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#35 | Querying the Soul and Re-Romancing Our Many Parts Home — Asher Packman (The Fifth Direction)

Episode description and synopsis

In this episode, my first back for this year, Ash and I dive further into the waters we began wading into in our previous episode. Exploring the intersection of queer ways of being, masculinity, and the mythopoetic orientation, we build on this inquiry based on reflections for our last 5 months of circling with men across many generations.

What does the mythopoetic orientation afford us as we look to restore, and restory ourselves-in-the-world?

How do we relate to ‘masculinity,’ ‘femininity’ and all things between (and beyond) through this lens?

Can we move beyond simply ‘who we love,’ towards orientations of ‘how we love,’ maybe as the great myths were pointing us toward?

We explore the nuances of archetype, identity, and morality as we dance between the self and soul, crafting ourselves into a more enriched and generous expression of wholeness.

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Guest bio


Over the last decade, Asher Packman has grown to become a renowned mentor, meditation teacher, and guide. An avid scholar of Jungian concepts, neo-shamanism, epigenetics, social psychology, and the mythopoetic, he combines heart intelligence and storytelling to reconnect you to your own true nature. He is the Founder of The Fifth Direction, a mythopoetic community aiming to best serve life, as well as the current President of Meditation Australia. To add to the complex web of depth within Asher, he is also a certified HeartMath and Wim Hof Method instructor. Much more on Asher’s deeply heartfelt and inspiring story can be found here

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#34 | Psychedelic Integration and Bedding Down New Knowings — Sean O’Carroll (Wild Mind Institute)

Episode description and synopsis


Sean is a man, a voice, and a guide I’ve been tracking for some time, for his work in the eco-psychotherapy and psychedelic-assisted therapy space. Within the frame of rewilding, or de-domesticating the mind, remembering and reclaiming what Martin Shaw calls the ‘wild twin,’ the selves it can be easy to exile in our culture, we explore how both ecological re-connective practice and psychedelic-assisted therapies support us on this path of deliberately and pre-emptively meeting the wild.


As the founder and director of the Wild Mind Institute and therapist trainer in 2 of Australia’s psychedelic research trials, Sean and I dive into some of the nuances of bridging transformative process with everyday life, specifically psychedelic integration practices in ‘bedding down new knowings.’


It was an honour to share in this rich exchange with Sean, and we trust there are some fruits that fall from our conversation to support you in your journey of wholing, healing and remembering.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts

Guest bio


Sean O’Carroll is an integrative psychotherapist – specialising in relational Gestalt, experiential, and transpersonal psychotherapy – in private practice 2 days a week, and runs workshops on eco-psychotherapy and psychedelic psychotherapy through the Wild Mind Institute.  He is a senior consultant to the Monash University Psychedelics team, and to St Vincent’s Hospital Mental Health in Melbourne. He is currently involved in developing and delivering training to psychotherapists working on a number of psychedelic research trials in Australia, and is also working as a therapist on three upcoming psychedelic research trials. He is currently undertaking the MAPS training in MDMA for PTSD. Sean has lectured in transpersonal psychology for 7+ years, and has a long-time specialisation in “bad trip” integration.

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Essay | Eros, Evolution and Moving from Psychology Toward Soul-Making — Al Jeffery

Episode description and synopsis


In this episode, I read my most recent essay on “Eros, the Evolution of Life and Mind, and Moving from Psychology Toward Soul-Making.” This paper explores Eros (in its mythological and evolutionary sense) as a guiding organisational principle of life and invites us to tend to our connection to Eros as a partner in our renewal and re-engendering of relationship. 


Drawing on evolutionary biology, integral theory, attachment theory, theories of mind, developmental moral imagination, and more, I attempt to show how an Eros-(re)infused way of seeing and being might afford us great energy and direction in this time of fragmentation. 


Dive in, come to understand, and feel Eros in a renewed way. Let it animate your life and leadership. You can also download the paper here.

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