Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

An encore presentation in honor of Coleman Barks, who passed away on February 23, 2026. Tami Simon speaks with Coleman, a leading scholar and translator of the 13th-century Persian mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. Coleman’s work was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers’ Language of Life series with PBS. He has published numerous Rumi translations, including with Sounds True the audio programs I Want Burning, Rumi: The Voice of Longing, and his new three-CD collaboration with cellist David Darling called Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship. In this episode, Tami speaks with Coleman about the extraordinary friendship between Rumi and his teacher, Shams Tabriz, and how translating Rumi requires entering a trance state. Coleman offers insights on grace as he and Tami listen to selections from Just Being Here.
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“Let people love you.” Death doula Darnell Lamont Walker finds himself saying this phrase again and again at bedsides —to those afraid of being “seen” in their final days, to those who’ve built walls around receiving care. In this moving conversation with Tami Simon, the Emmy-nominated writer shares what decades of accompanying the dying have taught him about love, grief, and letting ourselves be held.
This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.
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What if every moment of self-compassion is actually a moment of waking up? In this very special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami sits down with pioneering self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff and meditation teacher Caverly Morgan—two friends and compelling authors whose collaboration reveals how treating ourselves with kindness can become a lifeboat for our deepest nature.
This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.
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Tami Simon speaks with poet-philosopher Mark Nepo about his latest book that explores aging as a transformative passage. They delve into the flexible heart, entering time rather than moving through it, breaking through to joy amid loss, and the idea that—like meteors burning brighter as they fall—maybe we too can become more luminous as our outer casing falls away.
This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.
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Tami Simon speaks with renowned literary channeler Paul Selig about his extraordinary journey from skeptical atheist to one of the foremost contributors to channeled literature. They explore the “upper room”—a state of consciousness beyond fear and separation—and how we can access divine union while still in human form, even amidst the challenges of our time.
This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.