Speakings

* The purpose of this podcast is not to convey information: it is to....? * The paradox of productivity: you are most productive when you are not concerned with the end product. * Work as letting go, work as rest. "My prayer for all of you that you will feel like a bird feeding from the hand of a stranger, you'll know the trustworthy from the untrustworthy in perfect simplicity, and life...

What is love? * On the delusions & liberations of romantic love * How I left Mormonism (and how nothing real was lost) * Loving my husband meant sacrificing what I thought was my identity * A reading about how love collapses time. You can find the full excerpt from my book and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ comment further ⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠ ⁠⁠ If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future topics, you c...

Intimate musings on creativity, the self-enjoying nature of time, and the richness of reality beyond a plot-line. Then, a poetry reading of Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese." "And when we allow ourselves to be consumed by time, by light, by darkness, by the persistent force of our own aching lives, we stop suffering because we stop thinking that we are somehow separate from the pain an...

How do we live in a world that's becoming ever more painful, dangerous, and absurd? You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ comment ⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠  Key points in this "speaking": In the aftermath of Trump's inauguration, many of us are feeling stunned and immobilized, wanting to resist politically but not knowing how or whethe...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ comment ⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.   The key points in this "speaking": This podcast episode is a follow-up to the episode "Can pleasure be trusted?" A bit more colloquial than the average episode, I offer more details about my relationship to intuitive eating and why the paradigm of self-discipline...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠comment ⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .  The key points in this "speaking": On the sensation of time passing, the threat of invisibility as we age, and the trauma of constant visual exposure. We can no longer feel what it is to be human; we only see it. In contrast to the image, to feel yourself (your inner and out...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠comment ⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .  The key points in this "speaking": Of course, all categories (male, female, white, black, cis, trans, etc.) are imaginaries. No individual can be captured fully by a category, and many individuals lie outside these patterns. The man is the neutral, the normal, the standard....

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ comment ⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .  The key points in this "speaking": Desire keeps us stretched into the future, looking for an otherwise or a not-yet. Because it feeds on the future, desire is inherently insatiable. We are terrified of the present moment because to belong fully to the moment is to die. Time as...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠comment ⁠here⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠.  The key points in this "speaking": Do religious beliefs inhabit the same epistemological sphere as scientific or historical facts? God as “Santa Claus" vs. the God beyond atheism, theism, and all categories of belief or disbelief Jesus as archetype of paradox, truth, and lo...

"Live a life without closure, and your compassion will broaden you, stretch you, widen the walls of your flesh until you're able to receive the unthinkable joy and the unthinkable pain." You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠⁠ ⁠comment ⁠here⁠ ⁠⁠⁠.  The key points in this "speaking": Great joy and great pain alike are dangerous...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠⁠ comment ⁠here ⁠⁠⁠. I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. The key points in this "speaking": Everyone has a defining insecurity. Our lives circle around these insecurities through exclusion. To be a human being is to be in direct and dangerous conta...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠ comment ⁠here⁠⁠ . I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. The key points in this "speaking" Why are we so suspicious of pleasure? The darkness of the other's body— that the other remains uncontrollable and uninhabitable—reveals a fundamental separ...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠ comment ⁠here ⁠⁠ . I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. The key points in this "speaking": How can we live in such urgent times of climate change and not take continuous, drastic, urgent action? On the risk of over-emphasis on personal responsibili...

This episode is a recording of one section of an essay I originally wrote for subscribers. Read the full essay here. The key points in this "speaking": The world arrives as one: body and soul together, one uncaused arising. "Foods prepared with presence can open the pores towards particular worlds." "The human is a virtual animal, an ideological construct that derives its...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠ comment ⁠here⁠⁠ . I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. The key points in this "speaking": Why I still sometimes call myself a poet even though I don’t write proper poetry: because poetry is the most immanent disclosure of reality. Direct experience...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠ comment ⁠here⁠⁠. I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. The key points in this "speaking": Is the miraculous simply a supernatural happening? Like God is a supernatural entity? Richard Rohr’s distinction between Jesus of Nazareth and the universal Ch...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to  comment ⁠here ⁠. I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. The key points in this "speaking": Romantic love is the religion of the secular west. We used to seek the One (the ground of all reality), and now we seek "the one," the finite individu...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to  comment ⁠here⁠ . I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. Key points of this "speaking": I saw "Barbie" and was disappointed. I’m a feminist who did not disagree with any part of its message, and yet I felt it was a wasted opportunity. Is this...

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to comment ⁠here⁠ . I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. Key points of this "speaking": Every conceptual schema is a mythology if you go down far enough. Hold these mythologies lightly. In order to be truly successful, you have to tend to your particula...

Welcome to the Speakings podcast! My name is Sondra: I'm a writer, philosopher, and lover of (among other things) trees, artisan chocolate, old bookstores, and other human and non-human beings. Both my philosophical and creative projects explore ways of being-in-the-world that are more rational and more connected to the broader body of the earth. In this podcast, I hope to capture the dynamism...