Inspiring Us To Create Original Ceremonies As The Need Arises In Our Lives

My name is Colleen Thomas. I'm a ritual artist & audio producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Rites of passage fascinate me because they let us use creativity and intuition to guide ourselves through the big life changes that society often ignores. There are no party decorations for those powerful moments when we outlive a parent or face down a debilitating fear, but we are forever changed in those moments. Ritual can create a container to hold the strong emotions that come with transition. Ritual also offers a chance to have our transition witnessed in a meaningful way by our close friends and family.

Shame Piñata offers inspiration to create original ceremonies as the need arises in our lives. Our listeners are creative, out-of-the-box people willing to get real with the meaningful parts of life, the parts that aren't part of small talk.

My initial goal in creating Shame Piñata was to conceptualize, launch and maintain a long-term audio project. I listen to podcasts, but not as many as I think I should listen to, and not very many on this subject matter. After creating the podcast, I launched I side business (I know it's usually the other way around) focused on supporting other people through the process of creating their own ceremonies. Once COVID-19 came on the scene, I began offering trauma-sensitive community rituals as well focused on releasing fear & panic.

I spent about 6 months planning the show and gathering best practices from various sources, including NPR training, AIR Media, PRX, and the local SF Bay Area radiogines community. I also continued my previous involvement with the Audio Engineering Society and Women's Audio Mission.

Shame Piñata is released ever 2 weeks (3 weeks during COVID-19). An episode takes about 1 to 1 1/2 weeks to produce if I'm working full time, and 5 days if I'm not. I fund the show myself.

Right now I have no sponsorships. Downloads are still very small, being a very niche podcast with a small following. Right now downloads are about 200 per month.

I produce the show mainly to learn how to make great audio by getting my hands dirty. Of course, I strongly believe in the message as well, which doesn't hurt!

I record and edit in Hindenberg Pro. I find guests through word of mouth, putting out calls to my community, and reading articles sourced through Google alerts.

Each episode is a flow that goes roughly: finding a guest, pre-interviewing, interviewing (Skype into Hinderberg), editing the tape, writing the script, recording/editing the tracking, adding music, sending the first draft to the guest, EQing, finalizing the episode, pulling IG quotes, finding an episode image, releasing, and promoting the episode on social & to the mailing list.

Shame Piñata has a Facebook page with articles related to ceremony, ritual and conscious wedding (weddings & commitment ceremonies is the season 1 theme). It also has a Instagram page with quotes from the show & audiograms, and a super minimal Twitter feed.

Listeners can find the show on all of the major podcast players + YouTube. As Shame Piñata is the podcast connected to my business, it also has a page on the Ever-Changing website: ever-changing.net/podcast

I'm a big fan of public radio, so I highly recommend the resources available at training.npr.org, prx.org and airmedia.org.

Women's Audio Mission is also an incredible resource for female and non-binary identified folks. womensaudiomission.org

One piece of advice I would offer is to listen to completed episodes critically, and then again while multi-tasking to see if anything catches your attention.

The Shame Piñata page on Ever-Changing:
shamepinata.com

Facebook: facebook.com/shamepinata

Instagram: instagram.com/shamepinata

Twitter: twitter.com/shamepinata

Email: shamepinata@gmail.com