Open Heart with Lu Leslan

Season 4, Episode 10: Mother Earth Is Home Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION In the Season 4 finale, Lu looks up at the distant stars and questions our existence. If the story of the universe were a thousand-page book, humans would appear only in its very last paragraph. From a herd of elephants bathing in the Okavango Delta to the creation stor...

Season 4, Episode 9: We Build Our World Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Lu begins with the long road from scarcity to abundance: the Black Death, centuries of war, and a population that grew from one billion to more than eight billion in just over two hundred years. Drawing on Sven Beckert’s Capitalism: A Global History , she traces a relentle...

Season 4, Episode 8: Take Time to Reflect Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Lu spent a weekend at Doctober, the documentary film festival in Bellingham, camping by Lake Samish with time to reflect between films. In this episode she shares three very different films: a Seattle Powwow, a film about human composting, and one about the memories of H...

EPISODE 7 — SURRENDER TO HUMANITY Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Every day, we trust people we will never meet. Lu grew up in the sixties riding the bus alone and walking to piano lessons at night, never afraid of strangers. Today, a generation raised on fear and the 24-hour news cycle struggles to trust at all. Yet from the seafood in an Asi...

EPISODE 6 — USE WORDS WITH CARE Tick tock hear the clock  Wake me up and say good night  Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Words can lift us up or wear us down, and most of the time we don't notice which. In this episode, Lu goes back to a childhood home where yelling was simply called discipline. She also remembers how a parent's compliment could make her want to do better, and how music...

EPISODE 5 — REMEMBER LESSONS LEARNED Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION What do we actually inherit from the past we never lived through? In this episode, Lu traces the lessons passed down through her own family — a grandmother in Beijing who never learned to read, who raised six children alone, who taught frugality simply by living it — alongsid...

EPISODE 4 — TAKE A WIDER VIEW Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION What does it actually take to see beyond what's right in front of you? In this episode, Lu traces how her own view widened — first at eleven, on a school orchestra trip that put her on a plane for the first time, then across a life shaped by political upheaval, immigration, and...

EPISODE 3 — THE INVISIBLE THREAD (PART 2) Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION What if the boundary you feel between yourself and the natural world was never really there? In Part 2 of The Invisible Thread, Lu turns from the connections between people to the connection underneath all of them — nature itself. From the bamboo breath of an ancient Chi...

EPISODE 2 — THE INVISIBLE THREAD (PART 1) Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION What connects a woman in Kent, Washington to a country singer in Tennessee, a folk artist in Nova Scotia, and a plumber who showed up on the worst day of her week? In Part 1 of The Invisible Thread, Lu explores the pull that moves through time and distance without asking...

DESCRIPTION What if the most honest conversation you can have begins with how your body will be disposed of? In the Season 4 premiere of Open Heart, Lu walks into a small meeting hosted by a company called Smart Cremation and walks out seeing everything more clearly. Not with grand ambition. Not with urgent purpose. With the sharp, quiet focus that comes when you stop pretending you have forever. ...

Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Season 3 asked who we are. Season 4 asks how we can look after each other as neighbors. This season, we look outward — at who we become when we truly show up for each other. It'll be surprising, terrifying, and unpredictable. Open Heart returns September 3rd. SHOW NOTES A new season of Open Heart with Lu Le...

What does it mean to live well, knowing everything will vanish without a trace? In the Season 3 finale of Open Heart, Lu gathers the threads of the whole season into one philosophy — the wisdom of effortless action. From the flow of playing the piano, to the pain and joy that arrive together, to the anger she has learned to turn into art, to the ancient words of Chuang Tsu — this is an episode abo...

EPISODE 9 — THE INVISIBLE CONNECTION DESCRIPTION We spend so much energy drawing lines between ourselves and everything else — classifying, ranking, deciding what matters. But what if the deepest connection is the one we cannot see? Episode 9 of Open Heart Season 3 follows a widening circle — from the self, to a cricket saved from a swimming pool, to a sky over Prince Edward Island that seemed to...

Some of us learn early to carry other people's pain. We become the healer — the one who shows up, who gives, who lights the way for others. But what happens when we never turn that healing toward ourselves? Episode 8 of Open Heart Season 3 traces the story of the wounded healer from a first, unexpected moment in Lu's teens to a foggy shoreline in Prince Edward Island — and arrives at a q...

All life begins with shit. That's not a metaphor — it's biology. And it might be the most honest thing anyone has said about the human condition. Episode 7 of Open Heart Season 3 traces the same cycle across three scales — the biological, the personal, and the planetary — and arrives at the most uncomfortable question of the season: are humans the cancer cell of their own planet? SHOW NO...

S-O-R-R-Y. The most spoken word in everyday conversation — and perhaps the least understood. Episode 6 of Open Heart Season 3 takes apart the word sorry letter by letter, examines what apology actually does versus what we hope it does, and asks the harder question — if we are the enablers of our own suffering, what exactly are we forgiving? SHOW NOTES EPISODE 6 — FROM APOLOGY TO FORGIVENESS Apolog...

Every border we live inside — we inherited. Episode 5 of Open Heart Season 3 asks what it cost in human lives — and tells the story of one woman alone in a motel room with yellowish curtains in Tijuana in 1979 — who crossed a border she wasn't supposed to cross. And a woodcarver on the Victoria Falls Bridge who crosses one every day just to feed his family. SHOW NOTES EPISODE 5 — THE BORDER T...

Where does superiority come from — and what does it cost us? Episode 4 of Open Heart Season 3 traces the origins of superiority from a ten year old girl winning a woodwind competition to the labels we use to divide ourselves. And then shows what dignity looks like in the faces of people who never needed a stage to prove their worth. SHOW NOTES EPISODE 4 — SUPERIORITY VS. DIGNITY Superiority needs...

Why do we want what we want? Why do we stop asking the most important question — and fill the silence with consumption, shortcuts and masks? Episode 3 of Open Heart Season 3 traces the why question from the first human who looked up at the sky — to the hunger for dignity that drives everything we do. SHOW NOTES EPISODE 3 — THE WHY QUESTION Why is not just a question. It is how the human story begi...

EPISODE 2 — STATE OF MIND SHOW NOTES The mind is not a fixed address. It is transient yet powerful — a state of storming weather followed by peaceful calm. No clues for where it is heading or where it will land. This episode asks: How do we feel about ourselves when we look up at the skyscraper? What would happen if we had a different way to communicate without words? Does the mind enjoy playing t...

EPISODE 1 — DEMONS IN OURSELVES SHOW NOTES We all carry something dark. Something inherited. Something we didn't choose. This episode asks the hardest questions: Where do our demons come from — our genes or our experience? Why do our closest relationships bring out our sharpest edges? Is there honor when survival is at stake? What does a collective demon look like across 8 billion humans? Can...

Season 3 of Open Heart arrives June 11th. Hosted by pianist and philosopher Lu Leslan, this season moves inward — through demons, borders, forgiveness, paradox, and the words we repeat without ever questioning them. Not a self-help guide. Not a lecture. A journey through the hardest questions of being human — with company. SHOW NOTES Drifting shadow ghost Laying head on my pillow Humming lullaby S...

What truth remains when you dare to let go of everything that was never truly yours? In this Season 2 finale, Lu explores what it means to break free—not from life or people, but from the accumulated weight of traditions, rules, conventions, and noise inherited through the generations. She shares a deeply personal story about choosing solitude over convention, the Stoic wisdom of releasing what we...

What if transformation isn't something you choose? In this episode, Lu explores metamorphosis as a magical, unstoppable and risky process happening in all of us—visible and invisible, in darkness and in light. She shares the butterfly's secret (complete dissolution before emergence), a deeply personal story about bringing a premature infant into the world, and why our tears are the seeds...

What if intention isn't about achieving—it's about being? In this episode, Lu explores the difference between intention and goals, intention and expectation, and how living with intention requires courage to let things fall apart. She shares personal examples from daily life—preparing a meal with what she already has, bowing after hot yoga in gratitude—to demonstrate how mindful frugalit...