S14 E18: Awakening Wonder In An Anxious Age with author Katherine May

Katherine May is an internationally renowned writer, podcaster and speaker whose work touches on nature, spirituality, slow living and neurodivergence.

Her hybrid memoir Wintering was a global bestseller, adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes & Noble Book of the Year. Her most recent title, Enchantment became an instant New York Times bestseller.

In our conversation Katherine and I discuss the common need for rediscovering pathways into enchantment and wonder. We discuss her concept of wintering and how even our most difficult times can become sources of creative and spiritual nourishment.

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an exclusive segment of our conversation where Katherine and I unpack the phrase “secular mystic” as she’s described in the inner sleeve of Wintering.

I’d like to personally invite you to join us at The Breath and The Clay creative arts gathering March 21-23 2025 in Winston Salem, NC. Get Tickets here.

Author, authors, Enchantment, wonder, storytellingStephen RoachNovember 26, 2024author, Katherine May, wonder, reenchantment, enchantment, Best selling, memoir

S14 E15: Contours of Enchantment with Cheryl Bridges Johns

For many people, and perhaps even for some of our listeners, the Bible elicits a very different response from one person to another. For some, it is a source of comfort and spiritual nourishment, even a great source of creative inspiration, while for others, it brings up difficult questions or even negative emotions and uncomfortable associations.

But as we’ve talked this season about disenchantment and reclaiming wonder, I’m curious if taking a second look at this collection of stories, songs, and spiritual directives may be yet another unexpected doorway into wonder.

My guest today is author and scholar Cheryl Bridges Johns. Cheryl is the author of four books including Re-enchanting The Text: Rediscovering the Bible As Sacred, Dangerous and Mysterious.

In our conversation, we discuss the impact of looking at scripture solely from a didactic viewpoint and what may occur in the reader who instead approaches the Bible as a mystical text with the uncanny ability to change and transform, even re-enchant its reader with a renewed spiritual vitality and understanding of God and the human condition. Cheryl and I also discuss the importance of nature as God’s second book and the role of imagination in creating the world around us.

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment with Cheryl offering several practices to unlock a renewed vision on your creative and spiritual life.

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S14 E13: Van Gogh Has A Broken Heart with Russ Ramsey

Russ Ramsey is an author and pastor with a passion for uniting art and faith. He has been in vocational ministry for more than twenty years and currently serves as the lead pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church’s Cool Springs location. He holds an MDiv and ThM from Covenant Theological Seminary, and is the author of six books, including Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith (Zondervan 2022), and Behold the King of Glory, recipient of the 2016 Christian Book Award for New Author. Russ was also a founding contributor and member of The Rabbit Room and is a featured speaker each year at The Rabbit Room’s annual conference, Hutchmoot.

In today’s episode Russ discusses his new book, Van Gogh has a Broken Heart. The conversation explores how Van Gogh’s life and art reveal universal themes of struggle and wonder and what Van Gogh reveals about the human condition.

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment on why the arts are important to communities of faith. Visit Patreon.com/makersandmystics to learn more.

Name Drops: Van Gogh, Norman Rockwell, Paul Simon, Rembrandt,

Books: The Sunflowers Are Mine, Van Gogh Has A Broken Heart

Topics: Suffering, Van Gogh, Wonder, Faith, Honesty in art, mental health, emotional well-being

Van Gogh Letters

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S14 E10: Dreamscapes with visual artist Chalom

Melbourne-based visual artist and electronic musician Mike Lane creates under the name Chalom, a name spoken to him in a dream. His practice consists of visually expressing dreams and meditations, with mostly found materials, embedded bible pages, penciled notes, and spray paint.

Beyond the haphazard backgrounds of his paintings, brushes or tools are rarely used in the making, just hands and fingers employing scrawly texts, scribbles, and vaguely figurative forms.

CHALOM’s prolific work is a deeply spiritual practice, and he loves to write blessings and prophecies, hidden under the paintings for the viewer to experience as mysteries and positive energetic flow, intended to shift the atmosphere in the spaces where the works are hung.

In this episode, Chalom talks with Stephen Roach about his creative process and the deeply-felt spiritual underpinnings behind his visual art.

S14 E08: Reclaiming Your Voice with author Shannon K. Evans

Our voice is one of the most uniquely defining qualities of our person. For artists and writers, finding our voice is a foundational and often painstaking process of search and discovery. For many, finding the courage to acknowledge, I am an artist. I am a writer. I am a musician, takes a lot of courage. Speaking it out for the first time can be an act of bravery and overcoming self doubt, imposter syndrome and fear.

In her book, The Mystics Would Like A Word, author Shannon K. Evans says,

“Claiming your own voice - your own perspective, your own experience, your own intuition, your own prophetic call to the world - is essential for artmaking.”

In this episode, Shannon talks about her journey of overcoming imposter syndrome, embracing her whole experience of balancing artistry and motherhood and how six revolutionary women mystics helped her reclaim her authentic voice.

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy exclusive interview segments at http://patreon.,com/makersandmystics

Apply to attend The Breath and The Clay Writer's Retreat. Oct. 25-27, 2024 in Moravian Falls, NC.

Author, contemplation, everyday life, Mystics, Reclaiming Wonder, wonderStephen RoachSeptember 18, 2024author, mystics, women mystics, Shannon K Evans

S14 E07: Nature As Metaphor with Enneagram Coach Stephanie Spencer

Stephanie J. Spencer is a visual artist, author, nature-lover and an Enneagram coach who is not afraid of hard questions. She loves moving towards the struggles of the human experience to help people find new ways forward. Stephanie has spent years coaching individuals and teams from around the country, from major universities to local churches, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses. Time and again, she has seen the power of the Enneagram, imagery, and questions to open pathways for growth and transformation.

In our conversation, Stephanie and I discuss the Enneagram as a tool to help artists become more self aware and understand their own temperaments and motivations. Drawing from her book, Out of The Box and Into the Wild, Stephanie and I talk about discovering wonder in nature and how the natural world can serve as a metaphor for our own internal landscapes.

You can find links to Stephanie’s work as well as an unedited version of this conversation in the show notes and at patreon.com/makersandmystics

Enneagram, nature, wonderStephen RoachSeptember 11, 2024Enneagram, coach

S14 E01: An Introduction

Wonder is all around us. In every moment, in every mundane or grand occasion. The earth and all that is in within it, is an unfolding poem spoken from divine lips in search of an audience.

In this introductory episode, Stephen Roach shares the groundwork for this season’s exploration of Reclaiming Wonder. He says, “It is the artist whose work bridges the realm of everyday life with the realm of mystery and deeper meaning. It is the artist who again re-enchants the world and helps us to reclaim our sense of wonder.”

wonderStephen RoachJuly 30, 2024Season 14

S11 E13: Building Bridges with Katherine Paterson

There is a relationship between grief and transcendence that may not be immediately recognizable. But it’s one often expressed within art and in particular, children’s literature.

Whether it’s Lewis’s wardrobe to Narnia, Dorothy’s house transported by cyclone to Oz or a bridge to Terabithia built across a chasm of loss.

Grief has a way of transporting us to a fantastical world of imagination where we can more easily grapple with the difficulties of loss and even find closure to the trauma that sent us looking for relief.

In this episode, Makers & Mystics host Stephen Roach talks with children's book author Katherine Paterson about the motivations behind her writing and why she feels it is important to create a safe space through art and literature for young adults to work through difficult emotions and experiences.

Katherine Paterson is the author of more than 40 books, including 18 novels for children and young people. She has twice won the Newbery Medal, for Bridge to Terabithia in 1978 and Jacob Have I Loved in 1981.

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S11 E01: Strong Like Water with Aundi Kolber

Aundi Kolber is a licensed professional counselor and author of the critically acclaimed Try Softer. She has received additional training in her specialization of trauma- and body-centered therapies and is passionate about the integration of faith and psychology. As a survivor of trauma, Aundi brings hard-won knowledge about the work of change, the power of redemption, and the beauty of experiencing God with us in our pain.

In this episode Stephen Roach talks with Aundi about her latest book Strong Like Water and how we can move through pain into the expansiveness of our true selves. Aundi shares about the importance of feeling safe in our bodies that we might experience those deeper yearnings for transcendence, beauty, and wonder.

S6 E9: On Curiosity and Play with Ashley Mary

Ashley Mary is a Minnesota-based muralist and abstract artist whose paintings tap into concepts of youth and playfulness and curiosity through the use of thick textures, vibrant colors, and organic and familiar shapes.

Her process is influenced heavily by her collage work, patterns, vintage ephemera, and her background in graphic design. Ashley’s work pays attention to the unintentional and leaves space to be surprised.

Her murals and product designs can be seen nationwide in large scale collaborations with brands such as Google, Starbucks, and Anthropologie.

Outside of her work as an artist, Ashley is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Curiosity Studios. A creative learning space for those stuck and blocked.

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment with Ashley on book recommendations for sparking curiosity.

S6 E2: Wonder & Light with Lauren Midgley

Lauren Midgley is a conceptual fine art photographer based in Oklahoma. Her photography stretches beyond the historical use of the camera and invites the viewer into a world of surrealism and visual storytelling. In a world saturated with digital imagery, Lauren employs illustrative, advanced digital manipulation to paint virtual narratives that speak to the heart of our collective human experience.

In this episode, Stephen and Lauren discuss her aims and motivations as an artist as well as the inception behind several specific portraits. To make it easier to you to follow along (with the visual nature of our discussion), we have posted the images mentioned in this episode on Instagram @makersandmystics.

This episode is sponsored by Ekstasis Magazine.

Music is provided by Paper Lights and C’est Lis.

Artist Profile Series 21: John O' Donohue

John O’ Donohue was a modern-day mystic, philosopher, theologian and poet. He spent his life along the West Coast of Ireland where the solitude and beauty of the land shaped him as an artist and thinker.

S5 E10: My Midsummer Morning with Alastair Humphreys

Alastair Humphreys has been on expeditions all around the world, traveling through over 80 countries by bicycle, boat and on foot. He was named as one of National Geographic’s Adventurers of the year for 2012.

He has walked across southern India, rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, run six marathons through the Sahara desert and participated in an expedition in the Arctic, close to the magnetic North Pole.

More recently, Alastair followed in the footsteps of one of his own heroes, an Englishman named Laurie Lee who walked across Spain in 1935 earning money for food by playing his violin in bars and plazas.

In this episode, Stephen talks with Alastair about his adventures, his fears and motivations behind his lifestyle of risk and his latest book My Midsummer Morning.

Connect with Alastair Humphreys

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Buy Alastair’s Book

Music from this episode:

Glassea

Daniel Birch

Aaron Strumpel

Sponsor Link: Hope Writers

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S5 E5: The Creative Environment with Graham Cooke

Graham Cooke is an internationally recognized author, public speaker and strategist. He is known for a radical faith and friendship with God.

Graham's books have helped organizations and individuals overcome negative, limited thinking and transition toward a higher level of corporate and spiritual life.

An integral part of Graham's work involves producing resources for helping the poor and for eradicating human trafficking through supporting the organization, NOT FOR SALE.

In this episode, Stephen talks with Graham about cultivating environments to serve his creative and spiritual disciplines.

*Patrons can enjoy additional interview segments on how to deal with rejection and establishing healthy rhythms.

S5 E3: Return To Wonder with Harris III

Harris “The Third” is an award-winning illusionist and communicator. In recent years his career has grown to become one of America’s most sought-out speakers, storytellers, creative consultants and event curators.

In 2015, Harris founded the Istoria Collective, a production company that creates meaningful and transformative experiences for people and brands through events, films, and digital media.

In this episode, Stephen talks with Harris about his work as an Illusionist and what it means to create moments of wonder that inspire and move people to a place of transformation.