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b"Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.\\nS4E19 TRANSCRIPT:----more----\\n\\xa0\\nYucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca,\\nMark: and I'm Mark.\\nYucca: and today we're gonna talk about wonder. So that's what we're about, right? We're about, this is the wonder. So we're gonna explore the idea of wonder, and then we're also gonna talk about a few things that inspire that in us as well.\\nMark: Things that make us go Wow.\\nYucca: Yep.\\nMark: Yeah. The. The reason that I suggested that the name of the podcast be The Wonder is that I think that that is at root, the spiritual motivation, right? That you know to, yes, there's the desire for meaning, there's the desire for a sense of place in the world and purpose in life and all those kinds of things.\\nBut fundamentally, I think. That sense of just being awestruck by the, the fact that we exist, the fact of the universe and the world existing. I just think that's really a core spiritual sentiment and or, or experience. And so a lot of what I focus. My rituals on and, you know, efforts at creating oth, you know, materials to support other people in creating their rituals is about fostering that sense of wonder and awe.\\nYucca: Yes. Yeah. And there's. There's so much of it really, it, it, whatever, wherever your interests lie, there's, there's just so much to explore and and it's one of those sensations that's very hard to describe, but it's really feeding in. Its to experience that.\\nMark: Yeah. I mean, the more I learn about the world, you know, in, you know, in microcosm or in macrocosm, the more often I wanna say, wow, that's amazing.\\nYucca: Mm-hmm.\\nMark: You know, I, I think about, I mean, there's, there's millions of examples, but talk so toxoplasmosis. Let's, let's start there. Okay. This is a virus that is communica that cats get, and it's also communicable to humans and to other mammals.\\nToxoplasmosis controls your brain when it goes into rodents. They get careless, they get bolder and braver and And more fool, hearty. And that works perfectly for cats, right?\\nYucca: Yes, it works out right.\\nMark: so now cats have toxoplasmosis, right? And cats that have toxoplasmosis are friendlier. They are more apt to be domesticated.\\nSo then they move in with the humans, and the humans by contact with the cat's. Feces can get toxoplasmosis, and one of the things that it makes them really want to do is to feed the cats.\\nYucca: Yes.\\nMark: So, I mean, literally all of this stuff is scientifically demonstrated. All of this is this little tiny virus, which is, you know, just a little string of genetic information.\\nAnd all of this stuff is true and it, you look at this and just go, my God, how is this possible?\\nYucca: Mm-hmm. And it's, and it's all over. Right? I know that that's something that is regularly tested for. If you're, if you're pregnant, they test, they go, oh, do you have a cat? Okay, let's test you for that.\\nMark: Yeah. Yeah.\\nYucca: yeah, and I don't know if there are, what health implications there are for that other than it does have some impact on personality, right.\\nFor people as well. That it makes them more like that they. Their relation to ship to risk is a little, just like with the mice, is a little bit different than it might be if you didn't have the infection.\\nMark: Yeah, and it makes them a little bit more agreeable as well, just a little bit more amenable to going along with whatever somebody else suggests which is just a hell of a thing. You know, we, we think we have free will. We think that we are piloting our ourselves through our lives, and here comes this little bug and it actually distorts our decision making process.\\nYucca: Well, it challenges the, the idea of who self is. There's a lot of things today that do that, that really have us look at what is me really,\\nMark: Mm-hmm.\\nYucca: Right. What, and especially when we start getting into the realm of, of the microbiome and w"