Audio by Adam

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:05 — 5.6MB)

Every year, upwards of 700 Mormons take over the hill in upstate New York where they believe their founder, Joseph Smith, discovered the golden tablets making up the Book of Mormon.  They reenact the history of the world and the history of their people on into the Future in ‘them thar hills,’ and believe me, it is both strange and impressive, even for “Gentiles” like me.  Here is my sound-soaked report about it from a few years back.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:51 — 25.5MB)

The witch has come in for some pretty hard knocks in previous centuries, but lately there has been a resurgence of interest in what she has to offer both as a way of seeing, and a way of being that is female, strong, earthy, connected and wise. This is a half hour documentary that explores witchcraft in all its wholesomeness and mystery.  Appearances by Z. Budapest, Starhawk, Gina Banghart, Matthew Fox, Joseph Campbell and many others.  Come on in!  The magick’s fine!

(Also of interest: my NPR long form documentary “The Goddess in the USA” )

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:10 — 9.3MB)

Even given its colonial past and present day kitsch, Hawaii remains both an earthly paradise and a place of natural numinous power.  This is evident in its variety of spiritual musical idioms. Here is a taste of some of them,culled from a Smithsonian Festival a few years back.  Aloha!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:48 — 25.5MB)

Due to religion, socialism, the Zionist ideal, the militarization of the society, Western feminism, Arab culture and many other factors, Israeli women have complex competing factors that inform their self-image and their social roles.  This is a half hour documentary I did for National Public Radio back in the 1990s that is still relevant today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:46 — 13.2MB)

Between Zionism, Socialsim,  Feminism, Judaism, the Holocaust, and all the American, Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian cultural influences that compete for primacy as models for women in Israel, their status and self-image is deeply multi-layered and complex. This half hour documentary, which I completed for National Public Radio back in the early 1990s, offers a sound-rich and varied sampling through the eyes of real women living, working and raising families in that amazing place.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:51 — 24.6MB)

On one level, this is a long form documentary about eminent (and eminently sparkling and intelligent) Wendy Doniger, the professor of Sanskrit and Hindu Mythology at the University of Chicago. On a deeper level, it is about Hindu myth, and Hindu gods, and the ways that the human and divine Narrator becomes part of the story He/She is telling. How those two themes interweave

is the subject of the piece, which is one of my favorites from throughout my career.  Listen with the lights off!