Changing Destructive Stories Through Music
"In the story, Dr. Frankenstein creates the impossible. He creates life out of unlife. He creates a new creature. And what happens when he's done? He walks away. Abandons him. Doesn't even give it a name. "Not my responsibility." When the creature wakes up in the forest he's looking for where he belongs. He's looking for a family. Then he hears the voices of birds.He feels a deep connection with t... posted on Feb 27 2023, 2,280 reads

Gabor Mate: Healing Into Wholeness in a Toxic Culture
"Celebrated author and physician Dr. Gabor Mat has become one of the worlds foremost voices on the journey of healing from traumain large part because it is a path he walks himself. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Mat about his new book, The Myth of Normal, sharing breakthrough insights into the nature of trauma and some of the necessary steps for our personal and collective recovery. ... posted on Feb 26 2023, 7,964 reads

A Little More Than Kin
Richard Powers reaches beyond the cold calculus of kin selection to look at how human beings find kinship with nonhuman relatives and how stories can reveal our shared fate.... posted on Feb 25 2023, 1,972 reads

Dying to Make a Living
For generations coal miners have risked their health and safety to be able to provide for their families. Eastern Kentucky has been irrevocably changed by mining and its collateral damage on individuals and the environment. Through their music, the Appalachian duo, The Local Honeys, shines a light on how the long held traditions of folk music and activism combine to provide hope and healing.... posted on Feb 24 2023, 1,598 reads

Why Beauty Matters
"The content of these writings flow from a paradigm shift in the cosmology of our culture that is happening at this time. The timeless recognition of Consciousness and its productions (the apparent world around us) is also experienced as Beauty. The old "materialist" culture is giving way to a deeper Truth; the unity of everything. Beauty is one way into this new understanding." Scott Guyon shares... posted on Feb 23 2023, 2,275 reads

You Don't Have to Know: Our Dark Materials
"There's a layered quality to suffering and intense emotion. As you become interested, a tiny, elf light appears in the darkest dungeon. That's the gate of emptiness. As you become more interested, you walk deeper into the forest and everything looks different. Sometimes it becomes joyful right away but it doesn't need to. It's become a path and that is enough. So, no first principles, but a few r... posted on Feb 22 2023, 2,409 reads

David Rothenberg: The Joy & Mystery of Interspecies Music Making
David Rothenberg is a writer, philosopher, ecologist, and musician, speaking out for nature in all aspects of his diverse work. He investigates the musicality of animals and the role of nature in philosophy, with a particular interest in understanding other species by making music with them. His book 'Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song,' was inspired by an impromptu duet in Ma... posted on Feb 21 2023, 2,804 reads

Jane Wodening: The Lady Orangutan
What connects our human experience to the experiences of other species? There are many ways to respond to that question, and while each of them might hold some merit, all of them would be incomplete. Some questions cannot be answered, they can only be leaned into. And sometimes, a single meeting can communicate a world of both mystery, and meaning. In this riveting, real-life story from Jane Woden... posted on Feb 20 2023, 3,014 reads

The Light That Bridges the Dark Expanse Between Lonelinesses
"The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love -- whether we call it friendship or family or romance -- is the work of mirroring and magnifying each others light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that per... posted on Feb 19 2023, 7,483 reads

An Ethics of Wild Mind
"Winter is a kind of pregnant emptiness. Spring emerges out of that--it flourishes. And life flourishes in summer and then dies back into that emptiness of winter. And you realize, oh, my thoughts are doing the same thing that the ten thousand things do--they're part of the same tissue...And so that's another radical reweaving of consciousness and wildness--what I mean by "wild mind." In this conv... posted on Feb 18 2023, 2,179 reads