Open Heart with Lu Leslan | Podcast Guru

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Join musician and filmmaker Lu as she shares intimate stories about finding unexpected connections in life. From exploring identity through names to navigating between cultures, from creative breakthroughs to encounters with nature - each episode digs into moments of genuine human experience. Through vulnerable storytelling and reflection, Lu invites listeners to discover their own surprising connections in everyday life. Send your questions and stories - let's explore these connections together.

Recent Episodes

Take Time to Reflect

Season 4, Episode 8: Take Time to Reflect Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Lu spent a weekend at Doctober, the documentary film festival in Bellingham, camping by Lake Samish with time to reflect between films. In this episode she shares three very different films: a Seattle Powwow, a film about human composting, and one about the memories of Holocaust survivors and Palestinians. They raised questions about home, about how memory is used...

13 MIN

Surrender to Humanity

EPISODE 7 — SURRENDER TO HUMANITY Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Every day, we trust people we will never meet. Lu grew up in the sixties riding the bus alone and walking to piano lessons at night, never afraid of strangers. Today, a generation raised on fear and the 24-hour news cycle struggles to trust at all. Yet from the seafood in an Asian grocery store to the cotton we wear and the coffee we drink, our lives rest on the work of peo...

11 MIN

Use Words With Care

EPISODE 6 — USE WORDS WITH CARE Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION Words can lift us up or wear us down, and most of the time we don't notice which. In this episode, Lu goes back to a childhood home where yelling was simply called discipline. She also remembers how a parent's compliment could make her want to do better, and how music gave her a way to say what words could not. Drawing on Chuang Tse, she looks at how flattery and ...

11 MIN

Remember Lessons Learned

EPISODE 5 — REMEMBER LESSONS LEARNED Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION What do we actually inherit from the past we never lived through? In this episode, Lu traces the lessons passed down through her own family — a grandmother in Beijing who never learned to read, who raised six children alone, who taught frugality simply by living it — alongside a history she didn't choose but has had to carry: the political fractures of Taiwan, the UN's 1...

12 MIN

Take A Wider View

EPISODE 4 — TAKE A WIDER VIEW Tick tock hear the clock Wake me up and say good night Kiss my salty tears DESCRIPTION What does it actually take to see beyond what's right in front of you? In this episode, Lu traces how her own view widened — first at eleven, on a school orchestra trip that put her on a plane for the first time, then across a life shaped by political upheaval, immigration, and decades of solo travel. But a wide view doesn't automatically lead to right action. Reflecting on t...

12 MIN