on being

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/an-aural-hike-through-the-hoh-valley-rain-forest-a-soundscape-meditation/5776

Through the sounds of the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton guides us to One Square Inch of Silence — with the chirping twitter of the Western wren and the haunting call of the Roosevelt elk. Take this aural hike and be sure to listen with a pair of headphones or earbuds. You’ll discover quieting sounds you might miss without them.

A Guided Aural Hike Through the Hoh Rain Forest with Gordon Hempton

http://www.onbeing.org/program/last-quiet-places/4557

Silence, says Gordon Hempton, is not a luxury. It’s essential to our well-being: "There are answers in the silence. I feel the presence of everything, nothing shouts importance. Quiet is quieting."

An acoustic ecologist and a collector of sound from all over the world, Gordon Hempton says that silence is an endangered species. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise. The Earth, as he knows it, is a "solar-powered jukebox." Quiet is a "think tank of the soul": "Not too long ago it was assumed that clean water's not important, that seeing the stars is not that important. But now it is. And now I think we're realizing quiet is important and we need silence. That silence is not a luxury, but it's essential.

Gordon Hempton — The Last Quiet Places (July 4, 2013)

http://www.onbeing.org/program/becoming-detroit-grace-lee-boggs-on-reimagining-work-food-and-community/1060

We’re used to hearing about Detroit as a symbol of economic collapse. With the recent news coverage of its declaration of bankruptcy, we travel to a city of vigor where joyful, passionate people are reimagining work, food, and the very meaning of humanity. The Chinese-American philosopher and civil rights legend Grace Lee Boggs is the heart and soul of this largely hidden story, which holds lessons for us all:

"When you live in a city like Detroit, it's not just buildings that have become ruins. It's that a way of life, a way of thinking has died and something else has been born — a new culture, a new spirit. And I think that's what you get in Detroit if you are able to look past the ruins. What an opportunity. What a time to be alive."

Grace Lee Boggs — Becoming Detroit: Reimagining Work, Food, and Community (July 18, 2013)

http://www.onbeing.org/program/on-exoplanets-and-love/5029

For Natalie Batalha of NASA's Kepler Mission, it's just a matter of time before we look at the sky and know of planets where life exists. And that, she says, will transform our sense of ourselves:

    "When you look up at the sky on a very dark night at those stars or that crescent moon or whatever it is, what do you feel? You feel wonder, of course. You feel humility. But I think you also feel lonely, small, insignificant. There's a profound sense of loneliness, or just the universe is so big and I'm so small. But imagine in the near-term future, your grandchild or your great-grandchild looks up in the sky and his mother can point to a star and say, that star right there? That star has a planet just like Earth, and it harbors life. That's a different perspective. That's completely different when we can look up in the sky and know that. It's a game-changer."

A luminous voice of how we explore the heavens now — bringing the exuberance of science closer to home to us all.

    "We are extending our senses out into the cosmos in a very real, tangible way, and that makes it so much easier to capture our imagination, to inspire us. Through the Curiosity Rover, we are standing there in our hiking boots on the surface of Mars. Man, I can practically hear the crunching of the dirt underneath my feet. It feels like I could bend down and pick up a rock and toss it over that hill over there, you know? So in a very real way, these experiments are extending our senses out into the cosmos."

Natalie Batalha — Exoplanets and Love: Science That Connects Us to One Another (Aug 29, 2013)

This is Krista Tippett's complete, unabridged conversation with David Sloan Wilson that's included in the show "Evolving a City."  

David Sloan Wilson believes that evolution is not just a description of how we got here. He says it can also be a tool kit for improving how we live together. He’s taken what he’s learned in studying evolution in animals and is now applying it to the behavior of groups in his hometown of Binghamton, New York. His goal is to help people behave pro-socially — at their best, and for the good of the whole.

http://www.onbeing.org/program/evolving-city/4720



[Unedited] David Sloan Wilson with Krista Tippett

Who knew that the architect behind St. Paul's Cathedral was also an anatomist who diagrammed the human brain? Today, scientists of the brain are learning why our sensory experience in a place like a cathedral — the incense, the soaring music, the stained glass, and the light — is physiologically good for us:

    "What is it about beautiful vistas of mountains, about the infinite horizon of the ocean, about a cathedral? There are certainly physiological and neuroscientific bases to that feeling, and I am convinced — I know — that these things can be measured. And that's the exciting new frontier for me, to ask exactly that question."

Esther Sternberg is an immunologist and a pioneer on this new frontier that's giving rise to disciplines like neuroimmunology and environmental psychology. Architects are working with scientists to imbue the spaces we move through — the sights, sounds, and smells of them — with active healing properties. And Esther Sternberg says all of us can create surroundings and even portable sensations to manage stress and tap our brain's own internal pharmacies.

http://www.onbeing.org/program/the-science-of-healing-places/4856

Esther Sternberg — The Science of Healing Places

The people we later recognize as prophets, says Walter Brueggemann, are also poets who reframe what is at stake in chaotic times. A special voice addressing our changing lives and the deepest meaning of hope this season.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/prophetic-imagination-walter-brueggemann/475

Walter Brueggemann — The Prophetic Imagination (Dec 19, 2013)

An expansive reflection on work, education, and civic imagination with an esteemed researcher and teacher at UCLA and a poetic writer. We explore his perspective, through life and scholarship, on hard subjects that drive to the heart of who we are -- literacy, schooling, social class, and the deepest meaning of vocation.

See more at: www.onbeing.org/program/meaning-intelligence/208

Mike Rose — The Meaning of Intelligence (Aug 30, 2012)

Gender defines us from the moment we’re born. But how is that related to the lifelong work of being at home in ourselves? For as far back as Joy Ladin can remember, her body didn’t match her soul. We explore this question through her story of transition from male to female -- in an orthodox Jewish world.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/gender-and-the-syntax-of-being-joy-ladin-on-identity-and-transition/5646


Joy Ladin — Gender and the Syntax of Being: Identity and Transition (Jun 20, 2013)

http://www.onbeing.org/program/meredith-monks-voice/1398

Singer and composer Meredith Monk is a kind of archeologist of the human voice. She says that "the voice could be like the body" — flexible and fluid with practice. Through music as through meditation, the longtime Buddhist practitioner pushes the boundaries of what we can do without words.

on being

Matthijs Kok