Sitting before an Empty Screen

Coming to the end of the last season of The Mystic Cave, I knew something was off. I'd begun repeating myself, it seemed, inviting guests to have conversations with me about topics we'd explored before. Sure, we might have gone deeper. But we weren't breaking any new ground on the "spiritual terrain on the far side of conventional religion."

Then, there were the episodes where I'd accepted the pitches of publishers who were eager to give their authors some free publicity. I had slots to fill, after all, in a twenty-episode season and these guests were willingly standing by to help me. Some of those conversations proved engaging, some were revelatory, even. But they were inspired less by curiosity than by the guest's need to sell books. I could feel the difference and guessed that my audience could, too.

Did this signal the end of the podcast? After five seasons, had it run its course? Was I losing interest myself or, at the very least, losing my focus? Was it time to lay down the headphones, or was it time to pick up a new direction? And what direction would that be?

Over the summer, one possibility kept rising to the surface. I got more excited every time I thought about it. As I have grown less enamoured of the podcast's original question, exploring the edges of conventional faith, my curiosity has been piqued by a new question, a deeper question, one that was implicit in everything else we've done, lurking just beneath the theological or spiritual jargon, a question anyone would ask, with or without a religious background: What does it mean to be human?

What would be it be like, I wondered, to talk to people who've learned a thing or two about their own humanity in the course of their soulful journeys, people who've had to fight to become, as the poet e.e. cummings put it, "nobody-but-yourself" in a world that works tirelessly, night and day, to make us "everybody else". I would be inspired to meet such people, partly because I know the hard work it takes to show up in the world as who I am, offering my unique gifts as my life's true calling. I thought my listeners would be inspired by this too. Aren't we all straining toward this personal sense of vocation?

So, who would that be, the inspiring people who could share with us their stories? I thought instantly of Jane Siberry, that utterly inimitable songwriter who gave us "Mimi at the Beach" and "One More Colour" and "Bound by the Beauty" and dozens more heart-rending songs about falling in love with life. I thought of Adrienne Arsenault, the senior news correspondent and anchor of CBC's The National. She's reported on some terrible humanitarian crises while rising in the ranks of the Corporation's on-air journalists, yet seems to have found and retained her warm humanity in spite of the searing images that must haunt her sleep.

Yes, perfect, I thought! And the list began to grow from there--politicians, artists, writers, visionaries, anyone with a story to tell about being human. Driven by this vision, I was eager for the new season to begin, eager to elicit the stories and insights of my articulate, high-profile guests ... until I began making my approaches. High-profile people are notoriously impenetrable, protections drawn up around them to filter out the crazies and safeguard their privacy. Fair enough. But then, how to break through their defences with my invitation to join me as a guest on The Mystic Cave?

Jane Siberry answered my email personally ... eight months after I'd sent it. And she consented to having a conversation with me for the podcast. But when the day arrived, she opted to record her part in her car because of some drilling happening outside her window. But the regular city street noises were so loud and intrusive I could barely hear her. And, oddly, she deflected my attempts to invite her stories and reflections, going for quirky, cryptic answers instead. The battery of her laptop was fading just as we finally settled into a conversation that might have gone somewhere ... and then it died altogether. As for Adrienne, I never heard a word back from her, nor from any of the others. I hadn't even made it past their firewalls.

Why am I sharing all this with you? Because it's suddenly September ... and I have no shows, lined up or recorded, for the fall season of The Mystic Cave. None. So, maybe it's time to stop trying so hard. Maybe it's time to give it a rest and let the show come to me afresh rather than forcing it into being. Maybe it's time for all of us to meet at the muster station, revisit the vision, and recalibrate the route. What does the podcast want to be? Where does it want to go? And what is it asking of us, if anything?

The podcast is yours, too. So, I'll be interested in anything you may want to share, either by following the Reply button on this page or by writing to me personally at mysticcaveman53@gmail.com. The Mystic Cave is needing our attention, a cursor is blinking, waiting, on an empty screen.

Brian

PS. In the meantime, my new book, Talking to Trees: A Journey into Soul, is now available in both hard cover and paperback, as an e-book, and as an audiobook. Please visit its very own page right here on my website for more information, including how and where you can buy it: https://www.brianepearson.ca/talking-to-trees.