The Emerald – ND #143

Sky Bridge (to our ancestors?) – Photo: L. Weikel

The Emerald

It’s been almost exactly two months since I discovered a podcast that I’m excited to share with you. It’s a wonderful respite from my usual fare, which runs the gamut of legal analysis of current affairs and politics to astrology. Instead of any of those topics, The Emerald covers subjects that make me smile and nod, and occasionally gasp at the resonance with what I know in my heart to be true.

I took a podcasting course two years ago, and then re-took it again this past fall. No, I haven’t been holding out on you. The idea remains, but finding the internal bandwidth to create it on a consistent basis eludes me. For now, anyway.

But the course itself was wonderful, both technically and in the fact that it introduced me to a cadre of people I never would’ve met had we not shared the aspiration to give literal voice to our passions. I hung out in a couple of groups self-selected for our shared interests, and it was in one of those that I received a recommendation to check out The Emerald Podcast.

An Irony

In spite of the fact that I took a podcasting course – twice, no less –I actually listened to very, very few, especially at the time. I don’t want to spend my time in nature with AirPods in my ears. I still resist shutting out the voices of the wind and birds, the stomping of deer hooves and accompanying snorts, the songs of the peepers, tree frogs, crickets and locusts. (Yes, I was surprised the other day to hear locusts so early in the summer.)

I listen to more podcasts now, though I still find myself only listening part-way to a lot of them. The Emerald, though, is different. The creator, Joshua Michael Schrei, has both a delivery and depth of knowledge that I respect, enjoy, and am inspired by.

Yearning to Share

A real plus for me has been the fact that I discovered The Emerald only recently – but it began back in 2019. So I have four years’ worth of episodes I’ve been slowly working my way through, savoring them bit by bit.

But the episode that captured my attention and engendered my devotion was this one: Animism is Normative Consciousness. It’s a rebroadcast (May 9, 2023) of one of his earlier episodes. I’m not entirely sure what possessed him to go back and add to it, apparently tweaking it from its original broadcast (which I believe I’m only an episode or two away from reaching). But as it happens, the remastered episode landed in my email inbox on May 9th of this year and its title kept nagging at me until I surrendered. All I can say is that, when I finally listened, it made my heart beat a little faster and all my cells sing, “Yes!”

So, my friends. I want the opportunity to make your hearts sing in exclamation, too. Give this a try. You’ll catch your breath and know the truth of what you’re hearing. And hopefully, you’ll understand why I’ve been yearning to share this with you.

ND #143