The Festival at the End of the World

Doug’s is one of the strangest, most poetic and lyrical, dreamlike, and impossible-to-categorize podcasts I’ve heard and I absolutely cannot get enough. My path to here came from a lifelong interest in the occult and magic and a childhood sense of wonder at the universe and visceral connection to the woods, to a dalliance with the theatre, to dream and shamanic workshops and a fascination with tarot, to the books and storytelling of Martin Shaw, to a meditation practice in Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition, to a film by a friend on the UK’s Extinction Rebellion, where I saw for the first time the Red Rebel Brigade and was immediately mesmerized and was profoundly moved. So I was thrilled to discover Doug’s podcast and hear the back story of the brigade, and of Doug and his merry, mystical band of good-trouble makers. Especially after this week’s US election, this is powerful and badly needed medicine: the reminder that magic is still very much alive in the world despite the effort of so many to deny it—kill it, even—and that art, music, theater and storytelling may be the alchemy that ultimately saves humanity. Bravo, Doug! Please keep this going.