Makers & Mystics

Katherine May is an internationally renowned writer, podcaster and speaker whose work touches on nature, spirituality, slow living and neurodivergence.

Her hybrid memoir Wintering was a global bestseller, adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes & Noble Book of the Year. Her most recent title, Enchantment became an instant New York Times bestseller.  

In our conversation Katherine and I discuss the common need for rediscovering pathways into enchantment and wonder. We discuss her concept of wintering and how even our most difficult times can become sources of creative and spiritual nourishment.  

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an exclusive segment of our conversation where Katherine and I unpack the phrase “secular mystic” as she’s described in the inner sleeve of Wintering.  

I’d like to personally invite you to join us at The Breath and The Clay creative arts gathering March 21-23 2025 in Winston Salem, NC. Get Tickets here.

The question of when it is time to let go of a dream haunts most creatives at one time or another. Living out our sense of fidelity to a creative vision shifts and changes over time, just as the demands of life shift and change over time. But finding a way forward can be challenging, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.  Film producer Thomas Torrey has tackled this question in his recent musical drama Long December. 

Thomas Torrey is a writer/director/producer based in the Southeast. His production company, Bad Theology, has produced three feature films, including the 2017 ride-share thriller FARE, which the Los Angeles Times called “stunning” and Bloody Flicks named as one of the Ten Best Films of the Year; the 2020 mind-bender MINOR PREMISE, which Forbes called “one of the best sci-fi thrillers of the past decade”; and the newly released musical drama LONG DECEMBER, winner of the 2024 One In A Million Award at the Sun Valley Film Festival. Thomas continues to produce films under Bad Theology and also founded a company called Protagonist, with a mission to help entrepreneurs and business leaders communicate and craft their stories through documentaries and social media content. You can follow Long December @longdecember.movie, Bad Theology @badtheology, and Protagonist @protagonist.company. 

I caught up with Thomas in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, to discuss the new film and the creative process behind its making. 

Many of our listeners will be familiar with several members of the cast, including long-time friends of the podcast, John Mark McMillan and Stephen Williams of Jude Moses. 

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment with Thomas on the power of community in the creative process. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to learn more. 

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Early Bird Tix to The Breath and The Clay March 21-23, 2025!!!

Watch Long December

Makers and Mystics has teamed up with New Zealand's Sunday Sanctuary Podcast for a special collaborative episode.

For the November 10th episode of Sunday Sanctuary, Stephen Roach joins host Petra Bagust for a chat about poetry, creativity, and the different ways that noticing the small wonders of the world can reopen, restore, and change our lives.

In this segment of the conversation, Petra and Stephen discuss the wonder found in Maori culture, storytelling, and the gift of our elders.

Petra Bagust is a multi-talented Aotearoa, New Zealand media personality, writer, and advocate. Her passion for creativity and ethical living resonates with a wildly diverse audience, making her one of New Zealand’s most sought-after radio and television hosts since the nineties.

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Attend our Advent Book Club!

For many people, and perhaps even for some of our listeners, the Bible elicits a very different response from one person to another. For some, it is a source of comfort and spiritual nourishment, even a great source of creative inspiration, while for others, it brings up difficult questions or even negative emotions and uncomfortable associations. 

But as we’ve talked this season about disenchantment and reclaiming wonder, I’m curious if taking a second look at this collection of stories, songs, and spiritual directives may be yet another unexpected doorway into wonder. 

My guest today is author and scholar Cheryl Bridges Johns.  Cheryl is the author of four books including Re-enchanting The Text: Rediscovering the Bible As Sacred, Dangerous and Mysterious. 

In our conversation, we discuss the impact of looking at scripture solely from a didactic viewpoint and what may occur in the reader who instead approaches the Bible as a mystical text with the uncanny ability to change and transform, even re-enchant its reader with a renewed spiritual vitality and understanding of God and the human condition. Cheryl and I also discuss the importance of nature as God’s second book and the role of imagination in creating the world around us.  

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment with Cheryl offering several practices to unlock a renewed vision on your creative and spiritual life.  

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Music in this episode by: Some Were At Sea

Lacey Sturm is a Grammy-nominated queen of hard rock who secured a place in rock history as the first solo woman to top the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart with her debut album Life Screams. With a career spanning songs like “All Around Me,” “I’m So Sick,” “Again,” “Impossible,” “State of Me'' and most recently “Awaken Love,”

Lacey Sturm has proven herself as one of the most powerful and enduring voices in hard rock. She is also a sought-after speaker and author, penning the autobiographical books The Reason, The Mystery and The Return. Also a dedicated wife and mother, Lacey tours with her family, supported on stage by her guitarist husband Josh Sturm. You can connect with Lacey at www.laceysturm.com

In this episode, Lacey shares openly about walking through devastating experiences early in life and the role music played in helping her find healing. She shares about her life now and how changing seasons bring out unexpected encounters with beauty and hope.

*Also, just a heads up, our talk today includes sensitive subject matter, including mental health, abuse, and domestic violence.

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Name Drops:
Mr. Rogers, Nirvana, Tim Burton, Spiderman

Topics:
Art and Identity, Looking for the Helpers, Hope, Hurricane Katrina, Multiverse, Music

Trigger Warnings: Domestic Violence, Abuse, Addiction, Death 

Russ Ramsey is an author and pastor with a passion for uniting art and faith. He has been in vocational ministry for more than twenty years and currently serves as the lead pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church’s Cool Springs location. He holds an MDiv and ThM from Covenant Theological Seminary, and is the author of six books, including Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith (Zondervan 2022), and Behold the King of Glory, recipient of the 2016 Christian Book Award for New Author. Russ was also a founding contributor and member of The Rabbit Room and is a featured speaker each year at The Rabbit Room’s annual conference, Hutchmoot. 

In today’s episode Russ discusses his new book, Van Gogh has a Broken Heart. The conversation explores how Van Gogh’s life and art reveal universal themes of struggle and wonder and what Van Gogh reveals about the human condition.

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment on why the arts are important to communities of faith. Visit Patreon.com/makersandmystics to learn more. 

Name Drops:  Van Gogh, Norman Rockwell, Paul Simon, Rembrandt, 

Books: The Sunflowers Are Mine, Van Gogh Has A Broken Heart 

Topics: Suffering, Van Gogh, Wonder, Faith, Honesty in art, mental health, emotional well-being

Trigger Warning: This episode deals with topics of racism, mental health, and suicide.

Van Gogh Letters

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Nick Leng is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer known for his abstract blend of electronica, classical piano and ambient soundscapes. Nick’s music is hard to categorize but evokes a sense of musical synesthesia, which he describes as a kaleidoscope of emotions turned into sounds. 

Nick's musical journey began in his early years growing up in South Africa, where he was classically trained on the piano. His formal education provided a strong foundation for his later experimental approach, as he learned to seamlessly blend technical skill with a passion for experimentation. 

In today’s episode, Nick talks with me about his musical development and the nuances of his ever-evolving creative process. 

In a world where artists are often pressured to keep up with the demands of producing new content, Nick openly shares his struggles with the industry’s relentless pace. He talks with me about the importance of resisting this pressure and taking time to sit with the muse, allowing his songs to develop naturally.

In keeping with our Season theme of Reclaiming Wonder, Nick contributes a fascinating perspective on discovering wonder within new sounds and new ways of approaching music.

Name Drops:
Chopin, Maurice Ravel, Scriabin, Dawn of Midi, Portsmouth Sinfonia

Topics: Minimal Techno, Rominimal Music, creating from the subconscious, Classical Music, Experimental Music, Creative Process 

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Watch Nick Leng's Insanely cool Beetle Bugs music video

Edward Knippers is a visual artist whose large-scale body of work spans 50 years of practice and explores various genres, including figurative, expressionism, abstraction, and cubism.  

His work has been displayed in museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide and centers on the human body. 

His paintings often depict scenes from biblical narratives and invite us to consider the goodness, brokenness, mystery, and glory of embodiment, urging us to grapple with the temptation to avoid, sexualize, downplay, or disparage the human form. 

Image Journal said of Edward Knippers that he is "without a doubt, one of the founding fathers of contemporary efforts to explore the relationship between Christian faith and the creation of outstanding new visual art.”

Alongside garnering numerous awards and accolades, Ed’s work has been the subject of much controversy.  It has been banned, defaced, and even mutilated. The nudity, sometimes violent or disfigured forms within his paintings, have left some viewers offended at his imaginative handling of the biblical narratives. 

I had the honor of interviewing Edward live at Gordon Conwell’s Embodied Faith Symposium in Charlotte NC.  In our talk, I ask Ed about the role of embodiment within his work, how he has handled his critics and what advice he would give to this generation of emerging artists. 

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Melbourne-based visual artist and electronic musician Mike Lane creates under the name Chalom, a name spoken to him in a dream. His practice consists of visually expressing dreams and meditations, with mostly found materials, embedded bible pages, penciled notes, and spray paint. 

Beyond the haphazard backgrounds of his paintings, brushes or tools are rarely used in the making, just hands and fingers employing scrawly texts, scribbles, and vaguely figurative forms.

CHALOM’s prolific work is a deeply spiritual practice, and he loves to write blessings and prophecies hidden under the paintings for the viewer to experience as mysteries and positive, energetic flow intended to shift the atmosphere in the spaces where the works are hung.

In this episode, Chalom talks with Stephen Roach about his creative process and the deeply-felt spiritual underpinnings behind his visual art.

Topics:
Dreams and Visions, Abstract Art, Risk in Art, Surprise in Art, Experiencing the Now 

Name Drops: Ludwig Von Zinzendorf, Henri Nouwen, Rivertribe

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In this episode, podcast host Stephen Roach takes listeners on a journey into the world of ecstatic poetry. Drawing from the wisdom of Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton and author/scholar Michael Edwards, Stephen highlights poetry as mankind’s first language. He tells us, the meaning of a poem is not found in what a poem is about, but rather what effect the poem has on it’s hearer. Through reciting several of his own poems, Stephen reveals poetry and the poetic encounter as a doorway to wonder.

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