The Fairy Doors of Witham Hill: Putting the "Social" in Social Distancing

Up in the Air: Travel in a Post-COVID World

Today, I'm talking with my friend and fellow travel junkie Philip Sites about the ins and outs of travel in the time of COVID. Over the last 10 months, the pandemic has steadily closed the world down around us. Now, as we ride the roller coaster of dips and spikes, can we find a middle way, between pushing others away in fear and disregarding our own safety out of frustration? How do we turn this global experience into heightened awareness of global community, learn from one another instead of running from one another? The world IS changing; how do we keep it from falling apart? Music in this episode is by Scott Holmes. To hear more of it, visit https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes. It's pretty freakin' awesome! And thanks to Carmen Ruiz de Clavijo for her guest appearance off the top, direct from Madrid!

Speaking Sustainably, Part II: The View from the Other Side

Today, I'm joined by Bruce Evans, Assistant Director for Library Collections Services (Cataloging & Metadata) at Baylor University. We discuss the need for compassionate listening, the problem of polarization, and the importance of allowing everyone the space to speak their mind.

Speaking Sustainably, Part I: The 5 Rules of Sustainable Dialogue

Dualogue: a discursive framework consisting of two or more independent narratives simultaneously and exclusively performed. Increasingly, these are the terms on which we interact with one another, talking around, at, over, and against. So how do we overcome the antagonistic, short-term thinking that characterizes contemporary civil and political discourse? The answer: sustainable speech. Sources: Alan Watts, The Way of Zen (New York: Pantheon, 1957). Chögyam Trungpa, Orderly Chaos: The Mandala Principle, edited by Sherah Chödzin (Boston: Shambhala, 1991). Chao Lun: The Treatises of Seng-Chao, translated and edited by Walter Liebenthal (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1968). Thich Nhat Hanh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2000). Mark Freeman, The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Listening Beyond the Self (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014). Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Boston: Weatherhill, 2005). David N. Perkins, Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2014). Thich Nhat Hanh, Interbeing: Commentaries on the Tiep Hien Precepts, edited by Fred Eppsteiner (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1987). Mencius, translated by D.C. Lau (London: Penguin Books, 1970). Douglas L. Berger, Encounter of Mind: Luminosity and Personhood in Indian and Chinese Thought (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2015). Patrick Finn, Critical Condition: Replacing Critical Thinking with Creativity (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015). D.T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki, edited by William Barrett (New York, NY: Three Leaves Press, 2006). Chögyam Trungpa, Crazy Wisdom, edited by Sherah Chödzin (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1991).

Who Ate the Election Cycle? : The Greatest Episode

I'm joined by Andrew Bramsen, Associate Professor of Political Science at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN, to discuss the upcoming U.S. presidential election, what it means for the future, and all the reasons we haven't been watching.

The Fairy Doors of Witham Hill: Putting the "Social" in Social Distancing

How do you foster community in a time when togetherness is taboo? Here in Corvallis, it's a matter of creativity: fairy doors, to be exact.