Poema Podcast

Friend of the podcast Rob Bell returns today to discuss his new latest work, a novel, "Where'd You Park Your Spaceship? An Interplanetary Tale of Love, Loss and Bread: Book One, Welcome to Firdus." (Yes this is the title).  It's an incredible novel, which explores grief, identity, toxic systems, all from the perspective of someone outside of earth learning it for the first time. Rob tells me his creative process in writing the novel, how the experience changed him, and how he discovered joy and fun in the creative process, and we talk about a WHOLE lot more too. What we hear from Rob here is truly inspirational, and speaks a lot to those going through healing, awakening, embodiment and finding freedom in their creative, personal and spiritual lives.   

This week my friend MJ joins me to discuss Dan Levy's movie director debut, 'Good Grief', which is available on Netflix.  The movie is about a person who loses their mother and husband in the space of the year, and their grieving process which reveals a lot of secrets and surprises, and how it impacts his life.  MJ and I, who both have lived experience of grief, watched it together and in this episode we share our own reflections, insights and lived experiences. We talk about the ways the movie covers and explores grief so well and tenderly, and what we learned. 

This week my friend Jenna DeWitt returns to discuss Taylor Swift's "1989 - Taylor's Version" which released earlier this year.  Jenna shares her own experience with the album - both the new version, and the original - and what these meant for her as she explored her own identity. Then together we explore various tracks on the album and the stories behind them. We discuss how these songs and their stories, and art in general, can help us as we process issues of grief, transformation and identity.  As we do so, we see more of how the creative process can heal and transform us.

My guest today is Virginia Spotts. She is a writer, actor, fiction podcaster, and aspiring death doula. In this episode she shares her experiences of grief and how they impacted her. As a writer, actor and fiction broadcaster, she shares unique experiences of how witnessing death and going through the grieving impacted the creative aspects of her life and identity.  Virginia also shares her experience of training as a death doula, helping people prepare for death. Its' a fascinating and unique insight into death and grief.

Today we begin another series exploring grief on the podcast, with Andrea De Ward talking about her experiences of doing pastoral work with the dying, as chaplain of a care home. Andrea talks about how this impacted her perspectives on death and grief, as she then herself had experiences of grief and loss. She tells us how these impacted her life, her relationships and her personal/spiritual journey. Andrea's story gives us a very unique perspective on death and  grief, and can help us understand these experiences much better. 

Today I'm joined by writer, advocate and podcast host Shari A Smith. She talks to us about her advocacy works with trauma victims and survivors, and the importance of sharing our stories.  Shari shares her experiences of sharing and bearing witness to trauma and grief stories, and how its' impacted her and the people sharing those stories. She tells us how sharing stories can provide solidarity to those hearing, and a voice to those who share them, and help us in the road to healing. 

Today I'm joined by therapist Heidi Dennis, MS LPC, to discuss her new book, "Hello Anxiety", and explore a new approach to dealing with anxiety.  Heidi shares how we can learn to say "hello" to our anxiety. Heidi shares what anxiety is, why it’s there and how to respond to it instead of distracting from it. She tells us how listen to our anxious feelings and work with them instead of against them, and find our way towards peace. 

This week I'm joined by activist and writer Justin Ancheta. In this episode they share their own story of discovering they were a biromantic demisexual & the prejudice they faced as a Filipino-Canadian, queer man with a stutter. They also talk about the connections between asexuality and tarot, and how discovering tarot helped them feel more at peace with their own identity, and discovering that liminal space of acceptance and belonging.    

In our first episode of 2024, my friend Cat Dean joins me for a fun conversation about being human in the changing seasons of life.  We discuss how the changes in the movement of the earth can impact our lives so directly, how we process change and the grief involved, and how it can impact our connection to our own humanity, and our creative lives.  We also explore how growth and healing increase connection to our bodies, and awaken us to the falseness of the systems we live in, connecting us more to our humanity, and to the earth.  This was such a fun, relaxed and often spontaneous conversation between friends, with great insights. Enjoy!

For Grief Awareness week this week, I'm joined by Vicky McQuarrie, who works for AtaLoss Charity, a non-profit organization that signposts bereaved people to support. TW: Suicide, grief, loss of spouse _ Vicky courageously shares her stories of loss and grief, both being widowed and losing her sister in the space of a year. She shares the impact this had on her life, the rituals and practices she discovered to help her grieve well. She also discusses how her first experience of processing grief impacted her second, and the biggest lessons she's learned, as well as the work of the bereavement charity AtaLoss. __ Find out more about Vicky's work at Ataloss.org

A new Poema podcast special episode with myself and Douglas Humphries - recorded during the strike specifically for a post-strike release.  In this episode we discuss Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer". We explore the various themes of the movie, how the movie impacted both of us, and the biggest lessons we can learn from the movie. We also talk about the storytelling in the movie, and the creative/storytelling lessons we can learn from Chris Nolan. 

I'm honoured today to be joined by author and speaker Daniel Finklestein. Daniel tells us the story about his parents and grandparents, Jewish families caught up in the growing anti-semitism of the 1920's & 1930's, ultimately leading to their imprisonment in concentration camps by the Nazi's.  But the story doesn't end there, they survived these camps and eventually moved to England where they raised a family. And of course there are shades of the shift to the hard right we've seen in the US & UK recently. It's a story of struggle, grief, courage and hope, and Daniel shares it beautifully. 

This week my friend Jenna DeWitt returns to the podcast to discuss two songs - "You're Losing Me" by Taylor Swift and "Faith" by Selmer - and exploring them in detail, in relation to their respective messages about queer liberation and owning your gender and identity. We breakdown the lyrics of each song and discuss them in depth, and Jenna gives great insight into the deeper meaning of these songs, how they've impacted her, and how they can speak to us too. We also touch on how despite one piece of art being labelled 'secular' and one more overtly, 'Christian', both can impart equally powerful messages about these issues.

This week my guest is my friend and colleague Maria French, author, speaker and theological coach. In this episode we discuss her new book, "Reconfiguring " A Collection of Post-Christian Thoughts and Theologies", and in particular two essays from this book. Firstly we explore the power of nostalgia, and how our yearning for some idealistic past which never existed can hinder our thriving and living now. We discuss this from both an individual and cultural perspective, looking at the impact of nostalgia on the political trajectory of both the US and UK in recent years. We then naturally move into a conversation about grief, death, and loss, and how sitting in our grief and allowing it to work on us, and doing healing work, can actually lead us become more fully alive. We explore how when we embrace the reality of death and grief, it can move us to be more fully present, and create a thriving life of purpose. *** You can buy Maria's new book "Reconfiguring " A Collection of Post-Christian Thoughts and Theologi

Today I'm joined by my friend Ali Smith, who shares their story of how they slowly discovered they were autistic, and ultimately had ADHD. They share common patterns of behaviour they experienced which they realised can be giveaways for these diagnoses, and the process of them obtaining a diagnosis.  Ali also talks about the challenges of coming to terms with their diagnoses and how they learned to acknowledge and accept who they are and thrive in their autistic and ADHD identities - and how we can too.

This week I'm joined by my friend Amber Kay to discuss living with epilepsy, how they discovered they were autistic and how this changed their life. They also share the story of discovering their bisexuality and embracing their true identity, and how this tied in with their autistic discovery. This episode is Amber sharing their journey of acknowledging and living fully into who they really are, and how we can do the same. 

This week I'm joined by author Lyndsey Medford, who tells us the story of when an autoimmune condition opened her eyes fully to the limitation of being in our bodies within the systems we live in.  Lyndsey talks about how learning to be comfortable in her body with its limitations impacted how she sees and interacts with the world. She also shares how it showed her how to heal and be free from the limitations of the systems we live in, and find a healthy, sustainable life for herself.

In this episode, my friend, ace advocate and writer Elle Rose, joins me to hear me tell my story of how I discovered I'm demisexual and on the asexual spectrum. Firstly, I talk about how I discovered what demisexaulity is and began to resonate with this label. I then discuss how once I acknowledged my demisexuality, and looked back at my life and my relationship to my sexuality, how it explained a lot of my experiences, lack of sexual attraction and why I was so different from my peers - and how what I thought was 'usual' wasn't the experience of others. Then I move to explain how this discovery has changed my life, helped my relationships, plutonic and romantic, and helped me find peace with myself. 

I'm honoured to welcome back my friend, author Marla Taviano today. In this episode we talk about her recent book of poetry, 'Jaded'. We talk about the messiness of deconstruction, the parts of the journey where we need to get things of our chest, release the grief, anger and trauma we carry, and learn to speak truth to ourselves and of ourselves.  Marla shares her own journey and how this is reflected in the poems and how writing the book helped that process. She talks about her experience of the anger and grief of discovering oppressive systems we've been a part of and damage we could have done, coming to terms with that, and the healing process. 

This week my friend Amanda Held Opelt returns, and we discuss grief rituals, why they were popular in the reign of Queen Victoria, and the impact of the first world war on our cultural grief rituals and how we process grief & loss. We also explore how the trauma and grief culturally felt and experienced in the first World War, had an impact on the allied nations initial response to Hitler's tyranny and how this could have inadvertently contributed to WWII.  We then discuss how defeat and having to face up to their actions as a nation, and do the work of healing and transformation, impacted Germany and their culture, and how victory contributed indirectly too many of the problems we now see in the UK and Germany.