This week, join all three of your hosts while they have some pancakes and catch up! We talk a bit about the history of pancake Tuesday – and then get into what we’ve been up to lately, some awesome episodes to look forward to for the spring season, and a lot of updates on our pets.
Rachel’s Duck Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ducks.of.kingston/
Steph’s bougie cooking experiments: https://stephbeyond.com/
TRANSCRIPT
Steph 0:17
You’re listening to Nearly Numinous, a podcast all about the religious side of life. Every week we chat about different religions, spiritualities, and other beliefs. We do roundtable discussions, deep dives into histories and religious studies theories and interview different religious leaders or practitioners. For full transcripts and more information on each episode, you can find us at nearlynuminous.ca
Steph 1:00
Welcome to this week’s episode of Nearly Numinous. This week, we’re talking all about Pancake Tuesday. But wait, there’s more! We decided that in honour of our previous episode on communal meals, we would treat this a little bit like a communal meal over here on the podcast. All three of your hosts are enjoying their own homemade pancakes. And we’re gonna chat a bit about Pancake Tuesday. But then we’ll also share a little bit of our lives with each other and our listeners because building community is all about sharing meals in conversation with each other.
Jacqueline 1:49
So I’m eating my new favourite pancake recipe, which is a gluten-free banana pancake recipe. So it’s just essentially, I kind of, the recipe kind of changes a little bit every time depending on like how much flour or bananas I have to. like with the bananas I have to get rid of. And so it’s just banana,s some, right now, I just have just regular gluten-free flour and then some water. I think that’s it. Yeah, that’s all I added this time anyway. And I usually burn them but today I didn’t. So that’s pretty exciting. Um, and it’s topped with maple syrup and peanut butter.
Steph 2:34
Are those your go-to toppings? Or do you like to switch it up sometimes?
Jacqueline 2:38
Those are definitely my go-to. Sometimes I will do some yogurt. That’s kind of nice. But yeah, I really like maple syrup and, and peanut butter. I love peanut butter.
Rachel 2:50
That sounds deathly to me. But also kind of good.
Jacqueline 2:54
Sorry, Rachel!
Steph 2:56
Literally deathly. Not like, she’s not talking like metaphorical here guys.
Rachel 3:01
I would literally die.
Steph 3:05
So Rachel, what are you having today?
Rachel 3:07
I have my Gucci gourmet Aunt Jemima pancake mix with my Aunt Jemima pancake syrup topped with butter. And I’m trying a little bit something new. I just started trying Nutella on my pancakes. Because even though I’m allergic to peanuts, I’m not allergic to tree nuts anymore. So I’ve just gotten into Nutella and it’s so good. I love it. I want to have it with everything.
Steph 3:38
That sounds magical.
Rachel 3:39
It really is
Steph 3:42
Okay, hot take question for both of you. What’s better: pancake syrup or maple syrup?
Rachel 3:52
Maple syrup has like a stronger taste. And I think that probably like just because it’s so it’s so authentic, it tastes good. Pancakes syrup, like at least the fake kinds like Aunt Jemima, and no offence Aunt Jemima, like it kind of just like it tastes very fake. But you know what, I like, I still, I’m obviously still loving it. I’m still eating it.
Jacqueline 4:21
I like them both. Like I grew up on, like pancake syrup. But just the last couple years I switched over to maple syrup and there’s no going back. Although I would if I needed I would have regular pancake syrup. If like all the maple syrup was sold out in the world, I would probably have pancake syrup instead of maple syrup.
Rachel 4:44
Perish the thought!
Jacqueline 4:44
Yeah. *laughs* So good.
Steph 4:47
So I would say that I’m a die-hard maple syrup fan. And I think that so, for those listening, if you don’t know us personally then Fun fact we all live in Kingston, Ontario. And there is a ton of maple syrup produced in this area. And so to me, why would you have pancake syrup when you can literally like, I could go around the corner of my house and probably find a sugar shack and get some fresh maple syrup.
Jacqueline 5:17
Yep. Or order through the farmers market.
Steph 5:19
Exactly.
Rachel 5:22
You didn’t tell us what type of pancake you’re having Steph.
Steph 5:27
Me, we all know I’m a bougie cook. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’m a bougie cook, so I’m eating homemade crepes. And I’ve got some fresh fruit inside with some fake cheesecake. So I just do cream cheese with some powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix it all up. Throw it in my crepe. Oh, yeah. I go all out for Pancake Tuesday. And every meal, oh my gosh, I spend like three hours making dinner every single day. That’s what I’ve been doing during the most recent lockdown.
Rachel 6:05
I’m so lazy. I just want food inside my body.
Steph 6:12
For me, it’s the whole experience. You know?
Rachel 6:16
Before we get into it, I just want to say if you hear quacking in the background, I don’t have a duck in my apartment. But I do have a parrot. And she makes quacking sounds so the troubles of recording at home, there’s gonna be some there’s gonna be some background sounds for me.
Jacqueline 6:36
I totally hear the quacking
Steph 6:37
Why does she quack?
Rachel 6:37
I have no clue! She just started doing it in the past year and it’s sounds exactly like a duck.
Steph 6:46
Do you hang around a lot of ducks with your bird?
Rachel 6:49
No, but I don’t know if you guys know this, but I do run a duck Instagram. So go follow ducks of Kingston on Instagram. We haven’t been updating this year very much because you know, being inside, but I know I’m a bit of a weirdo. Follow me on my duck Instagram.
Steph 7:15
This is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.
Rachel 7:17
Maybe she’s been like, I don’t know, looking through my phone at the videos of ducks quacking. Half my photos on my phone are…
Steph 7:24
I heard that parrots are really good at looking through phones, scrolling instagram
Rachel 7:28
With their little fingers. She like does the thumbprint ID thing to open on my phone. Yep.
Steph 7:35
That’s the greatest thing. All right, so shall we jump into the main course of this episode? Get it?
Rachel 7:44
Good one!
Steph 7:47
Thank you. So what is the deal with Pancake Tuesday? What is it? Why…? What’s happening? Is it a holiday? Is it us just eating pancakes on a Tuesday, somebody’s tell me please.
Jacqueline 8:00
All of the above! So if you’ve never heard of Pancake Tuesday before, you may have heard of it referred to as Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday as we already said, or Mardi Gras, which is French for Fat Tuesday. So the reason it has these names is first Shrove Tuesday, which comes from the word “shrive,” which means “absolve,” Fat Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, or Mardi Gras are all referring to the tradition of using up all of your sugars and fats before the start of Lent, before the start of Lent where you are supposed to fast and keep yourself from eating these items.
Rachel 8:39
Yeah, so like Jacqueline mentioned the feast day, Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, all that, that’s a feast day before the start of Lent, which is on Ash Wednesday. And Pancake Tuesday is basically the day for using up all of your sugars and fats before the start of Lent, where you are supposed to fast and keep yourself from eating these items. So some traditions will also practice by burning the palms that were distributed during the previous years Palm Sunday. And then this then turns into the ashes used on Ash Wednesday the following day. So if you haven’t participated in Ash Wednesday, you can either go to a service or more recently, these days, you can sort of do like a drive-by Ash Wednesday, where you go up to your priests, they will give you a little cross of ashes on your head at least in the West. And then you can go on your day. Basically, Ash Wednesday is a reminder of our sinfulness and mortality. One of the things the priest might say to you is “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” So it’s basically a reminder for our need to repent, which is what we do in our fasting and you know all that throughout Lent season. Did you guys ever do Ash Wednesday in school? I went to a Catholic school did you guys Yeah, you’ve you’ve done that, Jacqueline?
Jacqueline 10:12
Yeah, I did it at my, my old university was Christian and so then there was a chapel that you could go to if you wanted, you didn’t have to go. And I was just gonna say my favourite thing about Ash Wednesday would be when people would go to the service either at my university or elsewhere in the city, and then get the ash cross on their forehead, and then proceed to forget that they had the cross on their forehead and then it would go like take the bus or whatever, and just like walk around with this ash on their forehead, just pretty funny.
Steph 10:42
Oh, that’s great. I never really participated in Ash Wednesday, I think my church growing up would kind of do like start of Lent services. And I think they would sometimes do a service on Ash Wednesday, but we didn’t go into the full like ash on the forehead. I want to chalk that up, I might be wrong here, so correct me if I’m wrong. But I want to chalk that up to the fact that I grew up in a Presbyterian Church. And I feel like that’s not as practiced in Presbyterianism. From what I’ve read as well, like Lent and kind of the fasting of Lent and Ash Wednesday seems to be more widely practiced by Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Roman Catholics. Otherwise, I don’t see it coming up as prominently in other traditions, I think it’s obviously still celebrated. But I don’t think it’s as big of a ritual.
Jacqueline 11:32
I think it especially has to do with like pastoral, just responsibilities, because the Easter season gets like really, really busy. So there are these smaller kinds of holidays like Ash Wednesday, or right before Good Friday there’s Maundy Thursday. And so it really depends also just about the resources of a particular church. And if like the pastor can, like take the time to, to actually, like, organize those services. And so I think that’s a huge part of it, too. So even if, like a denomination might, like, officially celebrate it, a particular church might not and then those people might go to a different church to celebrate. So it’s quite common to do like joint services for a lot of these things, just so there’s not so much responsibility on a particular pastor or priest.
Steph 12:28
That makes sense.
Jacqueline 12:31
I was a pastoral intern, so.
Steph 12:34
Our resident expert on the subject. All right, so, my favourite thing about doing this podcast is, like, we’re obviously not experts on everything. So I think all of us spend a lot of time researching, like different things to bring in and make this podcast interesting. And so I spend quite a bit of time looking up different traditions and like ways people celebrate, like Pancake Tuesday or a variation on the term. And so I found my favourite thing, and it’s called the pancake bell. So the first instance that they really saw this written down somewhere was in Thomas Dekker’s 16th-century poem, called the Shoemakers Holiday, which is not to be confused with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet’s The Holiday. And so it comes from a passage that says “upon every Shrove Tuesday at the sound of the pancake bell, my fine dapper Assyrian lads shall clap their up their shop windows and away. This is the day and this day they shall doot, they shall doot,” I have no idea what doot means.
Rachel 13:43
Is that the sound of the bell?
Steph 13:46
Maybe, maybe it’s the sound of the bell.
Rachel 13:48
Doot doot!
Steph 13:49
But basically, the premise of this bell is that it’s rung at around 11am on Pancake Tuesday. And that was a signal of the time that people should stop their work. And as it says in the poem, board up their shops, just the Assyrian lads, I guess nobody else. I don’t know, 16th-century poets. But it also has been used in like to call people to confession. So as we were saying before, I think Jacqueline mentioned this that Shrove Tuesday comes from the word “shrive,” which means to absolve. So the idea is, you feast and you also seek absolution from your sins. And so that’s what this pancake bell signaled, which is a really a much deeper meaning than you’d think something that’s called the pancake bell would mean.
Jacqueline 14:49
So there’s a fun little story about, that happened in England. So in in some towns in England, there’s a tradition of a pancake race, where a ton of people put on costumes, which seems to be mostly aprons and bandanas, where you have a pancake and a frying pan, and you flip it at least three times and run at the same time, trying to get to the end of the race first, which is at the church where you serve the pancake to the bell ringer. So apparently this started in a place called Olney where, in 1445, a woman in the town heard the pancake bell while she was making her pancakes and ran to the church and her apron still holding her frying pan. So that’s kind of a fun story.
Steph 15:32
I also heard that apparently at the end if you reach the bell ringer first, then the bell ringer has to give you a kiss.
Rachel 15:39
Oh my god!
Jacqueline 15:41
I would avoid being first. I’d be last on purpose.
Steph 15:45
Maybe if the bell ringer was attractive? No, I’m sure it’s like a kiss on the cheek or something. I’m sure it’s some like hokey little tradition. But Alright, so something else that I found when I was doing my research on this was there’s a lot of talk about if like Lent celebrations like Pancake Tuesday or especially when you see it in like Mardi Gras, if it has pagan roots. So, okay, I have a I have an issue with this subject. Because it seems like every single time there’s a celebration, where people wipe their titties, then it has to be some Dionysian sacrificial ritual. And like, come on, just sometimes people just want to celebrate and party. But to get more into like the specifics of why people think this is
Rachel 16:44
No, hold on, I agree with like, sometimes it’s Tuesday, and you just want to whip your titties out. Like you should be allowed to do that.
Steph 16:51
Yeah! Exactly. Especially if pancakes are involved. I don’t know about you, but sometimes the sugar gets to you.
Rachel 16:59
Sometimes you’re just feeling it so much. And you just like gotta whip your titties out. Be like, yeah, I’m enjoying my pancakes. It’s a Tuesday. What?
Steph 17:10
Yeah, that seems to be the, I don’t think this is tied to Dionysis in any way. But you know. Jacqueline hates this.
Jacqueline 17:22
My main concern is are you already finished making your pancakes because like oil, that would hurt!
Steph 17:28
It’s true. Especially if you’re adding bacon with your pancakes.
Jacqueline 17:31
Oh! Yeah! Just, just wait. Just wait a few minutes.
Steph 17:33
Yeah, this podcast does not condone cooking without a shirt.
Rachel 17:37
Be safe. Be safe, everyone.
Steph 17:38
Be safe. All right, but to just go into a little bit more about like why people think this. So again, I don’t necessarily agree with it. I think people are really reaching here but they kind of tied in with the idea of like the spring and fertility rites especially Lupercalia which is more often linked it seems to Valentine’s Day. So it’s a ritual and fertility rite where it has to do a lot with like marrying people off kind of. But also, funny enough, Lupercalia and it’s like OG state was a lot of people just running down the street naked. So I think that’s where they see like the link between like Mardi Gras and this festival, but that didn’t actually apparently last for long. By like the early first century, first or second century they stopped running down the street naked. So yeah, honestly, like these links to these pagan celebrations seems kind of sketchy at best. It most likely just seems like people are reaching and trying to make like these more of these Christian celebrations link up more directly to pagan rituals
Steph 18:04
So that they can make a moral judgment about them
Rachel 19:00
What really seems to have happened is that the Christians may have used a bunch of different religious rites that they saw everyone else using and then put them into a pre-Lent celebration. But it doesn’t seem like they actually took over another holiday. However, the idea of it being linked to spring is pretty cool. You know, spring is a time for spring cleaning. And Lent is kind of like spring cleaning for the soul. So on Pancake Tuesday, clean out your cupboards of all the sugar and clean out your soul of all your sins.
Steph 19:34
I think this episode should be titled “Lent: the spring cleaning of the soul.”
Rachel 19:39
That’s pretty much what it is. Yeah. Instead of running down the street naked and flipping pancakes, how about we just catch up and sharing our communal meal today, guys?
Steph 19:51
Yeah, I mean it is pretty cold. I don’t I don’t know. I don’t really want to run down the street naked right now.
Jacqueline 19:57
No, the windchill’s pretty cold.
Rachel 19:59
There’d be some stuff, freezing and falling off, I think.
Steph 20:11
Alright, so speaking of the cold I don’t know about either of you. But I’ve actually just been like hibernating the past few weeks. So for our listeners, if you’re in Ontario, then you know this, but if you’re not, Ontario has been in a pretty strict ish lockdown since December 26. So we had stay-at-home orders, we were told to stay home, stay inside, don’t go out. It was a little vague, though, because you could still go shopping. But anyway, we’re finally out of that. And I know that for me, that’s meant going back to work, reopening the bar that I work at. But otherwise, I haven’t really been doing anything too exciting. I know both of you are more into school and research and doing cool things like that. Maybe, Jacqueline, you want to fill us in on how school is going?
Jacqueline 21:04
Yeah, so I haven’t really done all too much either other like I’ve been hibernating a lot since the lockdown. But also because like all of school’s online, so I don’t need to go anywhere. Um, yeah, I haven’t been really doing too much research for myself. Right now, it’s just been, I’m a TA for religion and pop culture. A first-year course. That and then I’m in two other courses, which are both great. One’s in Black Studies, ones, it’s kind of like learning about alternative ways of writing in ways that kind of disrupt like, colonial patterns of writing, how to make them more accessible. How to… Yeah, I don’t know, it’s a really cool course. It’s kind of it’s kind of, a lot’s going on in it. But it’s something that I’m really enjoying. But yeah, I also haven’t really been leaving my apartment very much. I did leave today because we are now in the green! The, what’s it called? The Green Zone
Steph 22:11
Yeah!
Jacqueline 22:12
The green zone, which, if you’re not from Kingston, please do not come to Kingston right now. Let us enjoy our green zone, because we have, yeah, it’s pretty exciting. Stay away.
Steph 22:21
We worked very hard to wear our masks and not spread the virus
Jacqueline 22:24
Yeah! Like Torontonians and, how do you stay at Ottawans? We love you. But please don’t come to Kingston right now.
Steph 22:34
Yeah. All right. So I’m actually very curious about this course, I want to hear more about, you know, disrupting traditional colonial ways of writing. Do you have like an example just like maybe one example of something that you’ve you’ve learned in this course.
Jacqueline 22:51
So we’ve covered a lot of different topics. And the thing that’s freshest in my mind is the idea of affective writing. And so how, in the last couple of decades, there has been kind of this push towards writing that really highlights experiences of trauma, and how this has been really important for like educating people on the effects of like, colonization on indigenous communities or things like that. But then what ends up happening is that when that’s the main way that these sort of experiences are portrayed in writing, is that there’s this consumption of trauma that happens. And so we start to only really like value these, these writings when this person is being quite vulnerable. And so there’s this whole this, this whole debate about, you know, oftentimes, we think that by reading, we can like put ourselves into other people’s shoes, maybe through like, reading novels, or whatever. But at the end of the day, we’re not actually putting ourselves in people’s shoes. Like there’s no way for me as a white, as a white person to when I read a novel by an indigenous author, even though it may feel to me as I’m reading that maybe like, it feels like I’m experiencing that, I’m not, like I’m not experiencing that trauma. And so, we, these last couple weeks, we’ve been talking about, like, what, how, how can we participate in like advocating for these sorts of communities? For me, it would be in disability studies. How do we do that without relying on trauma, which has kind of become like a standard way of writing and that we expect people to, to write.
Steph 24:51
That’s really interesting, I think, obviously, is coming from someone who knows nothing about this subject, you would know way more, but I can’t help but think that fact that the way we’ve traditionally gotten people to care about activism and other people is through evoking empathy. And I think that does come down to a lot of that what you’re saying, like affective writing, like affective writing.
Jacqueline 25:14
Yeah.
Steph 25:16
You know, trying to use that trauma and personal experience to draw out emotions from other people to get them to care about you. Which I know is we’re slowly I think, from an activism standpoint, people are slowly starting to pick apart and say, how come I have to get you to care about me from an empathetic level before you’ll actually care about me from like a political government whatever standpoint, right? So I think that’s really interesting. And a very, I don’t know, I think that’s a very complex subject. Because, I mean, empathy is a core human emotion. So then how do we maybe adjust how we feel empathy, I guess?
Jacqueline 25:53
Yeah. And like, how do we, how do we teach, like high school students or young adults to read novels, for example, in a way that, yeah, that makes them aware of these things and the nuances of empathy. That just because you’re reading Anne Frank’s diary, doesn’t mean that you understand the experience of Anne Frank, or that you understand the effects of the Holocaust. Like you, you don’t because you weren’t there. And it’s not your experience. And, like reading these things are very important. For sure. Like, there’s a reason why, like Anne Frank is, is read so widely in high school curriculum. But like, yeah, there’s, there’s more nuance there. And we need to be aware of that. So how do you go about teaching high school students how to do that? To read… Yeah, to read critically to read? Yeah, I don’t know. Just more nuancedly.
Steph 26:52
I think going off the experience of the Holocaust too, just, again, bringing it in, like this idea of evoking empathy. I don’t know if you guys ever saw what was it Jack Rabbit that came out? I personally haven’t watched it, but I heard that. Is that the name of it?
Rachel 27:11
I don’t know.
Steph 27:14
Hold on, I’m gonna check to make sure that that’s the name of it before I go on a rant about it.
Steph 27:27
Jojo Rabbit, that’s what it’s called. Okay. Okay, so I’m not sure if you have either seen Jojo Rabbit. And I personally haven’t watched it. So I don’t want to get too far into it. But I know that it received a lot of criticism because it almost tried to draw empathy towards Nazis a little bit. Like it wasn’t necessarily trying to be like Nazi sympathy. It was just trying like it almost like kind of crossed that line.
Rachel 27:55
I think I remember hearing about this, but I don’t know much about it.
Jacqueline 28:02
I yeah, I haven’t heard about this.
Steph 28:04
Anyway, we don’t necessarily have to talk about it. I just thought it was like an interesting perspective into that idea of like, reading and empathy and other people’s experiences. I don’t know.
Jacqueline 28:20
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s a huge thing. Especially, well as we know like most wars in history, most European wars in history are just between like two countries that I don’t know like, like it’s maybe not over like a huge huge deal. They’re just I can’t even remember like what are like in the 18th century other than like revolutions like some of the wars are just like for no reason really. And so finding empathy for the people on the other side can be really valuable in that then like, you see their humanity you see, oh, like they have children too. But that, yeah, especially with World War Two that gets really dicey when it starts getting linked to Nazi-ism because then yeah, then it kind of comes across as like justifying Nazi-ism and that’s really dangerous. So like this kind of when is it appropriate to encourage empathy towards these sorts of ideas? For Nazism, I would say never.
Jacqueline 29:31
Are you laughing at Steph?
Rachel 29:32
No, I’m laughing at the way you said like yeah, it’s probably better to stay on the safe side of never encouraging empathy towards Nazis.
Jacqueline 29:47
We could delete that. But like, but you know what I mean, though, like it’s like, like World War One even like the empathy for the other side is still like an okay thing because, you know, that was was like, what was World War One about anyway, right? But then you get to World War Two?
Rachel 30:06
No, it’s a good question. It’s mean, like, how where do you draw the line? That’s, I would love to take that class. Actually, that sounds super interesting. Mango Shut up.
Jacqueline 30:18
We’re not talking about World War Two in that class, though, just to be clear.
Rachel 30:26
I, I don’t really have anything going on right now. I don’t have school. I’m hopefully going to school in September, but waiting to hear back from scholarships. I don’t have work right now. But you know, with the city opening back up again, I hope I can go back. I’ve mostly just been watching a lot of RuPaul’s drag race and a lot of YouTube drama videos. So like really spending my time on quality stuff. And kind of just lying in bed all day, I’ve kind of been like, wasting away. It’s been sad, but you know, it could be worse, could be worse.
Steph 31:07
So what are you hoping to study in your PhD?
Rachel 31:11
So I am hoping to continue in religious studies. I have been accepted to the University of Edinburgh. But you know,
Steph 31:23
That’s so exciting, congrats!
Rachel 31:24
Thank you. I obviously couldn’t go this year with Covid. Again, hoping September is going to happen. But money and Covid are both an issue. So it’s kind of just a waiting game. Life is a waiting game right now for, as it is for so many people. So, you know, just trying to find ways to pass the time. I’ve been going on walks, weather permitting, which is nice, because I don’t really do that very often. And with gyms closed. It’s nice to, you know, move around a little bit. But yeah, it’s not much has been happening, but I’m trying to look at it like a sort of blessing in disguise. Like, it’s really nice to not have a lot to do right now for the first time in a long time.
Steph 32:19
Yeah, I get that. People always ask me, they’re like, “oh, how are you faring with a lockdown?” I’m like, “as an introvert, I love it. I get to stay home and not do anything and talk to anyone. And then when I want to talk to people I can.”
Jacqueline 32:35
Yeah. And you don’t like you’re not made to feel guilty about it. It’s it’s beautiful.
Steph 32:41
It’s like no, I can’t hang out. Not because I don’t want to.
Rachel 32:45
We’re all introverts, right? Yeah. So we’re all like, you know, this sucks staying at home. But also, it’s great staying at home. What have you been up to, Steph?
Steph 32:57
I have been, like I said, just kind of laying low for the most part and just working on maybe some like personal projects. So I launched a blog. Like I said before, I love to cook. So I launched a blog so that I can put up recipes.
Rachel 33:13
What’s it called?
Steph 33:14
Steph beyond dot com. Yeah, so that’s been exciting. It’s been nice to actually, I find, I’ve always wanted to do stuff like this, but I’m always the type of person that’s like, I gotta like, if I’m gonna do something, there needs to be like a reason that I’m doing it. Like I need to have like an end goal with it or whatever. So it’s like being in school, working, making money, things like that. So it’s been kind of nice to like, have some forced downtime, I guess. So yeah, I’ve worked on that. I also, I’m still working. So this podcast, if you’re listening to it, live on cfrc, well, not live but playing on cfrc. That’s the radio station that I work at. So I’ve also been working there, getting some new programs launched and some new radio stuff done, which has been really exciting. So it’s been kind of nice having this podcast too, because it’s given me a bit of an excuse to kind of keep up my academic side of life, I guess. So every time I see like fun little articles about like, “is this religious?” I’m like, “oh, let’s talk about it on the podcast.” And I know both of you are probably so sick of me sending links to articles in our group chat. The most recent one that I send to you folks that I’m very excited to maybe one day talk about is the rise of the Peloton Sunday Service. Yeah.
Steph 33:37
What’s that again? Did…
Steph 34:42
Do you not read the articles I send you, Jacqueline?
Jacqueline 34:44
I read most of them! What what’s this one again? Refresh my memory
Steph 34:49
This one is about apparently on Peloton. So you know, Peloton, they’re, it’s like a, do you know Soulcycle. Jacqueline knows nothing About pop culture.
Jacqueline 34:45
No, I really don’t. Last year just for listeners. Last year, Steph and I were TA-ing together. And like I understand memes to an extent. But there was one tutorial session that was supposed to be dedicated to memes. And I was like, “I like I don’t know what I’ll say, Steph can you…” so Steph gave me like a crash course in memes and what to look for so that I could lead this tutorial. Because I really don’t know much
Steph 35:00
I sent her so many memes
Jacqueline 35:02
I remember, I remember towards the beginning of the year, I was hanging out in the grad common room and you guys both walked in and Jacqueline was like, “Steph just introduced me to Lizzo!”
Steph 35:44
Yeah. I feel like I really opened up your world. You know?
Jacqueline 35:51
The funny thing is I like I haven’t really expanded my, my music. Since then. It’s still t’s still the same people as before.
Rachel 36:03
You like what you like and it’s okay.
Jacqueline 36:07
Totally. Nashville, like you, you never need anything more than the Nashville soundtrack.
Steph 36:13
It’s true. I mean, I have a playlist that I’ve saved on my phone that is every single song that was in every single episode of Nashville. And it’s like seven hours worth of music, so you’re set. It’s gonna be a long time before you hear the next song repeated.
Jacqueline 36:27
And it’s quite diverse, too.
Steph 36:28
Yeah, exactly. Especially for speaking as someone who used to hate country music.
Jacqueline 36:36
Yep!
Steph 36:38
Okay, anyway, going back to Peloton. So the Peloton, Peloton is this company that they make, like exercise bikes and treadmills. But they’re synced to their like online workout system. So it has like this little tablet on the front of it and you can actually log in and do like real-time live workouts.
Rachel 37:06
Sorry!
Steph 37:08
If you’re listening, if you’re listening, you obviously can’t see what’s happening on our zoom call. But Rachel’s bird is now front and centre on her little zoom cube and it’s quite amusing.
Rachel 37:19
She likes to see our faces and peck at them.
Steph 37:24
Oh, that’s awesome. Have you ever had to replace your computer screen because of that?
Rachel 37:28
No, but I have had to replace computer keys from her tearing them out.
Steph 37:36
Oh man
Jacqueline 37:37
Daddy’s discovered computers. Sorry.
Steph 37:40
Oh no!
Jacqueline 37:40
I’ll just interject with another story. No, this is a good thing. Um, so I played one of those, like bird videos for like cat television on my computer. And since then, she’s just been enamoured with my computer. So we’ve been watching Queer Eye together a lot. She quite enjoys that. Yeah, we were watching Outlander. And she really likes the horse scenes. So yeah.
Jacqueline 37:40
Oh, that’s great. I’ve never done that for Ruby. I’ve always thought about it, but I’ve never tried it. I don’t know she’d be interested. She’s kind of a weird cat, like she doesn’t like normal cat things.
Jacqueline 38:06
Just give it a go. I didn’t think Daphne would like the cat television but she just got really into it, got really confused because the bird would disappear off the screen and then she would look around the room for it. Very confusing.
Steph 38:27
I wonder if we put a video of Rachel’s bird in front of our cats… I’m thinking a Nearly Numinous live stream, what do you think? We’ll put all three of our pets on and just watch as our cats follow Mango around the room.
Rachel 38:41
You’re just training them to kill he, thanks.
Steph 38:46
They’ll never be in the same room
Jacqueline 38:48
They’d just watch intently
Rachel 38:50
So sorry Steph, keep going with your story.
Steph 38:56
Yeah, we set this podcast was mostly going to be a catch up so clearly it is. No, so anyway, the Sunday service thing is basically there’s this new class on Sundays, where it’s like very religiously charged. And now like Peloton users are logging in and they’re saying you know like, “this has been great. I haven’t been able to go to church because of the pandemic but now I can log in and do my Soul Cycle ride or Peloton ride and feel like I’m having this like religious experience.” And it’s hosted by this guy who has his like Master’s in theology or something. Anyway, fascinating. I think it’s absolutely fascinating,
Jacqueline 39:35
Does he like read scripture while they’re running or what
Steph 39:38
I don’t know. I think it’s more just the music element of it. It’s like and then it’s like, apparently the language and it is very much like you know, “reach into your soul and you know, overcome those obstacles, you can do it.” It’s like very like self-empowering stuff.
Rachel 39:54
That reminds me, is that anyway like that bike exercise class in Schitt’s Creek? Um, do you guys remember that? Like, where it turned out to be a cult? Yeah. And it was like,
Steph 40:07
That was great.
Rachel 40:07
“Bike to the gates of heaven” and all that reminds me a lot of that.
Steph 40:12
Oh no, it was the step class, with those weird steps?
Rachel 40:15
It was a step class. Yeah.
Steph 40:29
Okay, well, before we sign off, do we want to give the listeners a sneak peek of some of the episodes we’ve got planned that are coming up?
Rachel 40:37
Good idea.
Steph 40:38
All right. So if you tuned in two weeks ago, we did an episode on St. Brigid and Celtic Christianity, which we kind of hinted in that that we’re gonna have another episode coming out soon. That’s kind of a follow-up. Jacqueline, do you want to give us a little teaser of that?
Jacqueline 40:54
Yeah, so in March, we’re gonna do an episode on St. Patrick. So it’ll probably be very similar to the style of this St. Brigid one with some storytelling as well. Some like Celtic, Irish music playing in the background. Yeah, just kind of talking about the history and controversies of the person that was and is St. Patrick.
Steph 41:19
Hint. It’s not just all about drinking.
Jacqueline 41:23
No, he didn’t really drink too… Well, I assume he drank because he was in Ireland. And there’s, as we know, lots of stories about turning water into ale. So clearly, he probably drank a decent amount. But his stories don’t really revolve around that, he just like banishes snakes from Ireland. I think he turns into a deer at one point to like, run away from something.
Rachel 41:45
Just typical Irish stuff
Jacqueline 41:46
Some pretty cool stuff. Yeah.
Steph 41:50
Next week, I I’m working on with quite a bit of help from Rachel an episode all about the charismatic leader. So this will be fun, because we’re going to talk about what is a charismatic leader, we’re gonna get into kind of like, quote, unquote, cult stuff. And I say that in quotes, because that’s not a word we like to use. But it’s how we’re going to get you to listen and be interested in the topic. But we’re also going to talk about like political leaders and celebrities, and why we’re so enamoured with people who are charismatic, and how that’s inherently religious. So that’ll be cool. And I’m very much looking forward to that. I also have another episode in the works that I’m excited about all about manifesting. Because, oh, my gosh, if I hear one more influencer, say, like, “I manifested this,” I’m gonna be like, “sorry, what?” But anyway, I’m very interested in the topic of manifestation. Because everybody’s obsessed with it right now. And I want to talk about the idea of like New Age religions, and how these kind of things have become so prominent across like social media and how this has become mainstream culture.
Rachel 43:02
For another episode we have in the works in March, I believe, is an episode about the 100. Is that how you say it, is it the “one hundred”? Or “hundred”?
Jacqueline 43:16
I don’t actually know!
Rachel 43:18
I’m just gonna go with the “one hundred”. It’s,
Jacqueline 43:21
Yeah, that’s kind of what I assume, I think
Rachel 43:22
It’s an episode, it’s an episode all about the 100. And the elements of religion and spirituality, you, you can see in it, so if you guys don’t know, it’s a show. It’s also a series of books. But we’re gonna be focusing mostly on the show. It’s a show that is seven seasons long about these, it starts off about these teenagers who are sent to Earth after what was a nuclear apocalypse sort of, and it’s a basically it’s basically about them having to survive. And spoiler alert, there are people already surviving on the earth and they meet up with them. There’s, it’s pretty interesting. It’s a good show. You guys should check it out. Especially because we’re gonna be talking about it on the podcast next month.
Steph 44:15
Yeah, I haven’t watched this at all. I have so much TV to watch. Luckily, I have nothing else going on in my life.
Jacqueline 44:26
It’s such a good show. You should all watch it.
Steph 44:30
Alright, well, thank you everyone for tuning in and listening to our little catch-up of what’s going on going into our spring-ish season. We’re really looking forward to having these episodes. If there’s something that you wanted to speak your mind about, or if you have a topic that you want us to talk about, feel free to reach out to us. You can either get in contact with us on social media, so you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. We’re also on Twitter. We’re just not as active on Twitter. Just search for Nearly Numinous. We also have an email though, so you can reach out to us at Nearly numinous@gmail.com. And if you ever forget any of that, just search for us and our website will come up with all of this information on it. And all of our past episodes.
Jacqueline 45:17
And our website is super easy to remember too, it’s just Nearly numinous.ca. So we have a lot of stuff on there. transcripts, episodes, little bios about us. Soon, we’ll have little bios about our pets too up there.
Steph 46:03
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Nearly Numinous. For full transcripts of every episode, check out nearlynuminous.ca. There you can also find links to subscribe to us on any of your favourite podcast platforms. Have a topic you’d like us to talk about or would you like to be a guest on a future episode? Reach out to us at nearlynuminous@gmail.com.
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