On Being with Krista Tippett
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Wisdom to replenish and orient. Conversations to live by.
New episodes dropping every Thursday from September 21. On the intelligence that lives in the human body: love and loss, comedy and ecology, social creativity and poetry. Also, beyond the hype and the doom, what does the new AI call us to as human beings? With Kate Bowler, Kerry Washington, Nick Cave, Reid Hoffman, Latanya Sweeney, Baratunde Thurston … and more.
Also: classic, celebrated, beloved conversations in our 20-year archive: Mary Oliver. John O'Donohue. Thich Nhat Hanh. Desmond Tutu. And so much more.
Available episodes
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5 days ago
Kerry Washington — Acting as a Devotional Practice
“Becoming other people” for a living, as Kerry Washington likes to describe her craft, turns out to be a revelatory lens on the high drama that is the human condition. As a “learning actor,” a kind of actor/anthropologist, she has brought elegance and moral rigor to all kinds of roles: as the uber-glamorous, tough-as-nails Olivia Pope on _Scandal_; as the wife of Idi Amin and the wife of Ray Charles; from _Little Fires Everywhere_ to _Django Unchained_. Just after _Scandal_ ended seven triumphant seasons, she starred on Broadway as Kendra, a jeans-clad mother in a Miami police station waiting to hear what has happened to her beloved son. Krista was in that audience, and saw how Kerry attended not just to her role on stage but to bringing a beautifully racially mixed audience to participating and reflecting together.
So this conversation has been a while in coming. It is rich with grace and surprising angles of insight — on the roles we all learn to play in the stories of the lives that we are given, and the evolution that is possible in how we assume those characters and leave them behind and grow them up.
This episode of _On Being _was produced with consideration of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike and with external legal guidance. In distributing this episode, we attest to our belief that no statements made involve promotion of struck work in violation of the SAG-AFTRA Strike Order.
Kerry Washington is the author of a new memoir, _Thicker Than Water_, and founder of the production company Simpson Street. Her many credits include the television series _Little Fires Everywhere_, the Broadway play — and Netflix film — _American Son,_ and the film _Django Unchained_. She starred as Olivia Pope on seven seasons of the hit TV series _Scandal_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Sep 21, 2023
Kate Bowler — On Being in a Body
We love the theologian Kate Bowler's allergy to every platitude and her wisdom and wit about the strange and messy fullness of what it means to be in a human body. She's best known for her 2018 book _Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved)_ — a poetic and powerful reflection on learning at age 35 that she had Stage IV colon cancer.
From a reset on how to think about aging, to the new reality in our time of living with cancer as a chronic illness, to the telling of truths to our young, this beautiful conversation is full of the vividly whole humanity that Kate Bowler singularly embodies.
(Also, as you'll hear, if she hadn't become a theologian, she might have been a stand-up comedian.)
Krista and Kate spoke as part of the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival.
Kate Bowler's beloved books include _Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved)__ _and most recently, _The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days__. _She is an associate professor at Duke Divinity School and made an early name in her field of American religious history with her 2013 book _Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel_. She also hosts the podcast _Everything Happens_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Sep 21, 2023
Kate Bowler — A Blessing for the Life You Didn't Choose
This blessing is featured in Kate’s conversation with Krista, “On Being in a Body.” It's published in her book _The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days_.
Kate Bowler's beloved books include _Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved)__ _and most recently, _The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days__. _She is an associate professor at Duke Divinity School, and made an early name in her field of American religious history with her 2013 book _Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel_. She also hosts the podcast _Everything Happens_.
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Sep 14, 2023
A New Season of On Being Is Coming
A big conversation to live by starting NEXT WEEK — every Thursday — from September 21.
Loss — and love. AI — and the intelligence that lives in our bodies.
Kerry Washington, Kate Bowler, Reid Hoffman, Latanya Sweeney, Nick Cave, Baratunde Thurston … and more.
Subscribe, tell your friends, and buckle your (metaphorical) seatbelts.
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Jul 21, 2023
"Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire."
From Krista: I have been texting this exquisite poem from our archives to my beloveds. Perhaps it will touch you — hold you — as it is touching and holding me.
ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I'VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM
To call the young Pakistani-American poet, Ayisha Siddiqa, a "climate activist" feels too simple. She describes herself as a storyteller and human rights and land defender. She is a climate advisor to the U.N. Secretary General, and was a 2023 TIME Woman of the Year.
The poem is read by the also extraordinary young marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, from her On Being conversation with Krista, What If We Get This Right?
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Jun 8, 2023
From Poetry Unbound: Benjamin Gucciardi — The Rungs
Hello friends, it is a joy to introduce the new season of Poetry Unbound, which is underway. As Krista shares at the top, this episode has everything in it that makes Poetry Unbound such a gift in a noisy podcast world.
If you enjoy this episode, subscribe to Poetry Unbound for new episodes every Monday and Friday through July — and stay tuned for a new season of On Being this fall.
We’re pleased to offer Benjamin Gucciardi’s poem, “The Rungs,” and invite you to connect with _Poetry Unbound_ throughout this season.
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Apr 20, 2023
Patronage and Love: On Being's Becoming
Pádraig makes an announcement, and we listen to a few lovely moments from the _On Being_ season we've just brought into the world.
We're inviting the beautiful humans who gather around _On Being_ to partner in the vitality of the unfolding On Being Project in a new way.
Our friend Maria Popova says it daringly, beautifully, and she's given us permission to adapt her equation. Giving = loving.
Any amount of love and sustenance will be gratefully — indeed, gleefully — received.
Learn more and make a gift: onbeing.org/LoveUs.
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Apr 13, 2023
Vivek Murthy — To Be a Healer
We need a modicum of vitality to simply be alive in this time. And we're in an enduringly tender place. The mental health crisis that is invoked all around, especially as we look to the young, is one manifestation of the gravity of the post-2020 world. How to name and honor this more openly? How to hold that together with the ways we've been given to learn and to grow? Who are we called to be moving forward? Dr. Vivek Murthy is a brilliant, wise, and kind companion in these questions. He's a renowned physician and research scientist in his second tenure as U.S. Surgeon General. And for years, he's been naming and investigating loneliness as a public health matter, including his own experience of that very human condition.
It is beyond rare to be in the presence of a person holding high governmental office who speaks about love with ease and dignity — and about the agency to be healers that is available to us all. There is so much here to walk away with, and into. This conversation quieted and touched a room full of raucous podcasters at the 2023 On Air Fest in Brooklyn.
_There are many resources for mental health support. If you're in the U.S., __find some of them here__._
Vivek Murthy is the 21st Surgeon General of the United States. He also served in this role from 2014 to 2017. He hosts the podcast _House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy_. And he’s the author of _Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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And: if you can, please take a minute to rate On Being in this podcast app — you'll be bending the arc of algorithms towards this adventure of conversation and living.
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Apr 13, 2023
Vivek Murthy — A Meditation for Moments of Despair, and To Feel Less Alone
An excerpt from the _On Being_ episode, "To Be a Healer." The extraordinary physician and public servant stilled a raucous room full of storytellers and podcasters with this offering at the 2023 On Air Fest.
Vivek Murthy is the 21st Surgeon General of the United States. He also served in this role from 2014 to 2017. He hosts the podcast _House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy_. And he’s the author of _Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World_.
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Apr 13, 2023
[Unedited] Vivek Murthy with Krista Tippett
We need a modicum of vitality to simply be alive in this time. And we're in an enduringly tender place. The mental health crisis that is invoked all around, especially as we look to the young, is one manifestation of the gravity of the post-2020 world. How to name and honor this more openly? How to hold that together with the ways we've been given to learn and to grow? Who are we called to be moving forward? Dr. Vivek Murthy is a brilliant, wise, and kind companion in these questions. He's a renowned physician and research scientist in his second tenure as U.S. Surgeon General. And for years, he's been naming and investigating loneliness as a public health matter, including his own experience of that very human condition.
It is beyond rare to be in the presence of a person holding high governmental office who speaks about love with ease and dignity — and about the agency to be healers that is available to us all. There is so much here to walk away with, and into. This conversation quieted and touched a room full of raucous podcasters at the 2023 On Air Fest in Brooklyn.
_There are many resources for mental health support. If you're in the U.S., __find some of them here__._
Vivek Murthy is the 21st Surgeon General of the United States. He also served in this role from 2014 to 2017. He hosts the podcast _House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy_. And he’s the author of _Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World_.
This unedited audio includes audience Q & A at the 2023 On Air Fest. Find a shorter, produced version in the On Being episode "Vivek Murthy — To Be a Healer." The transcript for that show is at onbeing.org.
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And: if you can, please take a minute to rate On Being in this podcast app — you'll be bending the arc of algorithms towards this adventure of conversation and living.
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Apr 6, 2023
Barbara Brown Taylor — “This Hunger for Holiness”
"I like it much better than ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ — to be a seeker after the sacred or the holy, which ends up for me being the really real."
– Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor
From Krista, about this week's show:
It's fascinating to trace the arc of spiritual searching and religious belonging in my lifetime. The Episcopal priest and public theologian Barbara Brown Taylor was one of the people I started learning about when I left diplomacy to study theology in the early 1990s. At that time, she was leading a small church in Georgia. And she preached the most extraordinary sermons, and turned them into books read far and wide. Then in 2006, she wrote _Leaving Church _— about her decision to leave her life of congregational ministry, finding other ways to stay, as she's written, "alive and alert to the holy communion of the human condition, which takes place on more altars than anyone can count.”
She's written other books since, with titles like _An Altar in the World_, _Learning to Walk in the Dark_, and _Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others_. Being in the presence of Barbara Brown Taylor's wonderfully wise and meandering mind and spirit, after all these years of knowing her voice in the world, is a true joy. I might even use a religious word — it feels like a "blessing." And this is not a conversation about the decline of church or about more and more people being "spiritual but not religious." We both agree that this often-repeated phrase is not an adequate way of seeing the human hunger for holiness. This is as alive as it has ever been in our time — even if it is shape-shifting in ways my Southern Baptist and Barbara's Catholic and Methodist forebears could never have imagined.
Barbara Brown Taylor is the author of many books, including _An Altar in the World_, _Leaving Church_, _Holy Envy_, and _Learning to Walk in the Dark_. Her 2020 book is _Always a Guest_, a compilation of recent sermons. She is the former rector of Grace-Calvary Episcopal Church of Clarkesville, Georgia, and she taught for two decades in the religion department at Piedmont College.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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And: if you can, please take a minute to rate On Being in this podcast app — you'll be bending the arc of algorithms towards this adventure of conversation and living.
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Apr 6, 2023
[Unedited] Barbara Brown Taylor with Krista Tippett
"I like it much better than ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ — to be a seeker after the sacred or the holy, which ends up for me being the really real."
– Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor
From Krista, about this week's show:
It's fascinating to trace the arc of spiritual searching and religious belonging in my lifetime. The Episcopal priest and public theologian Barbara Brown Taylor was one of the people I started learning about when I left diplomacy to study theology in the early 1990s. At that time, she was leading a small church in Georgia. And she preached the most extraordinary sermons, and turned them into books read far and wide. Then in 2006, she wrote _Leaving Church _— about her decision to leave her life of congregational ministry, finding other ways to stay, as she's written, "alive and alert to the holy communion of the human condition, which takes place on more altars than anyone can count.”
She's written other books since, with titles like _An Altar in the World_,…
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Mar 30, 2023
Ruth Wilson Gilmore — “Where life is precious, life is precious.”
To say that Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a geographer, which she is, is not to convey the vast and varied ways in which she is influencing the makings of the future. She's a mentor and teacher to a new generation of social activism and creativity. She's a visionary of “abolition,” and that has become a fraught and polarizing word in our fraught and polarized public discourse. But when Ruth Wilson Gilmore speaks of “abolition,” she is working with a long, long view towards making a whole world, starting now, in which prisons and policing as we do them now become unnecessary, unthinkable. In this sense, abolition is not primarily a matter of what to get rid of, but what to build and to orient around — being present, for example, to human vulnerability and to the ingredients that make for deep human flourishing.
Meeting Ruth Wilson Gilmore and drawing her out in this way is an exercise in muscular hope — and in understanding the passion of a new generation that is shaping what we w…
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Mar 23, 2023
Janine Benyus — Biomimicry, an Operating Manual for Earthlings
There is a quiet, redemptive story of our time in this conversation — a radical way of approaching the gravest of our problems by attending to how original vitality functions. Biomimicry takes the natural world as mentor and teacher — for, as Janine Benyus puts it, "we are surrounded by geniuses." Nature solves problems and performs what appear to us as miracles in every second, all around: running on sunlight, fitting form to function, recycling everything, relentlessly "creating conditions conducive to life.” Janine launched this way of seeing and imagining as a field with her 1997 book, _Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature_. Today she teaches and consults with all kinds of projects and organizations, including major corporations, as you'll hear.
Welcome to this unfolding parallel universe in our midst, which might just shift the way you see almost everything about our possible futures.
_This conversation was part of __The Great Northern Festival__, a celebration of Min…
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Mar 16, 2023
Rick Rubin — Magic, Everyday Mystery, and Getting Creative
The flow and the ingredients by which an idea becomes an offering — and life practices which call that alchemy forth. The mystery of it all that can only be named and wondered at — and the ordinary mystery that creativity is a human birthright, a way of being rather than doing, that beckons to us all, in everything we do, from crafting something to conversing to the arranging of furniture in a room.
This is where Krista goes with the rock star music producer Rick Rubin. It's not a conversation about the creative process of the many great musicians he's worked with — but a conversation that is for and about us all.
There are some surprises, too, in his lovely, soothing voice — like the way he finds a metaphor for all of life in pro wrestling. And he leaves the doors of his studio wide open as they speak, so there is a soundtrack of ocean waves.
Rick Rubin has been a singular, transformative creative muse for artists across genres and generations — from the Beastie Boys to J…
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Mar 9, 2023
Isabel Wilkerson — "We all know in our bones that things are harder than they have to be."
In this rich, expansive, and warm conversation between friends, Krista draws out the heart for humanity behind Isabel Wilkerson's eye on histories we are only now communally learning to tell — her devotion to understanding not merely who we have been, but who we can be. Her most recent offering of fresh insight to our life together brings "caste" into the light — a recurrent, instinctive pattern of human societies across the centuries, though far more malignant in some times and places. Caste is a ranking of human value that works more like a pathogen than a belief system — more like the reflexive grammar of our sentences than our choices of words. In the American context, Isabel Wilkerson says race is the skin, but "caste is the bones." And this shift away from centering race as a focus of analysis actually helps us understand why race and racism continue to shape-shift and regenerate, every best intention and effort and law notwithstanding. But beginning to see caste also gives…
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Mar 2, 2023
James Bridle — The Intelligence Singing All Around Us
You might want to take a walk with this one. It is big and full of brain food and an enlivening opening of imagination to possibilities that are emergent now: the notion of the “broad commonwealth of life” that we are “inextricably entangled with and suffused by”; the paradox that the more accurately you try to measure some things, the more unmeasurable they become; the way words we use all the time have kept our cellular belonging to the natural world alive, even as civilization forgot.
The technologist/artist James Bridle brings all of this into interplay with an intriguing, refreshing lens on our lives with technology — and with all that artificial intelligence is and might become.
You might not think of intelligence the same way again, or the truth of mythology, or the letters of the alphabet, or what it means to be human. And you will smile next time you access the place where your digital life is stored and realize what it says about us that we named it The Cloud.
Ja…
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Mar 2, 2023
[Unedited] James Bridle with Krista Tippett
You might want to take a walk with this one. It is big and full of brain food and an enlivening opening of imagination to possibilities that are emergent now: the notion of the “broad commonwealth of life” that we are “inextricably entangled with and suffused by”; the paradox that the more accurately you try to measure some things, the more unmeasurable they become; the way words we use all the time have kept our cellular belonging to the natural world alive, even as civilization forgot.
The technologist/artist James Bridle brings all of this into interplay with an intriguing, refreshing lens on our lives with technology — and with all that artificial intelligence is and might become.
You might not think of intelligence the same way again, or the truth of mythology, or the letters of the alphabet, or what it means to be human. And you will smile next time you access the place where your digital life is stored and realize what it says about us that we named it The Cloud.
Ja…
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Feb 23, 2023
Nick Offerman — Working with Wood, and the Meaning of Life
Nick Offerman has played many great characters, most famously Ron Swanson in _Parks and Recreation,_ and he starred more recently in an astonishing episode of _The Last of Us_. But he is driven by passionate callings older and deeper than his public vocation as an actor and comedian. He works with wood, and he works with other people who work with their hands making beautiful, useful things. And this, it turns out, is also a primary source of his tethering in values. It's a source of a spiritual thoughtfulness that runs through this conversation with Krista. So is his love and study of the farmer-poet Wendell Berry, whose audiobook The Need to Be Whole Nick just recorded.
This is a moving and edifying conversation that is also, not surprisingly, a lot of fun.
Nick Offerman grew up on a three-acre homestead "out in a cornfield" in Minooka, Illinois. His five books include _Where the Deer and the Antelope Play_ and _Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop_. He fou…
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Feb 16, 2023
Ada Limón — “To Be Made Whole”
An electric conversation with Ada Limón's wisdom and her poetry — a refreshing, full-body experience of how this way with words and sound and silence teaches us about being human at all times, but especially now. With an unexpected and exuberant mix of gravity and laughter — laughter of delight, and of blessed relief — this conversation holds not only what we have traversed these last years, but how we live forward.
It unfolded at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis, in collaboration with Northrop at the University of Minnesota and Ada Limón's publisher, Milkweed Editions.
Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written six books of poetry, most recently, _The Hurting Kind__. _Her volume _The Carrying__ _won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and her volume _Bright Dead Things__ _was_ _a finalist for the National Book Award. She is a former host of the poetry podcast _The Slowdown_, and she teaches in the MFA program at Queens U…
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Feb 16, 2023
“The Quiet Machine” by Ada Limón
Ada Limón reads her poem, “The Quiet Machine.” This poem is featured in Ada’s _On Being_ conversation with Krista, “To Be Made Whole.” Find more of her poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades of the show, at Experience Poetry.
Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written six books of poetry, most recently, _The Hurting Kind__. _Her volume _The Carrying_ won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and her volume _Bright Dead Things_ was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is a former host of the poetry podcast _The Slowdown_, and she teaches in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.
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Feb 16, 2023
“A New National Anthem” by Ada Limón
Ada Limón reads her poem, “A New National Anthem.” This poem is featured in Ada’s _On Being_ conversation with Krista, “To Be Made Whole.” Find more of her poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades of the show, at Experience Poetry.
Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written six books of poetry, most recently, _The Hurting Kind__. _Her volume _The Carrying_ won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and her volume _Bright Dead Things_ was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is a former host of the poetry podcast _The Slowdown_, and she teaches in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.
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Feb 16, 2023
“Dead Stars” by Ada Limón
Ada Limón reads her poem, “Dead Stars.” This poem is featured in Ada’s _On Being_ conversation with Krista, “To Be Made Whole.” Find more of her poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades of the show, at Experience Poetry.
Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written six books of poetry, most recently, _The Hurting Kind__. _Her volume _The Carrying_ won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and her volume _Bright Dead Things_ was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is a former host of the poetry podcast _The Slowdown_, and she teaches in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.
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Feb 9, 2023
Amanda Ripley — Stepping out of "the zombie dance" we're in, and into "good conflict" that is, in fact, life-giving
Amanda Ripley began her life as a journalist covering crime, disaster, and terrorism. Then in 2018, she published a brilliant essay called “Complicating the Narratives,” which she opened by confessing a professional existential crisis. We journalists, she wrote, “can summon outrage in five words or less. We value the ancient power of storytelling, and we get that good stories require conflict, characters and scene. But in the present era of tribalism, it feels like we’ve reached our collective limitations … Again and again, we have escalated the conflict and snuffed the complexity out of the conversation."
Yet what Amanda has gone on to investigate — and so, so helpfully illuminate — is not just about journalism, or about politics. It touches almost every aspect of human life in almost every society around the world right now. We think we’re divided by issues, arguing about conflicting facts. But at a deeper level, she says, we are trapped in a pattern of distress know…
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Feb 2, 2023
Dacher Keltner — The Thrilling New Science of Awe
One of the most fascinating developments of our time is that human qualities we have understood in terms of virtue — experiences we've called spiritual — are now being taken seriously by science as intelligence — as elements of human wholeness. Dacher Keltner and his Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley have been pivotal in this emergence. From the earliest years of his career, he investigated how emotions are coded in the muscles of our faces, and how they serve as “moral sensory systems." He was called on as Emojis evolved; he consulted on Pete Docter's groundbreaking movie_ Inside Out_.
All of this, as Dacher sees it now, led him deeper and deeper into investigating the primary experience of awe in human life — moments when we have a sense of wonder, an experience of mystery, that transcends our understanding. These, it turns out, are as common in human life globally as they are measurably health-giving and immunity-boosting. They bring us together with others, again a…
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Jan 26, 2023
Emergence: On Being Is Back!
We are immensely grateful for your patience in our season of podcasting pause. But enough already. Starting Thursday, February 2, we'll come to you with three months of soaring new _On Being_ conversations with Krista, with an eye towards _emergence._ The science of awe. The wonder of biomimicry. "Lean Spirituality." What we're talking about — and not — when we talk about mental health. "Good conflict." Technology and vitality. Creativity. Woodworking and the meaning of life. Deeper truths and larger stories of ourselves as societies, as a planet, as humans, that at once complicate and enliven our capacity to live with dignity and joy and wholeness. And poetry, and poetry.
As we live into, yes, this new way of being — with podcasting and not radio, our first audio home — we're eager to extend an invitation to listen as widely as possible. Please spread the word in your world and your digital places. And show us some love, if you have a minute, by rating _On Being_ in this app.…
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Nov 3, 2022
Foundations 4: Calling and Wholeness
In the modern western world, vocation was equated with work. But each of us has callings, not merely to be professionals, but to be friends, neighbors, colleagues, family, citizens, lovers of the world. Each of us imprints the people in the world around us, breath to breath and hour to hour, as much in who we are and how we are present as in whatever we do. And just as there are callings for a life, there are callings for our time.
"Some of us are called to be bridge people.. Some of us are called to be patient calmers of fear. This calling is so tender and so urgent if what we truly want is to coax our own best selves and the best selves of others into the light."
“Across my life of conversation I have seen that wisdom and wholeness emerge in moments like ours, when human beings have to hold seemingly opposing realities in a creative tension and interplay: power and frailty, death and birth, pain and hope, beauty and brokenness, mystery and conviction, calm and fierceness, mine an…
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Oct 27, 2022
Foundations 3: Taking a Long View of Time, and Becoming “Critical Yeast”
We inhabit a liminal time between what we thought we knew and what we can’t quite yet see. But time is more spacious than we imagine it to be, and it is more of a friend than we always know. Cracking time open, seeing its true manifold nature, expands a sense of the possible in the here and the now. It sends us back to work with the raw materials of our lives, understanding that these are always the materials even of change at a cosmic or a societal level.
"A long, reality-based view of time has a power to replenish our sense of ourselves and the world."
Experience the whole collection of four Foundations for Being Alive Now on the On Being Project website.
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Oct 20, 2022
Foundations 2: Living the Questions
We live in a world in love with the form of words that is an opinion, and the way with words that is an argument. Yet it is a deep truth in life — as in science — that each of us is shaped as much by the quality of the questions we are asking as by the answers we have it in us to give. Precisely at a moment like this, of vast aching open questions and very few answers we can agree on, our questions themselves become powerful tools for living and growing.
"If you are faithful to living a question, that question will be faithful back to you."
Experience the whole collection of four Foundations for Being Alive Now on the On Being Project website.
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Oct 13, 2022
Foundations 1: Seeing the Generative Story of Our Time
The first of four short offerings, more wisdom practice than podcast: life-giving, hope-generating words, ideas and practices that can literally shape your experience of reality — and shape what can become possible.
At this juncture in the life of the world, we are all stretching. We are finding the ground shifting beneath our feet, whoever we are. Think of these as tethering foundations towards walking our way into our callings in this world of so much pain — and so much promise.
We are fluent in the story of our time marked by catastrophe and dysfunction. That is real — but it’s not the whole story of us. There is also an ordinary and abundant unfolding of dignity and care and generosity, of social creativity and evolution and breakthrough. How to make that more vibrant, more visible, and more defining?
"We are strange creatures and this is one of our strangest qualities: that we don’t know how to tell this story of us. We don’t know how to take this reality as serious…
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Oct 6, 2022
A Listening Ritual for this Fall: Poetry Unbound
Three years ago, Krista texted Pádraig Ó Tuama with a simple question: what if he were to start a poetry podcast that listened as much as it shared? Not long after, _Poetry Unbound_ was born, and it keeps going from strength to strength. Pádraig likes to say that poems are interested in the people who listen to them. And so, as the next season of _On Being_ takes shape for release in early 2023, why not take _Poetry Unbound_ as a listening companion and ritual this fall?
Season six of _Poetry Unbound _just started, and we’re sharing the first episode around David Wagoner’s beloved poem “Lost” in this feed, the only episode we’ll feature here this season. You can listen to the rest on Apple, Spotify, at poetryunbound.org, and wherever podcasts are found. And be sure to subscribe to the show to receive a new episode every Monday and Friday through mid-December.
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Sep 29, 2022
A Season of Emergence with Krista
Krista returns from her summer in Berlin, where her present-day self reunited with the 25-year-old of the 1980s, at large in the divided city. Hear the reflections that emerged from her season of creative rest, and her beloved practices of contemplative reading and journaling.
Pull on the thread of emergence with Krista and our Pause newsletter community as the next season of _On Being_ takes shape: onbeing.org/newsletter.
You can read the transcript of Krista’s letter in our September 17 edition of The Pause.
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Jun 30, 2022
BONUS: An On Being Listening Party — Celebrating 20 Years
A special offering from Krista Tippett and all of us at On Being: an incredible, celebratory event — listening back and remembering forwards across 20 years of this show in the good company of our beloved friend and former guest, Rev. Jen Bailey, and so many of you. We offer it here as an audio experience, and we think you will enjoy being in the room retroactively. You will hear the voices of wise and graceful lives — of former guests, and of listeners from far-flung places. You may also catch references to things seen and witnessed throughout the event — including a stunning opening poem by our dear friend Maria Popova, composed of _On Being _show titles — which you can take in fully by viewing the recorded celebration in its entirety on our YouTube channel.
Krista will be back next week to send us off with a poem and short farewell — a “see you later” while we rest and dream and make some new things. In the meantime, we will be sharing offerings beyond this podcast. J…
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Jun 23, 2022
adrienne maree brown — “We are in a time of new suns”
“What a time to be alive,” adrienne maree brown has written. “Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.” adrienne maree brown and others use many words and phrases to describe what she does, and who she is: A student of complexity. A student of change and of how groups change together. A “scholar of belonging.” A “scholar of magic.” She grew up loving science fiction, and thought we’d be driving flying cars by now; and yet, has found in speculative fiction the transformative force of vision and imagination that might in fact save us. Our younger listeners have asked to hear adrienne maree brown’s voice on _On Being_, and here she is, as we enter our own time of evolution. This conversation shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking: working with the complex fullness of reality, and cultivating old and new ways of see…
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Jun 23, 2022
[Unedited] adrienne maree brown with Krista Tippett
“What a time to be alive,” adrienne maree brown has written. “Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.” adrienne maree brown and others use many words and phrases to describe what she does, and who she is: A student of complexity. A student of change and of how groups change together. A “scholar of belonging.” A “scholar of magic.” She grew up loving science fiction, and thought we’d be driving flying cars by now; and yet, has found in speculative fiction the transformative force of vision and imagination that might in fact save us. Our younger listeners have asked to hear adrienne maree brown’s voice on _On Being_, and here she is, as we enter our own time of evolution. This conversation shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking: working with the complex fullness of reality, and cultivating old and new ways of see…
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Jun 16, 2022
Ocean Vuong – A Life Worthy of Our Breath
Krista interviewed the wise and wonderful writer Ocean Vuong on March 8, 2020 in a joyful, crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn. A state of emergency had just been declared in New York around a new virus. But no one guessed that within a handful of days such an event would become unimaginable. Most stunning is how presciently, exquisitely Ocean speaks to the world we have come to inhabit— its heartbreak and its poetry, its possibilities for loss and for finding new life.
_“I want to love more than death can harm. And I want to tell you this often: That despite being so human and so terrified, here, standing on this unfinished staircase to nowhere and everywhere, surrounded by the cold and starless night — we can live. And we will.”_
Ocean Vuong is a professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at New York University. His new collection of poetry is _Time Is a Mother_. He is also the author of a novel,_ On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous_, and the poetry collection _Ni…
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Jun 16, 2022
[Unedited] Ocean Vuong with Krista Tippett
We are in the final weeks as _On Being_ evolves to its next chapter — in a world that is evolving, each of us changed in myriad ways we’ve only begun to process and fathom. So it felt right to listen again to one of our most beloved shows of this post-2020 world. In fact, Krista interviewed the wise and wonderful Ocean Vuong right on the cusp of that turning, in March 2020, in a joyful and crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn. Yet what’s most stunning is how presciently and exquisitely Ocean spoke, and continues to speak, to the world we have since come to inhabit — its heartbreak and its poetry, its possibilities for loss and for finding new life.
Ocean Vuong is a professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at New York University. His new collection of poetry is _Time Is a Mother_. He is also the author of a novel,_ __On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous_, and the poetry collection _Night Sky with Exit Wounds_, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whiting Award. He w…
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Jun 9, 2022
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson — What If We Get This Right?
Amidst all of the perspectives and arguments around our ecological future, this much is true: we are not _in_ the natural world — we are part _of_ it. The next-generation marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson would let that reality of belonging show us the way forward. She loves the ocean. She loves human beings. And she’s animated by questions emerging from those loves — and from the science she does — which we scarcely know how to take seriously amidst so much demoralizing bad ecological news. This hour, Krista draws out her creative and pragmatic inquiry: Could we let ourselves be led by what we already know how to do, and by what we have it in us to save? What, she asks, if we get this right?
This conversation was recorded at the 2022 TED Conference. You can hear all of the talks coming out of the conference by following the TED Talks Daily podcast, wherever podcasts are found.
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, and co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab, a thin…
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Jun 9, 2022
[Unedited] Ayana Elizabeth Johnson with Krista Tippett
Amidst all of the perspectives and arguments around our ecological future, this much is true: we are not _in_ the natural world — we are part _of_ it. The next-generation marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson would let that reality of belonging show us the way forward. She loves the ocean. She loves human beings. And she’s animated by questions emerging from those loves — and from the science she does — which we scarcely know how to take seriously amidst so much demoralizing bad ecological news. This hour, Krista draws out her creative and pragmatic inquiry: Could we let ourselves be led by what we already know how to do, and by what we have it in us to save? What, she asks, if we get this right?
This conversation was recorded at the 2022 TED Conference. You can hear all of the talks coming out of the conference by following the TED Talks Daily podcast, wherever podcasts are found.
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, and co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab, a thin…
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Jun 2, 2022
Rachel Naomi Remen – How We Live With Loss
The conversation of this hour always rises as an early experience that imprinted everything that came after at _On Being_. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the wise people in our world. She trained as a doctor in a generation that understood death as a failure of medicine. Yet her lifelong struggle with Crohn’s Disease and her pioneering work with cancer patients shaped her view of life. Becoming whole, she teaches, is not about eradicating our wounds and weaknesses; rather, the way we deal with losses, large and small, shapes our capacity to be present to all of our experiences. That arresting notion, and the distinction Rachel Naomi Remen draws between curing and healing, makes this an urgent offering to our world — of healing we are all called to receive and to give.
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is founder of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness and a Professor of Family Medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University in Ohio. She’s also a…
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Jun 2, 2022
[Unedited] Rachel Naomi Remen with Krista Tippett
The conversation of this hour always rises as an early experience that imprinted everything that came after at _On Being_. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the wise people in our world. She trained as a doctor in a generation that understood death as a failure of medicine. Yet her lifelong struggle with Crohn’s Disease and her pioneering work with cancer patients shaped her view of life. Becoming whole, she teaches, is not about eradicating our wounds and weaknesses; rather, the way we deal with losses, large and small, shapes our capacity to be present to all of our experiences. That arresting notion, and the distinction Rachel Naomi Remen draws between curing and healing, makes this an urgent offering to our world — of healing we are all called to receive and to give.
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is founder of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness and a Professor of Family Medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University in Ohio. She’s also a…
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May 26, 2022
David Whyte — Seeking Language Large Enough
It has ever and always been true, David Whyte reminds us, that so much of human experience is a conversation between loss and celebration. This conversational nature of reality — indeed, this drama of vitality — is something we have all been shown, willing or unwilling, in these years. Many have turned to David Whyte for his gorgeous, life-giving poetry and his wisdom at the interplay of theology, psychology, and leadership — his insistence on the power of a beautiful question and of everyday words amidst the drama of work as well as the drama of life. The notion of “frontier” — inner frontiers, outer frontiers — weaves through this hour. We surface this as a companion for the frontiers we are all on just by virtue of being alive in this time.
David Whyte is the author of many books of poetry and prose. He grew up with a strong, imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father’s Yorkshire. He now makes his home in the Pacific Northw…
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May 26, 2022
"Everything is Waiting for You" by David Whyte
David Whyte reads his poem, “Everything is Waiting for You.” This poem is featured in David’s _On Being_ conversation with Krista, “Seeking Language Large Enough.” Find more of his poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades of the show, at Experience Poetry.
David Whyte is the author of _The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America_, _Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words_, and _The Bell and the Blackbird_. His latest collections are _David Whyte: Essentials _and _Still Possible_.
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May 26, 2022
"Working Together" by David Whyte
David Whyte reads his poem, “Working Together.” This poem is featured in David’s _On Being_ conversation with Krista, “Seeking Language Large Enough.” Find more of his poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades of the show, at Experience Poetry.
David Whyte is the author of _The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America_, _Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words_, and _The Bell and the Blackbird_. His latest collections are _David Whyte: Essentials _and _Still Possible_.
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May 26, 2022
"Sweet Darkness" by David Whyte
David Whyte reads his poem, “Sweet Darkness.” This poem is featured in David’s _On Being_ conversation with Krista, “Seeking Language Large Enough.” Find more of his poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades of the show, at Experience Poetry.
David Whyte is the author of _The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America_, _Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words_, and _The Bell and the Blackbird_. His latest collections are _David Whyte: Essentials _and _Still Possible_.
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May 26, 2022
[Unedited] David Whyte with Krista Tippett
It has ever and always been true, David Whyte reminds us, that so much of human experience is a conversation between loss and celebration. This conversational nature of reality — indeed, this drama of vitality — is something we have all been shown, willing or unwilling, in these years. Many have turned to David Whyte for his gorgeous, life-giving poetry and his wisdom at the interplay of theology, psychology, and leadership — his insistence on the power of a beautiful question and of everyday words amidst the drama of work as well as the drama of life. The notion of “frontier” — inner frontiers, outer frontiers — weaves through this hour. We surface this as a companion for the frontiers we are all on just by virtue of being alive in this time.
David Whyte is the author of many books of poetry and prose. He grew up with a strong, imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father’s Yorkshire. He now makes his home in the Pacific Northw…
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May 24, 2022
BONUS: A Defining Moment from Krista — Celebrating Our First 20 Years
As we approach nearly two decades of _On Being_, Krista shares a moment from the earliest years of the show that imprinted everything that followed. Hear Krista reflect on her 2005 conversation with Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen — and the wisdom she encountered that accumulated across the years into all The On Being Project is today, and all we continue to become.
You, too, can share a memory or experience from an _On Being_ episode that has stayed with you, or made a difference. Record your reflection with ease at onbeing.org/staywithus, where you can also sign up to receive invitations and updates about all that’s ahead as we take a new shape in the fall.
Thank you in advance for this gift. We look forward to listening.
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May 19, 2022
Kimberley Wilson — Whole Body Mental Health
The British psychologist Kimberley Wilson works in the emergent field of whole body mental health, one of the most astonishing frontiers we are on as a species. Discoveries about the gut microbiome, for example, and the gut-brain axis; the fascinating vagus nerve and the power of the neurotransmitters we hear about in piecemeal ways in discussions around mental health. The phrase “mental health” itself makes less and less sense in light of the wild interactivity we can now see between what we’ve falsely compartmentalized as physical, emotional, mental, even spiritual. And so much of what we’re seeing brings us back to intelligence that has always been in the very words we use — “gut instinct,” for instance. It brings us back to something your grandmother was right about, for reasons she would never have imagined: you are what you eat. There is so much actionable knowledge in the tour of the ecosystem of our bodies that Kimberley Wilson takes us on this hour. This is scien…
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May 19, 2022
[Unedited] Kimberley Wilson with Krista Tippett
The British psychologist Kimberley Wilson works in the emergent field of whole body mental health, one of the most astonishing frontiers we are on as a species. Discoveries about the gut microbiome, for example, and the gut-brain axis; the fascinating vagus nerve and the power of the neurotransmitters we hear about in piecemeal ways in discussions around mental health. The phrase “mental health” itself makes less and less sense in light of the wild interactivity we can now see between what we’ve falsely compartmentalized as physical, emotional, mental, even spiritual. And so much of what we’re seeing brings us back to intelligence that has always been in the very words we use — “gut instinct,” for instance. It brings us back to something your grandmother was right about, for reasons she would never have imagined: you are what you eat. There is so much actionable knowledge in the tour of the ecosystem of our bodies that Kimberley Wilson takes us on this hour. This is scien…
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May 12, 2022
Robin Wall Kimmerer — The Intelligence of Plants
Few books have been more eagerly passed from hand to hand with delight in these last years than Robin Wall Kimmerer’s _Braiding Sweetgrass__._ Krista interviewed her in 2015, and it quickly became a much-loved show as her voice was just rising in common life. Robin is a botanist and also a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She’s written, “Science polishes the gift of seeing, Indigenous traditions work with gifts of listening and language.” An expert in moss — a bryologist — she describes mosses as the “coral reefs of the forest.” Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate.
And, this week, an invitation: Krista recently announced that in June we are transitioning _On Being _from a weekly show to a seasonal podcast. We hope you’ll help us celebrate this threshold, and these first two decades, by sharing how you’ve made this adventure of conversation your ow…
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May 12, 2022
[Unedited] Robin Wall Kimmerer with Krista Tippett
Few books have been more eagerly passed from hand to hand with delight in these last years than Robin Wall Kimmerer’s _Braiding Sweetgrass__._ Krista interviewed her in 2015, and it quickly became a much-loved show as her voice was just rising in common life. Robin is a botanist and also a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She’s written, “Science polishes the gift of seeing, Indigenous traditions work with gifts of listening and language.” An expert in moss — a bryologist — she describes mosses as the “coral reefs of the forest.” Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate.
And, this week, an invitation: Krista recently announced that in June we are transitioning _On Being _from a weekly show to a seasonal podcast. We hope you’ll help us celebrate this threshold, and these first two decades, by sharing how you’ve made this adventure of conversation your ow…
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May 5, 2022
Sylvia Boorstein – What We Nurture
A few years ago, Krista hosted an event in Detroit — a city in flux — on the theme of raising children. The conversation that resulted with the Jewish-Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Sylvia Boorstein has been a companion to her and to many from that day forward. Here it is again as an offering for Mother’s Day — in a world still and again in flux, and where the matter of raising new human beings feels as complicated as ever before. Sylvia gifts us this teaching: that nurturing children’s inner lives can be woven into the fabric of our days — and that nurturing ourselves is also good for the children and everyone else in our lives.
Sylvia Boorstein is a mother, grandmother, Jewish-Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist, and a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Her books include _That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist_, _It’s Easier Than You Think_, _Happiness Is an Inside Job_, and _Making Friends with the Present Moment_.
Find…
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May 5, 2022
A Lovingkindness Meditation with Sylvia Boorstein
The beloved Buddhist-Jewish teacher Sylvia Boorstein led this impromptu, short meditation as part of her _On Being_ conversation with Krista Tippett (“What We Nurture”) at a gathering in Michigan in 2011. It was a magical experience in which the audience fully participated.
Find the original video and transcript at onbeing.org.
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May 5, 2022
[Unedited] Sylvia Boorstein with Krista Tippett
A few years ago, Krista hosted an event in Detroit — a city in flux — on the theme of raising children. The conversation that resulted with the Jewish-Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Sylvia Boorstein has been a companion to her and to many from that day forward. Here it is again as an offering for Mother’s Day — in a world still and again in flux, and where the matter of raising new human beings feels as complicated as ever before. Sylvia gifts us this teaching: that nurturing children’s inner lives can be woven into the fabric of our days — and that nurturing ourselves is also good for the children and everyone else in our lives.
Sylvia Boorstein is a mother, grandmother, Jewish-Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist, and a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Her books include _That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist_, _It’s Easier Than You Think_, _Happiness Is an Inside Job_, and _Making Friends with the Present Moment_.
This…
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Apr 28, 2022
Pádraig Ó Tuama — “This fantastic argument of being alive”
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a friend, teacher, and colleague to the work of On Being. But before that was true, Krista took a revelatory trip to meet him at his home in Northern Ireland, a place that has known sectarianism and violent fracture and has evolved, not to perfection, yet to new life and once unimaginable repair and relationship. Our whole world screams of fracture, more now than when Krista sat with Pádraig in 2016. This conversation is a gentle, welcoming landing for pondering and befriending hard realities we are given. As the global educator Karen Murphy, another friend of On Being and of Pádraig, once said to Krista: “Let’s have the humility and the generosity to step back and learn from these places that have had the courage to look at themselves and look at where they’ve been and try to forge a new path with something that resembles ‘together’ … Right now we should be taking these stories and these examples and these places and filling our pockets and our lungs…
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Apr 28, 2022
[Unedited] Pádraig Ó Tuama with Krista Tippett
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a friend, teacher, and colleague to the work of On Being. But before that was true, Krista took a revelatory trip to meet him at his home in Northern Ireland, a place that has known sectarianism and violent fracture and has evolved, not to perfection, yet to new life and once unimaginable repair and relationship. Our whole world screams of fracture, more now than when Krista sat with Pádraig in 2016. This conversation is a gentle, welcoming landing for pondering and befriending hard realities we are given. As the global educator Karen Murphy, another friend of On Being and of Pádraig, once said to Krista: “Let’s have the humility and the generosity to step back and learn from these places that have had the courage to look at themselves and look at where they’ve been and try to forge a new path with something that resembles ‘together’ … Right now we should be taking these stories and these examples and these places and filling our pockets and our lungs…
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Apr 21, 2022
Ai-jen Poo and Tarana Burke — The Future of Hope 5
The visionary, next-generation organizer Ai-jen Poo says this of Tarana Burke: “There are just so many layers of hope that she brings to the world and to people like me, to survivors, to all kinds of communities.” Ai-jen and Tarana are the conversation partners for this episode of The Future of Hope. And what a conversation it is. We listen in on a brilliant friendship that has powered and sustained two extraordinary women who are leading defining movements of this generation that call us to our highest humanity. Ai-jen has been long ahead of a cultural curve we are all on now — of seeing the urgent calling to update and transform not just how we value the caregiving workforce of millions, but how we value care itself as a society. Tarana founded the ‘me too.’ Movement. What you are about to hear is intimate, revelatory, and rooted in trust and care. It’s also an invitation to all of us, to imagine and build a more graceful way to remake the world.
Ai-jen Poo co-founded an…
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Apr 14, 2022
Avivah Zornberg — Human Becoming, Between Biblical Lines
You probably know the outline of the Exodus story and its main characters: Moses, the Pharaoh, the burning bush, the plagues, the parting of the sea. And, in another realm of the power of story, the words “let my people go” and the arc of liberation from slavery have inspired people in crisis and catharsis across time and cultures. Call it “myth” if you will — as the Greek Statesman Solon said, myth is not something that never happened. It’s something that happens over and over and over again. Avivah Zornberg walks us through the Exodus story that is relived in the Jewish Passover and resonates through Easter. She is a modern-day master of midrash — the ancient Jewish art of inquiry for discovering the deepest of meaning in and between the biblical lines. What can look simple on the surface, as she reveals, is a cargo of hidden stories that tell the messy, strange, redemptive truth of us as we are and life as it is. Krista and Avivah Zornberg had this lovely, intimate con…
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Apr 14, 2022
[Unedited] Avivah Zornberg with Krista Tippett
You probably know the outline of the Exodus story and its main characters: Moses, the Pharaoh, the burning bush, the plagues, the parting of the sea. And, in another realm of the power of story, the words “let my people go” and the arc of liberation from slavery have inspired people in crisis and catharsis across time and cultures. Call it “myth” if you will — as the Greek Statesman Solon said, myth is not something that never happened. It’s something that happens over and over and over again. Avivah Zornberg walks us through the Exodus story that is relived in the Jewish Passover and resonates through Easter. She is a modern-day master of midrash — the ancient Jewish art of inquiry for discovering the deepest of meaning in and between the biblical lines. What can look simple on the surface, as she reveals, is a cargo of hidden stories that tell the messy, strange, redemptive truth of us as we are and life as it is. Krista and Avivah Zornberg had this lovely, intimate con…
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Apr 7, 2022
Eugene Peterson — Answering God
“Prayers are tools not for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.” These are words of the late legendary biblical interpreter and teacher Eugene Peterson. At the back of the church he pastored for nearly three decades, you’d be likely to find well-worn copies of books by Wallace Stegner or Denise Levertov. Frustrated with the unimaginative way he found his congregants treating their Bibles, he translated the whole thing himself and that translation has sold millions of copies around the world. Eugene Peterson’s literary biblical imagination formed generations of pastors, teachers, and readers. His down-to-earth faith hinged on a love of metaphor and a commitment to the Bible’s poetry as what keeps it alive to the world.
Eugene Peterson wrote over 30 books including _Answering God_, _Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology__, _and _The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language_. In 2021, a Lenten sermon series of his was published po…
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Apr 7, 2022
[Unedited] Eugene Peterson with Krista Tippett
“Prayers are tools not for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.” These are words of the late legendary biblical interpreter and teacher Eugene Peterson. At the back of the church he pastored for nearly three decades, you’d be likely to find well-worn copies of books by Wallace Stegner or Denise Levertov. Frustrated with the unimaginative way he found his congregants treating their Bibles, he translated the whole thing himself and that translation has sold millions of copies around the world. Eugene Peterson’s literary biblical imagination formed generations of pastors, teachers, and readers. His down-to-earth faith hinged on a love of metaphor and a commitment to the Bible’s poetry as what keeps it alive to the world.
Eugene Peterson wrote over 30 books including _Answering God_, _Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology__, _and _The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language_. In 2021, a Lenten sermon series of his was published po…
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Mar 31, 2022
Mary Oliver — “I got saved by the beauty of the world.”
The late poet Mary Oliver is among the most beloved writers of modern times. Amidst the harshness of life, she found redemption in the natural world and in beautiful, precise language. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award among her many honors — and published numerous collections of poetry and also some wonderful prose. Krista met with her in 2015 for this rare, intimate conversation. We offer it up anew, as nourishment.
Mary Oliver published over 25 books of poetry and prose, including _Dream Work__, __A Thousand Mornings_, and _A Poetry Handbook_. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 for her book _American Primitive_. Her final work, _Devotions_, is a collection of poetry from her more than 50-year career, curated by the poet herself. She died in 2019.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in February, 2015.
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Mar 31, 2022
[Unedited] Mary Oliver with Krista Tippett
The late poet Mary Oliver is among the most beloved writers of modern times. Amidst the harshness of life, she found redemption in the natural world and in beautiful, precise language. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award among her many honors — and published numerous collections of poetry and also some wonderful prose. Krista met with her in 2015 for this rare, intimate conversation. We offer it up anew, as nourishment.
Mary Oliver published over 25 books of poetry and prose, including _Dream Work__, __A Thousand Mornings_, and _A Poetry Handbook_. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 for her book _American Primitive_. Her final work, _Devotions_, is a collection of poetry from her more than 50-year career, curated by the poet herself. She died in 2019.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Mary Oliver — ‘I got saved by the beauty of the world.’" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org…
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Mar 30, 2022
BONUS: An Invitation from Pádraig and Krista
What do poetry, songs, and prayer have in common? While preparing for the next season of _Poetry Unbound_, host Pádraig Ó Tuama sat down with Krista Tippett to wonder at this mystery: that poems land in our lives as though they knew us already, as if they were waiting for us. From Ada Limón to Rosanne Cash to Eugene Peterson — how single lines become a portable ritual, and help us live.
_Poetry Unbound_ hears from so many people who’ve encountered a poem and made it part of their life; and whose life adds something to the poem in turn. Pádraig invites you, our dear listeners, to share your stories and experience of _Poetry Unbound_ through our survey.
And discover what’s waiting to meet you ahead of the release of the very first _Poetry Unbound _book: sign up here for the latest.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Mar 24, 2022
J. Drew Lanham – Pathfinding Through the Improbable
The ornithologist J. Drew Lanham is lyrical in the languages of science, humans, and birds. His celebrated books include _The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature _and a collection of poetry and meditations called _Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts_. J. Drew Lanham’s way of seeing and hearing and noticing the present and the history that birds traverse — through our backyards and beyond — is a revelatory way to be present to the world and to life in our time.
J. Drew Lanham is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Master Teacher, and Certified Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University. He is the Poet Laureate of Edgefield County, South Carolina, where he grew up. He is the author of _The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature_ and a collection of poetry and meditations, _Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show origi…
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Mar 24, 2022
[Unedited] J. Drew Lanham with Krista Tippett
The ornithologist J. Drew Lanham is lyrical in the languages of science, humans, and birds. His celebrated books include _The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature _and a collection of poetry and meditations called _Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts_. J. Drew Lanham’s way of seeing and hearing and noticing the present and the history that birds traverse — through our backyards and beyond — is a revelatory way to be present to the world and to life in our time.
J. Drew Lanham is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Master Teacher, and Certified Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University. He is the Poet Laureate of Edgefield County, South Carolina, where he grew up. He is the author of _The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature_ and a collection of poetry and meditations, _Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other feature…
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Mar 17, 2022
Kate DiCamillo — For the Eight-Year-Old in You
Each and every adult is a former eight-year-old, wide open with yearning and possibility; understanding exactly how troubled the adults around you are, even if they think they are hiding it from you; almost unbearably alert to the world’s wonders and its dangers all at once. And that’s the reason you should listen to this conversation with Kate DiCamillo, even if you’ve never heard of her bounty of books beloved by teachers, parents and former children who’ve grown up reading her. They include _Because of Winn-Dixie_, _The Tale of Despereaux_, _The Magician’s Elephant,_ _The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane_, and _Flora & Ulysses_. Krista read Kate’s books with her children. Then, in the early pandemic months, feeling unmoored, she cracked them open to read by herself, inspired by a piece in the _New York Times_ by the wonderful writer of adult novels, Ann Patchett. She wrote of making her way through the Kate DiCamillo opus as one of the most satisfying literary adventu…
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Mar 17, 2022
[Unedited] Kate DiCamillo with Krista Tippett
Each and every adult is a former eight-year-old, wide open with yearning and possibility; understanding exactly how troubled the adults around you are, even if they think they are hiding it from you; almost unbearably alert to the world’s wonders and its dangers all at once. And that’s the reason you should listen to this conversation with Kate DiCamillo, even if you’ve never heard of her bounty of books beloved by teachers, parents and former children who’ve grown up reading her. They include _Because of Winn-Dixie_, _The Tale of Despereaux_, _The Magician’s Elephant,_ _The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane_, and _Flora & Ulysses_. Krista read Kate’s books with her children. Then, in the early pandemic months, feeling unmoored, she cracked them open to read by herself, inspired by a piece in the _New York Times_ by the wonderful writer of adult novels, Ann Patchett. She wrote of making her way through the Kate DiCamillo opus as one of the most satisfying literary adventu…
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Mar 10, 2022
Mario Livio — Mathematics, Mystery, and the Universe
The astrophysicist Mario Livio spent 24 years at the Space Telescope Science Institute working with the Hubble Telescope, which has revealed the reality and beauty of the Universe to scientists and citizens in whole new ways. The Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Telescope, will become fully operational in 2022, and will further some of the questions about the early formation of the Universe and the origins of life to which Mario Livio has been devoted. Krista spoke with him in 2010, and this conversation has become an _On Being_ Classic, imparting a thrilling sense of all we are learning about the cosmos in this generation in time, our terrible earthly woes notwithstanding. Also: how scientific advance always meets recurrent mystery, from the emergence of life in the Universe to the very heart of mathematics and the puzzle of dark matter and dark energy.
Mario Livio is the author of seven books, including _Galileo: And the Science Deniers_, _The Golden Ratio_, and _Is God a Mathem…
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Mar 10, 2022
[Unedited] Mario Livio with Krista Tippett
The astrophysicist Mario Livio spent 24 years at the Space Telescope Science Institute working with the Hubble Telescope, which has revealed the reality and beauty of the Universe to scientists and citizens in whole new ways. The Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Telescope, will become fully operational in 2022, and will further some of the questions about the early formation of the Universe and the origins of life to which Mario Livio has been devoted. Krista spoke with him in 2010, and this conversation has become an _On Being_ Classic, imparting a thrilling sense of all we are learning about the cosmos in this generation in time, our terrible earthly woes notwithstanding. Also: how scientific advance always meets recurrent mystery, from the emergence of life in the Universe to the very heart of mathematics and the puzzle of dark matter and dark energy.
Mario Livio is the author of seven books, including _Galileo: And the Science Deniers_, _The Golden Ratio_, and _Is God a Mathem…
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Mar 3, 2022
Colette Pichon Battle — “Placed Here, In This Calling”
Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. The ebb and flow of the Bayou was a background rhythm in her childhood to every aspect of life. She did not ever imagine in that childhood that she would one day be known as a “climate activist.” To be with Colette, and experience her brilliance of mind and spirit and action, is to open up all the ways the words we use and the stories we tell about the transformation of the natural world that is upon us blunt us to the courage we’re called to and the joy we must nurture as our primary energy and motivation. She is a vivid embodiment, too, of the new forms societal shift is taking in our world — led by visionary pragmatists close to the ground, in particular places, persistently and lovingly learning and leading the way for us all.
Colette Pichon Battle is founder and Co-Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, which influences realms from equitable disaster recovery to global mi…
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Mar 3, 2022
[Unedited] Colette Pichon Battle with Krista Tippett
Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. The ebb and flow of the Bayou was a background rhythm in her childhood to every aspect of life. She did not ever imagine in that childhood that she would one day be known as a “climate activist.” To be with Colette, and experience her brilliance of mind and spirit and action, is to open up all the ways the words we use and the stories we tell about the transformation of the natural world that is upon us blunt us to the courage we’re called to and the joy we must nurture as our primary energy and motivation. She is a vivid embodiment, too, of the new forms societal shift is taking in our world — led by visionary pragmatists close to the ground, in particular places, persistently and lovingly learning and leading the way for us all.
Colette Pichon Battle is founder and Co-Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, which influences realms from equitable disaster recovery to global mi…
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Feb 25, 2022
“Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower” by Rainer Maria Rilke
We’ve noticed that many people have been seeking out this poem by Rilke on our website this week. It feels like a meditation and a salve for this fraught, uncertain moment in the world. So, we’re sharing it here as well.
Rainer Maria Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist. His poem, “Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower,” is read here by Joanna Macy. It was translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows, and originally read in the _On Being _episode “A Wild Love for the World.” Watch a film version of this poem on our YouTube channel.
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Feb 24, 2022
Gal Beckerman — How Newness Enters the World
When time becomes history, different dynamics come into focus than the ones that are at any moment screaming for attention. The title of Gal Beckerman’s book intrigues and compels: _The Quiet Before_. He’s a journalist with a special interest in history and words and ideas — how ideas are passed and debated and become defining in generational time; how conversation becomes culture-shifting relationship. He attends to dynamics we don’t often take seriously enough: that every idea and discovery that changes the world begins with seeds planted over long stretches, and that this is always marked by passages that look like abject failure. Gal’s conversation with Krista offers fantastically useful insights into how our generation’s media that can scale things more rapidly than ever before can also inhibit the very ingredients that make for lasting transformation. At the same time, this lens on our world refreshes with its perspective on the way change happens, as opposed to mere…
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Feb 24, 2022
[Unedited] Gal Beckerman with Krista Tippett
When time becomes history, different dynamics come into focus than the ones that are at any moment screaming for attention. The title of Gal Beckerman’s book intrigues and compels: _The Quiet Before_. He’s a journalist with a special interest in history and words and ideas — how ideas are passed and debated and become defining in generational time; how conversation becomes culture-shifting relationship. He attends to dynamics we don’t often take seriously enough: that every idea and discovery that changes the world begins with seeds planted over long stretches, and that this is always marked by passages that look like abject failure. Gal’s conversation with Krista offers fantastically useful insights into how our generation’s media that can scale things more rapidly than ever before can also inhibit the very ingredients that make for lasting transformation. At the same time, this lens on our world refreshes with its perspective on the way change happens, as opposed to mere…
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Feb 17, 2022
Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman — Love Your Enemies? (Really?)
It’s a piece of deep psychological acuity, carried in many religious traditions: that each of us is defined as much by who our enemies are and how we treat them as by whom and what we love. In this episode, two legendary Buddhist teachers shine a light on the lofty ideal of loving your enemies and bring it down to earth. Across a half-century conversation and friendship, Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman have investigated the mind science behind this virtue and practice. They illuminate how to transmute the very real, very consequential and consuming energy of anger and hatred — and why love in fact can be a rational and pragmatic stance towards those who vex us. This is a conversation filled with laughter and friendship and with practical wisdom on how we relate to that which makes us feel embattled from without, and from within.
Robert Thurman is the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama. He is president of Tibet House U.S., and was a professor…
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Feb 17, 2022
[Unedited] Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman with Krista Tippett
It’s a piece of deep psychological acuity, carried in many religious traditions: that each of us is defined as much by who our enemies are and how we treat them as by whom and what we love. In this episode, two legendary Buddhist teachers shine a light on the lofty ideal of loving your enemies and bring it down to earth. Across a half-century conversation and friendship, Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman have investigated the mind science behind this virtue and practice. They illuminate how to transmute the very real, very consequential and consuming energy of anger and hatred — and why love in fact can be a rational and pragmatic stance towards those who vex us. This is a conversation filled with laughter and friendship and with practical wisdom on how we relate to that which makes us feel embattled from without, and from within.
Robert Thurman is the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama. He is president of Tibet House U.S., and was a professor…
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Feb 10, 2022
John O'Donohue – The Inner Landscape of Beauty
No conversation we’ve ever done has been more beloved than this one. The Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher insisted on beauty as a human calling. He had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with the inner landscape of our lives and with what he called “the invisible world” that is constantly intertwining what we can know and see. This was one of the last interviews he gave before his unexpected death in 2008. But John O’Donohue’s voice and writings continue to bring ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings.
John O'Donohue was a poet, theologian, and philosopher. He authored beloved books, including _Anam Ċara_ and _Beauty: The Invisible Embrace__._ _To Bless the Space Between Us_, a collection of blessings, was published posthumously. A wonderful book drawn from his voice in conversation, _Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World_, was published in November 2018.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired…
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Feb 10, 2022
[Unedited] John O'Donohue with Krista Tippett
No conversation we’ve ever done has been more beloved than this one. The Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher insisted on beauty as a human calling. He had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with the inner landscape of our lives and with what he called “the invisible world” that is constantly intertwining what we can know and see. This was one of the last interviews he gave before his unexpected death in 2008. But John O’Donohue’s voice and writings continue to bring ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings.
John O'Donohue was a poet, theologian, and philosopher. He authored beloved books, including _Anam Ċara_ and _Beauty: The Invisible Embrace__._ _To Bless the Space Between Us_, a collection of blessings, was published posthumously. A wonderful book drawn from his voice in conversation, _Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World_, was published in November 2018.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On…
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Feb 3, 2022
Trabian Shorters – A Cognitive Skill to Magnify Humanity
Trabian Shorters is a visionary who has seen and named a task that is necessary for all healing and building, for every vision and plan, whether in a family or a world, to flourish. It’s called Asset Framing — and it works with both new understandings of the brain and an age-old understanding of the real-world power of the words we use, the stories we tell, and the way we name things and people. From everyday social media, to hallowed modes of journalistic, academic, and policy analyses, we have a habit of seeing deficits — and of defining people in need in terms of their problems. This has not only doomed some of our best efforts to failure — it leaves all of us prone to cynicism and hopelessness. What’s exciting is that what Trabian Shorters proposes is not only more effective, it is simple and straightforward to grasp. It is in and of itself dignifying and renewing. The main question you might be asking at the end of this is why, at this advanced stage of our species, it t…
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Feb 3, 2022
[Unedited] Trabian Shorters with Krista Tippett
Trabian Shorters is a visionary who has seen and named a task that is necessary for all healing and building, for every vision and plan, whether in a family or a world, to flourish. It’s called Asset Framing — and it works with both new understandings of the brain and an age-old understanding of the real-world power of the words we use, the stories we tell, and the way we name things and people. From everyday social media, to hallowed modes of journalistic, academic, and policy analyses, we have a habit of seeing deficits — and of defining people in need in terms of their problems. This has not only doomed some of our best efforts to failure — it leaves all of us prone to cynicism and hopelessness. What’s exciting is that what Trabian Shorters proposes is not only more effective, it is simple and straightforward to grasp. It is in and of itself dignifying and renewing. The main question you might be asking at the end of this is why, at this advanced stage of our species, it t…
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Jan 27, 2022
Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh, Brother Thay
The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, revered Zen master, teacher, and poet, died on January 22, 2022, in his native Vietnam. Brother Thay, as he was known by his community and students, transmuted what he had experienced of chaos and bloodshed in his country and his life into an ability to speak with equal measures directness and compassion to the many conflicts and bewilderments of contemporary life. Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a great teacher of the wonderful practice of “walking meditation.” He taught a way of living to face suffering, fear, and violence inside and beyond ourselves and yet to become “fresh, solid, and free.” Krista sat with him for this rare conversation in the early years of this show, and it has touched many. It is astonishing to re-experience the deep, enduring wisdom this monk leaves for our world now.
Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen master, poet, and teacher. He first came to the world's attention in the 1960s…
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Jan 27, 2022
[Unedited] Thich Nhat Hanh with Krista Tippett
The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, revered Zen master, teacher, and poet, died on January 22, 2022, in his native Vietnam. Brother Thay, as he was known by his community and students, transmuted what he had experienced of chaos and bloodshed in his country and his life into an ability to speak with equal measures directness and compassion to the many conflicts and bewilderments of contemporary life. Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a great teacher of the wonderful practice of “walking meditation.” He taught a way of living to face suffering, fear, and violence inside and beyond ourselves and yet to become “fresh, solid, and free.” Krista sat with him for this rare conversation in the early years of this show, and it has touched many. It is astonishing to re-experience the deep, enduring wisdom this monk leaves for our world now.
Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen master, poet, and teacher. He first came to the world's attention in the 1960s…
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Jan 27, 2022
[Unedited] Cheri Maples with Krista Tippett
Krista interviewed Cheri Maples around the edges of a retreat with revered Zen master, teacher, and poet Thich Nhat Hanh in 2003. Parts of this interview, as well as Krista’s conversation with Thich Nhat Hanh, appear in our show, Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh, Brother Thay.
Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org
Cheri Maples served in the criminal justice system for 25 years, including as an Assistant Attorney General in the Wisconsin Department of Justice, and as a police officer with the City of Madison Police Department. She co-founded the Center for Mindfulness and Justice in Madison, Wisconsin. She was ordained as a Dharma teacher by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2008. Cheri died in July 2017.
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Jan 27, 2022
[Unedited] Larry Ward with Krista Tippett
Krista interviewed Larry Ward around the edges of a retreat with revered Zen master, teacher, and poet Thich Nhat Hanh in 2003. Parts of this interview, as well as Krista’s conversation with Thich Nhat Hanh, appear in our show, Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh, Brother Thay.
Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org
Larry Ward is co-founder of the Lotus Institute, and was ordained as a Dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village tradition. He accompanied Thich Nhat Hanh on peace-building missions internationally, as well as throughout the United States. He brings 35 years of experience in organizational change, local community renewal, and religion studies. In 2020 he published _America's Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal__._
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Jan 20, 2022
Michael Pollan and Katherine May - The Future of Hope 4
Michael Pollan is one of our most revelatory explorers of the interaction between the human and natural worlds — especially the plants with which we have, as he says, co-evolved — from food to caffeine to psychedelics. In this episode of our series, The Future of Hope, _Wintering_’s Katherine May draws him out on the burgeoning human inquiry and science to which he’s now given himself over — the transformative applications of altered states for healing trauma and depression, for end-of-life care — and the thrilling matter of grasping what consciousness is for. This is an informative, intriguing, utterly uncategorizable conversation.
You may know Katherine May from her _On Being_ conversation with Krista about “wintering” as a season in the natural world — and a recurrent season in every human life. She too operates out of a deep curiosity about the human mind — the remarkable complexity of mental states and well-being — informed in part by her own welcome mid-lif…
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Jan 13, 2022
Oliver Burkeman – Time Management for Mortals
Journalist Oliver Burkeman has made a delightful and important philosophical, spiritual, and practical investigation of all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as “time management.” At this time of year, many of us are making plans and resolutions — treating time as part bully, part resource — something we could fit everything we want into if only we had the discipline. This conversation is offered up to release you from that illusion. He invites us into a new relationship with time, our technologies, and the power of limits — and thus with our mortality and with life itself.
Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and author. His most recent book is _Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals_. He’s also the author of _The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking__. _He writes and publishes a twice monthly email newsletter called “The Imperfectionist.” You can find _The Guardian_ column he wrote from 2006 to 2020 online. It’s ti…
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Jan 13, 2022
[Unedited] Oliver Burkeman with Krista Tippett
Journalist Oliver Burkeman has made a delightful and important philosophical, spiritual, and practical investigation of all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as “time management.” At this time of year, many of us are making plans and resolutions — treating time as part bully, part resource — something we could fit everything we want into if only we had the discipline. This conversation is offered up to release you from that illusion. He invites us into a new relationship with time, our technologies, and the power of limits — and thus with our mortality and with life itself.
Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and author. His most recent book is _Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals_. He’s also the author of _The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking__. _He writes and publishes a twice monthly email newsletter called “The Imperfectionist.” You can find _The Guardian_ column he wrote from 2006 to 2020 online. It’s ti…
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Jan 10, 2022
Befriend Your Body: A Compassionate Body Scan
In a time of stress, uncertainty, and isolation, Dr. Christine Runyan turns our attention to what often evades our awareness — the response of our nervous systems. As part of On Being's 2021 Midwinter Gathering, she offered this brief, practical, gently guided practice as an invitation to befriend your pandemic-beleaguered body, to “blanket it with a little bit of tenderness, a little bit of kindness.” Delve more deeply into Dr. Runyan’s wisdom in her _On Being _conversation with Krista, _"What's Happening In Our Nervous Systems?",_ and in our Wisdom app course, _Finding Replenishment._
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Jan 6, 2022
Remembering Desmond Tutu
The remarkable Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel Laureate died in the closing days of 2021. He helped galvanize South Africa's improbably peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy. He was a leader in the religious drama that transfigured South African Christianity. And he continued to engage conflict well into his retirement, in his own country and in the global Anglican communion. Krista explored all of these things with him in this warm, soaring 2010 conversation — and how Desmond Tutu's understanding of God and humanity unfolded through the history he helped to shape.
Desmond Tutu was an Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He wrote numerous books for adults and children — including _The Rainbow People of God_, _No Future Without Forgiveness_, _Made for Goodness_ and, together with his good friend the Dalai Lama, _The Book of Joy_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally a…
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Jan 6, 2022
[Unedited] Desmond Tutu with Krista Tippett
The remarkable Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel Laureate died in the closing days of 2021. He helped galvanize South Africa's improbably peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy. He was a leader in the religious drama that transfigured South African Christianity. And he continued to engage conflict well into his retirement, in his own country and in the global Anglican communion. Krista explored all of these things with him in this warm, soaring 2010 conversation — and how Desmond Tutu's understanding of God and humanity unfolded through the history he helped to shape.
Desmond Tutu was an Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He wrote numerous books for adults and children — including _The Rainbow People of God_, _No Future Without Forgiveness_, _Made for Goodness_ and, together with his good friend the Dalai Lama, _The Book of Joy_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in th…
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Dec 30, 2021
Gordon Hempton — Silence and the Presence of Everything
Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton collects sounds from around the world. He’s recorded inside Sitka spruce logs in the Pacific Northwest, thunder in the Kalahari Desert, and dawn breaking across six continents. An attentive listener, he says silence is an endangered species on the verge of extinction. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound but an absence of noise. We take in the world through his ears.
Gordon Hempton is the founder of the One Square Inch of Silence Foundation, which recently expanded to become Quiet Parks International with the mission to “save quiet for the benefit of all life.” His books include _One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest to Preserve Quiet_, co-authored with John Grossmann, and _Earth Is A Solar Powered Jukebox: A Complete Guide to Listening, Recording, and Sound Designing with Nature_. He’s also produced more than 60 albums of vanishing natural soundscapes. His latest release is a collection of soundscapes called G…
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Dec 30, 2021
[Unedited] Gordon Hempton with Krista Tippett
Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton collects sounds from around the world. He’s recorded inside Sitka spruce logs in the Pacific Northwest, thunder in the Kalahari Desert, and dawn breaking across six continents. An attentive listener, he says silence is an endangered species on the verge of extinction. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound but an absence of noise. We take in the world through his ears.
Gordon Hempton is the founder of the One Square Inch of Silence Foundation, which recently expanded to become Quiet Parks International with the mission to “save quiet for the benefit of all life.” His books include _One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest to Preserve Quiet_, co-authored with John Grossmann, and _Earth Is A Solar Powered Jukebox: A Complete Guide to Listening, Recording, and Sound Designing with Nature_. He’s also produced more than 60 albums of vanishing natural soundscapes. His latest release is a collection of soundscapes called G…
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Dec 23, 2021
Jeff Chu — A Life of Holy Curiosity (In Friendship with Rachel Held Evans)
Here we are in a religiously-infused season — and in a world in which more and more of us experience ourselves to be religious nomads, misfits, even refugees. This deep reality of our life together is often simplified in analyses of the decline of traditional religious identity, of the rise of the spiritual-but-not-religious. Yet there is abundantly, alongside all of that, a rising theological and liturgical searching, a passionate calling towards service that echoes the heart of the great traditions. This is nowhere more true than around the boundaries of Christianity. And no person has given more winsome voice to it than Rachel Held Evans, who died suddenly at the age of 37 in 2019. Now her dear friend, journalist and preacher Jeff Chu, has midwifed her unfinished last book, _Wholehearted Faith_, into the world. He’s Krista’s wonderful conversation partner this hour — articulating a spacious understanding of God and grief, searching and belonging, for this changed world Rache…
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Dec 23, 2021
[Unedited] Jeff Chu with Krista Tippett
Here we are in a religiously-infused season — and in a world in which more and more of us experience ourselves to be religious nomads, misfits, even refugees. This deep reality of our life together is often simplified in analyses of the decline of traditional religious identity, of the rise of the spiritual-but-not-religious. Yet there is abundantly, alongside all of that, a rising theological and liturgical searching, a passionate calling towards service that echoes the heart of the great traditions. This is nowhere more true than around the boundaries of Christianity. And no person has given more winsome voice to it than Rachel Held Evans, who died suddenly at the age of 37 in 2019. Now her dear friend, journalist and preacher Jeff Chu, has midwifed her unfinished last book, _Wholehearted Faith_, into the world. He’s Krista’s wonderful conversation partner this hour — articulating a spacious understanding of God and grief, searching and belonging, for this changed world Rache…
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Dec 16, 2021
Jane Hirshfield – The Fullness of Things
The esteemed writer Jane Hirshfield has been a Zen monk and a visiting artist among neuroscientists. She has said this: “It’s my nature to question, to look at the opposite side. I believe that the best writing also does this … It tells us that where there is sorrow, there will be joy; where there is joy, there will be sorrow … The acknowledgement of the fully complex scope of being is why good art thrills … Acknowledging the fullness of things,” she insists, “is our human task.” And that’s the ground Krista meanders with Jane Hirshfield in this conversation: the fullness of things — through the interplay of Zen and science, poetry and ecology — in her life and writing.
Jane Hirshfield is the author of books of poetry, including _The Beauty_, _Come, Thief_, and most recently, _Ledger_, with selections read this hour. She’s also written two books of essays: _Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry_ and _Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World_.
Find th…
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Dec 16, 2021
[Unedited] Jane Hirshfield with Krista Tippett
The esteemed writer Jane Hirshfield has been a Zen monk and a visiting artist among neuroscientists. She has said this: “It’s my nature to question, to look at the opposite side. I believe that the best writing also does this … It tells us that where there is sorrow, there will be joy; where there is joy, there will be sorrow … The acknowledgement of the fully complex scope of being is why good art thrills … Acknowledging the fullness of things,” she insists, “is our human task.” And that’s the ground Krista meanders with Jane Hirshfield in this conversation: the fullness of things — through the interplay of Zen and science, poetry and ecology — in her life and writing.
Jane Hirshfield is the author of books of poetry, including _The Beauty_, _Come, Thief_, and most recently, _Ledger_, with selections read this hour. She’s also written two books of essays: _Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry_ and _Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World_.
This in…
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Dec 9, 2021
Katherine May – How ‘Wintering’ Replenishes
In so many stories and fables that shape us, cold and snow, the closing in of the light — these have deep psychological as much as physical reality. This is “wintering,” as the English writer Katherine May illuminates in her beautiful, meditative book of that title — at once a season of the natural world, a respite our bodies require, and a state of mind. Krista first spoke with Katherine in midwinter 2020, and their conversation continues to offer a helpful container for our pandemic time: as one vast, extended, communal experience of wintering. As 2021 draws to a close — still with so much to metabolize and to carry, with an aching need for replenishment — Katherine May opens up exactly what so many have needed to hear, but haven’t known how to name.
Katherine May is an author of fiction and memoir whose titles include _Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times_, _The Electricity of Every Living Thing_, and _Burning Out_. She is also the editor of an…
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Dec 9, 2021
[Unedited] Katherine May with Krista Tippett
In so many stories and fables that shape us, cold and snow, the closing in of the light — these have deep psychological as much as physical reality. This is “wintering,” as the English writer Katherine May illuminates in her beautiful, meditative book of that title — at once a season of the natural world, a respite our bodies require, and a state of mind. Krista first spoke with Katherine in midwinter 2020, and their conversation continues to offer a helpful container for our pandemic time: as one vast, extended, communal experience of wintering. As 2021 draws to a close — still with so much to metabolize and to carry, with an aching need for replenishment — Katherine May opens up exactly what so many have needed to hear, but haven’t known how to name.
Katherine May is an author of fiction and memoir whose titles include _Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times_, _The Electricity of Every Living Thing_, and _Burning Out_. She is also the editor of an…
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Dec 2, 2021
Vivek Murthy and Richard Davidson – The Future of Well-being
What if the future of well-being is about “tipping the scales in the world away from fear and toward love”? And what if it’s a surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who talks this way? Krista draws him out with his friend, the groundbreaking neuroscientist Richard Davidson. Together they carry deep intelligence and vision from the realms of science and public health, expansively understood. They explore all we are learning to help move us forward as a species. This conversation was held as a live Zoom event, sponsored by the Center for Healthy Minds.
Richard Davidson is the William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He founded and directs the Center for Healthy Minds there, and was the Founding Director of the Waisman Brain Imaging Lab. He is also the Founder and Chief Visionary for Healthy Minds Innovations, a non-profit that translates laboratory science into real world tools. He is author o…
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Dec 2, 2021
[Unedited] Vivek Murthy and Richard Davidson with Krista Tippett
What if the future of well-being is about “tipping the scales in the world away from fear and toward love”? And what if it’s a surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who talks this way? Krista draws him out with his friend, the groundbreaking neuroscientist Richard Davidson. Together they carry deep intelligence and vision from the realms of science and public health, expansively understood. They explore all we are learning to help move us forward as a species. This conversation was held as a live Zoom event, sponsored by the Center for Healthy Minds.
Richard Davidson is the William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He founded and directs the Center for Healthy Minds there, and was the Founding Director of the Waisman Brain Imaging Lab. He is also the Founder and Chief Visionary for Healthy Minds Innovations, a non-profit that translates laboratory science into real world tools. He is author o…
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Nov 24, 2021
Jane Goodall – What It Means to Be Human
Jane Goodall’s early research studying chimpanzees helped shape the self-understanding of our species and recalled modern Western science to the fact that we are a part of nature, not separate from it. In honor of the publication of her 32nd book — _The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times — _we’re re-releasing her beautiful conversation with Krista over Zoom from pandemic lockdown. From her decades studying chimpanzees in the Gombe forest to her more recent years attending to human poverty and misunderstanding, the legendary primatologist reflects on the moral and spiritual convictions that have driven her, and what she is teaching and still learning about what it means to be human.
Jane Goodall is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and its youth program, Roots & Shoots. She has been the subject of many films and documentaries, including “Jane Goodall: The Hope.” Her many books include _In the Shadow of Man_,_ __Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey_, and…
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Nov 24, 2021
[Unedited] Jane Goodall with Krista Tippett
Jane Goodall’s early research studying chimpanzees helped shape the self-understanding of our species and recalled modern Western science to the fact that we are a part of nature, not separate from it. In honor of the publication of her 32nd book — _The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times — _we’re re-releasing her beautiful conversation with Krista over Zoom from pandemic lockdown. From her decades studying chimpanzees in the Gombe forest to her more recent years attending to human poverty and misunderstanding, the legendary primatologist reflects on the moral and spiritual convictions that have driven her, and what she is teaching and still learning about what it means to be human.
Jane Goodall is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and its youth program, Roots & Shoots. She has been the subject of many films and documentaries, including “Jane Goodall: The Hope.” Her many books include _In the Shadow of Man_,_ __Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey_, and…
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Nov 18, 2021
Pico Iyer and Elizabeth Gilbert – The Future of Hope 3
Pico Iyer is an esteemed journalist and essayist, and an explorer of inner life — for himself and in 21st-century society. For this episode in our Future of Hope series, he draws out writer Elizabeth Gilbert and “her sense of hope based not on a confidence in happy endings, but the conviction that something makes sense — even if not a sense that we can grasp.” Pico’s questions and Liz’s answers are all the more poignant given that both of them have recently suffered deep losses. These two friends delve into what it means to retreat into smallness, and grapple with a complex understanding of hope, as the world continues to overwhelm.
Pico Iyer is the author of many books, including _The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home_, _The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama_, and _The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere_. His latest is _A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations_.
Elizabeth Gilbert is the aut…
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Nov 11, 2021
Bessel van der Kolk – How Trauma Lodges in the Body, Revisited
When Krista interviewed the psychiatrist and trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk for the first time, his book _The Body Keeps the Score_ was about to be published. She described him then as “an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences on people and society.” She catches up with him in 2021 — as we are living through one vast overwhelming experience after the other. And _The Body Keeps the Score_ is now one of the most widely read books in the pandemic world. His perspective is utterly unique and very practically helpful — on what’s been happening in our bodies and our brains, and how that relationship can become severed and restored.
Bessel van der Kolk is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts. He’s also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. His books include _Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on the Mind, Body, and Society_ and _The Body Keeps th…
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Nov 11, 2021
[Unedited] Bessel van der Kolk with Krista Tippett
Krista interviewed the psychiatrist and trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk for the first time in 2013, as his book The Body Keeps the Score was about to be published. He is an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences. We call this “trauma” when we encounter it in life and news, and we tend to leap to address it by talking. But Bessel van der Kolk knows how some experiences imprint themselves beyond where language can reach. He explores state-of-the-art therapeutic treatments — including body work like yoga and eye movement therapy — and shares what he and others are learning on this edge of humanity about the complexity of memory, our need for others, and how our brains take care of our bodies.
Bessel van der Kolk is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts. He’s also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. His books include _Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Expe…
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Nov 4, 2021
Bryan Stevenson – Finding the Courage for What's Redemptive
How to embrace what’s right and corrective, redemptive and restorative — and an insistence that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve done — these are gifts Bryan Stevenson offers with his life. He’s brought the language of mercy and redemption into American culture in recent years, growing out of his work as a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. Now the groundbreaking museum they created in Montgomery has dramatically expanded — a new way of engaging the full and ongoing legacy of slavery in U.S. history. Krista draws out his spirit — and his moral imagination.
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller _Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in December, 2020.
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Nov 4, 2021
[Unedited] Bryan Stevenson with Krista Tippett
How to embrace what’s right and corrective, redemptive and restorative — and an insistence that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve done — these are gifts Bryan Stevenson offers with his life. He’s brought the language of mercy and redemption into American culture in recent years, growing out of his work as a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. Now the groundbreaking museum they created in Montgomery has dramatically expanded — a new way of engaging the full and ongoing legacy of slavery in U.S. history. Krista draws out his spirit — and his moral imagination.
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller _Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Bryan Stevenson — Finding the Courage for What's Redemptive." Find t…
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Oct 28, 2021
Pádraig Ó Tuama and Marilyn Nelson – “So let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars”
Where to turn to find my place of standing when it feels like the world is on fire? This question surfaced in a public conversation Krista had just a couple of years ago with Pádraig Ó Tuama and Marilyn Nelson, two poet-contemplatives. Pádraig weaves together social healing, poetry, and theology. Marilyn is a lyrical excavator of stories that would rather stay hidden — yet as she coaxes them into the light, they lead to new life. This conversation is a pleasure and balm, and a reminder that the ruptures and unease and reckonings of what we call “this moment” were all before us before the pandemic. Pádraig and Marilyn’s offerings are beyond wise, and distinctly tender and powerful for this now.
Pádraig Ó Tuama is the host of On Being’s _Poetry Unbound_ podcast. Previously, he was community leader of Corrymeela, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. His books include a prayer book, _Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community_, a book of poetr…
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Oct 28, 2021
[Unedited] Pádraig Ó Tuama and Marilyn Nelson with Krista Tippett
Where to turn to find my place of standing when it feels like the world is on fire? This question surfaced in a public conversation Krista had just a couple of years ago with Pádraig Ó Tuama and Marilyn Nelson, two poet-contemplatives. Pádraig weaves together social healing, poetry, and theology. Marilyn is a lyrical excavator of stories that would rather stay hidden — yet as she coaxes them into the light, they lead to new life. This conversation is a pleasure and balm, and a reminder that the ruptures and unease and reckonings of what we call “this moment” were all before us before the pandemic. Pádraig and Marilyn’s offerings are beyond wise, and distinctly tender and powerful for this now.
Pádraig Ó Tuama is the host of On Being’s _Poetry Unbound_ podcast. Previously, he was community leader of Corrymeela, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. His books include a prayer book, _Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community_, a book of poetr…
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Oct 21, 2021
Katharine Hayhoe – "Our future is still in our hands"
Katharine Hayhoe is one of the most esteemed atmospheric scientists in the world. She’s made her mark by connecting dots between climate systems and weather patterns and the lived experience of human beings in their neighborhoods and communities. She’s also an ambassador, if you will, between the science of climate change and the world of evangelical Christian faith and practice, which she also inhabits. To delve into that with her is to learn a great deal that refreshingly complicates the picture of what is possible and what is already happening, even across what feel like cultural fault lines. If you want to speak and walk differently on this frontier, this is a conversation for you.
Katharine Hayhoe is a professor of political science at Texas Tech University, and since 2021 Chief Scientist of the Nature Conservancy. She founded the Atmos Research and Consulting Firm, has been named one of Time 's 100 Most Influential People (2014), and serves as the climate ambassador for the…
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Oct 21, 2021
[Unedited] Katharine Hayhoe with Krista Tippett
Katharine Hayhoe is one of the most esteemed atmospheric scientists in the world. She’s made her mark by connecting dots between climate systems and weather patterns and the lived experience of human beings in their neighborhoods and communities. She’s also an ambassador, if you will, between the science of climate change and the world of evangelical Christian faith and practice, which she also inhabits. To delve into that with her is to learn a great deal that refreshingly complicates the picture of what is possible and what is already happening, even across what feel like cultural fault lines. If you want to speak and walk differently on this frontier, this is a conversation for you.
Katharine Hayhoe is a professor of political science at Texas Tech University, and since 2021 Chief Scientist of the Nature Conservancy. She founded the Atmos Research and Consulting Firm, has been named one of Time 's 100 Most Influential People (2014), and serves as the climate ambassador for the…
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Oct 14, 2021
Darnell Moore and dream hampton — The Future of Hope 2
We’re in a time as thick with uncertainty as with possibility. Many of us are still, and again, exhausted — and yet opening, fitfully, to what we’ve learned and have been called to at this moment in the life of the world. Toward nourishing that, the second offering in our new series, The Future of Hope, with social creative Darnell Moore in conversation with filmmaker dream hampton. The influence they wield spans hip-hop to Netflix to the Oscars; from the Movement for Black Lives to _Surviving R. Kelly_.
It is an honor to enter this tender, intimate conversation between two dear friends. In them we experience a muscular hope in justice oriented toward redemption — and calling out in a spirit of “calling in.”
dream hampton is a filmmaker and writer. She won a George Foster Peabody Award for the docu-series _Surviving R. Kelly_. She’s been named as one of Time Magazine’s most influential people. Find an archive of all her writing at dreamhampton.com.
Darnell Moore is t…
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Oct 7, 2021
Mike Rose – The Deepest Meanings of Intelligence and Vocation
“I grew up a witness,” Mike Rose wrote, “to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line. This then is something I know: the thought it takes to do physical work.” Mike Rose died in August, yet the particular way he saw the world resonates more than ever before as our debates about the future of school and work only intensify. He argued with care and eloquence that we risk too narrow a view of the way the physical, the human, and the cognitive blend in all kinds of learning and in all kinds of labor. Mike Rose’s intelligence would enlarge our civic imagination on big subjects at the heart of who we are — schooling, social class, and the deepest meaning of vocation.
Mike Rose was a research professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He authored several books, including _The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker_, _Why School?: Reclaiming Education for…
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Oct 7, 2021
[Unedited] Mike Rose with Krista Tippett
“I grew up a witness,” Mike Rose wrote, “to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line. This then is something I know: the thought it takes to do physical work.” Mike Rose died in August, yet the particular way he saw the world resonates more than ever before as our debates about the future of school and work only intensify. He argued with care and eloquence that we risk too narrow a view of the way the physical, the human, and the cognitive blend in all kinds of learning and in all kinds of labor. Mike Rose’s intelligence would enlarge our civic imagination on big subjects at the heart of who we are — schooling, social class, and the deepest meaning of vocation.
Mike Rose was a research professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He authored several books, including _The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker_, _Why School?: Reclaiming Education for…
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Sep 30, 2021
Priya Parker — Remaking Gathering: Entering the Mess, Crossing the Thresholds
Priya Parker has become the voice of what it means to gather in this world we inhabit now. She is helping remake the “how” of coming together — and more importantly, the “why.” Long before the pandemic, she points out, we had fallen into rote forms for staff meetings, birthday parties, conferences, shared meals. Virtual or physical, this time of regathering offers a threshold we can decide to cross with imagination, purpose, and joy. This is a conversation with so much to walk away from and put immediately into practice.
Priya Parker is a conflict resolution strategist and author of the acclaimed book, _The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters_. She is a founding member of the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network, a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership, and a Senior Expert at Mobius Executive Leadership. Learn more about her work, her online Gathering Makeover series, and her email newsletter at priyaparker.com.
Find…
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Sep 30, 2021
[Unedited] Priya Parker with Krista Tippett
Priya Parker has become the voice of what it means to gather in this world we inhabit now. She is helping remake the “how” of coming together — and more importantly, the “why.” Long before the pandemic, she points out, we had fallen into rote forms for staff meetings, birthday parties, conferences, shared meals. Virtual or physical, this time of regathering offers a threshold we can decide to cross with imagination, purpose, and joy. This is a conversation with so much to walk away from and put immediately into practice.
Priya Parker is a conflict resolution strategist and author of the acclaimed book, _The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters_. She is a founding member of the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network, a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership, and a Senior Expert at Mobius Executive Leadership. Learn more about her work, her online Gathering Makeover series, and her email newsletter at priyaparker.com.
This…
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Sep 23, 2021
Stephen Batchelor – Finding Ease in Aloneness
One of the great challenges of life is to learn to be alone peaceably, at home in oneself. The pandemic forced many of us inside both physically and emotionally, even if we were not home on our own. We’ve been forced to work out the difference between loneliness and solitude. With teachers across the ages, and drawing on his life from monasticism to marriage, Buddhist writer and scholar Stephen Batchelor teaches how to approach solitude as a graceful and life-giving practice.
Stephen Batchelor is a Buddhist writer and scholar who teaches seminars and leads meditation retreats worldwide. He’s a co-founder and faculty member of Bodhi [BOH-dee] College, which is focused on the study and practice of early Buddhism. His many books include _Buddhism Without Beliefs_, _The Faith to Doubt_, and most recently, _The Art of Solitude_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in April 2020.
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Sep 23, 2021
[Unedited] Stephen Batchelor with Krista Tippett
One of the great challenges of life is to learn to be alone peaceably, at home in oneself. The pandemic forced many of us inside both physically and emotionally, even if we were not home on our own. We’ve been forced to work out the difference between loneliness and solitude. With teachers across the ages, and drawing on his life from monasticism to marriage, Buddhist writer and scholar Stephen Batchelor teaches how to approach solitude as a graceful and life-giving practice.
Stephen Batchelor is a Buddhist writer and scholar who teaches seminars and leads meditation retreats worldwide. He’s a co-founder and faculty member of Bodhi [BOH-dee] College, which is focused on the study and practice of early Buddhism. His many books include _Buddhism Without Beliefs_, _The Faith to Doubt_, and most recently, _The Art of Solitude_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Stephen Batchelor — Finding Ease in Aloneness" Find the transcr…
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Sep 16, 2021
Kate Bowler and Wajahat Ali — The Future of Hope
An irreverent conversation about hope between journalist Wajahat Ali and theologian Kate Bowler. They speak to this moment we’re in through the friendship they found on the edge of life and death that is cancer — Wajahat through his young daughter; and Kate with a stage 4 diagnosis at the age of 35 that she’s chronicled in a beloved memoir, _Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved). _Their conversation is rich with practical wisdom for facing uncertainty and mortality, losses we did not foresee, and new beginnings we would not have chosen.
This is the first in a new series, The Future of Hope — a beautiful array of voices, former guests on this show, having the conversations they want to be hearing in this time.
Wajahat Ali is a columnist at The Daily Beast and his essays, interviews, and reporting have appeared in _The New York Times_, _The Atlantic_, _The Washington Post_, and _The Guardian_. He also is a Senior Fellow at the Western States Center and A…
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Sep 9, 2021
Suzanne Simard — Forests Are Wired For Wisdom
Suzanne Simard is the forest ecologist who has proven, beyond doubt, that trees communicate with each other — that a forest is a single organism wired for wisdom and care. Simard found that the processes that make for a high-functioning forest mirror the maps of the human brain that we’re also just now drawing. All of this turns out to be catching up with intelligence long held in aboriginal science. She calls the mature hub trees in a forest “Mother Trees” — parenting, eldering, in a mode of mutuality and reciprocity, modeling what we also know to be true of genuinely flourishing human ecosystems.
Suzanne Simard is Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia. You can connect with her ongoing work at mothertreeproject.org. Her book is called, _Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest._
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Sep 9, 2021
[Unedited] Suzanne Simard with Krista Tippett
Suzanne Simard is the forest ecologist who has proven, beyond doubt, that trees communicate with each other — that a forest is a single organism wired for wisdom and care. Simard found that the processes that make for a high-functioning forest mirror the maps of the human brain that we’re also just now drawing. All of this turns out to be catching up with intelligence long held in aboriginal science. She calls the mature hub trees in a forest “Mother Trees” — parenting, eldering, in a mode of mutuality and reciprocity, modeling what we also know to be true of genuinely flourishing human ecosystems.
Suzanne Simard is Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia. You can connect with her ongoing work at mothertreeproject.org. Her book is called, _Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest._
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Suzanne Simard — Forests Are Wired For Wisdom." Find…
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Sep 2, 2021
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn – Truth, Beauty, Banjo
We are digging into the archives to celebrate some of the conversations listeners have loved the most and that have shaped this project. Béla Fleck is one of the greatest living banjo players. He’s followed what many experience as this quintessential American roots instrument back to its roots in Africa, and he’s taken it where no banjo has gone before. Abigail Washburn is a celebrated banjo player and singer, both in English and Chinese. These two are partners in music and in life — recovering something ancient and deeply American all at once, bringing both beauty and refreshment to what they play and how they live.
Béla Fleck has recorded over 40 albums, most famously with The Flecktones and New Grass Revival. His albums include _Flight of the Cosmic Hippo_, _UFO Tofu_, and _Rocket Science_. He has released two full album collaborations with Abigail Washburn, _Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn_ and _Echo in the Valley_. In 2020, he released _Throw Down Your Heart: The Complet…
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Sep 2, 2021
[Unedited] Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn with Krista Tippett
We are digging into the archives to celebrate some of the conversations listeners have loved the most and that have shaped this project. Béla Fleck is one of the greatest living banjo players. He’s followed what many experience as this quintessential American roots instrument back to its roots in Africa, and he’s taken it where no banjo has gone before. Abigail Washburn is a celebrated banjo player and singer, both in English and Chinese. These two are partners in music and in life — recovering something ancient and deeply American all at once, bringing both beauty and refreshment to what they play and how they live.
Béla Fleck has recorded over 40 albums, most famously with The Flecktones and New Grass Revival. His albums include _Flight of the Cosmic Hippo_, _UFO Tofu_, and _Rocket Science_. He has released two full album collaborations with Abigail Washburn, _Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn_ and _Echo in the Valley_. In 2020, he released _Throw Down Your Heart: The Complet…
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Aug 26, 2021
Luis Alberto Urrea — Borders Are Liminal Spaces
The wonderful writer Luis Alberto Urrea says that a deep truth of our time is that “we miss each other.” He is singularly wise about the deep meaning and the problem of borders. The Mexican-American border, as he likes to say, ran straight through his parents’ Mexican-American marriage and divorce. His works of fiction and non-fiction confuse every dehumanizing caricature of Mexicans — and of U.S. border guards. The possibility of our time, as he lives and witnesses with his writing, is to evolve the old melting pot to the 21st-century richness of “us” — with all the mess and necessary humor required.
Luis Alberto Urrea is an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has published in nearly every genre, including nonfiction, memoir, short stories, historical novels, poetry, and even an award-winning mystery story, and has been called a “literary badass.” His many books include _Into the Beautiful North_, _The Devil's Highway_, _The Hummingbird's…
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Aug 26, 2021
[Unedited] Luis Alberto Urrea with Krista Tippett
The wonderful writer Luis Alberto Urrea says that a deep truth of our time is that “we miss each other.” He is singularly wise about the deep meaning and the problem of borders. The Mexican-American border, as he likes to say, ran straight through his parents’ Mexican-American marriage and divorce. His works of fiction and non-fiction confuse every dehumanizing caricature of Mexicans — and of U.S. border guards. The possibility of our time, as he lives and witnesses with his writing, is to evolve the old melting pot to the 21st-century richness of “us” — with all the mess and necessary humor required.
Luis Alberto Urrea is an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has published in nearly every genre, including nonfiction, memoir, short stories, historical novels, poetry, and even an award-winning mystery story, and has been called a “literary badass.” His many books include _Into the Beautiful North_, _The Devil's Highway_, _The Hummingbird's…
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Aug 19, 2021
Robin DiAngelo and Resmaa Menakem — Towards a Framework for Repair
Through the ruptures of the past year and more, we’ve been given so much to learn, and callings to live differently. But how to do that, and where to begin? Resmaa Menakem’s book, _My Grandmother's Hands_, and his original insights into racialized trauma in all kinds of bodies, have offered new ways forward for us all. So we said yes when Resmaa proposed that he join _On Being_ together with Robin DiAngelo. She has been a foremost white voice in our civilizational grappling with whiteness. This conversation is not comfortable, but it is electric and it opens possibility.
Resmaa Menakem (MSW, LICSW, SEP) teaches workshops on Cultural Somatics for audiences of African Americans, European Americans, and police officers. He is also a therapist in private practice, and a senior fellow at The Meadows. His _New York Times_ best-selling book is _My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies_.
Robin DiAngelo has been a consultant, educator, a…
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Aug 19, 2021
[Unedited] Robin DiAngelo and Resmaa Menakem with Krista Tippett
Through the ruptures of the past year and more, we’ve been given so much to learn, and callings to live differently. But how to do that, and where to begin? Resmaa Menakem’s book, _My Grandmother's Hands_, and his original insights into racialized trauma in all kinds of bodies, have offered new ways forward for us all. So we said yes when Resmaa proposed that he join _On Being_ together with Robin DiAngelo. She has been a foremost white voice in our civilizational grappling with whiteness. This conversation is not comfortable, but it is electric and it opens possibility.
Resmaa Menakem (MSW, LICSW, SEP) teaches workshops on Cultural Somatics for audiences of African Americans, European Americans, and police officers. He is also a therapist in private practice, and a senior fellow at The Meadows. His _New York Times_ best-selling book is _My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies_.
Robin DiAngelo has been a consultant, educator, a…
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Aug 12, 2021
Kevin Kling — The Losses We Grow Into
We are digging into the archives to celebrate some of the conversations listeners have loved the most and that have shaped this project. Kevin Kling is part funny guy, part poet and playwright, part wise man — homegrown Minnesota meets Dante and Shakespeare. He was also born with one disabled arm, and a midlife motorcycle accident paralyzed the other. Then again, being so-called able-bodied, Kevin points out, is always only a temporary condition. We take in his wisdom on the losses we’re born with and the losses we grow into — and on why we turn these things into stories.
Kevin Kling is a performer and writer with Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts. He is the author of many plays, including _21A _and _Lloyd's Prayer_ and five books, including _The Dog Says How_ and _Holiday Inn_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in March, 2012.
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Aug 5, 2021
Sharon Salzberg — The Healing Is In The Return
As we reflect back on 2020 and look ahead, how do we keep walking forward, and even find renewal along the way? How can we hold to our sense of what is whole and true and undamaged even in the face of loss? Sharon Salzberg is one of the most esteemed meditation teachers in the world. She speaks with Krista about how to care for the world while also learning kindness towards ourselves.
Sharon Salzberg — is a Buddhist teacher and author — and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. She is the author of 11 books, including _Real Happiness_, _Lovingkindness_, and most recently, _Real Change: Mindfulness To Heal Ourselves and the World._
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in October 2020.
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Aug 5, 2021
[Unedited] Sharon Salzberg with Krista Tippett
As we reflect back on 2020 and look ahead, how do we keep walking forward, and even find renewal along the way? How can we hold to our sense of what is whole and true and undamaged even in the face of loss? Sharon Salzberg is one of the most esteemed meditation teachers in the world. She speaks with Krista about how to care for the world while also learning kindness towards ourselves.
Sharon Salzberg — is a Buddhist teacher and author — and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. She is the author of 11 books, including _Real Happiness_, _Lovingkindness_, and most recently, _Real Change: Mindfulness To Heal Ourselves and the World._
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Sharon Salzberg — The Healing Is In The Return." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in October 2020.
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Jul 29, 2021
Jen Bailey — What We Inherit & What We Send Forth
“I’m entering into this next phase… with a great deal of curiosity and perhaps tenderness, wanting to hold each other tight, because I think that there are ramifications of last year that have yet to be felt.” Rev. Jen Bailey is a wise young pastor and social innovator, and a “friend of a different generation” of Krista. This conversation is a loving adventure in cross-generational mapmaking and care. Jen is a leader in a widening movement that is “healing the healers” — sustaining individuals, organizers, and communities for the long, life-giving transformations ahead.
Jen Bailey is Founder and Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network and serves on the staff of Greater Bethel AME Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Her first book, to be published in October 2021, is called, _To My Beloveds: Letters on Faith, Race, Loss and Radical Hope_.
This conversation came about in partnership with Encore.org.
Find the transcript at onbeing.org.
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Jul 29, 2021
[Unedited] Jen Bailey with Krista Tippett
“I’m entering into this next phase… with a great deal of curiosity and perhaps tenderness, wanting to hold each other tight, because I think that there are ramifications of last year that have yet to be felt.” Rev. Jen Bailey is a wise young pastor and social innovator, and a “friend of a different generation” of Krista. This conversation is a loving adventure in cross-generational mapmaking and care. Jen is a leader in a widening movement that is “healing the healers” — sustaining individuals, organizers, and communities for the long, life-giving transformations ahead.
Jen Bailey is Founder and Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network and serves on the staff of Greater Bethel AME Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Her first book, to be published in October 2021, is called, _To My Beloveds: Letters on Faith, Race, Loss and Radical Hope_.
This conversation came about in partnership with Encore.org. It is edited and produced with music and other features in the On…
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Jul 22, 2021
Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach — ‘Courage is the presence of fear, and going anyway.’
Glennon Doyle’s book _Untamed _has been a sensation of 2020 and beyond, and now she’s launched a new podcast titled with words of hers that have become a cultural force: _We Can Do Hard Things_. Meanwhile her wife, the soccer icon Abby Wambach, has her own bestselling books and is hosting a new tv show - _Abby’s Places_ on ESPN+. Krista spoke with them before they were quite so much in the public eye together, and it’s a window into the passions that brought them here. They sat together in Seattle at the 2018 summit of Women Moving Millions, a consortium of women testing the meaning and boundaries of philanthropy. And courage was the theme of the day.
Abby Wambach is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, and six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of Year Award. She’s written two books: _Wolfpack__ _and _Forward: A Memoir_, and is host of “_Abby’s Places” _on ESPN+.
Glennon Doyle is creator of the online community Momastery and founde…
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Jul 22, 2021
[Unedited] Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach with Krista Tippett
Glennon Doyle’s book _Untamed _has been a sensation of 2020 and beyond, and now she’s launched a new podcast titled with words of hers that have become a cultural force: _We Can Do Hard Things_. Meanwhile her wife, the soccer icon Abby Wambach, has her own bestselling books and is hosting a new tv show - _Abby’s Places_ on ESPN+. Krista spoke with them before they were quite so much in the public eye together, and it’s a window into the passions that brought them here. They sat together in Seattle at the 2018 summit of Women Moving Millions, a consortium of women testing the meaning and boundaries of philanthropy. And courage was the theme of the day.
Abby Wambach is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, and six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of Year Award. She’s written two books: _Wolfpack__ _and _Forward: A Memoir_, and is host of “_Abby’s Places” _on ESPN+.
Glennon Doyle is creator of the online community Momastery and founde…
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Jul 15, 2021
Brian Greene — This Tiny Slice of Eternity
If we didn’t have vast civilizational challenges upon us, we might be living in a constant state of wonder at what science in this century is learning and showing us about the cosmos and about ourselves — the new questions it’s giving us to live. We are the generation of our species to map the genome, to detect black holes colliding, to hear gravitational waves. The physicist Brian Greene is one of our greatest interpreters from the human enterprise that is science. And in his most recent thinking and writing, there’s a stunning evolution in his own approach to science and life and the matters of purpose and meaning. We delve into his exuberant, cosmic lens on living in the here and the now.
Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, where he is also the director of Columbia’s Center for Theoretical Physics. He is the co-founder and chairman of the World Science Festival. His books include _The Elegant Universe_, _The Hidden Reality_, _The…
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Jul 15, 2021
[Unedited] Brian Greene with Krista Tippett – 2021 Conversation
If we didn’t have vast civilizational challenges upon us, we might be living in a constant state of wonder at what science in this century is learning and showing us about the cosmos and about ourselves — the new questions it’s giving us to live. We are the generation of our species to map the genome, to detect black holes colliding, to hear gravitational waves. The physicist Brian Greene is one of our greatest interpreters from the human enterprise that is science. And in his most recent thinking and writing, there’s a stunning evolution in his own approach to science and life and the matters of purpose and meaning. We delve into his exuberant, cosmic lens on living in the here and the now.
Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, where he is also the director of Columbia’s Center for Theoretical Physics. He is the co-founder and chairman of the World Science Festival. His books include _The Elegant Universe_, _The Hidden Reality_, _The…
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Jul 8, 2021
Esther Perel – The Erotic Is an Antidote to Death
The psychotherapist Esther Perel has changed our discourse about sexuality and coupledom with her TED talks, her books, and her podcast,_ Where Should We Begin? _Episode after episode lays bare the theater of relationship, which is also the drama of being human. Her insights speak to the flip side of social isolation — the intense experience many have now had of togetherness. And her deep understanding of “erotic intelligence” feels so interesting as we grapple with emergent dynamics of the human condition writ large — coupled or not, and both intimate and societal.
Esther Perel has a private couples and family therapy practice in New York. She hosts two podcasts, _Where Should We Begin?_ and_ How’s Work?_ and is the creator of a new game called, _Where Should We Begin? - A Game of Stories_. She is also the author of two TED talks and two books, _Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence__ _and _The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity__._
Find the transcript fo…
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Jul 8, 2021
[Unedited] Esther Perel with Krista Tippett
The psychotherapist Esther Perel has changed our discourse about sexuality and coupledom with her TED talks, her books, and her podcast,_ Where Should We Begin? _Episode after episode lays bare the theater of relationship, which is also the drama of being human. Her insights speak to the flip side of social isolation — the intense experience many have now had of togetherness. And her deep understanding of “erotic intelligence” feels so interesting as we grapple with emergent dynamics of the human condition writ large — coupled or not, and both intimate and societal.
Esther Perel has a private couples and family therapy practice in New York. She hosts two podcasts, _Where Should We Begin?_ and_ How’s Work?_ and is the creator of a new game called, _Where Should We Begin? - A Game of Stories_. She is also the author of two TED talks and two books, _Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence__ _and _The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity__._
This interview is edit…
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Jul 1, 2021
Jason Reynolds — Imagination and Fortitude
Jason Reynolds is the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress — and a magnificent source of wisdom for human society as a whole. He’s driven by compassion and the clear-eyed honesty that the young both possess and demand of the rest of us. Ibram X. Kendi chose him to write the YA companion to _Stamped from the Beginning_. In his person, Jason Reynolds both embodies and inspires innate human powers of fortitude and imagination. Hear him on “breathlaughter”; the libraries in all of our heads; and a stunning working definition of anti-racism: “simply the muscle that says humans are human… I love you, because you remind me more of myself than not.”
Jason Reynolds was appointed National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress in January, 2020. His body of writing about what it is to be a Black young person growing up in the U.S. has been received as a godsend by teachers and librarians — including the awar…
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Jul 1, 2021
[Unedited] Jason Reynolds with Krista Tippett
Jason Reynolds is the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress — and a magnificent source of wisdom for human society as a whole. He’s driven by compassion and the clear-eyed honesty that the young both possess and demand of the rest of us. Ibram X. Kendi chose him to write the YA companion to _Stamped from the Beginning_. In his person, Jason Reynolds both embodies and inspires innate human powers of fortitude and imagination. Hear him on “breathlaughter”; the libraries in all of our heads; and a stunning working definition of anti-racism: “simply the muscle that says humans are human… I love you, because you remind me more of myself than not.”
Jason Reynolds was appointed National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress in January, 2020. His body of writing about what it is to be a Black young person growing up in the U.S. has been received as a godsend by teachers and librarians — including the awar…
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Jun 24, 2021
Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows — ‘What a world you’ve got inside you.’
A new translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s _Letters to a Young Poet_ has been released in a world in which his voice and vision feel as resonant as ever before. In ten letters to a young person in 1903, Rilke touched on the enduring dramas of creating our lives — prophetic musings about solitude and relationship, humanity and the natural world, even gender and human wholeness. And what a joy it is to delve into Rilke’s voice, freshly rendered, with the translators. Krista, Anita and Joanna have communed with Rainer Maria Rilke across time and space and their conversation is infused with friendship as much as ideas.
Joanna Macy is a philosopher of ecology and Buddhist teacher, and the root teacher of The Work That Reconnects. She’s the author of many books. Our previous _On Being_ episode with her is “A Wild Love for the World.”_ _That’s also the title of a lovely book of homage to her published in 2020.
Anita Barrows has translated three books of Rilke’s writing with J…
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Jun 24, 2021
[Unedited] Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows with Krista Tippett
A new translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s _Letters to a Young Poet_ has been released in a world in which his voice and vision feel as resonant as ever before. In ten letters to a young person in 1903, Rilke touched on the enduring dramas of creating our lives — prophetic musings about solitude and relationship, humanity and the natural world, even gender and human wholeness. And what a joy it is to delve into Rilke’s voice, freshly rendered, with the translators. Krista, Anita and Joanna have communed with Rainer Maria Rilke across time and space and their conversation is infused with friendship as much as ideas.
Joanna Macy is a philosopher of ecology and Buddhist teacher, and the root teacher of The Work That Reconnects. She’s the author of many books. Our previous _On Being_ episode with her is “A Wild Love for the World.”_ _That’s also the title of a lovely book of homage to her published in 2020.
Anita Barrows has translated three books of Rilke’s writing with J…
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Jun 17, 2021
Alex Elle — Self-Care as Generational Healing
Alex Elle complicates the idea of self-care, opening it up as community-care, as a way towards generational healing. And she’s revivifying the meaning of meeting one’s “inner child” for a new generation. Our colleague Lily Percy says she could not have survived the physical isolation of the pandemic without Alex’s writing, teaching, and Instagram presence. So Krista hands over the mic to Lily for this conversation.
Alex Elle has a beloved presence on Instagram @alex_elle. She teaches workshops on “writing to heal,” and hosts the podcast “hey, girl.” Her books include _After the Rain_: _Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love_, _Neon Soul_, and _In Courage Journal_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Jun 17, 2021
[Unedited] Alex Elle with Liliana Maria Percy Ruiz
Alex Elle complicates the idea of self-care, opening it up as community-care, as a way towards generational healing. And she’s revivifying the meaning of meeting one’s “inner child” for a new generation. Our colleague Lily Percy says she could not have survived the physical isolation of the pandemic without Alex’s writing, teaching, and Instagram presence. So Krista hands over the mic to Lily for this conversation.
Alex Elle has a beloved presence on Instagram @alex_elle. She teaches workshops on “writing to heal,” and hosts the podcast “hey, girl.” Her books include _After the Rain_: _Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love_, _Neon Soul_, and _In Courage Journal_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Alex Elle — Self-Care as Generational Healing" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
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Jun 10, 2021
Nicholas Christakis — How We’re Wired for Goodness
Elemental human capacities like friendship and love, teaching and learning, have tremendous, constant, practical force. We don’t think of these in terms of what has given our species the grit to endure through hard times and even evolve in the long run. They’re lived social intelligence, part of the everyday, and so can be hard to see as serious amidst the high tumult of our age. But these kinds of human qualities are what sociologist Nicholas Christakis studies from his Human Nature Lab at Yale and his life generously lived. He offers a wide lens, a broad perspective, that deepens and refreshes.
Nicholas Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he’s also the director of the Human Nature Lab and co-director of the Institute for Network Science. He’s the author of _Connected: How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do_ and _Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society_. In October…
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Jun 10, 2021
[Unedited] Nicholas Christakis with Krista Tippett
Elemental human capacities like friendship and love, teaching and learning, have tremendous, constant, practical force. We don’t think of these in terms of what has given our species the grit to endure through hard times and even evolve in the long run. They’re lived social intelligence, part of the everyday, and so can be hard to see as serious amidst the high tumult of our age. But these kinds of human qualities are what sociologist Nicholas Christakis studies from his Human Nature Lab at Yale and his life generously lived. He offers a wide lens, a broad perspective, that deepens and refreshes.
Nicholas Christakis — is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he’s also the director of the Human Nature Lab and co-director of the Institute for Network Science. He’s the author of _Connected: How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do_ and _Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society_. In Oct…
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Jun 3, 2021
Robert Macfarlane — The Worlds Beneath Our Feet
There’s dark matter in the cosmos, and inside us, and hidden beneath our feet. Robert Macfarlane is an explorer and linguist of landscape and his book, _Underland: A Deep Time Journey_, is an odyssey that’s full of surprises — from caves and catacombs under land, under cities, and under forests to the meltwater of Greenland. “Since before we were Homo sapiens,” he writes, “humans have been seeking out spaces of darkness in which to find and make meaning.” Darkness in the natural world and in human life, he suggests, is a medium of vision — and descent, a movement toward revelation.
Robert Macfarlane is a Fellow at the University of Cambridge. His books include _Mountains of the Mind,_ _The Old Ways_, _Landmarks_, and _Underland: A Deep Time Journey_. With the artist Jackie Morris, he co-created the book of illustrated poetry, _The Lost Words_ and a follow-up, _The Lost Spells_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired on November 1…
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Jun 3, 2021
[Unedited] Robert Macfarlane with Krista Tippett
There’s dark matter in the cosmos, and inside us, and hidden beneath our feet. Robert Macfarlane is an explorer and linguist of landscape and his book, _Underland: A Deep Time Journey_, is an odyssey that’s full of surprises — from caves and catacombs under land, under cities, and under forests to the meltwater of Greenland. “Since before we were Homo sapiens,” he writes, “humans have been seeking out spaces of darkness in which to find and make meaning.” Darkness in the natural world and in human life, he suggests, is a medium of vision — and descent, a movement toward revelation.
Robert Macfarlane — is a Fellow at the University of Cambridge. His books include _Mountains of the Mind,_ _The Old Ways_, _Landmarks_, and _Underland: A Deep Time Journey_. With the artist Jackie Morris, he co-created the book of illustrated poetry, _The Lost Words_ and a follow-up, _The Lost Spells_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being epi…
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May 27, 2021
Tracy K. Smith and Michael Kleber-Diggs — ‘History is upon us... its hand against our back.’
The pandemic memoirs began almost immediately, and now comes another kind of offering — a searching look at the meaning of the racial catharsis to which the pandemic in some sense gave birth and voice and life. Tracy K. Smith co-edited the stunning book, _There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis_, a collection of 40 pieces that span an array of BIPOC voices from Edwidge Danticat to Reginald Dwayne Betts, from Layli Long Soldier to Ross Gay to Julia Alvarez. Tracy and Michael Kleber-Diggs, who also contributed an essay, join Krista for a conversation that is quiet and fierce and wise. They reflect inward and outward, backwards and forwards, from inside the Black experience of this pivotal time to be alive.
Tracy K. Smith — is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University and the former Poet Laureate of the United States. Her poetry collections include _Life on Mars_, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, _Duende_, and _Wade in the Water_. Her memoir is _Ordi…
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May 27, 2021
[Unedited] Tracy K. Smith and Michael Kleber-Diggs with Krista Tippett
The pandemic memoirs began almost immediately, and now comes another kind of offering — a searching look at the meaning of the racial catharsis to which the pandemic in some sense gave birth and voice and life. Tracy K. Smith co-edited the stunning book, _There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis_, a collection of 40 pieces that span an array of BIPOC voices from Edwidge Danticat to Reginald Dwayne Betts, from Layli Long Soldier to Ross Gay to Julia Alvarez. Tracy and Michael Kleber-Diggs, who also contributed an essay, join Krista for a conversation that is quiet and fierce and wise. They reflect inward and outward, backwards and forwards, from inside the Black experience of this pivotal time to be alive.
Tracy K. Smith — is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University and the former Poet Laureate of the United States. Her poetry collections include _Life on Mars_, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, _Duende_, and _Wade in the Water_. Her memoir is _Ordi…
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May 20, 2021
Jill Tarter — 'It Takes a Cosmos to Make a Human'
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — or SETI — goes beyond hunting for E.T. and habitable planets. Scientists in the field are using telescopes and satellites looking for signs of outright civilizational intelligence. One of the founding pioneers in this search is astronomer Jill Tarter. She is a co-founder of the SETI Institute and was an inspiration for Jodie Foster’s character in the movie _Contact_, based on the novel by Carl Sagan. To speak with Tarter is to begin to grasp the creative majesty of SETI and what’s relevant now in the ancient question: “Are we alone in the universe?”
Jill Tarter — is the co-founder and chair emeritus for SETI Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. She currently serves on the management board for the Allen Telescope Array. She has been awarded two Exceptional Public Service medals from NASA and the Women in Aerospace Lifetime Achievement Award. In April of 2021, she was elected to the American Academy of…
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May 20, 2021
[Unedited] Jill Tarter with Krista Tippett
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — or SETI — goes beyond hunting for E.T. and habitable planets. Scientists in the field are using telescopes and satellites looking for signs of outright civilizational intelligence. One of the founding pioneers in this search is astronomer Jill Tarter. She is a co-founder of the SETI Institute and was an inspiration for Jodie Foster’s character in the movie _Contact_, based on the novel by Carl Sagan. To speak with Tarter is to begin to grasp the creative majesty of SETI and what’s relevant now in the ancient question: “Are we alone in the universe?”
Jill Tarter — is the co-founder and chair emeritus for SETI Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. She currently serves on the management board for the Allen Telescope Array. She has been awarded two Exceptional Public Service medals from NASA and the Women in Aerospace Lifetime Achievement Award. In April of 2021, she was elected to the American Academy of…
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May 13, 2021
Joy Harjo — The Whole of Time
“Though we have instructions and a map buried in our hearts when we enter this world,” the extraordinary Joy Harjo has written, “nothing quite prepares us for the abrupt shift to the breathing realm.” She is a saxophone player and performer, a visual artist, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. She opens up with Krista about her life, dreaming as a way of relating to time and place, and the story matrix that connects us all.
Joy Harjo — is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. She is the author of nine books of poetry, including _An American Sunrise_ and_ She Had Some Horses_, and a memoir, _Crazy Brave_. She has also produced several award-winning music albums, including her most recent, _I Pray for My Enemies_. Her new memoir, coming out in September 2021, is called, _Poet Warrior_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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May 13, 2021
[Extended] Joy Harjo with Krista Tippett
“Though we have instructions and a map buried in our hearts when we enter this world,” the extraordinary Joy Harjo has written, “nothing quite prepares us for the abrupt shift to the breathing realm.” She is a saxophone player and performer, a visual artist, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. She opens up with Krista about her life, dreaming as a way of relating to time and place, and the story matrix that connects us all.
Joy Harjo — is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. She is the author of nine books of poetry, including _An American Sunrise_ and_ She Had Some Horses_, and a memoir, _Crazy Brave_. She has also produced several award-winning music albums, including her most recent, _I Pray for My Enemies_. Her new memoir, coming out in September 2021, is called, _Poet Warrior_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode…
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May 6, 2021
Daniel Kahneman – Why We Contradict Ourselves and Confound Each Other
The classic economic theory embedded in western democracies holds an assumption that human beings will almost always behave rationally in the end and make logical choices that will keep our society balanced on the whole. Daniel Kahneman is the psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for showing that this is simply not true. There’s something sobering — but also helpfully grounding — in speaking with this brilliant and humane scholar who explains why none of us is an equation that computes. As surely as we breathe, we will contradict ourselves and confound each other.
Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. He’s best known for his book, _Thinking, Fast and Slow_ and is now releasing a new book, _Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment_, written with Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein. He’s the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School of Public…
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May 6, 2021
[Unedited] Daniel Kahneman with Krista Tippett
The classic economic theory embedded in western democracies holds an assumption that human beings will almost always behave rationally in the end and make logical choices that will keep our society balanced on the whole. Daniel Kahneman is the psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for showing that this is simply not true. There’s something sobering — but also helpfully grounding — in speaking with this brilliant and humane scholar who explains why none of us is an equation that computes. As surely as we breathe, we will contradict ourselves and confound each other.
Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. He’s best known for his book, _Thinking, Fast and Slow_ and is now releasing a new book, _Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment_, written with Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein. He’s the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School of Public…
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May 3, 2021
Living the Questions — We’ve been enmeshed with our technologies. Tech Shabbat for everyone?
Krista’s been in a conversation with Tiffany Shlain for several years about her practice of “Tech Shabbat.” For more than a decade, she and her family have taken a rest from screens sundown Friday to sundown Saturday; her book _24/6_ is a kind of manual to open the practice to everyone. After a year in which many of us have relied on our devices as our portals to reality — our sole connection to the people and places we love — Krista called Tiffany to talk about how this practice works. Might it be a reset and ritual we could all use?
Tiffany Shlain is the founder of the Webby Awards and a co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. She has directed and co-written more than 30 films. She is the author of _24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week__._
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
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Apr 29, 2021
Hanif Abdurraqib — Moments of Shared Witnessing
Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing is filled with lyricism, rhythm, people and precision. In his essays and poetry, he introduces readers to a soundscape of Black performance and Black joy: we hear hip-hop and jazz, we hear Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin and Little Richard. Music and performance of every kind are the source of his fascination, focus and wisdom: what makes people cry, or feel safe, or brave; held in struggle, joy, or love. Hanif is interviewed by our colleague, Pádraig Ó Tuama, a poet himself and the host of On Being Studios_’ __Poetry Unbound_ podcast, now in its third season.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in _Muzzle_, _Vinyl_, _PEN American_, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in _The FADER_, _Pitchfork_, _The New Yorker_, and _The New York Times_. His books include, _A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance_, _The Crown Ain’…
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Apr 29, 2021
[Unedited] Hanif Abdurraqib with Pádraig Ó Tuama
Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing is filled with lyricism, rhythm, people and precision. In his essays and poetry, he introduces readers to a soundscape of Black performance and Black joy: we hear hip-hop and jazz, we hear Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin and Little Richard. Music and performance of every kind are the source of his fascination, focus and wisdom: what makes people cry, or feel safe, or brave; held in struggle, joy, or love. Hanif is interviewed by our colleague, Pádraig Ó Tuama, a poet himself and the host of On Being Studios_’ __Poetry Unbound_ podcast, now in its third season.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in _Muzzle_, _Vinyl_, _PEN American_, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in _The FADER_, _Pitchfork_, _The New Yorker_, and _The New York Times_. His books include, _A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance_, _The Crown Ain’…
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Apr 22, 2021
Layli Long Soldier — The Freedom of Real Apologies
Layli Long Soldier is a writer, a mother, a citizen of the United States, and a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. She has a way of opening up this part of her life, and of American life, to inspire self-searching and tenderness. Her award-winning first book of poetry, _WHEREAS_, is a response to the U.S. government’s official apology to Native peoples in 2009, which was done so quietly, with no ceremony, that it was practically a secret. Layli Long Soldier offers entry points for us all — to events that are not merely about the past, and to the freedom real apologies might bring.
Layli Long Soldier is the author of _WHEREAS_, a winner of multiple awards including the Whiting Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award. She is the recipient of a 2015 Lannan Fellowship for Poetry and a 2015 National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired…
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Apr 22, 2021
[Unedited] Layli Long Soldier with Krista Tippett
Layli Long Soldier is a writer, a mother, a citizen of the United States, and a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. She has a way of opening up this part of her life, and of American life, to inspire self-searching and tenderness. Her award-winning first book of poetry, _WHEREAS_, is a response to the U.S. government’s official apology to Native peoples in 2009, which was done so quietly, with no ceremony, that it was practically a secret. Layli Long Soldier offers entry points for us all — to events that are not merely about the past, and to the freedom real apologies might bring.
Layli Long Soldier is the author of _WHEREAS_, a winner of multiple awards including the Whiting Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award. She is the recipient of a 2015 Lannan Fellowship for Poetry and a 2015 National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On…
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Apr 15, 2021
Resmaa Menakem — ‘Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence’
Across the past year, and now as the murder trial of Derek Chauvin unfolds with Minneapolis in fresh pain and turmoil, we return again to the grounding insights of Resmaa Menakem. He is a Minneapolis-based therapist and trauma specialist who activates the wisdom of elders, and very new science, about how all of us carry in our bodies the history and traumas behind everything we collapse into the word “race.” We offer up his intelligence on changing ourselves at a cellular level — practices towards the transformed reality most of us long to inhabit.
Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, teaches workshops on Cultural Somatics for audiences of African Americans, European Americans, and police officers. He is also a therapist in private practice, and a senior fellow at The Meadows. His _New York Times_ best-selling book is _My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originall…
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Apr 15, 2021
[Unedited] Resmaa Menakem with Krista Tippett
Across the past year, and now as the murder trial of Derek Chauvin unfolds with Minneapolis in fresh pain and turmoil, we return again to the grounding insights of Resmaa Menakem. He is a Minneapolis-based therapist and trauma specialist who activates the wisdom of elders, and very new science, about how all of us carry in our bodies the history and traumas behind everything we collapse into the word “race.” We offer up his intelligence on changing ourselves at a cellular level — practices towards the transformed reality most of us long to inhabit.
Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, teaches workshops on Cultural Somatics for audiences of African Americans, European Americans, and police officers. He is also a therapist in private practice, and a senior fellow at The Meadows. His _New York Times_ best-selling book is _My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in…
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Apr 8, 2021
Bryan Doerries — "You are not alone across time."
“Remember,” Bryan Doerries likes to say in both physical and virtual gatherings, “you are not alone in this room — and you are not alone across time.” With his public health project, Theater of War, he is activating an old alchemy for our young century. Ancient stories, and texts that have stood the test of time, can be portals to honest and dignified grappling with present wounds and longings and callings that we aren’t able to muster in our official places now. It’s an embodiment of the good Greek word _catharsis _— releasing both insight and emotions that have had no place to go, and creating an energizing relief. And it is now unfolding in the “amphitheater” of Zoom that Sophocles could not have imagined.
Bryan Doerries — is co-founder, principal translator, and artistic director of Theater of War Productions. In 2021, Theater of War is launching a new form of global amphitheater in conjunction with the first ever Nobel Prize Summit on the civilizational issu…
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Apr 8, 2021
[Unedited] Bryan Doerries with Krista Tippett
“Remember,” Bryan Doerries likes to say in both physical and virtual gatherings, “you are not alone in this room — and you are not alone across time.” With his public health project, Theater of War, he is activating an old alchemy for our young century. Ancient stories, and texts that have stood the test of time, can be portals to honest and dignified grappling with present wounds and longings and callings that we aren’t able to muster in our official places now. It’s an embodiment of the good Greek word _catharsis _— releasing both insight and emotions that have had no place to go, and creating an energizing relief. And it is now unfolding in the “amphitheater” of Zoom that Sophocles could not have imagined.
Bryan Doerries — is co-founder, principal translator, and artistic director of Theater of War Productions. In 2021, Theater of War is launching a new form of global amphitheater in conjunction with the first ever Nobel Prize Summit on the civilizational issu…
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Apr 1, 2021
Serene Jones — Grace in a Fractured World
The glory that coexists in human life right alongside our weird propensity to choose what is not good for us; the difference between a place of sheer loss and a sacred space for mourning; grace as something muscular amidst the muck and mess of reality. These are some of the places of musing, sweeping perspective, and raw wisdom a conversation with Serene Jones takes us. And after hearing this, you’ll never think in the same way again about Woody Guthrie, or John Calvin, or what a Christian upbringing in Oklahoma might be.
Serene Jones serves as the 16th president — and the first female president — of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She is a minister ordained in the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ. Her books include _Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World_, _Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace_, and most recently, _Call It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing…
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Apr 1, 2021
[Unedited] Serene Jones with Krista Tippett
The glory that coexists in human life right alongside our weird propensity to choose what is not good for us; the difference between a place of sheer loss and a sacred space for mourning; grace as something muscular amidst the muck and mess of reality. These are some of the places of musing, sweeping perspective, and raw wisdom a conversation with Serene Jones takes us. And after hearing this, you’ll never think in the same way again about Woody Guthrie, or John Calvin, or what a Christian upbringing in Oklahoma might be.
Serene Jones serves as the 16th president — and the first female president — of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She is a minister ordained in the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ. Her books include _Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World_, _Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace_, and most recently, _Call It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World_.
This interview is edited and produced with m…
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Mar 25, 2021
Michael Longley — The Vitality of Ordinary Things
To reassert the liveliness of ordinary things, precisely in the face of what is hardest and most broken in life and society — this has been Michael Longley’s gift as one of Northern Ireland’s foremost living poets. He is known, in part, as a poet of “the Troubles” — the violent 30-year conflict between Protestants and Catholics, English and Irish. And he is a gentle voice for all of us now, wise and winsome about the everyday, never-finished work of social healing.
Michael Longley has written more than 20 books of poetry including _Collected Poems_, _Gorse Fires_, _The Stairwell_ and his most recent collection, _The Candlelight Master_. He was the professor of poetry for Ireland from 2007 to 2010 and is a winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. He was also the international winner of the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize — and that same year was honored with the Freedom of the City of Belfast.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show origin…
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Mar 25, 2021
[Unedited] Michael Longley with Krista Tippett
To reassert the liveliness of ordinary things, precisely in the face of what is hardest and most broken in life and society — this has been Michael Longley’s gift as one of Northern Ireland’s foremost living poets. He is known, in part, as a poet of “the Troubles” — the violent 30-year conflict between Protestants and Catholics, English and Irish. And he is a gentle voice for all of us now, wise and winsome about the everyday, never-finished work of social healing.
Michael Longley has written more than 20 books of poetry including _Collected Poems_, _Gorse Fires_, _The Stairwell_ and his most recent collection, _The Candlelight Master_. He was the professor of poetry for Ireland from 2007 to 2010 and is a winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. He was also the international winner of the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize — and that same year was honored with the Freedom of the City of Belfast.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features…
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Mar 18, 2021
Christine Runyan — What’s Happening in Our Nervous Systems?
The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is tenuously appearing - yet many of us feel as exhausted as at any time in the past year. Memory problems; short fuses; fractured productivity; sudden drops into despair. We’re at once excited and unnerved by the prospect of life opening up again. Clinical psychologist Christine Runyan explains the physiological effects of a year of pandemic and social isolation - what’s happened at the level of stress response and nervous system, the literal mind-body connection. And she offers simple strategies to regain our fullest capacities for the world ahead.
Christine Runyan is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is a certified mindfulness teacher. She co-founded and co-leads Tend Health, a clinical consulting practice focused on the mental well-being of health care practitioners.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
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Mar 18, 2021
[Unedited] Christine Runyan with Krista Tippett
The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is tenuously appearing - yet many of us feel as exhausted as at any time in the past year. Memory problems; short fuses; fractured productivity; sudden drops into despair. We’re at once excited and unnerved by the prospect of life opening up again. Clinical psychologist Christine Runyan explains the physiological effects of a year of pandemic and social isolation - what’s happened at the level of stress response and nervous system, the literal mind-body connection. And she offers simple strategies to regain our fullest capacities for the world ahead.
Christine Runyan is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is a certified mindfulness teacher. She co-founded and co-leads Tend Health, a clinical consulting practice focused on the mental well-being of health care practitioners.
This interview is edited and produced with music and o…
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Mar 4, 2021
Naomi Shihab Nye — “Before You Know Kindness As the Deepest Thing Inside...”
It’s pretty intriguing to follow poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s idea that most of us actually “think in poems” whether we know it or not. Rarely, as she points out, do you hear anyone say they feel worse after writing things down. That, she says, can be a tool to survive in hard times like these, to anchor our days - and to get into a conversation and community with all of the selves that live on in each of us at any given moment - “your child self, your older self, your confused self, your self-that-makes-a-lot-of-mistakes.” We also hear her read her beloved poem “Kindness” and tell us the story behind it.
Naomi Shihab Nye is the Young People's Poet Laureate through the Poetry Foundation and a professor of creative writing at Texas State University. Her recent books include _The Tiny Journalist__, __Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners,__ __Cast Away__, _and _Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems__. _She received the 2019 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award fr…
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Mar 4, 2021
[Unedited] Naomi Shihab Nye with Krista Tippett
It’s pretty intriguing to follow poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s idea that most of us actually “think in poems” whether we know it or not. Rarely, as she points out, do you hear anyone say they feel worse after writing things down. That, she says, can be a tool to survive in hard times like these, to anchor our days - and to get into a conversation and community with all of the selves that live on in each of us at any given moment - “your child self, your older self, your confused self, your self-that-makes-a-lot-of-mistakes.” We also hear her read her beloved poem “Kindness” and tell us the story behind it.
Naomi Shihab Nye is the Young People's Poet Laureate through the Poetry Foundation and a professor of creative writing at Texas State University. Her recent books include _The Tiny Journalist__, __Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners,__ __Cast Away__, _and _Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems__. _She received the 2019 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award fr…
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Feb 25, 2021
The Question “Who Am I,” and Movies We Love
So many of us have been getting through this year by watching movies at home by ourselves, or with friends on Zoom, inventing new ways to grieve and to hope, to keep ourselves laughing, all through the simple act of watching stories unfold on our screens. Movies have the power to unearth the many layers of our identities; to help us answer the question: Who am I? And that is what we trace, by way of a few beloved movies including _The Color Purple_, _The Fly_, and _Blockers_, in this episode.
Danez Smith — is a Black, queer, HIV-positive writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. They are the author of _Homie_ and _Don’t Call Us Dead_, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Tony Banout — is the Senior Vice President of Interfaith Youth Core. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, where he studied at the Divinity School and was a Martin Marty Center and Provost fellow.
Shea Serrano — is an author, journalist, and former teacher whose work has been featu…
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Feb 18, 2021
Ariel Burger — Be a Blessing
There is a question rolling around even in the most secular of corners: What do religious people and traditions have to teach as we do the work ahead of repairing, renewing, and remaking our societies, our life together? Krista’s conversation this week with Rabbi Ariel Burger, a student of the late, extraordinary Elie Wiesel, delves into theological and mystical depths that are so much richer and more creative than is often imagined even when that question is raised.
Rabbi Ariel Burger is the author of _Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom,_ and he’s the co-founder and senior scholar of The Witness Institute.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
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Feb 18, 2021
[Extended] Ariel Burger with Krista Tippett
There is a question rolling around even in the most secular of corners: What do religious people and traditions have to teach as we do the work ahead of repairing, renewing, and remaking our societies, our life together? Krista’s conversation this week with Rabbi Ariel Burger, a student of the late, extraordinary Elie Wiesel, delves into theological and mystical depths that are so much richer and more creative than is often imagined even when that question is raised.
Rabbi Ariel Burger is the author of _Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom,_ and he’s the co-founder and senior scholar of The Witness Institute.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Ariel Burger — Be a Blessing." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
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Feb 11, 2021
Alain de Botton — The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships
As people, and as a culture, Alain de Botton says, we would be much saner and happier if we reexamined our very view of love. His _New York Times_ essay, “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person,” is one of their most-read articles in recent years, and this is one of the most popular episodes we’ve ever created. We offer up the anchoring truths he shares amidst a pandemic that has stretched all of our sanity — and tested the mettle of love in every relationship.
Alain de Botton is the founder and chairman of The School of Life. His books include _Religion for Atheists_ and _How Proust Can Change Your Life_. He’s also published many books as part of The School of Life’s offerings, including a chapbook created from his essay _Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person__._
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
This show originally aired on February 9, 2017.
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Feb 11, 2021
[Unedited] Alain de Botton with Krista Tippett
As people, and as a culture, Alain de Botton says, we would be much saner and happier if we reexamined our very view of love. His _New York Times_ essay, “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person,” is one of their most-read articles in recent years, and this is one of the most popular episodes we’ve ever created. We offer up the anchoring truths he shares amidst a pandemic that has stretched all of our sanity — and tested the mettle of love in every relationship.
Alain de Botton is the founder and chairman of The School of Life. His books include _Religion for Atheists_ and _How Proust Can Change Your Life_. He’s also published many books as part of The School of Life’s offerings, including a chapbook created from his essay _Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person__._
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Alain de Botton — The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
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Feb 5, 2021
Living the Questions — What's our communal equivalent of rubbing each other's feet?
A companion conversation to Parker Palmer’s reflections in this week’s _On Being_, about the soul in depression. Krista catches up with her friend and teacher in 2021. Plus, Parker learns to use QuickTime.
Parker J. Palmer is a teacher, author, and founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. His many books include Healing the Heart of Democracy, Let Your Life Speak, and On the Brink of Everything. He’s also a contributor to the book, Anchored in the Current: Discovering Howard Thurman as Educator, Activist, Guide, and Prophet.
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Feb 4, 2021
The Soul in Depression
We’re increasingly attentive to the many faces of depression and anxiety, and we’re fluent in the languages of psychology and medication. But depression is profound spiritual territory; and that is much harder to speak about. This is an _On Being_ classic. Krista opens up about her own experience of depression and talks with Parker Palmer, Anita Barrows, and Andrew Solomon. We are putting this out on the air again because people tell us it has saved lives, and so many of us are struggling in whole new ways right now.
Andrew Solomon is a journalist and writer of epic books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist _The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression_, and _Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity_.
Anita Barrows is a psychologist, poet and translator. Her most recent poetry collection is _We are the Hunger_. She has translated several volumes of the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke together with Joanna Macy, including _Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems t…
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Feb 4, 2021
[Unedited] Parker Palmer with Krista Tippett
This is the unedited conversation Krista had with Parker Palmer in 2002, which is excerpted within our produced episode “The Soul in Depression.” That episode also includes the voices of Andrew Solomon and Anita Barrows. Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Parker J. Palmer is a teacher, author, and founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. His many books include Healing the Heart of Democracy, Let Your Life Speak, and On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old.
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Feb 4, 2021
[Unedited] Anita Barrows with Krista Tippett
This is the unedited conversation Krista had with Anita Barrows in 2002, which is excerpted within our produced episode “The Soul in Depression.” That episode also includes the voices of Andrew Solomon and Parker Palmer. Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Anita Barrows is a psychologist, poet and translator. Her most recent poetry collection is We are the Hunger. She has translated several volumes of the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke together with Joanna Macy, including Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God.
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Feb 4, 2021
[Unedited] Andrew Solomon with Krista Tippett
This is the unedited conversation Krista had with Andrew Solomon in 2002, which is excerpted within our produced episode “The Soul in Depression.” That episode also includes the voices of Anita Barrows and Parker Palmer. Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Andrew Solomon is a journalist and writer of epic books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, and Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity.
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Feb 1, 2021
J. Drew Lanham reads his poem “Love for a Song”
Ornithologist J. Drew Lanham reads his poem, “Love for a Song.” Krista’s conversation with him is our episode, ‘I Worship Every Bird that I See.’
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Feb 1, 2021
J. Drew Lanham reads from his book.
This is an excerpt from a chapter called “New Religion” in 'The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature.'
There's also a video designed around this reading on our YouTube channel. Krista's conversation with J. Drew is our episode ‘I Worship Every Bird that I See.’
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Jan 25, 2021
Katherine May Reads from 'Wintering'
This passage of Katherine May's book, read by her in our latest show, is so lovely that we decided to offer it up as its own meditation. There's also a beautiful video designed around it on our YouTube channel. And hear Krista's whole conversation with Katherine - and more reading - in the full episode How 'Wintering' Replenishes.
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Jan 18, 2021
Living the Questions: A Civil Rights Elder on Exhaustion and Rest, Spiritual Practice, and the Necessity of Loving Community
Our colleague Lucas Johnson catches up with one of his mentors, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons. Now a member of the National Council of Elders, she was a teenager when she joined the Mississippi Freedom Summer. She shares what she has learned about exhaustion and self-care, spiritual practice and community, while engaging in civil rights organizing and deep social healing. Dr. Simmons was raised Christian and later converted to the Sufi tradition of Islam.
Lucas Johnson leads The On Being Project's work in social healing as Executive Director of Civil Conversations and Social Healing. He is a community organizer, writer, and a minister in the American Baptist Churches. Read his full bio here.
Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida and a member of the National Council of Elders. Her account of her work as an activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is featured in the book, _Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accoun…
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Jan 14, 2021
Nikki Giovanni — 'We Go Forward With a Sanity and a Love'
It feels good and right this week to sit with the beloved writer Nikki Giovanni’s signature mix of high seriousness, sweeping perspective, and insistent pleasure. In the 1960s, she was a poet of the Black Arts Movement that nourished civil rights. She’s also a professor at Virginia Tech, where she brought beauty and courage after the 2007 shooting there. And she’s an adored voice to a new generation — an enthusiastic elder to us all — at home in her body and in the world of her lifetime even while she sees and delights in the beyond of it.
Nikki Giovanni is a University Distinguished Professor in the English department at Virginia Tech. She has written and edited numerous books of poetry and works for children, including _Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea_, _Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgment_, and _The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni_. Her latest work is _Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose__._
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired on Mar…
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Jan 14, 2021
[Unedited] Nicki Giovanni with Krista Tippett
It feels good and right this week to sit with the beloved writer Nikki Giovanni’s signature mix of high seriousness, sweeping perspective, and insistent pleasure. In the 1960s, she was a poet of the Black Arts Movement that nourished civil rights. She’s also a professor at Virginia Tech, where she brought beauty and courage after the 2007 shooting there. And she’s an adored voice to a new generation — an enthusiastic elder to us all — at home in her body and in the world of her lifetime even while she sees and delights in the beyond of it.
Nikki Giovanni is a University Distinguished Professor in the English department at Virginia Tech. She has written and edited numerous books of poetry and works for children, including _Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea_, _Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgment_, and _The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni_. Her latest work is _Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose__._
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being…
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Jan 7, 2021
Frank Wilczek — Beauty as a Compass for Truth
“Having tasted beauty at the heart of the world, we hunger for more.” These are words from Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek in his book, _A Beautiful Question_. It’s a winsome, joyful meditation on the question: Do cosmic realities embody beautiful ideas? — probing the world, by way of science, as a work of art. He reminds us that time and space, mystery and order, are so much stranger and more generous than we can comprehend. He’s now written a wonderful new book, _Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality._
Frank Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2004, he received the Nobel Prize in physics. His books include _A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design_ and _The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces_. His new book is _Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired June 14, 2018.
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Jan 7, 2021
[Unedited] Frank Wilczek with Krista Tippett
“Having tasted beauty at the heart of the world, we hunger for more.” These are words from Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek in his book, _A Beautiful Question_. It’s a winsome, joyful meditation on the question: Do cosmic realities embody beautiful ideas? — probing the world, by way of science, as a work of art. He reminds us that time and space, mystery and order, are so much stranger and more generous than we can comprehend. He’s now written a wonderful new book, _Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality._
Frank Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2004, he received the Nobel Prize in physics. His books include _A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design_ and _The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces_. His new book is _Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Frank Wilczek — Beauty as a Compass…
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Dec 31, 2020
Mary Catherine Bateson — Living as an Improvisational Art
Underpinning all the great challenges of our time there is the human drama, the human condition. And as we move beyond 2020, we turn to Mary Catherine Bateson to help us understand the puzzle of being ourselves, of rising to our best capacities and gifts, in all of our complexity and strangeness. She is the daughter of the great anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and she is a linguist and anthropologist herself.
Mary Catherine Bateson - is Professor Emerita at George Mason University. Her books include a memoir of her life with her parents Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson called _With a Daughter's Eye_, as well as her bestselling book _Composing a Life_. Most recently, she is the co-author of _Thinking Race: Social Myths and Biological Realities_, published nearly 50 years after her mother’s _A Rap on Race_ with James Baldwin.
This show originally aired in October, 2015.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
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Dec 31, 2020
[Unedited] Mary Catherine Bateson with Krista Tippett
Underpinning all the great challenges of our time there is the human drama, the human condition. And as we move beyond 2020, we turn to Mary Catherine Bateson to help us understand the puzzle of being ourselves, of rising to our best capacities and gifts, in all of our complexity and strangeness. She is the daughter of the great anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and she is a linguist and anthropologist herself.
Mary Catherine Bateson - is Professor Emerita at George Mason University. Her books include a memoir of her life with her parents Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson called _With a Daughter's Eye_, as well as her bestselling book _Composing a Life_. Most recently, she is the co-author of _Thinking Race: Social Myths and Biological Realities_, published nearly 50 years after her mother’s _A Rap on Race_ with James Baldwin.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Mary Catherine Bateson —Living as an Improvis…
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Dec 23, 2020
Gaelynn Lea’s Voice and Violin
Gaelynn Lea’s voice and violin land like a balm — an offering of both clarity and gladness that can still be mustered in this midwinter, this upended Christmas season. She first came to the attention of many when she won NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2016. This fiddler and singer-songwriter moves through the world in an electric wheelchair, and plays the violin like a cello because of the disability she was born with — a genetic condition that has made her bones more breakable. So much of what she’s learned through life in her body lands as wisdom, right now.
Gaelynn Lea -- is a violinist and singer-songwriter from Duluth, Minnesota. Her albums include _All the Roads that Lead Us Home_, _Learning How to Stay_, and most recently, _The Living Room Sessions: Gaelynn Lea LIVE_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Dec 23, 2020
[Unedited] Gaelynn Lea with Krista Tippett
Gaelynn Lea’s voice and violin land like a balm — an offering of both clarity and gladness that can still be mustered in this midwinter, this upended Christmas season. She first came to the attention of many when she won NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2016. This fiddler and singer-songwriter moves through the world in an electric wheelchair, and plays the violin like a cello because of the disability she was born with — a genetic condition that has made her bones more breakable. So much of what she’s learned through life in her body lands as wisdom, right now.
Gaelynn Lea -- is a violinist and singer-songwriter from Duluth, Minnesota. Her albums include _All the Roads that Lead Us Home_, _Learning How to Stay_, and most recently, _The Living Room Sessions: Gaelynn Lea LIVE_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Gaelynn Lea’s Voice and Violin.” Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
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Dec 17, 2020
Jennifer Michael Hecht — 'We Believe Each Other Into Being'
“We are indebted to one another and the debt is a kind of faith — a beautiful, difficult, strange faith. We believe each other into being.” That’s the message the philosopher, poet, and historian, Jennifer Michael Hecht, puts at the center of her unusual writing about suicide. She’s traced how Western civilization has, at times, demonized those who died by suicide, and, at times, celebrated it as a moral freedom. She has struggled with suicidal places in her life and lost friends to it. She proposes a new cultural understanding based on our essential need for each other.
Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of _Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It_, _Doubt: A History_, and _Who Said_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired on March 26, 2014.
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Dec 17, 2020
[Unedited] Jennifer Michael Hecht with Krista Tippett
“We are indebted to one another and the debt is a kind of faith — a beautiful, difficult, strange faith. We believe each other into being.” That’s the message the philosopher, poet, and historian, Jennifer Michael Hecht, puts at the center of her unusual writing about suicide. She’s traced how Western civilization has, at times, demonized those who died by suicide, and, at times, celebrated it as a moral freedom. She has struggled with suicidal places in her life and lost friends to it. She proposes a new cultural understanding based on our essential need for each other.
Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of _Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It_, _Doubt: A History_, and _Who Said_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jennifer Michael Hecht — ‘We Believe Each Other Into Being’" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
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Dec 10, 2020
Bishop Michael Curry & Dr. Russell Moore — Spiritual Bridge People
We’re in a tender spiritual moment, widely feeling our need for re-grounding both alone and together. By way of the Almighty force of Zoom, Krista engages a forward-looking conversation with two religious thinkers and spiritual leaders from very different places on the U.S. Christian and cultural spectrum: Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry and Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention. Through their friendship as much as their words, they model what they preach. The Washington National Cathedral and the National Institute for Civil Discourse brought us all together.
The Most Rev. Michael Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the author of _Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times_. He gained a global following after his sermon at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Dr. Russell Moore is President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the moral and public policy agency of the…
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Dec 10, 2020
[Unedited] Bishop Michael Curry & Dr. Russell Moore with Krista Tippett
We’re in a tender spiritual moment, widely feeling our need for re-grounding both alone and together. By way of the Almighty force of Zoom, Krista engages a forward-looking conversation with two religious thinkers and spiritual leaders from very different places on the U.S. Christian and cultural spectrum: Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry and Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention. Through their friendship as much as their words, they model what they preach. The Washington National Cathedral and the National Institute for Civil Discourse brought us all together.
The Most Rev. Michael Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the author of _Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times_. He gained a global following after his sermon at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Dr. Russell Moore is President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the moral and public policy agency of the…
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Nov 25, 2020
Agustín Fuentes — This Species Moment
We’ve realized in 2020 that the way we’ve organized culture — from the economy to race to work — could be done radically differently. We’ve been modeling our life together on “survival of the fittest” long after science itself moved on from that. And we’re learning to see that in every sphere of life we inhabit ecosystems. Agustín Fuentes brings spacious insight into all of this as a biological and evolutionary anthropologist, exploring how humans behave, function, and change together. In this conversation, he is full of refreshingly creative and practical fodder for the necessary reinvention ahead.
Agustín Fuentes is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. He’s authored or edited more than 20 books, most recently _Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Nov 25, 2020
[Unedited] Agustín Fuentes with Krista Tippett
We’ve realized in 2020 that the way we’ve organized culture — from the economy to race to work — could be done radically differently. We’ve been modeling our life together on “survival of the fittest” long after science itself moved on from that. And we’re learning to see that in every sphere of life we inhabit ecosystems. Agustín Fuentes brings spacious insight into all of this as a biological and evolutionary anthropologist, exploring how humans behave, function, and change together. In this conversation, he is full of refreshingly creative and practical fodder for the necessary reinvention ahead.
Agustín Fuentes is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. He’s authored or edited more than 20 books, most recently _Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Agustín Fuentes — This Species Moment" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org…
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Nov 19, 2020
Richard Blanco — How to Love a Country
The Cuban American civil engineer turned writer, Richard Blanco, straddles the many ways a sense of place merges with human emotion to make home and belonging — personal and communal. The most recent — and very resonant — question he’s asked by way of poetry is: how to love a country? At Chautauqua, Krista invited him to speak and read from his books. Blanco’s wit, thoughtfulness, and elegance captivated the crowd.
Richard Blanco – practiced civil engineering for more than 20 years. He is now an associate professor of creative writing at his alma mater, Florida International University. His books of non-fiction and poetry include Looking for the Gulf Motel and, most recently, How to Love a Country.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in November, 2019.
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Nov 19, 2020
[Unedited] Richard Blanco with Krista Tippett
The Cuban American civil engineer turned writer, Richard Blanco, straddles the many ways a sense of place merges with human emotion to make home and belonging — personal and communal. The most recent — and very resonant — question he’s asked by way of poetry is: how to love a country? At Chautauqua, Krista invited him to speak and read from his books. Blanco’s wit, thoughtfulness, and elegance captivated the crowd.
Richard Blanco – practiced civil engineering for more than 20 years. He is now an associate professor of creative writing at his alma mater, Florida International University. His books of non-fiction and poetry include Looking for the Gulf Motel and, most recently, How to Love a Country.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Richard Blanco — How to Love a Country." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in November, 2019.
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Nov 12, 2020
Remembering Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
Rabbi Sacks was one of the world’s deepest thinkers on religion and the challenges of modern life. He died last week after a short battle with cancer. When Krista spoke with him in 2010, he modeled a life-giving, imagination-opening faithfulness to what some might see as contradictory callings: How to be true to one’s own convictions while also honoring the sacred and civilizational calling to shared life — indeed, to love the stranger?
Jonathan Sacks was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years. He taught and spoke all over the world, with appointments at King’s College London and at New York University and Yeshiva University in the U.S. His many books include _The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations_, _The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning_, and most recently, _Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times_.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show ori…
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Nov 12, 2020
[Unedited] Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks with Krista Tippett
Rabbi Sacks was one of the world’s deepest thinkers on religion and the challenges of modern life. He died last week after a short battle with cancer. When Krista spoke with him in 2010, he modeled a life-giving, imagination-opening faithfulness to what some might see as contradictory callings: How to be true to one’s own convictions while also honoring the sacred and civilizational calling to shared life — indeed, to love the stranger?
Jonathan Sacks was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years. He taught and spoke all over the world, with appointments at King’s College London and at New York University and Yeshiva University in the U.S. His many books include _The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations_, _The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning_, and most recently, _Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times_.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other featu…
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Nov 5, 2020
Karen Murphy — The Long View, II: On Who We Can Become
We are called to consider who we want to be as a people and what kind of world we will build with and for our children. Karen Murphy has been gathering wisdom for this juncture, as she’s worked around the world with teachers and educators in societies moving toward repair after histories of violence. We learn from her about how to prepare ourselves in the U.S. for the civic healing that we are called to ahead.
Karen Murphy creates curricula, trains teachers, and leads global gatherings for Facing History and Ourselves, an organization that partners with over 100,000 teachers and their classrooms around the world. A hallmark of this work is trusting the moral and civic intelligence of middle and high school students. Karen has worked from Rwanda to Colombia, from South Africa to Northern Ireland, and she grew up in Illinois.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
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Nov 5, 2020
[Unedited] Karen Murphy with Krista Tippett
We are called to consider who we want to be as a people and what kind of world we will build with and for our children. Karen Murphy has been gathering wisdom for this juncture, as she’s worked around the world with teachers and educational systems in societies moving toward repair after histories of violence. We learn from her about how to prepare ourselves in the U.S. for the civic healing that we are called to ahead.
Karen Murphy creates curricula, trains teachers, and leads global gatherings for Facing History and Ourselves, an organization that partners with over 100,000 teachers and their classrooms around the world. A hallmark of this work is trusting the moral and civic intelligence of middle and high school students. Karen has worked from Rwanda to Colombia, from South Africa to Northern Ireland, and she grew up in Illinois.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Karen Murphy — The Long View, II: On Who We Can Become.…
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Oct 30, 2020
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver reads her poem, “Wild Geese.” This poem is included in our “Taking the Long View” playlist on Spotify, which we created to get grounded in reflection that will be with us the day after the U.S. election and far beyond, whoever wins. Find more of Mary’s poems on our website, where we’ve recently launched an entirely new way to Experience Poetry.
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Oct 30, 2020
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe by Elizabeth Alexander
Elizabeth Alexander reads her poem, “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe.” This poem is included in our “Taking the Long View” playlist on Spotify, which we created to get grounded in reflection that will be with us the day after the U.S. election and far beyond, whoever wins. Find more of Elizabeth’s poems on our website, where we’ve recently launched an entirely new way to Experience Poetry.
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Oct 30, 2020
The Facts of Life by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Pádraig Ó Tuama reads his poem, “The Facts of Life.” This poem is included in our “Taking the Long View” playlist on Spotify, which we created to get grounded in reflection that will be with us the day after the U.S. election and far beyond, whoever wins. Find more of Pádraig’s poems on our website, where we’ve recently launched an entirely new way to Experience Poetry.
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Oct 30, 2020
This is what was bequeathed us by Gregory Orr
Gregory Orr reads his poem, “This is what was bequeathed us.” This poem is included in our “Taking the Long View” playlist on Spotify, which we created to get grounded in reflection that will be with us the day after the U.S. election and far beyond, whoever wins. Find more of Gregory’s poems on our website, where we’ve recently launched an entirely new way to Experience Poetry.
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Oct 30, 2020
America the Beautiful Again by Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco reads his poem, “America the Beautiful Again.” This poem is included in our “Taking the Long View” playlist on Spotify, which we created to get grounded in reflection that will be with us the day after the U.S. election and far beyond, whoever wins. Find more of Richard’s poems on our website, where we’ve recently launched an entirely new way to Experience Poetry.
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Oct 29, 2020
John Biewen — The Long View, I: On Being White
The U.S. election will be over soon but this year has surfaced deep human challenges that remain our callings — and possibilities for growth — for the foreseeable future. So this week and next, we’re taking the long view — first with journalist John Biewen, on the stories of our families and hometowns, what it means to be human, and what it means to be white. This conversation between Krista and John starts simply — tracing the racial story of our time through the story of a single life. It’s an exercise each of us can do. And it is a step toward a more whole and humane world, starting with ourselves.
John Biewen is audio program director at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies and host of the audio documentary podcast, _Scene on Radio_. In that series, John has explored whiteness, masculinity, and democracy. During a 30-year career, he has told stories from 40 American states and from Europe, Japan, and India.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.or…
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Oct 29, 2020
[Unedited] John Biewen with Krista Tippett
The U.S. election will be over soon but this year has surfaced deep human challenges that remain our callings — and possibilities for growth — for the foreseeable future. So this week and next, we’re taking the long view — first with journalist John Biewen, on the stories of our families and hometowns, what it means to be human, and what it means to be white. This conversation between Krista and John starts simply — tracing the racial story of our time through the story of a single life. It’s an exercise each of us can do. And it is a step toward a more whole and humane world, starting with ourselves.
John Biewen is audio program director at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies and host of the audio documentary podcast, _Scene on Radio_. In that series, John has explored whiteness, masculinity, and democracy. During a 30-year career, he has told stories from 40 American states and from Europe, Japan, and India.
This interview is edited and produced with musi…
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Oct 15, 2020
Rev. Otis Moss III — The Sound of the Genuine: Traversing 2020 with 'the Mystic of the Movement' Howard Thurman
An hour to sit with, and be filled. Two voices — one from the last century, one from ours — who inspire inward contemplation as an essential part of meeting the challenges in the world. Howard Thurman’s book _Jesus and the Disinherited_, it was said, was carried by Martin Luther King Jr._ _alongside the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. Thurman is remembered as a philosopher and theologian, a moral anchor, a contemplative, a prophet, and pastor to the civil rights leaders. Rev. Otis Moss III, himself the son of one of those leaders, is a bridge to Thurman’s resonance in the present day, and between the Black freedom movements then and now.
Rev. Otis Moss III is senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He was born in 1970 and grew up with legendary civil rights figures in and out of his family home, from Fannie Lou Hamer to Andrew Young, and his parents were married by Martin Luther King Jr. His father, Otis Moss Jr., was an influential pastor and civil right…
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Oct 15, 2020
[Unedited] Rev. Otis Moss III with Krista Tippett
An hour to sit with, and be filled. Two voices — one from the last century, one from ours — who inspire inward contemplation as an essential part of meeting the challenges in the world. Howard Thurman’s book _Jesus and the Disinherited_, it was said, was carried by Martin Luther King Jr._ _alongside the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. Thurman is remembered as a philosopher and theologian, a moral anchor, a contemplative, a prophet, and pastor to the civil rights leaders. Rev. Otis Moss III, himself the son of one of those leaders, is a bridge to Thurman’s resonance in the present day, and between the Black freedom movements then and now.
Rev. Otis Moss III is senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He was born in 1970 and grew up with legendary civil rights figures in and out of his family home, from Fannie Lou Hamer to Andrew Young, and his parents were married by Martin Luther King Jr. His father, Otis Moss Jr., was an influential pastor and civil right…
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Oct 8, 2020
Arlie Hochschild – The Deep Stories of Our Time
After Arlie Hochschild published her book _Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right_, just before the 2016 election, it came to feel prescient. And the conversation Krista had with her in 2018 has now come to point straight to the heart of 2020 — a year in which many of us might say we feel like strangers in our own land and in our own world. Hochschild created a field within sociology looking at the social impact of emotion. She explains how our stories and truths — what we try to debate as issues in our social and political lives — are _felt_, not merely factual. And she shares why, as a matter of pragmatism, we have to take emotion seriously and do what feels unnatural: get curious and caring about the other side.
Arlie Hochschild is professor emerita in the sociology department at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of ten books including _The Managed Heart_, _The Second Shift_, and _Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mo…
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Oct 8, 2020
[Unedited] Arlie Hochschild with Krista Tippett
After Arlie Hochschild published her book _Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right_, just before the 2016 election, it came to feel prescient. And the conversation Krista had with her in 2018 has now come to point straight to the heart of 2020 — a year in which many of us might say we feel like strangers in our own land and in our own world. Hochschild created a field within sociology looking at the social impact of emotion. She explains how our stories and truths — what we try to debate as issues in our social and political lives — are _felt_, not merely factual. And she shares why, as a matter of pragmatism, we have to take emotion seriously and do what feels unnatural: get curious and caring about the other side.
Arlie Hochschild is professor emerita in the sociology department at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of ten books including _The Managed Heart_, _The Second Shift_, and _Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mo…
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Oct 1, 2020
Jericho Brown – Small Truths and Other Surprises
The poet Jericho Brown reminds us to bear witness to the complexity of the human experience, to interrogate the proximity of violence to love, and to look and listen closer so that we might uncover the small truths and surprises in life. His presence is irreverent and magnetic, as the high school students who joined us for this conversation experienced firsthand at the 2018 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. And now he’s won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
_Editor’s note: This interview discusses sexual violence and rape._
Jericho Brown is Winship Distinguished Research Professor in Creative Writing at Emory University, where he also directs the university’s creative writing program. His books of poetry are _The New Testament_, _Please_, and _The Tradition_, for which he won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in June 2019.
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Oct 1, 2020
[Unedited] Jericho Brown with Krista Tippett
The poet Jericho Brown reminds us to bear witness to the complexity of the human experience, to interrogate the proximity of violence to love, and to look and listen closer so that we might uncover the small truths and surprises in life. His presence is irreverent and magnetic, as the high school students who joined us for this conversation experienced firsthand at the 2018 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. And now he’s won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
_Editor’s note: This interview discusses sexual violence and rape._
Jericho Brown is Winship Distinguished Research Professor in Creative Writing at Emory University, where he also directs the university’s creative writing program. His books of poetry are _The New Testament_, _Please_, and _The Tradition_, for which he won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jericho Brown — Small Truths and Other Surprises." Find the transcript for that…
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Sep 28, 2020
From Poetry Unbound: Ada Limón — “Wonder Woman”
We’re happy to share the first episode of the new season of _Poetry Unbound_ with host Pádraig Ó Tuama. This poem by Ada Limón tells the story of a person living with invisible chronic pain who finds unexpected fortitude from a girl dressed as a superhero. Their encounter, “at the swell of the muddy Mississippi,” doesn’t have a fantasy ending, but instead finds strength and glory in bodies and myth.
Subscribe to _Poetry Unbound _on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or wherever you listen.
Ada Limón is the author of five books of poetry, including _The Carrying__, _which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and was named one of the best poetry books of the year by _The Washington Post_. She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency MFA program.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
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Sep 24, 2020
‘Poetry Unbound’ Returns, With Wisdom For Living Now
Poetry rises up in human societies in times of crisis when official words fail us and we lose sight of how to find our way back to one another; how to hear each other’s voices. This week we offer a preview of the next season of our _Poetry Unbound_ podcast, which returns on Monday, Sept. 28. Each episode takes a single poem as its center, with host Pádraig Ó Tuama reading the poem and meditating on it. In this hour, we dwell with six poems that accompany the struggle, strangeness, and possibilities of being alive in this time.
Subscribe to _Poetry Unbound _on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or wherever you listen.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Pádraig Ó Tuama is the staff poet and theologian at The On Being Project and hosts the _Poetry Unbound_ podcast. He was formerly a leader of the Corrymeela community in Northern Ireland. His books include Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, Sorry for Your Troubles, and a poetic memoir, In t…
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Sep 17, 2020
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult — Music As Medicine
Music is a source of solace and nourishment in the best of times and the hardest of times. It has been for so many of us in this year of pandemic, and Cloud Cult is on every playlist Krista makes. Craig Minowa started the band in 1995. Its trajectory was cathartically changed the day he and his wife Connie woke up to find that their firstborn two-year-old son, Kaidin, had mysteriously died in his sleep. The music that has emerged ever since has spanned the human experience from the rawest grief to the fiercest hope. We welcomed Craig and the whole Cloud Cult ensemble to On Being Studios in Minneapolis, for conversation and music, in 2016.
Craig Minowa is the founder, singer, and songwriter of Cloud Cult. Their albums include _Light Chasers_, the acoustic live album _Unplug_, and _The Seeker_. Craig holds a degree in environmental science from the University of Minnesota, and is the founder of the environmental nonprofit and record label Earthology.
Find the transcript for this show a…
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Sep 17, 2020
[Unedited] Craig Minowa and Cloud Cult with Krista Tippett
Music is a source of solace and nourishment in the best of times and the hardest of times. It has been for so many of us in this year of pandemic, and Cloud Cult is on every playlist Krista makes. Craig Minowa started the band in 1995. Its trajectory was cathartically changed the day he and his wife Connie woke up to find that their firstborn two-year-old son, Kaidin, had mysteriously died in his sleep. The music that has emerged ever since has spanned the human experience from the rawest grief to the fiercest hope. We welcomed Craig and the whole Cloud Cult ensemble to On Being Studios in Minneapolis, for conversation and music, in 2016.
Craig Minowa is the founder, singer, and songwriter of Cloud Cult. Their albums include _Light Chasers_, the acoustic live album _Unplug_, and _The Seeker_. Craig holds a degree in environmental science from the University of Minnesota, and is the founder of the environmental nonprofit and record label Earthology.
This interview is edited and produc…
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Sep 10, 2020
angel Kyodo williams – The World Is Our Field of Practice
This prophetic conversation, which Rev. angel Kyodo williams had with Krista in 2018, is an invitation to imagine and nourish the transformative potential of this moment — toward human wholeness. Rev. angel is an esteemed Zen priest and the second Black woman recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage. She is one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social healing.
angel Kyodo williams is a Zen priest, activist, and teacher. She’s the author of _Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace_ and _Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation_. In 2020, she created the first annual Great Radical Race Read.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in April 2018.
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Sep 10, 2020
Living the Questions: Why 2020 hasn’t taken Rev. angel by surprise
A companion conversation to this week’s _On Being_ episode — Krista catches up with Rev. angel Kyodo williams on how she’s keeping her fearlessness alive through pandemic and rupture.
Krista Tippett created and leads The On Being Project and hosts the _On Being_ radio show and podcast. She’s a National Humanities Medalist, and The New York Times bestselling author of _Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living_. Read her full bio here.
angel Kyodo williams is a Zen priest, activist, and teacher. She’s the author of _Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace_ and _Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation_. In 2020, she created the first annual Great Radical Race Read.
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Sep 10, 2020
[Unedited] angel Kyodo williams with Krista Tippett
This prophetic conversation, which Rev. angel Kyodo williams had with Krista in 2018, is an invitation to imagine and nourish the transformative potential of this moment — toward human wholeness. Rev. angel is an esteemed Zen priest and the second Black woman recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage. She is one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social healing.
angel Kyodo williams is a Zen priest, activist, and teacher. She’s the author of _Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace_ and _Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation_. In 2020, she created the first annual Great Radical Race Read.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "angel Kyodo williams — The World Is Our Field of Practice." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
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Aug 27, 2020
Michael McCarthy — Nature, Joy, and Human Becoming
“The sudden passionate happiness which the natural world can occasionally trigger in us may well be the most serious business of all,” Michael McCarthy writes. He is a naturalist and journalist with a galvanizing call — that we stop relying on the immobilizing language of statistics and take up our joy in nature as our defense of it. And he reminds us that the natural world is where we first found our metaphors and similes and it is the resting place for our psyches.
Michael McCarthy is a naturalist and writer. He was longtime environment editor of _The Independent_ and environment correspondent of _The Times_. He is the recipient of the RSPB Medal from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Silver Medal from the Zoological Society of London. His books include _The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy_ and _The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus_, coming in October 2020.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
This show originally aired…
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Aug 27, 2020
[Unedited] Michael McCarthy with Krista Tippett
“The sudden passionate happiness which the natural world can occasionally trigger in us may well be the most serious business of all,” Michael McCarthy writes. He is a naturalist and journalist with a galvanizing call — that we stop relying on the immobilizing language of statistics and take up our joy in nature as our defense of it. And he reminds us that the natural world is where we first found our metaphors and similes and it is the resting place for our psyches.
Michael McCarthy is a naturalist and writer. He was longtime environment editor of _The Independent_ and environment correspondent of _The Times_. He is the recipient of the RSPB Medal from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Silver Medal from the Zoological Society of London. His books include _The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy_ and _The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus_, coming in October 2020.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On…
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Aug 13, 2020
Dario Robleto — Sculptor of Time and Loss
Dario Robleto has been called a sculptural artist, a philosopher, and a “materialist poet.” He works with unconventional materials — from dinosaur fossils and meteorites to pulverized vintage records — and has been a creative partner to an eclectic range of projects. At the heart of his work is a fascination with human survival and the creative response to loss.
Dario Robleto is an artist-at-large at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. His work has been displayed at galleries and museums across the U.S., and is held in collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired in July 2014.
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Aug 13, 2020
[Unedited] Dario Robleto with Krista Tippett
Dario Robleto has been called a sculptural artist, a philosopher, and a “materialist poet.” He works with unconventional materials — from dinosaur fossils and meteorites to pulverized vintage records — and has been a creative partner to an eclectic range of projects. At the heart of his work is a fascination with human survival and the creative response to loss.
Dario Robleto is an artist-at-large at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. His work has been displayed at galleries and museums across the U.S., and is held in collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Dario Robleto — Sculptor of Time and Loss." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
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Jul 30, 2020
Marilyn Nelson — Communal Pondering in a Noisy World
Marilyn Nelson is a storytelling poet who has taught poetry and contemplative practice to college students and West Point cadets. She brings a contemplative eye to ordinary goodness in the present and to complicated ancestries we’re all reckoning with now. And she imparts a spacious perspective on what “communal pondering” might mean.
Marilyn Nelson is a professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut and a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She is the recipient of the 2012 Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry,” and the 2019 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Her books include _The Fields of Praise_ and _The Meeting House_. Her upcoming children’s picture book about social justice and the power of introverts is called _Lubaya’s Quiet Roar._
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
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Jul 30, 2020
[Unedited] Marilyn Nelson with Krista Tippett
Marilyn Nelson is a storytelling poet who has taught poetry and contemplative practice to college students and West Point cadets. She brings a contemplative eye to ordinary goodness in the present and to complicated ancestries we’re all reckoning with now. And she imparts a spacious perspective on what “communal pondering” might mean.
Marilyn Nelson is a professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut and a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She is the recipient of the 2012 Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry,” and the 2019 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Her books include _The Fields of Praise_ and _The Meeting House_. Her upcoming children’s picture book about social justice and the power of introverts is called _Lubaya’s Quiet Roar._
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Marilyn Nelson — Communal Pondering in a Noisy World." Find mo…