Masculinity: A New Story." The outpouring of gratitude, insight, and stories it provoked from participants has prompted me to share it more widely. You may not agree with everything he says, but he is a sincere explorer who radiates love, compassion, and honesty. If you'd like to access the entire Masculinity: A New Story series, you can do that here: https://newandancientstory.net/learning-journeys/masculinity-a-new-story/