Banyen Books ~ Branches of Wisdom

In this episode, renowned scholar Elaine Pagels explores the hidden histories behind the figure of Jesus, drawing from her groundbreaking new book Miracles and Wonder. Blending rigorous historical scholarship with vivid storytelling, Pagels examines how stories of Jesus’s miracles, resurrection, and divine birth emerged, evolved, and came to shape a world-changing movement. A longtime professor of religion at Princeton University and recipient of the National Humanities Medal, Pagels reflects on why these narratives proved so enduring and what they continue to reveal about the spiritual questions at the heart of Christianity today.

In this episode of Branches of Wisdom, guest host Tami Simon—founder and CEO of Sounds True—joins master shamanic healing practitioner Julie M. Kramer to explore the spiritual call to healing, which often arrives through dreams, illness, synchronicities, and life transitions. Julie, founding instructor of The Art and Practice of Shamanic Healingprofessional training, shares how to recognize this call and develop the skills needed to serve others, drawing on her decades of teaching and practice. Together they discuss core spiritual healing techniques Julie teaches—including soul retrieval, psychopomp work, compassionate depossession, and curse unraveling—and how spiritual healing can be thoughtfully integrated into a multidisciplinary approach to well-being.

Beloved poet and philosopher Mark Nepo joins Joel Fotinos to discuss The Fifth Season, an inspiring reflection on the gifts and challenges of aging. Now in his seventies, Nepo explores how growing older can be a time of integration, creativity, and deeper clarity—a “fifth season” when life’s true colours begin to shine. A New York Times #1 bestselling author of more than 20 books, including The Book of Awakening and Surviving Storms, and a cancer survivor interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and Robin Roberts, Nepo offers this new work as a companion for making meaning, finding grace, and sharing the journey of living and dying.

Stephen Jenkinson—author of the award-winning Die Wise and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School—presents his provocative new book, Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart’s Work. In a time of hollow ceremonies and self-congratulatory rites, Jenkinson calls for a return to the true purpose of matrimony and ritual as communal acts of meaning. Through vivid storytelling, cultural reflection, and lived experience, he explores matrimony as a village rite—a shared acknowledgment of transformation and belonging to something older and truer than the self. A renowned teacher of grief, culture, and elderhood, Jenkinson brings decades of work in theology, social work, and cultural regeneration to this stirring exploration of the heart’s work.

Award-winning author and longtime As It Happens co-host Carol Off discusses her #1 national bestseller At a Loss for Words: Conversations in an Age of Rage, an urgent exploration of how words like democracy, freedom, and truth have been distorted and weaponized, eroding our shared political language. Drawing on decades of acclaimed reporting and over 25,000 interviews, Off shows how this loss of meaning silences dialogue, fuels division, and leaves us vulnerable to authoritarianism and greed. A celebrated journalist who has reported from war zones and political upheavals worldwide, Off is also the bestselling author of The Lion, the Fox, and the Eagle, Bitter Chocolate, The Ghosts of Medak Pocket, and All We Leave Behind—and the recipient of numerous honours including a Gemini Award, two New York Festival gold medals, ACTRA’s John Drainie Award, and the RTNDA Lifetime Achievement Award.