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There is an ecological transformation unfolding in the places we love and come from. On a front edge of this reality, which will affect us all, Colette Pichon Battle is a singular model of brilliance and graciousness of mind and spirit and action. And to be with her is to open to the way the stories we tell have blunted us to the courage we're called to, and the joy we must nurture, as life force and fuel for the work ahead. As a young woman, she left her home state of Louisiana and land to which her family belonged for generations, to go to college and become a powerful lawyer in Washington, D.C. Then in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina made, as she has said, "a crack in the universe," she returned home to a whole new life and calling. Colette Pichon Battle is a vivid embodiment of the new forms societal shift is taking in our world — led by visionary pragmatists close to the ground, in particular places, persistently and lovingly learning and leading the way for us all.Colette Pichon Battle is 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.______Sign up for The Pause — a Saturday morning companion newsletter to the On Being podcast season, and our mailing list for news and invitations all year round. Be the first to know as tickets go on sale for the On Being 2025 live national conversation tour.
The visionary, next-generation organizer Ai-jen Poo says this of Tarana Burke: “There are just so many layers of hope that she brings to the world and to people like me, to survivors, to all kinds of communities.” Ai-jen and Tarana are the conversation partners for this episode of The Future of Hope. And what a conversation it is. We listen in on a brilliant friendship that has powered and sustained two extraordinary women who are leading defining movements of this generation that call us to our highest humanity. Ai-jen has been long ahead of a cultural curve we are all on now — of seeing the urgent calling to update and transform not just how we value the caregiving workforce of millions, but how we value care itself as a society. Tarana founded the ‘me too.' Movement. What you are about to hear is intimate, revelatory, and rooted in trust and care. It's also an invitation to all of us, to imagine and build a more graceful way to remake the world.Ai-jen Poo co-founded 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.
What do poetry, songs, and prayer have in common? While preparing for the next season of Poetry Unbound, host Pádraig Ó Tuama sat down with Krista Tippett to wonder at this mystery: that poems land in our lives as though they knew us already, as if they were waiting for us. From Ada Limón to Rosanne Cash to Eugene Peterson — how single lines become a portable ritual, and help us live. Poetry Unbound hears from so many people who've encountered a poem and made it part of their life; and whose life adds something to the poem in turn. Pádraig invites you, our dear listeners, to share your stories and experience of Poetry Unbound through our survey. And discover what's waiting to meet you ahead of the release of the very first Poetry Unbound book: sign up here for the latest.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
While preparing for the next season of Poetry Unbound, host Pádraig Ó Tuama sat down with Krista Tippett for a conversation about the power of poetry to find us at the exact moment we need it. Pádraig and Krista also invite listeners to share their experience of Poetry Unbound through our survey.You can also sign up for the latest updates from Poetry Unbound.
The astrophysicist Mario Livio spent 24 years at the Space Telescope Science Institute working with the Hubble Telescope, which has revealed the reality and beauty of the Universe to scientists and citizens in whole new ways. The Hubble's successor, the James Webb Telescope, will become fully operational in 2022, and will further some of the questions about the early formation of the Universe and the origins of life to which Mario Livio has been devoted. Krista spoke with him in 2010, and this conversation has become an On Being Classic, imparting a thrilling sense of all we are learning about the cosmos in this generation in time, our terrible earthly woes notwithstanding. Also: how scientific advance always meets recurrent mystery, from the emergence of life in the Universe to the very heart of mathematics and the puzzle of dark matter and dark energy.Mario Livio is the author of seven books, including Galileo: And the Science Deniers, The Golden Ratio, and Is God a 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.
The astrophysicist Mario Livio spent 24 years at the Space Telescope Science Institute working with the Hubble Telescope, which has revealed the reality and beauty of the Universe to scientists and citizens in whole new ways. The Hubble's successor, the James Webb Telescope, will become fully operational in 2022, and will further some of the questions about the early formation of the Universe and the origins of life to which Mario Livio has been devoted. Krista spoke with him in 2010, and this conversation has become an On Being Classic, imparting a thrilling sense of all we are learning about the cosmos in this generation in time, our terrible earthly woes notwithstanding. Also: how scientific advance always meets recurrent mystery, from the emergence of life in the Universe to the very heart of mathematics and the puzzle of dark matter and dark energy.Mario Livio is the author of seven books, including Galileo: And the Science Deniers, The Golden Ratio, and Is God a 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.
Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. The ebb and flow of the Bayou was a background rhythm in her childhood to every aspect of life. She did not ever imagine in that childhood that she would one day be known as a “climate activist.” To be with Colette, and experience her brilliance of mind and spirit and action, is to open up all the ways the words we use and the stories we tell about the transformation of the natural world that is upon us blunt us to the courage we're called to and the joy we must nurture as our primary energy and motivation. She is a vivid embodiment, too, of the new forms societal shift is taking in our world — led by visionary pragmatists close to the ground, in particular places, persistently and lovingly learning and leading the way for us all. Colette Pichon Battle is founder and Co-Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, which influences realms from equitable disaster recovery to global migration, from community economic development to climate justice and energy democracy. She founded that center in the wake of Hurricane Katrina of 2005, which she has described as “a crack in the universe.” Katrina was a front edge of a transformation we are all experiencing in some way in the places we love and come from. Among her many activities she serves on the board of the US Climate Action Network and leads the Red, Black & Green New Deal — the climate initiative of the Movement for Black Lives.This conversation was part of The Great Northern Festival, a celebration of Minnesota's cold, creative winters.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Colette Pichon Battle — “Placed Here, In This Calling”" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. The ebb and flow of the Bayou was a background rhythm in her childhood to every aspect of life. She did not ever imagine in that childhood that she would one day be known as a “climate activist.” To be with Colette, and experience her brilliance of mind and spirit and action, is to open up all the ways the words we use and the stories we tell about the transformation of the natural world that is upon us blunt us to the courage we're called to and the joy we must nurture as our primary energy and motivation. She is a vivid embodiment, too, of the new forms societal shift is taking in our world — led by visionary pragmatists close to the ground, in particular places, persistently and lovingly learning and leading the way for us all. Colette Pichon Battle is founder and Co-Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, which influences realms from equitable disaster recovery to global migration, from community economic development to climate justice and energy democracy. She founded that center in the wake of Hurricane Katrina of 2005, which she has described as “a crack in the universe.” Katrina was a front edge of a transformation we are all experiencing in some way in the places we love and come from. Among her many activities she serves on the board of the US Climate Action Network and leads the Red, Black & Green New Deal — the climate initiative of the Movement for Black Lives.This conversation was part of The Great Northern Festival, a celebration of Minnesota's cold, creative winters.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
It's a piece of deep psychological acuity, carried in many religious traditions: that each of us is defined as much by who our enemies are and how we treat them as by whom and what we love. In this episode, two legendary Buddhist teachers shine a light on the lofty ideal of loving your enemies and bring it down to earth. Across a half-century conversation and friendship, Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman have investigated the mind science behind this virtue and practice. They illuminate how to transmute the very real, very consequential and consuming energy of anger and hatred — and why love in fact can be a rational and pragmatic stance towards those who vex us. This is a conversation filled with laughter and friendship and with practical wisdom on how we relate to that which makes us feel embattled from without, and from within.Robert Thurman is the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama. He is president of Tibet House U.S., and was a professor 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.
It's a piece of deep psychological acuity, carried in many religious traditions: that each of us is defined as much by who our enemies are and how we treat them as by whom and what we love. In this episode, two legendary Buddhist teachers shine a light on the lofty ideal of loving your enemies and bring it down to earth. Across a half-century conversation and friendship, Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman have investigated the mind science behind this virtue and practice. They illuminate how to transmute the very real, very consequential and consuming energy of anger and hatred — and why love in fact can be a rational and pragmatic stance towards those who vex us. This is a conversation filled with laughter and friendship and with practical wisdom on how we relate to that which makes us feel embattled from without, and from within.Robert Thurman is the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama. He is president of Tibet House U.S., and was a professor 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.
No conversation we've ever done has been more beloved than this one. The Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher insisted on beauty as a human calling. He had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with the inner landscape of our lives and with what he called “the invisible world” that is constantly intertwining what we can know and see. This was one of the last interviews he gave before his unexpected death in 2008. But John O'Donohue's voice and writings continue to bring ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings.John O'Donohue was a poet, theologian, and philosopher. He authored beloved books, including Anam Ċara and Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. To Bless the Space Between Us, a collection of blessings, was published posthumously. A wonderful book drawn from his voice in conversation, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World, was published in November 2018.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in February 2008.
No conversation we've ever done has been more beloved than this one. The Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher insisted on beauty as a human calling. He had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with the inner landscape of our lives and with what he called “the invisible world” that is constantly intertwining what we can know and see. This was one of the last interviews he gave before his unexpected death in 2008. But John O'Donohue's voice and writings continue to bring ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings.John O'Donohue was a poet, theologian, and philosopher. He authored beloved books, including Anam Ċara and Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. To Bless the Space Between Us, a collection of blessings, was published posthumously. A wonderful book drawn from his voice in conversation, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World, was published in November 2018.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “John O'Donohue — The Inner Landscape of Beauty” Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Trabian Shorters is a visionary who has seen and named a task that is necessary for all healing and building, for every vision and plan, whether in a family or a world, to flourish. It's called Asset Framing — and it works with both new understandings of the brain and an age-old understanding of the real-world power of the words we use, the stories we tell, and the way we name things and people. From everyday social media, to hallowed modes of journalistic, academic, and policy analyses, we have a habit of seeing deficits — and of defining people in need in terms of their problems. This has not only doomed some of our best efforts to failure — it leaves all of us prone to cynicism and hopelessness. What's exciting is that what Trabian Shorters proposes is not only more effective, it is simple and straightforward to grasp. It is in and of itself dignifying and renewing. The main question you might be asking at the end of this is why, at this advanced stage of our species, it took us so long to learn to asset frame.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.
Trabian Shorters is a visionary who has seen and named a task that is necessary for all healing and building, for every vision and plan, whether in a family or a world, to flourish. It's called Asset Framing — and it works with both new understandings of the brain and an age-old understanding of the real-world power of the words we use, the stories we tell, and the way we name things and people. From everyday social media, to hallowed modes of journalistic, academic, and policy analyses, we have a habit of seeing deficits — and of defining people in need in terms of their problems. This has not only doomed some of our best efforts to failure — it leaves all of us prone to cynicism and hopelessness. What's exciting is that what Trabian Shorters proposes is not only more effective, it is simple and straightforward to grasp. It is in and of itself dignifying and renewing. The main question you might be asking at the end of this is why, at this advanced stage of our species, it took us so long to learn to asset frame. 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.
When Krista interviewed the psychiatrist and trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk for the first time, his book The Body Keeps the Score was about to be published. She described him then as “an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences on people and society.” She catches up with him in 2021 — as we are living through one vast overwhelming experience after the other. And The Body Keeps the Score is now one of the most widely read books in the pandemic world. His perspective is utterly unique and very practically helpful — on what's been happening in our bodies and our brains, and how that relationship can become severed and restored.Bessel van der Kolk is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts. He's also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. His books include Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on the Mind, Body, and Society and The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Bessel van der Kolk — TITLE." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in July 2013.
When Krista interviewed the psychiatrist and trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk for the first time, his book The Body Keeps the Score was about to be published. She described him then as “an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences on people and society.” She catches up with him in 2021 — as we are living through one vast overwhelming experience after the other. And The Body Keeps the Score is now one of the most widely read books in the pandemic world. His perspective is utterly unique and very practically helpful — on what's been happening in our bodies and our brains, and how that relationship can become severed and restored.Bessel van der Kolk is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts. He's also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. His books include Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on the Mind, Body, and Society and The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
We're in a time as thick with uncertainty as with possibility. Many of us are still, and again, exhausted — and yet opening, fitfully, to what we've learned and have been called to at this moment in the life of the world. Toward nourishing that, the second offering in our new series, The Future of Hope, with social creative Darnell Moore in conversation with filmmaker dream hampton. The influence they wield spans hip-hop to Netflix to the Oscars; from the Movement for Black Lives to Surviving R. Kelly. It is an honor to enter this tender, intimate conversation between two dear friends. In them we experience a muscular hope in justice oriented toward redemption — and calling out in a spirit of “calling in.”dream hampton is a filmmaker and writer. She won a George Foster Peabody Award for the docu-series Surviving R. Kelly. She's been named as one of Time Magazine's most influential people. Find an archive of all her writing at dreamhampton.com.Darnell Moore is the Vice President of Inclusion Strategy at Netflix. His memoir is, No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free In America, and he is host of the podcast “Being Seen.”Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
“I grew up a witness,” Mike Rose wrote, “to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line. This then is something I know: the thought it takes to do physical work.” Mike Rose died in August, yet the particular way he saw the world resonates more than ever before as our debates about the future of school and work only intensify. He argued with care and eloquence that we risk too narrow a view of the way the physical, the human, and the cognitive blend in all kinds of learning and in all kinds of labor. Mike Rose's intelligence would enlarge our civic imagination on big subjects at the heart of who we are — schooling, social class, and the deepest meaning of vocation.Mike Rose was a research professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He authored several books, including The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker, Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us, and more recently Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Mike Rose – The Deepest Meanings of Intelligence and Vocation" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in January 2010.
“I grew up a witness,” Mike Rose wrote, “to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line. This then is something I know: the thought it takes to do physical work.” Mike Rose died in August, yet the particular way he saw the world resonates more than ever before as our debates about the future of school and work only intensify. He argued with care and eloquence that we risk too narrow a view of the way the physical, the human, and the cognitive blend in all kinds of learning and in all kinds of labor. Mike Rose's intelligence would enlarge our civic imagination on big subjects at the heart of who we are — schooling, social class, and the deepest meaning of vocation.Mike Rose was a research professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He authored several books, including The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker, Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us, and more recently Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in January 2010.
One of the great challenges of life is to learn to be alone peaceably, at home in oneself. The pandemic forced many of us inside both physically and emotionally, even if we were not home on our own. We've been forced to work out the difference between loneliness and solitude. With teachers across the ages, and drawing on his life from monasticism to marriage, Buddhist writer and scholar Stephen Batchelor teaches how to approach solitude as a graceful and life-giving practice.Stephen Batchelor is a Buddhist writer and scholar who teaches seminars and leads meditation retreats worldwide. He's a co-founder and faculty member of Bodhi [BOH-dee] College, which is focused on the study and practice of early Buddhism. His many books include Buddhism Without Beliefs, The Faith to Doubt, and most recently, The Art of Solitude.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Stephen Batchelor — Finding Ease in Aloneness" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
One of the great challenges of life is to learn to be alone peaceably, at home in oneself. The pandemic forced many of us inside both physically and emotionally, even if we were not home on our own. We've been forced to work out the difference between loneliness and solitude. With teachers across the ages, and drawing on his life from monasticism to marriage, Buddhist writer and scholar Stephen Batchelor teaches how to approach solitude as a graceful and life-giving practice.Stephen Batchelor is a Buddhist writer and scholar who teaches seminars and leads meditation retreats worldwide. He's a co-founder and faculty member of Bodhi [BOH-dee] College, which is focused on the study and practice of early Buddhism. His many books include Buddhism Without Beliefs, The Faith to Doubt, and most recently, The Art of Solitude.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in April 2020.
An irreverent conversation about hope between journalist Wajahat Ali and theologian Kate Bowler. They speak to this moment we're in through the friendship they found on the edge of life and death that is cancer — Wajahat through his young daughter; and Kate with a stage 4 diagnosis at the age of 35 that she's chronicled in a beloved memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved). Their conversation is rich with practical wisdom for facing uncertainty and mortality, losses we did not foresee, and new beginnings we would not have chosen.This is the first in a new series, The Future of Hope — a beautiful array of voices, former guests on this show, having the conversations they want to be hearing in this time.Wajahat Ali is a columnist at The Daily Beast and his essays, interviews, and reporting have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. He also is a Senior Fellow at the Western States Center and Auburn Seminary. He wrote the celebrated play, The Domestic Crusaders. His first book, Go Back To Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American, will be published in early 2022. Kate Bowler is an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School. She's the author of, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel and the New York Times best-selling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved). She also hosts the podcast Everything Happens. Her new book is No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear).Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
“Having tasted beauty at the heart of the world, we hunger for more.” These are words from Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek in his book, A Beautiful Question. It’s a winsome, joyful meditation on the question: Do cosmic realities embody beautiful ideas? — probing the world, by way of science, as a work of art. He reminds us that time and space, mystery and order, are so much stranger and more generous than we can comprehend. He’s now written a wonderful new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality.Frank Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2004, he received the Nobel Prize in physics. His books include A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design and The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. His new book is Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired June 14, 2018.
“Having tasted beauty at the heart of the world, we hunger for more.” These are words from Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek in his book, A Beautiful Question. It’s a winsome, joyful meditation on the question: Do cosmic realities embody beautiful ideas? — probing the world, by way of science, as a work of art. He reminds us that time and space, mystery and order, are so much stranger and more generous than we can comprehend. He’s now written a wonderful new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality.Frank Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2004, he received the Nobel Prize in physics. His books include A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design and The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. His new book is Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Frank Wilczek — Beauty as a Compass for Truth." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Underpinning all the great challenges of our time there is the human drama, the human condition. And as we move beyond 2020, we turn to Mary Catherine Bateson to help us understand the puzzle of being ourselves, of rising to our best capacities and gifts, in all of our complexity and strangeness. She is the daughter of the great anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and she is a linguist and anthropologist herself.Mary Catherine Bateson - is Professor Emerita at George Mason University. Her books include a memoir of her life with her parents Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson called With a Daughter's Eye, as well as her bestselling book Composing a Life. Most recently, she is the co-author of Thinking Race: Social Myths and Biological Realities, published nearly 50 years after her mother’s A Rap on Race with James Baldwin.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Mary Catherine Bateson —Living as an Improvisational Art." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Underpinning all the great challenges of our time there is the human drama, the human condition. And as we move beyond 2020, we turn to Mary Catherine Bateson to help us understand the puzzle of being ourselves, of rising to our best capacities and gifts, in all of our complexity and strangeness. She is the daughter of the great anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and she is a linguist and anthropologist herself.Mary Catherine Bateson - is Professor Emerita at George Mason University. Her books include a memoir of her life with her parents Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson called With a Daughter's Eye, as well as her bestselling book Composing a Life. Most recently, she is the co-author of Thinking Race: Social Myths and Biological Realities, published nearly 50 years after her mother’s A Rap on Race with James Baldwin.This show originally aired in October, 2015.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org
Rabbi Sacks was one of the world’s deepest thinkers on religion and the challenges of modern life. He died last week after a short battle with cancer. When Krista spoke with him in 2010, he modeled a life-giving, imagination-opening faithfulness to what some might see as contradictory callings: How to be true to one’s own convictions while also honoring the sacred and civilizational calling to shared life — indeed, to love the stranger?Jonathan Sacks was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years. He taught and spoke all over the world, with appointments at King’s College London and at New York University and Yeshiva University in the U.S. His many books include The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, and most recently, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Remembering Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Rabbi Sacks was one of the world’s deepest thinkers on religion and the challenges of modern life. He died last week after a short battle with cancer. When Krista spoke with him in 2010, he modeled a life-giving, imagination-opening faithfulness to what some might see as contradictory callings: How to be true to one’s own convictions while also honoring the sacred and civilizational calling to shared life — indeed, to love the stranger?Jonathan Sacks was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years. He taught and spoke all over the world, with appointments at King’s College London and at New York University and Yeshiva University in the U.S. His many books include The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, and most recently, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in November, 2010.
Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk is an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences. We call this “trauma” when we encounter it in life and news, and we tend to leap to address it by talking. But Bessel van der Kolk knows how some experiences imprint themselves beyond where language can reach. He explores state-of-the-art therapeutic treatments — including body work like yoga and eye movement therapy — and shares what he and others are learning on this edge of humanity about the complexity of memory, our need for others, and how our brains take care of our bodies.Bessel van der Kolk is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts. He’s also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. His books include Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on the Mind, Body, and Society and The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Bessel van der Kolk — How Trauma Lodges in the Body." Find more at onbeing.org. This show originally aired in July 2013.
Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk is an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences. We call this “trauma” when we encounter it in life and news, and we tend to leap to address it by talking. But Bessel van der Kolk knows how some experiences imprint themselves beyond where language can reach. He explores state-of-the-art therapeutic treatments — including body work like yoga and eye movement therapy — and shares what he and others are learning on this edge of humanity about the complexity of memory, our need for others, and how our brains take care of our bodies.Bessel van der Kolk is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts. He’s also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. His books include Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on the Mind, Body, and Society and The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. This show originally aired in July 2013.
This interview accompanies the On Being episode “Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, and Arnold Rampersad — W.E.B. Du Bois & the American Soul.” Find more at onbeing.org.
She has called Brain Pickings, her invention and labor of love, a “human-powered discovery engine for interestingness.” What Maria Popova really delivers, to hundreds of thousands of people each day, is wisdom of the old-fashioned sort, presented in new-fashioned digital ways. She cross-pollinates — between philosophy and design, physics and poetry, the intellectual and the experiential. We explore her gleanings on what it means to lead a good life — intellectually, creatively, and spiritually. Maria Popova is the creator and presence behind BrainPickings.org, which is included in the Library of Congress’s permanent digital archive of culturally valuable materials. She is the author of Figuring and hosts “The Universe in Verse” — an annual celebration of science through poetry — at the interdisciplinary cultural institute Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
She has called Brain Pickings, her invention and labor of love, a “human-powered discovery engine for interestingness.” What Maria Popova really delivers, to hundreds of thousands of people each day, is wisdom of the old-fashioned sort, presented in new-fashioned digital ways. She cross-pollinates — between philosophy and design, physics and poetry, the intellectual and the experiential. We explore her gleanings on what it means to lead a good life — intellectually, creatively, and spiritually. Maria Popova is the creator and presence behind BrainPickings.org, which is included in the Library of Congress’s permanent digital archive of culturally valuable materials. She is the author of Figuring and hosts “The Universe in Verse” — an annual celebration of science through poetry — at the interdisciplinary cultural institute Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Maria Popova — Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age.” Find more at onbeing.org.
“We are flying too low. We built this universe, this technology, these connections, this society, and all we can do with it is make junk? All we can do with it is put on stupid entertainments? I’m not buying it.” Seth Godin is wise and infectiously curious about life, the internet, and everything. He was one of the first people to name the “connection economy.” And even as we’re seeing its dark side, he helps us hold on to the highest human potential the digital age still calls us to. His daily blog is indispensable reading for many of us. He’s a long-time mentor to Krista. This interview happened in 2012. Seth now has a new podcast, “Akimbo,” and a new book coming out, “This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See.” Seth Godin writes the wildly popular daily, Seth’s Blog. He’s the author of many best-selling books, online and in print, including “Purple Cow,” “The Dip,” and “Linchpin.” In 2018 he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame.
“We are flying too low. We built this universe, this technology, these connections, this society, and all we can do with it is make junk? All we can do with it is put on stupid entertainments? I’m not buying it.” Seth Godin is wise and infectiously curious about life, the internet, and everything. He was one of the first people to name the “connection economy.” And even as we’re seeing its dark side, he helps us hold on to the highest human potential the digital age still calls us to. His daily blog is indispensable reading for many of us. He’s a long-time mentor to Krista. This interview happened in 2012. Seth now has a new podcast, “Akimbo,” and a new book coming out, “This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See.” Seth Godin writes the wildly popular daily, Seth’s Blog. He’s the author of many best-selling books, online and in print, including “Purple Cow,” “The Dip,” and “Linchpin.” In 2018 he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Seth Godin — Life, the Internet, and Everything.” Find more at onbeing.org.
A morning of poetry with Naomi Shihab Nye from the second day of our On Being Gathering. This year, we were thrilled to host our very first On Being Gathering — a four-day coming-together of the On Being community for reflection, conversation, and companionship — at the 1440 Multiversity in the redwoods of Scotts Valley, California. We greeted each day with verse from some of our most beloved poets — and now we’d like to share these delightful moments with all of you. Here is how Naomi Shihab Nye began our Saturday morning. Naomi Shihab Nye is a visiting poet all over the world and a professor of creative writing at Texas State University. Her books include “19 Varieties of Gazelle,” “A Maze Me: Poems for Girls,” and “Transfer.” Her most recent book is “Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
An evening of poetry with David Whyte from the first day of our On Being Gathering. This year, we were thrilled to host our very first On Being Gathering — a four-day coming-together of the On Being community for reflection, conversation, and companionship — at the 1440 Multiversity in the redwoods of Scotts Valley, California. We greeted each day with verse from some of our most beloved poets — and now we’d like to share these delightful moments with all of you. Here is how David Whyte opened for us on Friday night. David Whyte is a poet and an associate fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He is the author of “The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America” and “Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.” His most recent book is “The Bell and The Blackbird.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
How can we help young people feel like they have a voice in the world?Krista reflects on the voice and agency of young people and the importance of fostering intergenerational relationships. The second installment of “Living the Questions” — a new feature of the On Being podcast where Krista responds to questions from you.
The wonderful writer Luis Alberto Urrea says that a deep truth of our time is that “we miss each other.” We have this drive to erect barriers between ourselves and yet this makes us a little crazy. He is singularly wise about the deep meaning and the problem of borders. The Mexican-American border, as he likes to say, ran straight through his parents’ Mexican-American marriage and divorce. His works of fiction and non-fiction confuse every dehumanizing caricature of Mexicans — and of U.S. border guards. The possibility of our time, as he lives and witnesses with his writing, is to evolve the old melting pot to the 21st-century richness of “us” — with all the mess and necessary humor required. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Luis Alberto Urrea — What Borders Are Really About, and What We Do With Them.” Find more at onbeing.org.
Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek sees beauty as a compass for truth, discovery, and meaning. His book “A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design” is a long meditation on the question: “Does the world embody beautiful ideas?” He’s the unusual scientist willing to analogize his discoveries about the deep structure of reality with deep meaning in the human everyday. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Frank Wilczek — Why Is the World So Beautiful?” Find more at onbeing.org.
Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek sees beauty as a compass for truth, discovery, and meaning. His book “A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design” is a long meditation on the question: “Does the world embody beautiful ideas?” He’s the unusual scientist willing to analogize his discoveries about the deep structure of reality with deep meaning in the human everyday. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Maria Shriver’s life is often summarized in fairy tale terms. A child of the Kennedy clan in the Camelot aura of the early 1960s. Daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics, and Sargent Shriver, who founded the Peace Corps. An esteemed broadcast journalist. First lady of California. This hour, she opens up about having a personal history that is also public history — and how deceptive the appearance of glamour can be. We experience the legendary toughness of the women in Maria Shriver’s family — but also the hard-won tenderness and wisdom with which she has come to raise her own voice. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Maria Shriver — Finding My ‘I Am'”. Find more at onbeing.org.
Maria Shriver’s life is often summarized in fairy tale terms. A child of the Kennedy clan in the Camelot aura of the early 1960s. Daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics, and Sargent Shriver, who helped found the Peace Corps. An esteemed broadcast journalist. First lady of California. This hour, she opens up about having a personal history that is also public history — and how deceptive the appearance of glamour can be. We experience the legendary toughness of the women in Maria Shriver’s family — but also the hard-won tenderness and wisdom with which she has come to raise her own voice. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Her name is synonymous with her fantastically best-selling memoir “Eat Pray Love.” But through the disorienting process of becoming a celebrity, Elizabeth Gilbert has also reflected deeply on the gift and challenge of inhabiting a creative life. Creativity, as she defines it, is about choosing curiosity over fear — not to be confused with the more familiar trope to “follow your passion,” but rather as something accessible to us all and good for our life together.