Living in a Time of Dying

In this FINAL episode of the Living in a Time of Dying podcast, Meghan is once again joined by her co-author, friend, and mentor, William Douglas Horden, this time to discuss his book Facing Light: Preparing for the Moment of Dying about his own experience of dying, due to a massive heart attack in his fifties, and the deep wisdom he brought back to share with us all.

In this episode, Meghan is joined by Ian Tapscott to discuss themes of addiction, acceptance, and resistance.

For this episode, enjoy the audio version of the full chapter from the book. Commentary to follow in the next episode.

In this episode Meghan is joined again by Che Broadnax to discuss the concept of the Inner Fascist, introduced in the book Living in a Time of Dying. Put succinctly, the Inner Fascist functions as a kind of inner colonizer, a process which lies at the heart of fascisms in the social and politics sphere. In contrast, they discuss a vision of Spiritual Anarchy based in respect, reciprocity, and care. Together, Che and Meghan traverse and weave together themes of trauma and harm, bifurcation and binary ruptures, fractal freedom, and the dreams that will lead us off the planation. One note: this was originally a longer recording that got edited down to one hour, so some parts may seem a bit choppy and out of context--podcasting is not always smooth or seamless--but trust me, it's better this way. I told y'all this would sometimes be awkward and messy! ;) Che mentions Robin D. G. Kelley's Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Twentieth Anniversary Edition, 2022), as well as the Netflix series The OA (2016-2017), the film V for Vendetta (2005), various scenes from Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), and, of course, Black Panther (2017).

Y'all, this is a BIG episode, and not just in terms of length, although we definitely needed to take the extra time to grapple with some of the complex themes raised in the previous episode. In this episode I am joined again by Dr. Jason Corwin to continue our discussion of the crisis of belonging wrought by the traumas of colonization. Our conversation spans issues of Eurocolonial history, cultural appropriation, identity politics, the "subtle knife" that is the construct of race and other boxes and borders which the imperialist white supremacist capitalist cisheteropatriachy have trapped us in, as well as the need for personal and collective healing work and the false dichotomy of inner work versus social enagement. It's a long one, but deep, tender, and well worth a listen! I also mention the organization White Awake (https://whiteawake.org/) which offers courses in political education for Euro-descended peoples.