Today marks a year since I started this site, and I’d like to say thank you to all who’ve been reading and listening to podcasts!
My work here began as an experiment. I wanted to see what might happen if I talked about ideas from yogic texts in more personal ways. After publishing my most recent book, The Truth of Yoga, I spent a couple of years launching online courses, which led to lots of discussions about how yoga philosophy relates to modern life.
Much of what I’ve been writing addresses that question, but in hindsight one article stands out – it talked about the problem of polarisation. Since that’s what interests me most in “political” terms, I tend to steer clear of most “hot-button” topics. But I start to think it might be more helpful to look at them differently.
Rather than contributing to dialogues of the deaf – in which people tell each other “you’re wrong” – I facilitate dialogue that fuels understanding. I think it’s possible to do that without shying away from uncomfortable issues – provided the intention is to listen with compassion and speak from the heart, as the article explored:
I’m keen to hear which topics you’d like me to cover, and who you’d like me to talk to. But before I get into what’s next, I’d like to reflect on a few practicalities.
Full disclosure
What I do is a labour of love, and I offer it freely in return for donations. If you value my work, and feel able to contribute, I’d be really grateful for more paid subscribers.
It’s not my aim to earn a living from Substack, but I’d like to make my input more sustainable. What I share here takes time to produce, which is time I don’t spend on paid work. I haven’t had a full-time job since 2009, so everything I do is on a freelance basis and I don’t have a salary.
At the time of writing, a little more than 20 people pay to subscribe. They’re kindly donating £5 a month, or a bit less for an annual subscription. Others have generously “bought me a coffee” at a third-party website. Crunching the numbers, that means I earned more than £1,000 in 2023.
However, divide it by 52 weeks, and it comes to barely £20, which at the UK minimum wage buys about 100 minutes. And that’s roughly how long it takes to record a podcast – not including the time spent on editing, reading books to prepare or writing posts, never mind all the associated costs (like equipment and software).
So donations are greatly appreciated – from one-off payments to annual subscriptions. If 10% of free subscribers upgrade, it would make a big difference to what I can offer.
What’s in it for you?
Previously, all posts and podcasts were available to everyone with unrestricted access. That’s still the case for the first three months, but most will then be archived behind subscriber paywalls (see below for some tips on how to bypass them).
As an incentive to upgrade this week, new annual subscribers will get a 10% discount on any of my courses – including the latest on haṭha yoga, which runs live next month. Just subscribe before January 17 and I’ll send you a code, which is valid for a year.
My longer term aim is to engage with subscribers more directly, so you’ll have access to community discussions, and opportunities to shape the direction of my work.
For now, it’s always possible to get short-term access to paywalled content – you can start a free 7-day trial, or sign up for a month and cancel with no further charge. If you have any questions, please contact me here.
Another way around the paywall is to refer Ancient Futures to friends. To start, use the button below, or click “share” in any post. Each subscriber – free or paid – earns you credits towards a paid subscription, which starts automatically (more details here).
Requests and suggestions
As I mentioned above, I’m keen to know more about the kinds of conversations you’d most like to hear, or if there’s someone in particular you’d like me to interview.
Once upon a time, I was a journalist – before becoming disillusioned with corporate priorities. I’m also open to suggestions for subjects to write about, while I work in the meantime on writing a book… I find it can help to have something to distract me from getting distracted, which is what spawned this Substack!
Another possibility for 2024 is to spark more discussions in chat threads – ideally the best of what used to be on blogs and social media. That might sound a stretch, but one way to promote it might be to discuss some unanswerable questions – again with the aim of transcending fixation on one way of seeing things.
My general interest is in applying yogic insights to everyday life, as well as learning from other traditions that do something similar. But that can encompass almost any other subject, as last year’s “problem page” explored…
So if this sparks some ideas, please get in touch via the button below – or scroll down to comment. I look forward to hearing from you!
If you’d like to support Ancient Futures, please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee…