On Being with Krista Tippett | 5 minute podcast summaries

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Original episode link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-being-with-krista-tippett/id150892556?i=1000519815395

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/eCxRv-Layli-Long-Soldier-The-Freedom-of-Real-Apologies

Other podcast summaries if you're on Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/5-min-summaries
Or in other apps: search 'podcast summaries'.
Original episode link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-being-with-krista-tippett/id150892556?i=1000519290929

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/OxSq8-Hanif-Abdurraqib-Moments-of-Shared-Witnessing

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Or in other apps: search 'podcast summaries'.
Original episode link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/layli-long-soldier-the-freedom-of-real-apologies/id150892556?i=1000518230891

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/eCxRv-Layli-Long-Soldier-The-Freedom-of-Real-Apologies

Knowledge

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Original episode link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/resmaa-menakem-notice-the-rage-notice-the-silence/id150892556?i=1000517286718

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/4aWCq-Resmaa-Menakem-Notice-the-Rage-Notice-the

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Original episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bryan-doerries-you-are-not-alone-across-time/id150892556?i=1000516322105

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/EggFy-Bryan-Doerries-You-are-not-alone-across-time

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Original episode link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serene-jones-grace-in-a-fractured-world/id150892556?i=1000515372831

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/6MkEA-Serene-Jones-Grace-in-a-Fractured-World

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Original episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/michael-longley-the-vitality-of-ordinary-things/id150892556?i=1000514401807

1 quote:
"If you don’t have anything to say, say nothing, silence is part of the enterprise, silence is sacred too."

Key ideas: How one can be too self conscious, revisiting the same places & how something of no use can be valuable.

Who is Michael Longley:

Multiple prize winning poet who's known for the quiet beauty of his compact, meditative lyrics, with classical allusions to cast provocative light on contemporary concerns.
Professor of poetry for Ireland who's written more than 20 books of poetry including Collected Poems, The Stairwell and most recently, The Candlelight Master.


Idea 1 @ 27mins: 

One can be too self conscious. Michael says that Art and poetry require a certain amount of indifference.  Michael says he's certain that: You can take your poem [or your work] seriously, but you mustn't take yourself seriously.  He says that self importance engraves it's own headstone.

Idea 2 @ 21mins: 

Revisiting the same places doesn't mean you exhaust it, it means you go more deeply into it.  The beauty of going back to the same place over and over again: that you notice more and more. We often think about making sure we go to different places each time because it'd be a waste to go to the same place again, but in reality, you don't exhaust a place, you simply go more deeply into it.  Michael says: you know the phrase, “travel broadens the mind.” We do quite a bit of traveling, but I think it also shallows the mind, depending on what you do and how you think about it.  For Michael, going back to the same place in a devoted way and in a curious way is a huge part of his life.

Idea 3 @ 41mins: 

Just because something is of no use, doesn't mean it's of no value.  One of the marvelous things about poetry is that it’s useless. It’s useless. “What use is poetry?” people occasionally ask, in the butcher shop, say. They come up to me and they say, “What use is poetry?” And the answer is, “No use.” But it doesn’t mean to say that it’s without value. It’s without use, but it has value. It is valuable.   The first people that dictators try to get rid of are the poets and the artists, the novelists and the playwrights. They burn their books. They’re terrified of what poetry can do.  It means that poetry encourages you to think for yourself and to disregard church and state. It does. But that’s not exactly use. That just means it’s got value.   The image that Michael loves the most is the English critic Cyril Connolly's comparison of arts to a little gland in the body called the pituitary gland, which is at the base of the spine. And it seems very small and unimportant, but when it’s removed, the body dies.  Good art, good poems, is making people more human, making them more intelligent, making them more sensitive and emotionally pure than they might otherwise be.


1 question:

Can you think of a time where you took yourself too seriously?


Other topics in episode:

Michael reading & explaining the beauty in some of his favorite poems.
Michael's transcendental experiences through art and nature.
What does it mean to be human and how does poetry fit into all of that

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Key ideas: The power of language & human emotion in our voice, how the future is first in our mouth and then in our hands & how we need the linguistic existence of a fire escape.

1 quote:
"No words can say I love you more than feeling it from the actions of somebody." - Ocean Vuong

Who is Ocean Vuong?

An associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Author of the poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which won multiple awards.
Author of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous", a book written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese American son to his illiterate mother.


Idea 1 @ 15mins: 
Language can divide people and build walls, or it can bring us together and build bridges between our understanding.  Speaking adds a whole other dimension and level to words.  Words on a page can be turned in a beautiful song that sparks human emotion, through the pauses, cadences, oscillation and amplification of words with the full range of human emotion in the voice.  We are all participants in the future of language and it's up to us to use language to cast new meaning.
Idea 2 @ 17mins: 
We often tell our students the future's in your hands. But I think the future is actually in your mouth. You have to you have to articulate the world you want to live in first. We pride ourselves as a country that's very technologically advanced. We have strong, good science, good schools, very advanced weaponry. But I think we're still very primitive in the way we use language and speak.
Idea 3 @ 42mins: 
Some parts of language iterates a loneliness. The way we say hello to each other, you know? Hi, how are you? Oh, good is almost always the answer. So how are you is now defunct. It doesn't access reality, It fills it with fluff.  What can we do when some language starts to fail at its function and it starts to obscure rather than open.   And a lot of the crisis around suicide that Ocean's uncle and friends went through was a crisis of communication.  They couldn't say I'm hurt.  Ocean would remember when he heard of his uncles suicide, he was a student at Brooklyn College in New York and he went for the longest walk and he kept seeing these fires kept.  And he asked himself, what is the linguistic existence of a fire escape?   Ocean says he think we're so we built shame into vulnerability and we've sealed it off in our culture; not at the dinner table, Don't say this. Nows not the time.  We need to find the time and ability to ask Are you really OK? I know we're talking, but if you want to step out on the fire escape. And you can tell me the truth.

1 question:
Can you think of a time where the language you used could've been improved to bring better understanding between people?

Other topics:

The love story of his parents and his upbringing as a queer war baby from his Vietnamese & American parents in America.
How Buddhist practice is incorporated into his life and thinking.
Teaching language, and the power of language.

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/awuwB-Ocean-Vuong-A-Life-Worthy-of-Our-Breath

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Original episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/christine-runyan-whats-happening-in-our-nervous-systems/id150892556?i=1000513584252

1 quote:
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our power to choose. And in our choice lies our growth and our freedom.”

Key ideas: When conscious and subconscious reactions work better, how statistics can be a source of trauma & how imagination is a double edged sword.

Who is Christine Runyan?

Clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  
A certified mindfulness teacher, that co-founded and co-leads Tend Health, a clinical consulting practice focused on the mental well-being of health care practitioners.


Idea 1 @ 3mins: 

Having conscious as well as subconscious thoughts can be useful at different times.  One example of this is our “fight-flight” system. Whenever we sense a threat or any danger, our nervous system automatically instills a fight or flight response, which doesn't happen at the level of our conscious awareness.  This can be useful for situations where there's no time to think, such as an emergency. But, things such as our panic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which also activated our fight or flight system, would be better off if we brought the awareness to our conscious mind, so that we can actively think through our responses, as opposed to only relying on our instincts in flight or fight mode.

Idea 2 @ 21mins: 

Horrible statistics about certain things can become another source of trauma for people.  During COVID, so many people talked about the increased percentage and statistics of suicide, depression and more.   But we also need to realize that, statistics that say something like '30% of people have xyz', also says that 70 percent, or the majority of people don’t have it.   Which can push people to think; what’s wrong with me? and ask questions such as “am i not resilient enough or strong enough?"  We have to be compassionate to ourselves, and realise that everyone reacts to the same things differently.

Idea 3 @ 32mins: 

Our bodies and mind, can often react in similar ways to what is imagined, as it does to what is real.  Runyan sometimes say to her clients, “I want you to imagine cutting open a lemon, a juicy lemon, and bringing that half of the lemon onto your tongue. And just let it rest there. And what do you notice?”  Most people can imagine tasting it, and their body reacts by releasing additional saliva.  We can create a physiological response through our imagination, which is a double edged sword. It’s a gift and a curse, because we can use it to comfort ourselves, but it's also the source of worries.


1 question:

Can you think of a way for you to use your imagination to create more comfort?


Other topics:

How the year of the pandemic and social isolation impacts us.
Other strategies that we can all do from home, to help calm ourselves.
Metabolizing the reality that we have much less control or even no control in a lot of areas.

Written summary: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/BapZY-Christine-Runyan-Whats-Happening-in-Our-Nervous