Podcast Benomtad

Open, friendly, philosophical discussions about folktales, society, culture, and wisdom.  

Episodes

Nov 11, 2025

3 min

Attention is your light, and that can build if you can keep your attention on it.  It can grow, and we can see it more truly.  Instead of increasing our attention, however, we often instead look for something that seems bright to our minds right now, what is salient, and so forth.  Do not take the world as it presents to you now.
 
(From our discussion “Rousseau, Happiness, & Modernity”)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/V1QQJTyUlBY
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/rousseau-happiness-modernity/
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Nov 11, 2025

3 min

Nov 8, 2025

1 hr 52 min

The beautiful Veri and Anna Mayala were in love, but she was poor, and her many suitors were grievous to them.  But finally, they were to be married, and on that date imaginative “Crazy Veri” got a roebuck from the woods for the feast and was walking back to the village.
 
At a footbridge, his mind wandering, he noticed the moon had already risen, and its reflection shone in the water.  He grew melancholy, and was drawn by sweet melodies.  He saw a beautiful pair of legs, and a woman plopped on his shoulder.  She looked into his eyes, saying he would forget his bride, but he went with her.
 
Some time later, Anna Mayala was to be married.  She walked with her mother of the same name, and a wild man ran up to them, trying to take the bride, saying he’d been gone but he was the rightful groom.  He was pushed away, and then seen in the town from time to time, until he was seen in the parson’s house, and then no more.  
 
More time passed, and a Franciscan monk would come to the town occasionally, liking especially to stay with Anna Mayala and her husband.  When her husband died, she realized who Veri was, and he told her his story.  Down below, he’d had several children with his wife, but her feet were bound with ribbons, as were the childrens.’  He eventually discovered their webbed, clawed feet and wished for a normal child, and when it came it horrified the mermaids and they devoured it.  At this, he cried out and was sent back to our world.
 
Later, when Anna Mayala died, Veri passed away kneeling at her bedside.  Two white doves flew out of the window.  When Anna’s daughter grieved out loud at the stream, the waters overflowed into the house and did not stop roiling until the priest sprinkled holy water.  Receding, child corpses were left behind.  
 
Every anniversary of Crazy Veri’s death, the stream overflows its banks, and the moon is no longer reflected in its waters.
 
Join us for this summary and discussion of the German tale of wildness, forbidden love, longing and lost time!
(From a discussion on Von Schönwerth’s “Anna Mayala”)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/ZGx8Odijcvo
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/von-schonwerth-s-anna-mayala-forbidden-love-and-time-forever-lost/
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Nov 8, 2025

1 hr 52 min

Nov 7, 2025

3 min

About the Merchant’s son’s character: Early in life he showed faith in his father, himself, the world… How did he change?  When he goes back home he is not recognized by the sentries of his hometown.  Then he changes into the shepherd’s garb.  Perhaps there is something of another world to him, and he isn’t to return to this world? 
 
(From a discussion of “The King of the Golden Mountain,” by the Brothers Grimm)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/lwZ6kpPHHlk
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/the-brothers-grimm-s-the-king-of-the-golden-mountain/
 
Compare: Von Schonwerth’s “The Scorned Princess:” https://youtu.be/F6gC0Sk9qJQ
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Nov 7, 2025

3 min

Nov 4, 2025

46 min

Back in the time of small kings, one was riding forth with his retinue from the castle to go hunting.  Three sisters who were watching their cows saw them, and the eldest pointed to the king and said she would marry him, or none.  The second girl answered from the other side of the hill, pointing to the one on the right and saying the same thing.  The king had the three sisters brought to him and confirmed what they had said, and he married the eldest and two ministers married the other two of the beautiful sisters.
 
Now when the king was to go away, he asked the two sisters to watch his wife, who was about to give birth.  They were without child, and when the King’s son was born, they took it and threw it into the river.  A bird flew up, scaring them away and singing about the baby’s tomb until God’s word comes.  The sisters do this with the next son and daughter over a few years, telling the king that the children were dogs and a cat.
 
On the last word, the king angrily has his wife thrown in prison.  Meanwhile, in the country a fisherman and his barren wife have raised the three children.  The eldest son is rejected by the other boys as a foundling, and when he is of age, he pesters the fisherman until he lets the boy seek his real father.  The prince comes to an old fisher lady at a great body of water, and says she won’t have much luck.  She carries him over the water to search for his father, but he becomes lost in the land beyond.  Next year, the same happens with the 2nd son when he goes to find his brother.  Finally, the daughter goes out to search, but she wishes the fisher lady good luck, and she is given a wand and told what to do: she is to walk on the road past a great dog she is to ignore, through a castle, where she is to drop the wand, then go to the tree growing from a spring beyond.  She is to take back a glass of the water and the caged bird and strike the dog with the wand.  
 
Now on the way back, the princess finds her brothers and when she strikes the dog it becomes a handsome prince.  They all go back to the fisherman’s house and hang the caged bird on the wall.  Eventually, the second brother goes out hunting, and when he is tired he plays his flute.  The king finds him and asks who gave him permission to hunt there, and he says, “No one.”  The king learns of his supposed father, and they go back to the fisherman, for the king knows him to be childless.  There, the bird sings the truth of the perfidy of the sisters.  The king frees his wife, she is revived with the water from the spring, the false sisters are burned, and the daughter married the handsome prince.  
(From a discussion on the Brothers Grimm’s “The Three Little Birds”)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/Dn_-L4xDwh0
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/grimms-the-three-little-birds-summary-and-discussion/
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Nov 4, 2025

46 min

Nov 1, 2025

1 min

The character of Bearskin: courage, but then he learns perseverance with his seven years of living Hell.  He must live truly wretchedly; he cannot even pray.  
 
(From a discussion on “Bearskin,” by the Brothers Grimm)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/4oT1UC1ReKM
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/the-brothers-grimms-bearskin/
 
Von Schonwerth’s “The Scorned Princess:” https://youtu.be/F6gC0Sk9qJQ
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Nov 1, 2025

1 min

Oct 29, 2025

2 hr 29 min

JJ Rousseau wrote in “Emile” that his principle aim in teaching his student is to feel the beautiful of all sorts to fix his tastes on it and prevent his natural appetites from corruption.  In this podcast I try to introduce Ian to Rousseau’s thought and we go off into the wilds of conversation.
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Oct 29, 2025

2 hr 29 min

Oct 25, 2025

45 min

A wealthy merchant loses his ships, and a dwarf appears to him with an offer: sacrifice the first thing that touches you when you come home, and I will help you exceed your previous riches.  He is dismayed, however, when his son runs up to him, and twelve years later, that son belongs to the dwarf.
 
He is clever, however, and negotiates with the little man, who lets him be sent off into the river by his father.  The boat capsizes, and his father goes away, grieving.  The boy survived, however, and eventually makes his way to a dark castle, where he meets a princess in the form of a snake.  He endures torture a few nights and has his head cut off, and so frees her from her spell.  She gets the water of life and revives him, and he is now King of the Mountain.  
 
He lives happily with her and has a son, but he desires to go back and visit her parents.  She gives him a ring that can whisk him anywhere, but she warns him not to transport her to his parents.’  When he goes home, he is unrecognized, first for his rich garments and then for his borrowed shepherd’s cloak.  He then brings his wife via magic to prove his story, but his wife leaves him with the child, and he only  has her slipper.
 
He makes his way to a mountain with three giants fighting over their magical inheritance: a sword, a cloak, and a pair of shoes.  He swindles the giants out of these items and makes his way back to the Golden Mountain, where he finds his wife is to be remarried.  Made invisible by the cloak, he takes his wife’s food before she can eat it at the banquet.  She leaves, and he curses her for her betrayal in her room, and going down to the hall, tells the assembled bigwigs to leave.  When they try to seize him, he decapitates them all with the sword.  He alone is now master, and again King of the Golden Mountain.
(From a discussion on “The King of the Golden Mountain,” by the Brothers Grimm)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
Audio episode:
Compare: Von Schonwerth’s “The Scorned Princess:” https://youtu.be/F6gC0Sk9qJQ
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Oct 25, 2025

45 min

Oct 23, 2025

5 min

Ian talks about various strands of Buddhism, including Tibet and its philosopher rule, and Zen’s founder’s saying a lot of words about the problems with expressing things with words.  This is within the larger context of Buddhism in the West and the Meaning Crisis.
 
(From a discussion on “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, Ep. 13, Buddhism and Parasitic Processing”)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/9TU3BUjLumw
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/vervaeke-buddhism-parasitic-processing/
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Oct 23, 2025

5 min

Oct 20, 2025

47 min

A soldier returns from the wars, and now that his parents have died, he seeks shelter with his brothers.  But they reject him, and he wanders, penniless and starving, into a field.  The wind shifts, and a sly man in a green coat appears.  The soldier is to kill a bear, and he does so unflinchingly, so the green frocked man offers him a deal: if he wears the bearskin, which is what he will be known by, for seven years, without washing or dying, he will have great fortune.  But if he fails, his soul will go to the devil.
 
Bearskin agrees, and wanders the world wearing the devil’s green coat with its unlimited gold underneath the beastial covering.  After some time, rejected by humanity, he despairs at an inn.  However, hearing the cries of another man, he asks what is wrong.  The man has debts he cannot pay to support his family.  Bearskin pays them and the man offers his daughter’s hand in return.
 
At the man’s house, Bearskin is surprised at the man’s three daughters’ comeliness.  However, the eldest two are shocked at his appearance and reject him outright.  The third, however, quietly assents to pay her father’s debt.  Bearskin takes a gold ring, breaks it in two, and inscribes her name on his half and his on hers.  He says if she can wait for him for three years and pray to God for his life, they can be married.
 
Bearskin then wanders the world, giving alms to the poor that they may pray for his soul.  At the end of the contractual term, he returns to the clearing.  The wind shifts and the Devil reappears, looking at Bearskin angrily.  He moves to re-exchange their coats, but Bearskin insists he cleans him first.  After, he disappears and Bearskin, handsomer than ever, acquires a velvet coat and white horses.
 
Riding to the father’s house, he is not recognized and taken for a great general.  The eldest daughters ply him with wine, and laughing, leave to put on their best dresses.  The youngest, silent, remains, and Bearskin pushes a wineglass to her with his half of the ring in the bottom.  Finishing the glass, she sees it and fits it perfectly to her own, hung around her neck with a ribbon.  They embrace, and the sisters, returning and realizing what happened, run out of the house in jealousy and rage.  One drowns herself and the other hangs herself.  The Devil in his green coat knocks on the door and thanks Bearskin, for he has gotten two souls instead of one.
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/4oT1UC1ReKM
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/the-brothers-grimms-bearskin/
Von Schonwerth’s “The Scorned Princess:” https://youtu.be/F6gC0Sk9qJQ
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Oct 20, 2025

47 min

Oct 19, 2025

2 min

The story teaches that one wants to find the good-hearted, but hard-working parts, and bring in the creative magic, and over time, alchemize the tyrannical ruler, and overcome him, without ruining its good nature.  The sharpshooter follows that way, not knowing exactly what is happening, to a place he does not understand that is said to be at the edge of destruction.
 
(From a discussion on “Go to the Verge of Destruction and Bring Back Shmat-Razum”)
 
Thank you for the likes! A comment and a subscribe really helps us out!  
 
For the full video episode:
https://youtu.be/NrumhRwhgvI
 
Audio episode:
https://benomtad.podbean.com/e/go-to-the-verge-of-destruction-and-bring-back-shmat-razum/
 
A Video Reading of the Story:
https://youtu.be/8rgwtL5amZM
 
Go to the Verge of Destruction and Bring Back Shmat-Razum:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50011/50011-h/50011-h.htm#chap14
 
For more in this podcast, please go to:
Podbean:
https://benomtad.podbean.com
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-benomtad/id1748320863
YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/@scissorsandpaper/videos
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4kJPGlaJjGVyLa9AKhci6t?si=8XXrX9FUT3CU71reCfA5kQ
X:
https://x.com/Benomtad
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benomtad
 
About our guest:
Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 
He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.
You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado
 
Searching for the Search:
https://zenyogagurdjieff.substack.com/p/searching-for-the-search?r=h5jz7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=audio-player
 
Compare: “The Crane Wife,” a Japanese tale:
https://youtu.be/etGR9Ir7rBM?si=thXvw8cnp3pJ_sMU
 
I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.

Oct 19, 2025

2 min

Becoming Human

I view having deep, open conversations as perhaps the primary way I explore my and others' humanity.  I am looking for self-transcendence, knowledge, depth and love though exploration of experience, stories (such as myths and folktales), and ideas.  I hope you enjoy these conversations for personal growth and happiness, and thank you for listening. 

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