Makers & Mystics

In this episode, podcast host Stephen Roach takes listeners on a journey into the world of ecstatic poetry. Drawing from the wisdom of Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton and author/scholar Michael Edwards, Stephen highlights poetry as mankind’s first language. He tells us, the meaning of a poem is not found in what a poem is about, but rather what effect the poem has on it’s hearer. Through reciting several of his own poems, Stephen reveals poetry and the poetic encounter as a doorway to wonder.THE BREATH AND THE CLAY WRITER'S RETREAT Oct. 25-27 in Moravian Falls, NC. APPLY NOW.Join our creative collectiveGive a one-time donationPurchase A Collection of Stephen's Poetry

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.Name Drops: Margery Kempe Julian of Norwich Hildegard of Bingen Stephen KingRollo MayTopics: Imposter syndrome Motherhood Wonder in the mundaneUnconventional lifestyles of women mystics The writer’s lifePatrons of the podcast can enjoy exclusive interview segments at http://patreon.,com/makersandmysticsApply to attend The Breath and The Clay Writer's Retreat. Oct. 25-27, 2024 in Moravian Falls, NC.

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 Name Drops: 
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall KimmererSleeping At Last (Ryan O’Neal)Topics: 

Enneagram and Nature Natural imagery Routine and RitualJoin us at our Writer's Retreat! Oct.25-27, 2024!Be sure to give us a follow on Instagram @makersandmystics 

When we think of wonder or beauty, we might be inclined to think in terms of an external appearance, a scene of nature or an attractive person. But what if wonder is something that grows from the inside out? What if wonder is way of seeing? And what if wonder is an interior force, one that begins in the hidden recesses of our perceptions? Today, on the show I’m talking with Oregon based, poet, writer and critic, Paul J Pastor.  Paul serves HarperCollins as senior acquisitions editor for their Zondervan imprint, and also serves as a contributing editor for Ekstasis magazine. He's the author of several books, including Bower Lodge: Poems, and two forthcoming titles: The Locust Years and The Fire Cantos. In our conversation, Paul and I discuss the importance of learning to see as a means of engaging wonder. Drawing from the work of William Blake, Flannery O’ Connor and stories from the Gospels, this episode takes us on a journey into our perceptions and invites us to reconsider beauty as more than an aesthetic experience.  Topics: Perception, beauty, wonder as an interior experience.Art Forms: Literature, PhilosophyName Drops: William Blake, Flannery O'Connor, Herbert, Donne, Horace, Sappho, Wallace Stevens, Dante, Byung Chul HanMusic: Some Were At SeaTHE BREATH AND THE CLAY WRITER'S RETREAT Oct. 25-27 in Moravian Falls, NC. APPLY NOW.Join our creative collectiveGive a one-time donation

This fall we have several opportunities to gather together, get inspired and build community.  I'd love to see you at one or all of these happenings!  Just click the links below to find out the specific event details.If you’d like to stay in the know on our regular happenings and inspirations, sign up for our bi-weekly email list here.  The Embodied Faith symposium - Sept.21-22 Charlotte NC Resound Creative Arts Conference - Sept 27=28, Boulder, COKarios Arts Event - Oct. 11-12, Charleston, SCThe Breath and The Clay Writer’s Retreat - Oct. 25-27, Moravian Falls, NC

Philosopher, Simone Weil said that attentiveness is the heart of prayer. In this episode, we discuss postures of attentiveness as gateways to wonder.Guests: Dr. Mary McCampbell is an author, educator, and speaker whose publications span the worlds of literature, film, and popular music. She is the author of Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy.Dr. Joe Kickasola is a Professor of Film and Digital Media at Baylor University.  He is the author of The Films of Krzysztof Kieślowski: The Liminal Image, and has published in numerous academic venues and anthologies, including Film Quarterly, The Quarterly Review of Film and Video,  and The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film.  _____Topics: Attentiveness, cynicism, receptivity, humility, consumerism, experiencing wonder during times of upheaval, Art Forms: filmmaking, photography, literature. Name Drops: Douglas Copeland, G.K. Chesterton,  Jim Jarmusch, Terrence Malick, T.S.Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrey Rublev, Rothko, Stan Brakhage, Virginia Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, Movie References: Patterson, Tree of Life, Zabriskie Point Support The Podcast! We need your help to continue our work of advocating for the arts.Join our creative collectiveGive a one-time donation

Cleo Rinkwest is a South-African actor who has worked with the likes of Samuel L Jackson, The Walking Dead's Callan McCauliff, and Game of Thrones, Charlotte Hope. Through her acting, she seeks to perform stories that go beyond entertainment and enlighten her audiences to values of human flourishing. Her current film projects follow themes of justice and mercy, capital punishment laws in Southern Africa, the supernatural realm, and the impact of AI on humanity. In our conversation, Cleo shares about the sacred service of the actor, the role of empathy in her art form and how she embodies the personas of the characters she portrays.  In keeping with our season theme Reclaiming Wonder, I asked Cleo what reclaiming wonder looks like in her life. Be sure to listen to the end for her answer. If you’re a patron of podcast, we reserved a special segment of our conversation exclusively for you. In that segment, Cleo shares about the aspect of collaboration and the challenges of being a working actor in South Africa. Help us continue our work! We can't do this without your support. If this podcast has been meaningful to you, show the love.You can give a one-time donation here or join our monthly creative collective here.Thank you, friends!Poema: An Online Course by Stephen Roach

One of the more powerful aspects of visual art, is when a single image encapsulates an entire narrative, or when viewing a painting or illustration, the viewer’s imagination is invited to fill in the gaps and finish the tale.  I recently came across an artist whose work embodies this narrative quality. I found myself going back to his images and studying what story was being told through the characters and gestures in each frame.  I was moved to create in response. Which, for me is always a sure sign of a living work of art, when I am compelled to respond or when creativity is awakened and I am transported to an experience of wonder.  Today, I have the honor of introducing this artist to you. Cody F. Miller is a printmaker, illustrator, and mixed media artist whose illustrations often depict people on a journey, navigating the interplay between light and darkness, as they try to find their way home. Cody’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions and publications such as the “Arts Beacon of Light” at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and the current front cover of Comment magazine. He received an Individual Excellence award in 2002 and 2018 from the Ohio Arts Council and is represented by the Sharon Weiss Gallery.In our conversation, Cody shares about his own incredible journey of searching to find home and how discipline and everyday experiences become unlikely doorways to wonder. If you have found yourself lacking wonder, I encourage you to spend some time with Cody’s work and also to listen to this episode in full for some practical wisdom on how to get unstuck. You can find images of Cody’s work on our Instagram and on his website. Help us continue our work! We can't do this without your support. If this podcast has been meaningful to you, show the love. You can give a one-time donation here or join our monthly creative collective here. Thank you, friends!

Donna Matthews is a musician and creative artist. In the 1990’s she played lead guitar in Elastica and lo-fi, DIY band Klang, and in subsequent years devised and facilitated creative workshops for people in recovery from addiction. She is currently in her final year of a practice-based PhD in Music at the university of Glasgow. Interested in issues such as poetic intuition, inspiration, and gift, her work explores how the intuitive state might be conveyed through aesthetic form, whilst also exploring improvisation as a means of 'undoing form' to experience the inspired state.In this episode, Donna shares about her winding journey through music, addiction and fusing her deeply felt spiritual practice with her artistic discipline.  Donna discusses the role of improvisation, speaking in tongues and what Lewis Hyde terms as the Gifted State or that posture of heart which readies the creative artist to receive inspiration and experience wonder.Patrons of the podcast can enjoy a full, unedited version of this conversation at http://www.patreon.com./makersandmysticsHere is a link to the Lewis Hyde interview mentioned in this episode.

When we lack wonder, we settle for the evening news. When we lack spectacle, we settle for shock art. When we can’t see the burning bush, we set the dumpster on fire. By this point, the Olympics’ opening performance has been discussed ad nauseum.  Most of us have grown weary of the vitriol and moved on. Therefore, I hesitate to add another voice to the fire, but as one who leads a community of mostly faith-based artists, the performance has held a particular interest to me. I have felt a measure of responsibility to weigh in but more importantly, I have felt a responsibility to ensure my response is not reactionary or regurgitating secondhand information. This bonus episode highlights a few of my thoughts.

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.” Join the creative collective!

Around the turn of the century, German Sociologist, Max Weber coined the phrase ‘disenchantment’ as a way of describing society’s transition from a mythical or religious understanding of the world to a rationalistic, scientific view. Advancements in science and technology alongside a perceived decline of religious devotion rendered the world demystified or void of magic. Religious opponents celebrated this transition as a liberation from old superstitions and worn-out beliefs, to a world formed purely of empirical fact. But after a hundred years or more since this shift in the social conscience, the human heart continues to yearn for meaning beyond the material world. 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 calls us to reclaim our sense of wonder.In this upcoming season of the podcast, we are going to explore what it means to reclaim wonder. We are going to talk with a number of guests from artists and theologians to Enneagram experts and actors. We want to invite you to take the journey alongside of us. If you’re looking to reconnect to a sense of deeper meaning both in your creative life and your spiritual life, this season is designed to help. Starting Tuesday, July 30th, and running every week following, the Makers and Mystics podcast begins our series to reclaim wonder.  Join us for deeper discussions on Patreon.Make a one-time donation to support our work.

In this live talk, recorded at the Audiofeed Festival in Urbana, Illinois, Stephen Roach encourages listeners that the value of a dream is not contingent upon its coming to pass. The value of a dream, he says, is in the dreaming. For anyone, who has grappled with the death of a dream or the pain of letting go, this talk will encourage you that a dream can take many shapes and forms and that nothing is wasted. Join the Makers and Mystics Creative CollectiveTake Stephen's FREE course on Creativity & FearSupport the podcast with a one-time donation.

In this Season Finale round table, founder of Ekstasis magazine, Conor Sweetman and essayist, Yi Ning Chiu discuss expressive individualism, various frameworks of community and why physical community remains essential in our modern, digitized culture. Alongside of Ekstasis, Conor serves as the director of innovation for Christianity today while Yi Ning writes Please Don’t Go, a newsletter about life in community—why it’s terrible, why it’s essential, and why we shouldn’t give up on cultivating it. Help us keep our show alive! Become a monthly patron.

If you’re a regular listener to the podcast then you know that we haven’t produced our regular episodes for the past few weeks. And if you follow us on Instagram or get our email newsletters then you know the reason why. On May 27th, my studio laptop was stolen. In light of this event and feeling disoriented, I began to study the word 'orient.'I discovered that ‘orient’ means to arrange something as to face east. The implication is to look in the direction of the sunrise. To be disoriented then means a time of darkness. And to be reoriented means looking past the darkness to a rising sun. ⁣ ⁣This short update is an encouragement for anyone who has felt themselves disoriented or interrupted.You can contribute to the cause here.You can become a monthly patron here.

Hospitality is more than the generous treatment of guests or strangers, but is a way of peeling back the layers of separation and getting closer to the heart of a group or individual.  In this way, hospitality is the heartbeat of community and true friendship.  The word hospitality comes from the Latin hospes, meaning "host", "guest", or "stranger". Hospes is formed from hostis, which means "stranger" or "enemy" (where we get terms like "hostile.”) So hospitality or coming to a shared table can be a place where strangers transform into friends and enemies can be re-humanized. In this episode, fellow podcaster, community builder and co-founder of the First Things First Foundation, John Heers shares about how the Art of Hospitality has become a revolutionary act. He shares about a Georgian feast - called a Supra - where he plays the role of a Tamada and invites guests to share in this counter-cultural revolution by coming to the table.By joining the Makers and Mystics Creative Collective, you can help us continue our work of advocating for the arts and connect with a tribe of creatives from around the world.

Kimberly Phinney is a professor, counselor, poet and writer. She’s been published in Ekstasis Magazine, Fathom, Humana Obscura, and many other publications. She is the editor and founder of the literary community The Way Back To Ourselves.  Earlier this year, Kimberly’s poem “An Ode to Hard, Dark Nights” won the Audience Choice Award in our Bright Wings Poetry Contest in partnership with Ekstasis magazine. In this episode, Kimberly shares how the vision for her creative community and her recent book of poems, Of Wings and Dirt were born out of her journey through an intense season of illness.  As a community leader, Kimberly shares her thoughts on how artists and creatives can move against the modern bent toward isolation and disembodiment. Join The Makers and Mystics Creative CollectiveSupport The PodcastMusic in this episode by Some Were At Sea

Andi Marie Tillman is an Appalachian comedian, musician, and self-proclaimed “recovering Pentecostal.” Her roots in performance began at the early age of 8 when she sang in churches across the Southeast. It was here Andi gathered much of the inspiration for what would later become her well-known cast of original characters.  Andi has acted in numerous shorts, feature films, commercials, and music videos including Come and Save Me by Danielson.  But it was Andi’s series of TikTok sketches that elevated her platform and struck a chord with folks both native and new to Appalachian culture. In this episode, Andi shares about the roots of her acting, her winding journey through Appalachian spirituality, and the healing power of laughter. Join the Makers and Mystics Creative CollectiveAndi’s advice to those who left the church

What does it mean to be a culture maker in a world of hurt and wondrous possibility?  And what does it mean to mend the world, to bring healing and hospitality through our art and the details of our everyday lives? Today’s episode features multi-Grammy winner Charlie Peacock and his wife and author, Andi Ashworth. Charlie and Andi have recently published a wonderful book together titled, Why Everything That Doesn't Matter, Matters So Much: The Way of Love in a World of HurtThe book draws from their 50 years of marriage and lifelong experience working with artists in community.  In this conversation, Charlie and Andi share from their book on what it means to mend the world through honest, meaningful relationships and a hopeful imagination.Patrons of the podcast can hear additional interview segments with Charlie and Andi on the power of writing letters and keeping a consistent practice of journaling. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to gain access. Music in this episode by Some Were At Sea

Film director Chris White and songwriter Daniel Smith of The Danielson Family have crafted an 8-minute short film/music video titled "Come and Save Me," a poignant exploration of acceptance and community as a cure to the loneliness epidemic of our post-pandemic world.In this episode, Daniel and Chris share about the film’s inception, working with lead actor and comedian Fred Armisen, and why the arts play a central role in addressing social concerns.Makers and Mystics Creative CollectiveListen to our previous episode wtih director Chris White on the film Electric Jesus.