The Becoming Wise podcast offers depth and discovery in the time it takes to make a cup of tea. Each episode is curated from hundreds of big conversations with wise and graceful lives. Reset your day. Replenish your sense of yourself and the world. On Being Studios is the producer of On Being, This Movie Changed Me, and more to come. Krista Tippett is the author of the New York Times bestselling Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living. President Obama honored her with the National Humanities Medal for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence.” 

Discover more https://onbeing.org/series/becoming-wise/

Becoming Wise

Poem text and context: https://www.brainpickings.org/2021/05/28/emily-dickinson-grief/

POEM TEXT / CONTEXT

"I measure every Grief I meet" (Maria Popova reads Emily Dickinson)

"The looking back on Grief" (Maria Popova reads Emily Dickinson)

We join forces with Sarah Marshall from You’re Wrong About to dive into a question for the ages: Blue balls — are they real? We’ve heard that for people with balls, if you get aroused but don’t ejaculate, it can be incredibly painful. But is that true? Or is it a ball-faced lie, something that men make up to pressure women to have sex with them? Join us for a ball-busting episode that puts blue balls to the ultimate test-es, reaching a gripping conclusion as we ask: If blue balls is in fact real — can people with vaginas get it too? 

Our guests include Sam Pierstorff, Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, Professor Caroline Pukall and Dr. Jonathan Chalett.

Our transcript is here: https://bit.ly/3uQsujH

This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman with help from Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, Meryl Horn, Nick DelRose, Michelle Dang and Rose Rimler. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Eva Dasher. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord and Bumi Hidaka. A huge thanks to all the experts we got in touch with for this episode, including Dr Gordon Muir, Dr Michael Leapman, Dr Karan Rangarajan, Dr Randal Rockney, Dr Nan Wise, and Dr Kevin Gandhi. And a big big thanks to Eric Mennel, Ayo Oti, Andrea Scott, Jack Weinstein, the Zukerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson.

Science Vs

Blue Balls: You're Wrong About Them

Here you can listen to Derek Walcott's poem recited by Kabat-Zinn, saying a prose statement was "bound to be inadequate" in communicating his point.

Read the full poem at http://www.onbeing.org/program/opening-our-lives/138

"Love After Love" by Derek Walcott (Read by Jon Kabat-Zinn)

As Rumi wrote: “What is the soul? Consciousness. The more awareness, the deeper the soul, and when such essence overflows, you feel a sacredness around. It’s so simple to tell one who puts on a robe and pretends to be a dervish from the real thing. We know the taste of pure water…” 
https://www.betterlisten.com/products/pure-water-poetry-of-rumi-with-coleman-barks-and-eugene-friesen

Buy at BetterListen

Pure Water: Poetry of Rumi with Coleman Barks and Eugene Friesen (Preview)

Alleluia! O Virga mediatrix, sancta viscera tua mortem superaverunt et venter tuus omnes creaturas illuminavit il pulchro flore de suavissima integritate clausi pudoris tui orto.

Alelluia! O branch and mediatrix, your sacred flesh has conquered death, your womb all creatures illumined in beauty's bloom from that exquisite purity of your enclosed modesty sprung forth.

Alleluia, O  Virgo Mediatrix , Hildegard von Bingen

Mary Oliver reads from her exquisite collection 'Blue Horses.' Background, poem text, and context here: http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/02/09/mary-oliver-blue-horses-fourth-sign-of-the-zodiac/

Excerpted from https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/sets/mary-oliver-listening-to-the

MORE/TEXT

Mary Oliver reads from Blue Horses

Recorded for Brain Pickings. Background and poem text: http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/02/amanda-palmer-reads-wislawa-szymborska

Join me in supporting Amanda Palmer's art on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/amandapalmer?ty=h

MORE / POEM TEXT

Amanda Palmer reads "Life While-You-Wait" by Wislawa Szymborska

"The most beautiful things I look back on in my life are coming out from underneath things I didn’t know I could get out from underneath. The moments I look back in my life and think, 'God, those are the moments that made me,' were moments of struggle." — Brené Brown

Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise

Courage Is Born from Struggle | Brené Brown [Becoming Wise]

"Beauty isn’t all about just niceness, loveliness. Beauty is about more rounded substantial becoming." Beloved Irish poet John O'Donohue on beauty's true grit, and finding it in the transformational edges of our daily lives.

Find more at www.onbeing.org/becoming-wise

Beauty Is an Edge of Becoming | John O'Donohue [Becoming Wise]

"Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. But hope without critical thinking is naïveté. I try to live in this space between the two." The creator and editor of Brain Pickings on the pratfalls and promise of knowledge-sharing in the digital age.

Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise

Mapping Meaning in a Digital Age | Maria Popova [Becoming Wise]

"Your body, for as long as it possibly can, will be faithful to living. That's what it does." Matthew Sanford, an innovator of adaptive yoga, on taking a new orientation to our physical change and pain, and the outward healing that can result.

Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise

Compassion for Our Bodies | Matthew Sanford [Becoming Wise]

"Are we human beings who are in community, do we call to each other? Do we heed each other? Do we want to know each other?" Poet Elizabeth Alexander speaks of our need for language to understand our neighbors.

Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise

The Desire to Know Each Other | Elizabeth Alexander [Becoming Wise]

"That’s how we are as a people. It’s the authentic, the unique, the different that makes us feel enriched when we encounter it." Rabbi and philosopher Jonathan Sacks on difference as expansive and unifying, rather than a force for division.

Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise

Enriched by Difference | Jonathan Sacks [Becoming Wise]

For full blog post, go to: http://www.listeningearth.com.au/blog/what-is-in-a-song-birdsong-slowed-down

Blue Wren song at normal speed, and slowed 8x

Recorded for Brain Pickings. Poem text and context: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/09/23/amanda-palmer-mary-oliver-when-i-am-among-the-trees/

POEM TEXT

Amanda Palmer reads "When I Am Among the Trees" by Mary Oliver

Groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning conversation about the big questions of meaning, hosted by Krista Tippett. Every Thursday a new discovery about the immensity of our lives — and frequent special features like poetry, music and Q + A with Krista.

Enriched by Difference | Jonathan Sacks [Becoming Wise]

On Being Studios

Related tracks