The Wonder Dome

This Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting one of our favorite episodes featuring long-time collaborators Parker Palmer and Carrie Newcomer. Parker is a celebrated author, educator, and activist. He and Carrie, the award-winning singer and songwriter, have produced a number of stage productions centered around collective healing and reimagining of our democracy. They have co-written songs, turned poetry into music, and hose The Growing Edge podcast - which is a beautiful venue for discovery and growth.

This conversation explores the many voices and cultures we’ll need to weave together if we're going to repair and restore the sacred lands we cohabitate, lands that have been desecrated by centuries of violence, theft, extraction, and forced displacement. Through music, poetry, and discussion, we tap into the spirit of possibility that can come if we're willing to show up in our lives and risk ourselves in our status, standing, and safety.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Send Love, It Matters" by Carrie Newcomer

Somewhere someone needs help.

Send love.

It matters.

If you can’t get there yourself,

then take a deep breath.

Breathe in the weight of their troubles.

Breathe out and send all those burdens

into the Light

where sorrows can be held

with the most tender and infinite grace.

Breathe in what you can do.

Breathe out what you can’t change.

Spool out a thread of connection,

send courage and calm.

For the nights can be long

and filled with shadows,

and sometimes terrible

unexpected waters will rise.

Somewhere someone needs help.

Send love.

It matters.

Show Notes:

• https://www.carrienewcomer.com

• https://www.newcomerpalmer.com/home

Connect with Andy:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Aaron Cantor is a movement coach, bodyworker, personal trainer, yogi, and movement generalist. He’s the founder of Primal Practice, an intuitive and playful method of fostering wellness through the development of mindfulness and movement skills. He’s also a coach with Evolve Move Play, a collective that empowers people to cultivate movement practices through their outdoor training program. Aaron’s work shows us that by reconnecting to the body and its capacities through a nourishing blend of strengthening, meditation, and restorative play, one can transform their perception of themselves and the world around them.

Aaron joins us under the Dome to guide listeners through a simple, embodied movement practice; to impart the importance of paying attention to the physical, embodied aspects of the human experience we’re often conditioned to ignore; and to share a vision for a more playful, interconnected, and creative society through the embodiment of more expressive and relational ways of being.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Liquid Cartography" by Twila Newey

I have known my body as a plexus of river maybe

forever vessel & blue-green vein, a topographical map flowing just beneath

my skin, raised, pooled at the pale inner bend of elbow

full, easy target for red needled penetration.

Recently they've discovered another liquid system,

the color & substance of flow evaporated mystery.

Unmapped channels have always run through me

then. An elusive network that disappears into line

of sinew when the body dries, a desert society

of empty seasonal streams.

What is the substance of impernance?

A trick like light, both wave and particle?

When I was as small as the child who floats by

my window, his hands swimming through air carried high

on the shoulders of an old man, I learned

the heft of my body is ninety percent water.

A fact that still slips through

me like rain.

Show Notes:

• Evolve Move Play

• https://www.instagram.com/aaroncantor/

• “What Moves You?” with Aaron Cantor

• “Finding Balance” with Aaron Cantor

Connect with Andy:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Jonathan Smales is the founder and CEO of Human + Nature, a campaigning development company working to create “a far, far better future” through sustainable building and design. As a former MD of Greenpeace (UK), a sustainability advisor to the government, and developer of some of the UK’s first major sustainability projects, such as the Landmark Millennium project, Jonathan’s expertise is now focused on The Phoenix: a sustainable neighborhood in Lewes, East Sussex. Human + Nature, along with a team of some of the UK’s leading architects, designers, and engineers, seeks to transform a neglected former industrial site into a regenerative, restorative, and community-centered living space.

Principled and passionate, Jonathan shares with us his vision for a better world: one that recognizes the need for creating living spaces and communities with families and social connection in mind, rather than just adults with cars; the potential of sustainable developments like The Phoenix to create more vibrant, livable spaces in the face of climate change; and where we can collectively strive, despite the obstacles, to stay true to a better, more sustainable way of living for all.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Let us gather in a flourishing way" by Juan Felipe Herrera

Let us gather in a flourishing way

with sunluz grains abriendo los cantos

que cargamos cada día

en el young pasto nuestro cuerpo

para regalar y dar feliz perlas pearls

of corn flowing árboles de vida en las cuatro esquinas

let us gather in a flourishing way

contentos llenos de fuerza to vida

giving nacimientos to fragrant ríos

dulces frescos verdes turquoise strong

carne de nuestros hijos rainbows

let us gather in a flourishing way

en la luz y en la carne of our heart to toil

tranquilos in fields of blossoms

juntos to stretch los brazos

tranquilos with the rain en la mañana

temprana estrella on our forehead

cielo de calor and wisdom to meet us

where we toil siempre

in the garden of our struggle and joy

let us offer our hearts a saludar our águila rising

freedom

a celebrar woven brazos branches ramas

piedras nopales plumas piercing bursting

figs and aguacates

ripe mariposa fields and mares claros

of our face

to breathe todos en el camino blessing

seeds to give to grow maiztlán

en las manos de nuestro amor

Show Notes:

• https://www.humannature-places.com/

• https://www.phoenixlewes.com/

• https://www.instagram.com/humannatureplaces/

• “The Phoenix, Lewes: a new riverside neighborhood that sounds almost too good to be true” by Rowan Moore, The Guardian

• Sign up for The Phoenix Project Newsletter

Connect with Andy:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Catherine Bell is a successful entrepreneur, business leader, and best-selling author. She is the CEO and founder of The Awakened Company, a group that focuses on helping organizations develop and foster healthy work cultures through the awakening of the self, relationships, and team dynamics. Her book of the same name is a response to the world-wide crisis of financial instability, and posits that a fundamental reset of the economy calls for a shift in practice where businesses are measured by their state of awareness, and not profitability alone.

In this conversation, we learn what it means to play in “the fourth moment.” In Buddhism, the fourth moment is known as not the past, present, or the future — but encapsulates and transcends all three. Described in Tibetan Buddhist literature as “nowness,” the fourth moment is a state of awareness and acceptance of the present exactly as it is, here, now. We discuss the importance of being connected to the larger story of life beyond its immediate challenges; the roles of creativity, play, and mindfulness — from the minutiae of daily living, to parenting, to even running a business; and a delightful practice of synchronicity and connection Catherine calls, “reverse pick-pocketing.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Just Beyond Yourself" by David Whyte

Just beyond

yourself.

It's where

you need

to be.

Half a step

into

self-forgetting

and the rest

restored

by what

you'll meet.

There is a road

always beckoning.

When you see

the two sides

of it

closing together

at that far

horizon

and deep in

the foundations

of your own

heart

at exactly

the same

time,

that's how

you know

it's the road

you have

to follow.

That's how

you know

it's where

you

have

to go.

That's how

you know

you have

to go.

That's

how you know.

Just beyond

yourself,

it's

where you

need to be.

Show Notes:

• www.catherinerbell.com

• www.theawakenedcompany.com

• www.instagram.com/theawakenedcompany

• “The Awakened Company” by Catherine Bell

• “Beyond Present, Past, and Future is The Fourth Moment” by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Connect with Andy:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Dr. Stephen Aizenstat has devoted his life to understanding the profound wisdom and healing power that exists within our dreams and imaginations. “Dream tending” is a process he developed that can help us work with our own dreams and the dreams of the world around us to see the consciousness that exists in all things, and to utilize them as a source of strength, insight, and potential.

In his recent book, “The Imagination Matrix”, Dr. Aizenstat offers a comprehensive, step-by-step exploration of how we can tap into these deeper layers of the psyche to bring more beauty, meaning, and potential to our lives and communities. He believes that these deeper realms of the psyche contain an innate intelligence beyond the rational mind. In accessing this through development of our sense of wonder, we are able to unlock all manner of creativity, innovation, and new possibilities for personal growth and transformation.

Dr. Aizenstat joins us under the dome to discuss the importance of curiosity, befriending our inner critics, the influence of Joseph Campbell, and the transformative impact of engaging with our dreams to overcome fear and unearth new possibilities.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Concordance [Working backward in sleep]" by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Working backward in sleep, the

last thing you numbed to is what

wakes you.

What if that image were Eros as

words?

What would it be like if you

contemplated my words and I felt

you?

Animals, an owl, frog, open their

eyes, and a mirror forms on the

ground.

When insight comes in a dream,

and events the next day

illuminate it, this begins your

streaming consciousness,

synchronicity, asymptotic lines

of the flights of concordances.

An owl opens its eyes in deep

woods.

For the first time, I write and you

don't know me.

Milkweed I touch floats.

Show Notes:

• https://dreamtending.com

• https://pacifica.edu

• “The Imagination Matrix” by Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D.

• “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Raised in Karachi, Pakistan, fahad punjwani is a strategist, designer, poet, and uncle who now calls Houston home. Their work is rooted in creativity, beauty, and empathy. He is the founder of Suchee Studios, a collective that helps mission-driven leaders and organizations use design thinking to foster capacity for connection in order to tackle the “Big, Gnarly Problems” we face as a species.

fahad joins us under the dome to discuss what it means to apprentice oneself to the unknown; to apprentice oneself to younger generations and embrace what’s possible for the world from their unique vantage point; parenting with self-awareness and learning from children’s perspectives and wisdom; to embrace transitions and change; the nature of power dynamics and leadership in our country during times of social upheaval and protest; and the important of slowing down, self-regulating, and pausing in the face of collective stress and anxiety.

With insight and empathy, fahad helps us understand that transition is not a feature of life, but life itself — that rest is resistance — and that the wisdom we seek is within us already.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Earthseed" by Octavia Butler

Here we are --

Energy,

Mass,

Life,

Shaping life,

Mind,

Shaping Mind

God,

Shaping God.

Consider --

We are born

Not with purpose,

But with potential.

All that you touch

You Change.

All that you Change

Changes you.

The only lasting truth

Is Change.

God

Is Change.

Show Notes:

• https://www.theprocessissuch.com/

• https://www.insightswithinus.com/

• https://www.instagram.com/punjwanifahad/

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Next in our Throwback Thursday series is a fresh look at this ever-relevant conversation with Nina Simons, the co-founder and Chief Relationship Strategist of Bioneers. For over 30 years, this organization has focused on helping the human species reach a place of true racial and gender justice for all, while also rekindling our sacred relationship with the planet Earth - and in the process, supporting a just transition to a future that's regenerative, sustainable, and allows every living being on this planet to flourish.

Nina’s work, and by extension the mission of Bioneers, is once that resonates powerfully with all we hope to build here in The Wonder Dome: a place where people who care about our collective future can be nourished and inspired as they connect to hope, possibility, mystery, and beauty.

Nina’s award-winning book, Nature, Culture, & the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership, serves as both the centerpiece and as the departure point for a wide-ranging conversation about the essentiality of bringing more feminine energy into leadership.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"legacy" by rupi kaur

i stand

on the sacrifices

of a million women before me

thinking

to make this mountain taller

so the women affter me

can see farther

Show Notes:
facebook.com/nina.simons
instagram.com/1ninasimons
linkedin.com/in/nina-simons-47a1355
ninasimons.com
bioneers.org
Nature, Culture & the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership
Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

How does science fiction have the potential to shape our understanding of human nature, reality, and the universe? It’s a topic that Damien Walter — writer, video essayist, and lifelong enthusiast of science fiction — is continuously exploring. If you take a look at his popular YouTube channel (aptly titled “Science Fiction”) you’ll see a wealth of critical analyses that explore the role the genre plays as a mirror to society, illuminating its potential to be more than mere escapism, but a lens through which we can examine the myths that shape us.

This week on The Wonder Dome, Damien shares with us his insights on science fiction’s capacity to deconstruct and reconstruct our worldviews, while also offering critiques of the ways in which we engage with storytelling, criticism, and debate today — especially online, where performativity often inflames radical polarization. From the architecture of storytelling to the transformative power of myth, this episode is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the intersection of narrative, ideology, and the quest for meaning in an ever-changing world.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Poem-Rocket" by Allen Ginsberg

I am another Star.

Will you eat my poems or read them

or gaze with aluminum blind plates on sunless pages?

do you dream or translate & accept data with indifferent droopings

of antennae?

do I make sense to your flowery green receptor eyesockets? do you

have visions of God?

Which way will the sunflowers turn surrounded by millions of suns?

This is my rocket my personal rocket I send up my message Beyond

Someone to hear me there

My immortality

without steel or cobalt bassalt or diamond gold or mercurial fire

without passports filing cabinets bits of paper warheads

without myself finally

pure thought

Show Notes:

• Science Fiction with Damien Walter (YouTube), (Substack)

• “Gradient”, by Anders Cahill

• Ursula K. Le Guin

• John Vervaeke

• Feminist Frequency

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this new series, we revisit past episodes of The Wonder Dome that continue to resonate powerfully today. First published in October of 2021, this conversation with the incomparable Lawrence Barriner II surrounding the complexities of grief, the transformative power of understanding one’s own story, and the untapped potential that lies in the collective grieving of our shared history feels as relevant as ever.

Lawrence’s ability to honor past lineages while forging new cultural pathways shines through his belief in storytelling as a tool for justice and creation. Lawrence works in individual, group, and network levels, particularly at the intersections of white supremacy and toxic patriarchy, to support transformation in order to create a world where, “liberation is experienced, not just imagined.”

In this episode, Lawrence teaches us that by creating a space where we can grieve, heal, and imagine something new, we can step towards possible futures beyond our wildest imaginations.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"On Joy and Sorrow" by Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Show Notes:
instagram.com/lqb2
twitter.com/lqb2
Visit lqb2.co
Subscribe to Lawrence’s Newsletter: lqb2weekly.substack.com
Listen to Lawrence’s podcast, Life Radio: liferadiopodcast.com

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Bonnitta Roy is an author, award-winning teacher, and insight guide who helps individuals and groups break away from limiting patterns of thought so that they can grow into their full potential. Bonnie works across many levels of abstraction while remaining grounded in the important questions: Who are we? How do we want to be in the world, with ourselves, and with each other? What is it to be human?

Through her work with horses, Bonnie helps others connect with the power of their embodied presence and how these creatures can help teach us to reconnect with the foundational aspects of our being — or what Bonnie calls our “animal bodies.” In doing so, the stark contrast between living in congruence with our animal bodies and the draining simulations of our minds — the narratives and justifications for life created by our consciousnesses — is revealed, and with it a healthier, more integrated path forward.

In this conversation, as we delve into the metaphysics of what makes us human, Bonnie reminds us that our true nature is not something to be learned anew, but rather a latent force within us all, waiting to be reawakened.

Let’s settle in and hear what Bonnie has for us.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mind.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Show Notes:

• https://substack.com/@bonnittaroy

• “The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions” by Peter Brannen

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.