inspirations

buks

Mary Catherine Bateson/Job

Being

Wisdom for how we can move and heal our society in our time as the Civil Rights Movement galvanized its own. Lucas Johnson is bringing the art and practice of nonviolence into a new century, for new generations. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons was an original Black Power feminist and a grassroots leader of the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/gwendolyn-zoharah-simmons-and-lucas-johnson-the-movement-remembered-forward/6101

Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons and Lucas Johnson — The Movement, Remembered Forward

They are partners in music and in life — recovering something ancient and deeply American all at once, bringing both beauty and meaning to what they play and how they live. Béla Fleck is one of the greatest living banjo players in the world. He’s followed what many experience as this quintessential American roots instrument back to its roots in Africa and taken it where no banjo has gone before. Abigail Washburn is a celebrated banjo player and singer, both in English and Chinese. Experience our public conversation with them on stage before an adoring crowd at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/bela-fleck-abigail-washburn-beauty-in-banjo-and-in-life/7705

Béla Fleck + Abigail Washburn — Beauty in Banjo and in Life

Ellen Langer is a social psychologist who some have dubbed “the mother of mindfulness.” But she defines mindfulness with counterintuitive simplicity: the simple act of actively noticing things — with a result of increased health, competence, and happiness. Her take on mindfulness has never involved contemplation or meditation or yoga. It comes straight out of her provocative, unconventional studies, which have been suggesting for decades what neuroscience is pointing at now: our experience of everything is formed by the words and ideas we attach to them. What makes a vacation a vacation is not only a change of scenery — but the fact that we let go of the mindless everyday illusion that we are in control. Ellen Langer has shown it’s possible to become physiologically younger through a changed frame of mind; to find joy in what was experienced as drudgery by renaming it as play; and to induce weight loss by substituting the label “exercise” for labor.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ellen-langer-science-of-mindlessness-and-mindfulness/6332


Ellen Langer — Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness

On the night of March 30, 2005, the Powerball jackpot was 25 million dollars. The grand prize winner was in Tennessee, but all over the United States, one hundred and ten second-place winners came forward. Normally just three or four players guess all but the last digit and claim a secondary prize, but this time something was clearly different.

Lottery officials were flustered, unsure if there was a computer glitch or a hack in the system, but when they asked the winners how they picked their numbers each had the same response: from a fortune cookie.

What we call Chinese food (including the fortune-filled cookies) has become an integral part of the American culture and cuisine, with a complex history that dates back to the 19th Century.

182- A Sweet Surprise Awaits You

The wise linguist and anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson explores the matter of life as an improvisational art, at every age. As the daughter of the iconic anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, she’s had an ability to move through the world as both an original observer and a joyful participant. She’s composed a life that is far more settled but always in dialogue with the memory of her brilliant, globe-trotting, unconventionally-coupled parents.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mary-catherine-bateson-composing-a-life/7968

Mary Catherine Bateson — He Lost His Sense of Wonder

This excerpt with Christopher Howard comes from the produced show "Beyond the Ivory Tower."

When we talk about the relationship between colleges and the world, we tend to focus on economics. But what is the place of institutions of higher education in the communities they inhabit? How can and should they nurture students as citizens and leaders for the emerging 21st century world? Two visionary college presidents of two very different institutions take up these questions with Krista at the American Council on Education's 97th Annual Meeting.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/christopher-howard-nancy-cantor-beyond-the-ivory-tower/8015

Christopher Howard — Living with Different Points of View

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are singer-songwriters who have been making music together as the Indigo Girls for 30 years. Emily Saliers is also the co-author of "A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as a Spiritual Practice." Amy Ray's latest solo album, "Goodnight Tender," was released in January 2014. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Indigo Girls — Music and Finding God in Church and Smoky Bars." Find more at onbeing.org.

[Unedited] Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls with Krista Tippett

Brain surgeon James Doty is on the cutting edge of our knowledge of the brain and the heart: how they talk to each other; what compassion means in the body and in action; and how we can reshape our lives and perhaps our species through the scientific and human understanding we are now gaining. The backstory of James Doty’s passions is told in his memoir, Into the Magic Shop. In the summer of 1968, in the throes of a hardscrabble, perilous childhood, he wandered into a magic shop and met a woman named Ruth who taught him what she called “another kind of magic” that freed him from being a victim of the circumstances of his life, and that he now investigates through science.

Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/james-doty-the-magic-shop-of-the-brain/8397

James Doty — The Magic Shop of the Brain

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.

Mary Catherine Bateson — He Lost His Sense of Wonder

On Being Studios