Explore every episode of the podcast Curious Planet

We find inspiration and peace on a walk where the wild things are.

We remember how fireflies have sparked joy, enchantment, and wonder in our lives, and contemplate a world where their light is forever extinguished.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Sara Lewis, Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies, Princeton University Press, 2016.

We consider our beginnings, and take up a second gratitude challenge, this time with the help of a backyard Barred Owl.

Whether you learned the alphabet to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, or memorized the contents of the periodic table with the help of Tom Lehrer and The Elements, you’ll recognize the connection between music and memory. We tune into the power of music, and hear how it is helping young Iowans learn key concepts of water science.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Water Rocks!: The Musical. Iowa State University, 2022. https://www.waterrocks.org/musical
• Daniel Levitin, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024.
• David McCall, Schoolhouse Rock!, ABC television series, 1973-2009.
• Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey, Warner Books, 1999.

Meskwaki elders inspire us to recall the stories of our past that connect us to the land we live on and the land of our ancestors.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Seed-saving. Here’s another Italian family whose seeds saved for five generations became an important part of an international seed vault: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/03/03/meet-south-side-family-who-saved-its-beloved-pepper-seed-5-generations/98599460/

We learn the buzz on wise group decision-making by observing the habits of those whose lives depend on it—honeybees.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Thomas Seeley, Honeybee Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2010.
• Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton: An American Musical, 2015.
• Water Rocks! Teacher Summit, https://www.waterrocks.org/summit

The stories we tell preserve our collective human memory—but we’re also part of a profound connection steadfastly held by the natural world. Host Jacqueline Comito ponders this wondrous web, as well as her relationship with some of its tinier residents, as we open Season 2 of the podcast.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Alice Walker, The Color Purple, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.
• Elie Wiesel, “Hope, despair and memory,” 1986 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, December 11, 1986. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/lecture/
• Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (L. A. Coser, Ed.), University of Chicago Press, 1992.
• Richard Powers, The Overstory, W.W. Norton and Company, 2018.

We seek conversation and find connection on a rainy slope of Ireland’s Croagh Patrick.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Wallace “J.” Nichols, Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected and Better at What You Do, Little, Brown, 2014.

We flunk a gratitude challenge, and decide to try again in collaboration with a backyard barred owl.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Robert A. Emmons, Gratitude Works! A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity, Jossey-Bass, 2013.
• Angeles Arrien, Living in Gratitude: A Journey That Will Change Your Life, Sounds True, 2011.
• Louise Hay, Gratitude: A Way of Life, Hay House Inc., 1996.
• Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, “Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, Vol. 84, No. 2, pp. 377-389.
• Monica Bartlett and David DeSteno, “Gratitude and Prosocial Behavior: Helping When It Costs You,” Psychological Science, 2006, Vol. 17., Issue. 4, pp. 319–325.
• Christina Armenta and Sonja Lyubomirsky, “How Gratitude Motivates Us to Become Better People,” Greater Good, May 23,2017, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how gratitude motivates us to become better people

We find wild curiosity on a series of walks with dog Charlie through a local urban trail.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Meister Eckhart, The Essential Sermons, Paulist Press, 1981.

The Virgin Mary Tree of Polk City, Iowa, inspires us to imagine and improvise as we engage with the world around us.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• The Virgin Mary Tree of Polk City on the Roadside America website, https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/45877
• Lawrence Buell, The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture, Belknap Press, 1995.
• Stephen T. Asma, The Evolution of Imagination, University of Chicago Press, 2017.
• Luca Tateo, A Theory of Imagining, Knowing, and Understanding, Springer, 2020.
• Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Macmillan and Co., 1872.
•  “What Life Means to Albert Einstein,” George Sylvester Viereck, Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/what_life_means_to_einstein.pdf

We begin on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, then travel to places of lived experience and spaces of sensed experience.

Mentioned in today’s episode:        

• Joyful Hearts, Seasons of Prayer
• J. E. Malpas, Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography, Cambridge University Press, 1999, page 176.
• Ilia Delio, Compassion: Living in the Spirit of St. Francis, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2011.
• Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods, Algonquin Books, 2008.
• Wallace “J.” Nichols, Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected and Better at What You Do, Little, Brown, 2014.
• Angela Hanscom, Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children, New Harbinger Publications, 2016.

How can we have hope in a world that sometimes feels like a hot mess? Watching the seasons change in the backyard with a new puppy, we consider the real question: “How can we not?”

Mentioned in today’s episode:        

• Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Social Good Summit 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiZduBO2bQM
•  Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, Thorndike Press, 2021. 
• George Steiner, “Remembering the Future,” Remembrance Sunday 1989 address, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. First published in Cambridge Review. Reprinted in Theology, November 1990, Volume 93, Issue 756, pp. 437-444.
• Iowa Learning Farms, https://www.iowalearningfarms.org/
• Iowa Learning Farms Virtual Field Day, A Vision for Iowa: Growing Food for People through Diversified Agriculture Systems, https://www.iowalearningfarms.org/resources/field-day-diverse-ag-systems
• New Voices in Water Quality in Iowa, https://newvoicesinwater.org/
• Water Rocks!, https://www.waterrocks.org/
• Water Rocks! Earth Day Poetry Slam, https://www.waterrocks.org/poetry
• Dallas Whitefield, Water tank, 2022
• Summer Awad, Confluence, 2022
• DK, Swimming pools, 2022

Host Jacqueline Comito opens our conversation about engaging wonderment to heal and protect the environment— with a little help from some apes.

Mentioned in today’s episode:

• Jane Goodall, October 1960, from Jane (documentary film), National Geographic, 2017. https://films.nationalgeographic.com/jane-the-movie
• Pierre Boulle, La Planète des Singes, published in the United States as Planet of the Apes, 1963.
• Planet of the Apes (film), Twentieth Century Fox, 1968.
• “Go Ape!” television spot, 1974. http://space1970.blogspot.com/2012/07/planet-of-apes-go-ape-marathon.html
• Gus Speth, It’s Already Tomorrow: Poems by Gus Speth, Shires Press, 2020.
• Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing, 1999.

Curious Planet is a podcast exploring wonderment to heal and protect the earth. Subscribe to Curious Planet on your favorite streaming platform. Season One drops on March 19, 2024!