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A clip from my recent conversation with Martin Shaw. Martin talks about the mysterious writer, poet, talker and seer - the Irish figure John Moriarty. To purchase the John Moriarty reader Martin Shaw edited, visit Lilliput Press: www.lilliputpress.ie/product/a-hut-at-the-edge-of-the-village-martin-shaw To see our entire conversation, check out: www.thecommontoad.com/single-post/conversations-ma...

Martin Shaw is, among many things, a writer, mythologist, teacher, and rite-of-passage guide. He's director of the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK, originated and led the Oral Tradition course at Stanford University. Perhaps most crucially, he lived for four years in a tent. It was a great pleasure to discuss with him storytelling, pagan and Christian tales, the Irish figure John Moriarty,...

A wonderful moment from my chat with poet Malcolm Guite. He talks about his life-long romance with the King Arthur legend, the futile hacking of the Glastonbury thorn, and the stories that can't be stamped out. Our full conversation: th-cam.com/video/PiEZt_e6V08/w-d-xo.html

In this episode I am joined again by the poet-priest-scholar Malcolm Guite for a wonderful wide discussion about imagination, Christianity, the relative success of Britain's blending of Christian and pagan stories in contrast with the 'missed opportunity' (so far) in the Americas, and finally, the intoxicating world of King Arthur. Contents 00:29 - Introduction 02:53 - Malcolm's new book “Lifti...

In this clip, I talk to writer Mark Vernon about two subjects he has written and spoken about extensively: Dante's Commedia and Owen Barfield's ideas on "final participation." Is there a connection between them?

Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist interested in topics of psychology, spirituality, and our inner lives. He has written an excellent guide to Dante's Commedia, lauded by other insightful contemporaries such as Susanna Clarke, Iain McGilchrist, and David Bentley Hart. I was pleased to have him on the program to discuss Dante, the "Last Inkling" Owen Barfield, and their relevance to bot...

In the last couple days, we have been given a preview of two sensational visions of the near-future, delivered in a way that only our goofy, self-parodying era could devise. www.thecommontoad.com/single-post/pondering-the-metaverse-and-adorable-robotic-dogs

Wonders are folded into every corner of the earth In a forest path this morning in the sun I saw the hand of the wind clean the trees of last night's rain and then disappear The shadowed meadows turned merry a moment and then cold again in gloom And the jays shot beautifully across the woods and yelled conceits to no good end And I sit under blue heaven with its big white ships drifting as one ...

In honor of the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Mosul from ISIS, I'm posting a clip of my discussion with the extraordinary Omar Mohammed, creator of Mosul Eye. Here he discusses the aliases or "characters" he assumed while gathering information in the ISIS-occupied streets of Mosul, the burden which drove him to wish for death, and his eventual loss of fear and "rebirth" as a stronger ...

In honor the the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Mosul from ISIS, I'm posting a clip of my discussion with the extraordinary Omar Mohammed, founder of the Mosul Eye website. We talk about the hope and sanity he helped keep alive in his fellow citizens during the darkest days of ISIS occupation. mosul-eye.org/ MosulEye

Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel is an award winning author, screenwriter, Medicine Woman and tribal historian for the Mohegan tribe of Uncasville in Connecticut. I had the privilege of speaking to Melissa a few weeks ago. We discussed the history of the Mohegan people, the extraordinary story of Melissa's great Aunt Gladys (the preceding Medicine Woman in the tribe and a woman who drew breath in th...

I ask Uighur interpreter and activist if The US and Europe are directly benefitting from the cultural genocide of her people, and what we can do about it. Full conversation: th-cam.com/video/s7RfBqmCOX8/w-d-xo.html MahmutRahima

Pastor Paul VanderKlay and I discuss the deficiencies and merits of the Intellectual Dark Web, I read an amusingly familiar description of the 17th century Separatists, and we consider historian Tom Holland's refreshing and admirably nuanced perspective on woke culture... Paul's channel: th-cam.com/users/paulvanderklay Tom Holland's Dominion: bookshop.org/books/dominion-how-the-christian-revolu...

I asked pastor Paul VanderKlay how he keeps his faith and optimism in the midst of the suffering he has seen. He gave a very straightforward and moving answer.

Paul VanderKlay - Good Faith

Scott Graves - Went to the Crossroads: What Really Matters in our Towns and Cities

TCT Clip: A typical night with Christopher Hitchens

TCT Clip: Why do people join ISIS?

An Open Letter to A Possible Trump Voter

Eleanor Parker - English Through the Ages

TCT Clip: Malcolm Guite on Tolkien's insight

TCT Clip: Why did Omar Mohammed decide to resist ISIS and create Mosul Eye?

Omar Mohammed (Mosul Eye) - Forgetting is a Crime

TCT Clip: Malcolm Guite on the 'meaning crisis,' past and present

TCT Clip: Poet Malcolm Guite on the poetic world of childhood

Malcolm Guite - Soul in Paraphrase, Heart in Pilgrimage

Shelf-Isolation Podcast: 1 - Field

Hussein Ibish - Part II: Avoiding Hagiography & 'More Honor'd in the Breach'

Hussein Ibish - Part I: Knowing Hitchens and Enduring Trump