media
interviews
How Traditions Can Help Kids Work Through Big Feelings (Care and Feeding from Slate.com)
I had a great conversation with Slate.com's Zak Rosen, Lucy Lopez, and Elizabeth Newcamp on creating impactful family rituals anywhere. I love this interview because it highlights how ritual is rooted in mindset. You don't need fancy clothes or candles. It's all about intention.
The Transformative Power of Rituals in Modern Communities (Cohere Podcast)
For those of us who design communities for a living, it is easy to overlook the power of ritual as a design element. In this conversation with community strategists Bill Johnston and Dr. Lauren Vargas, I shared some ritual ideas that can be used in real world and virtual community settings to help foster belonging, purpose, and navigating transitions to create more thriving communities.
Programming Language of the Soul (Shame Pinata)
Rituals -- when designed correctly -- can give us access to our deeper (lower-case "s") souls, give them space to find expression, and help us tell new stories about old wounds. In this episode of Shame Pinata, I talk with producer Colleen Thomas about how that works. Plus: A painful rite of passage that got me interested in this work a long time ago.
San Francisco as My Witness (Shame Pinata)
Shame Piñata producer Colleen Thomas interviewed me for this wonderful new podcast that explores the world of self-designed ritual. This episode includes a story about a self-commitment ceremony at the beginning of the new millennium I did to reclaim my sense of purpose after an especially mortifying experience.
Creating Community and Purpose Through Ritual (Grinnell College Alumni News)
This interview is based on a lovely conversation with writer Anne Stein from my alma mater, Grinnell College, about the importance of ritual especially during a pandemic.
articles
Make the Holidays (Literally) Awesome Again
(Better Humans)
As the pandemic drags on, it is easy to forget the essence of the holidays: The awe of the return of the light after a long dark night. This post contains a complete toolkit for bringing more awe into your holiday this year.
When my life fell apart last winter, these six rituals kept me from losing my marbles. May they inspire others to reconnect to hope, love, comfort, and faith during this season of inward reflection.
Since the beginning of recorded human history and throughout millennia, we humans have prepared our young people develop the skills and dispositions they need to succeed as an adult via an archetypal process of rites of passage. We have lost that, and our young people are suffering as a result. This article that I wrote offers an innovative approach to redesigning rites of passage for contemporary contexts.
As the pandemic forces us to reimagine graduation, students can take this opportunity to reimagine their futures in this simple graduation ritual.
How I Met My Foul-Mouthed Celebrity Spirit Guide
(Better Humans)
A crazy (and true!) story of a surprise rite of passage in Mary Magdalene's grotto in the south of France.