Famed reclusive novelist JD Salinger, author of the required reading classic Catcher in the Rye, once wrote that "Happiness is a solid and joy a liquid."

In this episode, Jarad McHugh parses out the nuances of what this quote means. What is joy, what is happiness ? Not to mention, if happiness is a solid, and joy a liquid, then what's a gas?

Drawing on excerpts from Christina Rosetti's "Goblin Market," Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard Jarad seeks to understand happiness, how to invite more of it into our lives, and how it relates to spiritual practice.

Great art often feels as though its pointing to something just out of reach, something that can't quite be seen but is perhaps just over the hill out there.

Sharing excerpts from Mitra-Roshi Bishop's upcoming book, Deepening Zen: The Long Maturation Book II (edited by Jarad McHugh), John Keats' Fall of Hyperion, and Plato's Symposium, Jarad McHugh calls attention to the overlap of spiritual practice and art.

Can art carry us beyond the fear of death as it helped John Keats do in his battle with tuberculosis? Does Socrates' lineage of philosophy and spiritual practice bring us to the same place as Buddhism?

Contemplate these and other questions in this episode of Becoming Human.

Most known for his 1973 film The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist, mind-expansive art helped turn on art and film goers of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In this episode, Jarad McHugh submerges listeners in Jodorowsky's topsy-turvy world, which culminates in his artistic healing and therapeutic project, Psicomagia - a creative tool for self discovery that introduces the symbolic language of the unconscious to the conscious mind.

Jarad shares his own experiences with psicomagia and somatic-based therapy inspired by Jodorowsky's work.

Subscribe, rate, and share the podcast if you like the vibe! It helps get the word out.