Conversations about race can be fraught in the best of circumstances. But what happens when you’re trying to have that conversation with relatives who’ve experienced racism themselves — and who still dish it out to others?

When Vancouvers’s Jamie Lee released her debut jazz album at the beginning of 2020, she didn't know the pandemic would almost convince her to leave her music career behind.

When composer Hollis Taylor first encountered the pied butcherbird in Australia, she described it as an “epiphany.” She takes recordings of the bird and turns them into sheet music, often simplifying birdsong so they can be played on human instruments.

Karaoke is the perfect poster child of all that we’ve missed during the pandemic, says writer Mel Woods. Woods says it’s a fun way to let loose - once it's safe to do again - even if you can’t sing.

Pairing science with psychology, Claudia Hammond wrote the book on rest - and why we need more of it. The Art of Rest, reveals the activities (other than sleep) that can most help you relax, even if it’s something you struggle with doing. The previously untold story of Canadian hockey executive Sherry Bassin is recounted in a documentary by NPR's Gary Waleik. In the early 1980s, when he was general manager and assistant coach of Team Canada, Bassin risked arrest by the KGB to deliver prayer books and prayer shawls to a synagogue in the Soviet Union.

After decades of harmful presentations of Muslims dominated the entertainment industry, TikTok is changing the narrative. Entertainment reporter, Anhar Karim, says TikTok has the authentic representations of Muslims that were missing from his own life.

Some self-help Instagram influencers evoke the feeling of televangelism of days past, says author Leigh Stein. She believes that there’s something religious going on in their comment sections that’s attracting millions of female followers, and yet, she feels that this brand of spirituality ultimately rings hollow.

Studying the culture of the 17th and 18th centuries gave historian Keith Johnston a vision for how we could mark the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnston says we can draw inspiration from a 10-day festival hosted in Naples at the end of the 1656 epidemic.

The Mahabharata is a 2,000 year old sacred text from India whose central message is “everyone dies.” And yet University of Toronto associate professor Arti Dhand has found it a place of solace through the horrors of the pandemic.

When COVID-19 struck, Aisha Ahmad recognized very few people around her had lived through a large-scale disaster. Despite being a professor of political science, she found herself acting as an online counsellor, sharing wisdom she earned living in conflict around the world.

This episode was first broadcast on May 8, 2020.

You’re going to meet two women with profound connections to the land. Memona Hossain is a PhD student in Applied Ecopsychology. She has spoken to dozens of Muslim women around the world whose faith drives their work as climate activists. Jenna Vandal recounts the long, winding path to connecting with her Métis heritage.

The fertile fields in Washington state provided Noé Alvarez a playground and a place to unwind, but they were a source of pain for migrant workers in his community who toiled for a better life. On an epic transnational run, Alvarez learned to carry the stories of others, made peace with his past and rewrote his family’s story.

Meanwhile, philosopher Andreas Elpidorou says the widespread experience of boredom during the pandemic is far from dull. He believes taking a closer look at our boredom can help us craft a better life and a more just society.

Episode Two looks at sexual abuse in spiritual communities from the perspective of survivors. It explores what tends to happen to survivors who speak out against their spiritual leaders and groundbreaking ways we can listen to abuse survivors who choose to remain silent.

Episode One looks at sexual abuse allegations that surfaced in the Shambhala Buddhist community and explores the power imbalances in guru-student relationships. We ask why this keeps happening in spiritual communities around the world and hear from Shambhala's board of directors.