Taking on the Transformative

For Wonderstruck’s Season 2 finale, host Elizabeth Rovere introduces a special conversation between Zentatsu Richard Baker Roshi, one of Zen’s leading voices, and his Dharma Successor and Dharma Sangha colleague Tatsudo Nicole Baden Roshi. The mentor-protégé duo display their compassion and respect for one another while introducing vital ideas about navigating existence, seeking connection, and recalibrating perception.

Healer, author and world-renowned qigong master Robert Peng traces his singular journey and shares stories about the teacher that changed his life. Recovering from a childhood illness during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Peng started apprenticing with a legendary monk named Xiao Yao. Having witnessed and learned from his master’s extraordinary, and seemingly supernatural powers, Peng himself developed his own remarkable capabilities, feats of strength and healing which many would consider impossible. He did it, he says, by cultivating his qi. In a revealing conversation recorded last summer at Wonderstruck’s Symposium on Wisdom and Pedagogy in Guainville, France, host Elizabeth Rovere sat down with Peng to explore what qi really is, what it has to do with the energy centers of Chinese Medicine, and how we can cultivate our own.

Emma Mumford is the best-selling author of Hurt, Healing, Healed, and Spiritual Queen, and host of Spiritual Queen’s Badass Podcast. There, she covers topics like manifestation, out of body experiences, The Law of Attraction and processing trauma. Emma’s own spiritual awakening came as a surprise. She had found professional success after years of personal struggle, becoming a popular couponing advocate and presenter in the UK. Nevertheless, she still suffered from depression and anxiety. A moment of surrender changed Emma’s life. “I remember looking out the window and saying, ‘Universe, help me.’ And that was it,” Emma tells Wonderstruck’s Elizabeth Rovere. As Emma let go of control and led more from her heart, she opened up to newfound teachings, therapy, and self-help tools. She began tapping into deep personal wells of agency and creativity, working through childhood trauma, developing her intuition and, ultimately, drawing upon her learnings to help others find happiness. “When you find yourself in the trenches of life,” Emma says. “There is a purpose to that. You may not know it at that time, you may not know what abundance or happiness or joy awaits you.”