Soul Matters

In this episode, we, Mark & Jules, interview artist Carol Meckling.  She is a full-time working artist living on the island of Kauai.  During the interview we talk to Carol about her journey to fully listen to her soul's longing to create and become an artist.   She speaks eloquently about how she was able to move art from something that was on the margins of her life to its very center and how doing that has brought her so much joy and life satisfaction. Along the way,  she talks about the challenges and joys of listening to the call of the soul and the call of our aliveness.  She also talks about her organic creative process, what art means her and how essential it is to our society.  We found the interview inspiring and hopeful. Carol's website: www.carolmeckling.com 

In this episode Jules and Mark experiment with not having an agenda and trusting the emerging moment in their conversation.  The idea here is that sometimes our agendas and our desire to control things gets in the way of soul emerging.  Sometimes if we let go and just trust what emerges and ride the wave of emerging life, we are taken to delightful places including places of the soul.   

Welcome back to Season Two!  In this episode, Mark and Jules discuss the intersection of science and spirituality in an interview with Ricco Bonicalzi, Ph.D.  Ricco is a scientist, physicist , Buddhist practitioner and a professor of math and physics at Seattle Central College.  He has spent many years contemplating where science and spirituality overlap and where each modality can actually support and deepen the other.  We hope you find this interview as fascinating as we did.  

In this final episode of the year, Mark and Jules delve in to healing and renewal after a tumultuous 2020.

Join Mark and Jules during this election season on a soul journey to "Lean In..."  In this first of two fall specials they talk about and struggle with how to have soulful and fruitful conversations with friends/family/partners/neighbors with polarized views.  They also talk why this kind of practice is essential for for healing the polarizations in the world and for our survival as a species.  

In this episode Mark and Juliana reflect on Season 1 of this podcast as they come to the end of the season.  They talk about what they have learned on this journey.  Then, in honor of upcoming Father's Day, they explore what healthy masculinity and soulful masculinity might look like and the challenges for men of claiming masculinity in a culture full of toxic masculinity and few role models.  

This episode is a mini-episode where Juliana and Mark discuss the inherent, potential hope in the act of protest.  They go on to introduce the practice of TONGLIN, which comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and is practice of developing a warriors heart, a heart wide enough to take in and and bear witness to the suffering of the world.  The hope is that if we can bear witness and truly take in that suffering, compassionate and effective action would be the inevitable result of that practice.  

In this improvisational episode Mark and Juliana wrestle with their own white privilege and institutional racism in response to George Floyd's murder, the history of police brutality in this country, and the protests that have broken out in many cities across this country  It is a raw, challenging and painful episode as they try and own the internal racism that lives inside of them by virtue of living in this culture.   They go on to ask what are skillful and soulful responses to what is happening and what has been happening in our country.  

Mark and Juliana interview special guest Sam Lamb who seems to have a gift of building community and connection. They discuss what it takes build a life and business through "soul connections".  

A special Mother's day episode about the soulfulness of motherhood.