Hello, my friends, and welcome to The Radio, where we explore how to live creative and connected.

This episode is a journey into the wild, weird, and wonderful. The Imagination.

You have one. I have one. The what are they for? That's what we begin to explore. Well, just begin to get a feel for. No real clear answers just yet, alright.

Learn from it. Not about it. That's the idea here. So it will take some time. Take a personal approach. Experimentation.

Teach a man to imaginate. Teach ourselves. Like we did when we were a kid. What made you who you are?

Ok, I'm getting a clearer answer even as we speak. Imagination: a magic portal through which we can travel to encounter and experience what we need to learn and grow.

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The lines of song that come between Part One: The River and Part Two: The Wind are from Nick Cave's song, Final Rescue Attempt.

Julia Polter is a priest of The Christian Community, a movement for religious renewal. We discuss nighttime anxiety, death, learning how to love, and the meaning of life.

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Episode Art:

Night Thoughts Or, The Complaint and the Consolation, engraving by William Blake, 1797

Rage, the Flower Thrower, Banksy mural in Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine, 2003

this is just a picture

this a first few steps is all

this a kid blowing bubbles

down at Boulevard Park

come find out

this a this a this a

there are worlds inside some bubbles

bigger inside than on out

that's the wild for ya

weirder

wilder

quieter

it gets deeper in you go

(Here comes the upbeat music.) Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-change-ahging! Hannah emerges from her desert retreat to visit Lydia and I in our rainforest home.

(And it melts downward in solemn tones.) It's not easy to be alive. What do we do with our suffering?

(Then oh chimes brighten in a smart, spring breeze.) What do YOU think and feel and know about these things?

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The Kendrick Lamar song I quote at the beginning, and slightly misquote at the end, is “tv off”.

Also, pleased to thank Jay-Z for the line, “No clouds in my stone”.

Once upon a time there was a field.

In that field was a meadow. In that meadow played a lamb.

In that field there bloomed a forest. In that forest a tiger burned.

In that field there grew a city. In that city everyone who ever lived, lived.

The sky of that field was the floor of the entire universe.

Up there in that sky Bob Dylan put his ear to the ground and listened for a song. Up there in that sky David Lynch daydreamed peacefully while Physicists pounded away beside him with jackhammers. Trying to get through! What's underneath?

I took a trail through the woods to a bend in the throat. A ball of light, that was a person, took me from there. To where? To where a bonfire burned in a field under a billion of stars and William Blake and Rumi floated down in parachutes. Flutes and fiddles and drums, and Dryads dancing around the blaze. Ah, there were many that were there! Dawson, the Electro-Magnetician. G.K. Chesterton smoking a cigar. As much as you are willing and wanting, that's where You are.

And Christ the Connector walking into the fire, becoming flames in our hearts, as we become friends. Amen.

I sit down with my guitar to ask some questions and...

A little trot down to visit a "dead" horse on memory lane. A bit of a gallop through a new imagination. A short halt inside the Book of Revelation. And a few conversations (three special guests!) I hope it all adds up to connect with something inside you, the Rider in your heart.

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2025 is here.

It's a brand new year.

We need a horse for this frontier.

We're gonna need a horse for this frontier, baby!

How is creativity connected to self-development? Put another way, what can making art teach us about becoming art? In this episode, I share a bit of my journey that "began" with stepping through the portal of creativity.

By the end, I approach very tender territory. I hope that you can hang in there with me and that you will take courage to walk the path of becoming that is yours alone.

As always, thank you for listening.

I talk with Writer and Creative, Robyn Elizabeth, about a simple daily practice that's been helping her to be attentive to life, discover more of who she is, overcome fear, and have hope for the future. And I tell a story.

Here is the article Robyn and I discuss, and portal to her Substack.

The song Run To The River was recorded on June 7, 2023. It owes some of its tune and lyrics to Santa Clara, by The National.