🎙️It Begins: A Gather of Gatherings Has Taken Flight!

Cue the trumpet fanfare.

Unfurl the metaphorical banners. Light the candles (but, you know, not near the mic). Because it’s finally here—A Gather of Gatherings, my collective-noun-loving- language-swooning podcast, is officially live!

Yes, after some delightful detours, a few audio faceplants, and a surprising number of Google searches like “What a pop filter is actually for,” and “How to remove that errant clicking sound,” an extended trailer introducing my podcast and the first episode are out in the wild—soaring just as they were always meant to.

🎧 From Idea to Airwaves (and All the Weird Stops Between)

This podcast started, as many good things do, with a fascination—specifically, with those whimsical, poetic, occasionally suspicious-sounding terms we use to describe groups of animals. A murder of crows? A crash of rhinos? A bloat of hippos? Who started this? Where is it leading us? How much fun can we have?

Episode 1—A Kettle of Hawks—was the first one I actually recorded. Yep, the inaugural flight. I was still learning my way around the mic, the editing software, and the exact angle at which my chair doesn’t creak like a haunted schooner. I had the privilege of taking a basic falconry lesson with master falconer and West Coast Falconry owner and founder Kate Marden. Her story is compelling, and she is inspirational!

Then came the prologue: A Gather of Gatherings Begins. It made sense to record a short intro after the fact—to step back, give a little context, and invite listeners into the weird and wonderful world of collective nouns before diving fully into the kettle. In hindsight, it was like writing the foreword to a book after the first chapter is done. A little backwards, but oddly perfect.

🪶 Perfection is a Trap (But Podcasts Are a Joy)

I’ll be honest—at first, I got a bit caught in the perfection trap. I waited on certain interviews. I rerecorded tiny things. I edited like I was defusing a literary bomb.

But somewhere between redoing the same sentence for the seventh time and whispering sweet nothings to my waveform monitor, I had a quiet, stubborn realization:

The reward isn’t in perfection. It’s in sharing the work.

So, I stopped hoarding drafts like a dragon guarding its audio gold. I hit publish. And something clicked. I got excited. Motivated. Hungry to create more. Doing the thing turned out to be the best motivation for continuing to do the thing. Also? It helped that I upgraded my setup—hello, Shure mic, my beloved sonic sidekick—maybe my version of a sonic screwdriver. If you know you know. Wink. Recording now feels like a cozy ritual instead of a mildly cursed science experiment.

🐍 What’s Next? Snakes, of Course.

Right now, I’m deep in the editing cave with Episode 2: A Rhumba of Rattlesnakes—a surprisingly rhythmic dive into serpentine semantics. I had the honor and wonder of interviewing Amy Brumbaugh of Save the Snakes. I can't wait for you to hear about the rattlers and her knowledge about these beautiful venomous creatures.

And I’m in pre-production on more episodes to come. Maybe a parliament of owls, a skulk of foxes. Possibly a slaughter of iguanas. Okay, I don't know about that one, but… evocative, right?

There’s so much magic, mischief, and meaning in the way we group the world. A Gather of Gatherings is my love letter to that strangeness—and the stories it holds.

✨ Come Join the Gathering

If you’ve got a thing for etymology, animal trivia, or just want to hear someone wax poetic about the linguistic writings of a 15th-century nun, A Gather of Gatherings is your new favorite auditory nook.

Start with the prologue, then take wing with A Kettle of Hawks. And stay tuned for the rhumba. It’s going to be a wild, wordy ride.

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Share it with a friend. Or a whole giggle of them.

And remember—imperfect love, shared joyfully, is a thing of beauty. Be brave and create!

Let the gathering begin. 🐾