Spirituality & Mindfulness · The Creative Process: Spiritual Leaders, Mindfulness Experts, Great Thinkers, Authors, Elders, Artists Talk Faith & Religion

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Spirituality & Mindfulness · The Creative Process: Spiritual Leaders, Mindfulness Experts, Great Thinkers, Authors, Elders, Artists Talk Faith & Religion episodes

October 06 AQUA: A Story of Water Lost Dreams w/ Author, Screenwriter CHIARA BARZINI
“I think first of all that in order to have disillusion, you need to have illusion and I really want to sort of take a stand in the name of being a delusional person, you know? I do think illusions are necessary to our sense of creativity, and we need to fall in love with extreme projects, and we need to have ideas that are sometimes unsustainable. We need to dream big in order to be creative and feel alive. The illusions that are a part of Aqua are larger illusions. They're illusions that have to do with my adult life. They're connected to nature and the presence or absence of water, the illusion that we can keep sustaining a city even though the water has run out.”
My guest today, Chiara Barzini, has spent her life navigating the literal and cultural fault lines between Italy and California. Today we will discuss her book, Aqua: A Story of Water and Lost Dreams, and her life as an artist living between two countries. In her acclaimed 2017 novel, Things That Happened Before the Earthquake, she wrote about arriving in the San Fernando Valley just weeks after a catastrophic natural disaster and the illusions of the '90s.
In Aqua, she examines nature, the California water crisis and the broken dreams of the Hollywood machine. We talk about family, film, art as an act of faith and our collective ecological coming of age, where the end of empire meets the end of abundance, and the consequences of hypercapitalism and colonialism. What does it mean to stare our illusions in the eye and find the courage to imagine a better future?
(0:00) The Necessity of Illusions
(1:40) Chiara Barzini, Author, Screenwriter
(4:44) The End of Empire and Ecological Anxiety
(12:15) The Allure and Cruelty of Capitalism
(16:07) Aqua: A Reading - On Hollywood and Water
(21:02) Screenwriter Robert Towne and the Legacy of Chinatown
(26:20) AI Consumption and Water Bankruptcy
(30:23) The Edge of Apocalypse and Bombay Beach
(33:41) The Etruscans and the Art of Dying
(42:33) Translation and Creativity
(44:28) Raising Children in a Crazy World
(47:30) Poetry, Ruins, and The Waste Land
(57:33) Scents and Sounds of Rome and Los Angeles
(01:04:17) The Connection with Animals and Nature
(01:07:35) The Evolution of Love and Compassion
(01:09:17) The Memory Museum
(01:13:00) We Are in This Lifetime Together
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
1 hr 17 min
October 05 Etruscan Wisdom, Los Angeles, Lost Dreams Illusions - A Road Trip w/ CHIARA BARZINI
Chiara Barzini has spent her life navigating the literal and cultural fault lines between Italy and California. Today we will discuss her book, Aqua: A Story of Water and Lost Dreams, and her life as an artist living between two countries. In her acclaimed 2017 novel, Things That Happened Before the Earthquake, she wrote about arriving in the San Fernando Valley just weeks after a catastrophic natural disaster and the illusions of the '90s.
In Aqua, she examines nature, the California water crisis and the broken dreams of the Hollywood machine. We talk about family, film, art as an act of faith and our collective ecological coming of age, where the end of empire meets the end of abundance, and the consequences of hypercapitalism and colonialism. What does it mean to stare our illusions in the eye and find the courage to imagine a better future?
(0:00) Water as Power
(2:17) The Necessity of Illusions
(4:24) Aqua: A Reading - On Hollywood and Water
(7:51) The Edge of Apocalypse & Writing
(9:10) The Etruscans and the Art of Dying
(13:13) Translation and the Creative Spark
(14:38) Raising Children in a Crazy World
(16:18) Poetry, Ruins, and The Waste Land
(18:48) Scents and Sounds of Two Cities (Rome and Los Angeles)
(20:43) The Connection with Animals and Nature
(22:54) The Evolution of Love and Compassion
(24:12) The Memory Museum
(27:04) We are in this lifetime together
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
29 min
August 19 Finding the Sacred in the Everyday: Literature, Meditation the Garden of Time w/ GEORGI GOSPODINOV ANGELA RODEL
“We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way. Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.”
Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinovis widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prizefor Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.
Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.
(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia
(2:13) The Art of Translation
(5:44) The Pandemic of the Past
(11:30) Reading from ‘Time Shelter’
(14:28) Death and the Gardener
(19:34) The Translator's Calling
(26:05) Cultural Rhythms of the Bulgarian Language
(30:00) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling
(34:30) Separating Personal and Historical Pasts
(42:55) Storytelling vs Propaganda
(47:19) Bodies, Animals and the Loneliness of the Minotaur
(56:00) Reading ' Eight Minutes and 19 Seconds’
(1:00:28) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?
(1:04:18) Childhood, Memory and Imagination
(1:10:38) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him
(1:17:20) Education and the Empathic Imagination
(1:23:25) The Museum of Memory
(1:26:15) The Importance of Hugging and Empathy
(1:28:02) AI and the Future of Humanity
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
1 hr 31 min
August 19 Life and Art at LINCOLN CENTER: Chief Artistic Officer SHANTA THAKE on the Power of the Arts - Highlights
"I really do believe that the arts are critical to how we move forward together, and live performance in particular, I think, is a way of us practicing how to move across our ideological boundaries and find one another and imagine these new worlds together and create together."
Shanta Thake is the Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—the nation's largest performing arts complex. Before stepping into this role, she spent nineteen years at The Public Theater, shaping the city's cultural landscape through Joe's Pub and expansive community initiatives. Today, she is tearing down walls—both the literal barriers separating Lincoln Center from its neighbors, and the figurative ones that dictate who belongs in our cultural spaces. She views the arts not as a luxury, but as essential civic infrastructure. We are pleased to have Shanta Thake to discuss her journey, the power of radical curation, and the future of public performance.
(00:00) Reimagining Lincoln Center
(03:09) A Collective Caretaking
(03:47) The Technology of Human Creation
(04:20) The Curiosity of Childhood
(09:25) San Juan Hill and The Wall
(14:20) globalFEST: Music and Connection
(16:06) The Gift of Pause
(17:20) A Collective Caretaking
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
19 min
July 23 Literature is an Antidote to Propaganda - Grief, Memory Humanity w/ G. GOSPODINOV A. RODEL - Highlights
Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinovis widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prizefor Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.
Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.
(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia
(1:22) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling
(3:53) Translating the Atmosphere
(4:31) The Pandemic of the Past
(6:37) Death and the Gardener
(9:49) The Translators Calling
(11:00) Slowing Down Time
(13:14) Storytelling vs Propaganda
(15:54) Translating the Atmosphere
(18:19) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?
(20:56) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him
(23:43) The Importance of Hugging, Empathy and Storytelling
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
27 min
June 17 Our Wild Familiars - DR. DAN WERB on Animals that Live Among Us Urban Wildlife Conservation - Highlights
If you live in a city, you’ve probably had that moment in the middle of the night. You hear a scratching in the walls, or you catch the glowing eyes of a raccoon peering out from a dumpster, and for a second, the concrete world feels a lot less 'controlled' than we like to pretend. We’ve been taught to think of cities as 'biological deserts'—places where nature goes to die. But my guest today, Dan Werb, says that’s a myth we tell ourselves to feel safe. Dan is an award-winning epidemiologist and a musician, and in his new book, Our Wild Familiars, he explores the 'synanthropes'—the wild creatures that aren't our pets, but aren't quite strangers either. They are the coyotes, the bats, and even the octopuses that are learning to use our cities as laboratories for their own rapid evolution. He’s also the author of The Invisible Siege and City of Omens.
(0:02) The unexpected biodiversity of urban areas and wild familiars
(1:18) What is a Synanthrope?
(4:15) The Myth of the Biological Desert
(8:04) The Ancestral Bond between early humans, ravens, and foxes
(9:15) Crows and Grudges
(12:42) Stepping Stones in the Concrete
(14:20) The Epidemiological Triangle
(17:58) The Illusion of AI Connection
(19:56) The Museum of Memory
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
25 min
June 03 The Architecture of Wellbeing: How do buildings shape the way we think, learn remember? SALWA SELMA MIKOU - Highlights
Salwa and Selma Mikou are the founders of Paris-based Mikou Architecture. Born in Fez, Morocco and educated in Paris, they have spent the last two decades reimagining the relationship between the built environment and the cultural landscape.
After honing their craft under two of the world’s most iconic architects, Jean Nouvel and Renzo Piano, they founded their own studio. For them, architecture is a living interaction with landscape and what they call the Atlas of Resonance, interpreting the hidden layers of a territory, geology, memory, and craft. It is a philosophy that rejects the generic, seeking instead to weave together technological innovation with local materials. Whether it is a mosque in the north of England or a hybrid innovation hub in a former royal manufactory, their work asks a fundamental question: How does space shape the way we think, learn and remember? They were selected by Rem Koolhaas to represent Morocco at the Venice Biennale. Most recently, they were commissioned by Hermès to create a 17,000-square-meter facility that bridges industrial performance with poetic expression. At the heart of their practice is a belief that architecture is not just about building—it’s about shaping relationships: between people, between past and future, between technology and craft.
(0:03) Architecture as a Living Transformation
(1:42) The Intuitive Knowledge of Living Art
(2:20) Preserving the Human Core of Expression
(3:14) The Medina and the Geometry of Childhood
(6:35) The Social Spaces of Rooftops
(8:27) The Twin Dynamic and Confrontation with 'l'autre'
(10:21) Contextual Echoes & Traces of the Site
(12:12) The Temples of Water
(13:15) The Mosque as Pure Spatiality
(15:49) Building Culture with Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé
(16:57) The Wast ed-dar (وسط الدار) and the Heart of a Building
(18:31) The Smells and Sounds of Home
(19:44) Balance, Nature, and Sisterhood
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
23 min
April 18 Listening to the Living World: Biologist DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Flowers, Forests Songs of Nature - Highlights
Step into the deep time of the forest floor, where a single fallen leaf contains the history of the world, and invisible fungal networks hum with ancient conversations. Biologist and acclaimed author David George Haskell reveals a staggering truth: we are completely dependent on the botanical world, and our belief in strict human individuality is a biological illusion.
Haskell has spent much of his life training himself to see the universal within the infinitesimally small. He's famously sat for a year in a single square meter of Tennessee's forest, a mandala experience that revealed the deep history of the world through a single fallen leaf. He's a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his books The Forest Unseen and Sounds Wild and Broken, and he received the John Burroughs Medal for The Songs of Trees.
His work often focuses on what he calls the unwaged labor of the natural world, the complex biological communities that sustain our planet without a monetary ledger. And his latest book is How Flowers Made Our World. In it, he argues that we are essentially grass apes dependent on the ancient innovations of flowering plants for two-thirds of our daily calories.
(0:00) How Flowers Made Our World
(1:33) Networked Connection is the Foundation of Life
(2:00) Contemplating the Small
(4:07) Consciousness, Intelligence & Memory in the More-Than-Human-World
(4:18) We Are Grass Apes
(5:41) Memories of His Childhood in Paris & Wild Orchids
(6:34) The Networked Intelligence of Forests
(7:45) The Earth in Full Song
(8:46) The Practice of Listening
(10:11) Escaping the Screen: Real Connections in the Classroom
(11:35) The True Cost of AI
(12:11) Transforming Ourselves
(14:23) Silence Without Expectation
(15:32) A Sensory Legacy for the Future
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
18 min
April 18 How Flowers Made Our World: DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Deep Time, Plant Intelligence Listening to the Living World
What if the defining revolution of Earth's history wasn't led by animals or humans, but by flowers? Are we truly individuals, or are our bodies and minds just walking ecosystems?
Our guest today is David George Haskell, a biologist who has spent much of his life training himself to see the universal within the infinitesimally small. He's famously sat for a year in a single square meter of Tennessee's forest, a mandala experience that revealed the deep history of the world through a single fallen leaf. He's a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his books The Forest Unseen and Sounds Wild and Broken, and he received the John Burroughs Medal for The Songs of Trees.
His work often focuses on what he calls the unwaged labor of the natural world, the complex biological communities that sustain our planet without a monetary ledger. And his latest book is How Flowers Made Our World. In it, he argues that we are essentially grass apes dependent on the ancient innovations of flowering plants for two-thirds of our daily calories.
(0:00) How Flowers Made Our World
The incredible ancient history of flowers on Earth
(4:56) Contemplating the Small
Expanding our world by restricting our gaze
(14:30) The Illusion of Individuality
Why atomism is false and interconnectedness is the foundation of life
(26:08) We Are Grass Apes
The evolutionary origins of humans and our dietary dependence on grass
(33:32) Memories of His Childhood in Paris & Wild Orchids
(38:55) The Networked Intelligence of Forests
How trees communicate and share resources beneath the soil
(44:00) The Earth in Full Song
Tracing the sonic history of our planet
(51:08) The Practice of Listening
Why tuning in to the natural world is crucial for our survival
(1:01:21) Silence Without Expectation
Sitting with nature without demanding progress or enlightenment
(1:11:01) Transforming Ourselves
Why personal change matters in the fight for the climate
(1:15:20) Escaping the Screen
Finding real human-to-human connection away from technology
(1:16:16) The True Cost of AI
The devastating impact of data centers on our fossil fuel consumption
(1:23:18) A Sensory Legacy for the Future
What we must preserve for the generations not yet born
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
1 hr 27 min
February 23 SIRI HUSTVEDT on Love, Grief Her Late Husband PAUL AUSTER - Highlights
“Grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. It wasn't unrequited in the past. Usually, we think of unrequited love as you never got to do it, you never had it for yourself. But, in fact, there can be requited love, which is then unrequited love in the paroxysms of grief.”
Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt’s writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.
(0:00) “We were hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives”
(2:04) Grief as Unrequited Love
Siri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.
(3:19) The Shared Space of a 43-year Marriage
(4:36) Reading from Ghost Stories
Siri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.
(7:02) How Loss Changes Our Sense of Time
(11:24) How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness
(13:04) Believing in a Reality that Transcends the Individual
(20:06) Physical Love in Marriage
On the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
26 min

About Spirituality & Mindfulness · The Creative Process: Spiritual Leaders, Mindfulness Experts, Great Thinkers, Authors, Elders, Artists Talk Faith & Religion

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Spirituality & Mindfulness episodes of the popular The Creative Process podcast. We speak to spiritual leaders, mindfulness experts, great thinkers and authors, elders, artists, musicians and others discuss paths to faith, connection, and creativity. To listen to ALL arts, education & spirituality episodes of “The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society”, you’ll find our main podcast on Apple: tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, Spotify: tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Spirituality & Mindfulness · The Creative Process: Spiritual Leaders, Mindfulness Experts, Great Thinkers, Authors, Elders, Artists Talk Faith & Religion

Spirituality & Mindfulness · The Creative Process: Spiritual Leaders, Mindfulness Experts, Great Thinkers, Authors, Elders, Artists Talk Faith & Religion episodes

About Spirituality & Mindfulness · The Creative Process: Spiritual Leaders, Mindfulness Experts, Great Thinkers, Authors, Elders, Artists Talk Faith & Religion

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