"Understanding is the booby prize!" - Susan Kacvinsky, Mythologist & Writer
Susan and I explore how ancient stories about death, rebirth, and the suppression of women's power illuminate today's political chaos. Susan argues that mythology is actively being used to control people through fear and shame, and has been for centuries. At its heart, this is a conversation about finding solid ground when the world feels like it's falling apart.
Highlights include:
Understanding the patriarchy: The conversation weaves together mythology, history, psychology, and politics in a way that reframes familiar things (Christianity, patriarchy, American politics) through a rarely discussed lens. Listen to understand the development and persistence of the patriarchy.
Naming what it's like to live now: the exhaustion of living under fear-based control, the loneliness of carrying emotions in a culture that punishes vulnerability, the frustration of a world that seems rigged.
Grounded hope: Rather than despair or toxic positivity, the conversation offers a mythological perspective on cultural collapse and renewal. The Inanna descent, the three days of death before resurrection, makes difficult times feel meaningful and survivable.
Warmth and aliveness: Susan and I delight in each other, and we hope that energy is contagious. We hope you feel like you are having tea with us, loosening a feel something loosening in you the permission to be curious, passionate, and undefended.
A quiet challenge: We follow a thread about willingness, feeling feelings, and presence as a gentle but persistent invitation to stop managing life from the outside and start meeting it from within.
