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Sacred Airspace
Pen pals for over 28 years, Andrew MacPhail and Karrie Kirchner explore the heart and science of a spiritually vibrant friendship. Take a guitar-playing, poem-writing, letter-carrying Aspie who can geek out at a moment's notice and put him with an inveterate swimmer, gardener, and spiritual counselor whose visual art and Taoist practice guide her to a restored and vibrant life... and come along for the ride!
Episodes
51 episodes
Insidious Trauma and Radical Forgiveness
Andrew talks about the insidious traumas of childhood, how loving his parents prevented him from maturing and confronting the truth, living in the shadow of mental illness and religious fundamentalism, and how radical forgiveness has given him ...
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Season 3
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Episode 50
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51:01
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Animal Therapy, Emptiness in a Taoist Light, and Medicine Without Coincidence
Animals bring out the best in us!--and sometimes a bit of everything from laughter as we see my parents' non-compromise on getting me a dog during my childhood as well as the terror of seeing two clever pets land themselves in situations fraugh...
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Season 3
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Episode 49
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43:47
Acceptance, Prayer Squares, & a new P.O. Box
Sometimes what we don't say is the deepest prologue to our episode, and this week is one of those episodes. We have struggled, over the course of our lives, to come to accept ourselves. Perfectionists? Yes. Emotionally in-touch, to the level of...
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Season 3
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Episode 48
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27:34
Manifesting is Messy
As 2023 opens, so does Season 3 of Sacred Airspace. Karrie and I take a look at how the podcast reflects the indirect but ultimately profound process of manifesting our destinies; this includes how we've grown in the past year, the process of t...
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Season 3
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Episode 47
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51:38
Season 2 Closer: "Sharon," Chapters 10-14
Entering our holiday hiatus, "Sharon" takes a few more twists and turns. For those of you who wish to start from the beginning, listen to episodes 40, 42, and 44 before listening to this one. During our holiday break, please continue to write, ...
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Season 2
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Episode 46
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52:15
A Trip to Poet's Corner
With Karrie and I both not feeling our best, I bring out some of the poems that have been hiding in the metaphorical shadows all year--some of love, some of loss, and even an artistic "talk back" to Poe's "The Raven." Join us next week for the ...
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Season 2
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Episode 45
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24:45
More Short Fiction: "Sharon," Chapters 6-9
The serialized short fiction work "Sharon" continues with chapters 6-9. For those who wish to start from the beginning, listen to Episodes 40 and 42 before listening to this one.
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Season 2
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Episode 44
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41:19
Balance, Boundaries, and Integrity
Almost everyone encounters situations that make them ask an important question: can I really be my true self and still be doing the most appropriate thing right now? If I do something different at home vs. at work, or in a dangerous context as ...
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Season 2
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Episode 43
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40:19
Short Fiction and a New Poem
If you haven't listened to "Short Fiction and a New Song" (episode 40), you might want to do that before listening to this one because the serialized short story "The Grifter" is getting underway. This episode features several more chapters as ...
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Season 2
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Episode 42
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45:13
Protection and Purification
There have been times (and there will be times) in our lives when we find ourselves wading through spiritual yeck (yep, that's a technical term that we carefully define). How do we protect ourselves, and when we can't protect ourselves, how do ...
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Season 2
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Episode 41
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47:19
Short Fiction and a New Song
As Karrie prepares to feature her work in the bonus episodes, Andrew closes out his bonus episode season with short fiction from Gordon, the first chapter of a new short story, and a new song.
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Season 2
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Episode 40
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45:45
Tough Choices & Being Faithful to Your Destiny
One of the downsides of being passionate, involved, detail-oriented, and energetic is that--if you're anything like Karrie and Andrew--you want to do everything. Dangerously, you might also think you can do all of it well. Karrie and Andrew tal...
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Season 2
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Episode 39
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49:39
Prisons, The Critic, and Timeless Love
Karrie and Andrew reflect on their first prison visits, talk about the concept of the inner critic (and the outer critic!--who knew?) in Altar Space, and take a look at how benevolent criticism made the most of a song about timeless love. ...
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Season 2
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Episode 38
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46:14
Old Souls in a Modern World
Karrie and Andrew have some pretty old-times habits, hobbies, and interests--and finding out why takes them on a bit of a journey. First of all, what are the most laughably arcane things these old souls love and do? And, perhaps more seriously,...
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Season 2
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Episode 37
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54:14
Melody Wilding, Amelia Bedelia, and Us: the Struggle of Sensitive Strivers
Karrie and I identify as sensitive strivers--introverts who like to please others, exceed expectations, and literally do what's asked of us. What that has done for us and to us in our lives, though, ranges from the humorous to the emotionally d...
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Season 2
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Episode 36
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54:46
Focus and Finding Our True Capabilities
Karrie explores what it means to put our mental and physical energy into breathing to communicate with the body and obtain control in life-and-death situations in which the body has activated fight/flight/freeze/fawn. How we know this works, wh...
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Season 2
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Episode 35
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44:28
Internal Dimensions, Clearing Obstacles, and a Poem from Mary Oliver
We explore one way to access our subconscious today, suing some visualization and some meditation. Past is prologue, though, as Altar Space explores the ability to clear obstacles--the first step of which is determining what's an obstacle, what...
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Season 2
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Episode 34
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58:07
Ghosts, Part 2
The secrets we carry about ourselves and our family members' history are the ghosts we examine this week--and the ghosts we struggle so deeply to lay down. How did we do it, and how has it shaped who we are today?In Altar Space, Karrie t...
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Season 2
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Episode 33
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52:09
Ghosts, Part 1
What are ghosts, how do we experience them, and does their presence even matter? Karrie shares some stories that might be pen pal equivalent of "letters from the great beyond" (points to all of you who knew that was from Todd Thibaud!) and we s...
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Season 2
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Episode 32
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43:32
Uprooted
Andrew takes us back to a series of uprootings (literal and metaphorical) that helped shape who he is today. Karrie introduces us to her shodo set, and in Poet's Corner there's the freshest material yet: verse not even twelve hours old!
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Season 2
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Episode 31
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41:19
Episode 30 - Action & Inaction
How do we understand change? What does perception have to do with it? There might be more to the relationship between these apparent opposites than even we initially gave them credit for. This week, Altar Space has a twist! And Poet's Corner wa...
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Season 2
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Episode 30
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44:03
Episode 29 - Music Notes: Jeff Black
My musical and spiritual journeys have been incredibly enriched by Jeff's music. From finding his first album in a bargain bin at the college bookstore, when I had no idea how my life was going to change over the years, to today as I celebrate ...
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Season 2
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Episode 29
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53:37
Ritual, Repetition, and Revelation
There are so many things that we do over and over again--is this routine? Ritual? What's the difference? And how do we find ourselves doing something we've done so often that we can just put our mind and body on auto pilot and yet, boom!--we no...
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Season 2
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Episode 28
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40:58
Control, Anxiety, & Relinquishing Both
It's not rocket science to see that we don't have quite as much control over our lives as we we're sometimes told we do. What's scarier and hits closer to home, though, is that for some of us we really, really want that control because we tell ...
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Season 2
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Episode 27
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43:25
A Garden Journey With Jen, A Fountain Pen Fitting, and the Story of a Happy Fish
How did author, pollinator advocate, and natural gardener Jen McGuinness get to where she is today? It all started with a little digging in the otherwise "normal" lawn at her house.We bring Jen into the fold of pen pals with her first f...
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Season 2
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Episode 26
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1:06:22