Aliveness: Technology, love, money, sex, soul, governance and nature

I thought it would be fun to share my current reading stack (visit Substack for a photo!):

1. The Suffering Stranger — Donna Orange
2. Mythology — Edith Hamilton
3. The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy — Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson (Preface by Naomi Klein)
4. Empire of AI — Karen Hao
5. The Pregnant Virgin: Psychological Transformation — Marion Woodman
6. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and ...

Desire can feel dangerous. In this short episode, I speak about the sacredness of sex as one of the strongest forces that can call us into aliveness and connection. I reflect on longing, dignity, and the importance of staying open when the world is burning.

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Looking beneath the screens and circuits to the element that holds them all: silicon. I trace the history of our relationship to it and connect its ubiquitous power - both geological and technological - to the potential for hope. We are being held and each of us has a deeply intimate relationship with silicon.

I hope this episode makes you smile and also inspires you.

Links:

Captured: The Secrets Behind AI's Silicon Valley Takeover

I...

We project our anger onto those in power as if they were our parents constraining our freedom and failing us at every turn. In this short episode, I explore the emotional work of democracy: learning to see our leaders as human, to move from complaint to contribution, from projection to participation.

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This episode asks: how do we stay human inside each of the social media platforms?

I trace the ways some of the platforms undermine my values: from Meta and its documented harms, to TikTok’s dopamine machine, to Substack’s conflicted role in the attention economy. I bring in Shoshana Zuboff’s theory of surveillance capitalism, the story of Cambridge Analytica, teen suicides linked to Instagram, and a chilling case of a man’s fatal e...

Beauty in a Burning World: Taylor Swift and What the Showgirl Can’t Escape

A close look at Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl through the lens of archetype, fame, and feminine power. I explore why this album lands as both dissonant and revealing in a world on fire, and what it reveals about how women carry collective desire and projection.

I unpack the Ophelia archetype and how Taylor’s “saved by love” narrative mirrors an ancient...

A candid return at fifty, where I share addiction recovery, the cost of visibility, and a fresh public voice that braids soul, money, tech, and civic life.

I came back to the mic after two years, newly fifty and fiercely alive. This episode opens with a simple claim: love can be rational, love can lead, love can think clearly without letting the mind run the show.

I walk you through the realities of ketamine recovery, the stigma that...

Lorie Dechar is an Acupuncturist, Author, Alchemical Healer, Mentor and Artisan of Transformation.

Lorie and I talk about "the myth, the math and... something else...." - it's one of the best descriptions of inner work I've heard and Lorie drops it in the first few minutes.

Join her Inner Sensing Intensive September 30/October 1

Read her book with Benjamin Fox, The Alchemy of Inner Work

Join her community - A New Possibility - and...

Lisa and I talk about collective change and what the release of Barbie may or may not represent. It's a fun and fiery conversation!!

Follow Lisa on Instagram at @brnnlisa

Listen to Juicy Stories: 16 women have joined together to share their stories about spirituality in all its forms.

https://alison-crosthwait.lpages.co/juicy-stories-series/

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True freedom comes from letting go of grasping and opening our hearts. 

But those two things can be so challenging for us to embody in our modern world. 

Alison and guest, Stephen Cope, best-selling author and scholar, delve into the relationship between the Eastern contemplative traditions and Western depth psychology and how connecting the two can support you in navigating the modern world.

Stephen shares the experiences a...

Surrender is a daily devotion.

It unlocks our energy and creates a ripple effect of a positive change in ourselves.

But surrender can be one of the most challenging things we can do because it requires that we face our pain. 

In this episode, Alison shares her recent work with a local medicine man in a ceremony to show how we have to build our capacity to surrender, and how often times, it’s by looking directly at our pain th...

Society ravels us all so tightly.

We’re raveled in the “shoulds” and what’s “right.” We are raveled in the judgments of others, the definition of success, and the expectations others put on us.

This raveling puts us into patterns that keep us stuck — out of alignment with our life force energy.

To allow life to flow, we must unravel.

“Often our intentions are about business, money, health, life, love. They're raveled int...

We live in such a “fix me” culture, often looking outside ourselves for the answers — or offering our answers to our friends and family members when they’re experiencing pain. 

But to truly support our own healing and the healing of others, we have to surrender to these painful moments and move through the process in our own time in our own way. 

Here, Alison shares the complexities of practicing surrender as a way to empow...

What's the difference between submission and surrender?

Both of these terms hold the essence of letting go, but there’s a fine line between the two of them.

Surrender can be an embodied state that supports our ability to create our desires and experience life as it is, while submission can be where we fall into the false idea that “it is what it is.” 

In this episode, Alison shares the nuances between these two energies to suppor...

Julie McIntyre, author and Earth Ceremonialist, shares how by developing a personal relationship with our bodies and trusting their wisdom, we can navigate life with more authenticity — which she describes as a wildness that embraces the sacredness of all life forms. 

Julie takes us on a personal journey, at the age of 10 when she discovered a magical place in a corner of her family’s farm where a massive old cottonwood tree st...

When our sexual energy is blocked, it can be challenging to create what we want in the world — whether that’s to create a thriving business or simply how we want to engage with our family in a healthy way. 

Freedom of expression is a practice that can unlock this energy that’s needed to create the life you desire in all aspects of your life. 

Here Alison shares how she needed to reclaim her self-expression and how you can f...

Challenges in the area of desire tend to call us towards interpersonal dynamics.  We think it is a relationship problem.  I believe this is a misdirection of attention.  Experiencing a lack of desire in your relationship isn’t necessarily a sign that there’s something “wrong” with your relationship. 

All sexual desire starts with you, even when you’re in a partnership. 

Feeling a lack of desire towards your p...

How can we not only become okay with suffering but welcome it, love it, and appreciate it? 

That’s the question that unfolds in this episode with Heather Vesey, a Wisdom Mentor. 

Through this emotional and profound conversation, you’ll receive a beautiful call to cultivate your relationship with the Divine and with love itself.  

Alison has been supported through Heather’s Wisdom Mentorship since the summer of 2022...