Shows
We Don’t Know w/ SylviaPodcast: A Between-Seasons EpisodeTraversing the beauty and horror of this world with eyes and hearts wide open feels hard but also holy to me. I’m grateful for friends like you who are in it with me. This between-seasons episode is a reading of the essay I wrote last week about what’s happening in America right now, and why none of it is new. We all know tone and delivery change how we receive information, and because this feels so important, I wanted to share it here as well.Thank you for...
2026-01-2216 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E12: Season Finale – The Chapel of NowA return to presence, paradox, and the only thing that matters: now.I believe that our presence is the most precious present we can give to ourselves, those we love, and the world. After a season of critique, alchemy, exploration, art, enchantment, politics, failure, magic, and power, this episode collapses everything back into the most inconvenient truth of all: all we have is now. Presence and bearing witness to what “is” over and over again is what I endlessly return to as my work. Not presence as a productivity hack...
2025-12-2524 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E11: Cruel Optimism & So Much More w/ Guest Dr. David TrippIn this episode (which doesn't have a single edit), I finally sit down with my dearest friend, and a huge inspiration to me—Professor Dr. David Tripp. Together we rest in his nest in East LA and think out loud together, moving slowly and sideways through things like (but not limited to) philosophy, queer theory, feminist killjoys, the void, hope, power dynamics, authority figures, the human chorus, and our lived experiences. Trying to give this a proper synopsis feels impossible so I’m going to keep this brief and simply encourage you to listen. And please do message me and...
2025-12-191h 09We Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E10: Charlie xcx + The Queer Art of FailureKrishnamurti said it and I f*cking agree:"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." In episode 10 we get into Charli xcx, Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure, and the false binary between “high” and “low” art, theory, and intelligence. I read and briefly unpack parts of Halberstam’s introduction on low theory (yes, SpongeBob shows up) and explore how failure, under certain conditions, can function as a portal rather than a deficit. A way out of the punishing, heteronormative, capitalist s...
2025-12-1246 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E9: Santa Claus, Enchantment, Miracles, & MagicBelieving in magic is not naïve but a refusal to bow to the machine. In episode 9, I share some Santa stories and make the case that enchantment is both a survival strategy and a spiritual inheritance. Magic is what happens when we refuse to collapse into the grid and instead relate to the world as if it’s alive, responsive, and in conversation with us. Like kids naturally do with openness, curiosity, wonderment, and imagination. The loss of enchantment is not natural; it’s engineered, and recovering can be a form of decolonial re-me...
2025-12-0533 min
We Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E8: King Basquiat — Grid Disruptor + The Ocean IncarnateAn icon, example, and exploration of art as resistance.From burnout to the nourishment of Jean-Michel Basquiat, episode 8 is a dip into art as resistance. GOD HOW I’M GRATEFUL FOR ART AND ARTISTS. I’m back in Los Angeles for a hot minute, and beginning to come back online thanks to some solo time, and a watching of The Radiant Child doc by director Tamra Davis about the brilliant and beautiful Basquiat. Thank the fucking cosmos for art and the way it gives me l...
2025-11-2739 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E7: Hello Darkness My Old FriendThe power (and magic) of letting difficulty work on us instead of sprinting to fix, numb, name, or outrun it. In this episode, I read from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and let his words drag us straight into the deep end of sadness, solitude, and the unknown— but not in a depressing way I swear. I riff (and basically just agree with him) on the power (and magic) of letting difficulty work on us instead of sprinting to fix, numb, name, or outrun it. xSylvia Re...
2025-11-2144 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E6: The Sun In DragA quick dip into corruption, karma, consciousness, and sharing power.In this episode, I speak from inside some burnout and outrage about political rot, spiritual amnesia, astrology, past lives, and the predator class that thrives on our distraction and brainwashing. I read an unedited piece I wrote before the last election, a mix of satire and rage, then reflect on what it means to keep loving, listening, and believing in balance when everything feels fucked up.For me, the central message is that even in decay, grace persists, and when power consolidates, consciousness must...
2025-11-1422 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E5: Radical Tenderness—Gritty, Not Pretty.Challenging the stories we tell ourselves and holding it all gently. In this episode, I unravel some of the stories I’ve told myself to feel safe—the myths of being “the good one,” “the honest one.” I talk about being present to my own contradictions, and the power that comes from holding all that with a fuck ton of gentleness. Take what lands and leave the rest. xSylviaDISCLAIMERSI swear. A lot. I’m not a therapist, simply a feral learner/creative person. For adult audiences.
2025-11-0638 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E4: Facing Death So We Stop Ghosting LifeSee what I did there :) Day of the Dead inspired (obviously.) Also, this one has video if you fancy that kind-of-thing. Episode 4 is an underworld field trip with rattlesnakes, childhood nightmares, climate dread, and embracing shady, shadowy gifts in disguise — plus how dreamwork can prep the nervous system to meet loss. Mostly this is about how I’ve learned to relate to death not as an ending, but as a doorway. It’s also a reminder that we don’t get through what’s coming (politically, ecologically, relationally) without grief literacy, tenderness, and some humor, amo...
2025-10-3031 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E3: A Pure Ocean Riff On Love & ArtSeason 2, Episode 3. Unhinged gospel meets sonic diary. Basically lots of ocean vibes with very loose grid.Part meditation, part confession, part lucid stream-of-conscious riff about a bunch of random but also not so random topics. If Episode 1 was about listening as praxis, especially in the political realm, and Episode 2 was about the practice of holding structure and fluidity at once, Episode 3 is a dip into the deep end of the ocean side of things: poetry, wu wei, and all the other shit I’m obsessed with and love to ta...
2025-10-2345 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E2: SWAY - Where Grid and Ocean MeetThis week Mother-Nature decided we’d move from theory into practice as we talk (and I get to walk) Grid Logic and Ocean Logic as dialectical, living, breathing forces: structure and flow, containment and wildness, and what happens when they start working together instead of fighting for dominance. Most of the episode revolves around a convo that happened yesterday that reminded me what a self-righteous dickhead I can be when activated, and how said convo gave me the chance to practice what I preach.I also touch on this id...
2025-10-1645 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaS2E1: Listening Isn’t Submission; It’s Alchemy.Welcome back to Season 2, Episode 1 of this unhinged gospel to the unknown. Season Two opens on a walk with Teddy through a Midwestern neighborhood and a thesis: grid logic, our culture’s fixation on control, binaries, and the attention economy, is choking civic and intimate life. The counter-practice is listening as praxis: a disciplined, transformative act that begins personally and scales politically. Listening not as submission, but as alchemy. Not as an answer, but a bridge. We get concrete: control dramas at the kitchen ta...
2025-10-1051 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 12: Season Finale — F*ck the Finish Line. Paradox Is the Point.This isn’t closure it’s ignition. Season one closer from a lake in L.A. with the sun on my back and Teddy by my side. I look back at where this experiment started (Texas → Arizona → here) and what it’s been all about: living inside paradox and letting that space make us more alive. Presence, uncertainty, contradiction, and the messy, gorgeous practice of staying here now even when it’s hard as fuck.This episode is a reflection, a love note, and a challenge: how alive do you want to feel? How free? I talk...
2025-08-2146 min2025-08-1401 min
We Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 11: Self-Destruction, Death, & Destiny w/ Guest Amy Landecker.Our entire unedited conversation in Zoomland, for better or for worse. You're welcome.This week, I finally deliver on my promise to bring you a guest—and not just any guest. Amy Landecker is a force: actor, writer, director, and fierce advocate for the queer community and more. You’ve seen her in Transparent, Your Honor, and now as the writer/director/star of her feature debut For Worse (premiering Valentine’s Day Weekend 2026).In our unedited, no-filter conversation, we go everywhere: life, death, intuition, sobriety, the binary, politics, why ar...
2025-08-141h 44We Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 10: Excavating Grid & Ocean Logic: How Swimming in Nuance is Hot and RadicalIf you listen to only one episode, let it be this one. This conversation is the spine of the podcast—the one that retroactively reframes the entire season. Episode 10 is all about how we can unf*ck ourselves by uniting the personal and the political, the internal and the external, the somatic and the systemic.If you’ve been swimming in questions, navigating burnout, or feeling the ache of trying to make yourself fit inside a collapsing system—this one’s for you.I finally...
2025-08-071h 15We Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 09: A Love Letter to Everyone Who’s Tired but Trying to Stay HumanThe vibe is: We’re not okay. But we’re not alone. And we’re not powerless.This week’s unfiltered dispatch comes to you from the horizontal position in my bed, right before I passed out for a much-needed nap. We go from despair to devotion—without ever bypassing reality. I get into the state of the world—climate collapse, creeping fascism, corporate rot—and why staying tender, politicized, and present is more essential than ever.From L.A.’s scorched edges to back-alley conve...
2025-08-0128 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 08: F*ck Scarcity – Pleasure, Power & Enough through Adrienne Maree Brown’s Pleasure ActivismIn this episode, I read and discuss with reverence the introduction from adrienne maree brown’s (she/they) book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. All credit for the words I read goes to adrienne maree brown. I’m sharing these excerpts for commentary and educational purposes, as a way of unpacking and engaging with her ideas.Side note: Dear adrienne (and/or her publishers), if for some reason you’re not down with this, let me know and I’ll take this episode down in a heartbeat. A literal heartbeat.
2025-07-2444 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 07: Love, Possession, Resentment & the Lighthouse That Was Andrea GibsonExcavating The Porous Boundaries Between Art and Love. And How Aliveness is a Form of Resistance.This week, I take a walk through Eagle Rock, California, and reflect on what’s been surfacing—grief, impermanence, desire, and the wild fucking ride of trying to stay present when everything’s changing. I read a poem by the late queer poet and kindred Andrea Gibson, and share the ache of not just their loss, but the mourning of all the selves I’ve been… and the paradigms I’ve outgrown—romantic dynamics, old...
2025-07-1839 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 06: Holding Multiple Truths Super Imperfectly (a convo with My Mom)In this week’s episode, I sit down with my 83-year-old mom, Martha (who I bribed with a brownie) for a wide-ranging conversation that spans queerness, Catholicism, grid logic, Palestine, and Pac-Man. Well… this turned out to be more intense than I anticipated... what starts as a cozy chat between mother and daughter unspools into a much deeper exploration on how we inherit beliefs about gender, faith, politics, and identity—and what it takes to unlearn them and why it’s helpful to us.We discuss grid logic, how binaries...
2025-07-1048 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 05: PMS, Duality, & The Power of MaybeBurned out on my own obsession—but still showed up to talk ocean logic, grid logic, and why Alan Watts knows what the f*ck is up.My mind is toast after a week of spiraling (lovingly) on ocean and grid logic—mentally, emotionally, and in my Substack—while editing several projects. I basically burned out on my own obsession (very classic of me), and now I’m over it… for the moment 😅But I practiced hardcore contrary action and recorded and edited this bitch on schedule despite all my exhaustion...
2025-07-0324 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 04: Audre Lorde & The Erotic: It’s Not Just Hot. It’s Holy.Why owning your erotic power is actually one of the most radical and deeply important things you can do—for yourself and the world.After Dead Dad Week, I figured we could all use a palate cleanser—so Episode 4 is a sonic diary/love letter to Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde—poet, prophet, and a gift to this wild, unruly world.We read through her iconic 5-page (I think I accidentally said 7 in the podcast) essay and shoot the shit about why it’s life-a...
2025-06-2651 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 03: Dead Dad Week in La La LandCheers to Death, Destruction, and the Gifts Hiding in Our Shady Shadow Shit.Episode 03 was recorded here in L.A. during what I call Dead Dad Week — Father’s Day, my dad’s birthday, and the anniversary of his death all rolled into one.I talk about what it means to feel my dad visit — in a real-ass, unmasked, sixth-sense kind of way (which, by the way, is a sense I believe we all have, if we nourish it).I don’t unpack all the ways t...
2025-06-1936 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 02: Unpacking the ‘Just Be Present’ BullshitFuck the buzzwords—in this second episode I talk about what I think presence actually costs, and what it can give, plus more...Episode 02 of this unhinged gospel to the unknown was recorded in the high desert of Arizona . It builds on last week’s intro—laying more foundation for the feral playground we’re creating here: one that embraces uncertainty, cultivates solidarity, and challenges the status quo.This is for mature audiences only. I swear a lot, and be warned, this episode also includes mentions of death, trauma, sex, and...
2025-06-1235 minWe Don’t Know w/ SylviaEP 01: Intro - Mother Nature’s B*tchEpisode 1: An introduction to what this unhinged gospel to the unknown will attempt to explore—and a little about your host, Sylvia Saether (queer, feral, tender, and definitely not an expert).This space is messy. It’s unscripted. It’s full of questions and cussing. Consider yourself warned.Some rules of engagement: I’m not a therapist, coach, or authority on anything. If you’re struggling, please seek actual professional support. You don’t have to agree with me to be here—but don’t be a dick. Openness and curiosity a...
2025-06-0521 min