Episodes

Ballet may look effortless and beautiful to audiences, but the experience for dancers can be quite different. In this final episode of the season, host Lilit Sadoyan speaks with New York Times dance critic Gia Kourlas about Edgar Degas’s pastel Waiting. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two discuss dancers’ experiences behind the scenes, how Kourlas approaches writing, and what makes a great experience at the theater. If you missed this week’s patience meditation inspired by Degas’s pastel, ...

How does your body feel when you wait? Slow down and explore your body’s experience of patience (and impatience) inspired by Edgar Degas’s enigmatic pastel drawing Waiting (about 1882). A dancer and an accompanying figure sit on a bench, their bodies bent forward in a state of fatigue. Rendered in pastel, with vivid streaks of color and variations in technique, Degas masterfully animates a scene that is otherwise still. This scene raises more questions than it answers: how are the two figures ...

Extreme facial expressions are the first thing many notice when they see a haka performance. It’s the same thing that people tend to notice with Getty’s sculpture of The Vexed Man, too. Haka is a traditional war dance of the Māori people, indigenous to New Zealand, and is now used in a wide range of ceremonies and sports events. In conversation with Lilit Sadoyan, Māori cultural practitioner and choreographer Amelia Butler explains the symbolic meaning of haka’s elements and how it can allow ac...

Explore how deeply you can relax—by tensing each muscle in your body. This unusual exercise builds on Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s The Vexed Man (1771–83), a sculpture of a man with an exaggerated facial expression. From the protruding veins in the neck to the deeply furrowed brow, this alabaster sculpture captures the vexed expression of a middle-aged man. Part of a series of 49 sculptures created by Messerschmidt during the last 13 years of his life, each bust depicts a different, often extrem...

Japanese chadō, or tea ceremony, is widely known for its beauty, precision, and meditative qualities. So how does that compare to the story told by artist Jean-Ettienne Liotard’s Still Life: Tea Set? UCLA Professor and chadō practitioner Michelle Liu Carriger explores the near-universal appeal of a good cup of tea enjoyed in good company, while highlighting the meditative and aesthetic qualities of both Japanese and European tea traditions. If you missed this week’s tea drinking meditation ins...

Focus on fully experiencing the moment while you sip on a cup of tea in this relaxing meditation inspired by Jean-Étienne Liotard’s Still Life: Tea Set (1781–83). This painting of a Chinese porcelain tea set shows a scene after use—its contents consumed and the pieces left on the tray in disarray. Liotard captures the tactility of these objects in oil paint, from the gleam of the spoon to the scattered crumbs of bread across the tray. Depicting a social ritual enjoyed by the upper echelons of ...

People have made meaning from the movement of the stars and planets since before recorded history. In this conversation with host Lilit Sadoyan, contemporary astrologer Chani Nicholas explores the rise and fall of astrology’s popularity and provides an overview of how she understands the discipline. Chani Nicholas is the New York Times best-selling author of You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance and the world-renowned astrologer behind the CHANI app. She is known for bl...

Feel one with the cosmos as you explore your place in time and space inspired by a 15th-century astrological diagram found in an unusual manuscript. Featuring a collection of diverse texts, this manuscript, called a miscellany, includes writings on medicine as well as magical practices, astronomy, and astrology. We focus the episode on a page about the astrological qualities of Mondays, or the moon’s day. This includes a diagram (with a smiling moon at the center) detailing how each of the seve...

Buddhist monks don’t spend all their time in quiet meditation—they also do a lot of cleaning. However, cleaning can also be a meditative practice, if done with intention and care. Monk Shoukei Matsumoto speaks with host Lilit Sadoyan about how we can find more mindfulness and approach our chores with gratitude. Matsumoto is the author of A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind (2018) and Work Like a Monk: A Buddhist Guide to Embracing What Matters (2025). Learn more about Matsumoto's work at...

Pause and reflect on being fully present in the everyday with this mindful cleaning exercise inspired by Jean-Baptiste Greuze’s painting The Laundress (1761). Weave mindfulness into mundane daily tasks from washing dishes to tidying up and, as seen in the painting, doing the laundry. Greuze’s everyday subject matter, known as “genre painting,” was a popular style in the Netherlands and then France in the 17th and 18th centuries. Greuze elevates this scene with dramatic lighting and a busy compo...

When was the last time you stopped and really noticed the trees and plants around you? Artist and environmental designer Aroussiak Gabrielian knows that a lot of us suffer from “plant blindness,” ignoring the power of the flora that surrounds us. Gabrielian’s childhood spent exploring the forests of Armenia and learning from her grandparents’ close relationship to nature shaped how she responds to plants today. In this interview with host Lilit Sadoyan, Gabrielian explores her history, her work...

Slow down time, feel grounded, and reset with this nature-focused meditation inspired by Théodore Rousseau’s mid-19th-century painting Forest of Fontainebleau, Cluster of Tall Trees Overlooking the Plain of Clair-Bois at the Edge of Bas-Bréau (about 1849–52). Rousseau was drawn to the French countryside—so much so that he moved from Paris to Barbizon, a town outside the city and on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau. He spent countless hours in the forest drawing and painting outdoors, or ...

Sleep is a biological necessity, but our practices around sleep are cultural. Before the industrial revolution, sleep was generally biphasic, meaning that it happened in two intervals. Virginia Tech Professor Roger Ekirch is credited with founding the discipline of sleep history, and in this conversation with host Lilit Sadoyan he explains how people in the 18th century approached sleep, what kept them awake at night, and what we today might learn from the sleep habits of the past. If you miss...

Deeply relax your entire body with a yoga nidra, or yogic sleep, meditation inspired by a luxurious 18th-century French bed. Called a lit à la polonaise, or Polish bed, because the style was reminiscent of Polish fashion at the time, this four-poster bed has a nearly ten-foot canopy elegantly draped in lush silk. The wooden frame is covered in gold, while decorative trim and fluffy white ostrich feathers complete the look. A resplendent bed like this one would likely have been one of the most e...

Clouds have a lot to teach us—they indicate the weather, they impact the climate, and they inspire a sense of awe and wonder. But what can we learn from clouds on Mars? In this interview with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientist Marek Slipski, we hear about how clouds on Mars are like (and unlike) clouds here on Earth as well as how hunting for them in JPL’s citizen science cloudspotting project can be a mindful activity. Participate in JPL’s citizen scientist cloudspotting project: https...

Engage with your sense of wonder and bring awareness to your thoughts through this meditation practice inspired by Simon Joseph Alexandre Clément Denis’s Study of Clouds with a Sunset near Rome (1786–1801). Though small in scale, Study of Clouds with a Sunset near Rome is one of the most luscious paintings in Getty’s collection. Denis depicts the clouds as the scene’s protagonists, dominating the composition and dwarfing the trees and buildings that appear on a narrow strip of land along the bo...

What is it about mountains that make people want to climb them? Mountain climber and writer Katie Ives has thought a lot about the ineffable qualities of mountains that appeal to our deepest human instincts, imagination, and senses. From how we define mountains to what mountains can symbolize, Ives and host Lilit Sadoyan dig into the many mindful ways people have engaged with and learned from mountains, both in the past and today. If you missed it, listen to this week’s related mountain medita...

Feel still and majestic like a mountain in a meditation inspired by Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld’s painting View of the Bridge and Part of the Town of Cava, Kingdom of Naples (1785–90). A picturesque, verdant scene captures the quiet majesty and peacefulness of the rolling mountains of Southern Italy. Bidauld was drawn to Italy’s landscape, spending years traveling across the country to paint. He returned to this particular vista in Naples to capture it from many angles and at different times of ...

For much of history, blue was one of the most fugitive pigments in art. Writer and historian Victoria Finlay, author of the book The Brilliant History of Color in Art, got to study Edvard Munch’s Starry Night in great detail during her time at the Getty Center researching this book and admired his nuanced use of the color. She speaks with host Lilit Sadoyan about this powerful color, its sources, and its symbolic meanings for Munch. If you missed it, listen to this week’s related blue light vis...

Bring awareness to the memories, thoughts, and emotions evoked during this blue light visualization inspired by Edvard Munch’s Starry Night (1893) and his many uses of the color blue. Munch’s Starry Night is an emotionally charged painting of the coastline in Asgardstrand, Norway, where the artist recalled falling in love. Feelings were an important component to Munch’s artistic practice, and he believed that his abstracted landscapes altered depending on who viewed them. For Munch, color was a...

How does Getty’s Head of Grounds and Gardens approach his job caring for the museum’s largest work of art? Brian Houck speaks with host Lilit Sadoyan about his work with Robert Irwin’s Central Garden (1997) at the Getty Center. The practice of gardening—which requires accepting things outside your control, like the weather—has a lot to teach mindfulness meditation practitioners. If you missed it, listen to this week’s flowing water meditation inspired by the garden. You can watch this episode ...

Visualize your thoughts, worries, and stress floating away, like a leaf or petal on a garden stream, in this flowing water meditation inspired by Robert Irwin’s Central Garden (1997). Irwin’s garden is the largest work in the Getty Museum’s collection. Composed of living plants, carefully selected boulders, and landscape features, the artwork—and our experience of it—is always changing with the cycles of nature. Irwin added a stream running through the center of the garden; as it flows over int...

Art can contain traces of how, when, and where it was made—and conservators are the experts who get up close and personal to reveal those stories. When Getty paintings conservator Devi Ormond discovered a bit of a mysterious something stuck to the paint in Vincent van Gogh’s Irises (1889), she arranged a trip to the site where it was painted—the Monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole at Saint Rémy in Provence, France. Ormond speaks with host Lilit Sadoyan about how this visit gave her new and deeply...

Take time to notice the subtle sounds, feelings, and smells around you with a sensory awareness meditation inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s Irises (1889). Van Gogh’s Irises is one of the best-known works in the Getty collection. This was one of the first paintings the artist began after entering an asylum following his mental breakdown in Arles, France. Van Gogh found respite and recovery in the garden—and in his art. With irises shown in full bloom erupting directly from the damp soil, this pai...