On Being with Krista Tippett

By On Being Studios

Society & Culture Social Sciences Religion & Spirituality

What's On Being with Krista Tippett about?

Wisdom to replenish and orient in a tender, tumultuous time to be alive.

Spiritual inquiry, science, social healing, and poetry.

Conversations to live by.

Fall 2023 season now available for listening in full: on the intelligence that lives in the human body — and, beyond the hype and the doom, what is the new AI calling us to as human beings? With Kate Bowler, Kerry Washington, Nick Cave, Reid Hoffman, Latanya Sweeney, Baratunde Thurston, Sara Hendren, Matthew Sanford, Clint Smith, and Christiana Figueres.

Also: a 20-year archive of beloved, celebrated, revelatory shows, with Mary Oliver, John O'Donohue, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ada Limón, Isabel Wilkerson, Desmond Tutu. And so much more.

Explore at onbeing.org.

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Nick Cave — Loss, Yearning,...

11.22.2023

Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song: the "universal condition" of yearning, and of loss; a "spirituality of rigor"; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is about. This Australian musician, writer, and ...

On Being with Krista Tippett episodes:

11.22.2023 Nick Cave — Loss, Yearning, Transcendence Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song: the "universal condition" of yearning, and of loss; a "spirituality of rigor"; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is about. This Australian musician, writer, and ...
11.21.2023 A Word from Krista A little musing on this season, the spectacular finale headed your way — and ways to stay connected in the time ahead.
11.16.2023 Sara Hendren — Our Bodies, Aliveness, and the Built World Our built world is designed around something called "normal," and yet every single one of our bodies is mysterious, and constantly adapting for better or worse — and always, always changing. This is a fact so ordinary — and yet ...
11.09.2023 Christiana Figueres — Ecological Hope, and Spiritual Evolution The ecological crisis we are standing before is at once civilizational and personal — intimately close to each of us in the places we love and inhabit, and unfolding at a species level. And as much as anyone alive on ...
11.02.2023 Clint Smith — What We Know in the "Marrow of Our Bones" This phrase recurs throughout Clint Smith's writing: "in the marrow of our bones." It is an example of how words can hold encrypted wisdom — in this case, the reality that memory and emotion lodge in us physically. Words and ...
11.02.2023 “Dance Party” by Clint Smith Clint Smith reads his poem, “Dance Party.” This poem is featured in Clint’s On Being conversation with Krista, “What We Know in the ‘Marrow of Our Bones.’” Find more of his poems, along with our full collection of poetry films ...
11.02.2023 “Ode to Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep” by Clint Smith Clint Smith reads his poem, “Ode to Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep.” This poem is featured in Clint’s On Being conversation with Krista, “What We Know in the ‘Marrow of Our Bones.’” Find more of ...
11.02.2023 [Extended] Clint Smith with Krista Tippett This phrase recurs throughout Clint Smith's writing: "in the marrow of our bones." It is an example of how words can hold encrypted wisdom — in this case, the reality that memory and emotion lodge in us physically. Words and ...
10.31.2023 Three Skills for Staying Calm, Sane, and Open in a Chaotic World \| Krista interviewed by Dan Harris for Ten Percent Happier From Krista: I loved being interviewed by Dan Harris as much as I've ever enjoyed being on the other side of the microphone (as the saying goes). He drew things out of me I didn't know I had to say. ...
10.26.2023 Latanya Sweeney — On Shaping Technology to Human Purpose You may not know Latanya Sweeney's name, but as much as any other single person — and with good humor and grace as well as brilliance — she has led on the frontier of our gradual understanding of how far ...
10.26.2023 [Unedited] Latanya Sweeney with Krista Tippett You may not know Latanya Sweeney's name, but as much as any other single person — and with good humor and grace as well as brilliance — she has led on the frontier of our gradual understanding of how far ...
10.19.2023 Matthew Sanford – The Body's Grace A wondrous, buried treasure from the 20-year On Being archive, with renowned yoga teacher Matthew Sanford. Be prepared, as you listen to what follows, to take in subtleties and gracefulness you've never before pondered — or tried to feel in ...
10.12.2023 Baratunde Thurston — How to Be a Social Creative Baratunde Thurston is a comedian, writer, and media entrepreneur. He has eyes open to the contradictions, strangeness, and beauty of being human. He looks for learning happening even amidst our hardest cultural tangles. And he intertwines all of this, innovatively ...
10.05.2023 Reid Hoffman — AI, and What It Means to Be (More) Human In this season of On Being and those to come, we are going to train the core human questions on the emerging “generative AI.” Beyond the hype and the doom, what is this new technology calling us to as human ...
09.28.2023 Kerry Washington — Acting as a Devotional Practice “Becoming other people” for a living, as Kerry Washington likes to describe her craft, turns out to be a revelatory lens on the high drama that is the human condition. As a “learning actor,” a kind of actor/anthropologist, she has ...
09.21.2023 Kate Bowler — On Being in a Body We love the theologian Kate Bowler's allergy to every platitude and her wisdom and wit about the strange and messy fullness of what it means to be in a human body. She's best known for her 2018 book Everything Happens ...
09.21.2023 Kate Bowler — A Blessing for the Life You Didn't Choose This blessing is featured in Kate’s conversation with Krista, “On Being in a Body.” It's published in her book The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days.
09.14.2023 A New Season of On Being Is Coming A big conversation to live by starting NEXT WEEK — every Thursday — from September 21. Loss — and love. AI — and the intelligence that lives in our bodies. Kerry Washington, Kate Bowler, Reid Hoffman, Latanya Sweeney, Nick Cave, ...
07.21.2023 "Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire." From Krista: I have been texting this exquisite poem from our archives to my beloveds. Perhaps it will touch you — hold you — as it is touching and holding me. ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO ...
06.08.2023 From Poetry Unbound: Benjamin Gucciardi — The Rungs Hello friends, it is a joy to introduce the new season of Poetry Unbound, which is underway. As Krista shares at the top, this episode has everything in it that makes Poetry Unbound such a gift in a noisy podcast ...
04.20.2023 Patronage and Love: On Being's Becoming Pádraig makes an announcement, and we listen to a few lovely moments from the On Being season we've just brought into the world.
04.13.2023 Vivek Murthy — To Be a Healer We need a modicum of vitality to simply be alive in this time. And we're in an enduringly tender place. The mental health crisis that is invoked all around, especially as we look to the young, is one manifestation of ...
04.13.2023 Vivek Murthy — A Meditation for Moments of Despair, and To Feel Less Alone An excerpt from the On Being episode, "To Be a Healer." The extraordinary physician and public servant stilled a raucous room full of storytellers and podcasters with this offering at the 2023 On Air Fest.
04.13.2023 [Unedited] Vivek Murthy with Krista Tippett We need a modicum of vitality to simply be alive in this time. And we're in an enduringly tender place. The mental health crisis that is invoked all around, especially as we look to the young, is one manifestation of ...
04.06.2023 Barbara Brown Taylor — “This Hunger for Holiness” "I like it much better than ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ — to be a seeker after the sacred or the holy, which ends up for me being the really real." – Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor From Krista, about this week's show: ...
04.06.2023 [Unedited] Barbara Brown Taylor with Krista Tippett "I like it much better than ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ — to be a seeker after the sacred or the holy, which ends up for me being the really real." – Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor From Krista, about this week's show: ...
03.30.2023 Ruth Wilson Gilmore — “Where life is precious, life is precious.” To say that Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a geographer, which she is, is not to convey the vast and varied ways in which she is influencing the makings of the future. She's a mentor and teacher to a new generation ...
03.23.2023 Janine Benyus — Biomimicry, an Operating Manual for Earthlings There is a quiet, redemptive story of our time in this conversation — a radical way of approaching the gravest of our problems by attending to how original vitality functions. Biomimicry takes the natural world as mentor and teacher — ...
03.16.2023 Rick Rubin — Magic, Everyday Mystery, and Getting Creative The flow and the ingredients by which an idea becomes an offering — and life practices which call that alchemy forth. The mystery of it all that can only be named and wondered at — and the ordinary mystery that ...
03.09.2023 Isabel Wilkerson — "We all know in our bones that things are harder than they have to be." In this rich, expansive, and warm conversation between friends, Krista draws out the heart for humanity behind Isabel Wilkerson's eye on histories we are only now communally learning to tell — her devotion to understanding not merely who we have ...
03.02.2023 James Bridle — The Intelligence Singing All Around Us You might want to take a walk with this one. It is big and full of brain food and an enlivening opening of imagination to possibilities that are emergent now: the notion of the “broad commonwealth of life” that we ...
03.02.2023 [Unedited] James Bridle with Krista Tippett You might want to take a walk with this one. It is big and full of brain food and an enlivening opening of imagination to possibilities that are emergent now: the notion of the “broad commonwealth of life” that we ...
02.23.2023 Nick Offerman — Working with Wood, and the Meaning of Life Nick Offerman has played many great characters, most famously Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation, and he starred more recently in an astonishing episode of The Last of Us. But he is driven by passionate callings older and deeper than ...
02.16.2023 Ada Limón — “To Be Made Whole” An electric conversation with Ada Limón's wisdom and her poetry — a refreshing, full-body experience of how this way with words and sound and silence teaches us about being human at all times, but especially now. With an unexpected and ...
02.16.2023 “The Quiet Machine” by Ada Limón Ada Limón reads her poem, “The Quiet Machine.” This poem is featured in Ada’s On Being conversation with Krista, “To Be Made Whole.” Find more of her poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two ...
02.16.2023 “Dead Stars” by Ada Limón Ada Limón reads her poem, “Dead Stars.” This poem is featured in Ada’s On Being conversation with Krista, “To Be Made Whole.” Find more of her poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from two decades ...
02.16.2023 “A New National Anthem” by Ada Limón Ada Limón reads her poem, “A New National Anthem.” This poem is featured in Ada’s On Being conversation with Krista, “To Be Made Whole.” Find more of her poems, along with our full collection of poetry films and readings from ...
02.09.2023 Amanda Ripley — Stepping out of "the zombie dance" we're in, and into "good conflict" that is, in fact, life-giving Amanda Ripley began her life as a journalist covering crime, disaster, and terrorism. Then in 2018, she published a brilliant essay called “Complicating the Narratives,” which she opened by confessing a professional existential crisis. We journalists, she wrote, “can summon ...
02.02.2023 Dacher Keltner — The Thrilling New Science of Awe One of the most fascinating developments of our time is that human qualities we have understood in terms of virtue — experiences we've called spiritual — are now being taken seriously by science as intelligence — as elements of human ...
01.26.2023 Emergence: On Being Is Back! We are immensely grateful for your patience in our season of podcasting pause. But enough already. Starting Thursday, February 2, we'll come to you with three months of soaring new On Being conversations with Krista, with an eye towards emergence. ...
11.03.2022 Foundations 4: Calling and Wholeness In the modern western world, vocation was equated with work. But each of us has callings, not merely to be professionals, but to be friends, neighbors, colleagues, family, citizens, lovers of the world. Each of us imprints the people in ...
10.27.2022 Foundations 3: Taking a Long View of Time, and Becoming “Critical Yeast” We inhabit a liminal time between what we thought we knew and what we can’t quite yet see. But time is more spacious than we imagine it to be, and it is more of a friend than we always know. ...
10.20.2022 Foundations 2: Living the Questions We live in a world in love with the form of words that is an opinion, and the way with words that is an argument. Yet it is a deep truth in life — as in science — that each ...
10.13.2022 Foundations 1: Seeing the Generative Story of Our Time The first of four short offerings, more wisdom practice than podcast: life-giving, hope-generating words, ideas and practices that can literally shape your experience of reality — and shape what can become possible. At this juncture in the life of the ...
10.12.2022 Introducing On Being Foundations A new season of big On Being conversations is coming in the new year. But for the next few weeks, we are pulling back the veil on how we’re getting grounded for that. On Being Foundations are words and ideas ...
10.06.2022 A Listening Ritual for this Fall: Poetry Unbound Three years ago, Krista texted Pádraig Ó Tuama with a simple question: what if he were to start a poetry podcast that listened as much as it shared? Not long after, Poetry Unbound was born, and it keeps going from ...
09.29.2022 A Season of Emergence with Krista Krista returns from her summer in Berlin, where her present-day self reunited with the 25-year-old of the 1980s, at large in the divided city. Hear the reflections that emerged from her season of creative rest, and her beloved practices of ...
07.07.2022 Before Newness Arrives … In some languages, there are words for goodbye that are also a promise of a future "hello," and that's the kind of farewell this is. Krista offers this “see you later” with a parting poem as she and the full ...
06.30.2022 BONUS: An On Being Listening Party — Celebrating 20 Years A special offering from Krista Tippett and all of us at On Being: an incredible, celebratory event — listening back and remembering forwards across 20 years of this show in the good company of our beloved friend and former guest, ...
06.23.2022 adrienne maree brown — “We are in a time of new suns” “What a time to be alive,” adrienne maree brown has written. “Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.” adrienne maree brown and others use many words ...

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