In a time of fracture, in which people are searching for meaning and belonging, it is no wonder that men are re-exploring what manhood means. Yet the sense-making project around manhood has veered from the mythic journey it rightly could and should be into decidedly different territory. The last several years have seen the rise of the alt-right manosphere, whose narratives journey into outright misogyny, eugenics racism, and advocated violence. To weave these stories, the manosphere reaches for everything from fascist philosophers to Nordic animism to Bronze Age mythology, spinning tales of heroes who shone in individualist glory in order to reinforce a vision of the true man as one who dominates and triumphs and to reclaim an ancient vitality that they say is sapped by everything from immigration to feminism. But the vitalist manosphere ultimately misunderstands its own mythologies. Those Bronze Age stories, more often than not, are not celebrations of heroism but stern warnings about overstep, invitations into humility, and reminders of relationality. So the manosphere misses the mythic point, which is that, in tradition after tradition, there is an understanding that vital energy must be tempered, and rogue men who seek only domination must be brought back into the relational web. Cultures across the world have understood that warrior energy is a real thing, and that it needs initiation and initiatory systems to temper it and transform it from an adolescent vision of domination to a mature vision of kinship and service. To transform this vital energy — this predilection towards intensity — requires more than just discourse that dismisses it entirely. Rather, it requires recognizing the longing that lives at the heart of it, just as it requires a commitment to community, to accountability, to eldership, to initiation, and to accompaniment — every burning step of the way. Featuring interviews with authors Tyson Yunkaporta, Jamie Wheal, and mythopoetic guide Ian McKenzie, and original music from Travis Puntarelli, Rainer Baumorr, and Victor Sakshin, this episode takes us on a journey through the blazing depths of the sour-belly-power in its darkest and most glorious expressions. Play it for your nephews and brothers and sons. And for those bros with enough attention span to make it to the last 30 minutes, there may just be a gift waiting.

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“We don’t go to other planets because our planet is dying. Our planet dies, specifically because we perpetually want to go somewhere else.” Fresh off of the Initial Public Offering of Space X, the largest IPO in human history, it's worth revisiting the deeper implications of humanity's incessant drive... beyond. Today on the podcast, we look at humanity’s increasing obsession with transcending planet Earth, in the context of the mythologies of human restlessness. How human beings, whether through certain religious visions of transcendence or through the increasing transhuman and supernatural focus of modern science, are ultimately looking to be anywhere but right here, with ourselves, in nature. This misplaced spiritual drive, in which we perpetually seek wholeness out there when wholeness ultimately lives right here, has been the subject of some of our most central stories about ourselves. Many in fact, have seen it as… a primordial curse.

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Seven years ago last Tuesday, The Emerald podcast was born. This episode reflects on the journey of the podcast so far and gives hints of what's to come, all through the prism of the number 7, which is — to say the least — a mythically important number. The myths often iterate in cycles and families of seven—seven swans, seven dwarves, seven ravens, and seven gates of the underworld. In many traditions, seven represents the completion of a cycle and the beginning of a new one. In Ayurveda, in order for something to be fully embodied, it must pass through seven dhatus, or tissue layers. In many traditions, initiates pass through a journey of seven stages. This recurring 'journey through seven' is not just arbitrary, it is a reflection of nature itself, which often repeats in cycles of seven. The ancients saw seven at play in the architecture of the cosmos, in the musical scales and the spectrum of light and in a world that they saw as expressing through seven cosmic layers. The vision of seven as a number of threshold, passage, and reconnection can be understood through the numerical and geometric attributes of seven itself, which displays strange characteristics not found in any other number. Featuring Nivedita Gunturi singing the seven-note scale progressions of Hindustani and Carnatic music, and excerpts of beloved stories of seven, this episode is a celebration of seven years of The Emerald, and a preparation for what's to come.

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