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You're listening to KFI AM six forty
on demand. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy

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Waalh' show. Oh my goodness,
here we are kf I AM six forty

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live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
And it's Christmas Eve. Are you with

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me? Yeah? Christmas Eve?
I know. So I'm going to assume

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that a few of you are listening
at home because you're either alone or your

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family's busy, and you're getting ready
for the big day tomorrow, and maybe

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Christmas Eve is not the big day
to you, or you're listening to this

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show later on the app. I
always find that time between Christmas and New

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Year's is where I catch up on
my books, my media, my year

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end accounting. There seems to be
so many, so fewer phone calls and

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interruptions and emails that it's my time
to just kind of relax and get things

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done. So maybe you're doing that. Maybe you're just listening to the show

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if you are alone on this Christmas
Eve. I have some suggestions coming up

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in the show of things that you
can do over the holiday season, and

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also at the very end of the
show, I want to talk about ways

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to cope if you are alone on
Christmas. Some things that you can do

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to really honor yourself and the beauty
within you. I'll be honest. I

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was raised Roman Catholic, and I
didn't even realize my parents were as religious

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as they were until I started meeting
Catholic lights. I didn't know that every

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single person did not go to church
every single Sunday morning, and if you

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were going to miss it, that
you would go Saturday night instead, and

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that everybody went to Catechism classes and
everybody did first Communion and Confirmation. I

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thought everyone just did that. I
didn't know that was only for the deeply

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religious. I look back on it, and although I don't identify as Catholic

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now because I think they would kick
me out because I was divorced. Producer,

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Kayla, why did you roll your
offe? They have rules? Well

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yeah, well you made it seem
like you know you you quit them.

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I think it was a mutual break. I quit them. I just don't

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know. Like I like the rituals
like you sense, I like the robes,

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I like the lighting, I like
the songs. I like getting on

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your knees and then standing and then
sitting and down again. You shake hands,

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are you being sarcast No. Part
way through you actually have to shake

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hands with everybody around you. You
make new friends to Baptist Church, you

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do, okay, So I miss
all of that. You know, Julio

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and I are getting married in twenty
twenty four. Is it going to be

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a big Catholic white wedding. No, No, it's gonna be at a

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vineyard some wow. But I reached
out to a quaint, little historic Catholic

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church in the town near where I
am, and then I went on their

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website to find out like how to
get married in the Catholic Church. And

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can you believe in this day and
eight, I'm not bashing you Catholics or

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the Catholic Church. You're welcome to
have your rules. That's why I think

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you kick me out. That's what
I think. In this day and age,

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you still have to take a Catholic
marriage preparatory course for a few months.

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Can you imagine at our age we
could teach it, and then if

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you were married before, which both
of us were, you have to go

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track down your ex spouse, get
their signature and get it annulled. Come

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on in almost twenty twenty four.
Yeah, wow, it's crazy. So

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that's why I think they pretty much
kicked me out. But let's talk about

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why I'm really bringing this up.
We had the best Christmases. I don't

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think anybody can beat the Catholics.
Okay, New Christmas Eve. So here's

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what we do. We'd sit around
the fireplace when we were little kids in

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our jammi's all warm from the hot
bath, and they would my parents would

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light a fire. My dad,
of all weird traditions, would make milkshakes

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a cold thing. But we never
got homemade, real milkshakes with real ice

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cream, and so that was a
new a Christmas Eve tradition. And then

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he would open the Bible and he
would read the passage from who is it?

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Is it Genesis or something where he
says and then the Lord came under,

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heth the baby, and there's a
star in the day to bed.

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I don't know the whole thing.
And so he would read the whole little

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passage to us and we would sip
our milkshakes. But what we were really

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waiting for is we were allowed to
open one gift before Christmas morning, and

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we spent weeks as the little gifts
were piling up under the trees because I

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meant Santa hadn't come yet, but
the parents had put a few things there

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and we would shake them and rattle
them, and we would try to guess

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which one we were going to open
for Christmas Eve. And let me tell

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you, there were some years that
that was a big ass disappointment. I

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remember my brother Chris one time he
saw what was clearly wrapped a record album

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and my little brother and I are
looking at him as he's grabbing it,

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and he's like, oh, I
want to do the album because he was

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into like heavy metal and rock or
something at that point. And our eyes

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were so buggy, like, don't
do it because we knew it was Elvis

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Christmas Carols. What was my mother
thinking? Maybe she thought because it was

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Elvis he would put up with it. Elvis Christmas Carols. Anyway, that

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was a disappoint Christma see for him. Sorry. How do you guys celebrate

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Christmas when you were growing up?
Kayla, Oh, Christmas was the best

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time ever. We did get to
We went to actually midnight Mass, so

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we went, oh, yeah,
we used to do that once we got

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older. Yeah, midnight Mass and
then have breakfast after Mass in like the

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middle of the night. And then
too, yeah, and the Baptist do

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that as well as a Catholic.
No I had. I had Catholic family

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members, so we celebrated Church Christmas
the Catholic way. And then me and

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my siblings would all sleep together in
the room and we wake up together and

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run downstairs and to wrap our gifts. But my mom was always still rapping

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gifts at that time. She would
send us back to bed, so she

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was done rapping gifts because she said
Santa dropped him of afully, I'm still

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rapping. So yeah, oh,
I know. We watched the movie were

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little. It was so hard to
stay up late and do all the work

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you had to do after and then
the kids wake up super early because they're

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so excited, much earlier than they
usually. The parents are so sorry.

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You know. My brother does now. Uh. He has a tradition that

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he adopted somewhere along the way in
his life. Breakfast on Christmas morning is

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Bailey's Irish cream and coffee, so
he starts drinking like seven am. Perfect

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Christmas anyway, Lots of families have
different ways of celebrating this holiday. When

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we come back, I have a
very special guest who is going to share

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with us. She's a professor of
religious studies and history at Loyola marra Mount.

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She's going to share with us the
various ways that people have found meaning

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in the season through holiday celebrations.
You're listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show

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on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're

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listening to KFI AM six forty on
demand. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy

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Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

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On this very special Christmas Eve,
my guest doctor Darnise Martin. She's

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a professor at Loyola Marramount University specializing
in all the Abrahamic religions and history,

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and specifically African American religions. Doctor
Darnise, thank you so much for being

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with us. Thank you, Wendy
for having me. I'm happy to be

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here with you on the holiday.
My question is does every religion celebrate some

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kind of holiday during the darkest days
of the year. Ah. Well,

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when you say every religion, pretty
much every tradition, I think I can

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I feel confident in saying that every
tradition at least notices the seasonal changes.

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So broadly speaking, every you know, folk religion, every spirituality, they're

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at least going to have some celebration
or sacrilezing of this time. If we

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talk about specifically the Ibrahamic religions,
then yes, we can see, you

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know, that this is a time
where time becomes sacred, and we can

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see among the religions how they do
it. And what do you think is

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this associated with the seasons and the
darkness and the weather or is there something

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else in the doctrine of these religions
And we're talking specifically about Jewish, Christian

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and Muslim that makes this time of
year a time to be celebrated. M

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hmm. Well, again, we're
talking about people of a certain kind of

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faith, so there's always going to
be the larger like, yes, there's

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something holy about it. You know, we we acknowledge that there's a divine

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presence behind the things that we see. So the mundane world isn't quite so

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mundane after all. And you know, religions, one of the questions that

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religion seems to answer is what is
the meaning of it all? And so

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when you have this time where yeah, there's a drastic change in the length

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of the days, and we spend
so much more time in the dark,

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and it can be very scary,
especially to you know, previd our people.

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It's very scary to be in the
dark. And so you start contemplating,

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right like what's out there and what
is the meaning of it all?

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And contemplating the stars and you know, seeing you know, now some people

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are experiencing, you know, a
lack because you know the food sources have

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dried up, and so what do
you do? Well, let's get sort

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of you know, you could say
projected out right or you're internalized from the

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divine. When people are trying to
make sense of the world, what does

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all of this mean? What do
I do with our deepest existential fears?

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And so then we sort of call
upon the divinities that call upon the stars,

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call upon something that's bigger than us, to say, what do I

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make of this? Right like,
I'm sitting in the dark and I'm terrified

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of what's over there? Exactly make
of this? And comfort and answers exactly.

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I always teach that, you know, there are certain questions that religions

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help humans with. What is the
meaning of life? What is my place

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here, what happens when I die? They are these huge questions and we

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don't really have answers to them as
humans, and so we've looks for answers.

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And one of the ways where we
look for answers is we contemplate what

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else is there? And so in
the contemplation of what else is there,

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we connect to this divine right,
the ground of all being behind what I

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can see, right, if I
can see the cycles of nature doing what

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they do, and in the spring
life comes back. You mean there's a

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resurrection that happened. Yeah's life resurrect
right? And then in the winter,

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Oh, things die, right,
they kind of go underground and there's a

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hibernation period. And so when I
say there's a sacrilezing of the of the

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cycle of the seasons, you know, you can look at it secularly and

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as that, or you can recognize, like, but there's something behind this

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when we really contemplate, because where
did we come from? Where do we

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go? What's the meaning of it
all? You know? I was raised,

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as I said earlier, I was
raised Catholic. And the Catholic version

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or the Christian version of Christmas,
is that there is this hope of new

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birth coming. This baby, this
the light, the star in the sky.

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It's you know, it's like hit
you over the head metaphor that don't

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worry in this dark days, there
is some brightness up ahead. We just

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got to get this newborn baby growth
a little bit. You're right, and

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so exactly we're thinking about the return
of new life and even the idea of

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having an evergreen tree, like bringing
an evergreen tree into your home and putting

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bulbs on it. That's about the
continuity of life and fertility. And a

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lot of people don't realize that.
Who are you know, maybe a lot

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of Christians don't realize it either pagan
or at least pre Christian rituals that were

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seeing as people maintained the hope through
the darkest days that yes, there will

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be life again. What are the
biggest ways we're saved? What are the

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biggest similarities between how the Jewish,
the Muslim and the Christians celebrate these holidays?

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Do you us, of course have
Hanakkah? What do Muslims have this

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time of year? Well, they
have various festivities or feasts, and one

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is around the recognition of the prophets. The prophet Muhammad's birthday. And so

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you know, Muslims and Jews are
they don't have the notion of a savior

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right coming into the world to save
us. So their festivals are more about

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honoring ongoing life without attributing it to
a savior figure. Right. So we

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have in Judaism and Islam festival season, right, and for Christians it's like,

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okay, we're going to have a
festival around the birth of our savior.

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So what we see across the board
and all of them, as we

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might say, is this, I
wanted to hold on to the continuity of

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life. Like we're going to go
through this dark time, the skies are

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dark, whatever, but we're recognizing
that we're not alone. We're recognizing that

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we can still come together and like
hold on to each other and hold on

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to hope in these dark days.
And hey, let's celebrate and get together

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and then share bread and like we've
probably have back our ancestors probably sat around

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those campfires. What do you say, do you have a message for people

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who have You know, religiosity is
declining in this country as mental health problems

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are increasing. There actually is a
high correlation. I mean, I teach

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health psychology, and I'm a scientist, but religiosity is highly correlated with better

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health and better mental health. So
what do you say to people who want

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to celebrate these traditions but may not
actually believe the doctrine any longer. Well,

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there's lots of ways to do it. I mean, there are people

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who are secular Jews, so so
well, yeah, I celebrate Hanakah because

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you know, Hankakah is really this
festival about survival for one thing, and

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it's a coming together that it's the
desire for humans to come together and celebrate

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something into as you said, share
bread. So there's should I say,

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health and wellness in coming together.
And so we don't feel that we're alone.

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We don't feel like we're isolated,
and that's so important for humans is

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to not feel isolated. And in
terms of our health and wellness, our

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mental health, we need to feel
like we're accepted someplace that we are and

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we have a home that we're seen
and heard and embraced and welcomed. And

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we know what happens to humans who
are isolated, not good for us.

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We went through exactly, it's not
you know exactly exactly, and so what

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ends up happening. You know,
as you were saying, like I'm sitting

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around the fire, what do humans
do? We're going to tell stories,

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right, We're going to lean into
these stories and you know, have a

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little children ask as the adults and
the elders what's the meaning of that star

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over there? Or how do we
come to live here? And then there's

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going to be this great mythologizing,
right, I want to use the word

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mythologizing and myth making. Some people
will say, oh, well, then

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it's not real. It's realer than
real, it's truer than true, because

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it gets that these existential truths.
So different cultures, different religions will have

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different ways of talking about life and
new life and death and rebirth and celebration.

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But in fact we're still getting to
the same existential issues that humans have

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and some answers. Our brains just
don't do well if we don't have some

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kind of way to make sense of
life, Doctor Dennie Smartin, we have

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to go to a break. I
do want to say that if someone's listening

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and they are alone on this Christmas
Eve, stay tuned, because at the

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end of the show, I've got
some coping strategies for you in ways,

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how you can have the joy of
the the season in other ways. But

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when we come back, you wrote
a very interesting blog about, of all

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people, Beyonce and how she's freeing
many young women sexually through her song Church

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Girls. Let's talk about this when
we come back. You're listening to the

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Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM
six forty. We live everywhere on the

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iHeartRadio app. You're listening to KFI
AM six forty on demand. Welcome back

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00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:30.080
to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere

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00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:34.279
on the iHeartRadio app. On this
wonderful Christmas Eve, my guest, Doctor

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Dearnise Martin, is a professor at
Loyola Marra Mount University and she specializes in

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African American religions and Doctor darnis you
know I talk on the show about relationships.

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I usually don't talk about sexuality unless
it's in terms of relationships, cultural

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pressures on sexuality, relationship dynamics and
its impact on sexuality. I'm not a

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plumbing expert. However, you wrote
a very interesting article that I read online

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about Beyonce and her song Church Girls, which we just heard a little bit

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as we were coming into this.
How is she freeing young women up?

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Well, you know, miss Fiance
is doing all the things. And one

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of the things she's doing in her
message her music is she's centering women,

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not She says to me, women
as being empowered, autonomous, making our

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own choices and resisting a lot of
the cultural baggage. That's been a sign

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to us. As we know,
girls and women are sexualized from a very

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young age by the society itself,
by the patriarchy itself. But heaven forbid,

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when a girl or woman decides for
herself who she's going to be,

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and in her song Church Girl,
she really is. It's just upsetting a

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lot of Christians terribly because she really
is giving permission to women to dress the

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way they want to say. I
can move my body, I can go

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out to a club, I can
do things that I that's in which I

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celebrate my body and that and God
is not mad, right, So it's

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this, it's this double edged thing
because when you're a good Christian girl,

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you're expected to behave in a certain
kind of way and be a godly woman.

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Girl up to be a godly woman, and yeah, we should actually

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talk about that. I remember when
I had you on as a guest on

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my podcast Mating Matters, and we
were talking about how religions often control female

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sexuality as a way to control their
membership. In other words, they tell

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you you should only have sex with
somebody of your religion. You probably shouldn't

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masturbate because that's a waste of sperm. You probably shouldn't be gay because you're

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not going to procreate that way,
and we need to just so. They

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make all these rules traditionally around sexuality, and female Christian girls carry the brunt

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of the pressure. Talk about that
pressure. Yes, yeah, so black

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girls are. I'm in a lot
of traditional or conservative Christian churches there.

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They're police right, like how you
sit, what you wear. If you

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are a girl or young woman and
you're in church and your skirt is too

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short, meaning when you sit down
your knees are showing. Well, you

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might have an older woman from the
church come and give you a lap cloth

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to cover you, and she may
say something to you or not. She

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may just put that lap cloth over
you. And even if she is whef

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she says it or not, it's
she's saying your skirt is too short,

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and you are a distraction to the
men. So if it's somehow our fault,

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they are our fault that men get
erections. Yeah, exactly. And

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so someone is the men are preaching, or the beacons are up on the

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and then there you are. They
can see your knees. So you're being

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policed. You're being told, you
know, don't show this, don't show

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that, or maybe your skirt is
too tight, your dress is too yea.

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Our culture at large is sending the
message that women should, you know,

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be beautiful and show it all on
Instagram. And so they're living in

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this state dual economy if they will. But what has Beyonce done with her

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song? What is the message she's
saying to these girls. She's saying,

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I can be a well one,
I can have autonomy over how I look,

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what I wear, where I go, and God still loves me.

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And she's resisting the institutional church is
sort of hyper policing of a girl and

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a woman's body to say, you
are not the Bossamie, right, Medie,

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you can't exclude me from having a
relationship with God because I choose to

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wear this dress or have sex outside
of wedlock, right, I just have

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sex more pleasure, right exactly.
So she's giving women a voice to say,

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yes, this is actually okay.
You can you can have autonomy over

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yourself because you know, as we
were just saying, otherwise, you're heavily

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policed, and you don't think you
have a right right. You don't think

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you have a right have rights to
your own body. You don't think that

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you have that you can speak up
for yourself, like if someone is,

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you know, crossing a boundary towards
you, somehow, it's your own fault.

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And in the song, Beyonce is
saying no, I am in charge

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of me, And just that alone
is enough to make a lot of conservative

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Christians mad. But I think it's
also freeing up a lot of young women

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in America and giving them some sense
of relief and restoring their self esteem.

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Doctor Darnise Martin, always a pleasure
to have you on our show, professor

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at Loyola Marramount University, specialist in
African American religions and histories. Have a

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wonderful, one wonderful holiday season.
Thanks, thank you, and thank you

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you, thank you. When we
come back, I have another very special

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guest, the executive producer of the
new Van Go Immersive Experience. How going

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through an immersive experience might actually reduce
our stress when we come back. You're

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listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show
on KFI AM six forty. We're live

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00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:26.839
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're
listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.

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Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls
Show on KFI AM six forty.

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We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know, I am obsessed with

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immersive experience and virtual reality and anything
that makes my eyes and ears and sometimes

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even smells get activated. We love
to have our senses stimulated. Now,

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that doesn't mean that I don't love
to go to traditional art galleries where I

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can be calm, I can breathe, I can read the nice little plaque

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beside the painting, and I can
have a moment where I can go back

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for you know, three hundred years
and imagine this artist's life. But if

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you haven't been there yet, you
need to go check out the new Van

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Go Immersive Experience in Montebello. It's
about ten minutes drive from downtown and I'm

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thrilled to tell you that we have
the executive producer of the exhibition right here,

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00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:26.519
John Saylor. How are you fine, Doctor Wennie, Thank you so

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much for having me on. And
I think that we will fall into the

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previous category of immersive experiences in br
but we do have a wonderful subject matter

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in Vincent Bango. I'm sure.
Now make sure I said your last name

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correctly. Is it zaloralor Salar John
Zalor? There we go, So just

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so you understand, he's not only
the executive producer, and he's a curator,

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00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:57.200
a distributor of world renowned immersive experiences
that include you might have seen Titanic,

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00:23:57.279 --> 00:24:03.480
the Artifact Exhibition, Gires World Exhibition, Bodies the exhibition I love that

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One Star Trek the exhibition. You
have been around the world creating these kinds

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of experiences for us. But let's
talk about why Van Go of all the

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great artists, Well, Van Go
is the rock star of the art world.

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And when you create an immersive experience, or when we created our first

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immersive experience, we really wanted it
to be focused on digital art, and

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we wanted there to be a clear
storyline, and we wanted to have a

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great body of work, and mitzen
Bango's work progressed incredibly through his really short

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00:24:40.599 --> 00:24:45.799
period of pain ten years to a
finale that was bold, brilliant colors with

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00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:52.000
thick brushstrokes that had all this implied
motion in them. So with the immersive

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elements, the digital animation that we
can overlay onto his paintings, we're able

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to actually bring those paintings to life
in a way that I think van Go

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00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:02.920
would have done had he been able
to. So he was just a natural

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choice from that regard from the art
itself, but also his story is well

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00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:11.799
known by all of us, so
many of us, and it's a story

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that also is really relatable to us
of not only a struggling artist, but

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a person trying to find themselves,
which he really does through his art.

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Near the end of his life.
Yeah, it's no secret that van Go

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suffered from all kinds of mental health
issues. I mean, you know,

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I don't know what diagnosis he would
have been given today. I would suspect

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00:25:30.279 --> 00:25:34.640
it might be something like bipolar mood
disorder or borderline personality disorder, you know,

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00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:41.359
yeah, depressive episodes. But a
lot of his struggles actually made him

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a better artist. Would you agree
with that. It's really it really is

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true, and you really hit on
a lot of those diagnoses. He had

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00:25:52.640 --> 00:26:00.000
postmoredom as well as epilepsy and alcoholism
and insomnia. Wow, so he strugged

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00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:03.960
with a lot. But he wrote
over seven hundred letters to his brother Theo,

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00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:08.319
and in those letters he really talks
about his struggles, but he also

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talks about how he takes those struggles
and he channels them into his artwork.

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00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:18.559
So what you find is a lot
of times the more pain he's in or

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00:26:18.559 --> 00:26:23.839
the more stripe he's going through,
the more perfectly beautiful in this new way

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00:26:23.960 --> 00:26:30.160
his paintings are. And then you
also see him expressing himself on the canvas

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00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:33.680
in the like in the version of
Starry Night where the stars in the sky

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00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:38.759
are very turbulent. There's incredible turbulence
in the sky, which is a reflection

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00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:45.400
of what's going on within him.
So he really was able to channel those

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00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:49.559
works, that those feelings into his
artworks. Yeah, you know, it's

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00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:55.519
I think when we have uncomfortable feelings
as humans, we do what we can

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00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:59.640
to try to discharge it from our
bodies. You know, like if you

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00:26:59.720 --> 00:27:02.599
have a bad meal, you go
on to yelp, and you put a

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00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:06.480
bad review, right, we want
to get rid of negative feelings by getting

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00:27:06.519 --> 00:27:10.079
it out. He obviously had this
talent. I'll say, I'm certainly no

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00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:15.319
artist. Words are what I work
in and the only time I write poetry

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00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:18.880
is when I'm sad and crying,
So that must be a thing that we

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00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:22.240
do. We certainly know that journaling, for instance, for the average person

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00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:29.519
can be very cathartic for them.
But van Go, he had this brilliant

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00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:37.960
visual visual intelligence, uh work,
His craft of course was inspiring. What

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00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:45.440
would you say is your favorite van
Go in relation to knowing about his struggles,

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00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:52.160
Well, you know, for me, one of my favorite Bengo paintings

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00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:56.039
is his iris Is painting, which
he painted near the end of the time

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00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:02.279
when he was he had committed himself
to you know, essentially a monastery or

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00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:08.160
a mental health you know, asylum
or sanitarium that was in a monastery and

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00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:14.359
he was in the south of France, and as he started to find peace

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within himself through this this time that
he was he was recovering come really what

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00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:23.799
was a psychotic break, he painted
these incredible flower paintings, and the Irises

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00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:30.640
is one of those paintings that has
these brilliant blue colors and also has these

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00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:38.640
wonderful sharp brushstrokes in the foreground that
show his in the influence of Japanese art

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on his work. Japanese arts used
a lot of wood cut techniques and then

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Go really included those to create more
depth in his work. And then really,

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the more I get to know him, the more I like these these

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quieter paintings that are just these beautiful
paintings of nature because he was so he

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00:28:57.720 --> 00:29:04.400
found his solace in mere walking in
fields or enjoying a bouquet of flowers or

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00:29:04.440 --> 00:29:08.720
a garden of flowers. So really
it's a kind of a It's one of

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00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:12.960
my favorites because it really connects me
to him as an artist. And the

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good news is that you are bringing
his work in a new way to a

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new generation. John, can you
hang with me when we come back.

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00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:27.119
I want to talk about the Van
Go immersive experience and what people can expect.

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I'm hoping I can improve my mental
health by going there. So we'll

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00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:36.119
be back after this world. We'll
be back after this. You're listening to

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00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:38.880
the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on

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00:29:38.920 --> 00:29:42.839
the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty
on demand