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Wonderstruck: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Striking Wonder Productions
Wonderstruck® is a podcast about awe and wonder that includes the profoundly moving, the humbling, and the uncanny. Hosted by psychologist, yoga teacher, and seeker Elizabeth Rovere, it explores experiences that bring us to the very edges of what we can explain, and beyond. Join us every month for conversations with scientists and shamans, philosophers and poets, mystics and experiencers. We ask what we can learn from those moments that often lack explanations. We ask deeper questions about consciousness, being, and reality. We look at mystery not as something to solve, but as a place where transformation can occur. And along the way, we glimpse a world wilder, stranger, and more Real than we ever imagined.http://newsletter.wonderstruck.org https://www.youtube.com/@wonders
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- 4 days ago1h 14m
34: Toko-pa Turner on the Forgotten Wisdom of Dreams
Every night, you make images as surely as you breathe. Dream worker, author and mystic Toko-pa Turner believes those images are anything but random. She sees dreaming as the psyche’s way of healing itself, much as skin quietly knits back together after a cut. Even nightmares may be a sign that something is ready to come into consciousness.Modern life has taught us to dismiss dreams as nonsense. Yet across cultures and throughout history, people have turned to them for insight and guidance. For Toko-pa, dreams are our mother tongue: a language we don’t so much need to learn as remember.Born in Devon and raised in a Sufi community in Montreal, Toko-pa brings together Sufi mysticism and a Jungian approach to dreams. She founded the Dream School in 2001, has guided thousands of students, and reaches more than 100,000 readers online. Her books “Belonging” and “The Dreaming Way” explore how dreams can deepen our relationship with ourselves and the wider world.In this episode, Toko-pa invites us to ask something different of our dreams. Not simply, “What do they mean?” but “What do they want?”CHAPTERS0:00 Introduction2:04 Dreaming of the Hypogeum Before I Knew It Existed8:42 The Symbolism of the Spider11:58 Why Nightmares Are the Most Powerful16:34 We Are Nature: Dreams and Self-Healing21:21 How Rationalism Made Us Dismiss Dreams31:18 Living With a "Second Attention"34:31 A Precognitive Dream and Two Armed Men on the Roof37:51 Rewriting the Past: The Moving Tattoo Dream43:31 Dream Circles and Shared Dreams47:00 The Imaginal Realm in Sufi Cosmology1:02:00 Metaphor as a Bridge1:08:12 Wonder and the Courtship of DreamsFollow Toko-pa:Website: https://toko-pa.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tokopa/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TokopaTurnerFollow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgSubstack: https://newsletter.wonderstruck.orgYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpod/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpodApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- May 12, 202658 min
33: Hiroko Yoda on What Japanese Spirituality Can Teach Us About Happiness
When her mother died, Hiroko Yoda was brought to her knees. What pulled her back was something that had been there all along, the ancient spiritual traditions of her home country, Japan. What followed was a decade-long journey through shrines and temples, sacred mountains, and waterfalls, culminating in her latest book, Eight Million Ways to Happiness.The title comes from an ancient Japanese idea: that eight million spiritual beings inhabit everything around us. Not as a precise count, but as a way of saying the sacred is everywhere, in everything.Recorded inside an ancient Shinto shrine deep within the sacred mountains of Kumano, located at the end of a pilgrimage route walked for over a thousand years, Wonderstruck's host Elizabeth Rovere sits down with Hiroko to explore:✦ How "kami" spirit exists in everything✦ How the concept of "half-belief, half-disbelief" makes room for mystery without demanding certainty✦ Why gratitude, not belief, is the core of Japanese spirituality and the seed of happiness✦ The flexibility of Japanese spirituality and what it offers a world grown rigid in its certainties✦ The spirituality found in your favourite animeThrough Hiroko's journey, from grief to gratitude, from loss to a world where everything has a spirit, we begin to see that happiness isn't something to be chased or achieved. It's something to be noticed, in the smallest of things, in the spaces we walk past every day without looking.Chapters: 00:00:00 Welcome to the Kumano Shrine00:01:54 Kami: 8 Million Spiritual Beings00:05:19 Rigid Society, Flexible Spirituality00:16:32 Walking Through Grief00:20:35 Gratitude, Not Belief00:25:07 Half-belief, Half-disbelief00:27:50 Mysteries of the Waterfall00:35:52 Itadakimasu: Spirituality in Everyday Words00:39:03 Meeting Itako, The Blind Shamaness00:45:15 Masakado: Anger and Love00:51:15 Anime, Yokai, and HealingFollow Hiroko: Website: https://www.hirokoyoda.com/Substack: https://blog.hirokoyoda.com/Book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/eight-million-ways-to-happiness-9781526672162/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hi_yoda_1Follow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgSubstack: https://newsletter.wonderstruck.org YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpodApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Apr 7, 202641 min
32: The Secret Lives of Plants and Fungi with Merlin Sheldrake and Zoë Schlanger
If we understood the true complexity of the natural world, would we call it conscious? Would we begin to question the boundaries we put between ourselves and everything around us?We explore these questions with biologist Merlin Sheldrake and science journalist Zoë Schlanger. Their bestselling books, "Entangled Life" and "The Light Eaters", required monk-like study and deep immersion in the natural world. What they discovered quietly dismantles some of our most basic assumptions about intelligence, memory, and what individuality really means. Recorded during Harvard Divinity School's "Thinking with Plants and Fungi" conference, this special episode brings together Merlin, Zoë, host Elizabeth Rovere, and guest co-host Rachael Peterson, the "Thinking with Plants and Fungi" Initiative Program Lead at Harvard, to explore:✦ Whether plants have personalities and why they might be kinder to kin ✦ How a brainless slime mold can navigate its way out of an IKEA faster than a human✦ How flatworms put into question where memory actually lives✦ Whether it's possible to ferment a book and drink itWhen we stop centering the individual and truly reckon with the entangled nature of all living things, something shifts. The question stops being how do we include more-than-human perspectives… it starts being whether that separation even makes sense to begin with. Chapters:00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:10 How to Write About the Hidden World 00:04:45 The Myth of the Individual 00:09:53 We Are Polluting Our Own Home 00:15:14 The Problem Isn't Science. It's Language. 00:18:18 The Plant That Can Copy Anything 00:24:25 As Temperatures Rise, Fungi Are Evolving 00:28:31 Do Plants Have Personalities and Prefer Their Family?Follow Merlin Sheldrake:Website: https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/merlin.sheldrakeYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/merlinsheldrake Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566795/entangled-life-by-merlin-sheldrake/ Follow Zoë Schlanger: Website: https://www.zoeschlanger.com/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/zoeschlanger.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoeschlanger/ The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-light-eaters-zoe-schlanger?variant=41096248295458 Follow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgSubstack: https://newsletter.wonderstruck.org YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpodApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Mar 3, 202659 min
31: Mystic Poet Chelan Harkin on Poetry, Prayer and Unlocking Creative Flow
Mystic poet Chelan Harkin doesn't write poems, she transmits them. At 21, after giving herself permission to write a "bad poem" every day, a creative channel cracked open and poems have flowed through her ever since. Her work has drawn comparisons to Rumi, Hafiz and Khalil Gibran. Poets whose words slip beneath the thinking mind to reach something deeper, older and more alive within us. Celebrating World Poetry Day this month, this episode features Chelan speaking with Wonderstruck's Elizabeth Rovere about:✦ How a Hafiz poem she heard at 17 unlocked her heart and set her entire path in motion✦ The "bad poem experiment" and how permission to fail became the key to creative flow✦ How praying to her favourite dead poets led to a synchronicity that changed everything✦ How our deepest fears, when met with consciousness, can transform into our strongest allies✦ The extraordinary story behind her book The Prophetess which stands in conversation with Gibran’s The ProphetThis is a conversation for anyone who has suspected that the sacred isn’t elsewhere, but closer, more available and more alive than we ever dared to believe.00:00:00 Introduction00:07:06 The Poem That Changed Everything00:13:47 The "Bad Poem Experiment"00:19:22 Say Wow: The Poem That Went Viral00:23:44 Praying To Her Favourite Dead Poets00:30:50 The Meaning Of Authentic Service00:35:55 Suffering and Our Great Cocoon00:39:21 Writing The Prophetess00:43:33 Meeting Hajjar Gibran00:51:53 Fear as a Life Force00:58:32 Closing ReflectionsFollow Chelan Harkin: Website: https://chelanharkinpoetry.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chelanharkin/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chani.harkin Find all Chelan's books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B08PL55XMD Follow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgSubstack: https://newsletter.wonderstruck.orgYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpodApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Feb 3, 202653 min
30: Daoist Teacher George Thompson on What Tai Chi Taught Him About Anxiety
Can a mountain teach us how to live in peace? In his early twenties, George Thompson was living with intense anxiety and a deep sense of meaninglessness. His body carried constant tension, and the voice in his head told him that he was not good enough. That crisis became the catalyst for a decision that would change the direction of his life.George travelled alone to China’s sacred Wudang Mountains, the birthplace of Tai Chi and a centre of Daoist (Taoist) practice for centuries. There, immersed in mountains, monasteries, and daily practice, he encountered Tai Chi. In this conversation, George and Wonderstruck’s Elizabeth Rovere explore:✦ Tai Chi as a martial art and moving meditation: powerful, peaceful, and beautiful✦ Balance as something dynamic that allows you to hold your centre in the midst of change✦ The inner critic (“the Underminer”) and learning not to identify with the story it tells✦ Why peace can’t be learned, but arises through presence and awareness✦ The universal language of wonder and aweThis episode reminds us to look at what lies beneath the thinking mind, and to discover, as George puts it, that balance is possible.Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction00:05:49 Journey to the Wudang Mountains00:10:22 Finding Balance Through Tai Chi00:18:14 Spirituality as a Form of Activism00:24:45 Hope & The Vinegar Metaphor00:29:58 Love, Connection & Fierce Compassion00:35:29 Is Eminem Daoist?00:42:04 Awe and Wonder Predates Language00:46:27 Nature, AI, and the Technology Continuum00:49:42 Why Are We Here? Follow George:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@George-Thompson The Subtle Art of Losing Yourself: https://youtu.be/9KArWcMldPM?si=fHt4OPWFb8-zSuAx Balance is Possible: https://www.balanceispossible.com/ Taoist Wellness Community: https://www.taoistwellness.online/community Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/george.thompson._/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@george.thompson_Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georgethompson.uk Follow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgSubstack: https://newsletter.wonderstruck.orgYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpod Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Jan 6, 20261h 0m
29: Psychoanalyst Macario Giraldo on How the Unconscious Shapes Our Lives
From a coffee farm in rural Colombia to the psychoanalytic couch, Macario Giraldo has spent his life listening for the quiet forces that shape a human life: language, loss, desire, and love.At the age of ten, Macario left his family to join the La Salle Christian Brothers, a Catholic religious order that would become his home for the next twenty-five years. Beneath the structure of faith and vocation, an early sense of separation endured. Over time, it found expression as a desire for something he had long deferred: a family of his own. A Fulbright scholarship brought Macario to Washington, D.C. It was here that he received a rare dispensation from the Church to leave the brotherhood and encountered psychology and the work of Jacques Lacan, which would shape the rest of his analytic life.In dialogue with Colette Soler, an analysand of Lacan, as well as clinicians Marianne Goldberger and Hugh Mullan, Macario developed a distinctive approach to group therapy informed by Lacanian psychoanalysis. In his work, he listens not only to what is said, but to what stirs between people: the unconscious processes that emerge in groups, including conflict, desire, identification, and shared symbolic history.In this episode, we explore:✦ Cause and triggers✦ Group therapy as a modern ritual✦ Lacanian thinking beyond the individual✦ The fantasy of complete satisfaction✦ Listening as a psychological practice✦ The journey to become your own friendMacario invites us to wonder about the desires that take shape in relation to others, the limits of certainty, and how, over a lifetime, we might learn to live more truthfully with ourselves and with one anotherChapters 0:00:00 Introduction0:03:21 Picasso and the Desire of Others0:08:27 Presence, Absence, and the Fort-Da Game0:15:18 From Coffee Farm to the Christian Brothers0:18:53 Discovering Jacques Lacan0:24:49 Jouissance: The Pursuit and Crisis of Desire0:30:34 The Unexplored Gold Mine of Group Therapy0:38:34 The Power of Listening0:41:35 Anxiety is an Index of the Real0:48:27 Faith after Dogma0:55:35 The Journey to Become Your Own Friend0:58:13 Gardens, Love, and Wonder: The Closing NoteFollow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgSubstack: https://newsletter.wonderstruck.org YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpod Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Dec 2, 20251h 8m
28: Dr. Monica Gagliano on How Plants Know Things We Don’t
Plants are our ancient teachers, whispering and nudging… if only we’d listen. Dr. Monica Gagliano is an evolutionary ecologist who has turned the green world into something wonderfully surprising. Her research reveals plants that listen, remember, make choices and even teach one another. Some can sense eclipses before they happen. Others communicate in ways we’re only just beginning to catch up with.In 2008, Monica did something bold: she stepped out of academia and followed her curiosity into the forest, literally. Blending scientific experimentation with Amazonian plant ceremonies and the guidance of shamans, she helped spark the field now known as plant intelligence. Since then, her work has captured imaginations around the world, appearing in The New York Times and the National Geographic. In this episode, we explore:✦ Pushing back against the scientific status quo✦ Letting nature show you what it knows✦ Welcoming indigenous plant teachings into scientific practice✦ Paying attention as a joyful act of devotionMonica invites us into a playful and daring question: what do plants actually know… and what might they be trying to tell us?Chapters0:00 Intro: Science, wonder, and pushing boundaries03:03 Initiation on the Great Barrier Reef12:53 “Plants rescued the scientist in me”20:57 Monica’s first experiments with plants 27:10 Bringing empathy into science32:37 "More-than-human" is a place37:33 It's the human that needs saving42:44 Indigenous science and plant communication50:54 The ancient tree that spoke to her56:14 Trees synchronize during solar eclipse01:03:51 Attention is the beginning of devotionFollow Monica:Website: https://www.monicagagliano.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_monicagagliano_Follow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpodTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpodApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Nov 4, 20251h 3m
27: Psychotherapist Mark Vernon on the Meaning Crisis and Rediscovering the Sacred
Mark Vernon is a former priest turned psychotherapist who has spent the last 30 years exploring one central question: how do we find meaning in a secular age?After a crisis of faith pulled him away from the Church’s inner sanctum in his youth, Mark turned to Plato and Jung in pursuit of a deeper understanding of purpose, connection, and the soul. Today, his writing bridges ancient philosophy, religion, and modern psychology, a powerful triad he also applies to his work as a therapist.In this episode, we discuss: ✦ The overwhelm of conflicting meanings and remembering the sacred✦ The spiritual thread connecting Dante, William Blake, and Jesus✦ How wonder helps us access the divine✦ Why psychotherapy is a path for ‘spiritual intelligence’Mark's work invites us into the depths of wonder and spirituality as a necessity for the soul.Chapters0:00 Intro: The modern crisis of meaning5:08 Psychotherapy and the vertical dimension of life11:25 The cloud of unknowing and mystical experiences18:19 Kairos time: Moments of spiritual significance23:01 William Blake on joy and eternity27:04 Death as a transcendent and transformative experience33:08 Early Christianity's deeper mysteries and meanings40:44 Humility as an expansive spiritual virtue50:56 Owen Barfield and the evolution of consciousness57:35 Ontological shocks and transformative experiences1:02:41 Outro: The importance of sacred experiencesFollow Mark:Website: https://www.markvernon.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/platospodcasts/?hl=en-gb X: https://x.com/platospodcasts YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PlatosPodcasts Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/awake/ Follow Wonderstruck:Website: https://wonderstruck.orgNewsletter: https://newsletter.wonderstruck.org YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wonderstruckpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderstruckpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wonderstruckpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderstruckpodApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonderstruck/id1671879661 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6fS5boWGwYTShddG7SKlVw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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About Wonderstruck
Wonderstruck® is a podcast about awe and wonder that includes the profoundly moving, the humbling, and the uncanny. Hosted by psychologist, yoga teacher, and seeker Elizabeth Rovere, it explores experiences that bring us to the very edges of what we can explain, and beyond. Join us every month for conversations with scientists and shamans, philosophers and poets, mystics and experiencers. We ask what we can learn from those moments that often lack explanations. We ask deeper questions about consciousness, being, and reality. We look at mystery not as something to solve, but as a place where transformation can occur. And along the way, we glimpse a world wilder, stranger, and more Real than we ever imagined.http://newsletter.wonderstruck.org https://www.youtube.com/@wonders
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