Astronomer Natalie Batalha embodies a planetary sense of what “love” is and means. She says her experience searching the universe for exoplanets — earth-like bodies beyond our solar system that could harbor liquid water and life — fundamentally shifted how she thinks about the human experience on this planet. “You see the expanse of the cosmos, and you realize how small we are and how connected we are,” she says. “And that what’s good for you has to be good for me.”

Natalie Batalha is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She served as the project scientist for NASA’s Kepler mission from 2011 to 2017.

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

A civil rights elder and speechwriter for Martin Luther King, Jr., the late Vincent Harding brought the wisdom of the movement to young people in hurting places. He offers the image of a “live human signpost” as a guiding light toward the kind of support and mentorship we can offer one another in our work toward a beloved community. “When it comes to creating a multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious, democratic society, we are still a developing nation,” he says. “But my own deep, deep conviction is that the knowledge, like all knowledge, is available to us if we seek it.”

Vincent Harding taught at Iliff School of Theology. He authored the magnificent book “Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement” and the essay “Is America Possible?”

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

Rami Nashashibi champions how art can make humans visible to each other. He brings a new energy to Islam’s core commitment to beauty and humanity — and to the power of stories to heal and electrify us across geography and generation, culture and faith. He founded the Inner-City Muslim Action Network on Chicago’s South Side, where he also lives with his family. “The arts have become the real factor for us in both humanizing each other’s stories, connecting our stories, and revealing to one another the possibilities of what a better world can look like,” he says.

Rami Nashashibi was named a MacArthur fellow in 2017 and an Opus Prize laureate in 2018.

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

A rabbi and parent, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso wants us to think about how we might teach our children’s souls, not just their minds. She says nurturing the spiritual lives of our children is the work of understanding for ourselves “what really matters in life, what’s precious, what’s more important than earning a living and going through our daily routine.”

Sandy Sasso is rabbi emerita of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis, where she was spiritual leader for 36 years. Her wonderful books for adults and children include “God’s Paintbrush” and “Midrash: Reading the Bible with Question Marks.”

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

Naomi Shihab Nye says writing is “an act that helps you, preserves you, energizes you in the very doing of it.” She calls herself a “wandering poet,” and her words point to shining corners of beauty in the world we see every day.

A visiting poet all over the world, Naomi Shihab Nye is a professor of creative writing at Texas State University. Her books include 19 Varieties of Gazelle, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, and Transfer. Her most recent book is The Tiny Journalist.

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah offers hope for quiet, sustained culture shift through the “endless shared conversation” of friendship. The writer of the New York Times “Ethicist” column studies how deep social change happens across time and cultures. “If you have that background of relationship between individuals and communities that is conversational, then when you have to talk about the things that do divide you, you have a better platform.”

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a professor of philosophy and law at New York University. His books include Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers and The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

“There is a place inside me that is far more powerful than the continuous mental noise,” says Eckhart Tolle. The spiritual teacher began to gain attention with his 1997 book, “The Power of Now.” Millions of people around the world have found pragmatic tools in his vision that fundamentally complicates the notion, “I think, therefore I am.”

Eckhart Tolle is the best-selling author of “A New Earth” and “The Power of Now.”

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

“Imagine yourself alone on this planet. Would anything be the same?” Jennifer Michael Hecht is a poet, philosopher, and historian who wants to change the way we talk to ourselves and each other about suicide and staying alive — starting with her insistence that we believe each other into being. “Sometimes when you can’t see what’s important about you, other people can.”

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, Doubt: A History, and Who Said.

Producer’s Note: Given the focus of Jennifer Michael Hecht’s work, this episode briefly touches on the topic of suicide.

Find the transcript at onbeing.org.

Rediscover the wonder in the mundane and the everyday with writer Paulo Coelho. He reframes the practice of pilgrimage as a journey into the mysterious question, “Who am I?” He says that every day holds “this possibility, this chance of discovering something new.”

Paulo Coelho is the author of many books including The Pilgrimage, Veronika Decides to Die, and The Alchemist.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

A preview of season two, returning on Monday March 25, 2019. Hosted by Krista Tippett.

Depth and discovery, in the time it takes to make a cup of tea. Curated from hundreds of big conversations with wise and graceful lives. Reset your day. Replenish your sense of yourself and the world.

Learn more at https://onbeing.org/series/becoming-wise/.

“His capability to ask the ‘What if?’ question opened the door to the deepest marker of humanity, and that’s empathy.” Physicist S. James Gates celebrates the scientific and social power of Albert Einstein’s imagination. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“Trauma treatment starts at the foundation of a body that can sleep, a body that can rest, a body that feels safe, a body that can move.” Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk on finding resilience in our bodies after trauma. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“When words bring you closer to the prisoner in his cell, to the patient who is dying on his bed alone, to the starving child, then it’s a prayer.” Elie Wiesel, the beloved writer known for his memoir of the Holocaust, “Night,” speaks of the power of prayer and forgiveness in the wake of profound suffering. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“I discovered that you have to have this sense of faith that what you’re moving toward is already done.” Civil rights leader John Lewis on living as if the “beloved community” were already our reality. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“If you’re sure about something, you don’t need faith. It’s when you have the doubts that faith kicks in. And that’s true in science as well as anything else.” Vatican astronomers Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father George Coyne on the joy of discovery and delighting in what we don’t know. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“How in our daily lives are we connecting with ourselves and everything around us? Because that’s where real, energetic transformation comes from.” Feminist playwright Eve Ensler speaks of the affirming physicality of our bodies, and of finding true contentment in the lives we already lead. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“There’s something magnetic about a group of people that say, ‘Hey, we don’t have it all figured out, and we need each other.'” New Monastic and Simple Way founder Shane Claiborne on bridging the gap between the structures we are raised in and the human needs around us. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“The challenge of our future is to say, are we going to connect and amplify positive tribes that want to make things better for all of us?” Entrepreneur and digital wise man Seth Godin on our capacity to use connection to elevate and advance the human spirit. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“Sometimes the pain of the world seems incomprehensible. And if there’s anything that balances it, it’s wonder at the world, the amazingness of people.” Mindfulness meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein gives counsel on finding joy and spiritual practice embedded in the rhythms of everyday life. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“You’ve got to be willing to risk in order to make change. You’ve got to approach differences with the notion that there is good in the other.” Scholar and activist Frances Kissling speaks of good will and understanding, rather than agreement or victory, as bridges between difference. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“The point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or the mountaintop, but to bring that reality into the motion, the commotion, of the world.” Wanderer and writer Pico Iyer on outer stillness as an essential catalyst to a rich inner life. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“The more we can learn these lessons, the more we will not be running towards our death, but opening to our lives.” Mindfulness researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn on the physiological and spiritual potential of being present to every moment of daily life.

“The question isn’t whether we’re going to have to do hard, awful things. The question is whether we have to do them alone.” UU law enforcement chaplain Kate Braestrup tells the story of a police woman who embodies the both/and of love and new life, and crime and death. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“That’s how we are as a people. It’s the authentic, the unique, the different that makes us feel enriched when we encounter it.” Rabbi and philosopher Jonathan Sacks on difference as expansive and unifying, rather than a force for division. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“Call it the hidden hand of God; I would simply call it the hidden hand of the equations. And that gets us from the beginning to here.” Physicist Brian Greene on the hidden nature of reality, and the power of science to reveal beauty we can’t observe. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“Are we human beings who are in community, do we call to each other? Do we heed each other? Do we want to know each other?” Poet Elizabeth Alexander speaks of our need for language to understand our neighbors. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“Your body, for as long as it possibly can, will be faithful to living. That’s what it does.” Matthew Sanford, an innovator of adaptive yoga, on taking a new orientation to our physical change and pain, and the outward healing that can result.

“Beauty isn’t all about just niceness, loveliness. Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming.” Beloved Irish poet John O’Donohue on beauty’s true grit, and finding it in the transformational edges of our daily lives. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.

“Hope is a function of struggle.” Brené Brown, a researcher and scholar, on the value and power of adversity to give rise to the astonishing strength of which we are all capable.

“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. But hope without critical thinking is naïveté. I try to live in this space between the two.” The creator and editor of Brain Pickings on the pratfalls and promise of knowledge-sharing in the digital age. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise.