Hello from Krista

On Being Returns with Wisdom and Poetry

Dear friends,

It feels so lovely to be saying hello to you again here. I’m so excited to let you know that On Being is back in your podcast feed for nine weeks — and there is a Poetry Unbound mini-season on conflict and the human condition starting next week.

We've been pondering and planning this as our “Wisdom Season.” Wisdom, unlike mere knowledge or mere fact, holds. It doesn’t disappear with the news cycle. It doesn’t age so much as grow, gaining traction and vividness and a mysterious power to time travel in relevance.

We asked what we might offer anew and from On Being across time to elevate and nourish right now. How to stay present to the world’s pain while fiercely honoring its beauty; how to get centered in our bodies and tend to our souls; how to tap into love and courage and creativity; how to find some equilibrium for our still-reeling nervous systems (which hinders all of the above); how to re-member our belonging to each other.

In a new episode a few weeks from now, Hannah Arendt speaks to us from beyond time about politics through the lens of the human condition, making breathtaking connections between thinking and loving; violence and power; loneliness and the health of democracy. And we’ll delve deeper into last season’s stunning exploration of biomimicry, this time making precise and pragmatic inquiry into what the natural world, for example, might teach us about healing from trauma. Also: how those of us on the generative landscape of our time might start to act like an ecosystem rather than a collection of siloed projects. We are in kinship. How to make that real — and in making it real, make it more of an offering to the whole wide world?

We’ve also taken a deep dive into our archive, paying attention to what you have been sharing with each other, and what our own hearts needed to hear again and afresh. We’ve learned things we didn’t hear before and pulled out parts of interviews that we cut in the past to fit the radio clock. Fascinating echoes bounced around as we produced. Ursula Le Guin surfaced as a kind of patron saint of the season. Joy emerged as an indomitable leitmotif — something to tend as necessity, as fuel, as life force, even and especially in a world like this.

The Pause will come to you every Saturday in these weeks from its new home on the ever-innovative Substack platform. We’ve found kindred spirits in the good people leading it, and are excited about the possibility here to reach both dedicated listeners to On Being and new communities.

And as we move out of the season, the On Being team is going to reach out more often with news and invitations to what we’re up to in the world — which is, in a word, A LOT. Stay tuned for details about a 2025 live event tour across the U.S. that we’re laying the foundation for this year. We hope to build a national conversation with layers of ways to connect beyond the events.

For today, make sure you’re following us in your podcast feed and invite others to do the same.

It is, as always, an honor and a joy to walk alongside you and be in your ears and your lives. Let us hear from you as this season unfolds!

With love,

Krista

---