Across the Middle East, desert caves and ancient monasteries hid troves of ancient manuscripts. Now, advances in machine learning are helping scholars to unlock these ancient texts and the lost religious worlds that produced them.

Saint Hildegard of Bingen is perhaps Medieval Europe's most remarkable woman. She was a prolific writer, a theologian, a mystic, and Europe's first known female composer. It been about 1000 years since she lived, but why is the music she wrote so popular today? Guests:  Jennifer Bain is a professor from Dalhousie University in Canada. Jennifer edited the Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, and she's also the author of several works on Hildegard's music and its reception. Sylvia MacRitchie-Hook did postgraduate research about Hildegard as a Ramsay Scholar at the Australian Catholic University. Her thesis is Art as Revelation: A Theological Aesthetic Reading of Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias. More info:  The isolation and imagination of the first female English author (Soul Search) Hilda-thon! Eight hours of music by Hildegard von Bingen (ABC Classic)

Stories about gardening run deep in many cultures – from the garden of the gods in the epic of Gilgamesh, to the garden of Eden in the biblical book of Genesis. Gardening is also a practice that, for some people, connects the body, soil and soul. On Soul Search Costa Georgiadis shares about the life lessons he's learnt from gardening.  Guest:   Costa Georgiadis, presenter of Gardening Australia and the author of Costa’s World: Gardening for the soil, the soul and the suburbs. More info:  How gardening is a conversation (ABC Listen) The science and spirituality of soil (ABC Listen) Costa Georgiadis visits remote NT communities to teach kids about gardening and healthy foods (ABC News)

In today's fast-paced, tech-saturated society, is it possible to live a life of fulfilment? Until his recent death, the writer, farmer and sustainability activist Wendell Berry believed that life's meaning came from cultivating the land and building meaningful relationships with one another.

In a world that prizes self-interest, is compassion a weakness? In 1992 the Dalai Lama asked a psychologist, instead of focusing only on negative emotions, why don't we study happiness and compassion? Now, the psychology of compassion has become an established field, and a place for rich conversation between science and religion.

When you imagine an Australian Buddhist, who do you think of? Buddhism in this country has a multicultural history which reaches back before federation and the White Australia Policy.

Yale professors Christian Wiman and Miroslav Volf have been friends for years, through serious ups and downs. Together they discuss poetry, suffering and the divine — helping one another express the big things we encounter throughout our lives. Guests Miroslav Volf is a theologian and the founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School. He has written or edited over twenty books, including his most recent co-authored book Glimmerings: Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian.  Christian Wiman is a poet and the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He is also an author, editor, or translator of fourteen books, including his most recent co-authored book Glimmerings: Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian. Read an extract of Glimmerings on ABC Religion and Ethics: ‘Glimmerings are what the soul’s composed of’: Letters between a poet and a theologian - ABC Religion & Ethics More from Soul Search The Zen masters of haiku - ABC listen Poetry that soars — from Rumi to Australia - ABC listen Big questions in books — Ancient Chinese poetry and the nature of existence - ABC listen Vote now for your favourite Australian books of all time! https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books Toby Davidson recommends Holocaust Island, by Graeme Dixon Emma Beattie recommends In Their Branches, by Gretchen Miller Steve Biddulph recommends Night Train to Varanasi, by Sean Doyle

The Australian landscape comes up again and again in Australian poetry — it's part of what makes poetry from this place so distinctive. So, how does the contemporary Australian poetry scene engage with the land, and how has it shaped the art and spirituality of Australian poets? Guests Laurie May is a poet, a spoken word performer and a poetry educator based in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, and the Executive Director of Red Dirt Poetry. Laurie May’s poetry recommendations are: I am the Desert, by Marie Elena Ellis I Am The Desert by Marie Elena Ellis - Red Dirt Poetry Home Between the Cedar Trees, by Jihad Yassine Home Between the Cedar Trees by Jihad Yassine — Guest House Publishing Trials of Hope, by Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes Trials of Hope (የተስፋ ፈተና) - Fremantle Press A Savage Turn, by Luke Patterson Luke Patterson debut poetry collection is utterly lawless - ABC listen The Harbour, by Dimitris Tsaloumas The poetry of Dimitris Tsaloumas - ABC listen Laurie’s Top100 Books recommendations are: Seven Little Australians, by Ethel Turner Looking for Alibrandi, by Melina Marchetta Trials of Hope, by Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes Mark Tredennick OAM is an Australian poet and essayist based outside of Bowral in New South Wales. He has received the Newcastle Poetry Prize, the Blake Poetry Prize, the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize, the Calibre Essay Prize and the Wildcare Nature Writing Prize. You can read a selection of his poems and essays on his website. Mark Tredennick’s Top 100 book recommendation is Creekwater Journal, by Robert Gray (1974) More from Soul Search The Zen masters of haiku - ABC listen Poetry that soars — from Rumi to Australia - ABC listen Big questions in books — Ancient Chinese poetry and the nature of existence - ABC listen Vote now for your favourite Australian books of all time! https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books

Haiku poetry is both simple and evocative, largely due to Zen Buddhism. The now familiar 5-7-5 haiku verse developed in ancient Japan, and now, across language and culture, haiku remains a popular way for people to engaging with nature, the seasons, and the fleeting moments of life.

Poetry is one of the world's most enduring artforms. It predates writing, and we’re still compelled to express our deepest thoughts through verse. What does poetry have to do with spirituality and the sacred — whether its big, mystical experiences, or the small moments that nonetheless ring with truth? Dr Toby Davidson is a poet and Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities at Macquarie University. He is the author of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry, and editor of the Collected Poems of Francis Webb. His third collection of poems is called The Grand Reopening. Hear Francis Webb read from his Collected Poems The 2026 Francis Webb poetry reading Tickets, Saturday 29 August  •  2 PM - 4 PM | Eventbrite Toby Davidson in The Conversation: Australian poetry classics: Francis Webb, the 20th century’s ‘most unjustly neglected poet’, is our best kept literary secret Dr Milad Milani is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Western Sydney University and co-founder of the Sufi Studies Network at Monash University.  More from Soul Search  Rumi, Hafez and Sufi poetry in surprising places – ABC Listen Spiritual Classics: Rumi – ABC Listen The joy and anguish of the Psalms – ABC Listen Zeus' Law — Hospitality in Homer's Odyssey – ABC Listen More from ABC Radio National Submit your own poem to the Middle of the Air poetry competition, partnering with Red Room Poetry.