Constant Wonder

In a Scottish whiteout, Cal Flyn lost all sense of up and down, then fell through the snow into a rushing river. It was one of the most frightening moments of her life, but it hasn’t stopped her from seeking out wild places.

For her book The Savage Landscape, Cal tracked bears in Transylvania, hiked closer than she should have to an erupting volcano in Iceland, and climbed Mount Sinai alongside pilgrims from across the world. Listen in as she shares with Marcus Smith some of the things she’s learned about the places we call wilderness.

Guest: Cal Flyn, author of The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness and Islands of Abandonment

Chapters
(0:00) Lost in a Whiteout
(8:42) The Highlands and the Pull of the Wild
(14:09) The Bears of Transylvania
(28:40) Too Close to a Volcano
(36:36) What Counts as Wilderness?
(41:39) Mount Sinai and a Shooting Star
(47:26) The Deep Sea and the Ineffable

This week we’re doing something a little different. Instead of a new Constant Wonder episode, we’re sharing an episode from our BYUradio neighbors at “Voiceover: Movies That Move Us.”

On "Constant Wonder," our host, Marcus Smith, chases awe in the natural world, in science, and in history and art. Movies can give us that feeling too, sometimes in ways that feel almost sacred and sometimes in ways that feel terrifying. In this episode, host Heather Bigley, a film scholar and former teacher, explores how film creates awe. She moves from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Baraka” to “Nosferatu” and “Omaha,” then into space with “Interstellar,” “Contact,” “Sunshine,” and “Project Hail Mary.” Along the way she asks what these films reveal about faith, mystery, mortality, and feeling small in a very large universe.

Spoilers for the films discussed.

Guest: Heather Bigley

Find more of “Voiceover: Movies That Move Us” wherever you get your podcasts. "Constant Wonder" will be back in your feed next week.

https://www.byuradio.org/voiceover-movies-that-move-us
https://open.spotify.com/show/4QKTM1hB6u8Sz80zlNzPRY?si=73943b4d1f3c442b
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voiceover-movies-that-move-us/id1814468656?i=1000798119864

A chance encounter with milkweed changes Allison Fragakis' life and soothes her grief over her mother's death. In this episode of Constant Wonder, Tennery Taylor explores how a variety of mystical experiences keep Allison's deceased mother close.

Throughout history, butterflies have been seen as a symbol of change and rebirth, and Allison unexpectedly finds herself undergoing her own transformation: what initially seems like a failed attempt to cultivate milkweed turns into a source of connection and creativity.

Guest: Allison Fragakis, songwriter, author, artist, and poet writingallison.com

Special thanks to guitarist Cassidy Fragakis.

Hosts Marcus Smith and Tennery Taylor explore some of our favorite lost-and-found stories from previous episodes of Constant Wonder.

Join Mensun Bound as he searches the Antarctic seabed for a ship frozen in time, experiencing the wonder—and perils—that Shackleton and his crew faced as they fought to stay alive in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. Follow Mas Masumoto as he reconnects with Shizuko, a long-lost aunt with an intellectual disability. Mas learns of the heartache of separation endured when his family was sent to Japanese internment camps. He also celebrates the joys and sacrifices of the caretakers who grew to love and adjust to the mischievous and lighthearted Shizuko. Finally, search with Pico Iyer who, after a fire takes his childhood home and nearly his life, looks for peace in simplicity and silence. He finds it in an old, humble monastery in Central California, where peace is a natural consequence of years of worship.

Guests:
Mensun Bound, marine archeologist and author of “The Ship Beneath the Ice”
David “Mas” Masumoto, farmer and author of “Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm”
Pico Iyer, journalist and author of “Aflame: Learning from Silence”

Chapters:
(0:00) The Search for Shackleton’s Ship
(13:42) The Breath of Shackleton on Your Neck: The Ship is Found
(24:16) An Unexpected Call: Learning the Lost History of an Estranged Aunt
(36:44) Throwing Coffee and a Joyful Reunion
(47:06)  ”My House Burnt Down. I Can Now See Better the Rising Moon."
(51:36) The Strength of Silence: Time Spent in a Secluded Monastery

After the death of a close friend, Erica Buist found herself consumed by anxiety about dying. In this episode of Constant Wonder, she tells host Marcus Smith how she set out to face that fear by visiting death festivals around the world, and found more celebration than mourning.

From the Day of the Dead in Mexico to a rollicking festival in Madagascar where she gets hit in the head with a corpse, Erica explores the bonds between the living and the dead. She visits a cow festival in Nepal and the mummies of Sicily, and asks why Western cultures are so somber about death, and what we can learn from the carnival atmosphere of these celebrations.

Guest: Erica Buist, journalist and author of This Party's Dead: Grief, Joy and Spilled Rum at the World's Death Festivals

Originally aired August 31, 2022

Chapters:
 (0:00) Erica Buist and death anxiety
 (8:07) Confronting death close to home
 (16:31) Day of the Dead in Mexico
 (23:14) Gai Jatra, Nepal's cow festival
 (29:33) The mummies of Sicily
 (34:08) Love after death