It’s been nearly two months since Anne and I launched Wonder Cabinet, and I figured this would be a good time to give you an update about the podcast – and tell you what’s ahead. To put it simply, we’re busy! Our production schedule is comparable to our years working on our old radio show To The Best Of Our Knowledge….which feels a bit odd since we officially retired from Wisconsin Public Radio in December. But as an old college friend recently remarked, “You two are the most un-retired people I know.” 

Luckily, we have help. Two of our old WPR colleagues work part-time on Wonder Cabinet – audio engineer Steve Gotcher (who also recently “retired”) and digital producer Mark Riechers, who finds time for us during evenings or weekends while holding down his day job. I honestly don’t know how we’d do this without them. Putting out a weekly show is a lot of work – but that’s not a complaint. Creating a podcast about the intersection of wonder, science and the sacred is incredibly stimulating. There’s so much new thinking going on in so many fields, and there are so many guests we’re excited to have you hear. It feels like there’s a real cultural shift underway, with profound implications for our ecological and spiritual future. 

In fact, we’re in Italy right now, at one of the places where some of that new thinking is happening – at a small think tank called The Island of Knowledge, about half an hour away from Siena. Founded by Dartmouth theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser and his wife, clinical psychologist Kari Gleiser, IOK convenes small gatherings three times a year to talk about ideas that resonate deeply with the subjects we’re covering on Wonder Cabinet. There are around a dozen people here – scientists, philosophers, religion scholars – meeting in a 16th-century chapel. That’s where we’re recording interviews on this session’s theme: “rational mysticism.” 

If you were a TTBOOK listener, you may have heard our shows from previous IOK gatherings, including this one on the different kinds of intelligences (animal, plant, AI, planetary) and this one on the question, what is life? We’re happy to report that a Dartmouth grant has given Wonder Cabinet the opportunity to attend more of these gatherings in Tuscany. Stay tuned for more details about our interviews in the coming months. 

Wonder Cabinet will be back on March 28th with a conversation perfectly timed for spring: Anne’s interview with biologist and writer David Haskell, about his brand-new book “How Flowers Made Our World.” It’s a sweeping story of biological revolution and sensory transformation. Anne tells me I’ll never look at a flower the same way again!

— Steve