Rev. Syd is joined by Leah Garza to discuss “if loneliness is a living system, then what?” They frame loneliness as connected to colonial ontology’s enforced separation and discuss how institutions use isolation as social control. Rather than pathologizing loneliness, they explore acceptance, belonging, and shifting from good/bad binaries to preference and choice. They discuss illusions of separateness (atom-scale perspective), knowledge from dreams and psychedelics, tools like medication and gender-affirming care as extensions of the body, and noticing connection through nonhuman companions like a spider and a dog. The episode opens and closes with Aeon Ginsberg’s poem “Poem in Which I Transition into Water.”

• Loneliness And Colonial Separation
• Beyond the Good And Bad binary
• The Illusion Of Separation

About Leah:

Leah Garza (she/her) is a Los Angeles–based scholar, professional mystic, and facilitator whose work explores the intersections of decoloniality, ontology, posthumanism, and ecological futures. As the founder of Crystals of Altamira and creator of the year-long Living Systems curriculum, she has guided nearly 300 students across three cohorts to collectively wonder: if extinction is inevitable, what else is possible?

That same question now animates Living Systems Consulting, which she co-founded with Katie Robinson to bring this work directly into organizations ready to ask it. Leah brings nearly two decades of experience in education as a teacher and organizer, alongside extensive work in systems planning, curriculum design, and facilitation — grounding her theoretical work in the lived, practical realities of how institutions actually function, and where they fail the people inside them.

Her teaching and research ask how decolonial pedagogies can cultivate public spaces of intellectual intimacy and nurture relational ways of being, particularly for those living "above the Abyssal line." Leah brings both rigor and whimsy to her practice.

She holds a PhD from Pacifica Graduate Institute in the Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco Psychologies program. Her dissertation "No one is superfluous in a Living System; Relational pedagogies in praxis", explores decolonial pedagogies as a means for transforming reality. She has prior degrees including an M.A. in Depth Psychology (CLIE), an M.Ed and teaching credential from UCLA, and a B.A. in Linguistics from Northeastern University. Across all her work, Leah's approach is guided by curiosity, resonance, and the conviction that transformation can be not only possible but joyful.

You can learn more about Leah at crystalsofaltamira.com, wearelivingsystems.com, and wearelivingsystemsconsulting.com

Connect with Syd:

Book a free spiritual care discovery call with Rev Syd

Email: syd@bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Subscribe to Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Syd A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

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In this episode, Rev Syd is joined by somatic healing practitioner and author Meenadchi, for a multifaceted wander through the many shapes of love. Framed by Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching that love is a practice and Nizar Qabbani’s poem, Entering the Sea, they discuss inviting loneliness in, rather than rejecting it. Syd shares how divorce revealed a pattern of chasing love for validation and how loneliness can become a place to rest, not an escape. The conversation leads them both to reflect on loneliness within relationships, attachment and spaciousness, recognizing loneliness across the lifespan, and reimagining childhood solitude as companionship. They consider love appearing in rupture-and-repair, pattern breaks, shared honesty about loneliness, intimacy beyond romance, spiritual trust, religious trauma, and end by dreaming into possible ways to be with our loneliness, in community, together.

• Loneliness as a Lover
• Love Without Earning
• Loneliness As Intimacy
• Separation And Urgency

About Meenadchi

Meenadchi (she/her) is a somatic healing practitioner, TEDx speaker, and communications word-nerd whose work centers social change and embodied transformation. Her work supports socially conscious organisations and changemakers in developing clear and intentional communication that prioritises the intuitive wisdom of our bodies along with our ability to build bridges across difference with empathy and dignity. She is the author of Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication (2019) and a faculty member with the Trauma of Money.

Connect with Meenadchi

Website: http://meenadchi.com

IG: http://instagram.com/with.meenadchi/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meenadchi/

Connect with Syd:

Book a free spiritual care discovery call with Rev Syd

Email: syd@bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Subscribe to Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Syd A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

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Rev Syd is joined by Tanny Jiraprapasuke, a Thai Buddhist chaplain, to explore how loneliness might be a practice of liberation. The host reads Amir Rabiyah’s poem “Grand Design” to frame liberation as moments of awe and spaciousness beyond language. Tanny describes loneliness across various life stages, including grief, and reframes loneliness as a doorway to connection and acceptance of nature’s cycles. They discuss form and not-form, non-attachment, chaplaincy as accompaniment without bypassing suffering, the loneliness “epidemic,” and practicing liberation locally through ripple effects, ending with the poem reread.

• The wisdom to be found in befriending nature
• Loneliness as a ‘Both-And’ experience
• Spaciousness As Liberation
• Chaplaincy Without Bypassing
• Liberation Amid Global Suffering
• Choosing Stillness Over Fixing

About Tanny Jiraprapasuke

Rutdow "Tanny" Jiraprapasuke (she/her) is an ordained Buddhist Chaplain, writer, documentary filmmaker, and educator who holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Her published work includes "Hyphenated-American" in The Buddhist Door and "How I Transformed Rage into Compassion" in Lion's Roar, and she writes "The Third Ear Journal" on Substack, exploring Buddhism, identity, and storytelling. A second-generation Thai-American, she offers spiritual care through Happy Turtle Creative and has produced numerous short films centering the Asian-American experience. She teaches mindful meditation across communities in Los Angeles, where she remains close to her Thai-Buddhist roots, using writing and film to tell stories that bring us closer to the human experience.

The poem “Grand Design” by Amir Rabiyah can be found in Writing Down the Walls: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices (ed. Amir Rabiyah, Helen Klonaris) 2015

Connect with Syd:

Book a free spiritual care discovery call with Rev Syd

Email: syd@bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Subscribe to Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Syd A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

Send us Fan Mail