with Cathy MacDonald

Award-winning singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega is Cathy’s This Spiritual Life guest this week, sharing her relationship with Buddhism and Buddhist practice as alongside the true story behind her hit song ‘Luka,’ and the influence her Puerto Rican step-family had on her childhood.

Actor Miriam Margolyes talks to rerporter Catrina Rose (…in a Scottish accent, no less!) about her role in the new comedy drama Holy Days that’s currently on the big screen; and the Scots-Canadian comedian Phil Nichol discusses his new Fringe show about luck and the universe, and why he’s brought back his award-winning show The Naked Racist back to the Fringe 20 years on.

This week’s Faith Forum panel is Rev Dr Nicolle Sturdevant, Honorary Pagan Chaplain at the University of Aberdeen; Ronnie Convery, Director of Communications at the Archdiocese of Glasgow and Rev Bryan Kerr of Kilmacolm Parish Church.

Together they’ll be examining some of this week’s headlines including the solar eclipse and how it would have been regarded generations beforeand asking just how much we read into signs and symbols in modern life.

We now know that 2026 was the hottest ever summer recorded, so with our climate set to change in this trajectory, our panel considers the plight of farmers and of food production now and in the future.

Plus, as ‘back to school dread’ may be something some of the nation’s youngsters experience this week and next, our panel asks: can that dread somehow be channelled for good?