The Emerald explores the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination. Brought to life through the wise, wild, and humorous vision of Joshua Michael Schrei — a teacher and lifelong student of the cosmologies and mythologies of the world — the podcast draws from a deep well of poetry, lore, and mythos to challenge conventional narratives on politics and public discourse, meditation and mindfulness, art, science, literature, and more. At the heart of the podcast is the premise that the imaginative, poetic, animate heart of human experience — elucidated by so many cultures over so many thousands of years — is missing in modern discourse and is urgently needed at a time when humanity is facing unprecedented problems. The Emerald advocates for an imaginative vision of human life and human discourse as it questions deep underlying assumptions about societal progress.
Last refreshed: ⓘ
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
The dragon, or serpent, in myth and story, is the coiling, spiraling power of nature itself. And so, how cultures have treated the dragon depends a lot on how they view nature and how they view the world. Some have celebrated and honored the serpent power, some have sought to harness or direct it, others to contain or tame it, while some have labeled it as chaos and sought to subdue and slay it. The history of the Western world's relationship with dragons and serpents is fraught, and Western myt...
Delving into global mythology, this episode posits that dragons are far more than mythical beasts; they are the serpentine, spiraling power that underlies all creation, weather, and time. Through personal anecdotes, indigenous wisdom, and ancient texts, the host reveals how dragons embody the paradoxical, terrifying, and beautiful forces of nature, urging listeners to reconsider their relationship with this primal cosmic energy. The discussion extends to dragons as cosmic law, the blueprint of creation, and even the very fabric of story and healing.
Josh Schrei delves into the overwhelming burdens—sociocultural, ecological, and even cosmic—that individuals face in a postmodern, individualist world, leading to widespread exhaustion and despair. He contrasts this with traditional cultures that are built on networks of support, distributing weight across a relational web of animate forces, gods, and community. Through myths like Skywoman and the concept of "weight-bearers," the episode encourages listeners to identify what isn't theirs to carry, embrace the relief of human smallness, and cultivate systems of gratitude and interconnection to find genuine, sustainable support.
Amidst rising global frustration and personal impasses, this episode delves into mythic visions of a 'planetary roar' as a force for awakening and change. It explores how ancient traditions harness uttered sound to move stuck energy, from the Vedic storm gods and the roaring Goddess Shakti to Vishnu's conch blast and shamanic yelps. Through an interview on the Norse Ragnarok myth, it examines the paradox of contained forces and the necessity of channeling this powerful energy into creative, life-affirming ways, ultimately envisioning a new world born from transformation.
In times of rising frustration over the state of nations, times of personal, ecological, societal, and planetary impasse, when cycles of senseless suffering seemingly repeat themselves over and over, and all the global upheaval still isn't bringing about change... in times when stuck energies need to move and forces that have been restrained for generations long to break free, the myths offer visions of roarers, bellowers, trumpeters, and conch-blasters. These movers and shakers do more than rel...
POWER is on the mind these days, as the world grapples with shifting global power dynamics, old powers crumbling, new ones rising, and archaic power paradigms resurfacing… Yes, issues of power run rampant and discussions on power are front and center. But like everything else in modern discourse, the discussion on power has been decontextualized. Power is seen as an abstract bodiless force that governs from above, or an arbitrary human construct that is either relentlessly pursued or seen as 'ba...
Tricksters and culture disruptors populate global mythology. From Loki to Coyote to Èṣù and Hermes, they bend rules, cross boundaries, commit deliberate and unintentional offenses and generally mess with established orders. Yet they are often seen as indispensable to these orders — they are renewers and cultural innovators and often pave the way for great change. So in many cultures, Tricksters, despite their shenanigans, are seen as sacred. In modern society, we have no such ritualization of cu...
We live in times of individual, sociocultural and planetary crisis, exacerbated by rising divisions between people. How have humans historically navigated such times of crisis? Yes, we've organized, taken action, and responded as we've been called to respond. But we have also deepened our connection to the greater cosmos, through songs and poems and rituals of devotion, through crying out to a beloved universe whose workings remain a mystery but to whom we feel intimately and inextricably connec...
The podcast delves into the traditional understanding of the Divine Mother as the universe's animating force, critiquing contemporary reductionist views. It emphasizes connecting with her through animacy, trance, and sacred geography, sharing a personal transformative encounter. The episode highlights her terrifying yet loving aspects, urging listeners towards a reciprocal, disciplined relationship that transcends self-centric ideals.
Delving into humanity's 1.5 million-year relationship with fire, this episode reveals how fire transformed our bodies, minds, and societies, becoming the crucible for ideation, culture, and spiritual practice. It explores the dual nature of fire—its power to create and destroy—through myths, science, and ritual. The discussion extends to contemporary global inflammation, urging a return to tending our collective and individual hearths for balance and sustainable transformation.
This episode critiques modern mindfulness practices, arguing they're often stripped of their essential relational, ritual, and ecological contexts, leading to isolated individualism. The host explains how traditional Buddhist practices, originally deeply intertwined with animate nature, ancestral worship, and somatic practices, differ significantly from today's decontextualized forms. The discussion emphasizes that a truly full mind requires connection to community, nature, story, and ethical frameworks, rather than mere individual optimization.
Practices of guardianship — invoking guardian deities, enlisting spirit help, clearing spaces of questionable energies, and establishing boundaries around ritual, communal, and personal space — are common to animate traditions across the world. In many traditions, guardianship is absolutely central as we navigate a world of forces, not all of which are traditionally seen as beneficial. So traditional practitioners — even as they commune with the natural world — also draw clear boundaries, send w...
This episode delves into the profound, often unacknowledged fluidity of cultural and religious traditions, arguing that all are syncretic and constantly adapting. It highlights the stories of wandering gods and people, emphasizing how displacement and 'not feeling at home' can be powerful catalysts for new ritual practices and connections. Through examples like the Divine Mother's reinventions and the Romani's influence on global music, the podcast invites listeners to embrace the adaptive aspects of tradition, reconcile with rootlessness, and find spiritual potency in cross-cultural mashups.
In the modern world, words like 'law' and 'order' carry with them a good deal of sociocultural baggage, and are often associated with restriction, burden, and arbitrarily imposed rules. Yet historically, tradition after tradition sees an innate, artful order to the natural world and views the Law of the Land as something vibrant and alive, present in the breath and in the waters and in the endless cycling of the clouds. In this living vision of Law, nature unfolds along particular patterns and p...
In times of global upheaval, ecological destruction, and societal inequity, justice can seem very far away. Justice in the modern world is often viewed as a contract, an agreement forged between human beings rather than something inherent to the natural world. And yet, for many cultures and traditions, justice is seen as a living presence, as the actual dynamic flow of cause and effect that serves to keep a larger natural balance. Tradition after tradition speaks of the larger law of the cosmos ...
Across the globe, the arrival of 'civilization' brought with it the persecution of the seer, the shaman, and the visionary. Why? Perhaps it is because civilization, with its narratives of individual agency and control, its relentless emphasis on forward progress, its commitment to the removal of mystery from daily life, and its encouragement of numbness over feeling, is fundamentally at odds with the seer's sensitivities and alignment to larger forces beyond human control. So modernity pushes th...
Across cultures and traditions, there have always been those that speak with the dead, hear voices, enter states of oracular trance, and receive visions of what is to come. Such sensitivity, traditionally, is common. It's common to have premonitions that come to pass, to have dream experiences that translate into day-to-day life, and to be in continual felt dialogue with ancestors, with the dead, and with a larger world of animate forces. For most of human history, the people that received such ...
This episode explores sound and vibration as the fundamental essence of existence, weaving together animist traditions, spiritual texts, and scientific insights. Featuring musician Trevor Hall, the discussion delves into how sound is perceived across cultures as a creative, connective, and transportive force. It examines music's role in spiritual practice, personal growth, and ecological harmony, encouraging listeners to attune themselves to the pervasive "one sound" that defines our living world.
Modern discussions on healing individual minds, cultural wounds, and painful societal histories now revolve around the word ‘trauma.’ Yet addressing trauma is nothing new — traditional cultures across the globe have historically had their own forms of trauma work, without ever labeling it trauma work. For many cultures for many years, cathartic ritual practice that bypasses the conditioned mind has served multiple purposes as it regrows and re-patterns brains and bodies and communities. These ri...
This episode explores the rise of AI through a mythic lens, arguing its powers are akin to ancient magic and sorcery. It delves into humanity's complex relationship with unprecedented power, the deeper drives behind AI creation, and the critical need for embodied guidance, ethical frameworks, and an initiatory process for navigating world-altering technologies, rather than simply focusing on regulations.
In the myths and fairytales, everything teems with sentience and agency... Everything is alive. There are talking trees and singing stones and hedges that move of their own will. Mirrors speak. Swords dance. There are flying carpets and far-seeing spyglasses and cloaks and boots that leap by themselves. This pervasive insistence in the old stories that absolutely everything is alive — that everything has eyes — butts up against modern rationality and therefore gets marginalized as childish 'fant...
For 98% of human history — over 10,000 generations — our ancestors lived, breathed, and interacted with a world that they saw and felt to be animate — imbued with life force, inhabited by and permeated with beings with which we exist in ongoing relation. This animate vision was the water in which we swam, it was consciousness in its natural dwelling place, the normative way of seeing the world and our place in it. It wasn’t a theory, a philosophy, or an idea. It wasn’t, actually, an "-ism." It w...
Báyò Akómoláfé is an author, celebrated speaker, teacher, and self-styled trans-public intellectual whose vocation goes beyond justice and speaking truth to power to opening up other spaces of power-with. In this episode of The Emerald, Báyò joins Josh for a deep-dive discussion into how the Western psychological vision shapes modernity, and the need to expand into alternative stories of what 'being' means. Says Báyò: "Psychology is complicit in the creation of Western modernity. It is not a thi...
The podcast explores the consequences of psychology vernacular infiltrating all aspects of modern discourse, from personal relationships to activist movements, leading to an overemphasis on individual processing and pathologization. It argues that this psychological lens often overlooks the animate forces, ritualistic practices, and communal spiritual frameworks prevalent in traditional systems. The episode challenges the Western psychological notions of normalcy, safety, and agency, calling for a 'poeticized' revolution rooted in ancestral wisdom, devotion, and a deeper relationality with the breath of life.
Human beings adorn. Scientists now say that the earliest adornments date back over 160,000 years. Why is adornment so universal? It is easy to see adornment as simply an indication of status, wealth, and identity. But adornment is also more than this. The word 'adorn' and 'ornament' relate directly to the word 'order,' to the pattern of the cosmos. And so to adorn has also been associated with aligning to a greater pattern, a pattern evident in the harmonic structures of nature and expressed in ...
The episode, "On Birds, and the Imperative of Mystic Flight," explores humanity's deep co-evolution with birds, revealing how their flight, songs, and mythic presence awakened human senses and shaped language, art, and spiritual traditions worldwide. It argues that birds offer a vital pathway to expanded consciousness, enabling us to see farther and imagine solutions in challenging times. By embracing the "mystic flight" inspired by birds, we can gain essential perspective and cultivate hope for the future.
Modern embodiment discourse has arisen as a reaction to the Western world's fraught history with bodies. In a world of deep fracture from the natural world, the current emphasis on embodiment serves to help reclaim a relationship with ecology and with the sacredness of the immediate. But what does 'embodiment' really mean? For some, embodiment is synonymous with wellness. For others, embodiment is related to ongoing personal processing. Often, traditional cultures are held up as examples of embo...
Death is universal, an undeniable fact of existence that every single one of our ancestors faced, just as we will. So mythic traditions around the world are full of stories of death. Many initiatory rituals directly enact death, taking the initiate through a process of dying while alive. For Ancient Egyptians and Tibetan Tantrikas, death was not something to run from, but something to actively embrace, as acolytes regularly plunged into the intermediary state. Yet modern culture tries to run fro...
Human beings need ecstatic trance. Trance states have played a vital and necessary role in human culture and in the shaping of human history, causing some anthropologists to label the attainment of these states the 'main need' of the 'ceremonial animal' that is the human being. Trance states traditionally help communities reinforce shared bonds, establish values, gain insight into the nature of reality, establish reciprocal relation with the natural world, and even heal. Yet in the modern world,...
Not easy listening, but possibly necessary listening — this episode of The Emerald dives deep into the heart of the grief many are feeling over the social and environmental ills that are plaguing the planet. The consequences of ecosystem destruction, species loss, industrialization, social inequality, and rising extremism can be felt everywhere — acutely, in the bodies of those affected by environmental toxicity, armed conflict, and class divide, and more subtly in the gnawing sense of anxiety t...
