Introducing Five and Nine Live! Following up on Episode 4.07. Awakening the Healer, we present our very first live podcast recording — a special episode for Season 4 recorded live at the Center for the Enlightenment Arts in Bushwick, Brooklyn, at Gathering Future Ancestors: a meditative experience of immersive storytelling, participatory art, and sound — exploring water as an entryway to our shared humanity. In this discussion, host AX Mina and guest Helen Banach talk about multihyphenate life, the practice of healing and the difference between holding space and holding pain. They cl ..read more

“I was always the busy one,” says our guest Hana of her life before COVID lockdowns. In this final interview of Season 4, we talk about the power of being by oneself, how it feels to jump back into a familiar line of work, and the importance of intuition. We look at present-day Petra, the famous city of stone nestled in southern Jordan, and we close with a tarot reading that captures the essence of acceptance in the face of change. Also: remembering to look up. Five and Nine Season 4 is about crisis. It’s our first season recorded on location, with the majority of our episodes produced in the ..read more

Symbolic language is at the heart of magic and also at the heart of human expression. In this minisode, Five and Nine joins Adelle Lin, an artist and technologist who explores the poetry of water and the Arabic, Chinese and Hebrew languages in the desert. We talk about time, displacement, and what it feels like to roll a 160 foot scroll down the side of a hill. Also: Ana offers a reflection on deep time and where water comes from. Five and Nine Season 4 is about crisis. It’s our first season recorded on location, with the majority of our episodes produced in the beautiful Wadi Rum desert in Jo ..read more

This is Five and Nine, a podcast and newsletter at the crossroads of magic, work and economic justice. We’re in the midst of Season 4, recorded online and on location in the Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan, but we wanted to take a brief look back at Season 3 with a “retro” episode with One of Many co-founder Nour Batyne. Futures thinker, artist and creative producer Nour Batyne reminds us to slow down to the speed of presence. The future is not just space travel and new technology but the legacy we leave as future ancestors. We'll hear from Nour how she decided to make the leap from the nine to five ..read more

It’s the still of winter here in the northern hemisphere as the solstice arrives, and we just have a few more episodes of Season 4 left. In this bonus minisode, Season 4 co-hosts Britt Pham and Nour Batyne of One of Many Studio offer a meditation that helps us face the climate crisis by honoring our interconnectedness. “We are gathering among unceded waters,” they offer. “These waters hold the legacy and the souls of ancestors who stewarded them with humanity in the face of violence and inhumanity. We honor them.” Related episodes: * ? 3.04. Transformation in Slowing Down, with Nour Batyne ..read more

What does it feel like to awaken to a new calling? Artist, art producer, and art historian Helen Banach sits down with us to talk about embodying these multiple labels alongside her newest one — healer. We travel to March 2020, when she became a full-time caregiver just as lockdowns began, and we discuss the multihyphenate life, making mistakes and embodiment. A tarot reading takes us back generations, with a message from Helen’s ancestors. Also: we get a visit from camels, birds and even a few buzzing flies. Five and Nine Season 4 is about crisis. It’s our first season on location, with the m ..read more

Following up on Episode 4.06. The Turtles and the Stars: An Interview with AX Mina ✨?✨?, we present a talk from Five and Nine’s AX Mina about magic and pluralistic futures, given earlier this year at re:publica in Berlin. Mina examines the use of the word “magic” in technology and rise of the technological sublime during the Industrial Revolution, and she explores a more expansive, pluralistic view of our future, grounded in ancient wisdom traditions and not a small amount of the magical and mystical. When we think of the future, we think of magical technologies like flying cars, talking robot ..read more

In this minisode, One of Many Studio’s Britt Pham and Nour Batyne interview a familiar voice — AX Mina (Ana), your host for Season 4 and a co-founder at Five and Nine. They discuss the meaning of stars, the many jackets we wear in our professional lives, definitions of magic, and the Buddhist concept of precious birth. As night descends on the desert, we look back on the Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction of 2020 and what we learned in the quiet of lockdown. Also: Aja Monet’s newest album. Five and Nine Season 4 is about crisis. It’s our first season recorded on location, with the majority of our ..read more

In this minisode, Five and Nine joins Azad, an artist, healer and “forever cheerleader,” who’s working on a kite to fly in the desert winds of Wadi Rum. We tune in to the element of air in particular, an important one in tarot, which shows up in both the cards we draw and in the environment around us. We travel back in time to the quiet, haunting streets of New York City early in the pandemic, discuss the value of rest, and the explore the role of the arts in times of crisis. Five and Nine Season 4 is about crisis. It’s our first season recorded on location, with the majority of our episodes p ..read more

When it feels like everything is lost, how do we find guidance? In this incredibly difficult and painful week, we’ve been seeking wisdom, prayer and spiritual guidance. As we get ready to return to Season 4, we wanted to take a step back with a “retro” episode, pulling from our archives from Season 2. In this episode, Five and Nine talks with Angela Mictlanxochitl Anderson Guerrero, who runs Lideramos, a Latino leadership organization in the US, and who is a practicing abuela, or grandmother, in the Danza de la Luna lineage, a transterritorial Mexica ceremonial practice. Angela Mictlanxochitl ..read more