Yin Yoga Training Summer 2023

Robert Macfarlane — The World's Beneath Our Feet

On Being

There’s dark matter in the cosmos, and inside us, and hidden beneath our feet. Robert Macfarlane is an explorer and linguist of landscape and his book, Underland: A Deep Time Journey, is an odyssey that’s full of surprises — from caves and catacombs under land, under cities, and under forests to the meltwater of Greenland. “Since before we were Homo sapiens,” he writes, “humans have been seeking out spaces of darkness in which to find and make meaning.” Darkness in the natural world and in human life, he suggests, is a medium of vision — and descent, a movement toward revelation.

Rick Ruben — Magic, Everyday Mystery and Getting Creative

On Being

The flow and the ingredients by which an idea becomes an offering — and life practices which call that alchemy forth. The mystery of it all that can only be named and wondered at — and the ordinary mystery that creativity is a human birthright, a way of being rather than doing, that beckons to us all, in everything we do, from crafting something to conversing to the arranging of furniture in a room.

This is where Krista goes with the rock star music producer Rick Rubin. It’s not a conversation about the creative process of the many great musicians he’s worked with — but a conversation that is for and about us all.

John O’Donohue — The Inner Landscape of Beauty

On Being

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.

Realizing Our Belonging

Tara Brach on the GOOP Podcast

Cohost Erica Chidi is joined by Tara Brach, a clinical psychologist, spiritual meditation teacher, and author. Brach’s new book, Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness, explores the fundamental value of connection and how to recognize the value in ourselves. Today, they discuss how to deepen our sense of compassion as we move through difficult times. They talk about interconnectedness, how to cultivate a sustainable meditation practice, and why seeing the good in others doesn’t mean ignoring the reality of our lived experiences.

Listen to more dharma talks on Tara Brach Podcast

David Whyte — The Conversational Nature of Reality

On Being

All of David Whyte’s writing points at what he calls “the conversational nature of reality.” He’s a poet and philosopher who believes in the power of a beautiful question amidst the drama of work as well as the drama of life — amidst the ways the two overlap, whether we want them to or not.

NKEM NDEFO on the Body as Compass

For The Wild

Nkem Ndefo explores resilience in conjunction with co-liberation and how our bodies are deep wells that are here to sustain us, as long as we listen to them. Nkem is the founder and president of Lumos Transforms and creator of The Resilience Toolkit, a model that promotes embodied self-awareness and self-regulation in an ecologically sensitive framework and social justice context.

How the brains of master meditators change

Vox Conversations

Richie Davidson has spent a lifetime studying meditation. He’s studied it as a practitioner, sitting daily, going on retreats, and learning under masters. And he’s pioneered the study of it as a scientist, working with the Dalai Lama to bring master meditators into his lab at the University of Wisconsin and quantifying the way thousands of hours of meditation changed their brains.

The word “meditation,” Davidson is quick to note, is akin to the word “sports”: It describes a huge range of pursuits. And what he’s found is that different types of meditation do very different things to your brain, just as different sports trigger different changes in your body.

Dr. Willoughby Britton — The Hidden Risks of Meditation, Overlaps with Psychedelic Risks, and more

The Tim Ferris Show

Willoughby Britton, PhD is a clinical psychologist, an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University Medical School, and the director of Brown’s Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. Dr. Britton is the founder of Cheetah House, a nonprofit organization that provides evidence-based information and support for meditators in distress as well as meditation safety trainings to providers and organizations.

Her clinical neuroscience research investigates the effects of contemplative practices (meditation) on the brain and body in the treatment of mood disorders, trauma, and other conditions. She is especially interested in which practices are best- or worst-suited for which types of people or conditions and why.

We become the places we love with David Whyte

Meditative Story

As the wind howls around his camping caravan on a remote Welsh farm, poet David Whyte sits at a table, trying – and failing – to write. He’s worried he has lost his gift. He’s worried he never had a gift at all. But just outside, invisible and unexpected, is someone who offers him help – and friendship – at the exact moment he needs it. Their lifelong friendship takes root here, in the magical, windswept landscape of Wales, where place-names are poetry, where memories live long in the rolling hills. This episode concludes with a reading of David’s poem “Tan-y-Garth (Elegy for Michael).“