Welcome to the Earthside Survival Guide podcast, a monthly podcast hosted by Yaya Erin Rivera Merriman, founder of Active Culture Family and Medicine Mandala, a mystery school located in the mountains of Southern California that supports unconventional wisdom keepers in finding pleasure, purpose and liberation through the path of esctatic stewardship of Planet Earth. Yaya has been a seeker, student, and practitioner of healing arts for 22 years and her speaking, writing, online, and in person educational programs currently reach thousands of people daily all over the world.
ESG022 Soul Family, Healing Trauma, and Empowering People Through Tarot with Lindsay Mack
Feb 27, 2020
Show notes
In this episode, we are joined by Lindsay Mack, host of the popular weekly podcast, Tarot for the Wild Soul. Lindsay is passionately dedicated to honoring and helping to bring space, light, and healing to those who are experiencing mental, emotional or physical suffering. She is also the creator of Soul Tarot, a reinterpretation of the Tarot as a healing tool, one that can assist us in differentiating the noise of our brain from the truth of our soul.
In this episode we also explore:
Differentiating between soul family and biological family, who Lindsay’s people are and what they need
Healing trauma with tarot vs operating from habitual social dynamics
Themes intuitive are seeing in private practice
Choosing guides who share information in a way that feels safe and empowering to us
Unpacking some of the less popular cards in the deck
Learn more about Lindsay Mack by visiting her online at:
ESG021 Walking Skinless as an Act of Service with Eve Bradford
Jan 13, 2020
Show notes
For Episode 21 we are joined by culture maker, oracle, poet, educator, and author of the book Instructions to a Young Magician (from herself), Eve Bradford. Eve joined us back in 2017 as our guest for episode #3, a really fun conversation titled: Poet as Revolutionary and Sacred Whore, that, if you haven’t had a chance to listen to yet, we highly recommend clicking the link below to listen now, so you can enjoy the way Eve’s work is growing over time as much as we do
In this episode we also explore:
Why people seek out ritual in times of chaos and loss
The surprising relationship between risk and heart health
Eve’s background and what prompted a period of intense growth and transformation
How Eve discovered her ability to channel and her different experiences as an oracle
The importance of listening to Lillith speak
Ecstatic usefulness during the oraclar process and what it takes to be an oracle
Learn more about Eve Bradford by visiting her online at:
ESG020 Authenticity, Kundalini and Coming Out of the Culture Closet with Kirti Srivastava
Oct 24, 2019
Show notes
For Episode 20 we are joined by the founder of the DilSe Spirit School and a pillar of the local movement community, Kirti Srivastava. Kirti uses creativity and spirituality to ignite access to source divine. A dancer, yogi, and an educator for over 20 years--she looks to connect our human existence to our spiritual calling. As a first-generation American, Kirti weaves constructs of race and identity into her spiritual work, resulting in deep conversations around appropriation, patriarchy, and the responsibility of human beings on this planet.
She currently works as a yoga philosophy teacher, promotes peach through self-love as a personal trainer integrating mindful fitness, brings arts and spirit into school culture as an educational consultant and facilitates individual and group energy healing practices through breath, sound, and movement as an established movement medicine practitioner here in San Diego, CA.
We dedicate the first ⅓ of the episode time to learn more about Kirti’s background to better understand who she is. With her upbringing in a community that was had an abundance of white supremacists, she realized--early in her life--what skin color, pedagogy, and learned behaviors meant. In this episode we also explore:
Racism and creating your path as you grow into who you are meant to be
Authenticity: Coming out of your cultural closet as the “real you”
What it means to pass down patriarchy, how to stop ancestral patriarchy, stepping off the path of creating the “perfect wifey resume”
What Hip Hop Kundalini is and the benevolence of Kundalini energy (by whatever name you choose to call it)
Doing what you’re born to do and living life orgasmically
To learn more about Kirti Srivastava by visiting her online at:
ESG019 Safety, Self Acceptance, & The Sea of Oneness with Tracee Stanley
Jun 04, 2019
Show notes
For Episode 19 we are joined by Yoga Teacher Trainer and Sri Vidya Tantra Practitioner Tracee Stanley.
Since 2001 the focus of Tracee’s teaching has been empowerment, sankalpa, self-mastery and healing. Tracey teaches Yoga Nidra, Meditation and Self-Inquiry informed by wisely sequenced asana, mantra and kriya practices to create a fertile environment and safe container for transformation and growth.
Tracee regularly teaches at festivals like Wanderlust, Symbiosis, Lightning in a Bottle and more, and serves as faculty at Esalen Institute where she leads teacher trainings, retreats and in general holds space for us to remember our radiance and power. In this episode we explore:
• Liberation from the belief that we need to stay small in order to be safe and receive love
• Overcoming childhood abuse and neglect
• Rebellion as precursor to liberation
• The process of looking at our patterns and how they become habits that become our personality
• Taking risks in how we do business
and more.
You can learn more about today’s guest by visiting her online at www.traceeyoga.com
ESG018 Durga Meditation, Chandi Path and the Practice of Tantra with Laura Amazzone
Jan 04, 2019
Show notes
In this Episode we are joined for the second time by teacher, yogini, priestess and Goddess scholar Laura Amazzone. Laura is the author of the book, "Goddess Durga and Sacred Female Power," and has published numerous articles in academic journals and anthologies in the fields of Tantrism, Hinduism and Women’s Spirituality. She has also contributed entries to the Encyclopedia on Hinduism and the Encyclopedia of Goddessses of World Culture.
Laura teaches in the Yoga and Philosophy program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, online at Mystery School of the Goddess and privately, offering classes, rituals, and workshops on the Goddesses, history and ritual practices of the Kaula, Shakta and Sri Vidya traditions into which she has been initiated.
In this episode, we dedicate the first 1/3 of the episode time to sharing a full Goddess Durga Vizualization practice that you can tune in with any time you feel a need to call in a protective, loving aspect of the divine mother. We also explore:
• The animist roots of traditional Tantra, stone circles and faerie rings and cultural sensitivity
• Why Tantra is sometimes called a path of paradox and adversity and the importance of going deep and staying the course when our practice asks us to look at our shadow.
• Experiencing a power that can’t be given away, can’t be taken away, can’t be lost or stolen
• Why and how we practice, and the benefit of the Kula (dedicated practice group)
ESG017 Kambo, Chronic Conditions, and Sexual Healing-With Caitlin Thompson
Nov 15, 2018
Show notes
In this episode, we are joined by certified Kambo practitioner and founder of the San Diego based nutritional supplement company EntheoZen Caitlin Thompson. In this conversation we explore:
• adult themes including an in depth discussion of consent or lack thereof in the natural word and what this means for us as humans
• how medicines call to us to participate in our healing
• non-pharmacuetical approaches to treating autoimmune disease, chronic pain, herpes, and other onging conditions
• how are plant medicines and animal medicines different, and why animal medicine may be more effective for those seeking healing around their sexuality
• can frog medicine help prepare us for success in love?
• mapping different states of consciousness
• taking responsibility for our own mental health
• hope for those who have trauma and have given up on meditation
And more! You can learn more about Caitlin’s work here:
ESG016 Vulnerability, Stillness, and Intimacy with Death with Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison
Aug 30, 2018
Show notes
For episode number 16, we are joined by Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, a jungian psychotherapist, recognized teacher in the Soto Zen lineage of the White Plum Asanga, and the academic advisor for the Buddhist students in the Master in Pastoral Care and Counseling program at the New York Theological Seminary. Koshin is the cofounder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the first Zen-based organization to offer fully accredited clinical chaplaincy training in America, and the co-editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care.
In this episode we explore:
• Dignity amidst being treated poorly
• Listening with every cell of your body
• Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen buddhism, and his female teacher Prajnatara, and other explorations of the feminine wisdom that lies at the intersection of Buddhism and Tantra, and how like most lineages, it comes down to a practice of how to be in relationship.
To learn more about Koshin and The New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, please visit www.zencare.org
ESG015 Libra, Temperance, Tantra and the Soul's Quest for Moderation
Apr 01, 2018
Show notes
Welcome to "Temple Talks", our series of mini episodes where we make a hopefully entertaining and educational attempt at the ultimate Fool's Journey, explaining the Great Mystery and Mapping the Void.
For our second Temple Talk, Yaya Erin Rivera Merriman, host of Earthside Survival Guide, takes 20 minutes to explore:
• The Archetypal energy of Libra
• How our relationship to apparent others expresses itself differently in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th dimensions
• The relationship and applicability of terms such as balance, equilibrium, equality, temperance, moderation, tantra, integration, harmony and unity
Although this episode is for anyone interested in deepening their understanding of what we can learn from Libra energy, it may be especially useful for professional seers, diviners, tarot readers, astrologers, shamanic practitioners, and others who serve the collective as companions and guides to the inner realms, where the ability to make extremely subtle distinctions becomes more and more important to the quality and effectiveness of our work. We will close with a guided meditation and blessing, so it may be useful to wait until you can be alone to listen to the complete episode uninterrupted, allowing the time for it to become a mini self care ritual, complete unto itself.
For more information about tarot assisted intuitive guidance sessions or other healing journeys with Erin, please visit www.activeculturefamily.com
ESG014 Trust, Safety, Self Responsibility and Emotional Mastery- With Luna Love
Mar 01, 2018
Show notes
For episode numbered 14, we are joined by women's leadership mentor Luna Love. Luna assists those called to be change makers in achieving clear vision for their lives by providing supportive, life promoting experiences, practical tools, and spiritual wisdom to align ones divine essence, authentic expression, and life purpose through the power of self awareness and love.
In this episode we explore:
• Self care for the professional care provider
• What self responsibility looks like and how self responsibility transforms our emotions and increases our capacity for both sexual and emotional intimacy
• Demystifying our emotions including:
- What emotions are and when, how, and why to fully feel them
- The connection between our feelings and the seasons
- An exploration of the immense value of depression, grief, and loss
Musical enhancement for this episode includes The Hunter and History of Touches by Bjork (prevailing Queen of creative, liberated, unconditional open heart conciousness )
ESG013 The End is the Beginning: Reforestation at the End of The World with Ayana Young
Dec 19, 2017
Show notes
For Episode Number 13 we are joined by ecological researcher and voice of the forest Ayana Young. Ayana hosts For The Wild Podcast (formerly Unlearn & Rewild) and teaches about empowered earth stewardship, leads biodiversity enhancement workshops and facilitates panels across North America.
Ayana is currently studying Restoration of Natural Systems in Victoria, BC, and creating an ecological research center and native species nursery in the Southern tip of the Cascadian bioregion. Along with the restoration of damaged landscapes, Ayana is committed to protecting intact ecosystems. In this Episode you will learn:
• What it means to be planting 1 million redwoods at the end of the age of loneliness
• Why a women’s perspective and capacity to “embody the dichotomy” of our times is critical to the climate change movement
• How sacred rage can function as a gateway into a scouring, purifying grief that paves the way for a more creative, emotionally evocative, sensually fulfilling form of activism
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