Why are we losing our taste for what is real—and what practices can help us recover it?
John Vervaeke is joined by Guy Sengstock and Kyle Koch for a conversation on connection as something constitutive of who we are: our relationship to nature, one another, story, personhood, and the sacred.
Together, they explore the practices behind the Reconnecting to the Real retreat in Whistler, British Columbia. Kyle shares how nature connection, tracking, bird language, and embodied practice can transform how we perceive and participate in the world. Guy brings the relational depth of Circling, considering how conversation can become a practice of presence, listening, and genuine contact.
John situates these practices within his work on the meaning crisis, Socratic dialogue, wisdom, and the renewal of the senses. The conversation moves from fire, forest, and shared meals to deeper questions of flourishing, AI and virtual mediation, touch and taste, and how we can develop a more participatory relationship with reality.
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Chapters
00:00 Welcome to The Lectern
00:40 Reconnecting to the Real
01:20 Nature connection and meaning
04:20 Discovering Circling
07:20 Tending the earth and togetherness
13:20 Socrates, meaning, and dialogue
18:20 Retreat as practice and participation
24:20 Facilitating rather than lecturing
30:40 The senses reaching toward the world
36:00 Why connection restores energy and life
41:40 Touch, contact, and the real
43:20 Taste and spiritual perception
46:00 The skill that unlocks a life
48:00 Shared meals and tasting together
51:20 Renewing the senses
52:20 Flourishing and the real
54:30 Closing reflections
