Soul Search

Gardeners have cultivated — or dominated — the natural world for thousands of years. But as any green thumb will tell you, in the garden nature has an opinion about how things will go and you won't always get your way.

So, what does your garden say about you? And what does your garden say to you?

Guests

Georgina Reid is a landscape designer, gardener, writer and former editor of Wonderground — a print and online journal exploring questions of nature, culture and care.

Megumi Bennett has been practising bonsai and ikebana for over 5 decades. She is the founder of the Bonsai Society of Sydney inc and is also a member of Ikebana International. Megumi received the bonsai instructors qualification from the Nippon Bonsai Association, Japan in 2008. She is the first overseas person to receive this recognition. Her book is My Journey with Australian Native Fig Trees, Bonsai and Botanical Art (2025).

More from Soul Search

• The surprising role of grass in shaping who we are
• The science and spirituality of soil
• Deep ecology and reconnecting with the natural world

With so much going on in the news and in the world right now, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, and even powerless. But how can the philosophy of a brilliant young Frenchwoman help us navigate through tragedy and troubles? Simone Weil wrestled with the question of how to live a moral life, and she gives us a remarkable vision of how to pay attention.

Would you say you're a good listener? Listening well to others, and being properly listened to yourself, is the baseline for genuine encounter with each other. There's a vulnerability and intimacy to listening when it's done properly, so how do we do it in a noisy, divided world?

How are our internal, spiritual lives shaped by the physical structure of our brains? Dr Iain McGilchrist is the author of two big books that have thrown into question our assumptions about knowledge and meaning and even our capacity to perceive the sacred.

‘The humpback whale is Theresa Ardler’s totem, and she went all the way to Rome to share Indigenous knowledge of the ocean with the Pope.

The word 'god' can bring many images to mind — perhaps a man with blue complexion and four arms, an old bearded man in the sky, or a woman seated on a lotus throne. Gods and goddesses have been visualised in all kinds of ways, through different times and societies. And when it comes to Hinduism, the deities can take on countless forms.

Rituals mark moments throughout our lives, big and small. They are also used to draw attention to political injustice and social inequality, to express lament and to reorient the participants in the ritual toward wholeness. What role might rituals play in our lives, and how can rituals be part of the reparative work in our society and politics?

How do you express your deepest emotions? Over the centuries many have turned to poetry, including the Book of Psalms from the Hebrew Bible. From anguish to ecstasy and anger to joy, how can one collection of poetry cover such a range of emotions and experiences?

Pope Leo XIV has just published his first encyclical, and it's on artificial intelligence. But for 75 years, people from diverse religious traditions have been thinking about AI and the ethics of AI, including from Buddhist and Protestant perspectives.

Swami Vivekananda made giant contributions to interfaith dialogue and interpreting Hinduism to the west. So who was Vivekananda, the young swami who impressed America at the end of the 19th century? And why does his legacy matter to young Hindus today?