Becoming the Poet in a Godless World: Mid-Season Reflections
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
What does it mean to make meaning in a world in the midst of radical transition and transformation? This mid-season check-in of Making meaning dives deep into what we should all consider as global citizens, hopeful activists, aware and conscious beings, and meaning makers. Host Reese Brown explores everything from Nietzsche’s “God is dead and we have killed Him” to human design, spiritual community burnout, and the poetic archetype within us all. Through reflections on each episode so far, Reese weaves themes of creation, destruction, coherence, and collective healing and ultimately asks what it means to hold both hope and nihilism.
Featuring reflections on creativity, activism, spirituality, philosophy, and the cycles that shape our lives. Keeping listening, questioning, and reflecting and rediscover yourself and what meaning means to you.
Resources and References:
The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/94578.The_Gay_Science
Musings on Uranus Entering Gemini from Anxious-Vacation9850 on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsFuckWithAstrology/comments/1ltv3zc/the_full_7_years_system_reboot_with_uranus_in/
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House by Audre Lorde: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38598541-the-master-s-tools-will-never-dismantle-the-master-s-house
Follow Triston Morgan, the creator of Making Meaning's theme music:
https://www.instagram.com/tristonmorgan/
Follow Nicole Oesterreicher, the creator of Making meaning's art and podcast cover:
https://www.instagram.com/nicoleocreates/
https://www.instagram.com/nicoleodesign/
Chapters:
0:00 Welcome & Content Warnings
2:20 The Poet Archetype and Seeing the World as Poetry
5:00 Nietzsche’s Madman and the Death of God
12:00 Creation, Destruction, and Co-Creation
19:00 Spiritual Spaces, Shadow Work & the Master’s Tools
27:40 Human Design & Being Misunderstood
33:30 Refusing to Forget the Self
40:40 Bridging Science and Spirit
47:30 Finding Neutrality in a Polarized World
50:30 The Cycles of Breath and Nature
56:00 Ancestors, Colonialism, and Place
1:00:00 Asking “Why?” Until It Hurts
1:06:00 Holding Complexity in Modern Discourse
1:19:00 Final Reflections & What’s Next for Making Meaning
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Reese Brown (00:09.656)
Hey y'all, I'm Reese and welcome to Making Meaning.
Making Meaning is a podcast by the Cohere Collective here to help guide you along your path to make meaning in a way that makes sense for you. And this week, we are doing a quick mid-season check-in to review how it's going, what we're learning so far, and just some key takeaways that I've had and that I've been experiencing from your comments across YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and all of the different places and...
hopefully start a conversation about how these episodes are also in conversation with one another and that meaning making is not just done in isolation and neither should these episodes be in isolation.
Reese Brown (01:15.48)
There are a few content warnings from a few episodes that-
Reese Brown (01:26.104)
There are a few content warnings for a few different episodes.
Reese Brown (01:35.32)
There are a few content warnings because of the subject matter of a few episodes that we will be reviewing. So please look in the episode description for timestamps and what you may want to avoid.
Reese Brown (01:58.872)
There are a few content warnings for a few different episodes that we will be reviewing and discussing, so please check out the episode description wherever you are listening or watching to make sure that you listen with care.
Okay, I think that's all I have. Let's just dive right into it.
Reese Brown (02:22.858)
Okay, so to kind of tee up this mid-season check-in, firstly, I do want to just go through some of these episodes chronologically and see where they're overlapping and my key takeaways that I had from a lot of these episodes. So let me know if these resonate with you.
Reese Brown (02:47.672)
So to dive into this mid-season check-in, catch-up, review, I am just gonna run through all of our episodes thus far chronologically and name some of the key takeaways that I had, my experience with these different wonderful meaning makers, and then we'll shift into intersections between them. And then also some bigger picture themes that I think we're all going through as a collective. So we'll start micro, go macro.
and let this conversation take us where it desires to go. So we are going to start with episode one of season four that was with the lovely Katherine Hart. Katherine is, if you've listened to the episode, you will know, one of my favorite people in this entire world. Not only is she one of the most profound impacts on my life,
because of all that she has taught me, but she is just truly one of the most deeply aligned and connected people that I have ever had the privilege of meeting. And I've told this story before, but I think it just really bears repeating. So the very first day that I met Ms.
We were walking. I was walking in to the first day of an acting camp for that summer and I was 13 years old. I was itty bitty and I will never forget after that day of acting camp, it's four hours and we had popcorn and Oreos for a snack and it was a blast. And I knew that acting was going to be a part of my destiny, my life's path. No matter what that looked like, I, it was like the best day ever.
when my parents came to pick me up, I will never forget that Miss Hart kind of pulled me aside and said, Reese, when you look at the world, you see poetry. And since that moment, I have strived to be that person that Miss Hart saw and to see poetry in everything all around me, because I do think that there's poetry
Reese Brown (05:10.646)
everywhere. One thing actually that I've been thinking a lot about recently is the definition of the poet. I think that that is a really fascinating archetype and the kind of Jungian sense, but also in this mythological sense of we all have creator in us. are ultimately, we are all ultimately the creator of our own lives. And
co-creating with the universe and with one another and engaging with each other. But the poet seems to walk this liminal space between the divine and the human. But also, I deeply believe that human beings are doing that too. So as I was thinking about this, I was like, is every human being just a poet in their own sense? And I think in some way, yes, the same way we all have the different archetypes within us, right?
also the same way that I conceive of my own idea of spirits or entities or energies as different pieces reflective of me external or these external things that are being mirrored through some internal discovery shadow work therapy piece that I'm needing to do to to work through to process to become the holist and truest version of myself.
So with all of that being said, I've really been thinking about the poet as creator in and of themselves. I really relate the poet a lot to Nietzsche's work in Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the hermit figure going up the mountain and
being by themselves, talking to themselves, coming up with their own idea of what the meaning of life is, right? This kind of Stephen Hawking theory of everything that the hermit cultivates when they're alone in the cave. And then they light that lantern and come back down to show the light of the lantern metaphorically, that is this.
Reese Brown (07:27.444)
a secret that they have kind of tapped into this definition of meaning that they have created or cultivated or made for themselves and show it to the townspeople. And in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes, actually, let me pull up the exact quote.
Reese Brown (10:27.222)
okay, so I'm looking this up and it's actually the thing that I'm thinking of is one of the aphorisms from the gay science, not a direct quote from the spokesman of Toostra, but it's the same myth that he's kind of pulling from. So I'm gonna read this aphorism for you. Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the marketplace calling out unceasingly, I seek God, I seek God.
As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why, is he lost, said one? Has he strayed away like a child, said another? Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he immigrated? The people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. Where is God gone, he called out.
I mean to tell you, we have killed him, you and I. We are all his murderers, but how have we done it? How are we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below?
Do we not stray as though infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? For even God's putrefy. God is dead. God remains dead and we have killed him.
How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest the world has hitherto possessed has bled to death under our knife. Who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become gods merely to seem worthy of it?
Reese Brown (12:52.888)
There never was a greater event, and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto. Here, the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers. They also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. I come too early, he then said. I am not yet at the right time.
This prodigious event is still on its way and is traveling. It has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time. The light of the stars need time. Deeds need time even after they are done to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star and yet they have done it. It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day.
and there intoned his requiem eternem Deo. When let out and called to account, he always gave the reply, what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?
So to me, aphorism almost perfectly describes the poet, the madman. And I think that that is really how I have come to understand the poet is the one who comes before their time, not necessarily the one who writes poetry. What is poetry, right? How do we define poesis? And I think all human beings are
before their own time in a sense because we are walking at the intersection of our time, right? We as physical beings are existing in space time, in 3D, in the 3D world, but to take a step forward into space while being beings that operate in the imaginal, we are
Reese Brown (15:00.75)
kind of creating reality as we go. So you must be going before your time, but as soon as you land in your time, it is there and it is past and you are already early for it. That sounds insane, but it's making sense in my head. I hope that reading this aphorism kind of helps with how I'm contextualizing that and
I really love the imagery of the lantern that he shatters it and the light snuffs out when he says, I have come too early. This deed has not yet come to pass. It needs time. There is something about these divine, imaginal realities that we are trying to conjure in a physical form, in a physical manifestation that requires time. Manifestation is
the imaginal in the 3D. So as poets, we are also magicians, right? Like casting spells into this present moment. And I think that this aphorism is a really beautiful example of what happens when we let the impossibility of paradox get to us. And I think one overarching theme that I want to come back to at the end, once we've gone through all of the different episodes chronologically.
is this idea of nihilism versus hope, of destruction versus creation, and how I think that a lot of thinkers throughout history that have touched on this element of life that I am very passionate about tend to fall into this like, God is dead and we have murdered him piece of the puzzle. And I tend to fall into this God is alive and we have
born him side. And while I think both are true, I think one of those both iterations feel very different to say and to hear and to conjure into reality, right? So I'm going to jot that down to come back to here in just a second.
Reese Brown (17:27.736)
Okay, but all of that to say, Ms. Hart being the one who first piqued my interest in the idea of creativity and creation to begin with, because that's what acting really was for me. It was also a deep study of other human beings and the human experience, which is then what I went on to study in my journey through academia.
But also, think part of why I just love Miss Heart and I love this episode is that all of these really high order concepts so often feel so out of touch from our day to day life. And acting is one of those things that grounds it down into this reality, at least for me, right? Like the role of the artist is in some sense to try and physically capture the divine. And I think that that's what really great
actors do. They allow us to feel seen in this way that is deeply human and powerful to know that, this thing that is so unique and special and inalienable about me is also this thing that is universal and connective to every single other human being. And I think it is that aspect of the human experience that performance taps into.
and also speaks to Ms. Heart's passion for justice and activism and wanting to make the world a better place. Because when you've spent your life studying both what makes every single human being special and unique and important, and also how that piece is the thing that connects and unites all of us, it is borderline impossible to not.
become an activist, to not be someone who wants to generate safety and opportunity and
Reese Brown (19:29.934)
decency for all human beings.
So I think that Ms. Heart's episode is a really, really great place to start this season, both because it was a beautiful full circle moment for me, but also because Ms. Heart's work really does sit at the intersection of creation so powerfully in the sense that it is bridging the divide between trying to speak to this bigger aspect of humanity while also speaking to the
lived realities that we all face every day.
Reese Brown (20:16.226)
The sun is slowly, motorcycle.
The sun is slowly going down as I record. don't mind me if the lighting shifts for my YouTube viewers, but onto episode two with Kelly Windorf. And in this episode, the piece that just so struck me was Kelly's willingness to talk about the negative side of spiritual communities, which I never really want to be the one to point out.
Reese Brown (20:51.63)
quote unquote, bad parts of things that I think are beneficial, right? So like, we see this happening online where people will say like, the left is eating each other because instead of waiting for people to be perfect activists, like, why are we tearing each other down? We need to be doing the work to actually connect on our shared goal and vision and
put our energy in that direction, not towards tearing, put our energy in the direction of tearing down systems and structures that are deeply harmful, not towards tearing each other down on small minute differences. But one thing that I've really come to understand the nuance of or try to understand the nuance of, hold the nuance of, and that I think what Kelly spoke to you in this episode is that we have to do
both. And yes, it can get counterproductive to constantly be critiquing spaces that are largely positive and beneficial. But at the same time, if we are trying to create a new world, essentially create new spaces and systems that are open and liberating and empowering,
We have to be actively creating those in the image that we want them to exist in now, while also tearing down the structures that prevent that from happening. We can't just tear down these systems and structures and then get to work building this other thing. We also can't just build this other thing and hope that along the way these bad structures will dissolve.
But we need to be doing both. And it makes me think of, I've been quoting this so much recently, but it's because it's so powerful and so juicy. Audre Lorde's quote, we cannot use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. And I think there's some medicine in that, in the sense that we must be constructing the new thing that we want to construct so that we have shelter.
Reese Brown (23:04.78)
before the master's house is completely torn down, right? We need something before a storm comes and there isn't any shelter at all. But in this new structure that we're building, that is also where we can, to belabor this metaphor, start a blacksmith area, little pocket, or a forgery, or build these new tools.
to be able to dismantle the master's house. But something had to be created for those new tools to be created as well. So in order for destruction to occur, we must be creating something. And but also, no one who is not an early adopter of the new creation is going to leave the known safety, even if it's a known hell.
for the unknown heaven that could be this new structure. So all of that to say, Kelly speaking to the difficulties and negativities that can exist in a lot of spiritual spaces, I think is a very necessary conversation and spoke truth to a lot of my felt experience that is like, why are some of the most quote unquote love and light people I know also some of the most toxic and nasty?
in a very like real sense. And it's like, whoa, that should not be the case. The same way Christians that are supposed to be the most loving and open and, you know, Jesus like, oftentimes are some of the most hurtful and harmful individuals that exist in this world. So what are we to do with that? And as someone who was a member of a lot of like spiritual esoteric-y
spaces, I think it's our duty as we are crafting this new shelter, this new house, that we do so with integrity and alignment with how we want that to look. And if we're tearing down the master's house and these old structures because it's not safe, because it's not productive, well, we sure as hell don't want to be building a lack of safety and productivity or not productivity. Maybe that's not the best word, but inclusivity and expansiveness.
Reese Brown (25:24.854)
into this new shelter either? And how often are we just revolting to create something new, quote unquote new, that's actually just mirroring the same old issue, but in different language? We actually need to understand the heart of what it is that we're doing, not just regurgitating the nice words that we hear people say.
I was talking with Lauren about this on the other podcast, The Unwritten Aesthetic and how as philosophers, it's really important that we don't just regurgitate jargon, but we really understand what we're saying. And it's really easy when you confront a dense text to read a known popular analysis of it and just be like, okay, yeah, that is what Heidegger was saying. That is what Jung was saying. These really particularly obtuse authors are trying to communicate. But
That's not really what philosophy is. Philosophy is digging into the text yourself. And even if your analysis is the first of its kind is completely different than these quote unquote trusted analyses, it doesn't mean yours is wrong. And actually yours is probably really needed because these dense texts, mean, like Nietzsche too, there's so many different things that can be pulled from the mass of philosophical and literary canon that
every single person's take on it will add a layer to what we can learn from it. And to just echo the analysis that we've been told are the quote unquote correct ones is to me mirroring the flaws of the master's house to combine like 30 different metaphors. So.
I really appreciated this episode with Kelly and I just felt so seen in so much of what we were talking about, which was, it's always a good feeling, but also, there's just always a moment when you're talking with someone and you just click in and it's like, okay, yeah, we're going some, somewhere really good with this one. My next episode was with Abigail Rebecca and what a fun, fun episode. Abigail does such a beautiful job.
Reese Brown (27:44.011)
in all of her work of bringing play to the picture, despite having such a hefty and weighty backstory. If you haven't listened to the episode yet, of course, I would love for you to listen to all of these episodes. But Abigail grew up in a cult and now is a CEO and owns her own company and helps women create their own businesses in alignment.
with their human design. And I am pretty new to human design still, but it's certainly one of those pieces of this esoteric occulty kind of world that I dabble into that really interests me. And Abigail's approach to it being one of play and this marriage between the dark parts of life, but also the light parts of life just felt really
useful to me because so often, again, going back to what I was talking about at the very beginning around the Nietzsche discussion, so often when people come from darkness or darkness, I think we have an instinct to say that darkness is bad and lightness is good. And there's something more complex and nuanced about how darkness and
lightness actually rely upon one another. So with all of that, I think the more darkness that you create space for in your life, actually the more space for play and joy and shine you allow into, it just becomes expansive. The brighter a light, the deeper and longer a shadow it casts. And I think that Abigail's story is a really beautiful reflection of that.
And I loved diving into human design and learning a little bit more about mine through the course of hearing from her about human design. And it's so funny because, you know, I was talking about the hermit and the archetype of the poet earlier. And in my mind, those all feel very Virgo-esque to me. And Virgo is my son's sign. The hermit in the tarot is a card that is associated with the sign of Virgo. And
Reese Brown (30:08.782)
Because of that and the connection to Zarathustra, I've always thought of Virgo very much as this like poet archetype in astrology. And while human design pulls on astrology, it certainly is not the same. And Virgos tend to be, I think, pretty relatively well-liked as far as signs go. But apparently, I did not know this until I dived more into human design. I'm a 5'1", and that is like the...
human design archetype that people are like stay away from their not bad, but like maybe more difficult.
And so it was just interesting to see the different reflections of myself in all of these different traditions. And when you discover throughout your life, different tools for self discovery, because I think for so long, I was working from a paradigm of just my sun sign too, within astrology. And now I've been learning more about like the entirety of my chart and working for my rising sign.
And growing up, I was very much consumed with needing to be liked, needing to be understood, needing to be
good and approved of publicly and externally. And while certainly I'm still working on it, a really big part of that work for me right now around the time that my paradigm with astrology is shifting, but also around the time that I discovered human design is working on being okay with being the villain in someone else's story, being okay with someone thinking that I mean, welcoming, being misunderstood, and even saying all of those things like spikes my heart rate.
Reese Brown (31:56.495)
Because one, intuitively, like, who enjoys those things, right? And our psychology is wired to tell us no bad, scary, be accepted by your fellow human beings, by the tribe, because if you're rejected, that means death. But we know that that's not true anymore. And how can rejection actually look like liberation now is the paradigm that I'm trying to learn from as well. And...
discovering my human design at this time was a really powerful mirror. So go check out this episode and go check out your human design too. Episode four with my lovely dear friend, Loveth Herd. What a powerful, powerful episode. I'm always so just humbled and astounded.
at the vulnerability that people gift me and the Cohere Collective and the Making Meaning podcast with.
There is straight up magic in your story. And for people to come onto this podcast and allow it to be the avenue through which they tell their story for the first time is also a radical act of honesty and self-acceptance and self-love that they are putting on display for other people to witness very publicly. And that in and of itself is extremely vulnerable. But they are also allowing people to learn from that.
And that is just like so, so brave, like just fucking brave.
Reese Brown (33:42.219)
And for this community that I may have created, it's certainly not just me, but that I created to be the place that people choose to engage in this act of radical self-love, vulnerability, and openness. To me, that's that's coherence right there. Like it is such a lived act of owning coherence.
And it is just the biggest privilege in the world that people trust, not just the spaces that I've created to tell and share and own their story, but me to help steward the space for them to do so. It's...
It's the greatest, greatest privilege. And I don't always know when we're gonna go there, but this episode with Loveth, we absolutely did. And my word is their story just...
one that we all need to learn from. And biggest takeaway here is just Loveth's depiction of refusing to forget the self.
is something that I think we all need to learn from.
Reese Brown (35:02.594)
I'm pretty sure they said, I'm refusing to forget the self, but also I must remember myself. And both of those things, even though they sound like mirror images of each other, I think they have very distinct nuances to them. And we should be able to hold both of them because of those slight differences that not only.
Are we refusing to forget the self in this radical act against externalities that tell us to forget the self But also we are owning the remembrance of the self too. Going back to something that we have always known that rests inside of us, that goes back to what we were talking about at the very beginning, right? This thing that is so particular about the human experience that is
unique to us, but also that which makes us whole and united and connected to one another because no one could possibly understand our subjective experience of the human experience, but also we know that everyone is having their own human experience in this very multiplicitous way. And that is just worth remembering. And don't you dare forget it. Do not.
And on top of that, think Loveth's episode is also a beautiful example of how these esoteric concepts and bigger concepts about self-growth and self-discovery and self-love that feel talked about a lot in the zeitgeist right now, right? Like we're very much in the self-love, self-care era, which is great in a lot of ways. I have some mixed feelings about the languaging around it, which if you listen to me for any time, you'll probably know.
Reese Brown (37:00.916)
Loveth's experience and story speaks to the need to ground that into life, into practicality and the implications of self-love on how we live and treat one another. And it really embodies coherence in that it's not just about my relationship with the self. It must be also how I walk in this world and my relationship with other people. And those things are also deeply connected and
You know, it's the RuPaul, if you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else? But also, if you are not loving yourself, you cannot, or I'm sorry, I misspoke. If you are not loving others, you cannot love the self. It just doesn't work. There is something fundamental to humanity and to our relationship to one another that just like, it doesn't vibe and connect.
One thing that I came to in my thinking when I was still living in Italy was this idea that it's actually impossible for anyone to not live in accordance with the golden rule that you will always treat other people the way that you want to be treated. And in using the word want, I'm meaning this in a more subconscious sense that the way that you treat yourself,
is actually how we do in-depth treating other people. Because the people who harm others and stifle others and restrict others and take liberties and protections and rights away from other people, I deeply believe are the people who hate themselves the most. Because they have so fundamentally ignored
this piece of themselves that we're talking about, this inner spark, this coherence, this meaning that rests right in your soul, in your chi, in your heart, in your spirit, in your energy, in your brain, in your mind, whatever you want to call it, your consciousness. I'm going to call it coherence. That's my word for it. But those people who have so deeply denied that about themselves,
Reese Brown (39:16.62)
are the only ones who could ever treat other people like that because they have absolutely ripped their humanity away from themselves. And I think that's why this act of owning your inherent worth, knowing that your coherence deserves to take up space is so revolutionary because of what it also calls us to do in how we treat other people.
in how we engage in community and structures of governance. And Loveth's story is just like bang on about that.
Reese Brown (40:16.814)
And I think that's a story that we need to be telling and listening to more and more.
Reese Brown (40:41.4)
My next episode was with Jules Carota, and this episode was so powerful in how it bridged the gap between science and spirituality. And that's something I tend to talk about a lot, and I think that that language feels a little dualistic for me now in my current understanding of my worldview and the paradigms that I work from. But it is still so important, especially in framing my work to other people, because it
adds such a beautiful entryway for, yeah, when you're talking about God, that's what I mean by energy field. Or when you're talking about the atheistic sense of atoms, that's also what I'm talking about when I use the word God, you know? And even though it's certainly much bigger and broader than just science and spirituality or the same thing, it gives us a really nice shorthand with which to have these conversations.
with one another. And of course it's like, okay, yeah, we are talking about something slightly different when we're talking about Adam's versus God, but also in a deeper realer sense. Not really on my worldview. And there was actually one article that Dennis, my cohost on bow down the other podcast that we have here at the cohere collective, he sent to me and it was about the astrology of urine, urine is moving into Gemini this year.
And I remember in it, there was a sentence that said something about the shift in this energy that is about information and information dissemination that was seeing
Reese Brown (42:24.352)
a book on seeing... Again, let me actually pull up the quote.
That will be helpful.
Reese Brown (42:58.432)
Okay, here it is.
Reese Brown (43:03.747)
I love this, okay.
So of course this,
Reese Brown (43:12.632)
So this sentence is talking about the transit of Uranus moving into Gemini, but I think it reflects outward and expands into a lot of other important things that I'm talking about. Think of this transit as an assault on mental complacency. It shatters old fixed beliefs and replaces them with a cascade of new, often contradictory information. It's like having your internal library with all its neatly organized shelves hit by a cyclone.
You might find a volume of quantum physics shelved next to a book on ancient witch, shelved next to a book on ancient witchcraft and suddenly realize they're talking about the same thing because they are. And, Oh, does that not just give you goosebumps that it's like, yeah, they are. are. And like, ultimately that is, I think something that I really nerd out about that, uh, I'd
I try to systematize, but I'd like to add a little bit more structure to in my own worldview and paradigm because there's just something so magical to me about like the sacred geometry of the world and how everything moves and guires. And it's like, of course, if our energy is moving in that same form, then we are going to return to these same cycles as a pattern of all of this energy. And that's going to also be reflected in human history and the cycles that
humans and civilizations go through too. And it just is fascinating and like endlessly beautiful to me and the most random and unrandom thing that could possibly exist. And what Jules's work really speaks to, especially in her book, The Ineat Self, is the subjective aspect of this experience and how we all have this piece of that magic in us. But similarly, it reminds us how to expand it out.
into the universe around us.
Reese Brown (45:14.594)
The next episode is with the lovely Carolyn Craft, and this was one of the first episodes. Sometimes I'll find people's work online and I'll reach out to them and I'm like, hey, do you wanna do an episode? Like, I think this could be really cool. We could talk about this and this and this. And you know, not everyone responds back or sometimes it'll be a no or sometimes I don't quite have time right now, reach out again and it's all beautiful and perfect and I completely understand it. But I was just so stoked when Carolyn said,
Yes, because I just really love her approach to this work and I think it's one that is so important and necessary, but it's also one that people like to think that they're doing, but they really don't do it well. So Carolyn's work being primarily philosophically based, but also she talks about a lot of political issues and socioeconomic
systems and structures that we all exist within and kind of hot button topics. A lot of people like to say that they're approaching these from an unbiased, nuanced, complex way and wanting to help you maintain your true analysis, thinking, and thought pattern with it from a place of your own ethics, integrity, and values. One, kind of impossible to...
do that perfectly and have a conversation around that without some of your own bias slipping in there. But man, Carolyn gets pretty damn close. And I think there can be a debate about how comfortable different people feel doing work like that. I know for me, I don't think I would be able to have a channel like Carolyn's because I do feel just for me personally that I have some duty to
own my belief system in terms of what I think is really right and really wrong and to kind of fight for that publicly with my voice. And not to say that that's not what Carolyn is doing, but I think her approach is different in the sense that she is totally locking into complete neutrality so that people
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are forced to confront what their actual beliefs, values, and baseline thinking is. And that is where so much of this work has to start, has to begin, is with confronting your baseline beliefs. And if you don't know what those are, you're not going to be informed by reading the media. You're not going to be able to learn from scrolling on TikTok, no matter how informed
or unbiased or educated the people that you are listening to are, it's impossible to separate what you really think from the bombardment of information we all receive every day. And I think Carolyn's work is a really beautiful place to start to try and understand these issues and just see how they hit you and see how they feel and start there. And...
I think it's a really powerful way to remind people to tap back into their humanity in doing this work, especially in a politically.
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volatile time. I think it's a really important space to have. And again, I don't think that's the space that I feel called to create, but I am really, really glad that Carolyn is creating that space and that she's the one that's creating it. think that I just have so much respect for everything that she's doing. And it was really cool to also talk to a fellow young woman who's doing things like this about that experience too, because it's certainly
Interesting.
The next episode was with Anthony Avignano and what a synchronistic episode. Before we hopped on this call, I did not know that Anthony was literally living in Florence and we recorded this episode, I think a week after I moved back to the States from living in Florence. And so immediately I was just like, that's weird and wild. Do I need to go back to Florence? Which one? I will be eventually and of course I need to.
the most magical place in the world. But it was just like, whoa, what a synchronicity. And then the little things just kept popping up in our conversation for me that was just like, I haven't think about that. my gosh, and that relates to this thing over here. And that relates to this other thing that I was talking about with a friend. And that relates to this thing that I was talking about with my therapist. And that relates to this thing that I was talking about with my dad. And like,
just all of the spider webbing. don't know if you can see it on my face in this episode, but I really felt like the woman in that meme with all the different math equations going, because that was just so what this episode felt like for me very personally. And it was so powerful, as is Anthony's story and work. And biggest takeaway here, it's just the beauty of the breath.
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And again, I kind of just touched on this, but the cycles that exist all around us that kind of mirror and refract inward and outwardly, it's kind of the turtles all the way down concept. But the fact that we, as human beings, as physical creatures that exist in nature, are constantly mirroring the same cycles that we exist within, it's just like, what? It's just an absolute miracle. And
The innate power of the breath is truly embodying in a very mental sense because we know how deeply the mind connects to our breath, but also in a deeply physical sense, the cycle of death and rebirth that happens every second for us. It is both the thing that we think about the least, but also the thing that
asks us to call our attention to it in every moment and to be inspired to inspire, right, is both to breathe life into someone else and into the self. And we were talking about earlier how the self is a mirror of the other and vice versa. Like you can just see how all of these ripple effects cycle. And to me, an inhale and an exhale is like the sun rising and setting. It's what our earth does every day. It's like,
the turning of the season. It's in nature needing to die and be reborn every year. It's everything around us all the time. No matter how good humans get at engineering, at innovation, at creation, at anything, we will still be dealing with
physical reality because ultimately we are physical beings, at least in this instantiation and this moment. And cars will always hit a year where they stop working. Houses will always eventually be overtaken by nature.
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Like everything we create ultimately will.
ashes to ashes, dust to dust go back to the way it once was. And there is something so.
grief riddenly beautiful about that. And it's not that
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In talking about this, I want to clarify that I don't think that that means we should be trying to fight these cycles either. I think that this should be a lesson in how we work with the world around us. And when you hear people talking about ancient cultures and civilizations and peoples that, you know, organized differently and did operations differently and thought about the earth differently and the world differently, we don't really
dive into all that much, quite what that means, really. But one thing, as I've been trying to study those things in a deeper and deeper level and not just like, yeah, indigenous Americans didn't think that anyone really owned the land. So when colonizers came from Europe and colonized the Americas, they were like, okay, well, you don't think you own the land, I own the land now. And it's like that.
That is true in some sense, but it's a very surface level of this understanding because it wasn't just that Native Americans didn't think that anyone owned the land. And we think of it differently as settler colonial, settler colonials, practitioners of settler colonialism. However, you should say that, but they actually had a deep and rich relationship with
the living world as members and participants in the living world, and that there are innovations and changes and...
technologies that are created from and for and with the living world that worked very well, that were beautifully simplistic in that it did exactly what you needed it to do. And the genius of that, the sacredness of that proficiency and conciseness in a physical item.
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And I just suppose all that to say in talking about these cycles of death and rebirth, I just want to emphasize how when we talk about like returning to a more ancient understanding of the way things are and should be in the way that our relationship with nature and the living world should expand and contract.
It's not to say that there's no such thing as innovation and as growth. It's just that it looks more like partnership than dominion. And I think that that's something we could really bear to remember along with.
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just because there's one way that we've done things our entire lives and one way that our ancestors did them for most of their lives does not mean that that's the right way to do them, the only way to do them. And actually, if you trace it back through history and lineage and why things started down that line to begin with, probably had something to do with fear, lack mindset, and someone being afraid that their power was going to be taken away from them.
when actually if we have faith and trust and belief in one another and in the universe that everything is as it should be, there's really no power to lose because there's no power to hold on to. No one can take something from you that isn't yours. So there's nothing to really be afraid of anyways. Again, it's a very simplistic depiction of this and I'm still certainly trying to educate myself and learn more about this, but...
The Breath is a beautiful example of it. And I actually think this ties really nicely into our next episode with Elspeth Hay. And we talked about why the hell we don't eat acorns anymore and how that ties into colonialism and colonization and the need for this ancestral healing. And I think this is just like confirmation from Elspeth that this absolutely is a conversation that we need to be having, that we are having whether we are aware of it or not.
So we should call our awareness to it so that we can be in dialogue with our history, with our ancestors, with the living world in a intentional and aware way, as opposed to just repeating cycles that we don't want to be repeating. Which cycles are we repeating that we don't want to be repeating? And which cycles are we repeating that we should be repeating? It's all about cycles.
The next episode was with K. Margaret Solorio and this was such a fun episode. There are just certain times where I get on my soapbox about the meaning of life and I just really want to be the annoying person at the dinner party that says, why? Okay, and why? And why that? And why again?
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which sometimes I feel like I sound like an annoying six-year-old, but other times it's like we really do get somewhere really good with that continued line of questioning. And I think that that's a really powerful line of questioning to have with yourself too. If you don't really know why you feel a certain way and you're trying to figure out maybe what wound lies under that or what piece of yourself that you are wanting to learn more about, just keep asking why until you get to something that feels like a root.
And eventually it'll probably come up again, cycles once more, and you'll get to ask why some more and heal another dimension of it or bring awareness to another dimension of it. And I also really love how K-Markets work deals in place because that's something that in my research around this colonization and colonialism and all of these different
cycles that we are participants in.
It's something that a lot of my research has really brought up for me. And there's an animist way of thinking that says that there is no such thing as space. Everything is place. And I think that is really the uniting thread between K. Margaret's work and Elspeth Hayes' work truly is how do we as human beings engage with place and that every place we are in
there are attending spirits to that place. There is an energy to that place. There is a person to that place, depending on the worldview you're working from, right? But with engaging with something that is alive and nuanced, treating it with the respecting dignity of place as opposed to space, I think is really important and powerful.
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And last but not least, episode 10 this season was with Shara Goswick and I met Shara at the podcast movement convention that I went to. was my first podcast convention and it was the first time I was at anything with a creator badge. And it was just such a fun, lovely experience, but also so lovely to meet Shara. And once again,
The humbling nature of people trusting me with their story and trusting this space and this community with that story will never... will always be novel to me and will always...
Just make me feel so grateful because ultimately all of this work together.
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Coherence, the reason why all of this work together culminates in the word cohere, coherence, is because even though we all have a different relationship to the numinous, to the imaginal, to something beyond, and we are quote unquote spiritual beings having a physical experience.
The thing that we and our current modern mindset cling to is what we can prove as reality. And we cannot move beyond our physical reality in a Maslow's hierarchy of needs sense if our physical needs have not been met. Even though there are higher order things that do beg for our attention and bear and need our attention, we have to begin with food.
shelter, physical safety, emotional safety, community and connection. That's where we have to begin. And we can't do any of this other work if we don't have that. It is a privilege, the biggest privilege in the world to be able to do this work.
And therefore, we have to acknowledge this physical reality. And that's something that so many spiritual and philosophical communities and works and histories completely negate. And that's why justice has to be a part of this. Because if I believe that I'm worthy of meaning making, that means I believe every single other person is worthy of meaning making. And that means that everyone should have, deserves,
equal opportunity and access to meaning-making, and that means we all need our baseline fundamental needs met for this physical reality. And we have to begin there as a species, as a humanity, and then build upward. And then, not only do we get to work on self-actualization, but we can work on collective actualization. And what that looks like. But none of it fucking matters.
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if there are people who are starving. None of it fucking matters if people still don't have clean drinking water.
None of it fucking matters if genocides continue happening in this world. Because...
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We live in a physical world. And that is the most pressing reality at hand. Not to say that all of your work should center on this one most immediate thing, right? Like there's different levels of immediacy and different nuances and complexities that we have to hold when it comes to taking care of the self and others, of course.
But that's why coherence is a collective. And that's also why coherence has to integrate justice. And that's also why we make such space for this physical reality, for space, not space, place, for other human beings, for the physical body, for our physical wellness, our mental health, for community and connection and relationships.
because it is only with and of those things that the numinous can also be called in and vice versa. It is all in divine dialogue and communion with one another.
To bring it back to Shara's story, I think even though it's probably pretty obvious that Shara and I share a different worldview and religious system from one another, I have so much respect for the way that she lives her life informed by this view, by the values that her religious system espouses.
because ultimately the cognitive dissonance and lack of coherence, the incoherence that so many individuals have, I think is what causes so much injustice. It goes back to what I was talking about in relationship to Carolyn's episode. You have to understand your baseline values first and then work outward from there.
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And Shara really understands her baseline values. And I think that's really allowed her to heal in a really beautiful and powerful way. Because how do you heal something working from a paradigm that's unclear? Do you even consider the thing you're trying to heal from a wound if you don't know your values? What is a wound to you, right? Like all of these things.
This season has been so, powerful for me so far, and I am so excited for it to continue. The overarching themes here, I think, are really clear. A connection to the cycles of the broader world and how those cycles mirror on all different levels and kind of fractal images throughout history, throughout space and place, throughout the individual.
and the collective and at different levels of experience from the breath all the way up to the solar system to systems of governance and economics to systems of spirituality. And that this conversation needs to be had on all of these different levels in order for coherence to truly be.
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the conversation that we're having. And maybe that's not the conversation you want to be having. It's the one I want to be having, because I think it's the one that I found that allows all of these different elements to be equally as important and vested in us to be vested in all of them equally. If that makes sense. I hope that makes sense. But with all of these different levels of this mirroring,
that happens with these cycles. The last thing that I wanted to come back to was...
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the difficulty that I have in the change that I am striving to make with and in philosophical, spiritual, and philosophical and spiritual communities, and in humanity as a whole, I suppose. I think there is a really big pattern of individuals
trying to break us free of dichotomies, of individuals trying to change the way that we think about the world. But those individuals that we see then offer a stagnant new dichotomy of their own that, sure, offers some growth and some insight and pushes the needle forward, but still resettles us into a certain
right and wrong, that I just resist a certain hierarchy that I think at a certain point doesn't serve. So when we think of people like Nietzsche who write books like The Antichrist that I think is extremely powerful and everyone should read, regardless of your religious worldview,
I also want us to think about how we can read that in tandem with the Bible and vice versa. And I think that there are a lot of people who would say one or the other is right or wrong, which fundamentally I just kind of disagree with. But then even further, these deep thinkers like Nietzsche that are trying to offer something new do so in a counter way.
do so by saying God is dead. And like I said at the beginning, I don't just want to hold that God is dead and we have killed him. I also want to hold that God is alive and we have birthed him. And I think both of those things have to be true in this yin yang sense. Similarly with, I've been really diving into Carl Jung's work recently and he had this deep psychotic
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episode that he wrote the Red Book during and the Red Book is deeply fascinating. Again, I highly recommend it.
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but I don't think that we necessarily need to have a psychotic break to have a connection with the divine. And it kind of goes back to some of these archetypes around like the starving artist. And is there a certain sense in which desperation and intensity of feeling an emotion cultivates something really powerful in the human as creator? Yes, absolutely.
but we need to also be able to hold that with.
You can also have powerful insights and take care of yourself. And actually, you probably should be taking care of yourself because you're a human being deserving of care. And I just think for so long, even those that are trying to bring us towards nuance, then somehow, right at the end, make this right turn back into stagnation. And perhaps part of that is just the nature of discursive language, of texts that
are printed and aren't breathing. And maybe it's actually impossible to create a theory or a paradigm or a system that is ever evolving. But I hope that that's what I've done and will continue to do and evolve with the coherence matrix and with the Coher collective. But another big example of this that's coming to mind too, let me know if you want a separate video on this thing that I'm about to talk about as well, because
I feel kind of called to make one, but I'm like, does it really relate to everything? But maybe it does. So let me know if you'd be interested in it. But it's around the discourse of Taylor Swift right now that's happening. As someone who grew up not a Swifty, but enjoying Taylor Swift's music, I've heard people call them Swifters that are like not Swifties, but still fans. And I guess I would have previously put myself in that category. But with the cultural
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phenomenon that's happening around Taylor Swift right now and the newest album, The Life of a Showgirl and how that settles into our current place and time with governance, economics, socio-political spectrums that we exist within.
There is a divide. Either it's really not that deep and people need to get over it, or Taylor Swift is a fascist and a racist and a white supremacist. And I think we should be able to and probably should hold the reality that says...
We can play and have fun and listen to music and some things don't always have to be so deep. And yet, when we engage with things in a not deep way, we should do so with the awareness of having also previously done some deep reflection and thinking around that. And even if someone maybe isn't consciously a white supremacist and isn't consciously a fascist,
holds patterns and behaviors that are reflective and indicative of white supremacy, racism, and fascism. And when you are a big star and you don't speak up against these power systems and structures that are extremely harmful to other people,
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What is your responsibility there? And how does that echo out reflections of harm that you then are perpetrating because of that? Does that necessarily mean that one lyric is the absolute utmost proof that someone is a racist? Right? Do you hear what I'm saying?
I think after having talked for almost an hour and a half straight, my brain is getting a little fried. getting into Lauren's brain spaghetti mode, but I hope the heart of what I'm saying is clear in that.
We have been fighting in discourse and in communities to try and create space for nuance and complexity to cultivate safety for people. But then it's in those spaces and places where you have people saying either it's not that deep because they maybe are falling on this side of like, well, I'm seeing a lot of this on this side and I want to hold this other end of the nuanced spectrum.
but then they're only representing one half of the spectrum. And then you also have people saying, she's a fascist. That is also like, I don't like that people are saying this isn't that deep because that perpetrates and perpetuates harm too. And so I need to hold this other side of the spectrum. And in trying to uphold nuance, we then once again settle into the cycle of not being able to hold complexity. Part of this is indicative of
All of the systems and structures we're in, but also the difficulty of creating content and discourse around things with a 10 minute max on videos where people aren't watching whole videos and people are commenting much before they watch the whole video. So yeah, all that to say, I think that that is an example of what I'm trying to talk about, right? That even though the people who are upholding,
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the need for nuance and complexity and holding these thoughts, I think then sometimes when they speak what they are trying to speak into existence to uphold the nuance, they are then entrenching down into stagnation. Does that make sense? Am I making sense? And am I making sense? How this is just an example of that. I also want to be clear that there's no such thing as an ethical billionaire, and that's a really big reason.
why. I no longer consider myself a fan of Taylor Swift and I do think that even though there is nuance and complexity to behold about all of these things, there are deep, deep problems with the recent album and her recent behavior. And as a white feminist, I also want to be very careful that I am always doing the work to listen to Black women, trans women, and other women of color. So, yeah.
That's my disclaimer on the Taylor Swift discourse, which again, if you want more thoughts on, we can get into that in another video. But I think that that's an interesting example of the thing that I'm talking about that's happening right now. And I just want us to be able to take a step back.
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and really think about what our values and beliefs are and fight to hold the nuance and complexity and then coherently live our life by those values. Even though that makes life more difficult and you can't talk about it in a 10 minute video, clearly this one's an hour and a half. I think it's also necessary. And
Not to say that, because I make 10 minute videos too, right? I make two minute videos. Not to say that the lightness and levity isn't also just as important and that sometimes we're too obsessed with, we should be able to use jargon in shorthand when you understand someone's heart and the paradigm that they're working from. But your paradigm itself should not be able to be expressed and explained easily or quickly.
and
with making decisions and judgments in this world, we need to go back to that paradigm for ourselves, what that means for you. So yeah, God is dead and we have killed him, but also God is alive and we have birthed her.
I really enjoyed this recap. I feel like I've gone a little bit off the deep end here in the second half of the episode. My brain is getting a little, like I said, into spaghetti territory and I think I'm ready for another sip of my coffee and probably some water and maybe some protein too. But it's always just such a joy to reflect back on.
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this beautiful work that I get to do. So thank you for being here and thank you for being a part of it.
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Also, if you have any thoughts, definitely let me know them.
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It truly is not lost me.
Thank you all so very much for being here today. I mentioned having gratitude for several of these guests and I just want to really underline how grateful I am to all of them for coming on and sharing their time, energy, and wisdom and meaning making with me. Truly, this is my favorite thing in the world to do and it brings me so much joy and I also want to extend that gratitude to you, dear listener, because
If I've said it a million times, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times and I will continue, continue saying it till the cows come home. My favorite part of meaning, of making meaning is the meaning that you make out of this. Because it makes different meaning when it hits your ears, because it becomes something different when you engage with it. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being you. Thank you for being my part of making meaning.
My part, my favorite part of making meaning. I told you all my brain is going off the deep end right now, but truly it's fabulous. You're fabulous. You are a miracle. And I can't wait for the rest of the season with you. A big thank you to Nicole O. Stryker for making meanings art and podcast cover. You can find her on Instagram at Nicole O. Creates and Nicole O. Design.
A big thank you to Tristan Morgan for making meanings theme music. You can find him on Instagram at Tristan Morgan. If you are interested in working with me to find and pursue your purpose, you can do so over at www.thecohiercolective.com and learn more. Click on Coherent Design and see how I work with people to help them find and pursue their purpose and make meaning and.
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If you were like, yeah, I do want to start thinking about my values and life and what does this actually mean to me and then build coherence out from there, that's what I help people do. So go, go learn more and reach out to me. Follow the Cohere Collective everywhere that there is social media, all at the Cohere Collective and subscribe wherever you may be listening or watching. Leave us a like, a five star rating or review and a comment down below.
the best way to support me, to support the Cohere Collective, to support the Making Meaning podcast and this work that I am trying to do of spreading coherence and helping everyone in this world live life a little more meaningfully every single day. Okay, I believe I...
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I'm losing my mind. That's all I have for you here today. I am so grateful for you for being here. Last but not least, actually, that is not all that I have. We have just started a new newsletter called The Muse Letter that brings you weekly insights for cultivating coherence. I put all of the new content that The Co-Heer Collective has put out.
that week in the newsletter so you will never miss an episode of anything. But also I add in songs that go with that week's theme and memes in quotes and I write a little essay and there's recommended research and reading and other podcast episodes that aren't just from me for further research and there's journal prompts and exercises that you can do and all sorts of things like that. if you're like, yes, I definitely want to dive into this work, but I'm not sure where to start and I don't know if I want to.
you know, do one-on-one work or anything like that, just go subscribe. See if you like it. It's free. And it's like an exclusive little intentional community via email inbox that we can have a deeper conversation about. Okay. Now that's all I have for you. Thank you again so very much for being here. And as always, I hope you feel like you are living more coherently. Until next time, love.