How We Live Now with Katherine May

I stumbled across Dacher Keltner’s work when I was first researching Enchantment, and now - for the final episode in this season - I’m honoured to speak to him about Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.  Dacher’s research attempts to understand this very fleeting, ineffable emotion. He and his colleagues have shown that  awe induces a feeling of being small within a vast universe - a radical shift into context. What’s more, by absorbing ourselves in awe, we become better people, more motivated to go out and do good. In this episode, we explore how it feels to experience awe, how we can seek it out in the everyday, and we share the personal experiences of awe that have inspired both of our books. Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Greater Good Science Center. He has over 200 scientific publications and six books, including Born to Be Good, The Compassionate Instinct, and The Power Paradox. He has written for many popular outlets, from The New York Times to Slate. He was also the scientific advisor behind Pixar’s Inside Out. Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UKLinks from the episode:Dacher’s websiteDacher’s book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your LifeJoin Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free, extended intros and immersive, bonus mini-episdesFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram

Marjolijn van Heemstra believes that we can change the world by gazing into the night sky. Her book, In Light Years There’s No Hurry, explores the ‘overview effect’, a personal transformation reported by astronauts who have seen the earth from space. People who’ve experienced this rare view often report an ethical shift taking place, a new sense of mission in their lives. They come to see themselves as guardians of their planet, rather than its passive citizens. Clearly not all of us can - or want to - leave the atmosphere to gaze over the earth from space. But in this thought-provoking conversation, Marjolijn makes a case for us learning to draw on the overview effect from where we stand, suggesting that this could lead us to become better stewards of our environment, and form closer bonds with the communities around us. Marjolijn is a Dutch theatre-maker, journalist and poet who has recently been named Amsterdam’s Poet Laureate. Her most recent work has focused on reacquainting ourselves with darkness, and this includes her creative project The Night Watch, and the Amsterdam Dark Festival, of which she is the founder. Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UKLinks from the episode:Marjolijn’s InstagramMarjolijn’s book, In Light Years There’s No HurryAmsterdam Dark FestivalJoin Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free, extended intros and immersive, bonus mini-episdesFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram

How can we return to a richer, more complex understanding of national identity and personal ethics - one that can only come from folklore?Amy Jeffs is the perfect person to ask. An art historian and printmaker, she creates immersive retellings of ancient stories, beautifully illustrated with her own woodcuts and etchings. In this week’s episode of How We Live Now, we discuss the function and appeal of folklore, and roam around the wind-blasted landscapes of Medieval Britain. We get a glimpse of the British Isles through ancient eyes - a haunted place stranded on the far edge of Europe, isolated and vulnerable, but full of courageous, hardy folk. What can these tales tell us about who we are now? And how can we restore this agile way of understanding the world?Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UKLinks from the episode:Amy’s InstagramAmy’s TwitterAmy's book, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval BritainAmy’s book, Storyland: A New Mythology of BritainJoin Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free, extended intros and immersive, bonus mini-episdesFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram

In this week’s episode of How We Live Now, Katherine speaks to author and public intellectual Báyò Akómoláfé. We consider how we can step out of the belief that humanity is in control of a passive planet, and instead wonder how we can learn to read the intelligence of the systems and landscapes that we inhabit. We meander our way to autism, and begin to think about how we can create a new language of neurodivergent experience that resists the labels applied from disinterested - or disgusted - outside viewers. And we take a look at ‘hushes’, the shadowy, scuttling figures that disrupt Báyò’s narratives.Born in Nigeria, Báyò is a writer, speaker, teacher and founder of The Emergence Network who finds his most sacred work in fatherhood. His book, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences, is an extraordinary meandering through the cutting edge of contemporary philosophy framed in letters to his daughter, Alethea. He is also the editor of We Will Tell Our Own Story, an anthology exploring Black African scholarship and knowledge. He now divides his time between Germany, India and the USA.Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UKLinks from the episode:Bayo’s websiteBayo's book, These Wilds Beyond Our FencesJoin Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free, extended intros and immersive, bonus mini-episdesFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram

Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s writing rings with a sense of connection between this world and the otherworld, and nowhere is it expressed more clearly than in her latest book, Cacophony of Bone. Here are pages full of subtle signs that are legible only to those who are in the practice of seeking them. It’s a work of plain mysticism, a very personal representation of direct contact with the sacred. At its roots, it’s about perception: how we allow it, honour it, foster it. How we can allow ourselves to encounter beauty and transcendence in the everyday.But there’s also a hidden political dimension to Kerri’s work. She’s showing us a way of life that’s largely been lost, a mode of perception that has been deliberately crushed and denied. It’s a spiritual mode that’s democratic, resistant, dangerous. These times are ripe for it.In this interview, we talk about the practice of everyday mysticism, its connection to Kerri’s Irish heritage, and the ways that reading has been warped by contemporary life. Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UKLinks from the episode:Kerri’s instagramKerri's book, Cacophony of BoneJoin Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free and immersive, bonus mini-episdesFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram

When I spoke to Morgan Harper Nichols, she was taking a break from assignment-writing for the MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts she’s studying. That’s a telling detail for this exuberant soul: she has ideas and energy to spare, and she’s always learning, always reaching towards new forms. A visual artist, writer, musician, speaker and podcaster, I always see her as a communicator first and foremost. She draws on all these different modes of expression to facilitate the sheer urgency of what she has to say. In this episode, I talk with Morgan about the ways that her work ushers us towards a kind of reenchantment with life itself - but, in all honesty, I quickly lost control of the whole interview. Like me, Morgan is autistic, and I got lost in the joy of spending an hour in her thoughtful, inquisitive company. This is a conversation about how we see our work and the world around us, and how creativity helps us to connect. Morgan Harper Nichols is an autistic mixed media artist from the Atlanta, Georgia area who has worked with brands such as Google, Starbucks, Hallmark, COACH, KIND bar, and her work has been featured in places such as Target, Anthropologie, Kohls, Barnes & Noble, among others. She is the author of books that combine words and vibrant images, including You Are Only Just Beginning, How Far You Have Come, All Along You Were Blooming, and Peace is a Practice. She is also the creator of the Storyteller app, and her podcast, The Morgan Harper Nichols Show. Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UKMorgan's websiteMorgan’s instagramMorgan’s podcast, The Morgan Harper Nichols ShowMorgan's book, You Are Only Just Beginning: Lessons for the Journey AheadJoin Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free and immersive, bonus mini-episdesFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram

Pico Iyer’s latest book, The Half Known Life, looks at the ways in which we seek paradise on earth, sometimes in places that are fraught with risk. In this episode, he and Katherine talk about the similarities in their work, particularly the ways in which they explore secular understandings of big spiritual questions, and they touch on the differences, too. Where Katherine is drawn to the local and the known, Pico quests after the insights that come to travellers and strangers. They are two different ways of looking at the same question: that of how to live a good and peaceful life, via the practice of enchantment.Pico can truly be called a veteran travel writer, having published his first book in 1984, and gone on to publish fourteen more, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. They include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. His writing regularly features in Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the Financial Times among many others, and his four talks for TED have received more than 10 million views so far.Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UKLinks from the episode:Pico and Katherine in conversation about The Half Known LifeKatherine and Pico in conversation about EnchantmentPico's book, The Half Known LifePico's websiteJoin Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free and immersive, bonus mini-episdesFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram

We're in between seasons of How We Live Now and Katherine is in the midst of talking about her new book Enchantment in radio and podcast interviews. We wanted to share one of these conversations with you in the How We Live Now podcast feed.In this episode of The Shift with Sam Baker, Sam and Katherine talk about Katherine’s midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. Buy Katherine's new book Enchantment: US & Canada, UKSign up to receive Katherine's newsletterFollow Katherine on InstagramFind all the episodes of the The Shift with Sam Baker here: https://podfollow.com/the-shift-on-life-after-40-with-sam-baker

Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran understands the problems of rightwing populism better than most: she lives as an exile, after her criticism of the Erdogan regime threatened her liberty. But despite the very personal toll that our current politics has taken, Ece remains optimistic. The seeds of a new society, she says, lie in communities, and the ways they find to come together.In this episode, Katherine and Ece discuss courage, truth and learning to befriend our fear. We also touch on the power of Twitter in the days before Elon Musk took over - so maybe a little of our optimism was misplaced! But Ece has a unique ability to put our current political conflicts into a global context, and her faith in grassroots action is redemptive. Join the conversation! We’re also inviting your thoughts on each episode from now on - follow this link to join the conversation. Answers, challenges, ideas and further questions are all welcome - there will be a further episode in a couple of months focusing on your voices.Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is released in March 2023. Pre-order now: US/CAN and UKLinks from the episode:Ece's websiteEce's booksFollow Ece on Instagram and TwitterJoin Katherine's Patreon to receive episodes early and ad-freeSign up to receive Katherine's newsletterFind show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.Follow Katherine on Instagram