I'm on record bemoaning across the years that “love” is the most watered-down word in the English language. I know that invoking love feels very soft for our hard realms of politics and war. Yet it is an enduring truth that love is the only force as powerful in a human body as fear. And we inhabit a world that calls us to grow up our capacity to love — and to redeem our relationships to neighbors, strangers, and enemies — as never before, both in the present and for the sake of the world beyond this age of violence we've come to inhabit.

Rabbi Shai Held has written an epic theological work called Judaism is About Love. And, as he interrogates Judaism's complicated history with love, he makes an offering that is of relevance to us all.

—

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page. 

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Shai Held is a philosopher, biblical scholar, and rabbi. He is the President and Dean of the Hadar Institute, which describes itself as a center of life, learning, and practice supporting a Judaism that is both traditional and egalitarian. His recent book is Judaism is About Love, and he also hosts a podcast called Answers WithHeld. Learn more at hadar.org

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I was longing for a deep dive on the radiant and common-sense hope that Jason Reynolds embodies after I interviewed him at a Georgetown event last year. I got my chance at the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival. Jason’s perspective is so urgent for the world we've now walked into: on giving ourselves grace to be hopeless, the virtue of stamina, and the hope that stays strong in him from his life in relationship with the very young in our midst — "the arbiters and purveyors of the future" — as well as an occasional stranger in a bar. Jason himself is preternaturally wise as well as talented and kind and humble. He's become a friend across the years and is one of my favorite people in the world. 

—

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page.

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Jason Reynolds is a New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books for children and young adults. From 2020–2022, he served as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Among many honors, he has received the Newbery, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Awards, and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2024. He is on the faculty at Lesley University for the Writing for Young People M.F.A. Program.

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A few months ago, I was invited to sit with four people sharing a very different Israeli-Palestinian story than that which comes to us in headlines. They are members of the Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum, a very special community. It's composed of hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli families, who despite having paid the highest price of the conflict between their peoples, choose to metabolize their loss as ground of shared suffering and possible reconciliation.

I’m so grateful to share that conversation with you now. You will hear their various stories of a transformation of perspective and path. You will hear me invoke a notion of "deep truth" from physics that is vividly with me in this time. Terrible ruptures and escalating violence are part of the truth of what we see ourselves capable. But they are not the whole truth, not the inevitable future. Courageous experiments in healing and transformation are also a reality of our time. In a packed room in New York City, I think we all felt like we were witnessing something unimaginable if you only judge the potentials of humanity from the extreme actions that shape what we call the news. The Bereaved Families Forum is extremism in a life-giving, heart-opening key. We left that room — and may you leave this listening — feeling a little bit healed ourselves, with a hopefulness become more magnetic and more reasonable.

This event was hosted by the American Friends of the Parents Circle – Bereaved Israelis and Palestinians for Peace. My conversation partners were Robi Damelin, Arab Aramin, Mohamed Abu Jafar, and Liora Eilon. Liora, who lost her son in their kibbutz on October 7, 2023, is one of the newest members of this group. 

__

Listen to Krista’s original conversation with Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awaad in the On Being podcast feed; the episode is called “No More Taking Sides”. And learn much more about this beautiful community at theparentscircle.org. The American Friends community website is parentscirclefriends.org.

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page. 

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The word “trauma” is used so widely at present, arguably too widely. But it bespeaks a tenor of our shared reality. This episode is a journey inside what I've come to see as a parallel universe unfolding, where our species is unlocking knowledge about ourselves and capacities for radical healing of the most extreme trauma and distress. These findings are even giving rise to dramatic healing alliances across political and social lines that are inflamed in the culture at large. 

At universities and research laboratories around the U.S. and the world, there are countless clinical studies, yielding results it’s hard not at times to call miraculous — for complex PTSD, long-term addiction, treatment-resistant depression. What I’m talking about are therapeutically-administered treatments with plant medicines and chemical compounds we call psychedelic or empathogenic.

Use those words, and many of us — including me until not that long ago — might become wary. Like all forces of great power, these can cut in every direction — the dark and the light of the human condition. But the conversation you are about to hear, with one of the leading neuroscientists in this field, revolves around serious, important research in settings designed for careful, beneficial human effect. Gül Dölen's groundbreaking contribution to all of us is in her fascinating insight into what psychedelically-assisted therapies are revealing about the workings of the human brain and the brain's capacity to change and the human capacity for major transformation altogether. The potential consequences of this science are intimate and civilizational at once. I see them as a stunning ray of hope in a struggling world.

I interviewed Gül Dölen at the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival.

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page.

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Gül Dölen leads the Dölen Lab at U.C. Berkeley, where she is a Professor and the Bob & Renee Parsons Endowed Chair in the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Psychology at the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. She also maintains an Adjunct Professorship in Neuroscience and Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. 

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These days I sometimes have to remind myself to keep breathing. I think this is true of human beings across all of our differences and divides. But in a room in New York City just before the turn of this year, I was regrounded by this fierce and joyous conversation with Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith. 

I invite you to settle into your soft breathing body with these two wise women as companions and with a sense of poetry as a technology, as Tracy describes in her new book: a technology for rising to our truest, highest selves, even amidst grief and mystery and danger, and bearing witness to each other as we do so. 

I think all of us in the room left a little more lighthearted and alive as this conversation unfolded. I hope that will be your experience too. 

Tracy K. Smith and Joy Harjo are former U.S. poet laureates, beloved On Being guests, and friends. They are each wildly and deservedly awarded and not just as poets — Tracy also as a teacher and professor at Harvard, Joy as a saxophonist and painter. We were brought together at Symphony Space in Manhattan to celebrate their newest books: Fear Less by Tracy and Girl Warrior by Joy.

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page. 

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Joy Harjo was the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. Among many honors, she has received the Poetry Society of America's Frost Medal and a National Humanities Medal. She is the inau­gur­al Artist-in-Res­i­dence for the Bob Dylan Cen­ter in Tul­sa, Okla­homa. She lives on the Musco­gee Nation Reser­va­tion in Oklahoma. Her new book of essays is Girl Warrior. Forthcoming in 2026 is her 12th book of poetry and a new album co-produced with esperanza spalding.

Tracy K. Smith was the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States. She teaches at Harvard University, where she is Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, Professor of African and African American Studies, and Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Among her many honors, she has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry  and is a Chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her new memoir is Fear Less.

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We begin with the delightful beloved poets (and friends) Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith in conversation together with Krista. We move on to the neuroscientist Gül Dölen; a community of Israelis and Palestinians who will expand your heart and moral imagination; philosopher rabbi Shai Held; and, because we can't get enough of him, a wonderful new sit-down with Krista and Jason Reynolds on hope in this time and in friendship with the young in our world.

All of them offer beauty and pragmatic nourishment for ourselves and for witnessing each other's hurt and each other's promise. There is searching and pondering on what love really means and how it works and what hope can mean in this world in which hopelessness feels so reasonable. And be prepared to be amazed in an introduction to majestic learning underway about new, transformative healing of our brains and our lives emerging from the frontier of psychedelically-assisted therapeutic treatments.

Please help us spread the word, and join us!

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Jane Goodall was 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 most recently, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in August, 2020.

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Joanna Macy was the root teacher of The Work That Reconnects. Her books include Active Hope and four volumes of translated works of Rainer Maria Rilke, together with Anita Barrows: Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God;  In Praise of Mortality; and A Year with Rilke. Krista's 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 Joanna that was published in 2020. 

Anita Barrows’s most recent poetry collection is Testimony. She is the Institute Professor of Psychology at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, and also maintains a private practice. 

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Journaling prompts for Session 7

Give your curiosity and your journaling during this week over to a practice of delight. As you move through your smallest interactions, look for moments/sightings/experiences that bring flashes of light into your day. Do you notice “unambiguously pleasant public physical interactions”? What is pleasant and sweet and tender?

Can you feel how attending to delight as seriously as hardship nourishes a reality-bending imagination and passion for justice and hope that is as joyful as it is fierce?

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

●  Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

●  Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

●  Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

●  Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org. 

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

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Journaling prompts for Session 6

Summon your 200-Year present. Take your mind back to the youngest age you can remember and to the oldest person you remember holding you. Roughly calculate the year of their birth and the history that shaped their lifetime.

And who is the youngest person you have held in your arms most recently? Imagine a robust life for them — both the age and year to which they could live.

Try to inhabit this expanse of history that you have literally touched and been touched by. Can you feel in your body, in your imagination, a more spacious grasp of time itself and of possibility and agency? What difference might it make?

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

●  Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

●  Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

●  Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

●  Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org. 

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Journaling prompts for Session 5

What is the love on the other side of your pain?

What is a loss you have perhaps not quite acknowledged?

The despair that you began to write about at the outset of this experience, the despair you may be feeling for the world today — what would it mean to stand reverently before your grief? Can you imagine what it would mean — to sit with what it would mean — to turn it into a mourning that brings you more deeply into the love that lies just on the other side of your pain?

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

●  Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

●  Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

●  Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

●  Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org. 

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

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Journaling prompts for Session 4

As you move through these days, get really attentive in every moment to this world’s fluency in the language of violence — the vividness and omnipresence of words that engender fear and despair. Notice, and write down the easy metaphors of death and war that are used everywhere from the news to casual conversations to social media, about everything from relationships to politics to the weather. Notice the death and violence metaphors that come naturally in the way you speak.

What happens when you alter your language? What does it mean to take off the shoes of your voice?

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

●  Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

●  Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

●  Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

●  Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org. 

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Journaling prompts for Session 3

Exchange words with yourself — the many selves alive inside you — about what you’re doing here. What has hope meant in your life and in your world(s)? Do the different selves inside you have different orientations to despair and to imagination with real-world consequences? How about your best self?

During this week and in the following weeks, as it feels interesting, try this exercise proposed by Naomi. Land on a single word or phrase that you find animating in this Wisdom Practice, and “use it as as an oar that could get you through the days” — just by holding it in your mind (and heart) and seeing how it rubs against other words and how it meets experiences and other words. And remember Mary Oliver’s advice: Keep your journal close by at all times.

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

●  Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

●  Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

●  Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

●  Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org. 

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are lifting this episode out of the archive to mark this moment. Krista felt particularly called to point to this unedited version of their conversation, which was previously edited to meet time constraints, as the full discussion has such timely resonance. 

You can also watch the video of this conversation between Krista and Walter Brueggemann on our YouTube page.

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be on our mailing list for all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Find the shorter, edited and produced version of this show  — and all of Krista's conversations across the years — on our website at onbeing.org/series/podcast.

Bio

Walter Brueggemann was the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia. He died on June 5, 2025. He was the author of many books including The Prophetic Imagination, The Spirituality of the Psalms, The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, and, written in his 90s, Real World Faith.

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Preparing inwardly after listening, ask these questions:

Examine your orientation to the idea that imagination has real-world consequences. Do you believe that? Trace its reality in the lives of people you admire and in your own life.

Ponder emergence. Consider how this way of change has found expression across the years in your life, your work, your world — moments when what you did not plan or control became a catalyst for your growth.

“Emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies.”

“Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass.”

“The crisis we are in at scale is in part a response to control or overcome the emergent processes that are our own nature, the processes of the planet we live on and the universe we call home.”

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

●  Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

●  Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

●  Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

●  Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org. 

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Journaling Prompts for Session 1

Preparing inwardly after listening, ask these questions:

Right now, today, what is filling you with despair? And what is giving you hope?

What is hope? Answer this question through the story of your life.

Who have been the “live human signposts” of muscular hope in your life across time?  Hold their faces and the qualities of their presence in your heart and in your mind’s eye in the days to come.

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

●  Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

●  Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

●  Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

●  Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org.

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Krista writes of this conversation from the earliest pre-history of On Being: 

In the years in which I was on a whole new spiritual and intellectual adventure that changed the direction of my life — years which led to the creation of this show — I befriended a delightful, brilliant, straight-talking theologian named Roberta Bondi. She’s now retired. At that point, she was on the faculty of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. We were placed together as roommates at a five-day consultation. We fell deep into conversation about all kinds of things — life and love and God, a subject that fascinated us both. She’d written a book called Memories of God, and she’d written a series of books about the eccentric, dazzling wisdom of spiritual rebels and innovators known as the desert fathers and mothers of the 3rd century. These were people who believed that the established church — at that time the Church of Rome — had grown cold and remote from very heart of the impulses that brought it into the world in the first place: the rootedness in wisdom and not mere knowledge, the humility over against power, the core moral and spiritual values. 

Then, not that long ago in our world of institutions ceasing to make sense, someone I very much admire told me he was interested in picking up a practice of prayer. He had no idea how to begin or really even what this would be about – he just knew it was a longing he wanted to follow. The first thing that came to my mind to share with him is this somewhat eccentric, rich little half hour I had with Roberta in the earliest piloting of what eventually became On Being. Her wisdom about what it means to be a person who prays, in conversation and relationship with God, whoever God is and whatever God means, has formed me ever after. I am so delighted to share it now with you.

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page. 

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be on our mailing list for all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Bio
Roberta Bondi is Professor Emeritus of Church History at Emory University. Her books include To Pray and to Love: Conversations on Prayer with the Early Church; Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life; and In Ordinary Time: Healing the Wounds of the Heart.

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Loaay Wattad is a Palestinian lecturer, researcher, translator, and editor and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology and the School of Cultural Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is a member of the Maktoob translators’ circle, a group that translates works of literature from Arabic to Hebrew. He is the editor-in-chief of the Hkaya, a web platform centered around children’s literature.

Yochi Fischer is a historian and the deputy director of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, a senior research fellow at the institute, and head of its Sacredness, Religion, and Secularization Cluster. She also leads its Intellectual Journeys program.Her current research focuses largely on religion and secularization — she also does work on memory and history, and the connection between research and creativity.

Special thanks to Michael Feigelson, Shai Lavi, Rebecca Plumbley, and Philip Pieters of the Toussainthuis.

Find aFind an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page.

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be on our mailing list for all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

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Jason Reynolds is a New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books for children and young adults. From 2020–2022 he served as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Among many honors, he has received the Newbury, Printz, and Coretta Scott King awards and in 2024 was named a MacArthur Fellow. He is on faculty at Lesley University for the Writing for Young People MFA Program.

Kessley Janvier is a senior at Georgetown University, majoring in history. She’s former president of the Georgetown University NAACP.  She has organized around reparations, as part of Hoyas Advocating for Slavery Accountability, and she has also led efforts to promote climate justice, police accountability, and racial justice.

Special thanks this week to Gillian Huebner, Ian Manzi, Rabbi Rachel Gartner and Derek Goldman. 

On Being Young in America was sponsored by the Culture of Encounter Project and was convened by the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University in collaboration with The On Being Project.

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page. 

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BIO

David Bornstein is co-founder and CEO of the globally esteemed Solutions Journalism Network. Learn more about their work with news organizations around the world, and their solutions story tracker at solutionsjournalism.org. He has been a journalist focusing primarily on social innovation for three decades. From 2010 to 2021, he co-authored the “Fixes” column in The New York Times. He is the author of The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank and How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, which has been published in 25 languages.

Special thanks to Dana Mortenson, who created the event that brought Krista and David together. She is founder of World Savvy, an organization that seeks to reimagine education to build the global competence necessary to navigate a complex and ever-changing world.

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Find an excellent transcript of this show below, edited by humans.

Special thanks for the entire experience that brought On Being together with Katsi:

Reverend Don Chatfield, Tammy Saltus, and the All Souls Interfaith Gathering congregation; Megan Camp, Tre McCarney, and the team at Shelburne Farms; The Harris and Herzberber Families and High Acres Farms, Philo Ridge Farm, Spirit Aligned Leadership, Gedakina, Guaní Press, and the Akwesasne Freedom School. 

Jennifer Brandel with Hearken; Mara Zepeda and MCK Keefrider with Linestone, Amelia Rose Barlow, Kristine Hill with Collective Wisdom, and Sara Jolena Wolcott with Sequoia Samanvaya. Audio engineer Abra Clawson. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Wayfarer Foundation; Democracy Fund; and (m)otherboard who supported this Gathering, as well as: Aimee Arandia Østensen, Aly Perry, Amanda Herzberger, Andrew Berns, Ashley Henry, Baratunde Thurston, Chief Beverly Cook, Ben Von Wong, Bread and Butter Farm, Carson Linforth Bowley,  Casey Ryan, Charlotte Hardie, Christine Lai, Courtney Mulcahy, David Alder, Ethan Bond-Watts, Elizabeth Stewart, Eve Bradford, Grace Oedel, Hanna Satterlee, Heidi Webb, Jeff Herzberger, Jennifer Daniels, Jonathan Harris, John Stokes, Joey Borgogna, Josie Watson, José Barreiro, Judy Dow,  Katherine Elmer, Kathy Treat, Ken Miles, Liana Gillooly, Loretta Afraid of Bear Cook, Lynn van Housen, Mario Picayo, Michelle Dai Zotti, Paul & Eileen Growald, Raquel Picayo, Rob Anderson,  Speranza Foundation, Tom Cook, Tom Porter, Scott Thrift, Sherry Oakes-Jackson, Ssong Yang, Sue Dixon, Sydney Bolger, Vera Simon-Nobes, Waylon Cook, Wendy Bratt. 

Katsi Cook is an Onkwehonweh traditional midwife, elder, and Executive Director of Spirit Aligned Leadership Program. She is a Wolf Clan member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and resides at the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe in upstate New York. Her groundbreaking environmental research of Mohawk mother's milk revealed the intergenerational impact of industrial chemicals on the health and well-being of an entire community. Katsi leads a movement of matrilineal awareness and rematriation in Native life. Her book discussed in this episode is Worlds Within Us: Wisdom and Resilience of Indigenous Women Elders.
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He is a person who experiences deeply, who metabolizes creatively, and who just keeps growing. He opens up with Krista about the strangeness of being loved for how he put his broken heart to music. They venture into the mysteries of God and of numbers, the problem of fame, and the deep working of time in a life. 

He's now released a gorgeous fifth album, SABLE, fABLE. This one tells of immense healing and learning.

Justin Vernon is a singer, songwriter and producer and founder and frontman of the band — sometimes called an art project  — known as Bon Iver. He lives and makes music in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He has been on a personal and professional adventure since releasing his first album in 2007, For Emma, Forever Ago. His new album SABLE/fABLE is his fifth. He's received multiple Grammys and collaborated with many other artists from Taylor Swift to the Blind Boys of Alabama to Travis Scott and Kanye West.

This was recorded live at the 2025 On Air Fest in Brooklyn, New York. 

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page at onbeing.org.

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From singer-songwriter Bon Iver (Justin Vernon) to Mohawk elder Katsi Cook to writer Jason Reynolds. Illuminating our lives of love and our lives with the news and our lives of prayer. Befriending across generations and taking in the trauma of the other. 

All together, an offering towards the questions we're living on every place on the spectrum of our life together: How do we stand with calm and agency and accompaniment before the gravity of this time. How do we keep body and soul together as we do so? 

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Nikki Giovanni was a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. Some of her best known collections from which the readings in this show were taken include Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement, and The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni. Her final publications include Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose and A Library.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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But Joan Baez at 83 is so much more intriguing than her projection as a legend. She grew up the daughter of a Mexican physicist father and a Scottish mother in a seemingly idyllic family. But even at the height of her fame, she was struggling mightily with mysterious interior demons. She and her beloved sisters finally reckoned in midlife with a truth of abuse they had buried, even in memory, at great cost. She has reckoned with fracture inside herself and been on an odyssey of wholeness. She is frank and funny, irreverent and wise. Among other gifts, she offers a refreshing way in to what it means to sing and live the reality of “overcoming,” personal and civilizational.

Krista spoke with Joan on stage at the 2024 Chicago Humanities Festival.

Joan Baez published her first (wonderful) book of poetry at the age of 83: When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance. She was one of the leading artists of the 1960s folk revival, and brought her voice to the Civil Rights and anti-war movements of that decade. She performed for over 60 years, releasing more than 30 albums. She has won scores of awards and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. In addition to her poetry, she has published a book of drawings, Am I Pretty When I Fly?: An Album of Upside Down Drawings, and painted a series of portraits called Mischief Makers. You can find the links for her books here.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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We're listening with new ears as she brings together so many of the threads that have recurred in this season of On Being: on looking the harsh complexity of this world full in the face while dancing with joy as life force and fuel, and on keeping clear eyes on the reasons for ecological despair while giving oneself over to a loving apprenticeship with the natural world as teacher and guide. A love of visionary science fiction also finds a robust place in her work and this conversation. She altogether shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking — the cultivation of old and new ways of seeing, towards a transformative wholeness of living.

adrienne maree brown’s influential books include Emergent Strategy, We Will Not Cancel Us, and Pleasure Activism. More recently, she has published Maroons, a work of speculative fiction, and she co-edited the anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She also co-hosts the podcast How to Survive the End of the World. And, a special heads up: in late summer 2024, adrienne maree brown will publish a phenomenal new book — Loving Corrections.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and Bright Dead Things, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent volume is The Hurting Kind. As poet laureate, she edited the collection You Are Here, part of her signature project focusing on how poetry can connect us to the natural world. She is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, a former host of the poetry podcast The Slowdown, and an instructor in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.

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Fascinatingly, the simple question which transformed the surgeon Atul Gawande’s life and practice of medicine is this: What does a good day look like? As he has come to see, standing reverently before our mortality is an exercise in more intricately inhabiting why we want to be alive. This conversation evokes both grief and hope, sadness at so many deaths — including our species-level losses to Covid — that have not allowed for this measure of care. Yet it also includes very actionable encouragement towards the agency that is there to claim in our mortal odysseys ahead.

Atul Gawande's writing for The New Yorker and his books have been read by millions, most famously Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. He currently serves as Assistant Administrator for Global Health at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He previously practiced general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and was a professor at both Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in October 2017.

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Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, author, and educator. Since 2018, she has served as president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019 and is Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. Her books include American Sublime, a 2006 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and the memoir, The Light of the World, a 2016 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography. Her most recent book is The Trayvon Generation.

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The Mexican-American border was as close and personal to him as it could be when he was growing up — an apt expression of his parents’ turbulent Mexican-American divorce. In his writing and in this conversation, he complicates every dehumanizing stereotype of Mexicans, "migrants" — and border guards. A deep truth of our time, Luis insists, is that “we miss each other.” He offers a vision of the larger possibility of our time beyond the terrible tangles of today: that we might evolve the old illusion of the melting pot into a 21st-century richness of “us." And he delightfully models that messiness and humor will be required.

Luis Alberto Urrea is a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois Chicago. His books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil’s Highway, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, and Goodnight, Irene.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in July 2018.

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Ross Gay helps illuminate this paradox and turn it into a muscle.

We are good at fighting, as he puts it, and not as good at holding in our imaginations what is to be adored and preserved and exalted — advocating for what we love, for what we find beautiful and necessary. But without this, he says, we cannot speak meaningfully even about our longings for a more just world, a more whole existence for all. To understand that we are all suffering — and so to practice tenderness and mercy —  is a quality of what Ross calls “adult joy." Starting with his cherished essay collection The Book of Delights, he began to accompany many in an everyday spiritual discipline of practicing delight and cultivating joy.

Ross Gay is a poet, essayist, teacher, and passionate community gardener. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he’s a professor of English at Indiana University. His books include The Book of Delights, The Book of (More) Delights, and Inciting Joy, as well as the poetry collections Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and Be Holding.  

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in July 2019.

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What does nature have to teach us about healing from trauma? And how might those of us aspiring to good and generative lives start to function like an ecosystem rather than a collection of separate, siloed projects? We are in kinship. How to make that real — and in making it real, make it more of an offering to the whole wide world?

Krista, Azita, and Janine spoke at the January 2024 gathering of visionaries, activists, and creatives where Krista also drew out Lyndsey Stonebridge and Lucas Johnson for the recent episode on Hannah Arendt. We're excited to bring you back into that room.

Janine Benyus's classic work is Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. She is the co-founder of the non-profit Biomimicry Institute. She also co-founded Biomimicry 3.8, a consulting and training company. 

Azita Ardakani Walton is a philanthropist and social entrepreneur. She has pursued her work through nature’s principles as a means to inform economics, social organizations, and design. She was the founder of the creative impact agency Lovesocial, and is currently in the pursuit of the relationship between inner life and outer ecology to meet the challenges of these times.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Delve more deeply into Runyan’s wisdom in her On Being conversation with Krista, “On Healing Our Distressed Nervous Systems.”

Christine Runyan is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at UMass Chan Medical School. She is also a certified mindfulness teacher, and she co-founded and co-leads Tend Health, a clinical consulting practice focused on the mental well-being of medical and health care workers.

Find the transcript for this practice at onbeing.org.

Watch an animated version of this practice on our YouTube page.

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Christine Runyan is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at UMass Chan Medical School. She is also a certified mindfulness teacher, and she co-founded and co-leads Tend Health, a clinical consulting practice focused on the mental well-being of medical and health care workers.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in March 2021.

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Be sure to listen to his full 2022 conversation (accompanied by poetry and birdsong) with Krista — “Pathfinding Through the Improbable.” And find our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades of the show, at Experience Poetry.

J. Drew Lanham is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Master Teacher, and Certified Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University. In 2022, he was named 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. His new book is Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves.

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Hannah Arendt's other epic books include The Human Condition, and Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which she famously coined the phrase "the banality of evil." She was born a German Jew in 1906, fled Nazi Germany and spent many years as a stateless person, and died an American citizen in 1975. This conversation with Lyndsey Stonebridge happened in January 2024, as part of a gathering of visionaries, activists, and creatives across many fields. Krista interviewed her alongside Lucas Johnson, a former leader of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation who now leads our social healing initiatives at The On Being Project.

Lyndsey Stonebridge is a Professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. Her 2024 book is We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience. Her other books include Placeless People: Writings, Rights, and Refugees. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Lucas Johnson is Executive Vice President of Public Life & Social Healing at The On Being Project. He was previously a leader of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, the world’s oldest interfaith peace organization.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

Note: A previous version of this audio mistakenly attributed a quote to James Baldwin. The author of the quote is Maria Popova, creator of The Marginalian, and appears in an essay she wrote discussing Baldwin’s work.

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Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

All seven parts of the series are ready for listening now in the Poetry Unbound feed and at onbeing.org. 

Read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all of our episodes.

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Colette Pichon Battle is co-founder and Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth, a global organization which has emerged from the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy that she founded and led in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She and her colleagues are influencing manifold aspects of our ecological present, including equitable disaster recovery and global migration, community economic development and energy democracy.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in March 2022.

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Kate DiCamillo has written many bestselling books, beloved by children and adults in touch with their inner eight-year-old, for two decades, including Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, The Magician’s Elephant, Flora & Ulysses, and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Some of these have been turned into operas and movies. Her new books in 2024 include the middle grade novel Ferris and Orris and Timble: The Beginning. She is a rare two-time winner of the Newbery Medal.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in March 2022.

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Since the accidental death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in 2015, and a few years later, the death of his eldest child Jethro, he has entered yet another transfigured era, co-created an exquisite book called Faith, Hope and Carnage, and become a frank and eloquent interlocutor on grief. As a human and a songwriter, Nick Cave is an embodiment of a life examined and evolved. He sat with Krista in the On Being studio in Minneapolis, and the gorgeous conversation that followed is woven in this episode with his gorgeous music.

Nick Cave is the songwriter and lead singer of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Their albums include Ghosteen, Skeleton Tree, and Push the Sky Away. Nick's recent albums with frequent collaborator Warren Ellis include Seven Psalms and Carnage. His book, which takes the form of an electric conversation with journalist Seán O’Hagan, is Faith, Hope and Carnage. He frequently writes, and answers questions from his fans, on the website The Red Hand Files.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Subscribe to the The Pause
Find our Starting Points
Peruse our Libraries
And on YouTube, grab a Poem to Carry in Your Pocket 

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This is a conversation that will have you moving through the world both marveling at the ordinary adaptations that bodies make and asking, in Sara's words, "restless and generative questions": of why we organize the physical world as though vulnerability and needs for assistance are not commonplace — indeed salutary — forms of experience that reveal the genius of what being human is all about.

Sara Hendren is an associate professor in the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University in Boston. She previously spent nine years teaching at Olin College of Engineering. Her book is What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World. You can also find some of her short pieces of writing on her website, sarahendren.com. Her newsletter is undefended / undefeated.  

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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If you have wondered how to keep hope alive amidst a thousand reasons to despair, if you are ready to take your despair as fuel — intrigued by the idea of stepping into love and immediate realities of abundance and regeneration — this conversation is for you.

Christiana Figueres was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016, and is known as the powerhouse who made the 2015 Paris Agreement possible — in which 195 nations worked with their wildly diverse conditions and points of view on the what and the when and the why, and yet made commitments in service of our hurting planet and the future of humanity. Her book, written together with Tom Rivett-Carnac, is The Future We Choose. She is founding partner of the organization Global Optimism and co-hosts the podcast Outrage + Optimism.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Clint Smith is best known for his 2021 book, How the Word Is Passed, but he is first and foremost a poet. He and Krista discuss how his various life chapters have been real-world laboratories for him to investigate the entanglement between language and the intelligence of the body — and the related entanglement between history and place. His poetic sensibility has singularly opened readers to approach a generative reckoning with American history — on whatever side of that history our ancestors stood. 

Clint Smith has a way of making reckoning possible at a humanizing, softening, bodily level — in the marrow, you might say, of our bones.

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and many other honors. His poetry collections are Counting Descent and Above Ground.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and many other honors. His poetry collections are Counting Descent and Above Ground.

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Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and many other honors. His poetry collections are Counting Descent and Above Ground.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Clint Smith is best known for his 2021 book, How the Word Is Passed, but he is first and foremost a poet. He and Krista discuss how his various life chapters have been real-world laboratories for him to investigate the entanglement between language and the intelligence of the body — and the related entanglement between history and place. His poetic sensibility has singularly opened readers to approach a generative reckoning with American history — on whatever side of that history our ancestors stood. 

Clint Smith has a way of making reckoning possible at a humanizing, softening, bodily level — in the marrow, you might say, of our bones.

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and many other honors. His poetry collections are Counting Descent and Above Ground.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Clint Smith — What We Know in the ‘Marrow of Our Bones.’" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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Listen to Ten Percent Happier in all the podcast places: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast

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The host of On Being shares lessons learned from 20 years of interviews, including: how to live with open questions, counterprogramming against your negativity bias, and getting over the God question.

In this episode we talk about:

• Getting over the God question when it comes to contemplating religion
• Why Western culture has such a dearth of ways to talk about love
• Why she thinks the core of relationships is not about agreeing but about navigating differences
• Tuning in to our generative agency
• Her definition of a wise life as distinct from a knowledgeable or accomplished one
• Why she believes it is as important to know what you love as it is to know what you hate
• Learning to love big open questions instead of rushing to answers
• Why the things we get paid to do may not define whether we're living a worthy life 
• And getting our intentions straight and then trying not to tie them too tightly to our goals

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In this conversation with Krista, she brings a helpful big-picture view to our lives with technology, seeing how far we've come — and not — since the advent of the internet, and setting that in the context of history both industrial and digital. She insists that we don't have to accept the harms of digital technology in order to reap its benefits — and she sees very clearly the work that will take. From where she sits, the new generative AI is in equal measure an exciting and alarming evolution. And she shares with us the questions she is asking, and how she and her students and the emerging field of Public Interest Technology might help us all make sense.

This is the second in what will be an ongoing occasional On Being episode to delve into and accompany our lives with this new technological revolution — training clear eyes on downsides and dangers while cultivating an attention to how we might elevate the new frontier of AI — and how, in fact, it might invite us more deeply into our humanity.

Latanya Sweeney is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School, among her many other credentials. She’s founder and director of Harvard’s Public Interest Tech Lab and its Data Privacy Lab, and she’s the former Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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In this conversation with Krista, she brings a helpful big-picture view to our lives with technology, seeing how far we've come — and not — since the advent of the internet, and setting that in the context of history both industrial and digital. She insists that we don't have to accept the harms of digital technology in order to reap its benefits — and she sees very clearly the work that will take. From where she sits, the new generative AI is in equal measure an exciting and alarming evolution. And she shares with us the questions she is asking, and how she and her students and the emerging field of Public Interest Technology might help us all make sense.

This is the second in what will be an ongoing occasional On Being episode to delve into and accompany our lives with this new technological revolution — training clear eyes on downsides and dangers while cultivating an attention to how we might elevate the new frontier of AI — and how, in fact, it might invite us more deeply into our humanity.

Latanya Sweeney is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School, among her many other credentials. She’s founder and director of Harvard’s Public Interest Tech Lab and its Data Privacy Lab, and she’s the former Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Latanya Sweeney — On Shaping Technology to Human Purpose." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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Matthew has an immensely energetic physical presence. He has been paralyzed from the chest down since a car accident in 1978. But he likes to say that his experience is only more extreme, not so different, from that of everyone else. He's written, "We are all leaving our bodies — this is the inevitable arc of living. Death cannot be avoided; neither can the inward silence that comes with the aging process." Matthew’s intricate knowledge of that "inward silence," which he was forced to befriend after the noisy connections which most of us take for granted were severed — it’s revelatory. So is his insistence that it’s not possible to live more deeply in your body — in all its grace and all its flaws — without becoming more compassionate towards all of life. And: if you do yoga, you will never think about what it is affecting inside you in the same way again.

Krista sat with Matthew Sanford in 2006, just after he'd published his beautiful book Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence.

Matthew Sanford is the founder and president of Mind Body Solutions. He teaches yoga for all kinds of bodies, including adaptive yoga classes weekly, and holds regular virtual gatherings with people around the world. A video library of his teaching methods for yoga teachers is freely available. His book is Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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The kaleidoscopic view of life and love and the world that is Baratunde's builds and builds in this conversation Krista had with him around the edges of the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival — towards an exuberant glimpse of how we can all be more fully human and socially creative.

Baratunde Thurston's latest adventure is hosting the fascinating PBS series America Outdoors. He's been Director of Digital at The Onion, produced The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and advised on digital strategy at The White House. He's a founding partner of the media start-up Puck, and creator and host of the podcast How To Citizen. He's the author of several books, including How To Be Black.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Reid Hoffman is co-founder and former executive chairman of LinkedIn, and a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners. He's known by some as the philosopher of Silicon Valley. He is currently on the board of Microsoft and was an early investor in OpenAI, which brought ChatGPT into the world. His latest book, which he co-wrote together with GPT-4, is Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI. His newest venture is Inflection AI, the creator of Pi — “a supportive and empathetic conversational AI.” He is a host on the podcasts Masters of Scale, Greymatter, and Possible, which will launch its second season this fall. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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– 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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– 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.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Barbara Brown Taylor — ‘This Hunger for Holiness’." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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 will collectively become.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences, and American Studies, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she is also director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. She grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. Her paternal grandfather was a janitor at Yale who helped organize the first blue-collar union at that university. And as a tool and die maker for the firearm manufacturer Winchester, her father played a central role in organizing the machinists at that company in the mid-1950s. She has co-founded several organizations, including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network. She has authored and co-edited several books, including Golden Gulag, Abolition Geography, and the forthcoming Change Everything. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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 Minnesota’s signature cold, creative winters.

Janine Benyus is the author of several books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. She is the co-founder of the non-profit Biomimicry Institute and Biomimicry 3.8, a consulting and training company.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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 Johnny Cash, from Public Enemy to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, from Adele to Jay-Z. To name just a few. His new (and first) book is The Creative Act: A Way of Being. He is co-founder of the record label Def Jam Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. He is also one of the hosts of the podcast, Broken Record. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Isabel and Krista spoke in Seattle before a packed house at Benaroya Hall, at the invitation of Seattle Arts & Lectures.

[Content Advisory: Beginning at 21:16, there is a discussion of Nazi terminology and a quotation from Hitler with an epithet that is offensive and painful. We chose to include this language to illustrate the heinous nature of the history being discussed and Hitler’s admiration for it.]

Isabel Wilkerson won a Pulitzer Prize while reporting for the New York Times. Her first book, The Warmth of Other Suns, brought the underreported story of the Great Migration of the 20th century into the light, and she published her best-selling book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents in August 2020. Among many honors, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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.

James Bridle is an artist and technologist and author of the books Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence and New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future. Their writing has appeared in The Guardian, Wired, The Atlantic, and many other places. Their art has been exhibited around the world, including at NOME Gallery in Berlin. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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.

James Bridle is an artist and technologist and author of the books Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence and New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future. Their writing has appeared in The Guardian, Wired, The Atlantic, and many other places. Their art has been exhibited around the world, including at NOME Gallery in Berlin.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "James Bridle — The Intelligence Singing All Around Us." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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 founded Offerman Woodshop in Los Angeles in 2001, a collective that creates hand-crafted items from spoons to canoes to ukuleles. He's also written a book with his wife, Megan Mullally, called The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, and they have a podcast called In Bed with Nick and Megan. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
 

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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 University of Charlotte, in North Carolina. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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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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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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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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 known as “high conflict” — where the conflict itself has become the point, and it sweeps everything into its vortex. 

So how to get out? What Amanda has been gathering by way of answers to that question is an extraordinary gift to us all.

Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist who sometimes describes herself as a "recovering journalist" — and a trained conflict mediator. She's written several acclaimed books, including High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. You can find her essay “Complicating the Narratives” on the Solutions Journalism blog. She is the co-founder of the company Good Conflict and hosts the Slate podcast How To!. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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 and again. They bring our nervous system and heartbeat and breath into sync — and even into sync with other bodies around us.

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and founding director of the Greater Good Science Center. He hosts the podcast The Science of Happiness. His latest book is Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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. It's a small way to bend the arc of algorithms towards this community of conversation and living. 

We are so thrilled to have you as part of this, and to be back. Sign up for our Saturday newsletter, The Pause, for extras every week and news on all that is happening at the wider On Being Project, at onbeing.org/newsletter.

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"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 and yours.”

– Krista Tippett

Experience the whole collection of four Foundations for Being Alive Now on the On Being Project website.

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"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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"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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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 seriously as we take rupture and what goes wrong."

Experience the whole collection of four Foundations for Being Alive Now on the On Being Project website.

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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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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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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. Join us at onbeing.org/staywithus.

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We're listening with new ears as she brings together so many of the threads that have recurred this season of On Being: on looking the harsh complexity of this world full in the face while dancing with joy as life force and fuel and on keeping clear eyes on the reasons for ecological despair while giving oneself over to a loving apprenticeship with the natural world as teacher and guide. A love of visionary science fiction also finds a robust place in her work and this conversation. She altogether shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking — the cultivation of old and new ways of seeing, towards a transformative wholeness of living.

adrienne maree brown’s influential books include Emergent Strategy, We Will Not Cancel Us, and Pleasure Activism. More recently, she has published’s the author of Maroons, a work of speculative fiction, and she co-edited the anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She also co-hosts the podcast How to Survive the End of the World. And, a special heads up: in late summer 2024, adrienne maree brown will publish a phenomenal new book — Loving Corrections.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "adrienne maree brown — On Radical Imagination and Moving Towards Life." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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“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 Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whiting Award. He was a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired on April 30, 2020.

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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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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 was a 2019 MacArthur Fellow.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Ocean Vuong — A Life Worthy of Our Breath." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired on April 30, 2020.

___________

Sign up for The Pause to receive our seasonal Saturday morning newsletter and advance invitations and news on all things On Being.

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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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 think tank for coastal cities. She’s one of the creators of the podcast, “How to Save a Planet,” and she co-edited the wonderful anthology All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. She’s also the co-founder of the All We Can Save Project.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 think tank for coastal cities. She’s one of the creators of the podcast, “How to Save a Planet,” and she co-edited the wonderful anthology All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. She’s also the co-founder of the All We Can Save Project.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Ayana Elizabeth Johnson — What If We Get This Right?" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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 Clinical Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, that’s where she developed “The Healer’s Art,” her course for medical students. Her beloved books include Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings. And in September, 2022, she will publish her first book for children: The Birthday of the World: A Story about Finding Light in Everyone and Everything.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in August 2005.

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Sign up for The Pause to receive our seasonal Saturday morning newsletter and advance invitations and news on all things On Being.

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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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 Clinical Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, that’s where she developed “The Healer’s Art,” her course for medical students. Her beloved books include Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings. And in September, 2022, she will publish her first book for children: The Birthday of the World: A Story about Finding Light in Everyone and Everything.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Rachel Naomi Remen — How We Live With Loss." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in August 2005.

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Sign up for The Pause to receive our seasonal Saturday morning newsletter and advance invitations and news on all things On Being.

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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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 Northwest of the United States. He holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has worked as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands. His books include 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.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in April, 2016.

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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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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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 Northwest of the United States. He holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has worked as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands. His books include 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.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "David Whyte — Seeking Language Large Enough." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in April, 2016.

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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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Kimberley Wilson has a private psychotherapy and nutrition practice in central London. She co-hosts the BBC Radio 4 podcast Made of Stronger Stuff and is the author of How to Build a Healthy Brain. She came to the attention of many as a finalist in an early season of The Great British Bake Off. She grew up, as she tells it, eating both the West Indian food of her family and over-processed modern British fare.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

And, this week, an invitation: As you may have heard, after twenty years (!), we are transitioning On Being from a weekly show to a seasonal podcast. We hope you’ll help us celebrate these first two decades, by sharing how you’ve made this adventure of conversation your own.

Is there a guest, an idea, or a moment from an episode that has made a difference, that has stayed with you? 

We’ve made it easy (and fun) to record your reflection — and at the same time sign up to stay on top of what’s happening next: onbeing.org/staywithus. Krista will be offering some of her defining memories, too: in a special online event in June, on social media, and more. So — please and thank you — go to onbeing.org/staywithus.

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Kimberley Wilson has a private psychotherapy and nutrition practice in central London. She co-hosts the BBC Radio 4 podcast Made of Stronger Stuff and is the author of How to Build a Healthy Brain. She came to the attention of many as a finalist in an early season of The Great British Bake Off. She grew up, as she tells it, eating both the West Indian food of her family and over-processed modern British fare.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Kimberley  Wilson — Whole Body Mental Health." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

And, this week, an invitation: As you may have heard, after twenty years (!), we are transitioning On Being from a weekly show to a seasonal podcast. We hope you’ll help us celebrate these first two decades, by sharing how you’ve made this adventure of conversation your own.

Is there a guest, an idea, or a moment from an episode that has made a difference, that has stayed with you? 

We’ve made it easy (and fun) to record your reflection — and at the same time sign up to stay on top of what’s happening next: onbeing.org/staywithus. Krista will be offering some of her defining memories, too: in a special online event in June, on social media, and more. So — please and thank you — go to onbeing.org/staywithus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 own:

Is there a guest, an idea or a moment from an episode that has made a difference, that has stayed with you? 

We’ve created a way for you to record your reflection simply — and at the same time sign up to stay on top of what’s happening next: onbeing.org/staywithus. Krista will be offering some of her defining memories, too: in a special online event in June, on social media, and more. So — please and thank you — go to onbeing.org/staywithus.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is the State University of New York Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. She is founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. She works with tribal nations on environmental problem-solving and sustainability. Part of that work is about recovering lineages of knowledge that were made illegal in the policies of tribal assimilation which did not fully end in the U.S. until the 1970s. Her books include Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in February 2016.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 own:

Is there a guest, an idea or a moment from an episode that has made a difference, that has stayed with you? 

We’ve created a way for you to record your reflection simply — and at the same time sign up to stay on top of what’s happening next: onbeing.org/staywithus. Krista will be offering some of her defining memories, too: in a special online event in June, on social media, and more. So — please and thank you — go to onbeing.org/staywithus.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is the State University of New York Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. She is founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. She works with tribal nations on environmental problem-solving and sustainability. Part of that work is about recovering lineages of knowledge that were made illegal in the policies of tribal assimilation which did not fully end in the U.S. until the 1970s. Her books include Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Robin Wall Kimmerer — The Intelligence of Plants." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in February 2016.

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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 the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in May 2011.

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Sign up for The Pause to receive our seasonal Saturday morning newsletter and advance invitations and news on all things On Being.

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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Find the original video and transcript at onbeing.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Sylvia Boorstein — What We Nurture." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in May 2011.

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Sign up for The Pause to receive our seasonal Saturday morning newsletter and advance invitations and news on all things On Being.

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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Pádraig Ó Tuama is a theologian, writer, and conflict transformation practitioner. He is a member and former leader of the Corrymeela Community of Northern Ireland. His books include an incandescent memoir, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World; a prayer book, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community; a book of poetry, Sorry For Your Troubles; and a book of theology and politics co-authored with Glenn Jordan, Borders & Belonging. He hosts the On Being Studios podcast Poetry Unbound. His forthcoming book, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, will be published in October 2022 and is available for pre-order wherever you get your books. Pádraig grew up in the Republic of Ireland, near Cork.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in March 2017.

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Sign up for The Pause to receive our seasonal Saturday morning newsletter and advance invitations and news on all things On Being.

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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Pádraig Ó Tuama is a theologian, writer, and conflict transformation practitioner. He is a member and former leader of the Corrymeela Community of Northern Ireland. His books include an incandescent memoir, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World; a prayer book, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community; a book of poetry, Sorry For Your Troubles; and a book of theology and politics co-authored with Glenn Jordan, Borders & Belonging. He hosts the On Being Studios podcast Poetry Unbound. His forthcoming book, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, will be published in October 2022 and is available for pre-order wherever you get your books. Pádraig grew up in the Republic of Ireland, near Cork.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode Pádraig Ó Tuama — “This fantastic argument of being alive.” Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in March 2017.

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Do you love what you're hearing? Our invitation to patronage is happening now. Participate in all that On Being is and is becoming. Give and more: onbeing.org/LoveUs.

Sign up for The Pause to receive our seasonal Saturday morning newsletter and advance invitations and news on all things On Being.

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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Ai-jen Poo co-founded and leads The National Domestic Workers Alliance, is the director of Caring Across Generations, and co-founder of Supermajority. Among her countless awards, she was a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. She’s the author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. Her previous conversation with Krista is “This Is Our (Caring) Revolution” — find it at onbeing.org and in your podcast feed. 

Tarana Burke has been organizing within issues facing Black women and girls for over three decades. Her many accolades include the 2019 Sydney Peace Prize and the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award from Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. She’s the author of Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Avivah Zornberg is a scholar of the Torah and a modern-day master of midrash. She lives in Israel but grew up in Scotland, the daughter and granddaughter of East European rabbis. And before she taught the Bible, she taught English literature. She is the author of many books, including The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers, and most recently, The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in April, 2005.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Avivah Zornberg is a scholar of the Torah and a modern-day master of midrash. She lives in Israel but grew up in Scotland, the daughter and granddaughter of East European rabbis. And before she taught the Bible, she taught English literature. She is the author of many books, including The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers, and most recently, The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Avivah Zornberg — Human Becoming, Between Biblical Lines." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in April, 2005.

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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 posthumously with the title: This Hallelujah Banquet: How the End of What We Were Reveals Who We Can Be. He served as the pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church for 29 years. He spent the last years of his life with his wife, Jan, at the home his father built in Lakeside, Montana, just outside Glacier National Park. That’s where he was when he spoke with Krista in 2016, two years before he died at the age of 85.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in December 2016.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 posthumously with the title: This Hallelujah Banquet: How the End of What We Were Reveals Who We Can Be. He served as the pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church for 29 years. He spent the last years of his life with his wife, Jan, at the home his father built in Lakeside, Montana, just outside Glacier National Park. That’s where he was when he spoke with Krista in 2016, two years before he died at the age of 85.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Eugene Peterson – Answering God.” Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in December 2016.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

This show originally aired in February, 2015.

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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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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 originally aired in January, 2021.

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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 features in the On Being episode "J. Drew Lanham — Pathfinding Through the Improbable." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in January, 2021.

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Kate DiCamillo has written many bestselling books, beloved by children and adults in touch with their inner eight-year-old, for two decades, including Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, The Magician’s Elephant, Flora & Ulysses, and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Some of these have been turned into operas and movies. Her new books in 2024 include the middle grade novel Ferris and Orris and Timble: The Beginning. She is a rare two-time winner of the Newbery Medal.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Kate DiCamillo — On Nurturing Capacious Hearts." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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Mario Livio is the author of seven books, including Galileo: And the Science Deniers, The Golden Ratio, and Is God a Mathematician? His current research centers on the emergence of life in the Universe.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in May 2010.

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Mario Livio is the author of seven books, including Galileo: And the Science Deniers, The Golden Ratio, and Is God a Mathematician? His current research centers on the emergence of life in the Universe.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Mario Livio — Mathematics, Mystery, and the Universe" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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Colette Pichon Battle is Co-founder and Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth, a global organization which has emerged from the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy that she founded and led in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She and her colleagues are influencing manifold aspects of our ecological present, including equitable disaster recovery and global migration, community economic development and energy democracy.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Colette Pichon Battle — On Knowing What We're Called To." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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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Gal Beckerman is the senior editor for books at The Atlantic. He has been a writer and editor for The New York Times Book Review, the Forward, and Columbia Journalism Review. In The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, he tells stories from the last five centuries that have not come down in bold in history, but that incubated developments we later experience as defining — from France to Rome, from Moscow to Ghana to Tahrir Square.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Gal Beckerman is the senior editor for books at The Atlantic. He has been a writer and editor for The New York Times Book Review, the Forward, and Columbia Journalism Review. In The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, he tells stories from the last five centuries that have not come down in bold in history, but that incubated developments we later experience as defining — from France to Rome, from Moscow to Ghana to Tahrir Square.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Gal Beckerman — How Newness Enters the World." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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 of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University for 30 years. His many books include Inner Revolution and the book he co-wrote with Sharon Salzberg, Love Your Enemies. In 2021, he published Wisdom Is Bliss: Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life. 

Sharon Salzberg is one of the original three young Americans who traveled to India in the 1960s and ‘70s and introduced Buddhist meditation into mainstream Western culture. She is a globally renowned meditation teacher and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Her books include 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, 2013.

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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 of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University for 30 years. His many books include Inner Revolution and the book he co-wrote with Sharon Salzberg, Love Your Enemies. In 2021, he published Wisdom Is Bliss: Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life. 

Sharon Salzberg is one of the original three young Americans who traveled to India in the 1960s and ‘70s and introduced Buddhist meditation into mainstream Western culture. She is a globally renowned meditation teacher and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Her books include 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 and Robert Thurman – Love Your Enemies? (Really?)." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org. 

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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 in February 2008.

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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 Being episode “John O'Donohue — The Inner Landscape of Beauty” Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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Trabian Shorters consults widely in philanthropy, business, nonprofits, and journalism. He’s the founder and CEO of the BMe Community. He’s been a Vice President of Communities at the Knight Foundation, co-led the Ashoka-US venture team, and founded a successful early social impact tech company in 1999. He’s co-editor of the book, Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading and Succeeding.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Trabian Shorters consults widely in philanthropy, business, nonprofits, and journalism. He’s the founder and CEO of the BMe Community. He’s been a Vice President of Communities at the Knight Foundation, co-led the Ashoka-US venture team, and founded a successful early social impact tech company in 1999. He’s co-editor of the book, Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading and Succeeding.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Trabian Shorters – A Cognitive Skill to Magnify Humanity." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen master, poet, and teacher. He first came to the world's attention in the 1960s during the war in his native Vietnam, as he forsook monastic isolation to care for the victims of that war and to work for reconciliation among all the warring parties. He called this “engaged Buddhism.” Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and he led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Talks in 1969. He wrote his classic book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, as a manual for young nuns and monks who were facing death every day during war in his country. He settled in exile in France and there he founded Plum Village, a Buddhist community, or Sangha, that has spawned communities of practice and service around the world. Other books among his many beloved include Being Peace and The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in September, 2003.

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Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen master, poet, and teacher. He first came to the world's attention in the 1960s during the war in his native Vietnam, as he forsook monastic isolation to care for the victims of that war and to work for reconciliation among all the warring parties. He called this “engaged Buddhism.” Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and he led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Talks in 1969. He wrote his classic book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, as a manual for young nuns and monks who were facing death every day during war in his country. He settled in exile in France and there he founded Plum Village, a Buddhist community, or Sangha, that has spawned communities of practice and service around the world. Other books among his many beloved include Being Peace and The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh, Brother Thay." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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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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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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-life diagnosis of autism and her love of cold-water swimming. Her books of fiction and memoir 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 anthology of essays about motherhood, called The Best, Most Awful Job. Her podcast is The Wintering Sessions.

Michael Pollan is a professor at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. His many bestselling books include The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, and most recently, This Is Your Mind on Plants. In 2020, he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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 titled, “This Column Will Change Your Life.”  

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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 titled, “This Column Will Change Your Life.”  

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Oliver Burkeman – Time Management for Mortals." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org. 

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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 aired in April, 2010.

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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 the On Being episode "Remembering Desmond Tutu." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in April, 2010.

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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 Global Sunrise: The Musical Sounds of Dawn. His podcast is called Sound Escapes.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired May 10, 2012.

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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 Global Sunrise: The Musical Sounds of Dawn. His podcast is called Sound Escapes.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Gordon Hempton — Silence and the Presence of Everything." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired May 10, 2012.

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Jeff Chu describes himself as a “writer, reporter, pretend farmer, co-host, preacher, teacher.” He is co-curator of the Evolving Faith conference, alongside Sarah Bessey, who founded the gathering with Rachel Held Evans. He has written for an eclectic range of publications including Fast Company, Time Magazine and Modern Farmer, and is a teacher in residence at Crosspointe Church in Cary, North Carolina. He’s the author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America and completed the late Rachel Held Evans’ unfinished work, Wholehearted Faith.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Jeff Chu describes himself as a “writer, reporter, pretend farmer, co-host, preacher, teacher.” He is co-curator of the Evolving Faith conference, alongside Sarah Bessey, who founded the gathering with Rachel Held Evans. He has written for an eclectic range of publications including Fast Company, Time Magazine and Modern Farmer, and is a teacher in residence at Crosspointe Church in Cary, North Carolina. He’s the author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America and completed the late Rachel Held Evans’ unfinished work, Wholehearted Faith.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jeff Chu: A Life of Holy Curiosity — In Friendship with Rachel Held Evans." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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 the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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 interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jane Hirshfield — The Fullness of Things." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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 anthology of essays about motherhood, called The Best, Most Awful Job.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in January, 2021.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 anthology of essays about motherhood, called The Best, Most Awful Job.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Katherine May – How ‘Wintering’ Replenishes." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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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 of The Emotional Life of Your Brain.

Dr. Vivek Murthy is the 21st United States Surgeon General, commanding a service of more than 6600 public health officers. He also served in this role from 2014 to 2017. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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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 of The Emotional Life of Your Brain.

Dr. Vivek Murthy is the 21st United States Surgeon General, commanding a service of more than 6600 public health officers. He also served in this role from 2014 to 2017. 

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Vivek Murthy and Richard Davidson – The Future of Well-being." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

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