You Need Some Counterintelligence For These Mealy Gala Times

Special Episode: Mother's Day, Memorial Day, and The God of War - A history and reading mash-up

Mother’s Day and Memorial Day show up like clockwork, but the stories we tell about them are missing the peaceful roots. We go back to the nineteenth century to recover what got sanded down: Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation is not soft-focus nostalgia, it’s a direct anti-war demand for women to refuse a world that sends husbands home “reeking with carnage” and trains sons to injure other people’s sons. From there, we follow the on-the-ground organizing that made “Mother’s Day” real before it became a greeting-card script. Anne Reeves Jarvis builds Mother’s Day work clubs to fight epidemics with sanitation and community care, then uses that same infrastructure to insist on reconciliation after the Civil War. We also track how peace activism collides with World War I, and how Mother’s Day messaging gets co-opted into a patriotic storyline that praises sacrifice while making dissent feel shameful. We then connect the holiday arc to The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sooj and Barbara Mor, which argues that patriarchy sustains itself through a perpetual state of war, backed by the global religion of money.  Finally, we share the lesser-known origins of Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina, where freed Black communities honored Union dead with reburial, flowers, hymns, and a massive procession in 1865, an act of memory that looks a lot more like coming together than propaganda. If this reframes how you think about American patriotism, the military-industrial complex, or the meaning of remembrance, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What part of this history hit you hardest? Show Notes Will Be Updated Soon! More info: Mother's Day https://www.history.com/articles/mothers-day-peace-movement-origins [https://www.history.com/articles/mothers-day-peace-movement-origins] Memorial Day https://time.com/5836444/black-memorial-day/ [https://time.com/5836444/black-memorial-day/] MUSIC STUFF: THE MOTHER’S DAY Music by Bomb Sound from Pixabay National Anthem by Ievgen Poltavskyi from Pixabay PATRIOT song Music by Florews from Pixabay MoneyCha-Ching Sound Effect by u_byub5wd934 from Pixabay Spirit of Victory Music by Hoà Huỳnh from Pixabay Doom sound effect Sound Effect by MrDwarf92 from Pixabay Civil War FanFare Sound Effect by Sergei Chetvertnykh from Pixabay Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye Music by LAURENT BUCZEK from Pixabay John Brown's Body Music by Lisa van Beergen from Pixabay Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2462748/fan_mail/new] Credits Recorded at Troubadour Studios [https://www.troubadourrecording.com/] in Lansing, MI Audio Engineer Corey DeRushia Edited by Rie Daisies [http://www.riedaisies.com/] at Nighttime Girlfriend Studio Music: ‘Shifting pt. 2 (instrumental)’  by Rie Daisies Executive Producer Kate ML Rogers Leave us a voice mail [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples] Have some feedback? Praise? General thoughts? Know how to pronounce something? Are you a religious scholar? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a message right from your phone or computer by clicking here [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples]. Recordings may be used in future episodes.   Website https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com [https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com] Find us on TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@bitingalltheapples?_t=ZT-8v7ba93PzlG&_r=1] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@BATA_podcast] and BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/bitingalltheapples.bsky.social]

Welcome To The Machine, Please (un)Repress Yourself: The Great Cosmic Mother pt 4

America loves the word “freedom,” so why do so many of us feel spiritually starved, politically cornered, and weirdly isolated from our own bodies? We pull a thread from The Great Cosmic Mother and it turns into a whole tapestry: patriarchal religion doesn’t just shape private belief, it builds the rules of the modern world. When the sacred gets split from the lived, you end up with what the book calls the American split, a culture that can offer abundance and ideology but not wholeness, ecstasy, or a shared vision worth living for. We walk through the historical tension that still haunts US politics: Puritan Christianity feeding fundamentalism and Protestant capitalism, while many founders leaned Deist and helped birth secular humanism. That gap helps explain why “Judeo-Christian nation” rhetoric keeps resurfacing, and why people who aren’t religious still live inside religious structures. We also dig into the book’s critique of the all-male divine family, the virgin birth story, and how women’s unpaid labor, sexuality, and guilt get converted into fuel for institutions that claim to speak for God. Then we hit the hardest link: control female reproduction and you can control the workforce. We talk capitalism, labor rights, reproductive autonomy, and what it means to live inside a machine that tries to turn humans into mechanisms.  It's way more fun than it sounds, trust us. Press play and be sure to share the episode everywhere! SHOW NOTES WILL BE UPDATED EVEN MORE SOON Here's some stuff we talked about: "One nation under god" - added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954: https://www.history.com/articles/pledge-allegiance-under-god-schools [https://www.history.com/articles/pledge-allegiance-under-god-schools] "In God We Trust" first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864 during the Civil War. It was added to paper currency much later, with the first bills entering circulation in 1957 following a 1955 law requiring it on all money. The phrase was added to reflect religious sentiment, with paper, and to distinguish the U.S. from "godless" communism during the Cold War: https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1951-2000/The-legislation-placing-In-God-We-Trust-on-national-currency/ [https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1951-2000/The-legislation-placing-In-God-We-Trust-on-national-currency/] And here's Thomas Jefferson's Bible: https://americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible/#1 [https://americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible/#1] Paine’s Anti-Slavery Legacy: https://thomaspaine.org/resour [https://thomaspaine.org/resources-essays/paines-anti-slavery-legacy/] Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2462748/fan_mail/new] Credits Recorded at Troubadour Studios [https://www.troubadourrecording.com/] in Lansing, MI Audio Engineer Corey DeRushia Edited by Rie Daisies [http://www.riedaisies.com/] at Nighttime Girlfriend Studio Music: ‘Shifting pt. 2 (instrumental)’  by Rie Daisies Executive Producer Kate ML Rogers Leave us a voice mail [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples] Have some feedback? Praise? General thoughts? Know how to pronounce something? Are you a religious scholar? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a message right from your phone or computer by clicking here [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples]. Recordings may be used in future episodes.   Website https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com [https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com] Find us on TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@bitingalltheapples?_t=ZT-8v7ba93PzlG&_r=1] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@BATA_podcast] and BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/bitingalltheapples.bsky.social]

Sky Daddy: The Biggest Buzzkill of 'em All: The Great Cosmic Mother Pt 3

We’re deep in The Great Cosmic Mother, landing in the final section on “Patriarchal Culture and Religion” where the dots connect fast: the split from Earth to sky, the invention of a distant father God, and the long campaign to make the body feel dirty, dangerous, and controllable. Something that affects each and every one of us, whether we attend church or not. We talk through how The GCM tells us that patriarchy rewrote spiritual reality by ripping women out of the life giving narrative, turning birth and blood into shame, and replacing embodied joy with guilt, rules, and obedience. Along the way we connect the “God as Father” framework to virgin birth logic, modern purity culture, and today’s obsession with policing sex, reproduction, and LGBTQ lives.  Then we follow the material trail: stored grain, property, money, cattle wealth, and the rise of standing armies. The episode links patriarchal religion to labor exploitation, class systems justified by original sin, and professional warfare that turns conquest into “holy” duty. We also get into the imperial tactic that still makes our stomachs drop, redirecting colonized men’s rage away from their conquerors and toward women, fueling misogyny as social control. Subscribe so you don’t miss the next chapter, share the episode with a friend who can handle broads with big ideas, and leave a review. What part of this story do you recognize most in your own life right now? Music credits: The_Mountain by Dmitrii Kolesnikov from Pixabay kontraamusic holy-water-hiphop-instrumental Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2462748/fan_mail/new] Credits Recorded at Troubadour Studios [https://www.troubadourrecording.com/] in Lansing, MI Audio Engineer Corey DeRushia Edited by Rie Daisies [http://www.riedaisies.com/] at Nighttime Girlfriend Studio Music: ‘Shifting pt. 2 (instrumental)’  by Rie Daisies Executive Producer Kate ML Rogers Leave us a voice mail [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples] Have some feedback? Praise? General thoughts? Know how to pronounce something? Are you a religious scholar? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a message right from your phone or computer by clicking here [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples]. Recordings may be used in future episodes.   Website https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com [https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com] Find us on TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@bitingalltheapples?_t=ZT-8v7ba93PzlG&_r=1] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@BATA_podcast] and BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/bitingalltheapples.bsky.social]

The Don't Want Us To Remember This Stuff: The Great Cosmic Mother Pt. 2

Wonder how you got trapped in the machine?  We've got all the answers for you. Using our book of the moment, The Great Cosmic Mother, we break down how ancient goddess-centered cultures that were so real and connected through birth, death, creativity, ecstacy, and the earth - got totally crushed and rewritten with a patriarchal influenced monotheistic jealous god. The change coincided with a rise in conquering, violence, and a focus on production - a desire to change humans into worker bots to feed the machine. We know this really happened because the book has so many receipts and well, it's a culture that we still live in.  Some episode highlights: • using haiku as a quick grounding tool when your justice sensitivity flares up • rejecting the straight-line patriarchal colonial story of history and progress • evidence for nonviolent settled life and priestess-led religion at Çatalhöyük  • how modern work culture steals sleep, dreams, and inner life  • how Christianity repackaged woman/goddess-related symbols, including menstrual blood • we learn that it was a fig tree that Eve and Adam ate from and quickly decide we aren't changing the name of the podcast Everybody write a haiku and send it to us.  Work less, sleep more, write haikus. Read the book. Notes: Fun short vid with CGM reading: https://www.tiktok.com/@universetrip/video/7503218453923269918 [https://www.tiktok.com/@universetrip/video/7503218453923269918] William Irwin Thompson. (Joanna reads a quote) https://williamirwinthompsondotblog.wordpress.com/ [https://williamirwinthompsondotblog.wordpress.com/] Zoey - Reads the Great Cosmic Mother https://open.spotify.com/show/54FiACeQTVyz2RDPpovjIQ?si=1955c55d59c348bc [https://open.spotify.com/show/54FiACeQTVyz2RDPpovjIQ?si=1955c55d59c348bc] Cassandra Faye Floyd [https://www.youtube.com/@DaughterOfTheFates] reads The Great Cosmic Mother https://www.youtube.com/live/ZRu9YEwhWPw?si=ZXTickIZwz-wAojn [https://www.youtube.com/live/ZRu9YEwhWPw?si=ZXTickIZwz-wAojn] Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2462748/fan_mail/new] Credits Recorded at Troubadour Studios [https://www.troubadourrecording.com/] in Lansing, MI Audio Engineer Corey DeRushia Edited by Rie Daisies [http://www.riedaisies.com/] at Nighttime Girlfriend Studio Music: ‘Shifting pt. 2 (instrumental)’  by Rie Daisies Executive Producer Kate ML Rogers Leave us a voice mail [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples] Have some feedback? Praise? General thoughts? Know how to pronounce something? Are you a religious scholar? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a message right from your phone or computer by clicking here [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples]. Recordings may be used in future episodes.   Website https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com [https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com] Find us on TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@bitingalltheapples?_t=ZT-8v7ba93PzlG&_r=1] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@BATA_podcast] and BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/bitingalltheapples.bsky.social]

Women and Everything Fire: The Great Cosmic Mother Pt1

We cheese out enough with the whole biting an apple/biting knowledge analogy in this episode so we'll spare you here in the show notes.  We are back for season two - starting the first in a 3 (or 4, we'll see) episode series where we read and discuss and tangent about The Great Cosmic Mother. The biggest feminist text you aren't carrying around in your handbag, but should.  SK & JV discuss some major points, read some major quotes, and majorly go off the rails - this book is the hundred thousand crazy aunts that you needed when you were just a young lass. And we're cracking it open and telling you what we think so you can tell us what you think.  Join us as we talk about waves of feminism, ecofeminism, and giving women a break because our history has been hidden from us and we have to do things like rip it away from the greedy mouths of wealth hoarding men that fear lady power.    We talk about the valuable lessons in TGCM - particularly rejecting the patriarchal idea of linear progress and linear historical progression. We marvel that people used to work 15 hours a week before guys were like we need to monetize every dang thing.   About the book: "The Great Cosmic Mother (1987) by Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor is a foundational text in Goddess spirituality that explores ancient, pre-patriarchal matrifocal societies, exploring the Goddess as the supreme cosmic creator. It portrays the divine feminine as intrinsically connected to nature, the moon, and birth, positioning women as the original cultural innovators" Here are a few links to much more thourough explanations of the waves of feminism:    A brief history of feminist waves Kyra Krall  https://www.feministsinthecity.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-feminist-waves [https://www.feministsinthecity.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-feminist-waves] What are the Four Waves of Feminism https://www.history.com/articles/feminism-four-waves [https://www.history.com/articles/feminism-four-waves] Zoey/superbflesh reading The Great Cosmic Mother https://open.spotify.com/show/54FiACeQTVyz2RDPpovjIQ?si=49a1e83f916c4a75 [https://open.spotify.com/show/54FiACeQTVyz2RDPpovjIQ?si=49a1e83f916c4a75] Cassandra Faye Floyd reading the Great Cosmic Mother https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk-xEIV1H5EphymeVYoB56cBCu7aXvOiE&si=_4FE_HkR0BzUl6vF [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk-xEIV1H5EphymeVYoB56cBCu7aXvOiE&si=_4FE_HkR0BzUl6vF] Awesome review of GCM from GoodReads user Kathryn Green: My TL;DR: The gist of this book is pretty much the same as the themes and overarching plot of Mad Max Fury Road Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2462748/fan_mail/new] Credits Recorded at Troubadour Studios [https://www.troubadourrecording.com/] in Lansing, MI Audio Engineer Corey DeRushia Edited by Rie Daisies [http://www.riedaisies.com/] at Nighttime Girlfriend Studio Music: ‘Shifting pt. 2 (instrumental)’  by Rie Daisies Executive Producer Kate ML Rogers Leave us a voice mail [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples] Have some feedback? Praise? General thoughts? Know how to pronounce something? Are you a religious scholar? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a message right from your phone or computer by clicking here [https://www.speakpipe.com/BitingAllTheApples]. Recordings may be used in future episodes.   Website https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com [https://bitingalltheapples.buzzsprout.com] Find us on TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@bitingalltheapples?_t=ZT-8v7ba93PzlG&_r=1] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@BATA_podcast] and BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/bitingalltheapples.bsky.social]