The Book Of Rounds

October Project features composer Emil Adler, poet-lyricist Julie Flanders, and vocalist Marina Belica. With Sounds True, the group has most recently released the album The Book of Rounds: 21 Songs of Grace. In this special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon converses with the members of October Project about the power of the human voice and the pure, direct joy of a cappella singing. They speak on the shape and intent of The Book of Rounds, detailing the complexity of singing in rounds and the aural journey created by the album. Finally, Tami and October Project share and comment upon four different songs from The Book of Rounds. (61 minutes)

The Book of Rounds

nico and devon hase: Buddhist Volcanoes In Love

— May 19, 2026

What if everything you believed about a healthy relationship—the harmony, the peace, the perfectly matched wheels—was the very thing getting in the way?

This week, Tami Simon speaks with nico and devon hase—married Buddhist teachers, longtime meditation practitioners, and co-authors of the new Sounds True book This Messy, Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership—about what it actually takes to build a partnership that transforms rather than just endures.

Join Tami, nico, and devon to explore:

Why relationships are inherently rough—and why accepting that is the first act of real intimacy
The three conflict styles (volcanoes, diplomats, and dodgers) and how to work skillfully with your own
The tightrope principle: why lasting partnership means always finding your balance, never holding it
The daily check-in practice nico and devon discovered during three years of solitary retreat—and why it’s deceptively powerful
How death contemplation can dissolve petty resentments and bring fierce clarity to what actually matters
The “third space” in relationship: listening to the partnership itself as its own living being
Body shame, shifting desire, and sexuality as an awakening path—from devon’s own retreat discoveries
Why bodhichitta—the awakened heart of service—might be the most honest metric for whether a relationship is worth tending

Whether you’re navigating a decades-long partnership or wondering if intimacy and spiritual depth can coexist at all, nico and devon offer both radical honesty and genuine hope.

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This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.

This episode is sponsored by Omega Institute, a global gathering hub for lifelong learning and spiritual exploration. Located in upstate New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley, Omega offers weekend workshops, special events, rest and rejuvenation retreats, professional trainings, online learning, and more. Discover what calls to you at eomega.org/true.

Geneen Roth: It’s Not About Your Mother—Finding Lo...

— May 7, 2026

What if the relationship you’ve been trying to fix your whole life isn’t actually broken in the way you think?

This week, Tami Simon speaks with Geneen Roth—author of 11 books including the New York Times bestseller Women, Food, and God—about her newest and most personal book yet: Love Finally: Untangling the Knot Between Mothers, Daughters, and Food. After 70 years of carrying wounds she believed came directly from her mother, Roth stumbled into a teaching that cracked everything open: the pain isn’t about your mother. It’s about what you concluded about yourself.

Join Tami and Geneen to explore:

Why the most painful legacy of childhood wounds isn’t what was done to us—but the lies we decided were true about ourselves
The six steps to freedom that Geneen learned from her mentor Coco, and how to begin working with them
How self-rejection—not the original wound—is what keeps us trapped, and how awareness dissolves it
Why affirmations and forgiveness meditations don’t work—and what actually does
The surprising transformation of Geneen’s relationship with her 97-year-old mother, and what it reveals about how we change
A candid revisiting of Geneen’s foundational teachings on intuitive eating—and what she’s learned to say differently now
What it means to be “the one you’ve been waiting for”—and why that’s not a platitude but a practice

Whether your relationship with your mother is tender, complicated, estranged, or something in between, this conversation offers a genuinely new way to understand where the real work lives—and why it might finally be possible to do it.

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[ENCORE EPISODE] Coleman Barks: Rumi, Grace, and Human...

An encore presentation in honor of Coleman Barks, who passed away on February 23, 2026. Tami Simon speaks with Coleman, a leading scholar and translator of the 13th-century Persian mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. Coleman’s work was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers’ Language of Life series with PBS. He has published numerous Rumi translations, including with Sounds True the audio programs I Want Burning, Rumi: The Voice of Longing, and his new three-CD collaboration with cellist David Darling called Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship. In this episode, Tami speaks with Coleman about the extraordinary friendship between Rumi and his teacher, Shams Tabriz, and how translating Rumi requires entering a trance state. Coleman offers insights on grace as he and Tami listen to selections from Just Being Here.

The Book of Rounds

October Project — December 8, 2015

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