Best Paul Swanson Contemplative Shoveler Podcasts (2024)

1
David James Duncan on the Unintentional Menagerie of Sun House, Friendship, and the Beguines 1:46:49

12d ago1:46:49

1:46:49

David James Duncan is the author of the classic novels The River Why and The Brothers K, the story collection River Teeth, the nonfiction collection and National Book Award finalist, My Story as Told by Water, the best-selling collection of “churchless sermons," God Laughs & Plays. And lest we forget his latest, and what some have called his magnum…

1
Harmonizing In The Empty Fullness 2:07

18d ago2:07

2:07

Season Five Trailer Contemplify.comBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Turn the Morning into Forever 4:44

1M ago4:44

4:44

A musing on time, eternality, and childerenBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Reduced to the Scale of Our Competence 4:55

2M ago4:55

4:55

A musing on limitationsBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Eat the Wild Thing 5:48

3M ago5:48

5:48

A musing on wild things and ingesting GodBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Lo-Fi & Hushed / 2023 Winter Solstice Session / To Know the Dark 32:45

6M ago32:45

32:45

Each solstice and equinox Contemplify offers a public Lo-Fi & Hushed contemplative practice session for both free and supporting subscribers of the Non-Required Reading List. For those interested, go tell it on the mountain… The third week of Advent salted on joy. Not because of the circumstances, but despite them. The work remains to create the co…

1
Listen to the Rice, the Rice Will Teach You Everything with Lucien Miller 37:32

7M ago37:32

37:32

"Oshida’s life and legacy is an experience of the spiritual senses knowing the mystical voice. Biblical in sources and Buddhist in form, reading this book took me as a reader to the great pause of silence." — Sister Meg Funk, OSB Lucien Miller received his PhD in comparative literature from Berkely and taught Comparative Literature and Chinese at t…

1
In Hard Times, In All Times, Eat Sacred Words 33:23

8M ago33:23

33:23

"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." — 'Wild Geese' by Mary Oliver Carmen Acevedo Butcher, PhD, is an author, teacher, poet, and award-winning translator of spiritual texts. Today Carmen and I talk …

1
Kim Haines-Eitzen on Practicing the Cello in the Dark and Sonorous Deserts 58:41

8M ago58:41

58:41

Dr. Kim Haines-Eitzen is a Professor of Religious Studies with specialties in Early Christianity, Early Judaism, and other ancient Mediterranean Religions at Cornell University. Her book Sonorous Desert: What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks—and What It Can Teach Us explores the dynamic relationships between ambient environmental landsca…

1
Lerita Coleman Brown on Waiting for a Word in the Heart 58:06

9M ago58:06

58:06

"I highly recommend What Makes You Come Alive to churches, religious and educational institutions, and spiritual seekers everywhere who are looking for an inward journey that finds its home in the world of nature, people, and things." — Walter Earl Fluker - Editor and Director of the Howard Thurman Papers Project Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown is a retre…

1
Lo-Fi & Hushed Contemplative Practice Session (September 2023 / Autumn Equinox) 31:31

9M ago31:31

31:31

Lo-Fi & Hushed is weekly space for the contemplative practice of lectio divina with poetry. This practice is graceful, transformative, and subdued. Lo-Fi & Hushed is available worldwide, on Riverside livestream, and you can participate from the hallows of your own home. “I do not complain of suffering for love, it becomes me always to submit to her…

1
David Shumate on When Words Become Thunder 1:00:59

10M ago1:00:59

1:00:59

"David Shumate's High Water Mark is absolutely fresh and unpredictable. . . . You will be surprised by your confrontation with the utterly first rate." — Jim Harrison David Shumate is the author of The Floating Bridge and High Water Mark, winner of the 2003 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. His poetry has appeared widely in literary journals and h…

1
Douglas E. Christie on Depth Without Resolution 1:03:03

10M ago1:03:03

1:03:03

Douglas E. Christie, Ph.D., is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is author of The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Early Christian Monasticism; The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology; and The Insurmountable Darkness of Love: Mysticism, Loss and the Common Life. He is the fou…

1
Carmen Acevedo Butcher Follows the Mystical Tugs on the Heart 1:13:48

11M ago1:13:48

1:13:48

Carmen Acevedo Butcher, PhD, is an author, teacher, poet, and award-winning translator of spiritual texts. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence. Her dynamic work around the evolution of language and the necessity of just and inclusive language has garnered interest from various media, including the BB…

1
Lisa Wells on Holding a Fierce and Loving Gaze 1:05:19

11M ago1:05:19

1:05:19

Lisa Wells is an author, poet, and co-founder of a small, nonprofit press based in Seattle, Washington called Letter Machine Editions. Her latest work is Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World. In Believers Lisa locates folks who meet the climate catastrophe with a fierce and loving gaze, with their sights on restoring humanity’s relation…

1
Scott Avett on Being Here for the Feast 1:12:57

12M ago1:12:57

1:12:57

Scott Avett is a visual artist, musician, and songwriter. No amount of descriptors quite do him justice. Scott’s work was met by my ears before my eyes. His songs slip into the ear stream, reverberate off the rib cage and remind the heart it was born free. Scott’s paintings hold your gaze in absorption, jostle you awake, and drop you off a block la…

1
Haleh Liza Gafori on Putting Mystery in the Middle 59:00

12M ago59:00

59:00

Haleh Liza Gafori is a translator, vocalist, poet, and educator born in New York City of Iranian descent. Her latest work, is a translation of Rumi poems entitled Gold. I first heard one of her translations of Rumi sitting around a campfire on a Sunday morning in Patagonia, Arizona. I was bit by the passion and this conversation does not disappoint…

1
Belden Lane on the Unbroken Desert of God 54:16

1y ago54:16

54:16

Belden Lane is Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University, author of numerous books including The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality and Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice. Belden Lane is a true elder, and in our conversation he exhibits that when we tal…

1
Your Naked Freedom 5:53

1y ago5:53

5:53

Good poetry is inherently spiritual. It is a clown car of interpretation. Once a door of perception is opened, endless and surprising “Ahas” tumble out. When you have a spiritual teacher who embodies a poem, their words become thunder and contemplation soaks you. Get a taste of Season Four of Contemplify. First full episode is out in a week. slide …

1
Spare Me Nothing 5:48

1y ago5:48

5:48

A musing on practice, desire, and its evolutions vist contemplify.comBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
James Finley on the Healing Path 1:28:35

1+ y ago1:28:35

1:28:35

I was overly giddy, strangely nervous, but above all grateful to be in conversation with James Finley about his breathtaking new book, The Healing Path: A Memoir and an Invitation. Each page is a thousand pages deep, that is how Jim walks about the world, drawing from the depths and teaching with winsome grace, poetics, and of course, wisdom. I hav…

1
It's Not About the Beer, It's About the Beer 8:30

1+ y ago8:30

8:30

A musing inspired by Shawn Askinosie's story about Belgium beer brewing monks and the parables of Jesus from Feb 2023 vist contemplify.comBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Prairie Eye & Woods Eye 4:40

1+ y ago4:40

4:40

A musing on Bill Holm's "Horizontal Grandeur" pulled from his book of essays, The Music of Failure.By Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Sitting on the Present Moment 7:21

1+ y ago7:21

7:21

A musing on the present moment of awareness that holds everything.By Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Engaged Contemplation in a Heartbreaking World with Fr. Adam Bucko 1:01:18

1+ y ago1:01:18

1:01:18

Father Adam Bucko has been a committed voice in the movement for the renewal of Christian Contemplative Spirituality and the growing New Monastic movement. He has taught engaged contemplative spirituality in Europe and the United States and has authored Let Your Heartbreak be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation, and co-authored Occupy Spir…

1
Heathen 7:45

1+ y ago7:45

7:45

Musing from November 9th, 2022 inspired by by reading Chris Dombrowski's The River You Touch Visit contemplify.comBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Vitality Out of Emptiness with Fr. David Denny 1:00:12

1+ y ago1:00:12

1:00:12

Fr. David Denny is a lifelong seeker whose commitment to the unfolding mystery of life has brought him to explore the deserts of place and soul. In 1975 Fr Dave entered the Spiritual Life Institute, a contemplative monastic community rooted in the Carmelite tradition. And in 2005, he left that community to co-found the Desert Foundation with Tessa …

1
The River You Touch with Chris Dombrowski 1:25:17

1+ y ago1:25:17

1:25:17

I have been waiting years to have this conversation with author, poet, and fly-fishing guide Chris Dombrowski. There is a kinship I feel with Chris's lens on life. He is a top-shelf writer to boot. The River You Touch: Making a Life on Moving Water comes out October 11th, 2022. I have read it and pre-ordered multiple copies for friends and family. …

1
Inarticulate as Watercolors, Brazen as Graffiti 6:08

2y ago6:08

6:08

Musing from September 16, 2022 visit contemplify.comBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Nine Poems from Coffin Honey by Todd Davis 31:32

2y ago31:32

31:32

I asked Todd Davis if he could read some of his poems from his latest collection called Coffin Honey. And he generously said yes. Take a beath, find a comfortable seat, preferably out of doors and let the poetry of Todd Davis seep in through your pores and raise forth the best of you. **Before we get started, I want to note that in this episode of …

1
A Revelatory Elegy of Unknowing with Todd Davis (author of Coffin Honey) 53:49

2y ago53:49

53:49

The poems of Todd Davis sharpen a reader’s spirit and focus, on the bloodstained teeth breaking apart the day-to-day doldrums and on the mythic imagination necessary to bear witness to this daunting moment in our species, on our planet. Todd Davis and I spoke back in 2019 about his book Native Species and he has read his poems in the last two years…

1
Contemplative Gleanings from the Hermits of Big Sur with Paula Huston 1:10:28

2y ago1:10:28

1:10:28

Paula Huston has written a book, The Hermits of the Big Sur, that charts the history of the New Camaldoli Hermitage. A history born amidst Vatican II and World War II with even deeper contemplatives roots back to the 11th century in the mountains of Italy. Paula follows the ragtag set of novices who become the elders of the community, those who wan…

1
Bill Porter (Red Pine) on Zen and Taoist Masters, Mountain Hermits, & the Life of a Translator 1:01:10

2y ago1:01:10

1:01:10

(My audio starts shaky, but gets better after 8 minutes) Bill Porter, aka Red Pine, calls the hermit life, "graduate school for the spiritually inclined." Bill Porter is a translator of Buddhist and Taoist mountain poets that uncross your third eye and waft the scent of a fine scotch. What can I say about Bill Porter that he won’t say better about …

1
Here There Are Woods, Foxes (Season 3 Trailer) 7:47

2y ago7:47

7:47

The hermit life is cool. That is the stone that skips across this season of Contemplify. The urging, the calling, to retreat from the hustle of the red dirt economy. To wash your face with cold water. Blink away the dust. Sit still in the sun and watch the shadows kneel in prayer. This season of Contemplify highlights a few folks who touch the herm…

1
An Old Growth Forest 4:31

2y ago4:31

4:31

Musing from May 31, 2022By Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Solitude at the Center of All Beauty with Fenton Johnson 1:08:35

2+ y ago1:08:35

1:08:35

Fenton Johnson is the author of At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life. His book Geography of the Heart: A Memoir received the American Library Association and Lambda Literary Awards for best LGBT Creative Nonfiction, while his book Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks received a Lambda Literary…

1
The Harmonic Resonance Found in Unknowing with Brie Stoner 1:12:38

2+ y ago1:12:38

1:12:38

Brie Stoner is a juggernaut of creativity who channels these forces as a musician, artist, podcaster, writer, teacher, and mother. Her latest project is a podcast called Unknowing; a conversation series with artists, spiritual teachers, authors and friends as she explores the practice of unknowing as the (beautiful, surprising, messy) spiritual pat…

1
A Wild Mystical Woman of the Desert with Amy Frykholm 1:17:20

2+ y ago1:17:20

1:17:20

Amy Frykholm is a writer, scholar, and journalist. Long time listener’s will recognize Amy as the second guest ever on Contemplify when we spoke about her book on Julian of Norwich. For those new to Amy's story, she has a PhD from Duke University and is a senior editor at The Christian Century. Her wry wit and adventurous spirit deserve a place in …

1
Enlivening the First Christmas with Stephen Mitchell 1:10:16

2+ y ago1:10:16

1:10:16

Stephen Mitchell is a translator, author, and poet. I was first introduced to his work through his translation of the Tao Te Ching. Stephen was educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice. He is married to Byron Katie, founder of The Work. Today we talk about his latest work, The First Christmas: A St…

1
Backporch Advent Outpost with Chris Dombrowski (#2) 9:45

2+ y ago9:45

9:45

Blessed Darkness and Blessed Light, this Advent season. Here we are again, In the midst of Season Two of Contemplify and I am sliding in another bonus episode part of the 2nd annual Backporch Advent Outpost on Contemplify. Today’s poet is Chris Dombrowski. I first read Chris’ book Ragged Anthem and then his earlier work in the book Earth Again. It …

1
Backporch Advent Outpost with Todd Davis (#1) 8:12

2+ y ago8:12

8:12

Blessed Darkness and Blessed Light this Advent season. Here, In the midst of Season Two of Contemplify I am sliding in a bonus episode. This is the first episode of the 2nd annual Backporch Advent Outpost on Contemplify. This year there will be one poet in each outpost, offering their poetry to gild the thin space beyond waiting or reception. Pour …

1
The Monastic Heart & Prophetic Imagination with Sr. Joan Chittister 49:03

2+ y ago49:03

49:03

Sister Joan Chittister is a member of the Benedictine Sisters, played a huge hand in developing the Charter of Compassion, was president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious., director of Benetvision, founder of Monasteries of the Heart, passionately advocated on behalf of peace, human rights, women’s issues, and church renewal, written …

1
Slow Yourself to be Awed with J. Drew Lanham 57:33

2+ y ago57:33

57:33

J. Drew Lanham is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Master Teacher, and Certified Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University . He's the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature and the collection of poetry and meditations, Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts, which is the focus…

1
Gary Nabhan (aka Brother Coyote) on Wisdom Gleaned from Fishers & Farmers 1:06:01

2+ y ago1:06:01

1:06:01

Gary Nabhan (aka Brother Coyote) is an Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, a first generation Lebanese-American, seed saver, agro-ecologist, ethnobotanist, agrarian activist, and author. A former MacArthur Fellow, he has been called the "father of the local food movement" by Time. He currently holds the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Food & Water Security for th…

1
Season Two Trailer 2:52

2+ y ago2:52

2:52

On the cusp of season 2, I was ruminating on how I might introduce the tonality of this series of conversations. The September musing jumped to mind. In this musing, I reflected one some words to live by according to Ralph Waldo Emerson And there was one Emerson line that stuck to my ribs. No matter how hard I scraped, it would not leave me alone. …

1
Your Work Should Be the Praise of What You Love (September Musing) 7:43

3y ago7:43

7:43

September 2021 Musing on Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy of life. Season 2 of Contemplify is getting warmed up on the stove. I'll let you know when it is ready to be served. Visit contemplify.comBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Like People or Dogs 11:42

3y ago11:42

11:42

This marks the 100th episode of Contemplify. We celebrate the triple digit with a musing and an announcement.By Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Charlie Chaplin in the Gears of Modern Times 7:38

3y ago7:38

7:38

A contemplative musing on machines, lifeblood, and facing the facts of life. Visit contemplify.com for more shenanigansBy Paul Swanson | Contemplative Shoveler

1
Scott Ballew on Talking to Mountains & the Sublimity of Sad Songs 1:27:09

3y ago1:27:09

1:27:09

Scott Ballew is songwriter from Austin, Texas. He earns his keep as the Head of Films and Commercials at YETI, producing and directing films that inspire a life well-lived. During the pandemic, Scott dusted off his guitar and got to writing songs, polishing them, and then to his own surprise, releasing an album out into the wild. Scott Ballew’s fir…

1
Tending to the Spiritual Interior of Language with Lia Purpura 1:13:11

3y ago1:13:11

1:13:11

There is so much I can say about the poet and essayist Leah Purpura. I’ll give this brief introduction, Lia was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the writer in residence at the University of Maryland, and has been published in all the notable places. I read her two most recent works, It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful, a book of …

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