Soul Search

Meredith Lake chats to podcaster and author Casper ter Kulie whose been thinking about a big question: How do we make meaning as communities, and deepen our sense of connection to one another?

It has been quite the year for many of us — but what's helped you through? What everyday wisdom and practices have nourished you and been good for your soul? Hear the answers to these questions and more from friends of the show: the always insightful academics and authors, Alda Balthrop-Lewis and David Newheiser, GP and Yamatji Badimaya woman, Dr Umber Rind, Adelaide-based Rabbi, Shoshanna Kaminsky, and Wakka Wakka woman and CEO of Common Grace, Brooke Prentis.

Join Dr Meredith Lake and Suvira Bhikkhuni as they trace the revival of the ordination of Theravada women — one of the most important recent reforms within global Buddhism.

At the turn of the 20th Century, a teenage military cadet and budding poet began a correspondence with Rainer Maria Rilke. The young man expected some guidance and criticism from the great German poet but received something far greater: instructions on love and solitude, beauty and art, spirituality and life. Almost 100 years on, two grand dames of literature – Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows – have delivered a new translation of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, unveiling new insights in the context of today's world.

Shakespeare's world was marked by social change, spiritual tumult and cosmic disorientation – Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne, Europeans were exploring the Americas, and a heliocentric model of our solar system was taking shape. Join us as we explore the religious landscape of Elizabethan-era England, and how the Bard grappled with emerging ideas about self, the supernatural, and humanity's place in the cosmos.

Claude AnShin Thomas enlisted in the US Army at 17, served as a helicopter gunner and crew chief in the Vietnam War, and was awarded numerous medals and a Purple Heart – all before becoming ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk. He carries the responsibility for much death and destruction, but has learned to live peacefully with unpeacefulness and is helping others do the same.

How do we navigate the mundane of the everyday, the ordinariness of life, without becoming dull to its depth, beauty and capacity to surprise? A poet presents his award-winning meditation on walking around Wagga, and an ex-priest takes us on a mental excursion through the history of philosophy to explore the wisdom of the stoics, epicurans, and many of the world's greatest thinkers.

What does forgiveness look like in the messiness and chaos that is real life? A filmmaker shares the intimate and courageous story of her own tumultuous relationship with her mother, and her journey towards love and acceptance. A professor describes forgiveness as a work of love, and explains the difference between the act of forgiveness and the virtue of forgivingness – and the importance of both.

Are suburbs spiritual deserts or sacred wellsprings? In the places where most of us live our day to day lives, where do we go to find joy and hope, beauty and grace – and how do we experience the transcendent and divine?

Glaciers matter to the people who live near them – but how do these communities respond as more and more ice melts away? A priestess of the Icelandic religion of Ásatrú explains how ancient Norse mythology orients her towards nature, and a professor shares how her experiences on the Himalayan glaciers revealed a deep connection between spirituality and the lived reality of climate change.