A Big Sur Podcast
A Big Sur Podcast An ongoing conversation with people from near and far about Big Sur's past, present, and future. A Big Sur Podcast interprets “community” to mean ALL people from around the world who are curious about, and who care about, the preservation and restoration of the wild and rural character of Big Sur. Stories are told by visitors and residents, plumbers and linesmen, musicians and authors, dancers and jugglers and others. Sometimes we drift (way) off-topic into the arts, sciences, personal stories, gossip, politics, philosophy, ornithology, Henry Miller, and our zeitgeist in general. We like that! The opinions expressed here belong to the people who express them. They may or may not line up with yours, mine, or your neighbor’s — and that’s exactly the point. Different perspectives, lived experiences, and even wildly clashing views are what make conversations worth listening to: enriching, infuriating, life-affirming, and sometimes all three at once. If you are planning a visit to Big Sur and you listen to some of the folks on this Podcast talk about their love of the place your visit will probably be a lot more rewarding. Please email magnus@henrymiller.org with any comments, critique & suggestions. Music intro clip courtesy John Holm: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DZ06evO0Rh2QU Sound editing software by Hindenburg: https://hindenburg.com/ Please support the podcast by making a donation to the Henry Miller Library, a 501(c)3 nonprofit arts organization. Thank you!
Episodes
What does a member of Congress actually do when a wildfire breaks out in Big Sur?
Before getting to that question, this conversation goes somewhere more personal.
Congressman Jimmy Panetta talks about his family’s roots on the Central Coast, beginning with his grandfather Carmelo Panetta, who came to the United States from Calabria in 1921, eventually settling in Monterey and Carmel Valley. Jimmy grew up in the Carmel Valley ho...
John Mills and the app Big Sur turned to during Timber and Plaskett!
During the Timber and Plaskett Fires, many of us, I certainly did, kept Watch Duty close at hand—checking its map, reading incident updates and waiting for the next alert. It feels indispensable.
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NOTE: A technical problem affected Magnus’s side of this recording. We have improved it as far as possible. The so...
# 135 Living with Fire: Big Sur. THE PATTERN OF FIRE, Nikki Nedeff on What the Santa Lucias Remember
What happens to the land after the fire engines leave?
In this fifth conversation in our Living with Fire: Big Sur series, I talk with biogeographer, vegetation ecologist, teacher and conservation advocate Nikki Nedeff about the Timber and Plaskett Fires—not primarily as emergencies to be fought, but as ecological events whose consequences may unfold for decades.
Nikki grew up exploring the Carmel River and Los Padres National ...
What happens when local knowledge meets the machinery of government during the Timber and Plaskett Fires.
This is the fourth conversation in Living With Fire: Big Sur, an ongoing A Big Sur Podcast examination of the Timber and Plaskett Fires and of Big Sur’s larger relationship with wildfire.
The previous conversations have taken us to some different parts of the same emergency. Marcus Foster described experienced local residen...
This is the third conversation in Living With Fire: Big Sur, an ongoing A Big Sur Podcast series examining the Timber and Plaskett Fires from different points of view—and asking what they can tell us about living with wildfire in Big Sur.
Previous episodes:
# 131 Living With Fire: Big Sur - Marcus Foster on the Timber Fire, Local Knowledge, and What Comes Next
# 132 Living With Fire: Big Sur — Lucas Handy, ...
Living With Fire: Big Sur is an ongoing series of conversations about the Timber and Plaskett Fires—and, more broadly, about what it means to live with wildfire in Big Sur.
In this episode I talk with Lucas Handy of Treebones Resort, on the South Coast of Big Sur.
Longtime listeners may remember that Lucas's parents, John and Corinne Handy, have both been guests on A Big Sur Podcast, talking about Treebones—the remarkable...
What happens in the hours after a wildfire starts in Big Sur—before the full machinery of a major incident has arrived?
Over the coming weeks, A Big Sur Podcast will be talking with a number of people about the Timber and Plaskett Fires, and more broadly about Big Sur’s long and complicated relationship with wildfire.
This first conversation is with Marcus Foster of Keep Big Sur Wild, who was on the ground during the earl...
Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land
A dusty, life-size portrait no one looked at. A family name no one could spell. And a single line in a 1941 obituary — "a household name for Jews across the Russian Empire." At 24, Rachel Cockerell started pulling that thread, and it led her from a messy house in North London to the docks of Galveston, Texas.
I talk with Rachel in her home in London about Melting...
Magnus, a secular Swede in Big Sur, speaks with Father Cyprian Consiglio — musician, Camaldolese monk, former prior of New Camaldoli, and now Secretary General of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue in Rome — about vocation, music, solitude, Rome, Iran, God, and why real love may simply mean: “I’ll be here tomorrow.”
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Magnus speaks with Father Cyprian as a...
From Tehran to the Akasha: Rohini Moradi on grief, ancient wisdom, and the search for meaning
Raised in a Hindu temple in Tehran before emigrating to the United States, Rohini Moradi brings an unusually personal perspective to ideas that are often presented only as modern spirituality.
Meet Rohini Moradi at the Henry Miller Library on July 14 for a book reading. Reserve your spot here.
Share this episode!!!
Our conversation...
Travel writer, guidebook author, former Big Sur ranger, and old friend, Stuart Thornton, returns to Big Sur—at least in spirit—to reflect on a career spent encouraging people to visit the very places he sometimes wishes they would leave alone.
We talk about discovering California's coast, writing guidebooks, the challenge of over tourism, and whether AI will help travelers find deeper experiences or simply ...
In this episode Magnus has a conversation with Carol Olson, Executive Director of the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, about wilderness, responsibility, and the increasingly difficult art of protecting a place people love.
GOOD LINKS:
Big Sur Wilderness and Conservation Act
Ventana Wilderness Alliance
In this episode of A Big Sur Podcast, I speak with the writer and journalist Matti Friedman about his remarkable book Out of the Sky — a work that begins with four words from the Bible, “Out of the sky,” and unfolds into a meditation on fear, memory, survival, aviation, mythology, Jewish history, and the strange psychological atmosphere that has surrounded Israel since October 7, 2023.
We carry Matti Friedm...
A conversation with artist Katie Holten about life and art, climate and action, walking and inaction!
Katie's website
Announcement for her new book!
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This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!
Let us know what you think...
"At intervals the condor passed, huge as an ocean liner.”
Henry Miller in Big Sur and the Oranges
Besides marveling at the exceptional beauty and almost mysterious power of these amazing birds Joe Burnett and I discuss work in Big Sur and Monterey.
We talk about the rebuilding of the Ventana Wildlife Sanctuary after the 2020 Dolan Fire, how the sanctuary supports releasing, feeding, monitoring and recapturing condors ...
The Mysterious World of the Bull Kelp Forest
a New Heyday Book
The Mysterious World of the Bull Kelp Website
I sit down with artist, photographer, and author Josie Iselin, and what begins as a conversation about kelp opens into an exploration of the intricate world in the waters just off our coast.
Josie traces her own path into that world—from artist to something closer to a naturalist of the shoreline—gui...
Alison van Diggelen – Journalist, interviewer, and author of The Love Project: A Journey of Intimate Conversations.
Photo is of Alison and her Mom.
Alison's website.
Buy "The Love Project" at your local bookstore.
May we suggest the Henry Miller Library.
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Topics in This Episode
- The origins of The Love Project
- Love across generations
- The power of listen...
ShamergenceThe skeptic asks, “Is it real?”
The shaman asks, “Did it help?”
COME MEET ROB SOMERS ON SATURDAY, MARCH 21
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Carlos Castaneda
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Shaman, Skeptic, and the Voice in the Belly
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In this episode of A Big Sur Podcast, I sit down with Brita Ostrom — longtime Esalen resident and author of Steeped: A Big Sur Elixir of Sulfur and Sage.
Brita’s life bridges several revolutions at once: the islands of the Pacific Northwest, the Haight-Ashbury explosion of 1966–67, the psychedelic and political turbulence of the Summer of Love, and the early, formative years of the Esalen Institute.
We talk about Ha...
Andrew Munn in conversation!
Deep Listening, Between Cage and Wagner, from Silence to Parsifal. Listening for the unheard, where sound becomes ceremony.
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Links to more on what we spoke of:
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