Soul Search

The way we imagine the future matters. Not only does it change how we feel, those feelings change how we live today — and that might just change how things actually turn out!

Imagine living life without money — cutting up your credit card, closing up your bank account, and finding new ways to feed and clothe yourself. On Soul Search, we examine what it might look like to step away from the cycle of getting and spending, and towards a gift economy.

The novelist Patrick White once said yes, religion was behind all his books – but his religious and spiritual identity was far from straightforward. In the final instalment of the Big Questions in Books series we explore the (sometimes ambivalent!) Australian expressions of the sacred in literature, from Helen Garner to Tim Winton.

The acclaimed scientist Jane Goodall has died on October 1st, at the age of 91. But Dr Goodall's legacy, along with her study of chimps, is arguably as much to do with hope – and the spiritual curiosity that underpinned her quest for hope in difficult times.

Making art and music has been an endeavour for at least as long as humans have existed, and it has the power to connect us in all kinds of ways. From the mountains of the southern Philippines to urban Melbourne, people are creating things that connect us to each other — and the transcendent.

What does it mean to live a good life? According to some of the earliest Christians, the answer has a lot to do with... death! Orthodox scholar John Behr tells the stories of some of these saints and martyrs, and unpacks what they are telling us today.

Jerusalem is one of the most fraught cities on earth. It's a city that has broken the hearts, yet also inspired the hopes, of millions around the world. In the midst of conflict in and around a city that means so much to so many, how does one work for peace?

The world is due to have its very first millennial saint — Carlo Acutis, the 'saint in sneakers' who died at the age of 15 in 2006. He's usually depicted holding a phone or laptop, and his cause for sainthood blends the medieval and mystical with the hyper modern.

In this fast-paced world where so much of our attention is focused on the now, why do complex ancient texts still speak to us? Soul Search explores the multigenerational epic, the Mahabharata.

It’s a big thought — that our story as a species is partly to do with grass. But it turns out that grasses and grasslands can play a surprising role in moulding who we are. How do we restore our relationship with native grasses, and what are some of the threats from introduced grasses like buffel?