Spiritual Wanderlust – Details, episodes & analysis

You might describe Nick Mayhew Smith’s spirituality first and foremost as immersive.

Driven by a desire to touch, see, and experience, Nick has travelled the length and breadth of the UK, seeking out Britain’s holiest places. In each place, he did as the monks and hermits did – whether that’s sleeping in a remote cave, feeding the animals, wading naked into an icy sea to pray, or rowing out to isolated islands.

What is it about nature based practices that draws us? Why were they so central to the Celts?

And why has mainstream Christianity conveniently forgotten about them today?

Join us for a rich/fascinating conversation where you’ll discover:

 🔹 The spiritual significance of skinny dipping

 🔸 The Celtic ritual for putting right your relationship with creation

 🔹 How the landscape influenced Celtic culture and practice

 🔸 What drove the Celt Christians to embrace sacred trees instead of cut them down (like they did in continental Europe)

 🔹 The saint who influenced (and instructed) early monks to pray in the nude–and why

 🔸 How to recover a sense of the numinous in your own life

Nick Mayhew-Smith is a theologian and travel writer whose work is dedicated to recovering ancient Celtic wisdom. His books include The Naked Hermit, a book on Celtic spirituality, Landscape Liturgies, Britain’s Pilgrim Places (a walking pilgrimage guide published by the British Pilgrimage Trust), and Britain’s Holiest Places, which has been turned into a BBC series.

He is an honorary research fellow at Roehampton University, where he works with the Susanna Wesley Foundation on a range of environment and theology projects, and lives in London with his wife Anna.

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✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨

Contemplation.

Embodiment.

Mysticism.

Mischief.

Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.

Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.

🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃

Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

What do dancing and playing have to do with theology?

Join us for a rich, embodied conversation with our very special guest today, Cynthia Winton-Henry. Cynthia is the co-founder of Interplay, a worldwide “movement” movement - a community of practice that uses dance and play and spontaneity to unlock the wisdom of the body.

Tune in to learn:

  🔹 Why *ease* is essential for both the body and the spirit

  🔸 The exact techniques she uses to detach from heavy group/cultural dynamics (so important for all us HSP/empaths out there!)

  🔹 Why sensitive folks (HSPs/empaths) need “credentialing”–and why it has nothing to do with degrees or letters after your name

  🔸  The forgotten practice of the ancestors that helps you regulate your nervous system.

  🔹 The key to unlocking our tendency to control

  🔸 Why you need a spirit team–and where to find them

  🔹 Why play is the secret sauce for everything

–Plus 2 embodied exercises you can do with us live!

Cynthia Winton-Henry is a dancer, celebrated teacher, artist, and life-long mentor in somatic spirituality. Her books include Chasing the Dance of Life, Dance: The Sacred Art: Discovering the Joy of Movement, Move: What the Body Wants, and the soon to be published The Art of Ensoulment, which accompanied her popular year-long course by the same name.

Cynthia curates a community (complete with creative arts/spirituality courses!) at the Hidden Monastery (found at https://cynthiawinton-henry.com), and writes on Substack (https://substack.com/@cynthiawintonhenry).

Her book, The Art of Ensoulment, a creative workbook/art journal/*experience* is out August 1, 2023.

Poetry and the Contemplative life share a lot in common. Both require an attentiveness to life, a depth of presence, a sort of immersion in reality.

Kathy Henderson Staudt is a poet, spiritual director, teacher, and retreat leader who specializes in this overlap.

In today’s episode, we’ll talk about:

🔸 How to see the world like a poet (and contemplative!)

🔹 What single experience taught this academic how to live in her body

🔸 The female version of Richard Rohr that lived 100 years ago

🔹 And immerse yourself in some sensual, embodied poetry!

Learn more about Kathy, her books, and her retreats at www.kathleenstaudtpoet.com.

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WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.

Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.

Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

In this episode, we turn the tables! Our guest host Karl Thienes puts Kelly in the hot seat to ask her all sorts of burning questions about the interior life.

Join us to discover:

🔸 What Kelly considers the best kept secret of Christianity

🔹 The role of suffering in the spiritual life

🔸 How we can use inner work to respond to fear (or anger, or judgment, or…)

🔹 What Kelly recommends as the best starting place for contemplative practice

🔸 Why the mystics say community life is critical - even the hermits!

🔹 What our deepest longings can reveal

🔸 The two defining qualities of the mystical life

Join us for our first ever interview of Kelly!

_______________________

WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.

Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.

Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

I’m excited to introduce to you a little-known poet, whose work deserves wide attention. (I’ve been sharing her writing with all of my friends!) She reminds me of a modern day Rumi or Hafiz. –And if you haven’t read Rumi or Hafiz, start there, and then pick up the work of our guest, Chelan Harkin!

In her writing and in her life, Chelan has two goals: to bring acceptance, belonging, and worth to all of those uncomfortable emotions we’ve been taught to hate; and to make room for our hearts in a heady world, and allowing our heartful wisdom, truth and inspiration to flow.

She has a pretty wild publishing story, filled with what she calls “prayer experiments gone right.” Her first two books are called Susceptible to Light and Let Us Dance! The Stumble and Whirl with The Beloved. Her third book, Wild Grace, is on the way. 

Today we’re going to discuss her poetry (and let her read some–it’s wild magic!!), how to accept our occasional asshole-ness, what it was like growing up Baha’i in a small town, and what all of that has to do with mysticism.

Learn more about Chelan at www.chelanharkin.com.

_______________________

WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.

Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.

Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

What do the mystics mean by “divine union”? Why is suffering such a big deal for them - and what role does it play in our contemplative path?

Today I have joining me a fellow spiritual Wanderluster, Fr. Ronald Rolheiser. Fr. Ron is a professor, retreat leader, award-winning author, and serves as president of the Oblate School of Theology. One reason why his writings are so popular is that he is able to speak in very human language, which I deeply appreciate. His books include The Holy Longing, The Restless Heart, Sacred Fire, and Wrestling with God.

Join us for a conversation about mysticism, longing, divine union, the role of asceticism, and what a true contemplative looks like. 

To learn more about Ron, visit  www.ronrolheiser.com

Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

In this episode, host Kelly Deutsch shares frankly about her difficulty accepting her chronic illness, while returning guest Karl Thienes shares his momentary identity crisis.

Join us to explore questions like:

🔸 What does an identity crisis have to do with detachment? 

🔹 What does it mean to accept even the most difficult experiences - like accepting our own resentment?

🔸 How do you slow down your reactions so you can tell what’s triggering you?

🔹 How does your shadow reveal your addictions?

🔸 Why we need to take care of our bodies like house plants

🔹 What kinds of behavior should we never accept?

And above all: Why does the divine show up in the least expected places?

Quotes from Ruth Burrows, shared in this episode:

“God is always working to bring us to an awareness and acceptance of our poverty, which is the essential condition of our being able to receive him.

And the petty frustrations, the restrictions, humiliations, the occasions when we are made to feel poignantly and distressingly hedged around, not in control of the world, not even in control of that tiny corner of it we are supposed to call our own, are his chosen channel into the soul.”

“It is born in on me more as the years go by, how profound is this theme of human helplessness and our loving acceptance of it. It is truly mystical.”

_______________________

WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.

Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.

Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

Today I have joined a unique guest who has spent much of his life as a hermit, and is now in charge of the cause for canonization of a Russian mystic. That means he’s the advocate and facilitator for this woman to become a saint in the Catholic church.

Fr. Bob Wild was a personal friend and collaborator of Catherine de Hueck Doherty, a little known Russian contemplative. Catherine was a mentor to Thomas Merton and is known for her anti-racism work, introducing North America to Russian spirituality, and for starting a lay monastic community called Madonna House, of which Fr. Bob is a long time member.

Fr. Bob has spent his life serving in a variety of ways: leading retreats, living in solitude, editing Catherine’s books, and now is the postulator of the cause for Catherine’s canonization as a saint in the Catholic church.

_______________________

WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.

Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.

Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

I bet you haven’t heard of Catherine de Hueck Doherty. But she was one of Thomas Merton’s mentors! She’s this Russian spitfire with a life that reads like a movie.

Here are 4 reasons why you need to know Catherine!

Want to learn more? Join us for a masterclass given by Catherine’s personal friend! Visit www.womenmystics.org to register.

Some of her most popular books include:

📖 Poustinia: Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer , by Catherine Doherty

https://amzn.to/3ISJ4GK

📖 Catherine de Hueck Doherty: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters), edited by David Meconi

https://amzn.to/3ohyAHs

📖 Sobhornost: Eastern Unity of Mind and Heart for Western Man , by Catherine Doherty

https://amzn.to/3B6HMpB

📖 Compassionate Fire: The Letters of Thomas Merton & Catherine de Hueck Doherty, edited by Robert Wild

https://amzn.to/3znRt1Z

_______________________

WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.

Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.

Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

If I have a spacious and spritely spirituality, Dr. Regis Martin is partially to thank. He was my first ever theology professor, and he opened my eyes to this magical universe so alight with wonder. I found my 20-year-old notes from his class, and read the first line I wrote: “The first premise of Christianity is an OPENNESS to Reality.”

Today Regis and I will do some of our own wondering and wandering through these sparkling spaces. I’ll ask him about this worldview which Richard Rohr has called Alternative Orthodoxy, or even panentheism–something we called the “sacramental imagination.” What does it look like to believe in the Universal Christ, the Logos that inhabits all things? How did this sacramental imagination inspire writers like JRR Tolkein, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and CS Lewis? What changes when we know our own fundamental goodness? That we are all “walking around, shining like the sun”?

I’m bringing with me some of the notes I wrote down from Theology 101, which in itself is a delicious primer:

🔸“The only condition for being faithfully religious… is to live always the real intensely.” - Luigi Giussani

🔹“Everything beautiful belongs to us.” - Justin Martyr, 2nd century

🔸“Catholicism is the profound, continuing affirmation of the goodness of God and the world he made.” - Regis Martin

🔹“God was in love but could not keep the secret. The telling of it became creation.” - Archbishop Fulton Sheen

🔸“For Christ plays in ten thousand places / lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His. / To the Father through the features of men’s faces.” - Gerard Manley Hopkins

🔹“Crisis has the advantage of clearing the air: you can no longer pretend. It forces you to make a choice. Am I going to become a mystic or simply go mad? Will I aspire to become a saint or slug?” - Regis Martin

Regis Martin is a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. His books include Garlands of Grace: An Anthology of Great Christian Poetry; The Suffering of Love: Christ’s Descent into the Hell of Human Hopelessness, and many more.

_______________________

WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.

Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.