Episodes
Saturday Sep 30, 2017
LAO TZU: PART SEVEN
Saturday Sep 30, 2017
Saturday Sep 30, 2017
In this podcast, we consider Chapter Twelve of The Tao Te Ching. In this Chapter, Lao Tzu advises against sensory overload and excess in general. We contrast this approach with the Dionysian spirituality which uses excess, intoxication and the senses. We find that these seemingly contradictory approaches to living are not stark opposites and that Lao Tzu's advice, that we use a honed intuition to help us to know how and when to use the different modes of being available to us, is good. [Free. 25 minutes.]
Friday Jun 23, 2017
YOGA AND THE FUTURE
Friday Jun 23, 2017
Friday Jun 23, 2017
In this podcast we discuss the future of Yoga both in a broad historical context and in the local UK context in which Yoga is being 'claimed' by the corporate fitness industry. The discussion naturally elides into a discussion of the potential roles that Yoga and Yoga practitioners should play in the unfolding of events as economic, cultural and ecological instabilities play out. We conclude that the fitness industry has to be strongly resisted by authentic yogis if Yoga is to be able to do its good work to maximum effect. An extended version of this talk was given at the IYN Yoga Festival on 2nd June 2017. [Free. 54 minutes.]
Saturday Apr 01, 2017
FEMINISM 101
Saturday Apr 01, 2017
Saturday Apr 01, 2017
In this podcast, we roughly sketch out types of feminism including liberal, socialist, marxist and essentialist varients. We try to draw out the theoretical and practical difficulties encountered by these various approaches in the hope that a view of the terrain thus exposed might be useful to anybody currently struggling with the widespread and pathological back-lash to all emancipatory aspirations. [Free. 55 minutes.]
Tuesday Feb 28, 2017
THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART FOUR: POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY
Tuesday Feb 28, 2017
Tuesday Feb 28, 2017
In this podcast, we refer to the last scene of The Matrix in which Neo speaks directly to the hegemonic machines and explicitly draws attention to the political dimensions of the film. This scene invites us to understand the real-apparent binary as the opposition between the concrete political situation of slavery and exploitation and the ideological mystification which prevents the victims from throwing off their chains or even realising that they are in them. This leads us to a discussion of the attempts to make good the lacuna in Marxism around the details of ideological mystification by theorising a Freudian-Marxism. Dramatis Personae: Freud, Marx, Hegel, Lacan, Zizek, Fromm, Reich, Marcusse, Engels. The final scene [3 minutes 31 seconds] is here:- https://youtu.be/aTL4qIIxg8A. See the blue pill - red pill choice in this four minute clip: https://youtu.be/zQ1_IbFFbzA. [Free. 39 minutes.]
Monday Feb 13, 2017
Monday Feb 13, 2017
Part Two of our series on The Matrix attempts to characterise Neo's choice of the red pill in terms of the kind of human freedom posited by the existentialist philosophers. We draw particularly of Kierkegaard and Sartre. See the blue pill - red pill choice in this four minute clip: https://youtu.be/zQ1_IbFFbzA. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Sunday Jan 01, 2017
THOUGHTS ON RELAXATION
Sunday Jan 01, 2017
Sunday Jan 01, 2017
This podcast isn't a guided relaxation or a 'how to' discourse. Instead, it attempts to map the territory and indicate its endlessness. [Free. 30 minutes.]
Friday Nov 25, 2016
CHOOSING A YOGA TEACHER TRAINING
Friday Nov 25, 2016
Friday Nov 25, 2016
There's a lot in the air at the moment about what constitutes a proper training for a yoga teacher. Here's what we have to say about it. [Free. 25 minutes.]
Friday Nov 11, 2016
YOGA'S COUNTER-CULTURAL ROOTS
Friday Nov 11, 2016
Friday Nov 11, 2016
In this podcast, we explore Yoga's counter-cultural roots in the ancient Saivite-Dionysian religion. [Free. 38 minutes.]
Tuesday Nov 01, 2016
CRYING YOGA
Tuesday Nov 01, 2016
Tuesday Nov 01, 2016
In this podcast, Anna talks about crying yoga. Pete chips in with some remarks about the unconscious. [Free. 38 minutes.]
Saturday Oct 15, 2016
IS ADJUSTMENT OF YOGA POSTURES BY TEACHERS NECESSARY OR USEFUL?
Saturday Oct 15, 2016
Saturday Oct 15, 2016
In this podcast, we take issue with the sacred cow of 'adjustment' i.e. the practice on the part of some 'yoga teachers' of taking hold of a student's body during yoga posture (asana) practice in order to 'correct' it. [Free. 21 minutes.]