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The Ground Shots Podcast


Mar 20, 2022

Direct link to episode with extra photos and Ted's poetry: https://www.ofsedgeandsalt.com/podcastblog/tedpackard

 

Ted studied History and Anthropology at Christopher Newport University, got a Master’s in Teaching, went on the road with the Momentary Prophets band, and then went to study with Alderleaf Wilderness College and Wilderness Awareness School. He taught various program for youth around the greater Seattle area for many years before relocating to Durango, Colorado to dry out, as he says. After some years of a break, Ted just started up a new nature connection program for youth in the Durango community. Ted does lots of things, including various handcrafts, refurbishing guitars and other instruments, music-making, writing, wood-burning and more. As college peers, we spent a lot of time together researching things like mushroom cults, the esoteric origins of Judeo-Christian religion, the anthropology of psychedelics, zen koans, and more. We both have lived in different places since and woven in and out of each others’ lives so we spent some time really checking in about how we think about things now vs. when we were radical activist driven neo-pagan coyote-trickster troubadour mind-melters.

 

 

In this episode with Ted, we talk about:

  • Ted’s nature connection mentorship work with youth in Washington and Colorado

  • Ted’s upbringing in northwestern Virginia

  • Our experience in college of community: artists, philosophers, musicians, activists, and neo-pagans and our reflections on that time now

  • seasonal ritual as a somatic map

  • ways that Ted’s anger at an eco-cidal culture has transformed over the years to a yearning for finding points of connection vs. telling someone they are wrong or how to live

  • what is a community of mutuality in a broken society that emphasizes hyper-individualism?

  • activism can look many ways and can even be in small moments of advocacy

  • awareness of the isolation of capitalism is often crippling

  • the reality that financial security is generally not available to our generation (millennials)

  • Ted’s musical projects which include Momentary Prophets from his early 20’s, that had a coyote-troubadour element with community driven instigation, as well as his own solo projects

  • paying attention to ‘nature’ bringing you closer to crazy synchronicities that become signposts to keep going

  • weaving a web of interrelated ideas and ecologies as a way of being

  • trauma, neutrinos, quantum physics intersecting eastern philosophy, bodies as multiplicity, the mycelium nature of everything, music as ecological channeling

 

Links:

The Emerald Podcast, mentioned on the podcast

Daniel Quinn, author we mention on the podcast

Mystic Moon of Norfolk, VA, pagan community mentioned

Terence McKenna, mentioned on the podcast

Mountain Justice: organization dedicated to ending mountain top removal in Appalachia

Momentary Prophets on Facebook

Momentary Prophets on Bandcamp (Interstitial music featured on the episode)

Ted’s music on Bandcamp (he is putting out a new album RIGHT NOW, his individual music featured in the intro of this episode)

Wilderness Awareness School

Living Earth School

Sophie Strand

Ted’s Patreon for his music, art, writing

Ted’s revived blog of writing (do yourself a favor and read and savor)

Ted’s Venmo if you’d like to donate to help support his musical projects : @Theodore-Packard

Support the podcast on Patreon to contribute monthly to our grassroots self-funding of this project 

For one time donations to support this podcast:

Paypal : paypal.me/petitfawn

VENMO:
@kelly-moody-6

Cashapp: cash.app/$groundshotsproject 

 Our website with an archive of podcast episodes, educational resources, past travelogues and more: http://www.ofsedgeandsalt.com 

Our Instagram pages: @goldenberries / @groundshotspodcast

Join the Ground Shots Podcast Facebook Group to discuss the episodes

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Music: by Ted Packard and Momentary Prophets

This episode hosted by: Kelly Moody

Produced by: Kelly Moody and Ted Packard