Earth and Spirit Podcast (Earth and Spirit Center)

Lois Luckett is a Louisville-based therapist in private practice. Especially during the coronavirus pandemic, Lois has cultivated close relationships with trees. In this podcast, recorded from a live online Community Conversations event, Lois invites us to explore what we might learn about being human from our other-than-human-kin, the trees.

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Kailea Frederick is a bridge-building climate activist, writer, consultant, and mother with Black and First Nations heritage. In this conversation, Kailea reflects on living deeply out of a sense of place, the existential threat of wildfires, and what it means to expand our sense of family, reciprocity, and responsibility to include the more-than-human world.

Kailea’s website: https://www.earthisohana.com/

Loam Magazine: https://loamlove.com/

Kalliopeia Foundation: https://kalliopeia.org/

Earth & Spirit Center: https://earthandspiritcenter.org/

Joe Phelps is a retired Baptist pastor with a long history of making good trouble in regard to hunger, poverty, race, and other social justice and equity challenges. As part of the Earth & Spirit Center’s Community Conversations series, Joe joined host Kyle Kramer along with a live Zoom audience to talk about the intense racial tensions in Louisville, KY, his many friendships and collaborations across color lines, and how he has sustained his engagement and advocacy over time.

Links and Resources:

Earth & Spirit Center Community Conversations: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

Empower West: https://empowerwest.com/

Facebook group: White Women Demand Justice For Breonna

Black Power by Stokely Carmichael

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones

The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights by Carole Boston Weatherford

Karen Newton is a wellbeing and resilience integrator. Formerly the director of health promotion at the University of Louisville, and still on the UofL faculty, Karen is a certified mindfulness teacher specializing in stress resilience and compassion. She’s also an Earth & Spirit Center faculty member. From our respective homes, Karen and I had a virtual conversation about what resilience looks like amid the stress of a pandemic, and how mindfulness practices can help us not only survive, but thrive.

Sign up for Karen's online 5-week Basic Mindfulness for Stress Resilience course, starting 4/9/2020.

Sign up for Karen's online 5-week Practicing Mindful Self Compassion course, starting 4/7 or 4/9/2020.

Being a parent or a grandparent during a pandemic is a challenge for which none of us were prepared.  As COVID-19 stretches on, it's clear that we need strategies we can sustain for the long haul.  In this community conversation, we check in with mindful parenting expert Nellie Springston about how to bring mindfulness to your (grand)parenting amidst the extraordinary challenges presented by the pandemic.  We dive into how to create an environment of predictability, normalcy, and safety even in such extraordinary times, how to be present even on your worst days, how to manage the role of teacher or learning coach during online schooling, and how to escape a sense of guilt that you're not doing enough.

Philip Goldberg has been studying the world’s spiritual traditions for more than 50 years, as a practitioner, teacher, and writer. He is the author or co-author of more than 20 books, including, most recently, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times. In this conversation, Phil offers a wise village elder’s perspective on how to navigate skillfully the tumult of our inner and outer life.

Resources:

Phil’s website: www.PhilipGoldberg.com

Phil’s podcast: http://spiritmatterstalk.com

Phil’s course on The Four Pathways to the Divine: Hinduism’s Holistic Approach to God-Realization: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/interfaith-spiritual-practice/

Youtube conversation with Phil about his upcoming course: https://youtu.be/mf0Px1p7jCw

Earth & Spirit Center website: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan is a first-generation Arab-American who has spent his life crossing borders. An agrarian ecologist and ethnobotanist whom Time magazine called the father of the local food movement, his work straddles both sides of America’s southern border in Arizona. As a professed ecumenical Franciscan brother, his spiritual practice goes far beyond the walls of institutional religion, and his new book, Jesus for Farmers and Fishers, describes the struggles of those living on the margins of empire, in the ancient Middle East and today. In this conversation, Gary reflects on the richness and challenges of life that unfolds on the wild edges of places, societies, and religion.

Book recommendation: Jesus for Farmers and Fishers: Justice for All Those Marginalized by Our Food System, by Gary Paul Nabhan

Gary's website: https://www.garynabhan.com/

Borderlands Restoration L3C: https://www.borderlandsrestoration.org/borderlands-restoration-l3c.html

Earth & Spirit Center website: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Lois Luckett is a Louisville-based therapist in private practice. Especially during the coronavirus pandemic, Lois has cultivated close relationships with trees. In this podcast, recorded from a live online Community Conversations event, Lois invites us to explore what we might learn about being human from our other-than-human-kin, the trees.

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

This episode features Ashley Smith, the co-founder of Black Soil.  Black Soil is a nonprofit in Lexington, KY, dedicated to reconnecting Black Kentuckians to their legacy and heritage in agriculture and to empowering Black farmers in Kentucky, who currently make up just 1.4%  of the state's farmers.  Anyone who eats has a stake in there being a just, sustainable food system, so tune into this episode to learn more about Black Soil's work and the powerful bonds of community that Black Soil is helping to cultivate in a state that still reckons with its history of slavery.

External Link: https://www.blacksoil.life/

An acclaimed jazz pianist and composer based in Louisville, Kentucky, Harry Pickens is also a teacher, mentor, and author who does deep healing work to promote the flourishing of individuals and communities. As part of the Earth & Spirit Center’s online Community Conversations series, Harry reflected on what is being asked of us at a time of pandemic and heightened racial tensions, and what opportunities we have to create a more just, more loving, more peaceful world.

Earth & Spirit Center: https://earthandspiritcenter.org/

Community Conversation Series: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

Harry Pickens on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harry.pickens

Tara Remington, or “Remi,” is a Louisville-based artist who specializes in outdoor murals and other public-facing, large-scale media.  In this podcast, recorded during a live online Community Conversations event, Remi reflected on Cosmic Journey Trail art installation she created on the Earth & Spirit Center campus. We also broadened the lens to contemplate the role of art for reweaving the social fabric and connecting us deeply to ourselves and to the rest of the natural world.

Links:

Tara Remington's website: http://www.tararemington.com/

The Cosmic Journey Film

The Cosmic Journey Film Trailer

The Earth & Spirit Center homepage: https://earthandspiritcenter.org/

The Great Work five-week Earth & Spirit Center course: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/the-great-work/

“The Cosmic Journey” is a new film produced by the Earth & Spirit Center, inspired by our new Cosmic Journey nature trail and outdoor art installation in the Earth & Spirit Center Nature Sanctuary. In this live Community Conversations event, we have a conversation with the film creator, Megan Maybee, the sound designer and voice actor Joe Brown, and the script contributor, Joe Mitchell. We reflect together on the process of creating this film as we share our hopes that it will invite viewers to celebrate the 13.8-billion-year story of our evolving Universe and the special place of the human species within that unfolding story.

The Cosmic Journey Film:  https://youtu.be/7ObAVdhRChk

The Cosmic Journey Film Trailer: https://youtu.be/BDj4XhsFPh0

The Great Work Five-week Earth & Spirit Center Course: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/the-great-work/

Earth & Spirit Center Home Page: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

This episode features Jennifer "Juniper" Owens, the co-founder of Bridge Counseling and Wellness, an integrative mental health and holistic therapy center in Louisville, KY.  Juniper reflected on how our deep connection to the rest of the natural world can help us through our own individual struggles and through the collective trauma we are experiencing with COVID-19.  We explored the Japanese practice of shinrin yoku, or forest bathing, the idea of "rewilding mental health," and pulled back the lens to reflect on what makes for lasting social and environmental change.

Glenda Hodges-Cook is a senior meditation instructor on the Earth & Spirit Center faculty - and one of Louisville’s village elders. A mother and grandmother, she spent a career as a psychiatric nurse. With roots in the Christian and Buddhist traditions, Glenda has practiced insight meditation for over forty years and has studied with meditation icons Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Donald Rothberg, completing the Community Dharma Leader Training Program of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. She founded the Louisville Vipassana Community and has led this meditation group for twelve years. At the Earth & Spirit Center, Glenda teaches in our Mindfulness Meditation Training Program and offers courses on mindful aging, claiming elderhood, other topics. I sat down with Glenda to talk about how she is using mindfulness and meditation to navigate the uncertain territory of a global pandemic - and coming to grips with her own vulnerability.

Joe Phelps is a retired Baptist pastor with a long history of making good trouble in regard to hunger, poverty, race, and other social justice and equity challenges. As part of the Earth & Spirit Center’s Community Conversations series, Joe joined host Kyle Kramer along with a live Zoom audience to talk about the intense racial tensions in Louisville, KY, his many friendships and collaborations across color lines, and how he has sustained his engagement and advocacy over time.  This extended version includes the Q&A segment from the Zoom audience, which comes after the formal close of the podcast.

Links and Resources:

Earth & Spirit Center Community Conversations: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

Empower West: https://empowerwest.com/

Facebook group: White Women Demand Justice For Breonna

Black Power by Stokely Carmichael

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones

The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights by Carole Boston Weatherford

Our guest for this episode is Joe Grant. A native of Scotland, Joe is a modern-day mystic, a blogger, and the author of numerous books and articles about scripture, justice and spirituality. Prior to moving to Louisville 25 years ago, Joe worked with indigenous peoples of the U.S. and in Latin America. His work has been rooted in the Catholic Christian tradition, but his sensibilities are deeply interdenominational and interfaith. Joe spends his time writing, leading retreats, and offering spiritual guidance. His latest book, Wandering and Welcome: Meditations for Finding Peace is published by Franciscan Media.

We sat down to talk about Joe’s spiritual journey, which has led him deep into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, into the pain and violence of inner city Louisville where he and his wife Anne make their home, and in all of this, into the heart of our beautiful, wounded world.

The Earth & Spirit Podcast is a production of the Earth & Spirit Center, a nonprofit, interfaith spirituality center in Louisville, KY, devoted to cultivating a flourishing world through contemplative practice. This podcast is made possible by the generous support from the Kalliopeia Foundation, whose mission is to reconnect ecology, culture, and spirituality through grantmaking, education, and media initiatives.

In a time of ecological and social crisis, it can be tempting to retreat from the world and pine nostalgically for some earlier, simpler, purer way of life: like the Garden of Eden. In this episode, scripture scholar and back-to-the-land homesteader Rev. Dr. Patricia Tull invites us to consider what lessons we might learn from Eden as we try to create a more just, beautiful, and thriving world. This conversation weaves together erudite scriptural reflection, intimate and practical experience on the land, and heart-felt conviction about what it means to be human.

Links and Resources:

Inhabiting Eden: Christians, the Bible, and the Ecological Crisis, by Patricia K. Tull

www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Dan Misleh is the executive director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, a national nonprofit organization devoted to faith-based education, advocacy, and practical actions related to climate change. In this episode, we explore how mainline religious traditions like Catholicism can help address climate issues with moral and spiritual leadership and practical resources and examples, but can also invite us into a deeper and richer belonging with each other and the more-than-human world.

Links:

Catholic Climate Covenant: https://catholicclimatecovenant.org/

Catholic Energies: https://www.catholicenergies.org/

National Religious Partnership for the Environment: http://www.nrpe.org/

Alliance of Religions and Conservation: http://www.arcworld.org/

Passionist Earth & Spirit Center: https://earthandspiritcenter.org/

Dr. Patricia Gianotti is the Academic Director of The Institute for Advanced Psychotherapy at Loyola University Chicago. As a clinician in private practice, she works with clients around issues related to trauma, shame, and narcissism. She’s also the founder of the Center for Spiritual Integration, an organization dedicated to the integration of spiritual and psychological aspects of the human psyche. This conversation explores what spiritual integration means in the context of human resilience, authenticity, purpose, building community, and other themes of living and aging well. 

RESOURCES AND LINKS:

Donate to support the Earth & Spirit Center and this podcast: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/donate/

Visit the Earth & Spirit Center homepage: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Patricia’s website: www.patriciagianotti.com

The Center for Spiritual Integration: https://www.patriciagianotti.com/spiritual-integration

Patricia’s consultation and coaching practice: www.thewoodlandgroupllc.com

Patricia’s latest book: Embracing Therapeutic Complexity: A Guidebook to Integrating the Essentials of Psychodynamic Principles Across Therapeutic Disciplines.

Institute for Advanced Psychotherapy at Loyola University Chicago: https://www.luc-iap.com/

Sarah Nunez is a Latinx folk healer and activist in Louisville, KY.  Through her work helping to heal bodies, communities, and unjust systems, Sarah  embraces the deep roots of indigenous wisdom and storytelling.  She envisions a future in which people of all backgrounds can recover our connection with each other and with the natural world that is our home and kin.

Related links:

National Mijente Movement: https://mijente.net/

Louisville Mijente is on Facebook at Mijente Louisville

Aflorar Herb Collective is on Instagram at @aflorarherbcollective

Scott Russell Sanders is a Cambridge-educated novelist, essayist, conservationist, and a distinguished professor of English, emeritus, at Indiana University. He wrote and taught for decades about nature and place, family and community, and the concerns of social justice and ecology, woven together with a spirituality that is rooted in awe and wonder. This conversation, from our archives, explores the joys and disciplines of spiritual imagination, writing, and a well-lived life, in communion with others and within our one shared world.

RESOURCES:

Earth & Spirit Center website: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Donate to support this podcast: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/donate/

Scott’s website: https://scottrussellsanders.com/

Some of Scott’s books:

Small Marvels: https://scottrussellsanders.com/book_pages/small_marvels.html

The Way of Imagination: https://scottrussellsanders.com/book_pages/way_of_imagination.html

The Engineer of Beasts: A Novel: https://scottrussellsanders.com/book_pages/engineer_of_beasts.html

A Conservationist Manifesto: https://scottrussellsanders.com/book_pages/conservationist_manifesto.html

A Private History of Awe: https://scottrussellsanders.com/book_pages/private_history_of_awe.html

Hunting for Hope: https://scottrussellsanders.com/book_pages/hunting_for_hope.html

Writing from the Center: https://scottrussellsanders.com/book_pages/writing_from_the_center.html--

Rae Strobel Barr is an organic farmer, spiritual director and mother, living and working with her partner Adam at Barr Farms in Meade County, Kentucky, a seventh-generation family farm.  She is passionate about building community and combining spirituality with eco-justice and eco-feminism through holding farm-based retreats and providing spiritual guidance and counsel. Our producer Parker Bowling traveled to meet Rae on the piece of land that she calls home, for an engaging conversation on what it means to listen to the movement of spirit: in the land, in ourselves, and in our collective body.

Links:

Barr Farms: http://www.barrfarmsky.com/

Black Farmer Fund: https://cfaky.org/kybff/

Black Soil: https://www.blacksoil.life/

Community Farm Alliance: https://cfaky.org/

New Roots Fresh Stop Markets: https://newroots.org/fresh-stop-markets/

Native Land: Map to learn about which indigenous tribes originally occupied where you live in North America (and other geographies)

Carmel Bowman and Maggie Hettinger describe themselves as ordinary citizens of rural Kentucky who are trying to help move the needle on climate change. From their own lifestyle choices to their active efforts with the Citizens' Climate Lobby, they are passionately engaged for positive change. In this podcast, recorded during one of the Earth & Spirit Center’s live community conversations events, Carmel and Maggie invite us to consider a realistic path for the U.S. to reach net carbon neutrality by 2050 or earlier.

https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Doug Van Houten describes himself as an ardent beekeeper, a visual artist, a wily wanderer, a dream tracker, a deep ceremonialist, and a heart-centered activist. He’s an international wilderness guide with the nonprofit Animas Valley Institute, helping to foster nature-based personal development. In this episode, as part of our Community Conversations series, Doug shares how healing, eco-centric soulwork can help us become fully mature adults and elders, claim our life purpose as a member of the Earth community, and contribute our gifts for the healing of our culture and our planet.

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

https://www.animas.org/

www.bodyartsoul.org

Our nation, our communities, and our families are divided more deeply now than they have been in decades, pitting us against each other exactly at a time when cooperation couldn't be more important to address the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice, climate change, and many other pressing social and ecological needs.  In this community conversation with a live Zoom audience, we speak with Cory Lockhart, who is an artist, writer, public speaker, peace activist and educator, about how compassionate, heart-centered, non-violent ways of communicating, rooted in contemplative spiritual practice, can help repair the torn fabric of our personal and civic relationships.

Cory's Compassionate Communication four-week course, starting January 6, 2021: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/compassionate-communication/

Cory's Communicating Across Divides workshop, February 3, 2021: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/communicating-across-divides/

Cory's website: https://www.corylockhart.com/

Earth & Spirit Center website: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Sr. Gail Worcelo co-founded the Green Mountain Monastery in 1999, encouraged and supported by her friend and mentor, the late Thomas Berry. Berry, a cultural historian and Passionist priest, was a ground-breaking thinker who contemplated the new story science has given us of 13.8 billion-year history of our evolving Universe. He considered the implications of this new story for our religion, education, economy, and government. In this conversation, Sr. Gail reflects on how Thomas Berry’s vision has guided the Green Mountain Monastery community and offers wisdom for all of us, here at the choice point between an ecozoic or a technozoic future.

Green Mountain Monastery: http://www.greenmountainmonastery.org/

Thomas Berry Resources: http://thomasberry.org/

The Journey of the Universe: https://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org/

This short trailer introduces the Earth & Spirit Podcast, a production of the Earth & Spirit Center, a nonprofit, interfaith spirituality center in Louisville, KY (www.earthandspiritcenter.org).  This podcast is made possible by support from the Kalliopeia Foundation (www.kalliopeia.org).  

Carl McColman is a blogger, author, podcaster, and teacher, with a deep affinity for the Christian mystical tradition. This conversation explores the idea that the mystical path is open to all and that mystics offer practical, grounded wisdom for navigating the personal, social, and environmental challenges of our current moment.

Carl's four-week online course on Christian Mysticism at the Earth and Spirit Center, beginning April 19, 2021:

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/interfaith-spiritual-practice/

Carl's website:

https://www.anamchara.com/

Earth & Spirit Center Website:

www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Rev. Karl Ruttan, PhD is a retired Episcopal priest with a doctorate in spiritual formation and over forty years of ministry as a priest and as a spiritual director, especially with men. In this conversation, Karl and I talk about what it means to become a man in a healthy, holistic way, and how this process of spiritual maturity can help bring our entire culture toward a deeper awareness of our connection to our true selves, each other, the more-than-human world, and our common divine source.

Resources:

Earth & Spirit Men’s Contemplative Group: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/mens-contemplative-group/

Illuman is a global not for profit organization committed to supporting men who are seeking to deepen their spiritual lives. http://www.illuman.org/

Spiritual Directors International: https://www.sdicompanions.org/

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Earth & Spirit Center homepage: www.earthandspiritcenter.org