Rhyd Wildermuth This week we talk with Rhyd Wildermuth, author of Being Pagan. We talk about paganism, animism, religion, the Enlightenment, and about reconnecting with the nature around us in the ruins of our rational and industrial world. Rhyd’s thinking goes against the secular narrative that dominates today — that we western people live in some sort of special period of history, that’ve we’ve progressed away from our primitive past and moved on to a more rational age. A lot of people laugh at paganism but Rhyd points out that paganism feels like the most baseline and natural way of thinking about and relating to the world around us.
Great listen! I really appreciate the later half of this regarding identity. The guest make me think I’m not completely crazy.
When I came out as gay in high school I was very much a loner. I noticed by acting a certain way and advertising that via MySpace I was suddenly making friends. They weren’t people I actually wanted to be around most of time but it gave me experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise. When I resumed to being myself few wanted to be around me. 😂 This caused an absolute rejection of gay community being my new identity. Through twists and turns over the years and many mental hurdles, I’ve concluded sexual identity isn’t my identity but just a pinch of me. I don’t hate anyone or community. Community is a form of survival too! I still have issues around it but way more comfortable. Identity means different things depending on patch of land sometimes, and in America it’s all we have. Tribes!
My surroundings are dominated by the autobahn. Its noise permeates the woods (which come with fences, plumbing, bins and the occasional post explaining, for instance, the “edge of the wood.” Signs warning about bombs possibly lurking off-track add minor excitement.) The pieces of rock in the topsoil of a modest nature reserve seem to be shredded construction material. Under these circumstances, the relationship with the natural remainders of the environment feels like a communion of the displaced and residual.
Great episode though I think Rhyd is underselling just how bananas Polynesian navigation is (or was). They could read the currents of the Pacific not so much by wind or compass (though they did have something called a star compass) but by reading waves and swells as water flowed around islands. The Polynesians made things called "shell maps" that indicated the direction of those currents and they look like something a child could make but they used them to cross hundreds if not thousands of miles of ocean.
I really love the way your podcasts kind of break up the narrative being kind of established into my way of thinking without me even noticing exactly. Idk how to describe. But it resets me kind of. Not in the way that I lose or disavow everything I’ve been learning, but in that it pushes me back to myself so I can see better.
Loved this episode. I just want to call out the erasure of native peoples and of other countries in the Americas. It’s not the “new world” and it wasn’t empty and built up.
It’s a settler country, and in countries like mine (Mexico) we still live the culture and community in ways that the US doesn’t.
And we still have what one would consider pagan beliefs and traditions, shamanism and connection to land are very common.
Wonderful episode. Rhyd has a very soothing voice!
On the specific matter of calling oneself 'Irish-American', be assured not all of us Irish are that bothered about that self-identification. I find it quite touching (I even enjoy seeing all the Irish tricolours in the pub in 'It's Always Sunny'). However, it was mortifying seeing the name of every successive Trump administration appointee get more and more Irish!
Fantastic episode. I really appreciate you both being willing to talk to someone like Rhyd. I think the left has really fallen to a technocratic solution to the issue of alienation. Some of Rhyd's ideas solved a few equations I've been trying to work out on my own for a few years. I picked up two of his books by the end of the episode. Excellent work! Thank you again!
This was a great episode. I'm stuck isolating with COVID, and Rhyd's voice is so relaxing
Great listen! I really appreciate the later half of this regarding identity. The guest make me think I’m not completely crazy.
When I came out as gay in high school I was very much a loner. I noticed by acting a certain way and advertising that via MySpace I was suddenly making friends. They weren’t people I actually wanted to be around most of time but it gave me experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise. When I resumed to being myself few wanted to be around me. 😂 This caused an absolute rejection of gay community being my new identity. Through twists and turns over the years and many mental hurdles, I’ve concluded sexual identity isn’t my identity but just a pinch of me. I don’t hate anyone or community. Community is a form of survival too! I still have issues around it but way more comfortable. Identity means different things depending on patch of land sometimes, and in America it’s all we have. Tribes!
Bravo!
My surroundings are dominated by the autobahn. Its noise permeates the woods (which come with fences, plumbing, bins and the occasional post explaining, for instance, the “edge of the wood.” Signs warning about bombs possibly lurking off-track add minor excitement.) The pieces of rock in the topsoil of a modest nature reserve seem to be shredded construction material. Under these circumstances, the relationship with the natural remainders of the environment feels like a communion of the displaced and residual.
Great episode though I think Rhyd is underselling just how bananas Polynesian navigation is (or was). They could read the currents of the Pacific not so much by wind or compass (though they did have something called a star compass) but by reading waves and swells as water flowed around islands. The Polynesians made things called "shell maps" that indicated the direction of those currents and they look like something a child could make but they used them to cross hundreds if not thousands of miles of ocean.
I really love the way your podcasts kind of break up the narrative being kind of established into my way of thinking without me even noticing exactly. Idk how to describe. But it resets me kind of. Not in the way that I lose or disavow everything I’ve been learning, but in that it pushes me back to myself so I can see better.
Loved this episode. I just want to call out the erasure of native peoples and of other countries in the Americas. It’s not the “new world” and it wasn’t empty and built up.
It’s a settler country, and in countries like mine (Mexico) we still live the culture and community in ways that the US doesn’t.
And we still have what one would consider pagan beliefs and traditions, shamanism and connection to land are very common.
Wonderful episode. Rhyd has a very soothing voice!
On the specific matter of calling oneself 'Irish-American', be assured not all of us Irish are that bothered about that self-identification. I find it quite touching (I even enjoy seeing all the Irish tricolours in the pub in 'It's Always Sunny'). However, it was mortifying seeing the name of every successive Trump administration appointee get more and more Irish!
I'm really curious how far to the right Wildermuth's politics will go in the future. The more he talked, the more like a paleocon he sounded . . . .
Fantastic episode. I really appreciate you both being willing to talk to someone like Rhyd. I think the left has really fallen to a technocratic solution to the issue of alienation. Some of Rhyd's ideas solved a few equations I've been trying to work out on my own for a few years. I picked up two of his books by the end of the episode. Excellent work! Thank you again!